A Weekend Worth Writing About
It’s nice when you finally have a weekend that’s worth writing about. This past one included getting sloppy over Tiki drinks, bowling with the dead in Colma, witnessing rituals of gay life past, and getting down with the Techno spirit of the present.
Thursday night was a surprise engagement party for our friends Matt and Lisa at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant on Geary. We missed the dinner portion but arrived just in time to help finish off the pitchers of margheritas everyone else had been sucking down for the previous two hours. Then those who was still able to lurch up the street went to Trad’r Sams, where scorpion bowls were ordered, drunk, and occasionally spilled on other hapless drinkers who were urged to lap it up without benefit of a straw (though we did discover that Jeremy can get about a dozen straws in his mouth at once). I managed to escape with most of my dignity, but I think there were some calls into work the next morning with the medical excuse of having been stung by a scorpion.
Friday was Jeremy’s birthday, and we had plans to go to the Sea Bowl in Pacifica for a night of “cosmic bowling.” However, Jeremy had actually made the reservation at Serra Bowl (Sea Bowl, Serra Bowl, it’s all kinda the same), mere steps from the Colma BART station. Jeremy was disappointed that we wound up at what seemed to be the most happening place in Colma for wannabe Asian thugz and their beeyatches, but our disappointment was mitigated when we learned that our lane rental special also included $4 pitchers of Miller beer. Besides, we had three lanes with 16 gay boys, and if anybody had tried to start anything, we would have been on them like the Sharks on the Jets - as I pointed out, we were the ones, after all, who went to the gym. Wacky photos of the event will no doubt materialize soon.
Saturday we went to the investiture of our friend Chickpea as the Diamond Disco Duke of San Francisco at the LGBT Center. The theme was “Disco 1978,” but neither Jeremy nor I felt we could really engage with that theme, so I wore an old Twilo baseball jersey and pretended to be a raver boy once again, and Jeremy wore, well, a t-shirt. This was the 34th investiture of the royal court of San Francisco, and, looking around at the Dukes and Duchesses of the Bay Area, I got the feeling that they had last been in a disco was right around 1973. I can imagine that, in 1973, five years after the Stonewall riots, when the gay movement was enjoying its first moments of success and pride, the court system had an important role to play in the life of the gay community, doing fundraising, promoting events, etc. However, today, it’s hard to see it as being much more than anything beyond yet another system for creating status, mostly for draq queens, that has been created by gay men, just like the leather scene, or circuit parties, or anything else. It’s true that these organizations continue to raise money, but it’s hard to see what their relevancy is to today’s gay community. In fact, most of the people who were at the event were other people involved with the court system. I’ve made the offer to Chickpea and our local prince, also a friend of ours from our Burning Man camp, to help them put on a real dance event sometime, but the whole thing seems more like an excuse for draq queens out of their prime to wear sparkly formal wear than an occasion for throwing down a real party.
Fortunately, at the last minute on Saturday afternoon I got an email flyer for an underground party being thrown by the Kontrol kids, with ModeSelektor playing fresh from their performance at 1015 the night before. At $5 to get in if you were wearing a white t-shirt, the price couldn’t be beat. We arrived with our friend J and Jeremy’s friend Matt from work right around 10.30 and were the first folks there. It was a great old-style loft, and the only criticism I could possibly make is that if you’re going to have people wear white t-shirts, you really should hook up some black lights in the dance area. Jeremy got in a few words with the ModeSelektor guys, in which they were generally dismissive of the vibe at 1015 (they said it was like playing for a crowd of Russians, what with the go-go girls and all).
This was the best party I’ve been to in a very long time, if not all year long. Craig Kuna was, I believe, the first up, and we spent most of his set just hanging out in the front room and waiting for ice to arrive for the drinks (I was gratified to hear at least one track I own being played). Then Sammy D came on and we had a great tour on the dance floor, and by midnight it was getting crowded enough that we were backed up against the wall. We alternated between the front room, where the crowd was quite friendly and fun (though not so friendly that the boys sitting behind Jeremy and J, who I was giving the eyeball, were willing to share their disco dust with us). ModeSelektor went on around 2.00, and by 2.30 it was so packed and smoked out in the entire space we decided to hit the pavement. Down on the street we waited for a few minutes while Jeremy went back in to see if he’d mislaid his cellphone, and we saw some very fashionista kids actually be turned away, while one of the hostesses informed everyone standing around that it was very rude to be there making noise and attracting the attention of the cops. We lurked silently in the shadows until Jeremy returned, and then went home pretty well exhausted. I can hardly wait until next month when these guys start their monthly at The End-Up. It was funny to think that earlier in the evening we had gone to an event that was supposed to be about reliving a high point in gay and club culture, and yet it wasn’t until later in the evening, in a smoky, semi-evolved loft space populated with hipsters, that we really got a taste of what the disco was about. More evidence, I think, that the gay community needs to stop waxing nostalgic and actually get out and down with what’s happening today.
