Chicago Pride Parade!

Okay, so on Sunday I went to my first every Pride Parade, baby!!! :trippyrainbow:

And it also happened to be my first trip to Chicago, as well. :veryhappy

: And wow, I had never seen so many gay guys, lesbians, and rainbows in one place before. O___O When I stepped off the bus, I felt like I had died and gone to a gay Heaven or something. lol Heck, even the name of the gayborhood in which the parade took place sounded gay (Boystown).

This was one of the more creative floats that I saw.

It's the King of the Fairies! And the girl in the back wearing the leather is rather cute. 😉

I got to see so many colorful and creative parade floats. Among the things I witnessed were drag queens, men in purple body paint, people with rainbow balloons tied to their backs, shirtless men and topless women, gay cowboys and lesbian cops, the dykes on bikes, a man on stilts, a gay gladiator, some women dressed as the Na'vi from the movie "Avatar"...gay people of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It was like a strange cross between the circus and Mardi Gras. Sure it was over the top and all, but LGBT folks have been oppressed for so long that we deserve big celebrations like this. And the pride parade gave me something even better than just eye candy...it gave me this sense of community, belonging, and normalcy. For once, I could wear something rainbow and no one would think twice about it or wonder what it meant. Instead of being the exception, I was just a drop in the bucket and that meant a lot to me.
I mean, it's one thing to hear about large groups of gay people living in one city, but it's another thing to see it and experience it for yourself. When I was there, it really affirmed the fact that though gays may be a minority, we are still an extremely large and diverse community. And that's a huge thing for me. :bubbleheart:

An old Queen and her Silver Surfers! <3

I wish I was a gladiator.

Okay, on to the bad parts of the trip. Well, for one thing, we had absolutely NO air conditioning during the 7 hour bus ride to and from Chicago. We opened up the windows on the roof, but it had hardly cooled us off. Needless to say, we were very miserable on the bus and it was the worst vehicle I've ever been on in my life. The only other time I've been on a charter bus was back in 2004 when I went to Washington D.C. for a school trip. Now that ride was actually a pretty pleasant experience. Oh, and it wasn't just the a/c that was busted...that entire bus was falling apart! O__O Seriously, we had a broken CD and DVD player and a broken driver's sideview mirror. Not only that, the entire bus smelled like shit due to the combined mixture of heat...and the bathroom. :doh:

And because of the heat, my hair was an absolute curly, frizzy mess when I stepped off the bus, so I had to look like crap in front of 400,000 people. LOL

But hawt dancing girls make everything better...let's just hope they're genuinely gay and not just straight allies. lol

OH, and we thought the bus driver was going to fix the a/c while we were at the parade, but nooooo...at the end of the day, we found out that he didn't do shit. -.- So our ride back home was delayed as we had to wait outside for him to attempt to fix the a/c belt. And when we got back on the bus, the fucking thing wouldn't even start!!! :Grrr:

I seriously thought I would be stranded in Chicago. It's a miracle we even made it back home in one piece.

So much more badass than you.

I was also very disappointed that I didn't get a good view of the parade. 🙁 I was with some friends from my LGBT youth group and as we were walking along the sidewalks trying to find the start of the parade route, the start of the parade frickin' walked right past us in the opposite direction!!!! 😵 And they just kept going...I didn't get any good pics of the beginning of the parade, not even of my beloved Chely Wright, who was this year's grand marshal. 🙁 But we eventually stopped and I got a few decent pics of some of the floats. But since I'm on the short side, I had to stand on my tiptoes and tilt the camera down most of the time. xD And I got even more pics after we ate some lunch in this tiny little diner. Buuuuut the real thing that disappointed me was that two of the gay guys in my group wanted to roam the sidewalks instead of watching the parade. Apparently they got bored with it. They were gonna leave me there to watch the parade and just have me call them when I wanted to find them, but I wasn't gonna take that risk of getting lost and split up from them...so I hesitantly went along with them and killed my flat feet in the process. >___< God, I sometimes hate working with a group...The main reason I came on the trip was to watch the parade and I didn't even get to see all two and a half hours of it. I later found out that the adults that came on the trip were able to get a front row seat and saw every single entry of the parade. 😱 It's not fair, I tell you.

I should've run away with the gayvatars...

And the litter that cluttered the streets and sidewalks after the parade was over was absolutely insane! O__O It was a sea of empty beer cans and bottles, chip bags, food wrappers, and various items that were thrown from the floats (like condoms, skittles, and beads). I wouldn't have minded the trash as much if I didn't have to wade in it as I was trying hard to catch up with the people in my group and weave in and out of the sea of drunken gays. The main problem was that there weren't nearly enough trash bins for the crowd to throw their garbage in. Other cities like Louisville are rather anal about litter during their Pride Parades, but apparently not in Chicago. That was just pathetic...and it gives us gays a bad name, too. We can't just demand equal rights while trashing the city and rudely bumping anybody that stands in our way as we rush to get more booze in our systems. So yeah, I was pretty disappointed at that. But the good thing was that the litter was cleaned up rather quickly and only lingered the streets for about 40 minutes.

Yes, crazy-drunken-gays-on-the-fire-escape...this was all your fault. ;__;

Haha, I know it seems like there were more bad things that happened on this trip than good, but seeing the parade and the wide range of LGBT folks that exist in one city was completely worth all the other crap. It's just too bad that I was too hot and tired that I barely noticed or cared if there were any good-looking girls around me. xD And I looked like a hot, sweaty, frizzy mess so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. lol

Oh, look! It's Brian Kinney. And he's with a cute lesbian! 8D

OH, and I forgot to mention other funny little things that happened to me at the Pride Parade. Well, for one thing this man that looked strangely like a dirty hippy came up to one of the lesbian friends I was with and asked her for some weed, stating that it's his "medicine". xD LOL!!! When we waved him off, he just went on to the group of people next to us. But yeah, I'm not used to getting approached like that everyday. 😵
And there was this one part of the trip where we were sitting on a parking median to rest our aching feet and three shirtless gay guys came up to us, asking for joints. But no, the funny thing is that one of them said to us, "You're all wearing rainbow shirts, you're all homosexuals, so you all gotta have some weed on you!" :roflmao:

One of the guys in my group just told him no, but he was randomly given a free beer from the dude anyway. 😛 And I'm also pretty sure that I was mooned by some drunken girl in the bushes near the median we were sitting on. 0.o Guess she was...using the bathroom. Craziness...

I'm not an ass, but I most definitely saw one that day...

And I will conclude this blog entry with a video that showcases all the colorful and creative floats and marchers of the 41st annual Chicago Pride Parade. Happy Pride! :redheart:

Chicago Pride Parade!

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