Funny Storm Saying and Quotes Zydeco Technologies

Ten hours in New Orleans
Sunday, October 17, 2010

2:00 PM Lunch at the popular Camellia  Grill on South Carrollton Avenue...

where  my bacon and cheese omelet is fluffy, the fries crisp...

and the clientele is from all over the country (we chatted with a woman from Kentucky who was visiting her daughter and grand-daughters).

Biking in New Orleans can be a serious style statement...

and so can fern-luscious balconies at the corner of Dumaine and Royal Streets in the French Quarter ...

where some establishments...

specialize in hangovers...

and pt dances up a storm...

and socializes - in this case an Oklahoma native who's come to New Orleans to volunteer for two weeks, pt, pt's friend Rebecca, a Ph.D from Washington, D.C. who showed up at Tip's because she read about it in a guide book, and a local musician we met right here last year...

who takes us to Figaro's Restaurant where his friend is performing at 9:30 PM...

after which we drive down to the corner of Esplanade and Decatur, at the edge of the French Quarter, to catch Gal Holiday's last set at the Balcony Music Club (BMC)

and dance to some great country swing...

that ends at midnight, when we drive 70 miles back to home base for this trip, Baton Rouge

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Café des Amis
Bridge Street
Breaux Bridge, LA
Way early in the morning
Saturday, October 16, 2010

The Café des Amis is the closest I've ever come to zydeco heaven on earth. There's a certain symmetry  to the fact that the café on Bridge Street was a funeral home in one of its previous incarnations.  Every Saturday morning from 8 AM till 12 noon, a fabulous zydeco band shows up and conducts what must be described as an experience that borders on the religious.

Today's deacon is accordion royalty Leroy Thomas, and his acolytes, The Zydeco Road Runners, on washboard, bass and lead guitars, and drums, are supplying the rapture. Their altar is an eight-foot wide, four inch high ledge inches from the storefront's plate glass window.

Six other days of the week, the café is a sleepy dog, mellow kind of place. A well-worn wood bar is to the right, a bunch of tables and chairs on the left and an eclectic assortment of décor hangs on the walls in glorious disarray. Overhead fans whir, an AC unit does its best to wring out the humidity that covers the land in summer like a wet blanket.

Oh, and that contraption hanging from the ceiling is what used to lower the coffins from the second floor where they were constructed down to the first floor where they became occupied then hauled to the church across the street. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Saturday mornings the damndest transformation takes place. Some of the tables are pushed to the back of the room and what appears is a Cajun clown car kind of dance floor from which astonishing numbers of couples exit after every dance.

Have you ever waited for an elevator and not even thought about trying to fit inside when the door opens because the wall of people inside looks impermeable? That's what the dance floor looks like if you wait to wade in more than thirty seconds after Leroy Thomas begins to play. The floor gets packed. Everyone except the tourists watching from the breakfast tables wants to dance.

My partner and I squeeze into the syncopated chaos. To this day, I don't understand the aerodynamics of how we all fit in there. I suppose people didn't grasp how Jesus fed the multitudes with only five loaves of barley and two fish, but were impressed with the result. We are inches away from other couples, grinning, winking, and dancing without fear of causing injury or hard feelings to others. This may not be a miracle of biblical proportion, but still, I'm impressed.

This is actually my favorite part of the morning, that and the fact that every single woman I ask to dance says yes …and they're all fabulous, even the ones who came from someplace where they thought zydeco meant some kind of southern hot sauce. They don't have a clue what to do, but lock into the rhythm of the dance as if it's been imprinted on their motor neuron circuit boards.

A vigorous zydeco song ends, the floor empties, and the miracle of the density-defying dance floor happens again. It's quite uplifting to see around thirty or forty identical miracles reoccur within a four-hour stretch. Restores your faith in the fourth dimension.

Same thing happens when the band cues up a waltz or a slinky bluesy number. Everyone in the elevator is dancing languidly, fluidly, ethereally, an elegant organism with a sense of direction, rhythm, and self-preservation. Totally glorious.

This is the kind of joyous music that prompts me to hug my partner after each dance. And go forth in the world to unleash random acts of kindness.

