Krewe History

NOTE: See the bolded section below. For some
reason, this reporter thought we were part of the
governor's office. I mean, yeah, we're crazy, but not
that crazy!!

It's all about the BEADS : Spanish Town krewes bring
flamingo flair to downtown
Advocate - Baton Rouge, La.
Author: MIKE DUNNE
Date: Feb 22, 2004
Section: News

Getting lots of beads helps when you look angelic.
Six-year-old Sara Magee, dressed in a combination of
dance recital outfits and armed with a killer smile,
clutched a white teddy bear as the parade passed.
She was a bead magnet. Strings just automatically
flew in her direction. "I love it," Sara said, "I get a lot of
things," although the little bear, thrown to her by a
stranger from a float, was the best.
More than flamingos went wild downtown Saturday.
If the plastic jewelry coveted by tens of thousands of
parade- goers had real value, there would be
millionaires everywhere after the Spanish Town
Parade snaked through its namesake neighborhood,
through downtown and back to the Capitol, where it all
started.
This year's parade featured about 70 floats with the
theme "Flamingo's Gone Wild." It took three hours to
run the route.
Robyn Joyner of the Krewe of Confusion said turnout
looked about average from her spot in one of the
floats, maybe a bit bigger than normal. "It was a
beautiful day."
"This year we threw a lot more of the specialty beads
and hot pink is always in for Spanish Town," she said.
Tied in with the parade's theme, Joyner's float was
decorated with flamingos exposing their breasts - a
take off on a series of cheesy videotapes sold as
"Girls Gone Wild," Joyner said.
The Spanish Town Parade was the first taste of
Carnival for Connie Mohney of Lawton, Mich.
She wore a short flaming red dress with tall gold
boots and a pair of devil's horns clipped to her hair.
"This is something I have never experienced," Mohney
said.
"Everybody is so friendly and laughing and having a
good time," she said.
She has a son who teaches seventh grade in
Michigan and she plans to share her experience with
his students.
"I plan to take them back each some beads and
maybe a king cake. Maybe whomever gets the baby
(hidden in the cake) will get the biggest set of beads."
Harking back to its origins as a neighborhood parody
of Carnival, many floats had political themes.
The Governor's Urban and Rural Development
Office, known for the day as the "Krewe of Mewe,"
(pronounced "moo" using the initials of a famous,
jailed governor) was plastered with posters of dairy
cows adorned with Gov. Kathleen Blanco's face and
the words "Mother's Milk." The office disperses
funds that have often been attacked as "slush
funds" for the governor.
One krewe combined two hot topics - a popular new
television show and Republican politics. "Queer Eye
for the Republican Guy" featured pictures of women,
some in risque outfits, with the heads of President
Bush and other administration officials pasted onto
their bodies.
The Krewe of Krime is a group of normally parrying
public defenders and court prosecutors. But on
Saturday, they banded together to toss beads - and a
barb.
Their float had a Louisiana State Police cruiser
tagged "Senate Shuttle Service" following a
convoluted dotted line running from Shreveport to the
Superdome.
They were lampooning state Sen. Sherri Cheek,
R-Shreveport, who asked State Police to ferry her
husband's forgotten Sugar Bowl tickets to New
Orleans in time for LSU's national championship
football game in January.
Not far behind was the Pimpin' Krewe's "Mike Baer's
All: Senate Secretary Gone Wild," poking fun at the
fallout after Baer mass e- mailed some jokes and a
video with adult content. Baer claimed the mailing
was accidental.
Sexual innuendo has always been a big part of many
floats.
Elayna Magee said most of that went over the heads
of her 6-year- old daughter, Sara, and some other
children. "But they are learning to read," Magee said.
Some of the bizarre sights caused screams of
"Mama, what's THAT?"
Magee's daughter Sara and Catherine Haller, both 6,
were dressed in various parts of old dance school
recital outfits. They easily attracted throws. When
asked why she had so few beads around her neck,
Catherine pointed to a blanket in the grass next to the
Department of Social Services' building covered with
hundreds of beads the two little girls and others
collected.
Near Third and Main streets, Desiree Pace held up
her 7-year-old son Jake, who was begging for beads.
"Please. Please. Please," Desiree kept repeating,
reminding her son that manners count, even at
Carnival events.
Usually, Pace and her son take a vacation, but this
year they are home and this is Jake's first year to
really see Carnival. "This is great!" Jake said, as mom
pulled off a few dozen beads to make room for more.
Sharon Oubre was covered with dozens of pairs of
brightly colored beads and her right hand was filled
with cups and flowers and other nonbead throws. So,
as the parade wound down, she could only catch with
her left hand.
"This may be a little bigger" than previous years, she
said, adding she enjoys "the people and the color" of
the parade. Reaching down to pull out a set with gold
and green beads nearly the size of tennis balls, Oubre
shook them and proclaimed "these are my favorites."
While most attention was focused on the
gaudily-decorated trucks full of bead-throwing
revelers, the Krewe of Yazoo marched the whole
route, pushing their 31 decorated lawn mowers,
occasionally stopping long enough to do some
precision drills.
In addition to the traditional "Moon Walk," "The
Weave," "The Dosados" and "The Disco Hustle," the
krewe added a new maneuver this year dubbed
"Running Man," a sort of combination run in place with
rhythm.
Leader David Randall and wife Lee have been part of
the group since 1983, when it first paraded.
David "suffers from dead fish syndrome. If there is a
dead fish in the road, he'll perform for it," Lee said of
her husband.
Karen Kemp was a krewe "newbie" this year,
marching in her first parade. Her friend, Diane Leche,
talked her into it. "Diane's been doing it for several
years and it sounded like something to do. I'll try
anything once," she said.
The krewe dressed in long-sleeved shirts and pants
printed like bark, gloves that covered their hands with
leaves and a foam rubber tree-trunklike hat. Kemp,
also adorned with a pink feather boa, pushed her pink
mower with a flamingo on it. It was armed with a toy
string trimmer.
Near the end of the parade, as the krewe danced back
and forth and twirled their mowers, Kemp said she
was "having a good time. I'm hot as hell, though."

