Web Obsession: I am neurotic

My new favorite website is iamneaurotic.com

Similar to other confessional sites, people can submit anonymous descriptions about their various neurotic and obsessive-compulsive quirks. It's a nice way of reminding us that a) we are all a little crazy, and b) there are people out there that are far, far crazier than us.

What are my neuroses? Too many to count, but here's a sample:

I absolutely can not bring myself to enter through a door marked "exit" or exit through a door marked "entrance." I will take a long, diversionary route, if necessary, to find the correct door. If I see anyone doing this I will think less of them as human beings.

Here are a couple of my favorite neuroses featured on the site:

"Ever since I was told in third grade that Jesus is everywhere, I’ve been scared out of my mind that he’ll just appear when I least expect it. I can’t turn on a light in a dark room without fear of him being there. I am an atheist."

"When I was a kid, I used to have to count stairs when i ran up or down them, and I’d have to do it in time to the 1 to 12 song on Sesame Street."

A few years ago in one of my classes my muse and mentor Professor Diane Rubenstein commented on her own neuroses and then said that we students must certainly understand her because anyone that devotes themselves to studying radical political theory at an Ivy League institution is, by definition, highly neurotic. I realized at once that she was right.

Just to prove that I'm not a soulless monster, Part 1

This is one of the most beautiful moments in the history of cinema. Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp finally spoke. This is what he said:



Charlie Chaplin, aside from being a screen legend, was also a socialist. His brilliant career came to a screeching halt in 1952 when he was accused of being "un-American" by the infamous HUAC. Chaplin left America and didn't return until 1972 when he finally received his well deserved honorary Oscar, in what is widely considered one of the greatest Oscar moments. He received a five minute long standing ovation.

"We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without those qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost."

Other well known socialists:
Albert Einstein
H.G. Wells
George Orwell
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
Leo Tolstoy
Hellen Keller

Food for thought.

You knew it was coming: Sex and the City - The Movie

Yes, I realize that I'm weeks behind the rest of gay America, but I just saw the Sex and the City movie, so now I find myself sitting here at 3am writing yet another vicious tirade about something that pisses me off.

What a piece of absolute drivel.

There, I said it.

This movie is a tired piece of boring crap that is a complete and utter insult to anyone who was a fan of the original series. Gone is the quirkiness of the TV series and in its place all we have is senseless melodrama and poop jokes. Basically, this movie is one part fashion orgy and one part gag-inducing meditation on love. Stir them violently until you have the final scene of the film that actually dares to equate love with fashion labels.

Now don't yell at me quite yet. I can hear you already, saying "but Marc, what do you know? You're just a bitter commie grad student that has nothing better to do but to rip on beloved cultural icons!" That may be true, but if you get to know me somewhat you'd find that I'm probably more of a hopeless romantic than anyone else you know. This is why I find it personally insulting that Carrie Self-Absorbed Diva Bitch Bradshaw spends most of this movie talking about love, only to conclude that love is, "the label that never goes out of style." Throw in a completely predictable plot, the usual slew of eye-roll inducing puns and a generally terrible script and we're left with one giant mess of a movie. Rather than a tribute to love, Sex and the City is an insult to anyone that has a complex understanding of the concept. It's impossible to make sense out of the union of love and labels when one implies infinite depth and the other epitomizes shallowness

Where was the sex? Where was the city? Half of the damn movie took place in either Mexico or L.A. Part of the appeal of the series was that aside from the characters being thinly veiled gay metaphors, it was also a stirring tribute to the city of New York. Sex and the City is the show that made half of the gay twenty-somethings move here in the first place! Now that our cosmopolitan-chugging heroins make it to the big screen, they decide to take us to Mexico? Ick. There were what, two sex scenes? One with Samantha's hot, but boring, neighbor and another between Miranda and Steve. I love these girls, but nobody wants to see Cynthia Nixon or Kim Cattrall naked anymore. Those menopausal bitches are approaching grandma status.

This movie did something I never thought would happen: it made Charlotte my favorite character. While Carrie was off throwing tantrum after tantrum and Miranda and Samantha were off sabotageing the best things that ever happened to them, Charlotte at least kept her head together. While the film was in production there were rumors circulating that Charlotte was going to die in child birth. I almost wish that that had happened because it would have at least given the story some emotional weight. Sobered by her tragedy and in memory of her ever hopeful, loving spirit, the other three girls put down their stilettos, leave aside their monster-sized egos and go back to the men that they know they love.

It's not much, but its something.

Instead all we got was the obvious "Big fucks up but Carrie forgives him" schlock. Look, I'm all about love and forgiveness, but with all the shit that guy's pulled over the years? Jesus, his cock must be bigger than his bank balance.

Ok, and what's with Jennifer Hudson's quasi-lesbian, Mary Poppins-esque assistant character? For a while there I wasn't sure if she was going to kiss Carry or sing a happy working song. I mean... as if this movie wasn't already gay enough, they had to go and throw Effie effing White in there? Jesus Christ on a cross. The moment I heard her say that she came to New York to fall in love I threw up in my mouth a little. She moves to New York and immediately gets a job as an assistant to Carrie Bradshaw? Then within a year she falls in love and gets married? Oh please. Here's a true story about moving to New York: you live in a pestilential apartment, survive on top ramen, and meet a bunch of emotionally unavailable men who you can barely get a second date out of because they're always on the lookout for something better. Welcome to New York City, kids!

Oh, and when did a Louis Vuitton purse becomes some kind of right of passage? That's just hideously materialistic.

The biggest problem with this film though was that it was completely unnecessary. The series finale did everything right, and left us satisfied with the conclusion of each character's story arc. Carrie found love, Samantha realized that she was capable of love, snotty Miranda was humbled by her love, and Charlotte got the baby she had longed for. Nothing else needed to be said. What we got was a rehash of previously used plot threads married with standard Hollywood romance cliches. Throw in the fact that these aged women have become cliches themselves and we're left with one big letdown for fans.

If you really like Sex and the City than do yourself a favor and go back and re-watch it in its glory days: everything up until Miranda's shark-jumping pregnancy.

Here's hoping that Meryl Streep will be far more entertaining in the upcoming gayfest that is Mama Mia.

Oh, incidentally, I took the "Match Your Man" quiz on the films website and scored Mr. Big. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Here's the description of him:

He's the confident, affluent man about town who enjoys the finer things, but he's also the obedient son who escorts his mother to church on Sundays. He has an elusiveness that you find as irresistable as it is frustrating. Big may be unpredictable and seem totally unattainable-and he does let you down occasionally-but then he manages to surprise you by showing up when you least expect him.

Hmmm. Some of that sounds kind of familiar.

R.I.P. George Carlin

As you are all no doubt already aware, George Carlin passed away yesterday at 5:55pm PDT at the age of 71. This puts a damper on what was otherwise an excellent birthday for me. At about the time Mr. Carlin left us, I was probably downing my hundredth Long Island iced tea at the fifth bar of the day. I didn't hear about his death until this morning.

George Carlin's passing saddens me greatly. More than just a comedian, he was a social activist and satirist who often seemed to me to be a lone voice of reason in our world of excessive pop culture and rampant capitalism. He said what no one else would say and spoke when no one else would speak. He has had a tremendous influence on the way I view the world, and I like to think that my dry, blunt sense of humor has developed out of that influence. He also showed a softer side in the children's television show Shining Time Station where he played Mr. Conductor. I grew up watching that show so Mr. Carlin has been with me for quite a long time.

I was fortunate enough to see him perform live in Ithaca. He did not disappoint. His blend of the serious and the whimsical made him a joy to watch. George did some of my favorite bits like "Guys Named Todd," "A Modern Man," "Fuck Mickey Mouse" and "Autoerotic Asphyxia." He was politically incorrect before it was cool to be politically incorrect, and subsequent comics like Lewis Black or Carlos Mencia (I hate that guy) owe their careers to him. In recent years, Carlin's work turned away from his more irreverent comedy and towards his more intense socio-political satire. As a tribute to him, here are a few clips of some of my favorite Carlin bits:

Stupid people:


The American Dream:


The sanctity of life:


R.I.P. George

Movies: Forget Clinton and Obama...

