Zulu paraphernalia sold retail

By Mary Lou Atkinson, New Orleans Advocate

There is not much room to browse at the Zulu Memorabilia Shop, a sliver of a store at 807 N. Broad St. in New Orleans. But then, most customers know exactly what they want: a half-dozen ceramic coconuts, a grass skirt, a Mr. Big Stuff bobblehead doll. Not to mention the premier buy of the season: a signed and numbered 2014 Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club poster.

Talk about specialty shops.

This is where riders in the Zulu parade get the throws they toss to parade-goers on Mardi Gras and the souvenirs they give to friends — or keep for themselves. It’s where they buy the attire required of every rider: black turtleneck shirt ($21), curly wig ($7), grass skirt ($7), white gloves ($1) and safety belt ($10.95).

“Some of the krewes (within the club) have their own individual costumes, like tigers, that go on top, but every member must have a minimum of these,” said John Marrero, club chairman of Zulu memorabilia who serves as shop manager.

But you don’t have to be a rider or even a member of Zulu to shop the Zulu store, Marrero said. Although some merchandise is restricted to members only — such as the Zulu leather jacket ($300) — most of the inventory is available to the public. Any customer can buy a yellow and black Zulu umbrella ($14.95 for golf size, $6.45 for regular size) and a T-shirt ($15.95) or a long-sleeved shirt ($21) with the Zulu insignia.

Currently, the store is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The Monday before Mardi Gras the shop will be closed and its merchandise sold at the Zulu Lundi Gras Festival in Woldenberg Park. The store will re-open Mardi Gras morning for last-minute purchases. Then, from Ash Wednesday to Labor Day, it will open only once or twice a week. (Call 504-482-2588.)

But don’t wait that long to get your 2014 Zulu poster, which Marrero said is selling fast. Titled “Zulu Footwork,” the exuberant artwork by New Orleanian Terrance Osborne depicts four Zulu second-liners, with the clubhouse and its neon “Z” sign in the background at the left.

Every poster ($130) is signed by the artist and by the 2014 Zulu king, Garren Thomas Mims. The presidential edition ($155) is signed also by the current club president, Naaman Craig Stewart.

Other 2014 Zulu souvenirs are less expensive and appeal to the younger customer, Marrero said. This year the club is highlighting Mr. Big Stuff, one of seven traditional Zulu characters featured in the annual Carnival celebration. So special 2014 items include a Mr. Big Stuff bobblehead doll ($18), vinyl gift bag ($2.30) and medallion ($9).

Highlighted in coming years will be the Governor, Province Prince, Mayor, Ambassador, Witch Doctor and Big Shot.

Another Zulu tradition is the decorated coconut, which has been one of New Orleans’ most-coveted Mardi Gras souvenirs since the early 1900s. But in these safety-conscious days, coconuts must be handed out — never tossed — from parade floats and only by riders on lower decks.

Changing times have changed the Zulu coconut in other ways as well. In the past, many members decorated their own coconuts; now, the task can be outsourced.

“If a member doesn’t have time to decorate a coconut, we refer them to an artist,” Marrero said. Catalogs and samples of artist-decorated coconuts at the shop help customers make their choices. They then contact the artists directly.

However, there is one kind of coconut available at the shop: the patented ceramic version ($32) made by a local couple, Clarence and Ernestine Johnson. Typically, these souvenirs are given to special recipients, rather than being handed out on the parade route, Marrero said.

Pulling a jacket off a rack after spreading a set of oversized beads across a counter, Marrero clearly has a hands-on relationship with shop inventory. On Mardi Gras, however, he will take product distribution to another level. And, riding in the Zulu parade with the Firetruck Krewe, he will see just how well parade-goers accept the merchandise.

Flambeaux carriers wanted

Want to be in a parade? Consider this: you could get paid $30 or so, plus tips, and prance along in front of a guaranteed audience ready to applaud your every movement – you, too, could carry a flambeau!

Flambeau carriers bear a heavy burden these days.  Historically they’ve predominantly been black males and their dancing antics carry an unwelcome message to some modern parade-goers. The Backstreet Museum, a shrine in Tremé with artifacts of Mardi Gras Indians and other masking traditions, doesn’t celebrate flambeau carriers. Some see the flambeaux as symbols of society’s inequities.

