“Two Majestic Nights”
After our two misfires on getting our fourth booster shot, Diana called Walgreens on Monday to see if they had anyone available to give us shots. “Come on in and we’ll get you taken care of right away,” said the pharmacist. We did – and are now fully boosted again – quick and easy. After that I took care of several catch up activities from being gone for two months – a haircut at the Boardroom, and car registration and wash.
I enjoyed the NCAA “March Madness” final game on Monday night – that was until the tornado sirens started going off. No tornados, but we did have some very heavy rain, with flooding in McKinney making the national news.
Diana had a sore arm and shoulder, and was very tired from the shot on Tuesday. Fortunately I didn’t have any side effects this time around. I cheered her up with a couple of episodes of the new series of Bridgerton on Netflix. She did make it out to get her hair coloured and cut after two months.
Bryce, the piano tuner, made his annual visit on Wednesday and that was pretty much the highlight for the day. I was busy consuming all my potions to prepare for my colonoscopy screening on Thursday. Nothing to eat all day made me hungry and grumpy by the time evening came.
The colonoscopy was quick and easy on Thursday morning. I did not appreciate having to awaken at 2:30am to take the last of the options. D was surprised when I didn’t want to go for tacos when she picked me up after the procedure. I was tired and didn’t feel hungry – just wanted to go home and relax.
Kenny and Kara drove to Dallas from New Orleans early on Friday morning. They had invited us to join them for the Lyle Lovett concert on Friday and Saturday evenings. The concerts this weekend were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the gorgeous Majestic theater in downtown Dallas. This wonderful Renaissance revival style concert venue is located amongst all the modern high rise buildings.
I enjoyed seeing Thanksgiving Tower nearby – this is where I worked when I first started with EDS in 1989. That was back in the days when I had to wear a dark suit, white shirt, tie, and wingtip shoes to work every day. Things have changed so much in the almost 35 years since those days.
We checked into the Indigo hotel, a few hundred yards from the Majestic, and met up with Kenny and Kara. I suggested walking over to Deep Ellum, a funky neighbourhood of bars, restaurants, and shops just on the other side of Interstate 75. We walked over and enjoyed a drink on the lovely patio at the Twilite lounge, and a light dinner at Postino. I highly recommend Postino for a quick and tasty bite in the Deep Ellum area.
We walked back to the Majestic to watch Hayes Carll open the Friday night show for Lyle Lovett. He came on right on the nose of 7:30pm and gave us an excellent opening set – all quiet and thoughtful songs – none of the usual rockers that we are used to from his livestream shows. Here’s my favourite – “Beaumont”:
Lyle Lovett and band followed that up with an excellent two and a half hour set. Here’s a write up on the band members:
Viktor Krauss had to attend a funeral and so a substitute bass player was arranged at the last minute – Lovett mentioning that he had just met him that morning – he did an excellent job. The other band members were equally exceptional – I loved Josh Swift on the Dobro. Here are some samples from the first night:
I think that last one, North Dakota, was my favourite of the evening. A close second was this cover of Guy Clark’s “LA Freeway” with Hayes Carll joining in:
We’re not used to being out and about after 11pm, and so were quickly asleep after the short walk to the hotel.
I was looking for a nice cup of coffee on Saturday morning, and found this great place a short walk from the hotel. I chuckled at the Tucan card I was given so that they could find me with my coffee. The shop is designed to feel like a tropical rainforest – very unique.
Kara and Kenny joined us for brunch at the Standard Pour on McKinney Avenue – what a great spot to relax on the patio and enjoy some good conversation. Here are Kara and Diana posing by the Margaret Hunt bridge mural on the wall of the restaurant.
From the Standard Pour, I drove over to the Wild Detectives book store in the Bishop Arts district of Oak Cliff. We perused the books and enjoyed a drink on the back patio – it was such a lovely day. We walked down Bishop Street after that, browsing through some stores before happening upon the Revelers Hall Band playing at their namesake bar. What a nice langiappe:
That’s as close as we come to New Orleans in Dallas. After a coffee, we drove back over to Deep Ellum to check out some stores that the group had liked the day before. Nothing much doing and a lot busier on Saturday afternoon, so we drove to the Velvet Taco for a snack prior to the second night of Lyle Lovett.
We arrived early to check out the 100th anniversary exhibit. The most interesting thing I read was that the owner of the theater contributed $5 million to help Walt Disney get started, when nobody else would give him any funding.
