 Hello everybody. Welcome back to Esoteric Atlanta. Of course, my name is Bryce. You guys are going to be super excited because a couple of years ago, I started a playlist called Nefarious New Orleans, where I started going through some of the more folklore and legends around the beautiful city of New Orleans. And I, things happened. I was planning on doing Marie Laveau, but as life happens, a lot of things happen. And that story kept getting pushed back, pushed back, but pushed back. And lo and behold, my friend, Rocker Mike, that you guys know from the son of Sam conversations we've had, as well as the fabulous dead names conversation we had with Chris Jr. last week, which if you missed that, that link will be in the description box below. He, he knows about Marie Laveau and he was like, let's do a show. So Mike, first of all, show everybody your t-shirt quickly, because I loved it. All right. This is the Marie Laveau House of Voodoo shirt that you get down in New Orleans. This, you know, it, I'll give you a little, little history. I started going to New Orleans in the 90s, mid 90s. And, you know, it was one of those places I always wanted to go. And I finally did. And, and I fell in love with the place. And I've been there many times, over a dozen times, I've been there. It's, it's a beautiful city. It's, it's nothing like anywhere else in America that I've seen. It has an almost like, you know, foreign feel to it. Like you're in another country, especially in the French Quarter area. I love the food. And I love the culture. And I love the people. And, you know, it's, if you're a big seafood fan, that's a place to go. And if you like throwing back a few drinks, it's also a place to go. Okay. There's a bar on every corner. Ghost stories, if you like. Ghost stories. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's so much to do there. And it has like this, you know, I'm from, I'm from New York, as you all know. And there's a lot of history here in New York, but not like New Orleans. Well, let me show you guys quickly. I will put this, this playlist down in the description box too, if you are a lover of New Orleans, because I've covered a lot of interesting stories. Now I will say, Mike, are you familiar with the Three Sisters of the South? Are you familiar with that? I've, I've come across the term. I'm not totally familiar. Maybe you can like. Okay. So the Three Sisters of the South are Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana. Yeah. Charleston is considered the beautiful sister. That's where my family is from. And that's the cobblestone, you have a lot of cobblestone streets. They really do a good job keeping their histories where the Civil War started. You also have Savannah, Georgia. So Charleston is the beautiful city. Savannah is considered the dirty city. And Savannah is more of a river town. And Savannah, I love Savannah. I have a scandalous Savannah playlist as well. It was, it was fun. I mean, River Street, you go to River Street in Savannah. And it is where the brothels were because it was where the boats came in. So there is a lot of interesting energy there and some fun energy there. And then you have New Orleans. And New Orleans is considered to be the wicked sister because they make a lot of their folklore off of, you know, vampires and voodoo. And although there's also voodoo and voodoo also in the low country where the Gullah and Gichi people lived in the Garden of Good and Evil, that book that came out in the 90s was in Savannah, Georgia. Now, I will say something historically, though, that's very interesting about New Orleans before we get into it. And this kind of plays in a little bit to Marie LaVos' story, Mike. You know, down here in the south, in the southeast in the original 13 colonies, so Georgia, South Carolina, that we're very, very protestant. In fact, I had two Huguenot lines, one, which were the French Protestants, one came through Charleston, South Carolina, which was Charlestown at that time because they wanted sanctuary with the English. They felt protected there, even though they did not speak English. And then New Orleans, I had a line come up through New Orleans and they actually left New Orleans and went to South Georgia to get into English territory. Now, for those who are not familiar with American history, you don't have to be, Louisiana became a part of the United States in the early 1800s with the Louisiana Purchase. Yeah, with Napoleon, Napoleon basically sold Louisiana to the United States. And it wasn't just the state of Louisiana we have now, which is like a little boot. It was basically the whole western continent for like $15 million. Pretty good. It was kind of a steal for us. So when we're looking at people like Marie LaVos, who has a lot of Haitian background in her, what people need to remember, too, is that New Orleans, different from like Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta, this south, they were run under different laws. Like the LaLaurie case I covered, the slavery laws were different because they were governed first by the French, then the Spanish, then the French again before they were sold to the United States. And so you're going to, and I think sometimes if you kind of understand a little bit of that, it makes the stories even more interesting because they're so different from the stories within the original 13 colonies, which were English. And, you know, we also see a lot of Catholicism in New Orleans, which is very strange for the Southeast. Like I, we just, I don't know much about Catholicism, even though my brother-in-law is Catholic because his mother is Italian, but there's really, you know, there's this great podcast I love listening to called Small Town Murder where they cover true crime and they do it in a very funny way. But they always say Catholics, the Baptist of the North, Baptist, the Catholics of the South. But then you got this pocket in New Orleans, that's very Catholic. And a lot of the voodoo kind of got mixed in with Catholicism as well. And so, Mike, I'm going to let you take it away from here with Marie LeVo. Okay. Well, no, you're a thousand percent right about the Catholicism in New Orleans. And the reason that is is because of the French and before that, the Spanish background. And it really is not only just in the South, it's really one of the only cities in the country that has this kind of background. Now, people think New York is Catholic. It really isn't. Okay. We have, because of immigration into the country at the 20th century, yes, it became more Catholic. But prior to that, the only Catholics you had were the Irish, and they only started coming in like the 1840s, 1850s. But if you go back further in New York history, there is no Catholics. They're all Protestants, Presbyterians, you know, from English and Dutch backgrounds. The Dutch have a big history in New York City. Right. I mean, the word Brooklyn is a Dutch word. Okay. So many places have a Dutch background still today just in the names. But, you know, New Orleans was Catholic and was always Catholic. And you have that strong background there that makes it very different than anywhere else in the country. But to talk about Marie LeVaux is very interesting for me. When I first got there in the 90s to check out New Orleans, I was like, I've never heard of it. I was like, who the hell is this Marie LeVaux that's all over the place that's almost like a patron saint of this city? And for many years, there was so many different stories, different takes on her. Nobody really knew what was true. There's just a lot of folklore. But there was a very interesting book that came out in 2020 called The Magic of Marie LeVaux Embracing the Spiritual Legacy of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans by Denise Alvarado. This is an excellent book. Okay. And I'll give you the information. You can link it up later. But this kind of puts all of the different folklore into perspective and actually came up with a few new facts that nobody know. Also, there's this book. This is an older book. I think it came out. When did it come out? It came out 1946, the first edition. Voodoo in New Orleans by Robert Talant. Okay. But it's an excellent book. It's a short, small paperback. Easy to read. You can find this anywhere down there that's selling books. You can get online. Amazon has both of them. There's also some Facebook groups from Marie LeVaux and all that. But really to understand her, okay, who she was, you got to kind of go back to her parents and her grandparents. So I'm going to just read a few things because on our show, me and Rob Rossi's show, it was exactly two years ago. We did it for Black History Month in 2022. We did a show for Marie LeVaux. And on our Conspiracy 420 show, we covered this. And I found my notes and I'm just going to share what we got here. And before you get into that, Mike, I just want to have something for culturally too, because I always knew who Marie LeVaux was. I've known about all the things, growing up, I've always known about, because again, I think people think of Voodoo, or Voodum as it's traditionally said, as being only in New Orleans. But it's actually all over the South. It's all over. It's big. I mean, again, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil based on a true story book was released in the 90s. They made a movie about it. I think that's when people realize, oh, it's really big on the eastern coast as well. So for me, as somebody growing up in the South, that's one thing I love about the South is it's so eclectic because I grew up around Voodoo. I've never feared it because I grew up around it. It's very common to see clay on people's houses, or to see certain things that are, it's like this merging of Christianity and this very spiritual faith because of the history of this area that just kind of got merged together. Well, because of slavery, right? Yeah, exactly. And it was slavery with the white children of the plantation owner, kids, who were they raised by? They were raised by the slaves, and they loved these kids, and so they would teach these kids things. And then as you grow up and generations pass and generations pass, they start to merge together and become this one consistent kind of cultural phenomenon. And it's one of the things that I absolutely just love about the Southeast and growing up down here because it's very common in the South to go to church on Sunday and then be doing your Voodoo on Sunday night. That's very, very common. Making your Gregory bags and all that stuff. Very common down here. So it's something that I think it's just, and that's the eccentric thing. You know, the South can be very eccentric at times, you know, so I think that's part of it. So anyway, but yes, yes, go ahead. Let's, because you're right. We need to talk a little bit about her lineage