Melbourne Loft

I went and checked out the Castro Street Fair today.   I saw some pretty funny things.  There were people dressed as animals in a petting zoo and barely dressed guys were selling kisses and I’m not sure what else in their darkly lit tent.   Oh…  and they had a huge painted up Partridge Family bus!   The fair was mostly a community fair with lots of fundraising, surveys, hand made cushions and psychic readings.    It was a pretty nice day.   I avoided the sausages for lunch even though they did look very delicious!
And this afternoon I checked out the Mr S Leather store in SOMA for a souvenir or two.  Tonight I think I’m going to head down to check out the Powerhouse bar on Folsom.

I’m making good use of the long sun filled days while I’m here in California.   The weather is absolutely perfect!   I’ve done a few shoots this week of guys I’ve met while I’ve been here.   The hotel has a heated outdoor pool and a beautiful rooftop garden.   The shoots will be posted in the Private Room when I get back home.

I love San Francisco!   I’ve had such a fun week here hanging out with my mates Bill, Luke and Jim.   The week saw us take in the Lovefest and Folsom Leather festivals, rented a car and drove up to Muir Woods and the Napa valley, then Baker’s Beach, Golden Gate bridge and park, Twin Peaks….   we’ve been everywhere!   Oh…  and the shopping!  I’ve shopped like crazy!  My favourite place was the Sports Basement in the Presidio.  I have to send a box of clothes home on Monday so I can travel on to Vancouver on Tuesday.  And tomorrow will be my last big event day.  I’m going to check out the Castro Street Fair.   
And the photo…  it’s the butter dispenser at the Metreon cinemas.    Grrrrr…..

Greetings from San Francisco!   I arrived on Friday afternoon at the SFO International Airport, eventually found Bill and then headed to our hotel.   It wasn’t long before we were downtown eating and shopping.  Later we met up with Luke and Jim and headed out for dinner at a diner.  I had no appetite after the non-stop eating on the plane so I had a small bowl of clam chowder.
The LoveFest Parade on Saturday (pic above) was one of the best, most fun parades I have ever seen!   Everyone was having so much fun.  We took about 400 photos so I’ll start a new gallery soon so you can check it all out.   On Saturday night we tried to get into the End Up for the Raging Stallions party, but the line was huge.  So we ended up at the Hole in the Wall Bar.  
And then on Sunday we checked out the wild Folsom Street Fair!   Each year I think I’ve seen everything…  and then something else wild happens.   I loved the go-go dancing jesus in the cage hanging above the crowd and the porn star twister.  Very funny stuff!  I’ll post some more pics when I have some time.   Tomorrow we are off to Alcatraz!

Okay…  so it’s Spring here and I will be vacationing in Fall in the USA and Canada,  Today I leave for San Francisco and the first item on the itinery is San Francisco’s huge LoveFest parade and party.   It should be a fun Saturday afternoon as all the freakky costumes come out.   I missed it last year as I was lost somewhere near the Golden Gate Bridge.   But I’ll be there tomorrow!
Then on Sunday we’ll be checking out the Folsom Street Fair before the touring starts on Monday.  I’ll be putting trips updates here as I travel around with Thomas the laptop tiger.

It was like waking up to Christmas this morning!   Today I fly to San Francisco (via Sydney) with Qantas.   And I jumped online to see if Qantas had granted my upgrade.  I was preparing to fly in economy because I know the flight is pretty full today (thanks Seatcounter.com).   And the first indicator that I’d been successful was that my points balance had dropped.  And then I checked my flight to see the magic word above…   business.   Oh…  and upper deck too!   I can’t wait to slip into those Morrissey pyjamas (Qantas).

It’s just 1 week now till I leave for San Francisco (and then on to Vancouver).  The first weekend in San Francisco will be very busy.  I’m meeting up with my friends Bill and Luke over there.   On Saturday the Love Festival (or is it Love Parade?) is on and then on Sunday we’ll go and check out the Folsom Street Fair (a huge leather fetish festival).   It’s a huge freaky weekend in San Francisco.  After that we are planning on doing a whole lot of touring.   I can’t wait.
I should find out during the week if I have gotten my upgrade to business class on my Qantas flight from Sydney to SFO.  The pic above is from San Francisco last year.

I was really sad to hear the news today that one of the members of the very first Big Brother household died in a hospital in China.   Gordon “donkey dick” Sloan (also known as Flash Gordon) became a larger than life character in the channel 10 reality series 7 years ago when reality TV was quite new to Australia.   He was a huge boy who would fill the days in the house by doing hundreds of crunches and thus had an amazing body.   His fame followed him to Iraq where he was to become a human shield there during the war in 2003.  He also helped set up a shelter for homeless children.   I last saw him in one of Tim Brunero’s interviews on Ohbrother.com during this year’s Big Brother series.    The rumour is that his death was drug related.   He was just 34 years old.

I haven’t heard anything so stupid for such a long time.   It is looking likely that the Liberal Party (lead by John above) will not be voted in as the next Government for Australia later this year.    And the polls seem to point at the dropping popularity of it’s leader.   His leadership has been under question for the last couple of years.    Mostly he is coming off as an arrogant smug idiot who doesn’t know when to quit!    
The news today is that he wants to stay the leader of the party (win one more election) and then he promises to retire part way through the next term….   
Before today I might have bought a used car from this guy…   but now this is low!    Does he expect us to believe this?   He allegedly promised the same thing to Peter Costello before he was elected as the prime minister.    It’s so blatent now…  the man is a liar.   There is only one thing I want to see on TV this year….   John Howard giving his losing speech.

Continuing with the Airport series of movies this weekend I checked out “Airport 79 The Concord”.   It was nice to see some of the characters from previous Airports getting a seat again.   This time they actually spent a bit of money.   I had no idea the concorde existed in 1979…  or that it could fly upside side to avoid heat seeking missiles.    The big surprise was the passenger list.   JJ from Good Times and the husband from Greenacres.  
The story line didn’t have us in the air much…  even though the concorde was attacked on both legs of it’s flight from Washington to Moscow.  There was a lot of time spent on on-ground romances, hookers in hotel rooms, evil men “fixing” the plane and some corporation building the heat seeking missiles.   Oh and Robert Wagner played the part of the bad guy.   He had his on personal groovy 70’s jet…   with colour TV!   I won’t tell you how he ends up in the movie….   but he doesn’t pick up his luggage.   The best thing about this movie is very funny manouvering of the concorde as the cartoon-like missiles come after the plane…  I can see why they decided to make Flying High after watching this movie.
I still think Airport 75 is hard to beat for all it’s camp 70’s glory.   Next week we’ll check out the original “Airport”.