Poop In The Pipes
Before I was an Oregonian I was a San Franciscan and happily so. If there is a town where it was cool to be whatever kind of cool you were,...(are?)it was there, then.
Other locales of content there were, but SF, The City, WAS an island refuge in a sea of Ralph Reeds and Anita Bryants, Nancy Reagans, and Carl Roves, humanoid appearing animals we were pretty sure were lizards from Pluto, the banished dregs of a frozen world come down to take over ours. They (you know, them), put spells on the bridges so they would quit splitting open when the scalies got on, dropping them into the Bay. When they used to fall in and after basking and rolling around in the slime on the bottom, they would inflate their gooeygas organs and float up like lumpy alligator shit and then slide and squirm their way out and try again. They'll pollute 50,000 gallons of seawater each if you let em'.
Ask any sail surfer who fucks around under the GG Bridge about them if you don't believe me.
Ugly things, fun to pop if you can catch 'em when they're floating around swole up. Poisonous though, wear safety gear and always have a gun.
Now, hanging out in SF I gotta say, I got into a little" New Age" hoopla, I had an intense experience with Rebirthing. I took a heavy dive into the long-forgotten synaptic regions of my brain containing ugly memories.
Once.
I happily screwed my way through a "volunteer" stint at the "Information Center" of the local est chapter. I have no idea what est was about but they wanted $900 to spend two weekends getting "it."
I was a plumber then,1984? I think so. working for a construction company who were upset because I came and went when I felt like it and I taught the bosses kid how to grow weed and he got busted. Gave me right up the little rat.They said I had to do the fucking est training or I was through. See, it worked for them, but they didn't understand heroin as I did.
It was easy to work there, they paid me good and I always got everything done on schedule and under budget, but junk takes up some time often, and once I got down I would have to wait until I could walk to go to work. My brain was good, but my balance would get funny. I had corresponding priorities which can be confusing for squares, hard for them to feature me, say, wanting to go get a spoon of raw at lunchtime. Shit.
So I did the thing, the est thing.
What a pain in the ass.
What I got, what "It" was to me, was a desperate need to get my fucking money back, which I did but I ain't saying how....and as much pussy as I could handle and I was a young man then, sooo.....yeah. Everyone coming in came to see me first for a nametag or a book or "information."
I just had so many shots that I couldn't miss, I only had to get lucky once a shift so I tried them all. Laws of averages and like that, you know? It all worked out like it should. No one ever complained about my fresh ass either, I don't think.
You know what, I'm one of those guys who thinks everything used to be better, the shit I used to hate listening to from my old relatives around the table is the shit I let out now. Yak yak yak goes the old fat guy.
This worries me.
When I remember that it worries me, I wonder why?
I think it must be that fuckin' Trump's fault.
Hey, why not? He's fucked everything else up.
I got to SF to stay in, I think, 1976, or 78, I have to think here, yeah,, 78. I think. The town swung like a motherfucker, then just a few months after I got there.....
I was concerned about being approached and fucked around with by homosexual men. I knew they were there and I was worried about it. So, about that, in case anyone reading this is worried let me tell you, gay people like to mate with gay people. If you're straight you ain't in that part of the club. You want to party, play baseball, drink, listen to music, see a movie, eat...your gay friends do too, and no one is interested in discussing shit with you about personal shit that really is none of your business. What I got in SF then was an experience that few get to see. A people liberated. In SF, people of the gayonic persuasion were freed, and they acted as a people who have been freed, made free from a massively rotten prejudice that was often deadly and always wrong. Finally and forever.
And, just like everyone else, no one is like anyone else.
Our Mayor and a City Councilman were murdered when a twinkie-addled minor ex-functionary, insulted by his own idiotic papal beliefs, slithered through a window at City Hall and shot to death two other functionaries who were at work. Two good guys, too.
The gunman got 5 years with the now-famous Twinkie Defense. Murderin' Dan had been a cop, fireman, city council member and claimed he went nuts due to his Twinkie habit. No shit. Look it up, "The Twinkie Defense"
Later, he killed himself. So, that worked out as Karma does, but it was too late for Harvey and George.
Then, in 80, AIDS hit The City. I found it early on, It really sucked.
One afternoon I went over to a friend's house to get high and he couldn't walk on his right leg and it had a huge ugly swelling thing growing out of his shin.
He was a hooked-up dope dealer so the pain wasn't his problem, he was worried about the bump and so I drove him up to Mission Emergency at SF General. I had to help him walk, he held onto my shoulder, the leg was weak as well as having the bump.
Aids.
He had Aids.
Hardly anyone even really knew what it was yet in The City.
He was a trust fund kid, educated, straight, and as cool and kind a guy as I ever met. He had the whole top floor of a Lower Nob Hill building, a great pad. A fantastic record collection, just a great guy living it up, not a care in the world. Fucking Aids killed him in two months and then, those days, no one could do anything or even explain why the fuck it was happening. There was no test, no one knew yet where or how you got it. Well, not entirely or exactly, not yet.
I hung out with Michael while he checked out. There was nothing anyone could do, he knew it, he wanted to duck any more tests after the first round. He didn't want to go to the hospital anymore or try to explain anything anymore. I guarded him, kept him loaded on Bromptons Elixir, and bounced anyone he said, anytime he said.
It was hard with his family, shit I'm going to start crying.
We had a good time while he was getting ready to go, it sounds funny but it's so.
Try that elixir if you ever get the chance, but make sure it's from a compounding pharmacy, in the sealed bottle and take it easy to start.
They tried though, those fucking heroes who worked at SF General.SF General hospital got real about taking care of people who caught HIV, which you died from no matter who you were in those days. No hope. Man, it was tough.
A nightmare staffed by saints who understood the people they were trying to help were deathly ill not sinners'. They built the fifth floor in SF General Hospital into a clean and beautiful place for anyone who got there.
There's another crop of heroes now, the Covid vets, as victimized by Flaphead Don and his dirty little family of beggars as the Amerikan Government has been.
Shit, it's getting late and I am getting all hung up about Mike so I'm going to go watch True Romance or Hellboy 2.
I gotta bring in the Hummingbird feeders or they'll freeze, too. I got a herd of Hummingbirds eating off us this winter.
Big Bob comes out in the morning and waits by the door for me in the morning. Sugar water is what he wants and right fuckin' now too,hurry up motherfucker.
I remember just how that is, lucky for him.
Ahhh. Now there's a smile.
Have a good night, motherfuckers.
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