Hey, Look Who Made It In The Local Fag-Rag!

AS THE HEALTHCARE WAR CONTINUES to rage in Washington, the Callen-Lorde Community Health center in Chelsea continues to do its part as New York’s largest healthcare facility dedicated to LGBT communities and those living with HIV—providing sensitive, quality healthcare and related services regardless of ability to pay. “LGBT people know they can see a medical provider, dentist or therapist at Callen-Lorde who will be knowledgeable about their needs and sensitive in their approach to care,” says Callen-Lorde Executive Director Wendy Stark. It takes a skilled group of medical and mental health staff, dentists, pharmacists, care coordinators, nurses and administrative staff to provide over $4.5 million annually in healthcare, education and outreach for the uninsured but, as Stark points out, the “staff are truly dedicated to our mission—and it shows in the personalized attention they offer to each patient.”

Ever Hear Of Gratitude?

Lux Living is a blog written by and for the residents of nearby Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. It is a WWII era housing complex that up until a few years ago, was run as if it were a private gated community in the middle of Manhattan. The residents, many of whom were born in the complex and have lived there for decades, have been spoiled rotten by years of over-indulgent amenities including private security, landscaping and all manner of rules and regulations, are now losing their minds as the complex was sold in one of the largest real estate deals in history. Hundreds if not thousands of the long-term tenants are paying as little as $600 in rent, despite the fact that they are successful professionals, doctors, lawyers or well-to-do retirees and new management has set about renting apartments to students, young professionals and non-whites. The following is lifted from a comment thread, in a post ostensibly about noise complaints lodged at other tenants. This is why I hate them:

Ah, Donalda... here's a nice fresh example of her inability to be helpful.

On Wednesday morning I submitted a maintenance request online to have one of the wee halogen light bulbs in the fixture over my kitchen sink replaced. By 9 AM this morning I'd not received a phone call to arrange a handyman visit.

I phoned Donalda and left v.m. (Does she *ever* answer her phone?) A couple hours later someone named Teresa (?) called to schedule an appointment for NEXT TUESDAY.

I chuckled and said, "Really? *I* can install the bulb; I just need a handful of replacements because they keep burning out."

"Is Tuesday at 4:15 good for you? Will you be home or does the handyman have permission to enter the apartment?"

"Wait a second. It would take all of thirty seconds for a handyman to stop by and give me the bulbs. Seriously, this cannot be accomplished until almost five days from now?

"No."

"Can I go and pick them up from the workshop or wherever?"

"No."

Trough clenched teeth I said Tuesday was fine and hung up. I immediately called Donalda for the second time this morning, left v.m. for the second time this morning, asking her to please call me back ASAP. That was around noon-ish. I've yet to hear back. She knows why I want to chat.

Here's an idea. How about you take some of the tens of thousands of dollars you don't pay in rent every year, get up off of your lazy spoiled ass and take a walk across the street to the hardware store and buy the fucking bulb yourself? You obviously (judging by the multiple phone calls) have plenty of free time.

Ticked Off Trannies

After unexpectedly getting a night off due to anemic ticket sales, I suddenly realized I would have an opportunity to check out what turned out to be a controversial entry in to last year's Tribeca Film Festival. Ticked Off Trannies With Knives, after initially receiving some positive support from more "mainstream" gay media groups like GLAAD, suddenly found itself the focus of a lot of negative notices after a group of actual "trannies" found the title alone to be offensive.

There ensued much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as much of the LGBT press on both coasts took sides. Ultimately, while the protesters failed to get the film pulled from Tribeca, The New York Times ended up censoring the title, and Ticked Off T****ies was listed on movie clocks and some press coverage.

I really wanted to see the film myself before I made up my mind, a craaaaaazy concept in this day and age I know, but I ended up working through most of the screenings. So when I saw a notice that it had returned to the major markets this week, I looked for a chance to see what the fuss was about.

The theater is on 12th street in between the East and West Village, very near NYU, and this was a Thursday night. While I didn't expect the screening to be sold out, I did think there would be some like-minded people, this is NYC, that would be there. If nothing else, I assume there are people that literally go to everything.

