5569 Miles: Louisiana, New Orleans, and Mardi Gras, Chapter 5
Louisiana
We tore across Southeast Texas down I-10, which is as straight as the line down Yankee Stadium's right field, and drilled across Louisiana. Staying on I-10 all the way across Louisiana, it is a 274 mile trip. The major cities on this route are Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Slidell. The Mississippi River is a major landmark on this path. Another is the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, a pair of bridges between Baton Rouge and Lafayette that are over 18 miles long. This is the fourteenth longest bridge in the world and crosses the Atchafalaya River and its accompanying swamp, which is the largest swamp in the United States.
Lake Charles
Lake Charles was 133 miles ahead. It is the fifth largest city in Louisiana with a strong Cajun culture, which dominates southern Louisiana. Cajuns are a mixture of the French colonists who had settled in lower Louisiana in the late 18th century and French-speaking settlers called Acadians who lived in Nova Scotia, Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and Maine. Hence, the Acadian National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. The Acadians were cast out of their homeland by the British during the French and Inidan War from 1754-1763. Because some of them rebelled against the British government, they were all expelled. Some went into the Thirteen Colonies, some to France, some to other British colonies. From France, they migrated to Louisiana, which was owned by France at the time. Later it was owned by the Spanish, but eventually Louisiana became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase. However, the Cajuns maintained a separate culture. Generally, the Cajuns remain Roman Catholic and have their own distinctive language, which is a dialect of the French language.
Lafayette
Lafayette was another 75 miles. It is the fourth largest city in the state. The name Lafayette is well known in American history. Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette was a young French general dearly loved by George Washington. Lafayette became a major-general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War under Washington's command. Later, Lafayette named one of his sons after Washington, George Washington de Lafayette.
Many cities and monuments in the United States bear his name. The city of Lafayette is the center of the Cajun and Creole cultures in both Louisiana and the United States. The Creoles are descended from the French and Spanish colonial settlers when Spain once owned Louisiana before the Louisiana Purchase. Most Creoles, however, now live in New Orleans. The name Creole today refers to those who have French connections in Louisiana plus a European or African heritage.
Baton Rouge
In another 58 miles, I was in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana since 1849 with the exception of 13 years during the Civil War when it was moved elsewhere. It is also the second largest city and one of the fastest growing in the U.S. 200,000 were added after Hurricane Katrina. The name means "red stick." It refers to a red cypress pole warning that was once seen by a French explorer in 1699 that was festooned with bloody animals that marked the boundary between Houma and Bayou Goula tribal hunting grounds. These ‘red stick" communities became hostile against European settles who encroached on Indian hunting grounds. There were also "white stick" communities where no aggression was allowed.
Baton Rouge's port is the ninth largest in the U.S. in terms of tonnage shipped. It is also the furthest inland port on the Mississippi that can accommodate ocean-going tankers and cargo carriers. Here their cargo is transferred onto rails, pipelines, and barges. Sitting right on the Mississippi River and a bluff, the first bluff upriver from the Mississippi River Delta, it protects the city's residents from flooding, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. Levees against the Mississippi are built south of the bluff.
The ExxonMobil facility in Baton Rouge is the second largest oil refinery in the country and among the top 10 largest in the world. Louisiana State University resides here. Just over 50% of the city is African American. About 46% is Caucasian. 20% of the population is made up of students. The city is a melting pot of two religious cultures - mostly Cajun and Creole Catholics and Baptists. The biggest event of the year is Mardi Gras. It is the 95th largest major television market in the country.
New Orleans
Then comes New Orleans, the Big Easy, 80 miles east of Baton Rouge. No one knows for sure just how the name "The Big Easy" got attached to New Orleans. Some think it is because there are so many ways for a good musician to make a living there. No other city is so open and supportive of musical artists. Others think it is the city's relaxed attitude toward alcohol consumption, even during the days of Prohibition from 1919-1933. Maybe it is the relatively low cost of living as compared to other cities. Whatever the reason, the 1987 film entitled "The Big Easy" has made the reference almost instantly recognizable.
New Orleans is a major U.S. port, the largest city in Louisiana, and the 46th largest city in the USA. It was named after - what else? - a Regent of France, whose name came from the French city of Orleans. The city has often been called the "most unique" city in America.
