Morning View - Chez Farmboyz

The Farmboyz' Connecticut home is filled with Father Tony and C's original artwork, books, and at the momment, about a dozen men. Last night we attended the Hartford Men's Social, a monthly cocktail party with its origins in a simple email list that began eight years ago. The party's creator, a genial fellow named Dave, told me that the list has now grown to over 1400 men. As we're in the state capital, there were lots of government-mo's in attendance, including a prominent out Republican. But bringing the realness, there was also a prominent Titan porn star. Balance. I'll have more later, but right now brunch and Bloody Marys are calling.

Re-Chillaxin'

No more blogging today, I'm off for an all-blogger sleepaway weekend up at the Farmboyz gracious Connecticut home, in celebration of Father Tony's retirement. Attending: Eddie, Little Tom (whose blog is on hiatus), Aaron, Dr. Jeff, Little David, and Chris. Amusingly, the Farmboyz have added a new AirPort to support the blogging needs of their guests. Tonight we're going to some "gay professionals" happy hour thingy at the Hartford Marriott, other than that the Farmboyz are mum on what they have in store for us. I don't what happens when you corral nine bloggers in one house for the weekend, but I'm sure it won't be dull. Have a great weekend, y'all!

Broadway Friday

- Disney's The Little Mermaid, now playing in Denver, opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 6th. The show features 11 new songs from 8-time Oscar winner Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater as well as the classic Alan Menken & Howard Ashman tunes from the 1989 movie, including the Oscar-winning Under The Sea. Ashman died of AIDS in 1991. The following year he was posthumously awarded (with Menken) his second Best Song Oscar for Beauty & The Beast, which was dedicated to him.

- Jennifer Garner will make her Broadway debut in a revival of Cyrano de Bergerac, starring opposite Kevin Klein and Daniel Sunjata (Take Me Out.)

- Walmartopia, a musical comedy about a world dominated by Walmart (it isn't already?) opened Off-Broadway yesterday at the Minetta Lane Theatre, directed by Daniel Goldstein. The show was a break-out hit at last year's NYC Fringe Festival.

- The Chicago-based Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of August: Osage County moves to Broadway's Imperial Theatre for a limited 16-week run beginning October 30th. The 3-1/2 hour play will be directed by Anna D. Shapiro. The show's Chicago run ends this Sunday.

- Playbill.com's Robert Simonson has posted a column discussing the slow evolution away from Broadway's standard schedule of 8 shows a week, dark on Monday, 8PM curtain times. Many shows now run at 7pm on Tuesdays, some run on Mondays, with other changes pondered.

And a couple of non-Broadway items.....

- Rosie O'Donnell will headline the opening of the New York Comedy Festival with a special benefit show at Avery Fisher Hall on November 6th. Proceeds go to Rosie's Broadway Kids, a children's arts charity. Tickets here. Other shows will headline Sarah Silverman, Bill Maher, and Denis Leary.

- A free tribute concert to the late Beverly Sills will be held at the Metropolitan Opera on September 16th. Speakers will include Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Placido Domingo, Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters. Performing will be Natalie Dessay, Anna Netrebko, and Nathan Gunn. Tickets will be available at the Met box office beginning at noon on the day of the show, first-come, first-served, limit 2 tickets per person.

Ted Haggard: Send Me Cash (Again) And You'll Go To Heaven

Ted "Completely Heterosexual" Haggard and his family are moving into a Phoenix halfway-house where they will minister "in whatever capacity asked, whether it's cleaning the building, hosting a visiting group, attending a meeting, or facilitating a study." And despite that his former employers, the New Life Church, agreed to pay his $138K salary through 2007, Haggard has issued his former flock a letter begging that they donate to support him, for which he promises that they be will "rewarded in heaven".

It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years. During that time we will continue as full time students, and then, when I graduate, we won't need outside support any longer.

But for the next two years, we will need support. Between now and the end of the year, we have to find the people who want to help us transition into our future. So I am starting today to let friends like you know that we are raising money for support as we move into the Phoenix Dream Center.

