Tipitina's: Why the Banana? (via WWOZ)

This month Tipitina's is celebrating its 35th Anniversary. This famous New Orleans venue opened its doors in 1977 when a group of 14 Tulane alumni and students (the "Fabulous Fourteen") pooled their money to buy a club where New Orleans musical giant Professor Longhair could perform -- he had burned too many bridges in the French Quarter, and was out of venues where he could play. So the Fabulous Fourteen opened Tipitina's Uptown on Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas, where the Professor played for the last three years of his life.

A very important FYI: Tipitina's plays a critical role in WWOZ's history. Our first broadcasts in 1980 were from a cramped apartment above Tip's. WWOZ's tradition of bringing live, local music to the airwaves began when DJs would drop a microphone through a hole in the floor to record performances from Tip's stage.
Now, 35 years later, after thousands of shows, a change in ownership, and the incredible development of the Tipitina's Foundation, one question remains: why, oh why, is that banana on Tipitina's logo?

We started doing some digging and, as it turns out, there is no one clear answer to this quandary. Many rumors are circulating, some clearly not true.  But they all have a place in Tipitina's lore:

Legend #1: The artist who created the Tipitina's logo signed all of her work by dipping a banana into paint and using it as a brush to leave her mark. While we can't say for certain this never happened, there is a framed logo upstairs at Tipitina's bearing the artist's signature - definitely not a la banana.

Legend #2: This was the '70s and yoga was all the rage. The Fab Fourteen knew a Swami with a name that rhymed with banana, and they simply called him Swami Banana. The Swami didn't last, but the joke did when it was worked into the Tip's logo.

Legend #3: Tipitina's is named after a Professor Longhair song called Tipitina (known fact). The song is supposedly about a French Quarter woman with no toes who was, quite literally, "Tippy Tina." Rumor has it that Tina had a fruit stand in the Quarter, and the banana is another allusion to the song and an homage to Tippy Tina herself.

Legend #4: The club was originally called Tipitina, but the artist who conceived of the logo added the "'s" and the banana, just because it felt aesthetically right to her. The Tip's owners liked the "s", but not the banana. Unfortunately for them, the artist said it was a package deal: no banana, no "s". In a take-it-or-leave-it sort of deal, Tip's took the banana.

Legend #5: While an apple a day might keep someone healthy up north, down here in the northernmost city of the Caribbean, a saying that the Fabulous Fourteen used to toss around was "a banana a day keeps the doctor away."

Legend #6: The Fab Fourteen couldn't get a liquor license when Tipitina's first opened its doors, so instead they served juice and other health snacks -- including bananas.

Legend #7: Tipitina's used to be a banana warehouse. This one is possible. By the looks of it, Tipitina's was previously a warehouse. It's near the Uptown shipyards, and New Orleans was a major banana port.

Happy 35th Birthday, Tipitina's!
 

A huge thanks to Barrett DuPuis and Adam Rivas (long-time Tipitina's employess) for their banana research.

Listen: Professor Longhair's Legacy

LISTEN HERE 

 

 

 

NolaFunky A/V Lagniappe

Home of the Groove: "Mardi Gras Indian Variation

Well, it's way past time for more Carnival tunage up in here. TheHOTG webcastis streaming music of the season 24/7 through Mardi Gras Day, too. So, hit that anytime for more fun. But, right here, right now, I'm posting a track each from the Wild Magnolias and the Wild Tchoupitoulas for our holiday festivities; and, in between, we'll have intense, live Mardi Gras Indian-influenced funkitude from Professor Longhair, plus a pretty obscure seasonal groove offering that owes an obvious debt to Fess. So, prepare to loose that Who Dat! booty. It's Mardi Gras comin', y'all.

American Routes ~ Second Lines and Black Pots: American Routes Live in Louisiana

February 10th, 2010 ~ Come stir the pot with American Routes as we bring you a sampling of great live music from our home state: Louisiana. First we'll stop by the soon to be legendary BlackPot Festival in Lafayette for some new flavors of Cajun and Creole tunes, as well as some old favorites by special guests. Then we'll walk through the streets of New Orleans with the Prince of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club during their annual second line parade.

