Voodoo Fest 2008

I can't find it on the Voodoo Fest website or anywhere on nola.com, but billboard.com reports that R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, and Stone Temple Pilots will be headlining this year.

Modern rock titans R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots will headline the 10th Voodoo Music Experience, Billbord.com can reveal. The event will be held Oct. 24-26 at New Orleans' City Park; tickets begin going on sale Friday (May 2).

Also on the bill are the Neville Brothers, making their first appearance at Voodoo Music Experience. Additional local acts set to appear include the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Irving Mayfield's New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and the New Orleans Bingo! Show.

oh man...

Grey

I am FINALLY the owner of the following two t-shirts.





I kind of knew the broad story involving the grey, but not until recently did I fully understand the details of the Grey Ghost and apparently the d-bag this guy is as pointed out by several bloggers. Radtke is like that overzealous fan who thinks his team can do no wrong. How can the NOPD stand by this guy? The New Orleans Police Department, however, condones Radtke’s actions. NOPD often calls him directly to cover graffiti and spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse said they have no intention of charging Radtke with any crimes. However, after this recent Mojo incident New Orleans Police Department spokesman Sgt. Joe Narcisse did not respond to calls for comment.

As Craig at New Orleans MetBlogging put it: "I don’t get it. Far as I can tell, all these gray blocks do is create a new and clearer canvas to be tagged again. Good." (The comments alone in that one are worth reading even 7 months later.)

I have been noticing a new barrage of colors showing up, as displayed in the building at the corner of Washington and Annunciation:

At first I thought maybe they were going to paint that part of the building Mardi Gras colors, but then I saw the same thing popping up in other areas. Who do we chaulk this one up to?

On that note, this has always been a fav of mine, via Humid City:


RIP Crabcakes, what a good kitty.


Other interesting links on the topic that I've stumbled upon in my internet travels:
NOLA Rising Helps Rebuild on YouTube
Grey Ghost Busters on MySpace
momoshowpalace
Fred Radtke - Enemy of New Orleans
whosginnastopfredradtke and so much more to be found on flickr

It's a buyer's market right now

So many people I know are buying houses right now. In the market? How about this tent house, as seen on Craig's List. I love the romantic netting around the bed!

PENIS PANIC

This was just too funny to go without note. My first instinct is that someone should tell these guys that penis size isn't everything, but on second thought, you gentlemen readers should be thankful you don't live in the Congo.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

Penis theft panic hits city...

Tiki Party - at 8 am?!

Strange sighting on my way to work this morning outside of the Ugly Dog.

and



Apparently it's some sort of movie being filmed - there are "No Parking - Filming" signs all around the Ugly Dog. Anyone know what's being filmed?

Happy Earth Day to you!

There is so much going on today! All of the following goings-on give you no excuse to be bored tonight:


Happy Earth Day! Check out this interesting bit on how far Earth Day has come since its grassroots inception in the 1970s.



The Pennsylvania Primary is finally here! Check out the WaPo's 8 Questions About the PA Primary.



Tulane will host LSU tonight starting at 6 pm at beautiful Greer Field at the newly re-done Turchin Stadium.

And, of course, I would be heckling at the baseball game if my baller co-blogger ALTL hadn't scored us tickets to Game 2 of the Hornets vs. Mavs tonight! We'll be those drunk girls in the stands - furiously 'Berrying between plays to check the Tulane and the Pennsylvania scores!

since I wasn't at work Friday...

For Christmas this past year, ALTR gave me a daily calendar that counts down the days until our esteemed leader George W. Bush is out of office. Usually the quotes and pictures give me a little giggle, but the one below left me with an odd feeling that I can't exactly pin point.



I guess I just couldn't bring myself to laugh at the expense of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter.

Sunday afternoon drive

My roommate and I used to often take Sunday afternoon drives. We're not born and bred here, but we love New Orleans and are always curious to see things for ourselves that we hear/read about. Sometimes they are Sunday afternoon strolls. So this morning after a filling breakfast at Betsy's, we found ourselves driving through some projects (well, what's left of them) previously unexplored by us.



The strangest part, to me, was seeing what were people's personal belongings simply piled with the bricks and other parts of the buildings as if they were nothing.




These are the sort of things my bad dreams are made of:



Of course, maybe I'm ignorant, but does all public housing come equipped with directTV?! Every operational complex had multiple satellites on the buildings.

srsly

Sometimes I wonder who these numb nuts are that work for the city government.

Dear Sir/Madam:

The City of New Orleans Parking Violations branch has received a check or money order from you. In order to apply this payment as you intended, we need more information from you.

If you still have the parking citation(s) or notice(s) that prompted you to make this payment, please return them with this letter. If these are not available, please provide as much as possible of the information requested below.

- State/Plate Number
- Ticket Number
- Amount Paid

Really? So I made a mistake in not keeping a copy of every parking ticket I paid, apparently. And seeing how I wrote two checks on the same day, I have no freaking clue what parking ticket this is for. They want to know the amount I paid? Didn't they say in the letter that they received a check or money order? I believe they should provide me with the amount paid. A month has passed since I disbursed payment on a $20 parking ticket and a $40 parking ticket. Besides, can't they read the ticket number on the memo of the check?!

I'm kind of torn, why the hell should I assist the city in giving me a fine when they aren't competent enough to keep ahold of the ticket I enclosed with my check?

I've got another parking violation sitting in my planner waiting to be contested, seeing as my friend gave me permission to block his driveway. Where the hell are the parking nazis on my street when my driveway gets blocked constantly without my permission? I've never seen such a thing, people usually just get towed.