O.K. I said Noah would awake...
My Post
...I'm sure it was the spirit of Lee Wiley; she woke me a few times when it was needed..
As my professional life continues to improve, I find myself much more unhappy with the personal side... It's been over eight years since Bill died... and also Danny Jones... and quite a few others. For a while, I thought that the reason I didn't find another man to love was that there wasn't one out there. I just stopped going out, why bother.
Of course, it was because I wasn't ready. It may seem odd to you all that I would mourn a man for so long, but that is who I am.
And as I look back on these years, I wonder at the time I spent in grief. Such a long time, but now it's long enough.
So, I went down the street to Body and Soul!
"Body and Soul" is a "function hall" a place where clubs or krewes can hold fund raisers... it used to be a home for a religious group called "The Body Of Christ!". A gay bar, "The Friendly Bar" was just across the street, and there are many pics of people doing unspeakably filthy things in front of the 3 foot high letters that the church had painted on it's cinder block side. Voodoo or hoodoo, but it's a gay place now. And tonight I went there for a Southern Decadence Show.
It was the Yawning of the Age Of Aquarius, the number led by Rusty, this years Grand Marshal for SD.
Chet, a very Cajun friend, was the EmmCee for this event.
Chet owns a bar a few blocks away called "Chet's", amazingly enough, and he's a very good host there, and very butch....
OMG, the drag numbers... well, for this kind of show, there are the regular suspects who live in drag, and then there are the guys who just want to do one number, maybe just once a year... bucause they just have to, abso want to do that number because they have been practicing it in front of the mirror all year! It's sort of like "air guitar", but it's drag!
They are the most fun.
Olive is one of them. Above, he is doing "I'll Be Down To Get You In A Taxi, Honey" as an old jazz singer.. with a cane... very funny.. and very well done.... Olive is a past, and very early Grand Marshall of Southern Decadence, he pretty much started it...
and still here!!!
There's so much more, so many amusing people... some of them, I have actually done drag shows with, (well, just for aids charity.... and I never shaved, hehe!)
And there was a black out! The bar went dark... just a breaker, hehe, but in the dark people started singing "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere! New York, Nee-ew York....Neeee-eeew York!" hahahaha! Then the lights came back on.
One of the last performers was "Ursuline Burgundy".
The name "Ursuline Burgundy" comes from the intersection of the two streets in the French Quarter... and he's the strangest queen we have. He/she does drag in mime/white face... and does it always strangely.
A few years ago, he entered in the Amon Ra "Mr. and Miss America Contest", a big gay Mardi Gras krewe event. He was on the stage in a straight jacket as the lights slowly came up and he was shaking violently like a very stressed mental patient... and then the music started... "Crazy...."! OMG, that Patsy Cline song! He kept shaking and twitching and snatching bits of his wig... it was brilliant! And bizzare, just like this evening when he flashed a very strange beaver shot...
All this was a benefit for Buzzy's Boys and Girls.
Buzzy was this guy who very early in the AIDS war, just started, on his way home from work, to collect tips and small change from the bar tenders and customers. He took the money and bought things like tooth brushes and underwear for the AIDS patients in Charity Hospital. (At that time, it was most of the AIDS patients, insurance companies dumped hiv-pos people and many doctors wouldn't touch them... and their families wouldn't help them...) And many of these people, who used to hang out with everyone were suddenly all alone and very destitute. Buzzy visited them all in the aids ward and got them the little things that they really needed... but most of all he was there for them, for most of them when they died... he was there holding their hand so they wouldn't have to do it alone.
We started doing shows. We weren't very talented, hehe, so we did very bad, really terrible drunk drag shows. (Somewhere, I have a pic... it's very embarrasing.. but when I find it, I'll post it. In a way, I'm proud of the foolish things I did then. ) We would think of some song to lip sync to and then find the trashiest, most complicated drag to go with it and then get drunk and get up on a small stage in some bar and make our friends laugh and throw money in the tip jar. My lil group, about ten members, raised about twenty thousand dollars a year for Buzzy's fund. Buzzy's gone now... and so are all the others... (Bill, my lover then, decided he loved me because I was so funny on stage... and for such a good cause...the Buzzy's fund helped pay for some of Bill's needs many years later.)
Buzzy would have been most amused by the fact that there is now a William J. Fanning Foundation!
But there is. And after all these years, they are still doing the same thing. Well, the drag is better..., the shows are funnier, but the money still all goes directly to hiv-pos people, not a cent for overhead.
Sitting there this evening was pretty great... there were all these people that I had done these shows with years ago, and plenty of people that had been there supporting this cause for many years. There were a lot of people that I haven't seen for a long time and it was very good to see them, (especially when they say "wow, you're looking really good!" That's always nice.) I know all these people... but only sort of...
And I've finally gotten to the point where it's hard to rememeber all the people who aren't there anymore.
And I did meet someone... he seemed very nice, a lil shy... we watched most of the show together and talked a lot. It might have been better if every drag queen hadn't come up and kissed me... ah, well...
oh, btw, this man still puts a nasty twist on me...
durlx
My Post
...I'm sure it was the spirit of Lee Wiley; she woke me a few times when it was needed..
As my professional life continues to improve, I find myself much more unhappy with the personal side... It's been over eight years since Bill died... and also Danny Jones... and quite a few others. For a while, I thought that the reason I didn't find another man to love was that there wasn't one out there. I just stopped going out, why bother.
Of course, it was because I wasn't ready. It may seem odd to you all that I would mourn a man for so long, but that is who I am.
And as I look back on these years, I wonder at the time I spent in grief. Such a long time, but now it's long enough.
So, I went down the street to Body and Soul!
"Body and Soul" is a "function hall" a place where clubs or krewes can hold fund raisers... it used to be a home for a religious group called "The Body Of Christ!". A gay bar, "The Friendly Bar" was just across the street, and there are many pics of people doing unspeakably filthy things in front of the 3 foot high letters that the church had painted on it's cinder block side. Voodoo or hoodoo, but it's a gay place now. And tonight I went there for a Southern Decadence Show.
It was the Yawning of the Age Of Aquarius, the number led by Rusty, this years Grand Marshal for SD.
Chet, a very Cajun friend, was the EmmCee for this event.
Chet owns a bar a few blocks away called "Chet's", amazingly enough, and he's a very good host there, and very butch....
OMG, the drag numbers... well, for this kind of show, there are the regular suspects who live in drag, and then there are the guys who just want to do one number, maybe just once a year... bucause they just have to, abso want to do that number because they have been practicing it in front of the mirror all year! It's sort of like "air guitar", but it's drag!
They are the most fun.
Olive is one of them. Above, he is doing "I'll Be Down To Get You In A Taxi, Honey" as an old jazz singer.. with a cane... very funny.. and very well done.... Olive is a past, and very early Grand Marshall of Southern Decadence, he pretty much started it...
and still here!!!
There's so much more, so many amusing people... some of them, I have actually done drag shows with, (well, just for aids charity.... and I never shaved, hehe!)
And there was a black out! The bar went dark... just a breaker, hehe, but in the dark people started singing "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere! New York, Nee-ew York....Neeee-eeew York!" hahahaha! Then the lights came back on.
One of the last performers was "Ursuline Burgundy".
The name "Ursuline Burgundy" comes from the intersection of the two streets in the French Quarter... and he's the strangest queen we have. He/she does drag in mime/white face... and does it always strangely.
A few years ago, he entered in the Amon Ra "Mr. and Miss America Contest", a big gay Mardi Gras krewe event. He was on the stage in a straight jacket as the lights slowly came up and he was shaking violently like a very stressed mental patient... and then the music started... "Crazy...."! OMG, that Patsy Cline song! He kept shaking and twitching and snatching bits of his wig... it was brilliant! And bizzare, just like this evening when he flashed a very strange beaver shot...
All this was a benefit for Buzzy's Boys and Girls.
Buzzy was this guy who very early in the AIDS war, just started, on his way home from work, to collect tips and small change from the bar tenders and customers. He took the money and bought things like tooth brushes and underwear for the AIDS patients in Charity Hospital. (At that time, it was most of the AIDS patients, insurance companies dumped hiv-pos people and many doctors wouldn't touch them... and their families wouldn't help them...) And many of these people, who used to hang out with everyone were suddenly all alone and very destitute. Buzzy visited them all in the aids ward and got them the little things that they really needed... but most of all he was there for them, for most of them when they died... he was there holding their hand so they wouldn't have to do it alone.
We started doing shows. We weren't very talented, hehe, so we did very bad, really terrible drunk drag shows. (Somewhere, I have a pic... it's very embarrasing.. but when I find it, I'll post it. In a way, I'm proud of the foolish things I did then. ) We would think of some song to lip sync to and then find the trashiest, most complicated drag to go with it and then get drunk and get up on a small stage in some bar and make our friends laugh and throw money in the tip jar. My lil group, about ten members, raised about twenty thousand dollars a year for Buzzy's fund. Buzzy's gone now... and so are all the others... (Bill, my lover then, decided he loved me because I was so funny on stage... and for such a good cause...the Buzzy's fund helped pay for some of Bill's needs many years later.)
Buzzy would have been most amused by the fact that there is now a William J. Fanning Foundation!
But there is. And after all these years, they are still doing the same thing. Well, the drag is better..., the shows are funnier, but the money still all goes directly to hiv-pos people, not a cent for overhead.
Sitting there this evening was pretty great... there were all these people that I had done these shows with years ago, and plenty of people that had been there supporting this cause for many years. There were a lot of people that I haven't seen for a long time and it was very good to see them, (especially when they say "wow, you're looking really good!" That's always nice.) I know all these people... but only sort of...
And I've finally gotten to the point where it's hard to rememeber all the people who aren't there anymore.
And I did meet someone... he seemed very nice, a lil shy... we watched most of the show together and talked a lot. It might have been better if every drag queen hadn't come up and kissed me... ah, well...
oh, btw, this man still puts a nasty twist on me...
durlx
posted by durlx at 8/17/2003 02:44:00 AM
0 comments
