"What is truly remarkable about this run is my wife's patience," says Ancelet. "She has given up virtually every Saturday night for almost 20 years. Now that's dedication." In 1986, he helped organize a few cultural events at the Liberty ' an old time radio show and programs exploring the traditions of weddings and Mardi Gras. In July 1987, it became a weekly program named Rendez-vous and settled into a mission of developing tourism through family-oriented Cajun and Creole music and cultural information. Ancelet also aims to cultivate a younger generation of musicians to carry on the traditions of south Louisiana music performed by older, established bands. On a deeper cultural level, the program's use of Cajun French is a strong play for its survival and continued usage.
"This [use of French] produced a certain amount of tension in the early going," says Ancelet. "In the end, the issue resolved itself as outsiders and locals alike were overwhelmingly positive in their comments concerning the show's authenticity."
From his spot on the stage, Ancelet watched unforgettable performances, most captured on video. His favorites are a list of classics that could easily fill Volume One of a best-of DVD ' a possibility as the tapes are now being digitized at the Archives of Cajun & Creole Folklore, an effort started by Ancelet. The Liberty stage served as the setting for a wide scope of events in modern Cajun and Creole music: the unlikely pairing of staunchly traditional Dewey Balfa and modern experimenter Wayne Toups; a young Horace Trahan coming out of the crowd to bring the audience to tears with his accordion-only version of Iry Lejeune's "Viens me Chercher;" Jo-El Sonnier shedding tears of his own after receiving a tremendous ovation; Robert Jardell's version of "Johnny Can't Dance," played the old way after Toups made his contemporary version a hit; and the a cappella talents of ballad singers Inez Catalon and Lula Landry.
For the milestone 1,000th performance, Ancelet dug into the program's past. Robert Frey, who played the first Rendez-vous, returns, as does Jeffery Broussard, who performed with his father Delton's Lawtell Playboys at the second event. Jambalaya, which has performed at the most Rendez-vous programs, accompanies D. L. Menard, Paul Daigle and Rodney LeJeune. The night will serve as a perfect bookend for the first 1,000 shows and a great launching pad toward 2,000.
Rendez-vous des Cajuns 1,000th performance
Jason Frey, Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys, Jambalaya with D. L. Menard, Paul Daigle and Rodney LeJeune
6-8 p.m., Saturday Feb. 24, Eunice's Liberty Theater
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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