You've Gotta Have Pride
Wow!!! I can't believe that I have not posted in so long.... I apologize for my absence, there really isn't any excuse for it! The only thing I can say is that I've honestly been job hunting, but am having absolutely NO LUCK! :-( So, my days are filled with job searches, application submitting, eating through my emotions, and sleep! I'm not going to lie, I have become sort of depressed through this whole process.... I just need to find something and soon!
To further the conversation about this job search I'm currently on, I got a phone call last Tuesday afternoon from the Olathe School District. The woman asked me if I had been through a screening interview yet, to which I replied "no!" So she asked if I was available to come in on Wednesday at noon to have my screening interview! I agreed and we hung up the phone. Well, wouldn't you know it.... bright and early Wednesday morning...and I'm talking 8:00 early, the same woman from the day before calls and says that she has to cancel our interview because "something came up!" What the hell is that supposed to mean? That's literally all she says.... Then she continues on by saying that as she was looking through my application she discovered that my master's degree was in Adaptive Special Education and that they would be interviewing for those positions at a later date! She didn't say that I would be contacted to interview for one of those positions or when those interviews were going to be held; she just said they would be held at a later date!
So, needless to say I am completely confused on that whole situation and don't really know what I should do about it?! Do I risk seeming like a bitch-pest by calling and asking if I'm going to be considered for an interview "at a later date" or do I just wait around and hope that they will eventually call me back!? Why me?
Anyways, I guess I should start to talk about the reason I decided to write this post.... PRIDE!!
Now, as you may or may not know, June has been officially dubbed Gay Pride Month all across the world. That means that all everywhere in the world throughout the month of June, gays and lesbians across the world will convene at their respected pride festivals and celebrate being here and being queer!!! They do this in many different forms.... some where sequins, some men dress as women, some women dress as men, many wear beads, some where elaborate costumes with feathers and some wear pretty much nothing at all. I'm not sure if there is a mass memo sent out to all the gays in the world during PRIDE asking them to come as scantily clad as possible, but nevertheless it always happens, and most of the time I'm repulsed by what I see. It amazes me that the most disgusting people will walk around shirtless and in their underwear, but the most gorgeous people in attendance will be covered from head to toe! I don't get it, but I guess life isn't fair when it comes to gazing upon eye candy!
Anyways, this year I was fortunate enough to attend two PRIDE festivals; one here in Kansas City and one in St. Louis. This would make only my second year being a participant in the PRIDE festival ongoings in the area, so I kind of excited.
I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the proceedings of a PRIDE festival, but usually it involves a parade, a TON of vendors giving away novelties, people wearing little to no clothing (as previously stated), and performances on what is affectionately known as the "main stage." I have yet to attend a PRIDE festival that didn't have a "main stage" so I assume that they are a staple at all festivals. On these main stages they have a variety of performances, usually consisting of drag, music, choirs, and then each festival will have a "headliner" that will perform one night during the festival. Usually the headliners are some musician or musical group that have fallen from stardom, such as Kimberly Locke and Chely Wright who headlined at KC and St. Louis PRIDE.
If you noticed in the description of entertainment I listed drag as one of those, so you can guess where this story is leading.... DRAG!
We'll start with Kansas City first.... Tajma was asked to perform on the "main stage" as part of the Missouri Royalty since he is first runner-up to Miss Gay Missouri this year. Also performing with him would be Miss Gay Missouri 2011, Madison Elise, Miss Kansas City 2011, Sophia Sirrah, and Miss Gay City of Fountains 2011, L'Oreal. So, they were all asked to make an appearance, perform and do a "royal procession" in order to show off a gown and their respective crowns to the audience.
Now, getting into drag is a laborious process for most queens and on average can take anywhere from 1-2 hours. Tajma definitely takes ALL 2 hours in order to get into drag, so she since he was asked to report at 4:45 he needed to start getting ready around 2 and hit the road 4:30 in order to make it on time. So, he starts getting ready...and of course is running late! It's inevitable I've come to believe.
