It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

All of us have a love language: some way we prefer love to be communicated to us. For some it’s touch, for others it’s receiving gifts. Your ideal partner in life is a person who speaks your language of love.

If you’re having trouble finding that perfect lifetime love-talk , Ann Parnes can help you. Ann is a professional matchmaker. Tell her who you’re looking for and she’ll go to a bunch of parties, functions, and dinner parties and troll the crowds so you don’t have to.

Big Chief Delco from Creole Osceola Mardi Gras Indian Tribe is in his 54th year of marriage and he can tell you straight out, his love language is not touch. He doesn’t want people touching him. He has, however, touched a lot of people. In his 50-plus years as a Chief he has traveled the world spreading the gospel of the Indian way, he’s adopted schools, influenced countless kids, and been such a leading light advocate of the Indian tradition that the Positive Vibrations Foundation is recognizing him with the coveted Heartbeat award.

2020 is the year Martin “Bats” Bradford breaks into the big time. Bats is an accomplished actor but most of his accomplishments have been acting in movies and TV and theater that has originated in New Orleans. If you don’t know his name, you know his face but for you to be able to say “Oh wow, it’s Bats Bradford!” rather than “Where do I know that guy from?” Bats is going to have to leave us and do time in Hollywood. Meantime, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet so make the most of it before fame goes to his head.

Andrew Duhon plays a song he wrote “When I was a young man,” which was back before the Christmas break. This is the first Happy Hour of 2020 and the first ever at iconic The Maple Leaf bar.

Photos by Jill Lafleur. See Jill's photos and more at our website, https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh

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The girl with the Christmas tree on her head would be eye-catching anywhere. The sparkly glitter on her face and her 8 inch shoes with snow-globes in each perspex heel turns heads even in New Orleans. To find out Jezebel Lobelia lives in Lafayette is astounding.

Jezebel makes things like the Christmas tree on her head. They're called fascinators and you can see the full wide range of them at Jezebel's Etsy shop, Jezebel's Fascination.

Mark Taliancich doesn't look quite as eye-popping as Jezebel but he's every bit as fascinating. Mark is the Clinical Director of Counseling Solutions at Catholic Charities and he has a Ph.D in marriage counseling. And yet, even knowing everything there is to know about marriage, he went ahead and got married. And here's the fascinating bit: Mark and his wife, Maegen, are opening a rum distillery. The distillery is called Happy Raptor and their first lines of product are called 504Rum. The rums are flavored, like 504BananasFoster and 504 Hibiscus.

Andrew Duhon closes out 2019 with a couple of new songs off his forthcoming album. 

This edition of Happy Hour was recorded at The Freret Beer Room in Uptown New Orleans. 

You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at our website. 

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Sure it's heresy to eat King Cake before 12th Night but Susan Freeswick brings a load of awesome food to this edition of Happy Hour, including King Cake, and gets a NOLA Heresy Pass because it's all Keto from her bakery Everyday Keto to Go. In the middle of this conversation, Susan's Keto Fat Bomb explodes the myth of celebrity.

Strictly, it's writer Thomas Beller who explodes that myth. Tom set out to be a rock star, as the drummer in a New York band. Along the way he stumbled into a different kind of stardom: as a staff writer for The New Yorker, the pinnacle of all writing gigs ever, anywhere. Tom describes the night he hung out recently with another superstar writer, playwright Tom Stoppard - the night neither of them had anything to do after the Rolling Stones canceled their Jazz fest gig - and British Tom imagined that New Yorker Tom "must have felt like a dog with five tails" the year he had the New Yorker gig.

If you'd like to know what happened to the rest of the guys in New York Tom's band, check this out: https://www.beastiemania.com/whois/cushman_tom You can find Thomas Beller down on Canal Street staring at the crumpled Hard Rock Hotel or at Tulane directing the creative writing course.

Singer/songwriter Dave Jordan's take on celebrity is, "Everybody in New Orleans thinks they're a celebrity." Not that they're delusionally believing they're the greatest guitar player of all time like some kind of loser wandering along Hollywood Boulevard, but they claim celebrity of a more totally NOLA nature in claiming they make the best gumbo or fried turkey on the planet - where "planet" ends at the spillway.

Dave plays two songs on this show, one off his latest album, Burning Sage, the other a cover of Bob Dylan song that Andrew Duhon joins him on.

For his part, Andrew Duhon is writing a new album and premieres a brand new song he's just finished writing with Anders Osborne, called Everybody's Got a Little Piece of the Map. 

