music and heights

stewart dropped me off at the castro and with my obligatory and indispensible lonely planet city guide to san francisco nestled in my pocket, my ipod clipped to my belt and my new gaudy luminous green headphones trailing from my ears, i began my perambulations in earnest, stopping off for a late lunch at the baghdad cafe along the way

kailik said that after the first few hours i would tire of the steep hills - he was slightly out with his calculation - after three days of sightseeing mainly on foot, my feet finally sent a no-nonsense ultimatum to my head, as i was strolling through the american landscape paintings galleries of the de young museum in golden gate park, that they would file for divorce from the rest of my body if i didn't take the bus home - fortunately kailik was due to arrive the next day bringing with him a much longed-for rental car

having spent the last few weeks being a sad fucker and making up numerous itunes playlists during my hours of leeeeesure time in kansas city, i was well prepared for my visit

so i headed down the castro with my rainbow playlist pumping out a string of gay songs - tom robinson, bronski beat, rufus wainwright, etc which put me in the right frame of mind to wander around the book and dvd shops browsing among such imaginative titles as 'the da vinci load' and 'fill me up, sir'

then up to haight and ashbury, the centre of the various summers of love in the mid-sixties, as scott mackenzie warbled lyrics of beautiful people with flowers in their hair - i think i saw some of the original beautiful people wandering up and down haight street talking to themselves and searching the litter bins for discarded scraps of food - i detoured off to see the house where janis joplin lived in the late sixties (before she was evicted for keeping a cat), listening to her belting out 'me and bobby magee' and wondering what it would feel like to choke to death on your own vomit

as i wound my way to the summit of buena vista park to take in the excellent 360 degree view of the city, the bay and the ocean, i imagined old ladies using zimmer frames overtaking me and a surreal gay nun's chorus singing a strange medley of 'climb every mountain' and 'every day is a winding road'

by the time i'd got to the bottom of haight and crossed over to the edge of golden gate park, i'd turned off the music which enabled me to hear the offers of drugs at cheap prices being offered to me by young drop-outs with interesting facial piercings

so now i believe i've explored most of the places i set out to see - i've climbed russian hill, a gay pilgrimage site for all armistead maupin readers, ridden the cable cars (it's very difficult to see the views from inside one) and taken pictures of the rose window in the sacred heart cathedral, the setting, as every well-read gay man and fag-hag knows, for a quasi-religious, cannibalistic cult in 'more tales of the city' - i've admired the views of the golden gate bridge from fort point where kim novak threw herself into the bay in 'vertigo', wandered along the cliffs on the marin county coastline, eaten an awesome burrito in the mission district, viewed alcatraz from various positions whilst imagining the views of lots of manly sweaty imprisoned american guys from various positions and, of course, finally, after years of anticipation and much discussion, visited my 'spiritual home' , as kailik describes it, the lone star bar on harrison street