Now, me being the sweetheart that I am, I volunteered to drive him to the festival in order to perform..... So, we leave his apartment at 4:40, remember his report time is 4:45 and we still have a 10-15 minute drive to the venue! Now, the only thing worse than driving through Kansas City with a drag queen is driving through Kansas City with a LATE drag queen!!! When this happens, nothing is their fault and everything gets on their nerves and pisses them off. So, essentially the "heels come off" so to speak and the attitude is ever present! Luckily for him the entertainment on the main stage was running about 15 minutes behind, so I was able to deliver my raging queen to the venue on time, find time to park, walk to the venue and still didn't miss his performance! That is some definite skill!!
All in all the performances went well, crisis was averted and the queens looked REMARKABLE on stage.... They represented KC and Missouri very nicely!
Here is a picture of Tajma, L'Oreal, and Sophia (the Kansas City queens).
A couple of weeks after Kansas City PRIDE, Madison invited Tajma to St. Louis PRIDE to ride in the parade with her and to perform on their main stage as part of a drag review show that was going on in St. Louis. Again, Madison is Miss Gay Missouri 2011 and she is also the president of PRIDE St. Louis! She wears many hats and is a pretty big deal! Tajma was honored to be a part of their festival and festivities so on Friday, June 24th, he and I pile into my car, yes, I've been asked to chauffeur again, and head to St. Louis!
Kansas City and St. Louis are both cities in Missouri, however they happen to be on complete opposite sides of the state, that means that in order to get from one to the other you have to drive 4 HOURS!!! I'm used to making long trips, since I go home to Texas whenever possible, but there is nothing I hate more in this world than the drive from Kansas City to St. Louis! For some reason it is the most boring drive in this country to make. There is absolutely nothing between KC and STL besides cows, fields and Columbia!!! Columbia is right smack dab in the middle of these two places, so once you get to Columbia you are excited because it's civilization, but then you realize that you not only have two more hours of driving to do, but also that for some reason Columbia has and enforces this STUPID 60 mph speed limit while driving through. Then you find yourself pulled over with a cop at your window, a drag queen in the passenger seat, sequins dresses and wig heads laying all over the backseat, and trying to explain yourself and not have your car be searched and aired on an episode of COPS!
The only thing that makes this 4 hour drive longer is when the person on the drive with you is asleep for 3 1/2 of the 4 hours..... Then they wake up and ask you if you know where you're going when you actually get to St. Louis!!! I guess that's what I signed up for though.... Dammit!
Anyways, once we make it to St. Louis we go straight to the first bar, Grey Fox, so that Tajma can start the transformation process. On our way to the bar, I notice that the scenery has turned from nice city-ish style to very urban, desolate, graffiti covered walls, cop cars on every corner, two ambulances carrying bodies on stretchers and hookers walking around looking for some "work". I started to get scared.....
We get to the bar around 7:00 and the show doesn't start until 10:00, so I am stuck sitting around a dark bar, watching drag queens put on their make-up and starving completely to death because we haven't eaten since we hit the road from KC. I decide that I will venture out into the ghetto to find something to hold me over until we are done at the bar and can have some real food. Well, I was able to find a QuikTrip down the street, but it didn't look to be the safest place. I rushed inside, grabbed a chicken taquito, a drink and a bag of chips then ran back to my car. While I sat there in the parking lot chowing on my grub, at least 3 people walked by my car and stared at me through the window!!! I just knew that I was going to be shot, stabbed, or dragged from my car to be raped and pillaged for the money in my pocket and left for dead. Luckily that didn't happen, but when I returned to the bar the bartender asked me if I put all our valuable items out of sight in the car! WTF!? At this point I knew my car was going to be gone the next time I came outside!!!
Let's fast forward through the night and onto the next one now....
The next night we found ourselves driving through St. Louis and into Illinois for a show at Bubby's and Sissy's which is in the town of Alton! We were asked by Erica Leigh Foster, the hostess of the drag show that night to arrive early because they were having their monthly block party and it would be hectic trying to find a place to park. Once again, we arrive at 7:00 only to find out that the show doesn't start until 11:00, so I had to sit there for 4 hours and entertain myself! I was the only person in the bar for at least the first 1 1/2 hours. So what do I do? I belly up to the bar.... If I'm going to go through another night of drag I might need a drink or two!
