Mardi Gras Mambo
Published 12:00 am Sunday, February 22, 2009

A New Orleans band marches down Magazine Street in the Okeanos parade. Many high school, junior high and middle school bands will march in parades almost nightly in the weeks of the Carnival Season.

“Throw me something, mister!” Afternoon parades are winding down and crowds are flooding Uptown New Orleans for tonight’s Bacchus parade.
By John Howell
4:30 p.m.
The Storyville Stompers Brass Band started their music about 3 p.m. on Laurel Street for Party Bob’s annual Thoth party and also his 65th birthday.
Traffic — pedestrian and vehicle — is building heavily for tonight’s Bacchus parade. The Stompers worked their way into Party Bob’s backyard, where they are still playing at 4:30. Music included a version of “Happy Birthday” that included tuba punctuation.
1:50 p.m.
Parades are rolling down Magazine Street two blocks away. Next door neighbor Russell is cooking barbecue that has created an aroma in this neighborhood that stimulates salivation and society.
The front that brought winter’s return to Panola County Saturday slipped into New Orleans without rain and after a cool, breezy morning, the sun has warmed the city under strikingly blue skies.
It’s 12:15 p.m. on Magazine Street. No parades have yet reached the Magazine and Bordeaux intersection where Party Bob has promised his spectacular surprise. His annual spectacular surprise.
What’s known about Party Bob’s surprise is that it will involve a unicycle.
People have claimed their spots along the parade route. Whole families line up, some with seat-topped ladders for kids, outdoor grills and tables set with parade fare.
Kids do what kids do while they wait: they throw footballs back and forth in the middle of the street. The only parade at present are the vendor carts rolling ahead of the parades selling cotton candy and trinkets.
Uptown New Orleans has filled up this Sunday morning as caravans of floats stream up Tchopitoulas Street for the staging areas of the Okeanos, Mid-City and Thoth parades. Spectators are arriving also. Soon the neighborhood will be in gridlock.
One difference in parades where they start Uptown and where they end downtown near Canal Street is the spectators. Here, the spectators are mostly local or people with local connections. If you live Uptown near the parade routes, your home automatically becomes the staging area for friends and relatives who live elsewhere.
The head counters tell us this will be the largest crowd in New Orleans for Mardi Gras since Katrina.
Once the parades near downtown, they near the French Quarter where 20-somethings from all over have gathered with the goal of near self-destruction through booze and debauchery. People will do things there that they’d never dream of back home.
Our neighbor next door, Russell, partied with friends until about 5 a.m. this morning. It was a party that involved much laughter, some giggling, no yelling. By 9 a.m., the party had resumed after only brief intermission.
Two doors down in the other direction, Party Bob is hosting his annual Thoth Party featuring his own side show. “UNICYCLIST TO REVEAL HIMSELF IN ALL HIS POWER AND GLORY THAT HE WAS MEANT TO BE!” his invitation stated.
I’ll keep you posted.