Des Moines Capitol City Pride

Hello old friend. Sorry I have been neglecting you this month! It's been a busy one for me. Full of working and watching TV. Reading. Um...

OK not entirely true. I did interrupt my fabulous life of leisure to go and celebrate PRIDE in Des Moines last week! The Partner and I took most of the weekend off and had a great time. It is so nice to get away, and this is probably the only Summer vacation I will get this year.

So, of course, to start things off it was rainy. The day before we left, and the forecast showed rain every day of our trip as well! Bummer. I can handle rain, but I HATE driving in thunderstorms. The ominous clouds just give me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not even the rain so much but those damn clouds. They look like they will drop at any moment and produce a tornado the size of a small town. Ugh. This type of weather seems to be the new normal in Iowa this year. We are soaked with so much rain right now! Pride was canceled a few years back because the Des Moines River was out of its banks. Not that bad this year, but still grey, cold, and damp conditions for June.

We were determined to have a good weekend no matter what though! Even if all of Pride was canceled we were going to enjoy our time together. I love Des Moines. It is a "big town" that isn't so big you have to pack a lunch to drive across it. I could never live there, as I always spend too much money while visiting, but I love to visit for the day.

This time we were staying overnight. I booked a room at The Embassy Suites overlooking the river in the heart of downtown. It is a lovely hotel that I discovered last year. It is the closest hotel to Pride and it makes it easy to walk back and forth if you forgot something or need to get away. The price tag was well into the $200 range but how often do I stay in a hotel? Not very.

The suite was two rooms with two TVs, a bar, and a California King Sized Bed. Our room overlooked the Pride area and we could see balloons from our window.

The bathroom had been remodeled and the shower was just a glass enclosure with marble floors that looked very fancy. I wanted to take pictures of the room but The Partner couldn't locate his camera at first. This was a recurring theme as he also forgot to bring his laptop and cell phone charger! Ah well he brought himself. We finally found the camera and got a couple of pictures of the room.

After checking in we got busy shopping! We hit Half-Priced Books, Gordmann's discount store, Old Navy, Kaboom! comics, and The Jordon-Creek Mall on Saturday. I didn't spend as much as I felt like I did but I got some cool stuff. Some fancy slippers from Brookstone were my favorite I think. I have them on right now actually. Some good "Fathers Day" deals at Old Navy, which was nice. We ate lunch at Old Country Buffet, which I do not know if it is a national chain? I love a good buffet! OK, I love most any buffet! I think the potatoes and gravy is the key to it for me. I could eat nothing but P&G for the rest of my life and die happy.

Once back at the hotel we had a couple of hours before Pride opened so we went swimming and then sat in the hot tub. I won't get into a hot tub full of people but luckily it was mid-afternoon and the pool was mostly empty. I had the usual case of getting in the hot tub, loving it, and then getting sweaty and overheated 5 minutes later. We headed back to our room and got ready next. This was the first of many wardrobe changes for me over the weekend.

I swear I am not a fashion freak! I'd just looked through my closet and seen 3, well maybe 4, shirts that I wanted to wear to Pride. My solution? Wear them all! I switched the first night into a sleeveless blue workout type shirt. Daring for me. Not sure I will wear such a thing here in the hometown but it was a good fit for Pride I thought. On day two I wore one shirt to breakfast and the opening of the booths, one to the parade, and then one to the bar we hit up after the festivities had died down. OK maybe I am a fashion freak.

 We headed down too early, as usual, to the gates of Des Moines Pride. In the past they held the event on a grassy area near the river but now it has moved up the street to the steps of the State Capitol almost. A two block "X" is blocked off to traffic for 24-hours for us. It is very nice. Such a cool atmosphere. I thought since this was my second year of drinking it all in (we'd only been to the parade before that) that it wouldn't feel as special but it really still did. We browsed the booths. Answered silly trivia questions and spun wheels. Got bags full of merchandise with Wells Fargo, ING, and every other company name on it. Stuff I will likely never use but it is nice to be handed free shit, you know?

My favorite booth featured rainbow cupcakes! They were $2 apiece but I had to have some. Don't know how they got the rainbow into the cake itself but it was very well done. I bought 5 of them to bring home and share... I ate 2 of the "share" ones though! That booth also had a box with a black box over it. The box said look at your own risk and underneath was the most lifelike vagina cake I had ever seen. Scary!

They sold it by the end of the night though. The AIDS project had an awful game where you popped balloons filled with red paint to win a dogtag that said "top" or "bottom" on it. The Partner and I chose not to, thinking the tags to be tacky. We were so wrong! Over the next day and a half EVERYONE had a "T" or "B" red dog tag on. I guess if you are single on Pride weekend it is a good idea to advertise!

