…never having to be in the city for it. <\/p>\n

I loved Pride. I mean I love what it stands for (sans most corporate sponsorship) and I love how it’s a huge party and such, but as I grow older I’m getting pretty crotchety.<\/p>\n

I remember the exact moment Pride became a burden for me:<\/p>\n

When I use to do bar work at the Black Eagle I would get home around 6am during Pride week due to the sheer volume of clients, not because I was partying after hours (which I would have loved to do). One Pride Saturday morning I failed to notice the “Lesbian” stage that was set up yards from my apartment. At 6am I wasn’t very observant, I thought it was a beer garden. At 9am there came a roar of horridly bad, amplified Dyke poetry through my window. Menzies! Earth Mother! Blood! Rebirth! Yadda yadda all in a nasally voice that welcomed the dawn of a new sapphic day. The morning prayer was followed by accoustic guitar hooting, like Hee Haw had been overrun by Xena.<\/p>\n

I realized from that moment on that Pride serves not it’s immediate community, but a concept.<\/p>\n

Slowly, over the years, my rosey optimistic glasses slipped from my face and I started to see Pride in a harsher light. The thudding disco music from 9am to whenever; drunken straight “tourists” (sorry, AP! You can stay!) come to look at the “freaks” or open-minded thirds to spice up their lovelife; drunken gay “tourists” vomiting on my doorstep; friends and residents so wrapped up in getting laid by fresh meat they’re unable to hold a conversation with you due to their head scanning the crowd. And the crowds. The crowds trying to get past each other while a poorly laid out “drag stage” blocks the through-fare, forcing frottage fanatics to frollic freely. <\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, I support Pride. I’ve done my time volunteering and being on either side of the parade baracade. I value it’s contribution to our visibility. But as a resident of the Village (and in speaking to others who live there too, straight and gay), Pride is like an 800 pound drag queen gorrilla that sits in the corner, demanding bananas, poppers and a DJ.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s time to move the celebrations to another part of the city? Sharkboy once commented that Riverdale Park would be ideal. I’ve been to Vancouver’s pride and it ends up in a large park. Why do we have to stay in the Village?<\/p>\n

Regardless, I’m off camping. Be good, don’t puke in my doorstep and have a great Pride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…never having to be in the city for it. I loved Pride. I mean I love what it stands for (sans most corporate sponsorship) and I love how it’s a huge party and such, but as I grow older I’m getting pretty crotchety. I remember the exact moment Pride became a burden for me: When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9WjY-gN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deadrobot.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}