Adventure #12 -- Now That's SO Gay

Adventure - The Universe Planned This One

Description: Our Adhoc Adventure, wherein the Universe conspires to Inspire. And lead us about our fair city in an adventurous fashion.


(Marty's Report):

We didn't plan an adventure today. Well. Okay. I didn't plan an adventure for today. I was feeling a bought of relationship grumpiness, and so wasn't feeling very giving. But after a somewhat raucous conversation yesterday, Heather got us eating strawberries and whipped cream--a traditional making-up food--and so today we were prepped for some together time.

Starting with an appointment with the optometrist. To use the last of the eye plan, Heather got in under the wire for a doctor I've seen before over in the Inner Richmond, down the hill from my old hood, and she invited me over to get breakfast. I hung out in a cafe for a while, finishing off a novel I'd been reading, "Tapping the Source," which was written by a collaborator of David Milch's HBO show, "John from Cincinnati." It has been described as "Surf Noir," and as far as I can tell, the author, Kem Nunn, is the only author in the genre. Sub-genre. Mixed sub-sub genre? Anyway, it was an enjoyable read, despite a pretty conventional noir turn about how the rich are really predatory man-eaters, and the sunny world is really just that which projects shadows. Noir is fun, I find, because it expresses within the strictures of its genre the human experience of meaninglessness, or emptiness not as Spirit but as void. Nunn seems to find at least the potential of God in the shadows, but most of the novel is about life in the absence.

Heather picked out her new glasses and then we were off to Tasty Curry, our favorite Indian restaurant, next to the divey offices of Craigslist. We got there just after it opened and it was only us and the waiter, and then the owner who we've known for the 5 or so years we've been going there. I had a surprise 40th birthday party there, and long before that my Moraga house used to have its house meetings there.

The owner, Shahid, showed us a project he'd been working on, a dvd of him as the Bollywood Curryman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laPg8ncebsk) showing how to make Indian meals. He's such a nice dude, which is a big reason why we've gone back all these years, and it was fun hanging out with him and his sidekick for the morning. The place, it's sort of an Indian Cheers for us.

I suggested the next chapter of our day's adventure, a ride out to Baker Beach, at the end Golden Gate Park. Heather was making noises about going back to the house for shoes--she's the Princess and the Pea when it comes to sand--but I talked her into a straight trip out there. So we took the bike and walked about the whole length of the beach, to the cove below the Cliff House (which has a name I can't remember) and back. A lot of couples and families were out taking in the sun and sand, the uncharacteristically nice day. I focused on the dogs, of course, and the surfers. We stopped at that cove and Heather checked out the trio of horses, and I watched the knot of surfers getting some good waves. It may look somewhat easy or doable from the shore, but it's a different world out on the water. So having had a little experience with it now, I can have some real appreciation for the different parts of the process, and seeing someone ride the crest of a wave after I've barely been able to stand up--well, it gives you a sense of scale and proportion.

Riding back from the beach, there was that clean and open sense that I get sometimes, well, actually often when I'm out there. So that getting home, the bird cage project that we'd agreed to make one of the two tangible goals (the other being a list of tasks for Egypt) didn't seem to be so onerous.

The birds--well, as Bill Jacks from "John from Cincinatti" said, they're crap factories. But we've worked out an agreement to do the cages together, which makes the cleaning go quicker and more enjoyable. So Heather got Phoenix's cage--of the three, he's like the petroleum refinery compared to Chi Bird and William's local beer distilleries. It took maybe an hour or hour and a half to finish the whole business, the changing papers, scrubbing cages, keeping Chi Bird from eating William or attacking Heather, vacuuming and reassembling. We listened to a random assortment of Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, and Stuart Davis on the computer, not exactly driving work music, but workable.

Then we hung out a bit around the house, and somehow decided to go find wall maps of Egypt at a travel book store on Market St. We headed off on the bike (one of the most helpful things to own in a city like this, where parking for anything larger than a Harley is controlled by capricious and punitive Gods) and found the little bookstore on the corner of Pearl St., a little alley that I always use to cut over from Rainbow Grocery to Octavia, and poked around till we found maps for all of Egypt as well as a detailed map of Cairo. We also got a couple other things; a quote at Time Tested Books, my work site many years ago in Sacramento, read, "A man is nowhere more vulnerable than in a bookstore." Such was the case.

Now, we knew this was the weekend of the Gay Pride Parade, but what we didn't realize was that this was Pink Saturday, the party before the parade (or what Heather later alliteratively referred to as the Pretty Popular Powerful Pre-Pride Parade Party). And since we were hungry again, we wandered down through the closed off streets of Market St. and found our way to the Squat and Gobble, a crepe place near Castro. We sat out front and watched the early arrivals, including some oddly conspicuous and seemingly un-gay security people, cops up on the roof across the way, and a Styrofoam penis walking around educating about the rise of syphilis cases in S.F. It felt like one of those traveling days in a foreign city, nothing to do but watch the world go by.

