Big Gay Frat House Blog

Youth events for Pride!

Many of our parties and events have a rather adult flair, but there are a lot of younger LGBT folks in the community who are too young to go to bars or parties with alcohol. Our friend Hugo, a.k.a. DJ GO, is working with the San Francisco Rec & Parks Department on a variety of activities geared towards LGBT youth.

Check 'em out and please spread the word to anyone you know who's under 24. (Click on the images to embiggen them.)

 

Flickr Favorites #19: Gay Festivals

[To celebrate achieving 50,000 photos on my Flickr stream since 2006, I'm posting my top 20 favorite photographic themes. Check out Top 20 Flickr Photo Themes and 50,000 Photos for more.]

Coming in at number 19 on my top 20 list of my favorite types of photos I've posted are the photos of gay celebrations like Pride and the Castro Street Fair. If these photos seem a little low on the list of favorites, just imagine what risque fun must place higher!

Pink Saturday

Pink Saturday, a block party held in the Castro on the Saturday evening of Pride weekend, has always been my favorite event of the Pride season. Bars with street access would set up window booths to be able to get pre-mixed to-go cosmos. Some shops would clear out their window displays and hire go-go boys to dance in the window. Partiers would sometimes dress up in feathers and glitter or sometimes dress down to very little at all. Music would play from stages and people would dance in the streets. People with apartments along Castro Street would host house parties, with guests often dancing in windows or balconies, goaded by the crowd to strip naked.

Sadly, this year the party seemed to suffer from an influx of non-allied straight people drawn by radio ads to gawk and have their own party in the streets. They appeared to be drawn not in solidarity but rather to be able to partake in some underage drinking in the streets. When I took a pass through the party from The Cafe to 19th Street, the mood was so different that I just continued home rather than lapping back through the festival. And a good thing, too -- a half hour later, an outsider whom police believe to be motivated by gang-related violence opened fire, killing his intended victim and wounding two others.

Hopefelly next year the party will be able to return to its community roots. Here are more Pink Saturday photos, and you can find other Pink Saturday photos on Flickr, especially the more risque ones:

 

 

Gay Pride Festivals

San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade and Festival started the year after the Stonewall Riots, still five years before sodomy laws were repealed in California, legalizing consensual gay sex. Since then, it's grown to epic proportions, drawing in as many as a million participants and on-lookers.

Though the parade goes on for hours, the festival starts at noon and that's usually where I spend most of my time. This last year, I spend the entire time at the mainstage watching performances. Usually I spend a lot more time wandering around, checking out the booths and cute boys.

Here are some more favorite Gay Pride photos. There are more on Flickr, including the more risque ones.

Castro Street Fair

The Castro Street Fair, originally founded by Harvey Milk, is reportedly the oldest annual street fair in San Francisco. It always falls on the first Sunday in October, a week after the Folsom Street Fair, and is the last street fair for the city's calendar year.

While not strictly a "gay" event per se, as it is a neighborhood filled with all sorts of people, it is nevertheless in the city's gayest neighborhood, and I'm reclaiming it! The festival is much more arts-and-craftsy than some of the more risque street fairs, very family friendly, with bandstands featuring entertainment from local bands and drag queens.

Though the event is perhaps not as photogenic as some of the other more risque aspects of gay nightlife, there are still fun photos to be had. Here are some of my favorites, with more on Flickr:

My Pride with Dangerous Muse

The last Sunday in June marks Gay Pride celebrations in New York, San Francisco, and numerous other cities. I've spent it marching in parades. I've spent it watching parades. I've spent it ignoring the parade and instead wandering around the festival watching cute boys and performances at different Pride stages. I've spent it planting rose bushes at home and then heading out to the Castro. I've spent it at a Cyndi Lauper concert.

But this last Pride, I spent it acting like a teenage girl.

I stayed the entire day at the mainstage, from about 11:00am until the festival closed around 7:00. No, it wasn't because the Backstreet Boys were performing. In truth, I think booking the BSB as headliners was a terrible mistake, which I can discuss later.

