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Lost Cause Fest: The May Day Melee

Photograph by Seymour D. Hipster.

Lost Cause Fest has been going on for about a week on the Jefferson Davis Parkway neutral ground. It is, of course, the location of the Jefferson Davis monument, which is slated to come down some time in the near future. It can’t come soon enough for us locals.

The Lost Causers come from redneckier parts of the South. Many seem to be Arkansans as well as a few Okies and assorted other peckerwoods. I’m relying on second-hand information since I have no desire to get caught up between the far-right neo-Confederates and the far-left antifa group. Some of the former are toting guns and many of the latter think that provoking them would be jolly good fun. The tactics of the far-right and left seem to be converging of late: here, there, and everywhere. The good news is that no shots have been fired and the cops were on top of things last night. NOPD excels at crowd control. We have Carnival to thank for that.

There were rumors that the Davis monument was coming down on May Day. I guess the Lost Causers think our gentrifying yuppie Mayor is a commie or something. Many of them, however, look like they might be wingnut wiccans celebrating Beltane. Actually, they look more like people who used to follow Lynyrd Skynyrd around the hookworm belt. I can imagine them trying to light each other ablaze during the Bic lighter portion of Free Bird. Nowadays they’re more into hippie burning…

While I have not ventured to Mid City, many of my friends have done so and posted their archaeological findings on social media. I didn’t see any maypoles but there *were* some red flags as well as Nine Inch Nails karaoke. I am not making this up.

Let’s start with a picture of a sign that makes me laugh. We all need some comic relief on the day after the May Day Melee:

Photograph by Skooks.

We love our signs in New Orleans. We usually make them to attract Carnival throws, not repel Lost Cause Festers.

Next up is local photog Cheryl Gerber who conversed with the Lost Causers including a black dude from Oklahoma. Hand to God, I am not making this up. I tried to embed the photo album link without any success, so click here. It’s worth it. Believe me.

I have a confession to make. I didn’t coin the term Lost Cause Fest. That dubious honor goes to First Draft pun consultant and Zombie-Picayune dude, Diamond James Karst.

On the scene for the maypoleless May Day Melee was Gambit Editor and Adrastos crony Kevin Allman who wrote a piece about it after posting some tremendous tweets.

No word on whether Kevin tried to pass himself off as kin to Duane and Gregg in order to get the deplorables talking. Of course, that’s all they seem to do. They could even be described as redneck yippies. There were more media and anti-Confederates there than so-called “monument protectors.”

I’m glad that NOPD has secured the area but it’s time for that statue to come down before things escalate again. We don’t want anyone to get hurt in this war over symbols. Jefferson Davis’ main link to New Orleans is that he died here in 1889. I don’t want anyone on either side to meet the same fate near the doomed statue.

There’s an oddball sub-plot to the monuments mishigas. There’s a bar near the Jefferson Davis statue: The Holy Ground Irish Pub. They’ve had a series of run-ins with Lost Cause Festers. They have a strict “our bathrooms are only for customers” policy. It’s especially relevant during Mardi Gras and not unreasonable the rest of the year. Instead of buying a beverage, the Lost Causers have taken umbrage at this policy and bombarded the bar with nasty social media reviews. That shows how tacky the neo-Confederates really are. Fuck them sideways. No Guinness or Jameson’s for you lot.

In solidarity with the Holy Ground Irish Pub, here’s a Celtic-rock selection from Wolfstone:

I’ll give the last tweet to the anti-confederates who serenaded the “outside agitators” with an obscene little ditty:

https://twitter.com/Pontchartrain/status/859220611725492225

Notice how I said last tweet, not word? I’d like to address the orange elephant in the room: the Trump factor. There’s little doubt that the protests are larger and more voluble because the Insult Comedian is in office. He’s given the red light to the Lost Causers and I expect more of the same in the future.  I halfway expect the president* to sic Andrew Jackson on us.

The only good thing about Lost Cause Fest is that it’s allowed an old liberal like me to use the term “outside agitators.” That’s what the peckerwoods and Klan humpers called civil rights protesters back in the day. Turnabout is fair play, y’all.

Since I’ve gone on about May Day and maypoles, I’ll give the *real* last word to XTC: