pt at large

6th Annual Roy Carrier Tribute Dance at Slim's Yi Ki Ki

December 29, 2015
6th Annual Roy Carrier Tribute Dance
Slim’s Yi Ki Ki Lounge
Route 182
Opelousas, LA

One of the most well-worn dance floors in southwest Louisiana is marinated in sweat and beer. A non-smoking dance hall now, years of cigarette smoking cling to every wall and corner right up to the ceiling of Slim's Yi Ki Ki in Opelousas, LA.

This is not a fancy place. In a picture dictionary, a picture of Slim’s would be beside the word “Roadhouse.” The heavy steel and plastic chairs and tables scattered around the dance floor are indestructible. I imagine that when love and jealousy collided on the dance floor the chairs have been used as truncheons and the tables have been used to hide under.

It’s fitting that the annual New Year Roy Carrier Tribute Dance takes place here, where zydeco has reigned supreme for decades. Roy, born in 1947, was a hard driving accordion player and offshore oil-rig worker. His Offshore Lounge in Lawtell, LA, was a smaller version of Slim’s, a place where Roy, who died in 2010, played for fun and was a mentor to a handful of musicians in the Zydeco universe today. Geno Delafose, the son of Roy's friend John Delafose, had his first paying gig at Roy's Offshore Lounge.

Roy purchased the Offshore Lounge in 1981. It was one of the places where traditional Creole La La music morphed into what's called zydeco today. There is no richer place on earth where so many cultures have produced so much traditional ethnic music that has become recognizable American music than southwest Louisiana.

His sons Troy and Chubby, who front Dikki Du and the Zydeco Crew and The Chubby Carrier Swamp Bayou Band, respectively, carry on the Carrier tradition. Several of their children and nephews are the next generation of Carriers that will honor their grandfather well into this century.

Since 2009, Troy Carrier of Opelousas and Dick Brainard of Portland, OR have teamed up to organize the dance, the proceeds being held to renovate Roy’s Offshore Lounge in Lawtell.

This year, Dexter Ardoin (3:00), Dikki Du (4:45), Leroy Thomas (6:15), & Jeffery Broussard (8:00) entertain. Each of them know that Roy Carrier paved the way for zydeco dancing.

Lafayette is ground zero for Zydeco dancers three times a year. Mardi Gras, the Festival Acadiens et Creole, and New Year festivities. “Where did you all come from?” Chubby asks from the stage. Responses ring out: New York, Pittsburgh, San Diego, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Delaware, Portland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Harrisburg plus one woman from France and another from Ireland... and others I can't remember!

The crowd is a little more sparse this year than in past years but the energy level is high octane. The Carrier family sisters, wives, nieces and friends, cooked up a great Louisiana feed of gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, fried chicken… the kind of stick-to-your-ribs food to keep dancers on the floor for hours.
 
Dikki Du and Chubby joined forces to sing, “Roy Left Lawtell, And He Ain’t Comin’ Back.” Old Roy’s spirit was never more alive and well.

Slim's Yi Ki Ki, Opelousas, LA; Dick Brainard welcomes one and all...

I missed Dexter Ardoin's set but Dikki Du, aka Troy Carrier, saluted his father Roy again and again in his set.  "One of my father’s sayings was, 'If you can't do right all the time, do right some of the time,' ” Troy says to introduce a song.

The dance floor was shakin' all day. VIDEO

A rare sighting: Troy and Chubby Carrier together on stage...Papa Roy woulda loved this! They joined forces to  sing,"He left Lawtell, and He Ain't Comin' Back". In the midst of this foot stomper, it felt like Roy was keeping time from above. A version by Chubby in 2013 "Found My Woman Doin' The Zydeco with Another Man"

Carrier nephew Mike Broussard on the accordion, Troy on the drums...is there any instrument the Carriers don't play?

 

Dancers from from all over the USA are here; this sample is from New Orleans, Lafayette, Atlanta, Harrisburg, Opelousas and ...?

Leroy Thomas rocked the house; Leroy told me his father Leo Thomas was recently honored at a Pioneers of Zydeco party, showed me a photo of 78 year-old Leo accepting the award in a brilliant ruby colored suit... that man knows how to dress!

