By Tom Temprano
Last week I celebrated the ten-year anniversary of my moving to San Francisco. A decade ago, at 18 years old, I enrolled at San Francisco State and moved into the Mary Park Hall dorms, more to begin my adventures as a San Franciscan than to pursue the Drama degree for which I had enrolled. Ten years later I’ve traded in the drama of the stage for the drama of politics and needless to say the city that I love has undergone some changes.
Here are a few differences and similarities:
VALENCIA STREET TRANSPORTATION = DIFFERENT
Back when I moved here there were WAY more Muni bus lines. I used to take the 26 Valencia from my first San Francisco apartment on Guerrero and Caesar Chavez all the way to my classes at SFSU. Muni no longer services Valencia Street, but ten years later there are still plenty of bus lines running up Valencia – they just happen to be operated by Google and Genentech.
Let’s not even get into the other ways Valencia has changed in the past ten years.
THE MAYOR = THE SAME
Despite moving here eight months after he left office, I have never lived in a San Francisco where Willie Brown wasn’t the mayor. While Gavin and Ed’s names may have technically graced the plaque outside of Room 200, we all know who the real boss has been. SFist once said it best using arguably my favorite headline of all time: Regarding Willie Brown and How He Will Never Stop Being Mayor.
THE QUEER SCENE = DIFFERENT
The city’s long history as a queer mecca certainly played a large part in my, and many others, decisions to come here. Even this city’s reputation couldn’t have prepared me for the transformative experiences that I had in divey gay bars and clubs like The Transfer, Deco and Kimos, experiences that sadly are no more since all of these spots are now shuttered. Blame for gay bar closures ranges from hookup apps to craft cocktail mania to Oakland — depending on who you ask, but I’d rather not postulate and will instead simply mourn their passing.
THE FOG = THE SAME
While our famous fog may have gained a new name (Karl) and increased social media relevance in the past decade, it’s still the same old fog that used to chill my fresh-from-So-Cal bones when I first moved here. It still catches tourists underdressed and by surprise each summer, its still a big reason that I only make it to the beach in San Francisco a few times a year and its still, along with spotty N Judah service, the reason that rents are at least somewhat palpable in the Outer Sunset.
Everyone has wanted to talk to me about nothing besides the Harvey Milk Club’s endorsements on certain local ballot initiatives since the club made its choices this past Tuesday. Unfortunately, little of that discussion has revolved around the initiative I’m most interested in, Proposition G –the Anti-Speculation Tax, which is priority #1 for the club and for myself. I’ve heard that the legislation is polling well – so well that moderate elected officials and organizations are declining to weigh in on the issue. After the resounding defeat of 8 Washington and the overwhelming victory for Prop. B in the past two elections, long-time real estate industry cheerleaders are understandably unwilling to stick their necks out and again be on the wrong side of a populist housing issue.
I finally made my first trip to Outside Lands, thanks to a surprise last-second ticket from my good friend Anna Conda. I have admittedly gone way out of my way to avoid the festival in past years, being that I am generally crowd-averse and couldn’t stand the thought of spending an hour and a half just getting to and from a transit-clogged Golden Gate Park.
My own anxieties were inadvertently appeased by the fact that my ticket was for Saturday, a day with fewer marquee acts than other days (thus less attendees) as well as headliners (Tom Petty & Macklemore) that I would rather skip in favor of heading out early to beat the masses out of the park. Honestly, aside from a sweaty set from Big Freedia, who had the entire audience wrapped around her finger, the music was pretty lackluster. Fortunately ever, literally every, local restaurant winery and brewery that I love had a booth setup so after eating and drinking my way through the festival and shaking away all those extra calories to Freedia I was more than ready to call it a day.
In news that I’m sure will come as a shock to all of you readers, THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE ON SUNDAY MORNING. Even if you slept through the earthquake, your social media newsfeeds would have quickly alerted you to its happening as every single person in your network shared their personal quake story. In case you were wondering (I bet you weren’t) my boyfriend and I were in fact woken up by the quake but, being native Californians weren’t shaken up enough to get out of bed. If the dog isn’t barking, the cat is clawing and you haven’t heard the sound of glass breaking in your kitchen you might as well hit snooze.
MOVIE TIME
I spent much of my weekend relaxing and watching a bunch of “new classic” sci-fi and superhero movies. My boyfriend and I, in a feat of couch potatoing that is one for the record books, watched both of the new Star Trek films, The Dark Night, X-Men First Class and squeezed in the newest Muppet Movie for good measure. While Miss Piggy was unquestionably the toughest cookie among the many heroes and villains we witnessed I completely forgot just how incredible and uncomfortable Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker had been.
