The San Francisco Report
Jun. 6th, 2007 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
errantemberInstead of going to Flipside this year, I went to my cousin's wedding in the Bay Area. With no illusions that it would be more fun than going to Flipside, which I haven't missed since 2002, it was a pretty fun trip. Click here for a long-winded but link-and-picture-filled summary, including One Star Hotels, Death Guild, Bondage-a-Go-Go, the Mannequins of Market Street, and the Picky Homeless.
The Wedding Ordeal
Thursday the 24th through Sunday the 27th were Wedding Days. I ate a lot of great food. Because my aunt, the mother of the bride, is Taiwanese, about 1/3 of the wedding guests were some form of Chinese. Despite being outnumbered 5-to-1 in the transport van, I deigned to discuss my polyamorous lifestyle with a bunch of well-meaning monogomists. These kinds of discussions inevitably come up during wedding, when people want to know "Are you seeing anyone? Is it serious? When will you produce grandchildren? Hurry up!" which is one reason I generally hate weddings. I got to hear about how women only have so long before their beauty fades to attract a mate, and how I might be responsible for ruining their lives if they choose to lie to me and secretly try but fail to convert me to their monogomist, baby-creating agenda. I managed to sidestep a discussion, spearheaded by my aunt, about how homosexuals are sick. For the most part I had fun, but beyond a few decent discussions with my mom, I can't claim there was any intimacy involved. Also, this directly coincided with Flipside, and I could *really* feel the energy I was missing even from thousands of miles away. I knew this would bother me, but I didn't realize how much. My biological family was nearby, but my family of choice was far away.
My fire performance went very well, the DJ was very professional, and for many people it seemed to be the highlight of the wedding reception. I'm glad I able to contribute to the family and to the event, since it was the main justification for missing Flipside. Several people asked for my contact info as a performer, which got me to thinking how I could use my already-existing plans to professionalize and expand my fire performance as a way to travel. Since I'm telecommuting already, all the pieces are in place.
Some assembly will be required.
The Voyage Home
I got to visit my old house in Danville, where I lived from about age 2-5. Due to changes, I was only able to get a familiar vibe from one small section of the front porch where my cactus garden used to be. The house was for sale for $900k. We also visited the rec center, which rung a lot more bells. My mom told the story about how I decided I wanted to go off the 5-meter board when I was still 2. I vaguely recall exhibiting early Libra-hood by backing out several times first before finally jumping the fuck off. Evidently I scared the shit out of everyone, but went off about 10 times before I was done. I also had fond memories of hiding in my mom's tennis bag (which I fit into when I was 2) and playing with my Spider Man action figures with my friend Nico while mom and dad played tennis. These were actually emotionally significant, because my memories of my past are very fragmented. My father's job and illness and the itinerant lifestyle it forced on the family, and my mother's attempts to hide the less attractive parts of our reality from me were largely responsible. My father, who has a bipolar diagnosis, had his first manic breakdown in that house, so naturally my mother has ambivalent feelings about it.
Sunday we ate at a great Indian restaurant that my well-informed uncle explained had previously been a whorehouse. I pissed off my aunt by secretly paying for the meal before she had a chance to do it.
The food rocked.
The Mannequins of Market Steet
On Sunday night, I moved into the San Franciscan (also called the Olympic) hotel near Union Square in downtown San Francisco. This was my first experience with $55/night 1-star hotel, and it was interesting. Because of overbooking, I got an upgrade over my shared-bathroom room to a single room. The staff was super friendly. The room was very old, poorly furnished, and the phone was broken. At least the wireless worked, and the bed was decent. I checked into Room 215 around 10 PM. I then proceeded out into the Market district, camera in hand, to savor my first freedom in downtown San Francisco. As I was eventually to discover, the Market district is mostly a tourist trap, and at night pretty much the only things to take pictures of are homeless people and mannequins.
