Griff's Great American South (2025) Season 1 Episode 5
We provide you with the best and latest movies. Follow us to watch good movies for free.
#movies #movie #film #films #cinema #indiefilm #filmlover #cinephile #moviebuff #moviereviews #películas #película #film #películas #cine #cineindie #fullfilm #freemovies #movie #film #engsub #webseries #bestwebseries #movies #newmovie #bestmovies #englishsubtitlesmovie #fullepisodes
We provide you with the best and latest movies. Follow us to watch good movies for free.
#movies #movie #film #films #cinema #indiefilm #filmlover #cinephile #moviebuff #moviereviews #películas #película #film #películas #cine #cineindie #fullfilm #freemovies #movie #film #engsub #webseries #bestwebseries #movies #newmovie #bestmovies #englishsubtitlesmovie #fullepisodes
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:01New Orleans
00:05New Orleans
00:10You're gonna get everything that you need
00:17Down in New Orleans
00:21This train, the train they call the city of New Orleans,
00:25left Chicago 8 o'clock yesterday, and in a very short time,
00:30we'll be coming into the city they call the city of New Orleans.
00:42The Great American South.
00:47From the Atlantic to the Gulf,
00:49and a few points in between in a runabout sort of way.
00:53Come with me, exploring its rich, its wondrous,
00:56and, let's face it, its sometimes troubled history.
01:01Rejoicing in the spiritual.
01:05And the creative.
01:06Now I have faith in welding.
01:08Wrapping myself in legend and myth.
01:11That's like a sort of American Gothic novel.
01:14Stuffing myself with southern food.
01:16And what is your secret?
01:18Meat.
01:20Meat.
01:25I want to explore America where the crawdads sing.
01:29By land, by air, by water.
01:32It promises to be uplifting, exciting, and very beautiful.
01:37I'm going with Griff.
01:39Yes, ma'am.
01:40The Great American South.
01:42I've changed my mind!
01:43Ours for the taking.
01:44Safe travels.
01:45I'm heading now as south as south could be, really.
02:04And we're crossing into Louisiana.
02:07And even the name of the state takes you back to colonial times
02:10because it's named for a French king.
02:14This train began running here in the 1940s.
02:18It's been scheduled every day since,
02:21leaving Chicago in the evening
02:23and arriving in the afternoon on the following day
02:27to the place nicknamed the city that cared for God.
02:30New Orleans, a place with such a convoluted history,
02:36it's a positive gumbo of cultures.
02:43New Orleans sits in the middle of a gigantic swamp.
02:49The true Mississippi Delta.
02:52The land it sits on is only 2,000 years old
02:57because it was created by the silt of the river.
03:07Well, I have arrived.
03:09Like millions before me who came here to make their fortunes
03:12by trade or by gambling or by any other means.
03:16Refugees from the Haitian Revolution or Irish or Germans
03:20and later Italian, Jewish and Asians.
03:23By the late 1800s, this was the third largest port in the US.
03:28An exit door for produce ferried down the Mississippi.
03:33It's been a wild town too since its early days.
03:37What if it's still naughty?
03:39This hotel seems an appropriate place to find out.
03:43Welcome to jail.
03:44Well, thank you very much.
03:46What a great idea.
03:47So tell me, am I going to stay in a cell block?
03:49You are going to stay in cell block B, in fact,
03:52which was the male cell block back when the property
03:54used to be an old jail.
03:55And when was that?
03:56So it was constructed in 1902.
03:59It was a jail all the way up to kind of the mid-60s.
04:02It was never a big, you know, penitentiary.
04:04There was no barbed wire and, you know, big walls outside.
04:08But yeah, they had police officers, patrolmen,
04:10and then they had a few cell blocks upstairs
04:13and a drunk tank lock up over here.
04:16Do you get old convicts coming back and saying,
04:18well, I had such a good time here.
04:20I must stay here a little bit longer.
04:22There's a lifter, Uber driver out there in New Orleans
04:25that has been locked up here.
04:27And he's had to, you know, he's dropped off plenty of people
04:29from the airport or from in the city.
04:31And he's come in and he's told them all about their stay.
04:33And I love when this guy comes back.
04:35It's such a funny idea.
04:36Yeah, I think he loves every time it pops up
04:38that he has to drop somebody off at the old jail.
04:41All right, so Griff, you are in cell block B.
04:45Okay, I get my main meal pushed in for a little.
04:48Yeah, yeah, bread and water.
04:49All right, great. Thank you very much.
04:51Oh, and listen, Griff, while you're in New Orleans,
04:53you know this is the big easy.
04:54Yes.
