Folsom Street Fair 2011: Preview

I lived in the Bay Area during the 1990s.  I’ve attended the Folsom Street Fair probably seven or eight times.  The first time (1991) was as a member of the San Jose Spurs dance team, staffing a booth selling temporary tattoos.  (That seems very odd today.  I don’t recall seeing such a booth from anyone after about 1993.)

After that year, Folsom and the San Diego Gay Rodeo vied for my attention.  At the time, the rodeo was always the last weekend of September, and Folsom Street Fair was always the 4th Sunday of the month, which meant that the two would conflict roughly every three years.  One year, I took a morning flight back from San Diego to be able to also do Folsom, but I both had to cut short my Saturday night in San Diego and got to Folsom late, so what was the point?  Eventually Folsom’s organizers apparently decided that it was too confusing for people to track the dates and switched to always be the last Sunday, so it was always in conflict with the rodeo.  Bummer.

One year (1998?), I even had a vending booth at Folsom, for my fetish t-shirts.  Oy, that was an adventure.  First time in Folsom history that it rained, I was told.  And I realized that the guys attending by and large didn’t want to buy anything (and have to carry a bag around), and they even less wanted to buy something that would cover up their gym-pumped bodies.  So the booth (plus insurance) was expensive (about the same as the full weekend vendor space at IML!), and I didn't sell a lot of t-shirts, and most of the guys who came into the booth were just getting out of the rain (except for the small crew who stopped in to get out of the rain and pop some GHB or other party drugs).

After I moved to Seattle in late 2000, I never got back for Folsom.  I go down every year for Sundance Stompede in October, and dealing with two trips to San Francisco in close proximity just doesn’t make sense.  I did get down for Dore Alley once, and International Bear Rendezvous a couple times, plus a few trips for work (working for companies with San Francisco, San Jose, or peninsula offices makes that easy).  This, then, is my first trip to Folsom in over a decade.  It will be interesting to see how it has changed.

Of course, I’ve changed a lot as well.  I’m in my 40s now, where my earlier experiences were in my late 20s and early 30s.  This time, I’m attending as a titleholder, which means I will have a few specific events to attend, and I will be looking at the proceedings with a different eye.  (I long ago realized that I enjoy events a lot more if I have a task or assignment attached.  Just having to be at the 12th Street Stage for the Titleholder Roll Call at 12:40 on Sunday gives me some focus and means I won’t be wandering around aimlessly, wondering whether I should drink, cruise, or just go nap.)

(I should cruise, obviously.)

In many ways, thus, this Folsom may be a fresh and new experience for me.  Or maybe it won’t, maybe it will be pretty much just what I remember, just with new faces and new pecs and plenty of attitude.  We shall see…