As we passed through the neighborhood, heading up a few blocks towards the famous Castro District, we found what we have been finding in many cities (e.g., the difference along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Redondo Beach, and Long Beach): large demographic, setting shifts in close proximities to one another.
We split up for lunch in the Castro District, which beautifully greeted us with rainbow flags and people on the move, electrifying the air with optimism and zest for life (in stark contrast to the pace and emotion of the streets near my home). Rashina and I nestled into the a booth along the side wall about halfway back in a small sushi place across the street from the Castro Theatre. Shortly after deciding to split the Veggie Sushi special, we were greeted with two bowls of soup… and no spoons. After looking at each other for a few seconds, eye-balling the table and the floor for silverware, we glanced at a gentleman sitting next to us, mouthing to one another to ask him about our current utensil predicament. Finally, I looked over, and said, “Excuse me, sir, sorry to bother you, but do we just drink this soup straight out of the bowl?” With a polite, warm laugh, he said yes and asked where we were from.
This is always one of the best moments in a day, when one of the two of us will glance at each other to see who will start the “40 states” spread. Rashina did the honors and we were launched into a half-hour discussion of life, love, gay rights, and America with a gentleman we had just had met (which really, to me, is one of the many gems of traveling to new places and meeting people unlike myself). He was a professor at a university in nearby Oakland, a two-session (four year) Peace Corps alum who had spent most of his life overseas, and nearly all of his time in America working with refugees who are trying to land softly. He said he did not really identify with America all that much, even though he was an American citizen, chiefly because he had spent so much time overseas.
In the midst of the discussion, we ended up sharing our cool experience at LGBT film festival the previous week in Salt Lake City, and how there was a huge population uniting in Utah to support gay rights. As a gay man, he said he was encouraged by our enthusiasm and wanted us to know that we, too, could play an active role in helping to further gay rights wherever we wanted. I know the situations are different, but it made me think about the Civil Rights Movement a bit, and our experience in Little Rock at the “Little Rock 9” museum, where sympathetic whites in the school would quietly voice their support to the African-American students, but never would actually take a public stand (inside or outside the school) to help others gain a more free and healthy perspective on what equality really is. In a sense, this is the call I’m beginning to see that we have as people of our generation. There is a group of Americans that are openly being discriminated against and deprived of rights on personal, governmental, and economic levels. I have been asked when discussing this with friends and family, “Now, doesn’t this community have ‘their’ own voice to speak with?” My answer is yes, absolutely. However, another one never hurt. Being from the Bible Belt and a former Christian, I could use that connection to that community to help certain conservative friends come to see the light about the need for advancement of LGBT rights in this country. Sadly, many of those friends have been bombarded so much with single-issue politics that the beauty of the gay community gets muddled in the false belief of standing up for the family, God’s design of marriage, or whatever other trite “principle” to keep others out of their sandbox. [I harken back to the elementary school playground mentality of some (namely the loudest) Evangelicals, who believe their favor rests in a higher being who supposedly preaches love for all and feel like they have a claim to some sort of truth, when, in reality, they are bastardizing and possibly even making angry that Divinity who they are trying to aid (if She/He/It/They exist in the first place). The end result of the playground mentality is a desire to feel better about oneself through blind allegiance, not to biblical teachings, but to hierarchical language and a keen non-understanding of personhood.] I love my Evangelical friends for their passion, but am saddened by their being misled – trading love and understanding for exclusion and false claims to purity.
Getting back to the day, we parted with our new friend after the enjoyable conversation, with a current issue of a local LGBT newspaper as a parting gift, to rendevous with our group back at the Castro Theatre. We walked through the Financial District to City Lights Bookstore, the famed spot of many writers and figures from the Beat Generation. As I walked up the stairs into the poetry room (which had a number of racks solely devoted to the Beats, with what seemed like a thousand copies of Ginsberg’s Howl, I could not shed away what seemed like four-feet-tall Mickey Mouse ears on top of my head. As a local poet sat writing and reading in the corner by a window bellowing a soft white, a light scoff of the eye came down across mine, the double layer of curiosity and outright annoyance I have experienced countless times when sitting in the middle of two miles of dead-stopped Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana tags, as I have tried to get to work the past five winters on Ski Mountain Road at Ober Gatlinburg – though the difference there is my curiosity stemmed from the hopes of a cute tourist girl that I might be able to “teach” how to ski later on in the day. The space of the Poetry Room was beautiful, though I was not able to stay long – not unless I lived in the area for a number of months or years. I sat down and read a little Whitman and little Ginsberg, half-expecting a euphoric “ah ha!” poetic moment of insight and inspiration, which I quickly stopped as the weight of those ears slipped down over my eyes upon me bowing my head to read Howl.
We made our way to the Beat Museum, greeted by this goofy ass character with an oversized, pointy mustache and a purple zootsuit. I didn’t know whether to laugh in his face or punch him when he asked us (as he unloaded his early 90s model Jeep Cherokee) to come to his show later that night, which was being held in the lobby of the Beat Museum (by this time he was inside, standing behind a microphone and in close proximity to a stand up bass). A more acceptable figure approached us, a staff member of the museum with a sweet Mohawk, and asked us if we wanted to take a look around the museum. We did for a while and then exited – as all great places do, I assume – through the damn gift shop (which encompassed most of the lobby, edging right on up to our goofy man in the purple suit). Sadly, what caught my eyes were not copies of Beat literature (not even sure if they had any), but commodified Beatness, or commercialized rebellion. “Stop bitching and start a revolution!” read a black tee shirt with scratchy writing, with books of hippie lingo, Grateful Dead bears, and witty political statement buttons seeking me out on every shelf. At one instance, I picked up a five-dollar “Fuck Hate” poster. In my consciousness, it gave me the feeling of “sticking it to the man” or defying my parents or whatever you want to call it. The longer I held it though, the less powerful the commodity, the statement, became to me. By the end of about ten minutes, I was sick of looking at the thing. It would have been fun to hang on the wall in my apartment, next to my poster of the members of Sigur Ros naked (from the cover of their most recent album - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, which I would recommend for anyone…. Here’s me drinking a Pepsi, me smiling, NOW GO BUY ONE) to freak out some of my conservative friends or parents (when they visit town). Buying that poster would have made me no more or less rebellious. It probably would have been worse if I bought the damn thing, because I would believe myself to be more subversive, contemplative, somehow more unique. Thus, the beauty [insert: tragedy] of commodified culture.
Bet Kerouac’s rolling in his grave. At least I hope so.
this is sick mayng. hopefully you brought a long board to sf, oh wait! you're not there yet. i guess i'll have to bring you a free one or someting. i have a friend that makes dem out his garage. where are you guys guna be chillin at?
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