Blaine Kern, the float maker

By Keith Spera
New Orleans Advocate

As Blaine Kern Sr. eyed the gaggle of tourists filing into Mardi Gras World’s gift shop, he flipped on his Mr. Mardi Gras grin, his calling card for nine decades and counting.

"I'm the guy who started this whole joint 70 years ago!" he announced, the opening line of his sales pitch for "A Tree in the Sea," the new children's book he created with his fourth wife, Holly.

The tourists smiled, listened politely, and moved on to the next attraction. Mardi Gras, it seems, is bigger than Blaine Kern.

Once upon a time, he might have disagreed.

What Popeyes kingpin Al Copeland was to chicken, Kern is to Carnival: a brash character who came from nothing, launched an unconventional empire in New Orleans, and lived large as a result.

Wrestle anacondas in Peru? Buy an aircraft carrier in Spain? Build a gondola over the Mississippi River? Marry a woman nearly 50 years his junior?

Kern has done that. He also almost single-handedly ushered in the modern era of Mardi Gras.

Blaine Kern Artists, the studio he founded in 1947, crafts the floats for more than a dozen of Carnival's most prominent parades, including Rex, Endymion, Muses, Bacchus, Orpheus and Zulu. Kern pioneered such parade razzle-dazzle as giant prop figures, double-decker floats, multi-unit floats, splashy lighting and animatronics. Inclusivity was another of his innovations.

Now 90, he is no longer directly involved with the studio's operation. But he still keeps tabs on the company and is still the legendary figurehead. Tourist buses still park beneath his name, spelled out with imposing, 6-foot-tall black letters on the exterior of Mardi Gras World’s massive riverfront studio/warehouse.

In decades past, his ego was just as imposing. But age has mellowed him. So, too, did several brushes with mortality, and a legal battle, resolved in 2015, that transferred full control of the studio to his son Barry Kern.

But in his reluctant retirement — and thanks in part to his wife’s gentle prodding — Blaine Kern has rediscovered who he was long ago: an artist.

Growing up poor

On Wednesday afternoon, Kern shuffled past Orpheus floats inside the Mardi Gras World warehouse, his jacket discreetly emblazoned with “Mr. Mardi Gras.” He exchanged warm greetings with artisans, tour guides and gift shop employees.

"This little girl ... she's a helluva sculptor," he said, introducing a young woman flecked with Styrofoam dust.

"Coming from you, that means a lot," gushed Alexandria McCrosky, whose mother, Tina, has painted Kern floats for more than 20 years.

In a chamber near the gift shop stood a different breed of Styrofoam sculptor: Pixie, a robot named for longtime, much-loved Kern Studios administrator Jerelyn "Pixie" Naquin, who died in 2010. A similar high-tech robot sculpts Space X rocket fuselages; Pixie sculpts Muses' float-sized rubber duckies.

Imagine if Kern had possessed such a robot when he started out.

"He was the robot,” Holly Kern said.

He grew up poor on Algiers Point with three sisters, now deceased. Their father, Roy, was a painter who liked to fish and drink. Blaine still remembers watching his dad fashion a primitive float atop a garbage wagon in 1932 for the inaugural Krewe of Alla parade on the West Bank.

Drafted into the Army in 1945, Blaine was shipped out to Korea at the end of World War II. He returned home to Algiers nearly two years later.

In exchange for medical services for his mother, he painted a mural for Dr. Henry LaRocca, the captain of Alla. LaRocca was so impressed that he invited Kern, then 19, to decorate Alla’s floats.

Recognizing a potentially lucrative business, Kern founded Blaine Kern Artists Inc. in 1947. Alla was his first steady client; he became the krewe's captain in 1957, a position he held for five decades. 

Blaine Kern Artists, the studio he founded in 1947, crafts the floats for more than a dozen of Carnival's most prominent parades, including Rex, Endymion, Muses, Bacchus, Orpheus and Zulu. Kern pioneered such parade razzle-dazzle as giant prop figures, double-decker floats, multi-unit floats, splashy lighting and animatronics. Inclusivity was another of his innovations.

