For the fifth year in a row I have attended Gay Pride with my dear friend, Milton. This celebration in lower Manhattan is the largest Gay Pride event in the country, and probably the world. Together, he and I photograph the march to share it with the Lame Adventures audience. Each year, Pride seems to have more corporate sponsors vying for the LGBT dollar, more politicians attending, signifying the value of the LGBT vote, and an ever growing crowd of marchers participating, many dressed in ordinary street clothes anemically waving a rainbow flag. Milton misses the old days when the majority of the participants were flamboyant. He has concluded that with more and more states allowing same sex marriage:
Milton: We’ve become as boring as everyone else.
Have we?
Glam Dyke on Bike at parade’s start.
Dyke on Bike getting spray misted by Tiny Tim lookalike.
Obviously, three nipples and one pink flamingo.
Eagle Scout: the Boy Scouts had quite a presence in this year’s festivities.
Angel in America.
Bert and Ernie marching hand in hand.
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio marching with his daughter, Chiara.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a regular Pride attendee.
Grand Marshall actor Jonathan Groff.
Grand Marshall Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
“Orange is the New Black” float, substitute image for third Grand Marshall, Laverne Cox, a member of that TV show’s cast.
Masked Man with Fishnets Friend.
Masked Man’s no heel shoes that Milton found particularly fascinating.
Pretty girls. Focusing on them caused me to miss photographing Edie Windsor.
Laser beam stare.
Yes, that is a live bird atop this green bearded bloke’s head.
Live cat atop this guy’s head.
Getup purchased with a gold card?
Doing as the Romans do in New York City.
The gladiators are here.
The gay crusader.
Gay Yankee ingenuity when you lack a rear pocket.
Rainbow fan girl.
Hello!
Lesbian and proud, or just stretching her arm.
Man in yellow literally leaving little to the imagination.
Hello sailor.
Joyous cop.
Fleet of foot flag waver.
Marching incognito.
Peacock.
Peacock network banner and a sign of corporate sponsorship.
Rainbow flag gown. What will they think of next?
Next is here. Hello Beardonna.
Corporate sponsor Mastercard.
Mastering the possibilities.
Twerking.
Power pumping the asphalt in pink pumps.
Splits and pass us the Aleve.
Dancing in the street.
Starred and labeled.
Magnificent!
Didn’t see that coming!
Shirtless fellows in rainbow socks.
Old Blue and Lavender Hairs.
Pretty in pink.
Serena Williams cross-bred with Ronald McDonald.
Gay dads with kids.
Muscle Beach guys in red boxers gyrating on float.
Israel float and Michael Lucas.
Attitude Man.
Everyone say cheese and keep your wings still.
Nice to know.
Butterflies aren’t free.
Apparently Pride has watered its way down to Walmart.
Gotcha shooting the crowd.
Lame Adventures 
It looks like a good time was had. Some really wild getups. We missed our local parade two weekends ago. 😦
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I feel so gay fried the day after ours, Jim, I envy you.
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You crack me up. Beardonna needs a shave STAT. Yankee ingenuity needs to proceed with caution. I wouldn’t mind a ride on the muscle beach float…hey eye candy is eye candy , right?
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When we saw Beardonna, Milton’s comment was something in fluent monosyllabic. Pride is not the place to feel remotely self-conscious. It is the place to flaunt it whether you’ve got it or not. A lot of the young guys have definitely got it.
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I think my favorite is the flag gown, V. Very creative! Always fun seeing your pics of the parade.
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Thanks Cathy. I’m glad you enjoyed being a voyeur through our lens. I sure enjoy being a voyeur through yours!
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Love your photo recap! It looks like a lot of fun.
I entered to win a motorcycle like the one in your photo. Wish me luck and I will sign up next year! I’ll wear pasties!
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Pride is the event to go topless, Susie. You won’t get arrested. Good luck on winning the bike!
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Wait a minute. I thought you and Milton were going to be marching this year…
Your captions are the best in the business. I think if your day job doesn’t work out, you have a bright future.
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Milton and I don’t march, but we would welcome being driven in a closed top air conditioned car. Maybe one that looks exactly like a taxi. That’s high praise that you enjoyed the captions. It makes me feel a little less gay fried today.
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Fun photos! I’m quite certain this was NOT a lame ‘lame adventure.’ Pride parades never are. 🙂 And, the captions are awesome!
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Glad you liked our photos Ginger. We took about 800 so editing down to those published in this post was bit of a labor. Yes, Milton and I do have caption pride!
