Hillary Needs A Song

In a move to shed her stodgy image, Sen. Hillary Clinton is asking visitors to her presidential campaign site help her pick her official campaign song. The songs to choose from include Right Here, Right Now - Jesus Jones, Beautiful Day - U2, I'm A Believer - Smash Mouth, and curiously, the old R&B classic, I'll Take You There by the Staples Singers. Hmm, not much on her list really seems to say "Hillary" to me. Maybe we can do better?

Seeing as how Sen. Clinton loves to straddle the issues, my own nominees:

Wiggle It - 2 In A Room
Torn Between Two Lovers -Mary MacGregor
Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
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HomoQuotable - Bob Kohler

"Do we crucify people because they're a nuisance? Do we go up to them and say, 'You don't belong here for being young and loud, and being people of color? It's life. It changes, and we have to change with it." - Bob Kohler, 80, a 30-year resident of the West Village, in today's LA Times article about the continuing clash between residents and the hundreds of LGBT youth of color than visit the West Village.

I've written about this issue in the past and despite some improvements in city policy, violence and rowdiness continues to trouble residents, who loudly disagree on how to handle their changing neighborhood. As the article points out, white gay men were once the neighborhood's outcasts themselves, back when the West Village was largely populated by Italian families, back when restaurants would have signs saying, "If you're gay, stay away." When AIDS decimated the Village, the younger gay crowd headed uptown, for Chelsea, for Hell's Kitchen. And furious gentrification ensued.

According to Kohler, the root of the issue is that his neighbors simply "don't want black faces on Christopher Street." I'd have to say that he's partially right. Teenagers do yell, they do play loud music, they do fight. Those are the defining characteristics of teenagers everywhere. But the bigger issue here, as always, is class. These kids are poor. They come to the West Village from Harlem, from Newark, from the outer boroughs. Their entire social life is the pier and Christopher Street.

As noted in my own above-linked story, I have myself been menaced by a group of these kids. There is a real problem with safety on the streets of the West Village. But how does forcing the city to chase these teenagers away improve their lives? Some residents want to force PATH to close the Christopher Street station on weekends. That's not the answer, I don't know what the answer is, but that response embarrasses me.

RELATED: Some of the these queer youth organized last year into an advocacy group called FIERCE! and they will be holding a meeting next week to discuss this issue.

South African Churches Line Up For Gays

The South African government has released a list of 17 churches that have had their applications to perform gay marriages approved. The churches are all outside of the major denominations. The Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic churches have barred their clergy from performing the ceremonies, which were legalized last November, but some churches are considering leaving their denominations for ones more gay-friendly. When South Africa approved gay marriage, I recall Jon Stewart reporting the story, saying, "Just to reiterate, America is now less progressive than South Africa."

Derfner Whups Westboro

A few weeks ago, Joel Derfner, a NYC blogger, author, and composer exchanged a few emails with me about the Westboro Baptist Church's appropriation of USA For Africa's famine relief anthem, We Are The World, which the members of Fred Phelps' clan of crazies had performed on YouTube as "God Hates The World." Joel was incensed, naturally, and was curious about possible copyright violation.

Due to Joel's legwork, last week Warner/Chappel's legal department sent a cease-and-desist letter to Westboro and the video has been removed from YouTube, although many impassioned responses remain. Congratulations to Joel for winning this battle! Drop in on his blog and say thanks, y'all.

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Diaper Dads And Drag Queens

NRP has an interesting piece about the "Crate and Barrellization of gay culture" due the "radical shift" of gay life from an "outcast culture" to one in which lesbian couples go to PTA meetings. The piece mentions "diaper dads" being more visible at pride parades than drag queens. Well, not quite, perhaps. But we are in the midst of a radical redrawing of our world. Listen here.

RELATED: San Franciso has a launched a massive media campaign (billboards, print, transit) urging gays to become adoptive parents of older children currently in foster care.

AIDS Cure For Some?

National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases head Anthony Fauci has released the results of a study which suggests that new HIV drugs from Merck and Roche may "cure" HIV in patients who have very low levels of the virus, provided those patients have already been treated "early and faithfully" with over 7 years of combination drug therapy. Patients are being lined up for a new study in which they will be "aggressively dosed" with the new meds. If the virus disappears, treatment will stop and the patients will be tracked closely for any recurrence. Fauci's study will be published in the June 15 issue of the Journal of Infectious Disease. The stock prices of Merck and Roche have risen on this news.

