My twitter feed sent me a new prediction from @mktgdouchebag

He says that in 5 years, 1ooo’s of 20-somethings will turn their back on digital…this article is a example of the beginning of this shift…no evidence that those vinyl junkies are not immediately turning the songs into mp3’s so they can scratch the shit out of the song without using and wrecking the album..

Another twitter upchuck, @EatPizza from my NOLA list has predictions for the TBA headliner of the 2010 New Orleans Jazz Fest, he’s hoping for Prince but for a fest that already includes Dr John, Levon Helm, Allman bros w Derek Trucks and BB KING, I dunno if it matters who headlines.

Oh, Richard Bernstein of Richard Bernstein Richard Bernstein has some predictions to make…that the Democrats will gain seats!!!??!  No he “hedges” and says they will do better than people think…which people, the Wall Street Journal, AP polls, the people that he talks to, reporters on the news

Another guy who seems to read too much Chris Brogan, makes predictions that social media will finally rule the world, and use all that data they’ve compiled on users to make their valuations look reasonable.   He also renames Social media to something much more boring and predicts Google will spring a trap and take over the social media space..

The lineup has been announced. Now I need to figure out how the hell I’m going to swing it.  I’ll be in the middle of Spanish Language Training at the Department of State, but I need to go.  Haven’t been to Fest since 2001 when I literally had one of the best times of my life, despite the company I was keeping that year.  From one-armed Ecstasy dealers (I swear to God she was fucking following me), to late-night fatal car accidents on Canal Street, taxi drivers who throw bags of charcoal at you from moving vehicles, about 3 hours of sleep over 4 days, and a huge NOLA Police Department shakedown of unsuspecting hippies outside of Tipitina’s complete with police brutality, drug-planting, and evidence-tampering, Jazz Festival is one of the greatest spectacles in the world.

Think of it this way:  fan-fucking-tastic music, fan-fucking-tastic food, and fan-fucking-tastic drinks in a city where nothing can be considered a vice, per se.  And now that I’m all growns up, I can do it in style and not stay in a ghetto-ass Roach Coach Motel in Gretna, all the way across the fucking river.  Oh, and not abuse myself quite as badly as last time.

First weekend seems to be the one to do this year (and it’s WAY more local-oriented and for those “in-the-know”), and I haven’t had a po’boy in who-knows-how-long.  Also, Sunday morning Gospel Tent is about as close to religion as you’ll ever see me.  It’s like atoning for the sins of 3 days in NOLA.

I want to – no – NEED TO make this happen this year.

NEW ORLEANS FIRST CONDOM COMPANY WOULD LIKE TO

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LSU GRAD GIVES NEW ORLEANS WHAT IT ALWAYS NEEDED

ITS OWN CONDOM COMPANY, INTRODUCING  SHOYOTITS.COM

THE OFFICIAL MARDI CONDOM! EACH PACK CONTAINS NAME BRAND CONDOMS,

LUBE ,BEADS AND A FREE DREAM GIRLS MARDI GRAS DVD……OMG!

OYG!  The headlining line-up for this coming year’s Portland Jazz Festival is rad.

Thursday, February 25, 7:30pm, Hilton Pavilion Ballroom, Luciana Souza
Friday, February 26, 7:30pm, Newmark Theater, Mingus Big Band
Friday, February 26, 9:30 pm, Norse Hall, In The Country
Saturday, February 27, 3:00pm, Norse Hall, Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli
Saturday, February 27, 7:30pm, Newmark Theater, Dave Holland Quintet
Saturday, February 27, 9:30 pm, Norse Hall, Christian Wallumrød Ensemble
Sunday, February 28, 3:00pm, Newmark Theater, Pharoah Sanders
Sunday, February 28, 7:30pm, Crystal Ballroom, Dave Douglas Brass Ecstasy

I’m definitely going to the Dave Douglas show… and the other bold shows are definitely good possibilities.  More acts to follow in the coming months.  The festival runs February 22-28, 2010.

Tickets go on-sale October 27th at TicketMaster (or October 14th – 10am if you are a PDX Jazz member).

