June 26, 2006
Hella Gay!

That’s right, we’re HELLA GAY this month!! Hella Gayer than any store on the whole block! Just look at our window! Gaymosexual to the core!!

C’mon. Really. People…is that all we’ve got? I want more. Here I am, coasting off the back end of big gay christmas (San Francisco Gay Pride Celebration, for the uninitiated), and after a week or two of strong drinks and back-to-back happenings, I’m ready to find the words for the complex love and hate I have for this whole Pride mess. (Our snarky window display being a somewhat…flat…description of my feelings on the subject.)

But let’s start with the window, anyway. Part 1): I put it up because of the queasy, quasi-supportive way the rainbows sprout up around town and around the country round about June-time every year when it’s time to be diverse and sell some stuff to some homos. Toss a flag up, put a blue wig on the mannequins or an Oscar Wilde book in the window (yes, we have one) and call it a night. “No, no, really! We’re pro-gay! You guys are great! LGBTIQ-woo! Unity! WE R 1!” I’m being too judgmental, but I also can’t shake the skeezy feelings of tokenization I get every year.

But Part 2): I really am proud. I’m a young, dirty queer and a transsexual from New Mexico, where everything is a small town, and I feel absolutely, wholly honored to have a public venue for gaudy, fabulous, grotesque displays of homotivity and to get to play a part of it. Don’t ask me, ask everyone: the radical queer communities will bandy our critiques about ‘til the cows come home, but in my experience the other side of the coin always looks like: “I love gay christmas. I fucking love it!” Consider my heart warmed.

I guess that’s what gets me—in the circles of radical, intelligent, beautiful queers I am privy to, all I hear is a lot of heavy shit talk. It certainly is well grounded. Anyone who’s seen the big parade itself, let alone watched events like the dike march mutate over the years, can tell you what a nauseating corporate mess it has become. But if all I hear is critique, all I see is the same people having powerful bonding experiences, fabulous parties, and bold displays of shining queer pride and strength—displays both genuine and intimated, from the undergrounds and the mainstream.

I don’t see much analysis of this situation and that kinda creeps me out.

We want those connections. We need that fierce, real pride. We have every right to be angry and disgusted by Budeweiser and Delta airlines and all the politicians jumping on the boat—the same ones who beat and imprison us every other day of the year. But the reactions to this that I’ve witnessed tend toward anarchist-themed, fundamentalist-flavored stonewalling (no pun intended) and condemnation, or blind bliss amidst a sea of vendor booths.

What’s up?! Where is realness? This shit is more complex than that!

I have one constant and very present feeling throughout the gay x-mas season, each and every year: “I know the best people. The brightest, the strongest, the most beautiful, glamorous, sharp, fierce, creative people I could imagine.” I guess it’s pride. What a blessing. But if we’re all that, when will we act like it? When do we start to build the genuine, radical, movement-building, life-altering affinities, analyses, and infrastructure that the corporate pride monster can only play-act about? (and poorly at that)

I guess the end point is this: I’m interested in stepping it up. We can relegate ourselves to the semi-passive world of reaction or we can act with initiative and intention. We can ask for changes or we can make them.

posted by Annie Danger


June 10, 2006
It's Pride Month!

And Modern Times is ready. If you come by the store this month, be sure to check out our HELLA GAY!! window display and its “roller coaster of LGBT books.” Better not to ask what that means, just come take a look. Annie Danger, our amazingly creative Modern Times worker who has been doing our windows for the past year, designed it. She spent hours putting together the rainbow of colors and books.

Also, if you don’t already have tickets, you should go out and get them for the Frameline30 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. The festival lasts ten days and is the longest-running, largest, and most widely recognized LGBT film exhibition event in the world! But more than just a film fest, it is a gathering of professionals and provocateurs in the queer media-arts field, and it features workshops and other events. We will be involved as well, selling books at a table from June 20-22. So drop by and say “hello” if you’re there.

And no doubt various of the Modern Times staff will be out marching in the street and joining other events during the month. See ya!

posted by Brenda O'Sullivan

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