photos

…no far away galaxy, though. Last night I got an e-mail from Kathleen, who’d stumbled across my Gigs photoset while looking for an old friend of hers. She was kind enough to send me an old photo from Gigs and said I could go ahead and post it along with the rest of my pictures from the club.

The picture was a fairly low-quality scan (a 216k 318×226 .bmp), but I’ve done what little I could to clean it up in Photoshop, enlarging it 200%, tweaking the levels, and running an unsharp mask filter on it. It’s still not pristine, but I’m still thrilled to have this drop in my lap.

Update: Kathleen was able to find the original photo and re-scan it at a higher resolution, so it’s much easier to see now. Turns out I was at a point where I was going through an ill-conceived attempt to actually grow out my beard….

I’m guessing this was taken sometime in 1997 or so. That’s Ray (DJ Happyjack) sitting in front. From left to right on the couch, we’ve got Lydia, Kathleen, me, Kate, and Rebecca (who was going by Apple at the time). Casey‘s lying across the back of the couch. I’ve got no clue who the guy on the far right is.

Thanks again, Kathleen!

“If I (Alien Trauma Edition)” by Lizette & from the album & So… (2001, 6:41).

Day two of the “MiS (Men in Skirts)” weekend has come and gone. Rick, Kirsten, and Kory joined Prairie and I to head up the hill to this year’s Gay Pride parade.

We staked out a spot right about where I was last year, just in front of Seattle Central Community College. Over the past couple years, that’s become my favorite place to set up for the parade — wide sidewalks, so you don’t get too claustrophobic from the crowds if you’re on the sidelines; and a median divider running down the street that I like to hang out on, as it’s a great spot for getting photos as the parade goes by. Chas was just a bit up the street from us, and he came down to say hi before the parade and then again after everything was done.

I always forget how long this parade is. It started right on time (a pleasant surprise for Seattle), and wrapped up three hours later! I ended up filling three of my four Compact Flash cards (one 512Mb, one 256Mb, and one 32Mb) with photos, topping out the day at around 550 total. I’ve culled out about half of those for my Flickr photoset — I didn’t see any “oh wow” shots this time around, but there’s still a lot of fun stuff in there.

Once the parade was done, we all went down to Charlie’s for lunch, then split up. Rick went up the hill to the rest of the Pride celebration at Volunteer Park; Kirsten and Kory went off to go shopping, and Prairie and I came back home, as she had to head back out to Ellensburg. I grabbed a nap for a bit after she left, then spent a few hours working on getting photos ready until Kirsten and Kory came back.

After they crashed out for a short nap, the three of us headed back up the hill to hit the Vogue‘s Sunday night fetish night. Bounced around for a bit, saw some people I’d met a while ago but hadn’t seen in a good year or so (Toni and Deandra, and met their friends Kane and Teresa), and then headed back home round about midnight.

And with that, the Men in Skirts weekend is done. I’m blearily making my way through the morning, and the work week is about to begin.

Of course, on the bright side, there’s a three-day weekend coming up next weekend thanks to the Fourth of July….

“Leather” by Amos, Tori from the album Little Earthquakes (1991, 3:12).

Today was day one of what I’ve dubbed the “Men in Skirts” weekend, with a jaunt out to Golden Gardens Park for the Utilikilts 5th Anniversary party.

Prairie and I had a lot of fun exploring the park. Neither of us had been there before, so we bounced back and forth between the picnic and wandering up and down the beach. While clambering over rock piles and underneath a pier, Prairie got to show me a lot of sea critters that I hadn’t seen outside of aquariums before, from huge starfish to tiny rock crabs that skittered away from us after she kicked over the rocks they were hiding under.

The picnic was also quite fun, with really good sausages and other potluck goodies to munch on, and quite a few Utilikiltarians (some of them employees, others, like me, customers and fans) chatting and playing. I spent some time playing frisbee out on the sand with Steven, Jenniviere, and Ben‘s daughter (amusingly, Ben and I know each other from Anchorage — long time ago) until my feet couldn’t take the hot sand anymore.

We ended up bailing out around 4pm, as there were chores to putter with at home (fun things like laundry and a little bit of straightening up for visitors tomorrow). Good day, a park that we’ll definitely be heading back to so we can explore it in a bit more detail, and much fun meeting some of the people behind the Utilikilt empire!

“Phorever People (D’s Mellow)” by Shamen, The from the album Phorever People (1992, 4:52).