Mario Lozano for SanDiegoish
Fat Tuesday has come and gone. This was my first time attending the Gaslamp Mardi Gras, so i can’t compare it to previous years. There were a fair amount of people in attendance, but by no means was it a blow out. Some people were dressed in costume. We saw beads in all different colors and sizes. A few guys had beads that were the size of baseballs.
The rock (blues) band that played before the parade started was really good. People where dancing in the street, having a good time. There was also a group of guys playing their drums that were made out of 5-gallon water bottles.
As far as free swag goes, everywhere you looked you could see people wearing a green glow in the dark button from Cricket wireless. Some people decorated themselves in these buttons.
The parade was short. It started with a procession of classic cars, followed by street performers, and then a caravan of floats. San Diego’s 101 KGB radio station decorated their bus like the Pirates of the Caribbean. They played the theme song from the Pirates of the Caribbean and had a skeleton hanging from the front end of the bus. The dive bar Last Call had a giant penis on the front end of their float. The people riding on the float were very festive to say the least. The theme for San Diego’s Rock 105.3 bus was inferno or hell on wheels. The front of their bus featured a red devil with go go dancers shaking their bums on a makeshift stage. Their was a float that had burlesque dancers. The float drove by so fast that we really didn’t get to see much. The closing float was from The Shout House. Their was nothing really special about their bus, except for the guy in the back with his face painted, dressed in a blazer and thong. It was wrong on so many levels.
Some young ladies actually showed their breasts for beads. The girl standing next to us during the parade did a tit for tat. After she showed her goods, guys laid her with beads.
Throughout the rest of the night, you could see men would swarm in large groups around potentials, some showed them, while most did not. We saw one young lady get yanked from the crowd by police after she showed her nipple.
On the corner, a band played samba music with dancers in costume. The crowd grooved to beat of their drums.
The Heineken Stage was green and on fire. They had lasers, hot dancers and MC, with club music banging. There were people everywhere. They even staged two platforms in the crowds for anyone from the audience, preferably females, to get up and shake their booties.
You can see more pictures from San Diego Mardi Gras 2007 on our flickr.
