The Massive Continuity of Ducks

libraford:

So yesterday was my first time marching in a band, and it was Pride. This is a crowd of thousands. When I’m dancing, it’s a crowd of like… less than 100. And I haven’t performed in a good decade. This was very much a test to see if i could handle a crowd as a performer, and I’m very much a trial by fire person.
So after like… hours of waiting around for stuff to happen, they had us line up. Crowds were starting to form, I was surrounded by huge tall buildings that echoed and turned the street into a wind tunnel.
I’m not downtown very often because despite being an extrovert I’m not a fan of crowds. So the streets being empty of traffic but full of us queers had such an amazing high energy like… it cannot be put into words, it has to be experienced. At one point during the lineup I looked up and cried a little bit because it was a beautiful queer day and I was a beautiful queer and we were all thousands and thousands of beautiful queers.
Then I waited for another hour or so because parade lineup logistics are a pain in the ass.
About half an hour before push-off, the protestors arrived. This time they staked their spot in front of the head of the parade. They had a bullhorn and a loudspeaker and an exhaustive list of Bible verses. I heard Deuteronomy being shouted at over the din of the crowd.
Our drum line makes their way up to the front and starts playing their cadences to drown out the protestors. Drums are the loudest part of the band and you can hear the beat bouncing off the buildings. So you can’t hear the protestors. And soon you can’t even year the drums all that much because people were cheering so much.
The protestors refused to shut up.
About two slots in front of us was a small convoy of rainbow cars that were cheuffering drag queens. One of them lays on their horn. The rest lay on their horns.
One of the melophones in our band goes ‘what is that, A-flat?’
And he starts to match pitch. The other melophones join in, then the trumpets, the tubas, flutes, saxes, tubas, clarinets. Either matching pitch or harmonizing. We start waving our flags.
The other band down the way starts doing the same. The A-flat is heard around the statehouse. The dykes on bikes rev their engines. Some folks on kazoo, tambourine… everyone starts making noise.
The cacophony bounces off the steel and glass buildings like rubber balls loose in food processor. The sound rose up like August heat, the gathering crowd cheered down the street, and the group with their Bible verses put down their words because even the people next to them couldn’t hear them.
I can’t know if they moved or gave up, but I didn’t see them as we passed the area where they were.
But I was so delighted to part of that absolute clown show.
I used to be 'gay, but I’m not making it my whole personality like some gays do.’ Now I’m 'queer as in fuck you.’ There is so much about being loudly your most self and being with others that are so loudly, adoringly themselves- that we can be unstoppable in this way. My best weapon is being myself.