Thanks so much for following this blog in the past years. I recently began as a contributor to a new blog called Queer Sighted and just haven’t figured out how to continue producing content for this blog. It’s been fun, but now that I am busy trying to come up with queer themed topics for another site, it’s just too hard to figure out what I should be writing here. I’ll leave this site up for archival purposes and may occasionally post, but for the most part I need to kill this blog.

It’s sad, I know. But these things happen. Not everything can go on forever. I may still post stories and other material that doesn’t really have a home here, but I just haven’t figured out how to regularly update this beast.

If you want to continue following my work, you can check it out underneath my author tag at QS.

Love you all!

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(To me this is important news, but like for those of you that would like to spend your time helping Haiti instead of freaking out over Johnny Weir, you can donate to Doctors Without Borders here)

Remember when he did his routine to Tori Amos’ “Winter”? Well it looks like he’s really gonna be even more amazing next time he skates for the world.

Can we all talk for a second about how great Johnny Weir is? He recently did this amazing interview with ESPN where he basically blew the poor sports reporter Jim Caple’s head wide open.

You can read the full piece for yourself, but I can’t help but pull some seriously choice quotes. This man is a velvet goldmine of beautiful quotables filled with sass, sequins, and graceful sashays.

On his people liking his short program outfit:

That’s for the short program. It’s black and hot pink. And it’s like an oily, black corset with pink cords and this big pink ruffle and then like a black porno leather epaulet that comes out to here and a big pink tassel that comes off of it. People like it.

On developing his long form outfit:

I’m portraying the Fallen Angel, and before, it was this big, white wing coming across my body, and lots of rhinestones and sparkles and way too much. And I had these gorgeous, chalk-colored ribs. I really liked it, but when I saw some pictures and videos of it, it made me look wide because of the white, so I’m changing it. And now my inspiration is sort of — you know when the seagulls get stuck in the oil spills on your side of the world, up in Alaska and whatnot? When those really pretty white feathers get in the oil just on the tips? That’s kind of the inspiration, and we’re building it now, but it’s the very starting stages.

Why a fallen angel, Johnny?

One moment everything will be peachy and everyone will be saying the nicest things about me and loving me, and the next minute I’m the worst, I’m evil, all these things. It’s like a fallen angel. For me, I feel very much that I can portray that character. Because it’s my career and my life.

On dieting:

while trying to cut down from 132½ to 130½ pounds for nationals, he says, he merely “looks” at lunch

On being named a D-list celebrity (even if he is A-list in my book):

Great, I’m Kathy Griffin.

On the cultural relativity of masculine aesthetics (You’re such a smarty pants, <3 u!!!z):

For me, I’m lucky that I’ve traveled so much of the world and seen so many things and for me, masculinity is completely subjective,” Weir says. “Here, a male ballet dancer would get beat up and left on the side of the road. But in Russia, he is No. 1, he is what a man is. That kind of passion and control. In Japan, masculinity is making sure your hair is completely gelled and coiffed and that you’re dressed and decked to the nines. Masculinity is what you make it out to be. Here in the U.S., not everyone feels the same way.

His mother, on the circus like media attention Weir gets:

They had a fit over Weir in track pants, and here is Evan all but naked, jumping around and leaving nothing to the imagination,” she says. “How come you’re fine with this but go off on my son for wearing track pants? Granted, he was wearing heels.

Weir on the kind of glass closet he seems to live in:

I want to be judged by who I am, not what I am. I mean, I am Johnny Weir. Judge me the way you see me, love me the way you see me, hate me the way you see me. All these things make me up, and sexuality and having sex is the least that people should worry about.

My favorite little byte is that they mention that the commercial for his upcoming reality show is one where “he hatches from a giant Fabergé egg”? WHAT?

This show is gonna be amazing.