Would you be willing to help us find people who can give a one time gift or make a commitment to help support us monthly for two years? If so, that would be a blessing.

If people want to support us directly, they can mail checks to Ted and Gayle Haggard, 9699 N. Hayden, Suite 108, PMB 180, Scottsdale, AZ 95259. This is a private mail box address that we have been using since we moved to the Phoenix area. If any supporters need a tax deduction for their gift, they can mail it to Families With a Mission at P.O. Box 63125, Colorado Springs, CO 80962. The supporters would need to write their check to "Families With A Mission" and put a separate note on it that it is for the Haggard family, then Families With a Mission will mail us 90% of the funds for support and use 10% for administrative costs.

Thank you so much. We feel our move into the Dream Center is the next step God would have us take. Any help we can get with this will be greatly appreciated and, I believe, rewarded in heaven.

Outrageous. The blood-sucking just never stops, does it? Colorado Confidential notes that the Haggards still own their 5-bedroom Colorado Springs home, which is valued at over $700,000. The upside - we now have Ted's address. I think I'll send him a postcard wishing him well on his "recovery". Or something like that.

UPDATE: Mike Jones emailed me to say: "To all the people who called me names and demised the importance of what I did need to look no further. If I had never said anything, he would still be sucking money from patsies and telling gays they are going to hell. If you look at this letter and his “apology letter” one thing is clear, “Feel sorry for me”. He plays the sympathy card well and tries to pull on the heart strings of the vulnerable. I live in a small room which I rent from a friend. I lost everything when I exposed Haggard, but I did not go begging for money. I have not even asked my best friend for a dime. But boy it would be nice to have two years to go to school and have all bills paid. If Ted Haggard really wanted to give back to the community and god, then he should volunteer at the Gay and Lesbian Center or deliver meals to people with AIDS or other life threatening situations, since these are the people he hurt the most during his reign. I will say this again; wait until after the first of the year when his hush period ends, he will return. Keeping this silence is killing him. - MJ"

Morning View - Conservatory Water

On Central Park's east side, just off Fifth Avenue, is the Conservatory Water, where model sailboat enthusiasts while away their empty lives piloting little rented sloops. I kid, I kid.

Windfalwell

Liberty University has used their portion of the proceeds of Jerry Falwell's life insurance, $29 million, to retire their debt. Another $5M went to the congregation of his Thomas Road Church. What a country, when an elderly, morbidly obese man can be insured for $34M. If only the money had gone back to all the little old ladies whose pockets Falwell picked of their Social Security.

Keep Feelin' Fascination, Cuz Love Will Tear Us Apart, Black Betty

Last night Aaron, Damian, Dr. Jeff and I dropped in on Spit, where host Paul Short welcomes "prison punks, leather hunks, and hairy chunks" to his East Village monthly party, now relocated above a liquor store on a desolate stretch of Avenue B. The entire club is red - red walls, red wallpaper, red lights - with the only non-red illumination provided by the glowing apple on the back of DJ Mike Grimes' Powerbook as he delivered a stellar evening of 80's hits and rarities. Highlights: Tim Scott's Swear and Yoko Ono's Walking On Thin Ice. I'm paying the price, for throwing the dice, in the aaaair. I love Yoko.

Many downtown hotties were in the house, including Manhattan's only break-dancing, krumping, Jew-bear. And some of those hotties were buck-nekkid (including one of the above-linked perverts), probably rewarded by some kind of drink special or sumpin'. (Aside: the advent of cell-cams do not seem to dissuade folks from cavorting in the nude. Not. One. Bit.) The climax of the evening came when the young man pictured above won first place in an odoriferous contest too rank to mention to you, my genteel readers. Even less savory were the two party girls with feathered hair and ankle boots who insisted on flashing their coochies while performing reverse-cowgirls on their gays. (Second Aside: is it a new law that every East Village bar have stripper poles?) Good times. Recommended.

