Random Fact: Nashville, Tennessee Got a Lot of Rain in May 2010

A somber footnote from my recent trip to New Orleans was that my brother, a last minute addition out of Nashville, Tennessee, spent a good portion of the trip nervously monitoring his iPhone for updates on the deteriorating situation with regards to the Cumberland River and record-setting flood stages back in his home city.

The weather that weekend in New Orleans was strange, frighteningly humid with an endless surge of low-lying  clouds flowing north off the Gulf at 20-25 mph. It was horror-movie, pre-apocalypse style cloud action and everyone just kept waiting for what felt like the inevitable, Biblical deluge. But it didn't come.

With this boatload of moisture coming in from the sea, New Orleans only reported 1.55 inches of rain during those first two days of May while Nashville received 13.56 inches. I'm an amateur meteorologist in aspiration-only, but my feeling is we saw that moisture in New Orleans en route to Nashville.

*Data for this post was provided by Weather.com, which is an excellent website with a lot of delightful drill-down ability for the weather and/or data junkie. Check out the Monthly view for precipitation and temperature recordings, extremes and averages.

My Weekend at Jazz Fest in Pictures

Trombone Shorty!

Two Rude Dudes!

Tipitina's!

Cafe du Monde!

Peace!

Clouds!

It's Ticketmaster's World...

So I'm lucky enough to be heading off for the second weekend of the justifiably famous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, or Jazz Fest, and am struggling with the unjust dilemma of ticket sales here in Ticketmaster's world (and we all just live in it).

Pre-paid ticket sales are $45 on the Jazz Fest website but go up to $60 if you're buying day-of at the gate. So the obvs move here is to pre-pay, right?

But then witness the Ticketmaster peripheral sales funnel of ultimate aggravation in action:

Exhibit A

Okay, so even though it's a weekend long festival, if I'd like to go to more than one day I have to buy individual tickets for each day. That's not very convenient.

Exhibit B

Oh, now I get it. You want to sell me individual tickets so you can double (or triple) me up on the infamous Ticketmaster service fees, which at over 18% are in the polite range of what you'd tip a waiter at a fancy restaurant.

I'm still saving $6.85 per day off the box office price. That's cents that makes sense. But wait...

Exhibit C

It's easy to look at this and say, quit complaining and go Will Call (and I probably will). But there are times when this matters. Witness Outside Lands Festival 2008 when the Will Call line was like an hour long and yours truly missed the Black Keys, Beck and a good chunk of Radiohead as a result. And then what is Ticketmaster really charging me for? The privilege of self-service? $2.50 to print it out my damn self?

I understand a company's got to make a buck, but there's also a difference between good profit, earned for delivering value, and bad profit, earned by pressing your position of power. Somehow Ticketmaster has all the tickets and to me this is no bueno.

Celebrity Stalking with Bad Cell Phone Photography

I'd compare this image to a glass of wine, shady and complex with lots of nuance and hints of something bigger, that seemingly only coalesces into an impression with the power of suggestion tipping you in a certain direction. Think notes of New Orleans cajun cooking, a powerful cult of personality and... is that Emeril Lagasse I detect? BAM! Now you taste it!

I had the rare pleasure of dining in his New Orleans flagship restaurant last week gratis as part of the National Restaurant Association Marketing Exectuive Group meeting. 

To my surprise, Emeril flouted any notion I had of celebrity chef (chef, notwithstanding, Emeril is a Celebrity) and took the evening quite seriously, spending most of it sweating it out in the kitchen. Not actually cooking, mind you, but taking a commander's role in overseeing the craft and delivery of his culinary experience. It was great to see someone who's reached such stature in his field still taking the time (and obvious) pleasure in its sincerest expression - entertaining people with food. Despite the outsized image he's created, Emeril is obviously not too big for his own britches and hasn't forgetten where he came from.