"Mardi Gras" in the Gaslamp - We Can Do Better
Somehow, word get out that San Diego's Mardi Gras celebration in the Gaslamp Quarter is the "Biggest Mardi Gras Celebration on the West Coast." That promise lured me down there the first year I was out here, and I've heard it exclaimed to me by excited newcomers a few times since, so someone must be promoting this blatantly false ideal. I left early the one and only year that I went down to the Gaslamp for Mardi Gras, and I feel bad for anyone who will only be able to experience the day through this imitation. Here is why it does not measure up to any real celebration of Mardi Gras:
1. $20 dollar entrance fee. Ostensibly this goes towards the bands, which this year include KC & The Sunshine Band. Obviously, nobody floods down there for the bands. Otherwise, Chateau Orleans in PB would have a packed house everytime Tomcat Courtney plays. So the $20 is sort of an entry fee for a Street Scene that you're not going to watch the bands at.
2. That includes the Street Scene festival pricing for booze. 5 dollar Heinekens, 7 dolar hurricanes. Down on the streets of New Orleans, you can buy a product known as a Huge Ass Beer, or a 151 Hurricane. They're not overpriced, and they pack a punch.
3. The food is small portions of expensive garbage with long lines.
4. Big warning on the home page: "Please DO NOT BRING: CAMERAS OR VIDEO CAMERAS. They will not be allowed." Awesome. It's such a wild and crazy time that we are adament that you can't bring a camera for some unspecified reason!
5. The parades in New Orleans are the kind of thing where you suddenly understand that all the other parades you've ever seen have done their best to give parades a bad name. There are floats the length of a footbal field, King Kong floats that throw bananas at you, ridiculous beads so heavy that they could kill a man if they hit him in the head, and the riders on the float frequently have a strict nudity for beads exchange program. Alternatively, I saw someone getting cited for flashing the year I went to the Gaslamp.
6. I repeat: I saw someone getting cited for flashing the year I went to the Gaslamp.
Pretty much the whole event is akin to the Eddie Murphy routine from either Delirious or Raw, where his mother says that instead of buying Eddie McDonald's, she will make him a hamburger that is "Better than McDonald's." Young Eddie is intrigued, but when he is presented with the hamburger that is round like a meatball, oozing with grease and has onions sticking out of it, he realizes that some products are best left to the people who deliver to your expectations. If you're down with a twenty dollar cover on top of whatever cover the bars are charging to experience a more crowded Gaslamp quarter, be my guest.
I suppose I should link to information about the blues and displaced New Orleans musicians that are performing, in case people still want to check them out:
7:00 PM - The Frappe' Brass Band
8:15 PM - The Wild Apache Mardi Gras Indians
9:30 PM - The 504 Brass Band
11:00 PM - Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove
Click Here for the full musical lineup
Comments
Hello, I was trying to leave you the following comment to your post
about the S.D. Mardi Gras, but there seems to be a problem w/ your
commenting.
Couldn't agree more. I'm a native of several New Orleans Mardi Gras
and lived for years in Mobile, AL, where MG originated, and all of it
was free. They were, in fact, called the people's parades for a
reason. If San Diego wants a true Mardi Gras, it needs to be free.
Let local bands who want exposure entertain or cordon off an area for
the paying customers, but open up the parades and much of the true MG
activity to the unpaying public. Allow for the chaos, even if it
means people--kids even--see some boobies. But it has to be free for
it to be a real Mardi Gras. Otherwise, it's just another Street Scene
with even worse bands.
BTW, I like the blog.
all best,
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | February 28, 2006 05:41 PM
Could not agree more. I was there this year 06. I was at a conference with my wife. I wasn't about to pay the $40.00 for the 2 of us but "somehow" we managed to get in. The highlite of the evening was watching folks walk through fresh puke on the street. If that tells ya anything!
Posted by: B77 | March 29, 2006 10:06 AM