play and ideas: 2026

"it has a new story to tell every day”: Rainbows and and Mardi Gras

All week, Rainbow Flags went up and down in the park. I was supposed to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, to spread some ashes. But a lot was going on.

I’d always been a little apprehensive about Mardi Gras. Scared of crowds, sympathizing with Bowie’s lament, ‘I’m Afraid of Americans.’ But my heroes had all been there. They’d found a place. Named King of the Zulus in 1949, Louis Armstrong famously called it a lifelong dream, saying, “There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true—to be King of the Zulus' parade. After that, I'll be ready to die”. He added, “Nothin' like this nowhere else in this world. Man, this is my town. This is the greatest city in the whole wide world”.

I was ready to go take on the gumbo of cultures, fun and music, but things were getting pretty dramatic with our rainbow at home.

Feb 10

I got a message to go to Stonewall earlier in the day, riding over after class. “Whose park, our park!!!’ queer activists screemed in front of the Stonewall Monument, where the Rainbow Flag was removed by the feds, by the time I arrived. Stonewall means fight back, said activists. “We're here, we're queer and we ain't going anywhere…” others followed. “It starts with trans people, they come for all of us,” said Jay Walker. “They are targeting refugees, anyone who is an other. This is all of us, all of us. We all gotta stand up for each other and each marginalized community,” says Jay connecting the dots between struggles in ways few can. “We gotta stand together to get through this,” says Jay.

Earlier in the day, Steven Love Menendez implored the community to attend the rally, to gather with the community!

"The Rainbow Flag is a symbol of beauty and of all the colors of the spectrum coming together in a sign of UNITY! In many cultures since ancient times, the Rainbow has symbolized hope after the storms of life. These are the reasons why the Rainbow flag was chosen to represent the Queer community! We are a force of Love and Hope and have room for everyone under our umbrella during the darkest of times! The current administration is attempting to divide folks through the tactics of fear and hatred. The removal of the flag is an attempt at erasure. WE WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! The Queer community is a force of Love, acceptance and unconditional support for all who suffer from the unjust actions of those filled with judgment and hatred! The greatest darkness brings the greatest light…!!!

That energy was everywhere at the Stonewall.

You felt it in the streets all week long.

Feb 11

Next morning, I biked over to the Brooklyn NAVY Yard.

No war profiteers in Brooklyn!!! we screamed.

Ken explains:

“After a year and a half of pressure from the Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard campaign, the Brooklyn Navy Yard (BNY) has been forced not to renew Easy Aerial’s lease…. a multiplicity of tactics including direct action, political education, worker outreach, and deep community organizing worked to materially impact the supply chains of imperialism, zionism and fascism.”

After class that night, Baby C and I stopped by Joe's Pub to see my old ACT UP buddy, Kendall Thomas perform My Funny to Valentine, a Miles Davis songbook. One part storytelling about the law and Jazz and the American songbook, another a story of friendship. 'I want to feel the way Miles sounds," he quoted his friend Farah Jazzmine Griffin, referring to the artistic, emotional, and existential coolness in his music, a theme from her book, In Search of a Beautiful Freedom. Kendall is one of the New Yorkers I met my first week in town, always someone to admire. He joked about looking for love in all the wrong places. I guess we all are.

Got home and learned Bud Court had left, the “Trouble” Sequence from Harold and Maude passing through my mind, Maude on her way, Harold left with his Banjo. I recall getting home from the hospital after seeing Tim, one of our last meetings, before he left, returning to watch Harold and Maude with Bear. The hellos and goodbyes are many.

Feb 12

No class the next day. Baby C and I met Al, before making our way to the West Village, thrifting for my outfit for Box of Wine, the Bachalian parade at Mardi Gras. In between, we stopped by Sheridan Square where Jay and company were re raising Gilbert's Rainbow Flag. The square filled with people, screams and applause, a cathartic defiance filled the air, as the city challenged the fed’s pathetic attempt to whitewash history. Stonewall means fighting back, then and now.

Says the news, "BREAKING: NEW YORKERS RE-RAISE THE PRIDE FLAG IN FRONT OF THE STONEWALL MONUMENT, IN DIRECT DEFIANCE OF DONALD TRUMP’S ORDER."

Off to the East Village, to Village Works, to Clockwork with Gene. And up to Freeman's Alley off Rivington Street, snow and murals along the walls on a day to remember.

Feb 13

And out the door early the next morning, 4 AM, off to the airport, for NOLA.

