Heaneyland!

Mermaid Parade, part one

I have so many photos from the Mermaid Parade that I've decided to post them in installments. Also, to avoid endless page loading time, most pictures are pop-up images. If you've ever been to the Mermaid Parade, you know that some of these pictures aren't safe for work. Any of you who haven't been to the Mermaid Parade have presumably at least read the previous sentence.

The first floats of the parade stayed in front of us for a ridiculously long time. Later we discovered this was because we were at the corner where the floats and marchers entered, but the corner where the classic cars joined the parade was one block further along the parade route, so floats and marchers often stalled on our block. Usually this was fine, giving us more photo opportunities, but sometimes it went horribly wrong, as I will elaborate later.

First up was a blues band, the Tash Brothers. I'm no great fan of the blues -- I doubt anymore with as much of an obsessive need for novelty as I have can really ever get fully behind a musical genre that always uses the same chord progression -- but they were pleasant enough, and featured a cute tambourinist and a xylophone made of mannequin heads, so that was fine.

The next float -- "Earth Mermaids Are Easy" -- was eeeevil. They also spent a long, long time right in front of us, but we hated them with a deep passion the entire time they were there. At first we were only mildly irritated with them for spraying us with super soakers, but then we realized that this shithead and his cronies weren't spraying water. Oh, no. They were spraying beer. Stinky, sticky beer. Our contingent was really, really close to charging their flatbed trailer and trying to steal their water guns. One unarmed mermaid at the back of the float waved a cheerful goodbye to us as it finally drove off; she seemed to have no idea why we were all jeering and flipping them off as they went. If you're reading this, hapless alien mermaid, we're sorry to have made you sad, but next time you're in the Mermaid Parade, don't ride in a float with assholes.

Next was another band, Pretty Suicide. Their cover of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" was unremarkable (if enthusiastic), but their lead singer shimmied alluringly and we were amused by the bullets draped over the drum kit. Presumably the bullets had something to do with what Rose considered their somewhat dubious choice of band name. She has similar mixed feelings about the Suicide Girls. (Porn, good; implication that suicide is edgy or can at least be taken lightly, not so good.)

Then I have a few photos without accompanying stories:

I don't know if this woman was a marcher who had a camera or a member of the press who dressed up for the occasion, but either way, we all loved the orcas on her bikini top and the shark on her crotch.

Next up was the "Dead Sea" float, which featured this grim, slim apparation from beyond the grave and under the sea.

I loved the design of the Sea Monkeys' float, but the giant papier-mache monkey masks were kind of creepy. I believe it is wrong when one's appreciation of a topless woman is thwarted because her head is covered with a giant papier-mache monkey mask. (Only the male monkey is visible in the picture, but I'm sure you get the idea.)

As this man passed us, the mother of the two annoying children standing next to us warned them not to look at him. I'm pretty sure they looked at him anyway. So much for preventing them from being scarred by seeing his buttocks. Seriously, people, don't bring your kids to the Mermaid Parade if you've got a problem with them seeing some skin. Especially painted skin framed by chaps.

Rose already posted one picture of the next group, but they were so awesome that more pictures are called for. I hope they won the costume contest; hard to imagine that they wouldn't.

I enjoyed the Iron Mermaidens, because, honestly, who doesn't love unison dancing to heavy metal? It did seem a little odd, though, that they weren't actually dancing to Iron Maiden. They (and a devil carrying two boxes of sugar) were shaking their moneymakers to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me". Note the fishtails on the skirts.

Our fellow parade attendees Amber and Jeff had previously said that the Hungry March Band was perennially one of their favorite acts in the parade, and they didn't disappoint. Besides being one of the best musical acts in the parade they also featured this great repurposing of Metrocards and many cute, scantily-clad marchers I was (a) swooning over, and (b) largely thwarted in my attempts to photograph.

This woman's costume just looked like a sexy dress from the front...but it got even saucier when she turned around.

I think that's enough for the first installment. I'll leave you with three more photos that need no captions; more will follow soon.

Posted by Francis at 07:45 AM