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00:00:00 The first law the Americans tear up was the silly law you had to be Catholic.
00:00:04 Catholic was mandated, Catholicism, by the French and Spanish kings.
00:00:09 The United States said no more forced Catholicism. No more kings, no more queens.
00:00:14 We have a constitution, there's freedom of religion, there's Jews coming, and Protestants,
00:00:19 and Presbyterians, you name it. Look to your left. You don't think these people were making
00:00:23 money on cotton? You don't think they were making millions of dollars on cotton?
00:00:28 Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to show you wealth that's going to make you jump out of your
00:00:32 shoes. I want to tell you where the money's coming from. It's coming from cotton, it's coming from
00:00:37 sugar, and it's coming from slave labor. The Mississippi River, it's one of the most beautiful
00:00:44 words I've ever come across in language. The Native American Indians pronounced it Mississippi
00:00:50 with a Z sound. We say Mississippi, same word. Guess what it means? Happy of all rivers. Isn't
00:00:57 that a beautiful word to give to that river? It's about a half a mile wide and 200 feet deep in New
00:01:03 Orleans.
00:01:05 [Music]
00:01:08 [Music]
00:01:10 [Music]
00:01:12 (music playing)
00:01:39 (inaudible)
00:02:00 This is such a mathematical algorithm. Clementine is missing her check-in date.
00:02:06 Does that make sense? Just like a hotel register?
00:02:09 Four people down, Alice pulls the same shenanigan.
00:02:13 Get this, four people down, Gerard, a male, pulls the same shenanigan.
00:02:18 Four people down, Azama pulls the shenanigan.
00:02:21 You know what the shenanigan was?
00:02:23 (inaudible)
00:02:29 We knew she was 72 and not 68.
00:02:33 And then that tomb over here is up with a hammer, and there's a casket right on the other side.
00:02:38 Now they are using fiberglass panels to keep out the protein.
00:02:43 Well, my family will never find out about that.
00:02:46 (inaudible)
00:02:49 It's a hard border you're in.
00:02:51 But any money from the Vatican, they can take no money from anybody.
00:02:55 If you don't buy their cinnamon rolls or their biscuits or whatever they're selling, that's it.
00:03:01 So they're all buried there.
00:03:03 Any questions about it?
00:03:05 And look, if you can't afford a two-bedroom condo, you wouldn't look so hot.
00:03:11 (inaudible)
00:03:18 Does that make sense?
00:03:19 That's why you keep two bedrooms in rotation, or this family, just four bedrooms in rotation.
00:03:25 (inaudible)
00:03:36 Now you have six problems.
00:03:38 What they do in that case is try and offer a casket.
00:03:41 (inaudible)
00:03:44 When we left, they would put two bodies in the family tomb, four bodies in the mausoleum down there.
00:03:51 And then in the year and a day later, you get a beautiful letter from the cemetery saying they moved the body.
00:03:56 Does that make sense?
00:03:57 So just a chunk of stone, you get a mass of body, but you've got to move the body.
00:04:02 (inaudible)
00:04:03 Just because she starts winning and winning is after this, doesn't mean that her people will get the drugs or the blood right.
00:04:13 If you get a body, you're going to want it.
00:04:15 Does that make sense?
00:04:16 But you have to move the body.
00:04:17 From now on, I want you to pay close attention to the bottom base of the statue.
00:04:22 See that little two-inch surfboard?
00:04:25 That's the artist.
00:04:27 That's the artist.
00:04:28 Now we're going to go on to the surfboard.
00:04:29 (inaudible)
00:04:37 The problem is angels are the most difficult to find.
00:04:41 They're usually expensive.
00:04:43 You know, somebody is going to pay you $60,000 for an angel, male or female.
00:04:48 That's good money, and that's the kind of great.
00:04:51 But the statue is going to have wings coming out the shoulder blade.
00:04:54 The wings are going to make the statue fall back.
00:04:57 Does that make sense?
00:04:58 The only solution is probably to be a little awkward, but make a dolly carton of angel.
00:05:04 A balance will work out.
00:05:06 But the lake has a notion that we need to regulate it.
00:05:10 You know what the rules are. Angels must be flat-chested.
00:05:14 There can be no conical shape to the breast of an angel whatsoever, whether it's a painting.
00:05:20 If you don't do it wrong, they're not going to buy you.
00:05:22 Does that make sense?
00:05:23 Because it has wings. Music has wings, too.
00:05:26 Notice all angels are flat-chested.
00:05:28 That doesn't work with the artist.
00:05:30 Notice this angel is standing in profile.
00:05:33 She's just like an A-20 aircraft where her wings are coming out the fuselage,
00:05:39 and she's leaning ever so forward.
00:05:41 One of my favorite angels is the one on the corner, the little pin angel,
00:05:45 that has a nice pair of wings breaking down.
00:05:48 One of the first part of that piece is leaning forward and out of balance.
00:05:51 The wings.
00:05:52 You might think you have to go to heaven to walk amongst the angels,
00:06:08 but many people can do just that by visiting their local cemetery.
00:06:12 These memorial grounds hold some of the most beautiful angel sculpture in the world,
00:06:16 all carved in the memory of someone who was loved.
00:06:20 The old burial grounds of Connecticut and Massachusetts
00:06:23 contain some of the earliest tombstones in America.
00:06:26 You'll find angels carved in the simple Puritan style.
00:06:30 You may also see what, to modern eyes, looks frightening, winged skulls.
00:06:35 This was the symbol of "Memento Mori," or "Remember Death,"
00:06:39 the symbol which encouraged mourners to contemplate their own mortality.
00:06:43 Visitors to New Orleans are sure to be familiar with the Weeping Angel,
00:06:47 inspired by William Wetmore Story's Angel of Grief in Rome.
00:06:52 She's found in the mausoleum of Chapman Henry Hyams,
00:06:55 a stockbroker and art collector.
00:06:58 The mausoleum is made of granite from the quarries of Stone Mountain, Georgia.
00:07:02 Blue glass-stained windows are positioned to cast light on the statue,
00:07:07 a monument to Hyams' sisters.
00:07:09 The Weeping Angel is the most famous angel in New Orleans,
00:07:13 but she is far from the only one,
00:07:15 in this city home to countless heavenly messengers.
00:07:19 Just a mile away from downtown Houston, Texas,
00:07:22 you'll find the rolling landscape of Glenwood Cemetery,
00:07:25 home to the avenging angel who stands by the grave of William Donovant.
00:07:30 When Donovant was gunned down by a former business partner,
00:07:33 his sister commissioned this steely-eyed, sword-brandishing angel
00:07:37 to protect him in death.
00:07:39 In Colma, California, lies the City of Silent.
00:07:43 When San Francisco outlawed the building of cemeteries within its borders,
00:07:47 the dead and the angels came here.
00:07:51 For some, a city of the dead is strictly for Halloween.
00:07:55 To those who love angel sculpture, a graveyard is a museum without walls,
00:08:00 a peaceful place where angels are always waiting.
00:08:05 Fluids flowing.
00:08:06 When you're in tropical--I'm telling you,
00:08:08 sub-tropical environments, you're going to hit the ground,
00:08:11 and there's just no if and but about it.
00:08:14 Listen left.
00:08:15 Right in front of the--right in front of the Sheraton,
00:08:18 the Marriott, and Canal Street, all the streetcars are running.
00:08:21 Stop and take the City Park streetcar.
00:08:24 It ends right here.
00:08:26 Take your friends and family over the bridge at the cemetery,
00:08:29 then take them to the Museum of Art,
00:08:31 and the cafe right behind it, the Regal York, is a thing.
