HumidCity

(Originally posted someplace else on May 1st, 2008)

This is the kind of scene you occasionally find yourself stumbling into when you live in the greatest beat-up beat-down city on earth:

(photos on this page copyright 2008 Louis Maistros)

Me and the wife are minding our own business, performing our evening ritual of snagging some joe and peace along with Chalmette the misfit pooch down at the Sound Café a few blocks down, and what do we happen upon through pure serendipitous dumb luck? Maybe the best brass band on earth slamming down right there on the coffee shop floor. As if this weren’t heaven enough, jazz legend Dr. Michael White is there, too, sitting in on clarinet. Moments like this cannot be bought with mere cash-money – and that’s alright, because in New Orleans the best moments always come free of charge.

The Hot 8 Brass Band matters. Everything that is good about New Orleans is embodied in this little band of regular neighborhood guys. They’ve been to hell and back, have even lived through the senseless murder of their friend, teacher, leader and drummer Dick Shavers, and yet they keep on with this music, this amazing, uplifting, truth-giving music. This is cool jazz, funked to the core and set ablaze, but it’s something much more than that. It’s the rawness of the street shot out through the business end of a tuba. It’s Tabasco spiked with tears and gasoline. It’s love. It’s war. It’s life and God and the devil and everything else in the world that matters and some things that don’t and a few that fall in between and ask me if I give a damn about whatever it is because the reasons, the causes, the rationales, if there are any, can’t possibly matter in this singular moment that puts this whole fucking mess in one simple context, on one single page, down and clear and all right there. These guys are not always in tune. They’re not always sober. They’re not always tight. But they are always, always just right. In the moment. In the pocket. In the heart. My heart. Yours if you’re lucky.

So the night is cool and rare, the sun’s creeping down the sky, and it’s one of those gray, gray pissy southern skies with a dirty tint of orange twilight like a slow-rotting peach that I’ve only ever seen in New Orleans, and I’m having an epiphany moment.

I’ve had days where I’ve pondered the wisdom of staying here, days where it seems best to pack up the kids and take them somewhere/anywhere up north and just be done with it already. I’ve had days like that, and I guess I’ll have a few more.

But today is not one of those days.

Thinking about leaving is something I sometimes do. Staying is what I do every day without thinking.

Today my heart is clamped to my sleeve and bulletproof. I’m seeing and hearing this neighborhood band, these normal guys, blowing out through those horns, wailing away, kicking through songs of the 1920s like “Girl of My Dreams,” ripping them to pieces for this modern-fucked-sideways world, I’m hearing the hopped-up rage of their own songs, like “Ray Nagin,” a song that can make you cry and scream and dance all at the same time, and I’m hearing the pure funky hotgoddamn of “Let Me Do My Thing.” I’m going all the way back then fast-forward to here, ten minutes past now, with outrageous brassed-out covers of everything from “High Healed Sneakers” to Marvin Gaye’s disco sin, “Sexual Healing,” and I’m hearing my wife say over and over, “I never liked this song before, but I love it now.” I’m knowing that they’ve been through so damn much, these guys, these normal fucking guys, much worse than the troubles suffered by me and mine, but they just won’t stop, they can’t or won’t, they just keep going, taking all those hits – from behind and above and below – and they still come back up again, over and over, these guys, these normal everyday fucking guys, still raging, still preaching, still high, still defiant, still towering in spirit like it’s just another day on the job. And now I’m thinking: How dare I bitch about a single bad day? My problems are reduced to shadow tonight and these guys have lighted the way. I’ve done nothing for them, but they give me this. They give me this without even knowing who the fuck I am or that they are giving anything to anyone at all. They’re just playing. They’re just doing what they do.

And that’s New Orleans tonight.

Go visit the Hot 8 at their MySpace page where you can listen for free in streaming audio. If you get what I’m talking about, buy their CD or download a few tracks off iTunes.

Here’s the thing:

Some types of truth cannot be told in the usual way.

Louis Maistros

http://louismaistros.com

These things may not be right, but they are true.

The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros is due for publication from The Toby Press in Spring 2009.

The above is a message we can all agree with, although some might phrase it more delicately. These have been popping up in the Bywater recently, and I think they speak volumes about the state of affairs down here. Still, if thousands converging on city hall could not accomplish anything lasting why should a sticker? At least seeing this raised my spirits, which is also vastly important these days.

