Happy Gay Pride

Here we are towards the end of June. This will mark the 39th anniversary of Gay Pride (if memory serves me correctly). Hard to believe it all began in 1969, when upon the news of Judy Garland's death, some drag queens stood up and fought back against the police in the Stonewall bar in NYC. They took their pride, rage, sorrow, courage and marched to show that they weren't going to take it anymore.

Today, most people celebrate pride by going to the nearest big city for the parade. Most cities will also have some local events, concerts, rallies or festivals to also celebrate. The parades I have seen all involve many politicians, dykes, drag queens, leather queens, muscle boys and twinks. The politicians are usually the ones wearing very boring clothing, while the rest are usually dressed with very little or next to nothing. There are usually condoms, lube packets, beads, bumper stickers and other pride/rainbow items thrown from the floats.

Here in the land of corn Land of Lincoln, we usually make our way to Chicago for the Pride events. The Chicago events are always on the last Sunday of June. I haven't been to a pride parade in a few years, they are usually the same each year. I think the typical parade in Chicago lasts about 12 mixed drinks 3 hours.

So this year, since I won't be in Chicago to celebrate, I am going to do a few posts this coming week about what Pride means to me. Since I am bad about blogging, some of those posts might end up being video or pictures. But all the same, they will be what all about what Pride means to me. Happy Pride!