These Are Two of My Favorite Things

SFGate has just posted an article about a subject I’ve been yammering on about, and receiving blank stares about, for a few weeks now: my favorite superheroes have moved to my favorite City. As the article notes, it is a great match, what with the mutant cause in the Marvel universe closely paralleling our own gay rights movement.

Issue 500, which hit stands last week, is somewhat awesome in that Colossus gets thrown through the skylight of SF MOMA, and Emma Frost, my fav fav fav XMan, bitches about the high rent in San Francisco. I love it.

Also, here is an interview with the Marvel writer, and fan of San Francisco, largely responsible for the team’s move.  The big teaser in that interview being . .  .Q: Is there a chance we might see one of the X-Men come out?

A: Yes. Yes. The city being what it is, certain characters whose sexuality might have been ambiguous are going to feel free to be who they are. I will qualify and say that I never go into the situation with a mandate or an agenda. It has to come along naturally. We’re not going to rush into it. But I see it happening.

X-Men go west, to San Francisco

Peter Hartlaub

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The X-Men praise SF shortly before Magneto blows up SF MOMA.

If you pay attention to the national news, it’s been the world against San Francisco lately. If we aren’t getting hammered for the city’s activism in the gay marriage debate, our role as a “sanctuary city” routinely causes controversy.

But San Francisco just got some pretty big (albeit fictional) allies in its progressive fight for equality: The X-Men have moved to the Bay Area.

This isn’t a small deal in the world of comic books. The X-Men, who settled in the Bay Area in the just-released 500th issue of the Uncanny X-Men, are arguably the most popular and recognizable superhero team in comic book history. And they’ve spent most of their 40-year existence based out of a mansion in Westchester County, N.Y.

But it should be no surprise. The trials of the X-Men, who discover at puberty that they are mutants, and are often forced to hide their true identities out of shame, have a lot in common with left-leaning causes, most notably the gay rights movement. In the comics, the X-Men have had gay and bisexual team members and associates, and their numbers were once decimated by a virus that had strong similarities to the AIDS epidemic.

Marvel Comics Executive Editor Axel Alonso says the city will be more than just a backdrop for the comic.

“The X-Men moving to San Francisco isn’t just a physical move, it’s a spiritual move. I love San Francisco and we want to see it really represented,” says the city native during an interview last week at Isotope Comics in Hayes Valley. “Anyone who looks at the X-Men, the analogy is right there: If you’re different in any way due to race or sexual orientation or just being nerdy, there’s an X-Men character for you. They’re about being different and finding strength in that weakened position.”

Action movie fans will note that the X-Men and their nemeses have already been to San Francisco, destroying the Golden Gate Bridge and much of Alcatraz in the 2006 film “X-Men: The Last Stand.” But for that sequel, the filmmakers didn’t do any meaningful filming in the Bay Area. The movie was shot in Vancouver, and visual effects were used to add a few landmarks to the background.

The comic has much more of an insider’s vibe. Marvel Comics artists will be visiting San Francisco frequently to get a feel for the fashion, architecture and even the way residents walk and talk. There are no cable cars in the first issue, but the artists did include a KRON TV news truck and a panel where the iconic mutant Wolverine walks through Noe Valley. The heroes make their base in the concrete bunkers beneath the Marin Headlands and join the protest of a controversial art installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Perhaps most significant, they seem to appreciate San Francisco’s much publicized (and recently criticized) role as a sanctuary city.

“San Francisco is now a mutant sanctuary,” X-Men group leader Cyclops proclaims, near the end of Issue 500. “Any of you – and your family or loved ones – are invited to join us here, and know safety and protection our kind has never known.”

Of course, this being a comic book featuring a guy who looks like a giant blue cat, there are a few moments of pure fantasy. While the leader of San Francisco in both worlds is a young attractive politician with great hair who seems more than a bit starstruck, in the comics, the mayor is a woman not named Gavin Newsom. And the X-Men somehow establish their enormous base without a historical society protest or a single tree-sitter in sight – although, to be fair, they do set up a hippie-friendly hydrokinetic power plant, presumably using tidal power from the ocean.

“We believe that homo sapiens superior represent the future, so we better start living like it,” says X-Men member Beast, sounding as if he’s about to run for governor. “Soon the X-center won’t just be green, it’ll be positively viridian.”

Whether the X-Men will settle here for the next four decades isn’t known, although Alonso says the story arc is mapped out for at least a year. Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada says the length of their stay has a lot to do with reader reaction.

