The cooler I’m dragging behind me runs over a third person’s foot as I thuggishly try to blaze a trail through the mob of people packed tightly around the intersection of Royal and St. Peter. I curse under my breath, bend down, and awkwardly attempt to clean and press the cooler above my head. The remains of over thirty-plus beer bottles, five bottles of wine, three bottles of orange juice, a small bottle of rum, and two bottles of 40-oz. malt liquor clatters on my shoulder and I grip the ridges of the cooler’s edge with both hands to keep it from falling on the person dressed as a fish to my right (I’m in no state to hazard a guess the person’s gender). I pause briefly to reflect upon how much of the cooler’s contents I’ve imbibed thus far, then decide that I’m probably better off knowing. Purple and gold beads thrown at a nearby friend splat on the concrete at my feet and teal ones hit me on my right cheek. My wallet is riding up somewhat uncomfortably on my groin, what feels like 5-10 pounds of beads tightens around my neck with the bulk of the cooler pressing down on them, and I just manage clear the upriver side of St. Peter’s when I spy a large wooden cross peeking over the top of the crowd. The two men that grip the upright cross scowl at nearly every passerby if they don’t verbally exhort them to change their wicked ways. I curse again not so much under my breath, set the cooler down, flip it open and fetch another Abita. A female couple begins to kiss beneath the cross in perhaps the most triumphant moment of anti-bigotry I’ll witness all day. I pick out the blue and green wigs and silver spandex leotard of my friends’ costumes further up the street, take another swig from the beer in my hands, and plunge headlong towards the people asking God to save me from my wicked, wicked self. Today is an excellent day.
***
I can’t recall where I picked up the thought that Mardi Gras in New Orleans was the den of all sin, destitution, and moral bankruptcy in the world. I don’t remember anyone ever specifically preaching to me to be wary of the end of the pre-Lenten season or that I should never go to New Orleans in Mardi Gras season to find out what I shouldn’t be doing with my life. I did, however, have several family members calling me up until the Thursday before Mardi Gras to remind me to be wary of all of the gratuitous “tits and ass” (their words, not mine, reprinted here without their permission) to which I was about to be subjected. But even then I couldn’t help but wondering where these erudite warnings came from; no local who I’d talked to about the Carnival season ever bemoaned or warned me against rampant, arbitrary nudity or otherwise grossly offensive shenanigans. Those I did talk to made it clear that I should expect everyone and their children to be drinking or in some state of inebriation, but even that didn’t seem like much of a doomsday scenario to someone who’s survived Disco at Harris four times. If anything, the majority of natives I talked to cited the traffic created from the swarms of tourists and cordoned parade routes as the most grievous of the weekend’s woes.
***
My official Fat Tuesday starts with the alarm clock going off at 6:20; I briefly rinse off in the shower, then douse my hair in nearly half a bottle of “Göt 2B Glued” hairspray. It’s been about seven years since I last used gel or any other kind of hair product but shampoo and the rare conditioner, yet my primping/gelling/spiking gestures are eerily familiar and practiced. As soon as my hair is set perpendicular to my scalp in all places, I make a pass with most of the full bottle of purple spray-on hairy dye. An attempt at a gold varnish follows, but the result makes me look too much like a frosted-tipped 90’s boy-band wannabe so I lacquer it again as best I can with the purple. My costume – a silver-sequined tailcoat, a purple neck-tutu (or ruff, for those of you who ever sung in a high Anglican choir), a pair of yellow-rimmed one-way radiation-symbol-emblazoned goggles, a black and silver tie, two pairs of white full-length tights, a black t-shirt, and black biker shorts – goes on quickly, and I’m texting people about where and when to meet to head to Zulu by 7:00 a.m. I arrive at my friend Katie’s house at 7:20, have a Bloody Mary in my hand by 7:23, banana pancakes in my stomach by 7:40, and pile into Katie’s car in the company of five other friends and several new acquaintances by 8:05. I panic briefly about where to hold my wallet (my keys have been safely tied into the laces of my shoes) before settling on my biker shorts. I initially try to keep it to the outside of my thigh, but as soon as we pile out of the car near the beginning of the Zulu parade route, I find that it seems to prefer riding much closer to my groin. Resolving that only alcohol will make this understanding easier, I begin pouring our first round of daiquiris from the gallon I purchased the night before. Thankfully, I’m mostly oblivious to the open stares non-natives seem to be giving me as indulge myself several times over in the sweet, as I have two months and a fateful trip to Washington D.C. to go before I learn that New Orleans is the only city in the nation without firm open-container laws. But that’s only mostly.
