It was Pride Weekend in San Francisco this week - a series of events (and parties, and lots of informal drinking) that culminate with the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Celebration" Parade. Basically, a lot of music, floats, feather, rainbows and people dancing in the streets. There are at least 100,000 attendees, and maybe as many as three or four times that - you can never know which group's crowd estimates to believe, and the police routinely underestimate the numbers whenever people take to the streets. (They prefer us to think our numbers - and our powers - are much less than they are).
I've been before, and it's wonderful. Like the Carnivale parades, it's really and truly a community celebration. Everyone comes out - and wow, it's amazing the variety of age, class, gender, race that you see along the parade routes - and everyone treats each other with friendliness and kindness. Well, that's how it seems - I know there's backlash to almost every large gathering of humans, but this one really goes have a positive vibe. I mean, it's GAY in more than one way - it's gay in the old way, the adjective way:
1. having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
2. bright or showy: gay colors; gay ornaments.
3. given to or abounding in social or other pleasures: a gay social season.
So, yes, it was very gay - flags waving, balloons and streamers, and costumes of every bright color. Rainbow mohawks. The Recology Guys (my favorite part of any community parade) with their prop trash cans painted baby blue and pink and green for the occasion; everyone loves when the strong and manly Recology men do their little choreographed dance and run around with the cans on their backs. It's very sexy.
This year was a little different, as I was not attending the parade, per se, but there to participate in it. My swanky upscale grocery store employer (and we all know who I mean!) decided to make a bold showing with a 10-foot high rainbow cupcake float, blasting Lady Gaga (yes, I was finally subjected to it in a way that was unavoidable), and matching shirts for all the Team Members. I didn't wear one, because I made a special tee-shirt dress (a dress made, you know, from all vendor and company tee shirts) for the event, which people loved. I've made a few articles of company tee-shirts and they are a universal hit. This particular dress had a back panel that put this slogan right over my butt: "In a pickle? Need one?" (one of our customer service shirts). I debated which was more appropriately inappropriate for the gay pride parade - to have it over my front, or back? I finally chose the back - remember, I have a...ahem...shelf ass, to be absolutely truthful. It's kind of like a billboard even when it *doesn't* have something written on it.
This was certainly the largest parade I had even been in, if you don't count those parades I worked in at Disneyland which don't draw the same number of people daily; about 30,000 - 40,000 hit the park, and probably only a quarter of those watch the parades, by they do add up. After weeks of working there, two years in a row, I'm sure hundreds of thousands people people saw me - and took pictures or video of me. I always imagined my face playing on a screen in Tokyo, my aqua clown nose in thousands of homes.
But Disneyland is nothing like the SF Pride Parade - except in their professional logistical management "backstage." I had never really appreciated the SCALE of the Pride Parade until today. Sure, the people-watching backstage was unparalleled - naked men, nearly naked men, drunk people, sober people, kids, vendors, singers, dancers, and feathers and flesh everywhere. Sequins and sparkles. Baton-twirling boys. But I know how wonderful my city's community is - what I was impressed with was how well-organized it was. A couple hundred or more floats and contingents, all of them having to stage on tiny crowded streets below Market - so many streets shut off, so much traffic diverted. That alone is a immense undertaking. It reminds me of a phrase I heard in the last large panel interview at work, in which we were discussing a canidates' ability to made changes on a big scale. This person, they said, "knows how to turn a big ship." Yep - the people who run Pride know how to turn a big ship, and it was delight to participate in.
Not to mention, the actual parade. We had special event-themed reusable bags printed up, to be distributed to the crowd as we all saw fit. They were an instant hit, and everyone was clambering for them. It's amazing how excited people will get about a free bag - but that's fine with me. They cheered for our float. We cheered, we waved our cupcake flags - and the spectators cheered back. It made me happy, because I feel like I work for MORE than just a grocery store; over the years, it's been, at times, more like a movement, and we're certainly on a mission - that's one of the reasons I've been there forever. For years, I've been treated to favorable reactions from strangers - the monks who like to buy their apple juice from us, people with allergies who never thought they could find good fill-in-the-blank-food again, kids who eat way better than they otherwise would have and the parents who love us for it. But this - people were cheering for us. I think they liked the Lady Gaga, yes, and we were a fun and lively group, and we did give out a lot of collector's grocery bags (I mean, we've given out reusable bags that people have stood in line for, and sold later on eBay for big profits), but I liked to think they were cheering for us.