I know some so called progressive gays are gonna come down on him for “perpetuating stereotypes” or whatever that shit means. Look, part of equal rights is equal rights and respect for even the most flamboyant. So the haters need to shit the fuck up. This man is amazing, funny, and a great addition to what we see in the media. I personally can’t wait until the day comes that he finally feels comfortable calling himself gay publicly. Creating an environment that can be supportive of that is what we need to work on, not tearing him down in all his spandex glory.

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I kinda think it’s great. I mean, really great. Generally middle school is a time when queer kids get depressed and hate most of the world, but not for these kids. Look at how fun their gay tween dance is!!!

Not that I don’t have my skepticism about an 11 year old’s ability to comprehend sexual identity, but as the article notes:

Still, the younger they are when they come out, the more that youth with same-sex attractions face an obstacle that would be unimaginable to their straight peers. When a 12-year-old boy matter-of-factly tells his parents — or a school counselor — that he likes girls, their reaction tends not to be one of disbelief, dismissal or rejection. “No one says to them: ‘Are you sure? You’re too young to know if you like girls. It’s probably just a phase,’ ” says Eileen Ross, the director of the Outlet Program, a support service for gay youth in Mountain View, Calif. “But that’s what we say too often to gay youth. We deny them their feelings and truth in a way we would never do with a heterosexual young person.”

Q: what kind of fucking asshole would I have to be to tell these kids they can’t know who they are?

A: One really big fucking asshole, the same kind that grows up and makes gay people’s lives miserable. So shut the fuck up and let them define themselves and figure this stuff out.

So even when I question the long term truth of the high number of kids in this article identifying so readily as bisexual, I chalk it up to “kids being kids” and discovering who they are. The fact that this generation even has a lexicon to identify queer sexual feelings is impressive, and, I think, very important. I can’t help but notice how AWARE these kids are of the fluidity of their own identities at this age, as one student, Alison, says, “We can’t even keep up with who’s gay or bi and who’s into who, and we go to school here!”

It seems like these kids might even be aware of some of issues that complicate adult queer life and identities. The following paragraph could pretty accurately describe any age group of queers in relation to mainstream society:

In particular, openly gay youth who are perceived as conforming to adolescent gender norms are often fully integrated into their peer and school social circles. Girls who come out as bisexual but are still considered “feminine” are often immune from harassment, as are some gay boys, like Laddie, who come out but are still considered “masculine.” “Bisexual girls have it the easiest,” Austin told me in Oklahoma. “Most of the straight guys at school think that’s hot, so that can make the girl even more popular.

I had so much internalized homophobia, it took me until after high school to come out. I have friends who didn’t come out until their mid 20s. I can’t help but wonder what sort of person I would be if I had spent middle school and high school somewhat well adjusted about myself and my sexuality. I laughed when Alison and Justin give Benoit a tour of the school to identify the gays and bisexuals with the terms “paws” and “woof” respectively, and end up speculating that their school is full of confused bisexuals and gays. Their behavior — these attempts to navigate the fairly complicated world of human sexuality — at 11 seems to mirror some of mine when I was 18. The world I grew up in seems alien in comparison, and I was lucky to grow up in a liberal area that had one of the ealier Gay Straight Alliances. My world in the 90s must have seemed pretty alien to the previous generation — the rate of change is astounding.

It’s really inspiring to be living at a time when a segment of the population, considered doomed to a life of loneliness, blamed for a worldwide epidemic, and told that part of who they are is a “choice” that condemns them to hell, can finally grow up, just maybe, feeling good about themselves and with the sort of emotional milestones during adolescence that are more easily experience by their straight counterparts. This starts to look like change I can believe in. It was enough to provoke a tear or two by the end of the article.

This optimism and these emotions could be just what the author wants me to feel. It’s hard to take stock in few case studies presented in this article when hate crimes towards trans, gays, and lesbians appears to be on the rise. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a couple case studies do not necessarily reflect a sea change in national attitudes.

