SAN FRANCISCO

Back in 2009 was my first of many return trips,  to the wonderful San Francisco with the ex Boy-Toy. It was also the second,  of many more to come,  meetings of blogger, and now good friend Kailyne, who was our host. She and I are definitely the equivalent to Pasty and Edina. When we go to Napa Valley to par take of the nectar of the Gods, they put out warnings to the valley, we're coming. Since then, I have several friends and drag sis's in San Fran. Ever since the first time out, my favorite place in the city is by far, The Palace of Fine Arts. It made me feel just like being Aphrodite or Hermes on Mt Olympus!!! The Palace of  Fine Arts is in the Marina district, off Baker Street at the edge of the Presdio. The Palace dominates a small neighborhood park that features lawns to  picnic on and a small lagoon populated by birds, fish and turtles. It's the only remaining structure from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a historic World Fair style event, that put San Fran back on the map as a major global art city, after the devastation of the 1906 earthquake and fire. It's Greek style colonnades and soaring rotunda make it a singular and recognizable feature of San Fran's northern skyline. Up close, the scale of the structure is truly breathtaking, and it makes for a very nice, peaceful, and picturesque day away from the hub bub of in town.

As much as I enjoy being in San Francisco...cards on the table. I by far enjoy being and staying in Sausalito far more. Nothing like a bike ride over the Golden Gate. And the men in Sausalito were quite cool vibed, and arty.

GENEROSITY AMID GLITTER

Doris Fish was the stage name for Sydney-born and Sydney and San Francisco-based drag queen, artist, actor and writer Philip Mills. As Doris Fish, Mills wrote and starred in the cult movie classic Vegas in Space. 

Art and performance
Sydney

Mills began performing as Doris Fish in Sydney in 1972, as one of the three core performers of the political drag group Sylvia and the Synthetics, along with Miss Abood (Danny Abood, Daniel Archer) and Jacqueline Hyde. In 1975 Mills visited San Francisco for the first time on holidays before moving there permanently the following year. Doris regularly returned to Sydney, Australia in the late 1970s, comparing shows for Cabaret Conspiracy performing in the Sydney Gay Theatre Group's production of Noel Greig's As Time Goes By, or performing at venues such as Garibaldi's along with the Doreen's. During 1978–1979 Mills as Doris was also the American West-Coast Correspondent for Campaign, a national gay and lesbian newspaper in Australia. With the development of the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras Workshop in 1983, Mills would return annually to volunteer in the Workshop building community floats and creating costumes for Doris' individual and group floats. Doris also continued to host events, including the first Mardi Gras Awards at Kinselas in 1987.

San Francisco

In 1976 at an audition for the rock group The Tubes, he met fellow drag queen Tippi, and they became roommates. In 1977 San Francisco gay leaders urged no drag on Gay Freedom Day. Doris and many other drags turned out in force. Also in 1977, Doris was cast in the James Moss directed feature-length film Magazine movie, a magazine format film about San Francisco, playing herself, "a fake woman from Australia who has won the heart of San Francisco". At a come-as-your-favorite-Fellini-character party in 1979. Mills met Miss X who wasn't yet serious about doing drag, but by the end of the year Doris Fish, Tippi and Miss X were performing as Sluts-A-Go-Go. Contrary to popular belief, Sluts-A-Go-Go is not a group featuring Anne Marie, Duchess Deedles and myself. 

Throughout the 1980s Doris Fish was one of the more prominent drag queens in San Francisco. On stage, Doris Fish performed for over 10 years in San Francisco with Miss X and Tippi as Sluts A-Go-Go.  Sluts A-Go-Go performed in venues like Club 181 with shows such as Marc Huestis' Naked Brunch, Nightclub of the Living Dead, along with other performers such as Sandelle Hebert and Tommy Pace. In 1986, Doris and Tippi did a weekly cable news show about the gay community, although some viewers complained that Doris was a negative stereotype.  As a visual artist, Mills painted hyper-realistic canvases depicting of drag queens, although as he once said, "If I could, I would paint my eyeballs."

