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Sex spots South of Market

Sex Clubs (1996)

San Francisco does this very well, although the scene seems to be experiencing one of its periodic downswings. It almost seems as if the “goldem age” of early 1990’s sex clubs has ended, and that the scene is just itching for something new to come along. It’s a shame that right now the SF sex club scene has come to resemble the bathhouse scene in other cities so much. Afew too many muscle-bound attitude queens strutting about with their shirts off. But better times are a-comin’. I can feel it.

Standup sex with strangers is not for everyone, but I highly recommend it if you’re adventurous and comfortable with the concept. There’s also the voyeuristic aspect, if you don’t feel like participating. Etiquette requires that you be assertive but not pushy, and that you respect the desire of others if they do not wish for you to join in the festivities. Basically this means when someone pushes your hand away, don’t keep sticking it back in! Safer sex is encourgaged in all clubs and monitored in most. (I won’t say which ones don’t monitor because you should be safe and shouldn’t care.)

The Power Exchange
(Otis Street between South Van Ness and McCoppin)

I have to admit I still haven’t visited this newest incarnation. The Playground is no more. Closed…history…gone. In its place is the Power Exchange, apparently relocated and re-formatted. The flyers show something resembling a leatherman (so much for the “transgender twist” of the former Power Exchange, I guess.) The tents are gone and the Upper Level is closed, as is the newly installed maze on the first floor. The wide open space makes the place seem even less intimate than before, not a good attribute for a sex club. Crowd is very hit or miss. Of course, most of my info is second hand, as I haven’t felt inspired to visit yet. Look for a more personalized and opinionated review soon…hopefully this weekend.

Blow Buddies
(933 Harrison near Sixth)

Speaking of muscle-bound attitude queens and strutting… Not as big as the above, but still pretty dang spacious, with a smoking patio. Booths, mazes, a “cell”, video lounge, “restrooms”, and an oral sex/gloryhole area with the most convenient architecture I’ve ever seen. There is an occasionally open watersports area. Membership $2, and cover usually in the $7 range. There seems to be an early and a late rush: 2-4AM on weekend nights, earlier (10-12) on Sundays, although Sunday may go late too. Crowd is mostly of the “see how butch I am…really” variety, sort of pseudo-leather, musclebound, and shirtless. Weeknights suffer greatly from the “no one admitted after 2:30” rule. Bring your body. No fucking or rimming.

Mack’s
(317 Tenth near Folsom)

Leather-oriented with occasional handballing (a/k/a fisting) parties. I’ve only been there for some Michael Blue parties a year or so back, so I can’t give much of a review. Layout didn’t do much for me, although there is a cool loft space downstairs. Pretty small, and no “outside”. This just in: two of my ex-es just met there last week and had a very nice little affair. There’s hope…

Dark Alleys (1996)

Remember that street cruising has its risks. I live here. I know the terrain. You should too. Do not attempt this when your consciousness is lacking due to too much drinking or chemical stimulation. It could be more painful than you bargained for.

Ringold Alley (between Folsom and Harrison, Eighth and Ninth)

A San Francisco tradition, this interesting spot acn be experienced on foot or by car; there is even the occasional cab. Tour buses are discouraged. Ringold is by and large a late space, filling up around 2AM when the nearby bars empty out. Prime time runs until 3 or 4 especially on weekend nights, and the cruising is of a dark and severe nature. Tendencies toward leather and an older crowd, but this is not an absolute. Hustlers on occasion. SOMABoy has often made out right there on the alley. Cool, but be careful.

Rogers/Heron/Berwick (across Eighth Street)

A convenient and less public place to retire after the above, especially when trucks are parked there. Had a right nice time here with two boys recently, one of them a lost Castro queen and the other a friend from the ‘hood.

