Ahhh, it's that time of year again. It's better than Christmas and Easter combined for the majority of gay men and our lesbian sisters (or systers?) It's time for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras! And once again this year, i'm not going.
Now, before I demand my collective 'awww', let's say that this doesn't bother me too much. Although there is always some point during the day on Mardi Gras day where I feel visited (if you will) by the ghosts of Mardi Gras past, and make me wish that I was up there in Sydney on the strip, letting my little heart get dizzy with excitment for the moment I hear that first 'vvrooom' and I see some big, leather clad dyke zoom past me on her bike. I will reframe from any old jokes about everyone liking something big and powerful between their legs.
So, let me get all nostalgic and talk about my first Mardi Gras. (cue the mists of time rolling over our visions about here)
I was young and pretty then (stop laughing). Ok, I was younger then... (satisfied?)
I'm guessing I would've been maybe 20 or so at the time.
I had been living out of home for a couple of years with a rather over the top young woman whom I affectionely knew as 'Audi' (short for Audacity).
For years, being a 'nay sayer' about many things that usually excited young people (I was perhaps determined not to be the norm?), I was finally talked into giving this whole 'Mardi Gras thing' a try. Audi had many friends up in Sydney. She bought a party ticket for me (it was easier then; you could just buy them from Hares & Hyena's. This was before the whole 'becoming a member' la la and prices hyked up). All I needed to do was get there, which I eventually did via bus... and can I just say, "NEVER AGAIN!".
I went to the doctor and told him that I was travelling to Sydney via bus and would like some sleeping pills. Then on the trip, they didn't work... and I just kept taking more and more. I eventually arrived in Sydney, deprived of sleep and totally pilled off my little nogging.
It was one of the first times I had been interstate away from family (although I can't remember if this was before or after my visit to Sydney for the Queer Collaborations conference). We discovered new games in that week prior, such as 'Find a straight person on Oxford St', which back then, prior to public acceptance thanks to films like 'Priscilla', wasn't easy. But then nothing would prepare me for my first party.
I have to be honest; I didn't see the parade that year. In fact, it would be a few Mardi Gras' before I actually ever saw a parade, and then I discovered that Audi was right with the whole 'it looks so much better on television' concept. But the party... gasp... hands clasping side of face in amazement... bewilderment as the virginal me felt my experienced being delightfully frisked... I had never seen so many people in one place, all wanting to party and get on down. I had never seen so many different sheds playing so many different styles of music, from house, to progressive club, to retro, to 'drag favourites', to hardcore trance. I remember vividly, dancing in the middle of the RHI, and turning to Audi and promising never to miss a Mardi Gras again. And for that matter, it would be seven years before I gave it 'a break'.
Why the break? Well, it was losing it a bit. It had lost it's impact on me, and lost some of it's relevance. The rooms all started to sound the same. The crowd all begun to look the same. I was wondering if I had come in on the tail end of it's golden run, the 'rim' of the experience shall we say, and that it was beginning to fall in upon itself with it's commercialism? Well, the collapse of it's management suggested that my thoughts were more than just mere speculation, and although I went to two further after my year off, it had felt like the 'spark' between Mardi Gras and I had seemingly gone.
I'm not sure if this is the second or third that i've missed tonight. But there is a part of me thinking that it might be time to return and see if it is ready to reclaim me.
So until that time in 2005, to all my gorgeous friends in Sydney way, play hard but safe for me, and i'll be sure to have a drink for you all tonight. And remember to yell loudly, "Happy Mardi Gras Darlinks!!!"
