The Sweetest Hangover

I'm a bit late in reporting back, but Motor City Pride in Hart Plaza was amazing.  And if you've ever been to ANY Pride before, you know walking away saying it was anything better than "fine" is unusual.  But it really was.  I was so ... proud.

Organizers estimate 44,000 people attended over the two days, which is incredible.  Between the Lines did a nice writeup of the event, so instead of re-hashing it all, I'll link to it here.  Let's just sum up and say it was incredibly diverse, Oakland County did not stay away, and everyone seemed to have a really great time.

The rainbow stripes on the Ren Cen were one of my favorite things!

Other local media did the obligatory puff piece with photo gallery of all the festival gayness (yours truly not excepted), which I thought was pretty lame given the fact this marked a gigantic jump in visibility in an area with essentially none.  I mean FOR REAL - it was big news that Movement/Electronic Music Festival had 99,000 over three days, but 44,000 local GLBT people gets the boilerplate article?  I guess the story was only interesting when Ferndale Pride and Motor City Pride were at odds with each other.

About that ... apparently by the time June rolled around, most animosity about Pride's move seemed to have dissipated, and from what I heard the Ferndale events were nicely attended and everyone was happy.  I fully intended on checking it out but the addition of a Pride parade on Sunday morning meant any free time was filled planning for that.  Maybe next year I'll plan better.

In Detroit, everyone is a star! Especially Robert M. Nelson!

Everything else went great too.  The Pride Project came together beautifully and I got great feedback from both the Detroit indy businesses that supported Pride as well as the folks at Motor City Pride and Equality Michigan about it.  I even had some other businesses approach me to be included next year!  Please be sure to check out that website again and thank (and patronize!) anyone who participated!

A few very nice posters of the Pride Project placed around
Hart Plaza attracted no end of attention.

Finally, the Friday night Pre-Pride Doggy Style was out of control.  Who knew a downtown gay night on a Friday could attract so many people?  Someone open a downtown neighborhood gay bar NOW.

People who need Doggy Style are the luckiest people in the world.

After all the Pride Projecting and Doggy Styling and Fierce Hot Messing and Hart Plaza-ing and Parading and everything, I was the closest to exhaustion I've been in my adult life.  If I had a normal job I'd have had to call in "Proud" on Monday, I was that worn out.  To me, that's a great Pride.

The most incredible thing about this Pride was that for the first time since I moved to Detroit, I actually really felt like being gay here was totally normal.  I mean as completely normal as it would be in Chicago or Washington, DC or Boston or anywhere else I've lived.  Everywhere you went there were gay people or rainbow flags or just people asking how Pride was going.

In my email to business owners for the Pride Project I said that Motor City Pride moving downtown had the potential to change perceptions about Detroit in a way that hasn't happened since the Superbowl was here in 2006.  In the way Pride exceeded every expectation, I really believe that was the case.  What I didn't expect was that it was going to change the way *I* thought about Detroit.

The whole weekend left me feeling a little feisty, like maybe it's OK to say that something can just be GAY for its own sake without people getting defensive or worrying that people will feel left out.  (It's Detroit, for God's sake. The Island of Misfit Toys.  Everybody belongs.)  By foregoing a gay identity in the name of not offending anyone, we actually diminish our ability to create our own community, raise our own visibility and maximize the positive impact we could be having on Detroit.

This post is long enough without hashing out all that in 2000 words or less, so let's just say Pride left me thinking "what if ..." a lot for a long time afterward.  And it's been a while since I really looked at Detroit that way.  I'm sure I'll elaborate soon enough.

SO! It's been a recuperative and reflective couple of weeks, and that's why it's taken so long for even a little reporting back.  But now that I can finally deal with this stuff again ...

Double Rainbow: Oh My God!

This Tuesday night is a big gay double feature, starting with the Model D Speaker series "Gay Detroit"!  Join an expert panel of judges as we discuss the state of gay culture & community in Detroit.  I'll be sitting on the panel in my first official public appearance.  It's a real Detroit gay meet-and-greet!

The event is followed by a Town Hall discussion presented by Unity Michigan.  The Model D panel will be a little more community-oriented (and certainly City-oriented), and we'll let the folks with Unity Michigan handle the heavy stuff.

To make it extra special, there's a post-panel Doggy Style!  Yes, you can't get enough!  It all happens at the Park Bar, starting upstairs at 5:30 and ending sometime after midnight in the gutter.  Please join us, and help keep the Pride momentum going!

