Mardi Gras 2005 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Artvoice-hosted street celebration that offers everyone a license to let loose before fasting for Lent.
It's a boisterous way to usher in a time of penitence and sacrifice for the forty days before Easter.
This year's festivities kicked off with a parade down Elmwood, into Allentown, through Chippewa Street and back. Hundreds of Buffalonians trampled the rain- and snow-slicked streets toward Chippewa dazzled by twinkle lights and jingling beads.
Mardi Gras. The English call it Shorvetide, referring to being shriven or making confession in church. Germans hold festivals called Fasching or Karneval. The Polish call it Zapusty, Hungarians call it Farsang, and Greeks call the final week before Lent Apokries.
"Mardi Gras" is actually French for "Fat Tuesday." It refers to the day one must give up cooking fats before giving them up for Lent, according to kidsturncentral.com.
However, it seems that this definition has gotten lost in the fury of costumes, feathers and inebriation.
Of 250 people polled Tuesday night, a mere 47 could explain the true reason behind the excess.
"Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday!" Kathy Thompson, a secretary in downtown Buffalo, tried to shout over the bustling crowd at 67 West, "It's supposed to be, like, a release before Lent!"
While Thompson was dead-on, her bar hopping companions appeared to disagree. Thompson's friend Sarah Klein slurred, "No it's not ... no wait ... is she right?"
When asked, "Do you know what Mardi Gras means?" most raised their glasses and yelled, "beads," topping their sentiment off with an explosive, "Whoohoo!" This was the case more and more often as the evening wore on.
Oh, the beads. Oversized, minimized, pearlesque and neon, it's all about the beads. Those who don't have them are not properly celebrating, according to almost everyone.
"You have to have at least two (strands)" said Jeff Wright, a Mardi Gras enthusiast, boasting the proclaimed minimum of beads.
He was one of many attempting to keep his beverage intact at 8:30 p.m. in the already too-cramped-to-move Crocodile Bar.
This year, the precious beads fell through the rain as the decorated floats passed out-reaching onlookers in the streets and were immediately thrust in faces upon entering one of Artvoice's 40 participating venues.
Girls mounted bar tops at Quote, where the best dancer was honored with a fistful of beads. Drinking games and trivia winners were also awarded with strands. Perfect strangers approached with a smile and an outstretched strand as bowed heads received their sparkling plastic-bead lei.
Curiously, most of the people polled seemed to have a warped "Girls Gone Wild" interpretation of the meaning of Mardi Gras. When asked the question of the night, Crystal, a waitress at Swiss Chalet, exclaimed, "I don't know. Show your b**bs?"
And plenty of women did. As the evening's antics wore on the downtown scene became increasing racy. Young girls flashed, old girls flashed. To say the least, breasts were present, perhaps not in the more SoHo-like bars but prominently in their neighboring clubs.
Local vendors pushed carts overloaded in plastic-beaded glory, selling their wares to the eager partiers. Local Holly Farms shop worker Mark proclaimed that Mardi Gras meant, "Drink 'til you drop, in Spanish or something." He'd be glad to know most participants agree.
Most bar entryways brimmed with mingling celebrators toting glasses and bottles. Club Marcella, Nietzsche's, and Cobalt put on early and late-evening drag shows. Feathery, sequined queens strutted the runways, goaded by hoots and hollers as the crowds took in the scene. The air took on a techno-frenzy feeling as Mardi Gras celebrations slipped into full swing.
One of the towering queens offered her experience with Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
"It's like a bull run in New Orleans. Once you step foot outside your hotel the crowd whisks you down the street," she said. "You have to hang on to your friends for dear life."
Whether it's Paris, London, Las Vegas, New Orleans or Buffalo, it seems the sentiment of Mardi Gras has changed, but in concurrence with the rest of society, in a more openly sexual manner.
Celebration to excess is the point of the holiday, a point that even Mardi Gras cynics can appreciate. Maybe partiers aren't aware of the reason the festivities took place, but they were celebrating according to custom.
Throughout the evening, one Pixie-stick was awarded to each person that answered the Mardi Gras trivia question correctly, with the exception of one boy who answered, "It's not Mardi Gras today, is it?"
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
