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3

Stonewall Inn Headed for City Landmark Status — A Gay First

BY ANDY HUMM

A

4

DONNA ACETO

s first reported exclusively in Gay City News, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has begun considering landmark designation for the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, site of the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 that sparked the modern LGBT rights movement.

If approved, it would represent the first such designation from the Commission bestowed exclusively for a site’s significance to the LBGT community.

At its June 2 meeting, the Commission calendared the issue for a June 23 public hearing that will provide opportunity for comment from experts and the public.

In a written statement to Gay City News, Meenakshi Srinivasan, the LPC chair, said, “The Stonewall Inn is widely known as the birthplace of the modern LGBT rights movement and holds a truly iconic place in history. In addition to its cultural importance, the building still retains its architectural integrity from its period of significance during the Stonewall Rebellion. I am proud to bring the Stonewall Inn before the full Commission to be considered for designation as an individual and official landmark of New York City — a worthy site that symbolizes one of the most important events in LGBT history for not only New York City, but for the entire country. Recommending Stonewall Inn’s designation represents the Landmark Preservation Commission’s commitment to honor New York’s unique and diverse cultural, social, and political heritage.”

Local public officials and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation have been pressing for the designation for years — with increased urgency recently given the Rebellion’s impending 50th anniversary in 2019.

Prior to news of the Commission’s plans being reported, GVSHP, elected officials including US Representative Jerrold

The celebration outside the Stonewall on June 24, 2011, the day New York’s marriage equality law was enacted.

June 23 hearing likely to result in unprecedented designation based on site’s LGBT significance Nadler and Borough President Gale Brewer, and the Empire State Pride Agenda had scheduled a June 1 press conference outside the Stonewall to call for landmark designation for the bar as well as other sites — including Julius’ Bar at 159 West 10th Street, where gay people won the right to be served alcohol in 1966; the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th Street, where ACT UP and many other community groups were born; and the site of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) Firehouse at 99 Wooster Street, the first significant gay community center in New York.

That press conference was cancelled.

The Commission has been researching the Stonewall designation for some time and was unaware of the scheduled press conference.

Out gay City Councilmember Corey Johnson, whose district includes the Stonewall, said in reaction to the development, “Wow! It’s shocking that in 2015 the Stonewall Inn was never recognized as an individual landmark given its hugely important symbolism and history. LPC recognition is stronger than federal or state recognition. It

brings with it more protection.”

The designation would apply only to the exterior of the Stonewall. For a time after the bar closed in the 1970s, a bagel shop and pottery store occupied the spaces before a bar resumed operating in one of the storefronts. While the new bar appears to be thriving, there has been discussion in recent years of its possible use as a national LGBT history museum.

Out gay State Senator Brad Hoylman, whose district also takes in the Stonewall and has, as well, pressed for the designation for years, said, “The landmarks law has not permitted buildings that have cultural significance but minimal architectural or aesthetic significance to be individual landmarks. I am pleased to see the shift in how landmarks will be considered generally and that it is starting with Stonewall, which is a human rights icon across the globe.”

Hoylman said he would also like to see it designated by executive order as a National Park by President Barack Obama, who mentioned Stonewall along with Seneca Falls and Selma as sites of three great human rights struggles in his 2013 Inaugural Address. Seneca

Falls, New York, is part of the Women’s Rights National Historic Park, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma is a US National Historic Landmark.

The street outside the bar, where the Rebellion lasted for several days and nights in June of 1969, was named Stonewall Place by the city in 1989. A George Segal sculpture of gay and lesbian couples called “Gay Liberation” in Christopher Park across the street was dedicated in 1992. The Stonewall Inn is on the National Register of Historic Places and is listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places.

But the city had previously balked at individual landmark status since it is already within the Greenwich Village Historic District, which was designated in April of 1969, two months before the Stonewall made history. The historic district designation report creating the district, as a result, makes no mention of the Rebellion.

Landmark designation for it now would preserve those architectural features it possessed in June of 1969.

GVSHP’s Berman, who spearheaded the landmarking fight for years, called the latest development “fantastic news,” “incredibly important,” and “long overdue.”

The site, he said, got its federal historic recognition “in 1999 in response to an application from GVSHP and others.”

In a written statement after the Commission’s June 2 meeting, Berman said, “Few sites more powerfully embody the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and for achieving a fairer and more just society, than the Stonewall Inn. The protests and resistance connected to the police raid here in June of 1969 transformed our city, nation, and world, and the reverberations they set off are still being felt today.”

The Commission’s action, he added, “would help ensure that this building is never demolished or altered to erase that incredibly special history.” Berman said that the Stonewall’s interior is not up for landmark status since it has been modified since 1969.

“But we don’t want it to become a Starbucks or a nail salon,” he

STONEWALL, continued on p.39

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

Williamson Henderson’s Persistent Success in Selling a Stonewall Tale Evidence is lacking, but P.T. Barnum reminds us there’s a Times reporter born every minute

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

I

n a June 7 profile of Williamson Henderson, a man who claims he was arrested during the 1969 Stonewall riots, the New York Times at least acknowledged that “Some have called his claims into question.” The Times has profiled or quoted Henderson in four stories since 1994 and once, in a fifth, as his drag persona Queen Allyson Allante. This is the first time the newspaper has suggested his claim might be false.

The Times still managed to get the story wrong. “Some” people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community don’t question his claim; many people in the community know his story to be false because Henderson has no arrest record from 1969 nor does his name appear in the criminal court docket books from late June 1969. Henderson, now 70, also claims his 1969 Cadillac was impounded by police that night.

Other than Henderson’s assertions and those made by a few members of the Stonewall Veterans’ Association (SVA), a group he founded in 1994, no record supports him though he has said since 2000, when LGNY (Lesbian & Gay New York, the predecessor publication to Gay City News) first challenged his story, that he possesses records that prove he was arrested, but is reluctant to make them public because they contain personal information. In reporting this story, Gay City News asked Henderson to finally produce those records and promised to not publish any part of them. Henderson did not

respond. (The LGNY story is available at goo.gl/ EeZDOW.) He told the Times that he “has no documentation of the arrest or the impounding of his Cadillac,” which is different from what he has said in the past. Henderson has a picture that he claims is a mug shot from the arrest. It is undated and may not even be a mug shot.

Other records disprove his story. In 2009, historians David Carter and Jonathan Ned Katz, the founder in 2008 and now a co-director of outhistory.org, an LGBT history site, obtained the police records of the riots. Henderson’s name is nowhere mentioned in those records nor do they refer to a Cadillac being towed from the scene. The records do contain a complaint made by a Volkswagen owner who said her car was damaged during the melee.

Carter authored the 2004 book “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution,” which is the definitive account of that event. The book does not mention Henderson nor does any other history of the Stonewall riots.

Henderson is wholly a creation of the mainstream press and, to a lesser extent, the LGBT press. He readily makes himself available to lazy journalists who want to interview a Stonewall veteran, making reporting very easy. SVA’s participation in New York City’s Pride Parade since roughly 1994 gives him credibility to reporters who are unaware that Heritage of Pride, the group that produces the annual Pride events, admits all comers to the parade. Last year, William Donohue, president of the right-wing Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, applied

to march and was admitted, but he ultimately declined to participate.

SVA’s website also spreads his story to reporters, students, tourists, academics, and even LGBT groups that want a Stonewall veteran for an event. As is the case with plenty of content on the web, it does not occur to people that they may be reading a series of falsehoods. And Henderson solves a problem for those who need a Stonewall veteran, but don’t want to work hard at finding one.

In 2008, a longtime gay activist contacted Gay City News complaining that the organizers of the World Outgames 2009 were planning on bringing two SVA members to Copenhagen, the site of the games, to participate in a tribute to the Stonewall riots. When Gay City News forwarded a copy of the 2000 LGNY article on Henderson to the organizers, a spokesperson wrote in an email, “We do not wish to alienate any in the LGBT community or take sides in any personal

HENDERSON, continued on p.31

TOMMY LANIGAN-SCHMIDT: STONEWALL WAS “ROMANTIC,” “REVOLUTIONARY”

COURTESY: GAY USA

A r t i s t To m m y L a n i that we now know as the Stonewall Rebellion. “You gan-Schmidt was a street kid who arrived in New York in could connect with someone,” May 1966 and participated in he said. “That started the revolution. the Stonewall Rebellion. But he was also someone who fre“We were in our teens and hadn’t gone through the quented the bar itself, which opened in 1967. And while he same things that older peoconcedes it was a dive bar, he ple — over 25 — had gone through. We were runaways. I loved it because it was unique remember a kid who had boilamong gay bars of the time in Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt. ing water thrown on him by his allowing “slow dancing where mother for being gay. Outside you could have a nice, full embrace — the unity of one person with anoth- we could be murdered. Inside we were safe.”

He said that when you went into a bar like er person.”

Lanigan-Schmidt, now 67, believes the slow the Tenth of Always at the time, “if you touched, dancing in a public place was in itself a “revo- they would throw you out.”

He recalled a bouncer “on a power trip” who lutionary” thing and accounted in part for the violent reaction to the police raid in June 1969 decided who could get into the Stonewall. “It GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

was a combination speakeasy, juke joint, lawless and below the radar — it was all those things combined,” he said. “It was a deeply romantic place.”

The first night of the Rebellion, Lanigan-Schmidt couldn’t get in and came back when the raid was in progress. “More and more people kept showing up,” he said, “and suddenly everyone was together” — which allowed people to act up in ways they had never considered before.

“That night we were angry, an anger that was not being reflected upon, an impulsive anger at not being able to dance — a total body thing,” he said. “It was a visceral feeling.”

Lanigan-Schmidt, who has taught in the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts for almost 25 years and been exhibited at MoMA’s PS1, said that he hopes that the Stonewall, which

occupied 51 and 53 Christopher Street (now Stonewall Place) in 1969, would get bought by someone “who would turn it into a gay museum. It should be like the Tenement Museum” at 97 Orchard on the Lower East Side, where tenement life circa the 1870s is preserved. He suggested using “gay acting students” to play the 1969 patrons and protesters.

“If they wanted to recreate the Stonewall,” he explained, it was all pretty bare bones. “It was a Mafia bar with plywood painted black on the walls and two juke boxes,” he recalled. “The best way to inform people is to give it that flavor so that people can get into how down and out it was — not a nice, middle-class bar.”

You can see the interview my “Gay USA” co-host Ann Northrop and I recently conducted with Lanigan-Schmidt at https://goo.gl/fqukQe. — Andy Humm

5

POLITICS

Queer Nation’s Aerial Assault on Ian Reisner’s Fire Island Fortress

Boycott call takes aim at one of two hosts of notorious April 20 Manhattan gay dinner soirée for Ted Cruz

I

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

n a splashy new development in the two-monthold brouhaha over two gay Manhattan hoteliers’ meeting with — and financial contribution to — stridently anti-gay Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz, the activist group Queer Nation launched a beachfront fly-over of a banner urging a boycott of one of the men’s Fire Island Pines commercial properties.

For 40 minutes mid-afternoon on June 7, the group funded a plane to fly back and forth between the Pines and neighboring Cherry Grove, both popular gay and lesbian weekend communities, trailing a banner reading, “Boycott Hi/ Lo Tea! Fight For Full LGBT Rights!”

The protest was aimed at Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, owners of the West 42nd Street Out Hotel, who hosted an April 20 dinner and “fireside chat” for the Republican presidential candidate at the Central Park South penthouse that the business partners and former lovers jointly own. Reisner is one of the investors who earlier this year purchased roughly 80 percent of the commercial property in the Pines for $10 million.

That property includes the Blue Whale, Sip-N-Twirl, and the Pavilion, establishments that host High Tea and Low Tea on summer afternoons.

In a written statement, Ken Kidd, a Queer Nation member, said, “We can get married on Sunday and then evicted or fired on Monday in many states in this country. Yet two gay business owners are making money off of the LGBT community at a world-famous gay vacation spot and then giving that money to outspoken anti-LGBT politicians who would keep us from winning those rights.”

He added, “Is doing without a cocktail at Tea such a sacrifice to make in our struggle for true equality?”

When news of the April 20 gathering for Cruz first broke, Reisner and Weiderpass insisted the event was not a fundraiser, but instead a chance to discuss foreign policy, GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

The banner Queer Nation flew over the beaches of the Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove on June 7.

in particular their concerns about Israel’s security. However, on May 29, the New York Times reported that around the time of the event, Reisner wrote a check to the Cruz campaign for $2,700, the legal maximum under federal campaign finance rules.

Asked about that contribution by the Times, Reisner said, “In the interest of transparency, I gave Senator Cruz a $2,700 check to show my support for his work on behalf of Israel. When I realized his donation could be misconstrued as supporting his anti-gay marriage agenda, I asked for the money back. Senator Cruz’s office gave the money back, and I have no intention of giving any money to any politicians who aren’t in support of LGBT issues.”

Reisner and Weiderpass, in a series of media interviews and social media posts, have alternately expressed contrition for hosting the meeting and “for hurting the gay community and so many of our friends, family, allies, customers and employees” and aggressively volleyed back that their critics are extremists intolerant of diverse viewpoints within the LGBT community.

One particularly low moment in their campaign at rehabilitation came when they told New York magazine, in response to charges that they have profited off the LGBT community, that “gays are cheap” and the hotel loses money.

The same week that Cruz dined with Reisner and Weiderpass, the Texas Republican announced two pieces of legislation — one a constitutional amendment to shield states limiting marriage to different-sex couples from legal challenge and another blocking any federal court action on the question until such an amendment is adopted.

Cruz’s views on gay marriage are not simply a quibble over the principles of federalism. Last summer, writing in the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin quoted him saying, “If ever there was an issue on which we should come to our knees to God about, it is preserving marriage of one man and one woman. And this is an issue on which we need as many praying warriors as possible to turn back the tide.”

Cruz has also voiced opposition to LGBT non-discrimination protections, both at the federal level and in Texas and its localities.

The Out Hotel has suffered can-

cellations from a wide array of community groups that had planned to hold events there, including Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS and the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus.

In addition to the Queer Nation action this weekend, Reisner also faced pressure from a Facebook-organized boycott group that delivered 600 palm cards to every home in the Pines and plastered the island with hundreds of posters. The group’s Facebook page includes a statement from Andrew Tobias, the financial writer and novelist long involved with the Democratic National Committee — who had defended the two men early in the controversy — who wrote, “The best solution would be for [Reisner] to find a buyer for his share in the Pines properties ASAP.” Reisner and Weiderpass’ problems at the Out Hotel also multiplied last month when four current and former employees filed suit in federal court alleging businesses in the complex failed to pay required overtime wages and discriminated against two of the plaintiffs on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

11

HEALTH

Estimates of Medicaid PrEP Users in New York State Revised Down

Health department now says only 832 on HIV prevention meds, but number growing since 2014

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

T

he state health department has significantly reduced its estimate of the number of Medicaid beneficiaries in New York who are using pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) from 3,149 to 832.

“I think the number from last year wasn’t done by Medicaid,” said Dan O’Connell, director of the AIDS Institute, which is part of the state health department, in explaining the disparity between the two estimates.

The state health department now estimates that 310 Medicaid beneficiaries used PrEP — anti-HIV drugs used by HIV-negative people to keep them uninfected — between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013. Over the 12 months that followed, 358 Medicaid beneficiaries used PrEP. Since June 30 of last year, PrEP use has grown, with the department estimating that 832 Medicaid beneficiaries took Truvada between then and the end of February of 2015. Truvada is the only anti-HIV drug approved for PrEP. The PrEP users in the earlier two periods may be largely the same people and those people may be among the 832 PrEP users who began the drug regimen in the eight months after June 2014.

“This is really a baseline of where we’re starting from,” O’Connell said.

“Basically, for both of those time

periods, there are about 300 people on PrEP.” The new PrEP data, which the state health department called “preliminary,” was released in response to a Freedom of Information request made by Gay City News. The agency also released some limited demographic data about the PrEP users.

For the period from July 2012 through June 2013, fewer than six PrEP users were 14 or younger, 41 were between 15 and 24, 203 were between 25 and 49, 56 were between 50 and 64, and six or fewer were over 65. (The department did not specify a number for age ranges where six or fewer beneficiaries were using PrEP.) In that first time period, 257 PrEP users lived in New York City and 53 lived outside the city.

In the following 12-month period, beginning July 1, 2013, seven PrEP users were 14 or younger, 71 were between 15 and 24, 234 were between 25 and 49, 43 were between 50 and 64, and the remaining three were — simple addition indicates — over 65. In that second time period, 283 PrEP users lived in the city and 75 lived outside the city.

O’Connell supplied the estimate of 832 PrEP users for the third time period — July 1 of last year through February 28 of this year —without providing even the limited demographic data available for the earlier periods. There is no reason, how-

ever, to believe that the age breakdown from the most recent time period would be inconsistent with that from the first two time periods.

The state health department did not supply demographic data on the gender or race of the PrEP users for any time period.

The data on PrEP use by Medicaid beneficiaries does not include PrEP users who have private insurance, so the number of PrEP users in New York is certainly higher than 832. Estimates of PrEP use produced by Gilead Sciences, which manufactures and markets Truvada, have been consistently conservative, though they have shown steady growth in PrEP uptake over time.

PrEP is a central component of the Plan to End AIDS, which seeks to cut the number of HIV infections in New York State from the current roughly 3,000 annually to 750 a year by 2020. The plan will also use post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), which prevents infection in HIV-negative people with a recent exposure to the virus, and treatment as prevention (TasP), the use of anti-HIV drugs by HIV-positive people to make them no longer infectious to others. All three drug regimens have a proven effectiveness when taken correctly.

The growth seen in the Gilead and state health department PrEP use estimates is likely attributable,

at least in part, to increased public discussion about PrEP. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his support for the Plan to End AIDS at the start of last year’s LGBT Pride March in Manhattan.

“There’s so much talk about PrEP,” O’Connell said. “We hope the governor’s announcement moved the needle.”

Over 90 percent of new HIV infections in New York are in New York City and every demographic group in the city except gay and bisexual men have seen declines in new infections in recent years.

For the plan to work, tens of thousands of gay and bisexual men will likely have to be taking PrEP. A high percentage of those who are HIV-positive, probably at least 50 or 60 percent, must be virally suppressed, as well.

A study presented in February at a scientific conference by Dr. Robert Grant, a researcher at San Francisco’s Gladstone Institutes, estimated that San Francisco would see a 70 percent cut in new HIV infections if 95 percent of the roughly 16,000 people in San Francisco who are in the “highest risk strata” for HIV infection, or nearly 14,200 people, were taking PrEP and 62 percent of HIV-positive people were taking anti-HIV drugs and were no longer infectious. New York’s epidemic is eight times larger than San Francisco’s epidemic.

STATEN ISLAND STREET NAMED FOR 1990 GAY-BASHING VICTIM

12

COURTESY: ROBERT ZAPPALORTI

COURTESY: ROBERT ZAPPALORTI

Jimmy Zappalorti, a 44-year old up for ourselves and that we needed to educate the community and we gay military veteran, was brutally murdered on Staten Island in 1990 needed a safe and welcoming place for being gay in a case that shook for that community to go to.”

Robert Zappalorti has written a the city and sparked gay activism in that borough. On May 29, Jimmy Zapbook about his brother, “Stained Glass Windows: The Life and Death palorti Lane was unveiled on a portion of Androvette Street in Charlesof Jimmy Zappalorti” that chroniton, the south shore street where he cles his life growing up, serving in the navy in Vietnam, working in the lived. On hand were Jimmy’s brother family stained glass business, and Robert, who spoke of the gay life Bert Coffman, former Mayor David Dinkins, and meeting his untimely end. “It is the Jimmy enjoyed in Manhattan and Robert Zappalorti. story of a devastated family that the more conservative life he lived at home in Staten Island. channeled its pain into seeking change to ensure that there In comments to NY-1 News, Ralph Vogel, executive was justice for Jimmy and for the entire LGBT community,” director of the Pride Center of Staten Island, said that the according to a written statement announcing the street response to Jimmy’s murder “became the kernel of an LGBT renaming.

The unveiling was also attended by former Mayor David center for Staten Island — the people that got together, the conversations began, and we knew that we needed to speak Dinkins, who was in office at the time of the murder, Stat-

en Island City Councilmember Vincent Ignizio, and Bert Coffman, who helped organize the Zappalorti Society to work on gay mental health issues. Mental health problems that led to his 1965 military discharge continued throughout Jimmy’s life.

One of Zappalorti’s assailants, Phillip Sarlo, died in prison. The other, Michael Taylor, remains behind bars. — Andy Humm June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

POLITICS

Cuomo in Full Court Press for Giveaway to Anti-Gay Schools

PRIDE IN THE HAMPTONS

Governor may exact tax credit plan from Assembly in return for stronger rent protections

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overnor Andrew Cuomo has joined forces with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, to enact a “tax credit” bill that would transfer millions of state dollars to private and religious schools, many of them run by anti-gay religions that discriminate against LGBT employees. The measure has now been renamed the “Parental Choice in Education Act,” essentially a voucher program for these non-public schools that has been resisted by New York legislators for decades.

In the closing days of the legislative session, press reports say that Cuomo is trying to pressure the Assembly that has resisted the tax giveaway to accept it in exchange for something its Democratic leaders want — stronger rent laws. Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, has been quoted as unhappy about that pressure.

Cuomo's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Jonathan Westin, executive director of New York Communities for Change, told Capital New York, “We should not be leaving the fate of millions of families in rent-regulated apartments in limbo over a tax break for hedge fund billionGayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

aires to send their kids to lavish prep schools.”

A TV ad featuring Cuomo and Dolan urging New Yorkers to call their assemblymembers bills the tax credit as an aid to “low and middle income children.”

Ve t e r a n g a y a c t i v i s t A l l e n Roskoff, president of the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, said, “Andrew Cuomo is being demagogic again, this time aiding religious schools, many of which bully LGBT children by telling them that they are disordered sinners. There has to be a strong wall between church and state, but the governor is trying to tear it down. It is a disgrace.”

The Empire State Pride Agenda did not return repeated requests for their position on the tax transfer to these anti-gay schools. They are focused on the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) that has long been blocked by the Republican-led Senate. That bill passed the Democrat-led Assembly again this past week “for the first time without vocal opposition,” according to ESPA’s communications director Michael Murphy, and with 14 Republican votes. The Pride Agenda is also trying to get the Senate to adopt a bill banning so-called “conversion therapy” for minors.

CUOMO, continued on p.33

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POLITICS

Council Push for $50 MM Diversion to Religious Schools Intensifies Tape surfaces of anti-gay rant by a leading sponsor from Brooklyn

BY ANDY HUMM

A

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

$100,000 ad campaign has been launched in the Catholic and Jewish press to pressure Mayor Bill de Blasio into supporting a City Council bill, Intro 65, to let private and religious schools obtain free security officers for their schools (viewable at goo.gl/G4mNY7). The bill is an unprecedented transfer of $50 million of public funds to private schools — many of them run by anti-gay religions — with no requirement that they stop discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity in order to access the funds.

City & State reported that the ad campaign is being bankrolled by “Jewish and Catholic philanthropists” who “wish to remain anonymous.”

The bill has support from 46 of 51 councilmembers — including four of the Council’s gay caucus: Corey Johnson of Manhattan, Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn, Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, and Jimmy Van Bramer of Queens. It is strongly opposed by out LGBT Councilmembers Daniel Dromm of Queens and Rosie Mendez of Manhattan.

One of the lead sponsors of Intro 65, and another bill to provide even more safety resources to private and religious schools, is Brooklyn Councilmember Chaim Deutsch, chair of the Council Subcommittee

on Non-Public Schools. A video has surfaced from a 2013 debate in his District 48 primary where he chastised his opponent, Theresa Scavo, saying, “You have the National Organization for Women’s endorsement which — I don’t know how you could represent this community when they have an agenda with gays and lesbians if you take a look at their website.”

Deutsch’s office did not respond to a question from Gay City News as to why support from an organization that endorsed a gay and lesbian “agenda” was unacceptable in his community, or what else he might have meant by the charge.

Dromm said, “I am terribly disappointed and hurt by Councilmember Deutsch’s statement about the LGBT community. I have to work closely with him because he is chair of the Subcommittee on Non-Public Schools and I am chair of Education, and it is very hurtful that he does not value my family as much as his family.”

Deutsch’s comments in the debate at the Flatbush Community Council forum can be seen at the 4:42 mark at goo.gl/Di0q59.

Councilmember David Greenfield, who heads an organization dedicated to securing public funds for private schools, wrote in an email that he is pushing the bill because “bias crimes against the religious community are on the rise.”

The police department testified that it will deploy officers against any demonstrable threat to any

Brooklyn Councilmember Chaim Deutsch.

institution, but does not support supplying personnel to every private or public school on demand as the bill mandates. Dromm, chair of the Education Committee, wrote in City & State that at an April hearing on the measure “the head of the NYPD School Safety Division expressed deep concerns that passing Intro 65 would potentially hinder its ability to deploy staffing resources effectively.”

