It was last month, in the seeping heat of August: New Orleans Red Dress Run. An annual event organized to gather funds for charities. It's fair to suspect that they don't only run, of course. Truthfully many don't run at all, but join the party in theFrench Quarter. It's yet another occasion for Bourbon Street to get filled with party-goers, but this time, all of them in red dresses!
Bourbon Street
How did Red Dress Run start?
The Hash House Harriersare the biggest running club in the world. Their first red dress run happened nearly by accident: On August 7, 1987, a young lady wearing a red dress is arriving in southern California to visit a high school friend. She ends up shortly after in Long Beach, where her friend intends to introduce her to this zany running group called the Hash House Harriers. One member, noting her
gender and attire, urged that she “just wait in the truck” until her
host returned. With that goading, she ran into history sporting her red
dress and heels.
One year later, to commemorate the event, the
San Diego Hash House Harriers sent “The Lady In Red” an airline ticket
to attend the inaugural Red Dress Run. Hundreds of male and female
hashers adorned themselves in red dresses for a spectacle widely covered
by California newspapers and TV news. In addressing the crowd, The Lady
In Red suggested that Hash House Harriers hold the Red Dress Run
annually as an occasion be used to raise funds for local charities.
This tradition quickly spread to
every corner of the globe. The New Orleans Hash House Harriers attracted 7,000
participants to their Red Dress Run in 2010, raising more than $200,000
for local charities.
Our group of cheerful chaps joined the crowd late in the morning. French quarter bars, sidewalks, and streets are packed. It's very hot, and very humid, and everybody starts dripping sweat very quickly, even without running. People, young and old, drink and dance inside and out. For those who know, this could compare to the southwestern France Feria. By the late afternoon we all are worn out, a good nap is a must, in order to make it to round 2 later that evening. Most friends in our group are staying in hotel rooms to not have to drive back to Baton Rouge. I now have my "second home" on site, even better... I ended up napping until the next morning. Verdict: partying is getting harder and harder these days...
Welcome to Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the largest maximum security prison in the United States. Yes... No less. That makes you dream doesn't it? It's also the only prison in Louisiana authorized to apply death penalty. We are an hour and fifteen minutes north of Baton Rouge, surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi and on the other side by a forest plagued with snakes.
In the past the site was a plantation where most of the slaves were from Angola, in Africa. Then at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century, the State of Louisiana purchased a number of those plantations to convert them in penitentiaries. Prisoners continued to harvest the same kind of culture, mainly cotton and sugar cane.
Dreadful fact, Louisiana imprisons more people than any nation in the world... In the early 1990's, Louisiane was ordered by the Federal Court to decrease the inmates overcrowding in State prisons. Because the State didn't have money, The Department of Corrections encouraged local Sheriffs and private companies to build new prisons by allowing them to receive part of the profit that will be generated. The whole thing became a business. There are today 160 local prisons (vs 12 State prisons). The State pays Sheriffs about $25 per day and per inmate. Which means that there's not much left after paying for food, lodging and personnel costs. Profit is used to buy patrol cars, fire arms, bulletproof vests, etc... And of course, there is nothing left to finance programs that would be beneficial to prisoners. In short, if the number of inmates decreases, the Sheriff's office makes less money. Lobbies make sure to scuttle any reform that would result in less criminals behind bars. Half of the prisoners in Louisiana are incarcerated in local prisons, when there was only a quarter in the early 1990's. They are often transferred from a prison to another to fill the gaps and make sure everybody make as much money as possible, and without getting any opportunities for rehabilitation, which you can imagine, doesn't reduce their chance to reoffend. Only State prisons offer programs to learn mechanic, welding, plumbing and other useful trades. But State prisons only receive the worse offenders, who, often, will never be set free. How absurd...
Louisiana is one of the six States where life sentences are given without parole. Sentences are much heavier than elsewhere. An armed robbery or a trio of drug convictions can be enough to land you at Angola for the rest of your life. A two time car burglar can get 24 years without parole. Local prisons, that have proliferated in rural areas, are full of people who have been sentenced for non violent crimes such as drug possession, theft, or simply writing bad checks. And while prison population doubled, New Orleans still leads the nation in number of homicides. To make it short, this is a revolting clusterfuck!
