Happy Mother's Day

I married your mother because I wanted children. Imagine my disappointment when you arrived."

Groucho Marx, "Horse Feathers"

Well, exactly.

This is to wish all the Moms out there a very happy remainder of this Mother's Day. You all deserve it. Even ostensibly "bad" mothers are still blessings. The special ones, of course, are off the chart.

The word "mom" is a deceptively simple way to describe the dozens of functions that mothers play in their children's lives: teacher, nurturer, supporter, protector, chauffer, friend, butler, cook, doctor, critic (both in a good and bad way, sometimes), referree, secretary, entertainer, fixer...the list just goes on and on. It would take a staff of about 20 to replace the average mother.

I remember the year I worked in New Orleans, I went with the head of the firm to Galveston where we had an emergency hearing in federal court. He told me to stay behind an extra day and go see my mother, and to do that any other time I was in or near Houston, because that was more important than the day of work I'd miss. He was right.

Where would any of us be without our mothers?

Who will still be there, in your corner, when everyone else in the world has let you down?

Who's the one person who will always laugh at your jokes when you're the worst joke-teller in the world?

Who'll still be there to help when you've made a total mess of your life and have nowhere else to turn?

Who can make you feel better than any doctor when you're sick?

Who will always tell you you're the most beautiful or handsome person in the world even though your face turns people to stone?

Who will embarrass you your whole life with ill-timed hugs and kisses?

Who's the one person who will do anything it takes to protect you from danger?

Who can always make you feel better when you're miserable and depressed?

Your mother, that's who.

So, all you Moms out there, I hope you had a great day. Everyone else, honor your mother "that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life."

Jazz Festival 2009, Sunday-Keep On Rockin' In the Free World

This was one of those rare days when something happened I’ll probably always remember-this was the day that Neil Young tore up and spit out the Jazz Festival like a feeding shark. This old man single-handedly owned the Jazz Fest—probably the only time a Neville Brothers Jazz Festival performance has been rendered anti-climactic. So if you’re not prepared to read about this in detail, turn back now.

The day started off with a touch of cynicism, however. Passing by the Holy Rosary church at about 10:45 on a Sunday morning, I noticed they were using their parking lot to charge Festival-goers $30 for parking, as they had throughout the weekend. A small sign out front instructed those wanting to attend mass that they needed to park down the street. I assume this meant the disabled and elderly as well. Now, its understandable why they do this—it’s a tremendous fundraising opportunity that falls into this church’s lap every year by the happy coincidence of its location so close to the Fair Grounds. Let’s say they can accommodate 150 cars at $30 a car, they’re probably looking at around $4,500/day. If they used the lot for church parking on Sunday, instead of festival parking, they let slip a $9,000 fundraising opportunity that has almost no cost attached to it. That’s hard money to turn down for any non-profit. Still, it presents a distasteful image for a Christian church, and especially for a Catholic church (with all those priceless Vatican works of art stored away in Rome and with the Church’s vast property world-wide property holdings) to so symbolically put money before worship. I wonder if that’s not money best left on the table, as it were.

Shrugging it off, I managed to arrive once again exactly as the Gospel Tent’s morning prayer was getting underway. Although no wedding party seemed in attendance, Rev. Mark and the Gospel All-Stars were, and they took the stage first. This consisted of three male singers and a basic backing band, singing typical gospel songs.

As it was pretty standard fare (only at the Jazz Festival Gospel Tent could what would otherwise come off as amazing and inspirational singing seem hum-drum, sort of like your fourth hour of driving on the Pacific Coast Highway...“oh, another nice view”), I ventured over to the Fais-Do-Do stage. Predictably, that’s become my standard rally point when there’s no one playing that I’ve scheduled. Can’t get enough of that chanky-chank music and dancing. On stage was the Red Stick Ramblers. The Ramblers are fairly young players, and they play traditional Cajun but with western swing and jazz touches. Sort of a Cajun Hot Club of Cowtown. During their performance, Acadiana legend D.L. Menard, scheduled to appear next, sort of wandered into the crowd to say hi to some people he knew. Not that many people recognized him, but a steady stream of people did come over to say hello, have their picture made with him, get something signed. He seemed to love it.

From there I went to the Acura stage to see local legend Jonathan Batiste. Although I’ve heard of him many years, I thought he was strictly a pure jazz pianist. Wrong. In fact, he is a piano virtuoso of all styles, working nearly all of them into his music. Classical, jazz, blues, R&B, funk, soul, and even rock find their way into Batiste’s eclectic music. He had a full band and together they had the rapidly filling crowd dancing. Imagine Harry Connick, Jr., but with less shtick.

But I cut it a bit short as it was time for D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces. I wrote extensively about him last year, so will just say this guy is the Real Cajun. I’ve heard countless numbers of Cajuns, but could barely understand his English. Musically, he’s also traditional Cajun, but with more of an old country edge (for example, one of his band members plays pedal steel guitar). He must be well over 70, yet had no trouble getting around and appeared quite feisty, complaining to the stage hands about amp settings and so forth. At one point, he said that he’s suffering from an “epidemic of Chris” because three members of his band are named Chris. “Epidemic of Chris” would have been a good name for this blog, or if I ever form a band. When introducing his steel guitar player, he said “he’s a professor over at U.L. but he ain’t got nothin’ on me, I garawntee!” Menard had a fairly full house, and the dance area was pretty full the entire time.

From there it was back to the Acura stage for local legend Allen Toussaint. Toussaint is one of those many New Orleans musicians who’ve been around forever, have played with nearly everyone of any consequence, and no matter what the prevailing styles of the day just keep practicing their craft without much fanfare. Toussaint is also another one of those players whose style is a musical gumbo—just call it New Orleans R&B. Wearing a canary yellow jacket (surely it wasn’t the same one Tony Bennett wore Friday night?), cream slacks, crisp white dress shirt and a gold tie, and fronting a full band with horns, rhythm section and backup singers, Toussaint got the crowd on his side at the beginning and kept them as he worked through a litany of old school, Dew Drop Inn New Orleans standards: “Mother in Law,” “Certain Girl,” "Fortune Teller," and many others.

Between that and Neil Young, it was time to squeeze in a little bit of time for the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra and Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers. The Orchestra, appearing at the Economy Hall tent, basically was like the ship orchestra on the Titanic. Everyone dressed like Capt. Steubing on Love Boat, which was a little weird (which one was Julie?), but the tent and its dance floor were completely packed and the crowd loved it. The Harmonizers came out about 20 minutes before Neil Young, so this year I only caught a couple of their songs. I’ve also written previously about this legendary group, still fronted after more than 50 years by founder Sherman Washington. Washington appeared in a wheelchair again this year, and although it was announced that he wouldn’t be able to perform due to not feeling well, he took the mike after the first song and belted out the emotional “I Want to Be at the Meeting” that got him choked up last year when he got to the line “when I get to Heaven, I'll meet my mother there.” That was a special moment last year, and a special moment this year as well.

Although I would normally have stayed for much more of their show, it was time to try to secure the best possible viewing spot for Neil Young so I left early.

