Party supplies - http://www.kekkonparty.com

Recent updates in Mardi Gras Door Curtain New - Mardi Gras

6 years after mother, grandmother were murdered in 7th Ward home, sons wait for justice

• Sep 06, 2010 from nolanews(NOLA.com) in *
  And for six years, suspect waits in Orleans Parish jail
  
  
  Within a day of this double homicide, committed in daylight on an 89-year-old woman and her 67-year-old daughter, New Orleans police had a suspect in custody.
  That was Darill Henry, 34, who a month later was booked with stabbing Durelli Watts in her 7th Ward home, and on his way out, firing a gun four times into Ina Claire Gex, who had just arrived at the front door in response to her mother's frantic phone messages. Henry remains the only person charged with the first-degree murders and hasn't left jail since the day the women were killed and the house was torched.
  
  That was June 15, 2004.
  
  Henry has not yet made it to trial at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, where this capital murder is the oldest case on Judge Terry Alarcon's Section L docket by at least four years.
  
  Gregory Gex, 51, an obstetrician, and his brother Roderick Gex, 48, an anesthesiologist, inherited the job as victims' family representative when their father, Robert Gex, died of heart disease two years after the murders of his wife and mother-in-law.
  
  "He wanted to know what the heck happened that day," said Gregory Gex, who has lived in Las Vegas along with this brother for the past 20 years, after a New Orleans childhood that included Brother Martin High School and family gatherings at the 7th Ward home at 1930 Duels St. "That's all he ever wanted. He and my mom went on separate errands that morning and he never saw her again."
  
  Typical post-Katrina sluggishnessWhile the facts of the case remain unspeakable, its slouch toward jury trial bears the typical hallmarks of Tulane and Broad: Constant turnover of young prosecutors; a public defender's system only recently reorganized after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina; and the thicket of law that comes with a death penalty case.
  
  Darill Henry was arrested hours after the killings. He has been in jail since 2004.For months after Katrina, prosecutors believed that all of the case's evidence had been destroyed by the floodwaters. It later turned up.
  
  The Gex brothers blame the six-year trial delay on Alarcon, who they believe, from his courtroom comments, can't be bothered with staging a capital murder trial, which requires lengthy jury selection and a unanimous verdict.
  
  Alarcon wouldn't comment for this story, citing the judicial code of conduct and the fact that this is an open capital murder case, but at the Tulane Avenue courthouse he has a reputation as keeping one of the lowest dockets in the building since he was first elected in 1996.
  
  In six years, Alarcon hasn't once continued the case on his own motion, and the docket master is filled with hearings and rulings from the court. The Gex brothers say that the judge personally took them into chambers to explain that a first-degree trial is "a waste of time" in Orleans Parish, where a convict hasn't gone to death row since 1997.
  
  Second-degree murder trials take place more quickly, and only 10 jurors need to agree to render a mandatory life sentence.
  Since Criminal District Court reopened after Katrina in 2006, prosecutors have brought six capital murder trials. Two ended in mistrials, with hung juries, while three were resolved by guilty verdicts and life sentences.
  
  The one capital trial that ended in a death penalty verdict was overturned on appeal after prosecutors failed to turn over important evidence to the defense team.
  
  But the law of capital murder fits what happened to Watts and her daughter, her family says. In addition to the killings, the crime included aggravated arson and attempted robbery.
  
  Ina Gex, seen this this July 21, 1997 file photo, was murdered June 15, 2004."My gosh, if there was ever a case of first-degree murder, this would be the definition," Gregory Gex said. "Death or life, we don't care."
  
  District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office reviewed the case again last week, and the DA and Assistant District Attorney Seth Shute met with the Gex brothers. Shute is the 14th lead prosecutor assigned to the case, by the Gex brothers' tally, while Henry has had four appointed defense teams.
  
  "This will proceed as a first-degree murder case," Cannizzaro spokesman Christopher Bowman said.
  
  Defense attorneys Nick Trenticosta and Michael Rocks said that Katrina, which closed down the public defender's office in New Orleans, certainly delayed this case. They said that the Gex brothers are mistaken in blaming the judge, because it is the district attorney who sets the trial schedule.
  
  "If anyone wants the case tried quickly, it can be tried as a second-degree," Trenticosta said.
  
  The DNA testing took a calendar year to come back -- with "inconclusive" results. For months and months, the state funding needed to pay for "mitigation," investigators who prepare long before opening statements for a death penalty hearing, never showed up, Trenticosta said.
  
