From The Ashes ...

No Justice, No Pizza

Notice I didn't publish a Gay Pride re-cap? Hmmm? Wondering where Our Hero was during the day that traditionally revolves around waving yo' hands up in the air and exclaiming "Is that Janet or Latoya? I can't tell from back here." I was being gyroic, of course. Observing a tradition buried deep in our gay roots. Indeed, a tradition from which the very (very) Gay Pride day we were celebrating was birfed. I spent the day engaged in social protest.

If you haven't read the story so far, I'll refer you here. As an aside, I had planned on posting it as an update to Devon's new website. But if you'll pardon the ill-timed analogy it seems the inmates are currently running the asylum, so while I'm following along (not surprisingly, I speak fluent nuts) and have managed to dope out most of what occurred along the way, I think I'll just watch this particular roadside pileup from across the street thank you. Get well soon, hooker.

In any case, I'm not sure when I brought it up, it may have been the day it happened, but at some point I mentioned to The Hellcat that Pride was coming up shortly, and perhaps we should surprise our "friends" down at Rivoli Pizza with a little old school "Out of the closets and into the streets" protest action. He mentioned it several times after that so I kept the idea on the burner, ready to launch a well-timed strike, but leaving the codes to the nuclear football in The Hellcat's hands should he choose to use them. Unfortunately, as is his fashion, he didn't decide to call a counterstrike until the night before pride, leaving me to crank up the support in rapid succession.. Which explains why I was designing a flyer to hand out for the next afternoon at 1:30 in the morning. It also explains why I openly scoffed at The Hellcat's plan to meet at 10 a.m. or some such nonsense. Oh, he is ambitious, that one. As if. If I was going to engage in my own social protest we were going to shoot for "sometime after noon". Hopefully, this trend will catch on. Why you do-gooder types schedule everything for 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning is beyond me. I don't see how you become less of an "agent for change" if you do it after a nutritious brunch and a couple of bloodys to fortify you. Say around 1 p.m.? Think about it.

And so it was that around the crack of noon we were scurrying about trying to "pretty up" for Pride and make plans for our protest . We left for the Kinko's around 12:40 (thank you very much) and we were on the way across town to the west side. Armed with 300 black and white flyers, 10 copies in full color, and a couple of copies of the story detailing the whole incident. Oh, and a backpack full of sex toys. You may think I'm joking. But I'm not. Don't ask. Somehow we decided to cross Fifth Avenue at one of the few streets where crossing was allowed and then proceeded to zig zag down to Christopher and Hudson. One zag led us in to Julius'. A place that makes my regulars look downright spry. We downed a quick (and awful) bloody and were going to circle around and come at it by Hudson St. Or so I thought. Don't ask me why I agreed to it, but it was decided that we would head for Christopher about two blocks east of Hudson and then follow Christopher St down. During the parade. Making a normally three minute walk into a 20 minute melange of tripping, stumbling, swearing and apologizing. But we finally arrived. Once I collected a now feudin' and a fussin' Hellcat and Kitten we started handing out flyers. Telling anyone who wore a rainbow anything, or had a boy or girlfriend in tow and was heading in to buy something that they should read the flyer before they spend their money. Many, many people did. And some, a few, went in anyway. But the most miraculous thing started to happen. People read the flyer. Some asked questions.

"This place?"

"Yes, apparently they'll take your money but you can't kiss your girlfriend."

"Dat's messed up."

"True dat."

OK I'm paraphrasing. But the point was they left. A lot of people left. And a pizzeria that's usually balls to the wall packed during the pride parade was decidedly empty. I guess that's why the owner's son appeared.

"You have to stop."

"Well no, we don't." I thought to myself.

The Hellcat took point and began yelling at the owner's son and then inside to the owner about how they threw him and his boyfriend out for kissing, and that's discrimination and he wanted an apology in The New York Times and this demand and that rant.... He's from California. I just continued handing out flyers and shooing customers away as I knew this was probably making the father's brain form an aneurysm. I was right. About a half hour later, the son came back out again..

"Please stop?"

My turn now.

"Sorry man, I was here that day, and I can tell you they weren't doing anything but kissing while we were waiting. And it wasn't dirty, and it wasn't inappropriate and it certainly wasn't something we needed to be chased out of the restaurant for. Now I'd like to know if that employee was acting on his own, or if this is a policy that's coming from your father? Because if he's acting on his own than he was acting inappropriately and someone needs to speak to him. And if it's the owner's policy than I don't understand why you're running an establishment that's within spitting distance of the biggest gayest pier in New York. And why on Christopher Street in 2004 that it's your business or a problem if two men kiss. So maybe we got your attention and maybe you're sorry now but we aren't leaving 'till we're done."

There was more, we talked a little back and forth, we were both pretty grown up about it. He said he wanted to apologize. I said it was a little late. He said he wanted to make it right. I said I was making it right by hitting them in the cash register where they would remember it next time. Then he left to find a cop. The Hellcat noticed it too.

"He's getting a cop."

"Let him," I said, "we're not doing anything illegal. We're not preventing people that want to go in from doing so. This is social protest and perfectly legal and within our rights."

A few minutes later a cop shows up.

"They want you to leave."

"I bet they do." I say, smiling.

Properly armed, The Hellcat chimes in with the aforementioned social protest and within our rights bidness.

"All right." Was all the cop said before walking away.

I sensed victory in our grasp.

After about an hour and a half of severe businessus interruptus, the owner and his son pulled The Hellcat inside. Just as well, we were running out of flyers. Ten minutes later he emerged, and announced our social protest was over. Apparently, they both apologized again for the incident and claimed it wouldn't happen again. They offered us food right then and there and they offered to buy dinner at another restaurant they own. We declined. They also promised to send a letter of apology to my site for me to post or to an e-mail address we had set up for responses. So we gathered up the rest of our things and jammed it into my backpack, right next to the buttplug, and headed north, away from the still partying crowd, as my psychic defenses had begun to crumble and I needed space. We re-funded me at an available ATM, and ended up walking towards Greenwich. It was at W. 10 St. that we made our sighting. Michael Musto in that putrid green track pant and T-shirt combination. I think I gasped aloud. It was that horrid. It was so horrid that cameras came out. She looked like she was about to panic. Or she was drunk. We mercifully (for her) decided not to document it with pictures. And to think I spent the last two hours defending the right to make bad fashion choices.

A much needed dinner at an Italian place on Greenwich followed. As always, I could find it again I just don't know the name. We all agreed that our mission was most definitely accomplished and out of all the ways that we could have chosen to spend Gay Pride, this was probably one of the best and certainly one to be able to tell the grandkids. Wait....

We also agreed that even if they didn't really mean the apology, we wanted to get one and we did. We're still waiting for the letter, but I'm not hopeful on that count. The point then? In spite of the banner years we've been having lately in the courts, in City Hall, the strides we've made on television and in print, more work needs to be done. Despite the fact that I live in one of the most socially tolerant, live and let live cities in the world, I can still be walking down the street and have a delivery guy call me faggot in Spanish. I could still be told to not kiss my boyfriend in a Christopher St. pizzeria. If I let them call me that. If I let them tell me that. Or I make a few hundred flyers and take the time to get my ass off the couch and show up for something that matters. I make sure I play it for maximum effect, becoming the big mouthed faggot you sometimes need to be if you want people to pay attention to you. You take the time to say: This Is Wrong! How else are you going to make it right?

NO KISSING ALLOWED.htm