Bizarre Jerry Lee Lewissack race"All-Star Anything Goes"1977
Bizarre Jerry Lee Lewissack race"All-Star Anything Goes"1977
Tom T. Hall and Jerry Lee sack race
This remarkable document, preserved and extant onlyhere, shows Jerry Lee Lewis among Billy Carter, Barbara Mandrell, Tom T. Hall, Charlie Pride, Jerry Reed, and others, wearing velourdesigner track-suits, standing in front of a faux-plantation-style edifice at Six Flags over Georgia, 1972, subsequent to the finish of the "Great Race" A&R pillowcase/sack race competition, between RCA and Mercury Records, televised as All-Star That's Amazing, hosted by the, frankly, weird Bill Dodd (in what is surely the most bizarre, Killer performance found in years) ... AND THINGS JUST GET WEIRDER FROM THERE.
Six Flags Hosts 'All-Star Anything Goes' - June 24, 1977 Barbara Mandrell and Jerry Lee Lewis, prior to taping of show.
"Some people call me an idiot, but I know
who I am ... I am The Killer"
--Jerry Lee Lewis
The weirdest Jerry lee lewis video I've ever seen, and I've seen a few!
(JUST ASK DAVE)HE'S THE GENIUS
THAT DISCOVERED IT--Killernofiller666
OH, HELL, JUST READ WHAT I SAID
LAST YEAR ON HIS PAGE:
YouWeirdTube 9 months ago
dave: just finally
updated the description with my research
(Killernofiller667 actually called it Pillow Case
Hop, but I'll be damned if I'm writing that)
---------------------------------
Anything Goes
mashed potato flakes and canned gravy!
My thanks to killernofiller667, who either had the persistence and resourcefulness to find and upload this, or was the luckiest Jerry Lee Fan on the Internet
for stumbling on it--the way I felt after first thinking it was just
a spam alert, until I saw what didn't look like Jerry
Lee, but was definitely his voice--that's when I knew for sure ...
Virginia Roberts says she was loaned out by Jeffrey Epstein to his friend Prince Andrew, shown here. He denies they had sex.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article219494920.html#storylink=cpy
All aboard the 'Lolita Express': Flight logs reveal trips
Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz took on pedophileJeffrey Epstein's
private jet with anonymous women
Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein is
a free man, despite sexually abusing dozens of underage girls according
to police and prosecutors. His victims have never had a voice, until
now.
Virginia Roberts was working at Mar-a-Lago
when she was recruited to be a masseuse to Palm Beach hedge fund manager
Jeffrey Epstein. She was lured into a life of depravity and sexual
abuse.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221957120.html#storylink=cpy
The girls who were abused by Jeffrey Epstein
and the cops who championed their cause remain angry over what they
regard as a gross injustice, while Epstein's employees and those who
engineered his non-prosecution agreement have prospered.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article214210674.html#storylink=cpy
For years, Jeffrey Epstein abused teen girls, police say. A timeline of his case
March: A 14-year-old girl and her
parents report that Jeffrey Epstein molested her at a mansion in Palm
Beach. She said a female acquaintance and classmate at Royal Palm Beach
High School had taken her to the house to give him a massage in exchange
for money.
Jeffrey
Epstein repeatedly engaged in sexual activity with underage girls at
his waterfront Palm Beach home on El Brillo Way, according to police in
the Town of Palm Beach. Epstein also owns residences in New York City
and the U.S. Virgin Islands, among other locales.
Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com
April: Palm Beach
police begin trash pulls at Epstein’s home, discovering a telephone
message for Epstein with the girl’s name on it, and a time that matched
the time that she told police she was there. They find the names and
phone numbers of other girls on message slips in his trash.
October: With the
police probe in full swing, one of Epstein’s assistants calls one of the
girls just as she is being questioned by police. Investigators begin
interviewing more girls, as well as Epstein’s butlers, who tell them
that Epstein had frequent visits from girls throughout the day. On Oct.
20, they execute a search warrant at his house on El Brillo Way in Palm
Beach.
2006
May: Police sign a
probable cause affidavit charging Epstein and two of his assistants with
multiple counts of unlawful sex acts with a minor. The Palm Beach state
attorney, Barry Krischer, instead refers the case to a grand jury.
Town of Palm Beach police were unhappy with the handling of the Epstein case by then-State Attorney Barry Krischer.
June: The grand jury, after hearing from
only one girl, returns an indictment of one count of solicitation of
prostitution. The charge does not reflect that the victim in question
and others were minors.
July: Epstein’s
powerhouse legal team tries to negotiate a deal with the State
Attorney’s Office. Lawyers discuss a deferred prosecution in which
Epstein would enter a pretrial intervention program and serve no jail
time.
July: After pressure
from the Palm Beach police chief, the FBI opens a federal investigation,
dubbed “Operation Leap Year.’’ Documents list the possible crime as
“child prostitution.’’
November: The FBI begins interviewing potential witnesses and victims from Florida, New York and New Mexico.
2007
May: As the U.S.
Attorney’s Office prepares to present the case to a federal grand jury,
Epstein’s attorneys request a meeting to discuss the investigation.
June: A 53-page
indictment is prepared by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as, simultaneously,
plea negotiations are initiated with Epstein’s legal team.
July: Grand jury
subpoenas are issued for Epstein’s computers, which were apparently
removed from his Palm Beach home prior to the police search.