Groovescapes: "The OG Vol. 6: The Rebirth Brass Band"

S

uffice it to say that the city of New Orleans is caught up in an unprecedented state of merriment. Tuesday, an estimated 800,000 people showed up at the Saints’ Super Bowl parade – a glorious occasion, if I might say so myself. Now, what can only be predicted to be the largest Mardi Gras celebration in history is just about to kick off. In keeping with the spirit of the season – and the brass band theme – I’ve got an OG lined up for today that’s sure set the weekend off right. My subject for this week’s column is Crescent City favorite, the Rebrith Brass Band.

MP3: Rebirth Brass Band – When the Saints Go Marching In / Who Dat

MP3: Rebirth Brass Band – My Song

Formative Power of New Orleans' Marching Bands

“If you’re in here you’ve got to be willing to work,” he said. “One slip of the tongue, that’s one less person. One slip of the hand, that’s one less person. We need everybody.”

In the cramped band room of the West Bank charter school, that “everybody” is more than 100 students strong. It includes novices who only recently picked up an instrument and students with so much musical experience their horns feel like extensions of their hands.

Such large, ambitious marching bands have become a relative anomaly in a city famous for its second-lines, brass bands and musical luminaries, however. More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, band leaders say they are fighting to ensure the tradition thrives in a dramatically altered public school landscape.

The decline of that tradition, they fear, would mark the loss of an activity — a passion — that, over the decades, has kept scores of the city’s teenagers connected to school. The best band directors realize that strong marching bands can bolster strong academic programs in the long run, particularly if the music and academic classes are well integrated. And in some cases, “if you keep an instrument in a kid’s hand, it will keep a kid from picking up a gun,” said Elijah Brimmer, a longtime band director in the city.

NolaFunky Audio Lagniappe

Home of the Groove's Throw Me Some Second Line, Mister

Groovescape's The OG Vol. 1: James Booker

Groovescape's The OG Vol. 2: Professor Longhair

The OG Vol. 3: The Meters

This week we get funky with the one and only Meters

MORE

Khris Royal and Dark Matter at Blue Nile

Funk-jazz fusion flows on Frenchman St

MORE

Bobby Charles Remembered (Feb 21, 1938 - Jan 14, 2010)

A look into the life and career of the venerated Louisiana songwriter

MORE

Groovescape's The OG Vol. 3: The Meters




NPR's Cedric Watson In Concert: GlobalFEST 2010

Home of the Groove's Under The Toussaint Covers

NPR's Irvin Mayfield Sextet: Live In Minneapolis

Burning Wood's Another Round Of Booker

NPR's Preservation Hall Jazz Band: Cajun Christmas

Burning Wood's ALLEN TOUSSAINT: Live At The Village Vanguard

Burning Wood's John Scofield's Piety Street Band: LIVE IN THE NETHERLANDS

Home of the Groove's Two More From Toussaint

The OG Vol. 4: DeJan's Olympia Brass Band

groovescapes.com on Dejan's Olympia Bras Band

Sat Eye Candy: Professor Longhair

c/o Jambase HAPPY FREAKIN' BIRTHDAY, FESS !!!

As a college student eking out a living at long defunct Cymbaline Records in Santa Cruz, one of our regulars was New Age music superstar George Winston. His albums December and Winter Into Spring were the definition of textural piano bliss, and every jerk water in a cardigan came in with their little yap dog to buy copies in the late 1980s. Given the character of his music one might assume the dude was majorly mellow but what Winston mainly came by to do was special order stoppid rare Japanese CDs of boogie woogie jazz and jump blues. And his main obsession was Professor Longhair, who stirred a hot coal fire inside George that warmed every damn employee up to the New Orleans great. We'd put on his records in the store and the way music flowed through his fingers, the way an 88 purred and kicked beneath his touch, well, it hit one like lightning and made you dance around like a puppet with tangled strings. And that sensation has never diminished for me, and I'm guessing Mr. Winston, too.

