When I was a kid my parents used to take me and my sister to local Catholic school and church fairs. They were in mostly Mexican-American neighborhoods in East Los Angeles. My parents would hear about them or see them on the news, or sometimes my Dad would spot a new one on the way home from work. He'd notice the arcing lights on the rides from his car. During certain times of the year, we might go to one of these fairs every week.

Most of the fairs had some mechanical carnival rides, the kind that get put up and taken down in a week's time. We'd pay something like 2 dollars to get in, then buy script for the rides and games. We would listen to mariachis, or some sort of musical entertainment. Play a little bingo to round out the evening. Before we left, my parents would buy a week's worth of homemade enchiladas or tamales and that would become our dinner for the next week.

I mention all this because I've been writing about the Gay Pride Festival here in L.A. What I wanted to say is that when I first started attending the festival many years ago, it was kind of like a low-budget version of one of these fairs. I mentioned in a previous post how the entertainment at the festival has changed over the years. Another thing that has changed over the years is corporate sponsorship. As a result, today's Gay Pride Festival feels more like a business fair crossed with a county fair.

At the entrance to this year's festival, a Hummer was on display as part of a car giveaway. I didn't take a close look, but I imagine it was the new H3. This seemed wrong on several levels. In L.A., we go through car fads quickly, and the Hummer is so last year, so I-just-cast-my-vote-for-Ahnold. But this is what has happened with gays going mainstream: you can't even count on gay men to reliably stay on top of trends anymore.

It's not just the gay men who've succumbed to mainstream influence. There was a time when putting a gas-guzzling, military-inflected vehicle favored by the ultra-wealthy in front of a crowd of lesbians would have been an invitation to mayhem. At the very least, it would have been pushed over on it's side, possibly even defaced. Many harsh words would have been spoken. Now, it's a door prize.

Of course, I recognize that there's also a positive aspect to corporations' interest in gays. Corporations have found gays and lesbians' pockets, and no matter how much the religious right tries to threaten Disney or Ford or Microsoft, it doesn't change the fact that our money is still green. It just goes to show that one man's disordered sex deviant is another man's potential Subaru owner.

I always like to see what companies have decided to market to us, or which products or brands they think we will embrace. So I walked through all the festival booths, noting the banks and bottled water and whatnot. Then something caught my eye; it was the Tylenol PM booth. I was floored. "Now this relates to my lifestyle!" I thought. I scurried over to the booth and was greeted by "the sleepy boys," two attractive pajama-clad men. They ladled sample packets into my outstretched hands.