The Phantom Pride Booth, Plus I Know Where I'm Going
Attention all people of San Diego and San Francisco: I am coming to your city this week. On Wednesday I am taking the train down to San Diego to do a reading and signing of "Exile in Guyville" at Bryans' Eatery & Drinkery that night. Then on Friday I'm driving up to San Francisco with moroccomole to help him with his own book stuff. He has his own slot at the gay film festival there on Saturday. He will be doing a 90-minute... I don't even know what to call it... presentation thing, a clip show and commentary and discussion about faggotry in movies and it's all connected to his awesome book "101 Must-See Movies For Gay Men." I will be his merch guy, selling books at a little table. It's a thing you have to buy a ticket for if you want to go. Later today I'll post all the specifics about both events.



Even if you live in the middle of a homosexual tourist destination like I do, you can create a life for yourself that's really only incidentally fag. You learn to erase the rainbow flags from your consciousness, you don't step foot into the gay bars and if you do decide you have to have breakfast out somewhere on a weekend you do it before 10:00am when it suddenly automatically becomes "brunch" and places gets overrun and everyone's eating little bowls of fruit instead of grits.

This weekend, however, was Gay Pride weekend, so there was no escape. And when there's no escape, I like to dive right in and remind myself of what I'm missing.

On Saturday I volunteered to work at the Instinct magazine booth at the actual Pride Festival. I had three motives for this: bring copies of my book to the booth to sell and sign for anyone who requested one, see my friend Erin sing on the main stage at 5:00pm and then stay until the bitter end of the thing to see The Bangles at 10:00pm.

What I'm missing, I learned once again, is some very very bad fashion. I berate myself from time to time, in spite of being able to talk a good fashion game and knowing to buy moroccomole Dries Van Noten accessories for his Christmas, for mostly living in a fashion rut that consists of t-shirts, jeans and boots. But I felt really good about myself after checking out the State of Gay:

1. All homosexuals are fat now. I saw very few gym-pronounced bodies and lots of pear-shaped people with body shame they expressed by wearing awful Mervyn's short sleeve polo shirts they would then tuck into jean shorts. White sneakers for everyone.
2. I am really surprised that Abercrombie & Fitch still has such a stranglehold on gay men. That and those "Tag-Team Wrestling" t-shirts that suggest orgiastic possibilities but never truly deliver.
3. As we both stared at two men, one in Reeboks (white), lacy blouse/vest combo that bared his 50-something body, one that was both skinny and slack, topped off by silver-sequinned and brazenly skimpy shorts--and his friend in the black cape, boots, bikini and nothing more--my friend and "Instinct" editor Robbie said, "I want to know what that phone call was like. 'Hey girl, it's Pride! Let's get sexy!'"
4. Hip-hop dykes in matching outfits are my new favorite thing.

I sold four copies of my book, two of them to a friend who walked past and two to a couple of total strangers who saw the subtitle and said, "I need this right now." That made me happy. People react weirdly when you tell them that you are the author of the book they're holding in their hand. They either get very excited and treat you like you have a magical power they don't possess or else they drop the copy back onto the table like it's burning their hands and walk away. If I weren't me and I picked up my book and said "What's this?" and Dave White, on the other side of the table said, "That's my book," I would be the drop it like it's hot person. I would be this because I wouldn't want the author to start in on the hard-sell. I'd immediately think, as I'm sure those people did, that this dude is self-publishing his little faggot book and just working it any way he can. I would think he was pathetic and want to go get some more Pride beads and PIzza In A Cup.

I missed Erin singing because I wasn't paying enough attention to the time and I missed The Bangles because I was too lazy and hungry and feet-hurtish to hang around that long. I didn't miss the guys at the [Record Label That Cannot Be Named Because They Are an Instinct Advertiser] booth though. This record label puts out an endless stream of wack dance-mix CDs. Ever wonder where the Hi-NRG version of "I Will Always Love You" went to die? It went to this place. Their booth was right next to the "Instinct" booth, thumping for all the hours I was there, the employees doing small-gesture versions of rote circuit party dance moves and taking tiny sips of water. Best Robbie line of the day: "Look at them, they're taking it higher."