Thursday night was a surprise engagement party for our friends Matt and Lisa at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant on Geary. We missed the dinner portion but arrived just in time to help finish off the pitchers of margheritas everyone else had been sucking down for the previous two hours. Then those who was still able to lurch up the street went to Trad’r Sams, where scorpion bowls were ordered, drunk, and occasionally spilled on other hapless drinkers who were urged to lap it up without benefit of a straw (though we did discover that Jeremy can get about a dozen straws in his mouth at once). I managed to escape with most of my dignity, but I think there were some calls into work the next morning with the medical excuse of having been stung by a scorpion.
Friday was Jeremy’s birthday, and we had plans to go to the Sea Bowl in Pacifica for a night of “cosmic bowling.” However, Jeremy had actually made the reservation at Serra Bowl (Sea Bowl, Serra Bowl, it’s all kinda the same), mere steps from the Colma BART station. Jeremy was disappointed that we wound up at what seemed to be the most happening place in Colma for wannabe Asian thugz and their beeyatches, but our disappointment was mitigated when we learned that our lane rental special also included $4 pitchers of Miller beer. Besides, we had three lanes with 16 gay boys, and if anybody had tried to start anything, we would have been on them like the Sharks on the Jets - as I pointed out, we were the ones, after all, who went to the gym. Wacky photos of the event will no doubt materialize soon.
Saturday we went to the investiture of our friend Chickpea as the Diamond Disco Duke of San Francisco at the LGBT Center. The theme was “Disco 1978,” but neither Jeremy nor I felt we could really engage with that theme, so I wore an old Twilo baseball jersey and pretended to be a raver boy once again, and Jeremy wore, well, a t-shirt. This was the 34th investiture of the royal court of San Francisco, and, looking around at the Dukes and Duchesses of the Bay Area, I got the feeling that they had last been in a disco was right around 1973. I can imagine that, in 1973, five years after the Stonewall riots, when the gay movement was enjoying its first moments of success and pride, the court system had an important role to play in the life of the gay community, doing fundraising, promoting events, etc. However, today, it’s hard to see it as being much more than anything beyond yet another system for creating status, mostly for draq queens, that has been created by gay men, just like the leather scene, or circuit parties, or anything else. It’s true that these organizations continue to raise money, but it’s hard to see what their relevancy is to today’s gay community. In fact, most of the people who were at the event were other people involved with the court system. I’ve made the offer to Chickpea and our local prince, also a friend of ours from our Burning Man camp, to help them put on a real dance event sometime, but the whole thing seems more like an excuse for draq queens out of their prime to wear sparkly formal wear than an occasion for throwing down a real party.
Fortunately, at the last minute on Saturday afternoon I got an email flyer for an underground party being thrown by the Kontrol kids, with ModeSelektor playing fresh from their performance at 1015 the night before. At $5 to get in if you were wearing a white t-shirt, the price couldn’t be beat. We arrived with our friend J and Jeremy’s friend Matt from work right around 10.30 and were the first folks there. It was a great old-style loft, and the only criticism I could possibly make is that if you’re going to have people wear white t-shirts, you really should hook up some black lights in the dance area. Jeremy got in a few words with the ModeSelektor guys, in which they were generally dismissive of the vibe at 1015 (they said it was like playing for a crowd of Russians, what with the go-go girls and all).
This was the best party I’ve been to in a very long time, if not all year long. Craig Kuna was, I believe, the first up, and we spent most of his set just hanging out in the front room and waiting for ice to arrive for the drinks (I was gratified to hear at least one track I own being played). Then Sammy D came on and we had a great tour on the dance floor, and by midnight it was getting crowded enough that we were backed up against the wall. We alternated between the front room, where the crowd was quite friendly and fun (though not so friendly that the boys sitting behind Jeremy and J, who I was giving the eyeball, were willing to share their disco dust with us). ModeSelektor went on around 2.00, and by 2.30 it was so packed and smoked out in the entire space we decided to hit the pavement. Down on the street we waited for a few minutes while Jeremy went back in to see if he’d mislaid his cellphone, and we saw some very fashionista kids actually be turned away, while one of the hostesses informed everyone standing around that it was very rude to be there making noise and attracting the attention of the cops. We lurked silently in the shadows until Jeremy returned, and then went home pretty well exhausted. I can hardly wait until next month when these guys start their monthly at The End-Up. It was funny to think that earlier in the evening we had gone to an event that was supposed to be about reliving a high point in gay and club culture, and yet it wasn’t until later in the evening, in a smoky, semi-evolved loft space populated with hipsters, that we really got a taste of what the disco was about. More evidence, I think, that the gay community needs to stop waxing nostalgic and actually get out and down with what’s happening today.