Note: I've had to mangle the word "n u d i t y" so that this page doesn't get zillions of hits from people searching on that keyword. Sorry about that. - J
We have walked around all day and our feet got tired. So we bought some booze and are drinking in the hotel room. Thankfully this has given me time to update the site, recompress the JPEGs from Monday and Tuesday, and reorganize the content into one page per day.
The thing that impressed me the most is that, despite the hordes of drunk people and n u d i t y being shoved in their faces, there was no violence at all. Sure, a few people got pushed and exchanged agressive words, but then they moved along through the crowd in opposite directions and it was all over. That was rare. Mostly, people were happy, loud, and concentrated on the bead/breast commerce - participation or spectation.
I took the camera out today, so there are tons of pictures. My ISP's terms of use say no pornography, so I have censored the naked-breast pictures. I'll put them on another server when I get a chance. Until then, use your imagination. It's not really important to me to show n u d i t y, as much as the conditions under which people got naked. It was very common and very voluntary.
Here I am, smiling goofily with my beads. I acquired most of them at the Bacchus parade.
The Mariott hotel lobby is a freakin' zoo.
This puppeteer has a cool idea. His puppets are musicians, and he has them lip-sync, dance, and play air-guitar with the music. It's very convincing, and thus quite entertaining. Here he is pictured with the sax player puppet, who is playing into the microphone stand. The drunk guy playing keyboards was solicited to do so by the puppeteer, and was so tanked that he could barely keep from falling out of his chair.
The crew. Mike, Pax, Kim, and Jose.
More pix of the guys. Pax, Mike, and Jose.
Here are some guys with beads, hoping to induce some n u d i t y.
New Orleans has its own trading floor. However in this case the commodities traded are beads and n u d i t y (male or female).
Christians don't approve. Note that no representatives of other religions chose to scold everyone.
More signs. Christians seem to have a unique desire to tell everybody else how to live. However these people were at least peaceful and didn't make a big scene, they just quietly made their point and were noticed, and they didn't push it.
These police cars were not busting anybody. They were just blockade-running for the garbage truck! I love the way these cops think.
Here are some distant naked breasts. You can't really see anything except the context of the n u d i t y, which is all I'm really hoping to convey anyway.
This girl showed top and bottom frontal n u d i t y.
Here's her display of naked breasts.
This guy has serious buying power.
This guy was doing and handstand and playing a kazoo. Whatever.
Gee, what city am I from? New York perhaps?
Why does this hippie woman have a broom? No idea.
Here are some horny individuals.
People fired off streamers and confetti a few times. It was pretty cool.
Here's the street and balcony, a panorama in debauchery.
Here are the hotel security guards. Because there is such a temptation to either (a) squeeze dozens of people into one hotel room, and (b) stop in any random place to go to the bathroom when you're drunk, they have to control entry to the hotel with hospital-style wristbands.
Here is a hotel wristband. Just in case you were curious what it looked like.
A close-up of a puppet.
This guy is really, really in the wrong place. Honking doesn't help when there are 2,000,000 drunk people in town for Mardi Gras and the drunkest of them are all in your way.
She's gonna show 'em...
Yup.
Here's her face...
Snacks. Aisle 3A.
A plea for beads.
There's a Hurricane (it's a mixed drink) bar in the hotel lobby. Remember, no open container law, and 18 is the drinking age.