This year, Doo Dah Parade queen is a ‘pirate’

The zany and somewhat irreverent Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena has a new queen -- a singing, dancing, outrageously dressed pirate with a guitar-wielding slave and her own brew.

Altadena artist and specialty foods entrepreneur Susann Edmonds was crowned queen of the upcoming parade during a raucous selection party on Sunday that drew some 250 revelers to American Legion Post 280 in Pasadena.

PHOTOS: Pasadena Doo Dah Queen tryouts

With her pirate slave in tow, she sang, danced and found favor with an amorphous panel of judges by distributing a special “Doo Dah” blend of fermented pirate elixir.

The drink will be bottled and traded for donations to benefit the Light Bringer Project, the nonprofit arts education group that produces the parade and the annual Pasadena Chalk Festival.

“I’ve been going to the Doo Dah Parade since 1984 and I thought I had something important to bring to the Doo Dah community: I’m good at fun,” Edmonds said.

Edmonds topped a list of 16 queen hopefuls who let their freak flags fly with a variety of theatrical and at times raunchy music and comedy numbers. All were invited to take part in the April 27 — which will be the a counterculture spoof of the Tournament of Roses Parade —along East Colorado Boulevard.

Makeup artist and art model Taryn Piana, 27, of Los Angeles wore condoms as pasties and a prophylactic-decorated corset as she performed a punk-rock burlesque routine that climaxed with the spraying of Silly String.

“I’m a habitual line stepper,” Piana said. “I’m having so much fun being with a lot of likeminded people, which is rare for someone like me. I usually feel like the weird one.”

Another crowd favorite was Mia Bonadonna, a writer for the blog LAist who professed her love of pizza by suggestively slathering it onto her vintage prom dress.

“This girl likes her pizza naked — just cheese,” said Bonadonna, 31, of Long Beach.

A few hungry guests ate some of the leftovers.

“Now that’s sloppy seconds,” said an Altadena woman who called herself Cat Man-Doo.

Other aspiring queens included a musical whistler, a woman who played music on a saw, a singing chef who cooked meals for the judges, a costumed belly dancer, an undead beauty pageant contestant and an American Legion barfly who performed a comedy routine.

The beer-soaked ritual also saw the return of Snotty Scotty and the Hankies, a four-decade mainstay of the Pasadena’s barroom music scene and Doo Dah’s unofficial house band.

“Somehow they manage to get the lunatics back in the asylum once a year. It’s the most absurd thing in the universe, but somehow I can’t avoid doing it,” front man Scott “Snotty Scotty” Finnell said of the gig. Plus, “it’s the only place [the band] makes any money.”

-- Joe Piasecki, joe.piasecki@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @JoePiasecki.