Ever been to DeBois Textiles (1835 Washington Boulevard, Carrol-Camden Industrial Area)? Better set of questions: are you into incredibly awesome vintage and thrift clothing, as well as a ludicrously wide selection of inexpensive fabrics for your household and clothing needs? Have you ever wanted to see a mountain of shoes? If you answer yes to any of this, check out DeBois whenever you possibly can and feast your eyes on one of the single largest warehouses of clothing I personally have ever seen. Seriously, this place is insane. There are corded bales of clothing in the back, piles of fur coats, square dancing outfits, boots, shoes, and couch covers all at rock bottom prices. They’ve been in business for 50 years selling fabrics to people from all over, so at least you can rest assured they know what they’re doing in that department!

Not only that, but apparently this summer they’re running 50% all vintage, which essentially means you’d be an idiot not to stop by and pick up a few zany shirts or sun dresses.

EDIT: And when you go, ask for Emily, who will help with your sassifying needs.

Remember the first time you saw Predator? How balls-out hard-as-nails every character was, even when they were slaughtered like helpless lambs by the invisible Predator juggernaut? How the Predator itself creeped you out, building that “monster in the closet (with a laser cannon)” suspense right up until the reveal at the end, when Dutch finally kicked its ass into the dirt? Yeah you probably remember that. You probably also remember how the Predator franchise has been bleeding an agonizing death for the past 23 years, clinging to life with only a serviceable-but-mostly-forgettable sequel under its belt. For the longest time we’ve waited for a true sequel that doesn’t involve a piss poor Aliens tie in. And it seems that day has come for our Predator friends, a true sequel is finally here; a sequel that retains most of the good parts of the original without carbon copying them, and throws a few new things into the mix.

As the trailer essentially spells out for you, the plot revolves around eight strangers with shady pasts being kidnapped and abruptly dropped from an aircraft into a jungle where they shortly discover that they are a) not on Earth and b) being hunted by something or someone (SPOILER: IT’S PREDATORS). And in this regard you can sort of mentally unravel what’s going to happen throughout the film; people get picked off one by one, grisly anti-heros deliver one liners and a lot of blood sprays all over the place, while the remaining characters attempt to figure out a way to escape their predicament.

Does not actually occur

But let’s establish something here: despite the screencap on the right ripped from the trailer, there aren’t 12+ Predators in the movie, there are three. Three Predators, eight humans. And despite the fact that the Predators still have the same cheap as shit weaponry and inviso-powers they possess in every other film, the humans in this case are a lot more conniving and manage to do some serious damage to the alien badasses. They hold their own in an almost absurd way when compared to the utter awesomeness of the characters from the original and how easily some of them bit the dust. Either way, the action is intense, the pacing is mostly excellent and the tone is pitch-perfect. Basically, it’s a terrific ode to the original film in these regards – almost too similar but in the best way possible. It’s the best way to wash the foul taste of AvP from your mouth that you could probably hope to pay to see.

This is not to say Predators is a perfect movie, it suffers from a lot of predictable plot elements and outcomes that so many other action movies tend to rely on. The addition of Topher Grace to the cast is almost entirely unnecessary except for a somewhat weak twist in the last ten minutes of the movie, and Laurence Fishburne’s hammier than pork performance as a crazy survivor-hermit is placed almost purely for exposition (he introduces the existence of the “new” Predators, a race of Predators with uglier faces). But then again, this is a Predator movie, and you probably only care about seeing those hulking masses of badassery pulling people’s spines out while bellowing at the air, and in this department you won’t be disappointed. The Predators will kill people, and you will love it.

So as a direct and/or spiritual sequel to the original Predator, Predators is the ride you’ve been waiting for. It does well to erase the foul memories of the two AvP films, while opening the future possibilities for more ‘Predators‘ sequels. And while Adrian Brody as lead isn’t as rhinocerosesque as Arny, he certainly brings a lot to the table as a lead character who serves up a level of intelligent deviousness that rivals good ol’ Dutch. Sit back, eat your popcorn, and enjoy the laser cannons!

The tagline on their website says it all. When cello player for the late 90s Alt-Rock band Treadmill Trackstar Heidi Carey emailed me about her love of po’ boys and whiskey, she informed me of her recently reunited band’s finished effort to produce an album – after a ten year hiatus – funded entirely by donations from fans and supporters, entitled i belong to me. Intrigued by the idea I gave the album a listen, and I’m impressed with it. I mean, strictly from a technical standpoint it really can’t be easy to put out a well-produced, decent sounding album (as this is) after such a hiatus, while simultaneously tackling the issue of having absolutely no money, but Treadmill Trackstar managed to pull it off.

On that note, Heidi said:

The donation thing was crazy, we just sent out an email to our old (like 10 year old) list. About half came back as dead addresses so we set up a sort of public radio style fund raising effort on our website. We totally didn’t expect it to work and for about 3 months it didn’t!  But then, money started showing up in our PayPal account.  [...] We like to think that folks wanted a new Treadmill record!   I think it was just a proper alignment of the stars or something.