With this sad and alarming observation, let's get back to our Angola rodeo...
AP Photos/Gerald Herbert
At Angola prison, you'll find the worse convicts, murderers, rapists and other people condemned to very long sentences. There are over 5000 prisonners and more than three quarters of them are serving life sentences or heavy sentences that will keep them in there all their life. It's the highest ratio of life sentences in the United States. Every sundays in October and the third sunday of April, the prison organizes a rodeo anda craft fair. Prisonners that prove fit enough to compete can participate if they want, and others sell their art to the public. Depending on the level of trust they gained, they sell their stuff either directly behind their booth, mingling freely with visitors, or behind a fence, with their goods laid on a table on your side of the fence. There are a lot of sculptures, wooden furniture and toys, paintings, jewelry, leather objects, etc... Wandering among prisoners feels wierd to me. Nonetheless I ended up buying a very beautiful raw wood vase, signed by the artist. A friend asked me later if I had googled the name of the guy to see why he was incarcerated... That's something you could do... or not...
AP Photos/Gerald Herbert
During two hours inmates participate to several games. For example, the hula hoop challenge is about being the last man standing in his hula hoop without getting knocked down by the bull. For the Poker game, four prisoners are sitting at a table playing cards, until the bull is released in the arena and takes everything apart. There are also the classic riding competition of bucking horses and bulls. It's a hard enough challenge for rodeo professionals, so I cannot imagine what it's like for people with no training... Lots of them get hurt. Their motivation: small prizes to win: money, a steak dinner, belt buckles, or an article in the prison magazine.
AP Photos/Gerald Herbert
Here the goal was to catch the red thingy between the bull's horns...
AP Photos/Gerald Herbert
Advocate Photo/Mark H. Hunter
This year, the revenues from the rodeo were estimated to 4 millions dollars. Profits are reinvested in services such as education programs for the inmates. Fyi, it is forbidden to bring your camera of phone inside the prison. Everything has to be left in your car. Though I've seen several people using their phones anyway. I'm a little pissed I wasn't able to take photos.
Mardi Gras History It's because of the french and spanish catholic influences that Mardi Gras is celebrated in the southern states of the US. New Orleans is the most well-known place to celebrate it but there are the same traditions in cities of Alabama, Mississippi, and all the way to Pensacola, Florida. On March 2,
1699, the day before Mardi Gras, French-Canadian explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur
de Bienville arrived at a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New
Orleans, and named it "Pointe du Mardi Gras". He established New
Orleans in 1718, and by the 1730s, Mardi Gras was celebrated openly in
the city. In the early 1740s, Louisiana's governor,
the Marquis de Vaudreuil, established elegant society balls, which
became the model for the New Orleans Mardi Gras balls of today. The
earliest reference to Mardi Gras "Carnival" appears in 1781. That year,
the first of
hundreds of clubs and carnival organizations formed in New Orleans. By
the late 1830s, New Orleans held street processions of maskers with
carriages and horseback riders to celebrate Mardi Gras. The two first
Krewe were formed in 1856 and 1870. In 1872, to honor a visiting Russian
Duke, a group of businessmen introduced his family's
colors, purple, green and gold as Carnival's official colors. In 1875, the
Governor signed the "Mardi Gras Act," making Fat Tuesday a legal
holiday in Louisiana, which it still is. Like the first krewes, most
Mardi Gras krewes today
developed from private social clubs with restrictive membership
policies. All the parade organizations are completely funded
by their members. So bascially it's way cool to have the opportunity to ride a float and throw beads to everybody else! All kind of other knick-knacks are also thrown to the kids.
