Joe and I are at the Island House in Key West. They have given us an apartment. This is THE place to stay.
I was delighted to see old friends who had been our house guests maaaany years ago in Montreal. Ken and Tony, now local Key West guys. Joe has just arrived. Must prepare for the Coronation Ball!
Tomorrow, I will drive to Key West where I'm to be the guest of the travel and tourism types who will show me the town's charms and pamper me with food and drink. It is their expectation that I will describe it to you, and I gladly oblige, for long have I longed to visit Key West.
Beyond showing up and enjoying all that Key West has to offer, my main responsibility consists of sharing splendid quarters with JMG.
I've traveled with JMG many a time. He is not difficult en hoof. I think I can manage this.
A few minutes ago, on Good Morning America, a man with a southern accent, referring to Obama's impression that we may be in a depression, said "Oh that's just the President in drama queen mode."
You know a phrase has come full circle when an economist on mainstream TV calls the President an enthusiastic homosexual without even knowing it, and when no one raises an eyebrow.
I'm guessing that this phrase - very definitely gay in origin - moved into the straight community through hairdressers who used it in conversation with clients. Mothers with improved hair might go home and use it on their young tantrum-throwing children. This is where their husbands first heard it. Concurrently, it infiltrated the workplace where it was first introduced by gay employees much to the delight of their straight co-workers. (I know this to be true. I was one of the carriers.) Initially, the gay co-worker would sanitize the phrase by using it to refer only to a female co-worker who might be acting out. Soon enough, whole offices would be using it to refer to men and women alike.
I knew the phrase had come almost full circle when, a few years ago, in a meeting with my female boss, she accused me of being a drama queen. Because, as administrators, she and I very carefully suppressed all elements of "gay" in our workplace, I knew that she didn't have a clue about what she was really saying.
Note, in gay parlance, the drama queen is never to be confused with the Broadway queen or the musical comedy queen or the theater queen. They are different critters, and Obama, soon after becoming President, managed to take his wife to New York for dinner and a show without becoming any of them. I fully expect the mainstreamed confusion of all these queens to soon unfold.
What is most interesting in the letter of Bishop Malooly is his feigned chagrin that creditors won't be getting the money owed them by the diocese. Your Excellency, they don't call it Chapter 11 PROTECTION for nothing. You used a legal mechanism to wiggle out of paying debts that you don't want to pay. Could you pay them? Certainly. Sell stuff. Close parishes. Work longer and for less pay. Cook your own meals. Buy less scotch. Sack cloth and ashes in reparation for what those child molesting priests have done would have been the right response rather than the safety net of bankruptcy. Funny, isn't it, that Rome didn't bail you out. I guess they also don't think that Wilmington is worth pawning the jewels for. Shame. Shame upon shame.
Look into the faces of the friends of jailed attacker Danny Rodriguez. Read their comments on Joe's post. Listen to the words of Marisa Ragonese about the value of education. If it takes a village to raise a child, all it takes is some concertedly negligent parenting to produce stupid and hateful children. These young thugs know only their street corner, plus an occasional trip to the prison on nearby Riker's Island.They are pitiful and pitiable.
The following video will show you the positioning of the two groups and includes some of activist Brendan Fay's passionate statement.
A Mother, a Sick Son and his Father, a Priest is sure to take the wind out of whatever whallop the American bishops thought their Pastoral Letter might have in Maine. It is an amazing story. I disagree only with the reporter's aside, speculating that as much as 20% of the clergy are conducting sexual affairs with women. That presumes an awful lot of heterosexuality for which I see little evidence. Especially delicious is the fact that the guy was a seminary rector. I doubt anyone has done a study of this, but seminary rectors are among the most sexually active of the clergy. I got stories.
Got Catholic friends in Maine? Send them this. I suspect the final draft of the Pastoral Letter on Marriage was deliberately leaked to coincide with a certain situation in Maine.
I suspect I will not be impacted because I make no money from this blog. But anyone who receives ad revenue may be subject to some disclosure requirements.
Not since Whitney Houston have I heard it sung so well. And their ages are 6-8! I wouldn't mess with the one in the middle. Annie wouldn't be big enough for her. She could out-diva even Miss Ross.
You will have to go to Bilerico tomorrow after 10:30AM for my response to this:
Fr. Tony,
Hello, my name is Steven. I was viewing the Bilerico website and saw your blog. I have a question in hoping you may assist me. First of all, I am a Roman Catholic and have been for over two years now. I love the church and do attend mass; however, I am a 45 yr old gay man. According to the church, gays are not allowed to practice their lifestyle. I thought I could simply ignore how I feel, but I cannot. God created us and if he did not want us to have these "feelings" , then we wouldn't experience them and want to seek out companionship with a member of the same sex. If I confess to my priest how I feel and would want to establish a loving and stable relationship with another man, would be I facing excommunication from the church?