I managed to squeeze myself fairly close to the stage, getting some really great pictures you can see on flickr.

If you don’t know who Neil Young is, I’m not sure where you’ve been the last 40 years but run, don’t walk, to buy Live Rust, Harvest, and Year of the Horse. There’s at least four Neil Youngs: country troubadour, folk poet, hippie hero of Woodstock, and the Godfather of Grunge. All four Neil Youngs showed up in New Orleans today. The stage crew set up enormous floodlights and an oversized amp. Neil came on stage with his usual Gibson Les Paul (“Old Black”), with the same peace sign/dove sign strap as he wore in Live Rust, launching into a blistering “Love and Only Love.” For the next two hours, he wreaked total devastation on the Jazz Festival. Moving on to “Hey, Hey, My, My,” Neil played that wretchedly excessive paint peeling guitar typical of the old Crazy Horse songs. From there, he took to the piano for a quieter “Are You Ready for the Country,” returning back into the melting chords of 1969’s “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere,” (ironically, as he sang the lyric, “every time I think about back home, its cool and breezy,” a cool breeze began to blow through the Fair Grounds), an equally vicious and surprisingly reworked “Pocohontas” (originally a quiet acoustic song from Rust Never Sleeps), “Change Your Mind,” and culminating with the timeless “Cinnamon Girl.” These songs really showcased Young as the spiritual demi-god of the 1990s grunge scene. As if straight from the garage, Young coaxed heavily distorted power chords from his 1960s Gibson Les Paul, which he played “like a relic from a different age.” Not for nothing did Nirvana and Pearl Jam revere Young—Pearl Jam played with him at Young’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. This may just as well have been 1980’s Rust Never Sleeps. At that point, folkie Young made an appearance with “Mother Earth,” played on a small pipe organ, the classic “Needle and the Damage Done,” and “Light a Candle,” then into country Neil, with Harvest’s classic “Heart of Gold” and “Old Man.” After “Speakin’ Out” from Tonight’s the Night, Young launched into an extended, version of “Down By the River,” featuring multiple solo turns. Heading towards the end, he charged into the rock and roller “Get Behind the Wheels,” to conclude with a proudly distorted version of the now anthemic “Keep On Rockin’ In the Free World.” For the inevitable encore, the band played a surprisingly straight version of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” John’s concluding song on Sgt. Pepper, complete with the audience belting out the famous “ahhh” section at the end of the bridge. At the very end, Young wrestled the last few chords out of Old Black, shaking, punching, bashing it, dragging it across the stage, ripping at the strings, finally placing it next to the amp for it to explode in a glorious last piercing jolt of feedback. To punctuate the ending, Neil climbed to the top of the riser, took a pair of mallets, and played one single note on a marimba to bring the show to an end. This was an all-timer. Easily this incandescent performance has made my personal top five of any musical performance ever. There’s nothing like watching a master practice his craft. In this case, there’s nothing like watching someone from the old school stand his ground and refuse to concede on his art. And as if the heavens were busy watching the show too, a torrential downpour began seconds after the show concluded.

As I arrived at Dash Rip Rock, soaked and getting colder by the minute but still on a high after the Neil Young show, I noticed the Lagniappe Stage appeared to have been crowded even before the rains. Dash is New Orleans’ other great party band, out of the Cowboy Mouth tradition (not surprising, because former Cowboy Mouth personnel founded Dash Rip Rock). I was able to catch about the last 20 minutes of the show, and was especially happy about that as I hadn’t seen them since I lived in New Orleans in 1991. I think only the lead guitar player is the same from that era, but that’s typical. The small crowd was loving the show, and what I did not remember was the college-age girl admiration and fandom. Apparently Dash Rip Rock has become the Pat Green of New Orleans in that respect. The song “New Orleans Needs Stronger Dikes,” whose lyrics basically consisted of a list of famous lesbians, was pretty funny.

After Dash concluded, I debated ending it right there, thinking anyone else’s performance would be downhill. It turned out I was right, but there was an hour left and at $40/ticket, I was going to get all of my money’s worth.

So, as previously planned, I soldiered on to the Neville Brothers. The rain had mostly stopped, having slowed to just a very slight drizzle, but it had driven away a lot of the normally elbow-to-elbow crowd that packs in to hear the Neville Brothers at Jazz Festival. I have to say, after Neil, this show just seemed like a footnote. They also seemed to just mail it in. Last year was quite an emotional show, it being the first time the Nevilles had performed in New Orleans since Katrina. They pulled out all the stops last year, complete with numerous guests, and a show that pushed at least a half hour past the scheduled 7:00 conclusion. This year, however, had no such highlights, energy, or stamina. It even started late thanks to the rain.

So I briefly detoured to check out Buddy Guy. Again, another technically competent blues player, another packed house, another time I just couldn't really enjoy the blues. Its not him, its me. Guess I'm too happy a person. Guy did have some pretty great licks, and even went into the crowd at one point.

So I returned and finished Jazz Festival with the conclusion of the shortened Neville Brothers set, ending yet another year at the Festival.

Thanks for reading. Back to all the sarcasm in the next post.

Jazz Festival 2009, Saturday-I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll

Question: What's the strangest thing you've ever seen at Jazz Fest?
Answer: A wedding, on stage at the Gospel Tent.

Question: What's the second strangest thing you've ever seen at Jazz Fest?
Answer: The crowd at the Fais-Do-Do stage dancing the horah, complete with people being raised on chairs.

Both of these things happened today at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. As John Lennon said, strange days indeed, most peculiar. Of course, he was the Walrus.

After the morning prayer at the Gospel Tent ("Battle Hymn of the Republic"), and as the Morning Star Baptist Church Mass Choir took the stage, I noticed a woman in a brides gown, and about five or six bridesmaids in various canary yellow dresses (see tomorrow's post; what's up with yellow?), with other family types also wearing yellow trickling in behind them. "I've seen it all now," I thought. That's not the sort of thing you usually see at the Jazz Festival, so I immediately became curious about what was happening. Not long to wait, as the announcer stated that there would be a wedding on-stage later in the day (after joking that she hoped there was a groom too). They sit up front, talking with staff-looking types near the stage as audience members like me gawk. The Choir was great, as are nearly all Gospel Tent acts. Not such a traditional gospel church choir, but more influenced by funk and R&B than usual. The Church's minister is also the organ player, and had previously led a very thoughtful morning prayer. Later in their set, they break out with a "Greek chorus" of about four people in black gowns and whiteface (a nice touch; Al Jolson is still rolling in his grave) looking like they were trying to Renew in Logan's Run.

Mime is money, of course, so it was on to the Fais-Do-Do stage for the Berard Family Band. This group, from Cecilia, Louisiana is a pretty straight-on Cajun, right down to the triangle player. As visions of Ed Grimley dance in my mind, I wonder whether this is a family band like the Partridge Family or the Von Trapp Singers were a real family (or at least they were on the show; by the way, who was the bigger loser-Danny Partridge or Jan Brady? Both were bitter, jealous middle children unable to see beyond their pathetic incompetence and accept being outshined by their older star siblings...or is it just me?). Right at that moment, Al Berard introduces the band, and sure enough, it really IS a family band.

