Gay Pride Weekend and CE+P

[JayHawk]

We live in a free society - a society in which everyone is perfectly free to make fools of themselves should they choose to do so.

The kind of activity we are talking about, however, does result in a backlash.

What's the big deal with pride? Are you proud of the fact that you have ten fingers or ten toes? If so, why aren't you marching in support of it? The idea is absurd.

Why is there martin luther king day? Why is there independance parades?

Are you so blind to your own that you would fail to celebrate the successes we have enjoyed that was earned by others? Is it over the top? Absolutely. Should we care? Hell no. Do they care when they vote en mass to deny us equal rights? NO they don't and nothing will change by putting your head in the sand.

 

[JayHawk]

Yeah, there's a certain reserve with people -- I'm still that way sometimes, which is death in NY, where interactions happen fast and easily. The people are the salt of the earth -- no pretensions -- not like the snooty East Siders here in NYC.



I've shot just about everything that I wanted to in Manhattan. I've already identified 60 buildings I'd like to shoot in RI, and that's 10 weeks of work easily (it takes me a while to scope the angles and figure the light


"Regular!" Oh, yeah, you get it. Of course,the single most important consideration in choosing a town to live in is the quality of its pizza. Mary,
Westerly and Wickford are like the pizza capitals of the world (to say nothing of clam cakes and chowder.



I was at the Mirabar two weeks ago -- cool place, lots of interesting fuck bait, too.



I think Alfie is the one who will most enjoy it. She's burdened, nerves wise, by the beat of the city and she doesn't easily relax. I just want to take her on long beach walks, kiss her face while we watch the sun come up or go down, and dress her and photograph her in funny Indian costumes. Besides, what with me being an Adrmiral now and all, I think it appropriate to live on the ocean, don't you?

Thanks for your kind words, John. Look my up when in South County -- you can stay with me and be my willling butt boy.

I will definitely do so. And Alfie will love it. I lived in Canterbury, Ct along Quinebog preserve and so there were acres and acres behind my house. She loves to go romping through the snow and then swim in that icy water. Then for the rest of the day she was laying in front of the fireplace. The next day she would do it again.

I told myself that since I spent all of my time in Rhode Island that when i go back i will land there instead of south near the Sub base. Who knows when that will be and when I will be party to another Gay Pride parade down Weybosset. I have the South Pacific to go conquer so I can taste all their exotic dishes. My partner is deeply tied to that area and if he had his way would attend Brown at some point. So eventually i will return there.

Mirabar......oh the stories. John has really turned that place into a gorgeous bar. It has had many lives. That upstairs piano bar John paid for knowing he would see no return on his investment. He just wanted a nice bar. If your there on Sunday ask Ricky to make you a bloody Mary. It is the best bloody on the planet. some of the best times are when PPAC has a show and they get the troop to come over and have a party in the bar. If I had a gay home then it would be Providence. Jeesh, now I am homesick.

Henry you really can't understand what it is like to have everyone you know and some folks you just know of, like the Mayor marching together in a sign of solidarity. A sign of strength a signal that not only are you not alone but people celebrate your existence. For that I am truly sorry.

 

[chance1]

Well, I'll be spending this and probably next pride day in Rhode Island.

I've been working on a project to research and shoot the summer houses of the great architects, McKim Mead and White, in Rhode Island and Long Island and I've fallen in love with the state, the place I was born and raised. So I fished around and got a couple more gigs (one as a stringer for the Providence Journal) and a book project extensively photographing the RI State House (also MMW). So I'm moving from Manhattan tomorrow, moving back to the smallest state with the longest name (State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations).

I'm so excited to return to the state that really started the Revolutionary War, the quirky, tiny little place that still celebrates "Victory Over Japan Day," the state -- smaller than many counties in Texas -- where everyone seems to know everyone.

I rented a large atelier in Wickford, built in 1832, about 500 feet from Narragansett Bay.

The nearest gay anything is a few miles away, but I really need to be among people who, you know, would sooner start WWIII than tear down a Revolutionary War era building to build a fucking parking lot, people who, when talking about "The War" generally refer to the Revolutionary one. Ah, history, you have me by the short hairs and I love it.

So I'll miss Pride Day in Manhattan, and perhaps even find myself occasionally missing Manhattan itself. And I'll certainly have to learn how to drive a car and get a license, but in the interim I've hired a nephew to be my driver. This is going to be, as they say in Little Rhody, wicked fierce!

Rhode Island is lovely - a great combination of beaches, vibrant city life, academia, high brow and regular folks

I love Providence - great city with good restaurants and people

The area around Brown is wonderful - beautiful OLD OLD homes

Check out Misquamicutt Beach Alfie - a fantastic PUBLIC beach that IMO is one of the best around - clean and big

Love the accents - kinda Boston - kinda not

You will love it I hope - if not you may learn to

Happy travels

PS - check out Pawtucket - catch a minor league game and check out the old broken down houses - betcha u will see loads of charm in them

 

[HenryReardon]

Why is there martin luther king day? Why is there independance parades?

Are you so blind to your own that you would fail to celebrate the successes we have enjoyed that was earned by others? Is it over the top? Absolutely. Should we care? Hell no. Do they care when they vote en mass to deny us equal rights? NO they don't and nothing will change by putting your head in the sand.

People who march in those parades are expressing pride in being flamboyant - nothing else.

The gradual evolution in attitudes toward gay men and women in this country which I have witnessed over several decades were not the result of fools marching down the street in dresses proclaiming 'we're here, we're queer, and you can't do anything about it.' That sort of activity is always counter-productive.

The brave young men who actually risked something to fight back at stonewall took decisive action.

Marching in parades is only a show and is totally counter-productive. I don't know, nor would I wish to associate with anyone who is that self-centered and foolish.

 

[Kulindahr]

I have known any number of gay men who had become assimilated into society at large and were perfectly happy to be 'invisible.'

Isn't that a definition of a society where noone takes any notice - either of the color of your hair, the color of your skin, or any other factor about you?

You're contradicting yourself -- first you talk about working at hiding, but then you talk about a free society being one where people don't have to hide.

In a free society, a Gay Pride parade would be just another chance to get out and celebrate. Crossdressers would be no big deal, and two guys holding hands walking down the sreet wouldn't attract any attention.

Everyone is free to engage in self-indulgent and self-destructive behavior - which is a valid description of a typical pride parade. The problem is that such behavior reflects badly on everyone else.

Nonsense. Yes, there are some far-out fringe behavior in some Pride parades, but I would never have walked in ours if there had been such.

Why don't you look at the Young Gay Business Alliance, the Gay Men's Chorus, the Pink Pistols, the Gay Riders (motorcycles), the Gay and Lesbian Equestrians, and say that their behavior reflects on everyone else? Groups such as those, along with PFLAG, the Human Rights Campaign, Christians for Equality, and others fill up far more of gay pride parades than do the strutting, flamboyant types. Here, floats from churches outnumber floats where anyone is scantily clad!

We live in a free society - a society in which everyone is perfectly free to make fools of themselves should they choose to do so.

The kind of activity we are talking about, however, does result in a backlash.

What's the big deal with pride? Are you proud of the fact that you have ten fingers or ten toes? If so, why aren't you marching in support of it? The idea is absurd.

No, I'm proud of the fact that I can march down the street, openly as a man who is attracted to men, and not get hit with water from fire hoses, have rocks and trash thrown at me... and wear a sidearm just as a redneck does. The possibility of the parade is the opportunity for pride; the occasion itself is the object of the exuberance.

People who march in those parades are expressing pride in being flamboyant - nothing else.

Bullshit -- pure and totally adulterated.

People marching in those parades are expressing pride that they can exercise their rights just as others do -- in the case of the Pink Pistols, that we, too, have the right to keep and bear arms. They're expressing pride that they can have associations just like anyone else -- business, musical, dance, artistic, athletic, and more. they're expressing pride in the fact that they welcome those who are different, that they stand up for people who aren't like them and do so for the simple fact that they're people.

Does the Urban Christian Alliance make a float and ride it in the parade to be "flamboyant"? What about the Junior Chamber of Commerce? How about local high school marching bands? I don't think the float with "FFA" on it meant "Flamboyant Flamers Association"; it stood for "Future Farmers of America".

All kinds of people join in Gay Pride parades, for all kinds of reasons.

The brave young men who actually risked something to fight back at stonewall took decisive action.

Marching in parades is only a show and is totally counter-productive. I don't know, nor would I wish to associate with anyone who is that self-centered and foolish.

How is a high school band marching in a Gay Pride parade any more "self-centered" than marching in the "June Dairy Parade" (a local festival), or the "St. Paul Rodeo Days" parade (over in the next county), or the "Seattle Sea Fair" parade (up north a ways)?

How is a group of folks who love motorcycles riding in a Gay Pride parade any more "self-centered" than when they ride in the "Portland Rose Festival" parade, or the Fourth of July parade, or the Thanksgiving Day parade?

