*Originally Published November 26, 2008*
- Part 1 – (What you’re reading now) Getting There. This part talks about my ordeal of just getting to the protest. There’s a reason why it has taken me 30 years to finally start driving myself to Chicago.
- Part 2 – The Protest – This part deals with the activities of the protest itself. Included here are pictures taken and a video. (Sorry the video looks bad. My camera was cold. The message comes through loud and clear, though.)
- Part 3 – The Good, The Bad, and The Miscellaneous – This part talks about my seeing the guys from my favorite podcast, Feast of Fools, Fausto Fernos and Marc Felion, and getting to talk/dork-out-in-front-of Marc, and also how I accidentally supported communism. Don’t ask. Just read.
Part 1 – Getting There
Last Saturday, November 22, 2008, I attended my first protest rally in Evanston, Illinois. The protest was for the boycott of the Century Theatre there. The CEO, Alan Stock, donated $9,999 to support YES on Prop 8 in California, which took away the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. He is also the CEO of Cinemark, CineArts, and Tinseltown theaters. For my comedy and humor writing, I have been billing myself as “America’s FAVORITE Gay 3rd Wheel”, but on this I cannot be a third wheel. I need to protest. I cannot sit back and continue to be treated like a second-class citizen. I protested not only for myself, though. I protested for the civil rights and equality of gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, transgendered, and questioning people all over the United States.
Anyway, I was ready for the protest. I made my sign earlier that day (the picture to the left). Apparently the camera adds 10 inches, as I thought I would have a normal-sized sign. Nope. Not me. That is just not my luck. I had the biggest sign. And it was a bitch to picket on the sidewalk with, as I was trying to avoid hitting people with it, avoiding trees, and in general, trying not to crotch myself with it when the wind picked up.
Since we were boycotting a theater, I wanted my sign to have something movie-related to it. I kept coming back to this saying after almost a week of non-stop thinking about it. The ultimate bitch-fest, All About Eve, is one of my favorite movies. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to put in parenthesis “(and Eve)” at the bottom. Marriage is all about love, no matter who wants to get married. And of course, it’s always all about Eve, as well. I added the equality symbol to the sign as well. Homosexuals deserve equal rights. We are humans. We are your friends, family, and co-workers. Don’t hate a group of people based solely on their sexual orientation, race, sex, religious background, nationality, or anything else. Hate individuals. Hate a person because that person is a dumb-fuck or whatever, but not because of who they fuck. That’s what I do and it works for me.
Okay, back to getting lost. I had my driving directions printed out for both ways (there and back). I was on my way and doing great. Turns out, the way to get there was, for the most part, the same way I have been driving to Chicago the past couple months. It’s easy to get to. Well, not so much when they close down part of a road and there’s a detour, which totally throws off the mileage count. And then there was the exit-y looking street. I have seen a lot of roads like that in other places, and you always have to turn down these roads. Even though the road looks like it would still be open, a lot of times, it is a two-lane one-way street and you can’t drive down it. So I took the exit-y looking street. Whoops.
I ended up driving around for 45 minutes, completely lost. I didn’t know any of the streets, where I was, or even how to get back to the street I had been on. Finally I stopped at a Walgreen’s and bought a map. When the young cashier guy asked how I was doing, I replied, “I’m doing okay, except for being so very, very lost. Thus the need for the map. How are you?” He just laughed and said he was good and then asked where I was trying to find. The Century Theatre was only about a mile-and-a-half away from where I was. I thanked him profusely and left.
I found parking on a side street and walked to where the cashier said it should be. When I rounded the corner, there were the protesters, picketing and chanting. I walked back to my car, grabbed my sign, and walked back to join the protest.
Continued in Part 2 – The Protest
