Carnival wrap-up
Feb. 25th, 2004 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infrogmation2004 was another wonderful Mardi Gras here in New Orleans... not surprising, as IMO they generally tend to be wonderful or better.
Friday night I played my trombone in the only Carnival Krewe that parades in my neighborhood, the Krewe of Oak. It's one of the delighful little neighborhood krewes that don't get mentioned on the big parade schedules. Locals know about it, tourists without local friends will tend to never find out.
Too much of what is not a good thing
Saturday I played a private party. My dear friend Ms. B has had a problem with knowing when to stop drinking for some time, and I have advocated her quitting drinking for some time. A few days earlier she told me she would not be drinking at the Saturday evening party. Well, she showed up already wasted and continued drinking until she was sprawled in the grass, unable to speak, foaming at the mouth. A paramedic at the party recognized her condition of alcohol poisining, and she was loaded into an ambulence and spent the night in the hospital. She's okay now. She decided to skip Mardi Gras as too much of a temptation to drink (although I offered to go through Mardi Gras with no alcohol if she would do the same, as I've offered the previous 2 years). I HOPE this is finally the wake-up call she's needed to take her problem VERY SERIOUSLY. I've told her if she doesn't this will ruin her life or kill her. She's fortunate that this happened when she was around friends, some of whom were medically knowledgeable.
Alcohol is a dangerous drug. Some people can use it in moderation recreationally. Other people should avoid it like poison.
Sunday moring over to A.R.'s place near Magazine street to see the Thoth parade, and even more to spend time with my old friends in the Lightning Bugs. Its not too crowded here, and A. puts on a great spread with burgers & munchies.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mshollie was there, along with a few other friends who expressed interest in getting their own livejournals.
Lundi Gras was very rainy, with severe thunder storms and tornado warning. I did my morning radio show of Carnival music, which a number of people complimented me on the next day. Otherwise, it was a good day to stay in. I'm told Orpheus rolled, but I didn't see it.
Mardi Gras Day
I headed down to Marigny early, and found a great free parking spot near Royal and Esplanade. Yay! The weather was overcast with occasional very light drizzles, but none of the severe storms of the previous day that some people feared. Saw a couple of folks I know around the R-Bar, then hoofed it down to Bywater for the pre-parties for the Society of St. Anne parade, a highlight of home-made Mardi Gras with some of the very best costumes. The band gathers at a bar with no sign (you either know about it or you don't), and there are some beautiful parties before the 10 am start. I didn't play with the Stompers this year; I took photos on the digital camera Ms. Hollie loaned me.
A couple of band members encouraged me to grab my horn, so as we got up to the Marigny triangle I went ahead of the parade and got it out of my trunk to play with the parade a bit. After St. Anne left the R-Bar, I headed over to Frenchmen Street for my second parade of the day, the Krewe Of Kosmic Debris. The Krewe's Pair-O-Dice Tumbers band, which welcomes any commers to jam with us in the "Tumbles" like this, has spawned a number of more professional bands over the years-- the Storyville Stompers, the Down & Dirty, the Bone Tone, the Sycamos, and at least a couple of others. The Kosmic Debris Parade is in some ways the older parent of the St. Anne Parade, but this year more than many was looking like a scruffy lesser version. Turn out was light, and we had the smallest band in many a Mardi Gras (I heard a number of folks stayed home for fear of bad weather). If I remember corectly, we had 3 trumpets, me on trombone, 2 sax, baritone horn, tuba, and a good sized rhythm section of drums, tamborines, and other percussion instruments, but not so large that they took over as they did a couple of years ago. Visually the band's highlight was the guiro player was in her little red devil outfit... well it drew my attention anyway. Our tuba player was excellently costumed as usual, with matching purple wizard's fabric over both himself and his horn. It was a smaller group, but very much fun none the less. After 6 or so hours of marching around with stops at various bars and clubs we made it back to Frenchmen Street and continued jamming into the night... Or some did, after a while I headed on over to Ms. Hollie's. She decided to forgo going out for Mardi Gras this year, due in part to the weather.
The next morning, no, we didn't go get ashes smeared on us. I got Hollie to try some yerba mate tea. She doesn't share my fondness for it, but she gave it a try.
And my monitor apparently decided to give up functioning for Lent, so I'm going to need a new one.
