The Chair's Opening Speech at Second Pride Festival

Lee McKay's, the Chair of Second Pride, speech at the opening of the Second Pride Festival yesterday.

The Second Pride board, Lee McKay, Bock McMillan & Tootsie Nootan
(missing in the picture is i0n, who is currently on sick-leave.)
Photo by JJ Goodman

"I promise I won’t interrupt the party for long! I want to thank everyone for coming out today for the opening of Second Pride 2019, and the debut of our newly redesigned Second Pride region. We hope you’re ready to have some fun and celebrate Pride!

We’re doing something different this year in that we now consider our region to be a permanent build that will remain in place for the foreseeable future. We are also a Second Life Gateway region and will soon have new people entering Second Life right through our own Gateway in the northeast corner of the region. I hope you’ll go check out the progress on that. It will be opening in the near future. 

If you’re curious about how this build came to be, I was watching a video of Diana Ross performing in Central Park in 1983, and the shots of the park and the buildings in the background just looked and felt inspiring. I showed a really simple mockup of the idea to Bock and to his husband, Tomais, and within days, the building started, spurred on by a very generous donation of all these buildings in the Old NYC collection from Schultz Bros. We thank them for their generosity! This is a build that we want you to explore and enjoy. There are all sort of places to wander, stroll, sit, watch, meditate, reminisce, play, and just be. It’s a walking space, a place to take photos, bring friends, hang out, play games, and more. We will no longer be one or two events per year. We expect to have parties on a regular basis, starting soon.

This year, we are celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, considered to be the catalyzing moment in the push for Gay Rights. With the current political climate and with our rights being slowly but methodically eroded from us once again, there is no better time for us to reflect on the events of that night and the nights that followed, and to consider the battles fought then, and the battles that are to come, because they are coming. We need to draw from the strength of the heroes of that night…Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Storme DeLarverie (Stormy Delahveay), Danny Garvin, and so many others. We honor them for the stand they took that night, and we pledge to continue their fight.

Second Pride Was On Fire!

Late Saturday - or very, very early Sunday morning for us Euros - the hawt, sexy, stunning, mouth-watering Men in Motion set Second Pride on fire (at least the gay men and the bi men and women) with their shaking, rattling, rolling, jumping and even more sensuous movements.

Well, my friend Si de Brit, who is a dancer in the company and choreographed two of the dances (Hint: Look for fire!) convinced me to stay on. I didn't regret it one bit.

There were quite a few of the SL-glitterati along with some sexy and creative security personnel. (Congrats to the sim at LEA, Levi!)

I had to leave at 4AM my time to "take care of business", i.e. go to bed before I fell asleep with my head on the keyboard. (It gives you such a strange look the day after...)

Pictures!

Chaotic Paragorn

Mickey Morowell & Regi Yifu

Lee MacKay & some crazy attention seeking dude

Levi is whacked out and Kit also resting by his side. 

Thank You, Board & Volunteers of Second Pride 2017

The fountain and the globe

I have just finished reading LLedge Eames closing statement for the 2017 Second Pride Festival. It begins like this (For the complete statement please go to The Second Pride website (url)):

"Thank you for an amazing 2017 Second Pride Festival!

As the sun sets on yet another wildly successful and my last Second Pride Festival season. I’d like to take a moment to say some thank yous. I am so grateful for this years outpouring of participation not to mention I had the pleasure of working with some of the most amazing talents from across the grid.

Our 2016 – 2017 Second Pride Board. Jak Calcutt with his outstanding builds and designs, creating a feast for our eyes, Marge Beaumont for her behind the scenes accounting, Tootsie Nootan and her security team (Levi & Kit) keeping us all safe, and Viktor Sandman for all his patience scheduling and wrangling our performers. To our volunteers. Kahvy & Garrett Smith for undertaking and creating some fantastic social media buzz along with all those bloggers. Lee McKay and his webmaster skills that put us back online."

The shopping mall

After thanking the sponsors, vendors, performers and others that contributed to making this one of the best festivals ever, he goes on to thank the attendants and then finishes

"On more than one occasion I was greeted by complete strangers and then thanked for providing them with such a true and wonderful pride experience. It was comments like that and many more that told me we had hit our mark. I can’t begin to thank this team enough. You ALL really outdid yourself and should be proud of all you accomplished.

As I mentioned earlier this is my last year as Chairman. It has been such an honor to be involved in this organization. As much as I am ready to step down, I will miss it and all the nuances. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to bring my hope and joy to you all through this wonderful outlet."

The Japanese Garden, a permanent exhibition

Well, I would in turn like to thank the board of Second Pride for - yet another - amazing and enjoyable festival. This Second Pride festival is up there among my top three all-time favorites since I first started going to Pride in SecondLife in 2008.

I can hardly imagine all the hard work and dedication our board and the volunteers put in to this venture - and all the work they did the rest of the year - for the LGBT+ community in Second Life. 

It is even harder for me to understand why the boards dedicated work throughout the year has sometimes been met by criticism by fringes of the community, especially those who do not lift a finger or support the efforts in any way whatsoever. 

The memorial chapel

Second Pride must exist first and foremost for the LGBT+ residents in SecondLife, to be an inworld presence, to offer support to other smaller LGBT+ organizations, and to represent our community to the surrounding community and to Linden Lab. All else must, in my not so humble opinion, be secondary to that.

I am saddened that the present board say they doesn't wish to continue, although I do understand their position. Hopefully some of them can be persuaded to continue, or at to return after some rest and relaxation from these responsibilities. 

My deepest gratitude, again, goes to the board of 2016-2017 for a job well done!

The main stage

All the pictures in this post show the wonderful work that Build Director Jak Calcutt did for this years festival-venue. I have them in a folder named "The sim that Jak built".

Grand Opening "Live's Outlook @ LEA16", Today 12-2 PM

All the awesom picture from Levi's Outlook @ LEA16 are by Dodo Ahanu, see his Flicr photostrea here.

"Hey guys, just to let you know this weekend my Linden endowment of arts Sim is open - its a NON commercial sim I have been working on hard for  four months expressing my outlook on life - this is the landmark, Levi's Outlook @ LEA 16 (SLurl)

From 12 on we have a music party to kick it off  - but feel free to visit on you leisure

Saturday 19 November we have planned 
DJ - .. R E G I   Y I F U ... (regi.yifu) - form 12 pm - 02 pm om sl time

Sunday 20 November we have planned
DJ - Prince Kel Claven-Darling (pkc) form 02 pm - 04 pm sl time"

This is Levi's own description of his massive project

On the Levi’s Outlook on life the sim is divided by  a diagonal gradient from total abstract pixels that flow out of a visualised ‘ fountain'  transforming in to shapes and  letting SL-realism emerge.

On the second abstraction level their is a walk way indicated by arrow - although note perfect it illustrates how i see different ways o view life.
When u arrive indicated with white arrows u start off with the 

La Ballerina Spaventosa

I attended one of Second Pride's traditional Halloween Voodoo-events yesterday. DJ Tina from Denmark was spinning with Jimmy Gracemount as her host.

There was a pleasant crowd in attendance with my dear old friend Levi Ewing and his friend Kit working as security. We even had one of the Lindens drop by for a while.

While I was there, there was also this really scary (but delicious and pretty and graceful) ballerina there also.

 

 I'm happy that Tomais convinced me to get that ballerina AO, it was amazing.