Saturday, July 15, 2006

HomoQuotable - Neil Tennant

"Blog is such an ugly word." - Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant, telling the Guardian that he and bandmate Chris Lowe "do not believe in blogs". Ouch, Neil. That hurts! OK, fine. Here's a picture of the three of us from 1999, when we were ALL much prettier. (Waiting in line to meet the Pet Shop Boys in a San Francisco Tower Records is definitely the most fan-ish thing I've done in my life.)

Friday, July 14, 2006

Orange Goes Pink

Four years ago, my hometown of Orlando made it illegal to deny housing or to discriminate in the workplace based on sexual orientation. This week much larger Orange County, of which Orlando is the county seat, has added sexual orientation to their list of banned reasons to deny housing. Of course, in Orange County (outside of Orlando) you can still be fired for being gay, as it is through most of Florida and in 32 other states. While some municipalities in those 33 states do offer workplace protection, the pressing need to get ENDA passed nationwide has been overshadowed by the (in my mind) less important marriage issue.

Sidenote: I wonder why the HRC hasn't added Illinois, Maine, and Washington to their map of states that protect gay workers?

Morning View UES: 3rd & 70th


Pride During Wartime

Reacting to all the press and blogchatter about World Pride in Jerusalem, the organizers are vowing that the event will take place and in Jerusalem. But I have a feeling that the exploding hostilities between Israel and Lebanon may exclipse World Pride, as fear of traveling to the region will likely now keep even the most ardent Pride supporters at home, unless things miraculously resolve in the next couple of weeks. It occurs to me that there may have never been a Pride event in a country currently under attack. This ain't no party, this ain't no disco.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Evening Rush


Open Thread Thursday

Good news only.
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Lunchtime With Mercury


And Speaking Of Feeling Old...

This morning I came across a list of the #1 singles so far for 2006. Out of 13 songs, I only definitely recognize two, James Blunt's You're Beautiful and Beyonce's Check On It. Maybe I'd recognize some of the others if I heard them. Regardless, I find myself growing increasing nostalgic for a shared national musical experience.

When I was a teenager, it seemed like everybody in the country knew the hit songs of the day. Even my grandmother knew Funkytown and 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and Kiss And Say Goodbye. But with the demise of that glorious mash-up of all musical styles called Top 40 radio, we lost that shared musical experience as a culture. Now we're all narrow-casted and niche-marketed into our little perfect pigeon-holed world of hearing only what we already know we like. It's a loss to all of us, this ironic lack of exposure to new things that the opportunity to hear all things has given us. Of course, I'm guilty of cloistering myself in a self-created time capsule of disco-oldies radio stations, new wave reunion concerts, and classic country iPod playlists.

Twenty years ago, maybe even ten years ago, if you sang the #1 pop single to everybody you knew, almost all of them would be able to sing along. Today, I suspect that not very many would, unless you happen to only know teenagers. What was the last hit single that you'd say definitely was known by the entire country? I miss the Top 40.

Happy/Old

This morning the Spanish/Peruvian/Incan pan-flute band in the subway station was playing More Than A Woman, the R&B/downtempo/disco classic written/recorded by the Austrailian/British Bee Gees for the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, the epoch-defining film tribute to Brooklyn/Italian-American/70's disco nightlife.

Hearing the pan-flute band version of More Than A Woman made me feel happy/old.

Morning View: Park & 42


Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Kaletra! You Leave Lexiva Alone!

Continuing the seeming protocol of giving HIV medications what Oprah Winfrey might call "ghetto names" (Kaletra, Sustiva, Lexiva), the new triple-drug HIV pill has been christened Atripla and will be launched within a week.

HomoQuotable - Chris Ciccone

"Give me a fucking break." - Madonna's gay brother, Chris Ciccone, complaining to Attitude Magazine that men in gay bars won't stop talking to him about his sister. Poor baby. I bet it never gets him laid either.

Man In Black Still A Hitmaker

One of my favorite American male vocalists, the late Johnny Cash, has his first #1 album on the Billboard charts in 37 years, with American V: A Hundred Highways. Aside from my pleasure in seeing Cash top the charts again, it's depressing to see that he did it with a first week sales total of only 88,000 units, the lowest highest sales figure since Billboard began using Soundscan back in '91. Ten years ago, an act would have needed 5 or 6 times that many sales to hit #1.

In other music news, Prince has abruptly shut down his innovative and award-winning NPG Music Club website.

"Death To Sodomites"

Handbills and leaflets advocating using Molotov cocktails on WorldPride marchers began appearing around Jerusalem this week. AOL Gay & Lesbian editor Kenneth Hill reports that New York Rabbi Yehuda Levin said that if gays do descend on Jerusalem for WorldPride, "I promise there's going to be bloodshed -- not just on that day, but for months afterward."

