There were oodles of people! Millions of them! Well, actually, probably several thousand.
It started out loudly with the Dykes on Bykes. Or is that Dikes on Bikes? Or perhaps some mix of the two. They were very loud. And they rode around forever. But heck, they seemed to be having fun and the crowd was into it, so more power to them. Here is about the only good photo I got of them:
Did I mention they were loud? They were. There were also guys riding with them, so it wasn't a total, complete and utter lesbian thing. After them came the gay marching band:
You'll be shocked to know that they played a Madonna song. They were actually not bad in both playing and marching. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence followed:
I have no idea what these people do and I'm afraid to ask, but they seem to be really into it - whatever it is.
This parade had about two dozen grand marshals. This is the only one whose name I recognized:
Excuse the bad picture, but that's Armistad Maupin of Tales of the City fame.
Following him and his many other co-marshals came the endless corporate juggernaut:
Proud Group Health folks...
Proud Microsoft folks - with truck...
Proud Verizon folks - with mini-float...
Proud Macy's folks; they had cool balloons...
Proud Amazon folks; they had semi-frightening box-people with them...
Proud Best Buy folks...
Proud Orbitz folks...
Proud Alaska folks and their friendly balloon.
And then I left. What I learned here today: you can't spell pride without PR. OK, it's nice that corporations are willing to sponsor their employees in the parade, but you know that it's not really about tolerance and whatnot; it's about image. Yeah, that's America, sure. But isn't the Pride more about happy gay people and not about corporate logos? Anyhow, that was this year's parade.
2 comments:
I missed the parade; thanks for the great pictures and narration! Only thing missing was a squirrel float. Maybe next year.
Every movement begins as a cause, becomes a business and ends as a racket.
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