Hey, y’all, let’s have a bawl, Injuns comin’! Mardi Gras is the time we cast off our sins of the flesh as we head into the Lenten season and repent for 40 days coming in to Easter Sunday. For a more complete understanding of Mardi Gras, maybe you should go to Mass.
So we kicked off Carnival on Twelfth Night, January 6, with the Phunny Phorty Phellows on the St. Charles Streetcar, getting downtown to the Krewe of Joan of Arc on Decatur Street where King Cake was shared — this was after all Epiphany. We moved on to Buffa’s on Esplanade for Davis Rogan (HBO’s “Treme” foundisher&inspiriationalist) for an epiphanous concert featuring Al “Carnival Time” Johnson! Oh it’s on, it is MARDI GRAS, y’all!
Our favorite parade, Krewe Du Vieux, rolled on January 31 this year. Krewe Du Vieux is the king of satire for Carnival. Known for bawdy floats that often hit the proverbial nail on the head with a focus on political chicanery with boobs thrown in ‘cause it’s MARDI GRAS, y’all. Throw me somethin’, Mister!
‘tit Rex ambles and idles through the streets of the Faubourg Marigny with prominent Shreveport figures and figurines, past and present…Barry Butler, Carra Derrick, and Christie Walton, you know Professor Longhair once told me hated name-droppers 😉 ‘tit Rex is a mini-Krewe if you will, based around shoebox floats like ya make in grade school (if’n you stay in New Orleans). Saturday, February 7 at 5pm at St. Roch and N. Robertson.
Do not go to any of the big parades UPTOWN, if you happen to get caught on the wrong side of Canal and have to go; hope it’s Muses. The ladies throw shoesez; well if you nice and pretty they doesez! MUSES start at Magazine and Jefferson and will proceed down Magazine to Napoleon, where we will fall in behind Babylon and Chaos, picking up the traditional route at Napoleon. Thursday, February 12, 6:30; show me something, Sister!
Then there is Endymion which rolls through Midcity where I stay out by da Bayou St. John. Dey line em up on Orleanz Ave. ‘round 9 in da morning, but dey roll at 4:15 on into da night — Yeah you rite! Ends up being families and drunken debauchery; I usually end up on the other side of dat — even though I don’t drink no mo — I can still dance! Cheezy throws, rednecks from across the lake and Metry’ns love this one…
In the “ain’t dere no mo” category, this year will mark the first year that Mr. New Orleans “Pete Fountain” will 
NOT lead his Half Fast Marching Club L due to a stroke. The man whose playing sounds like the city is whistling has had to call it quits! Thanks, Pete, you will always be MR. NEW ORLEANS to me!
Wake up early and meet the Big Chiefs on da street! Injuns comin’, y’all! Won’t bow down, don’t know how! See ya over in da Treme for Skull and Bones ‘bout daylight over by Henriette Delille Avenue and the Backstreet Cultural Museum… rattlin’ bones and shouting “Wake up y’all, it’s Mardi Gras!” Looking high lookin’ low, if they ain’t there it’s cause they did not sew, sew, sew!
Jazzman Leroy Jones usually leads the Krewe of St. Anne from the Bywater to Canal. Follow it only half way, ‘cause if ya don’t you’ll end up where ya don’t wannabe cause I’m going where dey got dem coconuts!
I‘m gonna meet ya over on Rampart and Dumaine lookin’ for the Zulu King! If I get down there somebody sure to show me the Zulu Queen…
By Keith Abel of Bike Nola Tours
Images Note: The featured images were taken from Flickr Creative Commons. If you own any image and would like it removed, please email karen@heliopolis.la.