It’s good to see that some things about the teen gay experience haven’t changes since my adolescence:

It’s not uncommon for gay youth to have their same-sex attraction discovered thanks to a rogue number on a phone bill or, more often these days, a poorly concealed Internet search history. “We see a lot of kids get outed by porn on the computer,” Tim Gillean told me in Tulsa. “I knew one kid who told his mom: ‘I don’t know how that got there. Maybe it was dad!’”

And we only had dial-up. I can only imagine what I would have been looking at if high speed connections had existed. Jesus, I would have got in trouble.

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The gay penguins of the San Francisco Zoo have split over a woman. Her name is Linda and she’s a whore if you ask me.

POOR PEPPER!!!!! I hope he still gets visitation rights for the kid.

[via Joe My God]

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One of my favorite parts of this “scandal” is how the assumed straightness of these athletes and the fact that the web site’s audience is primarily gay somehow adds to the moral outrage. If it was a porn site for women (they exist, right?), would the corn-fed Nebraskans be as outraged?

Whatever, the porn that they did seems pretty vanilla. I want to see a video of the whole team playing  gookie cookie together. Make it happen Fratmen.tv!

Free Paul Donahoe! He was just proud of body and wanted to show it off!

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Something important happened yesterday however, and as a gay, gay blog, I do need to at least pretend to cover it. California has  upheld Proposition 8, Prop H8, or whatever you want to call it, in a 6-1 decision. You can download the full text of decision here if you have time to browse a over 100 pages of legal text. If I was a more intelligent person, I’d probably read the full decision and then offer some sort of nuanced point of view on how marriage equality could continue to move forward in California.

Unfortunately I don’t have that much time. But I do have enough time to read editorial features online!!!

Mark Morford wrote this nice little piece up for the San Francisco Chronicle today to give all you gay protesters last night some hope in light of the CA Supreme Court’s decision. It’s pretty well written and a great piece. Memorable quotes:

• Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to “American Idol,” is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because… well, no one really seems to know exactly why.
• You could say, then, that we are, right this minute, at the tipping point. You could say that very soon indeed — sooner than many people expect, in fact — we will all look back on this inane gay marriage hysteria and wonder, what the hell was that all about? What the hell were we thinking? And by the way, isn’t President Obama’s second term going just astonishingly well?

Basically his opinion here is that “Gay marriage is a done deal,” regardless of the opposing legislation that might litter our path there. So all we need to do is like Jennifer Connelly at the end of Labrynth and say “You have no power over me” and then the right wing’s Escher inspired fortress will collapse and we’ll be back at home with our little brother (whom we thought was kidnapped!) and it will be like this whole bad dream never happened.

I guess the problem I have here is that I am part of this eye rolling, Nokia wielding, texting and sexting generation, albeit on the older side. However, I am defintively part of those known as “digital natives” and can safely say that I am on the older end of “Generation Y,” “The Millenials” or “Generation WTF,” you know, whatever you want to call it. And you know what? We’re not as liberal as people assume, there’s still a good number of close minded conservatives among generation Obama. Just because us young liberals currently have the spotlight doesn’t mean the pendulum couldn’t swing the other way.

I have difficulty taking any comfort in the idea that gay rights are part of an unavoidable zeitgeist or Hegelian march through history that will inevitabley end in equality and understanding for all. Gay marriage is far from “the last civil right,” especially when you examine trans issues, continued racism in our country, immigration, and as Andrew Sullivan points out in a powerful blog post regarding his personal life, discrimination against HIV positive people and serodischordant couples.

These are real families, and real people, living real lives, and this is what the fight for gay marriage needs to be about — real families and real people and how our government can create structures to support them the same way we support white heterosexual families in this country. The rights associated with gay marriage are actually about a whole lot more than gays getting married; these are rights that need more than people saying gay marriage is “cool” or “kinda chill” or “who cares” in order to come to fruition. It’s about families who have a need to be recognized by the federal government with full federal rights. The current solution we are fighting for is to create a more inclusive definition of marriage (just as a reminder — civil unions would be seperate and therefore per se would breed inequality).

