It's New Orleans: Happy Hour: Recent Episodes
itsneworleans.com
HAPPY HOUR is a cocktail-fueled 60 minutes of random conversation with folks who have nothing in common, other than being New Orleanians in a bar. Featuring extraordinary New Orleans musicians playing live, host Grant Morris and sidekick deluxe Andrew Duhon
Until we're allowed back into bars in New Orleans and until people feel comfortable coming down and sitting around having a cocktail with random strangers, we're revisiting some our best shows from the past decade. Today Happy Hour Digital Producer, Andrew "C-Rock" Cirac has picked this episode, so here's the Return of the Random All Cajun Happy Hour Special.
Happy Hour is billed as “Random conversation with folks who have nothing in common.” Anything that’s truly random will, sooner or later, appear to us not to be. Like flipping a coin and getting four “heads” in a row. Or inviting random people to sit around a table at a bar in New Orleans and discovering they’re all Cajun.
Louis Michot is the fiddle player and lead singer in the Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers. You don’t get much more Cajun than Louis and his tales of Petit Paris (aka St Martinville), living in Broussard, Lafayette, and out in the woods of Arnaudville. Louis plays two songs on this Happy Hour, accompanied on one of them by fellow Cajun Andrew Duhon.
Here in New Orleans we pronounce Andrew’s name Doo-Hon but if you go a few miles West (just how many is open to debate) it’s pronounced Doo-Yong. Until you get a few miles out of Lafayette, into Texas, where it reverts to doo-hon, as evidenced by Louis’ dog whose name was Clint Duhon, pronounced the Port Arthur way ’cause that’s where he came from.
Lizzie Guitreau is a Baton Rouge Cajun who decided that her inspiration from watching the TV show House as a kid should propel her into making TV shows rather than medicine. Lizzie went to UNO for film, started a band (of film makers) and is still working with them today, as Worklight Pictures. Ready for the next weird Cajun coincidence? Worklight Pictures are making a documentary about The Lost Bayou Rambers. It’s called On Va Continuer (we will continue).
Brandon Beeyard can’t hide his true identity too long. Yes, it turns out his name is really spelled Bulliard, and he’s Cajun, from, wait for it, St Martinville aka Petit Paris, and his family is related to Louis’s wife’s family. Brandon is headed for self-propelled meta-stardom (no, that’s not a typo, though he might also be bound for mega-stardom) by way of his of his revalatory and inspirational life-story podcast, Dreamster.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur – yes, that’s a Cajun name! - are at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the Happy Hour annals of "random people who have nothing in common," the day artist Katrina Brees meets Tank and the Bangas stands out to Happy Hour Live Feed Video Director Asher Griffith as the Best Of Happy Hour.
Where's Karina?
If you ever wondered what happened to Karina Nathan she’s now Kevin Simons. And Karen Regis. And Krystal Sedona. And Chi Chi the lead singer of the Girl Dawgs, who is actually a dog.
Katrina Brees sheds some light on this fantastic array of personalities, and their wardrobes.
Go Tank or Go Home
Tank from Tank and the Bangas has her own specialty wardrobe and range of personas too. Her wardrobe doesn’t extend to panties (which she has given up wearing) but she does occasionally wear boy shorts to boost her booty. Her personas start out with Terianne Michelle Ball in New Orleans East and extend to the woman sorting through damaged goods on aisle 4 at Walmart.
Norman Spence and Merell Burket from Tank’s band, Tank and the Bangas, join the party – but strictly under their own names.
Hello, Ricky!
Ricky Lemann’s alter ego is Frederick, his real name. Ricky could have gone with alter ego #2, Fred, but he’s keeping it real, pleading “the fifth” on a range of issues.
Photos from this show by sunny Alison Moon at the now defunct Wayfare at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Still barred from hanging out in bars in New Orleans, in the interests of public health, we continue to revisit standout shows from years gone by. This show, in which Humidor Saves The World Again, is the first Happy Hour after the election of Donald J Trump in 2016.
Even then we knew things were going to go to Hell. If only podcasting was as popular in 2016 as it is today. Maybe somebody in DC would have heard this conversation and we could, indeed have saved the world. For now though all we can do is look back and laugh, and try not cry in our beer.
Austin Alward, aka Aus-T the Franco rap star, has a plan to save the country and the world from rampant Trumpism. It involves the internet, a Cuban cigar store owner, and a bunch of New Orleans actors and musicians. It might have been just crazy enough to work.
Jazz great Mitchel Forman, and singer-songwriters Sam Doores from The Deslondes and Andrew Duhon have their own plan. It involves a searing rendition of I Shall Be Released, a tribute to both Leonard Cohen and the nation.
Actress Teri Wyble made it out of dance school in Lafayette to become a critically acclaimed actress, a go-go dancer at Harrah’s Casino, and an international body painting sensation.
This really is one of the greatest Happy Hours in the history of the show. When we first published this show we sent an admonition with it: "If you were thinking of leaving New Orleans this will make you stay. If you are thinking of moving here, call U-Haul, this will tip you over the edge."
Photos from the now defunct Wayfare are by Alison Moon. For more Best of Happy Hour, try this.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There's nothing more totally "New Orleans" than poboys, drag queens, and Cowboy Mouth. That's why, till we can go back in bars and hang out, Happy Hour photographer Jill Lafleur picks this show as her favorite from the past few years to revisit.
Drag Queens
Poppy Tooker is New Orleans first lady of food. From her weekly TV appearances on Steppin’ Out to to her weekly radio show and podcast, Poppy is the best known foodie in the city. Poppy’s latest venture is a collaboration with a large group of drag queens to produce a strong of drag queen brunches around town, culminating in her 6th book, simply called Drag Queen Brunch. You could have found out any of this information in any New Orleans publication. What you won’t have heard anywhere but here is the explanation to this sentences Poppy utters by way of her current situation: “I’m not dead and I’m not knocked up.”
Cowboy Mouth
Fred LeBlanc is the larger than life front man of the band Cowboy Mouth. If you’ve ever been to a Cowboy Mouth show or heard any of Fred’s media appearances you have probably thought Fred’s life is an open book. Well, there might be a couple of chapters of the book you hadn’t heard about. Probably doubtful that you’ve heard Fred’s opinions on marriage or cross-dressing anywhere else. Or known anything about his relationship to the Poboy shop, Melba’s Po Boys.
Poboys
Scott Wolfe Sr is the owner of Melba’s Po Boy Shop, on the corner of North Claiborbne and Elysian Fields, the busiest Po Boy shop in the world. Scott is also the owner of the wildly successful local New Orleans grocery chain, Wagner’s. Yes, he’s the marketing genius who came up with the slogan “You can’t beat Wagner’s Meat.” Scott’s extraordinary flair for marketing can be found in full display at Melba’s where they’re open 24 hours a day, have a giant laundromat where each machine is named and themed for a local New Orleans celebrity – you can wash your clothes in the Fred LeBlanc machine for example – and a 24/7 daiquiri shop.
This Happy Hour is a classic no-holds-barred conversation with people who are comfortable in their own skin and not hesitant about telling it like it is.
If you’d like to see Jill Lafleur’s photos from this show recorded live at Wayfare, you’ll find them along with much more right here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the annals of “You never know what the hell is going to come up in conversation,” this Happy Hour would have to rank at the top of the list. That's why, till we can go back into bars in new Orleans, Happy Hour producer Graham da Ponte has chosen this as her favorite show of the past 5 years - yes, it's the return of Clit Sit Meditation.
Aidi Kansas (her real name) left behind a career as a pet portrait artist to pursue her abilities as a psychic energy healer and has stumbled into the world of getting women to reach spiritual enlightenment by stroking their own clitoris. Aidi calls it Clit Sit Meditation. Masturbatory meditation is only able to be practiced by people with a clitoris, in other words not men. Men, however, can have their own problems with too little ejaculation that can lead to porn and all manner of bad behavior.
Talking of badly behaved men, Hitler, according to John Hebert, would have been a nicer person if he’d stayed off of the crystal meth. Apparently only the 1930’s equivalent of Photoshop saved Adolf from being portrayed as the meth-head he really was. Atoning for his owns sins, and some of his family’s (“My mother and I were bar fighters”), John is the guy behind all the red and white signs that say “LOVE” nailed to phone poles all around New Orleans.
John Lisi makes a welcome return visit to Happy Hour with his shiny Dobro, a fistful of stories, and a song.
Andrew Duhon starts things off on the good foot with a bit of beard oil that was produced by a prisoner friend of Aidi’s.
The hour goes by way too fast. If you start listening to this make sure you can listen to the whole 60 minutes because you won’t be turning this off.
Photos at what once was Wayfare by Alison Moon are at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
After making Happy Hour for nearly 10 years and meeting with random folks in various bars around New Orleans, this is the very first show where we just turn on the mics, put the Zoom link out on the internet and sit back and see who shows up.
Predictably, we get a bunch of people trying to hack the show down and hijack us with a bunch of porn, but other than a few salacious moments, our Digital producer Andrew “C-Rock” Cirac manages to run a tight ship and let in a few folks from around the country.
One of them is David Wilkins, who is calling in from a small town just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. David lives with his wife of 35 years – they got married at 18 right out of high school – and for company they open their home to folks who pass by on bicycles. These are all members of a community of cyclists united by their membership of an organization called WarmShowers.org
Asher Griffith is Happy Hour’s Facebook Live director, currently hunkering down with his mom in a small town called Greers Ferry, which, apparently, would have been spelled with an apostrophe if it wasn’t in rural Fox News-driven Alabama where niceties like grammar don’t matter that much. On this show we learn that Asher has a secret life as a musician, that started with his first band Love Hog, and only terminated with his most recent band, Grass Mud Horse. Asher plays a song on this Happy Hour that manages to combine two of America’s rural ways of life: cowboys and masturbation.
Other guests on today’s show include Thomas Walsh, Graham daPonte, Monique Pyle, Christopher Roth, and a guy playing an accordion player whose identity remains a mystery.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Matt Haines went to school to learn to become a classical trombone player with visions of playing trombone in an orchestra. But plans change. Initially Matt started teaching people to play in marching bands, which lead him to Thailand, not necessarily known for its place on the brass band pantheon, and then to new Orleans, the home of the hippest trombone players on the planet. That’s when Matt quit playing trombone. He’s now a writer.
Ashley Herbert is the CEO of a company called Bart’s Office. They are office workspace professionals. They set up offices, move offices, and facilitate every aspect of commercial office space. So now what happens? Now everybody’s working from home and too frisked out to go back into the office? Take a listen to Ashley’s hands-on analysis of what’s going on in the world of office work. It’s sobering, even for Happy Hour.
Jay Winfield was too preoccupied by people falling ill around him at the beginning of the pandemic to think about music, but things are better now and he’s back into the swing of playing. On this Happy Hour he plays a Stevie Wonder song to celebrate Stevie’s birthday, and a Nora Jones song to temp fate and see if he can get Happy Hour sued.
Seeing we’re still not allowed back in bars, this Happy Hour was conducted on Zoom, so we were able to be joined by a bunch of folks who dropped by. That’s the one upside to not being in a bar, but it’s the only one. Things are opening up in New Orleans but if this collection of people is anything to go by, nobody is going out.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website.
Look back at a happier time when we used to hang out in bars here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Isaac Toups is one of the most talented and celebrated chefs in New Orleans. Isaac was a finalist on the TV show Top Chef and he’s currently a finalist for the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef South, which is the food equivalent of the Oscars. But before all that, Isaac was a winner of the Tadpole competition in his native Rayne, Louisiana. Rayne bills itself as The Frog Capital of the World (no kidding, look it up) and Isaac was the winner of the baby competition there, back when he was a baby. The best bay in Rayne, therefore, is the winner of the Tadpole Award. You can’t make this stuff up, and you can’t do justice it in writing, you need to hear this in Isaac’s own words, here on Happy Hour.
Sara Lewis is running for Judge. The court she is looking to preside over is New Orleans First City Court. It’s a small claims court where there no jury. As somebody mentions on this show, it’s kind of lie reality TV court, except it’s actually reality. You can vote for Sara if you live in New Orleans, on July 11th if the election isn’t postponed again as it has been twice already. Sara doesn’t have a campaign slogan, yet, but today’s suggestions from the assembled Happy Hour guests and crew include “Lewis will do us,” “Small Claims Sara,” and “Sara is Fairer.”
Lori Tipton and Andy Overslaugh might be New Orleans’ most interesting couple. And in New Orleans that’s saying something. Lori and Andy have both been on Happy Hour previously, but as Lori says, “We don’t usually do much together.” Two of the interesting aspects of their life is (a) they date other people and (b) they’re both exponents of various forms of therapeutic psychedelic exploration. So you think you’ve had it tough being cooped up in your house for the past 8 weeks? Imagine what Andy and Lori are going through.
Lori and Andy have both had a long career in the New Orleans service industry, and Isaac is fighting to keep his restaurant open. If you’re interested in a front-line report and prognosis of the future of the service industry in New Orleans, take a listen to this conversation.
Photos by Jill Lafleur. Lori’s super-popular previous appearance on Happy Hour, is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you’re in a relationship, sex changes over time. Sometimes it goes from being good to being great. Other times, the fabulous person you fell in love with appears to change completely and turns into a person who is batsh*t crazy and completely unlovable.
We’re summarizing here, but this is pretty much how Andrew Duhon describes the possibility of the trajectories of love in the modern era.
The reason we’re having this conversation on Happy Hour is because Tracy Carlson is a sex therapist. It’s not every day you get to meet a sex therapist, especially after you’ve already had a couple of drinks in the middle of the afternoon, and well, you’ve got questions, right? The good news is Tracy has answers.
Jonathan Freilich raises some pretty good and searching questions about sexuality and fantasy, while he's taking some time off from making his own podcasts to drop by and say hi.
Joshua Summey drops by too, from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Josh was the songwriter and singer and front-man for the band Hazy Ray and a favorite on Happy Hour when he lived in New Orleans, so the Covid-enforced Zoom format has its upside in as much as we can reconnect with people far flung across the country.
Closer to home, Kimya Holmes is trapped in her apartment with her two highschool age kids.
On this show we opened the floodgates to talk to anyone who wanted to join and this time we did not get bombed by Russian porno trolls but we did have a couple of very nice drop-ins. Including David who is calling from his code-atorium in Birmingham Atlanta. We’ll do this open-invitation style show again next week.
You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website. Last week’s quarantine happy hour is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Seriously, you have no idea how easy it is to be a best selling author. When you see a book on the best seller list of Amazon, don’t you assume that it must be selling hundreds of thousands? Try 800. Not 800,000, just 800. That’s what both the authors on this Happy Hour tell us.
Dr Chris Yandle gets up around 6AM. By around 7AM he’s jotting down a clever line that he’s dreamed up since 6AM. He puts the clever line on a piece of paper and slips it into his daughter’s book bag. (This is not the plot of a novel, btw, this is what actually happens in the Yandle household in Mandeville.) So, anyway, after Dr Chris has a bunch of these notes he writes them up into a book called Lucky Enough, which turns out to be a prophetic title ‘cause he’s lucky enough to sell out of the whole run and be a big deal in the non-fiction world and seriously that’s only about 600 books later.
You’d be forgiven for not believing these numbers could possibly be true, but then Fermin Ceballos confirms them. Fermin is also the author of a book called Pisadno Mi Sombra, which you have probably already gathered is in Spanish, and there’s some English in there too. Fermin is also shocked at his successful book sales of around 800 books – and both of our authors are working on their second books!
Fermin also happens to be a talented musician, which is his primary job. There’s a parallel world of Latin music in New Orleans and the South in general in which Fermin is a star, and deservedly so. You can also catch him online on the Band Together benefit concert to raise money for Covidly-unemployed musicians.
Connie Bellone is not an author or a musician but she does live on the Northshore, in delightful Madisonville. However, most of her work is done on the Southshore, brightening the lives of under-privileged children with her Health & Education Alliance of Louisiana, aka HEAL. Just as an aside, she is not killing wild turkeys over there in Madisonville, though there is apparently no good reason not to.
Andrew Duhon and Fermin Ceballos team up as best one can on Zoom on a beautiful Andrew Duhon tune, Promised Land.
Photos by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Music is apparently non-essential. So New Orleans musicians have no place to play. Some are doing live streaming from their homes, but others – like drummers and sax players – don’t have the kind of live streaming ability that, say, a singer-songwriter has. And then there’s this interesting factoid – Petco is regarded as essential and is still open. So here’s the obvious solution: Live From Petco. Musicians go play at Petco, if not in the store then at least in the parking lot.
That’s the wisdom that comes out of this Covid Zoom conversation aka Happy Hour.
Back in the day when people went to work, Allison Hererra made social media influencer videos for people like personal injury attorney Chip Forstall. Allison is going to use her talents to film the Petco Sessions and put them up online.
Brian Hudson knows a thing or two about viral music videos. Brian is a street performer whose singing partner is internet sensation Grandpa Elliot, the older guy who sings Stand By Me on YouTube, Instagram and all over. The other interesting thing about Brian is he’s a therapist. And a keen observer
Sage Rouge is a sax player who is making live streaming videos with her roommate, Mark, who is also a sax player. Together they’re releasing a series of videos that combine music and alcohol, called Day Drinking Duets.
For a day job, Sage is a sax player in the band Spylights. Vincent Giovanni, the front-man lead singer and driving force behind Spylights, throws caution and social distancing to the wind for today’s show, putting together a 3-piece version of Spylights to play two songs on this Happy Hour.
Andrew Duhon takes us out with a rendition of his beautiful song about the heartache of separation, Coming Down Over Here.
Apparently, we’re all staying home till the middle of May, so we’ll see you back on Zoom Happy Hour next week.
Oh, and in the meantime, not everybody’s social isolation is totally dull and predictable. Listen to Asher Griffith’s story about shooting a chicken in the head.
Stay home and stay safe and see you back here in a week.
Photos by Jill Lafleur. Last week’s Covid conversation is here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you’re trapped at home hating watching the world come to an end, remember the wise words of Sergio from the band Rodo: One person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.
Sergio and Rodo (the person) play a couple of songs that illustrate this dichotomy, as well as pulling together another pair of polar concepts, ballads and hip hop, into their unique blend of music that Grant apparently branded as Hip Hop Ballad. Their new music is out April 15th, so enjoy your dystopia/utopia with a new soundtrack.
Also, while you’re holed up in the house, how about watching Linda Midgett’s movie, Same God? Its on Amazon and AppleTV and is a feature length documentary about a black woman college professor at an evangelical school who decides to show some empathy for Muslim women by walking around in a hijab. You can probably guess what happens to her but it sounds a lot more worthwhile and compelling than Tiger King.
The last time we had a major societal meltdown in New Orleans, Blake Haney and his company Dirty Coast were at the forefront of the recovery, galvanizing us around the bumper sticker that said it all, “Be a New Orleanian wherever you are.” This time around Blake isn’t quite so upbeat about how this is all going to go down. But’s one of the smartest and most erudite guys in town so his opinion is very much worth listening to.
Photos by Jill Lafleur.
Here's last week's Covideo.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In our second Happy Hour by Zoom we manage to take advantage of not being able to hang out in a bar and instead talk to people all across the country in a new concept we’re calling Covideo. Yes, that’s in questionable taste, but after all it is Happy Hour.
Mike Rubin is stuck in his second week of isolation in San Francisco. When times are normal Mike has a photography business called Neomodern, in which people walk into his photo gallery with their phones filled with photos and with the assistance of experts walk out with a framed print on archival quality paper. It’s a brilliant idea that has been around for 3 years but Mike’s dilemma is, does he hang on and hope the world returns to how it was, or does he embrace change and morph into something different? He’s at this point heading along the latter avenue.
Katrina Brees is sitting on a possible Covid-driven windfall. Not only did her 10 year old movie about her Vagina from the Future who cures a Chinese-born virus predict this whole current scenario, but she has long been in the funeral and casket business. Katrina’s Fantastic Casket business is fundamentally a DIY coffin, though now she is moving into a whole new arena of disposing of dead bodies which involves melting flesh and crushing bones. In case you think this is a piece of mis-reporting or exaggerated in some way, take a listen to this conversation.
Rich Collins had a great year lined up which included an Asian tour and a solo spot at Jazz Fest. Well, that’s all changed. However, he still has a trove of great new songs, one of which he plays on this show, about the pleasures of driving around aimlessly and cranking up the radio. Hopefully those days will return in the not too distant future.
Andrew Duhon gets his cable fixed in the middle of this show, just in time to play an almost acapella song.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are on our website https://itsneworleans.com/2020/03/25/covideo/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When we started making podcasts in New Orleans 10 years ago, we encountered a lot of skeptical questions, among them “What happens when you run out of good guests, in 6 weeks?” and “What’s a podcast?” One of the questions we didn’t hear was, “What happens if every bar and restaurant in the city shuts down?” That sure would have been funny, but it’s turning out to be no joke. So, welcome to It's New Orleans Coronavirus. Part 2.
Our show is coming to you today courtesy of Zoom. All of our crew and our guests are quarantined in their homes.
Mimi Schippers was last on Happy Hour when she was a younger woman and in a polyamorous relationship with two people. Those relationships have matured into something different (though not much different from your average long-term relationship actually, aka no sex) and Mimi has matured into a respected academic who is head of the Sociology Department at Tulane University and a world authority on polyamory and Queer Studies.
Melissa and Matt DeOrazio (pronounced “Dee-Razio” the “O” is silent) are a married couple with no polyamorous desires. They’re collectively The Dirty Rain Revelers and are in the process of using the Covid hiatus to tidy up around their apartment, record new songs and play live online. Well worth checking out. And let’s face it, you’ve got the time now to go all kinds of online rabbit holes like listening to bands and checking out Americana music.
And while you’re doing that, go investigate what Andrew Duhon is up to. Andrew had to abandon his tour when it became illegal to play music to people in a room if they were closer than 6 feet apart, and then soon after there were no rooms even open in the US to go hear music. Can you believe this is even true and not some sort of drug-induced bar room drunken conversation like we normally hear on Happy Hour? Crazy. But we do get to hear a beautiful downer classic Andrew Duhon song on this show, called Almost Forever.
Ryne Hancock had his Twitter account suspended when he “went off on a Nazi” who apparently said bad things about his Aunt Mandy. Ryne’s ex-landord was a crack addict who somehow managed to do a lot of crack while still holding onto rental property and retained functioning limbs while owing drug dealers money all over town.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website.
More Happy Hour conversations about polyamory here and here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
So today it's New Orleans Corona Virus: Part 1 - the first day of the New Orleans shut down. Even the It's New Orleans Happy Hour podcast is caught up in the global pandemic, though so far all that's happened to us is we have to move off the stage of the Maple Leaf Bar to make room for Dave Jordan and Flow Tribe after they relocated here when the outdoor Wednesday in the Square concert was shut down by the city. So, instead of thousands of people gathering in the sunny outdoors while our small crew meets on the stage of the club, now thousands of people are crammed into the club while our small crew gets to hang out in the sunny outdoors in the courtyard. So, Yay Corona Virus Part 1!
Felter goes by one name, like Cher or Prince, who she's the same height as. Felter, like Prince and Cher, specializes in making people feel better. She's a motivational speaker whose contribution to New Orleans Corona Virus Part 1 is coming up with a whole new way to inspire people without catching their viruses.
Joe Gerrity's contribution to making people feel good during the early days of New Orleans Corona Virus: Part 1 is selling them CBD. Joe's company - Crescent Canna - makes what he says is not only the finest CBD available but, unlike other local manufacturers, it is actually CBD. Did you know what other people claim as CBD that you're paying $60 a bottle for, is not CBD at all? Now that you'll have plenty of time at home to do nothing but experimental stuff like trying various CBD's you can find that out for yourself.
Doyle Cooper's contribution to the sum total of human happiness during the era of New Orleans Corona Virus is substantial. Doyle is the leader of the Doyle Cooper Jazz Band. Maybe you've heard people tell stories of how they got started playing an instrument? No matter how many of these stories you've heard, you've never heard one like Doyle's. It involves parents who are partying their asses off, a stoned baby sitter, and Jazz Fest Crawfish Bread.
See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website: https://itsneworleans.com/2020/03/11/new-orleans-corona-virus-part-1/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you've ever rented an apartment, when you've gone to move out, you've almost certainly told the landlord "I want to get my security deposit back." What happens after that is the great unknown. Most often you've probably just given up arguing with the landlord and let the guy keep your money. Because that's what a huge number of us do, there is about $6 BILLION a year in un-returned security deposits.
Marco Nelson is the guy who knows all about that $6B, he's setting about getting it back for all of us, one renter at a time. Marco's startup is called RentCheck and it's already a big deal nationwide. Marco's got a great story about starting out in the military and while his friends are being shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan, he gets sent to New Orleans! You just know this guy is going to be a billionaire.
Katherine Klimitas is a "3." She's also an artist and the author of a new book of portraits of dogs, called Breed All About Us, with co-author Yvonne Krumins. It's a delightful book, especially if you love dogs, and it's equally as delightful as its authors. Katherine's "3" refers to the specific kind of genetic mutation that makes her the shortest person in New Orleans, at 2 feet 7 inches tall - but there's no way you'd guess that from size of her personality - and Yvonne is an author-in-waiting whose time has finally come.
Aaron Maras is one of New Orleans most talented singer-songwriters, and that's saying something. Aaron fronts a band called Cactus Thief built largely around his music. On this Happy Hour he plays two songs off the band's latest album, Two Bells. If you don't know Cactus Thief or Aaron you're going to love making this discovery.
Happy Hour is recorded live at the iconic Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans. To see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more check out our website.
Check out Katherine Klimitas' last appearance on Happy Hour where she was plotting to sabotage a Rolling Stones gig.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mardi Gras and Day of the Dead are two very different holidays. But in 2020 Mardi Gras Death is a real thing. It's Ash Wednesday 2020, the day after the deadliest Mardi Gras, possibly of all time.
Julie Couret is a witness to what happened. As a regular TV commentator camera crews sought Julie out right after the event and today, with the benefit of a bit hindsight, Julie gives us a first hand account of riding in the Nyx Parade just a few floats behind the woman who was killed trying to walk between the two sections of a tandem float. Was she cut in half, as people reported? (Julie says she knows the person who tried to give her CPR so it's doubtful she was in two pieces.) Was Mardi Gras 2020 cursed by the spirits of the dead people trapped inside the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel on Canal Street? (The jury is out on that one.)
Dr. Mark Carson is a professor of history. But nobody mentions that small detail until the last moments of this Happy Hour, after Mark has played one of the nearly 2,000 songs he's written - this one appears on a Papa Grows Funk album and it's about a New Orleans character who used to hang out outside the Maple Leaf Bar where this show is recorded - and recounted his worst nightmare from years in bands. You'll wish you had a nightmare like this. Julie summarized it as, "having to deal with the oily grease from a stripper's tits."
All in all, for the day after the deadliest Mardi Gras ever - in which two separate people were killed in bizarre Mardi Gras parade accidents, both run over by the back half of a tandem-float - this Happy Hour is pretty punchy. We get to hear how Julie get meets a guy on Bumble, and how - thanks to Ancestry.com and Facebook - she finds the brother she never knew she had, who came to be born as a result of a date her father barely remembers going on back in the day.
For photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, visit our website at www.itsneworleans.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jazz singer/songwriter Gabrielle Cavassa broke up with the guy she was dating and when they got together a month later - for that ridiculous "closure" we've heard so much about - he gave her the ammo for a vicious, cutting song about what a kind, loving, genius he'd turned into since they split. He even told her that he'd gotten so smart that he listens to podcasts now.
We realize we're on thin ice here, suggesting only pretentious jerks listen to podcasts, because obviously you're so smart you do listen to podcasts, but nobody in their right mind would claim this is a podcast for smart people. Although we do have smart people on it, like for example Arthur Franz IV.
Arthur is the inventor of Mardi Gras Madness, a board game that doesn't actually require a board. It's a card game in which you play the part of a Mardi Gras parade-goer and the object of the game is to collect as many throws as possible. For $25 it looks like a good investment in drinking for those long nights between parades when you're dreaming of streets filled with people having fun and forgetting the misery that is our daily lives. Or is it?
Do you believe most people go through life relatively confident and happy? Or that most of us are "riddled with debilitating self doubt?" If the latter camp, the captain of your ship is Andrew Duhon. Although, ironically, the song Andrew plays on this show is one of the quirkier in his pantheon. It's a new song called, The Castle on Irish Bayou. If you live in New Orleans and you've driven east on I-10 toward Slidell, you know the place.
Deborah Oppenheim taught in the New Orleans public school system for 30 years and escaped with her sanity by switching schools every 7 years. These days she's the founder of an organization called Look Before You Open, a non-profit whose mission is to save bicyclists' lives by educating drivers and passengers on how to open a car door. There's actually a safe technique called "Opposite Hand Reach." (That's also the method Arthur would use to get out a submerged helicopter, and that's a whole other story.)
It's New Orleans Happy Hour is recorded at the iconic Maple Leaf Bar in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from the show by Jill Lafleur at our website https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh
There's more Happy Hour Mardi Gras Madness here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You probably think you've heard every weird bad disastrous insane mistaken awful relationship story there is. You haven't. Not till you hear comedian hypnotist Flip Orley document his 5 wives and explain the drunken tattoos all over his body with, "My 4th wife was Cajun." Honestly, if you need to be reassured your own relationship is not so bad, or you want to bask in the relief of being in a good relationship, you have got to hear these extraordinary true tales of Flip's wives.
Musician Lenny Green has his own horror story. Namely, the time he came from a great gig to find his wife so mad that he was out all night playing music that she got out of bed and punched him in the face. "That was the beginning of the end," as you might imagine. Lenny also sings a love song on this show complete with the chorus in which he dreams about "flipping you over."
Strangely, for a guy who writes sad songs about the lonely and broken-hearted - the self-described genre of Sad Bastard music - Andrew Duhon is the one guy at the table with a stable relationship. And a beautiful new work-in-progress song about the state of the heart.
Fashion designer Claudia Croazzo was meant to be on this show but a last minute emergency took her away. Fate has a strange way of working things out. Claudia was spared having to listen to this kind of barroom talk, but on the other hand it's doubtful we would have gotten to these kinds of bare-knuckle tales with the leavening influence of a sensible woman of the world at the table. This is a chance to be a fly on the barroom wall at The Maple Leaf.
There are photos by Jill Lafleur and more info on our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It literally doesn't get more real New Orleans than this Happy Hour.
Charlie Gabriel was born in New Orleans in 1932. He started shining shoes and playing music when he was 5. By the time he was 11 he was a professional musician and he's never looked back. He did leave new Orleans for a while. Actually, about 60 years. Hurricane Katrina and Preservation Hall brought him back. Charlie is a national treasure and one of New Orleans' finest musicians and gentlemen. This is a rare opportunity to hear him talk about everything from living through segregation to playing with Aretha Franklin and working for Amazon.
Charlie plays sax on a new song by Andrew Duhon. If you're an Andrew Duhon fan you might want to chart the progress of this song from its first ever airing here on Happy Hour, through to wherever it eventually ends up. You'll get it from the first note: this is going to be a beautiful song.
Deniseea Taylor moved to New Orleans because she got a cheap air ticket from New York but even if you don't believe in anything as mystical as the power of the Universe you'd have to believe it was Destiny. Where else could a person who is cocktail artist live if not the city that's the home of the cocktail? "D" as everybody calls her is the creative force behind Cocktails by Pop. You can keep up with all her cocktail events - and they're super cool - by following her on Instagram at @ChickenandChampagne.
And just to make this show the most perfect representation of New Orleans of all time, T R Johnson is here with his new book, the definitive collection of New Orleans literature, called New Orleans: A Literary History. The book might be an academic tome but you can get it at decidedly unacademic places like Melba's poboy shop.
Really, can you even imagine anything more Real New Orleans than this collection of New Orleanians?
It's New Orleans Happy Hour is recorded live at The Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, on our website https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
All of us have a love language: some way we prefer love to be communicated to us. For some it’s touch, for others it’s receiving gifts. Your ideal partner in life is a person who speaks your language of love.
If you’re having trouble finding that perfect lifetime love-talk , Ann Parnes can help you. Ann is a professional matchmaker. Tell her who you’re looking for and she’ll go to a bunch of parties, functions, and dinner parties and troll the crowds so you don’t have to.
Big Chief Delco from Creole Osceola Mardi Gras Indian Tribe is in his 54th year of marriage and he can tell you straight out, his love language is not touch. He doesn’t want people touching him. He has, however, touched a lot of people. In his 50-plus years as a Chief he has traveled the world spreading the gospel of the Indian way, he’s adopted schools, influenced countless kids, and been such a leading light advocate of the Indian tradition that the Positive Vibrations Foundation is recognizing him with the coveted Heartbeat award.
2020 is the year Martin “Bats” Bradford breaks into the big time. Bats is an accomplished actor but most of his accomplishments have been acting in movies and TV and theater that has originated in New Orleans. If you don’t know his name, you know his face but for you to be able to say “Oh wow, it’s Bats Bradford!” rather than “Where do I know that guy from?” Bats is going to have to leave us and do time in Hollywood. Meantime, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet so make the most of it before fame goes to his head.
Andrew Duhon plays a song he wrote “When I was a young man,” which was back before the Christmas break. This is the first Happy Hour of 2020 and the first ever at iconic The Maple Leaf bar.
Photos by Jill Lafleur. See Jill's photos and more at our website, https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The girl with the Christmas tree on her head would be eye-catching anywhere. The sparkly glitter on her face and her 8 inch shoes with snow-globes in each perspex heel turns heads even in New Orleans. To find out Jezebel Lobelia lives in Lafayette is astounding.
Jezebel makes things like the Christmas tree on her head. They're called fascinators and you can see the full wide range of them at Jezebel's Etsy shop, Jezebel's Fascination.
Mark Taliancich doesn't look quite as eye-popping as Jezebel but he's every bit as fascinating. Mark is the Clinical Director of Counseling Solutions at Catholic Charities and he has a Ph.D in marriage counseling. And yet, even knowing everything there is to know about marriage, he went ahead and got married. And here's the fascinating bit: Mark and his wife, Maegen, are opening a rum distillery. The distillery is called Happy Raptor and their first lines of product are called 504Rum. The rums are flavored, like 504BananasFoster and 504 Hibiscus.
Andrew Duhon closes out 2019 with a couple of new songs off his forthcoming album.
This edition of Happy Hour was recorded at The Freret Beer Room in Uptown New Orleans.
You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sure it's heresy to eat King Cake before 12th Night but Susan Freeswick brings a load of awesome food to this edition of Happy Hour, including King Cake, and gets a NOLA Heresy Pass because it's all Keto from her bakery Everyday Keto to Go. In the middle of this conversation, Susan's Keto Fat Bomb explodes the myth of celebrity.
Strictly, it's writer Thomas Beller who explodes that myth. Tom set out to be a rock star, as the drummer in a New York band. Along the way he stumbled into a different kind of stardom: as a staff writer for The New Yorker, the pinnacle of all writing gigs ever, anywhere. Tom describes the night he hung out recently with another superstar writer, playwright Tom Stoppard - the night neither of them had anything to do after the Rolling Stones canceled their Jazz fest gig - and British Tom imagined that New Yorker Tom "must have felt like a dog with five tails" the year he had the New Yorker gig.
If you'd like to know what happened to the rest of the guys in New York Tom's band, check this out: https://www.beastiemania.com/whois/cushman_tom You can find Thomas Beller down on Canal Street staring at the crumpled Hard Rock Hotel or at Tulane directing the creative writing course.
Singer/songwriter Dave Jordan's take on celebrity is, "Everybody in New Orleans thinks they're a celebrity." Not that they're delusionally believing they're the greatest guitar player of all time like some kind of loser wandering along Hollywood Boulevard, but they claim celebrity of a more totally NOLA nature in claiming they make the best gumbo or fried turkey on the planet - where "planet" ends at the spillway.
Dave plays two songs on this show, one off his latest album, Burning Sage, the other a cover of Bob Dylan song that Andrew Duhon joins him on.
For his part, Andrew Duhon is writing a new album and premieres a brand new song he's just finished writing with Anders Osborne, called Everybody's Got a Little Piece of the Map.
If you're listening to the conversation here about high school drinking and wondering, "What did ever happen to Friar Tucks bar on Freret Street?" this true story might interest you. http://uptownmessenger.com/2011/01/friar-tucks-ceasing-operations-immediately-owner-tells-freret-street/
You may also find these kind of hilarious yelp reviews interesting: https://www.yelp.com/biz/friar-tucks-new-orleans
It's new Orleans Happy Hour is recorded live over drinks at The Freret Beer Room. You can find photos from the show by Jill Lafleur and more information at our website: https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Josh Benitez sings " I.D.G.A.F! I don't give a funk" he's got a whole lot not to give a funk about. It's actually a funking miracle he's not a serial killer or hasn't killed himself. You've got to hear Josh tell his story in his own words but the short version is, he was the target of racism that was so bad he didn't leave the house the whole time he was in high school. In fact he didn't even go to high school. He stayed inside so much his skin tone changed and he turned shades lighter. Where did this happen? About a 15 minute drive from where we're talking in Uptown New Orleans, in Belle Chasse on the Westbank.
Chris Poche is both an architect and the super-talented screenwriter and director of one of the best movies to come out of New Orleans in years, if not ever. The movie is called The True Don Quixote and is the first ever movie based on the classic tilting-at-windmills saga. It's been about 500 years since the publication of Don Quixote marked the birth of the novel as we know it so how fitting for the biggest event in the world of literature to find its cinematic home in St Bernard Parish.
Andrew Duhon does what he does every week he's at Happy Hour: tries out a new song he's in the throes of writing. You'll have to forgive us for saying this repeatedly, but this song is stupendous. Take a listen to this very first airing and then listen to how the song turns out when it gets recorded. It's a fascinating insight into the creative process of song-writing, this journey we're all on with Andrew.
This show was recorded at The Freret Beer Room in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from the show by Hope Byrd at our website.
Check out Josh Benitez's last visit to happy Hour here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dominic Sgro owns a typically New Orleans tattoo shop, complete with an on-staff magician and live music. At Catahoula Tattoo & Gallery Dominic will give you a free tattoo, as long as it's not on your face. And it also has to be the logo of the tattoo shop - which is a catahoula wearing a death mask - but who wouldn't want that inked on their bicep, right?
Winston Triolo from the band Motel Radio is going to trade playing a set at Dominic's shop for a tattoo of his truck on his forearm. If you're waiting for a punchline, sorry. Winston's longest relationship is with his truck and before it dies he wants to memorialize it in ink on his arm. He's apparently not worried about what the inevitable new truck might think about the old truck permanently on his arm, but apparently the new truck is just going to have to learn to live Winston's past.
Comedian Matt Owens is going straight from Happy Hour to headlining a comedy show at Southern Rep. And today's the day the trailer for Matt's new film comes out. The film is called Wendy and it's about Wendy from Peter Pan. It's a big deal Hollywood movie complete with special effects and a giant budget. Matt Owens is a much bigger deal comedian than you might think from his under-the-radar life in New Orleans.
There are a couple of "firsts" on this Happy Hour. It's the first day Andrew Duhon is back from a months-long tour and it's the first time Happy Hour is live at The Freret Beer Room. Although it's only a couple of blocks up the street from our previous home at the now-shuttered Wayfare, the relaxed, comfortable, chic environment is a million miles away.
Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur and more info is on our website.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The two poles of human interaction are the desire for intimacy but the fear of commitment, right? We all have it. And nobody nails it quite like Cyrille Aimee.
French-born, New York seasoned and now new Orleans resident, chanteuse Cyrille Aimee is what she calls "jazz famous." And she is. The New York Times has called Cyrille one of the greatest jazz vocalists of our time so it's a real treat to have her sit at Happy Hour and, with extraordinary accompanist Joshua Starkman, play Sondheim's Marry Me A little and the jazz standard, Duke Ellington's I'm Beginning To See The Light.
Gia Hamilton is the person in this conversation who puts her finger on fear and intimacy. By day, Gia is officially the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the New Orleans African American Museum. But Gia has a varied past that includes farmer, healer, and life coach - pastimes and traits that she has not totally left behind. Gia manages to integrate an amazing number of streams into her current life, including raising 5 sons, the youngest of whom, 4 month old Zaire, is with her.
Matt Wisdom might be the smartest guy in New Orleans. He';s officially the founder and CEO of TurboSquid, the world's leading seller of 3D models that you see in films and video games. Matt is in reality the Jeff Bezos of New Orleans. You wouldn't necessarily know it though. He's modest, nice, and humble, but make no mistake - he's politically involved, he's got his finger on the pulse of what we all know is wrong with the city, he knows how to fix it, and he's on the way to doing it. Keep an eye on this guy!
You can see photos by Hope Byrd of Happy Hour recorded live at Wayfare, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Recovering architect and brand designer Adam Newman remarks on this show that knowing when to shut up is one of the most valuable life lessons. And he's glad he recently learned it because it has come in handy today, surrounded by three of the coolest women you could pull together at a table anywhere.
Let's start with Michelle Welchons.
Michelle plays the cajon, is a Spanish translator in the New Orleans court system, leads her own band, Orchidea, traveled to Peru to do Ahayuasca, and is half of the electrifying acoustic duo (the music is acoustic and the result is electrifying) Bom Bon.
The other half of Bom Bon is the equally astounding Olivya Lee.
Olivya has one of the most sultry and alluring singing voices you can imagine, and she didn't even start taking singing seriously till a couple of years ago 'cause she was concentrating on her classical flute playing. And wait till you hear how she plays guitar.
Completing the triumvirate of awesomeness is no less than Melissa Sawyer, the co-founder of YEP, the Youth Empowerment Project. YEP is tacking the holy grail hot button issue that drives all community discussions in New Orleans: crime. YEP and Melissa may be quietly making the single biggest societal change in current New Orleans.
You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show recorded at Wayfare, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you have frequent flier miles and you've been wondering "What's the best thing I can do with them?" Seth Stanton has the answer. You can give them to the organization he founded here in New Orleans called Miles 4 Migrants. Seth and his fellow volunteers at Miles 4 Migrants will use your miles to reunite families who have been separated by conflict or persecution. Can you even imagine a more feel-good thing to do than to use the most ultimate luxury non-necessity in your life to help someone who is in the most dire and desperate need of their life? It's a world-wide organization and it started right here in New Orleans and, believe it or not, on Reddit.
Ashlye Keaton is no slouch either when it comes to spreading the love around. Ashlye left behind a career as a choreographer ("not for the New York City Ballet") and became a lawyer so she could help people. Yes, that does sound totally antithetical to the est if the legal profession but Ashlye is pulling it off. Her organization, The ELLA Project, provides free legal services to musicians.
Darcy Malone and Rory Callais are members of the band, Darcy Malone & The Tangle. Just back from playing in Key West, they play two brand new songs that we'll find on their upcoming album, and make an aborted start on a jingle for Seth's day-job business - they get stumped on a trying to find a rhyme for "optometrist." Got any ideas? Call Darcy on her @BlingCases phone.
You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show live from Wayfare, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you've been a New Orleanian for any length of time, you're going to enjoy this very candid conversation with 3 New Orleans celebrities.
Poppy Tooker is New Orleans first lady of food. From her weekly TV appearances on Steppin' Out to to her weekly radio show and podcast, Poppy is the best known foodie in the city. Poppy's latest venture is a collaboration with a large group of drag queens to produce a strong of drag queen brunches around town, culminating in her 6th book, simply called Drag Queen Brunch. You could have found out any of this information in any New Orleans publication. What you won't have heard anywhere but here is the explanation to this sentences Poppy utters by way of her current situation: "I'm not dead and I'm not knocked up."
Fred LeBlanc is the larger than life front man of the band Cowboy Mouth. If you've ever been to a Cowboy Mouth show or heard any of Fred's media appearances you have probably thought Fred's life is an open book. Well, there might be a couple of chapters of the book you hadn't heard about. Probably doubtful that you've heard Fred's opinions on marriage or cross-dressing anywhere else. Or known anything about his relationship to the Poboy shop, Melba's Po Boys.
Scott Wolfe Sr is the owner of Melba's Po Boy Shop, on the corner of North Claiborbne and Elysian Fields, the busiest Po Boy shop in the world. Scott is also the owner of the wildly successful local New Orleans grocery chain, Wagner's. Yes, he's the marketing genius who came up with the slogan "You can't beat Wagner's Meat." Scott's extraordinary flair for marketing can be found in full display at Melba's where they're open 24 hours a day, have a giant laundromat where each machine is named and themed for a local New Orleans celebrity - you can wash your clothes in the Fred LeBlanc machine for example - and a 24/7 daiquiri shop.
This Happy Hour is a classic no-holds-barred conversation with people who are comfortable in their own skin and not hesitant about telling it like it is.
If you'd like to see Jill Lafleur's photos from this show recorded live at Wayfare, you'll find them along with much more right here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Where do you stand on crystals? Do you think they have any power? Or is that all b.s.?
Stacy Bogg mines her own crystals and dispenses crystal-power medicine through her business, Karma Rocks. As you might imagine, Stacy comes down solidly on the side of metaphysical power emanating from crystals that vibrate at particular frequencies in ways that have a real effect on us in the physical world.
Daniel Shkolnik, as well as being a poet, is also variously an agnostic or atheist and believes that the only power emanating from a crystal is the psychological power we give it by believing in the hocus pocus of metaphysical vibrations and that in fact a crystal has no greater power than "a lucky rabbit's foot."
Rodo, front man for the band Naughty By Choice, strangely enough is wearing a giant amethyst around his neck and has a new record coming out appropriately titled, A Note From The Universe. Rodo's guitarist today, Chris Wilson, is trying to steer the conversation onto ghosts because he's "dead inside."
And then there's the conversation about Stacy's kid who was kidnapped and how Stacy did her own detective work and got the kid back, no thanks to the Slidell Police Department. Plus there's two live songs from Rodo and Chris, in a whole new genre Rodo calls hip hop ballad.
If you'd like to see photos from this show by Hope Byrd recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans, you can find them, and more, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
"Good Morning New Orleans" is the song that Aaron Benjamin told himself he was definitely not going to sing on this Happy Hour. So, what does he end up singing? It's the song he wrote about his two day trip to New Orleans after he had decided definitely not to move here. Are you starting to see a pattern? If you're not familiar with Aaron's music, and especially his voice, you're in for a shock - as was everybody around the table at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans.
Kenny Bellau is a legitimate hero. Google his name and see what comes up: stories about how, single-handed, he rescued over 400 people from the floodwaters of Katrina. Besides his real-life hurricane heroics, Kenny spent 30 years as a world-class competitive cyclist, racing against household names like Lance Armstrong, who Kenny says was a jerk from way back when he was 17. Kenny has an amazing number of extraordinary stories, all of which culminate in his current position - you're not even going to believe this, but he's a movie star! Kenny stars in his first movie that was written specifically for him, Fast Food & Cigarettes.