Now 90, he is no longer directly involved with the studio's operation. But he still keeps tabs on the company and is still the legendary figurehead. Tourist buses still park beneath his name, spelled out with imposing, 6-foot-tall black letters on the exterior of Mardi Gras World’s massive riverfront studio/warehouse.

In decades past, his ego was just as imposing. But age has mellowed him. So, too, did several brushes with mortality, and a legal battle, resolved in 2015, that transferred full control of the studio to his son Barry Kern.

But in his reluctant retirement — and thanks in part to his wife’s gentle prodding — Blaine Kern has rediscovered who he was long ago: an artist.

Growing up poor

On Wednesday afternoon, Kern shuffled past Orpheus floats inside the Mardi Gras World warehouse, his jacket discreetly emblazoned with “Mr. Mardi Gras.” He exchanged warm greetings with artisans, tour guides and gift shop employees.

"This little girl ... she's a helluva sculptor," he said, introducing a young woman flecked with Styrofoam dust.

"Coming from you, that means a lot," gushed Alexandria McCrosky, whose mother, Tina, has painted Kern floats for more than 20 years.

In a chamber near the gift shop stood a different breed of Styrofoam sculptor: Pixie, a robot named for longtime, much-loved Kern Studios administrator Jerelyn "Pixie" Naquin, who died in 2010. A similar high-tech robot sculpts Space X rocket fuselages; Pixie sculpts Muses' float-sized rubber duckies.

Imagine if Kern had possessed such a robot when he started out.

"He was the robot,” Holly Kern said.

He grew up poor on Algiers Point with three sisters, now deceased. Their father, Roy, was a painter who liked to fish and drink. Blaine still remembers watching his dad fashion a primitive float atop a garbage wagon in 1932 for the inaugural Krewe of Alla parade on the West Bank.

Drafted into the Army in 1945, Blaine was shipped out to Korea at the end of World War II. He returned home to Algiers nearly two years later.

In exchange for medical services for his mother, he painted a mural for Dr. Henry LaRocca, the captain of Alla. LaRocca was so impressed that he invited Kern, then 19, to decorate Alla’s floats.

Recognizing a potentially lucrative business, Kern founded Blaine Kern Artists Inc. in 1947. Alla was his first steady client; he became the krewe's captain in 1957, a position he held for five decades. 

At the dawn of the super-krewe era 50 years ago, Blaine charged $5,000 per float. In 2013, Endymion's dazzling, 370-foot-long, nine-part re-creation of the Pontchartrain Beach amusement park made its debut. The price tag? $1.5 million.

Mardi Gras floats account for only half of the Kern company’s tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Under Barry Kern's stewardship, Kern Studios has expanded globally, constructing elaborate props and parades for such clients as Disney, Six Flags and Universal Studios. This weekend, Universal Studios in Orlando kicks off a 68-day Mardi Gras celebration featuring Kern floats.

Those three-dimensional, black-and-white-spotted cows that populate Chick-fil-A billboards across the country? All were born at the Kern Studios complex in New Orleans.

Opening Mardi Gras World to visitors created a major tourist destination. The facility is also leased for private functions, such as the Buku Music + Art Project each March.

Grand visionary

In the early days, Blaine got his hands dirty, drawing and painting floats. He eventually ceded such tasks to the company's growing stable of artisans, assuming the role of grand visionary.

Being Blaine Kern was its own full-time job. He started referring to himself as “Mr. Mardi Gras” after a trip to Portugal. In 1988, the Rex organization issued a proclamation making it official. “I'm not going to fight that," Kern said. Instead, he trademarked the term.

He could be loud and boisterous, and he rubbed some people the wrong way. More showman than businessman, administration was never his forte.

Not all his schemes panned out. He built much of the 1984 world’s fair in New Orleans — including the famous bare-breasted mermaids at the entrance — only to get stiffed by the fair’s financial failure.

The gondola he strung across the river for the fair never attracted enough riders to be viable. He lost money on the failed Jazzland amusement park in New Orleans East. In the 1980s, he partnered with a New York real estate tycoon named Donald Trump to develop property on the West Bank; the project fizzled.

