Raining on our parade

[bigmacbear]

Yesterday Rochester had its annual Pride Parade. While the parade itself got by with a light sprinkling of rain, the festival which was to follow in Highland Bowl amphitheater was effectively ruined by a heavy downpour with thunder and lightning, requiring cancellation of the RGMC's performance.

More pictures here.

After the performance was canceled, gmjambear and I went to Old Country Buffet for dinner. A number of tables were filled with Boy Scouts from California on their way to or from camp; we'd seen their buses in the parking lot. Many of the Scouts had patches on their neckerchiefs with a picture of a bear on them. Gary was wearing his "Big Bear Inc." T-shirt from San Francisco, and one of the Scouts happened to notice it, as I overheard him muttering "Bears?" as we passed him on the way to the buffet. Of course, there were a few other bearish men there as well, as can be expected. ;-)

Comments

[cincycub.livejournal.com]

Cool... is Rochester's parade always this late?

MMM... I'd like to meet with my councilman and his cronies please ;)

[gmjambear]

It has always been two weeks after most of the major pride celebrations.

For what it's worth, Montreal's is the end of July, early August!

[teddyb.livejournal.com]

LOL That comment reminds me of my days living in Long Beach's gay neighbourhood (okay, that could be pretty much ALL of Long Beach) and seeing a shop window with lots of tacky, but funny, t-shirts with slogans like, "Sex is like air . . . It becomes VERY, VERY important when you aren't getting any."

One of the most totally inappropriate, but still funny, t-shirts was one designed to look just like the blue and yellow t-shirts sold to Cub Scouts.

The slogan was, "Cub Scouts taste better than Brownies."

It was just so totally WRONG, but I couldn't help giggling.

I just can't imagine who would actually have bought and worn it.

LOL On the other hand, I had a huge collection of other shirts of that sort. When I moved to Toronto and got myself settled down, my husband of the time forbade me to wear them anymore, referring to them as my "come fuck me" t-shirts.

He was so totally wrong. That isn't what they said at all. *grin*

[vicvmichael.livejournal.com]

Not to sound like a schmuck (I know, too late), but I never understood (philosophically) why Pride is celbrated on so many different date. I understand from an attendence reason - it gives folks the chance to attend multiple Prides (and harvest exponentially more tricks). In my understanding, Pride is supposed to commemorate the Stonewall riots which took place the last weekend in June. This early August stuff is like celebrating Christmas in March or the 4th of July in September.

I'm off my soapbox now.

[bigmacbear]

I think the reason Montreal does theirs in early August is there is a provincial holiday then (as is also the case in Ontario and most of the other provinces in eastern Canada). So they can have the parade and party on Sunday and have all day Monday to recover.

Toronto, however, sticks to the traditional last weekend in June. They use the provincial holiday for their Caribbean Festival.