Model D Speaker Series: Gay Detroit
Charles Pugh of Detroit City Council, Roland Leggett of Equality Michigan, Kirsten Ussery of the Downtown Detroit Partnership and Villages CDC, and me.
Tuesday, June 21, 5:30 - 6:30pm
The Park Bar, 2040 Park Ave. (upstairs)
Pre-registration is encouraged.

Unity Michigan Town Hall: Equality Action
Denise Brogan-Kator from Equality Michigan, Shellie Wiesberg from the ACLU, Curtis Lipscomb from KICK, and Laura Hughes from Ruth Ellis Center.
 7:00 - 8:30pm

Hot DP (Double Panel) Doggy Style Action!
9pm - ?

Party Chatter

There are nights that just reinforce everything you want to believe in.

The yard sale, while exciting and initially lucrative, was rained out in the early afternoon.  After communing with nature while packing up sopping wet housewares and subsequently making a donation to the greater enjoyment of thrift store shoppers in southeastern Michigan, I rejuvenated and made a stop back on West Canfield.

That Historic West Canfield block is one sexy street.  I like to be irritated with Midtown and the Neuvo Royal Oako agenda that just might be seeping in there, but sometimes you just can't deny when something works.  If you are not familiar with this block, check this out.

Among the many cool Detroiters I saw there, I ran into a relatively new acquaintance at this party, a guy who went to U of D High like I did (only a few years behind me), whom I've run into here or there.  He's active in the local political scene in his own ultra-current way, and a super smart and fun conversationalist.  Which is, of course, what one should expect from a U of D High grad.

It's been a long time since I've been so engaged in a conversation, especially when it is with someone who isn't pushing their own agenda (ie: me), wants to hear your thoughts and has great insights of his own.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention his fantastic girlfriend who is apparently a genius in her own right.  The three of us discussed topics ranging from Council by Districts, Kwame Kilpatrick's misuse of corruption, Detroit Declaration, suburban vs. city living, me, Charles Pugh's God complex, gay marriage, Rochelle Riley, the closet and politicians who are no way whatsoever possibly or even remotely same-sex oriented.  These things were attacked with gusto and energetically debated, in what may have been the most casual party-talk manner I've ever experienced.

I realized, as we were making our way out, that I didn't have to talk about a home improvement or a luxury vehicle or a mall shopping experience or a different city's advantages in the entire ninety-minute conversation, and we all left happy and, at least as far as I was concerned, excited about our next meetup. And I almost couldn't believe how much I appreciated that.

I enjoy making sweeping generalizations and I'm going to make one now: over and over I find that my encounters in this city are so different in attitude than the ones I have in our 'burbs.  As much as I want this city to rejuvenate, I want to be explicitly clear how much I really enjoy what we have going on right now.  That recent Palladium Boots Detroit Lives documentary captures one aspect of the city in a great way, but I sure wish I was talented enough to show the world the kind of night I had tonight.  I think we'd have thousands of great people wanting to move here.

Charles in Charge

City Council President and avowed homosexualist Charles Pugh made some good news this past week when he took a stand for commerce and tax collection in the City of Detroit by standing up to churchy calls for pasties and Shirley Temples at strip clubs.  To control crime, you see.

Now, strip clubs are rarely (but sometimes) on my radar, and I can understand a person not wanting to have one perched on the corner of his or her residential street.  But crime in these areas does not start at these strip clubs ... frankly, like good manners, it starts at home ... and Pugh rightly pointed out that they do have a right to exist.  And then he landed a zinger on the Right Reverend Marvin Winans (of the Winans gospel dynasty) that went something like: 

Winans - These club owners don't even live in the city! 
Pugh - And where do you live? 
Winans - *grimace* *scowl* Don't play that game! (actual answer: Bloomfield Hills.)

I am not a Pugh booster, nor am I a detractor.  I've been cautiously optimistic that he won't embarrass us and will be an effective point-person on the City Council.  I do not think his behavior indicates he is the sharpest knife in the drawer, as evidenced in his Black Friday rant on his Facebook fan page back in November.*  Or really any of his Facebook posts. Or waiting a few days to report the damage to his city-owned car (or maybe that was smart, we'll never know.)  Or the fact that he says JoAnne Watson is his favorite Councilwoman (again, possibly smart, keep your friends close etc).

[* For those who missed it: "Charles Pugh will NEVER call the day after Thanksgiving "Black Friday". I refuse. There are so many other things to call it "Friday Frenzy" "Super Friday" "Golden Friday", something!! The media should have thought a lil longer about that. Just a thought." Who wants to break it to him that the term Black Friday has been used since the mid-60s, when the media used completely different words to describe the African-American race?]