So imagine my surprise when I arrived at the theater about 10 minutes before showtime and I was the only person in the entire place. Still thinking there would be at least a smattering of people wandering in I took out a magazine and my crackberry and started reading and cleaning out my email. The movie started and I settled in, quite comfortably with no one to block my view or take up my armrest.

After seeing the film, I confess I don't agree that it was exploitative, nor do I think it promotes or encourages violence towards transsexuals. I also know that I've met many many trans women that support themselves performing in gay clubs as well as stripping or exotic dancing. I understand many trans people have everyday "normal" jobs, but this film wasn't about them, and these people, the ones in the film, do actually exist. I suspect all the protest was as much about an opportunity to get some press for people with a larger agenda as much as it was actual outrage over the actual content of the movie.

In any case, the movie really needed another screenwriter more than it needed to be more politically correct. The acting was OK and some of the line readings rang true, but most of those seemed like they might have been improvised, which is more a testament to the actors than the director. But there was a beginning a middle and an end, which I was always taught is the most important requirement for a story, it's just that the middle got quite a bit messy and really would have benefited from another edit. Or two. Overall, I've spent $11 on much worse.

As the credits rolled and before the lights went up I took a look behind me to see who had come in last-minute. It was then that I realized that I had just experienced a first. I was the only one there. My first private screening. Just me in a 150 seat theater. I wonder if they would have actually shown the film if I hadn't bought that one ticket?

9 years later ...

More! NYC Pride 2010

This was our section leader. I would have followed him off a bridge.

Spectator that caught my eye.

NYC Pride 2010 (Part 2)

I almost jerked off right there on the street when I saw this one...

Stair Bears

NYC Pride 2010 (continued)

Chicken ordering ... chicken.

NYC Pride 2010

I've taken about 150 or so photos of the parade and the Pride festival. Some of them are for the new issue of the newsletter I'm putting together for Callen-Lorde. A few of them I've edited and sent out to a couple of on-line publications in the hope I'll get another photo credit under my belt. Some of them suck and won't be seeing the light of day anywhere. And because you, my tens of readers, have remained faithful for the last 7 years or so that this here blog thingy has been in existence, you get the first, and in some cases exclusive look, at the hottest guys and the greatest photos before they go on to my Facebook page and before I put them in a Flickr album. Enjoy.








More to come ...

If It's Friday's It Must Be Gay Pride

Just got back from a hot (in more ways than one), humid Gay Pride parade. I joined the group marching from Callen-Lorde at around 11:30 this morning and we were penned in to our holding area until we joined the parade close to 2 hours later. I snapped some pictures of the parade as it moved past our barricaded side street, and the police, who couldn't have been nicer, offered to let me move in to the street to get closer, but I decided to go snap some shots of other groups waiting their turn. In case you can't tell from the pictures I post, I prefer more candid, "in the moment" photography. More voyeuristic, which appeals to me on many levels. I marched with my group until around 14th street and then decided I was missing too much and broke off running ahead. Considering it was about 1 million degrees on the street I was a sweaty mess in no time.

I ended up "setting up camp" as it were on a stretch of Christopher Street between 6th and 7th Ave, were I got some great shots. As I finally started to wilt in the afternoon heat and the parade appeared to be winding down I moved over to the Pride festival, which seemed bigger and better organized this year. I refueled with a sausage and pepper sandwich, free ice cream courtesy of Ben & Jerry (thanks guys) and free hydration courtesy of Fuze. It's good to be gay.

I've already started editing pictures, but I literally have upwards of 150 to look at. So this could take a while. But I had to show you the sign under the awning at the brand new Friday's that opened in Union Square. As I walked by this morning on my way to the parade they had set up a big round table outside and a staff meeting was going on. I overheard something about "getting ready" and "shirts off" (I swear!), so apparently that's one more corporation that has decided a little pandering goes a long way. And who am I to argue with shirtless wait staff?

Real pictures throughout the next day or so as they are finished.

Mommie Dearest- Interactive

Went to an "interactive" screening of Mommie Dearest in honor of Gay Pride week. Interactive meaning the film was cut with sound effects (farting), boring exposition scenes were fast forwarded, and all the fighting and classic lines, the good stuff, was re-wound and repeated for maximum camp. Two slaps became 10, and the living room fight scene came with ringside commentary. It was a blast. There are two more showings tomorrow and Saturday if you're so inclined.

