(This is the fourth and final installment. A day-by-night-by-day-by-night account, in six parts of days and nights, of one man’s first trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 1994…)

NEW ORLEANS, Home of the Hangover — As brain cells continue to die by the billions and Terminal Tequila Syndrome runs rampant, the city refuses to lapse into a coma or even to say “Uncle!”

Heck, here at Parti Gras, the people are just getting warmed up.

Today is Fat Tuesday, so named because after a solid week of caloric drinking, most everybody is. But Mardi Gras, America’s biggest party, is supposed to end at midnight tonight when Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent begin. It ain’t over’ til Fat Tuesday either sings or passes out.

I’ll believe it when I see it. I know I don’t want to be the guy who tells everybody they have to go home.

Since I’ve been down here for my virgin Mardi Gras, I’ve tried to explain to you what it’s like and I’m not sure I have. If you have never been to Mardi Gras, this will be hard to understand because you will simply refuse to believe it.

The best I can do it to tell you that if Mardi Gras was a Winter Olympics event, it would be the men’s downhill, only without crash helmets. Stamina and daring are all you need.

When they threw out the ceremonial first weekend brew early Friday, more than half a million people followed the lead. As was the case Friday, hundreds of thousands lined city block after city block Saturday to watch parades until after midnight, and at 8 Sunday morning they were out there again, camping and waiting, both families and freelancers, eager and happy. I was downtown and tried to get back to my hotel and couldn’t for hours because every street I turned onto had a parade either on or intersecting it. I was like a mouse in a maze. Drunk, that would be no big deal. Stone sober, it’s a pain in the butt beads.

Sunday’s parades also lasted until past midnight, but mobs were out there again Monday, posting up for good bead-nabbing position. Downtown New Orleans is covered like a gold, green, and purple blanket. Wave after wave of people. It’s Pickett’s Charge out there.

If you still haven’t grasped the size of the crowds I’m talking about, go to Wal-Mart on any Saturday morning, and you will.

Since today is supposed to be last call, it should come as no surprise that today is a legal holiday here. If it hasn’t been a holiday since I arrived Friday, you could have fooled me. Besides barmaids and bellhops, I haven’t seen anybody hit a lick at a snake unless you count opening a beer can as work.

As I write this, it is still Lundy Gras, the word for the Monday before Fat Tuesday. (In French it means “I don’t think you’re going to be able get THOSE stains out.”) Surrounded by the normal ongoing parades and general revelry, the Riverwalk is the eye of the Mardi Gras storm. Musical performances will go into the evening and Rex, King of Carnival, will arrive at 6. Then Charmaine Neville and Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and others will entertain, although I think I could pay and sing and by 10 p.m. or so, no one would know the difference.

By the way, I would have written about what actually happened out there that late but I had a deadline to meet, plus I was scared to be out there all by myself. I feel safe to say this about Monday night’s partygoers: They did not go gentle into that good night.

The next time we talk will be Wednesday. Lent will have begun and no one here will be eating meat. No problem there. They’ll all be too tired to chew.

-30-

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