The Peasants are Revolting
by Jen Kuchta

Jen Kuchta, reporting from the Krewe du Vieux parade, reflects on the ironies of using irony as a coping mechanism.

In a warehouse in the Marigny beneath a giant penis is where it all begins: Krewe du Vieux. For several weekends before the parade, the seventeen sub-krewes gather in the warehouse which serves as both the stable for the floats as well as the studio for the building of said floats. But stable building ground it is not. These fuckers like to get drunk and high and strung out and huff paint and then use power tools and weld things – and all before noon.

By one, the building is cram packed with Deadheads, Bikers, Real Estate Moguls, Fags, Fag Hags, Lawyers, Doctors, Indian Chiefs, and Radiators fans . The air is thick with reefer, paint fumes, glue, sawdust, fur, mold, tobacco, sperm, oil, and various other chemicals too numerous and too toxic to mention. That’s when I’d bid the mob good day, as the krewes became too unsavory and the building too full of chemical clouds. I’d weave my way out of the floats and out into the sunlight, blinking and hacking silver spray paint out of my lungs.

I krewed up again this year for one reason and one reason only: I wanted something to take my mind off of this godforsaken motherfucker of a mess we’re stuck in. Getting to build stuff and using power tools were only lagniappe, and able crafts(wo)man am I in the simple fact that I am a card carrying dyke. I can drill and saw with the best of the motherfucking hetero boys – sometimes better. Baby, I was born with a hammer in my hand. But alas, the unknowing hetero boys of my krewe mistook me for the safer version of the fairer sex and were overly protective of their power tools and suspicious of mine. And, as such, I found myself spending hours stenciling and gluing, painting and making pretty, relegated to my appropriate female role. Perhaps I was misguided in my work-will-set-you-free mentality. Damn those German genes.

But when all was said and done and the Fat Lady had long done sung, the Mardi Gras gods had smiled upon this motley krewe. And because FEMA and Nagin and Bush and Blanco weren’t involved other than in caricature, the floats turned out A fucking OK. They were done on time. Paint and wood delivered. Foam board in place. Blue roofs not flapping in the breeze. No floats left for dead or calling for help from a remote corner of the warehouse. No shots fired over head. Nobody dead in any attics.

No, and to each and every one of you hoary hordes, you déshabillé masses that had a hand in building these bastards, whether your job was gluing glitter on a bagel, nailing Barbie to artificial turf, or just nailing Barbie on the artificial turf, or constructing a giant furry cunt, should I say cuntstructing, you did one mother of a job. À votre santé!

Now the parade itself was another story. But, ya pays ya money, ya takes ya chances.

We’ve all heard the tales or seen for ourselves some asshole on some float during Sparta or Tucks or Bards go fucking nuts and hurl one of those ten-pound strands of pearl beads or bag of beads like a missile at some fuck’s head. The bastard, who has surely done some stupid-ass fucking thing to deserve the assault, is nearly decapitated, and a momentary float vs. spectator Rumble on St. Charles Avenue ensues. The spectator and masked rider continue to hurl the beads and insults and threats back and forth until there are cops and crying babies and pretty girls with mascara streaks. “Why do you have to be such an asshole, Blaine?”

Parade with KDV from the Marigny across the Quarter to the State Palace Theater and you too will understand the origin of this ire. At the same time, remember that KDV krewe members are on foot. No safety of a float to secure us up and away from the unwashed masses. No potties tucked in dragon’s asses.

More importantly, legend holds that not that many years ago people actually descended upon the Marigny and French Quarter to watch KDV. They came to simply enjoy the floats and revel in the satire, going home and to bed with visions of sperms on sticks dancing in their heads. Now the KDV crowd has lost all sense of decorum. The original intent of the event has been long lost on the maddening crowd. They could care less about our brass bands and mule-drawn floats. The motherfuckers want LOOT! And if you don’t hand it over, it will be taken from you, come motherfucking hell or high water.

Sacré bleu! I’ve got a black belt and a 6th in the nation amateur boxing ranking behind me, but these fuckers are fierce. I know Mardi Gras brings out the worse in some people, and I know we were all raised up right to not make sweeping judgments about people or statements that apply to the whole, yadda yadda yadda, but Sweet Mother of God! Give me a motherfucking break! Maybe Big Bro up in Washington would be more willing to send a few more shillings this way if we weren’t so goddamned greedy all the time, so full of such a sense of fucking entitlement.

There KDV was parading its ass off in the freezing cold, having toiled long, stoned and drunken dangerous hours, to elevate and alleviate the moods of our New Orleans gone Sybil, trying to help to Renew and Bring Back and all that good shit, and all I did was wind up hatin’. Every other one of those parade-watchin’ motherfuckers looked at me like I owed them something, like if I didn’t pay up they were damn sure gonna take it. Looking at me like I was the last forty on the shelf. No jolly or even remotely grateful rendition of the standard, “Throw me something, mister.” Nope. Not fucking once. It was all: “GIVE ME A BEAD AND DON’T YOU FUCKING HOLD OUT ON ME!” And then if I wasn’t fast enough, they pawed and clawed, ripping at the shit hanging off my arms and around my own goddamned neck. Grabbing and snatching strands of beads like they were the last pair of Nikes on Canal. “YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU DIDN’T PONY UP, BITCH!” Makes a girl start feeling like a New Orleans Wal-Mart after a hurricane.

And so’s because I know what it’s like to be the ugly girl at the parade, know what it’s like not to be the pretty girl at the parade, not to be the pretty one on my pretty boyfriend’s shoulders, showing off my pretty, perky, tits, I gave beads to the fat and the old and the Mexican and the decrepit. Fuck the haut monde, the beau monde. I acted crazy. I chucked beads at balconies. I told a girl who jumped out in front of me that I didn’t give a fuck if her name was Katrina because I wasn’t giving her or her blonde best friend dick! No how, no way.

So, c’est levee. C’est la guerre. Let the motherfuckers eat cake. Anyone know where I can get a six-pack of that silver paint?
I can drill and saw

Jen Kuchta lives, writes, and holds property in New Orleans, 12th Ward, UPT.

photos courtesy NOLAFugees.com staff.