Southern Decky - Day One! (Thursday)

Semmes is such a wonderful Southern gentleman and insisted on driving us into the French Quarter Thursday afternoon to pick up our Weekend Passes for Southern Decadence.



PWu arrived!



We waited for almost an hour to get our passes. (At only $60 for the entire weekend, the passes gave us instant no-wait/cover access to the bar. Huge time and money saver.)



While waiting in line, Sean met up with us. He came into town from San Diego with his buddies Dasian (David + Asian), Other David, and a man affectionately known as "The Wiggler".



As soon as we had our passes, we headed to the bar.

Bud lights in New Orleans are black and gold. Really cute...



Drag Queen Bingo kicked off Decadence for us...




We were supposed to meet up with Katie and Semmes for dinner, but we couldn't resist a pre-dinner snack of Fried Alligator Bites...



YUM!



This was followed with a wonderful Italian dinner at Italian Barrel which featured a Crab Cup (greens and tomatoes with HUGE chunks of fresh crabmeat served in a giant martini glass)...



And lasagna...



Sean and Katie shared a freshman unit together....it was fun to catch up.



Afterwards, we cruised the streets.

Passed Nick Cage's house...



Did some streetside "Tooters"...



And found a bar that served 3-for-1 drinks (which would end up serving as a cheapo amazing jumping-off point for each of our nights out.)



Several bars on Bourbon St actually have semi-secret 3-for-1 upstairs bars and they ALL have awesome live music so it is the best pre-game ever.





We stopped by another bar where assorted Olds were marching in a line to "Saints Go Marching In"...




Then found ANOTHER 3-for-1 bar which served TRIPLE-shotted well drinks for $6.50 or $7.25 for top-shelf Belvedere. Crayzy!



Finally we ended up at Bourbon Pub which very clearly does not abide by any fire-code restrictions...




An anorexified Chi Chi LaRue was hosting what we'll call a "hot body" contest...




Everyone is so super friendly. I LOVE NEW ORLEANS!



We called it a semi-early night. We had a super crazy weekend ahead!

New Orleans = Non-stop

Much more coming soon!

The Decadence Begins...

I arrived in NOLA and within minutes we were sitting at Drago in front of a plate of their specialty, charbroiled oysters in butter and four cheeses.




The there was a plate of large Gulf shrimp seasoned with fresh herbs and spices, served the “New Orleans Way” with French roll and a baked potato.



And the Shrimp & Eggplant Stack - slices of fried eggplant with sautéed shrimp stacked between each layer, topped with a tomato cream sauce.

Layover in Atlanta

Yum.



Double Yum.

Cousin Laura

So I arrived back in NYC late Monday night.

Kind of stupid of me to come back from California for a day only to head down to New Orleans on Wednesday, but I planned my New Orleans trip long ago and the Cali jobs were kind of spur-of-the-moment.

Happily my New York stopover coincided with a visit from pseudo-cousin Laura, in town taking a break from bridge-building or whatever the hell she does.

We shared a delicious vegetarian meal.

And a few beverages, clearly.





I'm off to New Orleans!

Celeb Photo Shoot: Marshall Flinkman!

Does anyone remember how great a show Alias was?



In its first two seasons it had to be one of the top 5 action adventure shows in the history of television. Senior year Munish and AC and Arj and Euge and Felly would all come upstairs to marathon the show with me. Oh those were the days....

Well, over the weekend I photographed Kevin Weisman, AKA Marshall Flinkman.

I'd been anticipating this shoot for over a month and was really excited.

He looks exactly as you would imagine and was a totally awesome guy.



He's in a band with Jack Black! He lives next door to Brad and Angie!

Who knew?