dude...
its gay pride day! finally.. happy gay pride 2010! lots of sunshine and a really great park for the festival... oh yeah, and the pacific ocean breeze... $25 for the festival? wait, what? thats outrageous.... its a vendor fair... with a beer garden... and bad 80s headliners..
devo? really? devo? again? really? no really? prolly still gonna go though.. its gay pride day!
a while back, mads asked me on that formspring thing "what do i like most about being gay?"
heres my answer ....
casual sex.... k, seriously, the great people i have met along the way... the lifetime of experiences past and present that i might not otherwise have had if i were straight... friends that took me under their wings and really helped make my coming out bearable... friends who let me stay with them while i scrambled to find a place of my own, a full time job and safe place to just be gay after my father kicked me out.... friends who cared for me when i first got sick.. if i hadn't been gay, i would never have known, loved and tolly trusted my best friend l.s....
and some more....
i discovered that i was good at sports.. well, a sport... hockey... maybe it was cause i finally felt sort of comfortable in my own skin... i had dropped like 50 lbs and was going to the gym regularly.. bike riding long distances, like 50, 75, 100 mi mixed terrain trips.. even in mexico... [the libre from rosarito to ensenada is beautiful and fucking amazing as it snakes its way south along the unspoiled pacific coast of baja..]
some of my friends at transportation played street hockey after work like two or three days a week... i asked if i could join, and yes... turns out i was good at it... ice hockey too... i love the game, i miss playing it.... i dont think my hockey experiences would have been the same if i had been straight.. prolly better this way... im a team guy but not a superstar.. id wear the "a" before id ever consider wearing the "c"... actly, id prefer to not wear either letter.. im a quiet leader... a team guy now and forever.. occasionally i go a little crazy, who doesnt? did i forget to mention i have a temper?
my first gay pride day was in 1986.. it was a political event more than a giant fag party... but it was getting there.. what a rush, being transgressive as it were, outlaws.. misfits, deviants, unclean... sinners... i was as scared as i was thrilled to be there.. all those freaks n femmes n queers and lesbians too... what if someone recognizes me? they did and it was ok...
i volunteered at the parade a couple of years later... it rained, well sort of... it was hot n humid...
k, not so much....
actup came later.... silence = death... so did queer nation... gay boys make me hard... a refrigerator magnet i still have....
happy 2010 gay pride people.. 60 years since harry hay founded the mattachine society, 41 years after stonewall, and 30 years on from the first know case of hiv/aids in the united states...
ps...
met a really hoy guy from ottawa... oh canada!!!
i love gay pride weekend!
- cheers..... david
