Members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation have long called for lifting the ban on oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), but now that a sitting president, GOP presidential candidate and a top federal agency have joined the push, the issue is gaining new momentum. Read the rest of this entry »

As the behemoth Tales of the Cocktail convention winds down today in the French Quarter, the Museum of the American Cocktail prepares to greet the public in its new permanent home at its grand opening Monday, July 21 at 10:30 am.

Relocated to the Riverwalk (inside the new Southern Food & Beverage Museum), MOAC features memorabilia and exhibits drawn from more than 200 years of tippling and sipping, and its inaugural exhibit is a special salute to the art of the drink in New Orleans.

The public is invited to the opening; you can RSVP here.

Grand opening of the Museum of the American Cocktail

Riverwalk Marketplace Mall, Suite 169

Mon., July 21, 10:30 am

As a freshman congressman three years ago, Bobby Jindal voted in favor of the Real ID Act. Riding a wave of paranoia and grief created by terrorist attacks on home soil, federal lawmakers handed down new state requirements for identification cards. The intent was to create a single, universal card stocked with private and personal information that citizens would be required to use to board airplanes or enter sensitive sites, even to drive a vehicle. As a new Republican governor, Jindal signed legislation into law earlier this month that prohibits Louisiana from participating in the very same Real ID Act he voted for as a congressman. Read the rest of this entry »

 The knee-jerk reaction among lawmakers after Gov. Bobby Jindal’s line-item budget vetoes was to caucus (via phone) about a possible veto session. Read the rest of this entry »

Councilmember-at-large Arnie Fielkow will send a lucky child to Chicago to attend a baseball game July 26 between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins at Wrigley Field.

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Don’t forget that there’s an election today. New Orleans voters will decide on four property millages that produce $32 million annually for our public schools. Voting “yes” doesn’t mean an increase in your property taxes, but it does mean that valuable funding for schools will be preserved. For more on what these funds accomplish, check out Gambit Weekly’s commentary, “Vote FOR Public Schools.”So please take a couple of minutes to stop by your local polling place, and push that “for” button four times for public schools. 

Louisiana voters are no strangers to bizarre political mailers, but we’ve probably never seen anything like the mailer currently being sent out by embattled Oklahoma County Commissioner Brent Rinehart. The commish, who’s running for reelection as he faces campaign finance charges and a separate IRS investigation, has written and distributed a 16-page comic book portraying himself as a humble “regular guy, a heating and air small businessman” battling an unholy cabal that includes the evil county sheriff, sinister toga-wearing gay scoutmaster “pedifiles,” and even Satan himself:

You can download the entire masterpiece here. And just keep repeating to yourself: At least it’s not Louisiana…at least it’s not Louisiana…

A group of local art lovers have helped an accomplished former prison artist secure his first real home since Hurricane Katrina destroyed his Ninth Ward house and studio. 

The art enthusiasts, led by Greg Rackham, owner of Bottom of the Barrel Antiques, bought enough artwork from New Orleans artist Welmon Sharlhorne to pay his rent for six months. He will receive keys to his new home today (Saturday, July 19), and the art that landed him in his new apartment will be on display to the public from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 1214 Decatur St. for this evening only.

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You know that Starbucks is closing 600 U.S. stores, right? And that the company has been sooper-sekrit about which stores will be disappeared by their caffeine overlords?

Below, the official list of Louisiana closings. New Orleans: spared. Baton Rouge, not so much:

Nine? Nine??? Where will the folks in Baton Rouge go to pick up a nonfat venti latte and a Jakob Dylan CD at the same time?

Lafayette isn’t exactly known as a hotbed for progressive music. For hot-potato zydeco breakdowns, sure; for hot boudin purchased roadside in a grease-stained paper bag, most definitely. Brass Bed has no use for your washboard solos and preconceived notions. Its weapons of choice are a choppy White Album piano and a warbling frontman — the former supported by various six-strings and a wandering pedal steel, the latter by a quartet of doo-woppers that wisely shirked the barbershop in favor of the Blue Moon Saloon. “BBC Midnight Broadcast,” the leadoff song from April’s self-released Midnight Matinee, unfolds like a funeral in time-lapse photography, its reverse-heartbeat kick drum slowed to cardiac-arrest mode while a sweetly orchestrated accompaniment quickly comes and goes. It’s all just a setup for the sunset, however: a streaking, 45-second flash of mournful brass before putting the whole thing to bed.
Brass Bed plays the Circle Bar with Gold & Glass tomorrow, July 19, at 10 p.m. 

As part of Tales of the Cocktail, national morning-show guy Mancow did his show live from Fulton Street near Harrah’s. It’s online here, and I’ve only been able to get through about an hour of it, but the guest lineup wasn’t your typical morning-zoo: Julia Reed (Mancow told her he wanted to “get naked” with her and asked her where to buy the best crack cocaine), Ben Gersh from Old New Orleans Rum, and a rather bewildering assortment of chefs who got up at 5:30 am for all of this — including John Besh, Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme, Susan Spicer, and Lazone Randolph.

And, for some reason, by phone: a very sleepy-sounding John Stossel, the luxuriantly moustached host of ABC’s 20/20.

