Hi, god? Yeah, it's me ...

Uh, yeah you can take me anytime you want now. I'm pretty much done ...



Come back later for the story behind this photo.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off

I bought a bike. Specifically, this bike:
Longtime readers will remember I made several attempts to join the pedal-people. They all resulted in the heartbreak that is street crime. Two of my bikes were stolen off the street and another was taken right out of my (supposedly) secure apartment building. I may have finally solved the riddle as this bike is foldable so's I can conceivably take it to work and bring it right in to my office. Ditto for carrying it to my apartment. Or at the very least I can fold it up and stash it in my building better. It's due to arrive sometime this week, and I'm told it comes mostly assembled. Which is good 'cause I don't know nothin' bout brakes and gears.

More To Come ...

The show was a lot of fun. Deborah hosted karaoke for about two full hours and sang live. She ended up doing at least five numbers herself with our backup singers, and everyone got a chance to sing and take lots of pictures. A few people even got her to join them onstage for their karaoke moment on Broadway. She was very gracious. Wait till I tell you what happened after the show finished and Deborah and Co. left ...

Shake Your Love

I slept like the dead the last two nights. I'm just pretty run down. I have been trying to get a little more exercise, at least three days a week, and I did just get a fresh round of blood work done, so if anything is amiss (doubtful) I'll find out soon.

- Deborah Gibson at L.A. Pride. 2007

Be that as it may, we'll be having a special guest host for our Everything 80's Karaoke Night tonight, and if you're in New York City you are welcome to come by, there are tables still available. Deborah (formerly Debbie) Gibson will be having dinner, hosting and performing live, and there's no cover charge to get in. That's right, FREE! You do need to have dinner if you want a table but you could always come by for drinks and it's only $10 to sing live on our stage and make an appearance on the 40 foot tall jumbotron high over Broadway. Only In My Dreams you say? Not so! Relive your Electric Youth and join Long Island-born Deborah right before she begins a three week engagement at Harrah's in Atlantic City during May.

Much To Tell

But I'm pretty beat. Up at 8am and at my desk by 10. I had payroll to get done, had to visit the bloodsuckers to get fresh lab work done and then back to work for a couple of wildly unproductive meetings. After that I ran the door for R&B night which was stoopid busy tonight. Ashanti was the headliner but I was so worn out I took off as soon as the door was closed and the room was completely full. Ashanti hadn't even gone on yet but I ran out the back door to walk the pooch and be with my boyfriends, Ben & Jerry.

Best Laid Plans

I was so looking forward to this weekend. Not sure why as it wasn't particularly stressful or busy, but this week left me completely exhausted. By Friday night I was running on empty, and unfortunately our computer system had a mini-crash. Not the full fledged meltdown of a few months ago but it was bad enough that I couldn't fix it on my own. I had to call tech support and spent the first two hours of my shift trying to help them ascertain the problem over the phone and getting it fixed. Which I did, but I think that was all the crisis management energy I had left. I spent the bulk of that night and yesterday chatting and making lists for next week. Hopefully I'll be more energetic by then.

So my plan today was to go out and enjoy the spring weather with Jet on a long walk and some time in Tompkin's Square park looking for shirtless Latin boys. Alas, the weather didn't cooperate and took about a 20 degree drop overnight. I must have sensed it because I shut off the alarm clock and slept until almost 1:00 this afternoon. I got out of bed almost as creaky and tired as I got in. I quickly decided the park was out, and spent the bulk of the day working on some photography projects I've been meaning to get to.

I framed the shot of me and my bff Bill, and printed out some new b&w images I made for the kitchen hallway. I also spent a good deal of time deleting files and photographs I don't think I'll ever have use for. While I was going through things I ran across this picture I don't think I ever posted. We hosted a private party several months ago for a gay male couple that were about to finalize an adoption. Not the kind of gay shower I'm used to having but nice nonetheless. Of course, being gay dads they had the event catered and decorated. It's our way. In addition to all the fresh flowers and freely flowing Pinot Grigio one of the decorators brought in hundreds of stuffed animals. They were all over the tables and on the bar and wired to the railings. I think they even made party favors out of them. They had so many stuffed animals that they simply ran out of places to put them. Or so you would think. You know you're at a gay baby shower when:

Too Gross?

Or just gross enough? See you on MySpace!

Spring Is Here

Stuyvesant Park, NYC. April 16, 2008

In answer to Tommy's question, coincidentally spring finally sprang here in the city just this week. We've had a few warm days here and there, and the spring daffodils and tulips finally got sick of waiting and just bloomed, but most of the trees are still bare or just starting to bud and flower. This week the temperature started out downright nippy but climbed a few degrees with each passing day. Today we'll kiss 70, and tomorrow is supposed to be warmer still. Plants in the park have started growing by leaps and bounds. Went to a Gay-A meeting yesterday and all most of them talked about is how spring weather makes them want to drink. Go figure.

