eggwards | Jul. 5th, 2003

So it's July 5th and I don't have any plans. Luckily I've wrapped up things at work for a bit, so I don't have to roll into the empty office for the weekend. I keep meaning to write a journal entry about last week's Pride Parade but I keep finding that there's really nothing to write about. It was long (three hours), a bit boring, and not very organized. The highlights were:

Although it happened too late for them to be labeled official grand marshals, Tyson Garner and John Lawrence, the two men involved in the Supreme Court case rode in a car at the beginning of the parade and were greeted with much-deserved applause.
The Strangerettes. I wish I saw the big performance, but they looked good!
Just being in the presence of such a cool, loving crowd. I think this is the best part about the parade. It's great to see so many people come out to watch.

On the negative side, the parade was awfully disorganized. There would be several minutes between floats where we were, because they would stop for the reviewing stand a couple of blocks away. Also, the complete lack of crowd control on our side. We had the cops on horseback trying to return people to the curb so the floats could get through. The unruly mob (always looking out for more beads) made it out to the yellow stripes in the four-lane road a couple of times before being pushed back. Then we had the indignant ones who thought it was their sworn duty to try to mess with the police, yelling and taunting them. I was really hoping for an arrest of a couple of them. Chris and I moved away from one group of them only to find a new group that were just as bad.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the freak-show that you always expect it to be. Houston won't let you get away with anything less than short-shorts, so no nudity or tiny g-strings. There weren't even that many drag queens (though I did notice one drag king). I guess the humidity was taking too much out of the high hair that night. I'm still surprised by how many pro-community churches do join the parade. I could have done without the off-key gospel singer, though.

I didn't see the local TV news coverage though. I'm sure that it went something like, "Area homosexuals went out into the streets this weekend in celebration of legalized sodomy. The bacchanal happened in Houston's notorious gay district, the Montrose, and went on for several hours. Just look at that drag queen, Marleene." "Yes, Bill. They look to have had a gay old time last night celebrating sodomy." "That's right, Marleene. Before we go to that dead body in a car jacking story we have coming up, we should show the obligatory pictures of a Lesbian with short hair on a motorcycle, people in leather, some hairy guy without a shirt, some little stick figure who uses his hips in a way no straight man ever would, two guys kissing, more drag queens and the most undressed person at the parade." "That's right Bill, we have to look out for community standards and our ratings."

I guess we were expecting more. Heck, even the usually ubiquitous sponsorship seemed to be at low ebb. Only three alcohol company floats and one Trojan van that had gotten quite a bit ahead of the guys who were passing out the condoms/party favors. I guess it would have been better if we got towards the beginning of the parade route.

Still, in all fairness, being with Chris made it a better event. To cheer the recent Court decision and to kiss in front of a large crowd was great. Much better than attending alone. Here's hoping I won't have to do that again.

Oh, really bad pictures of the event are located here. They are pretty poor...I warned you!