MARCH 6 - 19, 2009 WEB EXCLUSIVES AT GAYCITYNEWS.

COM VOLUME EIGHT, ISSUE 5

YOUR FREE ■ PROP 8 IN COURT ■ LESBIAN TO APPELLATE COURT ■ WE LAUGH, WE CRY

WEEKLY Cal Supreme Court argument Guv’s historic appointment of Will Ferrell is predictable,
NEWSPAPER analysis by Arthur S. Leonard Judge Rosalyn Richter but deep too
P.14

Gay City
A M E R I C A’ S L A R G E S T C I R C U L AT I O N G AY A N D L E S B I A N N E W S P A P E R !

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S E R V I N G G A Y, L E S B I A N , B I A N D T R A N S G E N D E R E D N E W Y O R K • W W W . G A Y C I T Y N E W S . C O M

■ CRIME

Two
Arrests in
Bushwick
Bias
Murder
BY PAUL SCHINDLER

K
eith Phoenix and
Hakim Scott were
“navigating” their way
home to the Bronx from a fam-
ily party on Atlantic Avenue in
Brooklyn at about 3 a.m. on
December 7, 2008 when they
came upon Jose O. Sucu-
zhanay and his brother Romel,
who were themselves headed
P. 6

J. B. NICHOLAS
■ NOW, FRUIT TV
UK venture beefs up DA ROBERT MORGENTHAU FACES QUESTIONS FROM THE LGBT COMMUNITY ABOUT PROSECUTIONS OF LESBIANS & GAY MEN
queer options
■8
—————————————

■ LOSING HISTORY
Stonewal plaque
leaves a lot out
Morgenthau
—————————————

■ ON THE EDGE
Alistair McCartney’s
■ 13

Without Tears Manhattan DA’s 35 Years Included

gay “World Book”
■ 23 Questionable & Failed Prosecutions
—————————————
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE coverage that described them as “seven “[Morgenthau has] always had a tenu-
bloodthirsty young lesbians” and “a pack ous relationship with the lesbian, gay,

D
espite a stinging wind and freez-
ing temperatures, roughly 20 peo-
ple gathered outside Manhattan
criminal court on Centre Street to demand
that District Attorney Robert Morgenthau
drop the charges against Renata Hill, one
of seven young lesbians who was involved
in a 2006 fight with Dwayne Buckle in the
West Village.
Three of the seven made plea deals and
FRONTIER OF DAWN four went to trial in 2007 amidst media
of marauding lesbians.” Though they
argued that they were defending them-
selves against Buckle’s attack, all four
were convicted on various charges.
But in 2008, state appellate courts
threw out the conviction against one,
ordered new trials for two, including Hill,
and reduced the sentence against the
fourth, who had been convicted of stab-
bing Buckle. Morgenthau is saying he
wants to re-try Hill.
bisexual, and transgender community,”
said Rickke Mananzala, executive direc-
tor of FIERCE!, or Fabulous Indepen-
dent Educated Radicals for Community
Empowerment, at the March 2 demon-
stration.
On February 27, Morgenthau
announced that he would not seek a tenth
term as district attorney. While main-
stream press reports have found his 35
years as district attorney to be almost

18 © GAY CITY NEWS 2009 • COMMUNITY MEDIA, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED P. 6
 2/ Community
Marching Toward Equality
A decade later, St. Pat’s For All is Sunnyside tradition
BY WINNIE MCCROY
T
hroughout the course
of the last decade, a
small St. Patrick’s Day
parade in a New York borough
has made a lasting mark on
the world. The all-inclusive
St. Pat’s For All Parade, held
on March 1 in Sunnyside,
Queens, has evolved from an
“alternative” holiday parade,
organized by gay activist
Brendan Fay, to a remark-
able example of a community
embracing diversity.
“When we began this parade
we couldn’t have imagined
the friendships and com-
munity spirit that sustained
and helped the parade grow
beyond the streets of Queens
to include annual concerts at
the Irish Arts Center and local
schools,” said Fay. “People get
it. It’s still the parade that has
the aspect to it that ‘We wel-
come you,’ that ‘We’re inclu-
sive.’”
This year’s grand marshals,
Terry George, a director (“The
Boxer”) and screenwriter
(“Hotel Rwanda”), and song-
writer and folksinger Susan
McKeown — both of them
Irish-born — led the parade.
As in years previous, commu-
nity organizations, dancers,
musicians, and puppeteers
marched under their own
banners, celebrating Queens’
cultural diversity. An NAACP
NEWS BRIEFS
Major
Challenge to
DOMA From
Massachusetts
For the first time, a major
LGBT legal group has filed a chal-
lenge to the constitutionality of
the 1996 Defense of Marriage
Act (DOMA).
Gay and Lesbian Advocates
and Defenders (GLAD), the group
that won the right for same-sex
couples to marry in Massachu-
setts in 2003, has filed suit in
federal district court on behalf of
eight couples and three surviving
spouses who have been denied
federal benefits such as Social
Security spousal payments and
the right to file joint tax returns
with the IRS.
For years, the LGBT legal
establishment has opposed
going to federal court to overturn
DOMA because they believed
such a suit was a sure loser
that would set a bad precedent.
While individual couples have
St. Patrick’s Day has an inclusive and friendly face each March in Sunnyside.
group carried the banner of
Frederick Douglass, recalling
his visit to Ireland during the
famine. The Mexican commu-
nity honored San Patricios and
how Irish immigrants defended
them in the US-Mexican War
of 1846-1848. Ecuadoreans
celebrated the founder of
their navy, Irishman Thomas
Charles Wright. Native people
from the Choctaw and Shin-
necock tribes remembered
how their outreach in 1847
helped save starving Irish
people during the great fam-
ine.
Even the African-American
and Latino children from
the Irish dance group the
By ANDY HUMM
brought suits challenging DOMA,
they haven’t gotten very far.
GLAD is only going after the
section of DOMA that denies
federal recognition of legal same-
sex marriages, arguing that the
federal government recognizes
all other marriages licensed by
the states even though the laws
governing which different-sex
couples can marry varies widely
from state to state. The group
noted that the federal govern-
ment does not itself license any
marriages, “only states do.”
GLAD is not challenging the
other part of DOMA that allows
states to deny recognition to
legal same-sex marriages per-
formed elsewhere. Most states
have laws or, increasingly, consti-
tutional amendments forbidding
same-sex marriages and banning
