 Thank you all you gorgeous people for coming out for more kill your pride. What is up? My name is Cal. I'm one of the co organizers. We have all sorts of events just sort of freestyle forming around the lawn. We've got the brass band is about to start us up brass ball again. And then we're going to do for whoever wants to a sidewalk parade around town. We're going to flash mob that 15 second flashing lights at the bear pond intersection. So if you want to parade with us after the brass band come on up here into the corner, we're going to exit the back and then we will come back in the front side on our return. And then we've got a bunch of music, a great show lined up. We've got a bunch of wellness tablers over in the corner some acupuncture and all sorts of great stuff. So thank you so much for coming out. We'll keep doing announcements. And happy pride. We are LaVangela. We're so stoked to be sharing space with you and siblings in the queer community in the BIPOC community in the sex worker community who aren't here with us anymore. It's really, really important to source our grief and our joy and our rage when we make spaces in events like pride. I'm going to put two names out there who I'm remembering today. I remember Fern and I remember my friend Jade. And this song is called Give Up the Ghost. On the docket, she talks to an extra representative. It's just so great to be able to be here as musicians, as artists in a queer space and a fricking shot. A erotic labor, which is a legitimate form of labor and an industry in which trans people are disproportionately targeted for incarceration and death. Sex workers work, y'all, happy pride. And then we have Marie Hamilton harping. We have Toussaint Negretude giving us some poetry. And we have the Mount Ape Acapella Sweet Transition Group coming at four. So many amazing sponsors, including Fox Market and Red Hand, Mosaic, the ACLU. The city has really turned out and supported this fast. So we're psyched to keep doing this. We love this. Give you guys some poetry on this beautiful day. Rain is stopping. The sun is coming back out. And you know there's a rainbow. What I'm going to do is call it all. I'm so sorry. I know you love to your chagrin. My humanity is just much too much for even you to escape. I know you love to detest my face, but much to your own wretchedly vile disgrace. My bath keeps shining with every last look you take. I'm so sorry. I know you love but much to your chagrin. My humanity is just much too much for even you to withstand. I know you love to detest my face, but much to your own wretchedly vile beauty. Just keep shining with every last look. Step aside, little world. I'm about to light this goodness from here to outer space. Gold don't spoil. Just remember that you have gold. All of us. We're all hundreds of thousands of years. It's completely untarnished. Completely shiny and gold. So remember that gold don't spoil for nobody. Another one. And now that I've taken my shirt off to all that good music, the mosquitoes are all over me. So I'm going to do a poem here that was published in the Times Argus last September. It's called Through the Wilderness. Through the wilderness. Through the wilderness of my freedom, through territories uncharted for corporate consumption, through cogent dreams and cosmic streams. I, to find my star house, high amongst the peaks of an ever emancipating consciousness. Through these constellations, strewn within my soul, here to find my sanctuary, housing. All the juju, this new through these clouded, I'm sorry, through days clouded in the valleys of self deceit. Through the darkest immobility of shackling bigotry. Through hours journey by prayer and by hand and by feet. Through hell dangling inequities for the hungriest to eat. Through powers stronger than all the calls for my defeat. I have climbed to find my star house, high amongst the peaks of my own. Through declarations flowing from the sovereignty of peace. Through the clear and present affirmation that the universe is in a to reach through this connectivity of all my soul through the envisioning of a sanctuary deep within my truth. I have climbed to find my star house, high of a bright and fertile liberty for innermost use. The excitement you get, you mean that fine person? This is called for the yeses. Effervescent lessons of pleasures, treasured essence, measured blessings of incandescent vexes, pulsing guesses, transcendent ledges of joy. Dancing upon the nexus, glancing upon the majestic of a wilderness, green for the yeses, heart wise hexes dancing upon the nexus. Sexy love poem, to be nobody's fool, but what you got has got me flying with no shoes. I've lost all rules and dropped out of school. You got me freeing the blues. You got me freeing the blues. And I ain't about to let this good thing loose, our dear friend Fernfeather. Can I just hear a shout out of love? I know, I know they're so happy to be here with us. This poem is called a wintry observance of love. Slain heroes don't quite whisper, like cedar trees in the far northern. Slain heroes don't quite anesthetize these icy inequities still dangling from our dreams. Slain heroes never quite warm to the cooperative shiverings of complicity. Slain heroes howl, loud and fear. Slain heroes of don't quite disappear. Here's a poem I wrote just the other day, hot and swampy and threatened to rain, but they just hung over like forever. And it was 900% humidity. And I was like laying in my sweat, waking up at like 3 in the morning, 5 in the morning, and