Withering Glance: Full of Pride

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, relationships, grooming and more.

RN: I roll my eyes when I hear people my age or older insist that Christmas is "for the kids." But I'm beginning to feel that way about Pride. I don't think I'm being a gay Ebenezer Scrooge; I sincerely hope that everyone who chooses to do so will positively burst with pride this weekend. Still, aside from seeing "Parting Glances" at the Heights Theatre on Sunday afternoon, this old-fart-in-the-making is going to skip the festivities.

CP: I participate a bit more than you do, but not by much. Is it just us who have replaced our youthful pride with middle-aged ennui ...

RN: Do you have to use the phrase "middle-aged" when referring to the two of us? Even if it's accurate?

CP: ... because when I do show up at the two-day fridge-magnet expo at Loring Park, I see a lot of older GLBTers. For me, the event is mostly a Remembrance of Prides Past. Care to share some of yours?

RN: For several years, I was part of a group from the AIDS Emergency Fund that carried a gigantic rainbow flag down the parade route, encouraging the crowd to toss their spare change. On some blocks it would literally rain money. It was a blast.

CP: Half a lifetime ago, I was on the Pride committee, planning a much smaller series of June events that included a beach party on the Mississippi, a riverboat cruise, a Hennepin Avenue block party that actually shut down the street -- a permit won only after a court battle -- and even a concert in the Armory featuring Ministry and a bunch of other bands. It seemed to have a more unpredictable spark then.

CP: I'll never forget driving a rented flatbed around the corner of 4th and Hennepin with the rocksters Urban Guerrillas literally strapped to the back of the truck, and seeing about 1,000 people in the middle of the street waiting for the concert to start. We plugged in, and [Guerrillas frontman] Larry Sahagian soon had everyone lying on the street and wriggling around to "Pink Heat-Seeking Missiles."

RN: "Happy Pride," indeed. I miss the bad old days when the media would glue their cameras on the drag queens, Radical Faeries and leather daddies, often to the consternation of the assimilationist "place at the table" gays. Now most images that come out of Pride are of legions of Wells Fargo employees in matching T-shirts. We're here, we're queer, we're offering 1.75 percent on CDs. But hey, in a landmark year when gays and lesbians are getting hitched in California, maybe that ordinariness is the ultimate "Happy Pride" message.

CP: Talk about mainstreaming: Last year my heart swelled with pride at the sight, mid-parade, of one of those billboards on wheels, this one hyping discount tile and granite countertops.