There's only one political candidate I believe in:


Check out his hard-line stance against crime here

If you're interested in supporting Mr. Dent, you may also went to check out this site as well:

Gotham City Pizzeria

If you hover your mouse over the "HA" you'll notice something strange. Click on it for a special treat.

Don't you just love viral marketing?

Review: The Ritz

If you're going to spend your Friday or Saturday night in Hell's Kitchen then a stop at The Ritz is pretty much unavoidable. The Ritz is a force of pure, calculating evil that beckons to us, calls out to us, until we have no choice but to heed its call. If life were a horror movie (and it sometimes is), we would discover that The Ritz was alive, haunted by an ancient evil that preys on the life-force of the queermos contained within it. We would have no choice but to burn it down and then douse the ground with holy water so that it could never return to trouble us once again. Somebody cue that devil music from "The Omen."

Sadly, that's not an option. Well... at least not yet, anyway.

So we come. We come in droves. Night after night, week after week, like pilgrims to Mecca... if Mecca were a soul-crushing, nihilistic force of unspeakable power.

I fought the good fight. For a long time I resisted. When my friends said, "hey, let's go out in Hell's Kitchen tonight!" I would reply, "sure, as long as we don't end up at the Ritz!" Yet sure enough, it would happen. Come 1am or so I'd find myself waiting in line to get in. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've been defeated. You've won, Ritz, you've won. Take what you will from me, my life is forfeit. Everything I have is now yours.

Why do I speak this way about The Ritz? It's just another bar, isn't it?

No. No it's not. You see, The Ritz is the only place in Hell's Kitchen with a decently sized dance floor. When you add to this the fact that their DJ plays a great combination of pop/hip-hop hits, classic gay pop and 80's hits, you increase it's power ten-fold. Then throw in the fact that it's populated by the hottest, cruisiest guys in the neighborhood, and perhaps you'll begin to understand what I'm talking about. The Ritz is a grab bag of Hell's Kitchen that incorporates elements of every bar, which makes sense since most of them empty out into The Ritz eventually anyway. There's the snobbery of Vlada (this is the epicenter of keffiyeh acivity), the young-professionals of Therapy, the quasi-trashy cruisiness of Posh, etc, etc.

It's the Captain Planet of Hell's Kitchen. With the combined powers of Therapy, Vlada, Posh and Barrage, it becomes something much more than the sum of its parts.

The greatest irony here is the fact that I actually wait in a line to get into this place. There's a great number of bars and clubs in this city that I like a hell of a lot more that I never have to wait in line for, and yet there I stand on 46'th St. waiting for those Abbott and Costello-esque bouncers to let me into that sardine can.

Oh yes. It's a sardine-can. If by sardines you mean overly-coiffed gay men. Upon entering it you'll be hard-pressed to move in any direction at all. Add to this the fact that there's an employee standing right inside the door yelling at you to pick a direction pronto (your choices are bar/dance floor and upstairs bar). I swear, that guy would give a concentration camp commandant a run for his money. "Picken ze direction! Now! Now! Achtung! Schnell, schnell!"

Yeah. Thats just the beginning.

Ok, if you're smart you'll head upstairs where it's slightly less busy and take a bit of time to acclimate yourself before taking the plunge onto the dance floor. The Ritz suffers from the same problem as most HK bars, namely the long-narrow corridor that separates you from where you want to be. Moreso in The Ritz than in any other place, the people here are downright rude. The thing is that it's really not their fault, it's the unyielding malevolence of the space itself. See, after being in there for a while, everyone gets so fed up of getting stuck behind a wall of people that refuse to let them pass that the worst parts of their personality start to emerge. After about an hour or so of this it dawns on me that yes, I am in fact capable of taking the life of another human being. In all likelihood it will be the next jackass that puts his hand on my shoulder as he shoves his way past me.

In the twisted halls of my imagination I picture The Ritz personified, cackling like old Emperor Palpatine, saying, "Gooooood, gooooooooooood! Release your anger! Only then will your journey towards the Dark Side be complete!" Come to think of it, I don't think that requires a large stretch of the imagination.The Ritz personified.

See, if you're a big strapping lad of 6'3" and about 200lbs, you probably won't have this same problem. You can look out over the crowd and plan your route, using your size (and possibly good looks) to reach your destination. Sadly, I come from poor European peasant stock, so I've only managed to reach a meager 5'7". My height/weight ratio is not very conducive to aggressively maneuvering a crowd. I recently read somewhere that apparently The Ritz has a nautical theme. I didn't know this because I've never been there during anything resembling daylight. It's very appropriate though because the Ritz is an ocean, an ocean of gayness. I, like a sailor lost at sea, get tossed around and around until finally I am dashed against the rocks until I can take it no longer. In this case "the rocks" would be those risers on the side topped with the queeny would-be go-go sirens.

As the night progresses a funny thing starts to happen that becomes both a blessing and a curse. People start to pair up and leave. This isn't unusual for any gay bar, but it has a special significance here. As they leave, spaces open up, slowly, until finally you realize that you have room to navigate! At first you won't be sure what to do because the feeling is so unusual. Then, you'll hear a bit of a tune. Slowly it gets louder and louder until you realize that it's a song you really like! It's time to dance! Once that song is over it will be another one that you love, and another and another, until you find that you're actually having fun!

The problem, of course, is that by this time it's probably at least 2:30 in the morning. If you're looking to meet someone you'll also notice that the relationship between the amount of fun you start to have and the amount of hot guys left is inverse. Obviously, the hottest people pair up first, and things slowly progress down the line until the Sloth-from-Goonies-esque dregs of society are all that remain. This is why you don't want to stay at The Ritz until it closes, even if you're having a blast with friends. The closer it gets to closing, the braver the mutants become, until you're likely to get a proposition from each and every one of them. *shudder*

Herein lies the sublimity of The Ritz's evil. It's a pain in the ass for hours, but at a certain point you will start to enjoy yourself, even if that enjoyment is littered with downsides. This means that the next time someone proposes you go there, you're likely to forget the hours of misery you spent lost in a crowd and remember only the hour of fun you had dancing instead. You will return. The Ritz will make sure of that.

There are only two ways that you can get to The Ritz early and circumvent all of this. Firstly, you need to come with an army. No, not an entourage. An army. You need a crack squad of your best homos that are familiar with the way this place works. Working together, You can carve out a niche on the dance floor that enables you to give each other significant space and ward off any unwanted lanes of traffic. The second way presumes that you are looking for a hook-up of some sort. In this case, you come alone or with few friends. You sneak your way in, guerilla-style, find someone you like, grab them, do your thing, and get out as quickly as possible. If these tactics haven't yet made my point clear, then I'll say it plainly. The Ritz isn't a club. It's a war. Your goals for the night determine how you fight that war. If you need more strategy advice, then I recommend you check out my friend Sun Tzu's bestselling self-help book, The Art of War.

To top it all off, drinks at The Ritz are tiny and overpriced and the bar is practically inaccessible unless you want to wait for a good half-hour. This means that you must arrive well prepared, for you will receive no aid from the vodka cavalry. A cruel twist of fate indeed. On the upside, some of the bartenders are pretty damn hot. I recognized one Anton Antipov, a small-time model who I've stumbled upon several times on the internet. He's fun to look at. Here's some eye-candy:Yeah. He's a bartender.

My conclusion is that The Ritz has potential to be a lot of fun, but you must be prepared and be vigilant. One who ventures down to 46'th street not knowing what he's in for can expect disaster. I recommend they add a subtitle to the place. Y'know, just to spice things up a bit.

"Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here," springs to mind off-hand.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.

Television: A single brief geek interlude in this sea of gayness.

While this is not the purpose of my blog (if it even has one), I will make an exception at this point to make a case for Battlestar Galactica. I won't do this again until the series finale which will air sometime next year.

I didn't watch this show until well into the third season (it will conclude at the end of its fourth), and I only started because I had heard that it won a Peabody award (other recipients include South Park and The Colbert Report) and had received nothing but rave reviews from critics. I decided I would see what the fuss was all about by watching the first few episodes. I was not disappointed.

