Until we're allowed back into bars in New Orleans and until people feel comfortable coming down and sitting around having a cocktail with random strangers, we're revisiting some our best shows from the past decade. Today Happy Hour Digital Producer, Andrew "C-Rock" Cirac has picked this episode, so here's the Return of the Random All Cajun Happy Hour Special. Happy Hour is billed as “Random conversation with folks who have nothing in common.” Anything that’s truly random will, sooner or later, a...
Jun 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min
In the Happy Hour annals of "random people who have nothing in common," the day artist Katrina Brees meets Tank and the Bangas stands out to Happy Hour Live Feed Video Director Asher Griffith as the Best Of Happy Hour. Where's Karina? If you ever wondered what happened to Karina Nathan she’s now Kevin Simons. And Karen Regis. And Krystal Sedona. And Chi Chi the lead singer of the Girl Dawgs, who is actually a dog. Katrina Brees sheds some light on this fantastic array of personalities, and their...
Jun 17, 2020•1 hr 6 min
Still barred from hanging out in bars in New Orleans, in the interests of public health, we continue to revisit standout shows from years gone by. This show, in which Humidor Saves The World Again, is the first Happy Hour after the election of Donald J Trump in 2016. Even then we knew things were going to go to Hell. If only podcasting was as popular in 2016 as it is today. Maybe somebody in DC would have heard this conversation and we could, indeed have saved the world. For now though all we ca...
Jun 10, 2020•1 hr 2 min
There's nothing more totally "New Orleans" than poboys, drag queens, and Cowboy Mouth. That's why, till we can go back in bars and hang out, Happy Hour photographer Jill Lafleur picks this show as her favorite from the past few years to revisit. Drag Queens Poppy Tooker is New Orleans first lady of food. From her weekly TV appearances on Steppin’ Out to to her weekly radio show and podcast, Poppy is the best known foodie in the city. Poppy’s latest venture is a collaboration with a large group o...
Jun 03, 2020•1 hr 5 min
In the annals of “You never know what the hell is going to come up in conversation,” this Happy Hour would have to rank at the top of the list. That's why, till we can go back into bars in new Orleans, Happy Hour producer Graham da Ponte has chosen this as her favorite show of the past 5 years - yes, it's the return of Clit Sit Meditation. Aidi Kansas (her real name) left behind a career as a pet portrait artist to pursue her abilities as a psychic energy healer and has stumbled into the world o...
May 27, 2020•1 hr 12 min
After making Happy Hour for nearly 10 years and meeting with random folks in various bars around New Orleans, this is the very first show where we just turn on the mics, put the Zoom link out on the internet and sit back and see who shows up. Predictably, we get a bunch of people trying to hack the show down and hijack us with a bunch of porn, but other than a few salacious moments, our Digital producer Andrew “C-Rock” Cirac manages to run a tight ship and let in a few folks from around the coun...
May 20, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Matt Haines went to school to learn to become a classical trombone player with visions of playing trombone in an orchestra. But plans change. Initially Matt started teaching people to play in marching bands, which lead him to Thailand, not necessarily known for its place on the brass band pantheon, and then to new Orleans, the home of the hippest trombone players on the planet. That’s when Matt quit playing trombone. He’s now a writer. Ashley Herbert is the CEO of a company called Bart’s Office ...
May 13, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Isaac Toups is one of the most talented and celebrated chefs in New Orleans . Isaac was a finalist on the TV show Top Chef and he’s currently a finalist for the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef South, which is the food equivalent of the Oscars. But before all that, Isaac was a winner of the Tadpole competition in his native Rayne, Louisiana. Rayne bills itself as The Frog Capital of the World (no kidding, look it up) and Isaac was the winner of the baby competition there, back when he...
May 06, 2020•1 hr 1 min
When you’re in a relationship, sex changes over time. Sometimes it goes from being good to being great. Other times, the fabulous person you fell in love with appears to change completely and turns into a person who is batsh*t crazy and completely unlovable. We’re summarizing here, but this is pretty much how Andrew Duhon describes the possibility of the trajectories of love in the modern era. The reason we’re having this conversation on Happy Hour is because Tracy Carlson is a sex therapist . I...
Apr 29, 2020•1 hr 9 min
Seriously, you have no idea how easy it is to be a best selling author. When you see a book on the best seller list of Amazon, don’t you assume that it must be selling hundreds of thousands? Try 800. Not 800,000, just 800. That’s what both the authors on this Happy Hour tell us. Dr Chris Yandle gets up around 6AM. By around 7AM he’s jotting down a clever line that he’s dreamed up since 6AM. He puts the clever line on a piece of paper and slips it into his daughter’s book bag. (This is not the pl...
