New Orleans

FYF Fest/Big Freedia (9/6/2010)

brittany — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Los Angeles, California

In 2008 I attended what was then known as Fuck Yeah Fest and despite confusing and complicated scheduling, it was obvious that the festival’s mastermind, a very young Sean Carlson, was on to something special. Fast-forward two years and the fest has a new name (FYF Fest), a more centralized location (Los Angeles State Historic Park), and a killer lineup (The Mountain Goats, The Rapture, and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, among thirty-four others). I thought this would be Carlson’s year, but I’m sorry to report that the fest was a bust. I appreciate Carlson’s enthusiasm and obvious passion for independent music and I especially love the many affordable shows he throws all over town, but there were many problems I can’t look past.

Fans paid $30 for twelve hours of entertainment, which was quite extraordinary, though it was hot, dirty, and dusty. Security guards stripped concert-goers of their water bottles and food upon entering the park. This was fucked up because a.) Lines to get food were well over an hour long, b.) Water bottles, no matter what vendor you visited, were four dollars, and c.) The food was grossly overpriced. All of this was incredibly upsetting, but I was going to stick it out until 10:30 p.m. so that I could witness the magic that is my latest obsession: New Orleans sissy rapper, Big Freedia.

I caught amazing sets by The Mountain Goats, Dead Man’s Bones—which features an awesome children’s choir who dress up as various historical figures—and Man Man, but my enthusiasm was dwindling. I was sick and dehydrated and after purchasing one $4 water bottle, I couldn’t bring myself to buy another. Earlier in the day I heard that Big Freedia was playing an after show at La Cita, a popular Mexican bar in the heart of downtown L.A. So, just after three hours of FYF Fest, my two friends and I walked over to Chinatown and sat down for some much needed food and drink. I feel compelled to report that the only other patron at the restaurant was Keith Morris, founding member of seminal Los Angeles punk band The Circle Jerks.

Bounce music is a type of rap that was born in New Orleans. Despite being around for nearly twenty years, it took a group of “sissy” (gay) rappers like Big Freedia to breathe life into the scene and get it recognized on a national level. Sissy bounce, as it’s now known, deals with slightly different themes than bounce music, like men who are on the down low. Freedia’s song “Hit Me on My Next” is about creeping in the different wards of New Orleans with straight men. “I’m full of gin; I’m going to do that boy again. He’s full of that Jack; so why don’t you hit me from the back,” is pretty classic Freedia.

By the time of her show at La Cita, I’d been listening to her album Queen Diva non-stop for months. Never a huge fan of rap, I was quickly drawn in by the back story of sissy bounce and Freedia’s infectious beats and clever rhymes. A few months ago I interviewed Freedia for a piece I was writing on sissy bounce and she told me her show would essentially, blow my face off. I was skeptical and nervous for her. How well would New Orleans bounce translate and more importantly, would jaded L.A. hipsters get it?

When Freedia showed up on stage my heart soared with joy. Her two back up dancers wore nothing but small tank tops and booty shorts and it immediately became clear that their only job was to shake their shit or do what Freedia refers to as “pussy popping.” They were awesome, but Freedia commanded the stage. She was both masculine and feminine; intimidating with a deep voice and lanky frame well over six feet tall, but oh so lovely in dangly heart-shaped earrings and a massive, glittery necklace.

One of the tenants of bounce music is engaging the audience and when Freedia wasn’t having us chant back “Big Freedia the Dick Eata,” we were yelling the classic New Orleans chant “Who dat.” She went through her most popular songs, like “Gin In My System,” “Azz Everywhere,” “Y’all Get Back Now,” and “Rock Around The Clock.”

Simply put, it was the best show I’ve ever been to and the only show I’ve ever danced at. I am notorious for being stoic and boring; no matter how many Crown and Cokes I consume, my feet always stay firmly planted. No one at La Cita could resist Freedia; her music was that good; she was that engaging; her charisma that infectious. We were all sweating with Freedia, dancing, laughing, and having the time of our lives. At one point I looked around the bar and noticed that everyone was having a blast. Los Angeles did get it and what’s not to get? Big Freedia gives her audience all she’s got and she lacks the smug, pretentious attitude that so many artists in the rap community seem to have. Big Freedia’s currently on a West Coast tour and I highly recommend you catch one of her shows; it will quite literally blow your face off and you will be all the better for it.

