| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 |
Ok, this is probably the last Pride-related post on this blog for awhile. I mean, it's June 29th! Of course, it's always Gay Pride at the BGFH (just like it's always Christmas at the North Pole). But even so, the last Sunday in June still has a special something-something.
Except that Tim left the night before on his Midwest roadtrip. And David ended up being totally hung over from the Pink Saturday party he went to -- so hung over that he couldn't go to Pride because he had to wash the dishes first, and he couldn't wash the dishes because the sink was broken and the plumber couldn't come out on a Sunday. (What???) So it was up to Kevin to hoist the Pride torch.
Kevin had to get down to the Civic Center bright and early to volunteer in Community United Against Violence's soda booth (Kevin is on the board). After volunteering for a few hours, he went off to see the festival (by that point, the parade sidelines were too crowded to see much of anything). Some highlights:
Kevin ended up leaving in the late afternoon with the intent of napping, showering, and going to a bar or club later (he preemptively already arranged to take the next day off of work). He and David went to dinner later, but the lines were so long and it had been such a long day that after dinner he ended up going back home and vegging.
Check out Kevin's Flickr Gallery of Pride pics.
When at times it seems the whole Federal government is out to get us, sometimes it's nice to remember the parts of this country that are wonderful and great.
Yeah, we have a President and a majority of Congress hellbent on permanently banning us from ever getting married. But ... it's not a super-majority, and the number of Americans (and legislators) who want to ban gay marriage shrinks every day.
Yes, the military continues to discharge and harass our brothers and sisters (when it's not cynically sending them to the front lines), and it still publicly lists us as social deviants ... but now a majority of Americans thinks the military is being stupid. I can't imagine "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" will survive another administration, any administration.
Yes, we live in perilous times with two new conservatives on the Supreme Court. But ... this court (albeit before the two new members) overturned archaic sodomy laws in the U.S., and for the first time in two decades I feel that the judiciary that was once a pivotal ally of the Civil Rights Movements just might, might, be an ally of the down-trodden once again.
Yes, the rhetoric continues to be mean and hateful and homophobic. But unlike in the Middle East, boys are not being hanged and burned alive by their own governments for loving one another, or being stoned by the police like in Moscow.
Maybe I'm being naive. Maybe it's the boiled frog syndrome, and I'm missing the slow rising temperature of the cauldron about to boil over. But it seems that every day we win more allies than we lose. I can't help but feel we've passed a tipping point. Too many people, even conservatives, have too many loved ones who are out. We still have to fight for our rights, but I still believe that things will continue to inexorably get better, slowly but surely.
This photo comes from Kelly Stern, and it perfectly captures my emotions this Pride season.
Pink Saturday -- the Pride festival in the Castro the evening before the LGBT Pride Celebration -- is probably the best Castro event of the year. The Castro Street Fair is more of a daytime event, and more arts & craftsy and family-friendly than the Folsom Street Fair the weekend before. And even legendary Halloween is too big and too straight (though the Saturday before the day of is much better).
But on Pink Saturday, the gays are out in force and the straights who come are true allies, not gawkers coming to create trouble. There are racy, fun window shows and more fun on the street. The girls have the annual Dyke March that afternoon and early evening, but we couldn't go cheer them on because we were busy getting ready for our "Queer Duck" reception.
As we were heading to "Queer Duck," we caught a glimpse of All American Boy's usual Pink Saturday go-go boys in their window. Go-go boys in a clothing store! It should be an everyday occurance (and Fred Phelps probably thinks it is), but alas, it's not.
Our new neighbor was having a party. We all stopped in. Tim left to finish packing and leave on his vacation. Kevin went out into the streets. And David stayed, got very drunk, and invited part of the party over to get dressed up in the BGFH costume kitchen (what, you don't have a costume kitchen? doesn't everyone?).
Out in the streets, there were quite a lot of window shows, though this year, they almost looked like professional go-go boys carefully trained to only go so far. But if you look at some of the Flickr pics carefully, you'll see some penises.
Of course, not all of the eye candy was in the windows. Much of it was in the streets, including a boy who dropped his pants to use a hula hoop, one who insisted that Kevin take a picture down his underwear, a drugged out kid dancing buck naked while the cops ignored him, and more -- Kevin even ran into Brad and Nathan from the Epiphany Party, who probably managed to avoid putting on shirts for most of the weekend (more pics of them on Pride Sunday...)
And then at midnight, poof! The sound turns off and many folks start heading home. Even the house parties with the window shows closed the windows, pulled the drapes, and turned down their own music. No doubt a lot of street activity continued more quietly, but Kevin had to get up early to work in CUAV's booth, so he headed home. The wonder of our double-paned glass meant it was so quiet (except for David running around shrieking he couldn't find his phone, but he was too drunk to remember that).
Our dear friend Ethel Merman (you know, the younger one that sings Led Zeppelin) will be appearing on the Trans Stage at Pride this year.