TT’s “non-profit band” formula of making music for music’s sake is entirely – and ironically – new and refreshing in this day and age. This mentality actually feeds into a feeling you develop as you listen to the album; they’ve clearly put a lot of love into it and it actually makes the music feel better. Describing the music is a touch tricky since it enjoys a wide range, but the term that keeps sticking in my mind is “slightly moodier Foo Fighters with a dash of Smashing Pumpkins.” …and a cello. Try track 8, Hands Off (available free to listen on their website) for a very good sense of what they’re all about.

Since the individual members are all currently with family and settled down, you won’t be seeing them any time soon at the 8×10. But for their next project they’re apparently attempting to develop a full blown ROCK OPERA, with all proceeds from their current album and individual “investments” going entirely to the production. It will be interesting to see where it leads. But for now, check out Treadmill Trackstar’s i belong to me at their website or Facebook.

(Album available on iTunes)

Po Boys, Po Boys, Po Boys

Chances are pretty high that if you’re going to New Orleans and someone you know has already been there and you’re talking to them about New Orleans, they will say something to the effect of “OMG OMG G O JOMGOGMGOMG PO BOYS DDROOOOL.”  Sure enough, New Orleans is awash (hehehe) in Po Boys, their version of a Hoagie/Grinder/Sub/Whatever. From reading entirely too much on the matter, I came to find that the only functional difference between a Po Boy and any other sandwich/sub on Earth is the use of French bread – which is actually great, since the crust is nice and crisp while the inside is soft. Wonderful for sandwiches without a lot of runny toppings, but in the event that you throw on some gravy fries (as I did) onto your sandwich, you’re gonna end up with a really soggy mess on the bottom.

Case in point: the Ferdi. This rather famous sandwich prepared by Mother’s Restaurant comes on French bread with baked ham, roast beef, debris (in gravy), shredded cabbage, creole mustard and mayo. To be certain, it’s one of the best sandwiches ever and I’d eat an entire plate of debris by itself. But the gravy goes straight to the bottom of the bread and causes it to disintegrate, leaving you with a pile of stuff to eat.

Then again, if you’re like me you’ll eat the whole thing in 2 minutes flat and not have to worry about it. Yeaaaah buddy.

Furthermore, it also seems like the most popular thing to do for 99% of all restaurants serving Po Boys around town is to pile them to the ceiling with fried seafood. Fried oysters, fried shrimp, fried gator tails, fried catfish, fried crawdads, fried fries, it goes on like that for a while (but no fired clams, surprisingly!). It actually begs the question: Why doesn’t Baltimore do this? We’re pretty obsessed with seafood on the whole and I rarely see fried insert seafood here subs around town. Come to think of it, a lake trout Po Boy would be pretty awesome…

To the point, you can’t go anywhere in New Orleans without tripping over a Po Boy. They’re everywhere. Most places do a serviceable job of putting together a nice sandwich for you but real trick is finding the best ones – much like finding a decent deli pretty much anywhere, anymore. So if you go, try Domilese’s, Mother’s, or Sugar Shack. You won’t be disappointed!

…and for an honorable mention try Tomatillo’s for their “niño pobre,” which is basically just a wrap but they were pretty awesome folks and have live music (including a rockabilly version of “When The Saints go Marching In”) often times.

A week or so ago I had the pain/pleasure of spending some time in New Orleans during what must have been the coldest four day period in the history of New Orleans, with the exception of the last ice age (maybe). And since walking around the Garden District seemed less appealing in freezing rain, I ate. And ate and ate and ate. Here’s some of what I ate.

Breakfast in New Orleans

First and easiest of all, Cafe Du Monde. Every single tourist in the city can be found there every morning and it’s not hard to figure out why; they serve two things – coffee and doughnuts. I don’t know when the Cafe decided to start calling them beignets officially but I’m guessing it has something to do with the place being house within “The original French Market.” Regardless, I found photographic evidence that they did in fact used to just call them “Doughnuts.”

All this aside, realistically beignets are remarkably similar in every way imaginable to one food thing in particular: FUNNEL CAKE. They taste the exact same and have the exact same consistency. So from now on, I will refer to Cafe Du Monde as “That funnel cake place.” And so should you.

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Fortunately, if coffee and funnel cake isn’t your thing there are plenty of places to grab a full service breakfast in the Crescent City. My favorite place for a regular ol’ breakfast turned out to be Daisy Dukes, a 24/7 diner type place with a pretty awesome breakfast menu, including a cajun omelet (pictured, with sausage/onion/parsley/tomato/paprika/black pepper) with all the fixins for $8.95 – not too shabby.

And of course, the holy grail of all breakfast experiences in New Orleans is the vaunted Jazz Brunch. There are numerous, numerous places to enjoy a decent Sunday brunch with some hoppin’ jazz music, but after much deliberation I settled on a place called Buffa’s Lounge, a fairly low key locals bar with a Jazz Brunch featuring a special menu every week. The folks there are super friendly and make some fantastic home cooked meals. For more PR, check out their video for a bit of the experience!

So that’s some of what you can expect from breakfast in New Orleans. Stay tuned for part 2!!