If I could find StarTrek Scottie, I'd have him beam me to Breaux Bridge every Saturday morning.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The artwork is a wonderful mishmash of styles and subjects...

Time to  go home...

and come back to Breaux Bridge next Saturday morning.

Long Tall Marcia Ball

Phil Brady's Bar & Grill
4848 Government St
Baton Rouge, LA 70806-5907
(225) 927-3786
Friday night, October 15, 2010

Long Tall Marcia Ball barreled through Phil Brady's Bar & Grill like a cannon ball Friday night.  Phil Brady's is one of those priceless hole-in-the wall bars where music, food, and alcohol mix organically every night to produce some kind of magic.  A guy or a girl might get lucky; a loner can sit and listen to music, daydream or forget the cares of the day; the gregarious can always find a willing audience.

But, when Marcia Ball comes to town, she alone is the magic that draws everyone but the halt and the lame to this generically cool bar on Government Street in Baton Rouge. (Note: when we walked in at 9:20 pm, I walked right by a woman well over six feet tall in her short heels with short gray streaked hair.  Guess who that was.  She was having a conversation with an older gent, cool and casual, saying hello to friends on their way to their seats. Marcia Ball is no prima donna.  Her home is in Austin, TX, but she lived in Evangeline dorm while going to LSU and these are her kind of people.)

Louisiana is one of the only places in the USA that seems to have figured out how to accommodate musicians, dancers, and listeners.  Set the band up on a small elevated stage, set the tables up far enough from the band stand to give them a good sight line to the stage, and in the middle of this sandwich, have a clear space for dancers to come up and let it all hang out.  People in New Orleans may prefer to free style to the sounds of  brass and funk bands on Frenchman Street, but west of there the music is like a magnet that draws partners dancers like iron filings to the dance floor and keeps them there.

Tonight, Phil Brady's is standing room only at $15 a head. $75 got you a table for the night. and every table to the back of the hall is jammed. Standing roomers found space on the bar side, or way in the back, or, like us, scored a great space in a doorway not ten feet from lanky Marcia Ball.

There she is, long legs crossed, sitting side-saddle on a tattered red stool and pounding the daylights out of her trusty electric piano. Her rollicking piano style has the deeply ingrained sound of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Her ballads and blues range from wistful longing to downright sexy. Two minutes after Marcia steps onto the stage, she had us in the palm of her long fingered hands. From then on, the dance floor becomes a tidal zone.  She begins to sing, the dance floor fills up, she finishes a song, the dance floor empties, again and again.

Marcia is short on patter and long on her glorious repertoire of swamp pop, blues, and boogie-woogie.   Raised in Texas, Ball has a genetic feel for the music of this region. In two giant one and a half hour sets, she plays every song I've ever heard on her CDs. Except better.

When this woman gets going, she's a force of nature. Her one leg atop the other pulses like a metronome. Being so close to the dance floor, she looks up from time to time, makes eye contact with couples on the dance floor, and grins at the boomerang effect her energy is creating. Her four-piece band is tighter than the springs on a swiss watch. The sax man and lead guitarist routinely reel off riffs that cause dancers to pause mid move to hoot and the audience in the chairs to holler. Live music like this could be dangerous to your health if you had a heart condition.

For her encore, Marcia Ball returns to the stage alone to sing an elegaic ballad, "My Father Was A Fisherman," about the shrinking Louisiana wetlands and its economic and cultural effect on the Pelican State. It's a sad lullaby for the evening, a reminder that we are the wardens of our regions and need to stand up to end the devastation of the wetlands if Louisiana is to keep its heritage intact for its children and grandchildren.

Message sent loud and clear, her band steps back up to the bandstand and rips into Ball's well-know anthem, "It's Party Time." There is no doubt in anyone's mind that's precisely what we've been doing for the past three and a half hours.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Yep, your eyes aren't deceiving you, that's Marcia herself talking with fans ten minutes before she steps onto the stage.

 

Here she goes, her long legs pumping to the rhythms of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast

Limbs and hair fly as dancers revel in Marcia's boogie woogie style.

 
Next time I'm at Phil Brady's, I've got to try one of those 25 cent jello shots!