Folsom Street proper (from Fifth to Eleventh)

It’s not an alley but there’s several adjacent ones. Cruise late at night, with clusters around the bookstores near Fifth, again between Seventh and Ninth, and — so I’m told — near Dore Alley. Sometimes works in the daytime too. If you wait long enough after last call, 90% of the suburban heterosexuals are gone. This makes cruising easier and more convenient. Sometimes workable in the daytime too, especially on the eastern fringe, but you gotta have an eye for it.

Outside the ‘hood (1996)…

I can’t really personally recommend places, as I deny the existence of the Castro, and like places within walking distance. However, there is a sex club on Castro north of Ninteenth (the “Black House”) , which is allegedly undergoing a transformation of sorts. In addition, there are Eros (Market near Church, across from Safeway) and 1808 (1808 Market near the underpass). I can give absolutely no details about either place, as they are not in my current repertoire.

There is also a cruising park where little seems to happen behind Cala Foods at Eighteenth and Collingwood .

Buena Vista Park in the Upper Haight is interesting around midnight, they say, and the views are good. There are also rumors of youngsters in the after school hours if that’s your thing, but if you’re over 18, make sure they are too.

The Windmills at Golden Gate Park (older crowd with a tendency toward closets) and Land’s End (younger and prettier and sunbathing nude in the summer) offer sex in a beach setting. Watch those cliffs.

Lafayette Park in the lower Pacific Heights area (Gough at Sacramento) has also been recommended. No personal reference here. Never done it; Pacific Heights (a/k/a “Specific Whites”) gives me the willies.

As to the tearoom scene, should you be so inclined, I can personally recommend Rincon Center and 4 Embarcadero Center in the Financial District, and Keith at Steam Magazine recommends the fourth floor of the library at San Francisco State University.

[Recreated from my earliest surviving site archive.]

Folsom Street: The Miracle Mile

But I thought Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills was the “Miracle Mile”…

Well, dream on. If that’s your cup of tea then you’re probably from L.A. anyway and you should probably be lurking in the Castro. For those of us in the know, it’s all about Folsom Street. It was originally nicknamed “the Miracle Mile” in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s due to the number of gay bars, bathhouses, and convenient alleys in the area from about Fifth Street to about Fourteenth Street.

This area was the center of San Francisco’s leather community then, and lots of people thought the area was downright dangerous. Fortunately, a good number of confirmed Castro types still do.

Planet SOMA has changed a lot since those days. There’s still a large leather presence here, but there is also a collection of nightspots amazing in their diversity. There’s a token heterosexual enclave on Eleventh Street, despite the presence of V/SF, the newest queer club on the block. There’s also a plethora of tecno-rave-tweaker clubs east of Seventh Street including the legendary EndUp (where Michael Tolliver won the jockey shorts contest in “Tales of the City”). Remember that club kids rarely breed out of species (if at all, given the effect of speed on the erectile system) so cruise at your own risk.

Best of all, there’s my own “Miracle Mile” which centers on the intersection of Folsom and Eighth. What can I say…I’m a bar boy, not a klub kid.

From here, you can continue studying bars or visit my cool list of sleazy sex zones.

South of Market Bar Guide (Early 1996)

Hole in the Wall Saloon (Eighth at Folsom)
Still rockin’; do not count on hearing house or techno here (thank God!). As one who was there opening night in 1994, I can honestly say it ain’t the same uncrowded little bar it once was. My love affair with the place is more off and on lately. I keep walking in on weekend nights and saying to myself “It’s happened…this bar has become the Detour” (albeit with better music). But the music is still the best.

Crowd ranges from young trendoid hipster tweakers to older bikers to career alcoholics to the occasional frightened sweater queen cowering in a corner. Unfortunately, the “look at how fabulously trendy I am” types, who really don’t get the concept are getting too prevalent. It’s a sad thing. For two years I’ve raved about this being the best bar in the city, and it still pretty much is. Recommended: weeknights and Sunday afternoon/early evening.

Opens at 6AM on weekends (including, of course, Friday and Monday).

