Carnival links: Re-routed parades, recycled throws, and ridiculous king cakes

Parade season is upon us.  I don't know why, but for some reason I'm convinced that this is going to be an especially good one. Here's what's going on this week.

• KDV changed their route.
  
  
  
  Then they changed it again! Appropriate anyway, given this year's theme. The route published in the newsletter (above) is different from the one they're actually going to take (see the Gambit article in the link.)
  

  Krewe du Vieux “Begs for Change” when it rolls at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the Faubourg Marigny, French Quarter and CBD. The satirical and risque krewe typically picks themes with a double meaning, but this one is more socially conscious than usual.
  
  “The double meaning is the proliferation of the people on the street corners holding up signs all over the place but the other side of it is hoping for social and political change,” Krewe du Vieux Captain Joe Thompson said.
  
  Among the 17 subkrewe variations on the theme, The Krewe of Underwear “Bulldozes for Change,” taking on the issue of hipster gentrification. The Krewe of T.O.K.I.N. “Burns (One) for Change,” arguing that Louisiana should “put the bud in the budget” and legalize cannabis.
  
  The krewe is following a new parade route. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the parade will cross Canal Street, enter the Warehouse District and end at the Civic Theatre

  Just don't tell our city councilpersons about all the aggressive panhandling.
  
  
  
• One day prior to KDV, a much worse event will take place.



There's no word on whether any cat fights factored into the decision-making process — or whether any scratch marks were left — but the royalty has been settled for the all-feline Krewe of Endymeow for its 13th annual Bal Masque on Friday, Jan. 30, at The Cat Practice Veterinary Hospital in the Lower Garden District, according to a press release.

Carnival for cats. It's really better in concept than in practice... and it's a pretty terrible concept at that.  On the other hand, if your cat likes to party...






• And, of course, if you're looking for an even worse krewe to hang around with, there's always the Rex organization. This year's Rex parade is all about how great war is.. or something like that anyway.



The 2015 Rex procession, which rolls on Mardi Gras (Feb. 17), will include 27 floats on the theme of "Wars that Shaped Early America." The current Rex bulletin, reproduced here, shows artist's renderings of the floats.

Full-size Rex bulletins, which measure 19 inches by 25 inches, are sold through the Rex organization website. Bulletins from past years cost $30.


I don't want to shell out $30 just for a preview of a parade.  I'm guessing there's one about the "War of Northern Aggression" in there somewhere.  Rex also made this announcement last week.


NEW ORLEANS - The King of Carnival will ride the rails, and not the river, when he makes his Lundi Gras arrival by train this year instead of by water, the Rex Organization announced Tuesday.
Since 1987 (though the practice harkens back to the 19th century), Rex has arrived at the Mississippi Riverfront at Spanish Plaza, via Coast Guard cutter, at 6 p.m. on Lundi Gras.

This year, on Lundi Gras, the King will arrive by train – reviving a tradition that Rex archivist Dr. Stephen Hales says dates back to the mid-1880s.

"He's going to revisit an old tradition, long since forgotten," Hales said. "He'll arrive by train, a specially decorated train car pushed by the N.O. Public Belt Railroad will arrive at Riverwalk. The King of Carnival and his entourage will emerge, greet the crowds, greet the mayor, proclaim Carnival and receive the keys to the city."

Trying to get as much use out of that N.O. Public Belt as possible before Mitch sells it off to John Georges's father-in-law, I guess.



• Here's a list of the top 10 revenue generators among Carnival krewes. City Biz loves to kiss the asses of these clubs. Which is why you end up with bullshit like this. 
  

  An analysis on the most recent tax documents available provides a glimpse at the prolific spending of Carnival krewes. What it doesn’t show is the revenue they direct to charitable causes.
  
  The Rex organization, for example, provided more than $860,000 in grants to charter schools and educational groups, through its Pro Bono Publico Foundation.

  Yeah, hey, thank you, Rex, for profoundly fucking up the very concept of public education in New Orleans... for the good of the public, of course.  There's also this factoid.
  
