Mardi Gras is an epic time in New Orleans, no matter how much one tries to avoid getting caught up in it. This year I have been struggling with money and had no fancy costume or big plans other than to work a lot at my job with NOLA Pedicabs and make lots of money to get caught up on my bills with.

My father once said, “man plans, god laughs.” Well for sure we all get caught in the cosmic giggle. I am a bad ass on a bicycle but as it turns out my dharma is not to haul drunk people around New Orleans for a living. The 2nd Saturday before Mardi Gras was to be my first big money-making day because there were tourists and parades, but mama nature had other plans and chilled us the fuck out to about 35 degrees so that not even the drunkest of drunks were getting in my cab. After 8 hours all I had to show for my toils was the beginnings of a two-week long throat cold.

The night before that was pretty awesome though, as I got to go photograph the  Apocalypse Ball - an annual benefit for the Louisiana Himalaya Association (LHA.) (a volunteer-staffed, non-profit organization dedicated to international social work with Tibetan Refugees in the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal). This year the ball was held at Studio 3 on Toulouse Street. I danced my ass off, had my face painted like a sugar skull from the Day of the Dead, and flirted with all kinds of beautiful people. I would like to thank my friends Kate and Trishell for getting me in as photographer.

Candy Skullface Pashupa at the Apocalypse Ball

So back to this pedicab thing. I have been entertaining my yoga students with my pedicab tales for a while now, how I would go out for hours and not make any money. How the pedicab-pep talk would always turn to how much we were going to make over Mardi Gras. As my bills piled up and I ate peanut butter sandwiches to survive I wondered a lot about my karma and my dharma.

Mardi Gras means ‘Fat Tuesday’, and it is traditionally a final celebration of gluttony before Christians fast for Lent (on Ash Wednesday). The fasting traditionally lasts 40 days to honor Jesus’ time in the desert chatting with Satan. Hungry Christians are exempt on Sundays, which are mini-Easters. Easter ends the fast. (random fact: I was born on Easter in 1967, therefore I am an Easter expert). Traditionally Christians fast from meat, dairy and eggs during Lent. St. Thomas of Aquinas thought eating animal flesh gave people more nourishment and “greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust.” Kind of gross if it was true, but fortunately/unfortunately eating animal proteins tends to make men impotent instead. Not that anyone you will meet on Bourbon Street would know or care, but there you have it, ignorant ideas that have evolved through the ages and are still with us.

I was signed up for pedicab shifts from Thursday through Tuesday, culminating Mardi Gras night. Friday night my cold from the week before, which I considered past me, came back with a vengeance. I lost my voice and could only work for about 3 hours before my headache became unbearable, long enough to make the money I had to pay NOLA Pedicabs for using the bike for the night. I paid them off and went home to rest. Saturday it rained all day and night, and I did not work. Sunday I went back to work and did OK even though my voice sounded like a squeaky mouse. Monday (Lundi Gras) I actually made a bit of money.

Here are some photo highlights for your enjoyment

Tuesday I spent the daylight hours with the Society of St. Anne, my favorite Mardi Gras parade. It isn’t a super-organized parade with floats and all the gross excess of bead throwing, but rather a meandering gaggle of costumed freaks heading from the Bywater to the French Quarter, passing through the Marigny, stopping at bars, being joined by brass bands and psychedelic portable DJ contraptions, spontaneous dance parties, and run-on sentences disguised as journalism.

After a beautiful sunny day spent with my lovely freaks, I left to go work my night away on a pedicab. On the way to the shop I got a call from NYC, which turned out to be Ganeshadas from Jivamukti Yoga setting up a job interview with me the next day. A sure mood-lifter impeccably timed by that same universe known for cosmic giggles.

Suffice it to say that after about 4 hours of being harassed by drunks on the back of my pedicab I put enough faith in that same universe to quit my job for the night and head home for some well-deserved rest. Money seemed less and less important the more I thought about it. And I like peanut butter well enough. I will still eat it now that I have been hired to move to NYC and become the web editor for Jivamukti’s soon-to-be-released web site. Life is good and so am I.

