It's New Orleans: Happy Hour

Tom Cianfichi is not just the best looking man in New Orleans married to the other best looking man in New Orleans, Bryan Batt. Tom is also an accomplished actor, Broadway casting director responsible for casting some of the biggest shows on Broadway, and an acclaimed director currently staging Pippin at Le Petit Theater marking the theater s 100th birthday. And if you need anyone to stop by and make you feel good by faking the sentence, "I m amazed and loving this" like he really means it, Tom s your man. Because this is New Orleans, comedian Addy Najera recognizes Tom, not because he s a famous actor or Bryan Batt s husband, but when she finally figures it out Addy knows Tom from his dogs. He brings them to the vet clinic where Addy is the vet tech. When she s not adjusting her bangs or pulling pet hair off of her clothes, Addy is one of New Orleans funniest comedians and to make that point she s immortalizing herself at the end of the month by making a live recording of her show, currently titled Unnamed F

String is the theoretical fabric that holds the Universe together and you can t see it even with a giant particle collider. That s the kind of thing you find out when you meet someone in a bar, in this case a woman who calls herself Ari and who is a microbiology student and listener to another podcast about death Death the Podcast who happened to be reading Craig s List and finds herself somewhat mysteriously at this podcast. It s pretty confusing but then so is the correct definition of Pluto. Beyond the planets on this edition of Happy Hour are two legit stars. Big Sam, the leader of Big Sam s Funky Nation, one of the city s finest musicians, and all around good guy, tells stories about hanging out with James Brown, among others, and improvises a song about defecation at Christmas Day. Cecile Monteyne is one of New Orleans finest actors and comedians. Every bit of Cecile s talent is effortlessly on display in this 60 minute conversation that roams from her latest movie to her marriage and traverses characte

Let s get this straight Boyfriend takes her clothes off on stage but she s not a stripper. As a matter of fact she s not any kind of noun. She s a verb. Boyfriend is a person for whom stripping is an activity much like other activities that one performs but doesn t define you. Unless, perhaps, you re a teacher. Okay, yes, it s confusing but the simpler facts are we ve caught BF on the eve of her collaboration with Big Frieda and BF s that s Boyfriend not Big Frieda annual free birthday bash. There s a lot of good info about free shows on this Happy Hour, including how and where to catch the fabulous Bella Blue for free. Bella is the 8th most popular burlesque artist in the entire world and we re lucky enough in New Orleans to be able to study with her at her School of Burlesque. You, too, can join the sisterhood of love and glitter, but it s not all non breeding Unicorns and pasties. Unlike Bella, Matt Owens might not be ranked on the international scale of comedians, but he is officially the Second Funniest

Beth Patterson is the only professional bouzouki player in New Orleans who finds meaning and fulfillment in the words and music of the Canadian ensemble Rush. Yes, Rush. There s just something about Rush that speaks to Beth and somehow makes her feel less of a freaky outsider. And she really doesn t have much to feel freaky or alienated from society about other than being the author of songs like "Matchstick," about the joys of arson, "Show Me On The Doll," and going from this podcast to a recording studio to record a classical Indian version of a Black Sabbath song. Other than that, and being used, discarded, and the victim of attempted murder, Beth is just your regular Lafayette Welsh girl who moved to New Orleans and hides out in Mississippi. Other than Beth, Becky Hardin has the darkest eyes of anyone who has ever been a guest on Happy Hour. What are the chances of having the two darkest eyed people in the history of Happy Hour on the same show Becky quit a career in music promotion with gigs like Voodoo

Chuck Magid grew up as he calls it, "Full blooded Carney." His father and grandfather both owned carnivals and Chuck aand his brother grew up travelling with the show, working games and rides. The first game he and his brother invented was when they were around 8. It was a duckpond where little toy ducks floated around and little kids who couldn t play any other game would come by, their parents would cough up 5 and for that the kid got to pickup a duck and get a 1 prize. Now Chuck is the guitar player and sings in The Orient Groove, an Orlando band currently on tour around the South. Chuck happenedtowander into Wayfare to see what the mxing board andmics were all about and joined in. While Chuck and his brother were working rides at the fair, Matt McCormick was also traveling the country,roping calves in the rodeo. Matt s sister is stillin the rodeo to this day but Matt went straight. Sort of. He went to law school via a stint writing about the movies for a College Station paper, then ditched a law career to

