Herb Caen Quote

"One day if I do go to heaven~ I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco. "
- Herb Caen

And that's how I feel about this city of mine too!

Hottest Halloween Ball in San Francisco!

TINGEL TANGEL

Sex, Magic, & the Occult

a Halloween Ball featuring...

Legendary Performance artist Penny Arcade

Vinsantos High priestess: Marga Gomez

Ethel Merman Kitten on the Keys

harpist Deadre Eagen, Diamond Daggers,

Sophisticated Boom Boom,

& Special Guest Holcombe Waller

DJ Dunevil (Protection) & DJ Nature Boy (Babies on Fire)

Hosts Mr. Anthony, Veronica Klaus, Daniel Detorie, Norman,

Dottie Lux, Suzi Chang, & Jessica Heidt.

Visuals by III

Bar proceeds benefit BRAVA for Women in the Arts ( www.brava.org)

Tickets: $16 presale ($22 door) available at:

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market Street

Ginger Rubio Salon: 600 Shotwell Street

Distractions: 1552 Haight Street

& online at: http://www.tingeltangelclub.com

Is 70 the New 50?

Decades ago a friend said, "Tina has great legs for her age."

Upon the withering look I gave him, he corrected himself, "Tina has great legs."

Tina was barely 40 at the time.

And, at 68 years of age, it looks like they just keep on going...

Before you know it, 70 will be the new 50... I can't wait. Bring it on!

NO on PROP 8!

Sick of Prop. 8 ranting yet? Too bad. Because we're not. And how could
we be with gems like this? See, body cavity cleansing device Bill Tam,
a Chinese-American leading the effort in the Asian-American community
to pass Proposition 8, is spreading lies amongst San Francisco's
Chinatown residents. Tam tells the Mercury News:

http://sfist.com/2008/10/16/all_kinds_of_disease.php

and here is more of the shit we have to deal with

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqcfqiXCX0

spread the word!

http://palinaspresident.com

This is BRILLIANT!

Don't forget to click all over the image.

Bottled Water Is No Purer Than Tap Water

Excerpted from an article by Rob Waters (love his name!)

Bottled water sold in markets and convenience stores may be no more free of pollutants than the water that pours from the kitchen tap at a fraction of the cost, said an environmental group that tested samples.

Ten top-selling brands of bottled water contained a total of 38 pollutants including fertilizer, industrial chemicals, bacteria and the residue of drugs such as Tylenol, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group based in Washington, D.C. The bottled water showed an average of eight pollutants in each sample.

Americans drank more than twice as much bottled water in 2007 as they did in 1997, guzzling 8.8 billion gallons at a cost of $10.3 billion in 2007, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a research and consulting firm based in New York. Although commercials often show pristine mountain springs, the reality is that bottled water often comes from city water supplies, said Renee Sharp, an Environmental Working Group senior scientist.

Public water utilities are required to inform customers about contaminants that may be present in tap water and, in most states, to tell customers where the water comes from and how it's purified. Companies selling bottled water have few similar rules, Sharp said.

California, which has stricter standards than most states, requires companies to disclose whether bottled water comes from municipal water systems and also to warn consumers about contaminants that may pose health risks.

"But even in California, consumers still can't be assured they're getting a better product'' than they could get from their kitchen sink, Sharp said.

Sharp and her colleagues started their research by buying samples of 10 different brands and sending them to an independent laboratory for testing. They noticed that bottles from Wal-Mart's and Giant Food Inc., a supermarket chain owned by Koninklijke Ahold NV of Amsterdam, seemed to bear the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment, Sharp said.

In three samples of Sam's Choice purified drinking water sold at Wal-Mart stores near San Francisco, levels of a group of chemicals known as trihalomethanes exceeded state standards, the report said. These are byproducts of chlorine and other chemicals used to kill microbes and can cause cancer at high doses.

Yikes! I'm sure glad I've not being throwing away good money by drinking water out my tap.

Obama and The Palin Effect

Rather than send emails around the ether that may or may not get read, I've chosen to add this commentary by Deepak Chopra in the hopes that more people will see it:

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelin gs, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)

I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palins message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.

--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.

--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.

--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

Badlands Pink Slip Stud

As it turned out Damon had to work on his birthday so the party ~ Frank, Anthony, and, my new BFB, James, and me ~ went to the front bar of Badlands and watched hot Madonna videos in between chatting with Damon in between Damon pouring drinks.

