In the days following the 2008 Voodoo Music Experience, the message boards on the festival’s Web site have turned from a source of general information to a place for VIP commiseration. Numerous people who paid the extra money for special LOA passes, which sell for three to four times the general admission price, are charging that Rehage Entertainment Inc. failed to provide many of the promised perks. Gambit Weekly spoke to two of these people, and their stories are remarkably similar.

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One of my regular Internet visits is to Politico.com’s Arena, in which a smattering of politicians, academics and personalities opines on a central topic. Today, the site takes on last night’s prime-time “Barackumentary,” as it were, which of course suffered from some clichéd, teary-eyed imagery and swelling strings, but which overall I felt presented a clear-eyed and convincing glimpse of unquestionably the most inspiring governmental figure of my lifetime. Responses vary from praise by observers and partisans alike (“The most effective — and affecting — political spot since Charles Guggenheim’s in the 1960s,” offers Ross Baker of Rutgers; “may be the finest political advertisement in modern American political history,” says Clinton strategist Lanny Davis) to concerns about its ramifications on the broken campaign-finance system. (“The most important thing about last night wasn’t what Obama said, but that he could say it,” observes Dan Schnur of USC.) But I believe one response — incidentally, the one currently at the top — says more: “After watching The One last night, I weepingly came to the conclusion that our country should change the national pastime from baseball to breastfeeding,” says Reagan biographer Craig Shirley. “Let’s all hold hands and sing ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore,’ and have a national group encounter session where we can share our pain with The One.” I can only wonder if Mr. Shirley realizes that it is precisely that kind of smug, deaf-ear cynicism, the colossal and continued misreading of a tidal change in America’s political public opinion, that is winning this election for Barack Obama. 

Reasons to attend the red-carpet premiere of Rachel Getting Married (7:30 p.m. tonight at Canal Place):  

• The $20 tickets benefit the Guardian Institute, Bethyl Colony South and Common Ground Relief.

• The film is getting wild, crazy, mad, hot reviews.

• Its director, Jonathan Demme, also helmed Silence of the Lambs, and he will be in attendance.

• Its star, blossoming actress Anne Hathaway, is herself wild, crazy, mad, hot. She, too, will be in attendance. 

  Reasons not to attend: 

• Pumpkin, featuring Gambit Weekly’s decidedly British-looking editorial assistant Alex Woodward on guitar, plays the Zeitgeist tonight along with Rougarou, Spring Break Shark Attack and the Screaming Females. Fans of both festival-circuit cinema and giddy, projectionist-accompanied noise pop, you have some serious soul-searching to do. 

An intriguing speaker in tonight’s Loyola University President’s Forum series: Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation. Khanna has been called one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century (Esquire) and one of the top 15 people from whom the next president should take policy counsel (Wired). Khanna will speak about America’s direction under the 44th president and sign copies of his book, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Visit the Loyola Web site for details.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu had a lot (a lot a lot) to say about the massive World Cultural Economic Forum — set for this Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 30-Nov. 1, at the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center — when I rang him last week. Read the full transcript of our conversation below, and the Gambit article that resulted here.        Read the rest of this entry »

Its senior senator faces multiple felony convictions, and its governor is, depending on whom you ask, a cancer who is killing her party or a rogue-operative diva who cares more about the next election than the next-week election. Looking back, its signature pop-culture signpost, Northern Exposure, actually kind of sucked.

Can we go ahead and give away to Russia all that thin Alaskan air into which Putin, like a Marxist Macy’s parade balloon, so often rears his head?

Last night on Larry King Live, Janine Turner, who played fictional frontierswoman Maggie O’Connell on the long-running, award-winning television program, vigorously threw her support behind fictional frontierswoman Sarah Palin. “She is a smart, intelligent woman,” Turner said, oddly employing a bit of Palinology to drive home the point. “She’s the governor of Alaska, which — the state of Alaska has the fifth highest ranking, they have the most power of the top five states in Alaska. She’s had executive power. She’s a smart, intelligent woman.”

I don’t believe you, TV Alaskan, no more than I believed TV Superman Dean Cain when he tried to tell me and Larry that John McCain was a steadfast regulator who “saw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac coming.” As a commenter on one Cain fan site said, “It must be the red Kryptonite.”  