New Orleans musician Jake Hammer McGregor fights a never ending battle with Irish cage fighter Connor McGregor. Not literally, but for recognition. Try Googling McGregor and you ll see what Jake s up against.Jake and his bass player in the eponymous band McGregor demonstrate why Connor ought to be scared, at least of pursuing a music career. If you ve never heard Jake s music you ve just made a discovery for which you ll be ever grateful. These guys Jake and bass player Sam Ferguson have got it. Sophie Lafayette materialized out of the internet in Dar es Salaam Tanzania where she has been a fan of New Orleans and a long time Happy Hour listener and materialized at our table at Wayfare. Finally realizing a lifelong dream, Sophie made it through living in New Zealand, the UK, Norway and Tanzania before making it to Freret Street in New Orleans. While she s here, Sophie s shaking things up though not in the way most new arrivals do. Sophie is an international political activist working on behalf of folks she cal

Old folk wisdom says there are two things you don t want to see being made sausages and legislation. You might want to add kambucha to that list. According to one of the guys who makes it, Daniel Morris from Big Easy Bucha, it s made in what s called "open brewing" which is kind of like brewing beer except instead of being in a closed system it s an open vat with a SHEET over it. Yes, a sheet. A black sheet. In all fairness Big Easy Bucha, sheet or not sheet it tastes awesome. As we can attest after a rigorous taste test on this Happy Hour, sacrificing ourselves for science by adding whisky to Bucha, making what Andrew Duhon christens as Boozy Bucha. Harry Rosenberg no relation and Molly Portier make up 50 of Blonde Roses, one of the most exciting new bands in New Orleans. In fact they re so new that they ve only been around a few weeks having been reborn from an earlier outfit you ll know if you;re from Lafayette, called Wooden Wings. As you know if you listen to Happy Hour, we get to hear a lot of great mus

If you ve ever been on a date with someone you really find intriguing but half way through listening to them tell you the story of their life you wonder, "How am I going to respond with something intelligent " you ll know what it s like looking across the table at Kristin Lyman. Not only can Kristin dazzle and intimidate you with her day job, after hours you can she hip hop dance your ass off. For even more of an intellectual humbling, try having a conversation with super brainiac P H Fred. Not only does the guy speak Latin fer Chrissakes, he can also break down multiple languages into grammatical pieces like gerunds and dangling participles. There are certain circles where that sort of stuff can get you laid. So can working people out in a San Francisco gym. Ask Jon Roniger. Not only is Jon a New Orleans version of Dean Martin meets Django Reinhardt which Andrew Duhon suggests he needs to adapt to Dean Reinhardt and use as porn name but Jon is also a workout trainer in a past life as well as a serial partier

If you really want to stress yourself out you could do like Trey Fayard borrow 6m , start an airline, and fly out of New Orleans to Shreveport, Little Rock, and a few other hot spots. On the other hand, you could decompress for a mere 50 by getting on a plane and flying to Destin. Trey s airline is called GLO and the flight to Destin is only 45 minutes. You leave from the airport in Kenner around 1pm and by 2 30 you re on the beach with a cocktail. Sam McCabe is a super talented musician, member of New Orelans band The Bantam Foxes, and pretty soon you might see him as cabin attendant on Trey s planes. Trey s hiring and Sam wouldn t mind leaving his job at PJ s on Poydras behind. The Bantam Foxes have an impressive new album, Gold Record, and a wacky new video. Kimberly Rivers Roberts is the star of award winning Katrina documentary, Trouble the Water, and creator of the brand new follow up documentary, Fear No Gumbo. Kimberly is up to year 5 of her 10 year plan for taking over the world as herself and her al

Typically actors and musicians looking for some income insurance will develop a couple of flexible skills like waiting tables or bar tending that will get them through the leaner times. Today s Happy Hour guests have a couple of diffrent takes on that concept. Olga is a blues musician, singer songwriter, stunt woman, actor, and violinist who pads her showbiz income by reading romance novels for audio book company Audible and conducting weddings for sky divers and people getting hitched at the wedding chapel in the French Quarter. Brett Roberts makes movies. In his down time has been a cop and currently makes training films for Louisiana lawyers who apparently need continuing education to remind them not to steal off of the clients. Yes, this is absolutely true. These days you can t apparently fall back on shooting or acting in porn. Kay Charbonnet doesn t have much down time. She spends most days hanging out on Magazine Street near the epicenter of destruction where she has a store, called appropriately Kay s