August: The U.S.
attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, enters into direct discussions
about the plea agreement; a motion to compel production of Epstein’s
computers is delayed.
September: Federal
prosecutors draw up several federal plea agreements that are rejected by
Epstein and his attorneys. Epstein signs a non-prosecution agreement on
Sept. 24, but his attorneys continue to delay his court appearance.
Alexander
Acosta has been criticized for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case
as U.S. attorney. He later became the dean of Florida International
University’s law school and, later still, President Trump’s secretary of
labor.
Miami Herald file photo
October: With the
non-prosecution agreement still being debated, Acosta meets with Epstein
lawyer Jay Lefkowitz at the West Palm Beach Marriott on Okeechobee Road
to discuss finalizing a deal. Among the terms agreed upon: that the
victims would not be notified, that the deal would be kept under seal
and all grand jury subpoenas would be canceled.
The
Marriott hotel in West Palm Beach, at 1001 Okeechobee Blvd., is where
U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta met with Jeffrey Epstein’s attorney to
work out a plea arrangement.
November: Epstein’s lawyers object to an
addendum to the agreement. The provision called for a special master to
appoint an attorney to represent Epstein victims’ rights to civil
compensation.
December: The two sides
continue to debate the addendum. Epstein attorney Kenneth Starr asks
for a review of the agreement by the U.S. Department of Justice in
Washington, further delaying its execution. Victims are told the
investigation is continuing.
2008
January: Epstein
attorney, Lefkowitz, calls Acosta, telling him his client will not go
through with the agreement because it requires him to register as a sex
offender.
February: With the plea
negotiations and the Justice Department review still in limbo, the FBI
continues its probe, locating more witnesses and evidence.
March: Preparations are
made for a new federal grand jury presentation. In court documents, the
U.S. Attorney’s Office notes that Epstein’s victims are being harassed
by his lawyers, who are not specifically named.
May: The Justice Department issues finding that, if a plea deal is not reached, Epstein can be federally prosecuted.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221404845.html#storylink=cpy
June: Epstein’s lawyers revisit plea
negotiations, and on June 30, Epstein appears in a Palm Beach County
courtroom. He pleads guilty to state charges: one count of solicitation
of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a
minor under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail,
followed by a year of community control or house arrest. He is
adjudicated as a convicted sex offender who must register twice a year
in Florida.
July: Epstein’s victims
learn about his plea in state court after the fact. They file an
emergency petition to force federal prosecutors to comply with the
federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act, which mandates certain rights for
crime victims, including the right to be informed about plea agreements
and the right to appear at sentencing.
August: Epstein’s
victims learn that he has already been sent to jail, and that the
federal investigation is over. They seek to have his plea agreement
unsealed, but federal prosecutors argue against releasing the agreement,
commencing a yearlong court battle to learn the terms of Epstein’s plea
bargain.
October: Epstein begins
work release from the county stockade. He is picked up by his private
driver six days a week and transported to an office in West Palm Beach,
where he accepts visitors for up to 12 hours a day. He returns to the
stockade in the evenings to sleep.
Support investigative journalism
The Miami Herald obtained thousands of FBI and court records,
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to access sealed documents in the reporting of "Perversion of Justice."
The Herald also tracked down more than 60 women who said they were
victims, some of whom had never spoken of the abuse before. Your digital subscription, starting at $0.99 for the first month, supports investigative journalism like this.
2009
July: Epstein is
released from the Palm Beach County stockade, five months early. He must
register as a sex offender and is on probation for a year, confined to
his Palm Beach home except to travel to his office in West Palm Beach.
However, records show he frequently makes trips to Manhattan and to his
home in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
August: Palm Beach
Police Capt. George Frick finds Epstein walking along A1A in the middle
of the afternoon, when he was supposed to be at work in his office in
downtown West Palm Beach. Epstein says he is walking to work, even
though the location where he is found is not a direct route to his
office. His probation officer says Epstein has permission to get some
exercise.
September: The federal
non-prosecution agreement is made public. By September, at least a dozen
civil lawsuits have been filed by women who allege they were molested
by Epstein when they were underage. Epstein begins the process of
settling them out of court.
Jeffrey
Epstein never went to federal prison but his butler/houseman, Alfredo
Rodriguez, did, for obstruction of justice. He was busted for hiding
Epstein’s journal and trying to sell it. He has since died.
November: One of Epstein’s former butlers
tries to sell to an undercover FBI agent a black book filled with the
names of hundreds of girls and young women that Epstein allegedly
procured for sex and massages. The butler tells FBI agents he witnessed
nude underage girls at Epstein’s pool and had known that the millionaire
was having sex with them. He also said he saw pornography involving
underage girls on Epstein’s computers. The butler/houseman, Alfredo
Rodriguez, is later charged with obstruction of justice and sentenced to
federal prison. He dies in 2015. The contents of the black book become
public as part of several civil lawsuits.
2010
April: Flight logs
obtained as part of civil lawsuits against Epstein show an assortment of
politicians, academics, celebrities, heads of state and world leaders
flying on Epstein’s jets in the early 2000s. Among them: former
President Bill Clinton, former national security adviser Sandy Berger,
former Colombian President Andrés Pastrana and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
2011
March: Two of Epstein’s
victims file a motion in federal court accusing the government of
violating their rights by failing to notify them about the plea deal and
keeping it secret. Among other things, they want the plea deal
invalidated in the hopes of sending Epstein to prison. They accuse
federal prosecutors of deceiving them with “false notification
letters.’’
