Beyond Selidor

I went briefly because Lexi Lafleur Brown was having a signing at one of the booths. She makes good online content and is involved with the Kraken org a bit. Her husband is an ex-NHL player who is now the Kraken's color commentator.

Probably not going to read it, but I went to the event, bought a book and got it signed. It was a hockey-related-ish thing, so I went.



I'd have enjoyed being down there more, but I wasn't up for bullshit today and if you are going to go to Portland Pride you need to be able to tank some bullshit. The signing was the same day as the parade so I had to navigate several blocks of crowds. That was fine, and I got to see some of the parade. But, when I finally got there I had to stand in a short line to get in. The guys behind me were leather gays. One thwacked me in the head with his fan. I think he was gesturing to someone inside? Anyway, he was facing me when it happened, and I think he was trying to gesture through me like I didn't exist.

My reaction was pretty much to deflate and think 'yeah, of course this is how things are going to go. Why expect anything else?'

On one hand, I could give a million good reasons why my reaction is very valid considering all my experiences with Portland Pride and the local queer community, but also you can't be like that at Pride. You've got to just let that kinda stuff roll off you, especially since so many people come to Portland Pride to party. They were probably either already fucked up, still fucked up from last night, or a combo of both.

Anyway, I got got inside, found the booth and then got an iced coffee to wait until the signing started.

Anyway the event itself had cleaned up the vendor's list a lot? There was a maker's market alley and only one artist was AI slop? No obvious Amazon resellers? Some of the art was like 'doll from a a thrift shop with spikes stuck in it's head' but like, this was way better than what I've seen in the past. I can criticize, point out that there are so, so many artists so much better suited to the event, that would really showcase our scene and make it look like... not crap. But still, massive leap forward. It's no longer plagiarism-a-palooza.

On the downside, to stabilize the ground, there was a layer of sand. Somehow, like sand dust or something was being constantly kicked up and it was hard to breath. Stuff needed to be wetted down badly. As always, no places to sit and almost no shade unless you had a VIP ticket. Not sure how much of that is on the event and how much is on the city.