Find out more at:

• http://www.pdxjazz.com
• PDX Jazz Fest on Facebook

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A totally unrelated sidenote… Texas band of rock siblings Eisley just released a new EP called Fire Kite (digital only, out Oct 9th).  Album cover looks Jebus-y (or at least it’s geometrically-inclined with potentially religious ambivalence)… DL’ing now… we shall see…

~Dan – np: Megadeth – Endgame

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Every news outlet reported today on GM’s announcement to kill another of their brands, Saturn.  It seemed by everything I’ve read that Penske buying Saturn was a ”sure thing”, but seems they’ve had second thoughts.  Now the brand that pulled-off one of the marketing coups of the century, by turning a car recall into a party with their first “Saturn Homecoming”, is closing after 23-years in business.  Guess GM had to make the move, but doesn’t it make you wonder why they were running so much advertising for the brand knowing they could be scuttling it any minute?  That’s what free government money gets you.  No accountability!  Maybe we are seeing a little of that in our business too.

One of the lessons they teach in the military is to “Prioritize Long-Term Over Short-Term Goals”.  They preach the same lessons in most MBA programs I’m sure, although it would seem that the folks on Wall Streethave a little trouble keeping those straight.  Anyway as an example in LT. CMDR. Jon Cannon’s book, “Leadership Lessons of the Navy Seals”, he talks about tracking a dozen terrorists in a particular region of the world.  If the terrorists knew the Seals were watching, they would pull up stakes and move.  If you take out only one or just a few of them by moving too quickly, the troops risk of missing the others and giving them a chance to re-group.  The solution of course is to wait for the opportunity to take out all 12 terrorists simultaneously.

In our business today, we are seeing a lot of short-term versus long-term thinking and this is no way to succeed!  To go back to the military for a second, sure there are times when short-term is all you can think about.  Trying to survive in a fox hole surrounded by enemy troops during the Tet Offensive would probably be one of those times.  But once that enemy has been pushed back past a safe perimeter, it is time for a long-term plan to win the battle…then the war.  That was probably our problem in Vietnam, and now.  The U.S. didn’t understand the loses Ho Chi Minh was willing to take.  They didn’t really calculate how many years the Vietnamese people had been at war, how extensive their tunnels, supply lines and fortifications were.  Instead we just had what we believed was a long-term strategy, “Stop Communism”.   The American people really didn’t understand what that meant. 

Back in the day, record labels let artists take time to develop.  An act wasn’t expected to break until their third or fourth album.  Promoters, managers, and agents used to look at a band and say “in 10-years they will be playing arenas.”  Now we expect that by an artist’s second tour.  Jazz Fest, Coachella, Warped Tour, all great businesses that we admire.  All lost money for their first few years.  Sure we all get lucky sometimes as Tom Petty once said, but mapping out your long-term goals with those you work with will give everyone a sense of purpose and direction.  Bump in the road, you can change course but the long-term plan is still the mission.  There is nothing worse for moral than your team hearing about your company’s plans, directions, new products, etc, from someone other than you.  How many times lately have you heard from employees at certain companies, “what do I know, I only work here?”

Quarterly earnings are for chumps.  Sure leaders have to pay attention to them, especially at a publically held company.  But for a second think about the beginning of Jack Welch’s tenure at General Electric.  Forget whether you think he did a good job, whether he cooked the books, whatever.  At first, Welch was far from the shoe-in for the job.  Once he got the job, he was going to take GE in places it had never been before and at the same time sell-off parts of the company that made them who they were (such as small appliances).  Selling Wall Street on Welch’s long-term plans for GE wasn’t easy.  You can imagine the look on investor’s faces the first time they heard the words “GE Capital”.  Making investors and Wall Street believe in his long-term plan is exactly what Welch did.  He showed how with investment (we won’t call in sacrifice) in the future… and education to his team, the street, investors, the press, and anyone who would listen, the long-term goals of transforming GE could be achieved thereby making it more profitable for years to come.   

No reason why you can’t try that today.  Instead of the accounting person in your office asking for your yearly or quarterly numbers…how about a 5-year plan?  And not just the numbers, but how you plan on achieving those numbers?  When Michael Rapino first took over what is now Live Nation he spoke a lot about “value proposition”.  Michael told us how he was going to re-invest in the customer experience.  Then Wall Street and quarterly numbers got in the way and the new message became…”well everyone has at least one or two artists they want to see in a year”.  I don’t know about you, but the Value Proposition stuff sounds better to me. 

