“Pride 2006 was a week to remember,” said Bay Area Reporter columnist Mister Marcus. He has seen, participated and reported on most, if not all, 36 San Francisco gay parades. “Thanks to all of you who volunteered, worked your butts off and made a proud showing. You were never lovelier!”

Indeed, it was volunteers, not money which made the event, last June 24 and 25, memorable. In fact, the near, if not more than, million dollar “Pride” corporation budget is used to fuel a market not a movement. After salaries, the big money goes to erecting a huge chain link fence to surround Civic Center and other costs to further successful product positioning. Corporate fluffing never ceases. The live parade telecast was over at 12:30, freezing out almost half the participants. Corporate interests are in. Possibly offensive contingents, including Mister Marcus, and most San Francisco openly gay elected officials were out.


In the 194 contingent parade, Supervisor Tom Ammiano was 141st. Supervisor Bevan Dufty was unit #151. Gay Board of Education member Mark Sanchez was position at #173 and Community College Board member Lawrence Wong was just 18 units from the parade’s end at #176.

Marcus and Leather Pride were #137 and the South Of Market Bare Chest Calendar, sponsored by Miller Beer, not an “official” Pride sponsor, was #138.

The Chronicle and SFGate, both principal sponsors reported, “San Francisco's gay pride festivities have two dozen corporate sponsors, including Bud Light, Delta Airlines, Travelocity, Comcast, Wells Fargo, San Francisco Toyota, Bank of America, MasterCard, Diet Pepsi and Showtime, which pay about $10,000 for a parade entry and $8,000 for a booth. For several sponsors, $10,000 is just “get in the door money.” Several companies put out $50,000 to be listed as sponsor.

“Let's face it, it costs money to put on a parade the size of San Francisco's or any other city's parade for that matter,” Marcus explains. “Corporate sponsors are only too willing to put out thousands and thousands of dollars to make it a success not only for the participants but themselves as well”

Well, not exactly. Super Bowl advertisers buy spots to reach an audience, not because they like football. Unlike the Super Bowl, however, this annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender festival should reflect a movement, not slick advertising campaigns.

Parade lineup placement is but one incident bringing into question the “Pride” organization’s professionalism, agenda and understanding of a movement.

Dina Boyer, “Tranny Talk” cable show producer, was denied media credentials. “For the last 8 years I have been covering the Pride celebration in San Francisco, not only as an out transsexual but also as a producer of a public access TV show called "Tranny Talk," Boyer said. “I am an independent journalist, and a recent grad from San Francisco State in the Radio and TV department, so I am confident enough to say I know what I am doing”

Attempting to resolve the situation Boyer notes, “When I contacted the person in charge, Ray West by email, he gave me nothing but stories. He was not responsive to my needs.”

San Francisco Bay Times writer, Don Baird detailed how a Canadian group was cut from the City Hall stage schedule. “The main stage (as fucking usual every fucking year in my memory, and you think they might learn from their past but do they ever? I think not) was running behind schedule, and they unceremoniously cut the one act I most wanted to see perform, Stink Mitt, who traveled all the way from fucking Canada on their own budget to play a gig that they agreed to receive no pay for just to be told ‘oops…sorry we’re out of time!”

“The way the stage was handled sucked—plain and simple,” Baird said. “Way to go, organizers—that’s a big rainbow feather of failure for your caps. Add it to the rest. Think you can do it again? I bet so. You failed the artist you scheduled and the community at one of the largest public gay events in the world. And like I said—it’s happened before. Way to go.”

Of the Civic Center activities, Baird noticed “an unusually high number of heterosexuals in attendance in general. Overall the scales were tipping heavy on the mainstream as opposed to the outrageous and edgy.”

Patrick Batt, former Merchants of Upper Market and Castro president commented, “it appears we are fast approaching losing control of Pink Saturday like we did Halloween over the twin issues of outsiders and alcohol on the streets of Upper Market and Castro.” He noted in a letter to the Bay Area Reporter that police shut down several Castro businesses selling liquor directly on the street.

Placement of gay elected officials in the parade, denial of media credentials for a transgender television show producer, cutting an act’s appearance because of poor stage management or disregard for community agreements by Castro area businesses should not be viewed as the problem. Rather, they are symptoms of a community grown apathetic, greedy and arrogant as it enters middle age.


David Perry, recently honored by the Business Arts Council for excellence in public relations said, “Much has yet to be brought into the fight. However, by and large, we are spoiled children of Pride.”

“Of course, there is nothing wrong with celebration -- in fact, there is much ‘right’ about it,” Perry said. “However, parading down a street once a year, a street which is normally strewn with the sleeping homeless and waking, walking wounded, it would be good for those of us who are proud to march to remember: not everyone gets their own parade -- only those with 22% of the vote.”

Baird said, “I sort of longed for some kind of renegade element—something spikey and underground to rear its head and thrust a portion of unsettling into the corporate homogenized glossy rainbow sheen of it all. In my memory it seemed like many years had passed since something outrageous caused a ripple in the complacent dead sea of an event that was originally born out of protest and the fight for acknowledgment.”

“Commerce, for those of us who do not sell alcohol or food, ceases mid-afternoon on Pink Saturday with the prohibition against parking and the attendant towing of vehicles,” Patrick Batt said. “I think we are all willing to live with this fact provided the rest of the event remains one of which we can be proud.”

“This is, after all, San Francisco,” Don Baird said, “a city recognized for its liberal consciousness and left wing antics and an all-inclusive tone of acceptance and support for a huge array of alternative or special interest groups and organizations.”

Reflecting the emotions of many, David Perry said, “I couldn't help but remember all my past Prides (19 here in SF) and the different tone wrought by each: grief, loss, anger, fear, defiance. This year's parade had all of that -- in pieces -- but what was most striking, to me, was how “ho hum” it was. It was like watching a champion runner having out-paced his opponents and stopping mid-stride just long enough to say, “now what?”

“Or…to quote that famous Peggy Lee standard: “Is that all there is?”