Boston Gay Pride turns out newbies, old-timers and superheroes

Tremont Street was teeming with drag queens, politicians, scantily clad go-go boys and an endless array of colorful parade floats on June 14 as the South End served as ground zero for the 39th annual Boston Pride Parade, a celebration of the city's LGBT community.

As thumping club music blared for the brunch crowd at Tremont 647 and the smell of sunscreen wafted through the air, Boston City Councilors John Tobin -- accompanied by his wife and child -- Rob Consalvo and Michael Ross, who all marched in the parade, took in the scene from the center of the street.

Meanwhile, Cassie Parys and her teammates from the Charles River Women's Rugby Club warmed up with a ball near their float. Parys, a 20-year-old Marlboro resident, was attending her first Pride parade.

"I am proud to be gay and to be with all of these people who just love their life and, you know, are just cool with who they are. It's amazing to be with people who are fine with who they are and to be proud about it."

This year's parade, which began at the intersection of Tremont and Berkeley Streets and ended at Boston City Hall Plaza, included a diverse array of more than 100 marching contingents, among them Fenway Community Health, the Senior Pride Coalition, BAGLY and the Brookline sex shop Good Vibrations! Gov. Deval Patrick and his family also marched, as did Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and a large group of other elected officials, among them out lesbian state Rep. Liz Malia of Jamaica Plain.

Linda DeMarco, president of the Boston Pride Committee's board of directors, was pleased with the weather -- which was warm and sunny after days of rain -- and the turnout.

"This is the largest parade ever, that we've ever had," said DeMarco during a short break from her duties at City Hall Plaza. "Everything's going perfect, everything's going great. ... We got some fantastic floats this year, I cannot believe. People really came out and really did a good job."

Not everyone was as pleased as DeMarco, however. Taking in the parade from a perch on Berkeley Street, Max Smith, a Maine resident who works in Boston, said he was attending his 28th Boston Pride Parade.

"I liked it better years ago when [there] was more floats and bars had the different floats and so on," said Smith. "And now it's just people walking. I like to see all the organizations and the different groups and everything, but I don't know, maybe before I was younger and it meant more to me than it does now. I'm not sure. Your views change over the years."

Despite his disappointment at the lack of pageantry, Smith still found reason to be proud.

"I'm really happy to be alive at this time," he said. "You can be out and do everything and I've never had a problem personally here or in Maine. I've been myself and it's been fine. I have no complaints really."

A little farther down Berkeley Street, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue, Frank Ribaudo, the owner of the Club Caf? took in the scene and marveled at how much things have changed since he opened up his gay nightspot 25 years ago.

"It's just amazing when I think back to 1983 when we opened Club Caf? and how risky it was to have all these big windows out on a big public street like this and today, well, you can be anywhere, be gay and be proud. It's pretty exciting."

Over on Charles Street, several Boston Pride newbies secured spots along the street to check out the parade. Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy, an Attleboro resident decked out in an Ellen Degeneres Show T-shirt, sat on the pavement with a group of friends. Buchakjian-Tweedy said she had been to Pride celebrations in New York, San Francisco and Paris, but despite growing up in Massachusetts she had never before gone to Boston Pride. She was impressed by the multi-generational crowd.

"I have a lot of fun people watching at the parade. It's always amazing to me to see the different generations. That to me just makes it, to see the couples in their 60s who are here, and you know what they went through, and to see the couples in their 20s and the folks who are really young and think, wow, it's just such a different perspective, and we're all here and we're all together, and that's awesome," said Buchakjian-Tweedy.

She said she and her wife, who is six months pregnant and was camped out on a chair in the, were thrilled to bring a member of the youngest generation to Pride.

"It's exciting for this to in a way be the baby's first pride, and to be here for the first time as a married, expecting couple is really awesome," said Buchakjian-Tweedy.

Across the street Bostonian Shabeli Polanco, who wore a checked rainbow bandana tied around her neck, said she went to her first Pride event last month when she attended Massachusetts Youth Pride and the BAGLY Prom, and she was excited to see the larger Boston Pride parade.

"I came here to show my pride and show my support 100 percent. ... I just want to have fun," said Polanco.

Her friend Yamiliz Perez, who had a rainbow flag tucked into her belt, said this was her first time going to any Pride event.

"I heard it's good, and I want to show my pride, so I just wanted to come," said Perez.

Shawn Roach and Chuck Robbins, also watching the parade on Charles Street, moved to Boston from Colorado in December. When asked what they were most excited to see this year, Roach gestured to Robbins and said, "He's looking for Taylor Dayne." Robbins laughed and admitted that he was excited to see the '80s icon take the stage at the Pride festival.

"[I'm excited] just to see the parade, see Taylor Dayne, hang out at the festivities for awhile," said Robbins.

As always, a coalition of women's motorcycle clubs rode at the head of the parade, the roar of their engines and the honking of their horns announcing their approach long before their arrival. But this year's parade was bittersweet, with members of the Moving Violations Motorcycle Club carrying a photo of founding member Woody Woodward, who passed away after a two-year battle with ovarian cancer that morning. Woodward had long been one of the most iconic figures of Boston Pride, rocking her trademark rainbow Mohawk. [see "Donna 'Woody' Woodward, Dec. 1, 1944 - June 13, 2009," p. 1]

Meanwhile, in the parade, students, parents and teachers from the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge marched through the streets wearing bright yellow hats. Two of the students marching with the Fayerweather contingent could have won an award for most coordinated Pride marchers; one sauntered down the streets on stilts, while another steadily bounced along the parade route on a pogo stick.

While the Boston Pride Parade may not feature many celebrities, there were plenty of people who dressed the part. The Good Vibrations staff commandeered a rode through a Duck Tour boat, on the back of which a staffer dressed as queer icon du jour Lady Gaga, covered in bubbles as she appeared on the cover of a recent issue of Rolling Stone.

Further along in the parade Batman and Robin (or at least a pair of reasonable facsimiles) cruised through the streets on the back of the float for the Kenmore Square comic book shop Comicopia, with an entourage of costumed heroes walking alongside them. As the Comicopia contingent passed along Charles Street a man dressed as Nightcrawler from the X-Men, slathered head to toe in blue body paint, dashed into the crowd for a little bump and grind with a woman on the sidewalk before moving on.

Comicopia, a comic book shop in Kenmore Square, later captured the Boston Pride Committee's award for best adaptation of the parade theme, which was "Trans-forming our Community."

As always, the Pride Parade featured a steady stream of politicians who marched to signal their support for the LGBT community. In many cases the feeling was mutual. As City Council President Mike Ross and his supporters marched past, one woman in the crowd along Charles Street shouted, "Go Mike Ross! Sexy!"

State Rep. Bill Bowles was also among the politicians who marched in the parade, having made the trek from his Attleboro district to join the MassEquality contingent. Bowles, like his fellow Attleboro resident Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy, was attending his first Boston Pride Parade. Surveying the pre-parade scene on Tremont Street, he remarked with a sly smile, "The landscape is a little different than Attleboro."

"I think there's been some major accomplishments [on LGBT issues]," Bowles also said, noting the legislature's work to secure marriage equality. "And I'm looking forward to going the next step on the transgender bill. And it's just a great day for equality in the state and that's why I'm here."