totallygone

travel, at a tangent


This American Life

So, I've been here what, six weeks, living the dream. And no - I'm not being sarcastic. Just over twenty-one years ago, I watched a travel documentary, Whicker?s World in San Francisco? in which two men, in their thirties, clad (of course) in leather and denim, were filmed, in close-up, kissing passionately on the corner of Castro and Market. They were lost in their own little world of bliss while the rest of the world ambled by, neither caring nor even noticing. Polite pedestrians sidestepped so as not to interrupt or disturb the happy couple, while Alan Whicker, the program's presenter, ogled like a voyeuristic schoolboy. 5000 miles away, in my grandparents? little Victorian terraced house in London?s East End, I was the voyeuristic schoolboy, at once transfixed and transfigured. Synapses buzzing, serotonin levels soaring, I knew immediately that I wanted not only to be *there*, but also that I wanted to be one (or both) of them.

Now, I'm living a fifteen-minute walk from that corner. In the other direction is downtown San Francisco. It's much as you'd imagine - Market Street, the main drag, lies at the bottom of mine. Rainbow flags line the route from near my apartment to the Castro, where the daddy of all rainbow flags flutters above the city streets. It's impossible to imagine the freedom experienced by people of alternative sexuality here, until you see it. Catch a straight guy's eye here, and chances are that the you won't be the one who'll look away out of embarrassment - he'll be an out-of-towner unused to being checked out, measured up, "woofed" as they say in these parts. Straight San Franciscans tend to smile when you catch their eye. People are friendly because they're happy to be here and they assume you are too. My first weekend here, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence threw one of their many fundraisers, and a small cabal of drag nuns shook buckets and batted eyelashes at the top of Castro. People walked by, stopping to donate a few quarters, a dollar or so. Drag nuns are such a common sight here, and have been for such a long time, that they're just part of the scenery. On Halloween night, I took a walk down to Castro with 300,000 other revellers. Recent years have seen a darker side to the celebrations; there've been stabbings, robberies, beatings, so there was an atmosphere of some trepidation. Out of towners come in to play and watch the freakshow - I heard a guy some yards back from me yell, "Jeezus, that's a guy!" Obviously someone from the distant 'burbs...


Social Bookmarking
Add to: Digg Add to: Del.icio.us Add to: Reddit Add to: StumbleUpon Add to: Furl Add to: Yahoo Add to: Google Add to: Technorati


0 Responses to “This American Life”

Post a Comment §


archives

geek stuff

    mots du jour

Locations of visitors to this page


gecko & fly templates



© 2006 totallygone | Blogger Templates by Gecko & Fly No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without prior written permission.