But first, a few recollections on why, maybe, in a World Is Flat way, you may not need to leave your gay ghetto to experience everything the Cher-friendly globe has to offer.

[Editor's note: Please be advised that our intrepid Editor-at-Large in Sydney has only recently stepped off a plane and remains a little cross-eyed and grumpy. We imagine he may be more cheerful tomorrow... or not!]


1. The Rainbow Flag
It flies high over the Castro, but did you know that homosexuals have adopted it in a world-wide NAFTA-style agreement? Yes, it's the most banal and tacky symbol in the LGBTTQQF community, but everyone's embraced it as readily as embroidered denim. Why go halfway around the world to experience the pleasure of over-poured drinks and the San Francisco-born multi-colored pinwheel when you can find it down the street at Faces or the Ramrod or wherever it is you go on a lonely Friday night?
 






2. Drag Queens
Yes, Australian women are manly—manlier even than the straight actors in Priscilla Queen of the Desert—but is it any excuse to subsitute a c-cup for an actual man? Of all the things that the US has exported, ugly women-dressed-as-men are the easiest to replicate, but the comedy stylings of actual woman and faux queen "Jackie Loeb" (Barbra Streisand impersonations, out-dated ditties involving Alanis Morrisette) at a delegation dinner last night, could be just as easily experienced in Peoria—and by someone with an actual penis to boot! Bring back Heklina—oh, wait... she's on this same damned tour with us.





3. (Un-)Funny T-Shirts
Have you heard of "Dick's Erection" construction company? Are you mesmerized by someone wearing a t-shirt begging you to "Do Me?" Australia may be the place for you, but so might Key West, San Diego, Cheyenne or Fremont. The internet means that everyone can have the same unfunny t-shirts wherever you go—Dubai, Davos or Duquesne. Yes, we know you're gay, faggot! We are still underwhelmed.







4. Dance Music
Decrying dance music in the country where the patron saint is Kylie Minogue might seem like protesting body hair a bear convention, but we're walking around and we can't. get. away from it!  Just as gay culture worldwide seems to sup at the same Madge-Brit-Babs trough, Europe's gay DJs are our gay DJs are the DJs down under. And with Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho and Cyndi Lauper hopping from Pride to Pride to Pride, is the gay circuit any different than the old Borsht Belt?






5. Alcoholics
The saddest fact of gay life is that the further you go from an urban center, the more likely some unhappy homosexual with Cosmo breath is going to tell you you're lovely and then get angry when you refuse to blow him in the bathroom. Just remember: He's going to go home drunk and unhappy no matter what, and so are you—but at least you won't have chlymydia in your throat. Oh wait—we do.








Check back tomorrow for another dispatch from Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, in which our Editor-at-Large insults some Heath Ledger fans and gets beaten up by a drag queen (...or not!).

RELATED:
Homos Won't Get Groove Back in Jamaica, Might Get Killed
Mardi Gras Film Festival

The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau (SFCVB) and The City of San Francisco Announce San Francisco's Participation in Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras

February 27, 2008 6:48 AM | save to del.icio.us | digg it | facebook it | Comments (0)