The four gay councilmembers supporting the bill have not responded to repeated questions from Gay City News on why publicly funded security for private schools has now become necessary, and what limits they would set on public funding for religious schools.

Torres held a press conference supporting the bill in May at a religious school in the Bronx, Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy, where

the annual tuition is upwards of $40,000 a year.

As Gay City News reported, education activists oppose the bill because of the severe underfunding of public schools, and LGBT and civil liberties activists see it as an unacceptable breach of the wall between church and state and a subsidy for anti-gay institutions.

Dromm, who said Intro 65 could cost as much as five times the $50 million projected by sponsors, said he does not know if the bill will move forward or not.

“I hope that the mayor will address the issue directly and reconfirm his commitment to funding our public schools adequately,” he said.

Asked to explain why progressive New York politicians are now aligning themselves with religious constituencies over their commitment to church-state separation, Kenneth Sherrill, out gay political science professor emeritus at Hunter College, said, “I think the decline of traditional party organizations has magnified the ability of traditionally conservative religious organizations to turn out voters, sometimes enabling them to dominate primaries with no runoffs, as well as to be able to deliver swing voters in closely contested elections. Just as old line political machines controlled jobs, the religious organizations use government funding to hire people who are highly motivated to campaign for someone who will allow them to keep their jobs.”

STONEWALL DEMOCRATS FÊTE FOUR AT PRIDE In a June 4 event at the Union Square Ballroom, the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City kicked off its month of Pride celebration by honoring four leaders from inside the community and among allies. Honorees were Stuart Appelbaum, the out gay president of the Retail Wholesale & Department Store Union; Octavia Lewis (right), an educational specialist for transgender programming at the Hetrick-Martin Institute; Mark Thompson, an executive vice president at the government relation firm Capalino + Company; and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., seen here with board member Marty Algaze and president Eunic Ortiz. — Photos by Grace Chu

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June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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MICHAEL KORS BUILDING IN SOHO God’s Love We Deliver has been cooking and delivering nutritious, individually-tailored meals to people living with severe illness for over 30 years and currently serves more than 1.4 million meals to some 5,200 people each year. The new Michael Kors Building allows God’s Love to meet the growing demand for its life-sustaining and life-affirming services, up 94% over the last eight years. As always, free of charge, and without delay.

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@godslovenyc #TheMichaelKorsBuilding GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

15

HEALTH

Chelsea Clinic Protests Shift Focus to de Blasio ACT UP demonstrators charge city “pulling numbers out of the air” in its ability to pick up STD screening slack

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

D

The June 3 protest called out Mayor Bill de Blasio over the city’s widely panned handling of the Chelsea STD clinic closing.

GAY CITY NEWS

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GAY CITY NEWS

uring a protest outside City Hall, some 30 members of ACT UP New York called on the de Blasio administration to replace the HIV and sexually transmitted disease testing services that were lost when the city closed its Chelsea sexually transmitted disease clinic for a two-year-long renovation.

“This city government cannot ignore the health, the public health, of the queer community,” said James Krellenstein, a member of the AIDS activist group, during the June 3 protest.

The clinic, one of nine the city health department operates, closed on March 21 for a $17 million renovation of the nearly 80-yearold building. The Chelsea clinic reported the most annual visits among the nine clinics. The health department has been criticized for either not planning to replace the lost services or for poor planning.

Those services are vital because Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen have the highest rate of syphilis infections in the city. The syphilis epidemic, as activists are calling it, has gone unabated since 2007. Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen also have the highest rate of new HIV diagnoses in the city. The syphilis and HIV rates in those neighborhoods result almost entirely from new infections among gay and bisexual men. The two neighborhoods also have high rates of gonorrhea and hepatitis C. The Chelsea clinic was also expected to be an important resource in the Plan to End AIDS that aims to reduce HIV infections in New York State from roughly 3,000 annually to 750 a year by 2020. People who have a recent sexually transmitted disease may be at high risk for acquiring HIV. Such people could be candidates for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the consistent use of antiHIV drugs by HIV-negative people to keep them uninfected.

“The hardest part is getting the highest risk population,” Krellenstein said. “They have the goldmine here.”

The health department has

floated various proposals for replacing the lost services, with the most recent coming the night before the protest. In an email to City Councilmember Corey Johnson, who represents Chelsea and chairs the Health Commmittee, Dr. Mary Bassett, the city’s health commissioner, proposed steering clients to three nearby nonprofits, placing testing vans operated by six nonprofits outside the clinic, and adding a permanent city testing van. Altogether, this would cover

23,000 annual visits, according to Bassett. Since 2012, the Chelsea clinic had roughly 20,000 visits every year. The city will also expand and modernize its testing and lab facilities in its permanent van.

In the city's original proposal, the six vans were to be at the clinic through September. It is not clear that the three nonprofits have the capacity to add thousands of new visits annually, though one of them, the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, has already added

105 sexual health visits to its weekly schedule, or just over 5,400 every year.

“They suddenly have told us that these clinics will be able to do 15,000 visits a year,” said Jim Eigo, an ACT UP member. “I’m afraid the [health department] is just pulling numbers out of the air.”

The Chelsea clinic testing was also free and could be anonymous.

Those services are harder to find at private nonprofits. Activists want to see sufficient cash allocated to fund “expanded HIV/ STD testing and treatment at neighborhood clinics,” an “inexpensive, prefabricated temporary clinic” at the Chelsea site, “funds to expedite the renovations of the shuttered clinic,” and a community board to oversee the renovation.

While earlier complaints focused on the city health department, the June 3 protest aimed some of the frustration and anger at Mayor Bill de Blasio. Some signs read “De Blasio, the blood is on your hands,” “De Blasio, blasé on STDs,” and “Mr. Mayor: You make us sick.”

A June 3 visit to the closed Chelsea clinic showed that asbestos abatement has begun at the site, but also revealed that people continue to go there expecting the clinic to be open.

A city health department employee who was stationed there to send people to another city clinic on West 100th Street or to the nearby private providers told Gay City News that she had spoken with 20 people seeking services that day.

Staf f fr om the AIDS gr oup Harlem United, which had its mobile health van parked outside the clinic on June 3, said they saw about 10 people for sexually transmitted disease screening and three for primary health screening.

Data that was distributed at a May 15 meeting of activists and senior health department staff suggests that visits to city clinics are down generally through midApril. The data also suggest the decline is attributable to the Chelsea clinic closing. Syphilis diagnoses also appear to have declined since the Chelsea clinic closed.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

NYU LANGONE IS THE ONLY MEDICAL CENTER IN NEW YORK RANKED AMONG THE TOP 10 NATIONALLY IN ORTHOPEDICS, RHEUMATOLOGY, AND REHABILITATION BY U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT. Think about this. In the rare situation that a medical center is recognized as being exceptional in not just one specialty related to joint problems, but in all three—orthopedics, rheumatology, and rehabilitation—then you have a team that is uniquely qualified to provide the best specialists and the right course of action for your condition. And that may not include surgery.

At NYU Langone, we take a comprehensive approach. We make no assumptions. Our multidisciplinary team works together to conduct a thorough evaluation and review every treatment option. Can your hip be rehabilitated at Rusk? What about a nonsurgical treatment?

Surgery may be the right call, but if you think it’s your only choice, it doesn’t hurt to think again. To make an appointment, call 888.769.8633.

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

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TRIUMEQ is a once-a-day pill used to treat HIV-1. TRIUMEQ should not be used by itself in some people. Take TRIUMEQ exactly as your healthcare provider tells you.

Is it time for you? Ask your doctor.

APPROVED USES TRIUMEQ is a prescription medicine used to treat Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1) infection in adults. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. It is not known if TRIUMEQ is safe or effective in children under the age of 18. TRIUMEQ is not for use by itself in people who have or have had resistance to abacavir, dolutegravir, or lamivudine.

TRIUMEQ does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. You must stay on continuous HIV-1 therapy to control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illness.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

° yellow skin, or the white part of the eyes turns yellow; dark urine;

• A buildup of acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis can happen in some people who take TRIUMEQ. This serious medical emergency can cause death. Call your healthcare provider right away if you feel very weak or tired; have unusual muscle pain; have trouble breathing; have stomach pain with nausea and vomiting; feel cold, especially in your arms and legs; feel dizzy/ light-headed; or have a fast/irregular heartbeat.

get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you start having new symptoms after starting your HIV-1 medicine.

light-colored stools; nausea; itching; or stomach-area pain.

What is the most important information I should know about TRIUMEQ? • Worsening of hepatitis B virus in people who have HIV-1 infection.

• Serious allergic reaction (hypersensitivity reaction). TRIUMEQ If you have HIV-1 and hepatitis B virus infections, your hepatitis virus contains abacavir. Patients taking TRIUMEQ may have a serious infection may get worse if you stop taking TRIUMEQ. Do not stop allergic reaction to abacavir that can cause death. Your risk is taking TRIUMEQ without first talking to your healthcare provider, so much higher if you have a gene variation called HLA-B*5701. Your he or she can monitor your health. healthcare provider can determine with a blood test if you have • Resistant hepatitis B virus. If you have HIV-1 and hepatitis B, the this gene variation. If you get symptoms from 2 or more of the hepatitis B virus can change (mutate) during your treatment with following groups while taking TRIUMEQ, call your healthcare TRIUMEQ and become harder to treat (resistant). provider right away: 1. fever; 2. rash; 3. nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or stomach pain; 4. generally ill feeling, extreme • Use with interferon and ribavirin-based regimens. If you’re taking tiredness, or achiness; 5. shortness of breath, cough, or sore TRIUMEQ and interferon, with or without ribavirin, tell your healthcare throat. Your pharmacist will give you a Warning Card with a list of provider about any new symptoms. Liver disease might get worse in these symptoms. Carry this Warning Card with you at all times. patients who are taking HIV-1 medicines and interferon.

If you stop taking TRIUMEQ because of an allergic reaction, never Who should not take TRIUMEQ? take TRIUMEQ or any other medicine that contains abacavir or • Do not take TRIUMEQ if you: dolutegravir again. If you take TRIUMEQ or any other abacavir° have the HLA-B*5701 gene variation containing medicine again after you have had an allergic reaction, ° have ever had an allergic ®reaction to abacavir, dolutegravir, or lamivudine within hours you may get life-threatening symptoms that may ° take dofetilide (Tikosyn ) include very low blood pressure or death. If you stop TRIUMEQ for ° have certain liver problems any other reason, even for a few days, and you are not allergic to What are other possible side effects of TRIUMEQ? TRIUMEQ, talk with your healthcare provider before taking it again.

Taking TRIUMEQ again can cause a serious allergic or life-threatening • People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus may have an increased reaction, even if you never had an allergic reaction to it before. If your risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests healthcare provider tells you that you can take TRIUMEQ again, during treatment with TRIUMEQ. Your healthcare provider may do tests start taking it when you are around medical help or people who to check your liver function before and during treatment with TRIUMEQ. can call a healthcare provider if you need one.

• When you start taking HIV-1 medicines, your immune system may

• Severe liver problems. Severe liver problems can happen in people who take TRIUMEQ. In some cases, these severe liver problems can lead to death. You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or serious liver problems if you are female, very overweight, or have been taking nucleoside analogue medicines for a long time. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following signs or symptoms:

• Changes in body fat can happen in people who take HIV-1 medicines.

• Some HIV-1 medicines, including TRIUMEQ, may increase your risk of heart attack.

The most common side effects of TRIUMEQ include: trouble sleeping, headache, and tiredness.

These are not all the possible side effects of TRIUMEQ. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away.

Important Safety Information continued on next page.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see brief summary of Prescribing Information for TRIUMEQ on the following pages.

©2014 ViiV Healthcare group of companies. All rights reserved.

Printed in USA. DTR045R0 November 2014

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June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

Not an actual patient. Testimonial is based on a collection of real patient experiences.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking TRIUMEQ? • Before you take TRIUMEQ, tell your healthcare provider if you: ° have been tested and know whether or not you have a gene variation called HLA-B*5701. ° have or had liver problems, including hepatitis B or C infection; have kidney problems; have heart problems, smoke, or have diseases that increase your risk of heart disease such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes; drink alcoholic beverages; or have any other medical condition. ° are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if TRIUMEQ will harm your unborn baby. ° are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take TRIUMEQ.

• Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines (for example, antacids; laxatives; vitamins such as iron or calcium supplements; anti-seizure medicines; other medicines to treat HIV-1, hepatitis, or tuberculosis; metformin; and methadone) and herbal supplements (for example, St. John’s wort). TRIUMEQ may affect the way they work, and they may affect how TRIUMEQ works.

• You should not take TRIUMEQ if you also take: or ZIAGEN) ° abacavir (EPZICOM, TRIZIVIR, ® lamivudine (COMBIVIR , EPIVIR, EPIVIR-HBV®, EPZICOM, or TRIZIVIR) ° ® ® ® ® ® ° emtricitabine (EMTRIVA , ATRIPLA , COMPLERA , STRIBILD , TRUVADA )

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

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BRIEF SUMMARY TRIUMEQ® (TRI-u-meck) (abacavir 600 mg/dolutegravir 50 mg/lamivudine 300 mg) tablets Read this Medication Guide before you start taking TRIUMEQ and each time you get a refill.

There may be new information. This information does not take the place of talking to your healthcare provider about your medical condition or your treatment. Be sure to carry your TRIUMEQ Warning Card with you at all times.

What is the most important information I should know about TRIUMEQ? • Serious allergic reaction (hypersensitivity reaction). TRIUMEQ contains abacavir (also contained in EPZICOM®, TRIZIVIR®, and ZIAGEN®). Patients taking TRIUMEQ may have a serious allergic reaction (hypersensitivity reaction) that can cause death. Your risk of this allergic reaction to abacavir is much higher if you have a gene variation called HLA-B*5701.

Your healthcare provider can determine with a blood test if you have this gene variation.

If you get a symptom from 2 or more of the following groups while taking TRIUMEQ, call your healthcare provider right away to find out if you should stop taking TRIUMEQ. Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5

Symptom(s) Fever Rash Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal (stomach area) pain Generally ill feeling, extreme tiredness, or achiness Shortness of breath, cough, sore throat

A list of these symptoms is on the Warning Card your pharmacist gives you. Carry this Warning Card with you at all times.

If you stop TRIUMEQ because of an allergic reaction, never take TRIUMEQ or any other medicines that contain abacavir or dolutegravir (EPZICOM, ZIAGEN, TRIZIVIR, or TIVICAY®) again. If you take TRIUMEQ or any other abacavir-containing medicine again after you have had an allergic reaction, within hours you may get life-threatening symptoms that may include very low blood pressure or death. If you stop TRIUMEQ for any other reason, even for a few days, and you are not allergic to TRIUMEQ, talk with your healthcare provider before taking it again. Taking TRIUMEQ again can cause a serious allergic or life-threatening reaction, even if you never had an allergic reaction to it before.

If your healthcare provider tells you that you can take TRIUMEQ again, start taking it when you are around medical help or people who can call a healthcare provider if you need one.

• Build-up of acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis can happen in some people who take TRIUMEQ. Lactic acidosis is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death.

Lactic acidosis can be hard to identify early, because the symptoms could seem like symptoms of other health problems.

Call your healthcare provider right away if you get the following symptoms that could be signs of lactic acidosis: • feel very weak or tired • have unusual (not normal) muscle pain • have trouble breathing • have stomach pain with nausea and vomiting • feel cold, especially in your arms and legs • feel dizzy or light-headed • have a fast or irregular heartbeat • Severe liver problems. Severe liver problems can happen in people who take TRIUMEQ. In some cases these severe liver problems can lead to death. Your liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and you may develop fat in your liver (steatosis).

Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following signs or symptoms of liver problems: • your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow • dark “tea-colored” urine • light colored stools (bowel movements) • nausea • itching • stomach-area pain You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or serious liver problems if you are female, very overweight, or have been taking nucleoside analogue medicines for a long time.

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• Worsening of hepatitis B virus in people who have HIV-1 infection. If you have HIV-1 and hepatitis B virus infections, your hepatitis virus infection may get worse if you stop taking TRIUMEQ. To help avoid this: Take TRIUMEQ exactly as prescribed.

• Do not run out of TRIUMEQ. • Do not stop TRIUMEQ without talking to your healthcare provider.

• Your healthcare provider should monitor your health and do regular blood tests to check your liver for at least several months if you stop taking TRIUMEQ. • Resistant Hepatitis B Virus (HBV). If you have HIV-1 and hepatitis B, the hepatitis B virus can change (mutate) during your treatment with TRIUMEQ and become harder to treat (resistant).

• Use with interferon and ribavirin-based regimens. Worsening of liver disease has happened in people infected with HIV-1 and hepatitis C virus who are taking anti-HIV medicines and are also being treated for hepatitis C with interferon with or without ribavirin.

If you are taking TRIUMEQ and interferon with or without ribavirin, tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms.

What is TRIUMEQ? TRIUMEQ is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virustype 1) infection. TRIUMEQ contains 3 prescription medicines: abacavir (ZIAGEN), dolutegravir (TIVICAY), and lamivudine (EPIVIR®).

• TRIUMEQ is not for use by itself in people who have or have had resistance to abacavir, dolutegravir, or lamivudine.

It is not known if TRIUMEQ is safe and effective in children.

TRIUMEQ may help: • reduce the amount of HIV-1 in your blood. This is called “viral load”.

• increase the number of white blood cells called CD4+ (T) cells in your blood, which help fight off other infections.

Reducing the amount of HIV-1 and increasing the CD4+ (T) cells in your blood may help improve your immune system. This may reduce your risk of death or getting infections that can happen when your immune system is weak (opportunistic infections).

TRIUMEQ does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. You must stay on continuous HIV-1 therapy to control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses.

Avoid doing things that can spread HIV-1 infection to others.

• Do not share or re-use needles or other injection equipment.

• Do not share personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them, like toothbrushes and razor blades.

• Do not have any kind of sex without protection. Always practice safer sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood.

Ask your healthcare provider if you have any questions about how to prevent passing HIV to other people.

Who should not take TRIUMEQ? Do not take TRIUMEQ if you: • have a certain type of gene variation called the HLA-B*5701 allele. Your healthcare provider will test you for this before prescribing treatment with TRIUMEQ. • have ever had an allergic reaction to abacavir, dolutegravir, or lamivudine • take dofetilide (TIKOSYN®). Taking TRIUMEQ and dofetilide (TIKOSYN) can cause side effects that may be life-threatening.

• have certain liver problems What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking TRIUMEQ? Before you take TRIUMEQ, tell your healthcare provider if you: • have been tested and know whether or not you have a particular gene variation called HLA-B*5701 • have or had liver problems, including hepatitis B or C virus infection • have kidney problems • have heart problems, smoke, or have diseases that increase your risk of heart disease such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes • drink alcoholic beverages • have any other medical condition • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if TRIUMEQ will harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking TRIUMEQ. (continued on the next page) June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

BRIEF SUMMARY (cont’d) TRIUMEQ® (abacavir, dolutegravir, and lamivudine) tablets Pregnancy Registry. There is a pregnancy registry for women who take antiviral medicines during pregnancy. The purpose of the registry is to collect information about the health of you and your baby. Talk to your healthcare provider about how you can take part in this registry.

• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take TRIUMEQ. You should not breastfeed because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. It is not known if abacavir or dolutegravir passes into your breast milk. Lamivudine can pass into your breast milk and may harm your baby. Talk to your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. TRIUMEQ may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how TRIUMEQ works.

You should not take TRIUMEQ if you also take: • abacavir (EPZICOM, TRIZIVIR, or ZIAGEN) • lamivudine (COMBIVIR®, EPIVIR, EPIVIR-HBV®, EPZICOM, or TRIZIVIR) • emtricitabine (EMTRIVA®, ATRIPLA®, COMPLERA®, STRIBILD®, TRUVADA®) Tell your healthcare provider if you take: • antacids, laxatives, or other medicines that contain aluminum, magnesium, sucralfate (CARAFATE®), or buffered medicines. TRIUMEQ should be taken at least 2 hours before or 6 hours after you take these medicines.

• anti-seizure medicines: • oxcarbazepine (TRILEPTAL®) • phenytoin (DILANTIN®, DILANTIN®-125, PHENYTEK®) • phenobarbital • carbamazepine (CARBATROL®, EQUETRO®, TEGRETOL®, TEGRETOL®-XR, TERIL®, EPITOL®) • any other medicine to treat HIV-1 • iron or calcium supplements taken by mouth. Supplements containing calcium or iron may be taken at the same time with TRIUMEQ if taken with food. Otherwise, TRIUMEQ should be taken at least 2 hours before or 6 hours after you take these medicines.

• medicines used to treat hepatitis virus infections, such as interferon or ribavirin • a medicine that contains metformin • methadone • rifampin (RIFATER®, RIFAMATE®, RIMACTANE®, RIFADIN®) • St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) Know the medicines you take. Keep a list of your medicines with you to show to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine.

Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist if you are not sure if you take one of the medicines listed above.

How should I take TRIUMEQ? • Take TRIUMEQ exactly as your healthcare provider tells you.

• Do not change your dose or stop taking TRIUMEQ without talking with your healthcare provider.

• Stay under the care of a healthcare provider while taking TRIUMEQ. • You can take TRIUMEQ with or without food.

• If you miss a dose of TRIUMEQ, take it as soon as you remember. If it is within 4 hours of your next dose, skip the missed dose and take the next dose at your regular time. Do not take 2 doses at the same time. If you are not sure about your dosing, call your healthcare provider.

• Do not run out of TRIUMEQ. The virus in your blood may become resistant to other HIV-1 medicines if TRIUMEQ is stopped for even a short time. When your supply starts to run low, get more from your healthcare provider or pharmacy.

• If you take too much TRIUMEQ, call your healthcare provider or go to the nearest hospital emergency room right away.

What are the possible side effects of TRIUMEQ? TRIUMEQ can cause serious side effects including: • See “What is the most important information I should know about TRIUMEQ?” • Changes in liver tests. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus may have an increased risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests during treatment with TRIUMEQ. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your liver function before and during treatment with TRIUMEQ.

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

• Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you start having new symptoms after starting your HIV-1 medicine.

• Changes in body fat (fat redistribution) can happen in people who take HIV-1 medicines.

These changes may include increased amount of fat in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), breast, and around the middle of your body (trunk). Loss of fat from the legs, arms, and face may also happen. The exact cause and long-term health effects of these problems are not known.

• Heart attack (myocardial infarction). Some HIV medicines including TRIUMEQ may increase your risk of heart attack.

The most common side effects of TRIUMEQ include: • trouble sleeping • headache • tiredness Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away.

These are not all the possible side effects of TRIUMEQ. For more information, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist.

Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

How should I store TRIUMEQ? • Store TRIUMEQ at room temperature between 68°F to 77°F (20°C to 25°C).

• Store TRIUMEQ in the original bottle.

• Keep the bottle of TRIUMEQ tightly closed and protect from moisture.

• The bottle of TRIUMEQ contains a desiccant packet to help keep your medicine dry (protect it from moisture). Keep the desiccant packet in the bottle. Do not remove the desiccant packet.

Keep TRIUMEQ and all medicines out of the reach of children.

General information about the safe and effective use of TRIUMEQ Medicines are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than those listed in a Medication Guide.

Do not use TRIUMEQ for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give TRIUMEQ to other people, even if they have the same symptoms that you have. It may harm them.

This Medication Guide summarizes the most important information about TRIUMEQ. If you would like more information, talk with your healthcare provider. You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about TRIUMEQ that is written for health professionals.

For more information go to www.TRIUMEQ.com or call 1-877-844-8872.

What are the ingredients in TRIUMEQ? Active ingredients: abacavir, dolutegravir, and lamivudine Inactive ingredients: D-mannitol, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, povidone, and sodium starch glycolate. The tablet film-coating contains iron oxide black, iron oxide red, macrogol/PEG, polyvinyl alcohol–part hydrolyzed, talc, and titanium oxide.

This Medication Guide has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Manufactured for: by:

ViiV Healthcare GlaxoSmithKline Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Lamivudine is manufactured under agreement from Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc Basingstoke, UK COMBIVIR, EPIVIR, EPZICOM, TIVICAY, TRIUMEQ, TRIZIVIR, and ZIAGEN are registered trademarks of the ViiV Healthcare group of companies.

EPIVIR-HBV is a registered trademark of the GSK group of companies.

The other brands listed are trademarks of their respective owners and are not trademarks of the ViiV Healthcare group of companies. The makers of these brands are not affiliated with and do not endorse the ViiV Healthcare group of companies or its products. ©2014, the ViiV Healthcare group of companies. All rights reserved.

Issued: August 2014 TRM:1MG

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POLITICS

Comprehensive Anti-Bias Bill Close to Being Introduced in Congress Cicilline, Merkley pledge broad push with no special religious carve-outs, looking to move this month

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

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CONGRESSMEMBER DAVID CICILLINE

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ompr ehensive equal rights legislation — guaranteeing the nation’s LGBT community of nondiscrimination protections in employment, housing, public accommodation, and access to credit — is likely to be introduced before the end of June, according to congressional staffers working on the bill.