I spent the entire day there because of Dangerous Muse, an indie-techno band from New York who were performing live in San Francisco for the very first time.

Initially, I was under the impression that Dangerous Muse was performing at 12:00 when the mainstage opened. I had also heard that there was going to be a flash mob in front of the mainstage around 11:30; I was hoping they wouldn't conflict. I arrived at Civic Center shortly after 11:00, which did give me the opportunity to see their soundcheck and tech rehearsal. You can check out my video of their tech rehearsal performance of "I Want It All" here (apologies for the poor sound and video -- it's just a simple pocket camera, after all):

Then around noon, the stage opened with Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS), including our friend Landa Lakes, providing a Native American blessing to open the performances. Then Ejector performed, a local band who was flush from the success of performing the soundtrack and title song to the new film Baby Jane? Hmmm. Things were not going according to plan. Then a straight-but-allied gospel band, introduced by Molly McKay of Marriage Equality, started to perform. Now I was starting to get annoyed.

At the end of gospel performance, the flash mob -- obviously planned by the mainstage organizers -- erupted. My video is less than adequate. I was trying to conserve my batteries and memory, unsure when Dangerous Muse would come on, so I opted to photograph the first part of the flash mob and video the very end. Also, since I was right up at the stage and the mob was using the stage as a backdrop, the performers are mostly turned away from me.

Okay, now we were ready for Dangerous Muse, right?

Apparently not. Now we were ready for all sorts of other performances. An amazing Alice in Wonderland-themed drag performance by Cockatelia. A cute but obscure indie band from New Mexico (or Arizona? who can remember?) called Hello Hollywood. A pre-recorded video address by Christina Aguilera, who could not be there in person. (WTF? Then why bother?) A performance by the woman who plays Elfaba in the San Francisco touring company's production of Wicked. The amazingly talented men and women of Cheer SF, joined by other Cheers from San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and more. A video address by my Congressional Representative, and our Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

At this point, I was getting discouraged. I was checking my iPhone to look up the mainstage schedule, but my iPhone failed to keep a connection -- in part because it's just first generation phone, in part because there were probably at least 100,000 other iPhones in use in a two-block radius overwhelming the signal. I tried to check email but nothing was downloading for the same reason. (If I had, I would have seen Dangerous Muse's email blast telling fans they were coming on at around 5:20.)

I had been here for hours and thought it would be kind of stupid to stick around this long and then miss them. I assumed they were building up to a grand finish -- Dangerous Muse would eventually come on, followed by Andy Bell (formerly of Erasure) and then the Backstreet Boys. My plan was to duck out as soon as Dangerous Muse finished.

I had joked in a previous blog post that I didn't care about seeing the Backstreet Boys, and that they should be Dangerous Muse's warm-up band. Be careful what you wish for.

Around 4:00, the emcees kept hyping that the Backstreet Boys would be coming soon. Of course, they had hyped that all day. The emcees asked where their lesbians were. There were a few ragged shouts. They asked where their gay boys were. The shouts were only slightly louder. They asked where their underage straight teens were and the crowd went wild. Sigh. That's why I disapprove of the Backstreet Boys being the headliners. They drew a croud that wasn't there in solidarity with their LGBT friends. They were only there to enjoy a $5 BSB concert -- just like the radio ads promoting Pink Saturday turned that event from a fabulous neighborhood party into one that attracted a rough element uncomfortable with gays who were only there to get drunk and create problems, resulting in a death and two other gunshot injuries.

And then, around 4:20, suddenly the Backstreet Boys were onstage. And while I didn't plan to see them, and wouldn't have stayed if Dangerous Muse had already performed, I don't regret getting a chance to watch them live and up front. And I am glad they held up a sign supporting marriage equality. Take that, Maggie Gallagher! Here's are some highlights:

Of course, the Backstreet Boys had a concert to get ready for. They couldn't let their performance run up to 7:00. But when Dangerous Muse didn't immediately appear after the Backstreet Boys left the stage, I started to get resigned to the fact that they weren't going to be the opening act, they were going to be the closing act.

