Oh my... a new post after so, so, so long. Yes, special occasions now, folks. Otherwise I just never get around to doing it.
And you may well ask what the special occasion is this time around. I'll tell you - it's Mardi Gras!
I know it is a big statement, however this year's Mardi Gras has to be the best that i've enjoyed for at least a decade. It wasn't just the party (and it certainly wasn't the parade; someone needs to shorten that thing!) however it was the combination of many things, including catching up with several old friends, meeting a handful of new ones and just a great vibe all round.
We arrived on Thursday, checked into our cell that was apparently a hotel room and did some shopping down the street. We spent far too much at Priceline which was the first obviously gay act that we did. I mean, come on... more than $50 on toiletries is a tad excessive yet it somehow happened. This didn't include any fragrances either... that was yet to come.
Thursday...
We began our Thursday evening by catching up with our wonderful friend David for dinner. David took us to this fantastic pub on Crown St a few blocks from where we were staying. You walked into this modern pub and they have this entire wall that forms a giant book case - it just looks very grand. We had a quick bite there, a couple of drinks and chatted away about what David had heard about this years party and life in general.
From there, Ant and I picked ourselves up and walked on down to the Cleverland Hotel for drinks with the lovely Kylie Martin and Luke Nutley who I had worked with years before at FMR. Now... putting this into context, people in the music industry work so closely together and for so many hours that you can't help but form a family like bond with these people. I hadn't seen Luke properly in years and Kylie is always so busy that to get an evening with both of them and to just have a few drinks was wonderful.
Whilst at the Cleverland, there was this woman dressed in a crushed velvet red dress doing a photoshoot. I'm not entirely sure what it is that she was selling however she kept doing this look down her nose and hand motions that would indicate it was some kind of card dealer thingy although I suspect if I got a full house, the crushed velvet dress may just have dropped to the floor. It was all rather creepy actually as her make up person kept touching her even while they were taking pictures and the camera equipment that the rather old photographer was using looked like he grabbed it as a free gift from the bottom of his packet of wheaties. We thought we could do better than them and started doing our own photoshoot which resulted in some rather... interesting... shots of Luke. Luke has made Kylie and I promise not to show these to anyone however i'm pretty sure they're already on Kylie's Facebook page...
Some how, going against my original wishes of a quiet evening at the hotel, Luke had talked Ant and I into a drink or two down the Shift and so we raced home, got changed and headed around. However, I just couldn't really get into the mood and wasn't feeling that suitably dressed although we had started to run into some fellow Melburnians and so the tequila shots began! Having said all that, Ant and I made our escape and were in bed by 2am.
Friday...
Day time is boring... we bought fragrance at some fragrance store on Oxford St (after much debating by Ant and I) - probably something more at Priceline - and not much else. Ant was trying to find an outfit for Mardi Gras and decided that he was going to go this year as a lifeguard. After much searching around, we actually found lifesaver shorts and a cap at Bang in Sydney thanks to the help of owner Dean.
However, that night we did go to a friend of Ant's place for drinks. Now, we all knew that Rob was fairly well off however we're talking about a penthouse on the 19th floor of a rather luxurious building in Potts Point here. No understatement - the view from his balcony has to be the best view of Sydney Harbour I have ever, ever seen. I wish I had a video camera there and had to make do with my mobile phone camera (which just won't do it justice) however when you looked to the left, you looked down upon the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. In front of us we had that little island that I always thought was some kind of Alcatraz however it turned out to be a restaurant. Over to the right, you can see the heads and looking out towards Manly. It's the first time i've ever been able to see a clear, complete view of the entire harbour from one location and it was breath taking. Rob was the perfect host - expensive champagne was poured out by the bottle full - a small but really lovely group of people - great conversation and, in all, something that we wouldn't have normally got from a Mardi Gras visit. In fact, most of the people there were from Melbourne (as Rob is most frequently) and we had all made plans to catch up once we returned. In fact, two people (Kim and Richard) were wanting to come and see the Mardi Gras parade so Ant arranged a time for us to meet them the following night so that we could enjoy it together.
Saturday...
Ant and I got up and had a delicious breakfast at the cafe downstairs, and was joined by our lovely friend Andrew Osbourne (who is a script writer for Home & Away so we always try to get all the gossip out of him). Ant and I then went window shopping down Oxford St so that I could find something to wear for the party that night. I had already decided on my army cargo shorts however I ended up finding a nice pollo neck shirt from Woosh and decided that this was going to make me look slim enough to handle the party with confidence!
Travis, who shared the hotel room with us arrived and Ant took him down the street whilst I (ahem) waited in the hotel room watching Doctor Who. There was only so much more window shopping I could cope with.
Around 7.00pm, we went down to Oxford St to find Kim and Richard armed with a handful of milk crates. I ran into my friend Scott Brennan whilst down there - much to my amazement, our new friend Kim turned around and pointed out that she knew his brother Peter and his friend Peter. "Not Peter Bousha?", I asked. "You know Peter Bousha?" she said back. Ok - small world people.
I do love the parade however I also think it is WAY too long now. Without getting too political on everyone, i'm also scared that the parade is going to become too commercial. Keep in mind that 30 years ago, a group of gays and lesbians protested in Kings Cross so that the gay and lesbian movement could have their rights recognised. 29 years later, Eclipse chewing gum and Ikea are in the Mardi Gras parade. Now, tell me - what is the relevance of chewing gum and flat packed furniture to the gay and lesbian movement? NOTHING, I tells ya. I was pleased to see no trace of chewing gum this year although Ikea was back. Be warned Mardi Gras - sell your space in the parade for advertising and people will turn off in droves - keep it relevant or you'll lose it all.
