Netflix Pits Housemates Against Each Other

Ever notice that you and your housemate hardly ever receive shipments on the same day? You'll be eagerly awaiting discs 3 and 4 of some belated series, rush to the mailbox, only to see Jude Matthews's name printed on the cheap red paper slips. This is intentional, my friend. Different accounts, same address? The company pounces on such an opportunity, thinking, what better strategy to render our customers hooked and desperate?

Westbank Crush

(Check it out, for y'all who don't know: the land south of the Mississippi river, labeled "Westwego, Marrero, Harvey, Gretna, Algiers" constitutes the Westbank.)

The time has come for me to blog about Ballzack and Odoms, Westbank heart-throbs. If you've gotten all my allusions thus far, then you're up to speed. I got ahead of myself, but now I'm gamin'. Usually they're in italics to give you a heads up and so I don't get accused of plagiarism or something. Can bloggers get accused of plagiarism? By rappers?

To me, Rami Sharkey, aka "Ballzack," and Adam Bourgeois, aka "Odoms," are the only New Orleans celebrities out there because I don't know them. I like it that way, it gives me something to hope for when I get out of bed in the morning. No, I'm just playing; really, I live for my blog. And my dog. But Jude knows them, of course, so that means it's only a matter of time before me and Jude are in the same place, I spot them, and I'll be like, "Oh hey, you know Jude?" or rather, Jude will be like, "What up Rami, Adam; you know Kate?" And then we'll know each other. I'll still bump Yeah, Indeed every day in my silver Mazda Protege, and I'll still try to convince Odoms to go out with me, but they will have descended down from Marrero to East Bank New Ahyens, where God has yet to show us a rainbow because he's still punishing us with flood.

(here they are in the video for track one, "Rainbow in Marrero," off Yeah, Indeed)

Angus Lind just wrote today on the subject of celebrities in New Orleans stepping down from the pedestal and scooting up the bar stool to mingle with the locals.  Yeah.

So, Ballzack and Odoms are kind of a big deal.  Times Picayune music critic Keith Spera recently featured the duo on nola.com as publicity for their July 12 One Eyed Jack's CD release party (I was there), and Gambit's Noah Bonaparte Pais wrote a cover story about them and Lil Doogie (who we'll get to later). Briana Prevost  interviewed Ballzack on nola.com's The Perfect 10. According to up-and-coming New York rapper Sleek, a New Orleans ex-pat, they "haven't made it to New York yet"...but I mean, who really wants to?

Why are they so great?  Think DJ Jubilee meets Cake.  Composed in the New Orleans bounce style, Ballzack's songs feature call-and-response choruses and goofy-ass rhyme schemes set to beats created by simple drum machines.  Self-proclaimed "tongue-in-cheek," Ballzack writes lyrics that are ridiculous, embarrassing, and ingenious.  His catchy choruses and local jokes make for great driving, sing-along music.  However, the shout-outs that make local listeners grin don't exclude outsiders, but instead create a setting in which to ground Ballzack and his subject matter.  How does a rapper define himself, if not by where he's from?  If Lyrics Born raps about crossing "that Oakland Bay Bridge;" Big Boi name-drops "College Park, East Pointe and Decatur they got my back,/So We gon' keep on jammin and stabbin off in the track;" Lil' Wayne both alludes to Outkast and sets himself  apart with the line "I'm a red and yellow thang old school Atlanta hawk/Like I'm from College Park/But I'm from Hollygrove;" then listeners can dig when Ballzack raps "steady bumming joes on Lapalco."  I'm a native, but an Eastbanker, so I had a lot to learn from Ballzack.  He opened me up to the joys of the Westbank (stay tuned, we will be blogging about the next Westbank Thursday)!  Its five boroughs (Gretna, Harvey, Westwego, Terrytown, and Marrero), the delights of pho, indigenous slang, like "shybe," "crustache," "Chalmetairie," etc. (Bonaparte Pais included a Gretnese-to-English dictionary in his article.

As I was saying, the lyrics are chock full of New Orleans nuggets.  Ballzack has fun with New Orleans's coffeehouse culture in the title track, "Yeah, Indeed," in which Ballzack and Odoms, after debating whose mama would drop them off or pick them up at the mall, decide "Let's go to the coffeehouse," and in unison, agree, "Yeahhhh."  Then, Ballzack rhymes "Let me get that iced mocha girl earn that tip/if I like the way it tastes give my boy a sip."  With the line "We drinking bubble teas eating Vietnamese/it's the middle of the winter I'm rocking short-sleeves," he hails the Westbank's culinary attractions.  In "Tadpole," a song about crossing the Mississippi River Bridge to get to the Westbank, Ballzack chants "That toll-booth lady got a new hair-do" three times, and then cries "Please, just let me through!"  And in the hit would-be-single, "Rainbow in Marrero," Ballzack dedicates a whole verse to New Orleans inside jokes:  "I don't go to Metairie unless I really have to/clothes smell of smoke and hands smell of shampoo/don't tell Cox but I'm stealing their cable/I got my name on a Bud's Broiler table."  Good stuff. Check it out!