If you're listening to the conversation here about high school drinking and wondering, "What did ever happen to Friar Tucks bar on Freret Street?" this true story might interest you. http://uptownmessenger.com/2011/01/friar-tucks-ceasing-operations-immediately-owner-tells-freret-street/ 

You may also find these kind of hilarious yelp reviews interesting: https://www.yelp.com/biz/friar-tucks-new-orleans

It's new Orleans Happy Hour is recorded live over drinks at The Freret Beer Room. You can find photos from the show by Jill Lafleur and more information at our website: https://link.chtbl.com/NnOEpjgh

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When Josh Benitez sings " I.D.G.A.F! I don't give a funk" he's got a whole lot not to give a funk about. It's actually a funking miracle he's not a serial killer or hasn't killed himself. You've got to hear Josh tell his story in his own words but the short version is, he was the target of racism that was so bad he didn't leave the house the whole time he was in high school. In fact he didn't even go to high school. He stayed inside so much his skin tone changed and he turned shades lighter. Where did this happen? About a 15 minute drive from where we're talking in Uptown New Orleans, in Belle Chasse on the Westbank.

Chris Poche is both an architect and the super-talented screenwriter and director of one of the best movies to come out of New Orleans in years, if not ever. The movie is called The True Don Quixote and is the first ever movie based on the classic tilting-at-windmills saga. It's been about 500 years since the publication of Don Quixote marked the birth of the novel as we know it so how fitting for the biggest event in the world of literature to find its cinematic home in St Bernard Parish. 

Andrew Duhon does what he does every week he's at Happy Hour: tries out a new song he's in the throes of writing. You'll have to forgive us for saying this repeatedly, but this song is stupendous. Take a listen to this very first airing and then listen to how the song turns out when it gets recorded. It's a fascinating insight into the creative process of song-writing, this journey we're all on with Andrew.

This show was recorded at The Freret Beer Room in Uptown New Orleans. You can see photos from the show by Hope Byrd at our website.

Check out Josh Benitez's last visit to happy Hour here.

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Dominic Sgro owns a typically New Orleans tattoo shop, complete with an on-staff magician and live music. At Catahoula Tattoo & Gallery Dominic will give you a free tattoo, as long as it's not on your face. And it also has to be the logo of the tattoo shop - which is a catahoula wearing a death mask - but who wouldn't want that inked on their bicep, right?

Winston Triolo from the band Motel Radio is going to trade playing a set at Dominic's shop for a tattoo of his truck on his forearm. If you're waiting for a punchline, sorry. Winston's longest relationship is with his truck and before it dies he wants to memorialize it in ink on his arm. He's apparently not worried about what the inevitable new truck might think about the old truck permanently on his arm, but apparently the new truck is just going to have to learn to live Winston's past.

Comedian Matt Owens is going straight from Happy Hour to headlining a comedy show at Southern Rep. And today's the day the trailer for Matt's new film comes out. The film is called Wendy and it's about Wendy from Peter Pan. It's a big deal Hollywood movie complete with special effects and a giant budget. Matt Owens is a much bigger deal comedian than you might think from his under-the-radar life in New Orleans.

There are a couple of "firsts" on this Happy Hour. It's the first day Andrew Duhon is back from a months-long tour and it's the first time Happy Hour is live at The Freret Beer Room. Although it's only a couple of blocks up the street from our previous home at the now-shuttered Wayfare, the relaxed, comfortable, chic environment is a million miles  away.

Photos from this show by Jill Lafleur and more info is on our website.

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The two poles of human interaction are the desire for intimacy but the fear of commitment, right? We all have it. And nobody nails it quite like Cyrille Aimee.

French-born, New York seasoned and now new Orleans resident, chanteuse Cyrille Aimee is what she calls "jazz famous." And she is. The New York Times has called Cyrille one of the greatest jazz vocalists of our time so it's a real treat to have her sit at Happy Hour and, with extraordinary accompanist Joshua Starkman, play Sondheim's Marry Me A little and the jazz standard, Duke Ellington's I'm Beginning To See The Light.

Gia Hamilton is the person in this conversation who puts her finger on fear and intimacy. By day, Gia is officially the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the New Orleans African American Museum. But Gia has a varied past that includes farmer,  healer, and life coach - pastimes and traits that she has not totally left behind. Gia manages to integrate an amazing number of streams into her current life, including raising 5 sons, the youngest of whom, 4 month old Zaire, is with her.