04:55All right, just remember, relax, chill out.
04:59Take things easy.
05:00Yes, of course, I'll take that as my challenge as I languish in my cell.
05:08Relax.
05:10And that's probably the most difficult challenge that I've ever had
05:13because I'm an uptight little Welsh person
05:15and with a tendency to manic behavior.
05:18But I'm prepared to have it a go
05:20because New Orleans is big easy.
05:25And it also has a bit of a sort of, well, a rakish reputation.
05:32It all dates from the 1940s
05:35when hundreds of thousands of sailors and soldiers
05:40came to this city and partied.
05:42And it got notorious.
05:44But that reputation is one of the reasons
05:48that tourists flock here.
05:52Anyway, I can't waste any time at all.
05:55I've got to get out there and be relaxed.
06:03But from my very first step outside,
06:06the streets become a circus of music and dance and people.
06:10Is this some sort of touristy put on?
06:13Not really.
06:1418 million visitors come to New Orleans each year.
06:17And one of the main reasons
06:19is that this place does a street parade like nowhere else on the planet.
06:24It seems to be the home of Mardi Gras.
06:29Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday.
06:33And traditionally, it's the Tuesday before Lent
06:36when fasting begins in the calendar of religious observance.
06:41And everybody starts eating all the fatty food.
06:44Or it shrove Tuesday, so we tend to eat pancakes.
06:49But here in New Orleans, it's traditionally celebrated by an enormous festival.
06:54Everybody starts parading around.
06:56And what are known as crews take floats out and make a carnival.
07:00And they do that for days on end.
07:03Now, this isn't the Tuesday in March that that happens.
07:09This is the first Sunday in December.
07:13But on that Sunday, this crew have a special parade.
07:19Rene?
07:31Yes, sir.
07:32Hello, I'm Griff.
07:33Hey, man, how you doing? Nice to meet you, man.
07:34I'm very pleased to meet you.
07:35You're looking magnificent.
07:37Oh, man, thank you. I appreciate it.
07:38That's really good.
07:39So all your crew, is this your crew here?
07:43Yes, this is Dumas Street Game Social and Pleasure Club.
07:46Why are you going out today?
07:49Well, today is our actual parade.
07:51We've been parading almost 27 years on today.
07:55Mardi Gras was, as you can imagine, originally a European and rather white event.
08:00This neighbourhood joined the parade more recently.
08:04Some of the decorum that we wear, the white dove that's on their shoulder,
08:07signifies the pioneers that have passed on,
08:10people that have passed on, have paved the way for this second-line culture.
08:14It's a resemblance of them.
08:16And somebody said to me there are nearly a hundred different festivals in New Orleans.
08:19You have a lot of different festivals.
08:21You have simplest from a jazz festival.
08:24Yeah.
08:25About all jazz to as small as a chicken festival.
08:28Right.
08:29New Orleans is all about being festive and having a festival.
08:32So what's the day hold? What's going to happen?
08:35A long day.
08:37This will be the most exciting four hours that you've possibly ever witnessed or ever seen.
08:43And everybody, come out and have a good time.
08:45The Dumaine Street Gang's parade honours people who have passed away.
09:00These so-called second-line parades began in black neighbourhoods as funeral processions.
09:18But they borrowed heavily from the city's Mardé Gras celebrations and now are used for everything,
09:24from weddings to community gatherings.
09:27And this is just the beginning.
09:39They've got a long way to go.
09:42This is no tourist jaunt.
09:49This parade will be a regular Sunday affair across months to come,
09:53with purpose and meaning.
09:55A bit like going to church.
09:57MUSIC PLAYS
10:14Well, I feel like a relaxed breakfast now.
10:17Maybe Creole or Cajun.
10:19Maybe gumbo, jambalaya, mufaleta, etouffee or po'boy.
10:25Just some of the choices in New Orleans, each with their own story.
10:30I'm on a streetcar now.
10:33And people use this.
10:36They're not just here for tourists.
10:37We're going down the main street.
10:39And in 1929, there was a famous strike.
10:45It lasted for a long time.
10:47And that strike still resonates today in the form of a New Orleans staple to the Po'boy sandwich.
10:54A local restaurant offered free food to the striking streetcar workers.
10:59And every time somebody came in, they would say,
11:03look, here comes another po'boy.
11:06And they would split open a piece of bread and fill it with food and hand it to them.
11:11The strike is long forgotten, but the po'boy continues as a culinary delicacy here in New Orleans.
11:21But search no more.
11:32I found what I'm after.
11:34Can you tell me, can I get a po'boy here?
11:36No, no, no, no, no.
11:37So you've got an alligator po'boy here?