Office Decor

I decided to spend a very small amount of money and a bit more energy and spruce up my office just a tad. I actually share a bullpen office of sorts with all the restaurant/nightclub managers, There was a whiteboard on the wall near my head that was recently confiscated by the owner. It was a glorified giant note pad so I'm sure it's being put to better use now. I couldn't resist a blank wall so close to my line of vision, so I brought in a wall clock I had sitting on a shelf at home. Yesterday I did a little thrift shopping and found hundreds of albums (remember those?) on some shelves in a store on 2nd Ave. I took about 40 minutes before I had a collection I thought I liked. I have no idea who Art Mooney (middle, right) is but I loved the woman and the CHACHACHA graphic on the album cover. None of them was over $3.00. Kind of a cute message all-purpose board and I can change them out when I get sick of them. The dollar bills on the wall are what I charge one of the nightclub door people every time he borrows a pen from me.

Oh, Canada!

Here's a delightful story from our neighbors to the North. Members of an HIV/AIDS support group claim an airport security guard wanted the lounge they waited in and the plane they flew on wiped down after they used them.

read the full story here:

fucking lovely!

Around The 'Net

Here's a look at some pretty awsome sights that have made it to my bookmarked list. So you know they are either smart, funny or dirty.

You can find all three qualities wrapped up in the new web site from the fine folks at South Park. When you need a fix just hop on over to South Park Studios. From there you can watch the latest episode as well as download clips and stream classic episodes in full. You know anyone that names one of their navigation tabs "crap" is OK in my book.

Another fantastic new web site I can't recommend enough can be found at Hulu.com. Go here for links to clips of comedy sketches as well as full episodes of Buffy, Bewitched, and Battlestar Galactica as well as an outstanding library of full feature films (!) including one of my all-time favorites, The Jerk starring Steve Martin.

I also have been a long time "fan" of the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks which hunts for and collects reader submissions of ill-conceived and sometimes professionally made road, menu and informative signs from all over the country.

And that, of course, eventually and just recently led me to the wildly (for me) entertaining Typo Hunt Across America, in which a band of like-minded travelers, armed with some markers and a Typo Correction Kit, set out to find and correct typos in menus, signs and in shops all across this great illiterate land of ours. Very entertaining.

Attention Applicants

If you show up off the street asking to fill out a job application or in answer to an internet ad and you do not have a pen with you to fill out said application you are officially, in my book, a dumb-ass and you will have no chance whatsoever of being hired for a job.

That is all .

OMG I Want!

Must. Resist. Don't look at ... face!

How To Dress For Embarrassing Press

Dress code for embarrassing press: Wife should wear light blue jacket, one strand of pearls if husband is gay, two strands if husband fucks hookers. Husband's tie should be red, white & blue with stripes going northwest to southeast for hookers, northeast to southwest for gay. Severity of chagrin on husband's face: optional.

Where Are They Now?

Oh, poor Flash. He's really let himself go ...

Something To Talk About

By POZ founder Sean Strub - via Huffington Post

The Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS released a remarkable statement a few weeks ago that opened the door to the possibility of sex without condoms for people with HIV.

Citing their review of a long string of studies measuring HIV transmission from people with HIV to HIV-negative partners, the Commission concluded that sex without condoms is possible for some people with HIV under certain conditions. Those conditions are specific: the person must currently be on anti-retroviral therapy, have had an undetectable viral load for six months and not have other active sexually transmitted infections.

The commission estimated the risk of transmission, under the cited circumstances, at less than one in 100,000. That's six times the risk of getting hit by lightning (according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's risk estimate of one in 600,000), but it is remote enough for the Swiss commission to declare such persons not sexually infectious and state they cannot propagate HIV through sexual contact.

This unambiguous declaration was authored by four of Switzerland's foremost HIV experts: Prof. Pietro Vernazza, of the Cantonal Hospital in St. Gallen, and President of the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS, Prof. Bernard Hirschel from Geneva University Hospital, Dr. Enos Bernasconi of the Lugano Regional Hospital (and former President of the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS), and Dr. Markus Flepp, president of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health's Sub-committee on the clinical and therapeutic aspects of HIV/AIDS.

Interpreting the Swiss statement as "permission" to stop using condoms would be a mistake. So too would dismissing it altogether or denying its powerful message of hope.

There are important considerations which were not addressed by the Swiss statement. The research they reviewed was based on heterosexual couples; undetectable viral loads sometimes suddenly spike; and there is a difference between viral load in sperm and viral load in blood. Each must be better understood before foregoing condoms.

Those caveats and concerns not withstanding, this is still an earth-shaking development for people with HIV. Possible liberation from the most burdensome and intrusive restraint on sexual intimacy offers powerful hope for more meaningful, pleasurable sex, without shame or fear.