“We very much hope and intend to have it introduced this month,” Sarah Trister, legislative director for US Repr esentative David N. Cicilline, an out gay Rhode Island Democrat who will be the measure’s lead sponsor in the US House of Representative, told Gay City News. “My boss and Senator Merkley are very committed to introducing legislation that is comprehensive and representative. Something that people can really rally behind.”

Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley will take the lead on the bill on the Senate side.

The new legislation marks a sharp departure from the LGBT community’s Capitol Hill strategy dating back more than two decades, during which the narrowly tailored Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, was the sole focus of its equal rights lobbying. Even in limiting its scope to jobs protections, ENDA was never able to win approval from both houses of Congress in the same session, with a Democratic-led House approving

it in 2007 and a Democratic-led Senate doing so in 2013.

Given the failure of winning with ENDA and in light of advances on other LGBT fronts — not only marriage equality, but also with some limited nondiscrimination wins in the courts and Obama administration regulations providing protections in specific circumstances — advocacy groups and grassroots activists have increasingly called for a more comprehensive approach to equal rights legislation. The fact that the current Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate have closed the door on any action on ENDA through at least the end of 2016 made this year a logical time to regroup for the longer haul.

The new, bolder approach is also informed by growing criticism of the religious exemption language in the version of ENDA passed by the Senate two years ago — language intended to win GOP support for the measure.

Legal experts — including Evan Wolfson, the founder and leader of Freedom to Marry, and Ian Thompson, a legislative representative in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington lobbying office — had criticized that language as “a license to discriminate.” Last year’s Hobby Lobby ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed a tightly held family business to assert religious freedom exemptions from contraceptive insurance requirements of Obamacare, and this year’s furor over so-called

Representative David Cicilline, an out gay Rhode Island Democrat.

religious liberty measures that were in fact thinly veiled attacks on LGBT rights only made ENDA’s religious exemption language more unpalatable.

In her comments to Gay City News, Trister from Cicilline’s office said that religious exemption language would replicate that included in civil rights laws based on race, ethnicity, sex, and other protected categories.

“Our plan is to go through statutes and existing case law so that the protections offered are exactly the same as those for other protected groups,” she said.

What T rister would not say was whether the new legislation would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is the nation’s foundational nondiscrimination statute.

“There are lots of different ways to do this,” she said, a comment that suggests there are many open questions remaining — which seems unlikely given how close to introduction the sponsors say they are.

Sources who have seen drafts of the legislation told Gay City News that the drafting of the measure has been well along for months and does adopt the approach of amending the 1964 Act, as well as other existing legislation. Prior to the original introduction of ENDA back in the early 1990s, gay and lesbian advocates had pursued a path of adding sexual orientation to the 1964 Act for nearly two decades. That appr oach was pioneered in Congress by two New York Democrats — Bella Abzug

and Ed Koch.

Those privy to the efforts of the working group developing the legislation — led by the Human Rights Campaign with the active participation of the Center for American Progress and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights — are tight-lipped and unwilling to go on the record for fear of losing their access.

Even those who have been given less direct access to the process are shy about divulging details of what they’ve learned. On June 5, Cicilline and staffers from his office and Merkley’s convened a call with a handful of grassroots activists, all but one of them New Yorkers. Gay City News spoke to two of them, who would only share their impressions of the call, not the content of what they learned from Cicilline.

“I think I have a good nose for BS, and I don’t sense that’s what was going on here, and so I don’t want to comment because I don't want to give up that goodfaith place,” said Ken Kidd, who is active with Queer Nation.

“Because I feel it’s important to get grassr oots input fr om those who have been trying to change the conversation. We’ve got one chance to get it right and get comprehensive civil rights protections that are no different than anyone else’s.”

Andy Humm, the co-host of cable TV’s “Gay USA” and a regular Gay City News contributor, was also careful in his comments.

“It’s obvious that they’re making an effort to reach out to different segments of the community,” Humm said. “I hope we see a bill before it’s submitted, and I made that point. Because we don't want to see what happened the last time, with people harping from the sidelines about a bill that was compromised. That was the purpose of my getting on the call. Whoever does this needs to keep it clean and make it a bill that we can work on for the long ter m if necessary. There’s no reason to make any short-term compromises.”

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

CITY COUNCIL HONORS PRIDE

In a June 2 ceremony at City Hall, the City Council celebrated LGBT Pride Month by honoring six New Yorkers for their contributions to the community and to New York overall.

The honorees were: Anti-Violence Project executive director Sharon Stapel (immediately above); Joselyn Mendoza (above Stapel), an undocumented transgender woman from Queens who led the recent #WeCantWait campaign that resulted in the Obama admin-

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

istration moving to protect nearly five million immigrant families; longtime activist Andy Humm (below), who is a co-host of cable TV’s “Gay USA,” a Gay City News contributor, and a former member of the City Human Rights Commission; Zully Rolan (bottom left), the director of asset & property management for Fifth Avenue Committee, a South Brooklyn nonprofit community development corporation, who also served for seven years as chair of Brooklyn Pride; Kim Watson (above), co-founder of Community Kinship Life, which assists affirmed men and women with necessary life skills, medical needs, and counseling; and Kevin Finnegan, the political director for 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.

The Council, led by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and LGBT Caucus members Jimmy Van Bramer, Rosie Mendez, Daniel Dromm, Corey Johnson, Carlos Menchaca, and Ritchie Torres, also honored the Health and Wellness and Internship Programs at the Hetrick-Martin Institute.

George Takei, the out gay actor best known for his role as Sulu in “Star Trek” (seen at top with Johnson), hosted. — Photos by Donna Aceto

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HISTORY

When Wartime Homophobia Turned Lethal

Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage examines the Nazi assault on the gay community

BY KELSY CHAUVIN

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KELSY CHAUVIN

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KELSY CHAUVIN

oinciding with LGBT Pride Month, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City has a new exhibit about the plight of gays during the Holocaust. “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945,” which opened on May 29, examines the history of gay men and lesbians during Adolph Hitler’s regime as well as the German criminal statute that led to their systemic oppression.

“The exhibition explores why homosexual behavior was identified as a danger to Nazi society and how the Nazi regime attempted to eliminate it,” said exhibition curator Edward Phillips. “The Nazis believe it was possible to ‘cure’ homosexual behavior through labor and ‘re-education.’ Their efforts to eradicate homosexuality left gay men subject to imprisonment, castration, institutionalization, and deportation to concentration camps.”

The traveling exhibit is on display in Lower Manhattan through October 2. It was produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org) in Washington, and consists of a series of panels organized according to phases in the persecution of gays over the 12 years of Nazi rule.

The panels cover topics beginning with the ascendancy of liberalism in Germany during the Weimar Era, from 1919 to 1933. As explained in the exhibit, those years brought to big cities like Berlin “rapid growth, social diversity, and a permissive atmosphere” that saw flourishing artists’ communities, as well as cafés, bars, and dance halls that allowed same-sex “friendship leagues” to form.

But that tolerant heyday vanished with the 1933 appointment of Hitler as chancellor. Armed with the 1871 German Criminal Code provision known as Paragraph 175, which criminalized homosexual acts between men, Hitler seized the

Battery Park City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage presents its exhibition on the Nazi regime’s persecution of Germany’s gay community through October 2.

opportunity to persecute those labeled as degenerates, alleging that they threatened the country’s “disciplined masculinity.”

The law also applied to lesbians, though in general women were targeted less than gay men. The exhibit touches only glancingly on the treatment of lesbians, but notes that women were prized as wives and mothers for a nation that faced a declining birth rate.

The lesbians who were persecuted were typically deemed “asocials,” a Nazi catchall ter m for nonconformity. Their stories are not well documented and so are an obvious missing element of this exhibit.

In all, about 100,000 men were arrested for violating Nazi Germany’s anti-homosexuality statutes, and of these, approximately 50,000 were sentenced to prison. Somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps on similar charges, where an unknown number of them died.

Other groups that suffered similar fates included the Roma (Gypsies), those with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

While the exhibit is educational and sorrowful, it manages to convey both the big picture of homosexual victimization and individual stories that offer elements of uplift, resistance, and even limited triumph. One of those is the story of Willem Arondeus and Frieda Belinfante, two out queer Dutch artists who

joined the anti-Nazi resistance and eventually led a group that in 1943 destroyed a Nazi records office in Amsterdam.

Belinfante managed to escape by disguising herself in male drag, hiding in Switzerland and eventually emigrating to the United States in 1947. Arondeus, h o w e v e r, w a s c a p t u r e d a n d executed. His last message proudly stated, “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”

Individual stories like these are a key part of the mission at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which calls itself “a living memorial to the Holocaust.”

“The mission of our museum has always been to tell the story of the Holocaust not from the point of view of the perpetrators, but from the perspective of the victims,” said the museum’s director, Dr. David G. Marwell. “This exhibition tells the story of lesser -known victims of Nazi persecution and is an important contribution to our understanding of the period.”

Part of that living legacy will unfold throughout June with several special events. Each Sunday in June at noon, the museum will host “Yellow Stars, Pink Triangles,” a new tour of its core exhibition with a focus on the Nazi persecution of gays. The tours will be conducted on a walk-in basis.

Two June 23 lectures by Dr. Erik Jensen, a Miami University of Ohio historian, will also help unpack the exhibit’s powerful subject matter. At 4 p.m., Jensen

NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS 1933-1945 Museum of Jewish Heritage 36 Battery Pl. at First Pl. Through Oct. 2 Sun.-Tue., Thu., 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m.

Wed. 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. $12; $10 for seniors; $7 for students Free admission for children under 12 Free admission Wed., 4-8 p.m. mjhnyc.org or 646-437-4202 More information at mjhnyc.org/npoh

will discuss “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals,” followed at 6 p.m. with “The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness.”

Those lectures are planned for the evening that 15 Lower Manhattan museums and cultural institutions are hosting “Night at the Museums,” where they will stay open late with free admission and special programming (mjhnyc. org/nightatthemuseums).

In addition to the space devoted to LGBT exhibit itself, the Jewish Museum also provides reading and conversation ar eas with related books to further explore the suffering the LGBT community endured under the Nazi regime.

“Many people don’t know the full extent of the Nazi campaign to eradicate homosexuality,” said Marwell. “We look forward to shedding light on this important subject.”

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

Don’t Miss the First-Ever Staten Island Yankees Pride Night!

MONDAY, JULY 6TH

STATEN ISLAND YANKEES VS. HUDSON VALLEY RENEGADES Doors @ 6:00pm, first pitch @ 7:00pm Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George • 75 Richmond Terrace • Staten Island, NY 10301

Special SI Pride ticket packages available!

For $18, you get:

•(1) Field Box ticket for 7/6 •(1) Limited Edition SI Pride Yankees

ballcap sponsored by Amida Care •$3 of your purchase will be donated to the Staten Island LGBT Community Center

Or for $26, you get:

•(1) Field Box ticket for 7/6 •(1) Limited Edition SI Pride Yankees

ballcap sponsored by Amida Care •$3 of your purchase will be donated to the Staten Island LGBT Community Center •(1) $14 pre-paid food & drink card to be used at the game

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

SEE TYM MOSS

sing the national anthem before the game FOR TICKETS: Contact Brian Levine 718-313-1322 blevine@siyanks.com or go to www.siyanks.com/pride Pride Night Presented by:

25

A SPLENDID DAY

FOR PRIDE IN QUEENS DONNA ACETO DONNA ACETO

MICHAEL SHIREY

On what might have been the very nicest day so far this year, tens of thousands turned out on June 7 for the 23rd annual Queens LGBT Pride Parade and Festival. The parade, which stepped off at noon, was led by Mayor Bill de Blasio and APICHA, the Asian-Pacific Islanders Coalition on HIV/ AIDS, the event’s grand marshals. Beginning at 89th Street in Jackson Heights, the parade proceeded along 37th Avenue to 75th Street, where participants poured into a street festival that took up four city blocks. With two performances stages and plenty of food and drink vendors –– along with tents manned by many community groups and businesses, including Gay City News –– the festival was a fantastic way to enjoy a beautiful early summer Sunday.

MICHAEL SHIREY MICHAEL SHIREY

MICHAEL SHIREY

MICHAEL SHIREY

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June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

HISTORY

LOOKING FOR INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE HIV+, UNDETECTABLE, AND ON TREATMENT!!

Crowley Moves to Name Post Office for Jeanne, Jules Manford

Queens congressmember introduces bill to honor PFLAG founders in Jackson Heights

BY BILL PARRY

O

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

US REPRESENTATIVE JOE CROWLEY’S OFFICE

n the eve of LGBT Pride Month, US Representative Joe Crowley, a Jackson Heights Democrat, joined other elected officials to announce legislation to rename the Jackson Representative Joe Crowley is joined by State Senator José Heights Post Office in Peralta, City Councilmember Dromm, and Assemblyman Francisco Moya outside the Jackson Heights post office. honor of Jeanne and Jules Manford, the late Queens residents and national momentum to a movement.

“While people were associatheroes who fought for the advancement of equal rights for LGBT ing the gay rights movement with Christopher Street in Manhattan, Americans.

The Manfords founded Parents, here in Queens Jeanne and Jules Families and Friends of Lesbians were fighting for equal rights,” he and Gays, now known as PFLAG, said.

Morty’s sister, Suzanne Manford after their out gay son Morty was beaten in 1972 during a protest Swan, the only surviving member over news coverage of the gay rights of the family, sent words of support movement. Jeanne was the original for Crowley’s effort from her West grand marshal of the Queens LGBT Coast home.

“My mother and father’s love Pride Parade, which City Councilmember Daniel Dromm, also a and acceptance of their son’s Jackson Heights Democrat, found- homosexuality became a guiding light for parents and friends ed in 1993.

“Through their unconditional struggling with the unhappy social love of their openly gay son, Jeanne mores of the time,” she said. “They and Jules Manford helped change were both born and lived their the hearts and minds of so many entire lives in Queens. They loved people in Queens and throughout it there and loved all Queens had to offer. They would be so pleased the city of New York,” Crowley said.

The Manfords established PFLAG to have this post office named after to promote the rights, health, and them.”

In February 2013, President well-being of the LGBT community as well as their families and friends. Barack Obama honored Jeanne Today, PFLAG has more than 350 Manford posthumously — just a chapters and over 200,000 mem- month after her death — with the Presidential Citizens Medal, the bers in all 50 states.

“Jeanne and Jules Manford were nation’s second highest civilian the parents of the gay rights move- honor.

“Jeanne Manford proved the ment,” Dromm said. “They were the first parents of an openly gay child power of a single person to transform the world,” Jody Huckaby, to support that child in public.”

State Senator José Peralta, a PFLAG’s national executive direcDemocrat from East Elmhurst, tor, said at the time of her death at recalled how Jeanne Manford wrote age 92. “She paved the way for us to a letter to the editor of the New speak out for what is right, uniting York Post in 1972 saying, “I have the unique parent, family, and ally a homosexual son and I love him.” voice with the voice of LGBT people Peralta said those words brought everywhere.”

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MORSELS

Noho’s Nordic Offering Left Me Cold Acme Restaurant has a high tariff, but neither the flavor nor friendliness to justify it

BY DONNA MINKOWITZ

K

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ACMENYC.COM

aren’s orange fish roe tacos were delicious, but they were each the size of my pinky (which is smaller than most women’s). The two miniscule tacos came, strangely, on an enormous branch of pine, looking as though a Christmas tree had been torn from the woods and hacked up to add a festive touch to our mid-May table.

It did add drama to our dinn e r. A n d e a c h t i n y t a c o w a s indeed pristine and lemony in its tiny shell, though the smoked fish that was supposed to be the main attraction consisted of dollhouse-sized bits and could barely be tasted. (These so-called “smoked fish tacos” are $14.) But when you’re still hungry after three courses, who needs drama?

My own appetizer, foie gras and langoustine ($19), puzzled me because it was not appetizing. To those of you who say it serves me right for eating force-fed duck, you’re probably right. But I was surprised that somehow Acme Restaurant, Noho base for the “new Nordic” cuisine that is currently the world’s most chic, had managed to make foie gras that wasn’t at all silky or luxuriant, and to make langoustine (a smaller, delicate, delicious European relative of the lobster) that tasted like nothing. The foie gras, which in terrine form at least tastes to me like liver that has somehow been made perfect and even addictive, didn’t taste like much of anything, either. It did have a discomfiting, slightly wet texture.

The only element of the dish I could really perceive with my taste buds were the white walnuts scattered throughout the other two foods, which tasted just fine. Did I mention we were splurging at ridiculous risk to our solvency for my birthday dinner?

I’ve always loved pricey restaurants, though increasingly I am not sure why. I grew up working class, and the first time I entered a rich people’s restaurant, at age 14 in Truro, Massachusetts, I wanted to go back again and again until

I was mentally stuffed with the beautiful garden setting and the silver breadbasket from which the waiter haughtily lifted out, for each member of my family, a single slice of bread with his silver tongs. (My father, bless him, to the waiter: “You can just leave the whole basket on the table, ‘ cause we’re gonna want more.”)

That restaurant, at least, had delicious entrées. (Thirty-seven years later, I can still remember the best bluefish I have ever eaten.)

But at Acme, my entrée, Cast-Iron Duck Egg with peas, garbanzo beans, and spinach, was only as tasty as something I myself might throw together at home on an indifferent night. It was much less satisfying than that dinner I might cook at home because of its wee size ($14). There was one, count ‘em, one fried duck egg on the childsize cast-iron skillet delivered to me on a bed of hay. (The bored, clearly suffering waitress did not want to answer our questions about the food, but finally told us, gritting her teeth, that the hay had not been used to add any flavor to the dish, but was merely decorative. In a telephone interview, a manager, Charlie Smith, informed me that the hay was intended to “evoke a duck laying an egg in a bed of hay.”)

I came to wish that my entrée hadn’t been served in its skillet, because the pan’s heat continued to cook the duck egg on the table, fucking up both its flavor and texture. Oh, it was also too salty. The peas and spinach did taste nice and fresh, but there were not many individual peas or spinach leaves to go around.

Acme’s chef, Mads Refslund, previously worked in Copenhagen at the world’s most famous restaurant, Noma, where founder René Redzepi inaugurated a cuisine based on local Scandinavian ingredients available during the long winters there, including, yes, pine, hay, ash (not the tree, but the black stuff left over after you burn something), and a few forageable herbs and vegetables native to Scandinavia, such as the sea buckthorn.

I was wondering if the big branch

The fish roe tacos are served on an enormous branch of pine.

of pine had somehow been used to impart a smell or flavor to the troutroe tacos, but Smith said no; the Christmas branch, too, was meant to be “evocative.” Karen’s entrée, Chicken and Egg, was not evocative at all as far as I could see, but it was much better than my egg and vegetables. Silky, homey poached chicken with roasted potatoes and fried eggs, it was unctuous and delicious, and also served in a bigenough portion (although for $28, I should hope so).

When I’d made the reservation, I told the restaurant it was for a birthday dinner and asked them to put a candle in one of our desserts. Did they inquire which of us was the birthday girl? Did they plop a candle in my dessert plate? Of course not. That would imply Acme was interested in making its diners feel welcomed, valued, and happy.

They did let us buy dessert, though.

While Acme doesn’t describe savory dishes at length on the menu, they do go into detail about the sweet ones. Karen’s was denoted as “Coffee with cream and sugar — a dessert coffee set as a panna cotta and textured with caramelized coffee beans. Crumbled biscotti with maple and caramelized lemon is a nice sweet with your ‘coffee’ ($12).”

It was the most oddly thin confection I have ever seen, only an eighth of an inch high and consisting of a slightly sour white gel spread out minutely on a plate and studded, here and there, with coffee beans. It was only slightly sweet, and we ate it mainly because we were hungry.

My own final course, chocolate

mousse ($12), was described as being “quenelled around rhubarb crème fraîche. This sits in rhubarb syrup and is topped with puffed red and white rice.” I didn’t notice the rice, but the rhubarb sauce tasted vaguely appealing, almost like pomegranate. The chocolate, though, was so unsweet that it was more like an appetizer than a dessert, and the crème fraîche was about half as rich as it ought to have been. The mousse wasn’t terrible, but the best that could be said about it was that it was interesting.

In the end, the best thing about Acme Restaurant was probably the wines. Feeling celebratory at the beginning of the meal, I ordered a glass of nonvintage Val de Mer Cremant de Bourgogne rosé, a French sparkling wine with delicate pink bubbles ($18). It was lovely. And until this week, Acme offered a very affordable $18 wine-pairing offer with its early-evening prix fixe menu, which has unfortunately just been scrubbed from the menu.

Under that wine-pairing, Karen got glasses of three delicious wines: With the trout roe tacos, she got to sip (okay, we both got to sip) Broglia “il Doge” Gavi di Gavi, an aromatic and peachy-tasting Italian white from the Piedmont region. With the Chicken and Egg, she got a Tensley Syrah “Los Padres” from the central coast of California, a beautifully-colored purple wine with a taste of violet and a nice finish, acclaimed by the wine critics at the Wine Advocate. With the panna cotta, she got a glass of tawny port — nope, the waitstaff couldn’t tell us the producer, though the higher-level staff who tried to find the information for us did get progressively nicer. It was very tasty, though. Travis Benvenuti, the sommelier, said in an email that it was Niepoort Morgadio da Calçada Reserve.

Final nice thing about Acme: they played terrific swing music.

Have some wine, listen to the music, and go someplace else for dinner.

Acme Restaurant, at 9 Great Jones Street near Broadway, Manhattan (acmenyc.com), has a ramp that wheelchair users can take to get up the one step from the outside.

There is one wheelchair-accessible restroom on the ground floor; other restrooms are down a long, dark, steep staircase.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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3/25/15 3:56 PM

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Celebrating LGBTQ Leaders Harlem Pride & Public Advocate Letitia James to honor leading LGBTQ businesses, entrepreneurs, & charities.

On June 3, Billy’s Sports Bar on River Avenue near Yankee Stadium played host to the fifth annual Pride Awards hosted by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. Honorees included Dr. Douglas Reich of Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, City Councilmember Daniel Dromm of Queens (right), Vanessa Victoria of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, Eric Soto, founder of Boogie Down Pride, family therapist Damon Jacobs, Marie Spivey of the L Group, and Sasha Washington from Destination Tomorrow.

Diaz, center, is seen below with Reich, Dromm, Victoria, Soto, Soto’s Boogie Down Pride colleague Cesar Sanchez, and Jacobs.

Tyra A. Ross and Appolonia Cruz, seen above with the borough president, co-hosted the evening. — Photos courtesy of Bronx Borough President’s Office

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June 15 at Hyacinth’s Haven networking from 6-8pm • free appetizers drink specials • raffle prizes

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www.manhattancclgbt.org

www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

HENDERSON, from p.5

disagreements, and hope that our work with the SVA, as with Amnesty International, ILGA and many other organizations will be viewed and accepted as it is meant to be, a part of our effort here in Denmark to acknowledge and celebrate the importance of Stonewall to our movement.”

Gay City News has regularly sent the 2000 article to politicians and others who appear at SVA meetings and organizers of events that featured Henderson as a speaker.

The newspaper wrote to the public editor at the Times after the June 7 profile appeared.

In SVA’s early years, Henderson used his claim of being a Stonewall veteran to raise money that is ostensibly for the group. It is not clear that the money is used for the group. SVA and the now defunct Imperial Queens and Kings of New York (IQKNY), another group he founded, raised money while claiming to be tax-exempt, a legal status neither group had. SVA was the subject of a 1997 inquiry by thenNew York State Attorney General Dennis Vacco. While SVA obtained tax-exempt status in 1999, its filings with the state attorney general, which are prepared by Henderson, report under $25,000 in revenues annually so SVA is not required to report in any detail.

Among its known revenues, SVA has collected $10,975 from city political campaigns since 2001, in amounts ranging from $35 to $2,500, according to Campaign Finance Board records. Some of the cash was listed as paying for print ads though SVA has not published a newsletter in years. Other amounts were for online ads, sponsorships, and donations. State Board of Elections records show that SVA has collected $27,675 since 2000 from various candidates in donations, sponsorships, and for ads.

Henderson’s personal history does not inspire confidence in the integrity of SVA’s finances.

In 1992, Henderson was the secretary of the Imperial Court and sold a $1,000 table for the Night of a Thousand Gowns, the Court’s annual fundraiser. That check was deposited in one of his business accounts by an employee of his, Henderson said in 2000. He was GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

removed from the Court for “the appearance of financial impropriety,” Philip Stoehr, then the board president, told LGNY in 2000.

In 1990 in Nassau County, Henderson was sued by Emigrant Savings Bank and Colonial National Bank. In 1985, he borrowed $176,000 from Emigrant to buy a Long Island home and he borrowed an additional $24,000 from Emigrant in 1988. His mortgage barred him from using the equity in the home on any other loan, but he took out another mortgage with Colonial in 1988 for $55,300.

He stopped paying all the loans in 1989 and Colonial sued, which prompted the suit by Emigrant. The house was sold at auction in 1995 for $160,000.

In 1987, he borrowed just over $34,000 from Chase Manhattan Bank to buy a car and soon stopped paying on that loan. Chase sued and court records indicate $16,400 on the loan remains unpaid.

