I watched the news reports of the Halloween in the Castro on TV last night. Some of it got violent and that's sad. When I first moved to San Francisco, I lived a couple blocks from the Castro and on my first Halloween in San Francisco my boyfriend and I dressed up and walked around the Castro. Back then it was a neighborhood event and every one dressed up, no gawkers at all, and it was low key and fun. The streets weren't blocked off, and it was more like a parade of dressed up people but not alot of drinking and no violence whatsoever.

Now it's totally crowded and hardly anyone dresses up, and most people go to gawk at the few people who are dressed up, and they drink and party and things get out of hand, and people get violent. Where's the fun in that?