“Temporary or permanent is a weird thing in the world of comics,” Quesada says. “As far as we’re playing it right now, we just got to San Francisco. We’re not planning to leave any time soon.”

X-Men and the sanctuary city

Parallels between the X-Men and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement have been so strong that some real-life conservative groups have denounced the comics and movies for being pro-gay rights. Here are a few themes from the X-Men comics:

– The X-Men don’t discover their super powers until puberty. They often try to hide their differences until finding others like themselves.

– The mutants suffered (mostly in 1990s comics) from the Legacy Virus, which wasn’t understood at first and killed many mutants before treatment was found.

– Anti-mutant slurs are frequently heard in the Marvel Universe. (“Mutie” is a common one.)

– Efforts have been made to “cure” mutants by changing them back into nonpowered humans.

– One of the biggest struggles for the X-Men is a political: establishing rights for mutants that are equal to humans without powers.

- Peter Hartlaub

Guess Where I Fall

A recent SFgate article on the mass exodus of middle and low income earners from SF. . .

From 2002 to 2006, the number of households [in San Francisco] making up to $49,000 per year dropped by 7.4 percent, those earning between $50,000 and $99,999 declined by 4.4 percent, and those bringing home between $100,000 and $149,999 fell by 3.9 percent, according to Census Bureau estimates. In polar opposition, the number of households making between $150,000 and $199,999 surged 52.2 percent and those earning more than $200,000 climbed 40.1 percent.

“A kind of derogatory term for the city would be Disneyland for yuppies,” said Hans Johnson, demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California.

Funnily enough, I was speaking with someone this weekend about the fact that I may soon be moving to the East Bay. A big fan of pro-and-con lists, my friend cited the former as being: real seasons and hot summers and comparitively cheaper rent. High and bold on the con list? It is the East Bay. Crime, for starters, and a dearth of any real gay nightlife.

If I end up going to school ‘over there’, it will seal the deal. Not a shock for my friend from across the bridge. “I’d just assumed that is what the guy, which I thought was you, was doing in your dixie exile header. . .staring across the water to the east bay, through all that damn SF fog.”

June 16, 2008

Konichiwa Bitches

Robyn plays this weekend here in San Francisco. Please go, but if you get between me and the front of the stage, I will cut a bitch.

(Entertainment Weekly) — If there were any justice, the divas who’ve been trading off the No. 1 slot — Mariah, Madonna, and newcomer Leona Lewis — would also be slugging it out with a platinum-blond dark horse from Scandinavia.

Enter Sweden’s Robyn, who arrives Stateside with “Robyn,” an album that’s a veritable parade of Songs of the Summer.

After landing a few mediocre teen-pop hits in the ’90s (namely “Show Me Love”), she’s forsaken her white-soul dullness for hooky dance-pop greatness with help from electro-favoring fellow Swedes like the Teddybears and the Knife.

From the girly hip-hop of ”Konichiwa Bitches” to the Eurodisco defiance of ”With Every Heartbeat,” she’s developed a real backbone to go with that asymmetrical ‘do.

Not since Pink’s “M!ssundaztood” has an easily dismissed young thrush made so unexpected a leap to career artist.

That comparison starts with Robyn’s first single, ”Handle Me” — a less nasty but even hookier version of Pink’s lounge-lizard-repelling “U + Ur Hand.”

But she hardly sticks to playing a tough cookie: The next song, “Bum Like You,” offers an amusing, knowing lesson in How to Fall for a Jerk 101.

Meanwhile, in the pensive, timbales-’n'-synths-driven “Who’s That Girl,” Robyn decries her guy’s impossible standards.

“Good girls are pretty, like, all the time,” she sings. “I’m just pretty some of the time.”

Her album, however? Fantastic all of the time.

Political Climate

Kind of an awesome ad and a great response to Bush’s bullshit Rose Garden ruse on climate change.

Hunky Jesus

For those folks who can’t make the Hunky Jesus contest in the park this Sunday, here is a sorta long video of last year’s fete.

Reason #174

The high cost of living.  Lack of parking. Traffic. Muni. Bridge and tunnel bozos ruining Halloween. That whole no summer thing.  Nice to be reminded once in a while why we put up with it all and why San Francisco might still be the best place in the world for us faggots.

SF Singled Out

Forbes just might be full of it, or maybe. . . .
Have you heard? San Francisco is the best place in America to live if you’re single.