00:08:35 Did you know that there's--we're over 1,200 acres?
00:08:39 And there was a genius by the name of Olmsted.
00:08:42 I thought he was from England, but he wasn't.
00:08:45 He was an American with an English name.
00:08:47 Olmsted would become one of the most influential park and landscape designers in history.
00:08:53 Olmsted goes all over the world studying gardens,
00:08:56 and he comes home, and he said, "I went to Portugal, Spain, France.
00:08:59 I went everywhere."
00:09:01 He said, "England has the clue of landscaping,
00:09:04 where you have a palace rising from a green field.
00:09:08 You think that's the front door where the cars pull up?
00:09:10 No, that's the back door. Does that make sense? The front?"
00:09:13 And he said, "They have the way to go."
00:09:16 He was consulted for designing this park.
00:09:18 This is a classic Olmsted park, too.
00:09:21 He was an incredible guy, a park designer.
00:09:24 So this park is--you can spend two days.
00:09:27 You're never going to see it all.
00:09:29 I'm a native. I've lived here all my life.
00:09:31 I still see a bridge here and there.
00:09:33 I didn't know that it existed prior to that.
00:09:35 And we're going to make a stop at Cafe Du Monde, can you imagine?
00:09:39 But a functioning Cafe Du Monde here at the park.
00:09:42 The reason Josh and I are taking you along this route
00:09:45 is we want to show you these Virginia live oaks.
00:09:48 You've got to be careful how you plant them,
00:09:51 because if you plant them too close, they can't grow in a forest.
00:09:54 The canopies get bigger and bigger as the tree ages,
00:09:57 and they'll snuff each other out.
00:09:59 This is as close to a forested live oak.
00:10:04 And these little young, full things are just juveniles.
00:10:07 The old ones were the branches fall back to the ground.
00:10:11 So look to your right, you're going to see magnificent specimens
00:10:14 of probably 600-year-old trees.
00:10:17 They're just marvelous.
00:10:19 And look, we have our own icicles in the south.
00:10:22 We have Spanish moss hanging from the trees.
00:10:24 I know that icicles must be beautiful,
00:10:27 but in a way, we have our own.
00:10:30 This park is just magnificent.
00:10:33 Absolutely magnificent.
00:10:36 Or a bus trip and more.
00:10:44 If we can, let's pull to the right for a moment.
00:10:49 Ladies and gentlemen, look at this specimen to the right,
00:10:58 just bathing in the sun of the afternoon.
00:11:01 Sometimes you see something on the planet Earth,
00:11:04 I don't care if it's a rock or a volcano,
00:11:06 it'll tell you I'm not asking for you to stop and respect me,
00:11:10 I'm demanding it.
00:11:12 Let me just talk for a minute about this hairy stuff
00:11:15 called Spanish moss.
00:11:17 It is not, repeat, not a parasite, it is an amphiphyte.
00:11:21 There's a world of difference.
00:11:23 Parasites are like things that grow on your skin,
00:11:29 what is it, a scabies, for instance, gets in your skin,
00:11:32 they lay their eggs and they poop and they produce little baby scabies.
00:11:36 That's a parasite. It'll get nutrition from its host.
00:11:39 This plant getting no benefit from the tree at all,
00:11:42 except the hanging place.
00:11:44 And so that's it.
00:11:47 It's related to the bromeliad in the orchid plant.
00:11:50 There are several specimens of plants we have on the Marble Earth
00:11:53 that do not have root systems.
00:11:55 But isn't that beautiful?
00:11:57 Isn't that just incredible?
00:11:59 Guys, we're going to stop at Café Du Monde.
00:12:02 There is a delicacy here called the baillé,
00:12:05 spelled B-E-I-G-N-E-T, forget that word.
00:12:08 Just call them doughnuts.
00:12:10 You're going to get three fried little poops of dough
00:12:14 under about 17 tons of powdered sugar.
00:12:17 These are not endorsed by the American Diabetes Association,
00:12:20 but if you're going to go into a coma willingly,
00:12:23 go with a baillé, not a chocolate bar.
00:12:26 They come in orders of three.
00:12:28 I am French. I'm telling you, the French language is probably
00:12:31 one of the most beautiful on the planet Earth,
00:12:33 but it's got warnings all over the place.
00:12:36 When you see something called café au lait, café means coffee,
00:12:40 au lait means with milk.
00:12:42 That's French for if you order that coffee black,
00:12:44 it's going to be so potent as jet fuel,
00:12:46 you're going to bounce around for the next 16 months
00:12:49 with severe cranial damage.
00:12:52 Look at baby swings.
00:12:54 They put infant swings way up in the air.
00:12:57 Look, they look just like paratrooper pants.
00:13:00 Look at those things.
00:13:02 Now, you know those, and they put them way up in the air now.
00:13:04 Those kids are all going to be in therapy wondering
00:13:06 why their mothers were trying to kill them at 18 months.
00:13:08 Anyway, psychiatry goes on.
00:13:11 There is a Café du Monde at the New Orleans airport.
00:13:14 We beg you never to go to that location.
00:13:17 Do not try to board an aircraft or go through security,
00:13:20 PSA with white powder under your noses.
00:13:23 Security is going to come from every corner of the airport.
00:13:26 Guys, we have the whole place to ourselves.
00:13:29 One other thing I want to tell you, or Josh and I want to share with you,
00:13:33 a lot of people overlook this.
00:13:35 Follow me because we'll tell you where to go, where the toilets are.
00:13:39 We're going to have time for you to stroll down this colonnade
00:13:42 on the right side of this building.
00:13:44 We want you to go to the opposite end of the building.
00:13:47 Straight ahead, you're going to see a low-slung concrete bridge.
00:13:51 That's the bridge you want to get on.
00:13:54 [indistinct chatter]
00:13:58 [indistinct chatter]
00:14:23 [indistinct chatter]
00:14:51 Pastry dough mixed until soft,
00:14:54 patted down and rolled an eighth-inch thick,
00:14:57 cut into perfect two-inch squares
00:14:59 that fly through the air into piping hot oil,
00:15:02 fried until puffy and golden brown,
00:15:05 finished off with a sweet blanket of powdered sugar.
00:15:08 It's the expert way that these pastries are cut and fried
00:15:11 that makes Café du Monde's beignets a legend in New Orleans.
00:15:16 People compare beignets to donuts, funnel cake,
00:15:19 and other sugar-topped fried pastries,
00:15:21 but those who've been to Café du Monde
00:15:23 know them as a thing all their own.
00:15:25 It's our, like, decadence.
00:15:27 It's who we are.
00:15:29 I mean, it's everything about it.
00:15:31 You come here, it--
00:15:34 I can't describe it.
00:15:36 I'm just looking at it because it's like heaven in a bag.
00:15:39 Beignets start out as a simple pastry dough at Café du Monde,
00:15:43 where the bakers are meticulous in the way they mix each batch.
00:15:47 Mix until you get all the lumps out, until it gets smooth.
00:15:50 It's about 10 minutes at most.
00:15:52 As for what's inside that mixture...
00:15:54 I can't tell you that for a second.
00:15:56 [laughs]
00:15:58 Based on the ingredient list from Café du Monde's own beignet mix,
00:16:01 the dough is made with wheat and barley flours,
00:16:03 buttermilk, salt, and sugar.
00:16:05 Once it's fully combined, only touch can tell whether it's ready.
00:16:09 I check to make sure it's the right filling for the dough.
00:16:11 I don't want it too soft, I want it just right.
00:16:13 I don't want it too hard. I have to feel it.
