Upcoming Event: Bloodpact at SoMarts, Halloween Friday October 31

Just got this from Lord Kook for all you homos looking for something to do on Halloween . . . a superfun looking all-ages (18+) gay party at SoMarts!

super excited about this one, folks! it's gonna be pretty rad... the HSS kids are holding it down with their sister club from LA, along with some (the kind where the walls start to breathe after a while) with some crazy electro / tech-house / kitchen-sink-shit from me, Liam Shy, Digital Paradigm, and Richard Oh?!. this is a homo-friendly party (duh), it's 18+ (bring yer little brother!), there's a full bar for those of us old enough to swerve legally, and the whole thing goes till 5am! it's almost enough to make me forget about what a mess the city made of halloween!

no, wait, it totally is.

more info as it comes...

The City Continues to Screw Up Halloween

According to a story in today's SFGate, the City's attempt to create an alternative Halloween event is once again falling apart. You may remember that last year they cracked down on Halloween in the Castro, leading to one of the more depressing Halloweens I can remember, and there was some idea floating around for a while that they were going to do a big party out on one of the piers - you know, in the middle of nowhere, where it's cold. However, the City was unable to put anything together, and so we it was the Year Without a Halloween.

This year Halloween falls on a Friday, so you can bet there will be plenty of people ready to party. And once again, the City has dropped the ball. It seems that they had pretty much the same concept, but were dependent on corporate sponsorship, and charging everyone $31 a pop (why $31, why not $30, or $35) to go to a party with - wait for it - Destiny's Child. Whooo, that sounds like something I'll line up for.

As it turns out they can't get the money they wanted, so they're cutting back on things like tents - you know, things that keep you comfortable if it's rainy and cold. They say no performers have dropped out, but seriously, who is going to go to this, even if it's free?

I haven't mentioned this before, but back in March when I got laid off, I applied for the job of the new event coordinator for the Entertainment Commission. I thought I had a good chance, given the people I had recommending me, my experience with event organization, and having my finger on the pulse of the San Francisco Scene as I do. When I chatted with Audrey Joseph about the job, she told me that it would probably be largely concerned with dealing with things like Halloween. Fine, I thought, I have some ideas around that.

The person they hired (I didn't even get an interview, btw, and they had to extend the application deadline twice before they got what I suppose they considered a good applicant pool), was Laura Fraeza, whose background is in big corporatized events. According to an interview in the Bay Area Reporter, "She plans to use her local connections to bring promoters on board for this year's Halloween celebrations." Well, that's worked out really well, hasn't it?

The problem is that no corporatized event, featuring a lame Top 40 musical act, with an admission fee of $31, will ever attract people in the same way as an unstructured, open street event. And you will never be able to get corporate sponsors to pony up big bucks for an event like Halloween where there's a chance that something could happen that endangers their corporate brand. There is simply no value in being associated with the event in the same way as there is something with inherent cool, drawing a specific demographic, as LoveFest, Pride, the Outer Lands Festival, The Treasure Island Music Festival, Noise Pop, etc.

My suggestion, and the policy I would have tried to implement, is to give Halloween back to the neighborhoods, and encourage neighboring cities, like Oakland, to create events of their own. The reason the Castro got so packed was that it was the only game in town, or even in the area. If every neighborhood came up with their own plan for Halloween and encouraged residents to participate, if Oakland decided to have a Halloween event in Jack London Square, then you would be able to distribue some of the load to different locations. Unfortuantely, I think the City has become convinced that the only way to try and deal with Halloween is to try and control it by putting everyone into the same place, without realizing that no one wants to do that.

Event Review: Halloween in the Castro, Much Ado About Nothing

By now you've probably read the Chronicle article about Halloween in the Castro, and what a lame fizzle it turned out to be. After dinner, around 8, the boyfriend and I got into some appropriate duds - he in a fox suit, me in an East German border guard Lieutenant's uniform (yes, the real thing). I was hoping for a chance to riff off the police state-like aspect of the Castro by asking people for their papers, but since the vast majority of people in the Castro were already dressed like cops, there wasn't much point.

