NYCH3 # 1092 – Mardi Gras Hash

NYCH3 #1092

MARDI GRAS

Date: February 13, 2005

Start:  Subway Inn, 60th & Lex

Hares:  Yellow Smello, Cockstar, Head Up Ass, Flaccido Domingo

Special Guest Hurricane Check Appearance: Crazy “Poulet” Bob

On-in:  Bourbon Street, 79th & Amsterdam

Scribe:  Mean Jean

C’est le vie. Faux Pas. Gay Paris. Bon bon. Oui Oui. Voule vous couche avec moi ?  That’s about the extent of my French (spelling doesn’t count, right?). Although those last two usually get me through most situations so I’m not complaining. Oh, and there were those 2 weeks in France during the World Cup where I learned how to order 4 beers and a pack of Marlboro Lights in French too. But I digress.  Fact is, it was the Mardi Gras hash and that’s got sumtin to do wit French so I thought I better toss around a bit of the fancy schmancy for you. Don’t know why though, based on the ragamuffin troupe that turned up at the Subway Inn. The overall appearance was somewhere south of tacky, a few inches to the left of obnoxious, and slightly off center from generally-considered standards of human decency.  And those were just our hares.

 

Just to give you a sense of the “state of the hares,” I submit the following report from Flaccido:

 

It was simply out of control.  Cockstar had attacked
Flaccido Domingo with a hair trimmer, leaving his
belly neat and clean.  But she had stopped short of
the belt, so when he pulled his trousers lower it
looked simply absurd.  Yellow Smellow was sitting in a
chair telling anybody who would listen that she loved
cooking.  That she can’t make toast was beside the
point.  Chris (Cockstar’s law school friend) had come
and gone – simply too drunk to stand much less make
intelligent conversation, so he had packed it in.  At
8 pm.  Sideshow Bob just sat there watching the game
with his lips permanently attached to his beer.  Food
everywhere – on the walls, on the floor, you name it.
Hurricane mix everywhere as well.  No no, that red
color will come out.  I swear.  Yellow Smellow [sic]down
for the count – needed a nap – but rebounded nicely
and was seen dancing on the bar later.  Sadly she
wouldn’t leave her bra behind.  And I quote:  “No way,
it’s my favorite!”   Cockstar on the floor with
Flaccido Domingo, drinking whiskey shots out of his
now well shorn belly button.  The prude insisted on
removing the lint first, though.  Dave visiting from
Arizona passed out on the floor.    First drinks were
had at 1 pm.  People still seen at the bar at 2 am.
 
And this was just the cooking party on Saturday…

 

So you can see what we were in for.  Nevertheless, a trusting, decked-out pack of around 50 hashers clogged the narrow sidewalks outside Subway Inn. The outfits ranged from the traditional masks and beads to the over-thought (um, I Used to Work in Chicago), the under-appareled (naked Jon), the over-the-top (Crazy Chicken Bob), the under-the-sheets (Stewa), the over-dramatic (Cockstar as Elizabeth Taylor), the under-done (Bottom and HUA), the over-used (just how many events can Too Long get away with wearing the beer mug to and calling it a costume?),  the just-so (Sarah Down Under sporting an outfit of colors that matched the beads),  the just-say-no (Wickham, Burke, Peter, Fast American Dave #6), the just-here-for-the-booze (Sideshow and pal Dave), the just-plain-apathetic (Dave Hardy, Bruce), and the just-plain (Ed Lunch in whiskers and tail).  Basil, Manslave, Jonathans Taller and Shorter, new Kim, old Kim (Mastercard), Lesley, Steamer, Steve Lastoe, ShainaMaria, Patrick, Pussy Repellant, Dogfin, and the beat goes on but you get the picture.

