International Cub day one

As some of you well know, I entered a Bear Pageant at the International Bear Rendezvous here in San Francisco on Feb 13th. The Bay Area Cub is typically entered in the contest as part of his title responsibilities. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew there was much raffle ticket selling and I hoped to make some new friends. I had hoped and prayed that my fellow contestants were not the competitive type and were in it for the fun as well. IBR didn’t hire a big band or major entertainer for the final night so “the Show” was up to us. The last thing I wanted to do that weekend was endure a sash-craving lunatic bear while having to the pressure of performing. The theme this year at IBR was “The Barbary Coast-Sin Fire and Gold.” John Caldera who is the creator of The Bay Area Cub Contest, gave me an option. Since I was serious about my Bay Area Cub 2010 duties, he knew that I had heaped a lot already on my plate. I had completed my second required fundraiser by January and I was planning on a 15,000 dollar goal fundraiser in April with my Bearlesque review for The New Conservatory Theater. He said I could sit this year out and participate next year -or go ahead and do it this year. So Lando and I had a chat and we were going to make 2010 as “Bearful” as possible. I thought that it would be cool to have the International Cub Title and it might help promote my show. So I chose to GO for it!

    Contestants were assigned the task of gathering a basket of home town goodies and bric-a-brac that represented where they came from. Yours truly was the only home Homo. I got an embarrassment of riches right from the Castro. Cliff’s Hardware, Under One Roof, Wild Card Gifts, and Injeanious gave me an incredible amount of goodies. Then my friend Rachel at McKenna Marketing donated some primo gourmet food items -cuz ya know-a bear’s gotta eat! All together it was about $230 worth of stuff to put in the basket. I had communicated through e-mail that I was willing to put all of it together and even wrap it with a bow. ( A little secret of my past is that one of my past jobs was Food Gift Professional at a family owned Gourmet Bakery and Cheese Shop for 10 years.)  I was told in an e-mail that I didn’t need to worry about that -just simply drop the stuff off and someone else would wrap it. I arrived in a panicked fashion thinking I was late-when I wasn’t. Did I mention that I am a little neurotic? I took Friday off to prepare and hoped to get a nap in but no such luck. I was a little worried since Raffle sales began at 11pm at the Eagle that night and I am a go-to-bed-at-11-kinda-guy. I was squabbling with Lando in the car about arriving in time so of course we arrived a little harried. The gents at the IBR headquarters directed us to across the hall. Again at a Bears of San Francisco event, I thought -why are all the men staffing the headquarters over 40? IBR needs some YOUNG blood. I quickly decided that was one of my missions as International Cub. I dashed over to this room that had a LOT of stuff in it. Mostly snacks and drinks all in cases. A gentleman named Jeff directed me over to an area and said, “ There’s your baskets!”  I was confused so I asked him what he meant and he instructed me to put the donation items in the basket of my choice. I wanted to be sure I understood and he did indeed explain that we were to assemble our own baskets. It was unexpected, and I wondered if I would have time. What happened to just “drop the stuff of and go”? After all I had enough for two gift baskets! I felt rushed. One of the contestants said we needed to write down what was in the basket. What??? I had carefully made nicely printed donor info pages from my Bay Area Cub 2010 Stationary and now I had to make a list of every item. Darn! They won’t match!  ( Clutch the pearls)  Besides that-I think I had a Contestant meeting to attend in 10 minutes! I snarled and asked for a piece of paper and looked at all the items I had. No way I was gonna fit it in what they had available. Where was my shrink wrap and my pull bows? HEY! I was a professional ribbon queen in my day.  When I was in the biz I spent a good 45 minutes on a $250 dollar basket. Not only did I have to do all that for this “drop off donation” I was expected to write down each of the what-50 items?-I had amassed. This sucked. I took a deep breath and asked the guy who appeared to be the one in charge of the room of stuff. “He” came off more like a “she” despite his big gray beard,  so I thought I would try a different very unbear-like approach -queen to queen. I suggested that they view my donation from “Under One Roof” as a separate donation (sweetie) and that I will do my best to fit the remaining items in a basket (darling). She/he said that was fine. I started writing and then flipped it over to try a different idea. I wrote categories as opposed to actual items. I wrote the Donor Merchant’s name and a general idea of what they donated. Lando was sure that I was instructed to write down each item. I told him -so what? I had grouped each Merchant’s donation together in the basket enough so that it was easy to see what was what. He insisted and I leaned forward and bared my teeth and hissed, “ I don’t have enough fucking time to fucking write each fucking item down.” He...let it go. Eventually the dear old thing in charge said I need not wrap my items after all and he would figure it out. I finished the list and then said a quick good bye to Lando, (Don’t worry we kissed, I wasn’t mad at him just stressed out), and ran off to the Contestant room.