DANDY NOLA-VATING Seems just about every time we roll back into River City from the Crescent City, we get lost in pondering the state of the gay in both states, Texas and Louisiana. The neighbor state shares many similarities, not the least of which is its noted blue-dot-in-the-red-sea city. Oases we are, Austin and New Orleans, adrift on turbulent cultural tides yet anchored in our oddnesses. Austin is so “out,” and New Orleans is so not. But New Orleans is sooooooo queer! It’s so much queerer than Austin – not queer in the capital-“Q”-let’s-embrace-the-epithet-and-make-it-our-own way, but in the traditional implication of the word’s pre-gay context. It’s so easy to be peculiar in New Orleans. Of course, it is in Austin as well (we say “weird” – whatever …), but relatively speaking, NOLA is out there – aggressively odd and delightfully so. Which makes the fact that its “gay community” is not obviously visible to outsiders – apart from that one stretch of Bourbon Street or its LGBT Community Center of New Orleans off Frenchmen Street (while impressive and welcoming, it’s randomly staffed/open and you have to know to look for it) – so strange. Finding gay community and how it manifests in other cities enhances the understanding of our own version of it here at home. So there’s that. We’ve no real conclusion here (at least none we’re willing to commit to print), but we’d sure love to do more research.
DANDY WANTS YOU We’ve said it like the Village People before; we’ll say it like the Village People again: We want you, we want you, we want you for the Gay Place Krewe! Dandy Unicorn and the Gay Placers are on the prowl for some productive intern ponies for fun, frolic, and fabulosity. We seek newsies, journalistas, artists, bon vivants, freaks, norms, writer wannabes, sassypants, techie geeks, sexy beasts, early risers, night owls, filmmaker types, recording engineers, rocket scientists, brain surgeons, and you! You don’t even have to be gay. Just be fabulous. (Honestly? Kate could use a regular, dependable Facebook farmer, because having to use it for work makes her vomit. There.) As we diversify our holdings from simple print listings, column, and blog into the realms of live performace, dance, mime, and scat (the shoo-be-doo kind), we seek to diversify our holdings of loyalists. That’s where you come in. Apply now via email at gayplace@austinchronicle.com with the following: 1) Subject line: Hey Kate, Dandy & Friends! 2) Résumé: Keep it brief and casual – tell us what you do and your areas of expertise/interest. 3) Cover letter: Tell us how and what you can contribute. Want to know more? For an idea of what we do beyond this print column, check out austinchronicle.com/gay.
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This article appears in July 29 • 2011.