CAMPOut: 

It seems like ages since we’ve talked. There’s so much to discuss I don’t know whether to start with Liza, Ahnold, politics or my recent business trip to New Orleans (note to my employers: yes, I really did attend all my classes at the conference, despite the following report).

I guess Liza goes first. Well, who didn’t see that coming. Although the spousal abuse charge that David alleged is not half as interesting as his claim that the demon vodka gave her the Herculean strength to beat him up. One commentator called the allegation Black Eye for the Queer Guy. A little Absolut and it’s Wilkommen Wonderwoman.

While Liza’s boxing match sounds like a defense in marriage act, what’s with the proposed Defense of Marriage Act? I want to know who’s marriage would be protected by this proposed Constitutional Amendment ? Kobe Bryant’s? Or how ‘bout the couple who adopted four young boys and starved them half to death? Gee, let’s pass the very first amendment in the history of our country that denies rights to Americans (except, of course, Prohibition, and we know how well that turned out). Let’s protect marriages—you know, like Scott and Laci Peterson’s or Ahhnold the Groper’s.

Over the past few weeks, incessant bad news from Iraq and the homefront push to ban same-sex marriage was enough to make me want to drink. Which was good, since Bonnie and I got to go to Bourbon Street in New Orleans recently, and drinking is their town sport.

Talk about timing. I discovered well after my conference registration (seriously, boss) that the very weekend of my continuing education seminar was Halloween XX in the Big Easy—a big fat gay circuit party weekend. Oh my.

Vowing to tough out whatever was poured for us, we happily headed for The Big Easy. On our U.S. Air descent, we could see the slimy green and grey swamp below. "Okay," says Bon, "if we crash land, I’m staying in the plane."

"Me too." No wonder they drink.

Fortunately, we landed at Louis Armstrong Airport without dipping into the big icky. Okay, what’s wrong with this picture: their airport celebrates a jazz hero and our airport honors a president who fired air traffic controllers.

So what can I tell you about New Orleans? Breakfast is beignets, or delicious funnel cakettes heaped with so much powdered sugar that inhaling causes Whooping Cough. Whisper and you’re a snow blower. Diners end up as giant powdered donuts. Fortunately, Café Du Monde, originator of this trick breakfast, is plastered with mirrors. You can brush your clothes and check your nose before exiting so you don’t look like you ordered the Cocaine Sampler.

With daytimes filled with interesting seminars and classes (honest!), it was left for us to explore Bourbon Street by flashing, screaming, pulsing, throbbing neon light.

Call it the Big Queasy.

Apparently, alcohol is so pervasive that every single bathroom in the city, from hotels to restaurants to IMAX to the zoo, for pity’s sake, posts a warning that drinking is dangerous for pregnant women.

As neither Bonnie nor I were in that delicate condition, we ran the Bourbon Street gauntlet. Between hundreds of revving Harleys, lurching drunk people, screaming bead-tossers, dueling music styles pouring into the street, and people employed to lure you into bars, Bourbon Street was rife with disorderly conduct. For peace and quiet we ducked into a gay bar.

Whew! Civilization. We’d stumbled into Café LaFitte in Exile—this country’s oldest continuously operating gay bar. Fortune smiled and we got a table up on the balcony, where we could sit and sip our drinks looking over the hysteria below. We talked with several local fellows, most in long-term relationships, and chatted with some happily coupled tourists as well.

What I wouldn’t have given for a video camera to film the insanity in the street and juxtapose it with the quiet civility at the bar—ammo to refute those awful right wing fundamentalist videos that our enemies love to circulate.

In the interest of full disclosure, back at Café LaFitte on Saturday for the Halloween party, things kicked up a notch or two. However, no matter how many half-naked men in angel or devil costumes there were, no matter how many feathers and chains, no matter how many Truman Capotes, Lizas, Cowboys, Village People, Lion Kings, or Anna Nicoles there were, the crowd was still more refined than the complete chaos further down the street.

A word about New Orleans food: Bam!!! From red beans and rice with Andouille sausage, gumbo, oysters and Bananas Foster to Emeril Lagasse’s entrees at his newest restaurant, dining is a religious experience. Go there. Try everything. It’s faaaabulous.

In addition, the architecture is funky and historic, the above-ground cemeteries have stories to tell, art and antique galleries are as unavoidable as booze, and Tennessee Williams is their hero. From Streetcar Desire’s bar to the Desire Oyster House, there’s homage all around.

And, down on the mighty Mississippi, there’s even a real paddle-wheeler straight out of Showboat. It was amazing to see the steam calliope in action, belching smoke and fire with every note. Of course, hearing "If My Friends Could See Me Now" on a calliope is not something you want to hear twice.

As we bade a fond farewell to the Big Easy to Spend Money, we arrived home for fall in Rehoboth. What a terrific season it is here at home. The holidays are closing in fast. I wish all of you happy holidays and warm winter nights, until we talk again around Valentines Day.

In the meantime, we’ll just sit around watching the tube as our big business media outlets distract us with stories of Laci Peterson, Kobe Bryant, Elizabeth Smart and Jessica Lynch, while dark forces covertly dismantle our democracy.

Oh give me strength. Hey, Liza, pass the vodka.