Pervy Leather Party Gives More to Charity Than SF Gay Pride
Everywhere you turn, a gay crisis! First it was the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, and now, it's San Francisco Gay Pride? "Its board and staff didn't realize they'd veered sharply into the red until the organization outspent its revenue by nearly 25 percent…. In the months since, Pride has also experienced a leadership exodus befitting a Central American junta. Its dysfunctional board has burned through four presidents in eight months." But all is not gloom in the world of gay nonprofit events! "Folsom Street Events"—which runs the Folsom Street Fair, which is a fun, friendly and definitely kink-friendly event—"is run tighter than a size-L pair of chaps on a XXL derriere. One intriguing indicator of the esteem in which the city holds Folsom is that the Department of the Environment tapped the leather festival to pen the official city best practices guide on large-event recycling." The Folsom Street Fair organization also now donates almost three times as much to charity as SF Gay Pride does.
I guess making me Google "Folsom Street Fair" is your idea of a joke?
@jolie: Well then absolutely do not Google "Dore Alley Fair" – sometimes known as Folsom's nasty younger brother…
They like to give it all right.
Also, their leather is made from recycled upholstery.
@keisertroll: nipple-clamps = used batteries.
@HiredGoons lube = last year's lube.
@keisertroll We're talking guys who buy lube by the gallon.
A bunch of aggressive tops and pushy bottoms throw a successful and well-organized party? You don't say.
Obligatory sex jokes aside, the leather community has always been great at fundraising and activism. This doesn't surprise me at all. It also doesn't surprise me that a Pride org is broke and dysfunctional.
@Aatom This. I am pretty much strangling myself to not throw my two cents in (despite my vagina, I'm still a card-carrying kinkster) but from what I know of the opposite coast's approach to this shit, they usually know what they're doing … unless it's Pride-related, in which case they go to pieces.
So, kind of like the East Coast orgs. Anybody kick Boston lately to see if they're still alive?
Among my friends, walking through the Folsom Street Fair was also known as "running the Gauntlet."
This puts me in mind of what Steinbeck was always saying about brothels.
Recycle dog leashes to leash actual dogs
Have you seen the prices at Mr. S? If you're going to be a leatherman, you have to know how to budget!
I guess once you're respectable enough to get socialites and other wealthy do-nothings on your board, you start spending money on catered meetings and planning retreats instead of the thing you're actually supposed to be doing.
(I was originally just going to make a joke about the key to their success being their top-down management style, but someone beat me to it.)