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Mardi Gras
Today (Feb. 12) is Mardi Gras, and a perfect day for it too. Several years ago, when I attempted more eager participation in the festivities, Willie Mays was grand marshal of the Zulu parade, but it rained that day and I never got to see Mr. Mays. Willie Mays was the "Say Hey Kid," and the epitome of professional baseball in my early youth. He would catch fly balls in the outfield in spectacular fashion, practically trademarking the over the shoulder football-style catch. And he could hit home runs. He and I share the same birthday, month and day but not year, and as a kid that, in my mind, made us practically blood brothers. This year I have yet to participate in Carnival unless you count Saturday night when I walked all of 300 feet from here and from the far sidewalk watched a bit of the Endymion parade, which is the only Krewe using the Mid-City route. Even the "Mid-City" Krewe moved to the Uptown route this year. I got to see grand marshal Jason Alexander, who played the character "George" on that popular TV series, Seinfeld. In fact his float stopped right at the intersection of Rocheblave and Canal, and in that way--possibly the Budweiser in one hand and Jameson in the other was affecting my thinking--he and I became blood brothers. I understand he enjoyed the float riding so much that he hitched a ride as an anonymous masked rider on the back float of the Bacchus parade the following night. Nicholas Cage was the grand marshal, up front. I didn't see it. It was an Uptown parade. Cage has been in town for awhile, bought one of the Esplanade mansions around the corner from the vacation home of his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola. Cage has recently been directing a movie around here and is seen at nightspots in Fabourg Marigny, wearing lots of leather and Bono-esque eyeware surrounded by a possee of escorts also decked out in leather. I thought he was pretty good in Raising Arizona, but I'm not sure about the rest of it.
So, I just got back. I walked down Canal to the fringe of the Quarter and watched half of the Zulu parade from the corner of Iberville and Basin. A Japanese tourist asked me "where was the parade with bare boobs." I told him he would have to cross the parade route, which is not impossible but takes a little confidence, and head seven blocks or so to Bourbon St. It is not a parade down there but bare boobs are often shown. I think he had heard that girls raise their shirts at passing floats to get better beads and this does happen but probably more on the Uptown side of the route. Once the parades get downtown the crowds are 90 percent, or more, black, and although I have not done extensive research on this, it is my feeling that black girls are a little more conservative about showing their bare breasts in public. The Bourbon street crowds are predominately white. It was a good day for standing on the street. I was scared at first because some of the teenagers from the nearby Iberville projects project an image that is scary, and it's not all bluff. Some black cowboys on horseback clopped by in front of the house just now. The Zulu parade disbands a few blocks from here, at Galvez and Canal. No one blocked my driveway for either Saturday's Endymion or today's Mardi Gras festivities, which is heartening. Not that I'm going anywhere