Time to retool Castro Confidential!

Eight months and nearly 800 posts (!) after starting Castro Confidential, I've decided to take a long break while I revamp, rethink and -- I expect -- relaunch this blog with a more focused approach. I want to inject more San Francisco in this blog so it lives up (down?) to its name of Castro Confidential. That means more original, local news, entertainment and hot photos about one of the world's gayest neighborhoods.

But that's going to take more time than I can devote when I've already got a full-time job. So, hang in there with me, folks! And consider shooting an e-mail to castroconfidential@gmail.com with your contact information; I'll fire you a note back when the blog relaunches, so you won't have to keep checking back on your own.

[Photo: Power house mechanic working on steam pump, 1920, by Lewis Hine]

Cycling into Folsom Street Fair weekend

Tonight's Critical Mass marks the 15th anniversary of the San Francisco bicycle protest event that's been copied in hundreds of cities worldwide. Plus! We love all those muscular thighs and even more muscle-ly butts. Folsom Street Fairies can navigate their way through Frisco this weekend with urban travel guide Gridskipper's handy-dandy roundup of fun places to see and be seen. Also, sex-toys retailer Good Vibrations, struggling to stay afloat amid heightened competition from online merchants, has agreed to be sold to a Cleveland company that plans to expand the chain.

It's a bankers' holiday!

Wall Street investment tycoons have even more big bucks to shower on their naughty boy toys as stocks keep going ga-ga today over the Federal Reserve's surprisingly steep rate cuts; the rally even sucks in shares of fucked-up PlanetOut, corporate parent of Gay.com. Supermodel Twiggy, known for the mod look created by British fashion designer Mary Quant, turns 58 today; more big birthdays here. And it was love at first stick-up: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their first robbery together 107 years ago today. [Photo: Men at Play]

Leading B.A.R.: A ban on Castro chain stores?

What I'm reading today in our little weekly: CHAIN, CHAIN, CHAIN. Merchants debated a plan to ban chain stores along Castro Street between Market and 19th streets and along 18th Street between Hartford and Collingwood streets; chain stores already in business could stay. BAD VIBES. Strapped for cash, famous sex retailer Good Vibrations is seeking investors. OUT THERE. Fag Fridays, the 11-year-old party at the EndUp, is kaput after Oct. 19. MISTER MARCUS is already hyping that most stirring of annual events, the Leather Walk, leading up to Folsom Street Fair.

Not so pretty (and kind of mean) in pink

In barely three years, Mario Armando Lavandeira -- best known as Perez Hilton -- has emerged as one of the most-read (and most-hated) bloggers about celebrities, the New York Times says in a new story. The way-gay Lavandeira (above, with singer Gloria Estefan) started Perez Hilton as a hobby about three years ago, presenting himself as a Latin version of another self-invented celebrity, Paris Hilton. He now earns as much as $9,000 a week for a single advertisement, the NYT says, and $45,000 for the most expensive ad package. (Believe you me: I'm not making a dime off Castro Confidential. Yet.)

[Photo: Lavandeira with Estefan in Miami at her restaurant, Larios on the Beach. NYT]

Your sugar daddy guide to San Francisco

Urban guide Gridskipper is highlighting San Francisco spots where sugar daddies can treat trophy ladies to glittering baubles, 700-count Egyptian cotton sheets and other goodies designed to get them laid tonight.

But! What about sugar daddies who like their trophies manly? Here are some of Gridskipper's picks, and my counter recommendations -- all just in time for daddies visiting The City for Up Your Alley this weekend.

Undies
Gridskipper: Alla Prima Fine Lingerie, 539 Hayes St. A chic spot for La Perla Black Label panties. (The fave brand of hookers!)
Castro Confidential: Injeanious, 432 Castro St. Tons of 2(x)ist briefs that'll only enhance your man's bubble butt.

No-tell hotels
Gridskipper: St. Regis, 125 3rd St. Features 24-hour butler service and in-room wax jobs.
Castro Confidential: Parker Guest House, 520 Church St. No one bats an eye when you bring your traveling sling.

