Some quick housekeeping: Someone wrote wondering what the music is behind the trailer for Tremé. It’s called “Ring Shout — Peace of Mind,” and it’s the opening cut from the 2007 album Congo Square, featuring Wynton Marsalis, Yacub Addy, Odadaa! and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. There’s a DVD of the whole performance on Amazon, but for the CD itself you may have to go to the iTunes Music Store (where the individual song can also be downloaded for 99 cents). Also: WWL-TV has the list of St. Joseph’s altars that will be open on Mar. 19, and if you’re new in town and have never experienced a St. Joseph’s altar, feel free to drop in on any of these and get a little bit of history.

Anyway. In this week’s Gambit:

• The Louisiana Public Service Commission and sustainable-energy advocates have been at sixes and sevens over the state’s master plan for setting alternative energy goals — and the LPSC punted on voting on those goals this week. Will we remain behind the rest of the country when it comes to establishing 21st century energy policies? Alex Woodward talks to both sides and spells out the arguments ….

• Clancy DuBos charts the Winnas, the Loozas, and the draws in the most recent round of elections, and analyzes what the results mean in the chutes-and-ladders of New Orleans politics …

• Chris Rose looks at the latest dustup between the NOPD and the Mardi Gras Indians …

• The Idea Village is sponsoring its Entrepreneur Week beginning Mar. 20. Brandon Meginley previews …

• The great documentarian Les Blank comes to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art this week, and Ken Korman talked to the filmmaker in advance of his visit …

• … and Ian McNulty chows down, World War II-style, at John Besh’s American Sector restaurant.

There’s more, of course. Check it out on the newsstand beginning Sunday afternoon, or check back on the main Gambit site Monday afternoon. Later.

Do you remember back in the day, before virtually every profession was represented on a televised competition, before “real” housewives bombarded us with their delusions, before the dawn of skank buses? In the grand history of television, it was around the time when shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother” first came into existence, when “reality” television still somewhat resembled real life. But even though shows (like the aforementioned two) with loosely scripted premises were popping up, all you really had to do to keep people entertained was show plastic surgeries on television. Those were the good ol’ days.

To give people what they wanted, E! created a series in 2004 that combined the rubberneck appeal of televised surgeries with America’s fascination with dumb, rich people: “Dr. 90210,” which featured many before-and-after photos and blurry breast augmentations, was born.

Have you wondered what the show’s star plastic surgeon, Dr. Robert Rey, is up to these days? No? Well, naturally he’s touring the country to tell us we don’t actually need surgery to look good. Tomorrow from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Dr. 90210 himself will make an appearance at Sears (4400 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie) to divulge his secrets for enhancing your shape without surgery. Hint: it has something to do with his line of shape wear.

In case you don’t know what shape wear is, it basically does for fat what those Pillsbury tubes do for pre-made biscuit dough. And also, according to the press release, it’s the perfect accessory:

Whether interested in knowing how to hide that unwelcome “muffin top” for an upcoming romantic date or simply unsure of what to wear with your little black dress, Dr. Rey will be available to answer any and all styling questions… and he’s not keeping any secrets!

Let’s hope that date doesn’t get too romantic, or else that “muffin top” compressed under the tightest of tight spandex won’t be so hidden anymore, now will it?

That title? Check this story from WWL-TV about the upcoming construction around the Causeway, which looks like it will turn the normal commuting headache into a full-blown traffic migraine. And it’s going to last two years. Pack an extra Thermos of coffee and make sure your iPod is charged.

Anyway … what’s coming up in this week’s Gambit?

• The Anthony Bean Community Theater is turning 10 years old. In our cover story, David Winkler-Schmit profiles the man who built New Orleans’ only African-American community theater, which not only produces original and classic works, but provides a much-needed outlet for teenage drama students …

• “Heil Hitler” salutes and racial and religious slurs in the workplace directed at a Jewish employee? It happened in Jefferson Parish, and the supervisor who admits to overseeing all this was a parish employee. In a Gambit exclusive, Allen Johnson Jr. examines the depositions in a case reminiscent of other official Jeff Parish working environments over the years, including the “noose neckties” worn by Jeff Parish prosecutors in 2001 and the whipping post case investigated by the FBI in 2007 …

• Chris Rose reminisces about Barry Hannah, the Mississippi wild man of letters who died last week …

• Clancy DuBos looks at the mayor-elect’s task force for selecting a new superintendent of police. Can the new chief come from the ranks of the NOPD, or will he or she have to come from elsewhere? …

