Month / November 2006

by Edward Champion

Keep Castro Halloween Going

During Halloween, for those who don’t live in San Francisco, the Castro transforms into a fantastic affair that is held every Halloween: sort of a mini-Mardi Gras in which everybody crowds into the Castro neighborhood and dresses up. Tens of thousands of people are drawn every October 31, and this confluence brings together freaks, drag queens, and everyday people — all of them celebrating the mischievious spirit of Halloween and this City’s rep as glorious weird magnet.

Last night, nine people were shot in the Castro area.

Now, a few years ago, some stabbings occurred and there was some discussion on whether the Castro should be closed down for Halloween. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

But the shootings have now upped the authoritarian ante and now Mayor Gavin Newsom is considering pulling the plug.

I certainly hope this isn’t the case. On Halloween 2001, I went to the Castro with some friends, having just returned from a trip to Germany. With irony declared dead (why?), I had grave reservations about whether or not my country’s innovative and creative spirit would survive the “you are either with us or against us” mentality that followed the 9/11 attacks. Castro Halloween 2001 reassured me, demonstrating that my country’s spirit was there. And I realized then that no matter how authoritarian this country became, there would still be Castro Halloween. There would still be people determined to celebrate their inner Bohemian spirits. There would still be people wanting to have fun and rock the boat, however rightward the national galleon sailed.

But if Castro Halloween is to go or to be seriously restricted because of these treacherous bad apples who spoiled the party for everyone, then I’ll know that my country is dead. I’ll know that our zero tolerance policy, which doesn’t account for the fact that terrible things will continue to occur as long as humans occupy this planet, applies across the board. I’ll know that, much like the great edgy cabaret acts of Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s that inspired Christopher Isherwood were completely halted and uprooted by Nazi thugs, this nation has no interest in one of our most precious freedoms: the right to assemble peacefully under the First Amendment.

If we believe in America, that marvelous land of rabblerousers and cultural innovators, then the citizens of San Francisco won’t let Castro Halloween go because of a few thugs.

by Edward Champion

So Now That the Sky Isn’t Falling, Will the Fundies Listen?

Scientific American: “The team of researchers, led by Kaye Wellings, a professor of sexual health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, analyzed nearly 200 studies on demographic sexual behavior in 59 countries published between 1996 and 2006 to obtain their results on the state of international sexual health….Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that young people are engaging in sexual intercourse at earlier ages–the first instance of sexual activity for both genders generally occurs at between 15 and 19 years of age globally.”

by Edward Champion

Answering Spam

I thought I’d decided to save the spam robots some time and answer their questions directly:

Are you experiencing hair loss?

Well, yes. I’ve been gleefully balding over the past four years and I’m loving every minute of it! Can’t wait to see what a kickass chromedome I’ll end up as. Do I need help? Well, not really. The balding is happening of its own accord. But thank you very much for asking!

Four Lenders Want to Speak With You

Surely, they want to speak with me because they enjoy me as an individual, yes? Surely, they want to go have sushi and talk about anything but collateral to me. It might help if you were to tell me what they want to speak with me about.

HOODIA is taking America by storm, because it is the safest, fastest acting weight-loss supplement in the world…now you can get a bottle on us!

Unless HOODIA is bottle of a twenty year old scotch, somehow devoid of the supplements and scary chemical elements that we both know you haven’t put in there, then I don’t think I’m interested. How has HOODIA taken America by storm exactly? Is it a concoction mined from cumulus clouds?

-Tired with weak penis?
-Want to have sex all night long?
-Girls don’t love you anymore?

I am not “tired with weak penis,” and don’t plan to be until a doctor diagnoses me as such sometime in my seventies. Sex all night long? With who? Do you want to turn me into Seth Brundle? Well, some girls don’t love me anymore and there are very good reasons for this. Do you mean girls as a whole? Or just some?

Never scrub your toilet bowl again

Unless I hire a housekeeper, I’m pretty certain that the accumulated mildew and bacteria will be of great incentive for me to scrub my toilet bowl. Are you trying to suggest that I am a slob?

Any med for your girl to be happy!

I presume she’ll be happy once I subscribe her some cyanide.

SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: Busty Teen Facially Gangbanged

I’ll play devil’s advocate. You have assumed, rather wrongly, that I am interested in child pornography. But let us suppose, just suppose, that the teen in question is actually an adult 18 years or older who is acting as such. And let us suppose that I absolutely need to view porn of this nature right now. I am unclear as to how a woman can be “facially gangbanged.” Surely, it is either a facial (meaning a closeup of a blowjob) or a gangbang (meaning group sex). Given the metric parameters of an orifice, it is rather doubtful that anything more than three cocks can be in her mouth. Does a foursome really constitute a gangbang? Further, if this “teen” is busty, what interest would I have in seeing her face? I’d be more inclined to view her anatomy. Okay, so you have a particular angle that can capture her upper chest and her facial. Where, pray tell, is the camera? I must assume that one of the men is holding it. If she is being “facially gangbanged,” will not the other cocks and legs occlude the “busty” view?

Sorry, I don’t believe you.

by Edward Champion

Pynchon Roundtable Forthcoming

Hear ye! Hear ye! Adept literary connoisseurs and other devoted followers of the Chums of Chance may wish to note that a roundtable, it being an interchangeable variable to be squared in a forthcoming equation, shall begin anew for the thick tome, Against the Day, now making its postal peregrinations to swell and salacious folks scattered across the Republic. Their veritable derring-do will be unearthed upon these pages, where there shall likely be talk of aether, balloons, anarchism, the Great Fair, and, of course, the considerably overlooked Chums of Chance, whose adventures have not met with the grand reception equal to their deeds.

Stay tuned, in as much as your monitor resembles Philo’s discovery, to these pages for more!