Andy Bell performed some of his own songs and some from his days in Erasure. Here's a video snippet:

Rose Royce, best known for their 70s hit "Car Wash," performed. Seriously, who am I going to have to cut? Okay, but it was cool to hear them perform it -- and on lead singer Rose Norwald's birthday, too. Some lesbians who had done music for The L Word performed who were really annoying to me, not because they sang about the proper way to finger a vagina (sigh), but because they sang hip-hop (not my cup of tea) and sang something like seven songs. I was beginning to worry that when Dangerous Muse finally got to perform, they'd be cut off because everyone else was running late.

Some chick from L.A., an aspiring dance club diva whom even the emcees all but admitted was a nobody, performed way too many songs. Then a Michael Jackson tribute band called Foreverland performed a 20 minute medley of Michael Jackson songs. Okay, they were kind of amazing. 

And finally at around 6:27pm, it was time for Dangerous Muse (and my inner teenage girl's crush Mike Furey) to perform.

It was worth the wait. They performed "I Want It All" and then launched into "The Rejection," their biggest hit. I recorded it (again, apologies for my camera's crappy sound quality):

They did one more new song from their upcoming album and then, as I predicted, got cut off by the emcee before they had a chance to perform a fourth song. We were out of time.

I peeked around for them afterwards, hoping to get a photo, but I didn't see them. So I headed back to the Castro for a quick round at Toad Hall with friends and then went home for a bit of dinner, a 20 minute nap, and a fresh shower before heading out to The Cafe. Things can get a bit roudy in the Castro after the drunken masses have returned from the festival, but I didn't arrive until around 10:30 after the worst of the drunks had gone home.

After debating whether or not to call it a night after just one drink, I broke down and got a second. That's when Mike Furey, lead singer of Dangerous Muse, walked in.

Of course I introduced myself. He actually remembered my previous blogs and tweets about Dangerous Muse. (One friend later asked if he recognized me from the restraining order he had to take out. No!) And I got my photo!

You can see more of my San Francisco Pride 2010 photos on Flickr.

It wasn't the Pride I was expecting. I thought I'd see Dangerous Muse at the mainstage, wander around the booths for a bit, and then head back to the Castro by the mid-afternoon to hang out with my friends. Instead I got to see Dangerous Muse perform live, meet the lead singer, and see every single mainstage performance, most of which were really amazing.

Sometimes unexpected detours are totally worth it.

Why Pride?

This last weekend was the 40th Gay Pride celebration in San Francisco, which was first held the year after the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. It was an interesting weekend that I will relate in more detail in another post. I took about 800 photos and five videos on a weekend that for me was somewhat more low-key than previous Prides.

It was also a weekend marred by violence, where a man was shot four times in the chest in the Castro's Pink Saturday celebration and two other bystanders were injured in what police are calling gang-related violence from straight outsiders who were there to party in the streets, not celebrate Pride.

And like every year, but seemingly more so this time, I heard plenty of straight people asking why we need a parade, why we have to flaunt it. Some gay people have also always questioned why we "flaunt it" as well. (I separate them from other gay people who now steer clear of Pride because of the crowds, the drunkenness, the commercialism over politics, and the influx of straight people who are not there out of solidarity but rather to gawk or have their own party in the streets. I get those concerns as totally separate issues.)

So why do we need a parade? And why don't we have straight pride parades?

The fact is, there are plenty of parades in the United States organized by straight people. And before you object that those parades are inclusive of everyone, the truth is that they are not. You only have to look to the sad history of New York City's Ancient Order of Hibernians to see how exclusive they can be.

But with a few exceptions like Independence Day and Flag Day parades, Gay Pride parades actually have a lot in common with most of the other cultural parades in the United States. Most other parades aren't organized by the general population for the enjoyment of all. Like Gay Pride, a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots and the systemic political and physical oppression of gay people, the other cultural parades mostly have their origins in oppressed minorities organizing to demonstrate their political strength and unity.