The WorldPride website is featuring American gay activists and clergy who have pledged to attend. But some gay news sites are now reporting that WorldPride may be relocated to Tel Aviv. The raging atheist in me almost wants WorldPride to gut it out in Jerusalem, especially since the last WorldPride was in Rome, another symbolic seat of oppression. But things are just spiraling crazily beyond mere invectives in Jerusalem, maybe Tel Aviv is the right call. For now.

Adjektive

Taking my temperature last night, I had to laugh at myself for feeling disappointed that it was only 100.3, because I felt so much sicker. Now I'm wondering if there isn't one of those wonderful German compound adjectives that describes precisely the feeling of being disappointed that you aren't really all that sick, no matter how you think you feel. And if there also isn't a word that describes the act of bravely soldiering on at your desk, even though you ARE that sick. Anybody? A litle help? Bitte.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Little Man And The Mayor

When I moved in, he was the first person on the block that I noticed. A tall elderly gentleman somewhere between his early 80's and late 100's. Always outside. Always moving. Always talking. With a full head of white hair, and usually wearing suspenders over a crisply ironed short-sleeve shirt, he stands out on a block that is home to lots of seniors. I often see him charming the old widows on the benches in front of the Lenox Hill Center at the end of the block.

Seems like he knows everybody on United Jerusalem Place. If the sun is shining, he's usually out there talking to the doormen, the supers, the delivery people. People on the block call him "the mayor". He talks more than a little bit too loudly, but I'd guess that with the huge hearing-aids he wears in his huge comical ears, folks understand. On most days, the mayor has his dog with him, an elderly, chubby little terrier with startling white cataracts in both eyes.

I've heard the mayor gently urge his dog along the sidewalk. "Come on Little Man, we don't have all day." I'm not sure that Little Man is the dog's actual name, but I've never heard the mayor call him anything else. The mayor stops frequently on his hourly patrols up and down the block, chatting with anybody who will humor him. Little Man trails slowly behind, taking obviously pained little steps, the long garish green and gold leash lying slack on the sidewalk as he blindly smells his way up to his master.

Years ago, I once stupidly reached down to pet Little Man and he immediately bared his teeth and snapped at me. The mayor chuckled and said, "Well, you know he don't see too good but he can smell when it's not me!" I apologized of course, but the mayor said, "Oh, don't you worry about it!". Then he added, "I can't hear and he can't see but we do OK, isn't that right, Little Man?" Then he reached into his pocket and produced a treat for Little Man, who suddenly got a little more spry. I watched that chubby dog waddle away and thought that maybe the mayor needs to cut back on the treats.

Last year, a friend of mine noticed Little Man near my front door and commented that maybe it was time for the mayor to put him to sleep, saying, "I think it's cruel to keep dragging that old sick blind dog around," forgetting that my own Edison had just passed away the previous spring at the age of 17, also blind and infirm. Edison had suffered from epilepsy since he was a young dog, and after two particulary bad seizures in as many days, we finally said goodbye. We've never regretted keeping Edison long past when many people would have, he was a happy little dog right up until the end. So I vigorously defended the mayor to my friend.

This Saturday I passed the mayor on the sidewalk outside my building, but uncharacteriscally, he didn't greet me, which I didn't realize until a couple of hours later when I saw him again, in the Food Emporium. I turned the corner in search of paper towels and came upon him standing in the center of the aisle, staring at the dog food. I excused myself to get by, but again was ignored. He didn't have Little Man under his arm, as I've seen him do when in stores.

This morning I found Little Man's leash lying neatly coiled inside the garbage can in front of my building. On the train, I had to really concentrate not to cry for the mayor. And again, for Edison.


Monday, July 10, 2006

HomoQuotable - Amelie Mauresmo

"2006 Wimbledon Champion. I am what I am." - from the t-shirt donned by out lesbian Amelie Mauresmo after winning Wimbledon for her second Grand Slam title. Who wants to bet that copies of that t-shirt start springing up for sale? If anybody has a pic or screenshot of Mauresmo in that shirt, please send it to me and I'll post it here.

Landmark Reports Details Gitmo Outrages

Today the Center For Constitution Rights issued a landmark 51-page report on the abuses at Guantanamo Bay, titled "Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba." The report details the beatings, torture, and rape of prisoners using declassified and unclassified materials. Download the PDF file of the report here.

CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman: "This report authoritatively documents the Bush Administration’s systematic human rights abuses at Guantánamo. I think the torture and abuse detailed here will shock Congress and the American public because it reveals a lawless, immoral and ineffective detention facility and undermines the administration’s increasingly desperate attempts to lie about what is happening down there.”

Below, please watch the CCR's one-minute trailer for their documentary Articles Of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, which is part of their national "Teach-In" campaign to generate grass-roots support for impeachment.


Ric Weiland

Ric Weiland, the massively wealthy benefactor of gay and HIV-related causes, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on July 1st at the age of 53, after suffering long bouts of depression. Weiland was one of the five original Microsoft employees, hired by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975. Weiland developed BASIC and COBOL for Microsoft, launching the company into its global dominance of personal computing.

