Mobile Mardi Gras: Mother of Mystics

faith oath the production of this program was made possible in part by a grant from the alabama state council on the arts and the national endowment for the arts a federal agency and more

these are the church faithful blame for lent well we'll have an association with autograph it's been stunning thing the pacific thank you everybody

its usefulness of stolen it's just for one thing happened in the barn milking palestinian saving way if they can because as i all of us honestly the

sixties i think so physically physically fit pull all of our thoughts and historians told us when we're on how margolis first celebrated immobile alabama you know the celebration was firmly established even before the wall and

they will be always usually a lot of alabama's bill both parties and the celebrations usually ends you're going to be you know it's been i mean you can martin is art form which is a part of the life of the city and its important economical in the city each mystic society of course puts on its own parade it hayes well the parade and it has to have a place in which to

build the parade it has the nation's artists who create the parade as hayden artisans who build their the floats and so cool hand it is a living art form in the city which our contribute economically to the city's important economic when i think that's unusual mr cohen and you know when they are well builder disorder a day harrison is a float designer mark roth is virtually there are a lot of and around it really mean it kayla come and enjoy it once it's a new client it's just kind of i

mean you grow up and you're around all they really never imagine it yeah and into the slightly lack of the family and is all time we both qualified ms smith has been doing in the states both in the poll tor and then they can write to our ministry revenue recall list of all of them some of the permanent unions say nine in

an artistic what they're saying that they are the sun and annie really goes about act quickly in accepting that's a world don't sense that to me it is on the contrary that produces certain day and sometime to your monies are going out alone in you really are and time time and money is really corporate work to a wealth i don't know a lot about it because i think we have we have a saying if we created faces so that different we say don't tell george you as you have about three different from those that name george

i started in nineteen thirty eight pride parades have no public thought about them at a low then in nineteen fifty that they go the stripers parade and i'm a bill that break for thirty years and then our ipads add the man but i didn't really clear attempt on an urban built them becoming cowboys well but the ideas and are now i'm wondering what the pharaohs try to get them started though it seemed like gentle get out of it and when that's not only going to live is it all right other four builders and designers of the beales past have achieved legendary status the works of edmond a cell and john augustus walker are still remembered and mom carla bestow was an

artist their fathers are you they're training in europe in france and in england he came down it immobile handgun he found this a truce and an aunt and that is that an artist life in this country is not a happy life that is very difficult to make a living as an artist in this country and he became attracted to mardi gras and he realized that here's an art form could be an art form so he took to designing and creating mardi gras what it is and he put on the floats on the streets it will be on some of the greatest floats it ever been built anywhere they were absolutely magnificent john augustus walker was another of the leading designers of will be upgrades

and i ask god my favorite parade of this goes way back into the nineteen thirties and that was as tarzan movies don't talk about but the reason the beales mardi gras go back much further than the cell and walked back to the origin of carnival itself before the current they practice of christianity with a pagan agricultural festivals of egypt and rejoicing of spring these celebrations of fertility and they're dancing street drains energy has spread to greece roman throughout present day spain france germany was that just begun custom calendar by making a brief period of feasting and festivities receiving an official season it was given them in an album and fleeting leaving were forsaking let her know bomb and eventually became part of our lives and modern italy on a barn in france

an article in india the evolution of extravagant masked ball and dignity in england where armstrong used illegal and pancakes were baked in great quantity to use up all still in there and the water meaning that ox with a budget deal in paris led a procession with a fan thoughts written by you all boys assemble was the last thing they were the facts was this might be the bottom line that led to our present the law levy is a period of forty days of potential observant usually connected with vast abstinence extraordinary works of charity or a prayer that prepare for the great christian celebration of easter porsche bentley it which is forty days brought to east of what these that is the first sunday after the first

woman after the beginning of spring which is that we first bought and so it depends on what the moon's analyst when we had this thing how many keys branch found immobile and seventeen to eleven and even before the founding of the city and there are indications of effect that mardi gras was a very much a part of their lives that they made some sites around your mardi gras i think probably the first time a modern girl sullivan in a wireless recognized on the coast was about march the third sixty nine and

