I Wear My Sunglasses At Night...

.......because because because I have lead eyeliner on that can't be removed. I spent all mardi gras party wearing these fuck off gucci impersonations to cover my heavy eyeliner racoon eyes..........which refused to be removed. Without the gucci's, I looked like a Post Hot Tub Princess Margaret; v.sexy. The trouble with the Gucci's was both Brent and myself could not see a damned thing. We may have looked hot but mistaking polls for hot guys and consequently attempting to strike up conversations with said polls kind of ruined the hot look.
My racoon eyes were of course a result of my night's previous incarnation as Pink Wig Going to Zz Clubs Britney in the Gimme Gimme Britney Float for this year's 2008 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. What can I say.....it was full on but we had so much fun!!!! It's the best thing I have done in years and I could kinda get used to paparazzi chasing me around.

Setting Up
Saturday began at 7am when I had to pick up the generator to power the sound system and the lights for the float; not that I had slept a wink the night before; I think my body started releasing adrenalin from about Thursday in preparation for the parade...I just couldn't sleep....I was literally turning into Britney; mumbling to myself, picking up my imaginary dog and telling the press I was about to go shopping.
The guy with a generator did nothing to lift my mental state. He looked like a hobbit reject and someone who would download illegal pics on the internet, not to mention his vile spitting problem: it was like having a conversation with a lama. Dodging the bombs of flem coming for me, I worked out how to wack the choke, turn the monitor (what?) and pull the trigger (was this a gun?).
"So which Britney are you?"
Oh god. Really....
"Pink Wig Trash Britney.....going to the clubs Britney"
He smiled with hepatitus gums. I love stained teeth on a man.
" Oh yeah. Cool. I reckon you could carry her off ya know?"
Thanks.
"Do you think I should lose the beard?"
I didn't wait for the answer. I jumped in my corolla weighed to the ground with what looked like a wheeless lawnmower. It stank the car out with petrol fumes....mind you this didn't stop me from having a cigarette did it? It wasn't until I got to Trev's after smoking half the packet that I realised that perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing to do......considering that the generator appeared to be leaking petrol. Woops. I could have ended up being Black Britney.

Trev's Place : Britney Set Down

So get to Trev's deliver said generator. Try to show Trev's partner Paul how to start said generator to power sound system. Get it totally wrong: for god's sake me showing someone how to start something mechanical ??? It's like getting a vegan to bbq a steak. No idea. Paul eventually works it out.

Trev is half way through making about five thousand ham cheese and tomatoe sandwiches like he is expecting the local school fete to visit.......worse..........30 queens (with at least five personalities and thirty opinions each) in two hours time in a very small house. I leave....pick up my costume; go home, try on costume, look in mirror (am I really doing this?); shave beard (look like twelve), pack my bag (enough clothes for about three days...I guess!); jump back in car and go back to Trev's. There are already about 15 people there; some of them britney's, some of them paparazzi; Tina Sparkle (otherwise known as David...our make-up artist) had already done Trev's face (Chief Britney), had done Greg's (oops red catsuit britney) and was well on the way to finishing Wanda's face (otherwise known as Andrew....Toxic Air Hostess Britney.)

It's nudging 1pm and the lack of sleep from the last two days is starting to catch up....am feeling seriously tired. So what does one do? Continue chain smoking and drinking coffee.....lots. And talking and talking and talking and walking and walking .....lots of walking and talking...keep nodding ya head...keep nodding ya head......it was all very The West Wing. And a packet of sudafed is always handy. What did one do before sudafed?

Trev had put me in charge of collecting money..........which was very stressful....am hopeless at adding up and keeping lists.......I'm good at reading english and being melodramatic.......that's why I studied law.....not accountancy. Anyway managed to collect nearly everyone's money...I emphasize the word nearly. We decided earlier on that everyone would contribute 50 bucks each to costs of hiring equipment, makeup, printed shirts for the paparazzi etc etc...........which we later discovered wasn't nearly enough. About nearly a thousands bucks....as I said, I was good at english, not math.

Everyone was at the house by 4pm....it was like a casting call for Priscilla. In all honesty I wasn't enjoying it because I was starting to become quite stressed....the vehicle, the driver and myself had to be at set down by 4.30.....and I still didn't have my makeup on.
Trev and i had an argument over my keeping my hairy chest and hairy legs: they are my best assets and I'm not giving them up for Britney....I would be Bear Britney if I had to. We both calm down and continue to chain smoke.

