Hey Oaklaaaaaand! Just a quick note that I will be occupying your fair city tonight (Thurs 5/17) to deliver amusements onstage at this month’s installment of Bawdy Storytelling, “Real people and rockstars sharing their bona fide sexual exploits in 10 minutes or less”. Tonight’s fun is at The Uptown, and will also feature San Francisco Queer Open Mic co-founder Baruch Porras-Hernandez and our old friend Sean Kelly, with steampunk electro-cello musical stylings provided by Unwoman. It orta be a hoot, East Bay!

Image courtesy A Trail Runner's Blog

Just got off the phone with the SFPD, and this is confirmed — yes, it is legal to run the Bay to Breakers race completely naked.

Thanks to San Francisco’s extremely permissive public nudity laws, running 7.5 miles with your respective boobs or junk flopping around in public is 100% legal. The only restrictions on your public nudity are that you may not enter a restaurant, and you may not sit your bare ass upon any benches or public seating without first placing a towel or some material upon the seating area. Other than that, you can totally rock out with your vagina/cock out.

UPDATE: The SFPD has clarified to me via email that “Exposing one’s private parts in public is not unlawful unless the act is committed LEWDLY (i.e. erect penis).”. So, ummm, no erect penises, guys.

Now technically, it is against the rules of the Bay to Breakers race to run naked — but the Bay to Breakers organization has substantially toned down its enforcement. This year’s Bay to Breakers rules do not mention any ban on nudity — the only mentioned banned objects or practices on the race course are wheeled objects, alcohol, and floats. Race spokesman Sam Singer told the SF Chronicle, “There has always been a ban on nudity – it has never been enforced and it won’t likely be enforced this year, either.”

Image courtesy The Big Kahuna via Flickr

Know who we can thank for the Bay to Breakers’ non-enforcement of their nudity ban? None other than our allegedly-wifebeating Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi took up the cause for nudity at Bay to Breakersin 2009 when he was a city supervisor, noting, “Nudity and floats are part of the overall eccentric nature of the race and what makes it so great.”

Funny how our perceptions of people change over time, huh?

It is believed that the first person to run Bay to Breakers nude was Lesli Josephson, a nurse who did so in 1978. The largest organized group of naked runners are Bare to Breakers, who have been doing this since 1993. You can still join them in time for Sunday’s race!

The shit is bananas at this point! We are ten days from Bay to Breakers 2012, and the Pink Gorilla is already out performing monkeyshines.

The pink gorillas in this video are not the real “pink gorilla guy”, who is an actual East Bay distance runner that just happens to own a pink gorilla suit. These pink gorillas are part of Zazzle‘s pink gorilla-themed promotions for this year’s race, and they will be aping it up on local street corners in the weeks leading up to the race. So help me god, I will score me one of those gorilla suits!

Nonetheless, that Macworld exhibition floor features some real, legitimate must-haves for boozebags like you and me. Let’s take a look at some of the top-shelf doohickies for alcoholics with iOS mobile devices.

The Best in Show from my drunkass perspective is the Intoxicase, which appears at first glance to be a simple, stainless steel polycarb iPhone holder with a bottle opener embedded in it. I know, plenty of you people have shown me how to perform this task with a cigarette lighter many times over. My permanently impaired motor skills will likely never allow me to do this with consistent success.

You can see the Intoxicase in action to up above, in the hands of  Marketing VP Roni Bonjack, whose company Spicebox designed and produced the Intoxicase. Ms. Ronjack is using the standard Intoxicase there, but they also produce an Intoxicate Plus whose bottle opener folds in so you don’t have a conspicuous lump sticking out of your pocket.

Hey, is that a standard Intoxicase in your pocket? Or  are you just happ– ahh, forget it.

But there’s way more cool shit going on with the Intoxicase. Each Intoxicase comes with a free app that counts how many bottles you’ve opened, logs which brands of beers you’ve drank, helps you find your car if you forgot where you parked, and calls you a cab if you’re too wasted to drive.

Intoxicase can also post this info via your favorite time-wasting social media platform, like Facebook. “You can check into a specific bar, so your friends know to join you at that bar,” Ms. Ronjack said.

Intoxicase was also the only exhibitior at Macworld who dressed their booth babe in a dirndl. Huge respect for that. If you look closely, you can see that her earrings are actually Sam Adams bottlecaps.

