The Information Super-Frog

RIP Alfred Richard, New Orleans original, broadcaster on WWL and WYES tv, 610 Stomper, and many other accomplishments, 1962-2024.


Our lives were richer for having known you.

https://youtu.be/P_hrY8pIQa8

https://youtu.be/8um9YNyuDhE

Ms. H. and I had a nice vacation in Florida.

( Illustrated description )

News story: "A New Orleans civil judge has ruled that a case brought by a couple who were turned back by police when they tried to cross a Mississippi River bridge following Hurricane Katrina should be heard by a court." "Turned back" makes the situation sound much more civil than it was.

Nice profile of pianist/composer Tom McDermott from Offbeat Magazine

A New Car! Not for me though.
Beth asked me along for support and company as she bought a new car. She'd researched well, and was conflicted between getting the Honda Fit and the Honda Civic Hybrid. The Hybrid is significantly more expensive and smaller, but hey, it's a hybrid, which Beth found a strong inherent draw. The fact that she couldn't fit her bike in it was what finally made her decide to go for the Fit. She likes how it drives better as well. Beth has driven her 1990 Toyota Corolla which she bought new for 17 years; I said by the time she's ready for her next new car the hybrid technology should be more common and less expensive. She didn't seriously consider the Toyota Prius because of the high tech digital dashboard; if the computor goes out there, nothing works.

The new Fit seems well designed; I'd be tempted to get one were I in the market for a new car. I've never bought new; my Mazda is the first car I've had which dated from the current decade. --No wait, now I recall that's not quite true; for a short time in the late '70s I drove an early '70s AMC Gremlin. That was after an old lady plowed her Mercedes into my early '60s Chevy. They had to tow the Mercedes away; the Chevy looked like an accordion but still drove. Without major accident, I bet that early '60s Chevy would still be driving today-- but when was the last time you saw an AMC Gremlin on the road? Folks who wonder why the USA started gobbling up Japanese cars need look no further than the junk Detroit was turning out in the '70s.

Celebrations
This week I celebrated my birthday. Beth had suggested a pool get together, but as it was raining, I took a rain check and saw "Sicko" with Hollie, then Beth and Hollie treated me to dinner at Lebanon's Cafe. I felt very content on my birthday.

Bastille Day I went to Laurel Street Bakery and had quiche for breakfast. In the evening was the Bastille Day Tumble (illustrated in previous post). We honor the day by playing music going from bar to bar in the French Quarter, with a stop to play the Marseillaise at the statue of Joan of Arc.

Moving Day
Sunday I went to a friend's moving sale. Dana is another victim of rising post-K living costs. After almost 2 years of trying, she reluctantly now can't support herself adiquately on similar work to before the Federal Flood Disaster, so she was getting rid of pretty much everything that she can't fit in the car, with plans to drive out and try to find a better life somewhere else, location to be determined. Sorry to see her go. Good sangria at the moving sale.

Also
I dove into consumerism myself this week, and joined the iPod People. I also got a cable infotainment superhighway hookup.

Later today we may be redeeming the rain delayed pool splash.

Musical photos from the first week of January: New Year's Day party joy; somber at Tad Jones' funeral

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I had a good visit to Florida with mshollie.

Gator Nation, King Tut, Beached in Miami, Whistler's Red Bunnie, and Confederates seize the Indian Temple Mound

My Trip, By L'il Froggy

In Gainesville we visited the Art Museum and the Natural History Museum, which are at new locations on the University campus and have been much expanded from when I last visited them some dozen years ago. The African Art included an interesting beaded scabbard that reminded me of Mardi Gras Indian beadwork. We stopped at a yarn shop for Ms Hollie (who found some goodies for herself) and a wine shop for me (where I only got a marziapan chocolate-- they had a good selection of wine, but I was mostly hoping unsuccessfully to find a 6 pack of "Czechvar", the real Budweiser from Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia).

Gainesville has nice museums for a small city, a number of decent restaurants, and some natural beauty in the area. The city's psychological idenity, however, seems entirely tied up with fanatical devotion to the Official State Religion of the Florida Gators sports team. Gator Nation! Chomp!!

