Return of the Rabble Rouser. Part one.

I’ve been too busy living life the past 6 months to actually write about it. I know, I know. I’m sorry. For those of you who started reading my blog, clinging to vain hopes that it would be ridiculous, full of sass and most importantly, full of rabble rousing, I apologize.  The boring  stops here.

I believe there are two ways to experience life. You can simply exist in it or you can live it. I always try to do the latter. And, I hope you do too.

Rabble Rouse away.

Let’s talk about the time I ran away from Austin on my 24^th birthday with my two friends in a yellow 2001 VW Beetle and we made it rain (dollar bills) on Bourbon Street.

(Sorry Mom. Sorry Dad. Sorry potential future career as a public figure…)

I hate birthdays, I hate expectation and most of all, I hate time. Time, will always be an all controlling factor that will eventually have its way with me. So, I ran away. I ran away from the idea of time, my new found friends, expectation of another year passing and a new city’s familiarity. We drove 10 hours through East Texas highway and swamp and arrived in New Orleans. We set our belongings down at the hostel and pulled a 20 hour day.

 I didn’t know my birthday would coincide with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I didn’t know this was the Pre-College Mardi Gras; Mardi Gras for those tourist with both change and time to spare, Mardi Gras for a crowd in their mid30’s to late 60’s. A Mardi Gras for party animals that crawled out of America’s woodwork and did a mass Exodus to NOLA.

Fastforward 4 hours later, to public-drinking-sipping cheap beer waiting for a night parade.

My friends and I have an uncanny ability to make friends easily. Along the stretch of hot downtown street, waiting for the parade, we meet a couple from D.C. An unmarried, happy couple. The man is clearly drunk- wasted really, the woman works for the post office and is obviously the stable, rational one in the relationship. They buy us beer, ask us about our lives and in return, we ask about theirs. A simple of exchange of beverages and stories, except it seems like so much more. 

Let me tell you something- telling people you teach always ends well. Telling people you work for a nonprofit ends even better. They offer more beer and begin to tell us about both of their bitter divorces. They tell us about how they refuse to marry, and how they come to NOLA during Mardi Gras every year.  I sip on my bud light in the street. My friends and I converse about life, love and making a living.  The conversation is interrupted by a man who, at first, I mistake for Rick Ross type. Stop. I know you’re sensitive about race, but he had the body type, the face, and the unique haircut.

Rick tells us he is an author. He points to his hot girlfriend named Stacy. He pulls out a wad of Benjamin’s. He tells us how he won all this at the casino down the road, as he points. He tells us how he went to jail.  He tells us how he writes about his experiences on the street and how his girlfriend is a poet. He slaps his girlfriend on the ass and asks us how old we think she is.  The parade is going on the background, and I’m drunk. (Sorry Mom. Sorry Dad. Sorry potential future career as a public figure…) I’m afraid to answer. Turns out it is her birthday. She’s 40, but looks hardly 32. As my friend would say, “Black don’t crack, sorry you white women are screwed.”

There are more floats, more color, more noise.  But, I am fascinated by the unmarried white couple from the east coast, the black couple from New Jersey, the wad of 100 bills and the throwing of shiny beads by people dressed in voodoo costumes. In a way, I feel like a bystander to a crazy mishmash of people, stories, lives and somewhat exploited culture and tradition.

The parade ends, and Rick invites us to go to Bourbon Street with him. So we do. At this point, I realize I am the only white person between 6 people and we are buying drinks at clubs like I’ve never been too.  There are women in bras, women in booty shorts and I feel like I’m in a rap video as soon as there is an ass shaking contest on stage. Rick buys more drinks for us. 

And we dance. We dance. And we dance. I go to the bathroom where a nice black women sitting by the sink offers me soap and a hand towel in exchange for a tip. I’m in the South. Holy Shit, I am in the South.

I go back out to dance.  I look up and out of nowhere I see dollar bills fluttering their way down from the balcony onto the dance floor like oversized, overpriced confetti.

Who is making it rain? Mr. Author-Rick Ross-Baus. He is standing on the balcony pushing the money out of his hand with a swift motion; he watches the wave of green ripple its way down. I stand back and watch the flurry of people bend over to pick up the cash and stuff it into their pockets like animals.

Rabble Rousing.