It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

Until we're allowed back into bars in New Orleans and until people feel comfortable coming down and sitting around having a cocktail with random strangers, we're revisiting some our best shows from the past decade. Today Happy Hour Digital Producer, Andrew "C-Rock" Cirac has picked this episode, so here's the Return of the Random All Cajun Happy Hour Special.  Happy Hour is billed as “Random conversation with folks who have nothing in common.” Anything that’s truly random will, sooner or later, appear to us not to be. Like flipping a coin and getting four “heads” in a row. Or inviting random people to sit around a table at a bar in New Orleans and discovering they’re all Cajun. Louis Michot is the fiddle player and lead singer in the Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers. You don’t get much more Cajun than Louis and his tales of Petit Paris (aka St Martinville), living in Broussard, Lafayette, and out in the woods of Arnaudville. Louis plays two songs on this Happy Hour, accompanied on one of them by fellow Cajun Andrew Duhon. Here in New Orleans we pronounce Andrew’s name Doo-Hon but if you go a few miles West (just how many is open to debate) it’s pronounced Doo-Yong. Until you get a few miles out of Lafayette, into Texas, where it reverts to doo-hon, as evidenced by Louis’ dog whose name was Clint Duhon, pronounced the Port Arthur way ’cause that’s where he came from. Lizzie Guitreau is a Baton Rouge Cajun who decided that her inspiration from watching the TV show House as a kid should propel her into making TV shows rather than medicine. Lizzie went to UNO for film, started a band (of film makers) and is still working with them today, as Worklight Pictures. Ready for the next weird Cajun coincidence? Worklight Pictures are making a documentary about The Lost Bayou Rambers. It’s called On Va Continuer (we will continue). Brandon Beeyard can’t hide his true identity too long. Yes, it turns out his name is really spelled Bulliard, and he’s Cajun, from, wait for it, St Martinville aka Petit Paris, and his family is related to Louis’s wife’s family. Brandon is headed for self-propelled meta-stardom (no, that’s not a typo, though he might also be bound for mega-stardom) by way of his of his revalatory and inspirational life-story podcast, Dreamster. Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur – yes, that’s a Cajun name! - are at our website.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the Happy Hour annals of "random people who have nothing in common," the day artist Katrina Brees meets Tank and the Bangas stands out to Happy Hour Live Feed Video Director Asher Griffith as the Best Of Happy Hour.  Where's Karina? If you ever wondered what happened to Karina Nathan she’s now Kevin Simons. And Karen Regis. And Krystal Sedona. And Chi Chi the lead singer of the Girl Dawgs, who is actually a dog. Katrina Brees sheds some light on this fantastic array of personalities, and their wardrobes. Go Tank or Go Home Tank from Tank and the Bangas has her own specialty wardrobe and range of personas too. Her wardrobe doesn’t extend to panties (which she has given up wearing) but she does occasionally wear boy shorts to boost her booty. Her personas start out with Terianne Michelle Ball in New Orleans East and extend to the woman sorting through damaged goods on aisle 4 at Walmart. Norman Spence and Merell Burket from Tank’s band, Tank and the Bangas, join the party – but strictly under their own names. Hello, Ricky! Ricky Lemann’s alter ego is Frederick, his real name. Ricky could have gone with alter ego #2, Fred, but he’s keeping it real, pleading “the fifth” on a range of issues. Photos from this show by sunny Alison Moon at the now defunct Wayfare at our website.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Still barred from hanging out in bars in New Orleans, in the interests of public health, we continue to revisit standout shows from years gone by. This show, in which Humidor Saves The World Again, is the first Happy Hour after the election of Donald J Trump in 2016. Even then we knew things were going to go to Hell. If only podcasting was as popular in 2016 as it is today. Maybe somebody in DC would have heard this conversation and we could, indeed have saved the world. For now though all we can do is look back and laugh, and try not cry in our beer.  Austin Alward, aka Aus-T the Franco rap star, has a plan to save the country and the world from rampant Trumpism. It involves the internet, a Cuban cigar store owner, and a bunch of New Orleans actors and musicians. It might have been just crazy enough to work. Jazz great Mitchel Forman, and singer-songwriters Sam Doores from The Deslondes and Andrew Duhon have their own plan. It involves a searing rendition of I Shall Be Released, a tribute to both Leonard Cohen and the nation. Actress Teri Wyble made it out of dance school in Lafayette to become a critically acclaimed actress, a go-go dancer at Harrah’s Casino, and an international body painting sensation. This really is one of the greatest Happy Hours in the history of the show. When we first published this show we sent an admonition with it: "If you were thinking of leaving New Orleans this will make you stay. If you are thinking of moving here, call U-Haul, this will tip you over the edge." Photos from the now defunct Wayfare are by Alison Moon. For more Best of Happy Hour, try this.