NEW ORLEANS MARDI GRAS
Days 51-55
Having taken the early flight from Denver, in bright sunshine (but cold enough to require three big rigs to de-ice the plane before take-off), we arrived in New Orleans some three hours later. Cab to our Bed & Breakfast ‘Auld Sweet Olive’ in the Marigny District just east of The French Quarter. Lovely area, all individual wooden houses, mainly single story, and very deep taking up almost all of the plot and leaving almost nothing as garden. Obviously an area in the throes of being ‘gentirfied’ as the people were all quite trendy. We had booked a lovely self catering apartment, as it should be for £275 a night (special Mardi Gras prices).
We set straight off for our first parade on the Friday night. What we did not appreciate was quite how the parades and Mardi Gras work. Basically parades take place over about 10 weeks, and slowly build towards the last weekend which is the one before Shrove Tuesday. There are lots and lots of parades, big ones, small ones, professional ones, local ones, just a dizzying array. The stand-out thing is that the WHOLE town takes part. Not just tourists. It really is a New Orleans thing! And the people are lovely, really friendly, really pleasant, a total vibe about the place, a party town – not just during Mardi Gras. No wonder they call it the biggest street party in the world because they really all do take part, dress up, wander their streets, spill out of bars. Amazing!!
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The street parades use major routes, and there are police everywhere, I counted FBI, Homeland Security, Sheriffs, State and local police of several varieties all along one street, and so unsurprisingly, despite the happy, drunk, high, crowds there was no trouble, not a hint.
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The big parades are a bit samey, they consist of just two things which alternate. High school marching bands with drums and brass, and floats that are trailers with two levels holding 20-40 adults on either side who basically pelt the crowds with strings of beads, millions and millions of them. Everyone clamours to be thrown beads which you then string round your neck in profusion. By the end of the parade there are thousands of strings on the floor, in the trees, every-bloody-where. Then as you walk home you dump yours somewhere (too heavy) and you slip and slide on others that have been chucked on the floor (which is just another hazard in New Orleans as their pavements are terrible! Broken, missing, forced up by tree roots. Its a cool town but watch your step). 62 tons of beads alone were used this year, along with thousands of stuffed toys and doubloons and for some odd reason, plastic cups.
The other odd thing is that for a very mixed, tolerant and non-racial city it was notable that almost all the marching bands were exclusively black males led by highly-sexualised young black girl dancers. Almost all the floats were manned entirely by white middle aged men who either wore masks eerily reminiscent of the Klan or were dressed as transvestites. Deeply unnerving to an outsider, well just to me then. It goes unremarked here, but my goodness it would never ever be allowed in London. Siddiqui Khan would have the party closed down on day one, there would be outrage, outrage I say! Judge for yourself below.
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My sociological postulation as to why this happens is that porky middle aged white guys can't walk the five miles, and get pissed, and still hurl 10 tons of beads at bystanders, all whilst dressed in questionable outfits, so have to be carried by floats. Young fit black guys can walk and play an instrument at the same time as ogle dancing girls arses, so I guess it makes sense. All the same, you'd think there would be one black float? Enough carping.
Our first parade was an evening event and this where we learned the ropes, or should I say 'the necklaces'. Basically you force yourself to the front. As these two tier floats go by you wave your arms, scream, flutter your eyelashes, anything to make a Klansman or Transvestite hurl a heavy bead necklace your way. On being successful you grab your prize, often unaware that another Klansman has hurled a whole jumbled bundle of necklaces at you as well, maybe a kilo of plastic, which smackes you on the bonce, which causes you to look up as a plastic trumpet takes your eye out. That was Sara.
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I stoically refused to scream and wave and my eyelashes are un-flutterable. I just look stern, warning Transvestites that should they try and brain me with their bundles of tat I may climb the float and extract my revenge, probably dying in the act under a hail of fire from the local assorted gendarmerie. So I have no baubles, bangles and beads. Sara has a shit ton. Share she does not, so I relent. Apparently I can flutter when I want to!