I was cheering, and happy, and I danced in the sun and in the streets, and I gave out the bags to the people, and I waved my arms, and I smiled, and even though I was dead tired when it was over (bad shoes on tough city streets, for three miles or so, plus stand around time), I was so happy I went. I was gay, because it was gay....and I'm not even gay.
I've been before, and it's wonderful. Like the Carnivale parades, it's really and truly a community celebration. Everyone comes out - and wow, it's amazing the variety of age, class, gender, race that you see along the parade routes - and everyone treats each other with friendliness and kindness. Well, that's how it seems - I know there's backlash to almost every large gathering of humans, but this one really goes have a positive vibe. I mean, it's GAY in more than one way - it's gay in the old way, the adjective way:
1. having or showing a merry, lively mood: gay spirits; gay music.
2. bright or showy: gay colors; gay ornaments.
3. given to or abounding in social or other pleasures: a gay social season.
So, yes, it was very gay - flags waving, balloons and streamers, and costumes of every bright color. Rainbow mohawks. The Recology Guys (my favorite part of any community parade) with their prop trash cans painted baby blue and pink and green for the occasion; everyone loves when the strong and manly Recology men do their little choreographed dance and run around with the cans on their backs. It's very sexy.
This year was a little different, as I was not attending the parade, per se, but there to participate in it. My swanky upscale grocery store employer (and we all know who I mean!) decided to make a bold showing with a 10-foot high rainbow cupcake float, blasting Lady Gaga (yes, I was finally subjected to it in a way that was unavoidable), and matching shirts for all the Team Members. I didn't wear one, because I made a special tee-shirt dress (a dress made, you know, from all vendor and company tee shirts) for the event, which people loved. I've made a few articles of company tee-shirts and they are a universal hit. This particular dress had a back panel that put this slogan right over my butt: "In a pickle? Need one?" (one of our customer service shirts). I debated which was more appropriately inappropriate for the gay pride parade - to have it over my front, or back? I finally chose the back - remember, I have a...ahem...shelf ass, to be absolutely truthful. It's kind of like a billboard even when it *doesn't* have something written on it.
This was certainly the largest parade I had even been in, if you don't count those parades I worked in at Disneyland which don't draw the same number of people daily; about 30,000 - 40,000 hit the park, and probably only a quarter of those watch the parades, by they do add up. After weeks of working there, two years in a row, I'm sure hundreds of thousands people people saw me - and took pictures or video of me. I always imagined my face playing on a screen in Tokyo, my aqua clown nose in thousands of homes.
But Disneyland is nothing like the SF Pride Parade - except in their professional logistical management "backstage." I had never really appreciated the SCALE of the Pride Parade until today. Sure, the people-watching backstage was unparalleled - naked men, nearly naked men, drunk people, sober people, kids, vendors, singers, dancers, and feathers and flesh everywhere. Sequins and sparkles. Baton-twirling boys. But I know how wonderful my city's community is - what I was impressed with was how well-organized it was. A couple hundred or more floats and contingents, all of them having to stage on tiny crowded streets below Market - so many streets shut off, so much traffic diverted. That alone is a immense undertaking. It reminds me of a phrase I heard in the last large panel interview at work, in which we were discussing a canidates' ability to made changes on a big scale. This person, they said, "knows how to turn a big ship." Yep - the people who run Pride know how to turn a big ship, and it was delight to participate in.
Not to mention, the actual parade. We had special event-themed reusable bags printed up, to be distributed to the crowd as we all saw fit. They were an instant hit, and everyone was clambering for them. It's amazing how excited people will get about a free bag - but that's fine with me. They cheered for our float. We cheered, we waved our cupcake flags - and the spectators cheered back. It made me happy, because I feel like I work for MORE than just a grocery store; over the years, it's been, at times, more like a movement, and we're certainly on a mission - that's one of the reasons I've been there forever. For years, I've been treated to favorable reactions from strangers - the monks who like to buy their apple juice from us, people with allergies who never thought they could find good fill-in-the-blank-food again, kids who eat way better than they otherwise would have and the parents who love us for it. But this - people were cheering for us. I think they liked the Lady Gaga, yes, and we were a fun and lively group, and we did give out a lot of collector's grocery bags (I mean, we've given out reusable bags that people have stood in line for, and sold later on eBay for big profits), but I liked to think they were cheering for us.
I was cheering, and happy, and I danced in the sun and in the streets, and I gave out the bags to the people, and I waved my arms, and I smiled, and even though I was dead tired when it was over (bad shoes on tough city streets, for three miles or so, plus stand around time), I was so happy I went. I was gay, because it was gay....and I'm not even gay.
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