Helen Gillet leads her band, The Wazozo Zorchestra, she’s a solo jazz and experimental cello player, is originally from Belgium, grew up in Singapore and Chicago, and lives in New Orleans. What else could you say about anybody that could be more unique and interesting than all of that? How about that Helen lived for a time in Madison Wisconsin where she was in an all-girl punk band called The Koochies? Even better, that she was the drummer.

Helen also tells the story of her one and only Match.com blind date. 

How about this for a coincidence? Like Helen Gillet, Angela Catalano and Travis Bird also lived for a time in Wisconsin – Milwaukee – and, unlike Helen, they’re both Vegan. 

Not only that but they’re also opening a new indie cinema in New Orleans – Shotgun Cinema – and they’re dating. 

Travis also plays guitar and Helen joined him on an improvised treat.

Arita Bohanan’s first novel, Docket No. 76,  has just been published. The novel combines Arita’s early experiences as a victim of child sexual abuse and her current experience as a successful New Orleans trial attorney.

In the novel, Arita lives out her revenge fantasy telling the story of an Assistant D.A. who is given the case of prosecuting a man for sexually abusing a child, only to discover when she confronts him in court that he is also the man who sexually abused her as a child.

The Casa Borrega bourbon ice tea cocktails fuel a free-wheeling conversation that swings from dating to sexual abuse to the Koochies and other inhabitants of Wisconsin basements.

All the photos on this page are taken by The Sensational Aqua Man, aka our Happy Hour photographer, Douglas Engel.