For his second response, Steve Winick takes us on a trip down memory lane with a photographic reminiscence on Pride Marches past. Keep your eye out for familiar faces!:
24 posts categorized "Pride 2010"
06/27/2010
Pride? The Sean Safford Response.
Mr. Sean Safford is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, a current P-Town resident and native New York (State)-er who gives us this take:
I became a homo standing on top of a phone booth at the corner of 57th and 5th Avenue, June 26, 1994.
That was not the day I first kissed a boy. My first physical encounter happened in middle school and then a little more seriously some time in 1992.
But on June 26, 1994, I stood on top of a phone booth and a guy standing next to me on the next booth over shouted “Armistead! You changed my life!” as the cast and crew of Tales of the City walked by led by the series/books’ author Armistead Maupin.
I lived in New York the summer before. Like Matthew Brodrick’s character in Torch Song Trilogy, I had come to New York to be gay. I met my first boyfriend, Gregg, in the crowd following the ’93 Pride Parade to the pier (though we never made it to the water) and was off to the races: my first boy-on-boy romance.
I started seeing someone else when I got back to Ithaca in the fall. Eric and I spent our senior years of college going through the motions of being a guy-on-guy couple. I was a budding homo. But even after two relationships, I wasn’t actually a homo yet.
That winter, PBS aired Tales of the City and I – along with a whole lotta other boys (and not a few girls) – were glued to the tube. There, on PBS of all places, was something really cool and fun and well written. But most importantly, I recognized myself in it. And I recognized other people too… I started getting an inkling of where I fit among the gay.
But even that wasn’t enough to make me a homo. It didn’t really come together until that afternoon in New York. I was in town for Pride, the 25th anniversary of Stonewall (the parade that year had a different route, from the UN to Central Park). In the presence of hundreds of people, this stranger stood up on that booth and shouted down to Armistead.
Magic happened: I and a bunch of people around us recognized what this guy felt. We understood it, completely.
I realized then that being gay wasn’t just about getting romantic with another guy. It was about sharing a set of experiences. Tales of the City was a moment when tons and tons of homos experienced something special, and we experienced it together. And for me, it really gelled at that moment in that Pride parade as I realized that we, the homo, are a tribe and that I was proud to be part of it. Still am.
Pride? The Mac Folkes Response.
Multi-city nightlife legend, Renaissance man and catwalk expert Mac Folkes gives us a truly inspired tribute for "Pride?":
Writer, indie-musician, and phyto-photographer Matthew Gallaway has responded to our responses. Inspired by our Pride series, he wrote a missive of his own, set amongst photography of incandescent flowers.
06/26/2010
Pride? The Khary Polk Response.
Writer, deejay, and Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at NYU, Mister Khary Polk will be in Berlin for the rest of the summer finishing his dissertation on the travels of African American soldiers around the world. Here's his take:
A good friend of mine believes Berlin’s denizens dream of New York City while New York’s queers dream of Berlin. With this in mind, I’d have to say my own dreams for Pride 2010 exist somewhere in the space between two of my favorite YouTube video clips featuring the recent political activism of queer theorist Judith Butler in Germany and the bodies of black Californians dancing their asses off to Jimi Hendrix circa 1973.
Earlier this month, Judith Butler shocked the city of Berlin (and the larger queer world) by declining an award for civil courage given to her by the organizers of the Christopher Street Day Parade during Berlin’s Gay Pride. Arguing that the event had become too commercial, Butler said—in German, boo—that the award would be better served recognizing organizations that expressly and unabashedly fought for the rights of immigrants, queers of color, and trans folk in Germany, including GLADT, LesMigraS, SUSPECT, and ReachOut. Watching the clip, I became incredibly moved by the crowd’s cheers as Judy enumerated the challenges that continue to face queer people of all stripes throughout our world.
