® June 1-7 2026
Volume 47 Number 22
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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
Crowd work
The LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest is June 4-7
KALEA MCNEILL ALWAYS WANTED TO HAVE A PERFORMING CAREER, but she thought it’d be acting instead of stand-up comedy. While developing her stand-up, she’s gotten on stage in front of all sorts of audiences and venues, including Black churches.
“When I first started making money in comedy, I was doing clean comedy in churches,” McNeill says via phone from her home in Los Angeles. “You learn very quickly how to adapt. Especially when you are ‘visually gay.’ You have to call out the elephant in the room. My line whenever I went in front of a Black church — they’d be clapping, but somebody’d be looking — I am like, ‘Let’s address the elephant in the room: I am a softball coach. Any other questions?’ And they’d laugh and the tension is loose, and let’s get on with it.”
McNeill will be in New Orleans this week to headline the LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest. The festival runs June 4-7 and other headliners include Ren Q. Dawe and Bailey Pope. The fest lineup brings more than 50 visiting and local comics to Sports Drink, The Howlin’ Wolf, Urban South Brewery and other venues.
McNeill has visited New Orleans often and headlined her own shows here. Her sister attended Xavier University, and Kalea visited often while at Clark Atlanta University. Her most recent trip was in March, when her father decided to celebrate his birthday here, along with his wife, their friends and Kalea. They went to Frenchmen Street to listen to music, and at a music club’s bar, he saw a sign advertising two lemon drops for $15.
“He said, ‘They got two for $15,’ ” McNeill says. “He was like, ‘Why don’t you get one and I’ll get one?’ And I was like, ‘Well, they’re probably pretty tiny. So I’ll get you two and I’ll get two.’ So we throw them back, and then he was like, ‘I want two more.’ ”
That started a long night, and he was out of commission most of the next day. But Kalea rallied and did a guest set at a show run by local comedian Ryan Rogers at Sports Drink. It went well, and he invited her to come back to headline the LGBTLOL festival. McNeill just recorded her second comedy special at the Netflix is a Joke Fest. She recorded the set at her home comedy club, the West Side Comedy Theater in Santa Monica. She’ll release an album this year, and the special will air in early 2027, she says.
by Will Coviello |
In the untitled show, she talks about travel, stoner lifestyles and more about her family.
“My nieces have gotten older and talk about things that I don’t want to hear,” she says. “But I am the cool aunt because of what I do for a living. I don’t like it.”
She also is on “Funny AF with Kevin Hart.” And some fans of the show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” will recognize her from the show’s final season.
Growing up a fan of Whoopi Goldberg and Jim Carrey, McNeill always wanted to get into a performing career. She liked comedy shows like “Def Comedy Jam,” but she studied theater because it was the best available acting training. After college, she took a job as a DJ on a cruise line and spent two years on a ship. While doing that, many people asked her if she had tried stand-up comedy. When she left the cruise line, she went back to Atlanta to give comedy a try. At first, she wrote out every joke word for word and did her set like she had an actor’s lines. Eventually, she shed that approach and found the stage more fun and less stressful. McNeill moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting but also spent a lot of time doing stand-up, including at the
Comedy Union, a Black owned club. She also did her church shows, and when the pandemic hit, she turned to Zoom comedy shows and found a way to make that work. Coming out of the pandemic, she recorded her debut comedy special “Sma’am.” In it, she talks about living in Los Angeles, being a lesbian and watching her dad lose a fight, which led to his admission that he had never actually been a Black Panther, though that had been part of the image of him she had growing up. Now, McNeill tours and headlines frequently. She’s working on new material after filming her second special. She also has a Hulu project on the horizon, as well as writing and starring in a short horror film. Also at LGBTLOL is Ren Q. Dawe, a Denver-based comedian and trans activist. He organized the Colorado Queer Comedy Festival and the Here to Pee comedy tour, which features trans comedians and raises funds for LGBTQ organizations. Dawe also hosts the “Punch Up” podcast.
Bailey Pope is a New York comedian and released the special “AKA.” Her first love was punk music and performing in hardcore bands. She later switched to comedy. The festival includes some open mic events, a free show at Oz and some special shows. There’s a comedian-led edition of the storytelling show Greetings from Queer Mountain. The last day of the fest has an Oops! All Allies show with a panel roasting the performers. This is the fourth full, multi-day edition of the festival, after a one-day fest was held in 2022. Local comedian Ryan Rogers founded the event and now uses the brand to book queer comedy events at other festivals.
Single show tickets, festival passes and a full roster and schedule are available at lgbtlol.com.
Creole Tomato Festival
Creole tomatoes get their taste from the salty soils of the Delta, and the Creole Tomato Festival celebrates the local produce at the French Market. Marking its 40th anniversary, the festival features multiple music stages and there are performances by the BrassA-Holics, Amanda Shaw, Rusty Metoyer, the Cristina Kaminis Band, Geovane Santos Band, T-Ray and the Trendsetters, Julio & Cesar, Merengue 4 and more. The cooking demonstration stage hosts Julie Vaucresson, Kaitlin Guerin of Lagniappe Bakery, the Southern Food & Beverage Museum’s Liz Williams and more. The festival also has a tomato-eating contest, Creole tomato vendors and more. At 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, June 6, and Sunday, June 7. Free admission. Visit frenchmarket.org for information.
Purple Takeover
DJ Soul Sister, aka Melissa Weber, has curated a series of events for her annual Purple Takeover, celebrating the music of Prince. The centerpiece is a dance party at Tipitina’s at 9 p.m. Saturday, June 6. There are screenings of “Under the Cherry Moon” at The Prytania Theatre at Canal Place on June 5-11, as well as a couple of screenings of “Purple Rain.” There’s a dinner at the Munch Factory, a record day at Euclid Records and more. Tickets for the Saturday show are $27.98-$51.86 at tipitinas.com. For information, go to @djsoulsister on Instagram or purpletakeover.com.
Monty Python’s ‘Spamalot’
During a hiatus from the TV show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” the troupe decided to make a comedy about King Arthur and the Middle Ages. No studio would finance it,
PROVIDED PHOTO BY FERNANDO LOPEZ
Kalea McNeill performs Saturday, June 6, at Sports Drink.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY KALEA MCNEILL
OPENING GAMBIT Happy Pride!
THUMBS UP/ THUMBS DOWN
The City of New Orleans and Friends of InspireNOLA will install new turf and goal posts at Morris F.X. Jeff Sr. Stadium (formerly Behrman Stadium) in Algiers, a long-needed project that will allow the football teams at Edna Karr and L.B. Landry high schools to play closer to home. For some time, the condition of the football field has meant teams had to find other facilities for games. Friends of Inspire NOLA will fund most of the expected $750,000-$1 million renovation, while the city will contribute $100,000 in bond money as well as turf left over from hosting last year’s Super Bowl.
State Sen. Jay Morris and his business partners were buying and selling land around the massive Meta data center project in Richland Parish — while Morris was in Baton Rouge co-sponsoring bills to enable the land deal between Meta and the state and voting to give the company massive tax breaks, Floodlight recently reported. Experts say it’s possibly a serious violation of state ethics laws. Morris, though, told Floodlight he hasn’t done anything wrong.
Louisiana Gov. Jef Landry announces education spending overhaul, attacks press, voters
LOUISIANA GOV. JEFF LANDRY
PLANS TO RESTRUCTURE HOW THE STATE PAYS FOR BOTH K-12 AND HIGHER EDUCATION across Louisiana in the wake of voters soundly rejecting changes to the state constitution’s education provisions earlier in the month.
During an at times combative May 26 press conference, Landry announced he is creating two new task forces that could open the door to making major changes to how money is spent on education in the state. One would find money for permanent raises for K-12 teachers and support staff.
President Cameron Henry, Henry explained that money could come from the $4 billion in state funds that goes to K-12 schools.
“There is no way we can’t find a permanent pay raise in those dollars,” Henry said.
Landry said he couldn’t give further details on which areas of the K-12 school funding would be diverted to cover the teacher pay increases until the legislature sends him a budget. However, the Louisiana Illuminator reported the money would come from “non-instructional programs” like administrative services and construction.
Sen. Bill Cassidy wants to break up Kisatchie National Forest and transfer about 140,000 acres, nearly a quarter of Louisiana’s only national forest, over to Grant Parish, which would remove many of the habitat’s federal protections. For their part, the Grant Parish Policy Jury likes how things are currently and recently voted against taking Cassidy’s proposal.
He also vowed to ensure they get them a stipend this school year, though he did not say how.
“I’m just standing here in front of those teachers and saying I’m committed to try to find it with the legislature,” Landry said, adding “we’re going to try to use every tool in the toolbox to try to find that money.”
At the press conference, which also included Speaker of the House Phillip DeVillier and Senate
Landry also said he didn’t know how long it would take to make this year’s promised stipend a reality, but that there was time because the stipends are paid out in December.
“I can get the budget. We might be able to fix it in two, three days. We might be able to see some things,” he said. “Maybe it takes us longer. I don’t know.”
Landry’s task forces will have separate mandates. The K-12
COUNT #
3.92 THE AVERAGE PRICE, IN DOLLARS, OF A GALLON OF REGULAR GAS IN ORLEANS PARISH, AS OF MAY 28.
Cameron Parish gas prices are the highest in Louisiana, according to AAA, at $4.27 a gallon. Gas prices are surging because of the global energy crisis sparked by President Trump’s war on Iran. The average cost of gasoline per gallon has increased by more than 50% since Trump started the war, according to the Harvard Kennedy School.
11%
DR. JOHN’S “RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME”
Gov. Jeff Landry expresses frustration toward the Louisiana Constitution at a presser May 26, 2026.
PHOTO BY JAVIER GALLEGOS / THE ADVOCATE
task force will primarily focus on finding money in the current K-12 education funding to fund permanent pay raises, which could have ripple effects if it requires cuts or changes to spending in other education areas.
Meanwhile, the second task force would take a broader look at higher education funding.
The task forces will have until Dec. 31 to achieve their goals.
Henry insisted the goal was not to reduce total state spending on education.
“The purpose of both of these programs is not to necessarily cut the funding to these, to higher ed or to K-12,” he said. “It’s to figure out the money that we have ... As times have changed, we need to make sure that the money is following the times.”
In the meantime, Landry said other pay raises for other state government employees were back on the table, appearing to back off on his threat following the May 16 election.
Voters had just rejected all five constitutional amendments, including one that would have dissolved three public education trust funds and used that money for teacher and support staff pay raises.
“In light of Amendment 3 falling short, I want to make it very clear — if our teachers don’t get a permanent raise this year, nobody in state government gets a pay raise,” Landry posted on X, formerly Twitter, on May 18. “I mean nobody.”
At the presser, Landry said he supported giving state government employees raises, adding that he was reminded over the weekend of how “tirelessly” state employees have worked to “try to trim their budgets.”
“So I can’t speak for the legislature — they gotta vote on the budget — but I’m fine if they make those pay raises for our civil servants in there,” he said. “I think they deserve it, quite frankly.”
Over the roughly 30-minute news conference, Landry railed against voters for rejecting the amendment, the press and the state constitution.
One reporter asked the governor why the plan was to take from public education funding rather than other sources, such as the revenue stabilization fund. He replied by calling out Illuminator reporter Julie O’Donoghue.
“The revenue stabilization prohibits us from using it. OK, let me repeat this again, Julia [sic].