We walked from our place on Diamond Street down to the Castro, up Castro to Noe, and then back down the other side of Castro. Boring, boring, boring. There were some people in costume, and a few moments of camera flash-flash, but nothing at all like in years past. At Market and Castro there was a someone dressed as a nun with a megaphone intoning "Don't vote for Gavin Newsom," but it was more evocative of a brain-dead megaphone than any real act of provocation.

We saw two bars open - Badlands, which was charging a $3 cover, and the Bar, which was dead empty - and probably would have stopped in for a drink if I hadn't been such a lame-ass and forgotten my wallet. But overall, there were far too many other things going on in the city and I think everyone just decided, meh, why deal with it when there are other things to do and places to go?

So, this turned out to be the Halloween that wasn't. On the one hand, I was thrilled to not have to deal with the goons and yabbos who regularly show up and make Halloween in the Castro a less-than-pleasant experience. On the other, I wanted my goddamn neighborhood back. I wanted to be able to get dressed up and walk around to the bars and see people I knew and enjoy the holidy, rather than feeling like I was under quarantine. The boyfriend and I had planned to go over to Oakland for a party, but when we realized that we couldn't take any public transportation back, and I was unsure about having to deal with the whole parking thing, we decided to stay in the City. If we had wanted to really go out, we would have had to have headed off to some other neighborhood, and honestly, nobody we knew seemed that enthusiastic about going out.

I really resent the way that, because some assholes are unable to figure out how to comport themselves in public situations, the rest of us have to lose out on fun. I also am very tired of the way in which the whole "controversy" around Halloween has had less to do with addressing those issues, and more to do with the political ambitions of those making the controversy. Does Alix Rosenthal really want to make Halloween in the Castro fun for those who live there, or does she just want to use it as a wedge against Beven Dufty? I didn't see much from the Citizens from Halloween that would lead me to believe that they had any better ideas about how to manage this event than the city (well, aside from portalets, portalets, portalets); rather, it seemed to me that it was more of a collection of anti-Newsom forces than people with real ideas about how to deal with a crowd as large as a third of the entire city of San Francisco in a space of about twelve square blocks. What is the city supposed to do about managing an event like that? Yes, we can handle Pink Saturday, and we can handle Folsom Street Fair, but we have to realize that those events are actually dispersed over wide areas and they attract very specific crowds who are into the event. Halloween, on the other hand, attracts a much more diverse crowd, including a lot of people who are very uncomfortable with being around gays and lesbians. And, of course, a fair number of just drunken assholes who, once they put on costume, lose many of their inhibitions around good conduct. I don't particularly like Gavin Newsom as a Mayor, but I also don't know what he and the city can do about making people not behave like assholes if that's what they want to do.

Next year Halloween falls on a Friday, and I imagine that, with the typical run of Friday night events, there will be plenty to distract people from showing up in the Castro. I hope that's the case, and, after two years of "nothing special" in the Castro, it might return to being more of a neighborhood party. And by that time, I also hope that we will have people ready to address the issues around the event in a constructive manner, rather than making it another example of the poison politics that dominates our city's cultural landscape.

Event Review: Halloween Saturday from the Marina to the Mission

This weekend started out as a quiet one for the boyfriend and I, with our major Friday night activities including him remixing tracks in Ableton while I attempted to clear Nazi gun emplacements from a small Italian town. This was all calm before the storm, however, as Saturday took us from a wedding at the Presidio to a serious rave-up of a party in the Mission, with a death-march from the Marina to the Castro, explorations into the world of alpha-numerics, and a visit to the vomitorium all in between.