Speak with you soon…

Jim

What: College Park Jazz Fest 2009

Where: Along Edgewater Drive between Smith Street and Winter Park Street

When: October 10, 2009 – 6 to 11 p.m.

Come out and enjoy music from Grammy-nominated Sam Rivers and the RivBev Orchestra. Food and drinks will also be available for purchase.

For more info visit: www.DowntownCollegePark.com.

Aspen, Colorado - photo by Mark Gallagher (cc)

This Labor Day Holiday weekend  is the Jazz Aspen Snowmass in Aspen, Colorado. 

Beginning on September 4th the event is kicked off with Citizen Cope, and Michael Franti & Spearhead. On the 5th, Umphrey’s McGee, Elvis Costello & the Imposters, and the Black Eyed Peas will be there. Playing on the 6th is Drive By Truckers, Dobbie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band. What a fantastic line up of music!

If you are going to visit Colorado and would like to look for rental condos, homes and other places to stay check out Coloradorental.com. While traveling through Colorado see restaurant information for Colorado Springs, Durango, Fort Collins. Happy trails as you head out West!

Apologies all! I thought this was posted mid-July, but it wasn’t. Here it is now, without further ado!

Summer is festival season in Montreal, as many of you many know, and so we’ve been trying to hit as many as we can. I mentioned a couple entries ago that Jon’s sister, Ashley, fresh from high school graduation, has come to stay with us for a few months. She’ll be taking classes in Ohio for a couple years before transferring up here to get a degree in photography. While she’s here, Jon has set her up internships with photographers so she can get her feet wet while learning the city.

Yesterday, she watched the set-up of the International Jazz Festival while shadowing a photographer from the Montréal Gazette. It’s huge (the largest jazz festival in the world),  attended by 2 million people each year according to Wikipedia. I also learned from the Wikipedia entry that there are more than 500 concerts typically offered, with 350 of those outside and free to the public. The festival started June 30 and ends July 12.

The festival opened with the legendary Stevie Wonder on June 30, which we definitely had to check out. He was actually one of the outdoor, free-to-the-public concerts. Can you believe it?

Stevie Wonder (photo thanks to the Montreal Jazz Fest website, linked here.)

The concert was packed by the time we got there, so we ended up on a spill-over stage with a giant screen showing the concert. It was awesome, even if we had to watch on a screen. We left mid-way through after it started to rain, but still enjoyed the show. He made a beautiful tribute to Michael Jackson, and even played a few Michael Jackson songs.

more after the jump

For more information, including maps, travel and accomodation information, concert listings, and even free desktop wallpapers, check out the official website here.

We did attend a smaller music festival last weekend in Old Port, and found that the smaller stages that were tucked away actually had the better musicians. Isn’t it funny how that works? We were also highly entertained (at least I was) by a street magician whose act I still can’t figure out.

We’ve also seen two movies being filmed, both of which we think must be smaller films. One was downtown near Old Port, and they were trying to transform Montreal into New York for the movie, complete with posting a sign in a park that read “Central Park”, NYC cabs (not official ones), and cars with New York plates parallel parked along the street. The other movie was actually being shot in our neighborhood, with a very long line of trailers parallel parked down the street for a couple days. One was marked “make-up”, and others had the actor’s names on them, which was definitely exciting. No one we recognized, and we’re not all that hopeful that we’ll find out what movies were being filmed. If you know, though, please leave a comment!

The best part about this time of year in New Orleans? Jazz Fest. If you love music, food, happy people, creatively decorated tall poles and sunshine, there is no better place for it.

One of the most coveted treats at Jazz Fest is the crawfish bread.  From the moment I awoke, I talked about how excited I was to get crawfish bread.  As we biked for an hour to the fairgrounds, I extolled the virtues of crawfish bread to Matt and Patsy. As we locked our bikes and entered the park, I mused earnestly how psyched I was about the pending crawfish bread. Matt and Patsy then deliberated about how to acquire both the rosemint iced tea and the crawfish bread, and before I could do anything, poof! Patsy disappeared, Matt disappeared. Luckily I found Matt at the ice tea stand, but when we found Patsy she had bought crawfish bread for Matt and herself, but not for me.