Ms. Hollie has the digital camera she loaned me back now, along with some blank cds. We'll see how my first Carnival photos attempted digitally turned out.
Friday night I played my trombone in the only Carnival Krewe that parades in my neighborhood, the Krewe of Oak. It's one of the delighful little neighborhood krewes that don't get mentioned on the big parade schedules. Locals know about it, tourists without local friends will tend to never find out.
Too much of what is not a good thing
Saturday I played a private party. My dear friend Ms. B has had a problem with knowing when to stop drinking for some time, and I have advocated her quitting drinking for some time. A few days earlier she told me she would not be drinking at the Saturday evening party. Well, she showed up already wasted and continued drinking until she was sprawled in the grass, unable to speak, foaming at the mouth. A paramedic at the party recognized her condition of alcohol poisining, and she was loaded into an ambulence and spent the night in the hospital. She's okay now. She decided to skip Mardi Gras as too much of a temptation to drink (although I offered to go through Mardi Gras with no alcohol if she would do the same, as I've offered the previous 2 years). I HOPE this is finally the wake-up call she's needed to take her problem VERY SERIOUSLY. I've told her if she doesn't this will ruin her life or kill her. She's fortunate that this happened when she was around friends, some of whom were medically knowledgeable.
Alcohol is a dangerous drug. Some people can use it in moderation recreationally. Other people should avoid it like poison.
Sunday moring over to A.R.'s place near Magazine street to see the Thoth parade, and even more to spend time with my old friends in the Lightning Bugs. Its not too crowded here, and A. puts on a great spread with burgers & munchies.
mshollie was there, along with a few other friends who expressed interest in getting their own livejournals.Lundi Gras was very rainy, with severe thunder storms and tornado warning. I did my morning radio show of Carnival music, which a number of people complimented me on the next day. Otherwise, it was a good day to stay in. I'm told Orpheus rolled, but I didn't see it.
Mardi Gras Day
I headed down to Marigny early, and found a great free parking spot near Royal and Esplanade. Yay! The weather was overcast with occasional very light drizzles, but none of the severe storms of the previous day that some people feared. Saw a couple of folks I know around the R-Bar, then hoofed it down to Bywater for the pre-parties for the Society of St. Anne parade, a highlight of home-made Mardi Gras with some of the very best costumes. The band gathers at a bar with no sign (you either know about it or you don't), and there are some beautiful parties before the 10 am start. I didn't play with the Stompers this year; I took photos on the digital camera Ms. Hollie loaned me.
A couple of band members encouraged me to grab my horn, so as we got up to the Marigny triangle I went ahead of the parade and got it out of my trunk to play with the parade a bit. After St. Anne left the R-Bar, I headed over to Frenchmen Street for my second parade of the day, the Krewe Of Kosmic Debris. The Krewe's Pair-O-Dice Tumbers band, which welcomes any commers to jam with us in the "Tumbles" like this, has spawned a number of more professional bands over the years-- the Storyville Stompers, the Down & Dirty, the Bone Tone, the Sycamos, and at least a couple of others. The Kosmic Debris Parade is in some ways the older parent of the St. Anne Parade, but this year more than many was looking like a scruffy lesser version. Turn out was light, and we had the smallest band in many a Mardi Gras (I heard a number of folks stayed home for fear of bad weather). If I remember corectly, we had 3 trumpets, me on trombone, 2 sax, baritone horn, tuba, and a good sized rhythm section of drums, tamborines, and other percussion instruments, but not so large that they took over as they did a couple of years ago. Visually the band's highlight was the guiro player was in her little red devil outfit... well it drew my attention anyway. Our tuba player was excellently costumed as usual, with matching purple wizard's fabric over both himself and his horn. It was a smaller group, but very much fun none the less. After 6 or so hours of marching around with stops at various bars and clubs we made it back to Frenchmen Street and continued jamming into the night... Or some did, after a while I headed on over to Ms. Hollie's. She decided to forgo going out for Mardi Gras this year, due in part to the weather.
The next morning, no, we didn't go get ashes smeared on us. I got Hollie to try some yerba mate tea. She doesn't share my fondness for it, but she gave it a try.
And my monitor apparently decided to give up functioning for Lent, so I'm going to need a new one.
Ms. Hollie has the digital camera she loaned me back now, along with some blank cds. We'll see how my first Carnival photos attempted digitally turned out.
