Ambush Magazine Volume 34 Issue 15

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the "official" dish

by Rip & Marsha Naquin-Delain Email: ripna@ambushmag.com

Did You Win? Find out at the 29th Gay Appreciation Awards Gala July 23 @ Oz Are you ready to find out the winners of 29th Gay Appreciation Awards? Well, plan on heading over to Oz, 800 Bourbon Street, on Saturday, July 23 at 7pm. This year the exciting GAA Gala begins with “Walking the Red Carpet” emceed by Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Felicia Phillips as Joan Rivers, Tony Leggio, Jeffrey Palmquist and Derek Penton-Robicheaux from 7-7:45pm. This is your opportunity to "dress to the nines" in one or all of the official colors of Southern Decadence: amethyst (purple), ruby (red), sapphire (blue), or pearl (white). The grand marshals will choose the "best dressed" which will be awarded the first ever Red Carpet Oscar Award during the Gala.

The Gala will follow from 8-10pm announcing the winners voted online by the readership of Ambush Magazine back in early June. Brenda Laura of French Quarter Pet Asylum fame will receive the coveted 29th Lifetime Achievement Award. GAA Board's Lisa Beaumann and Teryl-Lynn Foxx will emcee the festivities with entertainment including a production number from each of the Top 5 Show Club of the Year Finalists: Bourbon Pub & Parade, Corner Pocket, Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, The Golden Lantern, and Oz New Orleans; and last year's Entertainer of the Year Gia GiaVanni. The French Quarter's own Benefiting Southern Decadence 2016, VIP Table’s for 4 are available for $200 (contact Rip Naquin to reserve your table 504.522.8049 or ripna@ambushmag.com), or it's a $10 door donation.

Top 5 Finalists include: Circuit Party/Event of the Year: 17th Gay Easter Parade, Halloween 32, New Orleans Pride, Page Anniversary Party, Southern Decadence 44 Hair Salon of the Year: Fee & Art's Revival Studio, Head Quarters, Mickey Nolan's, Rocket Science, Two Guy Cutting Hair Gay Mardi Gras Ball of the Year: Krewe of Amon-Ra, Krewe of Armeinius, Krewe of Petronius, Mystic Krewe of Lords of Leather, Mystic Krewe of Satyricon Neighborhood Bar of the Year: Cafe Lafitte in Exile, Corner Pocket, Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, The Page, The Phoenix Buzzy Fanning AIDS Award: Misti Ates, Big Easy Sisters, Toby Lefort, NO/ AIDS Task Force, Adikus Sulpizi Bitch of the Year: Electra City, Willie Mackie, Persana Shoulders, Princesse Stephaney, Aubrey Synclaire Show Club of the Year: Bourbon Pub & Parade, Corner Pocket, Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, The Golden Lantern, Oz New Orleans Donnie Jay Performing Arts Award: AUX Colorguard, La Familia Variety Show, New Orleans Gay Men's Chorus, The Southern Barbitchuates, Tennessee Williams Theatre Company Restaurant/Deli/Coffee House of the Year: Cheezy Cajun, Chef Ron’s

inside

Gumbo Stop, Clover Grill, Eat, Quartermaster: The Nellie Deli Dance Club of the Year: Bourbon Pub & Parade, Corner Pocket, Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, Oz New Orleans, The Page Bartender of the Year: Drew Kingswell/The Golden Lantern, Ashlee Logan/The Corner Pocket, Jake Morris/ Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, Jeffrey Palmquist/Cafe Lafitte in Exile, Chris Peterson/Bourbon Pub & Parade DJ of the Year: OJ Carter/The Page, Kyle David/Oz, Dominick "Dom" Kolb/Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, Tim Pflueger/ Oz, Jonathan "JRB" Reed/Oz Leather Bar of the Year: Cafe Lafitte in Exile, The Golden Lantern, The Page, Phoenix, Rawhide Cheridon Comedy Award: Clorox Bleachman, Jeff DeRouen, Gia GiaVanni, Persana Shoulders, Tittie Toulouse Fly Fashion Glamour Award: Adrian Claveria, Connie Hung, Chi-Chi Rodriguez, Aubrey Synclaire, Monica SynclaireKennedy LGBT Business of the Year: Bourbon Pride, Crescent City Tour Booking Agency, Delaney & Robb Attorneys at Law, Formal Connection, Rab Dab Clothing & Gifts Leather Person of the Year: Matthew Birkhoff, Tim Goodman, Troy Powell, Adikus Sulpizi, Gary Vandeventer

GAA Winners, Red Dress Run issue due out August 2 DEADLINE: Tues., July 26

celebrazzi the real cheese obituary/larry fremin moments in gay new orleans history southern decadence fundraisers snap paparazzi/new orleans spotlight feature/gay pride month 45th southern decadence 29th gaa gala under the gaydar dining out for life

6 8 8 10 12 12 15 16 17 18 19

trodding the boards 20 a community within communities 20 snap paparazzi/new orleans 22 classifieds 24-25 real estate 25 book review, mobile paparazzi 26 bleather weekend 27 ambush paparazzi/new orleans 28, 30 opinion/all lives don't matter 31 AD INFO: Call 504.522.8049 ripna@ambushmag.com

Gulf South LGBT+ Entertainment/Travel Guide Since 1982 828-A Bourbon St. • New Orleans, LA 70116-3137 • 504.522.8049 ripna@ambushmag.com

Transgender of the Year: Regina Adams, Adrian Claveria, Stephanie Lee, Rikki Redd, Chi-Chi Rodriquez Lesbian of the Year: Misti Ates, Tracy Foxworth, Catherine Gaither, Mina Hernandez, Sandy Sachs Gay Man of the Year: Andy Bergeron, Ken GrandPre, Tony Leggio, Frank Perez, Stephen Valiente Marcy Marcell Entertainer of the Year: Nicole Lynn Foxx, Gia GiaVanni, Connie Hung, Coca Mesa, Aubrey Synclaire For additional information, visit www.AmbushMag.com/gaa.

Sign Giant Fleur de Lis for Orlando at 29th GAA Gala July 23 New Orleans LGBT Hospitality Alliance (NOLHA) will host a signing of the gaint Fleur de Lis donated by Mardi Gras World to be presented to Pulse in Orlando.

The signing will take place at Oz, 800 Bourbon Street, during the 29th Gay Appreciation Awards Gala on Saturday, July 23 from 7-10pm. This is your chance to be part of "We Are Pulse" in honor of the lives lost and survivors of the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in U.S. history.

Another $7,704 Raised for Southern Decadence 2016 & its Charities Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Tony Leggio, Felicia Philips, Jeffrey Palmquist and Derek-Penton Robicheaux are excited to announce that the past five fundraisers have brought in 7,704.00 and after expenses of 443.00, a total of 7,261.00 was raised for the 2016 celebration benefiting NOAGE and ARNO. The Southern Decadence 4th of July Extravaganza hosted by Elizabeth Bouvier and Gary Vandeventer at the Chalmansion in Chalmette raised 2,200.00 minus expenses of 47.00 for a total of 2,153.00. The event brought in 675.00 in VIP tickets, 560.00 in advance tickets, 720.00 in door tickets, and 245.00 in raffles minus 47.00 in online ticket fees.

The 3rd annual Potato Salad Contest hosted by GrandPre's raised 520.00 in tasting/judging tickets minus 260.00 to the winner - Paw Paw Rippy's Kettle Potato Salad with shrimp and smoked sausage, raising a total of 260.00 for Southern Decadence.

Johnny Passion's 3rd annual Smatch Game hosted by Misti Ates Gaither (Johnny Passion) and Catherine Gaither at Allways Lounge raised 1,966.00 minus 136.00 in expenses for a total of 1,830.00. The event raised 420.00 in VIP tables, 86.00 in tips, 630.00 from auctions, 580.00 from the door, and 250.00 from A*Med Ambulance Service's Bronze sponsorship; minus expenses of 50.00 for AllWays Lounge lighting, and 86.00 in supplies/decorations.

The 2nd Southern Decadence Carnival at Tulane Ave Bar raised a total of 318.00.

The 2nd annual Southern Charm Meets Southern Decadence Soiree sponsored by SDGM XLII Jeffrey Palmquist and Coca J. Mesa held at their home has been the largest fundraiser this year bringing in a total of 2,700.00. The event raised 1,200.00 for 12 tickets in cash, 1,000.00 for 10 tickets by check, and 500.00 from Dr. Mac's (Robert McWhirter) Silver sponsorship.

THE OFFICIAL MAG

Facebook.COM/AmbushMag Gulf South Entertainment/Travel Guide Since 1982 • Texas-Florida Official Gay Easter Parade Guide© Official Gay Mardi Gras Guide© Official Gay New Orleans Guide© Official Pride Guide© Official Southern Decadence Guide© AWARD WINNING:

Saints & Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame/2015, Louisiana Excellence Award: Media & Internet/2014, New Orleans Print Media Award/ 2014, 25th NO/AIDS Task Force Humanitas Award/2013, New Orleans Print Media Award/ 2013, Krewe of Mwindo Media Honoree/2009, Krewe of Petronius Carnival Spirit of Gay Mardi Gras XLVIII Award/2009, Forum For Equality Acclaim Awards X Media Recipient/2008, NO/AIDS Task Force Prometheus “Torch of Truth” [media] Award/2001 OFFICE/SHIPPING ADDRESS: 828-A Bourbon St., New Orleans, LA 70116-3137 USA OFFICE HOURS: 10am-3pm Monday-Friday [Except Holidays] Email: ripna@ambushmag.com PHONE: 1.504.522.8049 ANNUAL READERSHIP OVER 1 MILLION: 260,000+ in print/780,000+ On-line CIRCULATION: Alabama-Mobile Florida - Pensacola Louisiana - Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Metairie, New Orleans, Slidell Mississippi - Bay St. Louis, Biloxi Texas - Houston

STAFF: PUBLISHER/EDITOR R. Rip Naquin, New Orleans PRODUCTION DIRECTOR M. Marsha Delain, New Orleans GULF SOUTH/NEW ORLEANS AD SALES Rip Naquin • 504.522.8049 Paul Melancon THEATRE/PERFORMING ARTS CRITIC Brian Sands AD REPS/JOURNALISTS/PHOTOGRAPHERS Misti Ates, Tony Leggio, Hubert S Monkeys, Felicia Phillips, Frank Perez, Rev. Bill Terry-New Orleans MIss Cie, Leon Weekley-Mobile, AL National Advertising Rep: Rivendell Media 212.242.6863 Ambush Mag is published on alternate Tuesdays of each month by Ambush, Inc., R. Rip NaquinDelain, President. Advertising, Copy & Photo DEADLINE is alternate Tuesdays, 4pm, prior to publication week, accepted via e-mail only: marsha@ripandmarsha.com, except for special holidays. The Publisher assumes no responsibility for the claims of advertisers and has the right to reject any advertising. The inclusion of an individual's name or photograph in this publication implies nothing about that individual's sexual orientation. Letters, stories, etc., appearing herein are not necessarily the opinion of the Publisher or Staff of AMBUSH Mag. Subscription rate is $45 for 1/2 Year; $75 for 1 year.

