Surviving Pride and My Parade Video

OMG. What can I say eh? I almost didn't survive the Pride Parade.

Shortly after the parade ended I suddenly felt dizzy and faint. Standing in the blazing heat  for hours in a crowd of more than a million tends to affect me that way.

So Sébastien dragged me off to the hospital where he works, and I was forced to spend the next few hours in a small cool room, with an IV in my arm, watching the replay on TV.

Then when I finally got home I was too beat to go through my own video, especially since I'd shot more than an hour of footage. But I did it anyway, and it was really hard because there was so much good stuff I knew I couldn't get in.

Then in the morning I couldn't get up, I felt paralyzed from my waist down. And terminally lazy...especially since it was 40 degrees outside. And I rather like it when Sébastien fans me.

And then when I finally sat down to edit  the YouTube  this afternoon the lights went out.

And I had to start all over again.

But apart from that, I Simon, do declare.

Da parade was totally FABULOUS...



I'm glad that the QUAIA group got to march. And although I was very angry that  the right-wing Israeli lobby tried to smear our love parade as a hate parade, which was outrageous, insulting, and hurtful.

I'm also glad this group sent an extra large contingent.

Near the front of the parade marched Kulanu, a Jewish group that was particularly vocal in its opposition to QuAIA participating in this year’s parade.

And that it ended this way.

Despite some occasional heated arguments from supporters between the two camps, the parade remained peaceful and jubilant.




















A messy, chaotic, but gentle and joyful affair.

Just like I knew it would be.

Because we are the most diverse community in the world, we naturally have an incredible diversity of opinions. The personal is political. The political is personal. And anyone who doesn't know that, or denies that, is going to learn it the hard way.

But when it comes to the common bond that unites us; the desire to be treated as equal human beings in a world  where so many still hate us, hurt us, put us down, and demean our love. We are all FAMILY.

And all's well that ends well...

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P.S. Of course it could always be BETTER. If the Pride Committee wants to switch next year's parade to say.... September....  I won't object eh?