Mardi Gras
New Orleans is probably noted mostly for Mardi Gras, or the Carnival season. It has been called the "Greatest Free Show On the Earth," and the freeways of America load up with cars driving like demons from all directions to get there. Go once, and you will know why. Mardi Gras literally means "Fat Tuesday." Although there is a Mardi Gras season, one day, Fat Tuesday, is actually Mardi Gras. It takes place between February 3 and March 9, depending on the date of Easter. Every visible manifestation of Mardi Gras is loaded with tradition. The city's population doubles on Mardi Gras day. In fact, that day is a legal STATE HOLIDAY.
Mardi Gras came to America in 1699 through the French Catholics when France claimed the territories of what is now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which is where Mardi Gras is primarily celebrated today, especially along the Gulf coast in the French settlements of Mobile and Biloxi. Historically, it goes back to the Middle Ages and even back to the Roman Empire. When Rome embraced Christianity, the church fathers incorporated Christian concepts into some of the pagan rituals. They did this with Easter and Christmas, for example. They did the same thing with the Roman Carnival, which was a period of abandon and merriment. The only thing I can figure is that they decided to have a day at the end of the Roman Carnival when they turned their backs on sin once and for all, sort of like what Christian salvation from sin is supposed to be. Ash Wednesday is the day that symbolizes forsaking sin after having one last go at committing every transgression one can think of before he has to give it all up and follow Christ in the penance of Lent. Mardi Gras refers to the practice of eating yourself into oblivion on the last day before the fasting of the Lenten season begins on the next day, Ash Wednesday. Somewhere along the line complete abandon to everything got thrown into this as well. Somebody said, "Wait a minute, if we are going to eat ourselves to death, why don't we think about doing all those other things that are prohibited in the Ten Commandments as part of what we should not be doing too." People decided that not only were they going to eat till the cows came home, but they were going to open the doors to everything they always wanted to do before they came to the absolute end of the track and had to start confessing and repenting, which was everything they did not want to do. So if you go to Mardi Gas, the levees that broke around New Orleans and flooded the city with the filthy waters of Lake Pontchartrain in 2005 are symbolic of what happens there every year in mid-winter. There is dancing, feasting, endless parades, music, balls, costumes, masks to hide behind (but only on Fat Tuesday, the day banks are closed for obvious reasons), displays of what is offensive to human nature, and rampant crime. The phrase "Let the good times roll" emerged out of the Mardi Gras tradition.
Well, the whole concept of one single day of doing whatever you want to do got to be so popular that they decided to extend it for a season Why do this only on ONE day? In some places, Mardi Gras celebrations can start in November. It steadily builds until the last three days before Ash Wednesday when all the stops are pulled out in realization that the heavy hand of Roman Catholic and Anglican religion is going to put a stop to it and send everybody to hell if they don't cease and desist. In spite of merciful appearance of Ash Wednesday, I doubt that it does much to impede the lifestyle of the previous weeks because once those things get started the attraction is much greater than the threat of the consequences. The redemption of human nature by a Divine Being is the only cure for that.
In 1979, the New Orleans police department went on strike. Some of the parades were cancelled and fewer people came to New Orleans. So they called in the National Guard to maintain order. The Guard prevented what crimes they could, but they made no effort to enforce laws regulating morality or drug use. As a result, many in New Orleans think 1979 was the best Mardi Gras that has ever been.
Krewes and The Parades
In spite of all that Mardi Gras represents, there are two very fascinating facets of the season. One is the parades. The parades start cranking up on January 6, known as the Feast of the Epiphany, which marks the end of the Christmas season. They continue until Ash Wednesday, but they really ramp up during the two and a half weeks prior to Mardi Gras when the city goes into parade frenzy.
The parades are organized by what are called Krewes (crews). Krewes are private social groups made up of members who pay dues so that they can finance a parade and maybe even a ball. A krewe can be as simple as a marching club that walks in a Mardi Gras parade for as little as $20 a year per member or individuals who pay thousands of dollars a year for a full-fledged elaborate parade for which they also get to buy a warehouse full of beads to freely dispense from their elaborate floats. These fortunate souls buy the right to sit on a rolling island so that they can bombard the morons below with the flotsam that pours off of it during Mardi Gras.
