Totally awesome 80s night! (with a little gay pride thrown in for good measure)

Anyone who has ever lived in a smaller city knows that pride events in said cities can often times be a little lacking. It seems like you pay whatever the ridiculous cover charge is, (this year it was $15!) simply so you can be forced to buy over-priced carnival food and stand in line for a half hour to buy a 12 oz beer that costs $5, while perusing the overpriced niche-market goods. (Need a rainbow beach towel? Or an outfit for your chihuahua with a pink triangle somehow stitched onto it?) Essentially it always ends up turning into mostly an all-day beer-bust that just so happens to be in a park instead of a bar.



Despite all this, John and I decided to go ahead and head out to the park on Saturday. Part of that decision was based on the fact that Expose (you know...Seasons Change...Point of No Return...etc) was gong to be performing. Which any true 80's nut (ahem...John) would be all about. I won't lie and say I wasn't excited about seeing them too, but given that I was still in elementary school when their music was at it's most popular, I couldn't have quite the same appreciation.









The performance was good, and it was made even more entertaining when our local mother-of-all-drag-queens Aja Simone got up on stage and started doing all of Expose's dance moves with them. There were times when it looked like SHE was the performer...and they were her back-up singers.



So after that it was on to The Loft (Tucson's local art-house theater type place) for what was called The Totally Awesome 80's Sing-along). Essentially what happened was that they showed a series of four 80's music videos by a specific artist after which they'd have a commercial break. The commercial break was filled with all the cheesy, poorly acted schlock-fests that you remember from 80's advertising. (Remember the kiss-a-thon ads from Big Red? Or the Doublemint Twins? My Little Pony?)




After the music videos portion, there was a dance-off/costume contest. Then it was onto singing along to your favorite 80's TV-show themes (Facts of life, Charles in Charge, Golden Girls, etc). Then musical montages from 80's movies like Dirty Dancing, Fame, Flashdance and Footloose. (I think there were some other letters of the alphabet represented too, I just can't remember which).

Oddly enough, the $5 80's sing-along was every bit as gay as, and a little bit more fun than, the $15 pride event. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes it's the little things that go a long way toward making an event enjoyable.