PRIDE

There are some who have objections to PRIDE festivals. I’m not talking about those religious right folks with their “god hates gays” banners, I’m talking about some queer folks saying, ‘no thanks’ to what has become of the PRIDE festivals.

When it comes to PRIDE I realize it is most likely nothing like it was intended to be.  The current PRIDE is a far cry from the first Rhode Island PRIDE. Which was a few folks walking from Kennedy Plaza to the State House wearing paper bags over their heads so that no one would know who they were. It seems the antithesis of “pride,” but that’s what it was. At this year’s Rhode Island PRIDE I witness no paper bag wearing folks, but plenty of happy couples, half dressed men, women, trans and drags, drinking, pot-smoking,  t-shirt selling, open religious groups, people with children, teenagers, sex toy stands, free condoms, and a tent doing HIV screening. I have to admit, I shamelessly enjoy it even if it has almost nothing to do with its original intentions. And sure, maybe it’s a bit more commercial than it should be, what with local businesses all saying “hey we love the queers money just as much as the heteros!” I feel it is important because there have been times when I have felt that I couldn’t be myself, who I really truly am, when at home and even at some of my previous employers. I think that is probably the reason most go, to be able to be themselves without the looks that one can still get even in somewhere as diverse and seemingly open-minded as New England. You still have the gay hating assholes roaming around — hey diversity makes the world go round and opposition will always keep you in check.

My most negative experience as a bisexual…was, unfortunately, not long after I had come out. I truly believe that I got fired for being bisexual. I got fired from a pizza place (which will remain anonymous) after one of the managers asked me out. I gently turned him down, I thought he was a nice guy, but I really wanted to explore my attraction to women. I told him that I preferred women (and I still do quite frankly, not to say I was never open to the possibility of being with men,  I just like being with women more). He seemed okay with it and even mentioned how he kind of thought I might be queer.  A few weeks later, I had a mysterious attitude problem that,  he had reported. I was never talked to about this until after the fact. The pizza place didn’t formally fire me, they just took me off the schedule, which was against company policy ( I learnt this later from the district manager).  About a week after the incident,  I  showed up to work and they told me I wasn’t scheduled to work that night, thinking I must’ve wrote my schedule down wrong, I went home. I went to work a few days later when the schedule was done for the following week to check it,  I wasn’t listed on it. When I asked, that is when someone finally told me that I no longer worked there! Being young and stupid, I was indignant, but it never occurred to me to take action. I figured it was a stupid, boring job anyhow. Besides, I had just graduated, I had a part-time graphic design job and my future ahead of me. I do sometimes wonder what happened to that manager. I hope, wherever he is, that he has lots and lots of queers telling him what to do.

But back to PRIDE. I think, that if one is constantly exposed to the queer community, then maybe going to PRIDE doesn’t really seem that big of a deal. And I would understand if someone has all queer friends and is always at queer related events and clubs and whatnot, than going to PRIDE would seem almost superfluous.. of course your out and proud, you do it every fucking day! I don’t. I have a small group of friends and rarely do much in the way with the queer community other than participate in the Gallery X queer art show.

Going to PRIDE isn’t going to change the world, but its nice to know there’s more than that small group of queers out there. I recall at the first PRIDE feeling almost overwhelmed by how many people were there! I wasn’t alone there were others just like me… it was both a scary and exciting concept for me.  Scary because I would always hear about those negative experiences of being queer, and my own tied in with it. But exciting because, hey there’s a lot of fucking queers and supporters… more than one would think in such a small state. I think when I walk through those festival “gates,”—usually a tent with people passing out flyers— I feel that first feeling all over again. I think, no, I’m not alone.

Popin’

A few weeks back, I made a cd of the current songs that are in constant rotation on my itunes. The cd in question just happened to be playing in my car to and from PRIDE.. so my friend, Pop, mentioned how much he enjoyed it. I promised to make him a copy, which I did… but I thought I’d share with the world wide web…

I decided its called “Pop’s Pop” you can hear some samples on my lastfm playlist:

1. Empty Glasses (4-track version)- The Amps
2. Flower – Sonic Youth
3. Hi, Remember Me – My Brightest Diamond
4. French Navy – Camera Obscura
5. No Garage – Sonic Youth
6. Tight Black Rubber – Black Francis
7. Bruises – Chairlift
8. The Lovecats – Dylan in the Movies & Tanya Donelly
9. O, Shot – The Gay Blades
10. Fate To Fatal – The Breeders
11. Tell The World – The Vivian Girls
12. Dancing Choose – TV on the Radio
13. People Got A Lot of Nerve – Neko Case
14. Le Flying Saucer Hat – Chairlift
15. Pay No Mind – Sonic Youth
16. God Damn the Sun – Dresden Dolls
17. Friendboats – Mariee Sioux
18. Don’t Stop Believin’ – Marnie Stern

sounds like…

currently been a little obsessed with Neko Case who did an in studio interview/performance here. Its pretty sweet.

Art exhibits coming down, new ones going up, working the day job, writing, the PRIDE parade, dancing in the streets… its been quite the past two weeks!

I haven’t danced in months and after Sunday night’s after PRIDE party at Dark Lady, which was $4 by the way, I can’t believe its been months since I went out to shake my groove thing. The band that played, was pretty amazing and fun to listen and groove to. I wished I didn’t have to get up so early the next morning so i could’ve stayed and danced with my friends and strangers … it was bad enough I got home and to bed around 1am!

