Orin Zebest / Flickr

Another member of San Francisco's intellectual elite.

​Just because Sunday is April Fools Day doesn't mean you get to skip church. If you're a member of the First Church of the Last Laugh (and you are), it's the holiest day of the year, so get out there. Church elders tell us that the St. Stupid's Day Parade starts at "the pointy building downtown" (which some call the Transamerica Pyramid) and moves into North Beach.

Some of what we saw at last year's parade -- we initially thought we'd stumbled onto a demonstration -- were signs that read: "I hate crowds," "I may be rabid," and "giants suck, dwarves rule." A man in a 49ers cape tried to play the trombone by inserting the slide into the bell. Frank Chu was there. It has all the trappings of a demonstration, but the likes of Occupy, we fear, couldn't keep laughing. Last year, laughter echoed between the skyscrapers until the end.

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Mark Richards

Marilyn Wann

​In the 1990s when I was producing a print 'zine called FAT!SO?, a friend and contributor who provided brilliant stories that got reprinted in cool places like the Utne Reader always wanted her bio say, "Betty Rose Dudley is a fat, working-class dyke from Missouri."

I'm thinking about Betty a lot because she died last week. Betty lived in a state of something called "intersectionality" (a fabulous term developed by African-American feminists). It's about claiming all aspects of oneself. In the Bay Area, people who made fat pride community were also making feminist, queer, and disability rights communities. Betty lived at that intersection. In claiming all of herself, she was gently, determinedly loving and activist as a result. It's a kind of activism that I imagine expands livable space for all of us, whatever our mix of differences. I'm so grateful for all I've learned from Betty and from local fat/queer community.

As Queer Pride weekend wound down recently, rad fatty Max Airborne (a founder of the Fat Girl 'zine collective) posted online, "First there was the pride march, then the dyke march, then the trans march. I wonder what march will evolve next for our communities?"

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Kate Conger

​Pride Weekend is the time to celebrate queer culture, and San Francisco does it best -- by turning the city into one long runway. Sure, there's a week's worth of pregame parties, the dyke march, the parade, and then abundant afterparties, but we all want to be the main event. And we do it by dressing up.

Pride is a gay holiday, and appropriate attire is a must. There are two approaches to assembling the perfect Pride outfit -- the Halloween version, featuring rainbow socks, tangled wigs, and DIY duct-tape pasties; or the Christmas version, which looks a little classier and involves diving into the back of your closet for that one treasured outfit you've been dying to wear all year. The main difference, as I see it, is that one is a costume and one is an ensemble.

I used to go for the former, trying to see how much rainbow jewelry I could pile on without collapsing under the weight, but lately I've been attempting to keep it classy. I spent the weekend cruising for like-minded fashionistas. Here's a look at some of them.

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Queer Pride weekend in San Francisco is always an overwhelming undertaking. So much is going on that it's almost too much to comprehend. But here's a starter kit, if you will, dividing the weekend into three sections starting tonight. Speaking of starters, in the clip above you'll see the Dykes on Bikes from 2010. This moto-contingent has begun the annual parade for years.

Today (Friday) is the day to celebrate the magic of our transsexual selves and comrades. The Trans March began at 3:30 p.m. at Dolores Park and reaches its destination at UN Plaza at 6:30 p.m. Later check out Unofficial: The Original Plumbing Trans Pride Party. The event presented by the trans lifestyle mag features local faves DJ Rapid Fire and DJ Bunnystyle along with hot-'n'-heavy go-go dancers and all the cruising you can take.

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​Sandra Bernhard is your pride headliner this year, and just in case her check bounces... she'll be working her satire Thursday through Sunday in San Francisco.

We talked to Bernhard about what this Jewish mom thinks of the S.F. circumcision ban, why Andy Warhol would have loved Twitter, and why she believes parades bring out the worst in people -- gay, straight, bi, trans, or drunk. Here's what she had to say ...

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There's nothing wrong with shaking a tail feather, but we believe it's best to do so when said feather is one of dozens glued to said tail. At the Carnaval Parade and Festival, you'll catch plenty of dancers -- on and off the parade route -- shaking plumage they themselves have crafted and grafted. See many in the video clip above, taken from last year's parade.

It's Carnaval all over: an explosion of color and rhythm, of costumes and drums, of the vibrant countries and cultures that are the headwaters of San Francisco's funkiness. This year's grand marshal of all things Carnaval is Ana Maria Polo, a Cuban American author, lawyer, and star of the TV show Caso Cerrado; but the special appearance most likely to inspire serious feather shaking is that of the Giants' 2010 World Series trophy. (Lou Seal is handling security.)

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"What is the sound of one cat saying meow?" That's easy. ("Meow!") And kind of stupid. We saw it painted on a sign during an odd procession heading up Market Street a year or two ago on April Fools' Day. The signs and costumes were calibrated to draw laughter at their bearers but not take on anything deep or paradoxical. Then we saw a sign that read "I can't afford an actual sign." Pure paradox, that. But again, easy and sort of dumb in a self-satisfied way. Like the look worn by the Doggie Diner head. We saw three of those, as well as Wavy Gravy in a bowler hat and an old timey striped swimming suit you might see on one of the Three Stooges or Little Rascals. There were fright wigs, capes, angel wings, and weird helmets. None of it made sense, unless it was taken as a whole: hundreds of people, all doing stupid things, unified by a smug attitude. We've since learned it was the St. Stupid's Day Parade, which is put on Friday (April 1, in case you hadn't guessed) for the 33rd year by the First Church of the Last Laugh.

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