Make up done, Pack my gold handbag (it really was quite handy....it fitted so much in.......am I really saying this?). Driver check, 4wd check, lighting check, sound system check.......Paul comes with me and driver to set up sound system and generator. I'm fully dressed (not alot to it) as Pink Wig Britney

PARADE SET DOWN

We jump in our mega sexy big black truck decked out in Britney Signs and head off to set down on corner of Elizabeth and Goulburn streets. Get to set down...they let us through.....all except............moi. Because the intitial set down only allows two people in until we collect the passouts to give to everyone else.....what is this? the iron curtain? The driver obviously has to go in and Paul is stuck in the back of the truck in the generator. So who has to get out of the truck in the middle of goulbourn street and stand in front of the district court in a denim skirt, white boob tube, pink wig and not much else??? Moi. If my father could see me now.

Yes so there I was.... standing in front of the District Court of NSW....a court I've appeared in numerous times dressed in a suit......not in a pink wig etc looking like Julia Robert's transvestial reject in Pretty Woman

I call Judy and try to be preoccuppied as I realise a school bus is driving by (with a pack of school boys coming back from rugby)....great(a complete nightmare)....a few woof whistles later and I am seriously wanting the earth to open up and swallow me. Paul finally arrives with passouts and I escape into the enclosure. Then I begin the long wait...............not to mention freezing my fake tits off: I've forgotten to bring my jacket and am only wearing a strapless boob tube and very very shot denim skit...arkin freezing.

We wait and wait and wait.........members of Gimme Gimme Britney start arriving in bits and drabs from about 5.30......everyone except the three most important : Trev (Chief Britney), Andrew (Toxic Britney) and Leyton (MTV Mong Britney).

The queen nazi on the back gate starts announcing via megaphone to the crowd behind the barricade (it was all very Les Miserables) that the gate will be closed at 6pm and no one repeat (and he kept repeating) no one would be let in.....giving the feeling that even if Princess Diana turned up from the dead she would be given a Brave New Worlds pamphlet, some attitude and directions to her nearest saloon. Lots of frantic phonecalls.....me pacing with handbag and cigarette.
Me: Where are you
Trev: Still at home
Me: ummmm....why?
Trev: None of our cabs have come
Me: Ur going to have to drive. They are closing the gates
Trev: They have gates?
Me: It's like a gay abboitoir. They're locking us in for slaughter. If you don't get here soon, you will be sent out to pasture and will have to watch the rest of us being shot.
Trev: Tell him to wait.
Queen Nazi with megaphone: The GATES WILL BE CLOSING IN THREE MINUTES; NO ONE WILL BE LET IN AFTER THIS TIME: REPEAT NO ONE
Trev: ur sure ur not at an airport?
Me: Apparently. Get here.....now!
I hang up and prepare myself to confront the Queen Nazi and beg for mercy.
Handbag over my shoulder (I got used to it a little too much) I approach the Queen Nazi.
He kinda looked like Jeanie Little with sideburns.
QN : " Yesssssssssssss" He sounded like her as well. I was going to need another sudafed to get through this.
Me : "I understand you are about to close the gates; I know this is a big ask but my friends are running late...they haven't been able to get a cab...they're driving here now...they're part of the Britney floa..." The QN's eyes skewer like a snake's.
QN : "I don't care whether it was Jesus Christ himself. You heard the announcement. You know the rules. They know the rules. The gates are closing. Please step away."
Me : "Mate please...fair go....they weren't able to get a cab....they ARE the Gimme Gimme Britney Float....we can't go on without them" If only I had some violins on me...
QN: "Don't mate me MADAM. Now step away or you will be removed yourself" The QN then picks up his whistle and blows it in my face and points for me to go.
The last time someone blew a whistle in my face, I was in grade 3, I'd taken Darren Clue's hat (because he'd taken my rubix cube) in a game of Newcom (poor man's volley ball) and Miss Kent blew her whistle and demanded that I go and pick up rubbish. I burst into tears, called her a bitch and ran to my father's work. Something told me that the way I was dressed, I wasn't going to be able to do the same thing. So refraining from calling the QN a bitch and running to my father's work, I start to employ skills learnt from Mediation 101 at law school, when I hear screaming and cheering coming from behind the barricade. I look over and there are our three remaining britneys working it across goubourn street to the fateful gate. I start yelling at them to hurry up so I can give them their tags and make it past the Queen Nazi. But no Trev and Co think they are arriving at the Oscars. The crowd starts going nuts flashes going off everywhere meanwhile QN is closing the gate in front of my eyes.

