Amusing news

A Rotarian, a priest and a perv,
And seventeen husbands pulled up to the curb
Of a Westchester stop
Where they met a hot cop
Who showed them the love they deserved.

Ecce sacerdos magnus qui in diebus suis placuit Deo.

I've lost a friend who was indeed a great priest.

He didn't much like losing his hair at an early age but managed to laugh about it.

He knew all the old hymns, both the Catholic and Protestant ones. When I told Edward that I had read that Wallis Simpson's favorite hymn was "Will there be any stars in my crown?", he immediately pulled his copy off the shelf, took me right up to the choir loft and pounded it out on the pipe organ while I sang every verse in the empty chapel at 2AM.

As you can see, he and Renato could resist looking at the camera whenever we were being photographed at St Peter's, but I could not. This was our position behind the high altar, three feet away from where the Pope was lowered in the sedia. As soon as his feet touched the floor, the three of us would make a profound genuflection that caused our white pleats to billow in unison. Paul VI would give us a moment's attention through narrowed eyes and once or twice he grumbled something under his breath, but he knew we were just having fun and enjoying our youth, and being part of the spectacle, and perhaps doing just what he had done when he was our age.

Edward and I could easily crack each other up, and more than once we got into a bit of trouble for not being able to stifle uncontrollable laughter during the papal solemnities.

Edward, I am honoring your wish for prayers and candles to speed you out of purgatory and into heaven where you will once again have a full head of hair in which to anchor a crown full of well-earned stars.

A.G.A.S.T.

Last weekend, we made the trip to industrial Brooklyn to take in this year’s AGAST, (Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour).




We saw some unspeakably bad art but I amused myself with an examination of how the various artists kept their paints and brushes. Some neatly and some not.





C, however, was quite taken with an installation by Melanie Fischer in her workspace. She had fashioned twisty “plants” of green material and set them on the floor, creating an eerie little forest in which one finds a swing. I admire C’s willingness to enter into the enchantment of a stranger’s dreamscape but I wasn’t sure about the functionality of the swing.






We walked by three ladies laughing the day away in the tiny corral in front of their seasonally decorated home. The one in the middle urged me to take their picture. The one in blue wasn’t having it.

Highline benchmarks

Yesterday, I attended the unveiling of the architects Diller Scofidio’s plans for Section 2 (20th to 30th Street) of the fantastic-but-real “Highline Project”.

Section 1 (Gansevoort to 20th Street) has already been designed and work has begun.

If you are not familiar with this project, you can become so here.

In short, the Highline is 1.5 miles of elevated steel-supported train bed built in 1929-1934 and connecting 22 blocks on the west side of Manhattan. Before the line was built, pedestrians were frequently killed by trains passing along 10th Avenue which came to be known as “Death Avenue”. In the 1800’s, the city hired men to ride horses in front of the trains, waving red cloth to shoo aside pedestrians. They were known as “West Side Cowboys”. (There are still a good number of cowboys on the west side, but their hankie colors vary.)

Incidentally, the Highline Project is the brainchild of two good-looking west side cowboys named Robert Hammond and Josh David who live in Chelsea.

The architects asked that we refrain from photographing the slides showing the plans for Section 2 because they are not finalized, but I was allowed to photograph the following which show the state of the highline today: an unused river of wild greenery that will become public space containing lawns, thickets, meadows, bleachers and benches.




One particularly imaginative feature of Section 2 will be a raised (eight feet) path through a sumac forest. Sumac trees are already growing on the highline, tolerant of the damp and shade of the canyons of tall buildings. The raised path would allow you to walk among the treetops while looking down at an urban hammock of ferns and greenery.

The idea is to fashion a contemplative urban oasis, but those in attendance yesterday voiced valid concerns that the number of people who will use and/or visit the highline will make it crowded and noisy. Robert Hammond and the architects agreed that this could be a problem.

