Southern Decadence 2016

Southern Decadence is a 5-day weekend of costumes, parties and parades celebrating the LGBT community. The events attract over 150,000 people and create a nearly $200 million economic impact. The Sunday parade is always the highlight for me. Drag queens, dance troupes, pride groups and other revelers worked with the “Decadence Takes The World” theme in costumes accented with red, white, blue and purple.

Southern Decadence 2015

A 5-day weekend of costumes, parties and parades celebrating the LGBT community, Southern Decadence brings over 150,000 people and a nearly $200 million economic impact. We caught the tail of the rerouted Friday night parade but were there in plenty of time for the 41st Southern Decadence Sunday parade, an exuberant procession of dance troupes and pride groups in festive and fabulous costumes. This years theme of “Swimmin’ with the Gods and Goddesses!” was punctuated with lavender, lime and silver.

Easter Parades and Hats!

Easter in New Orleans means many things to many people. It’s just as “normal” to see seersucker suits and Sunday-best as to see egg-colored wigs and hats piled high with decorations. But Easter in NOLA definitely means parades. Though I missed the earlier Historic French Quarter Easter Parade, we caught the 32nd annual Chris Owens French Quarter Easter Parade and the Gay Easter Parade benefitting the NO/AIDS Task Force’s Food for Friends program. A renowned burlesque dancer and club owner since the early 1960′s, Chris Owens still performs nightly (despite rumors of her being in her early 80’s) and she throws a heck of a parade. 

Food Fest

For 7 years, Food Fest has been bringing comfort food together for a weekend of feasting and music. Celebrating informal food, the Fest presents local fare as well as dishes from as far away as Tennessee, Connecticut and Rochester, New York. Like at most fests, you can tell the favorites by the lines and Miss Linda the Yakamein Lady seemed to be the consistent favorite along with Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken from Memphis.

Southern Decadence Parade (photos!!!)

Southern Decadence is a 5-day weekend of costumes, revelry and parades celebrating the LGBT community that brings over 150,000 people and a nearly $200 million economic impact. Decadence started at a party of friends and roommates throwing a going-away party for a friend in 1972 in their inauspicious Treme home nicknamed Belle Reve after the  Mississippi plantation Blanche DuBois’ refers to in A Streetcar Named Desire so the roommates (including gays, straights, blacks and whites) made the send-off a costume party with the theme of coming as your favorite “Southern Decadent.” They chose the Sunday before Labor Day to give themselves a day of recovery afterward then repeated the party the following year with an informal parade. Over 40 years later, the all-inclusive party is bigger and more decadent than ever.

Easter Parades, Crawfish and Family

Easter weekend brought beautiful weather, Easter parades and crawfish boils. We went to our first family boil Friday night then followed it with another boil Saturday for a family reunion in Baton Rouge. I love being close to family and getting to know people who remember me as a child. After so many years of feeling untethered in L.A., I like seeing my nose on someone else’s face or hearing someone talk about when my parents were kids. Then it was back to New Orleans. Easter Sunday is a big day for parades in the French Quarter and we made it to 2 of the 3 offered.

Favorite Things in NOLA 2013

The categories are: Food & Beverage, Music & Entertainment, Culture, Shopping and Giving & More. Anything named previously in my Favorite Things in NOLA 2012 is marked with an Asterix*. Most items have links to their site, but if you’d like to know more, use the search window on the right to find photos, videos, history and stories.

This year, I’ve added a gallery of photos. The first photos are of items listed and the last half are of stuff I love in New Orleans from Creole tomatoes to Ashley the Traffic Tranny.

I’m also revealing Your Favorite Posts of 2013.

3 – Saints Soundtrack Vol. 2

2 – Street Musicians – Tanya and Dorise

1 – Endymion Extravaganza – My First Ball! – which is also your favorite post of all time.

Krewe of Barkus Parade 2013 – Dogs!!!

Established in 1992, the Mystic Krewe of Barkus may have started as a silly way to get friends back (see story here), but it has grown into a parade big enough to shut down a chunk of the French Quarter. Between the adorable dogs, the costumed walkers, the floats made from wagons and shopping carts and the terrific bands, this parade has something for everyone. 

Red Dress Run

You really never know what you might see in a day in New Orleans. If you were one of the stunned people I saw pulling into the French Quarter in an airport shuttle on Saturday morning, what you saw was 8,000-10,000 men and women in red dresses carrying beers. The Red Dress Run actually originated in San Diego. That said, their event attracts 2,000 runners annually and the Washington D.C. chapter is attended by about 600 runners in red. NOLA is clearly where the party’s at!

Uncle Lionel’s Funeral and Second Line

Last Friday, after 2 weeks of daily second lines in his memory, Treme Brass Band‘s bass drummer, Uncle Lionel Batiste, was to be laid to rest. To say it was raining doesn’t begin to cover it. Waiting for a streetcar to take me into town, I stood in the neutral ground wearing a plastic hoodie sack and rubber sandals and gripping an umbrella against water coming from all sides. When no streetcar appeared, I jumped onto a bus and we all stared out the windows at the flooding in the streets. It was pouring when the ride came to its final stop. Bourbon Street was a canal with water coming up over the sidewalks and into the shops’ open doors. By the time I crossed Rampart heading into Armstrong Park, the water was nearly knee high.