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“Where is this evidence coming from and what does it tell me?”

Nassau County records indicate that Henderson left behind a financial wreck when he moved to New York City. Between the IRS and Chemical Bank, he had personal liens and one against his business, a proofreading company, of just under $375,000 that were unpaid when Gay City News last reviewed them.

Henderson’s continued success at selling his Stonewall story is made possible by the sloppy reporting of the sort that appeared in the Times, by politicians who want an LGBT endorsement and are willing to look the other way when a questionable organization offers it, and by a low bar for proof that Henderson actually participated in the LGBT community’s seminal event. For the historians who doubt Henderson’s claim, it is a matter of the evidence.

“I think students need to be taught about evidence,” Katz told Gay City News. “I’ve always been empirically oriented in terms of evidence. Where is this evidence coming from and what does it tell me?”

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PERSPECTIVE: Holistic Approaches

Going Beyond HIV to Engage Young Gay Men in Health Care

BY RICHARD E. GREENE, MD & PERRY N. HALKITIS, PHD, MS, MPH

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ver the past 30-plus years, conversations between primary health care providers and their gay patients have focused largely on HIV prevention or treatment, along with other sexually transmitted infections. And while these are significant issues, they cannot be the only elements that define health care.

Our approach must be more expansive, especially for the new generation of young gay men. As our research at NYU’s Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) has shown, concern for HIV, while important, is not their primary concern.

In our ongoing P18 Cohort Study, young men rank finances, appearance, and job security higher than concern about HIV, which ranked 18th in a list of 40 priority factors.

For this and numerous other reasons, health care must be delivered more holistically and be less HIV-centric if we are to effectively engage all gay men in active and routine care.

Vaccinations are a critical yet often overlooked element in a more expanded framework for the delivery of health care to gay men.

A specific set of vaccinations is critical to preventing diseases that are more common in our population. Unfortunately, the discussion of vaccinations is often tangential, leaving many to go unvaccinated for highly preventable diseases.

This missed opportunity is best exemplified with regard to Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is sexually transmitted by skin-toskin contact and can lead to warts or increase the risk of cancer.

Strains of HPV in women increase the risk of cervical cancer, and newer research shows that HPV can increase the risk of anal cancer. There’s even some evidence to show that it may increase the risk of mouth and throat cancers in people who perform oral sex. But vaccina-

tion among gay men is sub-par.

In the P18 Cohort Study, we found that of 418 young men who are currently 22 to 23 years old and meet clear criteria for vaccination, close to 61 percent have not been vaccinated for HPV. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all gay men ages 26 and under should have the HPV vaccine. Given in three separate injections, it is most effective if administered in full before someone first becomes sexually active. Ideally it would be given to boys at 12 or 13 years old, but even if you have been exposed, there is evidence that vaccination can confer some protection.

All three shots may be required for full vaccination.

In P18, of the young men who indicate they have received HPV vaccination, only 30 percent has received the full dose.

Another preventable disease is hepatitis B. As with HIV, it can be transmitted through blood and semen — but unlike HIV, it primarily affects your liver and can lead to liver failure or liver cancer. Occasionally, people who are infected can clear the virus before it causes any ongoing problems.

In 1991, the hep B vaccine became recommended for all children in the US. If someone is unsure of their vaccination status, there’s a simple blood test to check for immunity. Screening and vaccination for hep B have become even more important with the use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV — the consistent use of antiHIV drugs by HIV-negative people to keep them uninfected — since this medicine can treat hep B as well.

However, if someone's risk for HIV goes down and they are planning to stop Truvada, they need to discuss other treatments for hep B with their health care provider.

Like hep B, hepatitis A is also highly preventable. Less scary than hep B because it is not permanent,

HOLISTIC, continued on p.33

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

CUOMO, from p.13

Assemblymember Dick Gottfried, a Chelsea Democrat, said of the tax credit bill that “there is very strong opposition in our conference and so far that seems to be prevailing.” He said that “siphoning off [tax] dollars to private schools seriously undermines the public schools… and the unity of our population.”

Gottfried recently joined out gay State Senator Brad Hoylman and City Councilmember Corey Johnson and others in getting arrested outside Cuomo’s Albany office to protest the governor’s tepid support for the rent laws. Cuomo reversed course and came out for strengthening the rent laws, but his price seems to be the Assembly giving in on the private school tax credit he wants.

Bruce Kogan, former president of the Stonewall Democrats of Western New York, wrote to the Buffalo

HOLISTIC, from p.32

hep A can, in rare cases, be fatal.

Like hep B, it has effects on the liver. People with hep A feel miserable, with terrible abdominal pain and, sometimes, clay-colored stool.

Hep A can be transmitted by oral and anal sexual activity (including rimming). Since 1996, the CDC has recommended this vaccination for all gay men and, since 2006, for all children.

Finally, about two years ago there was an outbreak of bacterial meningitis in New York City among gay men. Bacterial meningitis is serious business — it’s an infection of the lining around the brain and is often deadly if identified and treated early. Of the 22 cases in New York City, seven of the men died. Meningitis is not generally considered to be a sexually transmitted infection, but only those who were sexually active seemed to contract it during the recent outbreak. There hasn’t been a case in almost a year, but the disease is quite serious and the vaccine is a one-time vaccine (or two shots, a month apart, if you have HIV).

Ultimately, these vaccinations and other heath-promoting strategies (like not smoking cigarettes, exercising regularly, eating well, moderating alcohol use, and seeking mental health care) are critical to enhancing the overall health of GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

News, “I do not want to see bigoted and homophobic institutions given taxpayer subsidies where vulnerable and questioning youth are at risk and will be spiritually and mentally violated. Not on my tax dollar.”

Assemblymember Sean M. Ryan, a Buffalo Democrat, responded to Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo on the issue by writing, “There are no protections in the legislation to ensure that funding is prohibited from going to schools which would teach our children racial prejudice, or promote religious intolerance or discrimination, or even the subjugation of women.”

Ryan also wrote that far from being a “modest program” as the bishop suggested, it “could cost New York taxpayers $150 million in the first year, and between $225 and $300 million in every subsequent year.”

gay men since, as a population, our health is defined by more than just HIV. However, this also requires receiving care regularly — and as our P18 study shows, close to 40 percent of young men with whom we spoke to had not received any care in the last year.

So as we work toward vaccinating gay men against highly preventable diseases, we must also think through ways in which we can deliver care to gay men, especially young gay men — in places outside the clinic or doctor’s office that they regularly navigate socially.

Such venues may not only help to enhance uptake of care and vaccinations, but may also assist in more fully achieving the potential of HIV prevention strategies like PrEP that require regular health care visits.

Richard E. Greene is assistant professor of medicine and the medical director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies. Perry N. Halkitis is professor of applied psychology, global public health, and medicine and the director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies at New York University. Anyone interested in participating in CHIBPS studies or learning more about the research it carries out can visit chibps.org. Follow Halkitis on Twitter (@DrPNHalkitis or visit perrynhalkitis.com.

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HISTORY

City of Brotherly Love Marks Half-Century Of Activism

Philadelphia going all out to commemorate Annual Reminders launched Fourth of July 1965

T

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

A rundown of activities follows:

July 4, 2:30 p.m.

Highlights include: • Actress and comedian Wanda Sykes hosts.

• “America the Beautiful” will be sung by the combined Gay Men’s Choruses of New York, Washington, and Philadelphia.

• Special guests include James Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the Ohio marriage equality case now before the US Supreme Court; New Yorker Edie Windsor, the successful plaintiff in the 2013 challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act; Judy and Denis Shepard, who have worked for more than 15 years to combat anti-LGBT violence in memory of their slain son Matthew; and Walter Naegle, the surviving partner of the late civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.

34

• Malcolm Lazin, executive director of Equality Forum, pays tribute to Frank Kameny.

• Amanda Simpson, a top Pentagon official who was the first transgender American to receive a presidential appointment, will give an overview on 50 years of progress.

• Selisse Berry, founder and CEO of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, will discuss jobs issues.

• Aisha Moodie-Mills, president of the Victory Fund, will discuss out LGBT elected officials.

• Jorge Valencia, executive director of the Point Foundation, will discuss legislative issues.

• Bishop Gene Robinson, the retired Episcopal leader of the New Hampshire Diocese, will discuss religion.

The 1965 Annual Reminder.

vidual expression took precedence over a disciplined display of earnest civil rights appeals.

For four days in July, the legacy of those early Annual Reminders will be celebrated in a fourday 50th anniversary celebration produced by the Equality Forum, a Philadelphia group that in other years has hosted weeklong Pride events every May. The main event is a ceremony at Independence Hall on July 4, but beginning on July 2, there are also panels, exhibits, religious gatherings, parties, a concert, a street festival, and fireworks planned throughout the four days.

• Brad Sears, executive director of UCLA’s Williams Institute, which investigates public policy issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, will discuss the legal terrain.

EQUALITY FORUM

National LGBT 50th Anniversary Ceremony Independence Hall

• Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, pays tribute to Barbara Gitting.

EQUALITY FORUM

hough the modern LGBT rights movement is typically dated back to the Stonewall Rebellion of June 1969, in fact there were a small number of occasions prior to that throughout the ‘60s when LGBT people affirmatively made their presence known. Both in organized protest and in spontaneous reaction to police action, demonstrators risked visibility — something little known in that era — in cities including New York, Washington, and San Francisco.

In only one city, however, was there an annual event focused on raising gay rights claims. That city was Philadelphia. There, for five years beginning on Fourth of July in 1965, activists came together in front of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in what they called Annual Reminders. Planning for the first such Reminder brought together some of the earliest gay and lesbian organizers — not only from Philadelphia, but from New York and Washington as well.

Barbara Gittings and her partner, the photojournalist Kay Tobin Lahusen (the couple were together 46 years until Gittings’ death in 2007), had worked for more than half a dozen years with the Daughters of Bilitis, a pioneering lesbian group, and for a time produced its magazine, the Ladder. Frank Kameny, whose case against the US Army for his firing from a job as an astronomer went to the Supreme Court in 1961, and Jack Nichols were co-founders of the DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, an early “homophile” organization. New Yorkers in the

mix included Randy Wicker, who was engaged in the early protests here and, in 1964, became the first undisguised, openly gay person to appear on broadcast television, and Craig Rodwell, who would go on to found the West Village’s Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.

The first Annual Reminder drew roughly 40 people, one of whom, John James, in a recent interview with Jen Colletta of the Philadelphia Gay News, recalled that his apprehensions about being publicly gay in such a fashion proved unfounded.

“People took it in stride,” he recalled. “I didn’t notice any expressions of either hostility or support. It turned out peaceful. We weren’t attacked by people in the streets or anything.”

The lack of a blowback may have had something to do with the fact that Annual Reminders had nothing of the countercultural flavor that Stonewall and the earliest Gay Pride marches that followed would exhibit. At Kameny’s insistence, men wore ties, and some, jackets as well, while the women were required to wear dresses. The image projected was that of clean-cut, carefully groomed, law-abiding citizens exercising their free speech rights — even if their signs were perhaps startling for the day: “Homosexuals should be judged as individuals” and “Homosexual civil rights.”

The final Annual Reminder took place just a week after Stonewall, which is fitting since the tenor of the times had already changed dramatically since 1965. By June 1970, when New York held its first annual commemoration of Stonewall, gay rights was already becoming a mass movement, where sexual liberation and indi-

• Tamika Butler, co-chair of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, will look at future challenges.

Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny in 2005.

LGBT History Exhibits: July 2- July 5 National Constitution Center National Museum of American Jewish History The African American Museum in Philadelphia Liberty Bell Center Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Library

Christ Church Religious Freedom Tour July 2, 5:15 – 6 p.m.

A discussion of the Founding Fathers’ views on church-state separation at the institution where more signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution worshipped than any other church.

National Legal Panel July 2, 6:30 - 7:45 p.m.

National Museum of American Jewish History Held just days after the Supreme Court is expected to render its marriage equality decision, this panel includes Brad Sears, executive director of UCLA’s Williams Institute; James D. Esseks, director of the ACLU’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & AIDS Project; Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a partner at Ropes & Gray and the lead counsel in the marriage case; Daniel Vail, the acting assistant general counsel at the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Kenji Yoshino, a professor at the NYU School of Law.

HISTORY, continued on p.40

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

TRAVEL

Passage to Philadelphia

Tips for enjoying a long Fourth of July Weekend celebrating city’s 50 years of LGBT activism

BY KELSY CHAUVIN

instead of traveling the well-trodden path into South Philly for Geno’s or Pat’s, try Sonny’s (sonnyscheesesteaks.com) in Old City for a perfectly built cheesesteak made with soft bread and your choice of toppings and cheeses — including Cheez Whiz, the official partner of thin-sliced beef within the city limits.

W

Philly is full of hungry people.

This is clear to see from the booming restaurant scene, which is giving locals and tourists alike a whole lot of belt-loosening options.

One of the first places to stop on any visit is the Reading Terminal Market (readingterminalmarket. org), the famous public market conveniently nestled between the Gayborhood, City Hall, Chinatown, and Old City. The huge indoor edibles emporium could fill you up with samples alone. But that shouldn’t stop you from perusing scores of vendors selling everything from dumplings to corned beef to freshGayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

The heart of Philadelphia’s Gayborhood.

M. FISCHETTI/ VISIT PHILADELPHIA

Fill Up

J. SMITH/ VISIT PHILADELPHIA

hat more fitting location to celebrate the LGBT civil rights movement than the birthplace of US independence?

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — site of the First and Second Continental Congresses, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and home to annual LGBT rights marches that began in 1965. On the Fourth of July for five consecutive years through 1969, pioneering activists held “Annual Reminders” in front of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

To commemorate those marches and the start of a pre-Stonewall unified LGBT front, Philadelphia is once again stepping up in support of equal rights for all Americans.

From Thursday, July 2 through Sunday, July 5, the Philly-based Equality Forum (equalityforum. com) is putting on a 50th anniversary celebration outside Independence Hall (LGBT50.org).

While the main events will take place over those four days, the pride spirit is already ramping up across town and getting ready for an influx of queer visitors. The Gayborhood — which is literally what the city calls its gay neighborhood, marked by rainbows on its street signs — is home to more than enough action to make a long weekend fun. But here are a few more travel tips for those keen to see the LGBT and many other fun faces of Philly.

Woody’s on South Street in the Gayborhood.

shucked oysters. Just leave room for dessert at Bassetts Ice Cream (bassettsicecream.com), still churning out the best frozen delights since 1861.

For a more traditional dining experience, venture into the Gayborhood along busy South 12th Street to Pennsylvania 6 (pennsylvania6philly.com). With a great happy hour menu, cozy seating, and super -friendly service, the restaurant is a perfect spot to charm your date with delicately prepared seafood and veggie-forward dishes, plus solid wine and cocktail lists.

Head a little further into to the ‘hood for more Mediterranean and Spanish flair at Valanni (valanni. com) on Spruce Street. It’s a nice

menu that includes burgers, flatbreads, and calamari, and more intriguing items like shiitake polenta with shrimp and “figs in a blanket.” Sidewalk seating makes this prime people-watching territory, especially during brunch and happy hours.

Speaking of brunch, Green Eggs Café (greeneggscafe.com) is a Gayborhood fave for its various benedicts, French toasts, and omelets.

For something with a little more ethnic zing, consider Raw Sushi & Sake Lounge (1225raw.com) on Sansom Street, home to a pleasant patio and reliably fresh Japanese fare (the lunchtime bento boxes are a great deal).

Of course, you’re in Philly and there will be cheesesteak. But

Check In For a residential enclave, the Gayborhood boasts several good hotel options. The gay-owned Alexander Inn (alexanderinn.com) is an affordable option with basic rooms, lovely staff, and wifi, fitness center and breakfast included — all in a terrific location. In fact, a few doors down don’t miss Giovanni’s Room (giovannisroom.com), opened in 1973 and now one of the country’s oldest LGBT bookstores.

The Independent Hotel (theindependenthotel.com) is another well-situated option that offers a more upscale, boutique experience.

Recently renovated, this inn offers basic amenities like wifi and breakfast, and throws in 12th Street Gym (12streetgym.com) access and complimentary wine receptions Monday through Thursday.

Check Out Philly is loaded with so much history and culture it can be tough to narrow down how best to spend your time. Though it may seem too touristy, Big-Bus or trolley tours (phillytour.com) are a good way to get a snapshot of the city in a matter of hours. These hop-on, hop-off tours, if timed right, are an easy way to see the sights without having to navigate public transit or hail taxis — made even more convenient if you tie in a bulk-admission Philadelphia Pass (philadelphiapass. com) to hit the museums while you’re at it.

In the Old City and Society Hill areas you’ll find the main sights, like the Liberty Bell, the US Mint, the Betsy Ross House, and other historic landmarks. The National Constitution Center (constitutioncenter.org) is a great place to re-en-

PHILLY, continued on p.40

35

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FOUNDING MEMBER

How are Utah, Ireland, the US Army, and the US Air Force alike?

Hint: The similarity is based on a criterion that distinguishes them all from the New York State Legislature.

Utah, Ireland, the US Army, and the US Air Force have each recently made strides on transgender equality.

The New York State Legislature — not so much.

To be sure, the progress in those other jurisdictions has not been perfect. In Utah, a nondiscrimination law enacted earlier this year included problematic religious exemptions. But it did provide protections based on gender identity and expression, as well as sexual orientation.

In the US military, the Army and Navy have not fully rolled back their ban on open service by transgender personnel, but they have done away with automatic discharges based on status.

The Navy and Marines have not followed suit, and it’s frustrating that the Pentagon has not moved aggressively and comprehensively on a policy change it has signaled openness on. But, at least, the military’s halting steps show recognition that change has to come.

In Albany, in contrast, 13 years have passed since the Legislature enacted gay rights protections and four since marriage equality became a reality, but the State Senate has steadfastly refused to allow a simple floor vote on civil rights protections for transgender New Yorkers.

The need to pass the Gender Expres-

PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

Caitlyn, Hastert, the Pope, Yadda, Yadda… I’m All About Mouthfeel

BY ED SIKOV

S

o many items on the homosexual agenda this fortnight! LGBT Command Central,

36

FOUNDING MEMBER

sion Non-Discrimination Act could not be more clear. Three-quarters of transgender New Yorkers have experienced harassment in the workplace, with 20 percent fired as a result, and another 20 percent denied promotions. About a fifth of that population has been denied housing, with the same amount having experienced periods of homelessness, and almost as many being denied medical care. More than half have faced discrimination or harassment in places of public accommodation, such as restaurants and hotels.

And here’s the most damning statistics: three-quarters of transgender youth face discrimination and harassment in schools and more than a third have suffered violent attacks.

If we read these kinds of statistics about the population of a developing nation and money could help alleviate the suffering, we’d probably click the Donate button on our screens without much thought.

But our State Senate sits on their hands as thousands of our fellow New Yorkers live in a society that denies them the basic guarantee of citizenship to live with opportunity, security, safety, and dignity.

Opponents of transgender equality throw up scurrilous, unfounded, and inflammatory fears about women being denied privacy and safety in places like bathrooms and locker rooms. In a brilliant rebuttal to that smokescreen, the measure’s sponsors — Senator Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember Dick Gottfried, both Manhattan Democrats — several years ago convened a panel of leading law enforcement officials from across the state who testified there had been no criminal fallout from local ordinances in their jurisdictions.

The culmination of that effort was a letter from then-Police Commissioner Ray Kelly affirming the same and voicing his support for GENDA. And the Senate did nothing.

The foot-dragging is all the more irrational given that polling finds support for the bill at nearly 80 percent.

Fully 60 percent of New Yorkers live in localities that offer similar protections — and none of the absurd warnings about the perils of giving transgender people civil rights protections have been borne out.

So, transgender people who live in communities that make up 40 percent of the state’s population — including the nearby metropolitan area counties of Nassau, Rockland, Putnam, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, and Sullivan — have no nondiscrimination protections. And there is no statewide standard of protection.

With the entire nation talking about Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair, how can this state of affairs persist in Albany?

The reason is that basic human rights issues in New York State have customarily been bargained over in exactly the same way as different regions of the state have fought about public education funding or infrastructure improvements. The dignity of transgender people goes through the same State Senate sausage factory that processes the thousands of tax and spending details that make up the annual budget.

You can’t treat issues of human rights in this way. It’s cavalier and cynical. Before the Legislature adjourns later this month, the Republican leadership of the Senate must allow a conscience vote on the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. This shouldn’t be about three men in a room. It should be about all New Yorkers being safe, secure, and valued in every room and in every public space.

hidden in a secure underground chamber deep below a bar in Hell’s Kitchen — if I named it, they’d have to poison me — has been working overtime to keep us in the

spotlight.

First we’ve got the Dennis Hastert shocker: turns out the former speaker of the US House of Representatives has been paying hush

money to an as-yet-unidentified male to keep him from revealing the sexual abuse he suffered at Hastert’s, um, hands when Hastert was a high school teacher and wrestling coach back in East Jesus, Illinois.

Yes, high school wrestlers can look fetching in their

MEDIA CIRCUS, continued on p.37

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

PERSPECTIVE: A Dyke Abroad

Confronting the Great White HRC

BY KELLY COGSWELL

W

hen Buzzfeed broke the news last week that the Human Rights Campaign had a diversity problem (goo.gl/7J1co2), the response among many activists was a great big, “Duh.” The only surprise was that the HRC folks had commissioned the report themselves, and having decided to look in the mirror, actually admitted that staring back was the face of a privileged white gay male.

So kudos to HRC for bringing in outside consultants to respond to complaints of what the report called the “White Boys Club.” More importantly, congrats on taking steps to make the organization less homogenous.

The only question is just how far HRC is willing to go. It’s easy enough to create gender-neutral bathrooms. And they’ll probably even make some progress in respecting people’s gender identities. It’s not that hard, after all. If somebody that you thought was a woman asks you to refer to them with male pronouns, you just drop the “s” and start using “he.”

Maybe HRC will even start seeing every new hire, every promotion as a chance to look around the table and ask, “Who’s not here?” And to hire fresh talent who may happen to be women, racial minorities, or trans people.

But once they’re there, will they actually have access to power or a chance to exercise their abilities? There’s no shortage of women at HRC right now, just not in managerial positions. In fact, according to the report, the atmosphere

MEDIA CIRCUS, from p.36

tight spandex singlets, and as YouTube viewers fond of college wrestling matches also appreciate (who, me?), young wrestlers often get what the novelist Carl Hiaasen calls “supernatural erections” at the most inappropriate times. But keep your tongue in your mouth, Coach.

High school kids are off limits. You can look, but you must never, ever touch.

The sweet irony of three sanctimonious Republican congressional leaders – Hastert, Newt Gingrich, and former Speaker-elect Bob Livingston — all of whom worked feverishly to impeach Bill Clinton only to have their own gross sexual misconduct brought to light — was scarcely lost on Barney Frank, who discussed his disgust on Huffington Post Live. Hastert, of course, opposGayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

is hostile to women and feminine men, with straight women privileged over bi women and dykes, not to mention trans women. And while some racial and gender minorities are represented, they’re also not at the top. Which means it’s not particularly reassuring to find that 80 percent of HRC employees apparently believe diversity is important since the other 20 percent seem to be running the show.

Entrenched as these gay white males are, what on earth would persuade them to share power? Especially now, when they have so much juice that they even turn up on TV as Washington powerbrokers, waltzing in and out of Madame Secretary’s outer office?

I have no idea. Especially since so much of their power comes from their huge war chest, which they can use to lobby politicians or mobilize huge numbers of voters. And funders rarely like change. They want what they’ve bought and paid for. And if there’s any handshaking to do, it better not be with anybody new. Besides, they’re all part of the same informal network. Paul only wrote the check to Bob in the first place because they were both in the same dorm at Yale.

So if HRC leadership are tempted to integrate the boardroom, or even start new programs, I can imagine their fear. Donations may slip. Then their power. We queers are no better than the rest of society. We cling to the little we have. And the closer we get to the center of power, the more conservative we become, and the more we reflect its whiteness, its cisgender, exclusionary maleness.

Still, what does it cost us activists to quit snickering and believe HRC can change, or even

es same-sex marriage, but had no such moral opposition to forcing himself on a teenage boy. The GOP is beyond hypocritical. It’s sociopathic.

see that belief as a strategic necessity? How else can we push them toward it? Remind them of their goals and demand action?

The organization is more complex than the graying monolithic beast we usually imagine. I was unexpectedly invited to HRC a year ago to talk about the Lesbian Avengers, and was surprised to see how many young lesbians were there in the audience and how eager they were to talk about street activism and the limits of institutional power. I was prepared to do a big spiel defending my right to exist, but I didn’t need to.

Not to that crowd anyway. The young women were attracted to HRC not for the meager salary, but because they thought HRC could make a difference. And because there weren’t many alternatives. Increasingly they are speaking up.

