
Filmed during her fairy-tale reign atop a giant bird at the Krewe of Muses parade last month, Theresa Andersson's "Hold On To Me," a track from her upcoming album Street Parade (due April 24 on Basin Street Records), makes its video debut.
Petter Ringbom directed the video, glimpsing a golden-glittering Andersson riding sculptor Jacques Dufforc and puppeteer Arthur Mintz's bird-float, surrounded by a 40-piece band of masked singers, drummers and horn players. (Grab the track and "What Comes Next" here.)

Three Olives Vodka, one of the first to launch the "sport-flavoring" craze, perhaps best represents this explosion. There are the weird B-team fruits "Watermelon," "Mango," and "Pomegranate." There are the ones for fifth-grade happy hour: "Root Beer," "Bubble" and "Cake." Then there are wild cards: "Rangtang," "Purple" (not to be confused with grape) and, most disturbingly, a flavor called simply "Dude."Three Olives parent French White Rock Distillers launched a brand entirely dedicated to recreational tongue abuse in 2009: Pinnacle Vodka, with its 34 flavors, offers "Atomic Hots," "Butterscotch," "Cookie Dough," and "Gummy." Absolut, the veteran of the flavored scene, has attempted to maintain its dignity by offering highbrow concoctions: "Ruby Red," "Orient Apple," "Berry Acai." And Smirnoff, whose website has apparently given itself over entirely to depicting raves, has "Fluffed Marshmallow," "Whipped Cream," and "Master of the Mix," which tastes like DJ-ing.
And somehow I don't see myself sidling up to a bar on a hot day and saying "Fluffed Marshmallow and grapefruit with a lime, please."
* If you somehow missed the king cake-flavored vodka craze: go here, here and here.
There are too many great quotes and vignettes to cite them all — you really have to read it all —Â but here's just two of them:
Some of the most common Mardi Gras injuries, according to Palmisano, come as a result of falling drunks, the aforementioned beads, and kids toppling off of ladders, where they've been perched for a better view. But that's never the extent of it. "We've already had one cardiac arrest today," he says. And over the weekend, after the Zulu ball, some guy "was having the big one, passed out in the driveway." He coded on the way to the hospital, but they got him back.It's sort of a given that folks don't have their own safety in mind during Mardi Gras. Just last Saturday, Smith tells me, some drunk climbed the back ladder of the command van, to surf on the moving vehicle. Now the ladder is boarded up, and that idiot is facing charges of criminal mischief and public drunkenness.
Palmisano's radio crackles. A kid just got hit in the head, it seems, with a coconut—"an infant," he clarifies—which sparks a debate over whether Zulu, the krewe known for tossing coconuts, will be able to keep its insurance. "They've got to get rid of them coconuts," Bourgeois insists.
The officers and I reenter the river of humanity, journeying further away from Iberville, and finally discover a woman beyond the moral-tightening effects of any color neon, vest or otherwise. She has the wild, standing-on-end hair of what I can only assume is recent electroshock, nipples for breasts, and a washcloth-sized loin cloth-slash-skirt. She's perched on a second-floor balcony and is grinding on a handrail. To her right, a middle-aged white woman with Harry Potter hair suctions her mouth to the exhibitionist's chest—I try to imagine these women in Walmart, bargain-hunting. The cops decide now would be a good time to turn me off Bourbon Street. We make a right on Toulouse, then another on Royal. A brass band is playing. From a balcony a handful of pranksters are dangling what appear to be furry puppet tails on fishing line. The crowd is hysterical to grab them. One house over, I see a wisp of a man materialize from behind translucent curtains. He looks pale, misunderstood. Next to me, a guy with long hair and a polo shirt glances up, sees the apparition, hollers to his buddies: "Does he look like a faggot or what?"
Read the whole thing. It's fascinating.

