I’m really excited about Larry Flynt running for governor — screw tripling car registration fees and raising taxes, he wants to make money off slot machines. What is taking everyone so long in figuring out how to capitalize on people’s willingness to throw their money away? I pondered what it would be like to have Flynt in the gov’s mansion last night as I worked on another sex ed book and intermittently traded emails with the Reverse Cowgirl, Dr. Ducky Doolittle and Thomas Roche. Thomas’ concise reply to the whole thing was "fuck yeah." I think I’d rather stab a pen in my eye than have another idiotic conservative actor in charge of my precious native state, and how cool to have someone who has faced off in numerous court battles to uphold the First Amendment? Besides, it’s awfully fun to see "smut peddler" in newspaper headlines, as if anyone born after 1950 would have either of those archaic terms in their daily usage. Yup, selling naked pictures of consenting adults engaged in sexual acts to consenting adults who want to see them — this savvy and fearless businessman is surely the type of guy you’d see "peddling smut" on the streetcorner. I’ll take a pornographer over someone who makes sexist and ridiculously violent action movies running the state government any day, thank you very much. Besides, I’d vote for anyone who has such clever advertising parodies. Notice that like the media I’m completely discounting the candidates who are career politicians.
I finally made it out of the house without going to Good Vibes for some reason or another, though I sure had fun working my Thursday floor shift. After telling women that female ejaculate isn’t pee and helping two lesbians nervously buy their first strap-on, I met up with Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence for drinks down in the San Francisco neighborhood of Hayes Valley. It’s a weird little hood, has ritzy restaurants packed in between those famous San Francisco victorians, alongside liquor stores, a drag queen bar or two and a few short blocks from some pretty crime-filled low income housing projects. That’s The City for you. We went to this fancy place I’d passed by a million times but never been to called Absinthe, and I’ll admit I’ve mostly avoided it because of the "upscale" atmosphere. But I figured that with Carol and Robert anyplace would be fun, and in fact they said as we were going in, "Yeah, we used to be those cat-hair-covered, odd-looking locals that would wander in and they just kind of tolerated us — then one day we brought in Nina Hartley!"
It was a fun night out, and they have to be the most entertaining people in the world — you could never, ever get bored hearing all of their amazing stories, adventures in the sexual underground and teaching sex ed in places as bizarre to imagine as China. Absinthe turned out to be a nice little bar once we were seated at a table and is definitely worth a visit, or a good place to bring out of towners I’d want to impress — though admittedly, my idea of impressing guests is going to the SRL shop or catching a Marching Band or Extreme Elvis gig, but I’m, er, different. They don’t have any real absinthe in there, though I’d really like to try some, so it’s almost like false advertising.
Meanwhile my friend Greg Leyh has been named one of the "Smartest People in the Bay Area" by The Wave Magazine — I have stood next to extreme smartness on several occasions now. Maybe I should rub Greg for luck when next I see him at the SRL shop. The North Beach Jazz Festival is this weekend, and last year I caught it and it was totally awesome — this year they’ve got the Rebirth Brass Band in the lineup and I’m really sorry I’ll miss ’em — I have to go to a very mandatory bachelorette party tonight. One of my oldest friends is finally tying the knot with her girlfriend on the 16th, and tonight femme lesbians have traveled to SF from all over to take her out for her last hurrah. It’s going to be hell on high heels — we’re meeting at her house, then we’re off to a Fairy Butch erotic cabaret night, where there will undoubtedly be lots of drinking, lipstick being smeared, and hopefully lap dances for all, if not the bachelorette. I hope I make it out alive, or at least with my dignity intact — but then, dignity becomes pretty overrated after a couple of cosmos and being surrounded by beautiful horny lesbians. Report to follow.