After coming back to the real world, I returned to the Gospel Tent to check on the wedding, and happily managed to catch the conclusion of the Rocks of Harmony show. These guys, long-time New Orleans gospel performers, sound similar to the famous Five Blind Boys of Alabama. The Gospel Tent was completely crowded, unusual for such an early show, and on its feet.

The wedding followed. More pictures are on flickr. The crowd loved it. It was pretty tasteful and serious, given the surroundings, and the crowd was enthusiastic and cheered, but appropriately I thought. The bride kept crying during the ceremony. Lets hope those were tears of joy. Later that afternoon, I saw the whole wedding party on the track near the Gentilly Stage for the Cowboy Mouth show. Quite the contrast.

After getting loaded up on jama jama, chicken and fried plantains (like dessert), I made yet another effort to appreciate Zachary Richard. And failed. My very close friend Donna (who I see about once a decade now), is a huge ZR fan, and based strictly on that alone I've tried several times over the years to develop some affinity or appreciation for one of the acknowledged masters of zydeco. Maybe its that all the songs sound deadly serious. If he WAS the master of zydeco, now he's the Joan Baez of it. Maybe its the lack of fun in his performing style. Or maybe its the following description from his web site: "Militant environmentalist and cultural activist, poet and singer-songwriter." You know what, how 'bout shutting up about Rwanda and play something we can dance to?

Having met once again with failure, I moved on to Gina Brown at Congo Square. This is where I should have been the whole time. Brown has a voice reminiscent of Gloria Gaynor, with some sweet dance moves to go with it. The crowd was on its feet and getting down with its bad self to the jazzy funk sounds.

After next catching the end of the Pinstripe Brass Band at the Jazz and Heritage Stage, enjoying the mean stepping of a four year old boy in the crowd dressed in a baby blue suit, I embarked upon an afternoon trifecta of Bonerama, Feufollet and Deacon John. All three played at last year's Festival and I wrote about them then. Bonerama is led by three trombonists, and have a very Nevilles/funk groove. They've developed something of a cult following, as borne out by the unusually dense crowd for this time of day. Feufollet, at the Fais-Do-Do stage, once again was a real treat. These are young guns, playing traditional Cajun music but with a modern sensibility. If you get the impression from the flickr pictures that I might begin stalking their guitar player, Anna Laura Edmiston,you may be right. Mainly I have to see if I can work it into my busy schedule (work, my existing stalking commitments, running, bothering my friends' kids, watching sitcom repeats, hiding from marriage, and playing solitaire on my ipod-I've got a lot on my plate and its not easy for me to just add something without careful reflection on how it will affect the big picture). Finally, Deacon John was one of my big "finds" from last year (strange for a 70 year old man to be found after a 50 year career). He plays a scorching blues and rock guitar, and has a full backing band with horns. John wears a suit, pork pie hat, and bow tie, and occasionally breaks into a Chuck Berry duck walk mid-solo. He's promoting a CD called "Jump Blues" This is the stuff that Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan grew up listening to, especially John's nasty slide technique.

Once that concluded, it was on to one of New Orleans' premiere party bands, Cowboy Mouth. This band should have made it big just on dynamism alone, but the lack of original songs, personnel instability, and the general demise of rock and roll, have kept them regional. No one can get a crowd going like their "frontman," drummer Fred LeBlanc. Oh, and the bass player looks like Gogo from Kill Bill. This group bills itself as the Neville Brothers meet the Clash. Lots of punk feel. The place was packed with young twenty somethings; it could well have been a Tulane/LSU mixer.

Aaron Neville then began his solo Gospel Tent performance, except that instead of using a backup tape as he did last year, he had a four-piece band on stage. At first, I thought it was great he'd sprung for a full band, til I found out he's been touring as the Aaron Neville Quintet recently (with brother Charles on sax), so the Gospel Tent was just another gig for them. The Gospel Tent was literally overflowing with people. You can see on flickr a picture of crowds outside of the tent just trying to hear. The performance was excellent, although I've never been a huge Aaron Neville fan. Something about the falsetto/vibrato combination fails to move me to tears, unlike for most others. He mixed in some secular songs, but by and large it was spiritual. Ave Maria was particularly compelling. Oh, and by the way, this is the second time at this festival I've heard someone sing "A Change Gonna Come." I thought the change had come in the form of Barack Obama. Wasn't that the deal? He's the change? Isn't milk and honey flowing yet? Has Obama paid that poor grandmother's mortgage that he met on the campaign? What are people still complaining about? The "change party" has a firm grip on Congress and the White House. Obama's even complaining because the Republicans aren't strong enough to constitute an effective opposition. They're taxing the rich to give to the poor. I guess nothing's ever going to be enough for some people.

What an extreme shift to go from that to the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars. Basically, they play funky Jewish music and wear traditional hats. The music is borderline crazy dissonance, without any vocals. The craziness infected the crowd. A bunch of young people started dancing the horah, the traditional Jewish wedding dance performed in a circle. A bunch of frat chaches started hoisting each other in a chair, as a Jewish wedding party might for the bride and groom. I made a couple of videos of it, also on flickr.

I meant to conclude the day with the O'Jays, the trio from the 1970s with hits "Love Train," and "Back Stabbers," "I Love Music," and "Used to be My Girl." They were late getting on stage though, but sang all the hits and wore matching cream linen suits with gold embroidered stripes and designs. Most of the songs had choreography, a la the Temptations or the Pips, which was pretty cool.

On a chance, I decided to end the day, unexpectedly, at the Blues Tent listening to John Mayall. Mayall, now 75, was a huge figure in the British blues revival during the 1960s, which spawned Eric Clapton, Brian Jones, Jimmy Page, the Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac, even the Who. Clapton joined his band after he left the Yardbirds, contributing to Mayall's biggest hit, "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton." Again, the tent was packed with people spilling out into the surround walkways. Again, I'm not a huge blues fan, but this was blues by an englishman so it had a certain structure to it missing from some of the American players. As the show concluded, I walked out of Jazz Fest sated, anticipating the next concluding day.

Tomorrow-Neil Young, Dash Rip Rock, D.L. Menard, Neville Brothers, and plenty of late afternoon rain.

Jazz Festival 2009-Friday "Just the Way You Look Tonight"

Today was a lot hotter and sunnier. Already I can tell its going to be a hard day. I was running late getting out to the show because as I was looking for a place to park, I realized I forgot my ticket and had to go back to the hotel. Story of my life.

