Friday April 23

I got up this morning and called Biron again about shooting some more pictures that day. We agreed that I'd come over around 1:00. In the mean time I went back up to the Haight Ashbury for breakfast. I went looking for the place with the biscuits and gravy. Oddly, I couldn't find it. I walked up and down the strip many times, and it was nowhere to be found. As odd as that was, I finally gave up and had breakfast somewhere else. This time I did a little shopping while I was there. I went into a store that had all sorts of bizarro magazines. Of all the stuff I could have gotten I walked out with a Radioactive Man comic.

I decided to take a bus to the Castro. I looked at my map and found a likely route. I had to walk a bit, but I found a bus stop with the appropriate number posted on it. I was getting better at this mass transit thing all the time. It was a quick ride and there I was. I went back into the A Different Light bookstore and bought Stephen Underhill's "Twins" book. I'd seen this particular set of twins in XY Magazine before. In addition to having a thing for twins in general, I was totally hot for those boys. I didn't even think about the price until the sales guy rang it up. It was practically fifty bucks! But hey, I was on vacation and it was okay to spend money that I probably wouldn't spend otherwise. On the way back to my hotel I stopped in a retro toy store I'd noticed before. They had lots of cool stuff, including a Pee Wee Herman talking doll still in the box. It had a price tag of $250! I wasn't necessarily opposed to spending that much for such a cool collectible, but I figured I'd come home and see what it was going for on eBay before making that kind of investment. In the end I bought an Avengers refrigerator magnet for 45 cents.

I went back to my room and leafed through my Twins book until it was time to go to Biron's. I was looking forward to seeing Biron again, but I wasn't really in the mood to take more pictures. It's not like getting naked and sitting still is terribly strenuous, but it does require energy, and after this long week I didn't have a lot of energy left.

When it was time I made the quick jaunt up to his building. He buzzed me in and I collapsed on his sofa. We chatted for a while. Finally he started talking about our shoot, and he mentioned he didn't really have any ideas of what to do. I confessed that I wasn't entirely in the mood, and it certainly wouldn't be a problem for me if we didn't do anything at all. I think he felt a little relieved, which made me feel more relieved, and oddly when we both felt relieved about not having to do any work we were both suddenly in the mood to do some. He set up his stuff and I got naked and mustered up an erection. We hacked around for a while and took some pictures. I don't think that the quality was as good as the first stuff we'd done, but some good pictures did come out of it.

After we wrapped everything up I said that I'd like to go out for a drink. I was enjoying his company and I'd love to have him come with me, but it was Friday afternoon and I was in the mood for some cocktails. Biron said he had some scotch there if I was interested. I don't normally drink liquor, but it made sense at the moment. Best of all, if I stayed there I could remain naked. Biron poured a couple glasses and I started sipping away.

Biron had possession of Peter Berlin's archives so that he could digitally preserve everything. He pulled a big box down from a shelf and started taking stuff out for me to look at. It was utterly fascinating. Much of the images were things I'd seen before, but to see old prints and even sometimes the original negatives was like seeing history. There were original prints over which Peter had hand-painted accents and embellishments. There were even some original drawings Peter had done. I never knew that he was so talented at drawing. I also learned that Peter had done all his outfits himself. He could have had his own line of fetish-wear, if that had interested him.

This went on for quite some time. Biron pulled out more stuff and I had more scotch. He put in Peter's video "Nights in Black Leather," but we were too buzzed and engrossed in conversation to pay attention to it. A couple hours went by before I called Kenny about dinner that night. We set a time for them to meet me in front of my hotel. I had just a little more scotch and then it was time for me to reluctantly put my clothes on again.

I stumbled back to my hotel room, changed my clothes, and went out front to wait. Kenny and Richard came by right on time, and of course they had Andrew in the back seat with them. I hopped in and away we went. There was a nice energy in the car. It was Friday evening in San Francisco, and we were all in the mood for fun. We drove to the Castro and looked for a parking space. Finding none, we looked a little longer. Still finding none, we looked longer still. By this time my alcohol buzz was starting to fade and I was getting impatient. We kept looking and looking and looking, until finally we parked at some funeral home. I didn't care where it was, just as long as I got out of that car!

We struck out on foot looking for someplace that would seat us. On a Friday night in the Castro, pretty much every place was full. So we kept walking around and around. And after we'd walked forever, we walked a little more. We walked past some dive that was practically empty. Someone pointed out that there was no wait there. Andrew's witty reply was, "You *never* have to wait for disintery..." With nowhere else to go we popped into a bar for a quick drink. The booth we were sitting in smelled like dead fish. Back out on the street we kept walking and walking.

Finally we selected a place. There was a short wait, but we could hang out the bar next door and they'd come and get us. We went into the bar and walked way to the back to an outdoor area. Kenny and Richard found someone they knew and started talking. I tried to strike up a conversation with Andrew. It turns out he was from Sweden, but he couldn't pinpoint the time when he actually emigrated to America. At last our table was ready. We all sat down and wound up ordering just salads. I was past the point where I had an appetite, and I didn't even finish mine. By the time we left the restaurant it was after 11:00.

We went back up into the hills to drop in on Aaron, another friend of theirs. We got to his place and he wasn't home. We waited for a while, but he didn't show up. We went off to some scenic outlook and hung for a while, then we headed back into town.

I very much wanted to go back to the Powerhouse to recreate the fun I had on my first night. Andrew wanted none of this, so we dropped him off at his place. We went back to Kenny & Richard's to drop off the car. We went up to their apartment, and they both totally died on me. They were really beat, and had no desire to go to the Powerhouse that night. They gave me directions and sent me walking.

I had somehow managed to maintain my alcohol buzz after all this time, and was actually a little trashed. I staggered along on the considerable walk to the Powerhouse. I finally got to the street it was on, and started walking along looking for it. I was a little blacked out the first night, and I had no recollection of what it looked like from the outside. I did recognize a large Scooby Do billboard perched high atop a SOMA rooftop, however. I walked quite a ways until I decided I had to have gone past it. I turned around and walked back. When I got almost back to the point where I got on this street, I saw a very dark, nondescript building with a small sign over the corner door reading "Powerhouse." It looked scary. Very scary. I stood there across the street looking at it, wondering if I should go in or not. I was drunk enough that I could overcome my fear, yet sober enough to know that if I did I'd wind up getting involved in something I might later wish I hadn't. Finally I decided that I'd fulfilled my mission for the night, which was finding the place, and that I should just go home and pass out. It was quite a walk. When I got back on Market St I stopped in a late-night donut shop and got some food to stuff my still-empty stomach. Once back in my room I chowed down the donuts and passed out cold.