Here's what you missed if you missed the April 8th RADAR reading at the San Francisco Public Library. Bucky Sinister read from his new book, Get Up! which, if you can believe it, is a bonafied, non-ironic super helpful self-help book for dudes who drink too much and want to cut it out but think that maybe they are way too punk to work a twelve step program. Bucky's writing is freaking hilarious yet also totally soulful — he knows when to kill you with pop culture and when to pull back and show you how wise he is. Grab it for that friend of yours — you know, THAT friend. It's easier than an intervention! Bucky also read some of his poems. Per usual they walked the humor-heartache line, had massive punk references and played with reality. (Abraham and Mary Lincoln meeting in a mosh pit. For serious!) Bucky also does stand up, and you can find him all Spring long at The Dark Room on Mission street, check it out. He will make you pee with laughter! Also, Bucky got 86'd from Facebook for not using his 'real' name. I knew I hated Facebook for a reason! It's not just that all the people from my past whom I'm avoiding are on it, posting pictures of me fifteen years old and drunk with snarled hair.

More readers! How about Lorelei Lee, a truly wonderful poet who read a long, gorgeous piece that was recently published in the Denver Quarterly. Quarterly? Review? If I were a real journalist I would see, but I'm not — I'm a blogger! You Google it! Regardless, the piece had disturbing undertones, over even overtones, of the narrator doing coke with her mom. It took you on a ride that was sort of lulling and sort of dazzling, which is sort of like Lorelei herself, with her gentle voice and vibrant pink getup. Lorelei is a crazy skilled writer and her poetry is thoughtful, mysterious and totally accesible at once, which is a lot to juggle. I heard she kicked ass at Literary Death Match later that week, too. But of course.

Patrick O'Neil sort of stole the show with his junkie tale of bankrobbery. Like, he detailed how one goes about robbing an actual bank, something the gentleman did, on many occasions, whilst financing a heroin habit. He also robbed businesses, in the Marina, and in the portion of his memoir he read, took us into a home with a fridge stocked with nothing but cakes. And a slumbering girlfriend. And an enigmatic cat. The prose was funny and wirey and wry and world-weary and friendly. It's going to be a book called Opacity at some point, and it's so good it makes me want to start a small press quick so I can publish it and make a million bucks off Patrick O'Neil, because it's going to be a big hit, you heard it here first.

Renee Hahn started off the night with an excerpt from her memoir in progress, a story of a fucked-up twenty-something queer girl having an increasingly dark relationship with a sixteen year old bisexual witch who wears a lot of purple and fingerless gloves. Yes! Sad midwestern gay bars were included. It set the stage for an evening where the perils of drug abuse were detailed with a lot of insight and jokes, and the library was so crawling with recovered alcoholics I thought of ending the Q+A by having everyone hold hands and say the Serenit Prayer. Oh, the Q+A: people asked some great questions, like, Hey how do you write about illegal stuff without going to jail about it? Bucky pointed out that most 'crimes' aren't much of a big deal, no one cares. And in the case of Patrick the Bankrobber O'Neil, he already did his time for his crimes, so now he has the pleasure of writing about it. Patrick's sister, in the front row, wanted to know when exactly he figured out that the cat in the story was his own. A dude in the back had no literary training and really wants to write and asked for help from our esteemed panel. All the while I dashed around on my nw platform heels I got at Topshop, handing out cookies to whoever asked a question! The cookies were purchased from Specialty's, which I think makes the best cookies in San Francisco. In the words of Renee Hahn, they were the size of cornish game hens. Is that what she said? I think so. Sometimes I bake the cookies myself, but I spent the afternoon at the Gay Lesbian Bisexual + Transgender Historical Society, picking through the archive alongside Juba Kalamka, looking for images to feature at Into the Streets!, an amazing literary performance happening June 11th and 12th, for FREE, at SomArts, mark your calendars. Amidts the archival material I found a photo of Justin Chin in the 90s at an ACT-UP demo, looking sooooooo cute; lots of flyers for actions intended to free Peter Plate from charges of busting car windows during the White Night Riots (yes, Peter Plate is THE most bad ass writer in the city, for reals), and an ACT-UP press release listing Justin Bond as the contact person. I love San Francisco's excellent queer history! Which leads me to:

