Last week, Adam posted of his misadventures (or, more accurately, misgivings) at the Phoenix LGBT Pride festival. My boyfriend wondered why Phoenix didn't hold its pride parade/festival in late June, closer to the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, as cities like Seattle and Chicago do.
I asked Adam, and his response revealed just how little Zach and I know about the desert southwest: "It's f***ing hot in June!"
When I told Zach, he nodded, "I guess that makes sense."
Then, presciently, he added, "And I suppose that's better than having no Pride parade at all." (Sometimes I think Zach and I don't have much in common, but then I remember how much we both love parades - particularly if men walk around in their underwear.)
Still, his afterthought ("...I suppose that's better than having no Pride parade at all...") seems eerie in its Crystal Ball ability to foreshadow Seattle's latest self-induced crisis: the Pride Parade. It's a saga that, as it unfolded, I lamented, "This is a quintessential 'Seattle Problem'."
Friend: "What do you mean by 'Seattle Problem'?"
James: "Well, I think, of all the world's cities, only Seattle would get itself it this pickle, claim it doesn't know how it got into this pickle, and then form a committee to attempt to pound a square peg into a round hole as a solution."
Seattle, you see, decided last year to move its Pride Parade from its prior location on Capitol Hill (historically, Seattle's gay district, which has in recent years become less and less "gay") to the heart of downtown. The festival afterwards was held in Seattle Center (you know, where the Space Needle is), rather than Capitol Hill's isolated Volunteer Park. The move split the gay community, with an alternative Pride festival still being held on Capitol Hill while hundreds of thousands of Seattlites - Zach and I included - watched the official Pride parade tear through downtown last June.
I have to admit, though, that I had mixed feelings about the move. On the one hand, I never really cared for Capitol Hill. As you, the reader, no doubt knows, I don't make a very good gay guy. I can't dance, dress well, or style my hair to the satisfaction of my boyfriend. I'm a (hack) scientist-in-training, I only own one Cher CD, I drive a Buick, I haven't been to a Seattle gay bar in over a year, my cat has asthma, and my body is neither muscular nor sculpted. Thus, my fondness for Capitol Hill was always, at best, marginal. I never even sought to live there, gravitating instead toward neighborhoods in northern Seattle.
But, I couldn't help but feel that, historically, Capitol Hill should rightfully host the Pride Parade. For decades, it was Seattle's gay ghetto and, even afterwards, the unofficial seat of gay culture in the Puget Sound region. The Pride Parade's presence on Capitol Hill seemed to push against the neighborhood's slow-but-inevitable gentrification. "Besides," I was once overheard saying, "It's historically been a neighborhood-specific event. What would happen if we were to move the Summer Solstice Parade from Fremont to downtown?"
On the other hand, though, the Pride Parade's relocation to the downtown neighborhood, and subsequent festival in Seattle Center, seemed to celebrate how much progress Seattle has made in the acceptance of its gay citizens: gay pride celebrated in the core of the city, surrounded by its most famous landmarks. LGBT Pride was now a community-wide event.
Eventually, the latter argument won me over. Plus, as stated before, Zach and I love parades, and we knew the official Pride Parade downtown would march circles around the alternative parade held last summer on Capitol Hill. We were not disappointed, and were looking forward to a repeat of last year's success this June.
Until, of course, Seattle created its own crisis. You see, the organizers of last year's (downtown) Pride Parade and festival apparently failed to comprehend simple economics... like... paying for last year's parade. Apparently, some of them didn't realize that a downtown/Seattle Center Pride Parade and festival would cost more than a Capitol Hill parade. Now, crushed by debt from 2006 Pride, 2007 Pride was looking doubtful, at best.
The crisis unfolded, however, in a very 'Seattle' way. First, they said they can't afford a Pride Parade for 2007 and don't know what to do; then, they said they do know what to do, and decided to declare bankruptcy and throw in the towel; most recently, they said they didn't mean to declare bankruptcy and throw in the towel, and that a downtown parade (but no festival) will of course be held.
I may love parades, but I do loathe see-saws. And Seattle has a particularly awful habit of see-sawing around a problem. First, a crisis is created, and then subsequent crises are created to confront the initial crisis.
For an example far removed from Seattle Pride 2007, take earthquakes:
1. In 2001, the Nisqually earthquake severely damaged the Viaduct, a double-decker highway cutting between the downtown region and Elliott Bay.
2. Though damage was obvious as soon as the shaking stopped, no one wanted to do anything about the damaged Viaduct, and so the problem was ignored.
3. The Viaduct has, since 2001, settled into the silty infill beneath it, warped, and cracked. A moderate tremor will now send it tumbling onto downtown Seattle.
4. With #3 now obvious, government bodies at all levels and most citizens have panicked (myself included), tossed blame and accusations, proposed wildly impractical solutions, held referenda, and finally come to no consensus at all.
5. Heads stuck back into sand, hoping beyond hope that 4.6 billion years of geological processes will spontaneously cease to apply to the Puget Sound region.
Back to the Pride Parade for this June, the latest headlines indicate that the parade will - somehow - go forth, in downtown. When asked to explain how this saga of debt, bankruptcy, non-bankruptcy, and now a trimmed-down parade unfolded (with roots tracing back to last summer's painful move from Capitol Hill to downtown), one organizer commented, "It's a bake sale that got out of control."
I do love metaphors (and hate see-saws and love parades), but that quotation gave me a chill, as this self-induced crisis has sired more self-induced crises. I was reminded of another quotation, this time from Absolutely Fabulous, one of many British comedies I'm devoted to. Edina Monsoon's straight-laced and responsible daughter scolds her mother's very 'Seattle' life:
"Mum, you've absolved yourself of responsibility. You live from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis. Someone does your hair, someone chooses what you wear, someone does your brain, someone tells you what to eat and three times a week someone sticks a hose up your bum and flushes it all out of you!"
No one sticks a hose up Seattle's bum. But, before anyone makes such a move, I'm going to suggest that Pride Parade organizers raise funds by selling pot brownies.
Posted by James at April 25, 2007 07:34 PM