Another perfect Chicago day greeted the athletes assembling for the
Gay Games Closing Ceremonies at Wrigley Field Saturday. It was a
party atmosphere, with beachballs being batted around by athletes no
longer wearing local team identification. Today the athletes gathered
as members of one very strong, elite, global team.

As the assembling athletes waited, members of Big Crank greeted now
old friends and made some new ones. A group of South African women
soccer players led some of the athletes in a joyful local song/chant
and dance. Members of Team Cologne, host city for Gay Games 8 in
2010, made the rounds passing out cards reading "Will you be there?"

Big Crank members looked fierce in their black jerseys with hard
earned gold, silver and bronze medals jingling as they walked. There
were offers - rebuffed - to buy the men's jerseys and attempts to
trade for them. The wait continued as Big Crank enjoyed the attention
their victories had won them and the anticipation of the beginning of
the Closing Ceremonies.

When that time came, the athletes entered the field from left and
right outfields at Wrigley, mixed. Surrounding the outfield were the
placards the athletes had entered behind during closing ceremonies.
Alabama. Zimbabwe. New York. Israel. Germany. The Netherlands.
Missouri. This global team were reminded of the homes they would
return to while basking one last time in one another's company.

The athletes passed through an honor guard made up of members of the
Gay Games Mass Band. They met at second base, now occupied by the
massive Gay Games torch, and split to head to their seats of honor to
watch the cermonies.

As with the Opening Ceremonies a week earlier, the program was a mix
of entertainment, politics and nearly religious ceremony. The
National Anthem was sung by New York Lesbian punk band Betty. Ari
Gold regaled the athletes with disco a la the White Party. Comedian
Pully Champlin cracked wise. Sharon McKnight, San Francisco cabaret
legend, crooned. Billy Bean, former San Diego Padre and now out
advocate for GLBT inclusion in sports spoke and then introduced Leigh-
Ann Naidoo, South African Olympic volleyball team member and
competitor at the Gay Games.

Leigh-Ann connected the dots: those assembled in Chicago represented
a privileged minority of GLBT people in the world. Some of the GLBT
athletes NOT present with us in Chicago are absent because to attend
could mean deportation, exile, harassment, or death. She encouraged
the athletes to remember that they played for those who couldn't and
to take the Gay Games flame home with them and continue to build this
olympic movement back home.

The DC Cowboys shook it up with a rousing and sexy line dance to two
popular country western songs. A rifle core spun their guns to "Don't
Leave Me This Way". There was belly dancing. There were ballads.

One ballad began dramatically with a figure dressed as Abraham Lincoln
taking the stage playing a violin. The melody was hauntingly familiar
and soon became recognizably "True Colors" and with that, Cindi Lauper
entered the field. Wearing a long dress made from a rainbow flag, a
striking golden crown and a multi-colored torch - our own statue of
liberty, this icon sang for the assembled athletes, all now on their
feet.

After Lauper's amazing performance, Mayor Richard Daley again spoke,
thanking Team Chicago for all their hard work. He announced the Games
officially closed and thus began the transfer of the Gay Games flag
from Chicago to Cologne. The flag was passed from members of Team
Chicago to members of the Federation of Gay Games and then on to the
members of Team Cologne. When the flag was completely in the hands of
Team Cologne, the torch was extinguished. The Deputy Mayor of Cologne
then encouraged those present to attend and the games were over.

Only over in the most narrow sense, however. The small victories won -
on volleyball and basketball courts, flag football and soccer fields,
ice rinks and swimming pools, tennis courts and pool tables and
baseball diamonds and cycling courses - these small victories are part
of a larger victory.

That larger victory is carried back to points across the globe in the
hearts of those who stood and knew - knew - that Lauper's words,
ringing across two decades from memories of discos in New York and San
Francisco, ringing from small AM radios on the counter at a corner
store in Cape Town, playing in an elevator in London or appearing in
an underground dance mix at a club in Soviet Moscow - that these
words were about them.

The reporter for Big Crank Internet News took a moment during Lauper's
performance to look into the stands and what he saw confirmed this.
Looking down at him were 12,000 joyful GLBT faces, united in one
rainbow nation, tears streaming as they understood, perhaps for the
first time, the meaning of what may have previously appeared to be
merely a pop song.

Big Crank coverage of the 7th Gay Games ends with this:

"But I see your true colors
shining through
I see your true colors
and that's why I love you
so don't be afraid to let them show
your true colors
true colors are beautiful
like a rainbow."

Cologne or bust!