Real Estate Porn

Interesting article and great pictures from a property nearby on 14st. For years the top floors had been vacant while the bottom housed a grimy check-cashing joint. Several years ago the space was gutted and re-done. The street level facade was interesting and mysterious. I always wondered what was behind it. Turns out it was a ridiculously cool brownstone project where the entire second floor wall facing the street opens up. I'm assuming you need to at least wear clean undies at all times. I would. Probably. Here's a shot of the outside and the gorgeous living room. I love that couch!


-via New York Magazine

No Lucy, You Can't Be In The Show

So I decided to try and cross a few things off my bucket list, and I've always wanted to be on a game show. But not just any game show. I have no interest in any show where I have to jump up and down, mindlessly applaud myself or fall on the floor when I'm offered a car. I want to be a contestant and hopefully win some money, but escape with my dignity, or the illusion that I have some, intact.

So I arranged for an audition to be a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. By arranged, I mean you go to the Millionaire website and find the link for contestant auditions. Basically , since I live in NYC where the show is taped, all I had to do was request a couple of days for an audition when I was available and they answered within 24 hrs via e-mail.

So Monday evening at 6:30 was my audition date and time. And I got lost. In NYC. Where I've lived for 20+ years.

The ABC studios are located on W 66th street. And I've absolutely walked by there on many occasions. But I didn't really "know" know where the studio was located? Y'know? So when I got on the subway I was planning on getting out at 57th and 7th, which would have put me about 9 blocks and 15 minutes away from where and when my audition was. But at the last minute I second-guessed and stayed on the train until 59th & 5th. And when I got off the train I was outside Central Park. Somehow I ended up heading west instead of north, and when I started to panic at the thought of being late, I tried to cut through the park and found myself completely opposite where I needed to be, on the east side of Central Park. I finally had my bearings but realized I was screwed.

So I ended up running and walking up 5th avenue to 66th street and then across the park to the west side. By the time I arrived at the ABC studios I was sweating like a pig, gasping for breath ... and late for my audition time. I was put 1st in line for standby at the 7:00 audition. Which was actually a blessing as it took the full 1/2 hour before I stopped sweating buckets and my shirt was reasonably dried out.

I got in with the 7:00 group of auditioners, about 30 people in all. And the audition is actually a test. You are handed a souvenir magnet, a manila envelope with the test inside, and a scan-able answer card with a No. 2 pencil. The test is 30 multiple choice questions, and you have 10 minutes to answer them. It goes by fast.

I thought I did well on the test, which is a mix of pop culture questions just like on the show. I only struggled with about 7 or so out of the 30. By my reckoning, I got about 22-23 out of 30 questions correct. But I guess that's not good enough, as right after the time is up they collect the scan cards and feed them in to a computer. About 2 minutes later they are announcing by number who has passed and will go on to a taped interview with a producer, and who has failed. About 3 minutes later you are out on the sidewalk where you started.

Or rather, I was.

You are, of course free to take the test another day, and as many times as you like. I overheard one gentleman talking on the phone that this was his fourth attempt, And his fourth failure. I suppose I might someday, as I abhor being told I can't do something. I at least would like to pass the test, even if I get rejected at the interview. I don't like feeling too dumb to be on Millionaire. It makes watching the show and screaming out the answers infuriating instead of fun.

I threw out the souvenir magnet.

Trouble On W. 24th

Gay Men's Health Crisis co-founder Larry Kramer posts a lengthy and scathing letter regarding the impending relocation of GMHC from it's long-time home on W24th to a new location. Reportedly without some vital services many of their clients need and most certainly want. I've linked to the entire page as it also contains a companion reaction from Famous Lesbian Urvashi Vaid, as well as a call to protest and an open letter from the GMHC Community Advisory Board (CAB).

Somehow a building was eventually located that GMHC's leadership felt they could afford. It is in the Associated Press building on 33rd Street and Tenth Avenue. For people with AIDS it will be an awful and unsatisfactory home. It is an indication of the board's desperation that it has been willing to accept terms and restrictions that are out of another era.

