Fabulous Flashback: San Francisco Pride 2003

Nicholas Snow's Official Pride Headquarters in 2003, the Renoir Hotel - Official Hotel of the NotesFromTheWorld.com Family of Web Sites for SF Pride 2009

San Francisco Pride takes place June 26-28, and NotesFromTheWorld.com users get a Special Pride Rate: from $139 per night, June 26-28, 2009. Single/double occupancy, +15.5% Tax & SF TID assessment, 3-night minimum and prepayment required for stays including Saturday and Sunday night. Additional nights: $99-$149. Additional person: $15. Superior rooms $219 (limited availability).

The Renoir Hotel on Market Street offers the best views of San Francisco's Annual Pride Parade and is only steps away from the Pride Festival. 133 comfy rooms with wireless internet access (fee). Enjoy a hearty breakfast or dinner at our new Italian-American restaurant ?Neptalia.? Relax with specialty cocktails or get your groove on with some of San Francisco's best DJs spinning to a vibrant and fun-loving crowd at our lounge/nightclub ?Etiquette.? All public transportation options including BART and the F-Line Historic Streetcars are just outside our doorsteps, taking our guests conveniently to both OAK/SFO international airports and the Castro. For more information, visit us online at www.renoirhotel.com.

Renoir Hotel 45 McAllister Street (at Market) San Francisco, CA 94102 Call 1.800.576.3388 for booking information or email emmanuel@renoirhotel.com

Find more photos like this on NotesFromTheWorld.com

Fabulous Flashback: San Francisco Pride 2003

By Nicholas Snow

San Francisco opened its golden gates the last weekend in June for the 2003 Pride celebration. People from all over the world converged upon the city by the bay for historic flag raisings, receptions, circuit parties, sight seeing, boy watching, a big wedding, the parade, a wild street party, theater, films and more. While the overwhelming history of San Francisco’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community beckons tourism some believe that a sort of post-traumatic stress syndrome in the wake of AIDS and September 11—as well as the increasing and complex challenges in addressing the needs of the homeless population—have bruised the City. Others believe that it’s not as important to travel to what used to be the gay capital of the world because of the rights afforded to many of us in our own hometowns, and the aggressiveness of other cities—such as Palm Springs, Montreal, Miami, and London—going for the queer tourism dollar. In spite of the challenges San Francisco faces, the city offers up a pride celebration like no other, with a unique mix of spectacle, history, politics, heart, and hunks.

Pride Headquarters

One can only choose the historic Renoir Hotel as their headquarters for pride weekend, as the hotel overlooks the parade route and is within two blocks of the Civic Center where the post-parade festival takes place. (Latest edition in 2009 is the Neptalia Restaurant & Bar where Chef Nick Cozza is serving up Italian fare adjacent to the Renoir Hotel. Open daily from 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM

Nicholas Snow from A Room With a View from the Renoir Hotel during the 2003 San Francisco Pride Parade.

Director of Sales Peter Gerhauser explains, “Our specific location in regards to the parade, to Folsom Street…being on Market Street with direct access all night long to the Castro…within walking distance to most of the bars south of Market, all the leather bars and so on, makes the Renoir Hotel a very convenient place to stay.” And you can’t beat their rates. Make your reservation now for the upcoming Folsom Street Fair and Castro Street Fair weekends in September, and for those parade-view rooms every year!

Happy Anniversary Baby

My first official pride event was believe it or not at 6:15 a.m. the day after I arrived in the City—but it was an event not to be missed. Gilbert Baker, the inventor of the Rainbow Flag, raised the restored eight-color flag in United Nations Plaza, 25 years to the minute since he and friends, many of which are no longer with us, did so for the first time.

A fan with Gilbert Baker, creator of the Rainbow Flag

After the historic flag raising attended by just a handful of people, Deian McBryde, Executive Director of Rainbow 25, said, “It’s sort of one of the enigmas and the dichotomies of Gilbert to create incredibly huge moments, but then he lets them happen really quietly… Time is such a strange concept, right, that we’ve invented, but somehow we know enough that exactly 25 years ago to the minute, Gilbert stood here and with a group of friends raised this flag for the very first time and we see how it swept over the planet.