Mills' major legacy to date is the cult camp classic film Vegas in Space, which he co-wrote and starred in with Phillip Ford, not to mention the endless hours of charity work and monies raised for various foundations.

Poor Doris is no longer with us... she died from complications from AIDS in San Francisco in 1991.The last performance by the great drag performer Doris Fish- in a benefit performance at SF Victoria Theatre -shortly before she died.

GRANDE DAME-DULCE DE LECHE

Dulce De Leche is a multifaceted drag performer best known for her powerful, soulful voice. Inspired by 50’s & 60’s soul divas and her childhood icon, Bette Midler, she is a ballsy and brassy broad who is a proud member of one of San Francisco’s most respected drag houses, The House of MORE! I love her drag style. Dulce has appeared on-stage with the legendary Peaches Christ Productions; on-screen in Adrian Anchondo’s Beyonce parody “In N Out Mission,” as the Cowardly Lion for the FRAMELINE29 promo video, and on HBO’s LOOKING. She was crowned the 2013 Miss Tiara Sensation and is the reigning Hard French Winter Ball Queen. But for a real good time, check her out can regularly  with her hosting JUNK every Thursday at Powerhouse and out n about the city the rest of the time. She is a powerhouse I tell ya and full of hilarity. Last time I saw her, my sides were killing me from laughter.

THE GENE COMPTONS RIOT

Historian Susan Stryker made the amazing discovery the way that many of her peers do: by pure accident. She wasn’t looking for it, but she found evidence of a forgotten chapter in the history of LGBT community in America.In 1995, Stryker a transgendered historian, and co-author Jim Van Buskirk were working on Gay by the Bay, their soon-to-be published, best seller capsule history of the San Francisco LGBT movement, when they came across an interesting item in the program for the 1972 Gay Pride march.The article described an August 1966 riot at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin, a poor and working-class area of the city where many transgenders and drag queens lived, and still do. The incident started after a rowdy queen refused to leave the popular hangout and management called the police.

The account of the riot from the Pride program reads like a description of a lot of the social unrest of the 1960s: “Gays began breaking out every window in the place, and as they ran outside to escape the breaking glass, the police tried to grab them and throw them into the paddy wagon, but they found this no easy task for gays began hitting them “below the belt” and drag-queens smashing them in the face with their extremely heavy purses. A police car had every window broken, a newspaper shack outside the cafeteria was burned to the ground.” Though many positive changes occurred after the riot, including a better relationship with the local police district and the establishment of social services for the trans community, the incident didn’t give birth to the kind of national mass movement that followed a similar night of rioting in New York’s Greenwich Village after cops raided the Stonewall bar.

Nearly three years after Compton’s, the Stonewall riots were the spark that gave birth to the modern gay liberation struggle. Literally, overnight, thousands of students and others, many from the antiwar and other radical movements, came pouring out of their closets to form the in-your-face organizations that eventually replaced the existing “homophile” groups. “Compton’s happened too early,” says Stryker. “In 1966, things were just starting to bust out all over: The Black Panthers, the anti-war movement, the kids using psychedelics. Three years later, a lot more gay people were waiting for their own moment. Stonewall happened. A lot more people were primed to take advantage of it.”

Word spread about the rebellion in New York. Eventually, the Compton story was forgotten. Inspired by what she read, Stryker went on to make a documentary about the incident at Compton’s.

Co-produced with Victor Silverman and Jack Walsh, it’s appropriately entitled Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. It aired on PBS stations nationally in June 2006. An official San Francisco city plaque was installed in the sidewalk near the site of the riot that same summer.

I'll say one thing...drag queens are not to be trifled with.

A SAN FRANCISCO TREAT?

           

STUFFED QUEENS OF SAN FRAN

I have to admit, those West Coast queens can be a bit crazy and kooky. Last year was the fourth annual Hard French Winter Ball on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and was hosted by San Francisco's legendary drag queens, House of MORE!, who took the stage for live performances. This was the first time the complete House of MORE!  performed  at the Winter Ball, so in anticipation and because it was just guaranteed to look amazing,  Juanita MORE!, Glamamore, Vivvyanne Forevermore, and Dulce De Leche to one of SanFran's coolest little shops, Paxton Gate, for a photo shoot. And ...well...see for yourself......... 

 

I think these queens will fit right into Gorilla Bananas environment.

 

Does this creep  me out? Hell no. The Mistress has had it all in her hair.Tootles!

Filling in the Gin-Soaked Blanks...or Being Verklempt

Recognizing that there were parts she did not remember, The Mistress asked that I fill in the gaps. So without further ado, and so we can close this chapter:

1) The Plane. This was the first time that we have been on a plane together, and so we would like to thank the bar staff at both airports for their heavy-handed, pre-flight assistance. Yours truly held up remarkably well until flying over the Rockies…and then again, in over the bay. The pilot spoke in a friendly manner, the flight attendants seemed suitably smartassed, and perhaps our greatest fear never materialized.



2) The “Queer Social”. We did take in quite a bit of the conference (in the form of “people watching”), but perhaps no more so than at the “Queer Social”. The Mistress struck up an immediate conversation with a fellow meeting-goer, who ran into us after our wine country tour, and proceeded to tell us about the gathering taking place in a nearby hotel bar for conference attendees. Now, we attended – after all, parts of the conference were rather stuffy… and we were repping for arguably the number one party school in the country...

…and again, it took place at a bar…but from where we’re from, queer is a pejorative term. So it was just a fun example of “taking the word back”, as the activist from Costa Rica told us. (I did wonder how one became a queer activist in Costa Rica, but thought it impolite to ask. Perhaps a Monster.com ad?) In any event, very cool event, glad they were there and that they do what they do…a whole other side of life from where we live, but glad it’s all part of the gay cornucopia.

3) The Gyms and Supplement Stores. I lost count after five, within the first two blocks of The Castro. It seemed as though every single guy there had muscles. I have never felt smaller in my life. Pecs and biceps must be given out right off the plane (I may have missed them, looking for The Mistress’s gin). Castro boys? Woof. I am a big fan.





4) Yerba Buena and Buena Vista Parks. The former, lovely fountains, a great restaurant. The latter, fantastic views of the Golden Gate and Haight-Ashbury, great hiking trails, lots of people with dogs, and the self-centered high of oh-my-god-is that guy cruising us? In short, both have their strong points. The second had the additional bonus of Kailyn saying “You’re WHERE?!?” when called.



5) The “Verklempt” Factor


I’d rather this not get too sappy or melodramatic. But there were a series of moments where this country boy thought he was going to lose it, just because of the sheer size and beauty of all that we were trying to comprehend. It hit me once in wine country, because as we sat there, I couldn’t believe there was (so gonna ape a movie here) “so much beauty in the world” and I was awed by the fact that we were actually there, able to enjoy it, seeing something that you really only hear or read about. There truly is a huge world out there.





Of course, this happened again at Berkeley. The Mistress, looking for a way to say that she was proud of her boy/man, surprised me with a couple little mementos of Oski, the University of California’s mascot. I love college football, and just being in Pac-10 country was amazing enough (seriously, The Rose Bowl is a home game for all those schools, no wonder the Big 10 keeps getting our ass kicked)…but just the thought that my guy went out of his comfort zone to display his pride….well, that was cool.



And finally – perhaps most importantly – the history did me in. Have you read “And the Band Played On?” This gay boy did when he was seventeen, and his parents flipped out when they saw it on the dining room table. AIDS, politics, bathhouses, Harvey Milk, the White Night Riots, friends, the search for love and/or sex, City Hall, Proposition 8, Folsom Street, marriage, and so on…it’s all there, and it’s amazing to try and comprehend that as a community, we are this large and diverse – and have come so far in such a short time. Perhaps that – along with all the gin-soaked memories – is the best thing that San Francisco shared with us.




Boy Toy