Pride Weekend Wrap-up
Monday, June 30th, 2008I decided to stay close to home on Saturday rather than hitting the Dyke March and Pink Party. I just wasn’t in much of a mood for crowds. Instead, I had one of the best Caesar salads in the city at L’s Caffe and finished reading my first for-fun book since starting to study for the LSAT.
The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton… I’m happy to report that LKH is finally giving us some plot that isn’t sex, sex, sex. This book comes the closest to capturing the tone and feel of her early Anita Blake books that I enjoyed so much. It’s not that she’s done away with the sex, it’s that it doesn’t overwhelm the plot… which features Anita solving a crime and fighting new monsters. It almost makes me want to go ahead and read the next book in hardcover. I won’t, but I’m glad to see LKH getting this series back on track. (See some of my previous Anita Blake series comments here and here)
Anyway, on to the big event…
Sunday morning I slept in until a reasonable weekend hour and made my way downtown without rush, which was a novel experience in itself. No rushing to meet up with friends, no being in charge of anything, no plans and no drama. I didn’t even care if I saw the whole thing. Even so, I still got to the Parade with time to spare. I stationed myself near the grandstand and was able to watch about 3 hours of parade. The weather went from gray and overcast to sunny and warm while I was standing there getting sunburned because I didn’t think I’d need sunscreen.
After the parade, I made my way into the Festival for a little while. I quickly came to the realization that without a radio in my hand or friends to entertain, I have no idea what to do at Pride. I wandered by some booths, had a couple drinks, talked to a few cute guys, then called it a day. In fact, I had time to go to the gym, do some shopping (groceries and new sunglasses), and head home for an early evening with Safeway sushi for dinner.
Anyway, there are a buttload (bigger than an assload, smaller than a truckload) of photos from the parade after the jump…
It started, as always, with the Dykes on Bikes…
Rather quickly, it became obvious that there would be an overriding theme to this year’s parade…
Marriage, marriage, marriage! It’s enough to make a single guy side with the freakshows protectors…
All kidding aside, there was definitely a greater sense of celebration this year than I’ve ever experienced in 11 years of Pride events.
We had our celebrities like Margaret Cho…
Gloria Allred…
The legal team that won the CA Marriage case…
Cyndi Lauper…
And Mayor Gavin Newsom, who inspired more enthusiastic screaming than *Nsync circa 2001…
And the usual assortment of outrageous costumes, political and social advocacy groups, fun, and hunky men…
You can see the whole Pride Weekend flickr set