Here are only some of them:

No kitchen or cooking facilities will be allowed. GMHC is famous for its daily hot meals, which, for many clients, is the only food they get. I repeat: for many of their clients this is the only food that they get.

Clients will be forced to enter through a specal entrance and use a special elevator,lest the regular tenants see them. Staff will be allowed to use the regular entrance and elevator. This represents an institutionalized apartheid that past leaders of GMHC would have denounced and refused to countenance.

No medical facilities or activities will be allowed. This could literally be a real killer. Most clients come to GMHC for regular testing, counseling, clinical trials, to see their doctors, and to receive related services, all under one roof. The medical and testing facilities are located on the ground floor of their current West 24th building. These services, which provide grant funding for GMHC, are financed by generous contributions by the David Geffen Foundation and the Michael Palm Foundation, and are administered by New York Hospital/Weill Medical Center. Without these facilities located in the same place as their daily hot meals, (which they will now also not be getting) what reason would clients have to come to GMHC at all?"

Madonna On "Milk"

"But you know, what the movie triggered for me was all my early days in New York and the scene that I came up in-you know, with Andy Warhol and Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf. It was just so alive with art and politics and this wonderful spirit. So many of those people are dead now. I think that's one of the reasons I cried. In fact, the character that Richard E. Grant plays in the film I directed, Filth and Wisdom [2008], is this blind professor who was based on my ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn. Growing up in Michigan, I didn't really know what a gay man was. He was the first man-the first human being-who made me feel good about myself and special. He was the first person who told me that I was beautiful or that I had something to offer the world, and he encouraged me to believe in my dreams, to go to New York. He was such an important person in my life. He died of AIDS, but he went blind toward the end of his life. He was such a lover of art, classical music, literature, opera. You know, I grew up in the Midwest, and it was really because of him that I was exposed to so many of those things. He brought me to my first gay club-it was this club in Detroit. I always felt like I was a freak when I was growing up and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't fit in anywhere. But when he took me to that club, he brought me to a place where I finally felt at home. So that character in Filth and Wisdom was dedicated to him and inspired by him. I don't know why I'm bringing all this up, but I guess it's just coming from that world in Michigan and the trajectory of my life: after going to New York and being a dancer when the whole AIDS epidemic started and nobody knew what it was. And then suddenly, all these beautiful men around me, people who I loved so dearly, were dying-just one after the next. It was just such a crazy time. And watching the world freak out-the gay community was so ostracized. But it was also when I was beginning my career. . . . I don't know. Your movie really struck a chord for me and made me remember all that. It's a time I don't think many people have captured on film. It's a time that people don't talk about much. And even though there was so much death, for me, New York was so alive." -via Interview magazine

End Of An Era

The obituary for St. Vincent’s, when it is finally written, will recall that the hospital’s greatest moment—and its darkest—came in the eighties, as it found itself quite awkwardly in the thick of the global AIDS plague. The flood of patients was extreme, spilling into every available bed, then throughout the surrounding corridors, where masking tape marked off virtual rooms.

For anyone familiar with those rooms and those days, news of St. Vincent’s demise has been hard to accept. There is no true standing memorial to HIV victims, even though there were more from New York by 1995 than U.S. deaths in the Vietnam War. So the bland sarcophagus along Seventh Avenue holds that place in the geography of our plague memory; it is a museum, almost, a place haunted by Whitman’s “carols of Death.” We see the ghosts as we pass there even now, we hear their voices, their last words, we remember their weight in our arms, the way they vanished from those rooms.

read more

Ridiculously Cool - But Dangerous

Messengers from NFGTV on Vimeo.

Meanwhile ...

As I strolled around Union Square before the pillow fight event, there were already hundreds of people making great use of a sunny spring Saturday.

I wandered up to this group of men putting on a demonstration of the Afro-Brazilian dance Capoeira. Hot men in a circle will always get my attention. Just for the possibilities.




And one more of this man because ... well ... jesus.



And finally, in what may be my favorite picture of the day:



Gorgeous bod, great hair, sexy without really trying and smart to boot! (you can tell by the glasses)What's not to love?

Fight!