  Woman was beaten but alive when set on fireIt all started in the 7th Ward home of...

Wedding Dresses 5 Hot New Wedding Dress Designers You Need to Know

• Sep 28, 2010 from pixelstoreus(PIXELSTORE.US) in Technology
  Wedding Dresses 5 Hot New Wedding Dress Designers You Need to Know
  In the world of wedding fashion, your name is your trademark. From couture one-of-a-kind dresses to breezy ready-to-wear styles, these five up-and-coming designers represent the next class of high-style designer names to remember. Move over Ms. Wang
  
  The Island Fashionista Tamara Catz
  Peering from the panoramic window of her ocean-side studio on the island of Maui, its easy for Tamara Catz to understand that a sweaty, satin-and-tulle-encased bride isnt a great look for a beach wedding. Instead, she envisions the kind of dress that can make a girl want to walk barefoot in the sand with the man of her dreams flowy, feminine, simple. Catz, 36, modeled her line of romantic, bohemian-style wedding dresses after her breezy sensibility.
  The Buenos Aires native spent seven years creating contemporary resort wear before she felt the artistic urge to foray into the world of bridal wear in 2007. A wedding dress is probably the most special garment a woman will ever put on, so I knew that my bridal designs could be a little more dreamy and unique than those for my every day clothes, says the 36-year-old. The Hawaiian-inspired designs feature relaxed feminine shapes, simple cuts, and organic accents like shells. Rather than overpowering the bride, Catzs simple silhouettes and light, flowing fabrics make a women feel like herself, something she believes, the traditional Cinderella-like wedding dress doesnt always do. Naturally, theyre most at home as alternative-style gowns for beach weddings, and many are even versatile enough to wear after the wedding. The best part for that special day, though, is that a Catz design can feel just as refreshing as sand between their toes.
  Tamara Catz, Paia, HI, tamarakatz.com, 808-579-9184, 0-,500
  The Custom Duo Miosa Bride
  Miosa combines two names: Michael and Sanea Sommerfield. Miosa Bride combines two visions: that of a husband and a wife to craft couture of the highest quality in a surprising location. Based in Sacramento, California, Sanea, 42, brings her business expertise and insight into the female psyche, while Michael, 46, draws from experience gained sewing outdoor wear at his fathers store and running a Sacramento tailor shop. Sewing is like breathing to him, Sanea gushes. I am still amazed most of the time at his understanding and knowledge.
  The decision to stay in Sacramento despite a zip code that lacks an obvious couture culture was in part an effort to bring high style to the capital city, but it was also a personal one. We had four children and did not want to move the family, Sanea explains. Family comes first, so we had to build a business that could function here. Their exquisite fabrics and design techniques have earned them a local following, and now that the kids are grown, the duo plans to begin branding nationally this year.
  The consultation phase is an integral component in the process of creating their gowns. The team takes detailed measurements to draft an initial pattern that accurately mimics the brides body with respect to her level of comfort. They then gather information about her and her wedding so they can weave her personality into the dress, whether soft fabrics for a romantic or a daring silhouette for a sophisticate. Pieces of the gown are then individually cut and sewn in-house, often using 100 percent silk fabrics imported from Europe. The result is a couture gown inspired by the natural aesthetic of the woman wearing it.
  Miosa Couture, Sacramento, CA, 916-443-1301, miosabride.com, ,600-,000
  The Green Pioneer Deborah Lindquist
  Deborah Lindquist raised a few eyebrows when she launched a daywear line made exclusively from recycled fabrics in 1983, long before the terms eco and green had been coined. Raised on a farm in Willmar Minnesota, surrounded by gardens, orchards and corn fields, Lindquist was 5 years old when her grandmother taught her to sew. Life on the farm sparked my respect for the earth, and I knew that if I was to make an impact in the fashion world, I would have to do so in a manner that remained true to my love for the environment, says the 52-year-old.
  Lindquist highlighted a 2005 fashion show with a wedding dress made of hemp that drew national interest from brides who read about it in blogs to a USA Today article on help farming that featured it. So in 2007, Deborah launched a green wedding collection made entirely of recycled materials, hemp blends, and soy silks.
  If the idea of wearing hemp conjures up thoughts of scratchy ill-fitted clothing, brides can rest assured that these luxurious, highly-stylized gowns are more suitable for a walk down the red carpet than a stroll up Haight-Ashbury. Lindquists dresses have a romantic, feminine feel with a bit of an edge. Detailed lace, beadwork, and ribbons embellish her creations with an air of elegance, while flirtatious bustiers and corsets lend a cutting-edge aesthetic. In an era in which greening...

