With Friday still fresh in my stomach, I head to Nini’s on Saturday morning to try to fix the problem. It works. However, I then turn around and head back to the city for what is to be my first Pride experience ever. The venue is Dolores Park for the “Dyke March,” which is basically a fancy way of saying that Dolores Park is filled with thousands of lesbians, their friends, and just about anyone involved in the community.
I’m 25, and I’ve lived in the Bay Area my entire life. I can’t think of the words for how amazing this day was. I get up there several drinks deep already, meet up with Za, Brie and McButter before heading over to the park. I’ve seen Dolores park crowded before, but never like this. The smell of smoke is all over the place, everyone is walking around boozing, laughing, hugging, making out, getting naked and urinating by the train tracks. The cops set up a perimeter and just kinda watch to keep peace.
I meet some amazing people in the park…Crystal, two girls, one sharing my Sister’s name and one sharing my grandma’s name (which is really weird because I’ve never met anyone else with that name). My sister’s name holder (we’ll call her K) is friggin awesome and keeps marveling over how high she is. Danny is there as well. Brig has her cousin Brit in town, and damn she’s awesome. The highlight of the afternoon is when she musters the courage to go talk to a girl she had been eyeing for quite some time. She comes back all aflutter.
This general social drinking/smoking and gathering lasts until about 6 or so when its time to start the parade. People gather at 18th and Dolores getting ready to march the streets. We fall in line (those of us who hadn’t left the park to go back to various apartments) and start walking. We’re about half a block down the street when I get tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave the parade because I’m a guy. “We’re all for the guys supporting, but we’d appreciate it if you didn’t march.” I tap Brie and Za and on the shoulder looking for a little help and they get pissed, “What? Who said that to you? That’s bullshit, you’re walking with us.”
While I tend to agree, I don’t want to start anything in the middle of the crowd, especially given my tenuous situation in the first place…I tell Brie, Za and McButter that it’s all good, I need to go to the bathroom anyways, and I bolt from the parade and run to the 500 Club for the restroom.
****************I’m entering social commentary zone here. If you want to skip to the rest of the actual activities of the day without reading my personal feelings on certain social situations, skip to the next line of **********************
A slight side note here on the idea of excluding males from the Dyke March, or females from the gay march, or gays and lesbians from the marriage march….I wasn’t personally offended when I was asked to leave the parade…I can understand that its for a specific purpose, and some of the more traditionals might not want to mix it up, but this is the kind of thing we need to stop in general. To discriminate against someone because they’re ANYTHING other than you is ridiculous. It only sews more hatred and contributes to a tightening of the ranks and an increased situation for building hostility where there doesn’t need to be any.
It’s one of my feelings that gay men and lesbians are discriminated against perhaps more than any other segment of society. At the moment there’s backlash against Muslims, but that comes from a narrow minded few that refuse to separate them from Muslim extremists, and there is a huge difference. Non-caucasian ethnicities often face discrimination, but that gap is consistently shrinking, and moreover, its again in the eyes of morons and not based in the institutional laws we concoct to govern our society.
However, here is an entire group of men and women who have been systematically denied equal rights based on their sexual preferences. Worse than that, there’s no reasonable justification for this. By this I mean there are two ways you can look at homosexuality, and neither provides a good reason for discrimination. One is that it’s naturally occurring and those that are cannot and should not do anything about it. On this basis, you shouldn’t be able to discriminate anymore than you would over gender, race or any other personal factor that a person is born with. If it isn’t naturally occurring, and people are gay or lesbian based on their personal preferences, discriminating against it is the same as discriminating on the basis of personal choice in something like religion. Either way, it’s an unnecessary and harmful thing to be discriminating against anyone for anything (ok, ok, I’ll make allowances for discrimination of murderers, pedophiles and rapists, the bastards).
My point in all this is that with marginalized groups, especially those habitually discriminated and held down by the broader spectrum of society, full acceptance, inclusion and the abolishment of the basis for discrimination should be the main goals. The more walls and barriers we break down, the better off the entire country specifically and world in general will be.
From this perspective, the idea that anyone supporting the lesbian community would be asked to leave a parade supporting lesbians is a bit ridiculous. I can understand if there’s some jack ass of a guy gawking, taking pictures, generally not being there for the right reasons being asked to leave. But here I am, a definite supporter, walking with several of my friends who have invited me to be there. It will be harder to gain support to liberate marginalized groups for whatever reason they’re cast out of the mainstream if the groups themselves turn away and discriminate against people from the main population who are supportive, empathetic and want to embrace the cause while changing the perception of others.
********************Resume Saturday Debauchery Here********************
I get back from the bathroom in time to rejoin them at 16th and Guerrero. It’s about dinner time and we all know that if we don’t eat, we’re gonna fade fast. We hop into a Thai restaurant with Z and E, T and Case, McButter and Za, myself and the Choosy. I feel like a spice cabinet with alphabet soup right now. X has decided to ignore me for the day, so it’s solo flying at this point. At the Thai place, I know I can’t let my guard down, and hence introduce myself to mangotini soju drinks. I drink dinner.
After dinner, we regroup at Za and T’s…they nap while I stockpile js for the evening. I’m about three done when people start reappearing, ready for what’s next. As the couches and seats around me fill up, I light a j. The next hour and a half is basically an attempt to fill the living room with smoke. I light one and pass it around. As it’s being smoked, I keep rolling. When one goes out, I light a second one and pass that. Basically, the pile keeps growing, even though we’re continually smoking, because my rolling is keeping up with the rotation. I can’t see some people on the other side of the room because the smoke is so thick. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but what’s not an exaggeration is how people can’t stop laughing and ridiculous activities ensue, including, but not limited to, T scaring the shit out of me with some porcelain mask that looks like the Carver from Nip/Tuck.
We leave there to head over to Cat Club where Lina from the Carol is working door. Windy, Brit, Brig, X, Za, T, McButter, Kels, Z and E. Unfortunately, the club is not that packed, but what it lacks in a crowd it makes up for in the ease of getting around, the lack of feeling like you’re going to die from heatstroke and the ease with which you can get drinks or go outside to smoke. Dancing continues, including a very very hot set from Ti as part of the go-go crew, including one that involves X and makes everyone on the dance floor want to switch places with either one of them. I run into the owner Patrick who gives me my standard hello.
At this point, I feel drunk, stoned and utterly obliterated on more than one level. It feels like the longest day of my life, which would make sense as that now that I’m writing this, it feels like the longest blog of my life as well. But, I’m sure that’s all worth it (fine wine takes time, right?)…not only was the entire weekend fantastic, but I had an amazing group of friends to welcome me into pride festivities for the first time. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction.
Now…about that nap…
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