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's nothing more totally "New Orleans" than poboys, drag queens, and Cowboy Mouth. That's why, till we can go back in bars and hang out, Happy Hour photographer Jill Lafleur picks this show as her favorite from the past few years to revisit. Drag Queens Poppy Tooker is New Orleans first lady of food. From her weekly TV appearances on Steppin’ Out to to her weekly radio show and podcast, Poppy is the best known foodie in the city. Poppy’s latest venture is a collaboration with a large group of drag queens to produce a strong of drag queen brunches around town, culminating in her 6th book, simply called Drag Queen Brunch. You could have found out any of this information in any New Orleans publication. What you won’t have heard anywhere but here is the explanation to this sentences Poppy utters by way of her current situation: “I’m not dead and I’m not knocked up.” Cowboy Mouth Fred LeBlanc is the larger than life front man of the band Cowboy Mouth. If you’ve ever been to a Cowboy Mouth show or heard any of Fred’s media appearances you have probably thought Fred’s life is an open book. Well, there might be a couple of chapters of the book you hadn’t heard about. Probably doubtful that you’ve heard Fred’s opinions on marriage or cross-dressing anywhere else. Or known anything about his relationship to the Poboy shop, Melba’s Po Boys. Poboys Scott Wolfe Sr is the owner of Melba’s Po Boy Shop, on the corner of North Claiborbne and Elysian Fields, the busiest Po Boy shop in the world. Scott is also the owner of the wildly successful local New Orleans grocery chain, Wagner’s. Yes, he’s the marketing genius who came up with the slogan “You can’t beat Wagner’s Meat.” Scott’s extraordinary flair for marketing can be found in full display at Melba’s where they’re open 24 hours a day, have a giant laundromat where each machine is named and themed for a local New Orleans celebrity – you can wash your clothes in the Fred LeBlanc machine for example – and a 24/7 daiquiri shop.  This Happy Hour is a classic no-holds-barred conversation with people who are comfortable in their own skin and not hesitant about telling it like it is. If you’d like to see Jill Lafleur’s photos from this show recorded live at Wayfare,  you’ll find them along with much more right here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the annals of “You never know what the hell is going to come up in conversation,” this Happy Hour would have to rank at the top of the list. That's why, till we can go back into bars in new Orleans, Happy Hour producer Graham da Ponte has chosen this as her favorite show of the past 5 years - yes, it's the return of Clit Sit Meditation. Aidi Kansas (her real name) left behind a career as a pet portrait artist to pursue her abilities as a psychic energy healer and has stumbled into the world of getting women to reach spiritual enlightenment by stroking their own clitoris. Aidi calls it Clit Sit Meditation. Masturbatory meditation is only able to be practiced by people with a clitoris, in other words not men. Men, however, can have their own problems with too little ejaculation that can lead to porn and all manner of bad behavior. Talking of badly behaved men, Hitler, according to John Hebert, would have been a nicer person if he’d stayed off of the crystal meth. Apparently only the 1930’s equivalent of Photoshop saved Adolf from being portrayed as the meth-head he really was. Atoning for his owns sins, and some of his family’s (“My mother and I were bar fighters”), John is the guy behind all the red and white signs that say “LOVE” nailed to phone poles all around New Orleans. John Lisi makes a welcome return visit to Happy Hour with his shiny Dobro, a fistful of stories, and a song. Andrew Duhon starts things off on the good foot with a bit of beard oil that was produced by a prisoner friend of Aidi’s. The hour goes by way too fast. If you start listening to this make sure you can listen to the whole 60 minutes because you won’t be turning this off.  Photos at what once was Wayfare by Alison Moon are at our website.