Of course, you can just imagine all the leering and chauvinism from asshole guys with cameras that poor woman had to smile and put up with out there on the Macworld exhibition floor.  And that’s just for the ten minutes that I was standing there!

Product design junkies might also consider the Opena Case, also a bottle opened designed specifically for the iPhone 4s. The Opena Case opens your beer bottle via a slide-out mechanism. I personally found the Intoxicase to be a little more elegantly designed, plus it comes with the clever free apps, and even the premium Intoxicase Plus is priced lower than the standard Opena Case. But it’s just like deciding between a pint or a tumbler of Fernet — anyone’s preference would be determined by mood and personal inclination.

Y’all drunks who regularly lose their phones when wasted will surely want to check out the iKeep — which latches your iPhone or Android to your belt buckle and discreetly keeps your phone attached to your body via a retractable cord. That way, you’re not going to leave your phone in a bar yet again. Those Apple software engineers who keep leaving their next-generation prototype iPhones in bars really need to get themselves one of these! There is also an iKeep Charger, which can charge your iPhone, Andoid, or any mico USB-charged device. It provides the same foolproof attached-to-your body security of the iKeep, but can also be juiced up to provide a reliable back-up charge when your phone is losing battery power.

And the Worst Gadget for Drunks at Macworld 2012? That would be Dr. Dre Detox headphones, a cushioned pair of noise-isolating aluminum case headphones. I just do not like the name of those things

photo by avantard via Flickr

On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of boozed-up do-gooders took to the streets of San Francisco wearing nothing but red undies and a Santa hat for the Third Annual Santa Skivvies Run. The event is a benefit that raised more than $28,000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. You may even wish to add to that total.

photo by coreythrace via Flickr

Fortunately for my junk, temperatures early Sunday afternoon were in the mid-50s. You couldn’t hardly ask for better weather for an outdoor December undie run, proving once again that God loves the all silly gay shit that we do in The Castro. I tried warming people up even more by with some stretch-out yoga poses with Heather from FitLifeSF, and also of course by handing around a flask full of tequila. Plenty of people took the tequila, but nobody except Heather did the yoga with me. The run itself was not even two miles, so you could be in awful condition and still pretty much run that whole thing. The folks at the AIDS Foundation had the route extremely well organized, and shepherded us boozebags through the Castro, Diamond Heights, Dolores Park, and then back to The Lookout. Suppositori Spelling ho-stessed the affair, with DJ stylings provided afterward by DJ Grind. I did the run in my red sequined hot pants, as seen in the left and below photos. Since it was an undie run, I thought it was appropriate to not wear any additional briefs, boxers, leggings, or hosiery underneath my hot pants. I think the hot pants-only look worked pretty well on me — but oh, was it a terrible choice for running. You can just imagine the manner of horrible chafing that was taking place on my sensitive regions when running in a pair of sequined hot pants. “At least you didn’t chafe your asscrack,” Heather said. “Because as we can all see that was pretty much bare the whole time.”   Very funny… whatever. As you can see here, I was rockin’ a boombox in one hand and my flask in the other, wearing only hot pants and with no form of pockets whatsoever. This posed all sorts of challenges, so I was not able to manage a camera to take any photos. However,  Jim James has quite a set (haha!) posted on EDGE San Francisco. Meanwhile avantard has a whole slew of Santa Skivvies 2011 shots on Flickr, and coreythrace has a fewas well. For the definitive multimedia experience of the 2011 Santa Skivvies Run, Danny Palacios of Danny Boy Productions has beautiful HD video footage of the affair, set to outlandish orchestral Christmas music and then edited into something resembling a holiday movie trailer. A big thanks to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation for organizing and managing the event, to Molly Mounds for running with me and putting up with my ridiculous Christmas mash-ups, and to all the naughty Santas that participated in Santa Skivvies 2011.

Like for one thing, it’s a good way to get yourself shown on television or the internet.

If you’re stripping down in public in very low temperatures, you’re probably already breaking three of the most fundamental rules of staying warm outdoors: you’re not wearing the right clothing, you don’t have adequate shelter, and you’re probably drinking alcohol. Alcohol does not help your body stay warm in the cold, it dilates your blood vessels and increases your body’s heat loss. But I would not discourage you from drinking, nor do I have the moral authority to do so.

This means that good, healthy cold weather streaking requires greater focus on the second tier of warmth retention strategies. You’ve already blown it in a big way on the fundamentals, so make up for it by tending to a number of the little things.

• Cover Your Feet and Head Really Well – You’re skimping on the rest of your body, so be sure to have on well-soled shoes and heavy socks. If you’re not wearing a Santa cap, you should be wearing some kind of hat. Gloves would also be recommended if you’re not exercising, but if you are exercising then gloves are likely to overheat you quickly.

• Stay Dry – If your bare skin is wet, your body will lose heat nearly 25 times faster . If it looks like rain, take an umbrella. You can still enjoy the benefits of exhibitionism in rainy weather if you’re covered by an umbrella. Plus you’ll fucking look better. If you’re sweating, wipe that sweat off of you as frequently as possible. Sweat will contribute to windchill in cold weather.

• Drink Water – I know, they say this every time you’re doing something you shouldn’t do to yourself.

• Pick Your Favorite Cold Weather Booze – You are hurting yourself, but at least choose a warm-feeling booze that gives you at least some psychological comfort. Heather Hawkins, fitness blogger at FitLIfeSF who is also running the Santa Skivvies, recommends Rumple Minze. “It warms from the inside out,” says Ms. Hawkins. “During Santarchy 2009, I had a “Jingle Stick” full of Rumple Minze and we ran into (Former SF mayor) Gavin Newsom as he was leaving the Safeway on Church and Market. I offered him his choice of Rumple Minze from the Jingle Stick, flavored lube or candy canes and he “no thanksed” them all. No wonder his career has taken the turn it has.”

• Don’t Drink Coffee or Smoke Beforehand – Pick your poison — and you’re probably picking alcohol — so try to exclude the other vices.  Caffeine is a diuretic, and will dehydrate you. Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, and limits your blood circulation.

• Do Drink Ginseng  or Green Tea Beforehand – Hot drinks other than coffee can serve you well when near-naked outdoors. While green tea has caffeine, it has substantially less than coffee –plus it’s an antioxidant, and encourages thermogenesis. Ginseng is a good, energizing antioxidant containing no caffeine. Hot drinks are great, but avoid sugar.

• Eat a Hot Meal Two Hours Beforehand – Chowing down on complex carbohydrates a couple hours before your streak helps your body produce heat and insulation. Soup, chili, pasta, or potatoes are a great idea. Meats and cheeses can also be beneficial, but make an effort to go lean or low-fat.

• Stay Close to Your Scantily Clad Friends – You guys really need body heat, so stay close to one another. Frequent hugging or snuggling will benefit both parties, and requires no supplies or advance planning. Plus this can also lead to you getting some action that you would otherwise not have gotten.

In San Francisco, you’re not going to get hypothermia unless you jump in the ocean. You might, however, get cold and put your clothes back on earlier – and then everybody loses. In colder regions with a legitimate windchill factor, attention to secondary warming strategies will be critical for you when going naked or near naked outdoors. And I will look forward to seeing your shriveled package or your unshriveled nipples on television or the internet!

It’s like SantaCon meets the AIDS Walk, but with lots more public nudity. All this holly jolly holiday exhibitionism provides support for  HIV prevention programs, so please consider making a donation on my sponsorship page. Or perhaps even register to undie run at the Santa Skivvies Run yourself! You know I’ll have some high octane Egg Nog or Ouzo Wassail to split with you.

Party starts at 12 Noon at The Lookout on Sunday, Dec. 11. The undie run begins at 1pm, and it’s only 1.4 miles in length. I’m not sure there’s actually even a proper race course here. In fact, this whole thing might be a real “seat-of-the-panties” operation!

Again, you can register to run with Santa Skivvies or donate on the Exercising While Intoxicated page. Plan to see me — lots of me — out there on Sunday, December 11!

Read it for yourself, but I’m pretty pleased with Journal writer Geoffrey Fowler’s thoughtful coverage of this story. They don’t make me look like an asshole, they spell my name right, and they don’t call me soft on entitlement reform.

Okay it’s your move now, Financial Times of London.