My Place (Folsom near Eighth)
Given the crowd problems noted above, My Place is once again becoming a watering hole of choice. This spot used to be the Ramrod many years back. From what I hear, it’s not much different, despite a couple of fires and a variety of shutdowns based on what tends to go on in the back corners at times.

An absolute sleaze pit; you WILL be accosted at the urinal. Dark, cruisy, usually rotten music, and sometimes smelly. Emphasis here is on cheap sex. I LOVE IT! Sometimes the back “patio” is open. Crowd skews old, but there are usually some youngsters looking for action too. Cheap beer on Sunday nights. Look for a re-creation of the famous Chuck Arnett mural from the Tool Box, as well as an original Boot Camp sign.

Full moon parties allow you to drink cheap when the lunar cycle is right.

The Eagle (Twelfth at Harrison)
Why do leather bars insist on playing retread disco that sucked to begin with? The Eagle is popular on Saturday nights, has a well-known Sunday beer bust, and is (I guess) an institution. I hate and avoid it.

The Stud (Harrison at Ninth)
The Stud keeps trying to re-invent itself. I’m not really up on whether or not it’s succeeded on this last round. It doesn’t look like a steak house inside anymore. They still have that “preppies from the suburbs” beer bust on Wednesday nights. A recent Sunday “retro 80’s” night had a pretty large and decorative (if a little too well-scrubbed) crowd. I hear Thursdays (“White Trash”) are trying to reinvent the queer punk free for all they once were (during “Junk”). They may succeed, but I’m starting not to care. The Stud’s original location was on Folsom St.; the Arena preceded the Stud at Ninth and Folsom.

PowerHouse (Folsom between Ninth and Tenth)
OK, my honest opinion: what a tremendous waste of perhaps the best bar space on Folsom Street. More or less a leather bar, but it doesn’t quite seem to have found its niche yet. Rolling Rock is $2.75 (I’m appalled). Music: bleachhh. On Thursday, this is the spot for SissyBar, which has promise, but is suffering from a slightly schizophrenic music mix and too many pretentious “look at how pierced and trendy I am” types. I’m not a big fan, although I’ve had interesting nights there. The space is has housed many bars in the past, including the No-name, Cow Palace, and the Brig.

The Lone Star (Harrison between Ninth and Tenth)
Emphasis: bears and rock and roll. This was the first bar I entered the first time I visited San Francisco way back in those tumultuous early 1990’s, and I was amazed! Incidentally, this bar was also the site of the conception of Hole in the Wall Saloon mentioned above. Excellent patio. Good place.

The Rawhide (Seventh near Folsom)
Country music. Line dancing. This is what I moved to San Francisco to get away from. Lots of flags and mounted animal heads and stabs at “on your sleeve” patriotism. I met a cool English guy there once; we started talking because we were both bored and scared. We left.

[Recreated from my earliest surviving site archive.]

Rules to cruise by

Queers from all over the world visit San Francisco to experience a place where they can be (if only temporarily) honest and open about their sexuality. I remember being really thrilled the first time I walked through the Castro and saw the parade of fags, holding hands, kissing in public, in short, “flaunting” their sexulaity in ways that heterosexuals do and take for granted every single day.

There’s sort of an art to living in — or visiting — San Francisco to reach one’s maximum queer potential. There’s a place for everyone here; non-conformity is the norm, so you most likely will meet someone who shared your interests in some way, no matter how offbeat.

A few rules to live by:

In San Francisco, as in other major cities, there is a distinction between gay bars and gay clubs. Bars generally do not charge a cover and do not permit dancing. Clubs charge ridiculous covers, and outrageous drink prices, but if you wanna dance, you cope.

There are a few specific gay neighborhoods. South of Market (a/k/a Planet SOMA) may be the most diverse in terms of bar/club crowds. It’s definitely my favorite; I rarely venture anywhere else. The Castro has become more of a commercialized retail strip in recent years, a sort of Gay Dineyland (picture “Main Street USA”) aimed at tourists, but it’s worth a brief visit. Polk Street is definitely interesting if a bit scary on occasion.

