Circle City IN Pride Wrap Up

Now that I am done being a sickie for the week (and forcing myself to run the steps of the War Memorial last night because I was a stressed out mess), I can finally do what I planned on having done already, the wrap up of Circle City IN Pride. I will be doing a separate post with (more) pictures.

Okay, let's see if I can do this without writing for 10 years.

Friday -

This was Mean Girls beast of burden day. I volunteered to help load up the trucks with everything we needed for the festival, and since Blanche ended up taking Friday off, he came along to help, too (even though he has the upper body strength of a chihuahua). This was some heavy lifting, which was a bit annoying because so few were actually there to help. We started out at Expo Design, which is a nationally known creator of parade floats and other special effect type construction, which just so happens to be owned by Scott VanKirk, who is also the president of the board of IndyPride. Amazing how that works, huh? We loaded up what we could there, and then we went to the other Expo Design storage unit, which was a giant, dirty barn, which actually had a watch pig (A pot bellied pig...I shit you not...I thought they were joking until I saw it myself). Anyway, the worst part about the entire exercise, outside of the "insulation" that we suspected was actually asbestos, was the fact that it was a torrential rain during most of this. Obviously, it was better that it rained on Friday instead of Saturday, but it didn't really help the mood any. After getting all the tents and other vendor stuff loaded, we went our separate ways to reconvene that night to setup, though the weather looked like it was going to prevent that.

At 5, it was raining again, but I made my way down to the festival site to help do what we can before the real storm hit. The weather broke long enough to get the liquor tent and 40 vendor tent tops put together (Maestro came over to help out with that), but there was supposedly another storm front coming in, so we opted to stop for the night, which meant we had to be back Saturday morning at 6am. Oy! This is where things start going downhill because I should have been a good boy and stayed in and went to bed, but I got talked into going out with the McDreamys (two hot doctors, a couple...I really kind of hate them...ok, envious :o) and their friends. I had a great time, and Greg's was pretty packed. However, going to bed at 1:30 and getting up at 4:45ish did not start the day down a path to success.

Saturday -

I roll out of bed and immediately start the coffee pot to brew. This was the next mistake. I pounded coffee after coffee. I took coffee with me. I had coffee at Olly's with my breakfast (they're open 24 hours on the weekends), and I took more coffee with me. I also had a Red Bull before the parade. Notice anything I'm omitting? You know, like good old fashioned water? Well, more on that later.

I arrive to the festival area where everyone is pretty damn grumpy and groggy, this may be because of the magnitude of what needs to be done and the very few volunteers to do it (or hang over...who knows). The biggest chore was getting tables and chairs to every booth in the venue, and there were over 100 of those. It was pretty much only me for the first hour, and I was already sweating like pot bellied watch pig (oh wait, pigs don't sweat..ah well), and it wasn't even all that warm and sunny yet (thank god, it was sunny all day!). I was doing my best to get as much work done as I could before I had to leave to get on my float. Around 8:45, I made my way to Maestro's new apartment to partake in the shower and to change into my scrub pants and red muscle shirt. I have a feeling the scrub pants look a whole lot better on C. McDreamy, but ah well, what can ya do.

I then made my way down the parade route to find my float, which was the St. Vincent Hospital/American Heart Association float. You have to wonder what the protestors would think of a catholic institution sponsoring a float in a parade with a 3 gay men and a giant drag queen on it. Things that make you go, hmmmm... The giant drag queen in question is on Sequoia Pentacost, who, if you recall, hosted the Gospel Brunch in April, and is one of the preminent Bag Ladies in the bunch. It was a great time. I had never been on a parade float, but I have to say it was pretty surreal, and good lord, people love their free shit. We were throwing out red beach balls and frisbees, and you would think their life depended on them getting that stuff.

Here is my view from the float still in the staging area (click to enbiggen):

And here is a picture of Sequoia and I (click to enbiggen):


The parade went off without incident (thank you, Parade Chair Maestro, Mom, Roqstar, and Joey), and there were a few protesters, which is always fun. The extremely funny thing is that there were protesters of the protesters, with signs that said "Obey the Bible; Sell Your Children!" I wish I had a picture of that for you!

Once we got off the float at the festival area, the rest of the day became a blur. I was beginning to feel more and more out of it, and by the time I changed into my other clothes clothes, I really wasn't feeling well at all. This is where the lack of water started to catch up with me, and I was supposed to begin doing bartending duty in the stuffy liquor tent. You can see where this is going. I started my shift, and I just couldn't make it through. So, I left the tent and went home to bed for two hours, losing my prime parking place in the process. Bah! After drinking about a gallon of water, sleeping, and changing into another outfit (that makes 4 for the day (5 if you count the one I changed into later)...I am a drag queen), I was ready to go back to the festival, and after vowing to just drink water, I started using my free drink tickets and well, a good old Pride Fest drunkenness ensued. I stayed around for headliner, Kristine W, and if I can borrow a term from Halle, she was ferosh! I'm pretty sanguine about the whole live music experience, because so often our favorite acts are more studio creation than actual vocal talent (which I really don't have a problem with), but Kristine W is a the REAL deal, and I was duly impressed. I'm intrigued to hear her jazz album that is coming out later on in the year. It's called Straight Up with a Twist (you have an album now, Timmy), and I'll definitely give it a listen. Plus, she kinda dresses like a drag queen, so what's not to love?

Okay, after all that, I did go eat dinner at Olly's, and I did end up going out later. However, I don't think there really was too much to report from that. And frankly, the highlights of Sunday were me with a hangover taking my father to lunch for Father's Day, going to the Metro Tea Dance, which was really just all the Pride Folks detoxing/intoxing to celebrate the end of a successful Pride, and then relaxing on Monday morning, until my bout of sickiness.

So, there, you are all caught up. I have to say I am extremely pleased with the first Circle City IN Pride that I have been an active participant in, and I am already seeing ways that it can be more effectively run next year. Frankly, the most important thing is to get all these people with memberships involved with the actual process, and of course, expanding the membership to include even a small fraction of the 35,000 people who attended the festival. It is no small task putting this week long event on. If they have to do ALL the work, no wonder the board is so burned out, and work they did, it was fantastic.