Flambeau carriers circa 1940

Flambeaux are still part of a long line of traditional Mardi Gras practices. In typical New Orleans fashion, something that was a necessity was changed and transmuted into a peculiarly local art form.

Flambeaux today come in different varieties – there is the old-fashioned tank and burners style (in variations on two and four burner options), the flare on a stick, the propane tank style and even a toilet-paper-roll-in-a-tin-can-on-a-stick style favored by Slidell parade marchers.

Torches to light nighttime processions were a necessity back in the 19th century when there was little street lighting, but New Orleans flambeaux – using the French name for “torch” makes for a nice local touch – have persisted through the years. If you would like to see what the earlier flambeaux looked like, there is an example in the Louisiana State Museum. Or, keep your eyes open when you see a night parade approaching; the older versions still can be found.

While early New Orleanians might have regularly paraded through the nighttime streets in celebration, the first of what we know as organized Mardi Gras parades was the Comus pageant of 1857, which was lit by torches, most likely made with shredded rope soaked in pitch. The next year, Comus actually had what was described as a spotlight – possibly some piece of stage lighting equipment. New Orleans had gas lights in some form from the 1820s, but wider usage required piping and gas mains, and this method just wasn’t suitable for portable light fixtures.

The break through in flambeaux manufacture came with an 1872 invention for a vapor burning street light with a daisy-shaped burner. The wind proof device held liquid fuel in a container, had a heater for the fuel and a burner for the resulting vapor, which then gave off light. Add a reflector, put the device aloft on a stick and presto! A flambeau!

Just as the old Mardi Gras floats began with humble cotton wagons, so the flambeau carriers began using pieces of cargo slings with leather reinforcing to fashion a pole holder to wear, with a stick to twist the belt tighter.  That device, plus a head scarf covering and a loose smock to protect clothing, make up the carrier’s working outfit.

Is it dangerous work? Well, some decades back when gasoline was the fuel in use, it was much more hazardous than it is today. In the past, the better fuel was kerosene, which is relatively safe, but difficult to find. Today, the old-fashioned flambeaux use paint thinner or mineral spirits. What burns is the vapor. While gasoline vapor will ignite from a spark even if the temperature is far below zero, vapor from mineral spirits only ignites at a temperature of 104 degrees – high enough to require a flame to set it off.

Interestingly, parade planners didn’t intend for Flambeaux to dance. If you consider that the old-line night parade floats (Proteus is the only one still parading) always have strips of metallic foil placed strategically in the design, you can see that the reflection of the light makes the parade more magical.  Supposedly, the ideal parade would have flambeaux on each side of a float with their metal reflecting sheets facing toward the float to better illuminate it for the crowd.

Another special lighting effect was the fusee – the flare on a stick that used to be carried in front of floats to provide a cloud of smoke. Sad to say, the Environmental Protection Agency changed the rules and they no longer exist. Just like the mist machines at concerts, the smoke magnified the effects of the flambeaux lighting, adding to the magic.

Flambeaux today, the vapor burning variety, are usually made with some type of stove burner. Manufacture is problematic: there must be a wind shield and a reflective sheet, the entire device must be sturdy and practically indestructible. Several flambeaux were badly damaged in Hurricane Katrina and only some have been repaired. Proteus has its own old-time flambeaux; the rest in use come from various sources, old and new, and krewes rent or borrow them from each other. Endymion’s propane-tank flambeaux are actually gas burners, and are sometimes referred to as “Ghost Busters” since they resemble devices used in that film.

Among the krewes that have used flambeaux in some form are Babylon, Bacchus, Chaos, Endymion, Hermes, Le Krewe d’Etat, Orpheus, Proteus and Sparta. Will there be flambeaux at all those parades this year?  It depends.

“Everybody likes flambeaux. The technology is easy. There are multiple sets of flambeaux. Yes, the prices are high. It’s a lot of work, it’s a labor of love. The problem is the missing ingredients.  Everything is there but the carriers,” notes one krewe member.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, flambeau carriers regularly appeared.  Except for a strike in 1946 (wages went up the next year,) the carriers showed up before a parade and, with police help, enough were chosen to fill all the spots. In fact, the Lazard family were recognized as organizers for flambeau carriers and regularly filled the ranks with relatives and friends.