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After making Happy Hour for nearly 10 years and meeting with random folks in various bars around New Orleans, this is the very first show where we just turn on the mics, put the Zoom link out on the internet and sit back and see who shows up. Predictably, we get a bunch of people trying to hack the show down and hijack us with a bunch of porn, but other than a few salacious moments, our Digital producer Andrew “C-Rock” Cirac manages to run a tight ship and let in a few folks from around the country. One of them is David Wilkins, who is calling in from a small town just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. David lives with his wife of 35 years – they got married at 18 right out of high school – and for company they open their home to folks who pass by on bicycles. These are all members of a community of cyclists united by their membership of an organization called WarmShowers.org Asher Griffith is Happy Hour’s Facebook Live director, currently hunkering down with his mom in a small town called Greers Ferry, which, apparently, would have been spelled with an apostrophe if it wasn’t in rural Fox News-driven Alabama where niceties like grammar don’t matter that much.  On this show we learn that Asher has a secret life as a musician, that started with his first band Love Hog, and only terminated with his most recent band, Grass Mud Horse. Asher plays a song on this Happy Hour that manages to combine two of America’s rural ways of life: cowboys and masturbation. Other guests on today’s show include Thomas Walsh, Graham daPonte, Monique Pyle, Christopher Roth, and a guy playing an accordion player whose identity remains a mystery. Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are at our website.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Haines went to school to learn to become a classical trombone player with visions of playing trombone in an orchestra. But plans change. Initially Matt started teaching people to play in marching bands, which lead him to Thailand, not necessarily known for its place on the brass band pantheon, and then to new Orleans, the home of the hippest trombone players on the planet. That’s when Matt quit playing trombone. He’s now a writer. Ashley Herbert is the CEO of a company called Bart’s Office. They are office workspace professionals. They set up offices, move offices, and facilitate every aspect of commercial office space. So now what happens? Now everybody’s working from home and too frisked out to go back into the office? Take a listen to Ashley’s hands-on analysis of what’s going on in the world of office work. It’s sobering, even for Happy Hour. Jay Winfield was too preoccupied by people falling ill around him at the beginning of the pandemic to think about music, but things are better now and he’s back into the swing of playing. On this Happy Hour he plays a Stevie Wonder song to celebrate Stevie’s birthday, and a Nora Jones song to temp fate and see if he can get Happy Hour sued. Seeing we’re still not allowed back in bars, this Happy Hour was conducted on Zoom, so we were able to be joined by a bunch of folks who dropped by. That’s the one upside to not being in a bar, but it’s the only one. Things are opening up in New Orleans but if this collection of people is anything to go by, nobody is going out. See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website. Look back at a happier time when we used to hang out in bars here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Isaac Toups is one of the most talented and celebrated chefs in New Orleans. Isaac was a finalist on the TV show Top Chef and he’s currently a finalist for the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef South, which is the food equivalent of the Oscars. But before all that, Isaac was a winner of the Tadpole competition in his native Rayne, Louisiana. Rayne bills itself as The Frog Capital of the World (no kidding, look it up) and Isaac was the winner of the baby competition there, back when he was a baby. The best bay in Rayne, therefore, is the winner of the Tadpole Award. You can’t make this stuff up, and you can’t do justice it in writing, you need to hear this in Isaac’s own words, here on Happy Hour. Sara Lewis is running for Judge. The court she is looking to preside over is New Orleans First City Court. It’s a small claims court where there no jury. As somebody mentions on this show, it’s kind of lie reality TV court, except it’s actually reality. You can vote for Sara if you live in New Orleans, on July 11th if the election isn’t postponed again as it has been twice already. Sara doesn’t have a campaign slogan, yet, but today’s suggestions from the assembled Happy Hour guests and crew include “Lewis will do us,” “Small Claims Sara,” and “Sara is Fairer.” Lori Tipton and Andy Overslaugh might be New Orleans’ most interesting couple. And in New Orleans that’s saying something. Lori and Andy have both been on Happy Hour previously, but as Lori says, “We don’t usually do much together.” Two of the interesting aspects of their life is (a) they date other people and (b) they’re both exponents of various forms of therapeutic psychedelic exploration. So you think you’ve had it tough being cooped up in your house for the past 8 weeks? Imagine what Andy and Lori are going through. Lori and Andy have both had a long career in the New Orleans service industry, and Isaac is fighting to keep his restaurant open. If you’re interested in a front-line report and prognosis of the future of the service industry in New Orleans, take a listen to this conversation. Photos by Jill Lafleur. Lori’s super-popular previous appearance on Happy Hour, is here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you’re in a relationship, sex changes over time. Sometimes it goes from being good to being great. Other times, the fabulous person you fell in love with appears to change completely and turns into a person who is batsh*t crazy and completely unlovable.   