State of the Arts at URI is coming down and Art from the Streets is going up this week! I have a piece in the show:

PRIDE-ish

I guess I’m going to an 8th grade Catholic school graduation on the same day as PRIDE, ironic huh? I hope I don’t burst into flames, though I guess my cousin would have an interesting story to tell for the rest of his days… how his big dyke cousin burst into flames at his 8th grade graduation.

At least I can go to the parade, even though I’ve missed everything else PRIDE related… I’m heading over to the drag event at Gallery Q tomorrow evening before the show I’m in at URI. I guess I can enjoy a small part of PRIDE which feels more like “SHAME” this year.

Being who you are.

For the longest time I had lived a semi-sheltered life when it came to the gay community. I grew up in a Catholic family whose goals for a girl was finishing high school, maybe college, then marriage and start a family. I have two third cousins that family members speculate are both gay; there’s been no confirmation from either party. One is probably more obviously so than the other. She is stereotypically butch: flannel shirts, never seen her in a dress, short hair, can probably lift twice her body weight, she walks with a swagger. She also lives with a ‘friend.’ Yet I until I was older I never really thought “lesbian” when I seen her. I knew she was different, but I didn’t understand the whispers that she was a “dyke.” I understood her to be a like a grown up tomboy. I don’t envy her, she basically lives in the closet, back when she was a young woman that was most likely the way. Her ‘friend’ is always present for big family gatherings, but everyone refers to this woman as her ‘friend,’ not her ‘girlfriend.’ Its like a dirty secret.

When I was about ten, I seen my first John Waters movie, I believe it was “Pink Flamingos.” While I understood ‘Divine’ was a man dressed like a woman, what I didn’t understand is that some people don’t do this for entertainment, its just who they are. I managed to get to see this movie because my aunt, Lisa, would babysit myself and my uncle, Brian, (who is older than me by three years) while our parents went out on Saturday nights. The VCR was the best invention ever! We got to watch all those movies that our parents would never let us watch. Sometimes, Lisa would just put the movie on for us and leave the room, never really knowing what we were watching! Though for the John Waters movie, we all gathered in my grandparents’ living room to take in the event. We knew this one was special. And special it was.

I seen many movies over the years that I was probably too young to understand. Brian and I really enjoyed the ones that involved things like gore and nudity, the more the merrier! Though I never seen any more movies involving characters in drag or ones that were gay until I was in about tenth grade. That was the first time I saw “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I didn’t really know any one, at the time, that openly identified with the GLBTQ community. My friends mentioned that there were gay innuendoes and transvestites in the movie; I was half expecting a free-for-all-orgie with some guy dressed in drag. My friend Michelle popped the movie in the VCR one night while we were hanging out after I confessed to never have seen it. I eventually became as obsessed with it as my friends and learnt all the words to most of the songs. I never seen it performed live like some of my friends had. They would go every weekend to a local theater to see it performed. There were vague plans to go, but no one ever agreed to go with me. Instead I was part of a performance of “Time Warp” with some friends in twelfth grade for our school talent show. Some of the audience did the “Time Warp” right along with us. I wanted to be Magenta, I have the hair for it, but my friend Trisha owned a maid’s costume and I didn’t. I got to be one of the dancers. I dyed my hair with red Kool-aid for the performance.

I suppose the movie did have some impact on my life because by the time I was in my late 20′s and attended my first PRIDE the only thing that wasn’t culture shock was the drag queens. I had seen Tim Curry in heels and garters singing “sweet transvestite,” drag queens seemed completely normal. By then, I understood that identifying with the opposite sex isn’t always for entertainment purposes. However, seeing thousands of gays, lesbians and bisexuals made me realize it wasn’t just my small circle of friends! I had to force myself not to stare and not seem like a tourist, though I felt like I had entered another universe upon walking through the rainbow arches set up in Station Park in 2003. I recall feeling rather overwhelmed by it all. I also had a small fear of getting stabbed or shot; we were all so out in the open where everyone could clearly tell what a bunch of homos we were! That first time I went with my two best friends. We wandered around for about an hour, it was late and the only thing to see was all the people and the last performance of the night right before everyone lined up to see the parade. I had relaxed a bit by the time the parade had ended and was hoping that we’d go to a gay club after. But, my friends were seasoned in being bisexual, they had seen gays, been there, done that – this wasn’t anything new to them. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but I was disappointed especially since I had never been to one. I didn’t know where else to meet women! Online dating was a concept I had yet to consider.

My disappointment ended the following year when I got to go to my first gay club. A gay rodeo theme no less. My first time at a gay club and there I was walking around in a cowboy hat that was handed to me shortly after paying the cover charge, then I rode a mechanical bull. My best friends convinced me that if I got on it, I would surely land some phone numbers. I didn’t, getting thrown off a mechanical bull is probably the opposite of hot. It did provide a good laugh for my best friends. I didn’t dance with any women that evening, though I did have a damn good time. It has been pretty much the same with every PRIDE. I go, watch the parade, dance, hang with my friends and am ignored by most of the women. I don’t understand why there isn’t one female who might want to dance with me. They walk by, or stand around looking too cool too smile and dance with the girl dancing to the lip-syncing drag queens on stage. I sometimes think I’m going to be like the Billy Idol song, ‘Dancing with myself’ until the day I die. At least I can say I had a good time all by myself. It’d be nice to meet someone who isn’t too drunk to recall who they danced with, has some brains, a sense of humor and a goal in life – this may be asking too much for people one meets at a nightclub. However, I’d like to not spend another PRIDE dancing with drunk gay men who lost their friends at the club because it was so crowed.. they aren’t going to ask me to dinner tomorrow night.