11:38An alligator too, yeah.
11:39Oh, well, well, I bet, you know, I'd better try an alligator po'boy.
11:43I think I'm going to...
11:44All right, let's try an alligator po'boy.
11:46All right, okay.
11:47And I can carry it out?
11:48Yeah, you can carry it out.
11:49All right, okay.
11:50And I can use it as I go along.
11:51All right, that suits me.
11:52Great.
11:53Thank you very much.
11:55Po'boy, originally, it was food for people who had no money at all.
12:03And they were filled with fried oysters because the oysters were cheap.
12:07Now, my alligator po'boy is going to cost me a bit more, about $23.
12:18Get me some alligator and make it snappy.
12:25In truth, New Orleans is a pick and mix of culture.
12:35The state of which it is the capital originally stretched from the Mississippi mouth
12:40all the way to the Canadian borders.
12:43First, it was claimed a Spanish territory, then French, then Spanish, then French again.
12:51But this city had a key difference to other southern cities.
12:55It operated under French law, which meant that enslaved people here were allowed to earn their freedom.
13:03So, there is a distinct African influence as well.
13:08And you'll see this in the wonderful mix represented by the word Creole.
13:14Generally, many people think Creole is a racial mixture.
13:18It is not necessarily.
13:20Creole is a Portuguese word in origin that means native to this land.
13:24And it was used to differentiate people coming from Europe, coming into the New World, and being born here.
13:30So, you could have two African parents, two Portuguese parents, two Spanish parents,
13:35and be born here and be a Creole person.
13:38It just meant that you were born here within a specific time frame.
13:42So, if you were born in Louisiana prior to 1803, you're a Creole person.
13:46If you were born in Louisiana after 1803, you're a Creole descendant.
13:50Now, the year 1803 is significant.
13:54That was when Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana to the United States for 15 million US dollars in order to fund his European wars.
14:05But despite the sale, New Orleans maintains its French connection.
14:11But what's interesting for somebody who comes here is how the French idea has continued in New Orleans.
14:20I mean, the Americans arrived, well, 250 years ago, and it's been kept alive partly by those natives, those Creoles.
14:29Yes. France very actually did little for the development of the city.
14:33Spain developed New Orleans more than France did, but we are French loyalists.
14:38We, for the longest time, even I am very young, I consider France to be the motherland for some reason.
14:45That's extraordinary.
14:46Kim is an amazing, passionate advocate for the idea of the identity of Creole people and the nature of New Orleans.
15:01This is a city that is not as laid-back, easy-going, fun-loving as some people might like it to be.
15:14It's got a complicated history and a history in which people of colour and Creoles have played an enormous inventive part.
15:24Ever since the Europeans arrived, it's hardly been laid-back at all.
15:34It was the third busiest port in the whole of America.
15:40People came here for work from all over the world, Italians, Irish, and interestingly, quite a lot from Canada, from another French part, Nova Scotia.
15:53They're called the Arcadians, and when people talk of Cajun stuff, they mean Canadian stuff.
15:59Canadian French-speaking food and influences.
16:03There's no relaxing for me in this heady mix.
16:10Down in New Orleans.
16:16Yeah, it's right this way.
16:18Another great French tradition to explore is a simple game they call POC, which evolved into what we now call POC.
16:27Yeah, I got room for two more. I got my buddy Griff here who wants to play.
16:30Hey, you got cash?
16:33I got some cash.
16:35Uh, you got room for two, right?
16:37Yeah, yeah.
16:38Cool. Yeah, would you deal me in for 300, please?
16:40My friend C has invited me to a friendly game of chance.
16:44They're playing 1-3, no limit, hold'em cash.
16:51So, see, for you, like, poker was a sort of hobby, was it?
16:55When I'm playing poker, I'm not thinking about work, not thinking about the wife, not thinking about bills.
17:01It's just an escape, man. You can make some money out of it, too, so...
17:04If you get lucky.
17:06Three dollars.
17:09Okay, I'm folding. Yeah.
17:12I see. I'm doing surprisingly well here, but...
17:16The truth is, now, this is a game of poker, which is completely different to games of poker that I play.
17:21I mean, essentially, we're still playing poker, we're still trying to get the same hands,
17:25but there are certain conventions, like the way the ante is done and this blind is passed around,
17:30which is completely new to me.
17:31So, let me match this.
17:33You guys, how often will you play poker?
17:37Once or twice a week, up to every day.
17:40Some people like it, like it so much.
17:43Some people, professional, yeah.
17:45Yeah.
17:46C considers himself a semi-professional player.
17:49Last year, I made, let's say, I made $17,000.