South of Gainesville stopped at the cute 19th century central Florida town of Micanopy, where I picked up a couple of good old New Orleans post cards (best found out of town if one wants to pay a reasonable price) including one with a nice view of part of Storyville and another of the (recently collapsed) New Canal Lighthouse at West End. Then on to the Florida Turnpike down the Peninsula to the Boca Raton area.

We stayed at a La Quinta near the Interstate in Deerfield beach (Wi fi in the rooms, yay!). We visited my parents who live in a high-rise condo with a view of the beach in Boca. The area was hit by Hurricane Wilma. Broken fascades, downed signs, and blue roof tarps were occasionally evident, but it was very unlike around here. All the traffic lights are working, and I saw no piles of debris nor trash. Shows what can be done when there's plenty of money and government support. Having a Bush family member as governor apparently has an upside. Perhaps we should see about drafting Jena as Louisiana's next governor.

I managed to get tickets for the King Tut exibition in Fort Lauderdale for H & myself. We got reservations for 9:30am, shortly after opening. Wonderful stuff, including a couple rooms on Akhenaten and historical context before the tomb splendors. Oooh, shiny. We seem to remember the exhibit at NOMA (a quarter century ago now) as having had more stuff, but this was well worth seeing none the less. The crowds weren't too bad when we went, but were quite heavy going in when we were heading out 2 & 1/2 hours later.

I should have brought a cd of the New Leviathan's "Old King Tut" to play in the car. They didn't sell that, nor any Steve Martin cds, at the Museum gift store, but they did have a large selection of other Tut Uncommon Merchandise. They had "I love my mummy" shirts, but no "Nice Tuts". I thought the kleenex box covers in the form of the Pharoh's mummy mask might not have been entirely respectful, especially since the kleenexes are pulled out of Tut's nose. Then again, that is how they removed his brain for mummification.

Hollie wanted another look at the Art Deco district of Miami Beach which we visited a couple years ago, so we drove around down there, then had lunch at Wolfie's Rascal House, a local institution for over half a century; it's a Floridaized version of an old Jewish New York Deli; about 5 times as large as anything one would find in Manhattan. I took Ms. H to Little Havana last time we'd visited Miami, so I wanted to expose her to other local culinary traditions. Gigantic Reuben sandwich and potato pancakes, delicious.

We enjoyed some beach time in the area. My parents took us out to "La Ville Maison" excellent upscale French place. On our own we chanced to find "Jamie's Downtown Grill", where we split the "Uptown downton quesadillas" made with brie, chicken, and grannie smith apples.

The Boca Museum of Art has some items of interest in the permanent collection, including a nice photography collection and a self portrait by José Clemente Orozco. The temporary exhibits were the big draw, however. A collection of old Japanese prints entitled "A Floating World" was a good compliment to the exhibit which drew me here: James McNeil Whistler works from the Hunterian Gallery in Glasgow. Some really splendid stuff, especially the items from his later years. Perhaps the highlight is a wonderful full lenght portrait of his sister-in-law with bold red strokes, formally entitled "Red and Black -- The Fan" but which Whistler himself refered to as "The Red Bunnie". Another very enjoyable exhibit was of fin de siecle French posters entitled "Toulouse-Lautrec" [in big letters, then smaller letters adding] "and His Contemporaries". Toulouse-Lautrec was the big name draw; there were perhaps 5 by him, but most of the rest was no less interesting. There were a couple of Alfons Muchas, who I've long been fond of, but my favorite was one I'd not seen reproduced before, a delightful Absinthe Berthelot poster by one Henri Theriet. It looked a good deal better than this reproduction I found on line but which gives you some idea. I doubt modern purveyors of intoxicants would have the honesty to advertise with a portrayal of users of their product clearly wasted off their asses. The museum also had an exhibition of nudes by Milton Avery. Although nekkid ladies is a subject dear to my heart, this wasn't much to my taste. I'd rather have one small Whistler etching than rooms full of Averys.

Back on up the Peninsula, into the Panhandle to Fort Walton Beach, where we stayed again with Ms. Cristina, as we did in September. We visited the Indian Mound Temple & Museum with tal_greywolf. It was "Heritage Day" so entrance was free, with various special events. There was a group of costumed Historic Reenactors, some in soldier garb. At first I thought they were portraying Indian Wars troops, but they turned out to be Confederates. A group of confederates got into a van with with a "Support Our Troops" bumper-sticker and the slogan "Stay the Course" painted on the back. Hm. Tal treated us to lunch of burritos at "Moe's" before we hit the road to go back west. While stopping for gas in Slidell we heard the cashier say "Yeah, you right" and knew we were almost home.

