Pink Queers and Topless Dykes

As I wrote in my last blog post, Butch Jamie screened at the Frameline film festival at the Castro last weekend. It was the first time I saw BUTCH JAMIE listed on a theater marquee - a very cool thing to see.


I learned that they recently restored the marquee for Gus Van Sant's upcoming film Milk, where Sean Penn plays the 1970s openly gay mayor Harvey Milk. I'm looking forward to seeing it when it comes out later this year.


In addition to the film festival, it was also SF Pride last weekend. Saturday night was "Pink Saturday," a blocked-off street where you BYOB and mill about.




The best part was really the people-watching. After all, Pride is the new Halloween.








Also on Saturday was the dyke march.



Unlike the march in L.A., SF did have several topless women walking around.


One lady was carrying her breasts in her hands, claiming that the doctor told her they were 21 lbs each (not that I'm an expert on boob weight, but they didn't look that big. I tried to weigh my boobs a couple of months ago just for the hell of it on my small postage scale. It seemed that they were about 2 lbs each max, but I'm probably way off. They're hard to weigh since they're attached to your body).

And when the dyyyyykes...go marching iiiiiiin....

As I discussed in my last post, last weekend was L.A. Pride. To start the weekend off, I went to the Dyke March Friday night. I've only been to one Dyke March before, which was purely accidental. Back in 1998, my g-friend and I were walking through a pocket park in NYC when we happened to run into a group of lesbians. They said, "Are you here for the Dyke March?" "...What's the dyke march?" "It's a group of dykes who march." Right...


As you probably know, the Dyke March is just that - its purpose is to increase lesbian visibility (inclusive of bisexuals and transgendered people), build community, and all that other stuff. It's actually a nice opportunity to feel a part of the lesbian community, or at least to feel like there is one. I see so many gay men everywhere I go, one starts to wonder if this phenomenon called lesbianism really exists or if the joke's on me.

One of the cool things about the NYC march was they blocked off a huge street for us - 5th Avenue or something like that. To walk in the middle of a major street in NYC was an experience in and of itself. The other cool thing was that several women took their shirts off and there were a lot of bra-less boobs hanging out.

This year in L.A. was very similar, although there were no boobs to be seen. The closest I saw were these paper mache ones taped to the back of someone's wheelchair/cart.


During the march, the dykes on bikes lead the way.





The Pride Headquarters is located in West Hollywood across the street from the Pacific Design Center. I took a pretty picture of it so I'm going to include it here.




Saturday I went to the first annual Dyke Day L.A. It was held in a different location than the rest of Pride, at Barnsdall Art Park near Hollywood at the top of a hill.




The view was great, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, music was playing - it was a perfect afternoon. I chilled on the grass and watched some bands, dancers, comedians, and even a demonstration on how to use a device so that you can pee standing up (she looked like she was peeing into a bucket on stage; I'm not sure if it was really her pee or some sort of water contraption she devised, but either way I'm sorry I don't have a photo of it).




Sunday I went to the Pride festival. I'll post some photos from that in a couple of days.