suddenly this poem hit me. And this poem is called It's Stag Season. It's stag season, which is no euphemism for sexy singles. Stag, short for stag nation season, is that swarmiest time during the summer when impending rainstorms loom at their heaviest threat. Promising an Amazonian deluge fit for atmospheric change. Yet until such expecting occurrence, stag season can hang leveraging a stillness of abject humidity, an abominable hesitancy, rendering an eternity of sweat maddening hours. Of no scene, it's just stag season. Till the good clouds, another recent poem, I think the poem will speak for itself. This is called This Silent Scramble. Meeting your white friends' parents is always a cultural endeavor, especially when your white friends insist on being more clueless than their parents. It becomes such a silent scramble to then pirouette between flying daggers and trenching rounds of automatic denials. While blackening, blackening, blackening for my life, I'm guessing who's not coming for dinner. Never to be seen again. You have met your white friends' parents. So this next one is called The Othering. In the human context, to be misspeachied is to be identified as being of some perceived species, which is thought to be less than what is known as the human species. In any given interaction with what I know to be a misspeachied, every time I step within view, perhaps this happens to you too. When humanity fails to see its own hue. The first move to Vermont, after I got settled into my apartment, it was a nice day in spring and I decided to just walk around the neighborhood and check things out. And I ran into this guy that was mowing his lawn and was friendly. And we were just kind of chit-chatting and then he said, just kind of out of the blue, he said, you know, black people are a different species. And he said, you know what I mean? And so that's what I realized. There are people that actually misspeachies people. Go figure. This next poem, definitely a reflection of our latest round of massacres, shootings. It's just a short piece called Systemic Reasoning. A system that allows for murder is not a system that allows for safety. That's it. Short little piece there. Thank you everyone for staying out in the rain. I love this. I love saying badminton played in the rain. We don't stop, okay? Right. Happy Pride. This piece is called Blues Jean-Michel Basquiat. And right now there's an amazing new exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work in Manhattan in the gallery there. And Basquiat was a contemporary of mine and an idol of mine when I was in my 20s and I still love them. And his poem was inspired by his work. I love the way that just automatically just dropped down. Okay, so it's called Blues Jean-Michel Basquiat. He flew the fuckers and fucked this shit. And two of his captors, this is a piece I wrote in 1995. That was about 400 years ago. Inspired by just the history of the African diaspora. It's called Elysian Time Bump. And repertoire of B-flat and conjure. Bumpin, snake-fingered temples into calisthenic wah-wahs. Bumpin, emancipated jelly rolls of clarinet and grandeur. Bumpin, bumpin, bumpin, high-casting neck-bone elations, neck-bone elations. Bumpin, making Elysian spells out of old vocations. Bumpin, bumpin, bumpin, opening windows onto haywire clashing voices. Bumpin, clashing voices, bumpin, clashing voices with the stomping of some heavy storm. Bumpin, bumpin, walking into birdland. Bumpin, walking into birdland in the key of Congo Square. Feel-a-mighty-five, feel-a-mighty-five, bumpin, feel-a-mighty-five, feel-a-mighty-five, feel-a-mighty-five, bumpin. S-no-phonic, S-no-phonic, S-no-phonic. Walking Joplin, walking Joplin, walking Joplin to the freedom sign. Bumpin. This is a poem under my Vermont tribute to Billy Holiday's classic Strange Fruit. And I wrote this last September as I was hearing the oncoming machine guns preparing for hunting season. Machine guns. I love this time in Vermont when the gunfire sounds like Philadelphia, or Oakland, or Chicago, or wherever the police steadily serve and protect. Players alike can join arms in full triggering fervor. Starts to bleed across the maples. Amid the strange cold, prepare their rightful journey south. I love this time in Vermont such a lovely autumnal affair. The poem I'm gonna do that I wrote for my mother who recently recovered from kidney failure, but she's doing really well right now and I wrote this poem for her Mother's Day 2020. And it's called Just Mind from a Bowl of Access. My mother takes a spoon full of sugar and a hand and sees to the horizon generations. With the taste of sweet potato pie and a generous amount of divine seasoning, my mother has sweetened the courage every step I take forward. Mom can nourish the consciousness of the entire table from just makes the world so much more livable. Knowing full quarantine of miles can ever tell. I love my mother. With first hit and everything was locking down, I was so excited. I was like this is it. We're finally seeing the great shutdown, the great collapse. At the time I was an unemployed and I suddenly didn't have to feel guilty about it. I could go spend all day in the woods or at home. I loved it. And it inspired this poem. Regardless of whom or whatsoever. I'm done with the system. With the system. Want to work for it, nor with it. Nor towards its fabled salvage. I'm done. I'm done. Please note my resignation effective immediately. The system has bound and slowed and measurably penalized every step I've known