We’re summarizing here, but this is pretty much how Andrew Duhon describes the possibility of the trajectories of love in the modern era.  The reason we’re having this conversation on Happy Hour is because Tracy Carlson is a sex therapist. It’s not every day you get  to meet a sex therapist, especially after you’ve already had a couple of drinks in the middle of the afternoon, and well, you’ve got questions, right? The good news is Tracy has answers. Jonathan Freilich raises some pretty good and searching questions about sexuality and fantasy, while he's taking some time off from making his own podcasts to drop by and say hi. Joshua Summey drops by too, from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Josh was the songwriter and singer and front-man for the band Hazy Ray and a favorite on Happy Hour when he lived in New Orleans, so the Covid-enforced Zoom format has its upside in as much as we can reconnect with people far flung across the country. Closer to home, Kimya Holmes is trapped in her apartment with her two highschool age kids. On this show we opened the floodgates to talk to anyone who wanted to join and this time we did not get bombed by Russian porno trolls but we did have a couple of very nice drop-ins. Including David who is calling from his code-atorium in Birmingham Atlanta. We’ll do this open-invitation style show again next week. You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website. Last week’s quarantine happy hour is here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seriously, you have no idea how easy it is to be a best selling author. When you see a book on the best seller list of Amazon, don’t you assume that it must be selling hundreds of thousands? Try 800. Not 800,000, just 800. That’s what both the authors on this Happy Hour tell us. Dr Chris Yandle gets up around 6AM. By around 7AM he’s jotting down a clever line that he’s dreamed up since 6AM. He puts the clever line on a piece of paper and slips it into his daughter’s book bag. (This is not the plot of a novel, btw, this is what actually happens in the Yandle household in Mandeville.) So, anyway, after Dr Chris has a bunch of these notes he writes them up into a book called Lucky Enough, which turns out to be a prophetic title ‘cause he’s lucky enough to sell out of the whole run and be a big deal in the non-fiction world and seriously that’s only about 600 books later. You’d be forgiven for not believing these numbers could possibly be true, but then Fermin Ceballos confirms them. Fermin is also the author of a book called Pisadno Mi Sombra, which you have probably already gathered is in Spanish, and there’s some English in there too. Fermin is also shocked at his successful book sales of around 800 books – and both of our authors are working on their second books! Fermin also happens to be a talented musician, which is his primary job. There’s a parallel world of Latin music in New Orleans and the South in general in which Fermin is a star, and deservedly so. You can also catch him online on the Band Together benefit concert to raise money for Covidly-unemployed musicians. Connie Bellone is not an author or a musician but she does live on the Northshore, in delightful Madisonville. However, most of her work is done on the Southshore, brightening the lives of under-privileged children with her Health & Education Alliance of Louisiana, aka HEAL. Just as an aside, she is not killing wild turkeys over there in Madisonville, though there is apparently no good reason not to. Andrew Duhon and Fermin Ceballos team up as best one can on Zoom on a beautiful Andrew Duhon tune, Promised Land. Photos by Jill Lafleur.