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Yours
Truly in a Swamp by Leonard
Earl Johnson **
Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans Ashes to Ashes
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To paraphrase Tennessee Williams, we survive in New Orleans by the kindness of strangers. True. Daily, above our cozy green swamp, tourists fly like Carnival beads through the air, to and from whence they came. New Orleans has but a half-million sometimes sober citizens, and this year's best-ever Mardi Gras attracted over two-million bead tossing, flesh flashing, dollar slinging strangers, in town paying our bills, taking us to dinner, and laughing at our jokes "…ever hear the one about the tourist who ate the paper bag…" They danced to our tunes, filled our hotels, ate our food, and bought our art -- many trading pit titans are gracing their desks with moss-stuffed Voodoo Dolls, as we speak. So it was a relief to see Mayor Morial, and Police Chief Pennington reappear on TV backing down from their foolish endorsement of, yet again, rightwing hopes for a fleshless Mardi Gras. Isn't that what Lent is, folks? Carnival is, well, Carnival! Too bad we don't teach Latin in school or Mass, anymore. "[L. caro (carn) flesh, and levare (nival), to lighten, take away]" -- Webster's Dictionary. "To lighten, to take away the flesh," has meant, since Christendom's arrival as a political power, "Use up before Lent, for tomorrow we fast and suffer." But to the anti-flesh forces it means suffer now … and during Lent … and after. Nutz to that nostrum! Early in the season, our two leaders posted paper signs in the French Quarter saying don't show it. They, also, circulated TV-spots -- picked up by the national press -- boasting how, as recently as last year's Carnival, they busted three-hundred-and-sixty who did show it. Curiously, this year's busted-for-flesh count is, also, exactly three-hundred-and-sixty. OK, three-hundred-and-sixty tourist Lions tossed to the Christians are not too many, considering we had over two-million Lions in town. But had they really tried to enforce a Mardi Gras ban on flesh, the two-million-plus sinners would have rioted. Riots might please the I-Told-You-So righteous, but they don't do much for a Bacchanalia. Or tourism. People flock to New Orleans to escape stifling anti-flesh Puritanism. They come to taste our freer laid back life. The French, who first envisioned our Paris of the Swamps, have an expression aimed at defusing Anglo/American blue-noes-ry , "Yes, it is sex," they say, "but we all have it." The truth is people come here to roll in our historic gutters more than to study them. Corporate renters of floors of hotel rooms, and party's booked onto parade route balconies, and French Quarter dickering spots, were aghast at what their megabucks might now not buy. The Wild Bamboola is exactly why they come, not the spanking clean fun-as-an-airport casino. The phone lines sizzled and, thank Bacchus, our misguided leaders saw the error of their plan. The Big Easy won this round, the anti-flesh forces did not rain on this year's parade. But sleep lightly joyful celebrants and fat merchants, this year there was another Super Tuesday party, the national presidential primary. On the Republican side, the anti-flesh forces won a big time tug of war, between Baby Bush and "the good people" at Bob Jones University vs. John McCain on a white horse attacking hate mongering preachers. You might have missed this (it happened during Carnival) but Baby Bush, who took home the Super Tuesday Republican primary beads, said he was proud to have spoken at Bob Jones University, although he wished they didn't say the Bishop of Rome was the Anti Christ, and whites should not mix with blacks. And you wouldn't have heard this, either, but BJU later announced that interracial dating would be grudgingly allowed … if you bring a note from your parents. The Pope got no such up-grade. Lest that gray sickness someday swamp le Swamp, let us speak openly of colorful Carnival sins. Like the jazz brunch at Arnaud's, with flaming Café Brulot spiraling down a clove studded orange peal; and singing "Bourbon Street Parade," along with the band. And thank you Bacchus, for the half necked, fully crazed group from Washington, DC; New York City, and Denver, beside me Carnival Day on the balcony at the Bourbon Parade. We tossed glittering saver-beads to throngs eager to use up their mortal flesh. I doubt very many of the over two-million wanted Carnival reduced to a Bob Jones University outing Happy Lent and suffering. O, Lord, how we suffer! During this year's Lent, we have Saint Patrick's Day parades, and Saint Joseph Day Alters and parades, and the terrific Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival, http://www.tennesseewilliams.net (March 22-26). I've not had a chance to try it, but Alberto's Café, once so good on Frenchmen Street, has returned to Faubourg Marigny, at the Esplanade and Burgundy former-site of Buffa's. And we can't leave without a big bouquet of orchids for everyone who participated in the knockout Saint Anne Marching Society's parade 2000, from Clouet to Canal, to greet his Majesty the fully clothed Rex.
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