It's time to move.

Not a hint of irony.
Originally uploaded by ohnochriso.

No, really. The Castro has just become way too much. I mean, it really always has been, I guess. But it seems like lately I just can't handle it anymore and neither can Red. It might be weird to think of two queer guys not wanting to live in The Gayest Neighborhood Ever but it's so not for the kind of gay we are. We don't go to the gym 5-7 times a week. We don't tan. None of our tattoos are barbed wire armbands, random tribal designs or a panther crawling up from our crotch to peek above the underwear line. There are no cargo pockets on any of our clothes and I personally think Madonna stopped being relevant back around the time she stole vogueing from the fags of color in NYC.

Think of it this way: say you love cheese a lot., right? You love to eat it and you enjoy it on, in or with any kind of food. Well let's say you walk through your neighborhood one day and it's all made of cheese Cheese buildings, cheese lamp posts, cheese restaurants, cheese stores, cheese people, etc. You will most likely find yourself saying "Okay, I love cheese and all but I don't needthis much all the time!" I understand why people flock to the Castro, especially if it wasn't easy or okay to be gay where they used to live. I am not denying them that desire or that need. But even though I grew up in ass-backwards New Hampshire I still don't need this much gay. Especially not this much mainstream gay. I don't need everything to be advertised to me with the image of some wax-chested, orange fake tanned, vapid looking pretty boy alongside it. And everything feels so consumer oriented and wealth-focussed and just a little gross sometimes. Where's the subversive element? Where's the queerness?

In the end, I want a neighborhood that has a bit more diversity. Moving here from Fort Greene in Brooklyn where you really saw so many kinds of people all the time, it was a bit of a shock to land in such a homogenized little slice of SF. I don't need Gay Disneyland 24/7 because even though I'll always be a fag there's a whole lot more to me than that. It's part of my life it's not my lifestyle. I can actually do something or be somewhere that doesn't focus solely on being gay and I will actually not explode and die. I like the idea of being able to come to the Castro by choice and not always have to be soaking in it. It'll be nice to feel like I don't live in a year 'round gay beauty pagaent.