St. Patrick's Day parades may be the best example of this. The parades were not brought over from Ireland by Irish immigrants. In Ireland, St. Patrick's Day was a Catholic holiday celebrated by going to church. It became an official feast day in the 1600s. The very first St. Patrick's Day parade was celebrated not in Ireland but rather in Boston, Massachusetts on March 17, 1737 -- nearly 40 years before the colonies would begin to secede from Great Britain. The first parade in Ireland wouldn't be celebrated until 1931, in Dublin, nearly 200 years after it originated as an Irish-American tradition.

And why did Irish-Americans need such public displays when their forefathers in Ireland did not? Because in the colonies, they were oppressed. They struggled to find work at a time when businesses routinely posted signs in their windows that said "Irish need not apply." They were routinely beaten in the streets. The first parades were organized by Irish immigrants as a way to rally their community, organize them into political action, and demonstrate their unity and strength to the general population.

Now the St. Patrick's Day parades have evolved into a generalized celebration of Irish heritage. They've spread back to Ireland and other countries with Irish diaspora. They've given the general population an excuse to go on a drunken binge and be "Irish for a day," forgetting how the day originated to fight political oppression.

Cinco de Mayo, too, is a Mexican-American custom that is largely ignored in Mexico. It does not commemorate Mexican Independence, as is commonly misunderstood. Rather, it celebrates the Mexican Army's unexpected victory on May 5, 1862 against a French army that was double in size and vastly more experienced, an army that had not been defeated in almost 50 years. The first celebrations outside of the Mexican state of Puebla was in California in 1863, where it has been celebrated continuously ever since and has become a celebration of Mexican heritage. In the 1940s, it became more politicized as the Chicano movement grew strength, and crossed over as a mainstream celebration in the 1980s. How many people with absolutely no Latin heritage rush out after work on May 5th to drink margaritas and tequila shots?

Columbus Day of course celebrates Europeans' discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus on October 21, 1492. It has been celebrated informally since colonial days, but it was a relatively small observance until Catholics, who were oppressed in the largely Protestant colonies, latched onto it to celebrate a Catholic hero. Later, Italian-Americans -- also oppressed like the Irish -- adopted it as a day to celebrate Italian heritage and fight against political strife in the U.S. The first Columbus Day parade was organized by Italian-Americans in New York City in 1866. It became a state holiday in Colorado in 1907, the first state to recognize it, and then a federal holiday in 1934.

In all of these cases, these cultural celebrations -- like Gay Pride -- originally flourished in the United States as a way for oppressed minority cultures to band together, find unity, and publicly demonstrate political strength and solidarity.

There are some exceptions that don't originate from oppressed minorities, usually of national patriotic origins like Flag Day, Veteran's Day, and Independence Day parades. But most of the other seemingly "inclusive" parades -- like the Rose Bowl parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Christmas and New Year's Parades -- were not spontaneous American celebrations but rather were manufactured or fostered by businesses to cultivate a commercial and consumerist culture.

Like St. Patrick's Day and other cultural celebrations in the United States, Gay Pride parades were born from political strife. The very first Gay Pride Parades were held in New York and San Francisco to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. When the first Pride Parade was held in San Francisco in 1970, it was a full five years before same-sex sex was legalized in California -- and 33 years before the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn those laws nationwide. It would take nearly a decade for employment nondiscrimination laws based on sexual orientation to pass in San Francisco, and nearly a decade more before they would be enacted statewide. They still have not been adopted nationally. But those political advances did not happen in a vacuum. Yes, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying that helped, and mobilizations by LGBT organizations to get allies elected. But in addition, it took public demonstrations by the gay community, including Pride parades, to help demonstrate that we were a small but cohesive political force.

