"You look like you're from San Francisco!"

I promised the blog that I wouldn't get arrested by George Allen's goons, and I made good on that promise. In fact, I only had one brush with Republican wrath the whole time I was in Virginia.

Towards the end of election night, a middle-aged Allen supporter in an orange baseball cap started yelling at me. I don't think he had any idea who I was. He just needed someone small to pick on.

"You look like you're from San Francisco!" he screamed.

Initially, this seemed totally random. Why was this drunk guy yelling about San Francisco? Was it a Nancy Pelosi reference?

"Well," I said, "I'm not, but my mom's whole family is from there. It's very nice. Have you been?"

All of a sudden he got a lot angrier. I looked at him quizzically.

He pointed a skinny finger at me and hollered, "And I bet you look like your mom!"

"Yeah," I said, "A lot."

I suddenly realized that he was trying to gay-bait me for having short hair. Or maybe it was the two huge cameras. What a weirdo. Some of these social conservatives really do imagine that Teh Gays lurk everywhere, waiting to pounce. Or maybe he thinks that accusations of gayness are so awful they can magically subordinate anyone.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have laughed in his face, he was very agitated and close enough to slap me. But that turned out to be exactly the right way to handle him. He just stood there with his orange baseball cap drooping and his mouth slightly agape.

Comments

[anon]

Your friend sounds like a character from a Wil Farrell movie!

If you want to blend in better, you should goto a hunting mega-store like Cabela's and buy a ton of camo gear. ;)

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>"You look like you're from San Francisco!"

Consider it a compliment. And if you're right about the reason why he was yelling it, then isn't it interesting to meet one of the freepers in person. People used to give me the same stuff for having long hair.

>mouth agape

Probably a default pose for him, I'd imagine.

[cfrost]

So your mom is a handsome woman, with family in one of North America's best cities, who also has a clever daughter. Could she be any luckier?

I'm originally from San Francisco but am often taken for a redneck, so I'd probably fit right in at an Allen rally. I suggest you grab a cheap beer and bellow an occasional yeee-haw, and you won’t be bothered by knuckle-draggers.

[shrike]

Why do rednecks hate San Francisco?

They hate us for our freedoms....

[F'in Librul]

I suddenly realized that he was trying to gay-bait me for having short hair.

He was definitely gay-baiting you, but that's not the whole story. (And this is meant innocently) He probably thinks you look like one of the lipstick lesbians in the pornos he keeps under his side of the bed. You know - the ones he thinks his kids don't know about.

After all, every good Republican knows lesbians have short hair and don't own dresses, while fags work out and dress like women.

He might have been put off by a professional woman photographer as well. Everyone should know that hoisting and twisting those big, long, lovely lenses, and handling those warm, sweaty palm grips...sorry, got distracted...well, all that photography stuff - that's a man's work!

[DonBoy]

Even in this context, I'm stumped by "you look like your mother" as an insult.

[Bruce]

Oh Lindsay, please, he was just hitting on you, give me a break. You know, smooth Southern charm.

If you had been wearing off-sized bowling shoes, he'd have said you look like you are from Baltimore. Which might have actually pissed him off more, since we DUMPED a sitting Republican here too. People talk about wanting to militarize our southern border with Mexico; as a 37 year Maryland I want to militarize our southern border with Virginia. They can tax me to pay for the barbed wire, hell 200 old Colts fans from John Waters' Hampden could be convinced to lay the wire cheap, off the books with cash no paperwork of course.

[skippy]

hey lindsay,

just stopped by to say congrats to you and all bloggers for the hard work we put into the elections, and congrats to us for the result!

great work, kid!

[John]

if you are right on the reason for which he shouted it, later he is not that he interests to solve one of freepers in person. People gave the same matter me to have long hair. I suggest you grasp a cheap beer and that you shout yeee-haw occasional, and the knuckle-draggers you not incomodes.

[Alon Levy]

John's homepage looks a lot like mortgage-related spam... and his comment looks like it was mangled on Babelfish a few times.

[John Lucid]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Bruce Heffernan who was attempting to gay-bait you. How many Republican closet homosexuals do you suppose experience their first gay coupling while attending a big Republican shindig of some kind? More than a few, I'm willing to venture. How many at a big Christian Coalition-type convention, like the Promise Keepers? WAY more than a few, I'm sure, because there will always be experienced cruisers like Mark Foley and Ted Haggard there to initiate the closet neophytes.

You handled yourself well. I have a smart mouth, so if it had been me I probably would have squeezed out a couple of insults before other MacacaTeers would have come at me like zombies in a shopping mall. Next time you go to one of those things, Lindsay, bring what our hero in that picture has: A camera, and a cast iron skillet. I know you cook, so you should have no problem wielding a culinary utensil as an (un)deadly weapon. And bring back plenty of pictures.