The revenue stabilization fund does not allow us to take out of it to give teachers a pay raise,” Landry said. “That is false. That is misinformation. You need to read the constitution. That’s the problem.”
Landry expressed frustration with the amendment’s failure, the second year in a row the legislature tried a similar proposal.
“I guess people in Louisiana like to pay interest instead of teachers,” he said.
He also complained about the state constitution for slowing down the process of possibly changing the state’s education spending formulas. Only the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE ) can alter them, with an up or down vote from the legislature.
“Why we can’t do it sooner, because in this nice book right here, the constitution, the constitution doesn’t allow us to instruct BESE or the task force can’t move any faster and give BESE some ideas to restructure the formula because ... even if they did it by August, the constitution won’t allow us to change that formula until next session,” Landry said.
“It’s important for the people of Louisiana to understand how
obstructive this document is sometimes,” he added. “When we’re trying to give people the relief they need, a lot of times this constitution has tied our hands.” — Kaylee Poche
House passes voting map eliminating one majorityBlack congressional district
THE LOUISIANA HOUSE ON MAY 28 APPROVED A CONGRESSIONAL VOTING MAP THAT WILL TAKE AWAY A MAJORITY-BLACK DISTRICT, after Democrats railed against the plan for more than seven hours, sharing emotional personal stories and evoking moments in Black history across the South.
The map would send the state back to one majority-Black district and five majority white districts, despite Black people making up roughly a third of the state’s population.
The 66-35 vote was mostly along party lines, with a handful of Republicans in the Houma, Thibodaux and Lake Charles areas joining Democrats in voting against the proposal. Democrat Robby Carter of Greensburg voted for it.
“You cannot claim to be blind to race while drawing lines that disproportionately silence Black voters,”
said Rep. C. Denise Marcelle, a Black Baton Rouge Democrat. Lawmakers have amended the bill, by West Monroe Republican Sen. Jay Morris, several times, so both the House and Senate will need to agree on a final version before sending it to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk.
The House rejected all of the Democrats’ attempts to redraw the map, but they accepted an amendment by Rep. Beau Beaullieu, a New Iberia Republican.
The changes split Calcasieu Parish and St. Martin Parish between congressional districts. It changes St. Landry Parish to be divided between two congressional districts instead of three. It would also put some of the voters in Congressional District 1 into Congressional District 2. Beaullieu said those changes were a result of members of the House and Senate coming to him with requests and trying to “work out the differences” with them.
He said he didn’t believe the map passed out of the House and Governmental Affairs committee on May 21 would have passed the full House without the changes.
“I can tell you this: Sen. Morris didn’t like the map that we passed
Committee chair Rep. Gerald “Beau” Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, on May 21, 2026
PHOTO BY JAVIER GALLEGOS / THE ADVOCATE
out of House and Governmental Affairs,” Beaullieu said.
Republican Reps. Beryl Amedee, Jessica Domangue and Jerome Zeringue of Houma, Phillip Tarver and Brett Geymann of Lake Charles and Bryan Fontenot of Thibodaux all voted against the final bill as amended.
In the hours of speeches they gave on the House floor, Black Democrats talked about the painful history of violence and voter suppression against Black people in America.
Rep. Kyle Green, a Black Marrero Democrat and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, brought up when white supremacist terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, killing four young Black girls.
“If we let this (map) pass without speaking the full truth about it and every drop of blood that was spent on credit, then ... we are the generation that told Addie Mae, Cynthia, Carole and (Carol) Denise that their lives were a down payment on a promise we no longer feel like keeping,” he said.
Rep. Wilford Carter, a Black Lake Charles Democrat, didn’t mince words when talking about the effort to get rid of Black and Democrat seats in the South ahead of the midterm elections.
“We’re trying to relitigate the Civil War,” he said. “The Civil War is over with. You lost the Civil War.”
“I think most of our friends we call white don’t want a democracy anymore,” he added. “This democracy thing has failed to them. They don’t feel like they’re getting out of it what they want to get out of it. So they’re content to have an autocratic form of government, totalitarian form of government, so long as they’re on top.”
Democrats also brought up Morris’ bills this session to shrink the New Orleans court system and remove the office of the city’s criminal clerk of court before Calvin Duncan, a Black man who was imprisoned for decades due to a wrongful conviction, could take office.
Rep. Alonzo Knox, a Black New Orleans Democrat, said some white members of the legislature will label past events in history as racist, but not current events. He brought up when Louisianan John Willis Menard became the first Black person elected
to Congress in 1868 but was never allowed to serve.
“Some of you will acknowledge that was racist,” Knox said. “I’ve not heard any one of you acknowledge the fact that just a few weeks ago in my district you all denied another Black man from being seated as (criminal) clerk of court in my city. For some, that’s racism, but you all won’t let that touch you.”
Jordan echoed the same sentiment.
“The real question is: How many racist acts can you participate in before you’re considered racist?” he said, adding “I will say that if you vote for this bill, you are participating in a racist act.”
Jordan said he felt like his colleagues were taking advantage of his personal relationships with them.
“I don’t say this lightly, but it’s almost like an abusive relationship,” he said. “It’s like you get to abuse me today, and then after the vote, come and cry and try to shake my hand and tell me that you love me.”
In 2022, Louisiana legislators drew a map keeping the state with one majority-Black district. It was challenged in court, with plaintiffs arguing it diluting Black voting power.
Based on a lower court ruling, state lawmakers came back and redrew the map in 2024 to include two majority Black districts, one around New Orleans and another going up from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. They did so because they didn’t want the courts to end up drawing a map for them. A group of “non-Black voters” then sued over that map.
The conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled April 29 that the new map was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” The Louisiana v. Callais ruling majorly weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, particularly Section 2 banning voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.
The following day, the governor suspended the congressional primaries, though more than 40,000 people had already voted absentee.
The high court’s ruling has led to other southern states, like Florida and Tennessee, redrawing their maps to include fewer Democratic and majority-Black districts and pick up Republican seats ahead of this fall’s midterm elections for Congress. — Kaylee Poche
shop @ gaetanasnola
Hey Blake,
The Home Bank branch at Magazine and Octavia has the name “Ewing Market Branch” etched into the façade. What’s the story? Where was the Ewing Market?
Dear reader,
THAT BUILDING AT 5435 MAGAZINE ST. has been home to several businesses since it was built in 1922. For most of its existence, it’s been a bank, first opened as the Ewing Market Branch of the Canal Bank and Trust Co. It is named for the Ewing Market, which operated near that corner from 1907 until 1948. One of nearly three dozen public markets across the city which at one time sold fresh produce, beef and poultry, seafood and other commodities, it was named for City Council Member David Ewing. He joined Mayor Martin Behrman and other dignitaries at the grand opening in October 1907.
In the 1950s, a building on the site began operating as a grocery store. It was run by Peter DiMartino, whose family would later open the DiMartino’s Muffulettas restaurant chain.
“The splendid little market, fresh and new, was as attractive as such a building could possibly be and from the fact that every stall in the market has been secured, it is an assured fact that the Ewing market will be one of the best patronized of its size in the city,” reported the Daily Picayune in its opening day coverage.
BLAKE VIEW
As for the bank building, the Italian Renaissance-style edifice was designed by architect Emile Weil, who also is well known for designing the Saenger Theatre, Touro Synagogue, Pelican Stadium and many other notable local buildings. The April 2, 1922, Times-Picayune reported on its opening, calling it a “handsome and ornamental structure…complete in every detail.”
In 1980, the Ewing Market location became the GNO Homestead and in the years since has been home to other banks and businesses, including a salon and boutique, as well as the current branch of Home Bank.
THE SOUNDS OF OPERA WILL FILL THE PIAZZA D’ITALIA JUNE 5 when the American Italian Cultural Center hosts its annual Opera in the Piazza event.
The outdoor plaza, located downtown between Poydras and Lafayette streets, was designed more than 45 years ago by leaders of New Orleans’ Italian-American community as a tribute to the contributions of Italians to the city. The piazza was dedicated on March 19, 1978 — the feast day of St. Joseph, patron saint of Sicily. It was designed by noted Postmodern architect Charles Moore and local architects at August Perez and Associates (now simply Perez), who combined elements of Classical and Renaissance architecture in the brightly colored public plaza. It includes a fountain, columns, a clock and bell tower.
The piazza was restored in 2004 by developers Darryl Berger and Roger Ogden during their conversion of the nearby Lykes Center into Loews New Orleans Hotel. The piazza underwent another round of renovations in 2018.
Friday’s Opera in the Piazza event features local and national opera singers performing favorite operatic selections as well as Broadway and pop hits in an outdoor concert. Food and drinks from local vendors will be available. Tickets start at $35 and are available at www.aiccnola.org.
The bank building at 5435 Magazine St.
PHOTO BY WILL COVIELLO / GAMBIT
PRIDE P R I D E
BY JOHN STANTON |
JUNE IS PRIDE MONTH in the United States, and here in New Orleans it’ll be marked by several weeks of parties, festivals, a parade (maybe) and more.
Pride began in the aftermath of the June 28, 1969, police raids on the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Although police raids were common, the brutal treatment of patrons at the bar and long simmering frustrations with anti-queer policies and civil rights abuses combined with escalating police violence turned it into a multi-day protest.
The raids and subsequent “riots” helped galvanize the gay civil rights movement. The following year, activists held a Christopher Street Liberation Day (named after the street on which Stonewall is located) to mark the anniversary, and the following year Gay Pride marches were occurring in major cities across the country.
In New Orleans, pride events began in the early 1970s, and by the early 1980s the city began hosting an annual Pride Parade through the quarter.
Pride has long been not only a protest movement, but also a celebration of queerness, mixing joy, defiance, remembrance and hope.
Today Pride parades are attended by local officials, promoted by official tourism boards and sponsored by massive multinational corporations. But for many years openly gay marches shocked some people, and these acts of protest were depicted as morally unsavory events in the media and used to gin up anti-queer sentiment.
In the last few years there’s been significant backsliding in the acceptance of queer people and the celebration of pride.
In 2023 conservatives launched a coordinated attack on the big box store Target for its annual Pride line of merchandise,
prompting the company to scale back –and in some stores eliminate entirely – its Pride promotions.
Similarly, anti-civil rights figures like Kid Rock and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis railed against Bud Light earlier in 2023 over its advertising campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a popular trans personality. After a boycott was launched by conservatives, the company backed away from its partnership with Mulvaney.
Meanwhile, state legislatures across the country began enacting a series of laws targeting trans and gender nonconforming people. Bathroom ban bills have become common as have so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bills, while many states have sought to completely outlaw gender affirming healthcare for all trans people.
Here in Louisiana, anti-civil rights Republicans have banned trans children from playing sports while limiting access to
gender affirming healthcare, among a host of other draconian measures.
On the national level, the House recently passed a “Don’t Say Trans” bill essentially forcing teachers to out trans children to their parents, banning funding for programs that promote so-called “gender ideology” and requiring teachers to obtain parental consent to not use a student’s dead name.
Those attacks on the queer community are a stark reminder of the roots of Pride –and its continued necessity and significance in America.
Although in New Orleans Pride can sometimes be overshadowed by Southern Decadence at the end of the summer, it remains a key moment of celebration and resistance for the queer community, and there’s any number of events happening around New Orleans over the coming weeks.