After Hurricane Katrina, not only did the old group of carriers not appear, the new parade schedules increased the number of carriers needed per evening. 

College fraternity members, Hispanic construction workers, former carriers ready to give it another try – the krewes are crossing their fingers that enough eager workers show up three or so hours before parade time on Napoleon Avenue near Camp Street.

What’s it like to carry a flambeau? John Carter says he’s too old now, but he well remembers Mardi Gras past. “I carried a flambeau the last year we went through the French Quarter!” he says, “It’s not hard if you know what you’re doing.” The most difficult part is at the beginning of the parade, “it’s heavy with a gallon of fuel still in there – and I liked the four burner better than the two burner, it burned off faster.” As the fuel burns down, the flambeau is easier to carry, and to dance with.  “You want to get in the front of the parade, there’s more money at the beginning. They’ll even tuck the money in your belt,” he remembers fondly.

Hopefully, Mardi Gras 2007 will still be as Nancy Lemann described in her 1985 novel, Lives of the Saints: A night parade is “inexpressibly gaudy and beautiful as it passes along, bidding farewell to the flesh.  There are always drumbeats haunting the parade, and flambeaux and harlequins in satin and silk.”

copyright myneworleans.com

New repository for New Orleans' music

Photo: John McCusker, The New Orleans Advocate

BY JOHN WIRT

JWIRT@THEADVOCATE.COM

The Louisiana Music Factory, an independent retailer in the business of selling CDs and vinyl recordings, most of them by New Orleans and Louisiana artists, survived even while most sellers of physical music product vanished.

The thousands of closed record stores include locations of the Tower Records and Virgin Megastore chains that once were just blocks away from the Louisiana Music Factory in the French Quarter.

Now there’s a big change in store for the Louisiana Music Factory, too. After operating in the Quarter near Canal Street for 22 years, the store closed its Decatur Street location Saturday, Feb. 1. Its first day of business at 421 Frenchmen St., just outside of the Quarter, is this Saturday, Feb. 8.

The store’s lease at 210 Decatur St. ended Dec. 31. Although that building recently was sold, the store’s new landlord didn’t want the business to leave, owner Barry Smith said.

“But this opportunity presented itself down there,” Smith explained. “And we’ve been kind of struggling in the past few years. I’m hoping this will give us a fresh start and be a better neighborhood for us.”

The new location, just below the second-story office of Offbeat, a monthly magazine devoted to New Orleans music, is more affordable, though somewhat smaller, than the previous space.

The now-closed instrument retailer, Werlein’s Music Store, the Music Factory’s former next-door neighbor on Decatur, as well as the House of Blues plus some neighboring music venues that didn’t last, had helped Smith’s business by bringing musicians and music fans to Decatur Street.

Smith’s move to Frenchmen Street again puts it in an area of multiple music venues, including Blue Nile, The Maison, d.b.a. and Snug Harbor.

“I hate to leave the House of Blues, but we’re moving to a more concentrated area of music clubs,” Smith said. “For the most part it’s all booking local music, which we specialize in. A lot of music fans go there in the evening. I’m hoping I’ll do more business.”

Smith and Louisiana Music Factory co-founder Jerry Brock opened the business in February 1992. It was Brock’s idea to create a retail space devoted to local and regional music.

The Louisiana Music Factory’s customers, Smith said, are largely tourists who visit New Orleans regularly, even multiple times a year.

“A lot of that is brought on by the Jazz and Heritage Festival,” he said. “It’s mostly tourists who have a passion for the local music. And I do have a local customer base. I’m hopeful that going down to Frenchmen Street might get me more regular local customers.”

The store’s specialty in Louisiana music enabled it survive in a business that’s mostly receded from the retail landscape.

“I credit that to helping us beat the odds,” Smith said. “Downloading and Internet competition have taken its toll on my sales in the last few years. But I manage to hang in there because of the local music, the majority of which is released on compact disc.

“If I were just a regular store that sold the Top 40 and whatever the flavor of the week is, I would have been gone a long time ago.”

Smith describes the store’s first day of business on Frenchmen Street as a soft opening. He’s opening the doors but doesn’t expect the space to be complete yet.

A grand opening for the new location, fe