Year: 1996

Jeff Visits, Continued

The day started earlier than it should have and ended much later. The early afternoon saw David guiding Jeff through a last-minute shopping extravaganza in the Haight. There was also a trip to the very top of Buena Vista Park, where the views were great and the cruising was unconsommated. In the early evening came Macy’s and Union Square, so Jeff could exercise his credit cards (which were, of course, positively dusty from lack of use).

Dan drove the vacation boys to Twin Peaks about 11, and then dropped them in the vast mall known as the Castro. The evening’s bars included Badlands, the Phoenix, and the Detour (which was surprisingly entertaining). A quick cab ride led to Planet SOMA, Hole in the Wall, and My Place. Jeff picked up two strays, J’Tao and John, but lost them trying to crash the oh so trendy “Piss Party” on Ringold Alley. Bedtime came late. The morning, and Jeff’s airport shuttle, came really early.

Jeff has returned to Greensboro, David must return to work, and vacation season is over.

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.)

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?

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…

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

Cars and Porn

Things look good in my insurance world (I was a touch worried) so I may have another car soon. And I finally got to see “Frisky Summer”. Johann Paulik gets fucked wearing his rollerblades. Love it; I’m thinking of blowing up a video capture to make all the “yuppie blader scum” really nervous.

Onward to Minnesota

Armed with knowlege gleaned from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and from Whip LeFever’s Walk on the Wild Side, I arrived in the home of Target Stores and Prince at about 8PM Friday night. American Airlines hadn’t fed me well at all and I was reassured by the first sight I saw on the road to Christopher’s house. Like a miraculous beacon, the White Castle called me from Lake Street. For those of you who don’t know, White Castle is the northern counterpart of Krystal in the south, serving 39-cent burgers which are basically an ounce of meat on a brown and serve roll. It’s an acquired taste. Anyway, I took this as a sign that this trip, which I’d had some reservations about taking, was gonna be just fine.

It was really great to see Christopher and Bil. Bil, who I went out with a few years ago, remains a good friend, and actually LEFT San Francisco, but is now forgiven. I took an immediate and intense liking to Christopher upon meeting him a few months ago in SF when he visited with Bil, and he offered me a temporary home. Together with a drum machine (temporary) and an occasional guest vocalist named Dawn, they form a queer metal band called Lucifag. Part of my trip’s timing stemmed from the fact that Lucifag was doing its first show while I was there.

I didn’t quite know what to expect, but they fucking ROCKED. One of the best and tightest sets I’ve seen in a while. And lest you ask, this is from my “former college radio music director” perspective, not my “friends with the band and infatuated with the guitar player” perspective. I think…

The show was Sunday night at District 202, a queer youth center, and was put on by Homocore Minneapolis. Also on the stage were Plain Jane, the Third Sex (love the Third Sex), and another band whose name I forget but they were pretty good too. The show was recommended in the Minnepolis’ City Pages and there was also press in the University of Minnesota Daily.

Later that night, I realized that I may be allergic to Minnesota, a condition which haunted me off and on throughout the trip.

Love Is All Around

On Monday morning, after a drunken and stuffed up Sunday late night, Bil broke out the Subaru to take me on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” tour, which starred Christopher Mika in the role of Mary, and may be a video soon. Keep checking for details.

  

  

  

So much for the credits…now here’s the house…

 

Afterwards, I was introduced to the Mall of America, which is almost unfathomable in its size and features an entire amusement park within. The last few weeks have been controversial there, due to a new requirement that all patrons under 18 years old must be accompanied by an adult on Friday and Saturday nights. I guess it’s more preferable for kids to hang out on the streets drinking and doing drugs.Somehow, I can also envision this policy being — shall we say — selectively enforced, as are most curfews. Oh well. The underwater attraction was really cool, if ridiculously expensive. Alas, however, there was no Chick-Fil-A in the mall…

We also visited a music store. I visited lots of guitar stores this week. Enough to last me for several years.I also did a little driving myself in scenic St. Paul and captured a bit of the roadside architecture I love, but not nearly enough.

  

Musings on Minneapolis

Ahh, the Minneapolis nightlife. I experienced it for the first time on Monday night and found it to be not as unpleasant as you might have imagined, except for the 1AM last call. Only hit two places:

The Saloon
830 Hennepin Avenue

I liked this one best. It’s fairly large and offers a club environment and a bar section. The music was maybe a little better than your average suburban queer bar, sort of on the techno side. There’s a terminal for “net” access which seems only to connect to a small BBS. Decent beer selection. I only got hit on once, but did get a few furtive glances. “New meat in town syndrome”, I guess. Polite and friendly staff.

