pride 2014

[madchives]

remembrance of how pride day started for me and
what i remember:
(granted brain has been a little fried by time and drugs
and booze so,,)
i was busted because the gf was not on the couch
the next morning
'you don't want us to think something you don't
want us to think' said dad
'think what you want to' said i as i packed and left.

http://www.worldpridetoronto.com/about/history/
the 'baths' were raided and 286 guys were arrested
a lot were married (and of course in those days it was to a woman)
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/02/04/thirty_years_after_the_bathhouse_raids.html
and the police wanted the names of their wives and employers.

a bit of cbc achives (don't see the video)
nice to hear george hyslop's voice again
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/politics/rights-freedoms/gay-and-lesbian-emergence-out-in-canada/the-toronto-bathhouse-raids.html
=

so we protested
remembering being on a cold street corner with a few thousand others
with barely any signs in our hands.

and being there when bob rae's gov't had sexual orientation
included.

but the special one was when i phoned in sick to canada post
(from a phone booth) outside the cop shop during
a pride protest (so,,,1980's)
and explained to mary (who i had a crush on)
i wasn't feeling well. "have a nice time"







and now we have world pride day here
thankfully no rob ford,

a little serious, although one might think
it is a small world it is not

[madchives]

for some reason i seem to include every news item i think of - shutting up

[madchives]

since this does seem to be my personal thread, thought i'd add one of the funny,
sad and is just there to me:

in the 70's there were mostly guy bars, and when we heard of a woman's, well off
we went, - a red light over the door behind the strip club. at dundas and somewhere.
found the door and it had one of those windows to check one out.
tiny place with a piano that laurie conger (later in the parachute club) played.

looked around and found my grade 10 high school gym teacher,
who had lost her job due to some love affair.
i saved my friend from hitting the teacher. long story here:
friend did not want to do the box horse - was worried.
teacher made her and was awful, my friend went after the teacher big time.
as in going to hit the teacher, so i slapped my friend.
figured she needed a wake up kind of thing, got sent to the principal's office
(dragged by the gym suit across 2 gyms etc.)
and would not be allowed back into gym without a psychiatrist ok.
took another english class instead - my mom insisted.

so said hello mrs frewin, remember me and she said call me jacqueline.
blah blah and mom hired her as a carpenter.
and a few years later i was in counseling (see i tried), and although
the counselor should never have told me this, turns out her girlfriend
was the reason jacqueline lost her career as she had a romance with her,
when she was a senior. signing,,,

[Patty Smyth]

Gay village in Montreal. Pink lanterns adorn St. Catherine street which is blocked off as a pedestrian mall all summer. It's beautiful.

[madchives]

montreal almost always looks more pretty then anywhere else, lucky you patty

[madchives]

should have gone downtown, for world pride
but didn't.
way too many people, but glad to see how many
and that some of us sort of started it all.

great time when the parade turned onto
church street and we heard this a few years ago
(changed type in mail and now stuck in some sort of oh noooo)

[gryphon]

I cant support the pride parade as long as during the festivities people go around nearly nude and simulate acts that should be private ( I also am against straight people doing that). That's my problem with pride. Its too sexually charged ( and not meaning orientation) I can support the idea behind pride but not what people have been doing