Field Report: 2015 Goodfellas Social Aid And Pleasure Club Second Line
We’re barely into the 2015-16 Second Line season and we’re already seeing the troupes putting on monumental parades.
Yesterday Goodfellas Social Aid And Pleasure Club shut down St Charles Avenue as they rolled out of the Eiffel Society and took to the streets.
Over the next two hours the men took us on a broad-ranging tour of Central City, parts of which look like Katrina hit last week.
But equally frightening was the new look of entire blocks that have been restored from the ground up with housing clearly designed for rich home buyers.
The money is pouring into Central City and in another ten years it will no longer be recognizable.
But still we marched.
The 2015 Goodfellas Second Line was decidedly a family affair with plenty kid dancers as part of the official ensemble.
There were even tiny little babies dressed up in Goodfellas gear.
And the Goodfellas royalty that rode on a tricked out float featured some real fine ladies bedazzling the crowd in their Sunday best.
And that’s a hell of a sacrifice on a day where the temperature was in the mid-90s.
While the Saints were up the street catching a beating from a pack of out of towners the Goodfellas had a massive conga line snaking through the 10th Ward.
We have a feeling the second line was substantially more entertaining than watching our home team get shellacked.
Importantly, the Goodfellas parade was drama free.
Everybody sang and danced and all the foolishness was left at home.
There was no ducking nor shucking nor bucking.
And thank God for all the mobile drink vendors. We love knowing that when we’re parched and in need of a good stiff Hennessy there will be a guy pulling a Radio Flyer stocked with multiple cognacs there to help us out.
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Getting drunk and dancing to New Breed Brass Band and Legacy Brass Band while traipsing down hot blacktop streets in Central City is New Orleans living at its finest.