Here are some write-ups of this year's CCCCC:
From: Kristine (sassymaven@hotmail.com)
Subject: CCCCC Part Quatre (Long ... Really Long)
Newsgroups: alt.smokers.cigars
Date: 2002-04-11 12:56:24 PST
It was my second year to attend the CCCCC event and I've determined that it can only get better, even though you could never dream it was possible. This year, I was excited to be staying "on campus" at Ashton's B&B, and what an enjoyable and relaxing stay it was. The Ashton's are the crème de la crème when it comes to innkeepers. Ashton's is a 1859 home on Esplanade Avenue, and sits under one of the oldest oak trees in the state of Louisiana. A truly beautiful home. I could easily live there!
A few of us early arrivals headed out to lunch on Friday because Farmerator and Kvan wanted oysters. They had, instead, at least 2 pounds of some of the biggest, fattest crawfish I've ever seen. And my goodness can those boys put it away. After a few hours ... a few long hours ... we all returned, thanks to our personal Chauffer Fermanis, to sit around on the verandah and contemplate the day and the evening to come.
Dinner was simply delightful ... and the food wasn't too shabby either! Dinner at Dickie Brennan's consisted of: Oysters En Brochette, Dickie's Chopped Salad, New Orleans Turtle Soup, Prime Petite File Mignon, Bananas Foster Beignet each course with its own wine selection ... followed by (for me anyway) a wonderful Foncesa LBV port. PaylessCigars.Com in New Orleans provided the cigars for dinner. A perfect match. Five courses later, some were ready to party the Quarter, while others of us went back for more verandah herfing. The Motown Scrooges joined us for a few hours and we herfed the night and early morning hours away.
Saturday morning proved to be the most beautiful of days. Not a cloud in the sky, mid-70s, and very little humidity (really!. After a short trip down to the Quarter we all met up at Cigar Factory. Some of us ventured out with Valerie on the Antique Crawl, while the rest went with Michael for the terrific Cigar Crawl. (Some of you cigar crawling guys will have to talk about your ventures at New Orleans Cigar Co. aka paylesscigars.com, Black Bull Cigars, Epitome of Fine Tobacco, and whichever other ones I'm obviously forgetting.) I think Michael said there were something like 66 antique stores within a few blocks. I lost count after about a dozen or so. Wow! I think my favorite was the one with the chandeliers. One of them was going for the bargain basement price of $140,000.00.
Then it was back to Ashton's for the main event. Crawfish ... and more crawfish. 120 pounds of those little darlings. After the first few pounds were dumped on the tables, many of us didn't even bother with chairs, plates, or napkins. We just dug in. Pinching tails and sucking heads. (I think my lips are still burning). There was more food than I think I've ever seen in one place. Corn, potatoes, garlic, barbeque brisket, fried turkey, Natchitoches meat and crawfish pies, and those incredibly mouthwatering BBQ oysters. What a feast! And let's not forget the two kegs of Abita beer.
There were easily 65 people in attendance on Saturday. Including Bo, Rho and PorkChop Powell. It was wonderful to see old friends and make news ones. We had a lot of folks from various cigar venues ... ASC of course, JRBB, CF, and Cigar Weekly. Putting faces with names is a neat experience and adds some fun to meeting new but not really new people. We had some very long distance travelers. Kvan from Denmark, Dam#Hawaiian from Hawaii, a bunch from Motown, lots from Florida, and many from the Northeast. It was definitely the place to be!
After we had settled down from the first gorging, out came the door prizes. I've never seen the likes of such terrific prizes. We had very generous sponsors this year .... Ashton's Bed & Breakfast, PaylessCigars.com, CGars Ltd., JR Cigars, Caribe Imported Cigars, Cigar Factory of New Orleans, and Abita Beer! (Michael, you may need to help me because I've undoubtedly left out some sponsors). I've never seen so many cigars ... Mayorga H.O. Parejos, ERDM Choix Supreme, Astral Perfecto No. 1 (I think), Camacho Havanas, and so many more I can't possibly remember. Plus Union Chicory
Coffee, and those darling crawfish hats.
