I Went To A Gay Pride Parade, And All I Got Was This Fabulous Rainbow Flag

As some of you may remember, Chuck bought me tickets for the Carolina Chocolate Drops concert at Duke University on Sept. 25.

I finagled my work schedule so that I could have both Saturday and Sunday off, so we could spend some time hanging out in Durham and Chapel Hill.

Saturday morning, we left quite early. We couldn't check into our hotel room till about 3pm, and we were wondering what the hell we were going to do for like 5 hours.

We pulled into Durham, and Chuck asked which freeway exit we should get off of (I'm always the navigator, 'cause I'm damn good at it). I said I didn't know, because I wasn't sure what we were going to do. We wanted to go looking at an old cemetery in the area, but we also wanted to get something to eat. Couldn't decide what the priority was.

So I picked an exit in the general Duke area, and we tooled on down the street. The traffic was heavy, and Chuck was getting agitated (he is the Road Rage King). We couldn't figure out what it was all about.

We were cruising slowly down the street behind a line of vehicles, and saw that there was some commotion going on up on the right. I could see a whole bunch of coloured flags flapping in the air.

'What the hell's going on over there?' asked Chuck.

My eyes lit up.

'Chuck! I bet there's a Gay Pride parade going on today!' I gleefully shouted.

Sure enough, we drove past people getting their floats ready for the parade. There were an assload of tents set up. Drag queens were tottering down the sidewalk in heels. Dogs were festooned with rainbow bandanas. Children were excitedly waving miniature flags.



I frantically started begging Chuck to park and let me watch the parade. I had always wanted to go to Gay Pride. Not only do I wholeheartedly support gay rights, but the parades always looked so fun when I've seen them on the news. A plus!

All the parades I've ever been to were boring (except the one St Paddy's Day parade I was actually participating in with my Gaelic Football team). Chuck saw the look on my face, and he was awesome enough to park the car and watch the parade with me.

The parade route was set up on a main street along Duke's East Campus. A long, low stone wall (hmm, stonewall...play on words not intended) skirted the avenue where people were already perched and waiting to watch the parade.

It wasn't going to start for awhile, so we walked up into the area with the tents set up, to look around.




"You know how you always say 'I feel like I'm in a movie'?" asked Chuck.

"Yes," I replied.

Chuck looked at me with wide eyes. "Well, I feel like I'm in a movie," he said.



Chuck was pretty hungry, so I bought him a couple of hot dogs from 'The Weenie Women' tent. Hilarious name, and we were supporting a fundraiser. How could I not buy from them?

Now that Chuck was full, I led him around so I could check out the tents. I bought myself a flag to wave during the parade.



We sat down under some shady oaks to escape the scorching sun, and to people watch for a little while:





"What if we end up on the news? What am I going to tell my friends?" asked Chuck.

"We're not going to end up on the news. There's thousands of people here, " I answered.

The wall was rapidly being occupied by the crowd, so I thought I'd better go claim my parade-watching spot. I sat with my feet dangling, laid my flag out over my legs and Chuck stood behind me just in case he had to move underneath the shade again.



I'm sure that Chuck's fantasized about being sandwiched between 20 hot lesbians, but I don't think it turned out quite how he imagined it.

They were hot...it was 98 degrees outside! (that's 37C to the rest of the world). But most of them looked as though they could crush his balls *cough*, I mean head in the crooks of their elbows if he tried to get fresh.

It was People Watching Paradise. At one point a car drove past, and a cheerful (and I believe, intoxicated) man leaned out the passenger window and yelled to a pet walker, 'I love your gay dog!'

The parade was about to commence. The Durham police were present to signal the start of the parade, they led the way with sirens blipping.




Notice? A cameraman from News Channel 14 set up right in front of us on the sidewalk. We had picked a great spot.



I love this chick's sign about the 'Gay Agenda'















It was about this time that the news cameraman turned his camera towards the parade watchers.

Get a load of this photo that I took. Look who's face is reflected in the camera lens.



In case you're going 'Who's face?', that's me. I had to lift my camera up above the heads of the people in front of me to snap decent pictures, and I could only vaguely see what I was aiming at on the screen in the back of my camera with my arm up in the air. So it's a crazy that I got that shot of my reflection in the camera. No doctoring, I promise I'm too stupid about computers to do that.

The cameraman turned back around to shoot the parade participants.

"Chuck! That dude was filming us!" I squealed.

"Oh man, we're gonna end up on the news, like I said," Chuck lamented.

"Nah! They just film all sorts of stuff to make sure they have enough footage for the story. We're not gonna be on the news," I reassured him.

Why would we end up on the news when there were more interesting things to film? Like these people.














After the parade went by, we crossed the street to walk down to where our car was parked. By the time we got to the other end, the parade was coming back. So we watched it twice, really. And a good thing too, because I got pics of stuff I missed the first time.

Like these chicks with their boobs out. A boob is not a naked boob if your nipples are covered with strips of red tape. Everyone knows that.



And these guys in cow-print hotpants. I'm almost afraid to check out what eatmorebuff.com is! But strangely compelled...



This older guy really struck me. I saw him walking through the crowd earlier when we milling about. With all the strutting drag queens and lesbians roaring by on bikes...why would this one man catch my attention?



Well...this is what I said to Chuck when I'd seen him earlier.

"There is no way in a million years I will ever be confident enough about who I am, as that guy is about himself.'

I bet that he's been through a lot in his lifetime. A lot can change in 30 or 40 years. He may have been afraid for his life a few times back in the day, maybe even hiding who he was. Now he's marching down the street in a pink paper hat, proudly waving his flag.

Protestors did show up, by the way. I didn't get any pictures of them. Wouldn't waste my memory card space. And there were so few of them that I laughed at how silly and out of place they looked standing on their little streetcorner, not even in parade range. Score one for humanity.


Here are some of the final pictures I took.



These ladies were smart and wore flats. There were a lot of limping drag queens by the end of the parade...












This is one of the last shots I took, and one of my favourites. Chuck thought the girl wearing the 'Peace, Love and Crabs' t-shirt was hot.



I just think it's a great pic, with a great message. The message on the sign, I mean, not the thing about the crabs.

I'm so glad that chance brought me to this event. I'm so glad Chuck was comfortable enough with his sexuality that he agreed to stop and let me participate. It was one of the coolest experiences that I've ever had. Even if Chuck did stick to me like white on rice...or a straight guy in a crowd of gay guys. ;)


There was so much energy in the crowd. So much joy. It was a true celebration.


It made my heart happy.


After the parade was over, Chuck and I went back to our hotel to take a shower and change into our concert-going attire. Chuck turned it to News Channel 14 to see if the Gay Pride coverage was airing yet.

The story came on...and Chuck and I were in the second shot!!



I jumped around the hotel room screaming 'I'm on the news! I'm on the news!' The cameraman had even filmed my feet against the rainbow flag I had across my lap...I was happy that I had worn my blingy pink sequined flip-flops and that my toenails were painted. I didn't even care about how chunky I look on tv.

I can't embed the news video, but here's the link.

My feet are in the shot 0:08 seconds in. All of me is in the shot at 0:26 seconds in. Chuck's standing behind me with the Kinston Indians t-shirt on.

What a crazy, AWESOME day.

How was the concert you ask?

In a word, fantastic. But I think a full review will have to wait till the next post...