There's so much news to share it's hard to decide where to even begin. First of all, the war is over. That's pretty good. Closer to home, I finally completed the Sisyphean task of posting all of my Bumbershoot pictures over on the Live site - next up will be the MFNW pics. And more immediately, more in the here and now, today was the Little Five Points Halloweeen Parade.
I didn't even know about this event until a co-worker mentioned it to me yesterday. The L5P Halloween Parade is apparently "one of the top 10 Halloween events in the country." I have no idea who determines this or what metrics they use to judge the nations Halloween events, but it's not at all surprising that such an event is in L5P - if you don't know the neighborhood well, it sometimes looks like every day is Halloween there.
When I arrived today, an all-female Elvis tribute band was playing on stage in Findley Plaza, right in the middle of L5P. They called themselves - and I swear I'm not making this up - the Pelvis Breastlies.
Meanwhile, there was a second stage over behind the Star Community Bar. The Star Bar is the only regular Atlanta music venue that I haven't been to this Rocktober. At one point in my life (late 90s, early 00s), it was my most frequented club, but I haven't been back there since February 2010, when Jonathan Richman played the Star Bar. So I'm officially counting today's festivities behind the club as a Star Bar qualifier for Rocktober (it's my imaginary festival, I get to make up my own rules). A band called The Fingers were playing the stage behind the Star Bar while the Pelvis Breastlies were on the sister stage.
It was a perfect day for a neighborhood festival - sunny, and in the high 60s. Euclid Avenue was closed to traffic for the day, and the usual food trucks and vendors were out, along with numerous beer tents and craft sales. The friendly, diverse crowd represented the diversity of the surrounding neighborhood.
Meanwhile, back at Findlay Plaza, Atlanta's Grinder Nova had taken over the stage, playing a zesty gumbo of R&B, blues, mariachi, zydeco, and funk.
The crowd watching Grinder Nova.
The crowd away from Grinder Nova, reminding us that this is indeed a Halloween celebration. And no, I don't know why Gumby is pouring a beer in his eye.
By this point, the El Caminos were performing behind the Star Bar.
There were also smaller, impromptu bands playing in the street, like these string musicians in front of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club.
The difference between the L5P crowd this weekend and any other typical weekend was one of amount, not of kind. In other words, it was more a matter of quantity than of quality.
So at this point, it was pretty inevitable that a parade was going to break out. As so many do, today's parade was initiated by the Seed & Feed Marching Abominables, whom alert readers may recall from the East Atlanta Strut.
Pajama people.
Problems that manifested themselves later in the afternoon actually started with the Brazilian dancers. It's not easy to samba down Moreland Avenue for an entire parade route in those heels, so they were quite slow, causing them to fall quite a bit behind the floats up ahead. As a result, the parade behind them then got backed up, and the floats and marchers behind them got bunched up together into several clusters of paraders, with large gaps between these little clusters.
After the Brazilian dancers and the House of Horrors bondage/torture float, not to mention the Planned Parenthood marchers throwing out free condoms to the crowd, several parents around me asked each other whether the L5P Halloween Parade should still be considered "family friendly."
But there was no need to fear, because next faux Michelle and Marcus Bachman came parading down the avenue.
Do I need to point out that this is a heavily Democratic district?
The cleverly costumed Box People won the award for Best Marching Group.
As I pointed out earlier, to an outsider every weekend in L5P might look like Halloween. But even I wasn't sure if this was part of a float, or just some residents on their way home.
Sgt. Pepper.
IMHO, the best make-up of the day (that is make-up, isn't it?).
A lot of the floats just featured bands playing their music as they paraded down the street.
Other times, I had no idea what the theme was, or is just having pretty girls parade down the avenue enough of a theme in itself?
Or monsters?
It was later announced that for some reason, this won the Best Float award for the day.
Eventually, as more and more people wandered onto the street, "the authorities" lost all control of the parade route, and floats could no longer make it down the street and remained backed up in a parking lot.
Eventually, the police got an Elvis impersonator to clear the lanes on Moreland Avenue north of Euclid (I swear I'm not making this up, and the impersonator wasn't one of the young ladies of Pelvis Breastly). But the police had already given up and started to allow traffic to drive up Moreland south of Euclid, and just as the first float was about to turn up Moreland, the cars came through and the rest of the parade was cancelled. I have no idea how much more or what we missed.
At this point, my camera batteries died on me, so the rest of the pictures are from my cell phone. As the parade ended, a band calling themselves the Bareknuckle Betties took the stage.
Over by the Star Bar, All Night Drug Prowling Wolves were on the stage.
The string band was still going strong in front of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club.
The ladies who introduced the band Siberia My Sweet hilariously mis-announced them as "Sonen," the band scheduled to be up next. No hard feelings, and Siberia My Sweet earnestly stated that they really liked Sonen, but that they weren't them.
I didn't stay for Sonen. I made one last lap around Little Five Points, stopping for just a couple of minutes by a couple of guys covering Muddy Waters, and then left.
And to think, I didn't even know all this was occurring until yesterday afternoon.
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