  

  Non-parading Krewe Momus (disappeared after non-discrim ord) has $1.48m in assets. Richest Krewe? Endymion. http://t.co/tSYkxirerF
  — Andrew Tuozzolo (@ATuozzolo) January 29, 2015

  
  
  Momus doesn't parade anymore because they never got over that War of Northern Aggression that Shaped America.  But it's more or less an open secret that the Knights of Chaos is their parade.  Chaos uses the Momus floats and their membership is basically Momus, from what I understand, anyway. Wonder how the money gets moved between organizations, though. City Business isn't likely to tell us. 




• Riders, do you have all your beads, yet?   The timing is getting weird.
  

  NEW ORLEANS - A labor dispute in California is turning into a possible Carnival crisis. Delays at a Los Angeles port has thousands of signature Mardi Gras beads on back order and local businesses are now concerned the throws will not make it in time for Mardi Gras.
  
  Krewes spend all year making, designing and buying throws for Mardi Gras, but right now much of that is just sitting in containers on the West Coast.
  
  "It's about 20 percent of what we would normal bring in that is not here now," says Dan Kelly, president of Beads By The Dozen. "Unfortunately, a lot of it is the custom product we need for the krewes."

  On the positive side, recent years have brought a build up of rumblings about the quantity of non-biodegradable plastic beads that get tossed around every year.  Maybe this is an excuse to cut back a bit.
  
  
  
  Several krewes, like Chewbaccus here, have begun a deliberate movement toward fewer but more interesting hand-crafted throws made from recycled or recyclable material.  Riders also have come to rely more and more on organizations like Arc of New Orleans, who collect and recycle beads each year, for the bulk of their throws.
  
  Arc rolls these bins behind many parades.  If you're not taking yours home, consider tossing them back.
  
  




• The wacky king cake trend has reached such levels of baroque absurdity that it no longer does any good to question whether or not a thing is real.  If it can be imagined, it exists.  Take, for instance, this week's king cake mini-fad: Boudin.
  

  "I saw it, and I thought, 'Why not?' It was a spur of the moment thing," said Steve Himelfarb, the owner of Cake Café, and arguably the godfather of modern king cakes in New Orleans. He made a dozen mini king cakes filled with boudin and topped with crunchy bacon.
  
  At 7:45 a.m., the Cake Café Facebook page posted a photo of one of them, and credited his inspiration, the boudin-filled and cracklin topped king cake conceived by Robert Carriker, who runs BoudinLink.com and kingcaker.com out of Lafayette. The boudin-stuffed king cake he conceived took social media by storm on Tuesday morning.
  
  BoudinLink.com replied: "That is awesome. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - and we appreciate the recognition!"

  Did you get that?  A guy made a boudin king cake but then had to stop and give credit because, come to find out, someone else had already made a boudin king cake.  And hey, that's not all.  You might think that should be all. But it is not.  
  

  Himelfarb said they do not bake other savory king cakes, but for their small catering gigs - they have several this weekend for Krewe de Vieux parties -- they make stuffed breads. One is filled with muffuletta ingredients, one with vegetables and one with roasted pork.

  Actually the savory king cake genre has been explored previously.  Here's a meat pie cake that looks pretty good.
  
  Muffuletta king cakes, though.  Is your mind blown?  Well you are too slow because it turns out this has also been done.
  
  
  
  No satire too outlandish that it can't also be real.  Welcome to Carnival 2015. If you don't like it, you can stay in Mobile.

Who is running for Governor?

As many of you know, there are two dominant political parties in Louisiana.  They are Oil (O) and Tourism (T).  Sometimes these parties come into conflict but often they operate according to a remarkable spirit of bi-partisanship.  Hell, the Landrieus happen to have one sibling in each.

Anyway, I thought it would be helpful to list the candidates for Governor in 2015 according to party affiliation.  Doing this off the top of my head so let me know if I miss somebody.

Senator David Vitter (O) Vitter is obviously the front-runner right now. He led all other major candidates in hypothetical head to head matchups according to the PPP poll released earlier this week. All of this despite the fact that some may still assume Vitter's "serious sins"* might represent some sort of vulnerability.  This is nonsense, of course.  Vitter has already competed in and handily won a statewide election since those stories first surfaced. His conservative base is willing to look past it and vote for him.  And the rest of us should look past it and vote against him.  Lord knows there are plenty of reasons. 

Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne (T) According to that PPP poll, Dardenne is looking second best.  I know that poll isn't particularly good at giving us a read right now. But those head to head numbers are interesting nonetheless. Dardenne's most distinguishing accomplishments as of late are as follows.

1) He's looking more and more like actor Rowan Atkinson (AKA "Mr. Bean") every day.



2) He recently completed construction a model of the Native American ruins at Poverty Point which he made on the floor of his office out of Mounds bars.

Dardenne, Jindal, and Vitter have been engaged in a three way tug of war over leadership of the state Republican Party for years now. Jindal is on his way out so now that's about to become a two-way tug.. or at least it was until this happened.

Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle (O) entered the race this week. Angelle will likely take over whatever's left of Jindal's power and add his own geographic base. Clancy Dubos sums up the situation well here.

His announcement for governor triggered the predictable criticism that he’s too close to Jindal. Some even speculated that he is Jindal’s anointed candidate. He and Jindal use the same chief fundraiser, Allee Bautsch, and earlier this year OnMessage did a poll for him. OnMessage in Louisiana is led by Jindal consigliere Timmy Teepell. Angelle says Baton Rouge consultant Roy Fletcher will run his campaign for governor and that OnMessage will have no role going forward.

In his announcement, Angelle said he will be “more focused on getting us across the goal line rather than grabbing the headline” — a clear swipe at Jindal, who frequently grandstands. He also portrays himself as a political pragmatist, not a Jindal-like ideologue.

That’s a good start, but it doesn’t remove the Jindal Factor from the conversation. You can bet Vitter, who despises Jindal, will spend whatever it takes to hang the wildly unpopular governor around Angelle’s neck. For his part, Angelle will have to separate himself politically and philosophically from Jindal at every turn.

In 2011, Angelle received an award for "environmental stewardship."  It was given to him by some oil lobbyists. Sure, that's confusing. But, as Jindal explained that day, the"stewardship" in this case meant fighting for more drilling.

Aaron Viles, deputy director of the Gulf Restoration Network, questioned whether it is ever appropriate for an association to give an award to someone who oversees the regulation of its members.

"Mid Continent giving an environmental award to Scott Angelle is like GE giving a nuclear safety award to the leadership of Fukushima Prefecture," Viles said.

But Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who handed out the award, said in a statement that "Scott has been a warrior for our people and our coast."

"He has fought tirelessly to help get out people back to work after the federal government implemented a job-killing deepwater drilling moratorium and a de facto moratorium on shall water drilling," the governor said.

State Rep. John Bel Edwards (TL): Edwards doesn't belong to either major party. Instead, he's a Trial Lawyer.. a minor but not entirely inconsequential force in state politics.  Take a minute to review the saga of the BP claims center process for a pretty neat example of what they do.

To his credit, Edwards has opposed Jindal's attempts to politicize flood control boards on behalf of the oil industry. He has attempted in vain to force Louisiana to accept Medicaid expansion funds the Governor has rejected. Recently he's been leading the fight to keep what's left of the state Office of Group Benefits from falling apart.

He's also more or less a non-factor in the race. At least according to the polls he is despite being the only Democrat running.  (But remember the premise of this post is Democrats and Republicans aren't the parties that matter in Louisiana anyway.)  Also that could change. For instance...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu (T): Will Mitch run!!??  I'm still thinking no.  But I feel like my opinion is in the minority so he goes on this list anyway.  I don't think Mitch can win.  He matches up poorly head to head with the major candidates.  And he's already a well known item statewide which means he doesn't have any room to grow. Plus, given the enmity his term as mayor has spawned in certain quarters, I'm not even sure he can muster the kind of numbers he would need out of New Orleans.

Landrieu would save himself some headaches by staying put as mayor, continuing on the Aspen-corporate-neoliberalism celebrity mayor speaking circuit, and just biding his time to spend his retirement sitting on the NOTMC or some other tourism oriented quasi-public board.

But people still think he's gonna run for Governor. No idea why he'd want that.


Ret. Lt. Gen. Russell Honore (G): The G stand for Green Army which is the environmental activist organization Honore heads up.   In other words, he is utterly irrelevant in state politics. For this reason alone he shouldn't even think about running. Also he's been told no.

