God, that program sucked. It really fucked up a lot of good crazy people (and not a few normal, employed, and well-adjusted people) in the Tenderloin. I haven't been in it for over a year now, but it's still fresh in my memory. We were all fighting for ourselves, but of course, we're human -- we were also doing our best to fight for each other. A woman speeding by on her Hoveround in the other direction yelled at them to get off me. Some nice schizophrenic yelled angrily on my behalf at the people on me. And I for my part devastated with an untraceable twist of the knife those assholes that so many women on the street cry about and accuse of mind-rape. (Glad, by the way, that I could do my part.) Really, how could it have happened? Yet it did.
Personally, I think the worst for me was the temporarily successful assault on mirth itself. That really killed something in me for a moment there. But it seemed like most people were pissed off about the attacks on natural sexuality. "Don't mess with the deed!" some brave ex-convict yelled on Eddy Street, and I was with him. I mean, hosing down poor people who are coupling? That's pretty fucking ugly, and somebody needs to pay hard for that.
(An aside: I know a lot of people thought I was the most put-upon, worst hurt by that shitty situation, but I assure you all that I'm tough, and if anyone can take the hits, I can. Anyway, I survived -- there a those who didn't. It was deadly in some cases.)
I've got to say, the anti-sexual components of that evil program had a real-world effect that violated everything good and right in a person. I remember going to Steamworks in Berkeley, getting messed with, and trying to watch those "Active Duty" videos on the computer. The porn made me overwhelmingly sad and depressed, and I blame that weird, sociopath-administrated (though I don't blame Frankie -- he wouldn't have done it on his own), wasteful, and poorly thought-out psychic torture.
The pornography is inherently fun. This dude who goes by "Dink" invites good-looking Marines and soldiers over to drink beer, smoke some meth, and fuck each other on camera (while he does rather unfortunate but ignorable monotone voice-overs and direction.) Those videos are very popular in the gay world.
But that night, I looked at the fine-ass grunts and watched their dorky, hot antics, and all I could feel was this crippling sense of grief. Boy, that program is fucked up.
(Sorry if I outed any of you retarded jarheads. I fucking love you guys, but in recent years you're always pulling that shit where you flirt and don't follow through -- I owe you one lol.)