As I arrived at the Gospel Tent, the morning prayer was just starting, so ultimately I was right on time. I’d already seen the Bester Sisters, who were first up, so instead I decided to drift a bit. I landed at the Acura Stage (the main one), for the Chilluns. No idea who these people were, but I gathered they are somehow related, and the “chilluns” of someone famous. Basically they were playing funky pop, but after about the third cover song I’d had enough and decided to continue wandering. I made it to the Lagniappe Stage, in the Fair Grounds grandstand, for the Drew Landry Band, led by Drew Landry. This is exactly the kind of rock masquerading as country music so in vogue now days that I can’t stand, and which prevents me from listening to most mainstream modern country music. Pretty much anything post-George Strait is out. Singing a rock song with an affected twang isn’t country, no matter how many “hard luck story” lyrics you throw in. But it was nice sitting in a chair under a tent with a breeze, so I lingered. After a couple of songs, he brought his mother on stage to sing a song, and every woman in the place, on cue, went “awwwww….” Then he dedicated the song to his fiddle player’s wife, who is battling cancer. More and more insistent “awwwwwws.” You magnificent bastard. Well played sir. Well played. Like just writing songs and playing the guitar isn’t enough. How is this guy not already a star?

Around noon I headed to Congo Square for jama-jama, fried plantains, and chicken, then stayed a bit for something called Ori Culture Danse Club of Benin. This was an African drumming troupe, the kind that Jazz Fest features annually. They were in their tribal outfits, dancing all round the stage. That may be, but they’re still Culture Club, and therefore to be avoided on name alone.

On the way to the Acura Stage, I saw a “Jazz Funeral,” ostensibly to memorialize Snooks Eglin and Michael P. Smith. See the pictures on Flickr. Lots of people followed the brass band and the mourners (wearing festooned black suits), holding pictures of other loved ones they were honoring as well. A fairly large crowd rushed in to see, creating this horrific body heat effect that nearly had me giving way to it. I don’t suffer from agoraphobia, but in this instance it was just too tight. By the way, when I die, all I ask is that they slow the hearse down long enough to dump me in a ditch. Probably somewhere in Fort Bend County, top rated place in Texas to “stash the body.”

Nonetheless, with the sun fully blazing and New Orleans humidity in full flower, I headed to see Beausoleil, perhaps the most famous Cajun band in the world. Despite the heat, many couples are dancing, which just goes to show, if Cajuns aren’t cooking or rounding up ingredients to cook, they’re dancing. Have to say, Beausoleil seemed kind of lifeless today. Not one song had much zip. Not sure if that’s their standard enthusiasm level, or just the heat, or maybe if you do something long enough your enthusiasm level will wane. No matter, I hung in for about 45 minutes then succumbed again to the heat and went to the Gospel Tent to cool down before Marcia Ball.

Thankfully, I stumbled upon yet another (for me) Jazz Fest find—Glen David Andrews. This guy was incredibly dynamic and was a dervish from stage right to stage left and beyond, going into the crowd frequently. This house was full and it was a rockin’—don’t bother knockin’. He had help from the Dirty Dozen horn section and Trombone Shorty. One disturbing sign was at the end, when he made a big production out of putting on his white jacket matching his white pants, over his Ed Hardy shirt, and putting back on his sunglasses. This early stage of douchosity does not bode well for a gospel artist. Beware the lesson of Sam Cooke, young man.

Marcia Ball, up next, was on at least her second appearance of the week. Her set list was essentially the same as her Wednesday show in Lafayette Square, only a little grittier and showier. She came out wearing a custom white jacket with tails, with a Jazz Festival emblem on the back. She promptly took it off after the first song, complaining of the heat. This was her usual fun, swamp R&B set, showcasing her accomplished barrelhouse piano style. Another of Jelly Roll Morton’s and Professor Longhair’s children soldiers on. Ball loves Jazz Festival and always plays at her best here, sort of like seeing the Grateful Dead in San Francisco. Towards the end she played “Louisiana 1927,” Randy Newman’s song about a 1927 flood in Plaquemines Parish. It immediately became one of the true Louisiana songs, but even more so after Katrina. Its always a really moving part of her show, especially when played in New Orleans: “Some people got lost in the flood; some people got away alright.” I visited briefly with a guy from Houston wearing an Astros shirt, who said he’d been coming to the Festival since 1976, and had brought his daughter for her first Festival. They had some mister device attached to his camelback, spraying really cooling mist. Just goes to show, Houstonians are friendly. Houston itself may have problems, but Houstonians are the best.

As the Marcia Ball crowd began to filter out, the “Sugarland” fans began moving in, even though that band wouldn’t go on until after Bonnie Raitt (whom I missed because her shows are generally fairly lackluster). Specifically, these two wearing t-shirts just for the occasion that they appear to have made the night before. I don’t know much about Sugarland, except they’re a country duo. But I could tell a lot about them by their army of fans. Here’s a game—signs that your band sucks. 1. Your crowds are all the same sex. 2. Your crowd consists mostly of mother-daughter pairs or a bunch of BFFs who are going to put their memories of the show in their scrapbooks the morning after. 3. Your crowd was the crowd at Oprah’s taping last Tuesday. 4. Your fans make their own t-shirts for the show, out of leftover crafts materials from their daughters’ swim team sleepover. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Jazz Festival stage, Sugarland. Yikes. Hey, Sugar Land, Texas just called. It wants you to keep its name out of your mouth.

Next up was a brief stay at Geno Delafose. This was a pretty robust zydeco/boogie-woogie band, in the mold of Boozoo Chavis and CJ Chenier. The crowd was rockin’ here too, and dancing was breaking out everywhere. Delafose, despite the heat, wore jeans and a buttoned up, thick dress shirt. Didn’t appear affected at all…I guess the cool never sweat.

After getting some good barbecue chicken around 3:30 or so, I went back to the Gospel Tent for Shades of Praise, who got some attention in the Times-Picayune. There now follows a racist statement. Most white religious or praise music, pretty much is awful. I’m not exactly sure why. Something about the soul in the suburbs from which it emanates. Hard to really belt it out for Jesus with your heart and soul when you’re sandwiching it in between soccer practice and getting the kids started on their homework (or giving Mr. Buttons his weekly bath). Shades of Praise, a mixed race choir, proves the lie that white folks can’t sing praise with passion and fire. They were just as soul-stirring as anyone else on the Gospel Tent stage (except, of course, the Zion Harmonizers and Aaron Neville’s solo gospel performance, to come later this weekend).

After a few songs, I headed to the Blues Tent for the first time today to hear long-time local club favorite Walter “Wolfman” Washington. This was more R&B than B, but still dirty. The sound in the Blues Tent leaves a lot to be desired. It was distorted, particularly at the high ends, and centered rather than spread throughout the tent. Still a fun show, and the tent was packed with enthusiastic fans.

Looking to see someone else before Tony Bennett, I headed to the Fais-do-do Stage for Patty Griffin, who I vaguely had heard of. Big mistake. This was K-Geezer (KGSR) music for sure. Indie chick complaint ballads. Every one of these kinds of songs (Jewel, Indigo Girls, Sarah McLaughlin) sounds like complaints that their lives are ruined because their dad missed their childhood ballet recital or they didn’t get asked to the prom. Well I went to two proms and trust me, they sucked. In my case, I had to answer to my mother why my date ordered the turtle soup in addition to her entrée. What was I supposed to do? Say, “sorry honey, but Mom says you can’t have soup. We’re still on for ‘later,’ right?” No, that doesn’t work. When you take a girl on a date, you essentially are turning over the right to your financial resources to her for the evening’s activities, and she has final say over the evening’s activities. All you can do is minimize collateral damage. Where was I? Oh. Signs that your Cajun band at the Jazz Festival Fais-do-do Stage is less than par: 1. No one in your band is from Louisiana or East Texas. Boo-yah!

