A year, a parade

This New Yorker cartoon by Paul Noth made me guffaw even before I read the caption.  I share it with apologies to any relevant copyright legislation.

The humor here for me is a Pasadena thing.  Pasadena marks the solstice with fantastic flower-covered flat beds and horse patrols and pretty girls and marching bands and minor celebrities moving inexorably down the middle of our main drag.  Maybe the coffin has a minor celebrity in it.  (This page has a list of all the grand marshals - how many can you identify?)

In 2017 the parade is on January second because New Years Day falls on a Sunday and, you know, the Christian god has his rules.  Parade goers start marking their territory at noon on the day before the parade and some of them bring signs to show us where their heads are at.

For example, this guy.  I snapped him about 2:00 today.

Here's the text on his sign with links:

Lucifer is the original divider.

And the angels which kept not their 1st estate, 
but "left" their own habitation. . . (Jude 6)

One third of the angels under lucifer fell. (Revelation 12:4)

- Rules for Radicals - Alinsky was dedicated to Lucifer.

And on the T-shirt:

Make America Great Again - Revelation 12:24-28

Dire.  Crazy. Frightening.

Meanwhile, here's a musical theater reference to lighten your mood:

And the lyrics go on from there:

You are 16 going on 17

Baby it's time to think

Better beware

Be canny and careful

Baby you're on the brink

You are 16 going on 17

Fellows will fall in line

Eager young lads

And rues and cads

Will offer you food and wine

Totally unprepared are you

To face a world of men

Timid and shy and scared are you

Of things beyond your ken

You need someone

Older and wiser

Telling you what to do

I am 17 going on 18

I'll take care of you

Sounds like perfect Republican paternalism to me.

Anyway, happy new year if that sort of thing makes you feel better.

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Mixed Meters has covered the Rose Parade before.  Never with much enthusiasm.  Click here to see all MM posts marked "parades".

And view this video to see more sign carriers (starting at about 1’45”):

Before the Parade

The centerpiece of Pasadena's yearly Solstice celebration is a parade - the Rose Parade.  If you live in the U.S., I'm sure you know all about it.   We Americans assume you also know all about it even if you live in another country, so just nod your head and pretend that you understand what I'm talking about.  OK?

We, the staff of Mixed Meters, have an veritably un-American disinterest in the floats and bands and horses and fully-fertile nearly-adult young princesses that make up the parade, even though the route comes quite close to our central offices, high atop Mixed Meters Towers.

What we are interested in, however, is all the civic preparation which goes into such an event. Especially the clean up.  There's really a shit-load of cleaning up to do afterwards.

Click this link to see all of MM's Pasadena parade coverage over the years.

On Mixed Meters you'll have seen Rose parade trash, Rose parade religious fundamentalists and honking Rose parade tow trucks - but no floats, bands, horses or princesses.  This year we seem to have focused on heating devices used by the Rose revelers who spend the entire winter night outside waiting for the parade.

I spent New Years Eve with Leslie and friends in Old Pasadena, our trendient restaurant district.  At 11 p.m. I elected to walk home along the parade route, Colorado Boulevard.

The sidewalks had long since filled with people camping out overnight - preparing to sleep on the street just as homeless people do.  Except the authentic homeless don't sleep in plain view on major streets.  Nor do they build open fires nor buy over-priced luminescent trinkets and plastic noisemakers from wandering vendors nor make a mess by hurling eggs, tortillas and silly string at passing cars.  Those are privileges of upstanding citizenship.

I stopped occasionally during my walk to shoot video.  When I got home I quickly edited the clips and composed some music.  The music took longer, even though there's just a little over a minute of it.  Strange music.  Very strange.

Enjoy!

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A word about this music.  I downloaded a huge sample sample library from Samplephonics.  Sorry,  these freebies have since disappeared.  Largely intended for techno, pop or pretty much any form of music I don't do, I used this project Before the Parade as an opportunity to explore this huge collection of audio whatever.  It includes hundreds of samples.  I listened to only a couple dozen and used sixteen of them. I  think the result is kind of fun.  Also strange.  Very strange.

Here's the Mixed Meters' Rose Parade video from 2009. Honking tow trucks. Repent placards. You can see a gas station in the background - low test gasoline was $1.89 per gallon.

Burn in Hell? Rose Parade 2011

Mixed Meters has documented some aspects of Pasadena's own Rose Parade which you're not likely to see on television.  You won't find pictures of floats or marching bands or equestrians here.

In the past I've given you pictures of trash, beach blankets and sun umbrellas, this post (including pictures of part of a horse and part of a band, plus a video of noisy tow trucks) and pictures of photographers at the Doo Dah Parade.  You can see more of my Rose Parade pictures on Flickr.