Sample Copy is $3 First Class Mail. ©1982-2016 AMBUSH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NOTHING HEREIN MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER INCLUDING AD LAYOUTS, MAPS and PHOTOS. AMgrant - AMbush Advertising Grant Donation

Official Southern Decadence Sponsors to date include Presenting-Ambush Magazine,www.SouthernDecadence.com, SKYY Vodka; Platinum-Bud Light, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Gay Appreciation Awards, Crescent City Tour Booking Agency, Elizabeth Bouvier & Gary Vandeventer, SDGM XLII Jeffrey Palmquist & Coca J. Mesa; Gold-The Golden Lantern, Bourbon Pub & Parade, Misti Ates Gaither (Johnny Passion) & Catherine Gaither; Silver-Four Seasons & Patio Stage Bar, Cafe Lafitte in Exile, New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., GrandPre's,

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celebrazzi \

The 2nd Annual Southern Charm Meets Southern Decadence Soiree raised $2,700 for Southern Decadence 2016, the largest amount raised thus far at a single event benefiting this year's Southern Decadence Charities: New Orleans Advocates for GLBT Elders (NOAGE) and Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO).

Hosted by, and at the Bourbon Street home of Southern Decadence Grand Marshal XLII Jeffrey Palmquist and partner Coca J. Mesa, the festive evening boasted live music, fabulous passed hors d'oeurvres by chef Wilemina Bennet served by the handsome Skyy Vodka Boys: Liam and Justin.

Jeffrey was joined by Co-Grand Marshals Felicia Phillips, Derek PentonRobicheaux and Tony Leggio welcoming guests. Of course this party is never complete without the hot, hot, hot pool boys Aaron, CJ, Andre' and Jake. The exclusive party is limited to only 25 guest donating $100 each to Southern Decadence. (Photo by Rip Naquin: Front-Aaron, Skyy Vodka's Justin, CJ, Andre', Jake & Skyy Vodka's Liam; Back-SDGMs XLII Tony Leggio, Derek PentonRobicheaux, Felicia Philips & Jeffrey Palmquist) www.SouthernDecadence.com Below-A giant Skyy Vodka blowup towered over Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Tony Leggio, Derek Penton-Robicheaux, Felicia Philips and Jeffrey Palmquist for the Southern Decadence 4th of July Extravaganza on July 3rd hosted by Elizabeth Bouvier and Gary Vandeventer. Bouvier's Chalmansion in Chalmette, Louisiana was the setting for this wild pool party complete with food trucks raising $2,200 for Southern Decadence 2016.

Southern Decadence Grand Marshal XLI Misti Ates Gaither hosted Johnny Passion's 3rd Annual Smatch Game raising $1,966 for Southern Decadence 2016 at Allways Lounge in New Orleans. Celebrities in the community came out portraying other celebrities which proved to be the reason for the success of this hysterical production. Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Felicia Phillips as Miss Love, Tony Leggio as Ab Fab's Edina, Derek Penton-Robicheaux as Elton John, and Jeffrey Palmquist as a contestant rounded out the entertainment.

(Photo by Paul Melancon)

Below-Vanessa Carr Kennedy starred in the 2nd Annual Southern Decadence Carnival hosted at Tulane Avenue Bar raising $318 for Southern Decadence 2016.

GrandPre's Ken GrandPre presented Marsha Delain and Rip Naquin as the winners of the 3rd Annual Potato Salad Contest on July 4th in New Orleans. Voted on by the tasters/judges at GrandPre', the event raised $520 for Southern Decadence 2016 with $260 presented along with the trophy to the winning entry "Paw Paw Rippy's Kettle Potato Salad" with seafood boiled shrimp and caramelized smoked sausage. This is the second win for the couple. Last year's entry "Down The Bayou Potato Salad" won them the 2nd Annual Potato Salad Contest. Jason Emrick's entry won the 1st Potato Salad Contest in 2014. (Photo

by Darwin Reed)

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the real cheese

by Felicia Phillips Email: fphillips1011@gmail.com Photo by Hubert S Monkeys

Grand Marshal Mayhem It has been some time since last I passed you guys, gals and gender fluids some real cheese, believe me when I say, not because there hasn’t been anything to dish about, it’s that there has been too much! My life has been a whirlwind of activity since being named one of this year’s SDGMs. I quickly discovered that being a Southern Decadence Grand Marshal assures the fact that you will face much mayhem throughout the weeks leading up to the parade. And during the many, many and when I say many events held to raise funds for the permits, fees, expenses and chosen charities, I mean almost as many as Tiffany Alexander and Dominique DeLorean have drag daughters.

One thing that is a constant, is everyday having someone come up to you and share their thoughts as to everything that they feel is wrong or that they would have done different, and giving you a plethora of ideas of what should be done next year. I’ve been given names of people they want picked for next year, most who have no involvement at all, I’ve been told to pick a group as GM, I’ve been told to pick no one, I’ve even been told to change it to a community vote. All while we current GMs are still trying to get our bearings together and deal with all the things that have to be done this year, things that the ones giving opinions have no clue even exist. All of this leads us to usually end up cutting loose at the events.

I mean after the nonstop, would’ve, should’ve, could’ves, and the pressure of putting things together, when we get to the event, having a cocktail or seven and having a good time becomes top priority, which in turn leads to more SDGM mayhem.

Points in case; starting way back at the announcement party, less than five minutes after being named, we were all bombarded from all directions, which meant that the pub crawl afterward was a necessity!

Luckily we had a shuttle bus. After the fourth or fifth stop three of we GMs were still pretty much functioning drunks (I will never say which 3) but one had started to cross over, upon exiting at one of the stops, this GM discovers that his gift bag presented to us from former SDGM Errol (Dark Lady) Rizzuto had gone missing, and wanted everyone frisked! Then he realized there were a couple of ‘street savvy ‘boys aboard that were not on the guest list, this was just unacceptable, it wasn’t until the next day that we remembered it was another GM that had started to cross over that had invited them to join! But we all survived, and some took bets as to which of us would be the hot mess for the next event.

The next event was the Press Party, the event itself went off pretty well, nice decorations by Lee Bunny Brasseaux, delish food compliments of Misael Rubio of Quartermaster. The Bourbon Pub’s hostess Aubrey Synclaire did not bully us in the least bit, but was quite hospitable. The entertainers were all on their game, the entourages excited, and ARNO’s doggies were quite the hit! But in our own excitement we did not realize that I missed putting in the show line

up a place to announce the sponsors to date and our Parade Captain, who is vital to everything coming together on the big day, Steven Mora! Those fumbles, the heat and length of that day meant of course more cocktails and we started another pub crawl, this time on foot. Once again three of us, but a different three I will say, stayed upright and coherent, but it was another one’s turn to cross over, a local pretty boy was smitten by the regal look of the unnamed SDGM, I mean with the sash, and sparkling pin and whistle, how could he resist? Although looking back, I’m thinking he may have wanted to blow more than the whistle. After ending up at one of the shows that night, things must have got a little rough as somehow, while obviously being a gentleman and helping the pretty boy, who had already had his own share of libations, a simple good night kiss on the cheek, ended up with an accident involving a rather large piece of broken glass, at least now we know it wasn’t plexiglass! Not to worry none of ARNO’s pets nor the afore mentioned pretty bay were harmed.

[continued on 10] the "official" dish ...from 4 Rolling Elvi Inc./Jailhouse Rockers, Dr. Mac (Robert McWhirter); Bronze-Quartermaster: The Nellie Deli, A*Med Ambulance Service, Tulane Ave Bar; and Pearl-Dawn Leggio, SDGM XXVII Errol Rizzuto, June Pennick, Alexis Grace, Cam Zimmerman, Bonita Folse/Solitaire, Fabulous Flowers LLC, Jay Crockett.

You to can become a sponsor of the largest LGBT celebration in Louisiana today! All funds raised minus expenses will benefit the official 2016 Southern Decadence Charities: New Orleans Advocates for GLBT Elders (NOAGE) and Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO).

There are several levels of sponsorship available including $5,000 Presenting, $2,500 Platinum, $1,000 Gold, $500 Silver, $250 Bronze, and $100 Pearl.

Sponsorship forms are available at www.southerndecadence.com/2016/ NOSouthernDecadenceSponsors.pdf.

"Go Pink & Harass Miss Love" July 22 @ Cutter's This is your opportunity to join the Sally FLYs as they come together to "Go Pink & Harass Miss Love" on Friday, July 22 from 3-7pm! Yes, get ready, set, and geaux to catch Miss Love as a guest bartender at Cutter's, 706 Franklin Avenue, and give it back to the "nasty bitch"!!!

It's your chance to get even with the illustrious Miss Love who has dampened many a bar stool and a door stoop throughout our fair city. Get dressed in pink or an outrageous pink ensemble, and head on over to Cutter's. Miss Love will be barri-

caded in behind the bar and cannot escape any of us, her loyal, decadent dissidents, and fans of the after-world!!!

Dining Out For Life July 28 in NOLA New Orleans is a city that’s known world wide for it’s cuisine, so what could be easier than Dining Out For Life to help raise money for the programs and services of NO/AIDS Task Force.