And sit down here outside to recover.

Realtor Association of Acadiana 20th Annual Gumbo Cook-Off
Thursday October 14, 2010 from 4:30pm - 7:30pm
Parc International
200 Garfield St
Lafayette, Louisiana 70501

Where else could you find usually reserved real estate agents dressed up in wacky costumes and face paint, dancing to the music of zydeco king Geno Delafose? Only in Louisiana, darlin'.

The Realtor Association of Acadiana (RAA on our hand stamps) hosted the annual Lafayette Realtors Gumbo Cookoff, by all accounts, the biggest and bestest in the 20 years they've been hosting the event at the Parc International. From 4:30 to 7:30 the park was a hotspot for music, good food, and great people watching.

The theme of this year's cookoff was "Animation Fascination."

I knew I was in an alternate universe when I was greeted by a fellow with a pair of floppy black and white ears attached to his head, his face painted with black and white spots and a little red tongue painted just below his lips. Turns out he was the president of ERA Stirling Real Estate, one of the businesses waging a good-natured costume contest AND gumbo cookoff.

For the entry fee of five bucks you could suck down all the gumbo you could eat, then vote for your favorite.  Gumbo was dispensed by competing teams of realtors in each of the 22 tents set up around the park. Hundreds of ticket holders happily ducked into tents to be greeted by grinning costumed attorneys, agents, secretaries and assessors ladling their best effort into tiny bowls.

My traveling companion made it about halfway through the 20 gumbo tents before crying "uncle" to a full stomach, but I was too busy marveling at the spectacle and taking pictures to taste any of the amazing concoctions.

Food, music, and dancing, the holy trinity of Louisiana, was ladled out in service to good causes. Proceeds will benefit Faith House, Rebuilding Together, and the Community Foundation of Acadiana.

And since I know you're dying to find out, the winners of the night's costume contest were "101 Dalmations," "The Lion King," and "Alice in GumboLand."

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Geno Delafose and his band play...

  while everyone tastes whether realtors can really cook gumbo...

and the owner of ERA Stirling Properties relaxes with his children...

while his crew serves gumbo...

everyone works up an appetite listening to Geno Delafose...

and who knew that Alice learned to cook gumbo down that rabbit hole...

and that you do real estate business with these characters in Lafayette, LA...

and it isn't a stretch to say they know how to have a good time...

pt at large feels right at home at the Batman "Retires" tent...

and little kids get a head start on their Halloween costumes - or their future professions...

and everyone awaits the announcement for best "Animation Fascination" costumes...

"101 Dalmations"...

"Alice in GumboLand"...

and "The Lion King"

A Regular Weekend in Louisiana
The Acadienne Festival, Plaquemine, Louisiana
Saturday, October 16, 2010

Many natives of this state consider dancing a form of weekend life maintenance, on the same list as mowing lawns, doing laundry, or food shopping. In a southwest Louisiana weekend, you can find places to dance morning, noon, and night. After the morning shift of zydeco with Leroy Thomas and The Zydeco Cowboys at the Café des Amis, we were just getting warmed up.

Floyd Brown, a good ol' boy who can sing the daylights out of swamp pop and blues was performing at the Acadienne Festival in Plaquemine.

My traveling companion remembers listening to him in Baton Rouge back in the 70s. There was no way she could pass up listening - and dancing - to his music today.

Once off I -10, the drive to rural Plaquemine was pure Louisiana. Bayou Grosse Tete, meandering south, appeared on our left through stands of trees. Long stretches of the two lane road were wooded and undeveloped. Every so often, a 25 mph sign appeared, followed by a stretch of single-family homes. Pickup trucks, sedans, and the occasional motorboat and trailer were parked in the yards. Acres of tall, lush, green sugarcane swayed gently in the soft afternoon breeze.

The festival fairgrounds were surprisingly sparsely populated when we arrived around 2 PM. Most of the kids had pulled their moms and dads over to the carnival ride area. An open air shed was filled with the usual tables selling crafts, clothing, costume jewelry. Tents offering jambalaya, gumbo, fried fish, actually fried everything, dotted the field, and there on a covered flatbed stage was Floyd and his tight band playing a great set of swamp pop, country swing, and smoky blues.