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Music is apparently non-essential. So New Orleans musicians have no place to play. Some are doing live streaming from their homes, but others – like drummers and sax players – don’t have the kind of live streaming ability that, say, a singer-songwriter has. And then there’s this interesting factoid – Petco is regarded as essential and is still open. So here’s the obvious solution: Live From Petco. Musicians go play at Petco, if not in the store then at least in the parking lot. That’s the wisdom that comes out of this Covid Zoom conversation aka Happy Hour. Back in the day when people went to work, Allison Hererra made social media influencer videos for people like personal injury attorney Chip Forstall. Allison is going to use her talents to film the Petco Sessions and put them up online. Brian Hudson knows a thing or two about viral music videos. Brian is a street performer whose singing partner is internet sensation Grandpa Elliot, the older guy who sings Stand By Me on YouTube, Instagram and all over. The other interesting thing about Brian is he’s a therapist. And a keen observer Sage Rouge is a sax player who is making live streaming videos with her roommate, Mark, who is also a sax player. Together they’re releasing a series of videos that combine music and alcohol, called Day Drinking Duets. For a day job, Sage is a sax player in the band Spylights. Vincent Giovanni, the front-man lead singer and driving force behind Spylights, throws caution and social distancing to the wind for today’s show, putting together a 3-piece version of Spylights to play two songs on this Happy Hour. Andrew Duhon takes us out with a rendition of his beautiful song about the heartache of separation, Coming Down Over Here. Apparently, we’re all staying home till the middle of May, so we’ll see you back on Zoom Happy Hour next week. Oh, and in the meantime, not everybody’s social isolation is totally dull and predictable. Listen to Asher Griffith’s story about shooting a chicken in the head. Stay home and stay safe and see you back here in a week. Photos by Jill Lafleur. Last week’s Covid conversation is here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’re trapped at home hating watching the world come to an end, remember the wise words of Sergio from the band Rodo: One person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia. Sergio and Rodo (the person) play a couple of songs that illustrate this dichotomy, as well as pulling together another pair of polar concepts, ballads and hip hop, into their unique blend of music that Grant apparently branded as Hip Hop Ballad. Their new music is out April 15th, so enjoy your dystopia/utopia with a new soundtrack. Also, while you’re holed up in the house, how about watching Linda Midgett’s movie, Same God? Its on Amazon and AppleTV and is a feature length documentary about a black woman college professor at an evangelical school who decides to show some empathy for Muslim women by walking around in a hijab. You can probably guess what happens to her but it sounds a lot more worthwhile and compelling than Tiger King. The last time we had a major societal meltdown in New Orleans, Blake Haney and his company Dirty Coast were at the forefront of the recovery, galvanizing us around the bumper sticker that said it all, “Be a New Orleanian wherever you are.” This time around Blake isn’t quite so upbeat about how this is all going to go down. But’s one of the smartest and most erudite guys in town so his opinion is very much worth listening to. Photos by Jill Lafleur. Here's last week's Covideo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our second Happy Hour by Zoom we manage to take advantage of not being able to hang out in a bar and instead talk to people all across the country in a new concept we’re calling Covideo. Yes, that’s in questionable taste, but after all it is Happy Hour. Mike Rubin is stuck in his second week of isolation in San Francisco. When times are normal Mike has a photography business called Neomodern, in which people walk into his photo gallery with their phones filled with photos and with the assistance of experts walk out with a framed print on archival quality paper. It’s a brilliant idea that has been around for 3 years but Mike’s dilemma is, does he hang on and hope the world returns to how it was, or does he embrace change and morph into something different? He’s at this point heading along the latter avenue. Katrina Brees is sitting on a possible Covid-driven windfall. Not only did her 10 year old movie about her Vagina from the Future who cures a Chinese-born virus predict this whole current scenario, but she has long been in the funeral and casket business. Katrina’s Fantastic Casket business is fundamentally a  DIY coffin, though now she is moving into a whole new arena of disposing of dead bodies which involves melting flesh and crushing bones. In case you think this is a piece of mis-reporting or exaggerated in some way, take a listen to this conversation. Rich Collins had a great year lined up which included an Asian tour and a solo spot at Jazz Fest. Well, that’s all changed. However, he still has a trove of great new songs, one of which he plays on this show, about the pleasures of driving around aimlessly and cranking up the radio.  Hopefully those days will return in the not too distant future. Andrew Duhon gets his cable fixed in the middle of this show, just in time to play an almost acapella song. Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur are on our website https://itsneworleans.com/2020/03/25/covideo/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we started making podcasts in New Orleans 10 years ago, we encountered a lot of skeptical questions, among them “What happens when you run out of good guests, in 6 weeks?” and “What’s a podcast?” One of the questions we didn’t hear was, “What happens if every bar and restaurant in the city shuts down?” That sure would have been funny, but it’s turning out to be no joke. So, welcome to It's New Orleans Coronavirus. Part 2. Our show is coming to you today courtesy of Zoom. All of our crew and our guests are quarantined in their homes. Mimi Schippers was last on Happy Hour when she was a younger woman and in a polyamorous relationship with two people. Those relationships have matured into something different (though not much different from your average long-term relationship actually, aka no sex)  and Mimi has matured into a respected academic who is head of the Sociology Department at Tulane University and a world authority on polyamory and Queer Studies. Melissa and Matt DeOrazio (pronounced “Dee-Razio” the “O” is silent) are a married couple with no polyamorous desires. They’re collectively The Dirty Rain Revelers and are in the process of using the Covid hiatus to tidy up around their apartment, record new songs and play live online. Well worth checking out. And let’s face it, you’ve got the time now to go all kinds of online rabbit holes like listening to bands and checking out Americana music. And while you’re doing that, go investigate what Andrew Duhon is up to. Andrew had to abandon his tour when it became illegal to play music to people in a room if they were closer than 6 feet apart, and then soon after there were no rooms even open in the US to go hear music. Can you believe this is even true and not some sort of drug-induced bar room drunken conversation like we normally hear on Happy Hour? Crazy. But we do get to hear a beautiful downer classic Andrew Duhon song on this show, called Almost Forever. Ryne Hancock had his Twitter account suspended when he “went off on a Nazi” who apparently said bad things about his Aunt Mandy. Ryne’s ex-landord was a crack addict who somehow managed to do a lot of crack while still holding onto rental property and retained functioning limbs while owing drug dealers money all over town. See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur on our website. More Happy Hour conversations about polyamory here and here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So today it's New Orleans Corona Virus: Part 1 - the first day of the New Orleans shut down. Even the It's New Orleans Happy Hour podcast is caught up in the global pandemic, though so far all that's happened to us is we have to move off the stage of the Maple Leaf Bar to make room for Dave Jordan and Flow Tribe after they relocated here when the outdoor Wednesday in the Square concert was shut down by the city. So, instead of thousands of people gathering in the sunny outdoors while our small crew meets on the stage of the club, now thousands of people are crammed into the club while our small crew gets to hang out in the sunny outdoors in the courtyard. So, Yay Corona Virus Part 1! Felter goes by one name, like Cher or Prince, who she's the same height as. Felter, like Prince and Cher, specializes in making people feel better. She's a motivational speaker whose contribution to New Orleans Corona Virus Part 1 is coming up with a whole new way to inspire people without catching their viruses. Joe Gerrity's contribution to making people feel good during the early days of New Orleans Corona Virus: Part 1 is selling them CBD. Joe's company - Crescent Canna - makes what he says is not only the finest CBD available but, unlike other local manufacturers, it is actually CBD. Did you know what other people claim as CBD that you're paying $60 a bottle for, is not CBD at all? Now that you'll have plenty of time at home to do nothing but experimental stuff like trying various CBD's you can find that out for yourself. Doyle Cooper's contribution to the sum total of human happiness during the era of New Orleans Corona Virus is substantial. Doyle is the leader of the Doyle Cooper Jazz Band. Maybe you've heard people tell stories of how they got started playing an instrument? No matter how many of these stories you've heard, you've never heard  one like Doyle's. It involves parents who are partying their asses off, a stoned baby sitter, and Jazz Fest Crawfish Bread. See photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website: https://itsneworleans.com/2020/03/11/new-orleans-corona-virus-part-1/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you've ever rented an apartment, when you've gone to move out, you've almost certainly told the landlord "I want to get my security deposit back." What happens after that is the great unknown. Most often you've probably just given up arguing with the landlord and let the guy