Gambit editor
PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER / THE TIMES - PICAYUNE
ON MAIN STREET EXILE EXILE
Historian Frank Perez on ‘America’s oldest gay bar’
BY WILL COVIELLO
FRANK PEREZ AND JEFFREY PALMQUIST wrote about the landmark Bourbon Street bar Cafe Lafitte in Exile in their 2011 book “In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar.”
But in 15 years, a lot has changed, he says. And after publishing several more books on local queer history, he’s got a better perspective to tell the story.
So he’s written a new book, recounting the history of the bar, but also wrestling with the need for gay bars.
“I am not sure what defines a gay bar anymore,” Perez says with a laugh.
LSU Press released his new book, “Cafe Lafitte in Exile: Queer New Orleans and the Story of America’s Oldest Gay Bar,” which also is co-credited to Palmquist. It retells the history of Cafe Lafitte in Exile and its roots at the legendary predecessor Cafe Lafitte. Perez added a pre-history and chronicles contributions of people rarely identified as gay in local lore. And he explores the need for gay bars at a time when a younger generation of LGBTQ people don’t share the experiences of earlier generations that saw gay bars as a refuge.
It is not hard for the unfamiliar to find Cafe Lafitte in Exile when walking down Bourbon Street. It’s got a big balcony wrapping around its Bourbon and Dumaine Street sides, and it’s not uncommon to see rainbow flags, balloons or other festive decorations hanging from the balcony during big celebrations.
Cafe Lafitte in Exile was opened in 1956, primarily by Tom Caplinger, but it owed its early success to a previous bar in the space that is now Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. Caplinger and partners Mary Collins and Harold Bartell had run the original Cafe Lafitte there since the end of Prohibition.
The original Cafe Lafitte became a popular nightlife hub for local politicians, artists and visiting celebrities who learned
of its reputation. Perez quotes restaurateur Ella Brennan about her going to the bar and seeing politicians like Earl Long and Hubert Humphrey, artists like Enrique Alferez, whose work fills City Park, and other notable restaurateurs and French Quarter business owners. It drew visiting Hollywood stars, as well as writers like Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote when they were in town.
Perez doesn’t consider the original Cafe Lafitte a gay bar.
“The $64,000 question I raise in the book is, ‘What makes a bar gay?’ ” Perez says. “Is it just the owners? I don’t think so. Is it the clientele? That has a lot to do with it. Tom Caplinger was not gay. Mary Collins was. We don’t know about Harold Bartell. Lafitte’s at the original location was about as gay as it could be, but it was gay-straight.”
The three owners lost the space when they were unable to purchase the building in the early 1950s. Caplinger, who had always generously let customers run up tabs, was in a pinch. But soon he opened a new bar at the other end of the block and he dubbed it Cafe Lafitte in Exile.
The new owners at the original location made it clear they were not interested in retaining the patronage of gay customers. Many old customers, straight and gay, had no problem finding Caplinger at the new bar. But things changed again soon, as Caplinger died the same year the bar was founded. He passed away sleeping on a cot he set up in the bar.
While much of the gay clientele from the original Cafe Lafitte followed Caplinger to the new bar, Cafe Lafitte in Exile became almost exclusively a gay bar in a matter of a few eventful years. It is currently owned by Tom Wood, who was not interviewed in the first book. He spoke to Perez for the new book.
While Cafe Lafitte in Exile has been a gay bar for more than six decades, it was
not the only known gay-friendly bar in the French Quarter in the 1950s.
“One of the bars at Pat O’Briens was a gay bar, but they didn’t call it that,” Perez says. “When you walk in, the piano bar is on the right. The bar on the left — in the 1950s, that was reserved for ‘bachelors.’ It was ‘bachelors only.’ That was code for gay men.”
There was a cluster of gay friendly businesses there, including Dixie’s Bar of Music and the original Bourbon House.
“Today when we say the ‘gay French Quarter,’ people probably think of Bourbon and St. Ann,” Perez says. “But in the 1950s, it would have been Bourbon and St. Peter.”
One of the big differences between the French Quarter then and now is how much more of a residential neighborhood it was then, Perez says. Many people did not interfere with their neighbors’ lives, he says, and discretion went a long way.
A big portion of the new book that wasn’t in the original profile of Cafe Lafitte in Exile looks at buried history of LGBTQ residents. Perez notes that indigenous people had more accepting attitudes about gay people, or “two spirit” people, before the colonists arrived to claim Louisiana.
There also are many areas of New Orleans history where gay contributors are overlooked or unidentified. Tony Jackson, a popular and well known piano player in Storyville brothel parlors, was gay. He wrote the song “Pretty Baby” and was known for his vast repertoire of music popular at the time. The section also goes back further to the 1850s, when German immigrant Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein wrote a serialized saga involving a Black messiah figure and a lesbian couple in a German language newspaper published in New Orleans.
A better known gay writer is Lyle Saxon. He worked as a journalist for The Times-Picayune and during the
Depression, he worked for the Works Progress Administration writing a guide to Louisiana. At local bookstores and French Quarter tourist shops, it’s easy to find his book about pirate Jean Lafitte and other local lore. He also wrote a book about the Flood of 1927 and a novel. But it’s mostly forgotten that he was gay.
The French Quarter itself would look very different if it weren’t for the efforts of a handful of preservationist advocates who were gay. They included the architect Richard Koch, banker and philanthropist William Ratcliffe Irby, and Gen. Allison Owen, who also was an architect.
“The early preservationists spearheaded the movement to save the French Quarter when they were gonna tear it down,” Perez says. “People don’t realize that you might not have a French Quarter today if it weren’t for gay men 120 years ago.”
Perez was unaware of the preservationists’ contributions when he wrote the first
Author and LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana Director
Frank Perez
PROVIDED PHOTO/
book on Cafe Lafitte in Exile. That’s one area of research he expanded in laying out the pretext for the rise of gay bars.
The bohemian life at the center of the city was gay friendly. Some of that history has come to light in recent research, like John Shelton Reed’s “Dixie Bohemia,” and some of it may never be known. Perez notes some historical figures for whom there has been speculation but no solid evidence of their sexuality.
The French Quarter is now more of a tourist attraction than bohemian community, and that is directly connected to its decline in residents, Perez notes. It’s changed many bars, which now depend more on tourists. That’s also true for the gay bars. There are still bars that are almost exclusively gay, but many no longer are.
Even Cafe Lafitte in Exile draws a lot of tourists at the end of the Bourbon Street strip. That can change the atmosphere for many longtime customers who are more guarded in mixed crowds, Perez says.
“Straight people come in there all the time and kiss and hold hands and are
affectionate,” Perez says. “I can’t do that with my partner at a lot of straight bars.”
Gay bars also aren’t seen the same way by younger LGBTQ people.
“People under 30 have no idea of the centrality of the gay bar in the history of gay social life,” Perez says. “There are a lot of reasons for that. They didn’t experience the world older people grew up in, with hard divisions and these very strong borders between straight and gay. Everything is a lot more nebulous, which in a way is good.”
In the 15 years since the earlier book, Perez has written several books on local queer history. He co-authored a book on Southern Decadence and wrote a biography of gay rights activist Stewart Butler, “Political Animal: The Life and Times of Stuart Butler.”
He launched the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana as a vehicle to document queer history. The Archives recently opened a queer history exhibit space in the French Quarter. The grand opening was on April 11 for the space at 311 Burgundy St. (See ‘Queer spaces.’)
PAGE 16
Revelers gather at Cafe Lafitte in Exile for the Gay Easter Parade in April.
PHOTO BY ENAN CHEDIAK / THE TIMES - PICAYUNE
Perez also leads gay history tours of the French Quarter and he teaches a course on queer history at Loyola University. But there’s still a need for gay bars, he says.
“Gay bars don’t serve the need they used to, but I still think they’re necessary,” he explains.
“We say bars because New Orleans is so alcohol-focused. But gay or queer spaces are necessary. In the Quarter, they tend to be bars.”
QUEER SPACES
BY SARAH RAVITS AND WILL COVIELLO
BESIDES HIS HISTORY OF GAY BARS, Frank Perez
wrote a biography of longtime New Orleans gay rights activist Stewart Butler. Late in his life, Butler invited Perez and others to his home to show them a huge collection of his life’s work, including newsletters, meeting minutes, personal belongings and more.
That cache became the foundation of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, founded by Perez and others. Perez is still its executive director.
As Perez has continued to research and write books, the Archive has also grown and become a platform to collect documents, photos, video, oral histories, lists of LGBT organizations and resources and more.
Now, it’s also got an exhibition space, which opened April 11 at 311 Burgundy St.
“Visibility is more important than ever,” Perez says.
“That is one of the things we feel very strongly about with the Archives project is the governor is trying to erase us and make us invisible and it’s like fuck you, we’re going to be more visible and open an exhibit space.”
The space’s opening exhibits include panels exploring subjects from gay Carnival and Southern Decadence to HIV, queer journalism and more. “You name it,” Perez says.
One panel is dedicated to transgender history in Louisiana, with biographical info about Delisa Newton, the first African-American transgender woman to medically transition in the U.S. on record. There’s also a section about Reed Erickson, a trans man who in 1964 launched the Erickson Educational Foundation, which opened gender clinics and contributed to research until the 1980s.
Another panel shows how LGBTQ+ authors have been inspired by New Orleans, ranging from Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote to contemporary nonfiction writer Sarah Broom.
A timeline against the back wall documents New Orleans’ queer history, dating back to 1724’s “first written reference to homosexuality in New Orleans,” and spanning through protests over the AIDS crisis and anti-discrimination laws being passed, and includes mentions of notable LGBTQ people breaking barriers.
Exhibits range from somber to celebratory. There’s an enlarged copy of the Times-Picayune’s 1973 front-page coverage of the deadly UpStairs Lounge fire, and there’s an interactive area where people can write notes — on red paper hearts — as tributes to people who have died of HIV/ AIDS.
Artifacts include vintage invitations to gay soirees and framed prints promoting events like the Petronius Ball, along with publications dating back to the ’70s and ’80s. Perez expects that more items will be donated for both rotating and permanent displays.
The museum is the starting point for queer history walking tours on the weekends, and the leisurely strolls around the Quarter visit some of the spots mentioned in the exhibits.
The exhibit space is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday to Tuesday. Admission is free.
SYMBOLS OF SURVIVAL SURVIVAL
Pride fags on Rampart Street show solidarity
and acceptance
BY SARAH RAVITS
EVERY SUMMER IN NEW ORLEANS, Rampart Street gets a colorful glow-up when rainbow flags are installed along the neutral ground from June until September.
And even though their installation coincides with the beginning of Pride month, historian Frank Perez is quick to point out the hoisting of the flags “grew out of Decadence, not Pride.”
When Southern Decadence, the raucous celebration over the long Labor Day weekend was under attack by a homophobic evangelical movement, the flags sent a message of resilience among the LGBTQ community. They also signaled to visitors that they were entering a gay-friendly space.
“It’s an indication that New Orleans is a queer friendly city and you can be yourself here and it’s safe,” says Perez.
Decadence is one of New Orleans’ biggest LGBTQ+ events, and it’s particularly popular among gay men. But in 2002, Christian Fundamentalist preacher Grant Storms and his followers tried to shut it down and intimidate participants.
Storms, who led a small congregation in nearby Marrero, would secretly video-tape gay men in bars and on the streets in front of bars during Decadence.
