November 27

I was going to put off posting until tomorrow, but this day has too much significance. It is the birthdays of Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and my boyfriend Andrew Dees. We made a special dinner of his favorite: breaded pork chops and peas.

And I baked a cake.

November 27 is the day my house at Haight and Pierce burned down in 1993. It is also the birthday of one of my neighbors at the time, Joe Curcio, whose house also burned. He and his bandmates (they had a band called Mars Bonfire) had just loaded all of their equipment into the basement the night before. The whole corner burned, taking out at least 5 buildings, displacing around 150 people. There was one human fatality. Not sure about other animals. I do know that even though Henny Penny was severely barbecued, both of our cats survived. HP made an amazing recovery, thanks to the kind people at Pets Unlimited.

November 27 is the day that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed in their offices at city hall by Supervisor Dan White. I remember when it happened. I was eight years old. Dan White was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder because of something having to do with his over-consumption of sugary foods (this became known as "the Twinkie defense"). I remember Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys running for mayor after that, and one of his proposed plans was to erect statues of Dan White around town for people to throw eggs, stones, and tomatoes at. You can read more funny stuff about his mayoral candidacy here.

I hear there is a movie in production about Harvey Milk with Sean Penn in the leading role. Um, ok. If you want to see a really beautiful movie about Harvey Milk and some important San Francisco history, see the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk.

My friend Matty Luv (now deceased) wrote this great lyric and very clever rhyme:
The only lesbian in Tulsa,
Oklahoma is lonely,
She's never even kissed a girl,
She's never heard of George Moscone.
When she drives a car,
She pretends she's an astronaut
shooting through the stars,
waiting for the world to catch up.

Dan White committed suicide in his wife's garage by running the carbon monoxide from his exhaust pipe into his car with a garden hose on October 21, 1985. I remember this day as well, I was 15 years old and was hanging out at Just Desserts on Church Street with a girl named Laurel Johnson, whose birthday was that day. I may have fried a zillion brain cells, but I still remember all kinds of stuff.