Mission Mission

Today’s a big day for our boy Burrito Justice! Tonight there’s an in-person event at Bender’s:

Bikes to Books Beer Social!

Wednesday, March 5, 7-9 pm

Benders Bar and Grill
806 S. Van Ness, SF

Join Nicole Gluckstern and Burrito Justice, the creators of literary bicycle tour “Bikes to Books,” for an evening of socializing, beer drinking, and map chat at awesome local watering hole Benders on Wednesday, March 5, from 7-9 pm. We’ll be talking up our collaborative map project including new developments, fielding questions, and enjoying some tasty adult beverages in the first of a series of “Bikes to Books” events and meetups planned for 2014. [link]

Awesome! And before that, like RIGHT NOW, Burrito and Nicole Gluckstern are live on BFF.fm for this week’s edition of Burrito Justice Radio. Tune in: http://BFF.fm

But just try your best to keep that fuzzy dude dry!  There’s nothing sadder on this Earth than a soaking wet tiger head.

[Photo by Jozias, who's got a bunch of other rad ones you should check out, like this one!]

Another Valentine’s Day, another massive Pillow Fight in Justin Herman Plaza. This year I brought my Nimslo camera and a roll of Fuji’s 800 ISO film. These explosions of feathers and streaks of light are what I came back with. Since this is my fifth installment of 3D City, I’ve also attached a little bonus image at the bottom. It’s an unedited scan, so you can see how the shots look straight off my camera.
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Esta Noche’s last night has come. I lived across the street from the queer Latino bar for a number of years, in the same building of my good friend Marco. We had some fun times there together, but he had many more without me. I asked him to share some thoughts and stories of the bar. We’ve seen a lot of closures recently, but this one hits hard. It’s a rare safe space for a community that doesn’t have many. Sad to see it go. Anyway, I’ll get out of the way and share Marco’s piece:

Rie, llora
que a cada cual, le llega su hora
rie, llora
vive tu vida y gozala toda

laugh, cry
that to each of us our time comes
laugh, cry
live your life and enjoy it completely

[Photo by Nehemiah Lazo]

Soon after I arrived in San Francisco in 1993, directo from Sinaloa, a gang of immigrant locas, known to me as Las Latinillas, became mi familia in all senses. Meaning, they were supportive, caring and fun to be with but also complete bitches and a beautiful hot mess. Always in your face. They will snatch your new boyfriend, get you a green card and a job, trash your soul con canciones de Juanga and uplift your spirits ala Gloria Trevi, as they revere Selena y Los Dinos and eat pupusas revueltas at Balompie. All this, a la luz del sol.

And at night, we had Esta Noche. It was my friend Mario, well, I called him La Marieta, who took me there the first time. La Marieta was dying of AIDS at the time but as he put it, “Despues de la novela, vamos a esta noche mana, hoy canta La Ronnie Salazar.” You always knew you were at Esta Noche because of a huge self-portrait of a naked Joe Dallesandro with an eternal spotlight on his even larger penis and how can you miss the Esta Noche smell . . . a mix of tequila, piss, and Chanel N°5. Running into friends, making new friends and losing friends all happened at Esta Nasty. It was the place for new immigrants like myself to listen to our music, speak our language and just for a few hours not to feel inadequate. It was also the place for young Latinos, to come out at night and join the festivities of music, drag, stripers, and drinks. But las reynas de la noche were the drag queens!

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[via Ariel Dovas]

The Oscars were on tonight, you guys! The big winners were trans misogyny, triumph over slavery, and how shitty outer space is, which is truly remarkable because tonight’s episode of Looking was about all those things!