recognition of those performed
elsewhere.
If the suit is successful, how-
ever, gay and lesbian couples
from states like Nebraska that
6 - 19 MAR 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
FRI.MAR.6
FILM
A Different Look at
Jamaica
Staggering stories of anti-gay vio-
lence have come out of Jamaica in
recent years, but documentary film-
maker Selena Blake says, “The Jamai-
ca I know is one that is characterized
more by tolerance, if not open accep-
tance. There is the majority who could
not care less about someone’s sexual
preference. We want the world to
know that we are not a nation ruled by
homophobes and the barbaric actions
of a handful of ignorant natives.”
GRCC
Through a series of interviews in
“Taboo… ‘Yardies,” Blake sheds a dif-
ferent perspective on homophobia in
Jamaica. Lesbian Cinema Arts, LGBT
Keltic Dreams of P.S. 59 in undeniably become a cher - Community Center, 208 W.13th St.,
the Bronx witnessed how, ished neighborhood tradition. reception, 6:30 p.m.; program, 7:30
in stark contrast to Ancient “We come together as diverse p.m. Admission is $8 at gaycenter.org;
Order of Hibernians’ parade communities of New Yorkers $10 at the door.
on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, to celebrate Irish heritage and ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
which bars participants from culture,” said Fay. “Exclu-
identifying themselves as sion in 2009 — whether from DANCE
LGBT, this event invites all to a community parade, a family Modern Musical
show their connection with table, or an institution such Mélange
Irish culture and heritage. as marriage — is wrong and Doug Elkins hosts a remarkable pro-
This year, parade atten- unfair.” duction presented by DancenowNYC,
dance was higher than ever, If politicians represent a fair which invited eight choreographers to
with the route lined with spec- barometer of popular attitudes, present a new work inspired by their
tators despite brisk tempera- the St. Pat’s For All’s philoso- favorite Broadway musical. Those
tures and morning flurries. phy seems to have gained participating are Gina Gibney Dance
A parade that originally drew ascendancy in Sunnyside. with cabaret singer Carol McCann
anti-gay protesters and only a “Every year, more and more (“Mary Poppins”), Nicholas Leichter
small turnout of curious com- elected officials realize that and Monstah Black (“The Wiz”), AdHoc
munity members gathered Ballet | Deborah Lohse (“Company”),
along Skillman Avenue has 䉴 SUNNYSIDE, continued on p.8 Stefanie Nelson (“Song and Dance”),
Claire Porter, (“No Strings”), Singh +
Dance (“How to Succeed in Business”),
Tami Stronach (“Cabaret”) and Megan
Williams and John Heginbotham
prohibit same-sex marriage could was in Republican hands. They man Gerry Studds, who has been (“Grease”). Joe’s Pub at The Public
marry in Massachusetts and are also worried that it will lead denied the health benefits that Theater, 425 Lafayette St., below
return home with federal rights their states to pass anti-gay state other surviving spouses of House Cooper Sq. Mar. 6-7, 9:30 p.m. Tick-
and responsibilities, but no state constitutional amendments that members receive. ets are $20 at joespub.com or 212-967-
rights. have thus far been kept at bay, as You can read about all of the 7555. For a table reservation, with a
Beyond a carefully crafted in North Carolina, which turned plaintiffs and GLAD’s legal argu- minimum, call 212-539-8778.
and compelling legal argument, blue only in Obama’s sweeping ments at glad.org/doma. A legal ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
GLAD seems to be counting on a electoral victory. analysis written by Arthur S.
federal judiciary that will become GLAD is calling for a parallel Leonard, Gay City News’ legal Things Gone Awry
increasingly hospitable as Presi- political effort to overturn DOMA correspondent, can be found at Director Aaron Draper, a member
dent Barack Obama selects new in the Congress, a move sup- newyorklawschool.typepad.com/ of nicholasleichterdance, collaborates
judges. Obama’s solicitor general ported by Obama but not viewed leonardlink/. with fellow choreographer Kimberly
will be obligated to defend the as likely to happen soon, even by “In our view,” Mary Bonauto, Almquist, musicians Jeff Bybee, Jason
law as with all congressional out gay Massachusetts Repre- GLAD’s civil rights project direc- Ewald, Damien Foxton, Gillian Harwin,
acts, but is seen as less likely to sentative Barney Frank. In 1996, tor told the New York Times, “it’s and Tom Laurie, and performers Chris-
raise the kinds of arguments that DOMA was passed by a five-to- a straightforward equal protec- tine Bodwitch, Richard Grebanier, and
the Bush administration would one margin in both houses of tion issue.” Nicole Mitchell to present “Something
have. Congress and signed by President Stolen…Well, Borrowed,” an inter-
There is some concern, voiced Bill Clinton. New York’s Senator Anti-Gay mingling of dance, theater, comedy and
fervently by some LGBT blog- Charles Schumer voted for it as Senator Out; live music like “a penguin in bondage.”
gers from states that often vote a House member and has yet to LGBT Festival Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street
Republican, that this suit will call for its repeal or to support Celebrates Settlement, 466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
trigger a renewed campaign for same-sex marriage — the only Chris Buttars, the Utah Mar. 6-7, 8 p.m. Tickets are $15; $10
a federal constitutional amend- statewide official in New York Republican state senator for students & seniors at theatermania.
ment to completely ban same-sex holding out on marriage equality. famous for racist and anti-gay com or 212-352-3101.
marriage in the United States, an One of the plaintiffs is Dean outbursts, was removed from ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
effort that failed several years Hara, the widower of Massa-
ago even when the Congress chusetts Democratic Congress- 䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.10 䉴 MAR 6, continued on p.7
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 3