Kensey Carrier, Elaine Carrier (Roy's daughter), Laura Carrier; Carrier family members with Marie Carrier, Roy's wife and Troy's step mother at right. The Carrier's cooked up a storm of jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and rice to fuel the grateful dance crowd.

Dick Brainard and friend; Dick and Troy Carrier have organized the event since 2009

Jeffery Broussard closes the set with as much energy as the afternoon began five hours ago. Cover of "Isn't She Wonderful" and Broussard's drummer belts out "Why You Gonna Make Me Cry"

NOTE: SLIM'S YI KI KI CLOSED AFTER THIS GIG, WHAT A GREAT WAY FOR THIS ICONIC BAR TO END ON. THE ROY CARRIER TRIBUTE WILL BE HELD AT THE FEED & SEED IN LAFAYETTE ON DECEMBER 27, 2016

One last look behind the bar at Slim's


Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

Cuba Chronicles: La Plaza de la Catedral

October 1, 2015 rolling along with the Road Scholars

La Plaza de la Catedral

Like every country with a few hundred years under its belt, Cuba has its share of public squares. The venerable Plaza de la Catedral is one of the five main squares in Old Havana, presided over by the church built in 1727. Its vaulted ceilings, massive marble columns and rows of worn wooden pews are the dressing for a modest sized neo-classic style altar adorned with paintings and metalwork by Italian masters Bianchini and Giuseppe Perovani.

 

"Did you notice anything about the shape of the chandelier?" asks Jo. “It was the shape of a Guadalupe gown,” she says (I had no idea what a Guadalupe gown was until I googled it, guys don't know this stuff!). “The church is not very ornate, not much gold or wood because it was too close to the ocean. The entire area was swampland and was 11 km away from the nearest river which connected to this area by a canal in that ended here.”

In the past decades, relations with the Catholic church have softened. Visits by a pope are a big deal. The recent visit by Pope Francis recent eight day tour in September 2015 drew huge crowds.

The cathedral was such a grand edifice that it inspired those with ambition and money to build grand mansions around the spacious plaza. Today, it’s the site of the Museo del Arte Colonial and, of course, several restaurants in the re-purposed mansions with seating under the porticos. The Palacio del Conde Lombillo has a great life sized statue of Antonio Gades, a famous flamenco dancer. In Cuba, dancers reputations usually exceed the stature of saints.

 
The whole plaza/square is amazingly un-commercial. Although there are small (some the size of a narrow living room) stores on the streets surrounding it, the place has probably dressed this way for decades. Chain stores? Franchise businesses? Any kind of large store? Nope.

Some call it an advantage, some a disadvantage, but because Cubans don’t have what you would call disposable income, the economy does not require them to buy stuff in order to stay healthy. Cubans would be either aghast or jealous of the amount of stuff most Americans have in their homes.

For one week, I am not bombarded with advertising in magazines, billboards, neon lights, advertising “SALE!” or some new digital product. I don’t miss it one tiny bit. Neither will I miss having my iPhone filling with email and texts. I love my friends but for eight days, they might as well be on the moon. That said, probably one of the things highest on a Cuban wish list is internet access.

“The area around here used to be poor but with tourism the area is safer," Jo says. In fact, the violent crime rate in Havana is extremely low.

She shows us a building being renovated, people still live there during renovations.

If I recollect accurately, Jo said that people can own only one house and had to give the rest away after the revolution, even if to a son or a daughter or relative. A person owns the house but does not own the land it is on, that belongs to the government.

She says that if the government takes down a building for renovation or some other reason, it must give the former owners a new place to live. Usually the owners can return to their homes after restoration but sometimes they’re relocated to the outskirts of Havana since Havana is built out already. The Cuban laws about land and ownership are to me very complicated. To Cubans they either make sense or are accepted as commonplace.

 
Anywhere there are crowds of tourists, there will be entertainers and vendors. This fellow is a traveling circus act with two small dogs and a bag full of props (including a pair of goofy false teeth) on his bicycle… and is a pro at working a crowd. The dogs appears to carry on a conversation with their owner and, of course, dance “en paw,” to get our attention…and earn a few pesos in the process.

