Kenny Klein Explains It All: February 2012

Today I woke up alone in my house for the first time in two weeks...all of our Mardi Gras guests have left, and all is quiet. By the way, this entailed a trip to the airport at four AM. And as you can imagine, there is a good deal of cleaning up to do!

The city sleeps for a few days, observing Lent, and waiting for Saint Patrick's Day and Saint Joseph's Day, both in less than a month, and both huge, festive days hereabouts. The Mardi Gras Indians will parade on Saint Joseph's day, and yours truly will make every attempt to be there!

For those still craving Mardi Gras revelry, here are a few more photos taken on Frenchmen Street and on Decatur Street.

Face painting at Cosmic Debris.

Nice...hat!

Dancers on Frenchmen Street.

Medusa

This spin-the-wheel costume fortold how the spinner would fare at the end of the 2012 Mayan calendar year. It turns out I'll be fine, thanks for asking.

Cowgirl. She is riding a live mule down Royal Street. Yeah, really.

Adorable children.

Only about three or four bands tried playing on the street on MG day. It was way too crowded and way too noisey to be heard. One girl I know went out in costume and played a toy accordion: she was tipped well simply for the novelty. Here are some of my friends trying to busk. They didn't make very much.

Our friends Elena and Josh on Decatur Street, waiting for Cosmic Debris.

More adorable children.

It turns out there was simply no shortage of adorable children.

Her costume is made entirely of candy.

Lauren the sexy pyrate...

From Mardi Gras in New Orleans (and its aftermath), this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.

Today was the day. Mardi Gras.

Any fan of this Blog knows that our Mardi Gras started, as it does for most New Orleaneans, back at Twelfth Night, with the Saint Joan parade. Krewe duVieux, T-Rex, Muses, Barkus, all lead up to the big day for locals. Tourists have flooded the city over the last few days, making the larger parades crowded and annoying, but the local events are still a pleasure.

In tonight's post I wanted to show some of the amazing costumes locals don to celebrate the day. Lauren and I, along with our six out-of-town guests, headed downtown early this morning, and I photographed as many of the revelers as I could.

Our Mardi Gras morning started when we walked out the door at about 9 AM, and right there on our street, we saw a Mardi Gras Indian. He wore salmon-colored feathers, and shouted "Hey" when we bid him a happy Mardi Gras. I knew the day would be lucky. Even for locals, it is rare to spot an Indian outside of the traditional African American neighborhoods. For our guests it was a unique experience. Indians are a well kept New Orleans secret.

Then we headed to the Bywater for breakfast with our friend, Slow Burn burlesque dancer Ruby Rage.

Lauren, Becca, and the other Lauren outside Ruby's house, ready to head to Frenchmen Street.

Lauren's sexy pirate outfit.

At around 11, we walked down Royal. A neighborhood parade was just forming at Royal and Franklin, and we fell in with it and followed it down to Frenchmen Street.

Frenchmen plays host each year to a huge Mardi Gras street party, featuring brass bands and recorded music. Locals dance, gather and drink along the two blocks of Frenchmen bewteen Royal and Decatur.

The crowd on Frenchmen and Royal was already thick when we arrived.

Our friend Jacob, in her Minatour outfit.

We saw this family as we reached the corner of Royal and Elysian Fields. Their costume theme was Two Mules for Sister Sarah. They were actually handing out small movie posters to anyone interested.

Dancers on Frenchmen and Royal. Dance parties gather at each street intersection. This crowd was dancing to recorded music.

Frenchmen is a scene for locals. Unlike Bourbon Street, which is full of rowdy, drunk tourists, families come here to parade and dance, and to see and be seen.

A brass band at the intersection of Frenchmen and Charters.

The Justice League of America

Unicorns (this seems to be a theme this year)

Our friend Hale found us in the crowd.

Another (sexy) unicorn.

Then we headed down to Decatur, and caught the Krewe of Cosmic Debris Parade, a hippie parade started in the '70s and still adhering to a hippie ethic. It was pretty large this year.