Mardi Gras Is For Idiots (or How I Got Arrested For Cruelty To Animals)

Part One: The Idiots

Since the annual Mardi Gras celebration is fast approaching, I thought I'd go ahead and weigh in with my opinion of this long-standing New Orleans spectacle.

I'd rather have my toenails torn out with pliers than ever go back to New Orleans for any kind of major celebration again. Maybe one day I'll venture back on some random weekend in September or something, but you'll never again find me in the French Quarter during Mardi Gras, Halloween, New Year's Eve or any other holiday in which people traditionally drink excessively while milling about in search of flesh.

Its cultural and historical significance aside, New Orleans is basically just a place where idiots go drench themselves with booze so they can act more idiotic than their hometown would ever allow. Why anyone would want to participate or even witness this orgy of stupidity is beyond me. Basically, you have thousands and thousands of rednecky people, shoved together like cattle into a few city blocks, encouraged to binge drink for hours or even days on end, then worked into a frenzy by the possibility of exposed nude genitals. To me, that sounds like a good recipe for a big steaming pot of trouble.

One of the greatest things I've ever seen is an episode of COPS at Mardi Gras. It was like watching one of those Animal Planet shows, except way more entertaining because the animals were all drunk and would yell things at the cops like, "Heyyy! That mortherforker tried to lick mry grrlfrriend's tittays!" The cops are all sitting on their horses (which are all freaked the fuck out - more on this later) while there is an unending sea of drunken human madness swirling and heaving all around them. People are hurling half full bottles of bourbon at ecstacy-riddled fourteen year old girls with their shirts pulled proudly above their bleach blonde heads, little adolescent boobies flopping freely as some skanky frat douche is filming the the whole spectacle so he can later submit the tape to "Girls Gone Wild". It is one of the purest forms of mass insanity left in America.

Part Two: The Horse Incident

Which brings me to my story about how I was arrested and charged with the crime of Cruelty to Animals. It's a pretty awful-sounding crime, isn't it? Makes you think of me smiling devilishly while savagely beating a burlap bag full of the cutest kittens you've ever seen against a big brick wall. Well, let me tell you how this actually went down.

I'd gone down to New Orleans for New Year's Eve, back in 2002, thinking it would be a nice change of atmosphere from Memphis, where I was living at the time. I had a 12th story suite at a hotel right next to the French Quarter, a powerful thirst for strong drink and the naive hopes of meeting a pretty little girl looking for meaningless debauchery. After changing clothes, grabbing some dinner and meeting a friend in the Quarter for a drink, we decided to get a Hurricane and just walk around and observe the action in the Quarter. It was maybe 9:45 pm, and I'd had approximately a drink and a half.

I'm walking down Bourbon with my friend, wondering why everyone around us looks like 19 year-old insurance salesmen in their khakis and their polos and their loafers, simultaneously loathing and lusting for the scantily clad sorority sluts pouring pink drinks down their soon-to-be-soiled little throats. Even though I feel detached from my surroundings, I'm starting to think I might be able to enjoy this trip -- and that's when it happens. A few blanked out moments of utter confusion before I'm confronted with the realization that I'm being roughly dragged down the street by and unseen and powerful force.

A galloping sound, bewildered onlookers grinning and pointing, my shirt ripping near the shoulder, trying to run as fast as I can to keep up with the quickening pace down two blocks of Bourbon Street. In the distance I can hear the shouts of my companion, fully drunk (he's a lightweight), screaming, "Wait, do you know who we are!?!? Have you ever heard of HARVEY WEINSTEIN!?!?"

And then I'm slammed against the side of a cold police paddywagon and my captor swings me around and pins me against the vehicle. I finally manage to sputter out a few words.

"Please, sir, officer," I plead, "there's been some kind of mistake. I don't understand what's happening!"

"Shut up," he snarls, "You hit my horse!"

"I swear, sir, I didn't. I don't know what you're--"

"Tell it to the judge."

And with that, I am thrown into the rancid darkness of the soiled New Orleans Police Van. As the adrenaline slows and I begin to gain control of my thoughts, I figure there has to be a way to talk my way out of the situation. The starting of the engine and subsequent movement of the van tells me I am wrong.

What followed was one of the most unpleasant nights of my life with highlights including a coked-to-the-gills male prostitute riding in the van with me, a jail fight between a drunk frat boy and a hardcore gang member, and having to listen to the shitzophrenic jibberish of an entire chorus of freaks and junkies. Completely sober, I kept demanding the guards and jailers tell me what I was being charged with and why I was being detained. Finally, one of them was kind enough to look at my citation and said, nonchalantly, "cruelty to animals".

Cruelty to animals? This sent my mind reeling. I start imagining all the FBI watch lists this probably put me on, trying to explain it to future employers, not to mention my parents.

"Yeah mom, the trip was great. Drank some beers, at some po-boys, beat a horse and got taken to jail..."

I had to stay an extra couple of days so I could show up to my court date. When I got there, the fat and sweaty DA informed me, in his bayou drawl, that I could simply pay $300, and the charges would be expunged from my record, never to be seen by anyone. I could have stayed and fought it, but at this point all I wanted was to never see New Orleans again.

I never figured out why the cop thought I hit his horse, because I sure as hell know I didn't. The best I can figure is that one of the other 100,000 DRUNK IDIOTS SURROUNDING US must have startled the horse, and I just happened to be the first person the overprotective equestrian-loving pig laid eyes on.

On the train back to Memphis, I pondered the startling fact that cops wield an awesome power -- the power to immediately take away your freedom. We take the fact that we can walk around as we please as long as we don't break any laws for granted. When you're thrown into a stinking New Orleans paddywagon for nothing more than having been at the wrong place at the wrong time, you start to wish this awesome power would be reserved for people a bit more educated and intelligent than the average police officer.

Part Three: The Big Easy

I'm sure there are plenty of people who go to New Orleans without incident, have a great time drinking hand grenaides and hurricanes, see some floppy redneck breasts, puke in an alley and head home happier than they came. I was not one of those people.

They might call New Orleans the Big Easy, but I will always regard it as The Big Stupid Place Full of Drunken Rednecks Where I Got Arrested For Beating A Horse I Never Even Saw.