I find that television really is the idiot box it's made out to be. Most sitcoms and dramas talk down to their audience, believing us to be incapable of understanding stories with complex plots and depth of character. This has begun to change in recent years due to the influence of cable networks like HBO and Showtime who have upped the bar by creating innovative dramas like The Sopranos, Oz, Deadwood or Dexter. Battlestar Galactica is at least equal to, if not greater than, all of these shows. There is absolutely nothing else on television that I would promote and defend in this manner.

Battlestar Galactia is the quintessential television show for the post-9/11 world. The show itself begins with what is essentially a massive terrorist attack that wipes out nearly all of humanity. The 50,000 some-odd survivors of this attack flee into space in search of a new home in the hopes that our species will survive. On the deck of the Galactica there is a wall of photographs of the crew's dead and missing loved ones, eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 memorials. The only real science fiction elements of the show are spaceships and robots. There are no aliens, no laser guns, no silver space suits, and the techno-babble is kept to a minimum. The sci-fi serves merely as a metaphor to allow storytelling opportunities. BSG is more of a political/military/personal drama than anything else. These people talk like we talk and dress like we dress. They love, hate, have sex, drink, smoke and do drugs. This is no white-washed fantasy world. Furthermore, the show is shot in a gritty, quasi-documentary fashion, often with a free cam that ads to its realism drastically.

Nothing is ever black and white in Battlestar Galactica. Over the course of the series we've watched characters we love do thinks that we hate, and come to feel sympathy for some very, very bad people. Even the supposedly villainous Cylons are complex, three-dimensional and far more human than we'd probably like to admit. The show does not deal in absolutes and exists only in shades of gray. This is particularly admirable considering the way in which our politicians and media try to oversimplify life. Every issue that the show has dealt with, ranging from abortion and suicide bombings to stolen presidencies and abuse of authority, has been presented in a weighty, considered manner, with both sides fairly represented. Furthermore show's politics is murky and it doesn't preach for any particular viewpoint. What more can one ask for?

It's also philosophically interesting and important. The primary question that it addresses (it directly asked this in the miniseries pilot) is whether or not humanity as a species is worthy of survival. Heavy stuff. It also deals directly with issues of identity. What does it mean to be human? In the least four seasons we've seen the gab close between the humans and the mechanical Cylons. Furthermore, how do we know who we are? What happens when we find out we're not who we thought we were? We've also watched several main cast members deal with the ramifications of discovering that they're not actually human. Not since Blade Runner, has anything dealt with these issues in such depth. Battlestar Galactica is not a television show, it's an experience.

To bring thing's back to focus a little, I'll turn to the gay/hottie issue. Ok no, there are technically no gay characters on the show, and they've never really dealt with the whole gay thing. In the past however there has been one badass queen-bitch lesbian and her Cylon girlfriend. The Cylons themselves are kind of pan-sexual and we see girls kissing girls fairly often. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace is also a total lesbian but doesn't know it. As far as the guys go, we have some great eye-candy in the form of Jamie Bamber. Here's Jamie in all his glory.

He is one beautiful piece of man. Oh, and British to boot! *drool* There's also Tahmoh Penikett (Karl "Helo" Agathon) and Michael Trucco (Samuel T. Anders), who help to up the hottie factor dramatically. Finally, there's one for the niche market in James Callis who delivers a brilliant performance as the slimy Dr. Gaius Baltar (you may recognize him from the Bridget Jones movies). Here's James with the gorgeous Tricia Helfer:

Ok, SPOILER WARNING. If you watch the show and haven't seen the mid-season finale, don't read beyond this point.
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Ok?


After a three year long journey, the remainder of the human fleet finally found Earth last night. It began as one of the few moments of genuine happiness on a very, very dark show. Seeing the joy on the faces of the entire crew of the Galactica as they celebrated the discovery of their new home was very moving.

All of this changed dramatically when they reached the planet surface. I freely admit that I, who have a heart as cold as ice, nearly cried when I first heard the clicking of the geiger counter as Admiral Adama picked up a fistfull of black, lifeless dirt. What they discovered was not present day Earth, Biblical Earth, or even prehistoric Earth, as many fans had guessed, but a post-apocalyptic Earth. Yes, we blew ourselves to hell.

That final tracking shot of the entire cast surveying the ruins of our civilization in utter disbelief was one of the most shocking, tragic, and haunting moments in a show that is known for them. Seeing the looks of horror and disappointment on the faces of both the humans and Cylons alike was absolutely heartbreaking. Interestingly enough, it appears that they're standing in what remains of lower Manhattan, as the ruins in the water behind them resemble the Brooklyn Bridge. If so, this strengthens even further the notion that Battlestar Galactica is very much a product of our decidedly darker post-9/11 world.

You can watch that masterful piece of cinematography below:


Apparently the remaining episodes of the series won't be aired until 2009. They can't come soon enough. Here's the jaw-dropping trailer for the final half of season 4:


Geekily yours,

Hotness: A Chorus (Line) Boy

I know that I've been ragging on Broadway queers a lot lately and it probably sounds like I have a hatred for all things theater, but that's really not the case. I have a very deep respect for anyone with talent and therefore nothing but love for the people that are up on stage performing. What annoys me is the overabundance of mediocrity in terms of stage talent that haunts the bars and clubs of this our fair city. I've always believed that anyone who wishes to pursue any form of artistic career needs to get real with themselves about the level of their talent at a certain point in their formative years. Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a rant, so I'll move on.

What I AM here to do is show my appreciation for a couple Broadway-related items, so let's get moving, shall we?.

Firstly, this is Nick Adams:

Yeah.

Oh my Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the Saints.

How come I never see this one at all the "trendy" bars?

Nick is currently playing Larry in A Chorus Line on Broadway. He's also the new face of uber-gay underwear brand 2(x)ist, a gig which was supposedly going to go to his co-star Mario Lopez before the company changed their minds and went with Nick instead. Major burn for Mario, but that guy's kind of a douchebag anyway. He'll take off his clothes for anyone (and he does) if it'll help keep is sinking career afloat for a little longer. Mario is reportedly such a diva that he's trying to get Nick's costume changed so that his arms and shoulders are covered so that he can't upstage him. Fuck that. You go Nick!

2(x)ist's creative director had this to say about the situation: "Nick's very masculine, sexy, modern. It's totally all about his body. Mario is a good-looking guy, but Nick had it. He's up and coming, the new face of sexy. He's original. He's hot."

Yeah. I mean Mario Lopez is hot and all, but if I had to choose between him and Nick I'd push Mario down a flight of stairs and take a running leap at Nick. I kid you not. At least we know this one definitely plays for our team.

Here's Nick getting his udder milked (literally) at last year's Broadway Bares:




Item number 2 is this fun little video that Cheyenne Jackson and the boys of Xanadu made with Nathan Lane in order to demonstrate that their musical isn't too gay to win the Tony. It's as funny as it is delicious. Enjoy.



Cheers Queers,

Review: Therapy

Therapy
[the-rape-y]
-noun, singular

1. The only kind of therapy I need (arguably)
2. Yet another classy looking, trendy bar in Hell's Kitchen
3. A place with the most non-threatening doorman I've ever seen. He looks like a chorus boy.
4. A bar that apparently doesn't want anyone to come because their sign is about as big is my forearm.

Oh Therapy. How many weeknights have I spent within thee? Far, far too many. Mostly because my friend the Touchy TV Twinkfucker thinks it's the best invention since poppers. Night after night, week after week, I'd get his text messages "Therapy tonight boys???" and like the sheep that I apparently am I followed. As a result I think I've seen Peppermint Gummi Bear perform every one of her numbers about eighteen times and threaten to show us her "titties" after every single one. Since TTT's departure to the barren cultural wasteland they call Los Angeles, my trips to Therapy have become less frequent and subsequently more enjoyable.

