I swear, I swear, next year I'm going to ride...But that would mean I would have to buy a bike and that would seem a little silly to pay whatever they cost, just ride one day out of the year and maybe even chicken out at the last minute. That's what the guy in the picture did, well he obviously didn't chicken out but then again he has some balls on him... I don't. That is to say in the emotional, spiritual way I don't have those kind of balls and not the physical way. Although if we had to measure up, I might not have the; but I'm beginning to digress.
The point is, next year watch out Philly the old man is coming through.
On Friday at around 4pm I was at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. There was, as some people may call it, a protest rally by some black owned construction companies. They were demanding that more construction work be opened for black people in the city. They said that the President’s House that George Washington lived in before the White House was built and which John Adams moved into, should be reconstructed on the mall with black labor at the exclusion of others since the first house would have been originally built with slave labor. All very interesting I thought, but not quite the spirit of “Brotherly Love” the city is supposed to have especially when we were supposed to be celebrating the birth of the nation in the city that it all began. I decided to go my gym and come back later for the concert that was being held on the mall with Peter Nero and the Philly Pops.
I did go back and since I had my video camera I shot a few scenes of the Pop’s version of the theme from ET and something from Benny Goodman. Then when they started playing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” it was time for me to go home before the South started to rise again. Plus I knew that I would have to get up early to celebrate July 4th, the next day, not by coming back to the mall to listen to speeches or thinking of the Founding Fathers or heading to someone’s horrible barbeque, but to where I seem to go every year now, Fire Island.
The story is that back in 1976 a few drag queens were refused service from a bar in the Pines on Fire Island. The men went back to Cherry Grove on another part of the island and with their friends on the day the country was celebrating the bi-centennial anniversary for independence, they boarded a boat and invaded the Pines in full drag regalia. They and others have been doing that every year since then and organized by Panzi in the yellow. It has become known as the Fire Island Invasion of the Pines.
I have been going for the last 5 or 6 years and I wish I could say that I have been in costume, but I haven’t worn mother’s wig and pearls since I was about 8 and never in public. Usually I just head to the beach, strip down and relax. This time however because of the mass of people this year they ran out of room on the ferry that I usually take so I arrived at Cherry Grove at around 1pm just as the revelers were about to leave the Grove for the Pines. I decided to shoot this video with too much wind noise going on and to steal some pictures from flickr.com and some of the music from Priscilla Queen of the Desert.
I hope you enjoy it just as much as hope you enjoyed your weekend as I did mine.
I hadn’t really intended to write anything about Gay Pride this year. If truth be told, I’m not really that much into it, politically that is. Yes, I see the significance placing yourself out there so everyone else can see you and not brush you aside like yesterday’s trash. I realize the need to be heard when I or anyone else wants to state that we are human, we are equal and we deserve the rights that everyone else has in order to exist because our lives are not less than anyone else’s. But I’ve never really seen these events as being that effective.
In fact when President Clinton wanted to ban the ban on gays in the military, video tapes of gay celebration parades were shown to the top brass and the politicians including John McCain and said if gay people acted like this in the street then it would a cold day you know where before they would knowingly allow anyone with homosexual tendencies in their armed services. They thought the parades to be too flamboyant and too drag queeny to have officers and men like those among them. They must not have known that I would do a video that would be as dull as dish water and thrown out all of those fun concepts out.
As usual I decided to go to Philly’s Gay Pride Parade at Penn's Landing this year instead of Odunde, the African-American festival they have in South Philly. I don’t go there anymore because I’m becoming more of a snob as I get older and I realize that those people are really not my sort and there’s also less chance of me losing part of a kidney from gunshots if I stay away completely.
So after arriving after 4pm, less than 2 hours before the event would finish and probably well after any of the good stuff, acts, people and half naked muscle boys (there, I’ve said it), had left and I was wondering why was I there. It looked like I had missed all the fun part of the festival but just in time to sign up for the political stuff which as I said I wasn’t interested in.
Oh well, in order to salvage part of the weekend there is this little video which I realize is edited all wrong but I’m over it and I’m just looking forward to some leather at Folsom St East in NYC this weekend. Hopefully that will bring me out of this misery. I wonder what I will wear.
Forgive me if you’ve read this before, but I remember when I went to see the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris. Even though the former palace is about 3 to 5 city blocks it took about 5 minutes to find the gallery that I was looking for. I’m pretty good when it comes to following maps or finding places by instinct. So I get to the room the portrait is hanging in and it’s facing me but it’s lot smaller than I thought it would be and also, there is about 200 people between me and it. How was I supposed to get close enough so that I could see what all the fuss was about? I just walked forward.
You see I had realized that the gallery was full of Japanese or Chinese people and none of them were much taller than elbows. I figured there would be nothing that they could do to me unless they jumped up and bit me on the nipples, which might have been interesting but it was that kind of party. Anyway within seconds I was right up front where I needed to be. Success. It’s all about location. So why does it seem that I am unable to do this now?
After deciding that the Phillies World Series Championship celebrations and the Halloween festivities all clinging together in same confined area would have been too much for me, I decided to do the Halloween parade in New York. I arrived at 6. That left me an hour before which the parade would begin. What to do? Line up at barricades and ensure myself a good view? No that would have been too sensible. Instead, for the strangest reason I heard my name being called and I guessed that it must have been coming from the Paul Smith store on 5th Avenue and 16th. Without hesitation I headed there and spent a pleasant 30 minutes there and came out a few dollars shorter.
Anyway, so I’m back of 6th Ave and I realize all the good spots have been taken and in some places the crowd is 6 to 10 people deep. What should I do? I walked down to 8th St and the crowd just seemed to grow exponentially. I knew that if I went any further south, I would be even able to move let alone see anything over their heads. So I walked back up to 11th St and crossed over by the police street crossing that they’d set up and headed south again. I had noticed that there really wasn’t a crowd by the library on the other side of 8th St. But the police wouldn’t let me in. No press credentials, no entrance. Hmm, there’s an idea for a post. What constitutes a member of the press and do you have to work for a corporation in order for you to be one.
So I walked back north and settled for a spot behind some bald headed bitch who when he wasn’t sticking his tongue down his girl friend’s throat, would keep bobbing his head up and down in front of my camera when I took a picture, and the little Japanese girls who must have escaped from some Japanese Club where all the girls are hostesses if you know what I mean, because they seemed to fart every time someone came by and they became excited. But I realized that lighting was good because they had TV and movie cameras there and like I said before, it’s all about location.
Alright, so it's almost a week after Labor Day and for most people it's history, something to have talked about on Tuseday and almost completely forgotten by Wednesday. I mean do you remember what you did? I do.
I went to New York and took the subway with a whole bunch of people I didn't know to Brooklyn and I went to the West-Indian day Parade and I had a good time.
And I saw the spectacle of the whole thing.
And I ate food so good and meat so finely cooked, that I'm still not sure what it was that I ate, but a week later I know I still want more.
I listened to the music.
And I saw the sights.
I am not sure if she and I were tired for the same reasons, but this woman looked how I felt at the end of a long day.
