What’s up openers
Go Blind, speakeasy
Inspired by the Prohibition Era of the 1920s, Baton Rouge’s latest bar is called The Blind Tiger—a nickname once given to the popular backroom bars and hideaway saloons of the South that secretly poured stiff drinks no matter what the federal government had to say about it.
Owned by Randall Womack, a former majority owner of The Happy Note and Uncle Earl’s, and those bars’ two current managers, Jeremy Tucker and Brian Ott, The Blind Tiger has opened across from Mike Anderson’s Seafood on West Lee Drive.
“We really want to be focused on bringing a quality bar to the people,” Tucker says. “The atmosphere and our signature drinks really establish a 1920s feel. That’s what we’re excited about.”
Match breaker
It may be the most modern of folk stories: Plucky college student moves to New York City for an internship. Three days later she’s cast in a hit reality show. Her episode makes it on air, which may or may not help her career in fashion or journalism or whatever she puts her creative energy toward.
Last summer, LSU student Rachel Svetlecic landed a role and a date on BRAVO’s The Millionaire Matchmaker, which follows dating guru Patti Stanger as she coaches wealthy men and women on what to look for in a companion and how to act on a first date.
Chris Manzo, 21 and a star of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, chose 21-year-old Svetlecic out of several candidates—but then, bizarrely, took her to Medieval Times for dinner.
“I really expected this supposed millionaire to be older, more accomplished, with an appreciation for ‘the finer things in life,’” says Svetlecic, who was forced to eat the meal with her hands. “Boy, was I wrong!”
She kept her composure, though, and made the best of the experience—even if this “reality” often required do-overs.
“We did a lot of different takes of entrances, exits and reactions, but for the actual date, there was no direction,” she says, laughing. “Chris would freeze when the cameras were on, and I cannot stand awkward silences. After a while, all I would talk about was Louisiana and LSU football.” Svetlecic is back in Baton Rouge to finish school—and she and Manzo never dated again.
Star cyclings
Are celebrities in on something that some Baton Rougeans are missing?
Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey named the University Lakes surrounding LSU one his favorite places to bicycle in an October issue of People magazine. The actor and avid runner and cyclist rode the lakes when he was in town earlier this year filming the bank heist comedy Flypaper. Two weeks later, and mere days after arriving to film The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn star vampire Robert Pattinson spent roughly $1,000 on a 2010 Felt Breed Cyclo-X bike at Capitol Cyclery on Essen Lane.
“People who don’t ride at all have it in their heads that it’s too dangerous to ride here, even though they have little or no direct experience with that,” says Mark Martin, cyclist and chair of Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets. “Many people who ride in Baton Rouge tend to be from somewhere else originally, or have traveled and know what true danger is, like riding in Mexico City. That’s why these two celebrities find Baton Rouge a wonderful place to ride, which it is.”
LSU Quidditch Club flying high
For LSU’s Quidditch Club team, the “snitch” is a student who wears all yellow and carries a tube sock stuffed with tennis balls and can hide however he or she wants.
Otherwise, LSU’s version of the Harry Potter-inspired sport is true to the version played in the novels—minus getting airborne on broomsticks, of course. Club members do play with brooms between their legs, though, and they even have a newly-purchased trio of ring goals they try to score with.
The three-year-old club is 38 members strong, says Sarah Kneiling, a 22-year-old senior and club president. The club traveled to New York in November to play for the International Quidditch Association’s World Cup. It was LSU’s second trip.
For the most part, club members play among themselves on a field at the corner of Highland Road and South Stadium Drive. “Other teams are so far away, it’s hard to find the funds to travel,” Kneiling explains. Check out the action on Thursdays and Sundays from 4:30 until dark, and on Tuesdays from 4 to 6 p.m.