Just because people are gay doesn’t mean they’re nice. Sorry, but it’s true. San Francisco is a big city and the gay population has its share of freaks. BE CAREFUL! There is a major substance abuse problem here (specifically that means speed and variants) which make some people downright mean and untrustworthy. Cruising can be dangerous: know your surroundings and remember that bringing a friend along is safer and can lead to interesting group gropes.

Safer sex is your responsibility. Many people here avoid it these days, whether it’s due to a sense of hopelessness or (more likely) the subsatnce abuse problems mentioned above. INSIST ON IT! It is estimated that upto half (or more) of all gay men in San Francisco are HIV-positive. Remember your odds (and don’t add to the poz population).

Drinking and driving is a really STUPID thing to do here, especially given the fact that you’re only about six bucks from anywhere by cab or twenty minutes on foot.

Yuppie career networking is frowned upon in pickup bars. Your job is not your life. Take a break from it when you go out.

In sex clubs and other places, NO MEANS NO. Be aggressive, but do not be pushy or continue pursuing a trick which just ain’t gonna happen.

The service areas in bars are for people buying drinks, not for socializing. Blocking them will get you a hard shove in most South of Market bars.

Bars have to stop serving and kick you out at 2AM; do not give the staff a hard time. The sidewalk in front will be more interesting than staying inside anyway.

[Recreated from my earliest surviving site archive.]

The “Up Your Alley”Street Fair

doresignWithout question, this is the best of San Francisco’s queer-oriented street fairs. Smaller, more intimate, and just generally more of a queer bent, the Dore Alley fair is a pretty well-kept mid-summer secret. Not to say the crowd was not large, mind you. I just find it to be a more fun crowd…fewer gawkers, etc. It’s a very sociable and friendly gathering; I was amazed what a large percentage of the people there I knew (either as friends, sex objects, or both…).

There was actually very little formal entertainment (bands, etc.) but this really didn’t seem to matter. People-watching, cruising, and “hanging out” were pretty entertaining by themselves. And the flocks of crowds at My Place and Hole in the Wall afterward were great; the “geek factor” was minimized as was the proportion of slumming trendoids and tweaker club kids.The patio at My Place made one of its rare appearances and was full of…well…nasty happenings. Your host was pleased to be able to take advantage of a friend’s slave boy near the front bar as well as a very nice boy in a kilt (not the one pictured below).

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Folsom Street Fair

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.10 11 12 13 17 18 19 21 22 23 25 28 36 104 105 109 111 112 113 114 115 118 119 122 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 133 135 136 137 138 140 142 143 146 148

The Castro

The Castro drives me nuts! Twenty-five years of building a “gay neighborhood” have resulted in building nothing more than a “gay marketing plan”, helped along by the so-called gay press (The Advocate, Genre, GQ, Men’s Fitness). The neighborhood strikes me as a sort of package tour aimed at one very strictly-defined type of gay (white) male who reads the right magazines, spends the required hours at the right gym, has the right job, and possesses the necessary cash (or plastic) to carry it off.

Recently, people have been horrified that homeless street urchins, skaters, and panhadlers have invaded “the mall”. I’m all for keeping them there; frankly, they add the only color to the neighborhood (aside from the ubiquitous rainbow flags) and they provide a crucial reminder to the shoppers, the residents, and the tourists that Castro Street is in no real way related to the rest of the world.

Read any mainstream gay magazine and you’ll see what I’m saying. There are no blue collar queers, most certainly no under-employed ones, and (God forbid) no homeless ones. If you’re in a band, it’s dance-pop. If you work the midnight shift at a convenience store, don’t know or care where the nearest gym is, or don’t have a tasteful and well-furnished home, you can’t be in the club.