Krewe members are leaders of New Orleans society, ranging from exclusive "by invitation only" membership policies to anybody who just wants to throw his money away by lifting it over the side of a float and into the arms of greedy bead collectors beneath them. Low membership fees in a krewe probably mean you are going to have to sew your own ridiculous looking costume and get in a garage on many a night to hammer and curse as you decorate your float. More prodigious fees means the work is going to be professionally done by someone else. Included in all this, you are going to have to fork over your life savings to buy a pallet of your own beads to heave off your rolling bead wagon. This is not a cheap business. There are scores and scores of krewes, some of longstanding back into the 1850's. There are menial krewes, and there are Super Krewes that invite celebrities like Danny Kaye and Bob Hope to parade with them.
Eating Crawfish
One of the highlights of Mardi Gras is the food. Forget Mardi Gras; food is always the highlight of New Orleans. Cheese grits, jambalaya, red beans and rice, and beignets are at the core of New Orleans delicacies. But there is one thing they eat down there that I can hardly swallow. Crawfish. There are 125,000 acres of crawfish strewn across Louisiana that are continually manufacturing more crawfish. They recommend that everyone order and eat 3-5 pounds of these things every time he has a feed. A friend of mine took me to a New Orleans restaurant where he ordered a load of these red crustaceans in a huge bowl. The moment the bowl met the table, hands began to fly into this mess of claws. I lifted one from the mound, and he commenced to tell me that there was a method by which it should be enjoyed. With the head in the left hand and the tail in the right, one twists and pulls the thing apart. With just the right amount of torque, the tail separates from head and a protrusion of muddy looking meat is sticking up out of the tail. So far so good. But here is where it takes an iron stomach to complete the rest of the process. A true Louisianan will insert the head, which is in his left hand, into his pie hole, throw his head back, and suck dry the head hole that was left when the meat in the right hand pulled out of that socket where the head had been. Some kind of watery juice drains from the crawfish's head and into his mouth. I waited while Linda gave it a shot. She nearly vomited. She said it felt like a slightly gritty mush, somewhat like bone marrow. That was all I had to hear. I dropped the head like I had just gripped the fire end of a white hot poker. I couldn't do it. And she didn't do it again either.
But now I was faced with the tail and that piece of flesh sticking up. I twirled it around to get a better look, and I saw what looked like a large vein that I had snapped in two when I tore the tail from the head. My eyes moved in to examine that vein further after I had snapped the tail shell off of it. I could see it tunnel its way through the length of the meat all the way to the end. It was filled with a spongy looking material the color of sand. I was looking at a crap-filled intestine. I remember slowly and softly mumbling to myself in this din of crap-eating revelers something like, "Oh, %$#&!" I knew I was still going to be starving after this meal. I cleaned out as many of those veins as I could. But residue from those tubes always spilled out and stained the surrounding meat. It was sort of like trying to wipe up a dirty diaper. I have never eaten a crawfish again. When someone tries to show you how to eat a crawfish, watch closely how he does it. He wrests the tail from the head, slurps the liquid from the cranium, looks out into space without daring to glance at what is in his right hand, and then throws it all down the hatch and grabs another one.
Bourbon Street
On this trip to Key West with Linda, I wanted to go to Mardi Gras again. I had been there in the late 90's and came away with the impression that this was the best party in America. I also had my eyes opened. I had waltzed into the French Quarter during broad daylight and beheld things I had never seen before. Bourbon Street was packed solid with people from one door all the way across the street to the opposite door for as far as you could see while jazz cascaded out of every open door. There was an atmosphere of complete freedom unlike anything I had ever experienced. Women were lifting their blouses and exposing their breasts freely for all to view. Any and every age. It made no difference. Off of this street on this day or at any other time of their lives, a woman would not have thought of doing anything like that. But the gaiety, liberation, and feeling of no inhibition that was in the air was contagious. Scores of people were taking off their pants and blouses. The mood just seemed to open everybody up like we were all on crack. Except for the police. Women exposing themselves was not a problem. But if a man lowered his pants to moon the crowd, the law attacked him with authority and dragged him away.
