Expand Your Mardi Gras Horizons

Mardi Gras can be a tricky thing: resplendent in tradition and pageantry, yet always with rebellion at its core. Discovering traditions that expand our experience of the Mardi Gras tradition while maintaining this paradoxical spirit makes for a rewarding way to celebrate it. The big money krewes can always get bigger and more elaborate; but for this avid parade-goer, it is the smaller gestures that often turn out to be the most grand. One week before Endymion thunders through the streets of New Orleans, one of the newest and smallest parades winds its intricate way through the Marigny.

Krewe of ‘tit Rex

“The inspiration is the shoebox floats that every New Orleanian would remember making in grade school,” said Krewe organizer Jeremy Yuslum. “The one restriction is that it needs to be based on a shoebox.”

The parade of miniscule floats that makes up ‘tit Rex are wonders of LED and cardboard. They range from wobbly, charming things built on and pulled by a shoestring, to elaborate remote control vehicles.

Talking about ‘tit Rex, it’s easy to make a bunch of inadvertent puns about size. When asked about membership to the Krewe, Yuslum said, “We are open to new members; but in the interest of keeping it small, there is limited space available for people to make floats. We are constantly looking for ways to get people involved without making the parade larger.”

The krewe did have a bit of a dustup a few years back over its name with the original Rex, the literal king of Mardi Gras krewes.

“They wanted us to change the name. We changed the ‘e’ in Rex to a schwa (Ə). We didn’t want to roll over for Rex, even though they do a lot of good in the community as a social aid club. Plus they are a classic tradition. We got some free publicity out of it.”

You have to stay on your toes to catch the tiny procession. “We change our route every year, “ Yuslum said. “We used to start in the Bywater, but now I think we are completely in the Marigny. “We have a Ping Pong Ball, immediately after the parade, at the bar wherever the parade ends. Anybody is welcome to that.”

Unique Dancers of Baton Rouge

Mardi Gras cannot officially start until I catch sight of Michael Covington and his Unique Dancers of Baton Rouge. Covington looks like a superhero, marching resolute in his spandex uniform, flanked by a phalanx of similarly clad women. Suddenly, he’ll break into a dramatic pose, and his crew gets down to some of the most intricate choreography of the season. Compared to the charming, but often less-than dazzling, presentations put on by the increasing number of dance schools each year, Unique always brings it.

“We’ve been together since 1981. It’s a different group every year,” said Covington of his tight little group. “It starts off bigger, but then if they start falling off or disrespecting me or having attitudes, I don’t let them perform.”

Covington has been dancing since ninth grade. “When I was in high school, I was teaching the dancers over at Capitol High.”

“I do all the choreography. It’ll be jazz dancing, modern dancing... I don’t dance to rap; I always dance to R&B. I’ll dance to Southern University band music or Grambling.”

The tiny crew performs in four Baton Rouge parades, one in Lafayette, and both parades on Mardi Gras Day in New Roads.

“I love New Roads,” said Covington. “It’s been the best one because they give us a lot of coverage. They put us in their museum!” They march in the 10 am Community Center Carnival Club Mardi Gras Parade as well as the 2 pm Lions Carnival Parade. “We have a fifteen minute break, and then we go catch the other one.”

Southern Marching Band in the New Roads Mardi Gras

More often than not, New Roads is where I find myself on Mardi Gras day. Though the ferry excursion from St. Francisville has gone by the wayside because of the Audubon Bridge, it is still one of the most charming and easy to navigate small-town parades.

It is the oldest small-town parade as well; the first one staged outside of New Orleans. The earliest recorded Mardi Gras Ball in New Roads was in 1881, with its first parade rolling in 1897. The crews run the gamut from homespun truck floats to full-blown multi-tier floats, winding their circuitous way down the main drag along False River and the neighborhood streets.

There are ostensibly a couple of hours between the parades; but with the many narrow street corners, rain delays, and other Mardi Gras mishaps, the two parades fuse into an all-day occasional appearance of floats. It is one of my favorite things. You get your Mardi Gras on for a moment and then have a break to get some boudin or jambalaya from one of the many homespun food vendors, drink a beer and, boom, here comes the next float. It’s like having the last gasp of Mardi Gras stretched as far as it can go.

My other favorite thing about New Roads’ Mardi Gras is that the Southern University Marching Band—known worldwide as “The Human Jukebox”—marches in the New Roads parade. I love any marching band, but no one can match their power.

Lawnmower Brigade at Spanish Town Mardi Gras

The Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade in Baton Rouge on the Saturday before Mardi Gras has become something of the official alternative Mardi Gras event. The sleepy bohemian neighborhood of Spanish Town is flooded with tens of thousands of visitors jamming every inch of cracked sidewalk for the noon parade, but it’s really the residents of Spanish Town that make it special. Seemingly every apartment and house is having a party—one guesses one might as well—and half of them have a giant plywood flamingo on display, freshly plucked from where it was planted in the LSU Lakes a week before.

It is Mardi Gras at its most participatory. This past year I marched before the parade in a  second line, blowing out my vocal chords singing with a full horn section and a brigade of guitarists. We played for every front porch and driveway party we could find, becoming one with the greater festivity.

One of the greatest things about Spanish Town is the bawdy nature of the floats, the off-color theme of the parade each year, and even the drunken abandon cast against the family atmosphere of the parade.

But, there is one thing that makes every single person on that route stop what they are doing and take notice—the Krewe of Yazoo, better known as the Lawnmower Brigade. Each year, a string of decorated lawnmowers become personalized floats, piloted with remarkably intricate choreography by a costumed army of dubious sobriety. They might be dressed as Roman soldiers doing Village People songs or they might be zombies reenacting Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

The Lawnmowers and the Unique Dancers form a binary star at the core of my Mardi Gras universe, but everybody finds their own wobbly center, especially when you look past the madding crowds of out-of-towners fighting to catch beads to find what makes it Mardi Gras for you.