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4/ Politics
Corzine Gay Nups Clasp Tightens
New Jersey guv tells dinner crowd, “I believe in marriage equality”
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
A
t a gala dinner that
attracted 800 advo-
cates for LGBT equal-
ity, New Jersey Governor Jon
Corzine, a Democrat facing a
potentially tough reelection
campaign in the fall, made his
strongest statement to date in
favor of enacting a marriage
equality law in that state.
“I’m a Democrat and I’m
straight and I believe in mar-
riage equality,” Corzine told
an enthusiastic crowd at the
Garden State Equality (GSE)
Legends Dinner on February
28 in Somerset. “If we work
together, 2009 will be the year
when I will take this pen out of
my pocket and we will sign the
marriage equality bill.”
On every occasion at which
he’s addressed the matter of
marriage equality, Corzine
has evolved one more incre-
ment. When the New Jersey
Supreme Court, in late 2006,
ordered the Legislature to give
same-sex couples all the rights
and benefits enjoyed by mar-
ried different-sex couples, the
governor said that civil unions
should be given the chance to
work before considering full
marriage equality.
But as early as the fall of
2007, Corzine told a group
of gay journalists in Newark
that he would have no qualms
about taking action on a
marriage bill before he faced
reelection in 2009. The only
political concern he raised
was the possibility that taking
the matter up in 2008 could
become a distraction in the
effort to elect a Democratic
president.
PROP 8 ARGUMENTS ANALYZED
AT GAYCITYNEWS.COM
As Gay City News was going to
press, the California Supreme Court
was hearing oral arguments in the
challenge to the validity of Proposi-
tion 8, an amendment to the Cali-
fornia Constitution approved in the
November election that overrode the
court’s ruling last May holding that
gay and lesbian couples have a right
to marry.
An analysis of the arguments
by New York Law School Professor
Arthur S. Leonard, the newspaper’s
legal correspondent, will be posted
at GayCityNews.com on March 6.
Attorneys arguing in front of the
court in opposition to Prop 8 included
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine were among the speakers at the February 28 Garden
State Equality dinner.
Early in February, Cor -
zine stepped even closer to
his Somerset statement that
“I believe in marriage equal-
ity” when, before a crowd at a
Human Rights Campaign din-
ner in midtown Manhattan,
talking about the gay rights
defeat from Proposition 8 in
California, he said, “New Jer-
sey is going to reverse that,
and we’re gong to move for-
ward, and we’re going to have
a happy governor signing the
marriage equality bill when it
gets to my desk.”
Despite Corzine’s strength-
ening advocacy on gay mar-
riage, nobody in New Jersey
Shannon Minter from the National
Center for Lesbian Rights, Teresa
Stewart, the chief deputy city attor-
ney for San Francisco, and Christo-
pher Krueger, representing State
Attorney General Jerry Brown.
The anti-gay groups granted
“intervenor” status in the case to
defend Prop 8 were represented by
Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor
who zealously sought to destroy Bill
Clinton’s presidency.
The high court, which must rule
within 90 days, will also determine
the validity of the marriages of same-
sex couples performed before Prop 8
was approved.
is predicting action on the bill
prior to the November election.
In addition to the governor,
the strongly Democratic State
Assembly — but not the Sen-
ate — is up for reelection.
If a marriage equality bill
is passed this year, it would
likely come in a post-election
lame duck session.
Still, Corzine assumes
political risk in his position,
despite polls in the Garden
State that show a growing
level of support for marriage
equality. His likely Republican
opponent, US Attorney Chris-
topher J. Christie, opposes
marriage rights for same-sex
couples, saying instead he
supports civil unions, which
in practice means little since
it is the minimum acceptable
option under the 2006 State
Supreme Court ruling.
A Fairleigh Dickinson Uni-
versity poll released March
4 gives Christie a 41-32 edge
over Corzine.
The gover nor, however,
got support at the GSE din-
ner from at least one promi-
nent Republican. AnnLynne
Benson, a former director
of Gloucester County Right
to Life, introduced Corzine,
acknowledging that she has
political differences with him
but saying he “is in politics for
all the right reasons.” Benson
was a member of the New Jer-
sey Civil Union Review Com-
mission, a 13-member body,
6 - 19 MAR 2009
“If you want to talk the
Bible, I’ll take the home field
advantage,” he said, also not-
ing that four bishops were in
attendance at the dinner.
Pointing to estimates from
the Williams Institute at UCLA
School of Law, Goldstein
addressed the argument that
in the current economic crisis,
issues like marriage equality
are a diversion from the press-
ing needs at hand.
“Well, wake up and smell
the money,” he said. “Marriage
equality is the best economic
stimulus of all.”
Williams estimated that
even “conservatively,” open-
ing up marriage to lesbian
and gay couples would pump
$248 million into New Jersey’s
economy.
“Please listen to our pain,
hear our struggles, feel us
TROY MASTERS
behind the civil union wall,”
Goldstein said, before turn-
ing specifically to Corzine:
“You’ve done great things,
and you can do them again.
Tear down the civil union
established when civil unions wall. Tear down all the walls.”
were first enacted, to evaluate When Corzine came on
their effectiveness in meeting s t a g e m i n u t e s l a t e r, h e
the high court’s mandate. quipped, “After Steven spoke,
The Commission issued its there’s no pressure on me.
report in December, unani- Right?”
mously concluding that civil One of the evening’s hon-
unions fell short of guaran- orees was Christine Quinn,
If marriage equality is passed this
year, it would likely come in a
post-election lame duck session.
teeing full equality, and urg- the out lesbian speaker of
ing the Legislature to enact a the New York City Council. In
marriage bill “expeditiously her remarks, Quinn framed
because any delay in marriage the marriage equality issue
equality will harm all the peo- in broader terms.
ple of New Jersey.” “The thing you need to
Corzine’s speech was pre- remember about the fight for
ceded by a veritable stem- marriage equality is that it
winder delivered by Steven is bigger than just the rights
Goldstein, GSE’s chair. Noting and responsibilities of mar-
at the outset of his remarks riage,” she said, before talk-
that he had lost weight since ing about the arrest the day
many in the audience last before of the second sus-
saw him, Goldstein explained pect in the 2008 mur der
that he had “been on the civil of an Ecuadorean man in
union diet.” Bushwick, whose attack-
“We’re tired of being fed ers thought he was gay and
Sweet and Low,” he told the shouted homophobic slurs
crowd. “We want equal.” as they killed him.
Goldstein, a rabbinical stu- “By gaining marriage
dent at the Reconstructionist equality, we will not only get
Rabbinical College near Phila- the rights and responsibili-
delphia, challenged marriage ties that go with it, but we will
equality opponents who claim affirm the value of our lives,”
religious objections. Quinn said.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 5

