Took me about a week, but I got my metric tonne of pictures from the Gay Pride Parade last weekend up on Flickr. The slideshow (make sure you mouseover the “notes” thing to see my notes):

The sun wasn’t out for about the first 2/3 of the parade, so some of the pictures are sadly flat, but overall I’m happy with how these turned out. Everything was taken with my 70-300mm lens, so I couldn’t get some wider shots, but some of the detail I got instead made it worth it.

I went to the L.A. Pride Parade in West Hollywood today and took a bajillion pictures, which it’ll probably take me a solid couple days to upload. I’ll be putting up a slideshow when I’m done. In the meantime, please enjoy this preview of things to come:

Sarcasm briefly aside, it was really nice to see the huge turnout (estimated by the cops at 12k, but really, looking at this picture, I think it’s a lot closer to their original estimate of 40k) at the big pro-gay-rights rally today, and some of the speakers were really great.

The head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference pledging to fight for equal rights, the LA City Attorney announcing he’s joining the suit to get Prop. 8 overturned, and mayor Antonio “Look, Cameras!” Villaraigosa giving a great speech in both English and Spanish.

It was kind amusing to see the collection of gay-friendly celebrities the rally folks elected to trot out: Ricki Lake and Marisa Janet Winkour, the past and current Tracy Turnblads; as well as Lucy Lawless. Let me tell you, there were some excited lesbians about the latter.

The march, which was basically up Spring street about 3/4 of a mile and then back up Main the other direction, was pretty nice, with some fun repetitive chants, but with the temperature in downtown spiking above 90, it was pretty exhausting.

But really, when the gays protest anything, the signs are always the most fun aspect. Some of my personal favorites:

• Spandex is a privelige, Marriage is a right!
• Jesus said LOVE, bitches!
• I assume the gay chickens will remain caged. [reference to the passage of Prop. 2, protecting the rights of chickens, at the same time as Prop. 8 stripped gays of their rights]
• Every 10th Jesus is a Mary
• Not all of us can marry Liza Minelli!
• If you want to put a stop to gay sex, why not let us get married?

Also, go Wanda Sykes. Given the comments she makes to the guy with the podcast linked on that blog, I think she’s going to be a little surprised by the fuss her officially coming out kicks up. But I’m very proud of her and everyone else who’s been shaken out of their complacency by this stupid measure passing.

The overwhelming feeling I came away with from today was optimism. This won’t stand. Not for long. And that fact is incredibly heartening.

I am (surprise!) really exhausted and overworked, but I wanted to say something more about Prop. 8 and the ongoing legal and PR battle over gay marriage in California.

The thing that offends me the most, absolutely the most, about the reaction to legal challenges to the validity of Proposition 8, is the reaction I heard from one member of the “Protect Marriage” group.

She argued on the news that the voters have spoken, and that the gays should respect “the will of the people.”

I just wanted to reach through the screen and give this woman a long lecture about the Tyranny of the Majority. And the Federalist papers. And the desire so clearly expressed by the founders of this country to bequeath to the generations a system that prevented a simple majority from abusing its power against a minority.

I wish I were rational enough about this to give an eloquent argument like that.

But all I truly want to say to her, reaching through the screen, is fuck you. FUCK. YOU. if you think just because a majority of people wish to strip me of my rights, I’m going to stop fighting for them. Fuck you if you think that’s what this country is about.

I’ll admit, I’ve never been sure that marriage is the most pressing right on the ever-vilified “Gay Agenda” for my people to hang their hat on at this very moment, particularly given that in many states you can still be fired or kicked out of housing for being gay, with absolutely no legal repercussions.

But to see a right, any right, stripped away is a nauseating, deeply angering feeling. To shake me out of my deeply ingrained aversion to and ambivalence towards politics that grew from 18 years of watching the same old shit get shoveled around in D.C., you really, truly have to piss me off.

And lady, you and your complete ignorance of the spirit of the American system have REALLY fucking pissed me off.

Update, Tuesday Noon: The LA Times has an article up on exactly the sort of folks like woman who made me so angry, although it does contain one truly awesome quote from somone who supports the No-On-8 protesters:

“To be honest, I don’t really understand the issue. If you’re a man and don’t believe in gay marriage, you shouldn’t marry a man.”

