Helloween

Halloween in thriving in SF. There were parties and bar-events all over the City, and a distributed/Home for Halloween celebration does work best for the City. Cops were out in force in the Castro, and the streets were barricaded off--but this year the street barricades were to keep people out and traffic flowing, not the other way around. And seriously, it looked like they pulled forces from other counties there were so many cops about. The police presence didn't bother me much as I was fine with the crowd being controlled and safety being taken seriously, but the riot gear disturbed me a bit.


Stephen Yarbrough sent out a flash that he was having another impromptu party at his home in the Castro. I was having a hard time decided between the party at the Cinch and the Peaches Christ/Heklina party at the Cat Club. Stephen's invitation was welcome, and we thought that would be the easiest to get to and back from via MUNI and/or cabs.

How we were wrong. Muni got us as far as Church and Market, and we had to hoof it to Dolores Park. Which was okay enough in my boots, but not so much for Shilpa's heels.

Adn getting home? NIGHTMARE on Market Street. The City, again demonstrating their complete failure of their "Transit First" policy wasn't running MUNI from the area, the Owl service was nowhere to be found (and hours later, too full for passengers) and the cab drivers were being DICKS. Not only were cabs scarce, at least one cab-- Yellow, car 1088-- stopped for us, I opened the door and had one foot in. He asked "Where to?" and I said "Just over the hill to Cole Valley and another stop in the Inner Sunset." The asswipe took off. With the door open and me halfway in the car. I was able to recover before being thrown to the sidewalk, but wow. We walked to the N-Judah stop at Duboce, which was shut down, then walked to Church in hopes of getting an Owl, only to learn that it was rerouted to Church and Market. Whenever I tried to hail a cab, someone would walk a few feet upstream of me and try to hail the cabs first. I did the walk upstream/they walk upstream game all the way to Martuni's and back. Insane.

Over two and a half hours it took, in the cold and pouring rain, before we got a ride home, and even that was on a crowded N-Owl. Yes, I could have walked home by then, but Shilpa was in no condition to hike over 17th in heels in the pouring rain. We left Twin Peaks around 1:15 to call it a night. We got home around 4:30.

But other than that Jackie, Dallas was pretty fun.

With the popularity of Batman and Joker costumes from The Dark Knight, I designed my costume to be The Dark Night with tiny rice light stars stitched into my costume, dark bare tree silhouettes painted on my pant leg, and a dark side of the moon painted on my face.


Using last years props from ArtRageous (which I have been saving for a Flying Monkey Bar Crawl), Shilpa was tricked out quite ravishingly as a Flying Monkey.


Stephen, our host, recycled one of his old costumes but it was new to me. And I have to admit I loved it: Mardi Gras Guy.


Last week Stephen tricked out his garden for the holidays by stringing up Christmas lights. I blended in. We got photos of me sneaking around the yard camouflaged with the lights. Cracked me up.


After leaving Stephen's with far too much vodka in our bloodstreams, we stopped into the Midnight Sun and saw all sorts of friends and enjoyed the videos and the bar. Out on the street we ran into Diva D, Miss Bay Area Gay Rodeo 2008 and our favorite mad hatter.


There were many clever costumes out on Halloween, but my best group costume award goes to these guys:


I went nuts when I saw them, and they were excited too as reportedly I was only one of about five people who recognized them! C'mon! Don't they look familiar?



Outside of Nizario's we stopped another group in costume. They were dressed as the Solid Gold Dancers, but they looked more like Sha Na Na in some of their "fancy" get ups. I was so excited to see them so I could get this photo:



Sha Na Na Mah Na Mah Na!

Happy Halloween!

Flickr set: Halloween 2008