17:53That's probably not going to be a trend, it's going to go up and down from there, but...
17:57Yeah.
17:58Last year was really good.
18:00Opening bets down, we begin.
18:02Uh, yeah, I'll go five.
18:05C's bought his A game, not giving anything away.
18:09Interesting.
18:10Fifteen.
18:11Fifteen.
18:12Fifteen.
18:13And I can tell he's got his eye on my pot of money.
18:17I'll race you, whatever that is.
18:20Uh, I'm all in.
18:22Oh, boy, here we go.
18:24He is all in, which means...
18:26C stakes everything he has.
18:28He doesn't know what I have in my hand, and I have no idea what's in his.
18:32This is called, and now he's raising you for the rest, if you wish to continue.
18:37For the rest?
18:38Already?
18:39Already?
18:40Already?
18:41Already?
18:42That's crazy.
18:43A moment of truth with the turn of the cards.
18:46Will I lose my shirt as well?
18:48I'd love to see what you have.
18:49Oh, yes, a hidden pair of kings wins me the day.
18:57Yeah, I called C's bluff and took home the pot.
19:00Yeah, but I go on to win two more hands.
19:03Oh, buddy, you killed it.
19:04Good job.
19:05So, uh, you...
19:06It was beginner's luck.
19:07And it's never good poker etiquette to leave a table mid-game, so I spread the winnings
19:12around.
19:13The tip was about 50, was it?
19:15If you decided that, then...
19:16Yeah, that's fine.
19:17And if everybody wants a drink, that's probably a good idea.
19:20I know.
19:21Steve, thank you for bringing me here.
19:22I've had a great, great time.
19:24Yeah, I bet.
19:26Bye-bye.
19:27Have a really good next 15 hours.
19:29That's all I like, because I know these games are never short.
19:32You'll see that and get happy.
19:34I know!
19:35See you, buddy.
19:39All right, well, over the last year, I've consistently started playing poker again.
19:45And those were the best hands I've had ever.
19:53So, as you can imagine, that hasn't relaxed me.
19:57That's just made me rather alarmed.
20:04Bourbon Street.
20:05And just to emphasise the French influence here, engineer Adrien de Pouget laid out the streets
20:25of New Orleans in 1721.
20:27He chose one to carry the name of the French royal family ruling at the time.
20:32Rue Bourbon.
20:34It sits in the heart of the French Quarter, and they've been dancing in the street here
20:39just about ever since.
20:41We're experiencing a sort of rival cacophonies of noise competing for our attention as we
20:50walk our way down through the French Quarter at night.
20:54But the point is that this was Big Easy for jazz musicians originally.
21:03They called it Big Easy because it was a place where they could relax and play music, and it's
21:09the home of jazz.
21:12The foundation of everything we understand from syncopated rhythm and blaring trumpets was
21:21established right here in these clubs on these streets.
21:26So, does that jazz as easy still continue?
21:37Is this still a place to play what you want, earn what you want, and get what you want?
21:44Hello, guys.
21:45Hi, hi.
21:46So, now, you come from a tradition of Italian jazz players, do you?
21:51Correct, correct.
21:52Yeah, so tell me about that.
21:53Well, my grandfather, Papa Jack, had two boys, Frank and Freddie, and they ended up creating
21:57the Dukes of Dixieland, which was the number one jazz band in the country.
22:00Played on Ed Sullivan three times.
22:02They were the first white group that ever played and toured with Louis Armstrong.
22:05I mean, Louis used to come to our house when I was kids.
22:07I've got pictures of all of us kids sitting on Louis' lap and things like that.
22:10When he came in, everybody was just, it was just a fun time.
22:13And no pretensions whatsoever.
22:15They were just good friends.
22:17And I've been going around New Orleans trying to find out if it's true that
22:21Big Easy means laid back and sort of, you know, relaxed and cool.
22:27But the truth is, traditional jazz is quite an agitated music, isn't it?
22:33What I mean by that is it's quite a lively music, generally.
22:36Yeah.
22:37Oh, it's very upbeat, for sure.
22:38The old style back in the 20s and the 30s may have been a little more slow movement.
22:42But as it's progressed, and Jim will probably attest to this, is that it picked its pace up.
22:47And more groovy, more double-timed, and just sparked it up a bunch.
22:51As it got, you know, the younger guys got into it.
22:53Did it start in New Orleans?
22:55I think, I think yes.
22:57I think that most historians will say that it started in New Orleans for one big reason.
23:01Right.
23:02Port City, just after the turn of the century.
23:04Most important port city, probably in the south.
23:07You had so many people coming in.