Against every stereotype I have of Louisiana, no one, not one couple, was dancing to Floyd's totally awesome music. Thus, my travel companion and I became the afternoon's entertainment for Floyd and his band and for the smattering of listeners on a tiny set of bleachers about 50 yards away.

"Let's hear it for the best couple on the dance floor, " Floyd said. And a second time with more animation when my dance partner told him she adored listening to him when she was younger and we'd traipsed all the way from Boston to hear him play.

While roaming the fairgrounds during a set break, I spotted a fellow whose attire and demeanor set him apart from everyone else.

If central casting wanted to pluck a character to represent rural Louisiana, they could do no better than choose - Chester "they call me Cat Man" Landry.

I spotted him when I headed for a portapottie along the edge of the fairground. His round face, etched by years in the sun and with pores that could hold rainwater, had a day's growth of grayish stubble. Dressed in a floppy hunter's cap, overalls, and a faded green shirt, he was surveying the scene with an observant eye. Born and raised in Plaquemine, he lives down the road by himself with a few cats. "I work for the K of C," he says, "and I take care of all the portable toilets at every event they put on. They do water shows right up there on the river, Bayou Gros Tete," he says.

I have to ask him to repeat just about everything he says. Between a bayou accent thick as molasses and more than a few missing teeth, it's a challenge to understand him.

"I got a girl friend," he says when I ask him where he lives, " but like some dogs they're hard to train," he adds, "so I change 'em around every once in a while." To my astonishment, this is corroborated by a short feature I find later online that a local tv station has made about Chester.

"I work to make money for the honey," Chester says. "That's the title of a song I have on a CD I made called 'Me, Catman, and Jam'." At least I think that's what he said.  He gave me his home address so I can send him the photo of us.  Maybe I'll ask him to swap me the photo for that CD. Stay tuned.

Aside from a superb bowl of jambalaya and Floyd's great band, the coolest part of the afternoon here was meeting a genuine character like Chester. Pure country, refreshingly un-PC and honest as the day is long. Chester is a part of Louisiana I've rarely encountered. I'd love to spend time talking with more people like Chester, an unvarnished, authentic bayou character. I'd like to talk to him about the rhythms of life in the country, what matters to him, and what he thinks of America from his place down in Plaquemine. Today, however, we're on a schedule.

On the ride to our next destination, Whiskey River Landing in Henderson, my travel companion's phone rings. "Are you down in Plaquemine?" a friend of hers from Lake Charles asked. "Sonia says she thinks she just saw you dancing down there. She said you were fabulous!" I guess we were the best couple on the dance floor (grass).

Bonsoir Catin, an all female band, is on the bill for 4:00 PM and Corey Ledet at 6:00 PM. The levee is usually packed with pickups trucks, cars and the occasional RV, but this Saturday afternoon the place is nearly deserted. Whiskey River Landing is normally open only on Sundays - the advertising for this Saturday fundraiser for restoring the wetlands has been lousy. But there are some die-hard dancers on the floor and they're all out there every damn song.

By 6:00, we've had about six hours of dancing on hardwood floors and prairie grass. Time to head back to Baton Rouge.  Jump in the car, dial up KBON 101.1 FM "Louisiana Proud,"  broadcasting from Eunice and bomb down I-10. We boogie along with their fabulous playlist till we lose the signal about twenty minutes from home base.

Wonder where we'll dance tomorrow...

It's early. The fairground will be jumping in an hour or two.

Local businesses usually sponsor festivals and concerts...

   and the best dancers on the grass today have to have a photo opp with Floyd.

Johnny D's Uptown Restaurant and Music Club
Holland St. Somerville MA 02144
Davis Square, across from the Davis T stop

Wanda Jackson
Thursday, October 8, 2010

"Better late than never," Queen of Rockabilly Wanda Jackson quips with a cheerful smile.  An avalanche of applause rolls through Johnny Ds from fans who've been waiting an hour for her highness to appear from her gig earlier in New York City.

