Best Of New Orleans Blog

by Sam Winston

During any other year, having all four number one seeds reach the NCAA final four would have been the end of the world as I know it. It is after all the first time in the history of the tournament that it has ever happened. Nevertheless, America’s perennial underdog showcase will never wither, at least not in my mind.

I’ve been watching and playing basketball since I was old enough to dribble a ball. Before my family moved from Manhattan to New Orleans when I was 7, my father took me to the Big East tournament in Madison Square Garden, one of the great precursors to the Big Dance. My dad said we were rooting for Syracuse, but I was secretly pulling for Georgetown. What a raucous place it was during the Big East glory days of Ewing, Coleman, Mullin, Villanova, and others in the mid 1980s. (more…)

by Sam Winston

I had my second memorable European soccer experience yesterday; a packed barroom of Hamburg SV fans watching their boys take on the country’s top club, Bayern Munich.

Having showed up an hour and half early to claim my barstool, which I had called in to reserve the day before, a few insights from a suspenseful 1-1 draw… (more…)

 by Sam Winston

The sandwich board outside the redlight district bar read “Africa Cup/Super Bowl Party” in scribbled chalk and I expected to see Americans coming out of the woodworks for this mecca of American sporting events. Kickoff time came just after midnight here in Hamburg.

However, the anticipated expat crowd was reduced to myself, another American friend who had served in the Marine Corps, a Swede who was watching his first ever complete football game, an Aussie Air Emirates flight crew member who most certainly had no concept of time and consequently found himself in a pub, a couple sitting in the corner that was paying no attention to the game, and some South Africans that had stayed to have a drink after the soccer was finished. Them and a giant bucket of KFC chicken wings we picked up for the game (trying to translate “blue-cheese dressing” in German is pure comedy). (more…)

by Sam Winston

I said it would be Paris. It’ll be London instead. If I’m still on this side of the pond, it’s only an hour flight to London from Hamburg. If any Saints crazies are planning on making trip, avoid the “traditional” English breakfast and try to find some clotted creme instead. I was just there for New Year’s and beans for breakfast when they are not “south of the border” style are terrifying.

I have to say I was beyond doubtful that the Orleans Parish Registrar of Voters would be able to reach me here in Germany. They actually mailed my ballot for February 9th presidential primary within reasonable time to get it back to them by the election day deadline. Considering Louisiana bureaucracy lately, especially when its on a collaboration with the federal level, this is a minor miracle. I suppose my ballot still has to make it there and get counted, so it’s not over yet.

Leading up to this bright white envelope, the state parties successfully made me buck my independent status as a voter for this election, sending in a fax to register with the Democrats. Does anyone know if there’s a chance that they’d open things up to “independent” voters as other states do? I’ve always been so proudly an independent and plan on playing this little registration game as such. (more…)

by Sam Winston

When I say that I’ve got an addiction, it’s not the German chocolate, the good beer, or the endless variety of freshly baked bread here. It’s the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

No matter how many articles, blogs, video clips and op-ed essays I read and watch, I can’t get enough. It doesn’t matter how silly the press, the pollsters, and the entire circus of overconsumption seems, I read on. And although I already decided who am I voting for about a month ago, I continue to scour the internet compulsively every morning.

Why? Because like the rest of America, I’m dying to see who is going to win. There is nothing more American than a good fight. A battle. A contest. A competition. I don’t want to just see who wins. I want to inject myself into the competition and say, “I’m going to win too!”

I suppose that I’ve justified my overconsumption until now for a number of reasons. I’m abroad so my access to information is limited. I’m a journalist so it’s important for me to know what’s going on. I’m an American and this is such an important time in our country, it’s important that I make an educated decision with my vote.

But we know that’s not why I watch. What you tell yourself is not why you watch, either. Of course it’s not. (more…)

 by Sam Winston

When I first visited Germany a couple of years ago, I was stopped on the street twice by virulent George W. Bush haters who went out of their way to berate me in public and give me an earful on American foreign policy. I’m talking about men who looked one cut above homeless but spat out political and historical references like they were on Jeopardy. Rough English aside, the words “idiot” and “stupid American” dwarfed my response of, “I’m may be a ’stupid American,’ but I never voted for Bush.” There also might have been some expletives exchanged.

However, strolling the streets of Hamburg now as an Obama fan, it’s a different story. The German media has made a plethora of Obama comparisons to JFK, an icon in this country ever since his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. So much so that Obamamania is spreading fast here in Deutschland.

