The Third (okay -- the Fourth) Time is the Charm?

Thanks to suggestions and encouragement by Murphy and Andy, today I ventured into the Wonderful World of YouTube!  This post will (hopefully) re-post last Sunday's doomed "Carnival 2011 in Video" post, but this time there will be actual, visible, "available" videos, courtesy of Mr. YouTube.  (Hopefully.)  I'm just cutting and pasting the narrative from March 20.  Here goes (hopefully) something!

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I'm not sure how well this will work -- I might just overload and explode the internet, and then we'd all be in trouble, so I apologize in advance if I destroy the internet or break Blogger. My bad. Nonetheless, I'm going to try to post 5 short videos from Carnival! One that is really funny won't work because it's too dark, so I'm sorry about that. I'll just have to tell you about it.

Muses is a registered carnival Krewe, and the only all-female organization to parade at night. The Parade has become a favorite of many over the last 10 years (Moogie is a proud member of said Krewe, albeit a non-riding member -- there's a years-long waiting period before one can ride), probably because it is clever, irreverent, satirical, and welcomes many "walking groups" to come along for the evening. Among the first of those walking/marching groups is the "Gliding Elvi," a large-and-growing group of men who dress up in full Elvis regalia and ride in masse on Vespas, throwing beads and kisses. Yep, Vespas. I did see a few walking this year, so I suppose we'd have to call them "Striding Elvi." Sorry the video was too dark, but just picture it!

Another men's group, new to the parade, is the "610 Stompers." ("Ordinary Men. Extraordinary moves.") They dress in sorta, kinda Richard Simmons-ish 80s fashion, complete with sweatbands, and do little marching and dancing routines. Such a hoot. Here's a little taste:

Okay.  My bad.  The video above is of the Gliding Elvi (I apparently misread my notes and uploaded the wrong video.  And, apparently I broke The YouTube for awhile, but it seems to be better now.  Sorry.).  Quality on The YouTube is definitely better than on Moogie's pitiful little phone!  The 610 Stompers are below.

This is a panoramic taste of the scene one block from Moogie's Mansion on Bacchus Sunday (the Sunday before Mardi Gras), which, due to horrible storms on Saturday also became Endymion Sunday when the Super-Krewe's parade was postponed from Saturday and moved from its Mid-City route to the traditional Uptown route following Bacchus. What a nightmare! Check out all the extra port-a-potties that were hastily trucked over to Uptown from Mid-City. They walled off goodly chunks of parade-viewing. It was impossible to get close to the floats because huge numbers of Mid-City folk came over Saturday night after the storm and camped out on the neutral ground, pitching tents, erecting awnings, and setting up housekeeping with furniture and cooking grills. The unhappy-looking child being held nearby was one of the several for whom I had to run home to get first aid supplies -- he fell and sliced open his hand. Why don't the young parents of toddlers come prepared? Mine were always falling down and bleeding and stuff, so I was a walking infirmary for years!

Here's an idea of just how wretched the traffic is in Moogie's neighborhood come Carnival. This year seemed to be worse than in previous years, but, for the most part, people were willing to let residents try to save parking spots for themselves. For the most part. On Bacchus Sunday, visiting Younger Daughter and I leapt amid cars to direct traffic so that a loaded ambulance could make its way through the gridlock. Fortunately, the drivers could hear the LOUD siren and accepted our direction of how best they could get out of the way, without causing Younger Daughter and I the need for another gridlocked ambulance. I even charmingly had to stop traffic so the Pepper could back out of the garage and head out of town for a Monday hearing near Vicksburg. It was as much fun to watch as any rodeo!

This is a quick view of "The Lighting of the Flambeaux," closely monitored by the fire department because most of the flambeaux torches are powered by naptha -- stinking like jet fuel and just a teensy bit flammable. The lighting makes for high drama and lots of photo ops.

This next video shows one of the huge floats from Bacchus (on second thought, I think this is the big train in Endymion) as it passes. You can see how huge the crowd was, spilling over into the street. Be sure to check out the trash factor. The Second District Police commandeered a prime spot and roped it off for themselves and their families. I suppose I don't mind them doing that for one day -- they do put up with an awful lot of nonsense, and they are among the best in the world at crowd control, but they surely did contribute a lot this year to the stuff that the Orleans Parish Prisoners are bused in after parades to clean up with rakes and trash sacks!

This next one is new today.  We have the treat of having access to a balcony every Mardi Gras morning, courtesy of MARFORRES and the Lupo family, at the Parc St. Charles, catty-corner from Gallier Hall on St. Charles Avenue, where the Mayor greets and toasts King Zulu (of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club) and Rex, King of Carnival.  We didn't stay for Rex this year (they were drastically delayed by the pace of Zulu -- who kinda likes to mess with Rex's schedule!), but we saw the arrival of King Zulu and I caught a little of it.  It was so windy that morning that I feared King Zulu might take flight!

I caught no Bacchus beads this year -- nor beads from any other of the Sunday parades, except one lonely strand from an over-achiever with a great pitching arm in Thoth. I certainly didn't get close enough to snag a Bacchus doubloon featuring Grand Marshall Andy Garcia, or really even get to get a decent view of the floats honoring "The Greatest Generation."

*Deep Sigh*

Of course, Pepper says that is a good thing since we have no need of more worthless trinkets taking up space around the house. Pepper is fast becoming a Mardi Gras Grinch.

Did you like that superior camera work! (Hopefully!)