NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

Hey, Hi, Howdy and What's Up!?

It looks like spring is finally upon us and time to get ready for summer! In saying this I mean it is time to renew your resolutions and get your butt in shape to play for the rest of the year. Let's see...some popular venues for shaping up and getting pretty again are: Club New Orleans (a.k.a. CBC), New Orleans Athletic Club, Elmwood Fitness at One Shell Square and Canal Place. As for tanning...Tantastics Tanning Salon and the CBC has a tanning bed as well. For those of you that love to swim as much as I do, I understand that the ever popular Country Club will be opening again soon.

So what all is going on out there? I have noticed lots of moves going on. From new apartments and houses to new loves and love joys. Spring is famous for that! Time to get your houses cleaned up and the backyards and courtyards spruced up for house parties and crawfish boils.

Mardi Gras seemed to have taken a pretty good toll on marriages this year. Lots of casualties! But you know what...there's lots of new meat in town. Lots of faces I haven't seen in a while. Just remember a little secret that some older, much more experienced, queen's have taught me! Quit looking for a husband or the perfect little man. Concentrate on yourself and putting yourself in tip top shape in every facet of your life and they will fall in your lap. When you stop looking they will flock around you. It works!

Well it looks like its time for those interested to buy their roller blades and start practicing for the Rollerblade Club. I will be starting up registration in April. This club will be doing some fun stuff for Southern Decadence and Gay Pride, so get ready!

Let me flashback to a wonderful dinner place that my boyfriend took me for Valentine's Day! That's the new conversation piece in restaurants and of course owned by Mr. Controversy himself, Al Copeland. Yes, I am talking about the Straya. We went to the one out in Metairie on Veterans Ave. Talk about "Faw Faw" and "Fru Fru". It makes me wonder about Al Copeland having such a creativity about him. You know it takes a queen to make things that lavishly lovely.

This man has made a wonderful restaurant chain and is selling franchises. We ate an incredible meal with three appetizers, two main courses, two desserts, bottle of fine wine and two martinis for under $100.

That the service was phenomenal! Our waitress was Emilia and talk about the pampering. If we stepped outside to take a smoke she was right behind us with glasses and a bottle of wine. She was quite aware that we were lovers especially when she walked up to introduce herself and saw that we were holding hands across the booth table. Of course I was blown away, after all..."gay-friendly suburbia?" Hmmmm! Well anyway, if you want a romantic and beautiful place to eat, as well as, good food...you need to check out Straya's. Either on St Charles Ave (by Ann Rice's House) or up on Veterans Ave. in Metairie. That the prices are affordable and the service and atmosphere is "fit for a queen."

Guess what! It is also time for Gay Pride to start kicking up its heels to get ready for this year's festivities which will be held October 10th, 11th and 12th. So far a couple of changes are being made for the Pride Fest Weekend 97. We are not adding a third day of Pride in the park but rather setting up for a Kick Off Rally Block Party in the Quarter for the 10th (Friday Night)! Saturday and Sunday Pride in the park, then if we can get it approved by City Hall, our first night parade on Sunday night to close out the weekend.

Now in wanting to do this weekend extravaganza we NEED YOU the people to get involved in at least one little task. Remember this is YOUR pride celebration and many of you bitch and gripe about how things are run, but no one wants to ever get involved.

Yes, volunteers are always needed for the actual event, but we need more active bodies to serve on the board. It's not a hard job, not when you have many people doing a little, its easier than a few people doing a lot. So please get involved and come help us make a successful pride weekend. Call me at home at 948.6276 or call the Pride Line at 949.9555. You'll really be glad you got involved!

Oh, by the way, I am now the light man at Oz every Wednesday night for the show and thru the night, so if you are out and about on a Wednesday night, stop by the booth and say "Hi."

I have to tell you about the AMbarRUNfq. This was our 2nd bar trip, this time thru the Quarter and the Marigny, in a beautiful custom Chisholm Livery Limo shuttle fully equipped with sound system, T.V. and VCR. Very comfortable especially for a bunch of roudy drunk queens like those that rode with us.

The tour started at MRB where everyone had to buy a cocktail or two to begin the priming of the pumps for 16 bar stops we had to make it through. Those that were willing and daring met us at MRB to begin loading the shuttle.

Off to the Double Play we went. Of course we were a bar full every stop we made. Once in the Double Play everyone found a spot to land in and I immediately had to zoom over to the most handsome bartender on St. Louis Street, Patrick. Good looking, bedroom blue-eyed boy. While I was saying hello to Patrick this ditsy long haired blonde got all nasty and bitter because we had came in and stole the show. Well, she began popping off at the mouth and I had already had a couple of Citron Scews and a Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall!

I was ready for this one. She looked at me and started making nasty remarks about Patrick needing to take care of the locals first. I gave her the evil eye and started cussing her and informed her that we were locals long before her. She wasn't well after that. After that I had had enough of her and just knew that if I stayed next to her she would be bald by the time I finished my drink. So I bounced around to the other side by the rest of the crew. With the blowing of the whistle the Corner Pocket was the next stop. A short but sweet visit there with the lovely Beefy, and over to Mother Bob's where the festivities got even better.

First it started with me falling madly in love with a 7' blow-up Corona bottle that I begged Harold for. He granted my wish! Then if that wasn't enough, Kevin of Alternatives was bragging about being able to go down on a beer can (with his mouth, for all of you that know her better). Well, Harold just had to pull out a beer can and set it on the counter. All eyes were on Kevin as he went down on the can about 3 or 4 inches. Needless to say I was crossed over and flabbergasted. Then once down on the can he picked it up clutched between his teeth and raised it in the air like a trophy still in his mouth. If you look on the XXXpose cover he is featured on the bottom of the page. Hmmmmmm! I wonder what other talents he has.

The whistle blew and out the door with my blowup Corona bottle I ran and onto the shuttle. We stopped at Footloose and then Buckaroo's where there were a few customers hanging out. When we left there we took them with us. Sorry Ralph!

Amongst those hostages was Lady Charles of TT's. The next stop was TT's anyway so we didn't hold him captive for long. Of course, offer him a cocktail and he'll follow you anywhere. But all hell broke loose when Lady Charles pulled out a bottle of Korbel for Rip, Marsha and the revelers. The next few stops were a tad bit cloudy due to 3 more Slow Comfortable Screws. Heheheheh!

Well, we stopped at Wolfendale's, the Phoenix, Copper Top and Rubyfruit Jungle. I was told that I ended up on the dance floor with Kevin doing some dirty line dancing. Then it was the Mint, Golden Lantern, and I barely remember stumbling into Rawhide. When we left there it was down to the corner of Bourbon and St Ann.

Half the crew followed Rip and Marsha to the Pub and the other half followed me to the Oz. Everyone was ready to retire. Too many cocktails and too many stops! 16 in total, whew! Needless to say I got up the next morning