Parades start weeks before Mardi Gras. New Orleans is primarily well-know for its Endymion and Bacchus parades on saturday and sunday before Mardi Gras. Themes vary from a city to the other and year after year. Here in Baton Rouge, the main parade, much smaller than any New Orleans parade, takes place in the historic neighborhood of Spanish Town. Krewe members do not really wear masks or costumes like in other parades, but the rose color is a must for everybody. A few weeks before Mardi Gras, the carnaval organizers go, by night, to put up about a hundred wooden flamingos in the middle of the university lake. During the following days, Baton Rouge people turn up with small boats to adopt their own flamingo which they will proudly display on their porches or at their windows. As a result we can see flamingos everywhere on the front porches of this neighborhood's houses, all year long.
Mardi Gras in Cajun country In rural villages around Lafayette, traditions are slightly different. The local event is called the "Courir de Mardi Gras". In cajun French it means the race of Mardi Gras, and it comes from old french rural rituals. Since it's the last day before Lent, the participants heartily eat and drink. The men of the village get out on horse backs in the morning, wearing costumes and masks to hide their identity, and go from house to house begging for ingredients to make the communal gumbo at the end of the day. Offerings go from an onion to a live chicken, which they'll have to catch. Personal advise: If you go see a Courir de Mardi Gras, make sure to have stuff to give away in your pockets in case one of them begs you to pass something... For lack of food for the Gumbo, a few coins, or a bottle of beer will do it. Otherwise you are taking the risk to have to get rid of something you didn't want to give, or to end up head upside down on their shoulders being spanked. I speak from experience. You have been warned, they are shameless...
1: "Gal" is a casual word for "fille", it's actually an alteration of the word "girl".
2: Galentine's Day is the name of an episod from the serie Parks and Recreation. The story is that every February 13th, Leslie (Amy Poehler) and her girl friends leave their husbands or boyfriends home and go out to celebrate their friendship, girls celebrating girls. It seems like this fad comes from there.
Anyway, last night a good friend of mine had invited me to join her and her other friends (so that means I made even more girl friends!) for my first Galentine's Day! I think I couldn't be more immersed in the American culture than that... lol
This is it, Thanksgiving is over! Even though we obviously don't have this celebration in France, we all have heard and know more or less about it. I try here to explain to my fellow people that it's kind of like a Christmas before Christmas, without the gifts; that it’s one of the most important Holiday in the country, and also THE day when it’s wise to avoid traveling - as it is followed by a 4 day week end, when most families get together, which generates a huge mess in airports and on the roads. This year might have been even more of a mess because of a storm that covered pretty much half of the country. As far as I’m concerned, I was comfy in Baton Rouge, without family, but with three or four different invitations at friends’ parents. I could have litteraly gone from home to home until I found the best food. I contented myself with this dinner: Deviled eggs, ham, turkey, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potatoes casserole:
I also explain them that originally Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration, then a Christian celebration during which North Americans would thank god for the good things received during the year. Now it’s a day off for everybody, the fourth Thursday of November, followed by Black Friday = The biggest and craziest sales day in the year. So if we recap… On Thursday we fill up our stomachs while being thankful for the simple things of life we already have, and on Friday we jostle one another to buy a new TV at unbeatable price. I love the irony here. In order to not sound like I’m a malicious gossip, I’m pointing out that a lot of Americans themselves are conscious of this little paradox… (See below)
Thanksgiving: the famous Turkey Day, or, the only day in the year when Americans eat better than the French. Aside from the turkey, there is usually cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn bread, apple pies, pecan pies. Those are among the classics. I also really liked caramelized brussel sprouts with bacon, and roasted garlic butternut squash with sage brown butter. Yummy. (I made the second myself, so proud, first time I had a butternut squash in my hands! I don't remember seeing that type of squash back in France.)
The first time I had fried turkey… this is also not bad at all!
Telling you about this great meal makes me want to talk about all the habits American people have in terms of food. It’s another world, you already knew that, but you might not know everything.
Dinner is ready!