What about people who ride horses? or the talented folks making their way through the miles on unicycles? or the dance troupe keeping their poise all the way along?

Finally, what about the Veterans for Equality -- do you seriously think they're there in order to be flamboyant, or because they're self-centered?


Crawl out of your right-wing, reactionary hole and review reality.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

I took part in a great day-time pride festival yesterday, took a friend home for sex in the evening, and planned to rest today: I have had early stages of a serious disease and was often tired over the last months. But now that treatment is halfway I feel well and I'm going out for another outdoor gay festival. It's nearly 1 pm here.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

Marching in parades is only a show and is totally counter-productive. I don't know, nor would I wish to associate with anyone who is that self-centered and foolish.

I wonder if anyone wishes to associate with you, really. Having been ill, I have little respect left for people with such trivial obsessions as yours. Where's the love for your fellow homosexual?

 

[Kulindahr]

^ Careful. He'll probably coward out and put you on ignore.

 

[Kulindahr]

I wonder if anyone wishes to associate with you, really. Having been ill, I have little respect left for people with such trivial obsessions as yours. Where's the love for your fellow homosexual?

He's a Randian.

They have no love for anyone; all that matters to them is their own profit.

 

[JayHawk]

Kuli, I read today that Eleanor Roosevelt had lived in her own apartment above two lesbians to whom she was quite good friends. I also read that she declined secret service protection and carried her own weapon when she deemed it necessary.

Seriously Kuli, are you Eleanor's embodiment in this life?

Henry, You simply don't get it. No room is there for hate in a movement dedicated to equality and freedom of self expression. At pride you can showcase ALL that is our community. That does not mean you have to run down the street cheering. However your posts borderline on hating those individuals. Where is the freedom in hate?

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli, I read today that Eleanor Roosevelt had lived in her own apartment above two lesbians to whom she was quite good friends. I also read that she declined secret service protection and carried her own weapon when she deemed it necessary.

Seriously Kuli, are you Eleanor's embodiment in this life?

No way!

I would never turn down Secret Service protection!





Especially if they were cute.

And I'd insist on really hot ones for my nude camping trips.

 

[Zeno Lorea]

The dumb masses see the highly visible highly vocal and often flamboyant and 'in your face' gays in those parades and, as the saying goes, 'tar all of us with the same brush.' They don't understand that the marchers are only the visible portion of the community - the tip of the iceberg, as it were.

Their behavior reflects badly on themselves and everyone else.

If gay pride parades are so negative for our public image and acceptance among heterosexuals, how come we've made so much progress in my lifetime?

As for the "dumb masses", you probably consider yourself an enlightened intellectual, but I fear you are just a bitter person who doesn't understand that actions speak louder than nagging. Stop complaining and start loving your neighbour. You will live longer!

 

[White Eagle]

You're contradicting yourself -- first you talk about working at hiding, but then you talk about a free society being one where people don't have to hide.

In a free society, a Gay Pride parade would be just another chance to get out and celebrate. Crossdressers would be no big deal, and two guys holding hands walking down the sreet wouldn't attract any attention.



Nonsense. Yes, there are some far-out fringe behavior in some Pride parades, but I would never have walked in ours if there had been such.

Why don't you look at the Young Gay Business Alliance, the Gay Men's Chorus, the Pink Pistols, the Gay Riders (motorcycles), the Gay and Lesbian Equestrians, and say that their behavior reflects on everyone else? Groups such as those, along with PFLAG, the Human Rights Campaign, Christians for Equality, and others fill up far more of gay pride parades than do the strutting, flamboyant types. Here, floats from churches outnumber floats where anyone is scantily clad!



No, I'm proud of the fact that I can march down the street, openly as a man who is attracted to men, and not get hit with water from fire hoses, have rocks and trash thrown at me... and wear a sidearm just as a redneck does. The possibility of the parade is the opportunity for pride; the occasion itself is the object of the exuberance.



Bullshit -- pure and totally adulterated.

People marching in those parades are expressing pride that they can exercise their rights just as others do -- in the case of the Pink Pistols, that we, too, have the right to keep and bear arms. They're expressing pride that they can have associations just like anyone else -- business, musical, dance, artistic, athletic, and more. they're expressing pride in the fact that they welcome those who are different, that they stand up for people who aren't like them and do so for the simple fact that they're people.

Does the Urban Christian Alliance make a float and ride it in the parade to be "flamboyant"? What about the Junior Chamber of Commerce? How about local high school marching bands? I don't think the float with "FFA" on it meant "Flamboyant Flamers Association"; it stood for "Future Farmers of America".