Here's a picture of the snow-capped Mount Something, in the distance, as seen from Colorado Boulevard.   Note the sponsorship on the banner.  For your enjoyment I photoshopped a number of light poles out of this picture.

This year I present pictures of

• high tech amusement before the parade (I saw several desktop computers, one of which had 2 computers.  There were also xbox setups powered by generators.)
• some of the omnipresent temporary fencing used to control the crowds (the Do Not Enter sign is year round.)
• an empty bottle of cheap vodka (I'm sure public drinking is discouraged but I doubt this was the first time it has ever happened)
• a team of horse shit removal engineers (there were 22 equestrian units in the  parade, hence 22 similar trios of sweeper, shoveler and can pusher.  I wonder what happened to the 22 buckets of shit afterwards.)
• sign carriers who follow the parade (mostly exhorting the crowds to fear eternal damnation - I guess they regard Pasadena as an awfully sinful place and the parade as some sort of pagan ritual.)

The pictures will enlarge if you click them.

Here's a video of post-2010 Rose Parade preachers with megaphones. "Will you be saved, older man? Will you be saved, older woman?" 

Burn in Hell Tags: Rose Parade

Doo Dah Parade - Pictures Were Taken

Through bad planning I managed to watch most of Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade on Sunday. The Doo Dah Parade is Pasadena's answer to Pasadena's Rose Parade. It is many things which the Rose Parade is not - like silly and chaotic. I was bored.

It works like this: some people dress up in strange costumes and ambulate in strange manners or are conveyed on strange vehicles down the center of a major public thoroughfare and they do strange things while lots of other normally dressed people stand on sidewalks and take pictures of them.

I took pictures too. Mixed Meters prides myself on finding a different angle. So here are my pictures of other people taking pictures of the Doo Dah Parade. Boring.






I wanted to get a picture which showed someone else's camera's LCD. This last shot is the best I could do - and I had to enhance the lcd section using Photoshop.


Clicking a picture enlarges it.

Left Behind After The Rose Parade 2009

Through bad planning I arrived at the Rose Parade, a short walk from our home, in time to see the last few entries. I snapped some shots.
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At the end of the parade I videotaped two units that many people don't know about. The Tow Truck Brigade Horn Band and the God Squad Camp Followers Precision Drill Team. If you watch them, I suggest turning up the volume.



Then I walked backwards along the route looking, in the Mixed Meters tradition, for trash to photograph. (Trash pics from 2007 are here.)






Pre-parade pictures from 2008 are here.

On the Beach at Rose Parade 2008

Mixed Meters brings you pictures of preparations to watch tomorrow's Rose Parade - along Colorado and Sierra Madre Boulevards in Pasadena. It seems to me that spending an entire night on a Pasadena street is like going to the beach. At the least the equipment is similar.



There are rules for the parade watchers - which include NOT throwing tortillas at people in the parade.

In the upper right corner of the next picture you can see snow in the mountains. Click any picture to make it grow.



I've posted more pictures at Flickr including pictures of Recreational Vehicles and Porta-Potties all in a row.



Mixed Meters' pictures from the 2007 Parade are here.

The Curb Is Like The Beach Tags: Pasadena. . . Rose Parade. . . Tournament of Roses. . . beach chairs

Left Behind After the Rose Parade

Pasadena California, where Leslie & I live, prides itself on being the focus of the entire world for a few hours on January first of every year. Or, if the first is on Sunday, then on January second because we're all busy worshiping the sun on Sunday.


Colorado Boulevard becomes a large all-night party as people cheer midnight, eat junk food, try to stay warm and jockey for the best free view of the parade.


Television viewers (at least 3 billion of you) see only the fantastical floats, the bright sunshine, the exotic flowers, the picturesque mountains, the beautiful girls - and then you decide to move here. (Please move here - it keeps our real estate values and smog levels up.)


What no one shows you (except Mixed Meters) is the garbage left behind on Colorado Boulevard after the crowds leave and before the estimable City of Pasadena Street Maintenance & Integrated Waste Management Division moves in. Tomorrow morning it'll look like nothing ever happened. How do they do it?












Click on any of the pictures for an easier-to-see size.

The previous Mixed Meters Rose-Parade-Related Post is HERE.

Rose Tags: Rose Parade. . . Pasadena California. . . New Years Celebration. . . Tournament of Roses. . . California Real Estate Values. . . California Smog. . . Ugly Betty. . . trash. . . confetti. . . Colorado Boulevard. . . garbage. . . Cheetos. . .Sun Worship. . .Left Behind. . .corn tortillas. . .Mixed Meters