November 26th, 2005
Mardi Gras First: Corporate Sponsorships
By Gary Ruskin
Commercial Alert
The New York Times reported today that Mardi Gras social clubs in New Orleans, called, Krewes, have "agreed to relax a prohibition on corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras, but say they will not allow corporate logos on floats."
See article below.
Mardi Gras to the Rescue? Doubts Grow
By Jere Longman
New Orleans, Nov. 24 - After Hurricane Katrina floored this city, there was widespread hope that Mardi Gras would yank New Orleans back to its feet, helping to reclaim its spirit, its tourists and its economy.
The two weeks of Mardi Gras parades and parties have for decades been the city’s binding cord, bringing together all segments of society and thousands of outsiders for a mix of the sacred and the profane. But with planning for the February Carnival season now under way, Mardi Gras has been plagued by harsh financial realities, indecision, lowered expectations and the possibility that this year’s parade lineup could be absent some of its most popular krewes, or social clubs.
After the city announced plans for smaller and fewer Mardi Gras parades, dissatisfied krewes protested. Responding to the pressure, an advisory panel to Mayor C. Ray Nagin recommended Wednesday that an additional weekend be included in an abbreviated Mardi Gras parade season. The mayor is expected to agree to a pre-Lenten Carnival season of eight days, instead of the customary 12, culminating Feb. 28 on Mardi Gras Day (known in English as Fat Tuesday).
Yet while city officials and merchants are desperate for symbols of recovery and renewal, some residents are concerned about the message that will be projected when New Orleans holds a giant party in a hurricane’s catastrophic wake.
The coming Mardi Gras will celebrate 150 years of New Orleans’s parade tradition and, officials hope, provide a fiscal bloody mary for a hung-over economy that has suffered a shutdown of vital tourism and a layoff of half of the municipal work force.
Mardi Gras pumps $1 billion directly and indirectly into the local economy each year, the equivalent of several Super Bowls, city officials say.
While Carnival is intended to signal that New Orleans is open for business again, residents say they also need the celebration for themselves, to affirm the city’s essence - a piquant improvisation evident in the food, music, irreverence and self-indulgence.
"If not one tourist comes to town, Mardi Gras will still serve its initial purpose - entertaining local people," said Ed Muniz, founder and captain of the Krewe of Endymion, which holds one of the largest and most lavish Mardi Gras parades. "I think the locals need a celebration of life. The funeral has got to end, and the recovery has got to begin."
City and Mardi Gras officials say they are confident that the 2006 Carnival season can be of high quality. But several issues, mostly financial, remain unresolved.
At a tense planning meeting on Monday, Warren J. Riley, the acting police superintendent, said his department welcomed Mardi Gras, understood its social and financial importance and could provide adequate protection for paradegoers. But Superintendent Riley also said there was no money budgeted to pay overtime to New Orleans’s 1,442 police officers. All parades will have to follow one route, down St. Charles Avenue, and each day’s parading can last no longer than eight hours, he said.
"We do not have $5 for overtime," Superintendent Riley said, explaining that such costs ran as high as $300,000 to $400,000 on weekends during Mardi Gras.
The city reconsidered that position on Wednesday, saying it was seeking to raise an additional $1.5 million to extend Mardi Gras over two weekends and to pay for overtime on several days. Krewes have agreed to relax a prohibition on corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras, but say they will not allow corporate logos on floats.
Wednesday’s recommendation came after warnings by krewes that 10 parades might be canceled or moved. Mr. Muniz, the Endymion captain, said Monday that plans to trim Mardi Gras were sending a message to tourists "not to come." He threatened to move his parade to adjacent Jefferson Parish.
"I want to be in New Orleans, but if I’ve got to cut my parade in half, I’m not going to parade in New Orleans," said Mr. Muniz, whose krewe has 2,300 members.
On Wednesday, Mr. Muniz said he felt assured that overtime money would be raised to accommodate his parade in full.
