Following a traditional breakfast of eggs Sardou and Bloody Marys in the palm-flanged courtyard of the French Quarter’s Louis XVI Restaurant, we ambled outside to greet the beckoning cloudless day and outrageous revelry. Our tight-knit, costumed coterie featured a Sultan of Schwing, a French maid, a tigress, and a pair of regally attired faux royalty—Hapsburgs, no doubt. We mamboed toward Bourbon Street as The Meters’ impossibly funky version of “New Suit” blared from a stereo perched on a fern-framed, bead-bedecked balcony overhead. “Every year at Carnival time we make a new suit . . .” Then we turned the corner and came face to face with ground zero of the greatest free show on earth: Mardi Gras.
Comically ribald, kaleidoscopic extravagances were everywhere: gorillas in surgical greens; bikini-clad women (and men); wizards and princesses; multicolored Styrofoam dinosaurs; drag queens in stunningly beautiful costumes; and leather-and-bondage entourages. A 16-person, group-themed entourage sporting identical red “Obama Mia!” T-shirts paused in the middle of the street to sing a tune from the Broadway show hit “Mamma Mia!”—and quite well, actually—but with the lyrics cleverly altered to address the political climate of the moment.
OK, so maybe your mama never told you there’d be days like these, but any celebration that results in the official daylong closing of local city, state, and—gasp!—federal offices is bound to be, well, different.
In Carnival tradition, hooch-addled, hormone-crazed college guys shouted “Show your t*ts!” to women on balconies, who were all too happy to oblige before tossing plastic beads to the depths of fratlike depravity. Such are the microeconomics of Carnival. And it wasn’t even noon yet. We swam the sea of elbow-to-elbow humanity—note to claustrophobics: stay at home—to the Bourbon Street Awards, a fancifully staged theatrical presentation of elaborate, elegant, and erstwhile campy drag costumes. On Judy, on Liza, on Joan, on Bette! “Every year at Carnival time we make a new suit . . .”
But the out-of-town sibling visiting from Southern California had seen it all before. During Carnivals past she has been lured into an impromptu dance with a New Orleans police officer, greeted by whoops and hollers inside Pat O’Brien’s courtyard bar while removing her sweater (only) to beat the heat, and playfully strewn with Silly String on Canal Street while trying to catch a prized gilded coconut from a Zulu float rider. She has joined in spontaneous second-line dancing and once snuck in behind a marching band during a parade, accompanied by a local who knew better than to engage in this strictly illegal activity. She had gorged on time-honored Carnival mainstays like Popeye’s fried chicken and Café du Monde beignets and has quaffed a cistern’s worth of rum-and-fruit-juice Hurricanes from Pat O’Brien’s. Along the way she learned the finer points of scooping up the choice beads at a Bacchus parade float tossed out on to the sidewalk, but not before nearly being rushed to the hospital with a badly sprained finger after confronting the competition––youths less than half her age who had the same idea. And she’s a soccer mom.
For one day each year New Orleans is the hot dog the rest of the country wants to run wild with through the streets. During Carnival the Big Easy takes no prisoners—except, of course, those who flagrantly break the law. Unless someone urinates on public streets or gets into a fight, two of the most common violations, the city lets its hair down and encourages revelers to do likewise. For example, drinking alcohol is allowed on the streets of the French Quarter (year-round, not just during Mardi Gras), so long as partygoers have a plastic “go cup.” Bars provide these free of charge. Boozing it up while behind the wheel of a car, though, is a Carnival no-no.
Truth is, Carnival’s orderly chaos is a virtually seamless event for the vast majority of millions of visitors, thanks largely to the heightened presence of local police working round the clock. For more information, consult your common sense or watch the episode of Cops filmed in New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
Note that if your travel plans include coming to New Orleans for Carnival, you’d best plan on booking a hotel reservation no later than six months before Mardi Gras. Many hotels, especially in the French Quarter, require a minimum four-night stay—usually the Fri or Sat night before Fat Tuesday through Mardi Gras night. Less-restrictive reservation policies can usually be found in smaller hotels and motels located in surrounding suburbs.