Author: Jeff Tabaco

In honor of Halloween, which is almost upon us, I present for your amusement a couple of photos from my days at Marjorie H. Tobias Elementary School. First, here I am in the first grade (1983) as a devil. I find this hilarious, because I am scaring no one. I’m pretty sure that’s a Pac-Man watch I’m wearing.

And next is the second grade (1984), where I am leading our class in the parade with someone that at first struck me as Strawberry Shortcake, but upon closer inspection I realize it’s not. Anyway, my mom had sewn my bat costume from a pattern; the trim glowed in the dark! I thought it was pretty cool.

It’s a shame I can’t find a Halloween photo from kindergarten, when I wore a Big Bird costume. Oh, the cuteness.

I meant to post this a while back: apparently Prison Break‘s Wentworth Miller had been on a couple of episodes of Popular, the over-the-top high-school comedy that ran for two seasons on the WB. (I only ever saw a few episodes and liked it, so I need to catch the rest on DVD eventually.) Here’s a YouTube sampling of Wentworth’s cattiness (rowr!) as a new kid clawing his way to become the school’s first male cheerleader.

Love the Hairspray reference. And yes, I am a YouTube fanatic, despite not having posted my finds here before. Consider the floodgates open.

Sunday was such a pleasant day, so that afternoon we agreed to get out of the house. I felt like a drive, and Thom suggested we go to Pacifica, just south of Daly City. I have relatives that live in the northern part of Pacifica, but I hadn’t ever really explored the more southern and coastal parts. We got onto Skyline (Route 35) and then Highway 1 and were greeted by dense fog. Doh! But by the time we made it to the Linda Mar area, where we had lunch at L&L Hawaiian Barbeque (good food and friendly service; mahalo!), the fog had disappeared.

Our next stop was Rockaway Beach (California Coastal Records Project photo). While looking for a place to park, we passed by a wedding taking place at the boardwalk in front of a beachfront hotel. What a great setting. We ended up parking in front of Rockaway Antiques and had a look around the store. They had so much neat stuff; I especially liked the vintage luggage and early 1900s San Francisco photographs for sale. After browsing for a while, we went back outside and walked along the hotel boardwalk, and Thom remarked that since we arrived in the Bay Area we hadn’t yet come to the very coast and touched the ocean! So we headed down to the beach, took off our flip-flops, and waded along the edge of the cool Pacific. It was great. If only the weather were like this all the time! (I’m calling the photo above “Rockaway Beach Thom”: convertible and other accessories sold separately.)

Finally we drove a bit north to the Sharp Park area, where there is another beach and a large pier (CCRP photo), where a lot of people were fishing. So yeah, a great afternoon, very Bay Area Backroads. For more photos, check out Thom’s and my Flickr archive from that day.

I’m here. I’m queer. Let’s talk!

Today is National Coming Out Day, and in the interest of opening up interpersonal dialog on coming out issues, HRC‘s theme this year is “Talk About It.”

Coming out to oneself and to others is an ongoing process, but for me there was a turning point, in the summer after my sophomore year in college. I had struggled academically, and after having a very serious talk with my parents about that, they asked me if there was anything else on my mind. I hadn’t planned to come out at that moment, but I did. My dad said he thought it was just a phase, and to my regret, he and I never talked about it again. He was never openly homophobic; my relationships or love life just never came up as a topic of conversation. If in the years that followed he changed his way of thinking, he kept it to himself, but I’m grateful that in the precious little time we all spent together, he treated my partner Thom with respect and warmth.

My mom has definitely come around on gay issues. It’s still unfamiliar territory for her and for all of us really, but every now and then we take baby steps toward a kind of understanding. For example, when I lived on the East Coast, she would send me articles or call me with the latest gay news, be it same-sex marriage or gene research and so forth, which I appreciated. And we’ve had talks about what being gay means to me and how in the end that doesn’t differ so much from the path she might have envisioned for me. We all want to be happy.

Here’s to being out and keeping the conversation going.

MOO is a printing company that makes nifty calling cards (“MiniCards”) with your Flickr photos on one side and contact information or whatever text you want on the other. I ordered some recently, and it’s pretty cool. The web ordering interface loads your Flickr photostream and sets, from which you select and crop your photos. Since these cards are about half the height of standard business cards, hence the “mini” name, most photos will need some creative cropping.

MOO ran a promotion offering a free set of ten cards to Flickr Pro users, so I gave it a try, using some of my San Francisco photos, like of a coin-operated telescope at Point Lobos, flowers at the Legion of Honor and at Golden Gate Park, etc. The cards arrived a few weeks ago (pictured above), and I’m really happy with the quality. I may order a full pack soon. I still don’t know how I feel about the diminutive size (fun and quirky, or just tiny and easily misplaceable?), but in any case it’s neat to have a stock of social calling cards to hand out, and show off your photography at the same time. (Maybe I should have the above photo put on a card. Talk about meta.)

On Friday night Thom and I met up with Julie at Civic Center Plaza to watch San Francisco Opera‘s simulcast of Rigoletto, which was shown on a giant screen set up in front of City Hall. It was a perfect setting. (Here’s a photo of Thom and me, courtesy of Julie.)

The only thing I knew beforehand about Rigoletto was the aria “La donna è mobile,” so for the longest time I just assumed it was a light-hearted opera. Boy, was I wrong! I had a great time getting engrossed in the music and the story, and really enjoyed the performances, especially those of the two main characters, Rigoletto (Paolo Gavanelli), and his daughter, Gilda (Mary Dunleavy).

When my dad became seriously ill in June, he let me keep his Toyota Corolla, since he wasn’t well enough to drive and I didn’t have a car of my own. He was a very organized and patient person, and after he died, I found among his papers a steno notebook listing all the service work done on his cars. He created columns for the date, mileage, location, services, and cost. The first page is full of entries in his familiar, neat, architect handwriting; the second page is blank, but the headers and columns have been set up. I could start it over as a spreadsheet or not keep a log at all, but for now, in what strikes me as a very literal transition, I will turn the page and continue what he started. I can start today: I brought the car to a nearby gas station for a smog check this morning, and it passed. Yay!

[Jean-Luc Picard voice] The Enterprise can now renew its DMV registration. Make it so.

Theatre Bay Area‘s annual Free Night of Theatre program is underway, in which free tickets are available to various shows for performances on or around Oct. 19. The giveaway began midday on Tuesday at their booth in Union Square, with online reservations also available starting that evening. I arrived at Union Square an hour before the booth opened, and already there was a huge crowd. (Never underestimate the power of free art.) I thought I was reasonably early, but by the time I figured out the procedure and picked up a form at the central table, I found out my group letter was “F.” (It’s all very Southwest Airlines boarding.) Here is my hastily shot and stitched-together panorama:

Tickets for my first-choice show, Beach Blanket Babylon, ran out while I was still standing in line, so I got tickets for another show we had intended to see anyway, Broadway with a Twist. We’re also going to see Batboy: The Musical, on Nov. 2; Thom got those tickets once online reservations opened up.

It looks like almost all of the free tickets are now gone, but in any case, Theatre Bay Area is a good resource and sells half-price tickets year-round.

Aside: speaking of free performances, tomorrow night, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m., San Francisco Opera’s production of Rigoletto will be broadcast live to big screens at two outdoor Bay Area locations, Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco and Frost Amphitheater at Stanford University, where the public can watch for free.