We were seated on the Mezzanine this night, rather than the orchestra section from Friday night. This gave even better views of the beauty of the theater, and I think provided for better sound. The sound on both nights was amazingly pristine, with every instrument and voice heard perfectly.
The Old 97s, a famous local Dallas rock band, opened on Saturday. In contrast to Hayes Carll, they did not quieten down their set much – full on rock ‘n roll. Kara is a big fan of the lead singer, Rhett Miller, and was happy to see him hamming it up. She had a big smile on her face during the entire set.
The Lyle Lovett set was pretty much the same as the previous evening, and I enjoyed it even more, able to really focus in on the instrumental pieces that I had enjoyed the night before. The quality of the band really can’t be over-stated. Rhett Miller joined the band to sing a cover of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” Made me think of Mum in Rothesay, dancing down the street and singing that song. Apparently a Dallas local, B.J. Thomas, recorded the song in 1969 for the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. That version reached number 1 in 1970 and he performed it at the Academy Awards.
Miller joined the band again for the final encore, a Townes Van Zandt cover:
We met Kenny and Kara for coffee on Sunday morning, and then drove back home via Taco Deli. I tried their migas royale platter – so yummy, and I still have some in the fridge for later.
I’m enjoying watching the final round of the Masters golf tournament while finishing up this post. Scheffler is still in the lead by 4 shots, with Smith and McIlroy trying to catch him.
I loved my book this week – “The Storyteller” by Dave Grohl. He was the drummer with Nirvana when they changed music forever with the “Nevermind” album, and then went on to found the Foo Fighters band. This a wonderful collection of varied stories from Grohl’s youth discovering music, almost to the present day. It’s sad to hear him write about the depth of his friendship with Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer who passed away in the last few weeks, causing them to cancel their tour, including a New Orleans jazzfest appearance.
How Grohl’s Mom encouraged his early love of music:
“A tiny old club on Pennsylvania Avenue just outside of Georgetown, One Step Down not only was a hotspot for established touring acts but also hosted a jazz workshop every weekend where the house band (led by DC jazz legend Lawrence Wheatley) would perform a few sets to the dark, crowded room and then invite up-and-coming musicians up to jam with them onstage. When I was a teenager in the eighties, those workshops became a Sunday ritual for my mother and me. We would sit at a small table ordering drinks and appetizers while watching these musical masters play for hours, reeling in the gorgeous, improvisational freedom of traditional jazz.”
On getting the call to join Nirvana:
“And then I read the five words that changed my life forever: “Have You Ever Heard of Nirvana?”
On a phone call with an old friend who had grown up with the guys from Nirvana in the tiny town of Aberdeen, Washington, I was informed that they were in between drummers at the time and had seen Scream perform just weeks before on our ill-fated tour. Apparently, they were impressed with my playing, and I was given their phone numbers to call.”
“I packed up my duffel bag, my sleeping bag, and my drum set into a cardboard moving box and headed up to Seattle, a town I had only visited once and where I knew virtually no one, leaving one life behind to start another one. I felt a loss that I had never experienced before. I missed my home. I missed my friends. I missed my family. I was now truly on my own, back to square one, starting over.”
Writing about a particularly rowdy show as Nirvana was just blowing up in popularity. Trees nightclub is directly opposite the Twilite lounge that we visited on Friday afternoon, and there was a tour bus parked in front:
“Welcome to the fall of 1991.
Trees nightclub in the Deep Ellum district of downtown Dallas, Texas, was just another stop on the North American leg of our “Nevermind” tour, which boasted a streamlined itinerary of thirty exhausting shows in a short forty days. With a max capacity of around six hundred people, this relatively new club was similar to most of the other venues that were booked for that tour: cramped, a low stage, limited PA and lights, and a small dressing room in the back to prepare for (and recover from) another cathartic performance.”
On the genesis of the band name, “Foo Fighters”:
“In a chapter about unidentified craft over Europe and the Pacific during World War II, I found a term that the military used as a nickname for these unexplained glowing balls of light and thought it was just mysterious enough for me. Not only did it sound like a group of people, it almost sounded like a gang: Foo Fighters.”
One of my favourite stories – about a dinner after the Grammy awards:
“We reserved a table at a restaurant called Faith and Flower just a few blocks from the venue and planned to meet for dinner and drinks away from the hubbub after the show. Paul McCartney was in town as well and inquired what we were planning on doing afterward, so we gladly invited him and his wife Nancy along, adding two more chairs to our growing table. Take it from me, any night with Paul is a good night, so this was shaping up to be an epic evening. Apparently, Paul bumped into AC/DC at the hotel, and when asked what was going on afterward, he said he was having dinner with us, with led to my life’s most surreal test.