“We’re standing in a square in the middle of New Orleans,” Mancow told him, to which Stossel replied “Why?” Mancow and Stossel discussed Bobby Jindal (two thumbs up), then Stossel discussed New Orleans as “a great lab experiment,” praised Wal-Mart for all its relief efforts in the aftermath of Katrina, and finished up by pitching his latest important journalistic project, a no-doubt-hardhitting 20/20 exposé called “Sex in America.”

I’m an hour into the broadcast and so far they’ve discussed the city’s great food, the number of 500-lb. people in New Orleans, where to find the best prostitutes, and the “trolley car.” Now they’re drinking moonshine on the air, discussing beignets, and describing the addition of chicory to coffee as “ghetto.”

Mancow’s good at his job, but I don’t think I’ll make it to the chefs. Sorry, guys.

You stay classy, John Stossel.

There will be no veto override session on Aug. 2. State Senate President Joel Chaisson has already secured written confirmations from 36 of the 38 sitting senators (there’s one vacancy) saying they do not want to reconvene to consider overriding any of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s vetoes. Chaisson got the confirmations just one day after ballots were sent out to legislators.

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The next showdown between Mayor Ray Nagin and the New Orleans City Council is likely to come over the issues of open meetings and the mayor’s power to award professional services contracts without public bids. Nagin is not going to come off looking like a reformer on this one, but I’m not sure if he cares.

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Like so many things in New Orleans, the annual Tales of the Cocktail convention is deeply frivolous on its face, but the subtext is completely serious: thousands of liquor distributors, restaurateurs, bartenders, and cocktail geeks gather to wheel and deal, attend seminars, and drink all night. The amount of press here (national and international) has to gladden the battered heart of the city’s tourism bureau (”I can’t believe how well the city has come back!” marveled a writer from the Los Angeles Times). There are waits at Galatoire’s…in July. And perhaps best of all, no one seems to be talking about l’affaire Tremé; they’re too obsessed with weightier matters, like single-batch rums, artisanal gins (”Juniperlooza” was a popular event), and hooking up in the Monteleone’s Carousel Bar, which is ground central for cocktail geek groupies.

Below the cut: tales of flaming desserts, gossip from The Times-Picayune, and a “spirited dinner” that ended with naked swimming….

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THURSDAY
8:45 am: Excited to go to work because of the locally roasted French Market coffee, local sugar and half and half waiting for me.

9:15 am: Discover local half and half smash hit in office, was poached by other fiends and gone in A day. Go to store to buy more. Label it accordingly: “You touch, you die. Except Noah and KPG,” because they have shared their half and half with me previously.

Also thwarted by discovery that Rouse’s now carries world’s best yogurt, Fage, from Greece. Memories of study abroad in Athens overwhelm. Must purchase.

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Bruce Sunpie Barnes and the Louisiana Sunspots headline a funraising party at Republic tonight (Friday, July 18) to help construct a community center in Bywater. A Shared Initiative is a nonprofit created by the ASI Federal Credit Union and is dedicated to providing affordable housing and community development in the Upper Ninth Ward. The Clifford N. Rosenthal Community Center will be built at 3401 St. Claude Ave. (at Desire Street). As Barnes and his band play zydeco and Creole music, performance painter Frenchy will complete a painting of the group. The finished painting will be auctioned off at the end of the evening. Tickets $20 at the door. Republic NOLA (828 S. Peters St.)

Embattled Public Service Commissioner Jay Blossman of St. Tammany Parish has pulled out of his re-election bid, saying he wants to spend more time with his family. Blossman, who was first elected to the PSC 12 years ago, faced a tough re-election fight on the heels of revelations that he used his office stationery to promote a business venture owned by the son of a friend and supporter. Even more recently, he was the subject of a report by WWL-TV’s Lee Zurik for accepting thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Entergy employees — after promising not to accept any utility contributions during his first campaign in 1996.

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You can’t trust what you find on the Internets. For example, I don’t believe these pictures are from Eli Manning’s wedding reception. But I enjoyed them anyway.

Samantha Brown visits New Orleans on tonight’s episode (Thursday, July 17) of Passport To Great Weekends airing at 9 pm CST on the Travel Channel. Check out this episode to see if very very perky Samantha Brown picks the right spots or ends up amongst the tourist wide eyed on Bourbon St. According to Brown’s press page the host may be spotted listening to jazz in the Faubourg Marigny, dancing and bowling at Rock ‘n’ Bowl, taking a back water bayou trip and helping rebuild homes. After you watch, post comments on what you think of the show here. Did anyone happen to spot Samantha Brown filming in NOLA?

Katy Reckdahl’s account in today’s T-P of a harrowing incident involving an unidentified, irate New Orleans policewoman brandishing a gun and hurling vulgarities outside a Treme daycare center — sending kids and parents scurrying for cover — is yet another example of how out-of-whack NOPD is these days. Read the story to get all the details, which Katy (a former Gambit Weekly writer) does a fabulous job of gathering and reporting. Hopefully, the story’s front-page treatment will put some pressure on NOPD brass to identify and discipline the offending officers — both the gun-waving  woman and the male investigating officer who swept the incident under the rug. The incident also provides further proof of why NOPD needs a civilian monitor. (See, Gambit commentaries here, here and here, just to name a few.)