keep your money. Because that's what a huge number of us do, there is about $6 BILLION a year in un-returned security deposits. Marco Nelson is the guy who knows all about that $6B, he's setting about getting it back for all of us, one renter at a time. Marco's startup is called RentCheck and it's already a big deal nationwide. Marco's got a great story about starting out in the military and while his friends are being shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan, he gets  sent to New Orleans! You just know this guy is going to be a billionaire. Katherine Klimitas is a "3." She's also an artist and the author of a new book of portraits of dogs, called Breed All About Us, with co-author Yvonne Krumins. It's a delightful book, especially if you love dogs, and it's equally as delightful as its authors. Katherine's "3" refers to the specific kind of genetic mutation that makes her the shortest person in New Orleans, at 2 feet 7 inches tall - but there's no way you'd guess that from size of her personality - and Yvonne is an author-in-waiting whose time has finally come. Aaron Maras is one of New Orleans most talented singer-songwriters, and that's saying something. Aaron fronts a band called Cactus Thief built largely around his music. On this Happy Hour he plays two songs off the band's latest album, Two Bells. If you don't know Cactus Thief or Aaron you're going to love making this discovery. Happy Hour is recorded live at the iconic Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans. To see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more check out our website. Check out Katherine Klimitas' last appearance on Happy Hour where she was plotting to sabotage a Rolling Stones gig.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mardi Gras and Day of the Dead are two very different holidays. But in 2020 Mardi Gras Death is a real thing. It's Ash Wednesday 2020, the day after the deadliest Mardi Gras, possibly of all time. Julie Couret is a witness to what happened. As a regular TV commentator camera crews sought Julie out right after the event and today, with the benefit of a bit hindsight, Julie gives us a first hand account of riding in the Nyx Parade just a few floats behind the woman who was killed trying to walk between the two sections of a tandem float. Was she cut in half, as people reported? (Julie says she knows the person who tried to give her CPR so it's doubtful she was in two pieces.) Was Mardi Gras 2020 cursed by the spirits of the dead people trapped inside the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel on Canal Street? (The jury is out on that one.) Dr. Mark Carson is a professor of history. But nobody mentions that small detail until the last moments of this Happy Hour, after Mark has played one of the nearly 2,000 songs he's written - this one appears on a Papa Grows Funk album and it's about a New Orleans character who used to hang out outside the Maple Leaf Bar where this show is recorded - and recounted his worst nightmare from years in bands. You'll wish you had a nightmare like this. Julie summarized it as, "having to deal with the oily grease from a stripper's tits."  All in all, for the day after the deadliest Mardi Gras ever - in which two separate people were killed in bizarre Mardi Gras parade accidents, both run over by the back half of a tandem-float - this Happy Hour is pretty punchy.  We get to hear how Julie get meets a guy on Bumble, and how - thanks to Ancestry.com and Facebook - she finds the brother she never knew she had, who came to be born as a result of a date her father barely remembers going on back in the day.  For photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, visit our website at www.itsneworleans.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jazz singer/songwriter Gabrielle Cavassa broke up with the guy she was dating and when they got together a month later - for that ridiculous "closure" we've heard so much about - he gave her the ammo for a vicious, cutting song about what a kind, loving, genius he'd turned into since they split. He even told her that he'd gotten so smart that he listens to podcasts now. We realize we're on thin ice here, suggesting only pretentious jerks listen to podcasts, because obviously you're so smart you do listen to podcasts, but nobody in their right mind would claim this is a podcast for smart people. Although we do have smart people on it, like for example Arthur Franz IV. Arthur is the inventor of Mardi Gras Madness, a board game that doesn't actually require a board. It's a card game in which you play the part of a Mardi Gras parade-goer and the object of the game is to collect as many throws as possible. For $25 it looks like a good investment in drinking for those long nights between parades when you're dreaming of streets filled with people having fun and forgetting the misery that is our daily lives. Or is it? Do you believe most people go through life relatively