I hope I can find a peacable solution as to what to do. I understand some catholic churches do accept GLBT couples.
Joe is 50 years old and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome declares it Joe Jervis Day. At Firewood restaurant in the Castro, Leif Wauters reads the proclamation.
I listened to the President's speech at last night's HRC dinner. It was a very pretty speech. The hall was filled with gay accessocrats who erupted with frenzied applause at all the moments designed for it. Actually, the speech was empty of anything other than good wishes. What the President did not say rang louder than what he did say. For instance, he did say this:
My expectation is that when you look back on these years you will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.
That’s why I support insuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.
This translates to: I never have and never will support gay marriage.
Only a fool would stand up and applaud that declaration. The HRC dinner was a feast of fools.
Lloyd is one of a number of men who habitually stroll Castro Street nakedly. Through the window of Harvey's where we had salad, we saw a few of them differentiated only by head gear and shoes. Here, he has paused for a bit of conversation in front of The Body Shoppe with its cheer-ful safe sex poster.
He illustrates a major difference between San Francisco and New York City. The citizens of SF give themselves extensive license. The NYC residents are all about restraint. It's not that one family is more insane than the other. It's just that the craziness is trotted out in SF and tailored in NYC.
Climbing Vulcan Street and inspecting its gardens with Mark and Tim.
This city is reeking with rosemary, lavender, eucalyptus, various salvias, jasmine, santolina, artemesia and fennel, all needing no special attention. The fig trees! The many colored lantanas! The agapanthus!
We started the day with coffee at The Blue Bottle cafe near the SF Mint. From there we walked down Market Street to the Embarcadero where we accidentally came upon The Slanted Door restaurant (recommended by more than one JMG reader). We snagged a fine outdoor table. Everything we were served was excellent and the service was flawless. Here is the incredibly savory and airy and golden Vietnamese crepe, and two desserts. The mixed confectioner's plate was a pyrotechnical fanfare of aromatic infusions.
We continued down the Embarcadero to Pier 27 where we turned inland in search of the paths up to the Coit Tower.
The Baad Lamb took this picture of a Tibouchina Urvilleana. We tried growing one indoors many years ago on the farm in Connecticut. Bugs ate it.
The Coit Tower has wonderful WPA murals. Here is just a hint.
We then walked down Lombard through the North Beach area and walked up the zigzag part of Lombard in the Russian Hill neighborhood. We turned left onto Hyde and followed that up and down to Sacramento stopping to see Grace Cathedral and Huntington Park.
We continued down Sacramento to Powell which brought us back to our hotel.
San Francisco is friendly, casual, jaunty and whimsical. It is not flat. Most people would not or could not do the walk we did today, but I highly recommend every inch of it. The air is delicious here.
Here is a sign inside the Coit Tower. I think we can all agree that a comma after shoot her would have been helpful.
Here are some entertaining pictures from a wildly splendid birthday party we attended Friday night at the Grace Hotel pool on 45th Street. Enrique Ramirez is the owner of Face To Face, the go-to spa for anyone serious about his or her skin. The treatments are various, including the bleaching of anuses (ani?)!
As the totally delightful MC of the evening, Robbyn Kaamil, said "Enrique is a good soul". Although you might think from the pictures that this was a party for the young, gorgeous and vacuous, I've been around the block often enough to notice when the tenor of a crowd is above the fold in "goodness". We met some fascinators, and if we weren't in San Francisco, holed up in what Priceline considers a four-star hotel near Union Square, Parc55, catching our breath after a mighty weekend, I'd have the time to tell you about them. Patience, meanwhile, and enjoy. A fantastic party. (Enrique looked fabulous.)
You will have to go to Bilerico this morning to see my response to the following:
Dear Father Tony,
I've been a reader on Bilerico for a few months. I've read previous letters that you have received and posted on the Bilerico website and wondered if I could do the same.
I am a 20 year old gay male, living in Florida. Even though here where I live, there is not much bigotry I read different articles from multiple gay press website (ex. The Advocate, Bilerico, Washington Blade) and I can't help but feel that eventually something is going to happen. I mean, with how the fight that is going on in Maine, I fear that someday, that battle will come here. I know that eventually it's going to happen in all states, but what is there to do when the National Organization for Marriage and all the anti-gay groups decide to come here?...I said to my boyfriend that I want to move out of this country and live in a place where we can be happy. I know it seems like a big rant or that I think negatively, and I apologize. But I can't seem to shake the feeling that this country can't have an wide view of the different people that live in it.
