By All Means...Rain On My Parade

Parades are stupid.

That is one philosophy that I've held onto since my formative years. I don't know where it came from, but even as a young tot, when mom and dad thought it would be nice to turn on the Thanksgiving or Easter day parade on TV as a festive background noise to the holiday events going on in the house, I said to myself, "this is fucking stupid". Well, maybe not in those exact words.

Parades never did it for me. I don't care, I never did care, nor will I ever care about giant inflatable cartoon characters, dancing marching bands or colorful floats. There's just NO POINT.

I took my parade hatred to the next level as a teenager, where I was forced to participate because of marching band. Nothing made my blood boil more than having to wake up early on a Sunday and stand in either the freezing cold or the unbearable heat marching up Fifth Avenue playing "Danny Boy" about 2483747375 times.

As an adult, not even the wonders of alcohol could make a parade enjoyable. I tried to do to the whole let's get drunk and go to the parade thing, but at the end of the day, I was just as cold and indifferent- just unable to operate a car or heavy machinery.

Last night, I had the (paid) privilege of DJ'ing atop the Bacardi float for the NYC Village Halloween Parade. Riding on top of the float throughout the parade route, I was amazed at how many people actually turned out. Granted the weather was comparably warm for late fall, but there had to be a half million people lining the streets. The DJ equipment sucked, but we made the most of it and didn't have too bad a time. Maybe it was the fact that I knew a nice paycheck was coming from it, maybe it was a little of that Halloween spirit rubbing off on me- but as long as I wasn't one of those asshole standing 20 deep in the crowd dressed as Amy Winehouse- I can honestly say that I had an OK time at the parade :)