Angus Lind has a great column explaining Mardi Gras to the rest of the nation. It's only peripherally about the foolishness on Bourbon St. and the young girls from Nebraska, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Texas, etc., baring their breasts for beads--the local girls wouldn't dream of it:
nola.com
What's Carnival for
The challenge for visiting reporters: Summing up a city's soul, in 500 words or less
Monday, February 27, 2006
Angus Lind
They tell me there are more than 1,000 visiting reporters in town trying to capture the essence and nuances of Mardi Gras and explain to their readers back home why it is a way of life and a state of mind for locals.
To them I say: Good luck. As a native and an almost four-decade newspaperman, explaining Mardi Gras is an incredibly complicated and challenging task . . . unless you witness it for most of your life. And then it's still, well, impossible.
Thirty or 40 years ago, the news of the national media descending on New Orleans would have been music to bar owners' ears. They'd be playing the "Cash Register Boogie" as much as "Mardi Gras Mambo."
Back then, the news guys would find a bar on or near the parade route, stick their heads out the door from time to time, make a few notes and have a few drinks.
Then, with the time-honored tradition of poetic license and flowery prose, they'd concoct an embellished tale of milling throngs and masked merrymakers reveling at the sight of His Majesty Rex, who graciously acknowledged the acclaim of his loyal subjects as the sun shined down benignly on them.
Then they'd file the story from a phone booth and go drink some more. Simple as that, and believe me, I've witnessed that act. Heck, I've been that act.
But those days of the rowdy cigar-chomping newspapermen are like the Comus and Momus parades: gone but not forgotten. And as a newsman who worked alongside that breed of free-wheeling reporter and am now, for better or worse, part of the new breed, you can book this: Momus and Comus have a better chance of returning.
I've been thinking about how I would explain some things about the parade scene to visiting journalists of today. If I was out on the route with a media first-timer and a float came by with a masking rider dangling a rubber chicken to parade-goers, then teasing them by pulling it back, then offering it again as they chased the float down the street for the treasured but elusive rubber chicken -- how would I explain that?
And when he witnessed people hauling off huge bags of long beads, talking beanie bears, squirting toilet seats, stuffed animals, spears, footballs, plastic cups, flying discs and coconuts, he'd ask: What do people do with all this stuff from all these parades?
And I'd say: They put them in their attics.
And he'd say: And then what?
And I'd say: Well, they do it again next year, and the collection grows.
And he'd say: So what eventually happens?
And I'd say: If you don't give it to someone else to throw the next year, the economic impact of Mardi Gras grows. Because eventually, with all this added weight in your house, your house starts sinking. It needs shoring. You call a shoring company and they get business -- all because of Mardi Gras. It's the New Orleans version of the trickle-down effect.
Maybe he'd buy into that bullflop and write about Carnival's impact on the shoring industry. I've snookered national media before.
Then the Mardi Gras newbie and I would walk around some and we'd see people in chairs on the St. Charles Avenue neutral ground, doing absolutely nothing but eating and drinking al fresco, just hanging out, making out, or if it's a family, messing with their kids, taking in the aromas of stale beer and essence of horse droppings and loving every minute of it.
He'd ask: What's this all about? Where are the women baring their breasts? Where's the debauchery? This is dull. I can't write about this. My editor won't believe me.
And I'd say: You know, that's just what you do on the Avenue. It's like family. You hang. You wait. You hang some more. You watch -- people, bodies, body language, some borderline risqué costumes, some clever get-ups. The street scenes. You observe. You can observe a lot by watching. When the parade comes, you yell, "Trow me sumthin', mistuh!" Then you do it all over again. There's no agenda, no deep meaning, no purpose. Nobody shows their boobs. It's family and it's all very shallow.
Nobody knows this Mardi Gras except Avenue-goers. People go to the same spot, the same corner, for their entire lives. And when the day ends, you return the next day and repeat all the steps. Only the parades are different.
Write about that, news guy. Explain it. Interpret it. Analyze it. Put your spin on it. Make it deep.
The problem is Mardi Gras is more than an event. It's a spirit in your soul that is cultivated through time, through music, through bloodlines, through countless parades and festivities. And basically, like a lot of things in New Orleans, it defies explanation. It's something you want to savor, not dissect. You can analyze it all you want, but the truth is, you either get it or you don't. It's that simple.
It's our escape, our party, our madness, our therapy. If you want the extreme version, go to the Quarter. I've done that, too. But the Avenue is more fun.
Louis Armstrong, when asked what it was like to play jazz, said, "If you ain't got it in you, you can't blow it out." Same for Carnival. Professor Longhair, the late Henry Roeland Byrd, aka "Fess," also explained it in his "Go To The Mardi Gras" lyrics many years ago:
If you go to New Orr-leeenz
You ought to go see the Mardi Gras
When you see the Mardi Gras
Somebody'll tell you what's Carnival for.
It's for our mental well being, that's what. And Lord knows right now we need it more than ever. Tell that to your readers.
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