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Yours
Truly in a Swamp by Leonard
Earl Johnson **
Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans Election Day Mardi Grass
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Foo foo coffee? Never! All the coffee shops, on all the streets of New Orleans can not make me switch to "Medium Roast" coffee. How dare CDM Coffee Company! Switching sides! Joining the invading tourist army! Marketing "medium roast" as something palatable to New Orleanians. Not at Squalor Heights, Faubourg Marigny, New Orleans! Here, medium roast coffee is something to be discarded. Nothing is finer than a steaming cup of New Orleans blend (dark roast w/chicory) served fresh and very, very, very thick with hot milk (not cream) and never ABSOLUTLY NEVER with low-fat milk (death would be better). The very idea of introducing medium roast coffee as something indicative of New Orleans is soulless marketeering. It is nothing less than pandering to the worst outlanders from afar and home. The ones who neither know nor care about differences between the real coffee actually served at Arnaud's and the instant swill shamelessly marketed a few years ago on national television. At Squalor Heights, we use an espresso-maker, with NOLA blend. At parties, sometimes, I serve it over dark chocolate ice cream. This morning I am having it from a jelly jar, owing to the sloven state of my life. It is, after all, Carnival Time. "Throw the baby out the window let the joint burn down, it's Carnival Time…" (New Orleans Carnival song by Al Johnson). On Carnival Day, every year, people like to say, "It is just another Tuesday in the rest of America. In New Orleans it is Mardi Grass!" This Mardi Gras, March 7, is not just, "another Tuesday in America," it is an important Election Day. The voters in the big states, the ones who'll decide both the nomination and presidential election, are holding a unified primary. Good luck. Thank Bacchus it is not here. Can you imagine anything sillier than an election on Mardi Gras Day? I moved once during the last week of Carnival, but that was nothing compared to an election. I think I'll costume this year as a polling booth. L.A. Norma says she's coming as Baby Bush's moneybags. As I write, a rising Sun warms all roofs, and L.A. Norma is coming to eat thick pork chops coated with garlic, pepper, and oregano. Fried. Drained. Baked with golden delicious apples. Served with fried eggs and warm buttered baguettes. Washed to the pit with hot steaming CDM dark roasted New Orleans coffee, fresh bananas and the century's first Louisiana strawberries, a King Cake, and an aspirin. Indeed, it is Carnival Time. The Election Day celebrants will have their aspirin tomorrow. ---*--- Faubourgundian marimba man Carl Mack's CD "Stardust'n" is out. With arrangements by James Campbell. A sweet rendering of damn nears every dreamy/starry/moony song ever written. Performed by the master and John Parker, Tom Saunders, Cauren Miller, Pete Wolbrette, Jennifer Steeley, and Justin Pauluk; on line at www.carlmack.com Uptown retro-rockers Big Train is rolling with their CD, "Roll On Big Sister!" On line at www.rocknrollbigtrain.com Both are New Orleans talents you might enjoy. ---*--- Faubourg Marigny's culture curator, Alan Robinson, at FMBooks, hosted Susan M. Brackney recently signing, THE LOST SOUL COMPANION / "Comfort and Constructive Advice for Struggling Actors, Musicians, Artists, Writers and Other Free Spirits". Amen, Susan, amen! "Sexpert Opinion" www.salon.com columnist, and many titled book author Susie Bright did the very first FMBooks cultural event, during the 1985 BookSeller's Convention. (So long ago it seems odd saying the 1900s.) Bright has a newly edited anthology, wittily titled THE BEST AMERICAN EROTICA 2000 (Touchstone Books / A Simon Schuster Trade Paperback). Put down that King Cake and listen to this: FMBooks is hosting knockout tango singer Fredy Omar www.fredyomar.com accompanied by Jose Pepe Coloma, Sunday February 13 at a "Love Comes When You Least Expect It", pre-Valentines party, 4-6 p.m. Open & free, with chocolates and medicinal red wine for all, 600 rue Frenchmen (at rue Chartres). Mark your earpieces, and don't miss it. Happy Carnival Time! "Through
the baby out the window…" refers to the little rubbery
baby found inside King Cakes, not a real baby. Silly, you.
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