Taking
it to the Streets
Or
How
to Host Your Own New Orleans Second Line
By
Phil
LaMancusa
You’ve seen them in the streets of the French Quarter;
anywhere from two to two hundred; they’ve got a band, stilt walkers, jugglers,
clowns, drinks, smiles, they’re throwing beads and waving handkerchiefs to the
astonished onlookers who wonder at the banner that reads “Celebrating Patsy’s
Divorce!” or whatever you can imagine as something that a person would want to
have a parade for: birth, graduation, a person’s passing or (in many cases)
just for the hell of it. There’s a PBV (Po Boy View) for that, And I’m going to
walk you through the process of having your very own customized procession.
First of all, you can call a service that can provide you
with all the bells and whistles including a restaurant destination for an après marche celebratory banquet, they
will handle any permits, escorts and accoutrements for your event. Or you can
continue to plow ahead on your own; and, by now we’ve all seen the Hannibal
Buress stand up routine about having a parade in the streets of the French Quarter
and how easy it is; well, surprise,
it’s a little more complicated than the three minutes or so of humor that he
uses and although it isn’t rocket surgery, it’s not inexpensive and more like a full time undertaking for whomever
chooses to pull this off. I did try to
follow his directions: “First you go down to the police station and get a
permit” he said; to which the answer is: no, you need to get a permit from City
Hall (7th floor) in person or online at nola.gov/onestop. The permit
is $100.25 for non profits and $200.25 for everyone else (why the .25? Who
knows).
Next you’ll need to choose the date, time and route for
your procession (at least 15 days in advance of the occasion) because you’ll,
obviously, need a police escort to assist you in impeding traffic while you parade
worry free (drinks and all). The cost for the police starts at $384.97 for the
first (minimum) two and a half hours and goes up; you pay that $384.97 whether
you use them 2 ½ hours or not, after that it
goes up higher. Your route and
size determines the amount of police necessary and for this you will consult
with a Special Event Commander. They will have you fill out two forms with your
intentions including who you have hired to clean up after you. You can do most
of this on line at: nola.gov-secondary-employment/pricing
About
that marching band (remember them?); if you go to gigsalad.com/music you will
find that there is a plethora of street savvy brass bands ready to take on your
group’s event. They will range from $400.00 to $1,200.00 (and up) for an hour
and a half (plus tip) depending on size, experience and date of the adventure;
again, more time means higher fees.
Okay, so here’s the scene: say you and your entourage of
twenty want to meet at Pat O’Brien’s on St. Peter St. (for drinks) and dance
down Royal St. to Toulouse St. over to Chartres and across Jackson Square and
end up at Muriel’s for burgers and more booze or a little further to Harry’s
Corner for just a throwdown. Swell, that’s a twenty minute walk at most. Figure
it will take at least an hour and a half. It’s gonna be like herding cats to
get from there to there; alcohol, which many people want for this occasion (
while making most of y’all more jovial) will slow things down more than a tad. You
also need to consider whether you want to have all those accoutrements
mentioned above, where and how to get them; did I mention that this will be a
full time gig to get your ship off the ground? It will be. You’ll need two
people, one who does all the running around grunt work (get Cousin Vinnie) and
the other who will hand over their AmEx card and look the other way (Uncle
Vito).
So now, face it, this is not something you want to
subject yourself to; I mean, yeah, get Vinnie to do it and Vinnie will have a
great story to tell and you’ll have someone that you know that you can blame
for any of the components that go awry, of which there will be many possibilities.
Orrrrr… call a company that handles
these, and other functions, on an everyday basis. There are a few and I
randomly picked MustDo NOLA and queried them.
I was told that because of the myriad of details that
need the attention that will avoid mishaps, and the need to eliminate any level
of stress, inconvenience or confusion that may occur, PLUS the absolute
necessity to have this occasion not only go off without a hitch BUT keep things
as light hearted and above all FUN for all involved, you NEED professionals who
have knowledge and understanding of what it takes, how to do it and how to be
virtually invisible to all but the hosts of any
event that they’re involved in.
These people offer to take care of every detail of any celebration from
greeting your people at the airport (with a band) to sending your guests out to
the swamps on tours or to dump a body (just kidding) and in our case,
organizing a second line parade through the streets of the French Quarter. They
advise me that not only do they know how to spend a person’s hard earned, but
also where they can save money and/or get the most bang for the buck.
So,
advice from PoBoy Philly Dog: get the AmEx from Uncle Vito, give it to Cousin
Vinnie and have him “call some people”; relax,
come on down to The Big easy, have a few drinks at Pat O’s, and act
surprised and thrilled when all of a sudden thirty of your closest friends show
up with a band to take you to lunch, ya know what I mean? Who doesn’t love a
parade?
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