The wedding was for our friends Matt and Lisa, who I have known since I first moved to The City in 1999. They were part of my original crew of party peeps, all of us recent transplants to the city who were drawn here by the .com boom and managed to hang on through the subsequent bust. They first met at a Thump radio party (I believe it was X-Dream), and have moved on since then to buying a house and having dogs, so it was about time they actually got married. The reception turned into a reunion of sorts, since our table was all old friends who I haven’t seen for quite a while, and one of them just happened to have several pills of 2-CB he wanted to share with us. After sitting through the requisite drunken speeches, terrible slow jams from the DJ, and the cutting of the cake the boyfriend, Kitty and I finally took off from the Presidio officer’s club around 9.30. Thus begins the death march.

Woe to the person who needs a taxi at 9.30 on a Saturday night; we called both DeSoto and Yellow, and were told “we’ll try to get a car out there.” Well, trying just isn’t enough; after twenty minutes of waiting we knew we’d be stranded there unless we could find a taxi ourselves, so we hoofed it off toward Lombard Street. When I saw the first sexy convict trying to hail a cab, I knew we were doomed; every corner was filled with sexy nurses, sexy tennis players, sexy convicts, sexy vampires, and all the guys in bad wigs and cow costumes who accompany them, trying to get a cab. We walked up Fillmore and finally were able to get a bus to Church and Market, and after a few more blocks of walking were able to find a conveyance up the hill to home. Total travel time from the Presidio to Castro: one hour and thirty minutes.

We went through a rapid costume change, took the blue pill, and headed out to a costume party at Liberty and Valencia, fortunately within walking distance of the apartment. We passed plenty of costumed folks on our way, but arrived just in time to see most of the people we knew headed out the door; we had mis-timed our arrival by about an hour, so that much of the party was moving on the next destination. We came in, had a drink, and I collapsed on the couch for about twenty minutes; even if everybody else was going to another party, I had to stop moving for a little while.

There’s nothing like the hassles of dealing with transportation on a big party night, and the general guido atmosphere of the Marina on a Saturday night, to put me in a bad mood; combine that with drinking a couple Jack and Cokes, and then ingesting a quantity of substance with which I heretofore had no experience, and you have all the ingredients necessary for whipping up an nasty case of indigestion. Sure, things were looking kinda sparkly, and I could see the wallpaper starting to swirl around, but it was difficult for me to make the mental move from “jeezus, what a fucking pain in the ass this is,” to “oooh, cool, I think I’ll stare at the wall for a while.” After all, I had just dealt with the squealing sounds of the Marina, been crushed on a slow moving bus, and was pretty fucking tired after miles of walking, only to arrive at the party and find that it was starting to wind down.

My evening’s salvation came with the arrival of Sister Viva L’Amour who whisked us off to a “dance party” over on Oakwood. Along the way I worked on getting my tripping walk down, a formidable feat since the sidewalk seemed to now curve out along the edges, and everything had a fuzzy shimmer around it. While I made it to the party okay, and was even starting to feel a bit giddy, my stomach had other, increasingly insistent, ideas about what it wanted to do.

The party was off the hook, with dancing, DJs, a courtyard with faerie lights and “In the Mouth of Madness” projected on a wall. Thinking that my problem might be a need to move past a certain boundary state, I decided to augment my alpha-numeric with a vowel, but ten minutes later I was involved with an intimate examination of the groundcover in the courtyard garden. Yep, squirming, writhing biomass, check, here, have some freshly digested nutrients. Having purged my system (and, unfortunately, all the effects of the second pill), and been handed the requisite napkin, beer, and stick of chewing gum, I was now ready to party.

We stayed and danced until almost 2.30; the crowd was absolutely fabulous, the small dance floor packed with costumed revelers, the tracks were total monsters (though the second DJ’s mixing left something to be desired), and I can honestly say I have not enjoyed any dance event in months as much as I enjoyed the few hours we spent at that party. I had a moment of thinking back to the underground raves of a few years ago, when it was all about getting together with friends for a big party and dancing, and I realized: fuck the big clubs, fuck the name-brand DJs, fuck the scenesters and their ambitions, fuck bottle service, all of it was but an attempt to simulate the energy and straight out fun of this scene, where gay boys and straight girls danced together, where you could puke in a corner and no one bats an eye, where your friend can come and move a dancefloor with the records he’s been spinning in his bedroom, and where everybody leaves thinking “man, what a great party” and spent n’ary a dime to be there.