This show was absolutely packed; both with entertainment and people. At Bubby's and Sissy's the "show bar" is upstairs, so you have to pay to enter the upstair section of the bar about 10-15 minutes prior to the show. I was lucky enough to already be upstairs, so there was no herding like cattle or paying for me! That is a benefit of hanging out with the drags. Anyways, so like I said the show bar is upstairs and the whole bar used to be an old house/apartment building. Well, the upstairs would be the apartment part because it's pretty small and I could see the bottom floor actually being a business, or maybe even a bigger apartment. Anyways, there are about 100-150 people upstairs for the show and there isn't nearly enough people. Of course I got the privilege of sitting next to one of three bachelorette parties! I loathe bachelorette parties at gay bars because the women always feel like they should be singled out for some reason, and they have to be loud, obnoxious, complain too much and are ALWAYS in the way. Nevertheless they come out in droves to see a drag show, so I tolerate them! But the group I sat by were stank! They never cheered, never tipped and were hardly drinking! BORING!!! They just sat there screaming "SHE'S GETTING MARRIED!" every time a queen walked out with a microphone! See, obnoxious!
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that there were so many people in this show bar that I got pinned up against a half wall, behind a table with a bachelorette party-goer practically in my lap! Yeah....awkward!
So, after the show had finished, Tajma de-dragged herself and we hit up the local McDonald's on our way back into the city. Again, we hadn't eaten since about 11:30 that morning and it was now about 2:30 a.m. I was starved and I swear to you that the fries we got from Alton McDonald's were sent from the Ronald McDonald GODS! They were simply amazing and I scarfed them down like they were going out of style! Thinking back on it, I'm a little embarrassed at how fast I devoured those fries, but girl, I was starved! By that point I could have ripped off a straight girl's arm and gnawed on that thing......raw!
The next day was the big parade day..... Kansas City PRIDE doesn't have a parade, but St. Louis does, and they claim it to be the 2nd largest parade in the city of St. Louis throughout the course of the year! That's an interesting fact, I thought! Now, I've never been to a GayPride Parade, so I wasn't really sure what to expect! I'm sure the normal clothes-less boys would be there, the man-ish looking lesbians and their dogs would be there, some gay parents with the gaybies would be there, and of course drag queens and trannies! I only knew of the latter two because Tajma had been asked to ride in the parade with Madison as 1st alternate to Miss Gay Missouri!
So, the morning started off with Michael and his friend Zane walking to a corner coffee shop for some breakfast.... It took them waaaaay longer than it was supposed to so you can guess what that means..... Tajma was late getting ready for her ride in the parade!! Shocker, right? Right!
Anyways, she gets herself put together hurriedly....so hurriedly that she has to finish putting on her face in the side mirror of a jeep when we get to the parade starting point! It was crazy.... but definitely a funny thing to watch. What made it even funnier was all the straight people standing on their front porches clinging to their children while drag queen descend on their neighborhood, and to top it all off some lucky family has one putting on her makeup in their mirror!!! Classic and Priceless!!!
Like I said before I had never been to a Gay Pride parade before, so I was really excited to see how things played out! Let's just say that I was amazed.... There were politicians, churches, marching bands, floats and even student groups marching in the parade! It was amazing to see everyone come together for a common purpose! I was moved to tears a couple of times by the people marching in the parade, most notably the PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) group and the Youth Group. There were over 400 youth marching with this youth group and it was simply remarkable to see and to witness the reaction from the people watching the parade! I was truly touched!
Alright, enough sappiness..... On with the proceedings!
Tajma and Madison were the Grand Marshalls of the parade, they rode in on a red BMW and threw beads to the people in attendance at the parade! Here's a pic or video:
All in all the parade lasted about 1 1/2 hours and was a really exciting thing to witness and sort of be a part of (through Tajma of course)!
After the parade finished Tajma, myself, our friend, Tabbi Katt, and her boyfriend, Kolten, walked around the park and mingled with all the people! I'm pretty sure we had to stop every 5 minutes or so for someone to take a picture of Tabbi and Tajma, or TT as I like to refer to them! It was cute.... I think, but Kolten and I were a little jealous that we weren't being asked to take any pictures and that no one was complimenting us on our outfits! Just plain rude! Since Kolten and I didn't get any attention that night I decided to include a picture the two of us took at one of the vendor booths at PRIDE!
