Lipwak's blog

Piano Night, 4/27

2010-04-27T02:10:00.001-04:00

Overall: Very good sound. They take some time to get the mixes right
but it's so much better than some years. DJs didn't interrupt w/
station IDs between every song or too often at all. THANK YOU!

Some good music, mostly in spots here and there but as usual I liked
David Torkanowsky's whole set, some of Marcia's. Dr John fired them
up. Zachary Richard's Sunset on Louisianne makes me cry...

But back to the beginning.

George Ingmire and Big D start out.

They switched between two stages in previous years...

Stage MC: "Let's welcome Pit Karaken"? Oh, that was Victor Atkins. Geez.

Special guest Jose Conte.

1st ID about a 1/2 hr into it. Good.

Jeff "Snake" Greenberg

Audio is dropping out. Stream seems ok. I'm guessing it's a problem
at their end.

They admit they are having technical problems.

Nigel Hall.

Left channel dropping out...

Mix sounds excellent! Now suddenly mono. Back and forth abit.

Nice blues. (You can hear the engineers f'ing with the signal. Was
nice and bright a little while ago. Now it's back. Now gone...)

Station ID, have to turn down the background a tad, guys.

Hope the hum doesn't get worse.

Now thew level is down. Is that where it's gonna stay? Nope, it goes up...

DJs on.

... that's 4 our time.

AJ is the MC
Henry Gray and Carol Fran

Can we hear her? Henry's missing notes. They keep losing her voice.
Now we have it.

Now he sings but he's not in the mix right. Nor is she.

Starting to do station IDs too often.

Oh dear, I fear Carol is doing something obscene up there.

They've got her voice finally.

Henry's voice is low still.

Carol is neither a quitter or a winner.

Henry's voice is still low. Oh well, I guess they aren't going to fix it.

I'm liking whoever's playing the organ. (Alright, it was Dave Torkanowsky!)

An anemic What'd I Say. And piano is real low...

Leslie Smith, daughter of Michael Smith.
solo piano

Joe Krown
Nice.

Dr John arrives.

Yet to come is Joe Krown? (My comments edited out)

Professor Longhair...

Now Dr John. Vocals out of mix. Fixed.

One for Eddie Bo.

Great intro to Tipitina! The Dr is in good voice too.

Doin' The Mess Around.

Dr John's done.

David Torkanowsky on next. James Booker cut on now. St James infirmary.

Now to DT. "Give you all tv and you're happy..." Hot.

Zigaboo sings We Need A Little Gospel... David's speeding it up! Then
it slows down again. David makes a joke about Zigaboo's singing.

Stanton Moore starts out! Yes. Sounds great. Then David kicks in.
(Can hear David calling out the notes to someone...)

George Porter Jr comes on. How Did I Get So Far Gone.

I was just thinking, they aren't doing too many station IDs, and then
they do one.

Living For The City. Piano's kinda low in the mix. Nice bass/drum
exchange. Nice comeback. Vocals too loud.

They're done. Encore? Nope.

Eden Brent

Marsha Ball! (midnight NY time)

She's got WWOZ iPhone app.

Bucktown.

What to put on her gravestone? I wish I was in New Orleans. Then she
sings New Orleans is a party town...

Hot Tamale Baby. Still hot!

More Eden.

Joe Krown w/ Walter Wolfman Washington
- Nice.
- Frankie and Johnnie. Very nice.
"Love you. What's your number, baby?"
- Tipitina w/ WWW.
- Joe on organ now, Walter singing.
- another

DJ doesn't know how many times they've done Piano Nights.

DJ level higher than stage.

Cynthia Chin singing off key.

Sunpie Barnes
- Make Me A Pallet on Your Floor
- not a good singer.

Brings out David Torkanowsky. Junco Partner.

Reminds me of Henry Butler, not a good singer. Maybe a little more
on-key than Henry. But not enough for me.

James Booker - Slow Down/Bony Maronie/Knock on Wood/I Heard It
Through the Grape Vine
(I remember them playing this years ago... Great cut. Great album.)

Zachary Richard
My man. Sure wish he played accordion still.

-
- Crawfish, He goes off mic.
- PLAYING ACCORDION!!! Excellent! Dancing at DD's. (Dancing at Double d's)
- The beautiful Sunset on Louisianne (I sing along.)
Peace indeed.

I go to bed now as it's 2 am.

Jazz Fest 2010, SUNDAY, APRIL 25

2010-04-25T21:27:00.001-04:00

The schedule, at least at the beginning of the day.

12:20 p.m. Lionel Ferbos & the Palm Court Jazz Band
1:40 p.m. Theresa Anderssen
Midnite Disturbers
5:40 p.m. The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong featuring Wycliffe
Gordon, James Andrews and Victor Goines

I start listening at 5 of 12 NY time. The Flash player page says
"World Journey with Suzanne Corley Saturday 4-6pm" is on now... Hazel
is on. Nice to hear her. I met her 10+ years ago...

Darlin Come Back to New Orleans. Nice. Nostalgic.

Flash stream has lots of dropouts so I switch to the iTunes mp3 feed.
Sounds good and louder than Flash stream.

We got to the fest at 12:04 NY time. A dropout.

Missy Bowen on and (More stations listening today!) Lisa Barrios.

Website still has Midnite Disturbers. DJ said Mark Braud's New
Orleans Jazz Giants, Whatever.

Rebroadcasting Campbell Brothers from yesterday. Kinda nice.

iTunes stream is good. No dropouts anymore and no weird noises like on Fri.

DJs are also NOT breaking in after every song. Thank you! Am not
hearing many station IDs either.

Lisa reads the script ("with our ID"). Whoops.

Oh no, she's trying to explain something. Why not say make a CD...

"What's the portal for artists to reach you", which translated into
English is, how do people reach you. Lisa unnecessarily complicates
things whenever she opens her mouth.

A moving Susan Cowsill song. She sang this at the FQF.

Henry Butler - Orleans Inspiration, from 1996 Piano Night.

Lisa has a brain fart...

Lionel Ferbos & the Palm Court Jazz Band
Nice. Some nice tricks up their sleeves.

Guy singing off mic. Not fixed for awhile.... now it is. Thank you, sound crew.

Stream stops, have to restart it. Stops again. Buffering problem...

Having weird stereo problems. Image is becoming stereo and then not,
channels are popping in and out. Might be a stage feed problem.

A very sexy and wonderful enunciation of the Live Wire! What a
pleasure to hear someone who knows how to speak!

Some nice Louis Prima stuff.

Theresa Anderssen on now.

Pharoh's Army!?

Heard distortion. better now. Comptuer crashed for the second time in
10 minutes...

Still have distortion, It's like we're listening to it of the air. Static.

Her voice is too far back in the mix.

Ad/promo.

While I like that she is being experimental, the music isn't very
good although this Blue Skies with the (African/pygmy) vocalizations
is kinda neat.

4pm NY time
Charlie B and Suzanne Corley come on

Mark Braud's New Orleans Jazz Giants

Orange Kellin. Didn't know he was still playing locally. Wasn't her
playing back in the 70s?

We lose the stream, have to restart it.

Over at 4:50 pm NY time

(Levon Helm was on Sunday?)

The Midnite Disturbers will be on? (my head spins) Ah, a brass band.
Mix is getting worked out.

Still having mix problems... instruments low in the mix.

Nice to hear so much brass band music!! Oh, for the good old days.
(Mix is getting sharper, horns better defined. Kinda late isn't it?)

Wow, WOMR is on too.

Suzanne isn't very good about reading scripts...

Sexual Healing - Nice as an instrumental but the singing is too amateur.

1st zydeco I've heard so far. (Haven't heard any cajun. Sigh.) Most
zydeco I've heard (in the past 20 years for the most part) are tired
covers or just plain cheezy.

These promos are pretty jarring...

The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong featuring Wycliffe Gordon,
James Andrews and Victor Goines

Tin Roof Blues, Clarinet Marmalade, Black and Blue Blues (I sing
along to this!)..., all nice standards for Louis.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans. Hope I don't cry. Too
late, I am.

Overall: good mixes, not too manu station IDs, some good DJs,some
bad. So much better than some years. Musically some good stuff.

One suggestion: Make your promos less jarring. The bicycling one and
most of the others are really annoying coming out of a tune.

Looking forward to Piano Night.

Jazz Fest 2010, SATURDAY, APRIL 24

2010-04-24T20:09:00.001-04:00

11:15 a.m. Grandpa Elliot
12:05 p.m. Tribute to Marva Wright
4:20 p.m. Campbell Brothers
6:00 p.m. Kirk Joseph's Tuba Tuba

11:30 NY time
I start listening to Sean's Music in the Glen
show. Glad to hear that's still on!

Flash player is stopping often and we have audio dropouts.

Never heard a brass band Irish tune... with
Scandinavian fiddle! Ah, Annbjørg Lien.

CD player jams. (Some stations would bring up a bed in the meantime...)

Surprise Me, Mr Davis, what a great name for a NO band!

They go to the fest. The laughing idiot is on.

Purple hearts! (for two or three hours of sleep)

Tin Men - interesting. I've wanted to hear their music.

Go to Grandpa Elliott at 12:21 NY time. I am not expecting to like this.

DJs aren't breaking in after each song to do IDs.
How nice. We can hear silence/crowd noise/stage
talk between songs. The way it'd be if we were
there.

Cabbage Alley! (Bonerama, but I love the David
Torkanowsky version from Piano Night a few years
ago better.)

Promo comes on loud. ok level but sounds loud. Jarring.

Bolero? Oy.

The laughing idiot knows his music. I was
impressed at his playing of some band called
Pnobo? at the FQF. When he talks he's alright.
When he gets giddy, watch out.

DJ level is a little lower than CD.

Tribute to Marva Wright

DJ does ID, 1:28 NY time

Nice set. Thanks!

Laughing idiot (Andrew) is actually interesting
(and not laughing maniacally, thank goodness.) He
needs to stop talking every once in awhile
though. Dean is interesting too and doesn't have
the problems that most OZ DJs have.

repeat of Tuxedo from yesterday...
Wow, Dave Bartholomew. Tenderly but still good to hear he's still around.

Bradley and Jack next

Horn Man Blues! by ?

Station ID

Piquante...

Leroy rebroadcast (w/ some mix problems)

A gracious Careless Love. Then a very brash promo. Oy.

Whooping Blues second line. (Sounded like Whoopin Booze...)

(I go out to get mail and check out the garden...)

Campbell Brothers begin at 5:31 NY time
Sacred steel.

Flash player is stopping alot. A pain.

At 6 I listen to Prairie Home Companion but will check back here and there.

"It's off the chain", whatever that means.

Go to Kirk Joseph at 7:08 NY time.
Some nice grooves but not that interesting.

Trout Meunière! Great name.

Ends at 8pm NY time.

Jazz Fest 2010, FRIDAY, APRIL 23

2010-04-24T10:50:00.001-04:00

11:20 a.m. Kipori Woods
2:05 p.m. Leroy Jones & New Orleans Finest
4:30 p.m. Lena Prima
Bob French closes out/Original Tuxedo Brass Band

I tune in at 11:12 NY time. A nice trumpet tune
is on. Nice to hear organ in the group,
dixieland/trad group. (Lionel Ferbos!)

DJ nonsense (Keith): "You're entuned to..."
Entuned? (We'll be hearing "Keep it locked right
here", etc, another awful cliche. Yep, just did.)
Entuned - not a word. The word is "tuned".

Funny Touro Synagogue listing in the Live Wire, added on after it was recorded.

12:04 NY time
They go to the Fairgrounds
DJ Charlie and Missy
KUVO in Denver is broadcasting this amongst others!

I should count the number of times they do a
station ID... Probably 3 so far in, no, 4 now, in
two minutes.

Silence... after talking about Facebook

"Dashboard of your computer." Another awful cliche used by WWOZ DJs.

I hear a brass band in the distance.

Little Freddie King story. Hearing some weird
noise on a regular basis, kinda like rubber being
scuffed. Can't imagine what it is. Some sort of
digital problem? Hearing it during music or
speech.

I don't see anything on the KUVO website about
this broadcast, supposedly a simulcast. What
explains that? (As amateur a station as OZ?)

The strange noise continues with the DJs on mic.

Stream is hiccupping frequently, audio dropping
out for fraction of a second every minute or so.

Go to stage, Kipori Woods, 12:30 NY time. Excellent mix.

Stream still hiccupping and hearing other strange noises frequently enough.

Hey, the song ended and the DJs didn't break in
to do a station ID! How rare is that?

Roger Lewis playing with him!

Do station ID after a song begins at the top of the hour. Repeat OZ twice.

Set over 1:10 NY time. We're going to hear
station IDs for each station so maybe OZ won't
repeat their ID so often. Maybe they'll try to
sound more professional with all those others
listening...

Lots of weird noises.

Cochon de lait segment. Got the Yin and Yang! George talks very slow.

Marcia Ball, Torkanowsky pronounces it Mar-see-a. I thought it was Mar-sha?

James Rivers, another jazz bagpipe player (described as bagmen, airmen).

Lots of strange "eurp" noises... Kinda sounds like a cat sneeze.

DJ level much higher than stage.

Missy: "Renard Poché's closet never left the 70s!"

Do station IDs for all those stations.

Jon Cleary cut peaking at -10db whereas DJs on
mic = 0db. Probably the same for any non-DJ feed.

Dan Dyer track from 2007, peaking at 0, averaging -10.

Audio dropouts continue. Strange noises too. Both
happening more often. (I'm using the iTunes mp3
stream.)

Lots of sex in these songs, Black drawers, Fine Brown Frame...

Next cut a little hot (levelwise)

Flash stream has dropouts but the weird noises
seem to have disappeared. And I'm using less CPU
not having iTunes open.

Nice version of Must Be Hercules...

Do Watcha Wanna's got me dancing. Haven't heard
it in awhile. (I'm sure it gets overplayed but
this a good version.)

Nice poetry/reading of NO musician names to Miss Liza Jane.

We were hearing two tunes/CDs at once right
before they went to the stage for Leroy Jones.
Did they know it? I doubt it. So, instead of
turning down what was airing so it wouldn't
compete with what I'm guessing was coming from
the stage, they left it. Stupid. If someone
actually listened to what was airing, mistakes
like this wouldn't be made.

My favorite Dirty Dozen tune, The Lost Souls of Southern La.!

Then, how obnoxious can you get, they start doing
promos OVER IT! Jesus F'ing Christ. Idiots.

Dropouts are getting longer.

Looks like some serious rain on the radar... I
bet the rest of the day is cancelled.

They go to the stage! Leroy plays schmaltz, well. (Dinah)

Set over? No, technical problems.

Swingin' 60s tune.

Leroy's back. No DJ tells us what's going on. We
hear the rain still. We hear the stage announcer
then the DJ comes on. OK.

That Old Rugged Cross. Nice. (Treme Brass Band)

New DJ. David Kunian. A good man.

Another, same version of Must Be Hercules? Is it that popular?

Lose audio yet player shows content... (again)

I reload that page much later and it works.

Dmitri says sim-ul-cast. Sim, as in The Sims. Should be Si, as in Sigh.

Lina Prima on at 5:39 NY time.

O Ma Ma!

This is cheering me up...

WWOZ music player stops again...

It stops a few times later as well.

Bob French manages to insult Indianians. Way to
go Bob. True to form. An a-hole.

I didn't hear much of these shows but overall the
mixes are good, the DJs not too bad. I'm looking
forward to better music but we'll see.

YLC Wednesday at the Square, 4/14

2010-04-14T20:38:00.003-04:00

Caught this show on WWOZ. Lost Bayou Ramblers were good enough though dull. (They could lose that rhythm guitarist and it would be a great improvement, playing one note, maybe two, all through each song.) Jon Cleary was excellent as usual. WWOZ did a good job with the mixes but their DJs still do station IDs WAY too often. 9 IDs in the first hour, 5 in the next and 2 in the next half hour. And the DJ had the good sense to keep his talk short.

Oh, and the stream only died once, at 7:19 NY time. Came right back.

French Quarter Festival on WWOZ, Sun, 4/11

2010-04-11T20:19:00.001-04:00

I start listening at 11:30 NY time. They go to the stage at about 11:35. 2 male DJs.

Friendly Travellers are a gospel group. Too much repetition and God for me but some good singing and piano playing.

The surprise hit for me was Susan Cowsill. I was very impressed. I am not sure I'd heard her music before but not only is she a great singer, her songs were good. I kept thinking about her losing her brother in the flood and how rough it's been for her so the songs were doubly emotional. I'll recommend her to my friends.

Another nice surprise was John Boutte! Ever since Jazz Fest 2006 I've been a big fan of his, though I've known about him for longer than that. His Lousiana 1927 at that Jazz Fest was the highlight of the fest for me. He, and Lillian, put on a good show though nothing stood out as much as that Jazz Fest performance. I'm sure HBO will love his promo of Treme, which I am hoping to see too (especially the Davis Rogan character...)

Joe Krown wasn't that interesting. I was hoping for better.

Johnny Sketch was interesting for awhile. They kept reminding me of Brave Combo with an Arabic tilt.

Overall the sound was good. The stream only lost audio once or twice and never stopped. Many of the DJs are still idiots but some have brains and use them. I wish OZ would do fewer station IDs. We don't need to hear the station's name twice each mic break every 5 minutes. The mixes were MUCH better than in the recent past. Lets hope this continues.

Now, I'm looking forward to some of the Wednesday at the Square shows!

French Quarter Festival on WWOZ, Fri, 4/9

2010-04-09T22:04:00.001-04:00

I listened to the French Quarter Festival on WWOZ today. WWOZ did a
good job. The mixes were excellent. (I REALLY hope that continues
through Jazz Fest.) The DJs weren't obnoxious. They didn't give out
station IDs too often until Keith Hill gave one 5 minutes after
another at 9:25 pm (NY time). The music isn't that interesting and
probably won't be all weekend but I'll try to listen to as much of it
as I can.

The audio is dropping out abit. The stream is fine but we're losing
audio often enough. Once per song on average, starting with Russell
Batiste.

Musically, Ensemble Fatien was borderline interesting, especially
their version of St James Infirmary. Russell Batiste is kinda awful
with his covers though Jealous Huy was interesting. I'm not holding
out high hopes for the rest of his set once they get the feed back
but I'll hang in there to see.

Ok, they're back. Something then Feel Like Making Love with some
awful singing. Some more crap then it ends. Good.

Tomorrow?

Report litter, potholes, etc

2010-04-02T13:36:00.002-04:00

I've discovered a very cool website where you can report things like litter, code violations, potholes, etc. It's called SeeClickFix.com.

You can post things anonymously which is nice. Go to town!

3/6, some guy with a cam on a float!

2010-03-06T15:08:00.001-05:00

Some guy with a cam on a float. Pretty cool and a perspective that only a certain few get to enjoy. Dizzying but that's probably the cam's fault.

2/16: Bourbocam

2010-02-17T18:13:00.001-05:00

Oh for the good old days of the Bourbocam. It used to be on the
street, in front of the Cat's Meow, an awful sore on Bourbon St, it's
loud God-awful music unavoidable. Now it's up on a balcony
overlooking the street. What do you see? A crowd. That's it. No
interviews. Very few close-ups. No humor. Not worth watching,
especially this year because I saw/there were VERY FEW costumes.
What's up with that? I have never seen a Mardi Gras (day or) night on
Bourbon St with so few costumes. There was a funny hat here and there
and beads but where are the costumed people? And I saw very few
people carrying around drinks. That just isn't right. Mardi Gras day
and people aren't drinking on Bourbon St? Why did people bother
coming? Just to see other people looking at each other? Pointless.

That said, I watched it from beginning to end, just to see if
something good happened. Very little did.

It came on at 6 pm NY time. It was supposed to come on at 5:30. OK.

We see some Jesus freak signs: The Wages of Sin is Death. I need to
check this but shouldn't it be "are"? Wages are plural... but this
may be one of those things that are weird about the English language.

It was fun listening to a Jesus freak taunting the crowd through his
bull horn. Towards the end of that episode, we heard some people
taunt him back which was pretty funny. Some of our hosts too. "You
throw like a girl." I swear to God (there I go to Hell) he said that!
And our hosts threw it back at him. The usual problems: masturbating
is sinful, homosexuals are sinful, go look at your Bible, you're all
going to burn in Hell... I gotta admire this guy for facing down a
HUGE crowd and challenging them on these things. He's so very wrong
but at least he believes he's right.

The audio goes out before 6:45 NY time. It comes back but then goes
away again. When it comes back for awhile, we can hear the hosts
remarking, "this mic is very sensitive, we'll have to watch what we
say."

6:52 (all time NY time) someone moves the camera around. Zooms in.
Then it is still again.

7:07 It's getting dark.

I wonder who all those people are in red. A marching band? We see
many people wearing red, many of them together. I've seen some bands
in red but why is that the prevalent color we're seeing?

The hosts come on. We get Jerrica again. Kate is mentioned but I
don't recognize her voice. Another woman and another man are on.

We see a Santa Claus. The hosts say they saw the Easter Bunny. If
it's the same guy I've seen over the years, I'm sorry I missed him.
He is perfect for the part. Very creepy and it's surprising he hasn't
been put behind bars for some sort of pedophile charge. Still, that's
what you want in a grown man with a pot belly wearing an Easter Bunny
costume, don't you?

Someone should shut Jerrica up. She is running at the mouth and
repeating things. If she mentions that "Mardi Gras is a marathon, not
a sprint
' one more time I'm going to.... I don't know what.

She did. That's it. I'm muting it.

Hopefully they'll zoom in on some good costumes. (They don't.) What's
the point of of pointing the camera into the crowd and not zooming
in? (And talking endlessly.)

We see a balcony's occupants throwing lit throws.

8 pm The hosts have stopped talking and are now zoomed in to nothing
in particular. Why not find interesting things to look at?

8:28 pm We lose the audio.

Damian yammers on... "a piece of King cake I enjoyed just shortly."
What is this affliction that strikes New Orleanians? I've seen it for
years. The mind takes shortcuts when speaking and jumbles things up.
Unfortunately those connections are needed to make sense.

The cam moves around a little.

8:44 pm. Very few are in costume. Cam is zoomed in, looking around. No hosts.

9:05 We see two girls drinking.Why isn't everyone drinking?

9:09 We see a woman in what looks like a cow costume. This is
pathetic! Saw a woman expose her breasts for some beads but she
wasn't facing the camera and it happened very quickly. (It's cold
down there...)

9:55 See a long line of people in white shirts 3 or 4 abreast heading
towards the far end of Bourbon St, away from Canal. What was that
about? Missionaries?

10:30 Someone with rabbit ears.

10:32 two guys with "I eat pussy" signs are seen holding them above
their heads. They put the "I" so close to the "pussy" that I thought
they said Eat Pussy. There is something written on the back of each
one but I can't read it. Is that some kind of a joke? Maybe they
wrote they eat cats? Did any woman take them seriously and take them
up on their offer? It's kinda sad. Why not just say I need to get
laid?

10:49 We see some of the people on the balcony where the cam is. A
pretty blond. The most exciting thing on the street are people with
lit up necklaces. Pathetic.

10:53 A conehead. Not the SNL version but more of a highway cone as a hat.

There ARE a lot of people on Bourbon St. We can see them from afar.

11:05 We see the blond from behind, from the waist up, looking out
into the crowd. It would make a nice still shot with her being dark
against the lights of the street and the ironwork.

11:16 A balcony, not too far away, has dangled what looks like a
clump of beads on a string, lowering it and then bring it back up,
teasing the crowd. Now they have a bright light focused on a smaller
group in the crowd below as they throw things (beads, lit things)to
particular people.Is there a TV crew filming this? Playboy? The
bright lights make that group stand out.

11:21 The guys carrying the "I eat pussy" sings are still out.

11:25 We see a fire down the street! The second floor of a building a
male host says. See a fire hose(s) spraying it. Don't see or hear any
fire trucks. The 1100 or 1200 block of Bourbon he says. Occasionally
we hear cheers. The crowd seems close to it. The host is very low
level.

11:35 We see blue lights flashing. The fire is almost out. Can see
smoke billowing above the rooftops, contrasting against the ambient
light. The male host says matter-of-factly: Back to Mardi Gras.

11:40 The cam is not looking at the fire anymore.

11:42 A Who Dat is heard.

11:44 Haven't seen any crosses in a long time. They may be in another
direction.

12:03 am We see, in the middle of the street, a guy feel up a girl's
breasts while another watches.

12:14 Haven't seen any fights yet. Good.

12:17 See the first cop on horseback. For that matter, the first cop
on the Bourbocam tonight.

12:26 See a nice beer glass hat.

12:40 Bourbon St is still full.

12:48 I see red flashing lights at the far end of the street. People
are heading towards the cam. This seems to be the beginning of the
sweep.

1:14 Headlights seen in the distance at the far end. They're coming!
Sirens heard. Unfortunately, the cam then changes position to a shot
that is nowhere near as encompassing, looking towards Canal. We see
people walking both ways and then the Jesus freaks coming towards the
cam with their signs held up. We see the first cop cars and then
legions of cops.

No lights at the far end when the cam turns to follow the cops. We
see cops on horses.

The host says it's time to go. says goodbye. (They've stayed on the
cleanup longer in the past.) Calls this the "blue light parade".

Cam goes off at 1:22 am NY time. I miss the old Bourbocam.

music heard during Mardi Gras

2010-02-16T19:07:00.001-05:00

Here is a list of the tunes I recognized while watching the paradecam
and WDSU's webcast with the number of times they were heard after. If
anything these numbers are low.

Mardi Gras (Professor Longhair) - 5
Get Crunked - 8
They All Asked For You - 1
Rock and Roll pt 2 - 6
When The Saints - 5
Boogie Shoes - 1
Celebrate - 2
New Orleans - 2
Get Ready - 2
Love Shack - 1
unknown song by Michael Jackson - 2
Bourbon Street Parade - 2
Clap Hands - 1
Louie Louie - 1
Boogie On Reggae Woman - 1
Soul Finger - 1
Take Me Back (Jackson 5) - 1
Brown Eyed Girl - 2
Do Watcha Wanna - 2
Hey Look Me Over - 1
I Don't Wanna Work - 1
Play That Funky Music White Boy - 1
Sunny Side of the Street - 1
Starting Something (Michael Jackson) - 1
Yippie Tie Yo (Cajun) - 1
House of the Rising Sun - 1
Mustang Sally - 1
Who Dat - 1 (not counting all the chants)
Mardi Gras Mambo - 2
That's The Way I Like It - 1
Tonights Gonna Be a Good Night - 1
The Saints Are Coming - 1
Boys Are Back In Town - 1
Word Up - 1
Heard It Through The Grape Vine - 1
Madame Sosthene- 1
Get Down Tonight - 1
Can't Hurry Love - 1
Hey Baby - 1
Givin' It Up For Love - 1
Big Chief - 1
Hey Pocky Way - 1
Jeopardy Theme - 1

2/16: Zulu, Rex and some trucks

2010-02-16T18:16:00.001-05:00

Mardi Gras day

Starting this early is crazy. 9 o'clock, NY time, 8 NO time. What are
they thinking. Who can function at that hour especially after all
this...

It's snowing up in NY. Snowed all day. Maybe 6". But it's actually
warmer than NO or some places in LA!

First I look at the Jackson Square cam. It looks beautiful in the morning sun.

I then watch the Algiers Point cam. It's crooked. Never seen it
crooked before. Related to Mardi Gras? See a (barge) with lots of
(barges) (substitute correct terminology) heading downriver. It heads
away from downstream. I wonder if I am about to witness an accident.
It goes off cam. Another barge speeds by but I don't see it pass the
other longer one. When the longer one comes back into view, it is
heading downstream correctly and the faster one has passed it safely
on the New Orleans side. I've need seen barges take the turn like
that before.

8:48 am I watch the DSU cam. There are two hosts at the Le Cirque
hotel, high above Lee Circle. The man says, "let me check my
chronographer." He means his watch. Chronographer? Right. Chronograph
maybe.

The woman says, " We're all excited about all the excitement." Aren't
these people great?

It's 30 degrees down there. Same here!

Margaret said Zulu started a minute early. Another woman said it
started 3 minutes early. Which is it? Both got this info from DSU's
text service.

Audio is ahead of video. Video quality is jerky. We then lose the
audio. Audio is intermittent.

We see a Revolutionary War soldier walk by playing a banjo. Great!
Never seen that in NO before.

Bud Light advertising is all over the stage in Metarie. I hate to see
advertising like that during Mardi Gras.

Margaret and Arthur are low level. Randi - no audio. Yeah!

I have my first drink at 9:34 am.

We see a kid in a banana suit who's gotten a skeleton and another
throw from Zulu. Her father is in a skeleton krewe. Cool.

We see the Revolutionary War soldier again.

A very nice walking Lombardi trophy!

We see Pete Fountain. His Half Fast Walking Club are all dressed as
Juan Valdezes! Great! Pete looks great too. Nice to see him so happy.

Randi, talking about the Half Fast MC, "They're so true." Margaret,
"They're drinking." (That's what makes them "true".)

Randi, "We've got all the marching clubs kind of coming through.
Setting the screen for what's really going to happen."

Nice Peter Pan family out in Metarie.

Rachel Wulff, "So, again..." No, not again. You haven't said it once
so how can it be again?

Nice giraffe costume on stilts has 4 legs!

Travis, "High atop the Intercontinental." No, the camera is showing a
street level shot.

People are calling it Lombardi Gras.

10:09 am, no audio on Camille's standup on the Bourbon St balcony.
DSU is having its problems this morning.

No audio for Pete Fountain's HFMC at Gallier Hall.

Pete toasts us. To you, Pete. Lots of funny old guys in this group,
though we can't hear them.

Norman joins Chris and Arthur.

Nice fans, Hell freezes over sign.

We see "Study the Bible" and "Repent" signs on Bourbon St.

Nice costumes on Mondo Kayo group. I never knew about them before.

Travis describes the Juan Valdezes as wearing white tuxedos. I think
they are just white suits.

See Nagin ride with Zulu.

10:49 am We lose the audio.

Zulu is at Gallier Hall.

Norman says: Hotel Intercontinental.
Lower third: Intercontinental Hotel.

Nagin toasts King of Zulu.

We see the Juan Valdezes walking down Bourbon St.

The male host at the le Cirque Hotel is good. He thinks before he speaks.

We see Shaw HS from East Cleveland. I wonder if they are the same
dancers in red I was so impressed with last year?

