I have this one nightmare where I look in the mirror and Jesus is looking at me and he screams at me for hours and I can't close my eyes

http://wigu.com/overcompensating/2006/04/night-mares.html

This reminds me of the Semana Santa procession I witnessed last night. We were walking home at around 1 am, full of alcohol and god knows what other substances when we heard a racket coming from a side street. Great drums crashing and a band playing something mournful and dirge-sounding. We were not entirely surprised to see a procession of people that looked like purple-hooded Klansmen with silver staffs and 5 foot candles marching along in front of a float with Jesus on top carrying a cross. All in all, this this was at least 5 or 6 meters or 16-20 feet high. I know my conversion is not entirely accurate. These are round numbers because I was staring in horror at a giant statue of Jesus marching down the street as hooded, robed, creepy weirdos marched in front and a very military-looking (Falangist?) band followed.
Some people seemed to be taking it relatively seriously. There were people who had video cameras pointed at the statue of Jebus the entire time it was moving down the street, and it was not moving very fast. I have no idea how much it must have weighed, but the base of it was about as big as a car, then there was the statue on top of a slightly larger-than-life-sized Jesus on top carrying an appropriate sized cross. So I imagine it was pretty fucking heavy. There were at least 12 or so people underneath, carrying it, conveniently hidden by a cloth. They would move it forward about 10 yards or so and stop. Sometimes people would sing or something for a while. Then they would pick it up again, which would generate applause and move it a little further down the street. I have no idea how long they were going before we got there, but we were waiting around for at least a total of 25 minutes and it only moved about a block and half. I can understand taking a picture, but I don't know what they're going to do with 3 hours of footage of an unmoving giant Jesus statue other than freak out their children and grandchildren for years to come.
Other people did not seem to be taking this that seriously. They had beers and other drinks and would talk to the hooded people standing there and take pictures of themselves with the drinks in front of the float, pretending to give head to the bottle of beer and such.
I also have to mention that this float was covered in candles, giving it an even more impressive and ominous appearance and guarunteeing that it would haunt our dreams for the rest of our known lives. The five foot candles that the Katholic Klansmen carried were a dark red and the wax all over their hands looked disturbingly like blood. There were also pools of congealed wax on the street from where they paused during the march. The only thing they really could have done to make it creepier would be to give BeJeezus laser eyes, a mouth that shot fire, and have it scream things in Latin.
Max and I agreed that it was the creepiest parade ever, but Max was slightly more disturbed by the girl he saw on the metro wearing swastika pins on her jacket.