Now that I am off my soapbox, I will admit his major points do have a good amount of merit. I mean even pre-pubescent vloggers on YouTube are cool with homosexuality these days:

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Bridgehampton – The pop star Madonna was released from Southampton Hospital Saturday afternoon after suffering minor injuries and bruises from a fall while horseback riding at photographer Steve Klein’s West Kill Farm in Bridgehampton. According to accounts which are now being disputed, a freelance photographer startled the horse Madonna was riding when he reportedly emerged from a hedgerow to snap a photograph.

According to press accounts, publicist Liz Rosenberg relayed the incident in a statement claiming Madonna’s horse was startled by paparazzi. The freelance photographer in question has countered that his view was obstructed from where he parked on Scuttle Hole Road and since he did not have a clear shot he opted to leave. Upon seeing an ambulance arrive at the scene he reportedly returned to take a photograph.

Let us count the ways that this story is ridiculous:

1) She was at Steven Klein’s estate. Steven Klein might be most famous for his ridiculous (yet sexy?) photos in L’Uomo Vogue. Like that time he dressed up Aaron Carter like a club kid from the 90s? He wishes he could be styled as fresh as the original club kids, the “cutest things” ever to appear on the Joan Rivers show!

This is the company Madonna keeps? This guy is still photographing her alongside the hunks (i.e. the Brad Pitt shoot for Troy a couple years back) and twinks he usually photographs. He’s even photographed her with horses before and just recent shot her with her young Brazilian lover in some scenes that seem very reminiscent of Truth or Dare. I can’t think of anyone photographer more appropriate for an aging gay icon to be hanging out with. And then for this fantasy lifestyle to end with her face down in the mud bucked from a horse? Priceless. It’s the sort of stuff that could inspire a Marilyn Minter painting.

2) The name of the street the photographer is alleged to have ducked into is “Scuttle Hole Road” and all it makes me think of is the term “scuttlebutt”. A paparazzo working for a gossip rag hanging out on Scuttlebutt Road is like the most obvious set up for short storytoy wrote for your seventh grade english honors class. You got a C+.

3) According to Gawker, Liz Rosenberg is a notorious liar (giving more irony to the associative proximity of the word scuttlebutt! Ho!). Most likely Madonna was just being a jackass to the horse and he threw her, and this whole paparazzo story was a tall tale constructed by a lying publicist. Also, the woman looks like this:

Just sayin’.

4) Madonna is about 124 years old and has post menopausal baby fever. She survived falling from a horse with only minor injuries? Fuck. The invasion has already happened and we’re too late to stop it.

We’re going to need stronger forces to stop her from stealing Malwi’s children to use as hosts.

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But you know what works and is legitimately fair use? Parody. Stephen Colbert made his own ad. Try and take this down NOM!

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These sort of landmarks are essential to bridging an understanding with the greater community in New York of more radical identity politics and queer issues and we need to preserve them. While in my opinion the city should be funding this, spaces for radical queer politics just don’t tend to get much support from the Government, even if they might merit historical landmark status, at least in my opinion. Not to mention that the boat looks pretty rad. They’ve really fixed it up. Let’s not lose this. These men and women need your help. This is the S.S. Gay and it wants to recruit you!

There’s a benefit on March 28th at 78 Lafayette. Please attend. It’s a sliding scale donation of anywhere from 5-20 bucks so I am sure all of you can do this. Learn more on the web site to Save The Gay.

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My good friend Tim Hull sent the greatest news clip my way today. It seems that our recession is pulling New York City back into the eighties and early nineties, back when the West Village was a place for crime, vogue-ing, drag divas, and the fiercest transsexuals, a la Paris is Burning. Can you feel this realness? [via WPIX local news]

Tranny Teens Terrorizing Downtown Girls

WEST VILLAGE (WPIX) — Police say a roving pack of transvestite teens has been targeting females living in a tony West Village building. According to authorities, the trannys would steal the women’s purses and use their stolen credit cards to buy wigs and new clothes.