Morning View - Smallpox Hospital

The southernmost building on Roosevelt Island is the ghostly shell of New York City's former Smallpox Hospital, which is lit nightly by the floodlights you can see in the grass, for maximum eerie effect. Just across the East River from the United Nations, it was the first hospital in the nation to treat and quarantine smallpox victims. Smallpox Hospital was built in 1856 by James Renwick Jr., better known as the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Smithsonian. I snapped this picture and high-tailed it outta there on my bike, because even in broad daylight, that's some spooky shit.

Coulter: On Falwell And Gays

Get out your barf bags. From today's column in Front Page:

Falwell was a perfected Christian. He exuded Christian love for all men, hating sin while loving sinners. This is as opposed to liberals, who just love sinners.

[snip]

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell. Actually, there was one small item I think Falwell got wrong regarding his statement after 9-11 that "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians – who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle – the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

First of all, I disagreed with that statement because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and "the Reverend" Barry Lynn. Second, Falwell later stressed that he blamed the terrorists most of all, but I think that clarification was unnecessary. The necessary clarification was to note that God was at least protecting America enough not to allow the terrorists to strike when a Democrat was in the White House.

I note that in Falwell's list of Americans he blamed for ejecting God from public life, only the gays got a qualifier. Falwell referred to gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle. No Christian minister is going to preach that homosexuality is godly behavior, but Falwell didn't add any limiting qualifications to his condemnation of feminists, the ACLU or People for the American Way. There have always been gay people – even in the prelapsarian '50s that Jerry Falwell and I would like to return to, when God protected America from everything but ourselves. What Falwell was referring to are the gay activists – the ones who spit the Eucharist on the floor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, blamed Reagan for AIDS and keep trying to teach small schoolchildren about "fisting."

Yeah, funny thing about that "qualifier" Ann, but I don't recall any sort of love from Falwell for any sort of gay person, activist or not. He often regurgitated exhausted religious canards against sin, but not sinners, but this is the same fuckwad who said at Anita Bryant's 1979 "Save Our Children" rally, "So-called gay people would kill you just as soon as look at you." So much for "loving sinners", Ann, you Nazi.
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Shelter Kitty: Week Three

OK, you got me. Another cat post. But this one does have a purpose. Sometime last Saturday it started to seem like Shelley was in heat, showing all the usual signs: yowling, rolling around, being overly affectionate. Impossible for a neutered shelter animal, you say? I checked her records and called the APSCA who confirmed that Shelley was indeed spayed in May, 2006.

However, I've done some looking around the web and some sites indicate that on rare occasions the vet doesn't get all the reproductive tissue on the first round, causing the cat to continue heat cycles. She's back to her old self already, poor thing, after about 5 days of heat behaviors. Does anybody else have experience with this? I know there's a few vets that read this here website thingy. Do I have to have Shelley re-spayed? The info I've found online has only been in owner discussion forums, I can't find anything "official". Summer is here and I don't want her (or ME) to have to go through the several more heat cycles that the sites I visited indicated may be coming. On a happier note, Shelley has now met several of my friends and is becoming less likely to dive under the bed when strangers arrive.

Hitchens On Falwell

Noted atheist and author Christopher Hitchens eviscerated Jerry Falwell's legacy on CNN last night, calling Falwell an "ugly little charlatan" and a "little toad." It's a great clip and Hitchens totally nails my own opinions, but I'm disappointed with Anderson Cooper's rather dismissive comment at the end of the interview.

International Day Against Homophobia

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia. In observance of the occasion, the Human Rights Watch has listed five world leaders to its Hall Of Shame because of their anti-gay actions in the last year:

1. Pope Benedict XVI: for undermining families. The leader of the Holy See has gone well beyond expressing the Church’s theological views on homosexuality.

2. US President George W. Bush: for jeopardizing public health. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) requires that one-third of HIV-prevention spending go to so-called “abstinence-until-marriage” programmes.

3. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: for creating public and private scandals. President Ahmadinejad has overseen a widening campaign to “counter public immorality,” arbitrarily arresting thousands of Iranians for dressing or behaving differently.

4. Roman Giertych, Polish Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister: for endangering children. Part of a right-wing government that has made homophobia a centerpiece of policy.

5. Bienvenido Abante, Member of the Philippine House of Representatives: for trying to force his sexual orientation on others. Representative Abante has urged that homosexuals be “cured” and turned into heterosexuals.

Morning View - 59th & 2nd

Open Thread Thursday

Maybe you're just like my mother
She never sat outside
- Prince, When Doves Cry, according to my friend Ken's mother.