Generally, he “made a big stink about it and tried to get the city to cancel it,” Perez says, though city officials refused.
Storms was also known for interrupting celebrations with bullhorns. In some ways, his efforts were successful — he managed to convince the state legislature to enact stricter public sex and nudity laws.
But his ongoing anti-gay activism also sparked resistance and allyship from people all over the French Quarter, and that sense of solidarity has never faded. Storms also faced backlash from business leaders and city officials who pointed out that having these celebrations was beneficial for the economy.
Larry Bagneris, a lifelong civil and gay rights activist, was serving
as executive director of the city’s Human Rights Commission under then-Mayor Ray Nagin in 2002 when Storms threatened to riot during the Decadence parade.
Bagneris says the mayor gave him authority to “do what it takes to keep your community safe.”
“I thought rainbow flags would get under (Storms’) skin,” Bagneris says.
And they did. Storms was furious with the mayor for allowing it, and Bagneris knew he had struck a nerve. “I was happy about that,” he says.
Bagneris also mobilized a group of volunteers, who led a public service announcement campaign to warn Decadence participants about stricter laws and the influx of homophobic evangelicals.
In the meantime, allies calling themselves “Stormwatchers” gathered on balconies with glitter, Silly String, confetti, noisemakers and signs.
The New Orleans Police Department intervened when the anti-gay protesters tried to block the parade.
It was, in the end, one of the most well-attended Decadence festivals in history.
Storms mostly gave up on his public anti-gay activism after that.
Though in 2011, he generated headlines — and perhaps some schadenfreude — when he was arrested on obscenity charges at a Jefferson Parish playground for sitting in a van with his hand down his pants.
During a public apology, he denied being a pedophile but said he was a sex addict. He also asked the gay community for forgiveness over his previous targeting of their celebrations.
BAGNERIS SAYS THE RAINBOW FLAGS, which are funded by donations from neighbors and local businesses in the Quarter, are still a symbol of defiance against those who actively seek to harm the LGBTQ community.
That includes, he says, top state officials like Gov. Jeff Landry, Attorney General Liz Murrill and some members of the legislature — who have passed legislation restricting the rights of transgender youth. New Orleans officials, meanwhile, support the flags and what they represent. They also serve as a reminder to visitors that the Quarter is an accepting place where there is no room for bigotry, Bagneris says.
“We love people visiting our community. We want more and more visitors to come,” he says. “But we want you to respect our community, and if you don’t like gay people or a multicultural community, this is not the place for you.”
Above all, Bagneris sees the flags as “symbols of surviving over the years,” he says.
Back in the ’90s and aughts, many members of the LGBTQ community would spend Memorial Day remembering people whose lives were lost to the HIV/ AIDS crisis.
“Now the new obstacle is the ignorance coming from the governor’s mansion and the White House,” he says. “But we have to keep pushing forward.”
Perez agrees, calling them “a form of resistance” in the current political climate.
“The Trump administration is trying to erase queer visibility,” he says. “The flags are a tangible way of saying, ‘Hey, we’re here, and you’re not getting rid of us.’ ”
Pride flags on Rampart Street go up in June and come down after Southern Decadence in September
PHOTO BY SARAH RAVITS / GAMBIT
This year’s “official” 2026 Pride Parade featuring walking groups, bands and floats sponsored by local and national corporations is scheduled for Saturday, June 13 ... we think.
As of press time May 28, the folks organizing the parade haven’t released any specifics in terms of time, route or who’s going to be marching. In fact all the website says is information would be “forthcoming next week,” whatever that means.
Assuming the parade is happening, it’s traditionally started in Armstrong Park and then made its way through the French Quarter. Be sure to check neworleanspride.org in the days leading up to the parade for more details.
But Pride isn’t really about the parade – which, if we’re being real, has turned into more of a corporate advertising opportunity than a defiant act of public existence.
And especially in New Orleans, where time is relative and “official” is a weird word we only vaguely understand, there’ll be plenty of parties, events and festivals happening this week and throughout June to celebrate and support the queer community.
This weekend there’s two big pride events in town: New Orleans Black Pride Weekend and the LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest
New Orleans Black Pride Weekend is a four-day festival and celebration of Black queerness with events at venues around New Orleans. Things kick off with a welcome reception at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center June 4 from 6 to 9 p.m., featuring cocktails and “small bites,” as well as folks from ViiV Healthcare and Gilead HIV. On Friday afternoon the Black Queer Legacy Summit also will be held at Ashe, featuring panel discussions, workshops and networking opportunities. And on Saturday the free Community Festival will be held at Washington Square Park from noon to 5 p.m. featuring a performance by Ambré.
Each night there’s also loads of official and otherwise parties, and on both Friday and Sunday mornings Queer Aunties will be holding their Aunties in Alignment yoga and sound bath classes (registration is required) at the Barnett Hotel between 10 and 11 a.m. For information and tickets on Black Pride Events check blackpridenola.org/ prideweekend.
The LGBTLOL Queer Comedy Fest (see page 7 for our preview) has become an annual tradition and one of the best comedy festivals in the city. Kalea McNeill headlines this year’s iteration, along with Ren Q. Dawe and Bailey Pope, as well as dozens of other great acts. For tickets and more information check lgbtlol.com.
One of the biggest highlights of Pride weekend is of course PrideFest at the
Phoenix on Elysian Fields Avenue. The festival/block party will basically be poppin’ from Saturday, June 13 through sometime Sunday, June 14 and features vendors, live music, burlesque and a performance by glam rock duo Tony and The Kiki on Saturday, June 13 at 9 p.m.
While PrideFest is free, you can get VIP passes that come with an invite to the opening reception Thursday, June 11, complimentary drink tickets, admission to the Sunday Pool Party & Tea Dance at the Railyard June 14, access to the VIP viewing area the day of the parade and lots of swag and other goodies. VIP passes at $125 per or $200 for two.
There’s also a ton of parties and other events happening around town, with a lot of bars and clubs hosting pride editions of regular parties as well as special events just for the weekend.
Hosted by Crystal Edge, The Brutto Americano Drag Brunch on Saturday, June 13 is one of several drag brunches on Pride weekend, and will feature bottomless mimosas and performances by Lexis Redd D’Ville, Penny Lou, Kandy Cayne and special guest Lala Ri from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Doors open at 11 a.m. Tickets for the brunch can be found at eventbrite.com, and tickets for the post show meet and greet can be found at sadbrunch.com.
In addition to their queer burlesque programing, the good folks at the venerable AllWays Lounge will also host a Pride Block Party Saturday, June 13 from 5 to 11 p.m. The event will feature naked karaoke and a “trans pop-up.” For more information and tickets check theallwayslounge.net.
Saturday, June 13, the folks from GrrlSpot will host their annual Women’s Pride Event bar pop-up at Toulouse Theatre. Started in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, GrrlSpot has been taking over bars around the city on a semi-monthly basis to create a safe, fun space for lesbian and queer women and their friends. This year’s party will feature performances from Dinah Deville, Circus Faye, Gigi Deluxe, Sweet K, Nicolita Capdevielle, Sailem, Trombone Squirty and DJ Kika Squatch. Tickets are available on eventbrite.com, including VIP passes for $28.52.
Lynxnoir504 presents the Nola Pride Mega Rave at the Metropolitan Friday, June 12, starting at 9:30 p.m. The party will include performances by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 3’s Phoenix, Debbie With a D, Lexis Red D’Ville and Fatsy Cline. For more information and tickets, including VIP passes and table and bottle service packages, check lynx504.com.
The Railyard will host Nautical Nonsense pool party June 13 from noon to 6 p.m. Hosted by Kween Kozmik, the party will feature music, drag performances, food and more. Admission starts at $20. For tickets and more information check therailyardnola.com.
EAT + DRINK
A taste of the South
True South reopens in Mid-City by
CAN YOU IDENTIFY each Southern state by its shape?
That’s one question that can be answered by a visit to True South, the new sandwich eatery and music venue that took over the old DMac’s Bar and Grill. Each of its specialty sandwiches is identified on the menu with the shape of the state that inspired it. Louisiana, Texas and Florida are easy. But North Carolina? Arkansas? Talk about an ice breaker.
Sibling partners Joel, Jason and George DeCastro opened their latest venture March 21, reviving a space that closed almost two years ago, after a 14-year run as DMac’s. The neighborhood bar had sat empty since owner David “DMac” McGee passed away two years ago.
“We can really see how important this place is to the neighborhood,” says Joel, the restaurant’s managing partner. “Our plan was to bring that back, upgrade the food and give local musicians the stage again.”
The brothers hail from Edison, New Jersey, and Jason now lives part-time in Miami, where he owns two sports bars. George and Joel live here in New Orleans full time and own Finnegan’s Easy in the French Quarter and Liuzza’s Restaurant and Bar in Mid-City.
All the brothers are hands-on operators. George has been in kitchens for years, an instinctual cook and a graduate of the online Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. He made sure that Liuzza’s gold standard of CreoleItalian fare stayed true to its mission, but with True South, he created a new menu of better than bar food for the neighborhood clientele.
It took a while to land on which Southern sandwiches to feature, George says. The Nashville hot chicken was a must, with a hefty fried cutlet drizzled with cayenne oil and slaw on a brioche bun. There’s a version of the Derby sandwich from Louisville. It has layers of turkey and crispy bacon dressed with creamy Mornay sauce between thick slices of toast.
Beth D’Addono |
FORK + CENTER
San Sebastian spread
WALK INTO CERTAIN TAVERNS in Spain, especially in Basque Country, and no menu is necessary. All of the tempting offerings are on display, ready to pluck off platters in the manner of a cocktail party.
These are pintxos, a style of tapas served in bite-sized portions or slightly bigger, and often served on skewers (the term pintxos references the stick).
That’s the inviting sight greeting diners at Plates Bar & Restaurant in the Warehouse District for a new summer series now underway.
The restaurant, known for its regular menu of small plates, calls these casual events San Sebastian Nights, in honor of the Basque culinary capital.
The pay-one-price ticket ($60) includes self-serve access to tables of pintxos and other tapas through the evening, which runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
From Miami, there’s a Cuban, and a chicken-fried steak from Texas is served, not as a platter, but on Texas toast. Of course, from Memphis, there’s a sandwich tribute to the King, a mash up of banana, peanut butter and bacon on toasted white bread. From Louisiana, there’s a shrimp po-boy. South Carolina inspires a tasty grilled chicken, bacon and pimiento cheese sandwich on a brioche bun. There’s a half-pound True South burger that cuts across all state lines.
The bar’s former dark cave interior was spruced up with new green paint and bling-encrusted light and fan fixtures, with new windows installed in the front of the building. The worn carpeting on the stage was ripped up, leaving a plywood floor on the bandstand. Where DMac’s only had a couple of TVs, there are now 11 flatscreens for watching sports action.
Hospitality, another hallmark of the South, is served in extra helpings by a friendly staff. There are
Southern drinks, too — like the potent Razorback made with spiced rum, vodka, amaretto and coffee liqueur. New Orleans contributes a Sazerac, but there’s also an Alabama slammer made with Southern Comfort and a bourbon mint julep from Kentucky. There’s a 4-7 p.m. happy hour Monday through Friday with half off well drinks and $2 off all drinks.
The music program is slowly ratcheting up, Joel says.
“We want to get the artists who fit our vision,” he adds.
