OK. Anyone who really believes I cried for an hour last night over those accuations of anti-rich prejudice must really be lacking in the irony detection department. A lot of things will make me cry. Critical email is not one of them.

I’ll state this for the record and for the irony-impaired: I do not hate rich people. What I hate (and I feely admit this) is the tendency of some affluent individuals to believe their financial success gives them license to behave like assholes. If I’m prejudiced, however, it’s against assholes. Not against wealthy people. Assholes come in all shapes, sizes, and incomes. The problem is that assholes with money can do more damage and thus are far more visible targets.

And franky, I do get more pissed off when an asshole in a new BMW pulls out in front of me than I am when an asshole in a 1988 Geo Metro does the same thing. If the asshole can afford a BMW, he can also damn well afford driving lessons. This may be prejudice. Too bad. I don’t care.

I will close by saying that San Franciscans now have my conditional permission to be well-off financially and to drive whatver car they so choose. But they’d damned well better behave themselves, beacuse I sure can write some hateful email.

All other prohibitions against gentrification, Disneyfication, and the re-election of Willie Brown still apply…

I’ve been accused of prejudice against people who make more money than I do. Nothing could be father from the truth. Some of my best friends make more money than I do. Come to think of it, I even used to make more money than I do.

This accustation hurts me. Deeply. I’ve been crying for more than an hour. How could someone question my support for the affluent, possibly one of the most tortured and exploited minorities in America? I’ve long been a vocal supporter of Willie Brown’s program of affirmative action for San Francisco’s underprivileged rich people.

Indeed, I think San Francisco would be a much better place if we threw out all those marginal types and turned the city into wall-to-wall live-work lofts, Starbucks, and banks. Imagine how the quality of life would improve! No more noisy nightclubs South of Market or unattractive bargain bazaars on Mission Street. We’d finally be rid of those pesky artists and musicians.

Poor people are so unappealing. They’re somehow un-American, with all this talk of respecting their neighborhoods and preserving diversity. If all those unsavory characters in the Mission or the Tenderloin would just create more Internet start-ups, them they’d deserve to stay in their neighborhoods. If those damned artists would start generating capital, they’d no doubt be far superior human beings.

Frankly, individuality and creativity are over-rated, nor all that profitable. They should therefore be abolished, or banished to far-flung suburbs. So should working class families and anyone else who can’t make the cut. Nothing is quite so important as making sure that distressed and oppressed wealthy people have fashionable places to live and shop.

Above all, we must remember that the pursuit of large sums of money supercedes such trivial matters as treating existing residents and communities with respect. Who says that people who spend years living in (and contributing to) a community have more rights than someone with half a million to spend on a studio apartment?

After all, money is the most important thing in the world, right?

I’ll start by saying that I’ve grown to hate the word “gay”. I really don’t want to get into the semantics issue of “gay” vs. “queer” (or “invert” or “homphile” or whatever). My problem with “gay” is that it suggests an identity rather than a sexual orientation, and I ain’t buying into it.

I sleep with other men. I eat cereal. I drive a Toyota. I watch “The Simpsons”. I go to the grocery store. Big deal. These are things that I do. Taken together, they may speak volumes about my identity. Individually, however, they mean nothing much at all. I have nothing more (or less) in common with other men who sleep with men than I do with other men who drive Toyotas.

This is not to say that I have nothing at all in common with any of my fellow fudgepackers, or that I’m somehow “different” or “more unique” or “more developed”. It just means that my search for “community” is based more on shared interests than on shared sexual orientation. In other words, I’d rather spend an evening talking to someone who shares my love for urban theory and history or Krispy Kreme Doughnuts or roadside motels from the 1950s than with someone whose only common interest is a shared passion for sucking dick.

If someone I meet whose interests match mine happens to be straight or even (gasp) a woman, that’s just fine. If, on the other hand, he happens to be a man who likes to screw men, then we have one more thing in common. Cool, huh?

I guess what I mean is that some vague notion of “gay community” is not number one on my list of priorities in a place to visit or to live. Similarly, sexual orientation is not one of the top aspects in my choice of friends. Years ago, these things used to be very important to me, which is part of why I moved to San Francisco. I can sort of understand why they still might be important to some other people. But the older I get, the less I view the world in terms of sexuality.

I’m not talking about faux masculinity, nor am I saying that people shouldn’t “flaunt their sexuality”. I have no patience with closet cases nor with tight-assed macho men (whether they like men or women). I’m in favor of “flaunting”. I’m just not in favor of the notion that sexual orientation makes for any more of a “community” than does an aversion to pickles on hamburgers.