All kinds of people join in Gay Pride parades, for all kinds of reasons.



How is a high school band marching in a Gay Pride parade any more "self-centered" than marching in the "June Dairy Parade" (a local festival), or the "St. Paul Rodeo Days" parade (over in the next county), or the "Seattle Sea Fair" parade (up north a ways)?

How is a group of folks who love motorcycles riding in a Gay Pride parade any more "self-centered" than when they ride in the "Portland Rose Festival" parade, or the Fourth of July parade, or the Thanksgiving Day parade?

What about people who ride horses? or the talented folks making their way through the miles on unicycles? or the dance troupe keeping their poise all the way along?

Finally, what about the Veterans for Equality -- do you seriously think they're there in order to be flamboyant, or because they're self-centered?


Crawl out of your right-wing, reactionary hole and review reality.

This reminds me of a story Jay Leno told. He went out in one of his 50s Tbird and found himself blocked by the Pride parade. He turned into the parade and rode along waiving as if he was in the parade.
When he got to where he was to turn, he left the parade.
I don't think he minded the flamboyant participants.

 

[prudyprudestein]

It's great to have a parade. Sometimes you gotta be a a bit flamboyant to get noticed. I see it as people who want to be free to express themselves as they wish. I don't care what the narrow minded people think. It's been so long I slammed the closet door forget which one it was. Live, Enjoy life.

 

[andysayshi]

People who march in those parades are expressing pride in being flamboyant - nothing else.

The gradual evolution in attitudes toward gay men and women in this country which I have witnessed over several decades were not the result of fools marching down the street in dresses proclaiming 'we're here, we're queer, and you can't do anything about it.' That sort of activity is always counter-productive.

The brave young men who actually risked something to fight back at stonewall took decisive action.

Marching in parades is only a show and is totally counter-productive. I don't know, nor would I wish to associate with anyone who is that self-centered and foolish.

You've obviously never been to a St Patricks Day Parade: a bunch of drunks with dyed green hair staggering along the street. That's all a St Patricks Day parade is, right? A bunch of counter-productive, flamboyant people expressing pride in their community. Disgusting!

 

[Kulindahr]

This reminds me of a story Jay Leno told. He went out in one of his 50s Tbird and found himself blocked by the Pride parade. He turned into the parade and rode along waiving as if he was in the parade.
When he got to where he was to turn, he left the parade.
I don't think he minded the flamboyant participants.

I heard that -- it rocks!

You've obviously never been to a St Patricks Day Parade: a bunch of drunks with dyed green hair staggering along the street. That's all a St Patricks Day parade is, right? A bunch of counter-productive, flamboyant people expressing pride in their community. Disgusting!

LOL

Good point!

All those sissy leprechaun wanna-bes, you know....



What you quoted brought back to mind Henry's statement about "decisive action" at Stonewall. Well, you don't have to be face-to-face with cops to take "decisive action": I take decisive action every time I put on my rainbow hex-nut choker/necklace and go out into redneck public, for example.

Henry, you talk as though since they took decisive action, what we should do is take no action at all. But that's treating Stonewall as some mythic holy event, removed from the real world, where demigods vie for Truth, Beauty, and Right -- and therefore something we mere mortals obviously can't aspire to. But they were mere mortals, too, and all they did was the same thing we can do: refuse to be put "in our place", refuse to be persecuted, but instead stand up with pride, holding hands in public, being ourselves... and when the reactionaries whine and call us names, we look them and say, "Grow up -- get over it."

It isn't magnitude that makes decisive action, it's integrity -- or as scientists would say, it isn't quantity, it's quality. Stonewall was a turning point because of the quality of the event; the magnitude only made it newsworthy. What you're advocating, though, is to avoid magnitude, to eschew quantity, and to cower even from quality.

For where is the quality in being ashamed? where is the integrity in hiding? where is the decisive action in blending in?

I'd much rather march down the street in a rainbow thong, sidearm on my hip, GOA flag on my shoulder, behind a flamboyant Pink Pistols banner, trailed by gay teens in skimpy clothes on bicycles barely distinguishable from the raucously-colored feathers, following the Brothers of St. Francis de la Sissies, and feel FREE, than go along to get along.

