Friday, June 25, 2010

Gay Pride Berlin - 2010

I ran across this post in my editor and realized that it had never been "published". Here you go... Snooker's take on Gay Pride in Berlin!

Have I said it here? I don't think so... I love Gay Pride Month.

In Berlin that means a month long celebration culminating in a street festival and then the CSD which is short for Christopher Street Day. The center of the city closes down for one of the world's largest Gay Pride Parades and I simply love it!

I love the goofy rainbow crap all over everything. I completely dig (gawd, can we still use words like that?) the bomp-bomp-bomp music, even better if I can feel it in my bones. Really, I just love the gays! Every single year is a wild and crazy adventure in who can be the wildest, craziest, raunchiest, maddest hatter around. Someone (dammned if I can remember who) said that it is a "ridiculous sweaty carnival of queertasticness". WOW! What a statement, and it is Sooo Frakking True!!

For me it is an affirmation of "my people". I wouldn't say "chosen family" since I didn't choose these people to be my family any more than I chose my blood relatives. What I guess I would like to say is that for better or for worse, these people have probably all had many of the same feelings I've had. That desire to question ?What is the definition of "normal sexuality"? has linked us in some strange way.

Sometimes it's good just to get together with "your people" and feel FAB-U-LOUS about yourselves. It's a wonderful feeling to know that we're all out there with a "We're here, We're Queer, Get Used to It" mentality.

Besides, I guess in the end I just like dancing my ass off!
And dance it off I did. Blogging Buddy Adam of "That Queer Expatriate" fame came up for the weekend to enjoy the non-stop party with me, and I hope I gave him some great pointers and as well as a good time.

He's covered the event very well in his blog post, including the part about camera envy even if he didn't get a good taste of vagina-envy. :)

Did you take copious amounts of pictures Snooker? OF COURSE I DID! Heck, I haven't even had TIME to look at the last half of the 500 or so... let alone edit them down. The way things are going, I won't get that done, either.

In the middle of the festivities I needed to go be a responsible adult and help Sweet No as she trained another set of scuba students. (I'm the official paparazzi. We give them a cool "this is what your training looked like DVD" when it is all over.) While that's all cool and good, what it meant was no alcohol for me during the parade. Hmmmm... this was certainly a different experience for me, let's just say.

After the diving I peeled off the neoprene (although something tells me I would have been OK showing up in it anyway) and took off to a ladies night CSD event.

How cool was that? Four dance floors, completely different music at each, probably 2,000 ladies there all for the purpose of havin' a great time, me and my buddies dancing into the wee hours of the mornin'. AHHHH PRICELESS!

All of this is overshadowed by one little, niggling thought in the back of my head, "Is this really something to be proud of?". My moment of indecision was helped along by a comment on one of my more "adult" images (at least of the ones I considered putting on Flickr). The commenter asks if I am proud of what is written on the Tshirt. Hmm... interesting query.

He's right, I'm not really PROUD of what is written on the Tshirt. Let's be frank... rarely are the antics of the wildest group seen at a Pride Parade something to be proud of. They are "in your face" with their sexuality, because that is what it is all about. Of course the cameras - mine included - are all pointing at the wildest examples of debauchery, it is our most basic instinct to be voyeurs. But for every wild and crazy person IN the parade, there were another 50 of the more "normal" variety along the sidelines.

Yeah, I've always been a big proponent of "Normal is a setting on my washing machine" thought process. But let's face it, if you have a full body tattoo, a HUGE nose ring and ear expanders I can get my thumb through, I bet that you're not working in an office 9 to 5. Which leads me to wonder what these people might be doing to help increase the GDP.

We’re here, we’re queer, and no one on the planet throws a better party than we do.

post signature

3 comments:

Jul said...

Looks like fun! And I think that t-shirt still represents something to be proud of. I'm proud to live in a society where people can wear stupid ass t-shirts like that if they want to.

I attended my first gay pride parade in 1996 in Vienna, and I've been to many since then, in several different countries. They are starting to feel as run-of-the-mill as Fourth of July fireworks. But, there are still no pride parades in the city where I grew up, and I shudder to think of what would happen to that guy wearing that t-shirt there.

The Honourable Husband said...

You bet I'm proud of the message on that damned shirt.

Vicariously, I'm proud that the wearer has found love. That's an achievement in itself, in any life.

I think it's great that he can state the obvious--that he, like everyone else, enjoys sex. Bully for him. What better thing to celebrate? If you don't enjoy sex, and think other's shouldn't either, what better thing to mock?

And if you quibble with the word "pride", go jam your head up your ass.

Remember, the word "pride", to those of us who for whatever reason don't conform to sexual norms, has a special meaning. It means THE OPPOSITE OF ASHAMED.

Everyone should be proud of who he or she is, no matter what. If you happen to be a bleach-blonde, ear-stretching, cross-dressing, blowjob-dispensing, poodle-owning, frottaging, eight-foot-tall nudist dominatrix, be proud of that, too. Be damn proud. May small-g god bless you, and amy the world kiss you on all four cheeks!

HB

P.S. Cool pix, Snooks.

Snooker said...

@ Julie... next CSD you and Scott should come up here!

@ Headbang... Frottaging? Do I want to know what that is?