2005 Gay Night At Paramount's Great America While it's quite famous as the first weekend to safely wear white shoes and enjoy back yard bar-b-Qs, in the bay area, Memorial Day Weekend means Gay Day at Paramount's Great America Amusement Park.

A Transitional Year

The overall theme of 2005 is "Year of Change" and this event has certainly changed alot since last year. In my opinion, they've gone even further in the wrong direction, but it seems as if attendance held steady or maybe even picked up some numbers in the under-30 Latino demographic.

The park's main connection to the LGBT community is still a nightclub promoter. There's no real problem with that, I mean Janine is great at what she does but clubbers are only one colour on the rainbow flag. The big change this year was the addition of KPTI as the premiere sponsor. I suppose they need the money, but honestly I will have to think long and hard about returning next year if the park continues with "Energy" 92.7.

How to Piss Off Everyone In the Crowd (Without Really Trying)

Every single stage this year featured offensive MCs. While the park has no control over what they do or say, ultimately it is a poor reflection on Paramount and Great America to feature racist, homophobic, ignorant and insensative staff and to rub salt in the wounds by giving these folks microphones to amplify their unnacceptable opinions and behaviour.

THE MEXICAN STAGE
I LOVE Debbie Deb - have done for years and years. I was so excited to see her live and the queen onstage really soured it for me. Before Debbie ever took to the stage, some fat Mexican drag queen was spouting the most racist prattle. Obviously, the majority of the crowd in front of the stage was Mexican as well, because they kept cheering. The queen kept bleeting out things like "Where are all the Mexicanos?" and they would cheer and then she would say stuff in Mexican and they would cheer. Blackstone turned to me and said, "Why is it all about Mexicans all of a sudden?" The main promoter of Club Papi isn't even Hispanic, he dates them but he is Middle Eastern. Debbie Deb isn't Mexican either, but you'd never know that from anything said on the stage before she took the stage. You might think we're too sensative, but our Nicaraguan friend Matt told us later that he was offended too.

LIP SYNCING ISN'T "LIVE"
If the flyer said Debbie Deb would be there in person instead of using the word "live" to describe her performance, perhaps I wouldn't have been too pissed off. Coming after the insulting warm up though, it just became untenable. I'd rather enjoy her music in a welcoming environment without so much racial animosity so we left during her second number.

LIP SYNCING DONE RIGHT
When Dannii finally took the stage, she showed how to do lip syncing right. Her canned musical numbers were packed with heavily choreographed dancing and interspersed with lesser known songs sung live. It's sad to see such a talented, seasoned professional with no sense of self and utterly blind to her real place in the world of entertainment, but at least she's got good advisors surrounding her and so far it seems her missteps have been small ones. I feel really bad that this was her first American performance and I hope the poor production doesn't put her off from returning.

MAIN STAGE DISCRIMINATION
Two of the radio stations employees were MCing the main stage. Perhaps I could forgive their mysogenistic banter because they did eventually acknowledge the fact that almost half of the audence was made up of women. What was inexcusable though were all of the homophobic remarks made by and about "The Gay Sports Guy" and his search for a boy du jour. There is nothing wrong with prefering to have sex with younger guys, usually called "twinks". I do have a problem however with the way these guys were going about it. Just like the Club Papi Stage, they pandered to the crowd five deep directly in front of them and seemed totally oblivious to everyone else.

BAD FROM THE START
They came on stage, greeted the men, and then began a twenty minute diatribe about how hot, sexy and cute the under 21 guys in the audience were. They pointed out several guys and said things like, "You're too old" and "You're too fat". One of the MC's had to make too many self-depricating remarks about his body just to keep up with the sports caster guy. It was shocking and appalling. I looked around at all of the heavy-set lesbians and bears towards the back of the crowd and we were all standing there mouths agape in utter disbelief. One shorter lesbian turned to me, shaking her head and said, "Oh my God, did he just say that?" - several times I was totally flabbergasted! I suppose in retrospect, the whole incident just illustrates how much self loathing these two guys are experiencing, but for goodness sake we should get them therapy NOT MICROPHONES!

Who is this Event For?

They label it a "community" event and then they fall all over themselves to ignore the majority of gay people - the radio only/mostly promotion this year and the shockingly bad behaviour of the stage MCs means they will only further alienate their older clientele. I've been going for years and this year it was really difficult to get anyone interested in this event. There were no new rides and the promoters seem hell bent on turning it into a big nightclub with rides. I wish they would define their target audience better so that people like me would know whether we are truely welcome or not. This year's event sent far too many mixed messages about it.

GOING FORWARD
For next year, I'd love to see them break all ties with "Energy" 92.7. PGA could save money by doing away with the whole stage set-up altogether. If they must have a main dance area with DJs, they should at least hire some of the great WEST COAST DJs WORKING THE GAY SCENE. Importing crap DJs from the East Coast who are out of step and inappropriate for our local sensabilities doesn't work. They could also spend the savings on decorations. They could do up the park with lots of rainbow flags and bunting so that the majority of the park looks like its a big gay party. It would be easy to promote the theme of "Great America" by encouraging everyone to wear red, white & blue. Every year, and I've documented some of it on this site, people do it on their own - the promoters should be encouraging that type of thing more. They could also bring in more community booths and booths for sponsors like Logo, Showtime, etc that really understand and support their LGBT customers. They could store and reuse the decorations, each year adding to their promotion budget. If they were really smart, the special events department would have a G&L liason with a booth at the San Jose and San Francisco pride events and other G&L events throughout the year to help raise the visibility of this wonderful event. It would certainly be a lot cheaper than putting in new roller coasters.

First Mover Advantage

I remember when gay day at Great America used to be during the day and I think the roller coasters are really fun when you can see everything wizzing past. While we didn't arrive when it first opened like I'd hoped, we did enjoy about two hours of uncrowded coaster time. I like to ride Top Gun in the front row during the day and Blackstone wasn't feeling it for the front row, so he rode alone in the middle of the car. It's still the best roller coaster at the park, I just wish they would re-brand it soon. The Top Gun movie was so long ago and seems so dated. I understand they want to have a tie-in with their movies, but the least they could do is clean up the switch-back area of the line, replace the faded lightboxes and old, worn props along the queue.

Irwin Was Back Again Too

This year, my little friend Irwin had to endure the cold wearing only this thin, sleeveless t-shirt because he lost his car keys and all his warm clothes were in the car. It all felt so Knott's Berry Farm circa 1985 - but this year, I had a rental car and was more than happy to rescue Irwin by driving him home to get his spare keys - and back to liberate his vehicle from the car park.