Rachel Dangermond makes a return to Happy Hour after having an extraordinary life change. The last time we saw Rachel she was a writer and social activist in New Orleans. Today she is the owner of The 100 Men Hall in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, a historic meeting place and fixture in African American life, famous for hosting concerts by the likes of James Brown, Ray Charles, Professor Longhair, Etta James, Sam Cooke and many more. Rachel was led to the hall to be the white owner of a historic black icon by the desire to move to the beach, and gigantic and inexplicable forces in the universe.
If you'd like to see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more information about this and other Happy Hours, you can find that here and you can visit www.itsneworelans.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What if the guy you happen to be sitting next to at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans happens to be the king of social media, Jeff Januszek? What's the first question you'd ask him? "How do I get more people to follow me on Instagram?" Right? Well, listen up. Jeff's Moscow Mule is the first thing he's eaten all day other than a few blueberries off his 4 year old son's breakfast plate and he's happy to talk about the secrets of making social media work.
Caitlin Carney is the 51% owner of Marjie's Grill, one of the hippest and most popular restaurants in New Orleans. Marjie's Instagram followers love posts about noodles, dumplings, and fried chicken. You're going to be surprised to hear what Caitlin thinks of the restaurant gold standard of social media, Yelp. And you might be even more surprised to hear what Jeff says is going to happen to Yelp. (As a public service, if you don't have time to listen to this podcast, sell your Yelp shares today.)
Jeremy Joyce turned his back on a career working in IT for the US government to dedicate himself to the life of a singer songwriter. He's a lot happier, but now he's getting successful he's turning to pedi-cabbing to relieve the stress of making it as a musician. And he's still single. Or is he? See if you can figure that one out.
If you'd like to see photos from this show taken by Jill Lafleur you can find those here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Caitlion O'Neill's entire trivia and cheerleading life had led up to the moment when she was already drunk at dinner in the Grill Room in the Windsor Court hotel with the Latvian man destined to become her father in law after she marries Mr Hunter and becomes Caitlion (Pronounced "Kate Lion") Hunter. That's when she gets the phone call. The phone call from Jeopardy! to tell her she's on the show. Nothing has ever been quite same since. But it's hard to say whether this episode is even one of the top 5 Most Interesting Things about Caitlion.
Matthew Desotell is a big deal in some circles. Matthew wrote and directed a movie, and he made it for 15 years in the entertainment business in Los Angeles before returning recently to New Orleans. But this movie might not even make the list of the 5 Most Interesting Things about Matthew. You might know him for his professional banter. Or his fashion campaigns for the likes of Hudson Jeans.
Daria Dzurik is the lead singer and steel pan player in the band Daria & The Hip Drops. Daria does something nobody has ever done before on Happy Hour, and that she has never done before anywhere: she accompanies herself on steel pans and sings. Judging by the enthusiastic response from the folks at the restaurant/bar Wayfare, the debut experiment is a smash success.
You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, here: http://bit.ly/2NOLVgn
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You might be one of the many people who say, "I like all music. But not country." If that's you, you're about to discover a whole new meaning of "red neck." Meet Hyperphlyy. Three women from Poplarville, Mississippi who moved to New Orleans, look like a million bucks (each) and are re-writing the Book of Expectations. Nothing about Hyperphlyy is what it looks from the outside.
On the subject of not judging a book by its cover, there's no way you could tell by looking at Alicia Cooke that she's had more adventures than anyone you've ever sat next to in a bar. Alicia lived for two tears in a part of Niger where she was the only foreigner and everybody else spoke a strange language called Zarma. Zarma isn't a written language and most words are onomatopoeia. In this conversation the folks at the table score 100% on Alicia's Zarma vocab test.
Lecco Morris visited New Orleans a few months ago and within 3 hours and one sazerac decided he was never leaving. Lecco has taken up residence as a street poet and it looks like he's going to be as good as his word(s). Lecco is building a poetry empire, called Ragtime Poetry. Throughout the course of this entire show Lecco manages to keep his shirt on (not as easy as you might think).
You can see photos by Jill Lafleur from this show, recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown new Orleans by Jill Lafleur at wayfare, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
DJ Nice Rack has a tattoo on her arm that advertises the fact she's bisexual. But it hasn't turned out to convey the message she was anticipating. Being openly bisexual, it turns out, just doubles the amount of paranoid insecurity that your partner feels. As DJ Nice Rack puts it on this Happy Hour, "Women think you're going to leave them for a guy, guys think you're going to leave them for a woman..." And apparently with good reason given Nice Rack's self-confessed history. But bisexual paranoia is only one of Ms Rack's wonderful tales. Arguably Mr Peepers' adventures in the RV rival it.
Don't ask L. Kasimu Harris what the "L" stands for. He selected his middle name Kasimu as a hipper moniker, and it suits him. Kasimu might be one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet. A photographer for, among others, The New York Times, with solo photography exhibitions across the country, and a parallel career as a writer, you'll be looking a long time around New Orleans for a more suave, more entertaining, and more genuinely nice guy. Kasimu is the real deal.
Graham daPonte, it turns out, is really D.Graham daPonte. The "d" is for Dorothy but her real name that her family and friends called her all through childhood remains as a big of a secret as the "L" in Kasimu. Graham is a criminal defense attorney who represents people who are looking at death at the hands of the State if Graham screws up in court. As a respite from that kind of stress, Graham produces this podcast.
Happy Hour was recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans. If you'd like to know more, including photos by Jill Lafleur, check it out here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
OK, so here's the thing about nut milk. Apparently Louisiana dairy producers are ticked off and powerful enough to get the legislature to outlaw anyone calling or labeling anything as "milk" that doesn't come from a cow. No bull. That's going to be the law. And that's according to one of the State's most connected journalists, Stephanie Grace.
Stephanie Grace was a columnist for the Times Picayune before quitting and moving to The Advocate, only to end up at The Advocate again now that they have bought the Times Picayune and become a brand name with a "|" in it - a vertical line that's been hiding on your keyboard for years and is under-utliized in daily parlance, for good reason. Nonetheless, Stephanie gets paid for calling bullsh!t on Louisiana politicians, a job with enormous security. OK, the paper is officially called The Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate.
Talking of long life, Paul Tuennerman says an insurance actuarial guy told him he's going to live till he's 92. Paul totally believes this and lives his life accordingly, wantonly eating hotdogs and creating dishes like charbroiled sh!tty sticky buns with high-end ice cream, which you're going to be able to order at a Dat Dog near you. Paul is actually the CEO of Dat Dog and he does sh!t like dream up stoner desserts for a living.
Hey! Meet The Bummers! Sean Doyle and Ben Shooter are the guitar playing vocalist 50% of the alt/pop/rock band that sounds kind of like Lennon & McCartney if they had dropped acid in Mid City instead of India. Sweet harmonies wrap around bizarre and whimsical lyrics about subjects ranging from lawyer Morris Bart to the fate of being trapped in The Fountainbeu building on the corner of Tulane and Carrolton. You're going to love this discovery.
Find photos from this show recorded at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur, here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Happy Hour is not the kind of podcast you expect to hear shocking inside breaking news revelations about corruption in the New Orleans justice system, but you never know who you're going to be sitting next to in a bar and what they're going to tell you after a drink or two.
Simone Levine is the Executive Director of Court Watch NOLA. It's a watchdog organization that keeps an eye on the courts. You won't even believe the story about Judge Bonin and why he gets defendants who appear in his court to wear an ankle monitor. Kickbacks. From the ankle monitor company. Sometimes the judge orders defendants to wear the monitors for up to a year - and the defendant has to pay $10 a day to the monitoring company. This story is going to be in the NY Times, and we scooped them on Happy Hour!
Lila Turner has only been in New Orleans for 6 months but she's probably done more good for the city in that time than most of us do in 6 years. Lila is the Development Director for Son of a Saint, an organization that mentors fatherless kids, mostly because the fathers are one step beyond ankle monitoring: incarcerated.
Basch Jernigan is the front man for the NOLA soul/Southern-rock band Roadside Glorious. It's hard to pin down exactly what they sound like, but that's a positive. Basch threw away a career in environmental journalism to sing in a rock band. That decision is not doing his student loans too much good but it's great for the rest of us who love music.
Andrew Duhon unravels a brand new tune called Emerald Blue. If you're already a Duhon fan you''re going to love this. If this is the first time you've ever heard Andrew, you're coming in at a high point.
If you'd like to see photos by Jill Lafleur from this show recorded live at Wayfare, click here.
Oh, and by the way, wait till you the hear the shocking details of the Consent Decree that keeps both the NOPD and Sheriff's department under the thumb of the Feds, and who's getting paid for that. This is quite a Happy Hour. Thank God for cocktails.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jonathan Andry shows up to this week's Happy Hour with a bunch of his CBD product, CBD-Tox. It's allegedly a kick-ass hangover cure, with 20mg of high grade CBD in each capsule.
So, picture this. You're in a bar in New Orleans - Wayfare to be exact, Uptown - with ace guitar player June Yamagishi, Erica Falls, the vocalist for Galactic, high-net-worth business consultant (for folks over $20m only) Melissa Schutz Lilly, and singer-songwriter Andrew Duhon. And Jonathan's free boxes of CBD capsules. Oh, and everybody's drinking cocktails. So what do you think happens next? Correct. Everybody takes two CBD-Tox capsules.
This podcast is the live, real-time experimental record of what happens next.
Without spoiling anything, Erica's pain threshold changes fairly substantially over the hour. Andrew believes he can see where the song he's writing can be fixed, and debuts it. Melissa's stomach ailment disappears. And Jonathan defends himself against a lawsuit from the estate of the late Dr.John.
Warning: your results with 40mg of CBD may vary. But we highly recommend accompanying it with rye, rose, pinot, or a gin based cocktail of indeterminate contents. We can guarantee those results.
If you want to see photos of this experiment by Jill Lafleur or get more info about this show, click here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're a fan of classic retro-TV you're familiar with Fame, the Glee of the 70's. (Basically a high school where they spend more time singing songs and dancing than doing any actual school work.) If you can imagine that on acid, that apparently was Jo Morris's education.
Today Jo and band-mate Steve Walkup are the nucleus of an awesome, almost retro 90's band called St. Lorelei. If you've never heard of them it's because they apparently never play anywhere, but there's an album due out in the Fall and we're predicting big things. if you like the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil you're going to flip out when you hear this.
Buddy Bolden is as retro as you can get. Buddy was the father of all jazz and the biggest deal in New Orleans music of all time who never made a record. He does now, however, have a feature film about him and if Danielle de Sol, her outfit The Preservation Resource Center, and her partner PJ Morton from Maroon 5 has anything to with it, Buddy's original house in New Orleans will soon become a recording studio and community center.
While we're being as fabulous as we can in our own little worlds, Shayne Tinge is actually being fabulous for real out in the big wide world. We're no strangers to people in bars turning out to be ridiculously fascinating, but even in that context this guy is in a league of his own. Not only is Shayne an ex stunt man, body double and still friends with stars like Woody Harrelson and Rob Reiner, he's also a world-wide nomadic adventurer who is dedicating his life to bringing fresh water to the villagers of Cambodia.
Andrew Duhon is back from what turned out to be a vacation, but he hasn't been totally idle. Andrew tries out a brand new song, Blood Brothers. Potentially a hit after Grant gets through producing it on the fly.
If you'd like to see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, recorded live at Wayfare, you can do that here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is not a cute click bait podcast title.
Dr John Sawyer (you can call him "Johnny Jr" if you want) is the Co-Director of the Brain Health Program at Ochsner Health System. If you want any other reassuring credentials he's also an ex-seminarian and a married gay man and father of two kids. And he actually, for real, has the keys to human happiness.
You have to listen to almost this entire podcast to get to the secret of human happiness. Although you could skip right to the last 10 minutes. If you did you'd miss Kandy explaining the plight of being a side-chick - a third woman in a two-person relationship - or a side-dick - a third guy in a two person relationship.
Kandy also has some insights into human, and her own, sexual behavior, but not quite as radical an insight as Jonathan Freilich, Jonathan is the librettist and composer of a new operetta called Darling, Do Not Be Offended By What I Wrote, which is a faithful operatic telling of the letters James Joyce wrote to his wife, recounting in graphic detail their sexual exploits. Jonathan's opera is being staged as part of the Bloomsday celebrations in New Orleans, centered on June 16th. More info here.
Click here for more info and photos from this show shot at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're a woman, it's turning out to be a weird year. Suddenly we're all up in arms about whether or not the State is going to let you have an abortion. If you're a woman who would prefer to have the choice about whether or not to have an abortion, rather than leave that decision to a guy in Baton Rouge, Amy Irvin is your best friend. As the Executive Director of the New Orleans Abortion Fund, Amy is literally out there fighting for you. So, hey, cut her a bit of slack if she can't remember the phrase "pro choice" after a couple of cocktails.
Theophile Bourgeois IV is a tattoo artist and the front man for New Orleans band Them Ol' Ghosts. Theophile, pronounced Thay-o-feel (it's very Cajun French) has graduated from tattooing drunk people from his old shop next to strip parlor, to working banker's hours from his shop on Oak Street, in Uptown New Orleans.
TBIV has a disarmingly beautiful voice, even when singing the acerbic love song he wrote for his wife, "Bitch, I wrote this song for you" with tender loving lyrics like "“I know you’re worried I’m a narcissistic inconsiderate asshole, but don’t you worry baby ‘cause this heart belongs to you.” Given that we're almost halfway through the year, Theophile Bourgeois might be your best find of 2019 so far.
If you're interested in the truth, so is Jonathan Blake Vasquez. Jonathan recently moved to New Orleans from Dallas, and brought his Truth Hurts Podcast with him. It's a no-punches-pulled look at life. And what we find out in this conversation is that the whole enterprise has the unlikely subversive intent of turning us all into Vegans.
Back to the being a woman thing again for a moment. If you're a woman, no doubt you've been hit on in almost every way imaginable. Well, guess what? There's one more way you hadn't imagined. Happy Hour photographer Alison Moon is back in town on a break from her stint as a grad student at Oxford University, with alarming tales of how the brainiac class of guys try and get women into bed. It's fairly unbelievable so in the interest of spoilers we won't ruin it for you. But if you've got time to kill, this insight is almost worth the whole price of admission to this Happy Hour.
If you want to see some photos from this show, head over here. It's also available as a video at https://www.facebook.com/neworleanspodcasts/
Happy Hour is recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans. Photos by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ingrid Victoria is best known in the world of drag queens as the maker of extravagant eyelashes. If you've seen drag queens on TV or on stage and wondered where the heck you get eyelashes like that, now you too can get hooked up for just $25 (or $12.50 for one eyelash) at Chimera Lashes.
But Ingrid doesn't stop at making eyelashes. She also crochets stuff. Like beards. If you're thinking a woman in a fake beard must look like a circus freak, head over to here and check out the photo of Ingrid in her beard. She's gorgeous.
Talking of men dressed as women, Edward Simon might be studying for a Ph.D in psychology, and he night also be a photographer, but he's also an award winning actor who made a name for himself playing the lead in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Oh, and he's also a recording artist with three records and was the lead singer in the Hollywood hair-band Knife Confession.
Duz Mancini came to New Orleans from West Los Angeles and never went back. 10 years later, and after a stint as a song writer in Nashville, Duz is back and making music with his band the Scorpedos. On this Happy Hour, Duz plays two new songs. If you're not familiar with the Scorpedos, do yourself a favor and check this out.
Happy Hour is recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ray Lopez is a professional MMA fighter. He has a gym in New Orleans, NOLA MMA, where he teaches people to kill other people - only in self defense, not randomly - but the greatest thrill in his life comes from getting in a cage with another human and trying to kill him. Nothing in the world, he says, can make you feel more alive than having survived a fight.
Ilona Obuchowski is super-competitive too. Ilona is the City Commissioner of fun for an organization called NOLA Fray. NOLA Fray organizes you and your friends or just you as a free agent in to leagues and teams to play games. Everything from softball to speed dating. No kidding. As the official city Fun Facilitator, Ilona might have the coolest job in New Orleans.
Joshua Starkman, oddly enough, also refers to himself as a fun facilitator. You might have seen Josh on social media - he's the musician with the giant smile, the wacky songs, and the short video that always ends with the exhortation to "Have a great day" and "We love you." If you haven't seen Josh's work on Facebook, click on this link and check it out, it's totally worth it.
You can find photos from this show on It's New Orleans Facebook page, @ItsNewOrleans on Instagram and here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris Lee is back! With a brand new record.
Chris retired from music for a few years but missed the adulation, and also has a few things to get off his chest. The new songs are gathered under the album title, Protest Songs and Party Anthems and Chris plays one of each on this Happy Hour. After you hear the first song, the question you're going to have answer is this: should Chris technically get a visit from The Secret Service and get hauled off for questioning? He maintains that he is not actually advocating that we lynch the President, but that we hang him after a trial has found him guilty of treason. It's a fine line.
Mary Devon Dupuy is uninviting you to her wedding. Mary Devon is a comedian but she's not kidding when she says you better not show up at her wedding, even though she somehow mistakenly has listed her wedding openly online complete with directions and an RSVP button. If you Google Mary Devon's name hopefully by now you won't find it. But you will find her doing comedy around New Orleans, regularly at The Dragon's Den where she hosts an evening called F*ck Yeah Comedy. (We have to use the asterisk or they apparently kick us off Facebook and iTunes and other platforms, even though I f'kn Love Science has like a million followers so go figure...)
Cliff Ussery didn't grow up in New Orleans but in a way he did. As a kid Cliff's parents sent him here in the Summer to hang with his cousins. Now as an adult he's come back. Wait till you hear what he's been up to working for The Saints and Pelicans. Professional sports is apparently rough at every level, even for the poor unpaid suckers who sell T-shirts at games.
Andrew Duhon is gearing up for Breakfest, his annual Jazz fest early morning concert. This year it comes complete with a string quartet. If you've never been it's totally recommended.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If there really is a God, why do 80% of the people in Indonesia, the 5th biggest country in the world, live without running water or basic human needs? Is this a theological question, or a political question? Today we're in a perfect spot to find out.
Yanti Turang left her tiny Australian town called Kyneton to visit Indonesia, where her father came from, and was appalled at the sub-standard living conditions that saw members of her own family dying of preventable diseases. Yanti moved to New Orleans where she founded an organization to change all that, called Learn to Live. Learn to Live changes lives in Indonesia, South Africa, Laos, and Kenya.
While Yanti was moving to New Orleans, Joanna Hale McGill's mother dragged her out of New Orleans to go live in Picayune, Mississippi, where she was subjected to blatant racism. Somehow, Joanna didn't get mad, she got God. Today Joanna Hale McGill is a rising star in the world of Gospel music - and when you hear her singing you'll know why. Joanna does her best to answer why God is good to her but letting 80% of Indonesians live in Hell; and you get the sense that if you gave Joanna another 5 minutes and one more song to sing she might turn the whole Inodnesian thing around herself.
God didn't pick out Marcus DeLarge's tie, but he could have. Marcus is the sharpest dresser ever to appear on Happy Hour. And possibly the most passionate attorney. Marcus only lasted about 3 months as a prosecutor in the DA's office before he found his calling as a fighter, defending folks who need him to stand up to the justice system that's stacked against them.
Andrew Duhon gets pretty close to finding God during this conversation. He also revisits and reworks an old song that time and experience have improved vastly.
This conversation is a raucous but respectful romp through international politics, racism, slavery, theology, and immigration. A classic Happy Hour.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this Happy Hour, veteran New Orleans music writer Alex Rawls notes there are three ways to not get paid in the music business: write about music, take photos of musicians, or actually play music. We have all the bases covered in this conversation.
Alex could have added a 4th way: podcasting. He's recently launched a new podcast which might actually have a bit of traction. It's called The Twelve Songs of Christmas, which is a bit misleading because it's about more than just 12 songs, but it is a quirky and unique examination of Christmas music by Alex and the people who make the music. By the way, to add to the cruelty of the poverty of the music business, Alex also teaches aspiring music writers at Loyola University.
When she's not kicking fans in the face or beating adoring women away from her with a stick, Mia Borders is fantasizing about men she runs into at Costco. She got a great song out of the latter experience, which she sings on this show, and has some great stories about the former. And Mia has a new record out, The Good Side of Bad, a title that sums up the state of mind she was in but seems to have left far behind. Mia also teaches how to graduate into a life of poverty at Loyola University, educating young musicians.
Hope Byrd has dreamed up a way to make a living that she describes as "a business plan destined to fail," aka photographing musicians. You can see Hope's photos on Instagram at her account The Gold Frame. They're impressive, and without the aid of encouraging poverty at Loyola, Hope seems to be keeping body and soul together just fine. Don't ask her exactly who she's dating though. Okay, ask, it's totally worth it.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're looking for a good place to steal hard to find, exotic plants, Ninth Ward Nursery is the place.
Mark Sanders started Ninth Ward Nursery, as you might have guessed, in the 9th Ward, as a way to relive his glory days as a child, wandering through the backwoods of Huntsville, Alabama, waiting for the street lights to come on. Mark is also a travel writer and editor so there are plenty of hours when the one-man nursery business is unattended. On the advice of our lawyers, we recommend you buy plants the legit way in the hours that Mark is in attendance at the nursery. You'll recognize him, he's the guy with the yellow Google sunglasses.
Havialh Malone is the 4th best looking woman in the universe. It's official. She was named Ms Louisiana Universe in 2018 and was 4th runner up in the national pageant. For most people that would be a crowning achievement. For Havilah it's basically a footnote. You're not even going to believe the list of accomplishments Havilah has racked up in her few short years since graduating from Bonnabel High, but they include running a $160m company, appearing on QVC and Home Shopping Network, and writing a #1 Best-selling book.
The last time Danielle Ryce was on Happy Hour she was 50% of a musical duo. Now she's a smaller percentage of, Dianella, a far larger band, but they're still all playing her songs and she's still got one of the world's most impressive singing voices. You would be forgiven for thinking that's hyperbole, but check it out for yourself. Danielle plays two songs on this Happy Hour.
Andrew Duhon has had an idea about owning a piece of land in the back of his mind and the riff for a song about it in his back pocket for a while now. On this show Andrew unveils the song that is the sum of those two parts. This one's a keeper.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's hard to know which is Travis Laurendine's best story on this Happy Hour.
Maybe it's getting punched out by then Saints coach Jim Haslett when Travis was wearing the Boudreaux the Nutria mascot at a Zephyrs baseball game. Or maybe it's meeting Dick Cheney when he (Travis, not Dick) was named the smartest person in Louisiana. Or is it the story about how Travis started and staged Boycott Bowl? Or, try this one, maybe it's the fact that he's a secret super big deal in the music industry and is configuring a whole new aspect of Universal Music's business. And there's more!
Jenelle Slobof has some good stories of her own. Jenelle is a psychiatric social worker who specializes in working with super messed up people who are brought into an emergency room with mental problems. The only downside to that occupation - other than possibly getting beaten up or spat on, which is why people are restrained and have something called a spit-hood - is the fact that we don't have that exact occupation in Louisiana. Jenelle blames the Governor of Louisiana, but what she doesn't expect is that the Governor apparently follows us on Twitter and weighs in on the discussion. So how about that?!
Ben Shooter spends more time at Wayfare than anyone in the room. And not just at our table. Ben is normally a cook in the kitchen at Wayfare. Just like in a feel-good movie, the Wayfare staff stop work, crowd around and cheer when Ben plays an original song. And with good reason, the kid is good! You can catch Ben with his band, The Bummers.
Andrew Duhon is back from the road and premieres a brand new song, about slowing down. By the way, full circle, Andrew and Travis went to high school together and Travis produced Andrew's first show.
Photos by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nick Pejic is a psychiatrist.
Nick spends his days treating people with varying issues, including depression and addiction. By the end of the day he's ready to let loose. That's when he gets out the guitar and gets wailing like Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins. Billy is Nick's musical idol and he's met Billy three times. Each time was a little different, but each interaction was pretty successful and Billy seemed to like talking to Nick. That's not how it went down with Nick's other musical hero, Harry Connick Jr, when Nick ran into him in the Quarter.
Today is the first time in her life that anybody called Jaime Glas a fashion designer. Despite the fact that Jaime is actually a fashion designer. She started out as an engineer on oil rigs but soon came to discover that the fire retardant clothing she was forced to wear was all designed for men. It didn't only look terrible, it was so baggy and badly cut for her body-shape that it was downright dangerous. And so Jaime's line of fire retardant clothing for women was born. It's called Haute Work.
Johanna Divine is one of the hippest singer-songwriters you'll ever hear. Johanna is so hip she doesn't even try to make it in the music biz. Though she's had record deals and released records - which you can find on Spotify and everywhere else music is streamed or stolen - Johanna is happy to pursue her other interests in lieu of the self-promotion and hustling it takes to make it as a musician. But wait till you wear what she sounds like. Laid back, languid, smart, funny, a great guitar player with a sensuous, seductive voice. If you don't know Johanna's work, listen to this, you're going to love her as much as we do.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Just when you think New Orleans couldn't surprise you any more, you meet Luke Hooper.
Luke Hooper is the kind of character a Hollywood screenwriter would dream up. Tall and handsome. A semi-professional iron-man athlete who is also an award-winning inventor. He's invented a new version of delivering wireless power (yes, that's right, wireless power), creates futuristic games for children, designs creative solutions for giant companies like Nike, and has defended his patents in the Supreme Court of the US (yes, the Supreme Court) and won. He invented shoes that do themselves up, called Slaps. And he works out of an office downtown, next to the yoga studio he founded. Even the name "Luke Hooper" is from Central Casting superhero.
There's nobody larger than life than Katrina Brees. Katrina is the founder of The Bearded Oysters Mardi Gras parade troupe, the Kolossos Bike Zoo, a do-it-yourself coffin business, and now she's sponsoring legislation that is making its way through the Louisiana legislature. Donna's Law is named for Katrina's mom, Donna. In 2018 suicidal thoughts got the better of Donna, and she bought her first gun and killed herself with it. Donna's Law will allow people who feel they are a threat to themselves or others to self-register on a list that denies them the right purchase a gun. Somehow, Katrina is managing to do what literally nobody in America has accomplished - she is shepherding bipartisan gun control into law. While at the same time retaining her sequined, giant-eyelashes, crown-wearing flamboyance.
If you've spent any time in New Orleans and you love going out to hear live music, there's a fair chance you've never heard any bluegrass. Well, you have nobody to blame for that but yourself. Any time you feel like hearing some bluegrass you can go check out The Tanglers. Jacob Tanner and Craig Alexander are the core of the band, which is a 6-piece, and they do a duo gig where the two of them call themselves The Tanglers. Yes, that's confusing but if you never see the full band, the duo version of The Tanglers is awesome, as you'll hear on this Happy Hour.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There's a fine line between Jesus and The Man. Jesus wants you to do things His way and he holds out the specter of sending you to Hell forever if you don't comply. On the other hand, management and their proxies, consultants, have you buy in to a better way of life for everyone right now: tell us what you want and we'll tell it back to you, how we want. If you're following any of this, you could be a gospel singer, or a business consultant. Or an Israeli-born Wyoming bred, New Orleans-steeped architect. Or you could just listen to them and be entertained.
Arrianne Keelen is a star gospel singer. But she's much more. If you are already familiar with Arianne's star career in gospel, get ready for her to break out beyond the confines of the church. If you don't already know Arrianne's music, welcome to A Star is Born (without the Hollywood spin). Arrianne sings an original song and a hymn on this Happy Hour, backed up by Reggie Nic.
Lauren Siegel is a business consultant's business consultant. Engaging, charming, frank, self-effacing, honest, and fun, Lauren recently got promoted at Trepwise to a position that's similar to Minister of Propaganda except it's called Director of Brand and Culture. Lauren could probably talk you into anything, as long as you wanted to be talked into it. It's not certain how far this would extend beyond the workplace, but between Lauren and our other Happy Hour guest, Simcha, they could conceivably change the world.
Simcha Ward is technically an architect, but listening to him talk you get the sense he's designing more than living spaces. Listen to Simcha in this conversation and you can picture him as a rabbinical scholar, or a politician or a charismatic boss. He's a little of each. Remember his name, you'll be seeing it on a book at some point - this kid is going places.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here's everything you need to know about this week's Happy Hour: if you're disgruntled about the Rolling Stones playing Jazz Fest, there's a subversion plan afoot.
Andrew Duhon comes up with this genius idea after ony one drink, and dubs it "Pontchatrain's 11," inspired by the Oceans 11 scam. The plan involves everyone sitting around the table at this Happy Hour to pull it off. The key player is Katherine Klimitas.
Katherine is an artist, a jeweler, a graphic artist, and a lover of country music. She's also confined to a wheelchair and because of that she has become the go-to person for Jazz Fest for checking out that the festival is ADA compliant. So the plan is, on the day the Stones are playing, to use Katherine's vehicle as a Trojan Horse, to sneak in Andrew and Georgi Petrov.
Georgi Petrov is one of the most impressive jazz guitar players you'll ever hear. He fronts his own quartet and plays with a bunch of other people, including the super-talented Meryl Zimmerman.
If you're wondering where you've heard the name Meryl Zimmerman before, you might be thinking of her dad who is a graduate of Ben Franklin and is now of the author of a Long Island New York based contribution to the wide world of Jewish trivia under the title Rashi Rambam and Rama Lama Ding Dong.
Anyway, this is all besides the point and we haven't even gotten to Josh Brasted yet. Like Meryl's father and Katherine Kilimitas, Josh went to Ben Franklin and is now an internationally known photographer specializing in photographing musicians. Josh, apparently because he's Catholic, is very self-effacing and describes himself as "Solidly okay," but the big deal here is that he's got a press pass to Jazz Fest to cover the Rolling Stones.
You see what's going on here? Okay, here's the bottom line: the deal at Jazz Fest is, while the Stones are playing the rest of the stages are going to be shut down. That's what's really pissing off Katherine. Except all the rest of the stages are not going to be shut down because Andrew Duhon and Georgi Petrov, plus other hand-picked musicians that will form their one-off band for the day, will be smuggled into Jazz Fest with their instruments and will set up and play on the Gentilly stage during the Stones set. In between this plan coming together, Andrew plays a new song, Meryl and Georgi play two songs - one by the inimitable Fred Rogers, which is really going to shock you, in a good and sophisticated jazzy way. Meryl Zimmerman is the real deal.
Musically and in conversation, this might be the most quintessentially Happy Hour of all time. And when you see Katherine, Josh, Georgi, Andrew and the rest of the subversives on the news after the Stones play at Jazz Fest, remember you heard it here first.
Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Happy Hour is billed as "Random conversation with folks who have nothing in common." Anything that s truly random will, sooner or later, appear to us not to be. Like flipping a coin and getting four "heads" in a row. Or inviting random people to sit around a table at a bar in New Orleans and discover they re all Cajun. Louis Michot is the fiddle player and lead singer in the Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers. You don t get much more Cajun than Louis and his tales of Petit Paris aka St Martinville , living in Broussard, Lafayette, and out in the woods of Arnaudville. Louis plays two songs on this Happy Hour, accompanied on one of them by fellow Cajun Andrew Duhon. Here in New Orleans we pronounce Andrew s name Doo Hon but if you go a few miles West just how many is open to debate it s pronounced Doo Yong. Until you get a few miles out of Lafayette, into Texas, where it reverts to doo hon, as evidenced by Louis dog whose name was Clint Duhon, pronounced the Port Arthur way cause that s where he came from. Lizzie Guitreau is a Baton Rouge Cajun who decided that her inspiration from watching the TV show House as a kid should propel her into making TV shows rather than medicine. Lizzie went to UNO for film, started a band of film makers and is still working with them today, as Worklight Pictures. Ready for the next weird Cajun coincidence Worklight Pictures are making a documentary about The Lost Bayou Rambers. It s called On Va Continuer we will continue and premieres in February. Brandon Beeyard can t hide his true identity too long. Yes, it turns out his name is really spelled Bulliard, and he s Cajun, from, wait for it, St Martinville aka Petit Paris, and his family is related to Louis s wife s family. Brandon is headed for self propelled meta stardom no, that s not a typo, though he might also be bound for mega stardom by way of his of his revalatory and inspirational life story podcast, Dreamster. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur yes, that s a Cajun name
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kimberly Kaye woke up at 3AM one morning and knew she was dying. She was right. Months later, after spending weeks in a hyperbaric chamber in New Orleans and months at the Cleveland Clinic, Kimberly finally found out she had something exotic called EDS, a rare, genetic, connective tissue disorder. Today Kimberly is kicking ass as an actress, writer, Assistant Editor of The Jiu Jitsu Times, Jiu Jitsu exponent, and singer in the band Loose Cattle. Legion Dubois is the Dr John of hip hop. He s a Creole rapper who buried the street fighting version of himself when he saw the error of his ways and was reborn as a spiritually motivated musician with a message of peace, love, and Voodoo. Legion sings two songs on this Happy Hour Friends on The Other Side, and Adrenaline Rush. Legion has a message and a perspective as unique as his name. If you want to hear where Hip Hop might be headed, you definitely want to check this out. Isaac MacDonald came to New Orleans for a job and stayed for the egg rolls and grilled cheese sandwiches on Broad Street. If you ve ever wondered what the heck a "business comsultant" actually does, Isaac s conversation with Legion about what Legion wants out of life will set you straight. It s surprisingly impressive. Photos at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lori Tipton is the most popular guest in Happy Hour history. Last time Lori was here she talked about her shallow vagina and how she had to become intimately familiar with its intricacies in pursuit of self administered insemination aka turkey baster . As impossible as it sounds, today Lori has an even more amazing story to tell. Today s story includes details of Lori s mother s escapades in strip clubs on Bourbon Street where she worked for many years as a house mother and professional pool player, and the day Lori went to visit her and found she had murdered two other women and killed herself. No matter how good you are at guessing where stories are going to go, you won t predict this one. Briefly, without spoiling anything, FDA administered Ecstasy MDMA has changed Lori s life and delivered her true happiness. Legendary New Orleans musician Billy Iuso has a dream that he s not far from realizing moving to Jamaica. He s got a house picked out and a plan to buy it. Next week he turns 50 and looking back he s accomplished almost everything that he musically set out to do. The one thing he hasn t done, which is about to be rectified at this year s Jazz Fest, is open for The Rolling Stones. Billy plays two songs on this Happy Hour. If you re a fan you re going to love these intimate versions of his songs, if you re discovering Billy for the first time this is a great introduction to a kick ass musician you need to know about. David Villarubia is the most eligible bachelor in New Orleans. He s the owner of the Degas House, the house Edgar Degas, the now famous artist, lived in for a few months, on Esplanade Ave, before he was so famous. But that s not what makes David so attractive. Here s the hook he used to be an international pilot for Delta, and he can fly anywhere in the world, free, for the rest of his life, and take anyone he wants with him You know where to find him. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is probably not quite how Kate Becker intended her serious practice of healing and self development through breath work to be interpreted, but did you know you can get high AF from breathing Breath work is cheaper than drugs and the effects of happiness linger on and reverberate through your life long after the high is gone. You might ask, "Why aren t we all doing it " Well, exactly Rene Coman, the super smart bass player from legendary NOLA band The Iguanas, has been fighting loneliness his whole life, practically from the moment he was born. Then, after years in the wilderness, hanging out with cigarette smoking 60 year olds, a successful music career, getting married and raising kids, Rene finally discovered a cure for loneliness podcasts Now he s the co host of his very own podcast, the highly entertaining, curmudgeonly Troubled Men Podcast. Owen Legendre is one of the funniest people in New Orleans. And on the internet in general, actually. He s half of the comedy duo, Bare Handed Bear Handlers yes, he explains where the name comes from who are responsible for making some outrageoulsy funny stuff like Pensacola Prophet The Legend of Pecan Pinwheelie. On today s show Owen sings a couple of songs, one about old people "all my friends are dead" called Platinum Plated Walker, and a brand new country ballad making it s world premier, about Owen s Aunt Mille the drug smuggler and her unsuspecting or is he husband, Uncle Willie. This is the first happy Hour of 2019. We re off to a roaring start. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Brentt Arcement grew up as a drummer in New Orleans and took his musical skills to Los Angeles where he carved out a career as an A list drummer, playing with Fiona Apple, Live, and many other big name artists. But the show stopping sentence in this conversation is when Brentt gets onto the subject of how he met, became friends with, and even lived with none other than Dennis Rodman. You ll be pleased to learn that Dennis is not just a regular guy. If you think Dennis Rodman has a unique life, wait till you hear about the people Katie Sikora hangs out with. Katie is one of the creators of an online undertaking called The Sexism Project. Katie, a photographer, photographs and interviews women in particular industries about their relationship to sexism. So far the project has examined the lives of women in the New Orleans music industry and the New Orleans sex industry. It s hard to put into words on a page, here, just how riveting these photographs and conversations are. Katie is one of these people who move to New Orleans 5 years ago and find the fertile soil they need to flourish. Piano player, composer, and writer Tom McDermott moved to New Orleans in 1984. Tom is another New Orleanian who couldn t live anywhere else. An insanely gifted player and disciple of James Booker, on this edition of Happy Hour Tom plays Professor Longhair s Tipitina and one of his own compositions, The Gospel Waltz That Wasn t. Andrew Duhon says that sitting at this table of creatives he ought to play something polished, but opts to continue his tradition of trying out new songs on Happy Hour. This unitiled song When The Fog Rolls In is a song Andrew wrote over the past couple of days and just finished today. It s beautiful, and about as close to perfect as you can get for first time out. If you re a Duhon fan this is a must listen, if you re not a fan yet, you will be after you hear this. This is our final show for 2018. It s been a great year for Happy Hour. We ve met amazing New Orleanians, we ve heard amazing music, and we ve been lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time for podcasting and we ve seen our audience grow beyond anything we ever imagined. If you re one of our regular listeners, thanks for hanging out with us on your podcast app or on Facebook, or Spotify, or wherever you find us. We look forward to seeing you in 2019. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Among a wide variety of other pursuits, Dr. MarkAlain Dery is an HIV doctor. Amid the staggeringly bad news about the rate of HIV infection in New Orleans second in the nation behind Miami is the good news that if you have to contract a serious illness say, diabetes, cancer, or HIV HIV is the one to pick. According to MarkAlain, you can get a simple and free HIV test called an "instie" and if you test positive for HIV your life expectancy is the same as a regular person who does not have HIV, if you regularly take one pill. And you re not going to infect anyone else, even your sex partners. Just for the record, MarkAlain also, runs a radio station called WHIV, plays bass in a number of bands, and hosts a podcast about social justice. John Paul Carmody and Jackson Purvis are two thirds of the New Orleans rock trio, South Jones. The third member of the band is any one of a number of rotating bass players. John Paul is from Omaha Nebraska and Jackson is from South Mississippi. They met via a Craig s List post and soon discovered their musical similarities and fondness for the same drugs, in that descending order. If all goes well, their soon to be released record, Breathing Room, is possibly going to be a game changer. If you take a listen to the song they play on this Happy Hour you ll no doubt agree. These guys are not just on something, they re onto something. Andrew Duhon says he has a bunch of songs that just aren t good enough to make it onto a record. He plays one here. The general consensus is that for anyone else this would be their standout best song they d ever written. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you're even the tiniest bit cynical about Christmas, you have got to hear Debbie Davis' impassioned explanation of why Christmas matters. We re so used to thinking we have to be be smart, ironic and funny in conversation that it's shocking to hear a completely unvarnished, sincere, heartfelt defense of simple niceness. And then the big question why can t we be like this all year The answer might lie in Debbie's annual ode to the holidays, Oh Crap It s Christmas. And check out what might be the greatest Christmas song of all time. Jep Epstein is famous for writing music you know and love without knowing Jep wrote it. Jep writes mostly commercial jingles, but lately he's been on a different track. He s started writing songs. Clever, funny, insightful songs, kind of in the mode of a hipped up 21st Century Randy Newman. Normally a piano player, Jep brings along his ukulele. Dana Reed has over 1,000 kids. She only gave birth to one of them, who, like Dana, "Came out of the womb dancing." The other kids hang out with Dana in her program Upturn Arts. It's a very cool kids arts program where there is no audition and nobody is turned away for any reason, even financial. Andrew Duhon gets a very generous Christmas present on this show. And he plays a beautiful song about coming back down to civilization after camping in the wilderness. Happy Hour's first ever ukulele summit is the feel good show of the year. Well, some of it. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Vince Ebeir s new band is called Spylights and their first record is named after Vince s gift he s an Empath. That means Vince feels your pain, but also your pleasure. So be careful what you get up to around him. Vince brings along his guitar player, Roman Duffar, and the guys play two songs off the upcoming Empath record. Also, if you re in a band and you need marketing or any other business help, Vince is giving advice for free through his non profit, Give It Hell Promotions. Alex Bowen is The Other Cajun Jew. A few weeks back on Happy Hour Alex Rosen, the marketing person at the all new Fillmore, told us that she knows one other Cajun Jew and his name also happens to be Alex and he also happens to work at Live Nation. Alex Bowen is that man. Alex Bowen is the guy at the all new Fillmore who books bands. If you ve ever wondered how bands get booked or how much they get paid, check out this conversation. You might also be interested to know something about Toto. No That wouldn t surprise Alex one bit. Laura Sanders is a Woman With Vision. "Women With Vision" was the slogan of her high school Alex s was "Gods Servants First" btw . Today Larura is a comedian who has no qualms or fears talking about the most personal aspects of her life. You can hear some of it on her record, Oh God Please Like Me, and if you d like to hear how she does it live, unscripted and without a net, you can find out where Laura is performing around New Orleans, here. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Thomas Cole found America so polarized that he no longer wanted to live here, and moved to India. That was 1969. Thomas stayed in India, Nepal, Thailand, Tibet and Afghanistan for 16 out of the 20 next years where he became what we don t dare call a "rug merchant." Thomas a far more elegant title for that occupation, and now he has a new, double barreled occupational handle and achievement he s an author photographer. Thomas s new book of photographs is called Standing in the Shadows New Orleans in Focus. It s an elegant and impressive pictorial chronicle of the city. Roger Johns is an award winning author. His award is Georgia Author of the Year, because he lives in Georgia, but he s a native Louisiana boy from Alexandria. Roger s books are crime novels, with a main character called Wallace Hartman who s a woman detective. The stories are set in Baton Rouge, which Roger describes as "the most interesting city" he s ever been in. And he s not kidding. You never forget your first. That s why Joy Clark will remember this Happy Hour forever. It s Joy s first podcast. If you ve never heard Joy play or sing, you are in for a treat she s the real deal. She also has a fascinating life story that involves being home schooled on the West Bank and a long lost African American cousin in Germany. Andrew Duhon almost bought himself a time bomb in the shape of a touring van today, but luckily figured out the truth before he got himself killed on the road. Andrew, as he often does, tries out a brand new song. It s another beautiful dissection of the human heart. Photos taken in the few remaining rays of daylight at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The only person who showed up to our Halloween Happy Hour in costume is one of two Cajun Jews called Alex who work for Live Nation. The one wearing the bat suit at Wayfare is Alex Rosen, a refugee from Lafayette who now lives in New Orleans and is the Marketing Manager for all the new Fillmore music venue a 2,000 seater in Harrah s Casino. Alex tells us we re going to be able to see big name bands in a state of the art intimate setting. The Aquarium of the Americas is just down the road from the Fillmore, and that s where you re going to be able to experience Andrew Preble s new night out, playing a game that pits you against shark killers. Andrew is the brains behind Escape My Room, an awesome escape room experience that s definitely worth a night out, as Andrew Duhon and Grant Morris discovered one night after Happy Hour. Andrew Duhon has just returned from re discovering his Cajun roots at a week long camp out with a bunch of hippies, folkies and Cajuns. What came out of the week of two stepping and learning to play the fiddle is a beautiful song, about a love that lasted "Almost Forever." Aziz, aka Aziz, has a band called Kuwaisiana. If you don t know the band already, you ve probably already guessed it s a meeting of Kuwaiti and Louisiana music. The songs are passionate and moving, even if you don t know that "Neta" is Aziz s early love and "Wahda bi Wahda" means "an eye for an eye." Kuwaisiana has a big deal record deal in the Middle East and are making waves on all sides of the Mediterranean and the Mississippi. Even though this show was recorded on Halloween, nobody mentions it even once. That s the great thing about Happy Hour there s always something more interesting to hear about than what s going on outside. This is a fascinating conversation about a whole lot of topics most of us know nothing about. It s New Orleans Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Among the many things you could find remarkable about Arwen Podesta and there are plenty perhaps the singularly most impressive is the fact there is a part of your body named after her. There is a part of everybody s body name after her. It s in your DNA. Arwen was a part of the Human Genome Project the folks who mapped the human genome and as a result there is a human gene named after her, called AR 1. It is an interluken atagonist interceptor, which at one point might have turned out to be the key to curing cancer. On top of that minor detail, Arwen is also a psychiatrist who started out life as the daughter of a father who was and is a massage therapist. Arwen went into the family business, mutated from massage to medicine to clinical superstar, to leading authority on addiction and author of the book, Hooked. Genevieve Douglass s grandfather was an Admiral in the Navy. Yes, an Admiral. Somehow he ended up in New Orleans, Genevieve s dad went to Tulane law and has a standalone practice in Kenner where he s, 30 years later, still looking for a slogan to compete with Putting the Womac on em and One Call That s All. Genevieve who, by the way is a Sagittarius is equally entrepreneurial. She is the marketing mastermind at entrepreneurial consultant firm Trepwise, and the creative force behind a great business idea, called Kindred, which was a mother child wellness and fun spot. Now it s a place to get your hair blown out, and that s another entrepreneurial story. Dustan Louque s life story has the greatest opening line of any singer songwriter, ever. "I grew up in a town where there was no music." In a small town in St James Parish called Grand Point Pop 500 Dustan was the first person ever to play music. Ever. In the mid 90 s, the sounds of Alternative rock, played by the likes of Depeche Mode, filtered into Dustan s bedroom courtesy of New Orleans radio station The Zephyr, and inspired Dustan to play music. Ultimately he moved to New York, got signed by Atlantic records, then turned his back on fame and the music industry and lived anonymously in the Bywater for 7 years, before re finding himself and choosing to play music in small venues across the country. On this show Dustan plays a song inspired by the day Lou Reed died, 10 27 13 the one magical day we were all hipsters listening The Velvet Underground. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jose Fernandes grew up under a fascist regime in Portugal. Jose came to Hammond, of all places, on a tennis scholarship, almost 40 years ago. In the interim, between then and the current rise of fascism, Jose has been a stock broker and a door to door furniture salesman the latter for something like 20 years before devoting himself to photography. Now, with his wife, Jose is the owner of the 818 Gallery that features his worldwide photography, at 818 Royal Street. So, if you want to know anything about the rise of fascism and how to recognize it, you ll find a resident expert on Royal Street. Lori Carcich is the kind of person you read about in Forbes magazine or you hear about on CNBC, but you d never expect to actually meet someone like this. Lori was a perfectly normal woman, wife, and mother, living in Orange County California when she decided one fine day that she was going to create a new, better tasting whisky. The result is Country Smooth. It s a whisky that s smooth and born out of a love of country music and Americana. This brief description doesn t do the story justice you have it hear it in this conversation in Lori s own words and the upshot of the whole thing is, if it s not enough to start your own whisky brand from scratch, how about also launching your own music festival from scratch That would be the Country Smooth Fest, kicking off in New Orleans this weekend. Blake Quick was one of the founding members of Flowtribe, and was doing just fine, till the day the rest of the band kicked him out. Now he has his own band, The Quickening. Their new album, Begin Again, is available wherever you prefer to steal music, and you can hear Do Your Thing, a song off of the album, in this Happy Hour. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of the great things about New Orleans is, you never know who might be standing in line with you at the supermarket, or sitting next to you at the bar. A perfectly normal, unassuming person turns out to be, in this case, the photographer who took the iconic images of, among others, Tina Turner, Lou Reed, Dennis Hopper, and is the author of the book A Portrait of M, the pictorial authority on Madonna. The guy s name is Curtis Knapp. And there s the other quiet, unassuming guy. Who turns out to be CR Gruver, keyboardist in the band The New Orleans Suspects, and next in line in the lineage of great New Orleans piano players, from Professor Longhair through Dr John and Jon Cleary. And on top of that, CR has recently opened a NOLA franchise of the famous School of Rock the same one Jack Black made famous in the movie is a real thing and CR is the local Jack Black. Ali James took violin lessons so she could get a violin, took ballet so she could get tap shoes, and got married so she could get health insurance. She no longer has the vioin or the shoes and the husband has tirned into a "wusband" who she keeps stashed away in the shed at the back of her Mid City house. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Americana is a genre of music that didn t exist in the UK till Paul Spencer brought it back from the US. Some may argue with this proposition but it s fundamentally true. Paul s a Brit who lived in Los Angeles, worked in the music business, and traveled frequently to New Orleans where he got to know and love Jazz Fest among other indulgences . When he moved back to the UK, Paul started up the Maverick Music Festival, which is kind of like Bonnaroo meets Jazz Fest, over the 4th of July weekend each year. On his current sortie to the US, Paul has been to Meridian Mississippi and comes back with a glowing report of what s going on there that you ll want to go check out for yourself. His tales from Montgomery Alabama are a little more sobering. Arsene DeLay is a member of the Boutte family, one of the royal families of New Orleans music. Her song about a break up is delivered with either extraordinary a passion or b anger. Pick one. If you d like to get in touch with Arsene s grandmother, Mama, it s a little late, but you can try her phone number if you d like. it s 504 945 2361. Arsene is picking up Mama s life where Mama left off Arsene is a Downtown Baby Doll. Next time you see the Baby Dolls on the street, impress your friends by using the correct collective noun it s a crib of Baby Dolls. If you re not from New Orleans and you have no idea what this baby doll thing is all about, Arsene explains it all. Lana Joseph is a Westbanker. That s something else that probably makes little sense if you re not a New Orleanian. The Westbank has a special place in the hearts and minds of New Orleanians if you re from there it s an unappreciated gem, if you re not from there it s a mystery as to why people from there think it s an unappreciated gem. Nonetheless, Lana is carving out a name for herself on the East bank with her audiology practice, High Level Hearing. If you re listening to this show on earbuds, Lana has a message for you see you in the clinic to get fitted for hearing aids when you turn 60. Earbuds and headphones are Lana s greatest job security. And apparently sticking toilet paper in your ears at a gig doesn t protect your hearing, in case like 2 out of 5 people at this table you do that. Spoiler alert Andrew Duhon is one of those people who sticks toilet paper in his ears. Andrew has played Paul Spencer s UK Maverick Festival a couple of times. Today Andrwe tries out a brand new song, and, as is often the case on Happy Hour, it s staggeringly good. If you stick it out till toward the end of this 60 minute conversation you re going to learn something vitally important to the future of our nation that you may not know how to talk to someone who violently disgarees with your political philosophy. Happy Hour is probably not the first place you d think to turn to for politicial punditry or insightful life lessons, but New Orleans barroom conversation is a whole other world. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If someone hadn t hacked Cherice Harrison Nelson s phone and changed her calendar around she would have been on time and we wouldn t have gotten to meet Sar pronounced sare who happened to be hanging out and sat in for Cherice for the first 30 minutes of Happy Hour. Sar s family came over to the US from somewhere in Europe and shaved some syllables off of their last name to transform themselves from Hershkovitz to Hersh. Cherice s family were dragged here and Cherice has her great grandfather s Bill of Sale to prove it. Cherice is helping all New Orleanian African Americans remember where they came from with the building of her new museum, UNOLA. It s evolved from her previous undertaking, the Mardi Gras Indian Hall of Fame. Margie Perez s family came from Cuba. Margie fronts a Cuban band, Muevelo, an Afro Cuban band, an African band, and her own band and that s not even all she does in a week. Today she plays a song she wrote from breakup stories vounteered by friends on Facebook. The song is called He s Just Not That Into You. Billy Franklin accompanies Margie on guitar. P H Fred is a regular visitor to Happy Hour. This time we have the PHF song list the literally 1001 songs that PHF has written since January 1st. A human singer songwriter jukebox, PHF plays snippets from such classics as Plays With Others In A Well 69 , She Said She Likes the Water 980 and And Another Thing 1001 . Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The "Duhon" in Andrew Duhon is pronounced doo hon in New Orleans and just a few miles west in Erath, Acadiana, where Andrew s family is from, it s pronounced doo yong. We ll come back to this Cajun French issue in a minute, but meanwhile Mr Duhon is just back from The Holy Land with tales of the Messiah returning, though whether it s Jesus the Christian Messiah or some other Messiah predicted by the Jews, is a little indistinct. Regardless of the savior confusion, Andrew tries out a beautiful new song that he just finished writing mere minutes earlier, about fear. As promised, back to Cajun French. Charlie Wooton grew up in Lafayette and didn t realize till he moved to Los Angeles as a bass player in his 20 s that he relied on Cajun French phrases sprinkled into conversation. One of those phrases was "Gardez Donc " That didn t mean much to LA musicians but to Cajun musicians means, "Look at that." You can learn a lot from hanging out with Charlie. If you re a bass player you can learn that he s in the same league as legends like Jaco Pastorius. It s an amazing treat to watch and listen to him play you can watch video of this show here https www.facebook.com neworleanspodcasts videos 316563699114891 and a double treat to hear him play with the extraordinary Arsene DeLay Cecelia Fernandes can trace her New Orleans roots back 8 generations to both black and white folks. If you want to trace your New Orleans family, according to Cecelia there s a better method than Ancestry.com. It s a guy called Gregory and you can go to the public library and ask for him. This Gregory guy might know a bit about ancestry but the one thing he doesn t know, probably, is how to get Americans off of opioids. Cecelia has strong thoughts on that subject, that include suing drug companies, and one time Judge Graham Bosworth has a few ideas too, born of his personal exoperience with soccer moms who have ended up in jail. Graham was only a judge for a short time after he was appointed to fill a seat that he lost the race for when the real judge who was constitutionally barred from running ran anyway, and won. Then he got kicked off of the bench and that s when Graham got pressed into service. Graham is planning on running again so make sure you follow him on the Twitter account he didn t know he had bosworth4Judge Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur. Oh, and btw, you can get the Gardez Donc T shirt here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On arguably the worst day of the year the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina 4 New Orleanians pass the time not mentioning the anniversary at all. Well, barely. It s the best tonic. Chef Marlon Alexander is chef to the stars. He s been the personal chef to Christina Aguilera he helped her lose 30 pounds , Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, Rod Stewart, and the list goes on and on, including the band KISS. And, as if on cue, who should call Marlon but Paul Stanley. Paul is calling from the studio where the band is recording, and he s planning on coming to visit Marlon and eat some oysters at Marlon s new venture in The Pythian Food Hall. Donita Miller Sather has had many brushes with fame. Literally. Donita is a hairdresser on movies. She s styled everybody s hair from John Malkovich to the B 52 s and our very own Patricia Clarkson in her new movie Out of Blue. Donita recently took a break from brushing hair to learn how to make wigs, which you apparently do one hair at a time. So what s coming up in hair fashion How about a perm Cole Williams is not only a super talented singer, the self described Punk Empress of African Rock, the product of a devout Seventh Day Adventist upbringing, and spiritually intuitive, she s also the best smelling person ever to appear on Happy Hour. Cole sings a gospel song and, as a canary on the cutting edge of fashion, predicts what your head s going to be looking like a year or two from now. How about a half wig If you re looking for an uplifting antidote to the everyday world, or a way to take your mind off of crap like Katrina anniversaries or your Sewerage and Water Board bill, take a listen to this. These folks are the best of what New Orleans can be. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Are you good at solving math problems If Ashley Sutton works at the New Orleans House of Blues as the marketing maven, is the oldest of 7 kids and has 13 grandparents, who are her parents, and how did Christmas dinner turn out at her house the night she dosed one of the Grandmas with weed infused chocolate to see what effect it would have on her Parkinsons By the way, in case you were wondering, this is not hypothetical or an ACT question, and the answer is contained in this Happy Hour conversation. Joe Stark s day job is playing in Marc Broussard s band, but his heart is in his own band, Pet Fangs. Pet Fangs have released a bunch of singles but they re finally coming out with a full length record this year. The name of it will be Ultra Deluxe, which is apparently inspired by condoms, even though it s been a while since Joe wore one. Joe tells the story of how he got a vasectomy and what kind of drugs are best to do en route to the surgery. He also has some hints on darts and French chanteuse music. Lauren Checki was planning on having 5 kids, till she found out what that would entail. Her current target is zero kids, and so far she s on time and on budget. Lauren is a lawyer with her own firm that might sound like a hair salon but it s not. If you re looking for a night out in New Orleans and you feel like you ve done everything and been everywhere, Lauren has an awesome recommendation Sip n Sort. It s a real only in New Orleans experience. Earlier today Andrew Duhon was wresting with writer s block and crippling self doubt. Things were so bad he even skipped lunch. Strangely, it worked out pretty well he got a great song out of it that s almost finished. Check out this world premiere. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew Duhon is back from the road And he s back with a new song that s he s just finished writing with Anders Osborne, called One Connection. It s about what happens when you quit drinking and you have to find a way to bond with people over something other than a drink. A fitting return to Happy Hour Jonathan Pretus was last on Happy Hour when he and his brother Brian were in the same band. The Breton Sound is still Jonathan s band and Brian has gone off to do his own thing. The Breton Sound rocks like rock ought to be rocked, and Jonathan has the kind of rock voice that stars are made of. If you haven t heard The Breton Sound before, remember you heard it here first. If you ve thought about dressing as a pirate to get out of jury duty, Wendy Laker has some advice for you. Wendy is a court reporter, and the last last guy she saw in court wearing a pirate outfit was not only picked for the jury, he asked Wendy out on a date. She didn t go. But if she had she could have told the pirate how she s not only a court reporter, she s also a welder, a metal artist, and the founder of both the Palmer Park Art Market and her new venture, Art In The Bend. Shaun Walker grew up in a NOLA showbiz family. His dad is the King of Oldies, Bob Walker, and his brother is the Scott Walker who was on channel 6 not the governor of Wisconsin, even though President Trump apparently can t tell them apart. Shaun came to terms with being the Cooper Manning of the Walker family and is happy being a creative genius behind the scenes doing great work for good people. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Monica Stevens is a clinical psychologist at The New Orleans Therapeutic Day Program. Children with behavioral difficulties who are referred to Monica are expected to call her "Dr. Stevens." However, some of the kids have other names for Monica, including "White Bitch." Alex Massa is a trumpet player from the Black Hills of South Dakota, and possibly the most intellectual trumpet player you ve ever spoken to. Do you know any other trumpet players who have given a TED Talk Not only do you get to hear what Alex s TED talk is about in this conversation, you also get to hear what it s not about. Jonathan Freilich got press ganged into coming along with Alex to play a little guitar and found himself conducting a discourse on the nature of the age we re living in, which he terms The Anti Enlightenment. Brett Will Taylor changed his name and his entire life at the ripe old age of 40. He was "Type A gay" living in Boston when he started drifting into other worlds. Literally. He s ended up in a whole other world in just about every sense, from relationship to career, to New Orleans and existences on other planes. Whatever you thought this Happy Hour was going to turn out to be all about at the outset it s not that. As Dr. Stevens says to sum it all up "It could have been worse." Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You might not know it but you are Charismatic Megafauna. Apparently we all are. Jacques Hebert is one of the only things standing between you and the annihilation of pretty much all the Charismatic Megafauna around here if you don t count gators . Well, Jacques himself is not going to be our savior, but the National Audubon Society s Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition, who Jacques works for, is. They re the folks who have taken us from losing a football field of coastline every to hour to our current rate which is about a football field every 100 minutes. That s progress, but it s not going to be enough to save us unless we turn the whole thing around, which Jacques is in the process of doing. Margee Green is doing her bit to save our green space too. Margee, aka Mo Butter, is a flower farmer who grows flowers in New Orleans East as well as organizing other farmers as a part of The New Orleans Flower Collective. On top of that Margee coordinates SPROUT NOLA and is, for want of a better description, the Che Guevara of New Orleans horticulture. Margee has an extraordinary grasp of what is going on in New Orleans politics especially with reference to our farming future. Josh Benitez grew up thinking he wasn t going to grow up for too long, courtesy of life on the street in New Orleans. Then in college his professor told him he had to "choose between music and music school" so he dropped out and went to Paris, where he found himself and his future. And he discovered that future was back here in New Orleans. In a first on Happy Hour, Josh composes a song at the end of the show about the show itself. And it s a bittersweet day at Happy hour as we say farewell to our longtime photographer Alison Moon. Alison is vastly overqualified for taking photos of people drinking and is finally cashing in on her non photographic talents by pursuing post grad studies in international relations in Oxford, England. So, for one last time we get to say, photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Stephen Rea is an author. He s Irish real Irish, from Ireland, with an accent and all . But the truly exceptional thing about Stephen is he spent years on the road as Ozzy Osbourne s road manager. Stephen has many tales from the road with Ozzy, his band, and other bands, but it s hard to beat the story of the night in Japan in a fancy restaurant where they had to send the wine back. Simone Crouere is better known around New Orleans as Demo Diva. You ve no doubt seen her pink trucks and dumpsters all over town. Besides being a successful businesswoman and exceptionally fun person to hang out with, Simone is also best friends with Sheila. Sheila is apparently single and Stephen is recently un married. By the end of this round of drinks Simone has the whole wedding planned. Royal Teeth are going to be playing at the upcoming wedding of Sheila and Stephen. Nora Patterson and Gary Larsen aka Mr and Mrs Patterson Larsen are 50 of Royal Teeth and are just about the most adorable and best looking couple you ll ever meet. Between Royal Teeth s Nora and Gary with their new album Hard Luck and Stephen Rea and his old school Ozzy era savvy, we get an interesting glimpse into the music biz, hear live music from Gary and Nora, and if you re a Happy Hour listener and this works out, you re getting a wedding invitation. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Are there favorites in your family Do your parents favor one of your siblings over you Apparently if a random sample of people around a table at Happy Hour is representative it s common for your mom to tell you you re a disappointment. And your siblings aren t. Liz Wood is learning about parenting, literally overnight. One night a month ago she got a call from the foster care agency to say she and her husband had been approved as foster parents and they were getting an 11 year old next morning. That s how Liz got to be a mom. And to get a glimpse into the world of foster children. This is the very definition of eye opening. Andrew Legrand is not his mom s favorite. Even though he has a law degree and is smart enough to work out of his new house in Treme, practising law in his pyjamas. Justin Molaison is inheriting a 12 year old daughter by way of his impending marriage to Sarah, who he proposed to on the Gentilly Stage at this year s Jazz Fest. As we say on Happy Hour, "When you walk into a bar in New Orleans you never know who s going to be sitting on either side of you." This is one of the most surprisingly revealing Happy Hour conversations you ll ever stumble across. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Riot Mueller is a comedian, among other things. They include non Jewish lesbian, lapsed Catholic, ardent believer in God, member of First Grace Methodist Church, host of The Moth, and 50 of the comedy duo Pitts and Riot. You d think that would would be a fairly full description of a person. And it might be for most people. But that litany of qualities doesn t even scratch the surface of what its like to hang out with Riot for an hour. Riot was recently at work when Malia Obama dropped by. Which is a weird coincidence because Blake Stanfill s cousin took Malia to her school prom. Blake is also a lapsed Catholic as well as an ex Sunday school teacher, sometime freestyling, fifth generation New Orleanian, father of 3, and business exec at consultancy, Trepwise. Jessica Franklin was a part of Happy Hour, in spirit. She never showed up, but that didn t curtail conversation about her. This Happy Hour is yet more proof, if you needed it, that even total strangers in New Orleans are never stuck for conversation even without knowing how many Beatitudes there are, or what Jesus was doing in the desert for 40 days. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon. Oh, yes, Kavoski. Well, that s a name we don t use.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Leigh Isaacson and Alison McConnell had never met before today. Leigh is the creator of Dig, the dog people s dating app. Which is just what it sounds a dating app for dog people. Alison is a rock musician. Her music was originally born out of despair. Now she just likes to kick ass with a guitar in her hand and a band behind her. What Leigh and Alison have in common is their sordid past. They were both journalists. Leigh was a broadcast journalist on Fox 8 in New Orleans, as well as working around and the country and in Africa. Alison wrote about municipal bonds for news outlets in Washington D.C. They both got out of journalism because of the "tornado of negativity" that is today s world of journalism. It seems like it s even more negative on other side of the camera, if you can even imagine that. Now Leigh is rocking the dating world with Dig, and Alison is dating the rock world with her band, Rebel Roadside. Brian Held Jr is the only Brian Held Jr among the 2 billion people on Facebook. Brian Held Sr is probably only a short drive away up the I 10, but better not to bring that up. Brian Jr is the host The Week In Geek on radio station WRNO and you can find out all about that by checking out TWIG Radio. Brian also dresses up in costumes he makes himself and appears at festivals and in movies as characters that include Darth Vader. Andrew Duhon, criss crossing the country with the release of his new album False River and back in town for the afternoon, stops by and tries out a new song he s in the process of writing. If you re a fan, check out this very first rendition and follow the song s progress through shows and eventually onto a record. It s a fun process that Happy Hour regulars have shared with Andrew over the past, believe it or not, 7 years. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Meet Lynx Zohar. When 9 year old Lynx s mom took off to join the army, Lynx took off with her aunt s lawn furniture to go to a drive in movie and ended up 11 years later coming back to the very same moment to realize she was both her 9 year old self and her 20 year old self who by then was also making pens defy gravity and fly around the room. If that s confusing, Lynx will clarify the whole thing for you in this soaring and swooping conversation, unparalleled even for Happy Hour, and that is really saying something. Tiana Hux aka MC Sweet Tea aka Malevitus aka Mrs Dews is also a time traveler. Tiana was living in Austin when she had a vision of herself as a burlesque rapper and moved to New Orleans to make that happen. Tiana is also one of those down to earth super real people you can run into in New Orleans and know for 10 years before you discover they re a secret genius. In Tiana s case, her secret is that she released one of the best albums to ever come out of New Orleans but it got washed away by a hurricane, having been released just before the cataclysmic events of 2005. And if that s not enough, she s one of the creative forces that s a part of the movie Waking Life. One day on the beach in India, in 1971, John Flemming discovered he could make stuff out of leather. A few years later John found himself in New Orleans, making leather masks and that s what he s been doing ever since. For the last 30 years John has been working in leather, making extarordinary masks unlike anything anyone else is making anywhere in the world. Now, this is a pretty wild claim, given the city we re in and the show we ve been making for almost 8 years now, but these might really be the 3 most fascinating random New Orleanians to have ever sat down together in a bar. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Baby Doll Tee Eva and Idea Village honcho Kevin Wilkins hit it off, Marcel Mata plots the demise of Hugo Chavez and The Parishoners serenade tattooed women.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans Bad Ass Bitch Experience is actually a band. Of 16 women. The band is the brainchild of Positive Vibration s Monique Pyle who was putting the NOBABEs on stage at Bayou Boogaloo on the opening Friday. But that idea got rained out by a vicious storm, so NOBABE is back in action for a make up gig at Preservation Hall. The Music Director of NOBABE is Hannah Kreiger Benson. Among her many personas Hannah is one of the permanent staff of piano players at world famous Pat O Brien s, playing copper covered dueling pianos 3 nights a week. She s also the Program Coordinator of MACCNO, the music and culture coalition of New Orleans, and was 2015 s City Business Woman of the Year. And if you re looking, you never know which dating app you might find her on. Sophie Lafayette first heard Happy Hour when she was living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Since then she has had a love affair with New Orleans which she has recently re consummated, moving back here from a year in Scotland. if all that sounds pretty exotic, see if you can mimic Sophie s accent. Shane Mutter knows a thing or two about love affairs as well. He s managed to keep one going with the same person since the age of 15. Shane might be the most stable guy you ve ever met not only is he still married to his high school sweetheart, he works in his 80 year old family firm, Doerr Furniture. If you re looking for a gig in retail, working at Doerr sounds about as cool as it gets. One day you might find yourself on the showroom floor, the next you might be in Destin. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Paige is close to curing cancer, Nicole is a psychic who communicates with the dead, and Adrian is one of New Orleans most successful street performers who has been told by the police if he shows up again on Frenchmen Street he ll get arrested. Just another random collection of New Orleanians hanging out at Wayfare for Happy Hour. Paige Miller and her company Oleander Medical Technologies are on the brink of a breakthrough cure for late stage cancer. 50 of cancers in America are diagnosed too late to be helped by traditional chemo or radiation. Paige is not legally allowed to say the words "cancer" and "cure" in the same sentence, but make no mistake, that s what we re talking about here. And, by the way, "I m curing cancer" is not even the most interesting sentence Paige could use to describe herself. Wait till you hear how she met and married her current husband and what she can tell you about Bill Gates. For starters, he s known as "Trey" by his friends. If Paige isn t the most interesting person we ve ever had on Happy Hour she will be after she gets back from Stockholm with the Nobel Prize. How do we know Paige is going to come home with the Nobel Nicole Reilly is an "evidential psychic medium." Evidential means she can prove it s true. That s right, Nicole sees dead people and she can prove it. The reason she chats with the dead is to bring back messages to the living. Apparently when you re alive you can be a know nothing schlub, but somehow after you die you become an authority on what s best for everybody you left behind. Whether or not you like the idea that your late mother or grandmother is now a bona fide know it all, she s here to help you. What do the dead look like According to Nicole, they choose to revert to the best looking version of themselves when they were alive. Adrian Jusdanis has just parted company with the other two members of his trio, New Thousand, he s been banned from setting up and playing on Frenchmen Street, and he s sailing into uncharted waters. Nicole says his future is bright. With a new album in the works and plans to conquer the West Coast, keep an eye on Adrian, Nicole s prediction might just come true. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Darcy Malone had the good fortune to get a text from her dad, Dave, from The Radiators, at the same time as she was in the middle of a heated email exchange with a friend. The text from her dad was a guitar riff and Darcy wrote lyrics over the riff, describing her email friend messing with the truth, like she was "Whippin it like meringue." Today, Rory Callais from Darcy s band, Darcy Malone and The Tangle, plays the part of Darcy s dad and the song is the kick off to the band s latest EP, Pure as Gold. Btw, if you re looking for a role model for yourself or your daughter, Darcy is the nicest person in the world to have gotten expelled from Sacred Heart. Mavis Early also went to Sacred Heart, but not the same one. Apparently, defying even divine anatomy, there used to be two sacred hearts. The one Mavis went to was on Canal Street and boy were things different back then. Mavis describes a sort of self selected caste system where you chose, at age 13, whether you were going to be rich or poor, white collar or blue collar. Mavis chose the right track and went on to become Executive Director of the Greater New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association. Honestly, making up hotel beds has never sounded so attractive. "Mavis is persuasive" might be Darcy Malone s next song. Kevin Wilkins could have had a great career as a concert pianist if he hadn t thrown it all away on a lousy MBA from Harvard. Today Kevin is the founder and managing director of Trepwise, a company that helps other companies get successful. Occasionally he still sneaks out of his man cave to tickle the ivories. Asher Griffith joins the conversation Today Asher is just another college grad with a giant loan to pay back, tomorrow he s going to be the manager of the Hilton Hotel. If you listen till the end of this conversation you ll get to be "whippin it like Zeringue." Won t ruin it for you but it s a pretty funny moment. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Yegor Romantsov doesn t know anything about collusion with the Russians he s from Ukraine. Where they have shrimp as big as dogs. Little dogs but they re still dogs. Er, shrimp. Yegor is the front man for The Russian Mafia Band Debauche. He s also the most energetic musician ever to play on Happy Hour. Along with Debauche bass player and semi professional Bloody Mary consumer, Scott Potts. And the newest member of the band, Monique Pyle on spoons. When she s not playing spoons in a Russian Mafia band, Monique books bands for Bayou Boogaloo. If you re wondering how bands get a gig at the festival, or even if if the question has never crossed your mind, you re going to be fascinated to hear how it all works. As if playing the spoons and booking bands isn t enough for a day s activities, Monique is also the Managing Director of what is probably the coolest non profit in New Orleans, The Positive Vibrations Foundation. They re a little bit like the Jazz and Heritage Foundation without Shell Oil. They ve just launched a new app that is the brainchild of Anders Osborne, called Send Me A Friend a way for recovering musicians and entertainment industry folks on the road to stay sober. Aaron Frumin is charming and charismatic enough to head up a massive corporation. You could imagine him running something like Facebook. But what he actually founded, heads up, and runs, is the other coolest non profit in New Orleans Uncommon Construction. It s a bit hard to describe this in a sentence but fundamentally, Uncommon Construction works with high school kids to build houses. The kids get paid, get course credit, learn a skill, and out of all of that, a real house gets built and sold. It s pretty cool. And Aaron is still single if you can believe that. You can go back through the nearly 8 years of Happy Hour shows and you ll find a few that match the fun, wit, music, and energy of this 60 minutes, but this is a classic. Photos at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sara Reardon grew up like any other half Chinese half Native American in New Orleans East. Somewhere along the line Sara branched out on her own and became The Vagina Whisperer. Although the title might sound like something you get bestowed on you in the Native American tradition, it was actually created by the mom of a friend, one night in the hot tub when the girls were discussing their various vaginal issues. It s amazing how many women have problems, from prolapses to painful sex and many more, that just don t get talked about. Happy Hour is an unusual format to discuss women s problems but Sara is fearless she even describes how to take a selfie of yourself peeing if you d like to. Edward Wycliff might be the hippest guy in New Orleans and he s not even a hipster. He s a graduate from the Peace Corps where he spent time in Lesotho did you know it s pronounced "Lesutu" . Today Edward has a business where he teaches people in Lesotho to sew bowties made of their native textile called shoesoe pronounced "shwayshway" which he sells in New Orleans at the Palace Art Market on Frenchmen Street. If you are an average person who went through the education system anywhere in America, you are going to learn more about Lesotho in this 60 minutes than you learned about Africa in your entire elementary and high school education. Andrew Duhon s new record, False River, is only days away from hitting shelves and playlists. Meantime you can get three songs right now on Spotify and a special bonus track for free if you pre order the album from Apple Music. You can also hear two songs on this show. In a cunning and unique marketing ploy, neither of these songs are on the record. If you know anybody who has been thinking of visiting or moving to New Orleans and they ask you, "What s the place like " send them a link to this show. This conversation could only happen in a New Orleans bar. Photos at Wayfare by Josephine Hennessey.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nobody could accuse Andrew Duhon of being over sentimental. Andrew frequently unveils new songs he s writing on Happy Hour and they more often than not fall into categories of various shades of "dark." So when Andrew announces he s working on a love song, "and it goes likes this..."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The nucleus of Bon Bon Vivant so good they named it twice is the extended Cosio family, Glori and sister Abigail and Abigail s husband Jeremy Kelley. On paper it sounds like some kind of mafia setup, but in real life the band with addition of Ry D Antonio on drums sounds like a swirling melange of rockin Gypsy jazz, shaken not stirred into a sophisto lounge New Orleans danceable feel good fest. And if you can believe it, they started out in Simi Valley, home of the Ronald Reagan Library. Seth Smiley started out in Baton Rouge, but soon found his way to New Orleans where he married into one of the city s royal families the Wolfes. If you ve been in New Orleans for some time you ll know the Wolfes as the folks behind the landmark Wagner s Meat stores. If you arrived later, you ll be more familiar with the current Wolfe family HQ, Melba s po boy shop. Seth is an oxymoron a nice lawyer. Maybe there is something in a name. Seth s take on how he eschews trials for negotiation is refreshing and educational. New Orleans is typically at the top of the list of "worst of..." anything and the bottom of the list of "best of..." anything. But, not this list. Hopefully you re sitting down because this is going to come as a shock. Did you know that we are not at the top of the list of most alcohol consumption in the country Or even in the state They drink more than us in New Orleans, in Houma Yes, apparently Houma is the booze and drug capital of Louisiana. And we have that on good authority. Dr. Susan Julius aka Dr. J is an addictionist at Townsend, a nationwide operation that has 8 addiction clinics in Louisiana. Dr J tells us, "If you learn nothing else today, understand this," and goes on to explain that addiction to anything, from Netflix to heroin, is exactly the same. And it all has a single genetic cause that can be chemically corrected Addiction treatment is really changing, and where better to learn about it than over a cocktail at Happy Hour. Andrew Duhon makes his last appearance on Happy Hour as a guy with two recorded albums. The next time Andrew comes on Happy Hour he ll be a guy with 3 albums Andrew s new record False River comes out this week, though it s not quite as simple as it used to be before digital downloads complicated the music business. Whatever exact date you can get it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Even if you are diehard Duhon fan already this is going to blow you away. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
After last week s Happy Hour set off a great deal of discussion in the comedy community, improv comedian Casey Haeg drops by to set the record straight. It s not an easy task speaking out against people who are well known, clever, funny, and charismatic but Casey displays plenty of the same qualities along with the poise and equanimity required to get her point across. It would be nice to walk away from Happy Hour with the problems of the world solved like we normally do but it seems like this NOLA comedy world issue has a ways to go before its resolved. Bart Everson also tried to change the world. Bart believed that his naked body, if viewed by the right cohort of people at the right time, could cause a political revolution. As you are probably aware, the revolution never happened, but Bart s life doesn t seem to have gotten much quieter, and the makeup of his cohort doesn t seem to have changed all that much either. Lisa LaFleur Shillace has cohorts of her own, down at Cafe Reconcile where Lisa is the Development Manager. Andrew Duhon counts down to Jazz Fest, Breakfest, and the release of his new album, False River. Photos at Wayfare by a selection of photographers including our very own Alison Moon plus Jill LaFleur, Josephine Hennessey, Cloud Strife.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some criticisms of President Donald J Trump just sound better in Bulgarian. New Orleans Bulgarian band Blato Zlato have a blistering folk tale about little Doncho who gets to build his big dream wall, only to find he s destroyed his own view, and much more. Band members Boyanna Trayanova and Lou Carrig are as Bulgarian as they are New Orleanian. It s a heady combo and makes for great musicians, with very pointed views about the way they and their fellow musicians are treated better in Bulgaria than at home on Frenchmen Street. Katy Tinsley works the good side of Frenchmen Street. Katy is the Director of The Palace Market, the artists night market that s open 7 nights a week just off of Frenchmen Street. Katy came to New Orleans after a whirlwind romance and just celebrated her first wedding anniversary. By the next one her husband, Alex, is going to have taught her sharp from flat. Comedian Chris Trew s life is anything but funny. Running The New Movement Theater has turned out to be more complicated than it might have appeared when Chris and his wife Tami were among the pioneers of the improv comedy scene in New Orleans. Chris does his best to explain the ramifications of the accusations of sexual misconduct at the theater, but it s uncertain by the end of this conversation just when the end of the longer conversation might arrive. Chris and the theater clearly have some bridge building in front of them before things return to normal in New Orleans comedy world. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Linda Seabright and James Arey have a lot in common. Linda is a radio personality on KRCB, one of the NPR stations in San Francisco. James is a radio personality on Classical 104.9 in New Orleans, and you might have heard him in his previous incarnation as an announcer on New Orleans NPR station, WWNO. How James jumped ship and ended up back on the same ship is a pretty interesting tale. How Linda ended up teaching mindfulness while still contemplating her previous 6 boyfriends going all the way back to the guy she toured Europe with for a year on 800 is an even more interesting tale. While all that s going on, Kelcy Mae has a new band, called Ever More Nest, a new spirit guide, and a new record coming out, called The Place That You Call Home. And perhaps what might be the biggest revelation to come out of today s show you can get Quaaludes legally in South Africa. If you don t know what a Quaalude is, we ll be selling them at Happy Hour as soon as C Rock hooks us up. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Facebook isn t the only giant company in trouble. Apparently while FB is losing its grip on social media, Hallmark is losing its grip on the greeting card business. Small indie card manufacturers with non cheesy ideas and cool cards are moving in, like our own NOLA based Lionheart Prints. Liz Maute Cooke is the artist and entrepreneur behind Lionheart, and also host of the podcast Lionheart Living not the one that s making America fat again . Liz comes up with sayings on cards like "Thanks Dad for not screwing me up entirely" and "You put the hot in hot mess." And she does it all without drugs. Mostly. The conception of Sarah Isabelle Prevot was preceded some years earlier by her French father seeing a person on the street in New Orleans with a monkey. That gave rise somehow to a premonition about marrying a local woman which ended up after a number of twists and turns with Sarah being at school in Folsom when a kid pulled out a gun and ultimately to her becoming a special ed PE teacher and writing about watercolors. If that all sounds like poetry, meet Cubs. Cubs the Poet is about as close as you re going to get to hanging out with someone from the Beat generation, or perhaps in this case the Beats Generation. Cubs is the real deal intellectual poet coming at life from a dimension you didn t know was out there. He s the kind of guy who changes lives. See if you agree. Andrew Duhon turns in one of his greatest performances of his long Happy Hour tenure and all because he sang No Man s Land off of his new album False River "down a step." Andrew and Cubs collaborate on a spontaneous extemporaneous performance piece of poetry and music that will have your jaw hitting the floor. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of Happy Hour s happiest features is that it brings together random strangers with nothing in common ... who often end up having some pretty crazy things in common. Today s Venn diagram overlaps at enchanted forests, trains, and...sperm donation. Andrew Duhon is back on the pod and the amazing Andrew Ward guest hosts for Grant. Andrew Larimer has a lot going on he is the original artistic director of The NOLA Project theatre company, he owns the local web content production company FatHappy Media, and his historical play about the City Park train opens next month ... as an outdoor musical IN City Park But as became evident from about a nanosecond into the podcast the most exciting thing in Andrew s life right now is his enchanted forest engagement at last weekend s Renaissance Fair outside Austin to one time Happy Hour guest Taylor Richardson. Andrew s delightful story of the event recounts what must be one of the loveliest, nerdiest proposals ever, complete with a jousting injury fortunately not his and a surprise scroll. If Abby Isaacson had to label herself she would say she s a dilettante she s a standup comedian, a criminal defense paralegal, a single mom of 4 kids, and as she discovered last year...a Viking. You d think Abby might have felt out of place growing up Jewish in Dutch Amish country, but the feeling was compounded by her "Aryan nation" physical features tall and blond, she suspected at least a recessive gene. When she eventually learned her parents had availed themselves of a sperm donor, Abby joined 23 and Me and when she signed up for the Viking push notifications, she discovered her sperm donor dad was Sven IV making for a far better back story than if bio dad had been the Harvard med student her parents had been promised. Frequent guest Andrew Ward sits in the host chair today and has his own sperm donor story his report that he got 150 a pop in the mid 2000s gave Andrew Latimer an idea after all, someone s gotta pay for this wedding. At the center of the concentric circles is Andrew Duhon, who on April 29 is hosting A Needle Falls in the Forest, a vinyl listening event somewhere in City Park for his new album False River. He plays a song from the album, as well as a song he cowr0te with a colleague ... about a train. With forests and trains covered, tune in to hear Andrew s comparison of solo songwriting to masturbation providing the sperm donor component and there you are it s Happy Hour
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Morgan Molthrop is writing a book called 300 Reasons to Love New Orleans. He has to hand the manuscript in tomorrow. As Happy Hour kicks off he s gotten the list up to 290. He needs another 10 reasons to love New Orleans in the next 60 minutes. It would be good if we could avoid associating all the reasons to love New Orleans with alcohol, especially given Morgan s other venture, Soberleans a guide to the city for recovering alcoholics and addicts. The non imbibing New Orleanian might be a rare beast but Morgan s cornered the market on the concept in the rest of the country as well. It s a wonder Erin Casey Hangartner s career hasn t driven her to drink. Or worse. Erin is an attorney whose early career had her working in the DA s office where she prosecuted children. Yes, children These days she has her own law firm , and her parallel career as a die hard rabid Saints fan. Today marks the day she s changing her whole life and career. Look out for her at the Grammy s. Carrying on the tradition of giving a forum to the greatest musicians in New Orleans, check out Samantha Pearl. Samantha plays on the streets in the French Quarter and has played on the streets all across the country. If you think that street musicians are a lesser breed than those you see in bars and clubs, Samantha will upend your expectations. She s one of the one most talented musicians you ll hear anywhere in New Orleans and that s saying something. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you re a white person in the U.S. you might tend to think of other races as being, of themselves, monolithic. However, if you re a member of a race with non white skin hues you are more attuned to the finer shades of skin color that make you lighter or darker than other people of your same race. Your perception of yourself and where you fit on that spectrum can determine how you feel about yourself, and how "threatening" you may appear to white Americans. This, believe it or not, is the subject of a beautiful song by Mykia Jovan, called 16 Shots, off of Mykia s album, Elliyahu. If you ve never heard Mykia s music you re in for a treat. You can hear a song on this show, but if you want you can bug out of here now and go find Mykia on Spotify. We guarantee you ll fall in love with her and want to come back to know more about her. And you sure are going to learn some interesting stuff about Mykia on this Happy Hour Dr. Charles Corprew has made a name for himself by being a social justice revolutionary. Dr Corprew s part in the revolution is to ask "What s Your Revolution " By ascribing each of us a personal role and responsibility in revolutionizing our lives, we ll create a society that s better for all of us. Although Happy Hour specializes in doing nothing but talking, this conversation, for a change, is actually talking about something real. It s called "Social Justice." Toni Arnona spends her days fighting for personal justice too. Toni s fighting as a lawyer. Sometimes in criminal cases and sometimes personal injury. We ve talked to quite a few lawyers on Happy Hour over the years, and, without casting any aspersions at all on past guests or comparing Toni to any of them, it is rare and refreshing to meet someone who is so genuinely decent. Not only is this edition of Happy Hour real New Orleans, it s about as real as it gets. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this Happy Hour, Julia Elizabeth Evans learns that you can be an artist, a philosopher, a daughter, a sister, a business person with your own production company, and a film maker on the way to world renown, and yet all a bunch of guys around a table want to know is what it s like being in an open relationship. Turns out it s pretty interesting. For everyone. Chris Succi is looking for a whole other life. And, as a result of his conversation here on Happy Hour with Julia, it looks like he s found it. Chris wants to leave his ultra successful life in IT behind and throw himself on the mercy of the arts. So, as of now, he s apparently making a documentary with Julia about Tipitina s. You never know, it might just happen actually. Legendary New Orleans blues and roots rock musician Marc Stone has spent many nights playing at Tipitina s. Today he describes what it s like sitting around a table playing to three people daunting while he eloquently describes the way many people feel about living in the US right now in his new song about "this sucka" being "ready to blow, I don t know where to go." When you look back at any part of your life, you can pinpoint moments that led to monumental change which, at the time, you had no idea were going to be significant. This hour might just be one of those pivotal moments for one or two of the folks around this table. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A "residual limb" is the bit of your own leg or arm that s still attached to your body after the rest of it s been amputated. Kevin Gardere lost most of his left leg as the eventual result of a drunken car wreck that propelled his car into somebody else s house at 1am and propelled him into a life of saving other people from the results of chronic addiction. Kevin is the Executive Director of Development at Bridge House Grace House and, besides having a fascinating 40,000 leg, knows a thing or two about the opioid addiction that is sweeping the city, state, and nation. Andrew Principe knows a bit about medically driven disasters as well. Andrew spends his days making sure that people who can t afford medical attention get it anyway. Andrew s company, Starling Advisors, are kind of like good guy medical lobbyists. Oh, and by the way, this is the year he s getting over his divorce and getting serious about a relationship again, so if you re in the market... Jason Bishop, on paper, is the guy at this table who should have a drug and alcohol problem. Jason spends his life in bars and clubs in the South paying mostly traditional High Lonesome country music with his band The Two Dollar Pistols though there s a good chance they re going to call themselves The Residual Limbs after this conversation. Actually, Jason is as clean as a whistle, doesn t drink or do drugs and never had to go to rehab cause he never started. This Happy Hour is a conversation that not only defies expectations, it s a candid insight into addiction and medical attention that you ve probably never heard over cocktails. Photos at Wayfare by Cheryl DalPozzal.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Not far into this conversation Sophie Lucido Johnson fears she may already have said too much about her polyamorous relationship with Ned, Luke, and Brian. Trying to head off a possible disaster Sophie texts Luke. That doesn t go well. Then Ned calls in. Among other revelations in this show are Sophie s unique take on breast size, the difference between kissing a man s lips and a woman s lips, what it s like for women to feel a woman s breasts pressing into them when they kiss each other, "waggling penises," missing teeth, and the correct interpretation of Emoji symbols, specifically the rabbit with blood pouring out of its nose. You know that one, right Like Sophie, Kate Mason is a comedian. Kate and Sophie are both part of this year s comedy festival, The Hell Yes Fest, that takes place up and down St Claude Avenue and in various other locations scattered around the city. Lynn Drury takes 60 minutes off of her hectic live schedule to stop by Happy Hour and play live. We catch up with Lynn s last boyfriend the one who bored her to tears reading her his PhD thesis and we get the inside scoop on what it s like to play 3 nights a week to drunk Swedes and Australians on Bourbon Street. Andrew Duhon tries out a new song and Sophie can t decide who to make out with first, Andrew or Lynn. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. For more photos go to Happy Hour Images.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For under 400 Samantha Bearden can show you how to be the person you ve always dreamed of being. A Mississippi born Star Shaman, Samantha will, somehow, restructure your DNA, both in your body and in the ether, and you ll end up being the best version of yourself possible. The total all in cost is 367. Who wouldn t try that, right P H Fred has a number of lives to try out being the best version of his multilple selves. One of the reasons for his multiple parallel existences is that Mr Fred doesn t sleep. Because of the 8 hours a day that frees up, plus being a genius and having the brain of three people at least Fred can manage to write 1,000 songs this year, antagonize every club owner and festival organizer in New Orleans, have a simultaneous roaring international music career while at the same time being an educator extraordinaire. Vince Ebeier was the front man for one of New Orleans most impressive early 21st century rock bands, The Scorceses, before their own success tore the band apart. Now Vince is back with his new outfit, Spylights. Vince and Spylights guitar player Roman Duffard unveil their new material with a song that s a searing skewering of Facebook. The new record Empath, is out soon. You ll be able to get it here. Andrew Duhon is back from touring his new music around the South. Andrew has a brand new song, and a brand new album, False River, due out in just a few weeks. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Back in the day when legendary Bob Walker was a star DJ on AM radio in New Orleans on WTIX he was one of the guys who d get a bunch of cocaine and cash to play records by goody two shoes like The Osmonds. Then there was the day when the Motown guy came to town and opened his briefcase to reveal the records he wanted played, a stack of cash and a .45. Bob had to defer that particular decision up the chain to the radio station program director, but he s got a string of other stories from the golden days of radio corruption. No record company guy would need to bribe their way to getting local band Burris on the air. If you don t know who they are, indulge us by letting us fall back on this old radio cliche, "Remember, you heard them here first." Chris Hochkeppel, Bob Kling and the rest of the 7 piece band relocated to New Orleans from exotic Baton Rouge 12 months ago and if you haven t caught them yet, make a point of listening to them play live here or go steal some of their music off Spotify. You will assuredly not be disappointed. Do you recognize April Dupre You might have seen her on social media as the front person for her wellness company Footprints to Fitness, or you might recognize her from WWL TV where she reports on traffic. Soon you might recognize her as the author of the best selling diet book of all time. April actually has a wellness plan that keeps the weight off while you eat crawfish etouffe, beignets, and drink cocktails. Again with the cliche, "Remember you heard it here first." Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On a literally freezing New Orleans afternoon, looking fabulous despite braving icy steets and sidewalks, two dapper dudes and a fashion forward yogi warm up Happy Hour with talk of hot Buti yoga, hot jazz and soul, and hot off the presses. Four years ago Joseph Makkos responded to a Craig s List ad ... and ended up with 30,000 transparent plastic tubes, each containing a single edition of a New Orleans newspaper printed between 1888 and 1929. Joseph now manages that archive and hopes to partner with the first virtual carnival krewe to turn old newspapers into new media. He and C Rock team up to tell the story of the infamous "crazed New Orleans axe man" not the two year terrorization of New Orleans by a serial axe murderer, but the more interesting story of perhaps an early instance of fake news tune in He also reads a timely and absolutely poetic newspaper account of an 1885 New Orleans snow. Baye Tilson is a yoga instructor who likes "all the yogas" especially Buti and practices club level yoga at some of the hottest nightclubs in town. Baye says she doesn t not discriminate if someone wants to have a drink before or during yoga she s happy to open up the balcony. Her pomeranian hat inspired a Facebook request for details, but Baye couldn t buy it again if she tried her fashion sense leads her finds that can t be duplicated. Speaking of one of a kind, Andre Lovett is a singer songwriter whose influences range from 50s and 60s soul crooners to 90s RnB artists to Al Green and ... John Meyer who C Rock admits he thinks is a chump ... no disrespect, the Grateful Dead suck too . Andre sings a song he wrote in 2014 in Seattle just after an inspirational breakup, and a song he wrote after moving here in 2015. An exceptional singer songwriter and a beautiful dresser. April and C Rock guest host for Grant on C Rock s birthday and a week after April s happy birthday guys .
