After checking into the hotel, we headed over to China town for lunch. In all the times I've been to S.F., I've never been to China town. The shops weren't all that, but we had a fantastic lunch and it was super cheap too! I couldn't believe the people next to us. They were 2 adults and 2-3 kids. They ordered like 4-5 entrees plus rice or chow mein and then they barely at any of it. Such a waste of food. 
After lunch we walked around China town some more and then walked over to Union Square and the mall. I had read about this online and was pleasantly surprised when I turned the corner and saw this: 
It's sex on legs! Sara wanted to do some shopping at H&M, so I walked around the other shops and thought maybe I'd buy a new tie or something. We went to a few stores and I couldn't believe how pricey it was. The ties weren't even that nice and the cheapest was like $80. Then we went into the mall and saw Wall-E. It was cute. Not exactly the funniest Pixar movie, but not bad either. But the short movie in front of it was hilarious! Probably one of the best shorts ever. After the movie we wanted to take a cable car down to the piers and get dinner but I think it was too late. So we decided to walk instead. We had dinner on Pier 39, which isn't as fun as when you're in the 5th grade. But the restaurant was fun. 
Plus, I had a Castro Colada before dinner, which I think was appropriate, given it was Pride. We bought a bottle of champagne at Pier 39 but it was so late that we only ended up having one glass. But it made for nice mimosas the next morning! We could see the parade starting to line up from outside our hotel window. I called Jalila who was going to meet up with us for the parade. She was all the way at the other end of the parade route, so rather than try to walk and push through crowds, we jumped on bart and headed down a few stations. 
Of course no parade would be complete without Dykes on Bikes. Quite a few were in wedding dresses. But they were moving so far, I couldn't get any really good shots: 
The Balloon Magic people are always fun. The last time I went they were a giant chinese dragon. This year, they were ocean and sea creatures: 
I love the look on this drag queen's face. I bet she'd be a kickass fairy godmother: 
Yeah, in case you can't tell, this is Margaret Cho. She wasn't listed as a grand marshall on the website, so I was totally caught off guard when her car when strolling by. I barely had time to snap this picture: 
Sexiest Mayor in the U.S.: 
Random drag queen? It seemed odd that there was just one drag queen in a jeep, so maybe she's special? Some kind of super power maybe?: 
I was also disappointed that there were a lot less porn starts. This time there were only two on the back of a truck :( 
Yay, Nevada represent! 
There was a lot of pulling hair and gnashing of teeth when Cyndi Lauper came by. Well, not really but she was fucking fabulous. 
The governator even showed up! 
This was the Macy's float. It had a weird theme. There was a few men and frog statutes and then this Glinda looking woman. Was it the Frog Prince? 
I don't know if these old people knew where they were or why they were on a trolley:
Harvey Milk's grandson and director Gus Van Sant 
Leather daddies! 
Peter Paige "Emmett" from Queer as Folk was riding in the Google contingent for some reason: 
Charo was supposed to be a grand marshall. They had this float but she wasn't actually on it. She may have been there, but after I left:
At first this looked like the gay prom but I think it was actually for some gym:
We actually had to leave before the parade was over. We were there for 2 1/2 hours and when we left there was no end in sight. As we were leaving, I noticed that people were sitting on top of the sani-huts in order to see. I can't imagine what it was like for people using the sani-huts. Or on top for that matter, didn't they smell? I was waiting for one to tip over. 
I love this building! 
On the way out I got to walk through leather alley. A lot of ass-less chaps and leather collars and leashes. 
It was sad leaving before the parade was over. I also wanted to walk around civic center where the big celebration was going on, but we had to head over to Berkeley for the concert. We decided to drive over early so that we could get lunch. We ended up getting deep dish pizza at Zachary's. We even drove past my old apartment. It reminded me of how much I liked living in Berkeley. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The True Colors concert was at the Greek Theater in Berkely. It was at the same place where we had law school graduation. Our seats were on the lawn, which is at the very top. The lawn is sloped so we brought a blanket and kind of laid back on the grass. The first two acts were the Puppini Sisters, who are like a modern day Andrews Sisters (think Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy) and then Andy Bell who was in Erasure. It was a little odd because he came out by himself and was singing and dancing all by himself with no band or anything. Needless to say it was a perfect time to go get a drink and check out the t-shirt booth. Wanda Sykes was pretty funny. I'd never seen her stand-up. Definitely no Margaret Cho or Kathy Griffin, but it was a nice break between acts: 
After Wanda there was an intermission and then something awesome happened. The concert was far from being sold out so a guy was walking around asking people if they wanted upgraded seats. We said YES! and moved from the lawn to the orchestra. So we had a much better view of the stage! 
Before the headline act, Cyndi came out to give a speech urging everyone to vote against the gay marriage amendment in November. It was preaching to the choir, but it was still a good speech: 
The B52's were fan-fucking-tastic! I love seeing them in concert. It reminds me of when Pajama and I saw them at the Hilton. "Psychadelic Furs, Psychadelic-Suck!" Haha. They just put out a new album, so the show was a mix of their classic songs and some of the new stuff. I hadn't listened to the new album yet, so I wasn't familiar, but some of the songs were good. 
See how close we were! Definitely great seats: 
Gotta love the cowbell: 
The new guitar player was hot. Wait, he is new right? 
I tried taking a video with my camera and I got almost the entire "Private Idaho" song when I feel this tap on my shoulder. I turn around and there's this bitchy security guard telling me that no video taping was allowed. I could take stills, but no video. Yeah, because 10 people immediately in front of me weren't taking video as well. Totally lame. So the end of the video cuts out, but still pretty good, right? Their set was awesome. Then Carson Kressley, from Queer Eye came out to do some standup while they prepped for Cyndi Lauper. He's not the greatest stand-up but again it was entertaining:
Cyndi closed out the show and it was awesome. She too had a new album out, so she played a mix of old and new songs. The difference was that I had been listening to her new CD all week. It's really good. Very poppy and danceable. 
This prop was a little unnecessary as she was only on it for one song and even then it was just for a few seconds: 
At one point I started having issues with my camera. The battery kept trying to die. So it got to the point where I could turn it on, try to zoom really fast and then take a picture. 
I was also having flash issues as it got dark. I couldn't figure out which flash setting was working the best. So a lot of my pictures look really grainy. Anyone have an idea how to fix that? Maybe I should run them through a photo editing program or something. 
At the end of the show, for the encour they released these giant balloon type beach balls. I so wanted to hit one, but the wind kept pushing them back towards the stage. Alas, I never got to touch one. 
It was also cool because the finale was all of the earlier acts back on stage to sing with Cyndi. They sang Everyday People and for the last song they all sang True Colors. 
It was an amazing concert and a great way to end a really fun weekend. I'm definitely going to go again next year. The tickets weren't that pricey, we got a seat upgrade and we got to hear some great music. And the line up changes! Who's coming with me next year? More posts coming soon, I promise!
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