Apr 22, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Music is apparently non-essential. So New Orleans musicians have no place to play. Some are doing live streaming from their homes, but others – like drummers and sax players – don’t have the kind of live streaming ability that, say, a singer-songwriter has. And then there’s this interesting factoid – Petco is regarded as essential and is still open. So here’s the obvious solution: Live From Petco. Musicians go play at Petco, if not in the store then at least in the parking lot. That’s the wisdom...
Apr 15, 2020•1 hr 18 min
If you’re trapped at home hating watching the world come to an end, remember the wise words of Sergio from the band Rodo: One person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia. Sergio and Rodo (the person) play a couple of songs that illustrate this dichotomy, as well as pulling together another pair of polar concepts, ballads and hip hop, into their unique blend of music that Grant apparently branded as Hip Hop Ballad. Their new music is out April 15th, so enjoy your dystopia/utopia with a new sound...
Apr 01, 2020•1 hr 12 min
In our second Happy Hour by Zoom we manage to take advantage of not being able to hang out in a bar and instead talk to people all across the country in a new concept we’re calling Covideo. Yes, that’s in questionable taste, but after all it is Happy Hour. Mike Rubin is stuck in his second week of isolation in San Francisco. When times are normal Mike has a photography business called Neomodern , in which people walk into his photo gallery with their phones filled with photos and with the assist...
Mar 25, 2020•1 hr 11 min
When we started making podcasts in New Orleans 10 years ago, we encountered a lot of skeptical questions, among them “What happens when you run out of good guests, in 6 weeks?” and “What’s a podcast?” One of the questions we didn’t hear was, “What happens if every bar and restaurant in the city shuts down?” That sure would have been funny, but it’s turning out to be no joke. So, welcome to It's New Orleans Coronavirus. Part 2. Our show is coming to you today courtesy of Zoom. All of our crew and...
Mar 18, 2020•1 hr 10 min
So today it's New Orleans Corona Virus: Part 1 - the first day of the New Orleans shut down. Even the It's New Orleans Happy Hour podcast is caught up in the global pandemic, though so far all that's happened to us is we have to move off the stage of the Maple Leaf Bar to make room for Dave Jordan and Flow Tribe after they relocated here when the outdoor Wednesday in the Square concert was shut down by the city. So, instead of thousands of people gathering in the sunny outdoors while our small c...
Mar 11, 2020•1 hr 4 min
If you've ever rented an apartment, when you've gone to move out, you've almost certainly told the landlord "I want to get my security deposit back." What happens after that is the great unknown. Most often you've probably just given up arguing with the landlord and let the guy keep your money. Because that's what a huge number of us do, there is about $6 BILLION a year in un-returned security deposits. Marco Nelson is the guy who knows all about that $6B, he's setting about getting it back for ...
Mar 05, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Mardi Gras and Day of the Dead are two very different holidays. But in 2020 Mardi Gras Death is a real thing. It's Ash Wednesday 2020, the day after the deadliest Mardi Gras, possibly of all time. Julie Couret is a witness to what happened. As a regular TV commentator camera crews sought Julie out right after the event and today, with the benefit of a bit hindsight, Julie gives us a first hand account of riding in the Nyx Parade just a few floats behind the woman who was killed trying to walk be...
Feb 27, 2020•1 hr 4 min
Jazz singer/songwriter Gabrielle Cavassa broke up with the guy she was dating and when they got together a month later - for that ridiculous "closure" we've heard so much about - he gave her the ammo for a vicious, cutting song about what a kind, loving, genius he'd turned into since they split. He even told her that he'd gotten so smart that he listens to podcasts now. We realize we're on thin ice here, suggesting only pretentious jerks listen to podcasts, because obviously you're so smart you ...
Feb 06, 2020•1 hr 3 min
You probably think you've heard every weird bad disastrous insane mistaken awful relationship story there is. You haven't. Not till you hear comedian hypnotist Flip Orley document his 5 wives and explain the drunken tattoos all over his body with, "My 4th wife was Cajun." Honestly, if you need to be reassured your own relationship is not so bad, or you want to bask in the relief of being in a good relationship, you have got to hear these extraordinary true tales of Flip's wives. Musician Lenny G...
Jan 23, 2020•1 hr 3 min
It literally doesn't get more real New Orleans than this Happy Hour. Charlie Gabriel was born in New Orleans in 1932. He started shining shoes and playing music when he was 5. By the time he was 11 he was a professional musician and he's never looked back. He did leave new Orleans for a while. Actually, about 60 years. Hurricane Katrina and Preservation Hall brought him back. Charlie is a national treasure and one of New Orleans' finest musicians and gentlemen. This is a rare opportunity to hear...
