Category: gay pride

Rings on Etsy

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy, gay pride, Hobby, JewelryLeave a comment

gold ring

I bought a ring mandrel specifically so I could make hemp rings.  I wondered if I could make them with the plastic lace, aka gimp, and I was successful as you can see in the image above, but the success didn’t last too long because I discovered today after wearing my gold ring for 3 days that it wasn’t as strong as I thought.  Well, to be fair I couldn’t stop playing with it.  I was constantly taking it off my finger and squeezing it.  I guess I squeezed it to the point that it broke at the seam.

Someone asked me to make some rings and hoop earrings and I thought how awesome would it be to make and sell rings on Etsy?  Since I had a bad experience, I decided against it.

I bought some steel tigertail beading wire specifically so that I could make candy cane earrings.  My idea was to use the wire to bend the boondoggle into a crook to look like a candy cane, but this wire wasn’t the right wire; it’s too thin and doesn’t hold it’s shape if bent.  I knew that even if it didn’t work, I could still use it for some other project.  Perhaps I could have used it to make a beaded ring, or perhaps make a beaded earring… the possibilities are endless.

As I was deciding against making the rings, I looked at the steel tigertail beading wire and I had an epiphany.  I could weave the wire into the gimp rings so they can’t come apart.  It just might work, or will it?

glow in the dark

One of the rings I was asked to make was with the glow in the dark gimp, so I took that opportunity to use the wire knowing it could be seen through the gimp.  Here it is.  You can clearly see the wire inside the ring.  The wire holds its shape which is a good thing to know because the hoop earrings I made didn’t exactly keep their round shape.  I mean, they are still round, they just aren’t perfectly round like this ring is.

It will probably be awhile before I make the rings and hoop earrings for sale if I do decide to make and sell them.  I want to test them out on myself first.  I am my only beta tester lol.  If I play with it, I am sure someone else will and I would much rather find out if it is going to be worth the price if someone buys it or not.  I would hate to know that someone had paid money for one of these only to have to toss it in the bin.  I like to know I am selling a quality product.

I will make another gold ring for myself because I really liked that color.  It will look exactly like the image at the top, but the only difference is it will have some wire inside which you won’t see because the gold gimp is not translucent.  I am really hoping this works because I got myself excited to wear a new ring, but I also got other people excited.  I also think it would make a cool pride ring necklace to have 6 rainbow colored rings like my own pride ring necklace.  Our gay pride is coming in October so that will be perfect to wear then.

Well I better get started with my new experiment.

How My Gay Pride Jello Did

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

Last night was the Christmas Potluck dinner with PFLAG of Bakersfield.  I was so excited to bring in my Gay Pride Jello mold and nervous at the same time because I have never made one before.  I took it out of the mold at the house for this picture but then put it back in to go to the church.  We got there and flipped it out onto the plate and all was good until people started cutting into it.  The layers didn’t stick so they started coming apart.  Oh the humiliation!

Apparently nobody really gave two shits about the fact that they didn’t stick because there wasn’t that much left on the plate when we left.

We have never been to a pot luck together that didn’t involve his family reunions so Darrin was pretty bored.  I figured he would have gotten up and started mingling with people, I mean, he does that all the time so I was shocked when he picked this venue to become shy.  I on the other hand am always overly shy and never even look at anyone much less get up and walk around.  I do when I know people but I barely knew any of them.  The only way to do that is to continue to join in these events so I can get to know them better.

I did meet a few people who ended up becoming friends on Facebook with me.  One of them just so happens to share the same name with my first boyfriend, although I’m pretty sure it’s not him because my first boyfriend was deaf and this guy isn’t.  Unless there was a cure I didn’t hear about.

During one of the PFLAG announcements, the guy who had the Mic, named Ike who commented at our table how our names are Mike and Ike… you know, like the candy?, anyway he was naming names and telling people who they were yadda yadda yadda and he came to me and I was like whoa dude, I’m nobody yet lol.  But he mentioned me because we were new there and I made a comment to him at our table about how I never even knew Bakersfield had such a huge gay population.

Anyway, I had fun and I hope to be invited to more events.  Whether I will be able to go is another matter.

Gay Pride Jello

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

A few weeks ago I was sent an invitation to a pot luck here in Bakersfield at Grace Episcopal Church.  I don’t normally go to church but since I am trying to be a part of the gay community in Bakersfield, I figured I would pitch in with something.  What better dish than a gay pride jello mold?  Of course I have never made a jello mold in my life so I’m hoping this works out so wish me luck lol.