It would be nice if we saw them as an integral part of HRC not as a token appendage. Especially since this report seems to betray an inner fight for the soul of HRC and maybe the soul of the entire LGBT movement, which has never done a good job supporting our entire community. Now, as the marriage equality fight winds down, we should seize the opportunity to renew ourselves and reconsider diversity as more than a pleasing balance of skin tones and genitalia, or even a question of abstract fairness.

Diversity is an asset. A pool of perspectives, imagination, and experience. And if we are to solve our most intransigent problems, or even identify or articulate them, we need more than usual suspects on the job. Not just at HRC. But in any queer organization that wants to be fresh, relevant, and effective.

Kelly Cogswell is the author of “Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger,” from the University of Minnesota

like a religion than an organized crime syndicate.

And we’ve got chic Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair!

Brava, Caitlyn! You look marvelous!

Next we’ve got the aftermath of Ireland’s overwhelming vote in

But this week’s Media Circus

favor of marriage equality, including one militant Catholic goofball blaming Pope Francis for the lopsided numbers. The twisted logic behind this hypothesis is that Francis didn’t launch a publicity blitz in support of Irish bigots, so too many Catholics either voted Yes or sat out the referendum altogether. Never mind that countless other commentators noted the steep drop in the Church’s influence after a multitude of Irish pedophile priests got caught with their chasubles up. It’s tough to maintain absolute authority over people’s moral sense when your company looks less

isn’t focused on any of those stories.

Instead, we’re celebrating the launch of Mouthfeel, a gorgeous new magazine devoted to men, food, and visual culture. The creators of the journal describe it as “a unique food magazine written from a gay point of view featuring hardcore punk aesthetics and content. With a personality-forward focus, the magazine explores the complexities of food and the characters involved. Designed for readers with unrestrained appetites for food, men, music, and humor, each issue will contain profiles, photos,

artwork, recipes, essays, and more.”

I have no idea what “personality-forward” means, though the expression calls Lypsinka to mind.

And sorry, fellas, but your elegant magazine has no hardcore punk aesthetics. I was at CBGB one night when Johnny Thunders spat a mouthful of beer on the audience.

That was hardcore punk aesthetics.

There is nothing remotely similar in Mouthfeel.

Mouthfeel is a New Yorker’s magazine. It’s slick, sophisticated, funny, and brimming with hot men.

It’s got ambition writ large all over it. The founder and editor-in-chief, Mac Malikowski, has a résumé that drops high-end names paired with low-level jobs — Daniel Boulud, for whom he worked as a busboy; Red Rooster’s Marcus Samuelsson,

MEDIA CIRCUS, continued on p.40

37

PERSPECTIVE: All In The Family

Ceeping Up with Caitlyn

BY DONNIE CIANCIOTTO

I

38

VANITY FAIR

’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve never watched a single episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” I’ve never read an article about any of them, regardless of how many times they’ve “broken” the Internet.

The Kardashians have just never done it for me.

I also didn’t care much about Caitlyn Jenner — formerly Bruce — until it was impossible to buy a six-pack and a bag of chips without 12 different tabloid covers about her staring at me in the checkout line. I’m a transgender man, so I also tuned in because it’s personal.

When Diane Sawyer interviewed Caitlyn, I was glued to the TV. Immediately after, I was glued to social media waiting for the fallout. But it wasn’t until Caitlyn’s Vanity Fair cover that the proverbial LGBT shit hit the fan.

“She’s never fought for LGBT rights!”

“She’s not a positive role model for our community!”

“She’s [gasp] a Republican!”

I’ll admit I can’t wrap my head around the oxymoron of LGBT Republicans. I imagine a lot of them are reacting to internalized homophobia, fear of rejection from family, the pursuit of personal wealth above all else, and any number of “issues.”

Consider the many conservative, anti-LGBT politicians caught having secret sexy time with other men (I’m talking about you Ted Haggard, George Rekers, Randy Boehning, Eddie Long, and many others). As much as I want to smack these guys, I also pity them. Though I’ve been pretty miserable at times in my life, I’ve never been that self-loathing or let’s-go-meet-an-escort-and-not-tell-my-wife miserable.

But Caitlyn Jenner doesn’t deserve to be in that category. Like many transgender people, she spent the majority of her life in denial. Like me, she started hormone therapy years ago and then stopped because she was afraid. That really does a number on your psyche.

Most likely, Caitlyn didn’t start advocating for transgender people until she was fighting her own internal battles, hoping this “thing” would just go away. Coming to grips with being transgender was difficult enough for me, and I’m just an Average Joe who works in the theater industry, has two gay brothers, and an accepting family. I’m not a gold-winning Olympic athlete who defined masculinity on a box of Wheaties. I can only imagine how difficult it’s been for her.

If Caitlyn is as Republican as her critics claim, we should give her the benefit of the doubt. As she embraces her true self and lives authentically, the labels and ideologies she clung to for protection may fall away. No more facade to keep up, no more box to fit in — she’ll find freedom living the way she was born to live. At least that’s

Are you really going to hold looking like Jessica Lange against her?

been my experience.

She hasn’t faced employment or housing discrimination because of her gender identity, but that’s no reason to discount her story. It’s got to be quite a shock to go from privileged, white, straight guy to older transgender woman, especially if she also now identifies as a lesbian.

That’s a minority double coupon and a mindfuck, even for Kardashian fans.

Granted, I’ve met formerly privileged transgender women who transition later in life and suddenly believe they’re the mouthpiece of the movement. They make it easy for me to tease, “Yeah, your life must have been so hard living as a rich, white, straight dude.” Some deserve my bitter cattiness, but not all older transgender women are like that, including — so far — Caitlyn Jenner.

Besides, blanket criticism like that only hurts the transgender community. It’s simply a personality thing. Some people are nice and some people are jerks, regardless of their gender identity. The fact that Jenner didn’t have to fight for her rights up until this point is no reason to kick her out of the club. It’s an opportunity to embrace her and say, “Welcome to the other side

of the coin,” while releasing balloons and doves into the sky.

As a legally-recognized female and, likely, a lesbian, Caitlyn went from being able to get married anywhere to having to wait for the forthcoming Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, just like the rest of us. So, instead of looking at her as a privileged, white male, let’s see her for what she is: a transgender woman.

That makes her family.

If the LGBT community can’t accept one of our own because of hang-ups or biases — against Republicans or, even worse, Kardashians — then we are the ones with the problem. We don’t have to like every transgender person we meet, but I think we should at least try to understand his or her journey, and the first step is respect.

Caitlyn Jenner is fighting a battle, just like all of us. Respect that.

When a high profile celebrity like Jenner comes out as transgender, it brings unprecedented attention to the movement, and that’s a good thing. Because of Caitlyn, the world is being educated about transgender people.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to be on the cover of Vanity Fair? And yes, she does look glamorous. Even though her looks mirror society’s narrow, gender-binary definition of “beautiful,” are you really going to hold looking like Jessica Lange against her? I still want to look like Jessica Lange!

As Caitlyn told Diane Sawyer, the transgender experience is different for everyone. But by coming out so publicly, Caitlyn has enabled transgender rights and needs, from safety in schools to health care, to be talked about in an unprecedented way. From Chaz Bono to Carmen Carrera, Laverne Cox, and now Caitlyn Jenner, there’s no longer an excuse to deny the transgender experience. Shouldn’t that be celebrated?

What Caitlyn does with the spotlight is up to her, good or bad. But the path she’s opened for the community as a whole is a good thing. If having Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair starts a conversation that eventually makes it easier for transgender people to access gender-confirming surgeries — a much better term than sexual reassignment surgery — how could anyone say that’s a bad thing? Maybe now a young transgender girl like Leelah Alcorn won’t lose hope and take her own life — because when she googles “transgender” Caitlyn appears on the cover of Vanity Fair.

I’m looking forward to watching Caitlyn’s new reality show because I’m genuinely curious about her journey. But If you’re not interested, you don’t have to watch it. After all, I don’t keep up with the Kardashians.

Donnie Cianciotto is a 34-year-old transgender man and a writer, singer, actor, craft-beer enthusiast, former drag king, political junkie, and activist from New York City, currently trapped in Arizona.

He’s the founder and artistic director of Musical Mayhem Cabaret.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

STONEWALL, from p.4

said. “We and others are looking to make sure that it remains a place that speaks to the history of the LGBT rights movement.”

Berman said GVSHP will continue the push for recognition of other sites.

“We’re glad the city is taking this first step,” he said.

Out lesbian Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who represents the West Village, said, “It has been a good year for gay people, with the Irish voting for love and now the city administration finally recognizing a key location for the LGBT community. It’s a start.”

She said that the Wooster Street Firehouse, where GAA housed its community center in the early 1970s, is in many ways “more compelling.” And she said that “there are sites of gay clubs in Harlem that are far more meaningful because it is where people — particularly African-American people — had their early gay identification.”

Glick credited the de Blasio administration with moving relatively quickly on this.

“One could ask why the Bloomberg administration paid no attention,” she said.

Despite the strong community support for the contemplated designation, at least some of those who participated in the Rebellion balk at a special status for the bar. One of them, Jim Fouratt, recently made public a letter he wrote to the National Parks Conservation Association arguing, “I very strongly support the designation of the Sheridan Square park [Christopher Park] becoming a national park and designated a historical landmark because of what happened that night in the street in front of the Stonewall Inn. I am very opposed to designating a business that was run by organized crime in contempt of the law and with the knowledge of the local police force as a symbol of Lesbian and Gay liberation. It is a private business still in operation. To me it is a symbol of oppression and not liberation.

It would be appropriate to mark the street location as the spark that set off a series of events that forever changed the visibility and fight for equality for lesbians and gay men of all gender expression throughout the world.”

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

Councilmember Johnson has a very different perspective on the bar, saying, “The first time I visited NYC in 2000 — the year before I moved here — the first place I wanted to go was the Stonewall Inn. I stood outside. I was just 18.

I felt like a deep connection to this place that I had read and heard so much about. To now be the councilmember representing this district and have a chance to vote on it is incredibly meaningful and special.”

On Facebook, John O’Brien, a longtime gay activist and historian and, like Fouratt, a Stonewall Rebellion participant who was active in the Gay Liberation Front that came out of it, praised the move toward landmarking the Stonewall.

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“Few sites more powerfully embody the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and for achieving a fairer and more just society, than the Stonewall Inn.” “Like many such landmarks whether around wars, revolutions, or other sites that were the scene of important history, the actual previous usage of the site is not the essential consideration, but what a site came to represent,” he wrote.

O’Brien and veteran activist Rick Landman, who gives gay historical tours of New York, cited the nearby Triangle Shirtwaist Factory where 145 women workers perished in a 1911 fire that led to workplace safety improvements throughout the nation.

Tree, a 76-year old bartender at the Stonewall “off and on for 45 years” and himself at the Stonewall the day the Rebellion broke out, said, “This makes us feel great. It’s about time.”

He reported that business at the bar is good and is made up of a high percentage of tourists, both gay and non-gay, from around the world who know what Stonewall means to history.

Duell Management, which owns the Stonewall, did not return a call for comment on how the company feels about the potential landmarking.

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39

HISTORY, from p.34

National Politics Panel

K. CIAPPA/ VISIT PHILADELPHIA

The public marker commemorating the Annual Reminders at Independence Hall.

July 2, 8:15 - 9:30 p.m.

Congress Hall Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff moderates a panel that includes Kirk Fordham, executive director of the Gill Action Fund; Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Stacey Long Simmons, director of public policy and government affairs at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force; and Winnie Stachelberg, executive vice president for external affairs at the Center for American Progress.

PHILLY, from p.35

ergize your patriotic sentiment. But better than that, from June 5 to September 7, it’s hosting the “Speaking Out for Equality: The Constitution, Gay Rights & the Supreme Court” exhibit as part of the LGBT 50th anniversary celebration.

Get Out No one can come to Philly’s Gayborhood — aka Midtown Village — and say they didn’t have plenty of watering holes to choose from.

Both Woody’s and the Knock offer outdoor areas and happy-hour specials, making them good starter spots for a night out, though the latter adds a touch more sophistication and

MEDIA CIRCUS, from p.37

in whose office he once interned; and Momofuku’s David Chang, for whom he worked in unspecified front-of-house roles. He even goes so far as to trumpet the fact that for five years he was a barista at Blue Bottle Coffee. Take that, Bobby Flay!

The first issue profiles Ty-Lor Boring, a “Top Chef” contestant and chef at the locavore restaurant Almond, and Renato Poliafito, the co-owner of the sweets-specializing Baked. There’s a feature story on Fritz and Co., a currywurst stand in Berlin. But my favorite section is called Plates, which consists of what a press release delicately describes as “full-page artwork and design contributed by Ariel Roman and friends at Mother New York.”

Oh, honey, please. Don’t mince words! Plates is a series of photos of pornish men in various states of nakedity with food products superimposed over their cocks. One particularly alluring foundational photo appears to be circa 1980 — a black and white shot of a handsome, jacked stud lifting up his shirt to reveal a flat belly and exquisite trea-

40

National Interfaith Service July 3, 4 – 5 p.m.

Christ Church The service will be led by Bishop Gene Robinson; Rabbi Linda Holtzman, a professor of practical rabbinics at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the rabbi of Philadelphia’s Mishkan Shalom; the Reverend Susan Richardson, assistant minister of Christ Church; the Reverend Timothy Safford, rector of Christ Church; and Rabbi Margot Stein, an instructor in music and liturgy at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the High Holy Days cantor at Mishkan Shalom.

dining to the experience. Woody’s, meanwhile, gets more clubby with every passing hour.

As night falls, it may be time to pull up a stool at one of the neighborhood haunts along tiny South Camac Street. U Bar (ubarphilly.com) is a friendly, two-story bar aiming to wet your whistle, with doors opening at 11 a.m. daily and lots of drink specials. A few doors down, the Tavern on Camac (tavernoncamac.com) is Philly’s favorite piano bar, with an upstairs club that gets moving closer to midnight. At the other end of Camac, the friendly Venture Inn (viphilly.com) puts on drag shows, karaoke, and all-vinyl rock ‘n roll dance parties every other Saturday.

Tabu (tabuphilly.com) is another hotbed of performance and dancing upstairs that serves

sure trail running down from his navel to a most invitingly thick forest of black pubes and a full-color Squirt ad layered over his rod.

Another, also looking like it comes from the ‘80s, is a black and white photo of a classic Colt type with a dark mustache and hairy pecs overlaid with a fuzzy color image of a Miracle Whip jar and a spoon holding a glob of the thick, white, inedible dressing. (The atrocious Miracle Whip always reminds me of my misguided cousin, who tried to make the hot artichoke dip that everyone was serving that season. It tasted awful, and Sally couldn’t figure out why. “I followed the recipe!” she defensively insisted. I asked her if she really followed the recipe. “Well, I used Miracle Whip instead of Hellmann’s,” she explained, at which point I dissolved in derisive laughter.)

On Mouthfeel’s first cover is a handsome dude with luscious eyes whose shoulders and upper arms line up perfectly with a Bundt cake pan spliced below him, forming a circle of edibility. The recipe for a lemon-blueberry Bundt cake, printed on glossy postcard stock, comes

Parties, Street Festival & Fireworks • Parties will be held on July 3, 4 & 5 • Welcome America Fireworks are scheduled for 11 p.m. on July 4 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

• A street festival will be held in Philadelphia’s Gayborhood beginning at noon on July 5.

For complete information about the July 2-5 celebration in Philadelphia, visit lgbt50th.org.

sports-loving queers downstairs. But Icandy (clubicandy.com) is the go-to club for gays wanting to get down. Its first floor is always free entry, but after 10 p.m. on weekends expect a cover to dance upstairs or to hang on the rooftop patio.

Whether you’re new to Philadelphia or a seasoned visitor, 2015 promises to be a banner year for LGBT travelers to take the city by storm. This may be the summer that the City of Brotherly Love nickname gets a whole new meaning.

For a regularly updated rundown of 50th-anniversary events commemorating the LGBT civil rights movement, visit LGBT50.org and gaypioneers.com.

Also check out PhillyMag.com/g-philly and VisitPhilly.com for more things to do during your stay.

along with the magazine, as does a series of four small round pins.

One is a smiley face with the words “rump roast” forming the mouth.

Another seems at first glance to be an abstract series of pink circles with a dark sketched rim but upon closer inspection reveals itself to be a beautiful nipple surrounded by a border of chest hair. The whole package includes the magazine, the pins, the recipe card, and two posters, one of which is Robinson Muir's tribute to the Spotted Pig (a great restaurant in the West Village), the other a poem by Daniel Zomparelli titled “Lasagna, Slow (an instructional sonnet).” The poet employs the word sonnet in a figurative sense, since the poem does not consist of 14 lines of iambic pentameter.

The magazine is oversized, reminiscent of Interview. It’s 10 x 16 inches and comes along with the posters and pins in a 13 x 18 inch zip-lock bag suitable for marinating shrimp, fish, chicken breasts, or pork chops.

The first issue of Mouthfeel had a very small print run and quickly sold out online. I’m told it’s available exclusively at Colette, a fantas-

tic Parisian cult store. But I cannot verify its availability, for even though I asked very politely and made what I still believe was an extremely persuasive argument, my earnest and hard-working editor failed to approve my pitch for Gay City News to send me to Paris on assignment.

Checking out the website — mouthfeelmag.com — is the next best thing. Superbly designed, it’s full of terrific content, with everything from an interview with the wizard behind Instagram’s “DragQueensEating,” Diana Dzhaketov (get it?*), and a spring playlist that links via Spotify to a bunch of hip video clips, my favorite being one in which a handsome guy with thinning hair on his head but thick black fur on his neck, upper chest, and shoulders simply runs his hand across his mustache, raises his eyebrows, and shoots us a thumbs-up with an adorable smirk.

So Malikowski, bro — I gave you a fantastic review. Give me a copy of the first issue. This is not quid pro quo. It’s just the right thing to do.

Follow @edsikov on Twitter. And re: * — It’s pronounced “jack-it-off.”

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

41

BOOKS

Lambda Literary Fêtes Rita Mae Brown, John Waters MICHAEL LUONGO

Gloria Steinem.

“Rubyfruit Jungle” author, iconoclastic filmmaker among honorees at evening celebrating both tradition and diversity

BY MICHAEL LUONGO

A

MICHAEL LUONGO MICHAEL LUONGO

Toshi Reagon.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Abdi Nazemian.

MICHAEL LUONGO

Danez Smith.

42

MICHAEL LUONGO

Charles Blow.

merica’s LGBT literati descended on New York for the 27th annual Lambda Literary Awards held June 1 in the historic Great Hall of Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan.

Writer Perry Brass said he has attended the awards from nearly the very beginning, commenting that the event “has preserved the glamour of the gay book world. You have so many talented people all in one room at one time.”

Tony Valenzuela, Lambda Literary Foundation executive director, said approximately 575 people bought tickets for the evening, making it the largest crowd in the group’s history.

Among the highlights for Valenzuela was that eight fellows from Lambda Literary’s writers retreat were finalists this year, the largest number ever. Another high point for him was the awarding of the group’s Pioneer Award to Rita Mae Brown.

“I remember that Rita Mae Brown meant so much to so many writers’ lives,” he said. “It was all the more special to have Gloria Steinem introduce her. They have been friends for over 40 years.”

Steinem, a leading feminist since the early 1970s, was exuberant in her introduction of the “Rubyfruit Jungle” author, describing her as “fan-fucking-tastic.”

Brown framed her remarks in the context of profoundly American principles. After reading the Constitution’s First Amendment, she said, “We are born of the Enlightenment…

Jefferson dreamed of you. Fulfill the dream.”

Later, at the afterparty held in Scholastic Publishing’s Soho rooftop terrace, Brown returned to the theme of past presidents’ legacies, saying, “It’s interesting to be in Cooper Union where Lincoln gave his speech. That was exciting.”

She added, “I really enjoyed being at the awards and seeing all the young writers who were there. You pray it will help their careers.”

John Waters, with Liz Smith, who presented the filmmaker with his award.

Writer and filmmaker John Waters received Lambda Literary’s Trustee Award for Excellence in Literature, presented to him by columnist Liz Smith. Smith reminded the audience that among Waters’ famous phrases was that “if you go home with someone and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them.”

That comment prompted Waters to say that a highlight of the event for him was that “I got to hear Liz Smith say the word fuck tonight.”

Recalling his career jour ney, Waters remarked that his only real job was working at a bookstore in Provincetown. He dedicated his award to the owners of that shop.

Comedian Kate Clinton once again served as the evening’s emcee, and she spared no humor in introducing Waters, Smith, Brown, Steinem, and a host of other celebrity presenters and award recipients.

Among the boldfaced names on hand was Janet Mock, whose book “Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More” (Atria Books) was up for an award for Transgender Non-Fiction.

The category was won by Thomas Page McBee for “Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man” (City Lights/ Sister Spit). McBee thanked his moth-

er, who died last year, saying, “I hope she’s watching this and excited not just for this but for everything going on for trans people right now.”

New York Times columnist Charles Blow won the Bisexual Non-Fiction Award for his book “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Actor Alan Cumming, who was one of the evening’s presenters, was also a finalist in the Bisexual Non-Fiction category for his book “Not My Father’s Son” (HarperCollins Publishers/ Dey Street Books).

Martin Duberman, who won the award for LGBT Non-Fiction for “Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS” (the New Press), joked that he received the award because, “I am by far the oldest person here, and they are probably thinking…” As he trailed off, he began to laugh. His remarks then took a serious turn when he reminded the audience that his book looked at “the very different way the white gay and the black gay communities had to deal with AIDS.” “Privilege ended up where it usually does,” he noted.

Musical entertainment was provided by singer Toshi Reagon as well as

by Lauren Patten from the Tony-win-

LAMBDA, continued on p.43

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

MICHAEL LUONGO

Rita Mae Brown and Lambda Literary executive director Tony Valenzuela.

LAMBDA, from p.42

ning Broadway show “Fun Home.”

Alison Bechdel, author of the book “Fun Home” on which the show is based and the recipient of a special Board of Trustees award for excellence at last year’s event, was one of the evening's presenters.

Continuity was a theme that pervaded the evening, with many of those on stage remarking about the ongoing legacy of older writers influencing newcomers.

When Tim Federle, whose book “Five, Six, Seven, Nate!” (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) won the LGBT Children’s/ Young Adults category, he held up a copy of comedian Bob Smith’s book “Openly Bob” (HarperCollins) and dedicated the award to him.

Other speakers emphasized the diversity of the LGBT writing community. Danez Smith, who won the Poetry category for his book “[insert] boy” (YesYes Books), said, “Thank you to all the queers. And

the black ones and the brown ones.” The visibility of queer writers of color, he said, “shows the power” of recent changes in the LGBT writing world.

Abdi Nazemian, who won the LGBT Debut Fiction category for his book “The Walk-In Closet” (Curtis Brown Unlimited), is of Iranian descent and commented that he was happy to receive the award because “there is not a lot of conversation about being gay and Middle Eastern.”

The Lambda Literary Awards are timed to coincide with Book Expo America, held this year at the Javits Convention Center. Several LGBT publishers participated in the Expo this year, including Cleis Press, Dreamspinner Press, and Ger man publisher Bruno Gmünder. Next year’s Book Expo will be in Chicago.

ALL HE WANTS IS MR. RIGHT. RIGHT NOW.

More on the Lambda Literary Awards, including a full list of the evening’s winners, is at lambdaliterary.org.

BY

JOSHUA HARMON DIRECTED BY

TRIP CULLMAN

MICHAEL LUONGO

“It’s Not Over” author Michelangelo Signorile with Janet Mock.

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT IT’S ABOUT WHEN YOU HAVE TO WAIT – AND WAIT – FOR “THE ONE.” HAROLD AND MIRIAM STEINBERG CENTER FOR THEATRE/LAURA PELS THEATRE ROUNDABOUTTHEATRE.ORG

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

PHOTO BY DARREN COX

A WORLD PREMIERE FROM THE WRITER OF BAD JEWS

212.719.1300

43

THEATER

Playing Cops and Queers Getting hands (and other body parts) dirty while entrapping gays in the early 20th century

BY DAVID KENNERLEY

F

BRITANNIE BOND

Robert Mammana and Will Bradley in Tom Jacobson’s “The Twentieth-Century Way,” directed by Michael Michetti, at the Rattlestick through July 19.

ive years after winning the FringeNYC Overall Excellence in Production of a Play Award in 2010, “The Twentieth-Century Way” has finally landed Off Broadway. And it’s only gotten more potent with age.

This lean, erotically charged two-hander, co-presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and the Theatre @ Boston Court, delivers everything you want in a gay play — heart-racing drama, vivid characters, tart dialogue, and wellplaced nudity. Sure, the borderline pretentious meta-theatrics are challenging, but the work is worth it.

The story, set in 1914 Long Beach, California, starts out simply enough. Two dapper men, Mr. Warren and Mr. Brown, are actors waiting to audition for a plum movie role. It’s not long before Warren challenges Brown to an absurd contest of improvisational role-play. The winner gets the job, the loser goes home empty-handed.

The scenario for the contest? Vice officers

entrapping homosexuals in public changing rooms and private sex clubs, in an effort to “stamp out sin” and “liquidate lasciviousness.”

