Mardi Gras Star

Round The World In Drag - the first journey, - the Sydney Mardi Gras, as E-Mailed to my dear friend at home, Jo,- Jo, Well, it happened after all! What? What I said wouldn’t happen in my last. I was in the Mardi Gras Parade!!!! How it happened was like this. I’d got all prepared for not being in it and just watching from Oxford Street, - I’d got my Party ticket, and all that,- and then I came across this invitation on the Internet, to join the “Friends of Vincent”. It was from a guy called Shayne and Vincent was an English naturist who got put in prison for going around with no clothes on – you got that of course. So the “Friends” were due to walk in the Parade, six men each a different colour of the rainbow with almost no clothes on. Did I want to walk with them? Would they want a silver drag queen to add to their rainbow? Yes, they did, so I was in, though I never met them till the Saturday night of the Parade, believe it or not. The Parade was at eight but I had to be at the start at six. Now, I never said but it’s been showery in Sydney recently and the big question was – would it rain on the Parade (Barbra, forgive me!)? I had the same drag as at Frocks at Fox but with rainbow lashes from Kitty’s, glitter lips (ditto) and a silk rainbow streamer I’d bought on the street. And no umbrella. If it was going to be wet, and it looked like it, well, we were going to be brave. I had to walk down the side-streets to the Park, Oxford Street was already thick with people standing on crates. It was slightly showery and everybody seemed to be going in the other direction, but I pressed on. I was looking for a space on the road called K15 – it was somewhere upaways beyond a stone obelisk (and here was me thinking that was a float!) Everybody was milling around, floats half-decorated, costumes half-on, and here was the road marked in sections – K15 . Where were they? And then I heard, - “You must be Mandy”, - and this tall rangy guy comes over with two others and this is the Friends of Vincent. Rollan was a nice campy type with a floppy cap and Warren was shorter with a nice body, a bit sporty-looking, and they were sheltering from the rain behind crash barriers with a pile of stuff. So I joined them and then the waiting began. Nobody else turned up so there were three Friends of Vincent, and me, the silver one. The spots around us filled up slowly, - with fuschia-coloured aliens and the Virgin Airways Brisbane float which gave us music to wait by, the Back-Packers float with bunk-beds. Eventually Shayne got yellowed-up, saving his middle bit until it got dark, Rollan did the purple bit and Warren went green. Half a rainbow, and me. Shayne wired a figleaf to his cock-ring, and the rest was cigarettes, water and regular trips to the Portaloos. Jo, if you’d filmed the goings-in and out of the those loos you would have seen every costume known to the universe. Once our rainbow men are ready they get to be the favourites of all the photographers in town. I got hauled in on some of the pictures but not all of them. Let’s face it, Jo, there’s nothing more photogenic than a naked man, and three……well. Actually, if you’re going to be upstaged three naked men in body-paint is as good as you’re going to get. By eight it was dark, just slightly wet but no movement on the Parade front. We go up to the end to watch the pink flamingos lead off, and it’s all on its way, but….we’re not. Eventually on of the parallel lines of floats moves off, marching boys, the lot, then more waiting. Fireworks went off. I got my streamer tangled and took more trips to the toilets. Shayne gives me a string of red fairy-lights to wear and I get tangled up in them. It’s all happening somewhere, then we get the word, - “Soon” - then suddenly half-way through a cigarette, we were. Off. The next line along, cheering, the police waving us onto the Route. And that, my dear, is how your Mandy-girl in silver with a pink feathered tail and head-dress, flashing her rainbow eyes, draped in fairy-lights, flicking her rainbow streamer, stepping out in tall boots, behind the Queensland Gay Choir and Puss in Boots, and in front of De Kamp Fundraising cart and Virgin Airways, alongside three men in yellow, purple and green body-paint and figleafs (except Rollan got rid of his early on and gave a few women along the route a thrill) stepped out proudly on the Mardi Gras Parade. It was a top buzz, - amazing, so hard to describe, hard to realize sometimes what was happening, just what you were in. Just the world’s longest stage and half a million people along the way to make you a star, heaps on heaps of cheers, lights, it was like splashing in a Pool of Fame, up to your waist, your rainbow lashes, in admiration. We were late in the Parade but people weren’t cheered out, on roofs, balconies, crates, in windows, on canopies, up towards the big light of Taylor Square. Halfway up Oxford Street the fireworks went off, further up we passed the Hotel, there were folks on the roof, on the canopies, everywhere. And at Taylor Square there’s the big television moment, a huge glare, and Shayne gets an interview, still holding the Vincent Banner. Come on! Move! Can’t! We’re getting behind, there’s people everywhere, more fireworks. Then the long final drag, and the stands, the Bobby Goldsmith, with drag queens commentating, and more crowds, then less and then the final straight. It was kisses all round. Our stuff was in the boot of the Admiral’s Cadillac (really a Ford) overheating like all of us, and I sit in the boot with my water. resting my feet, trying to wind up my streamer and untangle myself from the red fairy lights. “Happy Mardi Gras!” God, that Shayne, he’s a hero, he is Mardi Gras, he’s so with it all. All the time. “Happy Mardi Gras!” it’s the gay Christmas! That do you, Jo? It did for me. Love Mandy