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Toona the Cat posted:Got my first no-show after I dragged rear end out to nowhere for a sentencing hearing. Awesome. I thought you worked at a bank?
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Feb 25, 2020 18:19
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I do. I took comp time to handle this, hence the frustration.
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Feb 25, 2020 18:28
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I'm an academic law librarian, so a JD is basically the terminal degree in my field. I'm applying to enter my school's evening program. I wouldn't be considering law school if it wasn't for my school's full tuition benefit, and since my wife and I can swing the taxes on the tuition fairly easily, it seemed like the next step in my career. I'm a little torn on what I want to do on the other end of the program. The path of least resistance, of course, would be to continue with my library career, and probably top out as an assistant director for research services or something like that. But I can't deny that I'm interested in going into the highly non-remunerative world of public interest law in my major metropolitan area. Just for the sake of knowing my options, is it at all a thing to do pro-bono work even if you're non-practicing in your primary career?
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Feb 25, 2020 18:50
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Flip Yr Wig posted:I'm an academic law librarian, so a JD is basically the terminal degree in my field. I'm applying to enter my school's evening program. I wouldn't be considering law school if it wasn't for my school's full tuition benefit, and since my wife and I can swing the taxes on the tuition fairly easily, it seemed like the next step in my career. I'm a little torn on what I want to do on the other end of the program. The path of least resistance, of course, would be to continue with my library career, and probably top out as an assistant director for research services or something like that. But I can't deny that I'm interested in going into the highly non-remunerative world of public interest law in my major metropolitan area. Just for the sake of knowing my options, is it at all a thing to do pro-bono work even if you're non-practicing in your primary career? You certainly could, just be warned that if you're jumping into a new field of law and doing stuff pro bono you still open yourself up to malpractice suits if you don't know what you're doing. There must be a legal services/public service law firm or org in your city that would be happy to have part-time help so you can do volunteer work and still form a basis of knowledge.
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Feb 25, 2020 19:05
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Pook Good Mook posted:You certainly could, just be warned that if you're jumping into a new field of law and doing stuff pro bono you still open yourself up to malpractice suits if you don't know what you're doing. That also sounds like what I'm considering. My work hours are relatively flexible, and I would imagine those orgs would need me to fit into their schedule. After four years of working full time while going to school, I'll probably have my insane time management skills down.
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Feb 25, 2020 19:10
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Flip Yr Wig posted:I'm an academic law librarian, so a JD is basically the terminal degree in my field. I'm applying to enter my school's evening program. I wouldn't be considering law school if it wasn't for my school's full tuition benefit, and since my wife and I can swing the taxes on the tuition fairly easily, it seemed like the next step in my career. I'm a little torn on what I want to do on the other end of the program. The path of least resistance, of course, would be to continue with my library career, and probably top out as an assistant director for research services or something like that. But I can't deny that I'm interested in going into the highly non-remunerative world of public interest law in my major metropolitan area. Just for the sake of knowing my options, is it at all a thing to do pro-bono work even if you're non-practicing in your primary career? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE
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Feb 25, 2020 19:10
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But seriously. That's awesome, if you can go into it with no financial risk and actually do something like follow your conscience that actually does sound about as ideal as it can get. You know, other than being a Yuns.
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Feb 25, 2020 19:11
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Yeah, I've been telling myself this for the many years this has been an option, but I'm at the point where I either do it now before the next major round of life commitments, or never do it. I'm also at the point in my life where I've mostly weaned myself off the party-based night life, so it won't be the biggest system shock. Because of my current career I'm not screwed if I don't claw my way up the big law ladder, and I probably can't get promoted here without a JD anyway. Related question: if I stick around my current job for a year or two after graduation, would that make it much harder to get employed by an org later on? I plan on volunteering somewhere in the meanwhile, so that will probably make the resume look better.