The food was awful. I had a hotdog that was so tough I had to take it out of the bun and saw at it. A little Hispanic boy approached us looking lost as we ate and said if our food sucked to visit his fathers taco truck. I felt bad for the poor kid. Next we visited Des Moines only gay-spacific store. It also doubles as a head-shop, but had a nice selection of rainbow everything upstairs. Lots of good gay films too but all of them were massively overpriced. I bought a simple rainbow wrist band. They gave me a free flag, which was cool. They had a cool selection of buttons, which I collect, so I blew another $5 on that.

Around 6ish the first part of the evening started. Pride Idol is a 6 week competition with the top 5 performing on the big stage for us all. There are judges, but the crowd reaction tends to pick the winner. Too many country songs! half of the finalists did country songs I cannot recall now. The others sang "Just A Gigolo" and "Fever". The "Fever" kid won, mostly because he was by far the cutest and had on truly amazing red leather pants!

This is Kenny. He will pop up several times in this post!

 Here is a video of him performing the song. Pretty good!

After Idol we went back to the hotel to unload our swag. By the time we got back the Cher Impersonator Randy Rhodes was almost done with her set! I was in shock. Usually things are so far behind at Pride. Not this year. No rain and everything running smoothly. Yay!

Probably the largest crowd all PRIDE to see Village People

Randy was an OK Cher. She did "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" mashed together with "Half-Breed" which was good. At the end she did "Turn Back Time" and a guy from the crowd threw her a sailors hat so she could recreate the "battle ship" scene I guess. Pretty funny and she seemed to have fun. Next up was Village People.

I had my doubts about Village People. I thought "Oh Jesus how much more stereotypical can you get?". I just put that aside and enjoyed their performance! They can still perform! I researched later and found only a couple of the originals are still around but all of them were in their mid-40s at least. They really were a lot of fun I have to admit. They did "Macho Man", "In The Navy", and "Trash Disco" which is a pile-up of a bunch of other artists disco hits. They acted like they were leaving, but of course came back for "Go West" which is still probably my #1 gay-anthem (although Pet Shop Boys version is my favorite) and "YMCA" which I did with all my heart! It was like a giant wedding reception, but mostly drunk gay men and women. It was really a fun and relaxed party atmosphere. Had a blast on day one.

Went back to the hotel. I had planned to rent one of their overpriced movies, but they didn't have "Scream 4" which was what I really wanted. The Partner went to bed pretty quick. I wanted to stay up and read my Kindle but next thing I knew I had nodded off too.

The next morning we got up early and hit the hotel breakfast area! They made me a custom omelet and loaded my plate with bacon! Went back to the room and enjoyed breakfast with my man. Nice to sit at a table and just enjoy each other. Usually we stuff our faces in front of the TV. Checked the weather and saw they were forecasting storms for the afternoon. The parade began at 1 so I hoped for the best.

The parade was fun as always. Not a ton of flash and skin at an Iowa Pride Parade. Lots of cars full of drag performers and people walking in colored t-shirts handing out pamphlets, beads or candy. Lots of candy! Russ and I sat beside a nice lesbian couple with a 3 year old boy with a mohawk. We kept giving the kid the candy that was thrown our way. He was in a sweet stop as there weren't any other kids around him. Besides 1 Apple flavored sucker I gave him all my candy. This might have been because of the guilt I felt for almost literally taking a strand of beads from his hand!!!

Going into PRIDE this year I had red, blue, orange, and green strands of beads. I needed a purple and a yellow. I got the yellow pretty easily from some insurance company with a yellow logo. The purple was harder. When I saw the woman walking up the street with an armful of them I almost tripped over myself to get to her. She was looking at the little kid and I came flying out of left field rambling about how it was the only color I needed. She gave me the beads and walked on, leaving the little guy beadless. He didn't seem to mind that much but I felt bad. Also, was slightly afraid of one of his mothers!

Parade dignitaries... And Kenny lol

There was one protestor from where we stood watching the floats. He took up residence across the street but quickly moved as some overzealous onlookers decided to dump water (?) on his head from a balcony. Not cool, but I admit I smiled. He moved across the street only to be covered up by a man with an inside out rainbow umbrella. He was quickly joined by a man with a huge pride flag. I wonder if there are people who come to this event just to get in the way of any protestors. There is always someone ready to do it, although I imagine it makes the whole event less fun for them.

 The floats that stick out to me were The Des Moines Mens Choir, with pink tuxedos on celebrating marriage.

 Wells Fargo and their Clydesdales.

