springing into summer!

I can't believe it's June already, much less mid-June. The summer social season is well underway. And Pride festivities too.

Last Friday was the June Nasty AEF fundraiser at the Powerhouse, and Suzan Revah and Tod Epperson produced another great party.


For some reason, their events feel much more like a cocktail party, albeit one over the edge, than "a night at the bar." Great, great fun. And in no small part to the personalities of Suzan, Joanna, Todd, Michael Smith (photographer extraordinaire) and the return of Jimbo.

. .


Okay, so more of a frisky, leather-clad, fetish cocktail party.

See Michael's amazing photo set here (the above are his photos). Rich Stadtmiller's set is here.

Saturday night RoMo extended to me and Shilpa an invitation he received for a performance of the Krokodiloes, a Harvard men's a capella group, at the Saint Francis Yacht Club.

I had tweeted/FB'ed about the SF Yacht Club, and was readily schooled on the difference between the San Francisco Yacht Club, which is not in San Francisco, and the Saint Francis Yacht Club, which is. I thought I was covered by simply typing the "SF Yacht Club," but this one in the City is abbreviated, I'm told, StFYC.

Whatever. It was pretty. And so were we.

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And of course, we hammed it up.


The Yacht Club and cutie Harvard boys were followed by an hilarious show, set and actually staged in a beauty shop. Stale Magnolias is billed as the quintessential southern 80's play, set in Rectum, Texas. Yeah, it's that kind of humor, performed in drag, and is very funny and entirely entertaining. Adapted and produced (also starring) Sean Owens. (Sean is good friend and SF Weekly's Best Bay Area Playwright.)

Unfortunately, with Brain Farts and Mary-Go-Round on Wednesday, Sundance and 440 on Thursday, and happy hour/dinner/late night Nasty on Friday, and a Hellacious work week, I was drained and done by the end of the play. Shilpa took BART home, and I joined RoMo for, in theory, one nightcap around the corner at Truck with bar friends, other audience members, the cast, and a toast for Sean's birthday.

And the second wind blows.

At Truck, I ran into Hot Patrick who uncharacteristically popped over from the East Bay. I met Patrick a while back at Sundance and have been helping him learn to dance. He's a total sweetheart, if not distractingly handsome and obsessively fit. He's in recovery, and has just a wonderful energy to be able to enjoy playing out and about in bars with no interest in drinking. This also makes him a handy driver and he gave me and RoMo a lift back to the Castro, where the three of us proceeded to rock out at Toad Hall and close down 440.

That was a long night. Patrick turned out to be a gem of a man and a wing man and we all look forward to more quality time together. The final stretch of Saturday night was ending on a high note, only to be dropped flat. But it makes for good story:

Towards the very end of the open hours, I noticed Alex over by the DJ booth. I met Alex about three or four years ago when he and his friends came to the Buckin' Ball on a lark. They are not country or rodeo people, and sort of gave the air of Pacific Heights-ers slumming it with the country-gays. Their western wear was worn as costume, and their "boots" were not made for dancing. But they were handsome, fun, and charming and I was sort of their ambassador to the evening's festivities.

I flirted this side of shamelessly with Alex, and have seen/talked/flirted with him in the years since about every four or six months or so out and about, usually in the Castro. I've always considered him boyfriend material and each time I see him I am reminded of how much I would like to date him. He has yet to be similarly inclined.

So that's the background before I saw him late night in the shadows of 440. It was 1:30 in the morning, I was sleep-deprived and exhausted, Hot Patrick had my motor running for hours, and I had been drinking Love Potion Number 7 all night— so consider that I was seeing Alex though those lenses.

I made my approach and was welcomed. Even in nonsense conversation, he persisted with his come-hither looks under hooded lids.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention—We had Yacht Club, Mission Theater, and Truck plan. It's hard to dress for all three and I didn't even try. I dressed only for the StFYC and thought I would be calling it an early night. I was in a summer suit jacket, dress shirt with undershirt (perspiration stains show so on French blue), and green sherbet linen pants. Not exactly 440 wear. Alex removed my jacket first. He didn't care for the t-shirt, and unbuttoned my dress shirt, removed it, removed the t-shirt, put my dress shirt back on, and buttoned me back.

Then he kissed me.

It was a soft and romantic sort of kissing, not the tongue wrestling typical to the hour and venue. And it was very nice. Very. After a while, I whispered in his ear something to the effect, "I don't want to flatter you too much, but I've been wanting to do that since I met you at the rodeo dance four years ago."

He paused, eyed at me quizzically, then pushed me to arm's length by my shoulders. He looked at me hard.

Then he said, "Wait. I know you."

Aaaaand we're done.

Sunday
After a reasonable sleep/recovery period, I collected RoMo for a trip to the Union Street Fair (the start of the SF Street Fair Season!). A couple of years ago they put a stop to the public serving and drinking in favor or corrals beer "gardens."

We packed a flask.

And once we hit a reasonable hour in the afternoon, ordered raspberry Italian sodas from a coffee shop and only after we casually spiked them did we notice that we had done so directly in front of a table of seven cops. They either didn't notice or didn't care. I'm guessing the latter as I knocked mine over, along with another plastic cups and my sunglasses and the ridiculous commotion was sufficient to be considered slapstick farce.

Our highlight of the Union Street Fair was the artist Anthony Hansen, and his wonderful works. He creates beautiful and moving pieces by welding bits and scraps of old car hoods and license plates. RoMo and I were both struck by his series of "long skinny hearts" and particularly a sculpted square of license plate letters that when read all together spelled out CABLECARS.



Anthony Hansen is himself a work of art. His creativity and generosity of spirit emanates from deep within, and seem to cascade off his body as you talk with him. His home and studio are down Big Sur way, and he could tell origin stories of each scrap of color adding, another dimension to his art. He was kind enough to work with Robert on the pricing so that RoMo could give the the Cable Car piece a good home.

Just as the summer days in SF, we ran long and hot. After the Union Street Fair we met up with Hot Patrick for beer bust at the Eagle. The Eagle is so much fun on sunny days, and it brought out the don't-see-enough-of-you crowd of Cam & Rob & Jeff & Mark. And others of course. And as way gives on to sweaty, frisky way, the Eagle bust gave way to the Lone Star bust, and ultimately yet another sidewalk wardrobe change for Sundance Saloon, where after a couple of hours of boot-scootin' my body cried "enough!" and it was time for bed.

This weekend is also packed, and I totally forgot to tell you all about the North Beach Festival, and the replaying of the amazing film North Beach. Y'all GO! I think that North Beach is the only movie filmed in San Francisco that actually feels like San Francisco and features San Franciscans. Now this movie is North Beach, or was, in the late 90s early naughts. I'll have to give it its own post.

Unfortunately, I'll miss it. But on the other hand, I'll be having fun and quality family time again in Nashvegas. Y'all whoop it up while I'm gone and let me see the scars!