Cassie Nova: The fall of Pride

Hello, my beautiful gays. I hope you have had a wonderful Pride month. For me, this year’s Pride, part 1 (part 2 is in September), has been a doozy.

I have struggled with  whether or not I should talk at all about what I am fixing to tell you. Unfortunately, this subject may piss a few people off, but I’m pissed off too. (I also want to preface this by saying that this is MY experience, MY opinion and MY point of view. I am not speaking for anyone else, just me.)

First off, I wanna say that I love Pride. Some of my most cherished memories are from going to my first Pride parade when I was 18. The parade ended at that renamed park down the street and around the corner. And it was gays as far as the eye could see — thousands of happy, beautiful people, all there to celebrate finally having found our people. After a lifetime of feeling like I was the only gay person in the world, that day I had such an overwhelming feeling of joy and clarity, knowing that everything was going to be okay.

It was emotional. It was life changing. It was beautiful.

Then in 2019, the Pride parade was moved to Fair Park for whatever reason. I’m told that it was because of construction, that it had grown too big and something about permits, permits, permits. Whatever the reason, the fact that it was anywhere other than in our Gayborhood created drama. I don’t think anything has divided our community the way that moving the parade did.

I hated that they moved the parade, but I decided I would do whatever or go wherever I needed to do in the interest of community.

The parade at Fair Park was different, but it was still fabulous. One year I was the grand marshal. The Rose Room cast and I were always asked to be a part of the show that took place at the festival the day before the parade.

It was always a great experience.

Then last year, I was asked by Dallas Pride to be in charge of the entertainment for the drag stage. I gladly said yes and immediately went to work booking the entertainers. It is a six-hour show that starts at noon and goes all day. I wanted the entire drag community of DFW to be represented.

It was the first year that Dallas Pride had an entire hour for drag kings. The Round-Up cast, The Rose Room cast, the girls from Hamburger Mary’s, the Queer Off and the cast from Halo’s in Fort Worth — they all got an hour to showcase their best entertainers, and it was fabulous. The show ran smoothly and from my point of view, everything was great.

At one point I complained that the dressing room was hot, and, within a few minutes, Vinnie (who was on the board of Dallas Pride) brought us four or five fans that made such a big difference in the temperature and air flow of the dressing room. There were a couple of entertainers that had the wrong name on their checks, but Vinnie had corrected checks within a few minutes.

I felt very taken care of.

I found out later that was not everyone’s experience. The day after the parade many of the Dallas Pride volunteers and board members quit. Because I was part of the Dallas Pride email chain, I was seeing email after email of resignation letters: people very upset with how they were treated by the person in charge; people who had worked tirelessly for many, many years to make our Pride the best it could possibly be.

Every day was a new, surprising story of mismanagement of funds and egos, of people feeling disrespected, and rumor after rumor of shady doings. Even my Pride rock, Vinnie, resigned his position.

But like I said, that was not my experience … not last year.

But this year? This year was a very different experience.

I initially said no to being in charge of the six-hour drag show, but then I let my own ego and being a control freak convince me to say yes. And if I am being 100 percent honest, it was a cute check (I was paid well).

Starting in March, we had two virtual meetings a week. We talked about everything, from who they were booking for the Main Stage, to who I was booking for the drag stage, to the dressing rooms, to Family Pride, to Teen Pride, to parking, to security. We even talked about what to do if some soccer team won something and would have to play at the Cotton Bowl during our events.

We had literally hours and hours of meetings. But not once was the head of Dallas Pride (the chief executive officer) a part of a single one of those meetings. Yet nothing could get approved until she signed off on it.

We agreed on the headliners for the Main Stage and three Drag Race queens to add to the drag stage. Joe, (Joe was this year’s Vinnie) contacted their management and made sure they were available. He had them hold the date and told them they would be sent a contract ASAP. This was mid-April.

Then we had more meetings where nothing really got done because we couldn’t advertise anything or send out contracts to the talent until the venue was secured. We were told week after week: “It should be happening soon.” There was an issue with getting insurance for the events. They were waiting for this to happen, waiting for that to happen.

It was always something.

Meanwhile, we are losing entertainers because they still didn’t have a contract from us. We were competing against Arlington Pride and their incredible line-up of entertainers, and advertisements that had been up for months. We did not secure the venue, Fair Park, until June 7, — one week before the festival and six days before the parade.

We advertised and pushed it, but it felt like too little too late. The only thing I was sure of was the drag show. I am crazy proud of that show. Each of the six shows were fabulous. Every entertainer killed it, and we kept a great, engaged crowd the entire day.

But backstage was a disaster. It was basically the same set up from last year but unlike last year, it was sweltering — no a/c or airflow at all, and only one decent fan and one shitty box fan for two tiny, cramped rooms with tables and mirrors.

They had more mirrors this year, but because they were just glass with no frame or protection, no one wanted to use them. Last year we had comfy couches donated by Ikea to relax on; this year we had two office chairs. I begged for more fans and was told they were on the way. They brought us one other fan, then 20 minutes later they came and took it back. It was a literal oven.