23:08You had the French, you had the Italians, you had Africans.
23:11Every ethnicity coming and they brought their music.
23:15And that's how the music evolved that day.
23:17Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood that jazz had some of its origin in the sort of music that was played in parades that followed funerals.
23:25Is that true, do you think?
23:26In a second line, they'd do a dirge and then they'd obviously break into the happiness and the joy to celebrate their life.
23:32They will join in together on the streets and perform as one unit, even though they've never seen the person they're playing next to before.
23:38Many times you don't know the person until you shake hands on the bandstand.
23:41Was that military as well, do you think?
23:44They would recycle their instruments, from what I've read, about every ten years, especially the Naval Academy, the band.
23:50So those musical instruments would end up in pawn shops and people would go and they'd pick up a horn for five bucks, six bucks.
23:57And to quote the great Ellis Marsalis, they'd go out on the street and they'd play, they'd learn to play, because music was always a good street hustle.
24:04You could get a couple of pennies thrown in the head if you could carry a tune and play well.
24:09If you graduated, you'd get into a bar and you'd join a band.
24:13That's exactly how Lewis Armstrong did it.
24:16That's how Lewis Armstrong did it.
24:17That's how Lewis got in there, that's exactly right.
24:19I'm going to hear you guys now, I hope.
24:21I hope that.
24:22So this is one of the places where I can hear it.
24:23Amen.
24:24That's right.
24:25Time to get nice.
24:26That's on then.
24:27Where's my white hankie?
24:28I've got to get one of these.
24:29What are we doing?
24:32Woo!
24:33You may have noticed in some of the previous episodes that I've, I've got to get one of these.
24:37Whenever a bit of music has been played.
24:38But here, in...
24:39I've got to get one of these.
24:40Time to get nice.
24:42That's on then.
24:43Where's my white hankie?
24:44I'm going to get one of these.
24:45I've got to get one of these.
24:46Oh, what are we doing?
24:50You may have noticed in some of the previous episodes that I've joined in whenever a bit
25:03of music has been played, but here in Big Easy, I'm afraid what these guys do is far from easy.
25:20Well, it's pretty quiet now in the French Quarter and I thought it never got quiet here,
25:34but it's night and spirits are abroad. New Orleans is known as a centre for voodoo, partly
25:45because of films like James Bond and Pirates of the Caribbean, but partly because the local
25:50tourist board thought they'd encouraged the whole idea in the 1960s. So how authentic is
25:58the voodoo or hoodoo hereabouts? I thought I'd go and see the local priestess to find out.
26:15Welcome, welcome. So what brings you here? Well, I'm travelling through New Orleans,
26:34and I just thought there's so much. There are so many stories, there's so many films that feature
26:41voodoo in Louisiana, and I thought it was important to come and find out a little bit
26:46about it. Okay, a little bit more of the truth about it.
26:49Possibly, yeah. Instead of a James Bond movie stuff. Exactly.
26:53Double-O voodoo. Yeah. So tell me, what sort of voodoo do you practice here?
26:58Do so well? Yeah.
26:59So you've got New Orleans voodoo, and obviously that's a focal point for us. I'm from New Orleans,
27:05born and raised. But the path that voodoo took to get here, you start in Africa, and when the enslaved
27:15were taken to the New World, you have New Orleans becoming part of that story. They brought their
27:23traditions with them, clung on to those traditions to survive. For a while, it had to be a fairly
27:30secret in this part of the world. Very much. The practice was masked behind the Catholic
27:37practice. The slaves were forced to practice Catholicism. So a slave master would come in
27:44and see Catholic imagery and representations looks like they were just practicing Catholicism,
27:51but they were really honoring their own spirits.
27:54We often associate voodoo with hexes and curses, but practitioners decide whether they administer
28:04white magic or black. Is that true about your following voodoo rituals in order to achieve things
28:12for yourself? Let's say you come to me, like, I got a crappy boss, and I want to hurt him. So we always
28:19say, well, you point the one finger out, and how many are pointing back at you?
28:23More. So it's a boomerang. What you put out is going to come back to you. And that's us. That's not
28:31how everyone's going to practice. Somebody said, you know, they went to see a voodoo priest to see
28:36if the football team could do a little better. We do that. We love the New Orleans Saints. No shame
28:44in our game, okay? I mean, I don't have a crisis, but if I were to say to you, what blessing could you
28:50give me what help could you give me? Can we, can we do something together? The first thing we really
28:54need to do is introduce you to the spirits, and then we're going to get a feel for what is going to
29:01best serve you this evening. So it all starts with us pouring libations and talking to spirits. Right.
