They Still Call me Suitcase - Happy Hour - It's New Orleans

Melinda Palacio was 2 when she realized she wasn t a suitcase. She was to spend the next 15 or so years in South Central Los Angeles growing up witnessing kids getting shot on her front porch in a drive by, her father in jail for attempted murder, and her mother dying at the hands of incompetent doctors at Kaiser who were treating her for allergies when she had a terminal kidney disease. Melinda used first reading then writing as a coping mechanism. Coping has turned into a career. Melinda has a successful career as a writer with books of poetry and a novel, Ocotillo Dreams. Oh, and if you ever wondered if you twist your foot all the way around like a cartoon character, the answer is yes. "OMG" was created for this story. Jeremy "Mojo" Phipps grew up with his own family tales of murder and jail. Jeremy s brother, a successful NOLA rapper back in the heyday of Master P s No Limit Records, is doing time for a crime everybody knows he didn t commit. Jeremy came back from working in Los Angeles to be with his family as the case gets closer to being overturned. And Jeremy s moving on from his longest running project, Saint Bell, and starting a new band. Jordan Barnett fell in love with New Orleans from the defense table in a court room while his wife gutted flooded houses post Katrina. Volunteering in New Orleans as a public defender Jordan leveraged his huge salary as a bi coastal public defender if you call Philadelphia and New Orleans coastal and bought an apartment. Now he s about as local as you can get without going to high school here. Happy birthday to our Tech Director Chris Kehoe Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.