since birth. As can attest all births prior to my own. All progressions achieved thus far and or forwardly are exclusively the fugitive results of life beyond the grasp of such ill-handed fuckery. I'm done. I am done. I'm done with the system. And regardless of whom or whatsoever sanctions otherwise. Without need nor want of said regard. I'm done with the system. Please note my resignation effective immediately. I'm going to do just a couple more here. And then we're going to have me just going to give us some more beautiful music. And it's just going to be wonderful. Okay. This is an old favorite poem of mine that some of you might have heard me do before but from 2013. But I love it. It keeps being important. It's called All Green Lights. And you know how when you're driving down a long stretch and every intersection you get to it's just one green light after another. All green lights. You can't stop a mountain from standing on your toes. You can't stop the sunrise from Manhattan or Rome. You can't stop the revolution from ringing like bells. And you can't stop me from being myself. You can't stop this message from blooming in the hills. You can't stop this harvest from feeding, feeding who it will. You can't stop this feeling from going below the belt. And you can't stop me from being myself. Not you. Not your courts. Not your rule. Not your hatred. Not your history. Not your schemes. Not your deception. Not your collusion. Not your collusion. Not your lies. Not your life. Stop this mountain from seeing the storms. You can't stop this sunrise. You can't stop this revolution. This revolution right here from ringing. And you can't stop me from being myself. Thank you. And this last piece I'm going to do dedicated to the brothers Marlon Riggs and Essex Hemphill. Two great points. Both died of AIDS some years ago. A great opportunity to get to know them and to share poetry with them. If you ever have a chance to see that Marlon Riggs was in addition to a poet, he was a great documentarian, a filmmaker. And he has a great film called Tons Untied, which I definitely recommend. It's often played on PBS, really deals with Black queer life. And so this poem is called Brothers and Brothers. Oh, I love this one. Yes! Brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers in arms of loving brothers, brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers in arms, being lovers, being brothers, being mothers, brothers, being mothers, brothers, Being sisters, brothers, being rescuers, brothers and brothers and brothers being keepers of brothers in love with other brothers, brothers, brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers Brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers and brothers in arms of other brothers, brothers and brothers, loving brothers, brothers of breath and thunder, brothers of breath and thunder, holding the one love that cannot be shut asunder. Brothers and brothers holding the one love that cannot be shut asunder. Brothers of breath and thunder, breath and thunder, brothers and brothers breathing life, breathing life, life, brothers and brothers loving brothers in arms of other brothers, loving brothers breathing life. Thank you. So for the mic, I again want to wish happy pride to all of us, especially want to wish happy pride to those of us who aren't amongst us. Those of us who might be on the other side of those hills over there, who might be in home since I was 19. That was about three years before Moses, even though I'm quite young still now, but coming out. I first learned about outness as an African American, to try to hide my blackness, because I am black. It was a joke on me to try to fit in, to try to talk what lunacy is supposed to mean. And so when I came out as queer as gay, it was like, oh yeah, I already know about this. Being out is our best defense. Being out is what scares the hatred, shitless. Being out is what protects us. Being out is what creates this. Okay? So happy pride, and let's continue this for the rest of our lives. Thank you. Happy pride. And the notch building is Kell within range of my voice. There's Kell. Can we all just take a moment to give Kell a round of applause for organizing all of this? We also want to thank Elaine for spearheading this. Where's Elaine? Okay. Thank you, Elaine. Coming through the speakers of the harp, or is it very quiet? Beautiful outer variation in day. A pad of cute bits of rain, some sun. I'm waiting for the snow. Maybe my harp will bring the snow. First of all, my name's Marie Hamilton. My pronouns are she, her. And I just wanted to say I am beyond honored to be here playing my hometown's first pride festival. I honestly can't believe it's the first one. Is it just me? But what? But we're here right now. So we came out publicly two years ago. So it's still new for me to be out. And it's amazing. But it was really hard. It was really hard. It was a little bit of wind. I wonder if I should back up. Is it still okay despite the wind? I went to Catholic school for a few years growing up. And I grew up in a very Irish Catholic family. Being queer wasn't the most welcomed thing. Bisexual, I identify as bisexual, pansexual. Anything that just means gender isn't a barrier for physical and romantic attraction. I love people. But being bisexual, being in a straight passing relationship, being cisgender, there's a lot of privilege in that. But there's also a very specific way of experiencing being queer. The same privilege that I have to move through the world is what