New Orleans – Halloween in New Orleans was especially chilling this year. You probably heard the news. This guy has a fight with his girlfriend, kills her in his apartment in the French Quarter (above a voodoo shop). After he jumps from a hotel roof, the cops find the body of the girlfriend. Not all at once. Her severed head is in a pot on the stove, her hands and feet are in another pot next to it. In the oven, police find turkey-basting trays holding her legs and arms, covered with seasoning.
New Orleans may be the town that care forgot, but even the most hardened citizens here were freaked out by this news. The building is certainly a new stop on the nighttime ghoul tours so popular here.
I mentioned the incident to Jim LeBlanc, president/CEO of Volunteers of America Greater New Orleans, a pal of Denver VOA mouthpiece Jim White. LeBlanc said the local media had tried to attach the murder to Katrina. The kids had moved in together shortly after the storm. “But that boy had some mental problems,” LeBlanc said.
I rode through the city with LeBlanc. “The Misery Tour” they call it. And it’s pretty grim. We went to the Ninth Ward, the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly, Lakeview – block after block after block of destroyed houses. It would be like flooding everything west of Broadway to Simms and have every house blown out. It’s an endless road of heartache.
LeBlanc is 57. “And I’m going to spend the rest of my life in the recovery of this city,” he says. “That’s what it’s going to be about. And so be it.”
Food touring
National critic John Mariani is plenty impressed with Colorado dining in the upcoming edition of Wine Spectator.
Titled “Mediterranean in the Rockies” his feature story says the best new restaurants out here are Med-inspired. And he’s especially turned on by Boulder’s Pearl Street (as am I). He loves the restaurants there – Mateo, Trattoria on Pearl, Seven Eurobar, The Kitchen, Frasca. The roster, he writes, “has given (Pearl Street) the same cachet as Collins Avenue in Miami Beach or Gansevoort Street in New York’s Meatpacking District.”
Go Broncos!
Joe Nolan, son of Mike Nolan and Nancy Sagar, has relocated to Pittsburgh, and his band, Mission 19, is geared up for Sunday’s Broncos game there against the Steelers. The boys, who just opened for Hootie and the Blowfish in Colorado Springs, play tonight through Saturday at Buckhead Saloon in Pittsburgh, just across the river from Heinz Field. If you’re in town for the game, catch ’em.
City spirit
More news from NOLA: The Neville Brothers are down to perform at the DCPA’s March 3 Saturday Night Alive funder … The Denver Art Museum is offering free tix to Colorado residents on the first Saturday of each month, starting Saturday; you have to show up at DAM box office to get them … Sez who: “A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.” Madonna
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Husted also appears Tuesdays and Fridays on “Good Day Colorado” on Fox 31. You can reach him at 303-820-1486 or at bhusted@denverpost.com. Take a peek at Husted’s next column at denverpostbloghouse.com/husted