Try this tonight if we all set our AC s to 76, will we have the same dream How about if the whole country set their AC to 76 Could we move the collective unconscious up a chakra and spread love around the world Tomahawk Tassels is a burlesque dancer with some provocative thoughts, and a needle in her liver that was left there after a biopsy that concluded that she had terminal cancer, which she didn t. Wayne Xia had his own dreams of leaving Alaska and thus depleting the population of Chinese nationals by some 13 . Wayne s dreams came true right after high school and before driving across Mozambique in a Honda. Now he s in New Orleans playing violin with Pheasants. If you haven t heard of Pheasants, you will. Adrienne Edson plays a musical saw with no teeth, a flute, and banjo and that s just on today s show. Robert Allen writes the songs and sings them. And has dreams too disturbing to discuss. Dr. Christopher Garland dreamed of leaving his native New Zealand, visiting Haiti, moving to New Orleans and teachi

"People are horrible" is not what you d expect a politician to believe, much less say. But Manny Chevrolet is no ordinary politician. A perennial candidate for Mayor of New Orleans with the slogan "A troubled man for troubled times," Manny is ready to come out swinging next time around, building on his previous trending statistics which have improved every election, all the way up to something like 120 votes last time around. Sindy Scalfi doesn t hate humans but she sure does love animals. She s communed with gorillas in Africa and even though she s put her decades long singing career on the back burner and left her country music boots and hat in Nashville, she sings a song about animals, called "Animals," on this show. Graham Robinson and Daria Dzurik have one of New Orleans most original sounding bands, Daria and the Hip Drops, combining a hip pop sensibility with steel pans, of all instruments. How Daria came to play the pans is even weirder, and you might be surprised how vast and even weirder still is th

The real Debbie and Donna are New Orleans twins who won 200m in the lottery and blew it all. The fake Debbie and Donna are Jon and Chelsea from a band called Toonces which they formed in the aftermath of playing Debbie and Donna in a comedy music show where dressed as the opposite gender they fell passionately in love. So passionate was their love that they included Dana a man dressed as a woman along on their first night of sex together. Which didn t go according to what you might think would be the normal course of events. And that, believe it or not, is just the beginning of the story. The rest of it involves a hedgehog called Quilliam, yoga, tarot cards, and an imaginary religion. Grant mentions that when he walked into the bar he assumed Clyde Edward Casey aka Casey was going to be the most eccentric person at the table, an observation which, looking at Casey aka Clyde is wholly forgivable. Even though the threesome twins story is hard to top, Casey aka Clyde aka Casey does not disappoint. Casey aka Clyd

We all know Rich Collins, from his career with Imagination Movers, but we ll now also know him as the host of this weeks Happy Hour. Rich is a grizzled veteran of Happy Hour so he knows the how hairy it can get, so he s brought fellow Happy Hour alum and fellow amazing musician Mikayla. Brandi Studer also returns to talk about the dire lack of public defenders in the city of New Orleans. She also talks about the people who need these public defenders, as well as access to restrooms. We ve also have got a new comer, Preston Titus is from Dallas but he came to New Orleans just in time for Katrina. Fortunately that wasn t enough to scare him away, and he s the head honcho at Belle s Diner, home of the Belle Boozy, Preston s milkshake based cocktail creation. You learn everyones favorite restaurants and why judges shouldn t be so nosy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grant is out this week, so a slightly forgetful Andrew is taking helm of the show to finally bring us a show that s about art, culture, and musicals written in sexile. But Andrew s not alone in tackling these weighty subjects; he brought his friend and amazing musician Micah McKee. Micah is a true renaissance man; he is a lover of classic film, Shakespeare, and hopes to one day right songs for Taylor Swift. Micah wasn t the only theater lover in the group; Kristin Shannon took time away from her job as the manager and producer of the Orpheum Theater to come slum it with us. A.J. Allegra is also very much immersed in all aspects of the theater world. He is an actor, a teacher, and he s almost won a Big Easy Award multiple times. But perhaps A.J. s greatest contribution to humanity is the Oregon Trail Musical he wrote while in sexile. Sorry you ve died of dysentery.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Photographer Leon Morris has been coming to Jazz Fest from Australia for 22 years. In that time he s met a bunch of people and taken a bunch of photos. He s assembled a few hundred of his best shots into a coffee table book that s a homage to New Orleans and has come up with an imaginative title for it Homage New Orleans. Leon s book starts with words of encouragement from Dr. John that Leon lives by, and which we joyfully appropriated for this show "follow your heart or you re fu ked. As a testament to the power of the written word and the apparent inconsequential power of speech, we re allowed to say anything we liked on the podcast, but iTunes and Facebook after somebody complains which they inevitably do pull your stuff down if you use curse words in print. Chris Bradford looks like a million bucks but feels like a little less. She woke up one morning with a hemorrhaged vocal cord which not only sidelined her singing but required her to be absolutely silent for a month. The resident doctors on Happy Hour