And Lord, let's not forget all those Mardi Gras beads!
Saturday evening provided some great fun ... I'll let some of the guys tell about the "ballet" tour. A few of us headed over to a local spot called Rock 'N Bowl. Awesome place! Great blues band and cheap beer. And yes, it has a bowling alley AND a dance floor. What a combination!! Around midnight we decided a trip to Cafe du Monde was in order. After a quick phone call, "Do you know where your herfers are?" the "ballet" tour guys met us there. Nothing like beignets and cafe au lait to help ease what will surely pain us in the morning. The time came to head on back, and somehow I ended up with Bob Ray and Michael Fermanis. I was told later that Bob Ray was stumbling through the streets on the corner on our way to Michael's car, but honestly, I didn't see it. (I'm sure Bob can explain the theory).
The next morning, and without a hint of a hangover ... okay maybe a hint ...I made my way into the kitchen at Ashton's, originally to wait for the gathering to head to Cafe Sbisa for brunch. But I was convinced to try the creamy egg crepes with crawfish cream sauce. Oh my ... it was heaven. Patrick Ashton can surely create mouthwatering delights.
Cafe Sbisa provided about 20 of us with a terrific view of the Quarter and mouthwatering food. But the bottomless Mimosas were overflowing. Bob gifted me with a terrific Fuente Don Carlos ... it proved to be a yummy smoke. (TYBR).
Then it was back to Ashton's to lounge around a bit before packing. Although it was a fun-filled, very full weekend, it surely did go by quickly.
I won't regail you with my return flight woes. But I did finally make it home sometime after midnight. I thought I was going to be *forced* to stay in New Orleans for another evening, but alas, I was not that fortunate.
It was a weekend to top all weekends. If you have never attended, I would strongly urge you to consider. It is a fantastic crawl, with fantastic sponsors, terrific people, terrific cigars, and fabulous food. The Big Easy at its best.
Thank you Michael, Patrick, Karma, all of our sponsors, and to each and every attendee.
Laissez le bon temps roulez!!!!!!
Kristine ... 360 days or so and counting until CCCCCV
From:
bobray@s...
Date: Sat Apr 13, 2002 4:11 am
Subject: CCCCC report
I posted this on ASC but thought I'd send it out for those of you that don't visit there:
Stumbling? Me? Let me explain.
As Kristine has reported ably on the rest of the Crawfish Crawl, I can only add my thoughts about our night at the ballet.
Ever since I was a little girl growing up in Minnesota, I've dreamed of visiting the New Orleans ballet theaters. When I heard that Michael would be taking us on a tour of them, I became giddy with excitement. I couldn't wait for our tour to begin. While I waited for the appointed hour, I washed down several dozen oysters and crawfish with some ice cold Abita beer.
It seemed like the time would never come but, finally, Michael
announced that our tour was about to begin. After a thrilling ride to the French Quarter (so called because it was purchased from the Marquis de Sade for 25 cents and a pack of obscene playing cards) we arrived at our destination. I was beside myself with anticipation as we entered the first theater. Words fail me as I try to descibe it--the lights, the music, the costumes--it was everything I had imagined and more.
I was afraid that on such short notice we would have to sit toward the back of the theater but Michael somehow got us fabulous seats near the stage. Sometimes, it seemed like the dancers were almost in our laps.
In the first theater, the show was a kind of post-modern discourse on life in the working class. The dancers pantomimed working on an assembly line, being bent over with fatigue, and collapsing with exhaustion at the end of a long work day. It was compicated and very moving. I had to keep turning my head to try to take in all that was happening around me. Before I knew it, however, it was time to
move on to our second show.