What do you think Father Tony? Do you have any suggestions on what you think will happen to this country in the future?
Aside from enjoying the fact that this was a gathering of very pretty people, I was amazed at the way fashion seems to have moved into a new creative and pandrogynous permissiveness in which you combine all sorts of diverse elements to create an arresting and intriguing persona of often indeterminate sex and sexuality. Hot.
I am not the only one surprised at the unveiling of four finalists in a contest that seems to have been unpublicized.
Anyway, you can go here and have a listen to them. I am not going to review them because it would be too easy to...Let me just say that...Given that an anthem should be...Oh hell, I can't find anything nice to say about this unfortunate moment.
(PS: In 1978, a priest friend and I were finalists in a national songwriting contest for a handily forgotten entry called "Cheatin' On Myself". We were awarded $25 and, as the letter said, "The respect of the music industry".)
Going downtown on the D train. The driver announces crucial changes in the route. When we got home and replayed this a few times, we figured out that when he says "Twenty-thirty Street", he means 23rd Street. Other than that, we have been able to decipher almost nothing. Who hired this guy? I can't imagine what the poor tourists with limited English were thinking?
You will have to go to Bilerico this morning after 10:30 to read my response to the following:
Dear Father Tony,
I find myself on the cusp of a personal reinvention. Or, a mid-life crisis, if you prefer. I believe both are apropos descriptions.
When I graduated from college in 1985, I reinvented myself by moving to the opposite coast. I became an up-and-comer at a high-tech company that served me well. I experienced my first relationship and later came out of the closet into an open and diverse community that offered the ability to become any type of queer one wanted to be.
Twenty years later in 2005, I left a relationship and returned home to the house I grew up in. This time my reinvention was born of personal and familial necessity. I became the full-time primary caregiver to my mother who was increasingly affected by the ravages of Alzheimer's disease.
This summer, four years after I arrived, my mother was moved into an assisted care facility to provide her with the proper amount of constant attention and medical help that I was unable to deliver. My reason for being has disappeared, and I find myself a middle-aged single gay man whose life stands before him as a blank canvas.
What of a relationship? I spent several years in my previous relationship with his AIDS-related maladies at the top of my mind. The following four years have been spent with an Alzheimer's diagnosis as my focus. After so many draining years, do I really want to be with someone else? How will I ever find someone here in this small town where the gay community is practically invisible except for gay pride day?
Trying to find a date has been nearly impossible. It was a friend that gave me a bit of eye-opening counsel when I was bemoaning my plight. Asked where I was trying to meet people, I replied, "In the gay.com chat rooms." He raised his brows. "That's your problem,' he declared. "You're too old for gay.com. You need to get a profile up on silverdaddies.com." And that's when it hit me. I had been unceremoniously moved from one gay demographic to another and no one, until now, had bothered to notify me!
Reality has slapped me in the face and the need for another personal reinvention has become clear. So here I am. Directionless. I feel like a boat sans rudder; a swimmer treading water. Where do I go from here? I wish I knew. Sure, that would spoil the fun of the journey, but it would also assuage the fears of the unknown that lurk around every corner.
I had forgotten what it's like to be a resilient and trash-talking boy. I tried to remember. Was I ever one of these? Stopping to record this during our bike tour of the Grand Concourse made me realize that I am living on another planet. I wonder if any of these kids will ever get there. If not, what will become of them? Will they ever land it? What eventually distracts them from this, their summer?
While walking from the Scooter Laforge show to the opening of Roam, we encountered the shy and endearing Johnny Bizarre and his demure assistant, The Poison Puss.
The murky quality of this video is probably for the best.
To go downtown, we got down into the subway at the 59th Street station and were delighted to see that the new Sol Lewitt mural has been unveiled. (We sold our Sol Lewitt last year and have always felt a bit of kinship to his work. If he were alive, I wonder how he'd feel about the carved out sections for access and infrastructure. It's an energetic and happy piece and we are glad it is there. I believe that the pairs of yellow safety treads are an unintentional harmonic.
When we approached the velvet rope, we were greeted with deference and were ushered through the door in advance of the line that stretched down 19th St. Why? Because it was clear that anyone of my obvious age would be reviewing the event rather than attending it.
When I told the Baad Lamb that after the Scooter Laforge show we would be attending the opening night of Roam a new hot spot on East 19th between Broadway and Fifth, he wondered about my state of mind. "Come on" I said. "It'll be fun. We haven't been to a straight bar in years. Let's see what it's like."
I am pleased to report that Roam is your classic New York watering hole for the young, very pretty and well-groomed boys and girls eager to compare their beautiful hair.
