SPORTS SUNDAY

i guess i should feel some kind of pride or excitement or something in regards to florida winning the national championship. i don't feel anything. maybe indifference, if that's a feeling. i lost interest in college football many many years ago when michael & i used some tickets trapper had scored for a georgia/florida showdown at the gatorbowl in jacksonville. this should have been heart-pounding excitement, the sec championship was up for grabs. what it was was cold & cramped & oddly w/o any excitement at all. we were way way up in the stadium, so high that any activity on the field looked like clay-mation figures from "voyages of sinbad". the only sounds we could hear were from the drunken louts around us. i kept thinking, "we should be in a bar somewhere. it would be warm w/beer & television w/slow-motion replays of close-up action. there would be convenient bathrooms." i hated the experience.

i remember greg ulmer , the hip avant-garde prof at g'ville arguing back in the early 90s FOR college football programs. this was when the gigantic(seating 100,000) stadium was being built right in downtown g'ville. all the cool kids in the class were stunned that this guy would advocate for such a thing. his point seemed to revolve around money; the more the football programs brought into the universities coffers, the more cool events could be scheduled, like guillermo gomez-pena or noam chomsky. someone pointed out that the lion's share of the money actually went back into the football program. "hey," ulmer replied, "we'll take what we can get from this spectacle because it is not going away anytime soon."

he was right. but there was enough of a stink raised that the money, all the money, started being divvied up & new programs emerged(primarily & happily women's sports)& new scholarships were funded. of course, all that opened several new cans of worms but it was mostly lost on me. i never went to a game at the new stadium. for me, it sat there in downtown g'ville like that mothership in "close encounters..." but w/o any allure(the fact that it was named after a notorious racist was the only feature i found interesting). i knew that no matter how much money they spent on that monstrosity there would still be no instant replay & that shirtless drunk painted orange & blue would still be howling in my ear. exactly what made that drunk howl & feel his school spirit soar made me feel cold & cramped w/an uncomfortable need to piss. even the largest spectacle couldn't provide a convenient bathroom.

"i don't know where but she sends me there"

i didn't buy the first vibrator i used for sex play. i stole my mother's. at 18yo in pensacola, there really wasn't anywhere to get the damned things. like condoms, the idea of buying a vibrator "over the counter" was beyond my imagination. besides, mother made it easy for me. she kept hers in her bathroom cabinet, in the back behind the towels. like i've said before, the jones family just did this kind of thing. i knew nothing would be said.





i'm not sure if i had my hands on an actual "vibro-sage, aids in health & beauty" but my original tool was very similar to it. having it though & figuring out how to use it were two different things. i mean, yeah, i knew the technical things: plug it in & throw the switch. it wasn't that simple. this was 1973. these things weren't part of the zeitgeist & i wasn't sure how to approach my partner w/an electrical device when, up until then, things had been proceeding on a strictly fleshy basis.

i resorted to what now seems like THE age old standby, massage. look at all the original packaging for early vibrators. they're covered w/drawings or pictures of happy beaming women holding a cock-shaped "massager" to their faces. touting my "vibro-sage" as a great massage aid was easy, esp since it wasn't cock-shaped. i had lots of other camouflage for this subterfuge. "the art of sensual massage" had come out sometime around then & we were already baby-oiling ourselves up & getting naked. i determined that this was the next step. what a visionary!

actually, my vision was rewarded w/astonishing effect. i remember i was renting a "cottage" out on p'beach at the sun ray motel & still working at the tiki motel right next door. x had come out on one of my days off & i had her oiled up & all ready for a tension reducing massage. the "vibro-sage" was already plugged in & hidden beneath the covers. somewhere around 15 minutes into the massage, i stealthily pulled the device out, hit the switch, & immediately applied it to her back, somewhere on the soft tissue just above her butt. "wow," she said enthusiastically, "that feels great!!" me? i was about to explode. it was working!

for the next 30 minutes the vibro-sage was slowly maneuvered over her body, tho i skillfully avoided direct contact w/her genital area. she had become a human puddle there on the bed, totally blissed out. now for the coup de grace, i thought. when i slide the device quickly down the cleft of her butt & onto her warm & very relaxed genitals the result was almost instantaneous. her body seemed to clench & i asked if she was ok. "i'm going to cum in a second if you keep that up," she groaned. "well...cum then," was my gallant reply. she did too. convulsively & very very vocally, she writhed around, nearing breaking my wrist, clutching at the sheets. it went on for over a minute or so it seemed. unprecedented. remarkable. unforgettable.

