1-5-10

It’s a brand new year and the beginning of a brand new decade and
this is my first column of the aforementioned auspicious increment of
time, 2010, a year I never thought I’d see when I looked at a shiny
new penny’s date in 1968 and started imagining the coming years, the
70’s, 80’s, 90’s and “What comes after 1999?” I asked, being six years
old and just starting to grasp the concept of years, decades,
centuries, the future, olden-time-y days, Abraham Lincoln, when
Grandma was young, etc.  “The year 2000,” my Mom said, “Then 2001,
2002, 2003 and so on, thats the future, like on The Jetson’s when
people drive space-ships and have robots to do the housework.”
Excited by this cool notion of the future I asked if I would be alive
for all of that.  She said, “Maybe you’ll live to see some of those
things I would guess, but I probably wont see the year 2000.”  I’m
sure she said this because back then the year 2000 just seemed to be
completely out of our reach, too far in the future to imagine, the
blanket embodiment of a perfect futuristic utopian civilization all
wrapped up and defined by that four digit number marking a year and
various antiquated ideals of technological advancement, political
harmony, ecological preservation or on a darker note, mind control,
post nuclear apocalyptic savagery, over-population and depleted
natural resources.  I assumed I wouldn’t make it there either but I
didn’t lose any sleep over this thought or worry my young mind into
childhood psychiatric analysis.  I just accepted it.
Well, its 2010, we are a decade post-millennial and I’m still here
and so is my mother and nothing much has turned out at all like  we
thought it would 40 years ago.  This really doesn’t surprise me, it
seems mankind has always had it wrong, dead wrong with their
assumptions and predictions for the future and/or the events that
signal the beginning of the end, The Rapture, Nostradamus’
predictions, the Mayan calendar’s mysterious endpoint in the year
2012, the melting of the polar ice caps throwing the planet into
cataclysmic gravitational chaos, nuclear war with North Korea,
terrorist attack on the US, Tsunami and Hurricane devastation and on
and on and on.  Some think that the election of Obama as President is
a key sign that Armageddon is near.  It’s true, I’m just saying is
all.  My point is for years people have always had pre-conceived ideas
about the future and what it would hold in store for us and having
lived for 47 years, a decade into the second millennium, things have
never turned out quite like people thought they would.  Nobody really
knows what to expect or anticipate from the future, no one has this
special talent or gift and here at the beginning of 2010 I think it is
important to face the future with that thought in mind, that anything,
and I mean anything can  happen, good or bad, right or wrong,
anticipated or never in one’s wildest dreams.
This applies to short periods of time as well as centuries.  For
instance, back in the 80’s here in San Francisco who would have
believed that this city, known worldwide as the ultimate Gay Mecca,
the queerest of all destinations, would become so decidedly not queer
presently in the “noughties” or the 00’s?  All places go through
changes as time marches on, this is undeniable, but never did I think
that the omnipresent homosexual identity SF is more well known for
than rice-a-roni or sourdough bread would have become as squelched,
trimmed down, tucked away, sanitized, silenced, regulated, complacent,
assimilated and in denial of ever existing as it is now or seems to be
moving towards with each passing day?  Why is it that the Gay History
of  this city, the individuals who devoted  their lives and work
proudly defining and fighting for gay rights and mobilizing gays into
a political entity and shaping a place desirable and safe and
welcoming for queers to belong and be proud of  are largely unknown to
younger gay people or downright disrespected and forgotten?  Certainly
the film Milk brought awareness of that portion of SF gay history to
the masses which was a great achievement but one movie wasn’t enough
to stop the continuing slow fade on Gayness in general in this city.
Who thought that in the year 2010 gays would still be fighting for the
right to marry and have it be recognized as a legal civil union just
like heterosexual couples, and that we would still be as far away from
that day as we were decades ago?  Who anticipated that the enlightened
liberal evolved progress of humanity by the year 2010 would be serving
up a conservative fundamentalist backlash against a particular
minority here in the US where all are supposed to be equal?  The
political climate at this present date is far from resembling anything
like advanced or futuristic or fair or just, any of the qualities one
might have anticipated or projected for this era 20 years ago.
Progress has not been made really.  Robots aren’t cleaning our houses,
we’re not whisked from place to place by high-speed-monorails, our
diseases are not cured but necessary drugs to control them are ringing
up profits the medical multi-conglomerate counts on with no shame and
ethically unchallenged, and as time marches on and economic crisis
takes its toll, the Gayness of San Francisco is being systematically
whittled away, forced out and forgotten.  Bars and businesses slip
away all the time, replaced aggressively by non-Gay businesses all too
often.  Surges of anti-gay forces and shut-outs and attitude are
rippling through certain neighborhoods.  I never thought this was what
the future held for San Francisco. You just never know.
Sadly at press time my friend Mister Nancy called me from her
workplace, The Wild Side West, a neighborhood bar out on Cortland Ave
in  Bernal Heights which is one of the oldest gay-owned bars in the
city, opening in Oakland in 1962 then relocating to SF in 1977 at its
present location.  This charming out-of-the-way bar boasts a huge and
beautiful backyard garden big enough to get lost in, created by owner
Pat Ramseyer who ran this business for 40 years with her lesbian lover
who died   about a year ago.  Nancy called to tell me that Pat
Ramseyer, at age 75 had also just passed away that afternoon.   This
lesbian owned and operated bar and Pat’s longtime endeavor of keeping
it running for over 40 years was something that existed sort of under
the radar or off the beaten path of the queer bar scene but
nonetheless an honorable achievement.  If you have never been there
you really should choose it for an afternoon of drinking in the
amazing garden she created there.  A Memorial service will be
announced soon and the bar will continue its quiet comfortable legacy
as a neighborhood bar that in Pat’s words, “Just happens to get a lot
of lesbians.”  There’s a rich history there that should be recognized,
and who doesnt enjoy cocktails in an amazing garden.