I love mannequins. They are a nexus of so many different things. They are human, yet they are incomplete. They look like us, but actually like idealized versions of us. They have great tits, but no face! They are the way we see ourselves, but more so they are what Madison Avenue wants us to compare ourselves to. They are inanimate, yet undeniably pervy. They are sexually desirable, but not very warm or accommodating. Rich stores have really nice ones. Poorer stores have shittier onces, sometimes presented well, sometimes presented badly. Some are White, some are Black, and some are Gangster!
Mannequins rule.
Dancing and Shows, the Catcentric Experience
On Monday night I attended Death Guild, one of SF premiere Gothic/Industrial venues at the Glas Kat. I felt better now that Flipside was over. At least I wasn't actively missing anything anymore. The Glas Kat is superficially similar to the Lizard Lounge in Dallas, in that it's much larger than Elysium and has two dance floors, a larger one down stairs with a big stage, several smaller sub-stages, and a dancing cage hanging in space, and a smaller dance floor upstairs. The upstairs DJ played more noise/tribal/ravlett-style music, while the downstairs DJ played more G/I standards. Both were a good combination of favorites and fresh stuff to differentiate the scene from the Austin one. Lots of hot people in great outfits. I debuted a minor clothing change, but saved my best new outfit for my next visit to the Kat.
When I got home on Monday night, I realized I really hadn't met anyone. It was then that it started to dawn on me that, while I'm much better at meeting new people than I used to be, I tend to do it by hanging out in the same places until opportunities simply materialize. This works fine when you live somewhere, but doesn't work so well when you're visiting. I had also failed to get in touch with anyone in the burn community earlier in my visit, which was another social mistake. I could probably have gotten put up for free as well as had a large group of friends quickly if I'd gone that route. I was looking forward to meeting more burners at the firedancing practice I was planning on hitting on Thursday night at Infinite Kaos. This was also the first day the wireless in my hotel went on the fritz.
Tuesday "morning" I hit Cafe Infusion, a few blocks away on Mission, which was to be my savior in the for-pay wireless ghetto of SF. Unlike Austin, where free wireless has become a common feature in almost every major venue, it's hard to find in San Francisco. The food and service was good, and I made this a regular morning sojourn for the other two days of my trip.
Tuesday night had been open in my schedule, until I discovered Trannyshack. Trannyshack was simultaneously one of the best and worst shows I'd ever seen, which was completely by design. For my full review, see my previous post. Fans of horrifying, shit-covered, cock-sucking, child-murdering transvestite Vaudeville should check it out.
Others may wish to move on...
Wednesday I attended Bondage-A-Go-Go, recommended to me both by The Internet and several friends, also at the Glas Kat. Everything that was good about Death Guild was even better here, with the addition of a troupe of totally hot Go-go dancers who rotated among the various stages and the cage. I wore my new vinyl woman's tunic, leather pants, black combat boots, and my new hat. The outfit is definitely hot, and I got a compliment on the shirt.
A live flogging class/demo was in progress on the upper stage. Definitely a lot of common moves between firedancing and flogging. I danced my ass off, but once again managed to avoid meeting or dancing with anyone. I still can't fully explain why. I was working at maintaining a more dominant headspace to go with my outfit, but it's still fairly new to me, I didn't know the local protocols, and didn't feel like I had the follow through yet to interact with people from that standpoint, which was part of it. I got very positive body language from one of the very hot Go Go dancers, who ended up next to me on the dance floor, but I wimped out. Partner-dancing classes I'm going to take in Austin will help. This should open a lot of social horizons, and also help me get more exercise, which will help me not get heartburn when I eat a brownie while wearing that tunic.
Dinner with Deborah and the Picky Homeless
I got together Thursday for dinner with Deborah Crooks, a Bay Area singer/songwriter I had hit up for a date when she visited Austin for SXSW. We had a fun meal at Cafe Gratitude, and it was very fulfilling to have pulled off such a long-distance hook-up. The venue is a nearly-all-vegan place where all the meals are named things like "You Are Graceful" or "You are Beautiful" which is what the staff says when they serve you. Food was good, pricing was moderate. I gave half of my "oops I didn't realize it had avocado in it" shake to a homeless traveler with the most specific handout sign I'd ever seen begging outside. In addition to specific dietary needs, he also had an e-mail address, and asked me to mail him the picture.