The second clip in question is a video and music mash up of the Jimi Hendrix/Curtis Knight song “Happy Birthday” layered over footage of black people dancing taken from the film Wattstax (1973). Originally conceived as a concert film commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Wattstax became, in the words of director Mel Stuart, “a deeper reflection of the black experience.” While Hendrix never actually played at Wattstax, I find something so moving in this fusion of song and video, a two-minute tour de force where Afros and booties groove unrepentantly, necks pop and bodies run and come together in celebration of a life that had ended only three years earlier.
As different as these two clips may seem to some people, together they articulate perhaps the fullest expression of pride I’ve ever felt as a person who happens to be black; as a man who happens to be gay; and as a human who feels blessed to be both.
Critique is rarely ever easy to give or receive, and good people shouldn’t have to go to war over Gaza, Gaga or gay marriage. Yet there are times when offense must be taken. After that, let’s hug it out on the dance floor. Because if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.
Pride? The Scott McMahan Response
Makeup and grooming artist Scott McMahan has been seen around these parts before and will hopefully be seen again soon. Here's his take:
A few weeks ago my partner, Jorge, told me that he had never seen the '70's sitcom, Soap. For Christ's sake, Jodie Dallas was the first openly gay character on a weekly TV series! I added Soap to our Netflix instant viewing queue lickety split, and we got to watching.
As much as I enjoyed revisiting the Campbells and Tates, I was kind of shocked by the kind of gay bashing in the name of comedy they got away with. It made me think.
06/25/2010
Pride? The Steve Winick Response.
Pantone expert and breast aficionado, Steve Winick, provides us a colorful story for Pride. MMMMMmmm!:
Pride? The Ben Lerman Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
New York based comedian and musician Ben Lerman has entertained all over the country, including performances for Pride celebrations. Here's his take:
To me, Gay Pride will forever be a lady spilling out of teeny shorts and a halter-top thrusting her arms out in protest, a rainbow flag in each hand, wildly yelling “Boo! Boo!” in my general direction.
In 2004, I was playing bass and singing in a 4-piece comedy rock band called the Isotoners. (myspace.com/isotoners) We were carving out a little name for ourselves. The Village Voice chose us for the cover of the music section of their annual “Best of New York” issue. We were drawing 60 to 100 people at our shows in decent music clubs like the Mercury Lounge. After a packed show at Barracuda—they rented a full PA system just for our show!—we were approached by the Heritage of Pride entertainment director to perform on the Gay Pride stage. None of us even knew there was an entertainment stage at Pride. None of us ever planned to go to Pride. We’re just not the marching or parade going type. But playing to a large crowd sounded like fun and great exposure to new audiences. But maybe we performed best to smaller crowds.
We arrived for sound check, and I glimpsed impending failure. First, to accommodate the many dance acts on the bill, they put our equipment at the rear of the chrome flatbed stage that jutted out lengthwise, distancing us at least 30 feet from the front edge. The flatbed was at about 40 feet from the audience. Then at sound check, there were serious issues. We couldn’t hear ourselves in the monitors, and there was no time to get it right.
The last Sunday in June is almost always unbearably hot and humid, and as the day dragged on, so did our spirits. The other acts were more standard Gay Pride fare—drag queens, dance crews, dance divas, a funk band, a lesbian folk band, and the requisite pants-less appearance by Houston Bernard and his abdominal muscles. We knew that our frumpy quartet, a cross between Pansy Division, Weird Al, and Bare Naked Ladies was going to be a tough sell under the best of circumstances.
We finally took the stage, following a fat drag queen who killed with a Beyoncé lip synch number, and circumstances were terrible. Throughout our first song, the lead vocal was inaudible. The guitar was cutting in and out. The bass was too loud. During the second song, the vocals cut in and out. This is a death sentence to any band, but especially one whose main focus is funny lyrics and pretty harmonies. The crowd of about a thousand people were as patient as could be expected, looking at a band they couldn’t hear, pushed 70 feet away from the front row.
