Cincinnati Pride

(Friday Rap will return next week)

Cincinnati is coming out of the closet this weekend like a drunken GOP congressman caught driving his boyfriend home after a night at the bar.

It's Pride Weekend in Cincinnati! Happy Pride!

Of course it wouldn't be Pride without some cat fighting and controversy.

The activities being moved downtown has some upset...Well girlfriends....it's supposed to be downtown...that is where it began in 1973.....Downtown...on Fountain Square.....where everyone...the entire city was invited to join in....Cumminsville....OOPs!....Northside....was the backup plan...

If the bar owners of “Northside” wanted it to stay in “Northside”....they should have jumped in and taken over the Pride organization when the Community Center said it could no longer do the parade and festivities..

As it were....The rich white guys of the Gay of Chamber of Commerce stepped in, and you know, the only stage they want to showcase their fabulous-ness on is on the main stage.....and in Cincinnati...that is Fountain Square....

Others are pissed off that the rich guys have not included enough diversity...In fact I read an interview with the HWGIC who admitted as much...not enough diversity and we will do better next year he said...

Well, it's always next year for diversity....after hearing that lame bullshit for 40 years now...I turn a deaf ear and just get my own party on anyway....I've said it before....the LGBT community is no more inclusive than the still nearly all white patriarchal society that continues to rule America...even with a Black guy in the White House....

It is changing....but not yet....

Now that Cincinnati is truly growing up...maybe the Black LGBT community can stop hiding and get together like Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, and Los Angeles to name a few....and put on their own Pride Celebration...Black Pride in these cities usually happens simultaneously with it's paler and more official version...

Everyone goes to the same parade...but then it's we party ova heah with family and friends, ribs, kool aid and potato salad, ya'll ...while the white folks go to the bars and pub crawl and get drunk...

Black Pride celebrations...especially the one in Chicago reminds me of the Black Family Reunion...just a little more festive...so to speak...

Frankly....I'm a little confused about the slam of not enough activities for poor gay people to take part in....HUH!...what's the fukin parade and festival? Nobody is charging admission to stand on the street...There is a whole weekend of stuff happening on the Square...free....

I don't see anything wrong with having a Ball or big dance...Fabulous Fun...something to look forward to...save your pennies...buy new shoes....dance the night away! Fun!....

The world does not revolve around poor people.... It doesn't give a damn about middle class people even.....hasn't this current economic recession taught ya'll anything?

The point is to have fun this weekend and to remember the drag queens at Stonewall who stood up and put their asses on the line so that rest of us would no longer have to worry about getting our heads busted in just because...

So...Quityerbitchin and Dance!

Now Stand up for the National Anthem!

Happy Pride!

Straight Talk Missed

The news banner on the TV screen under John McCain said; McCain speaks to thousands, but that was simply not the case. The room at the Duke Energy Center was not filled, according to my friends who were inside, and the number of McCain backers who showed up on Fountain Square could be counted on both hands and both feet, but there were less than a 100, with Obama supporters, vote canvassers and the curious outnumbering them 2 to 1.

At no time did Channel Five pan the square during the 30 minute talk. It would have proved to be an embarrassment considering the turnout for Obama, Monday night. Those of us on the Square had to strain in order to hear McCain, unlike Monday when you could’ve heard an ant walking on cotton when Obama spoke. No one seemed to care that McCain was talking. I did listen or tried to over the noise of other conversations, cell phones and general disinterest from the crowd.

The speech was a formality...a bit too condescending for my tastes. You can find it elsewhere. I won’t rehash here.

I went downtown early for McCain’s speech. The sun just barely kissing the east side of the square, the lady of the waters still shrouded in morning shade. It was early. The vendors hadn’t yet set up shop. I assumed they would hawk wares supporting McCain. I later found out that was not the case. When the vendors showed, it was still Obamaville. No McCain hats, shirts, banners or bumper stickers in evidence for sale.

The feeling was subdued, tight, nothing like the festive atmosphere of two days prior. Very few kids, hardly any young people at all.

A gathering of strangers...no village...no comraderie...no feelings of anticipation or optimism. Everyone that I spoke with said they were there to give McCain a chance. They were trying to be fair before making a choice.

I wanted McCain to challenge me. Instead, he lived down to my expectation. When his supporters did show up, they stood in a group, did not mingle, speaking only to each other, visitors to the real world of the Square, uncomfortable.