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You just know that the MeToo movement is going to be a feature at Mardi Gras this year. What you don t know, yet, is quite how sexual harassment is going translate into New Orleans style humor. So here s a bit of an early sneak peek at what you can expect. You d expect that the founder of the largest women s marching organization in the world who gave her club the name of "Bearded Oysters" would probably have a few unbridled and surprising points of view. Katrina Brees turns the tables on men and gets the upper hand by means of her own harassment, and the liberal advocacy for the recreational use of amyl nitrate, aka rush or in Katrina s shadow world online, VHS cleaner. Camp Morrison remembers using rush back in the day when he started his private detective agency the first time around. The second time was the charm and Camp has been in the private detective business in New Orleans since 1988. If you re looking to hire a private detective to snoop on people you ll have to use your own sleuthing skills to find Camp. His view of marketing is singularly unique, amounting to the belief that no good whatsoever can come from any public pronouncement. Lynn Drury makes a return appearance on Happy Hour with a brand new record, new songs and a new attitude about sex which begins with turning her phone off at midnight and not turning it back on again till 10AM when the male libido has supposedly quietened down. Lynn s take on the MeToo movement hasn t made the mainstream media. Because she s a Southern woman Lynn has reportedly had plenty of experience at getting harassed and is inclined to suck it up, or as Katrina re phrases it, lick it up. If you re looking to take the temperature of the average drinking New Orleanian at this beginning of the second year of the Trump era, this Happy Hour conversation is a good place to start. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In our 2nd annual Krishna Christmas the Das Brothers, Gadadhar Pandit and Srivash, from the local Hare Krishna Temple play live, James Moises brings his own wine, Raine Bedsole gets yogic and Bill from Slice explains how pizza saved his marriage.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Molly Richard pronounced the Cajun way, Re shard first got the moniker Budget Bitch when she was working with homeless folks in Lafayette. Yes, even in a small town filled with decent people there are apparently homeless people, but if you re homeless and lucky enough to run into Budget Bitch she ll slap you into shape and into a home. Budgets and math might not be Helen Gillet s strong point 3x6 Guy Madden but she is able to explain the physics of Indian musical scales. Oh, and incidentally, play them. On a cello no less. There are no words in the English or Hindi languages than can describe exactly what Helen Gillet does with a cello. If you don t know Helen s music, listen to this podcast for the sole reason of hearing it. If you re already a fan you have to hear this Indian raga. Derwyn Bunton met his wife playing soccer on a co ed team. Today they re married and Derwyn doesn t head balls any more but he does head up the Orleans Public Defender s Office. There are 60 lawyers in this office, all defending people who have allegedly committed crimes but can t afford to defend themselves in court. Just like you never know when hardship might strike and you could find yourself homeless, you never when misfortune might strike and you find yourself needing legal representation. You might be interested to know that Louisiana is the ONLY state in the nation that doesn t allot money for this purpose. Instead, Derwyn has to go on Twitter, and wear cargo shorts. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Remy Robert rhymes with Amy Snowbear is, among other things, a professional matchmaker at a new startup called Tawkify where you can get hooked up with another human by another human, not an app. There are a lot of layers and nuances to this as you will hear in this conversation but Remy distills the the sum of her knowledge of relationships into this simple admonition Don t be a dick. Apparently just being yourself is enough to win over the right person, if you can find him or her. When she s not hooking people up, Remy s life consists of hanging out with famous chefs like Alon Shaya, translating their prodigious skills into simple enough language to become recipes in a cookbook. Her next cookbook is a Mad Libs inspired culinary adventure. And after that she just might be concocting a book with Chef Kenneth Temple. Chef Kenneth Temple is the recent winner of the prestigious TV cooking show, Chopped. He s been a personal chef to Lil Wayne and other celebrities Lil Wayne likes chicken wings and he s just published a cookbook with 75 of his favorite signature recipes, called Southern Creole. If you re a betting person you could pretty safely bet on Chef Kenneth becoming a big deal celebrity chef and media star. But don t expect him to follow any well worn path. His current cooking show is on Facebook and it s a vast departure for anything you ve seen before. NOLA FAM are charting their own path through the world of Hip Hop. Happy Hour favorites, Moni explains how he has undergone a persona change, inspired by the 1986 Saab Turbo S. He s not kidding. Like the Saab, Moni is nearly invisible, but reliable and fast, and that s how he s come to be called 900. The other half of NOLA FAM used to be known as Q Hefner but is now known as Q The Don. The genesis of these identity change is the imperative of rhyme and while you re betting on Chef Kenneth put a side bet on NOLA FAM. As 900 says, "Things are bubbling." Take a listen to their music on this show, these guys are definitely onto something. Photos at Wayfare by Hope Byrd.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Morgan Ford got married last week and postponed her honeymoon so she could go on Happy Hour. Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. But Morgan did actually get married last week and she really is on this Happy Hour. Morgan probably knows more about what s going on in New Orleans than anyone in the city she s the community manager for Yelp Devin DeWulf arrived in New Orleans a decade ago and did what most people do when they get here painted his car and turned it into a work of rolling art, started a Mardi Gras krewe Red Beans, which has now spun into a sister krewe called Dead Beans met and married a Belgian woman, had two kids, wrote them both theme songs, and started teaching middle school history. In his spare time Devin also paints. He sells his artwork, often donating the proceeds to education causes. Dayna Kurtz is one of America s musical treasures, a song writer s song writer. Song writers like Nora Jones and Bonnie Raitt sing her praises. Dayna sings the praises of the city she calls home now, New Orleans, and on this Happy Hour she sings a song about a guy named Fernando who she fell in love with in a dream. Fernando who apparently doesn t exist was in Venezuela which does but his legacy lives on in this awesome song. If you ve never heard Dayna before, listen to this, you ll see what all the fuss is about, and if you are already a DK fan, this is a great version of this song complete with a finger injury . April Love Stolf sits in for Grant Morris. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Justin McKee doesn t let his career as a Michael Kors model get in the way of his literary pursuits. Actually, Justin wasn t a Michael Kors model for as long as he was a music conservatory student specializing in jazz vocals. These days Justin is a literary editor and publisher of a magazine called The Raffish. If you re thinking it s a little unfair that one guy could have so many talents, wait till you see how good looking he is.
Alicia Reynaud knows a thing or two about making guys look good. Including every single one of the guys on The Saints football team. Alicia organized for them all to get pedicures. The whole team. And get this the pedicures were a gift from Coach Sean Payton as thanks for the team winning four games in a row. The reason Alicia is the lucky provider of Saints footcare is she is the creator of a beauty care and spa services app called Spafoo.
Andrew Duhon could have used Spafoo earlier today when he got his hair cut at Parker Barber. It s the same barber shop Andrew is launching Friendsgiving, the night before Thanksgiving where you can enjoy Burmese food and know your dollars are going to a good cause busing Thai kids to school. Or something. Anyway, there s going top be plenty of food and booze and great music.
Janie Lynne Vessels started putting a band together when she was in elementary school. Her original band names were The Salteens, Da Babies, and Starfling. Things have moved along a little since then and now Jamie has a new record that s almost out. It's going to be Called Storm Comin after one of her most popular recent songs. Jamie brings the house down at Wayfare playing the song live.
Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It was a day just like any other. Rev Dr Ray Cannata was walking down Freret Street in Uptown New Orleans, on his way home from his favorite new lunch spot 4 hours later when he happened to glance into Wayfare at the very moment Happy Hour host Grant Morris was glancing out from behind his mic, about to begin the show. Next thing you know, Ray has a martini and he s explaining why we re all going to Heaven even if we don t do any good deeds. If you ve ever thought about converting to Christianity or reaffirming your faith, look no further, Ray is the guy to talk to. Kay Morrrison, perhaps better known to New Orleanians as The Occasional Wife, started out as a good little Southern Baptist girl in Algiers. Kay was a member of a gang of like minded Southern Baptists known as Girls In Action. Today Kay is avowedly one of the happiest people you ll ever meet. Her joie de vivre is contagious. Even Andrew Duhon feels upbeat and gung ho about life by the end of this conversation. Andrew has finished his new album, which looks like it s going to called False River, and is considering taking some business advice, branching out and writing songs for other artists. Andrew tries out one of his new songs today, and plays one off of False River. The Kay and Ray show, one of the happiest Happy Hours in our 7 year history, is brought to you by dirty martinis at Wayfare. Photos by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Geretta Geretta spent years in Italy where she became the darling of Italian horror cinema. That was before she moved to Costa Rica and opened a chain of laundromats Wash a Go Go and way before she moved to New Orleans with nothing but a small dog and an expensive Louis Vuitton suitcase. She eventually had to sell the suitcase to make ends meet. Now a worlwide cult superstar of horror, Geretta has her own bobblehead doll, and a screenwriting scholarship called The Write Room. And as for her time in Italy, Happy Hour is reminiscent "It s like this but with pasta." Jason DeRouen is better known, literally to millions, as The Cajun Ninja. What started out as a goof making a pot of gumbo on Snapchat has turned Jason into a legit internet sensation. He s the Emeril of the internet generation. A genuine down home Cajun larger than life Louisiana boy who can cook. And make you laugh. After all, what else is there Geretta suggests his good looks don t hurt. Michael Pagones and Dylan James are a couple of Slidell boys who have hung in with their buddies from Slidell High for 6 years as a band called The Painted Hands. If you ve heard the band before, you ll know how good their singular brand of danceable rock is. If you ve haven t heard them you re in for a very pleasant surprise. Check out the new album, A BubbleGum Western, and get a free sample of it on this show. Andrew Duhon rounds out the hour with a tribute to the late great Fats Domino in the form of a song called "Waiting In The Wings." Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Musician and producer Nesby Phips may be best known worldwide for his work with Lil Wayne and other hip hop artists, but here in New Orleans his equally impressive claim to fame is that Mahlia Jackson was his great aunt. Nesby is one of the owners and gatekeepers of Ms Jackson s copyrighted material and is working on cementing her legacy in various ways. Nesby is also the force behind the musical project Black Man 4 Sale and the voice of the podcasts "Am I Tripping " and "Call Me Old Fashioned." If you live in New Orleans there s a good chance you ve spent time with Joe Bikulege even if you didn t know it. For the last 14 years Joe has been the owner of Le Bon Temps Roule on Magazine Street. Joe is also a big supporter of Cops 2, the citizens support group for the NOPD 2nd District. If you re checking this out before Saturday October 21st, go support Cops 2 at the first ever Cochon de Lait Festival at Palmer Park. Marci Schramm knows a thing or two about festivals. For ten years she was the Executive Director of the French Quarter Festival and presided over its journey from local party to major festival with a bigger economic impact on New Orleans than Jazz Fest. Yes, really. Today Marci helps her husband run publishing company River Road Press and is Director of Development for the New Orleans Ballet Association. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew Ward has more weird experiences than 20 Happy Hour guests combined. Without even mentioning the royal Indian heritage of his transgender chickens, how he gets to be involved in Louisiana s record setting race to be number one in the country for Gonorrhea, or the fact that Yulman Lapalanian is his step dad, Andrew s regular night in a bar on Frenchmen Street is not like yours. On Andrew s average night the bartender drops his pants to illustrate a point by displaying his genitals which turn out to have Batman tattooed on one testicle, Superman on the other, and what is going on in between you ll have to figure out for yourself. Christine Clouatre was a bartender on Al Copeland s yacht and is here to say Al never hit on her once. Maybe it was because she told him that she spent her off hours in the jerk off room at the adult sex store on Airline Highway. That was all a long time ago. Today she s an upright citizen who spends her off hours beading like a Mardi Gras Indian with her beading krewe, the Dames de Perlage. Julie Lodato is a fellow Dame and a beading Saints fan, as you can see from her intricate bead work scene of the classic Gleason punt. By day, Julie creates artwork that sells Blue Runner Beans, Crystal Hot Sauce, and other Louisiana goodies. Andrew Duhon returns from a musical run up and down the great American highway to play a beautiful new song inspired by the stoic travails of his mom who has "the good kind of cancer." This is the kind of song that restores your faith in the over used term, "singer songwriter." Oh, just in case you were wondering if there s anything you might not have heard in a barroom conversation before, Andrew Ward relates what he s been up to lately convincing Ugandan men to have a circumcision while they re hanging out at a music festival in Uganda. For real. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Darling Darla James none of them are her real name occupies what she describes as the bottom rung of the sex industry, or the whorachy. The whorachy starts at burlesque, graduates to club stripping, then porn, then prostitution. Darling Darla is a burlesque dancer. She also calls herself a stripper light. Among the many things you ll learn from this conversation is how to make your breasts rotate in opposite directions. We ll bet dollars to donuts that if you re a women you ll put this on pause and try this technique in the mirror as soon as you hear it. Ross Karpelman is particularly interested in one of Darla s specialty acts the one where she sets her outfit on fire and we watch her reveal her naked body as her clothes burn off of her. Ross s interest in this pyro stripping is purely professional. Ross is one of the founders of, and the driving force behind, the Halloween spectacular haunted house, The House of Shock. A Halloween annual visitor to Happy Hour, Ross plays the part of Satan aka Belial, though this year he ll be doing it with a body full of intravenously delivered antibiotics that are fighting off a kidney infection. Singer songwriters Kathryn Rose Wood and Mikayla Braun are friends who serendipitously and totally by coincidence finished their respective new recording albums at the same time. They re having a joint record release party and doing joint appearances all over town, though it s doubtful either of them are talking about their skin cancer and possible relationship to coffee makers and Hitler too many other places. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans band Ginger and The Bee is principally a duo of Sherri Montz aka "B" which stands for Beatrix Skiddo, her Big Easy Roller Derby name and Scott Frilo who has red hair, like Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, which back in the day by the way, before the Trump tax plan, was worth something. Sherwood Collins was brought up as a Christian Scientist and has turned the CS principle of spreading love into a full time calling with a New Orleans twist. With the help of his superstar wife, Amy, Sherwood raises money for autistic and developmentally challenged kids by throwing a giant annual party called Beignet Fest. If you happen to be checking this out before October 7th 2017 make sure you check it out it s free and there s every kind of beignet under the thankfully not so hot sun. If you re a regular listener to this podcast you ll know that our Happy Hour photographer is Alison Moon. Today Alison steps out from behind the camera and joins the conversation to try out marketing her line of workout clothes, LouisianaLegs. They re custom made yoga and workout clothes that feature designs that begin life as Alison s photographs. They re very cool and Alison does a great job her first time out as a self promoter. In this Happy Hour conversation we learn a lot about marriage, friendship, religion, neatness, daiquiris, the other worldly meaning of freckles, and the truth about who killed Jesus. April Stolf and Alison Moon both contributed photos see if you cam tell who took what at Wayfare.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What do marketing managers, law professors, singer songwriters and podcast hosts have in common They could all use a good improv class. Dane Ciolino is a Tulane law professor and legal analyst who sends his trial advocacy classes to The Moth story telling event. Taylor Richardson is marketing manager and SEO guru at Turbo Squid. She also attends Renaissance Faires in 25 pounds of chain mail, and shoots a Mongolian horse bow Don t miss April s impressive research into all things archery . Taylor has participated in Hell Yes Fest, but don t call her a standup comic she will set you straight. Alex Mallet takes a break from his Frenchmen Street hustle to play a new original song, and promises a new album ... possibly named for his address. Andrew Duhon is back on the pod and borrows Alex s guitar to play one of his classics. It s a lingo filled Happy Hour you will never hear a more interesting convesation about archery and Ren Faires with guest host April Stolf
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Manny Chevrolet Bruno describes himself as "The next Mayor of New Orleans." A perennial mayoral candidate with the slogan "A troubled man for troubled times" Manny is stepping it up this election cycle with his new slogan "Trouble Never Ends." It s unlikely you ve ever heard a candidate for office espouse quite this strange of a collection of thoughts. Along with the usual promises to legalize marijuana and dismantle the Sewerage and Water Board, Manny is disturbed by the existence of domesticated pets and doesn t believe questionable drinking water is much of a problem. And that s just the tip of the iceberg. As a retired body builder, professional fitness trainer, and owner of two elite gyms in New Orleans, Sacha Owens could kick Manny s ass. It s a miracle she doesn t. People don t ever come to blows on Happy Hour but this might be as close as we ve gotten. for the past 3.5 years George Elizondo has resisted the temptation to install Tinder on his phone. He s working on his music. And the concentration is paying off. George s band Nebula Rosa is about to release their new record. If you have an idea for an album title that s not "Welcome To My World" let George know. You might be able to find him at The Bulldog on Magazine Street. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you re a guy you have to assume a woman wants to have sex with you for the same reason you want to have sex with her. Namely, that there s some kind of attraction. According to Chef Toya Boudy, that s not what women think at all. Not just some women but all women, according to Toya, are looking for something else beyond the satisfaction of sexual desire. Though it might not be a wholly original theory to believe women want more out of a sexual encounter than men, it s interesting to find out exactly what men might think that is. Ian Neville is the guitar player in New Orleans premiere funk band, Dumpstaphunk. Growing up as a member of the royal family of New Orleans music has come with its challenges, but Ian has been equal to them and manages to walk the line between being a regular New Orleanian and avoiding his nightmare scenario of extreme fame coupled with extreme poverty. Mark Bologna grew up as a die hard New Orleanian too. His parents, who were "Kids when they married and kids when they had me," owned the renowned Teddy s Grill in Gentilly and Mark grew up cooking without knowing that s what he was doing. After 15 years away working for the V.A. Mark has returned to New Orleans where, among other things, he hosts the popular local podcast Beyond Bourbon Street. You never know when you sit down with total strangers in a bar what it is you re going to find that you have in common. You might not be surprised to discover, in this case, there are gumbo stories to swap, and you might not even be surprised to hear about various opinions about sex, but you might be a little more surprised by the discussion about psychedelic drugs. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Imagine being trapped with one other person in a magic room where you can get anything you want, except freedom. The only way to get free is to fall in love with the other person. And have them fall in love with you. And then you have to leave alone. And imagine you re a woman trapped in the room with another woman. You begin to see the dilemma you might find yourself in, right That s the plot of Bird, the new movie by Renso Amariz. Renso has, as Grant says, "come a long way from a military photographer who shaved his legs and rode bikes." Renso is, by his own description, perpetually heartbroken. You d never guess it from this conversation. Barbara Blank is probably the only resident of the West Bank who is a retired professional bikini body builder. When she was on the professional body building circuit she competed in the Superbowl of bodybuilding, in the bikini section. Maybe you weren t aware that "bikini" is a division of bodybuilding. There may be other pertinent facts about bodybuilding you don t know either like how much a year you can expect to spend on waxing, and what that exactly feels like. Barbara has moved on from building her own body and now helps other people build theirs with her 7 year old company Clean Creations. It s kind of like Blue Apron except for about the same money your meal arrives prepared and ready to eat. It s healthy room service, at home. You wouldn t guess it from looking at her or listening to her sing, but Gabrielle Evelina has just graduated from high school. Not only does Gabrielle have an extraordinary voice, she has an equally extraordinary story that s just waiting for a publicist to spin into a superstar saga. Check this out Gabrielle was deaf until the age of 6 when she had tubes put in her ears and could hear for the first time. Can t you just hear that story on every late night talk show and NPR interview You probably won t have to wait too long till you do. If you have no other interest in listening to this show, listen to Gabrielle sing. You will not be sorry you did. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Anne Ohri s plan for the ultimate demise of her family is, as each member dies, for them individually to be wired into a chair at a dining table set up in a mausoleum on their family farm in Plaqueimine s Parish and be slowly reclaimed by the ocean as erosion destroys Louisiana. Strangely, that s kind of the plan for her 10m experimental school called New Harmony High. New Harmony is one of only ten projects in America that is re imagining high school education that will prepare kids for jobs that are yet to be invented. It s wildly futuristic and exciting. So is selling pot in Colorado, which is what her youngest of four kids does and which is, unknown to him, giving him lungs that will assure him of a choice seat at the table of the dead. By the way, Anne already has the table. Dr. Les White has a buddy who knows a lot about human lungs he s a cardio thoracic surgeon and he told Les that "The ugliest human lungs he sees are the ones belonging to people who smoke pot." That might not sound too poetic but there s a good chance that Les could make it sound that way if he had a mind to. Les has 35 years of experience as a professor of English lit, specializing in poetry. He can even rhapsodize about the four dogs that live at his bedside, in urns. Erica Falls decided a year ago that she wants to end up in an urn too. Not necessarily one at Les s bedside. But she still hasn t given up on growing old with the love of her life, if he would just show up and do what he promised he could deliver. Until then, Erica s getting good mileage out of the optimism of falling in love on her new record Home Grown. Erica sings a beautiful song off of the record, called The Makings of Love. Erica is accompanied by one of the city s greatest guitar players, the fabulous June Yamagishi, who has not yet made a decision about cremation versus burial and isn t inclined to make it today. He does, however, play guitar throughout the entire show. If you don t feel compelled for any other reason to check this conversation out, ignore the witty banter about eternity and the Oversoul, and listen to June play it s beautiful. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You may have met a librocubicularist and not known it. You may stood next to one at Barnes and Noble. You might even be one. According to singer songwriter Alexandra Scott, a librocubicularist is a person who enjoys reading in bed. According to our crack Happy Hour research staff Grayson Jernigan the word is not in Websters dictionary, but then Webster can t be expected to know everything. Alexandra, on the other hand knows a lot of stuff, including inside tales of her hometown Charlottesville and the actions of the neo Nazis who, for all the wrong reasons, have put the place on the map. Godwin s Law of internet etiquette allegedly postulates that discussion of Nazis ends all discussion. But this crowd managed to push on through and cover a great deal of post Nazi ground from Fiji inspired skincare to Polaroid photography, and much more. Linsey Lamba created her Fijian inspired skincare line, Ariya Apothecary, when she was working for Microsoft in Seattle and living in New Orleans. A life of bouncing back and forward stressed her out and gave her acne which she cured herself with potions she whipped up based on her mom s Fijian folk remedies. Today Linsey lives full time in New Orleans, has a skincare line, and doesn t need to mess with Microsoft. Ginette Bone is 6 feet tall but her accent is probably the first thing you notice about her. Living in New Orleans for 37 years hasn t dimmed her British diction one bit. Ginette and her husband, artist Blake Boyd, own the Boyd Satellite Gallery on Julia Street and are in the throes of assembling their joint decades long project, Louisiana Cereal. It s a collection of over 500 Polaroid photographs of Louisiana luminaries that is going to be a limited edition book and an exhibit. You can be a part of it thanks to Kickstarter. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The problem with being sober is waking up in the morning and knowing it s not going to get any better all day. When you drink, you might have plenty to regret but you can have a lot of fun getting there. That s the philosophy behind being what pirate, leather maker, and tour guide Jennifer Raven calls Soberphobic. If Jennifer is scared of what she ll find out about herself sober, that s about all she is scared of. She s stared down the barrel of a loaded gun aimed at her husband and the woman she caught him in bed with, asking herself, "Do I really want to go to prison for these two " She made the right decision and got the ultimate revenge she s watched her ex husband go bald and end up with a woman with a harelip who has been banned from every bar on the North Shore. You can t make this stuff up. Johnny Dilks went all the way and got himself sober. On the upside, he s no longer naked in bars fighting other drunk guys. On the downside he s gotten so happy he s been able to fall in love and get married and now as a result his songwriting which comes from a place of tormented darkness is suffering. So Johnny says. But the evidence points in the other direction. Take a listen to his song about dying from cancer and see if, even in your darkest imaginings, you could think and feel even half as darkly as Johnny Dilks at his so far lifetime happiest. Even Andrew Duhon, who regularly regales us with tales of heartbreak and souls lost, feels upbeat singing a song about the lighter side of having a baby you know is going to be mentally compromised and watching it develop into a special needs person. By the way, this is not some rambling fantasy of a fictional conversation this is what actually is taking place in this happy hour. Stu Schayot is considering legally changing his name to the name everybody calls him, "Stu from the Howlin Wolf." Stu has spent the last 16 years making The Howlin Wolf tick over, starting out as a street team flyer poster and doing everything in between till he got to the position of running the joint. If you want to kow what s going on in music and New Orleans music specifically, Stu s your man. We ve had plenty of Happy Hours where conversation goes off the rails, tp places you never expected, but not many wander down these bizarre avenues. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You can t judge a book by its cover. There s no way you could look at a bunch of random people sitting around a table at Wayfare in New Orleans and guess what you re about to find out about them. A lot of people know Constantine Georges in New Orleans. He was a U.S. Attorney, which in itself is a pretty big deal. When he quit that he made what you d have to describe as a sideways step into the hospitality industry, founding the gourmet hot dog empire, Dat Dog. What you may not know about Constantine is that he has an olive tree that is 500 years old among an olive grove in Kalamata Greece, from which he makes some of the most delicious olive oil you ve ever tasted. Oh, and another thing. You wouldn t know to look at Constantine that he has a phobia about being eaten by a shark. You probably wouldn t guess that New Orleans singer Leslie Blackshear Smith is the mother of one of America s greatest Jewish rugby players. Leslie s son plays on an all Jewish US representative rugby team that may or not be called the All Stars of David. Another thing you probably wouldn t guess about Leslie is that she knows the secret for keeping a relationship together. And she has the numerically referenced ex husbands to prove it. Lea Woolf s secret inner life has got to do with the ability to exercise enormous patience in the face of behavior that would have most of us reaching for a baseball bat to rearrange the face of the person and his 29 friends who are trying to ruin our evening. Lea is the events manager and sales director at New Orleans adult arcade bar, Barcadia. That s actually the tip of the iceberg of secrets you re about to learn from this conversation. One of these people, for example, is banned for life from the campus of Tulane University. Another doesn t believe in love. This Happy Hour is a wild ride. Photos by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Singer, Songwriter, playwright Paul Sanchez describes Fat City as "a polyester Bourbon Street." Paul used to play in a band called Godot in Fat City back in the 1970 s. Being in an artsy new wave band that made musical references to French literature didn t get you laid back then. Paul says, though, that he sometimes went home with a woman who slept with someone else. The reason this conversation even gets started is because Cherie Melancon Franz the creator of Thinkerella mentions she doesn t know where the Cajun Melancon comes from in her family because she is adopted. Her birth mother found her when Cherie was 21 and apparently told her that she was conceived in Fat City one night after mom "met a guy." After some mild deliberation it doesn t look, however, like Paul Sanchez is Cherie Melancon Franz s dad. In case Cajun names get confusing and you don t know your Melancon from your Molaison, Paul brought along singer songwriter Justin Malaison to help him sing a song off his album, Between Friends. There s an amazing story behind Paul s latest album, Life Is A Ride, that will tug at your heartstrings for sure. If you re in the market for beautiful songs, Andrew Duhon can help you out with his newest, Down From The Mountain. As you ll hear, there is an interesting reason this song may never make it onto an album so listen up. It really is a gorgeous piece of music with evocative lyrics that take you to the mountain. Mark Owens is not Cherie Melancon s father either though he is also adopted. Mark owns arguably the grooviest gym in New Orleans, Prime Fitness RX. As well as smelling like a eucalyptus forest, the place looks and feels like you re somewhere else. Somewhere where they throw lots of money into making a gym hip. Just ask Dave Chapelle, Hugh Jackman, and a bunch of other about as cool as you can get tourists who like to work out. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jax Frey is the most prolific painter in the entire world. Yes, you read that correctly. Jax has painted more paintings than anyone in the world. At least 6,500 more than Pablo Picasso who held the previous world record at 13,500. Jax is at 20k and counting. Except she can t get the folks at the Guiness Book of World Records to believe her. Not for want of trying. And not for want of having her record officially sanctioned by Guiness s competitors. The stuff you learn over a drink at Happy Hour is crazy. Did you even know there s a competing world record keeper Anyway, Jax is making 40 bucks a shot selling these paintings and she s knocking out thousands of them. Do the math. Oh, and by the way, she s single. David Capasso was single, more or less, for 13 years. On either side of that was the time he date a woman for a year and a half then went back after the 13 year break and married her. David is an attorney who loves to break certain laws, namely those pertaining to the restrictions on smoking weed. He s also an expert on blow jobs, anal sex, and the comparative merits of performing both or either in public spaces. If you had to have a lawyer, this has gotta be the guy. Whe he gets you off it s going to be a hell of a party. Carly Meyers and Adam Gertner are not legally married but they ve been together since they met at the Denver High School For The Performing Arts. You can see why they were and still are attracted to each other and formed a duo he s a drummer and she s a trombone player. It s a marriage made in some kind of parallel universe heaven where music is different. But guess what It works. They re a duo who call themselves ROAR and their music does seem beamed in from another planet. One where everything is super cool and upbeat but not nerdy and super hip without requiring tattoos and mustache wax. If this music doesn t end up being a super huge worldwide commercial success we ll hand in our prognosticator license. It s a must listen. Photos at Wayfare by Hope Byrd.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lauren Malara is officially The Funniest Person in New Orleans. Lauren is the winner of the 2017 Hell Yes Next award from the comedy HQ of New Orleans, The New Movement Theater. Just a few hours after being crowned, Lauren s first official engagement is Happy Hour. It s trial by fire. One of Lauren s pieces in her routine, which she does on this show, is discussing her mother the racist. Lauren is black and her mom is white. Lauren s dad is black. Which makes Lauren the Obama of New Orleans. And that s not even the most interesting thing about her. Other than being the funniest person in New Orleans she was also a member of the famous Second City comedy theater in Chicago and spent 8 months as a comedian on a cruise ship and and only had sex for the last 3 weeks of the gig. Actually, you re going to have to do the math on that yourself. Kris Fortier is no stranger to people like Obama. The ex President that is. Kris has a company called Porter which caters to people with enough money to have other people make their dinner reservations, buy their booze and groceries, or just hang out with them and get them soup when they re not feeling well. For somewhere around 50 and hour you can basically buy a friend. And once you meet Kris you ll get the idea it s well worth it. Rory Callais is a member of a band you might not have heard of if you re going by record releases. Vox and The Hound have taken years to make their new record, Aloha Shores. We take a listen to a couple of tracks on this show and we re pretty sure you ll agree with everyone at Wayfare, it s awesome. In fact, the Funniest Person in New Orleans endorses it. Also, if you like David Bowie s music and good looking people taking their clothes off you can experience both of those at once at Rory and burlesque dancer Bella Blue s show Oh You Pretty Things. Best to show up high, by the way. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the annals of "You never know what the hell is going to come up in conversation," this Happy Hour would have to rank at the top of the list. Aidi Kansas her real name left behind a career as a pet portrait artist to pursue her abilities as a psychic energy healer and has stumbled into the world of getting women to reach spiritual enlightenment by stroking their own clitoris. Aidi calls it Clit Sit Meditation. Masturbatory meditation is only able to be practiced by people with a clitoris, in other words not men. Men, however, can have their own problems with too little ejaculation that can lead to porn and all manner of bad behavior. Talking of badly behaved men, Hitler, according to John Hebert, would have been a nicer person if he d stayed off of the crystal meth. Apparently only the 1930 s equivalent of Photoshop saved Adolf from being portrayed as the meth head he really was. Atoning for his owns sins, and some of his family s "My mother and I were bar fighters" , John is the guy behind all the red and white signs that say "LOVE" nailed to phone poles all around New Orleans. John Lisi makes a welcome return visit to Happy Hour with his shiny Dobro, a fistful of stories, and a song. Andrew Duhon starts things off on the good foot with a bit of beard oil that was produced by a prisoner friend of Aidi s. The hour goes by way too fast. If you start listening to this make sure you can listen to the whole 60 minutes because you won t be turning this off. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you ve ever wanted to meet a bunch of amazing New Orleanians, or you want to reaffirm your faith in the plain old New Orleans tradition of having honest to god real conversations and fun with complete strangers, this is for you. YouTube sensation Princess Shaw describes how she got to be the Princess, what it s like to be a star, to travel the world, to come home to New Orleans with no job, to go from being a lesbian to loving men, and what to do when your partner cheats on you. And that s for starters. Desiree Ontiveros has a company called Badass Balloon Company that makes balloons with sayings on them the like of which you can see in the photo, above. Most of the sayings on these balloons will get us axed from whichever respectable podcast app you listen to podcasts on but you get the idea pretty quickly from Desiree s description. When she s not making balloons Desiree dreams of being a sexy assassin, like the original Princess Shaw. If you re not following that exactly, you ll catch on a couple of minutes into this conversation. Matthew Rosenbeck is not Jewish but equally surprisingly he s about 18 Irish. Matthew has been the driving force behind the band The Honorable South, a music booker on Frenchmen Street and a podcast pioneer. Today he s a visual artist with a gallery exhibit and a rising star of sculpture. Andrew Duhon didn t bring a guitar but he did bring his harmonica. Matthew demonstrates his producer skills and masterminds a collaboration between Andrew and Princess Shaw. They come up with a song about cheating that s actually pretty darn good. By the end of these drinks it s hard to discern if Grant is dating Princess Shaw and cheating on her with Desiree or by what method he s going to be killed. Somewhere in another universe in a parallel dimension this conversation is still going on. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mike Dillon is one of the greatest and most inventive percussionists in the USA, or probably anywhere. Mike chose to move to New Orleans for one simple reason the music. He s been on an interesting path to get here, not so much geographically as spiritually and psychologically. Being a New Orleanian also means you can drop the pretense and the b.s. that comes with living other places. If you want to know what that means in the real world, take a listen to what Mike has to say about his own life and life in general. And for a special treat, take a listen to Mike play. Veronica Alweiss is a life coach. If you ve ever wondered exactly what that is and why you might need one, well, everybody s doing it. Even the super cool, super successful folks at Facebook, who are Veronica s clients. Veronica solves the same questions in this conversation that she solves for the big shots at FB why are we here and what would we like to leave behind Along with the mirth, smart ass responses, the beer and cocktails, there are some pretty interesting answers to these questions from this happy hour gathering. Erik Neumann owns a restaurant called Fud Bar Fud is pronounced food in Gentilly. It s a cool new concept where they serve chef prepared meals for the home cooking crowd. But when he started out, Erik had ideas about being a musician. For a shining moment he gets to live out those dreams today, playing a song he wrote a few years back, for his answer machine. Andrew Duhon is in town and had enough time on his hands before the show to bang out a brand new and very beautiful song. This is one of those New Orleans conversations that takes on a life of its own and goes places you wouldn t expect. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Singer songwriter Paul Sanchez is not on this show. But he was supposed to be. Criminal Defense attorney Michael Kennedy showed up early enough to have a couple of drinks to recover from his 2 hours at the gym working on his back which he does on Wednesdays . Linda Summey showed in plenty of time to get started drinking early too. It s Linda s last day on the job as a schoolteacher and one of her last days in New Orleans, so she s happy to have a bunch of drinks too. It turns out, after who s counting anyway number of drinks, that Linda and Michael have a lot in common, starting with the fact that they re married to and living with a guy named Josh, respectively. It s definitely not the the same guy. Linda s Josh is musician Josh Summey who Linda met when she was working at Macy s and Josh was working at Sunglass Hut. Michael s Josh is a guy he met naked at the other end of a Grindr hookup. About half way through this conversation, Paul Sanchez weighs in to say his car has broken down, he can t make it, and he owes us one. Andrew Duhon plays a song called No Man s Land off of his still untitled new album. If you have an idea for an album title shoot it on over email protected . And here s another question you might be able to answer What do you think Paul Sanchez means when he says, "I owe you one " Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You might remember Tommy Hayne from the news. Tommy was the guy who got shot recently when he tried to convince a would be car thief to quit trying to bust into cars. He recovered quickly enough to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament a few days later but it turns out getting shot wasn t the only crazy thing he s done. He d been shot once before and in between those two firearm incidents he d jumped off of a cliff with a poncho over his face, opened a natural food store in Wyoming, and left his dog off of the leash while he got coffee at CC s on Magazine Street in New Orleans. If you re wondering how leaving your dog off the leash compares with crazy sh t like getting shot and jumping off cliffs, listen up. Emily Istre has had a whole set of other adventures that started when she dropped out of UL in Lafayette and took a random chance on finding herself in Las Vegas. Not only did Emily discover she had the skills to make it as a singer, band leader, and dancer in Vegas, she also found herself working with Celine Dion and Oprah Winfrey, and, following in the footsteps of Elizabeth Taylor, playing Cleopatra. Rathbone makes a return to Happy Hour with a new sound and a new band Mark Linam and Courtney, who is half of People Museum. Rathbone s new music is awesome and is appearing fresh each month here. Reflecting on being shot, Tommy observes that life throws you a number of chances to make decisions that can turn out to be startlingly wrong. Everybody else has made one of those too. Have you Yours might be deciding to listen to this show. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew Duhon returns to Happy Hour after recording his new album, titled fill in the blank . If you have an idea for a title there s a free record, T shirt, and all kinds of other goodies waiting for you. Andrew describes the process of looking for a title amongst his ruminations on the river of love, pain and sundry other emotions that courses through the human body. Any ideas striking you yet Listen to Andrew play a couple of songs off the new album and maybe something will hit you like it hit Dr. Kathy Jo Carstarphen, aka K.J. K.J s idea for a title to Andrew s record is Angiogenesis. If you want to be 100 sure about the meaning of that you could Google it but K.J. is a doctor and describes it in a way that even a geriatric like Grant or her geriatric patients can understand, after a few drinks. K.J. also describes how we in New Orleans have achieved one of the highest rankings in America for the transmission of HIV and Syphillis, which is good to know because you don t get to read much in the news about Syphilis these days. You can, however, do something about the spread of these disaeses simply by having a few drinks and listening to music care of K.J. s Krewe du Sante. Advocate reporter Ramon Antonio Vargas explains why even exceptional numbers of NOLA deaths from VD don t make the news unless the syphillis patient also gets run over his own driveway by his car. Ramon has his own medical adventure stories, including a rough night on the soccer field and a 1,400 ambulance ride. Ever wondered what s in Hangover Destroyer Today s the day you find out. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sage Rouge plays the part of Asterixxx the hobot in an organization called SCROTUM the Sacred Coalition Responsible For The Total Unfunkification of the Multiverse. Sage also pays saxophone in Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes as well as a funk band called In Business. The latter s newest recording is a concept album about space shenannigans, principally the battle for the multiverse under leadership of a charismatic futuristic loverboy called Andromeo. And that s just one of Sage s stories in this wide ranging conversation that drifts haphazardly across space and time, from The Good Wife to manicures for the terminally ill. Carissa Kerner Ramirez says a good manicure or pedicure can make you feel great, even if you re terminally ill. Whether or not any healthcare professionals agree, Carissa speaks from experience. Her company, The New Orleanian, will come to your house or hotel room and give you a bunch of stuff that will certainly make you feel better, from a massage to a full skin treatment. Carissa is a licensed esthetician though she doesn t do much waxing herself. She was at home bed ridden with a difficult pregnancy for 4 months and celebrates being out and about for the first time with a nice Pear 75 and a handful of great stories. Although some of them include moisturizing, none of them include the word "moist which apparently has been "scientifically proven" to be abhorrent to most of the English speaking human population, along with the words "oink" and "ointment." If you want to get a massage or a facial or any services offered by The New Orleanian you can get 15 off by going to theneworleanian on Instagram and commenting on the post about Happy Hour. Jack Nester is a professional hipster. He hadn t actually called himself that till this conversation but it is pretty much agreed around the table that if you spend your time professionally doing Instagram and Facebook for the hip PR firm Bond Moroch and you know social media inside out you qualify as a professional hipster. Jack s resistance to the title is evidenced by his claim that going home tonight to watch The Good Wife after Happy Hour disqualifies him from hipster status. Before he goes though, Jack shares some invaluable information about how and when to post on Instagram for maximum attention. Oh, and he also explains wtf is up with hashtags and when and how to use them. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lori Tipton who you might recognize as both the creator of Sluts Unlimited and the voluptuous dynamo behind the bar in the lobby of the Ace Hotel discovered when she went to knock herself up using the turkey baster method that it s good know how deep your vagina is. Lucky for her, Lori discovered her vagina is shallow, therefore her cervix was easily "bathed" and she got pregnant first time out with the baster masturbation method. And that s just the beginning of the conversation with Lori on today s Happy Hour. There are a lot of "Only in New Orleans" moments on Happy Hour, but how about this one Two guys who have never met each other comparing notes about the Catholic brothers who beat the sh t beaten out of them in high school. And not even the same high school. Mark Berger was too smart for New Orleans and go shipped off to get beaten up in Mississippi. John Papa Gros got beat up here in New Orleans. Apparently it doesn t mess you up too bad. John has gone on to have a stellar career as a New Orleans musician, played all over the world with his band Papa Gros Funk, and now has a bran new record out, Rivers On Fire. We listen to two tracks on Happy Hour the title track and "Cocaine and Chicken Fricassee." If you love good old down home NOLA funk in the style of the Nevilles and Meters, the like of which you literally never hear these days, you need to check this out. Mark Berger might the greatest over achiever in the city. Mark is the owner of Higher Power, a personal fitness gym that offers a unique combination of Yoga, TRX, and cycling, and has a myriad other pursuits as well, one of the most intriguing of which is an ambassador for Lulu Lemon. If you don t learn over 110 things you didn t have any idea about in this 60 minute barroom conversation we ll refund your money and buy you a cocktail. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frank Scurlock is ready to propose at the drop of a top hat. Admittedly, being super wealthy increases Frank s chances of getting a woman he s just met to agree to accept his Jason of Beverly Hills diamond engagement and wedding ring and commit to live with him and love him for all eternity, but so does the prospect of being married to the next mayor of New Orleans who has an actual plan to fix the pot holes. And this barely scratches the surface of the subjects Frank traverses during this hour from drinks with sheikhs in Qatar to dinner with titans on Wall Street and Disney style factories in New Orleans East. Including male multiple orgasms. Shane Avrard from the band The Noise Complaints comes up with a suggestion for Frank the expandable wedding ring. It s a one size fits all wedding ring for the spontaneous, impulsive proposer. Shane also manages to dismiss the entire contents of the Bible in this conversation as well as play two impressive songs off the band s new record, Feed It Back To Me. When you embark on a conversation in a bar about where our souls and spirits come from and go to you can only hope for so much. Dr Jess Tregle who is a healer and the author of the book Heal Your Spirit and Empower Your Life, manages to get most of the way through an explanation of what we are all doing here on Earth before Frank has to take a call from his printer in Beverly Hills. But everyone at the table knows a lot more about our inner selves by the last round of drinks than than they did when they sat down with a cocktail. If you re looking for a true collection of random, smart, fascinating New Orleanians, you ve found it with this edition of Happy Hour. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon. Oh, by the way, if you want to call or text Mayoral candidate Frank Scurlock, 504 575 4484.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Even for New Orleans, this is an unusual bar scene: a woman in a vagina costume, a drag queen, and a super sexy African American guy having drinks. Which one would you like to know about first?
Okay, the drag queen.
That s Kitty d Litter. It s 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon and Kitty is wearing what she calls "Day Drag." The difference between day and night drag is that day drag is a little more subdued. Yes, apparently walking around with gigantic costume jewelry, enormous eyelashes, high heels, and an eye catching electric blue dress is a step down from Kitty s regular attire. If you ve ever wondered why certain gay guys like to dress in drag and what it entails, check out this frank conversation.
What would make you want to walk around dressed like a vagina, or more strictly, a vulva? Amy Irvin is making a point about women, their vaginas, and raising money for the New Orleans Abortion Fund of which she is Executive Director. The fund gives money to women who can t afford it to pay for an abortion. That sounds like a job that s about as serious as you can get. But if you want a lesson in how to get a difficult and contentious point across with humor and and reason, take a listen to Amy.
J Sharp has the sexiest voice in New Orleans. That s not independently verified but you couldn't get much more of a cross section random sample of New Orleanians than around this table and they all agree. J is a co founder, keyboard player and singer in the super tightest and slickest funk band to come out of New Orleans in years - Water Seed. If you've heard any of the band's past 5 records or caught them at anything from Jazz Fest to their regular gig on Frenchmen Street, you'll agree. If you've never heard Water Seed and you like funk like Parliament and The Meters, consider your life changed. And check out their new record, "We Are Stars."
Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
April Stolf wrote the book on success. It s called The Art and Science of Success. After a couple of cocktails Neuro Linguistic Programming seems pretty easy. April has enough material at this table to keep her busy for a year re programming personalities. First there s Zach Quinn. Zach dropped out of high school in Chalmette in 10th grade due to "mental problems." Today he claims to be riddled with insecurity and self doubt, but it s impossible to tell from his public persona as the front person for wildly successful punk band The Pears. Then there s Matthew Snyder. He s a professor of political science at Delgado with a specialist expertise in the Middle East. He lived and worked in politics and academia in Cairo and believes the whole of the Middle East basically has to burn to the ground before there will ever be peace. On the other hand, in his professional opinion Trump is too much of a buffoon to cause that to happen so we have nothing immediate to worry about. Other than, possibly, heroin. Cat Tod is the creative force behind the New Orleans art tech business Where Y Art, where local artists and people who love art can find each other. Cat s big news of the day, other than exploring her secret personality that makes her gyrate around her kitchen with three dogs, is the reduction by one crayon of the long running traditional box of 24 crayons, so that there will now be 23 crayons in a box. What color is being retired Dandelion. It doesn t take too to figure out the conspiracy behind that one. After another cocktail. Try and get a word in edgeways here. The fastest paced Happy Hour ever. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A villanelle is not a small cottage in the French countryside. It s a kind of poem where you can make the same point for example, making out with a bartender at The Maple Leaf in a number of chorus like ways. That s about the only literary fact you ll learn from Louisiana s ex Poet Laureate Julie Kane on this Happy Hour, but you will learn some more about Julie and the kind of life you can lead when you re a superstar poet, even if Julie does have Bobby Jindal of all people to thank for the recognition. Fame is no stranger to Richard Pomes. Richard is famous in the world of liquor and millennial liquor lovers as "The face of Fireball," the sweet cinnamon flavored whiskey that took the 20 something drinking classes by storm over the past few years. Today Richard is making an even bigger splash with his new brand, Ghost Tequila. It s a smooth tequila infused with Ghost Pepper one of the hottest peppers in the cosmos. After a shot of Ghost and a few minutes of Richard s magic spell binding sales poetry, you d probably buy anything off of him. John Shirley was at one point the 5th best golfer in Mississippi. That was a while back. Now he s the singer, guitar player and one of the songwriters in the 3 piece band Cardinal Sons. In all the many hours of Happy Hour, John is the first guest ever to literally call bullshit on his own work. The new Cardinal Sons record is out on cassette. Remember you heard it here first according to John, cassettes and cassette players are coming back. These guests could go for another hour or two and the conversation wouldn t dry up or get anywhere near dull. If you re looking for three smart, funny, nice, talented, and ego less people to stumble into in a bar, you ve found them. If this ends up being your favorite Happy Hour we wouldn t be at all surprised. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you ve ever looked at something in a store and weren t sure whether to buy it or not, apparently the question you are subconsciously trying to answer is, "Is this me " According to artist Rebecca Rebouche, that s the central question in all of our lives in the way we relate to art. How that art gets created is a whole other question. In Rebecca s method, the path from the real world to an image living inside a frame can come from a sliver of nature or the crushing heartache caused by finding out that a total stranger guy you ve been looking at across the room in bar has a girlfriend. Jerry Resse II totally agrees with Rebecca. In Jerry s opinion the heartache of unrequited imaginary love is just as crushing as the real thing. Jerry has his sights set on sports broadcasting or politics but in the meantime he s more than happy to be setting up Dat Dog franchises around the country. If you re interested in making a boatload of money from selling Dat Dogs, look Jerry up. Tell em Happy Hour sent you. Jack Miele might be the most successful New Orleanian entertainer you don t know. What you may have thought was a fun gig playing the part of Randi Wilde, the Devo lookalike singer and guitar player in the band The Molly Ringwalds, is actually serious touring band big business complete with lawyers, managers and tour buses. Despite The Molly s being a full time gig, the kicker is that it s just the tip of the iceberg of Jack s professional career which includes writing and recording Grammy and Emmy winning music. This is one of those typically surprising New Orleans conversations where you discover that the 3 perfectly normal and unassuming people you happen to sitting at the bar with wrote the music on the TV show you love, designed the pattern that s on the sheets you re sleeping on that you bought at Anthropologie, and run the business at the place you ate at last night. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Cornell roboticist and biolocomotion expert Andy Ruina decided to come to New Orleans for a physics conference he didn t plan on walking into a bar to prepare for his lecture on the physics of the self propelled bicycle and end up being suckered into a podcast conversation with a bunch of yahoos. But thanks to the evil of cocktails we now all get to learn about the physical principles behind pushing a riderless bike across a parking lot. Johnette Downing also gives us an education. You too can learn to build a poboy the way the kids in Kuwait do it. Johnette is the internatonal musical children s ambassador, or children s international ambassador of music or something similar that s harder to remember after a few drinks but whatever her title, Johnette has a charismatic and captivating way of getting your attention, and songwriting skills that create simple melodies that are deceptively catchy. After you ve heard the poboy song try getting it out of your head. Chris Klein is trying to get his music out of his head. In his series of videos with his band Chris Klein and the Boulevards, he creates what are essentially movies that are smart and sizzling. You could be the 60th person in the world to see them if you act quickly. Chris also talks tattoos he s a professional tattoo artist and even though you probably think you can imagine the crazy stuff people let a tattoo artist put on their body, you still won t believe what Chris has got to say about that. Thomas Mattera is not only the tallest guy who has ever been on Happy Hour he s also the only guest who rode his bike across the USA, twice, and lived in Nepal. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with only one other person and you could choose anybody in the world, Thomas would be a wise choice. Especially if you need to rustle up Mexican food in the middle of nowhere or build a house. Andrew Duhon cements in place the first track off his new album, "It s Alright Johnette, Leave It There" maybe not the final title . Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The first thing you notice about A F The Naysayer is that he is totally mucus free. Okay, you might notice that he s tall and striking, with a head of dreadlocks but you ll find out in this conversation why he looks so healthy and how he lost somewhere between 8 and 80 pounds. Closer to 80. It all goes back to 1912 and a mucus free diet. Keith Spera is the music writer for The Advocate. As you might imagine, it s a gig that gives you a lot of nights out. Of all the memories Keith could have dredged up over cocktails, how about the night he spent with Master P in P s Beverly Hills hacienda And then there s the menories of Mo B. Dick. Though after P moved to Baton Rouge with his entire crew that may have become Meaux B Dick. The sure way to be the most popular person in just about any room is to give away free booze. Stacy Johnson is the tasting room manager at Celebration Distillation, where they make Old New Orleans Rum. Stacy spends all day giving away free drinks and concocting new cocktails, and on this show she plies everybody with extraordinary high octane and delicious rum as well as a bottle of jet fuel known as Gingeroo. This rum infused conversation darts around all over the map, from the perils of dating drummers to the lure of Missoula Montana, and a hundred stops in between. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you ever wondered what happened to Carina Nathan she s now Kevin Simons. And Karen Regis. And Crystal Sedona. And Chi Chi the lead singer of the Girl Dogs, who is actually a dog. Katrina Brees sheds some light on this fantastic array of personalities, and their wardrobes. Tank from Tank and the Bangas has her own specialty wardrobe and range of personas too. Her wardrobe doesn t extend to panties which she has given up wearing but she does occasionally wear boy shorts to boost her booty. Her personas start out with Terianne Michelle Ball in New Orleans East and extend to the woman sorting through damaged goods on aisle 4 at Walmart. Norman Spence and Merell Burket from Tank s band, Tank and the Bangas, join the party but strictly under their own names. Ricky Leman s alter ego is Frederick, his real name. Ricky could have gone with alter ego 2, Fred, but he s keeping it real, pleading "the fifth" on a range of issues. All photos on this page were taken by sunny Alison Moon at Wayfare.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kate Wright is a romance novelist. If you read romance novels you ve never heard of her. But there s a good chance you ve heard of Vivian Wood, Kate s pen name created by the way by a "mellow yat guy" . Vivian is the creator of a range of titles like "Noah s Revelation," "Gavin s Salvation," and "Taken By The Pack." These novels and novellas mostly feature covers of men who are "ripped" but not necessarily "driven" or "got their sh t together" which is the kind of guy Kate not Vivian is looking for. If you ve ever wondered it might be like spending all day every day in a sex fantasy, Kate like Noah has some revelations. And if you re wondering what men say to an erotic novelist and what kind of insight Kate has gotten about what men and women really want listen up. Alex McConduit is going straight home from this conversation to take a nap with Kate or alone at the time of writing was TBD then get up and launch his career as an erotic novelist under the name Chuck Wood. In his more sedate real life Alex is a children s novelist, author of the popular The Little Who Dat, Who Didn t. Alex s latest title, Snowballs For All is published by prestigious Pelican and is taking Alex around the world with his trumpet. Alex is planning on changing careers to become a jazz musician in about 22 years. In preparation he has quit listening to music with words and has for the first time heard of David Bowie. True story. Josh Ray from the band Hazy Ray shows up at Happy Hour with his guitar, his wife, and his 18 day old daughter, Evangelina Grace. Yes, 18 day old. As the new dad of a daughter Josh is suddenly looking at the implications of female fantasies from a whole new angle. To celebrate the occasion Josh sings a song he has been working on very intermittently for the better part of 16 years, called Just Good Sex. This is one of the most educational and informative conversations you will ever overhear in a bar anywhere, though your definitions of "educational" and "informative" have to run fairly wide of the traditional meanings of information and education. Perhaps "revealing" would be a better word choice, but we ll leave that up to the novelists. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hugo Montero is the impressario behind the art space, hip Mexican restaurant and sophisto tequila bar Casa Borrerga on OCH in Central City New Orleans. The reason the place is a joyful and riotous success on many levels is a direct reflection of Hugo s larger than life personality and intellect. Hugo started out as an intellectual and academic, spent time as a street artist, and has been a part of the New Orleans cultural scene since the early 90 s. Even pre dating the arrival of Titty Bingo, as he relates in this series of tales that include interesting observations of our steretypes about Mexicans and Mexican restaurants that you may not realize you harbor till you hear it laid out. Hugo s reference to the Titty Bingo days of yore spring from the experiences of Darcy Malone and The Tangle. No strangers to music individually Darcy has sung since childhood with her dad Dave Malone of Radiators fame this is the first go round for the band as a collective. With their new record, Still Life, out any minute the band has some decisions to make. Spotify Yes or no Their Solomonic answer might presage a new wave of music marketing. Andrew Duhon enlists Senor Montero to accompany him on a brand new song about a girl from Plaquemines Parish. From Plaquemines, takes a trip to Aziza Bayou. Don t look for that on a map, you won t find it. Aziza Bayou is not a place, it s a person. Aziza is an anthropologist who manages in a few well chosen sentences to explain the absolute insignificance of the cultural evolution of Facebook, Twitter, and the kids today. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
An award winning Happy Hour ... Guy Tem is an award winning opera singer and vocal professor who came to New Orleans from Turkey in 2007 to sing in an opera and never left. Guy teaches the table how to tell a man s singing voice by looking at his neck...then "swings low" with a stirring a cappella rendition of the spiritual that nearly blows out the mics. David Lee Simmons is an award winning journalist and communications professional. As communications specialist for the Foundation for Louisiana, David Lee wants us to know about the Foundation s LEAD program, a seven week leadership workshop accepting registration for its next cycle through Friday, Feb. 10. David Lee also came to New Orleans as a visitor and never left...except for the Atlanta years, which he says gives him a unique empathy for the Falcons. Outlaw Nation is a soon to be award winning New Orleans band whose founder Christian Simeon claims most of the best music ever came out of New Orleans. Christian and co guitarist Sebastian Weston serve up three tunes so infectious you ll need a shot. Andrew Duhon says he s stuck for an album title and asks Christian to name Outlaw Nation s top 10 for inspiration. The winner "Greatest Misses." Stay tuned. Rich Collins of The Imagination Movers hosts for Grant ... and tells our favorite story about the home delivered underpants. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King. Adam s Apple cover art Adam s Apple censored by Mark Satchwill
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What do you call a jam cruise that doesn t have a jam band, but does have a funny poignant singer songwriter, a 5 string bass player bandleader, a solo act, and an artist In other words, the three musicians and an artist who walked in to Wayfare for this week s Happy Hour. While the panel never quite comes to an answer, they do make the case that no matter what form their work takes, New Orleans artists have a lot in common. Anastasia Pelias is a visual artist whose most recent exhibition, Sisters, paid tribute to great female singers. Her favorite critique came from the cable guy, who talked for 20 minutes about her work. And don t mess with her daughters Anastasia is of Greek heritage and warns the New Orleans Greek community is "a powerful association." Musician Davis Rogan knows a fair bit about New Orleans Greeks he s married to one. Davis says he got his start in entertainment reading PSAs about VD on WTUL at the age of 10, and decided to become a musician when he "wrote some funny words and then picked up a little piano." These days he handles all talent booking for the newly renovated Carver Theater. One of the acts Davis is looking to book is Naughty Professor, one of Noah Young s many musical projects. Noah is a 5 string bass player who came to New Orleans by way of Vermont to study jazz at Loyola University, where Naughty Professor got its name from a hot teacher. Noah has just released a CD with his own group, the less imaginatively named Noah Young Band. Andrew Duhon who is performing under the name Andrew Duhon until he thinks of something more clever is back in the co pilot s chair. Andrew discusses jam cruises and suggests Naughty Professor should get a cruise gig, leading to speculation about what a cruise featuring this week s Happy Hour would be called. Pinch hitting for Grant is Peter Ricchiuti, the host of another It s New Orleans podcast, Out to Lunch. Peter also teaches at Tulane s business school, and after 30 years in academia says what he really wants to be is a naughty professor. He leads the group in an insightful conversation about what it s like to be an artist in New Orleans. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Colby Fox had the benefit of growing up in paradise Destin, Florida. But when he flunked out of community college and joined the Navy, his ex military Army dad wasn t terribly supportive. He told Colby, he d rather have a daughter in a cathouse than a son in the Navy. Colby nonetheless persevered and won the old man over with his skills as a helicopter mechanic in the Arabian Gulf. When the war was over Destin wasn t much fun. So Colby decided he had to move, to some place he could get on one tank of gas. Tallahassee or New Orleans. Colby " I didn t know much about day to day life in either of those places but I was learning lots of surprising things from all the podcasts I was finding on the Stitcher app on my phone. I couldn t find many local flavor podcasts about Tallahassee but the It s New Orleans series was available then and I immersed myself in all the episodes. Happy Hour became my favorite because I really liked the premise. On nights when I couldn t sleep which were many back then I would charge up my phone and walk down the beach, an episode in one direction then turn around and listen to another episode on my way home. I liked listening to Grant and Andrew talk to people who seemed as though they were ordinary New Orleanians but from what I was hearing, sounded like extraordinary people. I decided that I wanted to come live in a city that seemed to be so full of character. So I did. The next pay day I drove to my friend s house in Algiers Point and things got a lot better for me." Katie Brasted is doing what she can to save New Orleans. Katie is Executive Director of Woodlands Conservancy, the last remaining 25 of New Orleans wetlands that acts as a barrier between hurricanes and destruction. Before that Katie worked with schizophrenics in a mental institution in West Virginia. That s where she met her husband. Khris Royal drops by, taking a break from working with his band Dark Matter on new tunes for an album due out later this year. We take a sneak preview of a track called Step Children, partially inspired by jazz orphans and weed. Andrew Duhon plays a track from his forthcoming album by request from Colby. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apparently women find men who allegedly shoot people, up to three times more attractive than peace loving guys. As a defense attorney Nandi Campbell finds herself representing these guys. Sometimes they don t have the resources to pay a first class defense attorney like Nandi and so the wife, the girlfriend and the other girlfriend come into Nandi s office to sort it out. Nandi is no stranger to the multiple partner world, having grown up with two sisters mere months apart, thanks to her dad and his two girlfriends. All three women and three sisters grew up together and still get along just fine. Brian Levy, who by the way is a black belt professional Aikido practitioner and trainer, had a related but dissimilar experience. In the process of dating two very different women Brian got to learn two languages. That s because one of the girlfriends was Swedish and the other Romanian. If you can t even believe such a thing is possible, take a listen to Brian speaking fluent Romanian and Swedish and explaining the Swedish marital common law that can see a guy get just screwed as the the world of US monogamy. Jeff Schmidtke knows something about post nuptial agreements, which can apparently get you out of being destroyed in a divorce if you and your spouse have agreed ahead of time, but still after you got married, that it s totally cool to date other people. There are apparently a number of ways you can structure a relationship these days, and they re pretty much all represented around the table here at Happy Hour. Meanwhile, in the normally more "truculent" and "bellicose" 10 bonus points if you have a single clue what that means world of rock n roll, folk and psyche pop, Jeff premieres dazzling brand new music off the new album from his band, Shadow Brother, and Andrew Duhon premieres a song he wrote just hours earlier about nostalgia for the warmth of monogamy in jail. This is an absolute classic New Orleans conversation, a must listen Happy Hour. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Getting strep throat when someone you know gives a third person oral sex sounds like a magic trick. Unfortunately, for Eric Hollerbach, it wasn t. Part of Eric s stand up comedy livelihood is his popular and revealing podcast Highway Diary. You can check out episode 160 where he and his ex ex girlfriend reminisce over the many issues that drove them apart. Until you have a moment to do that, you can catch up on the decidedly non magic pathology of passing diseases around the world of New Orleans entertainment. Rev Goat Carson is a whole other kind of entertainer. Claiming to have Alzheimer s, he manages to pull off a dazzling rap that he performed with Dr. John when he was writing songs with him which earned him a Grammy. Goat also recounts his adventures with a panoply of luminaries from Bob Dylan to Kinky Friedman, and recounts his run for President with Joe Walsh from The Eagles as his running mate. In a range of amazing tales, nothing is quite as stupendous as the movie Goat wrote and directed in the 80 s starring the great grandfather of rap, Melle Mel, Step Off. The sci fi thriller foretells the destruction of the Twin Towers in Manhattan, and is only now seeing the light of day with performances in New Orleans. Sharks Teeth is a band that you might not immediately peg as New Orleanian. Their many recordings are electronic and synth laden but as their performance on Happy Hour proves they are equally at home with acoustic guitars and a snare drum with a rag over it. Tyler Scurlock, Zach Meredith and Spencer Darr turn in an impressive two song set before making a case for dropping out of school and bringing back the audio cassette. Andrew Duhon returns from Canada with a new song about The soul of the Mississippi. Photos at Wayfare by Dionne Grayson.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Morgan Molthrop fell in love with Greek history at Newman high school and has parlayed that love into a model for his and your life. Morgan s hero, Alexander the Great who is actually a Greek superhero who died in 323 BC at the age of 33 not a Russian Tsar is the inspiration for just about everything in Morgan s current life. He s written a book about him, painted paintings, and has a 13 step plan for successful living for you to follow so you too can be Alex great. Boyanna Trayanova went to Ben Franklin. She didn t fall in love with any Greek gods but she did fall in love with the seminal New Orleans drummer Johnny Vidacovich. Boyanna is a fearsome drummer and leader of One Love Brass Band, a New Orleans brass band take on ska and reggae. Renee Blanchard started out after college working to bring democracy to Burma, and to get toxic chemicals out of cell phones. Having succeeded at both of those goals she came back to New Orleans. And opened Church Alley Coffee Bar on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Now she s moving to Mid City and might possibly get that magnolia tattoo on her shoulder finished. Renee is, by the way, bossy. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
According to acupuncturist and dispenser of love based medicine Noell Eanes, at one point we were all running around with three eyes. Evolution dealt us a sad blow, removing our third eye which allowed us to see emotions. Now Noell keeps her third eye open, her chakras tuned up and her Qi flowing with a number of techniques and the aid of a ring made of Shattucktite. Noell can even perform acupuncture without needles, known as Shakuju, and hangs out with witches. On paper this all might seem eccentric and weird, but the way Noell tells it, it all sounds perfectly, well, lovely. Blaze Edwards is a photographer, but that s the one thing nobody talks about in this conversation. Blaze has plenty else to talk about though, including the birth of Kemetic Yoga. Kemet is apparently the original name for Africa, and if you re wondering how Yoga, normally associated with India, came to be African, well Blaze can tell you. Since we last met her on Happy Hour, Kathryn Rose Wood has transformed from the front person in a band to a formidable singer songwriter and the city s go to person for other women singer songwriters as the host of an all woman singer songwriter night at the International House Hotel. Andrew Duhon was a woman in a past life some 500 years ago and today marks the beginning of his and Grant s journey into the world of warlocks. Photos at Wayfare by Sam Weil.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Singer songwriter Justin Edward had dated and lived with Jen for 6 years before the night he came home to find she d totally trashed his apartment. The upside to his new existence is he has a whole bunch of what Andrew Duhon calls "Sad bastard heartbreak songs," but the downside is getting back on the dating scene. Justin s been everywhere from home alone to the swingers scene. Katy Dupre has the good sense to date a chef from no less a restaurant than Cochon. Katy spends her days analyzing data about the city of New Orleans and is an expert on political research. She explains why Donald Trump ended up being our President and 6 months from now she s coming back on Happy Hour to explain how she s changing the city to get us out of this predicament. And she s not kidding. If you like to go out, you need to know Michael Underwood. And if you don t know him personally, download his app, Scenehound. It tells you where to go to find what you re looking for on any given evening from a quiet place to get a drink to a rowdy fun hang. Michael is on the verge of crossing over from being a big deal in the tech world to being a big deal in the real world. Andrew Duhon tries out the third draft of a new song and hits it out of the park. No Man s Land is a beautiful place. You re going to love it. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon aka Moon, apparently.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Austin Alward aka Aus T the Franco rap star, has a plan to save the country and the world from rampant Trumpism. It involves the inernet, a Cuban cigar store owner, and a bunch of New Orleans actors and musicians. It might be just crazy enough to work. Jazz great Mitchel Forman, and singer songwriters Sam Doores from The Deslondes and Andrew Duhon have their own plan. It involves a searing rendition of I Shall Be Released, a tribute to both Leonard Cohen and the nation. Actress Teri Wyble made it out of dance school in Lafayette to become a critically acclaimed actress, a go go dancer at Harrah s Casino, and an international body painting sensation. This is one of the greatest Happy Hours in the history of the show. If you were thinking of leaving New Orlenas this will make you stay. If you are thinking of moving here, call U Haul, this will tip you over the edge. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Although the country voted for Donald Trump for President, New Orleans went 80 for Hillary. To try and drown our sorrows we assembled 3 of the most upbeat New Orleanians we could convince to come have free drinks with Grant at Happy Hour. Stasia Cymes is the 1 clutter clearing queen of New Orleans, crowned by no less an authority than Angie s List. Stasia cried all morning about the state of the nation but after 3 hours of clearing clutter and two stiff drinks she s back on top. Vocka Redu is a super star little known in his own back yard. Blending styles from P funk to Southern bounce, Vocka entertains across the country and around the world. Today he lets loose at the table, freestyling an introduction to himself. He also tells the tale of dealing with the untimely death of his mom who was run down by a car, crossing the street, just a couple of weeks ago. His new album, Mama s Boy, is due out any day. Stokley Gray gave up a life working with developmentally challenged adults, with Downs Syndrome, to open a lighting company in New Orleans. As you might expect he has a compassionate perspctive on partying and presidential politics. If you voted for President Trump and you re already happy you won t be any less happy after this Happy Hour. But if you re worrying about the future of the country, this conversation will make you feel a lot better. Suggested use consume with alcohol of choice. Photos at Wayfare by Sam Weil.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Judge Laurie White is the Chief Judge at New Orleans Criminal District Court. Because that s an elected position, Judge White refers to herself as a "politician" but nobody else in the bar is buying that. The common wisdom of a bunch of drinkers seems to be that if you are elected to a position that is involved in an activity other than politics you re not strictly a politician. Look at it this way Rob Steinberg is an actor who can t be sure if he s been in court as an actual witness or just thinks he has because he s played a D.A. and a number of lawyers on TV. So that doesn t make Rob a lawyer any more than having people vote for Laurie makes her a politician, but neither does owning a rental property make Rob actually a community destroying owner of an Air B n B property because the way you can look at it is he s actually doing his neighbors a favor by freeing up parking spaces. Also, along the same lines, it s probably better not to ask what Bruce Willis is really like. Terry McDermott has a number one song on the charts in the UK and Europe. When you hear Terry play it you won t be surprised. It s obviously a hit. Remember you heard it here first On a more somber note Terry reports that Dave Rosser, his bandmate in New Orleans, longtime member of the Afghan Whigs, and Terry s good friend has been diagnosed with colon cancer. If you;d like to contribute to the Go Fund Me campaign for Dave you can do that here. Grant has a radical idea for reforming the justice system which Judge White responds to with, "I can see why people laugh" but does admit finally, that the prospect of people telling the truth in court instead of just professing to is "a good start," which might be a good campaign slogan for her campaign for the Court of Appeal. Andrew dazzles the assembled with a 2nd draft of his new time travel love song, Cecilia Champagne. Other than Grant s less than fine legal reasoning, this might be the most intelligent gathering of Happy Hour guests in the history of the show which concludes with the official vote to endorse Judge Laurie White for Court of Appeal. 71 on your ballot. Photos at Wayfare by Sam Weil.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kim Carson, the Queen of New Orleans Honky Tonk, describes the difference between New Orleans Hony Tonk and the rest as, "New Orleans is Honky Tonkier." Kim ought to know. She plays her NOLA H Tonk all around the world. Spending more than half of the year out of the country takes its toll on other parts of Kim s life, as it does with other musicians, but apparently fewer of them are screwing groupies than you think. Dan Fox corroborates that. For some years he was the tour manager for Hooray For The Riff Raff and he s an on and off member of the Lovey Dovies. In his real life Dan is the publisher and editor of NOLA underground music and lit must read, Anti Gravity Magazine. Oh, and he s getting married in a couple of weeks. You want to know how that s going Does the sentence, "It can go die in a fire" give you a clue Joaquin Emiliano escaped a life in adult novelty retail with a wonderful education in lubricants. If you get through half of this show there s a good chance you ll come out knowing a lot more about sexual lubrication than you did coming in, for want of a better expression. In his real life Joaquin is a gifted author who specializes in downplaying his talents, in fact he has turned self deprecation into, literally, an art form. Take a look at his books, Suicide Notes From A Wedding and Stories From A Bar With No Doorknobs and see for yourself. If you buy one of Joaquin s books he reportedly makes 25c. Andrew Duhon, closing in on his new record, plays the second draft of a new song he tried out on us previously, called No Man s Land. Not suitable for weddings. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you see someone you think is attractive on social media and you d like to get to know them, the one sure fire way to get shut down is to say "Hi." The best way to meet someone is to say nothing about how attractive they are. This is dating advice by social media dating icon, Karen iKandy Tep, aka datingiKandy. "Dating Guru" barely scratches the surface of Karen s multi talents that stretch from sex s;ave warrior to author to nurse to bare handed fisher woman of the bayou. Cole Williams is loved and in love but by whom and with whom remains an open question. Jumping out of the gentrified frying pan of Brooklyn in the gentri fire of New Orleans, Cole has an interesting perspective on what s happening to the Crescent City. Oh, and she s also the Punk Empress of African Rock. Lowry Curley is the smartest guy ever to drive across Lake Pontchartrain. Raised on the North Shore, Lowry is creating human life in a lab Uptown, but not the old fashioned way that starts with an Instagram photo. Lowry is the founder of a company caled AxoSim that is literally creating human nerves on a chip to be used in drug testing inplace of animals and humans. Andrew Duhon tries out a new song off his forthcoming album, accompanied by Cole s Empress African Gumbo bongos. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is the story of how Happy Hour came to endorse Kaitlin Marone for Senate. Normally we describe this show as random conversation with people who have nothing in common. Today our guests do have something in common. They are running for the United States Senate. The election is November 8th, the same day as the presidential election. Although we can t promise you the same level of dramatic fireworks as a presidential debate, our plan was to offer the unique possibility of the participants in this forum getting drunk. That s because we re having a Senate candidates forum in a bar, namely Wayfare, on Freret Street in Uptown New Orleans. Our Producer Graham DaPonte invited 7 candidates for the Louisiana Senate race to join Grant and Andrew for a debate over cocktails. Graham chose those 7 candidates from a the larger field because all 7 live in the New Orleans area. Of the 7, four accepted our invitation. Charles Marsala, Kaitlin Marone, Vinny Mendoza, and Caroline Fayard. Caroline Fayard canceled a few days ago due to a scheduling conflict. And Vinny Mendoza canceled late yesterday because he didn t realize how long it takes to drive from Alexandria to New Orleans. And so that left us with two New Orleans area candidates for United States Senator. Charles Marsala, and Kaitlin Marone. Then, minutes before the show, Charles calls with the news that he s stuck in Baton Rouge fighting a court case to try and get all the candidates on a Louisiana Public Broadcasting debate, as opposed to the 5 of the 24 candidates that the LPB are intending to feature. So that leaves us with the sole participant in today s forum Kaitlin Marone. Kaitlin Marone is a feminist, comedian and politician whose senatorial platform includes "I don t want to take your guns away but you re making me," "Pay women more than men," and "Cops need therapy." If you re undecided, this will definitely help you make your mind up. If your mind s already made up, give this conversation 10 minutes and see if you change it. We re endorsing Kaitlin Marone for US Senate. Vote Marone Photos by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The day Megan Braden Perry woke up and decided her husband smelled too bad and liked loud noise too much to stay married to him, she started mentioning it on Twitter. Her husband, some days or maybe weeks later, decided to check Twitter out for himself after his mom told him she d been reading some pretty weird stuff about him. What transpired next led Megan to get a divorce and be happily dating a bunch of guys number unknown including "a little dude down the street" from Wayfare. Rachel Vette, the singer in the band The Vettes, reluctantly admits she s married though she lost the wedding ring she never really had. Yes, it s a weird story but Rachel doesn t like peer or societal pressure and most of her life is pretty non conforming including marrying a guy whose name is a secret and ditching her ring under bizarre and half remembered circumstances. Nick Napolitano is a comedian at The New Movement Theater and the producer of New Orleans ever growing comedy festival, Hell Yes Fest. Nick almost became a tax preparer and a history teacher but booze and comedy saved his life. Photos by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sara Johnson has an app on her phone to convert kilograms to pounds and ounces so she knows exactly how much heroin she s talking about. Sara looks sweet enough, right But she s the person you want in your corner when you ve been busted with god knows how many Oz Kg of heroin and you re not guilty of anything. Swear to God. Sara shares the inside scoop on how she s going to get you off. Greg Tilton knows some stuff about substances too. And pregnancy. And a bunch of other topics that make him the best conversationalist in the city. Greg is the producer of The Rumor Flies Podcast, which is a bit like Snopes meets Myth Busters. Sunny Duval lives on the other side of what he s worried is going to be a real wall after President Trump takes over. Sunny is French Canadian. The name of today s show, Bananana, is the title of one of Sunny s quirky Summer sounding beach songs off of his 4th and latest album. We call Happy Hour "a random conversation with folks who have nothing in common," and that description is never truer than this 60 minutes of cocktail fueled meandering. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cheron Brylski has been a political consultant for years. She has gotten more women elected to what she calls "non traditional" political office than you can shake a stick at. So when she talks politics at Happy Hour, we listen. Cheron says without taking a breath to ponder the answer to the question, "Yes, President Trump." It could very well happen. Cheron has some professional advice for how Hillary could pull out a win. Take a listen and see if you think it s likely Hillary could pull it off. Bryan Batt is the biggest Broadway and TV star in town, and one of the most down to earth and nicest guys you could run into in a New Orleans bar. Bryan hasn t exactly traded in the glitz and glam of Hollywood and Broadway for NOLA but he s from here and folks who go to Hazelnut, his store on Magazine Street, expect to see him so that s where you ll often find him. In this conversation Bryan leaves the theatrical persona behind and the guy you get to talk with here on Happy Hour is the same guy you d find if you popped in to see him at home. Mikayla Braun is no stranger to Happy Hour but this time she returns to the show fronting a new band, The Crooked Vines. James Keene, the CV s trombone player, sometime booking agent, and definitely the fastest talker in New Orelans music, joins Mikayla for the first time they ve ever played acoustically, and it s a triumph. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you had a vasectomy at age 30 via a doctor who apparently decided it wasn t a moment too soon to remove you from the gene pool , then fall in love with a woman who s determined to have a baby, the solution is obvious a sperm donation from your gay best friend and shared parenthood with donor dad and his partner. Andy Overslaugh tells Happy Hour about son WIlder s three dads, Wilder s mom Lori and her Leap Day proposal, and their surprisingly unsurprising, unconventional family. Although he says he s best known as Lori Tipton s fianc , Andy is what Happy Hour guest host Rich Collins calls a "five in one" threat. What else do you call a 20 year bartender whose incarnations include indie professional wrestler, Katrina race car driver, standup bass smashing leader of a 90s rockabilly band, and one of Wilder s dads Don t miss his tip for men who want to hang out at Victoria s Secret without creeping out the clientele. Andy s most vivid stories describe the wild world of professional wrestling, complete with hidden razors, gushing blood and a nemesis called Dick Nasty, so you might be surprised to know he s a big fan of Renaissance festival jousting. Speaking of which, Happy Hour favorite George Elizondo recounts the time he played at a Renaissance festival...with a Motown band...to an audience of no one. At least he got to eat a big turkey leg when it was over. George s copy music for the sponsorship announcements chills out the house. When she realizes a missing guest has resulted in a show reeking of testosterone, Happy Hour producer Graham da Ponte steps in to provide some estrogen...and is promptly reduced to tears by Rich s devastating song about New Orleans s mean streets. Finally, Andrew Duhon makes his last Happy Hour appearance of the month before heading for an east coast tour find his dates for a club near you at AndrewDuhon.com. Rich Collins of the Imagination Movers, guest hosting for Grant, keeps things moving with some stories of his own including the tender tale of a 10 year underpants ritual and some seriously grownup music.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tom Cianfichi is not just the best looking man in New Orleans married to the other best looking man in New Orleans, Bryan Batt. Tom is also an accomplished actor, Broadway casting director responsible for casting some of the biggest shows on Broadway, and an acclaimed director currently staging Pippin at Le Petit Theater marking the theater s 100th birthday. And if you need anyone to stop by and make you feel good by faking the sentence, "I m amazed and loving this" like he really means it, Tom s your man. Because this is New Orleans, comedian Addy Najera recognizes Tom, not because he s a famous actor or Bryan Batt s husband, but when she finally figures it out Addy knows Tom from his dogs. He brings them to the vet clinic where Addy is the vet tech. When she s not adjusting her bangs or pulling pet hair off of her clothes, Addy is one of New Orleans funniest comedians and to make that point she s immortalizing herself at the end of the month by making a live recording of her show, currently titled Unnamed For Now aka Isn t This Fun, with no question mark. John Lisi leads a band called Delta Funk that plays around the world and, when they re home, up and down Frenchmen Street at a different club every night. Playing guitar every night is one reason John is one of the greatest players in the city, which by the way is saying something in any city but especially here in New Orleans. John plays a couple of songs on this Happy Hour an original, "Got Cleaned Up," and a Big Bill Broonzy classic. If you want to see how John does it you can find a video version of this show of this show on our Facebook page. Andrew Duhon tries out a new song from his Unnamed For Now record and gets way more of an enthusiastic response than he was expecting. This is a breezy, casua, smart and frank conversation with a bunch of people whose talent would give any one of them the right to brag. But every single one of them has most definitely checked their ego at the door. You won t get more of a refreshingly fun and energetic New Orleans vibe anywhere than this Happy Hour. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
String is the theoretical fabric that holds the Universe together and you can t see it even with a giant particle collider. That s the kind of thing you find out when you meet someone in a bar, in this case a woman who calls herself Ari and who is a microbiology student and listener to another podcast about death Death the Podcast who happened to be reading Craig s List and finds herself somewhat mysteriously at this podcast. It s pretty confusing but then so is the correct definition of Pluto. Beyond the planets on this edition of Happy Hour are two legit stars. Big Sam, the leader of Big Sam s Funky Nation, one of the city s finest musicians, and all around good guy, tells stories about hanging out with James Brown, among others, and improvises a song about defecation at Christmas Day. Cecile Monteyne is one of New Orleans finest actors and comedians. Every bit of Cecile s talent is effortlessly on display in this 60 minute conversation that roams from her latest movie to her marriage and traverses characters who speak in perfect British and Russian accents. Cecile s new movie features a song by Andrew Duhon which Andrew performs live. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Let s get this straight Boyfriend takes her clothes off on stage but she s not a stripper. As a matter of fact she s not any kind of noun. She s a verb. Boyfriend is a person for whom stripping is an activity much like other activities that one performs but doesn t define you. Unless, perhaps, you re a teacher. Okay, yes, it s confusing but the simpler facts are we ve caught BF on the eve of her collaboration with Big Frieda and BF s that s Boyfriend not Big Frieda annual free birthday bash. There s a lot of good info about free shows on this Happy Hour, including how and where to catch the fabulous Bella Blue for free. Bella is the 8th most popular burlesque artist in the entire world and we re lucky enough in New Orleans to be able to study with her at her School of Burlesque. You, too, can join the sisterhood of love and glitter, but it s not all non breeding Unicorns and pasties. Unlike Bella, Matt Owens might not be ranked on the international scale of comedians, but he is officially the Second Funniest Person on the Gulf Coast. Having grown up on an island off of the coast of Georgia, selling fishing tackle, pretty much everything is funny. Matt travels more than he s home in New Orleans but he is putting on some impressive comedy shows here in New Orleans at the Joy Theater. If you are a regular listener to this show or if you ve only ever gotten all the way through to the end once you will have heard Grant say "Our Technical Director and Associate Producer is Chris Kehoe." Well, Chris is leaving the show to go become a screenwriter in Los Angeles. "Hollywood screenwriter" does sound a bit more glamorous than "New Orleans podcast technical director" so we can t hold it against him. This is Chris s first time on the other side of the microphone. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Beth Patterson is the only professional bouzouki player in New Orleans who finds meaning and fulfillment in the words and music of the Canadian ensemble Rush. Yes, Rush. There s just something about Rush that speaks to Beth and somehow makes her feel less of a freaky outsider. And she really doesn t have much to feel freaky or alienated from society about other than being the author of songs like "Matchstick," about the joys of arson, "Show Me On The Doll," and going from this podcast to a recording studio to record a classical Indian version of a Black Sabbath song. Other than that, and being used, discarded, and the victim of attempted murder, Beth is just your regular Lafayette Welsh girl who moved to New Orleans and hides out in Mississippi. Other than Beth, Becky Hardin has the darkest eyes of anyone who has ever been a guest on Happy Hour. What are the chances of having the two darkest eyed people in the history of Happy Hour on the same show Becky quit a career in music promotion with gigs like Voodoo and Wednesdays at the Square, to open City Surf, the workout gym Uptown on Magazine Street where you get to simulate surfing and end up with a body as awesome as Becky s without the expense or effort of moving to Florida or California. Andrew Duhon tries out a new song about the benefits of Going Alone. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chuck Magid grew up as he calls it, "Full blooded Carney." His father and grandfather both owned carnivals and Chuck aand his brother grew up travelling with the show, working games and rides. The first game he and his brother invented was when they were around 8. It was a duckpond where little toy ducks floated around and little kids who couldn t play any other game would come by, their parents would cough up 5 and for that the kid got to pickup a duck and get a 1 prize. Now Chuck is the guitar player and sings in The Orient Groove, an Orlando band currently on tour around the South. Chuck happenedtowander into Wayfare to see what the mxing board andmics were all about and joined in. While Chuck and his brother were working rides at the fair, Matt McCormick was also traveling the country,roping calves in the rodeo. Matt s sister is stillin the rodeo to this day but Matt went straight. Sort of. He went to law school via a stint writing about the movies for a College Station paper, then ditched a law career to tend bar at Salon in the French Quarter. His next move is to direct movies. To continue the sibling theme of this show, Jaclyn Smith no relation to but inspired by the Charlie s Angel and her "Identical Mirror Twin" sister Nicole both started careers with The Hard Rock Cafe in Mississippi. 9 yeras later, Jaclyn is Operations Manager at the Hard Rock on Bourbon Street while Nicole is zooming around the country in corporate. sure Nicole is further up the food chain but she s not married to a hot chef at Sylvain. Andrew Duhon has been thinking a lot this week about women. Well, one anyway. Namely the subject of his newest song who he s conflicted about. But the heartache and getting "tired of f ing around" has paid off with a new song that takes Andrwto a brave new level of musicality. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans musician Jake Hammer McGregor fights a never ending battle with Irish cage fighter Connor McGregor. Not literally, but for recognition. Try Googling McGregor and you ll see what Jake s up against.Jake and his bass player in the eponymous band McGregor demonstrate why Connor ought to be scared, at least of pursuing a music career. If you ve never heard Jake s music you ve just made a discovery for which you ll be ever grateful. These guys Jake and bass player Sam Ferguson have got it. Sophie Lafayette materialized out of the internet in Dar es Salaam Tanzania where she has been a fan of New Orleans and a long time Happy Hour listener and materialized at our table at Wayfare. Finally realizing a lifelong dream, Sophie made it through living in New Zealand, the UK, Norway and Tanzania before making it to Freret Street in New Orleans. While she s here, Sophie s shaking things up though not in the way most new arrivals do. Sophie is an international political activist working on behalf of folks she calls "stakeholders." For many years Rien Fertel was literally a steak holder. He was a busboy at his grandmother Ruth s famous steakhouse, Ruth s Chris. Rien, or if you prefer, "Dr. Fertel," has graduated from steaks to barbecue, having just made himself heartily sick of hogs by spending years chronicling their incineration at the hands of a nationwide string of Carolina wanna bes bringing the ancient and venerated methods of Southern sweat barbecue to cooler climes of America. Andrew Duhon continues his streak of writing beautiful new songs and we continue being lucky enough to be his sounding board. See what you think of this one, "Gone So Long." If you happen to be looking for a classic barroom conversation that traverses everything from long distance love to the consideration of what makes us love certian music, to hog heaven, you found it. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Old folk wisdom says there are two things you don t want to see being made sausages and legislation. You might want to add kambucha to that list. According to one of the guys who makes it, Daniel Morris from Big Easy Bucha, it s made in what s called "open brewing" which is kind of like brewing beer except instead of being in a closed system it s an open vat with a SHEET over it. Yes, a sheet. A black sheet. In all fairness Big Easy Bucha, sheet or not sheet it tastes awesome. As we can attest after a rigorous taste test on this Happy Hour, sacrificing ourselves for science by adding whisky to Bucha, making what Andrew Duhon christens as Boozy Bucha. Harry Rosenberg no relation and Molly Portier make up 50 of Blonde Roses, one of the most exciting new bands in New Orleans. In fact they re so new that they ve only been around a few weeks having been reborn from an earlier outfit you ll know if you;re from Lafayette, called Wooden Wings. As you know if you listen to Happy Hour, we get to hear a lot of great music on this show these guys rate up there with the absolute best. Do you know anything about bras If you do you can decorate one and enter it into the Bodaceous Bra competition at Festi Gals, an annual festival celebrating women that Diane Lyons dreamed up to complement festivals about tomatoes and oysters. Diane s day job is an event planner with her own company Accent DMC which she describes as being like Run DMC but with less money. However, still plenty of champagne. Andrew Duhon just finished writing a song called Whatever Happened to Gray. Although by now it may be called something else, a rose and the color gray by any other name would be, well, a plant and a color with different names. If you want to know why the song induces trance like good feelings, Andrew has a musical, psychological and mathematical explanation. Phots at Wayfare by Nathaniel Trahan.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you ve ever been on a date with someone you really find intriguing but half way through listening to them tell you the story of their life you wonder, "How am I going to respond with something intelligent " you ll know what it s like looking across the table at Kristin Lyman. Not only can Kristin dazzle and intimidate you with her day job, after hours you can she hip hop dance your ass off. For even more of an intellectual humbling, try having a conversation with super brainiac P H Fred. Not only does the guy speak Latin fer Chrissakes, he can also break down multiple languages into grammatical pieces like gerunds and dangling participles. There are certain circles where that sort of stuff can get you laid. So can working people out in a San Francisco gym. Ask Jon Roniger. Not only is Jon a New Orleans version of Dean Martin meets Django Reinhardt which Andrew Duhon suggests he needs to adapt to Dean Reinhardt and use as porn name but Jon is also a workout trainer in a past life as well as a serial partier. Checking his mojo at the door ended up getting him straight and married and entertaining the masses in New Orleans most nights a week with the most debonair je ne sais quoi in town. Monsieur Duhon is back in town apre Paris where he was low on his accordion count but high on smoking women. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you really want to stress yourself out you could do like Trey Fayard borrow 6m , start an airline, and fly out of New Orleans to Shreveport, Little Rock, and a few other hot spots. On the other hand, you could decompress for a mere 50 by getting on a plane and flying to Destin. Trey s airline is called GLO and the flight to Destin is only 45 minutes. You leave from the airport in Kenner around 1pm and by 2 30 you re on the beach with a cocktail. Sam McCabe is a super talented musician, member of New Orelans band The Bantam Foxes, and pretty soon you might see him as cabin attendant on Trey s planes. Trey s hiring and Sam wouldn t mind leaving his job at PJ s on Poydras behind. The Bantam Foxes have an impressive new album, Gold Record, and a wacky new video. Kimberly Rivers Roberts is the star of award winning Katrina documentary, Trouble the Water, and creator of the brand new follow up documentary, Fear No Gumbo. Kimberly is up to year 5 of her 10 year plan for taking over the world as herself and her alter ego, rapper Queen Black Kold Madina. If you want to meet a cross section of New Orleanians who have, as Grant says at the top of the show, nothing in common, but have no shortage of things to talk about, you ve come to the right place. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Typically actors and musicians looking for some income insurance will develop a couple of flexible skills like waiting tables or bar tending that will get them through the leaner times. Today s Happy Hour guests have a couple of diffrent takes on that concept. Olga is a blues musician, singer songwriter, stunt woman, actor, and violinist who pads her showbiz income by reading romance novels for audio book company Audible and conducting weddings for sky divers and people getting hitched at the wedding chapel in the French Quarter. Brett Roberts makes movies. In his down time has been a cop and currently makes training films for Louisiana lawyers who apparently need continuing education to remind them not to steal off of the clients. Yes, this is absolutely true. These days you can t apparently fall back on shooting or acting in porn. Kay Charbonnet doesn t have much down time. She spends most days hanging out on Magazine Street near the epicenter of destruction where she has a store, called appropriately Kay s, where she sells "dope sh t" and has little time to read which is why she listens to Audible books. Andrew Duhon, back from Alaska, tries out a brand new song and gets 8 thumbs up. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Try this tonight if we all set our AC s to 76, will we have the same dream How about if the whole country set their AC to 76 Could we move the collective unconscious up a chakra and spread love around the world Tomahawk Tassels is a burlesque dancer with some provocative thoughts, and a needle in her liver that was left there after a biopsy that concluded that she had terminal cancer, which she didn t. Wayne Xia had his own dreams of leaving Alaska and thus depleting the population of Chinese nationals by some 13 . Wayne s dreams came true right after high school and before driving across Mozambique in a Honda. Now he s in New Orleans playing violin with Pheasants. If you haven t heard of Pheasants, you will. Adrienne Edson plays a musical saw with no teeth, a flute, and banjo and that s just on today s show. Robert Allen writes the songs and sings them. And has dreams too disturbing to discuss. Dr. Christopher Garland dreamed of leaving his native New Zealand, visiting Haiti, moving to New Orleans and teaching writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. Then he never woke up, and realized it wasn t a dream this is actually happening. This Happy Hour is a classic New Orleans barroom conversation, with an added free gift Dr Garland describes how to emigrate to New Zealand if Trump wins. For that reason alone, a literal must listen. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
