Grrr x 2

This week is the second annual Hairrison Street Fair here in San Francisco. Hairrison is the world's only street fair for Bears. I attended last year's inaugural event, and had a blast. The block of Harrison Street in front of the Lone Star is gated off, and the entire Best Western is taken over by raging bears. As you can see, the motel pool becomes clothing optional. I didn't take pictures of every booth, bar, line-dancing space, or whatever. Lots to see, lots to do.

I've put together a small not-safe-for-work gallery of photos from last year's fair, if you want to take a look. The images are private on Flickr, so if you want to see larger scans, you'll need to email me.




Here's the official Hairrison webpage, with all the info. Drop me a line if you'll be in town.

Orange Match

Part of my Orange is the Color of Rome photoset.

I leave Rome tomorrow. Seven weeks is a long time to spend somewhere. I had a wonderful trip, but I'm so so so ready to come home to San Francisco.

Besides, the Hairrison Street Fair starts Thursday. I guess I'll have to practice my Grrrs and Woofs accordingly.

No Matter What They Say

I'm oddly drawn to this Flickr collection by cyberstars. S/he has collected over a hundred webcam screenshots of (mostly) men from Yahoo chatrooms. Many of the men are straight, and none of them are conventionally beautiful. Instead, the dominant look is loneliness. Nonetheless, I'm hooked.

Since no context is presented for any of the images, it's tempting to read into the titles of the photos, which seem to be screennames. chubchrdream, for instance might well be one, while I don't quite know what to think of deadwomanstillbreathing.

Also intriguing are the text messages that the men have written on their webcam images. Many assert their straightness: des05's "would any ladies like to me to get naked? Just ask. no men please" is typical. Still others point out their desirability: "friend called needs BJ got to go suck him off" is triumphantly displayed over an image of an empty room.

Cyberstars's mysterious profile only reads "you are beautiful", and that might well be the point. All of the pictures are tagged with "beauty" and "sex", but also with "depression", "loneliness" and "unemployment". I'm not sure I could come up with a better thumbnail description of the online chat scene.