Holey Moley

Another Mardi Gras has come and gone, as my boss put it I am no worse for the wear, except for the fact that I put like 30 miles on my legs and 5 years off my liver. Traditionally my response to “How was Mardi Gras” is “No Comment,” but for the sake of those readers unfortunate enough to have missed it (and posterity) I will recount the experience briefly.

Wednesday was a warm up, with two parades, venison sausage, some Jack and waters, and everyone in bed by 11.

Thursday’s parades were cancelled due to a supposed hellacious rainstorm (someone said it rained 3 inches in 20 minutes but I’m skeptical) that was brief but ominous enough to reschedule 2 parades and cancel Thursday’s third. I watched 30 Rock reruns until after the strom had passed, then went to Balcony Bar and met up with some folks I’d met in Chicago after the Saints game right before New Years. I convinced one of them to come with me to the Howlin’ Wolf, to meet up with a gaggle of Tulane sorority girls who suspiciously disappeared right after I started dancing. Having lost all my friends, I did what any rational person does in that situation and went to Ms Mae’s where I serendipitously ran into one of my favorite barflys, someone who’s been called in publications far more prestigious than this one: a “notable New Oreleans Socialite,” or something similar. We partied there until it got late and the staff decided I’d had too much to drink and was singing along too loudly to the jukebox. Obviously they didn’t know me well enough to know that I do that when I’m stone cold sober.

Friday was a glorious sunshiney day, that I'd already taken off, so I sat on my porch and got ready for the big game. Friday there were 4 parades, and they kept breaking down and it was probably 1am or later before the final float had passed. I’m having a little trouble piecing together what happened after the parades were over, but I know that I got ditched by my friends again and I ended the night around 4am when the band playing at Le Bon Temps finally finished up.

Saturday was Endymion, oh Endymion. Saturday was a shitshow that turned into an even bigger shitshow once the clock struck midnight and my buddy turned 24 (he took a lot of shit for being 17 when he got to college.) At some point, we got ditched, and after we had both gotten kicked out of Mae’s went to Le Bon Temps to play some terrible pool. I later found out that I had left my credit card there.

Sunday was quite a day, parades in the afternoon, superbowl, “superkrewe” Bacchus parade at night. After the afternoon parades, we (I’m too Sexy for this Porch) managed to stir up a batch of rock and roll on my buddies’ porch. At some point we were joined by a professional musician who happens to be one of my band mate’s ESL students who we happened to see play with Russel Batiste a few weeks ago, after Krewe de Vieux. With him in the band, the show went from being drunken fun to an awesome Rock! show pretty quickly. We ended up as the superbowl was starting, which finished up in time for the last 10 or so floats in Bacchus, after which it was time to go home. Basically, the wave of adrenaline I was riding crashed after the I’m too Sexy for this Porch show, and then came back a little, and then crashed even lower after Eli and Tyree’s little wunderplay.

Monday I woke up around noon and went scavenger hunting for my credit card which mercifully was at Le Bon Temps. I then sagely went back home and took a nap until about five. Monday --> Tuesday is the big finish, and you need to have as much strength as you can muster to make it all the way through Zulu and Rex. I spent most of the Monday night parades sitting on my buddies’ porch nursing jack and waters, touching my toes and twisting side to side at the waist and rolling my neck around and otherwise preparing for game 7. After everyone had cleared out, a friend and I set out to walk to Tipitina’s, making a pit stop on the way for drinks and to see my bartender friends at the Columns.

Somewhere around this time midnight and I chest bumped, and it officially became Mardi Gras (day.) Galactic played until sunrise, with some guest appearances by Chali 2na of Jurrasic 5, and the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, and some guest masked mystery guitar player who screwed up the words to Junco Partner. When the show had finished, which luckily was right before I ran out of awesome dance moves, Sav-A-Center, who shares its parking lot with Tips, mercifully opened, and I bought a 12pack of redbull and a bottle of vodka which I carried with me all the way to Zulu. Along the way I met some kindered spirits (lucky pun) who were making mimosas in the Sav-A-Center parking lot and we waddled towards Zulu until I got spotted by these two girls I had met all the way back on Thursday (how they recognized me in passing, I will never know) and whose charity I had promised a foosball table to, and had spent the night in a tent in the middle of St Charles Ave. When I finally got to my buddies’ house I got the bottle of absinthe I had stashed there to motivate myself to make it to Zulu, which is always a challenge, and twisted up a revolting Redbull-Vodka-Absinthe, which promptly got named “Licorice and Gasoline.” There wasn’t too much more debauchery, and I was in bed by 3pm, all the better to make it to work this morning, no worse for the wear (ugh.)