Then it was over to the Stud where Xave, aka Nature Boy, was DJ'ing Pink Slip. It was cute. Highlights were Miss Nix channeling Grace Jones' La Vie en Rose, Virginia Suicide doing a killer song Bang Bang (don't know who by) and, of course, the inimitable, amazing Suppositori Spelling, who came out looking like a school marm and ended up looking like the bad girl she is;)

Home in bed by 1:30 am ~ a fun Tuesday night:)

Sarah Palin - c/o SNL

I posted the YouTube vid, but it didn't carry forth my vile, so for those of you who care what a foreigner might think:

I have refrained from commenting on politics as it is a subject I prefer to avoid. However, I was struck deeply by Senator Biden's comment that this is the most important election of our times... and that is true whether you are about to vote your first election or whether you have been voting for sixty years. People, PAY ATTENTION, THIS IS IMPORTANT!

I watched the vice presidential 'debate' and I am appalled that it has not become know as the "vice presidential debacle"... maybe it has; I am simply busy to catch ALL the news... And, therein may lie the problem with middle America -- or is it the media in this country? Where do people who really want "news" as in "truth" go?!!

And so I post this video in hopes of being another URL in the ether that an inquiring mind might land upon.

As a 'Resident Alien' of 25 years, I am horrified by what this woman (aka The Governor of Alaska) is doing to further ruin the reputation of the United States of America. "For crying out loud," to borrow her folksey parlance, as women we have fought so hard to take a 'wink and a nod' out of corporate America. Are we going to let her get away with this? On national television? Help me people!

Can you imagine this woman using her so-last-century-wiles to discuss solutions to global challenges with leaders of foreign countries, such as... oh.... well, let's imagine... a moment with Iran at some point in the not too distant future... or perhaps 'Russia' (do some of us remember the days of "duck and cover" advertising from our childhoods?)... F**K!!! I would not even want her talking to the President of Kazakhstan with Borat Sagdiyev representing the other side...

Actually, now that I think about it, what is Sacha Baron Cohen doing these days? SLACKER!!

Okay... this is the closest to a rant you will ever get from me.
VOTE OBAMA!!!!!!!

Hey Sarah Palin (with lyrics/subtitles)

Eureka!

We had a very lackadaisical, or as Anthony likes to call it lollygag, start to the Castro Street Fair. With the boys coming from Noe Valley and me from the Haight, it was pure coincidence that we rendezvoused at Citizen, one of our go-to stores, with the manager Don overseeing the proceedings like a first-class maitre d'.

Several hundred dollars later... just kidding. I bought a pair of Diesel rainbow-colored undies for Damon's birthday coming up on Tuesday. After Anthony described wearing them as, "a party just waiting to be unpacked," how could I resist? Isn't that Damon to a T? Anthony reserved several items to be tried on when he was less pressed for time since all three of us were starving. Where to go?

Harvey's was a zoo. We were put off the sangria and crepes place by the naked man in full view. And then, Eureka!, we thought of it...

Our timing was impeccable... a table on the first floor overlooking the cast of thousands meandering by. Cocktails were creative and delicious - Anthony ordered a French Kiss; I ordered a muddled blackberry and blueberry mojito affair; Frank was strictly classic - Mimosas all the way!

And then the gluttony began... to find out what we ate, you'll have to visit http://lorraineflett.yelp.com.

And then we went to the Men's Room to say hi to David, who was bartending, and to meet Damon for a drink before he had to start work at Badlands. All the while, frantic texting was going back and forth while we figured out Plan B, since Plan A ~ a lavish dinner for a party of eight ~ was obviously not happening.

We resorted to the old cheap and cheerful champion of spaghetti bolognese... accompanied by gallons of vino, naturally. Tom and David (owners of the Inner Mission Bar who rarely have the night off) provided the pupu platter... and we settled in for a True Blood Trilogy.

It was a fangalicious day and night:)

Whachovia - Walk Over Ya?

In the course of my day-to-day work (as opposed to my night-to-night work as a filmmaker), I came across www.50lessons.com - a website that features short video lessons by thought leaders. When I clicked on their 'trailer' (halfway down the page), I about peed myself when 30 seconds into the trailer came Jim Garrity, Former Chief Marketing Officer of Wachovia and I quote,"companies celebrate risks." I wonder just how much celebrating is going on in the inner sanctum of, as I like to call them, WalkOverYa these days?

Judging by the bank's huge advertising campaign in the Bay Area, I used to think their message was "Watch Over Ya..."

Don't ya just love how we can drop formalities these days? WINK, WINK...

See ya!