Matt Wisdom might be the smartest guy in New Orleans. He';s officially the founder and CEO of TurboSquid, the world's leading seller of 3D models that you see in films and video games. Matt is in reality the Jeff Bezos of New Orleans. You wouldn't necessarily know it though. He's modest, nice, and humble, but make no mistake - he's politically involved, he's got his finger on the pulse of what we all know is wrong with the city, he knows how to fix it, and he's on the way to doing it. Keep an eye on this guy!

You can see photos by Hope Byrd of Happy Hour recorded live at Wayfare, here.

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Recovering architect and brand designer Adam Newman remarks on this show that knowing when to shut up is one of the most valuable life lessons. And he's glad he recently learned it because it has come in handy today, surrounded by three of the coolest women you could pull together at a table anywhere.

Let's start with Michelle Welchons.

Michelle plays the cajon, is a Spanish translator in the New Orleans court system, leads her own band, Orchidea, traveled to Peru to do Ahayuasca, and is half of the electrifying acoustic duo (the music is acoustic and the result is electrifying) Bom Bon.

The other half of Bom Bon is the equally astounding Olivya Lee.

Olivya has one of the most sultry and alluring singing voices you can imagine, and she didn't even start taking singing seriously till a couple of years ago 'cause she was concentrating on her classical flute playing. And wait till you hear how she plays guitar.

Completing the triumvirate of awesomeness is no less than Melissa Sawyer, the co-founder of YEP, the Youth Empowerment Project. YEP is tacking the holy grail hot button issue that drives all community discussions in New Orleans: crime. YEP and Melissa may be quietly making the single biggest societal change in current New Orleans.

You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show recorded at Wayfare, here.

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If you have frequent flier miles and you've been wondering "What's the best thing I can do with them?" Seth Stanton has the answer. You can give them to the organization he founded here in New Orleans called Miles 4 Migrants. Seth and his fellow volunteers at Miles 4 Migrants will use your miles to reunite families who have been separated by conflict or persecution. Can you even imagine a more feel-good thing to do than to use the most ultimate luxury non-necessity in your life to help someone who is in the most dire and desperate need of their life? It's a world-wide organization and it started right here in New Orleans and, believe it or not, on Reddit.

Ashlye Keaton is no slouch either when it comes to spreading the love around. Ashlye left behind a career as a choreographer  ("not for the New York City Ballet") and became a lawyer so she could help people. Yes, that does sound totally antithetical to the est if the legal profession but Ashlye is pulling it off. Her organization, The ELLA Project, provides free legal services to musicians.

Darcy Malone and Rory Callais are members of the band, Darcy Malone & The Tangle. Just back from playing in Key West, they play two brand new songs that we'll find on their upcoming album, and make an aborted start on a jingle for Seth's day-job business - they get stumped on a trying to find a rhyme for "optometrist." Got any ideas? Call Darcy on her @BlingCases phone.

You can find photos by Jill Lafleur from this show live from Wayfare, here. 

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If you've been a New Orleanian for any length of time, you're going to enjoy this very candid conversation with 3 New Orleans celebrities.

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."

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.

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.

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Where do you stand on crystals? Do you think they have any power? Or is that all b.s.?

Stacy Bogg mines her own crystals and dispenses crystal-power medicine through her business, Karma Rocks. As you might imagine, Stacy comes down solidly on the side of metaphysical power emanating from crystals that vibrate at particular frequencies in ways that have a real effect on us in the physical world. 

Daniel Shkolnik, as well as being a poet, is also variously an agnostic or atheist and believes that the only power emanating from a crystal is the psychological power we give it by believing in the hocus pocus of metaphysical vibrations and that in fact a crystal has no greater power than "a lucky rabbit's foot."

Rodo, front man for the band Naughty By Choice, strangely enough is wearing a giant amethyst around his neck and has a new record coming out appropriately titled, A Note From The Universe. Rodo's guitarist today, Chris Wilson, is trying to steer the conversation onto ghosts because he's "dead inside."

 And then there's the conversation about Stacy's kid who was kidnapped and how Stacy did her own detective work and got the kid back, no thanks to the Slidell Police Department. Plus there's two live songs from Rodo and Chris, in a whole new genre Rodo calls hip hop ballad. 

If you'd like to see photos from this show by Hope Byrd recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans, you can find them, and more, here.

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"Good Morning New Orleans" is the song that Aaron Benjamin told himself he was definitely not going to sing on this Happy Hour. So, what does he end up singing? It's the song he wrote about his two day trip to New Orleans after he had decided definitely not to move here. Are you starting to see a pattern? If you're not familiar with Aaron's music, and especially his voice, you're in for a shock - as was everybody around the table at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans.

