Notes from New Orleans

As promised during our Fat Tuesday in Kentucky post, our friend Terry has filed a report on her exciting trip to New Orleans:

"We walked with the Skull and Bone Gang at 6am from the Treme through the French Quarter (first time since 1819 they've ever gone through there!) and back- about 3 miles or so. There was a stilt-walker, and kid-skulls. They carried huge, fresh pigs feet and knocked on doors with them, saying, "Wake up! Do not be late, it's Mardi Gras mornin', got to celebrate!", and "We come to remind you to get your life together - by the time you see me, it's too late to cry!" The stilt-guy chanted "You better stop the killin', or you gonna have to come with me; you better stop the lyin' or you gonna have to come with me..." "Wake up out the bed!" They rang doorbells and rocked people's cars, and then hugged anyone who opened their doors.

I am pleased and proud to say I did not set one foot on Bourbon Street. We made it to one big parade in hopes of seeing the Muses, but they were late, and it was fucking 40 degrees and windy like Chicago. So, we caught a few beads and went back home. Can't wait to go back..."

"1.) with Ronald Lewis, who runs the House of Dance and Feathers (a museum he runs in his back yard in the Lower 9th Ward) at the Backstreet Cultural Museum in the Treme
2.) sewing feathers with SpyBoy Ricky for the Little Queen of Yellow Pocohantas
3.) with George, Wild Man of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang
4.) helping Ida Mae, Big Queen of the Creole Wild West finish her Suit on Mardi Gras Day
5.) Ida Mae's grandson Adam, a Little Chief wearing his first Suit ever."


Photos by Charles Silver. Check out his great photographic work on his website and his flickr account.

Fat Tuesday in Kentucky

Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras - and all the magickally attached psychic tentacles that come along with them - are mere mortal concepts, of course. You don't actually need to eat jambalaya and drink hurricanes and wear plastic beads and throw colorful coins and flash your breasts to strangers and listen to Luis Russell records to feel the New Orleans spirit (and it is, literally, a spirit).

But hey, it couldn't hurt, right?


Meanwhile, I'm having my very own New Orleans of the mind right here at Chez Jeffy's, and will mixing up some sort of heady concoction in my Pat O' Brien's hurricane glass. I'll probably fry up some cajun-style blackened grouper too. But really, that's just another day around here. My real homage to the Loa of Orleans Parish will come later, when I go downstairs to that locked room beside my wine cellar and I open the wooden doors of the you-know-what and light the something-something in honor of you-know-who.


If you're looking for something a little more conventional this day, however, there are plenty of good Mardi Gras festivities going on around our fair state, I hear tell.

The Dish in Lexington is having some sort of event called Dish'n Out Mardi Gras.

Tonight there's the annual Mardi Gras For Homeless Children, at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in Covington. $55 per person, for a darn good cause, and Grand Marshaled by none other than Doug Pelfrey.

This page says that Infernal Dreams, a lively bunch of horror enthusiasts in Winchester, are having a Mardi Gras celebration, but I didn't see a mention of such on their website. Inquire.


Cafe Lou Lou sounds like a snappy place to be snackin'. According to their press release:

Every day of the year, Café Lou Lou intertwines the city of Louisville and the state of Louisiana. In case you’ve ever wondered, that’s also where the name “Lou Lou” derives. Their specialty is always bringing Cajun-style and Cajun-flavored cuisines here to the river city. And, when Louisiana’s, and arguably the entire nation’s, biggest party happens 3 states away… thanks to Café Lou Lou, you won’t even realize you’re not right on Bourbon Street!

Believe me, I'll realize the difference. Heh. But still, sounds like a swingin' time down at Lou Lou's. Furlongs and Joe's OK Bayou are also having Fat Tuesday festivities today.


But nothing says New Orleans like, well, New Orleans. Catclaw's own Terry is down in the heart of the quarter diggin' the scene live and firsthand right now as we speak, and I'm jealous, dammit. Last we heard from her, she's havin' a ball and will file a full report with the head office when she returns and recovers.