When I first saw this hilariously themed pub crawl on Bayou Boogaloo’s website while checking out the weekend’s music lineup, I envisioned the ride as a muddled mix of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, The ButterCream Gang, and the scene in Sandlot when Phillips and the opposing team roll up on their bikes. As I rode up to Buttermilk Drop Café and Bakery at 7:00 on Saturday MORNING, I realized that this was no 1990's movie. Outside, there were around 100 bikes lining the adjacent sidewalks with a few riders chugging cheap beers. Inside, bikers, ranging from young hipsters to old tourists, were enjoying the Café’s warm donuts and cool Hennessey sno balls (I can’t make this kind of stuff up).
I knew we were destined for trouble when the coordinator of the crawl showed up a few minutes late on a bike with a radio in tow and wearing a plush beer hat he apparently won from the 1999 Mississippi State Fair. 
The guy actually knew what he was doing. As we made our way clear across Mid-City along historic portage routes, our leader, known simply as Peter, occasionally stopped to point out archaic canals, historic homes, and even the oldest fire hydrant in New Orleans (some Mid-City bar should go ahead and make the fire hydrant their new drink). Our pedaling parade arrived at our first destination, Mid City Yacht Club, and I immediately cracked open the first High Life of the day. Even though it was American Craft Beer Week, anything other than carbonated, piss-colored water at 8:00 am would probably have had disastrous results. Not that it really mattered. As soon as we bellied up to the bar at Finn McCool’s at our next stop, I couldn’t not order a Guinness. After all, a few jersey wearing soccer fans had beaten us to the bar and were taking pregame Irish Car Bombs for the Scottish Cup Final. I had never been to Finn’s so seeing soccer fans at a bar before 9:00 am was pretty astonishing . Even more remarkable- free shots for proper spelling at Drunken Spelling Bee. 
By the time we had worked our way through Finn’s and then Pal’s Lounge, the path of our bikes was more like the second level of Paperboy. 
As our chaotic and meandering bike brigade got within a few blocks of our next stop, I instantly knew this would probably be the destroyer of our crawl. Surrounded by the muffled sounds of a brass band, each rider was greeted with free beer, red beans (some of the best I’ve had), and fudgesicles. Had the rapture happened? Was that the sound of angels striking up a band and singing “Power in the Blood”? Was I standing at the gates of heaven? No. Even better, we were just standing at the entrance of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club- the “frat house” of the Zulu Parade. Zulu had graciously opened up the doors to their club and ushered us into the main room of their Broad Street building. Once inside, the cause of the muffled heavenly chorus we once heard was now revealed. The Pin Stripe Brass Band had already starting playing, and remember, this is still before 11 am.After finishing our free beer (hey, it was already 85◦ and we were thirsty), we found a spot next to the full size bar located within the main room. Our choices were limited to Budweiser, Remy Martin, and possibly the greatest way to sell liquor- by the ½ pint, without a mixer. 
By this point, our pub crawl had completely unraveled and had transformed from a paperboy route into a dysfunctional episode of G-Games, the X-Games spinoff my brothers and I filmed when we were kids. Since we knew the climactic Zulu portion of the crawl couldn’t be topped by the remaining 2 bars, we decided to go ahead and get a jump start on the festivities at Bayou Boogaloo on the banks of Bayou St. John. 
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