Jan 16, 2020•1 hr 2 min
All of us have a love language: some way we prefer love to be communicated to us. For some it’s touch, for others it’s receiving gifts. Your ideal partner in life is a person who speaks your language of love. If you’re having trouble finding that perfect lifetime love-talk , Ann Parnes can help you. Ann is a professional matchmaker . Tell her who you’re looking for and she’ll go to a bunch of parties, functions, and dinner parties and troll the crowds so you don’t have to. Big Chief Delco from C...
Jan 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min
The girl with the Christmas tree on her head would be eye-catching anywhere. The sparkly glitter on her face and her 8 inch shoes with snow-globes in each perspex heel turns heads even in New Orleans. To find out Jezebel Lobelia lives in Lafayette is astounding. Jezebel makes things like the Christmas tree on her head. They're called fascinators and you can see the full wide range of them at Jezebel's Etsy shop, Jezebel's Fascination . Mark Taliancich doesn't look quite as eye-popping as Jezebel...
Dec 12, 2019•1 hr 3 min
Sure it's heresy to eat King Cake before 12th Night but Susan Freeswick brings a load of awesome food to this edition of Happy Hour, including King Cake, and gets a NOLA Heresy Pass because it's all Keto from her bakery Everyday Keto to Go . In the middle of this conversation, Susan's Keto Fat Bomb explodes the myth of celebrity. Strictly, it's writer Thomas Beller who explodes that myth. Tom set out to be a rock star, as the drummer in a New York band. Along the way he stumbled into a different...
Dec 05, 2019•1 hr 6 min
When Josh Benitez sings " I.D.G.A.F! I don't give a funk" he's got a whole lot not to give a funk about. It's actually a funking miracle he's not a serial killer or hasn't killed himself. You've got to hear Josh tell his story in his own words but the short version is, he was the target of racism that was so bad he didn't leave the house the whole time he was in high school. In fact he didn't even go to high school. He stayed inside so much his skin tone changed and he turned shades lighter. Whe...
Nov 14, 2019•1 hr 2 min
Dominic Sgro owns a typically New Orleans tattoo shop, complete with an on-staff magician and live music. At Catahoula Tattoo & Gallery Dominic will give you a free tattoo, as long as it's not on your face. And it also has to be the logo of the tattoo shop - which is a catahoula wearing a death mask - but who wouldn't want that inked on their bicep, right? Winston Triolo from the band Motel Radio is going to trade playing a set at Dominic's shop for a tattoo of his truck on his forearm. If y...
Nov 07, 2019•1 hr 5 min
The two poles of human interaction are the desire for intimacy but the fear of commitment, right? We all have it. And nobody nails it quite like Cyrille Aimee . French-born, New York seasoned and now new Orleans resident, chanteuse Cyrille Aimee is what she calls "jazz famous." And she is. The New York Times has called Cyrille one of the greatest jazz vocalists of our time so it's a real treat to have her sit at Happy Hour and, with extraordinary accompanist Joshua Starkman , play Sondheim's Mar...
Oct 16, 2019•1 hr 2 min
Recovering architect and brand designer Adam Newman remarks on this show that knowing when to shut up is one of the most valuable life lessons. And he's glad he recently learned it because it has come in handy today, surrounded by three of the coolest women you could pull together at a table anywhere. Let's start with Michelle Welchons . Michelle plays the cajon, is a Spanish translator in the New Orleans court system, leads her own band, Orchidea, traveled to Peru to do Ahayuasca, and is half o...
Oct 09, 2019•1 hr 2 min
If you have frequent flier miles and you've been wondering "What's the best thing I can do with them?" Seth Stanton has the answer. You can give them to the organization he founded here in New Orleans called Miles 4 Migrants . Seth and his fellow volunteers at Miles 4 Migrants will use your miles to reunite families who have been separated by conflict or persecution. Can you even imagine a more feel-good thing to do than to use the most ultimate luxury non-necessity in your life to help someone ...
Sep 25, 2019•1 hr 2 min
If you've been a New Orleanian for any length of time, you're going to enjoy this very candid conversation with 3 New Orleans celebrities. Poppy Tooker is New Orleans first lady of food. From her weekly TV appearances on Steppin' Out to to her weekly radio show and podcast, Poppy is the best known foodie in the city. Poppy's latest venture is a collaboration with a large group of drag queens to produce a strong of drag queen brunches around town, culminating in her 6th book, simply called Drag Q...
Sep 18, 2019•1 hr 4 min
Where do you stand on crystals? Do you think they have any power? Or is that all b.s.? Stacy Bogg mines her own crystals and dispenses crystal-power medicine through her business, Karma Rocks . As you might imagine, Stacy comes down solidly on the side of metaphysical power emanating from crystals that vibrate at particular frequencies in ways that have a real effect on us in the physical world. Daniel Shkolnik , as well as being a poet, is also variously an agnostic or atheist and believes that...
Sep 11, 2019•1 hr 3 min
