Gay Shame @ Castro St. Fair (1)

I couldn't believe that the police allowed Gay Shame to march. One cop escorted Gay Shame through the crowd. When we got to the intersection of 18th and Castro, we were stuck for a while-- Cheer SF was performing (we later learned from the Cutest stage that this was the first time that Cheer SF had ever had 50 members all performing in one place). We snaked around the cheerleading squad to the other side of the intersection and the police stopped us at 18th and Collingwood. About 8 cops formed a line and blocked us in- even photographers had trouble crossing the police line. After a while, we were able to keep marching. The woman emcee made a comment about the Body Fascism banner. She didn't seem to be terribly familiar with the political scene in San Francisco. Somehow that led to the male emcee inviting gay shame to present its perspective.

People from Gay Shame were invited onstage. Two costumed contestants spoke to the crowd from the ground, and grimace got onstatge to dance around. The emcee asked the crowd what they thought of Gay Shame's message. It didn't appear to be that any of the costumed contestants would win "Cutest of the Castro."

GS had a lot of clever things to say on the megaphone during the day:
White male after white male paraded through the stage. They said, "I don't see any female contestants. Oh, but they do have a black man on their poster. I guess they can't be that bad!"

Some of the contestants complained that they had to get to the stage quickly, before their botox and collagen injections wore off

"Don't eat pussy- too many carbs!"

They also suggested that Botox/Atkins were a late entry to run for the presidency.

Pretty funny. A lot of people in the crowd liked Gay Shame, including one disabled transgendered woman who bared her breast for the camera.