Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras has been over for nearly 24 hours, and as I look back over the past few days, I am disappointed in my lack of participation. Over the past couple of years I would make my way into New Orleans the Friday prior to "Fat Tuesday" and attend as many parades as possible during the next 4 days. Oh well. I suppose I was not up for the whole shebang this time around. However, I did manage to make it into the city this past Friday to try something new. This year was my first balcony experience! My roommate's cousin hooked us up with a few wristbands for the SOCO balcony on Bourbon St. It was a bit of a power trip getting to be the one to decide who is worthy of a 5 cent string of plastic. I felt bad for the guys with only one or two necklaces, so they received the majority of my bead stores. Other than that, it was a pretty straight forward Mardi Gras evening. We caught a parade, got daiquiris and hurricanes, and paid an obscene amount of money for a French Quarter "Lucky Dog".

I think the most eventful part of Friday was reading the signs held up by whatever Christian group it was manning every corner of Bourbon. One sign, in particular, listed the groups of people who were doomed for Hell. I fit in with several of the listed categories: liberal, democrat, feminist, agnostic, etc. Some other items off the list, and I am not making any of the previous or following items up, included: loud mouth women, (I thought this particular one was hilarious), gamblers, lawyers, and various religious groups such as Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. As offensive as the sign may be, I cannot help but laugh because it is just so ridiculous. Moving on.

As lame as this may sound, I reminisce every year about a simple little poem I wrote about Mardi Gras during my senior year of High School. I took a creative writing course that year, and the teacher gave us a poetry assignment. My original poem was about a forest (don't ask), and it was horrible. Therefore, I decided to start from scratch and rewrite a new poem during my lunch period, which happened to be on Fat Tuesday. For your personal enjoyment, I have decided to include my poem so cleverly titled "Mardi Gras". It may be weak, but it was good enough to be published in my high school's literary magazine that year.

Mardi Gras
by Amanda Morrison

Among the herds of people
Filling up old Bourbon Street,
Are crazy drunken dancers
Wearing out their dirty bare feet.

The sky is clear,
And the night is young
As the Zydeco music plays away,
And the purple, green, and gold covered crowd
Can be heard far and wide
Yelling, "Laissez les bon temps roulez!"

The rest of my Mardi Gras break was good (that's right, we Louisiana folk get 3 days off school to go party!), but it was spent doing non-Mardi Gras activities. For any of you looking for new music to get into, I would highly recommend Band of Horses. I went to a live show of theirs on Monday, and they were fantastic! They sound even better live than they do on their CD.

News Flash! If you are not already aware, Across the Universe has been released on DVD. Half the people who have seen it loved it, and the other half were not as fond of the film. My personal opinion is that the movie is amazing. My favorite Beatles songs were featured, and I love the way the movie was made. The "Hey Jude" scene was my favorite portion of the whole flick. Don't take my word for it, though. Watch it for yourself, and form your own opinion. Well, that is all for now.

Peace