It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

P H Fred used to find things funny. That was back when he was a comedian, writing songs about killing children s toys, and off his meds. Now he s a fully functioning member of society, and about to make millions with his new app, The Freducator. No joke. It s already happening. Spend ten bucks and bump your SAT score up a bunch of points with a simple iPhone app. And it works We ve heard some wild stuff on Happy Hour over the years but this is about as wild as it gets. Oh, and how about this Fred s new CD. It s called Rough dumb crazy sad and blue on which Fred replaces Lou Reed as the singer in Lou s band. This is all true and verifiable Stasia Cymes is just one of those people. You know em when you meet em. Happy, positive, upbeat, fun, loving life. Stasia left a life of rock n roll and kids not her own behind in Seattle to move to New Orleans and turn the town upside down. Having turned the town upside down, Stasia s company, Clear The Clutter, puts it away neatly in boxes. Mikayla makes a welcome return t

You may know Meschiya Lake as the singer and front person of her band Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns. A very different audience knows her as one of the girls on Girls Gone Wild. She s in an episode in New Orelans where Meschiya and her girlfriend are doing what girls do whipping tourists for money. Things get a little out of hand when the "dominatrix type" girlfriend displays her private parts to prove she s a woman, only to find out the person she s flashing is a cop. Then, of course, a riot starts and Meschiya gets arrested for doing what girls do fight cops. Not to detract from the fact that for the other 99.0 of her life Meschiya is a fine singer and is working on a solo album. She does two standout tunes on this show, one original and one penned by Erika "Tuba Skinny" Lewis. Kate Parker doesn t mess around when it comes to getting her point across, either. She met a guy, dated him for two weeks, then presented him with a key to her house, announced she was going to marry him, and changed her care

One theory goes that if Hitler hadn t failed out of art school he wouldn t have become an insane dictator. Then there s a whole other story about shaving pubic hair. And that s just the first few minutes of this extraordinarily strange meeting of a bunch of random folks on a Fall afternoon on Freret Street in Uptown New Orleans. Jackie Sumell masks her simmering anger at pretty much everything in the world from having her name mispronounced to the Capitalist system with sparkling sweet charm. And she s using it with as much patience as she can muster to try, in her own words, to change the world. Darrin Butler grew up in a world of violence and prison culture; the world that Jackie wants to change. Darrin s buddy, the pickpocket, got 24 years inside. He got out a few weeks back and now he s back inside already, this time for credit card fraud. Darrin doesn t seem totally convinced that he should blame "the system" and not his buddy the pickpocket s personal choices. Nick Peate s ex spent years in jail. While

Did you know there was a time in America when you could take your kid to the post office and mail him Lionel Milton was certain it s true, and sure enough it is. Lionel is on top of a lot of stuff, including his business, his art, and his New Orleans lifestyle. Just don t ask him if he s single. Vivian Norris is more certain about her own marital status. She s been in New Orleans 6 weeks, she s getting married and she s settling down. The last few years have seen Vivian living all around the world though exactly where is open to mis interpretation engaged in activities as disparate as making films and founding festivals to screen them. Her latest film is Obama Mama, a documentary about the life of President Obama s mother. Wayfare s Chef Kevin White drops by the Happy Hour table and unveils a slew of new creations, including homemade mozzarella, tuna ceviche on watermelon, and more. Kevin also shares some stories about his life before cooking, when he was Special Ops in the Marines. No kidding. To ensure this

Marie Lovejoy just got back in town from braiding hair in Minneapolis. She also braids hair at Renaissance Festivals and fairs across the country, which she did for a decade before settling down in New Orleans a few years ago. Hair braiding is, according to Marie, not as simple as it might sound it involves an exchange of energy and personal conversation which make no mistake is NOT therapy. If Marie s exchange with Grant about braiding is anything to go by, Marie would make a fabulous tough love therapist She s a talented storyteller and has some insightful tales about life on the road in the circus family style of Renaissance Fair e gypsies. Jonathan Freilich just got back in town too. Jonathan s been in California, in school studying opera. After he banged out a couple of operas in New Orleans in between his gigs with his Naked Orchestra and 40,000 other commitments from live gigging to writing TV and film scores Jonathan decided he needed to know more about what he perceives is a new trend in presenting l