kept me from coming out. And sometimes it's hard because biphobia is still very much a thing in queer circles. And internalized biphobia is very much a thing. It's hard when you just don't feel like you're enough, you have that imposter syndrome. But I'm so lucky to be surrounded by beautiful people in my community and in my friend groups who have made me feel so welcome. And I hope anyone who's here who feels like they're not welcome here, like they don't belong here, can find one day that feeling because you are welcome here. Everyone's welcome. Anyhow, I'm going to start with a song by a Canadian musician named Ray Spoon. I don't know if anyone here knows Ray Spoon. Does anyone know Ray Spoon? You are now going to know Ray Spoon. They are a non-binary musician from Canada. They've been dealing with cancer for many years now and have been an incredible advocate for moving through the medical system as a non-binary person, which is not easy. And I highly suggest you check out their music. They're amazing. I learned this song this morning on my drive down here, so I'm feeling very vulnerable sharing it. But if it explodes, you'll know why. Also, this is so fun. What a fun time seeing all the young people. If some of you just arrived earlier, there was a dance party here. They were doing the macarena. It's so fun. Like, I wish we had this when I was in high school here in Montpelier. It would have helped me figure out a few more things a little earlier. Me too. But how great. How great we are here. Yeah, the next song is actually another song by a friend of a friend named Dina Volmer. Dina is an amazing journalist, musician, writer. She was in a band called the Pizza Underground, which, as you may guess, was a pizza-themed velvet underground tribute band. We have Macaulay Culkin. Anyhow, it's a beautiful, beautiful song. It moved me so much the first time I heard it, and it moves me so much, you know, today. And I'll tell you a little bit about the context in which I finally learned this song. I just want to give you a little heads up that I'm going to talk a little bit about transphobia in the medical system. So if that's sensitive, I just want you to take care of yourself. I'm going to move back one second. This wind is a bit much. That'll do anything for it. But yeah, I just wanted to give that little heads up that I'm going to talk about that. So I had a friend named Hayden, who was one of the best people in the entire fucking world. Oh, sorry. In the world. And they had a heart bigger than their body. They would make these little hearts out of just like paper and collages and go to the metro. In Montreal, they would go to the metro and give them out to people on Valentine's Day, especially people who looked lonely. And they just, they were the best. And I'm certain you all would have loved them. A few years ago, Hayden finally got a cancer diagnosis. But it was after years and years of them going to their doctor and insisting that something wasn't right with them. Knowing, knowing in their body. And they weren't believed. They were told time and time again that it was anxiety. It was anxiety. Anxiety. That's all it is. It's nothing. Just anxiety. And then when they finally found out what it was, which was breast cancer, not anxiety, it was too late. And I know in my heart, I know in my being that if they had believed them when they first started having those concerns that they'd still be here today. And I'm certain that the doctor saw my friend Hayden and their trans identity as a symptom of mental illness. And I mean, that's a side point, but the way we treat mental illness, just anxiety, just mental illness is totally wrong. Like mental illness really is an important thing to consider. But that connection of like, oh, you're just, your mind is all messed up because you're trans or whatever. Like I'm certain that's what the doctor was thinking as they shrugged off their concerns. And of course, you know, I brought them to a lot of their medical appointments and they're constantly dead named. They're constantly misgendered. And when you're dying, when you're navigating something as awful as breast cancer, you shouldn't have to deal with that. No one should have to deal with that ever, ever, but especially in a moment like that. So when Hayden passed, I was there and it was the first time that I was in the room with someone while they left their body. There's something about death that brings you very close to life. I don't know if people here have experienced that, but I just actually played in a palliative care center yesterday for another friend who's on the edge of losing their life to cancer. And so I'm like very actively right now in that space of just being very alive and very close to life. And Hayden's death, it just makes all the things that don't matter just fall away. And what's pure and true about just existing just comes to the forefront. And this song over the course of the weeks in the wake of Hayden's passing, I learned it because I knew they would have loved it. It's totally their style of music, but the words of you'll hear came to be a form of medicine for me. And yeah, you'll see why. But I just wanted to dedicate this song to Hayden, Hayden Mueller, who's shining there up in the sky. I also want to dedicate this to Fern Feather, who I also knew. I'm sorry, I'm talking so much, but one last story. I have so many beautiful memories of Fern. Like even here, I remember one time I was in the State House lawn, this happened many times. But I