Serious Freak On: Pics From Pride Houston and Bartini

Pretty, caramel muscle boys in crop tops and rainbow banana thongs. Snoop Dawg look-alike dykes tailin' Tri-Delts on the back of pickup trucks for Jell-O shots. Welcome to Gay Spring Break or, as it is better known, Pride Houston.

You know that part of freaking, when the person in the back steadies themselves by either outstretching their arms to rest against the freak's clavicle or grabs ass so as not to fall over? Yeah, well, that basically summed up the whole trip to H-Town last weekend. Theme song? UNK's "Walk It Out." Oh yeah. And we did. Your intrepid friendly neighborhood Gay Place hosted a few pals and prize winners at the Hyatt Downtown, our room two doors down from frisky winners, Dacia Saenz and Julie Pennington. As the vibe (and other lubricants and libations) began to flow, we all decided to hang together and combine strengths for the duration of the ridiculously epic jaunt.

(To read more, click below; to see more pix, click above the image.)

The difference between Bayou Town Pride and Austin's own, is that they have a central gayborhood – Montrose. Oh, and that they have the sense to put all the festivities on one weekend. Sorry, but this whole across-the-whole-month-of-June deal for Austin Pride has the effect of watering down a damn good 40-ounce Margarita – then nursing it for the whole night. Unsatisfying, and if there is a headache to be earned, it's a dull throb.

Houston's Pride – though not perfect and certainly not to be compared to massive whole-city affairs like SF or NYC (it's still Texas, after all, y'all) – is at least focused. The festival itself is the de facto cornerstone for the spontaneous and unrestricted queers-gone-wild street festival that rages all across the 'hood. We don't know if it was the two-story beer bong, the coolers full of homemade Jell-O shots, or the generous displays of flesh and personality that made for such a friendly, flirtatious fest, but whatever it was, Austin could use a dose or two.

The Houston festival is the lead in to the nighttime parade and is, as you'd expect, larger than Austin's in participants but totally eclipsing ours in audience by a few hundred thousand. The entire route along Westheimer comes alive with peeps five to 10 deep lining the streets the whole way down. The lights and crowd explode once the parade makes its way to the VIP areas, with bleachers full of screaming Pride revelers lunging to catch glimpses, condoms, and beads.

When my friend Katie and I were offered the chance to drive the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce's BMW convertible, we left Dac and Julie in the capable hands of the bartenders in the free VIP area, with their endless pours of champagne and Krystal. Needless to say, upon our post-parade return to the VIPs, our sloshy little slatterns were the ones who needed to be poured – into their bed at the Hyatt. So the young ones tucked in early. (Though, who knows? Maybe they had a better time than they let on.) Katie and I decided to full-steam ahead the evening and meet up with the ALLGO kids at nearby Bartini.

Bartini, "the hottest club in H-Town with an urban twist," was in the midst of a weekend birthday celebration of the host of what we gathered to be a show of studs, featuring hunky butches lip-syncing to sensitive R&B songs about how it's OK for a man to cry and baby, you done me so wrong, and femmey bio-queens singing just as many boy, you done me wrongs and come on over here and let mama fix its. The crowd of admirers made it rain until the dawn's early light.

Yes, please, and woof.