|
News
&
Events
Words
Images
Links
Archival Abby
Abby's Bio
|
Bi-Coastal Abby
Sampling the San Francisco Party Scene
San Francisco is like a second home city to me. My sister lives there
so I visit quite a bit. Over the past six months I’ve spend about 60
days there, which is a lot of time to be away from home. The saving
grace is, of course, that while I’m out there mostly for family
functions the city has more than its fair share of fun to offer. I was
there recently to celebrate the birthdays of both my nephews, as I do
every April. I scheduled a Mondo Porno, as I also do every April—this
time with a pirate theme—and that was a blast. San Francisco loves
their pirates almost as much as they love their clowns! It was a
success. But that was only one night out of many. So how did I keep
myself busy this spring? I had more choices than I could make it to!
I arrived on a Thursday and barely had time to shake off the jet lag
before I had to head out to a party at the Cybernet studios celebrating
their latest documentary series. I had visited Tony Pirelli years ago
to interview him for Penthouse Forum and the company headquarters had
since moved. This new space was enormous, with a Hollywood-quality
dungeon and all the accoutrements for shooting hot bondage scenes, plus
a hilarious hay-filled barn set, a stupefying assortment of SM
equipment and they’re collection of fabulous “fucking machines.” They
screened the first three installments of the series and introduced
their web staffers before we were treated to a sumptuous buffet and an
open bar. Not a bad way to begin my stay!
Mondo Porno Pirates was the following night and Saturday I was primed
for another visit to Whispers and an evening of thumpy-thumpy courtesy
of Space Cowboys. I had every intention of stopping by Kinky Salon and
the pajama party that Random and Unkle Paul were hosting, all
simultaneously, but I jst ran out of energy. I know, I know…not enough,
um, stimulants! Couple that with the drinking and driving and parking
quandary and the solution is “go home!” Not to mention the knowledge
that I’d be woken up early the following morning to help my sister
corral 35 shrieking six-year-olds! Oy!
Over the week I shopped on the Haight, had breakfast with a friend I
hadn’t seen in 30 years and bought way too many shoes on sale at
Nordstroms. (If you haven’t seen my article about how tough it is to
find sexy size 12s, click here.) [Sez, can you link to my trannie shoe
shopping piece?] I also had a few more slices of birthday cake, beers
at Aub Zam Zam (one of my two favorite San Francisco bars) and picked
up a few pairs of almost custom-made stretchy pants from my friend
Paula of DumbClothing.com [www.dumbclothing.com]. As for nightlife,
after those beers at Zam Zam a friend also visiting from New York
accompanied me to Bondage a Go-Go. He was pretty impressed, both by the
sheer number of people in attendance on a rainy Wednesday night and the
range of music played, as opposed to the usual industrial dreck he was
expecting. Of course it didn’t hurt that there were a few dozen hot
goth babes in short skirts and giant boots to ogle!
Thursday I planned to hit 1984 at The Cat Club but got too drunk at a
random Irish bar with my sister’s kids’ ex-nanny. Ah, the best laid
plans…Friday I was freezing my ass off in a high-end tent at Safari
West, where my eight-year-old nephew was celebrating his birthday with
a few friends. I kept them in line by engaging them in a game of gross
word telephone which, as one might expect, quickly became a dirty word
game instead. Wow, those kids are pretty sophisticated for
eight-year-olds! Anyway, I woke up early for a full Saturday and
couldn’t bring myself to shower in the unheated bathroom of that
high-end tent, so I drove back down to the city and cleaned up there.
Brrrr!
I made it to the Burning Man offices for their Volunteer Day just in
time to sign on the dotted line for DPW. Yipes! Those people scare the
shit out of me! But I want to get out to the playa early this year and
help build the city, so what better way? I’m sure you’ll be hearing all
about that after the fact! I also inquired about helping out at The
Sanctuary. I’ll keep you posted on both fronts! I enjoyed cookies and
candies and plenty of cardboard propaganda for upcoming events. Damn,
every time I visit there’s always something fantastic happening right
after I leave! In this case I’d be missing Bunny Jam East weekend,
among other things. But I could attend Sk’Bowling, a Flambé
Lounge event that very night! So after stopping by the DumbClothing
trunk show and changing into something more festive, my friend Kevin
and I showed up at the Yerba Buena center. There was no way I was gonna
put on ice skates or bowling shoes, so I just drank beer and
socialized. Everyone looked splendiferous in their playa finery: faux
fur and sparkly stuff, fuzzy coats and feathery hats, animal ears and
EL wire. When I had a good buzz on, we grabbed a cab for the Spectra
Arts Ball at the Regency Center. This is the three-ballroom space where
Anon Salon held their New Year’s Eve Sea of Dreams party in 2003 and
2004 and Kevin was quite impressed. We wound up spending most of our
time in the red velvety former Masonic temple room watching Cabaret
Verdalet and Gooferman. It’s the most amazing space ever! With the
high-beamed ceilings, onion dome-like chandeliers, stained glass
windows and the wood-burning fireplace in the adjacent room, you feel
like you’ve gone back in time!
When we were being cleared out of that party, we still weren’t ready to
go home, so a bunch of us jumped into cabs and headed to the Anon home
base for Random and Unkle Paul’s Absinthe Party. It was the usual
bleary-eyed after party scene at that point, since it was after 2am.
But I just love events in this space; they always feel like a house
party where everyone knows each other. Of course, San Francisco is such
a small town, everyone pretty much does know each other! At least all
the fellow freaks. It was warm and chill. And after an entire evening
of mind alterations I was in no shape to drive. So one friend
confiscated my car keys and a few other friends took me home with them
to make sure I wouldn’t mistakenly try to drive home to Manhattan!
With all the events I hit Saturday I still managed to miss Fight Club
at Nimby and Kink Ink at the Center for Sex and Culture. Sigh. I’m sure
I missed all sorts of other excitement as well. There’s always so much
going on out there! But by Monday I was back in Manhattan ready to
juggle our busy social schedule. I’m damn lucky to be able to take
advantage of the two sickest cities in America!
[Written April 2006]
|