Born Henry Roeland Byrd in 1918, the man who became known as Professor Longhair, or just 'Fess for short, took what the other stride and jump pianists were doing and just made it weird. And just plain wonderful, too. There's a crazed pleasure and simmering sense of possibility inside his signature numbers "Go to the Mardi Gras," "Tipitina," "No Buts - No Maybes" and "Big Chief." But, open up his admittedly sparse recorded output - given that he started his career in 1948 and died in 1980 there should be more - and there's all kinds of strange crags and wicked journeys to be found. Often joyful, there's an angled difference to 'Fess' playing and compositional sense that to this day sets him apart, though one picks up some of his peculiar frequencies in Marco Benevento, John Medeski and Brian Haas; not the New Orleans flavor (see Dr. John for that prescription) so much as his joie de vivre and in-the-moment ability to curve into unexpected spaces. He will always be associated and identified with his New Orleans focused material - and rightly so - but there's so much more to Professor Longhair than Mardi Gras, and we cheat ourselves as listeners by limiting our perspective on one of the defining piano voices of the 20th century. To watch him in action was to see music itself come to life, flowing and playing through his entire body as it came into being. Such a beautiful sight.

'Fess would have been 91-years-old if he were still with us today. I know for sure I miss him, and I betcha his piano does, too. Happy birthday, sir, the angels are gonna get a hell of a concert tonight. (Dennis Cook, JamBase Associate Editor)

We begin our 'Fess focused Eye Candy with The Meters backing him on a venerable blues staple. He could take even the well worn and give it a fresh twist, not the least in his wholly unique, impossible to duplicate phrasing and vocal style.

Here he is with pals Allen Toussaint and Tutts Washington in the 1982 documentary Piano Players Rarely Play Together.

Toussaint discusses the Professor's style and innovations.

Proof that Fess' music has traveled everywhere: Japanese club act Nikki & Cup performing a credible cover of his "Doin' It"!

Now, a wicked fun version of "Tipitina" from a particularly copacetic Dr. John and Johnny Winter. They also get into the Lincoln Chase's 1950s hit "Such A Night" in this clip.

Appropriately, we give the last word to the good Professor, with three more killers from the man himself.

NPR's "Celebrate Mardi Gras With New Orleans Piano"

By Nick Morrison

Leni Sinclair / Michael Ochs Archives

Professor Longhair's "Tipitina" is a New Orleans funk staple and a template for the New Orleans piano style.

KPLU, February 18, 2009 - It's Mardi Gras week in New Orleans, so it's as good a time as any to join in the celebration with a brief but broad overview of some of the Crescent City's many extraordinary pianists.

One of the beauties of New Orleans piano music is that once you hear it, you'll know it whenever you encounter it again, regardless of context. Whether it's played as jazz or blues or funk, the cultural gumbo that makes up this piano style is unique to New Orleans — and, if a style can be said to have a personality, New Orleans piano has personality to burn.

There's only room for five examples in this list, but if you like what you hear, many more New Orleans pianists merit further exploration, including Tuts Washington, James Booker, Fats Domino, Cousin Joe, Jon Cleary, Ellis Marsalis, David Torkanowsky and — when he's in the mood to really throw down and play — Harry Connick Jr., to name just a few. So start with these five and spread out. You'll most assuredly "pass a good time," as they say down Acadiana way.

Celebrate Mardi Gras With New Orleans Piano

Jelly Roll Morton

Album: Last Sessions: The Complete General Recordings

Song: Crave

Jelly Roll Morton was one of the most important figures in early New Orleans jazz, not to mention one of the most colorful. Never one to eschew the spotlight, he often made the claim that he "invented" jazz. Although that's most probably untrue, there's no denying his impact on the creation and development of this music. He was a songwriter, a bandleader and a monstrously gifted pianist. What we have here is a 1939 solo piano recording of "The Crave," a song he'd written approximately 20 years earlier. It features what Morton called "the Spanish tinge," which basically refers to the touches of habanera rhythms that were present in many of his songs and reflect his Creole heritage. "The Crave" is exuberant, exhilarating, funky and just a little bit eerie -- sort of like New Orleans itself.

Professor Longhair

Album: New Orleans Piano

Song: Tipitina [*]

Henry Roeland Byrd, known to the world as Professor Longhair (and to his friends as 'Fess), added many ingredients to pianistic New Orleans music with his blend of blues, calypso, mambo, rumba and rock 'n' roll. "Tipitina" was created in a recording studio one day in 1953 when music producer Jerry Wexler asked Longhair to do an eight-bar blues cut in the style of an existing song called "Tee Nah Nah." He quickly put together an arrangement, appropriated a few verses of lyrics that were common to a number of blues songs, and created a chorus that was basically nonsense. Thanks to Longhair's unique genius, the song went on to become a New Orleans funk staple and the template for New Orleans piano style from then on.