Total miles of the road trip: 1,970.3; Boca to my house: 890.8.

Saturday was the "barn dance" benifit in south Austin, on some nice land towards the end of Slaughter Creek Road. It started at noon; H & I got there about 1pm. The beautiful setting is called "Freedom Oaks". It includes someone's private house (or perhaps their "country house"), with various outer buildings and sheds, two stages, a goat pen, and more land running down to a creek and boat-launch. The crowd was sparce when we arrived. There were various barbeque trailors going.

Most of the music was Texas folky/Country rock, some of it quite good. A gal named Leann, I think, led a fine group singing some Janis Joplin style vocals. Some clever original "folk song" lyrics from a couple of performers. One fellow was rocking out on some middle eastern string instrument.

The schedual was quite loose, some folks who were supposed to show up didn't, and others not schedualed played.

The other New Orleans group was a trio of keyboard, clarinet, and drums. Marcel the keyboardist was excellent, with much Professor Longhair influence. They met as evacuees here in Austin. Afterwards one of the organizers was saying they couldn't belive they'd never played together before-- with all due respect to those fine musical gentlemen, I could, but the music was still enjoyable.

We never decided on a name for our group in advance. I refered to us as "The New Orleans Evacuees and Friends", Doc as "The Mystic Orphans and Misfits of Austin", and I heard Ben refering to us as the "Bayou (something...)". Doc alternated on percussion, tuba, and valve trombone. Mark Rubin (Reuben? I dunno he never gave me his card dispite my asking), the leader of the Ridgetop Syncopators (with which he plays tenor steel guitar) was on helicon (a relative of the tuba with 4 rotary valves), Ben Schenck on clarinet, and me on trombone. Another tuba player sat in with us for part of the time, so we had some bits of 3 brass basses, and others of 2 trombones. It had the feel of the type of backyard jam at a pool party or BBQ in New Orleans. We played shortly after it got dark, the crowd was filling out, and audience was quite enthusiastic about us, I think in part because it was something fun different from the obligitory guitar groups of Austin. Doc insisted we close out with KMFA (aka "Do What Ory Say" etc) which he'd heard on my cd.

Sunday morning my amazingly gracious host Bonner was even more wonderful, and dubbed me a set of dvds of early Betty Boop, from a limited edition laser disc set in his collection taken from best availible original negatives. (Anyone with only passing familiarity with Betty Boop who has never been impressed needs to know that the best stuff is the 1931-1933 cartoons, which is not what is most commonly seen in bargin bin videos).

In the afternoon over to Kim's for a jam & soak. The party was a bit slow in starting, with neither jamming nor soaking for the first couple hours, but good food and nice people. When it started going some of the folkie music was too depressing for more people than Hollie & I (I heard Robbie also requesting "how about something more upbeat") until Kim's housemate Effron, a very good straight-ahead jazz tumpeter, started playing good stuff with a string bass and guitar accompanyment.

I had to leave for a while-- gig at the Flamingo Cantina on 6th street, pretty much the same people as the previous night. We were one of several groups, billed as a "New Orleans Austin Gumbo Ya Ya". We planned on various trad numbers to play, but we wound up doing none of it. A Mardi Gras Indian (who I'd met at Nubian Queen Lola's) was there, and Ben suggested we do Professor Longhair's "Big Cheif" together, which we did. Marcel joined us on keyboards, Oscar Rouzan on clarinet. Good, though went on too long; the brass front line tried to stop it a few times but the Indians are wont to do very extended versions of stuff. A couple more Indian tunes-- "Shoe Fly" again going on way too long, it's basically one chord, but a sax player named Hilton and an Austin trumpeter came up and did some modernistic stuff against it which worked nicely; Ben went to the back and played congas.

Back to Kim's for a bit before crashing.

Today errands, errands, and packing up; head out tomorrow morning.

Well, plan now is we'll be staying in Austin through the weekend, as things have been moving slowly in New Orleans and quickly here.

Various jam opportunities, but even more of interest: I got a paid gig Thursday night thanks to Doc, at Quality Seafood. We're putting togther a small New Orleans style band.
Doc said it might be regular weekly gig-- I said don't count on me to be staying in town, but as it sounds like my clarinetist friend plans to stay in Austin a while he might be a great choice as a regular.

Nifty jam & soak party planned for Sunday evening. jennconspiracy is passing breifly through town, maybe I'll get to see here then too.

Last couple of days spent taking care of refugee paperwork and doing errands, but last night had a good time meeting a couple of internet aquaintances from the old Usenet days In Real Life.

I hope to get back to New Orleans after the weekend, circumstances permitting. So much I dunno.

(And there might be just a chance I may get in on some of the first gigs of a re-opening music venue...)

If ya gotta be evacuated from New Orleans, Austin is a pretty nifty place to be, especially with such wonderful friends/hosts as Bonner & Robbie.


On the 16th Ms Hollie & I slept late, then had lunch at Las Manitas, did laundry, shopping, and catching up on our interneting, then we went for dinner with Bonner, Robbie, and Brian to a nice neighborhood Mexican place, "Evita's Bonitas", I think, with many salsas and as Robbie said excellent Molé. We only realized halfway through dinner that it was the 16 de Setiembre, so appropriate we had Mexican twice.

Next day was extremely productive. We went to Jo's Coffee on South Congress to meet Janie Z, an old friend from New Orleans who has been living in Austin for a few years doing her doctorate (Janie was one of the co-founders of the kiddie-pool jam & soak party tradition, which so far she's only had limited success in importing to Austin). The vast majority of folks we know got out of the city all right, but there's someone who last we heard was insisting on staying in a part of town that got major flooding. We still hope, but I fear it's only a matter of time before I hear that some friend didn't make it.

We stopped by J.Z.'s house, where she had some clothes set aside for Katrina evacuees and offered Ms. Hollie first dibs; Hollie got some sandles, a zebra-print purse, and cute Victoria's Secret shorts.

After Amy's Icecream (good local gourmet; great Mexican vanilla) to Hippie Hollow to enjoy the sun and swim in Lake Travis. Hollie is even more of a flatlander than I, and climbing over the rocks was a bit of a challenge, but I just had to remind her to take her time and make sure each foot is secure on each step.

More splashing later when Robbie took us over to her friend Kim's place which has a nice pool (a bit cool) and hot tub (yay!). A BBQ back at B&R's place, with some good friends, including Bonner's cousin E.T., and I got out my trombone for the first time since the Saturday before Katrina to jam with Doc Norden on tuba, a banjo, and guitarist.

Next morning I helped B & R set up the above ground pool in their backyard. H & I checked out the trendy shops and venues along South Congress (bumper stickers "Keep Austin Weird"), then up to the east side to Nubian Queen Lola's where there was a benifit for Katrina Evacuees. A couple of Austin musicians along with a bunch of New Orleanians, though noone I knew personally. A bunch of people there had gone through the hell of the Superdome and Convention Center, and about half planned not to return to New Orleans. I sat in with the band for a set; I was the only horn, but it worked. ( A number of Mardi Gras Indian songs, some of which I'd been creating tailgate trombone parts less than 2 months before for the Little Big Horn band. Oh, I heard from Ms. J and from one of the musicians at Lolas that Rev Goat is in Austin.) I was invited to play with a group Tuesday night.
Ms. J also showed up, and said she really liked the music, and never expected to see people second lining like that in Austin.

Ms. Hollie was about burned out for the day, so I dropped her "home" I went to another benifit party, a "Barn Dance", which included Theresa Anderson, Mardi Gras Indians (no costumes), and some street circus people.

Just got an email from one of my bandmates I hadn't heard from:

"I spent 7 days in the city and left on Sunday after getting some senior ladies out of the city, my neighbors.. couldn't leave them here.. so I spent the week taking food and water around my neighborhood and using my prior EMT training to help out.. was evaced to Atlanta [...] I lost most everything and my car is still probably under water.

"Miss Antoinette K Do was evaced with me too.. She's still in the camp in Atlanta. When this is over she needs your help in a music history problem. 

"I went by [****] house around thursday didn't get an answer at the door.. i hope he got out"