Not that anyone was rude to me. On the contrary, the staff was exceedingly accommodating and brought me up to the DJ booth in order to better photograph the room. That is where I met the prestigious DJ Claudius Raphael who roared with amusement when I told him that although his music was terrific, I am always displeased whenever I am in a nightspot that does not include Morning Train by Sheena Easton in its play list.
It's good to know that Roam is there because our visiting nieces and nephews who are now young and pretty adults deserve to be taken to a place like this rather than subjected exclusively to that elephants' burial ground of leather daddies known as The Eagle. In any case, we had the good sense to say good night just as the doors began to open up to the first few fresh-faced hopefuls. Ah youth.
This is not the first time I've seen erotic art by Scooter Laforge. I knew what to expect, but I attended his t shirt/sculpture/painting installation at Envoy Enterprises on Chrystie Street hoping to figure out why I liked his stuff which, on the face of it, could be easily dismissed as not-serious.
I think I've figured out why I like it. Obviously, if one wants to see depictions of the penis, there are millions of far more realistic and glorified editions available at the click of the mouse, so that can't be it. Also, it isn't the street-naif/Basquiat quality that he works. I'm not really a fan of that dialect. It's something else. And our attendance gave me the opportunity to figure it out.
His unabashed homoeroticism is playful and entirely forthright. He seems to be uninflicted with any guilt that needs resolution or repression against which one must revolt. It's as if boldness has no home in him. He simply depicts what he wants to depict. Sex is a non-issue. It is something that we think about and seek out because we are sexual beings. That is the refreshingly short extent of his agenda.
The Baad Lamb, who paints his own t shirts, one of which he wore to this opening, snagged one of Scooter's.
Oh by the way, if you're at work in one of those places where folks run to supervisors complaining about being subjected to offensive visual images or sounds when they walk by your cubicle, this video and these photos are entirely NSFW, in a very innocent way, and, for you more high brow types, yes, I know this isn't Sargent or Homer or Caravaggio or VanGogh, or even Stuart Davis, and you will claim that I just like it because Scooter is hot in that way that I like men to be hot. Just can it and let your inner child out to play for awhile.
This is why I go out for coffee rather than make it, and why I always schlep my camera. There's always something going on in my neighborhood. Today, "Live with Regis and Kelly" staged a Guinness world record breaking pie fight outside their studio. Don't be horrified at the waste of food (coconut custard pies from Stew Leonard's). They made a sizable donation to City Meals to compensate for the stunt, and 67th Street never smelled so good.
You'll have to go to Bilerico after 10:30 AM EST today for my response to this:
Dear "Father" Tony: Your fanatically anti-Catholic efforts sadden me and I will pray for you because I think you need it desperately. Have you not asked yourself why you are attacking our clergy? Isn't it self-serving? Don't bother responding, you will have to answer to God our Father, not to us.
Yours in Jesus Christ, Maine Catholics who follow the teachings of the One True Church.
I am amazed that the New York Times seems to have gotten caught off guard with nothing prepared. It was widely known that she has been battling cancer for years.
In her older and zaftig years, she became a Connecticut fag hag with cache, but she was not really a nice person. The word bitch was a frequent descriptive. I look forward to the officially trotted out obit to see how any of that is handled.
Meanwhile, I have to say, she and Peter and Paul were my earliest music teachers. The first album I owned in this life was Peter Paul and Mary Live at the Bitter End. When they were not tutoring me, I was studying melody and harmony a la Joan Baez and John Phillips and Cole Porter, all infused with Gregorian chant. Not a bad school.
Today, Joe and I attended the star-studded memorial service for Bea Arthur at the Majestic Theater on 44th Street. Angela Lansbury hosted, and participants included Adrienne Barbeau, Zoe Caldwell, Norman Lear, Rue McClanahan, Ann Meara and Jerry Stiller, Rosie O'Donnell and Chita Rivera. Two hours of ribald recollections, funny stories and videos. The incredible Angela Lansbury, an octogenarian who moves with the coltish fluidity of a sixteen year old, opened the celebration by wonderfully belting out the song from Mame that was Bea Arthur's big solo, The Man in the Moon is a Lady.
I also had a chat with Michael Buckley from "What the Buck", caught up with Michael Wilson of the Hartford Stage Company, traded beauty secrets with Coco Peru and met a very handsome young man named Eric Garcia who plays piano and sings several nights a week at Chez Josephine on 42nd Street, the location of the after-party where I got the picture of Anne Meara seated across the table from Norman Lear.
The good news announced at the celebration by Executive Director Carl Siciliano is that the Ali Forney Center is naming its first housing facility the "Bea Arthur Residence"
Here are some stellar pics.