The second theater was staging a show much like the first but with more inventive costumes and the added theme of the dangers of cosmetic surgery. One dancer, who was dressed as a nurse, performed with another dressed as the captain of a yacht. The dance was an allusion to the impoverishment of the soul brought about by wealth and the healing touch of love. I noticed a number of audience
members participating by sliding currency under the dancers'
costumes and then touching them to show their understanding of the allegory. New Orleans certainly has the most sophisticated audiences in the ballet world.
The third theater we visited was dimly lit and even more intimate than the others. Here, however, we were separated from the dancers by a "bar" indicating the distance between people of different backgrounds. Drinks were placed on the bar to symbolize the oceans of the world and how they separate us. The dancers and the dance were, like the theater itself, dark and forbidding. The burdens of a lonely life on earth were present in their movements and the way they climed the stairs to the stage. One dancer stumbled repeatedly on the stairs to show how hard a solitary life can be. There was hope in the show too, however. Each dancer performed alone in a minimalist costume with a vertical pole representing our potential ascent to heaven after death. Also, after each dance the dancer came out and joined us on our side of the "bar" to show that the distances between people can be closed if we only try hard enough.
In the fourth, and final, theater of the evening, the show was a surrealist tribute to animal rights. Combining dance with traditional theater, the dancers spoke to us of their lives and, in a self-referential moment, of the theater itself. The lead dancer, who called herself "Gail," told us almost immediatly that the theater had a back room with prices of $40, $60, and $100 dollars. Apparently, this was for a more intimate ballet experience with the prices corresponding to the quality of the seats. I couldn't imagine having better seats than the ones Michael had gotten us for free and besides, the show was just getting interesting. It featured interpretive dances accompanied by rapid-fire narration about satanists, orgies, and the strangling of a pet cat. It was difficult to connect the narrative with what was happening on the stage but of course that's not uncommon with surrealism. It seemed to be about the confusing nature of the information age and how art can transcend banality.
Finally, it was time to leave. My head was spinning from all the excitement. I was so wrapped up in the night's performances that I had trouble walking down the street. The people around me must have thought I was drunk and, in a way, I was.
We met some friends at the Cafe Du Monde for a late-night snack, then it was off to the hotel. After writing down everything I could remember in my diary, I was tired but not too tired to spend the next few hours lost in fantasy imagining myself on stage with the dancers. Surely, nothing can be more satisfying than a life in the arts.
Bob Ray, spent
******
From: "David Farmer"
Date: Sat Apr 13, 2002 121 pm
Subject: Re: [CCCCC2K] CCCCC report
Bob, in his critique, has captured all the depth and complexity of the human, and feline, experience exhibited by the performance artists of New Orleans last Saturday night.
The strength and accomplishment of these women in alternately hardening and softening our souls in movement and speech and allegory just as mere existence in the post modern world does in raising then lowering our expectations took our breath away.
My Hat is off to Mike for in turn arranging our experiencing the artists much in the same manner as Dante experienced the increasingly lower levels of Hell; he, too, is an artist. While the third performance venue robbed us of our hope promising only everlasting punishment for our souls, the fourth and final performance stage allowed us a glimpse of Heaven and a reignition of human hope; while still in Cat-Strangling Hell, "God" called from on high, speaking to Mike only, and called us forth to Beignet-Eating Heaven. Truly it was from Earth to Hell to Heaven back all in one night, or Life,
Damnation and Redemption in the space of of few hours.
I still am moved, and I also feel much sorrow for those who chose to live the night in the never-changing limbo of Rock 'N' Bowl.
Thank you Mike! Thank you Kvan and Bob! Thank you Busty Ship's Captain! Thank you Well Endowed Nurse! Thank you Gail! Thank you Gail's Satanically Strangled Cat! I shall never forget whatever I can remember!
--David
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There are pics available at the CCCCC Yahoo group site, but you'll have to create a yahoo id if you don't have one, and be sure to switch to "no" all the spam-creating possibilities Yahoo now automatically defaults to "yes".
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CCCCC2K/
