MARDI GRAS QUEEN
I came to New Orleans on a
Banana boat
To see if it’s true
What my cousin wrote:
He wrote to me
About the Mardi Gras
And all the pretty ladies
That he saw. MORE

MARDI GRAS SCROOGE
Many native New Orleanians, and even transplanted veterans of more than three carnival seasons, have become jaded by the fortnight of festivities culminating on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the 40 boring days of Lent. Though it had been explained to me as a child that carnival had been invented because of Lent, so that everyone could indulge those vices he has to forego for 40 days, I sometimes wondered if the ash smeared by local clergymen across the foreheads of recent libertines didn’t merely verify that they were “burnt out” from the excesses of the past two weeks and needed a month and a half to recuperate. MORE

KREWE OF PLATEFACES
Mardi Gras had been getting bigger and more expensive every year, the floats and costumes of the organized krewes more and more lavish. If something hadn’t been done soon, the average reveler would have been confined forever to the role of spectator. It just didn’t seem fair. MORE

MARDI GRAS MENTALITY
It’s Mardi Gras time in New Orleans, in Cajun country to the west, in Mobile to the east and across the Gulf Coast, and even as far north as St. Louis. As tractors tow papier-maché and crepe-covered floats down oak-lined St. Charles Avenue to Canal Street in the Crescent City, parade-goers of all ages shout their traditional plea to the trinket-laden riders: “Throw me something, Mister!” MORE

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Behind The Headlines Commentaries

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The 90-Minute Radical
Falling Through the Ice
“I’m Creative, You’re Not!”
The Case of the Anguished Airman
The End of Satire?
Thanks for Everything!
Free to Serve
The Real Frank’s Place
Democratic National Convention 1988
Republican National Convention 1988
Wishing We Were Wrong
An Adult Movie Rated PG
Uncle Sam’s Cabin
Tomorrow Is Another Day
1986 TV Season
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My Funny Census Form
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The Devil Made Him Do It
To the Greater Glory of God
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Reverence for Referents

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Enemies of the State
Planned Parenthood in Church
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Lite Motif
The Fiddler’s Wife
Write Now!
Developing an Ear for Grammar
A Humble Suggestion
The Mardi Gras Scrooge
Cajun Humor
Mad Song

Fiction
Quick Quick Slow

Verse
Politickles
Rosalies
Mad About US (The History Chant)
The Gargoyle of Argyle
Rhyme Spree
Taxpayer’s Lament
The Wonder Kid
Easter Morning
Fruitcake
Food Chain
A Visit From the Christ Child
Whatever Became of Whats-His-Name?
The Mardi Gras Queen
Ruby Yat

Ad Biz
Duplantier Creative

Cartoons
Only In New Orleans

Platefaces
Spontaneous Krewe of Platefaces

. . . visit the Bobliography, featuring:

Behind The Headlines Commentaries

New American Commentaries
The 90-Minute Radical
Falling Through the Ice
“I’m Creative, You’re Not!”
The Case of the Anguished Airman
The End of Satire?
Thanks for Everything!
Free to Serve
The Real Frank’s Place
Democratic National Convention 1988
Republican National Convention 1988
Wishing We Were Wrong
An Adult Movie Rated PG
Uncle Sam’s Cabin
Tomorrow Is Another Day
1986 TV Season
Different Sides, Same War
My Funny Census Form
Another Sort of Learning
The Devil Made Him Do It
To the Greater Glory of God
Stranger Than Fiction
Right in Your Own Backyard
Reverence for Referents

Other Articles
Enemies of the State
Planned Parenthood in Church
The Old Folks Are Coming!
Lite Motif
The Fiddler’s Wife
Write Now!
Developing an Ear for Grammar
A Humble Suggestion
The Mardi Gras Scrooge
Cajun Humor
Mad Song

