MEMORIES OF THE NYC GAY PRIDE PARADES

BY GUEST WRITER VINCENT POMILIO

On Saturday June 14th I took part in the No Kings rally in Hudson, NY. Every small town in the
Hudson Valley had some sort of No Kings event. Being Hudson, there was a strong LGBTQ
presence with very creative outfits and signage. The feeling of change in the air was mixed with frustration, anger and fear. A feeling of hopelessness pervaded. Yet with so many people gathered together to express these feelings, it also gave one hope that we can change things, make them better, topple the evil empire.

There was the same feeling in these rallies as events in the 1970’s when I took part in anti-Vietnam War marches and early Gay Rights demonstrations. How little things have changed. We made such progress and yet, here we are again. The gains we have made over the last few decades now seem so fragile and tenuous.

The rally in Hudson, NY reminded me of the first Gay Rights March I attended. It was 1973.
It was only four years after Stonewall, yet much had changed in those four years. I had just graduated college and had an art teaching job lined up at Conestoga Valley High School in
Lancaster, PA. I had come out the previous summer while working as a cook in Cape May, NJ

My coming out was traumatic as I had been outed by a fellow student who saw me at a gay bar in Reading, PA called The Green Door. She was a waitress at the restaurant attached to the bar. Within days, news of my gayness spread on campus. I was shunned by some fellow classmates and a couple of my roommates were forced to move out by their parents so as not to be associated with me.

I soon had a boyfriend, Tim Riley, who lived in Philadelphia, my hometown. It was Tim’s idea to go to the Gay Rights March in New York in 1973. One month before the march, I had been interviewed by the principal and another art teacher at the
high school in Lancaster. Mr. Kennedy was the principal and Mr. Dreibelbis was the art teacher. Turns out, Mr. Dreibelbis was gay and really wanted me to get the job. The principal appealed to me to get a haircut and lose my beard before he agreed to hire me. I refused but got the job anyway.

A month after getting hired for the job, with a big chunk of the summer still ahead, Tim and I headedto NYC for the Gay March. That year it started at Columbus Circle and went down Fifth Ave to Washington Square Park. As we were lining up, a small crowd gathered along the sidelines to see what was going on

As we were waiting to start moving , I spotted Principal Kennedy with his wife and another couple watching with looks of horror on their faces at all of these freakish homos. I tried my best to be inconspicuous and to this day never knew whether or not he saw me with the other gay marchers. The march was so amazing. It was homespun and incredibly upbeat and we all felt so proud to be a part of it. I couldn’t believe how many people took part. There were people as far as you could see up and down Fifth Avenue. Washington Square was a giant block party with great music and dancing and a collective feeling that were doing something important and that it might make a difference.

In 1976, I moved to NYC to do graduate work in painting at NYU. I loved my new life in New York
City; it was a great time to be young and gay in NY. Tim and had broken up but remained close friends. Tim and I took part in the Pride March each year until his death from AIDS in 1988. In 1978 I met a guy who I had been lusting after for the last couple of years, Tom Hinckley. Tom and I hit it off, fell in love and began a life together. Tom was handsome and brilliant. Tom was seven years older and came from Massachusetts Mayflower stock. The Hinckleys spent summers in Maine; I was an Italian American kid who spent summers at the Jersey Shore.

I am recalling Tom here along with the Gay Pride Parades for many reasons. We spent 16 years
together until his death from AIDS in 1994. Tom had been very involved with ACTUP. He wrote for the Treatment and Data Digest, a bi-monthly publication that presented news of HIV drug treatments and research from the CDC. His work here was very important as he was great at translating medical information into laymen’s terms so we could all understand it. Tom’s death was the Friday before the 25th anniversary of Stonewall and the big Pride March was to be held on the last Sunday of June 1994.

That whole week I had been going back and forth with Tom’s family to Saint Vincent’s
Hospital. They had left before he died. He slipped into unconsciousness and died right after I had left the hospital for a few hours to try and get some sleep. I was able to return to the hospital and be with him along with a few friends to say our goodbyes. I have never felt so alone.

While walking back to my apartment on Morton Street, there were huge crowds of gay people fromall over the world gathering for the 25th anniversary of Stonewall. Celebrations were happening all around me which made my grief that much harder to bear. I took refuge in my apartment but could hear music and partying going on all over the West Village. I got through the night and on Saturday joined friends to watch a movie at their apartment and try to cheer up. Tom would have wanted me to go out and join in all the partying going on. I just couldn’t get into it. His death wasn’t sudden. It was a year of pain and suffering and adjusting to each tragic stage of Tom’s physical decline. The worst stage was when he could no longer walk. Yet Tom was so emotionally strong through all of this and was determined not to make my plight worse than it already was.

There was one incident that is so painful to recall. We were going to the M and O market on the corner of Thompson and Prince Streets. Tom was in a wheelchair. A car load of thugs with Jersey plates rolled down their windows and hollered, “I hope you all die of AIDS, faggots.” Tom hollered obscenities back at them, never backing down.

The Sunday of the Pride Parade was a gorgeous late June day. I was not sleeping well and didn’t know what to do with myself and my profound sadness. There was also some sense of relief knowing Toms suffering was over and my caretaking responsibilities were also over. I got a call from my friend Art McGuire inviting me to attend the parade with them. It felt inappropriate, but what else was I going to do that day? Sit in the apartment and be horribly depressed?

I met Arthur, his partner Alistair and our friend Steven Weinstock for breakfast at LeBonboniere, a greasy spoon diner on Hudson Street. The March met downtown and moved up to Central Park that year. It turned out to be a great idea to be around friends and take part in this major event. Tom was there in spirit. The mood of the crowd was jubilant with streets packed with onlookers cheering and dancing.

We reached the

park and there was a pause before entering the park for the big after party. One of the speakers
announced that there would be a moment of silent meditation to honor those that died of AIDS. My friends all gathered around me and gave me a big collective hug. There was never a more moving, heart breaking and deafening silence. Never was silence more meaningful. So many of our friends had died in the last four or five years. I remember the feeling of despair turning into hope during that moment of silence. You could hear many people crying. The silence seemed to last an eternity. In the end there was a feeling of love, community and collective grief. We had all been touched by this. It brought us closer together.

Over the years, the parade has changed. It has become a big block party with corporate sponsors. It’s a great opportunity to have fun, but don’t let your guard down. Times are changing. Many battles have been fought and won but there are many forces that are working hard to take it away.

my husband Bob Bohan, my cousin Heather Brown, her girlfriend, and me. This is at the Parade on 6th avenue.

THE FIRST PRIDE WAS A RIOT!

Greetings, readers – Happy Pride Month, everyone. This particular Pride month feels both awful and demoralizing, yet it also serves as a call to action. We are once again in the fight for our lives thanks to the twice-impeached, convicted felon in the White House. Things aren’t just bad, they are horrible. Every day we wake to news that gets worse and worse. It’s this very reason that the Resistance movement needs to be louder, stronger, and more visible. Pride still matters – maybe now more than ever.

Times today are not normal. This is not normal. It is not normal for a five-time draft dodger to ban our Transgender brothers and sisters from serving their country. It is not normal for a gay makeup artist from Venezuela to be kidnapped off the streets by men wearing masks and sent to a prison in El Salvador without due process. It is not normal for Utah and Idaho to ban the display of Pride flags on government property and in schools. (10 other states are now in the process of enacting those same laws.)

These are just a tiny snapshot of the horrors going on thanks to the House, Senate, and White House all being GOP-led. As usual, Republicans have no clue how to run a country. The POTUS has more felony convictions than there are transgender college athletes. More Americans were killed by the horrific tornadoes in Jackson, Kentucky, on May 18th than there are transgender college athletes.

On any given day my emotions run the gamut from heartbroken to pissed off to devastated to hopeful and then ultimately hopeless. I hate to admit it out loud, but I do feel hopeless more than I feel hopeful. And on November 6th, 2024, I felt quite possibly most hopeless I have ever been.

I wanted to be done. I wanted to be done fighting, marching, and protesting. Done making signs. Done fighting for those who continue to vote against their own interests. Done fighting for a country that is never going to give us equal rights. Done fighting for a country that let hundreds of thousands of gay men suffer and die horrible deaths in the 1980s. Done fighting for a country that said “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Done fighting for a country that made us beg for Marriage Equality for decades. And done fighting for a country where “Dont Say Gay” was signed into law in 2022.

I am almost 50 years old. I have been protesting for over 25 years. How many more years do I have to march?

Thankfully, those feelings of hopelessness subsided as winter turned to spring. With each attack on park rangers, scientists, immigrants, and drag queens, it was time to join the fight again. On April 5th, I was one of the marshals at the Hands Off protest. Marshals hold back the traffic, allowing protestors to continue marching. I was awed, inspired, and empowered by the ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND people walking past me. Americans of all ages, genders, and nationalities making their voices heard. The energy in the crowd was electric.

The very first Pride was a riot. This June, the people are taking to the streets to ‘riot’ once again.

