Provincetown VI: Summer 2015-Today

In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. This is the Sixth Post in a weeklong series about my experiences there. A reminder that this is intended to be a Celebration of Pride and Gay Culture from my Perspective, over some three decades. It is my story — the Story of My Experiences — and I am Happy to share it with You. Happy Pride!

Provincetown

Summer 2015- Today

STEVE KATZ is a PTown artist who does this Lithograph/Photograph With Quotes kind of thing.
I have a piece of his on the wall of my New York apartment–– It’s a picture of the HAT SISTERS with the EMILE ZOLA quote, “I came to Live Out Loud!”
Do you know the HAT SISTERS?
They are a PTown Legend!
Two guys — big burly men with big burly mustaches who come to PTown every summer and dress in the most Fabulous drag outfits you could ever imagine with their big hairy arms, hairy chests, and these Hats — they defy description!
They create these Magnificent HeadDresses — Enormous things with Wires and Birds and trains of toile —
Hats that would make CARMEN MIRANDA green with envy!
And they’re always Well Coordinated to one another!
And for no particular reason on any given afternoon or evening of Summer,
you see them walking down Commercial Street in PTown…
often with a Regatta of Drag Queens trailing behind them!
They are so Fabulous!
They bring Joy!
Even the most conservative of straight folk now seem Enchanted by them!
Most of us always have been!
I saw them a few weeks ago (more…)

Provincetown II: Summer 1990’s

In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. And so Today is the second in a weeklong series about my experiences there. Happy Pride!

 

Provincetown

Summer 1990’s

 

I asked THE HAT SISTERS if they would pose for a picture…

Here, in my Twenties, I have discovered this incredibly Diverse World:
Hippies of the 60s, Living their Dream,
A bucolic Portuguese Fishing Village,
Artists — painting their canvases on every roadside — since it is so far out in the middle of the ocean, the Sun Shines Brightly and the Light doesn’t change for hours; thus, it is an ideal place to paint, so Artists flock here, as I imagine they have for centuries,
Art Galleries whose works are sought after,
Japanese Businessmen in their limos on the peer, waiting to bid on Tuna and airship them immediately back to Japan for sushi,
The Lobster Fishermen putting out their lobster traps which they would shoot you for stealing, as it is understood that that is about Livelihood, and at this moment in America’s history, everyone respects one another’s Livelihood,
The Farmer Cakes at CONNIE’s Bakery at The Lobster Pot…

And So Many Beautiful Gay Boys–– Dancing!
(more…)

Provincetown I: Summer 1980’s

In Celebration of this Season of PRIDE, I have culled a few writings from my Summers in Provincetown, as well as pulling together some photographs from over the years. And so Today begins a weeklong series about my experiences there. Happy Pride!

Provincetown

Summer 1980’s

 

Commercial Street 1980’s

The Pride March is held in New York City on the Last Sunday in June.
It isn’t called a Parade, then.
It is a March
For Rights,
For Freedom,
For Equality,
For Our Lives!

My friends MICHELE and WENDY invite me to come for a weekend to this place they are staying for the summer.
The three buses from New York take some 13 hours, door to door.
The fare is somewhere around twenty-seven dollars, round trip —
Seems like a big investment for a Weekend Away.
(more…)