Kenny Bellau is a legitimate hero. Google his name and see what comes up: stories about how, single-handed, he rescued over 400 people from the floodwaters of Katrina. Besides his real-life hurricane heroics, Kenny spent 30 years as a world-class competitive cyclist, racing against household names like Lance Armstrong, who Kenny says was a jerk from way back when he was 17. Kenny has an amazing number of extraordinary stories, all of which culminate in his current position - you're not even going to believe this, but he's a movie star! Kenny stars in his first movie that was written specifically for him, Fast Food & Cigarettes.

Rachel Dangermond makes a return to Happy Hour after having an extraordinary life change. The last time we saw Rachel she was a writer and social activist in New Orleans. Today she is the owner of The 100 Men Hall in Bay St Louis, Mississippi, a historic meeting place and fixture in African American life, famous for hosting concerts by the likes of James Brown, Ray Charles, Professor Longhair, Etta James, Sam Cooke and many more. Rachel was led to the hall to be the white owner of a historic black icon by the desire to move to the beach, and gigantic and inexplicable forces in the universe.

If you'd like to see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, and more information about this and other Happy Hours, you can find that here and you can visit www.itsneworelans.com.

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What if the guy you happen to be sitting next to at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans happens to be the king of social media, Jeff Januszek? What's the first question you'd ask him? "How do I get more people to follow me on Instagram?" Right? Well, listen up. Jeff's Moscow Mule is the first thing he's eaten all day other than a few blueberries off his 4 year old son's breakfast plate and he's happy to talk about the secrets of making social media work. 

Caitlin Carney is the 51% owner of Marjie's Grill, one of the hippest and most popular restaurants in New Orleans. Marjie's Instagram followers love posts about noodles, dumplings, and fried chicken. You're going to be surprised to hear what Caitlin thinks of the restaurant gold standard of social media, Yelp. And you might be even more surprised to hear what Jeff says is going to happen to Yelp. (As a public service, if you don't have time to listen to this podcast, sell your Yelp shares today.)

Jeremy Joyce turned his back on a career working in IT for the US government to dedicate himself to the life of a singer songwriter. He's a lot happier, but now he's getting successful he's turning to pedi-cabbing to relieve the stress of making it as a musician. And he's still single. Or is he? See if you can figure that one out.

If you'd like to see photos from this show taken by Jill Lafleur you can find those here.

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Caitlion O'Neill's entire trivia and cheerleading life had led up to the moment when she was already drunk at dinner in the Grill Room in the Windsor Court hotel with the Latvian man destined to become her father in law after she marries Mr Hunter and becomes Caitlion (Pronounced "Kate Lion") Hunter. That's when she gets the phone call. The phone call from Jeopardy! to tell her she's on the show. Nothing has ever been quite same since. But it's hard to say whether this episode is even one of the top 5 Most Interesting Things about Caitlion.

Matthew Desotell is a big deal in some circles. Matthew wrote and directed a movie, and he made it for 15 years in the entertainment business in Los Angeles before returning recently to New Orleans. But this movie might not even make the list of the 5 Most Interesting Things about Matthew. You might know him for his professional banter. Or his fashion campaigns for the likes of Hudson Jeans.

Daria Dzurik is the lead singer and steel pan player in the band Daria & The Hip Drops. Daria does something nobody has ever done before on Happy Hour, and that she has never done before anywhere: she accompanies herself on steel pans and sings. Judging by the enthusiastic response from the folks at the restaurant/bar Wayfare, the debut experiment is a smash success.

You can see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, here: http://bit.ly/2NOLVgn 

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You might be one of the many people who say, "I like all music. But not country." If that's you, you're about to discover a whole new meaning of "red neck." Meet Hyperphlyy. Three women from Poplarville, Mississippi who moved to New Orleans, look like a million bucks (each) and are re-writing the Book of Expectations. Nothing about Hyperphlyy is what it looks from the outside.

On the subject of not judging a book by its cover, there's no way you could tell by looking at Alicia Cooke that she's had more adventures than anyone you've ever sat next to in a bar. Alicia lived for two tears in a part of Niger where she was the only foreigner and everybody else spoke a strange language called Zarma. Zarma isn't a written language and most words are onomatopoeia. In this conversation the folks at the table score 100% on Alicia's Zarma vocab test. 

