St Patrick's Day, Dallas style (Throwback post)

I don't know whether it is the leprechauns, but people across the globe, especially but not only the english speaking areas, seem to want to claim a bit of Irish ancestry.  Sadly I suspect the real reason people like the idea of being Irish is that they associate the nationality with Guinness, Craic and a whole lot  of drinking.

There are of course a lot of people with some Irish ancestry in other countries, particularly the States as so many emigrated there in the 1840s when they were hit by the potato famine.  But whilst there may be a bit of Irish blood there somewhere, it is pretty well diluted by now, and most of the descendants have never even been to Ireland, so I do find all of this claiming to be Irish just a bit ridiculous.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't recognise their ancestry, but really, when you were born in the States, your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were born in the States, you've lived your whole life in the States, have a US accent, never even leave the States for a holiday, and obsess about the right to carry a gun, then face it, you're not Irish.

Mind you, it appears that being Irish may not matter anyway, as St Patrick was not Irish himself!  He was from Great Britain and was taken to Ireland as a child worker.  It is not clear where in Britain he was from; Scotland and Wales are both possibilities, but it is suggested he was from the north of England.

But whether people are truly Irish or not, there are Irish Bars everywhere.  Some are more "authentic" than others; for example I remain entirely unconvinced by the 'traditional Irish curry' being advertised in an Irish bar in Skopje, Macedonia.  And half the world seems to celebrates St Patrick's Day.

We were in Dallas for St Patrick's Day this year, and we joined our Couchsurfing hosts at the parade.  There were certainly great swathes of emerald green being worn, a lot of Guinness hats and 'kiss me I'm Irish' t-shirts.  And there was a lot of alcohol being consumed.

But aside from the green shamrock festooned decor, the parade itself could have been any other parade.  There was one pipes and drums band at the start, but beyond that there was not a hint of Irish music, traditional or otherwise.  There was no celebration of Irish ancestry or heritage here, unless of course your understanding of Irish culture is simply that a lot of drinking is done.

I'm not for a second suggesting that the Irish don't drink on St Patrick's Day, or a lot more often than that, but it is quite sad when that is the full extent of their attempt at embracing the culture.  And by the way, calling it St Paddy's Day may be OK, but St Patty's Day is just wrong!

And on the subject of drinking, where on earth do Budweiser get the idea that they can, with any seriousness, take a holiday that is famed for the consumption of Guinness, and use it to advertise Bud light!

So am I just being a miserable killjoy?  Well maybe, but I don't think so.  I like to see people celebrating their own culture and that of other people.  I like a good drink.  I just find it laughable that people pretend so hard to be something that they very clearly are not, just so they have an excuse to drink.  After all - who needs an excuse!

Mardi Gras - another day, another bag of beads (Throwback post)

For our Sunday parades, we did the same as Saturday and booked places in the stands for the daytime ones.  Today's Krewes were Okeanos, Mid-City, Thoth and in the evening, Bacchus.

Okeanos date back to 1949, and had decent enough, but not especially exciting floats.















Mid City are even earlier having started in 1933.  Their floats were decorated with a mass of bright coloured, shiny foils, with a time theme.

So they included clocks, Old Father Time, and Doctor Who - the time lord.  Apparently their throws included the Slap watches, but we didn't see any of those around, so I suspect they were few and far between.

Thoth, established in 1947, set out to make sure the  parades included those who were unable to get out to the normal routes due to illness; their original route was designed to take in fourteen institutions that cared for people with illnesses and disabilities.

They have an Egyptian look to their floats and this years theme was Kings.  King Kong, the King of the Jungle, King Penguins, King of the Pharaohs, and Elvis were amongst the offerings from them, and they looked really quite impressive.

In the evening, we were back on the street - further back this time though - for another superKrewe with the big neon floats.  Bacchus were not formed until 1968, but they quickly established themselves as a top parade because of the size of their floats.  Their decision to parade in a Sunday night broke with tradition of the time, as did their choice to have a celebrity King.

Their floats certainly had big impressive figures at the front, but there wasn't much decoration on the rest of it, so it wasn't one of my favourites despite being a big name. 