i was hooked.


vibrators in their myriad shapes & functions became a part of my sexual repetoire. i located a place in the cordova mall(spencer's, a cheesy "gift" shop)that sold not only the latest versions of the "vibro-sage" but those cock-shaped battery operated dildos in various sizes(for various orifices, of course). after x's electrifying response, shame or guilt would no longer keep me from "over the counter" purchases of any sex aid, object, or novelty. i made it a point of "giving" vibrators as gifts to girlfriends. i've heard that nowadays hip mothers give them to their daughters. now, of course, there are "rabbits" & "meas" & devices shaped like star trek phasers. every guy who's about to let his girlfriend tie him up keeps a wary eye out for strap-ons in the nightstand. no bend over bf me, they think.

i'm pretty sure vibrators made a difference in many of my girl friends lives. they definitely entered & altered the zeitgeist for the better. i KNOW a strap-on i gave to one gf came as a complete life-changing revelation. once she had her OWN cock, she was truly a new woman.

i was thinking about all this after reading an article about sex toys & the recession. apparently, women are willing to forgo various expensive accoutrements while still spending $145 on a "we-vibe, a compact vibrator, all slippery surfaces & c-shaped curves." while some folks are engulfed in the descending despair of financial ruin, others are choosing to face it w/their newly purchased luxury sex toys(some topping out at over $200) clutched firmly between their thighs. i imagine that if most folks could have one minute a day of what x had at the sun ray motel that day way back when, they'd shell out the money happily. they'd be helping the economy too.

the future of the music...business

i know, who cares? that's my initial thinking seeing the record industry collapse & all it's dependents vanish. these guys really did it to themselves. along the way, they fucked us as often as they could, robbed the artists, & ignored the various plights of their dependents(radio, print, record stores, etc). no one should shed one tear. not one. steve knopper doesn't think so either. his book "appetite for self-destruction" documents the fall of the music business in great detail. this is a link to the nyt review of it:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/books/07garn.html?ref=books


in the review, one sentence quoting the book rang so beautifully true in my ears:

there's a moment when producers & artists realize that cds "just sounded better than the lp, no matter how much its detractors complain to this day about losing the rich, warm analog sound."

though this isn't directly addressing the collapse of the music business(it's one of many moments that shape this particular historical account), it does address my firm belief that the new digital technology isn't ruining my experience of the music or somehow undermining the intentions & efforts of the artists.

i don't care that neil young thinks that when i listen to cds (or by extension an mp3)my "mind has been tricked but the heart is sad." there is nothing sad about being able to download the one listenable track from neil's latest w/o having to pay for the rest of the dreck on the album. & you can stop quoting all the scientific data detailing how the compression of the files must degrade the quality of the recording because what you can not bring me is the scientiful data detailing the percentage of human ears capable of discerning that degradation. & i don't mean personal testimonies from all those folks who SAY they can hear it.


the nyt's verdict on knopper's book is mixed(they mention two others, "hit men" by fredric dannen & "the perfect thing" by steven levy, as being more in depth & better written). i was just happy to catch that one sentence in passing.

myths of coolness

none of us were cool enough to be fans of the stooges way back in 1969(sorry, ken). it's just a fact. i think there was a lack of depth to our coolness.

i got to thinking about this today when i read ron asheton's obits in the chron & the nyt. the stooges released their epochal eponymous debut in 1969. it is considered an absolute historical moment in rock history. their next two albums are considered big deals too (their second album, "funhouse" is acknowledged as the "best" of the three albums they released in their original run). as a band, the stooges were done before i graduated from high school. i'd known mike & ken for maybe 2 years & philip for only a little longer. while we did kind of listen to the velvet underground & knew about love(the group)because ken insisted on playing one of their songs, the stooges were never played in philip's cave. not one of us did an acoustic version of "i wanna be your dog." none of us were their advocates.

what's striking to me now is how mainstream our "alternative" music listening was. our top 10 favorite albums from high school are all by folks who had top 10 hit SINGLES back then. w/the exception of cohen & phil ochs, our musical tastes were pretty mild. hendrix was as spicy as our tastes got. we can point out that most, if not all, of our guys are in the rock & roll hall of fame & that most, if not all, of the high school parking lot music isn't. i'm not sure that's much solace.

