Oktoberfest: "Gay Sunday"

On our last visit to Oktoberfest (2010), I chatted with a couple of locals who told me about "Gay Sunday". It sounded incredibly festive, but unfortunately our itinerary didn't allow for another raucous day out. But here's a reprint from a recent "Der Spiegel" article with pictures:

On the first Sunday of Munich's famous beer festival Oktoberfest, big crowds of gay and lesbian visitors gather to party together at the Bräurosl tent.


The tradition began back in the 1970s with a small group of men from a gay leather and fetish collective known as the Munich Lions Club.


Each year they met at the tent on the day now known as "Gay Sunday." This year revellers braved the rainy weather to form an early morning line around the tent. The event has become so popular that space is limited.


But once inside, guests enjoyed the festive atmosphere that has become popular not just among Munich's gay scene, but to visitors from around the world. "There's no aggression, there's a sense of togetherness and the mood is great from the beginning," one waitress said.


"The normalcy makes me very proud about the fact that not only can you be gay or lesbian in Bräurosl, but everywhere at the Oktoberfest," said Thomas Niederbühl of Rosa Liste München, or Pink List Munich, a gay rights party that sits on the city council. "It's a clear signal that, against all odds, so much has changed for Munich's gays and lesbians."


Despite the unwritten rule that Oktoberfest remain a politics-free zone, Munich's mayor Christian Ude comes to Bräurosl every year and conducts the band -- something Niederbühl calls a "strong political signal."


Many guests at the event dress in traditional Bavarian garb known as Tracht. Others, meanwhile, put a festive spin on the look like this man (above picture).

Paul McCartney & Yoko Ono

Here is a reprint from a Huffington Post article (I'm a sucker for even the SLIGHTEST Beatle drama):

Having traded barbs in the press for the past 40 years, alternating moments of anger and accusation with reconciliation and kind words, it's hard to know just where the relationship between Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney stands at any given moment.


Back in 1971, McCartney took a shot at Ono, whom he believed broke up The Beatles and his close friendship with John Lennon, her late husband. "Too many people pulled and pushed around/Too many waiting for that lucky break/That was your first mistake/You took your lucky break and broke it in two," he sang in "Too Many People," a clear shot at Ono.

Since then, they have sniped back and forth; in the last decade, McCartney complained that Ono snubbed him on the "Yesterday" song credit, and Ono labeled McCartney an inferior musician to Lennon at 2005's Q Awards. The feud is filled with such back and forth potshots.


The relationship seemed to have thawed out in 2010, when Ono credited McCartney for saving her marriage to John in an interview with The Times. Then, this summer, things got tossed back up in the air when, having both shown up for an event in Las Vegas for a Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, they declined to pose together.

On Sunday, though, things seemed to be back to at least luke warm, as Ono and McCartney both showed for the premiere of Martin Scorcese's documentary about George Harrison. Putting aside any differences, the two posed together on the red carpet, casting aside any feud they might have to honor the most spiritual Beatle of them all. Also showing up were the one Beatle who was liked by the whole gang at all times, Ringo Starr, as well as Harrison's son, daughter-in-law and widow, Olivia.