No, I will not show you my breasts for plastic beads!

Mine, sleaze bags out there, are reserved for pearls and diamonds only. I'm a Mobile, Alabama girl. Mardi Gras originated in my city. Oh, yes sir, that it did.

"Joe Cain", to quote Slow Moses (the Mobile-based band from my high school days), is "rollin' in his grave. He is rollin' Joe Cain. Joe Cain is turning over in his grave. How many people in New Orleans have even heard his name?" Below is John John dressed up to ride in a parade in Mobile with his father yesterday. Is it normal that the boy can actually still look hot in a clown wig and mask?

Anyways.

Mardi Gras originated in Mobile, Alabama. Joe Cain is credited with bringing back the crazieness of Mardi Gras to the lower American states around Civil War times. Here's the scoop from Wikipedia.

Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain) (October 10, 1832 – April 17, 1904) is largely credited with the rebirth of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama. In 1866, following the Civil War and while Mobile was still under Union occupation, Joe Cain paraded through the streets of Mobile, dressed in improvised costume depicting a fictional Chickasaw chief named Slacabamorinico. The choice was a backhanded insult to the Union forces in that the Chickasaw had never been defeated in war. The following year (1867), Joe was joined by other Confederate veterans, parading in a decorated coal wagon, playing drums and horns, and the group became the "Lost Cause Minstrels" of Mobile. This was the origin of The Order of Myths parade on Fat Tuesday. Joe Cain is currently buried at Church Street Graveyard in Mobile, Alabama.

And, just in case you don't buy it and would prefer to have a brick thrown at your face while watching a parade on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in denial about where the real home of Mardi Gras is located, here's why Mobile is the ORIGINAL and classier Mardi Gras celebration-

Mobile, Alabama, as the first capital of French Louisiana, has the longest tradition of observing Mardi Gras in America, with the celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile dating back to 1703, and detailed by the Mardi Gras Museum in downtown Mobile. In 1704, Mobile began the annual masked ball, Masque De La Mobile, and in 1711, Mobile began the first parades. In 1723, the capital of Louisiana was moved to a new town founded 1718 called "Nouvelle Orleans" (New Orleans), and the tradition, which had started 20 years earlier in Mobile, was expanded. Nearly 125 years after Mobile's first parade of 1711, a krewe from Mobile, the Cowbellion de Rakin' Society, began the first known parades in New Orleans (1835).

It's all a bit of a soar spot for Mobilians. Tonight, I'm meeting District Belle, Sassy, and others in Clarendon for their Mardi Gras parade and celebration. Their is bound to be some wasted a-hole who says to us, "I'll give you beads if you..." And, frankly, as usual, I'm bound to toss my Southern Comfort and coke all over his pants.

I want a king cake now. A Pollman's king cake like we used to eat in middle school. I think I'm going to order myself one. Thank heavens for overnight FedEx. Makes my life so much better having access to the Nuthouse and Pollman's. I don't know that I could live this far away without those places.