29:08And that's what we're going to do. Do I need to be naked for that or just, no? Wait, wait, wait.
29:12Well, libations. Yes, he does. Libations sound like I need to have things poured over me,
29:18but what shall I do? I'll take my coat off just to get comfortable. Yeah, please get comfortable.
29:22Yes, I think that's not a bad idea.
29:30Take a little sip.
29:33Comfortable, but not exactly relaxed. How easy is this going to be?
29:38And we're going to do a little cleansing for you. Give the cigar.
29:42And where there's smoke.
29:49He needs a fire. He needs passion.
29:53All right, you need to go through the fire.
30:03You've got to step through the fire.
30:05Step on it, step on it.
30:06Oh, no.
30:07Go.
30:08Walk, walk, it's okay.
30:09Walk, walk, walk.
30:10Yeah, this is definitely not a very soothing or relaxing experience.
30:14Hey, hey, hey, mama ocean.
30:17Hey, hey, hey, mama ocean.
30:21So, how do you feel?
30:23I feel good.
30:25A little bit damp.
30:27I was just nervous that I might suddenly catch into flames, but...
30:30No, no, no, no.
30:32But anyway, thank you very much.
30:34Bye, y'all.
30:36Bye-bye.
30:37Safe travels.
30:39All right.
30:40We got some more voodoo to do.
30:41Later, y'all.
30:42Well, I'm cleansed and reek of perfume and alcohol.
30:48Rather like one of those ladies of the night on Bourbon Street.
30:56Now, New Orleans is clearly an endless city of parades and parties for visitors.
31:01For those who live here day in, day out, ever present is the very real threat that this is not an easy natural environment, to put it mildly.
31:14My destination, the ocean, is about 30 miles in that direction, but sometimes the ocean is about 20 feet in that direction, because more than half of the city of New Orleans is actually below sea level.
31:40This can be a catastrophic problem when one of the regular big hurricanes hits home.
31:47In 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore through here.
31:5480% of New Orleans was underwater, and this whole suburb was flattened.
31:59Charities like Rebuilding Together started rebuilding homes straight after the storm, and 25 years later, they're still at it.
32:09This is a strong spirit of community, and something to appreciate.
32:16When Katrina came, the flooding control systems failed.
32:20Was that the big...
32:21Yes, engineering failure.
32:22Yeah.
32:23200,000 homes flooded.
32:24Yeah.
32:25Can you say within an area around here, there are still... how many houses that people need work on?
32:29There's about 20,000 homes that are still blighted.
32:3220,000?
32:33Yeah, about 10% of the homes that flooded never came back.
32:37We have about 800 homeowners currently on our waiting list.
32:43Just with this house...
32:44Yeah.
32:45What are you retaining?
32:46Nothing.
32:47Nothing.
32:48So you've started all over again.
32:49Yeah, so this is a very traditional New Orleans design.
32:53Yeah.
32:54And so essentially, we've just driven the piles 30 feet to the sand strata, which is essentially how to make sure that the foundation is solid.
33:02And we've tied the framing system directly into the pierce.
33:05And are you reasonably confident that if the levees go or the pumps fail, this house, the water might even rise above this level?
33:15We're built a foot above the base flood elevation.
33:18Right.
33:19Essentially, we're building above when Katrina happened.
33:22Take me to meet Anthony.
33:23Absolutely.
33:24Right.
33:25So, yeah.
33:26The man taking possession of this house is Anthony.
33:28His original home was destroyed by Katrina, and he's been displaced ever since.
33:33Just storms, one after another, came through.
33:36The hurricane...
33:37The first one was the big one was Katrina.
33:38Yeah, Katrina.
33:39Oh, man.
33:40The whole house was gone.
33:42Gone.
33:43The Katrina agent took it completely out.
33:45It was really a hard time then.
33:47And a few years later, I started trying to get some help.
33:51Somehow or another, they got me on board.
33:53I don't know what happened.
33:54They got me on board.
33:55They said, we'll build you a new house.
33:58I'm glad I stuck it out, but now look what I got.
34:03Anthony, this house is going to be secure again.
34:05Secure.
34:06This is where I'm going to be here until I go.
34:08Until I leave this early.
34:09Come high winds or weather or storms or whatever.
34:12Right, right.
34:13This is going to hold up.
34:15What's your favorite spot going to be?
34:17The porch.
34:18My real porch.
34:19This is where I'm going to be.
34:20It's nice and secluded, hit away.
34:22Yeah.
34:23Nobody knows I'm nice and quiet.
34:24Yeah.
34:25And my sister lives next door.
34:27I'm planning on cutting the gate in here.
