Blaze O'Glory And The Ruckus In New Orleans - When A Stripper Ran For Public Office

When the press first heard that Elmira Figgins (aka Blaze O'Glory), a stripper, was running for the Congressional seat vacated by a retiring, long-term Democratic member of the House, reporters clambered onto the first flights available to New Orleans.  Who was this woman?  

And what was a stripper doing running for public office? Yes, times had changed, and folks were a lot more tolerant than they once were about this sort of thing, but what were the voters of the 2nd Congressional District of Louisiana possibly thinking?

The reporters had another thing coming, for Blaze (she preferred to use her widely known stage name for her political run since a) she had nothing to hide; b) public recognition is prima facie evidence for electoral opportunity; and c) New Orleans has embraced sex and sexuality like no other place in America - look at the Mardi Gras floats - and her sexual 'forthrightness' was an asset not a liability) was no dope. 

These reporters from the Post and the Times, as progressive as they might have considered themselves to be, were no different from any Brown or Grinnell graduate who dressed up in brassiere and panties once or twice, but who were as straight as an arrow and as macho as any bass boat, gun rack totin' Alabaman. 

So when they found that Blaze O'Glory was one smart cookie they were surprised.  And talk about sexual forthrightness! None of them could suss out who she fancied and not a few of them imagined an orgy with every possible sexual combination and permutation once beyond their limited reach.  

Who was she?  These days simple questions turned into conundrums which turned into hexagonal three dimensional insoluble puzzles. In this sexual climate, of course, this imprecision not only didn't matter, it was the whole point. 

One political journalist for the Times Picayune had once noted that New Orleans voters had a 'float mentality' and were more at home with what seemed to be than what actually was.  All the pasties, G-strings, and booty parading through the Quarter were just fine with them, and in fact a few of them had at least once in their lives ridden on one of these 'mobile devil's platforms' as the Church had called them. 

'Be all you can be' had a different timbre in New Orleans.  It was license to parade every closeted sexual variant possible; and the thing of it was, such sexual fungibility translated into political appeal.  New Orleans people didn't demand clarity.  What they wanted was mystery, magic, and miracles. 

Of course the Ninth Ward and the inner city black ghettos wanted nothing to do with the white trash who tinseled and sequined up once a year.  The real life of New Orleans was on their streets, and no pimp of the ward would ever even consider for voting one of them, let alone a tarted up cunt like her.

Blaze could care less about the Ninth Ward.  There were enough white float votes in the city and the wider metropolitan area of the Second District to get her elected, and so she never set foot anywhere near it, preferring to preach to the converted. 

'I am a woman for the times' she said, dressed to the nines in a perfectly-tailored Armani suit, cultured pearls, and Manolo Blahnik heels, and went on to discuss economic reform, patriotism, and a roll-back of the absurdity of 'identity'. 

The crowd loved it.  Blaze O'Glory, runway queen, pole dancer, stripper, and sexual comer dressed as a Beacon Hill matron was the candidate for 2024.  While other women might be either headliners in an operatic sexual Grand Guignol, or Folsom Street bulldogs with whips and leashes, Blaze was at home anywhere.  Whereas the establishment only tinkered with the idea of identity, Blaze engineered it.  She would be the one to carry The Big Easy's ambitions to Washington. 

To the further surprise of the reporters, Blaze was a conservative.  Assuming that a sexually 'indistinct' stripper would naturally be progressive, they learned their lesson quickly as she brazenly called out Democrats as 'the nimble-fingered thieves in the night who steal your money, your rights, and your dignity'.  Jefferson, she said, would be turning over in his grave. 

 

'Where on earth does she get this stuff?', a reporter from MSNBC wondered, not expecting this bimbo to know what was what let alone anything about the Founding Fathers; but she displayed a canny understanding of electoral politics, American history, and social trends.  'I chose my profession', she told one reporter. 'It did not choose me', meaning that she was not picked up and enslaved but as she put it, 'a mistress of my own destiny'.  

As far as her sexuality was concerned, she liked to keep reporters guessing, but was a true, red-blooded woman with a hearty sexual appetite and a desire to keep the bed springs humming for as long as God was willing. 

So, she was A Woman For All Seasons - straight to the straight crowd, 'indistinct' to the floaters, and irrelevant to black people. The reporters wanted her to come out, be honest about her sexuality, and be a person for modern times; but she left them flummoxed and befuddled while her people knew exactly what they were getting, or if they didn't, they didn't care because her politics resonated.  Once and for all this part of Louisiana at least would be done with Huey Long and his populist heirs once and for all and good riddance. 

She was a social oxymoron - a conservative stripper, a sexual performer, a Southern belle with Northern sensibilities - and few outside of New Orleans could make heads or tails of her rise to political prominence; but of course who was listening?  She took 'identity' and stood it on its head. Hers was no party line.  There was nothing absolute in either her personality or her politics.  She was a political hermaphrodite, a new genus; and she won her election hands down. 

The same reporters who had covered her rise to power were unsure which Elmira Figgins would show up as the new Congresswoman from the 2nd District of Louisiana; but they would have to wait until she took her seat.  For the time being she was only sighted in the Quarter, the Garden District and even in the Ninth Ward - a 'darshan' as Hindus call it, an appearance which conveys being, spirit, promise - but all, including the Reverend Blackmon P. Phillips of the AME Zion Third Baptist Church, former Kamala Harris supporter but turned Blazer for her 'racial and gender insights'. 

Chapter II of the remarkable story of Blaze O'Glory has yet to be written, but will be as soon as the old crowd on Capitol Hill get used to this newcomer, this insatiably personable woman of indistinct character but boundless charm.