I wondered what would happen once they pulled me off the course — would there be other funny drunks in the tents? Would they really try to sober us up with free juice? Could I take the juice and make myself a tequila sunrise, right there in the sobriety tent?

Turns out these threats of enhanced security measures were a complete public relations bluff. Security was actually less than recent years, and no one I spoke with all day saw a single sobriety tent. In fact, the only sobriety tent I saw was a drunken parody of a sobriety tent, operated by fake cops and medics who were in fact just drunks in costume.

I was apprehended by this mobile drunken sobriety tent pictured to the left, in the Panhandle just past the race’s halfway point. The tents’ operators were actually running, with each of the tents four corners held up by drunken fake paramedics. It was additionally staffed by several drunken fake police handing out drunken fake citations for public intoxication. I was cited three times by these fake police for my drunken exploits. It should be noted that these fake drunken cops handed out far more citations than did the actual police. And yes, that is a live Blues Brothers brass band clearing their path in front of them. If you look closely, you’ll also see that they have a Duff Man in that tent.

“>Once apprehended and placed in the sobriety tent, I was forced to take a breathalyzer test (pictured left). This drunken fake paramedic here amazingly had a breathalyzer contraption that hooked up to his iPhone. The retractable mouthpiece I’m blowing into actually fits into an iPhone USB port, and gives an accurate blood alcohol content reading. Turns out I was already blowing a .14%! And this is barely halfway into the race.

“>There is a possibility that what is pictured to the left here is one of the sobriety tents. I saw this tent at about 10:45am in Golden Gate Park, right by 8th Avenue. I considered going up to the one bored sap still there and demanding to be detained for my drunkenness, just to be able to say that I was put in one of the drunk tents. But I had just bought another three and a half liters of tequila, and did not want to risk the possibility of having to dump it. Plus that guy looks like he is totally enjoying his book, so I would really hate to interrupt that situation.

Give Bay to Breakers organizers credit doing something that worked really well — that black fence on the northern side of Fell Street in the Panhandle was a genius method of managing the crowd through that neighborhood. As you can see here, residents along Fell St. had a roughly four-foot fence separating the race from their front yards. Even the worst and drunkest of racers would not try to hop that fence unless they saw someone they knew at a house party on the other side. That eliminates about 99% of the people you’d normally have tromping through that area during the race. Nicely done, race planners.

WordPress has been really funky with handling my full-size images lately, so maybe just click through my Flickr set of the day’s adventures to see the bigger-resolution, beautiful weather (in)action shots from the 100th Bay to Breakers.

photo credit: Matt Pagel via Flickr

A huge setback for us drunken knuckleheads, and a godsend for paranoid race organizers — the Sunday forecast is calling for heavy rain  and thunderstorms for the 100th running of the Bay to Breakers.

I swear to God I am not making this up. The five-day forecast over at SFGate looks grim, with the menacing raincloud icon on Sunday’s forecast shooting thunderbolts. Weather Underground’s prediction is “showers likely and a slight chance of thunderstorms,” and “chance of precipitation 70 percent.” Jeff Ranieri confirms the grisly hypothesis at NBCBayArea, but you have to sit through some goddamned advertisement first.

It almost never rains in late May in the Bay Area. The last time it rained on B2B was in 2002, the first year I ever ran it, and it sucked so much that I stopped running and went home. (I was not yet operating a mobile tequila bar at the time.) According to race organizers, it has rained only twice on Bay to Breakers in the race’s history. But Sunday is shaping to be the third-ever rain-soaked race.

Perhaps this all means jack-shit. They can’t accurately predict the weather in this town 12 hours in advance, let alone three days.

Storm clouds may have a silver lining for race crashers. If you’re like me and running unregistered and carrying ten-plus liters of booze, realize there will likely be way less cracking down on crashers. If it’s raining hard at 7am, I bet you at least 10,000 full-price-paying registered runners just won’t even show up. Fewer police and security will be assigned to the course. Visibility will be a much bigger problem for security staff in heavy rain. Rain gear can be utilized to make it look like your bib is simply concealed.

Rain or shine, I’m still doing this — unregistered and handing out gallons of free tequila — because I feel my public expects this of me (You do, right?). If you’re also determined to show up and run in a rainstorm, hit me up for one of those free tequila shots, and get set to get wet.