HomoQuotable - Matt Sanchez

"I'm honored WorldNetDaily.com has asked me to be a part of such a respectable organization. WorldNetDaily has some of the most talented people I've had the privilege of working with in the media since arriving in Iraq earlier this year." - Gay porn star, prostitute, serial man-rimmer and right-wing darling Matt Sanchez, announcing that he has joined the writing staff of WingNutDaily. Sanchez is also a correspondent for Pajamas Media and RightWingNews.com.

He's sucking his way to the top!
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Morning View - Adam

This bronze 20 feet tall statue by Colombian artist Fernando Botero, "Adam", stands in the lobby of the Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The similar "Eve" stands Adam's right. You can't tell in this shot, but Adam's genitalia have been rubbed so often by shoppers that they are comically much brighter than the rest of the statue.

Open Thread Thursday

Who are the nicest celebrities you've ever met?

My list: Moby, Jerry Orbach, Bonnie Raitt.

Who was the meanest?

Mine: CeCe Peniston. (There's a story there, one day I'll blog it.)
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Not Married, Married - Just Lovers

Saturday, 1am, Hillside Campgrounds

I'm chatting with a trio from Canada. A handsome muscular man walks past the bonfire....

Camper 1: Woof!
Camper 2: Agreed.
Camper 3: Married. Lives in Boston.
Camper 1: Damn, too bad.
Camper 2: No, he's not married, but he lives with his lover.
Camper 1: Oh, so I've got a shot.
Camper 2: I didn't say that. Just that he's not married, married.
Camper 1: So, they're just lovers?
Camper 2: Right. Just lovers.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post titled, "What IS a Husband?", wondering whether once gay marriage became a reality, would we be flippantly giving "verbal downgrades" to relationships that haven't been made "legal". The exchange above is just one of the several times I've heard such a distinction made in the past few months. And I hate it.

YouAds

The ad-free ride on YouTube has ended. Today Google is launching "overlay" ads that will appear 15 seconds after the clip begins, running for 10 seconds on the lower fifth of the playback image. Viewers will be able close the ads, let them play, or click thru to the advertisers. At the start, the ads will only appear on clips provided by YouTube's media content provider partners. Google is charging advertisers $20 for every 1000 plays. Shouldn't be too long before they recoup the $1.65B cost of buying YouTube. Ten second ads don't seem too intrusive for a great resource like YouTube.

About My Email Suckiness

I created the Gmail address for this blog last November and yesterday the inbox counter rolled over 10,000. Again. I mention this only as a really lame excuse for my sucky track record in responding to everybody. Usually I scan the inbox for familiar names and try to get back to those folks first. But I'm way behind on a lot of wonderful messages that deserve much more than a rote "thanks for writing" sort of response. Maybe I need a JMG intern, somebody willing to work for beer and Friskee treats. I will try to do better. There's many more than 10,000 emails that I have dealt with and deleted, but yesterday's re-hitting of that round number is making me feel extra guilty. My apologies.

Pay To Play

The next-gen DVD wars are heating up and Blu-ray might end up the loser. Paramount is being paid $150M by the makers of the HD-DVD format to release its movies exclusively on HD-DVD for the next 18 months. Similar to the VHS/Betamax wars of long ago, the technologically superior (according to some) Blu-ray format, which currently enjoys higher sales, may end up being edged out. From what I've read, the best selling point of the Blu-ray format is that their discs have a "hard scratch" covering, making it very durable. There's an awful lot of perfectly good DVD porn out there made unusable by clumsy mid-coitus handling.

Allen Apologies To NAACP

Rep. Bob "Tearoom" Allen apologized to the North Brevard chapter of the NAACP in Florida yesterday to deny charges of racism raised when he told cops that he feared that he was about to be "made a statistic" by the black men loitering in the park he was cruising.

