GAY BASH!

Pride and prejudice: Special Pride Week edition!
BY UNREPENTANT HOMOSEXUALS LISSA HARRIS AND MICHAEL BRODEUR

BRODEUR: Hey Lissa. Guess what? Happy Pride!


HARRIS: And a very merry Sloth, Wrath and Avarice to you, too.

I know this is the biggest holiday in the gay calendar, but I’m just not in the Pride spirit, Brodeur. They’re putting up the Pridelights tree, and everybody in the South End is out trimming their awnings with rainbows and triangles, and the kids with two mommies are coming home crying because Johnny at school said the Pride Fairy doesn’t exist, and it’s all goodwill on earth and peace to queers. But I’m just not feeling it, man.


BRODEUR: Not feeling it? Aw, sweetie, that’s a shame. And as we all know, shame is the opposite of Pride. Can you see where I’m going with this?

You hate yourself. You must. That is literally the only reason not to be hot pink with excitement right now. It’s sort of like why my cat doesn’t like getting wet. It hates itself.

I think I see where you’re coming from, though. Considering the hullabaloo Pride has become—what with its massive corporate investitures, obnoxiously commercial façade and tireless pandering to anyone within earshot—it can be a little tough to remember what it’s really all about: gathering together, immersing ourselves in a massive, supportive community of likeminded people who share the same vision, and fucking the ever-loving shit out of each other. I think it’s also about folk music.


HARRIS: Yeah, well, folk music made by people who’ve never seen a banjo gives me hives, and that goes double for fucking the shit out of anybody who can yell “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia’s got to go” without a paper bag over her head. Guess I must really hate myself.

I tried reading the IN Newsweekly Pride Guide to get in the spirit, but I just ended up in the ER to get a poorly Photoshopped pink star trailing an enormous faggoty rainbow removed from my colon. I’m still passing stray pixels.


BRODEUR: That’s odd, because I found the Pride Guide quite helpful. I found a gay loan officer, a sweet deal on a homosexual Subaru and a lovely $1,400 dining table. (Really hoping things work out with the loan officer.) Oh, and fuck! I almost forgot what else I found. This is important:

I’m gonna need all you gays who have gotten married to annul that shit and do it over. You may have thought your gay wedding was airtight, safe from all breeder influence (well, aside from the getting-married part)—but what about your wedding song? After all, “Here Comes the Bride” was written by Wagner—a woman-porker if ever there was one. Just imagine the craven heterosexual sex he was having as he wrote your wedding song.

What we need is a wedding song for gays, by gays. A really, really awful shitty terrible gay wedding song that will make your balls detach and run for the hills. What we need is “My One and Only”—available for download (and upchuck) now at thegayweddingsong.com. (Presumptous little thing, isn’t it?)


BRODEUR AND HARRIS, SINGING: “I never thought I was even looking for anyyyythiiiiiiiiiiiing … I’m happy, glad and gaaaaaayyy … ”


HARRIS: Wow. I’m sweating. I think that song just did what even 10 years of therapy and getting sleazed on by Heywood Wakefield couldn’t: It made me straight.

You know, now that I’m straight, I think I finally understand the true meaning of Pride. It’s not about activism. It’s not about pink coasters and the Bank of America. It’s about the beautiful, special, inalienable right to be just as tacky as straight people.

Come on, Brodeur, let’s pray. Quick, I can feel the heterosexuality wearing off already.


BRODEUR: Aw, and I was just starting to appreciate the diversity here. But point taken. Our closing prayer is borrowed from the Boston Ironsides Gay Rugby Football Club (who just nabbed the Bingham Bowl—congratulations, bitches!). Ahem:

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Gay-Men.

FOR THE FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS FOR THIS YEAR’S PRIDE, GO HERE: BOSTONPRIDE.ORG