This page covers Jamie's life as a transgender journalist and personality.

Jamie's home

 
Looking for Trouble
The San Francisco Police Department has a GIS (geographical information system) up on the web now. This shows a "pin map" of a selected part of San Francisco indicating where particular crimes have taken place over the last 90 days. (You can select the center-point, display radius, number of days into the past, and mixture of crimes to display).

Each crime is displayed with a symbol that you can click on to view a summary crime report.

To view this wonder of technology, visit this URL: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=23813

Clicking around, I have learned the following:

The Tenderloin is a dangerous place.

When I walk South on Jones Street towards Market, I pass through three distinct narcotic micro-climates. Crack, Pills (Oxy and Vicodin), & Grass. Yes, people do get arrested for possessing pot in San Francisco!

The zone from where I live over to Diva's is less dangerous.

They don't have a category for vice offenses (beyond drugs), so you can't figure out where the sex-work strolls are from this data source. (Although conventional wisdom puts the trannies near Post and Larkin and the GGs around 16th and Mission).
posted by Jamie at 5:11 PM

 
Laura White visits
This weekend my friend Laura White visited from Miami Beach.

I met Laura at Southern Comfort in 2003 and 2004. She is a fun-loving gal and a regular gal-about-town in the Miami area. Laura has a chapter written about her in the book "The Secret Lives of Married Men", and has appeared in several art and music videos.



Laura flew in last Friday wearing the blue mini-dress shown in the photo. After grabbing a bite to eat at the Thai place on the corner, we went over to Diva's.

Laura loved Diva's. She said she had never seen so many TG people in one place (outside of Southern Comfort). Fortunately several of my friends saw my announcement on TGPartyGirls and met up with us there.

Saturday we went out to breakfast, then I voted in the Imperial Court Election for the two candidates who have appeared at TGSF events. Later we went to Haight-Ashbury and the Piedmont Boutique. The Piedmont is the major TG-oriented shop in San Francisco and was very busy - mostly serving genetic girls looking to buy sexy outfits.

Later Laura and I went to Good Vibrations and the Grubsteak Diner in Polk Gultch. After touching up our makeup, we went back to Divas again on Saturday for more dancing and hanging out. My boyfriend Rich was there too. Laura and Rich hit it off.

Sunday morning, my friend Elaine drove up from Menlo Park to give Laura (in a red mini dress this time) a ride back to SFO. The time went way too fast.

If you know me from afar and want to come out to San Francisco, please meow. I usually know what is happening and perhaps we can have fun together.
posted by Jamie at 9:31 PM

 
MEOW Chat Fully Recovered At Last
As many now know, I ended my partnership with the two other principals of Transgender Forum, Joann Roberts and Cindy Martin in July 2004. At that time, I handed over systems administration duties to Alaina, who (as she should) changed the passwords.

I still hang around the edges, operating the MEOW chat room, as well as writing and contributing photos.

About 3 months after I left, TGForum was (apparently) hit by a "kernel defacement team". This is a group of "script kiddies", or relatively unskilled computer invaders, who broke into their Windows 2000 system and trashed the web pages. In TGForum's case, they changed all the index.html files to a boast of their conquest. Needless to say, this screwed everything up.

Most of MEOW ran under Linux, which kept running during the disaster. MEOW did use the Windows 2000 system indirectly to store chat photos and handle user authentication. Since we lost those features when the break-in happened, we "jury rigged" MEOW to limp along without.

As part of the recovery process, Alaina, Joann, & Cindy then decided to abandon Windows 2000 and switch to Linux. They moved the subscription site, email, and the members pages to the same machine MEOW was on all along. Alaina has been very busy recoding the system to run entirely under Apache/PHP.

The upshot of all of this is that MEOW had to run for many months without user authentication and image uploading. Reestablishing these facilities required me to work indirectly through Alaina, since I needed to have software installed and configured by someone with a root password. Aside from being swamped by the many other programming chores at TGForum, Alaina had some family health issues to deal with. I also have a day job. Finally, MEOW is a "loss leader" for TGForum, so they, quite properly, had to give priority to paying customers.

Without an authentication system, the MEOW monitor system had to be suspended. This gave the trolls free rein. MEOW has had several such "problem visitors" over the years, who do things like try and anger other people and in some cases, attempt to crash their computers. These lowlife are always a problem for any chat area that does not require confirmed registration. (We have found that requiring registration drives everyone away, so we are "registration optional").