Pause. Reflect.
A few days before the show, I received another text, from my good friend Ben Jaffe of New Orleans’s legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, notifying me that he was also in town form the Grammys and looking for a party.
While filming our documentary series “Sonic Highways” in 2014, Foo Fighters had the honor of spending a week filming in Preservation Hall itself, a tavern that dates back to 1803. We all became fast friends. By the end of that week, I had decided that New Orleans is an American treasure, and that we all indeed need to preserve its rich culture steeped in European, Caribbean, and Cajun history. There is nowhere on earth filled with the pure magic that New Orleans has to offer. It is, without doubt, my favorite city in the world.
“Dude…we’re having dinner with Paul McCartney AND AC/DC!” I exclaimed to Ben. “You wanna come along?” I knew Ben would most definitely appreciate the enormity of such an incredible chance encounter. “Can I bring all the guys with me?” he asked. I paused and did the math. The band consisted of seven musicians, which realistically meant at least ten more people. “Uh, let me check,” afraid that the restaurant would decline our request for another ten chairs. But then Ben sealed the deal:
“How about we all come marching down the street playing in a second line, into the restaurant, straight to the table, and perform a set for you right there?”
There was absolutely no refusing this incredibly generous offer.”
I loved this book and highly recommend it to any music fans.
Here’s the original studio version of “North Dakota”, my favourite from the shows this weekend. The performances and production on this are just excellent:
Something from the Old 97s:
And my favourite from the Old 97s set:
Finally, a great Foo Fighters song from the Sonic Highways album:
Stay safe, patient and kind with everyone!
We made it to The Franklin on Tuesday evening for dinner – you’ll remember that we canceled last week with the inclement weather. The duck liver mousse appetizer was just excellent – satsuma marmalade on the bottom and herbs and nuts on top , with excellent bread – each bite was a treat. I followed that with the burger and Diana enjoyed some wagyu beef. Well worth the drive across town to the Bywater area. Then there was a little langiappe, as so often happens in New Orleans – the local middle school band was practicing close to where we parked.
Thom had missed our Happy Hour at Monkey Hill last week, and so we had a reprise on Wednesday evening – the majority of the krewe made it out.
My book this week was “The Magnolia Palace” by Fiona Davis. This is another of the books that Diana picked up at Octavia books in New Orleans. Here’s the Amazon plot summary:
Stela of Nakhi, “Servant in the Place of Truth”, Offering to Osiris and Anubis. New Kingdom, late 18th Dynasty (c. 1300 BCE)
The group stopped at Café Degas for a nice French snack before returning Diana and Anne to the condo. Then Denny picked us up for dinner at N7 in the Bywater area. This wonderful French restaurant is hidden away behind a fence with just a small stencil to indicate the location (as seen in this Denny does Hitchcock picture.) We had chosen to sit in the covered patio area rather than the garden or inside – great choice – the setting was beautiful. I think this was my favourite meal in New Orleans so far. The tarte flambee with caramelized onions and lardons was a wonderful appetizer, and the steak au poivre was so perfect and flavourful. Bon Appetit magazine calls this the most romantic French restaurant in the world.
Almost forgot dessert – I’m always wary of pavlova – expecting it to be nowhere near as good as the ones that Mum and Diana make. The N7 version was yummy.
Kara suggested the Booker Sessions at the Maple Leaf Bar for our Thursday evening entertainment. A nice early show at 6pm featuring John Paxson playing piano in the back bar in the style of James Booker. I was able to sit close enough to watch his fingers fly across the keyboard – a real treat. That’s a Frenchy painting of Booker atop the piano.
We enjoyed a slice of alligator cheesecake and a drink at Jacque-imo’s before the show. I love that cheesecake! And as a special langiappe, the wristbands for the Booker show were penguins.
We collected Alicia at the airport on Friday and made our way to meet the krewe for Happy Hour at Monkey Hill. Alicia had asked for as much live music as possible – and it started with Johnny Sansone playing outside Monkey Hill.
I almost forgot – Diana got a love letter when she parked the car in the neighborhood on Friday morning. She’s making friends with the locals. It was written on the back of a fax confirmation sheet – so at least one person still uses a fax machine.
The music started with the Young Fellaz Brass Band – music that always makes me smile. That was followed by Sunpie, Preservation Brass, and Sweet Crude.
Alicia seemed to enjoy all the music as well.
