Kevin's blog

Question of the day

 

Gayhood

Of Hags and Hiltons

Here they come walking on stiletto heels wearing last years’ too tight fashions, with a tacky purse full of condoms and hooker make-up. Ever since Will and Grace hit the airwaves in 1998 fag hags have been back on the gay scene full time. They had been missing since the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s but you’ll see them cruising for gay dick with their effeminate gay male buddies all over the Castro, The Village and WeHo.

Personal experiences with other people’s fag hags left me wanting to run the other direction. Usually group conversations that included fag hags always centered on some effete TV program, women’s shoes or neurotic mothers. Paint drying seemed fascinating by comparison. As the evening wore on the gays kept trying to find out what kind of make-up/tampons/man hating literature the hag was into. Once the gays even kept urging the hag to apply more and more make-up until she looked like a young Phyllis Diller.

Lots of gay men resist fag hags as just more competition for men or as alcoholic enablers. But as society’s strict codes for men and women have relaxed more and more, some gay men feel at ease looking and acting like women in public (at least in the gay friendly public). Who likes lady-like-men more than fag hags do? So it’s a match made in "Sex in the City" where all men are pigs and made to be emasculated by gossip and innuendo if not reality.

Many young gay men I encounter in the Castro and WeHo seem to be trying to emulate Paris Hilton with the giant shades the rat dog and the clenched sphincter look with pursed lips. The only thing missing is the cartoon balloon stating "I’m totally hot look at me." These guys always seem to be trying to convince someone at the other end of their cell phone how important they are. I wonder if they ever think about why they can't find a man. Big girls don’t cry but they usually only get to hook up with other big girls.

More Castro St Fair Photos

The Castro Street Fair in 4 Photos

Happy Birthday Castro Theatre

 

The Castro Theatre is one of my favorite places on earth. I have been lucky enough to know a couple of its managers and a few of it’s other employees over the years.

My Favorite Films there have been: Cobra Woman, Valley of the Dolls, The Queen of Outer Space, Wings of Desire, Gone With the Wind, LA Plays it Self (Yep gay porno from the 70’s), The Film Noir Festival, The Silent Film Festival and the many live theater and film presentations. Also the 1980 Academy Awards hosted live at the Castro by then unknown comic Whoopie Goldberg.

Here is a picture of the Castro with it’s original marquee and also an interior shot of the stage on the day it opened. Notice the giant urns now absent.

A Tale of Two Post Offices

Once upon a time in a land known as Castro there was a old fashioned little post office that could, it was cute, reliable and super efficient. It had an old dark wood interior and a giant clock that let you know you had only spent a minute or two from start to finish getting your postal business done. The folks that worked there were a friendly diverse lot and knew many of the regular customers by name.

In 1989 the evil Loma Prieta came to town and the Postal Wizard deemed the little post office that could, unsafe. It remained open for a short time and then it was closed for over a year while it was made "structurally sound". With a 50% vacancy rate for commercial realty in the Castro after the earthquake the Postal Wizard claimed he could only find a suitable temporary location 9 long city blocks away at Church and Market. So for 13 long months residents had to go way out of their way for even the most basic postal needs. Finally the little post office reopened but it was very different. 

Gone was the charming wood decor replaced by cold gray aluminum and the vacuous postal blue. Instead of three efficient customer windows there were only two and a large portion of the building was blocked off.

After a few weeks of being open a large proclamation from the Postal Wizard was placed in the mini-lobby of the little post office. This post office is out of date, proclaimed the Wizard and in a month will be closed for remodeling for a year. The neighbors were appalled that the Wizard would do this but Wizard was a Republican so what could you expect. Even the workers at the little post office that could were ashamed about the Wizard’s buffoonery and most got red faced when asked about his plan.

 

Finally the day came when the little post office reopened in its current "modern" form. It had only two windows (usually only one open at a time) and a "postal store" that was never open but took up a great amount of space. Absent from the lobby was the giant clock, not because it was old but because it reminded customers how long they had been in the post office without being served. Then the little post office that could became the little post office that couldn’t be more f**ked up.

I Am Gay and I Love You

This is about a month late but I though still worthy of posting.

This is Pride 1980 style. It was taken in front of the old JC Penny on Fifth and Market Street (now Marshals). It was the first time I had ever seen that many homosexuals in one place. (About 75,000 I think was the estimate) It was pre AIDS and post Anita Bryant, Anita was featured that year with Hitler and Idi Amin in giant photographs that the crowd booed. At that time you couldn’t get orange juice in any Castro bar. 27 years later who remembers who that hateful bitch is any way?

 

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Dog Days of Summer

Here’s a photo of Hibernia Beach now Bank of America. This is pre-auto teller about 1981.

 

 

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Next are some momentos of things past. Like The Patio, Alta Plaza and Sid’s Pipe Dreams when the only thing other than tobacco people smoked was Pot. The DreamLand Card brings back some pleasant and some not so pleasant memories. The place had tons of hot built guys but they discriminated like a restricted country club. Some of my friends told stories of pulling up their shirts and down their pants for inspection before getting a card. (Oh the good old days?)

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Is Pride Losing Relevance?

The following story is about NYC pride but could very well include San Francisco.

http://www.observer.com/2007/goodbye-mr-chaps

Talking with others my age (44) it seems most of my friends aren’t going to the pride parade in SF. Reasons include:

1. Every day is gay pride in San Francisco,
2. Too many special interest groups try to hog the whole thing and make it a political shoot out.
3. Too many out of towners in g-strings or less.

Personally I feel Pride has turned into a monster tit rally with all the floats full of steroid droids from the porn producers and alcoholic academies (bars) etc. (Please could some one tell these guys disco is dead.)

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It’s Official Halloween Axed in the Castro!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/01/state/n211009D90.DTL

To the consternation of visitors but to the relief of residents, Halloween in the Castro has been axed. The Castro neighborhood is no longer the innocent gay enclave of the 1970’s. The neighborhood has changed and so have the residents and more drastically the visitors to the neighborhood.

Halloween used to be a much more low key affair. Drag queens stopping traffic, laughter and the odd heterosexual with a baby in a stroller. More recently it’s boozed up troublemakers, fat girls in bustiers and people that empty handguns into the crowd.

 

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