The Time is Now!

LGBT Equality & Justice Day
Tuesday, April 28 in Albany
Register NOW at www.prideagenda.org

Join hundreds of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender New Yorkers and our allies from across the state to
push for the passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), the Dignity for All Schools
Act (Dignity) and marriage equality legislation. Equality & Justice Day 2009 will be the most important yet,
because with the new pro-LGBT Majority in the State Senate, passage of these bills is truly possible!

For more information, visit www.prideagenda.org or call (212) 627-0305.

 6/ Crime
Morgenthau Without Tears
Manhattan DA’s 35 years included questionable & failed prosecutions
䉴 continued from cover
entirely a success, Morgen-
thau’s relationship with the
queer community presents a
far more complex picture.
As the 89-year-old presses
ahead with Hill’s case, his
office is also prosecuting gay
and bisexual men who were
busted for prostitution in at
least six Manhattan por n
shops by city vice cops. At least
30 men were arrested on such
charges last year, and at least
five are currently contesting
the charges. Those arrests are
seen as false arrests in the gay
community.
“I think it’s been up and
down,” said Clarence Patton,
who headed the New York City
Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence
Project (AVP) until January
of 2008. “I think certainly on
some of our major bias cases,
his staff did the best that they
could. I think that we have
certainly seen some less posi-
tive things... that are more
connected to the police.”
In emails, Gay City News
sought comment from Kim
Fountain, AVP’s deputy direc-
tor, and Sharon Stapel, AVP’s
executive director. Fountain
mistakenly sent an email to
the paper that was intended
for Stapel that character -
ized AVP’s relationship with
Two Bias Murder Arrests
Bronx men in custody for 2008 anti-gay, anti-Latino slaying
䉴 continued from cover
home to 21 Kossuth Place
in Bushwick from a nearby
church party.
Accor ding to New York
police, when Phoenix, 28, and
Scott, 25, happened upon the
two brothers, who were walk-
ing arm in arm, they shouted
anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs
from the sports utility vehicle
they were driving, jumped from
the vehicle, and fatally attacked
Jose with a bottle and an alu-
minum bat, then got back in
the SUV to continue their trip
to the Bronx.
Nineteen minutes later, a
video camera on the Robert
F. Kennedy Bridge in Queens
recorded the vehicle, with Phoe-
nix laughing in the driver’s seat,
stopped at a toll booth, as it
completed the journey to the
Bronx.
The NYPD spelled out these
Protesters demanded that the Manhattan district attorney drop the prosecutions of seven
New Jersey lesbians involved in a 2006 fight in the West Village.
Morgenthau’s office one way.
Unaware of the Fountain
email, Stapel sent Gay City
News an email that gave a dif-
ferent and conflicting descrip-
tion of that relationship. With
Fountain and Stapel retroac-
tively declaring some emails
off the record, Gay City News
has opted to quote none of
them.
Morgenthau has had prob-
lems with questionable arrests
of gay men in the past.
In 2003, state statistics
showed that between 1981
and 2001, 399 people state-
wide were arrested for con-
sensual sodomy, a law that
was found unconstitutional
by New York’s highest court in
1980. Of the 399 arrests, 296
were in New York City and 214
of those were in Manhattan. In
details at a February 27 press
conference to announce the
arrest of Phoenix, who was
apprehended less than 36
hours after Scott was taken into
custody.
Police Commissioner Ray-
mond W. Kelly said that both
men made “full confessions”
after being apprehended.
“This horrible act appears
to have been fueled by a dead-
ly combination of ethnic and
homophobic prejudice,” Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg said, add-
ing that the arrests send “the
clear message that our city does
not tolerate hate crimes and
that our laws protect everybody
without prejudice of any kind.”
The victim, 31, was an Ecua-
dorean immigrant, and his
brother Romel, 38, was visiting
New York from Ecuador on a
two-month visa.
On March 3, Brooklyn Dis-
trict Attorney Charles Hynes
2003, a Morgenthau spokes-
person insisted that none of
those individuals had been
prosecuted on that charge,
though the office ignored an
open records request made
by Gay City News seeking the
records on those arrests.
Morgenthau has had suc-
cesses working on cases that
have caught the attention of
the LGBT community.
In 2001, his office won the
conviction of Daniel Oliveira
in the 1997 killings of Angel
Roman and Roger Brooks.
Oliveira is serving a life sen-
tence. In 2007, Morgen-
thau’s office obtained guilty
pleas from the four men who
assaulted performer Kevin
Aviance in the East Village in
2006.
Representatives from Mor-
announced that a grand jury
handed down indictments of
both suspects on charges of
second-degree murder, man-
slaughter, and assault, all as
hate crimes.
Conviction for second-
degree murder carries a mini-
mum sentence of 15-years-
to-life and a maximum of
25-years-to-life. If the men are
convicted on the hate crime
charge, the minimum increas-
es to 20-years-to-life.
Scott was arrested near his
home in the Bronx on February
25. Phoenix was apprehended
at about 2:30 a.m. on February
27 in Yonkers at the apartment
of an elderly female acquain-
tance. Kelly said the woman had
worked in a group home where
another acquaintance of Phoe-
nix’s was raised, and that a per-
son police interviewed suggested
the suspect might be at her Yon-
kers home.
genthau’s office have, on at
least two occasions in the
past decade, participated in
town hall meetings that dis-
cussed issues of importance
to the queer community. But
the Manhattan district attor-
ney has also been criticized
by community groups.
In 1998, Morgenthau’s
office drew objections when
it indicted Robert Cockrell,
who allegedly stabbed a gay
man in the West Village, on a
weapons possession charge
after arraigning him on that
charge and assault in the
first degree.
“I think the district attor-
ney blew it,” said Christine
Quinn, who was AVP’s execu-
tive director at the time. “I
fail to understand how they
presented this case in a way
which failed to yield an indict-
ment for assault.” Quinn, an
out lesbian who represents
Chelsea, is now the speaker
of the City Council.
The district attorney has
also bungled some major
cases. In 2000, a jury acquit-
ted Eric Carolina in the 1998
murder of Fitzroy Green after
Michael Alperstein, Carolina’s
attorney, argued that his cli-
ent, who was 21 in 1998, was
defending himself from the
36-year-old’s sexual assault
when he stabbed him 25 times
Top city officials, including City Councilmember Diana Reyna, who represents Bushwick,
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, and Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg, on February 27, announced the second arrest in Jose Sucuzhanay’s
2008 murder .
A witness to Sucuzhanay’s
murder, who called 911 from
the scene, gave police the SUV’s
license plate number, which
identified the vehicle as belong-
ing to a woman with whom
6 - 19 MAR 2009
with most of those wounds in
Green’s back.
Alperstein is currently rep-
resenting Jeromie Cancel,
who faces second-degree mur-
der charges in the 2008 killing
of Kevin Pravia, who was gay
and a 19-year-old sophomore
at Pace University.
In 2002, Morgenthau’s
office struggled with the pros-
ecution of Dwayne McCuller,
who killed Amanda Milan,
a transgendered woman, in
2000. In a deal, McCuller
pleaded guilty to manslaugh-
ter and received 17 years,
though he could be released
in 2015.
In 2007, David Jordan,
who was 44 in 2006, won an
acquittal in the 2006 killing
of Philip Mann, a 68-year -
old Harlem minister, after he
argued that he was fending off
a sexual assault.
“The question that those
cases raise is, do the out-
comes indicate prosecutorial
ambivalence or do they indi-
cate a real need to do some
work on [assistant district
attorney] training,” Patton
said. “The question is, was it
for lack of trying or were there
other factors involved.”
Gay City News did not
receive a response to an email
seeking comment from Mor-
genthau’s press office.
WILLIAM ALATRISTE/ NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL
Phoenix was involved. He had
earlier last year been in an acci-
dent driving the vehicle.
Phoenix, who is on parole
䉴 BRONX MEN, continued on p.7
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS Don’t Ask Timing Unclear
14 NIGHTS Senate’s Carl Levin raises doubts that repeal is “high priority”
䉴 MAR 6, from p.2
Third-Culture Kid
Alaine Handa and Dancers presents
“Marketplace,” its winter performance
season with the premier of Handa’s “Mal-
adroit” and a reprise of “Salaam,” along
with works choreographed by company
members Yayoi Kubota and Emily Vetsch.
Handa’s latest dance film will also pre-
miere. Merce Cunningham Studios, 55
Bethune St. at Washington St., 11th fl.
Mar. 6, 9 p.m.; Mar. 7, 8 p.m.; Mar. 8, 3
p.m. Tickets are $15 at alainehanda.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ the near term, responded, “I
Changing on
Own’s Own
Serbian choreographer Sasa Asentic,
in “My private bio-politics,” a solo piece,
probes what it means to be contemporary
— personally and publicly. Beginning as
an investigation of how dance is experi-
enced in transient Eastern European cul-
tures, the work has grown into an actual
dialogue with the audience, debating the
global expectations of a performing body.
Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W.
19th St. Mar. 6-7, 7:30 p. m. Tickets are
$26 at dtw.org or 212-924-0077.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ voted against it in 1993, and