They're called mondegreens, those hilariously misheard song lyrics. My own mother thought that Ohio Player's Rollercoaster was called Join The Coast Guard. (Sing it out loud, it kind of works.) My ex used to sing a line from Bowie's Rebel, Rebel as "hot potato", rather than "how could they know?" Hot potato! Hot tramp, I love you so!

Now you. Own your shame.
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Evening View - Lavender Skies

Embiggen for maximum gayocity.

DRM Continues To Lose Favor

Amazon announced today that they will launch all DRM-free music download site later this year, citing an agreement with EMI Group, who decided last month that all their music will now be unencumbered by digital rights management copy protection. Warner and Sony are also testing some DRM-free downloads. Tracks without DRM can be copied unlimited times and moved to any device, unlike most what you get on iTunes, who has faced increased criticism regarding their Fairplay DRM. (There are numerous sites out there that teach you how to crack Fairplay.) EMI tracks went DRM-free on iTunes last month. Some music industry experts think that an end to DRM on legal downloads may be the only savior of the spiraling music industry.

And We're Winning Here In Allentown

The Goddess of Randomocity got dizzy will all those clamoring for yesterday's Swag Tuesday Elvis Costello booty, but she spun her wheel and landed on #115, Stephanie of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Stephanie says, "Holy Crap! I'd send you a picture of me looking stunned, but I don't have access to any at the moment. THANK YOU! And thanks to the gods of Randomocity! This is something I truly wanted and I promise they will not sit around and gather dust." Thanks again to Universal's Hip-O Records. Both of the new Elvis Costello CDs and the entire newly reissued catalog are now available, both on disc and as iTunes exclusives. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday here on JMG, please email me.

Mike Jones: Book, Honors

Previewing the June release of his book, I Had To Say Something: The Art Of Ted Haggard's Fall (co-authored by Sam Gallegos), there is a great story about Mike Jones in the current issue of the Advocate. On May 24th, Jones will be the honoree of San Francisco's Harvey Milk Club, where he will receive the Harry Britt Achievement Award.

It's wonderful to see Jones getting more recognition for his brave actions, which I consider to be a linchpin of turning last year's mid-term elections. Many of you clearly agree, having voted Jones as 2006 Queer Of The Year. I look forward to reading his book.

This Just In

Media Request: FOX radio and KVI's The Commentators, with John Carlson and Ken Schram, would like to speak with you about Jerry Falwell. Perhaps its too early but this is going to be the defining moments, the early days after his death when people start determining his impact on America for better or worst. We would like to talk with you this morning at 10:05 AM PST (west coast) for 20-30 minutes.

Please give me a call,

Carson
The Commentator's Producer
AM 570 KVI

JMG: Hmm, I don't feel like going on what appears to be a conservative attack Fox radio show. (Is there any other kind?) Anybody know about these guys? Seattle?

UPDATE: Thanks to all for your valued input. I took a pass.

HomoQuotable - Matt Foreman

"The death of a family member or friend is always a sad occasion and we express our condolences to all those who were close to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation." - Matt Foreman, Executive Director, National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.

Marriage Loophole

A Boston court ruled last week that gay New Yorkers married in Massachusetts can be considered legally married there, but more interestingly, they apparently can be considered legally married in New York too, but only if they were married between May 17th 2004 and July 6th, 2006. It wasn't until July 6th, 2006 that New York state ruled that gay marriages performed in other states were not valid in New York. This loophole apparently affects dozens of New York gay couples.

Hell-Cam!

Thanks to the folks at Ninth Circle Technologies for grabbing this Hell-cam shot as Jerry Falwell rocketed down the Styx Superslide to his eternal reward. Satan was waiting at the bottom for his old friend.

Morning View - Queensboro Bridge

I took this shot of the Queensboro Bridge from the Roosevelt Island tram last night. Riding on the tram was an extremely excited woman who kept exclaiming about the view and nudging the commuters. She was wearing a baseball uniform. At the end of the ride, she invited us all for drinks. We declined. The bridge is under rehab right now, I'm not sure if the color is a new coat of paint or just the way the sunset played on it.

Jerry Falwell Dead Dead Dead

Jerry Falwell has died after being found unconscious in his office this morning. I will shed no tears. In fact, Tinky Winky and I may just have a big hug.

"AIDS is God's punishment to gays." - Jerry Falwell.

"Instant death is my punishment to Jerry Falwell" - God.

UPDATE: I can't resist adding some classics from Falwell...

- "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."
- "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
- "Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."
- "There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."
- "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers."
- "Textbooks are Soviet propaganda."
- "The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic stability."
- "(9/11 is the result of) throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the thing in their face and say you helped this happen."

UPDATE II: Best commentary on the web so far: "Larry Flynt is doing wheelies!"