in order to understand. Yeah, I want to just read a little bit of these notes I have. Forgive me if I sound like I'm reading, but I am reading. Now, her full name was Marie Catherine LeVaux when she was born September 10th, 1801. Her grandmother was also named Catherine. Okay. And she was a slave and she was owned by Henry Roche. Okay, ROCHE. Also known as Henry Belair. You'll see it in the history. There's a lot of people with two, three different names. Okay. Now it's believed that he fathered several children with Catherine. One being Marguerite in 1783. Now Marguerite would eventually become the mother of Marie LeVaux. Okay. Now Catherine made a living selling, this is Marie's grandmother, made a living selling food stuffs and particularly something called callas, which is like a Creole fried pastry. And they would be sold by Henry Roche and actually sold to other slave owners until she ended up in 1784 with a free woman of color named Francoise Pomme. Now after 11 years with Pomme Catherine paid $600 for her freedom and took the last name Henry or maybe Henry. Okay. She became a successful business woman and bought some land and including the well-known LeVaux house on St. Anne's street between Ramparts and Burgundy. This is in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In 1790 Catherine's daughter Marguerite, Henry, okay, last name was Henry, was freed by her owner. She subsequently in time had several children with a Frenchman named Henry Darkantel, but he would not be Marie LeVaux's father. As a result of a brief relationship with a successful businessman named Charles LeVaux, Marie Catherine LeVaux would be born in 1801. Charles is not mentioned on Marie's birth certificate at all. But in later documents found he did recognize her as his daughter. Okay. So this is even before the United States. And like this is really important too because we're talking about the mingling of black people and white people. And in New Orleans this is really important. This was not acknowledged in other southern states if you were black or black. But in New Orleans this becomes very important, right? Because she was mixed. Yeah, she had white in her background and I get into this a little bit, okay? Okay, good, good. Okay, now unfortunately little is known of her childhood, Marie's childhood, other than she grew up in the small house on St. Anne Street. So on August 4th, 1819 at the age of 17, she married a free man of color named Jacques Paris, a carpenter from Haiti. Okay. And there is some evidence that she had a Haitian background herself. Some people there was stories that she was born in Haiti, but that was found out to not be true. Okay. So she married Jacques Paris, who was a carpenter from Haiti. And she was married in the St. Louis Cathedral, which is that big cathedral you see today in Jackson Square, the famous church, by Father Pierre Antoine. Okay. Now, Pierre Antoine, well, Father Antoine, that's what that means. If you go behind that church, there's actually a little alley. It's called Pierre Antoine Alley. And it's funny because I have a, I took a picture and I blew this up and I framed it. I have it framed in my house of my wife standing under the street sign saying, Pierre Antoine Alley, because her, her maiden name was Antoine. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. No, no, you know, relationship that we know of, there's a lot of people named that in Haiti. My wife is Haitian, but you know, it's cool because she's like, you know, at the sign, you know, look at it. That's the thing though, Mike, because what the Haitian Revolution was in the early 1800s, right? So after that happened, a bunch of Haitians basically got on a boat and went straight north to New Orleans. Right. And that was the inbox that we had. Right. Exactly. Okay. A lot of them got out. That was a very bloody revolution that the French would eventually lose. And keep in mind, too, you mentioned the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The reason Napoleon needed to dump this land and sell it is because he was, you know, he needed money to finance his wars in Europe. Okay. Which I love the Napoleon movie that was out recently, but it made no mention of that. So it's, it kind of kept everything in Europe. I was hoping they would have talked about it, but they didn't. So anyway, um, now a witness to the marriage was a lawyer named Adolfi Mazaro. Local law has him as one of Marie Laveau's lovers, the lawyer that was the witness to her marriage. Okay. Apparently she would want to have one of her lovers. Now Maria Jacques were given a house on the 1900 block of North Rampart Street by her father Charles. Charles recognized her. Okay. As his daughter. Absolutely the famous gold hoop earrings that you see her in pictures. Okay. We're a wedding gift from her father. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. There are baptismal records saying Marie and Jacques had two daughters. One also named Marie Marie, Andrew Lee Parry, born in 1822 and Felicite Parry in 1824, though it's unknown what happened to these children as records are lost. Okay. There is a Marie Laveau to the second that we'll talk about. Okay. And forgive my, my French if I, if my accent is wrong or what I, you know, my pronunciation, I'm doing the best. Actually, you sound pretty new New Orleans because New Orleans Southern accent is it has a little bit of that northern twist. Yeah. So yeah. And remember my wife is Haitian, which means she speaks Creole and she's also fluent in French. So I do get a little bit, but if I say anything wrong, don't be offended. I'm just a knucklehead. So Jacques Parry actually disappeared in 1824. Now, local law again says it was because he disappeared of Marie's voodoo practices, which Jacques declared as evil or the devil's work. Her mother, Marguerite, practiced voodoo as well and may have taught Marie basic things in the religion. Jacques Parry supposedly left Marie and joined the merchant marines and was swept overboard on a ship and drowned. Okay. Now, no death records ever been located to, to show that he where or how he died. Marie at this point in 1824 was known in the French Quarter as the widow Paris. All right. So about a year after Jacques's disappearance, Marie entered a placage relationship with a wealthy white man named Louis Christophe. Dominique, Dominique de Clappéon. Okay. That was his whole name. Louise Christophe, Dominique, Dominique de Clappéon. Captain de Clappéon. That Captain Clappéon was his whole was his title. Okay. He served gallantly during the War of 1812 with Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans in the ninth native regiment. Okay. So a ninth native regiment would have meant Indians. Okay. Indians that were fighting on the side of America against this second war with England that we had in 1812. Placage arrangements were commonplace due to Louisiana's law against interracial marriages, a placage relationship. Okay. What it is a white man could enter into a long term relationship with a woman of color could set up a household and provide for the care of her and any children they have. He was accepted. Okay. Now Marie and Christophe had seven children between 1827 and 1838. However, only two daughters would survive to adulthood. Marie Philomine and Marie, both named Marie Eloise. Okay. It's very common for French to name their daughters after their mothers like that. Okay. That was common too for kids to kind of sometimes have the same name like that. And especially in European culture, that's kind of strange to us now, but that was kind of common that sometimes. Yeah. Now, Marie Philomine reportedly became her mother's successor in the world of New Orleans voodoo. So she would be Marie Levoe the second. All right. Also, she was known as Madame Legendaire. Okay. Now Christophe died on June 26th, 1855. And it's been said that after his death, Marie turned to the Catholic church more than ever for consolation. Now you'd say, well, why is she, you know, why is she a Catholic if she's also into voodoo? Well, you kind of brought it up. Okay. She was a devout Catholic. She was she was known to be in Daily Mass at St. Christopher St. Louis. I'm sorry, St. Louis every day. And after the death now of her of her second husband, basically. Okay. She was a, you know, a dedicated Catholic. Now, but she was also a dedicated practitioner of voodoo. And she was also known as an herbalist and a healer. Yep. Okay. So by her middle age, she was known as the voodoo queen of New Orleans already. And there were two queens before her. One was named Sanit De Day, who ruled for a few years and was kind of like overthrown by someone named Marie Solopay. Marie Laveau would follow after Solopay. And Marie Laveau was actually by trade a hairdresser. I don't know if you knew that. Okay. She was a hairdresser. And I just have to kind of throw in there that that American horror story season called Coven. Yeah. Okay. Listen, as the watchers here today on the show might remember that that that season had a Marie Laveau character in New Orleans played by Angela Bassett. And she was a hairdresser also. So they got that. I love that season. That's totally my favorite. It's my favorite season of all of the American horror stories. Actually, my favorite is the one before that, the, the, the asylum season. Yeah. That's totally nuts. And then the nice favorite one is that one, the Coven. Yeah. What I loved about it too, I will say again, coming from the South, someone, it embraces that this kind of, you know, magic that we find in the voodoo practitioners is also in the white girls too. And they show that because it's been so integrated into both into the whole. It's just incinerated the grounds of the South. And that's for me as a Southern woman. I'm like, oh, totally. And like, as a, as a hairdresser, Bryce, okay, she was a very good hairdresser. She had access to people's gossip. And she also was very trusted by her clients. So she would get access to their homes. Okay. And, and show up at, you know, a woman that a wealthy elite New Orleans Southern woman would say, okay, Marie, come to my house at three o'clock to my hair. That, you know, that didn't happen ordinarily. You know, she they had her, you know, she had their trust. Okay. And she would use that, you know, for her own means. So her voodoo talents were known among all of these elites very well. And sometimes they actually called for her for services for that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. Yeah. Right. They still do. They still call Pete. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. These same, these same elites, these white elites of New Orleans would have black servants. Okay. And stuff like that. Well, I guess they were slaves still at that point for a while. And they would be scared shit of Marie. Yeah. They'd be like, Oh my God, I'm staying out of here. She's here. Okay. Now through most of Marie LeVos life, there was a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans, very common disease that existed them. Now, there was also cholera. Okay. That's because basically they threw all that sewage right into the street. Okay. So cholera would break out in the water and things like that. And her knowledge of herbal medicines actually were very helpful. She healed a lot of people of these diseases based on herbal, herbal medications and things that she knew about. And she's credited for saving hundreds of lives with this. Yeah. All right. So it's, you know, this is a very gray area because you think of voodoo, you might think it's all bad. Okay. Yeah. It's not. Okay. It's not a reputation as a healer and an herbalist, not just for voodoo. So it's known that most of her knowledge of voodoo came from her mom. Okay. But she would take it to a whole other level once she met, met a certain person. And his name was Dr. John. Mm hmm. Okay. He was a green man. All right. And Dr. John, many, many years later was a name that was taken by a musician. Dr. John. Okay. Very successful new Orleans guy. I did a couple of shows on him. I love his music. He sadly passed away a few years ago. But the real Dr. John was a guy that lived down in the St. John Bayou. Okay. Outside the city. Marie was a student of him. Marie LeBeau followed him. He was a gregory man. You want to tell everybody what gregory is? Is this a root doctor? Right. You know what gregory is, right? Well, voodoo. It comes from the voodoo, which is the sister science to voodoo. Right. Right. And you create gregory would be whatever it's spelled. I don't like to use that word, but I'll say spell. Okay. It's a little hacky sack type thing. Okay. Yep. And, you know, we tied up with a little string and, you know, some people would walk outside and, you know, at first thing in the morning and find some gregory in front of their door and freak out, you know, for whatever reason. Okay. It means that somebody's playing, playing tricks on you. Okay. I'm going to tell you guys, in case I forget to put this in the description box, I'll put the playlist. The axman part two. There's a lot of discussion about that. Right. Yes. All right. In case I forget guys, it's in the playlist. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I mean, this is pretty much all the notes I have as she died in 1881 on June 17th at the age of 79. Now it's said that she died very peacefully at home. Her funeral was lavished and, you know, many, many elites came in their fancy horses and carriages to the cathedral to see her funeral. And she, you know, it was a very big to do. There might have been more white people at the funeral than black people to be honest with you. Now it's believed that her daughter, Marie II, may have taken over the voodoo queen title before, right after the death of her mother. Now there's folklore that says that she was actually evil. Okay. There's a lot of questions around her daughter. And also there's always some confusion because a lot of people, I think, confused the two. Yeah. And since the first lived to about, you know, her 70s, when the other one came along, she was an exact replica. Let me look just like her mom. And many people would think that it was really the old one still alive. Okay. There is that folklore, too, that she, and I've heard it both. I've heard it that the mother passed away, but Marie Laveau, too, is still alive and still doing, doing whatever she's doing. But I will say, too, Mike, like, maybe this is just me being from the south. Like I have never been afraid of Marie Laveau. In fact, I think she was a very, and this is the thing I've learned about Voodoo is that out of all the faiths in the world, and I've studied a lot of them, Voodoo practitioners, for my opinion, seem to really understand in a very metaphysical way. They really understand spiritual warfare. And not only that, but they really know how to protect themselves in ways that other cultures don't know. And all the practitioners I know are also healers, too. Right. I think that very seriously. And there's nothing to be afraid of because they will help you. And it is that, that herbalism. It is that natural, natural remedy, God's remedy. And they're very faithful people. They have a huge belief in God and a huge belief in this. From my perspective as watching this as a child, it's like they totally understand that there is good and there is evil. And you have a choice of which one you're going to play with. But the karma is yours. And so anyway, yeah, but that's the fun folklore. It's like we know that the first Maria and the second Maria were absolutely stunningly beautiful, by the way. Like if you see painting, I'll put pictures up on when I'm editing this, but they were gorgeous women, beautiful women. They were free black women. They had a different level of respect than they would have on the other side in where I live. It was a very different culture around that. So anyway, but yes, there is that belief of was the real practitioner still alive? The first Maria or the second Maria? Because one of them that people still believe is actually still alive, which I think is, which American Horror Story kind of touched on everything. One of the biggest things that people do down in New Orleans is they go visit our grave. Now in New Orleans, you probably know the graves are all above ground. They're more like, they're more like crypts than graves. You know why that is? Oh, I do. Okay. You can't bury it. No, no, no. They, they, uh, when New Orleans was founded and the first people passed away, you know, they found out quickly that the next rainstorm comes along and that the water table is so low that or high. How do you, how do you call it? The water table. I mean, you go down this water. Okay. So the bodies couldn't stay and they had coffins all over New Orleans in the first time people died. Grandma goes floating down the street. Yeah. So they have these above ground stone, you know, crypts. And it's very, and some of them are almost more like, like, like drawers, like a mausoleum. Okay. Where, you know, you get put in there and then they carve it, your name and everything. Now in the hot weather, okay. And they still use these graves. Okay. In the hot weather, you could be walking past St. Louis cemetery number one or number two and you'll hear popping sounds. Yeah. And that's, that's the body decomposing inside there. Okay. So it's kind of nasty. But one of the things to do is go down and visit her, her grave. And there's been some people that say the one that they, that's really the most common is not accurate. She's not in there with somebody else. But, you know, I go with the one that's most popular and that's pretty much what everybody says. And if you ever go there, you'll notice there's a lot of X's. Yeah. Okay. On the, on the grave. And what you're supposed to do is, is ask her for a wish. And if that wish comes true, you come back and you put an X. That's sweet. Okay. And, you know, unfortunately, unfortunately, I guess about four or five years ago, a bunch of idiots went and painted her grave pink. Okay. With pink paint. And it, it, it could have done, because it's so old, it could have damaged the grave beyond repair, but it didn't work out properly. And they were able to get all the paint out. But now there's a rule in New Orleans. You cannot go into the St. Louis cemetery where she's buried, unless you are with a tour. It used to be you could just walk in there. Yeah. And, and there's two cemeteries, St. Louis one, St. Louis two, St. Louis two is a little further back. And it's considered dangerous to go to because it's like right next to these projects. But I'm from Brooklyn and projects don't scam me. So I went to the other St. Louis two when I first went there. And it was exactly like St. Louis one, but, but more secluded. Nobody really goes in there. Where Marie Laveau is in number one, I believe. You used to get a lot of people just walking in and looking around in this. If you ever seen the movie easy rider at the very end of that film, they're all tripping on acid in that cemetery. Okay. And it is scary. I mean, it's like an old, you know, 200 year old, 300 year old cemetery. All the graves are above ground. And there's very weird carvings and statues and, you know, kind of it. It's definitely of a European feel as obviously the background, you know, but so people now, unfortunately, you've got to be part of a tour, which means you got to lay out 50 bucks. And you've got to be part of a tour, which means you've got to be part of a tour. Which means you got to lay out 50 bucks and they have a guard there now up front. So you can't even try to get in. And there's a big brick wall around the cemetery anyway. So you, it's not like you could just like climate and get in or anything like that. You can't. Do you know, Mike, why? Because that's very common for voodoo practitioners, famous voodoo practitioners or root doctors, voodoo practitioners. It's very common for them to lie about their burial or to move their bodies. Do you know why that is? Because they don't want anybody getting their body. Yeah. People will literally come and take their bodies or parts of their bodies. So there's quite a few famous, real famous practitioners on the eastern coast and the Gola people or my family's from where nobody knows actually where they're buried. It's a secret because the likelihood of their grave being disturbed is very high. And so, yeah, so I could see them because you know that the way that they're buried in New Orleans, the body itself is pretty secure because it's in like a, it's in like a concrete box. You can't get that. You need a crane to get that open. Yeah. You can't get that open. Right. But I could see them starting a rumor that she wasn't really there to kind of dissuade people from perhaps trying to do something. You know, that's common. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know, I mentioned my wife, Sandy, you know, is from Haiti. Okay. And she left there in the late 80s when the Duvalier regime was collapsing. Baby doc. Okay. Duvalier. And she came to America around 1988. But prior to that, she was living in Port-au-Prince. And if you ever, if you ever saw the movie the serpent and the rainbow, you ever see that film? No, I haven't. But I'm taking note to watch it. Get a shit out of here. It's, it's true story. Okay. It's based on, well, it's based on a true story. I won't give it away since you haven't seen it all, but there's a particular scene in the beginning where there was a person that was brought back to life as a zombie and actually put on the radio and spoke to people. Okay. And it's very rare that a zombie could even speak. Okay. But, but he could a little bit. My wife remembers hearing that on the radio as a kid. Okay. And, you know, she saw a lot of crazy, crazy stuff that goes on. And, and, you know, a lot of people in Haiti that devout Catholics in the same way that Marie LeVau was, but they all know a little bit about voodoo, whether they're into it or not. It's an interesting, it's an interesting cultural thing, you know. Yeah. It's like I said, that's very common in the south. It's very, that's, that's one thing I love about being from the south is the eccentric. I mean, we have some Southerners who are very fundamentalist, which I don't mess with those people because they're crazy. They have their own little crazy going on. But most Southerners are very essential. Like I love in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, it opens up where they talk about the guy down the street walking his ghost dog every day. That's it. That's Jesus walking his ghost dog. Like that's just normal. You know, where my family's from in Charleston, it is by law, it is the law that if you sell a house, you have to disclose to the potential buyers if it's haunted by law. That's just how we are down here. And so like, like the belief system, it's, it's, and the thing about, and I know New York gets humid sometimes too, but in the deep south, we are, it's a very humid climate. It's some, it's a sticky. There's no, there's no comparison compared to New York. I mean, New York is, gets humid, but not like New Orleans or Florida. Oh my God, it's awful. I talk about that all the time on my show and I don't know if our friends have never been to the south, the deep south really understand the heat that you're working with and the humidity. It's, it's like walking through a bowl of hot soup and it's relentless. But what happens with that heat because of all the moisture in the air is that the cities themselves, like New Orleans itself, is its own character. Yeah. Has its own personality. Charleston is the same way. Savannah is the same way. And if you stand quietly in these cities, you hear it breathing. You hear it just breathing. And so I, my opinion is that the heat, because of the heat, everything that's happened in these cities, energy gets caught and it just lingers. It's an interesting concept. I never thought of the humidity having an effect of that. Though I do believe with all my heart that, you know, cities have their own lives. You know, like, like, you know, New York as an example or even you could say New Orleans any place that's had history like that you're going to trap that human energy. And I guess like you're saying the humidity could hold it in. I guess. And I think that's why people see more ghost in like New Orleans and Savannah is very humid. It makes me think of just to get off track for a second, but it makes me think of a book by Stephen King called Salem's Lot. And in that book it's about a vampire coming to live in a small town in Maine and he sets up residents in an old abandoned house where people were murdered by the owner. And then the owner hung himself in the basement and there's a short story that King wrote later called Jerusalem's Lot that goes into the history going back a few hundred years and there was bad history in that house even then. And the main character which was played by in the film which was played by David Soul who recently just passed away the actor from Stoskey and Hutch he played the character Ben Mears and Ben Mears is a writer and he's in the town, he came from that town and he left for many years and he comes back to write this book and he questions the house it's called the Martson House and he said do houses attract evil? Does evil attract evil? And is it possible that like a house can act like a battery and hold it charged like an energy? And I believe that I always remember that part of the book and the movie and I think that that's true in cities I think it's true in houses it's true in people and I think that it's something that's hard to comprehend but I think it's true. I'll tell you guys I've mentioned this before but I know Mike I haven't mentioned this to you I went to a private school as a kid and so the elementary school third fourth and fifth grade were in this old plantation house and then they have buildings around it and this house was very famous historically because when Sherman for those who aren't familiar with American history when Sherman came to the south he did he burnt the south down he pulled up the railroads tied him and they burnt Atlanta got burnt down where the school is right outside of Atlanta and Sherman didn't touch this area but he stayed in this house this plantation house where my third fourth and fifth grade classes were and the family that lived there war is nasty on both sides it's nasty right and it's something we're learning now I loved how you said that with Shanti about how sometimes you want a good guy and a bad guy and sometimes there's really neither and so that's really good perspective to have because when the Union soldiers I'm not saying every Union shoulder was this way obviously but when the Union soldiers came in with Sherman to take over this house to be their headquarters they slaughtered the family that lived there and they brutally raped the 16 year old daughter and hunger by the stairwell this is just a family living there a child so when I was in the third grade was upstairs so we would walk upstairs and walk across the railing where that little girl hung I saw an apparition hang many of my classmates saw apparitions hang I have a friend to this day who had a nasty fall down the stairs she had was after school she had left something in her cubby in her cubby upstairs ran upstairs by herself to get something from her cubby was coming back down the stairs and to this day at 41 years old she still claims she felt two hands on her back pusher when we were in the fifth grade we got to go to the attic where we got to see bullet holes and blood stains still on the wall from the people in the war that were injured and were housed in the attic that house was so haunted now they eventually the fire marshal eventually said you can't have kids in this house anymore it's too dangerous so they had to build and they put offices in the house but every single person I know who went through that third fourth and fifth grade in the house is traumatized by it because the energy was so aggressive it was imprinted with a ton of fear and aggression and when you were little kids back when kids were my generation your generation were more latchkey kids where we were helicoptered you would get sick and so your mom would send a note to school to your teachers where you would have to sit inside for recess well none of us wanted to do that because when we sat inside for recess we were alone and we were scared we'd rather be outside coughing and flinging snot everywhere and then sitting upstairs and I remember at one point I had to sit there and I had my hands over and out of my ears and I was like please don't show yourself please don't show yourself but looking back it's like that energy gets caught and it gets stuck and of course maybe for us as southern kids we're just used to these stories so you know my mom told me my first ghost story we're used to this stuff so maybe it had more of an impact on us as children but still to this day I've been by a couple of times I don't even like going by that house because it's sad to me I want someone to go in there and move this little girl on I want someone to go in there and cleanse the land because energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only be transmuted and that's a lot and I think that that perspective Mike that you have is actually very aligned with like voodoo is understanding everything has a living consciousness everything is energy and we're responsible for what we do that's the karma right that tells an effect if you do something nasty it's going to come back to you and I think you're right these cities are kind of like filing cabinets they hold on to every memory that's happened and you can feel it can't you you can feel that people might have walked before you if you're in tune you will feel it some people walk around oblivious and that's fine too but if you're interested in this and you're in tune you will pick up on it in New Orleans in the French Quarter there's quite a few haunted New Orleans tours you can go on now one thing that the city has done there it's cool but it's not is they've turned the whole you know they've capitalized on the voodoo the hauntedness of things the supernatural Anne Rice writing the Vampire Le Stat books I've seen her house it's in the garden district she passed away a couple years ago the garden district is a beautiful area I don't know if you've ever been there okay you have the big southern style homes you know amazing architecture French style architecture wrought iron that same in the French Quarter but the city capitalizes on this whole thing but despite that you can walk in there's the Marie Levoe voodoo shop and they sell little trinkets and things like that and if you're not in tune with this stuff you're like oh wow get a little something meanwhile that necklace it's made out of bone you don't know what it is whatever but there is an undercurrent where you can pick up on and it's a little bit off the beaten path Bourbon Street in the French Quarter everybody wants to go there and if your first time in New Orleans you should go there that's like a hoppin spot but it's a touristy spot so they have all the voodoo things and stuff there too but if you go off the side streets in the quarter rooms and you look around you get a little bit of a different flavor of what's going on and it's interesting again I the first time I took my wife there in 2012 she felt like she was back home in Haiti she was like the quarter looks like Port-au-Prince in the 70's and 80's I never really thought that I would have the same kind of look to it and then also she picked up on what was going on she's very spiritual so she picked up on it when you go on these haunted New Orleans tours they're not cheesy they actually get into the meat potatoes like what happened if someone got murdered in the house but you could almost they'll say you look close in that window you might see you might see some I've done countless ghost tours because I find ghost stories fascinating and I've done them in Charleston there's some here in Atlanta and I did one up here in a suburb called Roswell it was its own city at one point it's very old city but now it's a suburb because Atlanta grew and my friend was just randomly taking pictures as we were going on this tour son of a gun she picked up images of actual spirit I mean it was wild and I've never I've seen spirits myself but the fact that she was just taking random pictures