And then there was the aircraft carrier.

The light carrier USS Cabot, known as the "Iron Woman," saw heavy action in World War II, surviving kamikaze hits. It was transferred to the Spanish navy in the 1960s and rechristened Dédalo.

In the 1980s, Kern bought the decommissioned ship for $1. He planned to turn it into a museum and casino docked at Mardi Gras World; investors included his pal Harry Lee, the longtime Jefferson Parish sheriff.

It cost $344,000 in fuel to sail the ship to New Orleans; Kern also had to fly nearly 400 sailors home to Spain. The Cabot lingered on the Mississippi riverfront for years. But, Kern said, he and former Gov. Edwin Edwards couldn’t cut a deal on a casino license. In 1999, the carrier was sold at auction for scrap.

Kern fathered five kids during the first two of his four marriages. But in his own estimation, “I was young, filthy rich, and an (expletive) of the first magnitude where women were concerned.”

But very late in life, he finally found what he was looking for.

Two 'old souls'

He and the former Holly Brown have been a couple for 16 years; they were married in 2010 in Hawaii. Now 41, she knows his stories by heart and tries to edit his more impolitic utterances.

Their conspicuous 49-year age gap, they say, is no impediment. “We’re both old souls,” Holly said.

“She was raised by her grandparents,” Blaine noted.

They met in 2002 after being seated across from each other during a Bacchus event at Brennan’s. Young and pretty, she owned a dance studio, Planet Dance, in Metairie, and was going through a divorce.

Blaine was drawn to her blue eyes and creativity. “She’s a choreographer, she dances, she sings — she’s a genius,” he said. “She’s exceptional.”

After she and Blaine started dating, he lobbied her to give up her dance studio to focus on him. For two years, she refused. "That would be like me asking him to give up art," she said.The cost of all those trips came up in the legal dispute between Blaine and Barry that first flared in 2010. Just as Tom Benson's family battled over control of the Saints, the Kerns clashed over Carnival. Their power struggle was major news in New Orleans.

“Unfortunately, what was a family issue became a very public issue,” Barry Kern said. “Everybody in New Orleans feels that they own a piece of Mardi Gras. Because of that, a lot of things that happened to us, which in other families and businesses would have been private, were public.”

The leaders of Bacchus, Rex and Endymion, not wanting the production of their parades to be disrupted, brokered a temporary truce between father and son.

In 2015, the conflict was finally resolved for good. Blaine sold his 50.1 percent stake in Blaine Kern Artists to Barry, putting the son he'd groomed as his successor firmly in charge.

More than two years later, Blaine and Barry insist, all is well.

“My relationship with my father and Holly is much better than it was when all that negativity was happening," Barry Kern said. "We’ve all had time to let things go.

“I think she cares for him, and he cares for her. When a relationship like that starts, people will be circumspect. But it’s different than what I thought it initially was. From my perspective now, they have a really good relationship.”

Creative juices revived

Case in point: The couple's collaboration on "A Tree in the Sea."

Holly had wanted to author a children's book ever since a first-grade teacher at St. Catherine of Siena School praised her writing. But Blaine initially dismissed her proposed storyline — about a friendly tree in the sea that saves fish from sharks — as "ridiculous."

She was hurt, and indignant: “The king of whimsy is telling me there'd never be a tree in the sea? This is a children’s book!"

He thought the project was beneath him: “I didn't feel like illustrating a book. My company’s worldwide. This was, like, nothing."

Holly conceded that "it was not the time. He was busy traveling the world and being Mr. Mardi Gras."

He’d also fallen out of the habit of drawing. “I’d lost confidence in myself,” he said.

In 2016, they realized one of Kern’s dreams by attending Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The trip reignited his creativity. “He was like a kid in a candy store,” Holly said.

Back home in Harvey, she encouraged him to paint an undersea scene in a guest bathroom. (He eventually agreed to cover the mermaid's prominent breasts with a seashell bikini top.)

With his creative juices flowing, she resurrected her book idea. For months, they debated the content. Finally, Kern put colored pencils to paper, conjuring up an undersea world with an older Neptune and a younger, buxom mermaid.