then in fact it was noted in the journal called the room by a jesuit priest and capital with his hair in the year sixty nine and seventeen dr frazier course and the anvil founded the state was what was then called what is that all lawsuits up the river when the city move to present site a lot of gravity and seven eleven the french initiated the tough girl celebration the parade of the fed at all been going on for centuries in france and players especially and which is q and as assemble symbolism of the last minute before the onset where they would parade through the city of moby award this huge they can shape a bull oxen had that and then brought over plans to the founders story on legos is that

it was so david it took sixteen and the poet so as early as seven eleven him and his presence it a modern reservation and three of its original size obviously that creates new orleans new orleans founded it and that was money right it's content infusion in the locals because that was the pure french type celebration of nautical it was not the mystic societies we have today the mystic societies that we have today was for more later on revamping came about quite by accident but they had their influence one freckle when the spanish tacoma whalen seventeen eighties they wrote with down the custom of torched it corrodes so far this took place on the epiphany in six which is traditionally gagnon of the carmel modernization which lasted a latino vote and seventeen eighties we had two celebrations going on that pad and

what our local people today would turn moderate and then we come to new year's eve of eighteen thirty and that's why a group of young men here in will be you we're celebrating new year's eve the way it had been for sometime and that is by visiting the steamboats that were tied up on the waterfront the steamboat held open house and the young man of the town wind up and down the waterfront partaking of hospitality of the steam boat captains in the hospitality likud of course when i went through they happen to combat and hardware store and they solve the rights holders and shovels and so they each picked up the cameo and rakes and shovels and hoes and proceeded on their merry way through an area of somalia live with although i am go ahead and they say well we

need in a call for a lot of them right and so that was the beginning of the first miss the society there was probably not a craft and maybe not more than the end of this frantic now on that music is to celebrate almost every cannot come to magnolia cemetery where michael choir is buried and we're not parents ms denise johnson vincent are buried there and a string of mardi gras beads with somebody his calm and placed on the monument so they had not forgotten michael cry now get out there and had somewhat on as they celebrated for me a video that they became very tired and melvin as they can and they stop taking in new members not even their sons who

look young stripers and they have been so minimal so after ten years that this young man and they said hey let's get together and all our own organization so they all got together and sadness and then i met will assist colleges practices that animal and chanin says are called the strike and the businesses that and let them know the women and then the new vote count at this hour because asian take his name from the fact that cotton of course was being immobile and a young man who wanted to be successful started in the pot business and are narrow is the first thing that was done with a young man who was hated up in the cotton business wasn't he was put down on the waterfront to strike that has been marked a pardon the houses they were white and that

society has survived it still is your immobile his fortune and it is the oldest most of society mr of the cabin and faded out the cabinets of these were consistent they would take any body and survive and all that and that that was the end of the help that the people in all and in the typical of the beads that i had been hearing about how a lot of celebrations over here and they asked a group of us to come out in new orleans and show them how to organize one of these methods is that its well in this group from a cabinet and then the strike of all in about eighteen because i went to new orleans and follow to entertain an outline of these people what the good now the dayton and just said no but the structure that we now know as modern rose exported from our real to new orleans and

the president bishop of new orleans' archbishop philip hannan has a kind of a funny anecdote that he will get into it that's when he and i both in the same assembly and he's speaking publicly he will acknowledge me on more than one occasion has said an archbishop lipscomb for more realistic today and it's true that mardi gras started immobile and later it was exported to new orleans and i just want him and all adult know any time you want to back up the globe to get during the war between the states the mystic societies functions as well as mr ross celebration throat tuesday were discontinued at the conclusion of the war union troops occupied the city and the beanstalk physically and morally open get into soon revive victims at six pm and joseph's will cain joke a nevada marble and mysticism joe cain was at a well known mold medium he was

gifted eu like music he had some ability in the arts apparently the martinez i asked he loved for it he just low already in the local masquerade well it happened that down in the darkest days of the beginning of reconstruction have been civil and joking activities and what happens when the strikers have been suspended and open the valves the south and lost the war what else and it is it's this is still playing in terms of those trees lots of them when he said that was beautiful and nineties and won speaking

portuguese the story you look the reason this person who personify the unions and the only place in the city they get this thing is why what about rentals that and charcoal adam sets of those rules are other songs on this and then selling them the idea that the city icann of standing in troops are visiting or you know what the length of the island an insane directly to

