September 17, 2008
Gawking Curbed in the Castro
The gays are sensitive and bizarre creatures. Especially in the Castro. The most recent issue to throw local homosexual Pride out of whack? Aggressively curious tourists and the tour buses that carry them. Sure, the neighborhood will adorn storefronts with foot-long dildos, the streets with trannies and tweakers, and the muscly skin with little to no clothing. But damn those of you who have the unmitigated gall to visit the Castro to stop and stare.
So, in an effort to stop tour buses from parking in the hood -- the same buses that released these slack-jawed yokels onto the clearly superior queer community -- the MTA gave its approval at last night's meeting to paint certain Castro curbs red and mark the area with no parking and we-tow signs. Problem solved. For now.
Oh, and what sparked this furor among the Castro ilk, you ask? Rumors of a tour guide on one of said buses telling passengers that they could tell "homosexuals by the way they walked and dressed." Which: true.
At right: Look away, you insensitive jerk.
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I was always told you could tell gays by the sound of their farts.
Or what side their earring was on.
We always stop and gay it up when the buses go by. "Hey look! Real gays in their natural habitat!" But come on now its not like my best friend and I are in colored wife beaters in a cabriolet with the top down blaring Deborah Cox and Whitney Houston at the corner of Market and Noe. Oh, wait, we are.
I knew I was moving to a tourist attraction when I found my awesome flat across from Golds. A convenient location has to have its costs.
"...blaring Deborah Cox and Whitney Houston at the corner of Market and Noe."
we should totally hang out.
You mean we can't be easily spotted by the way we're destroying heterosexual marriage?
@jamieson: HA!
Quite frankly, I think this is a missed opportunity. The tourist buses could have disgorged their tourists, they could have looked around and said, shit, they look just like me and my friends, gotten back on the buses and gone home to flyover country and said, "gay marriage? what's the big deal?"
When I'm in the Castro I usually just see regular, normal looking people.
Good god, we are turning away money spending tourists, let them come, they are all welcome, I do think it is hillarious, how the guys hang onto their wives/girlfriends for dear life,
The only thing that warms my heart more are the regular hymn singing bible thumpers with a couple of tweakers singing along. I did leave a bar slight the worse for wear one of those nights and one of them was dressed as Jesus with a life size cross over his shoulder, and in a moment of madness I grabbed the cross and ran down 18th st, followed by Jesus and his 12 apostles where they finally got it back off of me outside mobys, I was just trying to be like Simon Of Aces.
@bluecanary: "When I'm in the Castro I usually just see regular, normal looking people"
I think you mean "regular, normal-looking DRUNK people."
I can always tell when Brock rights something because it is just rude instead of snarky.
I can always tell when brock writes something because it's always rude instead of snarky.
once more, with feeling.
I'm absolutely outraged and appalled that there are rumors a tour bus driver said such a thing.
BAN THEM ALL!
bluecanary: duh. The Castro is dominated by white, land and/or business owning males who just happen to be gay. It's not so different from lots of other places in the USA.
@daithi Agreed. For some odd reason, even in this town of supposed highly-edjamacated enlightenment, the reactions are no different than in the small-minded burbs many of us escaped.
Hello!?! Castro Neighborhood/Merchants Associations...work with folks with money, not against them. It doesn't take much creativity and your pocketbooks will thank you.
This is retarded. I'm sorry, but folks who choose to live in Gay Land here in Six Flags San Francisco should shut it. I don't see people in Italian Land or China Land or Hippie Land complaining about being inundated by the Middle American planets with hair who choose to spend their vacations here and manage to escape from the Fisherman's Wharf Containment Zone. Because the fools who run this berg have killed our viability as a legitimate city by zoning any kind of development out of existence/legislating exactly how each one of us must live, dress, behave, etc., tourism is our number one industry. Unfortunately, tourism involves tourists, many of whom smoke on the streets (!) when they're not busily getting in my way with their gaping, knuckle dragging amazement at things like public transportation, gays, smelly sea lions, etc. This is the compromise we make by choosing to lead precious lives in our precious town. If the folks in the Castro don't like it, they should move. Ghettos are tacky anyway.
Angry Young Man, I think I love you.
omg. Angry Young Man, that was the most beautiful thing you have ever typed. A+++ would read again
I'll take a busload of tourists over an SUV filled with the bridge and tunnel crowd ANY day.
The Angry Young Man's return to the SFist comment threads have made me all atwitter again!
Yeah, I think that was the best TAYM comment ever.
Slack-jawed yokels! Haw! I guess we don't see that in the Castro... too many "tight-jaws" from the meth...
bluecanary: "When I'm in the Castro I usually just see regular, normal looking people."
When I'm in the Castro I am usually the one being looked at. Damn I'm sexy.
I'm still laughing over "Fisherman's Wharf Containment Zone."
As always, TAYM has nailed it.
so while we're talking about those people, what is it about gay men and small dogs? please to enlighten.
and ...
@angry young man: brilliant.
okay, this is stupid. angry young man: the castro is not a ghetto. and i think the issue was that tourists were "gawking" over men holding hands. in other places, what draws the tourists is a place or a landmark -- this is different. and retarded.
it's a gay ghetto.
TAYM is fierce. Let's just all go to the Disastro and pretend to be tourists and just STARE at everything in an ecstatic daze.
Meh... the idea of SF as a theme park with Asian Land, Hippie Land, and Gay Land was already done by Mr. Show back when... well, when Mr. Show was still on. Nice try TAYM, but it's been done before. And with songs!