Bring It! June 25, 2010

My gays are my life support system, and I live to return the favor.

But when supporting good people and good causes takes the form of bar crawling or dancing all night, it’s easy to overlook just how much work that actually involves.

We’re all busy. We’re all overstressed and underpaid. And we all have too much to do and not enough hours in every day to do it, but that’s why it’s so special when your community rallies around you in a show of support.

My dear friend Jeremy Hough recently put it best: “If it’s always going to be this hard, then it better always be this good.”

That sentiment resonates for a lot of us in the gayborhood. There’s always an event, a party, a fundraiser, or a performance involving someone you know and adore, and we always have the best intentions when it comes to being there for the people we love and the things we care about.

Sometimes being so supportive hurts. It takes a toll on our wallets, our sleep, and our laughable attempts at moderation or restraint. And the flip side is the guilt that goes along with not supporting. Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.

But the truth is, the kind of support we’re asked to show is cake compared to the rest of the world outside the bubble. When you’re gay in San Francisco, you NEVER find yourself saying things like “I don’t really get out much,” or “I’m so bored.”

None of us would be here if it weren’t for wanting to be involved, wanting to be counted, wanting to do things differently. Independence Day takes on a whole new meaning when we appreciate how being gay in San Francisco gives us the freedom to have more fun than we know what to do with.

Ours may not be a support system the rest of the world recognizes or accepts, but the realness is beyond question. Our style of support is also extremely effective, whether we’re elevating drag as an art form, fighting a disease, communing under a disco ball, or demanding equality.

This Independence Day, I’ll be celebrating how utterly dependent I am on my gays. They provide glittery fireworks every day and every way, and offer undying support as I bring it here and there trying to keep it real in the independent nation of San Francisco.

Bring It! June 11, 2010

It’s not easy being gay. Our absolutely fabulous lifestyle requires more time and money than most of us can afford, and there’s a huge amount of pressure to be eternally fierce and flawless.

We live paycheck to paycheck with expenses such as glitter and champagne, and we go from one starvation diet to the next as we try to be Speedo-ready every weekend of the year.

Jet-setting from one dance party to another with no sleep in between can be exhausting. And so can having all the right photos at the ready for the various stages of cruising on Grindr.

Keeping up with all of the fun that goes along with being gay is impossible. You betta work!

When you’re gay in San Francisco, that’s our only real hardship. The Pride holigay has us all running around chasing rainbows, but in most of the rest of the world outside our beautiful bubble, it’s REALLY not easy being gay. There’s secrecy and scorn at best, discrimination and deadly violence at worst.

Even inside the bubble, we feel the government-sanctioned injustice of Proposition 8 and the denial of marriage equality. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell continues to chafe.

You don’t have to get very far outside San Francisco at all to feel and fear the hate thrown at LGBTQQs every day and every way, while we in Oz get to enjoy the comfort of rainbow flags flagrantly lining our city’s main street.

All the more reason why Pride is so important, and why we need to keep fighting the good gay fight that began when a brave and truly fierce drag queen took on the cops at Stonewall, starting our civil rights revolution 40 years ago.

Freedom is ours when our biggest problems as liberated gays are deciding which of all the Pride parties to attend and what to wear, but let’s not lose sight of what it took to get to this moment in history, and how far we still have left to go. 

Being out and proud is my privilege, but it should be your undeniable right, so let’s continue to bring it and bring it hard as we celebrate all the ways it’s great to be gay. Happy Pride!

Bring It! May 28, 2010

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Bring It! May 12, 2010

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Bring It! April 28, 2010

When people ask me whether I’m gay or straight, the most honest answer I can come up with is that I’m San Fransexual.

I’m a girl who respects the Kinsey scale. I don’t see things as black or white, trying instead to appreciate every color of the rainbow in between.

Like when people ask whether I’m a top or a bottom. Of course I’m versatile, and I’m proud of it. Why choose one or the other, when you can have it all?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my gays, it’s that more is more and less is a bore. Sometimes there aren’t enough days in the week or nights in the weekend to squeeze it all in, but I do my best to be a versatile scene queen. In other words, I get around.

I wonder sometimes, how would I describe myself if I were putting together a personal ad for say, the back pages of this magazine? Circuit boy, for sure. Chaser of leather pigs, for sure. But I’m also a drag queen, a Goldilocks, a charity fag, and just a regular round-the-way Castro girl, among many other things.

This past weekend, for example, I performed with Trannyshack all-stars Raya Light, Precious Moments and Heklina at DNA Lounge. When I finally went to bed that night, I took one pair of false eyelashes off, only to replace them a few hours later with another pair (more butch and natural), for a photo shoot celebrating Nasty, my filthy fun-raiser at The Powerhouse on first Fridays, and the Castro County Fair on May 23, both of which benefit the AIDS Emergency Fund.

I didn’t even have time to change out of my cowboy boots and leathers before running off to the beer bust at Truck. Later that night, I took my problems to the dancefloor at Industry and unintentionally stayed until the sun came up. I slept in and (uncharacteristically) skipped my yoga church at Gold’s Gym, but still managed to spend a few hours sunning with the Speedo set on Boy Beach in Dolores Park, before rushing home for a conference call with my Real Bad brotherhood. And the weekend didn’t even end there, it ended at Fresh, where all of the gay glitterati gather under the discoball.