Allen told the NAACP that he now that he's been arrested, he understands that the civil rights movement was not just about racial equality, saying, "That was a battle they didn't fight for just people of color." The NAACP said they accepted his apology.

Morning View - Subway Poster

I found this depressing poster at the 23rd Street entrance of the A train. There was a whole series of posters with this image, all with increasingly dismal text. The message seems more East Village than Chelsea, but the image is appropriate for the 'hood.

The Dog Days Of Summer?

One thing WingNutDaily did get right: yesterday tied with August 1911 as the coldest August day in New York City history. The high was only 59 and it was in low 50s most of the day. I rather enjoyed spending the day in a hoodie. I wouldn't mind living in these kind of temps year 'round. Seriously.

Aaaaand We're Back

I think. Blogger had one its semi-annual meltdowns this morning. At least the outages are shorter and farther apart than in years past. I understand the occasional glitch, that happens to everybody, I just wish Blogger hosted their status page somewhere that doesn't go down when the rest of the service does. And Blogger outages make Shelley sad.

WingNutDaily: Nuke 'Dem Mosques

Here's the result of a poll on WingNutDaily (via Pam's House Blend), asking their readers, "Should U.S. threaten nuclear annihilation of Muslim holy sites for deterrence?" Frightening. Funny how they characterize Muslims as "religion-driven fanatics", innit? Much as I used to watch 700 Club, I now read WingNutDaily for the pure entertainment value of watching how completely nutso the right wing can get.

Their top story today rails: "Global Warming: 'Hot Air'. And then right below it, "NYC Faces Record-Breaking Cold Today." Not that the two are necessarily related, but still. Funny. And you have to giggle when their "end of times" pieces (usually about how the immorality of America means the apocalypse will occur any minute) are wedged between shills for long-term investment advice books. Jeebus is coming right away, but make sure you trade long, just in case he, you know, doesn't.

Mapping Gay Marriage

From the HRC, here's a map of how the gay marriage fight stands nationwide. The above links won't work, so go here for a state by state rundown.

Feed A Cold

Louisana researchers have found that a common cold virus, adenovirus-36, can cause stem cells to turn into fat cells, lending credence to the oft-disputed theory that some people become fat due to being infected with a fat-causing virus. This discovery fuels speculation that obesity may one day be at least partially preventable with a vaccine, although lifestyle causes would remain. For those who already have the "fat virus", a vaccine would be useless. Additionally, scientists say that the idea that obesity is infectious remains unproven and unlikely.

Unproven and unlikely, but I can already hear an angertwink saying, "Ooh, I don't go to bear bars. I don't wanna catch fat."

Gay Blogger Makes Waves For Thompson

Blogger Lane Hudson, whom you may recall was the guy who anonymously posted the infamous Mark Foley IM transcripts, has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, charging prospective Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson with violating the FEC's "testing the waters" rule. During the "exploratory period" of deciding whether to run, a candidate does not have to file financial reports.

According to Hudson, Thompson has raised far more money than should be allowed under the rule, more than $3.5 million. Candidates are prevented by law from hoarding money raising during the exploratory period and then using it to fund their campaign. Thompson continues to benefit from the exposure of reruns of Law & Order, where he played a district attorney. Thompson has 15 days to respond to the complaint, after which the FEC will decide how to proceed.

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of the Saint At Large, this week's Swag Tuesday prize is Schwarzwald: The Movie You Can Dance To, starring the world's most famous transman, Buck Angel. Presented in "DanceSurround", Schwarzwald is part fantasy, part documentary and delves into NYC's infamous Black Party, the annual rites-of-spring leather bacchanal. I caught a screening of Schwarzwald earlier this year and found it completely hypnotizing. There is no dialogue and the soundtrack is as good as any hot dance mixer you'll find.

Schwarzwald has been touring gay film festivals all over the world. It's already played LA's Outfest and NYC's Newfest, with gay film festivals in Montreal, Paris, South Africa, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Madrid and Barcelona coming up. View the trailer here.