Right on.

The L.A. Times ran a brilliant editorial today, picking off one by one the arguments for Proposition 8, which seeks to amend the California state constitution to ban gay marriage.

However, they should probably consider turning off their context-based advertising on their editorials. Because with contextual advertising, you end up with screenshots like this (click to enlarge):

I’m not exactly crushed that the Yes on 8 dipshits aren’t getting their money’s worth here, but it does make the Times look a bit silly.

In my inbox this morning, on the morning of the first gay marriages in California, I found the following item from Chemistry.com, a spinoff of Match.com:

Yes, that’s right. Chemistry has decided that the best way to market themselves to their generally liberal and potentially queer audience is to nakedly commercialize one of the most important court rulings in decades.

I can’t even imagine that marketing meeting: “Now that gays can get married, there’s clearly going to be a stampede to meet soulmates through the magic of the internet. We should take advantage!”

They have located the most innocuous-looking lesbians in America for their story about how same-sex marriage will be a huge economic boon to California.

I am amused at how much their dog looks like an angry, surly old man, though. “Goddamn kids and their gay weddings. Now they’re going to spend their lives looking at flower arrangements instead of playing fetch…”

Also, I laughed out loud when I read this:

Susan Goldman, a wedding photographer, registered the domain name biggayweddings.com a month ago so she could market her services to same-sex couples.

…since I’ve referred to every same-sex wedding and/or commitment ceremony I’ve attended as a Big Gay Wedding.

I strolled out to the mailbox today to retrieve my Netflix movies, the better to facilitate keeping my broke ass at home.

I was expecting two movies, but when I opened up the mailbox, I saw three. Huh, I thought, they must have mailed me an extra copy of the Futurama movie, which I mailed back this morning.

Not so. I opened all three movies, found the two that I was expecting…and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

I had no desire to see it, so I’d never even put it in my queue. I thought maybe it was for one of my neighbors, but no, addressed to me, sent from the same shipping center as my other movies.

I mean, perhaps the fact that one of my other movies arriving today was lesbian cult hit The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love (we are not a people who are economical with our titles) might have tipped Netflix off to the fact that I’m a gay lesbian, and made them suggest this as a related movie.

Generally, however, suggestions of related movies are not mailed to you as an extra film, particularly when you have not actually requested them.

I suppose, since I really have nothing better to do, I might as well watch it, if only to see how bad it is: As bad as you’d think, not as bad as you’d think, or even worse than you’d think.

I’ll post here probably tomorrow with the results of this experiment.

Post title courtesy the greatest non sequitur ever to appear on Law & Order (fast forward to about 1:50 of that video for the hilarious part of the scene).

So the Writer’s Guild division of the Gay Mafia is putting together an LGBT picket, which sounds like ever so much fun.

I’ve decided I’m totally going over there, because I might actually be able to get hot/funny writer lesbians to go out with me.

You see, while in normal times, my weekly salary would not pay many an employed writer’s dry-cleaning bill, I now have the distinct advantage that I am still actually receiving a paycheck…for the next few weeks.

So I plan to take advantage of this advantage while I can, and hopefully draw to a close the dreadfully long period of singledom I’ve been suffering through for…longer than I care to try to calculate.

Striking single lesbians, your knight in shining armor* has arrived!

* – Note: Shining armor may be made of tin foil rather than actual armor as I’m really not making enough money to rent a suit of armor.

Moving brings out the big old butch lesbian in me. I mean, not that she had far to come, but for just two examples:

Spackle. I bought spackle. I love spackle. I love the word spackle. I love saying and typing the word spackle. Spackle spackle spackle.

I even love spackling all the holes I’ve placed in the wall, which there are WAY more of than I realized. I guess that’s what framing all your posters and hanging both your guitars and your TV on the wall will do.

Power tools. I get to use my drill to take everything down! With all the spackling I have to do, I now have a legit excuse to buy a power sander! A small one, but still! Power sanding!

It’s a good thing I already packed all my flannel away, or I’d really be a hideous stereotype. At this rate, the haircut I so desperately need will be a mullet.