00:16:15 If I make it too stiff, the beignets will start to shrink up.
00:16:18 Then Curtis puts the dough through a rolling machine.
00:16:21 I'm rolling it down so I can run it through the cutter,
00:16:24 brush the excess flour off, get it ready to go into the grease.
00:16:27 Do you ever burn yourself doing that?
00:16:29 Plenty of times. Still have the marks on my arm.
00:16:33 Café du Monde fries beignets in cottonseed oil because...
00:16:36 It's like a peanut oil, but the grease doesn't burn that fast.
00:16:39 You know, you cook it at a high temperature.
00:16:41 You'll see Curtis shake the squares continuously as the pastries cook.
00:16:45 I'm separating them so they won't stick together,
00:16:47 so all of them come out done.
00:16:49 In five minutes or less, the beignets are puffy and golden brown.
00:16:53 At this point, wait for the waiters to come in and bag them up,
00:16:56 and take them out to the window.
00:16:58 We're served.
00:16:59 Shovels of powdered sugar empty into the bags
00:17:02 immediately after the beignets leave the fryer.
00:17:04 That's when the sugar easily clings to the surface
00:17:07 and when the pastries taste their best.
00:17:10 Delicious.
00:17:12 You have to get them hot, like extremely hot,
00:17:15 because it's like, you see that?
00:17:17 Like...
00:17:19 It's so airy and light.
00:17:21 I gotta take another bite.
00:17:23 It's so good!
00:17:28 Better than a donut. Way better than a donut.
00:17:31 It's just soft and chewy and excellent.
00:17:36 And we always wear black so that we can have powdered sugar all over us
00:17:39 and everybody knows where we've been.
00:17:41 Most customers like a lot of sugar. They like a lot.
00:17:44 Do they come back asking for more?
00:17:46 Yes, they do, all the time. All the time.
00:17:49 Cafe Du Monde has been open in the French Quarter for almost 160 years,
00:17:54 all the while serving the same two items on the menu.
00:17:57 With some black coffee, it's just like the perfect combination.
00:18:00 Yeah, it's the perfect mixture of tart and sweetness
00:18:06 that it kind of just, it totally combines with each other.
00:18:09 And for decades, food publications, famous figures,
00:18:13 and customers from all over the world have praised the sweet fried dough.
00:18:18 There are a few things that you think of New Orleans immediately.
00:18:21 The river, the cathedral, Pat O'Brien's Hurricane maybe,
00:18:24 a Cafe Du Monde beignet.
00:18:26 This is what you come to New Orleans for.
00:18:28 First stop when we get to New Orleans.
00:18:30 This is on the list of where we gotta go.
00:18:33 Even if you don't like beignets, you kind of have to try it
00:18:36 because it's just part of the New Orleans tradition and history and culture.
00:18:42 Some Thursday, fried meat.
00:18:54 Oh, this is fried meat.
00:18:56 Cheers, boys!
00:18:58 [music]
00:19:24 [indistinct]
00:19:31 So if you have knees this high, don't build your house there
00:19:35 because that's how high the water's gonna go.
00:19:38 They can't break the rules.
00:19:40 Do you know when you look at a palm tree, that's not a trunk of the palm tree,
00:19:46 it's the root of the palm tree?
00:19:49 The palm where the leaves are coming out, that's the core of the plant.
00:19:53 So the thing you see between there and then is an extended above-ground root,
00:19:57 again, oxygen, a ductile system.
00:19:59 [indistinct]
00:20:03 [music]
00:20:07 [indistinct]
00:20:12 [music]
00:20:18 [indistinct]
00:20:24 [music]
00:20:34 [wind]
00:20:47 [wind]
00:20:57 [wind]
00:21:07 [wind]
00:21:17 [wind]
00:21:27 You grab onto that cone, it sweeps you far to the left
00:21:30 and then throws you into the Caribbean Islands.
00:21:32 And then you took out your telescope and you looked for your country's flag
00:21:36 and you pulled in for fresh water.
00:21:38 But notice, no one went to war in the Caribbean.
00:21:40 You ever notice that?
00:21:41 The British wouldn't shoot at the French, the French wouldn't shoot at the Spanish
00:21:44 because everybody needed a gas station.
00:21:47 To get back home, you'd go where he lives off the coast of Savannah
00:21:51 and then further up you went, you hoped another current picked you up
00:21:54 and brought you back to Europe.
00:21:56 But imagine, Native American Indians had little body hair,
00:22:00 very little facial hair, just a little bit under the arms.
00:22:03 Imagine these Spanish explorers arriving in Florida
00:22:08 with these big giant beards that look just like moss,
00:22:11 and that's exactly where the term comes from.
00:22:13 These guys have moss coming out of their heads.
00:22:15 And you go with your steel-plated armor, can you imagine that,
00:22:18 with your big helmets?
00:22:20 And don't get me started on seeing a horse for the first time.
00:22:23 Can you imagine how shocking a horse would be
00:22:25 if you've never seen one of us holding a robot from Star Trek?
00:22:29 And you wonder sometimes why these indigenous people laid down.
00:22:33 Does that make sense?
00:22:35 Because all these freaky things were coming from the ocean.
00:22:38 Does that make sense?
00:22:40 Do we have everybody?
00:22:42 Okay, let's hide the bus behind the trees.
00:22:45 ...forms this cannon.
00:22:47 On top of that we have sediment.
00:22:49 The Mississippi River--
00:22:51 it's one of the most beautiful words I've ever come across in language.
00:22:56 Native American Indians pronounced it "Mis-i-sip-peh" with a "z" sound.
00:23:01 We say "Mississippi," same word.
00:23:03 Guess what it means? "Happy of all rivers."
00:23:06 Isn't that a beautiful word to give to that river?
00:23:08 It's about a half a mile wide and 200 feet deep in New Orleans.
00:23:12 But it's called a sedimentary deltaic system.
00:23:15 And we're back to that dark forest at the mouth of the river.
00:23:19 Normally we know that three to six tons of soil
00:23:22 are going to go past your hotel every 24 hours.
00:23:25 A high river, it could be 20 tons of soil.
00:23:28 Normally in nature, the soil would be wasted off the continental shelf of the United States
00:23:33 and be like 2,200 feet of water.
00:23:36 But nature has another game up its sleeve called a swamp.
00:23:39 You could not develop a more effective filtering system in a laboratory.
00:23:45 You have to fly over a swamp to really appreciate them.
00:23:48 I look at two things like human blood systems--traffic.
00:23:52 As long as traffic is moving slowly, the blood is getting through.
00:23:56 But when people stop, you know how they stop, getting their stop and their breaks?
00:24:00 That causes a blood clot, and no one's going to--
00:24:03 Look, you fly over a swamp, it's like billions of blood vessels.
00:24:08 And they make all these funny little turns
00:24:11 designed to collect every grain of sand that it can.
00:24:15 This mud is from the Midwest. It's from farmers.
00:24:17 All of this land New Orleans is built on geologically was part of the ocean.
00:24:21 Last Tuesday. But this built the land.
00:24:24 The United States, y'all drove across that bridge.
00:24:27 Did you notice pine trees stop growing at a certain point when you cross that bridge?
00:24:31 So this is how you study coastlines on the marble earth.
00:24:34 Where the last hardwood tree stops growing, and there's a distinct line where it will stop.
00:24:39 Anything between that last tree and the ocean was created by another mechanism, sediment.
00:24:45 Does that make sense? Building over millions of years.
00:24:48 And that's what a swamp is doing.
00:24:50 It's telling you, "I'm building new land in front of your eyes. Leave me alone."