So its on to Economy Hall, where the tent is full but decidedly not a rockin’. Maybe that has to do with the prevalence of walkers and other mobility assistive devices catering to the nursing home that appears to have bussed its entire population to the Economy Hall tent to enjoy the fine clarinet music. Other than Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, New York, or possibly the Catskills, the Economy Hall tent at New Orleans Jazz Festival is about the only place one can consistently hear professionally-played clarinet music. But, everyone here always seems to enjoy themselves. This is the style of jazz music that people of that age would have known when they grew up—dixieland and ragtime. There’s also a dance floor, populated mainly by the cast of Cocoon and moms dancing with their little children. Weirdoes also come here with their home-decorated umbrellas and break out in impromptu dancing and second-lining across the tent, generally starting a “second line.”

A word about the weirdoes here. As you can get a glimpse of on flickr, the Weirdo-American community has sent many of its members to attend the Festival. Be it those idiots carrying around tambourines and wearing “free hugs” signs, or people wearing bizarre clothes, or dancing inappropriately in the crowd, the weirdoes seem to have been increasing in number through the years. Something has to be done about this. Its one thing to be a little off; its another thing when every time you turn around some freak is up in your face. Back away from me, and take your masks, and your noisemakers, and your short shorts, and your silly hats, and your "free hugs" signs with you.

Finally, we have arrived at the Tony Bennett Show. The show starts with his daughter Antonia singing three songs as a warmup, then on comes the man. Backed by only four musicians (bass, drums, piano, electric guitar), all suited up, Bennett commanded the stage and crowd for more than an hour. Dressed impeccably in blue slacks, yellow blazer, crisp white dress shirt and a navy/red tie, he had no problems moving all around the stage, standing by each player during the numerous solos he generously allowed them. Bennett even danced a little throughout the show. Every introduction was positive, and every greeting was humble. But his pipes were the best part. This man is amazing. A true professional, from the era of the great performers. He still has his fastball, and uses it as his “out pitch.” Bennett hit every high note, his tone and volume was strong throughout his entire register, and his stamina didn’t fail once. At one point he joked about having been singing professionally for 60 years. Oh, yeah, did I mention that Tony Bennett is 83 years old? You would never know it. He ran onto the stage at one point, and did a soft shoe and soulful strut during “Shadow of Your Smile.” He deadpanned as he dedicated “The Good Life” to Britney Spears. Other highlights included “I Got Rhythm,” “Just the Way You Look Tonight,” "But Beautiful," “Who Cares,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” (opened with a verse from “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans”), and “Steppin’ Out With My Baby.” Bennett was so “on” he may as well have been performing at the Copa in 1958. Henry Hill could have been on the front row, accepting a bottle of Dom Perignon from Paulie and the other bosses. The festival crowd, nearly all of whom were half his age, loved it. I heard people marveling over the performance as we left the show. Everyone sang along to songs they knew. Loud, raucous cheering. If you think about it, Tony Bennett, along with Johnny Mathis, is just about the last man standing from the great era of the American pop singers-Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Crosby, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, John Gary, Frankie Lane, Perry Como, Bobby Darin, Andy Williams….That’s the rewards of having a tremendous outlook. Bennett said tonight that his very best friend ever was Frank Sinatra. Anyone who can legitimately say that is a force to be reckoned with. This was truly one of the special Jazz Festival performances ever, signified by Festival CEO Quint Davis taking the stage after Bennett concluded to thank him for his performance. A perfect way to end a memorable performance.

Tomorrow—Buckwheat Zydeco, Cowboy Mouth, John Mayall, Bonerama, Zachary Richard, and Aaron Neville’s solo gospel performance.

Jazz Festival 2009-Thursday: Cry to Me!

The woman shown above, who appears to be every bit of 80 years old, was on stage with Solomon Burke this evening at the Jazz Festival, getting DOWN. This is why I come to this thing-little moments like this.

This Jazz Festival I’m using the nice pocket notebook that Theresa gave me for a Christmas present to take the notes which eventually become these posts, so shout out to you Theresa.

I’ve decided that to shorten these posts a little bit, I’ll spare you most of my non-festival New Orleans activities. One thing, however, deserves mention. On the way to the festival I passed a huge Home Depot, and various “day labor” types were hanging around outside the parking lot fence. This represents a huge leap forward in the home improvement industry. Now, not only can you go to one store for all your supply needs, you can also pick up the workers to perform the actual work. This reminds me of the South Park episode (I realize I’m getting repetitive with the South Park references-hey, shoot me) where Cartman gets day laborers to do his book report on “The Old Man and the Sea.”

Today driving out to the festival it looked pretty cloudy, and I was scared for awhile we’d get rain. It had, in fact, rained last night, but it didn’t look like enough fell to start the mud bath I went through last year. Besides, the mud is always worst the day after the rains, not the day it actually does rain. Sure enough, that proved right. It stayed cloudy and breezy all day, making for one of the best Jazz Fest weather days ever. Unfortunately, it was musically only kind of “meh.” No one outside of the Mississippi Mass Choir managed to hold my attention long, so I saw lots of bands for only a short time today, although there were a few finds.

Thirty seconds into the walk to the Fair Grounds, I ran into “Festival Guy.” Festival Guy is World Traveler Guy’s poor step-brother that he doesn’t like to discuss publicly. Festival Guy is anywhere from 35 to 50, white, generally over 250 pounds, balding, sporting a gray-specked goatee with peanut butter and cheese cracker crumbs, straw hat, tye-dye or Hawaiian shirt, glasses, enormous cargo shorts, high white socks and some sort of deluxe hiking/walking shoes, 37 separate pieces of flair, and a man-danna. This Guy generally is either unemployed and living with his parents, or a part-time computer industry worker between gigs. I never noticed this Guy until recently, probably because until now, he’s been occupied full-time with following first the Grateful Dead, then any or all of their “jam band” followers (Pfish, Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler). Now that those bands have crumbled, he’s been freed to roam the summer festival circuit. Look for him at your local music festival, just back from the beer tent, telling you about seeing Coldplay last May at Red Rocks.

In true New Orleans style, Festival-goers are hitting the beer and daiquiri booths right at 11 a.m. Ready to party in style! I start the day with my new custom of going to the Gospel Tent right at its opening, for the day’s opening prayer, which was preceded by a chorus of “Let’s Stand Up for Jesus!” First up was the McMain High School Gospel Choir. I’m not exactly sure how a public high school can have a gospel choir. I know the local school system has changed radically into some hybrid of charter schools and a few public schools; apparently they’re able to support gospel choirs, which is excellent. The Gospel Tent has installed a misting system, like at many Austin outdoor bars. So along with the shade and breeze, it was quite cool.