34:29Yeah.
34:30So that she can just come on in, you know.
34:31Right.
34:32Yeah, yeah.
34:33I love meeting you, Anthony.
34:37What a great man.
34:38And what a great house.
34:41But it's another reason not to be too relaxed, isn't it?
34:48This can be quite an unsettling place.
34:51In Louisiana, you have to get a boat.
35:05It's a big part of belonging and the best way to get out of New Orleans and into the bayou.
35:10And in the bayou, you sleep all day and the catfish play, according to Roy Orbison.
35:16It's the ultimate laid-back, easy-going hinterland of swampy Louisiana.
35:23Look at this.
35:25This is the largest body of water in Louisiana.
35:28It's called Lake Pontchartrain.
35:31And this bridge is crazy.
35:37This bridge just goes on and on and on.
35:40It takes about 30 minutes to cross it.
35:44This is a great experience, though.
35:47It's got a sort of bailout point.
35:49So you get here, you go,
35:51I can't be bothered to cross any more of this bridge.
35:54I'm tired of it.
35:55I'm just going to turn round and go back.
35:57And there's one turn-round-and-go-back point.
36:01Halfway across what is the longest bridge over water in the entire world.
36:09It's almost 24 miles long.
36:13And an example of American can-do engineering
36:17in as much as it probably cost the GDP of Belgium to build.
36:22There we are.
36:23Coming to the end now.
36:26I feel like, you know, a pirate going,
36:28Land ho!
36:32Anyway, we've made land.
36:34We're here.
36:36And it's here that I'm picking up my lift to get down to the bayou proper.
36:42The swamp world at the edge of America.
36:46I'm intrigued.
36:47I have no idea what the legendary place really feels like.
36:50Is this the South's Shangri-La?
36:54Crystal, hi.
36:55Hello.
36:56Here we are.
36:58Good hard push on the bow out.
37:00Copy.
37:01Griff, if you could just push that bow off.
37:03Beautiful.
37:05Pull our fenders up.
37:08And we're off.
37:10These waters were formed by thousands of years of Mississippi River
37:15shifting its course, creating vast bodies of water like this.
37:22Well, we're out on the lake now, on the Poncho Train Lake.
37:26But I'm heading for a sort of margarita moment.
37:30I'm heading to the bayou.
37:32The lakes, the smaller channels, the boggy swamps,
37:38home to alligators and birds and fish and reptiles and adventurous people like Crystal.
37:47So, Crystal, do all these creeks, do they silt up?
37:50Um, not really.
37:51The bayou has a lot of movement to it, so it tends to stay pretty deep in the middle.
37:55You come in the summer, this is all gators.
37:58In the spring at night, you can shine a flashlight and you see just a bunch of tiny, beady red eyes from all the little alligator babies.
38:06It's a little scary.
38:08Sometimes here, um, deer swim across, which is always pretty funny to see.
38:12Right.
38:13You don't expect that with the gators.
38:15They're here now, they're just hiding because it's cold.
38:17We've got gators, turtles, lizards, snakes.
38:21But there are extensive lakes and bayous around here that you can just endlessly go to.
38:27There is a lot of...
38:29Hey, a gator.
38:30There's a gator.
38:31Oh, yeah, look at him.
38:32That's a little guy.
38:33He's come out because it's sunny.
38:34It's rare to see in this temperature.
38:35He's trying.
38:36To warm up.
38:38You've been advertised to me as being a looper who's gone around and done an incredible journey by boat.
38:42Strangely enough, yeah.
38:43So we bought a boat, like, outside of Chicago and came all the way down the river system, popped out into the Gulf of Mexico.
38:50And then each summer, because it gets too hot here, we go from North Carolina up to Block Island, which is off the coast of Rhode Island.
38:58Beautiful place.
39:00And then when it starts to get cold, we come back down.
39:02But it's beautiful.
39:03So you're literally migrating like birds?
39:05Yeah.
39:06And then you come back.
39:07And the beauty of it is we work on the boats, too.
39:09So we work on boats here, we go up there, we work on boats there.
39:12What are you seeking?
39:16Nothing.
39:17I don't know.
39:18I found it.
39:19You're like a nomad.
39:20Yeah.
39:21And quite a lot of time just at sea with nothing but the boat and David.
39:26Yeah.
39:27Yeah.
39:29They're sometimes called sleeping waters because they're slow moving.
39:32No fast rushing streams in here.
39:43It's been wonderful.
39:44Despite the alligators and the snakes, Crystal seems to embrace the sleepy bio vibe.
39:50Can I?
39:51Cheerio.
39:52Enjoy.
39:53Bye-bye.