Of course, many young gay people have forgotten those political origins. And many straight people who are more comfortable with gay culture use it as an excuse to be "gay for a day," wear beads, dance in the streets and get drunk. That used to be just a handful of our supportive straight allies, but now it's crossed over to the point where some straights still uncomfortable with gays nevertheless come out to the streets to party.

And if the mainstream population and even parts of our own community have forgotten Gay Pride's political origins? Well, in the end, is that so different than St. Patrick's Day?

[This article is copyrighted (c) Kevin Goebel, June 30, 2010. All rights reserved. Please request permission before reprinting. For some reason, I feel more compelled to call that out with this post than any of the others.]

Baby Jane?

This week I was delighted to be able to see the premiere of Billy Clift's film "Baby Jane?", a drag parody of the 1962 camp classic "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" It premiered at the Castro Theatre as part of the Frameline Film Festival, the annual LGBT film fest held every June in San Francisco. 

The original film starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Billy's parody stars Matthew Martin and Katya Smirnoff-Skyy. Katya has performed at five BGFH fundraisers and also co-starred in the Rosalind Russell role of Sylvia Fowler in "Jungle Red," Artful Circle Theatre's drag musical parody of "The Women" that we helped produce in September, 2008. The cast also includes many of our other friends, including Alotta Boutte, Heklina, Mike Finn, and Mark Sargent, a.k.a. Ethel Merman.

Rather than being a literal translation of the original, "Baby Jane?" is a parody that tweaks dialog and includes new plot twists. Fans of the original will love both the similarities and the changes.

The film follows the lives of two sisters who live together in a decaying Hollywood mansion: Baby Jane Hudson, a child star whose career fizzled, now caring for her sister Blanche, whose own rising stardom was cut short after a dibilitating car accident. The film follows the sisters' mutual jealousy, Jane's increasing insanity, and Blanche's attempts to escape.

The premiere at the Castro Theatre was like a 1960s Hollywood premeire with the stars arriving in style. Curtis Jensen was able to get some amazing photos. Here are a few:

You can find more of his photos on Flickr.

We're not sure if it will get picked up for broader distribution; right now, IMDB's profile of "Baby Jane?" doesn't list any other festivals or release dates. However, rumor has it that it may be available on DVD as early as the fall of 2010.

The trailer provides a good glimpse of the film's amazing cinematography and acting:

Dangerous Muse to perform at SF Pride!

I'm gonna squeal like a teenage girl!

Dangerous Muse is going to perform live on the Civic Center mainstage of SF Pride at noon on Sunday, June 27th. They are also performing a DJ set at the Triple Crown at 10:00pm on Saturday, June 26th.

Squeeeeee!

Frankly, that's a lot more exciting that the Backstreet Boys performing. In my opinion, Dangerous Muse should be headlining.

I've mentioned my schoolgirl crush on lead singer Mike Furey before, but it's not just that they're cute and sexy as all hell. I really do love their music. I've mentioned before that their first big hit "The Rejection" was my MySpace song before Logo started to play it. They were the cover story in The Advocate in April 2006, which I would link to but apparently their archives don't go back that far. Alas.

To get you up to speed with their work, here's their newest video for their song "I Want It All":

And here's the video for perhaps their best-known song, "The Rejection":

Squeeee!

EuroPride London

Can you stand one more Pride-related article? Here's a video update of EuroPride in London. We would have loved to have been there even though it sounds like, from press reports at least, San Francisco's Pride dwarfes it.

Check out the fun courtesy of Queerty!

San Francisco Pride

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:

• Cheer SF (and our sister Cheers from Sacramento, San Deigo, and Los Angeles) were awesome and inspirational as always.
• Reichen's Grand Marshall speech was surprisingly good, and Jennifer Beals was awesome. (When she came out on the stage, that's when Kevin realized why the crowd was 80% lesbian. There were 60 year old lesbian grandmas ready to throw their panties on the stage!)
• Loads of cute boys in their underwear everywhere.

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.

Pride and Patriotism

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

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).