I'll say it plainly. I like Therapy. It's a great space. It's nice to be able to go to a bar in Hell's Kitchen where I actually have room to breath and don't have to shove my way through a series of narrow hallways to get to the liquor. The performances there are usually enjoyable. Cattle Call with Peppermint is, of course, a blast, although I wouldn't recommend sitting too close to her unless you want to become her stagehand. I made the mistake of sitting in the front row once and spent the entire evening adjusting her mic for her. Sweetie's Intervention is good politically incorrect fun (is there any other kind?). My scandalous crew managed to get half of her drink tickets one night by continually sassing back at her. The Sunday night comedy show has been fun the few times I've seen it, and I probably don't even need to mention Psycho Babble to you. Mimi Imfurst and Eve Starr are in a class all their own.

Besides all this Therapy has some pretty great drink specials. I mean, $5 Stoli cocktails on Wednesday? Damn. They don't even limit it to the simple stuff like vodka tonics and screwdrivers. You can order any kind of martini you want, ask them to use Stoli, and it'll only cost you $5. That really pleases my inner alcoholic... and my outer alcoholic. I have gone down on many a cosmopolitan there in my time. Feel free to do with that what you will.

The crowd? Well it's the same as everywhere else in Hell's Kitchen, snarky yet fabulous. However, the size of the place and the open layout relieve a lot of the smug that permeates other bars (See: Vlada). Despite this, Therapy does little to relieve my neurosis. Moreso than other bars I'd say that there's a lot of the professional-types here. If that's your thing then by all means go and bag yourself a corporate lawyer or a banker or a business executive or some other money grubbing capitalist that's equally boring. Still, I wouldn't say that Therapy is a great place to meet people unless you want to spend your whole evening blatantly cruising at the bar. From my observations it's mostly filled with cliques and couples, except on the weekends when it gets a bit more diverse. Beware of the daddies that come to pray on unsuspecting college grads. Like chameleons they blend into the walls, only to spring out and grope you when you least suspect it. For some reason they always come to me. Apparently I have "easy target" written all over me. They learn quickly though, because I come with bodyguards. Hands-off gramps.

Despite all these positive qualities I can only take Therapy in moderation. It's fun to stop by for an hour or two but after that it really starts to get tedious. It's very loud, and the booths are awkwardly shaped in that they're wide, putting you very far away from the people across from you. This makes it difficult to have any substantial conversations there. How long can you really sit, drink, and look at the eye-candy before you get bored?

Ok, that was a stupid question. A long time. Still, two hours is my max. After that I get the urge to either claw my eyes out or throw my cell phone at somebody Naomi-style. By all means, start off there, but make sure you're heading somewhere else for the duration of your night.

Most of the bartenders and waiters are smoking hot. All those lame party promoters should ditch their mannorexic butt-boys and look into hiring them as go-go dancers. Now that would impress me. Since we're on the subject, I think it's worth noting that Therapy manages to be successful without resorting to hiring any of said promoters. It's almost as if party promoters are completely unnecessary! Hmmmmm. Food for thought.

I mentioned this at the beginning, but I just can't end this review without discussing it in detail. Can someone please explain to me why it is that outside the bar there's only a tiny little sign that's barely noticeable, whereas inside they wrote the word THERAPY in giant letters on the wall? Was there some kind of mix-up in the installation? or...?See?

Yeah, I don't get it either.

Maybe it's some kind of reward? Like, now that you've finally found the damn place they reward you by letting you know that you've made it there?

Hey, stranger things have happened.

One final caveat: Watch out for those stairs. After a five or six of those $5 Stoli cocktails they're a real doozy. The only thing that impresses the HK aristocracy less than knocking over their drinks is tripping down a flight of stairs. Not that I'd know from experience.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.

Terribleness: You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake, Snow White

A gift for all and none, but especially not for Ms. Morgan Stepford-Sachs, and all the other members of the Stepford-Sachs family out there who are not yet ready to accept this gift.

Fantasy:


Reality:


We are indeed the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world, oh my brothers and only friends! And I? I am a life-affirming optimist, believe it or not. So go out, smile at the sky and embrace the world for what it is, even if a pigeon craps on your shoulder while you're doing it.

Tyler Durden says: use soap.

Philosophy: The Parabola of Terribleness

I think at this point its only fair that I explain one of my fundamental philosophies when it comes to life and especially to everything gay. Once you understand this you will perhaps have a greater appreciation for the way I rate and review everything.

You see, unlike many people, I don't understand life in terms of good and bad, better or worse. I don't have a simple linear scale of values. Rather, I conceive of things, particularly cultural things, on a kind of parabolic scale, not unlike that bell-curve that we were all subjected to back in college. If you would be so kind as to forgive my inadequate mathematical terminology, I will try to explain. I even brought along a visual aid!

Okay, here we see the curve of terribleness. At the beginning we have things that are simply good. A good person, a good bar, or what have you. Then we slowly begin the ascent into the heights of terribleness. The midway point, "Kinda Terrible" would best describe say, Vlada on a bad night. Then we have the peak of terribleness which for me would be something like Beige at BBar (*shudder* - the key words that HX uses to describe Beige are: "glitterati" "pseudo celebs" and "reality TV star").

The descriptive term here, "I Can't," is borrowed from my friend Kareem over at Blackout Blog.
"I Can't" is a rather complex term that denotes something that is so terrible that one cannot deal with it at all, or even comment on its terribleness. This is the sense in which I use it at the peak. "I Can't" can also mean something that is so terrible that it has begun to become entertaining in its own terribleness. In this second sense, "I Can't" can also apply to the entire right half of this graph.

Note: Kareem, if you have any corrections or additions to this please tell me. I'm not doing your creation justice, I know, but I'm trying to be brief.

Ok, moving onwards, past that peak, things become so bad that they start to become good again. Things that are "Kinda Ridiculous" would be West Village bars like Pieces or The Hangar, which are so strange and divey and over the top that they're actually fun in an ironic, kitschy kind of way. Drag queens are another example of something that is Kinda Ridiculous. The only thing that comes to mind offhand as reaching the pinnacle of "Effing Love It" is perhaps a bona fide tranny.

Nothing is ever fixed on this scale; everything is in flux. Something that is "Kinda Ridiculous" one day might be an "I Can't" on the next. Something like Musical Mondays, which I recently reviewed, can fluctuate wildly here depending on the crowd and one's level of alcohol consumption.

The great work is therefore to try and reduce the peak as much as possible so that what remains are the two extremes and not the crap in between.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.

"Fashion" That Makes Me Shudder: Abercrombie and Flip-Flops

So I was at Pieces last night for karaoke. Not the most-fashion conscious place by far, but it did help me recognize some trends that make me want to hit people in the nose with a rolled-up newspaper and yell "NO!" Today I bring you two different trends that are actually interconnected. I admit that the gay aristocrats usually aren't guilty of either of these, but they're still prevalent enough that I should mention them.

1. No Abercrombie & Fitch if you are over 21.

The title says it all. I'm lenient; you can have all the lame Aberzombie crap you want when you're in college, ok? Back in the days when your daily uniform consisted of a hoodie, baggy jeans and flip-flops it was perfectly acceptable. But once you get your diploma it's time to put your suggestive graphic T's, your pink polo, your ripped jeans and your Abercrombie Fierce cologne away for good.

Time to go out and get yourself some big boy clothes!

Like with any rule, there are exceptions. I totally allow the occasional t-shirt or polo. No reason to throw good clothes away, but the majority of your wardrobe needs to start shifting away from items with the moose logo on it. The other exception is if you're small and twinky enough to shop at abercrombie (little a).

Wearing Abercrombie & Fitch excessively beyond this point in your life starts to make you seem skeevy. It will also contribute to giving you a serious case of Alexis syndrome. You will start to look like one of those weird older guys that go to 18+ twink clubs trying to be incognito (see: Rush). Or that creepy guy at the back of the bar who still dresses like he's seventeen.

We may not want to admit it, but as we mature, so should our taste in clothing. Sadly, some things have to go. Not that I'm sad to see Abercrombie go. I think that place is an abominable haven for mindless consumerism. But hey, who am I to judge?