 

And I haven’t even gotten to the Gates yet. Not only was this the infamous, themed (when did “themed” become a dirty word?), Mardi Gras hash, it was also the first weekend that Christo and Jean Claude’s “Gates” would be unfurled to the public in Central Park. So naturally our hares couldn’t resist running us through the largest influx of humans to Central Park since 35,000 marathoners trounced the place last November. But at least they had the decency to keep to the roadways. Gates tourists actually wanted to, gulp, walk through the paths where the Gates were. Go figure! At any rate, trail left the Subway Inn and headed straight to the park, no futzing around. We encountered a check outside the Plaza that fooled no one and we entered right at the pond and proceeded north along the paths past the skating rink. Snail’s pace was the MPH of the day as we navigated through, around, and, occasionally, on top of the bags of tourists who were less annoyed than they ought to have been by our antics. I think they believed we were somehow part of the festivities with our crazy masks, beads, shouting, and general mirth and good humor, a-hem.

 

I ended up in a mixed bag of a mini-pack consisting of Viagra Spice, Marit, Scottish Lesley, Walkabout, Ed Lunch, Steve Lastoe, Dogface Roy, and a couple of visitors and virgins. We lost trail on a more than one occasion as the tourists had either stamped out the marks or were simply standing on top of them. We made our way up to the carousel and through the Gate’s visitor center. While finding ourselves lost, a few boys began following us asking for beads and showing their requisite bare chests to which Lesley responded with a strand or two. Finally, we spotted a stray arrow on one of the Gates’ bases; it was either a hash mark or simply one of Christo’s directional signals for the next Gate but we followed it anyway. A few of us checked north towards the mall but found no joy and mainly we decided to head west. When we hit Tavern on the Green, all hope seemed lost. A little birdy (Cleopatra) had told me both the on in and the location of the drink check under penalty of death but in this circumstances I figured it better to have tattled and drank hurricane than never to have tattled at all! So I asked if anyone wanted to know where the drink check was to which Steve Lastoe exclaimed, I don’t want to know, I want to find the trail! Which would have seemed a very brave and FRB-type thing to do had he not melted as soon as one lithesome lady made her way forward to get the early scoop. The back of the Natural History Museum was our destination and we all set off on a leisurely run up the west drive. 

 

First at the drink check, we discovered a near-suicidal chicken in Crazy Bob. He was losing all hope of anyone attending his hurricane fete at 4:15. But he perked up as soon as we arrived, tossed on his paper mache chicken head and starting dancing around. The Hurricanes were sickly sweet and oh-so-potent and soon enough the clever bastards who actually found the trail, which I’m told made its way through the rambles, turned up and we all had a grand old time. Then Peter pronounced Bourbon Street a short avenue away as the only possible on in location and we were off. The Hares seemed to have had just as hard a time making their way to the on in as we did because the bags arrived just as we did.

 

Bourbon Street was indeed the perfect on in and the place was decked out just so.  The pack started getting funky with it right away and before too long, Peter and Crazy Bob were on stage and rocking out to Shout! “A little bit softer now” indeed and PUH-LEEZ!  Down downs from JM Too Long were short and not-so-sweet and included da hares, HUA, Cockstar, Yellow Smello, Flaccido; Basil for slipping on the ice not 3 seconds after Too Long told him, “hey, man, careful of the ice”; and AOTW to Dogfin for wearing his iPod on trail (“I’m addicted, man, addicted I tell you”). Costume awards were doled out by the hares:

  • Worst costume: to Marit; although not a bad attempt, more was expected of her because she is a costumer designer by trade
  • “Fowlest” costume: to none other than Crazy Poulet Bob who treated us to the “Chicken” dance during his down down
  • Most coordinated color schemes: to ShainaMaria whose masks matched just so with running tops
  • Least costumed: for a second year in a row to Jo(h)n for unnecessary nakedness on trail
  • Ugliest Mug: could it be anyone else but Too Long for wearing that same damn novelty beer mug hat to yet another hash function
  • May have been a couple more but damned if I remember

 

Chafing dishes lined the back room and Monks of St Bernard beckoned us to heaps and piles of rice and beans, jumbalaya, and spicy pretzel thingies that burned my virginal mouth. The King Cake was laid out but went untouched as the hares had declared that whoever found the baby jesus in the cake this year would have to hare the event next year. After begging and cajoling and ensuring everyone that they would “help”, people dug in and sure enough, it was Flaccido who got the baby jesus. Poetic justice, I’d say.

 

Sweet Lady Marmalade sang out her tune and it was time to hang up my beads until next year. Au revoir and bon nuit my little chickadees.

 

On out.

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