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Feb 25, 2020 19:20
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Flip Yr Wig posted:That also sounds like what I'm considering. My work hours are relatively flexible, and I would imagine those orgs would need me to fit into their schedule. After four years of working full time while going to school, I'll probably have my insane time management skills down. I've never heard of a legal services org that has enough staff where someone with a JD helping out when they can for free wouldn't be welcome. Sounds like you've got a good thing going.
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Feb 25, 2020 20:00
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Flip Yr Wig posted:Related question: if I stick around my current job for a year or two after graduation, would that make it much harder to get employed by an org later on? I plan on volunteering somewhere in the meanwhile, so that will probably make the resume look better. Yes. If you go to law school and then spend time not working as a lawyer, it will make it harder to get a job as a lawyer than if you went straight out. I think staying in your librarian job sounds like a way better gig than practicing, though, and if it's free to get a law degree and the degree can help you get a raise, it's worth doing. Just know that leaving the librarian job is a terrible, horrific idea. Unless librarians top out at like $30k or something.
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Feb 25, 2020 20:09
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Don't you typically need a Masters in library sciences to even become a librarian at a law school's law library? Genuinely curious, what is that world like? What's the job search like? What's the pay (generally)?
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Feb 25, 2020 20:55
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Pook Good Mook posted:Don't you typically need a Masters in library sciences to even become a librarian at a law school's law library? Yeah, an MLIS or equivalent (every library school has its own branding for the degree) is required for a "librarian" position, but to be honest, it's pure credentialism. Everything actually relevant to my job, including the basic structure of legal bibliography, I learned on the job. The education itself is most politely described as non-taxing. I'm in for a much bigger world of hurt this time around. I actually can't speak too much about the job search, because I've been at the same place since I was a student worker. I got a full-time entry level position when someone vacated it the same time I graduated, and I got the librarian position because my boss retired the same time I got an MLIS. I am extremely atypical in this respect, because the entire time I was getting my degree they were basically telling us how scary the job market was; nobody ever retires from a library until they roll out a new system that the old timers don't want to learn. I can't blame them for sticking around because it is a very cushy environment. I do a bit of on-desk reference, though we're largely phasing that out in favor of getting called up to the desk when needed. Students never ask us for advice. I probably spend more time helping pro ses find motion forms than I do anything with students at the desk beyond pointing them in the direction of the printers. Of course there's also basic 1L research instruction in their writing program that we deliver, but that's something of a chaotic mess because we can never coordinate properly with the faculty. I have my own course on legal practice sfotware that I developed myself, but that's only because I'm the one who suggested that we need to teach it. You can imagine the problems that come from someone teaching that kind of class who has only set foot inside a law firm for librarian conferences. The part of my job that I actually really like is research assistance for the clinical attorneys, faculty, & students. That's where what I do actually means something in terms of helping litigants, and requires me to actually understand the authorities in ways I never had to before. It's that work that pushed me to want to at least get a JD. We also help faculty with their research when they think of something they want to offload onto us, but we have way fewer tenure track faculty these days than we used to, so they don't have a whole lot of incentive to publish right now. For whatever psychological reason I never looked into the pay scale for the assistant director spots, but I think my position scale starts out around 50K, and on paper tops out around 80K, but it will never get there. Something tells me your advice will universally be "never, ever leave that." Flip Yr Wig fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 25, 2020 21:19
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Toona the Cat posted:Got my first no-show after I dragged rear end out to nowhere for a sentencing hearing. Awesome. Wait, your clients show up? Jealous.
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Feb 25, 2020 21:37
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Flip Yr Wig posted:
You could make more, but quality of life will almost surely decrease. But that's assuming a lot. Is this a public university? Are you protected? Is there a pension? Also, as you say, a JD would be a terminal degree. Don't poo-poo a possibility of transferring out to a better paying institution. It's not like there are thousands of people with your experience/qualifications bouncing around when a 96 year old librarian retires from a law school. I'd echo that getting the degree for free is only going to cost your time and effort as long as you can keep working your job.