Patrons should expect a mix of blues and Southern and classic rock. There usually won’t be a cover charge, Joel says. Danny Alexander’s Monday night blues residence is back, drawing its past crowd of regulars.
“He played back here on April 27 for the first time back,” Joel says. “It was like a reunion. Everybody was so happy to see him back on the stage.”
Drinks are sold separately, and the bar has specials on Spanish wine, including a few poured from the porron, a glass decanter with a narrow spout that aerates the crisp, white Txakolinas and other Spanish wines.
The first edition saw a varied spread of traditional Spanish flavors, including jamon and Manchego cheese, boquerones (the sour marinated anchovies) on crusty toasts, pan con tomate (the ubiquitous Spanish tomato bread), squid stuffed with chorizo, piquillo peppers stuffed with paella, grilled octopus skewers and more as chef Ferrel Harrison and his crew kept refreshing the platters.
The restaurant’s full menu also is available during the events, with larger dishes and tapas, with many blending Spanish and Louisiana influences.
George DeCastro runs the kitchen at True South.
PHOTO BY MADDIE SPINNER / GAMBIT
A San Sebastian spread at Plates.
PHOTO BY IAN MCNULTY / THE TIMES- PICAYUNE
The restaurant plans to host these San Sebastian Nights on the last Wednesday of the month, at least through the summer. Tickets are available via opentable.com (look under “experiences”). — Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune Tamale central
ONE OF THE DISTINCTIVE QUALITIES of proper po-boy bread is its ability to turn a hamper of fried seafood or ladles of gravy into comprehensible sandwiches without immediately falling apart.
I wondered, though, would this wonder of a bread meet its match when it comes to New Orleans-style hot tamales?
The answer can be found at Guillory’s Deli & Tamales, a workaday lunchroom for po-boys, fried chicken and of course, hot tamales, well-hidden on a residential block in Metairie, two blocks off Airline Drive.
There was a time in New Orleans when hot tamales were as commonplace as bar snacks as chicken wings are today. They were invariably of a
type, bearing only superficial resemblance to the fat tamales of Mexico and Central American traditions.
This is the regional style — cork-sized plugs of ground beef, cornmeal and cayenne, simmered in an oily slurry of drippings and tomato sauce. Instead of corn husks or banana leaves, they’re wrapped in paper.
To the uninitiated, they’re about as visually appealing as a half-finished cigar left out in the rain. But they are filling, spicy, decadent, and, for plenty of New Orleans people, evocative with taste memory.
Guillory’s is a suitably old-fashioned place to rediscover this increasingly rare regional flavor.
Few are likely to just stumble upon it. But just look for all the work vans and craftsmen trucks parked near it. These folks know where they’re going for lunch, and some have been coming here for a long time.
The Guillory family opened up shop here as a grocery and meat market in 1972. Sandwiches slowly joined the rotation, and the family’s next generation, the Gauthier brothers — Mike,
Peter and Wayne — have maintained it as a throwback for local comfort food.
Between a cooler of Barq’s longnecks on ice and trays of Hubig’s Pies, Guillory’s still stocks loaves of Bunny Bread and jugs of milk for the neighbors (and beer for anyone who wants something stronger than the Barq’s). There’s still a massive old butcher block visible in the kitchen, its blocky surface wavy from decades of use.
Wayne once ran Whitey’s pool hall, a block down Derbigny Street, where he first started serving hot tamales at the bar, using his father’s old family recipe. These found a home at the deli as a plate lunch and eventually made the leap to po-boy filling.
Unwrapping a tamale or two puts enough oil on the hands to turn a stack of napkins into an abstract finger painting. But unpeeled and packed into a Leidenheimer loaf, they look a little like meatballs — only more oily and spicy.
To gild this greasy lily, the po-boy is dressed with chili gravy and shredded cheddar (only partially melted by the chili).
Eating this po-boy is a little like having a French dip that someone has already dipped. It is spicy and decadent. I would never want to meet the hangover that could stand up to it.
The fried chicken at Guillory’s is something of a marvel. It is served more-or-less instantly, before I’d even filled my iced tea, in one case. Yet there’s no evidence of the heat lamp. It remains crispy and juicy, and leftovers are still appealing in the fridge hours after lunch.
Boudin balls and meat pies are listed as side items, though these are more like snacks to grab for the road when something “lighter” than a tamale plate sounds right.
On a menu of plate lunches that still includes liver and onions, there are more house specialties, like the “hots delight,” a hot sausage po-boy with onions and jalapeno rings.
If this fire-breathing bundle of spice was the creation of some Gen Z pop-up, it would probably go viral. Instead, it’s just another oddity the regulars know at this low-key backstreet joint. — Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune
Shelley Ingram
Professor by Will Coviello
SHELLEY INGRAM GREW UP IN A SMALL TOWN IN MISSISSIPPI and often ate food made at local gas stations in an area without many restaurants.” After attending LSU, she studied folklore and literature at the University of Missouri. She’s spent the last 15 years teaching at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She and professors Casey Kayser from the University of Arkansas and Constance Bailey from Georgia State University compiled the recently released “Get It While It’s Hot: Gas Station, Roadside and Convenience Cuisine in the U.S. South.” It includes her piece on gas stations in the fiction of Jesmyn Ward and Attica Locke, as well as articles and interviews about road-side food, and a landscape of both unique destinations and homogenizing chains and commercialism. The book is published by LSU Press, and more information is available at lsupress.com.
How did you get interested in writing about food and foodways?
SHELLEY INGRAM: Being from Mississippi and the South, and then moving to the Midwest, food became an important topic of conversation. It became clear food is something we all want to talk about all the time. People love to confess their food. The first folklore class I taught was about food and foodways, and it just took off from there. There’s a great book by Harry Crews. It’s called “A Childhood: The Biography of a Place.” It’s about a few years of his very young years growing up in South Georgia. Food is all through it. It’s so clear how important food is to his sense of identity and how he came to be who he was. You start noticing that everywhere.
I grew up in a small town in Mississippi, and me and one of my co-editors, Casey, she also grew up eating at gas stations. In my hometown, that was the only place there was to get food. We didn’t have fast food restaurants when I was young. The gas station was where you got hot food. She had the same experience. One day, she shared a southern gas station food meme and was like, “We should write about this.”
It opens so many ideas about all of the odd places we find food but where people make it work. We knew this was something that people hadn’t
really taken that seriously before. In academia, foodways scholars hadn’t talked about gas station food much. There’s a picture book by Kate Medley. We had seen a few things. Nola.com did the “where are your favorite gas stations to eat?” So I spent days on the Facebook post reading through the comments. People have begun to talk about gas station food. We thought we could bring a lot to this as academics. That’s why we entered the conversation.
A lot of times in academic conversations, when people talk about gas station food, it’s negatively. It’s about how there are food deserts, and how it’s not good food, it’s not nourishing. We wanted to say there are other things happening in these spaces. It’s not just negative. These are important spaces for communities.
The book gets into the collision of commerce and homogenization versus the actual personal and unique aspects of these businesses.
I: From the early days of gas stations, there was this same tension. It’s nothing new. Gas stations, because they were new, they wanted people to recognize it as a gas station. Homogenization of the space is built into what the space is. They want people to feel safe because they are stopping (there). This is a place that could feel unsafe because it’s a place you don’t know.
People felt that gas and cars were dangerous. There was a safety issue. It was important to have something recognizable — that looked familiar yet at the same time was unique to the brand.
We interviewed Stephanie Stuckey, whose grandfather created Stuckey’s, and that’s how he felt. He wanted places to be recognizable and yet unique.
The thing that we found was that, yes, there is this homogenized, familiar feel to it, but we make the argument that that’s not always a bad thing. If you’re someone who deals with anxiety, you’re displaced, you don’t know where you are. There is something comforting in a space that looks familiar. At the same time, they still have this unique regional or local flavor. You find that in the hot food section.
There are gas stations off the interstate, but the vast majority of gas stations are not off the interstate. They’re in small towns. They all have their unique thing. You go to this place for chicken on a stick, you go to this place for the shrimp po-boy. They may sell BP gas one day, and then Shell the next, and then Exxon. But they’re still locally owned and locally sourced, and locals work there.
One of the ways we push that is to focus on the actual places in the communities in which they live. What we found out is that even though you see these “top 10 places to eat” or a “gas station guide,” even with all of this, the majority of the people eating in these places are locals. That’s really important to show.
The book also looks at the broader context of what shaped foodways along roads, like how Victor Green’s “The Negro Motorist Green Book” provided Black travelers with information about where they could go safely during segregation.
I: Gas stations are places that are full of anti-Black surveillance. Surveillance is so important at gas stations. What may be familiar for some drivers may be not familiar for other drivers. We wanted to be clear about that. We wanted to bring those perspectives. You can’t talk about gas stations, you can’t talk about travel in the South and not talk about the “Green Book.”
The New Deal also was very important, and the weather in the South was important to why we have food at gas stations, but I would argue that 100% the “Green Book” was one of the reasons we have it.
One of the things one person said is you don’t fry gizzards at home anymore. These places sometimes have food you don’t make at home. People really fetishized Southern food and Louisiana food in the same way. But for most people, it’s just what they eat. When we sit down where I live in Lafayette, people make gumbo all the time. It’s what they want to eat. It’s not like I am going to make this gumbo and show all the world I’m this authentic blah blah blah.
The freedom (of the road) is complicated. The train offered freedom, but not for everyone. The road also offered freedom, but not for everyone. It’s race, it’s gender, it’s class. There are a lot of things that are complicated that are bound into the road.
We wanted to make sure the book wasn’t just a celebration of these spaces. There’s a lot of that in there, but we wanted to deal with the thornier issues.
One person went up to a person (working) in a gas station that he bought food from, and he asked, “How does it feel?” And she said, “It’s my damn job.”
We talked about what that meant. We talked a lot about community. For some people, it’s community, and for some people, it’s like, “No, you’re not actually my family.” We really liked how so many of our contributors wrote about experiences of belonging where they otherwise felt excluded from.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY LSU PRESS
PROVIDED BY LSU PRESS
Out to Eat is an index of Gambit contract advertisers. Unless noted, addresses are for New Orleans and all accept credit cards. Updates: Email willc@gambitweekly.com or call (504) 483-3106.
