The Noble Savage Tavern, an old honky tonk in downtown
Shreveport, isn’t typically known for its celebrity clientele. But last week,
it was the choice hangout of Oliver Stone, Sharon Stone, Val Klimer and 50
Cent, all of whom were in town working on new movies. An article in today’s New
York Times looks at how this post-industrial North Louisiana town of 200,000 is
the latest “Hollywood South,” currently hosting approximately 40 film and TV
productions. The story lists some obvious reasons for Shreveport’s attraction:
Louisiana’s lucrative tax incentives for film production, low hospitality
industry prices and a wealth of old abandoned buildings perfect for filming.
Filmmakers have found other charms. Producer Lampton Enochs notes,
“when you shoot in somebody’s home, some of them even bake cookies for the
crew."And eccentric director Oliver
Stone, who is in town shooting “W”, his new biopic of President Bush, is fascinated by the local talent.“You
get something working with extras from here,” Stone tells the Times. “Look, these
people are gamblers and roughnecks. They know all about boom and bust. This is
a second-chance town. I just read that there may be a huge reserve of gas right
under the city that was not discovered until very recently.”
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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