At 7:10 last evening, what might have been considered a formality became a reality: in 2016, Soulard will, in fact, play host to another Mardi Gras. The announcement was made on the steps of Johnny’s, the Soulard watering hole known for the staff’s extremely short skirts and, last night, for a relatively short voting session by Mardi Gras Inc.’s board members. It was they, after being petitioned by a variety of stakeholders, who decided to go ahead and embrace another season of late-winter revelry.
In theory the vote was a 9-1 affair, though one board member, interviewed just after the announcement, was mum as to who the dissenting voice might have been. And, perhaps (of course), that lone vote was simply another part of the pomp-and-circumstance that spins around the Twelfth Night ceremony, which takes place in the exact location of the Soulard Mardi Gras’ birth in 1980.
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The history of that fateful night was quickly granted to a reporter by Mack Bradley, the President of the Mardi Gras Foundation, a complementary organization to Mardi Gras, Inc. Though resplendent in a top hat, it was a wonder that the stylish headgear fit atop Bradley’s handsome head, as the latter’s simply teeming with information about the history of Mardi Gras in St. Louis.
Initially asked to give a basic, 101-style account of what would happen after the presumed “yes” vote, Bradley steered the conversation in an exciting new direction.
“I’m going to back a lot farther than tonight,” he said, doing just that.
Painting a verbal picture that brought a very chill to the soul the person hearing it, Bradley discussed the very formation of Soulard Mardi Gras. Hilary Clements, who ran Hilary’s in the same room as Johnny’s, had initially bought the property as little more than a shell, before turning into a long-lived and much-loved lounge. He and four friends decided to give a party in said shell and one of them (perhaps Clements, perhaps not) settled upon Mardi Gras at the theme. Enthusiastic about their choice, each of the handful of party planners threw $250 into a pot; then they invited 200 guests apiece to the party.
It was “an ass-cold winter,” according to Bradley, and snow was on the ground. The revelers at 1015 Russell eventually decided that a parade was in order. Despite the fact that “in those days, the city didn’t plow the streets,” one of the organizers had a snow wedge on his truck and he cut a pathway down the street to McGurk’s, where the crowd got so rowdy that they were collectively shown the door. Remarkably, this single act of party-hearty activity begat a tradition that now includes multiple parades, parties, balls and affiliated merrymaking.
Just as Bradley was sketching out some decades-old history, modern history was about to take place. The Mardi Gras Inc. crew were settled into their second-floor-of-Johnny’s hearing room and petitioners were beginning to filter in.
“They’ll petition them,” began Bradley, “beg them, cajole them, bribe them with beer. It’s all very tense. You’ll never know what they’ll do. It gets pretty creative, from people reading haiku to just handing out Buds.”
As stated above, the petitioning worked, and the party rolled out of the Johnny’s mezzanine, which was now taking on the heat and humidity of a New Orleans summer; despite the cold outside, the only folks in that packed attic were those Johnny’s staffers, draped in little more than their birthday suits. And even as the announcement was about to be made, a few revelers dive-bombed the steam tables for one last run at the red beans and rice or bread pudding, Buds clutched in most-every-hand.
Outside, now, a crowd of about 100 quickly swelled to three times that, with “Soulard mules” (golf carts) lining the block. Announcements of various sorts were made from the Johnny’s patio and then the party rolled down the block—not even a single block, at that—for the first toast, at Bastille. There, more speechifying took place, more drinks were had, and the open container law of St. Louis was but a memory, the entire, hundreds-strong crowd moving up and around Soulard. Though plenty of mules were on hand, it was a Monster energy truck that led the parade, festooned with amplifiers and free soft drinks.
An important note: Bradley, as he was recounting his stories and fables, mentioned that Soulard’s gone through changes, sure. Legendary bars like The Shanti and Clementine’s have disappeared, in even the last year, reflecting a decades-long experience of venues coming-and-going. But the spine of Soulard’s bar-and-restaurant culture remains, even if the names change. And, yet, just across the South Side, an upstart Cherokee Street was throwing its own Twelfth Night festivity, with a meaty brass band parading in and around that district’s nightspots; in Soulard, meanwhile, a small, four-piece string band tried to play to the crowd, but they were fighting for sonic space against generators on that big old Monster truck.
For a noisy celebration that might be last night’s only gripe: it needed more noise. A lot more of that’s coming, of course, but in Soulard it’s never too early to start turning up the volume.