00:24:54 That lake that you crossed, they estimate,
00:24:57 and that anywhere around 700 years from now,
00:25:00 that lake is getting more shallow every minute by the day,
00:25:03 because nature's doing its job.
00:25:05 The United States ends on the other side of that lake,
00:25:07 and for 100 miles between here and the mouth of the river,
00:25:10 it was all created by this dirt being carried by the river.
00:25:14 And so it's really quite interesting, actually.
00:25:17 Of course, I'm easily amused.
00:25:19 The water, who do you think, how deep was it, do you think, here?
00:25:24 The water was about 10 feet deep here after Hurricane Katrina, can you imagine?
00:25:29 It was a mess.
00:25:32 That storm, ladies and gentlemen, we're watching very carefully.
00:25:35 Two systems as we speak, heading towards the Caribbean, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
00:25:41 So all they need to do is get in with a storm.
00:25:44 They don't even have filth from before.
00:25:46 But the problem with Hurricane Katrina is that she was as big as the United Kingdom.
00:25:52 And I was telling friends of mine, "You have to leave.
00:25:55 There's a country heading, and she's as big as the United Kingdom."
00:25:59 All of these shopping centers were under 12 feet of water.
00:26:02 I thought they'd never come back, ever.
00:26:05 It was just a big, giant lake.
00:26:07 But they did.
00:26:10 And I was telling friends of mine that stayed,
00:26:12 "How long is it going to take for a system as big as the United Kingdom to go over your house at 6 miles an hour?
00:26:19 Do the math.
00:26:20 You're going to be in the rinse cycle of a washing machine for a long, long time.
00:26:24 And what if it stalls?
00:26:26 What if it decides to slow down?"
00:26:28 We're finding now that when these storms hit the Earth,
00:26:30 it develops some kind of air friction, and they tend to stall.
00:26:34 You had to leave.
00:26:36 Aside from that, it is pushing a tidal surge.
00:26:39 The tidal surge is what kills everybody.
00:26:41 If you survive the tidal surge and you're hanging in a tree, you're probably going to survive.
00:26:45 But why would you expose yourself to that?
00:26:48 The problem was she was so big that she was like a ship coming across the ocean.
00:26:52 The bow of a boat pushes water ahead of it.
00:26:54 No, it pushes the swell before it dissipates.
00:26:56 Imagine this.
00:26:58 A country coming toward the United States, pushing a 30-foot tidal surge.
00:27:03 Can you imagine a 30-foot wall of water?
00:27:06 What is going to stand up to a 30-foot wall of water?
00:27:09 And unlike a tsunami--a tsunami, we all saw the films--
00:27:13 a tsunami is horrible, but it hits the beach, and it picks everything up,
00:27:17 and then it sucks itself back into the ocean.
00:27:19 The difference with a hurricane is you have a tsunami with a big storm behind it.
00:27:24 Does that make sense?
00:27:26 The tidal surge is going to come in, and that storm--then the wind's going to start blowing,
00:27:30 and she's going to push that water or heat as far as it can.
00:27:33 Does that make sense?
00:27:35 The devastation is beyond comprehension.
00:27:37 And ladies, I have good advice for you.
00:27:39 If you're married to a testosterone-charged male who thinks he's John Wayne
00:27:44 and can stand up to a 30-foot tidal surge, this is what you do.
00:27:48 Get the life insurance policies and all the other stuff in a Ziploc bag,
00:27:52 put his Social Security number on his forearm with a Sharpie marker,
00:27:57 and wish him the best.
00:27:59 Say, "See you later, baby, but the kids and I are hasta la vista, baby, and we're out of here."
00:28:05 You know, it's sad.
00:28:07 The mayor was telling us that.
00:28:09 Please put your ID numbers on the inside of your arm with permanent markers, including children.
00:28:13 It was that bad.
00:28:15 He said, "It's too late to leave. You're stuck now."
00:28:17 And he was locating--what were those, refrigerated trucks?
00:28:22 He was locating freezer morgues all over the city tied to trees and telephone poles with chains.
00:28:27 Can you imagine what body bag?
00:28:29 To give you an idea of what was happening.
00:28:31 I mean, why would you--what part of "leave" don't you understand?
00:28:34 And then you get in their way.
00:28:36 When you stay, they have to feed you and water you.
00:28:39 And I know economically, sometimes people can't leave.
00:28:42 Listen, we were 1.2 million, huh, Josh?
00:28:45 And I think we left 250,000 people behind.
00:28:48 And we--it took us--it normally takes seven hours for me to drive to Atlanta, Georgia.
00:28:53 It took me 27 hours, bumper to bumper.
00:28:56 Cars running out of fuel, cars running out of gas.
00:28:59 And--but imagine trying to evacuate a Houston or a Miami.
00:29:05 It's not going to happen.
00:29:07 We were 1.2 million. We know when to run.
00:29:09 One thing about New Orleans, tell us to run.
00:29:11 We'll ask you why much later.
00:29:13 We hit the road.
00:29:15 And it's just--we think about a Houston or a Miami and four or five, six million people.
00:29:21 How are you going to get them?
00:29:22 You're not going to get them out of here.
00:29:24 But the problem is the people that stay slows the recovery down.
00:29:27 Does that make sense? They've got to get new water and food while they're trying to clear the streets.
00:29:32 Oh, it's a mess. You're getting in the way.
00:29:34 So, guys, we're going to go to the American side of the city now.
00:29:38 And let me quickly get this history lesson out of the way.
00:29:41 When I study history, I look at it like dominoes.
00:29:44 Some dominoes have more dots than other dominoes.
00:29:47 And those are the ones I tend to pick on.
00:29:49 Don't get me--all the dominoes are important.
00:29:51 But trust me, there's mega-dominoes every so often.
00:29:53 I kind of--I sort of look at our Costco store.
00:29:56 Look carefully. No one's shopping.
00:29:58 This is what's happening.
00:30:00 We don't have closets in our houses in New Orleans because closets are a new invention.
00:30:05 The reason closets couldn't be invented, guys, is because the coat hanger had not been invented.
00:30:10 Can you--oh, this is so stupid.
00:30:12 There was a guy who went to work late all the time.
00:30:14 It was his fault.
00:30:15 And when he got to work, he worked for a wire company.
00:30:17 There was no pegs to hang his jacket up on or his boots.
00:30:21 So he got mad one day.
00:30:22 And he goes in the back room, and he cuts a piece of wire and matches the coat hanger we all know today.
00:30:27 And the company copyrighted it.
00:30:29 The rest is history.
00:30:30 So before coat hangers, you had to fold everything and put everything in arm bars.
00:30:34 Everything had to be folded.
00:30:35 That's why women's buttons are on the opposite side.
00:30:38 Did you know that?
00:30:39 During the Victorian period, if you were a proper woman, you had other women dressing you.
00:30:44 Does that make sense?
00:30:45 So men's buttons are on the other side.
00:30:47 I don't know how y'all put your blouses.
00:30:48 I never did figure it out.
00:30:49 But anyway, so when Costco opened, we thought we were going to all be modern and go get our memberships.
00:30:55 But what are we going to do with a 20-year supply of toilet paper or a barrel of mayonnaise?
00:31:00 It just doesn't happen.
00:31:01 So we kind of looked at it and said, "We don't have storage space for any of this stuff."
00:31:05 We have a closet.
00:31:06 It was recently built in modern times.
00:31:09 So anyway, so they're still in there, but no one's shopping.
00:31:13 They're using it as an indoor family gymnasium.