2. Flip-flops with pants.

The rise of Abercrombie and Fitch brought with it a disturbing new fashion trend. People began to wear sandals...with pants.

Ok, so let me get this straight: it's cool enough to wear pants... but hot enough that they should wear sandals?

Ow. That hurt my brain

I'll admit, it had its moment. It was cool, and we all did it. That was like...what? three years ago? Four years ago? Whatever; it's over now, and we need to let go. Put on some shoes, or put on some shorts. Those are your options. Period.

The only way you're allowed to wear sandals with pants is if the pants are white linen. And you live in Cuba. And you have an orange tan. That's it.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.







P.S. Does anyone else think that if we cleared the crap out of the 5'th Ave Abercrombie and Fitch store it would quickly become the hottest gay club in the city? It's like, 4 floors. They've already got the music, the lighting, the decor AND the hottest go-go boys in town. It would be too easy.

Movies: Velvet Goldmine

...then you absolutely must watch (and love) Velvet Goldmine. This is a little known cult-classic film that belong among the ranks of classic gay films like Priscilla, Too Wong Foo and Hedwig. If you haven't seen any of those films either then you probably shouldn't try talking to me.

The story is told in a Citizen Kane-esque style. A journalist is assigned to find out what happened to a glam-rock superstar from the 70's that killed his career by faking an on-stage death. He subsequently dropped out of sight and hasn't been seen since. It's loosely based on the life of David Bowie (who performed a similar stunt) during his Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane days, and his supposed homosexual relationship with Iggy Pop. The writers took considerable license with Bowie's life story and turned it into a kind of tragi-comic gay love story. It's also a quasi-musical with several fantastic "music video" sequences and a few great original neo-glam songs alongside genre classics

If this isn't enough incentive the film stars hotties Christian Bale, Ewan McGreggor and Jonathan Rhys Myers, and has Eddie Izzard in a great supporting role. The three stars weren't well known yet so they had no probablem getting down with some man on man action. This includes full nudity of McGreggor and Myers. God, what I wouldn't do to get thrown into that pile.



For those of you that don't know, the adrogyny and ambiguous sexual identities of glam stars like Bowie are part of what led to Stonewall and our emergence into the streets. If you have even an ounce of glittery glam rockstar in you, you're going to love this film (it's a great film anyway). I may not look it, but I've got one hell of a glam diva inside.

Here's a little sampling. The Ballad of Maxwell Demon:


If you know me and you want to see this film let me know. Maybe I'll have a screener.

Now THIS is a better class of homosexual.

Review: Musical Mondays at Splash

Ok, I'm not gonna bother to talk about Splash itself. That'll happen at some other point in time.

Musical Mondays are basically the gayest thing in the universe. It's like some kind of tear in the space-time continuum that opened up a portal to a separate dimension of gayness. Just imagine every broadway idol and film diva in the same room and there you have it. I've gotta say, it almost makes me feel homophobic.

All it really is is the night where Splash plays clips from assorted broadway musicals on their big screens. Sounds simple doesn't it? But you forget! This is New York City and Monday is the one night that every actor/dancer/singer in the city has off, so they all pile into the club. Add to that every aging queen in the city and then throw in all the young broadway wannabes. It's a big gay Frankenstein's monster that's been sewn together from pieces of every gay subculture out there.

Yeah. It's that scary.

I mean...I like my musicals and all. I wish I'd seen more of them in the past year but I tend to waste my money on too much pills and liquor (you know you queens got that reference). I get just as excited as the rest of them when I hear "Defying Gravity." Wait. Let me rephrase that. I get excited. Nobody gets as excited about ANYTHING as the Musical Monday gays do about Wicked. Those bitches start reenacting entire choreographed scenes, desperately wishing that they could paint their skin green and play Elphaba. When they see Elphaba they react like evangelists do to faith healers; tears stream down their faces and they start to convulse and speak in tongues. Actually, the religious metaphor is the most appropriate one I can use. Broadway is a religion for these people, Musical Monday is their sabbath and Splash is their synagogue.

I'm a Nietzschean agnostic immoralist. I'm not big on religion period, much less one that has "Seasons of Love" as a hymn (upcoming post: "Am I the only gay that HATES Rent?"). So lets just say that Musical Mondays make me feel somewhat uncomfortable, sort of like that feeling that non-Catholics get when they go to a Catholic church. You know, when everyone knows when to stand and kneel and what words to repeat and what songs to sing BUT you? It's EXACTLY like that. I'm sorry I don't know the book for Xanadu by heart. Maybe I'm just a bad gay? If it helps my case any, I can do ABBA and Gloria Gaynor verbatim.


Ok, so unless you're one of the aforementioned acolytes of the broadway stage, liquor becomes an absolute must here. I recommend coming early for the 2-4-1 drink specials. Knock back a whole bunch of them so that you're good and sloshed by the time things really get going. By the time "Gloria in Excelsis"...err...I mean, "Defying Gravity" comes on at around midnight you'll be good and ready to join the choir. Note: do not get TOO sloshed, unlike a certain vertically-challenged boy that I know who managed to get himself thrown out of the club for dueling with a fat chick.

Oh. If they offer you Kool-Aid? Don't drink it.

The key to success at Musical Mondays for the uninitiated is as follows: When you don't know a song, shut the fuck up and try and be as inconspicuous as possible. When you DO know a song, queen it up to the max. Sing every note. Even the ones you can't reach. If there's an instrumental break, turn to the person beside you and rave about how much you love this show and how many times you've seen it. It's ok to lie. Gays lie more about how many times they've seen musicals than they do about their penis size.

If you see something you like and you decide you want to talk to it, you MUST restrain the conversation to musicals. Or Hillary Clinton. Broadway gays especially love Hillary Clinton. There simply is nothing else for them. Let them direct the conversation; they undoubtedly have very strong opinions about who was the best incarnation of Mama Rose, and why the Hairspray movie was nowhere near as good as the stage production. That's another thing: never EVER say that you liked the movie better than the stage version. That is a cardinal sin and they will feed you to the bears. Also, it is recommended that you know the full names of every member of the original cast of Rent. For extra points you might want to tell it that you know someone working at the Tony awards. For major points you should imply that this imaginary friend of yours can get tickets to the show.


Ok, now you should be suitably prepared for a Musical Monday. I suggest you bring a buddy that is equally ignorant so that you can exchange puzzled looks whenever a number from some obscure musical come on the screen. You can exchanged more puzzled looks when you realize that the guy next to you is mouthing the words to every song and making elaborate hand gestures in sync with the music. This is inevitable. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can move on. You and your buddy must stick together. If at any point you become separated you should notify the proper authorities immediately. When one is inebriated Splash becomes a labyrinth and your friend may die of gay kitsch overload.

What it comes down to is this: If you feel you really must go out on a Monday night your only real choices are Musical Mondays and The Cock. So unless you want to contract the hiv from a sweaty 35 year old on meth, you're gonna be watching some musicals. Since we've established that Monday is the new gay sabbath, I recommend you do like the deity and rest up for the week.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.

Web Obsessions: Cute with Chris

All your dreams are dead!

For those of you that aren't already familiar with him, you simply MUST watch Chris Leavins' web show, "Cute with Chris." Ok, stay with me here. The premise is ostensibly that viewers send him pictures of their cute pets, Chris presents them to us, and we then vote for which one we like the best. This guy is not an amateur; he's an award winning Canadian actor/comedian living in LA now.

Still here?

Ok, that's basically how it works, but its so much more. If you've been reading this blog so far you've probably guessed that I'm not a fluffy kitten kinda guy. His commentary about the photos and his observations about his viewers and life in general is witty, dark and absolutely scathing. When you couple this with his deadpan, disinterested delivery, you get one seriously entertaining four minute show. It's subtle, and not for everyone, but those who appreciate it will appreciate it immensely.

There's also a lot of running gags, so you'll probably have to watch a few episodes in order to catch on to them all. For example, there was a period in which he showed only deformed pets, and another in which he become obsessed with discovering whether or not he had any black viewers (he maintains that his core audience is made up of 15yo girls, crazy cat ladies and gay bears). Throw in a bunch of thinly veiled sex jokes, and presto! Good times.

