Armistead Maupin's Snub at Weird Restauarnt




Armistead Maupin & Christopher

 Famous American write Armistead Maupin who was in Sydney recently as a guest of the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras has told of how his partner Christopher was refused entry to the men's room in an Alice Spring's restaurant by the name of Bojangles

Christopher had asked to use the gents and was told the restaurant didn't have one and after pointing out an obvious sign that said "MEN'S" not far away was told "that's for real men only".

The Shuttle met Armistead while he was in Sydney and if we had known he was heading for the interior we would have warned him. The Northern Territory and Alice Springs have a shocking record of racism against the Indigenous community who lived there for eon's before white men ever entered the scene and especially this hokey lot with it's embarrassing mock American diner named after an American street performer.

 Maupin wrote the series of novels Tales Of The City set in San Francisco which were turned into a successful television series. The TV series was way ahead of it's time and precursor to hit shows like Queer As Folk.

He is regarded as one of the great American writers.
But what was he doing in Bojangles ?. One look at it's website shows what a ghastly place it is crammed with idiotic pseudo American West decor with pictures of motorbikes, real guns and silly half-saloon type doors.

It even insults the memory of a real outlaw who bucked the system-Ned Kelly ( it has long been rumoured that when the bodies of the Kelly Gang were recovered from the Glenrowan shoot-out they were dressed in female clothing)

One can also buy stylish souvenirs like a stubby holder, t-shirt or jacket emblazoned with the Bojangles logo although the Shuttle has always been perplexed why anyone buys a garment that advertises a business. Surely they should pay you to wear it ?

And hopefully a sick bag comes with the menu which features Camel, Crocodile, Kangaroo, Emu  and  presumably for "the real men" (read- big fat truck drivers and overweight tourists ) : " For the serious meat lovers there are six steaks available including "The Big Bugger", a 600gm T-Bone steak and Bo's famous Beef Ribs." There is a delicious irony in the fact  a restaurant that insults a gay man also proudly features a dish named The Big Bugger !

A stomach pump costs extra and take your Medicare card in case of that inevitable heart attack after shovelling that much meat down your throat !

exclusive : Mardi Gras Singer Update



Chris Crocker

While the Daily Telegraph brings us the news that Rhianna won't be appearing at the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (just as Dame Nellie Melba and Frank Sinatra won't either) the Shuttle can tell you who will be appearing at the March 5th after-parade party.

US singer Alexis Jordon will be the star attraction . Jordon first found fame on the 2005 America's Got Talent.

As we reported recently, drag star Courtney Act will also appear as will the Internet sensation Chris Crocker.

Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Gets Coy With Poster !

Just a week after the Shuttle published the cover of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras program guide (left) which is now available from hundreds of outlets around inner Sydney,  a similar poster has begun appearing in the streets.

Today a reader snapped one on Crown Street outside Billy  Kwongs world famous Chinese restaurant where dozens of customers queue each evening.

The program guide cover is often re-produced in posters and flags that fly along Sydney boulevards during the current Mardi Gras season which lasts until the first week of March and culminates in the colourful parade that snakes up Oxford Street for several hours before finishing in a party at Fox Studios attended by tens of thousands of party-goers.

Perhaps it was our imagination but we pointed out what seems to be a  pornographic image on the programme cover (feast your eyes on the right hand top corner next to the red flames !).

The guide is left in streets all over Sydney stacked in piles for anyone (kids included) to pick up. We pondered on the fact the same may appear fluttering from flag poles all over Sydney and lo and behold, today they began to appear.

But note the subtle difference !. Or is it all in the mind ?
(and has the anti-Mardi Gras Reverend Fred Nile noticed yet ?)

George Michael, Real Estate Fantasies & Serial Killers

It's laughingly referred to as No Idea in the trade. Pacific Magazines hugely popular weekly New Idea magazine which has around one and half million readers each week.

Unfortunately it doesn't, unlike a few British tabloids and several News Ltd publications scour the Social Shuttle for tips. Otherwise they would have known as we reported on the 10th October that Oprah Winfrey would be staying at the Hotel Intercontinental when she booked into Sydney to record her 2 shows at the Sydney Opera House.

New Idea brought it's readers the fantasy story (pictured) on December 6th of how Oprah would be choosing from one of several million dollar harbour side mansions lining exclusive Wolseley Avenue.

Their choice was home loan's king John Symond's new $60M glass palace which was a surprise to him when we contacted him a week after the story was published and he told the Shuttle he wouldn't be moving out for Oprah or anyone else.

The usually reliable Real Estalker website informs us that George Michael has purchased a $6M house in Whale Beach (left-and not Palm Beach as they call it) which may come as a surprise for Michael who next February is booked into the same Icon apartment in Kings Cross where he stayed for 6 weeks earlier this year when he was the guest at the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras- as exclusively revealed by the Shuttle 5 weeks before anyone else.