Here are lovely slideshows of my glorious photos

The Krewe of Eris parade marching through the Marigny

This was my second year marching with the Krewe of Eris, the unauthorized parade that marches from the Bywater through the Marigny and to the French Quarter. Last year it was lots of fun, as I hula hooped with my friends at the head of the parade. This year it started out with revelry and celebration, but in the end got broken up by the police and turned ugly. Six police officers were supposedly injured and twelve people marching got arrested, while many others were beaten, tasered, and pepper sprayed.

Two Krewe of Eris paraders before the parade started

The police reported that members of the parade were vandalizing vehicles and kicking over trash cans, among other things. I did not see anything  happening that warranted police brutality but the NOPD is known for violence. The paraders were labeled as “anarchists”, a favorite tactic used by the police state and media to justify police violence. I had many friends in the parade and I would not consider them to be anarchists, but even if they were they are peaceful people and don’t deserve to be beaten.

My friends Ethan and Tori share a sweet moment before the parade

I was walking with a couple of my friends when the helicopters flew over with their spotlights and the police cars came screaming down the street behind us. We ducked down a side street and avoided the mayhem that was soon to ensue. In the aftermath the NOPD has shut down the ARC building which houses the ‘anarchist’ Iron Rail Book Collective, as well as the non-profit bike repair shop Plan B. This is a blow to the community that lives in the Bywater and Marigny and has enjoyed these resources.

Ryan, Lenny, Ben & ? at Krewe of Eris Parade 2011 – costume is Concert in the Egg from Heironymus Bosch painting

Check out the slide show below to see more of my photos, and the video to see the some of the police misconduct caught on film.

Me, Jaimie Lynn and Aviva pose with hoops before Eris

Mardi Gras in New Orleans was a strange and wonderful time. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday, but the celebrations leading up to the actual day last for about two weeks. Besides the celebrations around the Super Bowl, the peak of Mardi Gras for me was marching in the Krewe d’Eris Parade on Sunday the 14th of February.

Eris is an unauthorized parade, as described on NOLA.com

“As Sunday night slithered out and Lundi Gras scuttled in, The Vieux Carre was swarmed by the filthy vermin of the Krewe of Eris, a wild and phantasmagoric walking (and bicycling and wheelchairing and shopping-carting) krewe dedicated not to misrule but to no rule at all. Unorganized, unauthorized, un-permitted, and unconcerned, the Krewe of Eris is an open-membership tribe honoring Eris, the goddess of discord and strife. In the mythology of the Greeks it was Eris who threw the golden apple that sparked a feud between vain deities, revealing the pettiness and weaknesses of the powerful, and thus the Krewe of Eris gives the lie to the grandiose and flashy motorized superkrewes, mostly by being much, much more fun.”

I was part of the Hula Hooping corps, coordinating with our friends in the flag corps. We marched at the front of the parade along with a luminous dragon and a marching band. The theme of the parade was “light and pleasure” and along that vein my friend Aviva and I both got LED hula hoops, and our third hooper Jamie Lynn marched between us to catch some of our light. We all decided to dress in costumes of white and gold. I had a fun marching band hat with gold horns made by a talented woman named Jade. The rest of my costume I got from second hand shops.

Marching for about three hours with a hula hoop was both exhilarating and tiring. I had so much fun tossing it as high as I could and catching it, watching the swirls of light making pretty patterns in the sky. The crowd loved us, and was us. People seemed to wander in and out of the parade, adding to the chaos and beauty of it. We had rehearsed a routine but found it impossible to carry out. It was all just fun and celebration.

Since I was hooping I could not photograph the parade itself but I found some cool photos online on the Wandering Dreamers blog and also on l*ght//motion’s flickr page. The slideshow below is of the photos I took before the parade…