Many protesters, including clergy, were demanding to be arrested during the peaceful protests yesterday.
Of course, protesting in San Francisco today is a bit preaching to the choir. Even the police force today is full of homos and is largely supportive of the community.
This is a SHARP contrast to the times of Harvey Milk, when protests turned to bloodshed and violence perpetrated on and by the SFPD.
Yesterday, there was a bit of solidarity on both sides, with law enforcement sympathetic to the painful ruling of law.
The tone between protesters and police was rarely confrontational as the march made its from City Hall to Yerba Buena Gardens and then back down Market Street to the Castro.
At one point, two juvenile protesters determined to be jailed for their principles were arrested by police officers who called their parents first to make sure that was OK.
Emphasis added. And if I were a parent, I would be sending those officers thank-you notes and holiday baskets.
I think there should be a new line of perfume or cologne called "Wine and Cheap Perfume."
I am open to suggestions as to under whose line it should be released.
And shout out to Alert Reader Jonathan Harwell, and his college catch phrase, "Smell this. No seriously, smell this."
Ew.
(reference) On a side note, I remember that my mother's favorite nail color when I was growing up was called "Wine with Everything." I consider that expression in a different light now.
More lovable language from the SFist (unfortunately leading into a tragic story of father shooting at his daughter for staying out too late on prom night): Prom season is in the air. And you know what that means, right? Tacky dresses, hymens smashed, newborns dumpstered, and fretting dads.
While I was home in Nashville, Brother Mac and I managed to find a couple of hours to spend together and took in the Star Trek movie (brother bonding for us). We wanted a drink together before I left in the morning, but the economic latrine we're all in has forced the closing of almost all of the bars and restaurants around the theater. We were forced into the Cheesecake Factory.
It was prom night and the place was packed with teenagers in varying levels of formal attire. We opted for a place at the bar and I stepped into the bathroom to wash my hands and Mac ordered the drinks. I returned to an empty span of bar and an explanation that the bartender wouldn't serve him two drinks because she couldn't be sure that he wasn't buying a drink for a minor.
I am generally effusively sympathetic to waiters and servers, but her demeanor rubbed me very much the wrong way (she seemed to revel in her power and authority and was not in any way a genial bar hostess) and I wasn't in any mood to take it. Honestly, we were sitting at the bar. Mac is in his 40s, and clearly not on a prom date. If he were buying underage kids drinks, he'd be ordering more than mine and the one for himself. And seriously, she thought he was buying drinks for an underage prom date? I gave her a steely look and said, "What? Do you think this is Dateline? If you really want proof of age, you can just look at my hairline. And my disdain."
When we finally got to order drinks, it was from a different bartender (surprise). As usual, I ordered a Mandarin & soda.
Bartender: "Ummmm Absolut Mandarin?" Me: "Yes." Me, aside: "No, I'm ordering the Chinese language dialect." Bartender: "And what again?" Me: "Soda." Bartender: "What kind of soda? Coke? Sprite?" Me, disbelievingly: "Soda water. Club soda."
After the subsequent rigamarole that was Mac attempting to order a simple martini, I felt the need to clarify that tonic water is not soda water. This appeared to confuse him.
I think I'd rather just have ordered a Diet Coke and a prom date.
After all, I had some roofies in my purse.
I also think that Smashing Hymens might be a good name for a band.
Sadly, it's not counting too high in the ratings or funding these days.
But Lord don't we all have warm fuzzy monster memories!
And did you know the 12 pinball counting voices were the Pointer Sisters? Awesome.
And check out the discography on the Muppet Wikia. You've gotta love titles like "Grover Sings the Blues" and "Sesame Street Fever"!
Oh yeah, how much to you love that the Daily Show's footage of RNC Chairman Michael Steele is always the muppet customer complaining to waiter Grover. There's a whole Daily Show section on the Muppet Wiki.
Somehow, the topic turned to logging. Or I might have described someone's passing out by saying, "If there were a lumberjack there he would have shouted 'Timber!'."