Either way, I felt kind of hopeful that he took a reasonable stand and didn't give in to the demands of the conservative religious community.

Some friends were visiting a while back and as we drove around the city they kept commenting on the number of churches.  And it is true, no matter how decrepit a commercial strip may be, the Macadamia Jubilation Congregation probably has a storefront on it.  The power of the pulpit is strong in Detroit.  And no matter how poor the population, these churches seem to have no problem raking in the dough.  And they are conveniently tax-exempt (and/or completely cash-based operations).  So they may provide hope to the hopeless, I'm sure I don't know being as full of hope as I am, but they aren't really doing much to alleviate the real problems of the city.

So it is refreshing to see that, like the national religious conservatives, they have real problems on their agenda like putting post-its over nipples and keeping behavior lewd but sober, and not the smaller nuisances in their community like poverty, single- or no-parent homes, high school drop-outs, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse or the spread of HIV and other STDs.

And I mean, the Reverened may have a point that the strip club owners don't live in the city either, but at least their businesses pay taxes.

Most significantly for Mr. Council President (and the reason I bring this up on this blog), the Churches of Detroit fell all over themselves trying to out-ignore his homosexuality during the City Council race (por ejemplo).  Now that he's in office and actually standing up to them, it will be interesting to see how quickly they do a 180 and start using the gay angle to attack him.

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Surprise! No one's surprised.

Well, no one with any sense is surprised that Charles Pugh won a seat on the City Council, and really no one who pays attention to Detroit politics should be surprised he took the top spot, despite his mortgage troubles. The man is a bona fide local celeb, after all.

Nationally the fact that an openly gay man won the Council President spot looks great, though. Nothing wrong with that. And I think he will be a decent President. I don't think he's brimming with ideas that will really take the city forward in a meaningful way, but I think he is the kind of person who is open to the ideas of others. And people like him so there's that kind of goodwill. I've been wrong before though.

Detroit News columnist Laura Berman commented today on Pugh's star status trumping the homophobia of the black churches, and opines that because Detroit needs to be open to more kinds of people, including gays, "his election signals that the city's getting more savvy and open and serious about its survival." I certainly hope that is the case.

I think Pugh's celebrity really did have something to do with his winning, but I don't think he was elected because of his star power. Pugh has been on tv and radio and part of the lives of people in the city of Detroit for so long that people really feel like they know him. And as happens so often, people who normally are anti-gay make exceptions for their neighbors, or relatives, or co-workers. And so they did in this election what they do with those gay or lesbian people in their lives: they overlooked it.

There's no way you are going to see a significant softening of the homophobia in the black religious community of Detroit, but what this election highlights is that Detroiters as a whole are actually very open to gay people as neighbors or friends. I've said before that Detroit needs to make an overture to the gay people of southeastern Michigan that the city welcomes them. Maybe this will help accomplish that.

All I know is that I certainly did not think I'd see a day this soon where not only was the mayor of Ferndale gay but the president of the Detroit City Council as well. There may be underlying factors but that's some kind of progress.

Election

In an ideal world I would be doing a post about the Reese Witherspoon movie and not the third of four elections in Detroit this year. Normally I don't like to get into the whole political thing here because I am pretty much an idiot. I leave political analysis to people who know, like Woodward's Friend over at Dyspathy. Plus if my secret identity is ever compromised then I will be held accountable for anything I've said on here and what if I have become BFF's with, say, Martha-Rose Reeves by then? Embarrassing.

This election is pretty significant because of the absolute insanity that has been coming out of city hall over the past few years. It's a real chance to get some agents of change in charge, as uphill a battle as that seems; Detroit is a city that really does seem invested in maintaining the status quo. From a gay blogger perspective, it is also significant because we have the first openly gay city council candidate running, local media celebutante Charles Pugh.

So I am just going to weigh in with a few thoughts and Detroit voters, you can take it from there.

Charles Pugh
Clearly it is significant that an openly-gay man is not only running for City Council in Detroit, but appears to be in the lead in the polls. Detroit is notorious for its culture of homophobia in the African-American churches. And those churches really drive a large portion of the voting electorate here. It just goes to show how strong the celebrity/name recognition effect is in Detroit elections.


