Reprinted from 2019 because, sadly, it's all too pertinent as the barbarians inside the gates of SCOTUS and other institutions are working very hard to destroy democracy in the United states.  

In 1977 when I marched in my first Gay Pride March (it hadn't yet morphed into a parade), I could not have imagined that in my lifetime there would be gay marriage. The prejudice was too deep, too institutionalized, too unquestioned. 
For those same reasons I was doubtful America would elect a black president, but then we elected Barrack Obama. 

Then in 2016 we elected Donald Trump, America's most constitutionally-ignorant, separation of powers-hating, science-denying, kleptocratic president. Or perhaps we did not elect him, the covert and overt rigging of elections has reached quite a pitch here, but either way, about 1/3 of the population is happy to have an authoritarian Daddy figure relieving them- and the rest of us- of the pesky necessity to think, to adapt, to grow, to grant the right of beingness to others.

These folks are with us always (to paraphrase Jesus), but to see this darkness so ascendant that the U.S. may be turning into a full-on authoritarian state is another thing I never imagined to see in my lifetime. (Apparently I suck at predicting what Americans will do.) 

I hope I am wrong, but for many reasons - not just trump, who is as much symptom as cause - I fear rough times are ahead. And not just here in the States. Which makes pride particularly salient in 2019 and henceforth. 

Ours has always been a movement that fought for and celebrated the right to live, to love, to fuck (or not, my celibate and asexual friends), to play, to pursue happiness... So remember our history, remember the queers at Stonewall who met riot police with high-kicking chorus lines, and let us never forget that joy is itself a revolutionary act. 

As Jody Scott put it, "The best revenge is to flourish and prosper," 

Or, to quote Albert Camus, "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

-Mary Whealen  

 No Pride this year, 2020, 'cause, you know, pandemic.  So, from just before the world took its nosedive, the lovely DYKES ON BIKES from Sidney, Australia.  'Cause everyone knows they on their vroom, vroom motorcycles are the best part of any parade.  And I didn't forget you boys, a little eye candy for you below.  

​Christmas Day, 
     Sunny and cool.  I took a walk with my dog.  We walked around our big block of Supermarkets up at the corner of 185th and R.B. Road--it's weird to see those stores from the back because nobody ever goes there, I mean why the hell should they?  They shouldn't.  Except us (of course), and The Homeless Man.
     The Homeless Man lives in the woods somewhere around here, I never found out exactly where--Mary & I took a pile of blankets to him the year when everything in the neighborhood froze solid but The Homeless Man was nowhere to be found, so we went back home where it was messy, piles of papers books and so on all over the place but at least warm and comfy
     Anyway, I was telling you: today when I hiked around the alley side, guess who was there?  The Homeless Man.  We said hello and all that crap and then he threw back the lid of a dumpster that was standing behind QFC--you know how big a dumpster is, pretty goddam big--and he said,
     "Look."
     Those were his exact words and I looked.  The dumpster was jam-packed to the brim with last weeks' pork chops, lamb chops, steak, hamburger and every kind of pre-packed veggies, all laid out in those styrofoam thingies with the Glad Wrap or whatever it is, nicely sealed over them and everything looking almost fresh with the price stickers still on them.  So anyway we chatted a while about how The Homeless Man could take some of the stuff home and cook up a nice stew for himself, except he had no place to cook anything and so forth and so on and then the dog and I walked on because we had to hurry up and do all the shit people have to do to stay alive in this culture and, well, I guess that's about it.
       Except for one thing--couple of weeks ago an anthropologist from London phoned me; very nice fellow, lovely Brit accent, wanted to know about Henry Miller and George Leite--you remember George, I spoke of him in my last article.  See, there was this piece called "The New Cult of Sex and Anarchy" in Harper's magazine a good while ago and this fellow wanted to know about it because he was writing a book.  So I thought, "Well, you know: George's poem about The Mastodon, that poem kind of says it all."  So here is that poem for your delectation, OK?  To the tune of Tannenbaum:
        O Mastodon, O Mastodon,
        O broken glass
        Comes from your ass.
        O Mastodon, O Mastodon,
        O broken glass comes from your ass.
        O Mastodon.
        O broken glass;
        O broken glass
        O Mastodon,
        O Mastodon, O Mastodon,
        O broken glass
        Comes from your ass.            
              I hereby swear and affirm that these events are true.  (Signed) Jody Scott  12/25/06  (rest in peace, dear buddy George).    Daughter Lani died 2006, wife Nancy & son Daliel still thriving in California, bless ‘em.
​-Jody Scott

     Steve began to remonstrate (that means like, protest a bit when you know you are in the right) and at the same time Reba, who always carries a baseball bat on her walks to send the tennis ball spinning a little farther and faster and also to protect against stalkers and suchlike-- Reba snuck up behind the cop.
     Just as the cop was saying, "The law states that each of you are subject to a $120 fine or you can appear in court with or without a lawyer to present argument--"
     That was the exact moment when Reba hauled off and whacked the officer in the head with her Louisville slugger.
     When the bat connected with the cop's skull, the sound was like a watermelon being dropped ten stories down to a cement alley.
     SMOOSHHH!
     Reba wiped her bat with handfuls of grass.
     "That's one dead-looking cop," she observed.
                                                                                       #

    read the rest of Incident at the Dog Park