(Update: I've added some of Joe's pics to the batch, and here is his report.)
Whenever you tinker with something whose primary purpose in this world is to delight, you are bound to irritate some folks. (Check out the links and read the various comments at Curbed.)
Now that the scaffolding is beginning to be removed, like the bandages wielded by the husband of Muffy Potter Aston, we see what has been built for us as a replacement for the fountain designed by Philip Johnson for the center of the plaza in Lincoln Center.
I am so very satisfied with this photo that I am posting this now, but I've more to say about Diller Scofidio Renfrew, the architects of the renovation of Lincoln Center, and WET the people behind the fountain.
Our American churches may condemn us, but they don't murder us outright.
Let's not, however, take much pride in this one higher rung on the ladder of civilized behavior. If the extreme homophobes in our churches thought they could get away with murdering us, as do the Islamic extremists who, according to the report, in the course of just this year, have murdered at least 130 gay men in Iraq, they would do the exact same thing. Here, we have police protection and legal recourse against homophobic religious extremists. Without it, we would probably have been tortured and murdered as were these men. It's a chilling thought.
Our charming Darrin of the West Coast called my attention to this rightly suspecting I'd like it.
Of note are the regions most beset with Lust. Seems to me like with all them Bible Belt harlots runnin round, they oughter start sprayin thet bacon at the Piggly-Wiggly with some penicillin.
Hmm. No ovaries. No uterus. Two working balls (undescended). Sounds like a guy to me. Why are all these reporters being demure about the question we all want to ask the doctor who did the exam? Does she have a dick? Not that it should color our opinion about whether she should compete as a man or a woman, but it is the obvious last remaining question.
In any case, I can't imagine how painful it must be to have the whole world examining your private parts - internal as well as external. If ever there was someone who deserves some privacy it is this person. That gold medal will probably always conjure only bad memories. She'd probably be the first to turn it in for a chance at a normal life.
These stats are amazing. I guess "intersex" is not all that uncommon.
You know you’re at the vernissage of a good English artist when you approach the open bar expecting the usual sawdust wine and instead are offered gin with the instruction “Say when”! I am glad to report that I had the good fortune to view his/her show and finally met Genesis Breyer P-Orridge at “30 Years of Being Cut Up” at the Invisible Exports Gallery on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
It has been a few years since I saw him/her perform with Psychic TV at the Bowery Ballroom. S/he sent me a sly note when my review came to his/her attention. S/he remembered sending that note and dated that performance in terms of the death of his/her beloved Lady Jaye whose image on his/her forearm was revealed upon my following his/her instruction to “Push my sleeve up.”
Those of you who read me regularly know that I am dismissive of approximately 95% of the contents of any given category in this world. Genesis resides in the 5% that I respect. Before attending this event, I had enjoyed only his/her music, but now I am also entirely happy to report that the collaged visual images that comprise this show are intelligent and fascinating.
Those of you who read me regularly also know that I have little patience with trans folk who bristle at the limping of the English language in describing gender assignment, especially those who take up arms whenever they feel that innocently imperfect references disclose a malicious prejudice. Genesis famously plays with gendered words, and has done so for years, and is light years beyond those who harrumph about the indignities of inadequate grammar. On the subject of transgender issues, I’d also call your attention to his/her actions when faced with the prospect of performing at an Arizona venue that badly handled the business of bathrooms. Genesis is so much deeper than some whiney trans folk who seem to be playing in imaginary dollhouses with solipsistic house rules.
At one point in the evening, I whispered to Genesis that the crowd seemed unusually somber. I wondered why. Genesis bristled slightly and began to say that some things are beyond his/her control, but I supplied the answer to my own question. The mostly young crowd who filled the gallery was extremely reverential regarding their Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Eavesdropping while threading through the crowd, I heard many accounts of love for his/her music. I don’t think s/her realizes the extent of his/her following despite the passage of many years of COUM, Throbbing Gristle, TOPI and Psychic TV and all the other fantastic iterations of the mind of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. I don’t think Genesis realizes the durability of what s/he has built. This may be evidenced by the fact that Psychic TV will be touring exclusively overseas on their next outing. I think their American audience is underestimated.
And now for my focused review: Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is terrifically playful and is not afraid of using his/her own body as an expression of the playful exploration of identity. Cutting up everything in one’s life and rearranging the pieces can, with luck and intuition, tell you the truth with which you were born. Genesis tells us not to fear the cutting up. Genesis employs no artifice and hides behind no pretense or stylization. Like all prophets, Genesis tells us things that we appreciate but will never fully follow as we return home to the security of our own wigless, unaltered, unpainted, intact and pedestrian bodies.