The Night an Iron Curtain Descended Upon Top Chef [Top Chef]

• Jul 22, 2010 from gawker(Gawker) in Entertainment
  Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having interest in Top Chef Season 7 D.C., are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the season is now screening. God save the Gulag, goulash, and zeks.
  Last night an iron curtain descended upon Washington, D.C. Behind that line lie all the contestants of Top Chef season seven. Tiffany, Tamesha, Steven, Kevin, Kenny, Kelly, Ed, Amanda, Andrea and Alex, all the remaining contestants lie in what I must call the Sosa sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Sosian influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Angelo Sosa. But before the curtain closes completely, we can glimpse slivers of what has led us to this point and surely what will follow once the curtain has drawn shut.
  Moments of great humiliation, big wrecking ball moments, can come swinging from the periphery at any time, catching one midstride and unbraced for the impact. A cruel second of unbearable incontrovertible truth can destroy a lifetime of self-mythologizing. I fear Andrea Curto-Randazzo, curly haired lioness chef of Miami and thus far only a middling competitor, was confronted with one such moment last night when she walked in to her dystopic lalaland TV kitchen and there saw, standing next to Padma, Michelle Bernstein, smiling cuntily and prettily. Michyas I like to call herand Ray-Ray are both ladychefs/restaurateusses in the Miami area. Both ran with the "Mango Gang," the group of young chefs who brought Miami into the culinary spotlight in the '80s. In Curto-Randazzo's mind they are competitors; in Bernstein's mind, clearly, they are not. Bernstein went to the tony Johnson and Wales cooking school and has actually won a James Beard award. Curto went to the Culinary Institute and was nominated for Beard award but never once won one. Google "Michelle Bernstein" and a glossy website comes up, a nice headshot and a list of accomplishments. Google "Andrea Curto-Randazzo" and a Top Chef bio appears.
  Whether or not Michy is a fellow player in the larger game, last night Curto-Randazzo had to accept the facts on the uneven Bravo ground, such as they crushingly were: Bernstein sat tight while Randazzo performed bizarre culinary contortions like a betoqued lap dog who, having eaten too much chocolate, is hyper and sickened at the same time. Her bitter pills were two fold: Firstly, all Ray Ray s humiliation was on national television. (But what humiliation isn't these days? The only humiliation that counts might be on national television, such have we set ever higher the threshold for shame!) Secondly, though she can blame it on childrenthree of them, the little bastards who came unbidden into her womb!there's no escaping the undeniable. In life, Bernstein win; Curto-Randazzo fail.
  Ray Ray, along with the other chefs, pick from a table of wacky kooky quirkyall the adjectives one could use to describe Cathyproteins. Duck balls! Emu Eggs! Rattlesnake! Llama! Yak! Wild Boar! Foie Gras! Wait, foie gras? Wild boar? In whole regions of Italy from the mountainous sliver of Liguria to the broad swathe of Tuscany, wild boar or cinghiale is a cucina rustica. And foie gras here is considered a delicacy, or an act of cruelty and usually a delectable act of cruelty. Let the fun begin: Open-Mouth Talker Scared Rabbit Pill Popping Leah Cohen 2.0 Amanda grabs a large green Emu egg, inadvertently dropping the accompanying hammer. Then she runs about scared and screaming, "I don't know how to open these things!" She dons a ridiculously large glove and a hacksaw. Angelo grabs duck testiclesand for once does not describe them as "sexy"to make a marshmallow. Padma gave the word emu four extra syllables. I went to open the door for the delivery guy and when I came back she was still saying it and the yak meat had turned inexplicably into llama. The chefs play musical chairs, a stupid unnecessary twist, and serve their dishes to the judges. Bernstein sucks a duck ball; Padma pokes the yak. (Make that into a T-shirt!) Bernstein, if she were smart, would have left Curto-Randazzo's chewy boar undifferentiated in the middle of the pack. Instead she calls it, I believe, insipid and you can see the murderous narrative already taking shape in Ray Ray's furious destroyed bunker of a brain.
  Now to the Cold War. Sometimes Top Chef's contrived puns actually work well. Such was the case last night. The contestants, grouped into two teams, each serve one coldor, I suppose, room temperaturedish. Chefs from the opposing team select one winning dish and one losing dish. The actual judges then make the final decision. To commence their inept bungling stabs at strategy and adorable attempts at internecine warfare, the teams board the U.S.S. Sequioa, the Presidential Yacht (not actually the Presidential Yacht any longer). Top Chef gleefully boasts Nixon was once aboardhe sought refuge on the Yacht during the Watergate scandalas was JFK. You know who else was on the boat? 28...