you as well and as he proceeded to go through the city the citizens came out in slow and immediately picked up on the inside job and basically that one head of the group of seven guys' turn the city from failing than an adoption and the sparrow that to fade into an well also warmer and now no not not that that would still have that ten silva joking then his beard and while mick and he was kind of an obscure person in history because he was there with a lot of tall big center on the people concerned with michael craft is the first mistake that we were getting so deny for i got a lot of that in that research on fat up his beard

in elementary and started trying to be removed that they are intended to do about twelve years to get that accomplished on sunday before modern offshore fund in nineteen sixty seven they had a grand funeral procession it was a re barreled job carrying what turned that we're in a large open field position i wasn't that many people and the brightest a handful of folks think as a pitcher that you spoke to of the parade and everything and grades in and one shot victim there is a larger crackdown after graveyard had flown some of the job gains family i'm from california and something about that and they had a service and rededicating near his body and his final resting place and that of his wife on arrival we found out later in a bird in the wrong place and getting up including running back across the graveyard in putting where he is today and then fought for the van haver few people

around will reopen married three times the next year the situation was very very small and then one day all of a sudden for today it is an amnesty and fundamental him as well well italy has been quote is going to follow joe cain they came some new mystic societies one james million widows enjoy these

days and from job gains for writing spry the order bs and then the son of the mess this added the only sodium and other mistakes so they are both in the more more innovations continued to perform and

parades town while still exist in some which are not and again the fun of themselves the season's flight of the people who were originally the mystic societies were extremely secret now one ruling may not miss dixon sat well david there were admitted that means that they abandoned day of the members is mysterious that is to the public and yet the vault they come as anne and entertainment than that the violent but they do not reveal their identity and so is

experience so the mentally ill is very low although speaks well it's meant to be a sacred that pretty much it's not not quite the secrecy it was probably fifty years ago and they say the stories of the meaning of life now the secrecy only some historians say that the lessening of secrecy has come about since world war two things are still true steve voting well the lamps stand for the author of myths who founded in nineteen sixty seven a voice for him always and at sixty eight

remove the convention bid committee decided to lease going on but always in bali jason baer is the order of minutes and will implode begins its parade every year they were our allies so immediately after the civil war that they still have that on their mind so that that gives them main emblem of broken call which indicated the confederacy and then they have this idea of carnival and get it was that the folly was chasing death the death was jason fallen nobody has really decided which it is others say it's redemption a column of life

someone passing on putting in here there's no doubt the file is it's trying to dispense with death as he chases that's around a column their amped up korean and lead to me you know would they go this fall it will be prepared but they don't have clients it's quite a problem getting them now because we don't have that many slaughterhouses want head with one of the local ones and he has to make arrangements of tupelo mississippi to get to let and the estimate ranged is to get a lot of them now sometimes it's not a very pleasant task to take britain and be volunteers in order of minutes and will implode are still pulled way all clothes were once thought i knew the news came from that

more present for that was only place around here where they have a lot of new and so every year there was a big to do interviews being brought from that more prison reform farm to pull the floats and down because mules disappear and so then they had to start using tractors and he can build floats then when electrical lighting damian they heard the news the new orleans has the larger celebration with more balls in the crowd and the millions of huge crowd of a hundred and twenty five thousand or so catch more of those credits the balloons leads and candies grown from walking point is that there is a special role that has become synonymous with moby awards more to go

a live mannequin and tennis happen someone few years ago the search throw moon pies from the flow and didn't just lay turning only a kid who stood up in this building getting a parade on the street is complicated so of course you have to play than one thing there's nothing worse than it did really exciting experience and then the next problem is you have an operation that is that is that that's not to say that and for

people like hulu the generation sometimes a young man who like to ride a horse don't have chances of the bullet but the republicans dan two main thing of this and one of the options the minutemen reasons a day and now thinking so with that they may be

different than that i'm a live in the south on soundbite of a lot of john c paul he'll be a it originated at atlantis some of all workers ronald the meeting the tree has been very a few editions of us a mammoth task mr liam on solomon's laid them in place that would be is really the europeans you see and but the thing that i think is needed is that we got it as young people to enjoy plain same thing we do see us on the street because it's so little

so fifty years you know i'm saying is i find her what what happens in some of the most biting satire that history in the parades often directed inwardly at the person or the organization doing this week