I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did!
Anyways, Tajma stayed in drag that day, not because he wanted all that attention, but because he had to perform in the Drag Review Show that night! It happened on the main stage shortly after Miss Chely Wright of Wellsville, Kansas had performed her set for the audience! This drag review show consisted of about 15-20 performers from the Kansas City and St. Louis areas! Of course Tajma and Tabbi were both asked to perform and they did amazing! However, Tajma had some trouble with her music so she had to borrow someone's phone to plug into the DJ booth in order for her to perform!
This is Tajma performing Adele's hit "Rolling in the Deep"! I absolutely LOVE Adele, and it turns out so do many other gays.... especially the lesbians!!! The crowd went up when they heard the song playing from that person's phone through the DJ's speakers and the lesbians rushed the stage! Initially I was scared for Tajma, but luckily they had a guard rail up so that no one could actually get to the performers! One person was so excited about Tajma being on stage that they said...and I quote "Oh man, I have to watch this performer. That's Tajma, she's Miss America!!" Now, we won't tell the real Miss Gay America, Coti Collins, that but I thought it was funny and it made me giggle and smile a little bit! Give her a little bit person and Tajma will be Miss America!!
Well, I think that covers the events of the Pride Festivals that Tajma, Michael and I attended throughout the month of June! Now I thought I would take a little bit more of your time and fill you in on a little bit of Gay Pride History!
It was June 28, 1969, and Judy Garland had recently passed away, and gay people across the country were mourning her death. Please understand that this was a time when gay bars and other gay establishments were raided by police. As you can guess, the police decided to raid one such establishment in New York City this fateful night in June. The place was known as the Stonewall Inn. When the police raided the joint, the people inside were outraged and violence ensued. It is rumored that the first line of resistance from the gay community were rocks being thrown by drag queens and/or other transgendered individual. Following the initial attacks, riots broke out in New York City and lasted for a couple of days. These riots are now known as the Stonewall Riots and sparked the beginnings of the gay rights movement by members of the gay community. This is a battle that is still raging on today and hopefully one day peace among the gay community and its straight counterpart will be reached.
Until that day, all I really have to say is "You gotta have Pride!" Pride in whatever it is you believe in, pride in your sexuality, and most importantly PRIDE in yourself!
To further the conversation about this job search I'm currently on, I got a phone call last Tuesday afternoon from the Olathe School District. The woman asked me if I had been through a screening interview yet, to which I replied "no!" So she asked if I was available to come in on Wednesday at noon to have my screening interview! I agreed and we hung up the phone. Well, wouldn't you know it.... bright and early Wednesday morning...and I'm talking 8:00 early, the same woman from the day before calls and says that she has to cancel our interview because "something came up!" What the hell is that supposed to mean? That's literally all she says.... Then she continues on by saying that as she was looking through my application she discovered that my master's degree was in Adaptive Special Education and that they would be interviewing for those positions at a later date! She didn't say that I would be contacted to interview for one of those positions or when those interviews were going to be held; she just said they would be held at a later date!
So, needless to say I am completely confused on that whole situation and don't really know what I should do about it?! Do I risk seeming like a bitch-pest by calling and asking if I'm going to be considered for an interview "at a later date" or do I just wait around and hope that they will eventually call me back!? Why me?
Anyways, I guess I should start to talk about the reason I decided to write this post.... PRIDE!!
Now, as you may or may not know, June has been officially dubbed Gay Pride Month all across the world. That means that all everywhere in the world throughout the month of June, gays and lesbians across the world will convene at their respected pride festivals and celebrate being here and being queer!!! They do this in many different forms.... some where sequins, some men dress as women, some women dress as men, many wear beads, some where elaborate costumes with feathers and some wear pretty much nothing at all. I'm not sure if there is a mass memo sent out to all the gays in the world during PRIDE asking them to come as scantily clad as possible, but nevertheless it always happens, and most of the time I'm repulsed by what I see. It amazes me that the most disgusting people will walk around shirtless and in their underwear, but the most gorgeous people in attendance will be covered from head to toe! I don't get it, but I guess life isn't fair when it comes to gazing upon eye candy!