on her iPhone and then all of a sudden we're like holy crap there it is but no they don't sugar coat it and some of these ghost tours and especially in my area they'll warn you this might not be good for kids if you have a small child that's a question advised this is more of an adult thing New Orleans is not geared towards kids no and I always kind of cringe when I see people bringing little ones in okay first of all it's an adult themed city it really isn't I mean of course people raise their kids there but you know if you're a tourist it's not Disney World it's not geared towards that I don't know what kids would like out of it if anything it might get a crap out of them some of those things even on the tours I think they say I don't know if they have an age limit or I'm not sure but you don't see like little kids on these tours which is good yeah I remember I mean even we have a story in the islands off of South Carolina there's the story of the gray man which is the first ghost story I ever heard and the gray man whenever a hurricane was coming the gray man would walk up and down the beach and knock on people's doors and tell them a ghost it was on our fault mysteries would tell people to get off the island well I never forget because we would spend our summers there with my mom's family sitting in the front room and we had the porch facing the ocean those big southern porches and it was windy so the rocking chairs were rocking and then my mama goes well I won't be surprised if the gray man shows up tonight I was probably four years old, four or five years old I remember it like it was yesterday and the whole night terrified that a ghost was going to knock on our door so yeah kids remember these things and it's terrifying now if you're from the south tough shit you're just going to have to live with it because that's part of our charm but I will tell you it's interesting you brought up the commercialization of New Orleans because even when I was a kid that was very well known like I said in Savannah Charleston and all around the islands of the low country here in Georgia and South Carolina there's just as much voodoo and hoodoo although it's not spoken about like it is in New Orleans they never made a market off of it until Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil once that book came out the secret was out and it was this kind of shot around the world where everybody from the low country was like oh they know now now and you know bless their hearts as we say in the south they still have it like Charleston and Savannah still have not commercialized it like New Orleans has and I'm not listening capitalism as capitalism guys I think you know make your money but yes if you want the real thing it's probably not going to be found in some of these touristy spots is it you're going to have to take a back I will say this probably in every touristy spot you got somebody working in there that knows yeah okay and it's just like a word of mouth kind of thing okay and I personally have no interest in it but I know it's there and I respect it for what it is another thing with New Orleans too I mentioned Anne Rice I think she was one of the biggest I guess you could say touristy kind of draws for many years and she has an interesting background because she you know wrote these books starting in the 70s interview with a vampire the vampire the stat came later Queen of the Damned then she got into these offshoots of them and I read them as a teenager I read these books up and down they're brilliant she was incredible writer and and she wrote under a couple other pseudonyms as well interesting thing happened to her towards the end of her life she actually came back to the Catholic church big time and she started writing books based on one she wrote based on the gospel of Thomas which is one of the Gnostic books I love the gospel of Thomas yeah and the name of the book escapes me I read it and it basically dealt with Jesus's life in Egypt I think it was called out of Egypt the book was called out of Egypt but isn't that interesting though Mike because we were kind of talking about this with Chris jr. on the dead name show when we look at all these different fates and these different spiritualities that are put in these boxes of different religions we look at like the Gnostic the old the bad books of the bible what we're looking at really if you can you know as our Aristotle said it's a sign of an intelligent mind when you can entertain an idea without accepting it you can step back it's so easy to see how these religions have merged together because in a lot of ways they're kind of saying the same thing with just different customs and cultures associated there's a spiritual battle in the Catholic church there's saints that can be intertwined it's very interesting these concepts can be merged together and turn into this hodgepodge of eccentric of eccentric personalities and cultures and you know it's I knew that about Anne Rice and I there was a series that she used to write about I don't know it's about a line of women who were witches and I can't remember what that was called but I remember reading those books and it was fascinating but yes I do know what you're talking about it was like these witches there was a couple of books about it they didn't know they just it's kind of like the whole coven the season 3 of the horror story where these girls that are born with it they don't know until they're like hit puberty and they have to go live with these other to learn how to control they might have talked from that a little bit to make that season of American Horror Story I think they use a little bit of that book yeah I mean but long time in New Orleans I guess they I don't know how long they've capitalized on the voodoo thing in a big money making way I read an interesting book by by Dr. John okay the musician about his life and he talks about all New Orleans now you're talking pre I think pre 1960 yeah the big easy when it was the big easy yeah right right I think there wasn't I don't know the history 100% so forgive me if I'm a little off but I think around the like the late 50s early 60s there was a big movement to really clean up the city because there was a lot shit going on a lot of brothels and you know things like that and again a port city you know you're gonna have that so I think there was an effort by a certain mayor Dr. John talks about it in the book and they cleaned up the city so he grew up in old New Orleans he was born like in 1940 he was a pimp he was a pimp at 16 years old he was shooting dope at 15 you know like totally playing piano playing guitar crazy crazy stuff and he talks about the difference between old and new and I have a feeling that I think maybe in the 60s 70s and 80s they started pushing this like voodoo thing as a commercialism type thing I'd love to if anybody has comments I'd love to love to read them if you want to put them in the comments about that Old cities though they do make I will say like I know Charleston and Savannah they do make a lot of money off of tourism anyway because for our European viewers you know America we don't have our cities are not that old compared to like European cities so we're looking at things like Charleston, Savannah St. Augustine and Florida New Orleans we're looking at these are the oldest cities in the United States yeah so you still have like in Charleston you still have the same cobble and they have a lot of these cities and that might have been what the mayor did like created a historical society a lot of these cities actually have historical societies in there you think the HOA is bad historical societies they own you like if you want even in Charleston if you live in the bad which is the old old anti-bellum houses if you want to paint your house you have to have it approved because they're trying to preserve the history it's like that in New York as well there's like for instance in the west village of Manhattan there is a the historical society prevents you from even getting a you know a fiber optic line brought into your house and these are million dollar these are million dollar brown stones million dollar you know structures that you know they're not even allowed to bring that in because they don't want to dig up anything you can't dig up the cobblestones and if you do you have to make sure you put them back and you know replacing cobblestone is very expensive so they just these people and I worked I worked for Verizon for many years okay and when I would work in these areas the company would try to come in and say all right well we can't we can't if you have what phone line is broken I can't fix it because they won't let me make an order to dig in the street so it's something that people had to live with you're right they do have a lot of power they have a lot of power and I get it I get it they want to preserve the history but it's I mean those old cobblestones it is difficult to walk it is amazing but in that respect for like New Orleans like I can respect the hustle like I can respect that they are making money to preserve their city and their jobs and to people if they're you know it's a lot of these like things like ghost tours like the people that do the best ghost tours the story are really good storytellers and they're usually from the area so you they know these stories and they're able to entertain you and and so you know it's it's like it's like what do you do like it's kind of a catch-22 like you know there's there's their pros and cons to it and you know with Marie LeVoe I think she's one of them where her story I think has gotten kind of intertwined into the commercialism it has you know and I think everybody I know is I mean I have a lot of respect for her actually that's a really important thing you hit on Mike where you're like I have no interest in it but I can respect it and that's the most important thing I think you can do if you're traveling in the south and you understand this is going on even if you're not interested in it or maybe a little afraid of it just respect it that's all anybody's asking that's all the practitioners are asking for me was just to respect it to respect it give them faith and it's the kind of thing that it's among themselves they're not interested in you know evangelizing that out there okay and taking people it's not it's amongst themselves and you're kind of like like I said there's two levels to it there's that you know Marie LeVoe House of Voodoo Bourbon Street place which I I mean I've been to New Orleans over a dozen times I always go in there even though it's a touristy spot okay but you have that you have that and then there's that undercurrent of what's really happening so you know if you respect it you're fine you know it's not going to bother you no it's in that don't try to like if you