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A rose by any other name
A
I gave at the office
D
oes anyone love Pride more than me?
Every year, I start to get giddy the weekend before
Pride. 1 hang a little rainbow flag on my apartment door,
1 paint my nails rainbow colors, I smile unexpectedly for
no reason. Once it comes, 1 work multiple booths, I eat the
food, I visit all the vendors, I cheer at the stages, I gawk at
naked girls in the Dyke March (shut up, I march, too), I party,
1 carry some banner or other in the parade, 1 go to all the ven
dors again.
Does anyone love Pride more than me? I don’t think so.
But I hate Bud Light. Every year, 1 try to hang out in the
beer garden after the Dyke March. I want to be there so badly,
mingling, talking, drinking. But there’s nothing to drink.
Why does Pride only ever serve Bud Light? I call Jack Kee
gan, president of Pride Northwest. “The person who does our
beer garden says that Bud Light is by far the largest-selling beer
that he sells, which is one of the reasons,” he politely informs
me. Also, he notes, Budweiser has an exclusivity contract with
Pride Northwest.
Aha! Corporations are ruining my beer garden experience.
“With the beverage vendors, that’s fairly standard,” Keegan
patiently explains. “Like, if you go to Rose Festival, you’ll see
that Pepsi is their sponsor, so Pepsi is the only stuff served
there.... If you have that corporate sponsorship, they’re not
going to want to compete.”
Most corporate sponsors who take part in Portland Pride do
not have exclusive contracts and are just a presence with every-
Ixxly else. Like, say, Interactive Male— or Just Out for that mat
ter. We give Pride Northwest money, we get a booth and our
logo on their materials.
What concerns me is those exclusivity contracts, and not
just because o f my taste Buds. (Buds, get it?)
Instinct magazine and Elbow Grease lubricant both have
exclusivity contracts with Pride Northwest this year. Instinct's
says that no other specifically gay male magazine may be present
at the festival. Elbow Grease’s says that no other lube may be
available. This means that if Gai-Pied has a booth, they can’t
bring any magazines except Instinct. It’s My Pleasure may sell no
other lube but Elbow Grease.
Pardon my language: That sucks.
“The magazine and the lube is kind of new," says Keegan.
“It’s something that has more ramifications.”
So should we all make angry calls to Pride Northwest?
Absolutely not. Where do you think they get the money to
throw this big queer party every year?
“Once when I was feeling especially bitter after spending a
Sunday evening at the end of Pride picking up cigarette butts on
my hands and knees for three hours," relates Keegan. “1 went
through in my head and started adding up how much came in
in the buckets with how many people showed up. I think it was
abtHJt 9 cents per person.”
So last year a $3 donation at the gate was put into place, but,
even though approximately 25,OCX) people came through, Pride
got only $32,000 in gate revenue. And, according to Keegan,
those bucket donations max at about $5,000.
“Asking for donations at the gate is a new variable that we’re
definitely going to have to take into consideration,” Keegan
says. Which means those exclusivity contracts could be a thing
of the past. But only if they can make up those funds from me
and you.
Pride costs more than $92,000 to produce. If you give $3 at
the gate and there are 25,000 of you, that’s $75,000. Even if
you’re a vendor, you should pony up your $3. Really, that’s pret
ty cheap for 48 hours of kick-ass queer fun.
Here’s what I still don’t get: How come Budweiser can’t serve
just plain old Budweiser? 1 would drink that. JT1
h, once again, the annual Rose Festival is taking over our
fair city. If you think it’s all just so much white-trash, hetero
hogwash, then you haven’t kicked back to watch the Grand
Floral Parade as seen through the eyes of a drag queen diva.
With her combination of wit and white gloves (remember,
white gloves, not kid gloves), Rose Empress XXXVIII Misha
Rockafeller plays host to her annual Grand Floral Parade Party
from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 7 at the comer of Southwest 10th
Avenue and Stark Street.
For once you’ll enjoy waiting for the parade when mem
bers o f the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court and the city’s
reigning titleholders perform atop Panorama beginning at
10 a.m. The infamous bloody mary bar will be serving up
liquid sustenance while you try your hand at decorating your
own parade glove.