Last week, Patrick invited Richie to his sister’s wedding as a sort of condescending romantic gesture, and to convince himself he was okay dating a Latino hairdresser. We see Patrick getting dressed for the wedding while Skyping with waspy mom, visibly stressed ahead of the forthcoming meeting. Richie comes over to meet him, fresh shaven, and they’re on their way via Volvo station wagon borrowed from Dom. The boys hit the GG bridge (hello, gorgeous!), the atmosphere is tense, frazzled, and they pull over to regroup. Richie pulls out some pot to calm Patrick down and he loses it: Richie’s bringing pot to meet his family?! Richie can’t take Patrick anymore and takes off by foot, a true triumph over slavery!

Meanwhile, Agustin is prepping for his stupid sexy art show and, after Patrick and Dom are critical of his photos, decides to pull out of the show. He tells boyfriend Frank as much as they stroll along Ocean Beach and they fight — it seems Frank had to beg to get Agustin a spot in the show and, as Frank goes on, “I fucked a guy on camera so that you can make art!” (we’ve all been there, I guess?). It is soon revealed that Agustin paid CJ to bone Frank, and nobody’s happy — that, plus the growing distance between them motivates Frank to want Agustin to move out of their shared Oakland home. There ain’t nothin but shitty in outer space (the East Bay, duh).

Across town, Dom is getting the shuttered Punjab Restaurant space dolled up for his Portuguese chicken startup’s pop-up night, funded by Lynn. Tensions are high; they have 28 hours to make everything perfect. They get into a fight; Dom is grateful for the dough but doesn’t like Lynn watching over him like “some teenager.” Lynn gets annoyed, he thought he was his partner in… in this… and he storms off. So anyway, this part’s exactly like the Dallas Buyers Club, you should check that movie out.

But back to the wedding! As luck would have it, Kevin the Ricky Gervais boss is at the wedding with his boyfriend John; he’s friends with the groom, and he knows how to tie a bow tie (which Richie does not).

Patrick spends the wedding a bit distraught over his fight with Richie, which all culminates in a conversation with wasp mom outside the venue. “I don’t think you’d like him very much… he’s Mexican first of all, and he doesn’t really have any money,” he tells her. Patrick says she’s the real reason Richie’s not there, because he knows she wouldn’t approve. We all know he’s projecting, which becomes all the more obvious when wasp mom pulls out a pot cookie to cool her nerves, and tells him all of this is on him (GET IT, GIRL).

The episode ends with Patrick running into a drunk Kevin in the bathroom who (gasp!) goes in for a kiss (a snog?), and is pushed away. We all knew it was coming, we saw it a mile away, but even so! What will this mean?

The episode concludes with the wedding winding down, Patrick sitting next to his dad at the end of the night. “Forty grand for this,” says dad, “You’re not gonna want one of these, are ya?”

The last line is funny, yes, but we should consider one important implication, which the show has been touching on as a show about gay men in relationships: we live in a city where the gay community is finally able to get hitched, and therefore the pressure for gays to become serious, settle down, and marry is now present and strong. Patrick is certainly in no place be serious with anyone; he can’t even wear an escapulario without losing his shit, but he’s getting pressure to become part of a unit, from his friends and community. If the white gay struggle in San Francisco is no longer about health, belonging, and self acceptance, is it now about the same boring shit the rest of the city’s white people struggle with? (This is SO interesting, because this exact same question was posed by Dame Judi Dench in Philomena).

So! We have just one episode left in season 1, and it was announced earlier this week that Looking has officially been renewed for a second season, coming in (whoa!) 2015. I’m very much looking forward to a second season, because I have seen the first eight episodes as more of a prequel. I’ve mentioned continuously that the build-up has been slow, and I think it’s purposeful — because Looking has been warming us boring people up to the existence of a very smart show focused entirely on gay men on our TV boxes. Despite the beej scenes, this is mainstream TV, because with the success of this show, we have just slightly nudged the mainstream over a smidge. Just a touch.

Spotted in this episode: Pkok on Haight (between Pierce and Scott), Punjab Restaurant on 24th (between Bryant and York), the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Funston.

Just chillin’ in fronta Zeitgeist.

[Photo by Kevin Woodruff]

On the chalkboard at Virgil’s, naturally.

[via Gillian]