 "Urge" bus which was a scary black almost windowless bus blaring music with an overweight girl dancing on a pole inside and semi-hot/trashy dudes running around handing out tootsie rolls (Where did they store them?).

 The "favorite" every year is usually the Le Boi float. Le Boi is the "young" gay club in town and always goes all out. Last year they filled their float with bubbles. This time it was just stocked full of twinks in underwear! The float was blasting Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" but every few yards the CD would cut out and the boys would take up and sing along instead. The crown was really into it and sang along as well. The Partner got a lot of shots of Le Boi's float... I guess I don't blame him!

Kenny was running around here too. Enough Kenny!

 

Some other highlights from the parade:

After the parade we wandered back to the grandstand, although the threat of rain was getting more and more real. The sky darkened. The crowds thinned a little. I bought some more cupcakes and we walked the area again. Surprisingly, on time the "post-parade" show started. A local politician spoke to us about the importance of keeping our right to marry. The committee that organized pride all spoke. The grand-marshal spoke. It was a lot of speeches. I felt like they had better hurry if they wanted to get everything in because the sky really looked bad. Next up came Kenny (again!) to sing "Fever" (again) this time with the added bonus of ripping his shirt off. Miss Iowa Pride did a "Born This Way/Judas" mashup, but the poor thing looked terrified! Last years Miss Pride was full of energy but this one looked like she hadn't gotten her wig on quite right. From there it really started to pour. The Mens Choir sang a song from a "Harvey Milk" musical I had never heard of. A lesbian came out and began to play "Purple Rain". By now I was soaked, The Partner had to hide his camera from the weather and we made the decision to leave early :-(

We wanted to stay in town and bar-hop, but it was only about 4:30. We decided to catch a movie, so we headed for the mall to see "Super 8". It turned out the 4:45 show was on a special "wrap-around" screen with leather chairs and extra loud speakers. We payed the extra $2 for the seats, and on top of loving "Super 8" we got to see it on a HUGE screen. After that we went to dinner at The Texas Roadhouse, which is one of my favorite places to eat out of town. They have the most amazing bread bowls they bring you with cinnamon butter. They let you shuck peanuts and throw the shells on the ground. It is a fun place. Loud country music erupts every once in awhile and the whole place becomes like a big party. Lots of birthdays and stuff going on. We were the only people there decked out for Pride though and I imagine we got a few looks. Our hot waiter didn't seem to care though.

I ordered my steak Medium-well, which is rare for me. I usually won't eat anything with even a tiny amount of pink in it but I was feeling adventurous! TRH has the best steaks Ive ever eaten so I trusted them to do a Medium-Well for me I guess. Dinner was great, and as an added bonus I got to watch some of the NBA finals over The Partners shoulder lol

After dinner we drove around debating on which club to hit. We ended up at the aforementioned Le Boi, as we figured in the next couple of years we are going to be too old to hang out at a place like that. The club is a dive, but there are lots and lots of hot guys running around. They had free BBQ, as well as an indoor pool set up that was probably over-full. I couldn't read the occupancy limit in the dim-lighting! The dance floor was hopping with music I'd actually heard of. The best Des Moines "Dance" gay bar plays mostly trance music which annoys me. This place was playing the hits and when a good song came on the crowd got thick. Russ and I watched from a table nearby feeling happy and secluded at the same time. Des Moines is a big town but not so big that most of the gay guys seem to know each other or at least know of each other. Everyone had their "top" or "bottom" nametags on.

So all of a sudden they clear the dance floor and bring out a mat. Time for Lube-Wrestling! lol They only found 4 guys brave (or drunk) enough to do it but there were too VERY interesting matches for the crowd. Kenny, the Pride Idol, made his final appearance by wrestling with a hot blond guy. Neither one would allow the other to "pin" them so the DJ declared them both winners. Things were nuts! The MC announced there was going to be a wet boxers contest in thirty minutes but by then I was over the whole hedonistic thing to be honest. Rare for me, I know, but it was all kind of sleazy. Don't get me wrong, I watched with rapt attention but it wasn't as exciting as I imagined it would be.

With all six colors now!

Talked it over with The Partner and decided it was time to come home. My wonderful little car did me proud on this trip and got 32 Highway MPG! I was amazed. It only took a total of $16 to drive to Des Moines, drive all over the city, and drive home. Now, if only I got that kind of mileage in town. Once we got back to my place we dumped all our free swag out on the table for my mom, brother, and his girlfriend to paw over. They each got their rainbow cupcake. It was another successful Pride come to a close for us. Another one to remember!

Sorry this stretched so long! I didn't intend it to. I guess I just want to write out the memories so as they fade I can look back, smile, and remember what a great time I had at Pride 2011! Happy PRIDE everyone!