Porn Star Holiday Bingo is Thursday night.  The very tall Renttecca is our guest MC.  Special guests include the Men of Raging Stallion Studios and Sister Grinchetta.  Every bingo player gets free porn.  Indeed, this isn't bingo like your mamma played. 

Looking forward to next year and moving to Maine, I keep thinking "What next?"  After five years of running Ba-da-Bingo, I feel a little like a new retiree.  I am looking forward to something different and at the same time I am a bit frightened of letting go of something I did for so long. 

What luxury to be able to look into the future and consider every possibility. 

03 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Porn Star Holiday Bingo is tomorrow night.  I spent part of my day ironing bingo patterns on boxer shorts for porno actors.  Picture Edna Turnblad.

If website traffic is an indicator of turnout, tomorrow will be quite an event.  More indicative is my inbox which contains several messages begging for last-minute VIP tickets.  Poor planning inspires in my heart so very little mercy.  Sorry, darlings, you have to stand in line for tickets like everyone else.

If Sister Betty could be persuaded it would require title to a new Toyota Rav4.  Anything less is...well...less.

Now back to my ironing. 

 05 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Porn Star Holiday Bingo was an astounding success.  Once again, an event best experienced and not described.  Any description would require a perfunctory parental warning.  The three word summary: skin, penis, penis.

A big tip-o-the-wimple to the brilliant folks who donated their talent: Guest MC Renttecca, Michael Brandon and the men of Raging Stallion Studios,  Hot House Entertainment, the Russian River Sisters, Sister Edith, Drew and our dedicated cadre of volunteers.

After a fantastic five year year run, next year is our farewell season.  Five bingo nights remain and VIP Tickets for the final season of Ba-da-Bingo are on sale now.  General Admission tickets will be available starting in early January both online and at local merchants.  Join the email list to be notified when ticket sales begin.

I'm looking for photos of from the first four years of Ba-da-Bingo.  If you have photos to submit, contact me.  The person with the best photograph wins a new DVD player.
 

From left: Sister Bearlesque, Xavier Vitale, Sister Chastity, Renttecca (performing oral services), Michael Brandon, Sister Dana, Steven Richards, Sister Betty, Sister Grinchetta, Sister Nova	From left: Michael Brandon, Sister Dana, Steven Richards
Drew performs the Santa Dance	One of the Pink Ladies with Sister Grinchetta

And if you vote for that evil Republican child named Gavin, I shall kick you in the shins.

13 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I am in Texas.

David moved to San Francisco from Texas as did Shawn.  Spend enough time with David and you'll come to believe Texas churns forth a constant stream of thin, educated, well mannered and handsome white boys with perfect hair, cute shoes and scrubbed cuticles.  David's out of town guests are the stuff of Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs without the token female models required by Madison Avenue. 

Those boys come from Austin.  I am in Houston.  Houston is located a few miles north and west of the steamy armpit where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Southern states.

Texas is a big state.  A big Republican state.  Republicans are big on hero worship.  The American lexicon is filled with dead heroes but none sufficient to satisfy the current right wing factions.  Finding fault with everyone from Washington to Eisenhower, Houstonians named their airport after a single-term President who rode to power on the shirttails of another Republican hero and who was swept away after the country realized a Thousand Points of Light referred not to the potential of our citizens but to oil fires in Kuwait.  (Democrats are much too slick to attempt renaming airports while Americans still associate certain memories with the word "fly".)

Driving from the airport to my hotel, I scanned through Christian, country, Mexican, Christian-Country, Mexican-Country and Christian-Mexican radio Stations.  A giant billboard with smiling people in big hats proclaimed the joy of Jesus and the call letters of their television station.  Another billboard with the slogan "Your Number Is Up!" at first appeared to offer the jackpot value for the state lottery but on closer inspection simply stated the number of death row executions carried out in Texas this year.

The lobby of my upscale hotel is the scene of Caribbean-themed bar mitzvah replete with scantily clad blond girls jiggling their recently acquired breasts on a giant stage while a DJ screams psuedo-gang rap over pounding bass.  The first two floors of the hotel are filled with circumcised people in straw hats and flowered shirts drinking from coconuts pierced by straws.  The music is so loud the front desk clerk uses written notes to communicate with guests and the bellhop looks visibly pleased for the opportunity deliver my baggage to the quiet upper floor of the hotel.

Hungry, I summon room service to fetch a Big Ass Texas Burger.  The chef calls moments later to tell me they have run out of beef.  No beef in Texas?  I resist the obvious pork supply remark.

How odd that I can fly fourteen hours to Paris and feel completely comfortable while arriving in Texas after a three hour flight leaves me feeling I am in a foreign land.

13 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

"I am a faggot!  I am a faggot!  I am a faggot!  And this is a gay bar!" screams the drunk guy across the bar.

Moments later two dykes and the drunk guy are throwing punches.  The brawl spills over to the front bar before a handsome bystander intervenes.  The dykes and drunk separate.  Moments later a friend of the dykes arrives and starts throwing punches again.  Other bystanders intervene.  The friend of the dyke begins picking up balls from the pool table and hurling them at the bystanders.  Again the handsome bystander intervenes.  The dykes exit stage left while the drunk starts searching for missing pool balls.

