San Francisco Treats from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association’s Convention

I arrived late Wednesday
night. The Adelaide Inn, buried at the end of this alleyway called Isadora Duncan
Court in the very touristy and heavily retail-oriented Union Square, is a gem.
It’s billed as a "Unique European Pensione" and does offer the
usual continental breakfast and shared bathroom facilities. I was attracted
to it for the location–near the still-gentrifying SoMa district, not far
from a BART station, where one can be whisked away to Castro St. I got up before
most of the city on Thursday to walk all the way down Market St. to the Castro
to see what all the hoopla is about. I didn’t get to explore much of it,
however, until Sunday.

At Thursday night’s
opening reception I made eye contact with this thirtysomething guy who used
to work for AP, but now works at one of the country’s top daily newspapers.
We’d met before at this NLGJA event in Brooklyn, but didn’t get to
talk then. After introductions, we went to eat at this adorable French bistro,
Bizou, a few blocks from the Argent Hotel in SoMa. I felt as I imagine New Yorkers
must have felt in Tribeca back in 1992: there were loads of warehouses, poor
streetlighting and then, ta-da–groups of yuppies waiting for a seat in
this comfy, rustic bistro. At the table, conversation turned to George W. Bush’s
calling Adam Clymer a major-league asshole. Everyone at the table had enjoyed
Maureen Dowd’s column that week, in which she argued that "major-league"
meant more in terms of Dubya’s fratboy mentality than the word most papers
across the country did not print.

Things were going well.
We kept making eye contact and smiling throughout dinner. Back at the hotel,
he asked if I’d like to come up to his room, and two of the guys we dined
with saw us leave the elevator together. I mentioned the tendency of gay men
to be gossip queens. "There’s usually more gossip about who comes
to the next day’s breakfast session holding hands than who was seen leaving
the elevator together," he assured me. So we made a slight pretense of
looking through guidebooks to see if there was anything hipsterish happening
on a Thursday night, gave up, started making out and, well…I ended up leaving
the Argent around 10 o’clock the next morning. And it was great. You never
know about sexual compatibility with hook-ups, so we were both pleasantly surprised.
I later found out that Bizou means "little kiss."

Friday there were workshops
on gay-related journalism topics like "Do I Sound Too Gay to Be a TV Reporter?:
A Voice Workshop" and "Just Like Everybody Else?: Mainstreaming the
GLBT Community." The luncheon featured Gay.com’s Michelangelo Signorile,
Newsweek’s Sarah Pettit and Linda Villarosa of The New York Times.
It was planned as a reunion of the controversial panel of the first convention
back in 1992, where sparks flew over disagreements about the outing of public
officials, but Andrew Sullivan backed out at the last minute. Signorile joked
that his no-show was because his views had come full circle over the years since
the first convention. I found myself sitting two seats from a good-looking celebrity,
Danny Pintauro. I grew up watching him as Jonathan on Who’s the Boss?
He was in town for his new show, The Velocity of Gary (Not His Real Name),
showing at the New Conservatory Theater. He poured a cup of coffee for me.

The best part of the day
was the Newsweek-sponsored party, way up in the Argent Hotel, offering
breathtaking views of the city. I chatted with Jonathan Capehart, a Bloomberg
columnist, and historian Charles Kaiser. I was introduced to Judy Wieder, editor-in-chief
of The Advocate. At that moment, I was all about schmoozing and the energy;
here I was at ground zero, with some of the best gay journalists in the country.

After having a few drinks
at a lame "men’s event" in the Metreon–a garish, Disneyesque
entertainment complex near the Argent–I had dinner at Harvey’s with
another editor, Rob, before heading to The Cafe on Market St. My expectations
were high: the advance hype was that this nightclub was a must-see. I appreciated
that there was no cover charge, reasonably good house music playing and the
crowd was equal parts male and female, with a strong number of gay Asian, Latin
and black folks. The dancefloor was kinda small, but sizable enough to groove
on without poking out some cute boy’s eye. I’m fairly easy to please
in this regard. Give me a vodka cranberry, some decent tunes and a friendly
crowd, and I’m set. The club’s patio, overlooking Market St., allowed
us to get some fresh air and people-watch while cooling down. Bars close at
the very early hour of 2 a.m. in San Francisco, so The Cafe–unlike, say,
the Roxy here in New York–is not a place to dance the night away. By the
way, the women’s event for Friday was "Fog City Bowling." I’m
not kidding.

Saturday’s luncheon
brought the good news that Dow Jones finally got with the program and offered
domestic-partner benefits to all its employees. NBC’s Paula Madison was
booed, briefly, because the Peacock network, owned by General Electric, is the
last major network to not offer domestic-partner benefits. The lunch panel star
was George Stephanopoulos, who spoke both as a former political operative and
as a commentator now for ABC News. The rumor was he’s a huge closet queen.
I attended a panel on "Gays & the Vote" that was informative and
encouraging, until it devolved into partisan bickering between the National
Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans.

At the convention’s
gala event I got a seat at a reserved table with the night’s MC, Brooklyn
comedian Marga Gomez. She did an hilarious monologue onstage, then worked the
crowd Oprah-style. The term "gay formal" was the official rule
for the night–encompassing a range that included the suit-and-tie types
(mostly tv news and weathermen, along with upper-level editors), khakis and
buttondowns, black dresses or clubwear; one outfit that caused quite a sensation
was Rose Arce’s black leather mini with a risque matching jacket. Watching
a video of NLGJA members discussing the organization’s impact on their
lives, I felt a surge of pride unlike anything I’d felt since moving to
New York to be a writer.

On Sunday, I went sightseeing
with my friends Randy and David. We eyed the ingenues on Castro St., where I
tried on some Spice Girl sneakers and a Macy Gray coat. I checked out the clubwear,
shoulder bags, Prada knockoffs and cute clerks at Rolo. We also found our way
into Rock Hard–a novelty leatherman’s shop on Castro peddling a wide
range of sex toys and gifts. I didn’t buy any come rags, leather straps
or flavored lubricants, and David laughed when I couldn’t figure out the
purpose of one long, U-shaped contraption perched next to myriad other dildos
in the back of the store. We browsed in A Different Light bookstore, which seemed
to have a better porn magazine selection than the New York branch, though the
store itself was much smaller.

We hopped the Muni (the
cable car system) to Fisherman’s Wharf to watch the sea lions and take
some cool pictures with the city’s hills and Alacatraz in the background,
while making snarky comments about the touristy, outlandish, gentrified waterfront
theme park that is Pier 39. The Pier is a two-level outdoor mall packed with
dozens of restaurants and shops near the Bay. We were quickly overwhelmed by
the smell of fish. While walking in Chinatown we caught a glimpse of their Autumn
Moon festivities, complete with a bright red and gold dancing dragon, music
and enthusiastic clapping, in and around the area’s narrow streets. I had
my best, and most affordable, San Francisco dinner at House of Nanking. Owner
Peter Fang said, "I’ll take care of you," and did he ever.

I went to San Francisco
to have a great time, to mix and connect with other gay writers, and to see
the sights. Now I’m almost a convert. Sure, the bars close too early and
everything is too political for my taste, but hey–you never know.