So why are heteros so interested in The Castro? Some of us just can’t figure that out. Other than they are really here to cheat on someone. By their behaviour, it looks like they’re cheating on someone with their “we just met and must make-out and fuck right here” behaviour. Regardless, in addition to the “discreet” gay guys, I’m also seeing a concerted effort to end what remains of the fading gay mecca. Despite this, Castro merchants have expressed “mounting concern” over losing the GLBTQ identity of the Castro. But apparently The Establishment have other plans. There are those who want to turn the Castro into some bougi (bourgeois) elite, pretentious barrio just because apparently some former gay areas in other cities have done that. That’s the follow the herd mentality of the sheeple. Also, when word gets around both nationally and internationally that the Castro barrio is no longer a gay mecca—which it is not today by any comparison to the Gay Mecca days—who will want to come here to see an area that looks like a morgue of its former self? There would be no reason to come to the Castro as a tourist—other than maybe to go to the GLBTQ Museum as long as that’s around—and some would say there would be no reason to even come to San Francisco. What’s here now that has replaced the former “gay mecca?” Bland, boring, dull, sanitized, sterilized, homogenized and some corporate chains. The Bohemian San Francisco is gone. Partying/getting drunk, being addicted to one’s smartphone nearly 24/7 and wearing corporate sports teams’ clothing seem to be the current fads now. We have the Tech-Surveillance State Industrial Complex and their parasitic companies (over 5,000+ at this time in San Francisco receiving corporate welfare from the city) but there’s not much to see with that as a tourist and tourists are now allowed into people’s offices anyway. The techies’ Gentrification and Evictions shuttles (those “luxury designer coaches” Dahling as they’re called are nothing to look at….bland, boring white double decker buses with tinted windows so that the elitist techies can be isolated from the masses and cannot see where they really live as they go to and come from work on the Peninsula and Silicon Valley).

There was a production company at Castro/Market the night of el 24 de marzo de 2014. I couldn’t tell what was going on initially. On one of their camera monitors stationed on the north side of Market Street at Castro where people had gathered to watch I saw on the monitor the Castro Theatre’s neon sign in the background (that’s a definitive way of promoting the Castro by showing that landmark). I also unfortunately saw what looked like the face of Politician Cocks/Mr City-Wide Nudity Ban (a.k.a. The Holy Trinity). Some locos/locas see that muchacho as The Second Coming. So I thought that maybe this was about his re-election campaign (ugh), which it may have been, I don’t know. There were production trucks parked along Market Street so it was sort of a big production. Then what disgusted me was the following: The production company began to do a “shoot” and I didn’t know that’s what they were doing. I’m crossing Market Street (going south) and along comes this “straight”/hetero couple a few feet away from me running across Market Street—which is a wide street—towards the south side of the street and in the direction of the Castro Theatre. They are doing the “straight” mandatory hand-in-hand routine/behaviour, walk-as-close-to-each-other-as-possible type thing one sees so often around here these days and the guy is sort of pulling her along until they get to the other side of the street on the sidewalk and then I hear, “CUT!” I then realised what I had just witnessed was an ad or a commercial and (I presume) promoting the Castro with a “straight” young white couple. Does anyone see anything wrong with this? If they were doing a commercial for North Beach, The Marina, Pacific Heights or any other district of San Francisco, do you think the commercial would show a Queer couple (male-male, female-female) running across the street? HELL NO.

Wouldn’t you think (or hope or expect) that an ad/commercial for the Castro would show a gay couple (male-male, female-female) running across Market Street with the Castro Theatre in the background, no? What also bothered me was that some of the production crew to me looked Queer going by my very reliable gaydar. Did these Queer production people such as the (presumed) lesbian who stood near me when I came back around to see what was going on not have any problem with promoting the Castro with a “straight” couple doing their required in-your-face, hand-in-hand behaviour? As I said, I came back around to watch this “shoot” again to make sure I was seeing what I thought I had just seen. Yes, it was what I thought it was. And it was clear to me that the actors’ (the “straight” couple) behaviour was scripted because both times I saw this shoot the “straight” couple ran across Market Street the same way and they looked the same both times with their mandatory hand-holding to give the impression to the viewer watching this commercial that: WE ARE A STRAIGHT, YOUNG WHITE COUPLE. SEE THE CASTRO THEATRE SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND? THE MESSAGE WE’RE TRYING TO CONVEY WITH OUR AD IS, “COME TO THE STRAIGHT CASTRO NOW.” THROUGH OUR AD/COMMERCIAL WE ARE TRYING TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE CASTRO IS NO LONGER A GAY AREA.

I left feeling disgusted at what I had just seen twice, and as the “straight”/hetero invasion of the Castro continues I and others are feeling more and more like we don’t want to even be in the Castro these days because of what we are likely to see that will turn us off. Stuff like this shit. It’s happening more and more in the Castro. Just a couple of weeks ago I noticed the “straight” (Male-Female) young white couple in the ad for a clothing company on the Muni bus stop for the 33 line at Castro/18th. Yes, there’s a hetero ad on that bus stop. That area of the Castro is currently more gay than the more-hetero Market Street area of the Castro. I understand why many GLBTQ individuals and couples have already left San Francisco voluntarily, not because of an eviction or that type of thing which is unfortunately happening to many other people.

I asked one Queer couple living near me why they were selling their home (about a year ago) and they diplomatically told me, “The neighbourhood has changed since we moved here roughly ten years ago so we’re leaving and moving to Hawaii.” And there are many others like them. Another Queer couple down the street sold their home and moved to Palm Springs.

If what I observed were an ad (with the hetero couple running across Market Street) for Politician Cocks’s re-election in November, that wouldn’t surprise me either since he acts like a closet case anyway and tries very hard to be heteronormative. So it wouldn’t surprise me if a gay politician (Politician Cocks) were to promote the Castro with a “straight” couple. Loco./Crazy. It should also be pointed out that this gay politician is in part directly responsible for the Castro becoming “straight.” Elitist Politician Cocks is very pro-gentrification. Some people see him as their “savior” and as The Holy Trinity and The Second Coming the way they go overboard in gushing over him and anything he does.

I told an amigo of mine about this ad/commercial I saw being recorded. He felt as I do. He said that hopefully not too many people will even see or watch this ad/commercial wherever it’s going to be shown because many people can’t stand ads, so hopefully not many people will even see it. Hopefully they won’t. I wish I hadn’t seen what I did. Chau.—el barrio rosa

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