There are plenty of fascinating things to discover about Rob Steinberg among them his major role in the Oscar winning movie 12 Years a Slave and his storied roles in big time TV shows, but for some reason drinks this conversation zeroes in on the gay Puerto Rican guy who showed up after Rob wrecked his car, a French talking pigeon, and Rob s conversation with Bob Marley about music and pot. Because Rob is a fine actor, raconteur, and mimic this is as close as you can humanly get to hanging out with Bob Marley and a French pigeon, though you could probably find a gay Puerto Rican of your own to discuss pants and paints with if you know where to look. Johnny Ray is an equally gifted raconteur and enthusiastic elaborator of the truth, so you can only imagine what it must have been like when Johnny and Rob shared a house after an unfortunate romantic incident in Johnny s life. By day Johnny gets to tell tall stories to tourists about the New Orleans movie biz on his New Orleans Movie Tours which he founded and op

Look up in the sky It s a pelican. It s a plane. No It s Travers Mackel, and he s not up in the sky, he s at Wayfare for Happy Hour. Traver s isn t just an award winning reporter for WDSU. He s also worse at golf than you d expect, being that his father was a professional golfer. But Traver s isn t alone on Happy Hour, he s joined by dancer and performance artist Heather Hansen. And even though Heather looks like she s in her twenties, she wants you to know that you re never too old to dance. Heather also tells us about some gnarly sushi in Japan, and why New Orleans is her Burning Man. And for our musical guests, Darcy and Chris Boye of The Tangle, return to entertain with some great music and some great stories about something we ve all done, sing in the bathroom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andrew takes on the mantle of host, and with Sarah Reagor at his side, they deliver a show that ll have you saying, "Grant who " We ve got a show that is the height of elegance and class, covering opera, film, music, and roller derby all at the fabulous Wayfare. But before we get into all that. I need to ask you one question. What was your first album If it was a combo of U2 s War and Mozart, you d be like Eric Jones. And if you started The Bruised Boutique, the worlds largest roller derby store, you would be Eric Jones. But you re not, so stop living in a fantasy Eric tells us how Boston s music scene is in trouble, and also talks about how roller derby has grown into a legitimate and highly competitive sport. But if you re first album was Green Day s Dookie you d be like Meg Kaul. Meg is a entertainment attorney who can t name names, sorry But Meg is more the just and entertainment attorney in the hottest filming location in America. She s also on the board of the New Orleans Opera. Meg wants you to know ab

When you grow up in communist Bulgaria there s a few things you have to live without. Kiwifruit for one. And bubble wrap. Even today the remnants of Soviet domination hangs over the country to such an extent that still no bubble wrap is available. That s why NOLA garian Boyanna Trayanova, travels with her own supply of bubble wrap when she travels from her home in NOLA to her birthplace Bulgaria. And good thing she did or she would never be playing the giant drum that she wrapped and lugged back after she ran into Max from New York and his friend s mom hooked her up with the drum after Max s friend in New York saw Boyanna playing it in a Bulgarian field on YouTube and called Max and said "let her have it" or words to that effect . You couldn t make this sht up. And then, get this, back in New Orleans Boyanna, who plays drums for everyone in town and has lived here for a decade, suddenly decides to get all Bulgarian now she s got this giant drum and runs into Georgi who is also Bulgarian and plays jazz guitar

Grant says in his introduction to Happy Hour, "When you pull up a bar stool in New Orleans you never know who s going to be sitting on either side of you." Today there was no way you could have predicted this turn in the conversation. Chris Lee is best know in New Orleans as front man for the 90 s rock band Supagroup who toured the world, made 7 records and had 4 Top 40 hits. So it s going to surprise you what Chris has to say after he plays a song and apologizes for not rocking out too hard in Wayfare so as not to disturb the folks who came to hang out and not be distracted by us. It turns out Chris is involved in an alternative energy project that has the potential to change the world. As Chris says, "I hate this term but it s a game changer." And in case you re thinking this is probably just another pie in the sky idea, it s not. It s real. It s huge. And it s probably happening. Susan Bopp is no stranger to original ideas. Susan spends her waking moments when she s not deluding herself into believing that

