Category: Playing for the Other Team

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Powerful

It has been inquired of me,
why so much crazy back then?
The merry-go-round
at the speed of sound.
Was that really what you wanted to do
with your survival?

Yes, we were escaping
from a psychic excavation
of biblical proportions.
But had the plague never been,
I think we might have built
the very same cathedrals.
Limelight, Saint, Probe.
These names were no mistakes.
They were calls to prayer.

We were monks gone mad
fulfilling the vows of stained-glass friendship
to honor the Daddy, the Boy, and the Deejay,
our sacred garb t-shirts and jeans,
chaps and leather vests,
(cockrings or commando underneath.)
Do you party? Are you poz?
I'm here with friends.
Oh, I know him.
How have you been?
Let's do a bump.
Do you have the room key?
I'm going to walk around.
(Our litany not so witty
on K and ecstasy.)

I only know that at the time
it felt like we were on the verge
of an epiphany.
That if we could find that perfect high
to that perfect song
dancing with that perfectly muscled
mirror of ourselves,
a key would turn a lock,
and we would know some essential thing
we did not know,
the last piece of a puzzle
that would coalesce into a holy whole.

I still don't know
if we were praying
or confessing.

[source]

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Is This…

…two grooms or the best man dumping one final load into the groom before he has a wife? Inquiring minds want to know.

(I'm gonna go with the latter because I've watched way too much porn.)

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Some Snaps of San Francisco Pride Sunday from Years Past

1986

This was my first parade. We (my tribe) weren't even living in SF yet, but like so many others, we flew up specifically to attend.

1987

This was our first parade as full-fledged San Francisco residents.

Your host. (I was never that young.)
Lee and Tom
Alan
Kenny (yellow) (RIP) and Jim (blue) (RIP)

1988

This was the year the parade reversed direction because of light rail construction downtown, forcing the parade to start in the Castro and end at the Civic Center instead of starting at the base of Market Street. My dad—along with James, a longtime friend—flew up from Tucson to attend.

Kevin (RIP)
Lee and Tom
Tim and Alan

Your host

Kevin (RIP)

Jim (RIP)

1989

Continuing the previous year's route because track work was still going on downtown, the parade once again started in the Castro. This year my dad (who had relocated to the bay area during the previous year) and my mom were there.

Diana and Alan
Frank
Lee

I only discovered years later this contains a picture of a future boyfriend, Rory, the guy on the right carrying the flag.

1990

The energy of the parade this year—returning to it's original route moving up Market Street to the Civic Center—was off. I don't know if it was just me (I'd been going through some romantic troubles) or if it was the fact it was—for a second year in a row—completely overcast, but my heart just wasn't into it. In fact, I think I lingered only for about 90 minutes before returning home.

Barry
Some dude I regularly played with at a certain venue downtown…

1991

Back in a party mood after whatever had gotten me so down the year before, I headed downtown with every intention of getting as many photos of hot guys as I could. Overall I think I did a pretty good job.

1992

This would be my last parade, despite the fact I think that overall it was my  best, photographically speaking. Ironically, my attitude the following year and every one thereafter was "I mean really, how many photos of hot guys at the parade can one take?" so I never attended one again. Plus, the beginning of my attitude that "there are so many more interesting things about me than the fact I'm gay" was beginning  to take hold and I didn't feel the need to continually announce it to the world and was entering a period of when I was over the whole gay thing. I was slowly turning into what I dreaded: "a jaded, tired old queen living up on the hill." (Although living up on the hill wouldn't happen for several more years.)


Your host

Alan