Pugh's platform seems relatively innocuous, and hits some of the right notes. I think he is right that crime needs to be addressed as Detroit's single biggest issue and the rest will follow. And I am heartened to see him talk about the need for regionalism in creating a plan for public transportation - I hope that transfers to other efforts as well.

Neighborhood services, parks, community pride - everyone mentions those with few specifics about how they will improve them - but I think someone with Pugh's popularity could be very effective at raising community morale about these things.

I don't see a lot about fiscal responsibility, economic development and making the city a better place for businesses, large and small (other than "I will allocate a portion of my budget to visit and work with store chains around the country and encourage them to invest inside the city of Detroit." Feh.) And he does not discuss the issue of right-sizing the city.

Anecdotally I can only throw in a few observations. On the plus side, I've heard he is incredibly nice and a good listener. And of course his life story is inspiring. And he really believes in this cause: I've heard he is convinced he can make Detroit better.

On the flip side, maybe we don't really need someone who has quite the kind of ego involved in thinking they can single-handedly make considerable improvements in Detroit. And judging from the short-lived Facebook post of an ex-lover a few weeks ago (it pays to have lots of Facebook friends), that narcissism seems to extend into the personal realm. Deja vu?

And I have no fewer than four reports from white Detroiters that he always seems to assume they must not live in the city when he encounters them. From a resident of Brush Park, this seems a bit ridiculous.

So does Charles Pugh get the Supergay endorsement? Sure .... why not.

I don't think he would be disaster by any means, he is charismatic and beloved by many. And I don't think we can underestimate the message that electing him sends to gays in the region about Detroit as a good place for living as a gay person (which pretty much any gay Detroiter will tell you, but this broadcast goes much further). But honestly I think there are a lot of other choices in this election who will be more effective in transforming Detroit.

Other options
I don't have a slate of 18 candidates for your reference. One friend says she is only voting for accountants, city planners or attorneys, which is a pretty good plan (although I pointed out Mon Con was in fact an attorney). There are some great candidates out there: incumbent Kenneth Cockrel and contenders Saunteel Jenkins, Lisa Howze (an accountant!) and Andre Spivey seems to get high marks from editorial boards as well as voters I have talked to. Other candidates that come highly recommended include James Tate, John Bennett, and Fred Elliot Hall.

And now, I want to take a second to put in a plug for my friend Matt Naimi.


Matt is the candidate I feel could help Detroit become the forward-looking city it needs to be. Matt is a business owner who is responsible for creating the city's RecycleHere! program, and has a strong and progressive "green" platform that I think hits the right notes and can make transformations other candidates aren't even considering.

Fighting blight, which he cites as a breeding ground for crime, with "smart" demolition; developing green technologies; encouraging urban agriculture; treating recycled material as a resource; right-sizing the city - these inititatives will not only address Detroit problems, they frame Detroit as a city looking to the future and the role of an industrial city in the 21st century. You can read more about his platform at vote4growth.com.

Matt has worked extensively with city government and community groups and knows how the city's public works department works. He also knows the challenges business owners face. And as a resident he knows how important a cohesive community is. He also knows that that working on city council means harnessing the strengths of various members, and applying your best judgement to the result.

The attitudes and approaches of Detroit's government are seriously outdated: they barely worked when the city was flush and they are counterproductive with the city in its current state. I think everyone agrees drastic change is needed.

I am singling out Matt not just because he is my friend, but because I really strongly feel that if Detroit embraces a new way of thinking it will not only create solutions for current problems but change the image of Detroit in the country. And trust me, I normally hate the hippy green bullshit. But Detroit is a place of incredible opportunity - on a micro and macro level - and I think some of these ideas really do make sense in this context. Matt can really help Detroit become an exciting, new kind of city.

And a last thought about City Council primary voting - you don't have to vote for 18 candidates! Don't just pick random names to fill out the ballot, only vote for the candidates you know are comfortable with. And mostly ignore incumbents, mbien?

Speaking of drastic change
Finally - if you are a Detroit voter and have not signed the petition to create City Council by District, please do so immediately or sooner. Get more information HERE, you can probably sign a petition at the polls tomorrow. They need all the signatures they can get and tomorrow night is the deadline!


There's no guarantee that Council by District will eliminate corrupt politicians in Detroit government, but it will create more accountability and make a relatively insane primary election process a lot more manageable. It will also help underrepresented areas of the city get the voice they need on City Council. And there is no guarantee that the City Charter revision committee will instate council by district - they passed on it in the last revision in 1993.

OK, do what I just said above and then we can say we helped move Detroit forward!
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