Say Hi As You Cruise By
Last weekend I made my second ever excursion to Brooklyn. My beloved Farmboyz and I met up at Grand Central, where they arrived tan and full of their typically debauched stories from their Barcelona vacation. Less than an hour later, we emerged from the G train (G? There's a G train? Who knew?) in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill neighborhood for a pre-Brooklyn Pride party at the new home of our pals Neil and Bryce.
The New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project is sponsoring a march and rally tomorrow, June 17th, to "raise our voices against anti-LGBT hate in our city". The march begins in the East Village at 14th Street & 1st Avenue at 2PM and concludes in the West Village at Christopher Park at 3PM. I have a good idea who might be speaking at the rally.
Prince has clearly signed a deal with Satan. I just saw his 48-year old Purple Badness in Bryant Park, performing on Good Morning America, and he looks younger than he did when I last saw him in person, 25 years ago during the Controversy tour. Opening with his single Get On The Boat (from this year's 3121) , then bringing on Tamal Davis to perform Red Head Stepchild, Prince looked amazing. Just unbelievable. As did the eternal Sheila E, who played front and center standing behind her drum kit. Would you believe Sheila E will be 50 next year? Prince closed with a shortened version of Let's Go Crazy, and I joined the throngs of cube dwellers heading for their elevators.
Come be part of the downtown (now almost entirely free of trucker-hats worn jauntily askew) hipster art scene! I'll be appearing in the gay pride edition of WYSIWYG this Tuesday. Doors open at 7:30pm, show starts at 8pm. This show sold out last year, so I'd advise arriving early if you want to get in. I'm sharing the stage with my pals Rod Townsend, Curly McDimple, Joel Derfner , Greg Walloch and Spinster. The new cool-kid Wizzy venue does not allow for online or advance tickets, so don't be late!
Midtown Manhattan, Thursday, 12:30PM
"The Bush Administration had always been at the intersection of Fantasy Street and Fanaticism Avenue, but inviting an ex-gay leader to a White House ceremony was beyond the pale. After all, the methods Exodus routinely uses to "cure" gay people are downright bizarre. For example, does Bush endorse youth boot camps where underwear is confiscated to 'cure' people who are gay or lesbian?" - author/activist Wayne Besen, who last week founded Truth Wins Out, an organization dedicated to fighting the "ex-gay" movement. (via - 365gay.com.)
Manhattan, the 6 train, 730pm
Continuing the trend that was discussed here last year, statistics from the state of Massachusetts show that lesbians are still getting married at nearly twice the pace of gay men. When you factor in the much smaller size of the lesbian community relative to gay men, the difference is even more remarkable. The new data from 2005 shows a huge drop in the number of gay marriages overall, which makes sense, as the backlog of anxious couples is being depleted.
Gentle readers, I love my people. Truly, I do. But I had to throw back my head and emit a yowl of spiritual pain upon reading of the petition campaign to rename a Vermont hilltop "Brokeback Mountain". I mean, COME ON. What's next, "Mount Mommie Dearest"? I'd rather see a sign that said "Hedwig Hill, 3 miles." Or maybe, "Next exit, Poppers Peak." Seriously, my brothers. Stop.
My dear friend Mike Tully, formerly Mr. NYC Eagle, is again co-hosting the gay pride Saturday Muscle Bear tea-dance cruise with DJ Mark Cicero, aboard the party boat Queen Of Hearts, on June 24th. The cruise takes you out past the Statue Of Liberty and under the Brooklyn Bridge, then back up the Hudson River. The boat has a capacity of 500 and these parties often sell out. Tickets are on sale at Ty's Bar in the West Village or you can reserve tickets by emailing Mike: MuscleBearShop@yahoo.com. I think this will be my fifth Sea Tea, I always have a blast.
"There are flops, almighty flops and then there are books by Mary Cheney. Despite saturation media coverage, network interviews, cable interviews, blanket newspaper profiles, blog support, podcast interviews, the book "My Turn" had a very low first week's sales of 2,445. Last week, a grand total of 574 books were sold. Not too shabby for a first author with not a huge amount to say. But recall that this manuscript cost its publishers a cool $1 million. The publisher therefore spent around $170 for every book sold without even counting the marketing budget." - Andrew Sullivan (via - Daily Dish).
Below are two reader comments from AOL Gay & Lesbian editor Kenneth Hill's excellent blogpost in which he quoted from my essay Watching The Defectives. Even more chilling in light of the Aviance story, is the below stated belief that gays who are gay-bashed bring it upon themselves by failing to live up to traditional standards of masculine carriage and dress. However, I suppose we should thank these two guys for underscoring the point of Defectives.
It was inevitable that the MySpace phenomenon would creep into pop music. Check out John B's I've Been Stalking You On MySpace. (Warning: Sound.) I got a kick of the girl channeling Moon Unit Zappa's Valley Girl. "I have more MySpace friends than Jesus. I write like, this really cool poetry inspired by Bright Eyes. I have 679 friends but I am totally removing that girl from my Top 8." Thanks to Mike Atkinson, aka Troubled Diva, for tipping me off about this track. The Diva reports that the electro-mix is already #1 on the QX chart in the UK.
"This is something we tragically see a lot of as the weather gets warmer, as we head into June, which of course means a lot more visibility for the community....it's not a New York problem, it's a national problem for sure, and a human problem. This is really a problem, a condition, for our community, wherever we are." - Clarence Patton, executive director of the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, speaking about the Kevin Aviance incident.
Drag performance artist and musician Kevin Aviance was brutally gaybashed yesterday after leaving the East Village's Phoenix bar. According to news reports, he was attacked by a group of six or seven men who shouted, "We're gonna kill you, faggot!" Apparently, passers-by did nothing to stop the attack. Four young men were arrested and charged with hate crimes. Aviance is hospitalized with a broken jaw and other injuries. As long as our Republican leadership continues to tell the youth of America that gay people are contemptible, these contemptible crimes will continue.