“I’d rather fight a man than make love to a woman.” Ernie Ladd
When a Bourbon Street bouncer put a Smith and Wesson pistol in a San Diego Chargers’ lineman’s face on a warm Saturday night in January 1965 he could not have known he was kickstarting the biggest story in the world of sports in that august year. Continue Reading
Meet The Dixie Mafia by rl reeves jr
Powerboats, high-performance Cadillacs, and turbo-prop airplanes criss-crossed Louisiana, and the rest of the south as the cartel waged a reign of terror that saw dozens of killings, and enormous amounts of money go into the gang’s coffers Continue Reading
Harry Choates Was Once The King Of Texas
The rumors are still out there some 70 years later.
Harry Choates, the godfather of Cajun music, was beaten to death in his jail cell by Travis County police officers on July 17th, 1951. Continue Reading
The Howard Johnson Killer: Notes On The Life And Death Of Mark Essex
That was the Reverend Peter Rogers, New Orleans police chaplain, responding to the wild violence in New Orleans during the first week of 1973. Continue Reading
Jean Montanet Was The Original Dr John
Horace Logan Has Left The Building
The Peculiar Genius Of Lafcadio Hearn by RL Reeves Jr
What makes it remarkable is that Lafcadio Hearn had quit our city some 130 years earlier in 1887 for the greener pastures of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea.
He would die in 1904.
And over a century later a raucous street party would fete the man who famously spoke on New Orleans saying “…it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.”
Chain-Smoking Rebel Playwright Lillian Hellman Was Born In New Orleans
Blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer by Hollywood.
Her most famous work banned in Chicago, London, and Boston.
Drunkard.
Headstrong.
Lust-filled, and promiscuous.
A “tough broad … the kind of girl who can take the tops off bottles with her teeth.”
Louche companion of Dashiell Hammet who cracked Hellman in the jaw at a party one night, and refused to marry her in the course of their 30-year affair.
Elia Kazan would call Hellman a “bitch with balls.” But in light of each of their appearances at the McCarthy hearings on Communism in the US it could be said that Lillian had enough balls for the both of them. Continue Reading
The Black Panthers Desire Stronghold in New Orleans
It’s fall 1970, and the folks who live in New Orleans’ Desire Housing Project are verbally unloading on police officers who have shown up 250 strong in an effort to forcibly evict the local chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Little kids are chanting, middle-aged folks are hollering, and old folks are shouting as well. The crowd is determined to drive the police out of their neighborhood, and in a result that seems shocking a half-century later; they did just that. The cops withdrew. Continue Reading
They Called Him Wild: Notes On The Life of New Orleans Gangster Telly Hankton
His prisoner number is #589293. Continue Reading