Jeff (sincerely and truthfully): You know, I was a lumberjack. Wilson: Are you okay? [polite chuckling all around] Rodney: You know, you have to be of a certain age to get that.
The folks at io9 have noted that the Earth has been at war with Mars in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds for over a hundred years now—which has meant a lot of cover art. They have a small gallery of pulp War of the Worlds covers online, and link to a much bigger one.
From the io9 gallery, I though this one was particularly stylish and cool:
A stellar example of good graphic design. The loser in the bunch? This one:
Protesters are all over downtown. Civic Center is basically shut down with traffic blockages, sit-ins, and hundreds waiting to be arrested. I feel the pain, but I don't think it will do much good. Any press is good though, and outrage needs to be visible.
California Supreme Court upholds Prop 8. Gay bashing continues, and the separation of church and state violated. The ruling just came out so there is not much news or opinion just yet.
If I hear Carrie Prejan say anything on TV this week I'm going to throw something. Probably up.
Crowds are outside the courthouse shouting "Shame on you! Shame on you!"
While the weekend was fun— Gay Day Friday, home chores and late night fun with visiting friend of 415 Rick and young dancer Jon Cooper (shout to Jon) Saturday, and a packed Sundance Saloon and Castro Sunday night—Memorial Day Monday was very much about chilling. Lance and Greg are redoing another room in the house, and introduced me to the shelter porn that is Room & Board.
Then, of course, there was Recovery at the Lookout, hosted by Pollo Del Mar. Only when I ran into Stephen Kling did I recall that we did this very thing last year.
Pollo, who was working Gay Day, invited Andy Bell of Erasure to join the party, and it as exciting to have him there. Nice guy too. (Not that I am a starfcker or anything. I'm just sayin'.)
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And of course, Pollo made sure we all took our medicine.
The California Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the validity of Prop 8 tomorrow. It is expected to uphold the existing marriages, and Prop 8. In any case, events are planned, be it a celebration or protest.
We're all coaster people, and pretty much spent the entire time from one ride to the next, with breaks for fried foods and Dear God the people watching. I had NO IDEA there was such a ghetto mo population! Someone coined the term ghettMo. Lots and lots of bling too. Seriously with the wow.
I only snapped a couple of pics, but I loved this girls whole purple butterfly theme, and click through on the dude on the right and to check out his ever-so-carefully trimmed hair and "beard:"
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And WTF with all the platinum dye jobs? Is that back? I shudder to think.
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And seriously with the amount of hair gel going on with the ghettmos. Honestly, it was a fire hazard. They made the place flammable.
At the same time, it was quite touching and affirming. I can't believe how young these out suburban kids are. Shilpa made the comment that "It's like high school, but all gay." Lot's of teens and lots of PDA. It was striking to see giant guys dressed like scary gangstas holding hands with their boyfriends. Quite touching actually. (And man did I feel old.) The south bay Latina lesbians were predominately a bit, shall we say, severe, but at the same time, so adorable in their love-dovey baby dykeness.
Aw.
I saw many friends from the City, but the demographic certainly skewed local. As such, the Club Papi Latin stage was the most popular. And a lot of fun.
The Big Girl Dance Off was hilarious.
At one point some girl was flopping belly-down so hard on the end of the stage that it started shaking. It also looked as if she were going to slide off the stage. The drag queen hostess made the apt analogy that she can't side off the stage and into the pool like she were Shamu. (Chris: "ShamWow!")
Then there were the Club Papi Dancers, followed by an amateur underwear dance contest that was so tragic. Except for the winner. Ay!
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At the "county fair" area I had to snap this pic of the prizes in one of those claw machines.
If you look closely, you can tell they're not real iPods, but knockoffs.
Oh yeah, the bars sucked. Four times I could not find someone who knew what soda water was, or club soda, or that tonic water was not the same thing. And they made Shilpa's vodka and diet coke with tequila.
