IT'S ON BABY!!

It may be hard to find a King Cake in New Orleans these days but ...

MARDI GRAS IS ON!

Today, officially, is the first day of the Mardi Gras season and Mayor Ray Nagin says "there will be a Mardi Gras" this year. Reports claim that the Mayor had his first "King Cake Party" of the year this morning in the city offices. I don't know where he found the cake - but I wish he'd let us all in on where he got it!

Down here in NOLA, everything is contentious these days - I don't know anyone who lives down here who isn't suffering from some form of mental illness brought on by the hurricane - and that includes me. We're just all "touchy" these days - the littlest things distress and anger us, and the topic of Mardi Gras is no exception.

Should New Orleans really be having a Mardi Gras this year? Many folks say it's downright stupid to attempt to pull off a Mardi Gras this soon after Katrina. I'll agree with that - it IS stupid. But ...

I think it's just what NOLA needs right now. Sometimes, it's smart to do something stupid. Going to the moon with 1960's analog technology - that was pretty stupid. When the American colonists took on the greatest superpower in the world, Great Britain - that was stupid. When Jobs and Wozniac took on computing Goliath IBM with their little Apple computer - that was pretty stupid. Johnny Unitas made a career in Pro-Football by constantly pulling off stupid plays - which was smart, because it made him unpredictable.

So let's agree that sometimes a stupid move can be a smart one.

But is Mardi Gras in New Orleans one of those "smart" stupid-moves?

Well, I think it is - and here's why...

First, although Mardi Gras isn't the heart and soul of the city of New Orleans - it's a pretty good avatar for it. Mardi Gras didn't begin in New Orleans. By most accounts - Mardi Gras started in Mobile, AL. However, it very soon migrated over to NOLA - where it hit fertile ground and grew like a wildfire. Mardi Gras is, for all intents and purposes, a New Orleans production. The city is synonymous with Mardi Gras.

New Orleans isn't the National Hockey League - we're not going to take a year off. And taking a year off didn't really help the NHL now did it? If we were to take a year off from Mardi Gras - it might very well be the end of it altogether. If we want this city to come back with the same cultural feel it had before the storm - we need Mardi Gras this year.

Still, I hear the arguements against Mardi Gras - and some of the arguements sound good on the surface - but dig into 'em and you'll see why NOLA needs "Festival" this year.

Here are some of the more popular arguements against Mardi Gras this year ...

1. "We aren't in the mood for it."

I know you aren't in the mood for it but then again, how many things do you force yourself to do when you aren't in the mood for it? Did you go to work this morning? Were you really in the mood for it? How many band recitals for your kid's have you "forced" yourself to attend when you really weren't in the mood? You do those things because you need to do them because they're important - and Mardi Gras is no exception. More on this below.

2. "How can you expect us to embrace a party this soon after a catastrophe that caused us to lose so much?"

The answer here is - to keep you from losing MORE. No matter what you lost, if you're reading these words you survived the storm with at least your life and your identity intact. However, what kind of IDENTITY are you going to have when YOUR city has lost its identity? If you want NOLA back with all the trimmings ... the King Cakes, the Gumbo, the ZULUS - you need to start rebuilding that identity. That means supporting Mardi Gras this year.

3. "No way we can put on a Mardi Gras this year that is even close to the one we had last year."

I agree, but who cares? It's a silly question because the only people we're competing against is ourselves. No matter how lame Mardi Gras NOLA is this year - I still have no doubt it'll be better than anything Mobile and Pensacola can put on. Think about it. No way is Mardi Gras NOLA going to be "eclipsed" by some other city. Even our WORST Mardi Gras beats anybody else's "best".

4. "The tourists won't come."

Who cares? What if say, you didn't have enough money to pay for Christmas presents? Would you still celebrate Christmas? I sure hope so, if not - you shouldn't have been celebrating it in the first place. Mardi Gras wasn't developed for tourists. Mardi Gras is a NOLA tradition that just happened and the tourists gravitated to it. We don't do Mardi Gras just for tourists - that's obsurd.

5. "What will the world think about us having a party when we're supposedly so devastated by the hurricane?"

Who cares? If anyone outside of NOLA thinks bad things about us - to hell with them! All anyone has to do is come down here and walk accross the Poland street bridge into the 9th ward and they can SEE for themselves that we are devastated. Does the devastation necessarily mean we have to ACT devastated? Any shallow minds out there that think we should be walking around like sad-sacks can take it and stick it in a very dark place. That's just my humble opinion.

6. "The city can't afford it."

First, the city doesn't really put on Mardi Gras - the Krewes do. The Krewes are full-up round and most of them are ready to go. They're funded through their members. The expense to the city comes in the form of police security and cleanup. If NOLA can't come up with the funds, there are 20 corporate agencies out there who have said that they are willing to sponsor at least $2 million ... EACH. That's $40 million if we really need it. We've always been against corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras - but we could do it if we absolutely have to this year.

7. "Shouldn't we take that #40 million and put that into the rebuilding effort rather than into a party?"

Do you think if we call off Mardi Gras these corporations are going to just "donate" that $40M to our rebuilding effort? No chance!

8. "Most of our folks aren't back from the storm yet."

This is actually another reason FOR having Mardi Gras. Let me tell you what - New Orleanians are living all over the country right now - and there is one word to describe their disposition -- BORED! Many of them will come back to NOLA just to see Mardi Gras - with no real intention of staying. But once they've seen Mardi Gras - and seen that we aren't a bunch of manic-depressives on Prozac - they'll end up STAYING.

I think that pretty much sums up most of the reasons I normally hear.

Mardi Gras will be a labor this year - there's no doubt about it. But ... call it "mandatory fun" or whatever - it will do the city good, it will do US good. When the goin' gets tough -- the tough run out in the street and try to catch a Zulu coconut! That's New Orleans folks.

Support Mardi Gras ... don't let the bastards wear you down!