PERFORMANCE
Operatic Seaport
Versatile, boundary-defying perfor-
mance artist Joseph Heckler presents
the US premiere of his newest solo
play with music, “Human Jukebox,”
which weaves together stories about a
mother’s life-threatening aneurysm, her
ability to summon any song she’s ever
heard, the existential musings of an
eccentric voice teacher, and the narra-
tor’s survival strategies as a receptionist
in a music publishing firm. The musical
score includes a Puccini aria and several
original ballads, accompanied by Heck-
ler’s blues piano. Heckler also presents
his audience favorite, the one-act “Cat
Lady.” Elizabeth Gamble directs. La
Mama E.T.C., 74A E. Fourth St., town.
Bowery & Second Ave. Mar. 6-7, 10
p.m.; Mar. 8, 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $15
at lamama.org or 212-475-7710.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
SAT.MAR.7
Words Are Cheap
Coffee, donuts, and books make
for a welcoming Saturday morning.
The LGBT Community Center’s Pat
Parker and Vito Russo Library hosts
a book sale, with titles ranging from the
classics to the trashy. There are thou-
sands of titles to choose from. You can
take home five books for $2. 208 W.
13th St., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ with a bottle with which he hit
GALLERY
Darkness at the
Edges
Daryl-Ann Saunders and Jill Water-
䉴 MAR 7, continued on p.8
■ POLITICS
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
A
ccording to a February
24 report by Mary Lou-
ise Kelly on National
Public Radio’s “All Things
Considered,” Michigan Sena-
tor Carl Levin, the Demo-
cratic chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, asked
about the prospects for end-
ing the anti-gay Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell military policy in
just don’t think we can give
that a high priority, given the
situation that we face.”
The situation Levin referred
to, Kelly reported, included
the wars in Iraq and Afghani-
stan, and the nation’s eco-
nomic crisis.
Meanwhile, the lead-
ing advocacy group press-
ing for an end to Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell, the Servicemem-
bers Legal Defense Network
(SLDN), noted that Levin
supports ending the policy,
is merely “being very candid”
about “when is the right tim-
ing in his committee” to move
on reform.
Saying he remains optimis-
tic that congressional action
could come this year, Aubrey
Sarvis, SLDN’s executive
director, told Gay City News,
“I reconcile my optimism
fairly easily with [Levin’s]
remarks.”
In his comments to NPR,
Levin also said, “I’m gonna
be working with colleagues to
see how much support there
is for it. And where along
the process we can take that
issue up.”
Sarvis emphasized that
Levin supports action in the
current Congress.
California Democratic Con-
䉴 BRONX MEN, from p.6
from an armed robbery convic-
tion, had used Scott’s name as
an alias in the past, which is
what clued police into the two
men’s connection.
According to Kelly, before
Scott jumped from the vehicle
the morning of the murder, wit-
nesses heard anti-gay and anti-
Latino slurs being yelled from
the SUV. Scott, who was in the
passenger’s seat, exited first,
Jose Sucuzhanay.
Phoenix, who was driving,
then got out of the SUV, went to
the back and pulled out an alu-
minum bat, which he smashed
over the victim’s head, before
walking away. Then, Kelly said,
6 – 19 MAR 2009
gresswoman Ellen Tauscher,
who on March 2 reintroduced
legislation to end the policy,
was quoted in the NPR report
saying her bill remained an
important goal, but may face
delays given that Congress
is “triaging the effects of very
bad tax policy from the Bush
administration... [and] people
are losing their homes and
their jobs.”
PageOneQ reported that
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
also a California Democrat,
told a March 3 gathering of
progressive bloggers that
Tauscher’s bill is a prior -
ity that will come to the floor
“when we have the votes.”
Last summer, the Person-
nel Subcommittee of the
House Armed Services Com-
mittee, on which Tauscher
serves, held the first hearing
on gay service in the military
since the issue was debated in
1993 and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
was enacted into law. Davis’
hearings were widely seen as
a public relations win for advo-
cates of ending the discrimina-
tory policy.
Wild accusations warning of
increasing HIV rates and sexu-
al harassment made by Elaine
Donnelly, president of the
Center for Military Readiness,
which opposes open service by
gay and lesbian soldiers, were
both denounced and ridiculed
at the hearing and in many
other quarters, ranging from
the Washington Post to Jon
Stewart’s “Daily Show.”
However, Ike Skelton, the
Missouri Democrat who heads
up the House Armed Services
Committee, has to date been
resistant to revisiting the cur-
rent policy.
NPR quoted Congressman
Joe Wilson of South Caro-
seeing Sucuzhanay move while
lying on the ground, Phoenix
walked back to him and again
bashed his head with the bat.
Sucuzhanay lingered on
life support for five days in a
Queens hospital until his death
on December 12.
Police would not comment as
to whether a third person, seen
on the RFK Bridge video hand-
ing money to Phoenix from the
back seat, had been identified
or was being sought. On March
4, the New York Post reported
that person, whom it did not
identify, will testify against the
suspect and is under police
protection.
Asked what police learned
about the motives of the two
men arrested, Police Inspector
lina, the ranking Republican
on Tauscher’s subcommittee,
saying, “Executing a change
in law at this time would be
problematic, given the intense
engagement of our leaders and
our forces in prosecuting the
global war on terror.”
SLDN’s Sarvis, in a tele-
phone interview with Gay City
News after the NPR story sur-
faced, said that his group’s
recommendation to the Obama
administration is that it roll a
change in policy into its revi-
sions to the Defense Depart-
ment appropriations bill origi-
nally introduced in the waning
days of the Bush presidency.
Congress will likely take up
the new administration’s bud-
get proposals by late April, and
defense is currently slated to
be the first area of scrutiny.
Sarvis noted that it was dur-
ing congressional consider-
ation of President Bill Clinton’s
first budget proposals in 1993
that the gays in the military
issue was framed— to the det-
riment of opening up service
to gays; Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s
enactment was the result of
that process.
Advocates for changing the
policy, the new administration,
and even Levin “may not be
able to control” when the Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell policy review
comes up, Sarvis warned. If a
proactive strategy is not devel-
oped for raising the issue, he
said, opponents of any change
could force the issue in a way
favorable to blocking any
reform.
In contrast, if the adminis-
tration were to incorporate an
end to the policy into its bud-
get plan, the onus would shift
to opponents to try and strip
it out. On the Senate side, in
particular, Sarvis said, Levin
Michael Osgood, commander
of the Hate Crimes Task Force,
said that hate crimes often
occur in “somewhat spontane-
ous fashion,” and that it is not
surprising that the confessions
made do not shed further light
on that question since suspects
usually aim to craft “self-serv-
ing” representations of their
actions.
City Council Speaker Chris-
tine C. Quinn, an out lesbian
who represents Chelsea and
Hell’s Kitchen, credited the
work of both the Hate Crimes
Task Force and Hynes’ office.
“These 2 arrests are critical-
ly important,” she said. “They
send a message that in the City
of New York, if you single some-
body out because of who they
7
would likely have the votes
in his committee to keep the
policy change in the appro-
priations bill, and Republi-
can opponents would face the
unenviable option of trying to
filibuster a defense authoriza-
tion bill.
Opponents might instead
be reduced to settling for a
face-saving up or down vote
on stripping out the poli-
cy change — an effort that
would lose but allow them to
record a vote against gays in
the military.
Sarvis conceded, however,
that there’s plenty of work to
do in the couple of months
before the appropriations
debate is joined. The Obama
administration, he acknowl-
edged, would not adopt such
a strategy unless it first had
the Joint Chiefs on board, as
well as Skelton on the House
appropriations side.
The Human Rights Cam-
paign (HRC), the leading
LGBT lobby group on Capitol
Hill, sounded a theme simi-
lar to SLDN’s, emphasizing
the need to coordinate efforts
with the Obama administra-
tion.
“As we await a road map
from the White House, specu-
lation about how and when
repeal will move forward is
merely that, speculation,”
Allison Herwitt, HRC’s leg-
islative director, wrote in an
email.
In the days leading up to
Barak Obama’s inauguration
last month, his press secre-
tary, Robert Gibbs, confirmed
the president’s continued
commitment on the issue,
voiced on the campaign trail.
The White House press
office declined to comment on
Levin’s remarks.
are or who you perceive them
to be, you will be found, you
will be captured, you will be
prosecuted to the fullest extent
of the law, and you will go to jail
for a very long time.”
Hynes termed the coordina-
tion between his office and the
NYPD “one of the most extraor-
dinary partnership investiga-
tions” in his memory.
“We cannot stay silent
when people are attacked for
their sexual orientation, their
race, their gender, or what-
ever, because clearly these
two young men were attacked
because these people, these
cretins thought they were gay,
