The morning after Pride, or any High Holy Weekend in San Francisco, there is always a hush which, because of our unique ecosystem, is usually accompanied by a thick layer of fog.
We are a city that cherishes our hangovers almost as much as we love our bacchanals and while most people think “California Sober” means you smoke weed or use edibles but don’t do any other kinds of drugs or alcohol, those of us who have lived here long enough know it actually means you wake up from the cocaine binge and go for a run. After a mimosa. Or two.
I didn’t do any drugs this Pride. Or go to the parade. And honestly, that’s been the case most Pride weekends since I moved here in 2002. As I mentioned casually to a younger, more recent transplant, “I’ve done pretty much everything you can do at Pride, one Pride or another,” and that ranges from actively protesting Pride (frankly, if you don’t have at least one Gay Shame summer, are you even a homosexual?) to having sex with a guy in a window above the Osaka Sushi Lounge during Pink Saturday (it wasn’t the first time I tried ecstasy… but it was the second). As I gently nudge towards fifty, I find I just don’t have the energy- or anything to prove, to anybody- and since my life in the arts means I usually end up involved in at least one formal event during the weekend, that’s almost always more than enough to fill my cup for the year.
This year, that event was the SF Opera Pride concert, which I wrote about for the Petaluma Argus Courier (my editor, David, lets me get away with the occasional article about life in San Francisco, known to the people of Petaluma as a remote outpost) and during which I remembered that my first article for the Argus had also been about life inside the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, only during Christmas. In the years since then and now, I’ve written 30 articles, interviewed one of the great American painters, a rising star stand up comedian, and a Broadway icon, and I started this Substack. Which is certainly a lot to be proud of, if not necessarily anything to do with being gay. It also hit me that Pride happens at the turning of the year, Christmas to the Fourth of July’s New Year’s Eve, really, after which we hit the lazy patch of the River of Time’s annual reboot, Facebook reminders of summer productions past popping up at the same time as emails about employee reviews hit my inbox.
If one has no other agenda as a journalist, or unifying theme, then by default we all become chroniclers of Time. To write at all is to put a pin in history, to tell a story is to thread those pins with string like Scotland Yard looking for the patterns of a serial killer, and if you do it on the regular, adding dates and everything, then whether it’s through movie reviews or recipes, hard-hitting news reports or fashion reveals, congratulations, you’re a time keeper. And probably also a bit of a Time sadist. You know what I mean. Somebody who is quick to point out that you may never get this chance again, that now is the time, that days are meant to be seized, even if they’re Mondays. That everything is fading. That it’s always “turning late in the year”, which is a riff on Ray Bradbury’s introduction to October Country, and how I frequently end toasts.
If Christmas Eve and Pride have something in common for me, it’s that both bring back a flood of memories, of days being younger (and not always wiser), plans which were made (though not always achieved), and people who passed through (for better or worse). This also means that almost anything that happens during these periods of time has infinite more meaning attached to it, to the point where even just a mundane observation will feel oddly poignant. Example: as I sat in a long-time friend’s living room on Sunday evening, watching the fog pour through in gusts of white across a progressively obscuring view of the South Bay, he said to me, “You know, it’s probably still sunny back in your part of town.”
He was probably right, but by the time I got there later, the fog had already closed in, bringing with it just a hint of fireworks yet to come.
*************************************************************************************************************
Hello!
Thank you for reading!
So, in a moment of just, fuck it, I'll give it a try, I am finally doing that thing people keep saying I should do and giving you the chance to support my writing.
If you liked what you read today and would like to show that gratitude in cash money, you can help keep this middle-aged single writer turned food equity coordinator/usher/online content creator/social media manager in the black. I accept Zelle (it's my phone number), PayPal (@stuartbousel), or CashAp ($Bousel) and I leave it up to you to decide what to give.
You can also get a paid subscription to my Substack. I offer multiple options- two year, one year, and month to month subscriptions. All of them help.
Obviously, I'm not going to put anything behind a paywall and I'm honored you read anything I write at all. I'm going to try to write something here every Sunday/Monday, around this time, and if you have thoughts or feelings you'd like to share with me to write about I'd love that.
And in case this isn't clear: any views I present here which are not cited otherwise, are my own, and I do not speak on behalf of any organization but myself.
Be well. Reach out. You are a light.
Stuart