3rd Block Depot — 316 Chartres St., (504) 552-4095; 3rdblockdepot.com — The menu ranges from seafood and sausage gumbo and Gulf shrimp ceviche to smashburgers and steaks. Brunch brings crab cake Benedict with hollandaise on an English muffin. Reservations available. Breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Acropolis Cuisine — 3841 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 888-9046; acropoliscuisine.com — The menu of classic Greek dishes includes souvlaki, gyros and pita wraps, spanakopita, hummus and Greek salads. Moussaka has layers of eggplant, potatoes, zucchini, ground beef and bechamel. No reservations. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Angelo Brocato’s — 214 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-1465; angelobrocatoicecream. com — This Mid-City sweet shop serves its own gelato in flavors like praline, salted caramel and tiramisu, as well as Italian ices in flavors like lemon, strawberry and mango. There also are cannolis, biscotti, fig cookies, tiramisu, macaroons and coffee drinks. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $ Annunciation — 1016 Annunciation St., (504) 568-0245; annunciationrestaurant.com — Gulf fish Capri includes artichokes, crawfish, tomatoes and capers. There also are oysters, seafood pasta dishes, salads, steaks, lamb chops and desserts like bananas Foster bread pudding and lemon icebox tart. Reservations recommended. Dinner Thu.-Mon. $$$ Audubon Clubhouse — 6500 Magazine St., (504) 558-1200; audubonclubhouse.com — The menu by Dickie Brennan and Co. includes crabmeat cheesecake, shrimp remoulade, fried oysters, burgers, sandwiches and more. Shrimp Tchefuncte combines house-made andouille, mushrooms, popcorn rice and Creole meuniere sauce. Outdoor seating available. Reservations recommended. Brunch, lunch and dinner daily. $$$ Banana Blossom — 500 9th St., Gretna, (504) 500-0997; 504bananablossom. com — There are traditional Thai dishes like pad thai, green curry, pineapple fried rice, drunken noodles and coconut shrimp as well as original creations. Beef rib Chiang Mai features a slow-braised beef rib with yellow curry, egg noodles, pickled mustard greens, cilantro and chili oil. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ Boil & Barrel — 900 Harrison Ave., (504) 3322645; boilandbarrel.com — The menu includes dishes like barbecue shrimp, char-broiled oysters, boiled crawfish, seafood platters and roast beef po-boys. B&B fruit de mer includes shrimp, mussels and crawfish tossed with spaghetti in San Marzano tomato sauce. The bar offers a long list of bourbons and whiskies. Outdoor seating available. Reservations available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$$
Budsi’s Authentic Thai — 1760 N. Rampart St., (504) 381-4636; budsisthai.com —
Chef Budsaba Mason prepares dishes from her native Issan region of Thailand and other popular Thai dishes like papaya salad, grilled pork shoulder, larb, khao soi, pad thai and red curry. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$
Chef Ron’s Gumbo Stop — 2309 N. Causeway Blvd., Metairie, (504) 835-2022; gumbostop. com — The Gumbo Stop has several gumbo
$ — average dinner entrée under $10
$$ $11-$20
$$$ — $20-up
varieties including chicken and sausage gumbo and seafood gumbo with shrimp, crab and crawfish. The menu also has boudin balls, Bayou shrimp scampi, crawfish etouffee and fried shrimp po-boys. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $$
The Commissary — 634 Orange St., (504) 274-1850; thecommissarynola.com — Dickie Brennan’s Commissary supplies his other restaurant kitchens and also has a dine-in menu and prepared foods to go. A smoked turkey sandwich is served with bacon, tomato jam, herbed cream cheese, arugula and herb vinaigrette on honey oat bread. The menu includes dips, salads, sandwiches, boudin balls, fried oysters and more. No reservations. Outdoor seating available. Lunch Tue.-Sat. $$
The Country Club — 634 Louisa St., (504) 9450742; thecountryclubneworleans.com — The Bywater restaurant and pool has a menu of crab beignets, truffle mac and cheese, shrimp and grits, burgers and more. Seared redfish is served with kale, toasted chickpeas, sesame seeds, chili crisp and whipped tahini. Outdoor seating available. Reservations recommended. Lunch, brunch and dinner daily. $$$ Delacroix Restaurant — 1 Poydras St., (504) 655-9002; delacroixrestaurant.com
With views overlooking the Mississippi River, the restaurant serves a mix of South Louisiana dishes like smoked duck gumbo, crawfish bisque, shrimp Creole, blackened redfish and crawfish étouffée. Drum amandine is served with green beans and stewed potatoes. Reservations available. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Desire Oyster Bar — Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon St., (504) 5860300; sonesta.com/desireoysterbar — A menu full of Gulf seafood includes oysters served raw on the half-shell or char-broiled with with Parmesan, garlic and herbs. The menu also includes po-boys, gumbo, blackened fish, fried seafood platters and more. Reservations recommended. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$
Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House — 144 Bourbon St., (504) 522-0111; bourbonhouse. com — There’s a seafood raw bar with raw and char-broiled oysters, fish dip, crab fingers, shrimp and more. Redfish “on the half-shell” is cooked skin-on and served with crab-boiled potatoes, frisee and lemon buerre blanc. The bar offers a wide selection of bourbon and whiskies. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse — 716 Iberville St., (504) 522-2467; dickiebrennanssteakhouse.com — The menu includes a variety of steaks, plus seared Gulf fish, lobster pasta, barbecue shrimp and more. A 6-ounce filet mignon is served with fried oysters, creamed spinach, potatoes and bearnaise. Reservations recommended. Dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$
Domenica — 123 Baronne St., (504) 6486020; domenicarestaurant.com — The Italian restaurant offers a mix of wood-fired Napolitano-style pizzas and house-made pastas. Appetizers include various salumi and cheese boards, antipasti, roasted cauliflower and more. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Don’s Seafood — 4801 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 888-1555;
donsseafoodonline.com — The seafood options range from char-broiled oysters to seafood gumbo, fried shrimp and catfish platters and stuffed flounder. The menu also has rib-eye steaks. Reservations accepted for large parties. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Elizabeth’s Restaurant — 601 Gallier St., (504) 944-9272; elizabethsrestaurantnola. com — Elizabeth’s is known for its signature praline bacon, and the menu also includes boudin balls, shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles and eggs Florentine. Outdoor seating available. Reservations accepted for parties of 10 or more. Breakfast and lunch daily. $$ Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity.com — The Cajun Cuban is stuffed with roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard. The eclectic menu also includes char-grilled oysters, sandwiches, burgers, pizza, fried seafood platters, pasta, salads and more. Delivery available. Reservations accepted for large parties. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ King Brasserie & Bar — Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, 501 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 324-3000; kingbrasserieandbar.com — The restaurant’s menu is inspired by the cuisine of the Riviera and southern France. There are dishes like steak frites and bouillabaisse as well as blackened Gulf fish and barbecue shrimp and oysters. Reservations recommended. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Legacy Kitchen’s Craft Tavern — 700 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 613-2350; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes oysters, flatbreads, burgers, sandwiches, salads and sharable plates like NOLA Tot Debris. A slow-cooked pulled pork barbecue sandwich is served with coleslaw on a brioche bun. Reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ Legacy Kitchen Steak & Chop — 91 Westbank Expressway, Gretna, (504) 513-2606; legacykitchen.com — The selection of steaks and chops includes filet mignon, bone-in rib-eye, top sirloin and double pork chops and a la carte toppings include bearnaise, blue cheese and sauteed crabmeat. There also are burgers, salads, pasta, seafood entrees, char-broiled oysters and more. Reservations accepted. Outdoor seating available. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$ Luke — 333 St. Charles Ave., (504) 378-2840; lukeneworleans.com — The raw bar offers oysters, boiled shrimp, cured tuna, smoked trout dip and more. The menu has dishes like shrimp and grits, crab omelets, crawfish etouffee and steak frites. Reservations encouraged. Breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner daily. $$$ Lyons Corner — 537 Gravier St., (504) 5270006; lyonscornernola.com — The eclectic menu includes Cajun prawns, bang-bang fried oysters, chicken sandwiches, salads and more. In the morning, there are breakfast empanadas, muffins, croissants, scones, beignets and more. Delivery and takeout available. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ Mikimoto — 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 488-1881; mikimotosushi.com — The menu of Japanese cuisine includes sushi, signature rolls, tempura fried items, udon noodles, teriyaki, salads and more.The South Carrollton roll includes tuna tataki, avocado, snow crab, green onion and wasabi roe. Reservations accepted. Delivery available. Lunch Sun.-Fri., dinner daily. $$
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Mosca’s — 4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, (504) 436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com — This family-style eatery serves Italian dishes and specialties including shrimp Mosca, baked oysters Mosca and spaghetti bordelaise and chicken cacciatore. Chicken a la grands is sauteed with garlic, rosemary, Italian herbs and white wine. Reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Sat. Cash only. $$$ Mother’s Restaurant — 401 Poydras St., (504) 523-9656; mothersrestaurant. net — This counter-service spot serves po-boys dressed with sliced cabbage like the Famous Ferdi filled with ham, roast beef and debris. Creole favorites include jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice and more. Breakfast is available all day. Delivery available. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ Orleans Grapevine Wine Bar & Bistro — 720 Orleans Ave., (504) 523-1930; orleansgrapevine.com — The wine bar offers a selectoin of cheese boards and appetizers. Creole pasta combines shrimp and andouille in tomato cream sauce. Reservations accepted for large parties. Outdoor seating available. Dinner Thu.-Sun. $$ Pascal’s Manale — 1838 Napoleon Ave., (504) 895-4877; pascalsmanale.com — This Creole-Italian spot invented New Orleansstyle barbecue shrimp, and the menu also includes seafood gumbo, crab cakes, oysters and Italian-style pasta dishes. There’s also an oyster bar. Reservations recommended. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $$$ Peacock Room — Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, 501 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 324-3073; peacockroomnola.com — At brunch, braised short rib grillades are served over grits with mushrooms, a poached egg and shaved truffle. The dinner menu has oysters, salads, pasta, shrimp and grits, a burger, cheese plates and more. Reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Mon., brunch Sun. $$ Pizza Domenica — 4933 Magazine St., (504) 301-4978; pizzadomenica.com — Pizza is the focus of this offshoot of the Italian restaurant Domenica. There also are meatballs, roasted cauliflower and house-made pastas. No reservations. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Restaurant August — 301 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 299-9777; restaurantaugust. com — The fine dining restaurant serves Creole and contemporary dishes featuring foie gras, Gulf fish, duck and more. Gnocchi are served with crab, summer truffles and Parmesan. Reservations recommended.
