super fat

Music: ABC News I've returned from my tour of Louisiana, just in time to catch the coverage of super-tewsdee and to escape the fatter one. Various responsibilities, in-limbo writing projects, and the fear of driving back to Tejas with thousands of hung-over people led me to believe cutting my Mardi Gras festivities by a day was wise, if not less fun. I'll be officially in my mid-thirties here and a few, and so, you know, I have to blunt my fun to act my age.

Just Joshing. There's little blunting, just an older body with a slower metabolism to deal with, more responsibility than I've ever known (how the hell did I get so responsible?), and animals . . . .

It was a much-needed connection, this communing with Louisiana family. I miss times together talking, meals at the Chimes, the Live Oaks and the laughter. I miss peformance studies, my colleagues who "get it" and "get me"---not that my colleagues in Texas don't, just that my colleagues in Texas don't "join in" like those at LSU still do---I miss the hugs. I don't miss all the smoking (man, people smoke in Louisiana like they do in Europe!). But everything else I miss. I still say if I had a family I'd be in Louisiana.

Anyhoo, this was my fifth Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge. It was the first year that I've ever seen a woman bear her breasts. This is significant, and not just because I'm a huge fan of breasts. I mean, breasts are grand! Really. They stand for comfort, among many other delightful things. But you must understand that Mardi Gras is typically a family affair, baudy and raunchy to be sure, but always (mostly) toddler friendly. If a breast appeared, it was on a cartoon flamingo or attached to a tot's face. This year a woman across the street on a white-trash vehicle kept flashing her boob, which was weird. I mean, we were all staring at her (and her boyfriend, a shirtless, cut guy with tattoos . . . tattoos that said "trailer bound" . . . but more about the aesthetics of tattoos later), we all enjoyed looking. But still, boob-flashing (or dick dragging) is something that's done in New Orleans for certain parades, but . . . well, it was just odd to see in Baton Rouge. That sort of thing is coded as "tacky" and "touristy," not something those who really "get it" would do. Oh, yeah: and one of the Krewes was throwing out dildos and vibrators in lieu of beads---also something very different. These things signified a change, perhaps something post Katrina, and I think the evolution of permissibility in today's world.

Now, some of you will find this shocking (but those of you who know me will not): I was disappointed by the boobies at the BR Mardi Gras. It was as if some sort of line was crossed. This was also the FIRST year we didn't have a cooler full of fruit juice boxes for the kids. It was like things were growing up and becoming . . . I dunno. It's hard to explain. Something changed about the parade. Today I did another newspaper interview (I do these at least once a month), and the story was about "America's obsession with celebrity." I found myself talking a lot about surveillance and the new complacency, how much we've allowed the State's gaze to look us over. Certainly at some macro level there is a relationship between the New Boobs at BR Mardi Gras and walking through an airport---a willful invitation, even, to be gazed at.

Well, hmm. Sorry folks, nothing smart here to say, just thinking aloud. And associating. I just bought the new Psychic TV album (it's ok, grows on you, but still not the old Psychic TV I came to love) and on a google search learned that Lady Jaye, Genesis' wife and "other half," died last October. Given the very public body-mod experimentation they were going through, it seems related somehow. That somehow is a public melancholy, one intimately tied to the same libidinal energies that underwrite carnival.

Well, hmm. Transgression. Makes me tired. I think I'll watch the primaries and keep hoping Obama lands more states than are projected. Oh, yeah, and here's a gallery of my recent travels. The roll starts with my visit with Trish and Gary (and their new stray take-in puppy), Jim and Michelle, and then the parades.