Bandmember Wilson Savoy says he and his roommates, Jon Bertrand and Cedric Watson, along with Drew Simon, have been playing Cajun music on campus since August ' usually with fiddle, guitar, accordion and t'fer. The acoustic quartet has performed on the corner of Rex Street and St. Mary Boulevard.
"We live near campus," says Savoy. "We like playing music, and the people like it. We go out there when there's nice weather to make a few bucks, but we're not begging for money. That's one of the nice things about Lafayette; the music is what it's all about."
While the group performs, there's an open case for passersby to part with their spare change. "People thrown in money," Savoy says. "We don't ask them. We make, on average, $10 a day." On the afternoon of March 23, The Pine Leaf Boys had netted $5 and had been playing for about five minutes when a UL Police car with its lights flashing pulled up to the curb.
An officer approached the group. "He said, 'Stop the noise. There's a complaint from the dean of students that there was noise on campus,'" says Savoy. "And he said, 'That's the same reason that we don't let bums beg for money on the street. So if y'all want to do it, y'all have to get a permit.' And yada, yada, yada. It was pretty offensive, so we packed up and left."
Pat Cottonham, UL associate dean of students, says her office received a complaint about loud music and adds that the band wasn't registered for an activity on campus, which is required by her office. "We didn't know there was supposed to be a band," she says. "People can't just set up and be on campus." Cottonham says The Pine Leaf Boys also didn't have a permit from Lafayette Consolidated Government to perform. She adds, "They were in a quiet zone, 20 feet away from an academic building where science classes were going on." (Montgomery Hall, the school's chemistry building, sits on the same corner.)
Cottonham also claims that university police had paid The Boys a visit about the noise a week earlier, a claim that Savoy flatly denies. Cottonham also says that the officer denies making a reference to "bums." Calls placed to the UL Police department were unreturned as of press time.
It was the first time the dean's office had received a complaint about the music, according to Cottonham. "But if someone calls and complains, then we look into it," she says. "I wouldn't understand how a band would be able to be there since August ' in a high traffic area ' and not be noticed."
Dean of Students Edward Pratt says the UL Police have informed him that The Pine Leaf Boys had been previously warned. "These are probably a bunch of nice kids," he says, "and I wish they would have come up to us, talked to us and said, 'Dean Pratt, we want to play music.'"
"I guess we're just not going to do it anymore," Savoy says. "It was kind of like a slap in the face. We weren't doing it for the money, by any means. In a way, we just wanted to raise the morale of the UL experience. A lot of people take tours [of the campus] and a lot of students are out there. The only thing that differentiates this campus from LSU is live Cajun music, right here in Lafayette. We're supposed to be the Cajun heartland of Louisiana, and UL is supposed to be the Ragin' Cajuns, but they made us stop playing. I thought it was just pitiful, especially when we're on a street where they've got trucks driving by, at 100 decibels, blowing out their rap and crap."
"I'm disappointed that they feel they weren't treated fairly," Cottonham says. "We want to be seen as a friendly campus, but there are rules and procedures to follow. This wasn't the first warning given to them, and I would like to talk to them about what our rules and regulations are for coming on the campus. I'm sure that there's a reasonable way for us to have a dialogue about this."
But along with scraping their afternoon matinees, The Pine Leaf Boys don't intend to speak with university officials over registering their activity or securing a permit from consolidated government.
"No, of course not," Savoy says. "We didn't think we needed a permit, and we still don't."
MAY 20 This post by blogger CB Forgotston draws parallels between Gov. Bobby Jindal and two individuals he probably doesn't want to be aligned with: President Obama and former governor Edwin Edwards. CB says Jindal's trying to jack up the debt ceiling (an Obama play, according to CB) and buy votes from GOP leges who normally wouldn't go for that (an Edwards play, CB says).
MAY 20 Here's a post in the Baptist Message from an alumnus of Louisiana College. The author, Larry Burgess, calls on the leadership of the private school to take care of some pressing problems. Physical plant issues are critical and unaddressed, some faculty make so little they need government health care, and there is an atmosphere that does not encourage honest discussion, he writes. It's time to get things back in order, he says.
MAY 20 This post in Gambit tells of a benefit concert scheduled to raise money for the 19 people shot during a Mother's Day second line on Frenchmen Street in NOLA. Among them was Gambit blogger Deb Cotton, who spoke frequently about violence in the city and reported on the city's second line culture. Gambit's foundation, along with other NOLA non-profits, also is selling t-shirts to raise money for the victims.
MAY 20 Blogger Robert Mann is critical of the personal interest some legislators take in their work here, sharing the comments one NOLA solon made in explaining his decision to vote against a bill that would require people to stop discriminating against female workers. His wife might lose some salary, so he was going to have to vote against the equal pay bill, Conrad Appel said. Appel and everyone who heard him should have been ashamed, but they weren't, and that's what is wrong in that building, Mann argues.
MAY 20 American Press columnist Jim Beam writes about the budget again here, urging kudos for the House and its efforts to try to fix the budget as opposed to passing on a flawed and messy rubber-stamped document as it usually does. The Senate already is poo-pooing the effort, but instead Senators should be trying to find a way to improve it as well, Beam argues. He also has some predictions in here from LABI and CABL.
MAY 20 Here's a link to the photo gallery from Tulane's graduation this past weekend. Dr. John and Allen Toussaint played together and received honorary degrees. The Dalai Lama was so entranced by their performance he got up from his seat and walked across the stage to stand next to them. He even participated in a second line with his own personal, saffron-colored umbrella. To the graduates, he urged them to think about creating a peaceful, hopeful life and society.
MAY 20 This Picayune story questions the rhetoric of NOLA officials who say the city, aside from having a "murder problem," is safe. The talking points generally are that the criminals are killing each other, but everything else is OK. The police chief there says that even Lafayette is more dangerous than NOLA. But crime experts interviewed here say that NOLA's numbers indicate one of two things: either people are so used to violence they don't report it, or somebody's "fudging the numbers."
MAY 20 The Advocate's Mark Ballard writes about some of the background maneuvering that took place during the development of budget alternatives in the Legislature. From Rep. Joel Robideaux being called a "tax and spend liberal" to robo-call influence, Ballard lets us in on some of the work that happens behind the scenes but usually doesn't make it into the Advocate's daily coverage of the session.
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