We did the rounds and I got a coffee at Heather's favorite chocolate smack house. She usually gets the super intense chocolate drink, but abstained, wisely. Then we wandered back to the 16th street intersection and parked ourselves on the median to watch the folk. Quite a range of people, and I found the sub-sub cultures really interesting. I didn't know there were the 'hood styling queers--the "ghetto gay"--nor the Hispanic gay set--the "cholo gay." The former were particularly odd because they were all the gay, and still seemed to carry the shoulder chip and aggressive attitude of a stereotypical gangsta type. That seemed a little contradictory, as I've always experienced gay culture as very pro-social, whereas the whole gangsta chic seems propped up on its self-conscious anti-social attitude. Odd.

Then there was the very drunk young women dry humping random young (gay) men, who came over to us because, I presume, we looked like the token straights, and said it was alright to be just who we were, and gave us cheek kisses. And the fellow who Heather jumped up to talk with, who we'd seen several times walking about in a fabulous leather and buckles outfit. A sweet guy from Orange County, which apparently is more repressive than North Carolina (Heather's old hood).

At about the three hour mark we both ran out of steam, and I was wanting something perhaps a little more organized to happen. So we headed home, a bit pooped, put our Egypt maps on the wall, which somehow makes the trip that much more real.

A FABULOUS adventure!


(Heather's Report):

Crap, Marty always writes up these great reports and I'm kind of like "what he said". Plus I've been bad about keeping up with writing my part of the reports. Spank me!

So, I had a fun time at the Pretty Popular Powerful Pre-Pride Parade Party. Maybe I should make that the "Pretty Popular Powerful Pre-Pride Pink Parade Party". You can't see it very well, but the Pink Triangle is up on the hill of Twin Peaks. I think it was a large piece of cloth, not painted, because apparently later it got set on fire as an act of arson (it wasn't a planned thing to burn it, and it appeared that it was a possible hate crime). People are dumb that way sometimes.

Oh, I apologize for my stupid phone. I dropped it recently and the camera hasn't been the same since, so these photos are bollocks.

I love this city. The great festivals and opportunities for expression abounds. I very much enjoyed just sitting and watching it all swirling by, reveling in the crazy and wonderful energy of it all.

I mean, where does one find huge Styrofoam penises and fabulous drag queens on the street at the same time?? San Francisco's Gay Pride that's where!!! I'm guessing that might be a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence and apparently, there are different ethnic penises for the syphilis campaign and that would be Pedro Penis. Who knew.

This photo is only of Castro Street starting to ramp up during the day, it was much more hopping at night although there were still quite a few people out on the streets in the day time. I love that they shut the streets down to car traffic and the craziness that goes on when people can swarm the streets. Or not, as you can see folks hanging out on their... roofs? Window edges? What exactly might this particular architecture bit be called? Note the grouping of boys in their fabulous afros.

Of course, I'm a total idiot and didn't take a photo of the sweet boy we met from Orange County. We had been wandering around the Castro, down the main street you saw above with the Castro theatre (and below, at night), towards my fav chocolate and coffee cafe (Castro and 18th) and I'd seen him around at least twice before we had settled onto the median to watch the crowds go by and thus seen him go by again. And how do you recognize that you've seen the same person three times in a such a big crowd of crazy costumes? Why, his absolutely fabulous outfit, of course!! I'm not one for clothes really, but I saw his outfit and was in love. He was cute, too, I'll say, with lovely feathered eyelashes (that had to take a lot of glue!!) and sparklies that showed up really well on his chocolate skin. But he was wearing (as I was to find out later) a modified straight jacket and these really cool pants that reminded me of the pants the gang was wearing from "A Clockwork Orange" with awesome ties that buckled and looped from one leg to the other, with crazy cool buckles over the entire tunic and pants and I think some cool high jack boots. Wow.

I'm usually the type of person to watch all the outfits go by and admire from afar, but after seeing him pass by that last time (knowing we would probably head out soon and not see him again), and with a little prodding from Marty, I leapt up to run over to him to compliment him on his style. He thanked me very sweetly and did what I always forget to do, introduced himself and asked my name and then starting talking with me, asking me if this (Marty) was my friend (I tend to forget my social graces quite often) and I finally introduced my husband and we all chatted together in a friendly fashion about his fashion and where he was from. He was very sweet and I was completely charmed by the whole experience. A good reminder to just bust out and say hi and I like your shirt. Oh, and introduce yourself. Right. Must remember those sorts of things.

