Gay Pride: 1970 to 2010

The Stonewall Riots took place on the night of June 27/28, 1969, and subsequent evenings.  The first parade commemorating the event was held in New York on June 28, 1970.  Hence, this year's festivities are the 40th occurrence of public celebrations of Gay Pride.

Your Head Trucker hates to admit it, but he has never once attended any Pride parade or event.  I've always been stuck in some homophobic corner of the Deep South where such things just didn't happen.

And truth to tell, from all the pictures I've seen of such things - not being the party boy type, not at all - it looks like something that might be fun to watch once.  Just to say I'd been there.  Like a visit to your fifth cousin's place back in Oldfuckfield, Mississippi.

Because fellas, and I've never told anyone this, it's always been something of a disappointment to your Head Trucker that we collectively have no stirring anthem (like "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"), no splendid historical events (like the March on Washington, 1963) to reflect on, no noble leaders (like Dr. King) to inspire and direct our cause.  No grand monuments or lovely statues to remind us of a highminded past.

No, what we have are a few photos of angry kids and drag queens screaming at cops and being hauled off to jail in the middle of the night.  Grainy videos of a few unremarked protestors and some crowds of long-haired youths shouting their way down the streets in a so-what city. 

No, what we have are way too many memories of a dark, crowded barroom, anywhere, with grungy floors and ear-splitting music.  And in the dark, the half-forgotten ache of selfish desires and little intrigues and petty jealousies and the difference between love and what you settle for at 2 a.m.

No, what we have - is it still shown, anywhere? - is the AIDS quilt, which is truly monumental and truly, deeply moving.  But when all is said and done, much more of a heartbreak than an inspiration.

No, all we have is the small, modest memory of the weak standing up to the strong, the few against the many, the despised against the righteous.  And that is our nobility, and our pride.  It is enough; it has to be.

But even though this is not the kind of outfit I would have chosen to join up with, if I had any choice - it's mine, all the good and the bad of it, and it's yours too.  Things are what they are, we have to make the best of them.

And in this little eggshell of space and time we are given - we have to make our lives as true and good and beautiful as possible:  the trinity of supreme values, said the ancient Greeks.  I think we gay people are particularly suited to live out those values, in some ways much more so than our heterosexual neighbors whose minds and hearts are fenced off with barb wire from some very important aspects of life - and utterly deluded about others.

Talking with the ex-roommate a while back, we both agreed that the one commonality all gay men seem to share is a fundamental love of beauty:  creating it, discovering it, expressing it, some way or other.

In spite of all the hate and oppression, while we can let us celebrate what we are.  For of course, we exist only at the sufferance of the enormously larger heterosexual world:  the huge 95 or 97 percent.  The tide is running in our favor now - but having lived a good part of my life near the seashore, I well know that though the tide comes in sometimes, it also goes out.  No current is unchangeable, fellas - remember that.

But we're here now, we're queer now, let's rejoice now.  I don't feel like writing a more profound essay than this jumble of thoughts, forgive me; but here's a couple things to mark this 40th anniversary of Pride.

First, Bryan Safi with a comic take on where we've been and where we are:



Second, a look back at the origins of Pride with people who were there:



Finally, to show how far we have not come, lest anyone be deluded - here's the contrast, the cold, hard difference between most of us and the vast, vast majority of the 97 percent:  here is, all their crocodile-tear protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, what they celebrate and adore and idolize, what they build monuments to, what they glorify with every tribute and sanctify with every prayer, what they will always choose - given a choice, men and women alike - over and instead of us:  from the Rolling Stone interview that just caused an earthquake in Washington:

'How'd I get screwed into going to this dinner?" demands Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It's a Thursday night in mid-April, and the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Hôtel Westminster in Paris. He's in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies – to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany's president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him.

"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his chief of staff, Col. Charlie Flynn.

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.

"Hey, Charlie," he asks, "does this come with the position?"

McChrystal gives him the middle finger. . . .

McChrystal takes a final look around the suite. At 55, he is gaunt and lean, not unlike an older version of Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn. His slate-blue eyes have the unsettling ability to drill down when they lock on you. If you've fucked up or disappointed him, they can destroy your soul without the need for him to raise his voice.

"I'd rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner," McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.

"Unfortunately," he adds, "no one in this room could do it."

With that, he's out the door.

"Who's he going to dinner with?" I ask one of his aides.

"Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It's fucking gay."