Anyways, this year I was fortunate enough to attend two PRIDE festivals; one here in Kansas City and one in St. Louis. This would make only my second year being a participant in the PRIDE festival ongoings in the area, so I kind of excited.
I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the proceedings of a PRIDE festival, but usually it involves a parade, a TON of vendors giving away novelties, people wearing little to no clothing (as previously stated), and performances on what is affectionately known as the "main stage." I have yet to attend a PRIDE festival that didn't have a "main stage" so I assume that they are a staple at all festivals. On these main stages they have a variety of performances, usually consisting of drag, music, choirs, and then each festival will have a "headliner" that will perform one night during the festival. Usually the headliners are some musician or musical group that have fallen from stardom, such as Kimberly Locke and Chely Wright who headlined at KC and St. Louis PRIDE.
If you noticed in the description of entertainment I listed drag as one of those, so you can guess where this story is leading.... DRAG!
We'll start with Kansas City first.... Tajma was asked to perform on the "main stage" as part of the Missouri Royalty since he is first runner-up to Miss Gay Missouri this year. Also performing with him would be Miss Gay Missouri 2011, Madison Elise, Miss Kansas City 2011, Sophia Sirrah, and Miss Gay City of Fountains 2011, L'Oreal. So, they were all asked to make an appearance, perform and do a "royal procession" in order to show off a gown and their respective crowns to the audience.
Now, getting into drag is a laborious process for most queens and on average can take anywhere from 1-2 hours. Tajma definitely takes ALL 2 hours in order to get into drag, so she since he was asked to report at 4:45 he needed to start getting ready around 2 and hit the road 4:30 in order to make it on time. So, he starts getting ready...and of course is running late! It's inevitable I've come to believe.
Now, me being the sweetheart that I am, I volunteered to drive him to the festival in order to perform..... So, we leave his apartment at 4:40, remember his report time is 4:45 and we still have a 10-15 minute drive to the venue! Now, the only thing worse than driving through Kansas City with a drag queen is driving through Kansas City with a LATE drag queen!!! When this happens, nothing is their fault and everything gets on their nerves and pisses them off. So, essentially the "heels come off" so to speak and the attitude is ever present! Luckily for him the entertainment on the main stage was running about 15 minutes behind, so I was able to deliver my raging queen to the venue on time, find time to park, walk to the venue and still didn't miss his performance! That is some definite skill!!
All in all the performances went well, crisis was averted and the queens looked REMARKABLE on stage.... They represented KC and Missouri very nicely!
A couple of weeks after Kansas City PRIDE, Madison invited Tajma to St. Louis PRIDE to ride in the parade with her and to perform on their main stage as part of a drag review show that was going on in St. Louis. Again, Madison is Miss Gay Missouri 2011 and she is also the president of PRIDE St. Louis! She wears many hats and is a pretty big deal! Tajma was honored to be a part of their festival and festivities so on Friday, June 24th, he and I pile into my car, yes, I've been asked to chauffeur again, and head to St. Louis!
Kansas City and St. Louis are both cities in Missouri, however they happen to be on complete opposite sides of the state, that means that in order to get from one to the other you have to drive 4 HOURS!!! I'm used to making long trips, since I go home to Texas whenever possible, but there is nothing I hate more in this world than the drive from Kansas City to St. Louis! For some reason it is the most boring drive in this country to make. There is absolutely nothing between KC and STL besides cows, fields and Columbia!!! Columbia is right smack dab in the middle of these two places, so once you get to Columbia you are excited because it's civilization, but then you realize that you not only have two more hours of driving to do, but also that for some reason Columbia has and enforces this STUPID 60 mph speed limit while driving through. Then you find yourself pulled over with a cop at your window, a drag queen in the passenger seat, sequins dresses and wig heads laying all over the backseat, and trying to explain yourself and not have your car be searched and aired on an episode of COPS!
The only thing that makes this 4 hour drive longer is when the person on the drive with you is asleep for 3 1/2 of the 4 hours..... Then they wake up and ask you if you know where you're going when you actually get to St. Louis!!! I guess that's what I signed up for though.... Dammit!