Thursday night, my last, turned out to be a complete wash. First I took all my fire gear precisely one block from my hotel to the weekly fire practice at Infinite Kaos, which a helpful parking lot attendant informed me had gone out of business six months ago. Disappointed to somehow spend a week in The Home of Burning Man without meeting a single other Burner, I trudged back to the hotel, ditched my fire gear, and headed out to the Cat Club at 1190 Fulsom for an event called 1984. While the huge two-dancefloor/bar venue had potential, the event itself was rife with frat-daddies and their dates, and I quickly lost interest. It was only about 12:30 AM, and my final destination, End Up, didn't really get hopping until 2 AM or later. I did a lot of aimless wandering in some of the worse parts of downtown SF until about 1:30, then got hungry enough to return to my hotel room, fully realizing the risk that I might be too lazy to leave again.
Sure enough, I didn't. I left the hotel at 10 AM the next morning, after filing a complaint about the 4 days of no Internet access.
On the way home, I got to see my old girlfriend Nandy in Salt Late City during a three hour layover. She is 9 months pregnant, but was courteous enough not to have the baby during dinner. She and her boyfriend Chris seem to be doing about as well as on could expect considering they're used to Austin and are now living in Salt Lake as non-Mormons. Salt Lake itself seemed marginally more progressive than I expected, which made me feel slightly better about being there. It was great to see Nandy, and she gave me her VIP card for Elysium to hold for her until she can return. I've already used it once to avoid paying to see Fixmer/McCarthy, formerly of Nitzer Ebb, which was justice since they put on a very tepid show consisting of completely generic Industrial beats voiced over by a skinny white guy with dark sunglasses who would simply repeat the same lame catch phrase over and over and over for the entire song, without variation or break.
In retrospect, it would have Rocked More if I'd chosen to stay the weekend and come back on Sunday or Monday. There were a huge number of great events happening that weekend, and I wouldn't have missed any more work. Next time, I'll do that.
Now I'm back home, decompressing from the trip, and looking forward to Decompression later this month.
The Wedding Ordeal
Thursday the 24th through Sunday the 27th were Wedding Days. I ate a lot of great food. Because my aunt, the mother of the bride, is Taiwanese, about 1/3 of the wedding guests were some form of Chinese. Despite being outnumbered 5-to-1 in the transport van, I deigned to discuss my polyamorous lifestyle with a bunch of well-meaning monogomists. These kinds of discussions inevitably come up during wedding, when people want to know "Are you seeing anyone? Is it serious? When will you produce grandchildren? Hurry up!" which is one reason I generally hate weddings. I got to hear about how women only have so long before their beauty fades to attract a mate, and how I might be responsible for ruining their lives if they choose to lie to me and secretly try but fail to convert me to their monogomist, baby-creating agenda. I managed to sidestep a discussion, spearheaded by my aunt, about how homosexuals are sick. For the most part I had fun, but beyond a few decent discussions with my mom, I can't claim there was any intimacy involved. Also, this directly coincided with Flipside, and I could *really* feel the energy I was missing even from thousands of miles away. I knew this would bother me, but I didn't realize how much. My biological family was nearby, but my family of choice was far away.
My fire performance went very well, the DJ was very professional, and for many people it seemed to be the highlight of the wedding reception. I'm glad I able to contribute to the family and to the event, since it was the main justification for missing Flipside. Several people asked for my contact info as a performer, which got me to thinking how I could use my already-existing plans to professionalize and expand my fire performance as a way to travel. Since I'm telecommuting already, all the pieces are in place.
Some assembly will be required.
