According to Moonalice legend, the city of Athens has had many nicknames. At one time, it was called Cedar Shoals. As Athens, it was known as the Manchester of the South. You may know it as The Classic. Some you know it as The Little A. In the language of Moonalice, Athens means City of Buds the Size of Bulldogs. Woof.

According to Moonalice legend, Mardi Gras is another day at the office. For most Americans, Mardi Gras is a fling before the fasting of Lent, analogous to a last cigarette before a hanging. For the tribe, Fat Tuesday follows Porky Monday. Everyone sleeps late to work off whatever happened the day before. After a bracing can of Howling Monkey, they set to rolling up some inventory for the day. They smoke the inventory. Then sound check and the gig. After that, who knows. In short, a very Fat Tuesday.

According to Moonalice legend, Athens is home to the only surviving double barreled cannon remaining from the War of Northern Aggression. You may have seen it down the street here. The tribe is scared shitless by that cannon. You see, the tribe formed up a brigade during that war - the 420 Signal brigade - specializing in smoke signals. By 1865, the Brigade was in a bad way. They had been smoking constantly for four years and their senses had been squashed like grape under a steam roller. They could no longer hear gunfire, much less normal speech. And their eyesight was worse. They needed a seeing eye dog to find the buttons on their pants. But when the shooting started, there was no braver group of soldiers in the Confederacy. They inhaled deeply and did their duty. How the double barreled cannon figure into this, I hear you ask? Perhaps you have read the story about the first and only time they fired the cannon. The cannon balls were connected by a chain. In theory, the cannon would mow down infantry by the dozen. What it actually did was fire the cannon balls nearly a second apart. So instead of going down the field and wiping out Yankees, one cannon ball came out before the other, wrapped itself around the neck of Innocent Victim Moonalice and throttled him. By the time the second cannon ball got there, the generals had already decided to go back to traditional cannons.

Mardi Gras