The 13th annual Folsom Fair was…well…crowded. And the crowd was as entertaining and picturesque as usual (“Marjorie…look! Homosexuals!”). Precious little sin was to be found on the street, but the bars afterward had their moments — and their lines. All in all, a pretty interesting afternoon, if not the debauched festival may people have come to expect. The gawkers were well-behaved.The fog held off ’til near the end. I still like the Dore Alley Fair better, though.
Month: September 1996
Maybe Some Day They’ll Call It a Blog
New feature…an online update if you will. It may last or it may not…ya just never know.
It’s been a marginally uneventful week. The Folsom Street Fair is Sunday, so this could be a really exciting — or really annoying — weekend, depending on how geeky the tourists are. At some point over the weekend, I’ll be meeting my cyber-pals Deon and David for the first time.
No news yet on the crispy crunchy car situation; my insurance agent and I have yet to stop playing phone tag. I’m getting used to SF transit, even though I’m still reeling from an incident a few weeks ago where I was “kidnapped” by a Muni driver who refused to let me off the bus at my stop and proceded to get on the freeway, dumping me five miles from home..When I complained on the way out, he flipped me off. So much for customer service.
Work has been pretty exhausting, and my weekend started with an eleven hour sleep marathon last night. Serving the corporate clones is starting to drive me insane; one more run-in with a condescending stockbroker or lawyer is going to send me over the edge and it’ll be yuppie-kebobs for lunch. This week a customer threatened to sue us because he had to wait more than two minutes to pay. Another sleazoid got pissed because we wouldn’t spend fifteen bucks to messenger her ten dollar order to her. It’s a truly frightening thing that these stressed-out corporate stooges are pretty much in control of the country. Fortunately, I’m starting to have some nibbles on the new job search.
A nameless friend with a growing speed problem is now apparently without a home. It’s becoming very difficult to watch an otherwise severely intelligent person destroy himself so efficiently. The job went first, then the flat, but he’s dealing and getting laid a lot. I guess that means he’s doing OK, right? One of my closest friends is becoming a stranger to me; I don’t even like being around him. But I’m sure he’s well-recieved at the EndUp.
All in all, I need a vacation, so on Friday, I’ll be leaving Planet SOMA to visit exciting Minnesota. Why Minnesota, you may ask? Well, there’s this boy… Actually, there are these two boys, Bil’s an “ex”, and Christopher’s a current obsession. Their band, Lucifag, will be doing its first show ever while I’m there. I’ve never been to Minnesota before; my almanac tells me the population is 94.4 per cent white. Should look just like the Financial District at lunchtime. I’ve only managed to find one all-purpose queer website there. Details as they occur; if I can find sufficient resources, I’ll be taking the Zip drive and Casio camera on the road with me for “on the spot” updates.
Off to Folsom Street now. See ya there…
They Burned My Car
A memorial to my car…struck down by an arsonist in the prime of its life on 17 September 1996, at the tender age of six.
On Tuesday afternoon, I went out to my car, hoping to drive to Safeway for a reckless grocery spending spree. Unfortunately, my car wasn’t there. Being the jaded city dweller I am, I didn’t think much of it. “Guess I hit that five parking ticket limit”, I thought, as I walked to the police station a block away to pay my way out of the tow yard once again. Only this time, the Department of Parking and Traffic was not involved…
“Sir, your car was towed on an arson hold.”
“Oh great! Someone stole my car and started a fire?”
“No sir, that’s not exactly what ‘arson hold’ means…”
The next day, when I went to Pier 70 to identify the body, I was shocked. The car which brought me to Planet SOMA, among other places, resembled a charcoal briquette. I was not really prepared for the immense destruction. It was pretty ugly. I was really shocked most by the fact that what used to be the spare tire was sitting in what used to be the front seat. I was also pretty amazed that what used to be everything else inside the car wasn’t much of anything anymore. Looks like it was a pretty dang nasty fire. At first I thought a street person might have decided the car looked comfy enough for a cigarette and a good night’s sleep. Now I’m not too sure.
