FEMA: Fix Everything My Ass

Well, we got back from New Orleans at about 11:30 last night after four days of hoopla and ballyhoo and I honestly miss it already.

Before you read on, take the time to read this galant article by Bill Joyce, about "Katrinarita Gras;" you'll find it here. The New Yorker cover is the one that got bumped because our Vice President can't tell the difference between a 78 year-old man and a spotted ground bird.

I don't have my camera with me right now, so I'll post my photos as soon as I get a chance, but I don't think anyone needs photographic proof of the fact that New Orleans and Mardi Gras are the epitome of a spectacle.

6 months later the city is still struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy. Traffic lights aren't just turned off, they aren't there. A jumble of hieroglyphics marks the front of each house lucky enough to remain standing, explaining what--or who--was found inside. Some streets have been reduced to pathways by piles of rubble. Dead cars, dusty and missing tired, windows, hoods, have been deposited by some anonymous hand underneith every single overpass. Half of the businesses have signs that say: "help wanted!" Half say: "CLOSED FOR GOOD." Buildings in seemingly undamaged areas of town have been visibly looted. Street signs are wrapped around their poles. Every imaginable kind of debris lines the highways from the center of the city well past Baton Rouge: wheelbarrows, sleeping bags, dogs, fence posts, tree limbs, whole cars, shoes, toys, carriages, grills, planters, ovens, hats, doors... you name it-- if it's a noun, it's been lost in the city of New Orleans.

But that's what Mardi Gras is all about. It's about recognizing all of the dirty, frightening, repulsive symptoms of life and dressing them up in drag, flipping them over and riding them all the way to the party.

I'll admit that I didn't want to go to Mardi Gras this year because I thought it would be more dangerous than ever. While it may have been more dangerous, for all intents and purposes, it didn't fell that way. It felt like a relief.

After 20 years of rejected invitations, a group of actual Zulu warriors from South Africa came to be in the Zulu (Social Aid and Pleasure club) parade, rumour has it, at the personal behest of none other than Nelson Mandela. The theme of Rex was "Beaux Arts and Letters," which I thought should have been "Beaux Arts et Lettres" or "Fine Arts and Letters," but not a combination of the two. That's a French and English major thing, I think. Anyway, my two favorite floats were "Clementine Hunter" and "John James Audubon." I'm not sure I have pictures of the two but I'll see.

The two parades were well worth the sacrifice we made by getting up at five a.m. to drive to St. Charles Avenue to see them. We didn't catch any coconuts. We had to walk 3/4 of a mile to pay a dollar to pee. We saw a couple wearing suits made out of umbrella parts and a man with his hands through a sign that said, "Free Mamograms, Place Breasts Here." Later I saw Marie Antoinette stand on her tiptoes to kiss (and by kiss I mean lick) an astronaut through his helmet.

There are WAY too many stories to bore you with telling them all here, because I know that even though it was excting for me to get a bracelet from a little boy dressed like the grim reaper, and even more exciting to find eleven dollars on the ground on Bourbon Street, and even MORE exciting to remember the toilet paper in my purse in a scary port-a-potty on the Canal Street neutral ground.

In short, New Orleans is still there. It looks like it was rode hard and hung up wet, but it's there. We had a blowout and almost got killed by a roadside slasher trying to get out of it, which I think is all the more proof that people need to come back to New Orleans and stay there--and from the looks of it, that's what all the wonderful freaks are planning to do.

Mardi Gras Trivia: The official colors of Mardi Gras in New Orleans are purple, green and gold, symbolizing justice, faith and power. When you dress an entire family in matching polo shirts of these colors it is a fashion crime against humanity.