At long last, things have come together again. MEOW is running on a new computer, linked to the new TGForum authentication system. Image uploading is back. MEOW also has some new code intended to make it easier to deal with the trolls. Unfortunately the War on Trolls, like the War on Terrorism, promises to be eternal.

The URL for MEOW is http://meow.tgforum.com/




posted by Jamie at 10:20 AM

 
Friday Night Out Event
Eve Summers and I are resuming our Friday Night Out event in earnest, starting this upcoming Friday (January 28).

We did our trial run 10 days ago, on the evening before the Cotillion. It worked out well and Diva's had a very good night. We intend to do this every Friday that we can, ad-inifinitum.

Eve Summers will usually be available to do transformations. To arrange for one, contact her at 4145-999-3013 or eve@adamtoeve.com a day in advance.

The fiendish plan goes like this:

Come over to my new apartment at 737 Post Street (between Leavenworth and Jones) between 9PM to 10:30. Its on the 15th floor, has a dynamite view, and has two bathrooms and two vanities.

At 10:45, we will walk 3 blocks to Diva’s. If needed, people can also return there after 1 AM to “change back”. We will have some cheese and crackers out, and perhaps a bottle or two. We ask that all guests either show up "en femme" or change over here. (FtMs in "guy mode" are welcome too).

Jamie has a professional digital photography setup and has been known to take complimentary photos.

If you can't make it over to the pre-party, look for us on the 3rd or 4th floors at Diva's. (Jamie will likely be on 3rd, acting out her pedakinetamania).

Contact Jamie or Eve to let us know to expect you.

Jamie can be reached via Jamie@fentonia.com or by calling 415-567-4115 (10A-9PM)

posted by Jamie at 2:46 PM

 
... and a Wild Weekend It Was
Friday night we held our first AdamToEve/TGPartyGirls "Friday Night Out" event of 2005, hosted out of my new apartment. It was a smashing success! We had 7 at the pre-party, and met up with 5 more over at Diva's. The effect of our invasion was palpable - Diva's had a strong night and the dance floor was busy. Many of us came back to Post Fentonia for an after-party too. (My next door neighbor did not notice it being noisy either - to my relief).

My boyfriend Rich brought an incredible assortment of edibles and drinkables. (Talk about lucking out - he loves to open the door, cook, and snuggle!)

Eve Summers and I were gratified by our strong start and intend to keep this up week after week.

Saturday night was the Transgender San Francisco Cotillion. This is a TG beauty contest patterned after the Miss America pageant, and its the biggest tranny night of the year in San Francisco. (I was a contestant in 2000). Armed with my D-100 and Lumedyne, I grabbed about 400 images. The thumbnail proofs are already up on the web for everyone to view. I also have a more closely-edited photo spread underway.

The Winner was Jennifer Kennedy and the First Runner Up was Kara Flynn.

The Fort Mason venue seemed to work OK, although it sure is cold down by the waterfront!

TGSF has been holding many events down in the South Bay in the year or two. This was frustrating, as one of the reasons I moved up here was so I would not have to drive so much. It looks like more activities are moving back to San Francisco, with many to be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel.

All in all, this next year looks to be very exciting.



posted by Jamie at 9:00 PM

 
TG San Francisco to move their social events
TGSF has been meeting on the last Thursday of the month at the Blue Muse on Gough Street for the past several years. The Blue Muse is in Hayes Valley - an upscale district near the Opera and Symphony.

While the food, atmosphere, and staff are terrific, the Blue Muse had one major architectural flaw that hampered TGSF's ability to host events there. This was that the only logical place for the leaders to stand when conducting meetings blocked access to the bathroom and bar. This really became a problem when someone decided to add program content to the meeting, as people felt "pinned down" in their seats for an hour or so.

Of course you could just get up and blatantly walk in front of whoever was speaking. I was known for doing that!

The good news is that TGSF is moving their end of the month events from the Blue Muse to the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Geary and Van Ness starting Feb. 14th. I have been in there before, and it is a much more flexible space that should permit both program activities and a graceful escape from same.

Geary and Van Ness is two blocks from Diva's - so perhaps that will become the after-party location now. (TGSF used Diva's as an event location a few years back and that was very controversial, so I don't know if this happen).

TGSF has been gradually losing attendance over the past few years. Perhaps this new venue will help turn this situation around.



posted by Jamie at 11:08 AM