When Honore began taking questions from the audience, the topic quickly turned to whether he would run for governor himself. Although Honore reportedly told a crowd at the University of Louisiana at Monroe last week that these issues “tempt” him to run, he downplayed the chances of a gubernatorial bid on Monday.

“I’m not running because my wife said, ‘No,’” Honore said. “I think about it, I take a good nap and I’m over it.”

@Biscuit4LA (D): It's always possible.  The premise of any Biscuit for Gov campaign is that he is as strong a candidate as any other Democrat involved. This was actually his last public statement on the matter back in March.

People keep asking if I will run for Governor again. Haven't decided yet. I typically run when I'm as strong as any Democrat running.
— Biscuit ForLA (@Biscuit4LA) March 19, 2014

And since he appears here as the only nominal Democrat listed, we can expect that he isn't ruling out another run. But there's plenty of time left for to round out the field so we'll have to wait and see.

*That's actually a pretty crappy Bob Mann column. It asserts several nonsense ideas about the "dignity of office" and.. as Mann often does.. greatly inflates the seriousness of Edwin Edwards's supposed crimes. But I don't have time to go into all of that right now. 

Demons are real

In an act of Holiday heroism on Saturday I dug our sad little Charlie Brown plastic tree out of the closet and planted it in the living room (right next to our Super Bowl XIV championship pennant) in defiance of the creeping humbuggery. But then, on the next night, an evil presence appeared beneath the tree determined to scratch out (literally) the tenuous ornament of joy I had worked so hard to establish there.



And so with only five shopping days left, I find myself in need of an exorcist. But, as usual, the Governor is busy fund raising. Meanwhile, can anybody exorcise him?

Because some people still like to do Friday cat-blogging

Yes there will be a late football something or other either tonight or tomorrow.

Cake Wars

As with all great crises, this one is being hashed out through the universal language of expressive cake baking. Just this morning we learned that the Alaska office of the Minerals Management Service (the federal agency charged with safeguarding you against mishaps like the great Macando oil gusher) recently staged an office celebration with a "Drill Baby Drill" cake.

Now maybe that's a little shocking but since we've already learned that BP is currently ordering the US Coast Guard around, we aren't quite as surprised as we used to be. Here is a must-read NYT article about the entrenched conflicts of interest generated by leaving BP in charge of clean-up operations. The feds want BP to pay for everything, so BP gets to call all of the shots, and since they're paying they make they're decisions based at least in part on finding the best way to save themselves money.

Here is a video of "Plack-mines" Parish President Billy Nungesser complaining that the feds won't approve state plans to dredge sand for emergency oil barriers. Likely because BP doesn't want to have to pay for it.



Meanwhile, as we all know by now, the good people at Breaux Mart have hit back with a cake of their own. We showed it to you earlier this week but here is it again in case you missed it.



And here it is on a blog called Cakewrecks. And here it is on eater.com, Salon.com, DailyKos, the LA Times, God knows where else it's gone now. Oh it also made HumidCity which I think is pretty sweet.

I'm a little sad that this random picture I took in the grocery with my cell phone currently has 68,221 views while Michael Homan's brilliant short film Geauxjira has pulled in a respectable but paltry by comparison 1147. The good news is that all of this sets up the sequel Geauxjira vs Cake which we hope goes into production any day now.

Meanwhile, as your Friday Cat Blogging treat, please enjoy. Biscuit Watches Geauxjira.



Expect this one to make the cover Time Magazine sometime next month.

Friday Copy-Cat blogging

Have to call it "copy-cat" because Adrastos already has a similar picture up this morning.

Anyway, I thought it germane to point out that since Steve Theriot says here that his decision to sue the entire internet is really just an attempt to find and "address the concerns" of one or two individuals, I may have figured out who he's looking for.

Last week, I caught Biscuit trying to log on to NOLA.com



I know some of what goes on in those comment threads can be pretty gruesome but I sincerely hope Steve Theriot doesn't sue my cat for trying to read the news. Otherwise he might be forced to spend his time online trolling for kitty porn and that's just not right. He's still a baby, after all.