  After checking her web site, I expected a tall, raw-boned drink of water to appear on stage.  Surprise, surprise. The petite woman in the bright red-fringed jacket and black slacks is hardly visible over the standing room only audience when she stepped gingerly onto the stage. Jackson's unassuming personality and captivating sense of showmanship, skillfully presented with a mix of personal stories and anecdotes, is pure "country."

 "I want to sing my first country rock 'n roll song I recorded in 1956," Wanda says as she settles behind the mike. A youngster (in this case someone under 40 years old) shouts out, "Yeah!"

 Wanda pauses a moment, peers in the direction of the comment, and shoots back, "How would you know?" She brings down the house then launches into "I Gotta Know."

This feisty spirit, and the sheer number of years she's been on the planet, trumps her vocal ability, which is clearly in decline, at least tonight.

  Wanda Jackson may be running on fumes.  But, ohhh, what a fine ruckus the 72-year-old Queen of Rockabilly can still make. If this elderly woman walked by you in the drugstore, you'd never ever in your wildest dreams believe such a dynamic, spirited voice could emanate from that diminutive frame.

She's still got the trademark mama grizzly rockabilly growl that helped propel her to rarified status on country charts two generations ago, but she's lost the ability to stay on key and is wobbly on sustained notes. Damn…it doesn't make a difference because you're witnessing a vintage country act. When she expires, so goes another piece of Americana.

 "I was in New York, talking all day making bites, what do you call them?" she says about the interviews she had all morning. Then there was an eight-hour drive from NYC to Boston. And yes, she doesn't like to make excuses for being a little off her game but was gonna keep on growlin' and singin' till she was done. And that's exactly what she did.

 The evening's greatest surprise comes when Wanda dives into "I'll Bet You My Heart I Love You" and yodels up a storm. The fact she misses as many yodels as she hits may have more deeply endeared this legend to the crowd.

 "When I was on tour with Elvis (she was 17), we dated a bit, just friends out to have a soda together. He's the one who encouraged me to try singing rock 'n roll," she says. Her inimitable gravelly voice was a great calling card.  She was one of the first females to cross from country to rock 'n roll.

 "I wanted to make an album in his memory and sing the songs that for me were the real Elvis, songs from 1955, 56, and 57." The result was titled "I Remember Elvis: Wanda's Tribute to Elvis," in 2006.

  "Just start a few of 'em up, boys, I'll figure out where you're going," the pro says to her band The Lustre Kings, then gallops into "Good Rockin' Tonight" and "Heartbreak Hotel." By now the audience is positively giddy.

 What Wanda brings to the stage is an authentic whiff of what country audiences have craved since Hank Williams' days. Songs that preach and exemplify a steely backbone to make it through the vicissitudes of love found, love lost, and more often than not, sense a good time around the corner.

Toward the end of her set, a gray haired man steps onto the stage, two champagne glasses in hand. "I want to toast my wife on our 49th wedding anniversary," Wendell Goodman says as he puts his arm around the Queen.

"We gave our hearts to Jesus Christ in 1971 and the Lord still allows me to entertain," Wanda says. "I feel a responsibility to show the younger generation that a marriage like ours can be done."

  She launches into "I Saw The Light," a gospel song with enough fervor to get some in the audience to clap and sing along.

Voice aside, Wanda Jackson is an original, a heart on her sleeve, authentic entertainer. We applaud her fading star for her spark, her spunk, and her unmistakable drive to entertain us.

 If you're of a certain age, you also cheer Wanda for not giving in to the stereotype that younger is better. Perhaps no medium embraces its aging stars as lovingly as country/ rockabilly fans. By the show's finale, you love her.

Photos with text by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Photo at very bottom courtesy of Wanda's web site

Partial Set List

"Mean Mean Man"
"Rock Your Baby All Night Long"
"I Gotta Know"
Wanda Jackson - I'll Bet You My Heart I Love You"
"Good Rockin' Tonight"
"Heartbreak Hotel"
Two recent releases by Wanda
Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" ("The A side")
Classic Johnny Kidd and the Pirates hit "Shakin' All Over"  ("The B side")

'Right or Wrong"
"I Saw The Light"
"Let's Have A Party"
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"

IN THE NEXT ROOM (OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY)
Play by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by: Scott Edmiston. Sets, Susan Zeeman Rogers. Lights, Karen Perlow. Costumes, Gail Astrid Buckley. Sound design and original music, Dewey Dellay. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company.
At: Roberts Studio Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts, through Oct. 16. Tickets: $30-$55. 617-933-8600, www.speakeasystage.com

The buzz for this play has been positive. Its suggestive title explains part of it. When it comes to prurient interest, we Bostonians have our share.