00:31:16 When the kids are cutting up or it's hot, you take the kids there.
00:31:19 You give them different identification papers so they legally can't be re-related to you.
00:31:23 And they're ripping the store apart, eating all the samples, while the parents are having 250 pizza combos.
00:31:29 I'm telling you, I sat in there for a few hours.
00:31:31 I'm telling you, that's what's going on there.
00:31:33 And the kids all go home with knobs and all kinds of parts and pieces of displays.
00:31:37 But anyway, but they're in there.
00:31:39 They're just not shopping.
00:31:40 But might I digress?
00:31:41 Don't you love attention deficit disorder?
00:31:43 It's a new world for me about every seven minutes, but I'm a blast to travel with.
00:31:48 Anyhoo, back to history.
00:31:50 In 1718, we're up and running.
00:31:52 That's ancient by American style, American history, which is recent.
00:31:56 How confusing can U.S. history be?
00:31:59 It just started last Tuesday.
00:32:00 But anyway, it's an interesting story.
00:32:03 We spoke French, bowing to the king of France.
00:32:05 The colonists along the eastern seaboard spoke English, bowing to the king of France.
00:32:09 They knew each other co-existed.
00:32:11 There was no reason to contact each other because they spoke totally different railroad tracks.
00:32:16 And when you look at history from that perspective, it all makes sense.
00:32:19 And you see those--let me tell you something else about how information got around.
00:32:24 Whenever you're looking at paintings of the colonies, look carefully.
00:32:27 You're always going to notice a priest or a monk or a minister standing in the background.
00:32:32 Did you ever notice that?
00:32:33 They're there, like the statue we just saw at the end of it.
00:32:36 Did you notice he had an Indian sitting at his foot and a little monk with a book in his hand?
00:32:41 Don't get me wrong.
00:32:42 They were probably messing with the Bible.
00:32:45 However, those men were all formally educated, very well educated, and they were literate.
00:32:51 We're not sure if many of the other guys were literate.
00:32:55 You know, the explorers, why would they take literacy courses?
00:32:57 They're going to be in a ship.
00:32:59 So anyway, at the time--so what would happen is you'd drag these guys along with you,
00:33:04 and they're writing down in their journals everything they heard you say
00:33:07 and everything that you said and reading proclamations and declarations.
00:33:11 And when they filled up their notebook, you sent them back to Europe and swapped them out for a new one.
00:33:16 Does that make sense?
00:33:17 They would go to whatever church they were connected to and use that as the Internet system.
00:33:21 That's how we know the king of Spain is in Mexico, the king of England is along the Eastern Seaboard,
00:33:26 the king of France is in New Orleans.
00:33:28 So if you wonder how that happens, that's how that happens.
00:33:31 They're always there.
00:33:32 They're like court reporters.
00:33:34 They're writing everything down.
00:33:36 Very important.
00:33:37 To the left is the center of the Catholic Church.
00:33:39 It looks big and palatial, but it isn't.
00:33:42 It's as stoic as any other abbey or seminary you've ever been to.
00:33:46 It's just a big diocese.
00:33:48 So in 1718, guys, we're up and running.
00:33:51 And in 1762, the king of France looks at his checking book, checkbook, and real money.
00:33:56 He has no money in the bank.
00:33:58 And he really wanted to get rid of us because he called us a parasitic colony,
00:34:03 which meant that nobody in New Orleans was planting crops or butchering animals.
00:34:08 They were just waiting on the next Neiman Marcus catalog to come in from Europe
00:34:12 so he could order new dresses and new suits and cheese and wines.
00:34:16 He just couldn't get it together.
00:34:19 So he calls his cousin Charles of Spain one day.
00:34:22 He says, "Charles, I have a big footprint in the New World.
00:34:25 Charles isn't stupid."
00:34:26 He says, "I'm not exactly what you have in the New World.
00:34:28 Don't you think I have maps and all?"
00:34:30 "What is this conversation about?"
00:34:32 So the king of England says, "Do you want it?"
00:34:35 Charles thought for a minute or two.
00:34:37 He says, "If you don't want it, I'll take it."
00:34:39 "Well, we were given to Spain."
00:34:41 So one afternoon, the Spanish navy pulls up at Jackson Square with all their regalia on
00:34:46 and everybody knew they were coming.
00:34:48 And they disembark their ships, and they roll out these scrolls
00:34:53 with the wax seals and the signatures and all that stuff
00:34:56 and the witnesses.
00:34:57 "We were given to Spain."
00:34:59 So things got a little hairy because New Orleans didn't want to be bothered by anything else.
00:35:05 So the Spanish rattled their sabers--big mistake--
00:35:10 and said, "The deal is you're going to become Spanish.
00:35:12 Do you understand?"
00:35:13 And New Orleans went, "Eh, maybe."
00:35:15 So they continued speaking French.
00:35:17 And guess this.
00:35:18 We were corrupting the entire Spanish navy.
00:35:20 We were lining them up for French classes, marrying local women,
00:35:25 sending them home with a French-speaking wife and two French-speaking kids.
00:35:28 The king of Spain was furious.
00:35:30 The food remained the same.
00:35:32 Everything was the same.
00:35:33 That's that.
00:35:34 So then we move the clock up.
00:35:36 We go into 1800, and France is going to go through a revolution.
00:35:40 Very, very big word.
00:35:41 The word "revolution" makes me just stop for a moment and say, "Oh, my heavens."
00:35:45 Because whatever's going to happen is not going to be the same.
00:35:48 And the longer a replacement government doesn't happen,
00:35:52 things can really spin out of control.
00:35:54 So they go through a revolution, and Napoleon is named emperor--
00:36:00 or he names himself Emperor of France.
00:36:02 The first thing Napoleon did was call Spain.
00:36:05 He says, "I'm negating that treaty that the king signed with you.
00:36:09 I want it back."
00:36:10 And by that time, the Spanish government said,
00:36:13 "Do you want that gift for after?
00:36:14 Do you want us to deliver it?
00:36:15 Because you have no need for New Orleans."
00:36:17 And originally--I mean, this is how history rolls out.
00:36:20 If you listen to the conversation--
00:36:22 so Napoleon had big plans for the river,
00:36:24 the mouth, whoever controls that river,
00:36:26 controls all the trade, the cotton, the sugar,
00:36:28 and that he declares war on England one afternoon.
00:36:31 Well, so much for his bank account.
00:36:33 In the meantime, you have characters like Benjamin Franklin
00:36:36 and this young, astute guy named the Envoy to France that nobody realizes,
00:36:41 the little whippersnapper, has a brilliant career ahead of him.
00:36:45 His name is Thomas Jefferson.
00:36:46 And they're trying to talk to French and selling the real estate to the United States.
00:36:51 How they pulled that off, I'll never know.
00:36:53 But they paid $15 million for the real estate,
00:36:57 and France kind of sort of needed the money,
00:36:59 and that was a Louisiana purchase.
00:37:02 And we became American.
00:37:04 The problem was, guys, is that the United States could have never expanded
00:37:08 west of the Mississippi River had they not bought that territory.
00:37:12 They would have stepped into foreign territory.
00:37:14 And, of course, then--and remember earlier I told you about population.
00:37:18 I know we have some people aboard from the state of California.
00:37:21 Let me tell you the story there.
00:37:23 The Russians were as far south as San Francisco,
00:37:27 and the Russians were testing that philosophy about population.
00:37:32 Can you imagine they were in San Francisco Basin?
00:37:34 Guys, we see Spanish flags, we just don't see people.
