Posted on 07/11/2009 7:57:19 AM PDT by Daffynition
When Mickey Hanning first saw the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona on television when he was 15, he knew that one day he would travel to Spain and be in that number.
What he didn't know was that he would bring the tradition to life in his hometown of New Orleans, spawning a national trend.
Hanning is a co-founder of San Fermin in Nueva Orleans: The Running of the Bulls in New Orleans, happening Saturday. Modeled after the festival of San Fermin in Spain, which started Tuesday, the local event involves hundreds of people in white and red gathering at 8 a.m. to run through the streets of the French Quarter. But instead of running from bulls, they will be running from something equally fearsome: the Big Easy Rollergirls. Armed with foam-core bats and wearing horns on their helmets.
"There's just such a raw, chaotic environment, infused with energy, " said Dylan O'Donnell, another co-founder of the event.
Hanning made good on his adolescent promise to go to Pamplona in 2002, but it wasn't until Mardi Gras 2007 that he saw a friend dressed up in white and red as a San Fermin runner, or correro, and was inspired to bring the festival home. Hanning approached O'Donnell, already a celebrated party planner, with the idea, and "his eyes lit up and that was it, " Hanning said.
"It was just a perfect fit, " O'Donnell said. "There's a costuming element, and as a native New Orleanian, that really appealed to me."
"And, we're a former Spanish colony, " Hanning added.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
no fears alone at night she’s sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music’s playing loud
she gets rock n roll a rock n roll station
and a rock n roll dream
she’s making movies on location
she don’t know what it means
but the music make her wanna be the story
and the story was whatever was the song what it was rollergirl don’t worry
d.j. play the movies all night long
That actually sounds kind of fun...
That sounds like a fun time!
You are NUTZ! I long for Norman Rockwell’s America.
I love this....Thank You!
Mikey is a good dude.
Those days died out long, long ago....
One of my favorite Dire Straits songs. They could play that instrumental ending for hours....
Nothing like getting drunk at 8 am and running in the streets while getting whacked by man-hating dykes on wheels with bats.
Who’s being harsh?
Gonna tell you a story that you wont believe
But I fell in love last friday evenin
With a girl I saw on a bar room t.v. screen
Well I was just gettin ready to get my hat
When she caught my eye and I put it back
And I ordered myself a couple o more shots and beers
The night that I fell in love with a roller derby queen
Round and round, oh round and round
The meanest hunk o woman
That anybody ever seen
Down in the arena
She was five foot six and two fifteen
A bleached-blonde mama
With a streak of mean
She knew how to knuckle
And she knew how to scuffle and fight
And the roller derby program said
That she was built like a fridgerator with a head
Her fans call her tuffy
But all her buddies called her spike
You know that I fell in love with a roller derby queen
Round and round, oh round and round
The meanest hunk o woman
That anybody ever seen
Down in the arena
Round and round, go round and round
Round and round, go round and round
Round and round
Well I could not help it
But to fall in love
With this heavy-duty woman
I been speakin of
Things looked kind of bad
Until the day she skated into my life
Well she might be nasty
She might be fat
But I never met a person
Who would tell her that
Shes my big blonde bomber
My heavy handed hackensack mama
You know that I fell in love with a roller derby queen
Round and round, oh round and round
The meanest hunk o woman
That anybody ever seen
Down in the arena
Round and round, go round and round
Round and round, go round and round
Round and round
Well as long as it's fair.
Can we assume that at the end of it all those who play the part of bulls have to face a man with a cape and sword? (Just to complete the comparison to Pompelona.)
Five of them look “not guilty”. The other two, well, you know.......
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