Rarely does anyone who’s lived in New Orleans want to move away. But then some have to. After eight years of hardcore participation in New Orleans, I am now here in Austin, jobhunting and deciding whether or not to move here. I’m keeping this personal journal of the experience to stimulate a discourse on the subjects of why we all live in New Orleans, what we risk by leaving (the way so many of us daily threaten to), and what we could do to make New Orleans the type of place that doesn’t force us to make such hella hard choices.

My first days here, I put off looking for a job in favor of soaking-in Austin’s culture — no quick task with all the driving that necessitates. I know little of Austin except that it’s not a village, like I’m used to. I know I already hate all the driving. The villagers here are (surprisingly since it’s Texas) as nice, chill, casual, friendly as New Orleanians, but goddamn is their village too big. Back home I ride my bike, now my 89 Honda is violently rattling at 75mph every single day, multiple times per day. You also can’t have more than two drinks when you go out at night, cause you’ll almost always have a long drive home. Definitely something to consider before moving.

This city does throw its full support behind its music scene though, whether or not the majority of the music is work supporting. I’d only visited famous 6^th Street once before, for SXSW, the Austin music convention that is gross and retarded like an indy-rock Bourbon Street. This week on 6th is FREE WEEK, wherein dozens of music clubs abut against each other simultaneously feature big handfuls of local bands, often on multiple stages within each club, and no one charges any cover. Though all the shows everywhere were relatively full, the streets were neither packed nor gross. It felt very local, not counting the college kids. It also genuinely felt as if the city was trying to give something to it’s musicians, help them along, rather than just trying to make money off of them, the way New Orleans seems to its artists. And walking around wondering at just the sheer volume of music clubs, I couldn’t help thinking about how, the first thing New Orleans’ law enforcement seemed to really accomplish after Katrina was shutting down all the new, unlicensed music venues that had sprung up in those lawless post-flood days.

Off of 6^th, we ended up outside Emo’s where the General Manager, Bill, stood with his hood pulled over cold ears, letting new people into the club only when others wandered out. I pointed at the poster listing all the night’s many bands. “Any of em any good?”

He looked at me funny. “Of course,” he sniffed, like ‘don’t be dumb dude, we don’t book crap.’ I’m more used to my friends who run clubs everywhere in the country freely admitting, if asked, that they don’t like most of what they book.When someone came out, Bill let us in. Full crowds gathered around bands both up front and outside, with 100 people smoking on the big outdoor patio in between (lots of patio clubs here, since you can’t bring your drink on the street), still Emo’s felt uncramped. The mop-haired indy-rock band with the cute girl bassist on the outside stage had a good keyboard sound, but they lacked any edge, fire, or real originality. The guitarist almost never left the top of the guitar, strumming the same open chords he’d contrived in his room. But one thing I’ve noticed about Austin is that no matter what type of music an Austin band plays, they’re so tight and pro that it takes longer to discern whether or not they suck.

Regardless, happy to be there, I bobbed and vaguely danced — until some Austin guy pointed at me, “Man you’re the only one having fun! Where are you from?” This actually happened twice in the same night, at different clubs. I was proud both times to tell them I live in New Orleans, and bummed to be considering moving away. Especially to a place where dancing at concerts stands out.

On our way out of Emo’s, some band with rockabilly hair but not rockabilly music were rockin in a real good way. Still we kept going. With so much going on everywhere it was hard to catch the bands’ names, which is too bad because somewhere along the road I caught one song by a truly great band with long hair, distorted acoustic guitar, an angry monster drummer. Not sure why we left, and found ourselves at Club DeVille several blocks away. DeVille is an outdoor stage shadowed by a grassy, sandy cliff, like a sort of mini Red Rocks. In this dramatic setting another middling rock band strummed open cords. The singer wore a cowboy hat, and mentioned this fact aloud. They then played a synth-pop song that didn’t fit with their other tunes at all, and their desperation to make music their jobs. I rip on New Orleans bands for playing certain types of music just because they know it will make them money, but any musician who forgoes self-expression in order to have a job is treating music badly.

Every club we popped into was exceedingly nice inside, if soundtracked by these same not-very-rocking indy rockers. We drove a long way home at the end of a night that was very pleasant, though never sublime. It’s not Austin’s fault though, just like New Orleans’ crabgrass of museum music isn’t that city’s fault; guns don’t kill people, people kill people.And with that, here is a video of me disloating my sister’s shoulder at Emo’s on New Year’s Eve:

In all the fuss over the off-again, on-again lemony-fresh French Quarter street cleaning, this bit of news got short shrift: SDT is now offering residential recycling services for new and current customers in Orleans Parish:

As soon as 500 people sign up in your area, starting on January 1st, we’ll help you recycle. This program is available to new and existing SDT residential customers within service areas. So tell your family, friends, and neighbors to sign up today!

The pickup is twice monthly, on your regular garbage day, and there’s a nifty Google map that allows you to click on your ZIP code and find out how many people in your neighborhood have signed up. Here’s all the details.

For as long as it was located on Iberville Street, Christian’s Restaurant had an ironic name.

The contemporary Creole restaurant was named for one of its founders, Christian Ansel, but after the place moved to its Iberville location in Mid-City the name seemed to take on a new meaning because the building it occupied had previously been a Christian church.

And there was no missing it. The steeple and stained glass windows were all intact, and the singularly ornate dining room glowed with polished woodwork and all the repurposed furniture and trappings of its former life as a place of worship.

Christian’s Restaurant never reopened after the levee failure, but recently its old building has come back to life as. . .a church. The Christian Family Fellowship holds services in the renovated pink chapel at 3835 Iberville St. now.

And while the smoked soft shell crab and filet mignon stuffed with oysters for which Christian’s Restaurant was known may no longer come out of its kitchen, the church does still serve a dinner, which set out for free each Saturday following its 5:30 p.m. service.

Some news writes itself. Apparently the girls have gone mild, because Hustler empire and porn mogul Larry Flynt and topless co-ed video purveyor Joe Francis have issued a statement seeking a federal bailout. They concede that the industry is not losing money, but apparently that qualifies as hard times, too.  Not mentioned in the request is that Francis is fighting tax evasion charges (he claimed nearly $4 million in biz expenses to build his dream home in Punta Mita, Mexico; and then there’s another interesting not-so-well itemized $10 million in “consulting” costs). Congress is definitely the right body to appeal to. In the last decade alone, many senators and congressman have experienced firsthand the pangs of sexual longing: John Edwards (affair), David Vitter (DC Madam list), Larry Craig (airport restroom misunderstanding), Mark Foley (too friendly with congressional pages), Gary Condit (too close to an intern?), Dan Sherwood (underachiever with just an affair), Bob  Packwood (multiple complaints of sexual harassment), Vito Fossella (DUI stop leads to admission of affair). But some industries do well in hard times, for example the liquor biz. At least Flynt and Francis want to spread the stimulus around. But another way to look a this might be as a publicity stunt in advance of this weekend’s Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, where even the “Exhibitor” list is entertaining.

Living in New Orleans, there are many days when you leave the house and are confronted with something unexpectedly, wonderfully beautiful; that’s why we live here, after all. Other days you have to search for it.

Speaking of which: take a moment to peruse the winning entries from the 2008 National Geographic International Photography Contest. The photo of the dog walking past the Indonesian temple is my beautiful thing for today.

(And the NatGeo has also made the images available as free desktop wallpaper.)

Writing the profile on Karen Gadbois for New Orleanian of the Year  was one of the best assignments I’ve had. We met for coffee, and over the course of a few hours, Gadbois told me the story of her life, paying close attention to the post-Katrina days. Gadbois knows how to keep an interviewer’s attention — she’s led a fascinating life — and she peppered our interview with some pretty funny and provocative quotes, like for instance, when she was telling me how she discovered she had breast cancer:

“I called my sister and said, ‘Have I ever complained about this before? I think I feel something.’ She said, ‘No, it’s not on your famous list of common complaints.’”

Gadbois is a quote machine, but as you can imagine, when you have a three-hour interview, a lot of stuff gets edited out. Some writers refer to this editing process as killing your babies, but in this case, it’s almost all pure Gadbois. So, in the interest of resurrecting some of Gadbois’ kids, here are a few more of her zingers.

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