Here I am foaming at the mouth with FOMO yet again…
You wouldn’t know it from the Mardi Gras clichés that have embedded themselves in the greater American psyche (mostly co-ed titties) but there’s actually quite a lot of planning that goes into that grand Tuesday morning. Not just on a city wide scale with road closures, cops, (non operational) barriers, porta-potties and tourism boards but on a citizen level.
For months, people are crafting vibrant costumes and handmade throws. Glue gun injuries freckle the hands of New Orleaneans, multiplying as the big day approaches and rushing sets in. Rooms are littered in fake flowers, glitter, fringe, pom poms, tinsel and discarded trims of lace and ribbons. There’s a plan for what you’re gonna wear on what day, what parades you’re gonna catch, what parties you’re gonna attend, what route you’re gonna take, what drugs you’re gonna ingest and in what order. This is not some spontaneous adventure. There’s purpose to the magic that unfolds.
Another part of this complex strategizing – at least for the small corner of New Orleans wine shop employees of which for a brief time I was a part of – is what you’re going to drink to maximize fun while maintaining longevity and how you’re going to drink it so as to avoid the two human anacondas that contort through each bar for as long as possible. One slithering line is made up of people waiting to get a purple drink, the other made up of weary tinklers waiting in layers of leotards and onesies for the only toilet which was first installed in 1853. A line which you wait in only to pee in someone’s lawn anyway.
There’s a balance to the Fat Tuesday Binge. If you go too hard, too quickly, all the creativity and color blurs into some muddied, brownish, indistinct tie dye. A chaotic party casualty.
The wine shop debate looked something like this: The first slot that needed to be filled was “your wake up beverage.” Mardi-Gras is a day event with an early start – many waking up as early as 4am to see the Treme Skull & Bones gang bang their warning drums of mortality, others rising from the dead around 7 or 8am to gather around some corner off-chute of the St. Anne’s walking parade. I had landed on a beverage deemed “Cava-boucha” by a friend: a mimosa style beverage but with a bit more pizazz. Cava-Bucha would have to be paired with a coffee and an adderall split down the middle to cover up the mistake of only going to sleep 2.5 hours prior. Others pushed for a breakfast-y carrot, mango, tangerine sour beer by Zony Mash. Hard Cider and a breakfast stout were other reasonable options thrown around.
The next slot to be filled was the “loosey goosey, mid-morning quencher” – something that could remain chilled and refreshing yet packed enough punch that you wouldn’t need to walk around with heavy wine bottles in whatever fringe covered backpack was getting carried along. For this, I looked to a sister of wine – the Lillet Blanc Aperitif, an aromatized Aperitif made in Bordeaux from the luscious Semillon grape. In my chipped and dented water bottle went the remaining Cava, Lillet, Gin, probably a little additional white wine, ice, some sparkling water and mint. What could be more refreshing than a Spritz! This, I figured, was strong enough to do something but hey, there’s water in it too! One thing was for certain, this should not be treated trivially because it could make or break your flow. A tally was taken around the tiny wine shop – some people pulled for Rose in a camelback, Negronis in a Nalgene or Prosecco in plastic cups. But everyone agreed, we must pack tiny Underbergs in weird secret places just in case.
Now, before you say, “wow, this sounds like a lot of extremely unhealthy habits brought to a peak of excess” well, yes, that’s the whole point. To be gluttonous! To be outrageous! To sin before your mandatory Ash Wednesday repentance. To fill up before the Lord demands his springtime sacrifices of restriction, cleanliness and purity. The binge before the purge. “Work the technicality folks! Get it in where it fits in!” – that’s the motto of Mardi Gras.
As is the Catholic way, this is strict devotion. But it is a strict devotion to fun and to tradition and to the party. It can all seem absurd, sometimes even pointless, to mid-week press pause on “normal life,” “serious business” and the world in its dire condition just so everyone can walk around the city wearing headpieces made of foam and pipe cleaners while blowing bubbles and doing bumps in a crowd of thousands who are mindlessly migrating towards the rusty shores of the Mississippi. Yet the breezes of pure bliss, togetherness and inspiration are undeniable. They carry you through the streets, buoyed and bouncing to the horn blows of brass bands and street DJ’s until they reach the deepest center of yourself. To focus on and potentially even stress out for fun, art and beauty? Not enough people get that chance to celebrate nothing and everything with so many others.
Of course, weaved in and out of the celebrations is always the Culture. Individual and neighborhood contributions compiling over time to build traditions rich in spirit and meaning. The most exciting of course, created by the black population, who in times of segregation, had to create their own movements, patterns and histories. Without them, this would just be another St. Patrick’s day.
(Photo of Mardi Gras Indian Cheif taken with the utmost respect and gratitude, by me)
I write all this through a coke-bottle lens of nostalgia. I have thought for several years now that skipping Mardi Gras would be a mere blip on my Richter scale. In years since my last Mardi Gras experience, I have visited New Orleans as the stew of carnival had begun to simmer, witnessing the satirical glory that is a Kreux de Vieux parade or the adorable Tiny Tit Rex floats that are pulled along behind their creators hoping that this might sustain me once I was home in “normal life.” But a simmer is different from a rolling boil. Mardi Gras is a Catholic holiday but it’s also become its own religion, a two-month season to devote yourself to the altars of creativity, exuberance and tradition that grows and grows until Mardi Gras day where it can no longer contain itself and explodes into a million shiny pieces.
Regardless of where I am, I will forever light a candle for those fine altars.
Suggested Drink: A white wine Spritz with Lillet Blanc, a crisp sparkling Vouvray like a Champalou Brut or something a bit more obscure like Philip Tessier’s finessed “Phil En Bulle” Pet Nat. Or go straight Champagne baby! We’re celebrating! Obviously, there’s the more traditional New Orleans cocktails like a Pimm’s cup, French 75, Vieux Carre, or Sazerac but as I mentioned earlier, if you drank a water bottle full of Vieux Carre, you wouldn’t make it to 10am. So I recommend this wine relative as a way to dance your way to the end of the day. Feel free to slide in a shot, a secret underberg hidden in your sock or a Hurricane in between Spritz servings for a true authentic journey.
Suggested Music:
The Wild Tchoupitoulas
by The Wild Tchoupitoulas
Original recording from 1976
I debated on sharing my crawfish playlist which only has songs where crawfish are prominently featured. But that playlist only has 8 songs on it and one of them is repeated 3 times. Then I thought about making a Mardi Gras playlist but there are SO MANY of those and I’m not going to add anything new to it. Mardi Gras is tradition, so traditional New Orleans music rules the landscape that day.
This album, produced by legendary New Orleans artist Allen Toussaint and recorded by The Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe of Mardi Gras Indians hailing from the 13th Ward (also known as Feret) did not break out as a success nationally. But in New Orleans, this is a treasured record. Led by Big Chief Landry, the album is full of traditional call and response style chants arranged and backed by Landry’s nephews who just so happened to be New Orleans R&B heroes Art, Charles, Aaron, and Cyril Neville, now known together as the Neville Brothers.
Having previously recorded separately as the Meters and Aaron as a solo artist, this album is the first time they recorded together and is considered the genesis of the first family of New Orleans funk. The rolling, joyful rhythms are representative of Art and Cyril Neville’s revolutionary funk band, The Meters but which are rooted in a sense of family and place. The album acts as a window into a spectacular world of tradition that people outside of New Orleans would have never known.
It’s New Orleans, dipped in New Orleans only to be rolled in more New Orleans. A literal King’s Cake of an album. Leave the knife in it and cut a sliver off every time you pass until it’s gone.
(All photos by me except the one of me and Ace, who knows who took that…)