“Oh, did you want crawfish bread?” she asked, mildly surprised.

Patsy was more self involved that I had thought.

Happily I soon procured my own crawfish bread and mandarin iced tea, to be eventually followed by fried alligator po boy, BBQ oyster po boy, bread pudding, sweet potato pone, seafood au gratin, spinach artichoke casserole, crawfish beignets and mango freeze. The music had a tough time competing, even if it was Cassandra Wilson, Santana, Ray Charles, Rockin’ Doopsie and the Zydeco Rollers and Cowboy Mouth. But the best surprise was the final act of the day in the Gospel Tent. The show was behind schedule, but the energy in the air made it clear that this was going to be a BIG show.  Every time the crowd caught a glimpse of the “band” backstage, they screamed.  Not just cheered, but screamed. When Fred Hammond and his 12 teenage Radical for Christ ensemble finally came on, the place exploded. Every single person leapt to their feet and started belting out the lyrics to an infectious blend of gospel, hip hop, R&B and pop. I was swallowed by the music and I allowed it to eat me whole.

That night we hit Reginelli’s for a muffaletta and, for old time’s sake, Pat O’Brien’s patio where the theme was banana cocktails. Matt drove us around trying to find the Saturn Bar, but despite cruising St. Claude to Chaumette, no joy. But so the night should not be a total failure, our last stop was Fleur de Lis, a new bar on Lee Circle opened by one of Matt’s friends.

Lingering over my Abita turbodog, I realized how much I had missed New Orleans, and that no matter where I would go in the world, it would always retain a piece of me.

Let’s see if Florida has the same effect.

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• Jazz Fest’s co-founder looks back (cnn.com)

Aunt Judy, Summer & I at Jazz Fest on Friday night

The 19th Annual Alexander City Jazz Fest was held this past weekend (June 12 & 13). I have to say, this was one of the most fun-filled ones that I can remember! My Aunt Judy and her friend Summer came down from Tuscaloosa to spend the weekend with us and enjoy the music.
Friday night, we all went downtown to Strand Park and hung out around the Lake Martin Living table (which I helped decorate & WOW, we won!). A whopper of a storm blew in with lots of scary lightning–I really hate lightning.
We hung in there, though, and got our groove on to Sunpie Barnes.

Sunpie Barnes


Mother & Daddy were there, too and we all had a rockin’ good time! Clyde had to help work and take photos for the website, so us girls stuck together through most of the “fest.”
There were lots of decorated tables with some great food! People were milling around everywhere. I saw so many people that I haven’t seen in a while.
There’s just something about the downtown location that really makes me smile. It’s so nice to see familiar faces getting down to good tunes and having a blast!
I guess it’s times like those that make me say “I’m so glad that I live here.” Sure, we lack a lot of things that I love dearly–bookstores, sushi, museums, etc. But I wouldn’t trade a thing for the wonderful things we do have–like Jazz Fest!

The downtown crowd

After a rollicking good time Friday night, we woke to rain on Saturday. We drove Summer around town (le grande tour) and picked up lunch from Big B (the fried green tomatoes are to die for!). The rain lulled me to sleep and I was seriously entertaining the thought of not going to the second night of Jazz Fest down at the Lake Martin Amphitheater.
However, the clouds lifted, the sun came out and, boy, am I glad that we all decided to go!
The lake fest is so much fun! You grab a blanket, a cooler & pile up on the lawn with your bare feet!
We had such a great time–lots of laughs! The bands were good–but Susan Tedeschi blew us all away! She certainly made many new fans that night. Her husband Derek Trucks even came out for a few songs.

Susan Tedeschi & Derek Trucks

I think my favorite number of the night was Susan’s tribute to the late Koko Taylor. Until I saw Susan, I didn’t think I’d ever hear someone sing Voodoo Woman better than Koko.
But she surprised the heck out of me! Just an amazingly talented blues singer/guitarist.
We left around midnight and made the obligatory Krystal’s run (where we accidentally ordered $24 worth of those tiny wonders!). Aunt Judy & Summer left us the next day with promises to return for Jazz Fest again next year. I can’t wait!
If you’re interested in finding out more about the Alexander City Jazz Fest, check out their myspace link:
ACJF Myspace
You can also check it out on Facebook!