We see people dancing on the cam by Touro.

No audio for Rachel in Metarie.

I can get the audio to come back if I move the jog shuttle control on
the Quicktime Player. Is this a Flip4 Mac bug?

Randi, "the marching bands that have just came through."

See a blond, wearing a wig?, on the Zulu float.

Travis, "Like I said..." No, you didn't say it already.

We see a nice parade crossing Bourbon! I wonder who that was.

We hear the Marine Band play. Norman says, let's hear them and then
he talks over them.

See a nice shot of the Captain for Rex.

The chef on the Boeuf Gras float is wearing a Saints jersey.

Arthur recognizes a 70s tune, The Horse. I wondered what it was. Very familiar.

We see the Gates of Hell float. Wow.

The crowd is still dancing by Touro.

See a Rodrigue Blue Dog float, Puppy Love.

We lose the audio after the New Millennium Social Club float.
Jog/shuttle gets it to work.

1:33 pm NY time. Zulu is still going on!

We see a truck parade Uptown.

Bourbon St is full.

Norman, talking about the Marines, "Not at parade rest." Chris, "At a parade."

Rex is at Lee Circle.

A little girl, when asked why she doesn't have very many beads, says
she was told you'd get more if you don't look like you have very
many. Smart! Start them youg!

Boeuf Gras looks great.

Talking about Laura Bush: Norman, "She's been here several times."
Chris,"Many".

We see a cool praying mantis.

The guy on Bourbon St says, "A shot of former first lady Laura Bush
riding in Rex." No, she's watching Rex.

Rex gets to Gallier Hall.

Bravo to Norman for asking to hear the bands as they pass by.

The stream stops, then it starts but we lose audio.

Nice pot of Gold costume.

Norman, "This is a shot of Rex." No, it's not.

We see and hear the Riverside Ramblers go by playing Hey Pocky Way.

Margaret talks with Bailey who is wearing a Mexican hat and has tons of beads.

Get a cool shot looking up to float at Gallier Hall.

See a "War on Cancer" float! And I see prostate cancer written on the
side it gets to me, having gotten rid of my prostate cancer recently.

One of the cams marches with the band. Great shot. The cameraperson
is using a Stedicam. Very nice work there.

Norman, "This is dynamic stuff." Arthur is low level.

We hear the Jeopardy theme.

At about 4:20 pm NY time, I watch the Jackson Square cam. Kinda blurry.

Now, to watch the Bourbocam.

2/15: Proteus and Orpheus

2010-02-15T23:27:00.001-05:00

Proteus

The paradecam host, Damien, comes on at 6:36 pm NY time. The theme
for this year? Mythology and Astrology.

He pronounces flambeaux as flambeuz, as if the plural was with a z
sound. Plural flambeaux are flambeaux, pronounced flambeau, no?

Warren Easton: nice flags, we lose audio so we can't tell if band is
good or not. The host is turning the mic off. Bad idea. We NEED to
hear the bands!! (Later on, I think the mics battery starts to die.
Too bad they aren't prepared.)

The stream is a bit jerky.

Nice dancing, nice smile on one flag carrier.

#5 The Sun. The figureheads are nice. The rest of the floats look
terrible for the most part.

#6 Luna, the moon. Float has a dragon on it. Hunh?

Xavier percussion group: nice moves.

#8 Leo the Lion has an ape face.

Baker HS: stops and dances in front of the cam. Nice!

#9 Taurus. A nice bull.

The Riverside Ramblers play When the Saints.

#11 Venus, the morning star. Pretty. And kinda sexy.

Polaris: Sexy! And so was Mercury for that matter.

Damian makes a bad joke about snowmobiles. He's an Arctic Cat kind of
guy, himself.

Libra has breasts!

Laura comes on cam briefly.

Oak Haven from Memphis look good but we can't hear them!

#16 Aires the Ram. I couldn't see a ram but the float looked good.

Virgo the Virgin, nice.

#18 Pieces. A scary fish!

Damien mentions Hercules and Heracles. I didn't know they were the
same, one Greek, one Roman. He does offer some good info on these
characters.

#20 Scorpio, a nice scorpion.

The end of parade fire truck plays Get Crunked!

I switch to the DSU cam but can't tell if Proteus has reached it yet
so I switch back to the paradecam. It's about 7:19 NY time.

Orpheus
About 10 minutes later Orpheus begins.

See cool red motorcycle lights flashing.

Laura on now as the host. Maybe she'll leave the mic on.

It's 30-40 degree down there. Sorry. That's what it is up here too!

She interviews some guy who's made a jacket out of beads. Nice job.

We see horse drawn chariots.

McDonogh #35: nice batons, band sounds good!, looks good, I don't
know the tune.

Laura calls them Lambeaux! They look good, red. Many are flares.

Float #1 has Taylor Dane on it and Mitch Landrieu.

#2 has Harry Connick Jr on it. Laura raves about someone catching a
throw he threw.

O Perry Walker: looks good, sounds good, dancers look good, flags
too. Pom poms too.

Nice red flambeaux behind them.

St Mary's Academy Band: sounds pooped.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddies don't play and are stingy according to Laura.

Walter L Cohen: nice moves by leaders and flags, band looks and sounds good.

Sean Payton with American flags on either side of him, spotlights behind float.

The Who Dat Dames: "Oh Lord, who are these people, " Laura. "They are so hot."

Laura says: "800,00 got out for that parade. That's more than got out
for the..." Got out?

I hear Smokey Mary! The cops by the neutral ground get out of the way
as she rounds the corner. That's one long float! 5 sections! Looks
surreal all light up as it comes around the corner.

#7 Angel and Devils Food cake: The sides look nice on this one.

LW Higgens: good dancers! leaders dance well then the band stops playing.

I think we hear Sweet Home Alabama coming from Fat Harry's. We can
hear the bass notes pretty well.

See lots of Hummers in the parade. Boo.

#9 Pinwheel biscuits. I see a pinwheel. Don't see any biscuits.

#10 Queen of Pudding. I see a cupcake.

The Fun Dept fire truck. I think it has clowns in it. (Painted purple.)

#11 Orpheus Trojan Horse: Beautiful and with a good band.

Not sure who the group is but I big nice smile on a girl in yellow.
Every once in awhile you'll see someone marching with a big smile on
their face. It's always nice. They're happy. We're happy. We need
more of that.

The hosts tell of someone from the crowd who jumped into the dance
routine of a group and promptly got taken out. A funny story.

Frederick Douglas HS: Looks good.

Wee see a dragon with smoke coming out of its nose. The baby dragon
behind it needs more decorations though.

The hosts mic starts to distort.

Nice dancing men in white, hopping. The band starts playing when it
gets to the cam. We can't hear the hosts because the mic is
distorting so much.

GW band (George Washington Carver?) shouts!

#20 Shoe Fly Pie has a mouse face. I don't get it.

9 pm NY time, the parade ends. I switch to the DSU cam.

We see the motorcycles so Orpheus is just beginning. The stream is
good, only hiccuping a little.

We hear The Village People play Macho Man on the float Mitch Landrieu
is on. Ick.

I can't tell who most of the bands are but they look good from above
and if they stop by the cam, they sound good.

A blond guy on the LSU float is enjoying himself. (LSU sucks.)

We hear Smokey Mary from afar. Very cool.

The dragon float passes by and we get a brief but nice look at it.
Overheard: "That's the best float."

The stream is hiccuping every couple of seconds now.

A band in green shouts and screams! Oh,now they're going backwards!
(Adjusting themselves.) Surreal.

People are throwing beads onto a flatbed truck! lol Only in New
Orleans is that funny.

See a nice sun float.

11:19 pm NY time, the last float goes by. The barriers are quickly
mov ed out of the way. Very efficient.

Now, for tomorrow!

2/14: Bacchus

2010-02-14T22:29:00.002-05:00

I start watching the paradecam at about 6 NY time. DSU is live but
they are downtown so not worth watching yet. Back on the paradecam, a
woman is dancing in the back of a pickup truck, encouraging the crowd
to sing along to Get Crunked.

6:35 (NY time) the parade rolls.

We see the Clydesdales. Each horse has a person to look after it as
they parade.

We then see King Kong! And then Lady Kong. No Baby Kong! What
happened to her? Great to see Mr and Mrs Kong though.

The Marine Corps play a 1920s tune, familiar to me but I don't know its name.

A flambeaux gets on cam enticing the crowd to Who Dat.

We see the flambeaux rest, their gas containers laid on the ground.

See lots of Bacchus lieutenants.

Then the parade stops again. While we wait, someone runs a remote
control toy truck along the ground that looks the same as the one
pulling the spotlights, with a Saints flag on it! The camera focuses
on two pigs that have wings. (And Hell froze over earlier...)

Drew Brees float comes by and the crowd goes wild. It looks like he's
got a bag full of footballs but I don't see him throw one. He isn't
looking towards the cam.

The Southern University Band drum section stops by the cam!

St Augustine looks and sounds good.

Jesuit HS comes by with the drums ahead of the rest of the band.

About 7:20 NY time, we get some hum. (It gets real bad later.)

Walter L Cohen: nice leaders dancing, flags, band strutting, nice
flambeaux behind them.

O Perry Walker: nice dancing in red (hard to see), leaders look good,
band only drums, nice flags after and pom poms,

Hum gets better, sometimes.

Edna Karr: see smiles on some of the band members as they pass by.
They don't play. Cheerleaders stand and sway slightly.

Lover's Lane float has a car with headlights on against a dark background.

McDonogh #35: looks good with flags waving from far away. The band
bends over and walks - cool! The cheerleaders look good as they sway
in tempo.

Lots of flambeaux.

George Washington Carver: Drums sounded good.

#8, a beautiful pink and white float, Baccha Amore, like a cake!

We see search lights sparkle with confetti.

Warren Easton Jr High looks good but doesn't play. The 2nd part does
though and the cheerleaders strut.

Joseph Clark Sr HS: nice red flags, we get BAD hum now, looks and
sounds good, nice dances in white behind them.

Little White Chapel has Elvi as riders.

Sara L Reed HS: nice dancers, flags, a young blond girls laughs, they
sound good.

The hum gets bad.

Eleanor McCain secondary school band looks good.

The young blond girl is held up to the camera. Very cute.

Float #12: If I Ever Cease to Love, New Orleans' motto, no?

Frederick A Douglas: looks and sounds good.

The Bacchasuarus.

Martin Behrman: nice dancing.

(I get a phone call and don't look for awhile. I coma back to see
#17, Sealed with a Kiss which has unmasked riders.

Sophie B Wright: band looks good.

The Bacchagator! Riders have gator heads and outfits!

St Paul's in Covington: nice dancers in blue, they dance as one! I
love the band outfits and remember them doing a great job dancing
years back. They don't play this time though.

We see a different Lucille Ball float. Two!

#21 Love Those Southern Bells.

Not sure of the band but they are in red. good dancers and band.

#22. The float looks like it is ejaculating beads. We see it against
a dark background. There's an image for you.

WJ Fisher: hard to see. They do a tired Rock and Roll pt 2. The hosts
are talking off mic.

#24 Love Bug: The band plays Rock and Roll pt 2 too!'

The band behind the Love Birds float (#25) looks good.

We see a Stop Youth Violence float. Good but unusual to see something
like that.

The parade ends, 9:20 pm NY time.

I switch to the DSU cam. a few floats and bands pass by before I
recognize where they are. The Lover's Lane float is the one I
recognize.

No hosts. The DSU cam is good to see an overview of band formations
and dances but not so good to see floats.

We hear the noise that cell phones make when they interfere with
broadcast audio. (Hear it all the time on C-Span...) I'm guessing the
cameraman's phone is either ringing or he's making a call.

The steam is good by hiccuping every 7 seconds. Getting full motion otherwise.

I'
I watched it to the end on the DSU cam. Here's what I'd add.

We hear some people chanting LSU, LSU. (LSU sucks. I went to Tulane.)

We see some women enjoying the music and dancing vigorously in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

White throws stand out against the black background as they are thrown from the floats.

Some banner holders dance nicely.

A nice tune from Sophie P Wright?

See more nice baton twirling and dancing.

See some nice dancers in blue who turn out to be from St Paul's. The band does Word Up.

The I Love Lucy float goes by and some guy near the camera is heard saying, "I Love Lucy" in almost a Ricky Ricardo voice. Then we hear his girlfriend, I guess, saying, "Ricky, I'm cold."

The cops stop the parade and we see a LOT of people crossing in each direction. They also let some more tractors come in.

We hear off-camera: "15 more floats." His friend says, "What? Oh my God."

We hear a new weird noise. Have no idea what it is. Digital artifact? Some sort of interference I think.

A band plays Heard It Through The Grapevine.

The large tow truck comes by and blasts its horn. Love it.

The parade ends at about 11:45 NY time.

2/14: Thoth

2010-02-14T16:57:00.002-05:00

Watched the paradecam. WDSU has yet to show anything today. Weird
since they said they would.

While waiting to for the parade to start, some guy flashes his chest
quickly as he talks on his cell phone and waves to the camera.

About 2:20 NY time, the parade starts. Theme is All Mixed Up (mixed
drinks). MC, a guy, gets a "get out of jail" card for Plaquemines
Parish. He thinks it may come in handy.

We learn that Thoth should be pronounced as Toeth, not Toth. I wasn't sure.

Mexico NY marching band and color guard teamed up with Chalmette HS.
The Fighting Owls. Un hunh.

We can see the MC in the lower right hand of the screen. He looks
bald, or blond.

He says, "The indefatigable engine of our city, out youth."

On the Tulane band, "they look much too young to be college students."

He asks, "where is my cheat sheet?" It's under your arm, the one
you've got the mic in! I can see it. Soon enough it drops. A couple
of minutes later he finds it.

Stilt walkers! Jerrica is slightly off camera and off mic.

Nice Egyptian bird (Condor?) on the side of one float.

Nice streetcar float. I can see the male host dance. They play When The Saints.

Mt Carmel again.

Cajun Cowboys make their horse walk sideways.

Irish Channel Corner Club, a walking club, apparently has been around
for a long time!
http://www.cornerclubnola.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Gris Gris Strut, who have their own Facebook page.

About 3 pm we lose the audio. About 15 minutes later we get it back
and we are at street level. That doesn't last though and we're back
up on the roof.

Can see Jerrica with her dark hair and sunglasses. She talks of her
brother, a lawyer, who got 250 dozen long stemmed roses to give out
today!

A float gets stuck going around the corner and about 5 minutes later,
the crowd cheers when it starts going again.

The Loyola dance team struts to awful music.

Baker High School plays Rock & Roll pt 2 (like others before it) and
it sounds good! And they look good too.

It is beautiful to see the horses go by.

The Margarita float has a nice face painted on the side, fire in its
eyes and mouth.

I've seen 2 people pick up plastic bags on the street. Are they
neatniks (Yeah1) or do they want to use them for their loot?

More awful music.

Kate, kate@loyola.com, whose been a host before, doesn't like White
Russians because she doesn't like the idea of milk with alcohol. Hmmm.

Our Lady? Academy from Marrero, nice dancers, terrible music.

Girls in red, also, nice dancers, terrible music.

A red car drives by. Its underbody catches a yellow plastic bag and
takes it with it. Will that cause a fire later on?

An Army truck passes by and blasts its horn. The crowd loves it. (Me too.)

Amite High School, looks good, sounds good too but doesn't play long.

Float #20, Mimosa, has a bottle of wine on the front. Hunh? One of
the hosts says, "Now you're being mean" as the riders pelt them. We
lose the audio and then it comes back. One of the hosts gets some
fluffy handcuffs!

About 4 pm NY time, we shift to the street-level cam! It looks SO
MUCH BETTER! We see a nice close up of the float and riders. The
riders are in blackface and are wearing fake tuxedos! Very cool.

Oh La La (Music Company) has a dance team with nice brown outfits
with feather headdresses.

Abdul and the Tentmakers (great name and I've seen them in many
parades over the years) play Mustang Sally and some guy dances behind
them in a brown suit with a pimp hat. Very nice!

The Just Doin' It Band plays Mardi Gras Mambo.

The parade ends at about 4:15 pm NY time.

Nice floats, nice costumes. A good parade.

WDSU is still not on. What's up with that?

Some of the drinks the floats were named after:

Swampwater, Cape Cod, Strawberry Daiquiri, Hurricane!, Grasshopper,
Sex on the Beach, Boilermaker, Margarita, Kamikaze, Fog Cutter,
Singapore Sling, Jungle Juice, Drunk Monk, Blue Hawaii, Rum Runner.

(links for some of these groups to come later.)

Now to have lunch.

2/14: Mid City

2010-02-14T14:09:00.001-05:00

1:30 pm NY time, we see a truck.
1:36 it moves and the parade starts.

This parade has foil floats which don't look good on the cam.

Nothing to report. The parade ends at 2pm, NY time.

2/14: Babylon & Okeanos

2010-02-14T13:33:00.001-05:00

"Highlights" only

Babylon
11:30 NY time: I watch the paradecam which is still on the roof with
no hosts. NO DSU yet.

They have technical problems: no video, so we miss Babylon.

Okeanos
12:30 NY time. We see a truck. Then, ATVs of the Shriners.

2 busses of clowns!

lots of bands

little kids dancing in pink outfits, described as "sas-a-licious",
not to be confused with salacious.

The stream dies for about 5 minutes.

Parade is over by 1:10 NY time.

Mid City next.

2/13: Iris, Tucks, Endymion

2010-02-13T23:29:00.007-05:00

Iris

I watch the paradecam.

The only thing I can bother writing down is that David Torkanowsky
was on the lasts float. I took notes on all the rest but at this
point it doesn't seem worth it to write it all down here. Maybe later.

Tucks

The dragons of New Orleans. I've seen them in other parades at night.
Nice to see them in the day time. (See this for last year's
appearance.) The Muff-A-Lottas appear again, Clap Hands as their music. And they
throw REAL muffaletta sandwiches! (mini, wrapped in plastic)

Endymion

The WDSU parade tracker isn't working so I don't know when it will
appear. Have to use the DSU cam as it isn't going near Napolean and
St Charles. The DSU cam is set up to look down St Charles towards
Canal from it's spot opposite One Shell Square and is unhosted. It does zoom in here and there so that's good.

The parade doesn't come on camera until about 8 pm NY time, about 4
hours after it was supposed to start.

We see Tom Benson happily swinging his trophy back and forth. We see
Bree, happy. We see several Mardi Gras Indian-style outfits on
various people on the floats. Not sure who they are but they are
royalty.

... I'm getting bored. One nice thing is I see some ballet moves by
some of the dancers. Another, some guy next to the camera is yelling
out things like, "something for the little one", for a young child
near him. Beautiful floats.

Towards the end, and after along wait with the parade stalled, the
camera gets darker and it doesn't get fixed.

The parade ends about 11 pm NY time. Tomorrow could be boring too. Bacchus is always worth waiting for though.

I was thinking during the long pause that here are all these people, screaming to get what the riders will throw. Even with the parade stopped, they yell, anxious to get as much as they can. Don't they get tired of it? How much do they need? Some of the riders stopped throwing things but the crowd kept yelling for more. I would think after a certain point, you'd have enough. But no. As long as people are willing to give you something for free, there will be people who want it, think they need it and will keep yelling for more even after they have plenty.

2/12: Hermes, Etat, Morpheus and Muses

2010-02-13T00:22:00.002-05:00

I'm only gonna list the highlights cuz there are too many.

I tried to watch DSU but it didn't come on til 9:17 NY time and only
had a stationary camera up by Poydras and St Charles with no hosts.
OK. I'll check that later.

So, watching the paradecam. Hosts are Kate and James though he
doesn't get introduced as far as I can tell. We also hear Jerrica at
one point.

7:10 NY time: The audio gets really loud and distorted. It gets fixed by 7:30.

Some nice floats, skipping most of them: a very cool purple serpent
(#17), nice Phoenix (#20),

SB Wright - nice stepping

Krewe d'Etat

Skeletons!

Kate talks about friend from Brookyn, NJ...Um, it's Brooklyn, NY.

Dante's Inferno - Not so divine comdey is the theme.

#4 - Gates of Hell - City Hell, take a number - 666,

#6 Greed. They lambast Tom Benson! No one is spared!

#7 - Chris Owens. Host reads the blurb: "They could have put the
shocking Tara Reid on but they wanted to keep it family friendly."

#8 Falsifier of words - Bernie Madoff! (Pharoh Madoff...)

#9 Root of Evil - ACORN. ... "corrupt organization run by nitwits"
Boo. Nice float though.

The Dancing Dilebertos! Men in red dresses. Good dance routine!

#10 Tiger Woods - "Should have stuck to one hole in one."
"Appropriately named Beaver Creek."

#11 Lust - Sen Vitter, Sen Edwards...

#12 A thing worn out - Viagra and Cialis.

#13 on Obama but I can't read my notes, something about power.

#15 Dogs of Hell, Cerberus - guards City Hall so that an honest
person can't get i! Mitch Landrieu and Eddie (not so ready) Sapir
listed.

#17 Magical Illusion. Chris Rose's column criticizing Mayor Nagin's
never-delivered promises.

Cool music of the Bones Brigade.

#20 Last Rites - "This internet crap is killing us." The TP and
others are listed.

A fire engine toots out Who Dat!/Stand up and get crunked

Morpheus

Not much to remember

Fantasy Girls

Do What You Wanna done by band

Muses
What a great parade! Creative, sexy, fun.

Big Easy Rollergirls

shoes on poles with nice neon lights!

neon butterflies!

O Perry Walker HS marching band - stepping in place, nice dancing,
band looks and sounds good

#5 Give a thoughtful gift - vacuum cleaner on the front!

Kate wonders why Denver is the Mile High City...

Elvi on mopeds. Fantastic! (Rolling Elvi?)

The Pussyfooters!

#12 SIze does matter - Diamond! "I can't churn butter with a
toothpick" written on the side, lol.

#13 We need to talk - blah blah blah written on the side.

Lady godivas! with thongs drawn on (or worn over) body suits. Some
had aureoles drawn on...

#15 Lay your cards on the table - The loser (Tarot) and the player, the bore...

Bearded Oysters! in white and parasols

Cameltoe Steppers! Good!

#20 Rise to the ocassion - Viagra pills

#21 Don't expect us to share everything - A huge male sex doll!

The 610 Stompers! Men doing the Stripes dance routine.

The Muff-A-Lottas! Good dancers with poodles skirts!

#25 How do I love thee? Let me count the parades. Then the parade ends.

The DSU cam is showing the Hermes parade still so I keep watching it.

2/10, Druids

2010-02-10T21:40:00.000-05:00

For some reason, the WDSU feed never materialized. I wonder why.

I watched it on the paradecam. The parade started at 8:03 NY time, an hour and a half past the scheduled time. The audio was distorting pretty badly but got fixed about 10 minutes into it, leaving a level that was low but clean, with some hum.

Two women (girls) hosted. One might have been called Jerrica? The other, a laconic graduate of LSU (could be the same Lauren who hosted last year but her voice was a little different and that Lauren was married and while this one was lusting after the men in uniform it doesn't necessarily mean she wasn't married...)

I'm not going to list everyone but just the highlights.

O Perry Walker - looked good in white uniforms, nice stepping, good dancers behind in gold and blue, good flags, dancers in red

Lauren matter-of-factly in her usual deadpan voice - "One of the horses just went to the bathroom."

Riverside Ramblers sounded good, playing trad jazz

Edna Karr - nice pom poms

The Muffalattas - a good dance troupe looking good in their poodle skirts. The music was Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford and then They Asked For You by The Meters. Well alright.

The theme was holes? And wizards. Had a man hole, watering hole float... bung hole!

Other girl , to the Coast Guard float: "Throw me something... please?"

Donut hole

Walter L Cohen HS - nice flags, batons, band! Nice white outfits behind.

One of them got a boob throw which she showed off to the camera. Nice. A single boob.

As usual, one of the throws hits one of the hosts and we hear it on mic.

#11 - Fire in the hole

#12 19th Hole, had Tiger Brew bottle on top. One of the girls: "Never ask a rider what he wants." A woman yells back, "I'm 80, I have nothing." After they throw her something she throws kisses back at them. She then yells, "I'm a bead ho, I'm a bead hoe. I love everybody in New Orleans." A true Mardi Gras moment.

One of the hosts gets a flashee thingee, which I think she breaks within about 30 seconds.

One gets a New Orleans Water Company water meter doubloon (with the famous crescent moon on it). Very nice.

One of the hosts gives a shout out to the men in uniform, the cops, and one turns and waves to the camera shyly and moves out of camera sight.

8:46 NY time the parade moves again. It had been stalled for awhile.

Dancers in red sequins.

LE Behrman HS? - smiling girls in blue, band looks good, sounds good, nice blue outfits after and white ones too for the twirler flag team.

Knot hole, shout out to Bob. (I think Bob was on the non-paradecam side...)

Roll a (something) dance group with boas.

Key hole, with a woman in the large keyhole up front.

Blow hole with a whale.

About 5 to 9 the parade ends. No sign of the DSU feed still.

2/9, Saints parade on WDSU

2010-02-09T23:07:00.004-05:00

Norman Robinson, anchor for WDSU, continues to amaze me with his nonsense.

Norman: "Family, friends of staff..." hunh?

Randi Rousseau - obnoxious.

Norman: "Look at that traffic." They show ONE LANE of bumper to bumper on the Crescent City Connection. Big deal.

"10 units. Bands." Thanks, Norman.

"They are our team. They are our champions. This is our home." Margarite Orr.

"No matter what station." Station of life or tv station?

Norman: "That's an air effect." No, it's steam from an old fire engine (pulled by horses)... WTF is an air effect?

Whoopee. A picture of the helicopter in the air.

Margeret: "This is bigger than Fat Tuesday." Arthur: "They just are."

Norman: "I've never seen so many units in a parade where people are so excited." Only in New Orleans.

Norman: "Somebody's blowing bubbles out of one of the units."

Norman: "We should be seeing our first musical unit very very soon."

Some bishops pass by!

Crowd is dangerously close to the float with the players on it.

Cool shot of all the blue cop motorcycle lights.

Nagin: "I don't want to hear anybody in the house to be laid back tonight..."

Norman: "Uh oh, there's the St Augustine marching band." (Playing Beat It) Uh oh?

(Goddam stream restarts itself...)

Norman: "We owe him a great debt of gratitude." Or a great debt.

Good to see the crowd further back from the float.

Norman: "This is something just tremendous to watch. Oh my gosh."... "This is a first for everything." Un hunh.

Up Howard Ave is towards St Charles? I would think they would be going down Howard Ave.

Irvin Mayfield flubbed the National Anthem.

Marine band plays Get Crunked!

Norman: "Nothing like being a part of a winning organization." (comment removed)

Norman: "Now that is a money shot, baby." Un hunh.

Norman: "Firefighters making their way down St Charles Street." I believe it is an Avenue, Norman...

Norman: "Wow, look at those Saints on that float." (comment removed)

St Augustine, sounding good!

Cute Dalmatian!

Norman; "One of our former co-workers text me." Texted, no?

Norman: "He can do the Benson boogie all night long." Good one.

Football players in the Muses shoe!

Chris: "He's usually not in high heels." Norman: "Well, you know, it is a New Orleans team." OK. lol

Not that many people at Poydras (on the north/lake side of the street)... Have seen plenty more during Mardi Gras.

Nice aerial shot of McDonogh #35 dancers.

Shut up so we can hear them talk to the players.

Sen. Vitter. Should be booed.

Nice dancing from Warren Easton!

Nice alligator float!

Big crowd on Canal!

Fun to watch the defensive players dance.

Norman, talking about an aerial shot: "They look like ants." Brilliant insight.

Norman: "What a tremendous turnout for this team, this organization."

Yes, good camerawork on Sky 6. Beautiful long shot zoom in to players on the float.

DSU takes a break and shows an empty studio, then the Lee Circle cam.

The float, Smokey Mary, looks great with all the flags.

Good dancers in front of that float. Who are they?

Norman: "This is destiny. This is Canal Street." (comment removed)

Norman describes that we are looking at two shots that are LABELLED on the screen. Duh.

Norman: "You wanna remember that forever, these pictures."

Margaret: "This is the most exciting moment in these people's lives." Hmm.

Norman: "That shot says it all." He's said that how many times so far tonight?

Norman: "Party until about 3 a.m. in the morning." Yes, 3 a.m. is in the morning.

Norman: Look at all the black and gold umbrellas." All two of them.

Norman: "It's still early in the New Orleans time period." (comment removed)

Female fan in the crowd: "The wind is blowing and the bush is burning."

Blaine Kern speaks to the enthusiasm of the crowd. His girlfriend?

A marching band passes by. Norman: "It's a big unit, Arthur."

10:10 NY time. Stream restarts itself.

Arthur: Good Blaine Kern in China story.

Norman describes what we are seeing on the screen when again, the screen has the two cams LABELLED. (comment removed)

DSU woman Melanie: "The parade is coming to a culmination here." Un hunh.

Getting audio ahead of video.

Idiot newscaster Fletcher: "Final question here, I know I'm saying final question alot but we're live." (comment removed)

Football player Jeff Charleston: Like... like... like...

DSU woman Melanie: "The floats are surely, slowy but surely coming in."

Why do people on mic have to say "again" when they haven't said what they are talking about before?

Fletcher Mackel: "Here come people like Roman Harper and such." And such? More verbal diahrhea.

Damn, the stream restarts a tired player talks about spending "$1200 on all the dbs." What's a db?

Now stream tells me it is an invalid URL. I reboot and it's ok.

10:48 pm NY time and it's still going on!

Getting white noise on feed with Chris and Arthur.

It's good that when they go on break, they give us the Lee Circle cam feed.

Arthur is tired: "He consulted some good." Arthur, at least, has a brain and makes sense when he talks.

Fletcher: "Again..." Please...

11 pm, they wrap it up.

One other thing. Usually these newscasters ID each other too much, before and after each spot. For some reason, maybe they were carried away by the swell of excitement, they didn't ID people enough! I don't think I heard more than one or two and I watched 6 hours worth! I knew it was Arthur Hardy but did other non-New Orleans viewers? And who was Chris? Fletcher Mackel was ID'd. Maybe Randi. Why wouldn't they ID themselves? Very odd.

2/7, Carrollton and King Arthur

2010-02-07T22:39:00.001-05:00

Mardi Gras!

I'll be watching the parades on WDSU and the paradecam on nola.com, listening to WWOZ when they do remotes.

