Welcome to Degenerate Press' feature article. If this isn't enough you can always subscribe to Electric Degeneration, our semi-weekly and semi-weakly ezine, or surf the Electric Degeneration archive.

Savannah
New Year's Eve 2005/6

We rested and dressed for the night’s festivities and headed out around 9. I have recently infected degenerate CD with my fetish for silly shoes, so we were looking particularly festive.

We kicked things off at Club One, a famous gay bar featured in the aforementioned book. They had two drag shows to chose from, one at 10 and one at 1. $35 is more than I’ve paid for any show since the Beastie Boys some 6 or 7 years ago, but it was New Year’s and I hadn’t seen a drag show in a long time. We opted for the early show, since it was only a few minutes away and we could party on afterward.

The show was fun, the usual bawdy humor, some live singing, some lip-synching, crazy costumes and extravagant makeup, but I think Atlanta's own Charlie Brown put on a far better show at Backstreets back in the day.

The show featured Lady Chablis, who appears as herself in the film version of Midnight in the Garden. She's sassy! The show wrapped up at 11:15 to allow patrons to hit the dance floor downstairs in ample time for the balloon drop and champagne toast at midnight.

 But we headed down the block to The Jinx, in the space formerly housing the Velvet Elvis, where degenerate GT and her new bo were seated at the bar, giggling over the digital camera pictures they’d shot of the breakdancers who were still twirling on the floor as we arrived.

During our shopping safari, in every restaurant, even in Club One before and during the drag show, everywhere we’d been over the course of the weekend the music had been torturous, all of the worst hits and misses of the last 30 years. The Jinx had originally scheduled a Motley Crue cover band, but had switched to a DJ spinning some R&B, disco and soul instead. Things started out ok, but soon turned into bad disco, made even more annoying by my nearly-incessant hooting to the beat on one of those cheap, plastic party favor horns. The crowd was a fun mix of freaks, geeks, young and pretty hipsters and the occasional old local or tourist like us. The staff handed out plastic cups and poured some cheap champagne around and suddenly we were counting down.

 The breakdancers returned for a couple of tunes, hopping around in manic glee, while I chatted with random locals.

But soon the beat-intensive music drove us out in search of a new venue. Outside the sidewalks were crowded with people, drinks in hand, thanks to the lack of open container laws. I had noticed the closing times at most clubs listed 3 AM and it’s pretty sad that a town like Savannah is more liberal with their light night regulations than the supposedly international city of Atlanta.

The line at Bar Bar went up the stairs and down the block so we wandered on to some random basement billiards hall where the music was more to our liking but the crowd less so. A short time later we returned to the Rail Pub to chat up other locals and tourists.

Sure, New Year’s Eve is amateur night. Folks that don’t go out and/or drink any other night of the year come out in droves. Others cower at home, fearing the dangers of such revelry. But the great thing about a pedestrian-friendly place like Savannah is you don’t have to drive and if you stay in the right place you don’t even have to walk or ride far to get to bed. We caught a cab, early compared to many New Year’s Eves, for the two block journey back to the motel where we found degenerate CD on the balcony, socializing with other visitors. But tired feet and high blood alcohol levels urged me to bed.

Contact Degenerate Press Take me to Degenerate Press' home page! There's no place like home... no place like home... All content on this site is owned by Degenerate Press and cannot be used without our permission. We have lawyers for friends with nothing better to do than cause trouble (no kidding), so play nice. Copyright © 2005, All Rights Reserved