The SpeakEasy Stage Company's production of "In The Next Room" has some "insightful, fresh, and funny" moments, as promised by snippets excised from a New York Times review that promoted the Boston production, but it can't seem to extend those moments into a satisfying 2 and 1/2 hour play. The idea for the play was conceived after Ruhl read Rachel Maines's 1999 book, "The Technology of the Orgasm," in which Maines documents physicians in the 1880s treated women in emotional distress ("hysteria") with a vibrating device applied you know very well where in order to induce an orgasm ("paroxysm") to relieve what they surmised was congestion of fluid in the womb.

Using Edison's electrical inventions as a scaffold, Ruhl's characters make perceptive observations on the fundamental way technology impacts their way of experiencing light… and life. The play then explores the emotional abyss that separates her male and female characters,  especially their pitiful inability to understand sex as an intimate, shared experience.

In his role as Dr. Givings, a detached "man of science," Derry Woodhouse plays his role with stolid earnestness. In his office, separated on stage from their living room by a partition with a closed doorway, he dispassionately dispenses his treatments. He marvels not so much about the emotional release his patients experience as with the technology of the machine that makes it possible.

On the other side of the partition, his emotionally starved wife keeps house and tries to fathom the nature of the moans of his female patient as she climaxes at the end of her "three minute treatments." With fierce, occasionally wacky intensity, Anne Gottlieb establishes Catherine's increasing sense of desperation, physical longing, and sexual awareness.

Marianna Bassham plays Dr. Givings' patient Mrs. Sabrina Daldry with ethereal charm and wry humor. Her straight laced husband (Dennis Trainor Jr.) is nearly a caricature of the domineering, uptight Victorian middle class male. His supreme lack of understanding of sex helps to underline the plight of his wife in particular, and, Ms. Ruhl seems to suggest, men in general in this era. I could hear women in the audience stifle gasps at some of his more egregious comments.

From left: Marianna Bassham, Lindsey McWhorter, and Anne Gottlieb in SpeakEasy Stage Company's production. (Stratton McCrady) Photo courtesy of SpeakEasy Stage Company web site.

The second act, in which Leo the Artist (jauntily played by Craig Wesley Divino) is introduced, seems a bit forced. His wild and hot-blooded nature ignites Mrs. Givings' smoldering passions. His desire to paint a portrait of Elizabeth, the Givings' African-American wet nurse, leads to unforeseen complications, one of which helps lead Catherine and Sabrina to test-drive the newfangled device in a giddy scene in Dr. Givings office. In the final scene, the good doctor and his wife have a moment that changes their chemistry. Thomas Edison has nothing to do with this one.

As Ruhl's characters show at the beginning of act one, we've been in the thrall of technology for ages. They exude childlike delight in standing next to a lamp and marveling "on…off", "on…off." Like us, they speculate about what new advances the new technology will bring to their lives and how it might shape their perception of it.

Today we gape at each other's latest 4G cell phone or iPad as we flick fingers and say. "Look at this app… and this one… and this one."

With contemporary culture awash in sexually oriented entertainment and advertising, there is no mystery about the sex act as there was in 1880.  That said, one look at the feature stories in Cosmo and a rack of similar ones suggests there's no overwhelming evidence that men and women are any better at communicating with sexual or emotional intimacy now than they were then. It still takes work, and, in the Givings' case, trust, to allow it to bloom.

Despite its title, this story of a man and a woman who slowly learn from technology rather than becoming slaves to it unfurls with more of a cerebral than emotional thrust. Trimming the second act might add voltage to the play's resolution and present us all with a more satisfying climax.

duffyandessomeho.blogspot.com

Source: https://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/10/index.html

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