 

Tourism is one of the three main sources of revenue Jo tells us that tourism is one of the three main sources of revenue in Cuba (other two were written in my lost notebook!)

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

The Sixth Cousin of Miss Universe Basks in the Glow of Olivia Culpo...again!

December 21, 2015

Glory days again…yours truly, SCOMU, the sixth cousin of Miss Universe 2012, basks in the refracted glow of his 23 year-old relative’s fame. Sitting in one of the judge’s chairs on Sunday night December 20 with Perez Hilton, Niece Nash, and Emmitt Smith, Olivia Culpo witnessed one of the most unfortunate incidents in Miss Universe history.  

Steve Harvey, popular TV host, announced the winner of the contest to be Miss Colombia - less than a minute later he discovered he made a colossal mistake. Moments later, an agonized look on his face, Harvey announced the winner was actually Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach of the Philippines. His immediate correction, with a huge heartfelt mea culpa, won him back some respect but geez, think of the Niagara Falls of emotional turbulence on stage during that announcement and Harvey's correction.

Cousin Olivia’s support of Steve Harvey after the gaffe was reported in the Boston Globe, confirming the young lady has class to go along with beauty.

My lineage to the Miss Universe? Olivia Culpo is my great grandfather’s sister’s daughter’s son’s son’s daughter. I remember listening to her musician grandfather John Culpo playing the accordion when I was a kid. I think of him every time I see Olivia's smile, so much like her grandfather's.

Details about the FOMU and more? Get your scorecard out and visit http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2013/01/six-degrees-of-miss-universe.html

Photo of Smith, Culpo, and Hilton courtesy of Getty Images

"Golytely": Colonic Fast Lane Pass...Again

I sit here contemplating the jug of 'Golytely' i’ve just taken out of the fridge. The next several hours will be spent not more than a quick march distance to the toilet.
A reprise of the column I wrote in May five years ago puts a new spin on ‘the joy of giving” in December 2015.
 

December 17, 2015

Whoever came up with the title “Golytely” for this pre-colonoscopy preparation liquid has a warped sense of humor.  First of all, you’re instructed to drink 8 fluid ounces of this liquid every ten minutes until the four-liter jug is empty.

Anyone with a brain knows that drinking that amount of anything that fast will certainly result in ‘going” that won't be “lyte.” The clear liquid looks like water but goes down like it’s laced with stealth mineral oil. Mixing it with a crystal light lemon packet improves the taste. Nothing improves the sensation that you’re drinking heavy water.

 By the time the jug is empty, every inch of the 5 feet of your colon, perhaps a whole bunch of your small intestine, and for that matter just about anything that was lurking in your alimentary canal will have been induced to discharge itself. You will not dare be more than twelve paces from a toilet of refuge for the duration. The word fire hose comes to mind.

Once the Golytely begins its volcanic activity within your innards, I warn you - do not read any email that might make you laugh.

A well-meaning friend sent me Dave Barry’s famous essay about his own colonoscopy experience. Had I read it twenty minutes later than I did, I would have been a sorry advertisement for Depends.

Do be in a mode Code Red of Sphincter Awareness. Do not sneeze. Do not cough. Do not lift. Do not even think about passing gas while your stomach is churning like the agitator in your Maytag.

Do have enough toilet paper handy so that if Christo were to drop by your house to borrow enough toilet paper to construct an installation to drape "Charmin Ultra Strong" from the Quabbin Reservoir to the Deer Island Waste Plant, you could say “Sure, pal, pull up your truck.”

Do have someone drive you home after the procedure, which you won’t remember, since a friendly nurse will lace the IV she inserts into your arm with a very dandy drip of versed and fentanyl. You won’t have been that buzzed since you left college.

You’ll walk out of the hospital with a goofy grin and walk the corridor like it was a giant slalom. You will sleep like a baby for several hours after returning home.
You will have, for the briefest of time, the cleanest colon in town.

Photo by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/05/golytely-colonic-fast-lane-pass.html

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein celebrates 50th In Style

Evanston Ecology Center
2024 McCormick Boulevard
Evanston, IL
December 5, 2015

Forty years and counting. That would be the number of years Jeff Kelly Lowenstein and I have been talking to each other. I suppose in other contexts this would not be unusual. Well, this one began when Jeff was a nine-year-old kid in my fourth grade classroom at the John Pierce School in Brookline, MA in 1974. I’d say that qualifies as unusual. 

