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In This Issue

• Toddler Sex Toy Secrets Revealed
• Belgian Makes Fun of Belgians
• Sobriety: Mardi Gras Withdrawal
• Letters to the Feditor
• John Ashcroft = Scary
• Marauding Interviewer: Ass Virginity En Masse
• Inside the Real ROTC
• Columbia's Just Being Nice to Get You into the Sack
• Unleash the Flood Waters
• Your Local Forecast
• Oompa-Loompas' Fingers Too Short for Shocker
• Portrait of the Masturbator as a Young Man
• And Now, the Fed Translates the Creepiest Ad Ever
• Jacko Makes Cocktail Party Chitchat
• Spring Fashion: Haute Couture in Haute Alert
• At Your Local Supermarket
• Ode d'Orange
• THEY Watch
• Wacky Fun Whitey Wets the Bed
• An Outdoor Conversation
• Roboninja
• Poor Orange
• The Staff

Beads. Booze. Boobies. These are the things Mardi Gras means in the New World. But I grew up in Europe, a place that is surprisingly liberal considering that it's still so dependent on cultural traditions dating back to the Dark Ages. Don't get me wrong. The times since people thought that never bathing built up a disease-proof armor of dirt are long since over. Nor does anyone's mother tell him or her that "you'll catch your death of plague," anymore. (That tradition is carried on in the New World by the mothers of New Mexico.) And Carnival is no longer a two week orgy of courtesans, sword duels, and swapping strains of syphilis like collectible cards. But these are small differences, a result of better science and harsher laws. The traditions that remain these days are bizarre and potentially offensive costumes, harassment, even physical abuse of the audience, all in the name of Jesus. It's quite the party: humiliation, objectification, cruelty, pain, and Catholicism! What were Louisianians even thinking adding boobies and beads? It was fine as it was!

Take, for example, my home country, Belgium. One particularly terrifying aspect of many of the Mardi Gras celebrations there is in the town of Malarme. There, "Haguettes," women who wander the crowd on small stilts with extend-o-tongs, grab observers' feet and pull them out from under the unsuspecting person. Characters called "skunks" patrol the crowd, beating people with inflated pig bladders. Harassment? Just casual fun to alienate the outsiders: those without costumes, those from out of town, those who aren't Catholic. (Yeah, they can see it on your face, Mr. I'm-Too-Good-For-A-Pope. Stop trying to hide it.)

In many towns' festivals, the days are filled with traditional costumes and trickery. Masked people harass unmasked folk, lifting up skirts and flicking noses. Hidden behind a mask, the wearer can sin severely and often during the days before the sacrifice of Lent--adultery, thievery, and murder have often been committed without a second thought. After all, even GOD can't tell who you are if you wear a mask.

In Aalst, they have the parade of the "vuil jeannetten," a.k.a.: "dirty aunts." Essentially, this parade involves every man in town dressing as a woman and pelting the spectators with onions. Then there's Gerardbergen, where dignitaries drink live fish from ancient silver beakers.

While many of these traditions date back to even before Christianity hit Europe, there is one town that is unique in its celebrations' New World inspiration. In the small Walloon town of Binche in the early 1500s, Princess Marie ordered up some Incas from Peru. She made them march in the traditional pre-Lent parade, and the locals went wild for them. The Incas died shortly thereafter, 'cause really, after the parade, who needed Indians around? Needless to say, Incas make incredibly expensive pets.

But in subsequent parades, locals always wanted more of that good ol' Inca action. So they designed costumes to look like Inca clothing. Being Europeans, they got it grotesquely wrong. Orange wool suit, cowbells decorating the belt and cuffs, pounds of hay stuffing the jacket to a sphere, and most importantly, the 8-pound hat with ridiculous ostrich feathers spouting out the top. Eerily, the "Gilles," as they call themselves, also wear a mask that is supposed to resemble a bourgeois gentleman but is instead faintly reminiscent of the Friday the 13th movies.

The best part, though, is that thousands of Belgians and tourists crowd the streets for a good place to get hit in the face with a blood orange. The Gilles have large baskets filled with the oranges, and in order to get far back, the Gilles can't just toss them, but must fully pitch them, hard. The doctors' offices are often filled on this day with people who get pegged with a huge orange to the nose, the eye, or the ear, with often expensive and painful results.

When I came home from my first Binche festival with a black and blue swollen citrus covered face, it reminded me of the sacrifices I would have to make as a devout Catholic during Lent. Thank God my Irish Catholic father never bothered to get me baptized.

Once Lent begins, the Belgians have managed to find yet another reason for celebration. They call it the festival of the "Blanc Moussis," or "White Clergymen." Sound Catholic? It gets better. Men dress in white robes that are a cross between a monk's habit and a Ku Klux Klan costume. Uncanny blank masks are decorated with only one mark: a long red Pinocchio nose to represent the wrongdoing of drinking monks.

Invading bars and other dens of sin, the Moussis plaster customers with sheeps' bladders or balloons filled with water. And should the bars be empty, spectators are pelted instead-everyone's probably sinning anyway, knowing Catholics, so why not punish them all regardless?

Best of all, the Blanc Moussis carry sticks with cold herring tied on the end by a long string--to drag on the backs of spectators' necks, of course!

I'm getting homesick just thinking about it. Who needs boobies? I've got fakie KKK monks, Incas, and a never-ending source of pain and humiliation waiting for me in my rainy hometown. Keep your coconuts, beads, and nipples, and give me some cold herring already!