River Road Press published “A Tree in the Sea” last fall. The couple is already planning their next book.

Not that they lack for activities. Kern still needs to stay busy. “He hates the ‘r’ word,” Holly said. "Retired."

His father “is a lot more low-key than 10 or 15 years ago, but he’s not like many other 90-year-olds,” Barry Kern said. “His age never had anything to do with the way he thinks and feels and lives. He’s not a person that was acting his age, ever. He’s been referred to as Peter Pan many times.”

Last fall, Kern reigned over the Krewe of Boo Halloween parade. Also in 2017, he and Holly traveled to Cuba, where, in 1960, he had staged a mini-parade for Fidel Castro.

He hopes to ride in a car in several Carnival parades this week, depending on the weather.

"He's going to want to mingle with the crowd," Holly said. "For him to sit in a car and not interact with people, that's torture."

The couple realizes that time is not on their side. Before he got a pacemaker in 2008, Holly resuscitated him with CPR at least three times. "Breathing life into somebody, that really strengthens your bond," she said.

These days, they spend time at home with their five small dogs and three cats. At the gym, Blaine pedals a stationary bike for 40 minutes. He draws. Holly is teaching tap dancing again. They post wacky videos of themselves on Facebook and Instagram.

“We have fun,” Holly said. “We’re creative people, and goofy people. But we’re on a social media break right now. Our time together is limited. We need to spend time face to face.”

Still looking ahead, Blaine doesn’t spend much time on reflection. But does his Mardi Gras legacy make him proud?

“It does and it doesn’t,” he said. “Let me tell you why. People walk up to me and hug me and congratulate me. Somehow, I don’t feel like I deserve it. I’m very Catholic. God’s given me this talent, but it’s embarrassing a little bit.”

This is the new Blaine Kern talking. Ten years ago, he still craved attention.

“He’s a totally different person now,” Holly said. “I like this Blaine Kern a lot better. That (court case) changed both of us. It’s made us better people, more spiritual.”

Kern used to strut into church hoping to be noticed. Now he's more likely to keep his head bowed.

“So many people know me and they’re waving at me … it’s disconcerting,” he said. “I don’t like it. I’d hate to be a movie star.”

But being Mr. Mardi Gras? That he still enjoys.

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A Distant Drum Beat

On the Trail of the Mardi Gras Indians
By Chris Rose, New Orleans Magazine


So many spectacles compete to overload the senses during Mardi Gras. So many sights, sounds, colors, costumes, parades, songs, rainbows, fever dreams, unicorns and pounds of flesh to behold, light the eyes, satisfy appetites and quench every thirst.

It takes effort to stand out amidst the glitter and gold, baubles and beads, spandex and spangles, flashing lights and fairy dust. It takes money, time and commitment. Serious commitment.

It takes the Mardi Gras Indians. Those singular, mythic, mysterious and inscrutable men, women and children of color who preserve and perform a sacred 19th century ritual borne of slavery, emancipation and masquerade.

It's quite a challenge to try to describe the Indians to the uninitiated. They are tight-knit, turf-conscious, prideful working class black folks dressed up in flamboyant, meticulously hand-sewn, ceremonial Native American costumes, face paint and feathers, stalking each other through New Orleans back streets in some sort of concrete jungle war game. But instead of pretending to kill their rivals, they face-off in a ritualistic preening, drumming, dancing, chanting show-down, taunting each other and arguing over who is...prettiest.

What's not to understand about that?

How the Mardi Gras Indians came to be is a subject of much academic - and barroom - debate. It's all folklore, legend, history, mythology and braggadocio.

Are they a living tribute to local Native American tribes who sheltered their fugitive forbears from the indignities of lives waged in the fields of Confederate perdition? Or are they, as popular notion goes, a spin-off of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show from the late 19th Century? Or are they just a bunch of rowdy, ostentatious, over-the-top, half-cocked revelers who take this Mardi Gras thing...Way. Too. Seriously.