Two of the teens, Jubril “Dominic” Faggins, 19, and Jhirad “Shanese” Powell, 18 have both been charged with attacking two women at The Archive on Greenwich Street, former home to designer Michael Kors, actress Jennifer Connelly and infamous White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The first attack happened on the morning of January 29. According to the New York Post Powell told cops, “It was Destiny (another transvestite) that told me to rob the white bitch.”

Court papers say Faggins and Powell followed the woman into the lobby, held her down, punched her and then stole her purse. The two attackers then went on a two-day shopping spree in Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall, charging more than $3500 worth of women’s clothes, jewelry and accessories on her stolen credit card.

Days later, on February 2, the duo returned to the building and attacked another woman.

I’d like to point out that they went to the Fulton Mall. Not SoHo, not Barney’s, not 5th Ave, not Union Square. They went to the Fulton Mall. I hope they did some business at Danice.That store is fierce — great styles at a great price. Werk! I love their choice of apartment building to target as well. You know a place is fabulous when Monica Lewinsky lives there.

However, I’m not sure how GLAAD is going to feel about the use of “tranny” here. I’m pretty sure that’s blatantly defamatory language. Shame on you, WPIX.

Have a good weekend y’all — I gotta go rob some white bitches. I need a new weave.

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But calm down for a second, because it’s just for lunch. Not the steamy candlelit dinner you dreamed about last night. But hopefully it’s lunch at Michael’s and you can at least pretend to be part of the media elite.

Now I’ve never been attracted to The Coop. I think he has no lips and looks kind of like a skinny WASP in a way that would just mean a lot of sharp edges to deal with in bed. Doesn’t look like fun to me. But I really hope he fetches a pretty penny because it’s for a very important cause, Bailey House. However, if I was to hang out and get wasted with any news caster though, it would be Diane Sawyer. That lady seems like a fun drunk. (Side note: What’s with me and LOLgraphics recently?)

But on a serious note guys, it’s a really great thing that The Coop is willing to use his celebrity to try and get funded for an organization that provides services such as Bailey House. In this economy, critical budget cuts are destroying critical services in HIV education, prevention, and care that could have an extreme impact on the gay community. As private funders for non profit services began to dry up, the city has reduced up to 42% of it’s funding for HIV/AIDS services, hitting city funded housing especially hard, and St. Vincent’s HIV center has been forced to close it’s landmark PrEP program. Hats off the Anderson Cooper, a celebrity who has never issued a public statement about his homosexuality, for putting his name on the line for a cause often associated with LGBT communities during a very critical time. The full auction index is here.

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I feel like I heard this story before. Many times. Just two years ago, I remember Daniel Cartier getting a lot of press for making an album, and in interviews he mentioned in interviews how he used to escort to make cash. I myself have known guys that explored hustling as a mode of income back in the 90s when the economy was booming, guys that I could probably identify as hipster artist types. I hardly buy that somehow our recent recession is driving a new thriving rent boy economy and sparking hip looking men to the escort industry. But it makes for a good journalistic angle! Right?

Most importantly this made me wonder what type of rent boy I’ll be forced to become when the economy collapses and the class gap is so large I have no choice but to rent myself for orgies in the Village inspired by Caligula. I think I have a solution to make sure I stand out and can charge the big bucks.

Rent Boy Handle:  Daikon Radish
Tagline: Let’s see where I can fit
Specialty: Fitting in tight spaces, also pickling
Profile Pic:

Rate: $7340 a night

Obviously I would be marketed towards only the most high end clients, like that old dreamboat Elliott Spitzer! Maybe he’s marry me and it would be a hustler to housewife story just like Marc Jacobs and his boyfriend.

How would you sell yourself if you had to?

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But even in this time of change.gov and amazing bedazzled hats, there are still mothers getting outraged and thinking about the children. This Canadian mother, Trina Campbell, is not so happy with BUTT magazine right now. Did you know that some people might consider BUTT magazine pornography? And that they sell it at such family friendly organizations as American Apparel? It’s not like American Apparel has a reputation for employing coke head wastoids. Also American Apparel ads are the pinnacle of good taste and family values. You’ve seen them right?