and it makes it no less despi-
cable that they were not gay,”
Hynes said.
 8/ Community
And Now, Fruit TV
UK indie producers launching Internet video, radio LGBT programming
BY DOUG IRELAND
T
he gay corner of TV’s
“vast wasteland” — to
borrow the evergreen
description offered up in 1961
by former Federal Commu-
nication Commission chair
Newton Minnow — is about to
get what promises to be lively
competition… from a global
gay Internet TV station. Plans
for UK-based Fruit TV were
announced last week, and the
new venture says it will begin
“a rich variety of programming”
later this year, on both Internet
TV and Internet radio.
Fruit TV will offer “a selec-
tion of documentaries and
drama through to arts, biog-
raphies, lifestyle, comedy, and
short films,” said Fruit TV’s
creative director Ashley Byrne,
a former BBC news presenter
and co-director of the new
project’s co-sponsor, Made in
Manchester, an indie TV and
radio producer.
Byrne added, “Viewing and
listening habits are chang-
ing with people increasingly
choosing the Internet, but so
far there’s been little qual-
ity content that’s being made
exclusively for online audi-
ences. Fruit TV will change all
that.”
Byrne’s partner at Made in
Manchester is James Hick-
man, a five-time world swim-
ming champion of the but-
terfly stroke, who retired from
competition in 2004 and was
a commercial spokesman for
Speedo swimwear.
Other principals of Fruit TV
include its director of program
production, Scott Heslon, a for-
mer editor for the British ITV
network; Anthony Beswick, a
former producer for Britain’s
䉴 SUNNYSIDE, from p.2
this is a people’s parade,” said
co-organizer Kathleen Walsh
D’Arcy.
City Council Speaker
Christine C. Quinn, an
out lesbian from Chel-
sea, marches in Queens
every year and boycotts the
Hibernians’ parade. She
was joined in Sunnyside by
Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
Senator Charles Schumer,
Comptroller William Thomp-
son, Congressmen Anthony
Weiner and Joseph Crow-
ley, State Senator Thomas
K. Duane, also openly gay
and from Chelsea, Assem-
James Hickman, a five-time world champion in the butterfly stroke, is a partner in the new
Manchester Internet programming venture Fruit TV.
Grenada TV network; and gay
business owner Iain Scott,
whose properties include Tau-
rus, a large bar-restaurant-
music lounge on Canal Street
in the heart of Manchester’s
booming gay village.
Manchester has the UK’s
largest annual Gay Pride
March, with more than 50,000
participants last year and a
weeklong festival accompa-
nying it sponsored by over 50
local LGBT organizations.
One of the world’s first origi-
nal online programming plat-
forms, Fruit TV’s website cur-
rently offers a preview of com-
ing programming, with brief
clips from documentaries “Gay
Life After Saddam,” “Military
Pride,” and “Mina’s Story: HIV
Women in India;” a lifestyle
show called “My Gay Life;” and
several dramas. The website
promises regularly updated
preview clips until Fruit TV’s
formal launch as a live site
later this year, and Internet
viewers are invited to sign up
for a newsletter.
“Fruit TV is about giving
LGBT people an opportunity
to make lots of noise about
the issues that matter to them
— it’s about celebrating life-
styles, heritage, and culture,
blymembers Rory Lancman
and José Peralta, and Coun-
cilmembers Tony Avela, Eliz-
abeth Crowley, Bill DiBlasio,
James Gennaro, Eric Gioia,
John Liu, and David Yassky.
“What this parade says
today is that all members of
the Irish community in New
York City are very welcome
to be a part… and to be out
and proud about who they
are,” said Quinn. “Anybody
who thinks that the Irish
community doesn’t want to
embrace its LGBT members
just need look at this parade
and how much it has grown
every year, and how much
more diverse and strong it
Keith Price, the first out and
African-American satellite
radio personality, recounts
his experiences growing up in
Texas and his current dating
life in New York.” The other
“documentary” featured is
“Walk Like a Man,“ with a tag
JAMESHICKMAN.COM
that says, “Watch the struggle
between the San Francisco
Fog and Sydney Convicts for
the ultimate prize in the World
Cup of gay rugby, the Bingham
Cup.”
Apart from fictional films of
and providing a voice to those uneven and disputable quality
more isolated LGBT people in that make up the overwhelm-
countries where equality for ing bulk of its programming,
gay people lags behind,” said the Here! pay-TV cable net-
production chief Heslon, add- work’s sparse documentary
ing that “Fruit TV is about offerings are even less issue-
providing exclusive program- oriented. Here!’s latest original
ming for an audience under- documentary is entitled “The
represented and un-catered Afterlife,” which is promoted
for. LGBT issues have been as “Medium Suzane Northrup
largely forgotten by the main- helps a young man reconnect
stream media because produc- with his ex’s mother who has
ers think they’ve done ‘the gay recently passed.”
thing,’ but many of the issues If the lads from Manchester
are still there, and with equal- keep their promise to provide
ity come new challenges and quality, issues-oriented pro-
new stories to tell.” gramming for an international
Fruit TV’s promised empha- LGBT audience, with particu-
sis on documentaries and lar attention to the interests
issues programming may well and needs of people in coun-
put to shame the two US gay tries where queer people are
TV networks. The Viacom- still denied their human rights,
MTV-owned Logo network this would be a welcome
mentions not a single docu- change from the largely navel-
mentary on its website’s home gazing, self-indulgent, witless,
page this week, which instead and mind-numbingly dumb
gives pride of place to “RuPaul’s original programming by the
Drag Race,” a show featuring a two US gay TV nets.
contest for best drag queen. If you want to sign up for
If one goes to the Logo web- Fruit TV’s newsletter and keep
site’s page on the latest pro- abreast of what will be on offer
gramming, there are only two when its web site goes live, go
shows mentioned under “Doc- to fruittv.tv/.
umentaries.” One is “Ebony
Chunky Love: Bitch Can’t Get Doug Ireland can be reached
a Date,“ which is accompanied through his blog, DIRELAND, at
by the description “Comedian http://direland.typepad.com/.
gets every year.” Society of St. Francis, Cath-
“You know, all parades olic Workers, the Metropoli-
should be open to every- tan Community Church, the
one. Let’s get serious,” AIDS Center of Queens, and
said Bloomberg, who, like alumni of Notre Dame and
S c h u m e r, n o n e t h e l e s s St. John’s University.
marches in the exclusionary Fay pledged to keep press-
Hibernian event as well. ing for the Hiber nians to
Community groups march- change their tune.
ing included the Boys and “We have to keep protest-
Girls Clubs, the Fire Depart- ing discrimination wherever
ment’s office of recruitment, it occurs, and never settling
Services and Advocacy for for second-class citizenship,”
GLBT Elders, or SAGE, Irish said Fay. “I hope someday
for Obama, the Niall O’Leary the spirit of this parade
School of Dance, the Lav- spreads to the Irish parades
ender & Green Alliance, the in the other boroughs, and
All-City School Marching I will stay with the struggle
Band, Local 1199, Dignity until, one day, we all will be
N e w Yo r k , t h e E p i s c o p a l together on Fifth Avenue.”
6 - 19 MAR 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAR 7, from p.7
man curate “night moves exploring the
horizon,” an exhibition of photographs
by: John Dowell, Mark Jaremko, Lance
Keimig, Toby Keller, Maria Passarotti,
Saunders, Lynn Saville, and Barbara
Yoshida. Safe-T-Gallery, 111 Front
St., btwn. Washington & Adams
Sts., suite 214, DUMBO. Wed.-Sat.,
noon-6 p.m. through Apr. 11. More
information at safetgallery.com or-718
782-5920.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
GETAWAYS
Find Your Place in
the Sun
Center Share-a-Thon, presented
by Out Professionals, is a way to find
housemates to fill your summer home,
or find a full-, half-, or quarter-share in
a place you’ll enjoy. Admission is $40
if you’re looking for housemates; $15 if
you’re look to buy a share, or if you’re
a housemate with a share offeror who
paid the $40 fee. Register in advance
at gaycenter.org. LGBT Community
Center, 208 W. 13th St., Mar. 7, 11
a.m.-2 p.m.; Mar. 24, 6-9 p.m.; Apr.
16, 6-9 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
PERFORMANCE
Civil Servant
Nudity
Drag performer Linda Simpson
hosts a party fit for a queen in honor
of the late fabulously flamboyant and
witty gay icon Quentin Crisp, who died
in 1999 at age 90. The lively literary
salon includes readings, recollections,
and performances by some of Crisp’s
most ardent admirers, including come-
dian Frank DeCaro, post-modern caba-
ret singer Adam Dugas, East Village
musician/playwright Paul Korsinski,
veteran vaudevillian-inspired drag art-
ist Lavinia Co-Op, poet/photographer
Bobby Miller, guitarist-songwriter
Gordon Gano, the Radical Fairie dance
troupe Pixie Harlots, performance artist
Amber Martin, actor/dancer Jack Fer-
ver, queer Latino poet Emanuel Xavier,
and glam rock musician Paul Bernstein
and his Wide Stance band. Santos
Party House, 96 Lafayette St., btwn.
Walker and White Sts., 7-10 p.m.
Admission is $20.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
DANCE
Soft Parade &
Hard Too
The stage space is bare. Four
women are dressed simply, in skirts
and sweaters. One moment, they move
like boxers, fists clenched and raised
in Rocky-style triumph. In another
moment, a woman coyly reveals her
shoulder beneath a sweater; later, a
different woman repeats the gesture
䉴 MAR 7, continued on p.13
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 9

