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The dollar stores in the Mission smell funny.
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We saw Hell House at the Red Vic last night with Chupa and Charlie Anders, the latter of whom in town both for personal reasons and to hold Writers With Drinks tonight. Hell House is a documentary about a church in the midwest which puts on haunted houses depicting drug use, rape, school shootings, AIDS and so forth to scare people into accepting Jesus. I liked it, though I actually thought a segment by the film's director on NPR's This American Life had more depth, particularly regarding something the movie didn't address: how these ostensibly straight-laced xtian kids have the time of their lives pretending to be sinners. The more hellbound the character, the fiercer the competition is for the part—"suicide girl" and "abortion girl" are especially coveted. I'm sure that means something, but I couldn't begin to guess what. All I know is, they're going to heaven and I'm not. The World Series starts tonight. It can't end soon enough. (Couldn't the terrorists have won, just a little?) sometime after midnight
Sally don't like her daddy
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I got home at about half past two smelling like cigarette smoke. That sort of thing has bad connotations, so I changed clothes right away. That helped. I spent a lot of time before and between sets last night looking for people; I had a CD for Yen and kittypr0n tapes for Lupo. (I never would have guessed he had any interest in our silly little show, but he wanted to see it. Never can tell with some people.) This involved lots of weaving through a dimly lit crowd, and what lights there were—like that damn ATM near the door—seemed strategically placed to blind rather than illuminate. I did get to hang out with Dax and Leni for a while, which is always nice, and I was at the front of the stage for Boyd Rice, who was the main reason I was there. I'd never seen him before, and his set was entirely too short, but I enjoyed it. It was mostly just him and a drummer, an arrangement which reminded me on a purely superficial level of Jonathan Richman. I suspect I was the only one there to make that particular connection. Evidently I reminded someone there of a friend named Jason. As I walked by him in the crowd he asked if that was my name. I simply shook my head and kept walking. I wanted to shout "Do I LOOK like my name is Jason?" but decided against it. Wouldn't have been much point. We later crossed paths out back, where the light was considerably better, and he told me he saw me at the KFJC Pyschotronix Film Festival last year, and Destroy All Monsters! at the Red Vic a few months ago. (But I blend in so well!) After politely confirming that I was in fact transgendered (talk about formalities), he said that when he first saw me at the Film Festival last year he didn't read me at all, thinking to himself, "I have to scope out that goth chick." I assured him I took it as a compliment. I left during Death in June's set and went to Sacrifice. I'd had enough of large crowds for one evening, so I traded it in for a smaller, considerably less goth one. It was New Wave Hookers night, and though Anastasia wasn't spinning, Chupa was bartending. Indeed, she'd suggested the night before that I stop by if possible. Sacrifice isn't a queer bar per se, certainly not when compared to something the like the nearby Lexington Club (or any bar in the Castro), but it was still one of the least queer crowds I've seen there, comprised mostly of drunk, obnoxious straight guys. I didn't feel uncomfortable, however; I was left alone, and while the stare factor was high at times, it wasn't so much "look at the freak" nudge-and-point, but garden variety leering. Which is fine by me, provided they keep to themselves and/or take no for an answer. Chupa put on kittypr0n. It didn't get quite as much attention as during Freeloader (which is to say, when the bar is full of dykes), but a few people were drawn into it. Even when it was just Oscar and Mina sleeping. And, of course, a lot of people were smoking. 1:27pm We're going to Steven Leyba's place in Berkeley this afternoon to pose for Sexgoblins, his series of artwork which we'd first seen at Chupa's show at the Balazo Gallery in August. Noodlety will be involved. This should be interesting.
