Stewart Juneau, owner of the Baton Rouge-based development company LeTriomphe Property Group, was selected last November by Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration to redevelop the Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Municipal Auditorium in Armstrong Park. At the time, the proposed professional services agreement drew controversy, due to Juneau’s relationship with Nagin (he had hosted the mayor’s much-mocked “Excellence in Recovery Award” gala back in August 2008), as well as for the fact that LeTriomphe was the sole bidder on the project. In December, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux slammed the deal, urging the New Orleans City Council not to approve it. In January, city attorney Penya Moses-Fields slammed right back, saying the IG’s recommendation was premature and that there was “no existing contract.”

This morning, Juneau announced that LeTriomphe was requesting a “temporary suspension of negotiations” on the Municipal Auditorium deal:

LeTriomphe Property Group, LLC (LTPG) announced today that it has requested a temporary suspension of negotiations on a professional services agreement for the redevelopment of the Morris X. F. [sic] Jeff, Sr. Municipal Auditorium.

LTPG remains confident that providing a landmark home for the cultural arts and creative industry in New Orleans in the damaged and unused auditorium is one of the most important projects that will be undertaken in the city in the near future.

The letter gave no reason for requesting a suspension of negotiations, but concluded on an optimistic note:

We look forward to working closely with all segments of our great community on making the mission of providing a landmark home for the cultural arts in New Orleans a reality.

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Many of you know Chef Who Dat (note: click here for essential viewing) and the cavalcade of characters that inhabit section 641 of the Superdome. Here’s the Chef before last season’s Monday Night game versus Atlanta:

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Like many (if not all) stadium secions, the season-ticket holding patrons at “Cafe 641″ have developed a tight-knit community that’s led to silliness, some bike crawls, and now, a cancer fundraiser with a twist. Per the e-mail I received today:

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A Cafe 641 patron and season-ticket holder, Sean Niehus, is raising money for St. Baldrick’s, a foundation that raises money for children’s cancer research. Sean has agreed to shave his head at the annual St. Baldrick’s shave-a-thon AND to grow a mustache. To help him raise money, we’re auctioning off a pair of tickets to the 2010 Saints/Bucs game in Section 641, Row 40, Seats 13-14.

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I like how not only is Niehus shaving his head, but that he’s also growing a mustache in the tradition of Cafe 641’s Patron Saint. Check out his picture, going from long blonde hair to a shaved head and a mustache would be a stark transformation. Gotta give to a guy willing to do that for a good cause.

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Bid’s can be made on the tickets on eBay here or you can donate directly to St. Baldricks by clicking here. And yes, that is Chef Who Dat in a wedding dress on that eBay listing. Not sure how that will help with the bidding.

Last month, HBO released a “teaser” for its highly anticipated series Tremé. Today brought the first official trailer for the show, which premieres on the cable network Apr. 11. Like the earlier teaser, it looks pretty damn spectacular; see if you recognize some faces you know from around town. (If the trailer gets yanked off YouTube and the embed below doesn’t work, check it out on the HBO site.)

You know a phenomenon has gone mainstream when it’s written up in Vanity Fair, the coffee-table bible of trends and tastes from high to low. And so it goes with “sissy rap,” which was the subject of an award-winning Gambit cover story by Alison Fensterstock in 2008 — and is now immortalized in VF under the headline “New Orleans Sissy Bounce: Rap Goes Drag.” The article, by Brett Berk, begins:

You do not need to spend much time in New Orleans to realize that it occupies a unique position within the pantheon of American cities. As different from similar-sized towns like Pittsburgh as a coyote is from a mound of cottage cheese, the Big Easy is wholly it’s own scrappy, disheveled self (and I mean that as a compliment).

Berk goes on to profile the biggest New Orleans sissy rappers, including Katey Red (who tells him “It’s not sissy bounce. It’s Bounce music. It’s just sissies doing it”), Sissy Nobby, Big Freedia and Vockah Redu.

Whatever you (or Katey) want to call it, this seems to be the season of the sissy. Vockah is also on the cover of this month’s Antigravity magazine, and a clutch of New Orleans rappers (sissy and otherwise) will be appearing at the New Orleans Bounce Showcase at South by Southwest Mar. 20. Then, on April 22, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art will present Where They At: New Orleans Bounce and Hip-Hop in Words and Pictures, an exhibit curated by Fensterstock and Aubrey Edwards, which will go on for most of the summer and have a satellite exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

In the meantime, don’t miss the Vanity Fair story, which reveals something truly interesting: Katey Red is starting her own marching band, which we hope is rehearsed and ready for next Mardi Gras.

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found 33% of smartphone owners now read news on their cellphones — a number that’s bound to rise as more people adopt smartphones and more news orgs develop specialized apps to meet the need.

Leading the media market in New Orleans, smartphone app-wise, are WWL-TV and Fox 8 News, which are now offering free, ad-supported iPhone applications featuring current news content.

Which one is better? It depends. WWL’s is easier to navigate and seems more intuitive; Fox 8’s is a bit more stylish and customizable, and the font size and layout of the stories are definitely easier on the eyes. What may break the tie is WWL’s video offerings — you can watch selected stories or a weather forecast on the go over a basic Internet connection; Fox 8’s app doesn’t have that function.

