Defining and embracing a true gay culture, which goes well beyond sexuality, is the next stage. We see organizations like gay softball leagues, gay choirs, and gay running clubs. They are institutions meant to build strength and support between one another because we do share so much in common and we understand what it took to become who we are more than anyone else.

To me, New Orleans has always been a town that lived outside of the laws of regular society, and I believe New Orleans has always been that way. It doesn't really participate in America. It has its own rules, its own cultures, its own conditions, and it really doesn't care what you think.

The sad truth is that performers who think, and thereby encourage us to think, endanger the dollar, meaning that it's far safer to foster a celebratory attitude towards imbeciles who are fed on an endless diet of schadenfreude and 10-second fame. But the really tragic thing is that as long as we surrender to this malaise.

"wWeird" was always how I felt -- from the earliest age -- marked out not only by my acute shyness, but by the color of my hair. The irony was that what I had on my head made me conspicuous -- it suggested I should be bold and dangerous -- the antithesis of my nervy nature and propensity for tears whenever my (ginger) mother left me at the school gate.

I'm here, I'm queer and really, I'm sexier as a 40-something than I've ever been at any other age in my life.