Baubles
Gridskipper: Tiffany & Co., 350 Post St. Diamonds are a girl's best friend -- especially when they come in little acquamarine boxes.
Castro Confidential: Mr. S Leather, 385 8th St. Where else can you get a lovely stainless steel chastity cock cage for only $395!

Live sex shows
Gridskipper: Mitchell Brothers, 895 O'Farrell St. Where daddy picks up a few glamour girls.
Castro Confidential: Nob Hill Theatre, 729 Bush St. Where daddy sucks off a few manly men.

[Photo: Jake Cruise Media]

Gap gets new CEO; chain now totally fucked

The struggling San Francisco-based corporate fashion disaster employing many a gay man in The City just ended its desperate, six-month search for a new CEO. Bearing in mind the last CEO was so totally wrong for the job (he'd been chief of Disney's parks!), we score druggist Glenn Murphy (above) thusly:

• Little experience turning around troubled retailers: -15
• Most recent job: CEO of Shoppers Drug Mart: -10
• Looks straight: -32
• Canadian: +5
• Unfortunate resemblance to Porky Pig: -113
  Total: -165 points

[Photo: Gap]

Nevada whorehouses can now advertise legally

Sadly, though, I still can't find any promotion-enabled brothels featuring men on the menu. Chicken Ranch, yes. Rooster Ranch, no.

Where the rubber doesn't meet the road

The gay scene portrayed in the U.S. version of Queer As Folk looked way too lively for a smallish (pop. 312,819) western Pennsylvania city like Pittsburgh. Now, the city's in the news again: A local TV station refuses to broadcast ads for Trojans, extending a controversy over the condom maker's efforts to launch a coast-to-coast advertising campaign, the New York Times says.

[Photo: My favorite size, left, could be a little less snug. Heh.]

18th Street shop comes full circle

The scene inside a barbershop at 4249 18th St., between Diamond and Collingwood, perhaps in the early 1920s. The space now houses Razors, a handsome new barbershop that two former Louie's guys opened last month. I've been getting my hairs cut there lately. At $25, it's a bargain.

Can this be legal?

I'm no expert on San Francisco's billboard restrictions, but I suspect they're meant to limit outdoor advertising in The City. That's why I think this new, ugly mini-billboard outside an apartment building at Noe and 16th streets is a sneaky end-run around the rules.

Dinner at Firefly, and a pleasant surprise

Gulp. I may have found a new brand of coffee that rivals Peet's. Sparky's been talking up higher-test Ritual Coffee Roasters, which he's had at the Flora Grubb Gardens cafe in the Bayview. I tried it tonight after our excellent dinner at Firefly. Amazing! Yelp readers give Ritual four stars out of five.

Valentino's decades in the fashion saddle

Models strike a Brokeback pose from Valentino's fall collection. The force behind the company, Valentino Garavani, celebrated 45 years at fashion's pinnacle with a $10 million bash last night in Rome, with fireworks and a dinner for 500 of the globe's glitterati. "The guest list felt like a condensed version of 30 years of W magazine, the chronicle of the international jet set Valentino has dressed for the Oscars, for lunches in Capri and for their first, second and sometimes third weddings,'' the New York Times says today.

Valentino Garavani's longtime companion and business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti (far left, with Garavani), orchestrated three days of festivities. "Mr. Giammetti's attention to detail has helped drive the Valentino label from the start," the Wall Street Journal said Friday. "Mr. Garavani actually founded the fashion house 48, not 45, years ago in 1959. But the brand did not begin to flourish until the designer met Mr. Giammetti, then in his early 20s, in a Rome café on the glamorous Via Veneto in 1960. At the time, Mr. Giammetti was pursuing a degree in architecture and had no ambitions to plunge into fashion. A romance between the two men, which Mr. Giammetti acknowledged but declined to discuss, blossomed."