Photos by Ramiro Rubio

Written by: Tina Vasquez, September 27th 2010

Die Young

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Blair

Autumn Tone Records

Blair Gimma bounces about between art pop and insightful complexity with her first full-length venture, Die Young, juxtaposing the indelible angst of indie folk rock (with help from her daydreamy vocals) with stark lyrical imagery. Die Young was produced by Keith Ferguson, and uses all New Orleans-based musicians as a sort of tribute to where Blair spent her adolescence. Although the deep-rooted sounds of this genre are not entirely reflected in Die Young, the personal nature of the record touches on its sentimentality, as if most of the songs were acoustically derived from adversity and recorded in the solitude of Blair's bathroom.

“Rampage” sets the partial tone for the record, filling the landscape with echoed reverb and a little Pavement-inspired noise rock delight. Listening to electric keyboard synths in the opening verse of “Hearts,” one can almost picture the rolling credits of a favorite 80s soundtrack in all of its soft new wave splendor. “Hello Halo” features Blair's sprightly vocals, cushioned with classic indie distortion and a pulsing, syncopated beat that’s as pleasing as it is fitting, all while Blair recites, “Got a radio in my head…and it tells me what to say"; not to mention Blair’s amusing ode to girly glory, as she continues by deadpanning, “Kittens, rainbows!” “Paris, France” is moody and ethereal, blending electro-pop and the warm glow of ambient-pop, lush and hypnotic. “Candy in the Kitchen” works with heavy beats and moves in the same direction, albeit with a bit of a departure from the rest of the record. Gleefully, Blair sings, “I was dancing to Whitney Houston,” as you adjust your ears earnestly just to hear what she’ll say next.

Die Young is an extension of light summery pop melodies with harsh complex concepts that cut through its airy pop conventionality. Blair’s mix of vulnerability and savvy musical chops work in tandem, even though some of the songs could be on different records. Her personal pilgrimage, lasting over a span of five years, is still in its beginning stages, a cunning premonition to her eventual creative evolution in the years to come.

Written by: Cat Veit, July 14th 2010

Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans, the City Where Food Is Almost Everything

admin — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Tom Fitzmorris

Stewart Tabori & Chang

I’ve had a long and passionate love affair with New Orleans, although I’ve never been there. In fifth grade, I did my state report on Louisiana, and as a bored teenager in a Los Angeles suburb where everything was bright, shiny, and new, I’d dream of spending my days in the historic French Quarter, hanging out in smoky jazz bars and eating poor boy sandwiches at cramped lunch counters. I idealized the city even further when a childhood friend became a teenage runaway, hitchhiking her way to New Orleans with her much older boyfriend, both of them squatting in abandoned houses and panhandling in the streets. For some reason, that sounded like a beat novel I wanted to be a part of, as opposed to the nightmare it actually was.

Like everyone else, I watched with a heavy heart as one of our nation’s finest cities, so completely unlike any other place because of its history, demographics, and genetic makeup, disappeared off the face of the map, under sludge and murky water. I knew New Orleans would recover—it had to—but I was worried it would never be what it once was, that it would turn into a sad caricature of itself. If the premise of Tom Fitzmorris’ book Hungry Town is correct, no matter what happens, New Orleans will never be lost as long as its food culture survives and thrives, breathing life into the incessantly struggling city.

Fitzmorris’s thesis is actually quite simple: Food saved New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Now, I know many won’t believe that. I also know that recommending this book to lovers of food, regional cooking, or the city of New Orleans itself wouldn’t be fair. Truth be told, there are many who won’t understand the purpose of this book. Many will not like the author’s obsessive details or encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s food and restaurants. They'll think he's pompous, self-important, and crazy to think that it was the poor boy or red beans and rice or simple gumbo that saved the city—and that’s fair. But for those of us who know the power of food, its ability to bring people together, to calm the nerves and the soul, and quiet the hunger, we can believe that Fitzmorris is right in every way.

The author is a lifelong New Orleanian who’s been critiquing the city’s food, writing about it in various formats, and discussing it endlessly on his radio show for over thirty years. It all started in the late 1970s, when he began publishing a newsletter called The New Orleans MENU, which lives on today on his website. It would be an understatement to say that Fitzmorris is a fanatic, a man completely obsessed with his city’s food culture, its Creole and Cajun cuisine, and its restaurants; Hungry Town is the embodiment of this fanaticism.

