CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY plutocrat; a man with only three is a pauper. The hard part is getting people to throw the stuff to you, because there are more people in the streets than things to throw. There’s a mantra, a spell, a traditional New Orleans Shit!" says Les, giving me a bitter look as he bites into a drumstick. He's starting to feel guilty about his alignment with the Forces of Fastfood. incantation that goes back into the mists of legend. (It also appears on New Orleans litter cans.) “ Throw me something mister.” And it works. At first I stood mute, gazing hopefully at passing parades with hands outstretched — and received nothing. Finally, for the hell of it, I began to chant the mantra. “ Throw me something mister!” I yelled, feeling like a fool. No one could have heard me; the noise was deafening, and everyone else was yelling “ Throw me something mister!” too. Then I grabbed a necklace out of the air. Soon I had beads, doubloons, medallions. I didn’t feel silly, I felt ancient magic running through me. When the floats were consecrated to Dionysius, what did the priests throw to the crowds? Were the doubloons real? What did they buy? Everyone Gets A Pass Three white women in their early ’20s, drunk, fall down in a giggling heap at the corner of Bourbon and Canal. One of them, a fragile- looking blonde in shiny silver blouse and pants, looks up to find herself surrounded by a crowd of black people. “ Niggers!” she screams. “ Dirty niggers! Get these niggers away from me!” The crowd, perfectly unable to comprehend what’s going on, backs off a little as the blonde climbs to her feet. She looks around, spots two ten-year-old black kids, and lurches after them, screaming, “ I’ll get you! I’ll get you little nigger bastards!” The kids run for their lives; the crowd waits patiently to see what will happen next. Everyone gets a pass on Fat Tuesday — but the pass is only good up to a point. The blonde is using up her pass fast. She stumbles back to her friends, now joined by a drunk, bearded hippie. All four hug and kiss tearfully, fall down, and get up giggling. The blonde looks around again, freaks out. “ I hate these niggers'.” she screams. This time the crowd begins to rumble, and a few people punch the air, muttering threats. The blonde runs crying down Bourbon Street with her friends in pursuit. Half a block away she stops, whirls in a tight circle, plants her feet and screams, “ Dirty niggers! I hate all you dirty niggers!” A crowd of young blacks gathers fast. “White honky cunt!” someone yells. She spreads her arms and legs. “ Go ahead and jump me!” she screams. “ Fuck me, niggers!” Suddenly she leaps at a black man with a kid, swinging at him, missing. He swings back, lands a solid punch on her face, and the blonde goes down hard. She staggers back up. The black edged closer, shouting angrily, forcing her up against a plate glass window. “ I hate niggers'.” she screams in terror. Then she whirls and flings herself face-first against the window, hard, again and again. The crowd watches, fascinated, perfectly willing to let her smash her face through the glass. Finally, two policemen wade through the crowd, grab the blonde, and carry her around the corner to a police car where her friends catch up with her. “ I’m all right,” she insists, crying. “ I just want my mama and my sister.” Fairy Coming Through A man in a Nixon mask, holding a newspaper over his head with a headline reading, “NIXON RESIGNING.” A man dressed as a giant bottle of Tabasco Sauce. A woman dressed as a box of Zatarain’s Crab and Shrimp Boil. An impromptu dance between the Tabasco and the Boil. A family dressed as different colored crayons, and mama as the box. Seven people as the Seven Deadly Sins, shouting “ Sin!” as they dance down the street. A young woman as a cat-girl, numerous nipples down her front. A bearded man in tutu and gauzy fairywings, gliding past on roller skates shouting, “ Fairy coming through!” A bare-assed priest-in-cassock. Erzuli, a woman with a red dress on. Six men as a long, pink penis. Many frogs. Chicken Flies Past Him The third-floor room at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street is full of film crews, ad-men, beer and cold, soggy fried chicken. Outside, Mardi Gras is roaring. Les opens the window, and instantaneously a crowd gathers on the street below, hands stretched upward, yelling, “ Throw me something mister!” “ I’ve got to run out and end this roll of film,” says Les. “ Maybe we should toss ’em some beads and I’ll shoot it from the window.” “ Toss ’em chicken,” someone suggests. “ No!” says the Dixi-Fried ad-man. “ Why not? It’s cold, we’re not gonna eat it.” A cameraman grabs a drumstick and flings it through the window. By this time, everyone on the street has a catching reflex like a star outfielder, and the chicken leg is snapped on the fly. Cheers rise upwards. Les grabs the camera and starts filming as more chicken flies past him, out the window. Not a single piece hits the ground. Two black kids start throwing the chicken.back. A wing bounces off the window sill. A leg lands on the dresser. Les runs out of film aS the last of the chicken goes out the window, and comes flying right back in. Three Girls With No Pants “ Where is that music coming from?” says Les. It’s “ Mardi Gras Mambo” by the Hawketts, a Carnival standard since 1954, but it sounds tinny, distorted, oddly sinister. A quick scan of Burgundy Street reveals nothing except solid-pack people. “ Maybe someone on a balcony has their stereo turned u p ,” says Maureen, but there’s something else, something scary about the sound itself. Most peculiar. We’re under orders from Blackburn to make our way to the gay beauty pageant on Royal Street, but Les keeps stopping for beer, I keep stopping to get warm, and all around us we keep seeing great costumes, amazing scenes and beautiful women that we have to get on film. “ Oh, man, over there, that black woman next to the spaceman, ooh!” “ No better, on top of the movie theater marquee, three girls with no pants on, get ’em quick, they’re dancing'.” Non-stop action is on every side, Overload City, and best of all we’re as much a part of the action as anyone. Objective and subjective become different readings of the same, silly punch line. Inside and outside approach unity. Mardi Gras opens to us her timeless revelation. Les moves through the madness in the street with his heavy Eclair in one hand, a beer in the other, and an inner calm he displays at no other time — calling his shots and shooting them with off-hand expertise. Morth- land is in charge of obtaining signed model releases from people so they can be used in the commercial, and he gets signatures from everyone — even drunks and crazies. I’m on light meter, and by this point I can taste a half-stop variation in the light. Maureen has been sick all day, but she loads film magazines flawlessly and fast — and not one jams or sticks. We’re a team — smooth, slick, telepathic — and we’re getting incredible footage. It’s Heaven. “Mardi. Gras Mambo,” with its ominious overtone, begins to get louder. The crowd parts, and a police car comes edging through the crush — every light flashing, every red whirler and orange blinker and yellow traffic arrow, and white strobe light dazzler going off. From the loudspeaker on top of the police car, “ Mardi Gras Mambo” is squawking into the air in exactly the same nasty, metallic tone that usually says, “ Pull over buddy!” or, “ This is the police, you’re doing 75 in a 45 mph zone.” Two policemen are riding on the hood of the car, drinking beer and pt th stsvetzs o r the roab (XX i 133 H AU s ix th avenu e pouvt&nb, onegon 9720g 223 -5255 The BEST 90<p bowl of chili in Portland — with cornbread! PARADISE IN PORTLAND ☆ Popular luncheon and dinner menus, featuring the Carribean Salad Bar and Seafood Buffet ☆ Exotic Drinks served by Lovely Sarong-Clad Ladies in Portland’s Most Glamorous Bar ☆ Live Music Nightly —No Cover Charge ☆ Special to Clinton St. Quarterly Readers: This ad good for '/z litre of our house wine with dinner during August. 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