I tune in to the paradecam today at about 11:30 NY time. The hosts, two men, are intelligent for a change. The parade starts on time but then there is a gap. The paradecam stream looks good full screen but is a little jerky. Audio is good. It's a nice sunny day though it looks a little cold as people are wrapped up.

One host is on mic, the other, not. (Suggestion: when the other person speaks, point the mic in their direction...) I'm getting a lot of hum too and have figured out that it is coming from the paradecam, not me.

I'll try to review/write down as much as I can but I will also miss some of it.

***

Carrolton

First band, Jesuit HS, plays Louie Louie.

St Mary's Academy - Rock & Roll pt 2? (Gary Glitter) We can hear their feet hopping on the street!

Hear some beads hit the mic!

Mt Carmel Carmelites - boring

McDonough #35 - good tune! They stop in front of the cam!

I notice from far away that the old K&B at the corner of Napolean and St Charles now looks like a house. Is it? It doesn't look much like a business anymore.

We lose the audio but it comes back. I think the host is turning the mic off, probably to save batteries.

McDonogh #35 still - nice moves as they stand in place.

The host says "there's nothing as mysterious as a paused parade." Interesting. 'A man with a tux is scowling.' Always a bad sign. True. The other anchor is intelligent too! The guy on mic sounds like me! He promotes Fat Harry's; he's probably been told to since they host the cam.

Brother Martin Crusader band - look good, sound good (play Mardi Gras in New Orleans by Professor Longhair)

float #6 - Carnival in Rio. The hosts are enjoying themselves.

Abita Springs Riding Club - beautiful horses.

St Paul's - love those outfits.

Lafayette Academy - nice dancing. Host, "Looking so adorable it almost makes my teeth hurt."

float #10 -Not Occident, The Orient. 'Big (can't read my writing) lizard dragon'

East St John Marching Wildcats, Reserve, LA - nice drum section.

Streetcar full of ladies playing xylophones! Xylophone Corp of McGhee (sp?)

Bavarian Beer garden float head!

The cameraman is getting the hang of it now and is panning up so we can see who's on the floats.

Warren Easton Sr HS marching band - Stand Up, Get Crunked, nice long shot of band. Looking good as they pass by & sounding good too (just drumming).

#16 Fishing the Rig - 'foundation of our Gulf coast economy' What the fishing or the oil?

A Mickey Mouse float is next and is described as "a large non-trademarked rodent." lol Yes it is distinct from Mickey and more rat-like.

I see a dog not on a leash cross the street. Hope it is being taken care of.

A Scot says hi to his family back home.

Cute little dancers dance what looks like a Scottish jig!

Martin Behr (?) charter school - short and "adorable" do a nice dance. good baton dancers, good looking band in green and white, good cheerleaders.

float #20 Paris

Superstar Steppers - nice dancing, nice flags at the end.

float #12 ends the parade.

I watch kids gather up what's left on the street. The cam looks down St Charles and we see more kids. A cop look sharp in his white shirt with black tie and black pants.

***

King Arthur

first float - Dawn Brown, Fox 5 meteorologist. Pretty blond.

Captain of King Arthur has nice plumage, nice float.

St Augustine marching band. (My cat throws up so I miss seeing them.)

George Washington Carver band

Nice King Arthur medallion seen.

Eleanor McMain secondary school marching band - nice dancers, band looks and sounds good, nice flag team (sorry, squad) behind band.

Sarah L Reed HS - nice flags, nice band, nice dancers follow after.

float #11 - Salute to Michael Jackson. People throwing beads to the empty float. Weird especially in this case.

Little kids!

float #12 What a long strange trip it's been.

Streetcar float after that! #14 - Down the Avenue. Peace signs on the side! I like that.

LE (something) marching band - nice baton twirlers, band looks good ('blue and white not withstanding' as those are the Colts colors...)

Hey, mama. Nice dancing (hip grinding).

Cutoff (LA) Warriors

Float #16

Frederick Douglas Sr HS marching band - sounds great, nice blue outfits on baton twirlers and band, good drumming!

Lucille Ball float #17

dancers in pink and black (LA (something) Girls Mardi Gras dancers)

float #18 - I can't explain. The host can't explain either. A big bear on the front, slogans. We see a close up of the riders.

Some dancers in black! (Host: "heartbreakingly great")

New Orleans Cajun Cowboys in red and black.

#20 Mary Poppins/Proud Mary. Nice music heard.

"A little float lagniappe!" #21 "You can make it if you try" has a Saints theme.

The parade ends.

***

Hoping to see Barkus somehow. May have to rely on YouTube. Maybe DSU will do a video on it...

11/28, It's eggnog time!

2009-11-28T12:36:00.008-05:00

It's that time of the year again, eggnog time! Stores don't stock eggnog until around Thanksgiving. I don't know why. I'd drink it all year 'round. Sure I could buy the Borden's crap in a can but that makes me psychotic and is nothing but chemicals. You don't even have to refrigerate it. No thanks.

My first foray into eggnog this year had me buying 4 containers today. (2 1/2 gallons and 2 quarts). The brands I bought are:

- Turkey Hill (1/2 gallon, expires 12/13)
- Stop and Shop regular I guess. (1 quart, expires 12/13) It has a new logo and only says eggnog so that's all I know.
- Garelick Farms (1 quart, expires 1/7)
- Stop and Shop Lite (1/2 gallon, expires 1/9)

I've started in on the Turkey Hill since that had the earliest expiration date, along with the Stop and Shop Lite. Opening the cap, you smell an alcohol-like smell, and since you know there is no alcohol in it, it has to be some sort of chemical. (I don't pay much attention to the ingredients unless the taste is so foul I have to wonder what it is.) It almost smells like what you would serve friends, adding alcohol to it. (I add rum but it is even better with whiskey but I don't drink or have whiskey on hand.) First taste is good. Second sip, the same. You can drink enough of it and not find any strange flavors or have it get too sweet. So, I rate this as good. Others may be better but this is certainly not bad.

I'll post here when I move on the next brand. I'm sure I can drink them all before they expire. (Or will I expire from drinking them all?)

It's another good thing about winter.* (Never thought you'd hear me say that did you?) Buy some eggnog today! Cheers!

*Other things include being warm inside, both from toasty heat and clothes that surround you. Snow is nice to look at and walk in. Crisp air is refreshing. You get to feed the birds suet and they love it (though my suet feeder is languishing with my home-made suet. My local store isn't stocking a good brand so I have find another source...) I'm sure there are more things to like about winter but I can't think of them now. Oh, no bugs inside the house. Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays being times to reflect and be nice to each other. I'm sure there are more things...

Turns out there are some eggnog songs out there and some are good. Check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LReN4lygHcI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74dlqxCfcu0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFD2CNwWfbQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLbc701ruY

12/1
I use up the Turkey Hill and open up the Garelick Farms. It smells fresh. Tastes sweet, fills your mouth. (It was foamy but I had shaken it up.) More of a milk taste.

12/3
I start in on the Stop and Shop regular eggnog. I don't notice any smell as I open it up. It tastes plain, a milky taste but thick. (I shook it up a little before opening it.) A slight dry taste to it.

12/7
I start the Stop and Shop Lite. No smell when opened. Tastes like sweet milk. That's it. It's also giving me a headache after drinking it. (That might be due to my not drinking milk other than eggnog and that only this time of year.)

12/8
I may start splitting the eggnog with some ice tea, to get that Thai ice tea effect. (See this earlier post.)

11/3, Voting (Rockland County, NY)

2009-11-03T12:02:00.001-05:00

I just voted. Last night I looked at the County's Board of Elections website to prepare for today. As usual, it disappoints.

1) There is no mention of the date or times for the election/polling places. Shouldn't that be front and center?

2) In small print*, in the lower right hand corner of the main page it says "Congressional, Assembly or Legislative district lookup click here. Don't know your election district? Go to Polling Place." There is a link for "click here." There is no link for "Go to Polling Place." This poor design will make important information hard to find.

*The small print is the same size print used on the rest of the main page and fairly small but important information is in larger print elsewhere on that page. Shouldn't this be considered important information too?

3) An animation isn't displaying correctly. It says "vote ...and the choice is, Don't ...and the choice is. register ...or you have." It does display properly with other browsers. It should display properly in ALL browsers.

4) The League Of Women Voters site has the polling place hours. Why doesn't the Board of Elections?

5) The vote-ny.com website says the voting machines for my polling place are ES&S AutoMARKs. I was apprehensive about that so watched the video they provide that explains how those machines work. What a mess (voting on them will be.) And the video is poorly made. While being professionally made, it doesn't show things that it is talking about. It also said in the instructions, when inserting your ballot: "Note that it takes 2 to 4 minutes for the machine to display your ballot." Are they kidding?! It should not take that long for any voting machine to become ready FOR EACH VOTE!

It turns out the old style machines were at my polling place. I will write to vote-ny to see why they said Rockland County was using those machines. (Maybe some places in Rockland are but not everywhere.)

Public option discussed in finance committee, pt 2

2009-09-29T15:52:00.001-04:00

I come back at about 1:44 and Sen. Rockefeller is talking. $1.5
trillion subsidy and additional money in this bill goes to the health
insurance industry? Why are we subsidizing them at all?

Baucus proclaims how this bill/mark isn't a boon to insurance
companies. Among other "reasons" he states is that this bill forces
everyone to buy insurance. How is that not a benefit to the insurance
companies? Holds their feet to the fire? Are you kidding? He keeps
defending his bill. It's awful!

Ah, that is old footage.

Now to the new session.

Jim Bunning on now. He has been one of the worst apologists for the
insurance companies I've seen. Not too fond of this guy. I don't see
anyone else in there besides Baucus and him.

(Audio quality is good on C-Span 3. I'm using RealPlayer at this
point but have also used QT/Flip4Mac.)

Bunning is wasting our time telling us about his kids being too young
to know what kind of healthcare they may want.

Insurance companies make only 3.3% profit margin?

Drs and hospitals don't deserve big salaries. Call me a socialist.
(And if the government was the sole source for drug companies, we
could get lower prices.

Sen. Cantwell is on now. She is sharp. Always been impressed with
her. (She reminds me of my oldest sister. Looks like her and is smart
like her.) Making lots of great points.

(I have lunch so may miss some of what she says.)

So far, I haven't heard anything that would discredit her.

Now she talks about Costco...

Crapo on now. (Not pronounced like crap-o.) Another scary Republican.
An evil man.

Excessive regulation may inhibit competition. But the question is how
much is excessive. We need more, just like we do in the finance
sector, and both have to be better enforced. OK?

I have to admit though one of his staffers, the blond who sits behind
him and has her hair pulled back today, is hot. I love blonds with
dark eyebrows.

Kerry makes some good points. Entitlement (Medicare) vs
self-sustaining (Rockeeller bill).

(I miss some more as I talk on the phone.)

Sen. Rockefeller says, 'let me address my colleagues on the left who
want to maintain the status quo'... He meant to say 'on the right.'

Sen. Rockefeller: "Everyone believes everything they see on television."!

They vote on the Rockefeller amendment. Conrad votes no. Lincoln -
no. Nelson - no. Carper - no. Geez. Baucus - no. Thanks Dems. The
Dems have a 13-10 majority and they can't pass bills? (They lose
8-15.)

Schumer on now.
But we LIKE single-payer...

Baucus ought to be ashamed, and he may be, that he can't support a
public option because the votes aren't there. (The insurance industry
has bought off too many senators.)

Nelson is a good supporter of most causes I support though I don't
know why he voted against the Rockefeller amendment. Interesting that
he was the insurance commissioner of FL awhile back.

Health care cannot be a for-profit business.

Baucus is in a hurry to get this done.

Conrad likes the "public interest option."

Grassley on now.... "Many of the things we feared have come to past."
You mean pass.

Ensign on now. He's slick. He's afraid once a public plan gets
started, it will be impossible to stop. Good!

'We don't need a government auto company cuz auto companies are
already making a profit.' Um. They weren't a few months ago.

Bunning on now.
Tells Schumer his bill will do what he doesn't intend it to do.

Kyl on now.
This is going to be too big to fail...

'State insurance commissioners should keep the companies honest.' But
they don't.

Cantwell on now.

The comments have been shorter.

Baucus doesn't see how it will get 60 votes on the floor so he's
going to vote against it. Thanks ----head.

Schumer on for his last stab. We hear Grassley and Baucus on mic as
well. Schumer echoes my thoughts on state commissioners.

They vote: Conrad - no, Lincoln - no, (Carper aye!), Baucus - no. (It
loses,10-13)

Pitiful. 3 Dems could have made the difference.

Let's see what happens when the Senate bill gets reconciled with the
House bill.

Public option discussed in finance committee, pt 1

2009-09-29T13:13:00.001-04:00

Senator Baucus opens the meeting by saying, "try to stay awake guys".
I know they are tired but this isn't the most encouraging way to
start out this meeting on a very important topic.

Senator Rockefeller presents his amendment. It seems he is offering a
public option in an exchange. Not good enough. (Medicare for all, I
say. Not as an option. Health insurance companies should only sell
coverage for things not covered like cosmetic surgery, etc. Medicare
should cover all health issues. (Dental, mental, obstetrics, etc.)

Senator Nelson asks Senator Rockefeller to explain his bill and
Senator Rockefeller politely refuses. I don't understand that.

Isn't it amazing that we subsidize the insurance companies now and
will do so in the future? Why do we subsidize industries that are
profitable? They subsidize "the people" to buy the insurance and they
also subsidize the insurance companies as well. It makes no sense.

Baucus defends the "mark" as being hard on the insurance companies.
They levy a fee for 60 billion but are subsidizing them to the tune
of 500 billion.

The audio quality of C-Span 1 on DirecTV is bad as usual. Distortion,
and now we are hearing monitor ring, which is a problem caused
whoever is doing audio in the Senate chamber.

Grassley tries to defend his approach on the "public option" and then
announces his opposition to Sen Rockefeller's amendment. Grassley has
no credit as far as I'm concerned. ('A slow walk to government run
health care.' Yes. et's do it!) Then he yammers on about half truths
and misconceptions that are the Republican talking points. (People
come to the US for health care...)

Grassley 'A government plan will run the insurance companies out of
business.' I'm all for it!

Grassly rails on about how bad the public option is. Yawn. Most of
what he says has been disproved.

What he's saying is the public option will be more cost effective so
let's not have it because it will put insurance companies out of
business. Doesn't want government bureaucrats making decisions
instead of Drs but that is what the insurance companies are doing
now. Exactly that.

Now he waffles on Medicare.

Grassley wants choice? Choice to pay more than we need to? How about
not needing a choice because the care provided is good. (And I guess
choice doesn't apply to abortion. Can't have choice there, can we?)

Hatch on now. ... "enjoy the private coverage of their choice."
Enjoy? Enjoy paying exorbitant rates and have limited coverage? No,
we don't enjoy it, Senator.

God forbid Drs can't charge whatever they want. We don't need rich
Drs. We need Drs who like to practice medicine. They will be
adequately paid. They are in other countries.

Yes, let's go this way!

No, the government DOES NOT MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS! the Drs do! Liar!

No, the American people will not lose control over their care.

Menendez strongly in favor of Rockefeller's (and Schumer's) amendment.

All (of the Senators) are for choice unless it's for a public option.

Drs ought to be required in this program. He weasels out of Sen
Ensign's question. Then Rockefeller weasels out, after saying they
won't be required to then saying only for two years.

Sen Nelson asks, is the public option a disaster in NJ? Menedez
answers since there is no public option it can't be a disaster. What
was the point of that?

Sen Conrad bashes Rockefeller's plan. Conrad mentions the TR Reid
book! Our system ought to be not for profit. (More talk is about not
for profit insurance but I am for not for profit health care and NO
insurance being needed.)

Ensign tries to criticize our ranking in the world of preventable
deaths by saying that it isn't valid because we have more car
accidents and gunshot wounds than other countries do. Hardly
something to draw attention to since you (Senators) are supposed to
be doing things to improve that.

Sen Rockefeller would have been better starting off saying his plan
IS a government run plan for the first two years.

It's a shame Dems aren't clear on the plans being offered. Bingaman
is confused. Nelson was. Conrad was against the Rockefeller plan....

Schumer up now to talk about Rockefeller's amendment. He then
launches into the state of health care and insurance.

Ensign is missing the point. We may be good at taking care of cancer
There are MANY more health conditions where we are NOT better than
other countries. (Infant mortality, others. Cost as percent of GDP is
twice that of the next "rich" nation. Also bankruptcies due to health
costs are obscenely high.)

Sen Kyle on now.
Britain's health care system may be the world's 3rd biggest employer
but their system works! Works well.

Sen Stabenow on now.
I have liked most of what she has said in the past.

They break at about 5 after 1 to return in about 45 minutes.

More to come.

American Folk Festival, Sunday, 8/30

2009-08-30T18:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's webcast was rained out. Today is a nice day.

Heard one gaffe so far: something about making yourself homely.

Danny Paisley and Southern Grass didn't remind me much of his
father's band. His singing is more shrill.

Mix is good. In the Ethiopan set, some of the women are off-mic. Not
sure if they don't have mics or if the sound man/woman is missing
them.

Hosts are listenable. Other than that one gaffe, nothing too
embarrassing. These DJs have presence of mind so they don't say
stupid things. They also are not breaking in every other moment to ID
the station. This is the first ID I've heard during the music,
between songs, today, at 1:37.

It is flowing nicely. No bad communication between on-air DJ and the
stage. Isn't that nice!

1:54 pm Station ID
"And you are listening to the live broadcast of American Folk
Festival..." should be THE American Folk Festival...

Only outright negative: There must be a generator near the ERU booth.
We can hear a low hum. (Was also hearing some echo on the DJ mic
right now but it stopped.)

An intelligent discussion with the Ethiopian band. Credit goes to an
intelligent DJ and it didn't hurt to have a Harvard professor added
in. The Ethiopian is a little off-mic sometimes but it isn't too hard
to hear him.

Gadelle starting up, doing their soundcheck. Good timing, just as the
interview ends. Need to turn down the stage feed while they do the
sound check.

Go to the stage. Flawless. Good mic-ing of feet! Levels going up and down.

Hunh? The sound goes dead and then we a hear a bluegrass CD. Then
back to the stage. OK. Vocals too low. Fiddle out of the mix. Oh well.

Some innovation on foot percussion rhythms! And then they run it
through an efx box. Nice.

Les Charbonniers de L'Enfer are on. Lead singer is not in mix. Can
hear him in the monitor. We hear the mix change, singers sound
closer, but the lead singer gets more out of it. Crowd is mic'd out
of it.

Next tune. Lead's level goes up too high then ok.

Overall, nice.

Now on to Terry "harmonica" Bean.

His vocal is way low.

Johsua Nelson on at 5:30. I fall asleep for most of it. Funny to hear
a black gospel group sing about being a good jew. This music could
sell anything.

It gets livelier toward the end.

So, it's over now. The best for me, Les Charbonniers de L'Enfer .

Ants like me

2009-08-17T13:57:00.001-04:00

All summer ants will find my leg as I sit, inside, in my comfortable
chair and crawl up it. Several times a day and night. Within minutes
of each other.

I have ant baits out. They haven't worked this year. They barely
worked last year. Still, each year I have them to some degree and
each year they like to crawl up my leg.

What is it about ants that they like me? (Or, what is it about me
that they like? the sweetness of sweat? The sugars in sweat?)

I capture them and release them outside. I've asked an ant expert,
are these the same ants coming back after I put them out? He didn't
think so. He also thought that they wouldn't survive away from their
colony. I don't feel too bad about that but I am somewhat of a Jain
about this*. I don't want to kill them but it seems that moving them
outside amounts to a death sentence. I don't want to just squish
them. I do wash them down the drain, which if you are an ant, must be
a hellish experience. Think about it. One second you are walking
along. The next, you are swept up in a torrent of water and you go
down a black hole. There is no escape.

I try not to think about it.

*The more I read about them, the more I like...

Florida 2000 all over again

2009-08-07T23:41:00.002-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's summer, time for sex!

2009-06-29T17:41:00.002-04:00

It's warm out. The privet is sending out sweet smells.

It's time for sex!

AT&T video webcast of Jazz Fest!!!

2009-05-01T22:00:00.005-04:00

Wow, Check out this lineup for the AT&T webcast of Jazz Fest:

Saturday, May 2nd:
12:45 PM Sonny Landreth! - should be excellent (Was good but too short, only 3 songs.)
1:00 PM BeauSoleil!! - should be double excellent! (Wasn't as good as I was hoping.)
1:40 PM Spoon - eh (1 nice song at the beginning)
2:50 PM Joe Cocker - eh (Mike Finnegan on organ!)
3:05 PM Professor Longhair (Classic)!!! - This will be the hit of the fest for me! (although now I see it is only a 5 min clip. Still...) (Was nice to see it but wish they had a clip from the fest...)
3:10 PM Dr. John! - should be good (Was!)

And after Dr John (and after the Professor Longhair clip from a 1974 PBS show), they showed Zachary Richard! 3 songs!!! Thank you!

4:15 PM Sugarland - don't know them and I suspect I won't
like them. Country? (This didn't air thank goodness)
4:30 PM Ben Harper and Relentless7 - eh
6:00 PM Dave Matthews Band - not a Dave Matthews fan

Sunday, May 3rd:
12:45 PM Troy Andrews - could be good (Was!)
1:00 PM Allen Toussaint - should be good (Was!)
2:10 PM Papa Grows Funk - should be good (Didn't air which was too bad.)
2:30 PM Better Than Ezra - should be good
3:15 PM Irma Thomas! - should be good (Was!)
3:35 PM Jimmy Buffett (2006) - eh (Not worth watching)
3:40 PM Sting (2000) - a waste of time. I won't be watching this.
3:45 PM Bonnie Raitt - should be good (Was!)
4:00 PM James Taylor - not someone I want to see at Jazz Fest
5:30 PM Fats Domino (2000) - should be good (Was!)
5:40 PM The Neville Brothers - should be good (Was!)

See it here:
http://music.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=5168&eeid=6486233&_sitecat=1384&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&event=1

Some of these segments are not long, Professor Longhair may only be 5 minutes, but at least one will be perfect: Beausoleil for 45 min!

Thank you, AT&T.

Now, at some point after this I will dumping your phone service but thanks for this! (5/14/09 I have dumped AT&T phone service. I feel so much better!)

Jazz Fest on WWOZ, Fri May 1

2009-05-01T19:10:00.001-04:00

I return to listening after a week in the hospital. Nice to see the
schedule updated with such good info! (The date the reruns were
recorded? Wonderful!)

I don't think there is much worth listening to today but I will anyway.

Dave and Lisa on now.

(I go away for awhile)

I return to listening at 3:42 NY time. Horn is out of the mix.

Lisa IDs Walter Payton. "Musical gen (pronounced correctly)-rays"?

Listening to the Leroy Jones & the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band
Alumni Tribute to Danny Barker (recorded Friday, April 24, 4:20 -
5:25 p.m.). It has an old New Orleans trad/Dixieland sound to it. Too
many instruments but a nice feel. Sax is out of the mix. Will it get
fixed? Nope. Otherwise the mix is good. We can hear all the
instruments. Feedback but better sound after it.

Listening to the band intro, I'm hearing some kind of weird print
through-like effect. I'm hearing a little bit of the content BEFORE
it sounds as the main sound, a sort of pre-echo effect. Very weird
since I don't think they are using tape, are they??? This is a
digital problem??? Too bad. OZ really has problems. Maybe they're
feeding the preview on the air too? (And the preview is a couple of
seconds ahead of the program feed.)

They play one, two songs then the guy intros the band then OZ stops it. Great.

Oh, and now they come back. OK.

The lineup is a pretty impressive cast. You don't hear too many large
Dixieland bands...

Hear the horn intro several seconds before it plays loudly. That weird effect.

Stream dies but reconnects, a few times. 5 pm NY time.

5:21 NY time (Vaucresson Sausage segment) Oh, we're hearing ALL
program with this weird effect. Nice, OZ. Do they listen to the
stream? I guess not. So we'll be listening to two things at once.
Yeah, OZ.

(Also hearing live DJs ahead of when they actually say it at proper
level. So it's all program content.)

Soulive interview on early. Schedule says 5:20 - 5:50 p.m. NO time.
It's 6:15 NY time. The interview only lasts a few minutes so that
must not be it. (It is...)

I'm guessing there is about a 10 second advance between the preview
audio and main program.

P-Funk!! (I remember going to party at college where the feature was
that album and others from Parliament, put on by the black student's
association. I was the only white guy there. I had loved the music up
north but no one warmed up to me so I didn't ignore the unspoken
racial lines after that.)

I was going to write in to let them know about this double feed but
it seems to be fixed now! (Took them long enough.)

(just before 7 pm NY time) This klezmer/world music piece is great.
I'd love to dance/see some good dancing to it! Oncabob?

Now the double feed is back. I write to them. I also stop listening
since they are playing the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band and I have
absolutely no interest in latin jazz.

Tomorrow, I'll probably watching the AT&T VIDEO feed more than
listening to WWOZ.

Jazz Fest on WWOZ, Sat 4/25

2009-04-25T20:11:00.001-04:00

The OZ page has yesterday's schedule taken off! Good job.

So, on the schedule today is:

11:25 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Henry Gray & the Cats featuring Carol Fran
1:40 - 2:35 p.m. Lil' Buck Senegal Blues Band
2:00 - 3:10 p.m. Rebirth Brass Band with Kermit Ruffins
3:50 - 5:05 p.m. Third World

I'm certainly looking forward to the last two.
Not sure about the first two. Now, how will they
deal with the Lil' Buck and Rebirth being on at
the same time? We'll see.

Interesting tidbit. Someone was searching for
"WWOZ MIssy" and found my blog entry for
yesterday. I wonder who?

Nice to listen to Music From The Glen with Sean
who's still on after all these years. (He's
playing an Indian reggae cut now... Nice.)

12:12 NY time Sean hands it over to Bob and Lisa.
Bob French, oh well. Signal is breaking up.
(Stream is fine.) Some sort of mic problem with
Lisa's mic. I hear some wind but this is in
addition to that. Bob's mic is fine. Why don't
they fix Lisa's mic? Maybe they have now. Yes,
seems better.

12:34 NY time, they go to Henry Grey. Mix seems
ok, Henry's vocals a little low. Level is hotter
than studio feed.

12:58 NY time, Carol's vocals low. Henry's too.
Henry is practically out of the mix. I guess the
engineer is doing something else. Carol's vocals
get better but Henry's are still low.

Bob's station ID is practically inaudible.

Roll Me - Henry's vocals are very low. Does anyone care?

Next song, the same. Engineer is awol.

The mixes are otherwise excellent.

Set over.

Lisa's voice is doubling. Bob's isn't or it isn't noticeable. I wonder why.

...

Lil Buck til 2, then Rebirth then Third World,
then John Mooney and Bluesiana? OK.

"www.org" Hunh?

DJ level is lower than CD. Bob's mic is lower
than Lisa's. Bob isn't being very obnoxious
today. How nice.

Bob: "So the next time", gets repeated 4x... I
thought it was a digital trick but I think it was
him just being senile.

2:45 NY time, Bob's mic is still lower than
Lisa's. Then they go to Lil' Buck. Live feed is
hotter than previous level.

3:13 NY time. They had a promo for Acura between
the last two songs. Now they do one for Drs for
Charity Hospital. Both said they are sponsoring
the hour. Which is it?

And where is Rebirth? They said they would be on at 2 NO time.

Set over. Bob isn't drinking anymore. Does that explain his better nature now?

TR Johnson and Sondra Bibb coming up.

4:07 NY time. New Djs are on. Apparently Sondra
is not meant to be heard since her mic is so low.

When is Rebirth going to be on?

(My computer crashed so I was not listening for
about 10 minutes right around 5 pm.)

5:08 NY time. No sign of Rebirth.

Ah, Third World is on! Good.

96š in the Shade!! Love the sirens and barking dog!

They love the sirens too, adding them liberally to the next song too.

... (I go get the mail, so miss some.)

Try Jah Love!

Now That We've Found Love!!

Good, they've done their set and the DJs aren't
barging in to do a station ID. And it's the top
of the hour. Good. Never seen such restraint.

Encore: Here come the sirens again. MLK soundbites! Not much of song though.

OZ DJs kick in eventually. Sondra is VERY low level.

So, what about Rebirth?

Ponderosa Stomp feature again.

Now the schedule says for today "3:15 - 3:55 p.m.
Rebirth Brass Band with Kermit Ruffins" but they
weren't on at all. It also says John Mooney will
be on at 6 NO time, 7 'til 7:55, NY time. OK. I
still don't get what happened to Rebirth.

6:23 NY time. Sondra's level is good now.

Now they play "some highlights" of Rebirth. OK.
We hear the stage MC low level. Hear the band
warming up. Band level is low, averaging -20db
compared to everything earlier. Good mix though.

6:32 NY time, the level is brought up. Good.

...One awful solo by Kermit... (at end of the
tune before the Go Shorty intro of the next tune)

So, if Rebirth is on now, when will John Mooney be on?

Set ends (7:25 NY time)

Right to John Mooney, good.

A good day. Great to hear Third World. Looking
forward to Sonny Landreth, Herlin Riley and
Robert Cray tomorrow.

Jazz Fest on WWOZ, Friday, 4/24

2009-04-24T18:56:00.002-04:00

4/23, ~4pm NY time
The main page says: "WWOZ brings you live broadcasts of 32 acts over
seven days." You click on the link for "live broadcasts" and you get
the live broadcast page. It says "There are no currently scheduled
upcoming live events broadcasts."

OK. It's the day before Jazz Fest. They probably haven't put the
schedule up yet but why not at least say that it is coming on that
page? I'll give them this one but let's hope it isn't a sign of
things to come.

9:10 pm NY time
The web page now says: "WWOZ will be broadcasting 32 acts over the 7
days of Jazz Fest. Please check back for further details."

Great. Nice and vague, as usual. (Yes, I know they don't know who
will be on ahead of time but do they have no clue?)

Piano night will have:
David Torkanowsky!, Dr. Lonnie Smith!, Josh Charles, Matt Lemmler,
Dan Dyer (oh no), Carol Fran!, Marcia Ball!, Tom McDermott, Henry
Gray, John Gros!, Joe Krown! and Tom Hook.

Should be good.

Friday, 4/24
Good. They have the complete schedule up, all the way through both weekends.