This year, on July 28, dozens of the area’s best restaurants will donate a portion of their proceeds to NO/AIDS Task Force that will help fund our Food For Friends program that delivers meals to HIV and cancer patients. All you have to do is dine at one of the participating restaurants and a portion of your bill will help someone living with HIV /AIDS or cancer.

Some of Ambush Magazine's favorites are participating including Café Amelie, Chef Ron’s Gumbo Stop, Fatoush Mediterranean Grill, Mona Lisa Restaurant, Petite Amelie, and The All New Feelings. For more information, visit www.noaidstaskforce.org/ events/dfl.

obituary Community Loses Baton Rouge Philanthropist Larry Fremin, Jr. July 12 Lawrence (Larry) Paul Fremin, Jr., died on July 12, 2016 at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following a long battle with cancer at age 69. Larry was a generous philanthropist and friend to many who owned Four Seasons Florist for the past 35 years in the capital city.

Miss Louisiana Leatherette 2017 Aug. 20 @ Oz Vanessa Carr Kennedy crowns her successor as Miss Louisiana Leatherette 2017 is sashed on Saturday, August 20 at 8pm at Oz, 800 Bourbon Street. The Lords of Leather’s 15th annual camp drag contest will once again feature some of the area’s most outrageous entertainers poking fun at gay leather pageantry. The contest is open to all: gay, straight, transgendered, male, female, bisexual and those in transition…you get the message, ANYBODY! Contestants will be judged on four categories: Parish costume – a creative interpretation representing a Louisiana parish of the contestant’s choosing.

Talent – a maximum four minute stage performance.

Fetish Wear – a fetish wear presentation aka “swimsuit” segment.

Formal – eveningwear in the spirit of the contest, suitable for the awards ceremony.

The winner will be awarded a $100 cash prize, crown, sash and trophy.

Applicants must complete an application with the non-refundable $25 entry fee by 7pm August 20. Applications can be downloaded from the Lords of Leather website: www.lordsofleather.org under “Events”. For more information please contact Gary Vandeventer at IntMrDrummer2001@aol.com.

A $10 donation will be asked at the door the night of the contest. For more information on all Lords events please see www.lordsofleather.org.

Mr. Louisiana Leather 2017 Contest Sept. 3 @ Hi Ho Lounge The Lords of Leather will be once again holding the Mr. Louisiana Leather Contest during Southern Decadence. Any male, 21 or older may enter.

Contestants will be judged in four categories: interview, street wear representing his leather lifestyle/fetish, jockstrap,

As the founding member of the Krewe of Apollo of Baton Rouge (now 35 years), he served as its first King, and as Ball Captain ten times including each anniversary year.

According to The Advocate, "...The Krewe of Apollo is about more than Mardi Gras. The funds raised at the ball and other krewe fundraisers throughout the year benefit its HIV/AIDS Crisis Fund, which was started in 1993, as well as providing financial support to HAART (HIV/AIDS Alliance for Region II) and Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital’s pediatric AIDS/ HIV cases. The balls raise a significant amount of money thanks to corporate sponsorships."

Memorial donations in Larry’s name can be made to any local animal shelter or to St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Baton Rouge. and a 90 second speech on a subject of his own choosing.

Medallions, trophies and cash awards will be presented to the winner and first runner-up. The winner will receive a custom leather sash, trophy, engraved medallion and a cash award toward his expenses to compete in International Mr. Leather in Chicago Memorial Day 2017.

The contest will be held on Saturday, September 3 at 8pm at Hi Ho Lounge, 2239 St. Claude Avenue. The Lords will be hosting additional events throughout the Southern Decadence weekend at the Phoenix Bar. In 1989, the Lords sponsored a contest for Mr. New Orleans Leather. In 1993 the contest grew to encompass the geographic area of the state by evolving into the Mr. Louisiana Leather Contest. The title is nationally recognized and acknowledged by the leather community worldwide.

For more information please contact Lord Troy Powell at 504.329.8381.

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moments in gay new orleans history

by Professor Frank Perez E-mail: f.perez@sbcglobal.net Photo by: Larry Graham, GrahamStudioOne.COM

“The Lavender Line: Jerry Menefee, St. Ann, and Bourbon” In 1958, New Orleans Mayor Chep Morrison famously observed “Here’s to Bourbon Street, where men are men—at least nine times out of ten.” At the time, the network of gay life in the French Quarter had a variety nodes: restaurants, antique shops, cafes, and a number of bars dispersed along several blocks of Bourbon Street. Morrison’s wisecrack suggests what everyone knew but rarely talked about—that the Quarter had a large, if not quite thriving, gay community.

The “queer shops,” as the police called gay bars, represented small segments of gay visibility in a very homophobic time. In the same year Mayor Morrison made his infamous joke about Bourbon Street, he appointed his half-brother, Jacob Morrison, to lead a “Committee on the Problem of Sex Deviates.” This was essentially a public relations stunt to help Morrison’s image as a reformer. Nonetheless, the committee was successful in harassing a number of gay bars in the Quarter, most notably, the Starlet Lounge and Tony Bacino’s.

In his book on the history of Bourbon Street, Richard Campanella writes, “At the nexus of the emerging gay space was the St. Ann Street intersection, and for this reason the so-called “lavender line” exists along St. Ann today, dividing gay and straight Bourbon with remarkable exactitude.”

The “space” Campanella refers to extended from Tony Bacino’s bar at the corner of Toulouse and Bourbon to Café Lafitte in Exile at the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine. Beginning in the 1950s, there were a number of bars in that five block stretch frequented almost exclusively by gay folk. Among these were Tony Bacino’s Dixies Bar of Music, and Café Lafitte in Exile.

This stretch included four cross streets; so why did St. Ann become the lavender line? Part of the answer lies in zoning. The Bourbon Street Entertainment District, which was created in 1929, extends from Iberville to St. Ann. In addition to zoning, St. Ann was centrally located between two gay meccas—Lafitte’s one block away at Dumaine and Dixie’s one block in the other direction at St. Peter. But besides zoning and location, Jerry Menefee, one of the most colorful and flamboyant characters in modern Quarter history, decided to gay it up.

The Bourbon Pub and Parade is housed in a two-story commercial brick building dating back to ca. 1829. By the 1960s, the building housed a gay bar called the Caverns. The Caverns was a hustler bar known for cheap drugs and even cheaper sex. A former patron recalls, “It was sleazy. But sleazy in a good way.”

Jerry Menefee, who had been a bartender and manager at Café Lafitte in Exile, bought the Caverns in 1974 and renamed it the Bourbon Pub. Menefee and his partner Tex Knight spent a fortune renovating the place and in the following year, Menefee bought the building for $140,000.

Menefee later opened a bar in Houston called the Parade Disco and would later open the extravagant Menefee’s on N. Rampart Street. Menefee’s was unlike anything New Orleans had seen. Bars, especially dive ones, were everywhere in

New Orleans but never had there been a high-end, multi-purpose club for gay men.

Menefee’s housed a restaurant, a gym, a disco, and a pool. The place was filled with custom artwork. “Classy” is the word many old-timers use in remembering Menefee’s (although a few did say “gaudy”).

When Menefee’s opened, N. Rampart Street had undergone something of a revival and the argument could be made that for a while, N. Rampart was the epicenter of gay bar-life. N. Rampart Street was home to several gay and lesbian bars and gay owned or gay friendly businesses. In the early 1970s, the notorious queen known as Daisy Mae owned a gift shop near what was Travis’, Wolfendales’, Starlight by the Park, Michael’s by the Park and current home of GrandPre’s. Other lost bars also on N. Rampart included Mabel’s Cove, Fat Sam’s, Tush, Gigi’s, Brady’s, Diane’s, Mona’s, Lindsey’s, Applause, North Star, We Are Family, Sundance, Footloose, the Ninth Circle, Finale 2, Town Hall, The Bar at Congo Square, the Cabaret, and several others. Next door to Menefee’s was the New Orleans Guest House, owned by two former Queens of Petronius, Ray Cronk and Alvin Payne.

Menefee was from a prominent family in north Louisiana and despite being raised in the midst of that cultural desolation, Menefee was a charismatic figure who had panache and a penchant for extravagant living. Pub bartender Don Wentworth recalls sitting at the bar one day in 1984 when Menefee pulled up in his canary yellow Rolls Royce, scooped him up, and took him to the airport to pick up Grace Jones and her boyfriend, “a young blonde thing,” Wentworth recalls. Jones lip-synced a couple of songs that night at the Pub’s 10 anniversary party.

In a 1983 New York Times interview, Menefee’s partner Tex Knight noted, “No one could resist him once he got going. And he was a flamboyant man. He wore tons of jewelry, gold necklaces, rings on every finger, earrings, and enormous hats. You couldn’t miss him in a room. No sir!”

Menefee died of a heart attack on October 24, 1984, while recuperating from a battle with cancer. Menefee’s on N. Rampart Street was idle from 84 to 89, and then became The Monster, which, in 1994, became the French Quarter Courtyard Hotel.

After Menefee’s death in 1984, Bobby Revere, who was his accountant, became the owner the Bourbon Pub in 1986. Revere sold the Pub to Sandy Sachs in 2009.

Sachs had worked at the bar in the early 1980s while she was attending Tulane University.

When Menefee opened the Pub in

1974, the space that is now Oz was a gay bar called Pete’s, the name playing on the fact that famed jazz clarinetist had a nightclub there in the 1960s.

The building at 800 Bourbon Street was constructed in 1880 and underwent extensive renovations in the 1930s. Pete Fountain opened his club there in 1960, a fact evidenced by the tiles bearing his name on the sidewalk by the front door. Imagine, if you can, Frank Sinatra sitting on the dance-floor of Oz and chatting with Jonathan Winters or Robert Goulet while Brenda Lee sings “I’m Sorry.” These and many other celebrities made appearances at Pete Fountain’s club. Fountain later moved his club to the Riverside Hilton, where he performed regularly until 2003.

After Pete’s closed, the space was reincarnated as Le Bistro in 1976. Le Bistro lasted not quite ten years and was the site of the first Miss Gay New Orleans contest.