First of all, it is common here to eat everywhere but on a dining table. Standing up, in the car, on the go, in front of the computer, on the couch. Meals at the table are often for dinner time only. And even then, the way of doing is very different: At home, dishes are not served in the middle of the table, but placed on the kitchen counter top, and people come and fill up their plate on their own. I remember my first impression: Ah that’s cool, there will be less to clear from the dinning table! But after a while it started making me almost sad. It’s not uncommon to see each and everyone get up from their seat with their plate as soon as it’s empty, not even waiting for everybody to be done. The whole affair is finished off in 10 minutes, clearly, it’s less convivial.
In France, every single meal is considered a mini social gathering. We never eat alone if there’s somebody else to eat with, neither at home, nor at work. This doesn’t exist for every day meals in the US, it’s appreciated, but not inevitable. At the office, even though we have a kitchen and a table for 6 or 8, a lot of my colleagues eat alone in front of their computer, without being called asocials.
The action of eating does not evoke the same things for an American. I feel
like French people have more respect for the food they eat. On a side note, you can
clearly see that when you look at the differences of regulation in terms of what
kind of chemical and other crap is allowed in food in the US compared to France! As a result,
it’s like it doesn’t bother the American to eat anywhere at any time, or to eat
in between meal times. No big deal. For French people it wouldn’t be very
acceptable to do more than one thing while eating. Here it's totally tolerable: you eat and
work, eat and walk, and even eat and drive… Yep!... And you mostly eat all sort
of crap as you do all this, of course.
Despite these sad facts, it
is possible to find good food and eat well in America. Pretty much only if you
are lucky enough to be part of the middle and upper class anyway. Otherwise, really,
it’s hard to have access to quality food, or it’s just not in everybody’s
habits. I’ve read that Americans eat like children, in an impulsive way, always
snacking, that their meal portions are too big. Generally speaking I can confirm
that. I rarely see people here stopping to eat saying “I’m not hungry anymore”,
but rather “I’m so full”. And their taste is often limited to what’s greasy or
sweet. In France kids eat the same thing than the adults. You’re not asked what
you like or don’t like. Here there’s always a kid menu, even at home sometimes,
to avoid conflict and make it easier, and it’s usually not the most complex and
refined… If you don’t like broccolis, that’s fine, we’ll give you Mac and
Chesse instead. Be it at home or at school, how to savor and appreciate food
(all food) is not part of the curriculum for the young little Americans,
unfortunately.
Halloween... you can feel it coming as soon as stores shelves are emptied of their back to school supplies... 2 months ahead. When shopping, it's impossible to miss the assortment of pumpkin scented candles, plush scarecrows and other lovely cheesy objects.
I made a list of this holiday's activities for my french folks:
The Pumpkin Patch
In October, people start buying pumpkins in supermarkets or the few pumpkin patches that open here and there for the season. Most of the time, pumpkins have already been picked and laid on a field for people to conveniently choose from. There's often children activities proposed such as hay ride and petting zoo. Depending on what you want to do with it, you can choose from all sort of funny looking pumpkins: big, small, orange, white, etc... Little gourds are often used as decoration, and big ones will end up in front of the house before Halloween night.
Here are a few pictures from an afternoon spent at Ernie and Lynda's farm in Amite. Most pumpkins were already picked up. The "real" field was rather impracticable. Sorry for the power transmission line in the pic... not super glam, I know.
Pumpkin Carving Then comes the time to carve... The trick here in Louisiana is to not do so too early so the pumpkins don't rot before the 31st. More than 3 days outside and you already have mold and flies all over them. It gets gross pretty quickly. You can carve scary, funny or just cute little pumpkins. The famous Jack O'Lantern is the standard, but really there's no more standard, people carve whatever they want: spiders, bats, witches, etc...