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Feb 25, 2020 21:40
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Pook Good Mook posted:I'd echo that getting the degree for free is only going to cost your time and effort as long as you can keep working your job. Well, that and being taxed on most of the price of tuition as income, which definitely isn't nothing, but we've already been living with my wife using my tuition benefit under the same terms, so it's manageable and won't mean taking on debt.
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Feb 25, 2020 21:51
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Do some research on law degree salaries. There's tons out there on the bimodal distribution at graduation (spoiler, you have poor odds of making more than you're currently making). I don't know what those statistics look like in 20-30 years (it probably smooths out a bit and has some weird tails), but the job security is way worse than being a librarian. Mostly I think if working doesn't affect your ability to perform your current job and it's entirely free (not dependent on GPA), then sure, go for it, but think long and hard before you consider dropping the job for an actual lawyer job. Unless you really need better pay.
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Feb 25, 2020 21:53
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Arcturas posted:bimodal distribution read this at first as bimbo distribution and lost all interest when i realized my error
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Feb 25, 2020 21:55
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Arcturas posted:Do some research on law degree salaries. There's tons out there on the bimodal distribution at graduation (spoiler, you have poor odds of making more than you're currently making). I don't know what those statistics look like in 20-30 years (it probably smooths out a bit and has some weird tails), but the job security is way worse than being a librarian. Mostly I think if working doesn't affect your ability to perform your current job and it's entirely free (not dependent on GPA), then sure, go for it, but think long and hard before you consider dropping the job for an actual lawyer job. Unless you really need better pay. I'm definitely not looking into getting into the really remunerative legal fields. I couldn't really stomach drafting pharmaceutical patents or cell phone mergers or whatever, and I'm not cut out for the lifestyle either. I think at this point I'm looking at either taking a pay cut to work at a legal services org, or volunteering at one on the side while getting the opportunity to teach advanced legal research as an actually credited course.
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Feb 25, 2020 22:00
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Arcturas posted:Yes. If you go to law school and then spend time not working as a lawyer, it will make it harder to get a job as a lawyer than if you went straight out. I think staying in your librarian job sounds like a way better gig than practicing, though, and if it's free to get a law degree and the degree can help you get a raise, it's worth doing. Just know that leaving the librarian job is a terrible, horrific idea. That said, I think a JD would really help (in terms of promotions and pay) at a law school library. I'd not quit that job to be a lawyer imho.
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Feb 25, 2020 22:21
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Flip Yr Wig posted:I'm definitely not looking into getting into the really remunerative legal fields. I couldn't really stomach drafting pharmaceutical patents or cell phone mergers or whatever, and I'm not cut out for the lifestyle either. I think at this point I'm looking at either taking a pay cut to work at a legal services org, or volunteering at one on the side while getting the opportunity to teach advanced legal research as an actually credited course. Oh jesus, don't take a pay cut from being a librarian to become a public interest lawyer. Those folks are miserable and have all the stress of regular legal work plus the stress of being underpaid. Being a librarian and volunteering at clinics makes way more sense.
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Feb 25, 2020 22:38
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Arcturas posted:Oh jesus, don't take a pay cut from being a librarian to become a public interest lawyer. Those folks are miserable and have all the stress of regular legal work plus the stress of being underpaid. Being a librarian and volunteering at clinics makes way more sense. This is certainly looking like the most sensible path going forward. A lot of my thinking right now comes down to the fact that I've basically topped out in my current career unless I get a JD, so that's sufficient motivation for me to go ahead with it. At the same time, I really won't be doing anything with it in the library, because as with the MLIS, degrees in libraries are pure credentialism. I would like to get some social utility out of being a lawyer who didn't go into debt for it, so I'm looking for the best way I can do that.
