we're here, we're queer, we want more beer

Last weekend was pride (uh, Pride, but I suspect only San Francisco should be allowed to capitalize theirs). The official agenda: Love. Equality. Pride. The real agenda: Hot queers. Equal access to drugs. Yelling "woo-hoo!" as the Bangles play the opening chords of "Hero Takes a Fall." I steered clear of the drugs but couldn't avoid the Bangles, a brief concert I attended with veg Bacon and a couple of gay ladyfriends.

We weren't particularly queer that night, even when we were drinking at a Silverlake leather bar after the Dyke March. Pride is not a particularly queer event, a term which implies progressive politics and challenged gender roles and leather wrist cuffs. Queer itself has many variations--the gay punk Latino high school kid, with fake ID and nervous Robert Smith hand motions, or the hipster dyke with slim hips and emo hair, or the straight-laced, athletic, cubicle-lurking FTM--and the variations continue with gay (Ambercrombie & Fitch boy? entertainment industry lesbian with Ellen-style sneakers? homeowners with 1 dog and 2 adopted kids?). But queer and gay just barely cross in the Venn diagram.

I like to think of myself as queer--it stays out later, it frequents cooler clubs and better concerts. But sometimes I am so, so gay. I work an office job complete with cubicle, work email, health benefits, and professional dress code. I own a cat and attend a gay-friendly Episcopal church. I shop at Trader Joe's.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, disgusted with the whole enterprise, I sat at Panini's off Santa Monica Blvd. with my gay-married friends Wilder and Oscar (get it?) . With three other queers, we drank pitchers of hefeweizen, smoked clove cigarettes, and watched the world go by. It was a long, drunk, happy day.