On June 7th, I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge with Moms Demand Action, demanding common-sense gun reform. On June 12th, Gays Against Guns held a vigil to honor those murdered at Pulse nightclub in Orlando nine years ago. As a ‘Human Being’, silent and veiled in white, I held space for Paul Anthony Terrell, a 41-year-old father who loved dancing and playing pool. His daughter Alexia had recently graduated from high school. He was one of 49 killed that night by a madman with an assault weapon. Texas is banning weed and porn yet guns are buy one get one free. As of April 30th, there have been 155 mass shootings in this country. This is not normal.

At press time, another nationwide protest – “NO KINGS” – is planned for June 14th. Organizers are expecting more people, more press coverage, more, more, more. The new Pope has scheduled an afternoon mass broadcast worldwide. Cities, including Boston, are hosting Pride on the same day. “TACO Trump” is gonna meltdown at all the attention taken away from his ridiculous 50 million dollar birthday military parade. No one has more disdain or disrespect for our Armed Forces than the five-time draft dodger.

My friend, the renowned artist Vincent Pomillio, 70, Manhattan, relayed to me the feelings of those early Prides, “My 1st Pride March was in 1973. The love in the crowd was so palpable. The March and the Parade were so homespun and heartfelt. There was music and dancing along the route, and the city seemed to be lining up along the sidewalks, cheering us on. Everyone felt that there was change in the air, and we were excited to be a part of it.”

Change is in the air once again! Let’s get loud, let’s get proud.

YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT!

Greetings, Robby from Brooklyn here writing on a glorious May 1st here in NYC. This just might be the nicest day of the year so far. The sun shining down gives me life today, which I need. In the past month, I have experienced two major setbacks on beloved projects I have been a part of. These setbacks were obviously not intended or prepared for, and I am wondering where to go from here.

The first is the cancellation of my just-created “Know Your Gay History” class. To describe the class as a complete flop would be an understatement. Zero interest, zero calls, zero registrations, zero. We create an idea, we think there is an audience for it, and sometimes we are wrong.

The room rental was over $100 for each class, so with multiple classes with zero registrations, it seemed silly – and frankly unaffordable – to continue moving forward. Looking back, marketing and publicizing the class might have been an issue, as a few friends I mentioned the cancellation of the class were unaware the class even existed. If close friends didn’t even know the class existed how was the general public supposed to be aware? Maybe there is a world where the class returns however, in a different space, different time, different iteration.

The second setback concerns an AIDS charity event that I have been a part of for decades, and is ending this year. This would have been my 7th time participating, but after MAJOR red flags with my team and team management, it became clear to me – and other veterans – that dropping out was the only course of action. When multiple people use the exact same words of “Its going to be a shit-show,” you have to listen.

This ride is a week-long long glorious, multi-day event filled with amazing people and activities, and events. Millions and millions of dollars are raised for HIV-AIDS-related services that directly affect thousands and thousands of people. I am beyond proud to have been a part of it and will continue to be proud of my involvement.

The week is also hard work. Our team leaves camp daily around 8 am to drive to our station for the day (usually 60-80 miles away). We have two hours to set up before we open around 1130am. We are open until approximately 6pm to serve the 2,500 cyclists who are riding. We serve them food, drinks, have photo ops, and are in charge of bike parking and safety. It is extremely rewarding and satisfying, but also not easy. Throw in even the slightest of mismanagement, and the day turns from hard, satisfying work to grueling and exhausting.

Packing the truck wrong, which means you are packing and repacking it multiple times in a day, getting lost on the drive back to camp, and missing dinner, when each van is provided with a huge binder of step-by-step directions to and from every camp, every lunch stop, and every rest stop.

Both of these seem minor on paper, but after a 13-hour day of working in the CA heat, they are soul-crushing.

The lack of any type of communication from higher up this year was the main reason for dropping out. An initial ask about room on the team in October was not answered until January (that should have been my first clue.) I found out I was on the team when I was added to a group text chat. No message, no introduction, no welcome to the team. Nothing.

Multiple requests for a meeting as the weeks and months went on were ignored. We finally had our first meeting in April. For an event that is in June, the timing of this first meeting is, forgive the hyperbole, disastrous.

The decision to drop out was not an easy one by any means. I have been a part of this event for over 20 years. This, being the last one, only solidified the finality of my decision. However, even though my involvement with this Ride and my team ended, I am still Ride or Die for them and wish them nothing but huge successes. I just had to remove myself from the equation.

A HUGE THANK YOU to my donors, not only from this year but from years past, many of whom have supported me over and over.