It was hard to get through that performance, and at the end I saw her there in the front row on the right side. I can’t be sure if she was booing my band, booing the shitty sound that continued to cut in and out, or booing the myriad events that led her and me to share this moment. But I’m sure of her sentiment. Every fiber of her being was booing, her flabby bottom-arms jelly rolling in the opposite direction of her gesticulations, her curly weave, her heavy bosom. Even the rainbow flags, one in each hand, veritable symbols of unity and pride, thrusted out in anger and shame, decidedly booing. I couldn’t help but agree with that lady and her rainbow flags. Boo! Boo, indeed.
Pride? The Desi Santiago Response.
Party legend, one-half of electro-dance sensation Escandalo and artist extraordinaire, Desi Santiago submits this howling tribute to Pride and the freak/feminine/masculine/lupine/any and everything inside us all:
Pride? The Landry Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Our friend and contributor Landry is beyond the labial labels of lesbian or dyke or wife or macaroni salad queen, and she has a take on pride that goes beyond the expected:
I will sometimes make the argument that it's not necessary for us to have marriage rights. 99.9% of the time I'm just being a devil's advocate (asshole) but sometimes it's because I think about how well we have done creating families on our own and without the approval of the masses; we just do it like some sort of superpower honed over centuries and out of necessity.
The real beauty of it is that we have had no real role models. Our relationships may be similar to our parents in that we love each other but that is where the similarities stop, which makes us lucky. We get to make our own life structures; create our own traditions and ceremonies; map our own lives without any predetermined path cut for us.
And we do! Many of my friends have created relationships that work for them. That may mean keeping separate apartments or having open relationships. For most heterosexual people, those options are not only "not on the menu", they are not even on their radar even though those may be the things that could work for them and keep them together for the long haul.
I worry about what government recognized status will do to that spirit and the creative approach, not so much for my generation, but for the ones after.
The importance for young gay people to have role models is so that so they don't feel alone, but it is my hope that the example we set isn't one of cookie-cutter, hetero-matrimony. I guess it is my hope that we *will* change the definition of marriage and be the role models for everyone.
My pride comes from being part of a tribe that makes the rules because they are unable or unwilling to follow the ones that someone else has set. My plan is to keep making my own story, one that doesn't look like anyone else's.
Civilization Progress Report: Be prideful about this very inappropriate Orangina advertisement!
Some of you may know about a little thing that is happening in New York City this weekend that rhymes with the second word of this Blondie song. I'm still trying to figuring out the point of it all, but these dudes do a wonderful job of clearing up a lot of the confetti that tends to obfuscate a clear understanding of our culture. Speaking of confetti, a whole storm of glittery detritus bursts forth in your festive end-of-June edition of CPR!
• HURRAH President Obama is set to expand the rights of same-sex workers so that they can care for their partners' kids--without the formality of having to legally adopt them. [The New York Times]
• ...which may make him more unpopular with some fringe Christian group that's raking him over coals for celebrating gay dads on Father's Day several days ago. [USA Today]
More! More! More! After the break.