UPDATE III: San Francisco is staging an "anti-memorial" at 5pm today, at the corner of Castro & 18th Street.

UPDATE IV: JMG made WingNutDaily. Sweet. Prepare for a troll avalanche from Jeebus' loving people.
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Soup & Pallid

Lenny's Deli, 1st Avenue, 12:30pm

Girl 1: OMG! That chowder smells so good!

Girl 2: It totally does, but I'm not getting cream soup so close to summer.

Girl 1: You can always get rid of it at the office if you need to.

Girl 2: Oh, I never purge at work. People can hear you.

(Both laugh.)

Girl 1: Yeah, but you can totally get the key for the handicapped. I'll show you where they keep it.

Girl 2: Ha, ha. OK, just in case.

They both get the soup.
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Moscow Pride Banned For 2nd Year

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has banned the gay pride parade for the second year in a row, saying a parade would violate the rights of non-gay residents. Last month parade organizers lost a libel case against the mayor after he called pride marches "satanic". Last year about 200 people were arrested for defying the parade ban, but charges were later dropped.

Haloscan Suckage

Haloscan has been most unreliable over the last few days, my apologies. Please try reloading the page until you get a comments link. Then if you're lucky, you can actually leave a comment. Grrrr.

2007 Tony Noms

The 2007 Tony nominations are out. It looks like Spring Awakening leads with 11 nominations, followed by Grey Gardens with 10.

UPDATE: I failed to notice that Kiki & Herb - Alive On Broadway, which Little David and I saw on opening night, is nominated for Best Theatrical Event. Woo-hoo!

Best Play:
The Coast of Utopia - Author: Tom Stoppard
Frost/Nixon - Author: Peter Morgan
The Little Dog Laughed - Author: Douglas Carter Beane
Radio Golf - Author: August Wilson.

Best Musical:
Curtains
Grey Gardens
Mary Poppins
Spring Awakening

Best Actor In A Play:
Boyd Gaines -Journey's End
Frank Langella -Frost/Nixon
Brían F. O’Byrne -The Coast of Utopia
Christopher Plummer - Inherit The Wind
Liev Schreiber - Talk Radio

Best Actress In A Play:
Eve Best - A Moon for the Misbegotten
Swoozie Kurtz - Heartbreak House
Angela Lansbury - Deuce
Vanessa Redgrave - The Year of Magical Thinking
Julie White - The Little Dog Laughed

Best Actor In A Musical:
Michael Cerveris - LoveMusik
Raúl Esparza - Company
Jonathan Groff - Spring Awakening
Gavin Lee - Mary Poppins
David Hyde Pierce - Curtains

Best Actress In A Musical:
Laura Bell Bundy - Legally Blonde The Musical
Christine Ebersole -Grey Gardens
Audra McDonald - 110 in the Shade
Debra Monk - Curtains
Donna Murphy -LoveMusik
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Morning View - Bryant Park

Bryant Park is a neat little 9-acre park squeezed behind the Main Library at 5th Avenue & 42nd Street. While an official NYC park, Bryant Park is managed by a private non-profit group. During the civil war, Union soldiers drilled there. Fashion Week takes over the park twice a year and during warm weather I've seen some great 8AM concerts (Prince, Pink) on the way to work, via Good Morning America. The Bank of America Tower (soon to be the city's second tallest building) is being built at the northwest corner of the park, but unlike the boys in the West Village, the new tower is not expected to throw shade.

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of Universal Music Enterprise's Hip-O Records, this week's swag haul is a fantastic collection of 13 Elvis Costello CDs. The prize package comprises two brand new collections compiled by Elvis himselvis and his first 11 albums!
Brand new is The Best Of Elvis Costello - The First 10 Years, containing 22 hits spanning Costello's first decade on the charts. Also new is Rock & Roll Music with 22 album tracks, b-sides, and rarities, all selected by Costello.

These two new albums and the first 11 Costello releases, (newly reissued in their original versions: My Aim Is True, This Year's Model, Armed Forces, Get Happy, Trust, Almost Blue, Imperial Bedroom, Punch The Clock, Goodbye, Cruel World, King Of America, and Blood & Chocolate), are for the first time available as digital downloads, exclusively on iTunes for the next two weeks. All CDs are available right now too, just click on the artwork. Pump it up, Alison!
The winner will be randomly chosen from the comments made on this post up until midnight on Tuesday. Only your first comment counts and please leave your email address. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

Phone Call

Joe: Hello.

Joe's boss: Hey, I'm running late. My tranny is leaking.

