Ratty Scurvics is the most talented and original artist/musician in New Orleans. For true. In his one-man-band, Singularity, Ratty pounds two keyboards perched atop a bass drum positioned beside a snare on the floor – both drums equipped with foot pedals, allowing Ratty to simultaneously play drum-kit and keyboards while singing. Regardless of this spectacle of dexterity, however, Ratty’s songs hold the main focus. Comparisons to more famous one-man-band Quintron are inevitable, but while Q’s musical point is mostly ‘Party! Party! Party!’ Ratty’s music stirs up dance frenzies while remaining pathos-driven and deeply personal. Don’t worry though, New Orleans, you’d hardly notice unless you paid close attention, which you won’t, cause you just wanna drink and dance and party, party, party. Doesn’t that get old for you? Nevermind, I won’t criticize… Read the rest of this entry »

Until recently I taught in the Treme, beside Armstrong Park, at Craig Elementary. I’m not certified, just an artist who, after-school, teaches a writing course that’s disguised as a rap music class, to trick New Orleans kid into writing, an act they generally hate. I don’t know much about Craig, beyond what I observed between 2:30 and 5p.m., Monday through Thursday for a year. I do know it was an historic school, and had recently been part of the Recovery School District, and that people I briefly encountered there – most of them leaving for the day just as I arrived – blamed every misstep on RSD. Though the Craig kids I worked with possessed remarkably positive attitudes (their high-pitched joi de vive got them in trouble more than any negativity), the majority read and wrote at a kindergarten or pre-kindergarten level. This, though most were smart as hell. Of the many illiterate kids I’ve met in New Orleans, very few seemed to suffer any learning disability. Usually it’s just obvious that the adults in their lives let them down. Read the rest of this entry »

In my seven years here, I must have somehow never waited tables in the French Quarter during the Bayou Classic.

Every single road into the Quarter is blocked off despite that, on this Saturday night at 9:45 p.m., New Orleans’ cleanest and least pocked streets stand empty. Regardless, Mizzy and I must turn the car around and get our bicycles to ride around the barriers and go meet Mizzy’s friend for a drink. It’s just a football game — not even the Saints, or even LSU. They don’t barricade the Quarter like this even for Mardi Gras, I don’t think. Essence? Maybe. I don’t exactly remember ever seeing the Quarter quarantined this way. Read the rest of this entry »