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Editing is harder than photographing, any day.
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It sure is! And then there’s cropping …
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I’m not a huge post processing photographer but even just little adjustments are time consuming. A lot of time on the computer. …
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It sure was!
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I mostly wonder how that one gentleman trained his cat to stay on his head. Or is it stuck there, and he just got caught in a parade while trying to seek assistance?
At any rate, it doesn’t look like a boring parade to me at all. We have a Stampede Parade this weekend where they spray paint a bingo card on the street and play horse plop bingo. I’d take a flag tucked into a buttcrack any day of the week over that.
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That Cat as a Hat-guy is a fixture who has been walking around all over lower Manhattan, Jen. We had some horses in our parade, too. Milton thought a few looked gay the way they were nuzzling. Bingo might make an appearance next Pride. Everything seems to make an appearance sooner or later. Someone even handed Milton a flyer on being asexual. It is a very inclusive event, but about the flyer, we both thought the same thing: “Wrong parade.”
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V, the blonde with the butterflies look like the Ga Ga. I liked the white-winged guy, Bear Donna’s got moxie and yeah, God does love the gays. Fantastic, thanks for sharing. Charleston, of all places, has it’s annual gay pride parade in April. As far as you and Milton being boring. Hardly, m’dear.
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Brig, I think you’re right that the blonde with the butterflies is very Ga Ga influenced, but she also brings to mind an old Warhol Superstar, Candy Darling.I hd no idea that Charleston celebrated Pride in April, but could weather be a factor? I will let Milton know that you still find our duo entertaining. Thanks buddy!
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LOVE joyous cop. Also, Green Beard guy with bird goes to every parade in the city! He used to have a little white dog he dyed to match his beard, but it died last month. Glad to see he’s still out and be-birded in parades.
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Glad you loved the cop. Sometimes we get lucky with our shots. Milton says that there are people who love parades and attend all of them, but I don’t think he meant that they also like to participate. I wonder what’s the back story of the guy with the green beard? I noticed that last year’s picture of him included his dog. That’s so sad that his pooch is now in mutt heaven. Maybe his friend is hanging out with my childhood dog, Mean Streak, and they’ve met Moose? Mean Streak always got on well with cats.
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I missed Chicago’s Pride parade yesterday..haven’t been in years. Can’t stand being around suburbanites who come to act like assholes.
Great photos!
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I’m glad you liked our photos, Jules. The crowd members we find most irritating are the shriekers. There was a young woman standing next to Milton who seemed to enter ecstasy over every corporate sponsor. I’m talking Macy’s, Whole Foods, Delta Airlines, etc. Her screaming directly in our eardrums was excruciating. Milton dismissed her with two words, “Fuckin’ idiot.” By the time we left he revised his assessment to three words, “I hate her.” It was like being tortured by an outdoor voice on steroids.
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And a good time was had by all…
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And then we popped Aleve.
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I bet you didn’t think an old white guy who just writes about golf would think that the Gay Pride parade is cool, but I do!
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Ha! That’s great Tom! Thanks for commenting.
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Thanks so much for sharing all your great photos! I haven’t been to a parade of any sort for years but I think New York’s Gay Pride Parade looks like it would be worth seeing. You know how I love a good photo op!
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There are plenty of photo ops at pride, Terri, but something that drove Milton and I crazy was that so many marchers seemed to cater to the side opposite us this year. I like to think that my sunblock did not smell that bad as I baked in the sweltering sun.
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Don’t you just hate it when you can’t control your subjects?
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I do!
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Thank you for allowing me to rock out some NYC Pride parade vicariously through you (and Milton). So many awesome moments captured in these photos! At Mpls Pride there was a confused man on the periphery looking at all the action taking place, and he said into his cell “Not sure, maybe some kind of Wizard of Oz convention?” Close my friend, but no (gay) cigar.
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That’s hilarious, Sarah! In the fall here in New York, we also have Gay Christmas — the Halloween Day parade. Milton and I have never covered that one for LA because it’s at night and I don’t think our shots will come out that well.
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It doesn’t seem boring at all. The parades in my neck of the woods lack in assless pants.
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Lucky for you, you know me. It’s my pleasure to keep you assless pants fulfilled.
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Wonderful synopsis. No place can put together a cast of characters as NYC!
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NYC offers miles of pride, that’s for sure, Frank.
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🙂
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Thanks for the show!
