Go, Gabriel, Go

"It's that smile," says first-time "Lord of the Drinks" attendee but longtime Gabriel fan Lara Martin. "It gets under your skin."

Gabriel first arrived on the scene when Bancroft and Kenny Taylor began producing "Late Night With God" -- a talk-cum-variety show held at El Rio starring the Big Man himself and his sex-crazed sidekick, Moses.

"See, God has been losing touch with his peeps," explains Bancroft, "and he knows it, so he's trying to update his image. He sent Gabe down to be his man on the street."

This month, in an unprecedented power play for ratings, God and Gabriel were to appear on stage together for the first time. However, a high-cholesterol human diet of doughnuts and fast food rendered God incapacitated, and a home movie depicting Gabriel's ill-fated trip to Hunters Point left the angel's health in question. I attend "Lord of the Drinks" hoping to find the angel in better spirits so I can conduct an interview.

The movie is The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the drink is a combination of whiskey, Cherry Coke, and fresh fruit called the "Time Warp," and the shorts include a holiday claymation featuring a derelict Santa and an elfin turntablist, along with disturbing footage of Gabriel's ghetto demise. I purchase an Illbilly DVD featuring some of Gabriel's greatest moments on Earth -- including his field trip to Chinatown, his experiences with Internet dating via Craigslist, and the episode in which Gabe enthusiastically attends an Oakland A's game and is derisively ridiculed by grown men and psychologically baited by small children. But the real Gabriel is nowhere in sight. I am beside myself; even throwing monkeys off the "Monkey Lounge" loft cannot raise my spirits.

"Don't worry," says Gabriel the following Sunday. "Angels don't die." Gabriel distracts me by pointing at a rainbow flag on Castro Street so he can hock a big wet loogie in the street. Then he frolics down the street to answer a pay phone.

"Dad, is that you?" he says with the sunlight shining through his wings. "People down here are wonderful!"

A passerby leans into my ear, "He's silly as hell, but he's hot."

Gabriel returns to my side, shouting good morning to all and blowing his broken little trumpet.

"You got junk in your trunk," snarls a man in a tight T-shirt as he pushes past.

"Yes, thank you!" says Gabriel.

We finally take a table at Harvey's. Gabriel starts to eat jelly with a spoon and to tell me all about heaven, which sounds a lot like earth, only with better DJs.