I asked Baker how it felt to see rainbow stickers on cars everywhere. “It feels really good,” he responded. “You know, that’s the success of the Rainbow Flag, is that people adopted it. You can’t really design a flag. The saying is that the flag is torn from the soul of the people, and that’s what makes the flag a flag—it’s the people’s love of it. It’s not just the fabric; it’s about people’s connection to it. When I see it on the cars and the homes and everything, I mean its doing its job. It’s out there being a visibility tool, telling the world, ‘this is who I am.’ In a lot of places, that takes a lot of courage, so that’s the purpose of the flag.”

An object of protests during Pride Week was the presence of corporate America. However, as McBryde points out about the sponsor of Rainbow 25 and the documentary in production entitled From Sea to Sea), “This flag as been around for 25 years, but 22 of those 25 years, Absolut has been giving money and energy and attention to the community.” I’ll drink to that.

The Media Reception

When the Pride organizing committee scheduled their Thursday afternoon media reception to introduce the sponsors and honorees, they could not have known that it would take place in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave on the very day the U.S. Supreme Court would bestow more legal recognition on our community than we have ever had. As an honored parade Grand Marshall (one of many), Armistead Maupin said, to great applause, “I’ve been trying all day to correlate this extraordinary weather with that extraordinary Supreme Court decision, and I’ve decided that this is the San Francisco equivalent of when hell freezes over.”

A reporter interviews Armistead Maupin and Laura Linney.

At the reception, I asked Mr. San Francisco Leather, Troy Anicete, how he earned his title. His rise to fame happened fast. Having participated in the leather community for about 20 years, this was his first year in competition. The “Mr. Bare Chest” title lead to the “Mr. Powerhouse” title which lead to what Anicete describes as “a standard beauty pageant,” including segments for physique, jock strap, leather image and a 90-second speech. A standard beauty pageant? Don’t tell Miss America. Anicete “surrenders” (Yes, Sir!) his title in September during the Folsom Street Fair.

Here Come The Brides…And Grooms

More women than men—but still more than 100 couples—participated in the 4th Annual Domestic Partners ceremony officiated by California Board of Equalization Chairwoman Carole Migden in front of City Hall. For some couples, who had been together ranging from weeks to decades, the ceremony was just about love; for others, perhaps more aware of what’s at stake legally and politically, it was time to make a statement.

They just want to love each other the same way all married couples do!

Belinda, one of the coordinators of the San Francisco chapter of the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, explained, “I’ve been with Wendy five years. We’ve lived in the country for five years with me working here with a work visa, but next year that visa expires, and I have to leave, which means that Wendy is going to have to come with me and basically live in exile from her own country, so we want to get the Permanent Partners Immigration Act passed.”

Wendy added, “There’s a little bit of an ironic twist from my point of view, because our country offers asylum to gays and lesbians from other countries that are in danger of being discriminated against, and here I am, in the U.S., and I’m going to be discriminated against by my country to the extent that I will leave the country and live somewhere else for the rest of my life…”

Paul and James met six months ago on Salon.com. Prior to participating in the ceremony, one of them explained, “Today, it’s sort of about being part of a community, and the more public side of expressing our relationship to other people. I love this guy, and in a certain way, I don’t feel like I need a city or a state or a nation to bless or sanctify that love, but at the same time, I’m happy to be here, and happy that we’re able to do this now, and I think it does mark progress in the way that society views us as people and values us as people. So yea, it’s all good.”

About the significance of the ceremony, Chairwoman Migden explained, “I think it’s marrying committed couples, having a note of victory, having affirmation we always deserved, having a right to privacy, having liberty, and ushering off what is going to be a wonderful anniversary for all the couples, all over the globe, and America, and in San Francisco that come to join us.”

It’s Raining Men

At the sold-out, swimming-room-only Splash party at the Phoenix Hotel, I asked producer Don Spradlin, who for years has been producing parties, about what sets his events apart. “Well, we have a foundation called The Noble Beast Foundation,” explains Spradlin, “which was started by volunteers to raise money for AIDS service organizations. Our board and our volunteers vote on who they want to have the money distributed to.