Easter Weekend

It's not anything so dramatic as having been laid away in a tomb before rising again or anything but the weekend was so event-heavy as to cause me to unplug a bit for a few days. So I missed a lot of stuff, I'm sure. Anyway here's what happened in the meantime.

• On Good Friday, I spotted State Senator Ed Murray exiting the Sheraton Hotel downtown. Murray had just picked up what I assumed were his and two other people's Crescent City Classic race numbers at the pre-race health and fitness expo. I had a moment where I could have asked Sen. Murray if he was entering this race to win it but I had to go pick up my number so I just let him duck out. Sort of like he did a few months ago.
  
  Here's a lame phone picture of the official artwork from this year's CCC which I was fond enough of to snap a photo but not quite enough to buy a poster.
  
  
  BTW, the artist's name is Christy Works-Boutte. Here's her site.



• Besides, you are saying, aren't the participants supposed to "win" these posters through some feat of athleticism or something? Well, kind of. A few years back I was athletically feated enough to finish at or near the times at the end of this list of Top 500 Finishers (PDF) who qualify for free posters. But I'm getting a bit too old, slow and fat to take that challenge very seriously anymore. I will admit to one tactical error, however. I forgot to lie.
  
  In my self-consciousness about my deteriorating athleticism, I momentarily forgot that a great majority of unseeded race participants either haven't trained very hard or simply don't plan to finish the thing running anyway. And while there is a dedicated registration category for "walkers", many of these people just lie about their expected finishing times so that they can start further up the street. And so you have walkers, baby strollers, people with canes, people in giant chicken suits all lining up with or in front of people who expect to run at an 8 to 10 minute per mile pace.
  
  One way to manage this problem is to lie about your own time. Even if you're like me and have been running 6.2 miles in 55 to 58 minutes consistently for weeks ahead of race time, it's a good idea to inflate your grade and register in the 45 to 50 minute group. Otherwise, you'll spend the first mile and a half of the course covering as much ground laterally as you do moving forward. Think Reggie Bush trying to bounce an off-tackle play outside and losing six yards in the process. This was me on Saturday.
  
  Because I had forgotten to lie about my time, I had to push hop and spin through a forest of waddling old ladies, invalids, rejects from the cast of Biggest Loser, and I think the Philly Phanatic before I finally found room to hit a reasonable stride somewhere on Esplanade Avenue. This was, I think, maybe my 17th or 18th Crescent City Classic and here I had made just the dumbest rookie mistake possible. At least I didn't park my car in an obviously illegal spot and then whine about it in the newspaper.
  
  I ended up finishing in 55:46. Not terrible for an old fat guy but it was harder than it had to be.



• In other sports news from the weekend, Donovan McNabb is almost as old as I am (but maybe a little bit fatter). I will never understand the why Eagles fans seem to hate their future Hall of Fame former quarterback so much. Good luck in the Kevin Kolb era.



• In other news news from the weekend and early this week, I've been enjoying the spectacle of various members of Mayor-to-be Mitch's NOPD task force realizing that they've been used as cheap political props and walking out the door to save themselves further shame. I most enjoy following these developments at The Lens where Eli has a pretty good bead on the situation.

  The police search largely has been delegated to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which has a contract to consult the Landrieu transition. The organization is screening the candidates and will whittle down the applicant pool before the task force will have an opportunity to weigh in on any specific individual. For some task force stakeholders, the police chiefs group has been far from forthcoming about the methodology used to whittle down the list. Some task force members appear to be more in the loop than others.
  
  I can respect the desire to be sensitive about the current positions of potential candidates. I’m not sure that I necessarily object to the IACP serving as the first filter for the task force. Frankly, I was never sold on the need for an official task force to help the Mayor-elect in the first place. Mitch Landrieu has said that this decision – who will lead the NOPD at its time of greatest despair – is his top priority.
  
  He’s right. The success of Landrieu’s administration absolutely hinges on his ability to curtail crime while restoring the community’s faith in the NOPD. The credibility of the department is, at this point, absolutely critical to the city’s national and international reputation and will in large measure determine the pace at which tourism and other investment can grow, or slow.
  
  If Landrieu had come out from the onset and said that he would consult privately with whomever he wanted to and that the selection of the new police chief would be his decision and his alone, perhaps he would have avoided this early headache.