I’m not going to sit through a crappy movie rather than a good one just because the crappy movie happens to have a “positively portrayed gay character”. I’m not going to buy a CD by a band which sucks just because dicks are one of the things they suck. And I’m most assuredly not going to live in a pastel-colored neighborhood of overpriced boutiques and juice bars simply because it’s a “gay mecca”.

Nor, on the other hand, am I going to assume something is bad just because a fellow Sodomite was involved somehow. I don’t hate “gay people”. I do hate people who think being “gay” is the most important single aspect of their identity, because they become one-dimensional and boring.

Ultimately, though, if I had to choose between living in a town with 20 great gay bars and a huge gay ghetto or one with 20 great used bookstores and a few huge run-down neighborhoods, I’d choose the latter without blinking an eye.

Call me sick, but some part of me really wants to be on the east coast with Hurricane Floyd tonight. Maybe not right at the beach, but at least close enough to feel some actual storm action.

California wouldn’t know a storm if one came up and bit all 40 million of us on the ass simultaneously. I heard thunder and saw lightning last week for only the second time in seven years here. And even then there was no rain to speak of. Even El Niño was a disappointment. The weather is so wimpy here. Of course, that’s a good thing on those days when it’s 95 everywhere else in the country but only 66 here, I guess.

Things I love this week:

• Today’s constant cool, gray fog.
• Midnight Cowboy.
• Roseanne (the sit-com, not the talk show).

Things I hate this week:

• My part-time job.
• My part-time job.
• My part-time job.

Why has everyone in San Francisco suddenly forgotten how to drive?

When I first moved here, I was amazed at how smoothly traffic flowed in San Francisco. Sure, it was congested and there was too much of it even then, btu people coped with it well. Dan and I used to discuss it regularly. It was as if everyone had agreed to make the best of an impossible situation and made a conscious decision to behave in a civilized manner.

Seems they’ve given up on these lofty goals. It’s as if the booming economy, high rents, and corporate phallic symbols downtown have finally given drivers that New York state of mind. Here in the capitol of mellow touchy-feeliness, driving has become the only acceptable outlet for expressing one’s inner asshole.

And boy are there some expressive individuals out there! There is a special place in hell reserved for those of you who do the following:

• Pull out in front of me while babbling in a cell phone and them get pissed off (or laugh) when I hit the horn.
• Cut in front of me and then come to a dead stop.
• Ride my ass at any time, but especially when I’m already going five miles above the speed limit.
• Slam on your breaks mid-block in order to make a left turn from the right lane. Keep in mind that you’re only a block away from someplace to turn around, asshole.
• Pass on the right while driving down the 280 even when (a) I’m doing 80 and (b) there’s plenty of space to pass on the left, where you’re SUPPOSED to do it.
• Park your 20-foot tall urban assault vehicle right at a corner obstructing all views of oncoming traffic.
• Blow your horn while in gridlocked traffic. Just who the fuck do you think you are? Moses parting the Red Sea? What effect do you think you’re having? Were you born an idiot?
• Assume that left turns on red must be illegal here simply because they have no one-way streets back in Armpit, Iowa or wherever the hell you moved here from.
• Try to find your way back to the freeway to Walnut Creek after having two beers too many at Julie’s or your favorite fratboy bar the Marina (or the Castro).
• Think that being able to afford that BMW (or Lexus or Mercedes) makes up for your lack of driving skills.

A few warning signs pointing to the potential of bad drivers ahead:

• Folsom Street on Saturday night. I don’t know where these idiots come from (I’m guessing Contra Costa and Marin) but I wish they’d go back.
• Cabs. They will invariably drive both aggressively and badly. Given a similar job, I might behave the same way.
• Limos. Sort of like cabs, but they’re bigger and more likely to get in the way. They’re also usually full of drunk idiots making repeated stupid requests of the driver.
• Volvos. Another given. Almost without fail, Volvo drivers are indecisive and prone to occasional bouts of complete idiocy.
• Bumper stickers. The more “statements”, the worse the driver. One exception, oddly enough, seems to be stickers promoting bands.
• Any car costing more than about $50,000. Anyone self-obsessed enough to spend this much on a car is unlikely to be particularly civic-minded behind the wheel. Call this a generalization. I don’t care.
• Teenage males. Without question, the worst drivers on the road, especially those 30-year-old teenagers in overpriced cars.

Glad to get that off my chest. I’ll wait until next week before taking on car alarms again…