It's Carnival Time

Yeah, it is Carnival time. I can't even describe the feel of this city as we plunge into the depths of all-time low debauchery and foulness during the Mardi Gras season. Growing up in New Orleans is quite an experience. I am used to the constant intercession of questions whenever I travel. "You from New Orleans, that place must be fun during Mardi Gras?" or "Is it as crazy as it looks on t.v. you know on the show COPS?" Nothing brings tears to my eyes faster. What other way can I explain over a million people traveling into your city for a week to drink, piss, puke and trash the city I love so much for the sake to say, "I went to Mardi Gras and boy was I drunk." I love my hometown, but there is nothing I can't stand more than the image most people outside of New Orleans imagine that our great city is like this all the time.

When I think back on my younger memories of Mardi Gras I remember a peaceful setting, but then again my parents decided to take us away from the city that care forget for the week to see the world outside of Louisiana. Places like, Washington D.C., Navarre Beach Florida, Gatlinburg Tennessee, Los Angeles California, and my favorite as a child Orlando Florida. It was fun to see different places, and watch my pops turn into Clark Griswold from National Lampoons Vacation. Oh, the great stories I would have when I returned back to school. While my friends would revert to the ever so redundant story of how they caught so many beads that are worthless but seem so precious at the moment of reception, I would indulge them with tales of skiing down the Rocky Mountains or riding all the cool rides at Disney World with no lines. Is there anything better as a kid that going to an amusement park and there are no lines for the rides. It was like having an unlimited supply of floppy disks for your commodore 64.

This past Saturday, I spent the entire afternoon on the "median" as my friend refers to what we call a neutral ground, waiting incessantly for a parade to come by. In particular, Endymion, which is the largest, overrated parade in the city of New Orleans. When the parade got near we saw our whole world crumble by an onslaught of people making a mad rush to the get in front of where we had been sitting all day. We were pushed back until we were behind everyone else. Then we saw our things get trampled as people saw fit to fight for beads and cups in the spot we had been sitting in. Sunday was a little better as we set up on St. Charles and Louisiana for what the locals call the best day of Mardi Gras. There are 4 parades on the Sunday before Mardi Gras and it all culminates with the oldest and best parade in the city "Bacchus." We didn't get trampled as much as it was hard to find a place to go to the bathroom. I paid 5 bucks to use a restaurant a block away just because they had small lines. There it is again, that reference back to lines. What a world we could live in if there were no lines for the things we wanted to do. Only after I was standing in line at the Port-o-lets did I witness a guy and girl squeeze into the porto johns together. They remerged about 10 minutes later with scurvy and bile and other random diseases that come from being captive in those things for more than 5 minutes. My brothers and I spent the entire day out there, roughly from 9am until 9pm. We ate, we laughed at others parading, we danced to the beat of high school marching bands, and we even caught a few beads. I have to say it wasn't that bad of day considering the previous day.

After much deliberation I have made one conscious decision, next year we are going some place else. Thanks in part to my Jacques Costeau father who instilled in me the passion to travel and see other worlds. Mardi Gras seems like fun the first few times around, and then it becomes something so bothersome like taking out the trash every Sunday night. I hope Mardi Gras never goes away, it gives me a chance to do the thing I love while others get to deface the city I call home for a chance to say the went to Mardi Gras.