like heard Murray Murray and I turn and Fern had like stopped her car in the middle of State Street. Got out, left the door open, like just in the middle of the street runs up to me and it's like look at this like beautiful stone. Can you see the universe in it? It's so beautiful. I gave it to me, kissed me on the cheek and then was gone. Yeah, so sending love to both of them in this song is dedicated to them and dedicated to any of your loved ones who left too early. It's just the end of the day and when the sun went down to go and I groaned. But it's a perfect year. My friend said, nah, it's time to go and it seems strangely like a safely thing to say. So we walked back to my house to listen to the Grateful Dead. He had never heard because they were for white people he said understood why the Grateful Dead are actually good. And I like hippie jamb and music from the time that I was 12 because I thought have a name as I became a fan. The words lost their meaning. Look at the harp in the wind. That's magical. I'm just going to let that go for a second. So we walked back to my house to listen to the Grateful Dead. On that day he understood why the Grateful Dead are actually good and I like hippie jamb and music from the time that I was 12. But it was years before I heard the dead because I thought they were to have a name like that. But as I became a fan the words lost their meaning and the dead be grateful. But I don't like the name summer in the middle of the night. And as I walked to the beach the guard dogs hurled their bodies at the chain link fences. Our hands slipped for the sand and at the time we think there will always be new memories to make. Now I transpose later ones on top by mistake. I walk in the orange street. It's mischievous as a gag. I'm zooming out. I'm standing at the pier. Water is hundreds of giant stone bodies. They are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are the water. And my English teacher once told me about sex and death only. And I used it my greatest looser to the truth. My death's mysterious shroud at the forefront of my thinking. With love just to shield you for takedowns. On achilles of music, literature and art. It's about getting closer. So much closer to the truth. And each day I felt it just a little less, feeling as I mourn. It was time to get back an engine in the city again. I want to capture that open feeling. Give it out to anyone feeling though I consume music and art. It brings me closer to the water and it's dripping and dripping. From the waters hundreds of giant stone bodies. They are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are the water. They are swimming and they are the water. Sing with me, ready? They are swimming and they are the water. You got it? Thumbs up if you got it. Oh my god, that was cute. Okay, one, two, three, four. It's time for more people to play and for me to stop playing. But my name is Marie Hamilton. I like my music. I'm on Instagram, Marie Hamilton Music. I'm also very nice, believe it or not. So if you want to say hi, come say hi. I don't bite unless there's consent. If I had to make the most like bleh. But thank you so much for holding some space for me today. Her locals coming back to roost. Marie's incredible. They live part-time in Mahori all, but sometimes they're down here in Vermont still. So we're going to flip the sound and we have a closing group. Such a sweet closing and for us, it's the Mount Abe acapella group sweet transition. And there are other happenings for people that want to go to bars from four to eight. There's a charlie's queer takeover. There's a Fox Market dance party tonight. Tomorrow there's a ton of events. There's an all day film fast at the Savoy. There's shakes queer in the park and Hubbard. And there's also a four o'clock Bar Hill closing party tomorrow. And then on Tuesday night, the Savoy is going to do another evening queer film. So awesome happenings. We're definitely going to do more LGBTQ plus stuff in Montpelier. So I'm going to transition the sound for them. Thanks so much for coming out. Transition we are a high school acapella group at Mount Abraham Union High School in Bristol, Vermont. Backing up here. And we're going to sing a few songs for you today. So I hope you enjoy. Sorry about that, guys. We are now ready. Yay. We have a song called Burton Holler and our soloist will be Bella and Elena and by Harry Styles and I will be doing. We just wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves and ask any of you out there listening a quick favor. So again, we are sweet transition high school acapella group and right now we're in the midst of a competition that is being held by do good fest, which will take place here on July 16th and that competition is called beats for good. And right now we're one of like the top 10 selected finalists and we're in the voting. Thank you. So there's 10 groups and whichever one gets the most votes gets to perform at this do good festival and open for ex ambassadors. So if you could go to do good fest.com and vote for sweet transition, that would be much appreciated. We also have a QR code right up here if you feel inclined to come near us. Ashley, we just want to thank our friends at the Pride Center for inviting us and giving us this great opportunity. And so yeah, we have one more song for you all. It's called colors by the Black Pumas and our soloist will be Bella. Thank you so much. Transition and everybody for Montpelier Pride. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.