[Photos: top, Valentino; Giammetti and Garavani, Corbis via WSJ]

Do you love taking surveys?

Well, grab a second cup of coffee and start clicking on the Blog Reader Project survey now being taken by tens of thousands of folks. The results will help me learn a lot more about the thousands of visitors I receive monthly here at Castro Confidential.

PlanetOut gets emergency bailout

The parent company of RSVP Vacations, The Advocate and Out magazines plus other businesses said today that it's nailed down an emergency $26.6 million cash infusion from investors -- forestalling, at least for now, the threatened collapse of the San Francisco-based gay conglomerate. Even so, the negative publicity already generated by PlanetOut's near failure may have done too much damage to its reputation. Who's going to shell out thousands of dollars for an RSVP cruise when there are doubts about the company's survival?

My prayers have been answered

The Castro is finally getting another bicycle sales and repair shop, replacing one that closed years ago on 18th Street. A sign in a vacant store at 17th and Sanchez streets says Refried Cycles will open there in early August. I've never heard of Refried. There's one at 440 Haight St., between Fillmore and Webster. But what's not to like about a bike store with an official shop dog named Linus?

Violet's top 10; Gawker's gay, Russell's b-day

From deals on lube to getting laid, luscious San Francisco Chronicle sex columnist Violet Blue advises our visiting tourists (hello Topeka!) on navigating the merchant maze. No. 4: You dress like a ho only if you're doing it right. Need size-14 zebra mules? High thee over to Foot Worship pronto! Meanwhile, Gawker, the New York media gossiper, is gay, gay -- and more gay! Did I say gay? Plus, once very bosomy actress Jane Russell turns 86 today. Gracious: I didn't know she was even alive! Sooner or later, every drag queen performed Russell's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes number when I lived in Little Rock in the late 1980s. All together now, jiggle!

I'd love to read the pre-nup

That's high-powered Silicon Valley financier Patrick Chung (far left) and partner Matthew Burt at their commitment ceremony this past weekend.

I wrote about Chung on Sunday, noting that it's a new day in the hyper-manly venture-capital world when one of its own can get hitched in such a public way. But it wasn't until just now that I ran across this photo of the croquet-loving couple, helpfully unearthed today by tech gossip blog Valleywag.

(Confidential to Matthew: Patrick's looking a little skittish there. Better check his leash.)

You're no longer Welcome Home

The little diner-cum-restaurant on Castro Street is suddenly kaput -- kicking off a wave of nostalgia for Ray at Castro Shopper. Ten years ago, when he first moved to the 'hood, Welcome Home was one of a small group of restaurants with a "particularly homey, anachronistic feel to them,'' Ray says. "Married to the midwestern menu were distinctly gay touches -- The Cove's walls of beefcake(-ish) photos, Little Orphan Andy's draggy name, Hot & Hunky's bawdy name, and most of all, Welcome Home's hand-painted rainbow over its entrance." Hot & Hunky! There's a place I'd forgotten about. And if Little Orphan Andy carries a draggy name, get ready for that new Asian restaurant s-l-o-w-l-y getting built on 18th Street. There's gonna be a line of queens waiting to adopt its name: Brandy Ho's!

The perfect gift for them? His-and-his iPhones!

I know things are loosening up in the super-straight world of Silicon Valley high finance when a partner at a leading venture-capital firm gets hitched to his boyfriend -- and then courts publicity in one of the most widely read newspapers in finance. I'm talking about Patrick Chung (left). He and Matthew Burt affirmed their partnership last night at the Memorial Church of Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., the New York Times said this morning. Chung is no slouch: He's at New Enterprise Associates, one of the valley's top investors in high-tech business start-ups. Chung's include controversial 23andMe, a biotechnology company started by the new wife of one of the world's richest men: Sergey Brin, the multigazillionaire co-founder of Google. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised: Google itself is recruiting gay boys and gals through a full-page advertisement in the just-published Pride 07 guide to all things queer in San Francisco. [Photo: New Enterprise Associates]