the stooges never had a hit single. none of their albums went above #150 on the charts. they were direct influences on punk, new wave, grunge & more (one of my favorites, chris whitley, has a great version of "i wanna be your dog" on his last posthumous album). the music is still powerful & immediate.

we can manufacture a number of explanations as to why these guys aren't on our lists. it's true that the harder edge of music didn't get it's due in philip's cave(tho philip was an unrepentant grand funk railroad fan). it's also true that access to non-charted music wasn't as easy then(remember radio station kaay from little rock arkansas? our area & generation's wolfman jack. i remember listening to this after midnight w/george tripping & me just wondering if they were going to play that spirit song i liked). there are lots more explanations.

i think we just weren't cool enough to get it. in pensacola, god only knows who was.

hope & change?

i don't know about anyone else but seeing the all-white united states senate turn away it's only black member made me just a little uncomfortable. yeah, i know all about the problematic issues of burris' appointment but i just don't think this looks good. at all. add to that the fact that he's totally legit legally & there's a good chance the senate broke the law when they did this.
things should never have come to this. it really is shameful.

2008 restaurant news from the city of my dreams

this is from tom fitzmorris' daily blog about new orleans restaurants that i receive. he's a great source for news, not so great in terms of restaurant criticism, & a decent food writer in general. he's steered me way wrong w/his incomprehensible love of muriels & his gushing about mila. but no one is a 1000.00% hitter, esp in the food world.

i will say that if you ate at just the restaurants he's listed here, you'd do pretty well. they pretty much cover the amazing range of food you can experience in that great city.

the best news here is about scott boswell's stanley restaurant. i stopped in here this summer & would have bet anyone anywhere $100 that it wouldn't be open this year. every day i'd peek in & it was either empty & gutted or there was one guy(boswell? i'm not sure.)looking forlornly at blueprints spread over a beaten up sawhorse. it looks great in the pic fitzmorris published:




i'm looking forward to eating there.



About 100 More Restaurants
Nothing Big Happened In 2008

I hated writing this column. It's about the most boring year for New Orleans diners that I remember.

This has been a year of few major openings (but no major closings) and few major improvements. The restaurant business has had to struggle so hard to revive itself that it's not surprising that it spent most of the year marking time and catching its breath.

That thought didn't well up until I began to look for a restaurant to call the best new restaurant of the year. Nothing jumped out of my mind. I kept thinking. Still nothing. So I decided to ditch that old concept and invent special awards for this year only.

Was the best new restaurant MiLa, the Rushing couple's slick, innovative, polished new restaurant in the CBD? I rated it five stars in an earlier column this year. But it opened in 2007. So it's the Best New Restaurant of Last Year. (Which is different from Best New Restaurant of 2007. That was Bistro Daisy.)

Patois? Another good one, a delicious bistro a block from Clancy's, successor to the just-okay Nardo's, with a chef who did good things at the closed Bank Café in the Marigny. But that opened even earlier in 2007 than MiLa did. It's the Best Almost-New Restaurant of 2008.

Pellicano Ristorante did open this year, in Kenner. And it is very good--four stars' worth. But it's not well known, hard to find, and lightly attended. The best thing to happen there lately is that the management finally put up a sign big enough that you don't drive right past the place as you search for it. By the way, despite the name, it's not Italian, but contemporary Creole. Best Unheralded New Restaurant of the Year.

O'Brien's Grille? The Gretna steakhouse was a welcome addition to the sparse population of white-tablecloth restaurants on the West Bank. Good steaks, stark exterior, cool interior. Good steaks. Good service. Opened on St. Patrick's Day this year. Best New Limited Menu of the 2008.

A good potential candidate for the Unqualified Best New Restaurant of the Year would be Rambla, the new Spanisgh and Basque restaurant in the CBD. It was opened by Ken lacour and Kim Kringlie, the owners of Dakoa and Cuvee, and Bob Iacovone, the chef at Cuvee. But it's only been open a few months, not long enough for me to recommend it, or to go there myself. The few reports have been good, however. It's in the International House Hotel on Camp at Gravier, where the Lemon Grass Cafe was.