Collectively, they are the proverbial golden needle in the messy Carnival haystack. The Wild Tchoupitoulas, Wild Magnolias, Flaming Arrows, Uptown Hunters, Yellow Pocahontas, Burning Spears, Congo Nation, Guardians of the Flame, Creole Osceola, Fi-Y-Yi, Louisiana Star Choctaws and dozens more. From near extinction just four decades ago, Mardi Gras Indian culture has exploded in the new century, with new tribes forming every year to preserve this most elite, quixotic and exotic tradition.

On Mardi Gras morning, gangs of chiefs, spy boys, flag boys and wild men debut their new costumes, a year-long labor sewing, stitching and beading, memorialized in the song "New Suit," by legendary New Orleans composer Willie Tee:

Every year for Carnival Time, we make a new suit
Red, yellow, green, purple or blue, we make a new suit
They shine like diamonds and stars
Gotta be sure we’re together
‘Cause we the soul of Mardi Gras.

Indeed, they are the heart, the soul and the beat of the street. I remember the first time my kids ever saw an Indian, one Fat Tuesday afternoon many years ago, when we were driving back Uptown after spending the morning basking in the colorful revelry of the Marigny and French Quarter.

He was alone, turned out in Bimini lime feathers and mint green rhinestones, staggering erratically on the Broad Street overpass, a chief who seemed to have lost his way – and his tribe! He stumbled in front of my car, I swerved wide around him and watched from my rearview mirror as my kids asked: “Daddy, what was that?”

How do you tell someone?

Over the years, it became our Fat Tuesday tradition: We would not park down near the Quarter until we found an Indian gang wandering around the streets of the 6th, 7th or 8th Wards. And we always did.

The last time I saw a Mardi Gras Indian was last March, on St. Joseph’s night, when the gangs and thousands of spectators annually pack the streets of Central City for intimate neighborhood rituals far from the wide prying eyes and intrusive cell phones of visitors and tourists. This was a young man, junior member of his tribe, splayed out on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound to the thigh.

I heard the shot. I joined the crowd of previously joyous observers now looking on in wonder, fear and despair. Everyone wondered: What happened. Who is he? Why was he shot? And: Who the hell shoots an Indian?

 Another mystery of this town. It will build you up and tear you down. It’s the ecstasy and the agony. It’s the beauty and the beast. It’s laughter and forgetting.

It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. With an ever-present menacing drumbeat out there in the distance.

And so it goes.

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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

Fats named Orpheus parade's grand marshall

Associated Press photo

NEW ORLEANS — The music of rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame performer Fats Domino will "float" through the streets of New Orleans this Carnival season.

Domino has been named honorary grand marshal of the Krewe of Orpheus, the star-studded Carnival club that traditionally parades the night before Mardi Gras.

Although he won't be riding in the March 3 parade, his eldest son, Antoine Domino III, is expected to ride on a float equipped with a piano and speakers to perform his father's greatest hits, such as "Blue Monday," ''The Fat Man," ''Blueberry Hill" and "Walking to New Orleans."

Other family members are expected to ride and throw coaster-size, gold-record doubloons and other Fats Domino-themed trinkets from the float.

New Orleans artist Michael Hunt has designed a poster to commemorate the occasion. The posters will be autographed by Domino and available for purchase.

Mardi Gras is March 4.

Domino, 85, moving a little slow and his speech low, smiled for friends, family and a handful of news media who gathered Friday in his suburban New Orleans living room as he was honored by the Krewe of Orpheus with a medallion proclaiming him honorary grand marshal.

"I'm happy to do it," he said, but added that he hasn't changed his mind about riding on a float.

"No way," he said.

Referring to the fact that his son would fill in for him, he said, with a smile, "He should be all right."

Domino has been asked to participate in Mardi Gras for years, but this is the first time in recent history he's agreed.

"It's jaw-dropping," said Michael Murphy, an officer for Orpheus. "It's the biggest blessing that we could ever ask for. We are extremely honored."

Domino, known for his reclusive nature, rarely leaves the suburban New Orleans home where he's lived since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Water poured through a broken levee, flooding Domino's home in the Lower 9th Ward. His belongings, instruments, pictures and a lifetime of memorabilia were damaged or lost in Katrina's floodwaters.

