… There may be a real battle brewing at the specialty job of deep snapper. Kevin Houser may be challenged in training camp by DE Rob Ninkovich for the spot. Ninkovich’s versatility may end up as a tie-breaker for the roster spot. And the fact that DEs Charles Grant and Will Smith will likely be suspended for the 1st 4 games of the regular season has to help Ninkovich’s cause.
—Jonathan Vilma made a nice interception on the first play of 7-on-7 drills.
—The biggest roar from the crowd came from a brief skirmish involving DE Anthony Hargrove. The fiesty free agent addition was quickly surrounded by teammates. No harm, no foul.
—Tom Benson and his wife rode around in a golf cart throughout practice. The Saints owner was all smiles while waving to onlookers. And his Puma pimp hat (for lack of a better term) was rather stylish. Not my style though.
Few people outside the company have seen footage of the movie. Among them are consultants like Oprah Winfrey, whom Disney asked for input on the racial aspects of the film and was cast as Tianas mother. (Movie theater owners and members of the NAACP have also been shown scenes, and the reactions, according to a Disney spokeswoman, were extremely positive.)
Fueling the debate are photos of related merchandise taken from a toy industry event, a one-minute teaser trailer and Disneys enormous cultural impact.
The company wants to vanquish once and for all the whispers of racism that linger from stumbles in the past. Yes, Dumbo traded in black stereotypes in 1941 with its band of uneducated, pimp-hat-wearing crows. All the animals in The Jungle Book from 1967 speak in proper British accents except for the jive-talking monkeys who desperately want to become real people.
Today is the anniversary of the first publication of Bram Stoker’s immortal (no pun intended) novel, “Dracula.” Now, I’m not a die hard vampire junkie. I didn’t goth myself up for the opening night of the “Twilight” movie (though I have heard good things about the books), and the only entertainment value I found in “Interview with the Vampire” is in the fact that IMDB lists “Whore on Waterfront,” “Pimp,” “New Orleans Whore,” and “2nd Whore” as four the film’s twelve most important roles. That’s not to say that I don’t understand the appeal of these creatures of the night. There are at least two forms of vampirtainment (it’s a word…don’t look it up) that have successfully sunk their fangs into my jugular: anything with the name “Joss Whedon” attached to it, and any game with the word “Castlevania” in the title.
See the full article from “Examiner.com”
New Orleans Strip Clubs: Former Big Daddy’s building transforms in sporting saloon-cabaret
June 18, 2009
Former Big Daddy’s building transforms in sporting saloon-cabaret
by NOLA.com Thursday June 18, 2009, 12:54 PM
Rick’s Cabaret New Orleans has opened Rick’s Sporting Saloon, the newest Bourbon Street gentleman’s club.
Rick’s has been known for years for bringing adult entertainment to the Big Easy. Club management expects the new sporting saloon to become a destination of choice for New Orleans’ tourists and sports lovers’ alike, providing premiere adult entertainment in a western-sports pub atmosphere.
“I wanted to add value to the typical Bourbon Street experience, without detracting from the atmosphere we’ve developed at Rick’s Cabaret,” said Robert Watters, founder of Rick’s Cabaret and member of the company’s board of directors. “This new venue, at 522 Bourbon, with its wine barrel bar and the beer casks overhead, creates a different expectation that the ten draft beers will deliver.
New Orleans Strip Clubs: Unclothed riders pedal through Quarter to expose cyclists’ problems
June 17, 2009
Annie Jane Cotten, 26, who wore pasties on her bare breasts and a black sarong rolled up around her waist, said many people have the attitude that roads are made for cars only.
“But there are alternative modes of transportation out there,” she said, “and bikes happen to be one of the best.”
Saturday’s ride started at Washington Square Park at Royal Street and Elysian Fields Avenue. It traveled nine blocks down Royal before the cyclists headed back to the park via Bourbon Street, escorted by New Orleans Police Department vehicles and a car stereo blaring songs including the rock band Blink 182’s “All the Small Things.”
Perhaps because the scene unfolded so close to Bourbon’s strip clubs, many observers quickly overcame their initial shock and shouted, “Whoo!” as the riders passed. Some wolf whistled. Others flipped on camcorders and digital cameras to capture the scene.
Saxophonist Sam Butera dead at 81
NEW YORK, June 5 (UPI) — Famed New Orleans-born jazz and R&B musician Sam Butera has died in Las Vegas his family said. He was 81.
Butera, who played saxophone with singer-songwriter-musician Louis Prima for more than 20 years and later became a successful bandleader, died Wednesday, The New York Times reported.
Butera began playing the saxophone when he was 7, became a professional musician at 14 when he was hired to perform in a strip club on Bourbon Street and won a talent contest sponsored by Look magazine when he was 19.
Having worked with the big bands of Ray McKinley, Tommy Dorsey and others, he formed his own group, which had a four-year residency at the 500 Club in New Orleans, the Times noted.
But the strip clubs settings were typically dingy, and the dancing artless. Strippers disrobed while walking arhthymically across the stage, embellishing the stroll with bumps and grinds. B-girls and prostitutes worked the dark, ill-smelling rooms, soliciting watered-down drinks and sometimes rolling hapless customers (i.e., robbing them after drugging or clobbering them). A variety of narcotics was available, and they took their toll on musicians, entertainers, and prostitutes.
…
The French Quarter clubs of the early postwar years were almost exclusively for white audiences, and white musicians had most of the jobs at strip clubs. Some exceptions were recalled by bassist Richard Payne and drummer Earl Palmer. Payne, who played with early greats like Ed Blackwell, James Black, Ellis Marsalis, Nat Perrilliat, and others, remembers trumpeter Thomas Jefferson’s description of a strip gig. The black band had to play for strippers from behind a curtain, invisible to the white audience.
New Orleans Strip Clubs: In New Orleans, Katrina survivor who saved his dogs and helped …
June 17, 2009
… He worked the graveyard shift because he was big enough to handle the strippers and the drunks and the dealers who followed the strippers in,” his sister said.
By last summer, he had saved enough money to buy his own place, Station 8801, a restaurant and bar in an old gas station. An ardent cook, he specialized in crawfish boils, portobello mushroom sandwiches and a Cajun squash dish called stuffed mirliton.
…
“It was full of salt-of-the-earth people,” his sister said. “Strippers, policemen, bartenders, janitors, people who swept the streets, anybody that had something to add to a life perspective. He would sit and talk to anyone for hours if it gave him a different perspective.”
One of the people who wept at his service was the young stripper he’d recently shepherded into rehab.
Featured comment
eunomian…
This isn’t about players breaking the LAW. This lawsuit is about players taking a banned LEGAL substance provided over the counter with a
key missing ingredient not labeled on the bottle. The state law states that employers cannot take action against employees who have “engaged in the use or enjoyment of lawful consumable products, if the use or enjoyment takes place off the premises of the employer during non-working hours.” Your comparison of Adam “Pacman” Jones shooting at strippers to this scenario is not justified. Free the Williamses!