When a woman was about to reveal herself, it became immediately apparent. An uproar would ascend, and the crowd shifted toward the side show as if they were being drawn into a whirlpool. Every man on Bourbon Street whipped out mega pixel cameras and video equipment and moved in like Steven Spielberg on a set. Sometimes a woman who was going to model her body for the throng was elevated upon someone's shoulders as if she had just thrown the winning touchdown. Sometimes she just stood in the middle of the street and handed off her purse to a girlfriend as if she was going to enter a brawl and go a couple of rounds. Well, that act was like throwing bread crumbs in a pigeon park. Men swarmed in like sharks on a corpse and muscled each other for the best positions. They posted right up in front of her with their cameras ready and rolling as if they were directors at a Hollywood movie. I think you can see all of that today on TV and the Internet as "Girls Gone Wild."
All of this female self-expression was prompted by one thing. Beads. The bead addiction witnessed in the bead throwing parades carries over to everything and is no less a fetish here in the French Quarter. I began to notice that women's necks were weighed down with them here on Bourbon Street. In case the possibility ever existed that anyone didn't have enough of them for free, they were for sale in every store front. Again, you could buy bags of them, or you could whip out cash for just one. The fancier the beads the more expensive they were. Those were the ones most treasured and for which some people would do anything. Women in particular cherished them for free from the hands of a gracious donor. But they came with a price. A lady must lift her sweater, as I was about to witness.
I had just stepped onto Bourbon Street and was spellbound by the spectacle that surrounded me. There was hilarity, commotion, pounding on drums, drinking, thousands of people below, hundreds above the street standing on balconies drinking and howling, and men dangling elaborate but worthless plastic beads over the rails enticing pretty females passing below. My first experience with this occurred just as I got on the Bourbon Street track. I noticed a man hanging an unusual and obviously more expensive chain of beads over a balcony and looking down to my right. I turned my head. I was standing next to a teenage girl about 18 years old. Nonchalantly she hoisted her blouse and held it high while the lecher above oggled her body. I was looking directly at her when she did this. Not yet having any idea of what Bourbon Street was all about during Mardi Gras, my gaze remained transfixed as if what I saw was a surreal painting. I was trying to take this in and log it into my credulity register, but it was like being in a dream where you are moving in slow motion. I heard my mind click like a camera. I have never forgotten that image. The beads daintily floated down from aloft directly into her waiting hands, and she continued her waltz on down the street never to be seen again.
Throws
That night when the parades started up, the beads flew off of those floats and into the hands of the crowds like cannon fire. I raced into the streets with all the other fools to scoop them up and leapt high to snag them from clawing hands. Then I draped them on the necks of Linda and myself, although neither of us lifted our shirts. Everyone was obsessed with beads. There were so many flying from the hands of the floaters that sometimes to get rid of all of them, they would throw over multiple, unopened bags of them into the crowds and street as if they were throwing ballast from a ship, a sure sign that all this junk was from China. There would be mad scrambles for these worthless caches. Just to mix it up, additional crap is mixed in with this avalanche of little balls on a string. Aluminum and wooden dollar-sized coins ping off the streets along with the plunk of plastic cups and sometimes highly decorated shoes. All this junk is called "throws" and is paid for by these krewe members who have nothing more useful to do than buy it and cascade it off of these floats. I have been to Mardi Gras several times now, and I have bags of these beads in the closet. When the grand kids come, I bring them out like booty from the caves of Treasure Island, and they go berserk running their hands through them like they were jewels and pieces of eight from Spanish galleons sunk in the Caribbean just like the millions of idiots who come to Mardi Gras.
Originally the bead business started out with glass beads well over 100 years ago. In the 1960's, the plastic kind came flying off the floats until nobody picked them up any more. Then the whole enterprise shifted to metallic beads in the 90's. Today, some krewes are heaving off fiber-optic and LED powered prizes along with a return to the retro-inspired glass beads. So it is getting more interesting, and the cage fighting in the streets for those beads is getting rough.
The Merciful End
Mardi Gras comes to a screeching halt at Midnight on Fat Tuesday. An army of police officers on horses comes through Bourbon Street where most of the out-of-town revelers congregate (remember the beads and breast scenario) and announce that Ash Wednesday, sometimes referred to as "Trash Wednesday" because of all the debris and waste in the streets, has been legally ushered in by the church, and all profligacy and dissolution must cease. Or go somewhere else and do it.