After Hurricane Katrina, the author was forced to stay away from his beloved city for longer than he ever had before: about two weeks. While away, he received word that some of the city’s restaurants were reopening, using bottled water and small burners to feed the crowds that braved the storm. Fitzmorris began calling chefs and friends in the area, each day adding to a list on his website that featured all the eateries that were opening their doors. Just two weeks after the hurricane blew the lid off of New Orleans, twenty-two restaurants were open for service. It is because of this and similar compelling evidence that Fitzmorris believes that food saved New Orleans and that its slow-coming rebirth is beginning in the kitchen.

Interwoven with recipes for delicious New Orleans treats, menus from some of the city’s oldest restaurants, timelines, and a rundown of every major player in the New Orleans food scene, is the story of how Fitzmorris' love affair with his city’s food began. I thought Hungry Town was a beautiful ode to a great city and its wonderful food, but I know it’s not for everyone. This summer, I will be traveling by train to New Orleans and I’ll be using Hungry Town as my restaurant guide, which I think is a testament to how informative Fitzmorris' book is and how alluring a beignet and a cafe au lait can be.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, July 11th 2010

Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuilt and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:09:00 +0000

By Robert D. Bullard, Beverly Wright

Westview Press

Hurricane Katrina was one of those events that it was impossible not to be affected by because the images we all watched on our televisions and in the newspapers were so horrible. There was a sense of shock that U.S. citizens could be treated so poorly in their own country. Yet this outrage seems to have faded along with the general public’s memory of the storm.

Hurricane Katrina will forever alter the course of history in New Orleans and the life paths of thousands of families from the region. Bullard and Wright’s set of essays, Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina, begins to make sense of the government policies that allowed New Orleans to flood, as well as post-Katrina efforts to rebuild the city and region. This collection is a reminder that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in New Orleans, particularly in poor and African American communities, which have suffered disproportionately.

The twelve essays that make up the book are broken into four sections, encompassing the challenges of racialized place, health and environment post-Katrina, equitable rebuilding and recovery and policy choices for social change. Essay topics range from disparities in access to transportation to environmental contaminants after the hurricane. The most powerful aspect of the book is that it sheds light on the fact that Hurricane Katrina was only partly a natural disaster, which was substantially exacerbated by the way that government and society as a whole chose to (not) respond.

The authors argue that the lack of preparedness and dismal response to victims of Hurricane Katrina are profoundly impacted by race and class. The essays force the reader to ask themselves again and again, “What would have happened if New Orleans was full of predominantly wealthy white people?”

Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina isn’t exactly an easy or light-hearted read, but it is full of important information that will be of particular interest to people interested in the theoretical importance of the concept of place, as well as anyone interested in better understanding environmental justice and racial disparities.

Written by: Liz Simmons, July 20th 2009

Dark Hunger

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:16:00 +0000

By Rita Herron

Forever Publishing

Although this “paranormal romance” is the first of Rita Herron’s books that I’ve read, it’s the second in the Demonborn series. I expected something that was fresh, original, and erotic—boy, was I disappointed. The story line was, however, easy to follow. There were too many elements of this story that turned me off.

The lack of research that went into this story is appalling. Yes, we have demonic people like vampires and shape shifters; however, the backdrop for these characters is the real world. The author takes the lazy approach and as a result, creates many glaring guffaws that irritated the crap out of me. St. Louis, New Orleans’ oldest cemetery is mistakenly presented as only one of the oldest.

The most grating unchecked mistake is her constant referral to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as PTS (Post Traumatic Stress). The bad guy, a cartoon character named Zion, who reminded me of the bad guy “The Master” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, utilizes war veterans who have PTS in his bid to take over the world one American city at a time.

PTS is temporary and only lasts from weeks to a number of months—such a minor error wouldn’t matter, if she didn’t repeat it over and over, like her use of “innocent” to describe anybody who isn’t a demon. The author also references a fictional online PTSD group to tie the veterans’ legal names to the ring leader—yet the most popular PTSD online support group is anonymous—as are most—to protect sufferers’ identities.

Then there’s the premise of reporter Annabelle Armstrong hunting down Quinton Valtrez, the quintessential 'bad boy'. She easily tells police officials she’s a reporter and hey, they tell her anything she wants. By the way, our innocent heroine is pale skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed, like an angel. Bad boy Quinton, like his evil daddy Zion, has a dark complexion—no surprise there.