But two of his pianos were salvaged and are on public display in New Orleans, though neither of them is playable.

A white Steinway grand piano had its classic looks restored and will be part of the Louisiana State Museum's music exhibition opening in 2014. His other Steinway piano is on permanent display at the Presbytere museum in the exhibition "Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond."

Domino, born in New Orleans in February 1928, sold more than 65 million records between 1950 and 1963, making Billboard's pop chart 77 times and its rhythm and blues chart 61 times. The pianist, singer and songwriter is regarded as one of the forerunners of rock music, beloved by musicians including the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Billy Joel.

Reminded of his legacy and the inspiration he has been for so many musicians, Fat's simply said, "That's nice."

"He's so humble," Murphy said.

It's not surprising that Orpheus wanted to honor Domino and his music in some way. The Orpheus parade organization is rooted in music. It was co-founded in 1993 by New Orleans native singer Harry Connick Jr. and Sonny Borey, who serves as the parade organization's captain.

Each year musical guests are invited to ride in the parade and perform at the glitzy ball held afterward at a nearby convention center.

Orpheus leaders have already announced that the 1970s rock band Cheap Trick will be headlining the 2014 Orpheuscapade gala.

Cheap Trick's biggest hits include "Surrender," ''I Want You to Want Me" and "The Flame." The band remade one of Domino's biggest hits,"Ain't That a Shame," in 1979.

As Murphy announced Cheap Trick's involvement, he turned to Domino and said: "Maybe you can teach them a thing or two," drawing a laugh from the legendary musician.

Other musical acts scheduled to perform at the gala include Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and The Party Crashers.

Hunt, the artist chosen by the family to create the commemorative poster for the parade, said he's beyond honored to be a part of this experience.

He said it just wasn't an option for Fats to ride on a float.

"Riding in a parade is a lot more exhausting than people realize, especially when you're throwing, not just waving," Hunt said. "Very few of his age can do that. But what Orpheus has done rivals any celebrity sitting on a throne. This is going to be an interactive experience unlike anything that's been done at Mardi Gras before. You're going to get a Fats family reunion along with a live concert.

"No matter where you are on the parade route, you'll have the best seat in the house."

As for Domino, he had a simple message for his fans regarding his music's place front and center during Mardi Gras.

"I hope they enjoy it," he said.

Parade throws more imaginative than ever

 By Megan Braden-Perry, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 

Mardi Gras 2013 parade throws are lighted, plush, practical, noisy and nostalgic. Take, for instance, the stuffed replica of the landmark arch in Gretna that will be tossed by Grela float riders. And then there's the utterly useful toilet tissue, thanks to the always irreverent Krewe of Tucks.

In choosing throws this year, several krewes flexed their creativity muscles, but they apparently also factored in parade-goer satisfaction, the timing of their parades -- even green living.

Brand new throws include stuffed holy trinities of onion, celery and bell pepper designed to hang from car rear-view mirrors, decorated toilet brush scepters, beribboned riding crops, plush Pontchartrain Beach clowns, blinking pink martini medallions and multicolor-lighted LED Frisbees.

“People are clamoring for more lighted stuff; the beads and doubloons and cups aren’t as popular as they used to be,” said Hermes’ Larry DeMarcay. Hermes’ lighted wings that double as headbands, plush caducei, stuffed snakes, light-up Hermes medallions and pewter-colored chalices are all associated with the Greek god. Because Hermes was also the god of athletics, riders will throw footballs, multicolored LED Frisbees and light-up bouncing balls.

Endymion’s Darryl d'Aquin said, “We’re a night parade, so everything revolves around our lighted items.” Endymion’s 2013 theme is "Ancient Mysteries," but the new nine-section Pontchartrain Beach float will surely be what revelers remember. The huge float is based on nine different Pontchartrain Beach attractions, all tying in with the Zephyr roller coaster. Roughly 500,000 Pontchartrain Beach logo items will be thrown, including beach balls, light-up medallion beads and plush replicas of the clown statue that greeted Pontchartrain Beach guests. That clown "is definitely going to be the most coveted item,” d'Aquin said. Other new throws are light-up royal scepters, fans shaped like guns and Endymion slap bracelets.

