“Quelque Chose” means “Something” in French. These posts are about things not necessarily related to books, food and recipes, Cajun, New York, or other categories.
On the sidewalk Ever notice LGBTQ couples holding hands in public? Too disturbingly often (like just this morning on 8th Avenue in Manhattan, during Pride Month, no less) I’ve noticed something that sours the sweetness. On the sidewalk two men hold hands. Tentative, self-conscious, and furtive. They look ahead. On guard. Not at each other, like adoring straight couples get to do without thinking. It … Continue reading Reason 28 why we still need Pride
I feel pride like I feel new love. It swells my heart. And just as with that unmistakable feeling of new love, when the world seems to stop spinning because nothing else matters, I’ve had only a few moments in my life where pride overtook and transformed me. And I think that’s a good thing: You don’t want to have so much love or so … Continue reading Pride Swells the Heart. Just Like Love Does.
Like so many people out there, I feel overwhelmed. I’m so sorry about the state of affairs in our big, baggy, but ultimately still lovable old country right now. In my marrow I know that we are so much better than all this ugliness. I get that some people are just more comfortable staying out of the fray – that’s how they keep their wits … Continue reading My Three Wishes
This past Monday, Labor Day, I sat at my dining room table and laptopped my way through the jobs boards to find appropriate positions to bookmark for the week. Then I spent a few hours customizing my cover letters for those positions; filled in a couple of those same organizations’ very time-absorbent application forms (Uggh! They’re already getting my resume!); and reworked each of the … Continue reading Autumnal Optimism?
I read from the final chapter of my book. Spoiler alert: In this chapter we walk through the house at the Stone Motel, after a 30-year occupancy by the Ardoin family. You may wish to hold off on seeing this video until you’ve finished the book. Continue reading New Reading: Popeye’s in the Oven
In this reading from “Stone Motel,” we get to meet some pretty interesting (and entertaining) regular customers. Here’s where you can buy the book: University Press of Mississippi Amazon Independent Bookstores Barnes & Noble Continue reading New Video: Meet the Stone Motel “Regulars”
Y’all come quick, my little sweet potato nom-noms! Here’s the second reading from my book, “Stone Motel – Memoirs of a Cajun Boy.” Here’s where you can get the book: Independent Bookstores Barnes & Noble University Press of Mississippi Amazon C’est tout! M © All Rights Reserved Continue reading Y’all ready for another reading from Uncle Moe?
Mr. Dupre, who taught industrial arts at the junior high school, was carrying a stack of Tandy Leathercraft kits to his office. I wasn’t a student of his – I had already taken industrial arts at Central Elementary (aka: Charles Drew High School before desegregation came to Eunice). But the striking yellow and black boxes of the leathercraft kits had so grabbed my attention that … Continue reading Warm Leatherette
I mentioned last time that I have dedicated my upcoming book to Moby, our sweet, rust-coated vizsla, who left us two summers ago. His passing ranks as one of the very hardest things I’ve had to endure. At the time of his death, I wrote a note that we shared with our friends, essentially saying that our wonderful pooch had “taught us how to be … Continue reading The Comfort Only a Good Pooch Can Provide
It’s getting realer and realer by the day! Check out the catalog page from the University Press of Mississippi for my new book, Stone Motel – Memoirs of a Cajun Boy. You can preorder now! Continue reading Check out the Catalog Page for my Upcoming Book!
My book “Stone Motel: Memoirs of a Cajun Boy” (University Press of Mississippi, Spring 2020) takes place in the early-to-mid-1970s. From the first pages, I give the reader a sense of place (a little roadside motel in Cajun Louisiana), and for context, a sense of time: This was all before widespread access to cable television, microwave ovens, fast food, and of course way before the … Continue reading We’ve landed in 1974, Baby!
When I moved to New York City from New Orleans in 1992 one of the first things I realized was that there are quite a few fellow Louisianans walking these streets, riding these subways, and having a blast, as I was. Turns out there were many first things I would need to realize – such as that the stereotype that New Yorkers are rude is … Continue reading I’m a Coonass in Gotham, me.
Eunice native Jere Longman, writing for today’s edition of The New York Times, on the tumultuous late 1960s to early 1970s and beyond. He beautifully captures the electricity of a period when our home city was in the throes of transition. Continue reading Sunday Times: Dispatch from Eunice, La. on a Piece of its Desegregation History
Ten years ago, the first time I walked into the house on Cornwallville Road in Cornwallville, New York, where I now sit and write this, I felt a powerful, mostly positive, energy about the place. What was odd about that is that, for the most part, I don’t typically feel or sense such things at all. I just bumble through life clueless about that kind … Continue reading An 1851 Farmhouse With Stories to Tell – to Anyone Who’ll Listen
In my senior year at LSU, I wrote this poem while sitting in my bullet-proof cashier’s booth at the ECOL filling station on College Drive in Baton Rouge. We sold only fuel, engine oil, cigarettes, and lighters. I had the brutal 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. When my roommate Colleen discovered the poem in my stuff (it was scribbled on the inside of a … Continue reading Poetry at the Filling Station
(Parenthetically) Speaking 