Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

Lee Frank sent me some notes to help me prepare for my first visit to New Orleans since Katrina. I sometimes say I was briefly a world expert at New Orleans music based on the fact that for six months in 2002 and 2003 I was Henry Butler‘s manager.
I went down there once as John Ellis is manager.

this time I’m going to medical conference but if I either discover a new band or run into one of the 10 or so people I still know down there I can deduct the trip as a business expense. I’m not really a doctor but I play one on the Internet. I also formed a branch of my own religion and I would ordain people as Rabbi.

And completing the square I book the New Orleans klezmer all stars twice, booked Glenn Hartman on Casey SU radio, and introduce Glenn to Beth Custer for the short-lived supergroup drone and bone.

Tipitina’s:  Uptown. Tchoupitoulas on the river. Classic large music venue. Me: Named for a song by Professor Longhair and look for the bust of Fess and inscription on the pavement it says “when you go to New Orleans check out THE Mardi Gras”.

Maple Leaf Bar:  Way Uptown on Oak Street. Rebirth on a Tuesday night is a must. Starts at 11pm-ish. He notes elsewhere that it is next to a good restaurant called Jachues-Emo.

Le Bon Temps Roulet: Funky Uptown bar. Good to catch a brass band. Don’t think I’ve been there but certainly no the phrase.

Chickie Wah Wah: Little joint in Mid-City various styles. Likewise.

d.b.a:  Frenchman Street. Full Bar, good drinks. Often has free local music. Seen the listing don’t think I’ve been there.

R Bar: After hours bar on Royal Street. News to me.

One Eyed Jacks: Rock, Rockabilly club on Toulouse Street in the FQ. (French Quarter, not Yat way to say “fuck you”. That’s actually a Neil Simon “Odd Couple” joke. “Yat” Is a derogatory term for lower middle class and working class New Orleans people who did not go to Newman lake my freshman roommate who apparently greet each other with “where you at?”)

3 Muses: Sit down venue with nice cocktails and food. My three muses are “weed wine and song” although I have left New Orleans and I am near Texarkana. Oh that’s a joke I’ll settle for a Barq or Abita.

Gunn turned a decent local running back into King of the Road by yielding four touchdowns and 260 yards to Junior Jeaden Underwood Friday night in Sunnyvale. Like in the song he is Short, but not too big around.

Gun is 0 and 5 and is believed to be the only team in the CCS to not have yet scored a touchdown field goal extra point or safety.

i’ve never been to Kings Academy it’s somewhere in Sunnyvale not far from the 49ers I guess. I think this is where Jeremy Lin attended fifth grade and I used to say that not only would Gunn have won the championship but for Jeremys controversial enrollment at Paly but conceivably the kings academy might have won CCS with Jeremy Lin in 2006.

I wrote to the school board wondering how of our two schools one was 41 points better a few weeks ago.

Why did Jason Miller leave?

Does Paly benefit too much from certain enrollment patterns like children of Stanford coaches’, kids who live in Ventura which is closer to God or the Tinsley transfers?

Last season I met five or six of the families whose boys played gunn football I got invited to the games because plastic Alto here was covering their excellent season where is the Weekly was not .

I think I read that the current Gunn coach played college football in Montana with one of our firefighters and perhaps assistant chief. There is a metaphor there somewhere but I’ll let it lie fallow.

“King of the Road” by Jason’s relative Roger Miller song if anyone still knows it is ironic because he is by no means King of the Road.

I hope Gunn players coaches and families fine meeting in such a humbling season .

And1: I went to the Gunn reunion of class of ‘70 which was Akira Tana‘s group he quarterbacked them to a championship actually in 1969. More significant to me today there were 15 pretty good musicians who played that day. I met Alex Degrassi.