Aunt Judy, me, Wildman Steve & Summer at the lake fest

Imagine growing up without music in your ears . . . impossible isn’t it?

Yet the only stray sound I knew as a kid was the static of a short wave radio and a horse whinny. Although there was also a huge heavy black encased thing in the corner known as Dad’s World Radio and it was strictly hands off. At times when we were left at home alone (they did this is the 60’s), even the threat of a beating couldn’t stop my brother from fishing for something to feed our young souls by tinkering with the different dials and bands.

I left home young and eager to visit the rest of the planet, and within a year was putting down roots in a small European village. My Volkswagen bus, “Pogo” had a radio, and no one to tell me to turn it off. I must admit the Armed Forces music selection didn’t really work for me, but it was the station that rang out the clearest, and it was a language I spoke. Occasionally a Beatles song popped up on local economy stations, but if I wanted to hear hip music in English in those days, it meant a drive to the northwest coast of France where I was close enough to England to tune it in. On really grand days the sun even shined for a while there.

Today I live with a talented musician/songwriter, but it is no wonder I am not someone who needs music overlapping into every corner of my mind, but even my untrained ears perk up when something like this video comes along.

I’ve seen Grandpa Elliot performing on the streets of New Orleans when I’ve been in town for Jazz & Heritage Festival. I hope to see him again in the near future, but until then I’ll be watching him right here, over and over again!

http://playingforchange.com has more world music and more importantly a world vision of PEACE. Please take time to learn more about them.

Recently some of my twitter friends have gotten me interested in blip.fm where I am my own DJ. In just a few moments you too can have your own radio station~    http://blip.fm/invite/BellaDaze

Look me up and share tunes you like so we can create a world of music together. I am eager to learn more.

Update for Oregon Public Broadcasting Viewers:

Don’ Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

Mark Johnson traveled the globe recording little-known musicians from diverse parts of the world.

Thu, Sep 10, 8:00 pm · Playing For Change: Peace Through Music
57 minutes [ Stereo TVG ]

Sat, Sep 12, 9:30 pm · Playing For Change: Peace Through Music
87 minutes [ Stereo TVG ]

Mon, Sep 14, 12:00 am · Playing For Change: Peace Through Music
87 minutes [ Stereo TVG ]

My friend Nick is so low-tech, but really funny and brilliant, so I kinda forgive him for it. He sends out an email newsletter to his friends and family all about his travels and adventures, which I’ve quoted from before. Well, it’s really hard to show how funny his newsletters are just quoting a little passage, so I asked Nick if I could just post the entirety of the latest one and call it a guest blog. That way, you get to know him a bit better and he has an excuse to read my blog. Ha! I’ll include one of the pics he sent, as well. My Fess Up Friday post will go up later.

If you’re in New Orleans, check out Nick’s poetry slam this Sunday at 8 p.m., at Dragon’s Den. It’s the Dead Poets Slam this week, so everybody should bring the work of their favorite dead poet, instead of their own. Show up at 7:30 to sign up if you want to read.

Here is the newsletter, with no further ado:

Hello everyone.

I’m playing hooky today. Was going to work a double shift with the mules, but decided to skip the first part of the double and write to all y’all instead. This was the best plan I could think of.

Well here we are at the end of the high tourist season in New Orleans. Jazz Fest wrapped last week, and the tourists who came down for the two-week shindig have gone their way back to their homes. In the next couple weeks, many others will follow them out. Everyone from wealthy snowbirds on their way back to New York and Chicago, to street kids who will hop the freight trains to the Pacific Northwest. Everyone is going to leave before the heat drops down on this city like a wet blanket and makes breathing feel like swimming.

I’m going to be doing some traveling myself next month (more on that in a moment), but for the most part I’ll be sticking around. Growing up in Florida, the thing I loved about the summer was that everybody left and we had the place to ourselves. I like that feeling. I’m looking forward to a summer in my new home, enjoying the peace and tranquility, even if I have to take three cold showers a day to keep my blood from boiling.

SATAN: The heat is conducive to a greater amount of sin.

Satan, do you actually need heat to generate sin in this town?

SATAN: …I see your point.

DICK CHENEY: The amount of sin in this city creates a haven that makes America less safe. I suggest—

Dammit, Dick Cheney! What the hell are you doing here?

