Chamblee54

The original plan was to just copy the JoeMyG-d pride rant, gussy it up in a tasteful rainbow font, add a few pictures, and call it a day. The pictures are here to stay, and a few quotes from the JMGPR may find their way here. The thing is, the rant was written in 2005, and this is seven and a half years later, and 800 miles south of New York. A lot can happen in that time, and somehow pride keeps changing.
As if PG would know. This was the first parade he saw since 2007, the first time he stood on the sidewalk since 1996, so someone doesn’t know what he is talking about. Not that it ever stops him. He even saw the end of the parade, where the street sweepers followed the last half naked gogoboi. Or was it he last pickup truck, dragging under the weight of a drag queen coven. There were some damn good trucks on Peachtree Street this afternoon.
Gay Pride quit being a protest about the time it dropped the first name. It is a party, a celebration, an ethnic holiday. It is an elderly congressman walking down Peachtree Street working the crowd. It is Coca Cola Delta Home Depot UPS marketing to a community. It is more freebies thrown from trucks than your pockets can hold. If you want to wring your hands about our image, then feel free to do so. As JMG put it:
“Because even if Pride doesn’t change many minds in the outside world, it’s our PARTY, darlings. It’s our Christmas, our New Year’s, our Carnival. It’s the one day of the year that all the crazy contingents of the gay world actually come face to face on the street and blow each other air kisses. And wish each other “Happy Pride!” Saying “Happy Pride!” is really just a shorter, easier way of saying “Congratulations on not being driven completely batshit insane! Way to go for not taking a rifle into a tower and taking out half the town! Well done, being YOURSELF!”
I’m not worried what the outside world thinks about the drag queens, the topless bulldaggers, (spell check suggestion: bulldozer) or the nearly naked leatherfolk. It’s OUR party, bitches. If you think that straight America would finally pull its homokinder to its star-spangled bosom once we put down that glitter gun, then you are seriously deluding yourself. Next year, if one of the Christian camera crews that show up to film our “debauched” celebrations happen to train their cameras on you, stop dancing. And start PRANCING….
A co-worker of mine heard me discussing my Pride plans last weekend and said, “I really don’t understand what it is you are proud about. I mean, you all say that you are born that way, so it’s not like you accomplished anything.” She wasn’t being mean, just genuinely curious, and I think that a lot of gay people probably feel the same way. On this subject, I can only speak for myself.
I’m proud because I’m a middle-aged gay man who has more dead friends than living ones and yet I’m not completely insane. I’ve lived through a personal Holocaust (here we go again) in which my friends and lovers have been mowed down as thoroughly and randomly as the S.S guards moved down the line of Jews. You, dead. You, to the factory. And you, you, you, and you, dead. I am inexplicably alive and I am proud that I keep the memories of my friends alive. I am proud of my people, the ACT-UPers, the Quilt makers, the Larry Kramers, the Harvey Fiersteins. I’m proud that I’m not constantly curled up into a ball on my bed, clutching photo albums and sobbing. And that happens sometimes, believe it.”
There is a gentleman who annually seems to have the best sign of the parade. There was another winner today, as the picture browsers might notice. The creator of these signs has a sharp tongue. PG has been on the business end of this verbal weapon, and does not appreciate the owner. Still, this went on in the late eighties, and the man is still going strong. It is always a happy moment to see a gay man from twenty years ago still alive.
When people want to make trouble in Georgia, they talk about racism. While no one is saying that everything is perfect, this year has a lot more people of color than have been seen before. Everyone seemed to be having a gay ole time together today. While the real world will be here monday, on this sunday people got along together.
A single person can find it tough to get downtown on pride sunday. This year, PG posted on facebook about this, and got an invitation to breakfast. This turned out to be a lovely affair. PG who had to good fortune to arrive after the battle over how to cook the eggs had subsided. The plan was to take the train to town, and meet others at the Fox Theater. At first, this was horrible. A radio station had a loud party in the Georgian Terrace hotel, which mercifully went quiet when the parade started.
There was a sense of wonder listening to Dykes on Bikes. It was so amazing to be there, to be a part of this spectacle, to have survived life this far. The rainbow colored goodies came down Peachtree as far as the eye could see. The marquee of the Fox advertised a production of “The Beauty and the Beast”, and the sidewalks looked like one massive audition.
There was a policeman whose job was to keep people on the sidewalks, so that the parade could go by. When it was over, PG thanked the man for his patience. “Its all I got”.