Leatherfags and most dykes are not invited either, unless they’re discreet and know their respective places. Discussion of having had sex with more than three people in the last year, or in any public place, is not permitted. As a matter of fact, any discussion of sex is frowned upon. Pretty ironic, isn’t it, for a group whose only commonality IS sexual orientation?

I realize that I write from some sense of privilege myself. I’m a white boy, on the cusp between the Boomers and the X-ers, earning a thoroughly middle class living (albeit not at a “prestige” job), and I have pretty much everything I want and need. Maybe it’s liberal guilt, but I don’t think I fit into this package either. I know I don’t WANT to. I wouldn’t know how to do anything but cruise in a gym, and I doubt I’d be successful even at that. I’ve never made a purchase at the Body Shop.

Do not for a moment think that I’m on a “gay culture bores me…I want a straight acting and straight appearing lifestyle”. That is most definitely NOT what I want. People who are obsessed with their “normalcy” and “masculinity” bore me no end. Give me the choice between a date with a tight-assed butch football player and a date with a cute boy who may be a bit “effeminate” and I’ll tale the sissy any day. But the currently media-packaged, corporate and retail-driven version of “gay culture” doesn’t hold a lot of interest for me either.

My idea of a “gay community” does not involve a strip full of stores all my straight friends (hell, even my mother) would feel comfortable in. Frankly, even most of my straight friends find the Castro a tad sanitized.

So just what is my point? I don’t know for sure. I think I’m just a little disillusioned that decades of fighting for the right to be ourselves and to love as we see fit has evolved into such a de-sensualized party line of fitting into cute little assimilated pigeonholes, with Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren providing our role models. Maybe, as some suggest, this means our movement is “growing up” and I’m just lagging behind. Could be some truth in this; people my own age are starting to bore me tremendously. But if being grown up means becoming nothing more than a demographic profile, I want no part of it!

I Love San Francisco

It is good to be back in San Francisco. I missed my neighborhood, my friends, my computer…

It continues to be freezing cold here. Granted, freezing cold in San Francisco means the temperature dips into the 30’s occasionally. But we’re all major weather wimps here, so if it’s below 45 or above 75, everyone sort of freaks out.

I love San Francisco. It’s as if the cream of the crop from around the country — the deviants, the psychos, the geeks, the skaters, the punks, the sluts, the artists, the musicians — all converged here in order to pay ridiculous rents to live in old buildings with less than adequate heat but to have stunning views (and viewpoints) thrust on them constantly.

Got picked up on the subway yesterday by a way cute boy who has not as yet called back. Neither of us had time to do anything right then and there (pity…), but we did manage to play the game and moved really fast into the conversation stage,etc. This doesn’t happen so easily other places. In most other cities, you have to go through the “is he queer or just trying to sell me drugs” phase, which wastes precious time. Depending on your tastes, there’s also often the “does he just want to rob me” stage. Here, you can be pretty certain that (a) he’s queer and (b) even if he wants to rob you or sell you drugs, he’ll probably have sex with you first.

I love San Francisco.

San Francisco: Insulated from Reality

E-mail last week:

I’d think a hip cat like you’d be more into their version of things than some tired academics who are just jumping on the caboose of a rapidly leaving bandwagon.

Oh. Woops. You’re in San Francisco.

That explains everything.

Seems to be a common bit of knowledge that San Francisco is pretty well insulated from the realities of the world.The population here tends to be — how should I say it — a tad left of center. Diversity and eccentricity are the norm here. The intelligence, literacy, and education levels are higher here than in most of the country. Queers and other minorities have “nothing to worry about here”.

Of course, anyone who lives here knows that last statement is anything but true, although — at least for some minorities — life is somewhat easier here. Particularly noteworthy is the phenomenon known as the Castro. I’ve written a lot about the Castro. Most of it has not been complimentary. As a matter of fact I’ve often described it as sort of a “reality-free zone”, where the troubles of queers in the hinterland, people on the wrong end of the socio-economic scale, and unfashionable people are no longer a concern.

Could this is true of the whole city?

Well, of course it is. I’d venture to say that a fairly large percentage of the San Francisco transplants moved here to escape the “reality” of the places they came from, be it suburban North Carolina, rural North Dakota, or even the Phillipines or Central America. This collection of backgrounds has produced a wide variety of knowledge and awareness within the city. Unfortunately, it also may have produced a strange sort of insulated cultural vacuum wherein all these individuals fleeing from their own realities have lost touch with large parts of them as well.

I would not disagree with the statement that San Francisco as a whole strongly overestimates its own importance in the world. The things that we believe and hold dear are not the same as those which are important to the rest of the world. Our influence on society is waning, if not close to nonexistent. New York, Los Angeles, even Houston and Atlanta are much more important on a national scale. Contrary to what we may tell ourselves, the world doesn’t generally follow our example, nor does it even particularly care what we think or do.

San Francisco is the capital of muliti-cultural thought, tolerance, and “PC’ (God, I hate that overused term…) Every issue, no matter how inane or trivial is perceived by someone as indicative of society’s oppressive nature. If I get my order ahead of someone else at McDonald’s, it must be because I’m a white male, not because the other order was for a “Big Mac, no salt, light sauce, well done, on a cruelty-free bun”. If I refuse to break the law and reproduce copyrighted material en masse for a customer, it must be because I don’t agree with his politics, not because I fear for my job. Everyone here seems to have an “oppression complex”: gay, straight, male, female, WASP, Latino, Asian, whatever… It gets a bit silly. And people laugh at us, even though many “oppression complexes” may be based in past truths.

The “single issue” politics in San Francisco are astounding and disturbing. Particularly in the “gay community”. This may be our biggest means of forgetting that there is, in fact, a world outside our little peninsula. Most of the world is far more concerned about keeping (or getting) a job which will allow three meals a day and shelter than about whether a school in the Castro is named for Harvey Milk or whether a Lesbian couple is featured in the Valentine’s Day story in the local paper.

We’re creating a city that fewer and fewer people can enjoy. Gentrification has destroyed neighborhoods worldwide, but in San Francisco, we seems to be doing it on a city-wide level. The upper middle class is taking over, raising rents, and pushing out the diversity (musicians, artists, ethnic communities) which attracted them in the first place. Our small mom and pop family restaurants and hardware stores are being replaced with wall-to-wall bistros, Gaps, Starbucks, and Z-Galleries. How livable is a city where it’s easier to buy a $125 framed print or a piece of FiestaWare than it is to find a $4 meal?

And our hypocrisies and inconsistencies are showing:

  • We revel in our love of ethic cultures and foods provided and prepared by people who can no longer afford to live here. (San Francisco is the only city of its size and stature in the country where the African American population is actually DECLINING, and with the current rental market, things will get worse.)
  • The gay movement was built largely on a platform of freedom of speech and association, but try posting a flyer on a lamppost in the Castro.
  • Discount stores like Target or Home Depot face immense opposition from city residents who would prefer to drive to the suburbs and shop there, free of the hassles of anyone who might walk or take transit to them.
  • Marin County contains one of the most “liberal” suburban voting blocks in the country. Funny that any form of affordable housing there is consistently voted down, as was the BART rapid transit system many years ago. Shopping centers are OK though, as long as they “look OK” and they’re located in the one predominantly black area of the county. It’s a special bonus if they displace an unsightly flea market or craft fair where “outsiders” can make money in a non-landscaped environment.
  • A reviewer fro the Examiner applauds a show which glorifies urban street sensibilities while decrying the real street life — she refers to it as “human garbage” — which surrounds the theater outside.

It all comes down, I guess, to whether we want to live in a real city or a Disneyland-style sanitized version of one. Is it preferable to take the bus to the Western Addition or the fake cable car tour to Fisherman’s Wharf? Is Mission Street or Castro Street what San Francisco is really all about? I must confess to a bias toward the former in all three cases.