Both: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

We are such children.
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Sieben, Sieben, Ai Lyu-lyu

I remain mystified by Eurovision, the annual camp fest that captivates gay Europeans. Although I'm pleased that The Gays took first and second place, this year's winner, the song by out lesbian Marija Serifovic, representing Serbia, was complete schlock ripped from the Jim Steinman/Celine Dion songbook. However, I am amused by the second place winner from Ukraine, a drag queen named Verka Serduchka, whose accordion techno entry, Danzing Lasha Tumbaiis, is much catchier than it deserves to be. I mean, accordion techno? Verka even throws in an "ooo-wah, ooo-wah." Still, Rednex had a huge hit, so what do I know?


RELATED: Check out our own Troubled Diva for an exhaustive recapping of this year's Eurovision.

HomoQuotable - Karen Magee

"This is deeply disappointing and concerning to me and the rest of the management team." - PlanetOut CEO Karen Magee, announcing that the company, owner of Out, Advocate, and Gay.com, will be out of money by the end of the year without an infusion of cash.

PlanetOut reported a first quarter loss of nearly $7M on Friday, sending its stock tumbling to an all-time low of $1.64. Shares in PlanetOut trade under the ticker name "LGBT." The company has to come up with $15M to meet the terms of an existing loan or face the foreclosure of its assets. Magee blames RSVP, the company's travel agency, for many of the company's woes. RSVP Cruises has faced decreasing occupancy, forcing penalties paid to cruise lines.

Like many of you, my personal gay activism was shaped in a large part by the Advocate, the nation's longest running gay publication. I was reading it when it still on newsprint. The loss of PlanetOut would be a real blow to the community, let's hope they can pull it out of this tailspin.

Chrysler: In The Bargain Bin

Nine years ago DaimlerBenz bought Chrysler for $37 billion. Today they sold the bulk of the company to a private equity firm for the bargain basement price of $7.4 billion. Ouch! Lee Iaccoca, who famously engineered a government bailout of Chrysler in 1979, is "broken hearted." The new owners of Chrysler are faced with billions of dollars in employee costs thanks to retiree pensions and health plans. For the sake of the employees, I hope Chrysler survives, but I'm not holding my breath. The PT Cruiser was cute and I love to rent Sebring convertibles when I travel, but with the minivan segment nosediving thanks to gas prices, I would be surprised to see Chrysler still around in a few years.

Mommy's Boys

Overheard: "Hi, mom! Happy Mother's Day! I tried to call you this morning. What? No, I'm in the city. At a bar. A bar. The Eagle. You wouldn't like it." Traversing our usual haunts yesterday, we observed that teh gays must be good sons, because Mother's Day really wiped out attendance at the bars. Good boys.

Rome Protests Gay Rights

Several hundred thousand Italians protested proposed gay rights laws in Rome on Saturday, in a giant rally called "Family Day." The rally was organized by a consortium of Catholic groups and was attended by many nuns and priests. The new law would give expanded rights to gay and unmarried couples in matters like welfare and inheritance rights, but does not offer same-sex marriage rights. The Pope sent the demonstrators a message of support from Brazil, where he is touring the bathhouses of São Paulo.

Morning View - From The Rock

Central Park and northward, from the Top Of The Rock yesterday, courtesy of Dr. Jeff. If you embiggen, you can make out the George Washington Bridge. The white square below the big lake is the Metropolitan Musueum, I live somewhat to the right of there.

Saturday Love

For always and forever, you will be my Saturday love. Ah, that's better. Another lazy Saturday afternoon in the park with my boys, attended by George, Aaron, the Farmboyz, Little Tom, Little David, Foxy, Rod, Mike, Chris C., Dr. Jeff, DC guys Todd and Joe, several friends of friends and a trio of doggies. The park is fantastically lush already, amazing considering there wasn't a leaf on the trees just a couple weeks ago.

The DJ kicked an especially laid back groove all afternoon. Standout tracks: Mary Jane Girls - All Night Long, Tom Browne - Jamaican Funk, Roy Ayers - Running Away, Soul II Soul - Keep On Movin', Cherelle - Saturday Love, and my personal highlight, The Originals - Down To Love Town. The usual roller boogie characters were on hand. [Below: Bladey Flowness and his fly spider bike, Disco Grandma (71!), the hottest man on eight wheels, Farmboy Chris and Chris C.] It got rather cool towards the end of the day, making us wish we'd brought jackets. On the upside, the chill in the air created a snugly puppy pile of bloggers.
NOTE: There will be no disco in the park next Saturday due to NYC's first ever Dance Parade, which we will surely attend.