Then at noon, the incomparable Misha offers her queenly
quips on the seemingly pansy-less parade. “The whole idea was
that we just don’t see any queer representation in the Rose Fes
tival,” says Misha, aka Michael Kennedy. “It’s meant to be fun,
catty and basically give us an opportunity to get our community
recognized and represented, too.”
As host of an official Rose Festival site, Misha sees the floats
and reads the “official" descriptions ahead of time. “I don’t fol
low their script, of course— I have to gayify it,” she assures. “It’s
not boring when you’re in our comer."
Portland’s G us Van Sant wins a rare double prize at Cannes
Van Sant wins big at Cannes
P
ortland’s own gay cinema stud G us Van Sant brought home
the gtxxls from the Cannes Film Festival last month, win
ning the celebrated Palme d’Or (best film) and Best Direc
tor awards.
Elephant, a fictionalized (yet risky) reconstruction of the
1999 Columbine High Schcxd rampage, features two homo kids
planning to kn<x:k off teachers and fellow students. The title
refers in part to the adage about an elephant in the middle of the
room that everyone ignores— in this case, the rise of gun vio
lence in the United States.
H ie double award was doubly special because an exception
was made to the festival’s mle restricting one prize per film. Fur
thermore, the cast consists of student no-names from Portland,
and the film was shot locally at the abandoned Whitaker Middle
School.
The ntxl to Elephant, slated to open in November, was also a
bit of an upset, pitting critics on both sides of the aisle. For
example, Variety says “gross and exploitive,” while The Washing'
ton Post describes the flick as an “understated, sensitive drama
that takes no sides, only sympathy for everyone.”
At a news conference following the French ceremony, Van
Sant said: “I don’t think it is a film against America but as a mus
ing about schcxil violence... it’s made from the viewpoint of my
own life in America. It’s about the structure of society and the
relationships between students."
Showgirls even better? Blit how?
R
ecent news has it that eight “intellectuals" have taken up
the defense of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls in the academic
magazine Film Quarterly. They needn’t have bothered.
It still makes one stare in awe: Seattle writer David Schmader
plays host to a very special Shotvgirb screening June 6
Showgirls doesn’t need any defense. This overripe ode to the
Las Vegas trash ’n’ flash lifestyle is one of the masterpieces of
the ’90s. So much unforgettable imagery: a greased-up, aerobi-
cized Elizabeth Berkley pole-humping her way to glory; the
iconization of Gina Gershon’s vast, quiv
ering, pre-Botox lips; Kyle McLachlan’s
hum job and swimming pool screw;
Berkley again, dressed like a killer ama
zon, beating the shit out of the sleazy hip
ster who raped her galpal.
All that powerful sisterhood and les
bian tongue-swapping and those
befeathered drag queens and glitter hos
duking it out on stage. There really arc
too many wonderful things in Showgirls
to enumerate.
But how to alter rather than repeat the
singular experience of watching the film?
For a one-night showing at 8 p.m. June 6,
Clinton Street Theater is importing Seat
tle homo monologist David Schmader to
offer a running comic commentary on the
film— a sort of queer version of Mystery
Science Theatre 3000.
Schmader is the writer who brought
you the one-man show Straight, and this
Showgirls gig sold out 800-seat venues in
Seattle recently— so grab that boa, ice
those nipples and get there early for a front-row seat.
Extra-special bonus: Clinton Street shows Flashdance
June 13 to 19.
"The end of the world" is near
t’s hard to hear the music over our own heartbeat as we
wait for Peter, Mike and especially queer lead man
M ichael’s Stump-
town stop on their
first North American
tour since 1999.
With a new album
set for a late October
release, maybe R.E.M .
will offer a taste of
what’s to come when
they play an 8 p.m.
show Sept. 3 at Clark
The band that sold alternative rock to the
County Amphitheater masses: R.E.M. returns to the Northwest
in Ridgefield, Wash.
Tickets are on sale now for $37.50-$67.50 from Ticketmaster.
I
Queer Point of View
*$ *h is month PBS will show two dtxumentaries with queer
\ themes as part of its P.O.V. series. Flqg Wars, about affluent,
white, gay men moving into a Columbus, Ohio, African
American neighborhood, airs at 11 p.m. June 17. Qeorgie Qirl,
about New Zealander Georgina Beyer, the first transsexual elected
to any parliament in the world, airs at 11 p.m. June 20. | H
Compiled by L isa B radshaw , T imothy K rause and G ary M orris