While Trev was holding practically a press conference three steps from the gate, I could see the QN glaring at me then the Britneys then back at me. "Trev for fuck's sake!!!!!!!" I was seriously becoming hysterical. If they didn't get in, the float was ruined and I was going home...mind you the QN would have probably kept me in the compound. "Trev....seriously....the guy is closing the gate....u need to hurry." Trev was still at the Golden Globes and I was in some badly produced Children of Men 28 Days Later style movie of the week disaster film where the last remaining britneys are left trapped in the badlands of dragdom because they were too busy being adored!!!
"THE GATE IS NOW CLOSED. NO MORE ENTRIES PERMITTED" He pointed the megaphone practically in my face.

I had enough.

I catwalked with a vengence over to the QN.

"Excuse me .....mate.....you will let my friends in or I will do it myself .....which is it gonna be?"
My god I was Dirty Harry in Drag. It was fabulous.
The QN squinted, tossed his bald patched and turned around, opened the gate and let the three remaining britneys in.........
"Thanks doll" Trev kissed me and walked in.
"No probs doll" We turned around for one more cheer from the barricades and walked to our truck....
We were set to go............

Waiting...........and the ex-boyfriend

We just had to wait another three hours and 45 minutes. The first hour and a half was fun. Checking out other floats, practising our dance routine, posing for photographs and drinking vodka. The following two and a half hours of realising that I didn't really know the dance routine, my knee high boots fucking hurt, our lights weren't as great as I thought they would be and was the sound system going to work?......plus joining the two thousand other people waiting for one of the five porterloos. ....not so much fun. It was in the que for the porterloo where I was chain smoking channelling Britney and an foot surgeon to tend my feet, that I heard the words:
"Hey...JB?" Now not many people in Sydney call me this.....it's my old nickname either reserved for my parents and brother,cousins, old school friends and people generally from Brisbane. I turned around with dread....surely not one of my cousins......
"Michael?" Great. It was my ex from 7 years ago.
"My....I thought you had moved to Queensland" Clutching my handbag......you know what when u catch up with an ex you sorta always want to look ya best.....definitely not in makeup and a frock. This was not the way I'd ever envisaged running back into Michael.....in fact i just hoped I would never bump into him again. He was the first boyfriend I ever really had when I first moved to Sydney. The only problem was that six months into the supposed relationship, I realised I was kinder part of a herem of about ten or god knows how many guys who also thought Michael was their boyfriend. It was like being in The (Gay) Bachelor without realising. I love humiliation!
"Yeah I have. 5 years ago. Just back down for mardi gras....we're on the ACON float." He pointed to a 50 something gentlemen behind him in chaps....as I recall he was in the herem as well.......I remembered him at my eviction. It was nice to see they were still together.
"Ok cool. I'm a Britney.....am on the Britney Float.....just over there...all the Britneys. Am Pink Wig Britney. We're doing a float....yah" My god I was babbling. He always made me do this. He always made me so nervous. And here i was nearly 7 years after the supposed relationship still babbling like a 16 year old girl. He was pot addicted coke nutted himbo and he still made my knees shake. I need my head read. I met him when he was 20, I was 26.....I was still very new to the gay thing and I'd just arrived in GAY WORLD....Sydney town. He was the first guy that came up to me in the shift and said hi.......to be honest a giraffe could have come up to me and said hi and I would have fallen in love with it. I'd just come out, I wanted a boyfriend....no matter what.....it was on my 'to do' list. And Michael was it. He was a beautiful creature and still is; an absolute deadringer for the actor Rufus Sewell....except taller...a nice 6ft 3 with piercing blue eyes. A pity he was just an absolute loser....never could hold down a job, was stoned most of the time and was the town bike. Naturally I fell 'madly in love' with him and he pretty much ruined my life for about a year. At the time I thought I was heartbroken but it was just plain old fashioned infatuation. I had no love for him....just lust.
And that lust still made my knees shake..........even as Britney.
We chitchatted for a couple of more minutes.....me swinging my handag....yeah I know....so hot! He had moved to Qld with old chaps man (who was glaring at me all the time....it may have been the reflection of my pink wig), tried to get into the Police Force but couldn't (i wonder why....this was a guy who'd do a line of charlie just to go to the corner store to buy smokes....and would have a bong every night so he could sleep.............are you serious?) and now old chaps man and him were thinking of having a baby. Thank god at that moment my porterloo came up and I had to go....I really didn't want to know how IVF was going to help old chappy.
I planted a big smooch on his big hubba bubba lips (still so cute) and said "See ya Ladds" (his nickname) and escaped into porterloo number 5.
And you can see why I was a little exhausted before we even started the parade!!!!! After I got back from the loo, I think I drank about half a bottle of vodka, popped half a packet of sudafed and was ready to run to Brazil. Lets get this arkin party started!!!!