confident and happy? Or that most of us are "riddled with debilitating self doubt?" If the latter camp, the captain of your ship is Andrew Duhon. Although, ironically, the song Andrew plays on this show is one of the quirkier in his pantheon. It's a new song called, The Castle on Irish Bayou. If you live in New Orleans and you've driven east on I-10 toward Slidell, you know the place. Deborah Oppenheim taught in the New Orleans public school system for 30 years and escaped with her sanity by switching schools every 7 years. These days she's the founder of an organization called Look Before You Open, a non-profit whose mission is to save bicyclists' lives by educating drivers and passengers on how to open a car door. There's actually a safe technique called "Opposite Hand Reach." (That's also the method Arthur would use to get out a submerged helicopter, and that's a whole other story.) It's New Orleans Happy Hour is recorded at the iconic Maple Leaf Bar in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from the show by Jill Lafleur at our website https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh There's more Happy Hour Mardi Gras Madness here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You probably think you've heard every weird bad disastrous insane mistaken awful relationship story there is. You haven't. Not till you hear comedian hypnotist Flip Orley document his 5 wives and explain the drunken tattoos all over his body with, "My 4th wife was Cajun." Honestly, if you need to be reassured your own relationship is not so bad, or you want to bask in the relief of being in a good relationship, you have got to hear these extraordinary true tales of Flip's wives.  Musician Lenny Green has his own horror story. Namely, the time he came from a great gig to find his wife so mad that he was out all night playing music that she got out of bed and punched him in the face. "That was the beginning of the end," as you might imagine. Lenny also sings a love song on this show complete with the chorus in which he dreams about "flipping you over." Strangely, for a guy who writes sad songs about the lonely and broken-hearted - the self-described genre of Sad Bastard music - Andrew Duhon is the one guy at the table with a stable relationship. And a beautiful new work-in-progress song about the state of the heart. Fashion designer Claudia Croazzo was meant to be on this show but a last minute emergency took her away. Fate has a strange way of working things out. Claudia was spared having to listen to this kind of barroom talk, but on the other hand it's doubtful we would have gotten to these kinds of bare-knuckle tales with the leavening influence of a sensible woman of the world at the table. This is a chance to be a fly on the barroom wall at The Maple Leaf. There are photos by Jill Lafleur and more info on our website.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It literally doesn't get more real New Orleans than this Happy Hour. Charlie Gabriel was born in New Orleans in 1932. He started shining shoes and playing music when he was 5. By the time he was 11 he was a professional musician and he's never looked back. He did leave new Orleans for a while. Actually, about 60 years. Hurricane Katrina and Preservation Hall brought him back. Charlie is a national treasure and one of New Orleans' finest musicians and gentlemen. This is a rare opportunity to hear him talk about everything from living through segregation to playing with Aretha Franklin and working for Amazon.  Charlie plays sax on a new song by Andrew Duhon. If you're an Andrew Duhon fan you might want to chart the progress of this song from its first ever airing here on Happy Hour, through to wherever it eventually ends up. You'll get it from the first note: this is going to be a beautiful song. Deniseea Taylor moved to New Orleans because she got a cheap air ticket from New York but even if you don't believe in anything as mystical as the power of the Universe you'd have to believe it was Destiny. Where else could a person who is cocktail artist live if not the city that's the home of the cocktail? "D" as everybody calls her is the creative force behind Cocktails by Pop. You can keep up with all her cocktail events - and they're super cool - by following her on Instagram at @ChickenandChampagne. And just to make this show the most perfect representation of New Orleans of all time, T R Johnson is here with his new book, the definitive collection of New Orleans literature, called New Orleans: A Literary History. The book might be an academic tome but you can get it at decidedly unacademic places like Melba's poboy shop. Really, can you even imagine anything more Real New Orleans than this collection of New Orleanians? It's New Orleans Happy Hour is recorded live at The Maple Leaf Bar on Oak Street in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more, on our website https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.