"People are horrible" is not what you d expect a politician to believe, much less say. But Manny Chevrolet is no ordinary politician. A perennial candidate for Mayor of New Orleans with the slogan "A troubled man for troubled times," Manny is ready to come out swinging next time around, building on his previous trending statistics which have improved every election, all the way up to something like 120 votes last time around. Sindy Scalfi doesn t hate humans but she sure does love animals. She s communed with gorillas in Africa and even though she s put her decades long singing career on the back burner and left her country music boots and hat in Nashville, she sings a song about animals, called "Animals," on this show. Graham Robinson and Daria Dzurik have one of New Orleans most original sounding bands, Daria and the Hip Drops, combining a hip pop sensibility with steel pans, of all instruments. How Daria came to play the pans is even weirder, and you might be surprised how vast and even weirder still is the world of steel pan players, stretching as it does from Pensacola to Trinidad. Graham is a dark horse. When he s not playing with Daria and the band he s an A list bass player, playing with the likes of David Torkanowski and Zachary Richard. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The real Debbie and Donna are New Orleans twins who won 200m in the lottery and blew it all. The fake Debbie and Donna are Jon and Chelsea from a band called Toonces which they formed in the aftermath of playing Debbie and Donna in a comedy music show where dressed as the opposite gender they fell passionately in love. So passionate was their love that they included Dana a man dressed as a woman along on their first night of sex together. Which didn t go according to what you might think would be the normal course of events. And that, believe it or not, is just the beginning of the story. The rest of it involves a hedgehog called Quilliam, yoga, tarot cards, and an imaginary religion. Grant mentions that when he walked into the bar he assumed Clyde Edward Casey aka Casey was going to be the most eccentric person at the table, an observation which, looking at Casey aka Clyde is wholly forgivable. Even though the threesome twins story is hard to top, Casey aka Clyde aka Casey does not disappoint. Casey aka Clyde has done practically everything required of the card carrying eccentric, from carving wooden figures on Bourbon Street to making harmonica bracelets but not wanting to tell you where he sells them here to getting married to the Cosmic Queen on a reality TV show in the French Quarter. In other company, owning Kitchen Witch, a bookstore in Mid City that sells "9 10,000 cookbooks," and refusing to drive a "stinkin Lincoln" literally stinkin from the animals carted around inside it and a plug to drain out water would make you the kook, but in this conversation Debbie Lindsey is almost a straight arrow. Almost. Andrew Duhon tries out a song about pickling that is unfinished and gets help putting the lid on it from Toonces. This is without doubt one of the most eccentric and unpredictable barroom conversations you have ever heard. Or your money back. Photos at Wayfare by Graham daPonte.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We all know Rich Collins, from his career with Imagination Movers, but we ll now also know him as the host of this weeks Happy Hour. Rich is a grizzled veteran of Happy Hour so he knows the how hairy it can get, so he s brought fellow Happy Hour alum and fellow amazing musician Mikayla. Brandi Studer also returns to talk about the dire lack of public defenders in the city of New Orleans. She also talks about the people who need these public defenders, as well as access to restrooms. We ve also have got a new comer, Preston Titus is from Dallas but he came to New Orleans just in time for Katrina. Fortunately that wasn t enough to scare him away, and he s the head honcho at Belle s Diner, home of the Belle Boozy, Preston s milkshake based cocktail creation. You learn everyones favorite restaurants and why judges shouldn t be so nosy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Grant is out this week, so a slightly forgetful Andrew is taking helm of the show to finally bring us a show that s about art, culture, and musicals written in sexile. But Andrew s not alone in tackling these weighty subjects; he brought his friend and amazing musician Micah McKee. Micah is a true renaissance man; he is a lover of classic film, Shakespeare, and hopes to one day right songs for Taylor Swift. Micah wasn t the only theater lover in the group; Kristin Shannon took time away from her job as the manager and producer of the Orpheum Theater to come slum it with us. A.J. Allegra is also very much immersed in all aspects of the theater world. He is an actor, a teacher, and he s almost won a Big Easy Award multiple times. But perhaps A.J. s greatest contribution to humanity is the Oregon Trail Musical he wrote while in sexile. Sorry you ve died of dysentery.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Photographer Leon Morris has been coming to Jazz Fest from Australia for 22 years. In that time he s met a bunch of people and taken a bunch of photos. He s assembled a few hundred of his best shots into a coffee table book that s a homage to New Orleans and has come up with an imaginative title for it Homage New Orleans. Leon s book starts with words of encouragement from Dr. John that Leon lives by, and which we joyfully appropriated for this show "follow your heart or you re fu ked. As a testament to the power of the written word and the apparent inconsequential power of speech, we re allowed to say anything we liked on the podcast, but iTunes and Facebook after somebody complains which they inevitably do pull your stuff down if you use curse words in print. Chris Bradford looks like a million bucks but feels like a little less. She woke up one morning with a hemorrhaged vocal cord which not only sidelined her singing but required her to be absolutely silent for a month. The resident doctors on Happy Hour review Chris s strange case and link it to her 6 month stint in Beijing where she wore a mask constantly to allow her to simply breathe in the smog that is so visible it literally blocks out the sun. Chris is most definitely back in body, mind, spirit, and song. She gives up a first listen to a brand new song in it s very first rough demo. Andrew Duhon plays a new song off his forthcoming album, I Hemorrhaged a Vocal Cord. That s just a working title. See what you think of this song and whether it ought to included in the final lineup. Happy Hour Producer Graham daPonte makes a rare appearance on this Happy Hour with a sneak peek inside the life of a death row trial attorney and the strange management style of the guy who could simultaneously save you from lethal injection and kill you with his violent temper. This show also contains an update on the romantic adventures of our two guests on the previous week s show, Mr and Mrs Frank Scurlock. Little did we know that the title of the show would be a prophesy. This is one of the greatest New Orleans barroom Happy Hour stories of all time. Pictures at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cancel your subscription to Match.com, OK Cupid, Tinder, and anything else you re using to look for love. Instead just get yourself booked as a guest on Happy Hour. Show Producer Graham daPonte will hook you up with your perfect mate and Grant and Andrew will take care of all the arrangements. Just ask Mr and Mrs Frank Scurlock. 60 minutes before they decided to get married and sail around the world for 222 days on a cruise that departs from Denmark and concludes in New Orleans with Frank 120m richer, Katrina Brees and Frank Scurlock had never met. Maybe it s the talk about Katrina s vagina puppet, Vag, or Katrina s belief that "Every woman would like to take her vagina out and let it speak," that enchants Frank. Maybe it s Frank s Volvo, custom built to look like the space shuttle, or his idea to develop a New Orleans style Disney World in New Orleans East where festivals like Jazz Fest are up and running 365 days a year that romances Catrina. Maybe it s the giant 4 foot long joint Katrina made in celebration of 4 20 Day that actually smokes and gets everybody high that makes the magic for New Orleans newest power couple. Then again maybe it s Frank s Donald Trump good looks and his plan to join with Katrina to "Funetize America" that seals the romantic deal. Whatever it might be in this way off the rails Happy Hour, it s a must listen if you d like to meet two of New Orleans most unique, out of the box minds. Plus Andrew Duhon explains Break Fest and plays a beautiful rendition of his song "Stones." Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon. Check out Facebook Live video by Carly Viator.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Boyfriend is the creator of a whole new entertainment genre she calls Rap Cabaret. If she d taken her stripper style show to Finland and not Austin and Bumf k Mississippi she might not have gotten banned from performing because of the lewd nature of her show, nor called the C word. On this podcast we get to hear the C word a lot. But because of strict rules about writing naughty words that show up on iTunes and get you kicked off it s already happened to us we can t go into that too much here on the page. However if you re interested in various uses of the word in a multi national comparison, check out this conversation which owes its genesis to Boyfriend s current antics and Faimon Roberts past. Faimon spent some time in Finland where their use of the C word is more common than ours. Faimon, who spent his Baton Rouge childhood being called "Flamin " also spent time in the UK where he quit prestigious Oxford University in a hot headed moment and ended up in the only profession disappearing faster than his Ph.D topic, the study of ancient Iraq journalism. Today Faimon is a reporter for The Advocate. Mandy Lloyd grew up playing the trumpet and today has graduated to working with the most famous trumpet of them all Louis Armstrong s. As a part of Mandy s gig in management at The Hard Rock Cafe on Bourbon Street, she gets to watch over Satchmo s horn and carry pepper spray at all times to threaten unruly customers. Andrew Duhon, inspired less by all the talk of various applications of the C word in the UK and more by the higher ideals of universal travel and the celebration of hair curlers, sings an unrecorded song about the small towns that surround London. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon. Faceboook Live recording by Carly Viator.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Author, virtual analyst, and international snappy dresser Timothy Alan Weeks claims he had nothing to do writing the novel The Beauty Fools, a manuscript he claims is as brilliant and as New Orleans centric as Confederacy of Dunces. Senor Weeks claims he only edited the contents of a memory stick that was left on his doorstep by an anonymous resident of a non existent place in England called "All Souls." Whether or not T.A. Weeks is actually the author of the book, he is suggesting it is a British DJ who resided in New Orleans for a short time by the name of Pete Lazenby. If you know Mr Lazenby, you are Mr Lazenby, or you re a wannabe author, you d do well to claim that you wrote this book and sue Mr Weeks and his Croation publisher. Happy Hour will take a mere 10 for tipping you off. Ava Jeune may have a few copyright problems of her own. You can see her works of art sensual poetry set to images she s stolen and layered over music she s stolen on her Twitter feed here. Most of Ava s work is inspired by a guy in Slidell known only as Kevin whom Ava refers to as a muse who dates other people and treats her bad, but she s drawn to the tempestuousness. You don t typically get a lot of tempestuousness in Slidell. And then again there s The Painted Hands, one of New Orleans greatest young rock bands who started out together at Slidell High. If you ve never heard of them and there s a good chance you haven t yet you ll be surprised these Slidell guys are as awesome as they are. We re all going to be hearing a lot more about them in the probably not too distant future. If we re lucky we ll also get to hear the new Andrew Duhon album in the not too distant future. Andrew is in the process of writing songs for it and tries out another new one on this show, called Go It Alone. If you listen to Andrew putting these songs together each week you re starting to get a feel of what a songwriter goes through assembling material he s happy enough to record for posterity. It takes a certain amount of courage, confidence, and a certain quantity of pale ale. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the first moments of this Happy Hour Jim McCormick demonstrates the inner workings of the mind of a song writer. Happy Hour tech director Chris Kehoe went out to his car to get some equipment, Grant read the intro to the show about Wayfare putting "fine dining into a sandwich" and Jim immediately came up with a song title, "Fine dining In the Front Seat." That s how you write a hit country song. Jim ought to know, he s written plenty including the current single I Do Like We Do performed poorly according to Grant by Harry Connick Jr. Emily Reimsnyder, who by the way makes a career out of winning friends and influencing people, has no hesitation telling Jim she likes all kinds of music, but not country. Emily, a guitar player herself, demonstrates exactly what it is about country that drives her nuts and has had enough cucumber cocktails to be cajoled in playing some of her 10 chords that she learned from a book. Andrew Duhon as of this show is getting help from Jim McCormick to finish the remaining songs that need to be completed for his new ablum, and in return is giving Jim guitar lessons so Jim too can play in the style of Piedmont Pink Anderson, the inspiration for Pink Floyd and Barbara Streisand. Jim admits to a period in his life when he loved Barbara, including her blockbuster hit "People" which is totally coincidentally the name of the feature film by writer director Shane McGoey. People is about the festival circuit and has found its greatest advocate after Shane s mom in Emily Reimsnyder. This is perhaps the most off the rails Happy Hour barroom conversation ever. We can only imagine what happens when the cocktails wear off. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this weeks Happy Hour, we have someone old, someone new, and someone borrowed sorry no one s blue . We have Paul Sanchez of Cowboy Mouth, filling in for host this week to explain why New Orleans is always evolving but manages to stay the same. Paul is joined by Sarah Waggener, who moved to New Orleans last year. By day, Sarah teaches Ashtanga Yoga, but by night she flies high above an audience as a professional aerialist, performing with Vaude D Gras as well as Cirque Copine, New Orleans first, all lady circus. Paul is also joined by chef Robert Bruce. Robert is a native New Orleanian, and has been working in restaurants since he was a teenager. But, all that work in the service industry paid off, because Robert is now the chef at Mr. John s Steakhouse. There s no music guest this week but luckily, Paul favors us with an original, acapella song.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You probably already know that Alex McMurray is one of New Orleans finest songwriters. You may not know that he s slso a business magnate with a vast empire and team of employees engaged in global business including building a massive dam that it is almost complete and will be known as The Alex McMurray Dam, the main task of which will be to power The Dark Web. In his spare time Alex sits home and writes songs or comes down to Happy Hour and writes them live while other guests talk about frothy subjects like the destruction of your Constitutional 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial. Lindsey Hortenstine is married to Barksdale and changed her name from Riehle yes, really, it sounds like an Australian saying "really" which in a strange twist of fate is the voice on Lindsey s Siri which she uses to deliver the news about the Rolling Stones playing live in Havana. Anyway, back to the Public Defender s Office where Lindsey works as the Communications Director. Lindsey uses her communication skills to paint a pretty bleak picture of what s going to happen to the New Orleans justice system after the current round of budget cuts. And the answer to your question is, "Yes It COULD get worse " Apparently quite a lot. Luis Arocha left the corporate world of wealth management to work with at risk young men, which is a vast, untapped market. Apparently there are 25,000 kids around here aged 17 24 who don t have a job or are not in school, or both. Luis gives as many of them as he can handle a 6 week course in life skills and restaurant work at his Westbank project, Cafe Hope. You know you ve gone down dark road when it s Andrew Duhon s song that lightens the mood. But that s where we are on this Happy Hour, deep into the bleak reality of a blighted generation, till Andrew turns it around and Alex throws the last blast of dynamite down the hole with an improvised bluies about getting arrested in Palquemines Parish where they throw away the key and don t get you an attorney. Ever. This is a crazy conversation that veers all over the road but somehow miraculously avoids ending up in a ditch. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
President Trump If, like celebrated psychic Cari Roy, you could see the future exactly as it is going to turn out, would you feel an obligation to do something to change it Or do you believe it s going to turn out how it s going to turn out and there s nothing you can do to alter it Welcome to the life of a psychic. So, here s the question we all want to know is there going to be a President Trump Hear what Cari has to say on that subject, and others for example, where you re going after death. If you took all the vowels out of your name, what would you call yourself As long as it s not CRWNS, that s already taken. Max Chung or Mx Chng if you prefer is a philosophy student at Tulane who has very wisely got a backup career to philosophy Electronic Dance Music. Under the name CRWNS Max is a massively popular EDM exponent with huge audiences online and in the real world. Some of those audiences are courtesy of Addie Olsen, the youngest big shot in the music biz around here. Addie is the Festival Director at BUKU as well as the overall big deal on the Gulf Coast for live music giant AEG. Addie is responsible for 100 concerts a year, most of them household name artists. Andrew Duhon is back on the show after a 5 week tour that includes playing and cruising with the likes of Lucinda Williams, John Prine and Steve Earle. Combining the themes of cruising and life after death, Andrew s new song is a meditation on the river of life known as the Mississippi. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you went to De La Salle High School and you walk into Barcadia, you might not recognize the boss man, Miles Tully. That s because Miles had his top and bottom jaw broken, his face totally reconstructed and got a new nose. And health insurance paid for the whole thing. When he recovered he was fabulously handsome, thin, and, for the first time in his 21 year old life, able to eat pizza like a normal person. Katherine Allan knows a fair bit about mutilation too. She s the first person you see when you walk into the neck up only plastic surgeon s office to get work done. That s a lot of pressure to look somewhere between fabulous and perfect every day. Luckily, as you can see, it s not taking its toll too quickly, especially given Katherine is old enough to remember the birthday song at long defunct Bravo restaurant and stopped making bad and regrettable decisions some time ago for some pretty good reasons. The real metaphorical mutilation in this show comes from the mind of singer songwriter George Elizondo. If you have a million better things to do than listen to this podcast put this at the top of your list for no other reason than to hear George sing live. And hear the story of how he came to write a song with the sweetly sung chorus, "mutilate him." It s actually also worth learning why you may not have heard of George, yet. You ll be surprised. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you can commit 60 minutes to listen to this Happy Hour all the way through, your life will be forever changed. This is not some sort of idle claim, or a pitch for money, or a time share condo. It s spiritual enlightenment. The real deal. Just like you could spend your entire life searching for, devoting every waking prayer and meditation. Forget all that. This is science, bro Or not.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Creedence Clearwater Revival and Tina Turner would be proud of Galen Huckins, skipper of The Channel Princess, a plucky little river boat that Galen dredged off the bottom of the Willamette River way up in Portland and piloted all the way down the Mississippi River to the Industrial Canal in New Orleans where it, and Galen, now reside. Galen discovered the easy way that the song is right, "People on the rive are happy to give." People gave Galen interviews and free concerts which he and his co pilots turned into a, nautical, fictionalized podcast. A kind of Huck Finn musical tribute to Studs Terkel with a dash of the podcast Serial thrown in. Leanna Firstarai has a vaguely nautical lineage her grandfather sailed here from Japan with the first ever shipment of silk to hit the US. If it ever existed, the vast fortune to be made in Japanese silk importing didn t trickle down to the current generation, to such a sad degree that Leanna has been forced to work as a producer and presenter in public radio. Which is just as well as Grant managed to lose his glasses before this show and Leanna takes over like a pro. Tarriona Ball aka Tank from Tank and the Bangas is one of New Orleans favorite live performers and one of Happy Hour s happiest return guests. Today Tank brings along her drummer, Joshua Johnson, to whom she is not married and reportedly not even dating, but after a couple of drinks it s uncertain which way is up. Joshua is far and away the most erudite drummer ever to appear on Happy Hour and perhaps to play drums. Listen for his description of playing animal skins and listen even more carefully to his reference to, "As is the local custom." Andrew Duhon is on the road so Galen Huckins entertains with a selection from the musical Oliver, while contemplating slipping into a slinky black dress. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Gwen Thompkins is host of the authoritative and quintessential New Orleans music show, Music Inside Out, on NPR station WWNO. Gwen s tenure in Sudan and East Africa as cash toting bureau chief in that neck of the woods has given her a wide worldview out of which has come her solution to the debate over guns in America pies. What if, instead of shooting each other, we each had an armory of pies which we unload on each other with an accompaniment of suitable epithets John Richie is taking the pie idea under advisement. His new documentary is called 91 for the 91 of the population who believe in background checks for all gun buyers and examines why 100 of Congress refuse to act on the will of the people. Rich Collins is side tepping the gun issue in favor of a more upbeat and sunny view of the world on his new record, Golden Pick. He also has a new oputlook on the music busines and a full schedule with the other side of his music life, the Imagination Movers. Chris Lee drops by with his beautiful baby blue guitar and an atrtitude that s anything but baby or blue. For his new year s resolution Chris who, remember is the front man for ass kicking, take no prisoners rockband Supagroup has decided for this year he s going to kick ass, take no prisoners, and not give a sh t what anybody thinks about anything he has to say. If you think Chris was smart, sharp, and outspoken laste year , wait till you hear this year s version. Check out he song he sings on this show about who owns his freedom. Andrew Duhon is just waiting for someone to break in his house so he can string up his curve bow and arrow and let em have it. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the beginning of this conversation artist Myesha Francis tells the table that everything she wished for by writing it on her "vision board" at the beginning of 2015 came to be by the end of the year, except one thing. In the next 60 minutes, by sheer chance, Myesha s last remaining goal is going to be accomplished. Well, pretty damn close anyway.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In the next 60 minutes you re going to hear how a relatively successful New York City accordion player broke down on stage, became a Buddhist cult leader, and inadvertently gave birth to the Gwendolyn Molson Quartet. Leslie Molson tells the story and many more besides, including how she cured having a fat face and tiny eyes with a tube of eye shadow and the difference between the microscopic mites on your face and hers. If that isn t a wild enough story for you, meet Charles Marsala. Charles has lived a number of lifetimes, apparently simultaneously. Charles grew up in New Orleans, became the mayor of Silicon Valley, transformed the US Air Force in Alaska, and is currently back in New Orleans saving the African Elephant from extinction. He has a TV show about saving wild animals and has written a book about finance. Is he New Orleans most interesting man Voting is open. Helen Gillet brings along her cello and her foot pedal rig that transforms her cello into an array of sounds from a drum and bass section to what sounds like an orchestra, guitars and an indescribable sonic wonderland that is not only rocking and rich, but you can barely believe it is all totally live. Andrew Duhon finished writing a song literally minutes before he plays it here. If you need any encouragement to check it out, it contains a line something like "My heart is like a rowboat I tow through land locked towns." Being a musician might be totally wrecking his love life but it s paying off in songs like this. Photos taken at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you have any kind of mental illness and are on medication, Valley Rich has a way to get you off of all of your pills. You need to be prepared to accept the magic of marijuana, the power of your real self, and turn your back on the conspiracy of big pharma. There is a chance that you ll see demons and turn into a mermaid but then on the other hand if you re like Valley you might also get to star in a movie like She Was Famous, learn to play guitar and turn yourself into a singer songwriter all in the space of 9 months. Luke Winslow King makes a return appearance to Happy Hour with a rare lesson on harmonica maintenance, a how to primer on Google Alerts, a literally show stopping revamped version of an awesome original, and a duet with Andrew Duhon on a Sister Rosetta Tharp classic. Rene Maggio takes us into the murky underworld of Anne Rice, Singapore, and the strange forces that lurk beneath Facebook, fiction, blindness, and reading impairment that conspire to bring to life audio books and radio for the blind. Photographer Alison Moon brings us Christmas brownies and sugar cookies that, as we wrap up this show and this year, seem to be weed free. Then again, let s give it another 10 minutes to be sure about that... If you ve just found us or you re a long time listener to the Happy Hour podcast, from Producer Graham Daponte, Associate Producer Chris Kehoe, hosts Grant Morris and Andrew Duhon and all of us at INO Broadcasting who make the show Thank you for being with us 2015 was a great year for us. We ve seen a giant growth in our audience, we ve hosted performances from some of New Orleans finest musicians, we ve met an incredibly diverse array of wonderful New Orleanians, we ve enjoyed the extraordinary generosity and awesome food and drinks at Wayfare, we ve learned a lot and we ve laughed even more. We look forward to spending many more happy hours with you on Happy Hour. Be Safe and we ll see you back here when the effects of Alison s brownies wear off.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do you know that all chefs hats aka "toques" are not created equal Look closely next time you see one and you ll see they are made up of different numbers of pleats. Each one of those pleats represents a way you are competent at making eggs. The maximum number of pleats in a toque is 30.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ann Glaviano s novella is about be published. It s called Dickbeer. It s about a guy. Called Dickbeer. If we told you how he got the name it would ruin the surprise. Chances are a you won t guess it, b it s even weirder than you think, and c see if you can design the movie poster. In her non Dickbeer hours Ann is the grant writer for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, which is an orchestra and philharmonic whatever that actually means but its only relation to Louisiana is that it plays in New Orleans. Somehow, despite the lack of truth in advertising in the title, Ann manages to convince grant givers and evaluators that the orchestra is worth supporting for reasons that will possibly come clear to you in the course of this conversation. P H Fred survived his brush with a tumor in his head the size of a baseball card and is healthy enough to be putting out a new Best Of record called You Are Unique In All The World and a new book of illustrated lyrics called I am My Own Mixtape. As the inventor of the ACT tutor app The Freducator, P H proves his superior math problem solving ability by explaining how you can increase your odds of turning a goat into a car.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Happy Hour photographer Alison Moon went to Paris she was expecting something to go wrong because it always does on her trips. By the time she got to Paris on Friday night November 13th nothing momentous had gone wrong so she thought maybe this trip she d been spared a disaster. Then her plans fell through to go see the Eagles of Death Metal at the Bataclan and the Air Bn nB she d booked in Place de la Republique canceled on her the day before she arrived in Paris. What happened next is history, thankfully history that Alison was somehow miraculously spared from. Over 100 people were killed at the Eagles of Death Metal concert she didn t get to and the neighborhood she was supposed to be staying was the center of other attacks. New Orleans band The Fixers hail from a nearly invisible town at the edge of Louisiana just beyond Slidell and on the not quite married to your cousin edge of Mississippi. It s called Pearl River but don t let the vaguely Asian romantic name fool you. Dominick Blanda and Ryan Duke met as kids, have stayed friends and today form the nucleus of an impressive and unique hybrid of punk pop blues shaken, stirred, and poured over audiences from The House of Blues to Starbucks in Slidell the one next to the gentlemen s club Scuttlebutt. Randy Mack is a prototypical Hollywood success story, working his way up from the mailroom at a big agency to being a trusted script advisor to George Clooney among others. Randy busted out of Hollywood and into the indie film world where he s written and directed movies you ve actually heard of. And if you haven t heard of them, Woody Allen has. Randy s latest project is an all New Orleans movie about the real New Orleans called Laundry Day. It s inspired by a wild fight he witnessed at Checkpoint Charlies one random afternoon. Randy s insider tales about the Hollywood system are instructive and might lead him somewhere along the path to getting his movie out of New Orleans and into the world. See if you can come up with an idea for him to get people to see his movie he s open to anything. Andrew Duhon celebrates the French aspect of today s show with a new song about a belle from Lafayette s romantic misty past called Celia Champagne. Photos taken at Wayfare by current day belle from Lafayette et la Reine de la Bonne Chance, Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It s Veterans Day 2015. The random assortment of folks at Happy Hour at Wayfare runs the gamut from hardcore US Marine Tommy Waller to vegan singer songwriter and French chanteuse Sarah Quintana. Lafayette musician Phillipe Billeaudeaux, from Cajun band Feufollet, recently moved to town. Moon is an artist who tends toward the spiritual and loving end of the visual spectrum and has "Make Love Not War" tattooed on her. She s also married to a soldier who has just returned after a year on duty in the Middle East. And then there s Andrew Duhon questioning and open minded and host Grant Morris. It s Grant s glib and simple question about why do we bother sending our men off to war that brings the vegans and veterans together over a round of drinks in the most intense meeting of the minds you ll hear on the subject of war, Islam, oysters, the pain a blade of grass feels when a cow eats it and much more. Sometimes it s just impossible for the written word to capture the power and subtlety of conversation. This is one such occasion. You just have to hear this. Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Back in the 1970 s when the porno biz was just getting cranked up and you had to actually go to a movie theater to see pornography, Gene Fredericks had a live late night TV show in New Orleans.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kenna Moore conducted a survey in the French Quarter, asking people she maintains were not drunk tourists, "What do you think of when you you think of the Black Church "
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Melinda Palacio was 2 when she realized she wasn t a suitcase. She was to spend the next 15 or so years in South Central Los Angeles growing up witnessing kids getting shot on her front porch in a drive by, her father in jail for attempted murder, and her mother dying at the hands of incompetent doctors at Kaiser who were treating her for allergies when she had a terminal kidney disease. Melinda used first reading then writing as a coping mechanism. Coping has turned into a career. Melinda has a successful career as a writer with books of poetry and a novel, Ocotillo Dreams. Oh, and if you ever wondered if you twist your foot all the way around like a cartoon character, the answer is yes. "OMG" was created for this story. Jeremy "Mojo" Phipps grew up with his own family tales of murder and jail. Jeremy s brother, a successful NOLA rapper back in the heyday of Master P s No Limit Records, is doing time for a crime everybody knows he didn t commit. Jeremy came back from working in Los Angeles to be with his family as the case gets closer to being overturned. And Jeremy s moving on from his longest running project, Saint Bell, and starting a new band. Jordan Barnett fell in love with New Orleans from the defense table in a court room while his wife gutted flooded houses post Katrina. Volunteering in New Orleans as a public defender Jordan leveraged his huge salary as a bi coastal public defender if you call Philadelphia and New Orleans coastal and bought an apartment. Now he s about as local as you can get without going to high school here. Happy birthday to our Tech Director Chris Kehoe Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It totally depends on your defintion of "explicit". If you ve ever been in a New Orelans bar and discussed transgender issues, vaginas, insanity, the quality of pies in various institutions from NOPD lockup to remanded in custody mental institutions, you re not going to be too suprised or offended by the content of this podcast. However, apparently if you are an attorney or you own a major podcast distribution business with the symbol of a bitten piece of fruit, frank conversation is "explicit." Rachel Dangermond has got it covered. She s got everything going for her that a human could have sexually, racially, intellectually, even down to international jewelry wearing. P.H.Fred is a sweet, decent, nice guy who can pick up a guitar and pretty much offend everybody in every category of New Orleans life you coluld imagine. A keen observer of inhuman nature and funny as hell, P.H. has been a comedian in New Orleans when there wasn t a hell of a lot to laugh at so he had to pen lines like "I knew she was from Bucktown "cause I woke up with the crabs." These days he s moved on to more clever and funnier rhymes, as you ll hear here. He s also spent a decent amount of time under institutional supervision and can report on the state of pie offered in jail and mental wards. Hugo Montero, the suave, global intellectual Mexican New Orelanian who is Happy Hour s host at Casa Borrega, looks like he s going to lend some intellectual heft to the proceedings with a report from the New York Times about the differences between men and women, but it turns out to be even more "explicit" than anything that had previously come up. Andrew Duhon tries to raise the tone, with only marginal, and temporary, success. This is a classic edition of Happy Hour. As Grant says, "We don t call it Happy Hour because it s an hour." We sure don t. This is zany conversation that s real New Orleans true and unbelievable.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ross Karpelman is Satan s agent. At least for a few weeks a year. Ross is founder of the New Orleans Halloween institution House of Shock, where he plays the part of Belial. After last Halloween the house was dead and buried. But it s had a miraculous resurrection and is back and bigger than ever. Ross reports on the Bordello of Freaks where you can have your way with the bearded lady or have a two headed woman take care of business. When he s not playing Satan, Ross likes to relax at his own home not yours, so don t call and invite him over and on occasion takes Ambien and watches TV. Reportedly on Ambien, at least in Ross s experience, there s a twilight time between waking and sleeping during which you do things a waking person would do, though that person isn t recognisably you and isn t doing things that you would do. Unless you typically buy multiple knife sets on QVC and waffle makers in Walmart. Comedian Addy Najera hosts a comedy night of tastelessness called Liquid Ass, and is one of the organizer s of the 4th annual city wide comedy celebration, Hell Yes Fest. The brainchild of The New Movement Theater, Hell Yes has grown from a modest collection of improv and stand up shows to a two weekend festival with films, shows and out of town comedians competing for coveted slots. Addy is also 50 of the driving force behind the genuinely funny and weird web series House Calls in which comedians who have no low bar of humiliation do their stand up set in their own home. A Man For All Seasons the fabulous Jak Locke makes a triumphant return to Happy Hour with his new movie, Targeted. Made on a shoestring budget over the course of 3 years, Jack wrote the first draft of the western when he was 7 growing up on the Westbank. The second version of Targeted is based on the original and both movies are available together on DVD here. While you re about it, do yourself a favor and read the greatest unpublished novel of a generation, Frog Dell s Junkyard. Jak plays a new song for which he has no title. As with every appearance Jak makes on this show, and all others, he takes the place by storm and blows the roof of the joint. Andrew Duhon has written enough new songs to make a new album. Here he plays one of them, Time Will Tell. If you can figure out a way to steal this off of this show go ahead, it s a collector s item. The chance of Andrew suing you is slim. Photos on this page at Wayfare taken by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Last time Julie Tizzard stopped by Happy Hour one of the guys from Flowtribe spilled a glass of red wine all over her. This trip Andrew Duhon re works her marketing plan. Julie is a criminal defense attorney whose phone number is 877 SHARK90. Admitting that it s not the greatest phone number and needs updating Andrew works on various combinations of the number assigning different letters to it and comes up with Julie s new same phone number 877 RIBS 790. Members of the band So Long Storyland are less likely than Flowtribe to spill booze all over Julie as 50 of them are 14 years old. Sophia Preston is still in school after an hour hanging out at Wayfare she has to go home and work on her Shakespeare and geometry homework. Before she does though she and her musical partner Andrew deBuys who a few months back was Sophia s middle school music teacher sing a couple of songs. One song is off their new album, the other is not. See if you can figure out the marketing sense behind that decision after hearing Andrew explain it. Joel Little knows a thing or two about teenage singers. He co wrote and produced the 2014 Grammy winning song of the year, Royals, with teenage artist Lorde. Joel happens to be passing through New Orleans on a music appreciaton tour with his father, acclaimed New Zealand author and publisher Paul Little. For a change, the happy hour conversation swings around to discussing pot, but this time from a different angle from the usual stoner talk. Julie RIBS 970 has an up close and personal association with criminals "not all of them have done something heinous" and has a theory about how legalizing pot could greatly reduce New Orleans crime, but it may also defund the federal government. This is the greatest number of guests to show up ever in the history of Happy Hour. There s a lot to digest. Photos at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is the 5th year of the New Orleans Horror Film Fest. The guy who has to watch 600 unreleased horror movies and decide on 47 that are good enough to screen at the festival is known in some circles as Balls Cobain. You might be surprised to learn that those circles are primarily Balls s family. To the rest of us he s Chuck Lucia and when he s not blowing sh t up for a living he s Director of the horror film fest which is the last weekend of September.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you only had 10 questions to ask your favorite artist visual or musical what would your questions be That s the task photographer Zach Smith set himself when he embarked on a project to document the work of some seminal Louisiana artists. The result is My Louisiana Muse, an exhibition and online testament to both the artists and Zach s fascinating technique called bromoil which combines elements of photography and painting. Julia Sevin knows a thing or two about visual arts as well she s the local President of the 500,000 or 27,000 strong depending if you count everybody or just the folks who pay up members of the AIGA, the international design organization that is holding its annual get together in New Orleans. Check the website for a bunch of cool free parties and events. And check out Julia s story about Donna Reed s niece, Groucho Marx s daughter and Mia Farrow s nieces. Talking of the Marx family, things get off to a rocky start with Jeremy Marx, the singer and guitar player from the band Gandhi Castle, when he shows up 30 minutes late, it turns out through no fault of his own. Then Grant decides to hold Jeremy s feet to the fire about whether or not he wasted 120,000 going to school to learn to play jazz guitar. All s well that ends well though a song and a couple of drinks later we re all off to Zach s exhibition and Julia s party. Photos at Wayfare taken by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Grant s out this week, so we re going to give you the Boyfriend experience. That s right, the fabulous Boyfriend is sitting in the big chair to talk about sex, cats, and goose fat.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We hear a lot about how New Orleans has changed since Katrina and how people from outside are changing the city, not always for the better. But if you want to know how it really is, from the inside, this conversation is it. NOLA musicians NOLA FAM Que Hefner aka Quentin Coleman and Mani aka Romani Cole talk about how the new residents who have moved into New Orleans neighborhoods where there are bars are shutting down the music and forcing musicians themselves included out of work. They used to support themselves as full time musicians, now there s not enough work and they re working day jobs. When you listen to how these guys have truly given everything to be musicians including for a time post Katrina being forced to live in Shreveport where they reportedly drink milk out of bags you ll get a first hand, bitter free, real NOLA feel of what it s like to be the victim of change. Rosy Wilson knows a thing or two about the pressures of the music biz. She started out at the age of 19 founding the seminal Rosy s nightclub on Tchoupitoulas street back in the 1970 s where she hosted the likes of Stevie Wonder and Sarah Vaughan. Rosy s take on modern New Orleans is tempered by the 30 years she spent living away in places like New York and Los Angeles "where the demons are hidden" but steeped in the deep and abiding love of the city she was raised in and to which she has now returned. This Happy Hour s insider music centric conversation is complemented by Tommy Lewis, nominally a realtor but more widely known for his love of music and his legendary Jazz Fest parties that feature live bands. Tommy s
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Grant s away this week hunting the most dangerous game, man. But don t worry because we have the fabulous Anna Whitlow sitting in his place with ros
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This conversation starts off very polite and normal. For about 2 minutes. Till the discussion about Vic Granata s cap with a cock on it. Vic wonders why everyone is interested in his cock hat and not his Bettie Page T shirt.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do you have a real job Because we don t anymore. Well Shaun Johnson does, sort of, he works for WRHB, which is radio fro the blind. WRBH reads books, papers, as well as offers other content to for the blind. But Shaun also loves eating and going to the gym in equal parts, as well as hosting his radio show, Audio Portraits, were he interviews interesting and creative people from around New Orleans, it s almost like a professional version of Happy Hour.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Walking into a bar in rural Mississippi can be an unnerving experience. But Jon Hatchett got a good song out of it. Andrew Duhon s inspiration for a new song written just minutes before he played it was inspired a bucket. It s about a man who thinks he has it all, described in the chorus as a "5 Gallon Captaincy." Jon Hatchett picks up the challenge and debuts a song he also wrote just today, about the upside of drinking heavily, which turns out to a potential country classic called You Can t Regret What You Can t Remember. Joe Toman is two thirds through a 52 week challenge of trying to remember what happened in bar last night. The results of his weekly bar room adventures with local drinkers is enshrined in a weekly column and soon to be collected as a book. Meghan Harwell met her husband in high school, not in rural Louisiana but in rural Louisiana. But they didn t start dating till they ran into each other on Canal Street in New Orleans 4 years ago. Back in high school he didn t but now he looks like Jeff Goldblum. And like Goldblum s characters in Jurassic Park and, apparently, Independence Day, Goldblum lookalike is saving the world from disease. Photos by the fabulous Alison Moon at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you ve ever gotten a friend request on Facebook or an email from someone whose photo is a sexy looking woman who says she s from Ghana and you wonder exactly what the scam could be, Kimya Holmes can tell you first hand. Well, technically second hand since it was her now ex husband who got scammed by someone he believed but she didn t was a woman, in Ghana, with whom he believed he was having some sort of an affair. Kimya is not exactly the kind of woman to whom you want to try and explain away your internet transgressions she s a trial attorney who defends people headed for death row. Murray Roth is an attorney too, an entertainment attorney specializing in film financing tax credits. A few years back he decided to quit spending every waking hour pulling together cash for independent film producers so they can have all the fun of making movies and hanging out with stars like Eric Roberts and crossed over to the dark side. Now Murray is financing and producing his own movies through his production company, Upperline.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Abby Mannix comes from a tough family. Her uncle wrote for Seinfeld, including "The Opposite" episode where George ends up getting his job with The Yankees, but he the family still regarded him as a failure. And Laurie Cohen was a member of a Suicide Gang not Isis and was a freakin bitch but that s another story.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Since Grant s busy working on the Donald Trump s presidential campaign, we ve got our old friend and Voodoo mastermind, Sig, to fill in for this week s Happy Hour. But Sig isn t completely amongst strangers, he s good friends with guest Anna Whitlow.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andy King doesn t like to describe his job as "hacking up children." As an orthopedic surgeon and the pardon the pun head of the spine unit at Children s Hospital in New Orleans, Andy is good naturedly circumspect about how he describes using mechanical instruments on kids backs. As a New Zealander, he s a lot less sensitive to his description of Australians. Bridget Kelly is a 7th generation New Orleanian whose son, August, is an 8th generation New Orleanian, and whose husband Aaron not Erin was faking buying a baguette at the Cresecnt City Farmers Market when Bridget met him for the first time after seeing him across a restaurant the night before while discussing Mork n Mindy s offsrpring and declaring she was going to marry him. Even in a small town of bizarre goings on and on a cocktail drinking show that is, frankly, a gathering ground for crazy stories this romantic tale stands out. So much so that Andrew Duhon is contemplating a cross cultural yoga centric reconnaissance of the Uptown Farmers Market on Tuesdays. If you re there on a Tuesday Andrew is the guy with the sitar waiting for the yoga teacher with the New Zealand passport. If you re taking bets on which New Orleans band whose new record is produced by Bob Dylan s guitar player Charlie Sexton is most likely to bust out of the city and make a nationwide name for themselves, put your money on The Cardinal Sons. God fearing honest to god brothers from Jackson, Mississippi, John, Joe, and Dave Shirley s older brother, Daniel, who is not in the band, started out running around the house flapping his hands and singing before realizing he could corral his brothers into learning instruments to back him which could dispense with the incessant circumlocution of the dwelling and hand flapping. Daniel lives in New York and is is an opera singer but if you want to place another bet, put it on him showing up here some day to set the record straight. Although nobody at Happy Hour has done any research shocker to back this up, we re going to go out on a limb and claim this is almost certainly the only New Orleans podcast that contains cursing, a hymn, a serious and definitive explanation of why New Orleans has potholes, and a hypothesis of how Jesus was born in the year 1 A.D. The photos on this page were taken at Casa Borrega by Nadine Wu and Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you re a hooker visiting New Orleans, things go wrong, and you help, Julie Tizzard is the one call that s all attorney you re looking for. She s also one call that s all at the sperm bank where she s a cheap date knocked up on the first turkey basting You know it s a good party when somebody spills a drink over the best dressed person in the room. John Michael Early and Mario Palmisano from Flowtribe stop by after their respective massage and throat wrecking recording session and John Michael manages to spill Mario s wine all over Julie s dress. On the upside,
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
With a Cajun French name like Sophie Lafayette, you might be surprised that not only is Sophie not French, or Cajun, she lives in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. What is even more intriguing is that Sophie is an avid New Orleans lover and regular Happy Hour listener, but has never been to New Orleans. On this show we talk to Sophie in Dar es Salaam and with the power vested in us by a collective 9 cocktails appoint her New Orleans ambassador to East Africa. Normally, the invesitiure of an international ambassador with her duties would be the high point of a show, but on this Happy Hour it shares the limelight with the life and death story of singer, comedian, intellectual, P H Fred. Mere hours before the show, an MRI turned up a
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
By the end of this show you ll be able to say "Hi, how are you " in Swahili, French, and Manadarin. This frst ever tri lingual Happy Hour is not recommended listening if you are easily intimidated by the awesome achievements and amazing life experiences of others. If, however, you find sharing of diverse tales over cocktails enlightening and you love the discovery that we have more in common than you might at first glance imagine, meet Rosemary, Holly, and Ralph.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We all write ourselves reminders. On a scrap of paper, on our phone, some of us write on our hands. Professor T R Johnson is the director of the Writing Program at Tulane University. It s mildly surprising to find out at the beginning of this conversation that TR writes on his hand. If you can stick it out till the end of this show when TR s phone alerts him of his next reminder, it s so bizarre, so entirely unexpected, and yet so perfectly linked to everything that has gone before, you ll think we wrote and planned this whole show.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sheba Turk steps our from in front of the camera to sit behind a microphone and play guitar like Adele. Sheba has always wanted to play guitar and today s the day her dream comes true. With assistance from Stephen Turner and Jonathan Pretus from The Breton Sound, Sheba belts our her favorite Adele song. And talks about eating dinner for breakfast, being on air at WWLTV for 5 hours straight, and sockbuns. The boys from the Breton Sound take a break from giving live guitar lessons to play a song off their new EP Don t Be Afraid of Rock n Roll, and to swing from smoking to high voltage chemical plants. Roger Wilson was a star of the big screen in Porky s, a singing TV star in 7 Brides For 7 Brothers, the creator of Louisiana s Broadway South that reuvenated Canal Street, and can seemingly do anything he puts his mind to. Even explain tax credits to a bunch of folks with cocktails. Andrew Duhon dips into his country music bag for a celebration of certain failure and heartbreak. All photos on this page were taken by sockbun
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frank Scurlock is a member of one of New Orleans' first families. Like the Marsallises the first family of music and the Brennans the first family of restaurants the Scurlocks are New Orleans first family of fun. Frank s father, John, invented the Space Walk, perhaps better known as the bouncy castle. Frank has a bounced a long way out of the family business. He leaves his kids to run the day to day infatable biz while he concentrates on far grander visions. Like Transformation Village a theme park the size and scope of Disney World he s developing in New Orleans East, a zipline running from the top of the World Trade Center to the West Bank, and there s more Wait till you hear how kids are going to spend time inside inflatable classrooms shaped like NASA s space shuttle to get their "Eduflation." Catrina Cerny loves beer so much she bought a backpack of it to Happy Hour, which by the way is in a bar. Catrina unpacks her backpack of Chicago beers on this show. She loves New Orleans so much she moved here twice both before and after the hurricane that was not named after her. The hurricane is spelled with a K this Catrina is spelled with a C. Anyway, that s s digression which, although important to Catrina s psyche, is not as important as her opinion of alcoholism. Catrina believes "All of us in New Orleans are dysfunctionally acoholic, and that s not bad." That might not be an exact quote we re a few beers in by now but around this table it leads to a vigorous quest to discover which of us are alcoholics and by whose definition. Andrew Duhon would like an alcoholic scale that allows for enough drinking to get into the mind frame to write a good song, but possibly not enough to end up in a bar on a Sunday afternoon with a dominatrix and a girlfriend you re in a fight with after starting drinking earlier in the week without letup and ending the bender by getting in a fight with a random guy big enough to settle the dispute in a manner that will have a very disadvantageous personal outcome. That s how it went down for Michael Cain, singer and songwriter for New Orleans band The Parishioners. Michael and Parishioners guitarist Damien Williams impress with two songs from their new album From Piety to Desire, and Damien impresses twice over with his encyclopedic general knowledge. There are about a hundred more funny and fascinating moments in this show. Suffice to say they include an impromptu singalong of "He s Got The Whole World In His Hands" and the revelation about a particular donut that will get you crazy. Photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the fabulous and bearded Douglas Engel. See more of Douglas s Happy Hour pix here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Burlesque performer Cherry Brown is a part-time pantie wrangler, photographer Marc Pagani gets choppered out of Mt Everest, Ukulelist (yes! it's a word!) Debbie Davis advises on correct levels of marijuana intake (where legal only) and Eric Heigle plans an assault on a Hollywod princess.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tommy Boudreaux spends a good part of his day giving spiritual and emotional support to the folks whose loved one s remains he s cleaning off the walls after they were murdered or blew their brains out with a handgun. Today after work at Clean Scene, Tommy goes to have a quiet reflective drink, and what does he find A bunch of folks at Wayfare with a thousand questions about blood, brains, the smell of death, and a couple of drinks later he s flashing back to when he was the drum major in the O Perry Walker band and his flirtation with acting in porno films. Debbie Davis is up for producing a porno movie for Tommy to star in. Right now Debbie has some time on her hands and plenty of good connections for porno production courtesy of her vast house music family network that stretches around the world. It all started