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Good lord. A genetic female played the tranny in Crocodile Dundee? I'm glad I didn't know that way back when. I mean, I dig the uber-androgyne Anne Carlisle (ref. Liquid Sky) and admire that she pulled off the role so well, but it was kinda important to me at the time that the character was played by a genetic male. Oh well. It's really not a trans-positive scene by any stretch of the imagination—as you may recall, it involves the eponymous hero grabbing her crotch to the triumphant amusement of the audience—but I used to watch it, quite literally, frame by frame. I even noticed that right before the big reveal, after the painfully masculine title character has been warned that it's a guy!!!, they alter her makeup to show a previously unnoticed five o'clock shadow. Just in case the dialogue didn't make it clear that it's a guy!!! As I say, not a positive scene, but it's like the recurring theme in The Celluloid Closet: when you're starved for reflective images in the media, you take 'em where you can find 'em, no matter how bad they make you look. (Besides, shadow or not, she was kinda cute. I would have been happy to look half as good someday, when I let myself consider the possibility at all.)
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When I decided last night that I was definitely going to the gym this morning, I didn't mention it to Maddy, or do any kind of preparation. I felt like that would be jinxing it. On more than one occasion I've gotten my workout clothes and accoutrements ready to go the night before and ended up talking myself out of it the next morning, so I decided to be more sneaky with myself, to allow the decision to feel spontaneous even though it wasn't. I don't pretend to understand why my brain works the way it does; I simply try to roll with it as best as I can. It worked, and I was at the gym when it opened at 7am. So far, so good. In addition to being empty, it was quiet; the speakers weren't blaring KFOG like they used to. Maybe they didn't turn the radio on in the morning anymore. That would be nice, since having to deal with that was one of things that knocked me out of the habit of going to the gym regularly, and it didn't help that one of the speakers was directly behind my favored crosstrainer. Just in case, though, in addition to my Princess Leia headphones I'd also brought earplugs. My theory was this: they would block out the music (or, sometimes worse, the horrendous talk) coming from the speakers on the wall, but I'd be able to hear the music from my headphones just fine. I almost got to test my theory, as just as I was climbing onto the machine the employee realized she'd forgotten to turn on the stereo. And it wasn't set to KFOG anymore, but something far more painful: "The Bone," the local low-IQ station. The current song was Sammy Hagar's "There's Only One Way to Rock." Ugh. Pain. Thankfully, the speaker directly behind the crosstrainer was either broken or disabled (I'd like to think the latter, due to people complaining about it), and without the earplugs I was able to drown out Sammy's fascist anthem with Wobbly's Live 99>00. I suppose I'll be back tomorrow. My weight continues to hover around 165. But I feel so misshapen.
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Terrorism is bad. Richard Basehart is good.
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I called up a video store (not Le Video) and actually expected the employee to know what I was talking about when I asked if they had Koyaanisqatsi on DVD. What was I thinking?
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It's clear and sunny today. It hasn't been since Monday, and we figured it wouldn't be again for weeks to come, so we went ahead and dropped the acid yesterday afternoon even though there wasn't going to be a visible sunset, not knowing that all we'd have to do is wait twenty-four hours. Of course, if we had waited, it probably would have been gray again today. (Little-known fact: weather patterns shift to ironically complicate the drug plans of people all over the city, which accounts for San Francisco's unpredictable day-to-day climate.) Besides, even if those hadn't been the our last two hits, I would never do acid two days in a row, or even two weeks in a row. (Two months? Maaaaaaybe, but unlikely.) So we stayed inside, feeling very glad we weren't trying to make it home like the oft-told last trip. I won't have to any stories to tell about this one, which is fine by me. Once again, it was cut with speed. I hate speed. We watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on DVD while coming on, and later when Maddy needed to focus on something fluffy to keep bad thoughts at bay, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (Y'know, I hate to say it, but on a dramatic level it's not very good—a potentially decent script which is buried by Nicholas Meyer's lifeless direction of the actors. It was a big hit which saved the series and made way for everything that followed, but...anyway, I digress.) Otherwise, we turned on the newly acquired liquid light projector and pointed it towards the ceiling, where it did its liquidy thing as blacklit stars glowed in the background and James Potter's 13 Drones played. Sublime. And no "Sisters of Satan" to be heard. Now, as often happens, we find we're a little depressed on the next day. Nothing overwhelming, but it's one of the reasons we've never tried ecstasy, aside from the cost: the seratonin depletion, which we're told gets much worse than this. Like a hangover, it just doesn't seem worth it. 9:59pm I'll do better, starting tomorrow. Or maybe the day after that.
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