39:55Night is coming on.
39:56It's time to try my hand at a local diversion.
40:01And what if an alligator comes along?
40:03No, you can't shoot an alligator.
40:04Wait a minute.
40:05We don't shoot the alligator.
40:06All right.
40:07Okay.
40:08That's not the season.
40:09Okay.
40:10It's just the most bizarre thing I've ever done.
40:15Setting off into the darkness, propelled by a giant propeller.
40:25I'm going windy night fishing in shallow waters.
40:28We level off the odds by giving me a bow and arrow.
40:34But in this shallow swamp, first, we've got to employ our giant fan.
40:50Many of the waterways of the south now contain invasive species like Asian carp.
40:56Now you're ready to shoot.
40:57Now you just hold on to the bow.
40:59Bow fishing was legalized as a sport as one way to control them.
41:03Conditions are ideal at night.
41:05We want to be aiming low, about six inches below the fish.
41:09I understand.
41:10All right.
41:11Yes.
41:12So now we're just cruising looking for them.
41:15Keep an eye out.
41:16Keep an eye out.
41:20We're on the boat, front right.
41:22Keep an eye out on the front right.
41:23Okay.
41:25There are fish swimming everywhere.
41:27Swimming for their lives, but they're all small fish.
41:30All right.
41:32Front left.
41:33Come over here.
41:34Front left.
41:35Over here.
41:36Over here.
41:37There he is.
41:39Oh!
41:40Oh!
41:41That was close.
41:42Not good enough.
41:43Okay.
41:44Not a bad shot.
41:45You saw just a little high.
41:47A little high.
41:49I should have tried to go lower.
41:51Not a bad shot.
41:53One came off on the left.
41:56Could be on either side.
42:02Oh!
42:03Oh!
42:04Oh!
42:05He swam away.
42:06Keep an eye out up here.
42:08We're going to turn around.
42:10Make a little spin.
42:11This is like being in a fun fair where, despite the encouragement...
42:15On the right.
42:16On the right.
42:17Cat.
42:18Big cat.
42:19Big catfish.
42:20Shoot him.
42:21I actually have no chance of winning the fluffy toy.
42:22Oh!
42:23A little high.
42:24A little high.
42:25It came right in the boat.
42:26I think we have a combination of three things here.
42:29We have angling, archery, and incompetence.
42:35And the incompetence is definitely winning.
42:40Somehow, when I came along originally, I thought this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel,
42:46but these fish will all live to breed or do whatever they do another day.
42:54Frankly, these fish would survive in a teacup with me firing at them.
42:59So I guess that's bow fishing for you.
43:02Just to say, no fish were harmed during the making of this programme.
43:11Well, we stayed out all night.
43:13We've caught nothing.
43:15So decided to try and catch the dawn instead.
43:18We're going all the way down to get to the end.
43:22Can we actually get beyond the miles and miles of swamp, through the half-land, the estuarine mix of Louisiana,
43:29to meet the whole sea and to look out at the gulf ahead?
43:34Virtually to the very edge of the bayou here.
43:46I've left New Orleans way behind me.
43:50What an incredible town.
43:52I think it's virtually impossible to relax there.
43:57Not only does it live on a sort of precipice, with a hurricane dew virtually every year that might devastate it,
44:04but it's also a place that parties on and it enjoys itself.
44:11There's no doubt about that.
44:12But you need to put a huge amount of commitment into staying up till three in the morning,
44:18playing music or parading around the town.
44:21Here, I can finally relax.
44:31And I think I understand what Big Easy really means in Louisiana.
44:36It means easy going.
44:38It's an open toleration of different cultures, influences, backstories and food.
44:47They're easy about all that stuff, where the crawdads sing.
44:52And so am I.
44:55Griff, can you bring that sail in?
44:57Okay.
44:58I'm bound for Charleston, the Old South.
45:01Cheerio.
45:03I don't know what I expected.
45:04To unravel the history that's made that place what it is today.
45:22So, I appreciate your support.
45:24Your thoughts?
45:28ient thee.
45:30Your thoughts.
45:32You, the leaders, Iords eynInstitut
45:36Have you mastered this?
45:37I think you have to support a part of your life?
45:39You decide questions your thoughts.
45:40Please remember to challenge all your actions.
45:44Let's begin.
45:45I thought you are Catholic.
45:47Step 13 again.
45:48Your thoughts are acc compass.
Recommended
48:00
|
Up next
44:35
46:36
1:02:40
40:59
50:21
1:05:58
40:53
40:40
52:17
53:10
46:36
1:08:50
1:09:37
1:14:01
Be the first to comment