• Gov. Bobby Jindal is redoubling the state’s effort to crack down on sexual predators. A good thing — or just a way to avoid making some hard decisions about the state’s fiscal crisis? Our man in Baton Rouge, Jeremy Alford, looks at the guv’s priorities in “To Catch a Panderer” …

• Noah Bonaparte Pais previews the upcoming Foburg Music Festival, and Will Coviello gets a sneak peek at the Contemporary Arts Center’s new production of Fantastic Mr. Fox …

… and it’s Election Day in Orleans Parish, at least if you live in City Council Districts A or E. Early indications are exceptionally low voter turnout, so you’ve got a chance to make a big difference. Polls are open till 8 p.m., and we’ll Twitter the results as soon as they come in. Have a great weekend.

We’ve received several emails in anticipation of this, and the day has finally arrived: free pancakes, ya’ll.

IHOP locations around the country are giving away free short stacks — three buttermilk pancakes — in honor of National Pancake Day (a day I’m pretty sure was arbitrarily created by IHOP. I suppose as the international pancake house, they have the authority to do such things). But don’t be a freeloader: IHOP is also asking for donations to the Children’s Miracle Network, and donations from the New Orleans stores will go to the CMN program at Children’s Hospital.

And it keeps getting better. For those who enjoy their free-ish pancakes at the new Downtown location (833 Canal St.), you also get to hang out with Miss New Orleans (who may or may not have a name), who will be there with “other beauty queens.” Because when I think of beauty queens, the first thing I think of is stacks of buttery carb discs.

Here’s the other nearby IHOP locations: 12150 I-10 Service Rd., 151 Westbank Expressway, Gretna; 1719 Manhattan Blvd., Harvey; 3400 South I-10 Service Road W., Metairie; 3400 Williams Blvd., Kenner; 61101 Airport Rd., Slidell.

The past few weeks have been chaos for Roots of Music. The program moved down the street from its comfortable space at the Cabildo to a one-room auditorium at the U.S. Mint, and instructors had to get more than 100 students ready for six parades. Add the usual headaches — arranging transportation, feeding 100-plus mouths, tutoring — and a grim reality: If program directors can’t scrape together funding within the next few weeks, March looks bleak. In this week’s cover story, I followed Roots of Music as its 2010 class prepared for its Mardi Gras debut, and hopefully not its last.

The free program for at-risk students ages 9 to 14 helps low-income families get their children on the right track. Derrick Tabb (Rebirth Brass Band drummer and CNN Hero) and Allison Reinhardt founded Roots of Music in 2007, and it includes (among other things) free transportation from school (and back home), meals, tutoring (required) and a world-class music education from Tabb and New Orleans musicians like Edward Lee from Soul Rebels Brass Band, as well as Allen Dejan Jr., Shoan Ruffin and Lawrence Rawlins. Oh, and Trombone Shorty and Phil Frazier serve on the board.

Gambit photographer Cheryl Gerber documented the band’s three-step parade prep: rehearsal, dress, and the finale — marching and playing in Carnival 2010. (Hit the jump for the photos.)

Read the rest of this entry »

This week in Gambit:

• The Roots of Music, founded by Rebirth Brass Band drummer Derrick Tabb, is an afterschool music program for at-risk kids. It’s been so successful that the Roots performed in five Mardi Gras parades this year, there’s a waiting list of hundreds, and Tabb himself was nominated for one of CNN’s Heroes of 2009. But the program only has enough money to last through the end of March. Alex Woodward spent time with Tabb and his young charges to see what might be the future of the Roots of Music ….

• Noah Bonaparte Pais interviews Canadian singer/songwriters Tegan and Sara, who wrote much of the material for their new CD, Sainthood, while in New Orleans. They’re coming to Tipitina’s Feb. 24 ….

• How do you reintegrate into society if you’ve spent decades wrongly convicted and imprisoned at Angola — then set free with nothing more than $10, a bus ticket and the clothes you arrived in? David Winkler-Schmit profiles John Thompson, a former death row inmate who was in just that situation and went on to form the group Resurrection After Exoneration ….

• Ian McNulty reviews Adolfo Garcia and Joshua Smith’s Warehouse District restaurant A Mano ….

• Rex Duke™ provides his annual review of Carnival parades ….

• and Gambit’s new columnist, Chris Rose, writes about the death of a friend, National Art & Hobby owner John Ward, who was struck by a car while walking home after a Mardi Gras ball.