Lecco Morris visited New Orleans a few months ago and within 3 hours and one sazerac decided he was never leaving. Lecco has taken up residence as a street poet and it looks like he's going to be as good as his word(s). Lecco is building a poetry empire, called Ragtime Poetry. Throughout the course of this entire show Lecco manages to keep his shirt on (not as easy as you might think).

You can see photos by Jill Lafleur from this show, recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown new Orleans by Jill Lafleur at wayfare, here.

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DJ Nice Rack has a tattoo on her arm that advertises the fact she's bisexual. But it hasn't turned out to convey the message she was anticipating. Being openly bisexual, it turns out, just doubles the amount of paranoid insecurity that your partner feels. As DJ Nice Rack puts it on this Happy Hour, "Women think you're going to leave them for a guy, guys think you're going to leave them for a woman..." And apparently with good reason given Nice Rack's self-confessed history. But bisexual paranoia is only one of Ms Rack's wonderful tales. Arguably Mr Peepers' adventures in the RV rival it.

Don't ask L. Kasimu Harris what the "L" stands for. He selected his middle name Kasimu as a hipper moniker, and it suits him. Kasimu might be one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet. A photographer for, among others, The New York Times, with solo photography exhibitions across the country, and a parallel career as a writer, you'll be looking a long time around New Orleans for a more suave, more entertaining, and more genuinely nice guy. Kasimu is the real deal.

Graham daPonte, it turns out, is really D.Graham daPonte. The "d" is for Dorothy but her real name that her family and friends called her all through childhood remains as a big of a secret as the "L" in Kasimu. Graham is a criminal defense attorney who represents people who are looking at death at the hands of the State if Graham screws up in court. As a respite from that kind of stress, Graham produces this podcast.

Happy Hour was recorded live at Wayfare in Uptown New Orleans. If you'd like to know more, including photos by Jill Lafleur, check it out here.

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OK, so here's the thing about nut milk. Apparently Louisiana dairy producers are ticked off and powerful enough to get the legislature to outlaw anyone calling or labeling anything as "milk" that doesn't come from a cow. No bull. That's going to be the law. And that's according to one of the State's most connected journalists, Stephanie Grace.

Stephanie Grace was a columnist for the Times Picayune before quitting and moving to The Advocate, only to end up at The Advocate again now that they have bought the Times Picayune and become a brand name with a "|" in it - a vertical line that's been hiding on your keyboard for years and is under-utliized in daily parlance, for good reason. Nonetheless, Stephanie gets paid for calling bullsh!t on Louisiana politicians, a job with enormous security. OK, the paper is officially called The Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate. 

Talking of long life, Paul Tuennerman says an insurance actuarial guy told him he's going to live till he's 92. Paul totally believes this and lives his life accordingly, wantonly eating hotdogs and creating dishes like charbroiled sh!tty sticky buns with high-end ice cream, which you're going to be able to order at a Dat Dog near you. Paul is actually the CEO of Dat Dog and he does sh!t like dream up stoner desserts for a living.

Hey! Meet The Bummers! Sean Doyle and Ben Shooter are the guitar playing vocalist 50% of the alt/pop/rock band that sounds kind of like Lennon & McCartney if they had dropped acid in Mid City instead of India. Sweet harmonies wrap around bizarre and whimsical lyrics about subjects ranging from lawyer Morris Bart to the fate of being trapped in The Fountainbeu building on the corner of Tulane and Carrolton. You're going to love this discovery.

Find photos from this show recorded at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur, here.

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Happy Hour is not the kind of podcast you expect to hear shocking inside breaking news revelations about corruption in the New Orleans justice system, but you never know who you're going to be sitting next to in a bar and what they're going to tell you after a drink or two.

Simone Levine is the Executive Director of Court Watch NOLA. It's a watchdog organization that keeps an eye on the courts. You won't even believe the story about Judge Bonin and why he gets defendants who appear in his court to wear an ankle monitor. Kickbacks. From the ankle monitor company. Sometimes the judge orders defendants to wear the monitors for up to a year - and the defendant has to pay $10 a day to the monitoring company. This story is going to be in the NY Times, and we scooped them on Happy Hour!

Lila Turner has only been in New Orleans for 6 months but she's probably done more good for the city in that time than most of us do in 6 years. Lila is the Development Director for Son of a Saint, an organization that mentors fatherless kids, mostly because the fathers are one step beyond ankle monitoring: incarcerated.

Basch Jernigan is the front man for the NOLA soul/Southern-rock band Roadside Glorious. It's hard to pin down exactly what they sound like, but that's a positive. Basch threw away a career in environmental journalism to sing in a rock band. That decision is not doing his student loans too much good but it's great for the rest of us who love music.