  Basically what's happened here is Landrieu, who I agree has every right to just pick the damn chief himself, thought he could steal a tacit endorsement of his choice from as many "community leaders" willing to have their names printed on a list of Task Force participants as possible. Most "community leaders" are just self-important enough to fall for this. But at the same time, they're also sensitive enough to get their feelings hurt when they realize they aren't being listened to. And when that happens you end up with a situation where the people you brought in to create a fake air of consensus are now creating a fake air of discord as they have their individual temper tantrums. Overall it looks worse than if Landrieu had just ignored these people altogether.



• In other news that really isn't news, Scott Cowen is your 2010 Times-Picayune "Loving Cup" recipient. Oyster and Ashley and and Fake Ashley from "Treme" are right. Scott Cowen is a mook. And the T-P's Editorial Board (Or Ashton Phelps' committee of one or whoever cups out the loving) is the mookiest mookfest in all of mookville.




• In further news that really isn't news but is at least further along the line toward being news than the previous item and which involves smaller furrier animals, we... um... we got a new cat on Saturday. In June, it will have been a year since we lost Sovreign and, well, it was just time. This is Biscuit. He's about 8 weeks old.
  
  

And in the best news of the weekend, I made a Gumbo Z'herbes on Good Friday and took some photos of it while it happened.

Gumbo Z'herbes is a bit different from most of what people typically call Gumbo in that 1) It doesn't usually call for a thickening agent like file or okra. 2) Because it is a traditional Good Friday meal, practicing Catholics are encouraged to not put any meat in it. Because I did not check the practicing Catholic box on my Census form, I get to ignore item number 2 and add ham anyway and nobody will send me to Hell.

• The first thing you do here is bring together as many different sorts of greens things you can pull out of your local Rouses. There aren't any hard and fast rules about which greens you use although some of these are fairly standard. Clay made one of these a few weeks back that included dandelion greens. I didn't have anything quite so exotic on hand. You are supposed to have at least seven and your total is supposed to be an odd number. I count eight in mine but, again, didn't check that box either. Try and damn me if you want to but it won't hold up in court. The important thing to remember is that most of these like the mustard greens in the photo below usually have a lot of sand and grit on them so they have to be cleaned thoroughly before use. This could take a while so it's good to have beer on hand.
  
  



• This is my biggest stock pot stuffed as full as it will go with Turnip Greens, Collared Greens, Mustard Greens, Cabbage Leaves, Beet Tops, Green Onion, Leeks, and Parsley.
  
  
  
  Once everything is clean, add it all to the pot with maybe 1/3 or 1/2 cup of water and turn the burner up on high. When the water starts to boil, turn the heat back down low, cover the pot and let it simmer for maybe 20 minutes or so.



• Strain the cooked greens, reserve the liquid and set it aside.
  
  
  
  Chop the greens up as fine as you can and set them aside as well.
  
  



• In a great big cast iron pot, make yourself a nice roux. I won't bore you with the fine points of stirring and waiting on a roux. Just make sure you have more beer on hand to pass the time. When it's ready to go, you can start building your gumbo. Most Gumbo Z'herbes recipes call for just onions here, but I went ahead and threw in some bell pepper, celery and garlic too because... I was afraid somebody might send me to hell if I didn't.
  
  
  
  Add that to the roux and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Then go get your reserved stock and stir that in too.



• Here's where all the rest of us sinners get to make this part of a complete breakfast by adding meat. Pickled pork or pickled tips would probably be great with the greens but I didn't have any so I just went with regular old ham seasoning which works just fine.
  
  
  
  Oh and three humongous ham hocks too. Here's all that heretical ham browning in the roux.
  
  



• All that's left to do now is add the those chopped, cooked greens.
  
  



• I probably could have used a bit more cayenne in this than I did so don't hold back. I also used black pepper and salt (obviously) as well as thyme (which really should just be automatic anywhere there is pork) and also some allspice and a couple of cloves which don't typically belong in a gumbo but then neither do all those greens.
  
  Yes, obviously, there's plenty left. I wonder if it freezes OK. Would be an appropriate item to resurrect, right?