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Arthur Meek is a New Zealander who sounds like stepped out of Flight of the Conchords but actually he stepped out of his car mere minutes after driving into New Orleans from visiting Graceland and blowing the head off of a guy at point blank range in Mississippi and joined us on Happy Hour. Arthur has been in the United States trying to drum up support for his campaign to have sex with Hillary Clinton. He makes a pretty convincing argument on this show. If Hillary is the Democratic candidate for President in 2016, screwing Arthur could conceivably make more sense than screwing over whomever else she s up against. Alex Beard has a whole other way of figuring out what the hell s going on in the universe. It s called the Divine Proportion. If you re thinking that s maybe the name of the pie at Camellia Grill,it s actually 1.618. Entirely without the aid of pot, Alex is able to explain the relationship between the world s only known unicellular organism and your eye looking at a Jackson Pollack painting. This whole consideration of the unifying elements of the universe starts when Lucy Cordts is badgered into admitting she could read music and play Bach by the age of 8 years old in Peoria, Illinois. Today Lucy plays banjo, mandolin, and sings in the Kelcy Mae band. If you re a fan of this show you may also remember Lucy as "Puddin ." In her waking hours when she s not playing music Lucy is the Social Services Supervisor at the NO AIDS Task Force. Lucy s take on what s going in the local health scene in general and the HIV world in particular might surprise you. Actually, that s a guarantee. Andrew Duhon tries out a new song, The Spirit Lives On. And, yes, it sure does. Photos on this page are taken at Wayfare by the pride of Lafayette, Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Morgan Molthrop grew up in a New Orleans caste society which ultimately drove him to New York, Italy, Greece, crimes of fashion, and finally back to New Orleans and into Triple A. Not the roadside car repair people, Agnostic Alcoholics Anonymous. Morgan has some of the greatest stories ever told in a New Orleans bar. And that s saying something. Judy Bolton s life has taken her on a similar trajectory to Morgan s. Sort of. Judy started out in medicine in Washington State before moving to New Orleans and opening the 90 s iconic Pussycat Caverns and later today s equally iconic Bacchanal. Somewhere in the middle of all that Judy found herself spending 3 years in Bourbon Street strip clubs where she discovered that once in a while a girl just gets lucky. And then she goes on vacation. And
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is what we are not allowed to know about Emma Iris DiAnna where she works or what she does for a living.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mac Alsfeld was Jesus personal assistant. Every day Jesus would scream at him, throw stuff, and get naked. Not the actual Jesus in the New Testament he s reportedly still dead this is the guy who played Jesus in the movies, Jim Caviezel. You think you d realize if you were a Hollywood star that if you treat people like crap they re eventually going to go on a podcast that involves drinking and tell the world all about you. Mac assists other actors working in movies in New Orleans, including Will Ferrell, Jonah Hill, and Kevin Costner. We get the lowdown on all of them on this Happy Hour. Even more exciting is a look at Mac s own film career as a screenwriter and director. His movie Father Like Son, about a guy who s mom re marries a guy only 4 months older than him, is headed for certain Hollywood success. Remember, you heard it here first. Rosemary Kimble doesn t have many secrets either. There s not much you can hide after you ve shaved your whole body and gotten painted. Rosemary is an extraordinary body painting artist and henna artist. Every year she produces a show at One Eyed Jacks where she invites body artists and circus performers from around the world. The circus performers get their bodies painted by the world s leading body painters then perform, painted. There s not a show quite like it anywhere. There s not a show quite like South x Southwest either. Andrew Duhon is back from Texas with tales of something less than stellar triumph but with an awesome song about Cecilia Champagne from Lafayette, Louisiana. Sam McCabe skipped out of work teaching kids at Lusher Elementary how to play guitar to play guitar on Happy Hour, though he forgot to teach himself the lyrics to his own song. Sam s band, The Bantam Foxes, are releasing new music all year this year and Sam gives us a preview of what we can expect, plus a look back at one of the band s staples.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nikki Still came to New Orleans to do yoga. Four or five hours a day. And got paid to do it. Nikki was the vanguard of Lululemon in New Orleans, doing yoga then schmoozing with the mostly women and getting them to try Lululemon for their next vasana.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you can swallow a sword, breathe fire, or create some similar kind of special moment there s a special place for you in New Orleans. It s called the Buku Music Art Project. Addie Olsen is the Director of Buku. She s sold out the event for this year 14,000 tickets a day and figured out how to stop people across the river on the Westbank from hearing the 5 simultaneous stages of music, so she s feeling relaxed enough to have a couple of cocktails and talk about Max, graffiti, and India. When Addie was younger she had an unnerving experience in India within hours of landing at the airport. Last week, Andrew Duhon had a similar automotive altercation in Sri Lanka. Back in the Happy Hour saddle, Andrew has tales from his travels and a song about a special moment. Andre Waguespack loves cars, makes music and combines those inclinations in his professional name, Klutch. Klutch has a massive international following on Soundcloud where he reaches an audience who he has ample reason to believe are disaffected kids whose emotional touchstone is Pokemon. Klutch is creating special moments on stage at Buku and beyond. Chris Kehoe pulls it all together. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Alison Moon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you re ever looking for someone to back you up in a bar fight in Slovakia, may we recommend Alicia Cooke Alicia might look sweet and innocent but she can mix it up with gypsies at night and be teaching kids about the spirit of Christmas next morning. Yes, that really happened. And it s just the tip of the proverbial Slovakian iceberg. Alicia s other surprising exploits include having 8 friends in prison, one on death row and the others likely to be behind bars not the sort Alicia hangs out in for the remainder of this lifetime. At the mention of death row, Happy Hour producer Graham daPonte makes a rare appearance and joins the conversation. When she s not producing a frivolous podcast Graham is in court defending people accused of capital crimes. A F The Naysayer, a good friend of Happy Hour over many appearances, drops in to introduce us to his new EP, The Autodidact Instrumentals Vol.1. This record was made with electronic instruments that are for the most part the contents of a backpack. AF has a whole other backpack for the rest of his worldly possessions. Yep, that s all he s got. That and all the Red Bull he can drink.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Funk is many things to many people but apparently to the new breed of New Orleans hipsters the one thing it s not is hip. That s the report from both sides of the front line. Eric Bernstein is the quintessential hipster. A downtown resident who lived in Brooklyn, moved to Austin, then Detroit where he still spends the Summer he has an entrepreneurial startup in New Orleans called Werkly, a revolutionary approach to getting stuff done not a vocation that New Orleans is typically known for. And Eric is not ashamed to tell you straight out, he doesn t like funk. Jermaine Quiz says that s just how it is with the new breed of New Orleans hipsters. And he ought to know. Jermaine makes funk. And hip hop. Blending live New Orleans funk musicians and rap rhyme, Jermaine has created a unique and increasingly popular sound with his band Jealous Monk, recent winners of OffBeat Magazine s Best of the Beat award for New Orleans best rap hip hop artist. Jealous Monk has a third album on the way as well as a new web series, set in the little know "British Quarter." Natalie Pompilio spent part of the U.S s Iraqi hunt for Sadaam Hussein in Iraq hunting for Sadaam Hussein. Embedded with the military as a reporter for the Philadelphia Enquirer, the unit Natalie was embedded with were the guys who eventually found Sadaam Hussein, though by that time Natalie was back in Philly hanging at the aquarium not eating fish. The photos on this page were taken by the gainfully empoyed aquaculturist Douglas Engel at Wayfare.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the end of this show Andrew Duhon declares that these are the best guests in the history of Happy Hour. If you re a Happy Hour listener or familiar with Andrew s songs you ll know that he s not prone to effusiveness. Quite simply, this is indeed a fascinating collection of New Orelanians. Meet Donny Markowitz and Boyfriend. Donny and Boyfriend had never met each other before they sat down together for Happy Hour. They couldn t be more different they re from different generations, Donny is from New York, Boyfriend is from Nashville, Donny is Jewish, Boyfriend grew up in a severely fundamentalist Christian home. And yet they have more in common than you could ever guess. They are both superbly talented songwriters. Donny is famous for writing one of the pop love song classics of all time, "I ve Had The Time of My Life" from the movie Dirty Dancing. Boyfriend is about to be famous for sex driven rap songs like "Attention" and "Triangle." You can hear both those songs in this show. Remember where you were when you heard them the early music press comparisons of Boyfriend to other female greats like Alanis Morisette, Bette Midler and Carol Burnett if you can imagine that mashup are not unfounded. Cindy Alsfeld lives in the proximity of greatness and the fact that she s not a household name like her politician mother or movie star sister doesn t make her any less awesome than either of them. Cindy s mom is New Orleans icon Jackie Clarkson and her sister is actress Patricia Clarkson. Being born with the same genes but without the desire for the spotlight is, in Cindy s case, a liberating blessing. It s great for us too it s unlikely that Jackie or Patricia would come down to Wayfare on a Thursday afternoon and hang out with Grant and Andrew for an hour for a free drink, but Cindy is up for anything. Andrew rolls out a version of his new song about a window sill lined with nostalgic memories pieces of stone that, like his wandering life from which they are gathered, are fragments broken off of pieces of far flung permanence that, unlike the lives of others, seem to refuse to bind themselves into a foundation upon which to build his own life. It s a beautiful song. Although he didn t include himself, Andrew might have in his observation of the extraordinary talent and intelligence of today s guests. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. Douglas has more images here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Remember phone books Jessie Haynes has a couple of cocktails and next thing you know she s transported back to the 1950 s. Jessie escaped the clutches of practicing law because it wasn t as much fun as Perry Mason even though Perry Mason whatever his real name is had long since quit acting at being a lawyer before Jessie quit art history to misguidedly go to law school. Christian Turner and Christian Thompson met in school in 2012. In high school art class. This is their very first media interview on the cusp of what might be their big break a gig at Buku Fest. The Christians have an electronic music project by which they are known collectively as Chris Cross. Although they re 19 and 20 respectively they also have solo music careers. And, by the way the come from Geismar, Louisiana. Remember you heard it here first. Gant Laborde s father was a nominal psychic. That is to say he was a predictor of names. He reportedly foresaw the runaway popularity of the name "Heather" and thought he was onto the next trend with "Gant." However, the only other Gant that Gant Laborde has met is a label on a European clothing line. He has a brother with a perfectly placed "r" in "Eric". Gant and Eric are the driving forces behind the infamous BLT Mardi Gras Ball. BLT in this case is Boxers, Lingerie and Togas. Dust off your speedo and get ready to party. All the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of these people is not who they say they are. Is it Mason James Cole from Marrero Nic Lefebvre from Connecticut Nina Camacho from Gretna Or Danielle Ryce from Slidell Here are your clues. Who do you believe Mason James Cole changed his name to write two novels including Buster Voodoo, has been compared to and published alongside Stephen King, and plans to come out with his third novel which will ostensibly be his first novel as he ll be writing it under his real name. Nic Lefebvre came to New Orleans from Connecticut and met a woman on a Tinder style website dedicated to musicians only, specifically those devoted to Jungle music. Nina Camacho grew up in Gretna, moved to California where she met a novelist whose novel had been pirated and then moved back to New Orleans Nina, not the novelist and worked hustling herbs for Paul Proudhomme before selling rice and now is instrumental in opening an Italian NYC style food market in Central City called Jack and Jake s. Danielle Ryce grew up in Slidell as part of a large Catholic family which even if it was a thousand times larger would likely never produce another person who can sing like she can which is indescribable except to say she sounds like a kicked up Aretha Franklin and refers to herself on occasion as Nyce. Okay, so which of these stories is patently untrue And which of these people have changed their names The truth in this podcast is as strange as the fiction. All the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Happy Hour super fab photographer Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Caucasian Bee has the longest tongue in the bee world. Claire Bangser traveled the Caucasus shooting the bees for National Geographic and now she travels the streets of New Orleans shooting New Orleanians for the hell of it. Claire has discoverd that nine out of ten New Orleanians will willingly stop and pose for her NOLA Beings project, but it s only the rare Caucasian that can get you high enough to die. Lee Crum is an internationally renowned photographer whose work has appeared on the cover of most major magazines from Sports Illustrated to GQ to Rolling Stone. Lee and Claire compare the advent of the iPhone and Instagram in the world of photography to Spotify and Pandora in the world of music it s increasingly impossible to get paid and for artists to rise above the onslaught of amateur Instagram images. If you want to see what they re talking about, take a look at Lee s Instagram and Claire s. Andrew Duhon s answer to the complaints about disappearing financial opportunity in the music business is, "Shutup and do great work." Aaron Lopez Barrantes doubles down on Andrew s epithet and plays two great songs on this show. All the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. You can see more of Douglas s Happy Hour images here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Call it crazy coincidence or straight up serendipity New Orleans newest band sits down for a drink on Happy Hour and who sits next to them Two of the city s biggest deal music business heavyweights. Andrew deBuys and Sophia Preston are So Long Storyland note the absence of a comma after "long" . Stephen Klein is an artists manager with a string of successes dating back to Deadeye Dick and Cowboy Mouth. He s currently managing Flowtribe. Kim Stephens is just a regular guy at home in New Orleans but in the worldwide record business he s a bigshot having discovered and signed numerous bands from Matchbox 20 to Edwin McCain among many other household names. Today Kim s putting his money on Nashville and Jesus, and that s not the most surprising of his inside music tales and prognostications on this show. Danielle Paciera s connection to the music business is mostly through Pandora. She doesn t own it or work there, she listens to it. Danielle is a dietitian and nutritionist with a holistic approach to food and eating and an appreciation of all aspects of food, even its color. She also has some incendiary news to deliver about how long you might expect to live if you re currently 5 years old. Don t make too many long term plans, kid. Chef Kevin at Wayfare got a fresh pig s head and stops by with samples of the delicacy he turned it into hog s head cheese. Even holistic nutritionist Danielle gives it two thumbs up. Andrew Duhon, sampling hog s head cheese for the first time in his life and led to lofty thoughts about firsts in life, weighs in on evolution and Buicks. All the photos on this page were taken by waterproof cyclist Douglas Engel. You can see more of Douglas s photos here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Maria Levitsky has a dragon tattooed over most of her body Maria used to play the flute, she lived in Spain when she was 11, and she rides a horse she bought from a charismatic preacher called Bootise. Actually the horse is called Bootise, not the preacher. And that s just the tip of the iceberg of the fascinating stuff you ll find out about Maria on this free wheeling episode of Happy Hour. Tore Wallin is an artist masquerading as a musician masquerading as an architect and a Norwegian masquerading as a New Orleanian who ended up here as the result of a hurricane and the smell of mildew. The most talented Nolawegian on earth, Tore has played in NOLA bands for 30 years, has a painting in the New Orleans Museum of Art and designed a Jazz Fest poster. Naughty Professor are an assembly of some of New Orleans truly finest young musicians, and that s saying something in this town. Naughty P are taking NOLA funk into a whole new stratosphere of slick playing, clever arrangements and hook laden songs. Their first album, Until The Next Time, is a collection of songs inspired by corn dogs, obscure TV shows, and a crawfish playing double bass. Mariachi skeletons and the true story mystery of "T" the missing tattoo artist with a 100 bill tattoed on his forehead have something to do with it as well. We catch guitarist Bill Daniel and alto sax player Nick Ellman as they re about to start a nationwide tour. Remember you heard Naughty Professor here first these guys are going to be superstars. This is one of those magic Happy Hours where 4 people who have nothing whatsoever in common other than being hand picked by Producer Graham daPonte standing and Music Director Christian Unruh, of widely divergent ages and backgrounds, are delighted to discover they share all kinds of thoughts, emotions and experiences. A real New Orleans get together of transplants who have found a home in New Orleans. All the photos on this page were taken at Casa Borrega by cycling shutter meister Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Joaquin Emiliano moved to New Orleans with the plan of killing himself on his 35th birthday as a publicity stunt for the publication of his novel, Suicide Notes From A Wedding. Discovering that, like everything else he s attempted in his life, he d failed again, Joaquin finds himself not only living dammit but living near Tulane University in a neighborhood surrounded by "obnoxious students" in a city that has been seriously over hyped and in which he can see little mystery or magic. It s hard to tell what s real and what s merely an extremely funny and beguiling persona with Joaquin, but falling anyplace on the continuum between Woody Allen and a lounge lizard makes for an awesome Happy Hour guest. Danielle Burrell is either the Joaquin antidote, a piece of clever complementary guest booking by producer Graham daPonte, or proof that God and Satan are fighting it out for control of the city. Danielle is the founder of Treux North Fitness, a Zumba dance exponent, a mom, and a bride to be. Danielle tells an awesome story of her first date which includes non existant comedy and whipped cream after meeting the love of her life over a board game. Danielle s fiance Jeremy showed up at Happy Hour and joined the party. Hazy Ray are one of Happy Hour s favorite music guests. Today Joshua Ray and P. Michael Hays II the Hays Ray core of the group bring along Ryan Patrick to play some of the coolest, jazz inflected riffs we ve heard in some time. Joshua sings the band s new single, "Superman," which turns out to be about the unrequited love of an old girlfriend. Songwriters, here s an interesting observation. Apparently it doesn t matter how in love you are with your wife nor how much in love she is with you, the ex girlfriend you wrote a song about however many years ago before I met you can still be a problem. So Joshua digs himself out of having that conversation at home by singing a beautiful and danceable love song called "Linda" for his wife, Linda. Andrew Duhon is roaming around the nation playing guitar and so Kelcy Mae is sitting in for him today in the sidekick chair. Kelcy s knowledge of teenage alcoholics and Atlanta preachers assures her of a return invitation. The photos on this page were taken at Casa Borrega by fab photographer Cheryl DalPozzal.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sasha Masakowski doesn t look all that fierce. But she doesn t look like she hangs out in strip clubs either. Looks can be deceiving. Sasha s middle name is Hildegard, German for Battle Maiden, which is not coincidentally the name of her newest music venture, Hildegarde. And if you go to Deja Vu strip club on Bourbon Street on Tuesday nights and tell em you re with the Masakowski party Sasha can hook you up with 2 drinks all night. She s a VIP. All cause of Chip Forstall. Do you have any idea where the oil in the notorious Keystone Pipeline is going to come from Canada, okay, but do you know where exactly in Canada Karen Duncan comes form North of the border and fills us in on the details plus some other fascinating facts about Canada about which all of us at least the people at our table are totally ignorant of. Karen also has some awesome inside insight into the secret shopper system at local restaurants. If you want to be a barroom or restaurant snitch, eat free, drink free and rat out employees, Karen can hook you up. Okay, so we sorted out where Canada is. Now, do you know where South East Louisiana is Where it is technically, officially, on a map Well, how about this It s apparently not. Authors of Southeast Louisiana Food, Addie and Jeremy Martin, had to make an executive decision about that when they wrote the book on our food and culture. Except you can t actually say "our" if you live in New Orleans because apparently we re not in Southeast Louisiana. This wide range of topics from Keystone to strip clubs to geolocation is only the scantest sample of today s meandering conversation, augmented with an awesome sandwich from Wayfare s Chef Kevin White, brand new music from Hildegarde, and a beautiful Duhon Masakowski duet. Photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. You ll find even more photos here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If we ever get to Mars, man s journey will begin in New Orleans East. Cindy Manto s fascinating new book, imaginatively titled Michoud Assembly Facility, tells the story of the piece of dirt off of the I 10 that started off as a land grant from Louis XV of France. In the 1940 s Michoud was the site of the world s largest factory, building planes, then tanks, then in the 70 s they started building a whole different kind of tank the external tank for NASA s space shuttle and today the Michoud Assembly Facility is building the MPCV Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle that will take us to Mars. Is there Mozarella on Mars If Chef Kevin White goes up in Cindy s MPCV there will be Chef Kevin makes his own every day at Wayfare, and drizzles home made blood orange oil over it. Like Cindy, Michael Harold is writing about whole other worlds. Having recently turned his back on 23 years of wrestling Mesolthelioma victims as an asbestos attorney, Michael is, among other pursuits, a columnist for recently launched Inside New Orleans magazine where he is chornicling the doings of the rich and nefarious. Now that Michael has no schedule he doesn t need to get changed out of his running shorts or show up any place on time. Rich Collins is resurrecting his smash hit Disney TV series Imagination Movers as an animated series in which the Movers develop super powers. On this show we get to help Rich write the new theme tune to the show, and preview a slice of the other side of Rich s life, a cut from his upcoming solo record "A Particular Set of Skills." Andrew Duhon, back from wandering the Western edge of America, laments the lack of heart and soul in Nashville and beyond and puts his heart and soul where his mouth is with a beautiful rendition of a new song about impermanence and a pocket full of rocks. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. Douglas has more images here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
8 years in the making, the worldwide exclusive broadcast premier of the hit single Crackhead Fred by Sarah Reagor happens right here. Andrew Duhon was at the bar at Wayfare before this edition of Happy Hour and met Sarah Reagor. Little did he know with whom he was striking up a conversation. Sarah wrote her hit single in 8th grade and has barely played it since. In this rendition Sarah gets most of the way through it before stopping in deference to Anne Churchill s tears. Anne Churchill knows a thing or two about guitar music. Anne was the tour chef for many years for the Dave Matthews Band, as well as Melissa Etheridge and Zack Brown. Off the road and back home in New Orleans, Anne has settled in at Bhava, a vegan restaurant she s opened above Feelings Cafe in the Marigny. Brian "Bruiser" Broussard was also hanging out at the Wayfare bar before today s show, trying to sell the owners on his Covington Brewhouse beer. Bruiser hooks us up with a taste test and the Happy Hour crew gives him an honest focus group response. In other random Only In New Orleans developments, it turns out that Bruiser is the new bass player in Cowboy Mouth. Andrew Duhon tries out a brand new song. Anne declares it a hit. Time Will Tell. The photos on this page were taken by still limping Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Que Hefner, his trio NOLA Fam Que, Mani, and J Smoke and their wider collective, NOLA Familia, are some of the freshest voices to come out of hip hop New Orleans since the heady days of Ca h Money and Master P. From High Times NOLA Fam s infectious romp about smoking pot to the moody, politically and musically subversive Sex Religion, these guys know how to have fun and how to get serious without having to go anywhere near jail for credibilty. Que talks about women, weed, and gentrification, but, unlike a lot of rappers, not in that order. Jose Calderon has made the list of New Orleans Magazine s Top Doctors. And he s also on our list of the best looking. Actually, he s at the top of that list. Jose is a noted psychiatrist in the field of Mind Body medicine, which includes women and weed but not gentrification . Jose works South of the border, dealing with the stress caused by living in the anarchic Mexican drug ruled killing fields, to the comparatively calm streets of New Orleans and the hallowed halls of LSU medical school. Talking of killing fields, we can thank international terrorism for having Cheryl DalPozzal on today s show. Cheryl was at the cutting edge of the telecom technological revolution when Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and with it the company she was working for. So Cheryl headed South, back to New Orleans where she went to Tulane, and has jumped into NOLA life with both feet. Check out her whole new world as a photographer here. The photos on this page are taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. More of Douglas s photos are here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans is a small city. People refer jokingly to "one degree of separation." But what happens on this Happy Hour is beyond any coincidence you could imagine. If this was in a movie you d dismiss it as being insanely implausible. Without ruining the revelation of the conversation, here s what you need to know. Sarah Arcenaux and Beau Ross have never met each other before sitting down across the table this evening on Happy Hour. Sarah is a bartender at Ralph s On The Park in Mid City. She s moving soon to be a bartender at the newly renovated Brennan s on Royal Street in the Quarter. Sarah didn t start out to have a career in the service industry, though she discovered she s a natural at it and now she loves it. Sarah set out to be a writer. She still dabbles in writing. Beau is co owner and wine afficianado at Bacchanal in the Bywater. Beau didn t set out to have a career in the service industry, though he discovered he s a natural at it and now he loves it. Beau set out to be a writer. He still dabbles in writing. Okay, so now you re thinking Sarah and Beau have similar backgrounds, similar occupations, and similar life trajectories. Big deal. There are probably hundreds of people in New Orleans who are writers of some description working in bars. And you re right, there probably are. But that s not what Sarah and Beau have in common. Their similarities are merely evidence of what they might have in common that s much deeper than any of these details. Saying any more here would be a total spoiler. All we can say is, no matter what you re thinking Sarah and Beau s connection might be, there s no way you can see this one coming. Kelcy Mae makes a more than welcome return to Happy Hour, this time bringing Sam Cords, the brother of her partner and banjo mandolin player, Pudd n, to join her on guitar. Kelcy is spearheading an all star fundraiser for the Apex Youth Center in Central City, and plays two songs on this evening s show. By the way, Kelcy is also a writer and likes to pour a drink, but she doesn t share any deeper coincidences with Sarah and Beau. Sarah cements her candidacy for Best Guest Ever by bringing her own home made booze, and bottles of it as gifts The photos on this page are taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel. You can see even more photos here. And that s Max Cusimano shooting video.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
P H Fred used to find things funny. That was back when he was a comedian, writing songs about killing children s toys, and off his meds. Now he s a fully functioning member of society, and about to make millions with his new app, The Freducator. No joke. It s already happening. Spend ten bucks and bump your SAT score up a bunch of points with a simple iPhone app. And it works We ve heard some wild stuff on Happy Hour over the years but this is about as wild as it gets. Oh, and how about this Fred s new CD. It s called Rough dumb crazy sad and blue on which Fred replaces Lou Reed as the singer in Lou s band. This is all true and verifiable Stasia Cymes is just one of those people. You know em when you meet em. Happy, positive, upbeat, fun, loving life. Stasia left a life of rock n roll and kids not her own behind in Seattle to move to New Orleans and turn the town upside down. Having turned the town upside down, Stasia s company, Clear The Clutter, puts it away neatly in boxes. Mikayla makes a welcome return to Happy Hour with her ukulele. If you can t imagine how someone sweet and diminutive can rip the roof of the joint with nothing but a voice and a ukulele, wait till you hear this. Andrew takes us out with a reminder about where we re all headed. In case you think it s just all fun and games all the time at Happy Hour, this is what we had to look at for 60 minutes during this show. The photos on this page were taken by Douglas Engel at Wayfare. You can see even more photos here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You may know Meschiya Lake as the singer and front person of her band Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns. A very different audience knows her as one of the girls on Girls Gone Wild. She s in an episode in New Orelans where Meschiya and her girlfriend are doing what girls do whipping tourists for money. Things get a little out of hand when the "dominatrix type" girlfriend displays her private parts to prove she s a woman, only to find out the person she s flashing is a cop. Then, of course, a riot starts and Meschiya gets arrested for doing what girls do fight cops. Not to detract from the fact that for the other 99.0 of her life Meschiya is a fine singer and is working on a solo album. She does two standout tunes on this show, one original and one penned by Erika "Tuba Skinny" Lewis. Kate Parker doesn t mess around when it comes to getting her point across, either. She met a guy, dated him for two weeks, then presented him with a key to her house, announced she was going to marry him, and changed her career so they could spend time together. That was a few years ago. They re still together, have 3 kids, and the career change ultimately led to Kate getting a PhD and becoming the Executive Director of Market Umbrella, the folks who put on the New Orleans Farmers Markets Downtown, Uptown, in the French Market and Mid City. If you don t know Jamar Pierre there s a good chance you ve seen one of his huge, bright life affirming murals around New Orleans, or in other parts of the country. Jamar s background is as colorful and Louisiana drenched as his art with family from Cajun country and beyond where his family has a whole town named after them. If you re listening to the show and you didn t catch the name of the waitress who managed to sell Meschiya a pair of earrings during the show it s Hannah Berger. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One theory goes that if Hitler hadn t failed out of art school he wouldn t have become an insane dictator. Then there s a whole other story about shaving pubic hair. And that s just the first few minutes of this extraordinarily strange meeting of a bunch of random folks on a Fall afternoon on Freret Street in Uptown New Orleans. Jackie Sumell masks her simmering anger at pretty much everything in the world from having her name mispronounced to the Capitalist system with sparkling sweet charm. And she s using it with as much patience as she can muster to try, in her own words, to change the world. Darrin Butler grew up in a world of violence and prison culture; the world that Jackie wants to change. Darrin s buddy, the pickpocket, got 24 years inside. He got out a few weeks back and now he s back inside already, this time for credit card fraud. Darrin doesn t seem totally convinced that he should blame "the system" and not his buddy the pickpocket s personal choices. Nick Peate s ex spent years in jail. While she was out she tried to kill Nick. Attempted murder wasn t enough to drive this Romeo and Juliet apart. Although it ended, eventually, without anyone getting killed and the girlfriend back inside, the story gave Nick the raw material to craft the movie Sweet Kandy. Nick wrote and directed the movie and it s just getting released. James Hayes makes a welcome return to the show after a car wreck sidelined him on the way to join the festivities last week. He s got a bit of driving ahead of him as his band The Lovey Dovies sets out on tour. Good luck finding them maybe by the time you re reading this they ll have gotten that website thing sorted out. The pix on this page were taken by the sometime biker s valet, Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Did you know there was a time in America when you could take your kid to the post office and mail him Lionel Milton was certain it s true, and sure enough it is. Lionel is on top of a lot of stuff, including his business, his art, and his New Orleans lifestyle. Just don t ask him if he s single. Vivian Norris is more certain about her own marital status. She s been in New Orleans 6 weeks, she s getting married and she s settling down. The last few years have seen Vivian living all around the world though exactly where is open to mis interpretation engaged in activities as disparate as making films and founding festivals to screen them. Her latest film is Obama Mama, a documentary about the life of President Obama s mother. Wayfare s Chef Kevin White drops by the Happy Hour table and unveils a slew of new creations, including homemade mozzarella, tuna ceviche on watermelon, and more. Kevin also shares some stories about his life before cooking, when he was Special Ops in the Marines. No kidding. To ensure this conversation covers every possible corner of conceivable cocktail hour secrets, Vivian delivers women s insider hints for men, on when to give flowers and what to wear. If you re a man you re going to need a suit and, as Lionel says, "a shirt with buttons." The good news is, you can be fat. "A man," Vivian says, "Should look like he enjoys life." If you believe that, where else could you live but New Orleans The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Marie Lovejoy just got back in town from braiding hair in Minneapolis. She also braids hair at Renaissance Festivals and fairs across the country, which she did for a decade before settling down in New Orleans a few years ago. Hair braiding is, according to Marie, not as simple as it might sound it involves an exchange of energy and personal conversation which make no mistake is NOT therapy. If Marie s exchange with Grant about braiding is anything to go by, Marie would make a fabulous tough love therapist She s a talented storyteller and has some insightful tales about life on the road in the circus family style of Renaissance Fair e gypsies. Jonathan Freilich just got back in town too. Jonathan s been in California, in school studying opera. After he banged out a couple of operas in New Orleans in between his gigs with his Naked Orchestra and 40,000 other commitments from live gigging to writing TV and film scores Jonathan decided he needed to know more about what he perceives is a new trend in presenting live music in different formats. If you have any interest in the current state of the music industry as a musician or just plain music lover this conversation between Jonathan and Andrew Duhon about the state of affairs and where the music industry is headed is as informed as anything you ll find anywhere. It s not all that encouraging but once we quit talking about it and listen to some music the optimism quickly returns. Optimism is the coin of the realm over at Loco Productions, the home of film maker Russell Blanchard. Russell is a New Orleanian who has come home via Hawaii where he worked on ABC s Lost. Russell s latest project is The Lot, a movie based on the true story of the optimism of a Westbank good guy trying to improve the lives of local kids by building a park on an empty lot, who gets screwed by over zealous city officials and local thieves. It s a riveting and instructive story. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the now bipedal but one eyed Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There are plenty of fascinating things to discover about Rob Steinberg among them his major role in the Oscar winning movie 12 Years a Slave and his storied roles in big time TV shows, but for some reason drinks this conversation zeroes in on the gay Puerto Rican guy who showed up after Rob wrecked his car, a French talking pigeon, and Rob s conversation with Bob Marley about music and pot. Because Rob is a fine actor, raconteur, and mimic this is as close as you can humanly get to hanging out with Bob Marley and a French pigeon, though you could probably find a gay Puerto Rican of your own to discuss pants and paints with if you know where to look. Johnny Ray is an equally gifted raconteur and enthusiastic elaborator of the truth, so you can only imagine what it must have been like when Johnny and Rob shared a house after an unfortunate romantic incident in Johnny s life. By day Johnny gets to tell tall stories to tourists about the New Orleans movie biz on his New Orleans Movie Tours which he founded and operates. By night he s a mega music fan, haunting nightclubs and hanging backstage with musicians of all stripes, and at midnight on Tuesdays he turns into a liquor lubricated DJ on community station WWOZ. Robin Barnes is a member of the Royal Family of New Orleans music. Her cousin Dave Bartholomew wrote songs for Fats Domino, Elvis, and Chuck Berry among others and was one of the founding fathers of rock n roll. Genes can go a long way in the talent business and Robin more than proves that here. Robin and bass player Pat Casey play two songs off of Robin s solo EP, Me, Robin introduces her cousins, one of whom is a fashionista sporting 185 Air Jordans and a limited edition Polo Bear shirt which you don t even have to waste your time Googling because you ll never be able to get your hands on one. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the bespectacled Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Look up in the sky It s a pelican. It s a plane. No It s Travers Mackel, and he s not up in the sky, he s at Wayfare for Happy Hour. Traver s isn t just an award winning reporter for WDSU. He s also worse at golf than you d expect, being that his father was a professional golfer. But Traver s isn t alone on Happy Hour, he s joined by dancer and performance artist Heather Hansen. And even though Heather looks like she s in her twenties, she wants you to know that you re never too old to dance. Heather also tells us about some gnarly sushi in Japan, and why New Orleans is her Burning Man. And for our musical guests, Darcy and Chris Boye of The Tangle, return to entertain with some great music and some great stories about something we ve all done, sing in the bathroom.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew takes on the mantle of host, and with Sarah Reagor at his side, they deliver a show that ll have you saying, "Grant who " We ve got a show that is the height of elegance and class, covering opera, film, music, and roller derby all at the fabulous Wayfare. But before we get into all that. I need to ask you one question. What was your first album If it was a combo of U2 s War and Mozart, you d be like Eric Jones. And if you started The Bruised Boutique, the worlds largest roller derby store, you would be Eric Jones. But you re not, so stop living in a fantasy Eric tells us how Boston s music scene is in trouble, and also talks about how roller derby has grown into a legitimate and highly competitive sport. But if you re first album was Green Day s Dookie you d be like Meg Kaul. Meg is a entertainment attorney who can t name names, sorry But Meg is more the just and entertainment attorney in the hottest filming location in America. She s also on the board of the New Orleans Opera. Meg wants you to know about the great opera in New Orleans and why you should be going to see these fabulous shows. And for our music guest we ve got John Michael Early and K.C. O Rorke of the amazing Flow Tribe. They give us a taste of their new album, Alligator White, and ignite old high school rivalries and talk about the meaning of the phrase "just give me a line." The amazing photos of the amazing show were taken by the amazing Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When you grow up in communist Bulgaria there s a few things you have to live without. Kiwifruit for one. And bubble wrap. Even today the remnants of Soviet domination hangs over the country to such an extent that still no bubble wrap is available. That s why NOLA garian Boyanna Trayanova, travels with her own supply of bubble wrap when she travels from her home in NOLA to her birthplace Bulgaria. And good thing she did or she would never be playing the giant drum that she wrapped and lugged back after she ran into Max from New York and his friend s mom hooked her up with the drum after Max s friend in New York saw Boyanna playing it in a Bulgarian field on YouTube and called Max and said "let her have it" or words to that effect . You couldn t make this sht up. And then, get this, back in New Orleans Boyanna, who plays drums for everyone in town and has lived here for a decade, suddenly decides to get all Bulgarian now she s got this giant drum and runs into Georgi who is also Bulgarian and plays jazz guitar and then they stumble into Matt who just moved to town to play accordion with the Panorama Jazz Band and Matt, although 100 American is totally Bulgarian ed out and rides a unicycle. Their band is Mahahla. Talking of bizarre and magical coincidences, how about this one Eve Abrams came to town for the first Mardi Gras after Katrina and her accommodations get kind of screwy so her friend s sister very kindly put her up for a couple of nights and who should also be staying there at the emergency crash pad but this super cute guy who was from here but was then living 1 mile away from Eve in Brooklyn. She s married to him now. And he plays in various NOLA non Bulgarian bands with Boyanna. If you ve read this far, you ve got to be thinking there s no way a bunch of people sitting around a table having a few drinks could top that string of coincidences. Okay, well how about this Geoff Douville, co owner of hipster hang The Lost Love Lounge, has a comedy night on Tuesdays no cover and Georgi from Mahala has never been to it. Even though Georgi hangs out at Lost Love once a week, he s never met Geoff. Andrew Duhon has been in Lost Love frequently and never met Geoff either. And how about this Geoff has been playing in the band Egg Yolk Jubilee for 18 straight years and once had his own podcast with a guy who now lives in DC. Eve is also a teacher, she got her first broadcasting gig at This American Life with a story about her school, and back to Geoff s friend the Department of Education is in DC. The coincidences keep piling up. Right Before the bartender cut everybody off, this motley collection stumbled out of Wayfare into the seemingly never ending daylight. It was the best of Thursdays, it was the hottest of Thursdays... Thank God for Hangover Destroyer. Photos on this page by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Grant says in his introduction to Happy Hour, "When you pull up a bar stool in New Orleans you never know who s going to be sitting on either side of you." Today there was no way you could have predicted this turn in the conversation. Chris Lee is best know in New Orleans as front man for the 90 s rock band Supagroup who toured the world, made 7 records and had 4 Top 40 hits. So it s going to surprise you what Chris has to say after he plays a song and apologizes for not rocking out too hard in Wayfare so as not to disturb the folks who came to hang out and not be distracted by us. It turns out Chris is involved in an alternative energy project that has the potential to change the world. As Chris says, "I hate this term but it s a game changer." And in case you re thinking this is probably just another pie in the sky idea, it s not. It s real. It s huge. And it s probably happening. Susan Bopp is no stranger to original ideas. Susan spends her waking moments when she s not deluding herself into believing that her college age daughter is not having sex because she s in Alabama where "it s different" helping people spin their good ideas into reality. Her other specialty is helping people find their true talent and true passion. She does her best today with this table but probably the beers and cocktails aren t helping focus anyone. Susan does lead Happy Hour producer Graham to face some realities about her fear of running and hatred of sororities. And just to complete the circle of "you never know who you re going to be sitting next to" how about one of the strongest men in America who at one time was THE strongest man in America Erik Frank was American Powerlifting national champion in 2010 with a bench press of 462 pounds. Today Erik is running his company Your Nutrition Delivered where they create a personalized health diet for you, make, and deliver it to you at work or home. In his spare time Erik has revolutionized the vending machine to dispense healthy, fresh food. This is one of the most surprising and entertaining conversations you ve heard in along time. All the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
MC Trachiotomy spent 18 months on a remote island in the Pacific, a mile long and a half mile wide. From his current landlocked island, The Pearl, a 9th ward sanctuary and creative edge of the known universe, he s recorded 14 albums and so far released five of them. On today s show, among other topics, Trach weighs the benefits of doing LSD before going on a blind date. Laine Kaplan Levenson is a professional listener. She listens to people s stories. Both as the local producer of the fabulously successful NPR show The Moth, and her own storytelling radio show, Bring Your Own. Today Laine, aka DJ Swimteam, tells her own stories about her strange months in Senegal, and the strange fate of her viola. Brian Hyken ran away from trouble in his native St Louis and has found enough trouble here in New Orleans to have his attorney advise him to take down his website till the court case involving the off duty cop is settled. If you want to go see Brian and his band The Wanderlust January 10th at Gasa Gasa tell em at the door you heard Brian on Happy Hour and you re in free. For real. Andrew Duhon holds on to the romance.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is not typically the place to come for breaking news a bunch of random folks in a bar. But when one of those folks is New Orleans Council Member Jason Williams and the conversation turns to the Chief of Police... Remember, you heard it here first. Sarah Jane McMahon may not be a household name if, your household doesn t know much about opera. Sarah Jane is in fact one of the superstars of world opera. Originally from Metairie and a Loyola grad, Sarah Jane was handpicked by Placido Domingo to perform with him in at the Los Angeles Opera and continues to perform in opera houses around the world from San Francisco to Munich. Sarah Quintana is the founder as of this conversation of the Human Doing Party. Enlisting Jason, Sarah Jane, and the rest of the Happy Hour cocktail crew, Sarah is set to model the party after the French entertainment industry in which she spends half of her year. Between political polemics and social consciousness Sarah sings two beautiful songs, one about the joy of freedom, dedicated to Herman Wallace who spent 43 years in jail before being pardoned, and died mere days after his release. The other song s about the beach. Sarah Reagor is sitting in for the touring Andrew Duhon. Chef Kevin White treats the party to one of his signature sandwiches, the kind of dish that puts every other sandwich to shame. It s hard to do justice to the delicious taste a humble sandwich can have in the creative hands of a fine dining chef but we do our best here. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you re a girl and you tell a guy you re 26, what does it matter that you re really only 17 In Jak Locke s telling of the story, being off by 9 matters, if you re a hooker. While we re on the subject of keeping numbers straight, this is Jak s 6th appearance on Happy Hour. It s not like he doesn t have anything else to do. Jak is frontman for the high octane The Jak Locke Rock Show, and the experimental Jak Is A Four Letter Word. He co fronts the 1950 s rock n roll trio The NOLA Treblemakers, the vaudevillian folk trio The Speakeasy Serenaders, and ringleads the band for the Freaksheaux To Geaux circus sideshow burlesque troupe. If anyone s rocking New Orleans more than Jak Locke, it s Lena Sendik. Lena is fronting a much needed revolution in healthcare with her recently opened Balance Integrative Health center. Lena s clinic combines traditional and alternative medicines, and get this your doctor s appointment is 60 minutes And you don t pay any more than you do for your 5 minute prescription encounter with your current doctor. Lena s personal story is equally as impressive as her professional accomplishments. She comes from a legit, real deal, Mafia family. Complete with hit men, federal jail time for Uncle Frank, and every juicy detail from red sauce to wire taps. Film maker David DuBos could turn Lena s mob story into a movie, after he finishes work on his current project Bayou Tales, which is almost ready for release. David s next project is a biopic about John Kennedy Toole, New Orleans favorite literary son, author of Confederacy of Dunces, based on a biography, Butterfly In The Typewriter. On this show Sarah Reagor decides she loves podcasting so much she s going to throw it all away, give up everything else and become a full time reporter for Happy Hour. After the cucumber cocktail wears off she may reach a different decision. Or not. All the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the limber Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Fake Carls aren t fake, they re a real band whose friend not Carl plays the Handpan. The central nervous system of the Fake Carls are not a couple of Loyola music business students, Julie Wischan and Steve Panacek. Julie and Steve knock us out with two tunes the first song they ever wrote and the newest. Do you hear that No, you can t, because it s so supersonic high frequency that nobody can hear it. Not even dogs. In the ever changing music business, technology pioneer Chris Reade has come up with a way to use super high frequency sound to let The Fake Carls and other musicians make a bit of money. It s a brand new app in development with the working title, Chirp. Elizabeth Pearce spends most of her days and nights drinking. In other cities that might be called an alcoholic. In New Orleans we proudly call Elizabeth a cocktail expert and an authority on the culture of bar rooms. Elizabeth wrote the book on where to hang out in the French Quarter, she blogs about booze and bartenders, she takes tourists on bar tours and she s writing and performing in a musical about Prohibition. Sarah Reagor, sitting in as Grant s sidekick for the touring Andrew Duhon, takes off her hat as sales person for Covington Brewhouse and entertains like a rockstar. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the sober Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Holed up in his room at night after teaching high school math all day, Agasthya Pradhan Shenoy tinkered around with his computer, making music. When he d compiled a bunch of tracks he called himself Swelo and put out a record he called Escalator Music. It became an instant internet hit, blowing up first with the the world s greatest collection of angry elitisits Reddit. With a hit record came demands for live dates. Agasthya recruited some other teachers, Amberine Huda couldn t make it to Happy Hour , Jon Holt on drums and Andrew Tripodo on guitar, and Swelo the band was born. Here they play live acoustic versions of three songs. To get the full effect check out the whole album. Rob Owen was just a regular guy with a perfectly sane idea open a surf shop in New Orleans. Surprisingly, the NO Surf Shop lasted a few years. Then Rob discovered he had a malignant brain tumor and was given 6 months to live. Over his second or third beer, depending whether he wrote the number accurately on his arm so he d remember, Rob describes what it s like to stare death in the face. And live to tell the tale. Eight years after his 6 month death sentence, Rob Owen is the longest surviving GBM brain tumor human he can find on the face of the earth. A second chance at life brings with it a determination to live it on your own terms. To that end Rob sat down with his daughter, Edie, and wrote a book, Spy Boy, Cheyenne, And Ninety Six Crayons. Mari Kornhauser walks a fine line between truth and lies, Pit Bulls and diluted gene pools, Treme or not Treme. An award winning screen writer, film director and one of the writers who penned HBO s Treme, Professor Kornhauser LSU screenwriting spent the day courtesy of a mix up with the show s starting time Buddha like beneath the orange blossom tree outside Casa Borrega. The meditation gave Mari a great idea for a TV show and a Zen like approach to Governor Jindal. Andrew Duhon returns from too long in Texas, catches up on some reading... ... and delivers his customary wry observations. All the photos on this page at Casa Borrega were taken by Happy Hour photographer he can be yours too for a very affordable fee Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Alex McMurray s NOLA anthem "If you can t make it here you better not leave" is a singalong smash. Pauline Patterson from NOLA voted Best Bar Finn McCool s dishes up a dose of Ireland. Rock n NOLA Charles Chamberlain makes history, literally. Andrew Duhon debuts his new Chevy commercial.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you listen to public radio in New Orleans you already know Eve Troeh. Eve is the News Director for the local NPR affiliate; public radio station WWNO 89.9FM. But other than she s smart, quick, and one of the refreshingly talented new on air voices at WWNO, what do you really know about Eve Start with this is she single Depends who you ask. How about we ask Eve if she s single You d think that would clear it up, right What we do learn about Eve is that she is an amazing improv actress and singer. You re going to have to hold on till the end of the show or just skip to it to get the full effect. Eve Troeh and Gregory Alexander have a lot in common. Well, maybe "a lot " is over stating it. They both went to Catholic school. That s kind of where the similarity ends. Greg went on to teach at Catholic school before guaranteeing his passage to Hell. He became a novelist. Although not a sin in itself, Greg s debut novel, The Holy Mark, rips the lid off sexual perversion in the Catholic church, with insider intelligence. Greg s only possible shot at salvation is the penance he does in his den in his River Ridge house he drinks whisky and spins vinyl oldies on twin turntables from his 3,000 record collection, and announces the songs to nobody but his tape recorder. If things work out right and Greg isn t just humoring Grant and Andrew we re going to be publishing one of Greg s home radio retrospectives of the hits of the 70 s. Pray for that to happen don t mention Greg s name to God, though, why risk getting excommunicated from eternity . Andrew Duhon is hitting the road, heading to the UK, Spain and points beyond for a Summer tour. As a parting gift Andrew leaves us with 2 songs a brand new one about breaking hearts for a noble cause love and an ode to small town Britain. The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by the fully recovered Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We invited film maker Kevin McLin on Happy Hour because he seemed like an interesting guy. We had no idea how interesting. First of all he s the creator of two of the potentially most offensive, edgy, pieces of comedy to come out of New Orleans in years. Maybe ever. A music video about a "baby mama" and a short film about an African drug dealer and his friend Sissy Pyrex. But that s not all. Although Kevin was twenty years younger than the King of Pop, he grew up with Michael Jackson. Kevin s dad was Michael s spokesman from the 90 s all the way through till the end of Michael s life. We let Kevin talk a bit about his first movie, The Station, and his new one Loco Amigos and TV series Dirty Springs, but we all get a crack at asking him about the inside scoop on Michael. Just because Michael s dead doesn t mean we can t talk to him. Psychic Cari Roy gets in touch with Michael, live, and relays a message to Kevin. We see first hand why BBC America named Cari as the best psychic in the USA. What do three women do when they graduate from college and end up in New Orelans If you re Annalisa Kelly, Ruby Ross and Julia Michaels you hang out together and sing Balkan folk songs. Calling themselves Pyeya there s a story behind that too the trio slip on headphones and take them off and make their first recording ever, live on Happy Hour. It s enchanting. s All these photos were taken at Casa Borrega by Happy Hour photographer and certified Good Person by the Best Psychic in America Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
