Mardi Gras  = Mighty Waste

As the 4.5 of you who read this blog know, I moved to New Orleans, LA in January of 2021. One of the things that people talk fondly about when mentioning New Orleans is Mardi Gras. Me, being a student of human interaction, find the spectacle to be fascinating. I'm always amazed at the amount of costuming that goes with all of the parades. However, I'm not talking about the people in the parades but rather those watching. Why someone would get up at 5am and put on a Spiderman costume to sit all day and watch parades go by baffles me.

I lived about a half a block from the main parade route on St. Charles Avenue. That meant that any "Uptown" parade that rolled, came right to my doorstep. I knew things were going to be weird when in the winter of 2023, my HOA put out a "do's and don'ts" list for this 2.5 week period. To my naive mind, this didn't make sense. The city would close off the street for a few hours then some guys would come down the street, then the street would be opened up. Yeah, right!

To be clear, Mardi Gras isn't one day on Fat Tuesday but begins about 20 days before when the first parade comes down the street. This is the beginning of what is known as carnival season. In fact, there were parades starting as early as January 6th but these were mostly minor events which occurred in the French Quarter.

My HOA warned me that I lived in "The Box" which meant that we would not be able to get our cars out. Thus, we needed to park our cars outside of the Box about 5 blocks away if we thought that we'd need it that day. But the easiest thing to do would be to plan not to travel by car on days that parades were rolling. I looked up how many times this would occur and realized to my horror that there would be a full 11 days when I'd be trapped in the Box. However, on some days there were night parades which meant that I could go to work that morning but if I had any intentions of getting my car back in the garage I'd need to be back home about 4 hours before the scheduled start of the parade. On some days there would be parades rolling one after the other, starting that morning and all hope was lost.

Things got even more weird when I would get up for my run in the morning and find that people had set up tents, ladders, and laid tarps to mark their spots along the median of the street and sidewalk. However, some were there for the long run and had brought barbeque grills, generators, TVs, and mini fridges. It was clear that they were planning to stay there from Thursday until the next Tuesday. It raised a bit of stink in the local press that people were staking out their territories as the law said that setting up for the parades could only happen 4 hours before the parade. Yeah right. Some of the people out there were "professional waiters" meaning that they were paid to sit there for days making sure that spots were not taken by others and that various equipment, which included entire sofa sets, were not stolen. 

Given that I lived in the Uptown region, there was no real concern about seeing flashing breasts or other debauchery. That behavior was restricted to the French Quarter and these parades were more "family friendly" although several of the items thrown, such as mini dildos, seemed inappropriate to me. In addition, people had entire stereo systems with 6-foot speakers and the music being played made me blush and I'm a grown man. In fact, I'm convinced that several of the things mentioned in those songs are physically impossible to perform. 

What also amazed me about the event was that on a few days it was cold and rainy. I figured that people would not come and there would be scant spectators. I was wrong. There were thousands upon thousands of people lining St. Charles from Napoleon Avenue all the way to downtown. I wish I could have surveyed them to find out what the magical draw of watching a float or a marching band was that compelled them to come out in weather like that.

After the last parade rolled for that day, whether that was 5pm or 1am, the real excitement began. At least for me. The city had contracted with several disposal companies to clean the streets so that they could be opened for traffic within hours. That, to me, was the true marvel and spectacle. You might wonder what could have cluttered the streets such that there was a need for at least 10 dump trucks, several high-powered fire department water cannons, 20 guys with high-powered leaf blowers, 5 or 10 guys riding in Bobcats, at least 200 people walking behind with rakes, shovels and trash bags. Well, this army was dispatched to pick up dropped or discarded beads, tons and tons of food containers, vomit (you didn't think that most of these people weren't drunk did you?), toys, and any assortment of waste items including the very things thrown from the floats.

What was amazing to me was that this army marched every day when there was a parade, however, on Mardi Gras Day which concluded the season, these guys were especially ruthless. They gave parade watchers exactly one hour to get their crap out of the median, out of the street, or off the sidewalk. If you left anything there, including your sofa set or your thousand-dollar stereo equipment it was getting trashed. 

The parades were of little interest to me, however, I was captivated watching the army. All I could think of was how much of an ecological disaster this entire thing was and that we are killing our planet.

I took some video and a few pictures. You simply won't believe it. I was there and I still don't. Look here and here and here.

Mardi Gras really does mean a Mighty Waste.