The good vibe started on the flight from Atlanta to NOLA, Atlanta people excited to get here, asking me questions about Brooklyn, sharing tips. And then the music in the airport named after Louie Armstrong. Ariette and I talked about her beloved Haiti and the French, creole beans and rice vs Cajun gumbo with its French Acadian influences. Everyone has an opinion about the mix of cultures and food. Have you noticed how mean people are these days, she asked. And so the weekend adventure began, with tips about parades, Zulu, Fat Tuesday when you indulge before lent, life lessons.

Arriving, I got to my room and made plans to see my friend Sonni, from NYC, who took me to a drag ball in Chalmette, a 15 minute drive from the quarter. Out to La Cabaret for drag queen story hour with the Krewe of Armenius, for a sartorial affair, off off off off Broadway with our host Fatsy Cline, riffing on banned books and censorship. 'Dont worry the fow is over 50,000' is the gift that keeps on giving, joke after joke.

And off to Vaughns, the iconic 9th Ward dive bar established in 1959, located in the Bywater neighborhood, famous live music, on Dauphine Street, where we used to see Kermit play, to see Valparaiso Men's Chorus, a group of musicians "known for performing sea shanties, described as "cosmic naval music" featuring instruments like sousaphone, washboard, and pennywhistle". Packed we sang and danced and danced and sang one crazy version of the drunken sailor with pirate songs, after another, the whole place joining, a mosh pit pushing us about, as we sang about what to do with a drunken sailor. I was pushed and squooshed about in the crowd of bodies. And walked back into the night, up Dauphine, frenetic energyin the streets, Dauphine and Desire, through apparitions and shadows, from this world and that, filling the night, crossing the Esplenade where the trees lurk, extending into the sky. I wrote for hours yesterday in Atlanta on my layover. Stories and streets, late night music. People out and about, alive. Less tourists. You feel the crackdown on internationals. But this feels beyond time. For a night, some sartorial levity, some music, some people watching, dipping in and out of bars, music, lots and lots of people.

"your joy inscribed itself on the sidewalk and it has never been washed away" says the mural on Dauphine along "Homer Plessy Way", a street recognizing Plessy's role in challenging Louisiana's Separate Car Act, which led to the landmark 1896 Supreme Court ruling Plessy v. Ferguson.

Feb 14

I wake up for more NOLA wandering. To the waterfront, out to Flora Cafe, out Gallatoire's, remembering, out to Saturn bar, seeing Gene's old spots, Will arriving, lots of stories, lots of dancing. The rain poured. And the carnival in full motion.

Feb 15

Beads flying through the air, people screaming, welcoming everyone on the street, we walked out the door. Off to meet our friends, meeting the box of wine, our to party with Bacchus!!!!

Life is a cabernet old chum, thats the theme of our continent at box of wine, a parade organized to keep the spirit of Dionysus alive, at Mardi Gras. We met at the Dew Drop Inn to wait to kick off, chatting about the carnival in Brazil, people out and about, some dressed as cats, others as Sally Bowles, in Cabaret, with warnings about fascism, walking past old cemeteries, box of wine in hand for supporters of of the god of wine on St Charles, college kids, grandma's, people of all walks of life, enjoying a sip. A tad excessive, still people are out, interacting, sharing, laughing, taking a sip, running into friends, people of stilts in Sally Bowles hats, kids, parents, devotees, members of the house of yes contingent, finally all afternoon, finally stopping at the Rabbit Hole, in the Central City/Warehouse District area, supporting music from brass and funk to electronic and house. Out for gumbo, watching more of the Bachus parade, throngs of people on to Siberia bar, on St Claude, for more bands, dancing with the remaining members of the crew, international brass bands whirling us into a frenzy, still shaking into the night...

'happy carnival yall,' some people said as we walked back to the Vieux Carré, 'the old square', 'love your outfits.'

Feb 16

My friends in New York let the president know what they thought of him, giving the president the bird. Jerry Goralnik posted:

“HAPPY PRESIDENTS' DAY. Some say we were being frivolous but we needed to let off some steam so a flash mob was organized to fill the street and collectively make a rude gesture to the sitting president.”

In NOLA, we were off to a crawfish broil.

Woke up for the Annual Lundi Gras Celebration, strolling to to Flora Cafe, reading the writing on the wall. “Jeane i am sorry you maybe got ghosted you are loved,” says one mural. We walk along joining a renegade parade, to the Spotted Owl on Frenchman Street.

"Life is short but the next two days are going to be very long," says the singer for Bad Penny and the Pleasure Makers, before singing, "Tonite You Belong to Me."

Up the Esplenade, we continue, past the trees, we walk thinking about Boo Radley, rip Robert, the secret places in the city, the struggles for something better, rip Jessee, onward rainbow coalition. We see it everywhere at Mardi Gras.