We broke for salty dinner foods at the food court, where I was courted by some salty goods:
I love that even at an amusement park in Santa Clara, drag queens will call out to me by name.
Speaking of which, we missed the first Trannyshack show, but made it in time for Charisma Glitterati's performance of "Single Ladies" with my favorite Fag Hag Dancers Suzan Revah and Joanna Parks.
Heklina has rimmed guys on stage many, many times, and the late crowd was calling for it. Listen as she covers herself after she notices a little girl in the crowd.
That might have worked, except that Heklina hadn't said "Who wants to see me rim that guy on stage?" but rather "Who wants to see me lick this guys butt hole on stage?" That's a little more graphic and it made the alternate definition of "rimming" a bit of a non sequitur.
While Heklina was stretching out the introductions, I spied Suzan and Joanna off stage, and totally felt the love when they lit up seeing me in the crowd.
Drag lip-syncing rarely translates well to larger stages, but Charisma, Suzan, and Joanna ROCKED it.
They performed their old hits, which is just what we all wanted, and they looked great. Noticeably older (as are we all), still hot, and impressively fit and fabulous.
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Such a fun show! And the crowd sang along like a house party.
All in all, a great night. I can't believe we spent more than six hours in there.
Final words: Uniboober. And one more line I can't remember but will insert it when it comes back to me.
Paul Day roused me out of bed Sunday to join him for the "parade of hotness" that was the Bay to Breakers race through our neighborhood. I got there too late for the serious runners, and the seriously fit people, but enjoyed the parade of flesh and costumes and then the drunken hoards.
PeeDee set his position at Fell and Masonic mostly because the cop there was hot. Frankly, that's as good a reason as any.
He was like 6'5". I thought about taking lots of photos, but knew Flickr would be FULL of such later in the day. So I just took a photo of a photographer.
Will that do for the blog?
No.
Here are some favorite sights. You know I value clever over obvious.
Tron—
Playclothes from curtains! And the Wicked Baroness—
The living room in the street, with empty television cabinet to "watch the race on TV"—
Body Paint heroes—
Her sign reads "Do you need to take a shit? Bathroom available!" I do not know if she was charging a fee—
Bubbles, and DEVO—
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And of course there were lots of pretty fleshy bits:
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The sticker on his ass reads "magically delicious."
The crowd was as much fun to watch as the "race."
Where else does one see a taco on a cell phone?
As I said, I didn't get into taking that many photos. Flickr is fertile for such if you're interested. I do like that YouTube is so popular this year too.
Here's someone's video of a girl booty dancing in the window so hard that she breaks the window with her ass.
I took two clips of the crowd just to get a sense of the scope, and the festivity.
The star of the show, at least in our little stretch, was Chicken Little. Many houses on the block had street parties in front blasting a variety of playlists on professional systems.
And on one front porch was a little girl in a chicken suit.
Did I mention that while I was out at Play with Keith and his admirers in Nashville, it just happened to be the Student Body finals?
Yeah.
Contestants could come up on stage in shorts, and they could take off their shirts (of course) but regardless of what was on underneath, Tennessee law prohibited them from taking off their pants to reveal any shorts underneath. WTF right? Probably lands them in the legal definition of undressing or something.
Anyway, I felt like a slightly pervy old guy as we sat up front and took pics. But hey, fish gotta swim, aging gay dudes gotta perv.
See the photoset here. I'd animate it or something but I don't have the time.
It came down to these two finalists. Princess was the drag hostess. She reminded me very much of Suppositori Spelling. Loved her.
The blond one won. I thought his name was Luke, but that was the other finalist.
Also note the black magic marker on his hands. That indicates he's not even 21 yet. Sigh.
His friend was crazy with the hot and should have competed as well (maybe he did was we eliminated earlier in the term. Dunno.). He told me his name was Bo and I had to get a photo—freaking Bo and Luke right?
Of course, protesting in San Francisco today is a bit preaching to the choir. Even the police force today is full of homos and is largely supportive of the community.