Dinner Sun.-Fri., lunch Fri. $$$
Rivershack Tavern — 3449 River Road, Jefferson, (504) 834-4938; rivershacktavern.com — This tavern along the levee offers a casual menu of roast beef po-boys, burgers, wraps, fried shrimp platters, catfish and gumbo. A country fried steak is served with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables and salad. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner daily. $$ Shaya — 4213 Magazine St., (504) 891-4213; shayarestaurant.com — The Mediterranean and Middle Eastern menu includes dishes like hummus, falafel, kebabs, grilled chicken and wood-oven pita bread. A chicken schnitzel sandwich is dressed with little gem lettuce, pickles and harissa mayonnaise on sesame brioche bread. Outdoor seating available. Reservations recommended. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$
Stingray’s Restaurant & Bar — 1303 W. Esplanade Ave., Kenner, (504) 443-4040; stingraysseafoodrestaurant.com — Zydeco fish is stuffed with crabmeat dressing and topped with shrimp cream sauce. The menu also includes fried shrimp and oyster platters, grilled redfish, crabmeat jalapeños, and boudin egg rolls. Reservations available. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$ Tableau — 616 St. Peter St., (504) 934-3463; tableaufrenchquarter.com — The menu features traditional and creative Creole dishes. Pasta bouillabaisse features squid ink mafaldine, little neck clams, Gulf shrimp, squid, seafood broth, rouille and herbed breadcrumbs. Outdoor seating available on the balcony. Reservations recommended. Dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Thu.-Sun. $$$ Tacklebox — 817 Common St., (504) 827-1651; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes raw and char-broiled oysters, seafood platters, po-boys, fried chicken, crab and corn bisque and more. Redfish St. Charles is served with garlic-herb butter, asparagus, mushrooms and crawfish cornbread. Reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ Tavi — 330 N. New Hampshire St., (985) 200-2045; tavirestaurant.com — The menu combines dishes from the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean. There’s hummus, falafel, kebabs, flatbreads, grilled fish, lamb burgers and more. Reservations accepted. Lunch and dinner daily. $$$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 733-3803; 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; 4218 Magazine St., (504) 894-8554; 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 234-9420; theospizza. com — A Marilynn Pota Supreme pie is topped with mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, hamburger, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions. There also are salads, sandwiches, wings, breadsticks and more. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily. $ The Vintage — 3121 Magazine St., (504) 324-7144; thevintagenola.com — There’s a full coffee drinks menu and baked goods and beignets, as well as a full bar. The menu has flatbreads, cheese boards, small plates and a pressed vegetable sandwich with avocado, onions, arugula, red pepper and pepper jack cheese. No reservations. Delivery and outdoor seating available. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ Vyoone’s — 412 Girod St., (504) 381-4384; vyoone.com — The French-Creole menu includes dishes like escargot, crawfish beignets, crab cakes, shrimp pasta, duck a l’orange and lamb chops. Reservations recommended. Dinner Wed.-Sun. $$$ Willa Jean — 611 O’Keefe Ave., (504) 5097334; willajean.com — The bakery and cafe serves biscuits with honey butter, cookies, pastries, breakfast sandwiches, shrimp and grits and more. Avocado toasts are made with house-baked ciabatta topped with tomatillo, spiced pepitas, pickled onion, cilantro and chipotle aioli. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Breakfast and lunch daily. $$ Yinzer’s Amazing Cheesesteaks — 1514 Delachaise St., (412) 860-6801; yinzersamazingcheesesteaks.com —There are classic and original cheesesteaks filled with steak, chicken and more. Diners can opt for toppings like
mushrooms, onions, banana peppers and more. Delivery available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Wed.-Sun. $
so they appealed to rock bands and others for funding, and they took a few shortcuts in filming. Released in 1975, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” become a comedy classic. In 2011, Eric Idle adapted the film into a stage musical, and it also follows the King Arthur, Lancelot, Robin and Knights of the Round Table on their quest. There are many familiar bits from the movie, as well as references to other musicals and medieval tales. The touring Broadway show comes to Saenger Theatre June 2-7. Showtimes vary. Tickets $39-$169.65 via saengernola.com.
‘Once’
“Once” is a romantic musical based on the movie of the same name starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. In it, an aspiring musician moonlights, busking on the streets of Dublin. He meets a Czech woman who wants to be a singer. They try to write songs together and a romance blossoms. The show features songs written by Hansard and Irglova, including “Falling Slowly.” Conner Wilson directs the show at Le Petit Theatre. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, and 3 p.m. Sunday, June 7. There also is a preview show Thursday, June 4, and performances continue June 11-21. Tickets $27-$112 via lepetittheatre.com.
Jim Lauderdale and the Game Changers
Nashville singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale is known for writing songs for George Strait and his own prolific recording, stretching from bluegrass to country and Americana. He just released the bluegrass project “The Birds Know” with his Po’ Ramblin’ Boys band. He’s joined by his Game Changers band for this show at 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 3, at Chickie Wah Wah. $26.96 via chickiewahwah.com.
Michael Carbonaro
New York magician and actor Michael Carbonaro has appeared on “Law & Order: SVU,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and other shows. His live magic show features tricks, sleight of hand, audience participation and improv, and it’s family-friendly. At 6 p.m. Friday, June 5, at The Fillmore. Tickets start at $64 via ticketmaster.com.
Lucy Darling
Canadian magician and comedian Carisa Hendrix has created many
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
characters for her magic shows. One of them is Lucy Darling, a wisecracking vagabond performer and bon vivant charmer who looks like a throwback Hollywood starlet like Mae West or Zsa Zsa Gabor. When a Lucy Darling bit with a lot of audience interaction and improvisation went well, Hendrix focused on that persona. The touring magic and variety show includes tricks and sideshow bits including fire eating. At 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 5, at Mahalia Jackson Theater. Tickets $48.19-$152.50 via mahaliajacksontheater.com.
Bayou Fest
The Sankofa Community Development Corporation has been developing a wetland park as a nature and recreation spot in the Lower 9th Ward. The festival debuts the most recent addition of wooden boardwalk to the 1.5 miles of nature trails and features live music, games, nature activities, kayaking, fishing and more at the Sankofa Wetland Park at 6401 Florida Ave. At 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, June 6. Free admission. Visit sankofanola.com for information.
Shadowgrass
The progressive bluegrass band has become popular with jam band fans for covering Grateful Dead songs and Phish songs. But the band also dips into classic country songs. It’s latest album is 2024’s “All That Will.” At 9 p.m. Friday, June 5, at Chickie Wah Wah. Tickets $26.96 via chickiewahwah.com.
The Resurrection
The electronic music fest focuses on dubstep and riddim with shows at Republic NOLA and other venues. Performers include Midnight T, Bommer, MAD DUBZ B2B VKTM, 7L, USAYBFLOW, Beastboi, Finnuh and more. Shows run Thursday, June 4, through Sunday, June 7, and the closing show includes a crawfish boil. Find single day tickets and information at republicnola.com.
Dave Jordan and the NIA
Singer-Songwriter Dave Jordan is backed by his NIA band at a Free Fridays show at Tipitina’s on June 5. Cardboard Cowboy opens at 9 p.m. Admission is first come, first served. Find details at tipitinas.com.
Rela xonour TROPICAL CO URTYAR D OR SIDEWALK S EATING with afresh cocktail , wine or dinner!
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E A N S AR E A, VISIT CALENDAR.GAMBITWEEKLY.COM
To learn more about adding your event to the music calendar, please email listingsedit@gambitweekly.com
MONDAY 1
ALLWAYS LOUNGE — Betsy Propane & The Accessories, 7 pm
APPLE BARREL — Mark Appleford, 6 pm
BACCHANAL — Byron Asher, 6 pm
BJ’S LOUNGE — Red Beans & Blues w/ Dick Deluxe & Friends, 9 pm
BUFFA’S — David Doucet, 8 pm
DBA — Secret Six Jazz Band, 6 pm; Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet, 9:30 pm
DOS JEFES — John Fohl, 8:30 pm
GASA GASA — Dearly Beloved Mass Wedding + Dance Party, 6 pm; Femmes, Thems, and EDM, 11 pm
LE BON TEMPS ROULÉ VetJams, 7 pm
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL — Victor Campbell, 6 pm; The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, 8 pm
MAPLE LEAF BAR — George Porter Jr. Trio, 7 pm; 10 pm
NOLA BREWING & PIZZA CO — Bluegrass Pickin' Party, 7 pm
POORBOYS Gumbolaya, 9 pm
SATURN BAR — BC Coogan, 8:30 pm
SNUG HARBOR — Charmaine Neville Band, 7:30 pm; 9:30 pm
SPOTTED CAT — Jenavieve & The Winding Boys, 2 pm; Dominick Grillo & The Frenchmen Street All-Stars, 6 pm; Aurora Nealand, 9:30 pm
TRUE SOUTH — The Danny Alexander Blues Jam, 8 pm
TUESDAY 2
AUDUBON CLUBHOUSE — Blake Amos, 4:30 pm
BAR REDUX — STUMPS & Co., 9 pm
BJ'S LOUNGE BYWATER — Bruisey's Bottoms Up Open Mic, 9 pm
BUFFA’S — Alex McMurray, 7 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL — Super-Most-FantasticBlues-N-Such-Jam, 7 pm
DBA — Kid Chocolate + the Free POC, 9:30 pm
DOS JEFES — Kris Tokarski, 8:30 pm
HOLY DIVER — The Amazing Henrietta, 8 pm
HOUSE OF BLUES — Yung Bleu, 7 pm
JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — The Sam Lobley Trio, 7:30 pm
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL — Big Joe Kennedy, 6 pm; Joe Lastie’s New Orleans Sound, 8 pm
NO DICE — Cowardboy, 9 pm
THE RABBIT HOLE — Rebirth Brass Band, 10 pm
SAENGER THEATRE Monty Python’s Spamalot, 7:30 pm
SATURN BAR Luke Schneider + Neal Todten + Benny Divine & Lucas Bogner Duo, 9 pm
SNUG HARBOR Blue Tang People, 7:30 pm; 9:30 pm
ST. ROCH TAVERN — Hairaoke: Haircuts & Karaoke, 8 pm
VAUGHAN’S LOUNGE — Cuttin’ Up with Lil Prince and the Youngbloods, 10 pm
WEDNESDAY 3
BACCHANAL — Jesse Morrow, 6 pm
BJ'S LOUNGE BYWATER Karaoke at the Lounge w/ Sam Cahill, 9 pm
BLUE NILE — Kota Dosa, 9 pm
BMC — Armando Leduc, 6 pm; Felipe Antonio Music, 9 pm
BUFFA’S Dusty Santamaria, 7 pm
CAFÉ ISTANBUL — Songs For The People with Giulia Coba, Matt Wilson, J.Mix & Sariyah Idan, 7 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL — Jam-ilton, 7:30 pm
CHICKIE WAH WAH Jim Lauderdale & The Game Changers, 8 pm
DBA Stephen Walker N’em, 6 pm; The Next Level Band, 9:30 pm
DOS JEFES — Joe Krown, 8:30 pm
GASA GASA — A Million Ways//Oh, Hooray//Hey, Thanks, 8 pm
JAZZ PLAYHOUSE Funkin’ It Up with Big Sam, 7:30 pm
THE LITTLE HOUSE Wednesdays on the Point ft. Meryl Zimmerman, 6 pm
NO DICE — Crush Diamond + Loose Helmet + The Pause, 9 pm
SAENGER THEATRE — Monty Python’s Spamalot, 7:30 pm
SATURN BAR — Daft Punk Line Dancing with Giddy Up Two Step, 5:30 pm; Junia with Lapis + Victoria, 9 pm
THURSDAY 4
ALLWAYS LOUNGE — Van Ella Bordella, 7 pm
APPLE BARREL Bubbles Brown, 6 pm
BACCHANAL David Sigler, 6 pm
BANKS ST. BAR — Bimbo-Oke, Karaoke!, 8 pm
BJ’S LOUNGE Tuba Skinny, 9 pm
BLUE NILE — Irvin Mayfeld’s Music Church, 9 pm
BMC — John Lisi & Delta Funk, 6 pm; J.A.M. Brass Band, 9 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL — Armani Smith & Soul Ties, 10 pm
CHICKIE WAH WAH Willis Alan Ramsey with Paul Sanchez, 8 pm
DBA Palmetto Bug Stompers, 6 pm; Vegas Cola, 9:30 pm
DEUTSCHES HAUS — Broadway Memories, 7 pm
DOS JEFES Tangiers Combo, 8:30 pm
GASA GASA — Chris Duarte, 8 pm
JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — Brass-AHolics, 7:30 pm
LE BON TEMPS ROULE The Soul Rebels, 11 pm
LIVIN SWELL 4211 RECORDING
STUDIOS Thursday Night House Party featuring Stooges Brass Band, 8 pm
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL — The New Orleans Catahoulas, 6 pm; Jamil Sharif & His New Orleans Extravaganza, 8 pm
PEACOCK ROOM — Da Lovebirds: Robin Barnes & Pat Casey, 8 pm
ROCK 'N' BOWL Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie, 8 pm
SAINT JOHN Sean Riley & The Water, 4 pm
SATURN BAR — Stargazer & The Lilies + Boma Bango, 9 pm
THREE MARIES — Rick Fletcher, 7 pm
VAUGHAN'S LOUNGE Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet, 10:30 pm
FRIDAY 5
ALLWAYS LOUNGE — PB&J, 7 pm; Bayou Blues Burlesque, 8 pm
BACCHANAL — Willie Green, 7 pm
BJ’S LOUNGE — Slow Motion Cowboys + Andrew Jobin, 9 pm
BLUE NILE Caesar Brothers’ FunkBox, 7:30 pm; Kermit Rufns & The BBQ Swingers, 10 pm; Mikey Ofine (Upstairs), 10 pm
BMC Covertones, 6 pm; Big Mike & The R&B Kings, 9 pm
BROADSIDE A Soulful Summer Night, 8 pm
BUFFA’S — Cole Williams, 8 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL Jamey St. Pierre & The Honeycreepers, 6:30 pm; Higher Heights, 10 pm
CHICKIE WAH WAH — An Evening with Shadowgrass, 9 pm
DBA Michael Watson & The Alchemy, 6 pm; Jourdan Thibodaux, 10 pm
DOS JEFES Sunpie & The Louisiana Sunspots, 9 pm
THE DRAGON’S DEN — $5 Zydeco
Fridays with line dancing and Yung Dex Brass Band, 6 pm
GASA GASA BITEBACK + DAYS OF GRIEF, 7 pm
JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — Trixie Minx’s Burlesque Ballroom ft. Romy Kaye, 7:30 & 9 pm
LE BON TEMPS ROULÉ The Saga Continues, 11 pm
Robin Barnes performs with Pat Casey at the Kimpton Hotel Peacock Room Thursday, June 4 at 8 p.m.