i arrived at the law's a performer he performed in men's rules in such size is that and he was the man who was most interested in giving a turn to mardi gras which had and had not headed that i think they felt that by the grog was beginning to take itself a little too seriously when he was a man who felt that modern hero of small ears and opted for revelry and just knocks the common people investing eight law that at things are going on within the community and his government to bring together the x ray and success in the same conditions and ten so in the

founding of and the comet cowboys filled with comic cowboys little italy in which they poke fun at what it well about what may be the president of the united states but usually its politicians and we'll be there for years that politicians hate but it's still at that mass now supports isn't that one big thing we have to remember when they get here i'm colin quinn has been for years the faith they can come here like every other migrant route concert for dinner before the planes and so they will bring high school bands in here and so what we're trying to clean up the finalizing think about what we have to get this all done there's a band play in the line so well you can think and as drunk girls

in nineteen eighty one the title of an imperial designer failed run a protege of the late leon's i'm deena moby omar mcgraw designers symbolic dreamed up the idea of the lavish decorating the walls held in places like moby awards civic auditorium henderson we do is create the stage set and all of the openings advances tell a story in the end up with the stage set for hitting twenty two games twenty two dances the frescoes on january the six fifth in january six and there were sixteen i have twenty two jobs it's frightening that there are that many that close because you can either memorize all the stuff that needs to be done you can even make the list of things to do and so what i do is i am i employ everyone who will work and

red trucks and ran out of foreign storage space and around a warehouse right here at the auditorium and just just go right into it because it's a hard fast as we can get radio stations with their position in baseball at thirty five how different a law that's about to start this that law which jurors weigh

what am i get away and magnetic their bad knee jerk and that syria has its sales because he can't get into the bed of the people who voted for going to lose your data three four years so they're thinking what they're thinking about tuesday and so they probably all occurred often find that next year pretty much like now not because it's so important but because the people is so important that was all him join fallout from the hands of certain people they work up to this place they didn't blow out the company is getting rid of the party manuel valls are closely linked to that because when selected a young

would be all women make their debut in society volunteer see the light remember because as cleaning nineteen thirty paul ion batteries older not just act yeah i think people have certain psychological needs that need to be fulfilled in various ways and some of those names are fulfilled by that voter suppression than face than the frivolity and carnivals been that way since ancient eyes of rome but there are probably also other people who delight in playing kings and what haynes and in that sense probably never quite the roller the queen is selected

level one from the day the time to make it known if they wish to make their debut and they are angry and have a number of them when we look at them that their mother's been a queen an article and a cane so the rabbit and then that seems to have the most realistic close to them sometimes there's some bio fuels that that might be the queen of someone who has that's been done for many many years and it always works hartfield since it's known that's the way it is all that it's very serious and will be held and of course this business of oil being queen a modern girl a

leading the ball and that sort of thing isn't gotten into dallas is now in their fourth generations of people who lived the same policy of the green party and it's very serious for those people well i have a lot of a cabinet making green chair of patients have to read grayson have happened now perils and the obamas calls loudly against they upheld wanting to moaning inject blue makeup on that get used to that and now one man don't want the current and said that you never give up my growing opium because it said you take these robots preceded my profit than they can walk until that have been like to be a baby babbling now we've gotten pr nightmare again an investment as the queen fans are the experiences that

you know chris is the taxpayers in clean because the kings taste everything he wants to create a dress i'm just like just applying know this might have been and it for long is in added street closes far closer than it just hit me a little narrower a layer or a stunningly just waiting and waiting in the whole wedding party now it's finding just had the wedding dress and has an errant to coerce its bills that is very tangled family is on and the handlers know recently learned about the first ever instances knowing only that the queen or

any other kinds need to be done like this now ones will be down about one to one woman three months to do it to a man of two women would take her six weeks or so when we get far by women working only condemn and apartments but that's concentrated eight hours of days it doesn't ever leave the queen is here are you noticing more things in seeing a man roster that they wanted out lots of water so we decided on drilling is made in purple silk satin anything alongside still huge embedded in our nation and handling of various as those in my novel on early human and without incident with iowa and then it says i get them

are on the floor in our laps missions and i can go flea the system a young people and they're in their twenties they're not exposed to select some of the cities who have older people changing the house and always in young people and they'll have done an outstanding young people there and they really are a row