September: U.S.
District Judge Kenneth Marra rejects the U.S. Attorney’s Office argument
that it was under no obligation to notify victims prior to striking a
non-prosecution agreement with Epstein because there were no federal
charges filed against him. The decision marks a victory for Epstein’s
victims, but the case will drag on for seven more years.
November: Epstein must
register in New York as the highest and most dangerous level of sex
offender, despite efforts by him and the New York District Attorney’s
office to lower the classification. A Level 3 status means “high risk of repeat offense and a threat to public safety exists,” according to the state’s guidelines.
2012
March-December: Calling
himself a “celebrated philanthropist’’ and a “renowned educational
investor,’’ Epstein undertakes a public relations campaign to counter
bad press about his sexual exploits. His foundation donates millions to
scientific research and sponsors global conferences on ways to achieve
world peace and save the planet. He funds cancer and educational
research projects around the country.
2015
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221404845.html#storylink=cpy
January: Virginia
Roberts files court papers in Florida claiming that she was forced by
Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew and lawyer Alan Dershowitz when
she was underage. In a sworn affidavit, she provides photographs of her
with the prince and with Epstein’s close associate, British socialite
Ghislaine Maxwell. She claims Maxwell worked as Epstein’s madam, which
she denies. Dershowitz and the prince deny her claims as well, setting
off a series of legal actions between Dershowitz and Roberts’ attorneys
that are later resolved in an out-of-court settlement.
April: A federal judge
rules that Roberts cannot join the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act
lawsuit and that her affidavit — accusing Prince Andrew and Dershowitz
of having sex with her when she was underage — be stricken from the
case. Dershowitz said the ruling meant he was vindicated. However, the
judge does not address the veracity of Roberts’ claims, writing: “The
factual details regarding with whom and where the Jane Does engaged in
sexual activities are immaterial and impertinent to this central
claim.’’
September: Roberts sues
Maxwell in federal court in New York, claiming that Epstein’s alleged
madam defamed her in public statements in the media. The lawsuit is
widely viewed as a vessel for Epstein’s victims to expose the scope of
Epstein’s crimes. Several civil lawsuits filed the same year allege that
Epstein and Maxwell operated an international sex trafficking
operation.
Virginia
Roberts holds a photo of herself at 16, her age when she met Jeffrey
Epstein. Her life had already been marred by sexual abuse even before
she met the multimillionaire.
Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com
2016
June: A lawsuit is
filed in Manhattan by a woman who once used the name Katie Johnson,
claiming that she was raped by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump
at a party at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion in 1994 when she was 13 years
old. Trump and Epstein both categorically deny it ever happened.
‘How
in the world, do you, the U.S. attorney, engage in a negotiation with a
criminal defendant, basically allowing that criminal defendant to write
up the agreement?’ said Bradley Edwards, shown here, who is
representing some of the victims of serial sex abuser and Palm Beach
multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com
November: Johnson backs
out of a press conference just days before Election Day, saying she had
been threatened and was fearful. She later drops the lawsuit.
2017
February: President
Trump nominates former Miami federal prosecutor Acosta as U.S. secretary
of labor. Acosta is compelled at his confirmation hearing to briefly
address questions about the deal he approved for Epstein. One lawmaker
requests more records from the Epstein case. Acosta is confirmed.
June: Roberts settles her lawsuit with Maxwell for an undisclosed sum.
2018
December: Civil trial
is scheduled in Palm Beach County Court on Bradley Edwards’ allegations
that Epstein sued him to punish him for representing several of his
victims. The malicious-prosecution lawsuit is set to begin Dec. 4.
Epstein has indicated he will not appear in court for trial.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221404845.html#storylink=cpy
Investigative Reporter: Julie K. Brown Investigations Editor: Casey Frank Visual Journalist: Emily Michot Interaction Designer: Aaron Albright Video production: Marta Oliver Craviotto, Emily Michot, Julie K. Brown Copy Editor: Mary Behne Social Media Editors: Adrian Ruhi, Noel Gonzalez Drone Footage: Pedro Portal Director of Design: Jessica Gilbert Senior Manager of Design: Eddie Alvarez
- - -
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221404845.html#storylink=cpy
Dershowitz’s finest moment, however, has to be his legal defense of
Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier who was investigated by the
FBI for trafficking underage prostitutes in his mansion and on his
private jet, dubbed the “Lolita Express.”At least 40 women, some of
them as young as 12, alleged that Epstein knowingly solicited sex from
minors and lent his underage harem to a host of high-profile perverts.
Prior to his mid-2000s downfall, Epstein had ties to big names like Bill
Clinton, whose name appears 11 times in Epstein’s flight logs; Kevin
Spacey, now a disgraced pedophile in his own right; and Trump, who told New York
in 2002 that “[Epstein is] a lot of fun to be with. It is even said
that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on
the younger side.” Dershowitz jumped to Epstein’s defense during the
initial federal investigation in 2005 and 2006. According to a contemporaneous account in New York,
Dershowitz sought to sully the reputations of the underage accusers: he
“provided the police and the state attorney’s office with a dossier on a
couple of the victims gleaned from their MySpace sites — showing
alcohol and drug use and lewd comments.” With the help of Dershowitz,
Epstein was able to negotiate the federal government down to a single
charge of soliciting prostitution, to which he pled guilty and served a
total of 13 months in prison. Epstein was released in 2011.
