Your San Francisco Mistress

I first went to San Francisco as a rebellious teen, drawn to the mythos of its counterculture. At the time, I was fixated on the 60s counterculture and reading Hunter S. Thompson, Timothy Leary, William S. Burroughs, and adverse to beat poetry- not yet a total punk but unwilling to assimilate. I wandered the damp city and felt it deep in my bones- this was the only other place, besides New York, that I could ever truly live.

The Haight had good vintage shops back then and I got a retro hot pink slip at a place called Aaardvark's. I have always had a fetish for slips and racy nightwear- I wore that slip as a dress until it wore out. That dress was my main tie to SF for a long time. But over the years, while living in New York, I slowly became embedded in SF's punk scene. My band toured the West Coast, I booked bands from the Bay Area, and became friends with a lot of punks in the Bay. I had been reading Maximumrocknroll, a DIY international fanzine documenting punk subculture based in SF, for years and eventually tried out for a coveted role at MRR.

When they flew me out to San Francisco to interview for content coordinator, I spent the night at the MRR HQ and felt a strange sense of belonging in that city. At the time, I was balancing life as a geriatric social worker in NYC, booking shows at ABC No Rio and in Brooklyn, playing in bands, and living in a leather jacket year-round, even in freezing temperatures. But I was restless, tired all the time, and often sick. I could hustle but not playing it straight with a 9 to 5 job- it was killing me.

I did not get the first position I interviewed for at MRR. I was extremely knowledgeable about punk but very narrow minded about what punk is and who is punk. Being a content coordinator meant dealing with genres like pop punk for which I had no tolerance. When MRR offered me a silver medal position as distribution coordinator with free housing at the HQ blocks from Alamo Square- I took it. A slightly haunted punk house, the world's largest punk record collection, and leather weather almost year-round? I immediately packed a rental SUV, bursting with black clothes and vinyl records, drove cross-country, and only got pulled over once in Nevada.

I arrived in September, not knowing it was San Francisco's hottest month, sweating in agitation while decked out in leather pants and engineer boots. No one warned me that the Bay Area had seasons beyond its infamous fog. The California sun left a dusting of freckles across my nose- my first SF driver's license compared to my previous NYC one looked like a before-and-after of a near-death experience. San Francisco was already reshaping me and forcing me to have color in my life that I never knew I needed.

Living at MRR HQ was a whirlwind- punks coming and going 24/7, records blasting at all hours, bands dropping in unannounced, and stranger old men, later dear friends, drinking until all hours. First thing during my arrival, my suitcase burst open in front of a house full of people, scattering my collection of sex toys everywhere. That was my introduction to San Francisco, and frankly, it's fitting. Trust me- I was Ramona before I even knew her name.

It was here that I first met punks who were sex workers- women who owned their power, worked at places like The Lusty Lady, a female run cooperative strip club, and introduced me to a world where sensuality and dominance were something to be mastered. Sex work was starting to normalize for me. My sexual prowess was legendary, and I was by no means a slut, but everyone knew I liked to fuck. Punk femme fatale is my identity, and I have most certainly maintained it into the Ramona years. San Francisco unraveled inhibitions I didn't even know I had- my sexual prowess was already legendary, but here? It became something else entirely.

I didn't stay at MRR HQ as a coordinator, but I kept my radio show, interviews, and writing going strong. I moved on to get my paralegal certification, and all while teaching myself how to ride a motorcycle at night on the SF hills. Eventually, I did what all my peers did- I moved to Oakland. I loved SF, but I was never meant to have roommates.

I had always been good with money, and as someone who grew up in NYC rentals, I dreamed of homeownership. I found a run-down 1910-era home on the same boulevard as the Hells Angels- a neighborhood that never lacked excitement. The neighborhood was what I liked to call “East Oakland light” and unbeknownst to me, close to my future second home, a dungeon called Black Thorn. Kink spaces like that were not yet on my radar but I had started going to larger kink events and thought I was very edgy wearing latex glovelettes.

Over time, I transformed my once-neglected house into something beautiful. I was instantly hired as a paralegal, landed in a female-run firm where one of the partners had ties to The Weather Underground, and built a life that was enviable. I rode miniskirt-clad to gigs in West Oakland, tore down empty streets on my bike, and made fast friends with every other badass woman who rode. I also had a garage, a first in my life for this New Yorker who only knew of having a bedroom to call her own.

Being a trust and estate paralegal was not tremendously exciting, but I did get a kick out of doing probates and charming male clerks into expediting my filings. When I was laid off from the law firm, a bandmate introduced me to professional sensual domination, and I never looked back. My first client extended his hour with me immediately. That became a pattern- men couldn't get enough. Around this time, I discovered dungeons to rent like my neighbor, Black Thorn, started attending Kink Armory parties plus classes, became a fixture at Folsom Street Fair parties, and effortlessly strutted into what would become my life's work. I was no longer a spectator in the kink scene but a main player.

Eventually I created my own private dungeon in the upstairs unit of my home. I painted it deep purple, complete with a purple latex vacuum bed to match, spiderweb bondage bed, ceiling mirrors, and a pentagram X-cross- there is a photo if you scroll down. I had my dream life- my very own dungeon, two vintage Japanese motorcycles, an old Saab, a tight-knit community of punks and perverts. But the crime, the stagnation, and the slow decay of the Bay became impossible to ignore.

I toured New York often as Mistress Ramona, and my trips were always a smash hit- never a slow tour. But each time I returned, the cracks in the Bay Area became more apparent when I returned home. The punk scene was merely a clone of others, and crime was skyrocketing, but my house had more than doubled in value. It was time to trade Bay Area filth for NYC filth- more expensive filth but glamorous with seemingly more than one good punk gig every night. Plus, as a true local, I was still on the list.

The moment I made my decision to return to New York, I dismantled my Bay Area life in record time- downsizing from a two-story home with a garage and basement to a my future one-bedroom apartment in Gramercy Park, staging it myself, and selling it for over asking. When realtors suggested I take down the earthquake-proof dungeon mirrors before selling, I laughed as they were impossible to remove. The buyer loved them, by the way!

I may call New York home today but San Francisco has never let me go. I return to San Francisco a few times a year, slipping back into its rhythm effortlessly- the beautiful homes, the unparalleled food, the things I never want to see again on the street. New York is my forever home, but San Francisco is the lover I can't resist- a city that knows my secrets, keeps them well, and pulls me back time and time again.