| Subject: Gay parade goes on in New Orleans, despite Katrina |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 22:57:15 09/05/05 Mon
A handful of die-hard revelers refused Sunday to let Katrina's devastation kill their party spirit or snuff out a famous gay parade that normally draws thousands to New Orleans' French Quarter.
As military helicopters buzzed overhead, about two dozen holdout remnants of the annual Southern Decadence festival marched through the quarter, stopping at one of the only bars open, just barely - Johnny White's Sports Bar & Grill.
Dressed in drag, wearing plastic leis or sporting makeup, the participants said they were determined to fight back against overwhelming despair with a familiar celebration that always begins in front of a favorite Gay bar, the Golden Lantern.
Matt Menold was there, strumming "Smoke on the Water" on his guitar and sporting a black and white sombrero during the brief march. He said the few who did show up _ most from the neighborhood - were sending out an important message to the world.
"Everyone that survived is here," said Menold. "They're saying New Orleans isn't going to be a town again, but it is."
Another marcher, Joe Malinauskas, who's been coming to New Orleans for the Labor Day weekend extravaganza for more than 15 years, said the parade had finally gone back to its non-commercial roots.
"Now it's real again," said Malinauskas, who wore pink and white Mardi Gras beads around his neck.
Southern Decadence is billed as the largest gay event in New Orleans. Organizers probably didn't have Katrina in mind when they posted a history of the event on their official website, but it was oddly prophetic.
"Not even the fire from a dragon's breath would keep participants and watchers from assembling in the 1200 block of Royal Street on the first Sunday before Labor Day for a celebration that has gotten bigger and more wonderfully insane each year since its casual creation in 1972," it said.
The revelers found no ice or air conditioning once they got to the bar, where the cigarette supply had badly dwindled, but a drink of hard liquor was just what some of them needed.
"Everyone's drinking. We're all happy," said Andy O'Brien, 23, a bare chested carpentar's apprentice who has been getting by on canned goods, borrowed food from shuttered bars and help from friends and neighbors.
The claim to fame at Johnny White's is that bar has never closed. Volunteer bartender Joseph Bellomy, a regular patron who started on the job three days ago, said he had been in contact with the owner.
"He said for us to stay open at all costs," Bellomy said. "In 14 years, this bar has never closed."
It has now become a rare gathering point and outpost for stranded neighbors, artists and even a man seeking medical care.
Writer and computer network administrator Ride Hamilton, wearing a paramedic uniform he bought at a thrift store, stitched up the badly split ear of Vasilios Tryphonas, who had been mugged with a two-by-four and robbed of his last five dollars.
One bar patron yelled at a passing police suburban to call for medics to check on Tryphonas. The officers, from the Washington, D.C. Metropolitian police, politely nodded, took snapshots of the revelers and sped off.
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