Chris and I were stewards in the parade. I got the honour (and I really mean that) of walking in front of the second section of the parade, in front of Miss EuroPride's red corvette. OK, so I got in the way of the press photographers, but what a feeling to be out there leading so many people! I really don't know how many cameras I saw, almost as many as the smiling faces, gay, lesbian, straight and all points in between that lines the route. I had a security vest on, a walkie talkie in my hand, plus of course the multicoloured sarong and Doc Martens. I think I must be out now.
We had out problems along the way, of course, but it was on the level of gaps between groups, overenthusiastic Dykes on Bikes, and J-O's car running out of petrol on Strandvägen. Chris reports that the one guy on Söder who was shouting unpleasant things quickly realised that he was in a minority of one.
That and me not seeing the rest of the parade, of course! But that was a small price to pay for the privilege of showing Stockholm how to celebrate. You know, you might have thought that we were showing strai(gh)t(laced) Stockholm what we were worth - striking a blow against homophobia and all. In fact, and in complete contrast to all other Pride things I've been on, the spectators were overwhelmingly on our side, and in fact many, many of them were actually family - GLB folks supporting their own. Marco, who was stewarding right at the back of the parade, confirmed this impression, so it wasn't just that people were watching then joining in. The Parade was for us, and by us, and with us, and there are masses of us out there.
After a mildly chaotic hour of checking dogtags outside Skansen (and meeting a lot of more or less pleasantly confused straight people who had no idea what was going on), the Rainbow Music Extravaganza got going. And no, I am not going to stop being lyrical. OK, some veggi jamabalaya would have been nice but in general - what a place! what a view! what a show! what weather! Doubtless our international guests got mildly confused when we went entirely gaga over After Dark, Jonas Gardell, Jan Hammarlund, Efva Attling, Rikard Wolff, Eva Dahlgren, and when even her the blonde one from Roxette sang in Swedish. But in a Swedish and Nordic context, these people are incredibly important for us in a way that few other places will understand. Queer Sweden is not good at everything, but it's good at gay and bi celebrities, and well, we just kinda love them to bits.
Actually we could have stopped quite nicely after Eva Dahlgren, but, well, Dana International had come all the way from Israel and she sure does know how to get a whole fieldfull of rainbow flag-toting guys and girls and guys-to-girls and girls-to-guys to jump up and down at the same time.
Finally the entire cast appeared on stage to the strains of 'This is it', threw their flowers to the audience, and, well, no one wanted to leave.
Kisses and hugs and rainbowflag blessings and smiles and a minute of silence for the people Aids kept away from us today, Margareta Winberg waxing poetical like no politician should, Imma Battaglia showing the Pope who he has to deal with come World Pride 2000 in Rome, Ann and Christina and Marco and Håkan and Elisabeth and Ingemar and the unknown lesbian who gave me such a marvellous unmotivated hug, the rainbow flags and the Swedish flags against a clear blue sky, and Kim from Denmark in SideTrack at half past twelve telling us how much he'd enjoyed the day. These things, and many, many more, I'll want to keep with me.
It was great, wasn't it?
:-)
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