REVIEW - Folsom Street Fair

I've never been to Rio for Carnival, and only seen the New Orleans version on HBO's excellent Treme series. With that disclaimer, I can say that Folsom Street Fair, here in San Francisco is one of the most eye-popping spectacles on the calendar.
Targeted at the leather-wearers among you, it attracts guys and gals, hunks and grrrls, bears and cubs, fetishists and freaks from far and wide.

Despite the yuppie lofts that have appeared on and around Folsom Street over the past 10 years, the area is still gritty. Realtors might describe it as bohemian ("boho"), but that's putting a typically over-bright label on a neighborhood full of bars, night clubs, workshops, automobile fixer-uppers and smut-peddlers.

The Fair supercharges Folsom and the connecting streets with hundreds of stalls, music stages and side-shows for the weekend.

I don't have the body for tank tops and leather shorts (maybe I never did), but the photographer and voyeur in me is thankful that many people do. So, along with my trusty cub buddy - Reggie - I gawped the length of Folsom Street on an overcast Sunday, trying not to peer into every mini tent (afraid of what I might see), glugged beer and margherita, and generally had a whale of a time.