PHOTO PROVIDED ROBIN BARNES
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL — Kid
Chocolate & The Free POC, 3 pm; Victor Campbell’s Son Del Sur, 7 pm
NO DICE — Sam & The Big Boys + The Narrows + Big Leather, 9 pm
PIAZZA D'ITALIA — 2026 Opera in the Piazza, 7 pm
THE RABBIT HOLE Jantsen, 10 pm
ROCK 'N' BOWL — Bucktown Allstars, 8:30 pm
SIBERIA — Keaton Schiller + Hotel Burgundy + Shmoo, 9 pm
TIPITINA’S — Free Fridays Concert Series ft. Dave Jordan & The NIA + Cardboard Cowboy, 9 pm
TWELVE MILE LIMIT — Burris Vinyl Release Listening Party, 7 pm
VAUGHAN’S LOUNGE — Tuba Skinny + New Orleans Jazz Vipers, 8 pm
SATURDAY 6
THE ALLWAYS LOUNGE & CABARET
— The New Orleans High Society HourLive Jazz and Burlesque, 8 pm
APPLE BARREL Smoky Greenwell Blues Band, 10:30 pm
BACCHANAL Pete Olynciw, 7 pm
BJ’S LOUNGE — Eric Johnannson, 9 pm
BLUE NILE — ADO Soul & the Tribe, 7:30 pm; The Soul Rebels, 10 pm
BMC — Andre Lovett Band, 3 pm; Woody’s Rampage, 6 pm; Caesar Brothers, 9 pm
BREEZY’S — LVCD, 7 pm
BUFFA’S Crusty Jugglers, 8 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL — The Rumpshakers, 2 pm; Sunny Side, 6 pm; Zena Moses & Rue Fiya, 10 pm
CHICKIE WAH WAH — Papa Mali Trio with The Jef Miller Band + The Rag Tag Misfts, 8 pm
DBA — Tuba Skinny, 6 pm; The Soul Rebels, 10 pm
DOS JEFES — Betty Shirley, 9 pm
THE FILLMORE French Montana & Max B, 8 pm
GASA GASA Chris Duarte, 9 pm
JAZZ PLAYHOUSE — The Nayo Jones Experience, 7:30 pm; 9 pm
LE BON TEMPS ROULÉ — Trevor Turla, 11 pm
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL Stephen Walker N’em, 3 pm; Gerald French Trio, 7 pm; Mahogany Hall Jazz Band ft. Kid Chocolate and Midnight Burlesque, 9:30 pm
MUSIC BOX VILLAGE — Loose Cattle + Louis Michot & Swamp Magic, 7 pm
ORPHEUM THEATER — Orchestra Noir, 8 pm
ROCK 'N' BOWL — The Benchwarmers, 9:30 pm
MUSIC
SANTOS — Living Hollow: The Realm Of Agony Tour With Kamikaze Zombie And Necromire, 9 pm
SATURN BAR — Antigravity Magazine
22 Year Anniversary Show, 9 pm
SIBERIA Machine Country with Laughing Torso and Panama Papers, 9 pm
TIPITINA’S Purple Takeover: A Prince Celebration with DJ Soul Sister, 9 pm
THE FILLMORE — French Montana And Max B - Wave Gods Narcos Tour, 7 pm
THE HOWLIN' WOLF Slim KuttaR & Friends, 9 pm
TIPITINA'S — Purple Takeover: A Prince Celebration with DJ Soul Sister , 9 pm
WILD BUSH FARM AND VINEYARD Jazz'n the Vines Featuring Flow Tribe, 6:30 pm
SUNDAY 7
ALLWAYS LOUNGE— Sunday Swing, 6 pm
BACCHANAL— Noah Young, 7 pm
BLUE NILE— Street Legends Brass Band, 9:30 pm
BMC Sierra & The Green Notes, 3 pm; Maurice Cade & ESS, 6 pm; Kim In Da Wind Band, 9 pm
BROADSIDE Chorinho & Samba Jam, 2 pm
BUFFA’S— Johnny Sansone, 7 pm
CAFÉ NEGRIL— John Lisi & The Delta Funk, 5:30 pm; The Next Level Band, 9 pm
CHICKIE WAH WAH— Sunny Sweeney w/ Addison Johnson, 8 pm
DBA Paradise Jazz Band, 6 pm
DOS JEFES Peter Nu, 8 pm
MAHOGANY JAZZ HALL Smoking Time Jazz Club, 2:30 pm; Big Joe Kennedy, 6 pm; Mahogany Hall Swingsters ft. Roderick Paulin, 8 pm
NO DICE— 3 the Hard Way + Kevan Caldwell, 9 pm
OLD ARABI LIGHTHOUSE RECORDS AND BOOKS — Open Mic Night with guest host Donnie Picou of Bas Clas, 6 pmSaturn Bar— Thoas Dollbaum + Lawn + Maddy Kirgo, 9 pm
SIBERIA Haunt + Show N Tell + Dracula, 9 pm
TIGERMEN DEN— K8A with Prince Pauper and DJ Preservation, 6 pm
Staycation ISSUE
MUSIC
World view
by Jake Clapp
THE NATURAL WORLD
FIGURES IN A LOT across Thomas Dollbaum’s “Birds of Paradise.” The New Orleans-based singer-songwriter grew up about 20 minutes north of Tampa, Florida, in a place where the rural starts to overtake the suburban.
As he was writing the songs that would end up on his forthright new album, Dollbaum says he was thinking about a certain time in his life and the intertwining memories of late high school and early college.
“I don’t know if it was completely intentional,” Dollbaum says. “I think my memories are tied a lot to landscape and place and the natural world there. I feel like that just kind of came through when I was writing.”
Dollbaum sets scenes in burnedout sugarcane fields, where high school football players chase rabbits, and among pine trees and lakes. Coyotes, cardinals, waterbirds and scrub jays also make appearances.
On the album, there also are cheap motels, questionable strangers asking for favors and dark highways lit by headlights looking for I-95. Those details paint in songs that will feel familiar to anyone, especially southerners, who came of age in rundown places.
“Birds of Paradise” is out now via Dear Life Records, and Dollbaum and his band play an album release show at 9 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at Saturn Bar. Lawn and Maddy Kirgo open.
The release of “Birds of Paradise” has brought a lot of recent attention to Dollbaum, who moved to New Orleans in 2015 to earn his MFA in creative writing at the University of New Orleans. Dollbaum also works in construction and has his own contractor business.
The release of his first full-length, “Wellswood” in 2022, began to build a buzz for the poet and songwriter, and last year’s acoustic EP, “Drive All Night,” was widely well-received. Now, “Birds of Paradise” has received attention from The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork and profiles by Paste and UPROXX.
After his experiences making “Wellswood” and “Drive All Night,” which took longer than he had expected, Dollbaum wanted to approach his new album with a sense of immediacy. He booked a
recording session with producer and engineer Clay Jones at a studio in Water Valley, Mississippi, and wrote many of the songs on “Birds of Paradise” within a few months. Dollbaum asked a trio of trusted friends to help him bring the songs to life: Ashville-based musician Jake “MJ” Lenderman, who has had a meteoric rise the last few years; Nick Corson, who plays in the New Orleans-based indie rock bands The Convenience and Video Age; and Josh Halper, who has worked with Tommy Prine and Lenderman. Interestingly, each of the musicians typically play guitar, but on “Birds of Paradise,” Corson takes on the bass, Lenderman is on drums and Halper adds a second guitar behind Dollbaum. Together, they learned and tracked “Bird of Paradise” in four days.
“It just felt like we needed to knock it through, and there was just a lot of energy,” Dollbaum says. “It felt like really energetic and fun the whole time … The energy of it feels good.”
With a literary quality, the stories Dollbaum conveys on “Birds of Paradise” are largely fictionalized — although there may be a memory or a friend’s story at the song’s heart — but they sound universal. There’s frustration and heartbreak, grief and stubbornness, and optimism about finally moving on.
Florida “is kind of where my imagination lives, I think,” Dollbaum says. “That’s where I kind of think about things [happening].”
Find “Birds of Paradise” at thomasdollbaum.bandcamp.com. And find Dollbaum on Instagram: @thomasdollbaum.
Thomas Dollbaum
PROVIDED PHOTO BY BEAU PATRICK COULON
BOOKISH TYPES
By Frank A. Longo
32 A&E spinoff of 1998, with “The”
L.A. and S.D.’s
Wanders (about)
-- -Locka (Miami suburb)
Batting game for tykes
61 Poehler of “Moxie” 62 Spoken-word competition 64 Prying tools 66 Battle vestige
69 See 109-Down
70 Mont.’s neighbor to the north
71 “It’s all clear”
72 Dave Barry wrote one for the Miami Herald for 22 years
76 Rights org.
77 A.M. TV program since 1975, for short
Poi plant
79 Very, very
Op-ed pieces
aid in hazy
“After me,” to Louis XV
Childlike paintings, perhaps
in favor
“Big Blue” co.
Plays (with)
Tiny particle 56 With 53-Down, list of
Tiny particle
83 Very special indulgence
Endorsed 86 Frequently, in odes
Before, in odes
Indian dress 92 Net ‘zine
Wolfs down
Holiday tree
Pertains 99 Enter quickly, as a cab
In the hub of
Powerhouse
102 Loan shark
104 The “S” of CBS: Abbr.
Threat ender
109 With 69-Across, just between ourselves
Writer Jong 111 Mont.’s neighbor to the west
Root used in perfumery
113 Lance Bass’ boy band 115 Strip of gear, as a ship 116 Annoy 117 Burros, e.g.
Erté’s style 123 Yiddish cries 125 Ethyl ender
126 Ruby-colored 127 Slender fish
