Confessions of a professional homosexual part 2118

Oops! I forgot to go to the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras! Fancy that. What a bad, bad homosexual I am, to miss a parade of exhibitionists, body fascists and a party dominated by dull house music and muscle marys drugged up to the gills on crystal meth and disco biscuits. Oh well. maybe next year...

Comments

s7610ra said…
Oh, so not worth my while coming over for then? ;-)
2/3/08 20:56
richardwatts said…
Nah - our gaming conventions, on the other hand...
2/3/08 22:23
caoin said…
Labels: 2008, cult, culture, drugs, gay, Mardi Gras, music

Well, I’m sure there are one or two glazed looks involved, but isn’t cult taking the hyperbole a bit far?

You grumpy old man you!

Of course, never having been to MG I couldn’t venture an opinion.
2/3/08 22:38
richardwatts said…
Grumpy, moi? Over when coming down or viciously hungover, surely!
2/3/08 22:59
Anonymous said…
I think you're being too harsh Richard. When I lived in Sydney and saw the mardi gras, what stood out to me was all the little community groups which obviously do have a lot of problems -- like teenage youth in country towns etc -- you of all people should be able to appreciate that. I think it would be great to see these things if you came from Hicksville and you were an isolated 15 year old. It must be like a whole new world. As for all the other stereotyped camp stuff -- well, its only part of it.
3/3/08 20:15
richardwatts said…
Too harsh? Guilty as charged, Conrad, without doubt - can you tell I wasn't exactly in a cheerful and happy place when I wrote this blog post? *grin*
3/3/08 22:05
Anonymous said…
Kylie? Daannii? Did someone say Minogue?! Are they on a float? Where, where?!!!
3/3/08 23:32
Victor said…
I haven't watched the parade in a few years. I found the parade was much the same year after year. Judging by the news clips of this year's parade it wasn't much different this year. However I acknowledge earlier comments that new groups have found the opportunity to join in.
4/3/08 09:51
Anonymous said…
Having been to two Mardi Gras now I can see your point, but just one question Mr Watts.

Whats the difference betweeen those of us who marched in the Melbourne Pride March and those who marched in Sydney?

It's all they have :-)
4/3/08 22:56
richardwatts said…
The difference, I think, DUP, is that Melbourne's Pride March refuses to become a glam, shallow exercise in spectacle, and has keep its roots. Sydney, conversely, tends to dye its roots.
4/3/08 23:29
Anonymous said…
Ah well, in Iran we get hung, Russia set upon by thugs while the police watch, Saudi Arabia we get lashed and in Sydney we get freedoms beyond belief to be whoever we want to be..........like whoever we want to be exhibitionists or not, how amazings that!
7/3/08 00:55
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Recent Call of Cthulhu work for the Miskatonic Repository

Image
The last time I posted on this poor, neglected blog was in August 2023, and a lot has happened since then - I've been meaning to blog about it for ages, but time got away from me. So, consider this post a quick catch-up on some of the creative work I've been doing over the last 12 months or so. I say quick, but given I'm an all or nothing kinda of guy, let's see how long I write for this evening and how much detail I go into, shall we? Last year, starting on Friday June 8th and continuing on over the weekend, I was a Guest of Honour at the innaugural Chaosium Con Australia ; a celebration of the games published by Chaosium Inc , a company whose work I've long admired and was once a regular contributor to, especially their game of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, Call of Cthulhu , which I first encountered in 1984; I also contributed significantly to Chaosium's Stormbringer and Elric! game lines, roleplaying games based on the work of enormously influential Englis...
Read more

Doing the Beats: Kerouac, sexuality and On the Road

Image
The long-awaited film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s ground-breaking novel presents the perfect opportunity to re-examine the lives of the Beat Generation, writes Richard Watts. It’s not hyperbole to say that the Beat Generation – a small coterie of writers who met up in New York City in the spring of 1944 – changed the world. Without their individual quests for personal freedoms – a quest for sex and drugs before there was rock and roll; a quest which spawned the western world’s first counter-culture, the beatniks – the hippy movement of the Sixties would never have happened, and punk would have been a quiet snarl rather than a global reaction. Of all the Beat Generation writers, Jack Kerouac, author of the autobiographical beatnik bible, On the Road , is unequivocally the most famous. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922, to working class French-Canadian parents, Kerouac aspired to be a writer from a young age, though he was also a keen football player. Indeed, it ...
Read more

The streets of old Fitzroy

Image
I've lived in Fitzroy for 14 years, and long before I moved here spent some formative moment in its pubs and terrace houses. I have an unpublished novel that set's in Fitzroy in the 1940s (originally it was set in the 1950s but I've realised it was the wrong period). I love this suburb, even as it changes before my eyes, which is why I love articles and photographs and stories of its past.   From the Herald-Sun , here's a series of images of the old inner city slums that once characterised much of Fitzroy. And from The Age just yesterday, here's an article about a photographer who was documenting the vanishing post-war Fitzroy culture in 1973-74.  Happy reading. And maybe allow Dan Sultan to provide you with a soundtrack?
Read more