Common Grounds Coffeehouse and Cafe: The Best Damn Bre-fass In Quite A While…

Posted on October 15, 2006 by Varg

I just finished up the best damn bre-fas I have eaten in a long damn time. Common Grounds in Gretna, I salute you. Your Bayou Omelette has left me satisfied in both spirit and gustation. You atmosphere was everything one looks for in a coffeeshop. Your clientele was eclectic and friendly. Your menu was traditional yet inspired. Your staff was adept and courteous.

Back to that omelette, damn. It was full of flavor. Shrimps and crawfish, hollandaise and Zats. Warm grits and a heaping side of bacon. The more I devoured this thing, the more enthralled with its flavor I became.

Oh, and the 10 of the Big Easy Rollergirls were in there as well. And that was awesome.

Kitt had the eggs benedict and she said it was tasty too. Unfortunatly, she was battling a wine flu and we had to jam. No bother. I was engourged with my meal and giddy from the whole thing. And it was all just $18.

Cue the Sunday morning zydeco for the trip back the Pernt.

Common Grounds Coffeehouse & Cafe 335 Huey P Long Ave. Gretna (504) 227-2200

2 thoughts on “Common Grounds Coffeehouse and Cafe: The Best Damn Bre-fass In Quite A While…”

TM says:

November 1, 2006 at 1:59 am

Common Grounds is da bomb! They make a great burger too!
So, you live on the pernt? I’m in WB.
Varg says:

November 1, 2006 at 3:44 pm

People like to harass me because of my West BAnk existance. Hey, I’m just a ferry rider from the French Quarter. And it’s a nice ride too.

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.