LOMBARDI GRAS
This conversation pretty much illustrates everything that was beautifully, epically right about today:
Duckie: Can I tell you the funny my little brother just made?
BG: Yes, please!
Duckie: He told me to come see him and his frat brothers during Mardi Gras, to come find them on St. Charles. I said, "Ohhhh, y'all are setting up on the parade route. I thought you'd be having an ongoing house party."
He said, "Basically. Just without the house."
BG: He's growing up so cute.
Duckie: Oh and guess what guess what guess what
BG: What what what
Duckie: I HELD SCOTT FUJITA'S HAND
BG: I like him! He's so fantastic!
Duckie: Speaking out for gay marriage and adoption yayyyy!
BG: You're so lucky! Also, pro-choice with a masters in education from Berkeley.
Duckie: and and and and I high fived Garret Hartley and one of the Saints, I think it was Jabari Greer, not sure, threw me an ENTIRE BAG of beads and blew me a kiss!
BG: That's amazing! Saints parade?
Duckie: *spins in happy circles* VICTORY PARADE!
BG: Hurrah! YES!
Duckie: LOMBARDI GRAS!!!!!
BG: I wish I could come home
Duckie: Me too. It's wonderful to be here for this, and I spent most of today wishing I could share it with my favorite people.
BG: Aw. Well, I'm there in spirit. I'd rather be home than here on our third snow day with too much homework.
Duckie: I'm sorry about the snowpocalypse.
BG: The mid-Atlantic is under attack by the weather.
Duckie: It's a coordinated assault. Someone should mention this to the SecDefense
BG: Indeed. But what's he to do? I'm not sure you can fire an ICBM at the weather.
Duckie: He could threaten it with Recon Marines. That'd make anybody back the fuck down.
BG: I don't think that threat would be credible
Duckie: Bzuh. Recon Marines. Baddest-assed badasses that ever assed bad.
BG: Yeah, but it's the weather. Where are they going to go? The first thing you learn about war in International Relations is that threats only work when they're credible. I mean, if you threaten to nuke a country because they don't enact your trade policy, that country will laugh at you. Not because the prospect isn't scary, but because you'd be idiotic to actually do it.
Duckie: I'm envisioning Marines ninja-ing their way around a cute little whirly tornado until they've got it surrounded, then bayoneting it real good.
BG: Yeah, but then it dies down, and the sea rises up and destroys them.
Duckie: No, no. They open fire on the rising wave with RPGs, and it goes, "Bawwww!" and curls up in a ball in its sea bed.
BG: Water can't be injured! It just doesn't work!
Duckie: And if it tries that shit again, they're gonna be standing on the sea shore with their arms crossed and real scary expressions on their faces, like, "Bitch, I know you didn't just lap gently at my steel-toed boot."
It was cold in New Orleans today, and it only got colder as the sun went down, but from three in the afternoon til eight-thirty this evening, I was out on the parade route for the Saints Victory Parade. I walked St. Charles from Polymnia to Canal Street, then back to Julia where I met up with some friends and staked out a spot to freeze my ass off.
The route was crowded hours and hours before the parade even started rolling. Some people are estimating that 500,000 people showed up. Nearby streets were impassable; other parts of the city were practically deserted. The Who Dat Nation showed up in full force to show their boys some love. Get the full story, including pictures and video, here at NOLA.com.
Police officers in cars, on motorcycles, and on horseback preceded the parade. A dozen mounted policemen rode abreast to part the crowd, and one huge dappled gray with the NOPD's symbol branded on his hip stopped right in front of me. He blocked the wind and acted as a massive space heater. For the full five minutes the officers paused there, I reached out and petted him just to keep my hands warm.
It was dark by the time the parade reached us. I can't describe the feeling of a night parade - the sequins flashing on the dance teams, the marching bands swinging their horns and trombones inches from your face, the bass drums pounding so loud and close that you can feel their vibration in your ribs and throat. Between bands came the floats and the joyful, deafening screams - each float a recognizable icon of a famous krewe, each lent to the Saints as a victory chariot. I never even saw Drew Brees or Sean Payton; I was too close to the floats to see the guys riding higher than street level.
But linebacker Scott Fujita leaned down from the lower level of the float from the Krewe of Alla, literally reaching out to the fans. On either side of him, his teammates were throwing and dangling beads for the crowd. Fujita clasped both my hands, and I beamed up at him like an idiot, and he smiled back down at me like he was having the time of his life. I still grin thinking about it. I'm easy like that.
The secondary rode together on a float borrowed from the Krewe of Tucks, and one of them - I didn't know him by name - threw me a bag of a dozen-dozen beads. That's a hundred forty four strings - a big ol' hunk of plastic. I blew him a kiss, and he laughed and blew one back, and I distributed the beads to nearby kids.
The kickers were stuck on the float from Muses, the all-female krewe. The float itself is shaped like a giant, glowing, pink high heel. I shit you not. "Baww, they gave Hartley the girl float," I said, but I pressed close with the crowd to get my hand up in the row of high-fives he was giving, bleary-eyed drunk as he was.
It was all lights and noise and screaming and "stand up and get crunk" and "how I wanna be in that number." We were all sniffling with cold and smiling like Christmas, and an old guy with his family were pressed close next to us, and he told us about those early Saints games at Tulane Stadium before they tore it down. He held his grandkid steady on a ladder behind us, and whatever the kid didn't catch we'd hold up to his little hands.
The last huge, bright-burning float passed with Sean Payton atop it waving the Lombardi Trophy, and then it was gone down St. Charles. Like migrating birds we all made the long treks back to our cars, calling to each other across dark streets: "Can I get a who dat?" "Who dat!"
