1. After putting aside my reservations about the corporate dilution of Pride, I went downtown for the parade. How many times in a lifetime do you get to be surrounded by a vast majority of nonheterosexuals that number in the hundreds of thousands? The clear answer: not enough!
2. It was a perfect summer day. I got out of the train on Eighth Avenue and managed to make my way through a very intricate system of police barricades across to Fifth, where I met my friend Thoma, who had commandeered a good spot on 18th Street. I was wearing my vintage “Out of the Mainstream Into the Revolution” t-shirt (slogan not pictured).
3. When Governor Cuomo passed, the crowd erupted in a spontaneous chant: “Fix the subways and reform New York State electoral politics!”
4. It was fun to be part of a crowd (of gay people).
5. With marchers and the spectators from all over the world.
6. So many youth with their wings.
7. I set aside my anti-balloon position for the day.
8. Orange has always been a good parade color.
9. Chartreuse was also popular this year.
10. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being transported, even for a few hours, away from a society where so many of our actions are scrutinized and where so much of what we do — the kinds of things that our nonhomosexual peers take for granted — feels like such a battle.
11. The parade is an illusion, of course, but a necessary one.