image of what young people are very outstanding young people would just let people who will the new law will show the responsibility as its responsibility to that particle four days is to put on a good side to to the public i guess that's a little bit over there cliche there in a year is possible they don't have any response to those airlines done for our own we have to military escorts deliver the queen where she's supposed to be did you say help with that so to help us get from seven nine years after the arab and even the sleeping schedule

because they have to get off the pot is at a given hour so they can get enough it also saves enough you can't let them get too much rest and break the momentum because they get and downgrading says i'm a manager says it's pretty well my astonishment of a lot of people say this is the weekend on a long long long remember that what will be his were involved with mardi gras since its inception but usually in the less glamorous roles of carpenters in new hampshire the first real participation unlike moby of mardi gras was making it for the ball was given by the first mistake you

try o o d or order then in nineteen thirty eight was still there first right everybody celebrates the same way there is no separation live shannon the coronation of king felix is missing skin writes is there is no more elaborate than we spend on our money is in excess of thirty eight four thousand dollars each year on the activity all of the activities and that's not to include costumes by individual goes that that's a virtual fence but i guess if you had to take all of that and included in one

years of activities my family talking about half a million dollars at least cause it's very expensive undertaking but <unk> money which abuse in for blacks historically have wanted to celebrate the matter activists oddly relaxed five years ago that they cannot celebrate along with their counterparts the white colonization so that took upon themselves thought that are some of the gentleman who amazingly of an eye and they envy called consultation saw fit to do this because of their inability to work with the other other groups and since then they have care about that thing arm it has been talked about discuss and moon many of innovation both black and why their dumb one made this might just

become a reality that the celebration is colorless in terms of race i would've thought of this happening in my might be planets away and the days is when it happens but i've always told people that i should only don't rap on a tombstone of tammany had happened and i get the message rose bowl the largest portion of that eighteen million seems to go for evening gowns close to five million dollars per year after that two million dollars annually for furs and jewelry or more there's only one point four million dollars

at this point four million dollars worth of clothing and accessories and warned to mardi gras ball some expenditures lose balls include two hundred dollars chamber as the show the boston globe one of the items on the force caused them to live in london alm it's nicer ways and says twelve or eighteen thousand out of liquor that liquor trucks back up here and they always say it's twelve thousand this year man this is you know eighteen thousand dollars worth of liquor and that happens every night at his every single monday

i guess an incredible waste and many people are asking the question why should one puts so much money into frivolity when the homeless all wandering the streets of the blue and this is a very good question and summer surge question and one that needs to be answered it has gotten so technical like so many other things until we must cover ourselves with insurance policies and many other thanks to protect the organization and its membership from the potential lawsuit is always assigned working in the shadows someone is trying to take advantage of any and every opportunity i saw those people because they can enjoy a lot of oil for trying to find a way to get some more individually davis's inferno well we're smiling of the ticket oh yes i think that that all in all mardi gras has more good than of evil and if you don't take it with

respect to a city's coming alive for a sense of feeling identity and oneness there is an awful lot of good in this and solid family fund that takes place on this occasion i think it gives life and zest to a city and an entirely authentic and very durable and durable question i would hate to see it disappear kidnapped or disappeared just about this year's model or mood it is about alcohol we always had to deal with people that if our security that can be a big asset be asked to well we don't condemn it we would we would not be as extreme as search and religious sentiments in

our own community that feel but it was not a goal of god and the excesses a certain amount of god but you can have a good celebration and i think a very legitimate one without being excessive only a lot of more family oriented as well i think someone coming to market to realize that in the first place there's nothing serious don't get uptight idea for violent the whole idea for fraud and have a good time so as the saying goes that i am with him to make him behind assigned to do if you come and immobile for march april first place get placed a legitimate bodies in the make your resume got a place to stay if possible get into a hotel

and then get out on the streets to scramble under the political leverage to mother was a transit line up young men the young boys and everything was just fine and he was with a large corporation which transfers so that that would move this along and they're happiest there they said it was like to be ahead of the saying fall of a fulfilled life until spring then one of the children and the mother

and the view they have a saying that martin well with the whole world and here they were friends with the necessity of accepting the fact that there could be you know a lot of what the piece is a gun that will be