During the next eight years until he finished at Brookline High School, and the next four when he graduated from Stanford University (magna cum laude), he’d stop in to say hello. I was never surprised to hear a voice booming, “Hey, Mr. Tamburello, how's it going?” as he rounded the corner and into my classroom. It didn’t hurt that Jeff remembered exactly where we’d left off the last time.  I know that teachers can have lasting impacts on our students. Getting direct feedback about it made me feel like I'd earned an Oscar.

In 1986, Jeff’s mother Alice was critically injured in a car crash as she and her husband Dr. Ed Lowenstein, who was not seriously injured, negotiated an icy road in New Hampshire. Jeff returned to Brookline to care for his mother as she began an arduous recovery, assisted by Jeff and his two brothers.

Needing a breather and another purposeful way to spend his time, Jeff walked over to the Pierce School, and met with school principal Alvin Fortune, a big man with a bigger heart, a Papa Bear who used gentle authority and wisdom to lead a diverse population of students, teachers and parents.

Mr. Fortune asked Jeff to run the recess program and help out in the library. One day, Jeff walked up to “4T” and asked if he could spend time in my classroom. As a teacher, how amazingly cool is it to have a former student want to return to the same classroom he’s last spent time in as a nine year old, this time as a co-teacher.

Jeff was, and is, a natural in the classroom. He led terrific history lessons, got every kid engaged in the learning process. And we had fun. Jeff organized a "You Can Do Anything (if you work at it) Series". Guest speakers included his friends who were writers and cartoonists. Those two years, 1987-1989, were easily the most unique and exciting years of my career. There are stories we reminisce about to this day.

“Hey, PT, I just want you to know I was standing on your shoulders again today!”  That’s often the way our conversations have started over the years - from Stanford University; to his middle and high school teaching days; work with Facing History and Ourselves; volunteer work at the Cranks Creek Survival Center in Kentucky; Harvard University’s Masters Certificate Program; Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism; The Chicago Reporter as staff reporter; Chicago Tribune’s Spanish language Hoy newspaper as database and investigative reporter; and Columbia College in Chicago where he teaches journalism these days. And in between there were Fulbright programs in Kentucky, South Africa, New Zealand and a stint as President of the Ochberg Society for Trauma Journalism.

I’ve called Jeff my “Walking Talking Lifetime Achievement Award” since I990 when I received Brookline’s Ernest Caverly Award for Excellence in Teaching. Acknowledging colleagues who'd helped me grow from a rookie to a veteran, I said, “There is a Chinese proverb that states that the students shall stand upon the shoulders of their teacher.”

Twenty-two years later, Jeff published “On My Teacher’s Shoulders.” He introduced it as “The book I wrote about learning from fourth grade teacher Paul Tamburello at three different points over the course of 30 years, and just keeps on going.”

It kept on going in Evanston, IL, on Saturday, December 5, when Jeff’s wife Dunreith threw party to celebrate Jeff’s 50th birthday. 

Sixty-five guests from just about every niche in Jeff’s life came together to sing praises and occasionally roast the guest of honor. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to describe the testimonial interlude at the end of the evening as a love fest. Often when it comes time for people to step up to a microphone and speak spontaneously, there’s an uncomfortable silence. Not tonight. One after another, a friend, colleague, relative, former co-worker, stepped up. Laughter and nods of agreement rippled through the gathering as one after another told stories that illustrated Jeff’s personality and the ways he’s enriched their lives.

Staying in touch with me over the past 40 years, sharing his personal and professional growth, and connecting it with his time spent with me as a fourth grader and a young adult, is a continuing source of joy to me. I might be the only teacher in America who's had a student return to his elementary school to teach with his former teacher then write a book about it. And we're not going to stop talking together anytime soon.

Testimonials like the ones shared tonight usually flow at your funeral. Opening the spigot at your fiftieth birthday is way more satisfying.

Relaxing after a scrumptious buffet dinner

 

One of two photo boards; a fabulous birthday cake the size of a city block!