We tore across Southeast Texas down I-10, which is as straight as the line down Yankee Stadium's right field, and drilled across Louisiana. Staying on I-10 all the way across Louisiana, it is a 274 mile trip. The major cities on this route are Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Slidell. The Mississippi River is a major landmark on this path. Another is the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, a pair of bridges between Baton Rouge and Lafayette that are over 18 miles long. This is the fourteenth longest bridge in the world and crosses the Atchafalaya River and its accompanying swamp, which is the largest swamp in the United States.
Lake Charles
Lake Charles was 133 miles ahead. It is the fifth largest city in Louisiana with a strong Cajun culture, which dominates southern Louisiana. Cajuns are a mixture of the French colonists who had settled in lower Louisiana in the late 18th century and French-speaking settlers called Acadians who lived in Nova Scotia, Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, and Maine. Hence, the Acadian National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. The Acadians were cast out of their homeland by the British during the French and Inidan War from 1754-1763. Because some of them rebelled against the British government, they were all expelled. Some went into the Thirteen Colonies, some to France, some to other British colonies. From France, they migrated to Louisiana, which was owned by France at the time. Later it was owned by the Spanish, but eventually Louisiana became part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase. However, the Cajuns maintained a separate culture. Generally, the Cajuns remain Roman Catholic and have their own distinctive language, which is a dialect of the French language.
Lafayette
Lafayette was another 75 miles. It is the fourth largest city in the state. The name Lafayette is well known in American history. Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette was a young French general dearly loved by George Washington. Lafayette became a major-general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War under Washington's command. Later, Lafayette named one of his sons after Washington, George Washington de Lafayette.
Many cities and monuments in the United States bear his name. The city of Lafayette is the center of the Cajun and Creole cultures in both Louisiana and the United States. The Creoles are descended from the French and Spanish colonial settlers when Spain once owned Louisiana before the Louisiana Purchase. Most Creoles, however, now live in New Orleans. The name Creole today refers to those who have French connections in Louisiana plus a European or African heritage.
Baton Rouge
In another 58 miles, I was in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana since 1849 with the exception of 13 years during the Civil War when it was moved elsewhere. It is also the second largest city and one of the fastest growing in the U.S. 200,000 were added after Hurricane Katrina. The name means "red stick." It refers to a red cypress pole warning that was once seen by a French explorer in 1699 that was festooned with bloody animals that marked the boundary between Houma and Bayou Goula tribal hunting grounds. These ‘red stick" communities became hostile against European settles who encroached on Indian hunting grounds. There were also "white stick" communities where no aggression was allowed.
Baton Rouge's port is the ninth largest in the U.S. in terms of tonnage shipped. It is also the furthest inland port on the Mississippi that can accommodate ocean-going tankers and cargo carriers. Here their cargo is transferred onto rails, pipelines, and barges. Sitting right on the Mississippi River and a bluff, the first bluff upriver from the Mississippi River Delta, it protects the city's residents from flooding, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. Levees against the Mississippi are built south of the bluff.
The ExxonMobil facility in Baton Rouge is the second largest oil refinery in the country and among the top 10 largest in the world. Louisiana State University resides here. Just over 50% of the city is African American. About 46% is Caucasian. 20% of the population is made up of students. The city is a melting pot of two religious cultures - mostly Cajun and Creole Catholics and Baptists. The biggest event of the year is Mardi Gras. It is the 95th largest major television market in the country.
New Orleans
Then comes New Orleans, the Big Easy, 80 miles east of Baton Rouge. No one knows for sure just how the name "The Big Easy" got attached to New Orleans. Some think it is because there are so many ways for a good musician to make a living there. No other city is so open and supportive of musical artists. Others think it is the city's relaxed attitude toward alcohol consumption, even during the days of Prohibition from 1919-1933. Maybe it is the relatively low cost of living as compared to other cities. Whatever the reason, the 1987 film entitled "The Big Easy" has made the reference almost instantly recognizable.
New Orleans is a major U.S. port, the largest city in Louisiana, and the 46th largest city in the USA. It was named after - what else? - a Regent of France, whose name came from the French city of Orleans. The city has often been called the "most unique" city in America.
