Festival of Lights Parade 2013

The annual Festival of Lights parade in downtown Palm Springs is a cute, small-town version of Disneyland's Main Street Electrical Parade with a dash of Burning Man thrown in for good measure.



The opening performers are usually the excellent Palm Springs High School Band marching down Palm Canyon, with Christmas lights draped around their instruments and clothing.



The group made history in 2006 when they marched in the Palm Springs Gay Pride Parade, possibly the first time a high school marching band had done so in the nation. A recently released short film by a Palm Springs mother-son combo who participated in the event documents the initial controversy, death threats, and eventual mutual delight of both the band members and gay community. (Click here for a Vimeo download).



In truth, what was most impressive was listening to the percussion section practicing and improvising before the parade began. They were so advanced and sharp in their musicianship they sounded ready for Xenakis, though the Christmas audience probably would not have been receptive.



Instead, there were neighborhood groups working together at hauling huge seasonal balloons down the street and ducking under streetlights.



There was a lovingly illuminated garbage truck...



...followed by a daisy-chained fleet of outrageously decorated taxis.



Best of all, my friend Steve Wibben above had snagged two wearable light strands attached to small battery packs at the invaluable Palm Springs True Value Hardware Store that afternoon.



We looked semi-official, as we booed Celebrity Grand Marshall Susanne Somers, and cheered Patty Delgado, matriarch of Las Casuelas restaurants.

Palm Springs Gay Pride Weekend 2011

The migration of gay people retiring to Palm Springs continues at an accelerating pace.



They seem to be coming from all over the country and the world as if there were some siren broadcasting a secret signal.



In fact, the place is reminiscent in mood of the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco back in the 1970s, except everyone is about 40 years older.



In Palm Springs, Gay Pride Weekend follows Halloween and precedes Leather Pride Weekend. "It's the holy trinity of gay holidays around here," somebody remarked at a lovely party given by Steven Wibben (below center) before Sunday morning's parade.



The Palm Springs High School Marching Band and the Desert Hot Springs High School Marching Band were both featured today, sandwiched between drag queens, religious groups ranging from Buddhists to Methodists, animal rights activists, politicians, and somebody who had a float just because it was his 50th birthday and he wanted one. Like every other parade I have seen on Palm Canyon Drive over the last five years, from Homecoming to Veterans Day, this morning's promenade was beyond charming.

Palm Springs Pride Parade 3: We Are Family

An elderly couple marched down the street proclaiming their "marriage" of 30+ years...



...along with a contingent of lesbian LAPD policewomen.



The coolest moment for me was the entrance midway of the Palm Springs High School marching band into the parade. This group plays in virtually every function that marches up Palm Canyon Boulevard, but I was surprised to see the local public high school lending their presence to a still controversial event, and they looked like they were enjoying themselves immensely.



It brought home the fact that most young people aren't as stupid about gay stuff as previous generations...



...and it was enormously heartening.



I insisted on marching in the parade with some contingent, and we ended up joining the PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) group. Half a block into our masquerade, the Canadian woman above turned to us and said, "My son and his partner couldn't make it from Los Angeles today, so you can be my sons."



The Coachella Valley is still a Republican stronghold with too many hidebound Christians...



...but watching parents supporting their teenaged gay children by marching happily past hateful signage together was seriously inspirational.

Palm Springs Pride Parade 1: Rainbow Seniors

Coincident to our annual homeowners association meeting, the Palm Springs Gay Pride weekend was taking place, including a parade on Sunday morning down the main drag of Palm Canyon Boulevard.



What is most striking about the Coachella Valley gay scene is that it seems to be ground zero for married with grandchildren people of both sexes to finally come out fully in their old age.



Ancient gay baton twirlers for the Desert Winds Band, for instance, were an unexpectedly poignant sight.



There were square dancing contingents...



..."Rainbow Senior Center" denizens marching down the boulevard twirling massive rainbow umbrellas...



...antique car afficionados...



...lesbians and their animals...



...and a gay city council member driving down the street with his lover and their two children.

Palm Springs Festival of Lights Parade

Some of the more charming moments in Palm Springs occur during the many ambitious small-town parades that celebrate everything from Veterans Day to Gay Pride Day to the high school's Homecoming.



This Saturday featured the 20th annual Festival of Lights parade, which was a delirious mixture of marching bands...



...and brightly decorated vehicles that included Corvettes, dumpster trucks, big rigs, fire engines and buses, not to mention the dancing tractor below.



According to The Desert Sun, "The world's largest farm tractor makes an appearance at the Festival of Lights Parade. The tractor, made by John Deere, is 13 feet tall, 17 feet wide and 30 feet long. It's owned by Prime Time International, a Coachella-based produce company."



To add to the drama, huge Christmas balloon figures are led by teams from various neighborhood associations with ropes, which requires serious navigational skills to get around or under the street signals that stretch low across Palm Canyon Drive.



The wild winds whipping through California had recently subsided or the attendants to the monster nutcracker above would have risked being blown away to Indio.



The parade was nominally secular but plenty of Christian groups participated, including the bilingual Jews for Jesus sect above.



There were also plenty of local politicians being driven down the boulevard, but the only explicitly political message was the lunatic float above. Our funny group of middle-aged gay guys, led by the loud and consistently brilliant John Goldsmith, started the crowd booing at our intersection and reportedly the vehicle was met with similar reactions along the route.



After an hour and a half, Santa finally arrived on a Midcentury Modern rooftop, and the shivering crowd of about 50,000 packed up and drove away.

Palm Springs Pride Parade 2: Pecs and Parasols

The theatrical gestures of traditional gay pride parades were also fully present...



...from fabulous drag queens...



...including representatives from various chapters of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence...



...who were playing with genderfuck in some fascinating ways.



There were also sprinklings of scantily clad young men...



...proudly enjoying their exhibitionism.



My favorite group was the Latino contingent, "BIENESTAR," who combined pretty young men...



...with drag queens and everyone else.



I wanted to join them marching up Palm Canyon Boulevard but my partner Tony chickened out. "We're not Latin," he said. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "You're of Sicilian ancestry. It doesn't get much more Latin than that," but he remained unconvinced.

Milk and Jones

A couple of hundred people showed up on Sunday to be extras in the "Milk" movie being shot by Gus Van Sant depicting a crowd in front of City Hall at the 1978 Gay Pride Parade.



Most of the people looked too old for the period, and there probably would have been much more nudity on a beautiful afternoon in 1978.



I ran into a couple of friends while walking by and found out that nobody was being paid for their services as extras, which seemed sort of crappy, but it's typical operating procedure for Cleve Jones, who was hired as an "advisor" to the film and who is being played by Emile Hirsch.



Jones was a young assistant to Milk, who went on to co-found the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in the early 1980s and the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt in 1985, two organizations that have siphoned off millions of donated and publicly awarded dollars over the decades without actually helping anybody with AIDS. Jones sold his interest in the AIDS Quilt in the 1990s to some foundation in Georgia on the condition that he receive $41,500 annually along with health insurance for life, and then he proceeded to retire young in Palm Springs. As I've told people for years, if you want to give money to an AIDS charity, give the money to somebody you know with AIDS who needs it. Otherwise, it's probably going to people like Mr. Jones.