by Donnie Jay
Walking The Line A
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Last year as I was preparing Miss Rusty La Roux’s appearance schedule I had the opportunity of working with two extremely wonderful ladies representing Crescent City Distributing here in New Orleans. Jennifer and Valeria, you both were godsends for without either of you my job would have been next to impossible.
It was through these two wonderful women that I met the representatives of the Coors Brewing Company who were the sponsors of Southern Decadence and Grand Marshal XXXI. It was during one of the many fund-raisers held last year that I had an opportunity to speak with them at some length. It was at the Pub, upstairs, and I remember it as if in fact did just happen yesterday.
I had thanked the Coors Brewing Company over many times during the evening, for the cost of mounting Decadence has grown to gargantuan proportions. When the show came to an end and it was time for us all to relax, I went over to the company’s reps to personally thank them. During that conversation, I vividly remember the gentleman saying to me that Coors was proud to be sponsoring Decadence as well as many other gay related events around the country (i.e. Gay Pride in Austin), as their company’s relationship with our community had been lukewarm at best. In fact, it had been lousy in years past. I was elated to hear this and naturally filed it away in my brain’s storage bin under pleasant facts. It was nice to hear that one of the major American corporations was coming around to accepting us as people, helping us and recognizing us as a community. I was so pleased that I personally asked all the GLBT bars and GLBT friendly businesses to promote Coor’s products.
This year however, as Southern Decadence Grand Marshal XXXII, I am asking all GLBT and GLBT friendly business not just in New Orleans and the surrounding area, but throughout the country to boycott all Coors products at least from today thru the Decadence festival. Coors has pulled out of their verbal agreement to be the sole beer sponsor of Decadence for three years with no warning. As a matter of fact, no one, not even the distributors reps were aware of this fact beforehand. After being selected by Rusty as her successor, we immediately contacted our ladies from last year to set the financial wheels in motion. They were elated and congratulated me on being the new SD Grand Marshal and set up a meeting with SD Grand Marshal XXX "Irish" Mike, who had originally set up the three year sponsorship.
Things began moving at the usual pace to ready things for the fund-raising season. They proceed up to the point of getting the sponsorship banners ready. Jennifer called me to have Larry Graham prepare the disk of the poster in a jpeg format so they could transfer it on the banners. The poster which is a fantastic photo by Larry, was actually run through a computer program to make it look like an old painting, Jennifer commented that it looked more like a drawing than a picture and was wondering if it was supposed to be like that. Mike assured her it was. I relate this here just to show how innocent both the women and Crescent City Distributing were through out this whole situation. Everything was ready to go.
Then the bomb dropped, Coors informed them they were not honoring their verbal agreement and would not be a sponsor for this year’s Decadence. The news was devastating to say the least; Jennifer was beside herself when she had to tell "Irish" Mike. Unfortunately, telling me became the chore of the Irishman, but as always, he was able to soften the blow with the news that Jagermiester was going to be the liquor sponsor.
I called Jennifer that afternoon to thank her for all she had done last year and for trying to do the same for me. Being the lady she is, she told me she would personally do anything she could to help with this year’s celebration. I will always treasure the experience that I had working with both her and Valerie, their commitment to helping in any way they could. I would personally like to thank them both once again for their invaluable assistance last year and hope to work with both of them again in the future.
But back to Coors, I began to wonder just what the reasoning was behind their suddenly dropping out, not just from Decadence but I noticed that they were not listed as a sponsor of this years Austin pride celebration.
A little research and I found out that more than likely it was politically motivated, not financial. It seems that a member of the Coors clan, Pete Coors, is running for the United States Senate in Colorado, as a Republican, He is anti-abortion and a major part of his platform is anti-gay, in that he opposes not only gay marriage but civil unions as well. To quote his web site "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I oppose the activist judges who try to change the traditional definition of marriage."
Do I hear the religious right applauding wildly? Apparently, I do. What also is apparent is that Pete Coors, being a family member, the Coors Company certainly could not disagree with one of their own and so they dropped out.
So was all that conversation during last year’s fundraiser about mending the fences between their company and our community just a lot of hot air? I sincerely believe it was just that. I don’t mean to say that I believe their representative was lying on purpose; I am sure that more than likely he was duped just like I was into believing that they were coming out of the dark ages. As with many large companies they chose to court us only for the money they could possibly make from our community for the moment. Now that the stakes have changed and the ante has gone up, they have reneged on their promise to mine, to a more lucrative mother lode, the religious right and send their own to stomp on our civil rights.
So my friends, I am asking all of you to boycott Coors products, and to the people of Colorado, remember none of us are liberated til all of us are liberated. Vote against Coors, they obviously can’t keep a promise.
Drink Jagermeister and enjoy Decadence with people who care about our community and us.
W
ell enough of that. Now on the lighter side; the Press Party at the Ninth Circle was a tremendous success and I want to thank everyone that came on out and supported me. Special thanks have to go to Bywater Mike of Bywater Bar.B.Que/Lorenzo's for the most scrumptious buffet it has ever been my pleasure to pig out at. Everything was so delicious that later that evening, as I was lying in bed, I found myself wising that I had packed a doggie bag. The black bean Mexican wraps were to die for and sweetheart the fruit sushi was better than any sex could ever be.Special thanks also to the owners and staff of the Ninth Circle. Karbin, the place just looked fantastic, you used the official colors to their utmost best to show off and highlight the poster.
Lil and Kelton, your warmth and personalities behind the bar set the tone for the whole event.
To "Irish" Mike, Big Rick and Tony, your undying friendship and support has kept me together more than you will ever know.
To Pigs Inc., the tee shirts were to die for. To all of you who were wondering about those yellow shirts and the folks that were wearing them, they are all part of my parade entourage. Sorry, but the shirts are not for sale and were a limited edition.
The official poster is however and may be purchased from Graham Studio One. A portion of all sales goes to the New Orleans Alliance of Pride to help put on the 25th Annual New Orleans PrideFest this October 9th and 10th in Armstrong Park.
As you probably know by now, I am using my position as Southern Decadence Grand Marshal (SDGM) to raise monies for United Services for AIDS. To date, I have received $300 from personal donations, which I want to thank those people who have given so far. There will be various fund-raisers around town. Please try to attend when you can as all fees and door monies go directly to charity. I am also accepting personal donations in the form of checks or money orders made out to United Services for AIDS and sent to Donnie Jay, c/o 7th Circle, 820 N. Rampart Street, New Orleans, LA 70116.
Thank you all everyone from the bottom of my heart. Decadence is just about a month away, plan on coming out and partying your butt off. Who knows, we just might end up in the gutter together singing ONE LAST SONG.
You may contact me at donniejay@hotmail.com.
For a complete list of Donnie "Jager" Jay's appearances as SDGM visit the original and only Official Southern Decadence Website, SouthernDecadence.COM.
