After The Ecstasy...The Laundry

[So Carrie, housemate 1 of 2 of my friend Allen, is a regular attendee at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco's storied Tenderloin, where I joined her yesterday morning. Glide, I suppose it is necessary to explain, is a major San Francisco insitution, known for its community programs, its inclusive nature, and its kickass band and choir. While it is nominally a Methodist church (Allen jested snooty about being he only one among us confirmed in this particular denomination), there were no Bibles or hymnals in racks behind the pews; there was little or no Jesus and Co. imagery; there was no condemnation except of our dear President.]

[Wait. Back up. What, you may ask, was I doing at church on Sunday, even one as cool as Glide? After all, except for nuptial, funerary, and touristic purposes, I haven't been inside a church since age twelve, when I got bored of going to Faith Lutheran in Sonoma every Sunday. (No, my family's not Lutheran. When I was nine, I expressed curiosity about church and Sunday School. Faith Lutheran was the closest church to our house...it's right there at Arnold Drive and Petaluma Avenue, after you take that one turn...you can't miss it. So there I went, for three years. I won an argument with my Sunday School teacher - who later became a good friend of my mother's - about the capital of Israel. Soon after leaving the Lutherans to their lutefisk, I joined another institution claiming to know what God wants: the Boy Scouts, but that's for some other cozy night in front of the fire.)]

[Carrie's just turned 51, I don't think she'd mind me saying, and she's...well, she's the kind of gal we all thought had moved en masse to some microbiotic town in Oregon in 1975. Not Carrie; she's lived in that same house on Dolores Street for years and years, and rent control is rent control. I've been spending a lot of time lately at that house, and have gotten to know Carrie and Charlotte, who live there along with two cats, a dog, and a lot of objets d'art et de clutter.]

[I'd known Charlotte tangentially about as long as I've known Allen, but I just met Carrie this year, and she's my favorite new acquaintaince of 2005. She's somwhat cosmic, but that's kind of refreshing for me right now; I don't have to fear being cosmic with her. We talk about spirituality and politics, and she thinks my legal catchphrases are hilarious. "'Mere puffery...' Ha ha ha ha!"]

[Carrie self-identifies as a Tibetan Buddhist, but attends this mutant Methodist institution every Sunday. (You might remember it as portrayed in Tales of the City: Mona goes there, the preacher tries to get her to sing out (that part's true; Rev. Williams wouldn't take no for an answer yesterday either), and then a drag queen offers her poppers out of a rosary as the ensemble breaks into the Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together."]

[This was Carrie's birthday weekend, so she invited a bunch of people to go with her to church, to be followed by brunch and hula-hooping back at Dolores House. (No drag queen, no poppers, and neither the Captain nor Tennille.) Charlotte wore a hat, Allen and I scrounged our poverty-stricken wardrobes for church clothes, and there we were in a row in a pew, getting yelled at by some elderly, cut-the-crap deaconess for trying to save seats.]

[It was great. I can't help being a snob, and feeling deep down that Mozart's Requiem Mass is somehow more "Goddy" than "We Shall Overcome." Early faggy training, I know, I know; save those letters and phone calls. However, I sang "WSO," and "Amazing Grace," and the other selections, the chuch fathers having thoughtfully projected the lyrics on the wall behind the choir. ("Church mother," actually; I get the idea that Executive Director Janice Mirikitani runs the place with an iron hand. We could've used her at New College.) ]

[The music kept the blood flowing, but the day was about Hurrican Katrina. The church has of course been doing what it does to bring what relief it can, and we were exhorted to lend a hand. They also brought up to the stage (yes, stage; the place is at least as much jazz hall as church; as we waited in line, I couldn't help notice how so many people were dressed as for a nightclub) a family who were trapped by the flood waters. Working-class African American New Orleanians just out of one of their lives' major traumas; I can't imagine what their first impression of Glide must have been. The idiom is black, as are the two preachers, but most of the congregation is white (with a large dollop of The Gays...nightclub, I said). It was my own momentary and erroneous projection that here was another episode of liberal white yuppies Feeling For the Oppressed Group of the Week...and appropriating their music.]

[Anyway, Rev. Williams had a family of about eight up there with him, and made sure each member gave his or her eyewitness account of Katrina's gross mishandling. This was the first I'd heard of the conspiracy theory that a levee was undermined on purpose in such a way that floodwaters swamped much of poor, largely black, Orleans Parish while sparing Jefferson, its opposite (and I'll wait for the Michael Moore documentary before I write Mary Landrieu in anger). The story of U.S. soldiers taunting and verbally abusing people who'd just lost everything (including pouring half a bottle of water on the ground in front of many who were extremely thirsty) saddened me but didn't totally shock me. I'd already apprehended the many promises of a ride out of there that were never fulfilled.]

[These times. Barbara Bush, whom I'd once viewed as perhaps the human race's ambassador to BushWorld, decides to come out of her well-deserved Houston retirement to say what she said? This might be it. This SHOULD be it (there've been a lot of shoulda-been-its with this crew), but I see we're back to the same old, same old w/r/t the Supreme Court. Both Bush's and Schwarzenegger's numbers are in the well-deserved dumper, but for how long? (Don't get me started on the Gov., please; you should've seen the look on my face when I read the Chronicle headline in Ashland about the Assembly's marriage equality bill's passage. Jessica thought I'd been stricken ill, but it was joy and pride mixed with indigestion from the motel's free coffee. I only learned how likely a veto was later while delving deeper during breakfast.) Hey, we recalled Davis for Arnie; where are the petitioneers now?]

[So, church was some form of inspiration. I gave Carrie a new copy of the B-52's Cosmic Thing for her birthday, remembering she'd loved it and misplaced it. We ate, we hula'd, we took the dog Bruno for a walk at Heron's Head way out by Hunter's Point, and I took polaroids of it all with the SpiceCam. Then I went home and folded my laundry. Y'know, I wish every day could be not unlike the Sunday in question.]

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