Anyways, once we make it to St. Louis we go straight to the first bar, Grey Fox, so that Tajma can start the transformation process. On our way to the bar, I notice that the scenery has turned from nice city-ish style to very urban, desolate, graffiti covered walls, cop cars on every corner, two ambulances carrying bodies on stretchers and hookers walking around looking for some "work". I started to get scared.....
We get to the bar around 7:00 and the show doesn't start until 10:00, so I am stuck sitting around a dark bar, watching drag queens put on their make-up and starving completely to death because we haven't eaten since we hit the road from KC. I decide that I will venture out into the ghetto to find something to hold me over until we are done at the bar and can have some real food. Well, I was able to find a QuikTrip down the street, but it didn't look to be the safest place. I rushed inside, grabbed a chicken taquito, a drink and a bag of chips then ran back to my car. While I sat there in the parking lot chowing on my grub, at least 3 people walked by my car and stared at me through the window!!! I just knew that I was going to be shot, stabbed, or dragged from my car to be raped and pillaged for the money in my pocket and left for dead. Luckily that didn't happen, but when I returned to the bar the bartender asked me if I put all our valuable items out of sight in the car! WTF!? At this point I knew my car was going to be gone the next time I came outside!!!
Let's fast forward through the night and onto the next one now....
The next night we found ourselves driving through St. Louis and into Illinois for a show at Bubby's and Sissy's which is in the town of Alton! We were asked by Erica Leigh Foster, the hostess of the drag show that night to arrive early because they were having their monthly block party and it would be hectic trying to find a place to park. Once again, we arrive at 7:00 only to find out that the show doesn't start until 11:00, so I had to sit there for 4 hours and entertain myself! I was the only person in the bar for at least the first 1 1/2 hours. So what do I do? I belly up to the bar.... If I'm going to go through another night of drag I might need a drink or two!
This show was absolutely packed; both with entertainment and people. At Bubby's and Sissy's the "show bar" is upstairs, so you have to pay to enter the upstair section of the bar about 10-15 minutes prior to the show. I was lucky enough to already be upstairs, so there was no herding like cattle or paying for me! That is a benefit of hanging out with the drags. Anyways, so like I said the show bar is upstairs and the whole bar used to be an old house/apartment building. Well, the upstairs would be the apartment part because it's pretty small and I could see the bottom floor actually being a business, or maybe even a bigger apartment. Anyways, there are about 100-150 people upstairs for the show and there isn't nearly enough people. Of course I got the privilege of sitting next to one of three bachelorette parties! I loathe bachelorette parties at gay bars because the women always feel like they should be singled out for some reason, and they have to be loud, obnoxious, complain too much and are ALWAYS in the way. Nevertheless they come out in droves to see a drag show, so I tolerate them! But the group I sat by were stank! They never cheered, never tipped and were hardly drinking! BORING!!! They just sat there screaming "SHE'S GETTING MARRIED!" every time a queen walked out with a microphone! See, obnoxious!
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that there were so many people in this show bar that I got pinned up against a half wall, behind a table with a bachelorette party-goer practically in my lap! Yeah....awkward!
So, after the show had finished, Tajma de-dragged herself and we hit up the local McDonald's on our way back into the city. Again, we hadn't eaten since about 11:30 that morning and it was now about 2:30 a.m. I was starved and I swear to you that the fries we got from Alton McDonald's were sent from the Ronald McDonald GODS! They were simply amazing and I scarfed them down like they were going out of style! Thinking back on it, I'm a little embarrassed at how fast I devoured those fries, but girl, I was starved! By that point I could have ripped off a straight girl's arm and gnawed on that thing......raw!
The next day was the big parade day..... Kansas City PRIDE doesn't have a parade, but St. Louis does, and they claim it to be the 2nd largest parade in the city of St. Louis throughout the course of the year! That's an interesting fact, I thought! Now, I've never been to a GayPride Parade, so I wasn't really sure what to expect! I'm sure the normal clothes-less boys would be there, the man-ish looking lesbians and their dogs would be there, some gay parents with the gaybies would be there, and of course drag queens and trannies! I only knew of the latter two because Tajma had been asked to ride in the parade with Madison as 1st alternate to Miss Gay Missouri!