Pride? The Joanna Rice Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Thus far our responses have been from gay fellows. But what about straight girls? What do they make of it all. Last year my friend (and baking buddy) Joanna Rice went on a Pride exodus with me. The retired blogger has dusted off her keyboard to give us her take:
As with almost all moments of brilliance, it began with beer, even though, in hindsight, it seems like a blur how foolish brainstorming over beer led to my finding myself in the middle of 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights, wearing a fluffy-shouldered peach satin gown I picked up for a few bucks from Goodwill. Later, inexplicably, I am tightly gripping a banister on a massive float down Fifth Avenue swaying not from the transit but from the motion of all my companions dancing to the deejay behind us. We turned onto Christopher Street and the entire street bombards us with love and support. Total strangers wave at me. Countless faces beam at me. I meet eyes with a few and I read “Thank you.” But I want to thank them more for one of the most amazing moments in my life. This is It. I’m here. I’m actually here. In the Queen Mother of New York City Parades. Pride. And I never felt so much love in one place at one time, and, and …
And I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Having grown up in New York City, I’ve known Pride. I’ve heard of it. Even passed by it a couple of times during my roaming around youth about the parts of the Lower East Side and The Village. I remember The Pier. The Old Pier. The massive holes in chain link fences to walk out into the water-surrounded darkness that was both secluded and yet always crowded with people with all different agendas. Going to the LGBT Youth Center on Christopher Street with my bi-curious friend to support her and learning what a dental dam would be used for. Pride was just another event in the City of many events. Pride was a party. A chance to be foolish in the streets of New York more so than usual. Watch the queens dress up and act out. "Girlfriend". "Yes, Miss Thing". Giggle, maybe a, "You Go Girl"x. Unserious. Playful.See, I was a bystander. A watcher of events. I’m a child of New York, exposed to so much but involved in so little. But then I was invited to a beer by a good friend. And I can never say no to beer or to him which then led me to saying yes thus opening me up to one of the greatest experiences in my life.
06/24/2010
Pride? The Edward Buchanan Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
This response comes courtesy of Sansovino6 designer and New Yorker - on extended vacation in Milan - Edward Buchanan. Were he here, he'd be all up in the New York Pride situations. Here's his take:
GAY PRIDE MEANS UNCONDITIONAL IPHONE LOVE SITUATIONS. I'M SUPER DUPER PROUD TO BE PROUD.
Pride? The Rod Townsend Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Here's my take:
The cuttlefish isn't well known in the Americas. For the most part, our waters are too cold for it (and now oil-laden). Instead cuttlefish are mostly found in the warmer waters off of Southern Australia, Asia, Europe and Africa.
Oh, and about the name? Cuttlefish aren't really fish. They're cephalopods, which my limited Latin tells me is a "head-foot", just like their cousins the squids and the octopi. They hang out mostly on the bottoms of the seafloor, feeding off what they can. Since they don't have shells or a lot of offensive abilities, lots of other animals like to feed on them including dolphins and, well, humans. For defense, they can squirt ink like their cousins. Surpassing their cousins though, they are masters of camouflage.
Mating for the cuttlefish is done face to face. During the process the male uses a specialized arm to transfer a package of sperm to the female. The female then keeps that packet of sperm in one of many pouches on her body. Because there are typically ten males to every female, the females often mate frequently, keeping each sperm packet in a different body pouch until it is time for fertilization.
Their camouflage skills come into play during their annual mating rituals. Males take on bold patterns and puff up their bodies in an effort to woo females, with many of the largest males becoming very aggressive. Smaller males, wanting to pass along their genetics just as intensely as the larger males have developed their own technique to ensure this happening. Using their camouflage abilities, they disguise themselves as female to lure away their larger cousins. While the big boys fight over who will mate with the disguised smaller fellow, the little guy drops the camouflage and returns to an actual female and delivers his own packet of sperm.
Pride? The Rohin Guha Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Today's lead installment is from our CPR specialist and Internetty man Mister Rohin Guha. Here's his take:I've always been fascinated by the strange overlap between Indian and gay cultures. They're like spurned aunts at a cousin's wedding, each giving the other the iciest cold-shoulder. But once in a while, they might thaw enough to cast a wary side-eye to one another. And then they'll return to ignoring each other.
On a Saturday night, when I was 13 years old, I was watching some television with my parents. We laid our eyes on this:
06/23/2010
Pride? The Ryan Smith Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
This post is Mister Ryan Smith's response. A self-professed house head, he selected a short playlist of songs that evoke "Pride" for him. He'll be spinning more of the same Friday at Sugar Daddy's special Pride Edition. Here's his special FYF "Pride? 2010" playlist, a sample (below) and a few words that - taken all together - form his take:
These selections speak to all these attributes of Pride through House music. Much love....