Perhaps more surprising than the substance of the Swiss statement is its assumption of what has been largely unacknowledged: anti-retroviral therapy is an effective risk reduction and HIV-prevention strategy, at least on a community basis, even though not always medically appropriate on an individual basis.

The most common response from public health officials and HIV prevention experts to the Swiss statement, so far, has been either to ignore it or to point out its limitations while reflexively reaffirming the traditional message to "use a condom every time". There is little popular support for speaking out in favor of expanding the sexual safety zone for people with HIV.

But just as it is a mistake to consider the Swiss guidelines completely risk-free, so too is it a mistake to think condoms are risk-free. The "condom code", which orders their use every time one has sex, generally ignores the risk of breakage (between 1% and 7%, depending on the study) and does not take viral load into consideration.

The Swiss findings suggest the tantalizing--and as-yet unproven--prospect that careful adherence to their guidelines may actually present less risk of HIV transmission than a sole focus on using condoms without consideration of viral load. (Using both--the "belt and suspenders" approach--would reduce risk even further.)

The wiser response to the Swiss statement would be an urgent call to scientific, medical and epidemiological experts, community members and behavioral scientists to pool their collective wisdom and develop detailed new safer sex guidelines that recognize viral load as an important factor in reducing risk.

The HIV prevention establishment is concerned about sending the wrong message about what is safe and unsafe. Yet their reluctance to engage the communities they serve in an honest and open discussion about risk reduction strategies, or the possibility of sex without condoms, is at the heart of what is wrong with HIV prevention efforts.

A response to the Swiss report from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS dismissed it with "more research is needed" and virtually ignored the substance of the report, saying that "A comprehensive HIV prevention package includes, but is not limited to, delaying sexual debut, mutual fidelity, reduction of the number of sexual partners, avoidance of penetration, safer sex including correct and consistent male and female condom use, and early and effective treatment for sexually transmitted infections."

The WHO and UNAIDS did not acknowledge the risk/benefit negotiation inherent in discussion and disclosure of one's HIV status. Nor did they mention other widely-used risk reduction strategies, like withdrawal before ejaculation, or sero-sorting (choosing sexual partners of the same HIV status as oneself) and sero-positioning (choosing sexual positions that present less risk to the HIV negative partner) or pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis.

Failing to fully engage with the community perpetuates the problem public health authorities ought to combat. Stigmatization, prejudice and disempowerment thrive on ignorance. So does HIV transmission. Instead of dismissal, the Swiss statement should be embraced as an opportunity to raise levels of HIV prevention literacy.

Understanding how antiretroviral treatment reduces one's risk of transmission may incent some people to get tested or to commence treatment. The health of at-risk communities--and especially of people with HIV--has depended on having facts and finding hope where it exists. The Swiss statement advances both objectives.

Early in the epidemic, fear of HIV was so great it was necessary to hold press conferences to announce that kissing people with HIV was safe. There are cases where kissing was identified or suspected as the means of transmission, yet they are so rare and only in such extraordinary circumstances that no one has suggested amending the "kissing is safe" message.

In fact, the Swiss statement points out that there is more scientific foundation for their new guidelines than there was for the 1986 announcement that HIV could not be transmitted through kissing.

The question of HIV transmission via oral sex, of any kind, has also had an important evolution. For most of the 1980s, the message was to always use condoms for oral sex. Not many people were willing to do so. A few gave up oral sex but most chose to accept the relatively small risk it posed.

The science and prevention establishment eventually caught up with popular practice. AIDS service organizations and public health officials that once insisted on the necessity to "use a condom every time" for oral sex now routinely categorize oral sex as low-risk or relatively safe.

While risk cannot be quantified precisely, the extremes of "high (unacceptable) risk" and "low (acceptable) risk" are recognized, including that they differ by individual. The Swiss have rightly brought viral load into the risk calculus, revolutionizing the paradigm of HIV prevention, and placing condoms in their proper place, as one tool among many to be utilized to prevent HIV transmission.

HIV prevention efforts in the US would do well to heed the leadership of the Swiss by focusing on the efficacy of risk-reduction strategies, rather than the misleading, unattainable but political expedient holy grail of supposed "risk elimination".

The focus of public health officials and many HIV prevention experts is on controlling, restricting and regulating the sexual behavior of people with HIV rather than informing them with the facts they need--including the truth about relative risks and harm reduction strategies--to make safe choices, take care of themselves and protect others.

Failing to embrace the opportunity presented by the Swiss statement--to stimulate community discussion, improve the ability of individuals to accurately assess risk and encourage more research--is irresponsible.

Sadly, it is emblematic of a continued disempowerment of people with HIV and a failure to acknowledge our profound interest in understanding risk in order to reduce HIV transmission. We are treated like pariahs, our right to intimate sexual relationships denigrated and denied, instead of as vital partners in a shared commitment to end the epidemic.