SATAN: He’s my nephew.

Oh…

That explains…so much.

It’s a beautiful time in New Orleans right now. The light is soft in the evenings, the days aren’t too terribly hot yet, and everyone is in a kind of slow coma following Jazz Fest. Bartenders and musicians and everyone else who hasn’t stopped working for the last few weeks get a chance to breathe now. The city feels like it’s catching its wind. Even the River looks like it’s on its back as it continues downstream.

But I think I’m seeing a lot more beauty these days, and that has a lot to do with where I am right now internally. I finally started writing again. I wrote about five poems last month (first drafts, anyway), and am moving forward, very slowly, with the novel.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I wrote five books last month.

I also started working out, which is also helping me find my center.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I shot and field dressed a Cape Buffalo.

Ernie, this is not a competition.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I’ll wrestle you.

Wrestle Dick Cheney.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Done.

DICK CHENEY: Ow! OW! Get your terrorist beard off of me!

I’ve been having a really good run of late. The writing is coming along and the work is still highly enjoyable. I’ve been playing the guitar for almost a year now and am having fun with it, and twice a month I run a poetry slam here. This Sunday will be Dead Poetry Night.

JERRY GARCIA: Groovy!

By which I mean, you can only read the work of dead poets.

JERRY GARCIA: Oh. I was thinking of something else.

The last month has been a blur. I’ll try to cover everything as best I can. But I’m in a good place, and the last stretch of time has been very good to me. Here are some highlights…

MUSIC, MUSIC EVERYWHERE:

French Quarter Fest went down in mid-April and Jazz Fest took us into May. I actually prefer French Quarter Fest, because it’s in the middle of the Quarter, it’s less crowded, and it’s free. All local acts, too. There’s something to be said for being able to walk through a massive music festival on my way to work.

This town is an embarrassment of riches for a music lover. On any given night, you can hear music that sets your head on fire. I can tell you about standing on the stairs at the Saturn Bar, with Debauche ripping through a set of Russian hooligan songs (see photo), the crowd in the small room stamping their feet in time, and the guitarist being so buried in his song he doesn’t even notice he cut his finger and is spraying blood all over his guitar. At the end of the song, he tapes his finger up and keeps playing until the Zydepunks come on and launch into a punk rock version of a Mexican wedding song and the whole room bounces like it’s on springs.

And I can tell you about going out on a Friday night and seeing three bands that blow my mind, one after the other, from the Jazz Vipers on Frenchman Street to Zazou City and their gypsy jazz/tango fusion at Mimi’s, to local blues legend Little Freddie King, swinging a whole crowd of sweat soaked dancers in a funky little bar called BJ’s Lounge, five doors down from my house.

And I can tell you that there’s no way to stop any of this. The Spotted Cat, my favorite live music venue in the city, closed its doors last week. It will reopen shortly as Jimbeaux’s, though no one knows exactly what to expect. The club closed with a big second line parade to send it off; a jazz funeral for The Cat, with the Treme Brass Band leading us around Frenchman Street while the crowd sang “I’ll Fly Away” at full volume and the grand marshal waved the umbrella and Uncle Lionel pounded the bass drum and danced with a woman in a red dress at the same time, and you just knew that when the place reopened, it was going to be okay. The music was always going to have somewhere to go.

VISITORS:

There have been plenty of tourists here lately, and since I make my living on that, I’ve been more than happy with it. They come down, and maybe they don’t tip too much because the economy has them on their heels, but they do take the rides, and they do feed the mule carrots, and I get to spend my day at work outside, far from a computer screen or office lights.

I had a realization recently that all of my favorite jobs have had one thing in common: I was working outdoors. I’ll need to remember that.

I’ve had other visitors, too. People who give me an excuse to show off the city some more, and even to see things I haven’t seen since I moved here. My friends Joel and Beth came down from Chicago and treated me to a tour of the Honey Island Swamp.

There’s something about having people visit. They become these little time capsules. When I haven’t seen someone for a while, I immediately go back to where I was the last time I saw them and observe the distance between then and now. A few weeks ago, my old friend Suzy visited me from Austin. I’ve known her almost eight years. The last time I saw her was August of 2006. It’s staggering to look at what’s gone down between then and now, and yet, there we are, having dinner and still close, and it occurs to me that each friend I have is a bridge, something that holds another part of me together, that keeps me from shaking loose who I’ve been, and reminds me that, whatever I may not like about who I was at the time I met them, I was good enough to find a way to bring this person into my world.