As George spent nearly every night partying on the Oxford Street gay strip, ten minutes from Kings Cross it's a mystery why he would buy a house on the Northern Beaches when it takes a good two hours to travel into the city.

In a city obsessed with property, how appropriate then that the Darlinghurst Theatre brings us a musical about real estate titled 'Open For Inspection' opening on the 21st January 2011.

It's a rollicking tale of a real estate agent who becomes a serial killer as 2 rival agencies battle for customers during a property slump and go to extreme lengths to literally make a killing. Nice. Here is a number from the show :


To book seats for Open For Inspection go here.

 

photo finish

some snaps from the week's events...

  Mini Cooper at the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras launch at the Polo Lounge

the fab Susan Saradon at the Sydney premiere of the Peter Jackson
film 'The Lovely Bones'

Toni Collette at the Australian Film Awards in Melbourne

Exclusive !-famous cottager to attend Mardi Gras

tSS can confirm that singer George Michael will be the guest star at the 2010 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney.

Promoter Paul Dainty announced Michael's tour on Thursday and now a shift in dates has one show in Sydney scheduled for February 26th-the Mardi Gras is on the 28th February.

  It’s George Michael’s first Aussie tour since 1988 and both Dainty and the office for the Mardi Gras have refused to comment-which basically confirms he will be present.

The gay pride event, the largest of it's kind in the world , began as a political protest in 1978 when a group of protesters marched up Sydney's Oxford Street to protest the Stonewall Riots in New York. Hundreds of police officers weighed into the marchers with batons and 53 were arrested with claims of vicious bashings in police vans. 

These days the police march in the 2 kilometre parade along with thousands of gays and lesbians and colourful floats with parents and children of the marchers, representatives of the police, armed services, firefighters and hundreds of drag queens walking side by side to Fox Studios where a mass orgy party begins at 10pm and ends around 12 hours later. Politicians from the Prime Minister down send their best wishes and crowds of spectators have at times, numbered up to one million..

drop your gear for Spencer

Nude artist Spencer Tunick is coming to the 2010 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in March and is calling on all gays and lesbians to be prepared to take off their clothes for one of his mass nude snaps, on the Golden Gay Mile of Oxford Street.

The work will be called The Base and all body shapes, sexualities and preference are welcome. Will the legendary Dykes On Bikes participate ?. The once topless ladies on Harley's who lead the opening of the parade went all coy about 4 years ago when their topless snaps started appearing world-wide and on various porn websites.

There's a sort of schizophrenic attitude here.

Once a year normally reserved people let their hair down, fling open the wardrobe door and burst out in gleeful abandonment, screeching slogans about gay rights before heading off to the mass party of thousands that usually ends up in a drugged seething mass grope in the underground facilities.Come Monday they retreat back to their day jobs as chartered accountants, school teachers etc. Or in my case with the 6' horrendous drag queen in a vintage YSL ball gown who slapped me on the back half-way up Oxford Street with a maniacal look in his eyes-the bench at Downing Street Courts where he presides as a very sober magistrate,

The Shuttle experienced this mini Sodom & Gomorrah (without participating) at the last G & L Mardi Gras we attended when we accompanied 'movie star" Rupert Everett who was the special guest in 2007. Unless one swallows huge quantities of drugs (and most do) it's the most tiresome night of the year. Hours spent in the VIP room peering down on the seething mass of people circling the cavernous dance floor swaying in time to whatever DJ Boy George says goes. And just to catch a glimpse of the star act like Kylie Minouge lip syncing at 4am. Maybe we are just past it. Getting bitter as we age.

Apparently getting your gear of with a few hundred others is liberating. But is art ?. Whatever turns you on.

If the idea turns you on-sign up here : www.mardigras.org.au/tunick

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Only 2 weeks after his successful exhibition at the National Trust, artist Martin Sharp and the art world is in shock with the brutal murder yesterday of Sharp's curator, the respected art figure Antony Waterlow OAM whose body was found along with his slain daughter, the popular food writer and publicist Chloe Waterlow in her Randwick house. Chloe's young daughter is clinging to life after her throat was slashed and her 2 young sons who escaped unscathed are being cared for by family members as husband Ben Heuston rushes back from London.

Sharp attended a party at the University of NSW Roundhouse onSaturday night with Waterlow . Police have one suspect- a family member who was seen near the home shortly after the murders.
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The awful tragedy that has struck the Waterlow family is having far reaching effects in many areas. Australia's most renowned painter Margaret Olley has spoken affectionately of the gentle Waterlow who she housed when he first arrived from the UK 40 years ago.

Police have only one suspect-a family member who suffers from schizophrenia. Over 15 years ago the state government in a rash move closed the many excellent hospitals that dealt with mental illness on the claim that patients should be housed in the community.

The battles that have ensured since over the valuable land where these hospitals were located-some by the harbour, have been long and bitter. Sadly, the then government minister who oversaw this action has gone on record proclaiming his mistake after both his sons committed suicide while they were suffering from depression.