It was Halloween night 2012 in the Castro District, and I felt as if I’d been admitted to some weird Fellini-esque fantasy.
There was barely enough elbow room for me to squeeze through an R-rated parade of pirates, unicorns, pregnant nuns, bearded Playboy bunnies, Folies Bergère drag queens and a half-dozen bumblebees free of their hive.
With few exceptions, they were nearly all men. No doubt was left by two celebrants who wore birthday cakes on their heads and nothing (nothing!) else to adorn their birthday suits. So unabashed were they about their au naturel appearance, they didn’t think twice about strutting past a pair of police officers who surveyed the scene from Harvey Milk Plaza at the corner of Castro and Market streets.