I think these are the things that hold us all together. They do for me, anyway.

PRESS STREET:

I want to share a moment from the last month with you. Press Street is the street that separates the Bywater and Marigny neighborhoods. It has railroad tracks running along it, and when a train goes by, it can make me late for work, or make me wait to go home. That’s part of the deal. But for some reason, I find Press Street impossibly beautiful. It is more beautiful than it has any right to be. Train tracks. Vacant lots. Warehouses, empty and otherwise. But I love how it’s this big empty expanse in the middle of a city, this strange little no man’s land where you can stand in the middle of nothing and talk to someone you’ve run into while the train makes you wait to go home.

Here’s the moment. I’m coming home around sunset, and I get to Press Street and the ice cream van goes by. I buy an ice cream and sit and eat it under a tree by the railroad tracks in this big empty space, with the river and the Huey Long Bridge in the distance to my right, while the soft light plays with the church ahead of me on Dauphine Street.

I have moments here, almost every day, where I’m so happy I can hardly believe it. That’s one of many.

TRAVELS:

I’ll be hitting the road for about a month starting at the end of May. I’m headed down to Florida to pick up my grandparents’ car, which I will drive up to Ohio for them, stopping to visit some friends in North Carolina, then spend a few days in Dayton. From there, it’s up to Detroit, then out to Boston, around Maine and Vermont, and over to Cape Cod for a few days of relaxing at my friend Lili’s family home on the far edge of the country. From there, drop down into New York and New Jersey to see friends and family before flying to Chicago to catch up with everyone in my old home. Finally, I’ll take a train called The City of New Orleans back to my new home.

If you are in any of these places I’m going, I’d love to see you.

For now, I’ve got a couple more weeks of working, writing, and enjoying my city. And it does feel like my city now. I recently figured out that I’ve moved somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five times in my life, but this is the first time I’ve lived anywhere and not thought at all about where else I’d like to be. This is Home. I expect to be here for quite some time.

I think that’s a good note to close on. I’ll send all of you some dispatches from the road. Maybe traveling will light a fire under me to make these updates a little more frequent.

Until then, I hope you are all doing as well as I am, and I look forward to crossing paths soon. Thank you for being part of what holds me all together.

All the good songs,

Nick

Debauche

I am of the mind that for good sugary sweet pop music, the only place to look to is the 80’s. 80’s music was fun and lively and without much of the drama that music tends to carry with it today. In my opinion they put more heart into the show. These kinds of band have pretty much already had their heyday and their up on stage now just because they love it (or their in debt and desperately trying to scrape up some cash lol). My first 80’s show was Duran Duran and their awesomeness surprised the hell out of me. Then I ended up at a REO Speedwagon show (but, really who doesn’t love belting out “I’m Gonna Keep on Lovin’ You”) and they rocked as well.
This year, at Jazz Fest, I had the supreme pleasure of watching a Bon Jovi show. They were actually my sister’s favorite band when she was a kid and she got me hooked on them at a young age. They did not disappoint!

In was balls hot in New Orleans so we slathered up with sun block and waited with what looked like a couple thousand other people. (Whoever puts Jazz Fest on should seriously consider city park if their gonna have that kind of turn out.) And all the sweating and dodging drunken people was well rewarded when Jovi hit the stage and launched into “Living on a Prayer”. The high energy never stopped! Those old guys put more into their show then some of the younger bands I’ve seen! And I must say, even at 110 (by his own admission lol) Jon Bon Jovi is still pretty lust inspiring (he’s my new old guy fantasy hee hee). The only draw back is that they didn’t do a single one of their slow songs. I think that hearing “Bed of Roses” live would have been breathtaking. Regardless it was worth sweating buckets and feeling hella sore the next day.

In other music news (at least where I’m concerned), I gots my Voodoo tix! Woot! Now I’m just waiting to see who’s on the line up. Just couldn’t resist that early bird price lol. Check the link: http://thevoodooexperience.com/2009/