The Krewe of Tucks plans some fun new throws this year, also. Founded in 1969 by Loyola students who weren't allowed into the old-line krewes, Tucks members glorify the toilet as “a sign of true wealth and royalty,” because having a toilet was once taxable and so a sign of prosperity. So, Tucks riders throw several toilet-themed items each year, but they believe their newest item will surely bowl over the crowd: More than 7,000 toilet brushes, decorated by krewe members as well as Magnolia School students and Holy Rosary High School students. 

Also new for 2013: beer barrel koozies and jumbo go-cups, in a not-so-subtle nod to the krewe's roots. Because Tucks was founded by frat boys, many throws are booze-related. One krewe founder, Lloyd Frischhertz, said, “Animal House probably didn’t have anything on us, except we did well in school and sort of made something of ourselves.”

As for Muses, a krewe known for its intricately decorated shoe throws, the parade isn’t solely about the shoes. “We try really hard to have at least some of our throws be useful,” said Krewe of Muses Captain Staci Rosenberg. “We’ve had toothbrushes, soaps, compacts, bandanas," she said.  

The parade’s theme isn’t revealed until the night of the parade, but the plush po-boy and stuffed holy trinity of onion, celery and green pepper suggest it might be food-related. Bead nets, shoelaces, Muses flag projector flashlights, fiber optic hair extensions, dry erase board and notepad combos, plastic flasks and screeching ray guns are also new this year. The re-Muse-able bags and Muses Mardi Gras cups are redesigned every year, making them must-catches as well.

But, let's face it. The shoe's the thing for Muses parade-goers. Rosenberg said she has heard just about everything on the parade route from people trying to score one of the coveted throws. What's her advice? "Be specific," she said. "Signs work. Yelling really loudly works." If someone asks for a pink shoe, chances are he or she will get a pink shoe, Rosenberg said. 

The Mystic Krewe of Nyx throws decorated wallets and purses each year because, as Captain Julie Lea said, “We want people to be able to use them, and since you’re catching your shoes from Muses Thursday night, you’re going to need a purse to go with ‘em!” The parade’s theme is confidential until parade night, but pink-lighted martini glass medallions, Tiffany & Co. box-style beads and plushies, and pink martini glass bracelets are all part of the Nyx collection for 2013. Only in its second year, the krewe has added tandem floats and 400 new riders, boosting its grand total of riders to a healthy 921.

The only parade to roll in Gretna, Grela is celebrating the city’s centennial this year by throwing plush replicas of the city's landmark arch, as well as wooden nickels modeled after the ones designed in Gretna in 1960. Krewe of Grela Vice President Al Kaiser plans to use West Bank landmark throws every year, in hopes that they’ll become Mardi Gras must-haves. “It’s not just Gretna pride, it’s West Bank pride,” Kaiser said. “Cleopatra moved from the West Bank to Uptown this year permanently, and I don’t want to do that; if people don’t want to go downtown, Uptown or to Metairie to see a parade, we want to give them an option.” 

The plan by the Rex organization to throw different themed beads from each float is "an idea whose time has come; we had to innovate,” Rex spokesman King Logan said. “We want people to notice the floats. People are trying so hard to catch things, and beads from each float with medallions of each float will help them remember the tableau.” He said he thinks the Honeybee, Jabberwocky and Panda Bear float throws will be some of the most memorable.

New Rex throws for 2013 include plush pillows and go-cups with His Majesty's Band Wagon printed on them, riding crops similar to those used by mounted Rex members, doubloons with more heft than usual, and, in an environmentally conscious move, beads strung with cotton string instead of plastic. Because the cotton is biodegradable, Rex beads that are caught on trees will eventually fall off after enough rain, Logan said. 

©  NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

King cakes spar over popularity

Letter to the Editor
Times-Picayune

Re: "The king cake quest," Living, Feb. 2


When it comes to Mardi Gras, the city of New Orleans takes its king cakes very seriously. It seems that people are always in the search for the most satisfying combination of bread and sugar or icing. Regardless, king cakes are always delicious and only add to the large list of things that make our city so special.