I realize it was a brunch situation as opposed to Obama’s prime time appearance. I realize that there are many, many more McCain supporters living, working and breathing in GOP dominated Cincinnati Ohio.

I guess what surprised me most of all was the haphazard organization and lack of concern for the McCain appearance.

Don’t they care or are they really that arrogant to think that all the newly registered, all the young and the rest of us really won’t show up in November?

Kicking Back in Obamaville

Juggernaut is not a word that I would use to describe Barack Obama’s run for president. It is a ground swell. It is a 30 foot wave of emotion slamming into the shore. It is a movement that sometimes feels like a throwback to the sixties.

A juggernaut overtakes and then overwhelms its victims. Obama doesn’t feel like that, yet. He and his campaign still feel vulnerable and seemingly face derailment at any moment.

The movement barreled into Cincinnati yesterday. The Queen City is hosting the national convention for the NAACP, and Barack was the whip cream on the strawberries and shortcake of the Monday session.

While delegates to the convention worked through their sessions at the Duke Energy Center, Obamaville set up on Fountain Square, the heart of Cincinnati. Now, anyone who has seen the old television show WKRP in Cincinnati or at the very least, seen a picture of the city, recognizes the Tyler Davidson Fountain. It is the city symbol. The waters were flowing from the newly refurbished fountain and a nice breeze occasionally picked up the waters and sprayed it over the crowd to cool them on a warm but humidity free day. Young ones released from the prison of their strollers found the boy on the turtle and washed their feet in the tiny pools of water at his feet..

Obamaville looks like a village. More than that, it looks like the perfect picture of diversity. There were the very young enjoying playtime among the adults, independent and oblivious to the importance of the situation. Teenagers strolled, cool, hip, attempting to project a world knowledge that won’t hit them for many more years. College kids eager to take part in something, feeling the moment. Absolutely giddy in their new found cause. Using digital cameras to photograph images on the big screen and in the crowd. Their parents, sometimes at their side, skeptical...cynical about yet another possible savior in the offing. Older folks who’ve lived and worked and ridden out the disappointments of seeing one good man after another make big promises and fail. Older people made stoic from life, watching and waiting for the man of the hour. Five hours, six hours until he would show up on the big screen TV on top of Macy’s department store. Obamaville was every color, every creed, every gender, every sexuality, every nationality, no one dominant, freely conversing with anyone else willing to engage.

We talked with one another, names, introductions, not important. The talk wasn’t always about politics or econmics. It was about kids, the weather, the artwork on the cheap t shirts, happenings in faraway hometowns, and even shared health problems. I met two women who used their outside time to light up camel unfiltered cigarettes, the brand that killed my grandmother. The three of us, it turned out had all been diagnosed with bad hearts. We were all on the same medication. I looked better than them, they said. I appeared healthier and they wanted to know what I was doing to stay healthy, since we were all about the same age. I don’t smoke. Never have. But I didn’t insult them, by telling them they needed to quit. They already knew. It was just conversation.

I found my spot after wandering around a bit, greeting old friends in the crowd. Perched in the shade, I waited in front of a chess board table with no pieces. I would’ve played if I had pieces, but I guess you’ve got to bring your own. I was joined by a woman from Battle Creek, here for the convention. Battle Creek is a small town, home to Kellogg’s, as in cereal with a population of maybe 54,000 people, 7 percent black. We were joined by another woman, origin Huntsville, Alabama, there to work the square signing up new voters and volunteers for Obama. She worked a little. We talked a little. It was easy, comfortable. Anyone looking at us would have thought we’d arrived there together. Many other groups formed around us the same way. Strangers with a common cause, finding each other in Obamaville.

As the feel good moment drew closer, space in Obamaville dried up. People arrived from all directions, toting those multi colored chairs in a bag. Families made up of three or four generations arriving with coolers of food and drink, eating dinner picnic style, in front of the big screen HD-TV.

My group was then joined by a local man, from a prominent Cincinnati family. Two uncles have terminals named after them at the Greater Cincinnati Airport. There is a street in suburban Bond Hill that also bears the family name. He was high school teacher with a head full of history and pop culture knowledge.

Obama was late but it didn’t dampen spirits or anticipation. He talked for roughly 25 minutes. I won’t rehash his speech, you can parse it elsewhere. He spoke to the youth, the young, yet managed to include the older jaded crowd who’d heard it before, and made us believe that we’re hearing something new. We came to the square strangers with questions. We left a village, answers forthcoming.