Despite
Dershowitz’s best efforts, the Epstein scandal resurfaced. In 2014, a
lawsuit was filed in Florida by Virginia Roberts alleging that Epstein
had recruited her from her prior employer — Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
resort, where she worked as a towel girl at the age of 15 — and
trafficked her as a sex slave to Prince Andrew and Dershowitz himself,
both of whom appeared many times in Epstein’s flight logs between 1997
and 2005. The purpose of this lawsuit was to have Epstein’s 2008 plea
agreement thrown out. Prince Andrew and Dershowitz both vociferously
denied the allegations. Andrew, who had been photographed with Roberts during the period in question and openly partied with Epstein
to celebrate the Level 3 Sex Offender’s 2011 release from prison,
denied through his spokesperson that the two "had any form of sexual
contact or relationship.” No explanation was offered for why a
17-year-old girl of no familial relation to any of these men was present
in their social circle. Dershowitz maintained on the Today Show that he “was never in the presence of a single underage woman” and “never saw [Epstein] doing anything improper.”
Dershowitz
countersued and referred to Roberts’ lawyers as “villains,” accusing
the court of treating him unfairly by accusing him of sex crimes in a
lawsuit in which he was not a party. In 2015, Dershowitz had the
accusations stricken from the record, and in 2016 both parties dropped their suits
after a settlement that included an undisclosed financial arrangement.
During this ordeal, Dershowitz emphatically denied having been close
with Epstein, telling The American Lawyer in 2015 that their
relationship was “entirely professional” and mainly centered on
encouraging Epstein’s multi-million dollar donations to Harvard. This
contrasted with Dershowitz’s past comments about Epstein, like when he
told Vanity Fair
in a 2003 Epstein profile that “I'm on my 20th book... The only person
outside my immediate family that I send drafts to is Jeffrey.” From that
same interview with The American Lawyer: “People know that I
won't argue a case or give a speech unless my wife travels with me. This
is not the profile of someone who screws around.” This seems to
contradict the flight logs, which show Dershowitz traveling without his wife every time his name appears.
Whoops!
Flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein's private plane dubbed the 'Lolita Express' were published for the first time on Thursday
They
show that former President Bill Clinton boarded the plane with women
believed to have been involved in creating underage sex slave ring
Alleged
victim Virginia Roberts says she was recruited as a slave when she was
15, and that she was forced to have sex with both Prince Andrew and
Harvard law profession Alan Dershowitz
The latter, she says, molested her mid-flight on the private jet
Both the Duke of York and Dershowitz have fiercely denied their involvement in the ring
just released flight records show Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz has been flying with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein on the financier's private jet dubbed the 'Lolita Express' since as early as 1997, despite public statements that they were only acquaintances.
The high-profile lawyer has been distancing himself from Epstein ever since a young woman named Virginia Roberts filed a lawsuit claiming she was recruited to work as a 'sex slave' for Epstein when she was just 15, naming both Dershowitz and Prince Andrew as two of her molesters.
The flight records, obtained by Gawker, also show former President Bill Clinton rode on Epstein's jet at least 11 times, and often with two of Epstein's female associates believed to have provided the dozens of underage girls to their boss and his well-connected friends.
CNN allowed Dershowitz to whine on the air about being snubbed at Martha’s Vineyard as recently as July 7.
Having
had a decade-long friendship with a serial child molester who was
publicly known to like his women “on the younger side” — and then
working to ensure that he got off with a slap on the wrist once the
allegations were made public — was apparently not enough to soil
Dershowitz’s reputation. Neither was his decision to join Harvey Weinstein’s defense team
in April, an association that should, at the very least, make it
impossible to appear on cable news. But because Dershowitz is somehow
still considered a selfless crusader for justice, whose predilection for
defending high-profile rapists and pedophiles (the personal lives of
whom mysteriously overlap with his own) is purely coincidental, none of
this seems to matter. Tucker Carlson, who lambasted Democrats for taking donations from Weinstein and said in 2017
that lawyer Lisa Bloom — who temporarily defended Weinstein in the
early stages of the scandal — “took the side of the predator over the
prey, likely because the price was right," continues to give Dershowitz
endless fawning interviews about Trump’s innocence and Martha’s Vineyard
without so much as mentioning the disgraced movie producer. CNN, which
covered the Weinstein allegations in great detail, allowed Dershowitz to
whine on the air about being snubbed at Martha’s Vineyard as recently
as July 7. His recent activities outside the dinner-party circuit were
left unmentioned here, just as they were on Carlson. For the
cable-news set, Dershowitz isn’t “Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer,” as anyone
else on Weinstein’s legal team would surely be described on the CNN
chyron, or a lifelong ally of violent misogynists and child rapists. He
is a lovable contrarian scamp whose complaints about his social life are
a pleasant diversion from more serious news. In
a just world, Dershowitz would be snubbed not only in Martha’s
Vineyard, but everywhere he goes. His associations, not just with Trump
and Fox News, but with Epstein, Weinstein, and the rest of his celebrity
clients, should be more than enough to blackball him from every news
network, Harvard, and any future legal team, given that hiring him is a
virtual admission of guilt. Even if he had never jumped to Trump’s
defense in the Mueller investigation, he would still be a jowly,
liver-spotted bag of bones who has devoted his career to ensuring that
the ultra-rich are not held accountable for their crimes. Now that he
has added Trumpism to his vast array of nauseating qualities, it is
utterly unfathomable that anyone not personally invested in seeing Trump
exculpated in the Mueller investigation is even willing to consider a
position on Alan Dershowitz, the world’s shittiest man, other than that
he should never be heard from, anywhere, ever again.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article221957120.html#storylink=cpy
Galatoire's fires Gilberto Eyzaguirre for "patting a waitress on her back," New Orleans revolts! PLUS History of NOLA's most eccentric restaurant (Times-Picayune, July 2002)
Editor's note:
Every now and again, a story emerges that makes it impossible to deny that New Orleanians are passionate about restaurants in ways that others are not. Early this month, it was news that regulars of La Boulangerie, an Uptown bakery, are apoplectic over minor changes instituted by its new owner, Donald Link.