The men engage in a muscular pas de deux, trying with all their might to outdo one another, sometimes portraying the cops, sometimes the queers.

Things get dicey when the line between the entrapper and the entrapped becomes blurred.

Are the men, posing as homosexuals, becoming queer themselves? The sexual tension is so acute you can practically smell it.

What makes the drama, written by Tom Jacobson, even more captivating is that it’s based on actual events. As chronicled in Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons’ book “Gay L.A.,” Warren and Brown were real actors recruited by the Long Beach police department to snare gay men (at $15 a head, it was a fairly lucrative acting gig) and many facts were drawn from newspaper accounts of the period. There’s even a reference to the Slide, New York’s infamous den of gay depravity.

ENTRAP, continued on p.46

Divine Intervention Jim Parsons stars as gay-friendly God, rebooting the universe with a devilish grin

BY DAVID KENNERLEY

44

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misdeeds. In his newly revised Ten Commandments, this goal is covered handily in the second commandment: “Thou shalt not tell others whom to fornicate.”

There are passages in the Bible, God admits, that take liberties with the facts, like the creation of Adam and Eve. Turns out he originally created — you guessed it — Adam and Steve. For the record, he chose

JEREMY DANIEL

T

he Bible has been woefully misconstrued for centuries. Not to mention it’s a tad out of date. Lucky for us sinners, God, in the form of Jim Parsons, has come down from on high to launch an update (“Universe 2.0,” he calls it) in the wispy, exceedingly amusing “An Act of God,” now playing at Studio 54.

Not lost on the Creator is the irony that Parsons is best known for a TV show titled “The Big Bang Theory.” Or that he’s performing in the former space of the most notorious den of iniquity this side of Sodom and Gomorrah. He does fail, however, to mention another note of irony — that God chose to inhabit the body of an openly gay man.

What God does hope to rectify, however, is the senseless persecution of homosexuals, among other

Tim Kazurinsky, Jim Parsons, and Christopher Fitzgerald in David Javerbaum’s “An Act of God,” directed by Joe Mantello.

the name Adam “to give him a leg up, alphabetically.”

“So anyway, one night I caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep,” God explains. “Fulsomely did I roofie his nectar; and as he slept, I removed a non-load-bearing rib; and from it I fashioned a companion for him… a man, a hunk, unburdened by excess wisdom; ripped, and cut, and hung like unto a fig tree before

the harvest; yea, and a power bottom.”

If the role of Sheldon is a perfect fit for the Emmy-winning actor, God’s robes are equally comfortable. It’s no accident that Parsons’ street clothes — a plaid collared shirt, blue jeans, red athletic footwear — peek out prominently from

DIVINE, continued on p.60

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

45

THEATER

Despicable Me Jesse Eisenberg turns out another caustic drama about deception and disaffection

THE SPOILS The New Group Pershing Square Signature Center 480 W. 42nd St. Through Jun. 28 Tue.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m.; Sat. at 8 p.m.

Wed., Sat., Sun. at 2 p.m. $77-$97; thenewgroup.org Or 212-279-4200 Two hrs., 20 mins., with intermission

BY DAVID KENNERLEY

F

MONIQUE CARBONI

ilm actor Jesse Eisenberg is becoming a formidable force on the New York stage. In recent seasons “The Social Network” Oscar nominee has written and starred in “Asuncion,” “The Revisionist,” and now the New Group’s “The Spoils,” at the Pershing Square Signature Center Off Broadway.

Eisenberg’s works tend to be obsessed with culture clashes, failed aspirations, smoldering deceptions, mismatched roommates, paranoid potheads, and awkward bromances.

Not only is he unafraid to play erratic, unappealing characters, he seems to revel in it. In “The Spoils,” however, he goes too far with the obnoxious asshole act.

The 31-year-old dramatist plays Ben, a churlish wannabe filmmaker living in a New York apartment paid for by his father (it’s hard not to think of the recent Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s sim-

Jesse Eisenberg and Kunal Nayyar in Eisenberg’s “The Spoils,” directed by Scott Elliott, at Pershing Square Signature Center through June 28.

ilarly-themed “This Is Our Youth” starring Michael Cera, who is often confused with Eisenberg, much to his annoyance).

One of Ben’s dirty secrets: he’s a filmmaker who’s never actually

ENTRAP, from p.44

Strangely enough, the drama serves up a delectable lesson on fellatio. It wasn’t until the early 20th century when the push for public hygiene made the practice, er, more palatable.

“Cleaner bodies meant cleaner dicks,” Warren says bluntly. “Clean enough to eat off of...

With the demise of the cheesy dick, new life was breathed into an old vice.”

The practice, often done furtively and on the fly, was aided further by the invention of the trouser zipper, which meant easy access and a hasty retreat. Such oral vice was known as “the twentieth-century way.”

Another historical tidbit: undercover cops would entice an unsuspecting queer to insert his erect penis through a public toilet glory hole and then, during a moment of ecstasy, mark it with an X in indelible ink. Proof positive of his deviancy in court.

Not that entrapping innocent gays is relegated to history. Remember a few years back when a vice squad falsely arrested men for prostitution in Chelsea and East Village porn shops? As reported in Gay City News, a younger man (an undercover

46

completed a film. Another is that he swipes ideas and passes them off as his own.

Ben tries to offset his failures by skewering everyone he encounters, including his sweet-natured Nepal-

cop) aggressively flirted with his targets and after they agreed to consensual sex, he offered to pay them. The gay men were cuffed even though no cash agreement was made.

The fearless performances, under the taut direction of Michael Michetti, are nothing short of impeccable; the actors shift effortlessly among a range of provocative characters. Will Bradley brings a burning desperation to Mr. Brown, the “pretty” actor who lends an air of dignity to his portrayal of effeminate fairies. Robert Mammana is affecting as Mr. Warren, the more macho of the pair, a tough guy with a tender underbelly.

“Everyone is acting all the time,” Warren observes. “Every job is a role. Every relationship a masquerade.”

With actors furiously swapping out suit jackets, police caps, silk kimonos, and swishy scarves, “The Twentieth-Century Way” recalls the antics of other quick-change shows like “The 39 Steps,” except manic humor is replaced with anguished urgency.

In this labyrinthine funhouse of a play, tinged with shades of Brecht and Pirandello, roles and allegiances morph and fold in upon one another.

Scenic designer Clifton Chadick has wisely

ese roommate, Kalyan (Kunal Nayyar of “Big Bang Theory” fame), an MBA student at NYU, who, unlike Ben, is trying to make something of himself. Kalyan’s pretty girlfriend, Reshma (the excellent Annapurna Sriram), despises Ben and for good reason.

When Ben learns that his grade school crush, Sarah (Erin Darke), is marrying another childhood classmate, Ted (Michael Zegen), he tries to sabotage their relationship.

He considers Ted a “boring, Jewy douche bag” banker unworthy of Sarah.

Many elements in this production, helmed by Scott Elliott, are top notch. Derek McLane has crafted a finely detailed, stylish apartment,

SPOILS, continued on p.62

THE TWENTIETHCENTURY WAY Rattlestick Playwrights Theater 224 Waverly Pl. Btwn. Perry & W. 11th Sts. Through Jul. 19 Mon., Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.

Sun. at 3 p.m. $10-$50; rattlestick.org Or 212-279-4200 Ninety mins., no intermission

kept the set elements to a bare minimum. A rack of costumes is easily wheeled around to suggest various rooms or a toilet stall divider. Onstage is a large leather trunk, a few period light fixtures, a couple of chairs, and that’s about it.

In the end, the two men shuck off their disguises and embrace the truth. Perhaps they are taking to heart a warning from one of their foppish targets: “All we have is the moment, and the moment does not last.”

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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THEATER

THE KING AND I

Power Plays A classic musical and a new comedy ask age-old question “Who’s on top?”

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

R

and holding them until the final curtain. Singing some of the best known songs in musical theater — “Getting to Know You,” “Hello, Young Lovers” — she makes them sound new as Anna discovers herself. Ken Watanabe is excellent as the king, his charisma easily overcoming some pronunciation problems.

Ruthie Ann Miles (the spectacular Imelda Marcos in “Here Lies Love”) as Lady Thiang has a centered maturity in “Something Wonderful” that is something even more than that.

Like the relationship between Anna and the king, this production is filled with revelations and discoveries that will take you by surprise, delight you, and prove how even on a huge scale, the comparatively small human heart can be the driving force.

48

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away in a room all day toiling on her novel while Eric is at work. Eric becomes a scriptural dom, but in the meanwhile we learn that Zach is really under Michelle’s thumb. It all gets confusing, and there’s even a subplot about Eric, a college professor, and his sex-starved graduate assistant. Askins has the makings of a classic sex farce here, but it’s not finely tuned enough to be consistently funny or deliver the requisitely sustained tension.

The game cast, however, is entertaining to watch. Lucas Near-Verbrugghe as Zach, Nicole Lawrence as Michelle, Elizabeth Reaser as Cynthia, and especially Justin Bartha as Eric are all good comic actors who deliver their one-liners and bits very well. Now, if only it were the play that had been whipped into shape.

PAUL KOLNIK

odgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I” was certainly inspired by the memoir of Anna Leonowens, who was tutor to the children of the king of Siam (contemporary Thailand), but it also seems to draw insights from “Pride and Prejudice,” as well. The story of the headstrong governess and the even more headstrong king is a clash of cultures and customs that ultimately ends in a kind of mutual understanding and support. In a modern era of bitter culture clashes, this gentle story stands as a reminder that our way is not the only way, nor even necessarily the best way.

In the opening moments of the magnificent, multiple Tony-winning Lincoln Center production, impeccably directed by Bartlett Sher, Anna arrives in a ship that seems to dwarf the port of Without the comic talents of the able cast Siam and she tries to whistle away her fears while and the manic direction of Alex Timbers, bringing her British stiff upper lip to the king’s “Permission” at MCC would sink into tedium court. There, it is she who is dwarfed — by the much sooner than it does. The play by Robert splendor of the palace and the seemingly count- Askins (represented far better on Broadway by less number of charges she must oversee. It’s the deliciously scabrous “Hand to God”) is really not long, however, before Anna is challenging a one-joke sketch about Christian S&M. The gag the king, and the power shifts back and forth is that it’s okay to spank your partner erotically, between them. What begins as conflict soon if you do it in Jesus’ name. becomes a game and, in time, a way of showing Askins, of course, is taking aim at the abhorrespect and appreciation. Even in the secondary rent hypocrisy of the Christian right when it plots of young lovers who must hide their affec- comes to all things sexual, but in order to flesh tion and wives who know the king’s flaws but love this idea out to a full two hours, Askins throws in him anyway, the show is about acceptance creat- plot twists that are predictable without ing the opportunity for love. moving it toward resolution. Instead, This delicate and nuanced approach to this everything climaxes (pun intended) in a oft-told tale mitigates the story’s essential colo- cataclysmic cluster but then just fades nialist conceit, which could otherwise over- away. Other than showing off his antipwhelm the mood. Sher’s direction emphasizes athy toward organized religion, Askins’ how antiquated belief systems can — and must intent remains unclear.

— adapt to a changing world.

The plot is based on the premise But you don’t go to see “The King and I” for that a man asserts his Biblical domia philosophical discussion, you’re interested nance in his home by administering in hearing the wonderful score and experienc- corporal punishment. That seems ing the sumptuous production values the story to be working for Zach and Michelle, demands. Here, you are richly rewarded in every who practice CDD (Christian Domesrespect. Michael Yeargen’s sets are gorgeous. tic Discipline) — so well, in fact, that Catherine Zuber’s costumes are beautiful and Zach gets his friend Eric to try it on show sparks of originality. Donald Holder’s light- his wife, Cynthia. She turns out ing is glorious, and Christopher Gattelli’s chore- to be a willing sub, even to ography based on the Jerome Robbins originals the point of being locked is stunning. What’s most remarkable about the design is how the epic story’s sweep is perfectly juxtaposed with its smaller, more intimate elements.

And then there’s the cast. Kelli O’Hara has seldom sounded better. Her beautiful voice and flawless technique are spellbinding, winning our hearts from the start Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe in the Lincoln Center production of “The King and I.”

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YOU ALMOST GOT ME THERE, B*TCH! On Monday June 1, gay bars across the country were packed with fans awaiting the finale of the seventh season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” where the final three contestants — Violet Chachki, Ginger Minj, and Pearl — turnt up one last time in attempt to impress the judges.

After what many considered a lackluster season, opinions were pretty divided as to which queen should walk away with the crown (though the crowd at Industry Bar the night of the finale certainly favored #TeamGinger).

Prior to the grand coronation, RuPaul crowned season favorite Katya with the Miss Congeniality Award, only to then tease her with the grand prize, a joke that elicited a slew of profanities from the contestants and crowd alike.

All jest aside, RuPaul crowned Violet Chachki as America’s Next Drag Superstar.

All season long, local drag queens have been hosting viewings (complete with colorful commentaries) throughout New York City. Miz Cracker, seen here at Industry Bar in Hell’s Kitchen, didn't seem all that surprised by Violet's win, but did compare her to a "pair of chopsticks in a corset — with about that much personality." — Michael Shirey

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June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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51

FILM

Not-So-Merry Pranksters Aging Yes Men struggle to keep their climate control activism buoyant

BY STEVE ERICKSON

A

THE YES MEN ARE REVOLTING Directed by Laura Nix and the Yes Men The Orchard Opens Jun. 12 IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. ifccenter.com

THE ORCHARD

mong other things, Laura Nix and the Yes Men’s documentary “The Yes Men Are Revolting” is an unusual bromance. Not only is it free of the homophobia that mars so much contemporary American comedy, but one of the Yes Men, an activist duo, comes out. It says something about how unusual “The Yes Men Are Revolting” feels that it comes closer to a Hollywood comedy like “Neighbors” than a high-minded political documentary like Kirby Dick’s “The Hunting Ground.”

The Yes Men — who use the pseudonyms Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum, though their real names are revealed in the film — talk about how each felt like they had found their perfect partner in mischief when they met. They’re best known for a long series of stunts in which they impersonated corporate bigwigs in settings like a press conference where, for example, the “CEO” of an oil company would announce they were switch-

Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum in “The Yes Men Are Revolting,” which they co-directed with Laura Nix.

ing to solar and wind energy.

“The Yes Men Are Revolting” depicts Mike and Andy as middle-aged men; their younger incarnations appear in footage from the first two documentaries chronicling their activities. Time has taken its toll on them and driven them in different directions. In fact, Mike’s devotion to family life pulls him

outside activism entirely. (Halfway through the film, he moves to Dundee, Scotland.) They devote most of their energy to climate change but feel powerless to stop it. Still, they keep going, traveling to Uganda to meet with an activist who wants First World countries to pay for the adaptations impoverished Africans will have to make.

Staying in the Garage When dedication to art surpasses a nose for where the money’s headed

BY STEVE ERICKSON

E

den” is the story of 20 years in the life of a house music DJ, inspired by the biography of its co-writer Sven Hansen-Løve, whose sister Mia directed it and wrote the script with him. But it could be the life of anyone who pursues their passion beyond reasonable limits, without thinking about the future.

Paul (Félix de Givry) discovers the rave scene of Paris as a teenager and forms a DJ duo called Cheers with a friend. They specialize in the garage style, which combines mechanical electronics and soulful, disco-inspired vocals. Meanwhile, their acquaintances form a group called Daft Punk. In the real world, Daft Punk achieved huge success and crossed over to a wide audience; toward the end of “Eden,” Paul meets a young woman who says Daft Punk is the only

52

electronica group she listens to. But in the movie, they have trouble getting admitted into nightclubs because they always wear robot costumes onstage and no one knows what “Thomas and Guy-Man” really look like.

Paul and his friend Stan (Hugo Conzelmann) start their own parties. They form a wide circle of friends: artist Cyril (Roman Kolinka), passionate “Showgirls” fan Arnaud (Vincent Macaigne), and a revolving door of girlfriends. (Paul can’t seem to stay with a woman more than a year or two.)

A literature student, Paul devotes little time to school once he discovers garage music. And why would he? He gets to travel to America, DJing at PS1 and meeting legendary DJs in Chicago.

Cheers try to start its own record label, but the pair wind up losing money.

The first part of “Eden” is called “Paradise Garage,” the second part “Lost in Music.” If you sense some value judgments in those titles,

(The subject of Uganda’s anti-gay legislation comes up here as well.)

The two men stage several pranks throughout the film, with varying degrees of success.

“The Yes Men Are Revolting” shows the duo digging through their archive of props and costumes. A melancholy tone pervades much of the film, even as it strives to be upbeat and celebratory and to encourage spectators toward activism. Mike has settled down into marriage, but his Scottish wife apparently barely consented to

YES MEN, continued on p.54

EDEN Directed by Mia Hansen-Løve In French with English subtitles Broad Green Pictures Opens Jun. 19 IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. ifccenter.com

you’re not off the mark. “Eden” is almost as good as Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” at capturing a sense of time passing while its characters are busy living their lives. It jumps forward in time, a few years at a stretch, several times, but the stasis of Paul’s life remains a constant. We don’t have to wonder what he was doing in the years “Eden” leaves offscreen.

The world of “Eden” is largely new to me. After hearing the debut albums by the Orb and Aphex Twin in 1992, I started listening to electronic dance music, but I’ve never really heard garage and I went to a grand total of one rave. The early scenes show a culture that hasn’t yet become

EDEN, continued on p.62

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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53

FILM

Size Matters, But Get Over It How far will a couple new to LA go to fit in?

THE ORCHARD

THE ORCHARD

Filmmaker Patrick Brice.

Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling in Patrick Brice’s “The Overnight.”

BY GARY M. KRAMER

T

he awkward comedy of manners “The Over night” has Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) anxious about having to make new friends in Los Angeles, where they recently moved. When their son RJ (RJ Hermes) befriends Max (Max Moritt) at the playground, Max’s father Kurt (Jason Schwartzman) invites RJ and his parents over for pizza with his wife Charlotte (Judith Godreche). The bond that starts to form between the adult couples quickly mirrors the easygoing friendship between the kids.

However, after RJ and Max are put to bed, things become a bit more intense. Alcohol is consumed, bongs are shared, and clothes are shed.

Then Alex reveals his concerns about inadequacy, and things get even more sexually explicit and intense.

YES MEN, from p.52

appear in the film. We never hear her voice and rarely see her face.

Early on, Andy says he’s found the man with whom he wants to spend the rest of his life. Then that boyfriend leaves him. He seems to be single — and palpably lonely — for the rest of the film. Mike fathers three children, almost secretly.

While the two men come together for political projects, there’s a long stretch where their friendship seems to have frayed.

“The Yes Men Are Revolting” is the first of the three documentaries about the Yes Men that they are

54

Writer/ director Patrick Brice met with Gay City News to talk about his inspiration for the sexual shenanigans that transpire during “The Overnight.”

GARY M. KRAMER: So, let’s talk about penises. Why did you make them a source of awe and shame for the film’s adult male characters?

PATRICK BRICE: I wanted the movie to be about this guy, Alex, overcoming this issue and gaining self-acceptance.

GMK: Did you write about this issue because it is taboo? You find it funny? It’s something you grapple with?

PB: [Laughs.] I have never seen it done in this context or point of view, where it’s almost taking an empathetic approach to it. I wanted it to be funny, but not in a way where you are laughing at the characters. You are laughing with Alex as you are discovering stuff.

credited with (co-)directing. Here, directing seems to mean organizing footage from a wide variety of sources. The quality of video shifts wildly; some is contemporary and high-definition, while earlier footage is grainier. There are several animated sequences, which seem inserted in a gratuitous attempt at adding “visual style.” The animation illustrates the dire consequences of climate change, offering information almost everyone who would see a leftist documentary already knows.

If “The Yes Men Are Revolting” lifts its emotional framework from Hollywood (and real life, to be fair),

THE OVERNIGHT Directed by Patrick Brice The Orchard Opens Jun. 19 Angelika Film Center 18 W. Houston St. at Mercer St. angelikafilmcenter.com/nyc AMC Loews Lincoln Square 1998 Broadway at W. 68th St. amctheatres.com

GMK: So given the penises on display and discussions about dicks in the film, I’m curious to know about your issue with nudity and body image.

it definitely draws its political conclusions from elsewhere. After a disappointing stunt in Amster dam, the Yes Men feel alienated and defeated by their inability to make a dent against climate change. Then a series of revolts around the world — particularly Occupy Wall Street — reinvigorate them, making them feel like part of a community again. The finale of the film emphasizes the need to connect individual activism to a larger movement, but when “The Yes Men Are Revolting” goes on to depict Occupy’s under-publicized charity work for Hurricane Sandy’s devastated victims in Queens,

SIZE MATTERS, continued on p.62

it’s not the kind of revolutionary change the movement had promised.

The lack of an organized left in the US remains a big barrier for effectively challenging corporate abuse of the environment, condoned by both Democrats and Republicans. The Yes Men would probably agree with this, but going to their website, as the film’s end credits sequence urges, isn’t exactly taking to the barricades. “The Yes Men Are Revolting” is an entertaining ride through the past few years, but for all its exuberance, a deep gloom remains.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

55

IN THE NOH

Character Actress Assoluta Julie Halston’s fabulous year; a gay geezer sings of Pride

BY DAVID NOH

T

56

JERRY DALIA/ PAPERMILL PLAYHOUSE

hat absolute goddess of a character actress Julie Halston is having quite the year. After demolishing both audiences and admiring critics with the most hilarious cameo appearance ever in “You Can’t Take It with You,” she immediately went into “On the Town” for a short stint replacing Jackie Hoffman, and is now appearing in the Papermill Playhouse production of the new Cinderella-inspired musical “Ever After,” based on the 1998 Disney film (Millburn, New Jersey, through June 21; papermill.org).

So funny and Eve Arden-esque, both on and off the stage, Halston exultantly described her new show: “I’ve never played the Papermill, but this is a very exciting, brand new musical. I’ve known [composer and lyricist] Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler since my 1980s club days, and it’s really exciting to hear such a beautiful Broadway score. I play Queen Marie, the Prince’s mother, and like many mothers, she gets exasperated with her children and husband and only wants the best for everyone. It allows me to wear gorgeous costumes — ‘Wolf Hall’ meets ‘Camelot’ — by Jess Goldstein, who just won the Irene Sharaff Award, and be a little droll but also very nice. I have a headdress that rivals Sarah Jessica Parker at the Met Gala, but I get to do a court dance!”

Full of praise for director Kathleen Marshall, Halston also adores her cast — Christine Ebersole, Margo Seibert, Tony Sheldon, Charles Shaughnessy, James Snyder — and generously cited each of their wonderful qualities: “They sing, dance, act, and sword fight! I hate to sound like Bea Arthur, but these kids today are very talented!”

Of her Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk-nominated tur n in “You Can’t Take It With You,” Halston said, “In the history of show business, the only shorter performance that actually won an Oscar was Beatrice Straight in ‘Network,’ and she was on screen for about eight minutes. I am only in

Act Two, half the time sleeping [off a drunk], for maybe 20 minutes.

[Director] Scott Ellis gave me such freedom, saying, ‘Figure out what you wanna do,’ and he gave me one night in front of an audience. I came up with my character drunkenly crawling up those stairs but I really didn’t know I was going to do that five days before the critics came. That night I said to the cast, ‘I don’t know what I’m gonna do tonight but please bear with me and follow me.’

“When I dropped to my knees, Rose Byrne Julie Halston in the Papermill Playhouse production of “Ever After.” started laughing and had to turn away from the audience. I heard her laughing, because not only was she not in the she was a crack-up, anyway, and show, she couldn’t walk at all and then I saw the whole cast laugh- was in pain, and could only tweet, ing, which got the giggles in me. poor thing, as Eve Harrington went That helped fuel the whole drunk, on for her. I went in and rehearsed giggly limerick, and the audience Monday and Tuesday, watched was screaming! It was exactly the show on Wednesday and did it what was called for, and Scott said, Thursday. It was crazy but I would ‘Okay, that’s what you’re gonna watch those dancers from the do!’ Besides those nominations, my wings every night and I would just darling Brad Oscar of ‘Something cry to hear that music. When the Rotten’ and I are getting the [Actors’ boys go ‘New York! New York!’, it Equity] Richard Seff Award, which was all my dreams come true.”

A kind of rough sketch for her is given annually to veteran characperformance in “You Can’t Take It ter actors for their performances.”

Jackie Hoffman had hurt her with You” was her now-definitive foot and was unable to walk, let Electra, the illuminated but rather alone perform in “On the Town,” ossified stripper, in the 2003 Berand Halston got the call for that nadette Peters revival of “Gypsy.” gig while waiting in line on a Sat- Recalling that people have come urday night at Whole Foods: “And up to her on the subway and said, you know how long the line can be! “I still remember your Electra not I was back in produce when I get a being able to stand straight on call from both my manager and my stage,” Halston said, “That thrills agent. ‘Get off the line!,’ they said. me because [director] Sam Mendes ‘This better be good!’ I got off that literally pulled me into a corner and damn line and I was very unhappy, said, ‘I’m listening to the lyrics of believe me. They said, ‘Can you go this song: “I’m electrifying and I’m see ‘On the Town’ tonight?’ ‘What? not even trying.” I know this is hard but I am begging you, don’t move.’