The Krewe of Zulu, established in 1909 and representing a cross section of African-American society, will decide on Dec. 4 whether to participate in the coming Mardi Gras. Many of the krewe’s 500-plus members lived in the heavily damaged New Orleans East section and remain out of town and out of contact, said Andrew Pete Sanchez, the club’s chairman of Carnival activities.
"The feeling is mixed," Mr. Sanchez said. "Those who have returned home support participation. Those in opposition want to be able to come home first."
The decorated coconuts thrown by Zulu’s members are among the most distinctive and sought-after Mardi Gras trinkets. "There’s no Mardi Gras without Zulu," said Arthur Hardy, a Carnival historian and publisher of a definitive Mardi Gras guide. "They’re just too much part of the celebration."
Among other possible casualties are the Mardi Gras Indians, African-Americans who dress in elaborately feathered costumes in honor of Indians who helped runaway slaves. The Mardi Gras Indians celebrate with theatrical confrontations among "tribes," but some find themselves short of the material and thousands of dollars needed to make their costumes, said Alfred Doucette, big chief of the Flaming Arrows tribe.
"I don’t have no more supplies," Mr. Doucette said. "I need feathers and stuff."
His costumes require 10 pounds of ostrich feathers that cost about $5 apiece, Mr. Doucette, a singer, said, explaining that it had been difficult to find work as a musician since Hurricane Katrina struck in August.
Speaking of other chieftains, he said, "They would like to come, but they’re short on money this year."
If African-American participation is severely curtailed, Mardi Gras may run the risk of further delineating the class and racial divide exposed after the hurricane.
No one seriously considered canceling Mardi Gras in 2006. That would have been "a big blow to the psychology of New Orleanians," said Wayne Phillips, curator of costumes and textiles at the Louisiana State Museum here. "It is not just a frivolous celebration of costumes and beads, but an ingrained part of our psyche."
Still, locals acknowledge, the approaching Mardi Gras will require a delicate balance that validates a city’s spirit without minimizing the devastation and dislocation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Some said they worried that outsiders might receive conflicting signals from scenes of partying and drinking in a disaster area at a time when New Orleans has its hand out for billions in federal money.
"I have mixed feelings," said Barry Barth, a float builder. "I want my business to go on, but I don’t think the rest of the country understands Mardi Gras. I’m concerned they’re going to see it as a waste of money instead of New Orleans coming back. Or they may say, ‘These guys don’t look like they’re that bad off.’ "
City and Mardi Gras officials point to a study indicating that the 2000 Carnival season generated $55 million in tax revenue for local, parish and state governments, including $21 million for New Orleans itself, a nearly fivefold return on the $4.5 million spent on police, sanitation and emergency services.
New Orleans expects to have 22,000 hotel rooms available for tourists in February. Even with a scaled-down Mardi Gras, "we can’t afford not to do it," said Blaine Kern, the city’s largest float builder, who is known as Mr. Mardi Gras.
If only half of the usual tax revenue is generated, Mr. Kern said, "that’s still something."
The more satirical krewes are certain to skewer politicians who have been widely criticized for the government response to Hurricane Katrina. According to sketches of the Krewe of Muses parade, its television theme will lampoon Mayor Nagin, who faces re-election in February, as a star in "The Ex Files" and "Sixty Feet Under."
The canine Krewe of Barkus will celebrate animals rescued after the hurricane and is exploring the theme of "A Street Dog Named Desire." About 700 dogs are expected in the parade, along with a tabby cat, several ferrets and a goat. As usual, the queen will arrive by riverboat to be greeted by a king awaiting with Champagne and a gift, perhaps a rhinestone-encrusted paw-print brooch.
"All this will be forgotten when the first float rolls," Mr. Hardy, the Mardi Gras historian, said of the current crisis. "The story is not that New Orleans will have a smaller Mardi Gras, but that it can do Mardi Gras at all."