On a more practical front I found something that brought a grin to my face while grabbing some coffee at the Sound Cafe: a petition to the City Council for them to impress upon Fred Radtke (the ubiquitous Grey Ghost) that his efforts are neither wanted nor welcome by the community. I feel the delicious tingle of a “ban the buff” movement beginning to take root. I would like to take this occassion to wholeheartedly endorse one!

I want to see more of these turn up. The Magazine Street Business Association is one group that has several members that I know who have suffered the expense of Mr. Radtke’s “graffiti removal.” Likewise I am sure with many neighborhood associations and business groups. Mobilization is required. A simple petition is a start.

Finally we start to see some practical moves in this game of “get the psycho off the streets.” I know that most of us are unstable or self medicated these days (gee, how Tennessee Williams), but this guy is dangerous. Military experience and mental instability, which is what it increasingly seems like we are dealing with here, are a lousy combination. If his reported behavior in court during the NOLA Rising case or when he verbally abused that poor girl at Mojo’s gives any indication I would advise his removal from the streets, post haste.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

Jazz Fest is always a busy and energizing time for me. Working out on the Fairgrounds, ground zero for entertainment during the season, is always fun. (Well, maybe not running through the rain with PCs wrapped in garbage bags trying to safeguard the gear, the rest is pretty great.) Its especially good this year because I actually have a team to work with. The pictures here were taken by one of the long standing HumidCity Irregulars: M. Styborski (who you may well know from his blog Nation of Morons). We’ve been putting out a good variety of nearly real time content and having fun doing it (except for the rain).

This year I have two surprising new bits of additional good fortune to share.

The first one is tomorrow. Instead of my usual ride to the Bywater on my bike I will be making my way to the French Quarter on the streetcar and heading over to Aranud’s for drinks. The lovely ladies of Tales of the Cocktail have been generous enough to ask me to be a judge, so tomorrow will be an afternoon of careful cocktail appraisal. Their office is next to my own, and we have been working together on fund raising efforts for the Ashley Morris Fund, yet despite knowing me they asked anyway. Brave or foolhardy, you be the judge.

If you’re not familiar with them click the banner below and check out their website:

The second is an odd bit of internet flotsam. I noticed a trackback in the site log that appeared to be brand new, yet when I followed it I got a surprise. Evidently my yearly anti-caterpillar rant here on the HumidCity was picked up and quoted in The New Yorker. Not only that, but the article is almost exactly a year old. I must admit to being quite amused that my words ended up there of all places not to mention puzzled at why it would take a year for a trackback to show. I’ll be damned.

Jazz Fest 2008 by Often Absurd in the Humid City, on Flickr

The Following is the text of an email I received today. I was carbon copied along with the TP at my request. Since this very subject was the topic of much conversation during the afternoon torrents I felt it deserved to be shared. What are your thoughts? -Loki, HumidCity, Founder

It is 4:30 and I am writing this letter from the WWOZ hospitality tent (because I happily plunked down $380 to go to jazz fest and support WWOZ). For me to stop listening to the music to write the TP is phenomenal, but this time it has gone too far. I have been going to jazz fest for 40 years (1969 Congo Square before it was jazz fest). I worked there seven years for free and another eight for minimum wage. The last years I was the day fair book keeper and I know better than most how expensive jazz fest is to produce. So I have defended jazz fest when they added corporate sponsorships, when they sold areas for private parties, and when they increased their daily cost.

But today at 4:00 pm on my way to Bobby Lounge, I looked up at the grandstand and it was empty. Maybe 20 people inside away from the rain and another dozen on the balconies. In the pouring rain????

Well this year, the jazz fest closed the Grandstand to everyone but the Foundation and the Big Chief Experience People. So if you came thinking that you could run to the Grandstand if it rains, next year you will have to pay $500 or so to get in. Or you will have to have a friend on the Foundation willing to share the perks and highly expensive catering they enjoy. Shame on the Foundation, shame on AIG, and shame on FPI who was forced to sell their soul to the Foundation and AIG.

How many seats does jazz fest have to sell at $500 to make up for the $50 tickets that were locked out of the Grandstand today? Think about it.

Pat Williamson

Click the Image to see more pics from Howieluvsus

Ashley wants you to laugh, you fuckers!

Hey out there in NOLAland! Just wanted to announce the debut of the New Orleans Shows Community on Flickr. It’s a joint effort to document music shows within the New Orleans metro area. We already have a wide variety of pics ranging from VooDoo Fest to the Noisician Colaition.

Stop by, check ‘em out, add some of your own!