We shoved away from the C-gate Jetway on December 25. We returned to New Orleans on January 1st. And it seemed that, if the plane's seats weren't falling apart in some way, then there was going to be a mechanical problem delaying the flights instead. We made it to the Left Coast and back all in one piece, which was the main thing.

The other main thing? It seems that every trip I take away from this city makes me realize how much more I love this place, the people in it, and how utterly necessary it is for a place like New Orleans to exist in the imaginations of our fellow countrymen at least, if not as a part of their waking reality - Dan described one encounter with a fellow traveler on this trip as something akin to "You can actually live there???"

Umm, yeah, we do, and we do it quite well, for the most part, despite all the crapola hurled our way.

Some of the best ambassadors for this are not actually living, breathing individuals walking amongst the folks at any airport, but the people spinning their CDs and spinning some yarns about this city over the airwaves. Of course the most "visible" one of these folks these days is Nick Spitzer of American Routes (which now has a superkewl archive online - thanks to Humid Haney for that heads-up!) - and that one even contributed to a bit of homesickness when I was living in NYC a few years back. Amazing what sort of yearning is evoked when the delivery guy from the Verti-Marte is interviewed...

Yes, there is WWOZ, whose perpetual quests for funding are some of the most non-annoying in all of public radio and television...but they can back it all up with some good music ( live music!) of their own, not to mention a little street talk.

WTUL's been around for quite a while, however inconsistent it may be. There are some occasional gems played there, and some moments I have a soft spot for (like when they played all of Lou Reed's Set The Twilight Reeling for me as part of their fundraiser one year), but it is still the folks such as DJ Poptart and the Community Gumbo show that keep things going.

Please clue me in on some more good stuff coming through the radio, if you will. We are actually quite privileged to have this much right here in town....and it takes going away for a bit to fully realize that.

Update, 1-3: Celcus speaks of AM radio in these parts, and reminds me of the stint on the Eric Asher show I and fellow RT-ers Adrastos and Varg were on in August '08. Celcus is right. Let's get Asher to RT IV.