The first video I found there, theoretically of Black Sabbath playing the Folsom Street Parade in 1970, has been vexing me for a while. When I first discovered it, everyone I knew said "there's no fucking way that's Ozzy". I'm no expert on Oz, but I was also confused by the "Folsom Street Parade" thing. Folsom Street Fair didn't start until 1984. What was this drag parade doing South of Market with a big float advertising Sabbath?
Well, thanks to the rocker/investigators of youtube, I finally have my answer. According to user Terrible1, that dude in black atop the Sabbath float is noted San Francisco Satanist, Anton LeVay. Apparently, Ozzy himself also makes a brief appearance. Oz fans, feel free to let me know if you see him here.
Moving on to gayer historical matters, here's Sylvester tearing it up in 1985:
Cakalingus at 5:05.
Seriously, there's a lot of great stuff to explore on their page. This footage of the 1989 Castro sweep is probably only interesting to those of you who were there, but I always enjoy watching queers scream at riot cops. Listen for that catchy slogan: "Media is Bullshit! It's all a pack of LIES!"
I'll finish this post off with an extremely special video of the 1975 Mr. and Miss Gay San Francisco contest. I kind of like that there's no sound, it adds to the ethereal, Antediluvian quality.
2 comments:
I love the videos, although somehow I got all going at once which created a strange and halting (bandwidth issues) cacaphony.
Em saw Sylvester and lived in SF in 1975. She says that the contest must've been on Polk. I love to think about the city at that time, and about her here.
Your blog, it is good.
OK, I fucking love that Em saw Sylvester in 1975 (or am I getting that right?). Tell her I'm going to pin her down for all of her queer SF in the good old days stories, and since getting her drunk to do so isn't an option, I'll have to catch her when she's super sleep-deprived.
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