Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Egyptian Mythology goes Southern

As you can tell by the previous post we celebrate Madri Gras down here in the deep south. Like I said before Mardi Gras in America started in Mobile, Alabama. Way back in 1704 and then again in 1866 Joe Cain started it on it’s course to become what it is today.

I bet neither of these guys ever thought there would be an organization like Osiris. I am not sure but I guess you have to be committed to the Gay lifestyle to become a member, otherwise folks would fake it, just to be able to join, I would. After attending the Osiris Ball Friday night I might just try faking it and see if I can’t become a member. These folks know how to throw a party. Next to the Crewe of Mystic Fish they got ta be he best party during Mardi Gras.

After writing about the hard time I had getting it together for the Osiris Ball and joking that if I were a girl I could have borrowed a outfit from my Mom, I decided it was true, I could have gone in drag and it would have been a whole lot easier, both for me and four other folks.

Osiris has been a Mardi Gras organization for the last 27 years. They take their name from Egyptian Mythology. Osiris is the most famous of Egyptians gods. Isis was both his sister and his wife, I guess that is why a group in Alabama chose the name Osiris. His brother was Set and he was very jealous of Osiris and killed him and sent his body down the Nile in a coffin. Isis found the coffin and brought it back only to have Set chop the body up and scatter the parts throughout the land of Egypt. Isis found all but one of the body parts and once again, took Osiris back and used bandages to put the body back together. She then breathed life back into Osiris and that is when the two conceived a baby. Which was really strange considering the body part that Isis never found. Their son Horus was born and grew up fighting Set to revenge his father. Horus was never totally victorious over Set, I guess they just fought and fought. Osiris was to become known as the King of the Underworld, as in the sea.

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Strange story, so quite fitting for this group in Alabama. The Osiris Ball is all about the tableau. It wasn’t real weird and it wasn’t traditional, but it was the most entertaining ball I have ever been to. The theme was Under the Sea, and the tableau was made up of about 10 different vignettes that some how related to the sea. There was the Loch nest Monster, there was a turtle, there was a group playing air guitars which I didn’t get. There were others, but the best was two guys that popped up from a yellow submarine dressed like the Beatles from Sargent Peppers. As “We all Live in a Yellow Submarine” played the two guys ran around throwing sailor hats to the crowd. Then they ripped off their cloths and pulled off their wigs. Then the two bald headed men in underwear joined hands and ran to the stage to finish their skit.

I can’t wait til next year!