Dr. John

Album: Dr. John's Gumbo

Song: Junko Partner

Thanks in no small part to his 1973 hit record Right Place, Wrong Time, Dr. John (born Malcolm John Rebennack) is probably the most well-known New Orleans pianist in the world. He's also one of the best. His early albums in the late 1960s and early '70s fused psychedelic influences with New Orleans rhythms, which gained him a following with the hippie generation. In 1972, however, he dropped the psychedelia and made an album that was pure, unadulterated New Orleans -- called Gumbo. This version of "Junko Partner" is from that release. As with many blues songs, its provenance is murky, but it's been a New Orleans standard for decades. Although the saxophone is dominant in the instrumental passages, listen to those sections closely and you'll hear Dr. John soloing like crazy beneath the saxophonist, even as he accompanies him.

Henry Butler

Album: Homeland

Song: The Game Band Strut

It's not uncommon to hear of musicians who begin their recording careers in R&B or blues and then progress to jazz. Henry Butler did it the other way around. His debut albums in the early '80s were jazz-piano trio recordings featuring top-flight accompanists such as Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette. Soon, however, his roots began to show, and he was drawn back to the music of his native city. So here's a man who can play classical pieces and intricate hard bop, and also lay down some of the fattest New Orleans funk you'll ever hear. The Game Band Strut is an example of the latter. Along with Butler on piano and organ, you'll hear great work from Vasti Jackson (guitar), Nick Daniels III (bass) and Raymond Weber (drums galore).

Allen Toussaint

Album: Our New Orleans

Song: Tipitina and Me

It's fairly safe to say that Allen Toussaint has done more to popularize the sound of New Orleans music than any other musician on this list. Yes, Jelly Roll Morton supplied the basic ingredients. Yes, Professor Longhair and Tuts Washington defined what would be the basic sound of modern New Orleans piano. But as a songwriter and producer, Toussaint was the man who took that sound, fused it with a pop sensibility and, beginning in the early 1960s, started producing records that would spread New Orleans music all over the map. With artists including Art and Aaron Neville, Lee Dorsey, Irma Thomas and Ernie K-Doe -- and songs such as "Ruler Of My Heart," "Working in a Coalmine" and "Fortune Teller" -- Toussaint made immortal R&B records and played the piano on many of them. With "Tipitina and Me," Toussaint brings our list full-circle. He takes Professor Longhair's classic song and plays in an almost classical style, while also summoning the spirit of Jelly Roll Morton and some of the zeitgeist of post-Katrina New Orleans. Then, at the end, after he's hit what seems to be the final chord, he elegantly, and somewhat wistfully, adds the opening notes of Longhair's song "Going to the Mardi Gras" as if to say, "No matter what kind of blow New Orleans is dealt, its spirit will never die.

On This Date (January 30, 1980) Professor Longhair (c/o the Music's Over)

Professor Longhair (Born Henry Byrd; AKA Roy Byrd)
December 19, 1918 - January 30, 1980