Fiction
Quick Quick Slow

Verse
Politickles
Rosalies
Mad About US (The History Chant)
The Gargoyle of Argyle
Rhyme Spree
Taxpayer’s Lament
The Wonder Kid
Easter Morning
Fruitcake
Food Chain
A Visit From the Christ Child
Whatever Became of Whats-His-Name?
The Mardi Gras Queen
Ruby Yat

Ad Biz
Duplantier Creative

Cartoons
Only In New Orleans

Platefaces
Spontaneous Krewe of Platefaces

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, I was the Clark Kent of New Orleans — a strikingly handsome, but humble reporter who just happened to be the only guy in town who could get in touch with Superman. Only it wasn’t Superman that I had direct, exclusive contact with, but someone just as exotic: John Smith, the anonymous and mysterious captain-for-life of the Spontaneous Krewe of Platefaces, the world’s cheapest and most creative Carnival krewe. No one knew where Capt. Smith had come from, or cared particularly, but everyone acknowledged that there was something very different about him, and gave him credit for saving Mardi Gras in 1979 by parading as usual when a police strike forced other, more established krewes to abandon their revelry.

As with Superman and Clark, Smith and I bore a striking resemblance, only no one knew because Smith kept his face completely concealed, at all times, behind a paper plate, and I occasionally wore glasses. As a public service, I arranged interviews with Smith for some of the biggest names in New Orleans media: Times-Picayune columnists Angus Lind and Betty Guillaud, Channel Four television reporters Eric Paulsen and Ed Clancy, radio deejays Rick Zurich and Katy Carroway, ETC. But the biggest, most sensational interview of all was the one I conducted with Smith myself for the Baton Rouge weekly Gris Gris. I was determined to scoop my colleagues by getting him to reveal his true identity, but Smith remained elusive as ever. Still, it may have been the highlight of my career, and certainly was of his.

“Why can’t you be serious?” I hear that all the time — from bosses, co-workers, landlords, relatives, my own children — and it’s like a dagger through my heart. You see, the fact is, I simply am not capable of being serious; there’s a reason for it, and it’s not my fault.

When I was young, I was constantly being told, “You can’t be serious!” Parents, teachers, bus drivers, barbers, store clerks — you name it, adults of every description — no matter where I went and what I said, they all told me I couldn’t be serious. It didn’t seem fair, really. A kid wants, even needs, to be serious, at least once in a while, even a kid like I was. But, for some reason I’ve never been able to discover, I’d been singled out and forbidden to be serious, a prohibition about which I was continually reminded.

I was an obedient young fellow, too, if, perhaps, a little literal. If I couldn’t be serious, then I wouldn’t be. No questions asked. Mine was not the reason why.

Thus began my lifelong commitment to lack of seriousness, and my crusade to identify and offer constructive criticism to those who suffer from the opposite problem: hyperseriousness.

In grade school and high school, I drew caricatures and wrote silly stories to poke fun at teachers and classmates who took themselves too seriously.

In college, I wrote a satire in the style of Dryden and Swift to poke fun at an English professor who took herself too seriously (and was rewarded with my first and only D).

In my twenties, I created a boardgame to poke fun at public utility officials who take themselves too seriously (Hike), founded a Mardi Gras krewe to poke fun at local officials and celebrities who take themselves too seriously (Platefaces), launched a comic strip to poke fun at Louisiana politicians who take themselves too seriously (“Paid For By”), founded a club to poke fun at admen who take themselves too seriously (The Bad Club), published a book of cartoons to poke fun at tourists who take themselves too seriously (Only in New Orleans), and published a spoof of weight-loss regimens to poke fun at dieters who take themselves too seriously (“The Dukman Diets”).

In my thirties and forties, I published hundreds of essays, articles, and limericks poking fun at politicians, pollsters, bureaucrats, judges, educators, sociologists, sexologists, environmentalists, activists, journalists, artists, and others who take themselves too seriously.

Looking back, I think maybe all those other people should have been told that they couldn’t be serious. But no, the commission went to me. And so, the crusade continues. I don’t mind, either. It’s lots of fun, seriously.