Mardi Gras
New Orleans is probably noted mostly for Mardi Gras, or the Carnival season. It has been called the "Greatest Free Show On the Earth," and the freeways of America load up with cars driving like demons from all directions to get there. Go once, and you will know why. Mardi Gras literally means "Fat Tuesday." Although there is a Mardi Gras season, one day, Fat Tuesday, is actually Mardi Gras. It takes place between February 3 and March 9, depending on the date of Easter. Every visible manifestation of Mardi Gras is loaded with tradition. The city's population doubles on Mardi Gras day. In fact, that day is a legal STATE HOLIDAY.
Mardi Gras came to America in 1699 through the French Catholics when France claimed the territories of what is now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, which is where Mardi Gras is primarily celebrated today, especially along the Gulf coast in the French settlements of Mobile and Biloxi. Historically, it goes back to the Middle Ages and even back to the Roman Empire. When Rome embraced Christianity, the church fathers incorporated Christian concepts into some of the pagan rituals. They did this with Easter and Christmas, for example. They did the same thing with the Roman Carnival, which was a period of abandon and merriment. The only thing I can figure is that they decided to have a day at the end of the Roman Carnival when they turned their backs on sin once and for all, sort of like what Christian salvation from sin is supposed to be. Ash Wednesday is the day that symbolizes forsaking sin after having one last go at committing every transgression one can think of before he has to give it all up and follow Christ in the penance of Lent. Mardi Gras refers to the practice of eating yourself into oblivion on the last day before the fasting of the Lenten season begins on the next day, Ash Wednesday. Somewhere along the line complete abandon to everything got thrown into this as well. Somebody said, "Wait a minute, if we are going to eat ourselves to death, why don't we think about doing all those other things that are prohibited in the Ten Commandments as part of what we should not be doing too." People decided that not only were they going to eat till the cows came home, but they were going to open the doors to everything they always wanted to do before they came to the absolute end of the track and had to start confessing and repenting, which was everything they did not want to do. So if you go to Mardi Gas, the levees that broke around New Orleans and flooded the city with the filthy waters of Lake Pontchartrain in 2005 are symbolic of what happens there every year in mid-winter. There is dancing, feasting, endless parades, music, balls, costumes, masks to hide behind (but only on Fat Tuesday, the day banks are closed for obvious reasons), displays of what is offensive to human nature, and rampant crime. The phrase "Let the good times roll" emerged out of the Mardi Gras tradition.
Well, the whole concept of one single day of doing whatever you want to do got to be so popular that they decided to extend it for a season Why do this only on ONE day? In some places, Mardi Gras celebrations can start in November. It steadily builds until the last three days before Ash Wednesday when all the stops are pulled out in realization that the heavy hand of Roman Catholic and Anglican religion is going to put a stop to it and send everybody to hell if they don't cease and desist. In spite of merciful appearance of Ash Wednesday, I doubt that it does much to impede the lifestyle of the previous weeks because once those things get started the attraction is much greater than the threat of the consequences. The redemption of human nature by a Divine Being is the only cure for that.
In 1979, the New Orleans police department went on strike. Some of the parades were cancelled and fewer people came to New Orleans. So they called in the National Guard to maintain order. The Guard prevented what crimes they could, but they made no effort to enforce laws regulating morality or drug use. As a result, many in New Orleans think 1979 was the best Mardi Gras that has ever been.
Krewes and The Parades
In spite of all that Mardi Gras represents, there are two very fascinating facets of the season. One is the parades. The parades start cranking up on January 6, known as the Feast of the Epiphany, which marks the end of the Christmas season. They continue until Ash Wednesday, but they really ramp up during the two and a half weeks prior to Mardi Gras when the city goes into parade frenzy.
The parades are organized by what are called Krewes (crews). Krewes are private social groups made up of members who pay dues so that they can finance a parade and maybe even a ball. A krewe can be as simple as a marching club that walks in a Mardi Gras parade for as little as $20 a year per member or individuals who pay thousands of dollars a year for a full-fledged elaborate parade for which they also get to buy a warehouse full of beads to freely dispense from their elaborate floats. These fortunate souls buy the right to sit on a rolling island so that they can bombard the morons below with the flotsam that pours off of it during Mardi Gras.