see anything on the ground that's obviously like some clay or something that's just leave it you know just have respect it's just leave it and know that you don't want to get involved in that tango my friends just leave it now Mike question for you her daughter Marie LeVoe which I think American Horror Story her daughter and to Angel yeah I think she became a hairdresser too yeah one thing about a lot of these these rituals require what hair hair she had people she worked on she had their hair yeah so that makes sense to me now I do we know where her daughter is buried is her grave famous I don't know I never came across that in any little bit of research that I did I know she lived into the 20th century but I don't know exactly what happened to her there are some like I said Facebook groups about Marie LeVoe might have that information on there but I know that there was a a large fire in New Orleans at one point and a lot of records were lost and then you know with this the magic of Marie LeVoe book here I know that the author did a lot of research and was able to uncover a few things that they thought were lost but as far as to answer your question I don't know we see and I always try to stay grounded with things but I also know that things are not always what they seem in this world and you know Mike we've seen all these pictures of these celebrities that have doppelgangers like to a T from the history and it's like are these people still alive you know so part of me is like is the daughter still alive she would have to be she would have to be 150 years old is she being young is she being younger yeah I don't know that's one of those fun things that you know to think about when it comes to because you can't listen I always challenge people who don't believe in spirituality or I'm like listen just go spend a summer in Darlson just go spend a summer in New Orleans and you will be faced with some questions the more you learn the less you know and you'll realize there is so much more to this life and that again is what makes the South so fun because we embrace our crazy we embrace it we put our crazy on the front porch and give it sweet New York is kind of Puritan in the sense that they'll try to cover it up it's an embarrassment where people in the South will celebrate it yeah we're like that house is haunted that yeah yeah it's uh we have our own secret language like I was telling you Mike like everybody knows bless your heart but I think I was telling you Mike the big the big like I always say Southern women are the savage like if you want people to go to war just spend up send a bunch of Southern women they'll have the enemy crying in a heartbeat if an old Southern woman with pearls on tells you that you look healthy she's not true she calls it fat you look bad if someone tells you they're gonna pray for you that means they're gonna be you're gonna be the topic of gossip because I think I these prayer circles these Southern women do all they do they pray they pray out loud so all their friends can hear the gossip without it being gossip this is why I love the South this is why this is why I love it because it's just such an eccentric eccentric personalities and it's because of people like Marie Levoe and her heritage and all of our heritage come together on top of that Native American heritage is big down here I was telling you Mike off camera the other day my boyfriend has been out looking for arrowheads and because Atlanta was built on top of Cherokee land and so you just go in these parks and you'll find him when I was a little kid we would find him in the backyard all the time now apparently the government says if you find when you have to turn it into the government which I say not to exactly we just put them in our pockets yeah so there's so much history here that is just you know I I've actually been craving a trip to New Orleans for a while now and I love my mama used to make us growing up the doughnuts that they have the binets yeah the doughnuts I think I have a video of my mom making they're not really a doughnut in the sense they got a hole in the middle but they're like a you know piece of it's a powdered sugar you know cake not even cake it's like dough like a like an Italian zeppelin okay fried dough it's a funnel cake basically from a fair yeah yeah more doughy but like you know Cafe Binet on Royal Street that's the place to go and of course Cafe Dumand Cafe Dumand on Decatur is a classic touristy kind of spot but it's still nice I like the Cafe Binet a little better it's more the locals eat that but you can't beat those binets for breakfast they're so good my mom used to make them for us all the time guys the French doughnuts and yeah if you like spicy spicy seafood there's really good the Cajun food is you have the Cajun and you have the Creole which are two totally different the Cajuns are actually from Canada the Acadians who got kicked out of the French they were French Catholics that left France during the war of religion they were Catholics and they got kicked out of Canada during the French Indian War and some of them ended up in New Orleans at that time and so that's why and that's mostly white people and then the Creole is a mixture I want to bring up something real quick New Orleans in the time of slavery was a very different even at the point when it became America after the Louisiana Purchase they had a very laxed position on slavery yes people with slaves it's terrible and all that but the slaves were allowed a lot of interaction with each other which is something that in other parts of the south was discouraged they didn't want the slaves to meet up and talk and possibly conspire in New Orleans like on Sundays they could meet on Rampart Street it was called Congo Square still called Congo Square there's a statue of Louis Armstrong in Congo Square and this was how this stuff this voodoo religion was shared but also it was an intermingling of blacks and whites in New Orleans that was different than any other part of the south during slavery and it the laws were totally different that's what I'm saying you guys and if you go to my my playlists in the LaLaurie episode I think I did it in two parts cause that's such a huge case the LaLaurie which she was there's part two is that the character that was played by Kathy Bates I forgot about that she was hysterical so the LaLaurie I talk about the laws of slavery a little bit in New Orleans compared to here's part two in New Orleans you didn't go to the LaLaurie house on these haunted New Orleans tours okay I've seen it she's an interesting one she was a serial killer for sure and she tortured what they showed in American horror story does kind of I think it was just the tip of the iceberg they found decomposed bodies in her house it was really disgusting and if you have slaves then you have the perfect victim for your bloodlust because you know the laws were very different because again before the Louisiana purchase it was not governed by Great Britain so the southeast where I'm from was governed by the laws of the crown regarding as America as I actually was just saying this in episode today as far as slavery the United States as a country has had slavery for the shortest amount of time we were not responsible until we won our independence and then only like 70 years later we got rid of it so we've had it the shortest amount of time but before then these different territories again the 13 colonies were Mike and I are from the red and white stripes the original colonies that was governed by the crown and so the laws were governed by Great Britain whereas New Orleans was France, Spain, France again before and so the laws were very different again they had very different laws about mixed people who were mixed but we didn't have on the eastern seaboard about how you could buy your freedom a lot of the Haitians from the Haitian Revolution that came up to New Orleans came into New Orleans as free man and what you gotta understand too is because of the French background I mentioned in Napoleon movie that was out a couple months ago which everybody should see it's excellent take three hours of your day to watch it it's a long film but you see even in that movie how there were free black people in France England on the other hand didn't have that as much and the original 13 colonies not all of them had slavery the northeast did not the south did that was the more vicious slavery going on oh absolutely more slavery is bad don't get me wrong I'm not trying to make light of it but some people were very sensitive it's all bad but it just shows the different personalities that came out of these two pockets of the world the French the French rule of New Orleans was a little more hands off than the English version of their colonies so you had this little bit more permissive type of I think by the time Napoleon was in charge of the country and naturally the colonies which would be New Orleans in that whole area they recognized New Orleans for what it was and treated it like ok this is our little disgraceful area here we'll just let it be the way and let them do what they want the history I've read about it that's the impression I get well you know why so basically New Orleans so the French guys who founded New Orleans came from France from Quebec area under the rule of the Bourbon House which was the Louis the 14th and that place where New Orleans is a successful port but they claimed it as a port that in Mobile Alabama as a port because they were trying to stop this is how much the French and the English hate each other which still cracks me up because I have both French and English heritage and I'm like my ancestors would cry right now but they hate each other so much and they're like the same I mean French and English people they're basically the same kind genetically that the Bourbon sent these French explorers from Canada having to get in a boat come all the way down around into the Gulf and set up territories on what they called Louisiana to stop the English from moving any more west so they didn't give a shit if New Orleans was successful or not they just wanted to hold ports there Mobile Alabama I always forget to mention Mobile Alabama but that's very much more it's all there and then when they realized they needed more people to move to New Orleans because they needed more bodies there to stop the English they made up they had this whole like propaganda campaign that New Orleans was like paradise loss that this was Eden it was amazing that you were going to be so successful there so all these people spent their life savings getting on a boat to land in a swamp yeah yep with nothing there so you got handed to the people who actually built New Orleans because let's be real it's not the controllers who are building the city it's the people that are stuck with it