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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. 

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:

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:

Pride to me is what I wish gay culture was like all the time.  We come together as a tribe in celebration of our uniqueness and individuality!  Pride is a time to let go and experience all the things that define us from others -love, sex, camaraderie, etc. - and remember those who struggled to pave the path that lets us be where we are today! 

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:

Self Portrait in Pink, Isauro Cairo, June 2010 

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.

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.

Pride? The Norn Cutson 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?

For our second day, our first installment is from  Norn Cutson, an illustrator in NYC who loves to draw about music & dance about art!  Here's his take:

 

Pride? The Rodney Patterson 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 RODGER-NY menswear designer, Rodney Patterson.  His motto (via Facebook): "I'd rather be a failure at something I love, then a success at something I hate." which should go a long way towards informing your reading of his submission on Pride.   Here's his take:

“I like a parade” ...

though I am very proud of the advancement of gays and gay culture, I cannot actually commit to “gay pride”.

-

“Iʼd love a parade” ...

ideally, Iʼd like to change the phrase to “gay comfort”, and wish all gays of the world many of the comforts I enjoy and often times take for granted.

“Iʼd love a parade” ...

inclusive of my new “gay comfort” would be those rights some of you have been fighting for, those same rights that make heterosexual life pleasant and convenient.

“Iʼd love a parade” ...

as part of my new “gay comfort” I would banish ridicule of gays by gays.  to be ridiculed is not to be comfortable. differences are to be acknowledged and celebrated.

random thoughts and ramblings - rodney*

Pride? The Bradford Shellhammer 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 lead installment is from Bradford Shellhammer, who has been on the Internet blogging for so long that he started out over a dial-up connection back in the day.  Recently Bradford co-founded fabulis, a new gay networking startup that is starting to take off.  Here's his take:

In 2010, what does "gay pride" mean?

I love that you guys posed the question. Because it is something I have been thinking about for some time. (No, really I have been.)

This year I left a career in the design industry to cofound a little gay website called fabulis.com. Gays sometimes like to eat their own. And they also sometimes like to be overly critical. I used to think that all people were critics, and many are, but I think more gay people are overtly critical. Especially when criticizing their peers. Where this comes from I don't know. Insecurity? Anger? And I too was prone to do this. Let me tell you a little story about Whitney Houston.

This Is From Your Flickr - It's beginning to look a lot like Pride Week.

 

"Gay City" indeed, from Lul4z.

What's a wicket, and why should it affect a parade?

 

Following up on Rohin's link earlier, and to assist the befuddled Queerty, please find above a picture of wicket, a type of tree guard typically found on a residential street.  It is completely the sort of thing that will be stood upon by numerous onlookers trying to get a better view of Hedda Lettuce on the Splash float or somesuch if current plans to allow this years Heritage of Pride parade to proceed down West Ninth Street are not changed.  At issue is less the fate of an ornamental gardening piece, but more the decision to have one of the city's biggest parades being diverted down a residential street.   

In most coverage of this story, fingers were pointed at the West Ninth Street Block Association as being prissy.  In defense of the Block Association, the rerouting of the Pride Parade down a residential street (West Ninth) instead of a commercial street (West Eighth) will do little to engender community support for the event.  The decision seems an odd choice really, given the very slight difference in distance accorded the change.  Is there something more at play here?

Last year found me on a float travelling the parade route for the first time.  One of the highest points of energy along the route was the strip along Eighth Street (with the highest being Christopher, which was amazing).  By turning the parade down a sleepy residential stretch, the parade is turning on the local residents and, in the end, on itself.

Image via Jym Dyer

 

Your guide to Queens Pride.

 
Getting to Jackson Heights is fairly easy, as any train that goes into Queens (with the exception of the N or W) will take you to Jackson Heights. From there, it's simply a matter of following the crowd that will lead you into Vaseline Alley (named as such for shenanigans that occur at night on this strip of 37th Road).

If you arrive early enough, you must bypass the street fair to capture the splendor of the parade. Without going into detail, imagine straight Latino families intermingled with a melange of gays from Queens and all over watching an eccentric eclectic mix of a parade. (Or watch this video I shot a couple of years ago, just for Latina Tranny Wonder Woman.) The parade kicks off at noon and typically runs about an hour. Essentially, if you're reading this on Sunday morning, you need to get your ensemble pulled together now.

Post parade, everyone goes to the street fair, which has, sadly, become more generic over the years. Dubbed the "Multicultural Festival", it is composed of the cultures of French crepes, Italian sausages, and Mozzarepas that you typically find at a street fair, sprinkled with advocacy group booths. (Perhaps the most out of place booth I've seen there was for a local plumber, but as he is supporting "the people", I'm all for it.)

In the street fair, there are two stages. The main stage is hosted by Jiggly Caliente and Candy Samples this year. Typically, traffic around this stage is a clusterjam and the sound system is set to "Fistula Rupture", but a cross-section of drag queens, politicians and rocker Ariel Aparicio will be sharing the stage.  The second stage is hosted by Club Atlantis and tends to be drag-performer heavy (including the occasional heavy drag performers).

The swirl of the fair will drive you in time to want food and drink.  There are many great options along Roosevelt Avenue, but they will be packed and the best restaurants will have an hour wait.  Consider instead hitting 37th Avenue.  Removed from the hubbub of the festivities if Urubamba, one of the best spots for Peruvian food in the city.  All of the seafood dishes are amazing and the ceviche is mind-blowing.  (Fun fact:  potatoes originated in Peru and spread to Europe (including Ireland) from there.)  Also on 37th Avenue is Pollos a la Brasa Mario for melt-in-your-mouth chicken.  

You will by this time be wanting to carouse, and the options are many, but these are the main three: 

• Friends Tavern (78-11 Roosevelt Avenue), will be packed with all types.  The longest standing gay bar in the neighborhood, it also sports a backyard patio that will have a grill fired up.  Typically though the space is too packed for simple functions like breathing.  Your best bet here is to dance on the tiny, but electric dance floor.
• Music Box (40-08 74th Street).  This is invariably where I end up instead.  Off the main strip of Roosevelt, the tiny backyard is navigable (no grill though) and the inside offers the best sound system.   Somehow the crowd here just seems "right".
• Atlantis (76-19 Roosevelt Avenue) is the club offering a large dance floor, shows and, well, club-ness.  There will be a cover charge here, but it's a fun time inside.  If you stay late enough, hang toward the back bar (with barstools featuring saddle-seats for the fun crowd there.  (For those of you inclined to shenanigans, there has been some of this in proximity to this room in the past.  Follow your nose.)

Side note I:  There are other options along the strip and many of the clubs will be "gay for the day".  Not to be exclusionary and not to be thankful for the "gay day" treatment, but my inkling is to patronize the gay-owned/managed establishments.  Sort of how Christmas keeps many retailers afloat, this event is key for the Jackson Heights bars.

Side note II:  If you end up going into the night in Jackson Heights, you may begin to hear whispers on some street corners, "Bazooka, terico." These men are not offering you bubble gum.  Bazooka is crack; terico is cocaine. And an informed source tells me, emphatically, that the prices there are not proportional to the quality or quantity offered, so stick to your regular or avoid it all together.

It's the beginning of "pride season" yet again.  Last year I actually marched in the Queens Parade (and Brooklyn and Manhattan) with Marriage Equality.  This year is more "attendee" than "participant", although both are always fun.  We'll be dipping a little into the "pride" meme more as the month progresses, and we'll be wanting your field reports along the way.  But for now:  HAPPY PRIDE, QUEENS!