Many readers spoke out to say the tale brought to mind this story about Galatoire's.
Originally published in the Times-Picayune in July 2002, it chronicles the firing of a longtime Galatoire's waiter - and the angst the dismissal triggered among the restaurant's devoted regulars.
The piece achieved what amounted to virality in the pre-social media age. Letters to the editor poured in. National publications parachuted down to cast light on the spectacle. Dramatic readings of the regulars' written complaints were staged - and quickly sold-out.
The story ran under the headline "Creole contretemps," and it is republished here just as it was in 2002.
***
In 1949, Kenneth Holditch traveled with his father from Mississippi to New Orleans for what would turn out to be a life-changing meal of trout amandine at Galatoire's.
(now that's what i call a lede! Holditch is an erudite New Orleans' academician, who also holds some responsibility for having Conferacy of Dunces published. - ed.)
He remembers the meal vividly, particularly what he calls "the elegance and skill of the waiters."
Fifteen years after that first visit, Holditch left his job in Memphis and joined the faculty at the University of New Orleans so he could "live in this unique city and dine at Galatoire's whenever I wished," as he explained it in a recent letter to the restaurant's nine-member board of directors.
And dine he has, often at a twice-weekly pace and, for the past 20 years or so, usually as the customer of his favorite waiter, Gilberto Eyzaguirre.
Eyzaguirre, "Gilbert" to his legion of customers, was fired from Galatoire's on April 27 after a female employee filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. It was the second such complaint filed against the waiter by a different employee in less than two months.
If this were a story about anywhere else but New Orleans, or perhaps anyplace else but Galatoire's, that would be the end of it. Instead, it was only the beginning.
Galatoire's General Manager Melvin Rodrigue declined to comment on the particulars of Eyzaguirre's dismissal.
"Even if Gilberto's not with us anymore, we have an obligation to him and the rest of our employees to keep that information confidential," he said.
Galatoire's files may be confidential, but Eyzaguirre's dismissal is hardly a secret. And his popularity among customers is enduring. The firing is what occasioned Holditch's letter, which was not a fan's note but an impassioned protest. The treatise was written on May 20, 2002. A few days later, it was delivered in a bound volume along with 123 others to the Galatoire's board. The letters, many of which were written by prominent New Orleans doctors, lawyers, judges and business people, have been posted on www.welovegilberto.com, a Web site devoted to the cause of persuading Galatoire's management to rehire Eyzaguirre. The list of letter writers is impressive; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford and noted Louisiana State University historian David Culbert are among them. "The purpose of this letter is to request that the members of the Board of Management of Galatoire's find a means to bring Gilbert back into the fold," former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg wrote. Many of the writers express displeasure with what the volume's opening page calls the "peremptory firing." But to read the letters as a whole is to realize that Eyzaguirre's supporters are concerned about much more than their favorite waiter's job status.
In his letter, Holditch echoes the concerns of many when he bemoans the changes that have occurred at Galatoire's since Rodrigue, 29, became the first non-Galatoire family member to be named general manager and chief operating officer of the restaurant five years ago. The most seismic of those changes was the controversial renovation that was completed in 1999. With the renovation came new dining rooms upstairs and the opportunity to reserve tables, a first in Galatoire's nearly century-old history.
"I felt almost the same way when they opened upstairs," Robert Barnwell, a letter writer who first dined at Galatoire's 50 years ago, said of Eyzaguirre's firing. "It was like when Brooks Brothers opened 40 stores all over the United States. I liked it when there was only just one." When viewed through the prism of Galatoire's overall makeover, Holditch writes, Eyzaguirre's firing "has made many of us 'old-timers' aware of the fact that something drastic is afoot, a renovation not only of the physical features of the classic old Creole eatery, but a renovation of its very soul."
. . . . . . .
There's no such thing as a subtle change at Galatoire's, at least not in the eyes of its most ardent customers. The restaurant's food is a testament to the virtues of trend resistance, and the kitchen's renderings of classic French-Creole dishes are hard to surpass. It's tempting to imagine the best of them -- trout amandine, souffle potatoes, stuffed eggplant, shrimp remoulade, oysters Rockefeller -- tasting exactly as they did in 1905, the year Frenchman Jean Galatoire bought Victor's Restaurant on Bourbon Street and gave it his family's name.
