Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Fuller explanation of title to come, but hope some is obvious. First will explain where I am, etc.
Realize I haven't written since I left the place Bret was housesitting. Kind of ironic, because I'm probably going to be headed over that way this afternoon to help build stuff for his show. So the night that I wrote my last post from SF Joe picked me up and gave me a ride over to his place in Berkeley, one of three rooms upstairs in a house near the campus. He's a first-year grad student in biophysics at Cal (UC Berkeley). It was a little weird trying to figure out to let me out of the room and meet up later, because there was only one key, but it worked. It was the weekend, so he also took me along to a couple parties, which was fun, although rather strange, as I knew no one, and really had no connection with people involved in biophysics, physics, biology, or whatever else the people there did.
After spending a long weekend at Joe's, I decided it was probably time to find somewhere else to stay. He was only supposed to have guests for two days at a stretch, and it had been more like four or five. That and his couch was about a foot shorter than I was. So I tried a couple more contacts I have, registered on couchsurfing.com (a cool site with an awesome idea, check it out) and eventually got in touch with George Becker. He's an old friend of my dad's, used to live in Connecticut, is an orthopaedic surgeon, psychiatrist, and organist and consulted on a number of organs that Fisk built in CT. In the '70s he realized that he was gay, and moved out to SF in '77.
When I first called I reached his partner, Christo, who thought he recognized my name, but had to check with George first to make sure I wasn't a disgruntled psychiatric patient. Which I wasn't, so I was more than welcome to spend a few nights. Joe gave me a ride over, came in for a little bit, and we all talked for a while. It was that afternoon that I'd decided to go back home for homecoming, which meant I'd be leaving in two days for the weekend. But George and Christo said it would be fine to leave some stuff there, in fact, they're letting me stay here as a base for figuring out what I'll do while in CA. It's really a great set-up for me. They've got a two story house, plus attic and basement. The attic is more of another half story, so I've got a matress in a room up there, and the other half of is kind of a painting studio for Christo. I've got access to the internet, there're lots of books around, and it's right in the middle of the Castro area, which isn't too far from most places, and so far I even get food, although I'm starting to want to chip in for groceries. But there are projects around the house, mostly involving assembling and rearranging bookshelves, which I can help with, which is nice.
I'm liking being in San Francisco more and more as I'm spending time here too. Although there was no great place to watch Game 4 of the World Series. I ended up in a bar down on 18th, described as a lesbian sports bar by a friend of Christo's. It had plenty of TVs, and a decent crowd, although not too many native Red Sox fans. There was one guy, probably in his mid-fifties, from Lowell there though. We chatted for most of the game, and at one point he informed me that a young man with my looks "would have no trouble having his needs met" in this area. Which sounds kind of creepy, but was actually too friendly and without expectation to be anything other than mildly flattering.
Since I've been in California I've been trying to find something to do. At first I was hoping maybe I could find somewhere and some way to study aikido or tai chi. That wasn't working out so well, so when I got some information in my e-mail about going to swing states to help get out the vote for Kerry, I decided that would fun and interesting to do. So I wrote back first saying that I'd be willing to go anywhere. Unfortunately, there was no where to specify IF I CAN GET A RIDE, but there was a link to another group that was arranging rides. From them I found some trips out to Las Vegas and Reno, got in touch with the drivers and eventually started getting involved with a bunch of people going out to Vegas, thinking this would be my trip. Later I heard from the first group that I'd been assigned to Florida. Which was not doable, I wrote back saying that, and then a couple days later I find out they think I'm going to Ohio. At this point the trip to Vegas is pretty well set up, and I respond to the Ohio e-mail saying that I won't be able to volunteer. A few days later, the Thursday or Friday before we left for Vegas Saturday morning, someone from Ohio called me to check if I'd be there. I said I couldn't make it, and they were okay with that, and and then I kept getting e-mails up through the election. Whatever.