Another absurdity is the vulture element. An endangered species, these vultures—demons in disguise—start flying over each place that’s going to be bombed. Their numbers increase exponentially after killing innocents. Nobody seems to mind except for our innocent damsel and her brooding Dark Lord heartthrob. It creates a problem because the paranormal is purposely set within contemporary reality. I kept wondering why the army or the National Guard didn’t come in and shoot them all down—or why animal conservationists didn’t try to rescue the hungry birds.

I know—who cares about the plot and accuracy and believability, because it’s all about the sex scenes. The erotica is terrible—words like “pebbles” describe nipples and yes, in a ‘heated’ moment, the dreaded ‘penis’ appears. We also get lots of the hero jerking off, but oddly enough, no real descriptions of our heroine, unless you count “inside” her; it’s almost as if the author is uncomfortable describing the female body. Even with a threesome (two girls and the hero), it’s all about his dick. The sexual encounters are minimal and bland, yet the author continually refers to “wicked” longing and “wicked” dreaming and “wicked” lusting.

There is decent erotica out there, but you won’t find it in this book of clichés and boring sex. Inaccuracies and bland writing can be excused in this genre, but not the lackluster attempts at sex scenes.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, July 4th 2009

The Last Single Woman in America

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:14:00 +0000

By Cindy Guidry

Plume

Cindy Guidry is a single woman in her forties living in Los Angeles. The people in her life insist on reacting to her lack of husband and children as though it were a catastrophe. She begins writing a series of personal essays after losing her job as a Hollywood studio executive. She finds herself questioning her choices, her motives, and her identity. The essays span several years, detailing failed relationships and other fiascos. Her life is populated with bizarre personalities—her bleak Canadian neighbor Tomas, an obsessive compulsive pseudo-boyfriend she refers to as “The Viking,” and her parents, who have been separated for twenty years, but who are too close to ever consider an actual divorce. There’s plenty of dating-related humiliation, sex talk, and of course, Hollywood-bashing.

Two of the best essays deal with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Guidry grew up in New Orleans, and her parents are still living there when disaster strikes. The first floor of her mother’s house floods, and Guidry invites her mother to stay with her temporarily. Guidry has always suspected that she is not her mother’s favorite child, and living in close quarters eventually leads her to ask her mother point blank, “Did you or did you not have sex with a leprechaun in 1967?” There’s a delicate balance at work in these personal narratives between realism and absurdity that produces laugh-out-loud hilarity. Guidry seems to be fully aware of her own ridiculousness while writing about her veterinarian (“The Cat Whisperer”) or trying to kick Dave Matthews out of her car before he discovers that her CD changer contains nothing but Dave Matthews CDs.

Guidry invites her readers to laugh at her neuroses and her tendencies toward self-sabotage. Unfortunately, her self-criticism lacks bite, and the comedy occasionally gets lost in pages of overwrought abstract analysis. In essays like “Men Are the New Women,” and “Future Ex-Husband,” she reveals her ambivalence about changing gender roles and claims feminism is at least partially responsible for her inability to find a life partner. These remarks feel tired, and certainly don’t add anything new to the discussion of the supposed “gender wars.” Ultimately, her book is like her obsessive love for Dave Matthews—there’s nothing wrong with it, per se, but it’s not exactly unique.

Written by: Kellie Powell, April 8th 2009

I Hate This Part of Texas #7/Keep Loving Keep Fighting #7

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:36:00 +0000

By John Gerken, Hope Amico

Microcosm Publishing

Though you may not know from reading it I Hate This Part of Texas #7/Keep Loving Keep Fighting #7 is a split zine. Composed of journal style entries recounting the grief of losing a city, the introduction page of the zine calls itself “more of a splicing of two zines about...the city we still love, New Orleans.” A layered and much needed marriage of accounts, this zine offers the kind of material and insight needed is we as a community are to make ourselves available to the psychic dealing and repair so lost to the Gulf Coast and its fighting residents.

Deeply honest, the zine unflinchingly details the fears and anxieties of upheaval, intermittent alcoholism, things to be grateful for, resentment, and displacement. “I can walk into the house and there's my old life, wracked and wrought and strewn about, moldy and collapsed...an eerie and terrible reminder of what might have been, had we been allowed to continue.”