It’s 7 o’clock!’ “[Director] John Rando knew I I was like, ‘But, wow, it’s a fabled was available and had asked for musical number, one the great me. Jackie is a friend of mine and showstoppers of all time!’

“Sam said, ‘We have decided that she was particularly miserable

Miss Electra is a red wine drunk’ — I love that I always play drunk, a little scary — ‘If you don’t move, this number will take on such hilarity, you have to trust me.’ Well, duh.

The result was unbelievable. He was right and what a great choice.

It had never been done before and apparently now it’s being done that way everywhere.

I asked Halston what the show’s famously redoubtable author, Arthur Laurents, was like. “Arthur was very cranky about a million things he wanted changed. But he came to see me years later in Charles Busch’s ‘The Divine Sister,’ and he laughed so much.

He met us after the show and he loved me and he said, ‘Hello, Cuntface!’[Laughs.]

“It made me feel so great. He was famously cranky about the Bernadette revival, and he and Sam had some tension there. He was very happy with what I was doing but in general not happy with the production. I was really happy to see him again, especially when he said, ‘You are really so funny, Julie.’ I got Arthur Laurents’ sort of blessing, he loved ‘The Divine Sister,’ and why wouldn’t he, because it was brilliant.”

Halston is gloriously in the tradition of the great character women of classic Hollywood — Thelma Ritter, Florence Bates, Edna May Oliver — and I asked her how she felt about this. “When I watch TCM, it’s funny, when Robert Osborne talks about those ladies I do feel part of that tradition and it’s very humbling and also energizing. Those women definitely brought a lot of joy, and they were part of a tradition that we don’t really have as much anymore. And so I really appreciate someone like Charles Busch, who totally understands this tradition, made a phenomenal career in honoring that, and saw something in me that made him think, ‘I can get this girl to that place,’ and he did.

I’ve learned so much in my 25 to 30 years in this business, and I’m very grateful. It’s about mastering a real craft of a particular type that has

IN THE NOH, continued on p.58

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IN THE NOH, from p.56

Artistic yearnings of some kind or another exist in most of us, but success is an elusive thing and few make the cut into stardom or even semi-stardom.

So, in this month of Gay Pride, let’s hear it for someone who’s managed to keep his performance love alive, even without any richand-famous perks. Seventy-nineyear-old Ira Lee Collings is bringing his show, “Gay since 1935 — A Gay Geezer’s Musical Odyssey” to Don’t Tell Mama on June 17 and 22 (343 West 46th Street; donttellmamanyc.com).

I met this ultra-genial Hoosier at the civilized, fabulously old-school Times Square office of his publicist, Susan Schulman, in the Cole Porter-described bawdy gilding of the Paramount Building. He told me, “The arrangements for these songs I’ve had since the 1960s. You mentioned how many of them were originally introduced by women, and I hadn’t thought of that. I have more ballads than in my last show, and I weave them with my stories about my travels and people I’ve met, and hopefully it works. “‘Misty’ is my all-time favorite

58

SCHULMAN PUBLICITY

very deep roots in vaudeville and film and theater.”

Halston mentioned actors as disparate as Bogart, Lombard, Stanwyck, ZaSu Pitts, Charlotte Greenwood, and Michelle Williams as inspirations, but added, “My favorite person in the whole world is little Edie Beale. I’ve watched the ‘Grey Gardens’ movies 19 times and [launching into a hilarious Edie voice] I daresay, David, she’s more compelling than any of them.

Actually, Charles and I have talked about doing our own version.

He would be Big Edie, as he’s got the screaming down. I think it might actually happen, David, one of these days, our own version. I should do it for Christine [Ebersole], and, of course, it would be really marvelous.”

When I told Halston of my personal theory that all relationships inescapably end up as “Grey Gardens,” she responded, “And then there’s my mother who is almost 91, and don’t think when I go out to Commack, Long Island, that we are not reenacting scenes from that all the time!”

Ira Lee Collings, the self-proclaimed gay geezer.

song, and I have a very unique version of it. I’ll be doing my parade medley of ‘Nothing Can Stop Me Now’ and ‘Before the Parade Passes By,’ and ‘Open a New Window.’ I also do a version of ‘I Will Survive,’ stolen off Facebook and sung from a turkey’s point of view at Thanksgiving, which is a hoot.”

Collings chose the month of June for his shows because “to me Gay Pride truly saved my life when I went to my first Gay Pride march in 1970. We were over on Sixth Avenue because we didn’t have permission then to march on Fifth, but we heard them on Fifth anyway, women carrying signs and Rollerina with her skates and wand, and all my fear and anxiety faded away, and I finally thought, ‘It’s okay to be gay.’ Every year, I go and stand there and cry with so many feelings of joy that we are out and able to share the cheering with each other.

It’s cathartic.”

Collings, the youngest of eight children born to a postman and postmistress who also ran a grocery store, hails from a small town, Kingsbury, near South Bend, “a town of 250 where there were heterosexuals and more heterosexuals. I didn’t know what gay was.

I was dumb until I was 21 or so.

People would call me ‘queer bait’ and I somehow knew it sure wasn’t about fishing, because of the nastiness involved.

“It was a hard time to come to grips with it and I didn’t really deal with it until I went to Chicago and studied at the Goodman Theatre and realized, ‘Oh! This is what it’s all about.’ I was from a Baptist background, and they hate everything, but fortunately my mother didn’t like the preacher, so we never

got baptized.”

Collings came to New York in the 1960s and won a talent show in a gay bar, which led to him performing with club doyenne Dawn Hampton: “A couple of people were interested in managing me, but word came back, ‘Well, he’s obviously gay,’ and that faded away. I’d had all of these arrangements done and thought I was going to Las Vegas. I did showcases year after year and nothing happened, so I went into dinner theater all around the Deep South. When I returned to New York, I got involved with an alcoholic I thought I could change.

That took 15 years of my life, in which I stopped singing and got a job, for the Social Security.”

The music returned to Collings’ life and love, too, in the form of Owen Lafferty, his partner of 29 years: “I put an ad in the paper Gay Scenes, which said ‘nice guy looking for other nice guys.’ A nice guy answered and it was Owen, who is a Catholic priest [retired now from Holy Cross], which makes for some interesting play by plays with people. When we went to visit his family in Ireland, one of his cousins kissed my hand because she thought I was a priest, too. But, actually the Irish handled it better than people here did 20 years ago. Owen constantly threatens to baptize me when I’m sleeping, and says, ‘If you wake up wet, you’re Catholic.’”

Collings cites the Apollo Theater amateur contest as one of his career highlights: “I auditioned several times before they accepted me.

A white girl before me sang, of all things, ‘That Old Black Magic.’ She started off nice, but then something happened, and the bells and booing started. Six people later, I went on

and the roar of laughter was deafening, and I went numb.

‘The emcee said, ‘Now, listen, we are known for fair play, so come on, give this guy a chance!’ I stumbled over to that good luck tree stump and touched it, unbuttoned my jacket, and sang ‘Gotta Lotta Living to Do.’ Eight bars in, they went crazy, applauding and cheering. I won third place and got five dollars. They asked me back and I sang ‘Teach Me Tonight.’ Pearl Bailey was the headliner that night and afterwards she met all of us.

She said to me, ‘Darling, you were the best!’ and immediately split.

Where’d you go? Help me get an agent! So that was the closest I ever got to a successful person thinking I was the best.”

That well may be, and big-time fame has eluded him, but Collings is still going strong and singing with verve and charm, long after the voices of huge stars — it’s now looking like Mariah Carey is next — show signs of inevitable wear and tear. Telling Collings about being gob-smacked recently by 91-yearold Sheldon Harnick at his “Fiddler on the Roof” concert at the 92nd Y, he responded, “Maybe it’s because we haven’t sung all that much over the years. Even that poor Sam Smith is in vocal trouble now. I just let my thoughts and feelings tell me where I’m going. I don’t push — if you’re thinking of your lyric, the thought pattern carries you and you don’t worry about your voice.

The bigger your emotions are, the bigger you come out.”

Contact David Noh at Inthenoh@ aol.com, follow him on Twitter @In_ the_Noh, and check out his blog at http://nohway.wordpress.com.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

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59

OPERA

Warm Voices for Cold Spring Nights

another vibrant Met cameo as a plummy-toned Mother Goose.

Jonathan Miller’s production — set around 1930 — was beautifully recreated by Laurie Feldman and looked as fresh as when it premiered.

“The Rake’s Progress,” “Un Ballo in Maschera” make for pleasing late-season Met offerings

Standard Italian repertory does not receive

BY ELI JACOBSON

I

DIVINE, from p.44

underneath the flimsy white robe (designed by David Zinn), which appears purchased from a discount costume shop. The charming, gifted Parsons is supremely engaging; he has an irresistible way of lobbing zingers and quoting scripture with a devilish grin.

Even God needs a hand now and then. His two “wingmen,” Michael (Christopher Fitzgerald) and Gabriel (Tim Kazurinsky, a “Saturday Night Live” regular in the 1980s), assist with the presentation. The

60

MARTY SOHL

t seems that every year the Metropolitan Opera schedules a short revival of a difficult 20th century opera and it turns out to be one of the season highlights. This season was bookended by two such revivals — a superb “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” in November and the sensational return of Stravinsky’s sui generis “The Rake’s Progress” in May. “The Rake’s Progress” often perplexes and alienates listeners. Stravinsky’s music is written in a severe, intellectual, neoclassical idiom and the poetic text by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman is also self-consciously archaic in style. All this deliberate artificiality with a highly polished veneer of high art serves as a distancing effect for a truly heartbreaking story of youth wasted and idealistic hopes dashed.

James Levine captured the paradoxes in Stravinsky’s score — the cool ironic surface masking the dark fears and chilling heartbreak underneath — inspiring a nearly faultless cast that combined youthful newcomers as the betrayed innocents with familiar Met veterans as their mentors in good and evil.

Paul Appleby captured the naïve enthusiasm and lust for life that motivate and mitigate Tom Rakewell’s reckless narcissism and poor judgment. That boyish enthusiasm infused his silver-toned vocalism and cultivated delivery of the literate text. Appleby has a passion for lieder singing and relishes both the poetic and musical elements in song.

As the discarded Anne Trulove, Layla Claire’s soprano sounded a little plain and at times stretched by the exposed vocal writing; the cabaletta to “No Word from Tom” had its uncomfortable moments. Elsewhere her sympathetic

Stephanie Blythe in the Met’s production of “The Rake’s Progress.”

acting and solid musicianship made a positive impression.

As Tom’s demonic tempter Nick Shadow, Gerald Finley’s dapper enigmatic presence and compact low baritone were perhaps less imposing than my memories of Samuel Ramey’s blackvoiced prince of darkness. Finley’s understated interpretation emphasized wit and subtlety.

Stephanie Blythe’s Baba the Turk, on the other hand, was vocally and physically very much in the grand manner but with no loss of wit or subtlety. Blythe could give Conchita Wurst lessons on how to work a full beard like a true diva. UK bass Brindley Sherratt made a strong debut as Trulove, with a disapproving snarl in the tone and incisive diction honed from many years at the ENO. Margaret Lattimore added

buffoonish angels also offer the chance for God to bark orders and occasionally impart wrath.

The set, by Scott Pask, features a stairway to heaven surrounded by a series of concentric white circles lit with variable multicolored tones courtesy of Hugh Vanstone.

The otherworldly effect appears lifted from James Turrell’s 2013 art installation at the Guggenheim, although I saw no credit in Playbill.

Despite the awe-inspiring visuals, Joe Mantello’s staging feels static. For much of the evening, the Almighty is plopped down on

such consistently careful casting at the Met these days, as this season’s rotating “Aïda” casts amply demonstrated. A Verdi revival featuring solid vocalism in every leading role is a rarity but it can happen — as it did on the last night of the season on May 9 when Levine led a strong cast in “Un Ballo in Maschera.” Piotr Beczala as Gustavo had a sunny silvery brilliance when he did not push for spinto thrust — his tone expands vertically not horizontally. Beczala needs to emulate Björling and Gedda’s bright lyric fluency and aristocratic polish in this part.

Sondra Radvanovsky’s Amelia brought down the house in her big arias — her huge tone has metallic edge but also exciting reach and thrust in Amelia’s wide-ranging vocal line. In “Morrò, ma prima in grazia,” she shaped the line expressively with a vibrato that pulsed more evenly, giving emotional urgency to the arching phrases.

As Renato, Alexey Markov’s mahogany tone had both youthful sap and sensual vitality suggesting a younger, impetuous man more susceptible to jealousy. Dolora Zajick as Ulrica has lost some resonance in the middle of the voice but handles the vocal extremes (and they are extreme in this role) with admirable assurance after more than three decades on the operatic stage. Heidi Stober as Oscar sounded indisposed — high notes were bright but the middle was parlous and empty — atypical for this full-voiced lyric coloratura.

Levine opted for breakneck tempos, which he had more under control than at the season premiere. David Alden’s production is full of self-conscious effects and labored symbolism that call attention to themselves, alienating the viewer from the story and characters.

In a web-only exclusive at gaycitynews.nyc, Eli Jacobson looks at the Met’s production of “The Merry Widow.”

a mod, cream-colored sofa, as if chit-chatting with a neighbor who has dropped by for tea. He got away with this approach directing Bette Midler in “I’ll Eat You Last,” but that material, based on true events, registered as juicier and more poignant.

The script, by David Javer baum, based on his book “The Last Testament: A Memoir By God,” works hard to breathe new life into ancient tropes. Countless comedians, such as Paul Rudnick with “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” which also advocates Adam

and Steve, have strip-mined this terrain nearly bare.

Javerbaum has impressive comic chops as the Emmy-winning former head writer of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Remember Neil Patrick Harris’ manic opening number (“Broadway, It’s Not Just For Gays Anymore”) at the 2011 Tony Awards? Javerbaum wrote that. I’m guessing he also wrote God’s Playbill bio, which urges you to “Follow Him at your local church, synagogue or mosque, or @TheTweetOfGod.” Evidently, he has over two million followers, and counting.

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SPOILS, from p.46

complete with a balcony and awesome view of the Manhattan skyline. The piece features neat visual touches like silly PowerPoint presentations (created by Kalyan, of course) and film footage projected on a wall above the sofa. Projections were designed by Olivia Sebesky.

Eisenberg has a keen ear for contemporary dialogue, and much it is fresh, naturalistic, and compelling.

“The Spoils” is never better than when contemplating the nature of male bonding. Ben appears to have a mancrush on Kalyan and

even admits he loves him (presumably in a straight “I love you, man” kind of way), even giving his bestie a smooch on top of his head and later nestling in his arms on the sofa.

“I’m touched you guys. And hard,” Ben quips after a tender discussion between Kalyan and Ted about nice guys eventually getting the girl.

The performances are, for the most part, exceptional. Nayyar’s Kalyan doesn’t stray far from his goofy nerd “Big Bang Theory” character. Always charming, he absorbs ethnic jabs in stride, and his endearing South Asian accent and sentence structure are predictable yet

CG CINÉMA

Félix de Givry in Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Eden,” co-written with her brother Sven Hansen-Løve.

SIZE MATTERS, from p.54

PB: I wouldn’t call them issues!

Obviously, I saw it as fodder for comedy. It goes back to this joke I pull on my wife, where I do this impression of Buffalo Bill from “Silence of the Lambs” and do a little dance. Nothing brings me more joy than that.

GMK: I would love to see that! It’s a shame we are in a hotel lobby and not in a private room.

PB: [Laughs.] I know!... I saw it as being this kind of interesting almost bait and switch. That 20 minutes into the movie, you find out the crux of the main character is that he has this body issue. I also knew that because the movie takes place in 24 hours, there could only be so much of an emotional arc or

62

welcome punch lines. Kalyan is, indeed, as Ben calls him, a “stand up guy.”

As written, Ben is despicable, and Eisenberg’s jittery, go-for broke style magnifies his vileness so intensely that it becomes off-putting and seems out of whack with the other performers. Sure, we see Ben smoking pot but his mannerisms suggest a meth addict on a binge. There is little reason why the others (or, for that mater, the audience) would wish to spend an entire evening with him.

When Ben recounts (twice) a particularly nasty dream involv-

EDEN, from p.52

commodified. At raves, people sell fanzines with artwork and interviews with famous DJs. The first one Paul attends takes place on a submarine. He approaches the DJ and asks what song he played; the DJ isn’t too ego-driven or afraid of competition to respond. While Paul’s mother reads him a newspaper article about the dangers of ecstasy, cocaine is his drug of choice and he graduates from occasional use to a habit that lands him in debt over the course of the film.

I’m not the first person to make a connection between “Eden” and the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Both films are about people left behind by the culture of their times — the official culture and even (or especially) the counterculture. “Inside Llewyn Davis” ends with an appearance by Bob Dylan, who would revolutionize the early ‘60s folk music scene and render performers like Davis to the dustbin of cultural history.

Daft Punk does something similar with Cheers.

growth or journey for the character in that amount of time. I wanted his thing to be overcoming this small — no pun intended — issue.

GMK: The film is about various bad decisions, uncomfortable moments, inappropriate behavior, and awkward exchanges. Why did you explore these aspects of human nature?

PB: I don’t know. Maybe it’s a reflection of how I deal with this human journey as well. An awkward interaction can feel like life or death in the moment. I wanted to take that roller coaster model of a crazy journey and make it about human interaction going wrong or right.

GMK: What can you say about the morality in the film?

ing feces, we are not intrigued but repulsed. When Ben comes home early, disrupting an intimate evening, Reshma inexplicably leaves, although the couple could have simply gone to Kalyan’s bedroom.

No matter what the scenario — whether it be hanging with his roomie or hosting a dinner party — Ben implausibly wears the same oversized, grubby, off-white T-shirt (he’s a self-absorbed, socially inept slob — we get it). Just a few glaring false notes that undercut the credibility in an otherwise engrossing drama.

Paul remains loyal to his love of garage, even as new styles of dance music emerge and audiences move on. One nightclub owner suggests that he try playing electro instead. Ironically, Daft Punk ended up finding its greatest success with an album that eschewed electronics and looked back to funk and disco, giving up the futuristic feel of its earlier work.

Paul has a lot of fun in “Eden,” especially in the first half. Hansen-Løve’s use of handheld camerawork and Denis Lenoir’s nocturnal cinematography in crowded clubs bring out the hedonistic aspects of the rave scene. However, it’s also true that Paul never makes more than just enough money to support himself. (Obviously, this isn’t helped by his coke habit, but that’s not the sole reason he’s broke.) “Eden” isn’t exactly a cautionary tale, but it’s a sad one. It takes 20 years for Paul to realize that he’s never going to make money as a DJ or music producer. You could apply the lessons he learns to most artistic endeavors.

PB: It’s a comedy of manners. I think one of the things that’s driving Alex and Emily’s characters to stay in the house is their fear of offending Max and Charlotte. How far do you go with that?

GMK: What can you reveal about the… ahem… climactic scene, which I don’t want to spoil?

PB: That scene was initially written to be much more intense and emotional. Once we got to that point during filming, that didn’t seem to be the right way to go. One of the things that was refreshing and surprising to me was that we left a lot up to the actors. You can only control so much. You create these boundaries for people to play with them, and I think it’s really cool to have a movie like this where you are laughing and being surprised by

it and then having this moment of calm and sweetness. It’s interesting to see different audiences react to it — laughing or completely fucking uncomfortable or in complete shock.

GMK: Which character are you most like: Kurt, who is expanding and open to experience, or Alex, who is more of a puke and rally kind of guy?

PB: I’m a puke and rally kind of guy, for sure. It’s something I actually do. I’m known for it. I have stomach issues. My anxiety manifests itself in my stomach. But I respond to this dynamic of Alex and Emily for sure. I’ve been married to my wife for three years but we been together for 10. It’s very much me stepping in potholes and my wife berating me about it. And I’m obsessed with sex.

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CEREMONY SITES The Riverside Church

Kupcakes with a K (516) 860–9288 kupcakeswithak.com Kupcakes with a K offers over a dozen different unique flavors for you to enjoy! Sold in certain locations and through its website for your party or event.

Lou Babs & Moogs 95A Main St. in Port Washington, (516) 883–8585, lbmgifts.com/store Lou, Babs & Moogs opened its doors in 2002, and sells an inspiring mix of unique and useful gifts for him, her, and them. Surf through its site to quickly discover just the right thing.

FERTILITY

Genesis Fertility and Reproductive Medicine Multiple locations (718) 283–8600, genesisfertility.com Genesis Fertility & Reproductive Medicine is a nationally recognized center of excellence for comprehensive fertility services.

FLORISTS Fleurs Bella

55 E 11th St. in New York (646) 602–7036, fleursbella.com Fleurs Bella creates unique, floral designs, from the smallest flower arrangement to the most lavish event decor. The team at Fleurs Bella will capture the essence of your vision.

Henry’s Florist

490 Riverside Dr. in New York (212) 870–6802 theriversidechurchny.org Exchange vows where Presidents and some of the most historic figures of our time have stood then finish your perfect day in one of its event halls.

8103 5th Avenue Brooklyn 718.238.3838 www.henrysfloristweddingevents.com Fleurs Bella creates unique, floral designs, from the smallest flower arrangement to the most lavish event decor. The team at Fleurs Bella will capture the essence of your vision.

St John’s Lutheran Church

HEALTH & BEAUTY

81 Christopher St. in New York, (212) 242–5737, stjohnsnyc.org In the heart of the West Village, St John’s Lutheran Church and Rev. Mark E. Erson, Pastor, openly accepts same-sex couples.

ENTERTAINMENT

Amazing Bottle Dancers (800) 716-0556 bottledancers.com It’s hard to overstate the incredible reaction The Amazing Bottle Dancers evoke when they appear at nontraditional weddings. The guests are completely charmed and blown away by our surprise appearance!

They never see it coming!

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

Bay Ridge Skin & Cancer Dermatology

9921 Fourth Ave. in Brooklyn (718) 833–2793, bayridgederm.com Put your best face forward with the help of David Biro, who was voted one of “New York Magazine’s” best doctors. The medical office offers Botox, microdermabrasion, and laser hair removal.

Emergency Medical Care 200 Chambers St. in New York, (212) 962–6600, emcny.com Emergency Medical Care is a gayfriendly healthcare practice and an efficient and compassionate urgent care concept. It is a healthcare practice dedicated to better, timely medicine.

HONEYMOON DESTINATIONS

Sand Castle on ohe Beach 127 Smithfield, Frederiksted St. Croix, Virgin Islands 340.772.1205 sandcastleonthebeach.com Our quaint, beach side boutique hotel is designed to meet your personal vacation style. We maintain a sense of intimacy and freedom in this seaside oasis. It’s our home and we invite you to relax and unwind in this comfortable and tranquil setting.

Villa Amor Camino a Playa los Muertos, Sayulita Bahia de Banderas Nayarit, Mexico (619) 819-5407 hotelvillaamorsayulita.com.

“Sweeping ocean vistas and a sexy room concept do away with outside walls and invite you to see Sayulita through a rustling fringe of palm fronds.”Travel+Leisure.

JEWELRY

Anna Sheffield 47 Orchard Stl, New York (212) 925-7010, annasheffield.com Anna Sheffield Jewelry offers a timeless alternative to the traditional world of Ceremonial and Fine jewelry with an extensive collection of finely crafted baubles.

Our elegant array of rings includes signature styles of mixed precious metals, inverted-set diamonds and solid gold gemstones.

Party Planners and Expos Bosco’s Wedding Planning Expo (914) 337-3826, boscoweddings.org Before you walk down the aisle, walk down ours; Bosco’s Wedding Planning Expo is the place to find your best bet wedding contacts.

Visit our website for an Expo near you.

PARTY RENTAL

Classic Party Rentals 336 W. 37th St. in New York (212) 752–7661 newyork.classicpartyrentals.com At Classic Party Rentals, exceptional customer service is its hallmark. It offers a network of party specialists that can provide everything you need anywhere you need it.

REAL ESTATE SERVICES Accurate Building Inspectors

1860 Bath Ave. in Brooklyn (718) 265–8191, accuratebuilding.com Accurate Building Inspectors is a full-service home and building inspection firm servicing the tri-state area since 1961.

Kikco Property Management PO Box 408, Sayville, NY (631) 597-7018, nlaf@aol.com Rental properties, venues for parties and honeymoon packages.

RECEPTION SITES & CATERERS

Andaz Wall Street 75 Wall Street, New York (212) 699-1636, andaz.com Sophisticated urban gay weddings have access to over 14,000 sq. ft. of unique indoor and outdoor spaces right in the heart Wall Street.

The Andrew

the townhouses of East 64th Street.

For your wedding reception, the venue’s dazzling, gold-domed Arabelle restaurant provides one of the most unique settings in Manhattan with its blend of murano glass and brass chandeliers, chiffon colored walls and murals of Asian pagodas.

