Welcome

Welcome to my first Blog entry. Subject matter will vary from Travel, Politics, Sports, Music, Wine, Beer, Food and pretty much anything I want to talk about since this is my damn blog. On to my first post:


This past weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of experiencing my first New Orleans Jazz Festival. Besides the amazing food experience I partook in including remoulades, bread puddings, cachon au lait, beignets, cracklins and crawfish and anything friend that could ever potentially be fried, the music scene I encountered was one that gave me a new appreciation of Louisiana Culture.

As Soon as I booked my Jazz Fest plane ticket, I went through the music lineup to get a broad understanding of the artists that would be performing the weekend I would be at the fair grounds. The Saturday lineup included big name perfomers such as Bon Jovi, Jason Mraz yet the performers whose youtube videos sparked the biggest interest to me was a local artist named Big Freeda.  Here is the song that got me on the bandawgon:

So Saturday morning, after a rough night out celebrating my buddy Scott's birthday at Emeril's restaurant followed by some drinking and dancing at the Frenchman, I dragged my girlfriend and college friends over to see Big Freedia, the New Orleans transvestite responsible for the popularity of New Orleans booty bounce, a distinctly New Orleans creation that is a style of hip-hop characterized by heavy bass, call-and-response vocals, hyper-sexualized lyrics, a reliance on repetition, and a handful of specific beats. The music is unique to New Orleans—and practically unheard of everywhere else until performers like Big Freedia have started bringing it to the mainstream. I didnt let the negative comments from friends who had blasted the video when I posted it on my facebook page deter me from checking the Tranny out for myself.

So here we were, hungover, underslept group of preppy Georgetown white boys (or yellow in my case) pushing through the crowd trying to get a good view of the stage. As I Persian Maneuvered my way through the crowd, I noticed church groups, familes with their kids little kids, moms, dads, grandparents all getting down to the Big Freedia's catchy tunes. I began to appreciate the genre of mysic as ubiqitous to New Orleans culture despite the fact that people outside the culture identified the words and dancing styles as vulgar. Much to my joy, even the friends that I dragged to the Congo Stage, couldnt help but to start dancing and feeding off the energy created by the beats and the amazing joie de vivre displayed by the New Orleans partisan crowd. Despite my lack of a booty and moreso average at best booty shaking skills, I got into the flow and was a hit:

The lesson learned from attending a show like this is to appreciate all genres of music regardless of your individual tastes and background. I have a sick addiction to always trying to understand and appreciate the background and cultures of the people of the world around me and this weekend was one I experience that I trully took to heart.

I'm off to Boston this week and through the weekend. I'm having a Boston sports fans fantasy on Saturday by having lunch at Fenway Park and dinner at the Celtic's game. Hope everyone enjoys the blog. AZZ EVERYWHERE AZZ EVERYWHERE!