Well back up on the roof now for this entry. This is my blog domain, this roof, which overlooks the three adjacent gravel covered flat roofs, and the coolest, loveliest scenery re rising hills in all directions and the lovely old and not so old California style homes perched on them. Not precarious like those I saw in LA, but of course, it's all relative when yer on the faultline.
I'm sort of hoping there's a minor earthquake when I'm here, btw. I recall one when Maryann and I were on Broderick Street back in '87. I remember I was sitting on the bed and a motion started to happen that felt like a big truck rumbling down the street and momentarily shaking the house ... but it kept going, and going, and you don't know what will happen. It's kind of exciting and kind of freaky. Anyway, so far, nothing.
That is not to say I haven't been seeing lots and lots in the last days. There's almost too much to remember.
Let's see. To recap: I arrived on Sunday, and saw The Graduate. Tuesday I walked to Coit despite not wanting to walk there, then took the cable car and antique streetcar back. Wednesday, intending to visit my own neighborhood, I ended up walking down 19th to Valencia Street in the adjacent neighborhood called the Mission District, cutting through Mission Delores Park on the way, which mind you, is an off-leash dog park and was full of the joy of dogs running in the freedom of the sun and the green grass, overlooked by gorgeous old architecture. Below is a brief video of one particularly enthusiastic hound dog chasing a ball:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25fi0r14S0U
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Anyway, Valencia was okay. Some empty storefronts and quite a few under construction and there was a lovely cafe and a great little used bookstore called, appropriate enough, Dog Eared Books.
Which was yet in another in a seemingly long line of book stores I'm seeing here on the west coast which don't seem to exist on the east, ie independent, sizeable - at least as far as their inventory, not square footage, and filled with new and used, or sometimes just used, which is just so wonderful. I had truly thought these were a thing of the past, so it's really quite a joy to keep stumbling upon them.
The guy behind the counter mind you wasn't exactly friendly or enthusiastic. Who knows, maybe it sucks working there, but I told him as I bought a book - Tales of the City, about people living in these very climbs, how wonderful the shop was and how we don't have many of these back in Boston, to which he sort of grunted. I asked if he owned the place and he said no. That was it. Oh well.
I also checked out a Goodwill type store, only it, too was like a throwback to the 80's in Boston - full of neat stuff like an entire record section, (LP's I'm talking), a book section that unlike what these stores usually have, actually was alphabetized by author and subject and was almost on part with a real book store, lots of furniture, clothes, plates/glasses, etc.
So I also checked out the Good Vibrations store, which is what I believe is the original women's vibrator/sex shop, which started in 1977, which is really kind of cool. Definitely what my man Dan would call a "sex positive" place. I had no idea it was in this neighborhood, and unlike many shops that morning, was actually open at 10am. Most of Valencia Street literally didn't open til 11, 11:30, or noon, despite the fact that these were not restaurants. Strange. The Good Vibrations guy sympathized, and said with a shrug that it was one of the many odd thing about SF.
I did manage to take a picture of the vegan condoms for sale ...
... And then stupidly asked him as he told me about it - apparently some people are allergic to some of the animal products used in non-vegan condoms - if it was okay to take pictures, and was told 'no', politely, that it was against their store policy, but no matter, the next day I visited their Pacific Heights store, which was in the same general neighborhood as our old Broderick house, and took several photos without being asked not to. I mean, come on, these places are fasctinating. Antique vibrators?
When they were principally made and marketed to doctors for the purpose of'curing' what was called 'hysteria' in women. Seriously.
And then for sale are things like all important vibrating cock rings ...
Anyway, so from this store, I headed up Nob Hill and checked out the grand old luxurious Mark Hopkins hotel - it, and the the Intercontinental, which resembles an embassy, for all it's flags.
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I was walking around in this area when my phone beeped, signifying I had an email. Dang, these new fangled devices. I checked, and it was from a gay group announcing that Obama had just then and for the first time, (finally) come out in favor of gay marriage, the very day after and undoubtedly in direct response to the shameful North Carolina thing in which the state voted, 60+ % to 30% against any sort of not only gay marriage, but civil unions or domestic partnerships, which apparently also applies to straight domestic partnerships, and will apparently wipe out or deny to gay folks and others the usual inconsequential stuff like hospital visitations, inheritance rights, child custody, etc. This is the definition of bigoted hillbilly backasswardness.
I read that the districts that voted pro-gay were all the big towns like Raleigh and Asheville and Charlotte, but were overrun by the evangelicals and their ilk out in the sticks. I'm telling you, to have been here in Gaytown during this thing making national news, walking around this city and this neighborhood in particular, and seeing the faces of the people impacted by such discriminatory, bone-headed, sorry, way-wrong-side-of-history bullshit is pretty fucking amazing, and sickening. That's the thing. These people voting this way think they don't know anybody gay. They think it can't 'happen' in their families, that these sort of 'people' somehow only exist on tv, or in places like San Francisco or New York, and aren't, in fact, their own kids and nephews and nieces and doctors, teachers, lawyers, the cashier at the local market, etc, etc. Fuck, even Dick Cheney campaigned for gay marriage once he got out of office.
Most maddening of all, is that what these North Carolinians did was in the name of 'saving' and 'defending' and 'protecting' marriage - all this incredibly insulting, telling terminology - as if a group of people absolutely dying to join their by all accounts ailing institution, which has a documented failure rate of one in two, people - could possibly be any sort of threat, right? If anything, maybe they will bolster it and prop it up, like people who join the Shakers.
The worst thing, of course, aside from the rights that these tax paying people are denied, is the message that it sends to them, and especially to young gay kids in these communities, and everywhere, really, that they absolutely, unequivocably are less than. That they are suspect, and worthy of open discrimination - in, of course, the name of god. Hello? These kids are killing themselves often enough, already, aren't they? For fuck's sake? And hello? Has nothing changed since the Anita Bryant era? Seriously? You people still are going to hang back with the neanderthal knuckle draggers?
I can't say enough bad about this, and enough good about the Obama announcement. It's a sad comment, in truth, that it would be any sort of revelation for a president to offer that he thinks gay folks are okay and worthy of respect and rights, but I'm tickled he said it, nonetheless, after 'evolving' on the issue for so long (in truth, you knew all along he was pro-gay - he just couldn't afford, or thought he couldn't afford politically, to admit it.) So, good on him, and now we'd all better make sure the motherfucker wins this fall.
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