Photo by Lindsay Shannon

Justly worshipped a decade and a half after his death as a founding father of New Orleans R&B, Roy “Professor Longhair” Byrd was nevertheless so down-and-out at one point in his long career that he was reduced to sweeping the floors in a record shop that once could have moved his platters by the boxful. That Longhair made such a marvelous comeback testifies to the resiliency of this late legend, whose Latin-tinged rhumba-rocking piano style and croaking, yodeling vocals were as singular and spicy as the second-line beats that power his hometown’s musical heartbeat. Longhair brought an irresistible Caribbean feel to his playing, full of rolling flourishes that every Crescent City ivories man had to learn inside out (Fats Domino, Huey Smith, and Allen Toussaint all paid homage early and often). Longhair grew up on the streets of the Big Easy, tap dancing for tips on Bourbon Street with his running partners. Local 88s aces Sullivan Rock, Kid Stormy Weather, and Tuts Washington all left their marks on the youngster, but he brought his own conception to the stool. A natural-born card shark and gambler, Longhair began to take his playing seriously in 1948, earning a gig at the Caldonia Club. Owner Mike Tessitore bestowed Longhair with his professorial nickname (due to Byrd’s shaggy coiffure). Longhair debuted on wax in 1949, laying down four tracks (including the first version of his signature “Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” complete with whistled intro) for the Dallas-based Star Talent label. His band was called the Shuffling Hungarians, for reasons lost to time! Union problems forced those sides off the market, but Longhair’s next date for Mercury the same year was strictly on the up-and-up. It produced his first and only national R&B hit in 1950, the hilarious “Bald Head” (credited to Roy Byrd & His Blues Jumpers). The pianist made great records for Atlantic in 1949, Federal in 1951, Wasco in 1952, and Atlantic again in 1953 (producing the immortal “Tipitina,” a romping “In the Night,” and the lyrically impenetrable boogie “Ball the Wall”). After recuperating from a minor stroke, Longhair came back on Lee Rupe’s Ebb logo in 1957 with a storming “No Buts - No Maybes.” He revived his “Go to the Mardi Gras” for Joe Ruffino’s Ron imprint in 1959; this is the version that surfaces every year at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Other than the ambitiously arranged “Big Chief” in 1964 for Watch Records, the ’60s held little charm for Longhair. He hit the skids, abandoning his piano playing until a booking at the fledgling 1971 Jazz & Heritage Festival put him on the comeback trail. He made a slew of albums in the last decade of his life, topped off by a terrific set for Alligator, Crawfish Fiesta. Longhair triumphantly appeared on the PBS-TV concert series Soundstage (with Dr. John, Earl King, and the Meters), co-starred in the documentary Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together (which became a memorial tribute when Longhair died in the middle of its filming; funeral footage was included), and saw a group of his admirers buy a local watering hole in 1977 and rechristen it Tipitina’s after his famous song. He played there regularly when he wasn’t on the road; it remains a thriving operation. Longhair went to bed on January 30, 1980, and never woke up. A heart attack in the night stilled one of New Orleans’ seminal R&B stars, but his music is played in his hometown so often and so reverently you’d swear he was still around. - Bill Dahl (allmusic)

NolaFunk Lagniappe

Harold Battiste: Offbeat Lifetime Achievement in Music

There are some people we can’t love enough, and one is Harold Battiste.

This year marks the first time that Offbeat has honored an individual three times: We selected Battiste as our first Heartbeat Award honoree in 1996 for a career of contributions to New Orleans music, then he was recognized in 2006 with a Lifetime Achievement in Music Education for the years spent teaching people about music and the music business—both in the classroom and outside of it.

Antoinette K-Doe: The Heartbeat Award

On a recent Tuesday morning, OffBeat’s Elsa Hahne visited Antoinette K-Doe at the Mother-in-Law Lounge as she cooked gumbo, red beans, jambalaya, stewed turkey, stuffing and baked macaroni for a welcoming party for visiting musicians in town for a benefit for Sweet Home New Orleans. I was there at the end of the night when K-Doe surveyed the crock pots, started bagging the leftovers and handed them to the last to leave.

“I spend my tip money on bags,” she says, stuffing jambalaya in one until it was full.

It was the start of a busy week in the Mother-In-Law Lounge, with events almost every night concluding Saturday evening with a benefit for singer Tommy Singleton, who needs help with his medical bills after major surgery. Since the bar opened in 1994, Antoinette has made it a place that serves a social good, and her focus has engendered goodwill throughout the New Orleans music community and around the country.

Porter Batiste Stoltz featuring Page McConnell - Soundcheck Jam from Relix on Vimeo.



Mardi Gras is coming: Let the good times roll

Parade floats are being built, costumes are being fitted and krewes are practicing. Let the good times roll! It's almost time for Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Professor Longhair (born Henry Roeland Byrd, also known as Roy "Bald Head" Byrd and as Fess) December 19 1918 - January 30, 1980 was a New Orleans blues singer and pianist. He was noted for his unique piano style, which he described as "a combination of rumba, mambo, and Calypso", and his unusual, expressive voice, described once as "freak unique."