After Le Bistro closed, the space at 800 Bourbon was vacant for a number of years until Oz opened.

But Oz almost never was. The building at 800 Bourbon had been owned by the Panzeca family for over 50 years at the time. In order to maintain the building’s nonconforming use (because it was outside the entertainment district boundary), the Panzeca’s ran a “temporary bar,” but the family / business ultimately lost its alcohol permit in 1989, temporarily at least. A lawsuit ensued and the building’s nonconforming use was reinstated, despite opposition from the owners of the Pub and Café Lafitte in Exile and the Vieux Carre Property Owners and Residents Association.

Oz opened in 1993 and over the next 21 years, Oz became the city’s premiere gay dance club. A rivalry developed between Oz and the Bourbon Pub and once, when a small fire broke out at the Pub, the DJ at Oz played The Trammps’ classic song “Disco Inferno.”

In the early 2000s, Oz was home to a young Bianca del Rio, who performed in a variety of capacities at the club. Rio would go on to international fame after winning season six of Ru Paul’s “Drag Race” in 2014.

Johnny Chisholm, Doyle Yeager and Bobby Warner, co-owners of Oz, were forced to sell both the building and the business at auction after being unable to pay loans that came due in 2014. In 2015, New Orleans businessman Kishore “Mike” Motwani (TShirt shops and Willie’s Chicken mogul) bought Oz for $8.175 million. Fears that Oz would start selling feather boas and fried chicken have been unfounded. The outside of the club however has received a welcome facelift.

More than anything, the Pub and Oz have solidified St. Ann as the “lavender line,” a line also reinforced by gay themed and owned business on the other two corners of the Bourbon / St. Ann intersection.

The Creole Cottage at the upriver, lakeside corner of the intersection was built ca. 1800 and now houses Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo and the gift shop Hit Parade.

Across the street is Napoleon’s Itch, a gay bar which occupies a corner of the Bourbon Orleans hotel. This location contains the fabled Orleans Ballroom, which was incorporated into the hotel when it was constructed in 1965. The Orleans Ballroom was opened in 1817, after a fire had destroyed the previous building, by John Davis, who would later open the Orleans

theatre nearby, thus helping New Orleans become the Opera Capital of North America in the mid-19th Century. The ballroom played host to many masquerade, carnival, and quadroon balls throughout the 19th century. In 1881, the building became the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family, a religious order founded by the free woman of color Henriette DeLille. Napoleon’s Itch opened in 2004.

I’m not sure what Henriette DeLille would think of a gay bar in her former convent. It is, however, safe to assume that she, like many still are today, would be astounded at the gay presence at St. Ann and Bourbon Streets. The lavender line began to form in the 1950s and became codified by the early 1970s with gay bars occupying both down-river corners. The longevity of both the Bourbon Pub and Oz have helped as well.

the real cheese ...from 8 The last incident I will address in this edition occurred during and after Crescent City Tour Booking Agency's Frank Perez hosted a Gay Tour and Meet and Greet held at fellow GM Jeff Palmquist and partner Coca Mesa’s fabulous Bourbon Street home. I will go ahead and break from my keeping our SDGM mayhem anonymous, and tell you the hot mess that night would be me. Now I will say that my AC was out at home and I had worked a long shift at work, not having had time to eat, but not worrying about it, as I knew there would be food served at the event. So of course I had to have a glass or 3 of wine before we got started, I was already into my third glass before I realized the food would not be served until after we returned from the tour.

That being said I remember only the first stop of the tour which I have no doubt was a most fun and informative tour. My next actions were recounted to me by others the next day. Seems that upon arriving at Jackson Square, I spot a homeless guy with a broken arm, that I found quite handsome at the time, I promptly broke away from the tour, ran thru a large puddle of water that splashed all this wayward soul, attempt to sit on the sidewalk next to him, fall backwards taking a good lick to the head on a garbage can, but proceed to engage him in conversation and get him to join the tour, after that didn’t work out to well, I rejoin the tour by bumping into Bill Shupe, knocking his drink out of his hand and causing a domino effect ending with someone falling up against St. Louis Cathedral. I was told I did make it back to the house for the meet and greet, did not eat, but became the drag version of Houdini and made a quick escape. Next thing I remember is a voice saying slow down you're going to lose it, at which time I realized I was on my trusty scooter Miss Lickity Split, and was falling sideways into the sidewalk in front of The Phoenix! Powers that be always looking after me with a sense of humor, I was only steps away from my apartment!

Needless to say we are only midway thru this summer and I’m sure there will be several more memorable occasions, but thru them all we current GMs along with several of the formers get thru them together and thank goodness love each other enough to share our GM mayhem, so no one person has to topic of every bar's next day conversations!

And that’s The Real Cheese! Until next time dahlins, I’m Felicia Phillips, The Cheese Queen of New Orleans...

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WEDNESDAY, July 20th...

5pm, Southern Decadence Grill Off, Southern Decadence Grand Marshal XLII Jeffery Palmquist & The Page’s Bar Baron Willie Mackie invite you to a dual of BBQ with SDGMs Tony Leggio, Felicia Phillips & Derek Penton-Robicheaux cheering on the grill masters, $10 a plate to taste/judge including fixings (voting ballot with each plate) @ The Page SATURDAY, July 23rd...

7pm, Ambush Magazine presents 29th Annual Gay Appreciation Awards Gala with “Walking the Red Carpet” with Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Tony Leggio, Felicia Phillips, Jeffrey Palmquist & Derek Penton-Robicheaux 77:45pm, followed by the Gala 8-10pm announcing the Winners, benefiting Southern Decadence 2016, $200 VIP Table’s for 4, $10 door donation @ Oz New Orleans SUNDAY, July 24th...

2-7pm, Coming Home: Decadence Takes Biloxi, Join us for an afternoon in Biloxi welcoming Southern Decadence Grand Marshal XLII Derek PentonRobicheaux back home. Lynn Koval, the owner of Just Us Lounge, has opened her doors to greet each of you with a homecooked meal of BBQ, collard greens, and Potato Salad from 1:30 until everyone gets a plate. While you enjoy some refreshing beverages and this great food, lean back and listen to the sounds of Rewind 228, which has reunited the great talents of Lady Patrice Pickett and Johnny Fung. The band will be playing all your favorites from 2-5pm.

Following, at 6pm, you will be entertained by some of the best entertainers the Coast has to offer with Estelle Suarez, Toni D, Nicole DuBois, and Merce...des Alexander storming the stage. DJ Powers will be playing the hottest hits and some classics for you all afternoon during the breaks and following the Drag Show. We will be having a 50/50 raffle, as well as general raffle for prizes including liquor baskets, food comps and bar tabs from various businesses both in Biloxi and New Orleans. $40 Bus passes from New Orleans to Biloxi, and back, will be available for purchase, which includes admission to the venue, meal, etc. Only 47 passes are available so get yours today.

Bus will leave promptly at 12:30pm from GrandPre’s, 834 N. Rampart St. Cover at the Just Us door without bus pass is $15 and includes the meal, admission for the band and drag show, and one ticket for the general raffles. Tickets $40 @ Just Us Lounge TUESDAY, July 26th...

7pm, The Quistadors present Southern Decadence “S”ingo with SDGMs XLII Jeffrey Palmquist, Felicia Philips, Derek Penton-Robicheaux & Tony Leggio, and your chance to win fab prizes at SD’s version of bingo (3 cards for $10), plus 50/ 50 raffle, auctions & more benefiting Southern Decadence 2016; arrive early at 6pm where you can order some great eats off the menu @ Cheezy Cajun SATURDAY, July 30th...

5-7pm, The Quistadors present “Mystic & Mystery: An Evening of Decadence” with SDGMs XLII Jeffrey Palmquist, Felicia Philips, Derek Penton-Robicheaux & Tony Leggio, with $10 Taro Card readings, $10 buffet courtesy of NOLA Poboys, Clover Grill & Le Fleur de Lis; plus raffles with great prizes & 50/50 raffle benefiting

Southern Decadence 2016 @ Good Friends Bar SUNDAY, July 31st...

4-6pm, Sippin’ with The Sisters 2nd Annual Deviled Egg Contest benefiting Southern Decadence 2016 with SDGMs XLII Tony Leggio, Felicia Philips, Jeffrey Palmquist & Derek Penton-Robicheaux, $10 to Taste/Judge (Rules: 1. Must supply a minimum of 60 eggs (30 eggs cut in half) Grade A Large only; 2. Souffle cups will be provided by Cutter’s (solo cup P150 1 1/2 oz., eggs must be presented in souffle cups; 3. Must be presented on platters provided by Cutter’s - or equivalent - commonly referred to as a crawfish platter. If your eggs do not fit on the trays (for whatever reason-2 will be provided) you must provide the additional tray; 4. Competition starts at 4pm - there will be a grace period of 15 minutes only Competition starts at 4pm - there will be a grace period of 15 minutes only (limited to first 12 entries due to space limitations); 5. Competition ends at 6pm; 6. Winners will be announced as soon as possible thereafter; 7. Judging will be by public vote with ballots provided by Cutter’s to all tasters; 8. Your eggs must fit within the confines of the souffle cup meaning - the souffle cup will serve as the base of your entry. You may fill the egg with whatever you desire, but it must fit in the cup. 9. There will be plaques awarded for the Winner and 1st Runner-up; 10. You must not place anything on the top of the egg that is not edible-(or in it)-for that matter-no statues or tiaras, etc.; 11. If you are late (after 3:15) you will not be eligible for judging (however, we will keep the eggs and enjoy them). If you do not sign up for the competition and just show up out of the blue - your entry will not qualify for judging (however, we will keep the eggs and enjoy them). @ Cutter’s WEDNESDAY, August 3rd...

5-8pm, Burgers and Dogs For Southern Decadence, Krewe du Royale Revelers’ Grand Reveler II Will Antill and Lord of Misrule Frank Perez will be grilling up juicy hamburgers and delicious hot dogs as well as serving up scrumptious potato salad and other fixin’s. $10 gets you an amazing meal and benefits Southern Decadence, whose official charities are NOAGE and ARNO. ARNO is Animal Rescue New Orleans, the city’s only no kill shelter. NOAGE stands for New Orleans Advocates for GLBT Elders.