***
From what I’ve learned, Mardi Gras in New Orleans – understood holistically as an event that begins two and half weeks before Fat Tuesday itself – is a relatively benign event. The greatest shocks I encountered were the aforementioned traffic and the length of the bathroom lines Mardi Gras afternoon. Sure, I could have easily found and witnessed in relatively quick passing depravity, nudity, or other “vices” in which to indulge, but by and large these attractions are only found if you’re actively and even somewhat aggressively looking for them. I walked the length of the quarter twice, and did two full circuits of the Marigny, and while I’m not sure if what I witnessed or partook in would be everyone’s particular piece of cake, I never one saw someone publicly urinate, vomit, or flash anyone (these generally being my standards of behavior that cross the intangible boundary of social ill). In fact, I’d even venture to argue that everything formally associated with Mardi Gras as orchestrated by the city and the official krewes is just about as family-friendly as it can get. The streets and parade routes are massed with ladders that have seats and wheels affixed to their tops so that kids can sit higher than adults and get better throws; throwers on the floats generally target women and children much more than men (in my personal, anecdotal, estimation); the vast majority of filler between floats are high-school marching bands with marchers’ parents holding back the crowd alongside them; and the floats themselves – outside of the inaugural Krewe de Vieux parade – are by and large themed around mythological monsters, fairy-tale creatures, and benevolent magics of kid’s stories. At least on the main routes, if you’re looking for an exceptionally wild time, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Overall, the only tangible downside to Mardi Gras that I observed was the sheer length and scope of the celebration. New Orleans is a city that knows how to party and likes it that way; we’re the city that takes two days off for Easter, three to four for Mardi Gras itself, half-days for Cinco de Mayo and St. Patricks Day, and as much time off for any other conceivably-excused holiday or pastime. Mardi Gras is thus more of a two-week-long celebration punctuated by the intermittent sober workday for those who (I’m told) have the luxury to do it correctly. Think a weeks-long block party, with parades, children, and sporadic finals thrown in for good measure. This makes the entire event much more akin to a marathon than a pitched party. Pacing is crucial, as seeing all of the best parades from the best spots over the weeks leading up to the actual day is nigh impossible, though some people will go to great lengths to try. In my experience, most have plans to attend as many as possible, but eventually surrender to the need for a break or general recuperation. Prioritizing what you see, when you want to see it, or the throws from the parades you want most, is a necessary step for not only surviving but also achieving a rewarding, satisfied holiday blitz.
***
This will be my first official Mardi Gras parade; I’m a little excited, but more so simply awed at the sheer amount of people and cars boxed in around me. I’ve gotten to the parade route fairly early, and in all likelihood well ahead of when it will actually pass the intersection of 7th and St. Charles. Since this is a night parade (and also the only all-female parade in the succession of parades leading up to Mardi Gras day), the crowd the parade hopes to draw is expected to be a little more hardcore than your average daytime parade, but I honestly have little idea of what that means or what to expect. The transformation of St. Charles Avenue – my normal route to work – to the eve’s Krewe de Muses route isn’t completely engrossing as it is haunting. People meander casually across the Garden District’s main thoroughfare, alcohol well in hand, perch their children atop ladders with wheels and chairs nailed to their apex, and break out beads and chairs on both sides of the route all while bleached in a fluorescent gloss by the lamps above. Cars that would during normal daylight hours speed by at your average 35-40 mph are slowed to a crawl, in part due to the presence of police, but more out of deference to the revelers’ right of way.
It takes me a little while to locate my group of friends, and we kill the time before the first float rolls past by gawking at passerby and staking our turf amidst the growing throng of people packing the city-bound St. Charles corridor. After an hour and half with still no parade in sight, I end up walking up the boulevard along the neutral-ground (median) towards the parade to find yet another group of friends clustered closer to the route’s turn from napoleon onto St. Charles. By this time the corridor is positively teaming with people, most looking as if they’ve just stepped out of a Tulane or Loyola house party. This crowd makes me unnervingly self-conscious about my lack of festive dress; lacking mask, costume, or beads at this point, I stick out rather plainly in my grey hoodie and jeans. I arrive to find my friends (who are thankfully just as under-dressed as I am) just as the first of the floats begin to pass our patch of sidewalk. The floats are enormous, at least compared to what I’m used to for a parade. Generally, when I think of a “float”, it’s something besotted with dancing puppets and curiously-garbed celebrities a la Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or a wheeled platform speckled with the school cheer squad and towed by the local car shop’s most manly truck. These floats are triple-tiered, decked with anywhere from a dozen to two-dozen throwers, are pulled by farm-grade tractors, tower over the nearest lamp-post, and have extra tractors meandering behind them in case the one towing the float breaks down.
My friends, all for the most part Mardi Gras veterans, are already making the most of our vantage on the sidewalk and are packing on the beads. I watch them race forward and clamor for beads, meet with varying degrees of success, and end up throwing myself after them after the fourth of fifth float that passes. I try to gauge and catalogue the best approach for gathering beads, whether one hand up, both hands up, jumping yelling certain phrases, or a combination of approaches yield more or better beads, but I quickly succumb to the notion that in order to gain beads you first have to have beads (wealth begets wealth after all). The locals and veterans around me chastise me for committing the one cardinal sin of Mardi Gras by picking up beads off the ground, but my in my poverty I don’t feel the slightest reservation of guilt.