Diana and Alicia walked to the Chloe for Sunday brunch, and enjoyed even more live music – this time from Andrew Duhon. I think he has a really good voice – reminds me of Anderson East.
Greg and Colleen hosted a crawfish boil on Sunday afternoon. I had never peeled a crawfish before, but do love the taste. I had a lesson and gave it a shot. It was great to see a few folks I hadn’t run into in a few years – Chris Pete and Randy Bush – along with the rest of the krewe. Greg did a great job remodeling (pretty much completely rebuilding) their new house on State street.
I read another one of Diana’s books this week – “The Paris Apartment” by Lucy Foley. This was not the light, airy tour around Paris that I was expecting, rather a very dark mystery where every member of a bad family had a different and dark secret. It passed the time, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it unless you enjoy dark mysteries.
“Pogeutry” provided our music on Wednesday at Tipitinas. This is a band made up of the Lost Bayou Ramblers with Spider Stacy and Cait O’Riordan of the original Pogues from the 1980s. I loved this show – so much energy and a good lead in to St. Patrick’s celebrations. Here’s “Dirty Old Town.” Kenny and Kara were able to join us and both enjoyed the show very much.
Saturday brought…another parade! This time the Irish Channel St. Patrick’s parade. Not nearly as crowded as the Mardi Gras parades, but just as much fun. I wasn’t expecting cabbages, leeks, and carrots to be typical throws from the floats – you really needed to pay attention. We all had fun collecting “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” stuff for Anne’s dad, Grandpa Jack.
Sunday was a mostly lazy day and then we joined Denny and Anne for dinner at Jamila’s. This is a Tunisian restaurant with excellent lamb tagine. I had been talking to my mum about the place, and she encouraged me to get the tagine and report back about it. It was thoroughly delicious – so tender and so much flavour. The place is run by a husband and wife – he manages the front and she runs the kitchen. So welcoming and funny – we will be back for sure.
My first book this week was “The Violin Conspiracy” by Brendan Slocumb. The plot revolves around a Stradivarius violin that is stolen from a black violinist. It turns out it was given to his great great grandfather by his slave owner. The story of the violin theft is interesting, but less so than the story of Ray and his journey through racism to become runner up at the Tchaikovsky competition. I found the first 70 or 80 pages a bit superficial, but really got sucked in when the story flipped back in time to Ray initially being obsessed with playing.
Having run out of books on hand – time for a visit to Octavia books down the street – I read one of Diana’s stack. “One Italian Summer” was a very quick and easy read. Pretty girly but set in Positano with pleasant descriptions of the food and the area.
Kenny and Kara joined us and we waited for a long time – but no Indians or bands. Calling it a bust, we went back to the condo to get ready for our bike ride down to the French Quarter and the Marigny to checkout all the crazy outfits.
Debra manages Jacques-Imo’s restaurant (first meal Diana and I had together in New Orleans was there) and had secured reservations for us on Wednesday night – a last meal for Campbell and Molly. Denny, Anne and Jack joined us for an excellent meal. Debra had arranged a lovely bottle of French champagne for Diana, and loaded the table up with complementary appetizers. She is so sweet and kind. This place was quite the opposite of Commander’s Palace – very casual and loud. The southern food was amazing and the portions so generous that we were eating left overs for two days. Molly was talking about her fried chicken on the flight home.
Honey was happy to have her parents back home on Thursday, and quickly destroyed her treat from the parades. How could you be angry with that face?
In the evening, we picked up Denny and Anne and drove to Faubourg Brewing in East New Orleans. It used to be called Dixie Brewing, but has changed like so many other businesses as the Dixie statues and monuments have been removed. Sun Pie and Gal Holiday were both performing outside on the expansive lawn. Gal sat down at the table with us and rapidly consumed a bunch of crawfish before her set – she had some great peeling and eating skills.
In the afternoon we attended another porch concert. This was hosted by one of Anne’s tennis ladies who was celebrating her birthday. These started as a way for musicians to make money during early COVID and I hope they continue. Just a great way to pass a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.
There was an interesting moment when one of the guitar players amplifier broke down. No worries – the man of the house quickly nipped inside and emerged with a replacement. “The beauty of playing at a musician’s house”, said the singer. I did chuckle at the guys in their “Laissez Boy” recliners, fresh from the parades.
I finally finished “The Great Wide Open” by Douglas Kennedy. Almost 600 pages long and pretty dense, but a really good read.
