In November 2000 my best friend J and I went from our little suburb of Alameda to downtown San Francisco to participate in what she’d heard was going to be a really cool protest, for Buy Nothing Day. We were 16. When we arrived at Union Square we quickly found the other protestors within the fray of Black Friday shoppers. Standing around waiting for the march to start, a murmur went through the crowd. Someone next to us gestured to a fat older white guy in wraparound shades and baseball cap a few yards away, leaning against the window of a department store. “Pig.” the crust punk next to me said. “Undercover pig– thinks he’s so fucking sneaky. Hey Pig WE SEE YOU!” He screamed at the man, who pretended not to hear. I’d never seen an undercover cop before, I thought they’d be more intimidating. This looked like another soccer dad, just with a very obvious black earphone connected to a wire that ran down the back of his neck. It seemed insulting and ridiculous to have a police listening in on us. As the rally got into formation for a march down Market St. a short woman dressed in black with big 60s sunglasses and a red headband seemed to be in charge. She and J huddled briefly, then waved me over. J turned to me excitedly. “We’re gonna carry the banner, okay?” I was thrilled. Unlike the crusties in dyed black, J and I’d dressed as if going to a party. She wore a leopard print skirt and a long white scarf, and tons of trendy bracelets, I had bright blue hair and a white t-shirt that said Kill Rock Stars in amerikan flag font. Two adorable overly enthusiastic little teenagers; we were definitely virgins and were happy to carry the sign. There’s a photo of it on the Wikipedia page for Buy Nothing Day and in it you can see me carrying the banner which said “STOP SHOPPING / START LIVING / BUY NOTHING”
The next summer, we were 17 on the bus to Gilman talking about heartbreak and revenge. I had recently broken up with my first boyfriend, and was hoping we wouldn’t run into him that night. 924 Gilman Street, the all-ages punk club in Berkeley was my first experience of nightlife. They didn’t serve alcohol but I think back then that smoking was still allowed indoors. Lots of moshing, of course, somewhere between wholesome and grotesque, like sports without the pretense of fitness. The liquor store up the street was iconic, we’d have to find someone over 21 to buy us vodka. We went to Gilman almost every weekend, it felt like a community. Along the wall of the club there’s a row of tables where touring bands sell their merch, but other vendors peddle stuff as well. Food Not Bombs, local labels, people who made patches and buttons with little Anarchist aphorisms. In the relatively sedate and well lit “Stoar” of Gilman, we’d heard people got scabies from sitting on the couch, so we sort of crouched with our feet on it, trying not to let our backs touch the back of the couch.
J and I determined my ex wasn’t there and I was talking about getting even. She suggested I write a kiss-off song, and even helpfully wrote several lines of excellent lyrics from my perspective. I had another idea, which I tried to convince her to execute with me: a kissing booth at Gilman. I was trying to reverse engineer a situation in which it’d be okay to ask for affection, get paid to dispense it. That was the fantasy, and admittedly not my own.
My friend Amber told me about how when the Need played in San Francisco recently (at an 18+ show I couldn’t go to, unfortunately) there were tour girls on a road trip who set up a kissing booth at the back of the punk show. They charged like $3 for French Kiss and $1 for Emo Style. Sort of cheeky and a cute thing to do at a mostly queer punk sho, in SF where everyone mostly knows each other or are there to meet. I thought this was fantastic; a way of being part of the spectacle of a queer and punk scene without having to learn to play an instrument or perform or something. I could get people to kiss me, I could get them to kiss me in public, be gay with me, and even to be a little bit clever too.
And then the following summer at Yoyo a Gogo in Olympia, a girl my age had a kissing booth at the concessions stand at the Capitol Theater. She was selling regular kisses for one price and another price with pop rocks. I bought the pop rocks one, I was so sad I’d just broken up with my first boyfriend and kissing a girl made me feel very bisexual and affirmative, though she seemed pretty queer herself. The girl turned out to be a local legend, sort of. The way I wish I could be, and I imaged herself like an idealized nominally female version of me; not aristocratic white either trashy or jewish, curly hair freckles and androgynous in a toothsome way. Outgoing and like me played the cello, I’d find out later. She was a twin and had been babysat by all my favorite Riot Grrrl heroines. But paying $3 for it made me feel weird, even as a teenager. I knew I wanted to be on the other side of the transaction.
J interrogated my idea. Would I have mouthwash? What if someone really gross wanted to kiss me? She’d name various crust-punks we’d ran with over the years. I smugly supposed that if they paid, then I would have to kiss them, wouldn’t I? She asked what I would do if Chuck came, and that deflated my idea. My friend Chuck said he had a crush on me and I didn’t want to kiss him. This was really stupid of me, and I came to regret it when he died a few years later at 22, after we’d both moved to NYC.
In 2017, when I was 33, I worked in luxury retail on Black Friday. I’d been obsessed with what I thought the world of fashion could offer me (freedom?), and spent years worming my way into a job in the industry. I’d never worked in sales before and was officially an office administrator, just helping out on the floor when it was busy. We’d all been dreading Black Friday, as it was the beginning of public Sale. What I didn’t know before working in retail was the private sale, or pre-sale, the three weeks leading up to Black Friday, during which treasured, most valued clients can reserve items they’d like to purchase on sale, and we’d take them off the floor and hide them. On Black Friday, we ring them up at whatever nominal discount they get, before letting the public purchase the rest of the merchandise on discount. Ideally, we’d move enough during pre-sale to not have to offer much during public sale. But that year, we had a big party during Black Friday. The crowds lined up down the block to buy things nobody needs at prices nobody can afford. It was so crowded inside the store I couldn’t see across the room.
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