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Be-low you can see us be-decked, and then be-dumping.
The next thing we learned was that beads alone don't cut it, you look like a tourist. To really fit in you need an outfit - and so we outfitted in style with a smart hat (Sara) and a hand painted dinner jacket (Brian, which Sara later nicked). From that moment on we spent three days dressed every time we left the house, day or night, sweltering heat or not. One morning Sara buggered off with the hat AND jacket and I wandered round town feeling as though I had no trousers on and everyone was looking at me. Nobody goes out without beads!!
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The pics below give you a flavour of the parades and the video (which is big so may take time to load) shows the naked acquisitiveness of the crowd (and my darling wife) to acquire baubles they will in a short will chuck on the floor. It also shows how well Transvestites can throw stuff when drunk as skunks, still very accurately apparently.
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It would be reasonable to think that Mardi Gras is a New Orleans City Hall controlled event, organised, manicured, controlled from above. Far from it!!! It is a bloody party in every street. From sparrowsfart (which means f'ing early for the uninitiated) to, well I suppose, sparrowsfart the next day. The pics below prove that. We came out of our door, turned left, and hit this, morning, noon and night, and these guys are ALL locals.
The video below I took on a crowded traffic filled road that I was struggling to cross, when these loons appeared from nowhere, shut the road for 10 minutes as they streamed past, and nobody blinked an eyelid, nobody hooted, just great fun had by all. Full marks to New Orleans and the folk that live there!!!! Sara and I can really recommend Mardi Gras, especially the last weekend leading up to FAT (Shrove) TUESDAY!!
I mean! Look at that lot above, and none of them are tourists, they are all locals, and that is not even a real parade, it was miles off the parade routes, It's a bunch of happy residents, ALL dressed up, nobody wimping out, and all having a ball, and that was about midday!! God knows what they were like a few hours later.
Aside from an amazingly relaxed carnival New Orleans has such good shops, so many art galleries, antique shops, restaurants, jazz bars, sights, architecture and just STUFF, it beats most American cities into a cocked hat in terms of things to do, see and experience. It is right up there with San Francisco and New York in that regard, and even more so during Mardi Gras. One gallery/museum deserves a mention. M.S Rau (check them out at www.rauantiques.com), the BEST I have ever visited. On the main street, fourth generation owners, massive inside on four floors. Four Warhols ($2m each), Renoir, Tissot, stunningly lit, no barriers, no guards, amazing antiques, and all slap bang in The French Quarter, which is criticised as a tourist trap. Go figure.
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Enough culture, I went on an Air Boat in the swamp to get some air.
Out on the local swamps, cracking along at serious speeds, drifting and spinning, spray and mud everywhere - but NOT on my trusty white hat, which by this time you must have noted I wear everywhere. Not just because it is trendy (well it is here cos they all wear baseball caps and love my unusual flat cap, but because it keeps the sun off my poor bonce and
out of my eyes. We did an hour or so of hair raising stunts driven by a proper red-neck Alligator pest controller, who when we pulled over to get the mud out of eyes and our heartrates down, promptly pulled a live Gator (a four year old) out from under MY seat! He had recently captured it, and bought it along because as it was still cold in these parts he did not expect to be able to show us many in the wild, they don't like the cold, they slow right down. The only reason we could hold him was because it was cold, otherwise he'd have ripped my face off.
Enough of my bravery with reptiles. One last look at the amazing houses that form an enormous amount of the housing stock throughout this very interesting town.
Beautifully modelled by my wife, and travelling partner, posing away there in the foreground, who, like my aforementioned white hat, you have probably noted crops up in a lot of photos on this trip.
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I have tried using other models but almost every time I did it has led to misunderstandings and sometimes even unpleasantness, As a result I have signed an exclusive contract with Mrs Henslow and laid off all the other other girls. They were not happy it has to be said, but most of them took it on the chin, from the aforementioned Mrs Henslow. It's also easier as Sara is always there!
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And so we regretfully depart New Orleans and start on the next leg of our odyssey, on to Miami...........