It’s The 90’s, Dad – Midnight Menu +1 – It’s New Orleans
Calling Luke Deadnettlez a barista is a little like calling Richard Branson a businessman, or Mick Jagger a vocalist. While it s essentially true, the job description doesn t begin to do justice to the scope of their influence. Luke holds court daily at Zotz coffee shop on Oak Street. He doesn t own the place that distinction belongs to a couple Luke describes as “Old school New Orleans Goths” but Luke s been there for a decade and his brand of intensity, humor, politics, and ambiguous relationship with normalcy permeates the place to such a degree that Zotz has a brand as a New Orleans coffee shop every bit as defined as Starbucks brand. If Starbucks was a cave peopled by every type of Crescent City coffee drinker from a marginally functional crack addict to a Presbyterian pastor with a pompadour. Luke Deadnettlez two thirds of his real name given to him at birth in Prattville Alabama is a gay man in a loving relationship with a woman, the father of two children, a communist, permaculturist, universalist, ex acid swallowing ex Tulane architecture student who, if he doesn t and he probably does, should give thanks every day for the existence of New Orleans where he is able to live the life he wants and not just survive but thrive, shine and be a star in a caffeinated galaxy.