Amsterdam Gay Pride Canal Parade, Commercialization and Personal Experience
Adam Curry describes his experience attending the Amsterdam Gay Pride Canal Parade on August 3, 2013, with his daughter Christina, who works for OutTV. The discussion covers the history of canal floats, the participation of the soccer players union and police force, and the heavy commercialization of the event. Curry expresses frustration over being stuck on a themed boat for three hours promoting the film "Behind the Candelabra" without compensation.
amsterdam· gay pride· canal parade· outtv· behind the candelabra· christina curry· floats
00:00 Hey Abdul, I guess what we're going to do this weekend? Adam Curry, John C. Dvorak. It's Sunday, August 4th, 2013. Time for your Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 536. This is no agenda. Wearing my man dress in search of heat relief. Four stories about the secondhand book star in the heart of Amsterdam. Gitmo Nation Lowlands in the morning everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley, plain and simple, I'm John C. Dvorak. well i have to say it was a nice that it was pretty as nothing i haven't anticipated well let me uh... throw some more on the fire than for you by the way at your age skipping is not an option don't skip down the street with the rest of it well you know it was a gay pride weekend here in the answer them a lowlands where fifty percent of your no agenda show is emanating from uh... uh... today
01:15 and uh... the netherlands amsterdam in particular is world famous for its gay pride canal parade or did you see any of this on the news surely there was a cnn item about it i'm hoping that no nothing go ahead google it google amsterdam and canal parade uh... this is a pretty insane occurrence and i have always stayed away from it uh... yeah seriously apparent reasons and i understand why you would yes uh... but this year uh... my lovely daughter christina uh... was on the out t v and this is the out for a what is it called yet well it's it's called the gay pride canal parade can help us right so uh... to christina is uh... going to be working for the television station called out t v uh... yeah
02:12 and so she was... what are you laughing at? You're killing me here. It's true! And she just came out of the closet herself like a year ago so... What's the locker in the closet for? Yeah, really. So she's got this gig and so they were going to put her on display and OutTV... It's going to kill you much more by the time the story's over, John. So OutTV had a boat and there's only I think 70 or 80 boats and they go all the way around the Prinsengracht, the Prince Canal, and there's at least a million, I think they think 1.2, 1.3 million people who line all the canals, all the bridges, watching these boats go by and these boats, well they're barges essentially, or they actually are floats.
02:53 and each of them has a theme and everyone's just you know you've got just basically gays and lesbians and transgenders and bisexuals and the odd bi-curious person dancing on these boats and waving to everybody and it's a big like, we're gay, ahhh! That's essentially the whole idea and it's gay pride. and the Amstrad Pride itself. There's a lot of action today by the way. The Web, the Pride Closing Party, the Pink Bubbles and Free Bites, the Rapido, Pride Edition, Dirty Dicks. Oh yeah, Fist Factory, Newt Club Amsterdam, Club Church Twinks Orgy. It's an orgy. Hold on, let me finish this down. I know, I'm doing the damn show, we should have moved it. I could have been in the Dirty Fist Orgy, whatever it is. What does truth mean? I don't know.
03:47 Okay, so there's some good things and some really bad things about this gay pride parade. Now, I think the good thing, and I've always seen this on TV, I've never really gone and stood, maybe I leaned out of a window one year when I was here to take a look at it, but it's like there's a lot of people, there's a lot of noise, and so you watch these boats go by, and it's interesting because you have all, you know, they're themed boats, and this year they had the soccer players union boat. Can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah. I was thinking about this just now. I wonder, you know when you go to the Rose Bowl parade and the Macy's Day parade, they call all those those things floats. Yeah, this is where it originates from. I think it's truly a float. It's meant to be a float.
04:31 Yeah, because I never figured out why are these things called floats? They're not floating. No. But I believe now that they're because there's a bunch of these cities in Europe that have these events on these canals because they're all over the place. Yeah. I mean Amsterdam is not the only place with water. No. Anyway, go on. Okay. So they're all themed, and there's big organizations, and this is kind of the good and the bad, but the football players union had a float this year for the first time, essentially saying, hey it's okay to be gay and be a professional soccer player. Strangely enough, no soccer players jumped up and went, yeah I'm gay, let's go, but okay. So they had that boat. You had the cops.