Then it was on to the Jazz Tent for the Tulane University Jazz Ensemble. All their songs were comfortable and familiar. Sort of a jazzier version of Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show Orchestra. Notably, women were playing bass and drums, something you don’t usually see except in a “girl group.” The one non-white person in the group played a really nice tenor solo…while wearing Terminator shades. The rest of the group looked like they’d be working on their MBAs at Harvard in a couple of years. You know, chaches. Hey, it was the Thursday at 11:15 slot. What do you expect?

But looking around the Jazz Tent throughout the day revealed something alarming, which Wynton Marsalis has been railing about for years-the lack of black interest in jazz. The Jazz Tent at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is, and has for some time been, mostly white. Although most of the players are black, they generally play to affluent white, older audiences. As is fitting, no one race or immigrant group can lay claim to having invented jazz, but black performers featured prominently, if not overwhelmingly, in its development into the only truly authentic American art form. This is occurring in major league baseball as well, despite the fact that the business and athletic success of the Negro Leagues played such a historic and important role in refuting many of the rationales for segregation. These trends are alarming. Perhaps hip-hop is killing jazz, just like it is rock and roll.

But what’s one irritable Texas lawyer to do?

Off I went to have some white beans and rice, “poulee fricassee” (chicken on a stick-basically a chicken-cicle) and “jama-jama” (spiced spinach). Then I took in a blacksmithing demonstration (no, really, I did), followed by the North Carolina Tuscarora Indian Stomp. I’d seen this last year, but its still kind of interesting.

Next it was on to the Blues Tent for Freddie King. The place was packed—nowhere to sit. I’m not much for the blues, at least not this slow, depressing kind (I can go for the more up tempo John Lee Hooker-style blues). King seemed a bit less dirge-like than other blues players, and the crowd loved it.

Then I noticed a 2009 Festival atrocity. They replaced Coke with Pepsi. Really? Pepsi is swill. Its like someone decided to put fizz in creosote and bottle it. Having to go nearly eight hours a day without Diet Coke is seriously going to harsh my mellow.

Having quit Freddie King early, I drifted instead back to the Jazz Tent for the remainder of Sharon Martin’s set. Kind of like Charmaine Neville, but more subtle, and sexier. Martin definitely was channeling Eartha Kitt, which is something we could all use a lot more of. Definitely a “chanteuse” who really sold it and worked the audience.

En route to the Acura stage, I began to notice kids…everywhere. All in their school uniforms. What’s the deal? Did they let school out today so the kids could all come to Jazz Fest and get their swine flu exposure sooner? They seemed to be in groups of about a classroom size, all escorted by teachers or some other authority looking adults. Very jarring site.

At the said Acura stage, I caught the tail end of something known as Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes. This was an Average White Band knock off, led by a poseur bass-playing singer. These guys are local. They’re the kind of band you’d hire to play at your barbecue or chili cook-off, or at the Fiji Texas-OU mixer. Somehow they got to play the main stage at Jazz Festival. Must have some pictures of someone important. Oh, and they all called themselves "Johnny." Uh, you aren't the Ramones, kids. Go away.

OK, here I planned to have some diatribe on women wearing bikini tops that, well, shouldn’t. It would have been really spectacular; someone for sure would have quit talking to me over it. But once again, its too late and this is too long, so lets just move on. Consider this a warning.

Where was I? After making brief stops at the Fais-Do-Do stage for the Creole Zydeco Farmers (and seeing a guy wearing the flower-top hat dancing up a storm I’d seen at many festivals past), it was on to Anders Osborne (no relation to Ozzy). This was a real disappointment. I’d last seen Osborne in 1991 when I first went to the festival. At the time, he was a guitar virtuoso, with jazz and fusion influences. Sort of a New Orleans Eric Johnson. This guy, nearly 20 years later, was anything but that. Osborne today was more Kenny Wayne Shepherd—white blues player with chops but without the soul. Think Johnny Winter without rhythm. Oh, and looking like Bret Favre with tattoos. I missed Theresa Andersson for this? Big mistake.

Next it was a stop at Congo Square for the New Birth Brass Band. What was new? Probably the use of an electric guitar. Not exactly “brass” now is that? They were a lot like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, except faster and funkier. But still with second line influences, unlike Rebirth Brass Band, which now seems to want to become the first brass band hip-hop act.

So it was on to the subdudes (lower case spelling intentional on their part, ‘cause they’re, you know, “subdued”). The subdudes are no strangers to Jazz Fest or Louisiana, having been based here for over 30 years. Nothing was truly standout about their set today, other than they seemed to be having more fun than usual. Pretty much the standard set list, and the swelling crowd enjoyed dancing to the Louisiana Little Feat.

While en route to the Mississippi Mass Choir at the Gospel Tent, I finally went “off diet” and had some crawfish bread. This contains different melted cheeses, crawfish, and a little peppers, inside a toasted French bread baguette. Baiscally, this is the food of the gods. That and Popeye’s biscuits and Valian’s pizza. Mississippi Mass Choir then hit it out of the building. Clearly the performance of the day. Phenomenal soloists, stout backing, dynamic leadership, and driving instrumentalists. Very energetic and moving preaching as well. Very moving performance in an otherwise lackluster day.

Next, on recommendation of a guy I met at Johnny Sketch, was Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials at the Blues Tent. Now this was blues I could enjoy. Lil’ Ed, pictured above, was indeed little, but had a really big, tall hat. I should check into that by the way. But he played fat blues, very loud, distorted, nasty, but musical. It was sort of like Chuck Berry using Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar to play the blues.

Last up for the day was New Orleans stalwart Solomon Burke (“Cry to Me,” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”) with a brief detour for Bonsoir, Catin. Last time I saw Burke was 1991, and he was still walking around the stage, channeling James Brown, complete with a 15 year old boy in a suit standing beside him as his “valet.” This year, however, he was wheeled out in a wheelchair, wearing a purple sequin three piece suit, with a red velvet cape wrapped around the wheelchair, and weighing about 500 pounds. He still had pipes though, and amazingly could still hold an audience even without moving around the stage. He played to a full house at the Congo Square stage for about an hour and 15 minutes, albeit with several guests. Burke was obviously Old School for sure. It made me think how the stars of years ago made their bones, as it were, on stage. They almost always had played live for years, to all kinds of crowds at all kinds of venues, before achieving fame. The Beatles played the Cavern Club. The Stones played the Crawdaddy. Before they ever had their first hit, they had played hundreds of shows. Today’s popular artists don’t necessarily go through that. They get popular on the internet, or some TV show, or by being a Mouseketeer. So they lack the experience of playing in front of audiences and finding what works and what doesn’t work. When they get out on stage, they don’t know how to handle it. You can definitely see this at Jazz Festival. The older performers who’ve been in the business for a long time have a way with the crowds that the newer ones lack. Burke is definitely a music professional, who can command an audience. It was entertaining to see just that element of the show. Plus the fact that he had a song in Dirty Dancing. Yeah, I said it. I like Dirty Dancing. Actually, I liked that guy who was Johnny's cousin, the one carrying the watermelons, whose only function was to provide exposition that filled in key scenes' necessary background. That's kind of how I see my place in life.