So, where do I go from here? Like Carrie Bradshaw said in the now iconic “Sex and the City” episode “The Real Me,” where she falls down on the runway, Stanford calls her fashion roadkill,
“When real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep on walking.”

It’s time for Robby to get right back up and keep on walking. Hey, there is a Boston to NYC AIDS ride in September, maybe there is room on the crew!

Until next time, Readers, Happy May Day…IT’S GONNA BE MAY!

(this column was originally published in the May edition of “Letters from Camp Rehoboth.”)

(this column was edited by Rachel Lader.)

KNOW YOUR GAY HISTORY

GRID. Oscar Wilde. Friend of Dorothy. The Mattachine Society. Edie Winsor. If you know who or what all five of those mean…congratulations you know your gay history!

Gay history is American history. Queer history is American history. Gay people have always existed – we have always been here. And, as it has always been throughout history, it is up to us to teach others our collective history. As I have said in this column before – the queer community takes care of itself.

It is my honor and privilege to announce the beginning of a monthly class at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center (The Center) in NYC called – none other than – “Know Your Gay History.”

In creating this class and working on the curriculum I started reminiscing about my own personal gay history. Growing up gay in the 1970s-1990s was a completely different experience than growing up gay in the 2000s-2020s. Like night and day doesn’t even begin to cover how different it was. For me growing up in the 80s anything gay was honestly non-existent. There was NO ONE one for me to look up to or look at and see any sort of representation.

Yes, there were blips here and there. Billy Crystal in “Soap,” Harry Hamlin, and Michael Ontkean in “Making Love,” (also starring the beloved Kate Jackson.) The television shows “Maude” and “All in the Family” each introduced a gay character and started the dialogue. But I wasn’t even born when those episodes aired. I had no frame of reference or way to find a movie like “Making Love.” Remember this was a full two decades before the glorious World Wide Web existed.

Slowly the world evolved – the USA eons slower than a large majority of the rest of the civilized world – and change happened. “Will and Grace” and “Queer as Folk,” debuted on our television screens. Movies like “Trick” and “The Broken Hearts Club” spoke to us and made us feel seen. Sean Penn, Christopher Plummer, Cate Blanchett, Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne and Mahershala Ali all won or were nominated for Oscars playing queer characters. After decades and decades of marching and protesting, marriage equality was finally passed in 2015. (If the current Presidential Administration plans on taking it away from us they are gonna have to pry it from my cold dead hands…and I ain’t even married.)

Queer culture has changed throughout history as well. Case in point, we have reclaimed the word queer – “Queer Nation,” “Queer Eye” – it’s no longer a slur. We have adopted it as our own with members of our community identifying as queer.

These younger generations came up in a more accepting world. The world that we created for them. We wanted them to be able to live openly and freely. We wanted their youth to be different from ours — and we achieved that. As Billy Eichner famously says in “Bros,” the first queer led romantic comedy, “Of course they are happy. They had Glee. We had AIDS.”

With that happiness and change, sometimes there is pushback or backlash. And some of that comes from within our own community. I mean we only have to look back to the “No fats, No Femmes, No Asians,” that used to be littered on sex apps to know that gay on gay discrimination exists. (Now it’s “No Total Bottoms” but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Different pronouns and guys wearing nail polish are just two examples of how queers in different generations express themselves. “It’s just not for me,” “I don’t get it,” or “They don’t even know who Judy Garland is,” are frequently heard phrases from some 65-year-old gay men talking about a 21-year-old gay person.

Of course they are different. Forty four years is a lifetime! There are so many aspects of gay culture that Gen Z has no frame of reference for including – who Harvey Milk, Harvey Firestein and Divine were. Or why Anita Bryant is so rightfully despised and why Cher is so universally adored. Cue the “Know Your Gay History” class.

Even with generational divides and differences we have to remember, as members of the queer community, we have MUCH more in common than different. Let’s celebrate those differences! And we can never forget that we are stronger together. Our umbrella needs every single letter LGBT and Q. Two trans women of color – Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera – are credited with throwing the 1st brick at Stonewall. Although neither have said so personally. The lesbian community stepped up and served as caregivers to the countless gay men dying of AIDS in the 1980s.

Our queer history is long and rich. It’s time we all Know Our Gay History, aka American History!

To register for the Gay History class – tinyurl.com/knowyourgayhistory

(This column was originally published in the April edition of “Letters from Camp Rehoboth.”)