 

Peeper

"I am so incensed."--Jude

Ever been peeped on? In our delightful little Mid City doll-house, I'm resting my service-industry legs on the living-room couch, surfing the internet, tweaking my blog to perfection, etc., when some lanky scraggly-haired white dude peeps in my front door window. Now, of course, I'm sure he's Jude, as he and my roommate are due back from some bywater haunt. Then the face is gone, and I return to my work, expecting to hear jangling keys and door-knob negotiations post-porch -cigarette.

Fifteen minutes later, Jude and Betsy arrive home. "You scared the shit out of me, Jude!" "What are you talking about?" Etc. Back and forth. It wasn't Jude!!! Jude and Betsy go to bed.

Fifteen minutes later, in my same position on the couch, wondering if I ought to relocate--the face returns to the window! "Stop it!" I scream and run into Betsy's room, picking up a loose hammer to hold in my hand for security. "We're calling 911," says Betsy. Jude dials:

"So, the door...it has a window in it...there was this guy....Kate?"

"Yeah, give me the phone."

The police are there in five! Wow. We greet the middle-aged, mustached officer on the porch, and Betsy and Jude deliver slow, perfume-drenched accounts. I describe the guy--"She thought he was me," explains Jude--and officer dispatches two of his boys to drive around the neighborhood. A few words of wisdom, and the officer leaves us, we retreat back inside.

"Let's peeper-proof the window," says Betsy.

We thumb-tack a sheet to the window, and then laugh about "peeper-proofing" for a little while.

Betsy wants to go to bed, but Jude is pissed. "I was so drunk when I got home, and now I'm completely sober, I want to kill someone, I want to murder him."

"Jude, you should start lifting weights," I say, and then quote my favorite rapper for emphasis: "'I'm drinking milk, baby, I'm working out, and I want to love you with my mouth.'"

"No, no," he shakes his head at me, "That doesn't even matter. It's the sheer aggression that gets it done."

"Jude I have to go to bed," wails Betsy.

"I am so incensed."

"Let's watch a movie," I say.

We settle on The Muppets Take Manhattan. Kermit is so endearing, and Animal is hysterical. We all fall asleep together on the living room floor.


So, I ask, what the fuck is the deal with peepers? Are peepers a thing? I never read about peepers in the police blotter. What does the peeper want? Just a look? Just the tip. It should be a song, like Tubthumper.

Ever had a peeper experience? Do share your stories below.

Do You Know Jude?

There was a time when I didn't know Jude. But then one day I met Jude, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot unmeet Jude. The Jude abides. A lovely leech, a tantalizing tick, the band-aid that never lost its stick; Jude adheres. The paradisal parasite, Jude is the worm in my apple; rich and earthen, he's the shit that makes my garden grow.

Jude sticks, but I have learned if I know what's best for me, I gotta stick to Jude. Since moving back to New Orleans, Jude has been my most lucrative hook-up, with his twinkly eye, his gleeful gait, his mangled mane, ponying up (at around 3 pm) to settle the demands of each new day....Jude proves a better hook-up than any of my friends' lawyer-daddies, with their aura of legal reprieve and lure of daddy-start-up-capital, only made possible after hours of strained listening, patronizing that poses as deference, and the humbling act that is lip service. (I don't need money to blog--this is not a shoe store.) Jude lacks start-up-capital, but he's got Just-Add-Jude miracle grow. Jude is free-of-charge, he only asks that you donate your time--a straight-up chillin' fee.

What is Jude's magic? He is omniscient. He knows you, he knows your dog, he knows your mom, and they know him too. Your dad doesn't know him (but that's your dad). And what else? Jude was always here. Back when the poboy first defaulted on his payments. When the levee was only bruised, and the Corps of Engineers were still in school. Before the word, there was Jude. If myth comes before man, then Jude came before myth. Jude is legend--but he wants you to know Bra, I'm real(?).

Jude is a local muse for aspiring and actual musicians, artists, filmmakers--and everybody else. Chris Rose, pre-crack up, conducted one of his famous sixty-second interviews with Jude. (If anybody can find it, please let me know.) Jude is a video correspondent for DNO Video, directing and starring in videos such as Jude is Christmas, Jude Gets a Camera, Jude Goes to Thanksgiving, and my favorite, Jude and the Poboy, embedded below. Check it out; a really lovely slice of life.


DNO VIDEO - Jude and the Poboy from DNO VIDEO on Vimeo.

He also models in Terrence Sanders's latest issue of Art Voices Magazine.

At the center of history-making, Jude might be the Forrest Gump of New Orleans, except not retarded.

But don't think Jude is just around for your benefit. Jude amuses, but he also be mused. Jude is the thing itself. Jude is our mother, we must take care of her.

Still think you don't know Jude? You do, you just don't realize it yet. Jude is intuitive, instinctual. Jude is under your skin, in your bones. But if you'd like to meet your maker, I have some suggestions:

Tips for How to Get to Know Jude:

First off, Jude's hours: available from 12 AM til'

Now, You:
--Hang out at The Saint.
--Drop by Pal’s for the coldest Miller High Life in town.
--Cross that river, and pay that toll for weekly Westbank Thursdays, where you can catch Jude eating pho cuz' he likes the way it tastes.
--Never miss a day of reading my blog, where info about Jude is known to pop up pretty regularly.
--If you're really anxious, post a comment below with your name and number and Jude will get back to you.

Bye bye for now. Until Jude...