Because going along to get along is very anti-freedom, very anti-liberty. You call yourself a libertarian, but when you advocate blending, the message you're sounding is "surrender yourself", not "Own yourself!" If you avoid unabashed self-expression in order to be "tolerated", you've assigned ownership of yourself to all the people who have attitudes, who are snobbish, who are bigoted, who are busybodies who think they should run other people's lives. If you advocate that others abandon what exhilarates and frees them, set aside their aspirations to show others that they are proud to be what they were made, what you advocate is tyranny -- what has been called "the tyranny of the mediocre".

You've demonstrated before that you have no grounds for claiming the name you use here; in this discussion you just confirm it. The Henry Reardon of Atlas Shrugged would never advocate against self-expression, against standing up for one's own person, against marching for what one believes in. He would never go about raining on others' parades by admonishing them to reign in their exercise of liberty.

 

[iman]

You've obviously never been to a St Patricks Day Parade: a bunch of drunks with dyed green hair staggering along the street. That's all a St Patricks Day parade is, right? A bunch of counter-productive, flamboyant people expressing pride in their community. Disgusting!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think that the fact that St Pat's parades are pretty de classe, doltish events where many Irish would not be caught dead, is the point. Most people of Irish heritage have assimilated, married someone with a different ethnicity and do not walk around identifying themselves as Irish - particularly the "Irish" found at the parades.

Many of the gays most visible at the parades are people whose entire lives are centered around the gay community where they find a tolerance not found in the outside society(After all, one feels so self conscious hooking up the slave and taking him to Whole Foods to carry the bags and lick the cashiers sneakers).

I live in a city where there is some fucking parade every god damn weekend and I don't identify with any of them - they are all silly contrived affairs for people that desperately want to immerse themselves in some group identity and forget their miserable individual lives. The phrase "Get a Life" was invented for all these racial, ethnic, sexual, religious, occupational and god-knows-what-else paraders.

I don't care if you are a Gay Submissive Polish Evangelical Libertarian Bookkeeper - You're fucking up traffic!

 

[construct]

Well, well, well! What a difference a day brings!

Down here in Fort Worth, we certainly know how to commemorate Stonewall! We had a bar raid!

The Fort Worth raid occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, when police raided the Stonewall Inn on the night of June 28, 1969. The protest by gays against police harassment helped trigger the U.S. gay-rights movement.

. . .

Witnesses said police arrived at about 1 a.m. at the Rainbow Lounge on South Jennings Street. They said a man who was arrested suffered a fractured skull and is in a Fort Worth hospital. His condition could not be obtained Sunday night.

. . .

The general manager of the Rainbow Lounge and several patrons dispute the police account, saying officers harassed patrons and used excessive force.

"He was just walking to the bathroom when an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a wall and pulled his head back," said Chris Hightower of Fort Worth, a friend of the injured patron. "He was then thrown to the ground, and three other officers were on him."

Then we had a protest about the raid.

A crowd of more than 100 protesters chanted "No more!" from the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse on Sunday evening as they demanded an investigation of a police raid that happened hours earlier at a gay nightclub.

. . .

"It is unfortunate that this incident occurred in Fort Worth and even more so to have occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall protests," Fort Worth Councilman Joel Burns said Sunday in a statement. "We are working together with our mayor, police chief, the city of Fort Worth Human Relations Commission and our state legislative colleagues to get a complete and accurate account of what occurred."

http://www.star-********.com/news/story/1458831.html?storylink=pd

Then the story went national! The Associated Press picked up the story and Lou Chibbaro wrote it up in the Washington Blade.

Chad Cox, a bartender for another Fort Worth gay bar called Best Friends, said he was not aware of any complaints of police mistreatment of gay bar patrons in his club or in other gay establishments in Fort Worth.

(I'm sure Chad meant "recently except for this incident."

http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=25947

You guys miss all the fun!

 

[Centexfarmer]

What a shit storm ^ that is turning out to be.

And you can be we haven't heard the last of it either.

Now that it's gone national.

Of course I wasn't there, but the Fort Worth police complained of being two patrons making "sexually explicit movements" at the Rainbow Lounge, and that's why they acted as they did.

So what's with that? A few drunks thought that they were being raided by group of strippers dressed as cops?

Who would have believed that they were actually being "raided?"

 

[construct]

So a second member of the City Council is now calling for an investigation in the police raid on the Rainbow Lounge.

Two Fort Worth City Council members are calling for an investigation into a police raid at a gay bar.

Councilman Joel Burns says discrimination will not be tolerated. Councilwoman Kathleen Hicks says she's disturbed by the raid that sent at least one person to the hospital.

http://www.star-********.com/448/story/1458887.html?storylink=pd