The March that Didn't.

It called itself a Worldwide March for LGBTQ* Rights, but nobody showed up. In Portland, apart from three invited speakers, a mayoral candidate, the organizer, and two of us hoping to write articles about it, I counted five.

One of the three invited speakers was Maurice Evans, the gorgeous man you see here, who ties his dreds in a pony tail and resembles Snoop Dogg. He works with a gay men's health organization called Pivot.  Maurice laughed, "I don't mind preaching to the choir, but sometimes they don't turn up for rehearsal."

The "worldwide" event was organized by a guy in Oklahoma named Joe Knudson, and the Portland contingent was in the hands of a cheery but overworked young woman who has a day job and also works with Occupy Portland. She tried to pull something together because she felt it would be terrible not to have a Portland "presence" for such an important issue. But an amusing Huffington Post article accurately predicted the failure of the event.

About an hour ago, Joe Knudson sent out a rather breathless and gushing Facebook post: "What has been done and what each of you did today will change the world as we know it.... I love all of you and care very much and please know that I will always be here for anything any of you may need."  

Anything any of the 10,000 of us on his Facebook list might need? I wonder if Joe would like to help me catch up on Blip comments.

I did enjoy the rare sunny blue-sky day, and I loved meeting Maurice Evans.

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*Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer