CRAZYMAKING 2b

to ANONYMOUS
yes dear heart,
i too shed tears for the 99% of my good sweet dear gay friends who did not live long enuff to see today's life sustaining drug cocktails. HUGE HUGE SIGH....SIGH & CRY? gone but NEVER forgotten.
* * * * * *
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-becasue I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak out for me."
Rev.Martin Niemoller



"WHAT WE ARE WITNESSING HERE IS THE DEATH KNELL OF THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT."
gloomy forecast of the "ORIGINAL OWENITE" on Laborfest,over a less than stellar lunch.


frisco..the good, the Bad & the Ugly...(in no special order)

GOOD HARVEY'S at 18th & Castro(nee Elephant Walk, renamed after the martyred Harvey Milk, do see the movie!)now a semi gay tourist mecca.i self medicated my frazzled nerves and blown cool with three cold doses of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale YUM!
i was nearly back to being human after that, the bartender John was young cute and sweet and actually listened as i told him about the homophobia in the cab industry circa Harvey, watching police cars ablaze outside City Hall during the White Nite Riots and actually shaking Harvey Milk's hand outside a movie theater on Larkin during his third run for supervisor.at other places i overheard mention of Jello Biafra (former lead singer for the Dead Kennedys) and Sister Boom Booom of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Jesus Christ Satan,(a local colorful bearded barefoot nutter) who also ran for office about that time. frisco was a kinder gentler less corporate place in those days...

BAD i was reminded that Hitler was also a vegetarian as we were savagely elbowed and jostled in the RAINBOW GROCERY looking for dinner.if i were any less than my rotund 265 lbs both of us might've been injured in the ongoing shoppers melee.

UGLY the number of psychiatric outpatients making up the homeless population, our new Untouchables...

BAD SOUL MATE is writing her memoirs and so we took some tourist time (we have lotsa pix) to revisit her old haunts.she took five minutes to take some snaps and a meter maid/male drove up and handed us a $55 ticket, without asking me to move or give an explanation-all this is automated now, just type in the license.crip placards don't apply on street cleaning days SIGH.

GOOD LA MEDITERRANEE has several XLNT cafes around the Bay Area, the food was WONDERFUL AS USUAL and our waitress had friends in s cruz and didn't hurry us along on a slow day. SWEET.

UGLY the New de Young art museum in Golden Gate Park,,,SIGH.i am reminded of Alice in Wonderland when someone told her they majored in reading,writhing & uglification.the architect obviously studied at the same school UGH LEE!

GOOD Golden Gate Park Concourse...
altho it gave SM a headache, i liked the juxtaposition of the classic greco-roman style amphitheater with an elderly chinese man playing a rhythmic caterwauling one stringed instrument while a mime class was going on nearby.i also liked the fun a young white couple was having with their obviously adopted chinese born tween daughter.ONLY IN FRISCO?

GOOD our encyclopedic older friend and SM's honorary godfather O WISE HOWARD took us to his favorite organic cafe on the oakland/emeryville border near McArthur BART. it's called MANZANITA in its current incarnation, it has had several failed ops,the food was INCREDIBLE and BEAUTIFULLY ARRANGED,with the best vegetable miso soup i have had in ages.we had a very nice time even tho the crip encampment protesters SM came to see had been gone 4 days around an unmentionable scab oriented local grocery.

UGLY still oakland, i remember someone describing the us senate as 'where dreams go to die',on the west coast that describes oakland.

BAD outside the Greed District (wall street west-sic) the state of current fashion seems chaotic; mohawks with peep toe bondage heels and shiny black vinyl pants??? the slept in skater punk grunge look, really? who brought back 5 & 6 inch heels out of the fetish closet?

BAD i lived a block from Haight Street less than two years (@1971) after the much hyped SUMMER OF LOVE (trademarked?). we were both there less than two years ago and it was its usual drab haunted self but this time some psychedelic phantoms had tarted up the place like some old burnt out whore now open for tourist visits. young peeps in hippie garb also flooded the streets, stage dressing???
i don't know the author but a NYT article from the 70s lamented "they steal our dreams and sell them back to us." amen to that brother/sistah...HUGE BITTER SIGH.

sorta GOOD
we stayed at a cheapish Rodeway Inn which got VERY MIXED REVUES online,apparently some of the rear rooms are dark & dank. ours was up front on eddy st. with a king bed,sofa, table & chairs,newish color tv, mini fridge and microwave with off street parking plus HYDROJETS IN THE TUB (which SM just LOVED!!!) the carpets were a lil sticky and the wallpaper was peeling and the elevator to the second floor was older & slower than i am...

GOOD Montara LIghthouse Hostel, cheaper & cleaner than the Rodeway with FANTASTIC VIEWS.overall we have had good experience with the hostel system, except frisco which was noisy, the beds saggy old foam and young girls ran around the halls in c thru underwear & tiny thin camisoles.not sexy when you've spent a sleepless nite listening to whores being beaten,honked off inner city traffic and garbage cans being abused...

BAD we actually saw tourists wearing Parkas in July, the weather was That Bad and this was a 'warm spell' when the fog parted briefly and the sun shone weak as a con man's promise.

UGLY the STANFORD SHOPPING CENTER for the rich,noveau and uber rich..tiffany,betsy johnson,nike town,"needless mark ups" (neiman marcus),burburry, wilkes bashfords, macy's nordstroms etc etc. even a blind man on the sole black man pretending (?) to be retarded could smell the WRETCHED EXCESS & RICH BITCH neon attiudes on display. one off kilter view was a traditional japanese granny chastizing her obviously half black grandson aged 4.shiny cars,shiny hair & bright shiny hollow people.one window actually had an Open Casting Call display for MAD MEN the AMC tv series..wait for it, set in the 60s.
feeling like a turd in a cut crystal punchbowl much? SIGH...

GOOD
our last nite in frisco we went to a DOW WILSON TRIBUTE at Laborfest.
in her energetic youth SM had gotten the threat I'LL "DOW WILSON" YOU and she had piped up WELL,I'LL DOW WILSON YOU BACK. so she asked the Original Owenite, WHO WAS DOW WILSON?
Dow Wilson was the head of Painters Local 4..he was a fighter for union democracy,a fair wage, integration of minorities and being honest with the members about union dues & finances. so of course the International(it is ALLEGED)and members of MURDER INC. (oh the irony) blew the back of his head of in 1965 about 50 yards from the front door of the SF Temple of Labor at 16th & Capp ( WIKI REDSTONE BLDG for more history).
so we heard excerpts from his 1965 memorial LP and more from older members (Roland Shepherd & Roger McBride thanx guys) who knew him and then about the current dire straits of the union which has been co opted by neoliberals and proto facists.it was Living History in the finest sense of the word, i piped up once too...i said you have to EDUCATE TO MOTIVATE and teach workers who their real enemies are, not each other but the economy which starves certain classes (and cultures,regions,nations) into near serfdom then into scabbing to feed their own families as they starve others, you shoulds been there, so few were...SIGH.

i think that about says it all. any questions?

MINISTRY OF MONTROSITY
namaste
mega