HEALED BY GAYS

It's just that, a lot of gays have been healing my body, mind and spirit lately, and I want to give them some props.
BODY: Brian Harrelson teaches Yoga at 9:15am Tuesdays at The Sun Room on Mission and 20th. I feel so crazy amazing when I leave, I'm like, why don't I do yoga every day? Why don't I see if I can persuade Brian to like come over my house all the time, just to hang out cause he's super sweet but then you know I can bamboozle him into leading me in some sweet asanas? At the end, when you're in that one pose where you're just lying there feeling like life is great, Brian coms over and pulls your legs by your ankles and sort of gently swings them around and you can't believe it but the best moment just got even  better. It's by donation, $10-20 suggested. There are mats for rent but unless you want to pay a dollar to get a fungus, bring your own.

MIND: Monday nights at the Zen Center there is a meditation and dharma talk for people in twelve step programs but you truly don't have to be in one to go. You just need to want to check out Buddhist meditation in a setting less formal than the traditional zendo, and be, you know, a human being with various troubles and challenges shared by all. After the meditation an ordained Buddhist will hurl bits of genius at you. Many of the speakers are awesomely gay, and one in particular curses like a truck driver, and it sounds so great hearing the F-word in the beautiful Buddhist hall with the noble statues and peaceful vibe. From 7-9:30, by donation

SPIRIT: Hold on while I drop a bit of rose essence on my tongue. Yum! Dori Midnight is an amazing witch who does all sorts of great work, including witch classes for kids and adults, psychic services, and flower essence tinctures crafted just for you. Mine has essence of dolphin, ruby, tiger's eye, and other stuff that is to personal to reveal. Sorry! It tastes delicious and is totally doing something awesomely magical to me every time I use it. I got a very helpful and completely right-on psychic consultation at Dori's homey office in the Mission. She served me peppermint-elderflower tea in a vintage tea cup, and had out little cookies and pieces of fruit, too. When she did some actual psychic healing work, her cat participated, which I dug a lot. I hope I keep having psychic problems so I can keep going back to Dori Midnight! $75-125 sliding scale, Dorilandia.com

It's springtime and I've been giving a LOT of tarot readings. Partly it's because that's how I hit on people, but also there's just a lot of drama in the air, a lot of transitions, people inspired and overworking themselves with projects or getting spring fever and wanting to totally trash their life and get a new one. So I was SO happy to run into Rowan Cutler at Samovar, the new one right across from the Zen Center on Page Street. Rowan is reading tarot cards every night of the week at a different place in SF, and Mondays he's here. He charges a dollar a minute, and in about fifteen minutes I learned that Radar LAB is supported by the Universe (yes!), what I should do with my novel, and that that one girl isn't sketchy, I'm actually paranoid. Cool! Usually I send people who ask me for a reading over to facade.com, which does good online tarot diviniation, but now I'll send them to Rowan, who is Mr. Psychic and has an iron grasp on the cards. He uses the Crowley deck. Groovy!

Okay, that's it! Oh, no it's not! In preparation for June RADAR, I've picked up James St. James' Party Monster (formerly Disco Bloodbath, but then they made it into a movie with Macualey Caulkin and called it Party Monster) and the very first chapter, the introduction, explains in detail how one gets into a k-hole. I always use the term k-hole (for instance: Rather than edit her article, due tomorrow, Michelle fell into a k-hole of procrastination which included changing her clothes repeatedly and beginning a blog), but I am a poser, I have never tried Special K, the animal tranquilizer that puts you into a genuine k-hole of paralysis and hallucination, so it was super interesting to learn all about it. I look forward to seeing how it hooks the users into a spiral of addiction that ends in murder, and then move on to Mr. St. James' young adult novel, Freakshow. Awesome!

Yours,
Michelle Tea