In conversation with the architects after their presentation, I noted that their plans show backless benches that, while attractive in a minimalist/modern way, are extremely uncomfortable. I asked if they had perhaps sat on the new wooden benches at Columbus Circle. They had. I countered that they should then be aware of how a backless bench can be visually elegant but totally uncomfortable. I pointed out the fact that the more traditional park benches in Central Park, especially those along the promenade leading to the Bethesda Terrace are both elegant and comfortable. They rolled their eyes a bit but assured me that they had been forced into including benches with backs by Amanda Burden, Chair of the City Planning Commission, who has already test-sat their proposed bench design and approved it. They just had not included the backs in their design slides. You really have to watch modern architects closely to check their fever for sleek design over comfort.

And, to clarify my position for those of you who are from out-of-town, I schlepped the camera out into the rain today to take some pics of both the comfortable benches in Central Park and the uncomfortable ones at Columbus Circle. Applying myself to this task gave me a good excuse for avoiding any more serious or pressing responsibilities.

Here are the comfortable benches.





Nearby, I spied a very uncomfortable fashion model being forced to perch on a cold and damp stone bench at the top of "Bear Hill".


Here are the uncomfortable benches of Columbus Circle.



While I was there, this gentleman became a fashion victim of a different sort, having come to rest briefly on the loathsome bench. With his jeans belted well below his butt, the damp wood was less than hospitable and when he arose, left its mark on his tighty-nolonger-whities. I thought this particular and absurd urban style trend required plaid boxers. Maybe he was trying to be fashion-forward.



Here is the bench that C and I call ours. It is located on an island in the middle of the elaborate intersection of Broadway, 65th Street and Columbus Avenue. To get there, we pass by the tiny Parisian café chairs of Richard Tucker Square (also uncomfortable and located under trees that hold impolite pigeons). We take morning coffee here and at 7:30PM we do our people watching here, judging the well-dressed and not-so-well-dressed horde of theater-goers on their way to Lincoln Center. Yesterday, I learned that we are not the only ones who call this bench “ours”. When I got to it, an elderly couple was just getting up. As I sat down, the lady smiled at me and said “Best seat in the house. We always sit here when we are in town.” Architects, take note.

Not since Bogart and Bacall

Rocketreds is the Jerry Seinfeld of erotic video (It's about nothing but it says everything.) and he is probably the closest thing you'll ever see on this blog to being considered NSFW.

If it is possible to eroticize smoking, this guy is a genious. The lighting. The positioning of the camera. He forces the viewer to be in the room with him, below him, and in some way at his disposal. The look on his face. He's got something on his mind. In each of his six videos on Youtube (I recommend the three most recent in which he is really hitting his stride), Rocketreds includes an armpit view and a sudden look-away as if he's just heard a knock at the door or a voice in the next room that he's choosing to ignore. And please, let's momentarily set aside the issue of smoking and imagine being the object of his contemplation.

Bryant Park

This is for Little David who has requested that I "post something in order to get that grotesque image off the top of the page".

Here are some soothing views of Bryant Park. I was going to do a longer post about this jewel of a park located in the middle of Manahttan, and I still might, but for now, this ought to help David's reflux.

A Strange Dream

Lady Jaye has died

Sad news.

I've written twice about Genesis P-Orridge and PTV3. I was looking forward to their November appearance in Brooklyn. Genesis and Lady Jaye had continuously altered their physical appearance to become similar, pushing the concept of sexuality into the possibility of a third sex. She died in the arms of her other half who must be heartbroken beyond words.

Your story

Once upon a time, a man owned only a small patch of weeds, but he had good muscles and a good mind and a machete with which he hacked away at the weeds as he tried to shape the garden he envisioned. Looking down, he saw, half buried in the stoney earth...

We've had some rain.

At 11:21PM I was walking south on Central Park West near its intersection with 72nd Street when I realized that the man approaching me from the opposite direction had a gun in his hand.