The Mission and Castro were still bustling with activity when we left, and though our night was far from over, I had no desire, and no need, to go in search of any more partying. Halloween is the holiday of mischief, of random encounters with the strange and bizarre. We had embraced it from the moment we left the Presidio, both treats and tricks were handed out to us, and the veil between the worlds had been raised.

More on the Halloween Mess and the Dismal State of the Entertainment Commission

Yesterday's Bay Area Reporter has a detailed account of how the hand-off of Halloween to the Entertainment Commission failed in a huge, distressing way. Given the Civil Grand Jury report on the Entertainment Commission that came out in July, which I reported on here, this doesn't come as a huge surprise. The upshot of the article is that the Entertainment Commission doesn't have the resources to manage large-scale events, and that the Mayor's Office feels it should only concern itself with the regulation of nightclubs and nightlife (which it also hasn't done such a great job with). The solution proposed is the formation of an Office of Special Events that would deal exclusively and explicity with events like Halloween. I hope this would also extend to street fairs, since, as we've seen in the case of the now-defunct How Weird Street Faire, when it comes down to residents vs. event organizers, the police will always side with the residents, and that's the end of the street faire. However, unless an Office of Special Events turns out to be more effective, and pro-active, than the Entertainment Commission, I'm afraid it will just add to the bureaucracy and patronage politics that are already a maddeing part of The City's political life.

Upcoming Event: Meeting to Discuss Halloween Action, Saturday September 22

From the SFPartyParty comes word of a meeting this Saturday, September 22, at the Eureka Recreation Center (18th and Collingwood in the Castro), of the Citizens for Halloween (organized by Bevan Dufty's political rival, Alix Rosenthal, interestingly enough). Interested in the Halloween imbroglio and what can be done about it? Then go check it out.

More on the Castro Halloween Controversy

In today's San Francisco Chronicle there's an article about a meeting of Castro business leaders that took place last night, and it looks like nobody's very happy about The City's decision to announce "no Halloween." The idea of canceling Halloween in the Castro is dependant on getting businesses to cooperate by shutting down for the night, so that there's no flame to attract the moths (so to speak), but when you have bars like Badlands saying they're not going to do it, it demonstrates how torn the community is over this. Halloween is a big money-maker for the bars, and they've not likely to shut down for the night (perhaps setting a precedent for every successive Halloween as well), but others are clearly tired of dealing with the situation. So at this point, it looks like there will be just as many police as last year, but no porta-potties (which police chief Heather Fong admits could lead to "unpleasant situations"), no street barricades, and no sound stages. Does this mean that we'll just have throngs of people milling around, looking for something to do and a place to take a dump? It's pretty clear we can't say "We're closing down the Castro, don't come here," and you can't arrest people for just walking around. Stay tuned readers, this year I'll even closer to the action than last year and will be sure to file a report.

San Francisco Cancels Halloween!

According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, it's official: no big civic Halloween party in San Francisco, not in the Castro, not out at ATT Park, not anywhere. Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose district includes the Castro, is officially asking businesses in the Castro to close that night, and at least one prominent business, Cafe Flore, has agreed. Cops will be out in significant force to keep an eye on things, but it seems that the Castro will be tranformed into a literal ghost town for Halloween.

I've not been a huge fan of Halloween in the Castro for a while now; I've never enjoyed massives, and nothing, aside from Folsom Street Fair, is as massive as Hallowen in the Castro. While it was fun the first couple years I lived here, in recent years it's become a scene for gang-banging, and after last year's shooting everybody was pretty well fed up with it. It would be nice to think that there is some way that a modicum of control can be brought to bear over this affair, but short of pat-downs at the gates I don't know what that would be. It will be a huge blow to the fundraising efforts of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who collected the gate proceeds, and in general it seems to signal the death of "the gay Christmas."