I ended up being a driver on the trip out, met my co-driver Charice at SFO early Saturday morning. We then went and picked up Mo, Ankit, and Andrew at the Millbrae BART station, and then picked up Dan and Joey at a house in San Jose. I mention all their names because we ended up spending just about the whole trip together. Except for one day, we managed to stick together as a canvassing team, although we did lose MacGyver (sp?) until Tuesday night. I'm running out of time, so I probably won't say as much as I'd like to. But Las Vegas is a weird place. On the one hand, I found it, especially all the huge, glitzy casinos on the Strip, fascinating, almost entrancing. I like spectacle, and that's what Las Vegas tries to present you. It makes it easy to ignore the money that could be spent doing so many better things, or the amount of water that's being used to keep a desert not just livable, but luxurious. Instead, so long as your eyes stay inclined slightly upwards, all that you see is dreams made reality. If you lower your eyes more, the dirty streets (really pretty gross, black dust to get all over your feet or shoes), sex for sale, poverty, and pointlessness become rather more apparent, especially on the Strip. After our first night there, when we were housed in a motel on the northern edge of the strip, we were moved to a Days Inn further north, on Fremont St. This is "Old Vegas", and has a four block long pedestrian mall containing most of the casinos in that part of town and covered with a giant LCD display. And instead of trying to hide or transcend the downsides of the city, it seems to embrace them, more gaudy and sleazy than glamorous, somehow so obviously false it was real.
The canvassing had its ups and downs, but I'll have to write more soon.
Here are some pictures from the trip. Charice is the only girl in the group photos, Andrew is the shorter white guy with longish hair, Mo is the Pakistani guy with the goatee, Ankit is the Indian guy, usually wearing a blue windbreaker, I'm me, Joey is the taller white guy, and Dan is the tall Chinese guy.
Joey's pictures:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=12qinp55.2y63508h&x=0&y=-kga02d
Ankit's pictures:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/avyasa/album?.dir=/a3b4&.src=ph&.tok=ph9rRACBmpYrtbYI
Realize I haven't written since I left the place Bret was housesitting. Kind of ironic, because I'm probably going to be headed over that way this afternoon to help build stuff for his show. So the night that I wrote my last post from SF Joe picked me up and gave me a ride over to his place in Berkeley, one of three rooms upstairs in a house near the campus. He's a first-year grad student in biophysics at Cal (UC Berkeley). It was a little weird trying to figure out to let me out of the room and meet up later, because there was only one key, but it worked. It was the weekend, so he also took me along to a couple parties, which was fun, although rather strange, as I knew no one, and really had no connection with people involved in biophysics, physics, biology, or whatever else the people there did.
After spending a long weekend at Joe's, I decided it was probably time to find somewhere else to stay. He was only supposed to have guests for two days at a stretch, and it had been more like four or five. That and his couch was about a foot shorter than I was. So I tried a couple more contacts I have, registered on couchsurfing.com (a cool site with an awesome idea, check it out) and eventually got in touch with George Becker. He's an old friend of my dad's, used to live in Connecticut, is an orthopaedic surgeon, psychiatrist, and organist and consulted on a number of organs that Fisk built in CT. In the '70s he realized that he was gay, and moved out to SF in '77.
When I first called I reached his partner, Christo, who thought he recognized my name, but had to check with George first to make sure I wasn't a disgruntled psychiatric patient. Which I wasn't, so I was more than welcome to spend a few nights. Joe gave me a ride over, came in for a little bit, and we all talked for a while. It was that afternoon that I'd decided to go back home for homecoming, which meant I'd be leaving in two days for the weekend. But George and Christo said it would be fine to leave some stuff there, in fact, they're letting me stay here as a base for figuring out what I'll do while in CA. It's really a great set-up for me. They've got a two story house, plus attic and basement. The attic is more of another half story, so I've got a matress in a room up there, and the other half of is kind of a painting studio for Christo. I've got access to the internet, there're lots of books around, and it's right in the middle of the Castro area, which isn't too far from most places, and so far I even get food, although I'm starting to want to chip in for groceries. But there are projects around the house, mostly involving assembling and rearranging bookshelves, which I can help with, which is nice.