Once darkness fell, the streets got more crowded but we had had such a full day thus far, we were tired. And we both don't do too well with the craziness that is drunk people, so off we went home, me feeling completely satisfied with the city I live in. Rock on, San Francisco!!!!!

Adventure #11 -- Detatives!! A Failed Adventure.

Adventure - Heather

Description: Wherein Marty and Heather become detectives to find a new cafe to hang out in since their old one in Sausalito, CA became defunct; and to describe the nefarious goings on of said new cafe.


(Marty's Report):

OK, we made a go of this one, as described above, a good attempt to squeeze adventure out of what was essentially a task of replacing our old, beloved, and now defunct cafe in Sausalito. We headed out across the bridge and toodled around Sausalito, but Heather wasn't feeling the spirit in that little bay-side town. So we went off that winding road that hugs the shore line, out into the foreign lands of Tiburon. I don't think I've ever seen houses that have filled me with such bourgeois cravings as Tiburon. And the "downtown" area seems to be more there as a place for the ferries to drop their daytrippers for lunch. But it did have a cafe where you could sit and work on your laptop, as opposed to the bars and restaurants where burgers cost $12.

Maybe the failure of our adventure had, now that I think about it and try to write about it, has more to do with the sleepy, money-choked quality of the burg than perhaps our deficient souls. Because we went to Cafe Acri and got too much sugar and caffeine in us, after not enough sleep, and then puttered around the Internet rather than write our take on the nefarious doings of that cafe. I tried. I put down notes on how a hardboiled detective might see this town and the cafe, and it just petered out like one of those sad, wrinkly, half inflated balloons. Not dramatic, just deflating.

We conceded defeat, but instead of driving back down the winding road with our tails between our legs, we headed up the road, north, where neither of us had gone before. More winding road, and we felt more and more lost, which wasn't actually possible as there's only one coastline. It turns out we were driving through what apparently was Tiburon, but the scruffy-but-still-rich backside, up Paradise Drive. We came out high up on Hwy 101, and limped back home.

(Heather's Report):

(Hey Heather: describe what "detatives"means...) Well, as Marty reminded me, this is what "detatives" are. Detectives. Yes. It's that simple. Okay, here's how the story goes. Apparently, after watching some detective show on PBS or some such when living at my father's house in Springfield, VA, I put up on my door "The Detative Is: IN/OUT". I was probably about 8 or 9 years old. Then, as most of these words go, it became vernacular in the household. So, detectives are now detatives forever more in the Ussery household.

I'm a sad panda now because Marty didn't even mention my very cool hats. I made little signs that said "Detective Hat" and pinned them to our regular hats in order to make us more official of course. As you can see below, our uber officialness with our hats:
























Then off we went to find a new cafe. We stopped by our old one, just to see if some new cafe or establishment had taken over the building but alas our hopes were dashed, it was still quite empty. Still for rent. Bah.

So, I nixed the Triesta cafe down the street, it's just never felt homey to me. Of course, not a lot of cafes are going to have the great open and comfortable space of Northpoint Cafe. Then suggested going over to Tiburon, although it would be a bit out of the way for a regular cafe location. But hey, we're detectives, right! We must do anything for our craft. So off we went.

We wandered a bit, finding nothing of great interest until coming upon Cafe Acri which seemed to offer roomy space, a few couches up against the windows and apparently had free wifi (always an absolute must at a cafe, of course). There was a small problem of power as plugins were a little far and wide but we made due. Down we sat, ordered coffee, of course, to detect if they had good coffee or not. Food, as well, since that is also important. Both were okay.

And then we attempted to detect the strange goings on at this particular cafe. Such as the obviously Jewish Gay Spies sitting and conversing on their lunch hour, as you can see here. We had to very surreptitiously photograph them, me snapping quick shots as if I were just checking my phone screen. But it's not like spies would have given us permission.

There were other likely suspects around the cafe but Marty's right, it was hard to summon anything up about the whole thing. But we did have a fun time "Stumbling" on the Internet for quite a bit. I find the browser application Stumble to be quite addictive. I can do it for hours. I've found so many cool sites, like the hero creation site where you can make your own graphic hero, as you can see above, with Marty's Detective Hero. Or the odd site archiving all the strange deaths throughout history, such as the person who was killed when a fire hydrant landed on them because someone in a car swerved, hit it, it went flying and, well, landed on someone's head. How bizarre and totally random is that. You're just walking down the street and pow, you're dead. Like having a poodle falling out a window 40 stories up hit you in the head or some such.

While I don't consider this a failed adventure, it wasn't a very successful one, to be sure. Alas. And no cafe even to show for our troubles. Bah.