It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

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 rem

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 learni

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

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

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. S

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

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 Jus

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 le

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 ab

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 Ch

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 cou

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 ju

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,

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 m

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

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

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 p

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 hurr

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