Literally the weekend before Mardi Gras, I made last minute plans to hit the French Quarter. I don’t remember the exact sequence of events that brought it about, but I think I was sitting at my computer and I happened to read something about Mardi Gras. I thought to myself that the hotels must be packed beyond all reason, and every flight overbooked, so just on a lark I went to Expedia to see what rooms were going for.

The answer: There was plenty of space at the hotels in the Quarter, and they didn’t appear to have jacked up the price at all! Whoa! I was not expecting that. Regular readers know that I am a huge fan of the French Quarter and I have been feeling mildly guilty about not visiting since Katrina. Now the wheels were turning. What about flights?

As expected a lot of the more timely flights were well out of my price range for what would have to be a quick two night trip. But U.S. Airways had an indirect roundtrip that when coupled with two nights at my old friend, the French Quarter Ritz-Carlton, came with a tidy little discount. I pulled the trigger: on Saturday, I made arrangements to fly out Monday and fly back on Wednesday, giving me both Lundi Gras (Fat Monday) and Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) on Bourbon Street. I am a total wild man!

Let me state up front that I didn’t bother to investigate any of the supposed disaster areas. Partly, because I had such a short time, and partly because I am so cold-hearted. Really, I’m sad and all for those who are discomfited and haven’t managed to sort themselves out after all this time, but my main concern is the Vieux Carre. I am happy to report that the French Quarter is just doing just dandy. Everything was open and up and running. Also, I saw no leftover destruction on the trip from the airport into town. In fact, the parts of the city I passed through looked a lot cleaner than they used to.

Canal Street was closed for the parades. The Ritz-Carlton is on Canal St., but the other side of it from the airport. So my cabbie dropped me off three blocks from the hotel. He could have dropped me off one block away, but instead he dropped me off three blocks away. You see the cab rate from the airport to the French Quarter is fixed. This is good because there is no opportunity for a scumbag cabbie to take you the long way around the city. On the other hand, there is no incentive for the guy to get you as close as he can to your destination. With Canal Street closed, I knew he couldn’t get me to the door, but I figured he could make it across the street or within a block. Instead he pulled over, telling me that the hotel was just around the corner and took off. Unfortunately, though I knew I was in the general vicinity, I didn’t know he was lying and that it was three blocks away and I had to hoof it with my bag. What a dick.

Anyway, the French Quarter was thick with throngs on Canal Street gawking at the parade and howling for beads and sloshed revelers trolling up and down Bourbon Street looking to cross a line or two. I dropped my bags in the room (the Ritz, which was closed for a long while after Katrina, is fully-renovated and better than ever) and went off in search of some dinner. K-Pauls was my first choice but it was closed up for some reason (not damage). I tried Emeril’s NOLA and it was jammed full. I looked in at Redfish Grill; packed to the gills. Sadly, it was pretty clear I was not going to get into any of my faves. I settled for Landry’s, then went for a stroll down Bourbon Street.

This was only Monday night, mind you: Lundi Gras. Bourbon Street was as hoppin’ as I have ever seen it. The balconies were packed. Folks were howling for beads. There were not all that many women flashing because the current trend appears to be for them to walk around topless with only body paint as a cover. The bars were nearly all full; there were no shills outside the strip clubs, indicating that they are also full. Most everyplace was packed with the usual crowd of loud drunken partiers. I did manage to find a spot -- White’s, I think; they all blend together after a while -- that had an open bar stool and a decent zydeco band, but I must say the crowd was not the genial, gregarious crowd I have found on previous visits. It didn’t seem like anyone was really mingling or socializing, it was as if everyone was just racing to party as hard as they could for the sake of partying as hard as they could.

Another thing: there were cops everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. Supposedly the city is short on cops, and they did appear to have recruited some state troopers to assist, but you couldn’t go more than a minute or two without seeing a badge. They were wandering the crowd; they were stationed on horseback at the intersections; their cars were blocking off the streets; they even had these cranes with observation booths hovering over the crowd both on both Bourbon Street and Canal Street. Impressive as hell. Possibly as a result of the overwhelming display of manpower, I did not see one bit of hostility from the crowd the whole time.

Another thing about these cops is they are obviously well schooled at keeping a firm grip on things an not letting them get out of hand, as opposed waiting for trouble to occur and cleaning up the mess afterwards. When someone was obviously on the verge of some sort of misbehavior they would pull him off to the side of the street and really get up in his face. It was always 2 on 1 or 3 on 1. There were no smiles, no “excuse me sir”s, no hearing of explanations. They just made it quite clear that they were not fooling around and that if they saw a repetition of that behavior there would be no mercy. Then they’d turn the guy loose.

Across both Monday and Tuesday, I saw no fights. I saw a couple people get “talked to” as described above. I saw them write a ticket to what appeared to be an underage drinker. And I saw them warn a particularly buxom bimbo with a painted-on bikini top that she shouldn’t try to walk through the crowded areas like that. That’s it. I’m sure there we plenty of incidents that I didn’t see (actually, subsequent research suggests there were about 500 arrests for variations of public drunkenness charges -- not bad), but I was in the belly of the beast and felt pretty safe.

Fat Tuesday -- my one full day in town -- started off with one of my personal French Quarter traditions, a muffaletta at Café Maspero. Café Maspero is a kind of working class joint right down near the river on Decatur Street. You can always recognize the place because there is a lunch line out the door, but like a seasoned vet I cut in front of everyone and snagged a place at the counter. Big ass sandwiches of all sorts including the local fave the muffaletta: ham, salami, prosciutto, mozzarella and an ultra tasty olive based spread stacked on Italian bread. Tasty as all get out and probably the worst possible thing you can eat, but hey, it’s Fat Tuesday, right?

Turning away from the madness for a brief while, I trolled through the French Market (still there and still nothing all that special) then down by Café Du Monde (packed with beignet snarfers and a scrappy little jazz band playing out front) then along the Riverwalk to the edge of the Central Business District. The Riverwalk was comparatively deserted; the riverboat tours were not running, the Shops at Canal Place (the big modern shopping mall) were empty. I asked the bartender at the Ritz about this later in the day and she said that people forget that Mardi Gras is like an official holiday around the city. Many businesses that aren’t directly in the path of the revelry simply close for a day or two.

Harrah’s wasn’t closed; the blackjack tables were full and there was poker and roulette and all the casino trappings just as before. I am quite proud of myself for not sitting down and spending half my trip gambling.

By now it was mid-afternoon so I walked back up Canal Street pausing now and then to catch some beads flung like chain-link ninja stars from the floats. It’s amazing some child doesn’t get lacerated by these things. Mardi Gars: it’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

By the time I reached the heart of the Quarter it was already as busy as a normal Saturday night. At the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine a circular stage was set up and some event or other was about to occur and the crowd around it was so tightly packed that it took me a solid five minutes to squeeze my way across the intersection. It was a portent of things to come.

The Quarter was awash in costumed folks. Every sort of costume you could imagine. Standard-issue costume shop superheroes. Kings and queens. Pimps and hos. Some nasty, some nice. You name it they were wearing it. Everyone was promenading up and down Royal and Bourbon Streets. Also parading about, as a counterpoint, were evangelical Christian groups with bullhorns, vehemently explaining why everyone except them was going to Hell.

Here's a slew of pics from various points in my visit. My camera is so pathetic at night pictures that even Photoshop can't help, but I think you'll get the feeling. Also, look around at the surroundings and the signage in the pics, it can really give you a feel for the place. (Apologies for not knowing the krewe names.)