00:37:37 Hey, you know, we're taking San Francisco and Northern California,
00:37:42 and that's when the king of Spain panicked and told the Catholic Church,
00:37:45 "I need y'all to pack a whole bunch of mules and head out of here in donkeys,
00:37:49 and I need y'all to build missions every eight hours."
00:37:52 You know, it's an eight-hour walk from one mission to the other.
00:37:54 San Bernardino, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco, sound familiar.
00:37:59 So he needed that right away to make sure that he stayed the month to be populated.
00:38:05 So that's how that happened overnight. It had to happen.
00:38:08 So you're back to this system that they had going.
00:38:11 So we became American, and it's quite the shock.
00:38:16 They didn't know who they were.
00:38:17 I mean, you read the newspapers in French here, and people think they were insulting.
00:38:22 They're not. They're quite complimentary.
00:38:24 They were saying, "We've been bought by something called the Americans."
00:38:27 They didn't know what to call them.
00:38:28 They said, "We know they speak English, but we also know that their brains are brilliant.
00:38:33 They treasure books, and they treasure education, and they know everything about trade,
00:38:37 and they know everything about money and foreign currency and all of brokerage and all this stuff.
00:38:42 They're clever and very bright."
00:38:45 And the decision was made to split the city in half,
00:38:48 let the French government stay on one side and the French language.
00:38:51 Didn't that make sense?
00:38:52 Let the Americans develop their own side of the city with their own schools and their own street names.
00:38:58 That's why the city is split in half.
00:39:00 And over time, these two very different people become one and the same, and that's exactly what happened.
00:39:05 So if you're wondering why we call it a two-sided city, that's why.
00:39:09 So ladies and gentlemen, Josh is taking you down the main street of the American--
00:39:14 This is the Garden District.
00:39:16 I don't call it the Garden District because I know there's seven different cities at one time, all speaking English.
00:39:22 But this beautiful street is named in honor of Charles, the king of Spain.
00:39:26 And Charles wasn't stupid.
00:39:28 A professor said, "Charles didn't want us."
00:39:30 I said, "That's not true.
00:39:31 All of Charles' money from Spain was coming from those gold and silver mines in Mexico.
00:39:36 And guess what?
00:39:37 Texas was in the way.
00:39:39 And if you went into Texas, you could disrupt his currency, his treasury."
00:39:44 I said, "It wasn't stupid of Charles.
00:39:46 He wasn't going to draw the line in New Orleans.
00:39:48 Everybody had to come to New Orleans to get to Tejas, which is Texas today."
00:39:52 And so anyway, I said, "That wasn't inconsequential."
00:39:55 Are you kidding?
00:39:56 The king of Spain was going to protect that treasury, those gold and silver mines in Mexico.
00:40:02 So it wasn't happenstance.
00:40:03 He knew exactly what he was doing.
00:40:05 So ladies and gentlemen, landscaping.
00:40:09 You can tell a lot about landscaping.
00:40:11 See the English ivy and the monkey grass and little bushes shaped like little French poodles.
00:40:19 Different cultures have different approaches to landscaping.
00:40:23 And whether it's a park, we talked about that earlier.
00:40:26 Here we have a French convent at one time built in the middle of the forest.
00:40:31 There was nothing around it when they built it.
00:40:33 And you can see the formal hedges leading to the front door and the meditation area.
00:40:38 So guess what?
00:40:39 Look at these beautiful streetcars.
00:40:41 Look, the world's--to your left--the world's longest continually operating streetcar line on the planet Earth.
00:40:47 The first law the Americans tear up is the silly law you had to be Catholic.
00:40:52 Catholic was mandated, Catholicism, by the French and Spanish kings.
00:40:56 The United States said, "No more forced Catholicism.
00:40:59 No more kings, no more queens.
00:41:02 We have a constitution.
00:41:03 There's freedom of religion.
00:41:04 There's Jews coming and Protestants and Presbyterians, you name it."
00:41:08 Look to your left.
00:41:09 You don't think these people were making money on cotton?
00:41:12 You don't think they were making millions of dollars on cotton?
00:41:16 Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to show you wealth that's going to make you jump out of your shoes.
00:41:20 I want to tell you where the money's coming from.
00:41:22 It's coming from cotton, it's coming from sugar, and it's coming from slave labor.
00:41:28 And, um, can't you see how that girl was built?
00:41:32 She ran into you.
00:41:33 She killed you.
00:41:35 She looked like a Mack truck.
00:41:37 But no, I mean, she had a--did anybody see her?
00:41:40 She was, like, wonderful.
00:41:42 Anyway, can you imagine her bumping into you while you're waiting in a dumb walk sign?
00:41:46 Private universities coming up to your left.
00:41:48 This is Tulane.
00:41:50 Guys, when you see a professional, they have the sheepskin hanging on the wall, ask them, "Why did you go to this university?"
00:41:56 An attorney.
00:41:57 Famous for law, school of business.
00:41:59 We're back to business.
00:42:01 And architecture, engineering.
00:42:03 I could no more afford to go here than the man on the moon.
00:42:05 There were no student loans that we could sign when I was young.
00:42:09 I dreamt of going to Tulane or Loyola.
00:42:12 Just didn't happen.
00:42:14 And coming up on your left is Loyola.
00:42:16 These are the Jesuits of the Catholic Church.
00:42:18 Many different kinds of priests and nuns are all up for something different.
00:42:22 Look how the Jesuits designed some of their schools to look like castles.
00:42:26 See the lookout towers and the parapets?
00:42:29 It makes you think if you don't pay your kids tuition, they'll shoot you with a bow and arrow.
00:42:32 They probably would, but that's not why that's designed like that.
00:42:36 They're trying to remind people that the Pope and the Vatican has no army.
00:42:39 It never did, and it never will.
00:42:41 He's got bodyguards from Switzerland that'll take care of him, but they're not getting the Cardinals and everybody else out.
00:42:47 Allies would eventually go to his defense, but it would take time.
00:42:50 And in the old days, it was the Jesuits that put on their suits of armor.
00:42:54 So guys, all of this money is being made from cotton, sugar, and slave labor.
00:42:59 And millions.
00:43:02 In the years leading to the U.S. Civil War, New Orleans had the highest per capita income on the planet Earth.
00:43:09 Not just the United States, on the Earth.
00:43:12 Can you imagine? Money was moving through this city like water.
00:43:16 And then you see all these beautiful mansions as a testament to that.
00:43:20 But the drums of the Civil War are beating.
00:43:23 The slavery issue is going to have to be dealt with, and whether the South realizes or not, the drums are beating.
00:43:29 You want to make your house look ten times bigger than your neighbor?
00:43:32 Paint it one color white.
00:43:34 Take a lesson from New Orleans.
00:43:36 Look at the--no, I'm not joking. Look at the way the brain interprets size.
00:43:40 Look at this understated mansion with its hand-carved garlands.
00:43:43 I'm not joking. One color white.
00:43:46 Paint your steps and your porch a different color.
00:43:48 Look at this model coming up on your right.
00:43:50 Notice the ceiling is painted sky blue.
00:43:53 A bird or an insect will never build a nest on your porch if you paint the ceiling sky blue.
00:43:59 They think it's the sky.
00:44:01 Look to your left. This is a replica of Tara from Gone With the Wind.
00:44:05 It's for sale.
00:44:09 So all of this is the heyday of New Orleans.
00:44:12 The million-dollar question is, why wasn't all of this destroyed, including the French Quarter, including my neighborhood,
00:44:19 and everything you've seen on the tour?
00:44:21 Why didn't the Union soldiers set this on fire like they were supposed to do and bulldoze everything down?
