Everyone has a gig in ’90s SF. We work jobs but we really slave for an art form that we are still learning how to master. Musicians, painters, dancers, hairstylists, writers, actors, massage therapists, inventors. Everyone is outside and inside at the same time. Everyone works at, and spends a good deal of their day in, restaurants, bars, or cafés talking, working on art, waiting on tables. Friday and Saturday are for rookies and the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. But every other day is locals only, and we have a secret: We are in the middle of doing something important. Even if no one notices. It’s important because we say so. It is important because we are free. We are judgment free. We are free of George Bush’s America and its macho posturing. We are self-­appointed freaks. We are surviving and thriving in this environment that we have created through our unique expression—and it will last forever. So we think.