Yes, I'm sure the world will be shocked to its core by images of revelry and debauchery from New Orleans. 
Posted on 09/05/2005 8:14:06 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
NEW ORLEANS — You know a city has legs when three or four dozen of them are parading down Bourbon Street — some clad in tutus and grass skirts — six days after the most damaging hurricane in American history.
But the annual Southern Decadence parade through the heart of the French Quarter stops for nothing — not even Katrina.
"Hey, we've got to keep our morale up, too," said Jill Sandars, aka "Jelly Sandwich," her "Quarter" name.
Resplendent in a fluffy red skirt, dark hat and small black umbrella, she strutted and sang with 15 to 20 other storm survivors who'd hunkered down in battered but not beaten streets normally associated with bead-throwing at Mardi Gras.
The event always manages to be held the Sunday before Labor Day. This time, of course, the circumstances were different.
Water covered the upper northwest quadrant of the Quarter, roughly from Conti to Canal streets, between Bourbon and North Rampart.
There was no power or water, and only hints of the kinds of food made legendary at venues such as Brennan's or Galatoire's. Both of those restaurants seemed relatively unscathed, as did many of the structures on the riverside end of the district, its highest elevation.
But the Quarter was far from its famously lively and carefree self. National Guard and police were everywhere to keep the peace and stop looting. Helicopters buzzed overhead as the evacuation of the city proceeded.
But as the parade assembled at Orleans and Bourbon, outside Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill, where the motto, "We never close," is strictly enforced, the mood was old-school Vieux Carré at its finest.
"I survived Hurricane Katrina and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," was handwritten on the shirt of a young woman who was wearing a tutu and pulling a bead-laden wagon. Alongside her, marched — ambled actually — a shirtless young man in cut-off shorts, boots and hardhat. The sign he carried read, "Life goes on?"
As the parade moved along, people came out on balconies and threw down beads. On at least one balcony, birthday suits were the uniform of the day.
For Marvin Allen, bartender at the famous revolving Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, even the lack of meals could be turned into celebration. He and a group of survivors who live near the Ursulines Convent on Chartres combine provisions each evening for dishes such as "Wienie Jambalaya."
"In some ways, it sounds strange, but we're actually doing better than we normally are," Allen said.
It's a brave face, but it's working. Still, Allen hopes to evacuate to Dallas later this week.
The future of New Orleans may be problematic, and time lines for recovery mostly are educated guesses. But the same forces of fate — or the mercy of the African voodoo goddess of the winds, Oya — that deflected Katrina's destructive winds at the 11th hour seem to have spared this legendary part of the American cultural experience.
The northwestern quadrant, as well as outlying landmarks such as the historic Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart at Conti, where plague victims were taken in the 1830s, were underwater anywhere from a few inches to several feet.
But most of the landmarks in the Quarter theoretically could reopen whenever power and water are restored — by November, optimistically. There's no talk of canceling Mardi Gras.
As the Southern Decadence parade meandered past the corner of Orleans and Royal, it passed the fenced garden behind St. Louis Cathedral. A giant oak and magnolia both lay uprooted. It was the largest single scene of devastation in the Quarter.
In the center of the tangle of limbs and broken trunks stood the garden's statue of Jesus, the one with outstretched arms affectionately known to locals as "Touchdown Jesus."
The statue was completely unscathed, except for a broken finger and two broken thumbs. "J'ai confiance en vouz," says the inscription, "I have confidence in you."
At that intersection, a New Orleans cop appeared, held up his own arms and stopped the parade.
"I didn't know Decadence was still on," he said. Parade-goers politely assured him it was.
"Keep your spirits up," he said, and drove away.
His lack of knowledge could easily be forgiven. It's not like phones, TVs or much of anything facilitates conversation. As one habitué of the sports bar said, drinking a warm beer on the sidewalk, "We just can't get any information."
"Yeah," said Ride Hamilton, a longhaired screenwriter who keeps water and medical supplies for the stranded. "And we can't get any strippers, either."
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rdavis@express-news.net
Don't worry, you disgust me more.
Gotta love that spirit of the Quarter!
Good for them..
Eventually, laisses les bon temps roulez!!
Don't mess with my tutus!
The petulant little sausages haven't learned much. Yet.
"I've never seen so many naked people in my life." - my brother, at his first and last Mardi Gras."
I am old enough to remember Mardi Gras (probably before you were born) where people had a good time WITHOUT debauchery. There is NO WAY I would go to Mardi Gras now.
"Let them celebrate being alive."
They are not celebrating being alive, you flaming troll, they are celebrating anal sex. You need to get your DU head out of your anus.
Helloooo, troll!
You like kitties of scandinavian extraction?
CC
"When the water recedes New Orleans should be turned into a field artillery impact area."
Not a bad idea. Or we could turn what is left of it into a giant "urban warfare training center." The Army and Marines could make good use of it. OK, OK, folks I know I'm being extremely mean. I should be more charitable. I do feel pity for the innocent and poor that are trapped there, and elsewhere, by poverty.
Reports are that it was disgusting.
"It reminds me of the Dance of Death, when they celebrated in honor of the great plague during the middle ages."
That is a very astute observation. "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies...."
How about a little bit of reverence for all of the dead?
It's not pious. It's called decent and proper. There is a time for mourning and a time for celebration.
You mean before they die of AIDS or hepatitis?
You all disgust me.
The open celebration of homosexual perversion disgusts me. Deal with it.
"Let them celebrate being alive."
You call that living? You should save your disgust for yourself - look within a bit.
Yes, I'm sure the world will be shocked to its core by images of revelry and debauchery from New Orleans.
I thought everyone was supposed to be evacuated.
Of course it isn't politically correct to worry about all that "decadence" and the Democrat votes now moving mostly into conservative states, the most gracious ones of all obviously. Only 2 liberal ones have offered to take them in and then in much smaller numbers.
Nero fiddling while Rome burned
Troll!
It may take more than 30 feet of water to clean the sewage out of this city.
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