00:44:28 The house coming up on our right is brand new.
00:44:30 It looks old, but it isn't.
00:44:32 It has "divorce" written all over it.
00:44:35 The dining room is so big, how can you talk to a wife when she's two postal codes away from you?
00:44:41 You've got to call FedEx to have the biscuits overshipped overnight.
00:44:45 The guest bathroom is like a mausoleum. It has an echo.
00:44:49 I mean, who wants to use the bathroom in a room where you flush a toilet and you can hear the echo for three minutes?
00:44:54 I don't think they've seen the kids since they moved in.
00:44:58 [laughter]
00:45:00 There's a beautiful home coming up on our right.
00:45:12 ...family, their son would be sent to World War II.
00:45:16 He will be killed in the Battle of Okinawa.
00:45:19 The wealthy boy will never return to live with his parents again.
00:45:22 They were so heartbroken.
00:45:24 They gave the title of the house to the city of New Orleans, and they made it into a public library.
00:45:30 Look at this mansion coming up on your right.
00:45:32 And they left some chandeliers up here, too.
00:45:35 Isn't that a nice gift?
00:45:37 Beautiful.
00:45:39 What an odd piece of land they have in subdivided Atlanta.
00:45:43 And coming up over on your right, you have Mark Tudor.
00:45:46 I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:45:53 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:45:56 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:45:59 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:01 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:03 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:05 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:07 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:09 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:11 And I'm going to show you a picture of the city of Atlanta.
00:46:13 But before the Civil War, this is what everybody wanted.
00:46:16 This was the jewel.
00:46:18 And this is a particularly beautiful area here.
00:46:22 Just is.
00:46:23 The trees.
00:46:25 Here's another lady that's well built.
00:46:28 Those legs.
00:46:33 You know, I get exhausted when I see people exercise.
00:46:36 After the Olympics, I'm in traction for a month, and I was watching it on television.
00:46:40 I'm highly allergic to sweat.
00:46:43 You know, I get it, but I just don't want to do it.
00:46:46 Look at this estate to the right.
00:46:48 Behind the main house was the mule barn.
00:46:51 Look at the mule barn.
00:46:52 And look left.
00:46:53 If you're wealthy, you can send a young girl to this incredible school.
00:46:57 Sacred Heart Academy.
00:46:59 Just a beautiful place.
00:47:01 But don't you feel like we arrived in another city compared to my neighbor in the French Quarter?
00:47:06 Let me tell you something else about people.
00:47:08 We went to a cocktail party here.
00:47:10 We didn't belong there.
00:47:11 Have you ever noticed that some people don't pronounce their middle word "R's"?
00:47:16 They say "Darling, you look"--and they've got to smile all the time.
00:47:20 So this is how they do it.
00:47:21 They smile and they talk like a ventriloquist.
00:47:24 "Darling, you look marvelous.
00:47:26 We're living in the Garden District."
00:47:28 I don't understand it.
00:47:29 It's like they've had erectomies.
00:47:31 Did they go see a surgeon and have the "R" sound removed?
00:47:34 So a friend of mine was looking at them.
00:47:36 After a while, he comes back to my table.
00:47:37 He says, "I've got it all figured out."
00:47:39 He said, "They've had too much work done."
00:47:41 Instead of having a couple of dozen Botox treatments, they probably had 4,000 of them.
00:47:45 And it's what happens is everything tightens up.
00:47:48 And you've had a puckerectomy and an R-rectomy.
00:47:51 He said, "You can't--"
00:47:52 So he was introducing us as Ruben, Roy, and Robin.
00:47:55 They repeat your name.
00:47:56 And sure enough, they were going, "Ruben, Roy, Robin.
00:47:58 It's wonderful to meet you."
00:48:00 And he said, "They've had puckerectomies.
00:48:02 That's why they do ear kisses.
00:48:03 They can't do the real thing."
00:48:05 Look at this Jewish synagogue on your right.
00:48:08 It goes back to 1828.
00:48:11 One of the oldest, if not the oldest, arguably, synagogues continually operating in America.
00:48:17 Look at the Mardi Gras beads hung up in the trees.
00:48:20 It's another reason New Orleans is sinking.
00:48:22 It has nothing to do with global warming.
00:48:24 We keep ordering hundreds of tons of these plastic beads.
00:48:28 Then no one wants to throw them away, so you put them in your attic next to your grandmother's beads
00:48:32 and the house goes down another quarter inch.
00:48:34 Nothing is more beautiful than seeing Mardi Gras parades come down this street.
00:48:40 Dozens of them, not a handful, dozens of them.
00:48:43 By law, corporations cannot get involved in Mardi Gras, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, under any circumstances.
00:48:50 It's all private money.
00:48:52 And if you need to have 20 floats as big as this bus, you need to get a permit.
00:48:56 Look at this tree coming up on the right.
00:48:58 We call this the Mardi Gras tree.
00:49:00 Isn't that beautiful?
00:49:01 So if you have an ugly tree in front of your house, call Josh and I.
00:49:04 We'll send you a couple of groves of beads and you can hang them in your tree
00:49:08 and tell your neighbors it bloomed for New Orleans.
00:49:10 It's magnificent.
00:49:12 He he he he he.
00:49:14 Ah, kidding.
00:49:16 All your neighbors will wonder what happened, right?
00:49:18 Just when they're not looking, decorate the tree and say, "I don't know, it bloomed overnight.
00:49:22 We had nothing to do with it."
00:49:23 But it is beautiful.
00:49:27 I mean, it's just beautiful to see parades coming down the street.
00:49:31 So ladies and gentlemen, you know, let me just tell you something.
00:49:35 Humans will do what--I told you this earlier.
00:49:39 Humans do what humans do.
00:49:40 Nature does what it does.
00:49:41 Disease does what it does.
00:49:43 You know what it is?
00:49:44 It's a sine curve, like a roller coaster.
00:49:46 Does that make sense?
00:49:47 It goes up and goes down.
00:49:49 The only thing we need to be worried about in humanity is when it flatlines.
00:49:52 As long as people are fussing and fighting, everything is a perfectly normal day.
00:49:56 So I don't have to be political, because I'm telling you that New Orleans did not want to get involved in that Civil War.
00:50:04 New Orleans was a little bit better educated than the rest of the South, without doubt.
00:50:09 Well, certainly with the Americans coming in.
00:50:11 They kept telling that stupid governor, "You're going to get involved in this war, and you're going to lose this war."
00:50:16 Let me tell you how this is going to roll out.
00:50:18 They're going to come down the river, they're going to set everything on fire, and make this whole city a golf course, right?
00:50:24 Because we call it shock and awe now.
00:50:26 We have all these fancy words for war.
00:50:28 That hasn't changed.
00:50:30 You get your enemy, you destroy their economy.
00:50:32 Does that make sense?
00:50:33 You get them on their knees, and then you take it from there.
00:50:36 All wars pretty much are formed the same way.
00:50:39 So New Orleans did, and he knew not to put it to a vote, because New Orleans was going to vote it down.
00:50:44 Everybody was rich.
00:50:46 They said, "Pay the slaves. Who cares? We're all millionaires. We're making millions on millions.
00:50:51 And let's move forward."
00:50:53 But he got us involved in that stupid war, and New Orleans told him, "Where are you going to find iron ore?
00:50:59 Duh. There's no iron ore rocks in a swamp.
00:51:02 How are you going to make a cannon, or a bullet, or a gun?
00:51:05 You have no iron ore. It's all in the north."
00:51:09 So they were looking at maps, and the United States is like a bunk bed.