I had been thinking about the ardent rain of the early afternoon. A task-oriented downpour unbent in its mission to erase the perfect record of unbroken sunshine that was our September. I had walked through it slowly to get to the gym. Everyone seemed to be relearning the etiquette of crowdborne umbrellas.

I had been thinking about the popularity of the stretchy black Calvin Klein boxer briefs with white waistbands worn by several of the young Hispanic men who seemed to ritualize getting them soaked in the gym showers before sliding their hands inside them in the steam room. I thought about the incredibly handsome Cuban who stretched his smooth brown torso forward on the sweaty wooden bench of the sauna to allow a blonde fellow with a swimmer’s build easy access to his pair of those same shorts while looking up at me with dark worried eyes that asked for absolution, or if not that, for a whispered secret that he might carry home with him to ward off his daily sadness about having once again surrendered fruitlessly to his lust. I had wanted to pat him gently on the forearm he used to steady himself on that bench, and to say, “There, there. This will pass. You’ll move on. You’ll laugh about it someday. You’ll remember the sight of that damp golden head in your lap and you’ll be glad for the detour. Don’t fret it. You’ve got time.”

That made me think about the muscle bound man with the blazing blue eyes and buzzed red hair who stared at me for an hour in Starbucks earlier in the day. Such a strong jutting jaw. Almost a cartoon character. Every time I looked up from downloading photos into the Mac, I’d catch him looking at me. He’d look away fearfully. A closet case, no doubt. Why would anyone with half a brain keep himself closeted in a world, in a country, in a city like this where being gay isn’t even the new black. It’s the old black. The old boring rehashed rerun yawn of a black. God, he’s behaving like a Marine in 1955. Charming, in an odd way. Bet he’s dumb. Or married. Or both. That’s it. He’s got a learning disability plus a wife who had been his nurse. Traumatic brain injury survivor who spends his days pumping iron and drinking coffee before going home to relieve himself with my face in mind. I stopped looking away. It scared him that every time he looked in my direction, he found my eyes riveted to his. He got up and left, but as he passed by on the other side of the plate glass, he could not resist one final longingly woeful glance at me. He’ll probably be back tomorrow and be disappointed if I am not there, but I cannot be scheduling redemption for the grief-beset no matter how spectacular their virgin bodies. I have obligations, and besides, he would want romance. That much is obvious. He’d end up hating me for the lack of it. In his stupid way, he would think I had deceived him, promised him happiness and abiding love when all the while I had only wanted to use him. Then, after a few torrid afternoons, we’d fall into a pattern of just nods and smiles when we saw each other at Starbucks. He’d feel confused. Frustrated. Certain he had done something wrong. And finally, the day would come when he would see clearly what had happened to him, as clear as those ridiculous red and blue nautical tattoos frolicking on his hairy arms, probably acquired on some boardwalk in some seedy port of call. This roused a melody in my head. “Brandy, you’re a fine girl. What a good wife you would be…” I was humming it as I packed up the computer and walked out into the street.

I wondered what everyone else in the world was busy doing. Really, I did. Although my days are largely free, I can’t seem to find enough time to do everything I want to do. Is it that most people want less than I do? Are they fascinated by fewer possibilities. Having discovered macramé do they focus on just that for the rest of their days, churning out plant hangers and wall decorations without ever a thought to glass blowing or Venetian plastering or sonnet writing or Photoshop or investing or, God forbid, volunteering. I knew that C was busy running his company and that I ought to stop at Balducci’s to replace the Pico de Gallo he had left in the refrigerator last Sunday, and that I had dumped onto a salad at 3AM. He’ll want it when he gets into town tomorrow afternoon. If I could be sure of his arrival time, I might even have a full dinner prepared. A simple task. Just what I needed to ward off the big picture. A thousand simple tasks. No, a million of them, and then you die, and reviewing your days, you feel some satisfaction with the little bit you actually accomplished.