So why is it that Trina thinks publications with images such as the following (of my lovely friend Ethan featured on the BUTT blog) need to be wrapped in yellow plastic with a text explaining that this is for readers 18 and up?

Do you think that if a similar scandal happened in the United States soon that Barack Obama will protect our rights to show our body parts as however we want in whatever publications? Do you think that Trina would have taken offense had this been a heterosexual publication? Do you think American Apparel should discriminate by censoring nudity aimed at homosexuals featuring men who like men while still maintaining a brand image largely aimed at heterosexual hipsters which feature females in compromising positions? Most importantly, were you able to spot my butt in the most recent issue #25 of BUTT magazine?

Really hope Barack Obama will unite us in one nation under intelligent hipster porn, guys. Laterz. Gonna go to AmerApar later today and get some new underwear I think. They have so many colors!

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[via Everything Is Terrible]

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What should I put on my sign? I saw this one the other day. It’s the sweet sign on the left.

Can’t really tell if it’s about h8 or not, but I kind of like the math behind gay = anal sex = marriage. Plus that’s a pretty great ring graphic he drew.

Have you seen Keith Olberman’s statement on the matter. He’s right, these are matters of the heart, no matter how cheesy that sounds.

Let’s stand up for them. This is a time to be angry. This is a time to speak out. This is a time to show solidarity. This is a time to show people how little tolerance we have for discrimination.

But really, what should I write on my sign?

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Amy:  i had a dream last night that ended with me holding lindsey lohan while she sobbed and was o’ding on drugs
actually i kind of like saved her from o’ding on drugs
i was sam ronson
haah it was freakishly vivid
i was sobbing too….it was very intense, watching lindsey od on herion
lindsey’s eyes were like rolling back in here head
and we were in this like darkened forest glen thing
me:  omg
so amazing!
Amy:  it was the kind of think where i woke up and was like, ‘oh god i hope i’m not crying or making weird noises or something” ahhaha cause i was with [guy she is dating]
hahah dreaming about lindsey lohan
me:  haha!
and about being her lesbian lover
Amy:  well it was like, waaaaayy more intesnse then that
like i don’t know if we were really romantically invovled
but it was some like “YOU ARE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS” shit
hahah
me:  soooo good
Amy:  hahah
now i can’t stop thinking about lindsey lohan
i mean shit, maybe i should write her a letter

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This got passed along to me today.

A CONVERSATION WITH THE QUEEN

She’s an unlikely superstar. A big, bodacious, beautiful woman who scaled huge barriers to become one of the world’s most respected performers. She’s Black America’s reigning queen. On September 18, B-E-T will sit down with the incomparable Queen Latifah for a unique one-on-one interview highlighting her storied career, which now spans nearly two decades. B-E-T will trace Queen Latifah’s trajectory to greatness, exploring everything from her emergence as a hip hop artist to her acclaimed acting career, successful Covergirl cosmetics line, and her latest film “The Secret Life of Bees.” Viewers will be captivated by the revelations as B-E-T probes Queen Latifah for her deepest thoughts about her craft and professional ascent into the A-List. Join B-E-T as we hold court with Queen Latifah and have the conversation of a lifetime.

Saturday, September 13, 2008
11:30am- 3:00pm

DGA Theater
110 W 57th Street (btw 6th & 7th Avenues)
New York, New York 10019

I’m totally confused why this is a full day event. I can’t really imagine what sort of probing questions B-E-T will be asking her that take three and a half hours to answer. Queen must have a long and complicated story about how she became a big, bodacious spokesperson for Covergirl. Do ya’ll think they’ll ask her about her lesbianism? With rumors of La Lo getting hitched to Samantha Ronson, I think she should really start talking about it.

Also, do any of you know what the deal is with The Secret Life of Bees? Is it like the National Geographic movie“The Secret Life of Cats” that I once borrowed from the New York Public Library? I heard that “The Secret Life of Bees” also has Dakota Fanning in it. Is that the movie where Dakota Fanning gets raped by a hound dog?

