Is it Christmas, or just Gay Pride?

Like a second Christmas, gay pride week in San Francisco has come and gone. Everyone can put away their pride beads, short shots, and black boots for another year.

Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

The blessed day itself dawned unexpectedly sunny and still, despite the previous day's weather forecast of a chilly wind and clouds. I'd spent the evening before with Brett, and he still hadn't decided whether he wanted to make the trek back into the city the following morning for the Parade. But when I called him early on Sunday, he told me he'd decided to come. This would be the first time at the parade for him in about three years, the first time for me in five or six years!

Leather boys sponsored by Absolut Vodka

If you're wondering why I haven't been in so long, it's a combination of a few things; I'm not keen on large crowds, I get easily tired (and watching a parade for hours is EXHAUSTING), and, well, I guess I don't feel that I particularly identify any more with some aspects of gay culture. I mean, I used to do all that stuff, years back. I marched in the first five parades in Philadelphia, when that event started up again in the late eighties. I had my days of wearing an earing, and shaving my hair, and wearing Act-Up tshirts.

The more gay-friendly (and skinnier) Keith of the late eighties, along with my then boyfriend.

But now - and here I'm speaking strictly for myself - I don't feel any need to make a big deal about being gay. Of course, I live in San Francisco, and I've been out of the closet for fourteen years. For many others, things are much different. I mean, I've never had a single problem with being out at work, for example. I was, in fact gay-bashed once, years ago, in Philly. Apart from that, being gay has just become a small part of my identity, and a large part of my sex-drive. This is certainly not the case in most of this country, and for most gay men, although things are slowly changing, I think, even outside of the rarified lavender air of San Francisco.

I hate to say that this guy is really hot, because he goes to my gym, and he's so full of himself. Don't want him to read this and get any fuller. But cute, he is.

Anyway, I decided to go this year mainly only because my apartment is now only four blocks from the start of the parade route, and since Brett, Hunter and Jimmy were going, I thought that maybe I'd enjoy it this time. And I thought I'd enjoy showing off whatever body I've built up over the last few years. There is an undeniable thrill to the idea of walking down the street wearing jeans and no shirt.

But. The darn San Francisco weather! The first hour or so was fine. We met up with Hunter, Jimmy and Donna, and watched the parade stream very slowly past. There were the usual big cheers for PFLAG and gay police and firemen. But even under the sun, there was an ominous cool breeze. As we advanced along the parade route, great gusts of wind began to funnel down Market Street, bringing with them stray wisps of fog. I was just wearing a tank top, and pretty soon I began to feel positively ill with a combination of fatigue and bone-chill.

By the time we reached the crowded festival area, with its swirl of exotic gay finery appearing in between gaps in the rank smoke coming from commercial barbecue grills, I felt enormously hungry. We got separated from Hunter and Jimmy, so I grabbed the nearest hot dog I could find and wolfed it down. And that was about all the gay pride I could take. Chilled, Brett and I fought our way through the crowd down to the Bart station, and set off to our separate destinations; Brett returning to Berkeley, me to my apartment and a good nap.

Donna, Hunter, me and Brett. Jimmy took the photo.

But soft; gay pride had one last card to play - the closing night of the film festival. Of course, I could have played cards all night if I'd also wanted to go to Pleasuredome, the late night club on Sundays which was having a special night for gay pride. But the final movie of the film-festival, followed by the closing party, was enough for me. Neither were much to write home about. The movie is a big Hollywood affair that will be released in August, called "All Over the Guy". To give the movie credit, it's one of a very few Hollywood gay movies to offer a relatively sane view of gay life, and to not shy away from physical intimacy between men. And one of these men is the gorgeous Richard Ruccolo, one of my very favorite men. He has that square-cut boy-next-door look, with a mysterious undercurrent of complexity and vulnerability.

But the movie itself had a pale and anaemic story, especially if you've seen, like I had, a week of low-budget movies with real stories to tell. Some of the characterizations were cartoon figures, not real people, and even the two likeable protagonists seemed to have had their personalities constructed by committee.

So the party afterwards was the last event of gay pride for me this year. The guy from the movie, Richard Ruccolo, was there, and he walked right past me, eyes directed to the floor, unfortunately. Apart from that, and the presence of my friends Jaxon and Cecilia, there was not much reason to linger. So we didn't.