So, here's who I'll be listening to:

FRIDAY, APRIL 24
11:15 a.m. - 12:05 p.m. June Gardner & the Fellas - I'll try them out
12:50 - 1:30 p.m. Gospel Soul Children - should be good
4:20 - 5:25 p.m. Leroy Jones & the Fairview Baptist Church
Brass Band Alumni: Tribute to Danny Barker - should be good
4:30 - 5:30 p.m. Tribute to Mahalia Jackson, featuring Irma
Thomas, Mavis Staples, and Pamela Landrum - should be good

Um, how are they going to broadcast the two last shows,
simultaneously? Typo, one confused person or will they be tape delay?
It would be nice if they said. Note some more of these conflicts
further down the schedule.

SATURDAY, APRIL 25
11:25 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Henry Gray & the Cats featuring Carol
Fran - maybe
1:40 - 2:35 p.m. Lil' Buck Senegal Blues Band - maybe
2:00 - 3:10 p.m. Rebirth Brass Band with Kermit Ruffins - definitely
3:50 - 5:05 p.m. Third World - great!

SUNDAY, APRIL 26
12:20 - 1:05 p.m. Roderick Paulin & the Big Easy Groovers - maybe
1:25 - 2:15 p.m. Germain Bazzle - yes
2:10 - 3:10 p.m. Sonny Landreth - yes!
2:35 - 3:25 p.m. Herlin Riley - yes!
3:40 - 4:55 p.m. The Robert Cray Band - yes!

Weekend 2
THURSDAY, APRIL 30
12:25 - 1:15 p.m. Rumba Buena -probably not
2:55 - 3:45 p.m. New Birth Brass Band - yes, wait, will this
be a repeat?
2:50 - 3:40 p.m. Delfeayo Marsalis presents Sweet Thunder
(Duke & Shak) - probably not

FRIDAY, MAY 1
12:25 - 1:20 p.m. Doreen's Jazz New Orleans - maybe

SATURDAY, MAY 2
2:40 - 3:35 p.m. Ensemble Fatien featuring Seguenon Kone, Dr.
Michael White, and Jason Marsalis - maybe
4:25 - 5:25 p.m. Preservation Hall Jazz Band - yes

SUNDAY, MAY 3
1:35 - 2:25 p.m. Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm - maybe
4:10 - 5:05 p.m. Luther Kent & Trickbag - yes

That will give me plenty of leeway to catch whatever AT&T will be
webcasting. They aren't telling us what they'll be airing yet but
they usually get bigger names.

11:56 NY time
Bob French is on. Too bad. They switch over the Fairgrounds in 5
minutes. They play a promo with the music. If Bob is in the studio,
then we won't hear him for the live broadcast, yea!

Good latin swing tune on now.

They switch over. We hear Tom Morgan talk but he is not aware he is
on air. They play some CDs or records. (I hear some scratches.)

Abrupt end to cut. They just let a CD play rather than mix it with
others. Anybody can do that.

OK, its 12:16 NY time. The band was supposed to be on now.

Now they mix a CD.

12:20 NY time, Tom Morgan and Missy Bowen are on. June is a drummer.
Missy does a station ID after Tom has already mentioned it. The
website is timing out.

So they're going to be airing the Danny Barker tribute tomorrow?

They go to June Gardner at 12:29 NY time. I don't think I'll need to
listen to this.

I come back at 1 NY time. Whoever is announcing in the band is
off-mic. (Later, as they end the set, someone announces on-mic.)

Nice version of I Walk On Guilded Splinters from Dan Dyer from Piano
Night 2007. Might give me new faith in listening to him this coming
Piano Night.

Go to the Gospel Soul Children at 1:45 NY time (early!). Nice! (A
little dull on the high end but otherwise good.) Very cool bass efx
(swirl). Serious hum!

Tom does a station ID after the second song. Mentions OZ twice in the
same break. Is that necessary? Do they think we've forgotten?

Level goes down and up a couple of times.

Nice ending with the women's high voices until they do it too often.

DJs haven't interrupted with station IDs!

They fade out the MC on stage but he's not done and the DJs don't
come on, then they do.

Tom isn't coming through.

The set ends on time.

The loss of the high end seems to be a limitation of the stream. It's
happening when they play CDs too.

Good info/interview on NOMC?

So the Tribute to Mahalia will be on today. What about the one to Danny Barker?

Tom and Missy sign off at about 4 pm NY time. Lisa and Suzanne on next.

CD level is hotter than DJ/live level...

Good music played in-between and good Ponderosa Stomp feature.

Some kind of weird doubling going on with Lisa's voice now, 4:38 NY
time, after Robert Palmer's Bare Footin'.

They go to Mahalia Jackson tribute at 5:38 NY time, mid-song.
..."Give it to her" (Mavis Staples) as she goes off stage.
Pamela Landrum on next.
..."Give it to her" (Pamela Landrum) as she goes off stage.
OZ DJ buts in.
Irma Thomas on now. Her mic is out of the
mix. OZ engineer takes some time to bring her in. Getting there but
not there yet. Better, there yet? Could be better. Good enough.
Doubling heard on her voice (and Pamela's too). Doubling not heard on
instruments...

So. overall very few problems. It's good that the DJs don't barge in
too often to do station IDs, even though they repeat it twice in each
ID out of habit. And the mixes are good, levels are good, the stream
held up - no breaks.

Looks like this will be a good Jazz Fest.

More tomorrow.

French Quarter Fest on WWOZ

2009-04-21T23:53:00.001-04:00

I tried to listen to as much of it as I could but things didn't work
out so I caught a lot less than I thought I would. No acts stand out
but I did like the Revealers and The Wild Magnolias sounded the best
I've ever heard. I do wonder, since the Mardi Gras Indians are
including Latin music into their music, is there a Mexican/Puerto
Rican mixing of music with all the Mexican labor introduced after the
storm? What do they think of the Puerto Rican/Cuban/Brazilian Latin
influences that seem to be more mainstream than the Mexican/Central
American?

I don't feel like giving my usual run-down but I will say I am
pleased that the mixes seemed good (I only heard one time when an
instrument was out of the mix.), the DJs didn't interrupt too often
with station IDs and for the most part the DJ blather was listenable.

Let's hope Jazz Fest will be as good as this.

Putting my heart online

2009-04-06T20:59:00.004-04:00

my heart, originally uploaded by Lipwak.

I had an echocardiogram today. Here is one of the few pics from that that show anything that looks at all familiar. It's my heart. The original pic showed it upside down but I rotated it. I was hoping that they would include the sounds of blood rushing through my heart on the CD they gave me but they didn't. It was very cool to see one's heart beating away. The valves opening and closing. It wasn't someone else's heart. It was mine. And now it is online. For all to see. Enjoy.

(Is it black and emtpy? No.)

Stella!!

2009-04-03T09:09:00.003-04:00

Reason #4384 to love New Orleans... I saw this on March 15 of 1998 along with the theater production of Streetcar at Le Petit Theater (complete with streetcar bell) and loved them then too.

The source:

Dead Air, on WFMU

2009-03-27T15:58:00.008-04:00

I have been given permission to digitize and upload to YouTube, whatever WFMU footage I have. Below are some of what I have already put up. More to come. (A playlist for WFMU will appear on my YouTube channel as soon as YouTube fixes the glitch that is preventing it.)

Dead Air - a review (written when I first saw it, whenever that was.)

Always nice to see where the magic happens.

The first 8 minutes I love. Then the plot kicks in. You can see Andy written all over this. Ken, excellent acting!

I guess it is harder to mix sound on video than in radio? The transition to the commercials is not up to the usual FMU standards.

We get to see some places not seen on the FMU tour video, the mail room, a lounge.

What's that buzzing around Terre's head?

Hand Me Down That Can of Beans!

21 minutes of action packed drama. And an out take at the end. I like the second version of the final scene better but not the second version of Hand Me Down That Can of Beans, Andy.

(3/27/09 I can't tell the difference between either ending. Is there any?)

Too funny

2009-03-23T15:06:00.003-04:00

As I'm Just Sayin says, "Could You Imagine Living Downstairs From This Girl?"

1976 yearbook WTUL pics and a bumpersticker

2009-03-15T12:49:00.007-04:00

A WTUL bumpersticker that I got in the 90s but with the logo from the 70s.

Pics scanned from my 1976 yearbook.

The left-hand side of page 220, that has a group shot of some of the DJs

The right-hand side of page 221. I recognize Alan Smason and Rob Heidt (who isn't wearing a shirt.) Is that Gregory Wilson sitting?

An unknown DJ (from page 225)

Alan Smason (from page 302/303)

(Note the can of Coors. That stuff was like gold back then. People would bring back cases from Colorado and they would get bought up in minutes. Awful stuff now...)

WTUL alumni weekend, 3/7

2009-03-08T00:27:00.001-05:00

I tune in about 10 am NY time. Playing prog. Heaviness... Dread (think Kierkegaard,)... Angst. I was a philosophy major at Tulane... Sort of what I would expect from a Tulane student, who's typically upper middle class (or maybe upper class with Tulane being so expensive these days), and not that far from what I would think prog would be like these days after being away from it for so long. What I would expect to hear if I was walking around the campus hearing music leaking out of dorm rooms.

A nice industrial version of Jambalaya.

These DJs are amusing. (dada bob & the dj formerly known as james) Good production values (so far). Both are on-mic. (Later they talk with one off-mic.)

Talking Heads - Pull Me Up. (sounds like a record, not a CD, lots of surface noise. They don't have a CD of this?)

Cyril's on now. Says he's gonna play new wave, retro... but starts with Peter Gabriel - On The Air.

More dread. I wonder, not to read too much into this, if students are feeling bad about the economy , their outlook in general? I heard some last night who weren't, a bunch of girls. They were happy and peppy as only 20-somethings can and should be. I know we were, or at least I was not encouraged when I was there. The Viet Nam war was still going on until Gerry Ford said it was over in that speech in the basketball auditorium, the second time I'd been in there. Inflation was bad, unemployment high and it didn't get better for years.

And of course, there is still the mess that New Orleans is in post-Katrina. Glad to hear that Mardi Gras was so good for the economy there. It is a national disgrace that the city isn't in better shape. (I don't blame them. I blame W and crew.)

I could tell this Roxy Music cut (Avalon) was coming. Heard it a mile away in that premonition that one has occasionally with radio when you are familiar with the music the DJ is playing. If not the actual tunes, at least the style.

This isn't sounding very new wave. (Is this retro?) Life In A Northern Town?

Add to that list, depression. (I'll come running to tie your shoes - Brian Eno) Not that depression isn't warranted.

It's his birthday today.

All dachshunds are evil? They're wonderful dogs...

His show ends.

I'm betting that Maurice Roe is one of the guys I have a clip of from '72-'76. That distinctive black voice doing jazz... And the answer is?

Station ID is low level.

This music isn't sounding like the guy I thought it would be. OK. Southern rock.

Haven't heard this cut (this version of this song) in a long time... x (real Southern rock style intro) into Sweet Jane.

What's this Weather Report? Sort of jam band-based jazz. Familiar tune. Not John McLaughlin. Fusion was real big when I was there...

Ah, Jeff Beck - Freeway Jam.

Maurice is NOT the guy I was thinking of. I like that all these returning DJs have a WTUL staffer holding their hands, pushing the buttons if necessary.

Wow, his next cut is WAY louder than what came before it...

The computer freezes as he plays Love Is A Drug. I go through withdrawal. Back on he has a bunch of DJs with him.

The level between his voice and the music is a bit jarring, the music is much louder.

Some, as Bill Kelly would say, although he wouldn't play this stuff, real rock and roll.

He says he is one of those alumnus. (Should have said alumni, plural, "one of those" is plural.)

Plays Pink Floyd from when he was there? I thought he was on in the early '90s. This (Flying from Meddle) came out in '71. Love those football songs sung en masse.

Nice woman softly singing. Nouvelle something.

Roman Pizza seems to be sponsoring alot, getting commercials like they do on PBS.

Dixie Dregs!! The hair stands up in the back of my neck as this plays! I have this album but haven't heard it in years. Too bad they were a flash in the pan.

Un hunh. The Allman Brothers - One Way Out from the Fillmore concert (Eat A Peach album) Second time that album's been played in the past two days.

He says he was there from 75 to 80 so I may have heard him. I don't remember the voice but maybe the name.

He plays Genesis from Selling England By The Pound, not sure which cut but it's fairly awful, and I like Genesis. (Did he like that album? It was abit before his time.) It wasn't cued up so we get several seconds of silence at the beginning. Don't they cue records? That's pretty basic.

Who is this tremelo (vibrato?)-voiced singer? Sounds like Plume but in English. (PFM)

(I miss FMU-style live playlists.)

Joke about Alan Smason being on in the 50s!

Not a good cue of the Springsteen record. I first heard Springsteen at Tulane. Prof Andy Antippas raved about how good he was. I was mildly impressed until I heard his songs being played ALL the time. Got sick of him fast. (I see Prof Antippas is on the mailing list Jay sent me. Hi.)

Rosalita, one tired song. What next?

Vaguely familiar David Bowie track.

Yes - Starship Trooper. I played a LOT of Yes when I was there. I remember getting Tales of Topographic Oceans and it got warped soon after so it wasn't very playable. I gave it to my next door neighbor Steve on St Charles, who was in high school.

Happy Talk.

Next show (John G) isn't my "cup of tea."

(still listening, casually)...Hah, it was the Flying Lizards! I was thinking it sounded like that girl. (talks to someone off-mic)

I stop listening about 4 pm NY time. I then listen to what I recorded last night which should be DJ Davis.

Bimbo sounds like it would have been fun to listen to her more. She sounds nice, and funny.

She plays Hey Pocky Way as her last song. Thinks Karen is on next.

Station ID, gets month wrong. (WTUL's seedy release party? I know, CD.)

Hmm. If she is the DJ, what was the deal with DJ Davis? Karen will tell me.

I delete the recording. Now, I'll wait until the party begins at 5 NO time, 6 NY time.

I tune back at 6 pm NY time. Day Tripper by Jimi Hendrix with the Beatles? is playing.

Smason is on now? (Oops, I misread the schedule.) Then he plays Street Fighting Man by the Stones ("The world's greatest rock and roll band" , he says). I don't recognize the voice but his playing the hits doesn't surprise me. Too bad I missed the party but more should continue with Shep. I expect I will recognize Shep's adenoidal voice...

The alumni free for all.

Birthday (The Beatles) cover by? Not so expertly played. (Underground Sunshine, ick)

unknown R&B. I'm glad they just play the music and don't make a big deal about introducing the DJ. "I want love and affection at the house of correction."

more... I wonder if "the Hound" is doing radio down there. I know the Circle Bar has a good jukebox...

Lotsa cuts. Good. It's all about the music.

Dixie Chicken played too fast. Oops.

Woman comes on, Robin. I hear partying in the background.

Cool. I see they use the http://radioactivity.fm/ way to keep track of what has played. Not as good looking as FMU's but a step in the right direction.

Jaime Brockett - Legend of the U.S.S. Titanic! Haven't heard this since I was there, probably. A true classic.

(I keep turning the level down on the cassette deck which means TUL keeps raising it...)

They air the "Shit." Good. I certainly won't complain.

(The levels are still going up...)

Psychedelic Freakout, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

(Now the level is too low..., averaging -10.)

Nice cue of record or has it run out and no one knows it? How many seconds of silence do we have? Going on 30 now. I'd say a minute and then the DJ comes on in mid-sentence, oblivious.

Hi Shep! I remember you. Sounds like he's been drinking... or is he really old? Woman DJ hurries him up. (Reminds me of Pseu Braun.) Let's go, she says.

The Roses of Picardy - June Tabor. Haven't heard her do this stuff.

Talking Heads - Air.

(I bring level up. Will it stay there?)

I imagine myself there and wanting to run over to the Rat for a bite to eat or a drink but coming right back to TUL to hear the music.

This sounds fairly hellish, barking dogs and loud guitars. Nice. Then they start singing.

I'm guessing each DJ is putting on what they want one after another, one tune each.

The Firesign Theater! very low level...

Another song played at the wrong speed and does anyone care/notice? Late, yes.

Hear DJs under the music.. DJ comes on and her level is higher than the music. (Just like WWOZ)

Fela track that follows is low level, She barges in overmodulating.... Sigh. I'm guessing there is a 10db difference between the DJ and the music.

A live Screamin' Jay Hawkins album? Nice and a nice recording.

... more silence. Then... (low level, 8-10 db lower) Celebration. A vaguely familiar song, prog style. gets turned down suddenly.

Shep's back. He blesses the Queen. His level is a little high. 8pm NY time. Maybe he has some medical condition. He gets shuffled off by the woman, Juanita. She's a dead ringer for Pseu Braun.

Level for music better but still lower than DJs.

I'm surprised people aren't cuing better than they are.

I love this song, Sufficiently Breathless - Captain Beyond. Thank you.

I turn the volume down in anticipation of something jarring but it gets followed by some quiet efx and then, boom, King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man, a little lower level than the previous cut... and could be a record. Can't tell if it's a CD or not. I would think the CD would sound better. It does sound clean though. Probably a CD. Not much bass in it. Nice war between the speakers... though a little shrill. I used to love this and have it cranked up now.

The next cut comes on, a reggae/bass and drum/dub groove, then horns, organ, gtr. Level is good, maybe a little high. (I adjust again.)

Get up offa That Thing - James Brown. This should be a hit in nursing homes...

Karen's on the air now.

Bonzo Dog Band - The Intro and the Outro. The first album in TUL's collection. Interesting. It came out first in 1967. I guess they had to start somewhere with keeping stuff. A good symbolic album to have as #1!

Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath. Karen talks over it. That's a sin, don't you know? (Talking over ANY record you're going to air rather than use as a bed.)

Allman Bros again. Karen comes on.

Karen comes on again , then Shep who is low level. 37 years on TUL, Bravo!

She intros The Punk Show and it comes on with a professional intro. Then it plays again... Oh well. The second time Jay plays a cut.

God Save The Queen - I guess The Sex Pistols

I'm not gonna know most of these. This next one sounds pretty produced for a punk tune... Not as hard core as what I'd hear on FMU any day of the week, not that I am fan of this stuff. Much more happy and peppy than what I was expecting.

I'll listen at low level and wait to hear Jay come on. I think I'll recognize his voice. I wonder if it has changed since I last talked to him. Gotten deeper? I mean he must be as old as I am... My voice has certainly changed since then.

He's on. I don't recognize him. I sort of do. He used to have a deeper voice, didn't he? A good (commercial) radio voice.

I was gonna say, the reason I didn't go into radio was that while I LOVED music and radio, my diction was embarrassing to me. I slurred words too often and spoke too fast sometimes. Now, that doesn't stop many DJs (at TUL and OZ and other college or community radio stations...) but it stopped me from wanting to put myself forward to doing radio. I did try the CT School of Broadcasting and pretty much hated it. They were only concerned with commercial radio and not interested in creativity which was my ONLY interest in radio. I would not be happy at a commercial station. Anyway, I hear DJs with poor diction and if they have no other redeeming characteristics. they are unlistenable. That combined with poor production values, makes a station unlistenable. Alas TUL and OZ fall into that category too often while they do have some DJs who do a good job.

Jay is starting to sound familiar.

... Turning Japanese. This was a big hit on WLIR.

Funny KISS story.

Surfin' Bird - The Trashmen. A true classic.

9:02? My computer has 10:01 (NY time), so I guess they aren't using computer time. (FMU doesn't either.)

I like this 2 Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please! - Splodgenessabounds. No, make that love it.

Blank Generation - Richard Hell and the Voidoids, familiar.

Ca Plane Pour Moi - Plastic Bertrand. Playing all the hits. (Another LIR hit)

AG Parr.... I've been in touch with him... He was in The Dukes? His father was a Duke of Dixeland?!

I remember the name, the Normals.The crowd applauds as he ends his show. He's well-loved.

Hey, Bob Dunn. Add dates to the History of WTUL page. You mention being there in 1971 but when did WTUL first go on the air? When did it go FM? Thanks.

Conner, the electronic gloved wonder comes on. He/someone does a station ID but it is hard to hear. Then the tune he plays has no right channel for awhile. The tune sounds vaguely familiar.

I stop listening and dub off the underlined cuts above.

The first REAL sign of spring

2009-03-07T13:46:00.003-05:00

I've heard some nice bird songs lately but this is the first REAL sign. It just gets better from now on.

WTUL alumni weekend, 3/6

2009-03-06T23:44:00.001-05:00

I try to listen at 10:30 NY time but the stream doesn't respond. Its dead.

I get some notes from Jay Hollingsworth. (Sorry about the nerd
comment, Jay.) He sends me a schedule. Thanks! Now I know what is
happening when. Looking forward to hearing Alan Smason, at least
initially, Shep and Jay. See how nostalgic it gets.

I check in again at ~3pm, NY time. The stream is working. I guess
Rockin' Ruth is on now. Playing FUV style R&R.

She comes on. It was Dash Rip Rock and Camper Van Beethoven before
that (I only heard the end of Dash Rip Rock.) I think she said her
name was Kathy.

She plays some straight jazz so I can have lunch (and not have to pay
attention to it...)

And now Maureen joins her. She plays Michael Franti so it won't be jazz. Good.

More happy peppy, FUV in the 80s music.

Nice Iko Iko.

Woman DJ (Kate?) comes on, her level is lower than the CD.

Next mic break she's at a good level. Although Maureen is pinning it,
overmodulating.

Nice Brazilian Rebel, Rebel (Bowie)

Bluegrass version of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide. (Dixie Chicks, ick)

This is Ruth Preslaff. Maureen's level is low.

Wow, a long silence between the Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads cuts.
I checked to make sure the stream didn't die.

So, in summary, nice enough music overall. Indicative of intelligent,
sensitive people, a crowd I liked to be with. Wish they'd get their
act together on their production values though. Different levels
between music and DJ and off-mic DJs are two examples. And I have
noticed this happening for YEARS.

(I'm having internet connectivity problems so I lose the stream and
have to reboot, which seems to fix it. Unfortunately this happens a
few times a day now...)

Stream goes quiet but is still there at 5:01 pm NY time. I guess they
don't know they've killed the output to the stream... Oh well. A good
time to go out and check the mail...

5:15 and the stream is still running but has no program content.
Oops. I guess they don't monitor it. I'll keep it on in case they
figure this out.

5;18 it comes on mid sentence then Brian Jonestown Massacre... OK.
Barney Kilpatrick on now.

Barney comes across well. David comes on and sounds like he just
passed puberty.

Fred Neil and Leo Kotke. Alright. Wall of Death after by...REM? Sure, why not.

A bluegrass tune. Well alright. (Steve Earle and Del McCoury)

Bottle of Blues by... (Beck)

A new version of Magic Bus. Just what the world needed. (By Duran Duran)

Nice screaming and efx in this tune.

A good DJ, Interesting stuff.

(Level is lower for Bevis Frond tune after mic break...)

Oh, a good segue. Whatever (Bevis Frond?) into Hendrix - Hear My Train Coming.

Iggy Pop - The Passenger

This next show should be interesting: "Paula 'go ahead & shut 'er
down, fcc!' o" o?

Kerry, Paula, Mark on now. (Is that what was on the schedule?) Too
bad they aren't all on-mic..

Punk stuff. No thanks. I watch the news.

I start listening later, 8 pm NY time and it ain't punk now. Very
interesting stuff. The Propellerheads.

They overmodulate as they do the ID.

Nah, don't like this next one. I watch Washington Week In Review...

8:24 NY time. Interesting accordion piece on.

Tom Waits - Straight To The Top. They cut off the song in the middle. Jeez.

8:55 pm. A world full of cops!

9:01 NY time. ken on the early evening shift? (Yes, I think.) Starts
with a nice Richard Thompson cut. Scratchy record but a good cut.

DJ sounds competent.

This Music isn't my cup of tea so I'll check back later.

Ken ends his show. Bimbo's on next. We'll see what she's like.

The cool tool/TUL! lol Lots of sexual innuendo. Funk. OK. No need to
stay for this.

Boogie In Your Butt! Well alright.

Looking forward to seeing if DJ Davis is a) the one I am thinking of
who started the Brass Band Jam on OZ and b) will play some brass band
music. I have Radio Recorder set to record the show which is airing
MUCH too early for me to listen to live.

WTUL alumni weekend, 3/5

2009-03-05T21:12:00.004-05:00

I tune in at 5 pm NY time and find out they are beginning the alumni section of their 50th anniversary in a few seconds, rather than 8 pm NO time. OK.

The first alumni DJ is Michael Reinert. He was there in the late 70s and some other dates.

His first song is Pete Townshend - Face The Face. That's too bad. (Actually he played Meatloaf's Paradise By The Dashboard Lights before that but it didn't air on the stream.)

The DJ before, a woman, was throwing in lots of "y'all heard"s....

I sent TUL an e-mail (a few days ago) saying I have some recordings from '72-'76 and '97-'98 but they haven't responded, as they didn't the last time I wrote them years back, probably telling them the same thing.

The DJs I've heard so far suffer from the same handicaps I've always heard on TUL, They speak too fast and don't enunciate. They sound like college kids which they should. And their technical skills are fairly bad: jarring transitions and not lowering the music to talk over it enough are two examples.

This sounds like an over-produced a la 80s Irma Thomas (This Ain't Love). (It's not.)

... Tri Face Boogie (Tripe Face...) he plays the studio version. Live versions are so much better. OK, I'll stop complaining, this show is on tape/CD...

Allman Bros - Trouble No More from Eat A Peach, complete with scratches.

Nice 'I don't know what station I'm listening to' ID/promo.

Dedicates this to his daughter Christina. Gads, it's live.

Yakkity Yak. He covers some distance...

Oops. He miscues a tune.

Why Get Up...

ID. A non-alumni DJ does a PSA. And he knows how to speak!

Blood Sweat and Tears - God Bless The Child. I used to hear this alot in the late 60s. A real classic. I don't remember it being played much if at all in NO when I was there.

Thank Heaven For Little Girls - Maurice Chevalier. He's proud of his daughter. (I wrote that before he said that...)

Geez. Springsteen. Ick.

Not the best production values, cutting off the music before it ends, etc.

Wow, Lil Queenie is there and gonna sing! They sing Hello, I Must Be Going (Groucho Marx)

And the cliché of all clichés, The End - The Beatles.

We just listened to an hour's worth of mashups? Hunh? Oh, they played old tapes.

Michael became a music business attorney. It sounded like it.

Next DJ plays Pharoh Sanders. I'm not a jazz fan so I bail.

Wow, Shepard Samuels (Shep) is still on the air there! I remember him. Can still remember what he looked like back then ('72-'76 and probably saw him once or twice after that, and he hadn't changed then.). I wonder if he has cut his hair? I've read he is a music business lawyer. (But he has good taste in music...)

I wonder if Allan Smason will appear. Not that I am a fan. He's just a familiar name. And Jay Hollingsworth. I had no idea he was so important. He was kind of a nerd when I knew him, your stereotypical computer nerd. Had no idea he would later be a "MAJOR record collector and seminal figure in bringing New Wave and punk music to the New Orleans airwaves..." (from the WTUL history page.)

I don't remember many other DJs names at this point. Rob Heidt DJ'd for awhile. (I see he is a principal at a school in NJ these days! Looks virtually the same only abit older.)

(7pm NY time) This guy, Charles Driebe, managed Henry Butler (I wonder if Charles is blind too? He also managed the Blind Boys Of Alabama)... He also was on in 1974 doing a jazz show. So, since he is still on at 6 pm NO time, they aren't following the schedule on the website where the show would end at 6. Not surprising. I wonder what the schedule will be since they don't list it very well on the website.

The website has been updated since I started writing this. I think the hours will be 8 till midnight each night from now until Sunday when they start at 4 and end at who knows what time. We'll see. I'll listen to as much as I can stand.

He talks to other DJs but they are off-mic. And of course, he doesn't adjust them... We can hear them adequately though.

The cliché Coltrane My Favorite Things.

Another DJ is on now. A woman. Bizzarre Radio from 8 til 4 am so it won't be alumni. Or will it? It isn't clear.

Techno 2000. These are out-takes?

It's 8 pm NY time. Let's see if they do a station ID. Yes. The woman tries to talk over the music but she doesn't turn it down enough. Eventually she does.

Woman on again. Says they will air nothing but alumni stuff this weekend. Really?

They say they are going to play the Stranglers but so far we have the Roches... (Not one of their best songs.)

So it will be an all-alumni weekend. Good. I'll skip Bizarre Radio but pick up tomorrow as soon as I can.

Lundi Gras, 2/23

2009-02-25T16:14:00.002-05:00

Video from the TP. Who's the band?

Revelers second line to the music at Lundi Gras

Mardi Gras Day

2009-02-25T15:42:00.002-05:00

From The TP

French Quarter Revelers

And a slideshow of some good costumes.

highlights of Zulu, Rex and the truck parades, 2/24

2009-02-25T14:54:00.004-05:00

2 videos from the TP on Zulu.

Krewe of Zulu

Video: Zulu group celebrates 100 years

I watch the DSU cam, the paradecam and the cam set up for Zulu on the nolacom site.

DSU has Arthur Hardy and crew.

The cam set up for Zulu is under the I-10 overpass. We find out it has good acoustics!

Heard on the DSU cam about New Orleanians in general: "It's encouraging that they're actually the enjoying the tradition of Mardi Gras." More bon mots to come.

DSU shows some neat old footage of earlier Mardi Gras'. The announcer on one segment describes residents as the Creoles and the Anglo Saxons! We see Rex and Elks pass each other going in different directions on St Charles!

Someone, on the DSU cam?, says, "I'm not gonna eat. I just want beads." Arthur?

We see Pete Fountain. He looks as gracious as ever.

(My computer is at 100% CPU use with all these cams up.)

We see some parade happening on the paradecam at about 9:45 am.

See Zulu in the Garden District on DSU at about 9:47.

The Soulful Warriors.

The woman hosting the Zulu cam says about Orleans and Claiborne: "It looks like the place, it smells like the place" (to be...)

Someone on the DSU cam, I think, yells "Mic check!" Yes, your mic is live.

The Zuku king passes the Garden District.

We hear a Jesus freak in the background, with a bullhorn.

At Lee Circle we see Mayor Nagin in his Centurion outfit on horseback.

I eat some shrimp. Good!

I can tell there's lots of joy in the air there. And I'm a little drunk, having had a somewhat potent screwdriver for breakfast.