Also, on that sidewalk on Central park West at 11:21PM, I had been reviewing the ten basic premises for a new and nonsense-free American religion that I had assembled while looking for the Pico de Gallo. Like commandments or fingers, ten is a good number. I managed to recall them all:

1) Anyone can belong. I have no appetite for the judgments of exclusion when applied to people. I have a strong appetite for the judgments of exclusion when applied to anti-social actions, i.e, sins such as polluting, swindling, cheating, raping, wasting, corrupting, victimizing, degrading and the like. Keep in mind that we are each capable of and guilty of some number and degree of those sins, and that we ought to be helped out of our sins by this new religion rather than cast out of it because of them.)

2) The members of this new religion should seek ways to, and perform work to, alleviate and eliminate human suffering. Private financial support for good causes would be encouraged but not formalized. In other words, this new religion would never organize a telethon or a giving campaign. Members would be encouraged to give quietly and in secret, and for their own personal satisfaction. Volunteerism would be encouraged, but the good works of members would not be trumpeted or rewarded with plaques or honors or the silly merit badge of publicity.

3) We will, without fear, embrace “mystery” (i.e., that which cannot be known or proven). We will, without fear, explore a future that might extend beyond our last breath and far beyond this world and its dimensions. We will, without fear, seek God, or not. And, if a member of our new religion decides that God does not exist, let him remain with us, seeking some other order or other directing force for his life, even if that be as simple as the embracing of chaos as the guiding and purposeful energy behind all that is. That is how there is room for the atheist in this new religion.

4) Leadership will not be determined by genitals, age, blood or money, but by a member’s ability to inspire, guide and motivate a congregation. It should be expected that the leaders among us may be no more free of sin than any other member. Their talents, and not necessarily the success of their virtues, make them called to leadership. Anyone may proclaim himself to be a leader. Why worry about that or try to control it? An authentic leader will rise up because members will be willing to follow such a one. Where there is dispute about who is the leader, groups may split apart amicably. Some groups and their leaders will fade while others will grow. This should not be viewed as a contest in which some win and some lose. It should be viewed as a natural process, and there should be no attempt to entrap leadership within the confines of elections or terms. There shall be no crown, and hence, no coveting of it. Leaders should be willing to devote much time to this new religion. They should be men and women of much energy, zeal and conviction and who will use their talents as speakers and writers and performers of every ilk to improve the lives of those who need and trust them. They must have a sense of mission and responsibility and a willingness to travel, relying on and accepting the hospitality and support of those who receive them.

5) This new religion will not collect or handle money, nor will it own land, buildings or anything else. Any leaders and organizers and staff of this new religion will be greatly assisted in maintaining their purity by being entirely uncompensated. Members may be personally rich or poor. Generosity will be encouraged but not prescribed or defined. Events, gatherings and facilities may be paid for by members with the money to do so, but not by the religion itself. More often than not, members will gather in public places or in private homes.

6) This new religion will not be a “club” the strength or success of which is typically gauged by the swelling of membership or temporal power, but rather a family known by its excellent consolations.

7) This new religion will keep its nose out of your bedroom, i.e., it will not govern your sex life. Does this mean that any sex act is acceptable? No. Any sexual activity in which there is a victim (i.e., a child or a non-consenting adult) is unacceptable.

8) Members and leaders would be free to hold any political opinion and to speak their opinions freely. This religion would seek justice and would be loud in its efforts to rid government of its injustices. There should be ample room for political disagreement among the members of this new religion.

9) I feel strongly that the meetings, celebrations and services of this new religion must be lively, enjoyable, creative, emotional, energetic, and sometimes spectacular. Our cultural diversity allows for nothing less. It is totally acceptable that the celebrations in one town might be entirely different from those of another. Any regulation or codification of the components of gathering together will be prohibited. Members will form or find congregations in which they feel at home. When congregations meet, there should be a kinetic exchange of ideas and thoughts, and a sharing of personal reflections and stories so that each participant will leave with increased wisdom and peace.