Bonsoir, Catin (don't forget the comma!) is a four-woman quartet from Lafayette playing old-style Cajun music. I “discovered” them last year at the Festival, and when I saw they overlapped with Solomon Burke, I just had to ditch Burke for a bit and check out some of their act. They introduce the songs by telling the stories each song relates (in Cajun french, which most of us don't know so well). This time, I found out one of the members is a former Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Queen, which makes me even more their stalker. They drew a small but enthusiastic and respectable crowd (and a stalker), in light of being matched in the closing time slot against Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper, Solomon Burke, and Nicholas Payton.

Well, this was a lot longer than I imagined (that’s what she said), so I’ll dispense with the rest of my night and see you tomorrow.

Tomorrow-Beausoleil, Marcia Ball, and Tony Bennett

2009 Jazz Fest Preview

These dudes REALLY love Jazz Festival. I like the guy on the right, acting like this is just an everyday sight for him. Which it probably is, here in the Big Easy.

This will be more abbreviated than usual, given the hour. I'm back in New Orleans again for yet another Jazz and Heritage Festival. Meaning, its time to get my eat on while listening to great music. This year offers another great collection of musicians from all fields.

Here's the highlights of what I'm looking forward to this year:

Thursday: Theressa Andersson, Anders Osborne (outstanding guitarist), subdudes (country/folk/acoustic with a Louisiana flavor), Solomon Burke (original New Orleans R&B), Emmylou Harris, Mississippi Mass Choir, Jakob Dylan.

Friday: BeauSoleil (premiere Cajun band), Frankie Ford ("Sea Cruise" and "You Talk Too Much"), Marcia Ball, Bonnie Raitt, John Boutte (jazz vocalist), Tony Bennett (yeah, THAT Tony Bennett), Geno Delafose.

Saturday: Zachary Richard (zydeco-"Crawfeesh"), Buckwheat Zydeco, Cowboy Mouth (local hard rockers), Dr. John, the O'Jays, John Mayall, Deacon John, New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, Aaron Neville solo gospel performance.

Sunday: Neil Young and Crazy Horse ("Keep On Rockin' In the Free World"), Allen Toussaint, Ellis Marsalis (Wynton and Branford's dad), Soul Rebels, Sherman Washington and the Zion Harmonizers (the premiere New Orleans gospel group), D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces (old-time Cajun country), Dash Rip Rock (fun New Orleans hard rock party band), Buddy Guy, and the Neville Brothers.

Here's who I definitely will not be catching: Sugarland, Bon Jovi, Kings of Leon, and Ben Harper.

Naturally, I plan to spend lots of time eating: crawfish pie, crawfish Monica, Prejean's quail, pheasant, and andouille gumbo, crawfish sack, crawfish tamales, tasso, seafood jambalaya, and jama-jama (spicy African spinach dish). Better get my fat clothes out when I come home.

Generally, with all the standing around, and walking from stage to stage, my 44 year old back is shot by Festival's end. Still, its worth it for those gems that always reveal themselves each year. Isaac Hayes singing an extended version of "Shaft" as night fell on the festival; Paul Simon singing Slip Slidin' Away as the rains hit Jazz Festival; Randy Newman singing "Louisiana 1927" as the skies started to pour; Irma Thomas' and Marva Wright's "Tribute to Mahalia Jackson"; B.B. King; Rev. Al Green; Jerry Lee Lewis; Johnny Rivers; one of Ike Turner's last performances before his death; Phillip Manuel's "Tribute to Nat King Cole"; the last half of the Stevie Wonder show; Rebirth Brass Band; and any time that the Zion Harmonizers play.

Today I was able to get into town soon enough to check out the Wednesday in the Square free show. This is a weekly concert series sponsored by the New Orleans Saints, in Lafayette Square across from the federal courthouse (where I used to play volleyball with other young lawyers during my brief career as a New Orleans maritime lawyer). Tonight's show featured Marva Wright and Marcia Ball. There was quite a crowd, in what was obviously a Jazz Fest warmup for everyone. An odd mix of professionals using this as an impromptu happy hour, Festival-goers, and people who would have been in the park concert or no. It was fun getting here in time for this warmup.

I'll aim to post each night after the day's show. That may break down, but I'll do the best I can. I'll probably be more reliable at uploading the millions of pictures I always take. I already have some pictures from the Lafayette Square free show. In the meantime, I feel sorry for all you losers working at your hum-drum jobs instead of joining me at Jazz Festival.

Drugs Are Bad, Mmm-kay? The Daily Affirmations Manifesto on Drugs

Ty: Do you take drugs Danny?
Danny: Every day.
Ty: Good. So what’s the problem?

Caddyshack

Drugs are bad because if you do drugs, you’re a hippie, and hippies suck.

Eric Cartman, South Park

Different views on a difficult social issue, for sure. The stoners who own the groovy good times van in this picture, outside my hotel in New Orleans at the moment, side with Ty Webb.

But in keeping with the Daily Affirmations philosophy of “tough stands on tough issues” (or is it “serve the queen bee,” I can never remember), its time to take a stand on one of the most compelling moral issues of our day—the War on Drugs. Actually, that was more of a compelling issue in the 60s and 70s, but better late than never.

Imagine, if instead of chocolate, Milton Hershey and his other chocolate-making buddies had gone into ganja, weed, Mary Jane, all those years ago. Suppose instead of building up a factory in mid-west Pennsylvania full of Oompa-Loompas making everlasting gobstoppers and purifying his chocolate in a river, they instead processed coca or marijuana leaves (from South America) on a factory line like Charlie Chaplin’s bolt fastener in Modern Times. Suppose they applied their entrepreneurial skills to promoting drugs instead of chocolate, and polite society became hooked on getting its rush from puffing the magic dragon instead of from fudge and Oreos. Hershey and all the others who rushed in to emulate his success would have lobbied for laws to push their competitors (i.e. chocolate manufacturers) out of business. This isn’t so crazy. Coca-cola originally contained small amounts of cocaine, for example. And, after all, a lot of these drugs weren’t criminalized until the 1920s or 30s. Congress and the states might have banned chocolate as the harmful substance instead of drugs, and we’d have grown up in a world where marijuana or other drug use might seem as normal as eating chocolate today. Except with less fudgy residue around the mouth and fingertips.

Imagine that world. Fatties roaming thru bad neighborhoods at night looking for a snicker’s fix. Shady travel agents booking “holiday” trips to Zurich and Geneva so clients can sample “the bean” in its pure form. Average teens making do with jawbreakers or lemon drops, while the Heathers and other cool kids break out the chocolate chips after football games and before prom, or on graduation night, when they hit the “hard stuff”…dark chocolate. Reese’s peanut butter cups made with, gag, vanilla yogurt. The “CEA” funding cocoa eradication raids in Peru, and following around fat guys at the Miami docks or along the RioGrande. Federal prosecutors trying to shut down California would have legalized “chocolate clinics,” which California legalized because chocolate is shown to have a somewhat beneficial effect on heart disease, where fat guys would go for their “prescriptions.” Richard Pryor singlehandedly starting the dreaded 1979 “chocolate fondue” craze. We’d hear warnings from time to time about sinister “Mexican hot chocolate” or the dreaded “white chocolate” coming across the border smuggled in balloons inserted into people’s body cavities. Sidebar, the Mexican hot chocolate at Café Pasqual’s in Santa Fe is one of the things that no life is complete without having at least once.

You get the point. Hershey went into chocolate, rightly or wrongly drugs got banned through the years, and now if you want to get high you have to make do with drinking, eating bad food, smoking, driving motorcycles, abusing cough syrup, having dangerous sex, sniffing glue, watching TV 18 hours a day, or eating chocolate. That’s totally bogus, dude.

Who decided that? Those idiots in the legislatures and Congress, that’s who. The ones all of you voted for (or didn’t because you decided you had better things to do on election day, like watch Tyra Banks re-runs and eat cheetoes). These are the same people who do lots of other crazy things in your name, like ban murder, rape and kidnapping, set up social welfare programs to help the poor, established free public schools, regulated businesses like insurance, utilities, banking (bad example), built roads (ok, maybe another bad example). Sort of like the “what have the Romans ever done for us” scene in Life of Brian. How did they get that job? At least 50% of the voters put them there, and in most cases sent then back for a return engagement. Unfortunately, these same idiots, in addition to all those other accomplishments, say you have to take a class before you get married to avoid a tax, spend their time angsting over preventing 16 year old girls from getting tans while the economy falls off the cliff, who test high school athletes for steroids but not cocaine or crack, and who worry about “suggestive” high school cheerleaders routines. Here in Texas, Republicans seem hell-bent to remake the world to suit soccer moms, while Democrats make more news when they run off to another state to hide out than when they actually show up for work.

So, when this collection of Thomas Jeffersons criminalizes marijuana, why should anyone listen? Although its crystal clear to everyone except its users (which isn’t surprising because it affects the brain) that marijuana is hazardous to one’s health, so are lots of other legal things and activities to varying degrees. Snow skiing, mountain climbing, motorcycling, pop tarts, scotch, very sharp knives, trapeze flying, driving, walking across the street, Matthew McConaughey movies….

But these are legal and pot is not. Why? Because your elected heroes and protectors of the public say so. No amount of self-aggrandizing, goatee-wearing hipster ridicule or by sweater-wearing, know-it-all rationalization can erase that fact. To reject that is, in essence, to reject the primacy of law. Ours is a government of law, not of man. Law prevents tin-horn dictators like Chavez or Castro or Huey P. Long from governing by whim, and prevents anarchy. Even closet libertarians like myself believe in laws and that governments should enforce the laws. And unenforced or ignored laws are the same thing as no laws.

Believe it or not, despite the lingering existence of some normatively “unjust” laws, law on balance reflects the majority will. Lawmakers, whom we can remove if we dislike their choices, enact laws. Courts, made up of judges that we in Texas can remove if we dislike their rulings, apply those laws. Presidents, Governors, and Mayors subject to elections oversee law enforcement organizations who enforce those laws (or don’t, as the case may be). Lawmakers who refuse to adopt policies consistent with the majority will ultimately do not last, as we’ve seen in dramatic fashion after first the Reagan Revolution, then the Clinton Revolution, then the Contract with America, then the Obama “I’m OK, You’re OK” take-back. When society is through with the old crowd’s policies, the old crowd must either change or the voters elect a new crowd with a different mandate. That is the nature of our democracy.

So consider marijuana. Society’s moral consensus has changed on a wide range of issues in the last 50 years, and the laws have on balance kept up. The fact that marijuana and other drugs have remained illegal, albeit with laws enforced against suppliers more heavily than users, reflects another “unpopular truth” among some—society still disapproves of drug usage. Recently in the UK, when the Labor Government decriminalized marijuana conviction penalties, the public reacted with outrage while other nations objected, and the Government had no choice but to revert to the prior sentencing scheme.

I have no inherent objection to someone using marijuana or cocaine or heroin or whatever else gets you going. You want to harm your health, go right ahead. Unfortunately for you, Jeff Spicoli, society has made your choice for you. Laws prohibit drug usage, sales and distribution. To belittle the legitimacy of these laws as akin to speeding tickets misses the point entirely. One does not have the right to decide which laws he will obey; law is not something ordered a la carte as if one were at Luby’s. What would such a right do to a society? No matter what law you name, you can always find someone somewhere who opposes it. Child molester laws? Most child molesters probably oppose those laws. Laws prohibiting serial killing? Serial killers vote “no.” Whether a law is “right” or “just” or “fair” simply does not matter.

But I have a more practical objection to drug usage in the face of such laws, and choose not to associate with those whom I know to use illegal drugs as a consequence. I do not care to associate myself and my name with the carnage the drug industry has wrought in our inner cities and throughout much of the world. Because its usage and sale is illegal, drugs command a higher price than if they were traded in organized commercial markets. Because “drug contracts” cannot be enforced in the courts, drug criminals must enforce their deals and preserve their “market share” by violence and intimidation. Drug violence, which arises as a transaction cost of making revenues and supplying users, has ravaged most American inner cities with official corruption and both random and targeted violence. Drug cartels whose revenues depend on supplying drugs to homeless crack addicts and preppy Amherst pot smokers alike, have through assassinations, attacks, and corruption, destabilized governments, diverted humanitarian aid, enslaved and oppressed millions, and caused countless deaths. What funds the Taliban? Poppy sales revenues. Anyone up for a Ciudad Juarez holiday these days? Those who become addicted must ultimately commit other crimes to fund their addiction, which normally leaves them incapable of performing any normal job. The human toll this causes on families, friends, co-workers, and ultimately other social institutions like emergency rooms, counseling organizations, and the like, has staggering costs. Nearly all this is due to the sale and use of an illegal product with an inelastic demand.

Just like all those flappers and zoot suiters having a great time at the local speakeasy made possible a monster like Capone, so too does you and your girlfriend getting fried at your cousin Ned's Labor Day party help make possible drive-by shootings that leave infants dead. Numerous other intervening causes exist, of course, but these things wouldn’t happen without people using illegal drugs. I do not care to be a link in that chain, or have my name associated with anyone who is.

Former Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis once told me and others a story about being pulled over by a state trooper for driving far above the speed limit. The cop didn’t give him a ticket. He did worse—he gave him a lecture. The cop said that if Speaker Lewis wanted to drive that fast, he should go back to Austin and pass a law allowing people to drive that fast. But if he wasn’t willing to do that, he should follow the laws that he makes just like all the rest of us. Speaker Lewis said he felt about three inches tall after that dressing down.

So, hippies, party on if you must. Leave me out of it.