no shows, no goes..

this has been a week of no shows and no goes. by that i mean, two very anticipated events of the week were busts. last saturday i was supposed to go to the prince concert. but he had a strained vocal chord, so he was a no show. i was certainly disappointed, but at least the show has been postponed and not cancelled. he played the next day, but then cancelled the rest of his shows because his drummer had a death in the family. so i'm scheduled to go to the aug 3rd show.

yesterday, i was supposed to go to barbara's bookstore at uic to get bill clinton to sign my book. i had a hot ticket which was in high demand as not too many people had one. it was hard enough to take time off work what with it being busy season and all, but my boss agreed so it was all good. billy was supposed to arrive at 1pm, and at first i just figured i'd go at around noon and stand in a long, long line. then i changed my mind and decided to go early in the morning at around 8am instead.. that way i could get a head start and be out of there shortly after 1pm and head back to work. well, that's where my naivete gets the better of me. when i got to the bookstore shortly after 8am, the line was already 4 blocks long. what was i thinking? people were camped the fuck out. i saw lawn chairs, sleeping bags, coolers, umbrellas to block the sun... it was a mess. and at that rate i'd be there all freakin' day... so i made an executive, albeit disappointing, decision to just leave and head back to work. if i didn't have a shit load of work to do with a friday deadline, i might have just said fuck it and stayed all day. but i couldn't. i would've pissed off the man royally had i done that.

and while meeting billy for 30 seconds for his john hancock may have been worth the wait, it just wasn't the right thing to do at the time.

but back to last weekend.. now, as you all know it was gay pride weekend. and fun was had by all. c and i attended the parade, cheered the paraders on and came home with plenty of promotional goodies and a few priceless photographs which didn't quite come out as well as i'd hope so i apologize in advance...



gay marriage at it's finest..



always a righteous cause..



pretty in pink..



is that belly for real??



always a crowd pleaser.. parents and families of gays and lesbians..



as much as i hate the cta, the little girl riding was too cute to pass on..



the classic booty shot.. at least one person does this every year..



and finally, a tittie shot of a blurry but true sticker on yours truly. (sorry for the blur.. you can blame c for that. it's an hrc sticker that says "dubya.. you're fired")

they called for not only rain but thunderstorms at about 3pm that day. just in time for the parade to be over. and it sure did look like it was going to rain.. but as we all know, god loves gay people, so the rain never came until much, much later in the wee hours of the night.

so our plan after the parade was to head over to cricket hill at montrose which is where most of the gay people of color converge to exhibit their pride, if only for a day. c and i lugged our picnic gear over there and proceeded to grill out, chow down and take in the sights and sounds of beautiful gay people everywhere. literally. days like that you wonder where they've all been hiding!

about two hours into the whole thing, we hear police sirens all over the place. we look to the west and see, i kid you not, 50 cop cars racing right through the park heading due east towards the lake at speeds i wouldn't recommend in a park setting. it was like a swat team took over the grounds. it was like a scene from cops or america's most wanted. c and i were curious as to what was going on, but as soon as we saw a few paddy wagons in tow, we decided it was best to pack up and leave.

we later found out from some folks that were close to the scene that there was a brawl involving a knife and blood. one of the bicycle cops was apparently involved and he got on the horn "calling all cars"... and before you knew it, all cars were on their way. i swear it was almost like they were just waiting around the corner for something to happen, cuz there's just no way all of them could come around all at once like that. that many black folks congregating by the lake (on the north side) is all the excuse they needed.

so we left, as did a herd of others, and came home to change clothes and head back out to the bars for some much needed alcohol (i was sober all day), dancing and fun.

and that folks, was my gay pride.

although i had fun, i'm thinking next year i may have to try celebrating in another city. any recommendations? atlanta? san francisco? nyc even? (ooh.. how brave of me).