Wacky Celebrities

San Francisco is like a cereal bowl, once you take away the fruits and nuts all you have left are the flakes.  I can't tell you how often I heard that little joke while in the military.   Offensive? Yes, but with a grain of truth.  I suppose every major city has whack-job celebrities, but the Bay Area seems to have more than our fair share of beloved odd balls. Let's stroll through a few of the oddities known as residents of the Bay Area.  

Rusty and I were keenly aware of the Brown twins our first go around in SF.  The ladies (Marian and Vivien) to this day frequent the Union Square area dressing alike, eating all meals together, and walking everywhere arm in arm.   I have said "Hello" to both ladies on several occasions (during our previous stay here) and have received polite sing-song return greetings.  These ladies have been featured in several low budget movies and on several commercials.  I appreciate the whimsy of their outfits and hope they never leave the downtown area.  I understand they have joined a pentecostal church as of late, I suppose we all find religion in one way or another, and at one time or another.  From Kalamazoo originally, they are the embodiment of San Francisco in many ways.  

 

The SF Weekly just ran an article on another Bay Area oddball (http://sfweekly.com/2009-01-28/news/gritty-in-pink/).  His name is the Pinkman.  He rides at street fairs and in crowded areas on a unicycle, often Market Street.  He wears a pink unitard, pink skullcap and a silver cape (a little aside, he is not Gay).  He is known to put people on his shoulder for a quick ride.  

He doesn't ask for any money for this, rather he does this as a source of joy to people.  He often suffers ridicule and derision, but has enjoyed some success (hired gigs) and has been to several countries sharing this brand of whimsy.  

There is a dark side to this story, as the SF Weekly reports that he, early in his life, while babysitting molested several young girls, touching them while they were sleeping.  Pinkman did confess directly to the families of the girls that were under his care.  The families chose not to press charges.  It cost him his wife, his family, and any chance of normalcy.  Can this abuse be forgotten? Not by me, a person who has advocated for protecting children his whole life.  Forgiveness is only for the girls and their families to give.  His high visibility vocation has forced him from most communities, as articles in newspapers create climates of hostility forcing him to move.  Don't think that I am sympathetic to a person who betrayed a child's trust, but the choice he has made to bring joy to strangers is a fitting penance for someone that has caused a great deal of pain to these families.   

The point is that people often arrive in the Bay Area to reinvent themselves.  Most do it quietly, but Pinkman with a nefarious past, arrived fairly visibly.  He agreed to the article because he feels San Francisco is his last stop, if unable to make a go of it here, then where?  I'm all about second chances and feel that a highly visible repentant sinner is much better than the quiet, video arcade worker, registered sex offender with no visibility.  Now that's the guy I worry about.  

My final famous Bay Area Freak is "Naked Guy".  This early nineties Berkeley student activist challenged social repression by rarely donning clothing.  His real name:  Andrew Martinez, from Cupertino California.   

Although David Martinez wasn't gay, I did see him at a Gay Pride Parade in the early nineties.  I didn't speak with him directly but he seemed like a quiet guy with an easy going demeanor.  He inspired a few "nude-ins" on the Berkeley campus and only was arrested, unemployed and no longer a student, when the Berkeley City Council changed the nudity laws in 1993.  

Today, I was saddened to find out that he had a very difficult life after this, as he started to manifest symptoms of mental illness (schizophrenia), was in and out of halfway houses, and committed suicide in a jail cell.  

Living in the Bay Area, one meets the odd, weird, freaky, dark, mysterious, artistic, and sometimes even dangerous.  Our wacky celebrities are most of all, human.  They experience human joys and losses.  They are also filled with human frailties.  I'm overjoyed Marian and Vivian are still around, and I'm very saddened by the death of "Naked Guy".   The flavor of the bay area is in the oddities, not so much in the money driven Market Street banality.  Sometimes that comes with some dark side effects, the story of humanity can be seen in the neighborhoods and streets of the city.  "There for the grace..."etc.