Sunday, September 21, 2003
Made Issue 7 of Lodestar Quarterly live. Gay Day at Waterworld in Concord presented by Pink Planet. Travis mentioned yesterday he was going with a bunch of friends and invited us along. Patrick couldn't go because he just had too much work to do: homework and studying for Mandarin, reading a 10-page story of Jason Baum's, and (though he didn't know it then) some Lodestar follow up. I let myself go only after making sure to make Issue 7 live. Met Travis's current boyfriend, Darren, whom Patrick had met a long time ago. We drove separate cars because I needed to leave early. There wasn't much traffic, and the drive took about an hour. After we arrived I bought a scalped ticket for $40 (it was $45 at the door) after $8 for parking. The Waterworld security brusquely said, "No food in the park!" and removed a threatening single-use packaged oatmeal raisin cookie from my backpack. How rude! I soon met Travis's 30 or so friends—Eric, Tom, Ansel, Amir, Roland, Timmy, Charles, Ted, Steve, Galen, Brian—oh the list goes on. Locker rental was $6 with a $5 deposit. There were so many things to do: the wave pool, the many different kinds of slides, at least 3 different dance stages, lots of food places from which to choose, and I don't know what you call it but it's just a slow-moving river on/in which people ride in innertubes or swim. (I guess you call it a river.) Somehow our group agreed to not rent innertubes (because of the fee, which I think was $5 per tube) so we did all the rides that didn't require them. Travis and I didn't do the big, scary slides—he doesn't like them and I did them years ago and didn't need to do them again. I went on one with Eric and that was enough of the slides for me. The group played volleyball, and after noting that they all seemed to play extremely well I discovered from Travis that they all play teamlike—serious volleyball—except Travis. We had lunch at the event's private buffet—$10, but in previous years it was included in the ticket price, I overheard. The buffet had only one thing that was really good: barbecued chicken. It was not "all you can eat," which you might expect at an affair (and price) such as this, but rather "all you can pile on one plate in one pass." The woman at the gate who also had to pitch the offer's details said, "So we sold ya, didn't we?!" And I thought, but didn't say, that I was only eating here because my friends had already gone in, and I didn't want to go to the parking lot to eat the crumbs from my car's floormats, which, in retrospect, might have been a better value. There was a Caesar salad which had very fresh lettuce but was overly drenched in dressing and soggy croutons. The burger buns didn't seem fresh and were too big. ("They like big buns and they like'em large...") The burger patty itself was uninviting—unbelievably flat, dull-looking. There were green salads and potato salads that had been sitting in the sun awhile—I avoided those. Baked beans—no sanks—pfffffttt! Two kinds of giant sausages, which I skipped but might have been tasty. Beverage was your choice of 32 ounces from the soda fountain. (I chose Coke, but I have no idea know why!) Dessert was a packaged ice cream bar or cup, which I skipped. I hadn't been to a waterpark in maybe 4 or 5 years since a similar waterpark Gay Day in Seattle. I missed that park's hot tubs—I guess Concord is hot enough no one needs them, but I still missed them. I had had my fun and perhaps if the prices are the same or higher it will be another 5 years before I go again. UCSF had their Waterworld Concord event the previous weekend—$25 included Waterworld admission, free all you can eat barbecue hot dog lunch (yes, I said all you can eat! we encourage you to eat ALL YOU CAN! EAT ALL YOU CAN!!), a free ticket to Marine World, and a free book of raffle tickets for prizes. Maybe if UCSF has the same event next year we'll invite a bunch of friends and make our own day at Waterworld out of it. I picture hot dogs linked together at the ends coming off of a rotating grill and going directly into peoples' mouths until they can't eats no mores! Yeah, there wouldn't be booze and DJ's at the UCSF event, but the group I was with would probably only miss the DJ's—at least that's what it seemed. I could have danced all afternoon if it weren't for the blisters I somehow got on my feet (probably from walking on the hot pavement). I thought it was pretty crowded today, but several in the group I was with had decided that last year there were a lot more people. I got home $64 dollars poorer. (Somehow I think I mistakenly went to ExtraFeeWorld instead of Waterworld! "I'm sorry, but that's going to cost you—an extra fee!") An extravagance on our income, but worth it—just this once. Seconds after getting in the door at home, I discovered from Patrick that I had to do some cleaning up of Lodestar that didn't get taken care of when it went live (not our fault, though). Did that, it only took about 20 minutes. Showered and dressed. Dinner at Eric's Restaurant with Patrick: walnut prawns, mu shu chicken, steamed rice, hot tea: $19.70 before a $3 tip, and everything was perfect, as usual. While we ate, we saw Kristina and Brendan walk by with their dog (whose name I forgot)! They saw us sitting at the table in the window and waved hello and smiled. We waved back, and they continued on their walk. My fortune: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Patrick's fortune: "Money is the root of all evil. And Man needs roots." Patrick chose a surprise event for me tonight—Sandra Bernhard live at the Brava Theater! She is just as entertaining as ever. Same routine, different jokes. Her takes this time were on everything from the tedium of Ontario customs to George W. Bush admitting that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the war on Iraq to the ugliness of San Francisco General Hospital and the "snapping" freshness of the local bay area produce, prominently featured in the Caesar salad at Scala's Restaurant of San Francisco. Twice I almost sneezed my famously loud sneezes, but I held them back for fear of being ridiculed by Sandra like the woman who sat next to me. She was late to the performance, and people who know Sandra know you don't show up late to her performance. Many people were late, but the woman sitting next to me—a cute, youngish dyke—was the first to be noticed as prominently late. Worse yet, she sat 3 seats in from the left of the row, but the usher brought her to the right end of the row. Sandra egged her on—something like, "Get in your seat, already!"—so she excused herself across 15 or so people instead of walking around half the theater to step across just Patrick and me (Patrick on the end, me in the #2 seat—technically Center D 108 and 109). Sandra then made fun of her for intruding upon 15 people instead of just 2. The latecomer was hiding her face by the time she was seated. Now she knows: Don't be late to Sandra. Several new songs, and, as usual, at least one of them was her finale. Her encore was another song I can't remember now which morphed into Prince's "Little Red Corvette," which I bet many Bernhard newbies don't know she did back in 1989. (That Any Wednesday joke from 1989 is ringing a little ironically, isn't it?) We left the theater with me saying, "That's the hottest show I've seen all season!"—literally. It seemed like there was no air conditioner, and this day was quite hot, even in San Francisco. Seattleites: Think the balcony of the Egyptian in the 1990s. During SIFF. Ms. Bernhard even took her sparkly-appliqued "Dude where's my couture?" shirt off at the end, giving everyone a little show. Two tickets cost us slightly less than it cost just me to go to ExtraFeeWorld. Actually, Patrick bought a beer before the performance for $4, so it came out to exactly the same price. You do the math. On the way home, Patrick and I realize that it's harder to find a parking place on our street now. We surmise that some of the homes must have added in-law apartments like our landlords did, and I predict that in 100 years every home in San Francisco will house twice as many people as it does now. Okay, that "You do the math" expression has been long tired by now, huh? How about "Vous faites les maths!" Does it sound better in French? And Michael O'Brien might counter with, "Toutes les maths du monde?" In any case, a noteworthy weekend has come to a close. And if you're reading this at work, you probably ought to get back to work. No one has seen you "really working" for the past several minutes!