During the Krewe d'Etat parade, an unidentified group of people placed many stickers on floats and vehicles throughout the procession. More on that and photos here. The image on the stickers shows a red high heeled shoe stabbing the d'Etat skull figure in the eye.
Someone who claims to be a Muse posted something about the sticker campaign on the gawker blogs. Link to this "leftoverhill" person's feed here. She wrote: "Sister Muses- did we all help with Operation Sticker during Krewe D'etat? That was fun."
"I didn't expect this kind of reaction at all," said Amy Mueller, as her 11-year-old daughter Emily stood by her side covered in Mardi Gras ephemera. "It's amazing."
The Krewe of Muses den played host to a private party for Emily this morning, to make up for what happened to her during the Muses parade on Feb. 16.
Last night, Amy posted this item about a group of future millionaires, undoubtedly, drunkenly (and viciously) harassing Emily, who is autistic. According to the post, the group was blocking Emily's view of the parade, spilling beer on her and nearly burning her with a cigarette in the process. When Amy asked them to move, here's what happened:
The tall man with the bear hat on his head paid no mind to us. He didn’t move, either.“Hey, man! I need to move. This woman is bitching at me because her retard daughter can’t see the parade!” he shouted to a kid a few feet away.
"I got an email yesterday. It was so sad. We all started crying. Within 20 minutes, everybody wrote back," said Muses member Renee Rich. They began figuring out a plan to give back what contemporary dudesweet college culture had denied Emily (a nice time) and the rest of us (brief hope for our species). By 11 a.m. today, they did it.
Photos of Emily's party after the jump:
During the Krewe d'Etat parade Friday, Feb. 17, unidentified people attached a large number of stickers to parade floats and other vehicles in the procession. The stickers are roughly the size of a CD and feature the krewe's emblematic skull with a jester hat being stabbed in the eye with a red high-heeled shoe. There's a pool of blood behind the skull. Krewe members noticed the stickers at the end of the parade, but they were clearly visible on the WDSU TV broadcast during the parade. (The camera is set up at Gallier Hall.)
Stickers also were put on the velvet outfit of a riding krewe officer and utility vehicles in the parade. But the prank was more extensive than stickers. The same image was painted in color on the sidewalk in front of the Krewe d'Etat den before the morning of the parade, and it was painted in several places on Uptown streets near where the krewe's parade route begins.
A krewe spokesman described it as vandalism, and said the krewe would have to repaint some floats not scheduled to be repainted.
The sticker's shoe seems to suggest the Krewe of Muses, and there has been some sort of rivalry between the two krewes in recent years. In a response to an email seeking comment, Muses' captain said she had heard about the stickers but said she didn't know anything else about them.
Images and some talk about the stickers hit the twittersphere last Friday.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is always an amazing spectacle for costumes, floats and bands. But there are Carnival celebrations around the world, and The Atlantic has posted two amazing slideshows. There are some local photos (including one by frequent Gambit contributor Jonathan Bachman), but locals may want to check out the floats that roll down the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro - they are larger than most New Orleans homes - and have a look at some of the European Carnival celebrations (Venice, Lucerne, Nice, Croatia) and their unique features. If you were thinking about going to Crested Butte, Colo.'s Mardi Gras, one photo here should dissuade you. Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, however, are quite impressive (although maybe not the mudfest in Parati, Brazil).
First slideshow.
Second slideshow.
For those who can't get enough of local Mardi Gras, check out the long slideshow posted by local photographer and Creole String Bean guitarist Rick Olivier.
Yesterday we told you about Jackass star Bam Margera's detention by New Orleans police on Lundi Gras — which, Margera said, stemmed from his refusal to leave a hotel pool (he was fully clothed at the time).
Today we have the NOPD's side of things, which also spells out where the incident occurred: at Hotel Le Marais on Conti Street in the French Quarter. NOPD spokesperson Remi Braden explains in an email:
Bam Margera of “Jackass” was briefly detained at the Eight District station on Lundi Gras. He jumped into the hotel pool at the Hotel Le Marais fully-clothed. Hotel staff got one of our officers who was working a detail for the hotel, and the officer escorted Margera out of the pool area. Margera was then taken to the 8th District, where he was questioned about the incident, and a possible “disturbing the peace” charge. But soon a hotel manager came to the station and said the hotel did not wish to press charges.At this point, Margera was released with the manager. This is a closed case.
Margera had been in town for a fundraiser Sunday night at Republic, the "Boobies Bash":

Recently we hosted visitors from San Francisco, Buddhists, who live and share the wise teachings worldwide and yet visited the Gulf South for the first time just this month, perhaps doubting America has anything more to offer outside of our national parks, other than strip malls and generic housing developments. The beautiful people, inside and out, lived with us for a short time, and our 1835 Creole townhouse, a structure haunted by the ghosts of slaves, prostitutes, French nobility, and famous authors, near-floated with their presence.
In honor of our culture, they wavered from their vegetarianism at Sal’s Seafood on the West Bank (a running joke, since they returned from Jordan and the “real” West Bank the previous week), with prayers of thanks over every sea creature, as our devout guests learned to pick crabs and peel shrimp.
“You’re having a beer at 11:00 a.m.?” they asked, amused. I motioned to the salty crabs, shrugged my shoulders, and they joined me.

Louisiana — the people and the place — surprised our visitors. They promised to return, spend more time, and bring their daughter. As I dropped them at the airport and we hugged good-bye, they asked,
“Now we’re curious. Is there anything unique about Mississippi and Alabama?”