None of us are getting younger and we all like pets. And we certainly like to eat! So come join us and support Southern Decadence! @ Cafe Lafitte in Exile THURSDAY, August 4th...

9pm until, Oz Southern Decadence Employee Turnabout & Buy-A-Boy Auction hosted by Persana Shoulders benefiting Southern Decadence 2016 and its charities with SDGMs XLII Derek PentonRobicheaux, Felicia Philips, Jeffrey Palmquist and Tony Leggio; catch all your favorite Oz Employees get in drag and perform for you, plus the hot, hot, hot BuyA-Boy Auction where sexy studs step up to the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder which includes exclusive dinner packages for 2, credit cards accepted as well as phone bids at 504.300.9525 during auction, doors open 8:30pm, $10 door donation, 50/50 raffle, Official Southern Decadence Posters signed by the grand marshals for $10 & more @ Oz New Orleans

SDGMs (front) XLII Tony Leggio, XLI Marsha Delain & Rip Naquin, XIV Kathleen Conlon; (back) XLI Frankie Fist, XLII Derek Penton-Robicheaux, Felicia Phillips & Jeffrey Palmquist

snap paparazzi

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Southern CharmMeets Southern Decadence Soiree raises $2,700 for SD @ Home of SDGM XLII Jeff Palmquist & Coca J. Mesa ~ New Orleans

southern decadence fundraisers

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JUNE IS GAY PRIDE MONTH LGBT Pride month is June and LGBT Pride marches around the world are usually held the last Sunday of June.

On November 2, 1969 at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations meeting in Philadelphia, it was proposed that a demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday of June in New York City in order to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstrations of Christopher Street.

This demonstration was to be called Christopher Street Liberation Day. The purpose of this proposal was to be an annual reminder of the Stonewall Bar Riots “in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights.” Homophile organizations throughout the country were contacted with the suggestion that they hold parallel demonstrations on the day making it a nationwide show of support.

We who are old enough to have grown up closeted, fearful, sometimes shamed, sometimes full of guilt and always questioning why we were different, are still amazed at how much and how quickly our lives have changed since that proposal was accepted at the conference in Philadelphia and the Stonewall riots that inspired it.

Queer was still used to describe us, but the word “Gay” was starting to be used in our communities. Following Harvey Milk’s election in San Francisco, Gilbert Baker, one of his supporters was asked to come up with a symbol for the gay community. It was to be a positive alternative to the pink triangle imposed by Nazis to identify and persecute homosexuals. It is still used, often alongside or superimposed upon the Rainbow Flag. Baker’s first

flag had eight stripes, but after the 1978 march and production problems of the flags it was reduced to six strips.

My husband and I have fond memories of the New York City Pride Days.

We lived just 2 and 1/2 blocks from the Stonewall Inn. We marched in the first 1970 Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day Parade from in front of the Stonewall Inn up Fifth Avenue to the Central Park Sheep Meadow with several friends.

The first marches were both serious and fun, and helped inspire a widening activist movement. The events were fully participated in by lesbian women, bisexual people and transgender people as well as by gay men of all races and backgrounds.

This reminds me that we often forget that the leaders of Stonewall riots were

predominantly trans (people of color): Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Storme DeLarverie. They dared to stand up while most of us pretty young things stayed in the background scared shitless.

By the late 1970s and early 80s AIDS messages appeared in the celebrations and the word Pride began to take hold. I do beiieve that despite the devastation we were beginning to be taken more seriously and supported more by onlookers. The city began painting a purple line along Christopher Street in front of the Stonewall each year.

At the 1994 march, my husband and I participated in holding up the historic mile long Rainbow flag displayed for the first international march on the United Nations during the 25th anniversary of Stonewall. I don’t remember what route we marched, but I know that we started at the UN on 1st Avenue and ended at Christopher Street. The beads I’m wearing were given to our group that day by a friend who made them by hand.

By the late 90s we were growing older and began filming the parades and sitting on our stoop to watch the parade of people going by for all the Greenwich Village bars and other events. All dressed and decorated for the day, we were such a stoop staple that each year some people would go

by just to see if we were still there. We posed for many pictures and our most memorable day came when a straight couple gave us a flower display they bought just for us.

My last march was with the Screen Actors Guild following the newly signed same-sex marriage bill. I stepped out of line as we approached Greenwich Avenue where my to be husband was filming and asked him to marry me.

Gay Pride was not born of a need to celebrate being Gay, but our right to exist without persecution and discrimination. So instead of wondering why there isn’t a straight Pride movement, be thankful you don’t need one.

The gay part is to be happy and have our civil rights. To be treated as a human being. We had a need to meet with men and women interested in something other than bars booze and dance music. We loved those things but needed something more — something to connect with our souls. Therefore, the diversity of the colors in the Rainbow flag.

To own our pride is important. To celebrate our community and to remember all those who have come before us and those who walked beside us in the fight for our freedom and rights.

--Ray Durand Krewe of Armeinius Historian

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under the gaydar

by Tony Leggio Email: ledgemgp@gmail.com Photo by: Larry Graham

Bartender of the Month My bartender for the month of July is quite the find. Visualize a 70’s porn God and you would probably think of a person who looks similar to Paul Rizzo. Paul works at Rawhide (normally on Sundays and Mondays) and he is quite the diamond in the rough, literally. Paul has been in NOLA for about one year having spent time in Provincetown and South Boston. Paul has worked in the service industry for over 10 years but Rawhide is his first actual bartending gig.

Bartender of the Month Paul Rizzo, Rawhide For his first time, Paul is excelling at this job. He is a natural behind the bar. He is funny, professional, and courteous. But his retro-70’s stud look is flawless right down to his jean cut off shorts and mustache. His favorite cocktail to consume is whiskey and ginger. Paul’s laid back and sultry with an edge demeanor fit perfectly at the Rawhide. He is quite the charmer and is very popular with both locals and visitors alike. He even passes out 70’s porn reading material to people who hang out at the bar.

So next time you are feeling a little reminiscent of the old days, head on down to Rawhide and let Paul take care of you.

Rawhide is located at 740 Burgundy.

Movie Review: The Dresser Two of my favorite actors are together in this wonderful adaptation of The Dresser, which was a 1980 West End and Broadway play by Ronald Harwood. The play was adapted as a 1983 film of the same title directed by Peter Yates; and starred Albert Finney as “Sir” and Tom Courtenay as Norman, with Zena Walker as “Her Ladyship”, Eileen Atkins as Madge and Edward Fox as Oxenby. Finney and Courtenay were both nominated for Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards and Golden Globe Awards for their performances, with Courtenay winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama.

For the current television version for the BBC Richard Eyre directed Anthony Hopkins as “Sir” and Ian McKellen as Norman, with Emily Watson as “Her Lady-

ship”, Sarah Lancashire as Madge and Edward Fox as Thornton.

The plotline tells the story of an aging actor’s personal assistant, who struggles to keep his charge’s life together. One fateful night in a small English regional theatre during World War II, a troupe of touring actors stage a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Bombs are falling, sirens are wailing, the curtain is going up in one hour, but the actor/manager Sir (Hopkins) who is playing Lear is nowhere to be found. His dresser Norman (McKellen) must scramble to keep the production alive.

Meanwhile, Sir reflects on his lifelong accomplishments and seeks to reconcile his turbulent friendships with those in his employ before the final curtain.

Veteran film icons Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins are brilliant in the roles.

These two legends star together for the first time ever in the captivating BBC production of the STARZ Original movie arriving on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Digital HD from Starz Digital July 12. The movie is both wickedly funny and poignant as it weaves this intricate tale of friendship, love and loyalty. The Dresser is now available on DVD. This is definitely one for you movie library. To learn more about the film, please visit www.anchorbayentertainment.com.

Book of the Month Actually for the month of July, it is books of the month. It is two of the latest novels in the Women’s Murder Club series

by James Patterson. Unlucky 13 has Lindsay Boxer, the lead of the foursome of crime solving professional women, enjoying life with her new baby and husband.

Enter a conniving killer thought dead from her past and the storyline shoots off like a bullet and doesn’t let up the momentum until the last chapter. Pursued relentlessly by this killer, Lindsay is going to need all the help she can get to bring this maniac to justice.

In the 14th Deadly Sin, the Women’s Murder Club is called upon to solve s string of cold-blooded crimes performed by a gang wearing masks and San Francisco Police Department jackets. While also trying to solve another series of brutal murders done in broad daylight, the ladies have their hands full. With everyone in the department a suspect, this high tension thriller grabs the reader by the throat and squeezes.

James Patterson’s books are the perfect popcorn summer reads whether at the beach, by the pool or in your living room.

These two novels have vivid characters that are so realistic that we have come to know and care for them. The action is intense and does not let up. Like his Cross, Bennet and Private series of books, Patterson is a master at weaving intricate plotlines that move the story along quickly.

I highly recommend that if you are into thrillers; start one of his series today. For more information on Patterson and his nov-

els, go to www.jamespatterson.com.

Hot Happenings We have reached the halfway mark of summer and the parties keep on coming.

Have you thought about your Southern Decadence costume yet? In the meantime before we work our way up to the culmination of summer in NOLA, here are just a few things to do!

Tuesday, July 19 – Sunday, July 24, 2016 Tales of the Cocktail (one of my favorite events) is upon us. The cocktail industry is filled with pioneers, rabble-rousers and trailblazers. People with the courage to change the way the world drinks. This summer, they’re back to New Orleans to shake things up once again at the 14th Annual Tales of the Cocktail. Join them as they cause a stir with more than 200 brand new seminars, tastings, competitions, networking opportunities and other spirited events. After Tales of the Cocktail 2016, the industry will never be the same. For more information, go to www.talesofthecocktail.com.

Friday, July 22 – Sunday, August 7, 2016 The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans opens its second season with The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams at the Samuel DuBois Cook Theatre (2601 Gentilly Blvd.). Directed by Augustin J Correro, the show features Erin Cessna, Julie Dietz, Lin Gathright, Linnea Gregg, Meredith Owens, Kim Paul, Mary Pauley, Matthew Raetz, Rachel Ridgeway, Lillian J. Small, Destani Smith, Mike Spara and Michael P. Sullivan.

