Dimanche Gras Date Friday, April 19, 2024 - 03:15 PM PST Topic Beauty It's Sunday evening in a city where time has no meaning save for the labourers and traffic cops who try to hold the last vestiges of order together from a mob of drunken revellers who have no attention alloted to seeing what they're stepping into or what they're stepping on. The tension of the city stomps over me and under me, and I can see the fading rays of sunlight just between the cracks and shadows of the alleys that engulf a crowd larger and rowdier and older than any concert with more booze being served. . The energy of the city is thrilling; but the stench of the city counters that out with the overpowering reek of vomit, urine, spilled booze and sex. People stand on balconies screaming down to the crowd below making trades of flesh for sight on the market standardized bartering method of coloured plastic on a string of twine that they may have paid 10 dollars for, but only cost the manufacturer 40 cents. I take this all in on the edge of the corner before I'm pushed onwoard by the continous flow of people seeking to get on to the party street before they miss the real good nudity. It's all I've heard about, and more. Hugging the walls along the sidewalk one can look out to the street where people looking up to balconies shift their hair and numerous bead necklaces around so they might lift their shirts and gather more. Rythms of small bands and a thousand tourist shops blaring unreal amounts of "Local" music cause thunder down the streets, matched only by the noise and screams of a crowd that has waited all year for this, letting out beasts and inhibitions with the aide of dollar-margaritas and all kinds of beer in all kinds of surreally-shaped vessels. This is just two days before Mardi Gras. Men scream at the few police officers and national guards who try to get cars that intended to cross Bourbon street through; they shout about how the police ruin it for everyone, as if this small section of the world was an anarchy and couldn't be stopped by any action of monarch of government. A drunk man gets his head slammed in to a wall for barfing on a military hum-vee; a national guardsman is screaming at him load enough so it can barely be heard over the din of the music and people that he made a "fucking mistake motherfucker." Two days until the big party. Women lift their shirts around me and hails of beads fly from everywhere and men with cameras filming the street run up, hoping to get enough footage to sell to a "girls gone wild" studio, or just keep them in their private collection for those long sunday evenings months from now when the cravings hit again. The biggest party in the world. Puke and bile covers the street; my boots stick to the dry sections of pavement and my nose has already gone dead from the extensiveness of the stench. It doesn't stop the smell of sweat however, which is the only common scent here. Beer, all kinds, drafts, draughts, 1 dollars cans and 1 dollars hurricanes all for the eye to peruse or tongue to taste with almost no required ID. Cokes cost 3 dollars, however. Prices are outrageous; long chains of plastic and spray paint run close to 20 dollars sometimes. Beggars line the streets; poor musicians plying their skills and children, some not a day over 8 I swear attach crushed beer cans to their shoes and tap dance on the sidewalk for money. It's Sunday the 10th of February, and the crowds grow in New Orleans for the biggest party of the year, Mardi Gras 2002. Some people have stayed over from the Super bowl who would not normally come for Mardi Gras; some people just came this year because they finally got in their college road trip. And they're finding out all those rumours are true This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=249