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Feb 25, 2020 23:01
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Toona the Cat posted:I do. I took comp time to handle this, hence the frustration. Being a lawyer on your time off from your non lawyer job is 
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Feb 25, 2020 23:41
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I was in a vaguely similar situation when I started my evening program. I went for free and I had identified 3 or 4 paths that the JD would help with, including advancing in my job at the time. It's definitely worth doing for free if you are comfortable with the time commitment. My other thoughts are that 4 years is a long time and opportunities may pop up that you weren't expecting. I ended up in Biglaw for example, which was not on my radar at all but has worked out great. Since you already have a good job, a lot of the pressure is off, unlike your classmates. Still, keep motivated during the 4 years on the job side and seek out those legal aid organizations you want to work with, continue to make connections in your current library field, and even maybe consider interning in a firm to get the experience. If your job is flexible and would let you take a leave, maybe even try to land a Biglaw summer associate spot just for the money (and "experience" lol). Basically, there are a surprising number of doors that are only open to students and, even if you already have a solid job/plan, they're worth checking out just to see what happens and to make connections you might not have been expecting.
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Feb 26, 2020 18:38
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Toona the Cat posted:I do. I took comp time to handle this, hence the frustration. added to toonadecisions.txt
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Feb 26, 2020 20:18
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Soothing Vapors posted:added to toonadecisions.txt In my fanfic, PTO time to do side lawyer work leads to a bar complaint.
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Feb 26, 2020 20:25
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Look Sir Droids posted:In my fanfic, PTO time to do side lawyer work leads to a bar complaint. ...But the State bar ethics board investigating attorney is your old law school study partner?
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Feb 26, 2020 20:46
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joat mon posted:...But the State bar ethics board investigating attorney is your old law school study partner? ... and it turns out she kept her pregnancy a secret and gave birth to a child who would one day...
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Feb 26, 2020 21:21
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Nice piece of fish posted:... and it turns out she kept her pregnancy a secret and gave birth to a child who would one day... ...Track down Toona's knuckleheaded relative who's done a runner to...
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Feb 26, 2020 21:37
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nm posted:I don't know if working as a law librarian would be as harmful as other jobs. I would much rather be a law librarian than a lawyer. All the respect and none of the stress. That said, got my first jury trial not guilty verdict last Friday, which was pretty drat cool. Prosecutor decided to try my guy in absentia and forgot that meant he had no way to ID him. Whoops.
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Feb 26, 2020 21:55
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I would much rather be a law librarian than a lawyer. All the respect and none of the stress. ahahahahahahahahahahaha "and can you identify the person who attacked you in this courtroom?!?!?!" "...no?" "oops"
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Feb 26, 2020 21:57
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That said, got my first jury trial not guilty verdict last Friday, which was pretty drat cool. Prosecutor decided to try my guy in absentia and forgot that meant he had no way to ID him. Whoops. That is loving magical.
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Feb 26, 2020 22:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I would much rather be a law librarian than a lawyer. All the respect and none of the stress. loving fantastic.
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Feb 26, 2020 22:22
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evilweasel posted:ahahahahahahahahahahaha Oh there were layers We gave a really generic opening because we didnt want to tip off the prosecutor to the ID issue. There was body cam footage but the prosecutor didn't play it because he hadn't watched it because he was just thinking about the straight elements of the offense The officer testified but he didnt have a computer in his car so he'd just radioed in and never saw an photo ID to confirm identity Cross was just "officer, people give you fake names sometimes, right?" Funny thing is, it was a veteran prosecutor with like 40 years practicing experience. He said he'd never lost a TIA before.
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Feb 26, 2020 22:33
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That's incredible. Why was your dude absent? Bonus if it's because he was in prison out of state.
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Feb 26, 2020 22:42
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Tokelau All Star posted:That's incredible. Why was your dude absent? Bonus if it's because he was in prison out of state. No idea. Maybe because it was the wrong guy! Anything's possible! Funny thing is, there was a bench warrant out. They could've just waited. But no, if there's out of state incarceration we get things continued or dismissed. Week before last I got a shoplifting case dismissed because my client turned up doing a fifteen year stint in federal. Funny thing was the store didnt want it dismissed, they wanted the thirty day charge continued for fifteen years or to have federal marshals go get the guy and bring him here for a 30 day shoplifting charge. Judge had to explain those weren't options. Edit: theoretically sometimes can do a plea in absentia but those are deprecated Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Feb 26, 2020 |
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Feb 26, 2020 22:52
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So why's nobody posting? Did you all die from coronavirus already? I'm stressing about doing a lecture at a collegial government zoning agency about some weird poo poo to do with something that doesn't really have an english translation but can be approximated to "regulatory urban land consolidation by zoning". But I'm procrastinating hard.
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Feb 28, 2020 10:32
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https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1233368605024235521?s=21
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Feb 28, 2020 13:44
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I keep getting cases with the big fancy family law partners and each one has gone "Hey, you're pretty good and we keep seeing you on cases, want to come work here?" No. No I do not.
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Feb 28, 2020 15:28
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Nice piece of fish posted:So why's nobody posting? Did you all die from coronavirus already? As a compulsive nail-biter and hair-plucker and skin-picker, I'm counting on it. Winning attorney's fees is nice though.
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Feb 28, 2020 18:45
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I haven’t been posting because I’ve been very busy. Mardi Gras is over and my liver needs a break. Everyone but my dog has left the house for a few days and I have some time on my hands. So here’s a huge post about riding in a New Orleans Mardi Gras Krewe! NSFW poo poo incoming and be forewarned that nothing about Mardi Gras is polite or politically correct or woke. It’s one of those things that some people find totally tasteless and excessive which, basically they’re right. That’s kind of the point of Carnival though, so gently caress you.  Brief history, the Krewes (pronounced “crews”) are the parading groups that organize and put on their parades during carnival season in New Orleans. Most people have at least an awareness of MG, but basically it stems from the concept of lent, beginning on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday in christian religions. Lent is the 40 day period Jesus walked around the desert eating mescaline or whatever, which I guess people have turned into a period of penitence. I don’t really care, but this dumb religious crap mixed with awesome pagan feasting traditions brought us Carnival. Carnival is a time of feasting, drinking, shirking responsibility, making fun of your boss and authority and everything else, and generally acting like an idiot before you get all religious and stop eating meat—but seafood is okay, which in Louisiana of course resulted in this fantastic example of dogmatic flexibility:  The spiritual concept of Carnival feasts throughout history is pretty interesting, and too deep to go into here. But basically the celebrations were grotesque ways to indulge in excess without judgment, to turn things upside down, reject constraints of human boundaries and hierarchies of thought and religion and political power. Authority tolerated this, probably as a way of allowing steam to blow off without an explosion. Carnival is called “the Feast of Fools” for a reason. In whatever case, Carnival is celebrated in different ways all over the world, usually taking on local customs and culture. In New Orleans, it starts at epiphany with king cakes and such, and then moves into the parades and balls, with something like 40 different parading Krewes over several weeks and who knows how many non-parading groups having parties. Although many of these old line Krewes used to parade, when a city ordinance passed in 1991 requiring integration to get a parade permit from the city, a bunch of them decided they’d rather have “secret” membership and dropped their parades. I’m not going to give e you the history of stuffy rear end rich white people pretending to be royalty so they can put on a tuxedo and ogle debutantes. Just search for #RexComus on Twitter to get an idea. There are a bunch of these things and they’re all boring. The fun stuff is the parades. (No, there is no Krewe of Krazy Kats) The first real parade is Krewe du Vieux, named after the French Quarter or Vieux Carré. Krewe du Vieux is the most subtle humor of the parades. For example, it’s not uncommon to see huge cocks rolling down the street. This year’s theme was “Erection 2020.”  LOL It’s actually a loose affiliation of a bunch of sub-groups that put together the parade. Floats are small because they pass through the French Quarter, and you can get right up to the people parading to bullshit with them. Here they are making fun of the old line assholes!  Not pictured: the Erect Oral College float. Here’s a great collection of KdV from this year. Obviously not safe for work. https://www.flickr.com/photos/39554757@N07/albums/72157713070318152 So then there are a bunch of other parades, some of which play off of the bigger ones and their names, like the dog parade (Barkus) and the Star Wars one (Chewbacchus) both making fun of Bacchus. Two weekends before MG day the big parades through the whole city start, with something like 10 parades F-Sat-Sun. Then on Wednesday they start again, and it goes on until Tuesday, 20 or so Krewes. I ride in le Krewe d’Etat, on Friday night. Instead of a king, we have a dictator…”The Dic” for short. On long if you listen to him. Our floats are satirical and change every year, making fun of local and national politics, and although we’re more “family friendly” than KdV, here’s a bit of what we did this year: https://twitter.com/gopaulblair/status/1231056946314334208?s=20 The dancing group followed behind them, this year it was the “Swingin Epsteins." These are riders who've decided, temporarily or not, to be part of a group of terrible dancers that march at ground level. I've done this a couple times, it's really fun to be with the crowd. https://twitter.com/gopaulblair/status/1231253367239970819?s=20 Better look at the Epstein float in the Krewe den. Dens are where the Krewes keep their floats to be worked on and stored. Warning—nothing about this parade is politically correct or polite or woke. There’s at least a few floats a year I think are over the top. But that’s satire for you.    Here are a couple from years past that I thought particularly good.    There are limits. A few years ago, around the time of the confederate monument bullshit down here, the dancers dressed up like statues of Robert E. Lee, one of the most well known monuments facing removal. The point was to mock the Mayor for making this his signature policy to get national attention for a POTUS run, but it wasn’t very well thought out, and as we know sometimes “irony” is hard to distinguish from “being a shithead.” When the dancers’ costumes were revealed to the krewe before the parade, enough members argued that we didn’t want our people parading around looking like they were dressed in confederate uniforms, so the costume was changed. I’m glad they scrapped it. So the day before the parade, we load our floats with throws. These are the beads, cups, pillows, doubloons, and various other light up trinkets that riders throw to the crowd.  This is what it looks like. Basically we are sitting on piles of crap. The belts are there to keep drunk idiots from falling over the side, but they don’t always work because we are talking about some seriously drunk idiots. https://twitter.com/NOLAnews/status/1231700356926754818?s=20 Here is my little patch of real estate. I have installed my cupholder for the ride. NO DRINKING ON THE FLOATS IF YOU ARE TOO DRUNK TO RIDE YOU WILL BE REMOVED lol  The day of the parade, most krewes have events, either a big luncheon or meeting, or individual float lunches. Obligatory milk punch.  After lunch we go to the French Quarter. It was an amazing day this year. https://i.imgur.com/Huo26Zh.mp4 After another 2-3 hours of boozing we get on buses downtown to ride to the floats, which are staged all the way uptown. Krewes ride all over the city. They used to be neighborhood things, and some still have names like “Krewe of Mid-City” or “Krewe of Carrollton” but now they mostly all follow some variation of the “uptown” route, which is this:  Big exceptions are Endymion, which rolls through midcity; Rex and Iris, which come down Napoleon to St. Charles then toward downtown; and Zulu, which comes down Jackson to St. Charles to cut off Rex (lol) and then goes through the historically African American neighborhoods, Treme, up Orleans. Zulu is another uniquely New Orleans parade. Mostly made up of African Americans, they all dress in blackface and throw coconuts. I’m not making this up.   I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the Mardi Gras Indians. These are groups of black folks who have set up walking groups, and every year they make new insanely gorgeous suits to parade in that are (loosely) based on Native American ceremonial outfits. These are handmade by the wearers and have to bee seen to be believed, just do an image search for “Mardi Gras Indians” and you’ll see what I mean. Some examples:    Much of the Mardi Gras music and traditions are taken from the Indians. For example, the song Iko Iko, which I can almost guarantee you’ve heard in one form or another, is about the Indians. https://youtu.be/qkX6JUXekXY RIP Dr. John. The Flag Boy, Spy Boy, Big Chiefs, everything is about the maskers. It’s a fascinating and uniquely American cultural phenomenon in so many ways—good, bad, and neither. This music is pretty unique, check out the Wild Magnolias (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMFLPTKTq8g), Professor Longhair (https://youtu.be/PbolafCdcqY), or any of the brass bands (Rebirth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLmEATtknIM, Hot 8, Dirty Dozen, etc. there are a ton of them and they all kick rear end). Even loving Tom Waits got in on the indian groove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10nARnM0v64 You can see the influence of the second line in all of this music, to be played for marching groups. The second line is another New Orleans tradition, which comes from the social aid and pleasure clubs of "non-permitted" paraders---again, mostly African American--who would fall in behind the “main line” parade and form a “second line,” dancing to their own beat. They spring up after parties, funerals, weddings, BBQs, basically any time people are drinking which is pretty much all the time in New Orleans honestly. Okay so we get on the buses and head uptown, with our police escort, to the staging area along Tchoupitoulas Street (Chop-uh-too-luss). The crowds are already forming! https://i.imgur.com/a8UwRcK.mp4 Once there, riders get off the buses, find their floats, and meet with friends and family before loading up for the ride.  Make sure the cooler is re-stocked.  By the time we start the sun will have set, so get all the blinkies going and check your equipment.   https://i.imgur.com/SMquigK.mp4 Here is my position. Unironically it loving owned. Joke or no joke.  This is a New Orleans joke based on these old commercials, Karl Marx as The Special Man. https://youtu.be/XI7jC57GuZM The parade lasts about 3 hours, depending on break downs or terrible tragedies. It’s really a different and fun experience, I don’t know how to describe it. Total sensory overload. Thousands of people yelling at you, just seas of people, everyone wearing flashing light necklaces and hats and whatever else, the smell of smokers and carny food and boiled crawfish and whatever else people are eating, for 4+ miles. People (kids especially) get so excited about some of the stuff you throw. You toss them something cool they didn't expect and they catch it, they see it and their face lights up, you point at each other to say "thanks" and "you're welcome." It’s a kind of connection between total strangers that doesn’t really have any comparison that I can think of. Someone gave me a jello shot as a thank you this time, hahah. Of course I ate it, I'm an idiot. Trick or treat.  In that shot from the float you can see the ladders people build for their kids to sit in so they can get above the crowd, right at eye-level with the riders. These all have cupholders of course. Here we are back where we started, downtown at Canal. Same intersection as before.  Of course, this whole thing comes with a truly American-size amount of garbage. https://i.imgur.com/tdSrLsC.mp4 The last few years have seen a move away from quantity toward quality, and lots of people (myself included) have stopped buying the tons of lovely Chinese plastic beads that nobody really wants and do nothing but clog up our catch basins. But honestly the amount of trash generated by this event (day after day after day) is embarrassing. The cleanup operation is something to behold, though. Once the parade is past, they come through and soap down the street, the rake crews get all the detritus where it can be gathered. https://i.imgur.com/ZFARVkH.mp4 Then the bobcats come through and get it all together https://i.imgur.com/zpmBUKW.mp4 Finally the backhoe gets it all into the dump trucks.  More ladders in that last picture. Here’s a classic coozie thrown by Tucks, a co-ed parade whose king sits on a literal toilet for a throne and whose prized throws are bedazzled plungers and fuzzy blue balls to hang from your rearview mirror.   On Mardi Gras day, people come out in droves to celebrate, costume, eat, drink, and enjoy the feast of fools. I took these pics a few years ago but all though the quarter are costumed marchers and fun and stupid bible thumpers with signs about damnation or whatever, gently caress those guys. Probably voted for Trump.         FIN Hope this was interesting. I highly recommend you come down for Mardi Gras, and stay away from Bourbon Street. There is so much more to see in the city. 
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Feb 29, 2020 01:46
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