gearing up, getting ready

For seven years now (how has it been this long?) I've been throwing a big party every year when Tallahassee runs a parade past the front of my house.

That's us in '06, celebrating springtime and morning drinking.

I tend to do a lot of entertaining. I live in my own place (no roommates or kids to shuffle), I'm centrally located, I have a good front stoop for gathering, and it means I don't have to worry about a designated driver. But this party is something special. For one, it starts at 9 am, and there's nothing like having a good excuse to get a beer buzz before breakfast. For another, there's a fucking parade going by the front of my house!

This year might be a little different. Oh, I still expect the crowds, the food, the beer (a neighbor and I even intend to get a keg to make it all easier). But our not-so-esteemed Gov. Voldemort's been asked to be Grand Marshall this year. It's a slap in the face of all the people his administration is screwing, but that's not exactly new for the parade that used to be headed up by a guy dressed as the murdering scumbag Andrew Jackson. That being said, this will be the first year I have to remind people not to throw stuff at anyone in the parade. But booing remains legal. At least he's in the front, which will leave the rest of the parade to be enjoyed, heckled, and admired.

If you are local and read this, come on by. You know where I live. Bring a breakfast dish to share, and if you want something besides Pabst than BYOB. Parade party!

Advance Warning

It's a little early, but I wanted to make a flier so here it is. BYOB.

that time of year again

You gotchyer day people and you gotchyer night people. Oh, sure, daytime is great. Sunshine, warm air, blue skies, green trees. Lunch, a fine meal. Folks are hustling and bustling, jobs get done, houses get built. Kids play in the park, families walk around Lake Ella. Nothing wrong with daytime.

But I perk up as the colors fade out of the world and everything goes grey, black, and silver. Anything's possible at night. When I'm lacing up my boots and headed out the door into the moonlight, I might just get dinner and come home again. Or I might run into a crowd of freaky weirdos and get swept into the darkness, stumbling up my front steps later with the dawn behind me, adventure clinging to my clothes.

I know plenty of people who get depressed as the nights lengthen, who need special lamps and trips to sunnier climes to survive the winter. Not me, buddy. I need a hooded sweatshirt and ten dollars for beer. A knit cap for my shaved head and good friends to laugh in the shadows.

Two parades (pretty much) go past my house every year. The Springtime Parade celebrates all that sunshiny brightness, the blooming dogwoods, the chirping peeps, fresh cut grass. It happens at ten in the morning in April and my parade parties have grown increasingly baby-friendly and kid-filled. The Winter Parade, coming up in a month, glitters in cold darkness. It's an event of flames throwing ghosts against the walls and people banging rocks together to scare off the prowling predators. We drink, we eat seared meat, we cheer for the parade until it ends and then cheer for ourselves long into the night. I love this season!

everybody loves a parade

You got your hippies and your mamas and your punks and your skins. You got your geeks and your dorks and your pin-ups and pirates. You got your queers and your breeders, and in several cases those lines are a little blurry. Mostly, we got a beautiful day and a fine time, and we'll do it all again next year.

Krewe of the Fives

We're the float that doesn't move, the morning fête, the oi polloi. Six feet above the street, laughing and dancing and hassling the crowds. We want your beads, your candies, your boiled peanuts, and your pretty wenches. We're the Krewe of the Fives.

All year I live in a crickity crackety apartment that's slowly returning the soil, dealing with palmetto bugs and critters in the walls and an oven that doesn't work. Downtown noises and overflow parking from the hotel down the street. But one day a year, one spring morning when the dogwoods are blooming and folks pack the streets, mine is the best house in town. My friends show up happy, the beer goes down easy, and the marching bands step lively.

I simply can't express how I fall in love, each and every year, with the whole damned affair. If you can, come join us. Bring chips and a smile.

coming events

If you're around, come on by that morning and join in the fun.

will you be there this year?

A krewe "is an organization that puts on a parade and or a ball for the Carnival season." The Krewe of the Fives? We're the float that doesn't move. The only ongoing, family-friendly, breakfast beer bash of Springtime Tallahassee. 5th Annual this year. A few more babies, a few more friends, a few more beads to catch. This year I can't afford to set us all up with a keg, but I'll throw hot dogs on the grill after the parade wraps up while everyone wanders in and out and downtown and back again and people nap on the couch.

If you and yours are downtown this Saturday, come on by and say howdy. You can't miss us.

eat, drink, make merry

I am a man who likes to throw parties. Birthdays, holidays, sunny Saturdays with nothing else going on, give me a half a reason and I'll have two dozen people and three dozen hotdogs at my house. You say "Flag Day" and I hear "fill the keg and buy some ice".

See, I like being able to throw down with my nearest and dearest, drinking beer and eating grilled meat or pot luck dishes and cranking up the music 'til we can hear it out in the side yard. I also like being able to wrap up in my own quilt with no worries about driving at the end of the night, no stress about when to leave and whether to sleep over or hold back on the booze. I'd rather clean my bathroom and put Christmas lights up outside than worry about getting from point A(lcohol) to point B(ed).

Plus, throwing a party means I get to make a flier. You can keep your fancy, folded invitations - my aesthetics are based in the punk scene, and my announcements reflect that. Ripped or copied pictures from Horror Comics and old encyclopedias. Spray painted, stenciled lettering and bright images. Lay outs based on Communist propaganda posters or wanted posters. For this year's 5th Annual Parade Potluck Party, I broke out the construction paper and glue. I can't draw Santa, but I can sure cut him out.

The parade parties are my favorite every year because of where I live, right on the route. The Springtime event happens in the morning, and everyone is drunk and sleepy by early afternoon, napping and picking at leftovers. But the Winterfest Parade kicks off at dark, and we wind up carousing into the night, building bonfires and singing songs and, sometimes, hooking up with folks you didn't even expect to see.

Anyway, if you are out at the parade this year and see me and my crew, stop by and say howdy. Bring a dish and a bottle and join us. If you're an asshole, we'll toss you off the wall. But if you're good natured and up for some fun, well, maybe you'll make a few friend or two. Either way, it''s going to be a hell of a party.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, there we are. Some of us, anyway. The parade party is such an in-and-out affair. The biggest difference between this year and, say, 2005 (my first spring in the Fives) is all the babies. Look at all those young'uns. I remember going to big shindigs with my family as a wee one, with the grownups disappearing in small groups and coming back smelling funny, meeting other kids that I still run into (mostly, admittedly, in bars and at shows). So I look at my friends' babies and think, here we go again.

As for the parade itself, we cheered nearly every float, beauty queen, marching band, business, politician, community group, poop-scooping prisoner, and boiled peanut vendor who went past my house. Now, there was pretty much dead silence as the Sons of Confederate Vets went slouching past us, with one or two calls of "out with the old south, in with the new!" and "you're standing in the way of progress!" I know, some folks just love the play the martyr, and I'm as proud a southerner as you'll find, but damn. Give up all that crap and get up here with the rest of us. I promise, it's a lot more fun. But I suspect they're not doing as well these days - it looks like they couldn't afford to bring in that one Black Confederate that hires out to groups like that so they can claim not to be racists.

Days of prep, hours of party. Still well worth it.

throw me some beads!

Only a small handful of people actually live along the route of the annual Springtime Tallahassee parade. Most of those people paid $370K+ for one of those condos that went in where they ripped out the Old Library. But two of us, the lucky two, pay not much more than $370 a month in rent and have a little dirt and grass yard for our nearest and dearest to crowd as the parade rolls by.

Springtime Tallahassee is flat out my favorite day to live in the Fives, the small complex where I hang my hat. From the first year I was part of the celebration, 2005, a pattern established itself. Wake up at nine am, shower, dress, and put sunblock on my pale, pale head. Walk out into my "side yard" (aka, the blocked off area that used to be part of the driveway from Monroe to behind my place) to tap the keg I've had on ice all night, assuming that none of the homeless guys or teenage hippies in the neighborhood have found it while I was snoring. Get a first cup of beer (nothing makes beer seem more festive than a reason to drink at completely odd hours). And then stroll out my front door to chase off strangers who think my lawn looks like a great vantage point.

They're right, you know. Best in town. And it's reserved for me and a couple dozen buddies. You should hear the cheer that goes up when the cops come yowling over the hill up Monroe from Thomasville Road. We catch beads thrown by pirates. We flirt with the beauty queens. We encourage the baby twirlers and tumblers. We laugh at friends who were forced by their jobs to dress funny and walk with the floats. We dance to the marching bands and laugh at the Gents and Belles. We get drunk and silly and try not to fall off the edge. One time we got flashed, Mardi Gras style. One year the pirate ship float decided they didn't want to quit parading and continued up and down Monroe for an hour, still playing music and throwing necklaces.

This year, the parade falls on March 29. If you're local and you see us, stop in and introduce yourself. Go ahead and have a morning beer, if that's your taste. Indulge in a deviled egg or some boiled peanuts. In not too many more years, I suspect that only those with a half mil in their pocket will be able to afford to live on the parade route. And you know what? I doubt they even care.

'Tis the Season

Parade season, that is!

If there's anything in life better than a mug of beer, a hamburger, and a half dozen marching bands, I don't know what it might be.

I wish Tally's parades were bigger, though. I'd love to see all the incredible floats, costumes, stilt-walkers, and bands that march in the Caribbean and FAMU parades be a bigger part of the large community festivals. Why do you suppose they aren't? Racism? Money? Length of the parade? Lack of interest?

Go Rattlers

On the list of things I'm pretty sure would kill me, I'd say that high steppin up Tennessee Street from Macomb to Monroe in a full uniform with a foot-tall hat strapped to my head, playing a brass horn with occational stops to dance my ass off has got to be in the top 5. But the FAMU Marching 100 sure did it, and they looked flashy and sounded great doing it. And then a dozen or more other marching bands from the area followed them, spaced in with floats, FAMU alumni, beauty queens, and flag squads.

Hell, the Nims band did it, and those poor kids had a broken drum, a set of cymbols with bits gone from them, and four different makes and colors of sousaphone.

You can forget how racially segregated so many events still are until you wind up as one of the few white folks enjoying the FAMU homecoming parade. I wish the local city parades (spring and winter) attracted more of the folks who got involved with this one, either on the road or alog the edge, cheering.