We see a brief shot of some people dressed up as skeletons, part of or inspired by the skeleton gangs, something I want to see more of. (Alas, I don't.) A woman on DSU called them zombies, and didn't know what to make of them. (Educate her/everyone. And I wonder if El Dia De Los Muertos is celebrated in New Orleans. It should be, especially now with the greater Latino population.)

A guy promotes his club on the Zulu cam: "25 and over for the grown and sexy, ...Come get some alligator. I just killed them." Mm, good.

DSU female: "Haven't seen anything too inappropriate."

They talk about the "trouble truck" and Arthur says quietly, they only need them 12 times a parade." lol

Everyone is saying that the economy is good for Mardi Gras this year. Good!

We see the Zulu Tramps.

We see some dancers chanting, "holdin' down the sidewalk."

Edwin Kerr band, nice.

They say this is the best attended Mardi Gras since Katrina. Good!

11:40 am, we see Rex turn onto St Charles on the paradecam. (They "scoop" DSU.) The theme this year is Pro Bono Publico, for the public good. The paradecam host is very low level.

Nice red outfits and chanting from the (S?) Charles HS of East Cleveland, OH.

The Tiddlywinks! Green dresses and orange hair!

We see a red Cadillac convertible on the Zuku cam. We then hear that Antoinette K Doe died today. One sad note to be topped by the shootings later.

It's noon here and I foolishly look for the Bourbon Street Awards show but have no luck. I check at 1 pm too but don't click the link they have on the nola.com blog thinking it is only to the paradecam. I did check the paradecam often. I wonder if nola.com did show it. I hope to find some internet video of it at some point.

We see the Witch Doctor. We see white guys, underneath their blackfaces, on the Ambassador and the Mayor's float (for Zulu). I knew it was integrated but I didn't know there'd be that many white guys in it.

Rex #13, the Rhapsody of the March Wind float is the one that I noticed earlier that had the Pan figure on it.

See good dancers from Frederick A Douglas HS and a good band. Arthur "has the knack" and is getting beads and throws and the bands to stop and play for the cam.

Dancers from A. Maceo Walker HS in Memhis have nice moves.

Nice Green Man on Rex float #18.

I've eaten all the shrimp I have by 12:30. It was good. Fried catfish and Bailey's Irish Cream next.

Hear Hey Pocky Way on the Shaka Zulu float.

We see some costumes on Bourbon Street: The Goddesses of Love, Sex, and a few more; Elvis - the publisher of Where Y'at; The Easter Bunny - I think this is the same guy I've seen wear this costume in years past. He's big, 200+ pounds, got a pot belly and looks like he'd be dangerous around young children. A PERFECT Easter Bunny for Mardi Gras!.

DSU does a spot on some restaurant serving raw oysters. Oh, I want some!

A masked Obama appears briefly wearing a wig similar to what is seen on English judges. The mask has a big bright Obama smile on it. Very funny. It pops in and out of the picture quickly, heightening the effect.

We see a skull on a stick.

12:48 pm. It looks like the Elks parade, the first of the truck parades, has started. At first I am not impressed with the floats but as the 100th one passes by I start to appreciate the simple designs they have.

We see a Professor Longhair float on the DSU cam.

The King of something arrives at Lee Circle, 1:13 pm.

We see a Rodrigue blue dog in the Argus float in Metairie.

We watch Rex and Mayor Nagin talk about handcuffs at Gallier Hall. The stream is breaking up alot so I lose audio often.

1:45 pm I don't bother with the paradecam or nola.com anymore. Just DSU.

I hear the Tulane fight song. (Even after looking at the Tulane web page that explains its origins I'm not sure what its title really is... Still, it is one of the great football fight songs. Too bad the team is never very good, nor would I want them to be...)

The bands I'm hearing today are in tune. I liked the other ones but it's nice to know these bands can play in tune. South Terrebone Parish for one.

Nice sunglasses, Rachel.

Some twins get interviewed. Both have high-pitched voices but one is practically a ringer for Butterfly McQueen.

We see a float called Hibernating Bears. The bears they show are up and around so they aren't hibernating but it's a cool float nonetheless.

#27, the last float for Rex, is The Royal Barge.

Truck parades Elks (Orleans), Crescent City
Trucks are still flowing on the paradecam.

The DSU stream is breaking up, no audio, jerky video. See the first truck parade there.

Something about a black Indian who has a husband Ringo. People really have names like that?

The "Actually, You Might Be A Redneck" float has riders in pink and children on it.

3pm. We hear someone else has been shot on the parade route. Turns out 6 were.

On the Babes In Toyland float we see a child in a high chair.

DSU interviews some women Drs from NY who rave (positively) about New Orleans and Mardi Gras.

3:33 The DSU player restarts itself. The DSU web page loads fast for a change.

3:40 Travers Mackel is on a balcony in the French Quarter. (Hi, Travers. I know you will be visiting this blog as you did when I blogged on Gustav last year. Come often...) Anyway, he has this verbal crutch, as so many newscasters do, where he says "if you will" often. (Now that you know about it, maybe you can cure yourself of it.)

A nice aerial view of Canal Street.

Travers interviews a woman pirate with a dog, a guy with a funny voice and a woman as a Hubig pie (wrapper)!

Truck 72, truck 73, truck 74...

Travers interviews a bead woman, who is calling herself something else.

We find out 6 people have been shot earlier today.

Some DSU woman says dis'-play rather than display'.

My computer heats up when DSU goes to commercial and all we see is the graphic.

We see Gabrielle dance. She like so many others is just totally giddy.

Travers interviews a family in FEMA sheets!

The stream stops or I only get 0...9...7...0... fps.

See a nice balcony shot.

4:31 pm I get audio back.

A truck has broken down.

DSU does a trash story. The trucks are moving again.

Margaret Orr talks with a 65? 75? year old lady.

Randi Rousseau, the weathergirl, says 'Ibberville' (ib as in jib) rather than 'Iberville' (I as in eye).

A piece on the Mardi Gras Indians.

Norman Robinson, WDSU anchor and master of malapropisms: "The maddening crowd." It's the madding crowd, Norman. I know it's a strange turn of phrase and awkward when used in most contexts. It means frenzied which the crowds were but it's madding, not maddening.

The DSU cam has some schumtz (dust) on the lens.

We see traffic backing up on the Crescent City Connection going to the West Bank. We also see some floats backed up on a turn in the road.

Travers talks with a LA State Police guy. The LA State Police guy says it has been the best Mardi Gras crowd he has seen in the Quarter in his 28 years.

As I listen to the weatherman, his pitch changes, slowing down! It returns to normal but I haven't seen that before in a stream.

We don't see any more trucks on Canal Street.

It's hard to hear Arthur. Norman: "We'll talk to a commercial break." OK, I guess you will. I think you meant to say 'we'll take a commercial break....'

I never knew floats go to a "den".

We see a flock of white birds on a shot of the trucks on the West Bank.

There is talk of "units."

We see the police trucks pick up the people barriers on Canal Street.

DSU ends it coverage at just before 6 pm, NY time. I then watch the news on DSU. I think it was Arthur who says, 'A million people having fun, that's not news. This is news,' referring to how the national media has picked up the shooting of 6.

We see some white tigers on what I think is the Queen of Zulu's float.

We see a nice Chinese?/Japanese? hat on a guy in the next balcony over from Travers.

We see a segment on the Bourbon Street Awards. Travers' VO sounds like he is an echoey room. The bathroom at the hotel?

We see the Rex "den" and that a Westfelt was Rex. Probably related to the guy, might even be the guy, who donated the large sports complex at Tulane.

We see a different piece on the Mardi Gras Indians.

Things are pretty much over . I do watch the Earthlink verison of the Bourbocam for a little bit but it is blurry.

highlights of Proteus and Orpheus, 2/23

2009-02-25T11:48:00.001-05:00

I tune in at 6 pm (All times are NY time.) The DSU page takes forever to load, as usual. I switch between the DSU cam and the paradecam. The DSU cam shows the parade before it has started. The paradecam is still on the roof at Fat Harry's and just has hum, which it will have throughout. Getting sound on both cams.

The DSU cam has some nice shots of the floats. (The stream is pretty good, slightly jerky.)

6:15 no movement. Some good band close-ups. The white noise we hear is the generators of the floats. We see the Atomic Bulldogs band, some cheerleaders practising, some good drumming, a giant dog outfit on somebody (when he leans over the dog's face is looking right at you, woefully. A great costume!)

6:31 pm We see an Entergy truck moving on the paradecam.

Back on the DSU cam we have a sort of battle of the bands; The Atomic Bulldogs vs Baker High School. I'd say the Atomic Bulldogs won.

The paradecam has the #1 float for Proteus. Very hard to hear the hosts and bands on the paradecam. We see movement on the DSU cam. The DSU cameraman climbs to the top of the DSU truck and takes mostly long shots of the parade. Sometimes, for uknown reasons, the DSu feed will totally black out.

We see the Ninth Ward Marching Band! They have a streetcar bell! Good dancing within the band.

Nice dragon float, #7.

Nice face on float #8, the title is "Entertaining the Nobel Head." What is that from?

The paradecam has a bad stream, getting ghosting and losing audio.

Rachel Wulff interviewed a young girl, Stacy, on the DSU cam. The parade has passed her at this point.

No audio on the paradecam, Hitting pause fixes it.

We see a nice close up of Rachel in her pink hat. She then does her stand up. Her audio is overmodulating and the audio is ahead of the video.

Orpheus

Orpheus starts on the DSU cam. Their camera position is ahead of the paradecam. 7:15 m

The DSU cam turns on a spotlight and it illuminates the crowd from far away. I wouldn't want to be in front of that. We see bugs rising up in front of the lens.

The DSU cam blacks out a few more times.

Eventually they switch to the downtown cam so I watch the paradecam.

The paradecam hosts are very low level, very hard to hear.

O Perry Walker's band and dancers are good.

The paradecam interviews Jessica from Omaha. The audio is in sync!

I didn't see her but Joan Rivers was on a float.

LW Higgens HS had some cool dance steps. Good flags, good yellow-outfitted dancers, the drum major did some cool moves.

The paradecam hosts say that they will do the Bourbon Street Awards tomorrow at noon. (I looked for it then but couldn't find it. I really would have loved to have seen it.)

As the Jim Belushi float goes by the paradecam the hostess says she would gladly "give birth to his children."

The paradecam signal is breaking up. We're getting blue screens. (I think there is a cable problem. They're using a cable?!)

Good dancing from Helen Cox HS dancers in white (and afros?) and a good band.

A 3 horse team carriage (and was that a calliope in the cart?)

Smokey Mary comes around the corner. I like the "Drinking car" written on the side of at least one car/float. 6 floats! A nice goose on the back of float #6.

Every time the the third woman host of the paradecam goes nuts over something in the parade, we get blue screens. Cable problem. (We hear ,"Watch the cable, Kate." but that is in reference to the other woman host.)

Beautiful Indians on horses.

The How The Forests Were Planted float has a naked woman on the front. I'm not sure how the two relate.

George Washington Carver marchers look good. Nice dance moves, good band, good red and green flags.

Arlington, IN marchers have nice moves.

The paradecam hosts talk about having designated walkers. I can see having a designated driver but a designated walker? Maybe it's necessary in New Orleans, probably for crime reasons as much as just getting home at all when drunk.

More blue screens. At one point we overhear one of the hosts, one of the guys, talk on his cell phone about them, probably to the nola.com office.

8:24 pm The parade has reached the DSU cam downtown but it has stopped.

The paradecam is out of focus but the guy apologizes for it.

WT Fisher HS has nice dancers.

We see The Leviathan, which has nice smoke coming out of its nose. Its riders masks are lit up!

We see the LA Rough Riders on horses.

I switch to the DSU cam and see a float I missed earlier that had a screaming child as its figurehead. We get very good sound quality on the DSU cam. (No, not of screaming children...)

The How Oil Springs From The Ground float has an earth goddess on the front. Hunh?

The How The Rabbit Snared The Sun float has a nice sun face on it.

The How The Milky Way Was Born float (#17) has a nice blue sky background with some stars.

The Petosky MI band again. I see that they are a steel band now.

The How Learning Was Instituted float ("learning was instituted?") has an Egyptian figure on it, a queen.

A converted fire truck goes by with a steam organ on it? On its side, "Barney."

The wetlands animals come by, walking this time.

A good band in red goes by.

I can't hear the paradecam hosts at all.

#21 Why The Moon Bewitches float has a nice moon character painted on it.

#23 How Transportation Was Oriented. What a strange title. Written by a businessman, not someone who understands public psychology.

#24 How Salt is Formed, Nice character.

Orpheus ends on the paradecam. It looks like it is just starting on the DSU cam. See the NOPD truck.

The Angola Prison Rodeo cart. Motorcycles. ATVs. The Trojan horse appears about 2 hours after we saw it Uptown.

Some nice spotlights, sirens. A smokey flambeaux. (Most burn cleanly.)

I go have dinner in another room. When Smokey Mary comes by, the whistle almost makes me jump out of my seat. (I have the computer hooked up to the stereo so it's loud!)

An hour later I'm back from dinner.

The parade ends at about 10:50 NY time.

A City Of Friends

2009-02-23T13:01:00.003-05:00

See this YouTube channel for more very well produced spots on New Orleans.

And the main website here.

Barkus

2009-02-22T23:45:00.003-05:00

Barkus was 2/15. I missed watching it but here is a good overview of it.

highlights of Bacchus, 2/22

2009-02-22T23:04:00.003-05:00

I watch it on the paradecam. (Times are NY time)

I tune in at 6:15, the supposed start time. The cam is still on the roof at Fat Harry's. The cam goes live at 6:26.

Different hosts. The QT player restarts itself.

We see an Entergy truck at 6:28. The hosts tell us that there are 31 floats, 31 bands, 1200 riders! "It's gonna be a long night." (It turns out to be shorter than I had expected.)

There is some audio hum and the hosts are low level and talking off-mic alot.

The horses I thought were the Budweiser Clydesdales yesterday were probably from the Angola Prison Rodeo.

We see the green and yellow motorcycles again.

The Marine Corps were parading well.

A float was throwing cool dinosaurs.

We then see the Budweiser Clydesdales.

Nice flambeaux!

It's nice of the hosts to shut up when the bands go by so we can hear them. They sound good!

A bubble machine! (And confetti)

Nice Bacchus float.

We see the Jesuit Jayettes again. They do a nice routine. The band plays Louie, Louie.

We see some, and most are, cool drum majors or whatever they call the leaders of the marching bands. They show off some cool moves. This bunch were dancing to Celebrate.

Float #3 A-B-C, nice!

Nice stepping, O Perry Walker. Good percussion. Good band! (The audio starts to break up badly. Pause then play fixes it.)

#4, A 2-headed dragon.

We hear the camera/mic get hit by beads.

Blinky Frisbees! We see one.

(My notes say small child. I think this is when the interviewed a small child that had been brought up to the nola.com booth.)

McDonough #35 band!

A beautiful blue float for the Purple People Eater.

Warren Easton HS - band not quite together. (purple and blue)

Audio is out of sync with the video, ahead of it by 2 or 3 seconds.

Baccha Amore float, nicely lit and a nice Cupid on the back.

Another drum major's cool moves.

#8 LA Swamp Monster.

Patrick, a small child, talks.

The guys in the straw hats and red-striped jackets that I've commented on in earlier posts are from St Paul's School. They definitely have some cool and unique moves.

A nice gator float.

(I miss some stuff here)

The camera pans to show the crowd in front of Fat Harry's.

A good band.

#11, a nice shocked woman's face on the side of the float.

Frederick H Douglas Marching Band had some nice moves.

We see some nice flambeaux shots.

#12, nice Hydra! (And a nice Court of the Crimson King-styled illustration on the side of the float.)

More flambeaux.

The Bacchusaurus!

What looked to me to be simply an evil character turns out to be an Indian mascot for a school. They may want to change that one...

A band that jumps!

King Kong! People throwing beads at it! And at Queen Kong. And at Baby Kong. When did this start? I think it is hilarious.

Some good flags, purple and gold.

A good band, "H" on their uniforms.

#15, The Phoenix is nice.

We can hear beads raining down on the mic.

A good band, gold and black, big white flags behind them and good cheerleaders behind that.

One of the hosts, Kate, got hit and is slightly injured. Bleeding?

Another King Kong float!

#20 Pegasus

A band stops in front of the camera. It plays an interesting tune. Their colors are red and black. They have CHS on their uniforms. I think they are the Helen Cox High School from Harvey, LA.

They then play another interesting tune, this one much slower than the usual marching band fare.

One of the members in that band smiles at the camera, shyly enjoying the attention.

#21 Godzilla!

The camera starts going out of focus about now. It goes back into focus on some things but much of the time it is out of focus. (Did the camera person hit a button?)

Some band from Petosky, MI had a double-decker float.

We see some Viking hats on some riders.

#27 is a Witch. The hosts are clueless that it is the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, right from the movie, with her green skin. They thought she might be choking.

#28 had a Sphinx although we couldn't see the body and feet very well at all. It might as well have been just a generic Egyptian figure.

And the last float is dedicated to the America's Wetland Foundation, the same one I saw in Muses, with a collection of people in wetlands animals costumes. Bravo!

The parade ended at about 9:14. Not as long as I thought it would be.

highlights of Okeanos, Mid City and Toth, 2/22

2009-02-22T21:44:00.002-05:00

These started Uptown so I watched the paradecam. I start at 11:40am, NY time. (All times below are NY time)

Okeanos

They open with a shot of 7 kids on a ladder box, squirming away. It looks cold down there. People have jackets on with hoods! At least it is a sunny day.

2 white stretch limos go by with a police escort.

Around noon the camera pans around. The video stream is a little jerky.

At about 12:13 we see some official vehicles but no hosts yet. We do see some cars being towed away.

12:26 we see some Entergy trucks. Still no host and no audio.

A shot of Fat Harry's, some people hanging out in front of it.

12:43 we see a NOPD truck and some more cars and the parade has begun. No host and no audio.

We see some green and yellow motorcycles. All the same. Who are these guys?

Then some ATVs.

The first band, the Ramblers.

The first float, a nice seahorse on the end of it.

More ATVs, all red.

2 clown (spelled "klown") units. Are these medical clowns? One is in a little green van, the others follow in a truck.

1 pm the Quicktime player restarts itself at the beginning of the stream. I quit it and restart it to pick up where I left off. Now we have audio and the hosts! Erika is hyping nola.com alot.

The Super Steppers do an ok routine.

Lots of mediocre floats.

Cajun cowboys and indians on horseback.

We see Erika dancing briefly.

A nice long shot of the crowds and floats down St Charles, kids dancing on ladders, riders throwing little green frisbees.

Mid City in 1/2 an hour? (Why wouldn't it be right behind since they are a 1/2 hour behind schedule?)

Mid City

1:45 pm, the host starts and the parade too.

Parrot Heads In Paradise float, a Jimmy Buffet theme for this parade.

Nice purple and gold band (St Augustine?)

Riders on many floats aren't masked. I lose audio in mid-sentence.

Lots of foil floats.

Nice queen smile (as was in Okeanos too)

White and gold and the 2 bees again.

The camera shows a Mid City potato chip bag he caught.

We see the hearse that was in last night's parade and the red hot rod pulling the calliope and band.

A cop greets a parent overseeing one of the marching bands with a high five hand shake and they talk and walk. Good to see people who know each other.

See a mess of a gold float.

The Ramblers Band in a green trailer.

Thoth

38 floats, 25 marching bands, 1250 riders Erika says.

The Chalmette owl!

We get a good close up of a band and some nice drum solos. They lean back when they start walking again.

We see a close up of a doubloon.

Nice lions on the King's float.

Float #13, the King's Entourage, has a weird tilted crown on the front of it.

The Tulane band shows a move or two.

Cute princesses on the Queen's float. The hosts remark that with the aggressive throwing on that float that "they won't be happy until someone loses an eye." I can imagine. (I thought they weren't allowed to throw overhand... but 75% of them are.)

The Rebirth Brass Band passes by but it's too short.

A float is throwing spears!

A nice Sphinx on one float with an equally well done bird woman on the back. (What is the name of that figure in Egyptian iconology? She has a big beak curving down.)

I think it is a guy from Wisconsin who plays the flute next to the nola.com folks. White beard.

Nice hieroglyphs on one double float.

I can't hear most of what Erika is saying and that is for the good. Then I lose audio altogether. I restart the player and get the audio back.

We see an amphibious vehicle with a boat on it's trailer.

Nice dolphins on float #3, Swimming With the Dolphins.

Flambeaux Band on a red float.

Nicely illustrated swamp float.

Tons of throws from a blue float, #8, The Mermaid.

Nice skull on float #11, Davy Jones Locker and nice hats on the riders of that float.

I'm noticing the audio is ahead of the video. Sigh.

A "beach closed" sign on the jellyfish float.

Urban cowboys on horses.

The male host says the parades are back to back. They aren't. There's at least a 1/2 hour gap between this one and Mid City.

Wasting Away in Margaritaville with a margarita and some parrots.

A multi-armed figure, like a Bodhisattva, This one is skinny. Titled "Lost Mayan Waterfall"? I don't get that.

3:43 pm I am getting tired of hearing Erika in general, and hyping nola.com so much.

Whale watching in Hawaii float has killer whales on it...

A rider is tossing out Jello shots!

A shark float.

The audio is breaking up. I restart the player but all I had to do was pause it and let it play again, which I later learn.

Good dancing from some in blue and white.

Marlin fishing. (Maybe that was a Marlin in an earlier parade instead of a sail or swordfish?)

#23, Crabbing has a large crab on the front of the float.

Abdul and the Tent Makers! What a great name for a band. I've seen them in Mardi Gras parades for the past couple of years now. They're playing "I Feel Good" as they pass by.

#24 Playing with the Penguins, nice penguins on the float and nice penguin throws, we see.

#25 Seahorse Watching, nice seahorse.

Some pirates with signs on a float go nuts for the camera.

We see some belly dancers and I missed it but they say there was a large snake in a box that they have with them.

The parade ends.

highlights of Endymion, 2/21

2009-02-22T00:16:00.003-05:00

Video below is from the TP

Krewe of Endymion

Watching the WDSU cam...

I tune in at 5:33 pm, NY time. The WDSU cam has a shot of a plastic
wrapper and a net behind that. We will see that until 6:15 (NY time.
all times are NY time...)

As usual, WDSU web pages take forever to load, several minutes EVERY time.

The parade was supposed to start at 5:15 NY time. We first see it at
about 7:38.

I tried following the Parade Tracker but it didn't move every time I
checked. I reloaded after seeing lights come up on St Charles and it
showed it close on Canal. So much for it working on my browser,
Camino.

Some guy driving in a car/truck, takes a picture of the WDSU cam, with a flash.

The first float with people throwing stuff arrives at 8:09 pm, almost
3 hours after the supposed start time. (Yes, I know it takes time to
get to Poydras and St Charles....)

We see the driver of the La Fabulosa 830 van clapping his hands to
whatever music is there. We have no audio. Very shortly after we do!

The US Marine Corps Band passes by playing The Halls Of Montezuma again.

The Budweiser Clydesdales? pass by. These horses are dark/black though.

Who were the giant anime figures? We see a c/u of some guy with tons
of beads on his head.

St Augustine passes by, looking good and sounding good too.

I see the first Hummer so far. I'm glad I haven't seen more.

Stilt walkers!

The King (Captain) of Endymion passes by. His float has it's own Cat generator!

We see someone give a donation to a flambeaux carrier. I think they
are the only ones who are allowed to get donations. Everything else is given to the crowd.

Kid Rock has a float. So does REO Speedwagon!

We see some good dancers. We also see the same guys I saw before who
had the straw hats and the red striped jackets. This time they only
played, didn't do any dance routine but they had some good moves.

We see the SS Endymion. 4 parts?

Tales of Sleep and Dreams!

Alice in Wonderland rabbits.

Buddha!

A big white float in 4 parts.

One titled The Butterfly Messenger. What was that about? The video
starts getting jerky around 9:53 pm.

A float titled Endymion too.'

A nice donkey on a Midsummer's Night Dream float. And it's second
half has a cool blue head on it's front. I am not sure who that is
supposed to represent but it's very cool, with stars in it's hair.

A nice winged male figure with horns but it doesn't have a name.

The funky truck with the band again. And the art Lincoln.

Sleeping Beauty, nice dragon on the 2nd half.

A nice old hearse with glass sides and a red hot-rod pulling a
calliope, with a band behind that!

Wow, an amazing figure, I don't know who he is, maybe a cold winter wind.

The Dreamer of Dreams float again with a polar bear.

Joseph and his Many Colored Dreamcoat. I thought there were baseball
players in uniform as riders... Pt 2 has a Sphinx

The Wizard of Oz has some cool green heads in the middle. I'm not
sure who either is supposed to represent. And the balloon with Omaha
written on it is a nice touch.

A band in blue stops in front of the camera. The cymbal guys have fun
flashing the cymbals around. One guy passes it under his leg!

Big but not interesting: Jack and the Beanstalk, Romeo and Juliet
amongst others.

A cop car pulls up, the guy gets out and cleans stuff off his
windshield. A band arrives behind him but this guy is in no hurry.
Maybe he couldn't move anyway. I just wonder if he was holding things
up.

Video is jerky throughout here, about 11pm.

A beautiful painted bird was seen on the back what could have been a
Hercules float but I am not sure what it was.

A nice flower face on pt 2 of a float.

The fronts and backs of many of these floats are beautiful and
creative. The middles tacky.

We see a steel band.

The jerky video has an interesting effect as litter gets blown across
the street.

Getting some freeze frames now. (0 fps) 11:09

Audio comes back at 11:10 but only for a second.

People seem to be leaving. People have turned their backs and left
the ladder boxes. Some pick up stuff from the ground.

Yes, the parade is over.

highlights of Iris and Tucks, 2/21

2009-02-21T16:53:00.002-05:00

Isis

I tune in at 12:10 NY time. The DSU cam has bars and tone so I switch to the paradecam on nola.com The same woman who was on last night, Eriika/Erica?, is on again and she is joined by Lauren, whose soft southern voice is charming and in great contrast to Erika's.

The audio is dropping out alot. The video is jerky.

Nice cat masks on the float riders, nice cat ears.

Float #3, Rt 66. Lots of throws.

Getting freeze frames of video alot.

Float #5 riders have upside down Egyptian head dress or beard masks they're wearing over their mouths.

Getting ghosting on video. Lots of stopped video. 60-80% CPU use w/ two windows open. (Other window is WDSU bars and tone)

We see a funky truck that was in a previous parade. It has a (rock?) band inside it. The a funky Lincoln. Art cars. Behind it, the Art Rider?

No audio (12:18 NY time)

An interesting Chinese float. KF Sea?

A poorly made Statue of Liberty follows.

(I quit the DSU window but see no real improvement and still have no audio.) The paradecam is on a tripod, good. Still lots of freeze-frames and no audio.

12:37 get good stream and audio comes back.

A good band follows.

The player restarts itself, making me think Tucks has started. I quit it and restart it and pick up more or less where I left off. Get a good stream and audio.

A nice polar bear float, or is that a wolf?

A nice swordfish float (or is it a sailfish?)

A hot dog float, with mustard and a bun, of course.

Weird white hats and Egyptian=like masks on LA Cuisine float riders.

Bagpipes!

A woman behind the hosts is bleeding from her head from a throw hitting her!

A Maine float. They say it is a lobster tail but it looked like a red snapper to me.

We then get a fire engine so the camera turns to the show hosts. In the background we see a parade going down Napolean but it doesn't turn onto St Charles.

Erika is repeating mola.com a lot. I guess she has been told to do that. It becomes obnoxious but bearable. I can see how it would be valuable to do it but people are already there if they are watching so they don't need to be reminded they are watching nola.com. Yes, it is helpful to nola.com to know about other things they do. This is the first year they have hyped it at all, really.

We see some young girls wave the camera as they talk on their cell phones. Lots of people walking around with their hands glued to the side of their faces.

Some guy with a videocam shoots the camera shooting him...

1:14 DSU cam still has bars and tone on it. I get less CPU use with only one window open so I don't leave DSU window open.

Some woman who has a small dog in her arms waves to the camera.

A father and teenage son park themselves on camera. The father doesn't look too happy. The son waves on command.

Tucks

Tucks is 1/2 hour late.

It starts out with motorcycles. The hosts talk of Tuck's theme, something having to do with Hurricane Gustav (and the evacuation?). The Cone of Horror, the mother of all parades, after Mayor Nagin's statement that this would be the mother of all hurricanes/storms.

Host explains the Tuck's toilet float.

Erika is talking off-mic alot. Put the mic on front of your mouth...

ATVs. (Tucks named after Friar Tucks bar uptown.)

Erika hyping nola.com too much.

Bagpipes! American Legion Pipe Band from NY.

Cute Loyola dancers/cheerleaders.

Lots of horse riders with cowboy hats. Erika: "Were there Indians during Mardi Gras." Um... This may be a Cajun riding club. Lots of brown horses.

Some dancers, from Brazil?

Then come some people in duck outfits! I love it. (With streetcars in front of them?)

The Bone Tones Brass Band, throwing bones!

The Southern Misses. 99% white, from Hattiesburg, MS. Very pretty.

Some Star Wars characters.

A wonderful mossy Mardi Gras man hangs out on the sidelines. His moss is painted in Mardi Gras colors.

Float #1, Toilet

Host gets a plunger as a throw! We see a close up of it. The camera then remains pointed to the sky as the cameraman is busy.

A band in red passes by playing I'm Your Vehicle Baby.

Lauren sends some New Orleans love out.

We see the Ragin Cajuns, U of Southern LA, women in reed shirts that have #1 on them. Their float, while it has some nice skulls painted on it, has football players as riders.

The dragons of New Orleans. Nice! Lots of nice creative costumes. Even for the kids! (Gator outfits?)

The Panorama Jazz Band passes by. Reese loved them and went out into the parade a few years ago and danced with them, getting her attention from a cop who reminded her she shouldn't do that. A Mardi Gras moment.

Skeleton outfits and a cat woman dancing. There were tombstones on their backs. I couldn't read them all but one said something about the death of his 401K so it was social satire, New Orleans style.

The River Ramblers stop in front of the camera and sound good.

A nice Maid Marion float.

Very tiresome to hear all this nola.com hype.

Float #7: Menopause - The original center?/contra? flow. A great head on the front of this float.

Lotsa beads, etc being thrown.