Party organizer Don Spradlin flanked by admirers.

What’s the difference between promoting a party and producing a party? “Promoters rent a club and invite people to go to the club,” explains Spradlin. “We produce, which means we get an empty room, we bring in the lights, the sound the bars, the entertainment. Our idea of a big party is to have a really flawless dance journey, for which we bring in a world-class DJ…intersperse that with two or three really exciting acts from around the country, and that’s a really very high production value event.” I’ll say. Splash was overflowing and the official pride event, Reunion, was expecting a mob.

Boys at the Splash party.

I asked Spradlin about the challenges that San Francisco is facing today. “I think that with the other cities around the world being very aggressive in seeking gay visitors, and San Francisco in a post-whatever funk, we don’t have visitors like we use to. We don’t have the same kind of energy that we used to. I don’t think people look at San Francisco as the gay destination they used to look at it as, and the city hasn’t figured that out yet. In other words, everybody else has become aggressive. Montreal. Toronto. Palm Springs. Miami. And San Francisco is just sitting here waiting on the gay kingdom to be the number one city again. I think it’s really ridiculous. So, I find us in a funk.”

What’s the solution? “I think we just need to continue to what we’re doing, and people will come back… It used to be San Francisco was literally the only gay city, to some degree, and now there are lots of options. So, I think we just have to do what we do… I think the parties are very exciting here, because San Francisco, as well as the parties, is fun. So, the thing about San Francisco that I’m confident in—the reason I call this place home—is because its not just about a gay event. It’s almost like when you’re in this city, everything is gay. To a large degree, it’s very comfortable. The whole city is just gay-accepting,” Spradlin concludes.

Fellow party guru Gus Bean, who throws Mass in both San Francisco and in L.A., and Sundance in Guerneville—plus he owns Metropolis—said about the City, “I think it all swings like a pendulum. For awhile, it was kind of dead. Now, it seems like it’s reviving again. It’s definitely such a comfortable place. I think people, gay or straight, love to come here and enjoy the beauty, the architecture, the art, and of course, the gay community. For awhile there, when the dot coms were falling apart, it was pretty desolate, but I think it will always be somewhere in the top 10 of vacation spots.”

A party goer, Rasmus, who lives in L.A., said “I love L.A. I love where I live, but it’s still refreshing to come up here. It’s a completely different way that people live and interact. It’s very refreshing.”

Beach Blanket Parade

A trip to San Francisco would be incomplete without taking in Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi. A staple in the pride parade is the show’s star Val Diamond who sings San Francisco from a float for hours. After taking in Babylon the week after pride, Diamond, who has been with the company for 25 years of its 29-year run, spoke about Babylon creator Steve Silver, who died of AIDS in the late ‘90’s.

Beach Blanket Babylon Cast and Alumni with Nicholas Snow - Dana Adkins, Nicholas, Dani Marcus and Val Diamond.

“Working with Steve was kind of like, ‘let’s get a barn and put on a show’”, Diamond explained. “I miss him. I miss him terribly… In fact, at the end of the show, in my head, I always look up at the balcony and say something to him before ‘San Francisco.’ I stared doing it when he passed, because I feel, if he’s anywhere, he’s still there.”

Dani Marcus, who formerly starred in Babylon as Snow White, was delighted to give me her take on her first San Francisco Pride Parade. “…It was the first time since I have been living in San Francisco that I was able to go down and be part of the festivities. It was such an amazing day for me. I’m not gay, but I was sort of raised by gay people, raised in the theatre. All of my parents’ best friends were always gay. My best friends were always gay. I sort of felt like it was my celebration… After all of the wonderful rulings that had been passed—this year in particular—it was such an amazing thing to be a part of.”

Tales of the City

My adventures to San Francisco were extraordinary, but I think Armistead Maupin summed it up best at the media reception.

Armistead Maupin

“I am so proud to live in this city, to think of this as my hometown, and to feel the love that I feel from all my brothers and sisters here, “Maupin explained. “This has been an amazing day already, and I know its going to be an amazing weekend. I wish you all the greatest joy and the greatest love, and I hope we’re all getting married soon.”

San Francisco Pride Official Web Site