Maybe someone was pissed off by the ACT UP sticker. Maybe some some crazed tourist was retaliating against my “Mystery Spot” sticker. Maybe the commercial radio “powers that be” were not amused by the college radio ads. Could it have been a rabid environmentalist? Or perhaps a psychotic suit monster from Merrill Lynch or Charles Schwab upset that I turned down his request to do the impossible (immediately) one day at work? What do you think?
Good Things, Bad Things
An ideal personal ad I’d respond to:
Queer-acting, queer-appearing omnivorous male into sleazy bars, pop culture, road trips, and “The Simpsons”. Hate long walks in the park, unless there’s cruising involved, and the “great outdoors” means an alley off Folsom Street. Meet me for dinner at Denny’s. We’ll have sex first and then see if friendship develops. I’m sometimes moody but generally cheerful, feel love intensely when I bother to feel it at all, and have no patience with one-sided relationships. No gym clones, granolas, fashion victims, or people who act their ages. Must understand the irony of MTV planning a new channel which actually plays music videos. Understanding irony in general is also non-negotiable. (Read my take on Sex, Love, and Relationships if you’re really interested.)
Good things:
- Individuals with a sense of perspective: your job is not your life, the world will not end because there are spots on your copies, and gridlocked traffic will not move even if you blow your horn for ten straight minutes.
- People with an unpretentious attitude: be willing to eat at Denny’s and spend an evening watching something other than nature documentaries on TV.
- Anyone who values his/her book collection over almost all other possessions.
- Southerners who got the hell OUT!
- Those who possess a healthy attitude about sexuality and are comfortable with their limits without being critical of others.
- Dykes who will invade “all boy” bars with me.
- People with an all-encompassing sense of humor. How can anyone live in the 1990’s without one?
- All those who regularly quote lyrics from obscure pop songs and TV themes (mid 60’s to mid 80’s) as a matter of their daily existence.
- Fags whose musical experience ranges farther than house and techno.
- Drag queens who don’t give a fuck if you call them “drag queens”.
- People who look at parts of my site other than the dirty pictures.
- Mac supremacists.
Bad things:
- Fags who describe themselves as “straight acting” and/or “straight appearing”. More appropriate terms would be “closet case” or “self-loathing”.
- Spoiled yuppie brats who are too uptight about work, keeping up appearances, and proving their “innate white-boy” superiority. Stock brokers and investment bankers often fit this profile pretty well, but they’re not the only “type A’s” around, and I’ll get my revenge when they all have strokes, heart attacks, and ulcers.
- People with no work ethic whatsoever and who think they are owed a living just because they happened to be born into an “unjust” society.
- Fundamentalist Christians who think that God’s love is expressed by being just plain hateful. “Loving the sinner” doesn’t involve taking his/her home, job, or child away.
- Gymbots and persons with bodies which call way too much attention to how they got that way.
- Gay Republicans. These people are the scum of the earth and are completely correct in their belief that they are unwelcome among either group.
- Marin County types who bask in their “liberal” ways until the time comes to allow affordable housing in their mecca and who moan about the destruction of the environment while driving their BMW’s and Volvos across the bridge every morning.
- Speed freaks. Crystal has destroyed many of my good friends. It makes otherwise intelligent people stupid and untrustworthy and basically useless, and has replaced cocaine as the drug I fear most.
- Whiners of all persuasions, but particularly those “inclusive” types who are as narrow-minded in their “liberalness” as even the worst Baptist ministers and as paternalistic in their protectiveness as most plantation owners. These people refuse to allow anyone (including themselves) to have a sense of personal responsibility; they’re too busy blaming “society” to do anything to improve their own lives. Gay dogmatists are very prone to this mentality.
- Retail customers who wait until the total appears on the cash register to begin even looking for their checkbooks and ID. All those in line behind you share this pet peeve and secretly hate you as well. (This is pretty nit-picky of me, but I’ve always wanted to express this publicly.)