Haily Housey
New Orleans

Carnival extended for excluded

Carnival cruelty exposed and New Orleans' love goes viral

 By Jarvis DeBerry 

As popular as it has become, social media has developed a reputation over these last few years as a sort of cyber forum for bullies, a place where harassment and abuse can be so targeted and yet so broadly disseminated that some young people have killed themselves in response.

Chris Granger / The Times-Picayune"The Bathing Muses" float heads up Napoleon Avenue at the Muses Parade in New Orleans on Thursday, February 16.

But Thursday evening in New Orleans, it was on multiple social media platforms that good people came together to mobilize in support of a young girl who had sought the joy of the Carnival experience, but instead got a glimpse of human beings at their ugliest. She had her view of the Feb. 16 Muses parade blocked by a group of young foul-mouthed drunks, one of whom splashed her with beer, nearly singed her hair with a cigarette and humiliated her by calling her "retard."

Emily's the child's name. She's 11. She has autism. If it matters -- and I don't think it does -- Amy Mueller describes her daughter as a highly functioning autistic child, one who keeps a journal of gratitude and reads books as she waits for her favorite parades to roll, one who, as a 10-year-old, analyzed her love of Carnival this way: "I don't feel like I am different than everyone else during Mardi Gras, Mama. During Mardi Gras, everyone is a little weird like me."

Based on that statement alone, we can all concur that Emily's brain operates on a high plane. But even if that weren't the case, it wouldn't matter. Those whose struggles are more pronounced wouldn't have been any more deserving of the bullying Emily was subjected to. Besides, the distinction her mother makes was clearly lost on the college-age man who after being asked to watch it with his beer and his cigarette, after being asked if he could move a step or two so the girl could see the floats, shouted, "This retard is making watching the parade a challenge."

Not surprisingly, the girl had no desire to see Muses or any other parade after that. Her mother told her they could move. They could find a spot where the people were nicer. Despite her having concluded last year that Mardi Gras made her seem more normal, her encounter with the bully unraveled all of that, convinced her that she would forever be noticed -- and shunned.

As for that place her mother suggested they find? "People there will probably think I'm a retard, too. People don't want people like me at parades. They won't let us in to watch the parade. I just know it."

She cried. Her mother said there'd be more parades.

"No, Mama. I don't think I want to do Mardi Gras anymore. Not ever again."

New Orleans learned of Emily's awful Carnival experience after Amy Mueller described it in heart-breaking detail on the blog NOLAFemmes. Thanks in part to Twitter and Facebook, Emily's story quickly morphed into a cause. Everybody wanted to do something for her, give her the Muses shoes they got as throws, give her the throws they got from other krewes, invite her to their parade-watching spot next year.

Previously, the most popular piece on NOLAFemmes had gotten 1,509 views, said Charlotte Hamrick, the blog's creator and administrator. By Friday night, "Lit up like a parade," written by Amy Mueller, had been viewed 92,103 times.

More important than people showing cyber support for Emily, though, was the real-world display of love the little girl got Friday morning. The Krewe of Muses responded beautifully, inviting the girl to its den at Claiborne and Clio streets where she was entertained not only by the members of the all-female krewe, but also the 610 Stompers, the Rolling Elvi and the Pussyfooters. People on Twitter began referring to it as Emilygras. But she wasn't the only one watching the show. Almost 100 other people showed up, too. There was king cake. Snowballs, too.

Emily pronounced it all "overwhelming."

That strikes me as exactly the right word. The abuse she took on the parade needed to be overwhelmed. Thanks to New Orleanians who lobbied to her aid, it was.

Emily got so much parade loot Friday she now wants to give some of it to other children who don't have as much as she does. Where should she direct it, readers? Let me know, and I'll pass your recommendations to her.

According to Hamrick, she said Friday, "I am so lucky and feel so special. Other kids should get to be happy and feel special, too."

Jarvis DeBerry can be reached at jdeberry@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3355. Follow him at http://connect.nola.com/user/jdeberry/index.html and at twitter.com/jarvisdeberrytp.

© 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.