The Rose Tattoo is Tennessee Williams’ love letter to Italy and the South. It follows the plight of Serafina delle Rose, a Sicilian widow in the Gulf South whose husband’s death has left her a devastated recluse. She so secludes herself, committed only to worshipping his memory, that her solitude has entrapped her young, beautiful daughter, Rosa as well. Serafina reckons she is safeguarding her daughter, imprisoning her in a frame house for a tower, but the budding Rosa cannot be contained— she is in love with a handsome young sailor.

As the play unfolds, audiences are treated to faerie tale allusions to Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Rapunzel. When Serafina’s ultimately lowers her walls, they tumble down burning in flames, ignited in Serafina by a stranger with the glorious body of her lost husband. The Rose Tattoo is a story of enchantment, divine intervention, and the holy mystery of human desire.

Performances are at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased at: www.twtheatrenola.com or by calling: 504.264.2580.

Saturday, July 23, 2016 Are you ready for the Gay Community’s Ultimate Award Ceremony, the Gay Appreciation Awards? The event takes place at Oz (800 Bourbon Street). This year will feature the new “Walking the Red Carpet” from 7-7:45pm emceed by Southern Decadence Grand Marshals XLII Felicia Phillips as “Joan Rivers,” Jeffrey Palmquist, Tony Leggio and Derek Penton-Robicheaux.

Dress to the nines in your fav 2016 Southern Decadence color: purple, red, blue or white, or a combination. The SDGMs will choose the “best dressed” which will be awarded the Red Carpet Oscar Award dur-

ing the Gala. The 29th annual GAA Gala runs from 8-10pm and the 2016 winners of 21 awards voted on by the readers of Ambush Magazine are announced at this event. VIP Tables with four seats are $200 and are very limited. Proceeds minus expenses benefits Southern Decadence 2016.

Contact Rip Naquin for table reservations at ripna@ambushmag.com or 504.522.8049. Door admission is $10.

Sunday, July 24, 2016 Join the Southern Decadence Grand Marshals at Coming Home: Decadence Takes Biloxi, an afternoon in Biloxi welcoming Derek Penton-Robicheaux back home.

Lynn Koval, the owner of Just Us Lounge (906 Division Street), has opened her doors to greet each of you with a home-cooked meal of BBQ, collard greens, and Potato Salad from 1:30 until everyone gets a plate.

While you enjoy some refreshing beverages and this great food, lean back and listen to the sounds of Rewind 228, which has reunited the great talents of Lady Patrice Pickett and Johnny Fung. The band will be playing all your favorites from 2-5pm. Following, at 6pm, you will be entertained by some of the best entertainers the Coast has to offer with Estelle Suarez, Toni D, Nicole DuBois, and Mercedes Alexander storming the stage. DJ Powers will be playing the hottest hits and some classics for you all afternoon during the breaks and following the Drag Show. We will be having a 50/50 raffle, as well as general raffle for prizes including liquor baskets, food comps and bar tabs from various businesses both in Biloxi and New Orleans. $40 Bus passes from New Orleans to Biloxi, and back, will be available for purchase, which includes admission to the venue, meal, etc. Only 47 passes are available so get yours today.

Bus will leave promptly at 12:30pm from GrandPre’s, 834 N. Rampart St. Cover at the Just Us door without bus pass is $15 and includes the meal, admission for the band and drag show, and one ticket for the general raffles. Link to bus passes - https:/ /decadence.ticketleap.com/coming-homedecadence-takes-biloxi/dates/Jul-242016_at_0200PM. Wednesday, August 3, 2016 Grand Reveler II Will Antill and Lord of Misrule Frank Perez of the Krewe du Rue Royale Revelers will be grilling up juicy hamburgers and delicious hot dogs as well as serving up scrumptious potato salad and other fixin’s at Café Lafitte’s in Exile (901 Bourbon Street). $10 gets you an amazing meal and benefits Southern Decadence, whose official charities are NOAGE and ARNO. ARNO is Animal Rescue New Orleans; the city’s only no kill shelter. NOAGE stands for New Orleans Advocates for GLBT Elders. None of us are getting younger and we all like pets. And we certainly like to eat!

So come join us and support Southern Decadence!

Saturday, August 6, 2016 Whitney White Linen Night 2016 will launch the Contemporary Arts Center’s milestone 40th Anniversary Season. This annual event is a fundraiser for the CAC. In addition to being at the center, the party where guests dress all in white linen takes place on the Julia Street Arts District. “A Building with a View”: Experiments in Anarchitecture is the CAC’s Exhibition Opening Reception from 5:30-9:30pm.

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Feeling emotionally overwhelmed? Has the earth gone off its axis? When will “IT” stop? Let’s have another cocktail and forget about it!

By the time you read this perhaps the events of mid-July will be fading and so to the anxiety that surrounds them. Perhaps. Perhaps by the time you read this you will be looking forward to the Awards, looking for your photo in this paper, or simply enjoying the Ads. Perhaps. Maybe you are in a club, bar, or pub. Maybe you are at home catching up on all of the LGBTQ news and social events. Long gone or at least faded are the thoughts and feelings of the shootings of July. Perhaps even is fading the events of June 12th. Maybe by now it’s just another date.

Allowing pain, anxiety, anger, and confusion to fade and become an old memory is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe, but then again, those fading memories can always come flooding back as a new page of violent history unfolds in the future. When they do come flooding back it is likely so will the emotions attached to those old events. Sometimes

this is called PTSD and I am thinking that many suffer from this to some degree anyway. There are degrees of PTSD. One small bit of wisdom is, that while dwelling on violent events is not helpful, acting as if they never happened on puts them away in a dark place and those violent memories are just waiting to burst out. What is helpful it to talk out those feelings and events in a safe community.

The churches of the LGBTQ community are more often than not the places where you are now reading this little column. Yes, they historically are local “Gay” bars, pubs, and clubs. Such places are safe places where communities are formed with informal liturgies. Yes, liturgies. Liturgies are movements among us that one expects.

The liturgy of a drag show for instance. The Queens start to come in, more often than not in full make up, often followed by an assistant (I noticed that they are usually very slight men not big boys) carrying cases for more makeup and perhaps wigs. It is the pre event promenade- the processional.

Liturgy and the “celebrants” know the feeling of the community and put such knowledge to good use often with caustic commentaries bordering on hilarious abuse. I remember once a few years ago a Queen dressed to the teeth with fine gowns, hair, and full face paint (uh with a mustache and goatee). She was singing “Bobbies Girl” obviously directed at then Governor Bobbie Jindal. It was hilarious. Liturgy takes on many forms and this was one great sung sermon. Preach it girl!

Safe places are spaces where we can and should truth tell. It is time to truth tell about our fears and prejudice. It is no longer good enough to wring our hands and say

year so do not miss out to this patriotic and gay salute to our country. But the real fun started at the after pool party, but those are the decadent stories saved for my memoirs.

The following day was the actual 4th of July and my friends Elizabeth Bouvier, Princesse Stephaney and I descended into the Quarter on what felt like the hottest day ever! We started out at Good Friends for a quick cocktail and with every drink you received piece of fried chicken (you gotta love this city), then we went to Rawhide where they were serving oysters on the half shell. Next on our journey was the Southern Decadence Fundraiser Potato Salad contest at GrandPre’s. There was quite a crowd and over a dozen dishes to try in addition to hot dogs and baked beans. I love that every celebration in this city revolves around food and drink. After feeding our faces at the various locations we started making our way back to the Marigny stopping at Lafitte’s in Exile, Oz, Pub, Mag's 940 and The Phoenix. Quite the bar crawl!

The other Grand Opening I attended was on Thursday for Le Creuset at the Riverwalk hosted by Avenue Magazine. I am such a foodie and love everything for the kitchen so needless to say I helped their store rack up some opening day sales.

There cookware is amazing and if you have not had a chance yet; there is no better way to beat the heat then go shopping in an airconditioned mall.

On Friday, I kicked off my weekend with a birthday dinner for my friend Beaux at Charlie’s Steakhouse, which is one of my favorite local restaurants. They have changed up the menu slightly with more offerings. As always the steaks were mouthwatering and delicious and the new sides like crabmeat au gratin and portabella

mushrooms stuffed with tomatoes were outstanding. We sat at the Elvis table upstairs and had a memorable intimate birthday celebration with good friends and conversation.

The next day was the Johnny Passion’s Smatch Game Fundraiser for Southern Decadence at the Allways Lounge. It was quite the night of celebrity sightings. First there was Tiffany Alexander, Electra City, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Jones, Johnny Passion, Edina and Patsy from Ab Fab, Liza Minelli, Elton John and the one and only Miss Love in the house as the guest panelists while Coca Mesa, Jeffrey Palmquist, Becky Allen and Marshal Harris were contestants. This event was non-stop laughs and so much to do. But the star of the show was Phillip Anthony who has now mastered Miss Love to a tee. He was amazing. It was a great night and once again, I enjoyed playing Edie to Elizabeth Bouvier’s Patsy.

After the event we were having so much fun, we meandered to the Phoenix to terrorize then for the remainder of the evening.

Sunday ended with back to back fundraisers. The first was the Southern Decadence Carnival at the Tulane Avenue Bar. They had some incredible live musicians who entertained us for the entire afternoon. There were also games with fun prizes, a dinner plate special and 50/50 raffle. It was a nice and mellow way to spend the afternoon in Mid-City. Next I was off to the Steamboat Natchez for Armenius’ Rolling on the River event. It was a perfect night to be on the Mississippi River with a cool breeze. It was a uniquely enjoyable fundraiser. Well that is my two weeks and now I am getting ready for more fundraisers, parties and events. Until next time stay Decadent!

trodding the boards

by Brian Sands

Email: bsnola2@hotmail.com

The High Priestess of Dark Alley at Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré through July 24 In The High Priestess of Dark Alley, playwright Jackie Alexander explores some potentially fascinating topics—the devastating consequences of marital infidelity; differences in New Orleans’ Creole and

African-American communities based on class and skin tone; and the always pertinent search for love.

