After seeing a new movie covered on morning TV on Monday, I decided to use my retirement day to catch an early showing. “Free Solo” is about Alex Honnold completing the first solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite, with no ropes or assistance of any kind. He completed the 3000 foot climb in under 4 hours – a feat that takes most climbers several days, with assistance. The movie is from National Geographic and the cinematography is outstanding. There were several very tense points as Honnold hung from his finger tips in the middle of some highly complex manoeuvres. This movie gets two thumbs up for folks that aren’t too nervous about heights.
After the movie, I drove down to Interabang Books to choose some reading material for my trip to New Orleans. Anybody know what an Interabang is? I didn’t either. It’s this: “?!” (an emphatic question I suppose).
Monday night football provided a big stage for the New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees, to set the all time passing record for the National Football League. Denny and Greg were at the game and featured in the newspaper when the receiver who caught the record setting catch jumped up into the stands with them. The whole thing was a very big deal in New Orleans.
I arrived in New Orleans on Tuesday evening. Denny picked me up at the airport and we met Anne for some excellent Vietnamese food at a place close to the soccer practice location by City Park.
Wednesday began with lunch at Manolito in the French Quarter. This is a small Cuban restaurant with great food and daiquiris. I love croquettes and they had the best that I’ve tasted. That was followed with an excellent Cuban sandwich.
A ramble through the Quarter ensued with stops to shop for a birthday gift for Will (shh!) and to sample the champagne cocktails at the newly remodeled Brennan’s bar. Diana was missed very much at this stop.
After a quick regroup back at Webster St, we caught a show by the Iguanas at the Circle Bar. The Iguanas is a New Orleans based, roots rock band, formed in 1989. Their sound has been described as “combining Chicano rock, R&B, Conjunto and various Latin styles into a deep groove”.
The Circle Bar is a tiny venue, where you feel as if you are experiencing a show in a small living room. I enjoyed the show very much and particularly Papi Mali as guest guitar player. Here’s a link to one of their more popular songs.
And here’s my favorite:
A quick Uber ride over to the Chickie Wah Wah music club and we were at our second excellent show of the evening. John Fohl and Johnny Sansone performed a singer/songwriter show that was beautifully nuanced and varied. I remember a John Fohl show that Diana and I saw with Denny at Dos Jefes a few years ago very fondly. Both artists have impressive pedigrees with Fohl playing in the Dr. John band for years and Sansone in Blood, Sweat and Tears. Here are my two top picks from an excellent show:
A late night pizza on Freret Street and a typically outstanding New Orleans day wound to a close.
Awakening on Wednesday morning, I was very impressed to find Denny returning from an early morning tennis match. We met their tennis opponents, Fred and Kelly, at Saba for lunch. This is the new restaurant from the James Beard award winning chef behind Shaya, and is located in the corner spot previously occupied by Kenton’s. Lunch was very good but just not quite up to the level of ambience, service, or quality of Shaya.
Later in the afternoon, we enjoyed this panoramic view of New Orleans from the “Hot Tin Roof” bar atop the Ponchatrain hotel. This is a recently restored hotel and apparently is where Tennessee Williams wrote “A Streetcar named Desire”. The music oscillated between very enjoyable brass band songs and horrible hip hop nonsense. We joked that the rap music was inserted to stop slow drinking old folks from staying too long.
Anne left to go and take care of the boys, and Denny started taking me to all of my favourite places one after another. We enjoyed the patio at Bacchanal, an excellent dinner at the Bywater American Bistro that included country pate, an excellent middle eastern style curry, and bottled Negroni (that sadly is only available at the restaurant).
This was followed by a quick stop at Molly’s before crossing town to the Maple Leaf to see a piano show by CR Gruver in the back bar.
Here’s a short video of Gruver (it was dark again):
The late night music was at the Bon Temps bar with the Thursday night standard Soul Rebels Brass Band. The back room was the most packed I’ve seen it and included a lot of Georgia fans in for the LSU game on Saturday and avoiding the hurricane.
Friday was another beautiful day in New Orleans with very low humidity. I enjoyed some yummy breakfast tacos a la Denny and then made my way to the airport. What a lovely couple of days!
I made it back to Dallas in time for dinner with Patty (on her second to last visit to Dallas – the next one will be to move) and Brent at Mesero in the Legacy West area. The front room was very loud and so it was difficult to carry on a conversation. I downloaded a decibel meter and clocked the din at 95 decibels.
On Saturday we attempted to fly to Boston in the morning – Diana has a work meeting on Tuesday and we planned to spend the weekend exploring the city. After too many hours on a plane that didn’t take off due to a thunder storm and then pilots with too many hours, we gave up and headed home. The flight was ultimately canceled in the evening – poor people that hung around all day to go nowhere.
Sunday was back to normal routine – reading in bed, workout, coffee and crossword, facetime with my Mum and Dad (who were visiting Elspeth and family in their new palace outside of Aberdeen), and watching the Cowboys game. The Cowboys are currently in the lead with a long way to go in the game. They really need to win this one to keep a decent season alive.
My book this week was “Cathedral Stories” by Raymond Carver. This has received rave reviews for years as an exemplary short story collection. The first few stories didn’t impress me, but then things really picked up with a few excellent short story examples. “The Compartment” was my favourite.
I’ll finish this week with a song by the one of a kind James Booker who was honored with the back bar Maple Leaf piano shows.