Huey Piano Smith - Don’t You Just Know It

Huey “Piano” Smith (born 26 January 1934 in New Orleans) is an American rhythm and blues pianist whose sound was influential in rock ‘n’ roll. Huey’s influence on New Orleans music in the mid 1950s was profound, and it was often said Huey Piano Smiths band was like a finishing school for Nola singers and musicians.[citation needed]

see also: Huey Piano Smith - High Blood Pressure



One Eyed Jacks - Great Bar in the Quarter

Last week, I attended a Garage-a-Trois concert at One Eyed Jacks. I forgot what a great venue One Eyed Jacks is. It's definitely a hipster joint and is decidedly unlike most other venues in the Quarter. This week I came upon a blurb in the Gambit about the venue that I thought would be worth repeating. There are not many good "alternative" bars in the Quarter, especially ones that offer great burlesque.

Big Sam's Funky Nation, Mardi Gras World, 1/16/09

There’s no better way to kick off the first official weekend of Mardi Gras 2009 than with a ball. And there definitely isn’t a better place to have a ball than at Mardi Gras World in Algiers Point. A cross between a fantastical carnival and a spooky wax museum, on Friday, January 16th, the large warehouse, which also serves as the home of the Big Easy Rollergirls, hosted The Pussyfooters’ Blush Ball. With a portion of the proceeds going to benefit the Metropolitan Center for Women and Children and the king of the second-line, Big Sam and his Funky Nation on hand providing the entertainment, the corset-clad marching ensemble who lead the all female Krewe of Muses parade brought in the season with swinging, sultry good time.


Glen David Andrews: A video by Lily Keber

Lily Keber made a series of short videos about Glen David Andrews' live recording of "Walking Through Heaven's Gate."

This particular video is one of the best portraits of a New Orleans musician and what New Orleans music is all about I've ever seen.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Breath of Life: IRMA THOMAS

09 This Bitter Earth (Featuring Ellis Marsalis).mp3 (5.73 MB)

[This album] made me go into areas of performing, as an artist, singing, that I’d never ventured into before, such as the song I did with Mr. Marsalis [“This Bitter Earth”]. I don’t usually get a chance to do standards like that. And it felt really, really good. With the audience I perform to, sometimes I can get away with stuff like that, but most of the time they want to hear my old ’60s material, and I accommodate them because that’s what it’s all about—you give your audience what they want. But, as a performer, it was a pleasure and an honor to be able to show people—with someone [like Marsalis] who’s been doing it all his life—that I can actually sing standards.

'1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die' includes dozens of local New Orleans musicians

Moon's list of New Orleans/Louisiana contributions:

Johnny Adams: The Real Me: Johnny Adams Sings Doc Pomus
Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Fives and Hot Sevens
The Balfa Brothers: The Balfa Brothers Play Traditional Cajun Music
Sidney Bechet: Sidney Bechet: Ken Burns Jazz
James Booker: New Orleans Piano Wizard Live!
Buckwheat Zydeco: Buckwheat's Zydeco Party
Fats Domino: They Call Me the Fat Man: The Legendary Imperial Recordings
BeauSoleil: Bayou Deluxe
Snooks Eaglin: New Orleans Street Singer
Mahalia Jackson: The Apollo Sessions: 1946-1951
Dr. John: Gris-Gris
Lonnie Johnson: The Original Guitar Wizard
Leadbelly: Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Jerry Lee Lewis: Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
The Meters: Look-Ka Py Py
Jelly Roll Morton: Birth of the Hot
Aaron Neville: Tell it Like it Is
Randy Newman: Twelve Songs
King Oliver and His Creole Jazz Band: Off the Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings
Louis Prima: The Wildest!
Professor Longhair: New Orleans Piano
Huey "Piano" Smith: This is. . .
Willie "The Lion" Smith: The Lion Roars! His Greatest 1934-1944
Britney Spears: Toxic
Allen Toussaint: Finger Poppin' and Stompin' Feet
The Wild Tchoupitoulas: The Wild Tchoupitoulas
Lucinda Williams: Sweet Old World

The Best CDs of 2008: WWOZ Show Host Picks

Here are the best CD releases of 2008, handpicked by WWOZ show hosts. Many of the discs are by local New Orleans artists, while others are from national and international acts, and all of them make great stocking stuffers.

Mardi Gras in Manhattan

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