The camera guy, Keith, says they're throwing jello shots!

A good band in yellow and black.

A nice Creature From the Black Lagoon float.

A yellow band, the South Fulton All Stars.

Healthcare by Dr Frankenstein float!

The Navy float looks more like a pirate ship than the square rigger I described as earlier.

Toilet seat sunglasses. A clown float! Send in the FEMA clowns! Good satire! One of the clown riders toasts the paradecam.

The Dancing Angels. Especially cute are the junior members.

The Mayor Who Cried Wolf (Mayor Nagin) float.

Lusher High has a band member who is in a wheelchair. Bravo!

SDT - Lord of the Flies float, a parody of a sanitation company in New Orleans.

Kirby High - good dancers and band!

Come Hell or High Water float. I didn't get to see much of it.

Devil rubber duckies! The camera misses the parade here while the cameraman deals with his devil rubber duckies.

A great Grim Reaper float - 2009 Financial Forecast is it's title.

A big black and white dressed band.

#17, a pirate ship, plays Gary Glitter's Rock & Roll #2. I hear the hosts describe it as Rock & Roll Contra Flow. There is a nice black cat on the back of that float.

#19 A Voodoo doll.

Some pink dressed dancers, Donna Kings?

The Fantasy Girls Mardi Gras Dance Team. (Pic from 2006) (YouTube video)

Baton twirlers (from Eleanor McMimm HS?) And a good band (also from E M HS?) And good dancers after that with black outfits with silver strips and another good dance group after that with gold and black outfits.

Mummies I'd Like To Find (MILF) Great float!

Naughtyhood (Robin Hood) float almost gets stuck coming around the corner, it's big.

Dr Martin Luther King Charter School. Good dancers.

Christmassy dancers with red, white and green.

Good dancers behind band.

Royal Bath of Tucks float.

East HS, red and black dancers from Memphis, TN.

Monk float.

Royal Out House riders aren't masked. They're wearing sunglasses.

Operation Dance New Orleans. Interesting outfits.

We see a girl and then more wave to the camera from across the street.

Funky Tuck's float with caged go go girls!

That's it for this parade.

highlights of Druids, 2/18

2009-02-21T11:54:00.001-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

I start watching at 6:56 pm , NY time. Lots of standing around. We
see Rachel Wulff preparing for her standup, going over her lines,
chatting with Arthur Hardy. Finally she goes live but beforehand we
get to watch her almost get run over by a van, used by some military
people, backing up without its beepers.

The cameraman/woman gets a shot of the moon by itself!

We see more standing around. Then some horse riders appear over the
heads of the crowd.

We then see some Marine Corp trainees march to The Halls of Montezuma.

We see the king in red go by.

Various crowd shots, some good long shots of the crowd, including
some of their hands reaching up against the pitch black sky.

The riders of these floats all have tall pointy caps on. Some are
blue costumes, some black, all are good looking. One float in
particular looks good. It starts out with the face with white hair,
and had a beautiful comet trail over the top, curling up in the back
in a golden cornucopia with a star at the end. One of the nicest
floats I've seen and perfect for a night parade. How come all the
floats can't be that nice? Some are really sloppily painted.

A green band was ready to go in front of the camera. They'd take on
step forward and then a few back in a cool pattern. They played well
but the audio is totally distorted.

We see a K Why float! Clever. A bottle as K-Why.

The Navy float, a nice square rigger ship, plays what appears to be
Oye Como Va by some cover band.

A red and white dressed band plays and we get good sound!

We hear a loud horn and people start to get out of the way. The fire
truck, signifying the end of the parade is coming through.

Greasing the poles on Bourbon St

2009-02-21T11:37:00.006-05:00

Roop Raj, the WDSU reporter: "This is certainly a family fun event as well".

Un hunh. 'C'mon hun. Let's take the kids down to the pole greasing...'

highlights of Hermes, D'Etat, Morpheus, 2/20

2009-02-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

I had planned to watch all of these but it didn't work out. I did
catch some parades up until about 11 NY time and then Morpeus at
11:30 pm.

What I caught before 11 was a little of the paradecam on nola.com. My
friends couldn't take listening to the woman who was hosting so I had
to turn it down. I also heard Charlie Brown on there for a little
while. Not two of my favorite hosts. And compared to the WDSU cam,
harder to watch with the camera bouncing around and the audio
overmodulating all the time. Still I plan to watch more and have
figured out how I can have a 2 camera switched feed on the computer!
Both full screen. (Both are Quicktime feeds using the Flip4mac plug
in so it's just a matter of switching windows and you can set QT to
have sound only from the top window.) With a cable modem, it's the
next best thing to real tv.

I was hoping to see some of the float names and enjoy the satire that
Krewe d'Etat is famous for but I didn't see much.

At 11:30 NY time, I saw Morpheus start downtown.

We see a cop bending over a few times to pick up some throws on the
ground. I guess they were good throws.

Then we see red lights coming up. They're motorcycles.

The video is hazy. The DSU cam doesn't work well in this light unless
it is close up, so much is blurry.

Then come the ATVs.

We had audio for a little while but I'm not getting any now.

The stream gags a little, stutters, 12:02 NY time.

Not much to see. A float doesn't have many riders on it, 4 plus the royalty.

We see a nice moon float, Heavenly Dreams.

Zeus? It looks like he is carrying a thunderbolt. At first I thought
it might be Poseidon.

We see some men in black shirts gathering in one spot. I wonder what
they were doing.

The stream gets better, 12:36 NY time.

We see some cute girls in red tops and black shorts. Cheerleaders.

A float with the sun on the front brings the crowd to life.

Then the parade is over.

highlights of Babylon, Chaos and Muses, 2/19

2009-02-20T15:02:00.002-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

Babylon

I start at about 6:40 NY time. No video yet. It's 5 minutes before the NO start time. OK. 6:47 we get video. The WDSU page takes FOREVER to load, as usual. We see floats going by in the daylight. Looks like the camera is at the corner of St Charles and Napolean.

We see Arthur Hardy then the parade stops moving. DSU's host is Gina Swanson (I think that was her name.) who is not as you might suspect, blond and blue-eyed.

For some reason only known to WDSU, they switch to the camera at Poydras and St Charles where nothing is happening. About 5 minutes later they switch back. They do this a few more times. Why, I don't know.

We see flambeaux! This is the first time I've seen them this year. For some reason, many aren't lit.

DSU switches to the downtown cam again. 5 minutes later they switch back. 6 actually.

It looks like Chaos has begun.

Chaos

We see the king. Then DSU switches to the downtown cam. 2 minutes later they're back.

The beautiful float I saw in the Druids parade yesterday with the comet trail reappears. It's getting dark now. DSU switches to the downtown cam.

At about 7:43 NY time, we start to see signs of the parade downtown. For some reason a whole bunch of people are seen walking UP St Charles as if they came from some event and are going to another. A huge group of people. They don't merge into the crowd on the sides, they move through, en masse. Just as soon as the appeared they're gone and practically no one else is around. What was that all about?

At 8:41 NY Time, the camera moves. We follow a cop with headphones directing things, as well as other cop meetings. The camera begins to slip down, unattended. We see the pavement, perhaps an interesting study artistically.

At 8:44 we see the Entergy truck at the head of the parade.

From far away, we see some cheerleaders do an angular routine in front of Gallier Hall.

9:02 NY time, we see De La Salle. The parade is going very slowly. So many are stopping at Gallier Hall.

We see a nice brass band go by but there is no sound tonight.

Some bagpipes.

The video quality is hazy.

A huge band goes by. West Jefferson?

We see some interesting close ups of the riders. That's one thing the WDSU cams have done well with, close ups of the crowd and riders. Nice long shots, the crowd compressed into the frame. Some very interesting shots.

Another brass band. Sure wish I could hear them.

The last float goes by at about 9:40 NY time.

10:03 I see flashing lights in the distance.

At 10:07 the camera moves and we watch the cops.

The (first?) band and cheerleaders are organized, in god order. So many haven't been.

Lots of horses.

In front of the king's float is a jester who is waving his hands back and forth, appropriately jester-like when seen from afar. He must be tired from doing that.

A flambeaux carrier stops and talks with some folks on the corner of Poydras and some cops. We get to watch. He's smiling and having a good time.

I didn't "get" most of the floats. You'd have to be a local to. I'm guessing the theme was involved with James Bond with the floats that had movie/book titles as their names. Some seemed straight; only once or twice did I notice any twists on the real names. (Wish the DSU camera-person had focused on the names, and the writing on the floats, as the floats went by. )

The first one I noticed was a sNO BALLs float. Good use of a New Orleans staple, sno balls. It had a picture of an policeman named Riley (a black man, not an Irish man) and a house covered in police tape amongst other features I didn't note. Who's Riley? What's the scandal?

Another: Crash Mart ( parody of the Trade Mart) and Sen. William Jefferson. I don't know that story other than he took bribes.

There was a very nice and weird Rodrique blue dog float. It's nose stuck way out making it surreal. I didn't "get" the Claiborne Av signs on either side of it. The band that followed were good, not that I could hear them. They just looked impressive.

What was the St Henry float about and what was the "For Sale" reference to? No doubt, another cash for favors deal.

What was the "master of all scandals" float about?

A football float had a Republican elephant logo on it. What was the point of that?

And who is Harper Gibbs?

That parade ended about 10:38 NY time.

I noticed a trail that the parades had left on St Charles, tire tracks made a slightly different color on the road, parallel to the streetcar tracks. I hadn't seen that before.

Muses

Wow, this one went on forever!

A brightly lit ball, so brightly lit I thought it was a spotlight, passed by. When the camera adjusted for its brightness we could see some Chinese characters all around the word Muses. Beneath it were some much smaller spotlights. A trailer that followed that had what looked like a fun band in it. Probably a rock band.

The Big Easy Rollergirls! Swarmed. Perfect! Another reason to love New Orleans. (I'd at least watch them in a parade... I don't think I'd go to more than one of their events though.)

We then saw some shoes on poles. And in the distance, the amazing butterflies I'd seen in previous years' nighttime parades. (They didn't impress me that much this year. )

I'll have to check back with their website to see what some of the floats were about. They have last year's all there! I wonder too if a list of who was marching will be available... A great website, by the way.

The butterflies pass by, too short. I was wowed by them the first two years I saw them. This year they didn't have that much of an effect. Still, Muses is to be applauded for expanding the horizons of parade content. Very few others have shown such creativity, sadly.

I see St Augustine in gold and white so the other band I thought was them in another parade, wasn't them. Too bad there wasn't any sound. That is one big band everyone should hear.

Next, a woman in the shoe float but I couldn't tell who it was. (And at first, I thought it was a man... I thought, gee, that'd be nice of Muses to honor a man...)

During a long period of waiting we see a parent walk a child marcher back to a car behind the group. I thought she'd reappear after perhaps going to the bathroom but she didn't. I guess she was tired. Many looked tired and perhaps cold waiting for the parade to start again. Another boy walked what could have been his mother back to that same car but he walked forward soon enough.

The Lady Godivas go by! I don't see a website for them but what a great concept! They're all in bodysuits but there a lot of them and they're on horseback! Bravo!

Some good flag dancing.

The bathtub float passes by, women with bubble hats on and a purple stream of tinsel for a shower.

A huge band and lots of dancers pass by. The band and dancers are well organized. Flags too.

Dr Know It All. Who's that? And the "from China" part?

The bands are getting bigger!

A nude woman is the figurehead of this float. I couldn't tell what was written on the side of the float. I thought it might be Eve but I don't think it was.

Stilt walkers!

The Roots of Music group passed by. Lots of young dancers.

I'm not getting this James Bond theme.

Some good dancing, flags.

Some men on a float, alright.

An "Oops" sign on the Spy That Love Me float.

They just keep coming.

View To A Kill and something about a veto?

The Pussyfooters! One of my favorite New Orleans institutions. So many of them! They all looked gorgeous.

Here they are practicing earlier this year.

Then we see a horse drawn carriage. A nice palate cleaner after the Pussyfooters.

Then we see lots of cops gathering, running. What was that all about?

Licence to Swill, OK, that's one that is clearly a parody.

The Ninth Ward Marching Band! Quintron's! Yeah.

The Bearded Oysters! What a parade! Not as many Bearded Oysters as there are Pussyfooters.

A float had a gas station sign on it with, instead of prices, it had LOL, OMG, WTF. Very clever.

Scooters. I guess they are some scooter club.

A float had some wetlands animals on it. (People dressed as wetlands animals that is.) How nice! Let's include everyone! And it's good to think of them rather than just being so indulgent with the usual Mardi Gras routines.

M' Lasses. Not sure who that represented.

And Quantum of Silence? What was that about?

I think it was the last float that had on it "We are New Orleans. Shaken but..." Good to remember how far the city still has to go to be made whole since Katrina.

The parade is finally over. It's 12:40 NY time.

(There was also a group of non-costumed people walking en masse towards the end. I am not sure what group they were. Some were college age.)

highlights of Carrollton and King Arthur, 2/15

2009-02-19T14:52:00.004-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

Carrollton
We see the Jesuit Jayettes from afar, pom poms clapping, and blue
somethings behind them. (Oh, we do have sound!, It's low level but
barely audible.) We hear them do a cheering routine. The dancer
behind the cheerleaders have a nice routine then they stop and rest.
Then they start up in front of us for a short display.

Off in the distance we see the King paying homage at Gallier Hall. As
his float comes closer we see the flowers shake violently as the
float moves.

A band in blue give us some nice music. A man in white with masked
feathered cap rides by on horseback. Most would associate this with
the Ku Klux Klan but it is also the traditional style of Mardi Gras
"royalty". I prefer that connotation.

From far off we see and hear some cheerleading and a band. we hear
the drum major's whistle blow. The girls are in blue, some are in
white and black and they can dance.(Mostly black kids) They also have
some yellow flags. Blue and white outfits follow. The next float is a
masked Mardi Gras figure. Someone on that float signals to the camera.
The marchers that follow include some dressed as bees. One has an odd
walk, knock-kneed. Some dancers in white, a good band, more dancers
in white. impressive.

A bride and groom float follows. She gets to sit. He stands. Behind
them in another float, their wedding party, so me young kids all
dressed up.

Some dancers wait: swing, swing, dip, swing.

This could be St Augustine's band (gold and maroon). They're looking
sloppy. They don't play, alas.

Behind them are some skinny dancers, all dressed in black leotards.
behind them some vivacious flag wavers doing a good routine
enthusiastically.

More generous floats pass by, tons of beads, doubloons, bags of
goodies flying from them.

The Carmelettes pass by. All in white, with white caps. Celebrate as
the music. A very white routine.

A float with a naked lady as the figurehead passes next.

After some more white girls dance by, there are some vigorous
dancers from St Paul's School, We hear them chanting "hey," They're
dressed with straw hats and jumping rhythmically while shouting. That
looks like fun.

Many more floats pass by, all very generous. Some with bozo-haired
wigs and red and white striped coats. Following them a gator with a
guitar float! That's the last float for this parade.

King Arthur
Starts out with a horse-drawn cart and riders on horseback. Is that a
Shetland Pony I see?

More riders come by, a few dueling with swords. On one horse, a fat
woman in a purple dress stops and pulls out a cell phone on camera.
Real life.

Some guy on a float with huge white feathers behind him. Behind that
we see flags waving and behind them, more flags. A good band passes
by (Warren Easton High School). The dancers with ridiculous pom poms
on their feet. Another band behind that. And flags behind that. Nice
drumming.

A float passes by with only two riders on one side of it. Later some
little kids dance to a song I like, some R&B I would never know
about, here today, gone tomorrow.

The king comes by. He tosses to the crowd after taking a drink.
Behind him is his homely queen. But inbetween is a good band, some
good dancers and a good flag team.

The Queen is on a great twin swan float but boy is she homely. She's
having a good time, blessing the crowd. We see her close up.

A good band follows. Good dancers too. They're in strange black
outfits with silver? strips across their middles and shoulders. Good
flag team too. Lots big girls in it.

After some more floats we see a band in red come up, the trombones
clearing the way as they waved side to side. When they gear up and
play, their heads pointed down, the LOVELIEST dancers come by. All in
red, they hop, shake and point, one moment ballistically, the next
with passion, their pony tails profiled as they turn their heads . I
am taken. A couple of hop skips and they repeat the routine.
Gorgeous! Great routine, great dancers!

Later, a men's flag team of green and red come by. Then, another
band in red plays Shake Your Booty poorly. Behind them the women's
flag team. The colors do look nice when waved.

An Aztec float comes by with it's riders in sombreros!

Then, I don't know who these are but they are men dressed in
black/dark blue with silver/white helmets on. I guess they are some
kind of drill team. They do a strange routine. Not very impressive.

Next, the second best dancers so far. The band are in white and black
outfits and good. The dancers immediately behind them have shaggy
afro-like hair which they shake back and forth. How do these dancers
and the one's raved about earlier have the same hairdos? Wigs?

Not far after another dance group comes by. This one has only a few
members, has both men and women and the men are in blue tops. One
lead dancers does a base gyration, very crude, and a bit of a
routine. Then they all do it. Then they strut off.

We see a brass band in white on top of a float. Olympia?

Another dance group comes up. All white. They mostly run by but their
sound truck is scary. Lights flashing it has some tower speakers
stuck on the roof, a wombat peering over one.

A nun float passes by. Good.

Rhythm Dance Co comes by. White but good. Terrible music but at least
they are all dancing together for good effect. A cop stands in the
middle. I'm amazed they don't move out of the way but they have got
it down to a science. They don't even move for the floats.

A winged lion float goes by. I had to look that up. That is for St.

A gator float follows that.

At the end, the cops arrive, spread out and get back in their cars
like a Keystone Cops routine.

highlights of Pontchartrain, 2/14

2009-02-19T14:52:00.001-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

2/14
Ponchartrain
The cam is on before the parade starts. Practically no one is there.

Some motorcycles and trikes are at the front. From afar and in the
telephoto lens, they look like strange insects, their headlights like
eyes. Lots of them . Some gold, some green. Otherworldly. Just
sitting there, there eyes pulsating, waiting to move forward.

Off in the distance we more trikes. Some headlights, I swear, have
alien eyes. Only in America...

Behind them marching girls in blue, after the porta potty being towed
by a pickup truck.... This is the Dance Connection. Awful stuff if
you had to watch it on a regular basis but effective long distance on
camera. What makes this stuff palatable is that it is a group all
doing the same thing. Awful stuff otherwise. All white girls. A huge
set of speakers follow them on the front of a pickup truck. Again,
only in America. Awful outfits. White boots, white
skirts/culottes/jumpers over blue shirts. Most of the girls are fat
too.

Now come the ATVs, lights flashing. More conspicuous consumption, as
LA does so well.

Some horse riders come. One makes his horse walk sideways forward.
The horse doesn't complain too much other than shake it's head
violently.

Lots of tossing from the floats. Very generous riders.

The King and Queen toast Gallier Hall. She's pretty and gracious. A
high ladder is set up next to the float and bags are lowered to a
go-between who climbs up and down the ladder several times. Paying
homage to someone. The King and Queen wave and bless the crowd.
Somehow I feel blessed although I know this is all absurd show.

We see some cadets, not sure who they are. (They wear dark tops,
white pants and white caps. Most have Mardi Gras beads around their
necks. They've been playing too.) They have to wait for awhile. The
Sousaphones in the back begin to sway exaggeratedly. They sway to
one side and hold it and then sway to the other. Soon all are, each
line going the opposite direction as the one in front and behind it.
Very effective visually.

Behind them are dancers and flag teams in yellow way off in the distance,

Now the cadets start to clap rhythmically. Soon they all are. Nice to
see them enjoying themselves. Now rows are swaying opposite each
other, their arms on each other's shoulders. The drum major (or
whatever he is called) turns and looks at them and perhaps calls
something out or whistles. Within a few moments, the cadets are
lining up, ready to move forward, you see it filter down towards the
back. The drum major turns to the front, prepares himself with a
couple of twirls of his staff and off they go precisely. Impressive.

We see yellow flags from far off going back and forth, back and forth.

The smirking jester with the sunglasses float comes by, it's riders
showering everyone with throws.

St Mary's Academy comes by, a huge band and dancing girls galore.

Some cheerleaders in yellow are seen from far off, strutting and
twirling. All white. They are followed by another huge speaker on a
sound van and trailer.

An Elvis float passes by.

Another generic float with a golden carp? on the front passes by but
this one has at least one very into-it dancer. He undulates and
bounces to music we can't hear. This guy's having a good time.
Another huge soundtruck follows.

highlights of Oshun and Pygmalion, 2/13

2009-02-19T14:48:00.002-05:00

Watching the WDSU cam...

2/13
Oshun

Nice close-ups of float riders. The floats look good at night. I've
noticed over the years that many riders don't mask. I thought that
was illegal but I guess enforcement is pretty lax. Lots of kids
watching the parades. Lots of smiles all around, from the riders, the
crowds, a good time being had by all. Nice mouse on the clock face on
the front of one float.

One close-up is of a cute young girl on her father's shoulders with
her arms sort of facing out, lying on her fathers shoulders. Seconds
later a bouquet of red flowers is tossed to her. Her dad catches it
and hands it to the girl, he mouth open with joy . Awww.

We then see some young Marines, fodder for our forever wars.

A pretty blond mom dancing with her young son.

Pygmalion
The cam starts up before the parade is anywhere near. The streets are wet.

Some good dancing and baton twirling by some kids in white. I never
was a fan of that kind of thing but seeing these parades has changed
me.

The King of Pygmalion! A funny black guy. He fusses with his costume
(gotta look good) and struts. Takes his hat off. Waves his arms
around and bounces to liven the the crowd. We can't hear what he is
saying to himself as there is no sound but he is engaged in a lively
conversation with himself. Holds his arms out as if he were the
greatest. Then he find someone he wants to throw to. He points to
her, it has to be a pretty girl. He then bends over and puts his hat
back on. Much more regal that way. OK, hang on, I'm gonna throw it to
you. I just gotta get set here, as he adjusts his shirt and
stretches. limbers up. He picks up some beads, talking to himself all
the time, looks at them, and points to her again, you're gonna get
them, ok? You, pointing. You. You. Youyouyou, shaking his finger at
her. No, you! Not her. You. You. You You. The he spreads his arms out
as if he is powerless about where they will go. He plays with the
beads some more, sifting them back and forth between his hands. He
sifts some more then points to her, with a look of hopefulness on his
face. He twitches as would a pitcher before the pitch. Readjusts his
collar and shirt. (Throw the goddam thing...) You, ok?

No, I gotta take this hat off first. He sifts some more. He gives the
beads a kiss! Winds up, points to her again. You, you, right? You!
YOU! No, the woman underneath. You, ok? You! The one underneath.
Thumbs up. Again and again. Ok, he readies to throw. Limbers up, big
smile on his face, staring at her. He bounces a little as he pats the
beads. He throws!

It doesn't look like they got to where they were intended to go, he
follows it intensely. No, they were supposed to go to, you know, next
to her. Oh heck, I tried. He goes back and puts his hat on. Adjusts
himself. Then he takes the hat off and looks for something in one of
the bags beneath him.

Now he wants to get out of the float so he tries the gate. It won't
open. He tries and tries but it won't open so he starts to step over
it. Someone comes up, wiggles it abit and gets it open. The King
walks out amongst his people but not without first turning to get his
hat and put it on. Gotta look good.

All this takes about 5 minutes and was hilarious to watch. Some time
later, he gets back on the float, adjusts his hat, starts to wave his
arms around, come on people lets party! He claps and bounces. Come
on, come on! the parade starts to move again. Goodbye King. It's been
great. As he passes out of the camera view he takes his hat off.

Next highlight, a good dancer in a silver top with black pants,
shimmies with arms outstretched angularly. Big smile on her face,
she's knows she's a good dancer. Flags follow her and other dancers.
I used to think flag teams were the stupidest things but seeing them
from afar they can make some interesting patterns. I can't see
wanting to do something like that but they make up a good part of the
parade.

A white float looks like cotton in the poor light.

The flags whip in the wind. Oh, to feel that warm humid New Orleans wind again.

Some baton twirlers do a waiting step as only Southern blacks can do.
A step here to the side, another to the other side slightly ahead of
it. Lots of attitude. We love it.

Same with bands. Struttin'. Don't mess with them. Too bad we can't
hear them. (We do later.) Arms swinging hard on each side. Very
impressive to watch. Here come some smaller girls, swinging as hard
as they can. Having a ball. With a couple of hop-steps, they're off.
Later some flags, then some more dancers/cheerleaders. They stop and
wait, balancing back and forth on each leg, their hands on their
hips. In another context, if that was your wife, you'd have some
explaining to do. And they've got all the time in the world.

We're at the corner of Poydras and St Charles, the parade coming down
St Charles. (Who doesn't love St Charles?)

Some marchers in white with white cowboy hats and flags.

Some more flashing baton twirlers, more flashy because it is at
night. The band comes next .Some of their heads are jerking back and
forth, the tassels on their hats making a good effect. The march
stops. Immediately, the bass drums on teh right turns. The one next
to him turns. Then the next. Now all are turned to the right and
their heads are bobbing up and down. Very cool. Then the leader turns
and heads behind the line while they others follow him closely, heads
bobbing all in time. It's a sort of hesitation step. Works great.
They get back to place. The leader turns and looks ahead. There's
still time so they do it again, heads bobbing up and down to great
effect. All the other drums in the band are also having spasms. It
looks great. One by one, the big bass drums turn back to the front
and soon enough the band moves on. All the while the girls in their
blue short outfits behind them are shaking to the beat. Wonderful.
More women, now in red jumpers twitch as they wait with their hands
on their hips, like you had better explain yourself to this nice
mama. A parent walks inbetween them, offering them some water. Some
take big swigs and then almost bow forward like it was strong stuff.
Off they go.

The parade ends so I switch to the Lee Circle cam. We see the
Crescent City Connection in the distance and some colored lights in
that fancy new hotel on Lee Circle. (Hard to believe it is now a
trendy spot. And the Hummingbird Cafe is gone.)

Oshun and Pygmalion, 2/13

2009-02-13T20:54:00.003-05:00

I fire up the computer at about 7 pm, NY time. The parade is supposed
to start at 6 New Orleans time. It works. WDSU has a nice stream, no
audio but good video.

I see people standing around as the parade passes by. A DSU reporter
goes on camera but people stand in front of her and she doesn't do a
stand-up. The camera shows us a young girl on her father's shoulders
as she catches a bouquet of red flowers, making her smile.

Soon enough it ends. I watched about 20 minutes of it. Looks like
rain had fallen earlier.

I then try to watch Pygmalion. Still no audio. The player (Quicktime
using the Flip4Mac plugin) restarts often. The picture goes from good
to bad, looking like snow over the air. I give up at 8:30 NY time. I
hope other parades come out better.

9;25 (NY time) I try again. No parade in sight.Our view is from a balcony, across the street from One Shell Square. (You can see the streetcar tracks break up the white lines of the painted lanes.) Very low level audio, digital noise.

9:45 We see baton twirlers. Then the king of the krewe, a black man dressed in white on the typical white king's float. It's hilarious to watch as he picks out someone in the crowd to throw some beads to. The parade stopped, the king gets off the float. (I haven't seen that before.) As the parade starts up again, the king, back on the float, jumps up and down, all excited.

See some nice bands, too bad we can't hear them, some nice dancing. Some bands have some cool dance moves, like one where the big bass drums shuffled together slowly all bunched together, forming a line. They all followed each other, killing time until the parade moved again.

After the parade ends, I switch to the Lee Circle cam which has a blurry shot of the Crescent City Connection and the CBD. A new, to me, sign flashes green and purple.

I'm glad I tried again.

More tomorrow.

Krewe du Vieux 2009

2009-02-08T18:00:00.009-05:00

Mardi Gras Parade Krewe du Vieux

This is one parade that you want to see as much as possible of.

From the Krewe du Vieux's website:

Krewe du Vieux announces its 2009 parade theme "Krewe du Vieux's Stimulus Package"

Reflecting national trends, Krewe du Vieux is wheeling and dealing with its own brand of economic incompetence. On February 7th, KdV will roll out its own STIMULUS PACKAGE that includes substantial “Investments in Stocks & Bondage” and a bailout plan for “D&D Cock Market Investment Spankers.” In a “Salute to Trickle Down Economics” Krewe du Vieux’s crack economic team, advised by the investment firm of “Schmeckel and Shekel’s Foreskins and Foreclosures,” promises to “Extend the Guard” and “Go Down With Uncle Sam.”

The Krewe will be marching through the Faubourg Marigny and the French Quarter encouraging onlookers to “Shave the Wetlands” and get ready for some “New Voodoo Economics.” Always “Dedicated to Perpetual Naughtiness” this year’s parade promises plenty of “Good Vibrations” on its way to it’s “Inaugural Balls” at the Colton School.

Also, see this:

Morris, The Movie

2009-01-30T11:56:00.003-05:00

This looks hilarious. Petition so we can see it in the US. Go to http://www.morrismovie.com/

Helsinki Complaints Choir!

2009-01-28T19:12:00.005-05:00

Current TV comes up with another one! The Helsinki Complaints Choir! From the land that gave us Huutajat...

Why I love New Orleans, reason #4357

2009-01-27T17:50:00.000-05:00

Colbert's music video

2009-01-25T12:59:00.000-05:00

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Stephen's Remix Challenge

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

2 red foxes in 2 days!

2009-01-22T15:37:00.006-05:00

For two days now, I've seen red fox near the house! Here is a pic of yesterday's fox, with its mangy tail.

Red Fox, originally uploaded by Lipwak.

I also submitted this to the Journal News and they had it on their website!

Here is some video I shot with my still camera, so it is low resolution, of the fox I saw today. This one's tail was fine. I edited some of it out including seeing him climb a pile of dirt in a neighbor's yard.

I'm all excited about this and hope to get better video soon.

prostate biopsy

2009-01-20T21:31:00.001-05:00

I wanted to share this in case anyone has concerns about doing this process.

My urologist wanted to take a biopsy of my prostate since my PSA
scores have ben rising slightly and didn't go down significantly
after a week of anti-inflammatories and 1/2 hr warm baths. I had it
done today.

I walked into the Dr's office as Obama was giving his inaugural
speech. Very impressive and inspiring. The receptionist gave me some
forms to fill out and then hte nurse who'd be working with me came by
and told me I didn't have to fill out those forms. (I had already
filled them out a few weeks ago anyway.) She was friendly and caring
whereas the office staff was disorganized and lacking in basic human
interaction skills, as usual.