Galatoire's is remarkably well preserved, though it actually has the feel of being older than it is. Its majestic atmosphere is derived not just from the tiled floors, 19th-century chandeliers, polished brass and tuxedoed servers, but from the sense that those things extend from traditions rooted deep in New Orleans' exotic past.
It's a restaurant one can envision existing nowhere else so easily as Paris, the world's capital of sophistication, and many of the people who are upset about Eyzaguirre's firing are equally upset that Galatoire's management would allow this elegant luster to be tarnished by, among other things, relaxing the dress code.
"The last time I was in there -- I've only been there once since Gilberto left, which is unusual for me -- there were people sitting at the table next to us who looked as though they should have been dining at the counter at Woolworth's," said Holditch.
"I don't mean to sound elitist. But on the other hand, when you go to a nice restaurant, I think you ought to treat it as the kind of temple of food that it is."
The restaurant has been subject to some culinary tinkering over the years. The restaurant only recently unveiled its first printed wine list. Portobello mushrooms are now a vegetable offering. They are the type of changes that would not warrant mention at another restaurant. But nothing goes unnoticed at Galatoire's, which is not so much a restaurant as an institution, complete with a board of directors -- eight Galatoire family members and one non-family member -- charged with overseeing the restaurant's operations. Constancy is part of the allure, and the regulars, many of whom were introduced to Galatoire's by their parents and grandparents, and who are now taking their own children and grandchildren, find comfort in the familiar details. In his letter to the Galatoire's board, Thomas Uskali recalled a meal he ate at the restaurant in 1994 with chef Louis Arbot and Dr. Brobson Lutz. "Gilberto served Chef Arbot 'the best Sazerac in memory,' and saw to it that our table ate exceedingly well, with inspired choices both on and off the menu," Uskali recalled. Rosenberg, another Eyzaguirre customer, first started eating at Galatoire's in the early 1950s with his parents. "I still walk in and have that sort of visceral gastronomic sensation," he said. It's a restaurant where management has agonized over whether or not to buy a toaster for fear that it would change the quality of the bread served with the oysters en brochette. In 1992, the decision to start accepting credit cards caused an uproar.Holditch recently noticed that the stuffed eggplant started to arrive without the eggplant skin.
"It's still just as good, but I miss that eggplant skin," he said.
Nashville businessman Gary Smith was one of many people who protested the restaurant's decision in the mid-1990s to switch from hand-chopped ice to the machine-made variety.
Smith has been traveling to New Orleans with his wife, Cathy, every six weeks since 1968.
"I call them eating trips," he said. These trips always include two or three meals at Galatoire's. For the past 18 years, the Smiths were served exclusively by Eyzaguirre. In fact, for the Smiths, each of whom wrote a letter supporting Eyzaguirre, finding out that their waiter isn't going to be in town for one of their visits is enough to make them change their plans.
"He's that important," Smith said, and by way of explanation asked: "You know how you feel when you're halfway through your second martini? That's how I'd feel when I'd enter Galatoire's and I'd see Gilbert."
Many of the people who wrote in support of Eyzaguirre liken eating at Galatoire's to being part of a "club." Prerequisites for membership would include longtime regular patronage; a steadfast devotion to Galatoire's rituals (i.e., eating lunch every Friday, or early evening dinner on Sundays); and, the ultimate status signifier, having a special relationship with a waiter.
For years, ordinary citizens have complained that privileged insiders have been allowed to circumvent the line in front of Galatoire's to gain easy access to its downstairs dining room. That may well be, but legend has it that Galatoire's old first-come, first-served policy was so unbending that Charles De Gaulle's request to have a table reserved was denied. Club membership, if you want to call it that, is supposed to be accompanied by certain privileges, which is part of what is driving the discord sparked by Eyzaguirre's firing. Many regulars simply can't believe that action was taken without their consent.
"We're all terribly upset, all of his customers," Marda Burton said of Eyzaguirre shortly after the firing. A longtime regular, Burton is collaborating with Holditch on a book about Galatoire's history.
"The loss of your waiter after 22 years, it's just kind of a shock," Burton said. "And I think the customers should have some kind of say in this." Galatoire's service staff has a relatively large concentration of career waiters who bring to the table requisite amounts of expertise, arrogance and savoir faire.
They've traditionally been granted a wide berth in Galatoire's dining room. Over the years, waiters have been known to actually cook off-the-menu specials for valued customers. And before the restaurant switched to full-time bartenders in 1999, they mixed drinks -- usually with a heavy hand.
"I walked out of there once so soused I got into an argument with a hitching post," recalled riverboat pilot Capt. Clarke "Doc" Hawley, who ate his first dinner at Galatoire's in 1959 with "Dinner at Antoine's" author Frances Parkinson Keyes. Today, the waiters are still valuable assets, as they take pride in dispensing wisdom on the best selections from a voluminous menu when quality is often dependent on the freshness of seafood.
. . . . . . .
By all accounts, Eyzaguirre, 56, was a deft waiter who knew how to win the favor of customers.
"I think he saw waitering as a profession," Uskali said. "I had been with Gilbert for 14 years, and that included almost four years in Florida, coming back every few months or so, and he still remembered odd little bits.
"I brought my mother a couple of times, and he remembered her name. He was a throwback to how we assume things used to be."