Love, love, love.
Love.
Duckie: Can I tell you the funny my little brother just made?
BG: Yes, please!
Duckie: He told me to come see him and his frat brothers during Mardi Gras, to come find them on St. Charles. I said, "Ohhhh, y'all are setting up on the parade route. I thought you'd be having an ongoing house party."
He said, "Basically. Just without the house."
BG: He's growing up so cute.
Duckie: Oh and guess what guess what guess what
BG: What what what
Duckie: I HELD SCOTT FUJITA'S HAND
BG: I like him! He's so fantastic!
Duckie: Speaking out for gay marriage and adoption yayyyy!
BG: You're so lucky! Also, pro-choice with a masters in education from Berkeley.
Duckie: and and and and I high fived Garret Hartley and one of the Saints, I think it was Jabari Greer, not sure, threw me an ENTIRE BAG of beads and blew me a kiss!
BG: That's amazing! Saints parade?
Duckie: *spins in happy circles* VICTORY PARADE!
BG: Hurrah! YES!
Duckie: LOMBARDI GRAS!!!!!
BG: I wish I could come home
Duckie: Me too. It's wonderful to be here for this, and I spent most of today wishing I could share it with my favorite people.
BG: Aw. Well, I'm there in spirit. I'd rather be home than here on our third snow day with too much homework.
Duckie: I'm sorry about the snowpocalypse.
BG: The mid-Atlantic is under attack by the weather.
Duckie: It's a coordinated assault. Someone should mention this to the SecDefense
BG: Indeed. But what's he to do? I'm not sure you can fire an ICBM at the weather.
Duckie: He could threaten it with Recon Marines. That'd make anybody back the fuck down.
BG: I don't think that threat would be credible
Duckie: Bzuh. Recon Marines. Baddest-assed badasses that ever assed bad.
BG: Yeah, but it's the weather. Where are they going to go? The first thing you learn about war in International Relations is that threats only work when they're credible. I mean, if you threaten to nuke a country because they don't enact your trade policy, that country will laugh at you. Not because the prospect isn't scary, but because you'd be idiotic to actually do it.
Duckie: I'm envisioning Marines ninja-ing their way around a cute little whirly tornado until they've got it surrounded, then bayoneting it real good.
BG: Yeah, but then it dies down, and the sea rises up and destroys them.
Duckie: No, no. They open fire on the rising wave with RPGs, and it goes, "Bawwww!" and curls up in a ball in its sea bed.
BG: Water can't be injured! It just doesn't work!
Duckie: And if it tries that shit again, they're gonna be standing on the sea shore with their arms crossed and real scary expressions on their faces, like, "Bitch, I know you didn't just lap gently at my steel-toed boot."
It was cold in New Orleans today, and it only got colder as the sun went down, but from three in the afternoon til eight-thirty this evening, I was out on the parade route for the Saints Victory Parade. I walked St. Charles from Polymnia to Canal Street, then back to Julia where I met up with some friends and staked out a spot to freeze my ass off.
The route was crowded hours and hours before the parade even started rolling. Some people are estimating that 500,000 people showed up. Nearby streets were impassable; other parts of the city were practically deserted. The Who Dat Nation showed up in full force to show their boys some love. Get the full story, including pictures and video, here at NOLA.com.
Police officers in cars, on motorcycles, and on horseback preceded the parade. A dozen mounted policemen rode abreast to part the crowd, and one huge dappled gray with the NOPD's symbol branded on his hip stopped right in front of me. He blocked the wind and acted as a massive space heater. For the full five minutes the officers paused there, I reached out and petted him just to keep my hands warm.
It was dark by the time the parade reached us. I can't describe the feeling of a night parade - the sequins flashing on the dance teams, the marching bands swinging their horns and trombones inches from your face, the bass drums pounding so loud and close that you can feel their vibration in your ribs and throat. Between bands came the floats and the joyful, deafening screams - each float a recognizable icon of a famous krewe, each lent to the Saints as a victory chariot. I never even saw Drew Brees or Sean Payton; I was too close to the floats to see the guys riding higher than street level.
But linebacker Scott Fujita leaned down from the lower level of the float from the Krewe of Alla, literally reaching out to the fans. On either side of him, his teammates were throwing and dangling beads for the crowd. Fujita clasped both my hands, and I beamed up at him like an idiot, and he smiled back down at me like he was having the time of his life. I still grin thinking about it. I'm easy like that.
The secondary rode together on a float borrowed from the Krewe of Tucks, and one of them - I didn't know him by name - threw me a bag of a dozen-dozen beads. That's a hundred forty four strings - a big ol' hunk of plastic. I blew him a kiss, and he laughed and blew one back, and I distributed the beads to nearby kids.
The kickers were stuck on the float from Muses, the all-female krewe. The float itself is shaped like a giant, glowing, pink high heel. I shit you not. "Baww, they gave Hartley the girl float," I said, but I pressed close with the crowd to get my hand up in the row of high-fives he was giving, bleary-eyed drunk as he was.
It was all lights and noise and screaming and "stand up and get crunk" and "how I wanna be in that number." We were all sniffling with cold and smiling like Christmas, and an old guy with his family were pressed close next to us, and he told us about those early Saints games at Tulane Stadium before they tore it down. He held his grandkid steady on a ladder behind us, and whatever the kid didn't catch we'd hold up to his little hands.
The last huge, bright-burning float passed with Sean Payton atop it waving the Lombardi Trophy, and then it was gone down St. Charles. Like migrating birds we all made the long treks back to our cars, calling to each other across dark streets: "Can I get a who dat?" "Who dat!"
Love, love, love.
Love.