They then told me I'd used up my referrals. They called my Dr and
straightened that out so I appreciated that. My mistake and an easy
one in this world of bureaucratic HMOs.

They decided to give me an IV with antibiotics which they said would
take 1/2 an hour so they were glad I was there early. I told them
that I was scheduled to be there at 12:30 but I hadn't been told I
was going to have an IV so I hadn't gotten there intentionally early.
I then waited for a long time before they started in. (I wasn't
wearing a watch so I don't know how long it was.) Apparently the Dr
had an emergency so that pushed me back some.

They did the IV. It went well and the nurse was professional and
caring. Then I went into another room for the biopsy. That went well
enough. When the samples were removed it felt like a staple gun was
being set off, but without the staples, thank you. Nothing to worry
about. I was shivering due to nervousness and the cold room. The
nurse who'd seen me in the beginning was kind throughout which was
nice.

When it was done, the Dr said my sonogram looked fine. I have a cyst
on my ejaculatory duct and "stones" in the prostate but neither is
anything to be concerned about. Since I am not planning to have kids
it the cyst may actually be a blessing, a form of birth control!

I'll call the Dr on Monday. I probably won't report the results here but finding out the results will be more of a concern than the test itself.

And so far, so good. I've had no after-effects other than a little
discomfort and feeling under the weather due to the antibiotics for a
little while this afternoon but a nap seems to have cleared that up.
(One more antibiotic pill to take tomorrow.)

I'd go out and celebrate but I should take it easy for at least a day.

NO parade season has begun

2009-01-11T14:50:00.002-05:00

I'm way late but here's one on the Krewe of Boo, for Halloween!

Krewe of Boo

2009-01-11T14:17:00.010-05:00

Video of this year's first Mardi Gras event, the Phunny Phorty Phellows. (My browser Camino, isn't showing it but Ssafari does. Go figure.)

Mardi Gras 2009 - Phunny Phorty Phellows

Shot by Jon Donley/Jester of the Bourbocam/TP writer/editor? (TP/nola.com site map is nonexistent so I can 't check.)

And there's this, also shot by Jon Donley, found in a Google search.

A tonier crowd than I would like to hang around with but a start to the Carnival season.

Mardi Gras is on the horizon

2009-01-04T00:48:00.004-05:00

Mardi Gras is Feb 24 this year.

Here's the parade schedule for Uptown/downtown NO. I'll be watching
as many as I can. Will WDSU broadcast them? Will NOLA.com? Will there
be a Bourbocam?

(Times are NO time, one hour behind NYC.)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2009
* Phunny Phorty Phellows - Streetcar, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2009
* Krewe du Vieux - French Quarter, 6 30 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2009
* Krewe of Cork - French Quarter, 3 p.m.
* Oshun - Uptown, 6 p.m.
* Pygmalion - Uptown, 6:45 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2009
* Pontchartrain - Uptown, 1 p.m.
* Shangri-La - Uptown, 2 p.m.
* Sparta - Uptown, 6 p.m.
* Pegasus - Uptown, 6:45 p.m.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2009
* Carrollton - Uptown, Noon
* King Arthur - Uptown, 1:15 p.m.
* Barkus - French Quarter, 2 p.m.
* Bards of Bohemia - Uptown, 2:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2009
* Druids - Uptown, 6 p.m.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2009
* Babylon - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.
* Muses - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
* Chaos - Uptown, 7:00 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2009
* Hermes - Uptown, 6 p.m.
* d'Etat - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
* Morpheus - Uptown, 7:45 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2009
* Iris - Uptown, 11 a.m.
* Tucks - Uptown, Noon
* Endymion - Mid-City, 4:15 p.m.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2009
* Okeanos - Uptown, 11 a.m.
* Thoth - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
* Mid-City - Uptown, 12:15 p.m.
* Bacchus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.

LUNDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 23, 2009
* Proteus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
* Orpheus - Uptown, 6 p.m.

MARDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 24, 2009
* Zulu - Uptown, 8 a.m.
* Rex - Uptown, 10 a.m.
* Elks Orleans - after Rex
* Crescent City - after Elks

Jazz Fest lineup 2009 announced

2008-12-17T14:06:00.001-05:00

The preliminary lineup for Jazz Fest 2009 has
been announced. Here's who I'm looking forward to
hearing on 'OZ, plus so many others who I don't
know. Some of these names I know, some I just
like the sound of. I really doubt I'll be going
but who knows.

4/24 - 4/26 (first weekend)
Earth Wind & Fire, Wilco, Irma Thomas, Third
World, Robert Cray, Etta James & the Roots
Band!!!, Mavis Staples, Booker T. Jones, Johnny
Winter, Pete Seeger (that'll be fun), Sharon
Jones & the Dap Kings, Rebirth Brass Band Reunion
with Kermit Ruffins, Amanda Shaw & the Cute Guys
(please may she have laryngitis), Tribute to
Mahalia Jackson featuring Irma Thomas, Mavis
Staples, and Pamela Landrum, Chris Smither, Henry
Butler (please may he have laryngitis), Papa
Grows Funk, Sonny Landreth, Mem Shannon & the
Membership, Willie Tee and Cypress feat. Tommy
McLain and T K Hulin, Don Vappie & the Creole
Jazz Serenaders, Amammereso Agofomma of Ghana,
The Dixie Cups, Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp
Band, Germaine Bazzle, Tabby Thomas, Spencer
Bohren, Savoy Music Center of Eunice Saturday
Cajun Jam, Dew Drop Inn Revisited hosted by
Deacon John feat. Wanda Rouzan, Eddie Bo, Allen
Toussaint, Robert Parker, and Al "Carnival Time"
Johnson, Leroy Jones presents the Fairview Brass
Band Reunion Tribute to Danny Barker, Bruce
Daigrepont, Dr. Michael White & the Original
Liberty Jazz Band, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux & the
Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians, Joe Krown,
Walter "Wolfman" Washington & Russell Batiste,
Jr, Pine Leaf Boys, Ebony Hillbillies, Hot 8
Brass Band, Herlin Riley, Mahogany Brass Band,
Ingrid Lucia, Lost Bayou Ramblers, NewBirth Brass
Band, New Orleans Night Crawlers Brass Band,
Butch Thompson, Young Tuxedo Brass Band, Smitty
Dee's Brass Band, Nine Times Men, Single Men.

4/30 - 5/3 (2nd weekend)
Aretha Franklin, The Neville Brothers, Bonnie
Raitt, Dr. John, Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, The
O'Jays, Toots & the Maytals, Allen Toussaint,
John Mayall, Solomon Burke, Doc Watson, Maze
featuring Frankie Beverly, Chuck Brown ( the
dancer?), Meter Men: Zig, George, and Leo,
Radiators, Aaron Neville,Tab Benoit & the Wetland
Allstars, Marcia Ball, Dirty Dozen Brass Band,
Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band, Jon Cleary & the
Absolute Monster Gentlemen, Frankie Ford,
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, Mississippi Mass
Choir, Walter "Wolfman" Washington & the
Roadmasters, the subdudes, Esperanza Spalding,
Deacon John, Bonerama, Preservation Hall Jazz
Band, The Genius of Sidney Bechet: A Tribute
feat. Bob Wilber, Dr. Michael White, and Brian
"Breeze" Cayolle, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas,
Chieck Hamala Diabate of Mali, The Iguanas, Treme
Brass Band, Big Chief Bo Dollis & the Wild
Magnolias, Soul Rebels, Steve Riley & the Mamou
Playboys, Luther Kent & Trickbag, C.J. Chenier &
the Red Hot Louisiana Band, Rumba Buena, Roddie
Romero & the Hub City Allstars, Charmaine Neville
Band, Eddie Bo, George French & the New Orleans
Storyville Jazz Band, Walter Payton & Filé Gumbo,
Dash Rip Rock, John Boutté, Midnite Disturbers,
Paulin Brothers Brass Band, D.L. Menard & the
Louisiana Aces, Red Stick Ramblers, Percussion
Inc., Pinettes Brass Band, New Orleans Mardi Gras
Indian Rhythm Section, Bob French & the Original
Tuxedo Jazz Band, Free Agents Brass Band,
Forgotten Souls Brass Band, New Leviathan
Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra!!!, Valley of Silent
Men, and Pigeon Town Steppers SAPCs, Original
Last Straws, Panorama Jazz Band, Hot Club of New
Orleans, Wild Tchoupitoulas, and Wild Apaches
Mardi Gras Indians, New Generation, and
Undefeated Divas SAPCs, The Electrifying
Crownseekers, Pinstripe Brass Band, Ebenezer
Baptist Church Radio Choir, Ninth Ward Hunters
Mardi Gras Indians, Famous Rocks of Harmony,
Highsteppers Brass Band, Lyle Henderson &
Emmanuel, Tornado Brass Band, New Wave Brass
Band, Young Guardians of the Flame.

I look forward to seeing who is searching for
their names and finding this blog from now on...

Rudresh Mahanthappa - Convergence (Kinsmen)

2008-12-06T21:41:00.003-05:00

Heard a version of this on Rob W's Transpacific Sound Paradise on FMU tonight. Wow.

Went to the opera yesterday

2008-12-04T13:52:00.001-05:00

I went to the Met's production of The Damnation of Faust at the City Center in White Plains yesterday. This was the second opera I've seen; the first was Boris Godunov seen live at the Met.

They project the opera onto a theater movie screen using HD digital video. I may have seen some HD video elsewhere, March of the Penguins?, but I was impressed with what I saw. The staging, special effects, dancing and set were breathtaking. The music wasn't that impressive to me; there are no memorable melodies. The singing may have been good but I am no authority.

There were a few technical glitches: at least 2 audio dropouts, one or two freezes and one or two digital video glitches. The sound was good and not too loud. Subtitles helped us figure out what they were singing about, not that it really mattered since most opera librettos are ridiculous. (And for some reason the theater didn't bring the lights up at the intermission soon enough so people were having a hard time seeing where they could go and left them on after the second act had begun.)

Once in awhile reflections were seen on the screen of the backdrop at the Met. Some reminded me of planes with their landing lights on which could have fit in but I'm sure were unintentional. Another looked like a reflection of Maestro Levine's conducting. I don't know what any of them really were. Those were the only flaws I saw with the set.

If you are not an opera fan you will be impressed with what you see in this opera. None of it was meant to overwhelm the opera. The closeup of Marguerite singing behind the singer who was actually onstage came closest to being over the top. Other visuals that were stunning included the dancers underwater, gyrating in unexpected directions as only one can underwater, the dancers in white dazzling the eye each in their own windows, the acrobatic (Cirque du Soleil inspired) dancers standing horizontally out into space from the backdrop!, the motionless Christs on their crosses, the gnarly trees withering as Méphistophélès moved beneath each one are just a few that I can remember.

Too bad the music is so indistinct. You may love Berloioz but this doesn't have much to hold onto.

Go. You will enjoy it.

See some videos here:

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=5792

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/detail.aspx?id=4426

Corn Toasties, day 1

2008-12-01T11:47:00.001-05:00

Corn Toasties, or more properly Thomas' Corn Toast R Cakes ("Corn Toasties" are a product of Howard Johnson's and are square. These are round. I haven't seen Corn Toasties up here but you can buy them down south.) have removed the high fructose corn syrup completely from the ingredients so I am now back to eating them. Had my first one, post boycott, today. I had stopped eating them around Christmas last year because I was tired of all that high fructose corn syrup which turns up in EVERYTHING. I had been eating corn toasties for breakfast every day (except Sundays when I have waffles. ...When I find something I like, I stick with it.) for the past 35+ years. I like them.

This morning's batch were some that hadn't been baked enough which has happened sporadically in the past. They have that doughy taste. Next time I'll toast them through two cycles on the toaster and hope that fixes that. Normally one is all it takes.

So, I'll give them another chance. I'll post here if they don't make the grade. Then it will be back to Trader Joe's cornbread mix which is different and good but with it's own set of problems.

'Charlie Rose’ by Samuel Beckett by experimental filmmaker Andrew Filippone Jr.

2008-11-21T23:45:00.002-05:00

From this blog:

A very good explanation of where we are and where we should go.

2008-11-14T23:27:00.001-05:00

Watch the Charlie Rose that aired, Fri, 11/14.

It's eggnog time!

2008-11-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

The eggnog season has begun; you can buy it in stores around here
(the NYC metro area). I love eggnog. It's one thing that makes winter
worthwhile up here although it disappears from the stores much too
soon, some time in January usually. Over the years I've collected
some notes on various brands. Here they are:

I just bought some Stop & Shop eggnog. It has a strong smell when you
open the container and isn't bad. An older review of probably the
same product: sugar milk, good!

The rest of these are older reviews.

Southern Comfort - tasty, w/ noticeable nutmeg
Hood Vanilla - vanilla taste, not too sweet
Garelick Farms - bit of a tang, thick, odiferous, artificial initial taste
Hood (no sugar added/fat free) - good!
Horizon organic lowfat - I've tried it but have no notes
Moovers (w/ Santa Claus face) - thick first taste, alright
Axelrod - good, clean
Turkey Hill - gummy intro, (thumbs down), bit of spice (I don't like
spicy eggnog in general. Nutmeg, yes.)
Stop & Shop Lite - almost vanilla taste but not quite
Southern Comfort Vanilla Spice - spicey!
Hood - plain and good
Chipwich - altogether different not unlike melted Chipwichs I'm guessing
Farmland - basic, wheaty taste?, good
America's Choice - strong smell and taste of some strange gas
Hanneford (Maine) - thick and sweet
Silk Nog (soy) - tastes like soy not egg nog.

I'll be sampling some more brands in the future so more reviews to come.

And a closing comment. A good chaser is ice tea. I pour it into the
same glass that the egg nog was in to give it that Thai ice tea
effect. Some may find this disgusting, I love it. It's tasty if
nothing is too spicy and it refreshes the palette so you can have
some more egg nog sooner.

Bravo

2008-11-05T00:23:00.003-05:00

I didn't vote for Barack but I am happy he won. Bravo!

OK, can we impeach Bush now?

2008-11-04T23:54:00.001-05:00

Wouldn't that be nice? This would be the perfect time to do it. The Democrats who didn't have the balls to impeach him before now, have nothing to lose.

Do it.

Chilling

2008-11-04T15:25:00.001-05:00

Dubya says farewell with a song: G.W. Bush Vs John Lennon, GOD from John Callaghan on Vimeo.

And Happy Christmas / War is Over

voting today

2008-11-04T11:13:00.006-05:00

I walked over to the polling place at about 10:30 this morning and
was back home at 11.

All went reasonably well. Not much of a line. Two tables were set up
for two election districts. I wasn't sure which district I was so I
waited in line abit and then went to the district table that wasn't
seeing much action. Turns out I wasn't in that district so I got back
in line, my place being saved. I fished out my voter registration
card and held onto it.

One of the election volunteers tried to put a man ahead of all of us
waiting in line but eventually relented and had him go to the back of
the line. Other than some confusion about organizing the people into
lines the election volunteers were competent. Some were even nice/friendly.

I got up to the table, signed in and went to the voting machine, one
of the old lever types that I am used to.

When I went into the machine, I looked for Nader's position. He was
way down on the bottom row, hard to see without bending over. He was
also on the same line as Bob Barr. I wish I had taken a picture so I
could remember if there were any blank lines inbetween the
independents on the bottom of the ballot and the entries for Obama
and McCain on the various party lines they were on. By putting the
independents so far towards the bottom it shows the clear bias the
two major parties have against them and is another tactic they have successfully used to maintain their power. Some day it would be nice if that sort of gerrymandering was
corrected.

Bush's brain

2008-10-14T21:26:00.001-04:00

Michael P Smith RIP

2008-10-09T11:35:00.000-04:00

Michael P Smith, the great New Orleans photographer who took so many
classic portraits of New Orleans musicians, died recently. I think I
first saw his work in my college yearbook in 1972. I've appreciated
it ever since.

See this for a good selection of his pics:
http://www.michaelpsmithphotography.com/jazzfest/pages/jazz1.htm

Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival, afterwards

2008-09-28T19:49:00.032-04:00

My original idea was to write down the title of each poem I heard and then underline the notable ones and try to write something about them but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. So, what I have below is the next best thing. I only wrote comments about a few poems or poets. I have also included some links to whatever poems I could find on the net.

I noticed a higher proportion of humorous as well as extremely gut-wrenching poems than in the past.

***

I went for Saturday and Sunday. It rained both days, a little on Sat, tons on Sun. I saw/heard some poets new to me and some familiar ones. Some impressions:

I got there in time for the 11 o'clock session on Saturday. Wandaring around, I saw Susan Jackson, who had a soft voice but stunning poetry, Ken Hart - a poem about him dating was one I noted and I think it was Brenda O'Shaughnessy whose language impressed me as especially lively.

In the main tent from 12:45 on I heard Peter Cole, who is very interesting, Linda Pastan, whose (Disobedience? In The Garden?, "I was never meant to be a God.") I remember from an earlier festival or hearing it somewhere else. A great dog poem. Later, Chris Albani was both funny and grippingly real in his tales of cruelty.

(Here is Chris reading on Friday)

Sharon Olds' poem(s?) on the death of her mother were moving and she did some of her Odes.

I went to the Bray Pond tent to hear Coleman Barks, Ted Kooser and C.D Wright. I hadn't heard Coleman in the morning Rumi session but he read more of his own poetry in this session. Ted and C.D.'s poetry didn't move me to write any notes on them.

(Here is Coleman reading on Friday)

I then went to the Gazebo to hear people read Whitman. One man in particular had memorized various sections and brought them to life by picking up a blade of grass while talking about it and otherwise using what he had around him. Brilliantly done!

The evening program's poets and poems who stood out in my mind:

- Simon Armitage two poems, one on a childhood school physics experiment where he had to shout to see how far a voice could carry (called The Shout) and I Am A Sperm Whale.

- Patricia Smith's riveting poem about the people who were left behind in a nursing home in St Bernard parish during Katrina. "... Leave them there..." repeatedly whispered. Gut-wrenching. (See the book Blood Dazzler.)

- Robin Robinson, from Scotland: Wedding The Locksmith's Daughter.

- Martin Espada's poem Alabanza about the food service workers in the World Trade Center tower on 9/11, teaching, at the end, the others how to sing. Another emotionally wrenching poem. See a movie version of it here.

- Franz Wright's poem that had in it, or was it an aside, that the IRS doesn't allow deductions for cloudy days.

- Kevin Young's poems "Aunties" (from Jelly Roll) and odes "To Pork" and "To Boudan."

I didn't stay after the break because I had to go back home and give my cat her insulin shot as well as get up early the next day to do the same, so that I could make the Rumi session then.

Sunday

I arrived before the Rumi session started and it got off to a little bit of late start anyway. Some lines I noted, but are roughly paraphrased here: the world is drowning in sorrow. What is the point of trying to know God? Be like a dog howling for its master. In the yearning, you will understand. There are many ways to kneel, as each instrument is singled out. (I'm guessing that the sound crew didn't play a track that Paul Winter wanted them to. He kept signalling them but I didn't hear any sfx or backing track. They did play some whale songs last night... The sound, by the way, was better than last year. Other than the heavy rain drowning out Billy Collins at times, EVERYTHING was audible and excellently handled. That tent is a fishbowl acoustically. Last year it was muddy unless you were sitting in a good spot. This year, it sounded good, if not a little loud, everywhere I sat.)

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go after that, and despite the hard rain, I headed to the farthest tent, the Bray Pond tent, to hear talk of poetry and animals. Mark Doty, as always, read beautifully. His poems about grackles in Houston "Theory of Beauty (Grackles on Montrose)" and goldfish eggs and him saying the chief of the Nez Perce' indians had told him, life without animals would leave humans with a loneliness of spirit. Very true and we are doing it anyway.

Maxine, Joy and Billy's readings and poems were good but I didn't write down any notes on them. Maxine and Joy had several horse poems. I don't understand horses but they helped.

I then still wasn't sure who I really wanted to see so I picked Kevin Young. Coral Bracho was new to me. Her poems were interesting, especially the one about water, "Agua de bordes lubricos. Both the English and Spanish versions were beautiful. I was tempted to make a short film, trying to find the sights she saw. In my mind's eye, I could. I don't think I could do that on film/video though. I might try. Kevin's poems I noted were about grits and chitlins.

The rest of the day was spent in the main tent.

I'd heard of Robert Haas and never seen him before but I didn't "get" most of his poetry. He did have poems about the death of his brother that were poignant. The line that 'poetry is dreams sent to school', to roughly paraphrase it, stuck with me.

Maxine's poems didn't stand out for me.

Ted Kooser had at least two that I noted: one about a skater and another about his wife washing her hands. "That is I"(?) too?

I hadn't seen Charles Simic before but nothing stands out.

I've heard Billy Collins read a few of the same poems at every Dodge Festival I've seen him at and was hoping he'd do some different ones. He did but repeated these: Tension, The Golden Years, The Trouble with Poetry and Litany. (He also read The Revenant at the poetry and animals session.) A new one (to me) that I liked, was his birthday poem. (Some readings can be downloaded here.)

At the very end they played Pat Metheny's Are You Going With Me (originally on the Offramp album), a wonderful tune I have always loved and very powerful.

I was fairly uncomfortable in the chairs at most of the stages so I squirmed abit but my back is feeling better, now that I am home.

I was disappointed that the food selection was so lackluster. Lots of junk food, not much that was good. The frozen hot chocolate at one stand was VERY good, thanks! I am suspecting that the festival doesn't have much say in what vendors are there; I'm guessing the state dictates some of that. I hope next time it's better.

Also, the main tent should have been ventilated better. I watched them open up the areas by the entrances on Saturday afternoon but most of the time it was MUCH too hot in there. If there are tents with flaps that can be rolled up more easily, I hope they use them. You feel like cattle in the feed lot when the crowd sits there helpless because the people running it aren't doing anything about ventilating it better. That kind of thing makes the festival experience unpleasant.

Overall, lots of wonderful poetry, wonderful poets, plenty to think about and enjoy. I'd say there were equal amounts of laughter as well as strong feelings on death and loss as well as a myriad of other subjects. It looks like much contemporary poetry has more humor in it than it has in the past which is an interesting development. Only one or two poets raised their voices and swore, something I'd seen more when I was growing up in the 60s.

Anyway, I look forward to the next one. Two years is too long.

Oh, and look for Festival poets on YoutTube! Their entire recorded collection going back to the first festival will eventually be available. See my earlier post for at least one sample already up.

2008-09-24T12:44:00.001-04:00

Nader Releases 10-Point Plan to Recover from Financial Crisis -- Ralph Nader for President in 2008

2008-09-22T13:08:00.002-04:00

Nader Releases 10-Point Plan to Recover from Financial Crisis

Posted using ShareThis

Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival next week!

2008-09-21T18:16:00.002-04:00

It's that time again. The Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival is coming up next weekend. Go. You'll love it.

Here's a sample from last time.

thoughts on the Republican convention, 9/2 - 9/4 and some of the music used

2008-09-04T23:24:00.002-04:00

8:59 Tues
Something weird before Lisa Keegan. An attempt to be hip. Fairly awful.

The Repubs become non-partisan for a moment when asking for help for
the Gulf Coast. Soon enough, they discard that and go back to being
jerks.

Polls say the delegates are pro-Bush, pro-McCain to a great extent
whereas the majority of Republicans DO NOT favor Bush or McCain at
all. Should be interesting. These are the guys who drank the Cool-Aid.

Also disappointing is the fact that reporters outside the convention
are being arrested and abused. Like most Republican conventions, free
speech is in danger and protesters will get abused. They too will
cause trouble but the police will overreact and innocent people will
get hurt or arrested.

Repubs are using fear to get elected as usual. That and an overdose
of patriotism.

Fred Thompson on now. A joke of a man. Amazing that people would vote
for him. A macho idiot.

Jolting Joe Lieberman on now. How bizarre to see him there.

***

Wed

They play Sly and the Family Stone's Everyday People. Great song. I
think this is an alternate version or they have edited out, or are
using an edited version that has the 'different strokes for different
folks' part out. Why? Maybe they just are missing a channel. I
suspect they edited it out.

Next, they play the rockabilly song (Rock This Town - by?, very familiar).

Kenny Loggins next.

Happy Republicans dancing to some cowboy song.

Earth, Wind & Fire - September. These white folks are abit retarded,
dance-wise.

Guiliani had to mention 9/11...

Sarah Palin's a pit bull with lipstick. I can't wait for the
Photoshopped pics that won't be flattering to her. But then, she did
ask for it.

Thurs

They go for the 9/11 angle.

Kenny Loggins sings - ..."we're gonna take you to the danger zone"...
Yes they will. Not the best choice for a song I'd think.

Lindsay Graham's argument about Iraq only points out that the
Republicans and Bush would have kept going on the same course if the
surge hadn't been tried, over their protestations. The soldiers on
the ground said this isn't working? Why didn't Bush, the Republicans
and the Dept of Defense listen?

Sarah Palin film
Mother, moose hunter... great. They show a pic of her as a child with
food on her mouth. Nice. Over the rainbow shot at the end blows the
tone.

Having that large screen behind the speakers reminds me of the Apple
1984 commercial. All the willing lemmings eating it up.

The movie that plays after Tom Ridge speech for Cindy McCain has a
first musical theme that sure sounds alot like this Land Is Your
Land, not a tune I'd think they'd want to use given the Pete Seeger
connection.

Cindy with black folks in Africa. She must be a good person.

She appears. Her hair has gotten bigger.

She's "blessed and honored to be part of our national conversation."
That's a wierd thing to say.

"Get the federal government out of our way." She's one of those...

Ralph Nader is on a live webcast now so I'm watching that.

'Let all of those who are locked up for non-violent drug "crimes"
go. Then, have massive prosecution of corporate crooks.'

They're using a handheld camera. They should have used a tripod...

'The US people don't want very much.' That, alas, is why Ralph won't
do well. Most people don't care enough to think things through. If
they did, he'd do better.

What makes anybody think that the Repubs or Democrats will "ever get it done."

CEOs should outsource their jobs too!

The Repubs are showing McCain in Viet Nam again.

McCain is standing in front of a green screen (later blue). Perfect
for lots of people to put something in for the background that may
not flatter him.

Nader webcast is hard to hear...

Nader: We're putting kids in front of screens in education when they
should be doing more worthwhile things.

I agree. "Only human beings should have constitutional rights. Not
corporations." And corporations should not be able to lobby either.

It's kinda cool to see the Repub convention-goers cheering while I
listen to Ralph's webcast! And to have McCain mouth Ralph's words!

Nader will be on 45 state ballots!

The audio is too hot. Distorting but it's still hard to hear the speakers.

The speaker that follows Ralph asks for a $2300 contribution. The
room doesn't respond at first then we hear someone say 'I will.'
They're doing some fundraising now.

I turn the volume down on Ralph's fundraising and listen to McCain.
McCain is now saying we will embark on a big project to make us
energy independent. Drill now? That's the WRONG strategy, my friend.
More nuclear power plants. Clean coal. All bad ideas.

Actually, we know better than what you're suggesting.

Q&A for Ralph now.

On 9/11: Would have worked with other countries to go after the
attackers with a laser-like focus.

Full Medicare for all.

Next week will get together with Bob Barr, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney
(the Green party candidate for President) and some others to say
they are for all for repealing the Patriot Act and treating the
massive deficit (and more).

'The word "spoiler" is a politically bigoted word reserved for third
party candidates... No one blames Pat Buchanan for the 2000 election.
Gore should have won his own state of TN. etc.'

McCain seems to be done. We see a big flag behind the speakers most
of the time.

Bush and Cheney (and Rumsfeld) are subject to criminal prosecution
after they are out of office.

Replace health insurers with Medicare.

Repubs play September again as McCain walks through the crowd.

I agree, the Dems are only interested in self-preservation.

The federal government of 1933 could have done a better job with Katrina.

Hurricane Gustav, Tuesday, 9/2

2008-09-02T22:18:00.002-04:00

I tune in to DSU about 10:45 NY time.

Jindal is having another press conference.

People are heading back even though they won't be allowed to enter some places.

Randi Rousseau's profile looks like my old girlfriend...

Mr Moore, a neighbor who lived near and worked on a house that had
collapsed, will have more work... (Remember that song, don't have any
more, Mrs Moore?)

They show a shot of the entrance to the Palm Lake subdivision in
Slidell. It's a lake alright.

No levees breached in Orleans parish. Good. Water is still coming
over the top of the Industrial Canal though!

Danny Prinze and his wife moved to Slidell because they like the
water. Well, they got water now, as we seen them walking into it to
check out their home.

Rep Cedric Richmond: "We have to be sure we don't rely on the Coast
Guard", re: the ships in the Industrial Canal. That should be
interesting.

Plaquemines has 8 places where the levees are being overtopped. They
show footage shot yesterday of work by Braithwaite.

DSU's Dan Milham: "It looks like Hannah may go to Savannah."!

Various rivers are flooding.

DSU anchor doesn't have a blow dryer as a way of being sympathetic to
those who don't have enough money to stay away any longer. I'm sure
some will be upset with that comment but it was meant to be humorous
and that's how I took it.

Haskell baskets.

Billy Nugesser is pissed that the Corps hasn't figured out how to get
the levee fixed near Conoco. He agrees that they are frustrated as he
is.

Mayor of Slidell jokes about getting the sewage, "things", moving.

Billy Nungesser: "We're sitting around with our hand up our ass"...
He wants to cut through red tape, environmental reviews, etc to get
the levees in better shape. I hope they don't skip the environmental
reviews.

Helos (helicopters)

Ceeon Quiett is a spokeswoman for the city of NO. A quiet spokeswoman...

Heath Allen standing in water up to his knees as he makes his report
from Mandeville.

Reporter reads info provided by the military for the pictures they've
sent them verbatim. They should leave out the hype/self-promotion
they provided.

4:42 NY time: DSU: We're seeing some training going on. What's
training? This was in regard to bad weather, tornados or possible
tornados.

Tornados seen. Adding insult to injury, many must think 'what a place
to live.' They certainly have their hands full.

Levees overtopped in Plaquemines.

Crevasses.

Nungesser owns Elkland, an exotic animal tourist trap.

We see JIndal, Mitch Landrieu and MIchael Chertoff touring around.

Tempers are flaring with drivers who want to come back. We're not
seeing that but I am sure it is happening alot. People are impatient.

