Pride goeth for a fall

Yes, I am aware that Gay Pride Week is a couple of weeks past. I've taken the extra time before posting this to first distil the essence of my growing hatred for Pride and also because I don't have any good reason to post this stuff in a timely manner. I'm a journalist; I write stuff in a timely manner for work. I get paid for that, whereas this blog is only free entertainment for others and, until I'm paid for it, I'll post this stuff whenever I please.

That being said, there's something wrong with Pride. I knew it last year, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I thought perhaps my feelings of Pride-malaise were triggered by the sight of 60-something men mincing about in assless chaps, but that was only part of it.

This year it hit me. Gay Pride is not about the right type of pride.

Yes, there are different types.

One is the kind wherein you feel good about yourself, whether because of an accomplishment or an experience. You mostly hold onto these things because they ratchet up your self-respect and give you a good feeling to remember.

Another is the dangerous kind, the Seven Deadly Sins-type. The kind for which the term "pride goeth before a fall" was coined. I'm talking obnoxious pride, where you bleat your accomplishments in everyone's face and you're generally thought of as an annoying windbag.

See, I have things I'm proud of. I once won a provincial Tae Kwon Do championship, I'm a pretty decent drummer, I can read Korean, I know how to scuba –dive. I take pride in all those things.

However, I carry those things with the dignified type of pride, where you don't throw it in everyone's face. Before I wrote this, very few people knew about my Tae Kwon Do feat. However, if I applied the Gay Pride type of pride to my accomplishments, I'd walk around in scuba gear, wearing a black belt and my gold medal and giving people roundhouse kicks to the head.

I'm also proud of being a journalist. I think it's a cool thing to be, and although my career is in a young state, I am currently making a living with writing. I get paid to do something I enjoy anyway, and it's a pretty decent profession, even if the money is crap. I'm sure many people don't get the same degree of job satisfaction.

But if I had Gay Pride-type pride in my chosen career, I'd wear one of those "Press" cards in a fedora and scream "STOP THE PRESSES" and other journalism clichés into people's faces for no reason. That's what Pride has become about. It's not about just feeling good about yourself; it's about feeling downright smug and obnoxious about it, and screaming your self-satisfaction in everyone's face, whether they're interested or not, which is the most obnoxious type of pride.

But I don't do that, and most people don't. Why? Because it's socially ignorant, it's arrogant and it pisses people off. It's obnoxious and it makes people dislike you.

Gay Pride is about ridiculous excess. Or sometimes the opposite, at least when it comes to how people are dressed. Since when does being gay require one to parade your disgusting and underclothed body around in public? Can't you just party and be gay without offending general aesthetics?

I've seen far too many girls with breasts that look like tube socks with baseballs in them, wearing tape over their nipples. Too many guys in thongs and assless chaps. There's no need for that, especially when you're gross-looking. And, more to the point, it has nothing to do with being gay. It's a type of pride though. But until the city has a "Pride in Your Disgusting-looking Body" Parade, people need to keep that crap under wraps.

But back to excess: pride is, for some reason, an excuse to just act like a jackass for no reason. On Sunday, Parade day, I saw 3-4 dykes snorting coke in the alley next to my building. As I left my place, the front lawn was full or partially clad leathermen sunning themselves, and gravity-ravaged topless girls forming a jiggly, droopy barricade of flesh right in front of my door. On Saturday night, the street party and maddeningly repetitive techno beats endured until well past 4 am.

A few years back, The Onion had a great article entled "Gay Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance of Gays Back 50 Years." That's almost what what Pride does for me. I have no problem with gay people and I like my neighbourhood for the other 363 days of the year that aren't Pride Weekend.

But it's not even the homosexuality that bugs me. It's the ridiculous belief that Pride is just an incredible free-for-all and a license to act like a jackass. It's not. It's about being gay and proud.

So hey, go ahead and do that. More power to you! Be gay! Just do it with your fucking clothes on, shut off the music after 1 am and stop snorting coke outside my window.

I'm resolved to move out of this neighbourhood before next year's Pride Weekend, since I now know I'd sooner encounter a different type of pride altogether, that being a hungry pride of man-eating lions, which would be altogether a much more peaceful and fun experience than the bloated, obnoxious horrorshow that is Gay Pride weekend.