Let's Begin

I will start out by saying that I am not a big fan of any Pride Festival.  Denver Pride, Atlanta Pride, Minneapolis Gay Nordic Pride.  Primarily, I am claustrophobic and I hate crowds, and these events have crowds.  Pride Fest is like a gay bar on a bigger stage.  A bigger stage with actual stages in them.  Main stage with Brittney and Madonna (and now, Gaga) impersonators, and the grand tribute to someone like Thelma Houston.  Smaller stages for the tribute to Mexican Lesbians and the sad, oh so sad 70 year old guys doing their rendition of Barbra and Patsy Cline.  Dressed up like Barbra and Patsy.  More on the Mexican Lesbians later, just one hint - don't fuck with them, they will cut you.  Cut you bad.  There is a "substance-free and smoke-free" area for kids!  Which tells you a lot about the rest of the place if they have that cordoned off area just for kids.

Pride starts off with a parade.  Those who know me well know that I find parades useless.  Especially ones with clowns and grown men in little eetsy beetsy cars running around in circles while they wear unusually shaped red hats with tassles.  Especially that clown part. 

In every Pride parade there is this endless train of every section, sub-section and sub-sub-section of gay life.  PFLAG, good.  AIDS awareness, good.  A float for every bar in town, decked out with (18-25 year old, shirtless, no ounce of fat on them if their life depended upon it) guys.  Wearing beads usually.  Not like it is Mardi Gras, so I don't get the beaddy part.  And they are dancing.  Dance, dance, dance.  What better role model for young men and women who hold that inner secret?

Then comes the drag queens.  I can't even explain that, so if you are reading this and you are straight, just go Google it and save us all some time.  Then comes the leather guys.  Imagine a guy decked out in full black motorcycle leather walking down your Main Street when it is 80 degrees out.  In his hands he holds a whip.  With said whip, he is whipping the pavement of your Main Street.  Snap, snap, indeed.

Well, Jim, if you hate Pride parades so much, you seem to know a lot about them?  Why yes, yes I do, because this is just the part that you see on the news.  ON THE NEWS.