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But seriously, I love her. Did you know that she wears “pearls you have to deal with”?

This last week I fell in love with her even more at the DNC. The following video is some highlights of her time in the media’s eye so far, from her new signature greeting to the way she stands by her man to how she doesn’t wear pantyhose.  She also REALLY loves to talk about the time when women finally got the right to vote. Remember that time? Those suffragists were really great. Miss them so much.

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me: jesse got a cold so he had to go home early
Amy: oh poop town
me: but we still all had a good time
it was like a playground
a playground for dirty faggots
Amy: AHAHHAHAAH
me: I was glad because it had major lame potential
Amy: well i’m glad it was not lame
me: but like…. the people we were with
made it SO good
like, if I wasn’t with people that can take the whole thing with a grain of salt, just have fun, and appreciate some of the place’s ridiculousness at least ironically
then it would be lame
but we had an awesome time in spite of all the horrible, horrible house music being played everywhere

What I learned is that, exactly as represented in John Water’s A Dirty Shame, bears love to cuddle.

But with all good things come some bad things. While I was busy yucking it up, the print version of Playgirl folded. The somewhat genius Michelle Collins, who I have had the pleasure of seeing do stand up for Gabe and Jenny’s show and who blogs for Best Week Ever came up with this tribute which is totally worth sharing and re-blogging.

On her Best Week Ever entry, Michelle asks what your favorite is. I have to agree with her co-blogger Sara Schaefer that the “ebony & ivory” cat picture at the end takes the cake and is the perfect way to finish a piece on Playgirl’s legacy.

You guys agree? Should I post more hunky yet cheesy men with censored penises on this blog?

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Have you guys heard about the ever growing phenomenon of the New Old Gay? Doree Shafrir, part of the troupe of internet-famous ex-Gawker editors, has written a piece (of shit) for the New York Observer today that explains it all for you.

Doree offers up her insight into what she calls the “New Old Gay” identity, which seems to be based entirely on a one night she spent at Musical Monday at Splash.

To be classified as a New Old Gay requires more than an appreciation of Patti LuPone, though love of somewhat tragic, just a tad grotesque, totally fabulous divas is a requirement. In some ways the New Old Gay can be read as a reassertion of a gay identity that had all but been given up for dead: If gays can be married and have children and live contentedly in the suburbs, or on the other end of the spectrum, do the same drugs at the same loft parties as their Oberlin classmates, and if everyone thinks AIDS is no more serious than diabetes, then, really, what’s the difference between the gays and the straights? By dialing back to and reinventing the old gay stereotypes, they may have the best shot at reclaiming gayness as something actually different.

It’s akin to the ways in which identity politics have played out for various minorities and ethnic groups; everyone makes this huge effort to assimilate, and then, after 10 or 20 years or so, they realize: It’s boring!

And thus, the New Old Gay appreciates and embraces camp and high kitsch, but not ironically; ultimately, the New Old Gay is earnest. He doesn’t even necessarily have to be into musical theater, though he almost always is.

Really? AIDS viewed to be as a manageable illness on the same level as Diabetes? So is GMHC irelevant now? Are you trying to tell me that there’s no reason for me to continue using condoms? I’m so glad that someone is finally recognizing the way that a deadly virus has been embraced by a clueless population and turned into a non-issue.

It was also freeing to learn that I can finally use all the same drugs as my straight student counterparts, instead of those gay drugs I was using before. You know, the gay drugs that ONLY gay people do like weed, coke, ecstasy, and meth. That’s right. All the men and women featured on faces of meth are all very very gay because meth is a very gay drug and only for gays.

If it wasn’t for the New Old Gays re-asserting gay identity through old stereotypes, gay identity would disappear and be totally indistinguishable from straight culture. This sort of assimilation is so apparent when you look at today’s hip, queer performance groups and art scenes like the Dazzle Dancers and Yo Majesty, who are both SO straight acting, guys!1!1!!

