GLBT Pride 2010

This entry actually written July 20, 2010

On July 19, I headed to the "Summer Stage" in Central Park to check out this year's Pride Rally. I watched the performances of a couple musicians and comedians, but then grew bored because I didn't have a friend with me. Overall though, the Rally looked to be a much bigger deal than it was last year. Except that this year they didn't have Dustin Lance Black as a speaker. So, you know.

June 27 was the day of the biggest Pride Week event: the Pride March! This year, I decided to actually march in the parade instead of watching it, joining some of my friends in the Hunter College Queer Student Union group. There were only seven of us, despite that there are many more people that frequent the QSU and should have been there! Oh well. Quality over quantity, right? We gathered at around 11:30 AM in our groups assigned area, and a little after noon, it was our turn to join the procession on Fifth Avenue. Our march stretched from 39th Street down to 9th Street, where we turned and walked another several blocks, passing Sheridan Square and ending around Greenwich Street. Phew! That was a long walk for me! It was fun looking out at the people lined up who were watching the parade, and checking out all the cute guys amongst them. Must have been about fifty boys I wanted. GAH.

Anyways, after our march was over, the parade actually continued for a few more hours--it's quite long. But when our march was up, our group of friends sort of walked around aimlessly, and we couldn't agree on where to go next to party or whatever. I had about enough walking, and I was freaking exhausted from the march (and from waking up early), so I gave up and headed home. Too bad it took me forever to get to the 1 Train subway station because I had to go up to the 14th Street Station after finding out the one at Christopher Street was closed! That meant even more walking. Lordy, I was tired. But all in all, marching in the parade was a fun experience, and something very important to me. It's important for the gay community to come together and show our pride in the face of the homophobic world we live in that treats us like lower lifeforms. And it's very important to me. I want dignity, I want respect for my true self, I want equality, and I want the right to marry someone I truly love. And I want these things for everyone.

One Year Anniversary! And Some Updates

Hello, my dear readers! (Who am I kidding? How many of you are there, like three tops?) It is now June 2010, which marks the one year anniversary since I started this blog, which means it also marks the one year anniversary since I moved to New York City! Wow. I cannot believe I've lived here for a whole year. The time has gone by so fast. In "celebration" of one year of my blog, I've changed the layout (as you might have noticed) using Blogger's new designing tools! Isn't it lovely? Thank goodness they updated those template options, because the old ones were so boring. My new cityscape background gives it a nice New York-y theme, don't you think?

The past few months have been busy and somewhat distressing because of school stuff, so I didn't get around to write about more April and May stuff until just last night. But I placed the entries neatly under their proper dates to keep everything in order. That's the way I like to do things. So be sure to catch up on the entries for May 31, May 8, and April 11! Oh, and if you haven't watched those few Vlogs I recorded, do that too. I had previously thought I'd be doing more videos, but to make a long story short, I've just been having too much trouble working out the technical stuff. Plus, I think text entries are easier for me (or my three readers) to refer to than video ones--like if I happen to be looking for the record of such-and-such event, it's easier to just look for it in text rather than watching a video. So, I think I best stick to mostly text. And photos, of course! Pretty pictures are always a good thing.

Anyways, I survived my second semester of college at Hunter, but only barely. I've now started two classes in the summer session, either because I'm freaking insane or because my mother basically ordered me to. I'm taking two Gen Ed courses, Literature and US History, but they're okay so far. In my free time, I've been watching anime and movies that I check out from the public library, which serves as a nice expense-free substitute for Blockbuster. On the weekends, I've also spent mucho time video chatting with Nick on Skype. That's been fun!