Some cool pumpkins seen in magazines:
And in front of my house!:
The Corn Maze
Another pre Halloween activity: corn mazes. You have the child-friendly version during the day, and the haunted version at night, where dressed up kids and adults enjoy wholeheartedly freaking you out at each dark corner of the maze. Those pics are not mine. We made the trip one evening to the Cajun Country Corn Maze, the closest from here, and we never found it. Fail. Apparently, it wasn't open this year. Huge disappointment. I had never been to one and was looking forward to this. But well, I had to illustrate it anyway:
The Haunted House
Along the same lines, there's the whole array of haunted houses, from the kid friendly ones to the seriously scary ones. As it happens, we have here in Baton Rouge, the 13th Gate Haunted House, one of the best in the US, from what I've read in an article. Not for the faint hearted. I will quote the words of a couple of french friends that tested it for you: "We flipped the fuck out! The set is incredibly well done, very dark, actors do an amazing job playing scenes from The Chainsaw massacre to Jack the Riper via The Exorcist... Almost an hour in the dark without knowing what will jump in your face!" Anyway, I, personally, am too much of a sissy to try it out but I can confirm that there was a huge line in front of the building every week end since early October.
From early October or even earlier, some people start to plan their Halloween costume. Everybody doesn't necessarily put much passion and effort into this. As far as I'm concerned, the last four years were rather boring, but this time, we did it right. Too many years of barely knowing what Halloween was about! It was nice to catch up! We spent the week end in New Orleans at a friend's house. A whole lot of tourists flock to the city for Halloween. To begin with, New Orleans already has a reputation for parties and creepy mystical stuff, so both together, it has to attract people! It is almost impossible to find a hotel room available for that week end. If you do find one, get ready to shell out $400.
"Trick or Treat"
October 31st: This year I was full on. I wanted to properly welcome the little monsters who would come knock at my door: My 4 or 5 pumpkins lit up on the porch, my little ghosts hanging from a branch, some candy... Tough luck, it rained all evening. Nobody came. So we headed to the bar, where the rain didn't ruin the party!
Here we are, in the middle of football season... a religion in Baton Rouge. Between the LSU Tigers, and the New Orleans Saints, it's quite a big deal. People don't joke around with this around here! Guys, girls, young, old, families, everybody gets together and join the fun. Nothing like the rather masculin crowd of our football in France (which we'll call soccer to avoid any confusion). Clearly the atmosphere is not the same, and this is for the best.
Both teams are very much objects of pride. Between the college games and the professional games, there are, basically, from September to February, games going on every weeks. For the professional teams, the season ends with the famous Superbowl.
Football is the favorite activity around here (along with fishing and duck hunting...), so that means there's always something to do during the week end. Unfortunately when you have friends that are borderline fanatics, you don't do anything else anymore. And this is downright damn irritating. Watching a game on TV every week, hummmmm, no thanks. Once in a while, when it comes with a good boozy BBQ... Ok. Because I need to point out that a game last easily 3 hours or more. And as if that was not enough, like every american televised show, it is interrupted with commercials every 5 minutes (LITTERALLY, every 5, or 10 minutes) - a torture. And since in reality, I still really have a hard time to follow a game... it is out of the question to subject myself to this without a little bit of entertainment.
Luckily, I'm exaggerating a bit. I have friends whose interests rise a little bit higher than football, fishing and duck hunting, so I do not suffer every week end from this prevailing madness.
Though when there's a home game for the LSU Tigers we usually join the festivities before the game. It is tradition to party everywhere on the campus around the stadium. And Baton Rouge is nationally well-known to be VERY VERY good at it! So, run down of a game day:
The "tailgate"
A tailgate party is when the spectators party on and around parking lots of a stadium before a game starts, kinda like a warm up. Cars and pick up's trunks are open (hence the word tailgate, which, in english, describe that rear end of a car), every body has food out, drinks, usually there's always a few that crank up the music, most have their camping chairs out with their TVs plugged to a generator to watch the afternoon games taking place in other cities, or to follow the evening game when they don't have a ticket to get in the stadium. In Baton Rouge, most people set up their camps on the campus lawns, so it looks a little bit like that:
A good tailgate entails having a nice supply of hotdogs, burgers, chips/salsa, all kind of stuff to grill... And especially a big supply of drinks, primarily beer, generally the whole keg, and Jell'O shots (mix of gelatin and alcohol to gulp down to the rules of the art... terribly gross when you can't stand gelatin). The main activities for any good self-respecting student, consist, of course, in being the least sober before to go to the game: Beer Pong and Flip Cup are the two main games. The goal of Beer Pong is to throw a ping pong ball in the cups, filled with a little bit of beer, of the team accross the table. If you aim well and make your ball land in one of your opponent's cups, this guy must drink this cup in one go. Then it's his turn to throw the ball. The player who is the first one to finish drinking all his cups loses.