So, the morning started off with Michael and his friend Zane walking to a corner coffee shop for some breakfast.... It took them waaaaay longer than it was supposed to so you can guess what that means..... Tajma was late getting ready for her ride in the parade!! Shocker, right? Right!
Anyways, she gets herself put together hurriedly....so hurriedly that she has to finish putting on her face in the side mirror of a jeep when we get to the parade starting point! It was crazy.... but definitely a funny thing to watch. What made it even funnier was all the straight people standing on their front porches clinging to their children while drag queen descend on their neighborhood, and to top it all off some lucky family has one putting on her makeup in their mirror!!! Classic and Priceless!!!
Like I said before I had never been to a Gay Pride parade before, so I was really excited to see how things played out! Let's just say that I was amazed.... There were politicians, churches, marching bands, floats and even student groups marching in the parade! It was amazing to see everyone come together for a common purpose! I was moved to tears a couple of times by the people marching in the parade, most notably the PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) group and the Youth Group. There were over 400 youth marching with this youth group and it was simply remarkable to see and to witness the reaction from the people watching the parade! I was truly touched!
Alright, enough sappiness..... On with the proceedings!
Tajma and Madison were the Grand Marshalls of the parade, they rode in on a red BMW and threw beads to the people in attendance at the parade! Here's a pic or video:
All in all the parade lasted about 1 1/2 hours and was a really exciting thing to witness and sort of be a part of (through Tajma of course)!
After the parade finished Tajma, myself, our friend, Tabbi Katt, and her boyfriend, Kolten, walked around the park and mingled with all the people! I'm pretty sure we had to stop every 5 minutes or so for someone to take a picture of Tabbi and Tajma, or TT as I like to refer to them! It was cute.... I think, but Kolten and I were a little jealous that we weren't being asked to take any pictures and that no one was complimenting us on our outfits! Just plain rude! Since Kolten and I didn't get any attention that night I decided to include a picture the two of us took at one of the vendor booths at PRIDE!
I hope you enjoyed that as much as we did!
Anyways, Tajma stayed in drag that day, not because he wanted all that attention, but because he had to perform in the Drag Review Show that night! It happened on the main stage shortly after Miss Chely Wright of Wellsville, Kansas had performed her set for the audience! This drag review show consisted of about 15-20 performers from the Kansas City and St. Louis areas! Of course Tajma and Tabbi were both asked to perform and they did amazing! However, Tajma had some trouble with her music so she had to borrow someone's phone to plug into the DJ booth in order for her to perform!
This is Tajma performing Adele's hit "Rolling in the Deep"! I absolutely LOVE Adele, and it turns out so do many other gays.... especially the lesbians!!! The crowd went up when they heard the song playing from that person's phone through the DJ's speakers and the lesbians rushed the stage! Initially I was scared for Tajma, but luckily they had a guard rail up so that no one could actually get to the performers! One person was so excited about Tajma being on stage that they said...and I quote "Oh man, I have to watch this performer. That's Tajma, she's Miss America!!" Now, we won't tell the real Miss Gay America, Coti Collins, that but I thought it was funny and it made me giggle and smile a little bit! Give her a little bit person and Tajma will be Miss America!!
Well, I think that covers the events of the Pride Festivals that Tajma, Michael and I attended throughout the month of June! Now I thought I would take a little bit more of your time and fill you in on a little bit of Gay Pride History!
It was June 28, 1969, and Judy Garland had recently passed away, and gay people across the country were mourning her death. Please understand that this was a time when gay bars and other gay establishments were raided by police. As you can guess, the police decided to raid one such establishment in New York City this fateful night in June. The place was known as the Stonewall Inn. When the police raided the joint, the people inside were outraged and violence ensued. It is rumored that the first line of resistance from the gay community were rocks being thrown by drag queens and/or other transgendered individual. Following the initial attacks, riots broke out in New York City and lasted for a couple of days. These riots are now known as the Stonewall Riots and sparked the beginnings of the gay rights movement by members of the gay community. This is a battle that is still raging on today and hopefully one day peace among the gay community and its straight counterpart will be reached.
Until that day, all I really have to say is "You gotta have Pride!" Pride in whatever it is you believe in, pride in your sexuality, and most importantly PRIDE in yourself!
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