Jeff's brother Jon Lowenstein , an alumnus of "4T", clicking away; Jeff and Dunreith's friends from Cambridge, MA (that's Dunreith peeking over Jeff's shoulder).

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

Margarita European Inn: Evanston's Boutique Hotel

The Margarita European Inn
1566 Oak Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
December 8, 2015

Exquisite, charming, historic. Forget the high-end cookie cutter Hiltons in the area, this is the place to rest your weary bones any time you visit Evanston, just north of Chicago. The place certainly fits the ‘boutique’ appellation but with all the positive connotations.

The lobby and its “Grand Parlor” is a knockout, magnificently appointed with furniture and antiques collected from around the world. It has the kind of ambiance that invites you first to gawk then to walk right in and make yourself comfortable. The Margarita European Inn exudes old-world elegance without pretension and wears its ninety-year history like a well-loved robe.

If you feel like luxuriating in more intimate quarters, head for the compact wood-paneled English library, sink into one of the armchairs and imagine spending an hour sipping port and admiring the oriental rug at your feet or the one of a kind furnishings around you.

The Grand Parlor has furniture strategically arranged so couples, small groups, and solo travelers can easily find a place to eat.

Two characters you’re likely to meet, Kathryn the general manager and Philippe the pastry chef, each add to your reason to want to return. Kathryn knows every little stitch of the hotel’s history and probably some of its secrets, the former that she’ll tell you in rich detail, and the latter that will go with her to the grave. Questions about transportation, places to eat, find a good cup of coffee (a short walk)? Fire away. She’ll tell you not to miss the Greek yogurt at the breakfast buffet, “ the richest you’ve ever tasted,” and she’s right.

In a French accent as thick as the incredible Greek yogurt on the breakfast buffet, pastry chef Philippe tells me he was born in Belfort, just outside Alsace Lorraine, and learned his trade as a 14-year-old apprentice. He loves to see guests feast upon his delicious brioche, beignets, croissants, pastries, and petite breakfast sandwiches of ham/cheese or turkey/cheese. The coffee, from a local roaster, is first rate.

During the busy summer season, he reloads the buffet a couple of times, happy to see guests pocket goodies to fortify themselves as they tour. Philippe arrives at 4:30 AM each day to make the dough, bake the goodies and have everything ready by 7 AM when he brings it up from his kitchen in the hotel. Oh, and he's also a pastry chef at DePaul University.

View into the Grand Parlor from the lobby.

My room with a king-sized bed on the fifth floor overlooking Oak Avenue was tastefully appointed. Designed for occupancy in the 1920s, rooms don't have as much space to spread out as more modern hotels The bathroom is updated but retains some of the tiled charm and elegant sink faucet/bowl of a hotel nearing the century mark.

About that sumptuous ‘grand parlor.’ The 46 room Margarita Club for working women was built in 1927 to provide apartments and respectability for young professional women who wanted to live on their own. This was Chicago in the midst of the Roaring Twenties when living alone would practically be a billboard declaring “Wayward Woman.”  

The namesake Margarita was the first female resident of Evanston, Margaret O’Leary (1801-1900), and a big wheel in the Evanston community for most of her life. Her son Father David O’Leary and his sister Margaret O’Leary Lynch bought the land and built the Margarita Club in her honor. The grand parlor was big enough to accommodate residents for tea and socializing.

The proud history of this little one-of-a-kind hotel.

The hotel is practically a museum for early 20th century furniture, tapestries, rugs, artwork, vases, lamps and objets d’art. The fascinating collection of furnishings was donated by a generous socialite who chose them on her travels around the world.

There are great bakeries and coffee shops within a ten-minute walk. The Margarita, a refreshing alternative to contemporary hotel offerings, is a swell place to stay. If all the above isn’t enough to tempt you, the original 1927 Otis Elevator with its cage style doors in perfect operating condition is a hoot to ride, a piece of Americana that takes you right back to the day the Margarita opened its doors.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. with his iPhone5

Travel tip: The Chicago Transit Authority Bus 250 at the corner of Davis and Oak Avenue, three minute walk from the Margarita, will take you directly to O'Hare Airport in about 50 minutes - for $3.00! Take the 250 from O'Hare to Evanston, too!