Rouses Everyday - January & February

ROUSES

EVERYDAY

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2015

the

Southern Food & Beverage

issue

My own traditions have altered and evolved

dramatically over the years to accommodate

certain unavoidable maturations of taste and

the acquiring of offspring. There were the

early years of hosting college roommates

in apartments with bare mattresses, trolling

for out-of-town co-eds and culminating

with The Sweep at midnight on the dot,

when a dour and exhausted team of New

Orleans mounted police officers are followed

by fleets of fire trucks and street sweepers.

From within a police

cruiser, stern male voice intones over and

over: “Mardi Gras is officially ended. Please

go home!”

There were the years I hosted sunrise

crawfish boils and masquerade golf

tournaments Uptown, providing passersby

of the Audubon Golf Club with the

incomparable spectacle of a grotesquely

hirsute ballerina dancer, a pregnant nun,

a pirate and a drunk zebra lining up their

putts on the 5

green.

There were many years when I ditched

New Orleans on Lundi Gras to head out

to the town of Eunice on the Cajun

prairie, where we masked,

painted our horses and

chased chickens

— and the

beer truck — through the country-side all

day, a blessed and savage tradition going

back a hundred years or more.

There have been the Mardi Gras ladder

years, of course, where my primary duties

were to stand sentinel on the third rung for

16 hours a day (approximately) and protect

the cherubic and joyful faces of babies

— usually but not always mine — from

permanent scarring due to errant, fast-

moving plastic novelties with pressed edges

sharp enough to slice an ear off.

Then there were the years of drinking alone

in dark rooms trying to forget the horror of

the Mardi Gras ladder years.

There were the French Quarter years,

the Bywater nights, the Uptown corner

afternoons. Hunting for the Mardi Gras

Indians, dancing at Tipitina’s, napping on

living room furniture laid across the streetcar

tracks, dressing in drag for the Bourbon

Street Awards, reigning as king of Krewe du

Vieux, dressed out in a custom-fitted Mad

Hatters suit, and then walking my dog in the

Barkus canine parade and putting on a tux

for a debutante ball.

Sometimes all in the same day. And never in

140 characters or less.

• • •

Given all the infinite possibilities and

passions laid bare on this blessed and

savage day, it’s unfortunate that Mardi Gras

is still widely perceived in the American

Heartland as some monolithic indulgence

comprised solely of boobs, baubles and beer.

Which of course, is in certain quarters; the

French one comes to mind.

The indulgence of boobs, baubles and

beer is, without question, one of the more

prominent and notable of those million

little pieces, yes indeed it is. To argue the

point is fruitless.

And we’re in an information age that has

downgraded from sound-bites to Snap-

Chat and Carnival in New Orleans

doesn’t get an exemption from that, no

Papal dispensation, no edict requiring

that people accommodate room for

nuance and insouciance in their normal,

waking day.

You have to remember after all, that

everywhere else, Carnival is just another

Tuesday in winter.

Our store at 701 Royal Street in the French Quarter is right there in the middle of the Mardi Gras madness.

— photo by

Frank Aymami

Muses shoes

The Muses shoes date back to the krewe’s very first parade in 2001. The Zulu coconuts and

a 2001 bead with a high heal pump were the inspiration for the painted, glittered, feathered

and glued shoes like this one from Muse Erika Goldring. She often decorates her shoes with

images of the musicians she photographs at concerts and festivals throughout the year.

Carnival

Royal-ty