San Francisco Sentinel
December 21, 1989
“Fish and Dips”
By Doris Fish
Lacking photographic evidence, you’ll just have to believe what I tell you! I was traffic-stoppingly beautiful last week, making one of my rare public appearances at the lovely home of the still unmarried Gwynn Waters (well she’s famous to me!). I only mention her marital status because she’s such a lovely girl, I mean woman, and she has that place looking so nice, and the food was just scrumptious. And she made everything herself, cutting the bread and putting it on plates, preparing the dips from scratch. Yes! Dips and chips and vegetable sticks. I haven’t been to such a lovely old-style party since long before I started hanging out with those arty types whose idea of a party was to leave the front door unlatched, put on some hideous loud music and hope that somebody would bring someone who had lots of drugs!
Anyway, this was a classy soirée with lots of fascinating guests and scintillating conversations. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually hear any of them, as people mysteriously lowered their voices as I passed, though I did overhear my good friend Timmy Spence, sho used to be famous with a band, Big Band Beat, saying to some type, “Step over there. I don’t want Doris to hear this. I don’t want to wind up in her tacky column!” Anyway, what he said was really boring anyway, but later on he let me feel his nice tits and ass and tried to get in my good graces by offering to buy me lunch. It worked.
There were some guests who were more than anxious to say things “for the column”. The most notorious was Phillip R. Ford, but unfortunately I can’t seem to recall anything he said except for a few truly awful jokes like, “Why did the ants dance on the top of the peanut butter jar? Because it said, ‘Twist to open’!” Speaking of twisting, some smart things were thus engaged later as I ventured into the living room where the rug had been rolled up to encourage such behavior. Others stared, not believing it was correct protocol, or perhaps they were too young to recognize the Twist. Not so this writer’s favorite party pooper, I mean party girl, Miss X. There’s something truly fascinating about a grown person of mixed gender flailing her body around the room in a frenzy of gay abandon.
But let’s talk about me. I dressed in a slightly somber style so as to be able to sit and observe the young people and to enjoy the dips. My suit was made of cloth of gold, my blouse was holly green of the finest silk, my hair was a delicate shade of bright orange with green tinsel doo-dads on the side, and on my lapel I pinned a giant plastic holly wreath infiltrated with twenty red and green little lights (powered by a battery pack and not by natural gas as some rude persons suggested). It was this lapel ornament which actually stopped traffic.
This was only my third soirée of the season but I thought that was pretty heavy going until I heard one fellow state that this was his third for the evening! He assured me that he had experienced no personal growth from any of them. I looked around the room and tried to spot the ones who might be undergoing some paradigm shift in their consciousness. I did observe a look of shock on one young man who had forgotten to put the vodka in his orange juice, and a girl’s chin did drop noticeably when Lori, the most beautiful blonde at the party, mentioned her lesbian lover’s motorcycle accident. For most of us it was just another evening of unconscious pleasantries, just passing time between career highlights.
As no scandals were unfolding I left earlier than most. A few days later at the promised lunch I heard that the place erupted after I left, with scandalous accusations flying across the crowded kitchen. The talented and volatile Popstitutes burst in, immediately polarizing the room into warring factions. The most fondly remembered quote from Diet to Timmy, “You’re spreading vicious energy at Christmas!” Far be it for me to dispute Diet’s accusations, but she’s never bought me lunch and this was Timmy’s second time. (We had a lovely lunch at the New Central Café — 14th and South Van Ness). Timmy tried to explain the background of the fracas, something about a commission on $25,000 that both he and Diet were “discussing”, but it was all so complex.
Anyway, Timmy has run off to Philadelphia to spread more “vicious Christmas energy” on the East Coast. Meanwhile the fabulous Popstitutes have to deal with Bad being off drugs (at Christmas), Alvin’s hiatus from the group, “It’s just this Christmas thing,” and poor Diet “feeling like a battered housewife.” They’re really getting into the Silly Season. One has to be wise or hard-hearted to get through it unscathed. I must be both. Merry Christmas!