00:51:14 The Union's at the top bunk, the South, the Confederates at the bottom bunk, but that's not that simple.
00:51:19 It has a grand escalator leading down to the first floor called the Mississippi River.
00:51:24 Those are people that were trying to keep, during COVID, all the float designers were going broke,
00:51:29 because that makes sense, because Mardi Gras had to be canceled.
00:51:32 So they were trying to keep the artists employed by buying their flowers and decorating their houses
00:51:37 with, you know, float ornaments, and they still have some.
00:51:40 So anyway, so everybody thought they were going to come down the currents of the river.
00:51:46 Guess what? Never assume anything in war.
00:51:49 Guess what Farragut did? He launched off the coast of New Jersey in the middle of the night,
00:51:53 went three miles off the coast so no spies could see him.
00:51:57 He got the Union fleet past New York, the Carolinas, you name it, went around the tip of Florida,
00:52:02 came into the Gulf of Mexico, and he staged off the coast of Mobile, Alabama.
00:52:07 He knew New Orleans like the back of his hand.
00:52:10 And he told his men, "Guys, when I say go, we're going,
00:52:13 and we're going to be shopping at the French market this afternoon."
00:52:16 Sure enough, he gave the order. They had some resistance, but they busted right through them,
00:52:21 and he pops up at Jackson Square, can you imagine, dropping anchor
00:52:25 and lifting his cannons to blow New Orleans up.
00:52:28 Every man, woman, child in this city ran to that levee to see what was going to happen, waiting to be killed.
00:52:35 And they said it was so quiet, you could hear him giving parking orders to his ships on how to pivot the cannons.
00:52:42 Finally, oh, I was talking about the Eiffel Tower.
00:52:45 You're not going to believe this, but coming up on your right is the restaurant from the Eiffel Tower.
00:52:50 You have to look at old pictures to still see it.
00:52:53 The tower got too old to support the weight of the restaurant,
00:52:56 so the French gutted the restaurant and lowered it down in pieces,
00:52:59 and a guy saw it rusting in a parking lot in New Orleans and thought it was a souvenir and grabbed it back.
00:53:05 That's what you get when you sell something in a garage, usually.
00:53:08 To make a long story short, there was a voice from New Orleans that said, "Admiral Farragut, can you hear me?"
00:53:14 He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear you. What do you want?"
00:53:16 This is the assistant to the governor of the great state of Louisiana.
00:53:20 The governor told me to come out and talk to you and tell you not to start shooting yet.
00:53:23 But he was going to have a meeting and get back to you.
00:53:26 Guess what Farragut said? "What part of a cannon pointed at your head did you shoot?"
00:53:30 The first cannon I fired was going to hit the governor in the back of the head, and everybody went, "Ooooh."
00:53:37 So five or ten minutes later a little voice comes back and says, "Okay, we surrender."
00:53:42 So he comes--wait, it gets better. You can't make this stuff up.
00:53:46 When he was coming ashore, it could have been a trap.
00:53:48 Guess what the people in New Orleans did?
00:53:50 They formed receiving lines like the Isle of Dismas for 13 ships of the Union fleet
00:53:55 as those petrified soldiers were coming ashore.
00:53:58 They were hitting them on the shoulders saying, "Hello, young man. Have you been to New Orleans before?
00:54:02 It's 3 o'clock. Cocktail hour is at 4.30.
00:54:05 You can have dinner with my wife and I. We know you all don't have a lot of money."
00:54:09 Guess what Farragut wrote in his notebook? There was no reason to blow that city up.
00:54:13 Does that make any--they had my men at dinner that night and I'd given them cocktails and recipes.
00:54:18 So that's how New Orleans survived. You ever wonder about--nobody ever asks that question.
00:54:23 You know, I bet.
00:54:25 But the streetcar is incredible. We're warning you it does not have air conditioning.
00:54:30 The red ones do, but the green ones don't.
00:54:32 Let me give you good advice from a local. Don't you ever get aboard that streetcar.
00:54:37 Until you look at people standing up holding on to those leather straps,
00:54:40 you must do armpit inventory before you step aboard.
00:54:44 It's the worst trip of your life. It's like being on a human sardine can.
00:54:48 Wait for the next streetcar.
00:54:51 This is the World War II museum.
00:54:53 The genius that invented the landing craft was a carpenter from New Orleans making a boat
00:54:59 instead of dropping soldiers off a regular boat.
00:55:02 He said, "My boat can climb ashore. I'm going to take the bow off of my boat using the oil industry.
00:55:07 It's going to have a gate that's going to fall down. Can you imagine?"
00:55:11 And delivered those guys on the shore.
00:55:13 It was a landing craft for World War II. His name was Andrew Higgins.
00:55:18 Guys, we're going to be at the hotel in the next few minutes.
00:55:21 We want to thank you for coming to New Orleans.
00:55:24 And did you notice we didn't pass a factory or an assembly line on the tour?
00:55:29 Bad news for us, good news for you.
00:55:31 Because long before you come to New Orleans, you're the VIP.
00:55:35 Does that make sense? Everything functions around tourism.
00:55:39 So you'll be highly respected.
00:55:41 Our police officers are incredible, but when you see them, they're going to appear to be very serious.
00:55:46 I have a theory about that. It's the tailoring of the pants.
00:55:49 They have pulled the inseam all the way up.
00:55:52 The waistband is constructed with at least three major organs.
00:55:55 You know you're going to jail before they walk up to you.
00:55:58 There's not enough talcum powder in the world to figure out what's going on in there.
00:56:02 I don't know why we give them guns or ammunition.
00:56:06 All they have to do is take a deep breath and pop a button.
00:56:09 They ask for a size 40 waist, they give them a 36.
00:56:12 I don't know what's going on there.
00:56:13 Female officers are always pulling the fabric at their knees.
00:56:16 Don't cross them either.
00:56:18 They're wonderful people. We love them to death.
00:56:21 And guys, we want to tell you that the only four-letter word we don't use in New Orleans,
00:56:26 we use all the others, but this is a completely, a horrible, egregious four-letter word.
00:56:31 It's a dreaded D-word. Don't even whisper this word when you're in New Orleans.
00:56:35 We're very friendly, and then we become banjees.
00:56:37 That word is spelled D-I-E-T.
00:56:40 We thought that the word diet was an acronym for did I eat that.
00:56:44 Who would come to New Orleans and say, "My butt's looking a little big this week.
00:56:47 I'm going to eat, you know, melt-a-toast. Get a grip. Suck it up and keep moving."
00:56:52 And unless for religious reasons, you can't eat shellfish or allergies,
00:56:57 if I were you, I'd eat seafood every minute I was in New Orleans.
00:57:00 You hear me? You could get a hamburger or a steak anywhere.
00:57:04 But a shrimp poor boy or a crawfish tail omelet in the morning,
00:57:08 I am telling you, the seafood here is out of the box.
00:57:12 So we want to tell you goodbye, and we want to wish you safe travels,
00:57:19 but you know, more importantly, I want to wish you frequent travels.
00:57:22 How do you explain a trip when you go home to a friend that doesn't travel?
00:57:26 How do you explain that? Does that make any sense?
00:57:28 How do you explain the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of David?
00:57:31 You can't. Does that make sense? You just can't.
00:57:34 It's locked in our hard drives of the human brain, or back to the human brain, or food.
00:57:40 How do you explain something you ate on a country that was one of the best dishes you've ever had?
00:57:46 And your friend, you just can't. You just can't.
00:57:48 But guys, thanks so much for coming. We'll be pulling up at the hotel soon.
00:57:52 We're going to pull off the right shot.
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