Just dug this CD out of the suitcase, and I remembered how bloody happy I was to hear some honest zydeco on Bourbon St. Most of what you get down there is hideous cover bands playing for frat boys and over-the-hill dorks (not that there’s anything wrong with that, just not my scene if I can avoid it). But Sunday night, at 11PM, I happened to wander into Papa Joe’s and got religion all over again. Jimmy Thibodeaux and band were burning a few hours playing, and I couldn’t have been happier. I spent the rest of the night rooted there, until my peeps had had enough (freaking NOLA first-timer Journey lovers) and dynamited my humogous arse out of there, and we wandered down to the Old Absinthe House.

Sorry for the digression. Point being, Jimmy and Co. play Papa Joe’s Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. If you want some racous, hell raisin’, coon-ass zydeco, go see ‘em. Order their CD, too. It’s right this minute washing the taste of just thinking about idiot Cowboy Rap out of my head. All I have to do is think of this teeny little sprig of a gal bouncing off the ceiling playing the rub-board and I get a ginormous grin:

I ♥LOVE♥ that kind of raw music, especially when they’ve played it a million times, and can still get all fired up about it. I can’t believe I found it on the commercial ass-whip of Bourbon, either. A fine cigar, the Old Absinthe, and now Jimmy Thibodeaux — I might have to change my opinion of that drag.

Not having to listen to the pop-rocking schmucks at the Ticket* talk about pointless tool Cowboy Troy’s new rap-country album:

Even since Troy made his debut providing a robust rap on the Big & Rich single “Rollin,” he’s excited some fans and appalled others. The debate will certainly continue with Loco Motive, as it blends, mixes and sometimes sandwiches hip-hop, country and rock.

No, there is no debate. It’s a bunch of marketing crap-talk, and it’s completely useless to anyone with a passing appreciation of country and western, and it’s totally typical of the tampon-selling shite that Nashville expects their fans to swallow. Open wide, idiots…here comes a barn-shovel of manure for you to chomp on. More from Mr. Ron Wynn:

Personally, it’s enjoyable to hear someone stretching and testing idiomatic limits, and the attitude and musical sensibility remain heavily country, if not completely so. It will certainly be interesting to follow the reaction that Loco Motive gets in the coming weeks from the country establishment.

Ass-kissing ignoramus. My bold, because “the country establishment,” as it is defined in Nashville, is completely effed in the head, so who gives a damn what kind of reaction they might dredge up from the depths of their collective thimble-deep souls? I’m sure they have a Word macro to praise this kind of schlocky junk. Of course, it will sell millions to the fooking idiots who still starch their jeans and listen to the Wolf or whatever is the Tennessee butt-muncher station around here.

Gah — this would ruin my day if I didn’t have HUGE plans to do some more good and fine Texas music around these parts over the next few months. Screw the revenue and the appraisal district. I’m gonna buy some goats for the ag exemption and lock the damn gate. I work too hard.

* Head honcho has a Tom Petty cover band. Need I say more? Don’t think so. Relevance = zero.

OK the stupid thing is out and running at the picture show. Can we quit talking about the damn Star Wars BS, already, please?

IT’S A MOVIE, YOU FREAKING IDIOTS!

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

I bought the latest Tom Clancy novel, mumble-mumble-mumble, at the NOLA airport for reading on the trip back. I seem to have left it in the seat-back pocket. Besides the total waste of $8.50, I’m not at all bothered by that…it reads like the guy was writing a screenplay, even 100 pages in. Now, I enjoyed the heck out of his first couple of books, which were no great literary shakes, but they had interesting characters and cool plots. I basically quit reading about the time Jack Ryan got thrown into his umpteenth unplanned horrific national security crisis. This, though, was so freaking cadboard, it was almost sad. Practically a Word macro…like a Grisham or a Koontz for mil-diplo wonks.

I wouldn’t be so harsh if I didn’t see so damn many people toting his books around. What’s up, peeps? Just enjoying the serial? That’s cool by me…I love serials. I gotta say, though, that I haven’t found any new good ones in a while. Everything seems to be written by chicks for chicks with main chick characters. Is that an unplanned Oprah effect? Whatever it is, I can’t get into it. None of them are hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, ass-kicking (and -kicked) super-hard-boiled badasses like Inspector Rebus from Ian Rankin.

I’m no cigar expert, but this is quite possibly the finest cigar I’ve ever lit up. I had one three nights in a row. I can honestly say that I did NOT expect a decent smoke from a Bourbon St. emporium, but I have no problem recommending them to you cigar-heads out there. Mercifully, their per-box mail-order price drops down into the affordable on a daily basis range.

All my companeros had different types, and each one of them reported a good smoke, so you probably can’t go wrong. Cigar Factory New Orleans - give ‘em a try.