Cosimo Matassa's J&M Recording Studio named Rock and Roll Landmark

• Sep 24, 2010 from nolanews(NOLA.com) in World News
  When the genre was in its infancy, 'the baby got rocked right here'
  
  
  To trumpeter Porgy Jones, the corner of North Rampart and Dumaine streets is hallowed.
  
  
  
  I feel like Im going to kiss the ground, Jones, 71, said on Friday, just before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum designated Cosimo Matassas J&M Recording Studio as a historic Rock and Roll Landmark, one of 11 nationwide.
  
  It was here, in a small backroom at 840 N. Rampart St., that Matassa engineered and produced some of rock n rolls earliest hits in a studio given the initials of his father, John Matassa.
  
  A few J&M recordings, including Fats Dominos single The Fat Man," Roy Browns Good Rockin Tonight and Little Richards Tutti Frutti have sometimes been called the first rocknroll record. Incorrect, said Hall of Fame president Terry Stewart: scholars agree there is no definitive first record classified as rock, said Stewart, as he stood at the edge of the French Quarter on Friday in front of the former studio, now a laundrette.
  
  Whats indisputable, Stewart said, is that when the genre was in its infancy, the baby got rocked right here in this building.
  
  Matassa, now 84, opened the Rampart Street studio in 1945 after he dropped out of the chemistry program at Tulane University. Inside the legendary studio which measured 15 feet by 16 feet with a control room that he said was as big as my four fingers Matassa recorded a storied list of acts. They included Domino and his longtime collaborator, trumpeter and producer Dave Bartholomew, saxophonist and producer Harold Battiste, Ray Charles, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Roy Brown, Sam Cooke, Jerry Lee Lewis, Professor Longhair, Earl Palmer, Dr. John, James Booker, Guitar Slim, Smiley Lewis, Lloyd Price and many others.
  
  More than one musician has made sly references to the corner. In Professor Longhairs Mardi Gras in New Orleans, recorded in 1949 at J&M, Rampart and Dumaine is the place hes going to stand until he sees the Zulu Queen.
  
  Jones was about 16 years old when he first recorded there. In hindsight the room was tiny, he said, but it didnt seem small at the time. His family lived around the corner on Burgundy Street and so hed peek in the door often and say, Where you at, Cos?Sometimes, Matassa would reply, Stick around, a tip to Jones that a session might be starting soon.
  
  It was just that casual, said Jones, who as the plaque was unveiled on Friday played along with Bartholomew, 89, who also played a solo version of My Ding-a-Ling, a song he recorded in 1952 at J&M.
  
  Singer Gerri Hall, 77, discovered the studio in 1955 after Huey Piano Smith, who used to play keyboard for Little Richard, drove her there to lean against the wall for the session that included Tutti Frutti.
  
  Hall, who toured with Smith and Ray Charles, hadnt known about the unmarked studio even though shed attended St. Marys Academy, then located around the corner.
  
  But once the studio started rolling out the hits, J&M became a sort of Mecca for musicians, said Hall, who returned often. There came a day when Cos didnt have a day off or an hour unbooked, she said.
  
  Matassa, who is recovering from a stroke, didnt speak at the unveiling. But hes said in the past that one of the things he couldve used was a tough guy in a green eyeshade, since his focus was never on the business side. Like many of the musicians he recorded, he ended up with meager financial reward.
  
  Musicians at the awards ceremony remembered Matassa extending credit to band leaders who didnt have the money to record. He wasnt driven by profits, Hall said. He didnt think about things like that. What drove him was the music.
  
  Matassa has also been humble about his accomplishments, typically saying things like the musicians made him look good.
  
  Hall would argue otherwise.
  
  Matassa was a hard worker with a deft touch at the console, she said, and he pushed musicians to do their best while laughing and talking in a way that put everyone at ease.He encouraged musicians to make the music they did, Hall said. They made that music first in New Orleans because of Cosimo Matassa.
  
  Katy Reckdahl can be reached at kreckdahl@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3396.

Spending Time with Khalid!!!!

• Feb 28, 2012 from antwandavis(Antwan Davis) in Entertainment
  Another stop on Khalid's world tour is in New Orleans
  
  
  
  Khalid says
  
  New Orleans during the Mardi Gras week was amazing. As soon as you walk out the front door of the hotel the city was ju...