The upcoming week has some excitement in store. I've got my ticket for Adam Lambert's GlamNation Tour concert on Tuesday, June 22! I've been looking forward to this for months, so that's been keeping me going. The YouTube videos I've seen of his show are glamtastic! For me, this man is the greatest thing since sliced bread. He is the incredibly talented and sparkly gay performing artist that I've been needing all my life. It's important for us gays to have our icons. I'm so excited about his official concert tour! Oh, and coincidentally enough, this upcoming week is also Gay Pride Week here in New York! So I'll tell you all about that stuff maybe next week or sometime after! In the meantime, enjoy Adam's music video for his latest single "If I Had You":

Wall Street, Pride Parade, and Such

My mind is all jumbled because this post is a little late, and I'm trying to work out how to organize a run-down of my recent adventures for you. *sigh* Okay.

Two weekends ago, I took the subway to Wall Street and joined Mom and Dad for a stroll around the financial district. There are lots of really cool buildings, both historical and modern, around that part of town.

We also went to Battery Park, where you can look over the river and see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I've still never actually seen that thing up close!

On Sunday, June 28, I went over to 5th Avenue around noon to watch the Gay Pride Parade-- a celebration of GLBT self-expression, equality, truth, peace, and love. There were plenty of drag queens and hot guys to go around. Gotta love it. I took hundreds of pictures at the parade, so I've compiled a slideshow of a small selection of them. I also took several video clips (but I think I'll upload those on another post because Blogger is giving me a headache). There were a few notable people marching in the parade, including the governor of New York David Paterson, Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black, activist Cleve Jones, and I'm pretty positive I also saw Jaslene Gonzalez from America's Next Top Model.

The parade was way longer than I expected, but I stuck around for most of it until I was basically starving to death. After a meal of pizza and breadsticks, I proceeded to take the subway over to the PrideFest Street Fair, which took place over in The Village (At least, I think that's what they call that area). There was lots of junk food and rainbow-themed gifts for sale, but I just bought a lemonade because, as I've noted before, I don't have much money. I did enjoy walking up and down the street fair checking out guys and stuff. By evening, I was exhausted, especially because I didn't sleep well the night before. Ah well, it was a fun, gay-filled day anyways.

In other news, I've been watching way too much baseball lately because there's a Yankee's game on 6 days a week and dad got me into it. Me? Watching sports? Crazy talk! I know, right? But as usual, I've also been diggin' lots of anime. Since I finished watching the intellectually stimulating series "Kino's Journey," I started on another great series I bought a while back, "Samurai 7," a futuristic rendition of Akira Kurosawa's legendary epic film Seven Samurai. Thus far, it's a fairly impressive series, with a diverse cast of characters, an engaging story, samurai action, and subtle romance. I also rented some great anime films recently: (1) Kiki's Delivery Service, a family-friendly coming-of-age story about a young witch, directed by the masterpiece factory himself Hayao Miyazaki; (2) The Sky Crawlers, a pensive, complex, and mysterious study of the human condition punctuated with stunning CG aerial action sequences, directed by Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell; and (3) Tokyo Godfathers, writer/director Satoshi Kon's quirky tale about three homeless people who discover an abandoned baby in a garbage dump and try to find out who her mother is in an adventure full of chance encounters and holiday miracles.

Over the past week, I also worked on making some curtains for my room out of cheap bedsheets. I did it with mom's help, of course, because I didn't really know how to sew before. They look pretty good now, except I think they just need one more finishing touch.

Last Friday, I went with the parentals to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we admired all kinds of amazing art--what else? I took a lot of pictures of the incredible statues, which are probably my favorite kind of artwork to look at. The amount of skill that went into creating these realistic figures is astounding. The photos will have to come on a later post because this one's long enough already!

For July 4th, we had a picnic in the shade at Central Park. It was a gorgeous day! After we ate, we took a little nap on our picnic blanket and enjoyed the breeze blowing gently over us. Then we walked around the park and checked out the beautiful Conservatory Gardens, which feature fountains with bronze statues, topiaries, colorful flower beds, and lush ivy. I'm mad that I forgot to bring my camera that day! But of course, I can go back and take pictures any time I want. Because I live in New York City.