Sure, I may be a little dramatic, but at every meeting I was reassured that the a/c would not be a problem. Tuh!

Then as the first show was about to wrap up, I realized I still didn’t have the checks to pay the entertainers. I texted the group to see where the checks were, and I am asked to resend the email I sent the Tuesday before with the entertainers’ names and amounts.

By this time, the first group’s show has been over, and they are ready to go. Many of them had other bookings to get to. The person that brought the checks had two checks with him. I begged him to please hurry and get the other four performers’ checks so they could leave.

By now, we have about 15 entertainers and all of their stuff in those two tiny, hot rooms. FYI, we had 38 performers during the course of the show and eight spots for them to get ready in.  

So the guy who brought the checks comes back 25 minutes later with envelopes of cash for the other entertainers in the first group. Weird, but whatever. The second group of entertainers and half of the third group also got paid in cash.

Then it went back to checks.

The two Drag Race girls that were there also got paid in cash. They gave me a white envelope for each of them that contained thousands of dollars in $20s, $10s and $5s. It looked like a drug deal and felt sketchy as fuck. I had them both hide their bundles immediately, trying to make sure no one saw what we were doing.

Thank God for Jason and his security team who were watching over us the entire day. I never felt unsafe, and I am so appreciative that they VOLUNTEERED to be our security ,even after he found out that Dallas Pride was going to use another security company — even though Jason was a part of all of the meetings from the beginning.

I did not participate in the Pride Parade the next day. I was achy and sick. Being hot for so long the day before literally made me sick. I hate that I missed it, but I may be getting too old for big hair, fully padded, corseted drag in the sun.

About an hour before the parade was going to start, I got a text from Joe saying that he just quit the Dallas Pride organization. It’s sad; he worked his ass off for our Dallas Pride, as did many that quit last year, too.

Fast-forward to Tuesday night at 10 p.m. One of the entertainers from Hamburger Mary’s contacted me and said the check that Dallas Pride gave her … well, it bounced! I told her it had to be a mistake; maybe it was hard to read, or her name was spelled wrong. Minutes later, one of my Rose Room sisters tells me hers just got sent back for insufficient funds. Then another one.

I immediately sent a text to the two people in charge of Dallas Pride. One of them called me with an apology and a promise that it would all be fixed the first thing Wednesday morning. Then the next morning, she tries to Zelle me the money, but it didn’t go through. I was told that the bank was messing something up, and they need to do better.

Finally, she sends me the entertainers’ money through CashApp. And I send the entertainers their money … on CashApp.

Then, over the course of the next few days, more and more checks bounced. The head of Pride would send me the money on CashApp, and I would forward it to the entertainers.

She responded and remedied the situation with the bounced checks very quickly, and I am thankful for that. But still, it all feels shady. Where was the money? Why so much cash? What happened to the money for the music artist that we had lined up?

We should all be asking these questions.

I’m hoping that no one else’s check bounces. The whole situation has stressed me the fuck out. I hate what Dallas Pride has become. I don’t think we realized when Michael Doughman died in 2019, just how much we were losing. Michael was the former executive director for Dallas Pride. He was a great community leader and a great friend.

I am so thankful for people like Michael Doughman and Paul Lewis. They were the kind of people that, when they died, they left behind a whole community that can still feel their absence.

Luckily, we still have people that step up when needed, folks that our community can lean on and look up to — people like Betty Neil, Vincent DeLuna, Kathy Jack, Mikey Nguyen, Christine Bengston, Chad Mantooth and many more.

And for you keyboard warriors that have so much to say online about parades, crosswalks or changes in our gayborhood: Do something! Volunteer; show up and be the change you want to see.

Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

And don’t forget the Pride In Dallas Parade on Sunday, Sept. 21, at 2 p.m. Come celebrate in the Gayborhood like God intended!

Remember to always love more, bitch less and be fabulous! XOXO, Cassie Nova  

P.S.: I wrote this over the weekend. By Monday morning, after I had already submitted my column, I had two other entertainers with bounced checks.

I also noticed that the money she tried to send me through Zelle had gone through and was now in my account. I sent her a message about it. She asked if I could forward the money to the entertainers. I did, but there was a few hundred dollars more left.

I asked what I should do with it? She immediately called me and told me to keep it for my “pain and suffering.”

She told me I was the least of her worries, that she was still dealing with the fall out from the bank’s fuck ups, m aking sure I understood that none of this was her or the Pride committee’s  fault.

She also thanked me for keeping this on the down low, and for keeping it off social media.

I choked and said “Okay, bye,” knowing I had already sent what I wrote above. I should probably send that extra money back or donate it to either Pride in Dallas or to the crosswalk fund.

I really have struggled with whether or not to talk about this experience, but I feel like I am doing the right thing. There is a lot of bad blood and many, many people and companies are not happy with Dallas Pride.

I hate that my name has been a part of the conversation, and I’m embarrassed that I wasn’t smart enough to walk away sooner. Apologies if I have made anyone upset, but use that as fuel to do right by our community. We deserve better.