[continued on 26]

a community within communities

by The Rev. Bill Terry, Rector St. Anna’s Episcopal Church, New Orleans Email: fr.bill@stannanola.org

Overwhelmed

under the gaydar ...from 18

Party Down Since last we visited, my two weeks was a full of pool parties, potato salads, business openings, gambling, shopping, riverboats and a night of a dozen stars. On Tuesday, I went to the Biz Night presented

by Biz Magazine to the Grand Opening Event of the newly renovated California Building located at 1111 Tulane Avenue.

There were VIP tours of the building while enjoying drinks and nibbles. The place was splendid but so was the price tag. It is just another march toward our city becoming more metropolitan. We have stayed a sleepy charming little Bohemian Paradise for a very long time. The key is growing without losing our identity.

Because of a crazy schedule at work, my next really fun outing was the 4th of July Southern Decadence Pool Party Fundraiser on Sunday (3rd of July) thrown by Gary Vandeventer and Elizabeth Bouvier at her Chalmansion. This event truly had everything you could ask for in a party, wonderfully interesting and fun guests, great food provided by the food truck Diva Dogg, a full open bar featuring Skyy Vodka and Bud Light, a shuttle to bring guests from the French Quarter, a live auction, a refreshing pool to swim in, hot Skyy Vodka boys and of course fireworks. And let’s not forget all this happened in the shadow of a 20 foot vodka bottle. The intimate soiree was a great and relaxing way to hang out with friends old and new all while raising funds for this year’s parade and two charities NOAGE and ARNO. This event was so successful, it will definitely happen next

“Why can’t people just love each other?” It is not good enough because it is not working and is not helpful. We stay in our safe places and talk, talk, talk. For the same reason I don’t go to many rallies or demonstrations. It is not because they are inconvenient. They usually are. It is not because I don’t stand in solidarity with many of them.

I usually do. It is because of this simple truth today. Not much happens of consequence after a rally or demonstration. There are exceptions: like PRIDE a message is sent and sometimes messages are received.

But, in general social justice rallies are too splintered, too few, too poorly organized, and there is no strategy in place to implement change. Remember the “Occupy [Wall Street]” movement? It was powerful and had energy and made a name for itself.

BUT, there was no agenda or strategy behind it. So, the 1% continues to become even richer and more powerful. I suspect it is less than 1% at this time.

The point is this: we have to do something beside talk. Talk is the first step. I think that meditation and prayer are the second step. Why? Because through such intentional soul seeking we might find a direction and concrete purpose for our efforts. For instance: contemplate the real nature of the “Good Samaritan” parable. Read it, you’ll find in a Bible in the 10th Chapter of Luke.

We read it this past Sunday. The question that you may want to ponder is what role do you play in that story? Are you the beaten and bloody man on the side of the road needing help? Are you one of the passersby? Are you the Samaritan who not only stops to help but insures the future safety and healing of the injured party? Are you an Innkeeper who offers hospitality and healing? Are you the beast of burden that, working with the Samaritan, helps transport or carry the injured. There are many roles and many identities that you can fix yourself on. But, in your safe place be honest in what role you play.

What we learn from this parable and by prayer (at least for me) is the concreteness in which we are asked by humanity or faith to act. Yes, act that is the key word and purpose for everything that I’ve said. We need to have a plan of action for ourselves personally and perhaps as a community.

Tired of the killing, hatred, and divisions that seem to be arising? The lets do something about it beside saying, “Can’t we all just get along.” How can we get along if we hide?

Hiding is what we all do best. Black churches and black pastors are generally loath to really engage their white or Latino counter parts. They will if they must but getting into the information stream doesn’t happen. The same is true in reverse it simply is true. Estrangement from one another is the demon that has us all. It paralyzes us and causes us to begin to think in terms of “us” and “them.” So by prayer or mediation find that insight of action that will compel you to start to change the environment that you are in. Then reach into the larger community and do some good. Volunteer, help register voters, write a Congressman. Start a letter writing campaign in your own tavern, pub, or club to encourage gun control or whatever it is that is tearing us apart. But do something concrete. Simply walking by noticing and then forgetting is no longer an option. ACT and you will be blessed. If you act you will be blessed and then perhaps a little less overwhelmed because you are created in the image of God.

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Southern Decadence 4th of July Extravaganza on July 3rd raises $2,200 for SD @ Chalmansion ~ Chalmette, LA ~ Photos by Tony Leggio

paparazzi

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3rd Annual Potato Salad Contest raises $520 for SD @ GrandPre's ~ New Orleans ~ Photos by Paul Melancon, Rip Naquin

snap

GayNew Orleans.c om • NOLAPride.org • J uly 19-August 1, 2016 • Facebook.com/ AmbushMag • The Official Mag© © : AmbushMag.com • 23

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24 • The Official Mag© © : AmbushMag.com • J uly 19-August 1, 2016 • Of fic ial Sout her n Dec adenc e Guide • Sout her nDec adenc e.c om Offic

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GayNew Orleans.c om • NOLAPride.org • J uly 19-August 1, 2016 • Facebook.com/ AmbushMag • The Official Mag© © : AmbushMag.com • 25

by Frank Perez The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. Ned and Constance Sublette. Lawrence Hill Books, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-61374-820-6.

754 pages. $35.00.

I finished reading The American Slave Coast on Friday, July 1. That evening I though it only fitting to watch Gone with the Wind on television, not only because of its subject, but also because it was Olivia De Havilland’s birthday.

Gone with the Wind is set just before and during the Civil War and while the film offers a romanticized version of the Ole South, the plot is really about Scarlett O’Hara’s sexual lust. As Scarlett goes through men and uncharacteristically acts upon her unbridled physical yearnings, I could not help but think in horror of the systematic rape so explicitly laid out in the Sublettes’ book.

Sexual violence was at the heart of industrialization and found a nourishing home in the form of capitalism. Rape is what made America an economic superpower.

Some have called slavery an institution, a way of life; others have described it as a moral evil and a supreme injustice. And while it may have been all of those things, it was really an industry. This is the chief focus of The American Slave Coast.

This mammoth book from the author of The World that Made New Orleans (2009) is the latest of a handful of books in the last few years that examines the tangled nexus of capitalism and slavery. While Edward E. Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (2014) demonstrates how slavery was instrumental in the development of America as a world economic power, The

trodding the boards ...from 20 Yet while Alexander’s characters are well-drawn, their story rarely rises above the day-to-day immediacy of a soap opera.

We want to become more involved with the Charbonnet clan, but Alexander never fully pulls us in to their turmoil.

In Priestess, Claire (Kris Sidberry), the dutiful older daughter of Celeste, has separated from her cheating husband Charles (Dennis Dannel), and has begun a tentative flirtation with Franklin (Zeb Hollins, III), a contractor and associate pastor at a non-denominational church she attends.

The snobbish and meddling Celeste (Janee Mitchell), none too lucky at love herself, looks down on the darker-skinned Franklin, and schemes to reunite Claire and Charles, not knowing the real reason for their estrangement.

Janee (Traci Tolmaire), Celeste’s other, more rebellious daughter, and her streetwise boyfriend Sweet (Nicoye Banks) are on hand to provide support for Claire and occasional comic relief.

All of this could’ve been highly involving. But while the script has certainly been prepared with intelligence, Alexander layers on exposition, repetition, and unnecessary scenes to the detriment of his tale. One wishes Alexander had had someone else direct his play who might’ve challenged him to make it “leaner and meaner.”

One can’t fault the cast. Sidberry con-

m obile paparazzi

Constance Sublette has published, as Constance Ash, three novels and edited the anthology Not of Woman Born. Ned Sublette is the author of The World that Made New Orleans, Cuba and its Music, and The Year Before the Flood. veys an innate sweetness that makes you want to hug and defend her; she even manages to bring to life two monologs set in a therapist’s office that feel shoe-horned in. As the sassy sister and her easygoing beau, Tolmaire and Banks, respectively, flesh out with natural elan their basically one-note characters.

If Michelle seems to overact a bit as the eponymous “High Priestess”, well, real life highfalutin people like that can sometimes come off as caricatures of themselves. And if Michelle appeared to stumble over some of her lines, it actually enhanced some moments by preventing everything from being spelled out.

Best of all was Hollins (recently seen in Southern Rep’s Colossal in a completely different type of role), in an expertly calibrated performance, who perfectly captured Franklin’s “country” manner (though I never knew Covington was considered “country”) while investing him with dignity and making it clear that he’s nobody’s fool.

Watching this production at Le Petit, one might puzzle about some things. For example, why did Alexander title it “The High Priestess of Dark Alley”, a reference to Celeste, when the play focuses mostly on Claire’s situation and her mother remains a featured character?

More significantly, given that it is set in “June 2006”, Alexander seems to have forgotten that conversations then focused almost exclusively on the effects of Hurricane Katrina

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Miss Cie, Aubrey Synclaire, Amber Douglas, Olivia Delye & Baily Family plus Glow Party @ B-Bob's ~ Mobile, Alabama ~ Photos by Miss Cie

book review

American Slave Coast looks within the industry, focusing on slave-breeding itself.

Other books that investigate the economics of slavery include Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton: A Global History (2014), and Walter Johnson’s River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in Cotton Kingdom (2013).

But The American Slave Coast is really about women and, more specifically, the monetized womb. In this regard, the Sublettes have effectively combined two traditions of writing about slavery: the recent trend to examine slavery through an economic lens and the older tradition of focusing on the female experience of slavery as exemplified in Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1999) and Frederic Bancroft’s classic Slave Trading in the Old South (1931).

The book covers the period from early colonial times through emancipation. Particularly insightful is the story of the power struggle between slave industry interests in Virginia and South Carolina. The crux of the matter was a debate over whether to ban the importation of African slaves. The U.S. enacted such a ban in 1808 and slave owners, especially in Virginia, saw the value of their human captives increase dramatically—especially the young females with fertile wombs. Cash values were immediately placed on the newborn slaves such wombs produced. Slave importers in South Carolina who had made their fortunes on the backs of kidnapped Africans had to reshift their business models to intra-state slave trading—an industry that blossomed after the Louisiana Purchase.