S/he told me that this was his/her favorite among the images on display. S/he pointed out the tampon string and proclaimed it beautiful.
S/he asked me what I made of an adjacent picture. I told him/her it looked like the photos I received at my last colonoscopy. S/he said that s/he had had a colonoscopy recently and did I know what it disclosed? That s/he was full of shit. Obviously, Genesis had not swallowed the required Fleet products in advance of that scrutiny.
Ultimately, I think Genesis would find me lacking in audaciousness. I who admire him/her and can appreciate his/her voyages into unexplored regions and can only wonder about the strength of one who survives the loss of the beloved, might fail in his/her sight, but that is beyond my control and I am happy to know that somewhere is a creature who is fearless with a silly Psychic TV lyric that we sang together in the course of our encounter. You’re very nice. I like you. You’re very nice. Your eyes are ice. I think that I’m in paradise.
Let me stop here. Do your homework, lads. Get to know him/her. I’d have worn the t shirt but it’s in Florida.
PS: I have interviewed and photographed several trans people and I have begun to understand something about them . They seem to fear the lens. Where most people see bravado, I see fright. Their agreement to being photographed feels like an act of surrender. In a single instant, when they look from the lens to me, they are saying “I’m going to trust you. I do not know if you are worthy of that trust or if you will abuse it, but I am giving you the gift of trust.” In their photographed face, they convey a complete summary of their inner journey. Their faces seem to say “Look, I’ve taken my own very private road to where I am today. I’ve had to put up with criticism and disapproval and hatred and discrimination along the way. Now I place my creation in your hands. I am proud of what I have become. I trust you with all that I have become. Please be kind.”
Genesis, you needn’t worry about my camera. It loves you as do I from the safety of my own less cut up collage.
Here you will find a compete set of photos (NSFW) from the show which may be visited through October 18th.
Yesterday, we accompanied Joe and Jerry to a place we've never seen. Here are some pictures of our trip. There were deer, drag queens, bars, rustic ways, wooden houses, celebrities, bloggers, friends and hordes of extremely young men drinking drinks.
Apparently, we attended a "White Diamonds" themed party at a private home with an open floor plan and a gracious host. It has been erroneously reported that I was accused of cutting in the bathroom line. Actually, Jerry was the accusee. I brokered the peaceful settlement that braided the two lines, but not before the principal protester screamed "I know it doesn't show because of the botox but I'm really very angry about this." As he gladly repeated the effortlessly angry expression for the benefit of the camera, his companion whispered to me "You so have to Facebook this. His name is Scott Penney." It was a pleasure to meet you, Scott.
When the Baad Lamb looked over at my screen to watch this, he said "That is the way voices used to sound when they were not overprocessed". This is true. The electronic studio processing of a singer's voice today creates a product that is like Velveeta or a kind of audio anime.
You'll enjoy this. Martha and the Vandellas looking and sounding so happy, even when Ms. Reeves claims to have "tears all over my face".
PS: I saw this on Dray's blog. He is one of those guys who has a rarified sense of what to feature. You'll find him soon on Bilerico-NYC if the site owners ever manage to get it together for us. I am impatient.
Several months ago, I suggested we watch the Three Degrees perform MacArthur Park because it is truly wonderful, and now I suggest we watch four of the fluffiest bimbettes of the King family perform a relentlessly cheery song that even Mama Cass couldn't save in her hit cover of it. In 1969 so many different things were co-percolating in music. British invasion, Motown, folk, rock, etc. (Think of the diversity of Woodstock!) All of which was totally ignored by the King Family as they pranced and made pretty with pillows. I could not suffer this all the way to the end. Can you?
PS: I saw this on Postcards From Hell's Kitchen, a durably good blog that I don't visit often enough and whose custodian I think I may have met in the blur of the last five years.
I had a great time as an extra in a movie called Bear City. Filmed at the legendary New York leather bar The Eagle, this movie is described by its makers as a bear version of Sex and the City.
When the casting director asked me to bring a few different outfits, she specified that I should avoid red, white or black because those colors do not read well under the lights. She said that earth tones would be preferable. Earth tones? No black? This girl has obviously never been to The Eagle, I thought, but I managed to throw together an appropriate combination of grey, navy and olive. At one point in the filming, the director yelled for a pause and fetched a dark leather baseball cap to hide my radiantly silver hair that was casting some blinding light of its own.
During my three day stint, I was interviewed by some documentarians about the definition of bear. That is actually a tricky question to answer, but basically, a bear is a hairy masculine gay guy who is most often stocky. There are variations labeled cub, otter, panda, polar, etc.
I am still thinking through the matter of obesity as it relates to the bear culture. More on that soon.