05:16 And this is very interesting. So you had a whole float filled with, must have been 80 or 90 cops, male, female, all in uniform, all saluting. And then, you know, so and each boat kind of has their spiel, which they'll repeat over and over again as they go from between bridges. And a spiel? Yeah, like a, like a shtick, like a little skit, a little thing that's going on. And so they'd all be saluting and then all of a sudden they'd start dancing and they'd be holding up signs, join us. It was weird. To me that was, they're recruiting on the inter-agency cops yeah and the same with the military to the military also has their annuals all military men and women's and of the great alexander the greats armies were all gay so i tell you something here's what they messed up with this thing they should have curry and the war act doing the play-by-play voiceover of the story did not know doing that for you how like kathy lee and i have to do that it was a cat and then regis
06:13 Do they used to do that? Yeah, yeah, no, in Regis they'd talk about, oh and there come the gay cops. No, wait a minute. Here they are, look, oh, they're doing their, uh, they're doing their little dance. No, no, no, no, listen, no, no, you're doing, whoa, that was unexpected. You're supposed to be doing the Alexander the Great historical stuff. So I'll be saying, and here come the soldiers, ladies and gentlemen. John, what do we know about the historical significance of gays in the military? Well, most militaries were extremely gay. It seemed to solve a number of problems. And by the way, in Sparta, which I only learned recently because it was on the special on the KQED, Sparts were required to be gay.
06:57 yeah really and infected but you're required to be gay and also to child a lot of kids so the women would shave their heads and pretend to be guys and then they would uh... have sex with that with their soldier uh... husbands very strange very strange culture okay so here's the uh... so that he could be good in the bad of this and uh... let me start with some of the bad first uh... not only do we have these groups with their boats and they were creamed and and and but there's every single boat their float is commercialized. So you've got the Vodafone float, you know, sponsored by Heineken, sponsored by the bank. No, it really ruins it. And I hate it. It makes it so, it cheapens the whole thing. But of course, you know, these are, these are outfits, these are brands, big international brands who want to cater to this extremely desirable audience.
07:48 Again, I've only seen this thing in previous years from TV and from you know on the sidelines And it's kind of like okay. You know a bunch of gays. You know jumping up and down on the boat or whatever okay? Yeah, that's great. Oh, that's funny. You know kind of like we would do our play-by-play being on the boat Was very different experience because now I'm seeing all the people on the side you went on the boat I told you Christina my daughter I was asked to be one of the stars on the... You said you were on the boat. Yes, I was on the boat with her. She asked me to be... Oh, that was not made clear to me. Because you're just chiding me and laughing and you won't listen. I am not laughing. She had asked me to be her plus one on the boat. Yeah! Yeah! So I witnessed for the first time the gay parade from the boat.
08:38 Now it's just a matter of time now now here's okay, so let me give you my experience now first of all it was great for Christina because you know this is a This is out TV. They finally made it big-time. They're on cable networks, and you know they have distribution They've hired her. She's you know kind of like the celebrity. She's gonna be producing programs, and it's a lifestyle channel yeah Yeah, so it's not a it's not total trash TV. It's not all about saying, you know, whatever those whatever you're reading about this lifestyle travel, etc and but you know, she's kind of like the Queen Bee and The the guy who founded the station is getting her up on the you know on the front deck and interviewing her and such Fantastic and we're floating along we're going down the canal and I can see all these people
09:27 And for the first time I could really see, John, you may not be into what I'm saying here, but I can see how all these people are so happy that here's this day, and I think they should have it for every group that identifies as a group, where they could just throw their hands in the air and just go, I'm gay! And I can see how that could be very liberating. In fact, I did see it. Everyone's dancing and happy and it's a very, very nice vibe. Here's the problem for me. I'm on this boat and you're stuck on the boat for three and a half hours. You're not getting off the boat, you have to do the whole thing. It's hot, you know, we've got a heat wave, I'm wearing a hat, the hat band is hurting my head, the DJ's playing very loud, it's right in my ear. But the boat had a theme and the theme was a commercial tie-in to the movie behind the candelabra.
10:31 That piece of crap movie? Which is now in theaters in the Netherlands. So I was on a boat and they had a grand piano rising from the boat and then a couple of gay guys would jump out and dance and then Liberace would appear and then he would be dancing. But this had to be repeated between every bridge. So every, like a hundred times, this whole Ibrachi thing of this movie that you forced me to watch, which is a piece of crap, and just over and over and over again, with the big voiceover, Ladies and gentlemen, please watch Behind the Candelabra on October 4th, or whatever it was. It was insane.
11:13 and you know everyone's dancing and you know hands up that was the song hands up hands up whatever so everyone has to put your hands in the air for three hours. So for this three hours of essential work what was so what just just because I'm sure people would like to know what what was the fee you got paid for this commercial? Absolutely zero. I'm sorry? Yeah I got zero I was supporting my daughter who who has a gig. Okay well she must have gotten a pile of cash. She got zero she's got a gig it's part of her deal. That's just part of her deal. Yeah, part of her overall deal. She's working... Just suffering to eat for three hours promoting a movie that's got a huge budget for commercialism? It could have paid you guys a hundred bucks. Well, we got all the crappy white wine we could drink. I'm sure that was good for the headache. Yeah, yeah. So, now there was some controversy which we did not hear about in the United States which I found kind of interesting because, you know, of course it's Big Gay Weekend and I keep hearing about