***
The truth about Mardi Gras is that its central activity is perhaps one of the most ridiculous and subtly elitist out of any partying event I’ve known. Christmas has its lights, Thanksgiving has its feast, Easter has its egg-hunts, Chanukah has its gifts, and birthdays have their piñatas; Mardi Gras has grown men getting into verbal sparring matches over who caught a necklace of plastic beads. The object of Fat Tuesday in a more traditional, true-to-form sense is certainly to drink, eat, and have a good time before the fast of Lent. But the activity of competing in a frenzied crowd for the (by and large) useless plastic baubles that are worth more given away than received often feels downright feudal. The beads themselves, as my executive director once described, “are the most expensive thing in the world for the time they’re in the air”. The moment after they’ve been caught or fall to the ground they become worthless, and you’ll be chided for picking anything off the ground – even if that’s how some of us unfortunate enough to be male, gangly, and conservatively dressed might start a modest collection. Even after you’ve triumphantly caught the throw, what you’ve caught – unless it’s not a bead and something of actual utility such as a cup, t-shirt, or coconut – is by nature worth nothing compared to the beads currently leaving the throwers hands. In addition to the compulsively elastic nature of the beads’ worth, it is the seldom occasion that anyone will stop, admire, or complement either the arsenal you’ve acquired or the monumental effort you put into making the catch that saved some precious beads from hitting the ground. As near as I could tell, the only recognition you’ll achieve for your bead-catching success is if you’re either female and generously attractive, manage to become burdened to the point where you can no longer function normally, or just have incredibly supportive friends.
It therefore becomes a question of sanity (if not sobriety) and the levels to which those of us chasing beads will stoop to make that next catch or sway the masked throwers on the floats. En masse, we would swarm forward yelling inanely at the throwers anything from the generic “AHHHHH!” and “HEEEEEEEY!” to the more specific “LIGHTUPLIGHTUPLIGHTUPLIGHTUP!” as a direct supplication for beads that light up in the dark. We’d then be pushed or ushered solemnly back to the sidewalk from whence we came by the chaperones, policemen, or spouses of those in the band, act, or group performing between floats. In my mind’s eye we resembled a rabid wave that crashed upon the floats again and again, though I suppose that if you looked at the crowd from the air we more closely resembled some contracting esophagus, ushering the floats farther down the route into the belly of the city. Many of us would try directly haggling with the throwers (making eye contact is crucial), and it wasn’t uncommon to hear wives, significant others, and/or firstborns offered up in exchange for a particularly generous throw. Personally lacking a wife or firstborn I stuck to the swarm-and-yell approach most of the time, though I did succumb to doing a jig with a sparsely-clad girl on my shoulders to up my odds of getting a coconut at Zulu.
Evoking the feudally capitalist nature of the event, our communal quest for beads would invariably devolve into a game of one-upmanship as we’d try to outstrip each other in the eyes of the throwers (most memorable was the man who had harnessed a miniature basketball hoop to his head). With generous quantities of alcohol involved, our efforts would just as consistently turn modestly volatile. Confronted with a couple who were distinctly unified to block my longer reach by jostling me backwards every time something shiny was tossed our way at Toth, I had to catch myself from acting on the dark, counter-jostling thoughts that crept into my head. After all, I was contemplating escalation and vengeful jostling purely over a handful of beads – that in all actuality I probably didn’t really even want. That realization brought into sharp focus the inherent lack of reward in prostrating (or prostituting, depending on your point of view) myself before the all-powerful throwers on the floats. The allure of amassing any quantity of beads subsequently waned from that point onwards, and I began to speculate as to the value of these plastic figments in the eyes of the greater body of revelers around me and the fulfillment they reaped in collecting enough to draw the attention of inebriated passerby. I’ve gone through enough bags of beads and baubles in the few dozen houses I’ve gutted while in New Orleans to fill at least as many shopping carts. At the time I presumed that they had been hoarded away for some time, date, or purpose that had simply eluded my feeble mind. Now I’m much less certain. I for one now know that whenever I do depart this city, I’ll be leaving anything that I caught.
***
The parade itself is ceaseless spectacle and the bands and dancers between the floats are constantly engaging, but after the second hour I find my feet aching, my voice hoarse and throat burning, and my eyes expectantly searching for an end to the floats rather than the lights of the next one to round the corner. I’ve amassed so many beads that I have to push them aside to touch my chin to my chest. Quietly, I wish my friends a good night and muddle through the throng of primarily Tulane undergrads and to my car. I’ve cut my first genuine Mardi Gras parade prematurely short, and though I’m touched with guilt for leaving early, I’m in truth more relieved to break away from the throng and return home than stick it out to the end. I give a ride to a group of sorority girls who accost me for leaving the parade early; they loudly laud Mardi Grads to passerby out of my car windows and regale each other with descriptions of how little they’ll have to do over the course of the coming week. I make it back home and proceed to photographically document the beads I’ve built up around my neck. After all, even if it’s a somewhat futile gesture, I’m going to have to have physical proof for my family that after officially partaking in Mardi Gras’ revelries I haven’t fallen forever into sin and vice.