A this point I should also mention some of the other groups that are interspersed amongst the floats of the Krewes, as some of these were highly amusing.

You will have seen photos in the earlier posts too. Of course you have the various marching bands and dancers, and a few military groups including the Buffalo Soldiers on horseback.

There were also the Marching Dead and the Waddling Dead, which as you may guess were dressed as zombies etc, we had a host of Lady Godivas (in body stockings - this isn't Bourbon Street after all), the motorbike groups of the Honda Goldwings and the old green and yellow police Harley Davidsons.

But some of our favourites were the Elvises on mopeds, the men in the motorised reclining armchairs, and the men dressed as joggers from the 1970s - a bit like the 118118 adverts in the UK.

We returned home slightly less laden this evening.  Not because of a lack of things being thrown - we caught a number of whole bags of about three dozen bead necklaces as well as numerous plush toys and other bits - but because we had looked at our haul from the last two days and wondered what on earth we were going to do with it all.  So although we got a lot, and kept some of the more interesting pieces, we gave most of the beads and toys to people around us.

Mardi Gras - More parades and more beads! (Throwback post)

After our three parades and huge haul of throws from Thursday, we concluded that to go to parades everyday would probably not be either necessary or sensible.  Indeed most people from NOLA just go along to one or two sets and so do most tourists.  So we skipped Friday and our next parades were on the Saturday.

Having seen how early people reserved their spaces for Thursdays parades, knowing that we were never going to beat them to it, and as we had a whole afternoon and evening ahead of us, we decided to book some places in the viewing stands for the daytime parades. That way we could get there a bit later, have a seat while we waited for it to start, and still be in a good position to see all of the action.

We got there early enough to get seats at the front, and so had a great spot and not such sore feet by the end, so we were still in a fit shape for the evening ones later, where we were going to be back at the side of the street.

The only disadvantage to the stands - and in fact the whole of the end section of the parade where there are railings along the road - is that you cant get alongside the floats if they are trying to hand something out to you specifically.  But as we weren't really there for the goodies that didn't much matter.

The Krewes this afternoon were Iris and Tucks and this evenings was Endymion.  Established as a Krewe way back in 1917, though not parading until 1959, Iris is the oldest and the largest of the all women parades.  They have traditionally followed very strict rules, wearing full length masks and white gloves.

They were a good parade, themed around New Orleans festivals and events, with a few nice quality throws including chunky necklaces with pretty irises or representations of the festivals, such as lobsters, Mardi Gras emblems, saxophones and the Bourbon Street lamppost.

Mind you, whilst it was great to get these, they were quite heavy around the neck by the end of the day and you had to be careful not to get hit in the head by one when it was thrown!

The Tucks have been going since 1969 and have an irreverent and humouristic approach to the parade.  They don't have the prettiest of floats, but they are good fun.

They have a toilet theme to their parade, with the King's throne being a giant toilet, and toilet related throws, including rolls of Tucks loo paper, which are thrown around like streamers getting caught up alongside the strands of beads that fall onto the trees, lights and the overhead tram rails.

We caught a plunger and a toilet that squirts out water amongst other things.

With a gap in the parades until this evening's one, we found a close by restaurant for a quick meal before heading out to find a spot to stand for the next parade.

This wasn't easy, as the crowds were already four or five people deep, but we found somewhere where we could get a good view.  As we started chatting to people, they were pleased to hear it was our first Mardi Gras, and before long we found ourselves hustled to the front of the railings.

Endymion, who go back to 1967 are one of the superkrewes.  Their floats are huge and are lit up with neon.  They often have celebrity guests; this year it was pop star Kelly Clarkson.  While some of their floats were very good, the parade somehow lacked some of the fun that the others had.

Perhaps it was that there were fewer throws to go around and that many of them were just the basic beads rather than anything more interesting - after all part of the fun is seeing what you have managed to catch and finding that it is a medallion necklace or something else specific to that Krewe.

But I think that mostly the difference was that the crowds were so big here that you didn't feel as personally involved and connected as you do with the smaller ones.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed the parades today and again went home laden with goodies.