I'm liking being in San Francisco more and more as I'm spending time here too. Although there was no great place to watch Game 4 of the World Series. I ended up in a bar down on 18th, described as a lesbian sports bar by a friend of Christo's. It had plenty of TVs, and a decent crowd, although not too many native Red Sox fans. There was one guy, probably in his mid-fifties, from Lowell there though. We chatted for most of the game, and at one point he informed me that a young man with my looks "would have no trouble having his needs met" in this area. Which sounds kind of creepy, but was actually too friendly and without expectation to be anything other than mildly flattering.
Since I've been in California I've been trying to find something to do. At first I was hoping maybe I could find somewhere and some way to study aikido or tai chi. That wasn't working out so well, so when I got some information in my e-mail about going to swing states to help get out the vote for Kerry, I decided that would fun and interesting to do. So I wrote back first saying that I'd be willing to go anywhere. Unfortunately, there was no where to specify IF I CAN GET A RIDE, but there was a link to another group that was arranging rides. From them I found some trips out to Las Vegas and Reno, got in touch with the drivers and eventually started getting involved with a bunch of people going out to Vegas, thinking this would be my trip. Later I heard from the first group that I'd been assigned to Florida. Which was not doable, I wrote back saying that, and then a couple days later I find out they think I'm going to Ohio. At this point the trip to Vegas is pretty well set up, and I respond to the Ohio e-mail saying that I won't be able to volunteer. A few days later, the Thursday or Friday before we left for Vegas Saturday morning, someone from Ohio called me to check if I'd be there. I said I couldn't make it, and they were okay with that, and and then I kept getting e-mails up through the election. Whatever.
I ended up being a driver on the trip out, met my co-driver Charice at SFO early Saturday morning. We then went and picked up Mo, Ankit, and Andrew at the Millbrae BART station, and then picked up Dan and Joey at a house in San Jose. I mention all their names because we ended up spending just about the whole trip together. Except for one day, we managed to stick together as a canvassing team, although we did lose MacGyver (sp?) until Tuesday night. I'm running out of time, so I probably won't say as much as I'd like to. But Las Vegas is a weird place. On the one hand, I found it, especially all the huge, glitzy casinos on the Strip, fascinating, almost entrancing. I like spectacle, and that's what Las Vegas tries to present you. It makes it easy to ignore the money that could be spent doing so many better things, or the amount of water that's being used to keep a desert not just livable, but luxurious. Instead, so long as your eyes stay inclined slightly upwards, all that you see is dreams made reality. If you lower your eyes more, the dirty streets (really pretty gross, black dust to get all over your feet or shoes), sex for sale, poverty, and pointlessness become rather more apparent, especially on the Strip. After our first night there, when we were housed in a motel on the northern edge of the strip, we were moved to a Days Inn further north, on Fremont St. This is "Old Vegas", and has a four block long pedestrian mall containing most of the casinos in that part of town and covered with a giant LCD display. And instead of trying to hide or transcend the downsides of the city, it seems to embrace them, more gaudy and sleazy than glamorous, somehow so obviously false it was real.
The canvassing had its ups and downs, but I'll have to write more soon.
Here are some pictures from the trip. Charice is the only girl in the group photos, Andrew is the shorter white guy with longish hair, Mo is the Pakistani guy with the goatee, Ankit is the Indian guy, usually wearing a blue windbreaker, I'm me, Joey is the taller white guy, and Dan is the tall Chinese guy.
Joey's pictures:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=12qinp55.2y63508h&x=0&y=-kga02d
Ankit's pictures:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/avyasa/album?.dir=/a3b4&.src=ph&.tok=ph9rRACBmpYrtbYI
posted by Colin at 7:54 PM
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