And I’ll skip a lengthy discussion of our own version of the costumed “greeters” here in “UrbanLand”: the stockbrokers who dress like gas station attendants on weekends, the trust fund hippies on Haight Street, the artists posing as gangbangers, antuque shop owners posing as longshoremen. However, I must congratulate them for producing an intersting — if not entirely accurate — version of urbanism in safe neighborhoods. Perhaps in a “city of freaks” it is necessary to punctuate one’s identity with an exclamation point.

I must add that I do not claim to be free or above some of the inconsistencies I’ve discussed here. I am also probably no less insulated from reality than anyone else here. The South of Market Area is not really all that high on the “reality index” either (especially given all the drugs down here). Who knows…maybe I’m more insulated than anyone…

All in all, I still love San Francisco and the Bay Area. At least there is an attempt at justice here. In most neighborhoods, it is not necessary to duck immediately after kissing your boyfriend goodnight on the street corner. People here at least feel guilty when they make bigoted comments. Hate-spewing Jesus freaks are regularly challenged when they preach on the streets. And as shallow as it sounds, it’s just pretty here!

Critical Mess

The tension between cyclists and drivers and pedestrians is not good and it’s exacerbated by the fact that the Bay Area is becoming more crowded with members of all transportation classes, most of whom seem to have no idea where they’re going. Traffic here really SUCKS lately and heightened tension on the roadways is doing no one any good.

Aggressive drivers and cyclists need to get some perspective. Both need to start paying a little less attention to who has the moral high ground and a little more to the mechanics of moving from Point A to Point B. Simply put, why can’t road hogs in cars yield some space without whining and moaning ? And why can’t road hogs on bikes drop the self-righteous notion that they have the ultimate right to any and all street (or sidewalk) space to the exclusion of people on foot or in cars? The perpetual rants about why it’s OK for cyclists to break whatever rules they see fit just because their mode of transporation is “superior” to driving or walking is growing a bit tiresome.

And here’s a biggie: why can’t Willie Brown cart his stylishly arrogant butt out of his limo for a few minutes and do something constructive about the problem?

Disillusioned

The McDonald’s at Seventh and Market is really creepy and getting creepier. It’s a strange mix of crackheads, career alcoholics, street people, and very scrubbed but very lost foreign tourists. How so many tourists end up here I don’t know. For some reason I felt extremely paranoid there today; the place usually doesn’t phase me. It got worse when this really scary guy brushed up against me as he got in line behind me. When I reached for my wallet to pay, it wasn’t there. I freaked. It turned out I’d left it at home, but this thought didn’t even occur to me at the time.

Why am I so paranoid lately? Frankly, I usually feel safer in SF than almost anyplace else. But I’ve noticed myself being much more apprehensive lately. I find myself checking my back pocket constatly to make sure the wallet’s till there like I do in New York. I’m afraid every time I go to my car that I’ll be missing a window. I’m more likely to keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked. Muni is getting more and more frightening.

The neighborhood’s getting annoying. Too much construction. Too many noisy, drunk yuppies. Not nearly enough parking, even on my sticker-protected street. More on this soon. But doing any of the following one more time may cause me to snap and go “postal”:

  • Standing in line behind one more stoned trendoid who takes ten minutes to decide on one bottle of liquor at the corner store.
  • Walking in the middle of Folsom Street because Julie’s Supper Club can’t contain all its loud-mouthed slumming stockbrokers or even make them leave a path on the sidewalk.
  • Getting a parking ticket on a street two blocks from my house because the Department of Parking and Traffic can’t seem to control the non-residents parking on my own sticker-protected street which is where I SHOULD have been able to park in the first place.
  • Being awakened early in the morning by whatever that pounding sound is at the building they’re renovating up the street, which is no doubt in the process of being converted into yet another zoning-exempt “artist’s loft” which no artist could possibly afford.