The Voyage Home
I got to visit my old house in Danville, where I lived from about age 2-5. Due to changes, I was only able to get a familiar vibe from one small section of the front porch where my cactus garden used to be. The house was for sale for $900k. We also visited the rec center, which rung a lot more bells. My mom told the story about how I decided I wanted to go off the 5-meter board when I was still 2. I vaguely recall exhibiting early Libra-hood by backing out several times first before finally jumping the fuck off. Evidently I scared the shit out of everyone, but went off about 10 times before I was done. I also had fond memories of hiding in my mom's tennis bag (which I fit into when I was 2) and playing with my Spider Man action figures with my friend Nico while mom and dad played tennis. These were actually emotionally significant, because my memories of my past are very fragmented. My father's job and illness and the itinerant lifestyle it forced on the family, and my mother's attempts to hide the less attractive parts of our reality from me were largely responsible. My father, who has a bipolar diagnosis, had his first manic breakdown in that house, so naturally my mother has ambivalent feelings about it.
Sunday we ate at a great Indian restaurant that my well-informed uncle explained had previously been a whorehouse. I pissed off my aunt by secretly paying for the meal before she had a chance to do it.
The food rocked.
The Mannequins of Market Steet
On Sunday night, I moved into the San Franciscan (also called the Olympic) hotel near Union Square in downtown San Francisco. This was my first experience with $55/night 1-star hotel, and it was interesting. Because of overbooking, I got an upgrade over my shared-bathroom room to a single room. The staff was super friendly. The room was very old, poorly furnished, and the phone was broken. At least the wireless worked, and the bed was decent. I checked into Room 215 around 10 PM. I then proceeded out into the Market district, camera in hand, to savor my first freedom in downtown San Francisco. As I was eventually to discover, the Market district is mostly a tourist trap, and at night pretty much the only things to take pictures of are homeless people and mannequins.
I love mannequins. They are a nexus of so many different things. They are human, yet they are incomplete. They look like us, but actually like idealized versions of us. They have great tits, but no face! They are the way we see ourselves, but more so they are what Madison Avenue wants us to compare ourselves to. They are inanimate, yet undeniably pervy. They are sexually desirable, but not very warm or accommodating. Rich stores have really nice ones. Poorer stores have shittier onces, sometimes presented well, sometimes presented badly. Some are White, some are Black, and some are Gangster!
Mannequins rule.
Dancing and Shows, the Catcentric Experience
On Monday night I attended Death Guild, one of SF premiere Gothic/Industrial venues at the Glas Kat. I felt better now that Flipside was over. At least I wasn't actively missing anything anymore. The Glas Kat is superficially similar to the Lizard Lounge in Dallas, in that it's much larger than Elysium and has two dance floors, a larger one down stairs with a big stage, several smaller sub-stages, and a dancing cage hanging in space, and a smaller dance floor upstairs. The upstairs DJ played more noise/tribal/ravlett-style music, while the downstairs DJ played more G/I standards. Both were a good combination of favorites and fresh stuff to differentiate the scene from the Austin one. Lots of hot people in great outfits. I debuted a minor clothing change, but saved my best new outfit for my next visit to the Kat.
When I got home on Monday night, I realized I really hadn't met anyone. It was then that it started to dawn on me that, while I'm much better at meeting new people than I used to be, I tend to do it by hanging out in the same places until opportunities simply materialize. This works fine when you live somewhere, but doesn't work so well when you're visiting. I had also failed to get in touch with anyone in the burn community earlier in my visit, which was another social mistake. I could probably have gotten put up for free as well as had a large group of friends quickly if I'd gone that route. I was looking forward to meeting more burners at the firedancing practice I was planning on hitting on Thursday night at Infinite Kaos. This was also the first day the wireless in my hotel went on the fritz.
Tuesday "morning" I hit Cafe Infusion, a few blocks away on Mission, which was to be my savior in the for-pay wireless ghetto of SF. Unlike Austin, where free wireless has become a common feature in almost every major venue, it's hard to find in San Francisco. The food and service was good, and I made this a regular morning sojourn for the other two days of my trip.
Tuesday night had been open in my schedule, until I discovered Trannyshack. Trannyshack was simultaneously one of the best and worst shows I'd ever seen, which was completely by design. For my full review, see my previous post. Fans of horrifying, shit-covered, cock-sucking, child-murdering transvestite Vaudeville should check it out.