it's the home of Tabasco sauce thank you very much I put Tabasco sauce on freaking cereal I put it on everything okay I think it's funny my love of the city and the culture I gotta wonder if I have any background from there I don't from what I've done my ancestry I did have one relative in the Civil War unfortunately fought for the south unfortunately but one relative in Vicksburg, Mississippi so that's about as far south as my relatives go all the rest of my relatives were either and this was on my father's side which is more Irish okay were either Ireland coming in from England also they were even there was a few English ones that were like Quakers, anti-slavery all that but anyway the point I'm trying to make is that then there's also the Italian side of my family which came later these people would not have liked each other either that's the thing about America we're a bunch of nations that hate each other that came together we're a bunch of mutts that's why I don't have a racist bone in my body I judge people based on what they say how they act I'm friends with the United Nations it doesn't bother me at all obviously there's this thing cultures I enjoy more than others that's not racist that's just what you like but I love food I love trying food from different places and some of the best food you're ever going to get is that in New Orleans I'm sorry okay Commander's Palace everybody should go there once Antoine's in the French Quarter Commander's is in the garden district Commander's is like top 5 restaurants in the country okay Antoine's Galitoise okay the court of the two sisters you know all these places in the quarter that have been there for 200 years you walk into these restaurants and you're like damn this is like old and you're sitting there having a bloody Mary with a brunch on a Sunday morning they bring you food that's like you don't need to eat for two days we call it soul food the south is also known for its big dishes heavy and I will say this but no one can cook like a black woman can cook and a lot of they are amazing cooks absolutely oh my god they are I mean one of my really good friends down here in the south she's a black woman and we went to her house for Thanksgiving and she cooked most of the food and I have never, oh my god I still think about her dishes that she it was amazing in old southern restaurants they've been in people's families for generation after generation you're not looking at corporate change you're looking at small businesses and that essence and that's that love they put into their food to the south I mean we fry everything we fry okra, we fry tomatoes I love okra I've learned how to cook my own gumbo oh wow I cook a damn good gumbo people ask for my gumbo when they come over you know okra which is a big part of gumbo I I know people that never left the tri-state area they don't know what the hell okra is we eat it all the time I didn't even know that you could eat okra not fried until I was like in my 20s it always comes fried here in okra have you ever had a pickled I don't like pickled stuff I have a friend my friend Angie down here in Georgia she's real southern she comes on my show sometime she owns the fickle chickle she pickled stuff it's a very she's been on covers of magazines because her pickle business got so big and she pickles we have a refrigerator full of her stuff because it's just the pickle so southern and you're never there is a sweetness to the south too people in the south are known for y'all come back now you hear how to do it very good manners listen black mama white mama doesn't matter if you grew up in the south and you did not say yes ma'am or no sir you get the back of the heads so you still kind of have that old school I had a friend come visit with her son from New England and I was telling her son he was a teenager I was like you know down here kids your age have to say yes ma'am and no sir so if you're out in public and you're talking make sure you say yes ma'am or no sir my friend was like oh he's not going to want to do that my friend's son was like actually I kind of like that you guys do that I kind of like that you say yes ma'am and no sir I kind of like that because he started noticing people doing it I was like yeah listen whacked backside of the head it's easy to always be nice okay you know we all go down that road sometimes we're not nice okay we get mad we might say something to somebody and they probably deserve it but you know it's always easy to be nice I will say though there was a couple of years ago I was traumatized I was at the grocery store and this kid about 14 years old was bagging the groceries and I was finishing up he was bagging my groceries and I said something to him and he just said he looked at me and said yes ma'am and I almost died because we think about that as respecting your elders because he had called me ma'am I was like well I am not going to be his father I've been called sir and I'm like no sir is my father he's like yes ma'am I was like well at least his mom raised him right but in my head I'm also like 14 so so no that's just the south for you I yeah especially if you guys live in the United States I know money is tight right now but if you're looking for a road trip to take if you live close to the area in New Orleans it's a really great place to go you don't have to stay in the French court in that area you can find lodgings outside and just drive in for the day the areas the historic areas like a lot of historic areas you're going to be walking a lot too because this was these old cities the walking city yeah it's a walk just like Austin and Savannah because they're old cities so there were no cars and one thing that they've built there I don't know if you've seen it in the last I think they built it about 10-12 years ago is the World War II Museum and it's the it's the best it's fantastic the last trip to New Orleans was last April I didn't go there but the last few times before I went and a lot of people there is a strong history of World War II concerning New Orleans because that's where like the Higgins boats were made and you also had a by the time World War II started there was a large Italian population there and they all went to fight in the war and all that and actually the you know there's also like with the Italians they were not accepted at first that's a good thing you bring up because that comes in the Axeman the theories around the Axeman is the big serial killer of New Orleans in the early 20th century because when Sicily was fighting I think it was Sicily was fighting for their independence and they got annexed to Italy that time and came to New Orleans well people you know in the big Italian immigration in the United States they went to four major places they went to New York City they went to Chicago they went to San Francisco believe it or not Joe DiMaggio was from San Francisco okay his family had all emigrated from Italy to San Francisco and the last being New Orleans also a large Irish immigration to New Orleans prior to that in the 1860s and stuff like that 1850s you know one of the biggest lynchings I hate to bring it up but that ever happened in the United States was the lynchings of Italians in New Orleans I think it was like 11 people lynched at the same time that's when the Axeman because the victims the Axeman were all Italians and so I talk I go into that it's interesting with the Irish too Mike because the others a huge Irish immigration into Savannah right after the potato famine because New York closed its ports because they were such an influx of people coming in and so Savannah and New Orleans opened their ports and so I think the second largest St. Patrick's Day parade or celebrations in the United States first is New York second is Savannah Georgia you mind if I plug something yeah we're on our conspiracy 420 show which we do every so often we don't do too regularly but we do for another show and for St. Patty's Day this year around that time we're doing a show on the potato famine because it was a conspiracy to kill Irish people and you know by England of course of course I mean I've been so pissed off because there's this narrative here in the United States that white people have never suffered like we've never been you know I won't go too much into it but the first slaves in the United States were white children, Irish children they were Irish indentured servants basically and that's part of the reason why you see a lot of a lot of black people with Irish names it goes back to the time because when slavery was first starting in the 1500s the English were bringing the Irish it was easy to just go across the water and to Ireland grab some people up and bring them over and they basically settled them down in the Caribbean countries that England controlled the islands that they controlled the British Virgin Islands what would be the British Virgin Islands and places like that and black slaves were very expensive it was before something changed shortly after where it became profitable for them to get blacks from Africa but in the beginning it was not profitable but the few that were there mingled with these Irish that were brought in as slaves and even if they were men they took the Irish name from the woman yeah so that's why you have a lot of Mick this and Mick that and you know I mean I just finished today we're talking about Catherine the Great of Russia and the serfdom and the horrible conditions that the serfs lived and they were slaves they were white slaves unfortunately slavery is you know it's across the board as far as ethnicities and it's all bad it's all wrong there's no other human beings no we shouldn't own each other it's no but you know off topic I know but look what's going on today I mean we have the biggest slave trade because of the human sex slaves and all that stuff with children and adults people that you know looking to make a better life and end up in slavery because of these cartels and all that stuff so I was supposed to do a show today with Shanti our friend with something came up with her family and all about that too yeah it's crazy you guys and the beautiful thing about humanity looking at places like New Orleans with such a hard history there's been something beautiful to come out of it and that's people the neurons people are beautiful beautiful such a mixture of so many cultures that just blended together so beautifully to become this one like New Orleans culture that you can't find I mean even a purchase happened you guys even as early as like the early 20th century people in Louisiana didn't even speak English they only spoke French and they were ostracized or a type of Creole to the area native to the area and so and that's why you go to Louisiana today you see signs in both English and French still and that's something very unique