Yesterday The New York Times endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president. (Surprise, surprise — the last Republican endorsed by the paper of record was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.) The Times also launched a fun interactive tool showing the endorsements for — and, often, the arguments against — every candidate dating back to Lincoln in 1860. An unwavering blanket of blue over the past five decades tempers the importance of the urgent praise for Obama; somehow, Times editors conjured equally fervent words in favor of wallflowers like John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale. The historical flubs are the real draw: In supporting Alton Parker over Teddy Roosevelt in 1904, the paper cited questions about Roosevelt’s “temperament and opinion.” (Damn. Mulligan?) And only twice has a Times-favored Republican ceded the election to a Democrat. In 1940, the immortal Wendell Willkie was deemed stronger on national security than FDR. (Damn! What is it with those Roosevelt boys?) In 1948, Dewey defeated Truman … for the hearts of one prominent editorial board, at least. You can also try your hand at some presidential Mad Libs: “In the span of this campaign, proof that his judgment is superior to that of Mr. ____ has been provided by their respective choices for Vice President … In the brief period since nomination, Gov. ____ has already proved from [his/her] injudicious, intemperate remarks that (s)he is utterly inadequate.” The more things change …

A couple of things to ponder with 12 days till political Christmas:

“Spread the wealth” and “socialism” have become the four-letter buzzwords of choice at Palin/McCain rallies. (Hey, they beat the hell out of “terrorist!” and “kill him!”) It’s one thing for Sen. McCain, a 26-year Beltway veteran, to have selective amnesia about the purpose of taxation. (It is, by one definition, the equitable redistribution of capital.) But it’s especially interesting to hear these charges coming from the governor of Alaska, a state in which every citizen receives a dividend from the Permanent Fund — in essence, a $2,000 piece of the mineral-wealth pie. In addition, in the boom year for oil profits that is 2008, every Alaskan is also receiving a second check in the amount of $1,200. (For certified procreation experts like the Palins, that amounts to $22,400, or nearly double a minimum-wage earner’s annual salary.) Explain, please, Governor, using your campaign-financed word-a-day calendar and your night-school Ph.D. in communistic regimes, how that kind of spreading of the wealth isn’t socialism?

As for Palin’s platinum pantsuits: The $150K RNC shopping spree is more of a bemusement than a serious concern, just one more seepage from the reputation sieve of a hockey mom who gets booed at hockey games, a frontierswoman who buys tanning beds, an outdoorsy type who supports aerial hunting but who opposes the protection of endangered species, a maverick reformer who is under investigation for ethics violations, a fiscal lockjaw who lost millions of dollars in earmarks for an unused road to a never-built bridge to nowhere, and a self-appointed delineator of pro- and anti-American districts whose husband pledged allegiance to a secessionist group until months before she began her Neil Armstrong-like ascent from the city hall of Wasilla to the governor’s office in Juneau. Stalwart supporters of Sen. McCain’s “Who is the real Barack Obama?” disinformation campaign, if there still are any of you left out there, care to comment on Todd Palin’s affiliation with the Alaska Independence Party?  

Memo to Lindsey Evans, ex-Miss Louisiana Teen USA: If you’re going to dine and dash, make sure you don’t leave behind your purse. Better yet, make extra sure that purse you just left behind has no dime bags in it.

When Felipe’s, proprietor of New Orleans’ best $5 plates slung up like prison slop, announced that it was opening a second location on the corner of Bienville and North Peters streets, I chalked it up to divine providence. Ditto for La Divina, whose new Place d’Armes outpost makes the city’s finest gelato fix an any-hour possibility. (Although I will miss scoffing at those poor, misguided souls sitting outside of Sucré, crowing over a costlier and inferior product while subsidizing the sweet boutique’s stainless steel Sub-Zeros and travertine trimmings.) But the news of Iris Restaurant’s impending Bienville House relocation — technically not a franchise, I’m aware, but Carrollton’s loss is still the Quarter’s gain, and on behalf of Sixth Warders from Rampart Street to the river, allow me to say: nanny nanny boo boo — has me considering more scientific conspiracy theories. How else to explain the great Vieux Carré migration of so many favorite eateries? Maybe some physics-minded foodie and St. Philip Street denizen designed a gastro-magnet in his fourth-floor attic? Or could the city actually be folding up on itself, Stephen Hawking-style? Whatever the reason, it seems to be the epicurean equivalent of running up the score — after all, we already lay claim to arguably the best fine-dining (Stella!), diner fare (Clover Grill), patisserie (Croissant d’Or), seafood (GW Fins), African (Bennachin), Italian (Irene’s Cuisine), coffeeshop (Café du Monde), steakhouse (Dickie Brennan’s), burger joint (Port of Call) and convenience-store-deli health violations (Verti Marte) in the Croissant City limits. Plus, ever since the Delachaise quietly kicked open the doors of its North Rampart digs in August, we’ve had the market cornered on domestic beer denial and brusque French bartenders, too. Coming soon: $14 tapas supremacy. Your serve, Uptown.