We split up the drive to New Orleans with a stop in Shreveport on Friday night. We didn’t have very high expectations, but were delighted to find the Fat Calf brasserie. What a wonderful meal – one that I would drive the 3 hours from Dallas to repeat – just amazing. We selected four appetizers for our meal – all were excellent. Moules frites, escargots, a duck and foie gras parfait, and quail with dirty rice. I don’t know which was my favourite, all so well done and delicious. We’re already plotting a visit on our return drive.
Our appetites were suitably worked up now for brunch at Atchafalaya – one of the more popular weekend brunch restaurants. I absolutely loved my duck confit hash. The blackberries and mangos listed on the menu made me a bit nervous, but they complemented the duck very well. Diana loved her Bayou Benedict.
This is embarrassing. I read 50 pages of William Kent Kreuger’s “Ordinary Grace” before convincing myself that I must have read it before. It didn’t seem overly familiar but there were occasional passages that sounded just like something I’d heard before. I finally did a search of the blog and found that I read it back in 2018. Silly K!
Monday was Martin Luther King Day. Here’s an essay he wrote in 1964, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, for the Berlin Jazz Festival. What wonderful writing, capturing the role music has played in social change in a compact essay:
Tuesday breakfast was at Cafe Saul – a great spot that I found on my last visit. It’s so nice to be able to get a perfect macchiato with no fuss.
Will supervised the loading of Finn’s car on to a transporter that should deliver it here on Tuesday. Will has put a lot of time and money into getting the car absolutely perfect for Finn to enjoy. I only have a limited number of days to wake up at 4:30am to deliver Finn to work, and I know the retiree is quite happy about that.
“The Blue Hour” by Douglas Kennedy was my companion on the trip this week. What a well written and constructed book. I was hooked on the first page and wasn’t disappointed after that. Page one:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading “This Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger this week. The story reminds me a lot of my recent read, “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles. Here are some of the quotes that led me to read this book – particularly the “Where the Crawdads Sing” reference:
We enjoyed a lovely retirement dinner at C.T. Provisions on Friday, with Brent as our waiter. Finn and Alicia were able to join us. The food, company, and service were all excellent. Diana toasted her retirement with an Old Cuban (first experienced at the Moonshiner speakeasy in Paris.) C.T.’s was very busy, and Finn got a kick out of watching Brent buzzing around. Here’s D reading Finn’s retirement card, I think she liked his message about “sip and dip” and “fun in the sun”:
I thoroughly enjoyed “South and West: A Notebook” by Joan Didion this week. After her passing a couple of weeks ago, this was the only one of her books available at the library, and fortuitously, one of the few that I haven’t read at least once. She is one of those authors whose books you have to read a few times to really fully appreciate.
Earlier in the day, Diana participated in a virtual Secret Santa with Alicia and John and Joey’s families. Bonna was D’s Santa and she put together a lovely champagne themed basket. Diana was really delighted with the detail and with everything in the basket, and she had the perfect hoodie to complement it.
We flew to New Orleans on Friday morning for the fourth annual celebration of Jack and Mason’s birthday on January 2nd. We spent the afternoon enjoying the new Ogan patio, and exchanged some gifts. Anne loved her “champagne clutch” and Diana her tennis skirt (in preparation for taking up tennis during our NOLA residency.)
Costera was an excellent choice for dinner (thanks Denny) with multiple courses of Spanish tapas. The menu was fixed and included a plethora of delicious courses – beef shank Bombas, scallops, and an amazing seafood paella were the standouts. We were joined at dinner by the Kirshes, Krieks, and Eisles – what a fun group.
There was a bit of a wild party in progress when we returned to Webster street after dinner (and a few minutes after midnight.) Things quietened down quickly and we were able to get a decent sleep. Apparently a good enough sleep for McD to pop right up on New Year’s Day and head out for a run in Audubon park with Laura and Kara. She particularly enjoyed the band playing at the park entrance. Great job of starting out on the right foot Diana!
Merry Lee, Jeff, Donna, and Steve (our friends from California) were able to secure an invite to oyster fest. Merry Lee and Jeff have a condo in New Orleans now. They seemed to enjoy meeting everyone and sampling the various types of oysters.
“Bombshell” is part of the series featuring ex-CIA agent and Hollywood producer, Terry Fay, and is co-written with Parnell Hall. This is certainly easy reading, with each chapter 3 or 4 pages long. You can tell that Woods has a formula that he deploys to crank out these books. I don’t have any quotes as the writing is quite basic and used to drive the action forward, rather than set the scene or develop the characters. I’m not sure I would select another Woods book, except maybe for some mindless poolside or beach reading.