The horrors of Ohio, and other stuff

I'm currently in Ohio visiting my parents. For years, I've been telling people about the horrors of Ohio cuisine. It's a culinary wasteland. Everything has jello or Cool Whip or cabbage in it. Sometimes all three. Anyway, everybody always thinks I'm exaggerating, but now I have proof. My mom was going to the grocery yesterday and asked if I wanted anything. I told her to get some hummus. She couldn't find any at the store, so she decided to make some. Here are the results:



On another note, August Spies posted Brandt's masterpiece "High Steppin' Chicken-leg Dinosaur". Check it out, it's highest quality. Also, I finally updated the band index pages with the new info people sent me. So, Wes, Andrew, Josh, that stuff should all be added. And, I located Jody Suarez from the Zen Bastards. He's living in Jackson, MS playing in a band called Living Better Electrically.

Pardon my slacking

I know I haven't posted in quite a while. Between finals and Christmas, I was really short on free time. I'm now back to my usual loser schedule, so I'll put some stuff up. I'm visiting my parents, but I scanned a bunch of crap and articles. Anyhoo, here's a Christmas gift. Have a free beer courtesy of Metropolis. Next time you see Bernard, tell him you want your freaking free beer dammit, or you're going to tell Poster Children that he was ripping off their logos.

Frigg-a-go-go returns?

Check out Frigg's myspace page which has tracks from their soon to be released super secret rumored only to exist in another dimension long lost ghost ninja record, All That Glitters. Does this mean they're back together? Sounds like a maybe. Check out Nick Pittman's article from The Times. It's about time they resurfaced. I could use a good Frigging. I see from the photo that Chadwick has brought the VH shirt out of retirement... that's a good sign...

On a Frigg related note, there are some older Frigg-a-go-go songs that I put up a while back here and also some Frigg photos and stuff here.

Old Lafayette ads

These aren't related to the Lafayette music scene, but if you're a history nerd like myself, you might find them interesting. I always liked to see what the various buildings in town were back in the old days and to see how the city had changed over the years. These are ads from the back of the 1916 SLII (U of L) yearbook. There are quite a few, so you'll have to bear with me.


509 Jefferson is now Teche drugs, and as far as I can remember Moss Pharmacy is still around (corner of Lee and Convent or something?)


I like the ad for the Jefferson theater. That got torn down to make the parking lot next to the Jefferson hotel or whatever it's called (the building that had the Sidebar). Smooth move, Lafayette.


I'm not 100% sure, but I think this house is on N. Orange.


I wonder where Stewart's was. I think the Lafayette Drugstore may have been on Jefferson next to the underpass in that building that was Dot's that got torn down a few years ago. I say this because I was digging around in the rubble after they demolished it and found several old time Lafayette Drugstore bottles.


I think this guy Nickerson may have been the person the Nickerson addition was named after. That neighborhood is considered part of McComb now, but it was originally called the Nickerson Addition and was bordered by Jefferson, Simcoe, and the old railroad yard. I'm not sure where the south end was. My old house on 8th St. is in it.


Lafayette Electric still survives, although it's now on Cameron. I'm glad I wasn't a kid back then. Those clothes are retarded.


I think the house in the photo is either on N. Sterling or N. Orange. It's weird to see these old houses when they were being used as an example of a new home. Bank of Lafayette was bought by Iberia Bank in the early 90's.


Ah, the days when they hadn't finished completely deforesting the Atchafalaya yet.


I can remember Lafayette Wholesale being open on Simcoe next to the tracks. I wonder if they're still there. I never went to it, and feel stupid about that now. An 85 year old grocery, that had to have been cool.


There are more ads, but these are the ones I found most interesting.

Man Or Astroman? press kit or something

I'm not sure if this is Man Or Astroman?'s press kit or if it was something they handed out at their shows. I assume it's a press kit because of the promo photo. I figure this must have been from their 1996 show at Metropolis. There are a lot more pages to it, but the text is really small and I don't think it would be legible in the scans. There are more promo photos of bands that played Lafayette here.

Merry Christmas, future fatties!

McDonalds is starting to offer the Arch card so you can charge your way to obesity more easily. They're pushing it as a possible Christmas gift. Here are some suggestions for accessories that will complement that gift Arch card when you decide to buy it for your loved one:

• Gift certificate to Sweatpants'R'Us


• Extra wide burial plot at the local cemetary


• Home electro-cardiopulminary resuscitator


• Philipino orphan with a healthy heart and the correct blood type

I guess I shouldn't talk too much trash though, because I still eat there sometimes. I just wish they would own up to the nutritional worthlessness of their food. The one by my school has laminated articles all over their counter refuting the stuff from "Super Size Me" and other documentaries. They're trying to claim that you can easily lose weight by eating at McDonalds and being active. My McLuvHandles say otherwise.

No, dumbasses, you lose weight by being active and staying as far as humanly possible from McDonalds. If you're going to munch Mickey D's every day, you better be either a marathon runner or bulimic. We, the culinary lazies, just go there because it's cheap and convenient, not because it's good or we think it's good for us. I mean I'm mildly retarded enough to still eat there, but not so much that I'll buy that line of bullshit.

Look at Wendy's. For years their publicity figure was Dave Thomas. "Eat at Wendy's, you too can be a fat guy working at a fast food restaurant until you die from rectal blockage in your 60's." Now, that's corporate honesty.