Dedicated in large part to their friend, Helen Hill, a woman, wife, friend, and mother who, shortly after returning to New Orleans post-evacuation, was shot and killed in her home, this “zine-splice” is a heavy fifty or so pages of mourning, as well as remembrance. An entry from Mardi Gras 2007 acutely describes the wearing of such loss. “Don and I spoke of the fog as souls returning to the city, all the souls who have died here. Perhaps all the souls up and down the serpentine length of this vast river, this artery of dreams and desire and struggle and loss.”

The love and fervor written in the pages of this zine are a small miracle of words that do not die, but lay to rest - breathe. This work embodies the fullness of survival and dedication, an imperative read if the feeling that ought to end up lain in the dirt - isolation, despair, alienation - may seed and flower into hope and continuity.

Written by: Sara Holy, June 12th 2008

New Orleans Noir

admin — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:10:00 +0000

Edited by Julie Smith

Akashic Books

Unlike every other volume of short stories I've read, none of the stories in this book disappointed me. Written by authors who live or have lived in the Big Easy, New Orleans Noir digs below the surface and into the social fabric of a city that had its troubles long before Hurricane Katrina. To say that it pushes the reader out of her comfort zone would be a major understatement.

The collection is divided into two parts: pre- and post- Katrina. Each of the 18 stories is set in a different neighborhood in the city. In Part I, "Before the Levees Broke," the reader travels from a modern day bar in Mid-City to a brothel in the Swamp in 1833, and back again. Characters range from a burnt-out police detective who helps a colleague get away with murder; to a former slave who is a doctor, but must support himself by playing piano in the pre-civil war South; to a seemingly innocent female co-ed who, with a friend, lures a man to his death during Mardi Gras.

Part II, "Life in Atlantis," is equally grim, with more looting, murder and death. The common theme in both parts is, essentially, violence; whether it's a shady real estate hound getting burned to death or a ten-year-old who bleeds to death in a cemetery after shooting at the police, the stories tear at your gut. Racial tension and discrimination, before and after the hurricane, is also a recurring and important theme. Significantly, it's not always easy to determine who is or isn't justified in their actions; I found myself sympathizing with both cops and thieves.

Despite the fact that this collection is gritty, often bloody and frequently depressing, it's a fascinating portrayal of a city that has always had social troubles ignored by the rest of the country. In that it is a call to action.

Another reason to get buy this book: a portion of the sales support the New Orleans Public Library and K.A.R.E.S., which awards grants to writers affected by Hurricane Katrina. Despite all that they had gone through, many of the writers waived their fees to make this possible.

Written by: M.L. Madison, May 4th 2007

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

admin — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:56:00 +0000

Directed by Spike Lee

HBO Films

Spike Lee's 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke is no small commitment—though clocking in at four hours, its length isn't what devastates. The film passes shockingly quickly, translating a vague sense of unease in the viewer into heavy understanding. Lee has accomplished a brilliant and agonizing oral history of a great betrayal of human rights, democracy and good governance.

A requiem is meant to ease the spirits of the dead. If film can speak for human pain, When the Levees Broke sings and screams and sobs. The setup of each domino is carefully described. As they topple we watch their force bottleneck into the same spot. All of a sudden what was reported "unavoidable," "overlooked" and "accidental" seems obvious and premeditated. Lee lifts a veil of illusion from the twin juggernauts of racist, indifferent governance and institutional violence. Viewers become witnesses.

We witness survivors prevail to a bridge out of the city. We watch footage of them meeting with police who threaten to shoot anyone who crosses, echoing similar events on other Southern bridges. To those ignorant of race dynamics in the United States, the suspicion of many Ninth Ward residents that the levees were intentionally blown may sound conspiracy theory-esque until viewers learn that twice before, exactly that has happened. When Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco says, "They have M16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill, and I expect they will," she is talking about a military force sent to protect the private property of businesses from people struggling to live.

When the Levees Broke is beautifully composed and bare of rhetoric. There is no voice-over narration. The story interweaves images and sounds from the disaster with the testimonies and art of survivors. We hear wind pound on the roof of the Superdome. We watch refugees fight despair with song on the third day of oppressive heat, death and filth without aid. And while the movie is profoundly intimate, it is not voyeuristic, paternalistic or exploitative. Its entire body resounds with integrity.

Contextually implicit in Lee's requiem is an imperative to action. He draws out running themes, reveals why the city's agony was both inevitable and entirely preventable, brings criminality to light and spotlights the perpetrators. United States viewers remain governed by those who allowed the atrocities to occur. Under democracy, this spells change or complicity.

Written by: Amory Ballantine, March 12th 2007