Out to the

1:00 pm Crawfish Boil & Bands @ 1913 Esplanade (Jess & David’s) with three bands!

Pulso de Barro

The Heeters

Okie Weiss and the Zydeco Playboys

Crawfish after crawfish, red bean and rice.

Our friend from dancing the night before told me the earth wants us to be happy. She gives us all we need. He's been on the road for a decade, off the grid.

Pulso de Barro sings sad songs about the world, our pulse, sweating it out, out with the bad, in with the hood, alive with each other... more crawfish, more dancing... out to the Saturn Bar, where BCCoogan, attacks the keyboard, through a set of solo songs in the city’s piano tradition, serenading us...

"When I Die (You Better Second Line)"

Feb 17

"It's like life should be, people smiling, mingling, laughing, like the old Peter Sellers movie when Sellers and company escape the asylum and run the town," says Lady Di, when asked what Mardi Gras mean to you, as we stood with the early crew - at the Old Firehouse in Marigny - 721 Mandeville st.

St Anthony Ramblers & Panorama Brass Band about to play.

"To me, Mardi Gras means freedom," says one elder on a stoop watching it all. "It means coming together.

"Life is absurd, maybe we need to celebrate that more..."

We can come together, share this planet together. Elders and kids, friends, family... spreading joy, recalling lost friends.

"Just remember, our joy, it's what they want to crush. Red beans and rice, eat em hot, eat em cold, they are good for your soul."

"I didn't think it was possible to have this much fun in a day, said Kwemi.

“Mardi Gras means fun to me,” says another elder, her family here nine generations. We were between Dauphine and Piety. No women got married.

I think we’re getting closer to that world, says Chris, speaking of a beloved community where we all can love each other.

"Its centering both loss and love, death and life," says another participant.

One step with death, another life.

At 11:30am the Krewe of Kosmic Debris converged at the Blue Nile on Frenchman (marigny) ...

We parade to the river, and hold court at the Mississippi river to remember our beloveds.

The band played, Down by the Riverside...

"I'm gonna lay down my heavy load

Down by the riverside

I'm gonna lay down my heavy load

Down by the riverside

Gonna study war no more."

We got to the waterfront.

'Welcome to the Krewe of Kosmic Debris,' noted an elder.

The band plays, 'A Closer Walk with Thee.'

'There's a lot of dead people to remember,'

Robert DuVal

Jessee Jackson

Virginia

Bruce

Uncle John.

Aunt Anne

Mr knill

Ms knill

All gone.

At the water, Alex and Chris welcomed us.

My mind flashed back to meeting Bruce all those years ago.

Looking at his clocks.

Chatting with Dad, the two laughing a lifetime ago.

I can’t stop thinking about

Moms dream about Helen being dressed up, the two going to a party.

Taking dad's ashes to the water.

Looking at the riverboat, my mind trailed back to Huck Finn and Jim, mythic time and our time, co mingling.

Our life here.

Chris talked about his father’s lesson that no love is simple. Few of us perfect it. We let each other down. But we keep trying. We keep empathizing, caring, reaching out, talking, listening, staying open to each other, even changing across our lives. Our bodies become frail, still we desire, and age, and transform, scattered in time, connecting oceans and tributaries, lives and families.

Alex and Chris pour Bruce's ashes in the river of time.

Welcoming Bruce to the river of life, Cosmic time. White ashes mixed in the water, where we lay Dad’s ashes all those years ago, where Huck and Jim escaped social conventions, a couple guys floating along a raft.

Mark Twain, worked as steamboat pilot, drafting his notes for Huckleberry Finn, viewing the river as as a untamable, ever-changing, and majestic force of nature, of wild power.

"The Mississippi River will always have its own way...." writes Twain. "it has a new story to tell every day." Its a place of loss, of something in us, something found in connecting ourselves with a larger world, from the Carribean, across a continent, between this life and that, this world and that.

"...when I had mastered the language of this water... I had lost something…” writes Twain.

On the way back to NYC, I thought about Robert Duval, who was Boo, in my favorite novel adn movie. "Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad." — Harper Lee, *To Kill a Mockingbird

Back in New York, I thought about Jesse Jackson’s rainbow coalition, his ACTUP Arrest 1993. We watched him remind the kids, “I am somebody.”

But I can't stop thinking about what we saw on the river, the ashes, into the river of time, of life, the peaks, valleys, crescendos, the music, the living and dying, music and bodies, the stories and grief, from Fat Tuesday into Ash Wednesday.

TS Elliots' poem:

“Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know

The infirm glory of the positive hour

Because I do not think