The fabulous Michael Musto, and the rather well preserved Randy Jones of The Village People, both had cameos. I chatted with Mr. Musto who was not at all pleased at having to wait quite some time for his brief "nipple clamp" scene/cameo on the dance floor.
The weirdest part of this experience involved dancing with no music. We'd be given a couple of bars, and then it would cut to silence so that the dialogue would record correctly. Oddly liberating.
The best part of the experience was the camaraderie that develops among the extras during the long hours of waiting for the next scene in which we might be needed. And there was the exceptionally fine catering....
You can just about see my leather cap in the photo on page four of this Advocate piece about the filming of Bear City.
I learned a new phrase. When the director shouts "And back to one", everyone moves back to the exact positions they had at the beginning of the take. We all agreed that this would be a fine phrase utilized during sex.
This is the photo I've been waiting for. The famous brows look a little crooked and too wide (Did a nurse apply them?), but it's good to see that she can wrinkle an unbotoxed forehead. Under all the make-up and jumpy black hair is beauty that would shine if scrubbed.
In April, On Bilerico, I wrote about circumcision. Because the subject is back in the news as it relates to the transmission of HIV, I thought I'd forward a reaction that came in last night from a reader named Han.
I made my circumcision for the converting purpose of my muslim girlfriend's wishes. Her family arranged to my khatnah on their ritual way and it did not allow any skin to cover my glan. The circumciser pull my foreskin as much as he can to top and all extra skin over glan is removed by his sward then he made only sulture over edge. At this process he did not use any medicine. After healing, I and my gf like my all time exposed circ style. As for me, its not only hygiene but also my circ scar is love trade mark for my gf.
Dear Han,
Given your investment in her, I sure hope your gf doesn't one day cut off the relationship!
Well I'm not surprised. The Howard Chandler Christy murals are lush and playful (a detail provided below), but when a restaurant's food is as arthritic as its clientele, it closes.
The Baad Lamb and I, in our endless search for respectable brunch, decided to stay in the neighb one weekend and found we needed reservations to get into the C des A. For some inexplicable reason, I wore a thick silk pajama top, striped in brown, yellow, black and rust with huge clownlike flat pearl buttons. Maybe I just didn't want to look as funereal as the other blue hairs in the room. The place was stifling. We never went back. With a little clearing, it would make a great gay restaurant for those special occasions.
Delightful is the fact that the restaurant's owner wrote a memoir entitled Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen. There certainly were none in the food he served us.
I left the gym a few weeks ago at 10:30PM, and turning onto Broadway, I started my short walk home. I felt a sudden and strangely urgent quickening in the air followed immediately by a torrential wind-driven downpour. It was as if the sky had split in half. The fact that there was no time delay between the crowded lightning and thunder let me know that I was near the center of the storm. People dining all fresco across from Lincoln Center had no time to find shelter. Pedestrians shrieked and ran into traffic. Within a half hour, the microburst, as it was labeled by the 11PM TV weatherman who told me what I had just been through, was over. It had uprooted and ripped down more than 200 trees in a very small section of Central Park. The next day, Adrian Benape, the Parks Commissioner, toured the devastation and, in an oddly poetic statement, spoke of the horrible smell of torn tree limbs. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have been in the park where the damage was concentrated during the Microburst, with no way to guess which of the venerable and massive trees would fall next.
When the Baad Lamb and I toured the damage, the wood-chipping tree service trucks were already in full mobilization. I think that grinding up those trees is a lost opportunity. Benape should have offered the largest limbs and trunks for sale to wealthy New Yorkers who would love to renovate their kitchens and be able to say to their guests "These cabinets are made from a 150 year old Central Park oak that fell during the Microburst of 2009."
You will have to go to Bilerico tomorrow after 10:30AM for my response to the following:
Dear Father Tony, I am 22, Columbian and athletic. My English is very good, but sometimes I miss signals and make mistakes. At the gym an old guy was cruising me in the locker room. He followed me everywhere. Then he got angry and came up to me and said “Just so you know. I am not interested in you. You are not my type so you can stop all the attitude.” I didn’t know what to say and I felt bad and angry for the rest of the day. Did I do something wrong just because I did not talk to him? Wally
Dear FT, Got any good advice for a guy who is coming out of his closet at 52? Delayed Debutante
I don’t know whom she looked to in the preparation of her new album, but I Look To You ain’t much of a looker.
I really wanted to love this album because I love Whitney Houston and knew that she would survive her troubles, but if all we are left with is this empty album, better it would have been had she never sung again.