"Gilbert always remembered your name and your family's name and your children," Holditch said. "When I've needed somebody to drive me to the hospital or something, he's done it."
"I can think of no other server who could surpass him," Barnwell wrote of Eyzaguirre in his letter, "unless it is the Canadian VIA Rail's Chaleur dining car steward, Cyril Landry."
But this year, Eyzaguirre ran into difficulties.
On March 3, he received a written notice from Galatoire's management for "purposely patting a waitress on her back which also had the effect of her dropping several beers on the floor."
The notice went on to say that "sexual harassment is not permitted by law" and that any further sexual harassment complaints filed against Eyzaguirre would result in his termination. Soon after came the second complaint, and his dismissal.
While many avoided the issue, a sizable handful of Eyzaguirre's letter-writing supporters chose to address the reason for his firing. While none could claim to have better than second-hand knowledge of the particulars surrounding the dismissal, the waiter's dazzling performance on the dining room floor was often enough for them to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the sexual harassment allegations.
For much of the 20th century, the Galatoire's dining room has been a place run by men, filled with men and catering largely to men. It is only in the last decade that women were hired to work on the wait staff, and it is one of the many examples cited by the restaurant's old guard as a change for the worse.
It was in this environment that Eyzaguirre honed his craft and rose to the level of a near-legend among the regulars. Some of those regulars even praised the qualities that may not have served Eyzaguirre well in the new Galatoire's. "Gilbert's Latino, he's gorgeous," said Burton, who has a hard time believing her waiter would be capable of doing anything untoward. "He's flirtatious with his customers, and we all love it."
Burton's letter was fairly typical of many written by the regulars, whose views on sexual harassment, far from reflecting a 21st century ethic, often seem to emanate from the same Old World sentiments that inform their love of the restaurant and its anachronistic ways.
"Having been in the academic world, I know what a really slippery slope this business of sexual harassment is," said Holditch, who likened Galatoire's male-dominated, banter-filled waiter culture to that of a sports locker room.
"If you go into a situation like that, I think you need to sort of be prepared for what's going to happen," he continued. "Even if they are hiring waitresses, this is basically a man's world, that waiter situation. And I must say that generally I prefer waiters."
Holditch said the letter writers are "asking for a hearing and they're suggesting, and I think this is true, that there was a rush to judgment."
And Richard J. Tyler wrote: "Obviously, we are not privy to the events that led to his termination. I can tell you, however, that the word on the street is that his discharge was for insubstantial conduct that has been blown out of proportion."
For his part, Eyzaguirre has helped advance conspiracy speculation. He denies any wrongdoing and characterizes the circumstances surrounding his dismissal as a set-up devised to get rid of him. He claims that Rodrigue resents his popularity among Galatoire's customers.
"The waiters make the restaurant, not the managers," he said. "Some people feel that the waiters have too much power."
Eyzaguirre said the complaint that got him fired stemmed from nothing more than his touching the hand of a female bartender in order to get past her in the restaurant's kitchen.
"My bottom line is I didn't become a sexual harasser in two months," he said. "What about the other 23 years?"
Rodrigue would not respond directly to Eyzaguirre's characterizations.
"What he chooses to tell his loyal following is up to him," Rodrigue said. "We're in an unfortunate position because we can't disclose what we have."
But a lawyer for one of the victims of Eyzaguirre's alleged advances begs to differ with the waiter's account.
While none of the sexual harassment complainants has sought the spotlight, the person who filed the second written complaint, the one that lead to Eyzaguirre's dismissal, responded to requests for comment through Anthony Glorioso, her family's lawyer.
"Would Galatoire's fire him if it wasn't significant?" he said. "It's not like Gilberto did something and she ran off crying and filed (a sexual harassment complaint) right away. He wouldn't stop. She even asked him to. He wouldn't stop, so she gave in. She said, 'I've got to tell somebody. I want to work here.' "
Glorioso, who said his client is a college student, added, "I think that Galatoire's is very fortunate in this situation. It could have been a lot worse for them."
Chris Ansel agrees with the dismissal. His grandfather was a Galatoire, and he worked at the restaurant for seven years. Today, he sits on the Galatoire's board. Ansel has listened to customers worry over the restaurant's mystique for years, particularly when change was afoot. He appreciates the interest of the regulars, but he said there was nothing vague about Eyzaguirre's situation. "There are rules and regulations on the books, and we have to follow them," he said. "I remember years ago when segregation came in. A lot of customers asked my grandfather, 'What are you going to do?' He said, 'We're going to obey the law.' "
. . . . . . .
When Rodrigue took over management of Galatoire's, he was effectively appointed head of the club without being offered membership into it. A brief history printed on the menu lists Galatoire family members David Gooch, Justin Frey and Michele Galatoire as the restaurant's managers, with no mention of Rodrigue.
He was hired with a mandate to increase revenues for a growing number of family shareholders, and even some of his detractors will admit that he has been successful in this mission. But the changes that have transpired under his watch have not always endeared him to the old-line regulars.
"I knew when I interviewed that (Galatoire's) needed a whole lot of help. The wiring in the walls looked like spaghetti," Rodrigue said. "People always say, 'Don't fix what's not broke.' Well, how do they you know what's broke?"
In many ways, Rodrigue's mandate was bound to bump up against Galatoire's waiter-driven culture. If all of your oldest customers like everything the same -- including their waiters -- the agent of change isn't going to be the most popular person in the room.
