L.A. Trip (and Hearst Castle)

I’ve lived in New Orleans since late 2009, but before that – I was in Los Angeles for nearly 18 years. So far, that’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere, but if home is where the heart is, my heart was always in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

Because of the pandemic, I haven’t been back to L.A. since 2019. The things I miss most about L.A. are my friends and 3 food items.

Pussyfooters’ Blush Ball & the David Bowie Parade

Carnival season doesn’t just mean parades. It also means King Cake season and Ball season. This was my 3rd year attending the Pussyfooters’ Blush Ball benefitting the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children (METRO). The balls thrown by the parade krewes are usually formal (though women tend to wear comfortable Keds or flip flops under their gowns) but the balls thrown by dance krewes tend to be more of a “Do whatcha wanna” situation.  At Blush Ball, we Pussyfooters wear our pink and orange corseted parade uniforms and encourage others to wear costumes and pink-it-up! 

Return to L.A.

Though Louisiana has always felt like home to me, I never actually lived here until 2009. And though I spent nearly 18 years in Los Angeles, I never actually felt truly home there. That said, I’ve made sure I return at least once a year to see friends, take care of business and have a meal at Mel’s Drive-In on Sunset. This time, I was headed to L.A. to participate in the Courts Celebrity Fan Fest. It seemed funny somehow to return to L.A. to sign autographs. The city is as packed to the gills with celebrities as New Orleans is with Grammy winners so I hardly feel like I stand out in a crowd. But it all made sense when I spoke to the students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) at their Industry Insight Series.

Our New Orleans Wedding and Second Line

If you’ve read this blog’s ABOUT page, then you know that one reason I moved to New Orleans after 18 years in Los Angeles was to find my mate. “I followed my heart here. My gut told me that everything I was looking for, denying myself while I furthered my career, was right here where I always wanted to be.” I met Andy at the Lost Love Lounge (yes, really) 8 months after moving here and we’ve been slowly walking toward the altar ever since. A few weeks ago, we finally tied the knot – New Orleans-style with everything from DancingMan504 and The Roots of Music to the Pussyfooters and “The Dude” (okay, he’s not New Orleans, but he abides everywhere).

Beatles Fest 2013

House of Blues hosted the 11th annual New Orleans Beatles Festival, the third one I’ve attended. It seems hard to believe that the Beatles debuted their first album, Please Please Me, in the UK 50 years ago. Next year will commemorate the 50 year anniversary of the Beatles coming to America. Oddly enough, the band made a stop on that tour to play the stadium in City Park for $5 a ticket. Their only request was to meet the legendary Fats Domino, which they did. 

French Quarter Fest Saturday

The French Quarter Fest is as much about local cuisine as it is about our amazing music with over 65 local vendors tempting tastebuds with everything from spicy seafood to sweet snowballs. Saturday, the  festival was also the proving ground for Rouses Crawfish Eating World Championship. There were several rounds of competition culminating with the 4th annual win for Sonya Thomas AKA “The Black Widow.” She managed to pack 2.2 pounds of crawfish into her 100 pound body in 10 minutes. Louisianan hunk Adrian Morgan came in second with 2 pounds. I finished one Pulled Pork Sandwich topped with Cole Slaw ($6) from The Joint while watching

LA Film & Video Magazine and Raintree Services Galas

This weekend, I attended 2 galas, one for “Hollywood South” networking and the other a fundraiser for foster children. The first event was hosted by Louisiana Film & Video Magazine in the old Mardi Gras World across the river. We met up with Jeff “The Dude” Dowd (the inspiration for the Jeff Bridges character in The Big Lebowski) and took the ferry over to Algiers. It’s always beautiful to see the city from a distance, lights reflecting on the Mississippi’s surface. The Dude is in town to gear up for the first Louisiana International Film Festival in less than two weeks where I will be hosting 2 workshops so we were ready to do some serious networking.

The Big Easy to the Big Apple

When I was starting out as an actor nearly 25 years ago, I first went to New York to study. I had almost no experience and absolutely no idea what might lie ahead for me and my new career. The Wednesday after Fat Tuesday, with a global hit movie still in theatres, I returned to the Big Apple to promote Django Unchained and my new book, Know Small Parts: An Actor’s Guide to Turning Minutes into Moments and Moments into a Career. I’ve revisited the city a few times in the intervening years but I continue to be astonished at all the changes. Neighborhoods I avoided as a young woman alone in the city are now cluttered with shops like the Gap, H&M, Coach and my dearly missed Trader Joe’s. It’s as if a giant broom swept the crime and grit, pushing it further and further uptown.

Beatles Fest 2012

For the 10th year, guitarist and Beatles enthusiast Chuck Credo IV has pulled together a number of New Orleans musicians to celebrate the music and mood of the Beatles at the New Orleans Beatles Festival. Jeff “The Dude” Dowd and Twelve Years a Slave hero (and my beau on the premiere episode of this season of HBO’s Treme), Rob Steinberg, joined us for a night of singing and swaying to familiar hits at the House of Blues. The evening started much as it had last year, with soulful Jimmy Robinson alone with his guitar playing a couple of tunes.

Tchoupitoulas, the Movie

After moderating the cast Q&A for Beasts of the Southern Wild last Thursday in Baton Rouge, I got to see the next offering from the gang at Court 13, Tchoupitoulas (pronounced roughly chop-a-too-less). Tchoupitoulas centers on 3 young boys who venture across the Mississippi for a night in downtown New Orleans. Court 13 is an independent filmmaking collective founded in 2004 in New York. They moved to New Orleans in late 2006 and seem to be making a mission of making movies that could only be made here in Louisiana.