THE PARADE

It felt like we were waiting for Moses to part the Red Sea. It took forever....even with dance rehearsals, photo shoots, running into ex-boyfriends.......the time was really starting to drag out. It seemed like every other float was out there except us. And then suddenly out of the blue we were moving and onto the parade. I think I was in a state of shock at first.....also I was distraught that the music was wrong and the strobe lights weren't big enough. We were supposed to start off with the song Gimme Gimme More not the other track Paparazzi.....I also discovered that Paparazzi was spelt incorrectly with two ps in a row on the back of the of the Paparazzi's shirts........this was the not time to commence being anal! But then the roar of the crowd.....it was amazing..and I fell straight into the character of snobby going to z clubs Britney. I held my starbucks cup up and my handbag with stuffed dog high. It was fantastic. And the flashes going off all the time....the crowd went nuts. We had people running at us from the crowd....it was like we were The Beatles. It was insane. The walk apparently took 45 minutes but it felt like 2 mins. I had such an Adrenalin rush......I think my body sapped all the remaining Adrenalin I had left. Trev was fantastic as Chief Britney blowing her whistle to get us into line for our dance routine. The trouble was there were so many other whistles being blown by the crowd that I could never work out which one was Trev's until he started screaming at me....."John get back into line!!!!!!"
In all honesty it's hard to describe......it was simply sensational. I got interviewed half way along by Bessie Bardot for some show she does : I think I totally confused the poor woman by being Britney with an english accent.....does everyone remember that? In January...just before she was committed, she started speaking with a British Accent? "CAN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE>.....CAN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE...CAN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE" Britney barked in pommie tones when a pappz jumped into her vehicle. I suddenly decided on the parade route to be that Britney. Everyone time Eddie took a photo of me I would bark " CAN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE...CAN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE". I think this confused Bessie dreadfully. Anyway I carrried on. The roar of the crowd was relentless. Everything was in slow motion yet it was over in the snap of a finger. It was extraordinary. Thanks to all the Britneys and the paparazzi who made it happen....particuarly Trev....there would have been no Britney's without you honey. I LOVE YOU!!!!. Next year Rio!

The Party

After such a huge rush that was the parade, even attending the Academy Awards afterwards would have been a let down: so I shouldn't have been surprised to find the party slightly dull. Number 1....I was exhausted. I had not really slept well for the week nor had I eaten....which was great for the hips....I lost 5 kilos that week.....consequently in the aftermath have put on about 7! So the party was going to be a bit of a downer...and it was. I still had a good time but to me it just seemed very unfriendly. I went with Leyton and Brent...two of my best mates...we were supposed to meet up with the other Britney's but as per usual it was like finding a toilet in a Westfields...impossible! So the three of us decided to just hang together and enjoy the party....which I did ...but I didn't love it. I dunno....maybe I'm getting old and too nostalgic but I remember the old mardi gras parties being far more creative and flamboyant...and friendly. In any of the large venues, it was so aggressive and satanic, I was contunually feeling like a sacrifice was about to occur. And maybe it's the drugs....every second person is on crystal and has been awake for about three years....so it does change the mood slightly!
It was worth it though just to see Cyndi Lauper perform at 8am ( we were locked out of Olivia...fuuuuurious!).....french classical period dress and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun...what a show!!!!
The best part of my mardi gras was when we went back out on the Sunday arvo and went to Phoenix (fantastic music...all good except at times I thought I was dancing in an emergency ward because so many people were dropping on G......so clarsey...not) and then the Oxford...sitting out on the deck talking to all these old queens: we had such a laugh and they loved the Britney's!

All in all it was the best mardi gras I've ever had and the Britney's are already planning reunion tours.....stay tuned.....

Cx

PS : we just found out that Gimme Gimme Britney has been nominated for Funniest Float at the Mardi Gras Parade Awards....Go The Britney's!!!!