Let's break down this photo I took at the pride parade.
With this feline person's consent – they also paused and posed, sweeping the blue velvet cape up front for better documentation – I used my shitty iPhone 8, the one that's about to get me locked out of an increasing number of Los Angeles parking lots that are switching over to QR codes for payment since mine no longer fucks with new apps, to capture their enchantment.
I don't know what their look is referencing. They could have been a character from some game or anime I've never heard of. They could have been a cat from Cats. They could have been open-air auditioning for Drag Race or Mormon Wives. I don't know.
After pulling the picture out of my phone I realized there are lots of other elements that need your immediate attention.
That building to the left of Cape Cat is where I used to go to fear-of-flying therapy. It kinda sorta worked but not 100%, and I would prefer a nice state-sponsored rail system. That building's functional use to me now is its shaded entryway. I stand there for my entire visit to the parade each year, because I was not put on this planet to be assaulted by direct sunlight for more than ten minutes at a time. I carry a small, black, retractable umbrella. Let the shirtless army scorch themselves. I'm delicate.
To the right of Cape Cat, you'll see the shoulder and bare back of a man named Mark. I've known Mark since our mutual pal Dennis introduced us on the opening weekend of Coyote Ugly. This is hands down the faggiest way two people can become friends.
Even in years when I'm too lazy to go to the parade, Mark has shown up at our home to say hello before leaving his shirt behind. "I'll be back for that." His sunblock is a special variety that allows him never to burn. While I staked my spot under the office building's entry with friends Gary, Dylan, Frank, and George – all of us fully clothed and a couple wearing sun hats – Mark was on full, commanding, tits-out patrol.
The parade takes place on Santa Monica Boulevard, exactly one block from my home, and that makes it very easy to enjoy. I can arrive and leave when I want. If the crowd, heat, or noise become crowdier, heatier, or noisier than I'd like, I can bail. When I bail, the music follows me back up the street.
See that pink and blue striped building in the back? That's Circus of Books, the legendary book store featured in the documentary of the same name. Click for link to the trailer, it's very good. Here's what's given short attention in the documentary and what people seem to forget: half the square footage of that bookstore was, indeed, devoted to adult material, separated from the rest of the place by swinging saloon doors that you'll see in the trailer, but the other half was a really thorough and internationally-focused newsstand, where I bought Artforum and every possible art, culture, design, or fashion magazine produced globally. They had, since we're being gay here, "Harper's, Tatler, English Vogue, American Vogue, French Vogue, bloody Aby-bloody-ssinian bloody Vogue, darling!" Circus of Books remains, under new ownership, without that immense selection, so as a person who still reads magazines in 2026 I miss all that.
I was pleased to see a markedly decreased number of corporate sponsors – at least during my 75-minute attendance, who knows what was bringing up the rear of the collective float situation – and that was, I'm sure, the result of so many corporations deciding to back down to right-wing governmental pressure or just to quit since they no longer felt they had to. Fuck them. I don't miss them and didn't want them around in the first place. When I went to my first pride parade in Texas in 1991, I don't recall AT&T being all that interested in us anyway. There was, instead, a leather-dude bible-study group from the local queer church and a gay cheerleading squad.
Seemingly coming out of Cape Cat's shoulder is a sleeveless man in sunglasses holding a red Solo cup. Just below him, crouching down near their little dog, is a blonde woman in a baseball cap, also holding a red Solo cup. They hung out near us, and Gary was their actual main entertainment. They would turn and look and laugh every time he shouted at floats containing West Hollywood leadership figures, lodging funny complaints about various municipal problems and the derelict French Market Place building that's been vacant too long – probably now haunted by poltergeists from Hollywood's Pansy Craze era – while greedy developers and landlords wait for an insurance fire.
The float on the right is the Gay Men's Chorus and they got my personal psychic memo to perform "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles. I don't have a special relationship with that song or anything, I just didn't want to hear that MAGA lady's disco version cluttering up my day.
Not pictured: The all-queer bagpipe band, the enormous squad of lesbians on motorcycles, a bunch of furries on a truck, go-go dancers on fire engines, the marchers demanding that all the Epstein files be released, the Jackass float with Johnny Knoxville waving and wearing a little sailor cap, the KTLA float full of bikini people and, to my eyes, none of my favorite 4am to 7am anchors: no Chris Schauble, no Megan Henderson, no Ginger Chan. Sad.
When I was much younger, there were times I thought I was too cool for a parade. Parades are, by definition, goofy. But now I'm old and I want it and I need all my fellows queers to be goofy all at once in the middle of the street. And so, overall, it was nice. I went home and took a nap. Cape Cat sashayed away.