Others may wish to move on...
Wednesday I attended Bondage-A-Go-Go, recommended to me both by The Internet and several friends, also at the Glas Kat. Everything that was good about Death Guild was even better here, with the addition of a troupe of totally hot Go-go dancers who rotated among the various stages and the cage. I wore my new vinyl woman's tunic, leather pants, black combat boots, and my new hat. The outfit is definitely hot, and I got a compliment on the shirt.
A live flogging class/demo was in progress on the upper stage. Definitely a lot of common moves between firedancing and flogging. I danced my ass off, but once again managed to avoid meeting or dancing with anyone. I still can't fully explain why. I was working at maintaining a more dominant headspace to go with my outfit, but it's still fairly new to me, I didn't know the local protocols, and didn't feel like I had the follow through yet to interact with people from that standpoint, which was part of it. I got very positive body language from one of the very hot Go Go dancers, who ended up next to me on the dance floor, but I wimped out. Partner-dancing classes I'm going to take in Austin will help. This should open a lot of social horizons, and also help me get more exercise, which will help me not get heartburn when I eat a brownie while wearing that tunic.
Dinner with Deborah and the Picky Homeless
I got together Thursday for dinner with Deborah Crooks, a Bay Area singer/songwriter I had hit up for a date when she visited Austin for SXSW. We had a fun meal at Cafe Gratitude, and it was very fulfilling to have pulled off such a long-distance hook-up. The venue is a nearly-all-vegan place where all the meals are named things like "You Are Graceful" or "You are Beautiful" which is what the staff says when they serve you. Food was good, pricing was moderate. I gave half of my "oops I didn't realize it had avocado in it" shake to a homeless traveler with the most specific handout sign I'd ever seen begging outside. In addition to specific dietary needs, he also had an e-mail address, and asked me to mail him the picture.
Thursday night, my last, turned out to be a complete wash. First I took all my fire gear precisely one block from my hotel to the weekly fire practice at Infinite Kaos, which a helpful parking lot attendant informed me had gone out of business six months ago. Disappointed to somehow spend a week in The Home of Burning Man without meeting a single other Burner, I trudged back to the hotel, ditched my fire gear, and headed out to the Cat Club at 1190 Fulsom for an event called 1984. While the huge two-dancefloor/bar venue had potential, the event itself was rife with frat-daddies and their dates, and I quickly lost interest. It was only about 12:30 AM, and my final destination, End Up, didn't really get hopping until 2 AM or later. I did a lot of aimless wandering in some of the worse parts of downtown SF until about 1:30, then got hungry enough to return to my hotel room, fully realizing the risk that I might be too lazy to leave again.
Sure enough, I didn't. I left the hotel at 10 AM the next morning, after filing a complaint about the 4 days of no Internet access.
On the way home, I got to see my old girlfriend Nandy in Salt Late City during a three hour layover. She is 9 months pregnant, but was courteous enough not to have the baby during dinner. She and her boyfriend Chris seem to be doing about as well as on could expect considering they're used to Austin and are now living in Salt Lake as non-Mormons. Salt Lake itself seemed marginally more progressive than I expected, which made me feel slightly better about being there. It was great to see Nandy, and she gave me her VIP card for Elysium to hold for her until she can return. I've already used it once to avoid paying to see Fixmer/McCarthy, formerly of Nitzer Ebb, which was justice since they put on a very tepid show consisting of completely generic Industrial beats voiced over by a skinny white guy with dark sunglasses who would simply repeat the same lame catch phrase over and over and over for the entire song, without variation or break.
In retrospect, it would have Rocked More if I'd chosen to stay the weekend and come back on Sunday or Monday. There were a huge number of great events happening that weekend, and I wouldn't have missed any more work. Next time, I'll do that.
Now I'm back home, decompressing from the trip, and looking forward to Decompression later this month.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-06 08:46 pm (UTC)I'm still trying to reconcile the pic thing.
Date: 2007-06-06 09:12 pm (UTC)