These people, in their musical loving glory, exist in opposition to what she labels the “New Gay.” These people are basically like me but who tried heroin and love pointy shoes?

These days, the young gays of Williamsburg and the East Village—the ones who wear pointy shoes and tight cutoff shorts, who studied queer theory and dabbled in heroin at Sarah Lawrence or Bard or Wesleyan, hang out at bars like Metropolitan and Sugarland in Williamsburg or the Phoenix and Eastern Bloc in the East Village, and listen to Chromeo and Girl Talk and Le Tigre—get all the attention. Corner one of these young men, and he will profess ignorance of that other scene of youthful gays, the gays of the Friends of Dorothy variety.

So I’m pretty sure I fall in line with the new gays. I love Chromeo, Girl Talk, and Le Tigre. I live in Williamsburg. I hang out at Metropolitan religiously and I frequent both the Phoenix and Eastern Bloc when I am in the East Village. But somehow I am ignorant of the friends of Dorothy? Also… has Le Tigre put out any new music in the last 10 years? Because I’m pretty sure Le Tigre, as much as I love them, falls in the realm of riot grrl nostalgia.

Look. I was a musical theater kid. I can sing all the lyrics to Little Shop of Horrors. I played Frederick in Pirates of Penzance when I was in high school. I have great respect for Patti Lupone and I really wanted to see the production she was in with Michael Severus of Sweeney Todd. I used to go to Marie’s Crisis and have been invited to go to Musical Mondays by a bear friend of mine who has shielded nipple rings (someone nothing like the men featured in thearticle). Since when did being knowledgeable of musical theater culture and camp start to be in contradiction to hipness?

As much as I can appreciate an old gay (I looooooved Chris from Project Runway last season, I really actually want to hang out with him sometime, not in an ironic way), when people my age emulate another era and time it often is a way of deflecting what it means to be a gay man in the present. Previous generations have already made it “safe” to be gay as long as you’re into musicals, lisp, and want to go into something that marginally influences society like broadway wig making.

This article not only pigeonholes gay behavior but also treats us like we’re dancing monkeys, “theater historians agree that one simple explanation why musical theater was attractive to gay men was in part because it provided them a place where singing and dancing was considered acceptable.” Can I get a citation or a single named expert to back that up? You seem to also be saying that singing and dancing are somehow inherent to homosexuality, which I can easily dissprove through a survey of my own friend. Lazy journalism is no excuse to start treating homos like they are the dancing monkeys for the rest of society.

The thing is, the key to Doree’s article, and what may have made for some truly interesting analysis instead of the insulting op-ed piece presented here is present in a quote from one of the men she interviewed that one Musical Monday at Splash.

From my experience within the past 10 to 15 years, there’s lots of oppression you deal with without even realizing it. Through musical theater, you have the opportunity to be larger than life. It’s like you’re overcompensating for the fact that you can’t ever be yourself. All of the being yourself gets pushed down.” Nonetheless, Mr. Thompson, who runs an ensemble theater company called the Deconstructive Theatre Project, said he’s focusing on darker, more political theatrical material these days. “I’m more interested in confronting the world than running away from it,” he said.

That’s some food for thought there. Homosexuals cannot effectively assert their identities by adopting old stereotypes anew, but rather the key is to be cultural pioneers and to confront the realities we live in. Does this have to exclude innovations in musical theater? Of course not. But I’d question whether or not 21 year olds waxing poetic about Judy Garland means that they are asserting an identity or simply falling in line with a consumerist niche created for them in today’s world.

Then again, I’m the sort of person known to have the following conversations.

me: how can I say I am a radical queer if I can’t have sex with a tranny fag
Eliot: amazing
me: haha
Eliot: that’s the most amazing/disgusting thing i’ve ever heard
“how can I say I am a radical queer if I can’t have sex with a tranny fag”

[ "The New Old Gays," The New York Observer]

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