The best things when travelling happen when you're not expecting something cool to happen. So conversely, it shouldn't have been any big surprise to me that the party I just got back from, which I'd really been looking forward to, turned out to be a little bit of a flop.
When I was working over in San Francisco for the summer of '97, I was one of a crew of interesting sit-com characters in the Bridge Theater (sic) on Geary. Josh, the manager, was the gayest person in the world, with a drag character called Peaches Christ who seems to be doing pretty well at the moment, and a movie under his belt called Jizzmopper: A Love Story. Tyrone was a conspiracy nut who painted pictures of scenes from the JFK assassination and hung them in the cinema toilets, and was constructing from memory baseball teams with real historical players playing in their actual positions, where everybody's first name and surname on each team began with the same letter - he'd done A and was finishing up B when I left. Tria had blue hair (as had I at the time) and a long line in home-made clothes, my favourite of which was a skirt made of a Dukes of Hazzard duvet cover, with pictures of the General Lee jumping over a convenient mound of dirt. And the fantastic Lara, with a big honkin' scar on her neck and wrist from where her ex-boyfriend had broken out of a mental hospital and gotten distressingly far into his plan to kill both of them, with whom I had my first experience of falling in love - fantastic therapy for the naive young Irish immigrant stereotype whose only other experience of the opposite sex at the time had ended in a messy and painful way.
So when Lara suggested a couple of months ago that she have a party at which the old Bridge crew could reunite, I was quite taken with the idea. I'd really been looking forward to this evening, and seeing those guys again, because although I'd kept in touch a little with Lara and seen her once since '97, I hadn't had any contact with the others at all.
Unfortunately none of them showed up. Tyrone had mailed us saying he'd be out of the state this weekend and therefore couldn't make it, but the other two were strangely silent about it. I was particularly surprised about Tria, because she and Lara used to be pretty good friends, and Josh had expressed some enthusiasm about it, and Lara had scheduled the party to fit the fact that he'd be out of town later on during my visit promoting his new movie or something.
Those attendees that were there were mostly friends of Lara's boyfriend, I gather - his name is Tomas and he seems really nice. They're living together in a nice apartment with surprisingly good rent considering it's a mere block and a half off Market Street. So the friends came over and talked about mid-twenties (actually maybe they're pushing thirty, come to think of it) Bay Area stuff, and although it made for interesting listening as a snippet of life by the Bay, I was looking on from outside and had little to contribute. The food was good, Lara and Tomas obviously having gone to a lot of effort on that front, and the evening kicked off with a screening of The Neverending Story, which would seem to be rich with nostalgia value for those of our generation. Those of us who saw it as kids, that is. I hadn't, and can quite honestly say it's about the worst movie I've ever seen. And I've seen both Krull and Gor. Even more amazing than the fact that it apparently has not one but two sequels is the fact that it's by the guy who did the excellent Das Boot. There's no bad movie like a bad fantasy movie, I gotta say. Despite all this, it was a good addition to the party.
I didn't fail to enjoy myself or anything, it just wasn't what it could have been. At about a quarter to eleven I took my leave and got a BART back to the East Bay, where I found that Pierre the big dog had found the stash of Creme Eggs in my bag and left nothing but a field of cardboard confetti on the floor of my room - lacking opposable thumbs, he must have just eaten the foil wrappers too.
The main reason I left the party so early though was because I was just tired. I'd woken up at about eight and just had to check my mail - the most movement this required was reaching down to the floor to pick up my computer, and after that I lay in bed with it on its side replying to mails and having conversations. The afternoon brought us to Emeryville to eat pizza (they wouldn't serve me a beer because I hadn't my I.D. with me - do I really look under 21? The guy at the bar in LAX asked my age, and somebody at customs asked if I'm travelling with my family) and see the movie Phone Booth, which was extremely enjoyable and I recommend it highly.
I didn't get to talk to Lara much at all, so I might meet her later on and go to Alcatraz together (she's never been, as is the way with people in cities with tourist attractions). For now though, I'm going to bed.