R.
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You’re welcome R. Thanks for the visit (and comment, and Tweet, and FB mention)!
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Given that Toronto just had their Gay Pride Parade (clear across the country from where I sit), my thoughts also naturally came to you and whether you and Milton would be posting photos again this year from NY. Naturally, you did not disappoint. The commentary is just as lovely as the pics themselves. *Almost* as good as being there.
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Awwwwwww, Tania, it was worth baking five hours in the hot sun for that sweet praise from way up north!
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Hallelujah!
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Wonderful photos and commentary! I’m still in awe of that cat on the guy’s head. It looks like one of my cats, but he runs under the bed when the doorbell rings, so I don’t think he’d be good parade material. Happy 4th to you and Milton!
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Milton thinks the Cat as a Hat guy may have crashed the parade. He’s a popular fixture in New York, but this was the first time we saw him at Pride.
I love it when you share tales about your cats!
Happy 4th to you, too!
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I call our cat the “early warning system.” If he thinks someone is coming to the door he’ll let out a whimper just like a kid and take off running. It’s a great way to avoid the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although when that happens, I’m the one hiding. 🙂
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Of course you’d have a scared-y watch cat!
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Duuuuuuude that looks like it was a whole lot of fun. And I’d have to agree with Milton those shoes that dude was wearing were pretty spectacular 😉
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Two marchers wore shoes like that, Guat! That was almost enough to make me fall to my knees just from watching. I could never participate in that march. My footwear is too boring.
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Wow, love all the photos! What a festive event. It reminds me of the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco! That’s a fun one. Lot of politicians involved, too, and corporations, like you said, it seems like a must do, check it off the list event maybe. I hope the event will always be a source of pride for the LGBT community. Sorry, I’ve been missing your posts. I got my head in the sand! Please don’t take it personally! Hope you’re doing good!
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I’m doing well, Amy, but now that the weather is warmer, I’m taking it easy, but have you missed any of my posts lately? I have not been posting that much. I remember hearing about the Bay to Breakers race when I was a kid growing up in San Francisco, but I never attended it. San Francisco has a rocking gay pride parade, too.
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Looks like you found all sorts of interesting characters at the parade. How do you get a live cat to stay on your head? One very unusual cat. Does he end up with a head full of scratches?
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Ha, a full head of scratches! He deserves that, Lois! That guy wearing the Cat Hat is a lower Manhattan fixture. It’s their act. Milton thought they probably crashed the parade.
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He must have a really odd cat. Most panic at loud noises, strange people, too much activity, etc. Hard to imagine a cat just sitting peacefully on somebody’s head through normal daily activity, let alone a parade. And if they start to slip the first thing they do is dig in the claws. Although he does appear to have some sort of hat under the cat. Perhaps a hat cat mat? Fancy that.
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Here’s some back story about this guy and his cat:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/the-cat-as-a-hat-or-a-prop/
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Such fun! Love the flag dress! Personally, I simply love all the out sponsorship. It is good to see the parade getting bigger even if tamer.
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Tamer, it is, Val! Clearly, the corporations are out about vying for the LGBT dollar which I suppose is progress to find that LGBT people are less marginalized in society, but do I really need to see Delta Airlines, Macy’s, or my bank, TD Bank, in this march? Their presence irritates me and it drags it on. It’s become a million hour event that requires the fortitude of a super hero to endure.
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It looks like you had perfect weather for the parade. The captions were hilarious. Our local version lasts about 30 minutes 🙂
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30 minutes! Milton and I would be in our bliss! Ours seems to last 72 hours.
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Great coverage once again, LA. Although I’d prefer the parade to be just for the people by the people without the corporate ‘look at us we’re cool’ image they try to project. But, I suppose they’re trying. The companies, I mean. The people are just being, and having a great time doing so!
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You, Milton and I are all on the same page about that, Tom! Completely. You get it.
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Just FYI, “Dykes on Bikes” is a trademark of the SF women’s motorcycle club. In NYC, the women’s club is the Sirens: http://sirensnyc.com/
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Thanks for visiting and sharing that fact here, MaryO. I was born and raised in San Francisco, but I’ve been a New Yorker since 1982. I’m addicted to crowds, snark and soot.
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Now I (almost) feel like I was there.Excellent photos, and what an occasion. (p.s. how DO those heelless shoes work?)
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It was quite an occasion, Kate. I’m almost recovered. Those heelless shoes defy something, probably sense and calf support.
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