Cancel your subscription to Match.com, OK Cupid, Tinder, and anything else you re using to look for love. Instead just get yourself booked as a guest on Happy Hour. Show Producer Graham daPonte will hook you up with your perfect mate and Grant and Andrew will take care of all the arrangements. Just ask Mr and Mrs Frank Scurlock. 60 minutes before they decided to get married and sail around the world for 222 days on a cruise that departs from Denmark and concludes in New Orleans with Frank 120m richer, Katrina Brees and Frank Scurlock had never met. Maybe it s the talk about Katrina s vagina puppet, Vag, or Katrina s belief that "Every woman would like to take her vagina out and let it speak," that enchants Frank. Maybe it s Frank s Volvo, custom built to look like the space shuttle, or his idea to develop a New Orleans style Disney World in New Orleans East where festivals like Jazz Fest are up and running 365 days a year that romances Catrina. Maybe it s the giant 4 foot long joint Katrina made in celebratio

Boyfriend is the creator of a whole new entertainment genre she calls Rap Cabaret. If she d taken her stripper style show to Finland and not Austin and Bumf k Mississippi she might not have gotten banned from performing because of the lewd nature of her show, nor called the C word. On this podcast we get to hear the C word a lot. But because of strict rules about writing naughty words that show up on iTunes and get you kicked off it s already happened to us we can t go into that too much here on the page. However if you re interested in various uses of the word in a multi national comparison, check out this conversation which owes its genesis to Boyfriend s current antics and Faimon Roberts past. Faimon spent some time in Finland where their use of the C word is more common than ours. Faimon, who spent his Baton Rouge childhood being called "Flamin " also spent time in the UK where he quit prestigious Oxford University in a hot headed moment and ended up in the only profession disappearing faster than his Ph.

Author, virtual analyst, and international snappy dresser Timothy Alan Weeks claims he had nothing to do writing the novel The Beauty Fools, a manuscript he claims is as brilliant and as New Orleans centric as Confederacy of Dunces. Senor Weeks claims he only edited the contents of a memory stick that was left on his doorstep by an anonymous resident of a non existent place in England called "All Souls." Whether or not T.A. Weeks is actually the author of the book, he is suggesting it is a British DJ who resided in New Orleans for a short time by the name of Pete Lazenby. If you know Mr Lazenby, you are Mr Lazenby, or you re a wannabe author, you d do well to claim that you wrote this book and sue Mr Weeks and his Croation publisher. Happy Hour will take a mere 10 for tipping you off. Ava Jeune may have a few copyright problems of her own. You can see her works of art sensual poetry set to images she s stolen and layered over music she s stolen on her Twitter feed here. Most of Ava s work is inspired by a guy

In the first moments of this Happy Hour Jim McCormick demonstrates the inner workings of the mind of a song writer. Happy Hour tech director Chris Kehoe went out to his car to get some equipment, Grant read the intro to the show about Wayfare putting "fine dining into a sandwich" and Jim immediately came up with a song title, "Fine dining In the Front Seat." That s how you write a hit country song. Jim ought to know, he s written plenty including the current single I Do Like We Do performed poorly according to Grant by Harry Connick Jr. Emily Reimsnyder, who by the way makes a career out of winning friends and influencing people, has no hesitation telling Jim she likes all kinds of music, but not country. Emily, a guitar player herself, demonstrates exactly what it is about country that drives her nuts and has had enough cucumber cocktails to be cajoled in playing some of her 10 chords that she learned from a book. Andrew Duhon as of this show is getting help from Jim McCormick to finish the remaining songs t