![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Taste the Rainbow
Jun. 28th, 2009 08:38 pmYou know you're at the Chicago Pride Parade when a guy from the group lined up behind yours asks you to spray sunscreen on his ass. (He was wearing chaps and a thong. And wings)
We had about 10-12 people marching for I-Go. We had special shirts that read either "I-Go for Guys!" or "I-Go for Girls!". The weather was not nearly as hot as yesterday but we still chopped off the sleeves (I also chopped out my collar) and most of the boys knotted theirs behind them so they could shake their little tails. I knotted mine in front and used it to support the flag-banner I carried the whole route. I had my hair up in rainbow clips, and wore my rainbow beads as a headband, and a tiny rainbox flag tucked into the bandanna around my right ankle. A couple of the girls had rainbow feather boas, but as sticky as I was by the end I'm glad I didn't have one.
Other shirts I saw included "I'm not a Gaycist" and "I heart boys who heart boys". Dress for the marchers was unsurprisingly extreme, but I'm used to SF cons so I really wasn't startled by anything. We were apparently near the end of the parade, as we didn't even start moving until an hour after the parade stepped off.
It was long and hot and OMG the audience was mostly drunk and all shrieking for beads. We were behind the ComEd float (with a rather hot shirtless "lineman" in shorts, toolbelt and a hardhat) and since we had the PlugIn hybrid with us I really wished we could have rigged up a fake extension cord to plug into the back of their float. Maybe next year.... They had LOTS of beads, and our guys were picking them up from the street and tossing them into the crowd. I just danced a little with my flag, and hammed it up every time I had to struggle with a cross-wind.
Most of the rest of the route was a blur - although OMG so much Michael Jackson music - enough already! I liked the house that had a rainbow display in their front window - made entirely of marshmallow peeps! I did sort of shove one drunk woman out of the way with my flag, and after one bicyclist nearly ran down one of our dancers I got the one of the marshalls involved. I actually called over a cop on some Jesus-freak (no really - very freaky and Jesus patches and buttons and smelled a little and and) who wandered into the route trying to hand out literature - he got rid of her for us.
There was a small group of anti-gay hard-line Christian protesters near the end of the route - apparently it's their usual spot. But this year there was an even larger group of anti-anti-gay protesters who set up directly in front of them, with a huge banner that totally blocked their view of the street. There were old ladies with signs that read things like "God Loves Everyone!" and college age chicks beating on plastic buckets and singing into bullhorns so the protesters couldn't be heard and all sorts of people generally making an wildly cheerful nuisance of themselves. It was beautiful, and I thanked as many of them as I could for what they were doing. Long after we passed them and were packing up, apparently the protesters started to pack up too, and I could hear the chants of "Bigots Go Home!" from all the way over in Lincoln Park.
Gods my feet hurt, but it was a blast. I had to walk a bit further than I needed to because I hadn't actually checked where the busses were re-routed to because of the parade. oops. Note to self for next time.
We had about 10-12 people marching for I-Go. We had special shirts that read either "I-Go for Guys!" or "I-Go for Girls!". The weather was not nearly as hot as yesterday but we still chopped off the sleeves (I also chopped out my collar) and most of the boys knotted theirs behind them so they could shake their little tails. I knotted mine in front and used it to support the flag-banner I carried the whole route. I had my hair up in rainbow clips, and wore my rainbow beads as a headband, and a tiny rainbox flag tucked into the bandanna around my right ankle. A couple of the girls had rainbow feather boas, but as sticky as I was by the end I'm glad I didn't have one.
Other shirts I saw included "I'm not a Gaycist" and "I heart boys who heart boys". Dress for the marchers was unsurprisingly extreme, but I'm used to SF cons so I really wasn't startled by anything. We were apparently near the end of the parade, as we didn't even start moving until an hour after the parade stepped off.
It was long and hot and OMG the audience was mostly drunk and all shrieking for beads. We were behind the ComEd float (with a rather hot shirtless "lineman" in shorts, toolbelt and a hardhat) and since we had the PlugIn hybrid with us I really wished we could have rigged up a fake extension cord to plug into the back of their float. Maybe next year.... They had LOTS of beads, and our guys were picking them up from the street and tossing them into the crowd. I just danced a little with my flag, and hammed it up every time I had to struggle with a cross-wind.
Most of the rest of the route was a blur - although OMG so much Michael Jackson music - enough already! I liked the house that had a rainbow display in their front window - made entirely of marshmallow peeps! I did sort of shove one drunk woman out of the way with my flag, and after one bicyclist nearly ran down one of our dancers I got the one of the marshalls involved. I actually called over a cop on some Jesus-freak (no really - very freaky and Jesus patches and buttons and smelled a little and and) who wandered into the route trying to hand out literature - he got rid of her for us.
There was a small group of anti-gay hard-line Christian protesters near the end of the route - apparently it's their usual spot. But this year there was an even larger group of anti-anti-gay protesters who set up directly in front of them, with a huge banner that totally blocked their view of the street. There were old ladies with signs that read things like "God Loves Everyone!" and college age chicks beating on plastic buckets and singing into bullhorns so the protesters couldn't be heard and all sorts of people generally making an wildly cheerful nuisance of themselves. It was beautiful, and I thanked as many of them as I could for what they were doing. Long after we passed them and were packing up, apparently the protesters started to pack up too, and I could hear the chants of "Bigots Go Home!" from all the way over in Lincoln Park.
Gods my feet hurt, but it was a blast. I had to walk a bit further than I needed to because I hadn't actually checked where the busses were re-routed to because of the parade. oops. Note to self for next time.