Saturday I had planned on taking a trip across town to spend the afternoon photographing from the High Line. As I was getting my camera and supplies ready the night before I came upon a link to a happening in Union Square which seemed a much better bet. They were advertising the World's Largest Pillow Fight. Over 150 cities participated this year, and the New York crowd was estimated at 5000+. If you count the observers in and around the park, 5000 was on the low side.

The site published a Facebook page, and there were rules. Among them:

+ Soft, feather-free pillows only!
+ Swing lightly, many people will be swinging at once.
+ Do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras.

Well, the feather pillow ban was good in theory, but thank goodness that it was ignored by some, as the crowd roared whenever a feather pillow burst open and disgorged feathers to the wind.

People did in fact swing lightly, especially at first as there were many young kids in the crowd, Nobody was beating down children and in fact, some people made it a point to engage them and have little mini-fights with the kiddies.

But after about an hour and a half, as the event started to thin out a little, things got a little rougher. It started innocently enough, as people began to target certain participants. One young guy near me climbed on a friend's shoulders and called out to "Increase the peace! Put down your pillows!" He was attacked in a fusillade of foam until he fell.

Pretty soon it became less of a pillow fight and more of a pillow fatwa. As people were targeted for wearing costumes, having helmets, climbing light poles or any other infraction. Quite funny.

But as these things are, eventually it was taken over by a more aggressive pillow fighter, mostly boys with anger issues and free testosterone. And while I made good use of the opportunity to try and capture some of them sweaty and beating each other with pillows ( I know!), it soon became apparent that anyone was fair game and liable to be hit or knocked over as collateral damage. My cue to exit.

As a social experiment, and a way to have a fun Saturday in an urban setting on a sunny day, I would declare it a resounding success.

I downloaded a bunch of pictures from my camera and was pleasantly surprised to find a few more shots from the last winter storm. Including this jaunty fellow contentedly watching the world go by from a park bench. Although judging by the way the sun is bearing down on him, his world-view seemed about to get quite a bit more fluid. After the last four or five days of sunny and unseasonably warm weather we've enjoyed here in NYC, it already seems strange that this was only a couple of weeks ago.

Gym Etiquette

The NY Times runs a complaint box column, basically an Op-Ed area for the masses, which typically just ends up to be a place were one New Yorker complains about the behavior of other New Yorkers, and then hundreds of other New Yorkers write in to second that complaint, take the opposing viewpoint, or point out other things that other New Yorkers do to drive them crazy.

Last week the subject was the clusterfuck that gym noobs, typically found in large quantities every January and February, cause for those of us who work out on a more regular basis, and have been for years. I've written before about the phenomenon, complete with brand new gym "outfits" instead of clothes, along with matching sneakers. You can spot a gym neophyte that won't be around past March if he or she is working out with makeup and/or jewelry on.

The article is pretty typical, along with an accompanying piece about the proliferation of people that insist on updating their twitter feed, or worse (IMO) making phone calls in the locker room.

What I found most amusing, as always, were the comments from the rest of New York, most of whom had an entire other litany of complaints, as well as those who basically begged for tolerance and patience, as gym novices be given the time and instruction to, you know, get off the phone and get the hell out of the way.

But there was one gem amongst all the other "Me too's":

Guys who put their shod feet on benches in the locker room to tie their laces. How witless can you get?

"Shod?" "laces?" "witless?" - where does this guy work out? A 19th century YMCA? And what is the objection/obsession I've discovered peeving New Yorkers about sneakers touching seating areas? There was a similar outburst when a subway rider was recently ticketed for putting his feet up in a car at 2:30am. People passed right over the outrage the article meant to invoke and went on and on about how filthy and nasty it is to put your sneaker on a seat. I wouldn't think twice about putting my foot on a bench in the locker room to tie my sneaker. Would you? Am I missing something?

Or is this another case where, in a city of 9 million people, someone will always be pissed off about something?

Meanwhile ... I'm having some serious connectivity issues, and I got Verizon on the phone to test my line. While at first he was claiming that everything was A-OK, my insistence that it most assuredly was not led him to run another diagnostic, which revealed that it's a miracle I can even post this blog piece. A repairman is coming on Wednesday so hopefully I'll be zipping along The Internets in a day or so.