San Francisco 2014 Pride Parade

[colinian]

Doug and I are going to the San Francisco 2014 Pride Parade today, Sunday June 29. They expect a crowd of over one million visitors. It should be interesting. I'll take pictures. Assuming we can get close enough to take more than the backs of people's heads.

Colin

[Lugnutz]

My friends sister is down there. Sent an interesting pic.

[The Pecman]

The one thing I always come away with, on the rare occasions we go to the West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade, is "hey! Gay people are just as ugly and obnoxious as regular people!

It's amazing the broad cross-section of humanity that you encounter at these things. But the parking is such a bitch here in LA, we gave up some years back, after we moved away from that area to the suburbs. West Hollywood has kind of gone to hell, because it's become an enclave of Russian immigrants and some right-wing religious people, kind of undermining the gay population the area used to host from the 1970s through the 1990s. I think the number of bars and nightclubs there is not even half what it used to be.

[colinian]

It was amazing. The official estimate is that 1.7 million people attended the SF pride celebration. Our BART train from Walnut Creek was jammed when we got on, and by the time we arrived at the Rockridge station (three stations past Walnut Creek) we guess that there were at least 300 people on our car. It was a ten car train, so that meant it carried at least 3,000 people into SF. The train was so crowded that starting at Rockridge there were crowds of people left standing on the platform waiting for the next train. The parade started at 10:30 at Market and Beale, and ended at 3:00 at Civic Center, the longest parade in the history of SF Pride.

What made me happy is the huge number of high school age kids who were dressed up for the parade on our train. We talked to a few of them and they said that it's cool to be out at school. Some of the kids said they aren't gay, but think the Pride Parade is a cool event and they went with gay friends or by themselves.

We also talked to some of the adults of all ages who were heading to SF for the parade. Again, many were gay and many were not. Think about it: the SF Pride Parade is a gay event; lots of kids and adults were going in to watch the parade because it's such a huge and fun event. We didn't hear any negative remarks from anyone (except for complaints about the AC not working in our car).

Doug and I had a great time. We also saw the musical Once Sunday afternoon. If it comes to your city, try to see it.

I took a few pix of the parade and I'll post them later.

Colin

[Graeme]

Sounds like a great time for everyone (apart from the AC and those poor souls who had to wait for later trains)!

[colinian]

Sounds like a great time for everyone (apart from the AC and those poor souls who had to wait for later trains)!

Yeah, the AC was a real problem for some of the older folks on the train. The temperature in Walnut Creek when we left was about 95F, and according a girl's smartphone (a Samsung Galaxy S4, which has an ambient temperature sensor) it was 121F in our car.

Colin