See you on the newsstand Sunday afternoon, or online here Monday afternoon.

… the return of Chris Rose.

Watching the Mayor’s race and Saints season from the sidelines was killing me. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have a soapbox from which to rant and rail, holler and wail.

As days turned to weeks turned to months, I realized that if I didn’t find a forum from which to throw tomatoes at the world, I was going to end up standing next to that guy down on Canal Street who wears the rainbow umbrella hat and clutches a megaphone through which he opines to any who will listen — and all who won’t — on the mysteries of Faith and Justice. I could already hear people whispering as they walked by: “Wow, look where Rose ended up.”…. — Chris Rose

The Huffington Post called him “the Crescent City’s bard.”

Anthony Bourdain called him “a hard-bitten, supposedly cynical professional journalist.”

And now Gambit calls Chris Rose — columnist, comedian, raconteur — the paper’s newest contributing writer.

Rose’s first essay will appear as the cover story in the Feb. 16 issue of Gambit and on its Web site, Blog of New Orleans. Thereafter, his column will appear weekly alongside the paper’s other award-winning columnists: Clancy DuBos, Jeremy Alford and the pseudonymous Blake Pontchartrain.

New Orleanians got to know Rose through his 25-year tenure at The Times-Picayune, but it was after Hurricane Katrina that his columns became widely read nationally. A collection of those columns, 1 Dead in Attic, earned him a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.

Gambit publisher Margo DuBos said, “Chris is a gifted writer whose train of thought connects with the reader on a near-religious basis, and Gambit is thrilled to have him join our group of talented writers.”

Here’s a look at Chris’ first day on the job:

Be sure to check out all the updates for a complete rundown on the day’s coverage.

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Photograph by Jonathan Bachman

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Chalk this up as one of the absolute worst decisions made by a city government in, well, ever. Per the NOLA Art Houses’ Facebook page:

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The city of NOLA just took a big bite out of its own culture: They’re shutting us down completely, and trying to move us into homeless shelters. Our electricity is minutes from being pulled. We’re gonna be fighting, we’re homeless and we don’t have much by way of resources, but we’re gonna fight this thing all the goddamn way. We’re gonna make sure the GOOD parts of NOLA keep rising! We Love y’all! Goodbye, for now

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As for the city’s reasoning? The Art House had this to say (NOTE: We have yet to get an official word from the City Government):

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they’re citing a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit (like, if we have a shared kitchen, apparently every room has to have a private sink….) and some fire code violations that every house in NOLA is guilty of (stuff under the stairs, outlets without covers, &c). so basically it seems like they’re pulling at any straw they can to shut us down

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UPDATE: Click here to see the Esplanade Ridge/Treme Civic Association has responded to the situation.

Say what you will about the Art House and their parties and whether or not the city acted fairly in canceling their three-day Mardi Gras festival. But there is a difference between shutting down a party and shutting down a house. Most of the Art House residents don’t have much in the way of money and many depended on the house’s parties for revenue. That’s the reason they all lived together in this co-op and why it was such a creative hot bed for any artist looking for inspiration in the Crescent City.

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Red Cotton brought up a fair point in the comment to my initial post about the cease and desist letter the city sent to the Art House. Large parties can be a neighborhood problem and, in a richly historic and proud neighborhood like Treme, it is possible that the Art House residents’ ambitions exceeded what their neighbors would deem acceptable. But, in all fairness, of all the houses in the Treme, this shouldn’t be on the top of the city’s list of places to shut down and force its residents into the street. How much urban plight still litters this city? How many empty houses have turned to crack dens? The Art House contributed something to the city and its culture, to destroy it would be to destroy a part of New Orleans in the realest sense. And all in the middle of Mardi Gras, no less.

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Go to 1614esplanade.com for contact info to help keep these residents from being made homeless.

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HIT THE JUMP FOR UPDATES: Read the rest of this entry »

We could tell you about our parade coverage (complete with pocket maps); about David Winkler-Schmit’s reporting about the Books for Prisoners program; about Clancy DuBos‘ memories of the political gadfly ‘Hippo’ Katz; about Noah Bonaparte Pais covering RJD2, Q&P Maritime Ball, Festival of the Rising Sun, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Screaming Females and the B-52’s; about Ian McNulty’s profile of the Vietnamese bakers putting their own spin on king cakes; or about our monthly health and wellness supplement, H+W.

But we all know what’s consuming us this weekend. “Glory Bound.” Do it, Aaron and Theresa: