If only Halloween came twice a year. Many of us have had the thought, usually long after the merrymaking of Allhallows Eve. When the paints have been rubbed off of faces and costumes have been cast aside for tamer attire, and aspirin, as well as other pain relievers, are ingested by the handful until the aches and pains have gone to blacker and bluer pastures, people often desire a second celebration.

Well, in New Orleans, Halloween does come twice a year and pity those who cannot handle the hell-raising hoopla. It comes once in October and then again in February on Fat Tuesday, which is also known as Mardi Gras (en francais!). Mardi Gras, as told to me by a New Orleans native who was also my date for Harry Connick Jr.’s Orpheus Ball during the holiday’s rioting, I mean, festivities, is strangely enough a Catholic holiday. It is the last huzzah before Ash Wednesday, when Lent starts and people practicing the Catholic faith must abstain from fat, dairy, eggs, and basically every deep-fried and battered food that is served in the Deep South.

How Lent followers in New Orleans don’t keel over from the sudden lack of fat and cholesterol in their bloodstream during this time will always be a wonder to me (maybe that is the reason they don’t keel over).

The greatest wonder is where these people come up with costume ideas twice a year. The costumes help make Mardi Gras the popular festival that it is, one of the most popular in the United States. In 2001, one million people came to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. The population of the city tripled in size, and it swelled up like a pus-filled blister ready to burst out goodness. Anyone could see with the amount of garbage on the streets and the more-than-usual pungent stench of vomit wafting from the gutters that the Crescent City’s seams were stretched to its limits. That’s a lot of people that want to play dress up (or dress down) twice a year!

During Mardi Gras day, a nun with a wooden paddle “blessed” my presence, and carried a sign that read “THANK GOD FOR SATAN.” I don’t believe she was a real woman of the cloth for her habit was made of black and white latex. Walking down the street, I also intercepted a group of five young women who were dressed in plastic police hats and black T-shirts that read on the back of each, “PECKER PATROL.” The uniting force of their group costume was the Peck-O-Meter, a “member” sizing device made of poster board for any man who wanted to answer the question the board asked: “How do you measure up?” The women seemed in good spirits, or at least were drinking good spirits, and continued down the street daring men to size their “manhood” with their “feminine guiles.”

On Jackson Square, the center of the Mardi Gras daytime celebration, I ran into the famous B-movie stars King Ghidorah and Godzilla as they were sucking the beers down like they were planning to put out the Tokyo fires later on. There was also a guy who had fashioned a costume made almost entirely from purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras bead necklaces, called “beads” for short. However, these beads were fashioned into a skirt that only covered his butt and his privates, and the gimmick was that the beads would swing to-and-fro like a French curtain in a Mississippi breeze. You just never know when that gust will come in from the river and whip those curtains aside!

There were some costumes of a different flavor as well. “Jesus” preached to the people in front of St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square on a wooden pulpit with a microphone, loudspeaker, and a bible for quick reference, just in case he forgot what he said or did 2,000 years ago. Also, there was a group of individuals dressed as angry fundamental Christians. They had ten-foot tall signs that gave such advice as “Turn to Jesus or Burn in Hell,” or a showing of gratitude, “Thank you Jesus!”

Yet, the sign that was the most profound, in the same way petrified dog poop is profound, was the “You Spiritually Stink” sign. This white sign listed in red and blue lettering “spiritual stinkers” such as “Computer Freaks,” “Movie and Rock gods,” and “Rebellious women.” Some of my favorite stinkers were “Cults Of The Effeminate Intellect,” “People That Talk To Pets More Than God,” and “Non-Christian Tattoos.”

A conflict arose as “demons” and “fairies” frolicked in front of and around these preaching and protesting individuals. The main spokesperson for the religious side, a toady girl wearing a T-shirt that read, “JESUS MIRACLE POWER Inside This Shirt,” loudly stated to the painted and costumed crowds, “Y’all arr goin’ tah heey-ill!” An intoxicated member of the demon and fairy group did not seem to agree with this statement and proceeded to tell her and her muscle-bound sign holder. She shouted and gesticulated much like a rabid chimpanzee would do if it had been given a wax banana. Both sides immediately squared off to do battle to decide who was right and who was righteous, and who could shout the loudest using the most saliva. For both sides it seemed that their words had, however, not bothered to go through their brains for quality control. Just when it looked like their heads might explode from the intensity of the screams, Louisiana State Troopers stepped in to defuse the argument with gentle voices and white-knuckled hands on their batons.

After I took my photos, I stepped back from the situation, safe and unscathed, only to get my stomach licked by a man dressed in a straw hat, a grass skirt, and enough paint on his face to make even Bozo the Clown hang his head in shame. I was ready to go home and prepare for Mardi Gras night.

Bourbon Street took an hour to traverse that night instead of the usual 10 minutes it takes on a normal Saturday night, which is hardly normal as it is. Women flash their breasts almost every day of the week on Bourbon, increasingly so leading up to Mardi Gras night. On that night, however, you cannot go two steps without seeing a woman hiking up her shirt to a group of men holding every type and brand of visual recording device you can imagine. And if you can imagine that, think of a million people doing this at the same time, on the same street, and tell me if you start to feel a little claustrophobic.

I went to Bourbon Street with my friend Juan from Peru. He told me, “I want to see the boobies.” Five minutes after pushing and elbowing our way down Bourbon Street, he told me, “I am sick of boobies.” Guaranteed, if one snapped a photo at any point on the street, they were sure to have a pair of breasts in the shot. The groups of men that surrounded these rebellious women were not only from all around the country, but from all over the world. And they were all silent and hypnotized when a woman would lift up her shirt, as she graciously responded to their guttural chants, “Show me your tits!” Wow, I thought, maybe this is a way to achieve world peace. This activity seemed to pacify the angry, drunk hordes of would-be Attila the Huns and Conan the Barbarians running around to wreak damage upon anything that crossed their path. But it wasn’t a way for world peace, for plenty of fights erupted and I saw more than a few fresh bloodstains on the sidewalk that night with people lying near, groaning for the pain to stop. Usually, these people would opt for a quick fix and just stumble away for another drink, not remembering that it was while in their drunken stupor that they got themselves into a violent and painful situation in the first place. Bottoms up!

That Mardi Gras night, I met the famous rock group Devo. Their red hats shaped like futuristic pagodas and black skintight outfits were the clincher that made me sure I was meeting the 80s rockers. Well, not really, but one of the members had me almost convinced when he demonstrated his whipping skills. I had originally asked them if I could just take their picture, but they insisted I be in the photograph with them. I finally agreed with much cajoling on their part, and participated in the current spirit of Mardi Gras. I became a part of the spectacle.

After I’ve described this holiday, one might be hard pressed to see how Mardi Gras is Catholic (or even legal, for that matter). How did this festival of spectacle and debauchery come to be a holiday under the Catholic faith? The history of Mardi Gras began long before Europeans came to America. The ancient Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a February festival much similar to Mardi Gras. When Christianity finally overtook Rome, early Christian officials felt they could make the religion easier to accept by incorporating pagan rituals into the Christian practices. Carnival became the period of abandon and merriment before Lent, and this gave a Christian spin on the festival.

In 1699, a French explorer by the name of Sieur d’Iberville sailed up the Mississippi until he reached a spot that was sixty miles south of where New Orleans presently lies. He landed there on March 3, 1699; the same day Mardi Gras was being celebrated in France. D’Iberville named the site Pointe du Mardi Gras in honor of the holiday which had been celebrated in Paris since the Middle Ages. In the 1700s, Mardi Gras was celebrated with masked balls and festivals by the French in the newly founded city of New Orleans. When the French took control of the city, they initiated a ban on masks, festivals and, eventually, Mardi Gras. America acquired the city in 1803 and in the face of much protesting lifted the prohibition in 1823. Since then, Mardi Gras has been celebrated in New Orleans.

Mardi Gras is presently filled with private southern-style balls where debutantes put on their most flouncy, most poofy, and best Scarlett O’Hara dresses and go dance into the night with their Rhett Butlers. The one ball that is open to the public is the Orpheus Ball, founded by New Orleans native and jazz artist Harry Connick, Jr. I got dressed in my best attire: a $32 dress I found at one of the malls in Metairie, a bedroom community of New Orleans. At the New Orleans Convention Center, where the ball is held, the Orpheus parade was routed through the building itself complete with floats loaded with people, beads, and plenty of “throws” for the screaming, intoxicated crowd of hundreds. My date caught one of these throws for me, a stuffed dragon named the Leviathan, thrown from one of the many masked krewe float riders. One float rider who was not masked, however, was Whoopi Goldberg, the featured celebrity of the Orpheus parade. She threw at my head a group of beads tied together that seemed to act much in the same manner as a set of bolas connecting with its target. I fell off the chair I had been standing on. Triumphant and sore, I clutched the shiny red bead mass to my chest as others around me scrambled for slimmer pickings.

The highlight of the evening was having my date rush me up to the stage, before hordes of people closed in, to be five feet away from the Prince of Orpheus himself, Harry Connick, Jr. Amazed by his costume, a sequined tunic and silvery white spandex tights (boy, he’s brave!), I was even more amazed by his musical artistry. On the piano, organ, base, and almost always singing, Harry demonstrated that New Orleans is the place to experience of some of the best and brightest musicians in the world. Glenn Close, a featured celebrity guest of the musical performance, came onto the stage to demonstrate her musical talents. Forgetting the lyrics of the song she was singing with Harry, she appeared to almost fall over as she turned to ask for her lines from her duet partner.

Actually, the entire time she was performing, she seemed to be wobbling and tipping like an inflatable punch-me clown that just had five unsuccessful rounds in the ring with a kangaroo. Somehow, Close managed to regain her composure by the end of the song and stumble off the stage after the duet finished. Harry started a slower number and people partnered up to slow dance into sobriety. I closed my eyes, as the princely musician sang softly.

When I opened my eyes I met the gaze of the royalty of New Orleans musicians himself. Wow, those eyes, that voice, that costume, I was love.

Then, I was in the bathroom. Sake and whiskey; oh, where did I put that spare liver!?!

Mardi Gras, a celebration of the child in every adult, complete with carousing, comedy, and a condom-laden outfit among many other creative costumes. Go to New Orleans to experience Halloween’s rival holiday, Mardi Gras, and go ahead, eat whatever you want and get dressed up as whatevah y’all little ol’ whims desirah. Just wear a mask, so even when you’re puking in the trashcans, no one will ever know it’s you!