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 Personal memories are so real and precious to you, and so boring and irrelevant to other people. But I’ve been asked to come up with some for Mardi Gras’ 30th anniversary. ‘Bare’ with me.
Although I was alive and lucid in ’78, I didn’t go to a Mardi Gras party until ’93. My memories of that night are mixed. It was the first time I’d ever danced all night, a concept I was familiar with through Eliza Doolittle. (She could have done it, but I did!) By 9am I was on an incredible high; not drug-induced – I was clean – but the result of more intensive exercise than I’d ever done in my life.
It was also the first time I ever got called a faggot – not at the party but walking through Kings Cross to get to the parade. I wore the gay uniform of the time: ripped jeans, spangly top and discreet makeup. I was surprised but not too worried by the abuse, because it came from an old drunk. Old drunks don’t often get the chance to think themselves superior to someone else.
Honey, the Showground was down and dirty. I remember discovering the action in the underground Men Only Space (urinal), though I never caught sight of the infamous Troughman. He must have been on a toilet break. Even so, it was like accessing a dark room buried deep in your own subconscious.
Several times during the night I repelled the advances of an older man. (There were older men on the scene in those days.) He was perfectly nice, not unattractive, but it was my first Mardi Gras and I had something more totally unachievable in mind. A few days later someone told me the guy was a multi-millionaire. Too bad. I probably wouldn’t be writing this now if … no, Phil, don’t torture yourself!
The party crowd was young, wired, sexually charged, semi-naked, sweaty, celebratory and – best of all for someone with ‘body issues’ – accepting. These hot men were all available, in theory at least, since this was before the period when straights made Mardi Gras flavour of their month. I’d say I hit a three-year window of opportunity when it was all about us, who we were, what we conquered and where we were going.
That came to an end on Mardi Gras night, 1996. On the way to the party, friends and I called by to pick up Richard Wherrett. We’d been cheering the parade, but Richard had been watching TV. “Bad news,” he drawled. “John Howard is the new Prime Minister.”
That night, our partying was more desperate than usual. I guess we knew something beautiful was dead. It took the rest of the plodding population 12 stifling years to work that out, by which time Howard’s government had outlived Richard and had turned middle-Australia against us.
Now, a downsized Mardi Gras is hanging on tenaciously, and the dancers and sex-pigs of ’93 are buying bifocals and learning to think seriously about superannuation schemes.
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