The 2001 Greater Palm Springs Gay Pride celebration took place on November 3 and 4. The affair is now memory, but the celebration continues on this page forever. The "main" event, the Parade, took place on Palm Canyon on Sunday from 11 to 1, and the festival was open more or less the whole day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was, as always, less crowded -- some of us like the more peaceful setting, while others of us enjoy the thick of people like ourselves packed together. Our camera was there on both days.

If you find yourself on this page somewhere, congratulations! Our camera likes shirtless appearances (we have tried to teach it good and evenhanded behavior, but gay cameras are not to be controlled), so if your shirt was off you are more likely to have been eternalized. Just remember that there were thousands upon thousands of gay people gathered in this happy spot on earth.

And we'll also show you the 2001 Mr Nude Pride contest, but, oh horror, we had deemed that the floodlights would suffice, and that was wrong. We should've used flash. We let you see the result anyway, and we will accept your curses. We will be better next time. And the pictures will be gone as soon as the newsworthiness of them is history.

[Addendum in early 2004]: Or at least that's what we promised you to start with. Then the venue for Mr Nude Pride closed for this sort of events, and this Mr Nude Pride became a classic memory, treasured and revered. The newsworthiness of Mr Nude Pride 2001 is long gone, but dammit, the badly exposed pictures from it will stay! At least until the new Gay City Administration gets the balls to rescind the zoning excuse for stopping these fabulous performances and the show will go on again. And we will have taken sharper pictures.

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THE GAY PRIDE FESTIVAL

Last year the Pride Festival was moved from its site on Arenas Road to a new one a mile away, in a closed-in stadium for self-imposed segregation. Oh, we hated the idea on these pages, but in spite of us it came to pass. Now we are eating crow, because all the festivities that we now enjoyed in the Angels Stadium would never have begun to fit in on the little strip of land we had before.

On the big stage there was a half-hour long performance by an entertainer or group every 45 minutes all day long, for two whole days. There was an antique car exhibit, lots of snacks and beverages, and long streets of vendor tents, where you could easily get lost. As if that would have mattered; there were faces and bodies everywhere, friendly, unrushed, joyous gay people, and many of them you will see here below.

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THE GAY PRIDE PARADE

Since this camera did not serve you last year, it was shocked when it now had to face into the sun and try to photograph the marchers' shaded faces and fronts. Why on earth did they change the direction of the march??? Never any sunny faces, lit by the benign November solar rays, but murky shapes seen through squinting eyelids. What a bummer!!!

But we did what we could, and the elements helped us in the beginning. It was overcast, and the camera had to ask for cover from a few scattered drops of rain. Well, halfway through the parade, the Palm Springs weather returned in part and the hassle with the wrong lighting began. All these pictures are shown in strict marching sequence, so you can actually see the clearing up take place.

While great effort was made by the marchers to make the parade seem fuller than it actually was, the camera had to focus on smaller and fewer contingents, or so it seemed. The weather definitely brought out fewer onlookers; go outside in Palm Springs on a cloudy day, no way Jose!

Here they all are, from the Dykes on Bikes to the Prime Timers of the Desert, and everything in between. The large opening picture was contributed by one of our beloved web visitors, and it is better than any of our own, or so we think.

		... and a crowd picture, taken by one of you, our beloved web visitors:

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THE MR NUDE PRIDE CONTEST

This contest was not part of the official Palm Springs Gay Pride celebration, but for some of us it was a big ingredient in the joy of that weekend. What was not joyous was to see what picture quality we had produced of this formidable stage event. At first we did not want to face the shame that such work deserves, but then we realized that a good reporter produces what best he has. So here it is: a news report, to be studied but not savored.

The weekend of the 2001 Palm Springs Gay Pride was a tremendous lot of fun for everybody. Gay Pride and the White Party are the two momentous gay events hereabouts, and now since we gay guys most likely closed the White Party for good by not voting in the election, Gay Pride will be all we've got. We can only pray that our Mayor will leave Gay Pride alone, now that he has the votes to stop everything we do. Just like the White Party, the Gay Pride event brings in thousands upon thousands of happy gay people, and many straights celebrate with us, giving the valley a festive flair. Well, in Palm Desert the Golf Cart Parade (!) is something much more interesting and exciting -- all the power to them! Palm Desert is, after all, the Orange County of Coachella Valley.

Go To Gay Pride 1999

Go To Gay Pride 2003

Go To Gay Pride 2004

Go To Gay Pride 2005

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