You can catch his website here.

Here's a couple of highlights from his show:

America's Next Top Kitten:


His description of modeling:


Aaaand the finale. Chris recites the lyrics of Beyonce's "Irreplaceable." (He also does T-Pain and Britney's "Gimme More")



Until you change the face the good Lord gave you: All your dreams are dead!

Review: Vlada (Updated)

If I had written this a few months ago it would have been invariably negative. I've had a hateful relationship with Vlada for quite some time and only recently has it begun to grow on me.

While practically all of the Hell's Kitchen bars are a 10 on the pretension scale, Vlada is most definitely an 11. Nowhere else will you find so many hotties giving you haughty looks while they suck down appletinis (along with assorted other -tinis made from Vlada's wide selection of infused vodkas!). Expect to see a lot of makeup, tranny eyebrows, keffiyehs and American Apparel here.

As it turns out, this isn't really Vlada's own fault. The bar itself doesn't encourage this kind of snobbery; rather it is a direct result of its structure.

Allow me to explain. The main floor of Vlada consists of one long bar running all the way to the back of the venue where a set of stairs takes you to the more expansive second floor. Across from the bar is a series of small booths that are invariably full. What this means is that on any given night, there is only a very narrow corridor available through which one must navigate back and forth across the bar. If it's a slow night and the second floor is closed this makes things even worse.

The result? Unless either a) your friends happen to be standing by the entrance, or b) you're such a scene queen that you know everyone in the bar, you will be greeted by a veritable gauntlet of snobbery upon entering Vlada. This is worse than military training. Expect to be spouting a lot of "'scuse me" and "sorry" as you maneuver your way through Hell's Kitchen's finest who, instead of politely trying to make room for you, will probably stand firm and give you a "who ARE you?" look. The ease with which you may navigate this maze is of course determined by your hotness/height ratio. The taller and hotter you are, the easier things will be. If you do manage to make it to the back of the room, don't celebrate TOO soon because if you're trying to reach the upstairs bar you'll have to do the exact same thing to get by the DJ booth. There is most definitely an interconnection between the poor layout and the snobby crowd though. The fairest of the fair seem to come to Vlada specifically because it enables them to be judgmental in this manner. It's not a proven hypothesis, but I think I can back it up with a lot of proof. Lets go to Vlada and observe?

If we put all this aside for a moment, the place is pretty damn good. The staff is quite friendly and polite, especially the chicks that work on the main floor. They definitely know how to make a mean drink (if you can afford the outrageous prices). Even the big black bouncer chick outside is awesome (for the life of me I can't remember her name right now). Expect to have a conversation with her every time you visit. On the weekends the second floor lounge makes for a pretty decent dance floor, although it doesn't compare to the ridiculousness that is The Ritz. Oh! That strip of ice that runs along the bar is a cheap thrill too. The lack of go-go skanks and bad porn is definitely a major plus.

Vlada won HX's Best New Bar of 2007 award. Fair enough, it's a pretty damn good bar, but did you see what they wrote about it? I quote: "A stylish, sophisticated and romantic new gay lounge, where artists, actors, fashionistas, models, and freaks alike can gather and be comfortable being themselves."

Ha!

Hahahahaha!

I could probably write an entire blog about this sentence (and probably will at some point) but I'll try and be brief. Vlada is most definitely stylish and sophisticated; no argument there. I take issue with the idea of it being romantic though. If I told I guy I wanted to go somewhere romantic and he suggested Vlada I would run away screaming and stop taking his calls. Vlada is only romantic if your idea of romance is checking out fifty other guys while your date buys the drinks. Certainly the "artists," "actors," "fashionistas," and "models," such as they are, fit in very well at Vlada. I am none of those things, nor are the assortment of grad students and workers that make up my clique. Does that make us freaks? Very well, I'll accept my lot in life, but I don't see any other "freaks" at Vlada. If there are any, they certainly don't feel all that comfortable being themselves there. If you're a freak and you want comfort try the Village, not Vlada.

Oh, also, despite the alarmist e-mails we all get from Chris Ryan every week, I wouldn't get too excited about "Sugar Wednesdays." Despite the weekly claims of "MADONNA @ SUGAR WEDNESDAYS' or "CYNDI LAUPER @ SUGAR WEDNESDAYS" I have yet to see either of said divas at Vlada. As a matter of fact I have yet to see anything especially sugary about Sugar Wednesdays at all. They look exactly the same as Normal Thursday through Normal Tuesday, so don't go rushing out to Vlada on that accord. I stop by there every week to take a look, before I run to Therapy for their $5 vodka cocktails. Its definitely a better time than "Frat Boi Wednesday's" though.

A brief tangent, if you don't mind. An ode to infused vodka. Infused vodkas are, I think, proof that God (should He exist) does NOT hate fags, no matter what those Southern religious zealots may tell us. If God hated us would he have found a way to make vodka delicious? No, he most certainly would not have. Because what other group in the entire world ingests as much flavored vodka as we do? Cranberry vodka. Orange vodka. Mango vodka. Pear vodka. Blueberry vodka. Grape vodka. You can now drink vodka in every color of the rainbow. It's the rainbow connection!

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.







UPDATE: Ok, I've seen the light of day in regards to the drink prices at Vlada. Given the quality of the infused vodkas and the quality of the bartenders they're really not all that expensive. They also have a pretty decent Happy Hour.

Oh, and the bouncer's name is Tonka. Love it.

This is all courtesy of my ridiculous friend Kareem, who's blog you can read here: Blackout Blog

Review: HK Lounge "Frat Boi" Wednesdays

This is a sort of a double review of both HK Lounge itself and the new Zailen party on Wednesday nights.

Firstly, the venue:

The good: HK Lounge is a pretty nice place. Well decorated, fairly decent layout, very classy looking. That being said there's nothing to distinguish it from all the other bars in Hell's Kitchen. They're all pretty classy looking (except maybe Posh, but we'll get to that another day). The open lounge area is a nice change of pace from the cramped seating areas in most bars. The couches across from the bar are also a welcome addition. So much for the decor.


The bad: HK Lounge is way overpriced, even by Hell's Kitchen standards. Their drinks are only-half decent and are guaranteed to bankrupt you before you start to feel a buzz. For someone that enjoys liquor is much as I do, that's a pretty big fucking problem. Secondly, they have by far the rudest, most pretentious bartenders in Hell's Kitchen and that's saying a LOT. My friends and I have had many many problems with the staff. Having to squabble with some shirtless musclehound that thinks he's god's gift to the world just because he has deltoids and can mix a screwdriver certainly puts a damper on the evening.

There's also those weird homoerotic movies that they project onto the back wall. Whats the deal with that? I didn't even know they made softcore gay porn! If you're gonna show porn then just show us some real porn and get it over with. Not that I'm a fan of seeing porn played in clubs. It's trashy and obnoxious. There's nothing worse than trying to have a conversation with someone where both parties' attentions are being drawn away to the jock touching himself on the wall behind you. Plus porn detracts from the go-go dancers, but I'll get to them in a minute. I say ditch the video projection or show us something worth watching. The last half of Showgirls doesn't count (they played that preceding the softcore porn).

On Zailen's party:

Ok, there's a couple things you need to know about Drew Zailen parties. Firstly, they are all exactly the same as every other party he's ever had, just at a different venue. Secondly, he always does some things right and a whole bunch of things wrong, and then the parties flop.

He always has a good drink special at good cost. Thats a big plus. Whether its dollar well drinks at Boysroom way back in the day or the $10 unlimited beer special here at HK, it's always good enough to get you drunk cheaply. I'm not really a beer man myself, but given my dire monetary circumstances at the moment I'll take what I can get.