Pride Rally, Kinokuniya, and Burnt DVDs for Rental

Saturday kicked off the GLBT Pride festivities (in spite of still more rain) with the Rally in Bryant Park, featuring a slew of activist speakers, comedians, singers, and other performers supporting our pride and promoting the cause of gay rights. I checked it out after I got lost in Times Square (as seen above) for a little bit. The crowd at the Rally was surprisingly small, maybe because of the weather. When I arrived there, I barely caught the end of Dustin Lance Black's speech--he's the young Oscar-winning screenwriter of the film Milk! So he's kind of a big deal and all. I was mad I didn't get there in time for his whole speech. But it's awesome that I saw him in person. As a matter of fact, he walked out amongst the audience casually and he literally walked right behind me! Right behind me! Like not even two inches away! As I farted around all star-struck, I contemplated the idea of asking to get a photo with him-- I mean, what an opportunity right? But you know what? I freaking didn't. Because I'm a freaking moron and I don't take hold of the chances that are right in front of my freaking face. IDIOT. He left the park a few minutes later and I will most likely never get the chance to get a photo with Dustin Lance Black ever again.

This is the best photo I could grab of him, or rather the back of him (he's the guy with the white shirt tucked in, carrying a cup of coffee), with my slow camera. Lame, I know.




Here's a shot of the whole rally.


After battling with my dissappointment in myself, I left. Well, I also just got bored of standing around watching the show by myself. There were some cute guys around that I was checking out, but I suck at talking to people so I didn't meet anybody. Geez, me being an idiot again. GAH.

Well, here's some pretty pics in and around Bryant Park.






Anyways, one of my favorite stores in all of New York City happens to be right across from Bryant Park--Kinokuniya Books. It's a Barnes & Noble-esque bookstore dedicated predominately to Japan and all things Japanese, including a basement floor comprised entirely of books in Japanese. But the best thing of all is the second floor, where they have an incredible selection of domestic and imported manga and manga artbooks, plus a decent selection of anime. I couldn't buy anything since I spent money back at Forbidden Planet. Sad face. Frustrated face!

And by the way, to take full advantage of the awesomeness that New York City has to offer, one needs money. And to get money, one needs a job. I hate job searching. Hate it. But I'm freaking dying here. So much manga, so little money! Well. I'll let you know how that job search goes.

Um, Sunday's not really worth mentioning apparently because I can't remember it.

On Monday, I was supposed to have an appointment at Hunter with an academic advisor, but to make a long story short, the bus was really late and the traffic was bad so I missed my appointment. That frustrating experienced started off my day badly and it didn't really get interesting after that anyways.

The past couple of days, I've felt a little down. It's hard to explain, but I think I'm just lonely and frustrated because I don't have any friends to hang out with. I don't mind hanging out with my parents, but the conversation can only cover so much, you know what I mean? My nights have often been spent watching anime by myself, which is all good, but it would just be so much more fun if I had someone here named Mike with whom to analyze and discuss it.

I watched an incredible anime movie this week called Metropolis. It's a modern classic with great characters, dazzling animation, and interesting themes. Hm. That statement was a pretty generic comment that goes for pretty much any great anime film, wasn't it? Well, let's just say Metropolis is probably one of my new favorites. You should watch it.

On Tuesday, I checked out our local library on 100th St. It's a small and humble library, but they actually had a decent selection of manga including a single yaoi manga. I was amused. But I have to get a library card before I can check anything out and I applied for one online. I can't wait to get it because since I can't buy manga, I'm definitely down to check it out for free!

Here's a random pretty church I found in the neighborhood while looking for the library:




Today I had a successful appointment with an advisor at Hunter. I went over some questions I had about... collegiate stuff. You know. After that, I took the 6 train down to Grand Central Station and got lost for a while trying to find a Japanese video rental store. When I finally found it... well, let's just say their merch wasn't exactly legit. Ha. Okay, you know what, I'll just tell you: their DVDs were burnt discs with photocopied covers on the cases. No lie. Cute, huh?