As I continued cogitating on this, a few other newsmaking premieres came to mind. But they all involved rebirths. The big story of the year was the return of Charlie's Steak House, a minor player on the scene for seventy years. Because of the current imperative that all real New Orleans restaurants be funky, it has been a subject of intense interest since the hurricane shut it down. Now it's back, same old place. Best Reincarnation of the Year.

There were two more unexpected, welcome returns from the dead this year. Coincidentally, they're less than a block apart: Maximo's, which has a new owner but the same chef, and Café Sbisa, operated--until early this week--by Glen Hogh, the owner of Vega Tapas Café. They jointly win the Best Reborn Neighbors of 2008. The fate of Cafe Sbisa, however, is uncertain. See the story above.

Early in the year, Chateau Du Lac moved from its tiny, unattractive space in Kenner to a much more appealing bistro in Metairie Road. That made it twice the restaurant it was, qualifying it for Best Expanded Restaurant of the Year.

Kevin Vizard, a chef whose work I've always enjoyed, did the opposite. He left a rent increase on his post-K St. Charles Avenue (Best New Restaurant of 2006!) to opened a smaller, tighter new Vizard's on Magazine Street this year. The best news here is that he didn't just close and disappear for a couple of years, as he has been known to do in the past. Best Shrunken Restaurant of the Year.

After struggling to establish his own cuisine at Peristyle, Chef Tom Wolfe--who bought the restaurant right before Katrina--gave up that fight and started another one. He renamed the place Wolfe's (no big deal; it's had at least three other names in its past) and reopened with a new menu that was supposed to be more in a Creole vein. But the changes have been subtle; the menu reads much like the Peristyle version, to me. Best Side-Stepping Restaurant of the Year.

The year began on a very optimistic note at La Provence, with Chef Rene Bajeux--probably the most gifted French chef in town then. He was in the kitchen cooking and in the barnyard raising pigs and chickens, saying it was great to be a chef again. Then he was gone. Randy Lewis, who we remember from Indigo a few years ago, came in as not only chef but partner with John Besh. His changes were deeper than we expected, winning the Best Hard To Dope Out Restaurant of 2008.

After a long foreplay, Chef Scott Boswell of Stella! finally reopened Stanley!--his cool post-Katrina grill and soda fountain--in the Lower Pontalba at year's end. He wins Best New Restaurant of Last Year, Next Year.

While all this was going on, the increase in size of the New Orleans restaurant community continued. On the first day of 2008 year, 884 real restaurants were open in the New Orleans area. Two weeks before year's end, the number is 980. We had 809 before Katrina. To put this in perspective, almost all other parts of the country saw their restaurant populations dwindle. New York and Los Angeles have seen significant drops. We are not doing badly.

But I'm hoping somebody wakes us up in 2009.

rappin' rednecks

the outrigger dirtbags all loved rap (herve, donnie, jay. yeah, i finally named you shit-asses). there was nothing that excited these slackjaw white boys more than being able to posture about slut girls & slapping bitches & dope. no music interested me less than this james brown ripoff shit (nwa was one of the worst offenders but there were a whole lot more). i remember when i finally got these fools to listen to early/middle james brown. debts were instantly recognized.

ann is still mystified by my interest in a certain kind of music. i have no idea what to call wu-tang, jay-z, kanye. each of these represents something different, i know that. i'm not THAT stupid. but a lot of it seems to be lost on me. my ipod is full of afrika bambaataa & grandmaster flash, jedi mind tricks & masters of ceremony, the man, george clinton & all his manifestations. i've got massive attack & tricky & ne-yo & lil' wayne. you got akinyele??? i do. & lots & lots more. a LOT of it sounds the same. that's ok w/me. it has a good beat. i like what i hear but i don't go much deeper than that.

dylan? i psychoanalyze & dissect in terms of him, me, the music itself & the society that produced all of it. lil' wayne? not so much.

i was content to live in ignorance as far as this wide range of music was concerned. hell, i live in ignorance a lot. for example, i don't like opera. in fact, i can't stand it. what it is & the culture that supports it. i'm pretty sure i will die w/this conviction (sorry, philip, you tried your best). but i fancy myself as a man who is open to persuasion, as richard thompson sang. it took something from out of left field(& will oldham doesn't get any more left field)to re-focus my attention. if you don't think this song speaks to these guys, just watch him when he lip-syncs the kicker line: " you can't tell me nothing."

the outrigger shit-asses didn't have it in them but these white boys are definitely full of whatever is in this music.

enjoy.