AUGUST is HERE!!!!! Whew! Do we have HELLA things for you to do this week and this MONTH! GOOD TIMES continues to grow and grow and grow. Thanks to everyone for coming out every week to support this community event that continues to be a no cover event with Free Food, hot music and a fabulous MC Mona Webb. 300+ beautiful people grace us with the presence every week. So THANK YOU and see you tonight.

GIRLSTOCK kicks off this Friday at Mama Buzz Cafe then head over to the New Parish for EAST BAY LOVE. Head over to San Francisco on Saturday for HARD FRENCH. Finally on Sunday come out to the Oakland Pride Fundraiser at Pizzaiola, HELLA GAY GOOD TIMES where 100% of the funds raised will go to help build the first ever Oakland LGBT Community Center.

AHHHHH but this month is hella packed with amazing events we have GIRLSTOCK, the FEMME CONFERENCE, OAKLAND PRIDE , BLISS and we are proud to announce a collaboration from the producers of Eden Weekend, Tease and Bliss for San Jose Pride. FIRE & ICE comes to San Jose on August 21st at Agenda Lounge on 1st Street, a Pride Party created by women for women and our friends. It is gonna be off the hook!

For the rest of the story click this link (work and computer safe) http://tinyurl.com/2fukdpy

Enjoy your weekend, no matter where you go, and I hope to see you at any or all these events. Be safe and be happy!

xoxo,
Miz Chris

I come from the tiniest of towns in Texas. You only need to blink on the freeway to miss it entirely. I state that up front because I think it is important to frame my reference points. I remember being eleven and declaring to my mother that I would live near or in a big city. Even at that young age I hated small town life. As soon as I turned 18 I moved as close to a “big” city (Fort Worth) as I could. While Fort Worth is considered a city it wasn’t Dallas, home of big hair, big cars and Alexis Carrington (I wonder who will get that reference). I moved into the Big D in 1997 and there I stayed in my “big city” blocks from downtown, minutes from every trendy spot (yes we have them) and moments from the grassy knoll.. for ten years. I visited other BIG CITIES like NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco… And although each of them had their own charm, San Francisco, with its gay pride and bomb ass artists was always the place that intrigued me most. I read, like most people who are not from here and do not live here, about San Francisco. I read about all the highlights like Twin Peaks, the Tenderloin, Alcatraz, Pier 39, Golden Gate Bridge, the Castro etc. These sort of big items that if you visit you must go see and when I visited San Francisco I visited all those places. But what intrigued me most when I was in the city was seeing all of these interesting places and wanting to explore them. But that was near impossible on a four day weekend.

I have lived in the Bay Area for 21 months. Clarification, I have lived in the East Bay for 21 months. And in that time I have come to love every place between Hayward and Berkeley. I can move around these areas with great ease. The city, however, is still a big mystery to me. When I go into the city invariably Olga drives us in because I am afraid to drive there. It seems somewhat daunting and like a video game. I don’t parallel park (hello, Texas, big and flat we have tons of places to park) which seems to be the only type of parking in the city unless you want to pay $15 bucks. AND I have no idea how to get anywhere except Mango and the Castro, seriously.

So yesterday I had to go into the city, one of the few times (and I can count those times on one hand) where I would have to drive myself over that bridge and not to just one but TWO different places. I was nervous but I managed to make it to both locations unscathed even if it took me 30 minutes to find parking! Olga and I had driven by the Utah on several occasions. I always wondered what it was because I loved the architecture of the building. In fact late one night as we were passing it I remember thinking to myself I wanna go in there one day. And that one day was yesterday night.

When I saw the FB invite to Andrea Gibson and it said Hotel Utah I had no idea what or where it was. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was this place that I had wanted to go into. I drove around for quite some time until I found rockstar parking right in front (what? what!) and I walked inside. Inside this place I had seen but never been and wanted to go. A place where art was being spit like the way fire sometimes crackles. A place where the people were friendly, the bartenders downright hospitable and the venue historic. This might seem strange to the locals here and downright hokey to everyone else but when you come from a small town where the biggest bar was in front of the the local liquor store where everyone hung out to drink the booze they just bought inside, then maybe you would understand. You would understand that my eleven year old girl who proclaimed with such certainty to my mother that I wanted to live in or by a big city was jumping wildly up and down inside last night. I am living my dreams. And I know you might think why in the hell would be going to a bar (the Utah!) to see spoken word (Andrea Gibson!) in the city (San Francisco!) be a big deal?!?! Because when you are an eleven year-old girl stuck in a town that doesn’t like you because of the color of skin, in a school where creativity and art is not rewarded and downright discouraged and in a place where few people escape from and you lay in your bed surrounded by books that tell you there is a bigger life out there but not quite knowing when and how you will be able to escape and feeling the despair of that, then seeing Andrea Gibson at the Utah in San Francisco is a big fucking deal. Because I remember those nights in the dark wishing I was anywhere else and now I am.

I started going to New Orleans when I was 18 and it was the legal drinking age of Louisiana. My early trips were most definitely of the party variety. Too much drinking, too much partying, too much food
and definitely too much EVERYTHING else. When I got into my middle 20s I started to explore New Orleans, the French Quarter, the Garden District, Metairie, Uptown etc. In my 30s I went there for Southern Decadence and had one of the Butch-Femme.com Bashes there. We held the bash one year before Katrina in the exact same hotel as the Femme of Color Symposium. I returned to New Orleans two years post Katrina and while it was definitely a different city and devastation was still painted across her body, she felt resilient if somewhat empty.

This past weekend I took my 21st trip into the Big Easy. I was as excited if not more as I have always been to return to her. Bringing Olga, who had never experienced New Orleans, was very special.
Returning to be part of a groundbreaking event (FOCS) made it that much sweeter. Sharing vacation time with my new bestie Amy was fabulous. Reconnecting with old friends and making new ones (some of who live around the corner from me in the BaY!) was soul quenching. But the thing that struck me most was that this was the first time, in all the times I have visited, that I had spent time with women who lived in New Orleans. Some were born and bred, others were long time transplants and still others were recently moved. It was really amazing to listen to their stories, to talk to them about the post Katrina work that they have done, to listen to them speak with such pride about their city’s history and all of this from a lesbian/queer perspective. It was amazing, enlightening and beautiful

Yes I come from Texas so I know what it is like to be a lesbian in the South. But every region is different in the struggles and triumphs they face as women, as lesbians, as queers and as persons of color. I found the women in New Orleans to be strong, powerful and bad fu*king ass. I learned so much from them about what they face on a day to day basis. I watched and realized so many of them are activists in their own community starting as young as 21. It rejuvenated my spirit to see them in action, working it out and doing the work. It renewed my sense of activism and for that I thank you women of New Orleans! I hope we meet again soon.