Thus in many of the letters, it doesn't take long for the subject of Eyzaguirre's firing to give way to conspiracy theories about a power struggle between Rodrigue and the waiters.
There is no question that the waiters at Galatoire's have power. Even after being fired, the years of accumulated good will left Eyzaguirre in what his supporters seemed to believe was a position of influence. One prominent local lawyer even asked to go off the record before admitting that he occasionally used waiters other than Eyzaguirre when he visited Galatoire's. More than one lawyer refused to comment on the matter due to the fact that they had been giving Eyzaguirre legal advice.
Lutz, a letter-writer and fierce Eyzaguirre advocate, paints the waiter's firing as merely the endgame of a Rodrigue power play.
"This was an opportunity for (Galatoire's) to get rid of somebody who was perhaps more popular than the restaurant itself," Lutz said. "I think Gilberto is a masterful artist, and I don't think Melvin had the management ability to handle him. Gilberto probably made more money than Melvin."
In a rageful, exclamation point-laden three-page letter, Galatoire's fixture Mickey Easterling takes exception with, among many other things, what she calls the management's "overt effort to get rid of all (one by one) the long-term dedicated wait staff by assigning them" to work in the upstairs dining room, a move Easterling claims serves the dual purpose of chasing off the "old-timers" who insist on eating in the original dining room downstairs.
It's a common complaint among Eyzaguirre supporters. Some feel that Rodrigue would rather fill tables with quick-eating tourists than with long-standing regulars who have the habit of lingering for hours on end. Eyzaguirre's firing is simply an extreme manifestation of a larger strategic plan at Galatoire's, their thinking goes. But for these conspiracy theorists to be correct, Galatoire's had to decide that firing its most experienced waiters is the key to its financial future -- certainly an unorthodox business strategy.
Rodrigue himself dismisses the theory as a claim too absurd to dignify.
"It's what this restaurant has been built around, the relationship forged between the waiter and the customer," he said. "We want that to go away like we want a hole in our head. It's what we are."
. . . . . . .
Capt. Hawley was among many regulars to send his letter directly to Galatoire's management immediately after Eyzaguirre's dismissal. In response, Hawley received a note signed by Rodrigue and John B. Gooch, the chairman of Galatoire's board.
"Based on your letter and others received from interested customers, the Board and management have conducted a complete review of the situation with Gilberto Eyzaguirre," the response letter read. "We do not believe that any further action is warranted."
But even as Galatoire's management stood firmly by its decision to fire Eyzaguirre, the protest letters continued to pour in to the restaurant and to Holditch, who had taken responsibility for compiling the letters in a bound volume. From the outset, the organizers proved adept at marshaling support for their cause. Holditch said artist George Dureau even offered to design signs for a protest that was discussed, but never took place.
Everyone involved waited anxiously for Galatoire's board to meet in early June to discuss, among other things, the letter writers' concerns.
Rodrigue, who is not a board member but attends its meetings, said the board voted unanimously to support his decision.
"We made a good decision," said Rodrigue. Lawyer Glorioso agrees.
"If they hire him back, they're really opening themselves up to liability," he said. "I don't care if they get a letter from God, they're not going to do it."
When asked how he felt about the news, Lutz responded, "I don't know. I'm still in healing mode. You go through stages with any sort of tragedy in your life."
Lutz, like many of Eyzaguirre's supporters, wouldn't commit to boycotting the restaurant.
"I fully intend to go back -- if they'll let me," he said "But I don't know what it's going to be in a month or a year. You hope that things change for the better. When they change for the worse, they don't usually last."
Holditch mentions the song "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" to illustrate what he feels is happening to Galatoire's.
He's still committed to finishing the book he's writing with Burton, but he can't bring himself to return to the restaurant he loves as much as New Orleans itself.
For anyone familiar with the famed Galatoire’s Restaurant on
Bourbon Street in the heart of the French Quarter, Gilberto’s reputation
precedes him. It was during his twenty-five year tenure as a waiter at
there that he made cocktails for his customers, which was part of the
Galatoire’s tradition. The restaurant has seen quite a few changes in
recent years, and the hiring of bartenders is one of them. But Gilberto
is from the era of Galatoire’s service when waiters chopped ice from
blocks, prepared Café Brulot tableside and became notorious for their
generously mixed cocktails served to their devoted customers. And what
customer wouldn’t be devoted to a waiter who could write their name in
flames on the tablecloth in front of them as he prepared a Café Brulot?
At Galatoire’s, beloved waiters not only gave excellent service, they
poured excellent drinks.
Date of interview: 2005-04-01 00:00
Interviewer: Amy Evans
Bang bang that awful sound – TP names the baby who shot…down
When she “was five and he was six” and they “rode on horses made of
sticks”, surely they didn’t ride into Galatoire’s to make the “awful
sound”!
On Friday afternoon, the convivial hum of a dozen
simultaneous conversations in the sanctum sanctorum of New Orleans’
social set, Galatoire’s, was pierced by the unfamiliar crackle of a
gunshot.
Luckily, no one was injured by the errant bullet, which apparently
was fired when a purse containing a .38-caliber pistol fell off a table
near the foyer and went off when it hit the floor. The bullet lodged
harmlessly in a panel of black wainscoting. Police came and took an
incident report. No one was arrested.
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