[Nancy in NYC]

Living dangerously there, Ms. L. Careful, those folks are NUTS. And congratulations on all your hard election-related work paying off some handsomely. Even I'm starting to feel cheerful.

[superdude]

What is someone from San Francisco supposed to look like. Do they have horns? Should we throw them down the well?

Most the people I can see from my window appear to be casually dressed for the 76-degree, partly cloudy weather.

[aeroman]

I'm slow... where was this? Richmond?

[Dave]

That's really funny. I'm surprised you didn't break down in convulsive giggles. Next thing you know, they'll be calling us all TOLERANT and INTELLIGENT and all kinds of other insults.

My wife had an incident like this recently. Went to Sunday brunch at a salad place with a short-haired female friend. There was some delay -- a drink machine gone empty, I think -- and the just-from-church elder in front of them in line said, "If you weren't such sinners, you wouldn't have to wait." Went away all smug, like he'd done his duty for Jesus. Presumably deaf to the liberal doses of laughter from my wife and her friend.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Dave, that sounds like something out of the Borat movie. Gypsies break the soda machine every time!

[none]

San Francisco is supposed to be full of gay males, not lesbians, I thought. The lesbians are across the bay in Berkeley. San Francisco according to the stereotype has lots of frustrated straight females because the men are all gay, and similarly with straight males in Berkeley.

I hope Lindsay doesn't take offense if I say she's gorgeous, whatever her orientation is.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

>Borat movie

Well, "John"'s post sure sounded like it:

if you are right on the reason for which he shouted it, later he is not that he interests to solve one of freepers in person. People gave the same matter me to have long hair. I suggest you grasp a cheap beer and that you shout yeee-haw occasional, and the knuckle-draggers you not incomodes.

Posted by: John | November 10, 2006 at 10:21 PM

I suggest that you grasp a cheap beer!

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Well I guess we should consider three possibilities:

1) He was hitting on you, but was too drunk to do so subtly.
2) He was gay-baiting you, but was too heartland to do so subtly.
3) Yee-abba-dabba-do: Both!

The tough thing about the freepers of the world is when they get it into their heads to speak in code, instead of saying what the hell they really mean. I've experienced that (thankfully only once or twice in my life). They're so angry that they yell the coded message, but they never pipe the fuck up and spit it out clearly. If I had been you, I wouldn't have been able to restrain myself: "What's the issue? I'm here--open up the mouth you were issued and air your grievance already. You'll give yourself an ulcer." But it's as if they're so afraid of looking stupid that they just babble nonsense and think they've got one over on you. But you're thinking, "yeah? I'm--from San Francisco. So... Uh, I don't get it?"

[cfrost]

So among the wingnuts short hair now brands a woman as a super-butch, diesel-dyke, cycle-slut, predator? Perhaps I just don’t get out enough, but I have to say this comes as a bit of a surprise. Weren’t the flappers –like my grandmother- wearing short hair back in the 1920s? My grandmother and mother both had short hair. I didn’t realize they were lesbians until just now, but then I don’t really have a fully functional gaydar, so I’m sometimes clueless in that department.

It recalls the right-wing meltdown over Hillary Clinton wearing a hairband and opaque tights in the ‘90s. Holy crap, the right righteous troglodytes were shitting bloody bricks, convinced that it was a disaster worse than Pearl Harbor.

[cfrost]

Yes, and in spirit of Borat, please to grasping cheap beer. Yagshemash.

[Cass]

I'm not any more versed in rube-speak than the rest of you, but it seems just as likely, based on my own similar experiences, that he was making a pass as he was throwing insults. What a tragedy your different political allegiences had to stand in the way of what could have been a life-changing romance!

[Cranky Observer]

> If you had been wearing off-sized bowling
> shoes, he'd have said you look like you are from
> Baltimore.

Have to disagree here. The Radical Right, Republicans, and conservatives in general have something visceral against women with short hair. This is particuarly noticable in Texas, but I think it really infects them all. I am not sure what the exact source is (beside being practical in some circumstances, many women look quite attractive in short hair {even crewcuts} whether hetero, bi, or gay). But I have noticed the dislike among many of my conservative coworkers, both men and women.

Cranky

[Utica]

conclusions:
i suppose lesbians do look like their mothers sometimes. can't imagine that not being true.
having (very slightly) strange hair means that you are a san franciscan, a dike, a terrorist, or all three on a good day.
i think this was less about gay baiting and more about liberal baiting. "you look like you're from san francisco" really means "you look like one of those white people who aligned themselves with the political party that pushed the voting rights act". but regardless of what he actually meant, you should probably dress nicer around conservatives. and stay away from the arts, that's a dead giveaway.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Aeroman, this was in Richmond, yes.