Our fair city recently took first-place honors on Forbes.com’s seventh annual “Best Cities for Singles” list. Using U.S Census Bureau information, Forbes judged the largest 40 American cities on such factors as job growth, culture, the cost of living alone, nightlife, the number of singles, online dating and coolness. With its strong marks in culture, nightlife and cost of living alone (?), we beat out New York and Los Angeles in a stunning upset that sent former champion Denver tumbling to 16th place.

Not to be content with merely a single win, San Francisco also placed high up on the “Most Romantic U.S. Cities” list (theknot.com), the “City with the Most Physically-Fit Singles” list (Match.com), and Men’s Health magazine’s “Top Cities to Find Single Men Over 35″ list (a sign of such hope for 30-plus single women everywhere, apparently, that Oprah – on behalf of her best bud, Gayle – features the magazine’s findings on her show).

The Bums

Like almost anyone else, I can get a little disheartened seeing how many homeless there are in San Francisco. Not as disheartened as I get, however, when I hear how my fellow house-having homos interpret the situation.

I like this rather clarifying take on the situation, pictured below, from here, which is slightly clipped on the right, but still readable, at least on my browser.

Haint Blue

If the window sills of my current dwelling ever need repainting, I’ll suggest choosing a distinct color of blue for two reasons. ‘Haint blue’, an electric, powdery shade of blue (picture the blue pool cue chalk color), covers the doorways and window sills of more than a few homes deep in the ‘Lowcountry’ from which I hail (the comments alone on this link make it worth reading).

First, haint blue would look nice, I think, against the darker, deepwater blue that serves as the base color for most of the exterior. My second, more important reason for suggesting haint blue would be because it keeps out ghosts.

Ghosts. Or haints, if you have at least one person in your family that speaks Gullah, believes in the evil power of cats (they’ll suck the breath out of a baby) and who believes in ghosts.

I don’t, or didn’t, until just recently. When I moved in four months ago, I got the full tour of all the finicky touches in a house which will celebrate its centennial this summer (a number of SF houses will, given the construction following the 1906 quake).

The draft from the bathroom window will bang the door unless it is tightly closed. The toilet handle requires some insistent fondling before the water will stop running. The energy-efficient, on-demand hot water is moody at best.

Told all that, but was left to find out about the ghost myself. Come to think of it, I’m certain frank disclosure of supernatural activity is probably the law in spooky places like Savannah and Charleston. Disclosure and a can of blue paint is I suppose all you can hope for.

Now that I think about it, painting in haint blue won’t do much good, as I now recall it is used to keep ghosts OUT of a house. Ours lived here long before I did, and she shows no signs of moving out, or on.

Anne was the original owner of the house, according to our downstairs neighbor who knew her from living there for more than twenty years. Anne passed away in the house next door, which she also owned.

Despite owning so much of prime cocksucker-Castro real estate, Anne decided to occupy, in her final years, a very small part of the top floor of one house so she could rent out the rest of the flat and building. Of course, her room is now my room, and it is upon leaving it that I see and sense her the most often.

Thankfully, Anne seems pretty laid back. I catch her out of the corner of my eye in certain consistent areas near my room, and there have been times when I’ve definitely felt someone else in the house. This has been confirmed by the behavior of the house cats and by G-boy, who has also had a number of spooky experiences.

Recently though, Anne has upped the ante and begun wearing perfume (again). I walked out of my room recently into a cloud of stench that immediately made me think of my own grandmother – a gaggingly sweet scent reminiscent of rosewater, age, and Raid bug spray.

This development was met with some degree of skepticism by the boyfriend, who probably thought it more a by-product of yours truly walking around in his own self-generated cloud of pot smoke.

So I was relieved to return home just last night to have the BF relate the following : he’d been downstairs playing cards with the neighbors, popped upstairs into the dining room (across the hall from my room) to fetch (another) bottle of wine, only to run into the same wall of dime store scent.

He called up the kids from downstairs, the long time resident of which related that Anne did indeed overdo it on the scent, back in the day when she was, you know, alive. I feel bad bagging on a dead woman’s choice in cologne, but here’s the real kicker.

The scent won’t dissipate if you open a window, because, and this is the part that actually creeps me out, it isn’t REALLY a scent. It is the ghost of one, and our normal laws of air diffusion, physics, and good taste do not apply.

Furthermore, it lingers for a considerable time, and it really is very thick and unpleasant.

And so, for the slew o’ folk coming in to visit and staying in my room during their visit, I’m giving you fair warning. Watch the toilet handle, close the bathroom door tightly, and know that Anne may be walking around, and it smells like the old girl might be lonely and lookin’ for love.