Beer Pong
Flip Cup
This game can gather a larger group of players, as long as the number is even and as long as everybody can stand side by side along a table. This time, each person has a cup in front of them, filled, also, with a little bit of beer. Team A is on one side of the table, and Team B on the other side, each player face to face. The two players standing at one end of the table toast then drink the content of their cup. Once empty, they must lay the cup flat on the table edge and flip it with only one finger. The second player in line can do the same with his own cup only once the guy before succeeded in flipping his cup. The team that finishes flipping all its cups first wins.
I'll point out that you find those games at numerous other occasions. Also notice the huge red plastic cups. It's the standard here in supermarkets for disposable cups. Once again... another world.
As for fashion, of course, everybody is dressed with the team colors. And sometimes rivalries are clearly displayed...:
Sometimes, even the beer cans match:
Finally, when the game is about to start, everybody walks towards the stadium. In Baton Rouge, the stadium can sit about 92 000 people. Might as well say that the surroundings are crawling with people.
The fanfare Before the game, it's nice to see the fanfare walking down towards the stadium. You'll see the Golden Girls, who lead the cortege, the cheerleaders, followed by the brass band. The tune that's played in the second part of the video is LSU anthem. Here, in my opinion, you really feel like you are in America. Those Americans really put all into it... for a simple game that takes place every week! Amaaaazing!
The game
Getting into the LSU stadium for the first time is pretty impressive. It made quite an impression on me, especially because everybody is in purple and gold, since most of the stadium is filled with LSU fans. On the picture below, you can distinguish a tiny square of fans from the opposing team, in red, in a corner of the stadium. It gives you an idea. Kind of overwhelming for them I would say. In short, 92,542 seats, it makes for a good crowd. And they are at the moment starting work to add to that. Soon there will be almost 100,000 seats, which will make Baton Rouge one of the biggest college stadium in the USA.
So I'm not gonna try to explain the rules, because like I said earlier, I'm still a little clueless. But the atmosphere alone is worth the trip. LSU fans are so loud that the stadium is well-known to have the best atmosphere of all college games, but also, and for the same reasons, to be the most difficult place for a visiting team to play.
The brass bands of both teams are in the stands, in their own space, accross from each other. And throughout the game, they play in turns, either their teams' anthems or short popular music pieces to motivate everybody. Sometimes one band starts playing while the other one is still playing, but louder, it's like a battle, and it's pretty cool.
At half time the two bands walk down on the field and they each perform their show, about 10 minutes each. Lots of people leave their seats at that time to go fill up with junk food. As far as I'm concerned, I was waiting for this for an hour and a half, so I'm staying.
Half time show
I almost forgot the mascot: Mike the Tiger!... who hop up and down around the field once in a while.
Here is the plush version...
And there, the real one...
Mike
the Tiger (Mike VI because it's the sixth) lives in its habitat next to the stadium. You can see it there, but when it's game day he is out on the field! Yes, a real tiger... I didn't lie when I said Americans spare no expense...
There you go, now you have a better feel for the football spirit in Baton Rouge... Personally, it gives me the impression that it's almost like if the soccer world cup was happening every week end. You understand a little better where the American federative/team spirit, and patriotism come from. Imagine if, in France, the effect of the 1998 world cup victory went on even only one time a year... (from seeing how crazy people are here about the annual Superbowl, it seems to me like it's almost its equivalent when it comes to that level of popular jubilation): Everybody was happy, partying together, it was a marvellous world where we all had good intentions... Wouldn't we become some kind of Disneyland too?