You think you ve heard some s t. Then suddenly it s happy hour and a couple of beers later you re going, "Stop. What That really happened " So, wait till you hear this one. An Asian Jewish person enters a beauty pageant. Not so surprising, maybe. And wins. Okay, somebody s got to win. Where would you think this happened California How about Caddo Parish, Louisiana. That s around Shreveport. Sure, this hype is over used thanks to Facebook, but it s what happens next that is truly astounding. You ve got to hear this... Not only is Ruth Navarre Miss Caddo Parish 2013, Jewish, Asian and a violist, violinist, harpist, and singer, she also weighs 110 or 111 pounds you see if you can figure which one is right and knows a lot about professional competition eating. And Ruth can stomp her feet and wail. Also, she s single. That s another story. Anyway, so you re driving around Caddo Parish, you ve been up for 3 days tweaking, and you ve got a load of meth in the car. Next thing you know, flashing lights in your rear view mirror, you get pulled over. The cops says, "Can I take a look in your car " What do you do Call Miles Swanson. He might be down at Tattooagogo on Magazine Street discussing faux nipples, or cajoling his 110 not 111 pound dog into behaving himself but he might also be in his law office. And if you want to be calling Miles from your car on your way home rather from jail, he s got some sage, free advice. Miles came to New Orleans on a 2 week visit 8 years ago and is still here. Honestly, you think you ve heard some s t. Listen to this happy hour... All the photos on this page were take at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Lisa McKenzie takes a plane to or from her New Orleans home and a man sits next to her on the flight, more often than not he ends up touching her. Do you find that unusual If you re a woman, when was the last time some strange guy next to you on a plane touched you, and you thought it was acceptable If you re a guy, when was the last time you reached out and touched a strange woman s bra strap It s the bra strap that does it. Lisa is the creator of Ooh La Bra, the designer bra straps that are meant to be seen, and apparently touched. The stranger touching the leather straps that Lisa is wearing today is Keith LeBlanc. Keith is the co founder of MHM Urgent Care, of which there are now 11 around New Orleans and vicinity, or 14 if you got up to get a drink and sat back down a minute later. Keith will also tell you if you have diabetes for free and if you think you don t, don t be so sure. Keith s already found 200 diabetics in the past two months so many that he s Diabetic Father of the Year, or something very similar. If you ve been wondering who is New Orleans preeminent intellectual, political, professorial Loyola University , Swahili, spiritual hip hop artist, we ve got your Truth Universal right here. Truth makes his second appearance on Happy Hour and does a couple of tracks from his new album, Invent The Future, live. In an extremely unlikely turn of events cocktails Grant, Lisa, Keith, and Kelcy do back up vocals. Yes, Kelcy Mae is back, sitting in for the troubadouring Andrew Duhon. The pictures on this page were taken by the bi pedal Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Urinating into a video camera at age 3 led film maker Paul Dale to track down the Vanna White of Italy, Ylenia Carrrisi, who went missing in New Orleans in 1994. Paul Dale s unique path from toilet training to film making, involving dressing as "Fat Mama," is just one of the unexpected tales that unfold over this first Happy Hour from Wayfare on Freret Street in Uptown New Orleans. To kick off the Wayfare shows with a musical punch we enlisted Phil deGruy. Guitar Player magazine has described Phil as "One of the finest players ever." Not content with mastering 6 strings, Phil designed his own instrument, The Guitarp, which has 17 strings. You have literally never hear anything like Phil s guitar playing. Andrew Duhon also has a story about a mysterious woman, probably not Italian but certainly enigmatic. She s the subject of his song on today s show. Redell Hearn is an expert on museums she runs them and teaches other folks how to run them. Redell and Andrew are planning to run off together with Andrew s dad to The Creationist Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Despite being injured in a bizarre sexual accident, all the photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you get skin cancer in New Orleans there s a good chance your dermatologist will send you to see Dr John fan, Dr Keith LeBlanc. Unllike Dr John, Dr Keith is an actual doctor. He s a dermatologist s dermatologist who specializes in removing skin cancer, which of course is, technically, skin surgery. Can you imagine Dr John calling a record, "Dr John s Record " Dopey, right That s what Grant and the assembled brains trust think when they meet Keith over a pitcher of cocktails and come up with a more enticing name for Keith s skin surgery center than The Skin Surgery Centre even with its exotic r e spelling. We see a lot of impressive artistic skin treatments on Happy Hour but some of the finest adorns the body of exotic beauty and singer Gal Holiday, front person for the eponymous Gal Holiday and the Hony Tonk Revue. We knew going into this that Gal s real name was Vanessa Maccabee Niemann even the Happy Hour crack research team can find that out on Facebook but in typical Happy Hour style we find out plenty more unexpected and fascinating stories about Gal H. Here s two tidbits her dad is the reason you can t take liquids on planes, and a mysterious UFO sighting has turned her dad into a world expert on UFO s. While we re talking about couplets of information, Gal H sings two songs on this show, one amazing acapella rendition of a song off the HT Revue s new album, Last to Leave, and a Johnny Cash treat with Andrew Duhon providing guitar accompaniment. Yolanda Butler, half of the catering team known as "Two Girls and a Spoon," has just about done it all. From working at the Whitney Bank to driving trucks in Germany, and spending more time in the US Army fighting off unwanted suitors than fighting terrorists. Although she drove trucks up and down the Autobahn, one of Yolanda s trickiest navigations was turning her long time friendship with her buddy Darrin into a romance and marriage. When they re not renaming surgery "centres", the Happy Hour team, for no extra charge, are happy to play psychologist with Yolanda. Skin surgery and friends having sex aside, the biggest breakthrough in the history of Happy Hour can be pinpointed to the exact minute in this show. It s the minute that Happy Hour Music Director Christian Unruh reveals his side project. It s a product called Hangover Destroyer. And, yes, kind of like "Skin Surgery Centre," does skin surgery, Hangover Destroyer literally destroys hangovers. Somehow in between booking music guests for Happy Hour and being an entertainment attorney, Christian has found time to get loaded up on booze enough times to propel him to delve into the science of researchers at UCLA to develop a hangover cure based on all natural Japanese herbs that is now proven to work. It comes in a neat little 1 ounce pack and taken before or while you re drinking will prevent a hangover. Say Adios to Casa Borrega. Host Hugo Montero says goodbye to the Happy Hour team at the end of this show. It s been a fun 12 months and time for a change of atmosphere. Happy Hour is moving Uptown to Wayfare on Freret Street. All the photos on this page were taken by a fish s best friend, the bead wearing Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robin Rosemond started early. She left home at 13 and for her 18th birthday got thrown in jail for fighting a cop. A couple of kids and a long marriage to Herr Hoffmeister later, Robin found herself having an existential crisis at The Nutcracker Ballet in Anchorage Alaska and spending the next few years alone in the never ending Northern night "where the odds are good but the goods are odd." Don t ask Jedd Haas where he went to school. Unless you ve already decided you don t want to be his friend. He s a good guy to be friends with though if you stay off of the education question you ll get to sample some his award winning booze. Jedd is the founder of Atelier Vie distillery, where he makes Absinthe, whisky, and the award winning Euphrosine 9 Gin that he brought with him to this show. We don t like to give anyone free commercials but without a word of exaggeration this is the greatest gin you ve ever tasted. Jedd describes it as "Gin for people who don t like gin" and he s right it s in a class of its own. Which is why it won a gold medal at the distilling olympics. Even Casa Borrega s Hugo, an avowed tequila monogamist, was won over. Google changed Kelcy Mae s partner s name. It started out as Lucy but Google, like Kelcy, preferred Pudd n and so that s how it goes now Google is running the universe. As if that isn t enough to deal with, Kelcy s dad wants to be Elvis and her ex is crazy. Thank God Kelcy is an awesomely talented songwriter and singer and can weave all these experiences into elegant, smart, witty songs and wash it all down with some slick guitar playing. Is Happy Hour producer Graham daPonte dancing On a sad note, our fabulous Happy Hour photographer Douglas Engel is living with the fishes. He s not dead or snuffed out by the Mob, he s literally taking care of some fish ponds. Hey, it s New Orleans our photographer is also an aquaculturist.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sean Gautreaux is not totally normal, but he s pretty close. An illustrator of children s books and graphic designer of well known video games, he s not a kook but he has spent a great deal of time and money trying to figure out what the UFO s are hovering above his house. The UFO s are hidden in the shadows of the clouds. No matter where you are in the world, look up into the sky. You ll see them. The triangles. They might be angels, aliens, military spacecraft painted to be "cloaked" and invisible, or a couple of other possibilities that Sean does his best to explain. Everyone else sitting around the table is pretty polite and respectful. Except Andrew Duhon who s not buying it for a minute. Andrew is the 2014 Winner of The Big Easy Award for Best Folk or Country Artist. No stranger to accolades, Andrew recounts his past triumphant win the 3 legged race in elementary school. Back in school there probably wasn t a category for Most Likely to Write a Cynical Song About Dating. Andrew previews his new, unfinished not exactly love song that features the lyrics, "We re going out, Like a dying cigarette." The staggeringly impressive Scorseses make their 3rd appearance on Happy Hour, this time with new band members Sage Rouge Social Set and P Michael Hayes from Hazy Ray . The band s debut album, Magnumopus, is out and they re gearing up to hit the road on a nationwide tour. They rip up Casa Borrega with a cocktail curdling version of the classic weed smoking song, Minnie the Moocher. All the photos on this page were taken at Casa Borrega by the beadless Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Helen Gillet leads her band, The Wazozo Zorchestra, she s a solo jazz and experimental cello player, is originally from Belgium, grew up in Singapore and Chicago, and lives in New Orleans. What else could you say about anybody that could be more unique and interesting than all of that How about that Helen lived for a time in Madison Wisconsin where she was in an all girl punk band called The Koochies Even better, that she was the drummer. Helen also tells the story of her one and only Match.com blind date. How about this for a coincidence Like Helen Gillet, Angela Catalano and Travis Bird also lived for a time in Wisconsin Milwaukee and, unlike Helen, they re both Vegan. Not only that but they re also opening a new indie cinema in New Orleans Shotgun Cinema and they re dating. Travis also plays guitar and Helen joined him on an improvised treat. Arita Bohanan s first novel, Docket No. 76, has just been published. The novel combines Arita s early experiences as a victim of child sexual abuse and her current experience as a successful New Orleans trial attorney. In the novel, Arita lives out her revenge fantasy telling the story of an Assistant D.A. who is given the case of prosecuting a man for sexually abusing a child, only to discover when she confronts him in court that he is also the man who sexually abused her as a child. The Casa Borrega bourbon ice tea cocktails fuel a free wheeling conversation that swings from dating to sexual abuse to the Koochies and other inhabitants of Wisconsin basements. All the photos on this page are taken by The Sensational Aqua Man, aka our Happy Hour photographer, Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleanian Paul Summerlin is not only a super fab musician who tours the world playing keyboards in Seal s band, he s also a neo shaman. If you re not 100 sure what a neo shaman is, Paul describes it as a shaman with an iPhone. And if you re not quite sure what a shaman is, Paul is a seer, feeler and healer. Artist Katherine Klimitis brought her new service dog, Lexie, along to today s Happy hour. Lexie s one mission in life is to pick stuff up. And give it to Katherine. Today is Lexie s first outing to a bar. And her first chance to meet a man with a trombone. The man with the horn is Jeremy Phipps, making his third visit to Happy Hour, this time with his guitar player Elliot and his new album, Cold Cold Wind, from his band Saint Bell. Imagine, from a dog s point of view, what a guy with a trombone might look like. And how that might sound to your service dog trained ear. Lexie sings along with Jeremy and Elliot as they premiere a couple of songs off Cold Cold Wind. Don t be fooled by the wheelchair, not much slows Katherine down. On this, her second trip to Happy Hour, Katherine tells tales of following bands on the road for a week at a time and the most extraordinary rock n roll revelation of the day Katherine does social media for the band Styx Paul may be in Seal s band, Jeremy may be a rising star, Happy Hour producer Graham might look like a supermodel, but being the Twitter and Facebook voice of Styx wins the rock n roll tales of the day. This is without a doubt one of the most eclectic collections of New Orelanians ever assembled. And that s saying something All the photos on this page were taken at Casa Borrega by the fabulous Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Renso Amariz spent years as a combat photographer in the US Navy. His photos have appeared on the front pages of every major newspaper in the world, on the cover of most of the known news magazines and he s faced down death literally more times than he can remember. Living in New Orleans Renso has traded his still camera for a movie camera. As a film maker he faces down a thousand different deadly blows, from losing the entire soundtrack to a movie soemwhere in a bar in the Marigny to taking it on the chin from Mexican wrestlers. Film producer Michael Arata took on insane dangers of his own when he bundled up a crew of New Orleans film makers and carted them off to Africa to shoot a TV pilot about saving the elephants. Not all of the elephants got the message like the one that came to visit Michael in his tent and that s just one of the tales from the NOLA safari that s making its way onto the Discovery Channel. New Orleans band Mutemath have played on The Tonight Show, on David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and toured relentlessly to packed houses across the country and around the world. Their song Spotlight was featured in the mega hit movie Twilight and went all the way to 1 on the Billboard singles chart. Or did it Grant and Mutemath frontman Paul Meany argue the point but whatever the facts this much is true the official iTunes review of Mutemath album Odd Soul says Paul Meany's lead vocals weave around the quivering keyboards and molten bass, rising to an effortless falsetto that conveys hipster cool with a hint of prophetic vision.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Although New Orleans film maker Kevin McLin was twenty years younger than the King of Pop, he grew up with Michael Jackson. Kevin s dad was Michael s spokesman from the 90 s all the way through till the end of Michael s life. We let Kevin talk a bit about his first movie, The Station, and his new one Loco Amigos and TV series Dirty Springs, but we all get a crack at asking him about the inside scoop on Michael. Just because Michael s dead doesn t mean we can t talk to him. Psychic Cari Roy gets in touch with Michael, live, and relays a message to Kevin. We see first hand why BBC America named Cari as the best psychic in the USA. What do three women do when they graduate from college and end up in New Orelans If you re Annalisa Kelly, Ruby Ross and Julia Michaels you hang out together and sing Balkan folk songs. Calling themselves Pyeya there s a story behind that too the trio slip on headphones and take them off and make their first recording ever, live on Happy Hour. It s enchanting. s All these photos were taken at Casa Borrega by Happy Hour photographer and certified Good Person by the Best Psychic in America Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you kill someone in New Orelans and you d like to avoid the death penalty, Brandi Studer is the person you need to get to know. Brandi works for the Capital Defense Project where she spends her day putting together arguments to convince a jury you d be better off alive, in jail or out, than dead. Eris Walsh will save your life too. Eris is creator of New Moon Apothecary and a self confessed punk. It s the apothecary side of her persona that will save you but you ll live to appreciate Social Distortion and the Misfits. Luke Winslow King might be the handsomest guy in New Orleans. He was certainly the best looking white guy in Orleans Parish Prison the weekend he wound up there. Luke tries out a couple of new songs from his forthcoming yet to be titled album. Andrew Duhon is back from Sri Lanka and India with wonderful tales of his saintly uncle and sitars. Andrew tries out a new song as well. The photos on this page are all taken the fabulous Douglas Engel. Douglas is available for weddings, barmitzvahs and aquatic expeditions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Just in time for Mardi Gras, the holy trinity Galactic, Sex therapy, and Champ Superstar. How can you go wrong Start counting.... Shannie Goldstein gives a litttle free sex therapy. Robert Mercusrio and Jeff Raines from Galactic funk it up.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If loneliness can kill you than we re going to live forever Graham da Ponte is behind the mic this week and brings law clerk and amateur writer Michele Magill Smith, Story Corps Liam Pierce, and our old friends Hazy Ray are the musical guest. Michele tells us why you should get vaccinated while Liam reveals his alter ego as an opera singing gondolier who doesn t mind a little hanky panky in his boat, no matter your age. Hazy Ray brings the show home with premature applause by throwing in a few false endings.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It s the Little Things in life that make you happy, right That s why Shanece Gransam and Katy Channing called themselves The Little Things and you won t find a cuter, happier, ukulele playing, harmonizing couple anywhere. Shanece and Katy met in Florida but couldn t run away quick enough to get to New Orleans where, unlike Florida, people don t come up to you in restaurants and suggest that being a biracial lesbian couple don t cut it. We re angling for an invitaion to Katy and Shanece s "full on Hindu wedding." As you ll hear on the show, the brides are planning on both wearing saris. Kris Gabik knows how to make The Little things household words. Kris s brand storytelling biz, 84 Flash, did it for Irvin Mayfield, Tales of the Cocktail, and the Ritz Carlton Hotel, so how hard could it be to sell two "totally hot" girls Kris is right on it after the next maragarita. Rachel Dangermond is one of Happy Hour s favorite guests. Never short of an opinion or a quick comeback, Rachel is handing on the family trait to her son, Tin, who makes his debut on this episode of Happy Hour threatening to punch a guy s lights out, reminiscing about Spain, giving The Little Things some musical career advice, and begging for trains. Andrew Duhon is about to head off to India. Before he goes he tries out a brand new song about dancing in Heaven. All the photos on this page are at Casa Borrega and were taken by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Internationally renowned Psychic Bonni McCliss drops into Happy Hour on her first stop of a New Orleans weekend workshop. Bonni is an "evidentiary clairvoyant" which means not only can she speak to dead people but she can prove it. Her evidence comes in the form of information there is no way she could have known unless your dead friend or family told her. Or in the case of the dead boyfriend and the stolen lip gloss, showed her. By the way, the dead lip gloss thief was wearing a Speedo. Bonni has all kinds of insights into life on the dead side including knowing for sure whether or not there s a God. However, if you want to know whether God wears a Speedo, not sure that anybody thought to ask that on this show. Michael Patrick Welch is one of New Orleans most valuable writers, digging into local politics, culture and their intersection with a fearlessness and informed, opinionated position seldom seen around here. A man of many talents, Michael is the author of novels and of the invaluable book, New Orleans The Underground Guide. If you re visiting New Orleans and you re savvy enough to have found this show already you need to get a hold of a copy the Underground Guide. Besides playing guitar in a Prince tribute burlesque show with Trixie Minx, Michael has launched a brand new music venture, Lil Current, a vocal harmonizing quartet of prodigious talent. This is Lil Current s first public outing. They sing two songs on this show. Andrew Duhon makes a welcome return to Happy Hour. Bonni gets serious about Andrew s tug o war between art and love and Andrew tries out a new song. All the photos here are taken by Happy Hour photographer Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Once in a while when you re just out to grab a drink and you get talking to the person next to you at the bar you discover that some people are dealing with some serious sh t. This conversation with The Lens journalist Della Hasselle starts out light enough talking about how when she used to tell people in New Orleans as opposed to New York that she was a "dancer" they mostly assumed that was a euphemism for "stripper" but things take a serious turn when Della starts talking about her current work as a journalist, writing about death row. Louisiana apparently has folks they want to kill but they have run out of the drug to kill them with. It s a crazy story as to why the drug is now unavailable in the US and a creepy, bizarre bar room conversation trying to come up with a Constitutionally and chemically sound solution with 3 guys who have had a few cocktails. That s Happy Hour producer Graham daPonte, herself an ex death sentence trial attorney, standing in the background trying to keep some control of the conversation by ESP before she has to sit down and clear a few things up. On the way lighter side but no less revelatory ex Supagroup frontman Chris Lee has been working in reality TV and delivers a blow by blow account of just how reality TV is as twisted a take on reality as you ve probably always suspected. Chris s recounting of his tenure writing and producing Jerseylicious is hilarious. Btw, if you ve never heard of Jerseylicious, to give you some idea of its popularity, its Facebook page has 1.1 million likes. Last time Charles Chamberlain was on Happy Hour Alex McMurray played his hilarious and cutting song about crappy New Orleans musicians, If You Can t Make It Here You Better Not Leave . We made Charles promise to come back and play us a song of his own. On this return visit Charles doesn t disappoint, playing a song that manages to get "cray cray" and "erl" as in NOLA oil into the lyric of That s The Way It Goes. The conversation never even got on to Charles day job, leading music tours of New Orleans. Chris Lee plays a new song he s working on, from his screenplay Little Man Blues, a musical. All these pix of the show recorded live at Casa Borrega are by Happy Hour photographer Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nancylee Myatt and Paige Bernhardt don t play lesbian cops on TV but they do write and produce them. The Emmy winning creators of Nikki and Nora, TV s first lesbian kick ass cop show, Paige and Nancylee write and produce the cult hit in Uptown New Orleans. If their real life is an inspiration for the creation of their characters, look for Nikki and Nora to get married in future episodes. Nancylee and Paige made it legal by getting married in California and are waiting for Louisiana to catch up so they can celebrate by filing a joint tax return. Talking of taxes, how would you like to have your Entergy bill slashed by hundreds a month and see a giant reduction in your property tax All you have to do is elect Drew Ward to the New Orleans City Council. Although we seldom get serious on Happy Hour, it s worth it to hear Drew expose the scam that allows the city of New Orleans to screw every single one of us through price fixing your power bill. And for good measure he explains how he s going to slash your property tax bill as well. Reid Stone is a new breed marketing creative at Hero Farm where their slogan is "Do great work for good people." Reid was running against Drew for City Council but threw himself under a bus and joined forces with Drew to avoid splitting what you d have to imagine would be an already minority Republican vote. These guys, however, are a new breed of Republican. This show was fueled by Hugo Montero s Casa Borrega tequila iced tea concoction and a bottle of Tikves red, a Macedonian wine, from the fab Pearl Wine Co. Photos by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cecile Monteyne created the comedy improv show You Don t Know the Half of It. Hip hop artist Stefan Henry calls himself an entreprenegro. John Calhoun is host of New Orleans live TV late show inspired The Goodnight Show. Hillary Strobel is New Orleans greatest advocate, describing the city as "The cultural and intellectual vanguard of the world." Collectively today s guests, none of whom knew each other before they sat down for Happy Hour, have formed UNITY United Nola Inspiring Tomorrow s You th . The future of UNITY is dependent on what happens after the Pearl Wine Co cabernet wears off. Photos by Douglas Engel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What does the perfect woman look like Why would a Mississippi poet break your heart while you re in Spain Does MF Doom ever take off this mask If you know the answer to these questions don t waste your time listening to this show. If, however, you re a woman and you d like to know one non surgical sure fire way to have every guy in the world think you re hot for real , French Quarter Madam Josie Arlington and Artistic Director of Louisiana History Alive Veronica Russell has the answer. For the more cerebral there s the story of the 400 pound man who almost killed his girfriend having sex with her and Jneiro Jarel unleashes the full Viberian Experience. If you re a guy, seriously, wouldn t you be thrilled for this to be your girlfriend Lynn Drury has some seriously mysterious tales of heartbreak and a unique remedy that involves silent recitations of love and sorrow. And she sings a couple of great songs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Heidi Heyns has the sexiest voice in Southeast Louisiana. Chonchol Gupta has a finance company. Oddly, they both hosted radio shows called "Happy Hour". How much happier can it get And who better to invite along to hang out and play a couple of songs than the happiest most positive voice in Southern rock, Fred LeBlanc. It s a Happy Hour classic the Happiest Happy Hour of all Time.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Two Christmases ago, before the then inexplicably eccentric manager at The Columns Hotel kicked us out because he "Didn t want to brand The Columns as a Happy Hour location," we recorded what has become one of the classic episodes of Happy Hour. Singer songwriter Lynn Drury, Rabbi Yonah Schiller, and New Orleans ultimate renaissance man Andrew Ward sat down with our show s host Grant Morris. Nobody at the table had anything in common, nobody knew each other or had met before the show started. What happened in the next 60 minutes convinced us we had indeed, with the right mix of guests, stumbled onto a magical format for a show. This is the 60 minutes that changed it all. That demonstrated how, with a moderate size bar tab and a small table, we could indeed show the world what New Orelanians are really like.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of the unique charms of New Orleans living is the drive thru daiquiri store a sort of Burger King of Booze where a family of four all over 21 of course can, for a modest sum, get tanked up on sweet, frozen cocktails dispensed from what look like washing machines. Can you imagine living in a New Orleans where open liquor containers and drive thru daiquiris were banned, like, god forbid, the rest of the country No way, right Instead of just imagining this hellish future, Jeremy Thompson has taken up arms to fight against it. Jeremy s three year old Daiquiri Festival is the fastest growing fest in South Louisiana and his Defend the Daiquiri campaign is taking on all the hallmarks of a civil rights movement. Elizabeth Bates ain t lying down and taking it no more neither. A full 5 feet tall, Elizabeth got so exasperated at not being able to find clothes that fit, or having to buy them then pay to get them altered, that she started selling them herself. The Petite Shop is the world s first e commerce site selling clothes specifically designed for women 5 4" and under. Elizabeth moved back to New Orleans from San Diego to be a part of The Idea Village s business incubator program, and to leave the memory of the cheating SOB behind. Miss Mec slept through her last appearance on Happy Hour. This time she decided to show up with a sock on her head and scant clothes on her body. Her cpaitvating sultry voice is as sexy as ever and she is so damn charming that even her stories of incestuous shoe theft make her seem adorably cute. Andrew Duhon plays a work in progress, a beautiful song about a man s heart and a runaway train.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Peter Menge is hoping his new food to go biz Thrive is 3rd (or is the 4th?) time's the charm. Jeannie Firth is a farmer, in City Park! Grow Dat grows 40,000 pounds of produce a year and now you can go buy it. Karine Laguinio came to the US from France to experience America, teaches at French school in NOLA and has started a French band, Les Autres. Andrew Duhon is back!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The lovely Graham da Ponte is filling in this week and welcomes English teacher/pussyfooter Larisa Gray, bar owner/film producer Brad Bohannon, and musician/awesome guy Jon Roniger. They explore the power of pink, cross-dressing, and why you can do anything in New Orleans as long as you don't ruin the party.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Comedian Chris Trew and Best of Street band Hokum High Rollers share nose ring adventures, government wrangler Rebecca Conwell is giving away $1m (for real) and bad boy Troy Gilbert sails the seas in search of stories.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
NOLA queen of social media Champ Superstar, comedian Cyrus Cooper, tour guide/DJ Johnny Ray, musician Sarah Gromko and troubador Andrew Duhon explore teen TV, drug-resistant gonorrhea, and the qualities not shared by Miley Cyrus and Jesus.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We revisit our old buddy Craig Giesecke who moved to NOLA not to smoke pot, but cheese. Vox and the Hound have a live conversation with Jesus, Peggy Sweeney McDonald dot-dot-dots Meanwhile Back At Cafe Du Monde..., troubadour Andrew Duhon drops by.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Brad Robbert lets us in on The Bourbon Pub's sensational secret happy hour. Slim Goodies' Kappa Horn has a deal no guy can refuse. Royal Teeth's Gary and Nora play live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you only listen to one podcast this week with a gorgeous woman world champion kickboxer scuba diver economics grad, make it this one. Fighter Lydia Hand has her last cocktail in the USA with realtor Billy Patout and the inventor of "multi-talented,' singer, writer, film director Jak Locke.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pole vaulter Film maker Lila French and Chagas Queen Lorelei Cropley crown NOLA Tech Week's Good Eggs, Advano, NOLA Pie Guy, Cotinga or Sunken City with naming rights to the Happy Hour cocktail.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Renee Henry moved here from Hollywood and is sending a slice of NOLA back West as a reality show. Scott Aiges is the top down get on the bus uber best part of Jazz Fest . The Bantam Foxes defy business school and kidney stones to rock Casa Borrega live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Alex McConduit graduates from selling casinos to writing children's books and reinventing crowd-funding NOLA style. Alex's next book might be "Snoozer Quinn's Misshapen Forehead" courtesy of Snoozer's historian and great niece Kathryn Hobgood Ray. Andrew Duhon learns a harsh lesson from jaded preschoolers.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Legendary Tony Clifton rubs shoulders with lesbian-cop creator Paige Bernhardt, Pagan Pride witch Ty Siddiqui, and NOLA's next big thing The Scorseses.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Johnette Downing serenades kids around the world and a bunch of (not) drunk (at all) idiots around our table at Casa Borrega. John Richie puts his pants on one leg at a time when he's not making movies. Jeremy Phipps has a brand new Saint Bell record. And, yes, it's Andrew Duhon!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Eternal hockey star Lenny Alsfeld bankrolls the party and Olga's movie. Crimestoppers' Darelene Cusanza enlists Dr John to fight crime. Leah Sarris teaches the hottest doctors (over a stove) and Andrew Duhon rolls in.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Overdid it? Call 855-NO-HANGOVER and let Dr Mignonne Mary's Remedy Room CURE YOU! Hate the Times Picayune? Let Dr Jim Fitzmorris show you why you're not alone in his new play Truckload of Ink.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Beauty Guru Brie Lybrand and designer Chet Pourciau share the secrets of butt glue, red gravy, and orgasmic cup cakes. Writer/director/musician Jak Locke sings high and talks low about his new western. Andrew Duhon stomps his foot and wails on harmonica.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Terry McDermott was a celeb in the UK before he all but won The Voice and now he's a star in US. Author Robert Dean proves he can do more than say f*ck a lot and tell stories about booze, Dominique Ellis doesn't sell it if she can't afford to buy it, and Greg DiLeo is a pretty good attorney for a guitar player.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Adrian Simpson, creator of New Orleans Ice Cream, Restaurant R'Evolution Wine Director Molly Wismeier, and band on the rise The Tangle fall in love over pints of ice cream, Casa Borrega's cold beer, memories of throwing up Southern Comfort and other childhood smells.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New In Nola Carlie Kollath Wells' first day on the job as a reporter for the Times Picayune gives her plenty of material: improv comedians CJ Hunt and Kyle Williams creators of Our Sunken City web comedy series mix it up with the city's most underground band (don't look for a website) Blind Texas Marlin.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Three extraordinary New Orleanians: Paul Meany from Mutemath , a bona fide Bono inspired rock star; Renso Amariz, celebrated US Navy war photographer with tales of espionage now telling bizarre tales on film; Michael Arata, actor and film producer on a mission to save the African elephant.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Honorable South's Ms Charm Taylor dishes out conception advice, kids' book author Ryan Murphy is in it for the animals, blogger/magazine editor Haley Adams Tweets and special appearance from NOLA Twitterverse reigning queen Champ Superstar.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this no-holds-barred conversation comedian PH Fred tells true tales of enjoying pie in various lock-ups, Rachel Dangermond goes with the LGBTQ trans-racial flow, Casa Borrega proprietor Hugo Montero explains why women are very different and Andrew Duhon goes it alone.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today on Happy Hour, Kerry Dunn can't keep his characters off cocaine, Jim McCormick makes country singers sound creative Andrew Duhon is given a set at Voodoo, and Alex Rawls doesn't cry over spilt milk.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Country music star Kim Carson gets a spray-on tan on the way to breaking her heart, writer and weed fan Helen Krieger shares her Least Favorite Love Songs, and the smartest man in the room, Lee Horvitz, goes Hollywood.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tom Varisco brings his 1-minute movie Troy Marks brings his brides and Brown Eyed Girl, Mikayla brings her piano, and Andrew Duhon brings us back. PLUS! Be an owner of the Algiers Ferry!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Alex McMurray's new NOLA anthem "If you can't make it here you better not leave" is a singalong smash. Pauline Patterson from NOLA-voted Best Bar Finn McCool's dishes up a dose of Ireland. Rock'n'NOLA Charles Chamberlain makes history, literally. Andrew Duhon debuts his new Chevy commercial.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Re-visit with stylist ex-rocker Glenn Michael changing your life by making your hair last another 5 weeks for $2.74 a day. Memphis band Star and Micey may change your musical life forever when you hear this live performance, Andrew Duhon literally blows us away, Alexa Georges is oiled up.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Graham fills in for Grant this week and welcomes our old friend Andrew Ward, musician Nesby Phips, and artist Jill Ensley. Andrew wants to lead the people in rebellion, Jill talks about escaping from Kansas, and Nesby goes into beast mode.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Psychiatrist in waiting and Miss New Orleans Dr Holly Peek analyzes attorney Mitch Gibbs, and musicians Micah McKee and Andrew Duhon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cajun ghost hunters Randy and Kali, stars of SyFy channel's Deep South Paranormal, swap ghost stories with Sig, producer of Voodoo Fest, and fellow Cajun, drummer/singer-songwriter Tess Brunet who extols the triumphs of self medication in overcoming extraordinary odds.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Michael Arata stops by the party on the way to Kenya to save elephants. Luella Williams is not regional manager of the post office but she is with UP2US and a Lacrosse coach. The Breton Sound's Pretus brothers are in for a lifetime of therapy after the sorry tale of selling their invisible brother Pedro.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Joel Farrelly is a comedy film maker and undercover critic, Michael Glaviano is a poet-turned-comedian, Mikayla has the greatest singing voice and sharpest lyrics you've heard in quite some time and Shawn O'Brien has the best Match.com story ever.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Beauty Guru Brie Lybrand and designer Chet Pourciau share the secrets of butt glue, red gravy, and orgasmic cup cakes. Writer/director/musician Jak Locke sings high and talks low about his new western. Andrew Duhon stomps his foot and wails on harmonica.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Heidi Heyns laughs during sex and smokes cigars after. Joking aside, Rich Collins and Andrew Duhon play music off their brand new records born a week apart. Dean Ellis slides effortlessly into Portugese with a simple kkkkkkkkk, the Brasilian LOL.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Douglas Engel got canned from his job as a fish's best friend at the Aquarium, but not for the reason you think. Stephen Rea grew up in terrorist-torn Belfast, Ireland and escaped into a different mayhem - on the road with Ozzy Osbourne. Miss Mec quit college for the strip club then quit the world of lap dancing to sing.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Comedian Chris Trew spills the beans about his counterfeit family, musician Luke Winslow King plays music too new to be on his yet un-re-released record, Andrew Duhon values friendship on stage over talent, and Dr Andre Strumer is a mysterious non psychic fortune telling movie making cab driver.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ultimate badass, star of Man Woman Wild, Mykel Hawke explains why it's vital to carry a lighter, our main mind manThomas Fewer has a party plan to embrace and celebrate yourself, while Vince and Dave from The Scorceses have to learn to say no.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In a frank barroom discussion of love's tough lessons, Todd Day Wait and his Pigpen revel in the joyful pain of saying goodbye, Constance Adler ruminates on heartbreak, Andrew Duhon curses happiness, and, thank God, Jackson Hill explains it all.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aaron Wolfson wants you to text him hourly about your pain, Makiyah Moody wants you on her board of directors, Elon Hornsby wants to sooth your soul.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Super-stylist ex-rocker Glenn Michael can change your life and make your hair last for another 5 weeks for $2.74 a day. Memphis band Star and Micey may change your musical life forever when you hear this live performance, Andrew Duhon literally blows us away, Alexa Georges is oiled up. Video: http://bit.ly/inolive
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
George Blow is happy to explain his self help philosophy about finding happiness, Crista Rock's dreams come true except for sharing a bed with Fletcher Mackel, Social Set debut music inspired by schizophrenia, Andrew Duhon is a sucker for a cute accent.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
10 million people have stolen Keith Alan Morris' movie off the web. The Arch Animals are giving away their killer new record for free. Christine Fitzpatrick has a secret about Opra Winfrey. All that plus tequila, baby Jesus in a cake, and Andrew Duhon too.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Absolute Best of Happy Hour. One-woman sensation Theresa Andersson blows the roof off the hotel, virtuoso clarinet player Evan Christopher joins in, gourmet vegan O'Shea Cleveland sparkles. An extraordinary hour.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rabbi Yonah (GoForIt!) Schiller says yes to sex and drugs, Lynn Drury yearns for a Latin lover Andrew (Rev Psych) Ward is the ultimate NOLA party raconteur and backup singer.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
2012 and the world ends much as it all began: in a fog of cocktails, training bras, and awesome music from kristin Diable Andrew Duhon and Mitch Forman presided over by human dynamo Jonathan Ferrara and House of Lounge hipster pioneer Edith LeBlanc.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Megan Braden Perry from nola.com rolls out her ho's from Xmas past, Olga summons up Tannenbaum on a sinister Silent Night, Cynthia NOMO DeBiase is a white cookie in a black world, Andrew Duhon stops by and so does Bill from Slice.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Craig Giesecke moved to NOLA not to smoke pot, but cheese. Vox and the Hound have a live conversation with Jesus, Peggy Sweeney McDonald dot-dot-dots Meanwhile Back At Cafe Du Monde..., troubadour Andrew Duhon drops by.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Author Robert Dean is scared that success, happiness, domesticity and a dog will kill him. Jeffrey Thomas is working for a better world. Billie Holiday goes reggae in the bodies of Miss Mec and Coco Dank.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ponyspace rocks it live and acoustic, Blake Haney from Dirty Coast analyzes the psychology of T-shirts, renaissance woman Rhonda Findley leaves Germans and Jamaicans behind for Fun Rockin, and Bill shows up with pizza.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Adam from dazzling band Mada dropped out of elementary school, Cherry Brown uses Top Stick to keep her pasties on, fictional Tubby Dubonnet sounds a lot like Tony Dunbar, Tonya is Gifted and Talented but still attracted to disrobing women.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Comedians from the 2nd annual Hell Yes Fest demonstrate the subtle difference between comedy, pain, Hindu and Italian. New Orleans premiere singer-songwriter Andrew Duhon previews music from his new album. + Pizza!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rachel Billow takes us from turning off the respirator to her food truck, Chris Boyd has an Apptitude for Steven Tyler vocals, Thomas Dolby jams with the outrageous New Orleans Bingo! Show. The wildest, zaniest Happy Hour yet.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This just in! Jason Foster of Foster Bear Films is black, Yoga teacher/film maker Cat McCarthy is a monkey, Congressman hopeful Caleb Trotter wants you to smoke pot, news photographer John McCusker feels like The Beatles.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Artist Amanda Talley makes prank calls, actor Tony Bentley calls horse races, musician AF The Naysayer calls it the way he hears it ...
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's the Bill From Slice Show! Starring Bill From Slice! Also starring David Kunian,Simon the sign guy, Maggie the bookseller, and Lynn Drury playing live
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Comedian Chris Champagne and Twitter celeb Liprap discuss the end of the world over fish tacos with New Orleans Suspects Reggie Scanlan and Willie Green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ross Karpelman aka Satan (retired) pulls the drapes back on his real life and Halloween Houses of Shock. Greg and D-Ray from Community Records debut brand new tracks. Plus Mystic Krewe of Clearlight and the Polish Mitch Forman.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Andrew Ward's Urdu funk Wahida meets Olga's blues in a haze of legal pot smoke courtesy of congressional candidate Caleb Trotter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Brian Perkins shows up with wonderful Fine Wines for all, Jay brings meatballs, Christy breaks out the Slow Southern flute.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
John Boutte, who sings the theme to HBO's Treme, takes us back to the morgue, Julie Smith is working out where to stash a dead body, David Spielman lives his life in black and white. Plus popsicles!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Marc Pagani is a renowned photographer, Mimi Schippers is a professor of sexuality studies. Together they scale mountains and are polyamorous (have multiple love lives). Rotary Downs rock the queso.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rabbi Yonah Schiller solves the Mid East peace problem, Treme historian Al Jackson takes us inside the Masonic Lodge, and Helen Gillet plays cello and sings French and Hindustani.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Geoff Cost knows everything - he hosts the biggest trivia night in the US. Owning Bacchanal makes Chris Rudge the Mayor of Hipsterville. Pipe smoking musician Luke Ash is a guitar-wielding librarian. A unique meeting of 3 unique men.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans' finest side-gig hustlers. Ken del Corral, Kerrie Ann Frey, novelist/web developer/film maker Jak Locke sings!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Galactic Mardi Gras and the Secret to Sex 3 Times a Week : Therapist Shannie Goldstein reveals the keys to marital bliss, writer Champ Superstar stomps on it, Robert and Jeff from Galactic funk it up.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
April and Alexis take us inside the world of NOLA gold-digging and the sexual "appetites" of the super wealthy. Broadcaster David Kunian and band Vox and The Hound roll with it. Warning: explicit, but instructive.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Major Person is a big time hunter, Randy Jackson from Zebra is rock's anti-Ted Nugent, Dr. Mark Smith is a writer, actor and "a doctor like Hunter Thompson."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Poetry, jazz and circumcision have never sounded quite this hip. World champ slam poet Chancelier Skidmore, author Michael Tisserand , musicians Philip Manuel and Mitch Forman live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ernie K-Doe biographer Ben Sandmel meets singer Judy Spellman. Kathleen Turpel meets Italian auto worker Alessia Lepanto.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Designer Julie Neill unleashes The Power on Techy Becky Diamante, Ernie the Attorney Svenson and Blaxican Mia Borders who plays live and demonstrates Marfan Syndrome.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
New Orleans metal gods Jimmy Bower and Joey LaCaze, Latin percussion poet Anthony Cuccia and half-ass Professor Jaret Lofsted. Eclectic men and their music.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Alternative New Orleans music, art, and underground attitude with author Michael Welch, artist Sally Heller, and Enharmonic Souls Christin Bradford and Erick Greene.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The return of 106.7 The End's Sig! Indie film maker John Alfone unleashes his grasshoppers on volleyball impresario Mary Vinette. Trumpeter James Andrews bolts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
"It's amazing how often a guy puts on makeup and a wig and says he looks just like his mom." Actor Brian Peterson convinces actor Tony Crane and musician Jeremy Phipps.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aevin Dugas, the Guinness World Record's biggest afro, charms Andrew Ward who sings New Orleans gospel in Urdu, while Ms Charm Taylor and the Honorable South rock out soul pop.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mindy Hawes hosts Native American Cajun Ninja Shaman Dorian Dardar, comedy rocker Joshua A D, and Franco-bayou singer-songwriter Sarah Quintana in an intense meeting of the minds.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Conspiracy, comedy, and cocktails are a lethal mixture. Michael Dibari, Chris Trew, John F, O'Donnell and Jeremy Walton go from "hello" to "WTFluoride?!" in under 2 drinks.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Biopsychologist Tina Thomas, cryptozoologist Lee Hales, and vocal snake charmer Nasimiyu Murumba discover the secret to life over cocktails. Spoiler alert: it ain't love.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cambodian model/ activist iKandy, Appalachian chanteuse Leah Song, and Chris Owens' longtime producer Kitsy Adams share their extraordinary life stories. Leah sings like an angel.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frank Perez and Jeff Palmquist recount the history of gay New Orleans, neuroscientist Ham Farris explains how we're all going deaf, Chase McCloud plays live (quietly.)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cecile Tebo talks down suicides. Wesley Stokes got run out of Tupelo and turned to decorating drug bags and covering his head in grits. New music from Kristin Diable.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hazy Ray's twisted jazz is the perfect accompaniment to artist Myrtle Von Damitz III's twisted revelations (including fraud and attempted murder) and Bruce Davenport Jr's uniquely twisted mind.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aftermath is high school sweethearts Trent and Jessica's nuke disaster movie, Flood Streets is husband and wife team Helen and Joseph's Harry Shearer produced post Katrina movie, Happy Talk is New Orleans' hippest band.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Anna Duggar is in love - with blood, Sara Meadows Tolleson only sounds married, MC Truth Universal seeks universal truth in music but not Universal Music (maybe).
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This American Life contributor Cheryl Wagner and artist Katherine Klimitas slum it with Dash Rip Rock's Bill Davis.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Rabbi Yonah (GoForIt!) Schiller says yes to sex and drugs, Lynn Drury yearns for a Latin lover Andrew (Rev Psych) Ward is the ultimate NOLA party raconteur and backup singer.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chandra Banu Das and Drumilla from the Krishna temple meet Big Hearted Erik Schwarz and subversive Gina Forsyth. Merry Krishnamas!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Culinary wizard Jyl Benson and philanthropist Gerald Duhon discuss charity, cooking, and the morality of using a Cuisinart.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mindy Hawes guest hosts Anarchy 101 w singer John Michael, ex FBI guy Jim Bernazzani and City Year's Mary Lee Murphy. Mitch Forman plays live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The 4 funniest people in New Orleans walk into a bar. Chris Trew aka sicko rapper Terp2It brings the stars of his comedy festival to Happy Hour. Mitch Forman plays Rhapsody live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Meet Brooke: teacher by day, rollerderby Sadist Hawkins by night. Kate Finlayson saves her life with Nia, Force Feed Radio rock their sneakers off. Mitch Forman live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lydia Benson's a Pussyfooter, David Toso's a 610 Stomper, Natalie Mae has Unturned Tricks.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Michael DiBari lays out the collapse of the USA, forensic Anna Duggar loves blood spatter hates latex, Dumstaphunk Ivan Neville says We Ought to Know Better.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ross Karpelman is the Satanic mastermind of House of Shock, Jerry Fredieu's a Catholic Halloween gay masked fundraiser, musician Khris Royal is all Dark Matter and Red Bull.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Explicit meeting of the minds of comedians Tami Nelson and Chris Trew aka Terp2It with rappers Lu and Cypher aka Team Robot. Anarchy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Debbie Regan is a lactation expert, Christian Unruh is a music programmer, Trish Kaufman bridges the gap teaching music to babies.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Schuyler Hoffman quit defending Bill Gates for a life in bed (and breakfast), Chad Ham quit law for the priesthood, the Enharmonic Souls play live.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Doc Howes has a lab that is curing cancer, Gallivan Burwell has a lab that sits and stays, Jennifer Holmes knows it's all about me.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Bon vivant Constantin Georges, Bayou backstager Aura Fedora Shannon, and AF The Naysayer and Luke St John, the Simon and Garfunkel of Hip Hop.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
After a mint julep, surprising inspirational life changes from Traci Claussen and Zack Rosenburg. Heartbreak pop from Chiara Angelicola and Johanna and the Dusty Floor.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Heidi Heyns hosts a show called Happy Hour, so does micro loan pioneer Chonchol Gupta, Cowboy Mouth's Fred Leblanc is happy he sings better than Mick Jagger.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jessica Rohloff plans parties for Yelp, Lee Stafford pushes veggies for health, Caleb Guillote sings for the pissed off and brokenhearted.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Steve Himelfarb gave up rock'n'roll for chocolate cake, Julie Ahrend prefers bedpans to Poland, Christoph Andersson parties like it's 1985.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At 23 Matthew Name woke up dead and never recovered, Faun Fenderson's cat taught her to talk to animals, Sasha Masakowski sings and rescues rats.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Peter Richiutti can make you rich, Michelle Weaver can make you cool, Sun Hotel can make you happy. Cocktails included.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
An extraordinarily frank discussion (be warned) of what goes on in the world of multi-partners. Lovie Dovey James Hayes serenades.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Happiness is a warm pie, a ton of confidence, and a cello. The band Glasgow, Drew the baker of iconic Hubig's pies, and Dr Nick Pejic the shrink get happy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Be a fly on the wall while John Mosley, Barbara Lacen Keller, and Sess 4-5 talk slavery, girls, and rap.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Six months of watching for tropical storms begins with a Hurricane at Pat O'Brien's with Robert Fogarty, singer Jak Locke, and Pat O's Shelly Waguespack.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Artists Willie Birch and Dawn Dedeaux mix it up with Emcee Nesby Phipps over art, music, "bitches", civil rights, hip-hop, and more "bitches".
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Foodie Ian McNulty loves Cajun Country, Cajun Tommy Corley] hates Boutte, Scott Boaz loves everything, but then again he's a drummer.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
R.Stephanie Bruno, Sgt Yolanda Jenkins, Tina Jamieson. AKA my dad the mobster, my son the spy, and my identical twin tow truck driver.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The NOLA Chocolate Devil meets Mr Good Chocolate Harry Bruns. Kristin Diable is no angel, but sings like one.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sarah Palin, singing bikinis, and $2.5b to change America forever. Pro biker Dan Jatres evacuation doc Billy Fields, and Supagroup's Chris Lee.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Voodoo priestess Sallie Ann describes the Apocalypse, HRI CEO Pres Kabacoff explains it, The Generationals sing on undaunted.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
With charm and plain talk, courageous Khalil Osiris and pinup Ameer Baraka confront crime, rap, and the use of "nigger". Funk by Jeremy Phipps.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frank Perez is writing a history of gay New Orleans, Frank Jones is its future, and Rachel Dangermond is very strongly present. Music from Jean-Eric.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Alfred Doucette, Chewbacchus co-founder Kirah Haubrich, piano player A.J.Loria.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Coffee roaster Kirk Knipmeyer and cocktail designer Star H, plus Louisiana folk singer Andrew Duhon sings songs from his new album.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lorin Gaudin aka The Food Goddess, is a food writer, Lauren Thom, aka Fleurty Girl,designs New Orleans icons, and Peggy Stafford, aka Tile Queen, makes tiles. Individually they are smart, funny, and inspiring; together they sing fabulous unrehearsed 3-part "harmony."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
One of a kind cultural mash-up with Alexis Marceaux and Sam Craft's graphic Broadway birth of Jesus, DJ Bomshell Boogie's birth of transvestite rap aka sissy bounce, and Rick Olivier gives the girls the String Bean treatment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Pre-school superstar Imagination Mover Rich Collins, Tim McGraw's songwriter Jim McCormick, and Brooklyn fashion chronicler Elizabeth Perrin love life, wine, sazerac, and Mitch Forman's live jazz piano. Four great live songs.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A Christian foodie, a Krishna handyman, and an atheist Jew flamingo walk into a bar. Rev Ray Cannata takes on every restaurant in New Orleans, then Nick Reed's Vishnu, and finally chews up Ann Asprodites' secret flamingo.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Learn to kill on a budget with Kerry Cuccia the poor man's Johnnie Cochran, the secrets of investing in OJ with Mozart's co-writer's cousin Graham (the girl) DaPonte, and walk around inside the dark mind of cadaverous musician Jak Locke.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
With Lingerie expert: Peggy Gundlach, Queen of the Praline: Tee-Eva Perry, and James Hayes from The Lovey Dovies.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.