Packed balconies
More packed balconies
Bead tossers
Bead reachers
Total bead hound
Bead whores vs. God
A typical view in the Quarter
A well dressed VW
Holysheet, it's Capt. America
Freaky guys who don't like Republicans
Is one of these guys El Moolah?
An odd couple
A krewe queen
A blonde god krewe
Zulu maids
Flirty girls
That's one, ahem, healthy girl (couldn't resist, sorry)
A balcony during the day
Fireworks down by the river

Overall, the afternoon crowd seemed full of good timers; the sorts of people who you might expect to see on reality TV: a healthy serving of eccentricity, a big dollop of attention neediness, a generally positive disposition towards others, and the ability to laugh at themselves. I did a small amount of bar hopping (maybe two bars), mostly where live music caught my ear, which is something I almost never do during daylight hours. All in all, quite a spectacle, and the most pleasant moment of the trip.

After a brief respite (a power nap) back at the Ritz, I headed out one last time before I was to fly out the next day. It was an even more arduous search for a good dinner venue. This night many of the better restaurants had just closed down figuring -- rightly -- that most folks wouldn’t brave barricaded streets and the chaotic crowd for a nice night out. I almost had to settle for Bubba Gump, but finally landed at a fairly generic brewhouse on Decatur -- nothing special.

Afterwards I walked a few blocks of Bourbon Street. This was the moment: actual Mardi Gras on actual Bourbon Street. Actually it was more of a slither than a walk. It was packed chock full from side-to-side for about six straight blocks. I mean shoulder-to-shoulder packed. Making forward motion amounted to weaving through extremely tight little openings between hordes of people and hoping your pocket didn’t get picked in the process. When you encountered places where beads were being flung from balconies on both sides of the street, it was like getting stuck dead stopped in traffic -- no telling how long it would be until you could move again.

And it’s not like you could slide off the street and into a bar for a break; there was not an empty spot anywhere. The only places with any space were the souvenir shops, which I ended up ducking into now and then and just to stand back in awe of the crowd. It took me close to 45 minutes just get down Bourbon Street.

And that’s all I did, cover the ground. This was not the Bourbon Street I remembered. It was too dense and too intense. It was the same crowd as the previous night only more so. Everyone with a very concentrated sense of being a party manic. Nobody seemed easy going and social-like; everyone was trying to show off how crazy they were like it was sophomore-year spring break. The Bourbon Street I know is about half as crowded with everybody being friendly and social and following the music and just happy to be down in the Quarter without feeling the need to score hedonism points. Plus, you can actually get a chance to eat at the great restaurants.

I contemplated making another run through or possibly heading back down to Decatur to find a less insane spot, but why? The fact is I didn’t like it. It was not what I was expecting at all, so why bother? There I said it: I didn’t really like Mardi Gras. It was certainly a spectacle and was something to check off on the list of things to do before you die but -- and maybe I’m just too old now -- it was not to my taste.

Instead, at barely 11 pm, I headed back to the Ritz, snagged a nightcap in the ever-so-comfortable lounge with the big comfy chairs and the piano player. Jotted down some notes for this article and went to bed a little after midnight. Yep, I’m a wild man.

In my blog commentary I have half-jokingly said that my only concern about New Orleans was that they keep a path open from the airport to the French Quarter. Well they have certainly done that. Despite my disappointment with Mardi Gras, it was easy to see the Quarter is still the Quarter, and I absolutely will get back there again, but I’ll avoid special events like Fat Tuesday and the Jazzfest. The Quarter is at its best when the crowd has nothing to prove to itself.

As far as the city of New Orleans goes, I can’t say I developed any particular affection for it. The residents have built up a solid victim’s mentality. Even eighteen months on they were wearing t-shirts with anti FEMA and George Bush slogans. The net effect is that they just don’t feel responsible for making things better, they’re happy to have an excuse for their fate and just settle in to let things go on as before. Over Mardi Gras weekend there were yet more murders (not in the Quarter; in the Mid-City area and in Bywater) as the city falls back into its old habits. They had a great chance to step up and change the city and rebuild it into something positive, but they seem just fine with letting it grow back into the crime and corruption ridden hole it was before Katrina. Ah well, that’s probably how it’s been for centuries.

The truth is, we never needed to worry about New Orleans. Whether it’s corrupt politics or Cajun music, whether it’s murders in the street or muffalettas by the river; nothing can change the Crescent City. For better or worse.