Best float had to be one of the more simplistic - featured three key dancers who were dancing in front of this amazing giant screen. The dancers in themselves were nothing special - they were fit, could dance and kept rhythm - excellent - however what impressed me the most was the actual screen they used. Up close, it just looked amazing and I noticed that the stage sets in the RHI also incorporated these screens too...
We had a couple of lovely Irish girls behind us who seemed to like to sing along to songs despite the obstacle of not knowing the words forever being present. I often broke into laughter with them as they sang such amazing classics as "Working 9 to 5, what a way to da da da da..."
We actually left before the parade ended. Anyone who has tried to stand on a milk crate with a handful of other people for a few hours will know what i'm talking about here. We went back to the hotel, started getting ready and made our way to the party. And thus one of the best parties began...
No queues when we arrived. I don't think I was even frisked. Just walked in.
Hard to believe there was 30,000 people there as I wasn't being pushed and shoved. In fact, I think I waited no more than 10 minutes to use a loo at any point during the night.
The RHI was just going off. I don't know if it was the fact it was the 30th birthday or not however the DJ's weren't taking it too seriously at all (which is a good thing.) They were mixing new tracks with old classics left, right and centre which meant that you could never really guess what might happen next and everyone just kept dancing because the music never got boring. I mean, when was the last time you went to a dance party and heard ABBA,70's disco Donna Summer or even Sylvesters 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' playing loudly?
Even Hex Hector got into the mood with a bit of a 20 minute Whitney megamix... Oh dear! I'm sorry, but it was hysterical standing on a packed dancefloor hearing a room full of trashed queens singing the high pitched note in a dance mix of Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You'.
The central mirrorball was just amazing this year - not exactly a mirror ball but a revolving cascade of glass - with the lights hitting it, it just looked AMAZING.
The shows were good too - Olivia got a very strong crowd reaction...
and by the time Cyndi Lauper came on at 8am, it was clearly obvious that this had been one of the best Mardi Gras parties ever.
I didn't get to see Kent and Sandro as I wanted to - in the end, it sounded like there were dancing not too far from where we had based ourselves too. However, I did get to spend a little bit of time towards the end with David/Margeaux and a few of his friends too, as well as spending time with Dale, Matt, Simon, Stuart, Shane, Scott, Anthony, Scotty, Daniel, Rob, Andrew, Kevin, Travis, Paul, David, Ian and of course Ant... and the list just keeps going on and on! I guess in those big party settings, you can only hope to run into each other and if you do happen to lose each other, hope you're popular enough to run into someone else you do know!
As we were leaving at 8am in the morning, we walked past a lone camera crew standing in the middle of the park. As Ant was wearing his lifeguard outfit (which is skimpy at best), I strolled past loudly proclaiming, "Oh, I know what you're focusing that thing on right now..." As it turns out, head to http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/ and type Mardi Gras into the search options on the right - play the story that goes just a little longer than 2 minutes and you'll catch a glimpse of Ant and I at the start as we left the next morning (Ant covering his nipples...!!!... and me walking just a little ahead).
...(ahem)... Sunday
We then decided that we would head on to the Midnight Shift, where I sms'd the world to see if anyone cared to join us. Young Scotty Brennan joined us again, as he was just walking past the Shift when he got my message and had time to kill before the Toybox Party a few hours later. I explained to him that it was actually really nice to spend some quality time with him, especially since he is someone from my past that I have a soft spot for as he reminds me of a more innocent time. I did also explain to him that my mother absolutely loves one of his sketches...
We stayed there until the afternoon and then decided (wisely) that we should go home and get some sleep.
Surprise, Ant wanted to go out that night, so we left the hotel around 11pm and went to Stonewall, the Oxford and then finished up at the Columbian where we were until around 8am! We had run into our friend Alan and his partner Kevin when we were at the Stonewall and ended up spending the night with them (and their hysterical friend Geoff who Alan used to live with in Sydney). As Geoff lived a few doors from where we stayed, we all walked home together and spent a fair amount of time laughing - Geoff was too funny...
Monday
More sleep... then Ant wanted to go out again (can you see a pattern here)... so we went back to Stonewall for one drink and then over to the Columbian. Now, this place was jumping at 3pm on a Monday afternoon although I was well and truly over club land by then. I had invited my friend Shane down for a drink and so we sat in the corner chatting away, eventually leaving Ant and Travis to the Columbian whilst we went around the corner to one of my favourite little Thai places. Once I saw Shane off, I went back to the Columbian and rounded up a resistent Travis and Ant who wanted to stay on... until I pointed out that it was nearly 11.30pm and we had a plane to catch early in the morning...
Tuesday
Getting up, we enjoyed another breakfast at Room Nine which was the cafe in the hotel where we stayed, and then got our things together to head to the airport. Poor Travis had a 4pm flight that day (and Kelly Clarkson that night) so he was off to the cinema to kill time. Ant and I arrived back at the airport, running into our DJ friend David Virgonia so it was nice to be able to chat with someone before we boarded our plane.
...And then came the depression of being back home in Melbourne after such a fantastic holiday. Thank you to all my fabulous friends in Sydney and from Melbourne who ensured that we all had a wonderful time. I do hate how I reach a point where I say "this will be my last Mardi Gras for a while" and then Mardi Gras turns around and delivers a magnificent party! So, yes, Ant and I are already talking about doing MG09. However, for the time being, i'll get over this post party flu that i've caught and get myself ready for work again next week.