The handsome bystander is an burly ex-con wearing Sketcher's skateboarding shoes.  We laugh about the dykes.  He tells me dykes need to chill out.  He loves dykes but they can be bit high strung, especially short ones who dress like boys.

I observe I was wrong about Austin.  Houston has an equal number of skinny, white boys with good manners. This observation has nothing to do with the ex-con.

Fast forward to midnight.  I am leaving the bar and discover miscreants smashed the windows of my rental car and vandalized the interior.  The ex-con appears across the street and offers his mobile telephone to call the police.  The rental car company tells me they will dispatch a tow truck. 

Rental Car Company:  Leave the keys under the seat and one door unlocked. 

Me:  One door unlocked?  All the windows are broken.

Rental Car Company:  Please don't be difficult, sir.  Lock the doors. 

Yes ma'am.

17 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

A Century of Innovation arrived on my doorstep today.  The book from the National Academies features a forward by Neil Armstrong and an image from Road Trip 2003 - the first publication of one of my photographs. 

Remember Tupperware parties?  A Texas woman was arrested for selling vibrators this week in a similar fashion.  She faces a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.  An acquaintance in Houston said it is illegal to sell dildos or vibrators in Texas. Perhaps that explains the popularity of one-liter soda bottles in Texas convenience stores.

In San Francisco, we use public transit to combat the spread of pornography.

I flew home from Houston today.  Despite having my rental car destroyed, I enjoyed my business trip.  I ate a bison steak, wandered through tunnels under the city and rode a train through a shark tank.  Oh, and I did some work, too. 

[Editorial note:  The plural of bus can be either buses or busses.  One dictionary indicated the plural of dildo to be dildos and another dictionary said dildoes.  The spell checking software has no plural for dildo.  Perhaps the software engineers can't imagine anyone needing more than one.  I'm unsure which is better:  dildos or dildoes. Any suggestions?]

19 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

Tis the season for holiday cards.  In the world of business, assistants across the country have filled the last few weeks printing databases, forging executive signatures and stuffing business cards in envelopes.  Mailmen across the nation inch closer to permanent disability under burdens of mailbags bulging with joyous corporate greetings.

Each year a number of these lovely cards arrive on my desk.  My name appears on a self-adhesive label affixed to the outside of an envelope embossed with the corporate logo.  The gender free, religion neutral, holiday card with motivational graphics extols the virtue of the season.  If I open the holiday card correctly I can prevent having to crawl beneath my desk when the enclosed business card flutters to the ground.  Very, very rarely someone has taken the time to scrawl a signature inside. 

Years ago I worked with a particularly annoying marketing executive who taped new holiday cards to her door each day.  The wood door disappeared under the onslaught of cards from every corner of the country.  The marketing executive was careful to remark (at frequent intervals and to anyone who would listen) that she received more cards than anyone else in the office.  Feeling both competitive and spiteful, I took it upon myself to defeat the queen of cards.  I mailed myself cards and stole others directly from her door.  My efforts were futile.  Indeed, her popularity was remarkable, the number of databases containing her name were endless and my salary insufficient to fund the ongoing race.

23 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

I am running, running, running and I've still not caught up.  Who thought it was a good idea to put Christmas into this week?

Last night I saw six lesbians playing ukuleles and singing Christmas carols.  They lacked a moniker so I suggested Uterleles.  MUNI Guy proposed Ukelabias.

I must now run...

24 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

MUNI Guy proved his ability to interpret allusions and gained a large number of points by giving me a PS2 for Christmas - a gadget I have long desired but refused to purchase for myself.  (What are lovers for if not to buy the gifts which appear overly self-indulgent when purchased for yourself?)  I, in turn, began the process of weaning him off the inferior fruit-branded computer he favored to date.  Thankfully he understands computers marketed primarily for their external design are...well...best left to starving artists with anti-authority neuroses.

During the holiday I surrendered my 16th Floor Financial District office for a modest office on Upper Market.  The live camera's former downtown view now features Buena Vista and the outer reaches of the Castro district. 

I fell unforgivably behind in responding to electronic mail over the past month.  If you sent me a note and failed to receive a response, no worries.  Your message is likely buried in my software in box. 

One final note for today:  I tasked an assistant in the office with distributing shirts and awards for Road Trip 2003.  I discovered in my move a box of unclaimed prizes.  Investigating, I learned the assistant sent out only half of what was intended for distribution.  If you were supposed to receive a prize of some sort for a donation to Road Trip 2003 and did not, please let me know.

31 December 2003 - (Link to this entry) (Comment)

In a few hours this planet will return to the location in space it was one year ago.  I wonder if astronomers have a name for this place.  We are holiday makers on a celestial Ferris wheel celebrating reaching the apex of our annual cycle, marveling at the distance we've traveled and the acknowledging we made it through another revolution.

If I could only find my pennies to drop on the midway below...
 

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