MC Trachiotomy spent 18 months on a remote island in the Pacific, a mile long and a half mile wide. From his current landlocked island, The Pearl, a 9th ward sanctuary and creative edge of the known universe, he s recorded 14 albums and so far released five of them. On today s show, among other topics, Trach weighs the benefits of doing LSD before going on a blind date. Laine Kaplan Levenson is a professional listener. She listens to people s stories. Both as the local producer of the fabulously successful NPR show The Moth, and her own storytelling radio show, Bring Your Own. Today Laine, aka DJ Swimteam, tells her own stories about her strange months in Senegal, and the strange fate of her viola. Brian Hyken ran away from trouble in his native St Louis and has found enough trouble here in New Orleans to have his attorney advise him to take down his website till the court case involving the off duty cop is settled. If you want to go see Brian and his band The Wanderlust January 10th at Gasa Gasa tell em at t

This is not typically the place to come for breaking news a bunch of random folks in a bar. But when one of those folks is New Orleans Council Member Jason Williams and the conversation turns to the Chief of Police... Remember, you heard it here first. Sarah Jane McMahon may not be a household name if, your household doesn t know much about opera. Sarah Jane is in fact one of the superstars of world opera. Originally from Metairie and a Loyola grad, Sarah Jane was handpicked by Placido Domingo to perform with him in at the Los Angeles Opera and continues to perform in opera houses around the world from San Francisco to Munich. Sarah Quintana is the founder as of this conversation of the Human Doing Party. Enlisting Jason, Sarah Jane, and the rest of the Happy Hour cocktail crew, Sarah is set to model the party after the French entertainment industry in which she spends half of her year. Between political polemics and social consciousness Sarah sings two beautiful songs, one about the joy of freedom, dedicated

If you re a girl and you tell a guy you re 26, what does it matter that you re really only 17 In Jak Locke s telling of the story, being off by 9 matters, if you re a hooker. While we re on the subject of keeping numbers straight, this is Jak s 6th appearance on Happy Hour. It s not like he doesn t have anything else to do. Jak is frontman for the high octane The Jak Locke Rock Show, and the experimental Jak Is A Four Letter Word. He co fronts the 1950 s rock n roll trio The NOLA Treblemakers, the vaudevillian folk trio The Speakeasy Serenaders, and ringleads the band for the Freaksheaux To Geaux circus sideshow burlesque troupe. If anyone s rocking New Orleans more than Jak Locke, it s Lena Sendik. Lena is fronting a much needed revolution in healthcare with her recently opened Balance Integrative Health center. Lena s clinic combines traditional and alternative medicines, and get this your doctor s appointment is 60 minutes And you don t pay any more than you do for your 5 minute prescription encounter with

The Fake Carls aren t fake, they re a real band whose friend not Carl plays the Handpan. The central nervous system of the Fake Carls are not a couple of Loyola music business students, Julie Wischan and Steve Panacek. Julie and Steve knock us out with two tunes the first song they ever wrote and the newest. Do you hear that No, you can t, because it s so supersonic high frequency that nobody can hear it. Not even dogs. In the ever changing music business, technology pioneer Chris Reade has come up with a way to use super high frequency sound to let The Fake Carls and other musicians make a bit of money. It s a brand new app in development with the working title, Chirp. Elizabeth Pearce spends most of her days and nights drinking. In other cities that might be called an alcoholic. In New Orleans we proudly call Elizabeth a cocktail expert and an authority on the culture of bar rooms. Elizabeth wrote the book on where to hang out in the French Quarter, she blogs about booze and bartenders, she takes tourists o

Holed up in his room at night after teaching high school math all day, Agasthya Pradhan Shenoy tinkered around with his computer, making music. When he d compiled a bunch of tracks he called himself Swelo and put out a record he called Escalator Music. It became an instant internet hit, blowing up first with the the world s greatest collection of angry elitisits Reddit. With a hit record came demands for live dates. Agasthya recruited some other teachers, Amberine Huda couldn t make it to Happy Hour , Jon Holt on drums and Andrew Tripodo on guitar, and Swelo the band was born. Here they play live acoustic versions of three songs. To get the full effect check out the whole album. Rob Owen was just a regular guy with a perfectly sane idea open a surf shop in New Orleans. Surprisingly, the NO Surf Shop lasted a few years. Then Rob discovered he had a malignant brain tumor and was given 6 months to live. Over his second or third beer, depending whether he wrote the number accurately on his arm so he d remember, R