Misplaced trust and doubtful instincts are probably to blame here. In general, the songs on this album all contain too many words per note. This gives them a desperate and nervous tone. Also, the most gorgeous voice in the world has been humbled by her tough years. It seems to be in the process of transforming itself into the voice of Etta James who also had her tough years. Unlike Etta, this Whitney is not so believable, not a female made wise and cynical by what has befallen her. This is a Whitney still in hiding. I’d have rather heard her scream and miss the notes she used to own (as she did yesterday in Central Park) rather than hear her hobbled and cautious in her choices.
The album’s “big” song, Million Dollar Bill is forgettable. It is more like a losing lottery ticket that could have been worth a million dollars but instead is worthless. Odd that Alicia Keyes who professes idolatry for Whitney would have written this for her. See what I mean about bad instincts and choices?
A Song for You could have been the star of the album but falls flat. Why? The speculating about this is exasperating. Surely she couldn’t have been pleased with her cover of this great song. Surely she knew the song’s potential for her at this point in her career.
I am however looking forward to remixes of For the Lovers, a song that reminds me very much of Donna Summer’s recent and wonderful Stamp Your Feet.
Many people will buy this album. In a Park Slope restaurant this weekend, an unauthorized release was playing as we claimed table, and when I wondered aloud if this was “the new Whitney thing”, our breathless twink waiter gushed “Oh yes.”
Whitney needs to avoid everyone involved with I Look To You and try it again, looking only inside herself, and maybe at her mother and Auntie Dionne. I’ll be waiting.
Yesterday in Central Park. The review is actually too harsh. She seemed nervous as she ran on stage. Justifiably. She dispatched the Million Dollar Mess swiftly. She could barely hit the midrange of I Look To You with her backup girls supplying the intended notes. But an undeniable high point was her My Love is Your Love which showed us that the devolution of a diva is not always a bad thing. She has the whole realm of reggae and soul under her command and that should be her future product. There were hints of Aretha in her delivery.
If this album and her Central Park performance are evidence of her strength, I must assume that she can no longer hit and sustain those notes that roost in the pinnacles of the Chrysler Building. She is no longer Every Woman (Her closing song in Central Park) but she is some really good woman and I'm glad she's back.
I'm going to disagree with a number of gay activists and writers who simply love this ad. I think it's too sugary and too obvious an attempt to say that gay and straight are no different. If it was an ironic send up of the sort of fluff that state tourism agencies dish up, I'd like it more.
On the other hand, this ad makes its point beautifully and strongly.
And this one will make you smile. We were walking toward Central Park to view the tree damage caused by the recent "microburst" when we came upon a 100 Year celebration of Hostelling International's building on the Upper west Side. Designed by Richard Morris Hunt, the exterior is still handsome, but we were disappointed to find that the interior contains hardly a trace of its original ornamentation.
The singers, from Jersey City, call themselves The Reminescents (their spelling). I didn't get the names of the "Devil with the Blue Dress" dancers.
One good reason to read the obits is to finally meet folks whom you then wish you had known while they were upright. Edward Rondthaler is such a one.
I wonder if, at the age of 104, he was aware of how greatly the idiot's adventure known as "texting" has served to further his cause. If we produce a generation or two of youngsters who can spell only spontaneous abbreviations, we will have achieved Mr. Rondthaler's goal.
More seriously on the subject of phonetic spelling, the difficulty is in the freezing and thawing. You rule on the correct spelling of a word based on its current pronunciation, and within a few decades, when vocalization takes an inevitable turn (Think of Kate Hepburn's production of the vowel "a" as in "rather" in 20th century movie-speak.), you've to redo it. Oh but hold on. That was rather Mr. Rondthaler's point. Set the rules in stone, not the words, and the resultant fluidity will work forever. Very much what he did with photo-typesetting.
None of these vehicles lasts forever, and the distance between popular and forgotten has never been shorter than it is today, but if this is a harbinger, there is a second governing factor.
An addiction to constant worthless communication has been established in the herd. If the drug delivery system breaks down, I can't imagine that people on city sidewalks and in supermarkets and behind the wheel will all suddenly become quiet, thoughtful and alert to their surroundings.
Last year, In Miami Beach, I met a group of four very young and handsome gay Latinos who claimed to be entirely offline. Embracing an obscurity that shocked me, they claimed to shun Facebook and similar in favor of an anonymity that I hoped, at the time, would become trendy. In a world in which there is no "Guam" for the retreating, to be unreachable is almost impossible and matches my own convictions regarding the goodness of the "gay monastery" concept.
I wonder what became of those four. I had assumed they were each secretly on Facebook, unbeknownst to their comrades.
Will veiled secrecy become the new drug for the chatter-obsessed? God, I hope so, and if so, let that one trend be permanent.