(Copyright 2004 by Capital City Press)



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				NOTE: See bolded section below. I'm still losing sleep over that year... Man, we had some ugly looking women on that float. Smiley Anders Advocate - Baton Rouge, La. Date: Feb 23, 2004 Section: News The Flight of the Wild Flamingo: In Spanish Town on Saturday there were throngs of merrymakers, music in the air, Cajun cooks preparing jambalaya and gumbo, and hugs and kisses galore. And Lady Katherine and I want you to know we really appreciate everyone who turned out for our sixth anniversary. I understand that some of the 100,000 or so people out on the street that day were also attending the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade. And that, too, was a festive occasion. Any place that has an outdoor event in February at which you can get sunburned is the place for me. But it was worth braving the heat to view the fiendishly clever floats, hang out with some cool folks and catch a neck-full of beads. By the way, this seemed to be an unusually laid-back and generous crowd. Since I retired from float judging some years ago to concentrate on bead-catching, I've found that folks at the Spanish Town parade are willing to share their beads with little children, hand over beads they catch that are obviously meant for friends of float riders, and refrain from the pushing and shoving that makes New Orleans parades an aerobic workout. While the people were friendly, the floats took on celebrities in politics and show business with an awesome ferocity. Wasted Krewe's evil geniuses took on Michael Jackson, while other floats trashed his sister Janet. Also catching flak were several governors, both free and incarcerated, and assorted national political figures of a rightward tilt. One float even took on Siegfried's partner Roy, the Las Vegas performer who got chomped by a tiger. Speaking of tigers, several floats paid homage to the undisputed (around here) national champion LSU Tigers football team and coach Nick Saban. There was even a "Saban for President" sign. (As if he would take the cut in pay.) One float that struck my fancy featured Spanish dancers and the theme "Flamencos Gone Wild." A message on the side of the float said "Wait - did they say flamingos? Oh (expletive)!" The parade royalty looked, well, royal. King David Applegate was dressed as Elvis; Queen Rebecca Breeden was dressed as a belly dancer, and Grand Marshal Phil Brady was dressed really far out - as Phil Brady. The judges were as idiosyncratic as ever, reserving their most praise for the Krewe of Clay float, "Queer Eye for the Republican Guy," which won the Deepest Concept Award. (Don't ask me...) The coveted Best Float award went to "Flamingo Hoes," evidently about agriculture, while Worst Float went to Krewe of Le Mouk, and Krewe of Cookie won the Best Virgin award for its initial entry in the parade. Best Marching Group, as usual, was the Krewe of Yazoo, attired as trees in the "Forest of Mow Return," and dancing with their profusely decorated lawnmowers to such tunes as "I Got Yew, Babe" and "Tree for Two." Speaking of music, the Best Music award went to the Krewe of Moulah. Krewe of Roadkill won an honorable mention in the Stationary Float category, despite the fact that the category had no other entries. (Don't ask me...) Krewe De Mewe won the Best Supporting Hoes award, again evidently stressing an agricultural theme. In a stab at diversity, the judges named the Italian American entry Best Ethnic Float. The Celtic Whoredogs from Hell won Best Bribe while the Krewe of Fatras won the companion award Best Pleasing of Judges. (Don't ask me...) And, finally, I have to give the Best Kathleen Blanco Costume award to Chris Frink of The Advocate's Capitol Bureau, who's going to be covering her for the next four years, and better hope she has a WHALE of a sense of humor... Birth announcement: Kathy Bishop says an eye-catching sign on Interstate 20 tells motorists driving from Atlanta toward Augusta, Ga., that a left turn will take them to Hard Labor (Hard Labor Creek State Park), while a right will take them to Newborn. Special People Dept.: Today Katie Howard of Zachary celebrates her 90th birthday. She was honored with an open house Sunday at McHugh House in Zachary. Tookie and Glenda Brown celebrate their 52nd anniversary today. How to spot out-of-towners: Joyce Firmin says she has found a way to deal with door-to-door solicitors "that I'm not sure are local. "I ask them, 'Who's your mama?' If they act as though they've never heard the question before, I'm immediately suspicious and get rid of them." Perk, don't park: Blanche "Smokye" Cifreo tells of seeing this sign in a coffee shop parking lot: "Fifteen-minute parking only. Violators will be decaffeinated." (Write Smiley at P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821, fax to 225- 388-0371or e-mail smiley@theadvocate.com.) (Copyright 2004 by Capital City Press)