and so they were ostracized for being French right by a very dominantly English area and so but they've created and that's it Creole French is different I took French in school but I'm more used to hearing Creole French so sometimes I get a little bit confused because I was closer to I had a friend from New Orleans we hear Creole French not France French you know it's a little different and I know some French people have a hard time understanding Creole because it is such a the history of Creole is interesting you know my wife being Haitian speaks Creole with her family and it's almost like French but it's not there's Spanish in there there's other things mixed in that are totally original but then within Creole there's different Creoles the Creole from Guadalupe is different than the Creole from Haiti and I mentioned Dr. John before his first album came out in 1968 called Grigri okay he uses a Louisiana Creole patois in some of the songs and I've played it for my wife and I'm like what is he saying she's like I'm not sure it's Creole but it's up to some other kind of Creole you know and I mean he was into voodoo and stuff too if you read about his life but it's you know there's a difference in the area of Louisiana and people speak Creole that nobody knows what the hell it is only they know what it is in the low country too they have their own language that is still very African and some of them don't speak English and they just live in the islands and some white people can understand it what they're saying but maybe don't know how to speak it back it's still very that's what's so beautiful about being an American it's one of the things I love about being an American is that because we're mutts we can celebrate all of this because we have a little I was going to tell you Mike you might actually do you have any full-blooded siblings who have taken their DNA I've taken my DNA but do you have full-blooded siblings because sometimes I have one full-blooded sibling my sister I don't think she's ever taken her DNA though she takes her DNA because is that more DNA will be in you that will show up then will be like in your sister so you might have ancestry through New Orleans that's just not coming up for you I guess it's slightly possible because I had see I'm half Sicilian and being half Sicilian you're going to have African in you which I have like a small percentage I think like 10% or something like that but then you know it's for some reason you have in my DNA there was a Caucasian obviously I'm white but really from the Caucasus yes yeah DNA and I think that that might go over to what England is I'm not an expert on this so you have that but when African showed up I was like oh that's got to be because of the Sicilian was conquered by the Moors and all that right well I will say too because my aunt my mom's sister so full-blooded aunt because we're on 23 and me I was able to connect some dots because something popped up on her DNA that didn't pop up on mine but she's my full-blooded aunt my mom's full-blooded sister so it's obviously there and I was able to connect some dots with that for my own lineage so guys if you feel a connection to a place it might just be hidden you know listen I have Coptic Egyptian in me I didn't even know when Greek popped up in my DNA my mom was like where does that come from I was like I don't know mom you made me you tell me where it came from I would love to do a podcast with you about the Greeks and the Egyptians are they both I have both Coptic Egyptian which the Egyptians were kind of mystical too it's fascinating because obviously the ancient Egyptians had you know sub-Saharan black you know ancestry okay it was started by blacks from Africa but if you look at the history of Egypt the Coptic Egyptians were white they looked like but you know why because they mixed with the Greeks the Greeks would have constant trade with what's called it's actually called lower Egypt but it's really on the Nile delta of the Mediterranean it's actually up for what they call it lower because the Nile runs down from Ethiopia which is upper Egypt okay so in lower Egypt you had the ports and this is where they dealt with the Greeks I think it was Heronias I forget the guy's name he's a historical writer from Greece he called he called the Egyptians the burnt people but he meant it not as an example he actually had just because they were dark in color but he had he had a deep respect for Egyptians and the whole culture and the interesting thing too I'll just mention quick is all the different dynasties in Egypt if you look at the way they looked because they've done some research on these things they know how some of these pharaohs may have looked some look more African features and some have more Caucasian type features you could tell by the nose whatever well why is that if they were from upper Egypt they were more black if they were from lower Egypt they were more white because of that Greek influence and that took centuries to happen and it was never a struggle about race it was all about power and I'll do that show with you and I'll do you one better and this actually is perfect because it circles back to I think this is divine have you seen the information where now archaeologists some archaeologists believe that the real Egypt is the southern part of the United States if you look at the map of New Orleans it is identical to Alexandria which makes the mighty Mississippi the Nile and I know that sounds crazy but if you look at the Tartarian the reset the mud flood all the pyramids that are in the south the Sphinx that was in Memphis, Tennessee very interesting I've heard little bits of this but you put it in perspective I didn't realize but have you ever heard about the Grand Canyon and what's been found in there we did shows on this too and they denied to this day that they were found but they were it was in magazines it was in newspapers there was pictures of it they found Egyptian artifacts in the Grand Canyon look there was I believe I don't mean to get off track here but I think a lot of the secrets that we're looking for with all this is in Antarctica oh absolutely and I think most of our viewers think that's it and I've been able to tell because I'm a history lover and I've been able to tell my audience I can keep two things in my head right now the official narrative we've been given contracting information like perhaps Egypt isn't south the southeastern part I can keep both realities in my head and I can play with both until we know for sure because it's not like these controllers haven't lied to us before but that would be cool for you to look at because I'm actually doing a show tomorrow I'm filming a show tomorrow about Egypt but the possibility of Egypt being in the south because Tennessee means the land of ISIS so guys it's just theory and it's just something fun to look at and we don't have to have all the answers but for you Mike as a lover of New Orleans I'd be really interested for you to look at this alternative information because that means that the missing library of Alexandria would literally be in the Gulf would be under the Gulf the missing body of Cleopatra would be in the Gulf Coast off of New Orleans if that's correct so anyway I know we're coming up now we've been going for almost two hours this is one of my favorite conversations listen if you ever want to come to New Orleans just let me know I'll hop in my car and meet you down at the bayou and we'll go get a big yay I love I've actually been craving I was actually looking at hotels the other night in bed in New Orleans because I've been craving and I can just hop in my car and drive there I've been craving a trip to New Orleans the music's fantastic it's just like they do in India where they celebrate and play the music so it is definitely a city worth venerating worth respecting so much be respectful again if you're down there please be respectful for the culture down there for the locals and their belief system please don't you go try to evangelize to them just let them be respect what they're doing and you know Mike I'll end on this say one thing or ask one question to Marie Laveau what would it be wow you put me on the spot here one question to Marie Laveau tell me how to do the best podcast Marie Laveau I love it one that everybody will love and I won't get any bullshit over how do we block trolls no she had her own trolls I would probably say to Marie Laveau that as an American woman it's an honor to know that she was also an American woman and she has made her way in the history books for just being herself and being a kind I think she was probably a very kind you didn't mess with her when you do if you fuck around you find out for sure but she really did love people and she really did have a huge faith in God and you can tell again by her funeral how many people showed up she was loved and respected by all walks of life she healed people of their illnesses like I said the yellow fever she healed prisoners and prison she healed all kinds of people she really if you look at Christ teaching she was really living that of helping she was quite an American badass and so I as an American woman myself I take pride in knowing that we stand under the same flag so Marie Laveau we hope you are resting in peace for your daughter if you're still alive send me an email no we have all of your descendants are resting in beats and if there's any descendants of Marie Laveau still alive today there probably are I would be like my great-grandma my great-grandma Marie Laveau absolutely we would love to talk to you so I might be able to find some let's just say I have some connections in New Orleans so I can sniff around and see if I can find out if anybody knows in that world if there are some descendants that would want to talk but Mike thank you so much you're coming on again this week I get a double dose of you this week guys so be looking out for our part 2 and yeah let me know you guys I'm gonna ask our audience for all of our audience members if you are from New Orleans or if you've been to New Orleans I want you to share your favorite memory your favorite story down in the comment section below let's celebrate this city did you learn something about Marie Laveau that you didn't know before all that kind of stuff so all the books Mike mentioned all of Mike's links everything will be down in the description box below including my podcast Nefarious New Orleans the past episodes if there's any of the episodes that I did in the past from New Orleans since we got Mike a lover let me know maybe we can go over and re-examine some of those cases like the vampire cases and the lala re-cases and all that kind of stuff so alright you guys well I hope you're having a fantastic week and we will talk to you soon thank you so much Mike take care people