AKA William

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Last year, though, I once again joined in the commercial side of Pride, riding the HX Magazine float to promote Alec Mapa: America’s Gaysian Sweetheart which I was producing at Joe’s Pub.

The float was done up to look like a giant bed with Alec on top, surrounded by a couple dozen underwear-clad porn stars, prostitutes and actor-waiters. Although I assure you my shirt stayed on — I was painfully aware of being the only person aboard without six-pack abs.

I decided to get off the vehicle, reasoning that I would be more useful handing out flyers for Alec’s performance that night, which only made me feel more removed, excluded. Just then, the sky exploded in a torrential downpour. It had been hot and humid so the rain was somewhat welcome, but we all got soaked, drenched, it was almost like drowning – seriously, so much so that my phone, in my pocket, died.

And then, for a moment, I felt as if there were no hotties and notties – we were all just wet people laughing together about our useless cellphones, washed away contact lenses, running mascara. The sun came out, and I let go of my petty vanity and insecurity, and, right there, I felt like a part of something bigger again.

That connected feeling, belonging to a larger whole, has stayed with me, and even been intensified, much of this past year. Although I was a supporter of Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign long after the zeitgeist had abandoned her, I, like many, found my transition to the Obama bandwagon surprisingly seamless and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a tremendous jolt of energy. I will forever treasure my memory of the midnight hour, November 3, 2008, when hundreds of hipsters clinked and clanked down Bedford Avenue, past my apartment window, banging pots and pans and drums and blowing flutes and horns and harmonicas celebrating Obama’s win, our win. I was part of something not just bigger, but big — I was part of a movement.