Pride? The Isauro Cairo Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
This response is from photographer Isauro Cairo, an artist whose images of rugged masculinity enflame many a lustful homosexual imagination. His take is - appropriately - pictorial. Here it is:
Pride? The Choire Sicha Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
This response comes from Mister Choire Sicha, who, among many other things, is coproprietor of The Awl. He's also sort of finishing up a book. Here's his take:
Faggotry as we know it today is still very new, and it probably won't last very long. It's a very temporary thing, I think! Some of what we understand as faggotry was invented before the last world war but much of it was codified after, when the ranks of city-living gays swelled (thanks to servicemembers who returned to the country but never went home). This is when it became more easy to enter into the class that could afford (financially or otherwise) some geographic mobility in the United States. The great cities are what made faggots, and I think today that's related to how we today look down on people who are left behind, outside of the big cities. We left! And mostly for good reasons. And so why shouldn't anyone else worth anything have left as well? Obviously it's a brittle piece of defensiveness in action, although some of it is true--I'd like to see my straight cousin S____ try and live in Manhattan, he'd totally die. But then I wouldn't do very well living in that shit show that is Arizona either, would I.
One of the positive benefits of the early gay relation to commercialism is that we retained a market for the handmade in America, as everything else became ugly and internationally mass-produced. Faggots commissioned architecture, and bought paintings and handmade clothing and quilts and furniture. The gays wanted the unique, and the special (even if it was, already, often a little overly trendy). But there is now so little left in our country that is made painstakingly or by hand, because the value of the time spent creating such a product makes it too expensive to be consumed by a country that is kept poor so that a very small class (a class that very, very rarely includes homosexuals, actually) can be made extravagantly rich.
But for many years, gay men harvested the remnants of an America that could no longer afford what was once commonplace. Now, I'm afraid, many of them have stopped. You and I both frequently look at a microcosm of well-off gay men on Fire Island; it has changed over time in many ways. One way is that now grown men dress in clothing that is designed for tweens, but this is only one small sad symptom.
06/22/2010
Pride? The Jorge De La Garza Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
Today's lead installment is from a familiar voice on this site, bon vivant and man-child about town Mister Jorge De La Garza. Here's his take:
I couldn't help feeling a bit put off when I was asked to write something about gay pride. Basically, it's just another excuse for people to dress up and get wasted, right?
As a gay Mexican-American, I guess I'm supposed to feel taco pride along with the gay pride everyone tells me I should feel. To be honest, though, I've never really understood the term as it applies to these facets of myself.
I'm not ashamed to be Mexican or to be gay, but I'm not proud of it either; it's like saying I'm proud to have brown eyes or an overbite: I didn't do anything to be gay, I just am.
But then I was unexpectedly reminded of the gay pride party I attended last year. It was hosted in part by Duane (not Roggendorff, another one), and was only the second parade party I'd ever attended.
Pride? The Cator Sparks Response.
For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride. From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?
We were thrilled to get a response from Mister Cator Sparks. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Flaunt, Genre and many other places. Here's his take:
I’ve always said I’m Cator Sparks first and gay second.
I have never let being gay describe who I am. I think it is important to show the everyday world that we are here and a part of the fabric of the world, but we don’t need to brand ourselves as a group who needs to be looked at differently. If people ask me, I proudly tell them my sexual orientation, but I think it is quite obvious in my voice, my style and my career that I am a gay man. It may also be obvious when I call most of my friends 'girl', but that is a Southern thing as much as a gay thing.
I think pride in oneself is a huge problem in the gay community. I myself don’t really fit into any gay sub group.
- I have a beard but I’m not a bear.
- I own a pair of heels but I’m not a club kid.
- I go to the gym, but I’m far from a Fire Island Queen.
And yet I have hundreds of friends and have the opportunity to mingle in all sorts of situations.
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