10) Let this new religion be called the First Sensible Church of America (FISECHAM!). Let there be T shirts and refrigerator magnets that bear its name, and let it thrive on the internet.

I had been feeling rather satisfied with this list, although it begged a question: Why do we need any religion at all? I had the answer. We need a religion because we are better human beings when we wrestle together with mystery and when we celebrate it together than when we go it alone. There is wisdom to be had in doing this together. A religion does not lift from individual shoulders the responsibility we each have to be spiritually trained and skillful. It adds to that. It gives it voice and helps us know the truth behind our days.

I was in the process of recalling the list I had yesterday assembled of ten major threats to our democracy when I saw the man with the gun in his hand. I had remembered only six of them. This I know because I had been counting them on the fingers of my left hand starting with my thumb and I had returned to holding that thumb as if taking its pulse.

The man was about fifteen feet away and walking slowly toward me as if tired. The gun was in his left hand and at his side, rather than raised. He did not seem nervous or agitated. He seemed to be walking with some purpose. He was maybe 60 years old with thinning gray hair, and a wide and deeply creased forehead over alcohol thickened features. His heavy brow shadowed his eyes so that I could not tell whether he was looking exactly at me. His thin lips seemed to have been soldered into the kind of grimace that comes with a stroke. A slight pot belly tugged at a shabby yellowed shirt untucked over dark work trousers. Perhaps he was a transportation worker on his way home from the subway. Perhaps he had just come up out of the nearby subway exit having shot someone underground. Perhaps his rage was now spent. Perhaps he’ll just walk home and put the last bullet into his own head. Or, perhaps he’ll shoot everyone who crosses his path until the gun is empty. There was no one else around. It was just him and me up against the façade of some grand residential building full of condos owned by foreigners who are never home.

I knew enough to keep walking. To show no fear. One learns over the years how to deal with the crazed. I knew not to look at this man in the eye and not to speak to him or to change my pace in the slightest. I fought my urge to know his story. I wanted very much to ask him “Why?” If he was going to kill me, I wanted to know why.

For once in my life, I kept my mouth shut and tried to become invisible. When he was five feet away, I looked down at the gun about to brush my knee. His finger was on the trigger, but his grip seemed easy, almost loose, and I began to think I would be safe as long as I kept moving and did not look up. Maybe he was just a man who rode the subway and walked the streets with a gun in his hand to intimidate muggers. Maybe someone had once jumped him and he’d be damned if he’d let it happen twice. Maybe someone had jumped his wife or his daughter. Maybe he wanted vengeance. What if I looked like the man he hated? What if I was suitable for evening a score? I looked down at the gun now a foot away from me. Maybe it is not even a real gun. How would I know a real gun from a fake one? I closed my eyes as he passed me. I knew I should not do so, but after a few seconds I turned to look at him. He was not looking back. He seemed not to have noticed me at all.

The rest of the trip home became a series of wonderful milestones. I’ve made it to the corner of our street. Past the building where the toddlers learn music. Past the prep school for surly rich boys in blue blazers. Past the fortune teller’s ground floor window with its dusty pink crystals on the inside sill. At our front door. The lock works. Through the second door. The elevator slowly and methodically opening itself up to me. And finally I am inside our place and I lock the door behind me. I turn on the lights and walk into the center of the room, taking note of everything in its place. The walls, the chairs, the table, the orchid. Nothing had happened. Why should I be feeling anything at all? He hadn’t even seen me. Hadn’t turned around. Didn’t even know I had passed him.

I looked at the umbrella left open on the floor to dry. One of its spokes had broken when someone on the crowded sidewalk had jousted it with his own earlier in the afternoon. I had arrived at the gym with one shoulder wet where the limp spoke had drizzled the rain. Tomorrow, I will buy a new one. A wider stronger one. Maybe something colorful rather than black. A simple task but one I can stretch into hours. Or days.