I don't know how I missed the news of his death last week, as I've always been fascinated by Weiland. When I lived in San Francisco, Weiland was a frequent topic of conversation among my friends who worked in high tech. Here's a guy who walked away from Microsoft in 1988, and launched a new life as an ardent supporter of gay rights and HIV-research, donating $100 million over the years. Among his pet projects were Gay & Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) , the Human Rights Campaign, Lamba Legal, and the National Gay And Lesbian Task Force.

I was thinking about Weiland just a couple of weeks ago when Warren Buffet announced his multi-billion endowment to the Gates Fund. No matter what you feel about Microsoft Inc. and its policies, the unprecedented amount of Microsoft-generated capital that is being dedicated to improving the human condition is awe-inspiring. I'd always thought it was fantastic that so much of that money was coming to gay causes, thanks to Weiland. I'll be interested to see what sort of legacy his estate will establish.

Boom

I had to walk to work this morning after a residential building exploded and collapsed on the Upper East Side at 62nd and Madison, near my subway line. The explosion came just as I was heading down the stairs into the 68th Street Station and startled me so much that I dropped my newspaper. The woman in front of me came to a dead stop and said, "THAT did not sound right." I followed her up to the street where we could see a huge plume of black smoke blowing across Lexington Avenue a few blocks away and my very first thought was, "Holy shit! They've blown up Bloomingdale's!", as Bloomie's is just a couple of blocks from the exploded building. Nothing like a terrorism scare to start off the week.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Three Packed Cups

Over the last month I watched more soccer than in the previous 46 years of my life. My office mysteriously acquired cable TV shortly before the World Cup began (hello, I have English employers), and my co-workers very kindly endured my non-stop critique on the varying hotness of the players, expressing bafflement when I told them that English footballer Wayne Rooney was becoming somewhat of a gay pinup idol. Yeah, I don't get it either. And he does look like Shrek. I also puzzled them when I vowed my soccer allegiance to Trinidad, but not Tobago.

For the Final, the Farmboyz, Vasco, David and I joined a extremely packed house at Chelsea's Gym Bar, arriving at the unholy hour of 1:30pm. I was already hungover and sleep deprived from the previous night, in which the Farmboyz and I visited the East Village's Boys' Room, the twink bar to end all twink bars, where we squicked out the young smooth baby fags with our creepy elderly hairiness. Ordinarily, you couldn't get me into a place like Boys' Room if I was being dragged kicking and screaming by kicking and screaming drags. But Father Tony has a unhealthy obsession with Amanda Lepore, who'd been advertised as the evening's hostess. However, Ms. Lepore merely made a 30 second appearance on the stage to introduce the evening's true MC, gay white boy rapper Cazwell, before she retired to the VIP room, disappointing Father Tony immensely.

Cazwell proceeded to work the crowd, exhorting PYT's to enter the evening's Go-Go Idol contest. The four contestants included an Amazonian chestally-enhanced female named Muscles, who looked frighteningly like Bridgette Nielsen and who thrusted her enormous DD-cup silicone fun-bags into the faces of startled patrons too slow to flee the stage's perimeter. One of the contestants was so shit-faced that he fell on his first two attempts to climb onto the stage. Ah, youth. This was the second strip-contest-esque event I'd been to in less than a week, the other being a July 4th wet underwear contest on the roofdeck of the Eagle, where contestant Rob won a sweet mountain bike, as much for his overall wet hotness as for the impromptu handlebar fellatio he performed on the mountain bike. Our lives, lived with dignity.

The Farmboyz and I fled the Boys Room to the Phoenix next door, where we were only one generation older than the patrons, which felt slightly better. At 3am, I startled the Famboyz by announcing that I had to leave at once, if I was meeting them for a pre-World Cup brunch in 8 hours. I don't know how I used to do it. They stayed out past 5am. And they were already seated at Food Bar when I arrived at 1130am. I don't know how they do it.

Apparently there are about 500 gay Italian ex-pats living in Manhattan and they were all jammed into Gym Bar by the opening kick. It was seriously, miserably, overpacked. A really crabby hungover person threatened to his friends that he was going to call the fire department. But I didn't. Hello, Gym Bar? It's called a doorman. Look into it. (Yeah, still crabby.) The crowd was extremly boisterous as everybody got their Sports Masculine on, even if they were doing it with Gucci sunglasses perched on their hairdos and Brazilian flip-flops on their feet. Interestingly, the biggest roar was elicited not by a rough tackle or a goal, but by a quick glimpse of President Clinton in the stands.

Pressed up against a wall with a shelf in my back and a nonstop crush of passersby elbowing and shoving me, I finally bailed when the game went into overtime, arriving home just in time to see French player (and Christian Dior model) Zidane get sent off for a head-butting an Italian player. The 16-second video clip of the head-butt is already the #1 most-watched item on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, Zidane is hot. Chips, bag, etc. But was anybody else rocking on that smokin' Argentinean referee with the salt-n-pepper hair? He appears to be a bottom, too.