Here’s what some of the major papers are saying about him… (more…)

by Sam Winston

The aging warrior known as Buckwheat Zydeco, the full name of my dog adapted in part from the band of the same name, is on his last leg. He’s got a metal plate in his right leg from when he was hit by a car as a youngster. Further down the same leg, he’s missing a toenail that bleeds incessantly. It is now theorized to be a tumor that evicted the toenail from its natural resting place. He has another large tumor on his chest, believed to be benign, that split open recently causing yet another bloody mess on his blue bedspread.

Additionally, like all big old Labradors, his displaced hips make his back end simply deadweight. His eyes are cloudy, his hearing is shot, and his memory seems to be limited to the short term. Truth be told, that was always one of my favorite parts about my friend Buck. He never holds grudges.

On our most recent daily walk in the park, he had a seizure. (more…)

 by Sam Winston

The past four months I’ve sporadically mentioned the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s red-light/party district(pictured), as a world example of what happens when forbidden fruit is no longer forbidden. I may have spoken too soon.

Come January 1st, the place where prostitutes work corners across the street from one of the city’s major police stations (fully approved and regulated by law), where you can drink a beer in a glass on the street, on the train, or in a movie theater, where marijuana is “tolerated to personal use”, is getting a tightening of the rules. Stores will stop selling alcohol earlier, bars will be “encouraged” to close earlier, and stricter zoning laws, included increased penalties and “spot searches” against weapons, will take effect in the district.

That’s the trial period, after which it will go into law if all goes as planned. It’s an attempt to get a handle what the city perceives a growing violence problem (perspective, I guess).

It made me think about what would happen if New Orleans ever (more…)

By Sam Winston

Guess where there this picture was taken? I’ll give you a hint. The city has an openly gay mayor. The country is considered one of the safest industrialized nations in the world. And the two neighboring shops were an upscale hair salon and a yuppy cafe/lounge.

If you guessed (more…)

 By Sam Winston

Philip Roth in his Pulitzer Prize winning book American Pastoral described Thanksgiving as the quintessential American day. Where the battle of life halts and “just one colossal turkey for two hundred and fifty million people- one colossal turkey feeds all… A moratorium on all the grievances and resentments for everyone in America who is suspicious of everyone else. It is the American pastoral par excellence and it lasts twenty-four hours.”

It is certainly going to be weird to not have a Turkey Day but it will be even stranger to not even have the idea of Thanksgiving here in Germany. Roth was onto something when he said that it is truly “American.”

My first realization that there would be no Turkey Day for me was (more…)

By Sam Winston

The Camellia Grill waiter known simply as Marvin likes to call the tap water he serves “Mississippi mud water.” Indeed just about every time I drink New Orleans water from the faucet, at the grill or otherwise, I can hear Marving humming, “Getchyall some of that Mississippi mud water, Hom bruh!” (more…)

by Sam Winston

I know I’m not the first one to say how pathetic it is that New Orleans can’t get its basic recycling program together. However, living in one of the world’s leading recycling countries in Germany, New Orleans looks especially sad. And wasteful.

Yet New Orleans city officials already know what I’m talking about! They were here to see first hand what it means to take recycling seriously. In Germany, companies (see video) and governments lead by example, with the people following. New Orleans seems to be the opposite. (more…)

 by Sam Winston
Forget about Poydras Street, the Dome Foam and the “Who Dat” chant. Next year we’re 2nd-lining down the Champs Elysees in our black and gold sipping bordeaux, munching on a baguette with brie and shouting with disdain “Qui est la!” Err, what?

With the NFL’s Giants/Dolphins game officially deemed a “success” in London this past Sunday, there is the very real possibility that the Saints could go to play a game in Europe in the coming years. What more logical place for the Fleur De Lis toting New Orleans Saints than Paris? (more…)

by Sam Winston

Here’s a tally of my proximity to death and violence in New Orleans within the last year.

A longtime family friend was choked unconscious for his wallet in the Marigny at 5 p.m. after leaving work last month. Another friend driving in Algiers had bricks thrown at his car windshield. I myself heard gunshots on two separate nights sitting in my apartment on Nashville Avenue in Broadmoor. A young friend committed suicide due to a battle with depression. There was a person murdered (more…)

by Sam Winston

A MOMENT FROM MUNICH

When he hit the ground I thought for sure he was out cold. If not at least seriously bleeding. The music and the crowd of thousands were so loud that hardly anyone noticed. If he hadn’t fallen at my feet and spilled half a liter of beer on me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed either.

I was in the middle of explaining to friends how I thought the stereotype of German culture (beer, sausage, women in dirndl and a lot of cheering) strangely resembled the stereotype of American masculinity (Beer! Football! Cheerleaders! Meat!). That is why, I was saying, so many Americans love the idea of the Oktoberfest. Whether my German companions didn’t get my parallel or my German was incomprehensible above the din of oompah music I’m wasn’t sure. Nevertheless, they looked a bit perplexed. (more…)