In theory the "18+" aspect of this party is great. When I heard about the 18+ "Frat Boi" Wednesdays my mind was filled with tantalizing visions of the lounge filled with hot college undergrads. Alas, it was not to be. Actually, I can't say I saw anyone at all that was 18-21 by the time I left at 1am. You know those boys have a curfew to keep so if they weren't there then, then they never came at all. Why didn't any of them come? I have a few theories. Firstly, it was kind of a silly move to start an 18+ party in the summer when the vast majority of said students have fled the city for their various boring hometowns. Secondly, the venue is unfamiliar to these young'uns. They don't know what or where it is. Finally, Wednesday night is just not particularly convenient for anyone to go out and party. What this means is that they've gotta shell out the money to buy wristbands and keep an extra couple people at the door all night just to try and accommodate the two or three 19yr olds that bother to show up. That's just bad business.

On to the go-go boys! Basically, they're terrible. Zailen parties have this troupe of skinny, underaged, not particularly cute go-go dancers that they drag around everywhere. I'll bet you that if I went to the appropriate bar I could find these same scared little children vainly trying to shake their non-existent booties every night of the week. This is not acceptable. Look, there's gotta be tons of cute twinks in this city just dying for the opportunity to take off their clothes and be oggled by the crowd. Audition some new talent. Give us some variety. Furthermore the go-go boys don't actually DO anything. For most of the night they just kind of walked around the place chatting with their friends. When they finally got up on the bar they didn't even dance, they just sort of...swayed. Snore.

The ads for these parties always promise us some talent and then fail to completely deliver. "Special performance by Spicky Hilton!" it says. Ok, I've seen Spicky Hilton perform before. She's not my favorite drag queen but she's pretty good, and the bitch can actually sing. So that's cool, I don't mind seeing her. But at 12:30 she romps down the stairs, does one number and then disappears. From what I can see of the pictures, she did come back later and that's great, but I'm certainly not gonna wait around the place for a couple more hours just to see her again, especially since the unlimited beer ended at midnight. They really need to up the ante on these "performances." Give me more incentive to not ditch you for another bar.

Oh and then there's the pictures. Ohhhhh, the pictures. At every damn party you have Vlad prancing around taking extreme closeup photos of everyone that's not completely hideous. Then the next day they're posted on Zailen's website to make it look as if the place was packed with cute, half-naked guys. This has resulted in a kind of "boy who cried wolf" syndrome for Zailen's parties. He's deceived us so many times that even when he has an event that IS successful we no longer believe him. As for Wednesday night, I can personally attest that the place was more than half-empty.

The crowd? Not terrible, but not great either. Take my advice: if you want to go get your party on in Hell's Kitchen on a Wednesday night you're better off hopping around the 51'st+52'nd street triad of Posh (if you want to dance and be cruisey), Vlada (If you want to drink and be pretentious) and Therapy (Peppermint's Cattle Call is always a hoot). They also have great drink specials as well. "Frat Boi" Wednesdays is just more of the same mediocrity. For god's sake there aren't even any frat boys there so change the damn name. May I recommend "Community College Twink" Wednesdays? A challenge: If anyone can show me an actual bona fide frat boy at HK Lounge I will promise to eat nothing but carbs for a month.

Still, if you're monetarily challenged like I am then you might want to stop by from 10-12, pound back twenty some-odd beers and then go shake it at Posh. That's how you exercise good time management skills.

This party belongs in the East Village and not in Hell's Kitchen. I can't even imagine how much higher the costs for a place like HK must be than the old Boysroom for example. I don't expect this to last very long.

Coming soon: Hot Mess, now @ Rush! Will it be terrible? What will happen to the "VIP" section?? Is that one hot bartender still going to be there??? The suspense is killing me. Gag.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual.

Movies: Choke on this

If you haven't seen it yet you simply must go and watch the trailer for Choke. Its an independent film starring Sam Rockwell and Angelica Houston that's based on Chuck Palahniuk's (author of Fight Club) awesome novel.

It's about a guy who goes to fancy restaurants and chokes on food so that the people who rescue him will feel sympathy for him and send him money. Oh, and he also goes to sex addiction meetings in order to get laid. Whats not to love? Its a feel good movie for the whole family

You can see it here:




Watch this preview clip too, it's hilarious:



Oh, and it also gifted us with this delicious credo: What Would Jesus Not Do?

Good morning Upper East Siders

Spotted:

Little Connor Paolo, AKA Eric van der Woodsen talking to a hot hunk of man outside of a prominent Hell's Kitchen eating establishment at 52'nd St. and 9'th Ave at roughly 10pm on Thursday June 5, 2008. Does this mean that this not-yet-legal Gossip Girl star plays for our team? Well, no. But it might raise a few eyebrows? Here's hoping he is what he plays on TV.

Until next time.

You know you love me.
XOXO,

Gossip Guy

"Fashion" That Makes Me Shudder: American Apparel

Dear American Apparel:

Ok, I love you guys. I really do. Its really great that you don't use slave labor. Way to be compassionate and environmentally friendly and all of that other white people crap. Congratulations on bringing back the v-neck shirt. That was a good move. Your underwear are super cute too, and I've seen many a guy look adorable in them. Oh, and you make things in lots of pretty colors. I'm all about bright, pretty colors. I own several of your shirts and I enjoy them immensely.

I remember the first time we met. I was at pride in Montreal and my friends and I were looking for new outfits/costumes for the nights festivities. Then we spotted this funny little store called American Apparel (ironic since it was in Canada). We went in and discovered a veritable treasure trove of basics. T-shirts in assorted colors, a simple pair of pants or shorts. Nothing too fancy. At that time your stores were simply organized and sparse; no-nonsense and convenient. We each walked out with white tube socks, solid color booty shorts and matching tank tops. We masqueraded around the streets of Montreal that night as 70's porn stars. Ahh, memories.

I'm the one with the face.

But here's the thing American Apparel... what is it you want from me? I mean...where is it that you want this relationship to go? You just keep pushing and pushing, and I really don't have anything left to give you. I've gotta tell you that it hurts me... it really does.

Later you introduced the v-neck T and the slim pant. The fashionistas of the world looked at it and proclaimed it good. But you weren't content to stop there, no. You had to introduce the deep-v and the super slim pant. The v-necks just keep getting lower and lower! Will it eventually reach the point where you're selling an open shirt that's joined by a little band of fabric at the waist? And the pants...slimmer and slimmer. I mean...now you now sell tights for men for chrissake!

And the colors? What are you doing to colors? To begin with you had every basic color in the rainbow, every gay boys dream. Then things got weird. Now you want me to buy teal or magenta colored denim? I simply don't have that kind of disposable income. You brought back the tie-dyed shirt. Did that need to happen? Who was it in your design team that sat down at a meeting and said, "you know what I'm feeling for this season? Tie-dye." I would like to shake him warmly by the hand for his sheer cajones.

As you pushed your trends further and further into the radical wilderness of slimness and v-neckiness your stores began to reflect this change. I went into one of your stores in Chelsea just a few weeks ago and it had this kind of museum/mausoleum feel to it. It was cold and everything was white, and I felt like I shouldn't touch anything. The people there looked displeased to see a customer, and it took me a good 15 minutes to get their attention to open up a fitting room for me. What gives? You and I, we used to get along so great!

I just can't continue on this path with you and I'm sorry. I'm not a very big guy. I'm about 5'8" 140lbs. Even if I dieted, jogged and cocained myself to death I still wouldn't fit into your ultra-slim jeans and your XXS deep v-necked shirts.

It's over American Apparel.

It's just not going to work between us. No, it's not you. It's me. Really. I just can't keep up anymore.

I might still stop by to pick up my stuff. You know, my shirts and underwear and all that.

I have a friend you might be interested in though. I know it's too soon, but I really think you two would hit it off. His name is Jack Skellington and he would look positively fierce in teal jeans and a magenta deep V. I'll give you his number.

I'd photoshop Chelsea into the background, but I'm just not that skilled.

Goodbye and good luck.

KEFFIYEH UPDATE! (and tranny eyebrows)

Well thanks to "Vlad from Porky's" master photography skills I now have pictures of the ACTUAL keffiyeh douchebag to whom I was referring. The photos come from Drew Zailen's website which you can find here. His face is of course concealed to protect his identity (and protect me from reprisals), but here he is:




<==Okay, so I had to leave in his tranny eyebrows. More on that below.