Ok, I know McDonalds is a pretty easy target to rant on, but would a little corporate honesty kill them?

Disclaimer: I do not know for sure that Dave Thomas died of rectal blockage. He may have in fact been killed by unknown members of the government because HE KNEW TOO MUCH.

Metropolis newsletter

Here are some scans from the Metropolis newsletter from March 1996. I believe this would have been the period when Bernard and Tracy owned the club. It features Liquidrone, Man Or Astroman?, Medeski Martin and Wood, Frigg-a-go-go, Vaudeville, The Dismemberment Plan, Evil Mothers, Geezer Lake, Zeni Geva, Pervis, Weedeater, Burnversion, Sanpakus, Dumpsterjuice, Likehell, and a bunch of other bands. The calendar shows a really strong connection to the NOLA and Baton Rouge scenes at the time. It's a pretty cool snapshot of the Lafayette scene in 1996. It seems like a newsletter like this is a good idea for a club too. If people pick one up on the way out from a show and read about the upcoming stuff, they would be more likely to come out and see those shows. I wonder why more clubs don't do this.

August Spies myspace page

August Spies has a myspace page with mp3s that you can check out. August Spies was an early 90's Lafayette punk/hardcore band with Brandt Ulmer (vocals), Jared Sonnier (bass), Fluid Broussard (drums), and Iggy "Supersex" Hernandez (guitar). They played at a lot of the Milton Civic Center shows. There are a couple of old flyers for those shows here and here (they're on the Hekatomic Cherries site.) Fluid was later in Urbosleeks and is now in Fell To Earth out of New Orleans. Jared is now in Ghidrah. Anyway, it's good to hear these guys again.

Comparison: LSU vs. USL, circa 1920

I've got a 1916 SLII yearbook and a 1922 LSU yearbook. For anyone who doesn't know, UL was originally Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute (SLII), and later became USL, and now UL. (It will always be USL to me dammit, screw that oo-la-la crap.) I was checking them out, and it's funny that in a lot of ways, things haven't changed all that much. Granted, the SLII sophomore class consisted of a whole 18 people, so UL has gotten a bit larger, but the overall vibe about the two schools is still pretty much the same. LSU was very frat-oriented, seems a lot more serious, and was a bunch of football fanatics, although it looks like it had a lot larger military influence ("the olde war skule"). SLII looks like it was pretty laid back, and everybody was more interested in goofing off and having a good time than in their studies (their motto: "To avoid doing today, what can be put off until tomorrow"). For example, LSU had large programs in law and military studies. At SLII, you could major in farm mechanics, stenography, or home economics. Here are some other important comparison categories:



IN ATHLETICS:

LSU:
LSU's basketball team pretty much kicked everyone's ass except for Tulane once.


SLII:

SLII had these guys. Not only do they look ferocious, their record proves it. As you can see, as long as they played high schools, they totally kicked ass.


IN THE BABE DEPT:

LSU:
LSU had Miss Powers, the prettiest girl in school. Fair enough.


SLII:
SLII had the Saucy Smiling Senior Six. They are both saucy, and smiling. Times six. Take that LSU! Booya!


IN THE SOCIAL LIFE DEPT:

LSU:


LSU had The Daggers, a Masonic club, and of course, the LSU Oriental Club.


SLII:


SLII had The Old Sow (who apparently liked to ride hogs and beat on each other with sticks), The Dirty Eight and Instructor (who liked to threaten horses with knuckle sandwiches), and The Be Sociable Club (who liked to harass cattle at gunpoint). I shit you not, one of the guys in the Be Sociable picture is named "Te Poule Bienvenue, the St. Martin chicken lover." I'm not making that up.


So if you had gone to SLII back then, my verdict is that your degree probably didn't mean jack shit when you got out, but you probably had a way better time at school. Assuming you didn't impregnate some form of livestock.

RAH! RAH! RAH! RAH!
You rah! rah! Southwestern,
You rah! rah! Southwestern,
Hullaballo, Rah, Rah.
Hoorah, Hoorah, SOUTHWESTERN
WAH! WAH!

Lizard Peanuts #2

Moving on through Scott's stuff, we have Lizard Peanuts #2, put out by Andy Perrin and Miguel Lasala in about 1992. In this issue we've got art by Miguel and Andy, Claudia Schiffer collages, literary quotes, record company ads, and Miguel and Marilyn's love child. Unlike the first Lizard Peanuts that had a lot of articles and other stuff, this one is mostly art. There are some scans of the first Lizard Peanuts here.

Rock City News

Ok, so I've been a slacker of late as far as this site is concerned. I finally got around to scanning a small stack of zines that I got from Scott. So today, we have Rock City News #3, a small Lafayette zine put out by Ronnie Chauvin of Frigg-a-go-go in about 1996. In this issue, we have an interview with Citizen Raul, an interview with Citizen Dexter (?!), some slight trash talking about Dave Hubbell, various gossip, and a crossword puzzle. By the way, I think some of Scott's crossword answers are wrong. (He shouldn't have dropped out of Rock City High.) Speaking of Raul, he was definitely one of Lafayette's characters. Some people loved him, some hated him, but nobody knew his real story. I heard that he moved out to Cali, got sick, and died. I always heard various things about him: that he was from a really rich family, that he was a Catholic priest, that he was an accountant, etc. I thought he was a nice guy, although a little suspicious. Anyway, RIP, Raul if you aren't still around. By the way, there are more scans of zines here.