Andrew Duhon unravels a brand new tune called Emerald Blue. If you're already a Duhon fan you''re going to love this. If this is the first time you've ever heard Andrew, you're coming in at a high point.

If you'd like to see photos by Jill Lafleur from this show recorded live at Wayfare, click here.

Oh, and by the way, wait till you the hear the shocking details of the Consent Decree that keeps both the NOPD and Sheriff's department under the thumb of the Feds, and who's getting paid for that. This is quite a Happy Hour. Thank God for cocktails.

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Jonathan Andry shows up to this week's Happy Hour with a bunch of his CBD product, CBD-Tox. It's allegedly a kick-ass hangover cure, with 20mg of high grade CBD in each capsule.

So, picture this. You're in a bar in New Orleans - Wayfare to be exact, Uptown - with ace guitar player June Yamagishi, Erica Falls, the vocalist for Galactic, high-net-worth business consultant (for folks over $20m only) Melissa Schutz Lilly, and singer-songwriter Andrew Duhon. And Jonathan's free boxes of CBD capsules. Oh, and everybody's drinking cocktails. So what do you think happens next? Correct. Everybody takes two CBD-Tox capsules.

This podcast is the live, real-time experimental record of what happens next.

Without spoiling anything, Erica's pain threshold changes fairly substantially over the hour. Andrew believes he can see where the song he's writing can be fixed, and debuts it. Melissa's stomach ailment disappears. And Jonathan defends himself against a lawsuit from the estate of the late Dr.John.

Warning: your results with 40mg of CBD may vary. But we highly recommend accompanying it with rye, rose, pinot, or a gin based cocktail of indeterminate contents. We can guarantee those results.

If you want to see photos of this experiment by Jill Lafleur or get more info about this show, click here.

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If you're a fan of classic retro-TV you're familiar with Fame, the Glee of the 70's. (Basically a high school where they spend more time singing songs and dancing than doing any actual school work.) If you can imagine that on acid, that apparently was Jo Morris's education. 

Today Jo and band-mate Steve Walkup are the nucleus of an awesome, almost retro 90's band called St. Lorelei. If you've never heard of them it's because they apparently never play anywhere, but there's an album due out in the Fall and we're predicting big things. if you like the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil you're going to flip out when you hear this.

Buddy Bolden is as retro as you can get. Buddy was the father of all jazz and the biggest deal in New Orleans music of all time who never made a record. He does now, however, have a feature film about him and if Danielle de Sol, her outfit The Preservation Resource Center, and her partner PJ Morton from Maroon 5 has anything to with it, Buddy's original house in New Orleans will soon become a recording studio and community center.

While we're being as fabulous as we can in our own little worlds, Shayne Tinge is actually being fabulous for real out in the big wide world. We're no strangers to people in bars turning out to be ridiculously fascinating, but even in that context this guy is in a league of his own. Not only is Shayne an ex stunt man, body double and still friends with stars like Woody Harrelson and Rob Reiner, he's also a world-wide nomadic adventurer who is dedicating his life to bringing fresh water to the villagers of Cambodia.

Andrew Duhon is back from what turned out to be a vacation, but he hasn't been totally idle. Andrew tries out a brand new song, Blood Brothers. Potentially a hit after Grant gets through producing it on the fly.

If you'd like to see photos from this show by Jill Lafleur, recorded live at Wayfare,  you can do that here.

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This is not a cute click bait podcast title.

Dr John Sawyer (you can call him "Johnny Jr" if you want) is the Co-Director of the Brain Health Program at Ochsner Health System. If you want any other reassuring credentials he's also an ex-seminarian and a married gay man and father of two kids. And he actually, for real, has the keys to human happiness. 

You have to listen to almost this entire podcast to get to the secret of human happiness. Although you could skip right to the last 10 minutes. If you did you'd miss Kandy explaining the plight of being a side-chick - a third woman in a two-person relationship - or a side-dick - a third guy in a two person relationship.

Kandy also has some insights into human, and her own, sexual behavior, but not quite as radical an insight as Jonathan Freilich, Jonathan is the librettist and composer of a new operetta called Darling, Do Not Be Offended By What I Wrote, which is a faithful operatic telling of the letters James Joyce wrote to his wife, recounting in graphic detail their sexual exploits. Jonathan's opera is being staged as part of the Bloomsday celebrations in New Orleans, centered on June 16th. More info here.

Click here for more info and photos from this show shot at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur

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