Funny
thing happened on the way to Atlanta Carnival.I realized I didn’t have a memory card in my DSLR (for those not in the know it’s
just a high powered camera) I didn’t have my point & shoot camera either.
Paco didn’t have his high powered camera or his point and shoot camera either.All I had was my little HP action camera and
Paco had his Samsung Galaxy 5.
HP Action camera prop'd on top of my cup
I was
tempted to turn around and go home, but Paco said, “We can do this!”So what you see below is photos taken by Paco,
testament to the great quality of the S5 and video taken by my HP (CORRECTION some of the video was taken by the s5).
We decided to get to carnival around 11:30 this year
(remember we got there at 12:30 last year)to allow more time to drink and be merry with the homies since ATL
carnival is so short.With other
carnivals the mission is to pace yourself cause you are on the road all
day.With ATL carnival the mission is to
get CRAZY as soon as possible.I started
drinking with breakfast and drank nonstop until I felt NICER than nice!!!The booze was flowing, the chunes were
playing and the vibes were nice.No
complaints (other than the usualMOR
ROAD!)
#TeamSoca
If you follow my carnival blogs you know I always have a “passed
out” pic.I feel so proud that my pic
was made into a meme.Maybe I should be embarrassed…
but I’m not *whoop whoop*
As you can see the nap didn’t last long, was up dancing to the
trucks 5 seconds later.lol
I’ll write a DIY
blog about how I made the costume later (just the costume, NOT the feather
backpack). Want to know more about Atlanta carnival? Here you go http://atlantacarnivalbc.com/ See you on di road next year
Cooler fete… be afraid, be very afraid.It never fails that multiple people pass out and get carried out of
cooler fete.It is truly my favorite
Atlanta carnival fete.Because I knew
sh*t was gonna get realer then Real Deal Holyfield I got a hotel room 2 blocks
from cooler fete.
The funniest part
about cooler fete is the next day when people start confessing the mess they
were in or the mess they saw someone else in.I didn’t really realize I was In Ah Mess until I woke up the next
morning. The hotel house keeping was banging on the door at
11am saying, “You aint gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell outta here!”Then later I look at the pix and my azz is
standing on top of the cooler waving my Panama flag practically the entire
nite.
I must have been possessed in some
flag waving trance??? Thank the lord I didn’t fall off… I take that back I was
dragged off when one of the newbies fell off and took me with him.This one fell off the cooler two times and
fell in random places a few other times.Let’s talk a lil more about him.It was a friend of my brother Paco, I can’t recall his name.He is a newbie and I know that newbies are
usually the first to fall at cooler fete so I gave him a room key.At the end of the evening Paco and I are
like, “Where is what’s his name? Hope he is in the room.”We get to the hotel and 1) the luggage cart
is in the room (why we have no luggage?)2) There is ice all over the dayym place 3) He is on the floor with his
foot in a garbage can full of ice.As
50Cent would say, “What the F*CK happened to you?”He tells us that his drunk azz sprained his
ankle with all those falls and managed to drag his 2 blocks to the hotel then
used the luggage cart to get to the room on the 2nd fl. Paco says to me, “why didn’t
you tell me he was falling, I would have stopped giving him alcohol???The next day I see a picture of Paco helping
the man off the floor. *SIDE EYE*
Anyway, while they further discuss the injury, my drunk azz proceeds to do some gymnastic moves on the luggage cart.
