Fab Town

I live in the part of San Francisco called The Castro, named after the main drag of the neighborhood, Castro Street. It is, to paraphrase a Daily Show correspondent, the gayest street in the gayest city. But it’s more than just a label of sexuality; the neighborhood pulses like a heart, or in gay terms, a disco strobe light.

The Castro used to be called Eureka Valley, although it’s really more of a slight decline from the major hills of San Francisco. Castro Street is where the decline levels out. It has the amenities of urban life: coffee shops, movie theater, restaurants, bars, boutiques, book shops, accessible public transportation, and, unlike most places, a plethora of gay porn shops.

And it has plenty of what I like to watch: people, and more than that, eccentric people. Every neighborhood should have an eccentric. San Francisco has had some famous ones, such as Emperor Norton. Now every weekend, The Castro fills up with all sorts of eccentric folks, and with the addition of cheap booze the eccentricity really starts to crackle. The leather boys and the fashionable twinks, the femmes and the butches, the bewildered tourists and the pushy homeless, the cops and the drag queens make for a Mardi Gras every weekend

My neighborhood has a gentleman that I call Otto. Otto is a white male about six feet tall with long brown hair and a beard. He is a bear--that is a hairy gay man. He usually walks around the area with only a leather vest, leather shorts, boots, and sometimes a tail. Yes, he has a tail that sticks out behind his ass and slightly curls upward. I’ve never talked to him, and I don’t know his real name, but I appreciate the color he brings to my street. Just another day in Fab Town.