It's possible that after a year of abstinence the message will get out and some semblance of life will return to the Castro on Halloween, but I'm not optimistic; in some ways San Francisco has become too big, as a city, to return to the kind of neighborhood festivity that was the Castro Halloween. The whole tradition started back in the 1950s when Cliff's Hardware, on Castro Street, had a halloween costume contest for the neighborhood kids. After that, it became a big gay party, a chance to dress up and misbehave when the political (and legal) climate around homosexuality was much tougher (remember, these were the days when you could be arrested for cross-dressing - except on Halloween). But now there are no more kids in the Castro, and gay life is significantly different than it was even twenty years ago. In light of these things, maybe we should ask what purpose the Castro Halloween party serves to our community? If we can't answer that question beyond "well, it's a big party," maybe it is time to let it go.

UPDATE: Over the weekend Sister Selma Soul told me that the Sisters haven't had anything to do with the Castro Halloween party since about 1994, primarily because of all the issues around crowd control that have brought about this year's cancellation. After talking with many people about it, there seems to be a consensus that no one is against a big Halloween party, but that the City is unable to manage the crowd that shows up for this.

Halloween in the Castro "Cancelled"

According to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle Halloween in the Castro has been officially "cancelled." While this practically means that they won't block off the streets, bring in porta-potties, or increase police presence, it's anybody's guess what it really means. Ted Strawser of the SF Party Party has a good quote:

"People are still going to go to the Castro," said Ted Strawser, founder of the San Francisco Party Party, a group that opposes the move. "Without services, they're just going to pee in the street, and without entertainment, mischief will occur."

I'm unsure what will happen; without anything to draw people there, will there be crowds of people aimlessly milling around in the Castro? I imagine that the bars will continue to do well, but will the bridge-and-tunnel kids want to hang out at Daddy's? Will SFPD have to come through and clear the streets of costumed revellers? I guess we won't know until Halloween is here.

More on the New Location for SF Halloween Party

In the San Francisco Bay Guardian Politics Blog Sarah Phelan has a post about the proposed location for San Francisco Halloween. It looks like a pretty cold, miserable spot, and no alcohol will be for sale, but, as I wrote in my previous post on Castro Halloween, I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Hanging out in the Castro isn't something I'm likely to do, and I'm even less likely to haul my ass down to a pier by the Bay Bridge.

Halloween Out of the Castro?

According to an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle supervisor Bevan Dufty (whose District 8 includes the Castro), the Mayor, and officials at the Port of San Francisco are discussing plans on moving the big Halloween hoo-ha from the Castro to a couple piers down on the waterfront.

As someone who lives on the edge of the Castro, I must admit that Halloween has become a bit of a nuisance. Last year I was at a friend's party in Oakland, and when I came back that night around 10 and wanted to drop off my carshare car, it was an absolute nightmare. The boyfriend and I also encountered many packs of what I can only describe as young thugs, and it was minutes after we made it to my apartment that the shooting took place about three blocks away.

I first went to Halloween in the Castro in 1999 and it was a lot of fun; I have always said that street fairs are one of the great things about this city, because they introduce a truly egalitarian environment for the city's citizens to mingle. Over the years what was an informal event, with guerrilla sound systems, has become increasingly bureacratized, now featuring actual stages. All of this grew out of a tradition that Cliff's Hardware on Castro began in the 1950s, when neighborhood kids would show up for a costume parade and contest. During the first wave of gay liberation in the 1970s and early 80s Halloween in the Castro became a symbol and expression of gay liberation, but now I think it's lost that impulse. Over Easter at Cafe Flore I heard people remark that Easter, with the Sisters in Dolores Park, the people walking around wearing bunny costumes and crazy bonnets, and the air of gay bonhomie, has become what Halloween used to be like. Like all things, Halloween has evolved, and I don't think that Halloween in the Castro reflects the spirit that originally inspired it. So, let it be moved, and let's evolve a new gay tradition in Easter.