The Gay 90’s
408 Hennepin Avenue

The home of DJ Lon. It is almost impossible to describe how huge this place is. Nine bars inside, all of them bigger than any single bar in San Francicso. I have to say I really didn’t like the place much, but they do mix a drink which is damn near lethal. Beer selection is non-existant; I had to settle for a Bud (blecch…) The place really gave me the creeps on Monday night but was better the following Sunday. Staff was a bit rude, as a rule, except for a really friendly and kinda cute bartender at the back bar on Sunday. DJLon was pretty upset to hear about my rude treatment; perhaps I’ve misjudged based on too few visits. Apparently, the Gay 90’s is becoming a bit of a heterosexual slumming joint as well.

 

A few more musings on Minneapolis:

  • A couple of good radio stations: 770 Radio K is college radio and is great, but needs to go FM. Rev 105 is the commercial “modern rock” station, but it’s one of the best I’ve heard; they actually mix in older music where appropriate. What a novel idea; Led Zeppelin actually mixed in with music inspired by Led Zeppelin!
  • Hennepin Avenue and the former Gateway District are possibly the best arguments going against urban renewal. What once must have been a really intense urban landscape now looks like it’s been in a fight and had most of its teeth knocked out, and the few which were replaced didn’t match really well.
  • Hooray for restaurants with smoking sections. Actually, I ate at places other than White Castle and was particularly impressed with the Seward Cafe and Ruby’s.
  • Found a really good used bookstore in the Uptown District. Wish I remembered the name. Also recommended: Dream Haven on Lake Street.

Chicago

I wanted Chicago to be much more than it was. Maybe I didn’t spend enough quality time there and maybe it’s because we didn’t do sufficient planning, but Christopher and I were two fags in search of a scene and there just didn’t seem to be one. Driving and parking were a nightmare (yes…worse than in San Francisco) and it was 27 degrees one day, which is outside my California-moderated temperate zone. All the same, there were moments. And anything would seem exciting after driving across Wisconsin!

  

How could I not stay at this place? It was almost as much a symbol of good karma as the White Castle I encountered on the way into Minneapolis. And it was cheap! When we checked in, having OK’ed the two people/one bed arrangement, I offered ID. The nice lady at the deask responded “I’d ask other people for it, but I won’t ask you…if you know what I mean…” (Insert wink and nudge.) My theory was it was related to our inherent whiteness. Christopher’s guess was that she thought he was my whore and the fags would treat the room gently. Who knows? Big old console TV in the room which displayed “The Simpsons” in colors I didn’t know existed. I was appalled to find a station which plays not one, but TWO reruns of “Home Improvement” daily.

The closest thing to a scene we found and the reason our road trip was scheduled as it was. Picture a 50-year-old bowling alley which has never been remodeled. Add an all-ages show, put on by Homocore Chicago featuring the Third Sex (again) and Kaia. Great scene, great place. But they need to serve food (or maybe it was just that I hadn’t had my White Castle fix for the day…)

  

 

Christopher did the Art Institute. I took pictures of buildings.

Friday was good, although the “driving aimlessly” thing got a tad tedious, especially due to the fact that driving in Chicago is truly an obnoxious thing. Downtown Chicago rules, but we were never quite able to find the “cool neighborhood” (or at least not until it was too late.) Made it home in time for most of “The Simpsons”.

I’ve always heard bad things about the Chicago bar scene, but I didn’t dare believe them. Until this week. Five bars visited: the Manhole, Cell Block, Big Chicks, Berlin, and Cocktails. The first two seemed OK, if a bit mired in the 70’s leather/disco scene (in a non-endearing sort of way.) The Cell Block actually has a dress code for its back patio, a practice I thought (hoped?) had gone out of vogue about fifteen years ago. I also question their definition of “rock and roll”. Big Chicks seemed to have potential and reminded me a little of the Tunnel Bar (not the club) in NYC, but was pretty slow, perhaps due to location. Cocktails was too deplorable and preppy to consider except as a place to sit down and be warm. Berlin may have been the best of the bunch, but it was tremendously clubby and crowded and had no place to escape. I actively solicit suggestions for my next visit.

I hate to sound like I’m running down Chicago. Maybe we just needed the right “native guide”. I just sensed a really strange energy there (and I rarely use that term) and never quite felt comfortable anywhere. Next time?