Folsom St. Fair a Guaranteed Good Time

Today's unnecessary plug of the day is brought to you by Bear Party Magazine, because who doesn't like bears and who doesn't like parties?

I haven't been shooting for a while, and as a photographer that is a no no. To break the trend I decided to head to the Folsom St. Fair because I heard that there are a vast amount of picture opportunities. Now I have never technically been to the Folsom St. Fair but I have witnessed it one time early in my childhood. As a kid my family constantly visited my aunt in SF, and this trip my sister brought to bring her two best friends. They were probably in 8th grade, and to make a long story short my mom took a wrong turn and ended up on the street adjacent to Folsom. I still remember the reaction of the car when we witnessed two men dressed in leather start a full on make out session. Worst part...we were stuck at a red light.

I'm older now and I'm open to peoples sexuality. I entered the first barricade a sea of leather and flesh laid before me. The two main walkways were crowded with people in leather, leashes, and street cloths. It was a human gridlock. I tried to maneuver my way through the crowd I kept my eyes forward at the next intersection to change my camera lens. After the quick change I walked to a crowd of people dressed in street cloths who were watching a women being whipped. All the good spots were took up by other photographers so I turned around to walk out of the circle of people. As I turned around a I saw the most mind fucking thing ever. Just thinking about it makes it hard to write a grammatically correct sentence. A mental picture of this event will forever be ingrained in my head. I note this next sentence is not for the weak of heart..............

Standing right before me was a man standing in the power pose. No he didn't have a guitar in his hand. Instead he had his ramrod, and with his man meat in hand he played it like he was Ted Nugent.. I turned looked to my right and there was a man with his iphone filming this act of chicken choking.

Although I was shaken by what I had just seen I soldiered it out and went on to take some pictures of the fair. Everything else I saw during my trip to the fair was tame. Except the sight of an older naked woman smoking a cigarette and sitting spread eagle. After a good two hours of walking In the Valley of Penises I got a couple of decent photos and a one mental image that will last me a lifetime.

Dresses and Aliens

After a long day of walking the streets of Hayes Valley I decide its time to eat. I remember going to Hayes Kebab spring semester during one of my photo shoots for photo 2. The thought of mediterranean made my mouth water, and I remember having a pretty dam good gyro there. I walked up to the window of the restaurant and became confused then angry. Hayes Kebab no longer existed. Instead of seats and glorious mediterranean food there were racks filled with frivolous dresses. I stood bewildered just staring into the window.

"Are you looking for something?" somebody asked from behind me.

It was an older man around my height and a heavier set. He explained to me that the store I had been looking into was filled with old dresses from the drag bar down the block. I told him no and proceeded to ask him questions about the neighborhood. I got some good stuff from him. He then asked me if I liked men. I told him no, sorry I like women. The man then told me how difficult it was to come out to his parents, and after that shit started to get deep.

Stories about how is grandma's spirit had visited him and told him to talk to his mother. How he saw spirits during his childhood, and then asked me if I had any experiences with aliens. I told him the truth that I've had dreams about them, but every kid who watches ufo hunters on TLC has had multiple dreams of ET. Apparently this guy has seen several ufo's and communicates telepathically with them. Throughout the conversation all I can do is nod my head and say wow, and sometimes that's crazy. Every time I said that's crazy I hoped I wouldn't provoke an attack from the man. After about thirty minutes of this he had to go to work. I went to shake his hand, but he went in for the hug. The guy had some great info about Hayes Valley, but that was a strange conversation.

A walk through the Hayes

For my reporting class everybody had to pick a district in San Francisco to write on. With the restriction of picking an area of the city you are familiar with I ended up picking Hayes Valley. I've been living in the city for three years now and I had no idea where the hell Hayes Valley was located. So I went online found the district lines and headed to my default favorite area of the city. I rode the 14 from my house on Brazil and Mission all the way to 11th and Mission. I hate riding the 14 with a passion due to its consistent two stops between cross stops. It took me around forty minutes to travel four miles, so my first trip to Hayes Valley was off to a bad start.

After one of the longest bus rides of my life I headed towards my final destination. I'm not a huge fan of the downtown area due to the vast amounts of homeless/not homeless people, so I wasn't too hot on the idea of Hayes Valley, but as soon I crossed Van Ness the world seemed to change for the best. The dark wet feeling of Market Street turned into a warm dry feeling. The sun felt warmer and the sky looked clearer. Sure there were people walking around, and sure there were still homeless people, but there wasn't a constant smell of piss in the air. As I walked around everybody was super friendly. It was as if I had walked into bizarro downtown. I patrolled the outer lines of my area and then the heart of it. When walking past the African Outlet I saw people dancing on the sidewalks with smiles on their faces. This was something I have never witnessed in the city outside of Haight St. Even the homeless people were great. Out of the five I saw the only thing that they asked for was a cup of coffee. So my first impression of Hayes Valley would be comparable of seeing a smoking hot woman. She looks good, but you don't know if she's really messed up in the head.