No, you are not the only one my dear Whimsy, I too feel hurt when Mummers clown on leprechauns, as well as other mythical creatures such as Eskimos and unicorns.

…wait, unicorns are real, right? oh no, I was thinking of the Narwhale.

Yeah!! Screw the Mummers! they are just a bunch of Leprechaun, Eskimo, narwhale hating ignorant dumb stupid heads I am afraid of cause I’m a nerdy geek and I can’t get over being bullied as a child! HANG THEM ALL WITH SILLY STRING!!!!!!

Maybe you couldn’t feel our excitement all the way yonder in Northern Liberties, because had you been there with us, I think you’d have succumbed to the awesome power of fun. But perhaps you share the sentiments of a some other internet naysayers who have summarily dismissed us. We are so uncool! Not at all exclusive! And I think that put a few people off.

But really, had you been there, not just on the parade route, but the whole few months before New Year’s, when we were pulling all-night sew-a-thon’s, breaking our machines, living on Wawa shorties and pot cookies, building an enormous octopus in the Space gallery, and getting psyched…maybe then you’d feel differently. Don’t worry, there’s still time…you can join us next year, if you want.

cute.

Obviously not a Land Of The Lost listener ;)

2) Does anyone else feel hurt when the Mummers clown on leprechauns? No? I’m the only one? Alright.

3) The argument as posed above begs the question: does this mean that blues, jazz, funk, soul, folk, hiphop, bluegrass, and all other grassroots-bred musical traditions whose adherents might have or have had attitudes that are less than progressive should be verboten? If so, then would we be doomed forevermore to suffer easy listening classical cds at Pottery Barn and the dreary, tame bougie-cud often heard on WXPN?

4) Hold the line on the no-Nike policy. Grown-ass men shouldn’t wear sneakers unless they’re remedially inclined or incurably athletic.

Not that we wouldn’t, though.

We live in a world that is filled with racist, sexist, homophobic traditions – to name only three of our collective ‘ghosts’ – the heteronormative family, the fact that our entire nation is built on land stolen from first nations peoples, the labor market whose built-in racism and sexism we all tacitly accept by simply going about our everyday business… the fact is, everywhere we look the world is filled with traditions that reek of bad politics.

However, this is the world we live in, and we all have to find our way somehow. Now we can do so by pretending we live in a tiny little bubble of progressive (or I guess in your case just simply ‘cool’) politics and then shunning all of those that fall outside that sphere – or at best engaging with these others “ironically” – or we can honestly work with and through the institutions and traditions in our world — trying to make them better in the process.
1. There was absolutely nothing ironic about the Vaudvillains. I say this as a participant and an observer. The dedication, hardwork, excitement, creativity, and comraderie were genuine, as was our relationship to the Murray comic club and all of the mummers that supported our efforts. The excitement about themes for next years parade is also genuine – as genuine as any artistic process I have ever participated in.
I have a lot more respect for 35 young philadelphians trying to participate in a long standing civic tradition than I do for a sniveling cultural critic casting aspersions from the sideline. Look down at your feet philebrity – the NIKEs you’re wearing have even shittier politics than you imagine the mummers to have… which leads to my second comment:

Mummery as a tradition is hundreds of year old (it goes way past its philadelphia manifestation) and your reaction to it is just as old – peasant traditions have, for hundreds of years, been lambasted as racist, xenophobic, sexist, primitive, rude, crass, etc… by the proper bastions of modern culture, whose racism, sexism, xenophobia while just as virulent, was simply erased from consciousness. Its a lot easier to call ‘those primitives’ racist than ask yourself what the racial politics of your own culture are. (your use of ‘trannies’ in making fun of mummers is a case in point)
2. The Othering of the mummers is really terrible. Both here and in the article in the city paper, there is this fetishization of some blue-collar working class community that we are either encroaching upon or ironically mocking. This is absurd. The men and women who participate in the mummers parade are normal people. Just as normal as all of us ‘crazy artists’ many of whose families have philly roots that go back generations. It may be true that we have some different political views and opinions than a lot of the people in the parade – but as far as I’m concerned that is secondary to what we do have in common – which is a sense of community, a passion for making things with our community, and a desire to have fun with and to reappropriate a long standing tradition.