Back in the 1970’s when the porno biz was just getting cranked up and you had to actually go to a movie theater to see pornography, Gene Fredericks had a live late night TV show in New Orleans.

Gene didn’t come on Happy Hour to dredge all this up but he graciously tells the story of the early days of porn and then the even more interesting tale of why he’s moved back to New Orleans after 35 years in San Francisco. It’s all about a film he started making in 1977 and has just completed, called The Phantasmagorical Clarence John Laughlin, about the mad genius who’s the father of surrealist photography. If you don’t know what surrealist photography is you’re not alone but this guy makes it seem pretty darned weird and interesting.

Oh, by the way, the early kings of porn, the Mitchel Brothers, had some sort of falling out and one of the brothers killed the other one. Emily Zolynsky might have helped get the guy off of death row. That’s what she does.

One thing you know for sure about New Orleans is we’re famous for our murder rate. Sometimes we’re number one in the country, other years we get knocked off the perch but we’re pretty consistently up there along with cities you’d never be caught dead in. According to Emily you probably won’t get caught dead in New Orleans either. Did you know that if you kill someone here and you’re up for the death penalty – against all expectations – you have a better chance of getting off if you’re poor than wealthy? Emily ought to know: she spends her days tracking down witnesses and other associates of accused murderers on behalf of their attorneys to try and keep them off of death row.

If there is such a thing as a fate worse than death it might be playing music for drunk tourists on Bourbon Street. But country music legend Kim Carson loves it. Kim spends enough time out of town playing to adoring audiences in other cities and countries that she can take the indifference of drunks at home.

After Kim plays a twangy honky tonk version of “Enough Heart Left to Break” she and Andrew Duhon discuss the essential role of unhappiness in the song writing process, and Andrew immediately disproves the theory by playing a beautiful love song he just finished that’s anything but broken-hearted.

If you’re looking for a show with love, porn, murder, and music, this Happy Hour is for you.

Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.