This year's Miami King Mango Strut was the best ever.......... (with photos)
by Peter Graves-Goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
indymediamiami@yahoo.com

The King Mango Strut is an annual parade held in Coconut Grove, Florida on the last Sunday of each year. The motto of the parade is "Putting the NUT in CocoNUT Grove." The parade was started in 1982 by Glenn Terry and the late Bill Dobson as a parody of the annual King Orange Jamboree parade for the Orange Bowl. After a group of Grove residents, known as the "Mango Marching Band" were denied entry into the Orange Bowl parade due to "unsuitable instruments" such as kazoos and conch shells, they decided to create their own parade.

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The spirit of the King Mango Strut is significantly tongue-in-cheek. Participants are willing to poke fun at anything and everything. Most of the parade consists of satire of events that have happened in the last year, from world events to state to local. Nothing is off-limits, and the boundaries of good taste are often pushed or broken in the name of irreverent comedy.

Chris Jahn had this to say about the King Mango Strut in the 26th Parallel blog:
“It's no mystery that the OB parade died and the Strut is going strong; The King Mango Strut is a parade of people wanting to demonstrate their sense of community and snub their noses at propriety. The Orange Bowl Parade was intended to generate income for its sponsors. The Strut doesn't make money, and no one cares because that is not its purpose. "Man is the animal that laughs at himself," and the parade is a penultimate proof of our humanity.”

This year’s King Mango Strut theme was “An Inconvenient fruit” because so many things seem inconvenient these days like the truth and stripping to get through airport security and then stripping again in the restroom and finding out that knocking twice on the pipes gets you arrested. If that and traffic is not enough to get you started, do what we do best in Miami – blame it on Fidel.

The 26th King Mango Strut had a first, with this year’s grand marshal, the youngest and two people. Mimi Davila and Laura Di Lorenzo, better known as the Chongalicious Girls, where this year’s grand marshals. They are the Aventura, Florida girls, who took the YouTube and My Space world with their hit parody song, “Chongalicious.” Want to see and hear more of the Chongalicious Girls, then go to http://youtube.com/watch?v=uVHdqmN7-XE and http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=204732476.

* View below some of the photos from this year's mango strut taken by pg goodman, Carlos Miller, Bill Masterson and Harry Emilio Gottlieb (Coconut Grove Grapevine blog).

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This year’s grand marshals (Chongalicious Girls)
by Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
Harry Emilio Gottlieb- TL & TR & pggoodman- B

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Bad Boys
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
indymediamiami@yahoo.com

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The King and his court
by Harry Emilio Gottlieb Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM

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Sierra Club
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Critical Mass
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Bruce Stanley - Solar Angel
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
indymediamiami@yahoo.com

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Shiek Erik Ofengand
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Addicted 2 Celebs
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Hillary commentary
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Hog - The Booty Hunter
by Harry Emilio Gottlieb- L & pg goodman- R Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM

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Fidel & Chavez
by Bill Masterson- L & Carlos Miller- R Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM

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OJ
by Harry Emilio Gottlieb Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM

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Dont Taze Me Bro
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
indymediamiami@yahoo.com

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Evil Knievil
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Toxic Toys
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Waterboarding
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Elvis sighting
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Leona's 12 Million Bitch
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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Astronauts
by pg goodman Sunday, Jan. 06, 2008 at 12:23 AM
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