“You’re Big, You’re Loud, You’re Tough”

“NYC. What is it about you? I go years without you. You’re big. You’re loud. You’re tough.” So sings one of the seminal songs in “Annie,” a musical that has been on my mind lately. Whoopi Goldberg, EGOT winner and host of “The View,” is one of my daily watch shows – ‘GMA’, ‘The Price is Right’, and ‘Wheel of Fortune’ being the others. (No I don’t watch them every day, but I do try to catch every episode. One of my bucket list items is to be on the Wheel!) – just mounted a very successful holiday run of the beloved show. I also watched a quiet, small, very entertaining, and well-done movie on Hulu this past weekend. “Thelma.” It starred June Squibb as a sweet grandmother conned out of $10k. Grandmother aint so sweet as she hatches a plan to get her money back. Her partner in crime is starring as Daddy Warbucks in the production of “Annie” at his senior assisted living facility. It snuck up on me giving me all the feels at the end.

Fun fact: the original “Annie” Broadway royalty actress Andrea McCardle sang the showstopping “NYC” number in the 1999 televised live version. Current Broadway darling Nicole Scherzinger of“Sunset Boulevard” fame played Grace Farrell in this production. The song accurately details my love-dislike relationship with NYC. My past two columns have waxed poetic on my love of NYC since my move back from Fort Lauderdale in December. But don’t fool yourself NYC is hardcore. It is big. It is loud. It is tough.

You’re Big – NYC is mammoth. Every borough is mammoth. You choose your friends by the borough they live in. More than once I have hit it off with someone in a bar or club – whether for friendship or “love” – and in asking where you live if they say the Bronx immediately the relationship ends before it even begins. A sad expression is shared by both as we realize that our love affair ends before it even got started. Geographically undesirable – even when you live in the same city. Heartbreaking. LOL.

Brooklyn itself is mammoth. There are still parts of Brooklyn I didn’t know existed and have never been to. Gowanus, Kensington, New Lots. I just learned about these neighborhoods by doing a Google Search five seconds ago.

When I ran the Brooklyn half marathon it ended in Coney Island. Coney Island is so far from Williamsburg it took me AN HOUR to get home by subway. Imagine running 13.1 miles and having to travel 60 minutes to get back home. In your own city! The number of people lying on the subway floor wrapped up in those silver space blankets was astounding. And hysterical.

You’re Loud – speaking of the subway and speaking of loud – the two go hand in hand. While the subway works amazingly, on time, no issues a solid 75% of the time – those 25% times can be rough. If 25% seems like a high number 23% of that is purely weekend service. Weekend service – in a word – sucks. Multiple delays, multiple slowdowns, especially outside of Manhattan. And we can’t forget the crazies, the lost, and the homeless. And there are many, many, many of them.

Just yesterday a HUGE fight on the platform erupted as one of said crazies screamed up and down “Watch the Super Bowl tonight, the Democratic Party will finally learn. The Democratic Party will go down in flames” etc etc. A few rather large men did not take kindly to that talk – this is NYC bitch – and bedlam ensued. I did not stick around to find out what was happened next. NYC Rule #1 – when shit goes down run away not towards.

You’re Tough – This one is a no-brainer. You wanna live in NYC you gotta be tough. You need a tough skin to survive here. Oddly enough the tougher you are it seems the nicer you are – in my experience. New Yorkers look out for one another. We take care of one another. The toughest part about living in NYC is probably… finding a public bathroom when you are in need! It’s damn near impossible.

Starting January 27th Starbucks will be requiring customers to purchase to use the restroom or sit in seating areas. This is a reversal of the open-door policy that Starbucks implemented in 2018. Just last week I almost burst trying to find a public bathroom. Luckily I was near “my” Dunkin.’ By mine I mean the one I frequent, thankfully the staff knew me and let me use the bathroom without having to buy anything. But guaranteed if it wasn’t my Dunkin’ I probably would not have been let in.

HUGE thanks to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in Chelsea for one- just existing and two- their public restrooms and non-purchasing requirement policy at their cafe. (I always tip the barista whether or not I am making a purchase.) And if you are ever really stuck- download the FLUSH APP for your phone – it will display the nearest toilets based on your location. See, technology is good for some things!

You’re Cold – this one is obvious and it goes without saying. But we will say it again – Bitch it is cold AF up in here! That’s it. No explanation. It’s just cold. Who has two thumbs and moved back to NYC from warm, sunny Florida on December 1st? THIS GUY!

Even though NYC is “too busy, too crazy, too hot, too cold..” it’s definitely a “TOO LATE, I’M SOLD. AGAIN ON NYC!” for me.

(and thanks for letting me live out all my gay musical theater fantasies in this column! Until next time readers!)

*this column was originally published in the March issue of “Letters” magazine.