Here Ethel Merman poses (on the left) in Kevin's library next to Greg the Gay Sportscaster of Energy 92.7 Radio and Empress XXX Donna Sachet at "A Balls-Out Ball," a fundraiser for the San Francisco Fog rugby team that we held in our house last April.
Ethel's alter ego Mark has the distinction of being the only voting member of the Cosmique Movie Awards to ever win an award. A few years ago when he was creating the Ethel persona and forming the band The Ethel Merman Experience, he posted an ad on Craigslist seeking backup bandmates. The ad was spotted by a documentarian who was collecting the most interesting posts that day and interviewing the subjects for his documentary, 24 Hours on Craigslist. The film went on to be nominated for Best Documentary (it lost to March of the Penguins), and Mark was nominated for -- and won -- Best Cameo.
(Mark's other persona, Janet Fly, is the reigning queen and 18th monarch of our Mardi Gras krewe, the Cosmique Krewe of Colour. More about that some other time.)
So anyway, catch Ethel if you can. She's scheduled to perform at 4:45 on Sunday, June 25th at the Trans Stage on Larkin between Turk and Golden Gate. And if you miss her there, maybe you can catch her on Sunday, July 29th at San Diego Pride, where she'll go on at 7:00 pm on the Buzz Great Lawn Stage.
Tonight, Kevin and Tim went to see "Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig" at the Frameline Film Festival. It's a documentary about the making of "Wig in a Box," the celebrity benefit tribute album with songs from or inspired by "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," created as a fundraising benefit for the Harvey Milk LGBT High School in New York City. The documentary also follows the lives of four students at the center that became the high school, and the music is used to underscore their stories.
It's a powerful, awesome film (and I'm not just saying that because I have a terrible crush on John Cameron Mitchell). I've had the album for over a year now (buy it, it's great!) but I had no idea that it was a benefit.
If you missed it at Frameline, fear not! The documentary will air on the Sundance Channel on Monday, June 26 -- just one week from today. Check your local listings!
I tried to embed the trailer, but couldn't find a site to do it, so you'll have to watch it on their official website.
The Frameline Film Festival is now underway, and that's a big deal at the Big Gay Frat House. David has been known to buy a season pass and take the season off of work to see practically every film. Kevin is the founder of the Cosmique Movie Awards, so you know he's a huge film fan. And Tim ... ah Tim.
Tim is such a huge fan that he's a major, major donor to the film festival. He has a pair of platinum passes, tickets to every festival party, and is sponsoring the "Queer Duck" film on Pink Saturday. (At one point the BGFH was also going to host a VIP reception for Q. Allen Brocka's "Boy Culture," but that fell through.) He now serves on the Board of Directors for Frameline's Capital Campaign.
This year there is something like 140+ film screenings (a few films are being shown twice) at at least five theaters in the Bay Area, mostly inside San Francisco but a few across the bay, too. The flagship theater, of course, is the historic Castro Theatre. It has the largest capacity, the most comfortable seats, is by far the most beautiful, and of course is the largest, most recognizable landmark in the gayest neighborhood on the planet.
The two other major theaters participating every day of the festival this year include the Roxie and the Victoria, but a few others are hosting special screenings periodically throughout the week: CinéArts @ Empire and, over in Oakland, the Parkway Theater. There used to be a big pecking order in terms of where films were screened: the very best were always at the Castro. But this year, that's changed. In some cases, it appears that Frameline organizers have made a conscious effort to promote the satellite theaters. And in other cases, the movie studios themselves have insisted on using theaters with smaller capacities. (The reason is because they want to generate buzz from the festival before releasing more broadly later in the summer, but they don't want to cut too heavily into their potential general release ticket buyers.)
People with Platinum passes are highest in the pecking order of film-goers. They don't have to wait in line; they just mill about in front and get seated before anyone else. At the Castro Theatre, they don't even have to show up early; the theater has special roped-off seats for Platinum holders (although for crowded screenings, they'll only hold those seats in reserve until about 10 minutes before). We're very grateful that Tim has a pair of platinum passes; it's so nice to be able to waltz up, skip the lines, and still get a good seat. The other theaters don't have the roped-off platinum section, but they still have early admission.
Next are the gold passes. There's a special line for those folks, too. No reserved seats, but they go in early enough that it's generally not a problem finding a good seat. But for a hot film the gold ticket line can go all the way down the block, so it's still prudent to arrive relatively early for a really hot film.
After that, Frameline members (those who donate $35 or more a year to Frameline separate from buying individual tickets) have their own line. There can be hundreds of people in this line; those who want a good seat sometimes show up an hour or more before the film is scheduled to start.
And after that, it's just regular folks who bought a ticket for that showing. They have to resign themselves to the fact that there may be hundreds of other people seated before them even if they show up an hour early.
Of course, with the festival spread across so many theaters, there's often conflict and it's impossible to see everything. Because Kevin works for Gay.com, sometimes he can get screener copies of some films. That's how we got to see The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green and Colma: The Musical early. We'll post our reviews of the films later this week.
Recent Comments