Krewe members are leaders of New Orleans society, ranging from exclusive "by invitation only" membership policies to anybody who just wants to throw his money away by lifting it over the side of a float and into the arms of greedy bead collectors beneath them. Low membership fees in a krewe probably mean you are going to have to sew your own ridiculous looking costume and get in a garage on many a night to hammer and curse as you decorate your float. More prodigious fees means the work is going to be professionally done by someone else. Included in all this, you are going to have to fork over your life savings to buy a pallet of your own beads to heave off your rolling bead wagon. This is not a cheap business. There are scores and scores of krewes, some of longstanding back into the 1850's. There are menial krewes, and there are Super Krewes that invite celebrities like Danny Kaye and Bob Hope to parade with them.
Eating Crawfish
One of the highlights of Mardi Gras is the food. Forget Mardi Gras; food is always the highlight of New Orleans. Cheese grits, jambalaya, red beans and rice, and beignets are at the core of New Orleans delicacies. But there is one thing they eat down there that I can hardly swallow. Crawfish. There are 125,000 acres of crawfish strewn across Louisiana that are continually manufacturing more crawfish. They recommend that everyone order and eat 3-5 pounds of these things every time he has a feed. A friend of mine took me to a New Orleans restaurant where he ordered a load of these red crustaceans in a huge bowl. The moment the bowl met the table, hands began to fly into this mess of claws. I lifted one from the mound, and he commenced to tell me that there was a method by which it should be enjoyed. With the head in the left hand and the tail in the right, one twists and pulls the thing apart. With just the right amount of torque, the tail separates from head and a protrusion of muddy looking meat is sticking up out of the tail. So far so good. But here is where it takes an iron stomach to complete the rest of the process. A true Louisianan will insert the head, which is in his left hand, into his pie hole, throw his head back, and suck dry the head hole that was left when the meat in the right hand pulled out of that socket where the head had been. Some kind of watery juice drains from the crawfish's head and into his mouth. I waited while Linda gave it a shot. She nearly vomited. She said it felt like a slightly gritty mush, somewhat like bone marrow. That was all I had to hear. I dropped the head like I had just gripped the fire end of a white hot poker. I couldn't do it. And she didn't do it again either.
But now I was faced with the tail and that piece of flesh sticking up. I twirled it around to get a better look, and I saw what looked like a large vein that I had snapped in two when I tore the tail from the head. My eyes moved in to examine that vein further after I had snapped the tail shell off of it. I could see it tunnel its way through the length of the meat all the way to the end. It was filled with a spongy looking material the color of sand. I was looking at a crap-filled intestine. I remember slowly and softly mumbling to myself in this din of crap-eating revelers something like, "Oh, %$#&!" I knew I was still going to be starving after this meal. I cleaned out as many of those veins as I could. But residue from those tubes always spilled out and stained the surrounding meat. It was sort of like trying to wipe up a dirty diaper. I have never eaten a crawfish again. When someone tries to show you how to eat a crawfish, watch closely how he does it. He wrests the tail from the head, slurps the liquid from the cranium, looks out into space without daring to glance at what is in his right hand, and then throws it all down the hatch and grabs another one.
Bourbon Street
On this trip to Key West with Linda, I wanted to go to Mardi Gras again. I had been there in the late 90's and came away with the impression that this was the best party in America. I also had my eyes opened. I had waltzed into the French Quarter during broad daylight and beheld things I had never seen before. Bourbon Street was packed solid with people from one door all the way across the street to the opposite door for as far as you could see while jazz cascaded out of every open door. There was an atmosphere of complete freedom unlike anything I had ever experienced. Women were lifting their blouses and exposing their breasts freely for all to view. Any and every age. It made no difference. Off of this street on this day or at any other time of their lives, a woman would not have thought of doing anything like that. But the gaiety, liberation, and feeling of no inhibition that was in the air was contagious. Scores of people were taking off their pants and blouses. The mood just seemed to open everybody up like we were all on crack. Except for the police. Women exposing themselves was not a problem. But if a man lowered his pants to moon the crowd, the law attacked him with authority and dragged him away.
