The Folsom Street Fair

It's been more than nine months ago that we announced a post about the Folsom Street Fair. You were probably not reading the blog back then or have not given it another thought.

Well, here it is.

The next Fair is coming up in September.

There is a .org website of the same name but, out of consideration for Mr. D. Cameron, also known affectionately as The Blushing Premier, we are not providing the link. Feel free to do a web search for the site as an easy test of your country's web filtering system.

You are back already?

Or did you not dare to find the website of the world's largest leather and fetish fair?

A friend of the K-Landnews worked the Fair. We'll add an empty line now to give you ample time to process this revelation.

One of the best things about the U.S. is that you can go on the web and find interesting volunteer work to do. A couple of emails later, you are booked to work, say, security at the Folsom Street Fair in sunny San Francisco, CA.  

With huge numbers of folks wearing very little clothing, security work there is much easier as far as spotting tell tale bulges than at other events. The nature of the bulges is different, too. This work requires a wider range of behavior on your part, including the ability to smile a lot while maintaining a caring yet focused professional attitude.

You are issued a big red badge, a vest and a radio, you may score points with the trainer for knowing how use a radio, you memorize the frequencies and get details on when to switch to the police frequency and when to stay off of that one.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are the friendly greeters and donation collectors at the entrances of the big closed event area, and your job may involve keeping an eye on the sisters, although nobody ever messes with the Sisters.

The nature of the Fair is such that a lot more uniforms are part of the scenery than at other public events because many revellers are dressed up in uniforms. It is very easy to distinguish the costumed public from the real cops: the real officers come in pairs and are fully dressed. 

Getting comfortable with the mingling masses takes just minutes. After the first two or three pairs of exposed boobies and hairy legs in chaps with a hint of black leather thong bridging the gap, all is well.

From then on out, the next eight hours consist of steering people nicely around obstacles or problems, making space for amublances or police cars and figuring out if the crackle and chatter on the radio are relevant to you or your fellow guardians.

And you do need to get used to some of the public looking at you twice while they figure out if your get-up is a costume and how you react to any number of x to triple x rated activities around you.

In the evening, the grounds start to empty out slowly, the friendly greeting "hi" or "welcome" changes to "bye", "have save trip home" or similar. The trash of thousands upon thousands of visitors is no longer hidden under a stream of feet, in the small alley ways where most of the more extreme crowd pleasures occurred only some discarded condoms indicate anything out of the ordinary took place.

The swooshing of street cleaning trucks and the extra wide brooms of the green vested cleanup crews become the dominant sounds, and the first impatient drivers of the city by the bay begin to reclaim their street in a slow slalom between bulging black garbage bags and vendors dismantling the last of the booths and stands.

The pretty young woman, naked from the waist up gives you a big, happy smile as she heads out.

On the train out of town, a couple of people wave at you, they recognize you even though you no longer wear the trappings of authority. Funny, and nice of them.

In two words: reassuringly human.