Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm

I went to the Vancouver Gay Pride Parade on Sunday afternoon. It was a two-hour neck-craning boob and bum-baring bore.

The Pride Society has posted a photo gallery HERE.

This year the Society was out to enforce its trademarked use of the word “PRIDE” — what a brohaha that turned out to be.

Here comes the “I remember when” part of my entry. I do remember walking (on the sidewalk mind you) at the first gay parade in Vancouver 28 years ago. See, that’s how old I really am.

That parade, and subsequent ones, were political, subversive and for the time, perhaps even politically incorrect. It was a ragtag group of drag queens, leather boys, and activists all of whom were not afraid to demonstrate that being gay was not a choice and not just a lifestyle — it was just a state of being.

Even though I dreaded being caught by the BCTV camera-guy, those parades were full of camaraderie and friendship. The days when the word “gay” labeled everyone who walked along the parade route. Today, you have to rattle off the “gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered blah blah blah” to be inclusive. There were no “corporate” participants let alone contingents of police, transit, airline and credit union employees.

Which brings me back to 2006. It was a two hour spectacle, well marshalled, and lively. There were drag queens (makeup running from the heat). The Knights of Malta, some of whom now use walkers, strode at the beginning of the parade. Jack Layton and Hedy Frey joined in. Joe Average was feted. There were the Dykes on Bikes — their naked, sagging boobs not raising even an eyebrow from the crowds lining the streets.

A few photos of Vancouver Pride Parade 2006

Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version of each photo.

As I watched, it dawned on me that this parade was too orderly. There were no surprises. There wasn’t an edge to the parade at all. It was glittery and fluffy but it was all too homogenized.

Those watching the parade were estimated to be as many as 250,000. I walked to Sunset Beach at the end of the parade among that throng of people.

At Sunset Beach, the Pride Festival now was a mini-PNE. The food vendors including the mini-donut truck were set out in the parking lot with long lines of customers at each stop. Vendors hawked hats, jewelry and information from rows of sun-shade tents covering a large part of the volleyball area.

I went to the Festival primarily to hear my friend Tara sing. I walked among all of the people at the Festival. I waited for half an hour to get a $3 bottle of water. I walked around some more.

Finally, Tara spotted me standing under a tree drinking my water. She came over and we talked. She had performed the week before at Homopolozza and was excited to perform on the outdoor stage today. We were “observational” and commented on the variety of people in the crowd. We laughed. She wasn’t performing until after 5 pm. I was too hot to wait until then.

I took the Aquabus home which runs from Sunset Beach to the Maritime Museum. I gave my single strand of beads I had caught during the parade to a little girl who was visiting from Calgary.

As I rode across the water, all I could think of was that there was not one person I knew in that entire crowd of people.

Not one person to talk to about the “old days”, not one old flame to smile at, not one person that I recognized. It was as if my entire cohort of friends had vanished. I felt like an outsider — one of the “old” guys who talk about how it was in the “good old days” but there was no one there to listen.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 1:37:10 AM and is filed under JOURNAL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.