When a woman was about to reveal herself, it became immediately apparent. An uproar would ascend, and the crowd shifted toward the side show as if they were being drawn into a whirlpool. Every man on Bourbon Street whipped out mega pixel cameras and video equipment and moved in like Steven Spielberg on a set. Sometimes a woman who was going to model her body for the throng was elevated upon someone's shoulders as if she had just thrown the winning touchdown. Sometimes she just stood in the middle of the street and handed off her purse to a girlfriend as if she was going to enter a brawl and go a couple of rounds. Well, that act was like throwing bread crumbs in a pigeon park. Men swarmed in like sharks on a corpse and muscled each other for the best positions. They posted right up in front of her with their cameras ready and rolling as if they were directors at a Hollywood movie. I think you can see all of that today on TV and the Internet as "Girls Gone Wild."
All of this female self-expression was prompted by one thing. Beads. The bead addiction witnessed in the bead throwing parades carries over to everything and is no less a fetish here in the French Quarter. I began to notice that women's necks were weighed down with them here on Bourbon Street. In case the possibility ever existed that anyone didn't have enough of them for free, they were for sale in every store front. Again, you could buy bags of them, or you could whip out cash for just one. The fancier the beads the more expensive they were. Those were the ones most treasured and for which some people would do anything. Women in particular cherished them for free from the hands of a gracious donor. But they came with a price. A lady must lift her sweater, as I was about to witness.
I had just stepped onto Bourbon Street and was spellbound by the spectacle that surrounded me. There was hilarity, commotion, pounding on drums, drinking, thousands of people below, hundreds above the street standing on balconies drinking and howling, and men dangling elaborate but worthless plastic beads over the rails enticing pretty females passing below. My first experience with this occurred just as I got on the Bourbon Street track. I noticed a man hanging an unusual and obviously more expensive chain of beads over a balcony and looking down to my right. I turned my head. I was standing next to a teenage girl about 18 years old. Nonchalantly she hoisted her blouse and held it high while the lecher above oggled her body. I was looking directly at her when she did this. Not yet having any idea of what Bourbon Street was all about during Mardi Gras, my gaze remained transfixed as if what I saw was a surreal painting. I was trying to take this in and log it into my credulity register, but it was like being in a dream where you are moving in slow motion. I heard my mind click like a camera. I have never forgotten that image. The beads daintily floated down from aloft directly into her waiting hands, and she continued her waltz on down the street never to be seen again.
Throws
That night when the parades started up, the beads flew off of those floats and into the hands of the crowds like cannon fire. I raced into the streets with all the other fools to scoop them up and leapt high to snag them from clawing hands. Then I draped them on the necks of Linda and myself, although neither of us lifted our shirts. Everyone was obsessed with beads. There were so many flying from the hands of the floaters that sometimes to get rid of all of them, they would throw over multiple, unopened bags of them into the crowds and street as if they were throwing ballast from a ship, a sure sign that all this junk was from China. There would be mad scrambles for these worthless caches. Just to mix it up, additional crap is mixed in with this avalanche of little balls on a string. Aluminum and wooden dollar-sized coins ping off the streets along with the plunk of plastic cups and sometimes highly decorated shoes. All this junk is called "throws" and is paid for by these krewe members who have nothing more useful to do than buy it and cascade it off of these floats. I have been to Mardi Gras several times now, and I have bags of these beads in the closet. When the grand kids come, I bring them out like booty from the caves of Treasure Island, and they go berserk running their hands through them like they were jewels and pieces of eight from Spanish galleons sunk in the Caribbean just like the millions of idiots who come to Mardi Gras.
Originally the bead business started out with glass beads well over 100 years ago. In the 1960's, the plastic kind came flying off the floats until nobody picked them up any more. Then the whole enterprise shifted to metallic beads in the 90's. Today, some krewes are heaving off fiber-optic and LED powered prizes along with a return to the retro-inspired glass beads. So it is getting more interesting, and the cage fighting in the streets for those beads is getting rough.
The Merciful End
Mardi Gras comes to a screeching halt at Midnight on Fat Tuesday. An army of police officers on horses comes through Bourbon Street where most of the out-of-town revelers congregate (remember the beads and breast scenario) and announce that Ash Wednesday, sometimes referred to as "Trash Wednesday" because of all the debris and waste in the streets, has been legally ushered in by the church, and all profligacy and dissolution must cease. Or go somewhere else and do it.