To enter to win your DVD of Schwarzwald: The Movie You Can Dance To, comment on this post. Only your first comment counts and please remember to leave your email address. Entries close at midnight tonight. Publicists: if you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

Morning View - Rear View Window

This is the glamorous view from my apartment. I'm on the back side of my building. When 20 or so apartments look directly into yours, you end up keeping the blinds closed most of the time.

Eric Heads To A Place Where Nobody Dared To Go

Still groggy from her shift at Scores, Lady Randomocity finally hipped me to last week's Swag Tuesday winner, Gothamite and fellow blogger, Eric, who wins two tickets to this season's Broadway smash, Xanadu. Eric authors Confessions Of A Southern Boy In Yankee Land and says of his win, "I'm a little bit speechless! Thanks to you, Joe, for having such an interesting blog and topping it off with the whipped cream and cherry of Swagger Tuesdays..and for giving me a chance to see Cheyenne Jackson in short shorts!" Publicists: if you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

Caption This

X-ing, Pex-ing

If Mirapex, the "restless leg syndrome" drug, may cause strong sexual urges, as its disclaimer says, how long before the club kids start grinding it into their bumper? The disclaimer also says that Mirapex may cause compulsive gambling (as the class-action lawsuits attest) and may cause you to fall asleep during "important tasks" such as driving. Mirapex is also used to treat Parkinson's disease, making the possible side-effects seem a reasonable risk. For restless leg syndrome, not so much. Of course, not having RLS, my opinion doesn't mean much. Some say that RLS is an "invented" disease created to sell the drug and that most people live with it without much issue. Opinions?

HomoQuotable - Andrew Sullivan

"I have no jitters about our actual relationship. For me, this is for life. I have no reservations. But standing up in front of my family and my spouse's and saying the vows out loud has me in a state of butterflies. I can go on TV and barely break a sweat, but I'm terrified of performing in front of my own family. I'm scared I'll lose it. I bawled through the last same-sex wedding I went to. You fight for something, never expecting it to happen, let alone to you, and then it does, and it can overwhelm. Taking yes for an answer can be harder than no." - Andrew Sullivan, talking about his pre-wedding jitters. Sullivan and his partner will marry in Provincetown.

Karl Rove's Kinky Dad

Boing Boing is reporting on a first-person essay on a body-modification aficionado site called BMEzine, in which the author claims to be in possession of Karl Rove's adoptive father's cock ring. And while Louis Rove is well known to have been gay, apparently he was also very into genital piercing (NSFW), having participated during the 70's in "piercing parties."

So the father of the architect of the Republican party's virulently anti-gay campaigns was not only a homo, he was kinky as well. Rove didn't know that Louis was not his biological father until after his parents separated and Louis came out. Rove's mother later committed suicide. Yet Rove kept a picture of Louis on his desk at the White House. Louis died of lung cancer after retiring to Palm Springs. Such a sad, strange, twisted story. How does all of this play into the current ugly state of the U.S. government? Maybe not at all. Maybe, a lot.

Queen Of Mean Dead At 87

Leona Helmsley, the anti-gay billionaire "queen of mean", died today at 87. Aside from having gone to prison for tax evasion, you may recall Helmsley losing a discrimination lawsuit after firing the gay manager of her Park Lane hotel. The manager, Charles Bell, won over $11M but the judgment was later reduced to $554,000. Bell told the court that when he was fired, Helmsley told him, "You know why this is happening. It has nothing to do with your business acumen." The most famous quote from Helmsley: "Only the little people pay taxes."

RELATED: Bell's 2001 firing occured shortly after Helmsley freaked out upon seeing a large group of gay men in leather in the lobby of the Park Lane. Black Party weekend of that year, I happened to be in the Park Lane to visit a group of friends from Fort Lauderdale who were staying as Bell's guests. I've always wondered if we were the ones that triggered the whole mess.

Morning View - Subway Art

This inscrutable tile mozaic adorns the entrance of a subway stop in Brooklyn.