I found the idea because I was curious to see if it was even a real thing and I found an image.  I also found a recipe on a typepad blog called Porter House complete with pictures for all of the steps.

They don’t show any measurements or what size boxes you need.  The instructions just say to use half of the jello then use the other half with the yogurt or cool whip.  Of course I had to pour water into the mold to make sure I knew how much it could hold so I don’t make any mistakes.  Mine holds 13 cups so I can do 2 layers of each color which is 1 cup each layer.  It doesn’t have to be filled to the top.

I will be using cool whip because I’m not a huge yogurt fan.  I’d rather use something light anyway because this thing is going to have so many calories and I don’t want to make everyone fat lol.

My gay pride jello mold is finished but I have to leave it in the mold overnight.  I will take it out tomorrow before we go to the church so I can get a picture then.  It took me 3 hours to make so it better not fall apart when I take it out of the mold lol.  We will see tomorrow.

Gay Pride in Bakersfield with Human Rights Campaign

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

Today was the day that I volunteered for the Human Rights Campaign.

I got an email last week telling me that they will be in Bakersfield for Gay Pride this weekend and they were looking for volunteers.  I immediately thought, Hell yeah I want to volunteer.

I signed up for 1-4pm and of course I stayed until 5 because I didn’t want to leave at all because I was having such a good time.

The people coming up to the booth were just the most friendly people you would ever meet in your life.  Everyone had a smile on their faces.

Apparently, HRC has never been to Bakersfield pride so the event coordinator was thrilled that we were there.  I was shocked to find out that Bakersfield even had a gay pride.  I thought that was so cool and I was really glad I was involved.

What we were doing was we were getting people to fill out the petition for gay marriage for 2012.  If they wanted a free sticker, temporary tattoo, or a canvas bag they had to just fill out the little card or the petition sheet.

We were selling memberships and if you bought a membership you got a free t-shirt, cap, necklace or a bracelet depending on how much you paid for your membership.

I didn’t want to go but I left at 5pm with my “Legalize Gay” t-shirt on and a smile on my face the whole bicycle trip home.

If they ever ask me to volunteer for anything else I will do it in a heartbeat.

Hey, just because I’m not there anymore doesn’t mean I won’t still ask you to help them out. Please visit HRC.org and become a member today to help in the fight.  You know you want to.

Follow @HRC on Twitter and Like them on Facebook

Gay Pride in Bakersfield

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

I had no idea that Bakersfield ever participated in Gay Pride until a week ago when I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign asking me if I wanted to volunteer.

“Of course I want to volunteer” was my first thought.

I got on AIM and told our good friend Venda that I would volunteer if she would volunteer, of course I was going to do it anyway, I just wanted to see if she would do it too lol.

She agreed that she would do it so I sent her the email from HRC so she could sign up.

You know it’s funny, I haven’t been to a gay pride in years.  The first and last time I ever went to gay pride was when I was 23 years old and that was in West Hollywood.  They had a parade and then they had like this fair afterwards with these booths where you walk around from booth to booth getting free stickers and what not.

The reason it has taken me this long is because when I lived in Hollywood, we just never had the money to go anywhere and then we moved here and we just figured that Bakersfield would never have a gay pride.  Well, they do now.

I’ve never volunteered for this kind of thing so I can’t wait for tomorrow.  It’s like Disneyland but the only mice you will find are really bears.

At first I thought I should be worried about protesters but it doesn’t matter, they can suck an egg for all I care.  I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about them or waste any of the fun I’m going to have when I’m handing out whatever it is I will be handing out.

If you are in Bakersfield Saturday October 15th, come see me at Stramler Park between 1-4pm.  I’ll be the bald guy with the glasses.

Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride

On By Michel McDonaldIn Anti-Gay, Gay, gay pride, Gay Rights1 Comment

I know I know, you don’t have to tell me, I’m very late for the conversation since this documentary came out in 2009 but I’m just now seeing it for the first time on Showtime.  We don’t get out to the movies very often and when we do we have to both agree on what we see which means we don’t get to see a lot of movies.  So… here I am in mid 2011 just now seeing this movie for the first time.

ho·mo·pho·bi·a Noun /ˌhōməˈfōbēə/

  1. An extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people

I found the definition for homophobia so that people will know the exact definition and know I am not making it up.  “An extreme and irrational aversion”…  Note the word irrational.  That is in the dictionary.  It says that your aversion to homosexuality is irrational.  You know if the dictionary says you are being irrational then it’s time to cool your jets.

