Forrest Gump Backstage at
SAN FRANCISCO'S GLBT PARADE
Strange de Jim's Diary for June 29, 2008
"NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN" boasted my tee. Why not let singer Cyndi Lauper
be the first to try me out?
Word came that Cyndi was going to
be late. Deciding to wander. I immediately struck gold.
Sensing I might be about to usurp
his place, my old pal Davis handed me back my camera, hopped
back into the front seat, and, of course, posed.
I got to thank him again for the Certificate
of
Recognition he wrote for me in April for Billions of Virgins in
Ecstasy (see below).
Chatting with a future voter was
California State Assemblyman and State Senator-elect Mark Leno.
Hooray!
When
Given Gifts gave me a signing party for my new book in Harvey Milk's
old camera store (where Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant had just finished
filming Milk), Mark Leno's aide Anna Damiani (center)
stunned me by presenting the certificate below.
After longtime San Francisco gay
Supervisor (and Assemblyman-elect) Tom Ammiano finished
redecorating his car's back seat, I exchanged greetings with him too.
Actor Leslie Jordan (Sordid
Lives, Will & Grace, Ugly Betty) was nice
enough to light up when he saw me. I admire a man with no taste.
Siegfried & Roy's
protégé, singer/magician Darren Romeo
thanked me for having attended his first preview at the Post Street
Theatre. I've always found him pretty much a complete sweetie.
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Whoa! Who in the world was this?
Surely I'd have remembered meeting him. But off he bounded on his metal
springy stilts.
"Look out, Strange."
No matter. Here was Mayor Gavin Newsom! We nodded.
At Pride 2004, since he'd read my photo history San Francisco's Castro, the Mayor had helpfully moved my camera strap from in front of my lens before obligingly posing with the book, helping it become a big seller for Arcadia Publishing. |
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Having just been reminded of the
book, I immediately ran into five gentlemen who'd also enjoyed San
Francisco's Castro — the two producers of Milk
(starring Sean Penn, opening in November), Harvey's nephew Stuart
Milk, director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin
Lance Black.
Oh, and the five men above were
posing for Uncle Donald, of all people.
Lance told me he has this
postcard I'd given him pinned up on his bulletin board.
He was riding in the parade with
Stuart Milk. I snapped him with director Gus Van Sant.
Uncle Donald has one of
the oldest and best Castro web sites at thecastro.net.
Well of all the ... It was David
B, to whom I return all my library books now that the Harvey Milk
Branch has been closed for renovation.
This is a 2007 me photoshopped
into the future Harvey Milk Branch.
I loved this float. I was carried
back to the period when I wrote Visioning.
And this float really
took me back to a night that changed my life. Between 1972 and 1997
several hundred of my quips appeared in Herb Caen's column in the San
Francisco
Chronicle.
Lady Jane Montgomery and Cal Culver, photos from my bio The
Strange
Experience, Ash-Kar Press 1980.
In the mid-1970s my celebrity got
me invited to the premiere of the stage version of Rocky Horror
at the Montgomery Playhouse, Lady Jane Montgomery introduced me
to actor/model Cal Culver, star of the movie Boys in the
Sand. As I was telling them about a trust walk I'd had, Cal said,
"I want one!"
Bob Dulaney (right) after his Strange Experience.
The next afternoon as I was
guiding Cal
blindfolded around the neighborhood, I realized my portable massage
table was already set up with clean sheets. I led him to my place, put
his hands on the table, and invited him to undress. He loved it. Next
day he blindfolded Lady Jane and brought her to me for a
massage in which I didn't say a word. Imagine her surprise when she saw
me at the end. Then they brought me a blindfolded Bob Dulaney,
who played Rocky in Rocky Horror.
Cal Culver the day we invented the Strange Experience.
Next came the Count and
Countess von Bergdorf and Jake Vreeburg (shown wearing the
pillowcase I used to don at public events to protect and advertise my
identity as Herb Caen's quipster).
The Count and Countess von Bergdorf cradling Jake Vreeburg.
Then
I quit concentrating on cuties and massaged thousands of assorted men
and women until I learned to produce Shimmering Orgasms (see Billions
of
Virgins in Ecstasy).
I
was accidentally doing something during the massages that anyone could
do, something that was unusual but very simple and incredibly powerful.
Soon my social and love lives went platinum.
But enough of the past. I hurried
back to the red convertible to find Davis and a roadie
ushering Mz. Lauper into her car.
A no-nonsense lady, Cyndi
immediately started using her long nails to pop balloons, giving
herself more room to sit.
I was amazed to see Cyndi
hadn't gone commando, but was wearing elegant 350--thread-count white
panties!
Oh well, there's always next year!
I was so stunned that off they
went before I even thought to ask Cyndi to share my first
lesbian experience.
The Oeuvre of Strange de Jim
Visioning has exercises
such as making a wish, relaxing, breathing loving energy up your spine,
and then believing your dream into reality. All a lot of hooey?
Click here
for the entire text free.
The Strange Experience
has photos of a hundred friends, including these, willing to say they
enjoyed meeting me blindfolded, undressing, and being given a Strange
massage. The peculiar circumstances of these Strange Experiences taught
me half the secret of True Love.
How do enemies become friends? In
the photo history San Francisco's Castro
you can actually watch as a blue-collar Catholic neighborhood
relatively peacefully adds "World's Gay Capital" to its list of
attractions.
Billions of Virgins in Ecstasy
tells how I found the secret of Shimmering Orgasms, and then imagines
what would happen if everyone learned it.
Herb Caen ran hundreds of my quips in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Click for quotes.
In "Strange but true" in the January 23, 2004 issue, the San Francisco Chronicle recapped my career as simple author/town-fool/masseur. Click for article.
.
San Francisco's Castro Home / Billions of Virgins in Ecstasy / Other Strange Sites / e-mail Strange