It's a wonderful world.

Today, someone got to this blog by googling "mylar tube minky". It is my sincere hope that they found what they were seeking.

Discouraging bad behavior in Split

Our friends Peter and Bob sent us a vacation photo (and I hope they will not mind my editing out the extranneous bits) of a sign with clear meaning in the ancient city of Split in Yugoslavia.

Rapture Cafe

A long road brought us to the event last night at the Rapture Café (200 Avenue A between 12th and 13th Streets) where four readers, including a winning JoeMyGod, delivered themselves of whimsical, almost nostalgic accounts of a church organist fisting someone sans wristwatch, Charles Pierce being ordered to his knees in a janitor’s closet, a rhapsodic KFC staffer getting tenderized behind the counter, and a chagrined “son” whose trip to Connecticut to meet an online “daddy” gets re-scripted. What would have been considered shocking and pornographic material a scant few years ago now elicited appreciative laughter from the packed room, and no one seemed too upset when a two year old on a scooter weaving through the crowd stopped at the foot of the stage a few inches below the towering presence of Miss Understood who was at a particularly steamy part of her narrative. (Not to worry, for that child will never recall the words, only the sight of Miss U’s gigantic candy pink do and her glittery blue lips. Much less traumatic than most circus clowns.)

This event, "Reading for Filth", had been organized by the recently deceased Dean Johnson who was memorialized in picture on the wall behind the readers, and in word by recitation of one of the last entries from his diary. It is not an exaggeration to say that Dean Johnson paved much of the New York portion of that long road to self-worth and freedom of expression.

A word about the Rapture Café with its small stage, wall of books and bar. This is a friendly space with lighting and sound level conducive to human interaction, something so rarely accomplished in this city of murky deafening rooms. If I were single and looking for love (and twenty years younger), I’d probably shop here. The evening's DJ was Baby K:



Eric Leven read first. Earlier in the evening, a few of us confessed to viewing photos of Eric while employing mental whisk brooms to sweep aside any words he might include on the pages of his blog. While not surprised that he looks as hot in person, I was charmed by his fine delivery of a story so good that I will have to start actually reading him.



Joe was up next, offering two JMG classics including the aforementioned fisting story, and a selection that I would have considered risky because of its visual nature: a list of hilarious online hook-up proposals including the wonderful “I am totally uninhabited”. Joe’s dazzling and razor sharp delivery worked perfectly to translate the material into speakery, once again convincing me that he ought to be performing more often and to a much larger audience.



Chris distributed party hats to us just as Joe took the stage and he seemed not at all thrown by our singing “Happy Birthday” to mark his day.

Miss Understood, a warhorse of a drag queen, and Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters were entirely entertaining while delivering material written by others.



I was disappointed that Michael Cunningham was a no-show. Rapture staff did not seem to have any advance warning of his absence and it would be wrong to jump to any conclusions about it.

Quite a fun crowd including Vasco, Chris, Dr. Jeff, Damien, Craig (who fended off a bicycle thief), Chris/Randy and a handsome stranger named Brian who raises money for the Episcopalians and had to ask what the “(NSFW)” on my shirt meant.

Just for Men

What? No. This is my real color.

Green-Wood

This weekend, we stepped out into the suspiciously perfect weather that has been relentlessly upon us for the last thirty days, and visited Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

478 hilly acres. Opened in 1840. Many famous New Yorkers here from DeWitt Clinton to Boss Tweed to Lola Montez. Lots of mausolea in a Victorian hodgepodge of monumental styles. Think Pere LaChaise crossed with Central Park.

Luckily, we entered the funeral chapel just as a shaft of sunlight illuminated Jesus’ rising from his tomb. (Like walking past the Bellagio in Las Vegas just as the musical fountains begin to spurt.) Shroud by Christian LaCroix.


