Julianne ByerYou know it’s pretty bad if you can practically count the number of arrests last weekend on all your fingers and toes. Bad for the cops who stood around in the cold and cost the city almost $350,000; pretty good for all of us hiding out behind closed doors and keeping the music barely loud enough to even hear it. Kind of puts a damper on the ‘ol Fat Tuesday celebration, I didn’t even get any beads. To think what New Orleans would have to say about this-
Well the city certainly got its wish. Scare everyone into thinking the world will come to an end – the funniest part of it all is the publicity that this anti-party has gotten. Who knew that every TV station in the Central Coast and beyond would tune into the news bloodthirsty, and waiting to see what wasn’t happening?
In a way, I feel like the city put in as much effort as the Pentagon would allow them to, just to prove that they could. Look at all the proud homeowners sitting tall knowing that they live in a city that goes above and beyond the call of duty for scandalous suburban festivities. Forget about the riot breakouts in Harlem or inner city Chicago; SLO has the resources and money to squelch parades and bead throwing. That’s pretty good publicity if you ask me:
Come to San Luis Obispo! We have sun in February, award-winning clam chowder and bad-ass cops who will scare the crap out of you by just blinking!
So, now we are back to being those crazy college kids the rest of the town thinks are up to no good. Unless you consider the fact that we all attend a prestigious university, and obviously are making decent enough grades to not get kicked out. Did I forget to mention that we own or rent at least half of the real estate here in the city? Yep – up to absolutely no good.
And there you have it Cal Poly: Mardi Gras no longer exists. It is a thing of the past, a figment of your imagination and most importantly, the one weekend of the year that you should go far, far away – just be sure and bring some beads back for the rest of us.