75 North Station Plaza, Great Neck (914) 482-2900, andrewhotel.com Leave the details in accommodating your friends and family the the professionals at The Andrew, Great Neck’s Boutique Hotel, where chic sophistication meets the timeless essence of Long Island’s Gold Coast.

Russo’s on the Bay

Brooklyn Museum

Shakespeare on the Hudson

162-45 Cross Bay Boulevard, Howard Beach, NY, (718) 843-5055 russosonthebay.com Exemplary service and exquisite cuisine combined with professional attention to detail was the best way to achieve customer satisfaction.

200 Eastern Pkwy. in Brooklyn (718) 638–5000, brooklynmuseum.org The Brooklyn Museum is an extraordinary venue located in the heart of Prospect Heights. It has one-of-akind backdrops for private events.

216 Route 385, Catskill, NY (518) 947-1104, stewarthouse.com This remarkable event space now features three beautifully romantic cabins ideal for both large groups and private weekends.

Carlyle Catering

Sheraton Tribeca New York Hotel

Various locations in New York (516) 501-9700, carlylecatering.com Whether you desire timeless elegance ON THE GREEN, the regal splendor OF LAWRENCE, deco glamour at The Palace, retro nostalgia at The Omni, or a personalized catering style Off The Green, Carlyle has something for everyone.

Columbia’s Faculty House 64 Morningside Dr. in New York (212) 854–1200 facultyhouse.columbia.edu A smart and stylish choice for your unique New York City wedding, the prized University landmark has classic, flexible spaces with a surprising, modern twist.

The Edison Ballroom 240 West 47th Street, New York (212) 201–7650, edisonballroom.com With its award-winning executive chef and personalized service, the Edison Ballroom continues to provide the perfect environment for all occasions in an elegant private event space in the heart of Times Square, New York.

Grand Oaks Country Club 200 Huguenot Ave. in Staten Island (718) 356–2771, grandoaksnyc.com Formerly the South Shore Country Club, this new and improved Staten Island venue can provide the perfect. elegant backdrop for your reception with prime dates still available.

Houston Hall 222 W. Houston St. New York (212) 582 2057, houstonhallny.com A massive space on West Houston Street has plenty of room to create the event of your dream...or a rowdy Beer Hall wedding. Eternal love, beer and a complimentary minister!

Plaza Athenee 37 East 64th Street at Madison Ave, New York, , (212) 644–0202 plaza-athenee.com Le Trianon, our ceremony space is elegantly appointed in natural earth tones with ten windows overlooking

370 Canal St. in New York (212) 966–3400, sheratontribeca.com Let the Sheraton Tribeca help you celebrate your same-sex wedding.

The sleek, modern hotel works with various New York City wedding venues in the area.

Tio Pepe 168 W. Fourth St. in New York (212) 242–9338, tiopepenyc.com At Tio Pepe you have a choice of atmosphere. The skylight dining room supplies a touch of romance while the enclosed sidewalk cafe provides a room with a view of Greenwich Village.

The Vanderbilt at South Beach 300 Father Capodanno Blvd. in Staten Island, (718) 447–0800 vanderbiltsouthbeach.com Boasting both a luxurious banquet hall, as well as magnificent outdoor oceanfront space.

Whyte Hall 577 Fire Island Boulevard, Fire Island Pines (631) 597=6060, manager@fippoa.org Sequestered but easy to reach, this dramatic is located in one of your favorite locations. Experience the magic of Fire Island at its finest.

Yacht Owners Association 101 W. 23rd St., New York (212) 736–1010, yachtsny.com Yacht Owners Association has over two decades of experience planning events at sea, and the largest number of yachts in the tri-state area. The Yacht Owners Association can accommodate weddings anywhere from 2 to 600 guests.

TRAVEL

Ace World Travel 8320 13th Ave. in Brooklyn (347) 915–4287, aceworldtravel.net This full-service and certified romance travel agency specializes in destination weddings and honeymoons. It can also create custom-built itineraries.

Alger House

45 Downing Street, New York (212) 627–8838, algerhouse.com Alger House is a great venue for smaller weddings and corporate events (30 to 106 guests). The very private reception hall has high ceilings, custom lighting, and nearby transportation.

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THU.JUN.11 THEATER The * Stands For U

GALLERY #QueerArtInterface

PERFORMANCE Pope Likes Your Status!

Passion & Consent In David Rhodes’ new play “Consent,” which the playwright directs, Ron Sullivan is a former NFL player and award-winning architect, nearly divorced from his high school sweetheart, who has a chance encounter with Kurt, a hot Yale law student, that pushes him to the edge of his sexual boundaries — or beyond.

Passion transforms both men and ripples into the lives of Ron’s wife and his sister Emily, who questions the ethics and risks of sex games. The audience ultimately decides who is seducing whom in the murky realm of power plays. “Consent” stars Mark McCullough Thomas, Michael Goldstein, Catherine Curtin, and Angela Pierce. The Black Box Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th St. Through Jun. 28; Tue., 7 p.m.; Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 4 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. Tickets are $60 at consenttheplay. com or 212-352-3101.

ACTIVISM Ensuring Fair Police Treatment of Youth As part of its mission to curb police abuses against LGBTQ youth of color, FIERCE, again this year, is conduction Pride CopWatch on Jun.28, the day of the Fifth Avenue Pride Parade. Organized groups of community members will legally observe and document police activities using video cameras, in order to keep our streets safe

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“Interface: Queer Artist Forming Community Through Social Media” is an eclectic mix of queer, New York-based artists, working in a wide variety of styles and mediums, who use social media to create a community to exhibit their work. Just as early ‘80s artists would display their work on rotting piers, abandoned furniture, tenement bathroom walls, and subway billboards, the current generation circulates its creativity among a potentially infinite virtual audience that can instantly connect with the work, repost images, and blog about it. Walt Cessna curates the work of artists including Dietmar Busse, Isauro Cairo, Adrian Carroll, Ben Copperwheat, Jordan Eagles, Alesia Exum, Natasha Gornik, Joel Handorff, Leo Herrera, Erika Keck, Brian Kenny, Naruki Kukita, Brett Lindell, Slava Mogutin, Diego Montoya, Chuck Nitzberg, Maria Piñeres, Gio Black Peter, James Salaiz, George Towne, and Todd Yeager. Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster St., btwn. Canal & Grand Sts. Through Aug. 2; Tue.-Sun., noon-6 p.m., with an 8 p.m. closing on Thu.

FILM Human Rights Examined on Film The annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival, screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, 165 W. 65th St., and the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St., Jun. 11-21, covers an impressive array of human rights challenges, both internationally and here in the US. Though there is no specific LGBT theme in this year’s offerings, there are films with particular interest to the community. “The Yes Men Are Revolting,” which documents two decades of pranksterish activism by the two titular men, one of whom comes out over the course of the documentary, is reviewed in this issue by Steve Erickson on page 52. (IFC Center, Jun. 12, 9:30 p.m.; the first night of its run.) Joey Boink’s “Burden of Peace,” in Spanish with English subtitles, chronicles the challenges and trials of Guatemala’s first female attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz. Tuesday, June 16, 7:00 pm, (IFC Center, Jun. 16, 7 p.m.; Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jun. 18, 8:45 p.m.) “The Trials of Spring” is a multi-

ALLISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN

Bravo for the Sugarbakers “Re-Designing Women” is Jamie Morris’ unauthorized original comedy parody celebrating the 1980s sitcom. A female-owned Atlanta interior design firm, plagued by the faltering economy, is on the brink of collapse, when one of the sassy Southern belles has an idea: pitch a reality show to Bravo’s Andy Cohen. Soon, camera crews are following the zany antics of the four outspoken feminists, their ex-con deliveryman, and their daffy family friend. But fame and fortune quickly turn into infighting and jealousy. Christopher Kenney (“The Threepenny Opera” on Broadway) directs. Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Ave. at 25th St. Through Jun. 21; Wed.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. Tickets are $30 at baruch.cuny.edu/bpac or 212-352-3101.

media collaboration that looks at the role of women on the front lines of the uprising that swept the Arab world in 2011. (IFC Center, June 17, 7 p.m.) “What Tomorrow Brings” is a work-in-progress screening and Q&A with filmmaker Beth Murphy, in English Dari and Pashtu with English subtitles, that looks at the first all-girls' school in a remote Afghan village. (Film Center of Lincoln Center, Jun. 19, 6:30 p.m.) Tickets for the Film Center of Lincoln Center are $14; $11 for students & seniors at filmlinc.com; for IFC Center, $14; $10 for students & seniors at ifccenter.com. For complete information on the festival, visit ff.hrw.org.

FRI.JUN.12

LESLIE-LOHMAN MUSEUM OF GAY & LESBIAN ART

The three-week F*ckfest performance festival at the Brick includes several offerings of particular interest to the queer community. Ed Malin’s “Queers for Fears” — presented by the Temerity Theatre Company and directed by Janet Bentley — is a program of two companion plays about the spiritual dangers of not coming out of the closet, as well as the physical dangers of coming out: one circa 1900 involving pioneering aviators in love, and the other about two East Village women who go to the opera to escape Freud, but instead see Jesus in all the divas. Jun. 11 & 20, 9 p.m.; Jun. 12, 7 p.m., Jun. 14, 8 pm. Cross-Eyed Bear Productions presents “Six Silences in Three Movements” — written and directed by Duncan Pflaster, with original music performed live by Matt Applebaum — which looks at two couples, Sean and Joanne and Ricky and Matt, who are seemingly happy, until Sean and Ricky begin a clandestine affair. Jun. 11, 7 p.m.; Jun. 13 & Jul. 2, 9 p.m.; Jun. 28, noon. Opera on Tap gets sexy with scenes from “The Inner Circle,” a blunt new opera about the charismatic visionary Dr. Alfred Kinsey, by composer Daniel Felsenfeld and librettist Kate Gale. Jun. 23, 7 p.m.; Jun. 26 & 29, 9 p.m.; Jun. 27, 1 p.m. 579 Metropolitan Ave. at Lorimer St., Williamsburg. Tickets are $18 at bricktheater.com.

and help de-escalate potentially violent and abusive police interactions. CopWatch participants are required to attend a CopWatch training, on Jun. 11, 6:30-9:30 p.m., 147 W. 24th St., sixth fl. Participants must be available from 7-11 p.m. on Jun. 28. For more information, email lee@fiercenyc.org or visit fiercenyc.org.

Fresh off acclaimed Off Broadway performances in “Found” at the Atlantic Theater Company and “Horseplay, or the Fickle Mistress” at La MaMa ETC/ Theatre Askew, Molly Pope, a brassy belter, whiskey guzzler, and benevolent lunatic presents “Molly Pope Likes Your Status,” in which she sheds all pretense of humility and shamelessly entreats you to adore her for an hour while she prances about making loud noises. Unable to deny that she defines her self-worth entirely via social media notifications, Pope exploits her fragile ego and vocal chops for your entertainment. The Duplex, 61 Christopher St. at Seventh Ave. So., Sheridan Sq. Jun. 12, Jul, 10, Aug. 14, Sep. 11, 9:30 p.m. The cover charge is $15 at theduplex.com; $18 at the door, and there’s a two-drink minimum.

FILM Experimental Works of Stephanie Gray Anthology Film Archives hosts the first film retrospective of New York filmmaker and poet Stephanie Gray, who has been making experimental and documentary Super 8 films and videos since 1998, Jun. 12-14, 7:30 p.m. nightly. On the series’ first evening, Gray explores hidden stories of dyke heroines including Kristy McNichol, Joan of Arc, Laverne & Shirley, and Eileen Myles. The following two nights, she investigates the hidden mysteries of New York City and its vanishing authenticity. 32 Second Ave. at Second St. Admission per screening is $10. More information at anthologyfilmarchives.org.

MEDIA And Now — Drag, the Magazine VYM, the drag magazine that is a love letter to the art of it all, celebrates its inaugural issue with an evening of readings and performances. Editors Johnny and Sasha Velour aim to deliver an artful forum dedicated to all its incarnations — from camp and humor, fashion and art, to politics and theory. This new 100-page magazine features comics, essays, illustrations, interviews, photography,

FRI.JUN.12, continued on p.65

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

FRI.JUN.12, from p.64

and poetry from more than 20 of today’s most talented independent artists who were asked to answer the question “What is drag?” Bureau of General Services — Queer Division at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., room 210. Jun. 12, 7:30 p.m.

COMMUNITY Pride in the Slope

PERFORMANCE You Can't Miss Melissa Etheridge

MELISSAETHERIDGE.COM

Brooklyn’s annual Pride Parade and Festival — the 19th — kicks off Jun. 13 at 10 a.m., with an LGBT 5K run in Prospect Park beginning at Bartel-Pritchard Square, Prospect Park W. at 15th St. The street festival, with stage entertainment, on Fifth Ave., btwn. Third St. & Ninth St., runs from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Then, the Twilight Parade begins at 7:30 p.m. at Lincoln Pl. on Fifth Ave. and proceeds south to Ninth St. For complete information, including details of a Jun. 11 indie rock showcase, a Jun. 12 evening of queer memoirs, and the Jun. 13 afterparty, visit brooklynpride.org.

GALLERY Play and Learn With Tom of Finland

ARTISTSSPACE.ORG

Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, aka Tom of Finland (1920-1991) is considered to be the most iconic gay artist of the 20th century.

“Tom of Finland: The Pleasure of Play” — which includes more than 140 drawings, rarely seen gouaches from the 1940s, over 600 pages of collages, as well as his early childhood drawings — is the first exhibition to examine, analyze, and present the historic role that his art plays in addressing and transgressing stereotypes of gender, sexuality, race, class, and power relations. Artists Space Exhibitions, 38 Greene St., btwn. Grand & Broome Sts., third fl. Jun. 14-Aug. 23; Wed.-Sun., noon-6 p.m. Opening reception is Jun. 13, 6-8 p.m.

For more information, visit artistsspace.org

SUN.JUN.14 BOOKS Larry Kramer’s Search for His Heart Larry Kramer, the famed AIDS activist, also made waves with his 1978 novel “Faggots” and his 1985 play “The Normal Heart." His latest book, “The American People, Volume 1: A Search for My Heart,” takes us from Abraham

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

Performing songs off her 13th studio album, “This Is M.E.,” Grammy and Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge hits the New York area with full force this week. On Jun. 14, 7 p.m., she’s at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House, 35 Market St.at Cannon St., Poughkeepsie ($106-$122). On Jun. 16, 8 p.m., Etheridge appears at the Tarrytown Music Hall, 13 Main St. at Broadway, Tarrytown ($120-$429). On Jun. 17, 8 p.m., she’s at the Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St. at Maple Ave., Red Bank, NJ ($57-$580). And on Jun. 18, 8 p.m., Etheridge performs at the Paramount Theatre, 370 New York Ave. at Carver St., Huntington, LI ($53-$436). Tickets are available at concertticketcenter.com.

CHRISTIE’S

SAT.JUN.13

Lincoln orgies to monkeys swapping AIDS before the dawn of human civilization, from a Jewish family outside Washington, DC to secret Nazi camps in North Dakota. In his Gay City News review, David Ehrenstein wrote, “Larry is treading on ground previously covered by the Roths — Henry and Phillip, resolute heterosexuals both. What neither Roth could conceive of is the love a gay boy like Larry craved and how a lifetime of experiences, including a pandemic that threatened to do away with him and all his kind, failed to destroy his need for the love of another man. Larry has happily found his heart.” The Book Club of Bureau of General Services — Queer Division discusses the book tonight. LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., room 210. Jun. 14, 6 p.m.

TUE.JUN.16 GALLERY Randy Andy on Gays, On Sale, Online “Andy Warhol @ Christie’s: Andy’s Randy Summer” is an online-only sale of more than 100 photographs, prints, and drawings in which the artist focused his unique gaze on the LGBTQ community. Sourced directly from the collection of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the majority of these works have never been seen in public. With opening bids starting at $1,600, Christie’s says the sale offers something for both the seasoned collector and new Warhol enthusiast alike. For more information on the sale visit christies.com/ warhol. The sales runs from Jun. 16-25.

BENEFITS Stonewall Visions Stonewall Community Foundation, which since 1990 has invested nearly $18 million

in more than 600 organizations serving New York City’s LGBTQ community, hosts its annual Vision Awards, this year honoring actress and author Fran Drescher, entrepreneur and philanthropist Maneesh K. Goyal, portraitist Kehinde Wiley, and the Asian Pride Project, which works to build acceptance and social support for Asian and Pacific Islander families with LGBTQ members. The evening is hosted by Bevy Smith of Bravo’s “Fashions Queens” and includes a performance by Kimberley Nichole, a season 8 finalist on NBC’s “The Voice,” and music from DJ Olivia Dope. Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses St. at Hudson St. Jun. 16, 6:30 p.m. cocktails, 8 p.m. dinner. Tickets are $500 at stonewallfoundation.org.

Mary J. Blige Provides the Inspiration The amfAR Inspiration Gala New York, hosted by Anderson Cooper, honors Miley Cyrus and Bravo’s Andy Cohen and includes a performance

TUE.JUN.16, continued on p.66

COMMUNITY In Celebration of Jewish Culture In a free performance featuring special guest Neil Sedaka, the Klezmatics — a Grammy Award-winning band that offers a lively blend of classic Yiddish tunes and contemporary musical stylings — kick off the week-long KulturfestNYC, the first-ever international festival of Jewish performing arts, celebrating the global impact of Jewish culture. Presented by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at MJH, now celebrating its centennial season, in collaboration with UJA-Federation of New York. The festivities run all day and night, jam-packed with theater, music, dance, film, cuisine, street performances, family programs, panels, at the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, 230 Vesey St. at West St. Jun. 14, 7:30 p.m. For a complete listing of all KulturfestNYC events, venues, and ticket prices, visit kulturfestnyc. org.

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TUE.JUN.16, from p.65

by Mary J. Blige. Music is by DJ Bill Coleman.

Spring Studios, 50 Varick St. at Canal St. Jun. 16, 6:30 cocktails, 8 p.m. fashion show, 9 p.m. dinner and program. Tickets begin at $1,500 at amfar.org/INNY2015. Dress is black tie/ street wear inspired.

THU.JUN.18 BOOKS The Ladies of Pride

DANCE Ballet Legends, Visionaries & Premieres

Don’t Let Your Whorephobia Keep You Away

BOOKS Heartbreak in Greenwich Village How long does it take to get over heartache?

Journalist and teacher Kate Walter wondered if she’d ever feel whole again after her longtime lesbian partnership ended. A resident of Greenwich Village who spent years recording neighborhood life, Walter’s debut memoir, dedicated to “women who have been dumped after 25 years,” is “Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing,” from Heliotrope Books. Walter appears at Bureau of General Services — Queer Division at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., room 210. Jun. 19, 7 p.m.

In “Deeply Leisured,” sex worker Queenie Bon Bon employs hybrid performance approaches spanning stand-up comedy, performance, lecture, and consciousness-raising to present narratives about her deep love for her clients and co-workers and the eternal joys and mysteries of working with bodies. She also shares stories of coming out as a sex worker to her mother, whorephobia, and Internet dating. Bureau of General Services — Queer Division at the LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., room 210. Jun. 21, 6 p.m.

FRI.JUN.26SUN.JUN.28 COMMUNITY Pride Hits Its Climax

MON.JUN.22 PRIDE A Riverfront Garden Party

SAT.JUN.20 COMMUNITY North Brooklyn Pride Festival — A First One week after Brooklyn Pride celebrates the season in Park Slope, North Brooklyn Pride rolls out in Williamsburg for the first time, with a family picnic, Jun. 21, noon-3:30 p.m., with kid-friendly entertainment, followed, from 4-9 p.m. by a good ol’ block party with more food and a killer DJ line-up. The organizers are working with Heart Gallery NYC, a non-profit that works with photographers to bring attention to young people, including LGBT youth, in need of a home and a family. Heart Gallery NYC will present an exhibit of photos created this year. N. 11th St., btwn. Wythe & Kent Aves. For more details, visit northbrooklynpridefest.com.

Enjoy an evening along the Hudson River, sampling foods from dozens of New York’s best restaurants, celebrating Pride, catching up with friends, and watching the performers on stage. The LGBT Community Center’s 32nd annual Garden Party: A Taste of Pride takes place on Jun. 22, 6-10 p.m., Hudson River Park Pier 84 at W. 44th St., right by the Intrepid. Tickets begin at $99 at gaycenter.org.

SUN.JUN.21 PRIDE

TUE.JUN.23

The New York You Were Warned About

PERFORMANCE

The 18th annual Folsom Street East is the largest fetish block party on the East Coast. The party features live stage entertainment drawn from New York’s LGBT and kink community, as well as a beer garden hosted

A Venezuelan Man’s Story In “I, Inmigrante,” developed with and directed by Obie Award-winner David Drake, Migguel Anggelo a Brooklyn-based, Venezuelan-born artist known for electric stage performances, creates a kaleidoscope of vocal theatrics and poetic storytelling that is hilarious and touching in equal measure. Through his original compositions and reinterpretations of Latin, folk, and pop classics, “I, Inmigrante” deftly explores the very personal themes of immigration, national pride, the barriers of language, the emotional ramifications of political dictatorship, and the dreams of the artist who must follow his passion (while wrestling with his demons) in order to find a place he can call

MICHAEL LUONGO

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FRI.JUN.19

FOLSOMSTREETEAST.COM

“Analogy/ Dora: Tramontane” is based on an oral history choreographer Bill T. Jones conducted with 94-year-old Dora Amelan, a French Jewish nurse and social worker during World War II. The piece began 12 years ago simply as a gift Jones created for his longtime partner and collaborator, Bjorn Amelan, and his family.

Dora Amelan’s harrowing, touching, and inspirational story is broken into 25 episodes that become the basis for choreography, narrative, and music. Choreography is by Jones, Janet Wong, and the nine dancers of Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company. Bjorn Amelan’s decor is constructed and de-constructed by the company to suggest a hotel, a railway station, barracks, and less easily defined spaces.

Musical accompaniment features haunting songs of the wartime era, from the quietly beautiful words of Charles Trenet’ s song “Le Soleil et la Lune” and the evergreen “Parlezmoi d'amour” to some of Schubert’s most evocative lieder, “Nachstück”, “Alinde,” and “Nähe des Geliebten.” Nick Hallett will perform original music he composed for the piece.

Dora Amelan, who lives in Paris, will attend the premiere. Alexander Kasser Theater at

PERFORMANCE

MICHAEL LUONGO

A Wartime Meditation from Bill T. Jones

home. Mau Quiros is musical director, with Britney Coleman and Michelle Walter on background vocals, Quiros on keyboards, James Quinlan on bass, Tim Basom on guitar, and Jake Robinson on drums. Joe’s Pub, inside the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., btwn.

E. Fourth St. & Astor Pl. Jun. 23 & Sep. 28, 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 at joespub.com.

DONNA ACETO

New York Theatre Ballet performs “Legends & Visionaries 2015,” a program including Richard Alston’s “Such Longing,” Frederick Ashton’s “Capriol Suite,” the world premiere of Gemma Bond’s “The Assembly,” a new, as-yet-untitled work by David Parker, and Antony Tudor’s “Dark Elegies.” Danspace Project, 131 E. 10th St. at Second Ave. Jun. 18-20, 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 at danspaceproject.org.

by the Eagle NYC. The event benefits the New York City Anti-Violence Project and Visual AIDS, which uses art to provoke awareness of the epidemic and support HIV-positive creative workers. W. 27th St., btwn. 10th & 11th Aves.

Jun. 21, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets are $20 at folsomstreeteast.com; $25 at the door.

DONNA ACETO

Kathleen Warnock’s monthly “Drunken!

Careening! Writers!” series presents “Careening With Pride: It’s Ladies' Night!,” featuring TV host, comedian, and writer Robin Cloud, whose daily “BK Live” program showcases Brooklyn’s art, culture, and political scenes; Gay City News’ own Morsels critic Donna Minkowitz, author of the memoir “Growing Up Golem,” a 2013 finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and the Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award; and writer and poet Carol Rosenfeld, whose debut novel, “The One That Got Away,” will be published by Bywater Books in June. KGB Bar, 85 E. Fourth St., btwn. Bowery & Second Ave. Jun. 18, 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Montclair State University, 1 Normal Ave., Montclair, NJ. Jun. 18-19, 7:30 p.m.; Jun. 20, 8 p.m.; Jun. 21, 3 p.m. Tickets are $20 at peakperfs.org. Charter bus service to the Sat. & Sun. performances is provided from New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St.; $10 round-trip at peakperfs.org or 973-655-5112.

The Jun. 25 issue of Gay City News will include a full guide to Pride Weekend, but for a preview of events including the Jun. 27 Pride Rally, parties on Jun. 26 & 27, a riverfront women’s event on the afternoon of Jun. 27, a men’s rooftop party that same afternoon, and the PrideFest, the LGBT Pride March, and the Dance on the Pier on Jun. 28, visit nycpride.org. For details on the Jun. 27 Dyke March, visit facebook.com/dykemarchnyc.

June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc

GayCityNews.nyc | June 11 - 24 , 2015

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June 11 - 24 , 2015 | GayCityNews.nyc