When I started watching this movie tonight I didn’t know they were going to really get into all of the gory details about how other countries treat their gays.  I thought it was just them documenting their organization of the gay pride parade and festival in Canada and that it would be pride for 90 minutes.  Instead, they bring us to Moscow, Serbia, Sri Lanka US and Canada.

“There are over 80 countries across the globe that still criminalize homosexuality.  7 or 8 countries that actually uphold the death penalty.”

These are the words that are shocking to me.  I know that there were countries that criminalize people for holding hands or just for looking or acting gay.  In Sri Lanka it’s a 10 year prison sentence, yes still.  Just for being gay in public.  In India and in Africa lesbian women have to worry about corrective rape.

“‘Corrective rape’ is a criminal practice, whereby men rape lesbian women, purportedly as a means of “curing” the woman of her sexual orientation.”

This one woman told a story about how they rape lesbian women for hours, it’s pure torture to be raped like this especially since most of them are still virgins at the time of the rape.  It’s not only painful to penetrate them but it’s also very demeaning and you know, mentally painful.  It’s painful for me to even think about it.

In Moscow Russia you cannot have a gay pride, the mayor denies their applications and says that he will continue to deny them this year, next year, 5 years from now and 10 years from now.  As long as he is in office he will continue to deny their gay pride festival so they have to go to secret locations and have their quick 5 minute gay pride then pack it all up before the police show up.

In the middle east, if you are gay you are going to be pushing daisies very soon because they do not, absolutely do not want you living among them.  They will kill you and it is perfectly legal to do so.  I seem to recall the president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being asked in a press conference in the United States a few years ago about the gay iranian people and he said “We don’t have gay people” and everyone laughed at him.  He was very serious, he wasn’t expecting to hear something so bold as being laughed at as if he had just told a joke.  They do have gays, they are all in hiding, married with children and pretending to be straight to stay alive.  That is no way to live.

People are dying and people are being held in prisons for 10 years and being raped to correct them.  This is why we have gay pride.  It’s to make people aware of intolerance and to send a message that we are here, we are queer, get used to it.  Our message is to get over it and stop killing us and treating us like we are dogs because we were all born this way just like some of us were born with red, brown and blond hair; brown, blue and green eyes; black, brown, red, yellow, pink and white skin.  We were all born this way so just get over it.

My definition, if I may be so bold to give it, is that homophobic people aren’t afraid of gay people, they just don’t understand why we are all so happy and “gay” about being ourselves when they have to live the way their parents told them they have to live.  You see, I believe that all of those anti-gay people are only anti-gay because they cannot be gay themselves, they are jealous because we are living the lives they feel they should have led so they are taking out their aggression on gay people because they are too coward to be openly gay.

Other homophobic people are that way because they are so ignorant because they were told by their pastor that because it says in the bible that being gay is a sin.  Well, so is being fat and so is being lazy and so is judging other people because that isn’t for them to do, that is for “God” to do.  You don’t have to talk to gay people if you don’t like them but by acting out against them you yourself are sinning and will go to this mythical place called Hell in our stead.  So enjoy.

You know, before I watched this documentary, I have to admit that I didn’t know all of this information.  I know to some degree but not every thing they were talking about.  So I come from this a little more educated and enlightened.  I’m going to watch it again the next time I see it on Showtime so I can be sure to pay close attention so the information stays with me.

My uncle was so bold to ask me one year, my visit just so happened to be around gay pride month where it was all over the news.  He asked me plain and simple.  “Why do gay people need to have their ‘Gay pride parade’?  The mexican’s don’t have a parade to be proud to be mexican, the blacks don’t have a parade to be proud to be black, so why do gay people do it?”

See, this movie is a great way to explain to them what I cannot explain from memory.  First of all I didn’t answer him.  I knew that it would be detrimental if I responded with an ignorant point of view because all it takes is one idiot (me) telling people the wrong thing and they tell a friend and they tell a friend and so on.  So I reserved my answer for a later time when I was more educated on the subject.  Here we are about 9 years later and I may just be ready to answer that question.

I won’t bring it up unless asked again though because when it comes to this type of conversation with my family, I get interrupted a lot and am constantly told I’m wrong and I’m not going to put myself in that situation so screw em.  And that’s another issue, they ask but they really don’t want to know the real answer.  They don’t want to know the full details so they tell you to edit yourself because they are so afraid I’m going to start talking about anal sex.  It’s not all about sex people.  It’s about freedom and about not being killed by your government or put in prison for simply being alive.

Wow this is longer than I thought it would be.  Ok so to wrap this up, it’s a very good documentary which helps explain a ton about not just the gay pride itself but also give you some historical and statistical facts.  Just watch it.  Here is the trailer.