Alex McMurray s NOLA anthem "If you can t make it here you better not leave" is a singalong smash. Pauline Patterson from NOLA voted Best Bar Finn McCool s dishes up a dose of Ireland. Rock n NOLA Charles Chamberlain makes history, literally. Andrew Duhon debuts his new Chevy commercial.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you listen to public radio in New Orleans you already know Eve Troeh. Eve is the News Director for the local NPR affiliate; public radio station WWNO 89.9FM. But other than she s smart, quick, and one of the refreshingly talented new on air voices at WWNO, what do you really know about Eve Start with this is she single Depends who you ask. How about we ask Eve if she s single You d think that would clear it up, right What we do learn about Eve is that she is an amazing improv actress and singer. You re going to have to hold on till the end of the show or just skip to it to get the full effect. Eve Troeh and Gregory Alexander have a lot in common. Well, maybe "a lot " is over stating it. They both went to Catholic school. That s kind of where the similarity ends. Greg went on to teach at Catholic school before guaranteeing his passage to Hell. He became a novelist. Although not a sin in itself, Greg s debut novel, The Holy Mark, rips the lid off sexual perversion in the Catholic church, with insider intelli

We invited film maker Kevin McLin on Happy Hour because he seemed like an interesting guy. We had no idea how interesting. First of all he s the creator of two of the potentially most offensive, edgy, pieces of comedy to come out of New Orleans in years. Maybe ever. A music video about a "baby mama" and a short film about an African drug dealer and his friend Sissy Pyrex. But that s not all. Although Kevin was twenty years younger than the King of Pop, he grew up with Michael Jackson. Kevin s dad was Michael s spokesman from the 90 s all the way through till the end of Michael s life. We let Kevin talk a bit about his first movie, The Station, and his new one Loco Amigos and TV series Dirty Springs, but we all get a crack at asking him about the inside scoop on Michael. Just because Michael s dead doesn t mean we can t talk to him. Psychic Cari Roy gets in touch with Michael, live, and relays a message to Kevin. We see first hand why BBC America named Cari as the best psychic in the USA. What do three women d

You think you ve heard some s t. Then suddenly it s happy hour and a couple of beers later you re going, "Stop. What That really happened " So, wait till you hear this one. An Asian Jewish person enters a beauty pageant. Not so surprising, maybe. And wins. Okay, somebody s got to win. Where would you think this happened California How about Caddo Parish, Louisiana. That s around Shreveport. Sure, this hype is over used thanks to Facebook, but it s what happens next that is truly astounding. You ve got to hear this... Not only is Ruth Navarre Miss Caddo Parish 2013, Jewish, Asian and a violist, violinist, harpist, and singer, she also weighs 110 or 111 pounds you see if you can figure which one is right and knows a lot about professional competition eating. And Ruth can stomp her feet and wail. Also, she s single. That s another story. Anyway, so you re driving around Caddo Parish, you ve been up for 3 days tweaking, and you ve got a load of meth in the car. Next thing you know, flashing lights in your rear vi

When Lisa McKenzie takes a plane to or from her New Orleans home and a man sits next to her on the flight, more often than not he ends up touching her. Do you find that unusual If you re a woman, when was the last time some strange guy next to you on a plane touched you, and you thought it was acceptable If you re a guy, when was the last time you reached out and touched a strange woman s bra strap It s the bra strap that does it. Lisa is the creator of Ooh La Bra, the designer bra straps that are meant to be seen, and apparently touched. The stranger touching the leather straps that Lisa is wearing today is Keith LeBlanc. Keith is the co founder of MHM Urgent Care, of which there are now 11 around New Orleans and vicinity, or 14 if you got up to get a drink and sat back down a minute later. Keith will also tell you if you have diabetes for free and if you think you don t, don t be so sure. Keith s already found 200 diabetics in the past two months so many that he s Diabetic Father of the Year, or something v