Luckily for us he eventually took that thing off ==>

Ok. Tranny eyebrows. This is one of the terrible things a boy can do to himself, yet so very many are guilty of it. Just check out your resident twink club. Or almost all of Chelsea.

Not all of us are born with perfectly shaped eyebrows. Quite a few of us must do a little bit of maintenance in order to keep them from growing wild. But for the love of sex, don't over-pluck them or allow the bitch that's about to wax you to give you overly-perfect, overly-arched eyebrows. What results is something creepily feminine that completely obscures all gender references

Take this poor soul here. What we have is a pretty damn good looking guy. Keffiyeh aside, his fashion sense is pretty killer. He's got a nice tight little body that he's probably worked on quite a bit. So kudos to him for all that; that's all great. But see, then he had to go and give himself tranny eyebrows and that just totally kills it for me. Any appeal that he had goes right out the window with those eyebrows. Grow them in buddy, just a little. Real men don't have arches.

Fun tidbit for you all: there was a very brief, very dark period in my life in which I accidentally overplucked and achieved tranny eyebrows myself. I still live with the shame of it. For those of you with access to my facebook profile: if you search my pictures carefully enough you'll find a couple pictures of me in that sad sad state. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

This city deserves a better class of homosexual

"Fashion" That Makes Me Shudder: Keffiyehs

Picture it: Sicily. 1942.

Oh wait. Wrong story. Ahem.

Picture it: a hip Hell's Kitchen bar/lounge. I'm standing at the bar with some friends who are breaking it down to the latest pop/hip-hop/dance tunes. I turn around, and what do I see beside me? Some douchebag in a keffiyeh. For those of you who don't know what a keffiyeh is, it's a patterned piece of cloth that Arab men traditionally wear as a headdress to protect themselves from sun exposure. Think Lawrence of Arabia and Yasser Arafat. Lately hipsters and douchebags everywhere have taken to wearing them for no particular reason whatsoever. This must end.

Now I know what you're going to say: "but Marc, fashion is all about self-expression! People should be able to wear whatever they want!" Look, I'm all about self-expression, ok? Go make whatever radical fashion statement you want and I'll support you. I only have two criteria that you should follow: a) You should somehow still resemble a human being of this time period. This means no silver space suits, reinaissance garb, togas, or animal costumes, unless you're going to a theme party (and why would you?). b) You can't go and ignorantly bastardize another culture just because you think it looks cool. White people: no kimonos, saris, burkas or fucking keffiyehs!

I bet you didn't know that the keffiyeh worn by westerners has historically been a symbol of Palestinian solidarity? No? Well it is. Honestly, I don't think I've ever actually spoken to a person wearing one (amen), but if I ever do I'm going to ask him what his stance is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unless he tells me that he passionately supports the Palestinian cause, I'm going to strangle him with his fucking keffiyeh.

Why do people feel the need to follow every minute fashion trend? Just because it looked good on somebody somewhere at some point in time does not mean it looks good on you. The gays are notorious for this. The minute something is spotted on a celebrity or in some obscure fashion magazine you know you're going to find half the homosexuals of the world sporting it. The keffiyeh is but one example of the horrendous things that we do to ourselves as slaves of fashion.





















This city deserves a better class of homosexual

Terribleness: DRANK!

This was on the Village Voice website today:


According to their article, this is an "extreme relaxation beverage". Basically, it's a "carbonated, grape-flavored beverage spiked with melatonin, valerian root and rose hips. Apparently it is 'very, very popular in Houston,' and it's sold throughout the south in liquor and convenience stores."

To quote a friend of mine, who will probably be the only person to read this: I can't. I just can't.

Read the full article here

Terminology: Down with the syndrome

Alexis Syndrome:

Describes the state of being an aged twink, or one who appears unusually young for his age. One who looks 18 but is really 28. This combination of experience and youthfulness (along with the knowledge that nothing lasts forever) results in excessive flirtation and/or promiscuity. The term itself can have both positive and negative connotations depending on the tone in which it is used in a case by case basis.

Examples:

Negative
Gay 1: Hey, that little twinky guy over there is pretty hot
Gay 2: Ugh, yeah. I guess. But I got a good look at him a few minutes ago and he's got a serious case of the Alexis Syndrome.

Positive
Gay 1: Hey, that little twinky guy over there is kinda cute. I hate dumb twinks though
Gay 2: Yeah, but this one looks like a case of Alexis Syndrome so he might actually have a brain.


Experiment with this. Use it in a club or bar next time you see someone that fits the description. I want to hear it being whispered in gay villages all over North America. I also want a wikipedia article for Alexis Syndrome by the end of the month.

Cheers,

You knew it was coming: Hillary Clinton post

Hi Ladies,

Let me preface this by saying that I have nothing against Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, I'm not even an Obama supporter either. For someone that studies politics for a living I'm really very apathetic about the American "democractic" process. There's a whole list of complicated socialist reasons for why I feel this way, but that's for another post. Ok, here goes:

What the fuck is with all the gays and Hillary Clinton? I think I've met a total of three homos who support Obama; the rest of them just fawn over Hillary like she was Madonna or something. To all of said homos, listen closely: Hillary Clinton is NOT a diva. I repeat, she is NOT a diva. If she became President she wouldn't go and bitch-slap Kim Jong Il. She wouldn't sass Iran into halting their nuclear program. She's not gonna have babies and a turbulent divorce, or a nervous breakdown and a prescription drug addiction, ok? Her and Bill's marriage doesn't mirror the plot of Dream Girls and she didn't sing And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going to him when the sex scandal broke out. I guarantee you she doesn't go to fancy restaurants and chug cosmopolitans with her lady friends.

She is the same as every other boring, generic politician out there. Except with a vagina.

I get it. I really do. The idea of having a sassy, frigid bitch as President appeals to the drag queen in all of us. If that's what we want, then we should have been having fundraisers for Mimi Imfurst instead. Lets not make this woman into something she's not simply to satiate our desire for fierceness and drama. This isn't to say that none of the gays support her for her political opinions and policies. I'm sure many do. But c'mon. Let's be honest here shall we? Distinguishing her politics from Obama's is like trying to tell the difference between two of the go-go twinks at Splash: it all looks the same and you can only spot the differences if you examine them in depth.

Clinton and Obama are practically the same person and there's no reason to support either of them over the other save for circumstantial speculation on who has a better chance of beating McCain. That being said I was really, REALLY tired of hearing all those tired old queens whine about how much they love Hillary and how much Hillary "gets" the gay community.

What? You weren't tired of that?

Thank baby Jesus that whole thing is over.

The only thing that would make me go to Sugarland...

Sadly I already have other plans.

Oh and a word of advice: Le Tourment Vert is absolute shit. Practically zero thujone content (that's fancy for "it won't fuck you up"). You're gonna wanna get Kubler or buy something from overseas if you want really good absinthe.

Terribleness: NYC gay celebutards

Hi.

Has anyone seen the "VIP" section at Hot Mess? Did you recognize anyone from anything besides porn?

Has anyone seen the emptiness that is Sugar Wednesdays at Vlada? Doesn't it look kind of like every other night at Vlada?

Does anyone remember the brevity that was Ruby Thursdays? Yeah, me neither.

Or hey, what ever happened to that sticky dungeon called Boysroom? Good riddance, I say.

Don't you hate it when those e-mails try and trick you into thinking there's going to be someone famous at the club this week? Check your inbox, and I'll bet you you've got one waiting for you.

Have you ever noticed how despite the "theme" parties Splash looks exactly the same every Thursday?

Am I the only one that thinks the go-go twinks are locked up in someone's basement during the day? Poor things look like they escaped from Neverland ranch.

Have you ever been to Hiro when you're not high? Did you run out of there screaming like I did?

Whats with those drag queens that are too young and skinny to possess any sizable quantity of bitchy, cynical wit?



This is New York City. This is not acceptable. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this city deserves a better class of homosexual. If I had a decent income, I'd give to them, but at least I can hold those responsible accountable for their terribleness.


Oh, and give props where they're due too. Expect this to become a regular thing.