At the top of the highest hill, there’s a view of the harbor. A bronze statue of Minerva raises a hand in salute to the Statue of Liberty that you can vaguely see in this photo. C, who knows all the good stuff, told me that the condos built between Minerva and Liberty would have blocked this view. There was an uproar, and the developer was forced to “step back” the top of his building as you can see in the photo so that Minerva would not lose her view.


Some families went a tad overboard in their selection of features. Here, we find that the Masonic Capt. Mathisen and Eliza, his wife, couldn’t seem to make up their minds as to the style of their memorial, finally opting for a little of everything: Greek temple topped with a hilariously oversized winged angel and festooned with hounds and urns and encircled with a granite loop that seems to imply that they had in mind a moat that may have proven impractical.


The best maintained tombs bore small round medallions that said “Perpetual Care”. When selecting a plot, it is always advisable to purchase the perpetual care plan. Here’s what can happen if you don’t go with the perpetual care plan.


We were fascinated by this pyramid-tomb where a big-footed sphinx seems transfixed by the sight of Baby Jesus being held up by Mary. Its bronze door contained zodiac signs in a circle around a crucifix. It is good to have one’s bases covered when entering the next life.


Stumbling about, you find some gorgeous details.
photo by C
photo by C


As is always the case, walking through a cemetery reminds us of how futile are the efforts to secure immortal memory. Stones shift and tumble, names are worn away by weather or simply forgotten, and eventually, our most lasting residue is the rubbish of our daily lives.


Nevertheless, we were pleased to find that our own classically understated future final resting place seems to be reasonably kempt, although the grass could use some attention.

Heartbreaking

Obviously an underserved market that needs attention.

elderly and gay and in search of a non-hostile Home.

This is , of course, why they invented Wilton Manors, but I sometimes wonder how many of the elderly men in that town live in dread of their final days. Of helplessness. The fear of living out one's life alone and among neighbors and care-givers who are not sympathetic is something even our younger single friends think about. The solution is obvious but sad: rest homes that cater specifically to the elderly gay.

Elderly gay ghettos/oases where the dignity of a final passage from a life of struggle and disguise might be assured. Let's hope that the need for such a facility will evaporate within the next few generations.

Conflicted

I'm posting this more because I think it's clever and less because I wholeheartedly agree with it (although I rather sort of agree with it while fence-strattling and hand-wringing and brow-knitting while walking on board).

Here's my problem. I've spent decades in government, sometimes crafting legislation and watching its slow lumbering through the public sector process from idea to light of day. Rarely does anything get through unblemished or unaltered. I've seen the best things die in committee. For this reason I empathize with those who assure the transgendered that there will be room for them on the next boat and that they should wait until we return for them. This was my grandfather's practical approach to Ellis Island, making three crossings and bringing his wife only on the third, after he had established a foothold. (Sorry, Grandma, didn't mean to imply that you were a trannie-Grammie)

On the other hand, I have disdain for civil unions as a step to marriage and would never bother entering one. The idea of participating in a second-rate substitute is repugnant and insulting. But, when the day comes for marriage, I will have to thank those who pushed the issue through that distasteful stage of civil unionism.

And then there's that God-awful creature named "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to consider. If ever there was a misshapen hideous half a loaf that never should have been allowed to...

I respect both sides of this arguement and hope the debate reaches as many people as possible. Only good can come of that.

So if you want to support the original and inclusive ENDA, click the link in the first line after the pic.

Herbert Muschamp

He was perhaps the greatest of them all.

How they live

I don't know who David Patrick Columbia is, or how he got to be David Patrick Columbia, but I am addicted to his regular chronicle of "Their Lives". He's a polaroid Edith Wharton. Sometimes (rarely) he'll post a picture of someone I know (sort of). The grand thing about New York is that circles overlap and sometimes collide.

at the fair

While I closed the doors on the last of my million-plus visitors, C made friends with some very rowdy piglets and their patient mother.