The beautiful thing is that this was a completely typical weekend in Oz, a slice of life and another chance to appreciate the versatility of my San Framily, which crosses over into every scene all the time.

Except for the straight scene, of course, but I guess everyone’s versatility has limits!

Here’s where I’ll be crossing over and bringing it next:

May 7 – Nasty at The Powerhouse, benefiting AEF (Country/Western night, celebrating the Castro County Fair)
May 8 – Action at Club Ei8ht with DJ Wayne G vs. James Torres, plus dabecy-emb upstairs
May 15 – Industry at Mighty with DJs Joe Gauthreaux and Luke Johnstone (Cherry night for The Disco)
May 16 – Palace with DJ Russ Rich at The Café

Bring It! April 14, 2010

A huge circuit party weekend like White Party Palm Springs is an opportunity to take the beauty of our San Francisco bubble on the road, a chance to embrace and enforce our gayest groove.

Going on tour with San Framily is an extraordinary and unforgettable adventure. It brings us closer while letting us show the rest of the world’s gays how it’s done here over the rainbow.

Racing between a dozen parties in a single weekend, events unfold in random and rapid episodes, leaving no choice but to let go and go with the flow. That’s when the magic happens, despite the madness, and the song that followed me around the dancefloors of the desert says it best:

“Wait for the release, can ya feel the beat? It’s got me right down in my soul and I’m about to lose control.”

The extreme conditions and controlled chaos of the circuit create moments of inspired connection, moments that wouldn’t or couldn’t happen any other way. It’s these moments that keep us coming back to the ritual and release of the dancefloor, and what makes the circuit so life-affirming and so addicting.

“Release me. Set me free. Let the fire burn in me.”

Circuit weekends make my gay flame burn more brightly. When kindred spirits gather to spill their souls onto the dancefloor, a support system and safety net is being built, beat by beat. The disco brotherhood sets the stage for losing control, and for releasing yourself from the struggles of every day life.

Ultimately, life is about experience, and a circuit party weekend is an overwhelming one. The sweat lodge of sex, surrender, and survival is the best kind of sensory overload, and like with so many other things, gays do it better than anyone, with unmatched scale and style.

The circuit has a long history of making room in our busy, stressful lives for full self-expression and total freedom. As silly and shallow as it might seem to the uninitiated, the community of acceptance and belonging that releases itself under the disco ball refreshes and recharges.

The round-the-clock party puts your stamina and your sanity to the test, but the rewards are priceless. Like when you find yourself in a huddle of kisses with your closest friends while fireworks explode overhead, collectively howling at the moon and even weeping from unspeakable joy.

Before you’ve even washed off the weekend’s glitter, friendships are cemented and plans for the next circuit pilgrimage are made. Reality returns soon enough, but when you follow the yellow brick road back to Oz, you appreciate anew how we keep it real and keep it gay every minute of every day.

There’s a certain sense of security that comes from knowing we left our hearts in San Francisco, where there’s barely a weekend to rest before circuit superstars Ralphi Rosario and Abel, AKA Rosabel, take over Industry on April 24. And the very next day, on April 25, the Perry Twins will take over Fresh. But here in San Francisco we don’t even call that a circuit party, we just call it business as usual. As torn back as I feel after the excesses of the White Party, I still say, BRING IT!

Bring It! April 2, 2010

The White Party is a gay pilgrimage of epic proportions, a long-standing ritual that gives gays from all over a chance to play the way we play in San Francisco every single day.

The supersized lineup of talent that convinced me to return to the desert with my Pussy Posse for a third time essentially warmed up right here in Oz. Hometown hero DJ Luke Johnstone kicks off the Palm Springs festivities with the Friday pool party, and thanks to his gift for bringing us the big names, we’re already well-rehearsed for all the heavy hitters who’ll be following him throughout the weekend.

Like DJ Abel, who is spinning at Friday night’s underwear party and was just here less than 2 months ago, tearing it up at Industry. Saturday’s main event is headlined by world-class remixers The Freemasons, who not only made their American debut here in San Francisco a year ago, but who turned it out last weekend at a packed 1015 Folsom.

That San Francisco sneak preview of The White Party was a perfect disco storm, with happy music, nonstop divas and anthems, and a united front of all our favorite fags smiling and dancing their hearts out in the same room. It was my idea of homo heaven.

Every circuit party should be an experience like that, and here in our little bubble by the Bay, we make that our reality, with regularity. That spirit is what I’m hoping to bring to Palm Springs, to share with all the boys who don’t have the luxury of living a year-round gaycation.

Much of the White Party entertainment reads like San Francisco’s greatest hits, with DJs Manny Lehman, Moto Blanco, Wayne G, and Tony Moran serving up our circuit soundtrack. All of them have passed through the gayest city in the world on their way.

What we don’t have in San Francisco is a chance to enjoy all this fun in the sun, which is what makes Palm Springs extra-special. Glitter just doesn’t have the same sparkle in the fog, so I’m especially looking forward to Sunday’s T-dance, where we can soak up the scene from atop the ferris wheel, bounce it out on the blow-up slide, and cheer to fabulous fireworks while Palm Spring’s straight-and-narrows observe us through the fence.

What a great way to celebrate just how happy we are to be gay in every way and every day. Bring it!