5:36 NY time. They are starting to let some people back in some places.

They show a tornado warning which they think will bring it to Audubon
park at the same time it is due in Lafayette. I'm not sure what that
was supposed to be.

They also say:
4:59 Audubon Zoo
--- Lower Garden District
5:01 Tulane.
Anyone who knows about Audubon Park will know that Tulane is across
the street. That's a little ridiculous, tracking anything to that
small level. (It's now crossing the street at such and such a
location...)

On the banner "leaders say the", that's it. Oops.

More tornado warnings, maybe 3, for Orleans parish. Oy.

7:05 NY time. The twin spans have reopen! It also seems the tornado
activity have quieted down but no, more to come. NO is still not
admitting people. Report of a tornado touching down in Abita Springs.

9:39 NY time: Things have quieted down mostly.

30% of the residents of St John Baptist parish stayed through the
storm, according to Buddy Boe.

WWL and VUE are showing commercials. DSU isn't yet.

Seeing that many places are letting people back in. Good.

I may check back in but I think this is it for blogging this storm.

Take care New Orleans and all those affected by the storm.

Cheers,

John L

One last one:
From a parish president as reported on DSU: "if you don't need to come back please have a compelling reason to do so." Hunh?

Hurricane Gustav, Monday, 9/1

2008-09-02T00:11:00.001-04:00

Monday, 9/1

I start watching at 10:20 NY time

Anchorwoman calls the Rigolets, Rigolees.

We see water at the top of the Industrial Canal. It will probably
overtop any minute.

There are some ships/barges loose in the Industrial Canal. Great. A
fire at Broad and Esplanade.

We hear, "Tornados. I need to go on."

The New Orleans side of the Industrial Canal is at risk.

We're losing the audio and the entire signal often.

Watching water coming over the Industrial Canal, the Orleans side. Very sad.

I wonder if a second wall behind these first walls would help. The
second wall wouldn't have to be as well entrenched. It could just be
enough to hold whatever spilled over or if the first wall broke, a
smaller force of water, not the full force of the water in the canal.
Would that help?

Shut up Travers.

Anchors talking to Sen Vitter: "Obviously no one is jumping the gun."
"Obviously" is one overused word and inaccurately used in most cases
so far.

Bush: "The co-ordination of this storm is a lot better"... If you say
so. All that says is you are covering your ass. What are you doing to
help? He is still an idiot.

Jindal: 3 more hours of peak water on the Industrial Canal.

Lilly pads!

Jindal is giving excellent info.

Norman Robinson, DSU: ..."in Southern ship yard"... should be In THE
Southern shipyard...

Some city councilman are going to make sure that vessels won't be in
the Industrial Canal during hurricanes. Good idea.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis is wandering in her answer.

I am feeling better that the city will survive with few problems. The
water is not overtopping as severely near the Judge Sieber Bridge,
where DSU's Travers Mackel is. Other reports indicate that things
seem to be getting better. That could change though with one break.

Ron Smiley has calmed down. Good. We'll get better info if he isn't breathless.

3:16 NY time: DSU: The Army Corps of Engineers isn't overly concerned
about the overtopping of the Industrial Canal. The city pumps will
take care of it.

1/4 of US oil production is from the Gulf. It's all shut down. 40% of
US refining capacity is shut down. The Strategic Oil Reserve is at
record levels.

The Red Cross director is saying all the right things.

Billy Nungesser via a DSU reporter: "We didn't dodge a bullet. We
dodged a cannonball"!

Heath Allen's audio report of the North Shore is horrendous. Cell
phone garbage. 'There was a lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta,
rain out there.'

Smiley laughs as they say that 'people who evacuated to get out of
the way of this, are now getting slammed.' Real compassionate. He's
laughing because it came out so differently than they had expected
and that is human but it just looks bad.

They're relieved that the expected worst in New Orleans hasn't
happened but what about the rest of LA?

DSU (guest) reporter Sandra Shaw..."as you can see some of the EMS
workers had to help him out." No, we aren't seeing that.

4:30 NY time: Cat 1 now.

Ron: ..."we have a lot of friends back in the Mississippi"... He
meant to say the 'Mississippi area' but he had too much to say so he
skipped it. Idiot. Slow down. Engage brain before operating mouth.
...back in the Florida... signs that says...

Richard Angelico is filing some good reports.

Ron: "When you're looking at this eye kind of thing"...

DSU: Rachel Wulff: "Occasionally we'll see a huge whiff of wind." A whiff?

Keli Fulton: "We saw several trees down literally".... Hunh? Literally?

Good to have phone reports from all the reporters.

5:10 pm CNN: WGNO is reporting a levee break? Caernarvon.

5:30 NY time: "Plaquemines parish residents must leave now." The
levee will be overtopped.

These newscasters/weatherpeople have to stop using the word
"obviously". Please.

They interview john Green. He thinks people will stay the next time.
He's probably right. People are lazy. If they don't have to move to
get out of danger, they won't. Of course, they may die if the storm
goes one direction rather than the other.

CNN's John King: "St Bernard's parish." No, it's St Bernard parish.
Others have made that kind of mistake too.

I watch the News Hour. They mentioned that the traffic was one-way
but all the video they showed was of highways with traffic going in
BOTH directions. They also showed a graphic that had nothing to do
with the issue of overtopped levees and the scouring that occurs,
which was what they were talking about.

I am under the impression that the Corps is only rebuilding to a Cat
3, not a 100-year storm. The Corp spokesman said they are rebuilding
for a 100-year storm. But since Cat 3 and 100-year storm are
different ways of looking at it, who knows what they really mean.

Ron: Both the West and East banks are in danger of overtopping by
Caernarvon ... "if I'm not getting this correct." No, you mean 'if
you're not getting this incorrectly' or 'if you're getting this
correctly.'

Jindal on again.

7:12 NY time: The T-P announced at 4:43 pm that the Caenarvon
Mississippi River diversion will be opened. DSU is still wondering if
that will happen.

7:54 NY time: I am not sure if the diversion was opened or not. DSU
aired a report that didn't indicate that. It looked like they were
patching the levee rather than opening it up.

8:08 NY time. DSU: Levee no longer at risk. Good but I am not sure
which one. "The Gulf is rising", in a report shot earlier.

I can't tell what Ron is talking about. The fence? Ascent? Air moving
over water. Enunciate.

They show a map that has the track inland. They list Tues, Wed and
have Sat 7:00 Pm in bigger letters for some reason. Why are they
mentioning Saturday? Are they talking about last Saturday? Next
Saturday? It doesn't make sense to me.

Fetch? Dan Milham mentions it too.

Aaron Broussard on now. One guy demands that Entergy had better be
working on restoring power as soon as the winds go under 25 mph.
Alright.

A pretty Senator Julie Quinn praises the difference between Gustav and Katrina.

We've told you your homes are protected, etc. Stay away until
tomorrow night when they make the decision.

"The winds were declining, not inclining"...

DSU plays first promo since the storm started.

Nagin press conference: Only 2 arrests in the past 24 hrs in NO! Fire
at Esplanade and Broad was due to someone who stayed behind, using a
generator.

DSU headline: "City operating on Skeleton Crew, Working on back-up
power." That could be a headline during Mardi Gras!

The Saints will be back by Monday. Great. (That's a sarcastic great, folks.)

Nagin: 'We need to push the Engineers, the Corps of Engineers, to get
the levees back in shape and the wetlands in the best shape
possible.' Good.

Nagin wouldn't do anything different except maybe calling this the
mother-in-law of all storms!

Nagin thanks Americans.

It looks like this event is over. Yea!

Well, almost over. There are a few levees that may still be in danger
including the one in Plaquemines. One also in St Bernard.

Anderson Cooper: "La fayette."

Fox: Shepherd SmIth: "The governor of New Orleans"...

I see flooding but don't know where it is. And places like Houma and
SW LA really got hit but we'll find out about that tomorrow.

Michael Brown on MSNBC!

DSU is showing what they are calling a live image but it shows late
afternoon and it is now 9:30 NO time. Other stations, CNN included,
are doing that too.

Task Force Gator... (LA National Guard)

11:46 NY time: DSU: Mandeville mayor: Had 8" of rain in the past 2
hours. All the power is out there, except for where there are
generators.

Gina Swanson files a good report from Lafitte. The cameraman/woman
didn't have the light on for awhile but she carried on regardless.
Good for her. More portable levees! They get filled with water.
Brilliant!

Terrebone parish won't be open to people until Friday! That's how bad
things are there.

12:08 NY time. I go to bed.

Hey. Where'd everybody go?

2008-09-01T19:17:00.011-04:00

A dog, probably in New Orleans, during Gustav.

Hurricane Gustav, Sunday, 8/31

2008-09-01T00:28:00.002-04:00

I tune in to WWL before noon, NY time. Mayor Nagin is having a press
conference. He's feeling better today, knowing that so many have
evacuated. (WWL's audio is ahead of the video, probably due to the
Flip4Mac plugin.) I also can watch the WDSU feed and see that it is
many seconds ahead of the WWL feed and appears to be in sync.) People
are hanging out in Uptown.

Tornados in Lafourche and Terrebone parishes. What a place to live.

Bill Nungesser, Plaquemines Parish President, is one fat man.
Sheriff: "Don't let this become another St Bernard..." Troublemakers
will be sent to Angola... Pres; "This is not nothing to fool with."
You mean it is isn't anything to fool with or don't fool with it but
not it isn't NOTHING to fool with...

DSU female anchor: "Do you known the percentage of people who would
have stayed...", meaning the percentage of people who stayed, not
WOULD HAVE stayed. They mean two different things.

People can get 10 sandbags per person in one of the parishes. How
much good could that do?

34 ft wave heights.

The DSU map has "Fl" over Florida but no other state abbreviations.
Sloppy. And Fl should be FL.

25 inches of rain possible.

Good traffic coverage by WWL.

Wind will start in NO at midnight.

Obama phones in to WWL. He wants to make sure everything that can be
done is being done. What position is he in to do that? Anchors
interrupt him, assholes.

It takes 2 hours to go from NO East to the twin span on i-10.

Obama on DSU now.

Bush on WWL. He's not going to the GOP convention. He's going to
Austin, San Antonio. He's calling it a "difficult situation". You're
on your own folks.

DSU: They show Barack Obama lower third as they show Contessa Brewer
in the CBD. Audio way ahead of the video.

DSU: If the contraflow began at 4am, why does it say contraflow
begins on the graphic? (It's about noon NO time.)

Aaron Broussard on WWL. 85 % of people on the West Bank in Jefferson
Parish have evacuated.

DSU reporter interviews a guy in a bar in the Quarter. He is staying
because he doesn't trust the government to take care of him. They
didn't last time, he says. He'd rather get shafted by Mother Nature
than the government. OK. Stupid but OK.

Angela Hill still on WWL. WWL meteorologist looks like a blond Tina
Fey with those glasses. The storm coming in earlier is great news?

WWL: Worst winds expected in Terrebone and Lafourche parishes.

DSU: Mary Landrieu on. Yes, get LA it's share of oil revenues. She
questions why people think it is strange that people say people
shouldn't live there but it's ok to live in coastal FL which gets hit
by hurricanes as much . I agree. If they had fixed things up after
Betsy, etc... "we would be in a great shape today."

DSU: "This is a very interesting right now development.' Idiot.

We lose audio on WWL.

DSU: He draws the path of Betsy and calls it similar when it went WAY
off the projected track for Gustav and only met in NO. ...You've had
good luck and good fortune?

No audio on the WWL feed still.

WWL audio is back, 1:36 NY time, but it's overmodulated.

Gov JIndal on now. 15,000 (assisted) evacuated out of NO by now. 2
trains out, that's all?

DSU has a split screen showing highway traffic but they don't say
where the highways are.

Gov Jindal lists the preparations which sound good. We'll see how
well they can handle it. He talks about the buses that didn't show
up. They have more capacity than there is demand. Let's hope. Pet
evacuations contractor didn't do what they were supposed to do either
but the state has made arrangements to cover that.

State police say 200,000 have left NO? Seeing minimal traffic flow in
NO. Things are working so much better now than they were with
Katrina, he says.

2:25 NY time: WWL still loud and overmodulating.

St John Parish President is expecting 96, 97 mph winds.

My computer is averaging 95% CPU use with two Quicktime windows open.
One fan is running constantly, the rear left. The rear right has not
come on since I had the board that had the faulty USB connector on it
replaced. Hope the computer doesn't overheat.

FEMA thinks it is ready for the storm.

3:39 NY time: WWL feed is starting to get jerky. Lots of users I'm
guessing. I close both streams to let my computer cool off.

I watch some on CNN. John King points to three canals, the London
Ave, the 17th St and the Industrial Canal, calling them all the
Industrial Canal. Is it too much to ask that newscasters give out
correct information?

CNN: 'No one understands the situation as well as (General Honore).
Apparently CNN too.

McCain on now (4:03 NY time). Obama beat you by several hours. It's
time to open our hearts, efforts, wallets..." He sounds stilted, the
same as Bush, out of touch. He's asking the Republicans to be with
the Americans. So, Republicans are so removed that they have to be
asked to join in? They are begrudgingly changing their plans. (Gee, I
wish that storm didn't get in the way.) RIck Davis of the RNC: "The
reason we are not able to give you a more notice..." Nobody knows how
to speak anymore.

Rick Davis: They will 'refrain from giving any political rhetoric' tomorrow.

Rick Davis: 'The President's full undivided attention is in the
Gulf.' Wouldn't it be ON the Gulf? His attention is in the Gulf? Is
he in the water?

Fox: Saw "uparmored humvees"... So they have "uparmored Humvees" in
the US. Do they have enough in Iraq?

5:52 NY time. Lafitte mayor mentions they have portable levees!
That's a cool development.

DSU reporters talk to people who are staying. They feel confident
they will be ok for no good reasons, (Car dealer feels ok in his
gut?!). I hope they talk to them after the storm. See if they sing
the same tune.

Billy Nungesser is riding house to house to try to get people out.
This man is a hero. 'If he can save one person, it makes it all
worthwhile.'

Some, who should know, are saying the storm may not be as bad we'd
feared. We'll see,

DSU anchor pronouncing it Gustav'. I'd pronounce it Gus'tav.

6:41 NY time: Chertoff is behind Jindal for this announcement. Cat 3 to 4.

Chertoff is patting everybody on the back for doing good planning.
Less than 10,000 left in NO.

..."Unconformed reports"... - Jindal.

Hurricane winds hit land early Mon morning.

7:12 NY time: CNN: The storm is still heading into the Gulf of
Mexico. Um, since it is already there where else would it go?

7:19 NY time: Good long press conference from Jindal.

Jefferson Parish evacuation went well - Jefferson Parish Sheriff. In
order to beat contraflow? Why would people want to avoid roadways
having twice the capacity to leave?

DSU doesn't mute the audio for helicopter traffic shots while they
have someone else is on cam in a split screen. It'd be a good idea.

7:33 NY time: DSU audio is out again.

CNN: "Obviously that's probably going to be cancelled..." Obviously.

7:36 NY time: CNN: "In 2003, as Katrina devastated"... Um, Katrina
was in 2005. Incredible how much nonsense there is!

I restart DSU stream and the audio comes back.

CNN: 90% of population have left Southern LA.

8pm NY time: NO is starting to look wet and dark.

Causeway is now closed.

DirecTV now has DSU on so I will watch that.

I now see that it is "contraflow", one word.

9 pm NY time: The airport is now closed.

Tornados happening.

Dry air? Over the Gulf? The DSU has personified the hurricane by
calling it "he". He becomes a tropical storm. He weakens, etc.

26 ft storm surge!

DSU banner says the Causeway will close at 7pm Sunday. It is now 9:20
NO time. Is there any point in showing that?

DSU weatherman is saying it is a Cat 3 now and it may be less than
they expected.

~10:30 pm: City Councilman Carter: 'Yesterday, people on the West
Bank weren't taking it very seriously. Then the mayor made his
announcement at 8 am. Then they started taking it seriously.' Um, how
many people were doing anything before 8 am. I think he meant they
weren't taking it seriously on FRIDAY.

SO MANY misstatements.

DSU anchor: "You're always a big supporter of crime." The other
anchor corrects her: "Fighting crime." So many....

DSU's Fletcher Mackel: "The only cars driving by are police cars and
national guard." As he started saying that we saw a taxi drive by.

Travers? Who's Travers? You mean Fletcher? Both the anchor and the
other weatherman addressed him.

Other weatherman Dan Milham who at least is capable of speaking in
proper sentences: "You wanna know exactly how much? I don't know
exactly how much." Well, thanks for sharing.

"Pretty earlier." You mean 'earlier'. (This is an example, as are the
others, of that well known New Orleans brain fog that makes people
say stupid things.)

Landfall before noon tomorrow, they say.

The cops are being understanding about people out in the curfew. THAT is nice!

DirecTV signal goes out at 11:12 NY time, as Ken was telling us what
the plan was for the police at midnight, though he didn't want to
tell us exactly what the plan was. Wouldn't want to the bad guys
know... Signal back at 11:17.

Idiot weatherman Ron Smiley, when asked why they can't tell the surge
height: "We would need something"... "we have that".... He goes on to
mangle some more English but doesn't explain why he can't provide
that info.

"Largest evacuation in US history."

Travers Mackel: 'As we all know, the Ritz-Carleton had severe
flooding damage in Katrina.' No, we didn't all know. Apparently,
there is a Fletcher Mackel and a Travers Mackel or maybe he goes by
two names? Oh my god. I just looked them up on the internet and it
turns out they are identical twins that both work for DSU!

They are still running the banner that says the causeway will close
at 7 pm Sunday. It's 10:34 NO time. What is the point?

They now have FL marked correctly but that is the map that has all
the other states two letter abbreviations. If they show the one with
Florida and mostly the Gulf, that one will probably have Fl on it.

Ron doesn't want to stay on a spot where there is a tornado warning
because they are assuming that all the people there have evacuated.
By that reasoning, why warn anyone at all? Why tell us about any
dangerous situations?

Ron, shut up every once in awhile. Your mouth is running overtime,
way ahead of your brain.

National Hurricane Center: Cat 3

Ron asks about the eye, landfall, type of storm and a few more
subjects all in one mangled, long question. Ed Rappaport, of the
National Hurricane Center, manages an answer.

The term "feeder band" is tossed around often without any
explanation. It would be nice to explain it every once in awhile.

Norman Robinson to Ed Rappaport: "It's always a joy talking to you."
It is? It didn't seem very joyful to me.

There's tension between the reporters and the police? That's the
first I've heard of it in this event.

Paul Folger has diarrhea of the mouth as he does a remote from downtown.

Polly Boudreaux of the St Bernard Parish Council: intense and
articulate. ...know with some assurity? Assurity?

The Weather Channel is saying this is the largest evacuation in the
history of the state. The state or the country? Both?

12:27 NY time: I go to bed.

Hurricane Gustav, Saturday Night, 8/30

2008-08-31T00:57:00.001-04:00

I start Sat night at 11:30 pm (NY time)

New Orleans is being evacuated.

WWL has info on the scroll that says there will be no mail service on
Saturday in X, Y and Z parishes... This is 10:30 at night (NO time)
on Saturday night. How much mail gets delivered on Saturday night?

The storm of the century - Nagin.

What does the evacuation at 8 am or noon mean? You have to start
evacuating at these times or do you have to be evacuated by those
times?

More useless info: Nagin: every mile of wetlands takes absorbs 1 foot
of storm surge. So, do that mean that 200 square miles absorbs 200
feet of water? No. That's useless info.

WDSU (TV) stream is working well. WWL (TV) stream keeps stopping.

DSU anchor man: With the weather being as unpredictable, Anchor
woman: "And volatile." (That means the same thing...)

"Hope is not a plan." True.

"We hope that everyone that's watching is listening." Idiocy.

Anchor has a laptop on the desk but it's closed.

The state police want people to call to get a flyer? How the fuck are
people going to get it? In the mail? Are the state police going to
deliver it? Utter nonsense.

State policeman says he thinks the evacuation/contraflow is going to
go real smoothly. It's not the first rodeo they have been to. Un hunh.

Ah, contraflow will BEGIN at the times mentioned above.

The weather channel: "We're planning for the worst and hoping for the
best." Thanks.

Austin City Limits has the New Orleans Social Club on tonight. A
repeat in honor of Katrina I suspect. We're praying for you, New
Orleans.

Irma sings Look Up... as I sip on my McCormick Irish Cream. Here's to
you New Orleans. May you survive but the odds are sure against you.

DSU reporter: 'Pick the best car you have.' No shit.

150 mph winds. Gusts of 184. Jesus. Cat 5.

John Boutte' - Why. A powerful song. Why indeed. This bowl is sinking...

Henry Butler plays Big Chief.

music at Democratic convention, 8/27 & 8/27

2008-08-28T23:13:00.002-04:00

8/27

Addicted To Love? after Clinton's speech. Just what are they thinking...

Joy To The World as they introduce Nancy Pelosi to nominate Joe Biden. Oy.

Ain't That America (Mellencamp) as they introduce Joe Biden.

Some Springsteen song after Obama comes on. We Are Family...

What is Hip after the benediction!!!

8/28

Love Train

U2 - It's A Beautiful Day. One tired campaign song.

7:22 pm Funny to watch the people dancing to whatever is playing now.
I'm watching on C-Span of course.

One ponders the power of all these people. I become emotionally
impressed by it all. (I'm still gonna vote for Nader though...)

I Know A Place (I'll take You There)

Signed, Sealed, Delivered. A love song. I don't think songs like this
are the very appropriate.

Live Performance
will.i.am
Accompanied by John Legend (piano), Agape Choir, and band
Very nice!!

Stevie Wonder will be on fairly soon.

Remarks
Ray Rivera
Obama State Director, Colorado
Watching the map, the East coast is hopping. Upstate NY is surprisingly active.

Earth Wind and Fire - Shining Star. This is getting to be like a 70s
hits station. Some cover of The Beatles - Across The Universe, David
Bowie?

Live Performance
Sheryl Crow
Singer/songwriter
I could care less.

A Change Would Do Us Good. OK.

The songs used in this political context are so unpolitical.They're
hopeful in spots but impotent as political statements. Oh for the
60s. Many then were too but many also had unmistakable political
content. So many of these used now are love songs, useful to one on
one relationships but not very appropriate for a wider political
context.

Live Performance
Stevie Wonder
1st song - weird. Doesn't sound quite in key.

"I gotta do this one"...Signed Sealed Delivered... I wanna hear Sir
Duke or whatever the one is that has that list of famous blacks where
he says " a black man"...

"I know Barack Obama's gonna set the country on fire." 40 years ago
that would have been literally true...

Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up!

They play Let The Sunshine for Al Gore's entrance.

Remarks
The Honorable Al Gore
Former Vice President of the United States
I listened to a little of it but two owls were hooting in the woods
behind my house and that was much more interesting...

Live Performance
Michael McDonald
I had the mute on the whole time.

Remarks
Susan Eisenhower
Granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Lots of people wearing red at this convention. I thought that was the
Republican color. I mean it doesn't belong to anyone but... Maybe
that is the strategy in having so many people wear it for Obama. Look
at all the those Republicans who are on Obama's side...

"Advance on the garrisons of hope or retreat to the hills of
despair." Geez. Here's someone who needs to get out of the military
mindset.

Retired Generals Tribute
Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration (Ret)
Accompanied by additional generals

The stadium looks pretty full!

Joe Biden comes out onto the stage and turns and is happy to see
himself on the big screen.

These people are here cuz they are willing to die for their country?
That's why they're there tonight? They're going to die? Geez, another
leap.

American Voices Program
Monica Early - Good Einstein quote!
Pamela Cash-Roper - Had the crowd in the palm of her hand.
Barney Smith - Had the great Smith Barney line. You KNOW he was
hand-picked because of his name. He's being used like a tool. No
differently than a Republican would do either.

Ray Rivera says look at the screen but it isn't showing his text
message results. Oh well.

Lennon's Power To The People. Using the original version! They've
used covers of other songs.

Some bad disco coming up. White folks getting down. Most, so far, have rhythm.

What is the music they intro him to? Surely it isn't something he picked out.
Introduction of Barack Obama Video
The Honorable Richard Durbin

'Those (elderly?) volunteers who want just one more chance to hope.'
Meaning they are going to die soon? They only get one more chance?
I'd think hope is unlimited.

Remarks
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA
Some cowboy crap after the speech.

The fireworks on the stage remind me of the Wizard 0f Oz.
The music makes me expect the giant spaceship to appear any second.
And it crescendos as they walked back off the stage making me think
something terrible was going to happen. It didn't so that is nice.

Democrats 1, Republicans 0

2008-08-27T10:55:00.001-04:00

The Democrats had Alejandro Escovedo playing for them last night.
Good choice and a nice surprise! He played to a drum backing track
but the others were live. I am not familiar with the song.

I do have to wonder about their playing Disco Inferno after Hillary's
speech though. I remember the riots of the 60s. "Burn baby burn"
wasn't an impotent disco chant. It has since been turned into that
although the song is so old one would probably only hear only it at
weddings or bad parties (or bad radio). Let's hope anti-Barack people
don't jump on it and claim black folk want to destroy this country.
It doesn't take much to make an issue out of stuff like this.

But anyway, until the conventions or maybe the elections are over,
the Dems are ahead 1-0. (And with their being held one after the
other a running score won't really work... ) The Dems have played
lots of lousy music in this campaign but I haven't heard any John
Cougar Mellencamp recently (or Fleetwood Mac, but that was the
Clintons theme song). Let's see what atrocious music the Repubs play.
I'm expecting some cowboy crap to represent macho. Obama favors
late-60s Motown and 70s soul (and later black music) which is tolerable
but I think he may surprise us here and there. Having David Amram play
for some event outside the convention hall got me interested.

I also had to wonder about their playing Isn't She Lovely after
Michelle's speech Tues. It's about a baby... I think they used the
version without the baby gurgling in it and while it was meant as a
token of affection, some might be offended being compared to a baby
or just being thought of as good looking. Not a big deal.

$11 for a bologna sandwich at Blue Hill cafe at the Stone Barns Center, Pocantico Hills, NY

2008-08-24T00:06:00.001-04:00

I was at the cafe at the Stone Barns Center in Pocantico Hills, NY
yesterday. Had a bologna sandwich. I haven't had a bologna sandwich
since I was a kid. I thought since this place is supposed to have
good food, even something like bologna would be good, and probably
good for you, unlike all other bologna.

That and a small (but tasty) apple cider cost $11!

I guess the Rockefellers are still making money at this place.

To be honest, I don't know what the sandwich cost. They didn't have
the price on the menu but how expensive could a bologna sandwich be?
I mean, even if the ingredients are from real quality animals? The
menu also said "feel free to take a beverage" from the cooler. That
should mean they are free. (Maybe it was and the bologna all by
itself cost $11...) It didn't have any price on it either. So how
expensive could a small, maybe 5 oz, container of apple cider be? Do
they make it on gold cider presses?

The sandwich was ok. I didn't like the pickled vegetables strewn on
it so I scraped them off. And the bologna was only a few THIN slices.
The bread was good though.

How the rich stay rich...

WFMU Radio Greats Weekend, Sunday, August 10th

2008-08-10T23:59:00.001-04:00

Vin Scelsa
Sunday, August 10th, Noon - 3pm

Great Vanilla Bean and Jim Price segments.

Repeat of Vanilla Bean and RSM segment. Why?

Jones is good at theme sets, one of the best things about 70s and 80s
radio, that FMU, surprisingly, never did much of.

Vanilla Bean with Terry Folger -> music - awkward transition -> back
to radio theme. (My Old Guitar not a good song to have in there.)
Blue Danube Waltz nice.

Vin's gonna talk too much.

Capitol Theater, Passiac not Portchester.

Good ole Larry Josephson, one of my radio heroes.

Vin didn't know it was radio greats weekend.

Good Sgt Pepper's story (Bob Fass on BAI)

Jean Shepherd, Vin's other radio hero.

I remember WOR FM... (Am also remembering FM Guide...)

Jones is on Sirius? All FMUers should be on Sirius.

Hello Hello, first song Vin played on the first free-form FMU show.

Ken said on Wed that FMU shut down cuz they thought Woodstock had
stolen their idea. How about that for presumptuousness!

I knew he was going to say the Fugs, before he gave any clues.

Jones admits he is just doing Scelsa.

Larry Yudin (I need to look him up.), called it free-form. They were
already doing it out in SF. FMU copyrighted it? But didn't Tom
Donahue "create"it?

Vin was depressed. So was Jones. (I have been too. I wonder if that
is a pre-requisite to loving radio... FMU)

LIR got me through John Lennon's death. I still have those tapes,
very moving and the days that followed. Vin didn't know what to say.
Neither did the LIR DJs. Across The Universe was played at the
memorial in Central Park after the minute (5 minutes?) of silence.

NEW sucked then, in the early 80s.

I heard the Vin Scelsa FUV Artie Traum tribute where he played the
song The Hungry Dogs Of NM then too.

Gary Alcoholic died.

Jones explained why he doesn't do playlists.

Get to the point Vin... (talking about getting yelled at). Jeez,
there's more to this yelling story? (After telling teh Duncan, NEW
story).

I didn't like the change to New Wave at LIR either.

Vin owes his freedom to leave when he didn't like what was going on
to his wife.

Steinski
Sunday, August 10th, 3pm - 5pm
Not much of interest except at the end to hear some Mardi Gras
Indians explain the talk.

John Narucki airchecks
Sunday, August 10th, 5pm - 7pm
Awful. I guess you had to be there.

Hova & Belinda, plus R. Stevie Moore
Sunday, August 10th, 7pm - 9pm

Vanilla Bean with Evelyn, hilarious.

Nice to hear Stevie and Hova and Belinda. I took a detour to check
out any FMU videos on YouTube and found some with the Vanilla Bean
and Stevie in them!

Stork Club archives
Sunday, August 10th, 9pm - Midnight

Some beautiful things as always. Could have been current for all we can tell.

WFMU Radio Greats Weekend, Saturday, August 9th

2008-08-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

The Hound
Saturday, August 9th, 1pm - 3pm
on Fool's Paradise with Rex

Jim sounds like a nice guy, considering the fracas we had on the
Yahoo group and having listened to him for so many Saturdays in the
80s and 90s. (I still don't know who the real one was...) Didn't
talked about the Circle Bar, or New Orleans. Hilarious chicken ad.
"You'll holler, chicken stay away from me....",