The good news is: both apps are pretty good for keeping up with New Orleans news, and they’re both free from the iTunes Music Store. Why not try them both? Here’s a couple of screenshots for comparison, with more below the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

Drew Pierson of the Shreveport Times brings us this story, which is… which is… Well, maybe we should just let Pierson go ahead and explain it:

The Bossier Parish sheriff’s office is launching a program called “Operation Exodus,” a policing plan for an end-of-the-world scenario involving a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a .50-caliber machine gun, inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.

* blink * blink *

“The buck stops with Larry Deen,” said Bossier Parish Sheriff Larry Deen. “The liability stops with Larry Deen. I am the chief law enforcement officer in this parish, and it is incumbent upon me protect all of the people in it.”

Curious, I went to the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Web site to learn more about Larry Deen, and was fortunate enough to find an actual video of a training session for Operation Exodus. The video of the training exercise can be found here, but here are a couple of screencaps:

So what are these fellows doing, exactly? It sounds fairly … well, militia-y. But it’s not. Back to Pierson’s story:

These volunteers will be armed by the sheriff’s office, using, among other things, shotguns, riot shields and batons. The members are mostly white men. Five are black. Women involved will only be used in “support roles,” Deen said, which indicated non-combat activity. One of their first official training sessions was Feb. 20 when they learned basic hand-to-hand combat techniques.

Deen said he was not creating a militia.

Sheriff’s office deputies stressed the program would not cost much. Because weapons, such as a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on something the sheriff’s office calls “the war wagon,” already have been purchased, the cost associated with the program would only be training and uniforms volunteers must wear, costing about $4,500 total.

Okay. Now you know — if you’re up in Shreveport and you see a bunch of citizen volunteers in paramilitary uniforms and riot gear, along with a .50 caliber machine gun, you’ll know it’s not a militia. It’s just … this paramilitary, hand-to-hand combat, machine-gun equipped non-militia thing.

Just one of those things to add the the “once you see it, you can’t unsee it” pile:

(via Michael G.’s Twitter)

One of the most-read stories at nytimes.com this weekend was “Hey, Waiter! Just How Much Extra Do You Really Expect?,” David Sax’s essay/screed about the practice of tipping. It’s a subject on which everyone seems to have a strong opinion — and judging from the number of comments (1,074 on tipping vs., say, 345 on the Chilean earthquake), there’s a pretty broad scattering of opinion on Mr. David Sax as well.

Consider this from the essay:

“Do you need change?”

Funny you should ask, because I just gave you a $10 bill, and my latte and raspberry scone came to $5.75. As much as I think you’re pleasing to look at, and you do magical things with frothy milk, I just don’t see your services commanding a 70-plus percent premium over the market rate for my breakfast.

Frankly, Sax sounds like a royal pain in the ass to wait on … but, no, I don’t like it either when a server asks “Do you need change?” (It rarely happens, in my experience, but it does happen sometimes.) And the example he cites is truly outrageous. But what’s with the attitude, Sax?

And then, suddenly I’m really not with Mr. Snotty Latte-and-a-Scone. At all:

Yes, I know you’re all underpaid. But guess what? So am I. When I get $500 for an article that I think is worth $1,000, you won’t see me e-mail the editor, saying, “Just so you know, service isn’t included.” Do I ask you to come into my workplace and supplement my meager income? No, I don’t.

I don’t know the law in New York, but Louisiana servers are subject to the federal tip minimum law, which means they rake in $2.13/hour and must depend on tips to cover any real income. (And they have to pay taxes on tips, whether they get the tips or not.) That’s a bit more “underpaid” than what Sax is bellyaching about. If he’d taken on the subject of tip jars where they don’t belong (say, at the gas station), I might be with him, but given his tone and his attitude, I agree with the very first commenter on the story:

Good gracious, what a bitter rant.

The reaction around the Web has been interesting, too: here are two contrasting viewpoints.

So many people in New Orleans make a good part of their salaries through tips. What do you think of tips and tip jars?

Just last week some national condom company was claiming Big Easy men had the biggest, er, easies in America. Now comes some Web site called Total Beauty to take us all down a peg or two, claiming New Orleans is among the worst cities in America when it comes to body odor*. The reasoning:

The Big Easy’s fragrant, eau de Post-Party Frat Basement scent doesn’t help matters. It’s also a very sweaty city, with high temperatures and humidity year-round. And it’s a smoker’s paradise — the state tax on cigarettes is low, and the public smoking ban doesn’t extend to bars. About 20 percent of adults in this city smoke.

The stinkiest city in America, according to Total Beauty? Las Vegas, followed by Houston, Phoenix, Chicago, us, San Antonio, and Yuma, Ariz. The site came to its conclusions, it says, by “assessing climate history and smoking data,” which doesn’t sound like the most rigorously scientific method of measuring stench.

What do you think, Gambiteers? Are we all a bunch of Boudreaux Le Pews?

* hat tip to The Huck Upchuck for pointing out this important info

… and it’s called “Say Uncle” — an image of the inimitable Uncle Lionel Batiste of the Tremé Brass Band, painted by Terrance Osborne. Osborne did the 2007 poster of Rebirth Brass Band’s Philip Frazier, and this one is done in the same vibrant style.

Here’s the link to Osborne’s gallery, and the link to pre-order a poster. Prices range from $69 (unsigned) to $329 (double-signed).

Thoughts, Gambiteers?