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4th of July in The Big Easy ~ New Orleans ~ Photos by Paul Melancon

Johnny Passion's 3rd Annual Smatch Game raises $1,966 for Southern Decadence ~ New Orleans ~ Photos by Paul Melancon

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paparazzi

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La Scène Sociale ~ New Orleans ~ Photos by Tony Leggio, Paul Melancon

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opinion

by Frank Perez E-mail: f.perez@sbcglobal.net Photo by: Larry Graham, GrahamStudioOne.COM

"All Lives Don’t Matter" “Defining social control as crime control was accomplished by raising the specter of the ‘dangerous classes’.”—Dr. Gary Potter in The History of Policing in the United States Please stop saying “All Lives Matter.”

Just stop it. Now. Saying “All Lives Matter” in response to “Black Lives Matter” does not indicate how reasonable and logical you are; rather, it shows just how clueless you are.

Of course all lives should matter. But the reality is that a lot of people don’t really believe that. If they did, they would be marching in the streets demanding justice every time a police officer murdered a citizen he was sworn to protect. If the nonblack population rose up in opposition to police murder, people might not feel the need to scream, “Black Lives Matter.”

Trevor Noah accurately pointed out that more people were outraged when a gorilla at a zoo was recently shot than were when Alton Sterling or Freddie Gray or Walter Scott or Eric Harris or Phillip White or Tony Robinson or Jerame Reid or Rumain Brisbon or Tamir Rice or Akai Gurley or Tanisha Anderson or Dante Parker or Ezell Ford or Michael Brown Jr. or John Crawford III or Eric Garner or Dontre Hamilton or hundreds of others were murdered by police officers.

According to a recent study, “Mapping Police Violence”: > Police killed at least 102 unarmed black people in 2015, nearly twice each week. > Nearly 1 in 3 black people killed by police in 2015 were identified as unarmed, though the actual number is likely higher due to underreporting > 37% of unarmed people killed by police were black in 2015 despite black people being only 13% of the U.S. population > Unarmed black people were killed at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015 The aforementioned study, along with a thousand others, as well as the personal experiences of African Americans across the country, clearly demonstrates that institutional racism is entrenched in police culture. When you say “All Lives Matter” or, worse yet, “Police Lives Matter,” you are denying this reality and missing the point entirely.

What point? That if All Lives Matter, All includes Black Lives, so stop acting like Black Lives DON’T Matter.

When a police officer is killed, the heavens part and white republican Jesus comes down to weep as the community “unites” and politicians race to the cameras. When the police kill a black man? The white community shrugs its shoulders and thinks he probably had it coming.

If facts, statistics, and personal experiences cannot convince you that institutional racism exists within police departments, then perhaps history will. The first municipal police departments in the U.S. were created in the 1830s and 1840s.

Criminal Justice scholars have long noted

that these police departments arose not out of a need to fight crime but rather out of a sense to restrain “disorder.” Disorder, of course, can mean a lot of things depending upon who gets to define the term. As you might guess, mercantile interests (i.e.— white businessmen) held that power at a time when slavery was still legal.

Platt argues that modern police departments evolved out of what were once called “Slave Patrols.” According to Reichel, the first slave patrol was created in 1704 in the Carolinas and served three primary functions: “(1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules.”

But it wasn’t just Black Lives That Did Not Matter, police departments were created to also suppress brown and red lives as well. The fabled Texas Rangers, for example, were originally created “to suppress Mexican communities and to drive the Commanche off their lands.”

The mainstream white establishment and its attendant special economic interests were more interested in social control rather than crime control. The workforce, blue-collar laborers, needed to be controlled, especially in case they decided to organize and demand better pay or safer working conditions. It would appear unseemly for businesses and factories to hire thugs to intimidate its own workers; besides, it would be better to have the government pay for that anyway. Enter police departments.

Dr. Gary Potter observes, “In the postCivil War era, municipal police departments increasingly turned their attention to strikebreaking. By the late 19th century union organizing and labor unrest was widespread in the United States . . . Many of the ‘riots’ which so concerned local economic elites were actually strikes called against specific companies. The use of public employees to serve private economic interests and to use legally-ordained force against organizing workers was both cost-effective for manufacturing concerns and politically useful, in that it confused the issue of worker’s rights with the issue of crime (Harring 1981, 1983).”

Scholars Bordua and Reiss have concluded, “The presence of a paramilitary force, occupying the streets, was regarded as essential because such “organizations intervened between the propertied elites and propertyless masses who were regarded as politically dangerous as a class.”

In other words, the police exist to protect the ruling class. That’s why the police were created and that is their history.

Still not convinced? Still believe the police exist to fight crime? To believe that is to summarily disregard police history throughout the 20th century. The police have always been susceptible to corruption and at no time was this more evident than during the early 20th century.

At the turn of the century, police de-

partments, when not controlling the working masses, operated as stool pigeons for big city machines, especially on election days when getting or suppressing the vote was crucial.

During the Prohibition era, the highest law enforcement official in the land, U.S. Attorney General Harry Daughtery was found guilty of taking bribes from bootleggers. Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit had half of the Chicago Police force on its payroll.

The percentage of corrupt cops was similar in other big cities.

The Volstead Act demonstrated there is big money in prohibition. In the 1920s, the prohibition of alcohol solidified a national syndicate of organized crime. The same would be true decades later with the socalled “War on Drugs.” The Mafia may have made the police cogs in the wheel that was the liquor industry, but the “War on Drugs” made the criminal justice system an industry in and of itself.

And really, that’s what policing and incarceration is—an industry.

The American Prison Industrial Complex depends upon police departments to supply prisoners. Just as kidnappers and human traffickers supplied slaves to slave traders, so do police officers supply inmates to for profit prisons. The prison industry is the third largest industry in the world.

More inmates means more money for prisons and all the private business that feed like parasites off of prisoners, businesses such as telephone companies and money wiring services. Why would an inmate need money in prison? To buy basic necessities like toothpaste, deodorant and toilet paper. Luxury items like cigarettes or paper and stamps to write letter also cost money—money that is going straight into the pockets of private business. Police are necessary to supply inmates, and inmates mean money.

Inmates also make an exceedingly cheap labor force. All those pesky labor regulations passed by liberal progressives (child labor laws, minimum wage, safety requirements, two-day weekend, etc.) are easily bypassed by inmate labor. Our nation’s business leaders never forgot the cardinal rule of capitalism—pay workers as little as possible in order to maximize profits.

As slavery so amply demonstrated, it’s easy to amass a fortune when you have a free labor force.

And so, despite all its lofty rhetoric about freedom and personal liberty, the United States leads the world in incarcerating its citizens. Furthermore, conservatives in recent years have succeeded in actually privatizing many prisons. With government administered prisons, the State could save face while absurdly claiming prisons exist to “protect” the public. But now the agenda of the Republican Party— greed—has become so brazen (private prison companies exist solely to make a monetary profit), that it doesn’t even bother with such platitudes.

Underlying the Prison Industrial Complex is the so-called “War on Drugs.” Misconceptions about drugs date back to the early 20th Century, when early marijuana laws were enacted as a means for law enforcement to control minorities. Films like Reefer Madness (1936) propagated these misconceptions for decades but the modern “War on Drugs” began on January 3, 1973, when Nelson Rockefeller (R), the Governor of New York, demanded that drug dealers be sentenced to life in prison with-

out parole. This “tough on crime” blather fit in perfectly with the hypocritical law-andorder pomposity of Richard Nixon (R).

At the time—a time when society was evolving out of its mindless, submissive conformity and fealty to the dominant power structure (Capitalistic, white, male, straight, Christian)—public opinion was beginning to correctly question the wisdom of prisons.

According to Eric Schlossler, “The Federal Bureau of Prisons was preparing to close large penitentiaries in Georgia, Kansas, and Washington. From 1963 to 1972 the number of inmates in California had declined by more than a fourth, despite the state’s growing population. The number of inmates in New York had fallen to its lowest level since at least 1950. Prisons were widely viewed as a barbaric and ineffective means of controlling deviant behavior.”

Just when the public was coming to its senses, Republican politicians like Nixon and Rockefeller lulled it back into a state of fear and denial. The “War on Drugs” was and has been an utter and complete failure, yet it has been politically expedient. It has also kept racial stereotypes alive as well as generating hundreds of billions of dollars for the Prison Industrial Complex. It has also resulted in the militarization of police departments. And military weapons and vehicles are expensive.

In his 1998 Atlantic article, Schlossler observes, “The prison-industrial complex is not only a set of interest groups and institutions. It is also a state of mind.”

Indeed it is. And racism is ingrained in that state of mind. Consider this indisputable fact—half the U.S. prison population is African American, yet blacks make up only 13% of the total population.

Being annoyed or offended at the Black Lives Matter movement is akin to being offended by Gay Pride and saying why isn’t there a Straight Pride. There is no Straight Pride because straight people don’t need it.

Given the history of police in the U.S., black people most definitely need to assert their lives do in fact matter. That need will persist until everyone, especially the police, act like it. In other words, until the police stop murdering black men.

“All Lives Matter.” No, they don’t. And that’s the problem.

trodding the boards ...from 26 and the rebuilding effort, topics that are mentioned here only in passing. The absurdity is heightened given that the Charbonnets’ home is on Orleans Avenue across from the Lafitte Projects, an area that was hard-hit by the flooding.

If I could almost overlook Claire’s seeing a therapist (really?—there were hardly any around then), references to getting food at Dooky Chase’s or Commander’s Palace are simply instances of sloppy writing as neither institution had yet reopened at that point; a simple Internet search would confirm this. Why Alexander would overlook all the true challenges that people were facing at that time when he could just as easily have set Priestess two, five or ten years later is difficult to understand.

But least this seem harsh, let me put things in perspective. Although The High Priestess of Dark Alley is only now making its local debut, it actually premiered in New York in 2009. On the other hand, Brothers from the Bottom, though it played at NOCCA last year, had only had an initial run in NYC earlier in 2015 and is a much better and convincing work.

If Alexander continues to improve his craft like this, he might soon offer us a wholly compelling work about life in New Orleans. I hope that he will.

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