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| The 60s Dream and the Present Reality. |
According to a new study by the Human Services Agency of San Francisco, 29% of the homeless in the City are LGBT. Many of them are young and confused boys who made the trek to San Francisco in a desperate attempt to escape the harassment and loneliness in their more conservative Midwest towns or from some other small dot on the map. Reminds me of the hippie-1960s song “San Francisco.” In the 80s, when I was in high-school, there was a very real retro-60s phenomena that included everything from a revived appreciation of the psychedelic fashion and music scene to a reinterpretation of the Haight-Ashbury as some cosmic center of the Universe. This is similar to the bizarre contemporary interest in the tacky music and films of the 80s. But, back when I was a kid, the strains of Scott McKenzie mixed with the none too distant echos of The Village People's “Go West.” So, when I turned 18, that was I did: except for me, going to San Francisco meant traveling about 40 miles South. When I got there, I encountered much the same environment as the countless kids who still flock to the City every year: very high rents, difficult to find entry-level jobs, but a wall of older gay men very willing and able to either abuse you or take you in for a price. Towards the end of the 90s, I started hustling on the streets a lot more, and frequently bumped into kids in their late-teens, trying to cover the expense of a drug habit or an over-reliance on partying by trading sex for cash. My heart always went out to them as they were already burned-out at such a young age. Some, I heard became HIV+, another lost boy, who I particularly liked, committed suicide. For, some left their hearts in San Francisco, others left their lives. Why don't they talk about that at the 1.5 million attended Pride Parade?