So the next
day I get to hear everyone else’s funny stories.Here are a couple of the stories, I have
hidden the names to protect the innocent.This one has a hole in her pants cause apparently she did a face plant
in the fete.*Good Grief*
I tell this
one that I think I saw her dancing on stage and I can just imagine her waving
her finger through the air as she says, “I don’t do stages”then I hit her with a picture of her
GETTING DOWN on stage. *smh*
Some people miraculously woke up at home or on someone'z couch and a few others told me that they slept in the parking lot for a few hours. Cooler fete casualties... when we will learn??? Anyway, I
leave you with a quick video recap of the madness that is cooler fete.See you in 2015
Stampede in the Smokies is a one day car show of just Yellow Mustangs from throughout the southeast. The Yellow Mustang crew was actually there Wed-Sun hanging out, but I had a busy schedule that week and
could only make one day.My friends were
astonished at the amount of Yellow Mustangs in the crew.There are usually triple the amount yellows at this event,
but Ford had the Mustang 50th anniversary event in Charlotte 2 weeks
prior and a lot of people went there instead.I got up at 4am on a Friday to drive from Atlanta, GA to Pigeon Forge, TN to
meet my Yellow Mustang pose.I couldn’t
make the actually car show, but I wanted to partake in the scenic drive through
the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. It was such a beautiful
drive, I had to share photos of small town America.
When we drove through this tunnel the big muscle Mustangs revved their
engines and the sound was awesome to the 10th power, wish I had it
on video.The part made my day.That my friends is what SEXY sounds like.
Friday night we went to Tony Gore’sSmoky Mountain BBQ in Pigeon Forge, TN www.tonygore.com/tsresturant/smokymntbbq.html and I ate some of the best ribs & dessert I’ve
ever had in my life.If I am ever in the
area again, I will definitely be back.
I was asleep by 11pm on Friday. I'm sure the yellow crew hung out later chatting and what not, but I was exhausted. That is the most driving I have ever done in my life and I had to wake up at 6am the next morning to do it all again..
Apparently Pigeon Forge is a great place to take your kids, who knew?It’s like a mini Orlando with tons of places
that kids maybe 5-15 would enjoy.The
place I really wanted to visit was the Titanic museum, but the 2 hours I had free
in the afternoon demanded a nap since I had been up since 5am.*Le Sigh*
Lil Yellow Mustang zooming past the Titanic
Saturday morning lil Yellow Mustang and I headed south to Cartersville, GA
to hang out with friends on the lake. That lil car really is a road warrior.
Jamaica carnival is really getting its life together.This years trip was pure marvelousness. First, let’s talk price, Jamaica carnival is so dayym
affordable.Even though I don’t really
like to drop $$$ I’m going to let you get a peek at the carnival spreadsheet
that I live by.Trinidad carnival CAN NOT be topped,
but if you don’t want to drop $3,000-$4,000 on TnT carnival then Jamaica is an
awesome alternative.The fetes and Road March tshirt
together in Jamaica cost me $500. $500 won’t pay for my flight to TnT, $500
won’t cover all the fetes in TnT, $500 will only cover 1 ½ nights lodging in
TnT. If you want a JA costume that’s $300, but $300 will only pay for your TnT
costume deposit.
Landed in Jamaica Thursday morning.I booked a crack of dawn flight because I
knew the wonderful Spanish Court hotel would
let me check in early.They were so
dayym accommodating last year, I couldn’t see them saying NO to any
requests.When I was in the airport a
young lady walked up to me and asked, “Do you have a blog?”YES! “Are you Angela Panama?” YES!That totally made my day, I was like WOW
someone other than my family members actually reads my blog. Lololol Anyway, I
picked up our jouvert packages, some last minute fete tickets, went to the
grocery store across the street to get party supplies and then had a port a
party at the hotel pool while I waited for my homies to land Thursday
night.
Thursday night headed to Pandemonium right down the street
from our hotel.The great thing
about fete’n in the Caribbean is that all the fetes are in the wonderful
outdoors.Performances by Machel, Mr.
Killa and Shaggy and then my favorite part… the paint & powda. The rest of
the homies went to the Frenchmen party Blocko, but I love paint and powda too
much to miss Pandemonium.Mr. Killa had
everyone thoroughly entertained with his usually crazy azz antics.
Friday afternoon we headed over to the Kingston Yacht Club to
sail away on the Wine Down Cruise.That
fete was so awesome it required a blog & video of its own!!! Candy Coated Events & Caesar's Army really took JA carnival up a couple notches this year.
Knowing the busy Saturday we had ahead, we should have went
to sleep after the cruise, but we had a pool party at the hotel instead.Made some bootleg mimosas of Moet, juice and white
rum.(Funny thing about over proof rum
in Jamaica.If you ask for dark rum you
will get 80 proof Appleton. If you want over proof rum, they simply call it
white rum. LOLOL) Anyway, ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep and it was
painful as hell getting up for the next fete. To quote DJ Quick – Tonight, “Soon as I felt
it comin on I should quit, it's true that a drunk ain't shit!” Even
though we brought our own food, music and alcohol the hotel was kind enough to
keep bringing us ice to help keep our party going.Love the Spanish Court Hotel
2am Saturday we headed to Caesar’s Army AMBush. Now if you read my other blogs you know 1) I love jouvert 2) I love Caesar’s Army. This one was a
mini version of the Trinidad AMBush with only 300 guests.No complaints about the reduced # of
guests.It was a much smoother package
pick up process and the AMBush start was much quicker.Machel and I think Skinny Fabulous performed,
I tend to wander off and dance with the water truck so it’s possible that there
were other performers.The liquor was
flowing, OMG the liquor was flowing, GOOD GRIEF the liquor was flowing. Even tho we thoroughly covered ourselves with baby oil before the
start, that lime green paint had us all looking like we had jaundice
afterwards. Everything we touched Saturday turned yellow, F*ck it!!!
Caesar's Army AMBush Jamaica
Dei Musicale
Left AMBush around 7am, headed to the hotel for a quick
shower and change of clothes and then straight to the Sunrise Breakfast fete. The
breakfast fete went until around 11am, I was
pretty useless there (was regretting the pool party the night before).Ate breakfast, had
a beer and tried to stay out of the blazing sun. The fellas skipped AMBush, were at Sunrise much longer and confirmed that the breakfast fete was as
awesome as it was last year.
The fellas
Because some people never learn, we headed straight the
hotel pool after the breakfast fete for another pool party.To quote DJ Quick again, “I thought you wasn't drinkin no more…Yeah right, we doin the
same ol shit tonite.” The fellas were even kind enough to bring us a sh*t load
of jerk chicken which we promptly tore the *BEEP* up!!!
We did manage to get some rest Saturday afternoon before we
headed to the Frenchmen Bazodee fete.Just like last year Bazodee was fabulously upscale.Like 10 different food stations with every
type of Caribbean food your heart could desire.The best DJs and lots of Caribbean artists mingling in the crowd.
Sunday Road March: JA carnival is a little different than other carnivals
because there is only one band “Bacchanal Jamaica”.According to LehWeGo the band is about 3,500
people strong.That was about the size
of my band in Trinidad.I like the one
band concept. If you get a late start like we do, you don’t have to waste an
hour looking for your particular band.You just have to go to the parade route and find the only band on the
route.I can’t remember if there were 4 music
and 4 drink trucks or 5, but there was no problem getting drinks and great
vybz. JA allows t-shirt sections which
is usually a NO NO with big carnivals.
My only problem is lunch.They only give you 30 minutes for lunch.Lunch is usually the time were we take a quick power nap.We got to the lunch site at 2pm and they
announced that they would be departing at 2:30.You best believe they left at 2:30 with about 50% of the masqueraders
still inside eating.I was running
behind the last truck with a piece of chicken in my hand, Just Kidding! The
road march starts at 10am and they go until around 10pm maybe even
later.Ima “G” but I can’t drink and
dance in the blazing sun for 12 hours straight.We got to the las lap fete around 7pm.I ate dinner, had a drink and then literally said to my friends,“I have nothing left to give to today, I’m
going back to the hotel.”No pool party
that night, I was out like a baby.
Machel Montano
DJ Private Ryan
Bacchanal
Jamaica
My homies flew out crack of dawn Monday, I booked a late
flight and chillaxed by the pool all day.I thought about going to the Bob Marley Museum, but I decided to just
keep my azz behind the secure gates of the Spanish Court Hotel with my Port-a-Party.
Another successful carnival to ward off my tabanca.So I shall now leave you with the recap
video.See ya next year!
If you ever decide to hit up JA carnivalwww. LehWeGo.com is where you are going to
find centralized information.