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10/ News Briefs 䉴 BRIEFS, from p.2 watch?v=TivVcfSBVSM. found guilty of second-degree sponsorship of the gay Folsom
6 - 19 MAR 2009
Colorado
Nixon said of the Greeks murder in the brutal slaying of Street Fair in San Francisco, Partners Bill
his post as head of the Judiciary that “homosexuality destroyed Ryan Skipper, 25, a gay man, in which the League said includ- Passes
Committee for breaking a deal them,” called Aristotle “a Polk County, Florida, last March ed “anti-Catholic incidents.” The Colorado State Senate
PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER
with his anti-gay Republican homo,” and that “the last six 15. He was sentenced to life in Miller, a Milwaukee-based on February 24 voted 22-12 to
JOHN W. SUTTER
646.452.2500 colleagues to cool the rheto- Roman emperors were fags.” prison, though prosecutors had company, agreed to end its extend benefits to the domestic
JWSutter@communitymediallc.com ric. He attributed the weakness of sought the death penalty. sponsorship under the pres- partners of state employees. It
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER & CO-FOUNDER Buttars’ latest outburst Britain and France to homosex- Bearden’s accomplice, “Bill sure. must now be reconciled with
TROY MASTERS was to a documentary film- uality, and said, “And let’s look Bill” Brown, 22, is awaiting trial. When American bishops a similar bill that passed the
646.452.2502 maker. He called same-sex at the strong societies. The The men attacked Skipper in addressed the child sexual House earlier. The state banned
troy@gaycitynews.com relations “an abomination” Russians. Goddamn it, they his own car, slashed his throat, abuse crisis in 2004, the New same-sex marriage in their con-
EDITOR IN-CHIEF & CO-FOUNDER and the LGBT movement root them out.” And after con- and stabbed him 19 times York Times reported that “he stitution in 2006 and rejected
PAUL SCHINDLER “probably the greatest threat demning the Bohemian Grove before dumping him on a road- agreed that gay candidates a ballot initiative giving gay
646.452.2503 to America,” while compar- retreat as “faggy” and full of side. [to the priesthood] should be couples civil unions.
editor@gaycitynews.com ing LGBT activists to Muslim gay men from San Francisco, Prosecutor Cass Castillo scrutinized more carefully Civil Rights
ASSOCIATE EDITOR “radicals.” he said, “I don’t even want attributed the severity of the than heterosexual candidates. Not Worth
Duncan Osborne “Most of what Senator to shake hands with anybody attack to “the hate, contempt, ‘I would think there would $1,500
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Buttars said, I agree with,” from San Francisco.” and disregard of another human be added temptations to the The burghers of Incline Vil-
Christopher Byrne (Theater), Susie Day, said Republican Senator How- being because he’s gay.” A wit- fruitful living of one’s chas- lage, Nevada, a Lake Tahoe
Doug Ireland (International), ard Stephenson, but his cau- “Rent” Wars ness testified that Bearden, a tity,’ Archbishop Dolan said.” ski resort area, voted 3-2 to
Brian McCormick (Dance)
Dean P. Wrzeszcz cus felt Buttars had become The principal of California’s meth addict, said he was “doing Dolan supported a state rescind a policy of provid-
too much of a “lightning rod” Corona del Mar High School, the world a favor getting rid of constitutional amendment ing health insurance benefits
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS on LGBT issues. who stopped a production of one more faggot.” banning same-sex marriage to the domestic partners of
Betsy Andrews, Seth J. Bookey,
Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell, A Salt Lake Tribune editori- the musical “Rent” over con- that passed in 2006 in Wis- employees of the Incline Vil-
Dean Daderko, Tate Dougherty, Andres Duque, al called him a “Buttaraurus,” cerns about gay themes, has Obama’s Health consin. It was opposed by 140 lage General Improvement
Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Nick Feitel,
Jim Fouratt, Joe Fyfe, Deborah Garwood,
writing, “Buttars will never reversed course and allowed Pick on Gays of his priests, about one-fifth District. It will save them
Erasmo Guerra, Emily Harney, Andrey Henkin, change. But Utah will.” the show to go on. It was a and Choice of the total answerable him. $1,500 for the two employees
Frank Holiday, Andy Humm, James Jorden, A “Buttars-Palooza” with toned-down “Rent: High School Kansas Democratic Gover- who were receiving coverage
Brendan Keane, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer,
Arthur S. Leonard, Rachael Liberman, live music and a DJ was orga- Edition” to begin with. nor Kathleen Sebelius, Presi- Hay Play under the policy.
Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass, nized by LGBT activists for In Taylor, Michigan, how- dent Barack Obama’s nominee Coming
Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott,
Gregory Montreuil, Ioannis Mookas, Carrie Moyer,
the lawn of the state capitol ever, Parks and Recreation to be secretary of Health and Harry Hay and Rudi Genre- Obama AIDS
Stephen Mueller, Christopher Murray, on February 28 and attracted officials put the kibosh on a Human Services, opposed a ich, two of the founders in 1050 Czar Gay
David Noh, Wayne Northcross, Lori Ortiz, more than 1,000 people cele- production of this version of 2005 amendment to her state of the Mattachine Society, the Jeffrey Crowley is Presi-
Pauline Park, Sheila Pepe, John Reed,
Nathan Riley, Andrew Robinson, Gerard Robinson,
brating the GOP senator being the musical by the local Teen constitution banning same-sex first serious US gay group, are dent Obama’s new direc-
Chris Schmidt, Sarah D. Schulman, taken down a peg. Youth Theatre. The officials marriage. She said at the time having their story dramatized tor of the Office of National
Jason Victor Serinus, Linda Shapiro, The head of the right-wing said “that city-sponsored that she supported the existing off-Broadway in “The Tempera- AIDS Policy. An out gay man
David Shengold, Gus Solomons Jr., David Spiher,
Drew B. Straub, Stefen Styrsky, Jerry Tallmer, Sutherland Institute debated programs should be geared law limiting marriage to man- mentals” by Jon Marans, set to and Peace Corps veteran, he
Stefanos Tsigrimanis, Kathleen Warnock, representatives of Equal- toward families,” the Detroit woman couples and that it begin previews at the Barrow teaches at George Washington
Benjamin Weinthal, Lee Ann Westover, ity Utah at the University of News reported. The young was sufficient, but the amend- Group Studio Theater on April University’s HIV/AIDS Institute
James Withers, Kai Wright, Susan Yung
Utah earlier in February. Paul actors are rehearsing on ment passed with 70 percent 30. and is a senior research schol-
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Mero, director of Sutherland, their own and trying to raise of the vote. Tempermental was a code ar at Georgetown’s Health Pol-
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Gay City News, The Newspaper Serving Gay and Lesbian NYC, is
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with what he called ‘all those year, despite the world going to New York NM Partner Bill Dobson Out
redistributed. All contents (c) 2009 Gay City News. impossible fags’ in the State hell, is “Expect More.” It is hardly news, but Pope The Roman Catholic bishops James Dobson, 72, one of
Subscriptions: 26 issues, $90.00
Department, oblivious that “This is a call to the LGBT Benedict XVI has named of New Mexico, who had stayed the leading anti-gay crusaders
(c)2009 Gay City News. All rights reserved. most in the room were Foreign community to expect more from an anti-gay leader, Timothy neutral in some previous gay rights in America, has resigned as
Gay City News is a registered trademark Service officers on temporary their healthcare providers, poli- Dolan, currently archbishop battles, came out to stop the state chairman of Focus on the Family.
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John W. Sutter, President
assignment,” Morris wrote. cy makers, their community and of Milwaukee, to be the new from adopting a domestic partners He stepped down as president
Fax: 646.452.2501; For a lot more Nixon anti- themselves,” the group said on archbishop of New York when bill that would have given gay and CEO six years ago. Dobson
E-mail: JWSutter@communitymediallc.com
gay talk, his 1971 discussion its website, lgbthealth.net. Edward Egan steps down on couples most of the same rights as told the board he will continue
with aides Ehrlichman and April 15. married couples. to do the group’s radio show
Haldeman about how the Life for Killer Dolan was praised by the The bill, backed by Democratic and speak out on what he sees
“All in the Family” TV show of Ryan right-wing Catholic League Governor Bill Richardson, was as moral issues.
was promoting homosexual- Skipper for standing up to the Miller defeated 25-17 by the State Sen-
ity is online at youtube.com/ Joseph Bearden, 23, was Brewing Company for its ate. 䉴 BRIEFS, continued on p.13
 6 - 19 MAR 2009
■ A DYKE ABROAD
I
mams — and priests and
pastors and monks — are
mostly just a bunch of
power-hungry goats, and I bet-
ter say it while I can. Our right
to speak freely about religion is
disappearing almost as quickly
as chances the world will pull
out of this “recession” any time
soon.
This week, the UN will con-
sider resolution 62/154, on
“Combating defamation of reli-
gions,” an annual motion sup-
ported by the Organization of
the Islamic Conference which
wants to put limits on speech
“necessary for respect of the
rights or reputations of others,
protection of national secu-
rity or of public order, public
health or morals and respect
for religions and beliefs.”
What it really means is that
feminists, LGBT people, and
political dissenters can be
squashed like flies and nobody
can say anything, least of all
us.
The resolution is non-bind-
ing, but every year I feel it clos-
ing in. This year more than
ever with surging faith-based
programs in the US matched
only in idiocy by the political-
■ SNIDE LINES
Lines in the Sand: Mad Activist Writes Gaza
Dear People of Gaza,
I’d like to take this opportu-
nity to apologize for doing abso-
lutely nothing in the last few
months to stop your suffering.
Although I cannot feel your
pain, I have seen it on the news.
I’ve read that 1.5 million of you
civilians endured weeks of
being fired on and bombed with
American-made weapons, and
that 22,000 of your buildings
now lie in ruins, 80 percent of
your crops are gone, and much
of your food, water, medicine,
and electricity remain shut off
and blockaded.
I would love to help you,
being as how I am a politi-
cally attuned person, living
in a country whose prima-
ry Enlightenment Value is
“Liberty and Justice for All.”
However, what with the flu
going around this winter, my
immune system is shot, and I
think I’ve got a virus. So I must
send my regrets.
Let us hope, as the kill-
ing of over 1,300 of your men,
women, and children fades
from the news, that the lob-
bing of occasional rockets
into Israel will stop, so we can
ly correct left which censors
selectively when it comes to
religion.
Cartoonists can make fun of
Rick Warren, but not of jiha-
dists in Denmark. For that,
multiculturalist fascists are
much more likely to pillory the
cartoonists from one end of the
pathetic Western world to the
other than condemn the death
threats. After all, sensibilities
were offended.
The problem is that only
the sensibilities of certain
people count. Mostly hetero-
sexual men. Who cares if I, for
instance, am offended when
straight people sit next to me
on the subway and start suck-
ing on each other’s faces? Who
cares if girls cry their eyes
out in Pakistan’s Swat Val-
ley because they’re locked up
at home when their brothers
head off to school?
I remember the leader of one
international gay group refus-
ing to condemn the execution
of gay men in Iran because the
government said they were
pedophiles, and conditioned by
all that multiculturalist kow-
towing, that was good enough
for her.
reflect on the three Israelis who
died in this conflict, and their
ten soldiers — at least four of
whom tragically succumbed to
friendly fire.
Well, I’m of f to my doc-
tor appointment. Meantime
— with the knowledge that
Hamas got you into all this — I
send you healing vibrations.
Dear Gazans,
I hate doctors. You guys are
so lucky that you have so few
left. This dude had the nerve
to tell me my whole problem is
“psychosomatic.” I’m outraged!
Well. OK. Maybe he’s right. I
mean, who am I to stand up to
the American Medical Associa-
tion?
OK, notice — People of
Gaza — how fast I just caved?
There’s a Message here: Each
of us likes to feel that she or he
is a moral powerhouse of cour-
age, perspicacity, and will! In
fact, we rarely are.
From the co-ed who scrubs
the floor of the men’s room
with a toothbrush so she can
enter a sorority; to the boy who
joins the gang-bang to prove
he’s not queer; to the occupy-
Perspective/11
Islam-a-Bad
BY KELLY JEAN COGSWELL
This false cultural and reli-
gious tolerance distorts our
priorities and erodes our com-
mon sense.
What’s most worrying to
me lately is how the UN’s rap-
porteur on Human Rights
has been totally undermined.
Once, they used to defend
free speech. After a decade or
so of pressure from a coali-
tion of Islamist fundamental-
ists led by Saudi Arabia, the
job description was recently
changed to force the rappor-
teur to pursue “abuses of free
expression” including “defama-
tion of religions and prophets.”
Americans usually ignore
the UN, unless they are blast-
ing it, but the rest of the world
relies on them to guarantee
free speech. And if the rap-
porteur is forced to privilege
conservative religious ideas,
how can anybody speak out
against genital mutilation,
child-brides, slavery, the elec-
tro-shocking of lesbians, the
executions of gay men? Now,
any liberation movement can
be seen as defaming a religion,
or contradicting a prophet.
A journalist for Britain’s
Independent, Johann Hari,
BY SUSIE DAY
ing soldier who strip-searches
“towel-heads” to demonstrate
patriotism — we do stupid,
sometimes unspeakable things
to avoid being kicked out of a
group of people we love and/or
respect. I ought to know; I’ve
been kicked out of just about
every group there is.
So you see, my desire to take
a risk as an individual is micro-
scopic, compared to my need
to feel that I am acceptable to
those I love. And so, People of
Gaza, deepest sympathy, but
your lives are as nothing, com-
pared to my fear of being seen
as an anti-Semite.
Dear Gaza Peeps —
JOKE! I was kidding! HA HA!
Please do not allow what I said
in my last note to fuel more of
your Islamic militancy. Maybe
my fear of being called anti-
Semitic is itself anti-Semitic. I
can accept that. The point is,
nobody bullied me into this.
My refusing to see what the
Israeli government is doing to
you is more an act of devotion
than a sin of omission.
Truth to tell, I’ve been seen
at the occasional Midtown
wrote, “Instead of condemning
the people who wanted to mur-
der Salman Rushdie, they will
be condemning Salman Rush-
die himself... Today, whenever
a religious belief is criticised,
its adherents immediately
claim they are the victims of
‘prejudice’ — and their outrage
is increasingly being backed
by laws.”
As global protections fall,
and the Church-State divide
crumbles in the United States,
I’m beginning to have zero
tolerance for believers, even
queers.
When I was editing The
Gully, I would solicit articles
by queer Catholics, queer
Muslims. It seemed important
that the LGBT community get
a look at our diversity. And in
terms of sheer political logis-
tics, I thought we needed to
support them as activists.
Better if we had a finger in
every pie, forces for change in
every camp than to concede
such important ground to the
enemy.
I wouldn’t do it again. They
put a sheen on something
that doesn’t have one, and
in the gay community, espe-
rally against the Israeli govern-
ment’s treatment of Palestin-
ians. But I can never bear to
stay. It’s better that my friends
stay — my Jewish friends who
resent that their Judaism is
used to justify oppressing you.
I envy them for being called
“self-hating.” It’s much nicer
than “anti-Semitic.” But there I
go again with my infernal anti-
Semitism…
Dear Palestinians:
Haven’t you been getting
my messages? I’m sorry, but
as a psychosomatic, I really
must decline your relentless,
unvoiced pleas for help. Please
stop suffering; it’s very self-
centered. Don’t you see who
the real victims are? Don’t you
see how brutally we Westerners
have been battered by news of
your dying and dismember-
ment? Maybe if you moved to
Rwanda or Darfur or Bosnia, I
could get involved. In any case,
I am not accountable to you;
Western Civilization has told
me I don’t have to be.
But I forget: you’re not part
of Western Civilization, are
you? Besides the Intifada,
cially, there’s almost nobody
answering back when they join
so-called religious moderates
claiming, “Islam’s a religion
of peace,” “Christianity’s all
about love.”
While religious queers can
certainly find texts to support
their claims, what about all
the other sections that sup-
port the contrary? When we’re
talking about knowing the
unknowable mind of God, you
can say the bigots are wrong,
but you certainly can’t prove
it. Religious texts aren’t wills,
with codicils revoking all previ-
ous statements, and witnesses
prepared to swear the author
was sound of mind and body
at the time of the change.
And with so much homopho-
bia out there, so much misog-
yny, and the currency of God
rising faster than the national
debt, queers should keep a
sledgehammer in one hand
knocking down religion, and a
trowel in the other building up
the wall between Church and
State.
Check out Kelly Sans Culotte
at http://kellyatlarge.blogspot.
com/.
that’s probably your greatest
fault.
I know it’s hard to accept
our basic precept, but try: Civi-
lized people can enjoy a peace-
ful, egalitarian Democracy only
after indigenous peoples (e.g.,
you) have been annihilated.
Ask any Chippewa.
Look, People of Gaza —
Maybe if I gave you a lit-
tle history lesson, you’d go
away. It’s like this: for centu-
ries, Western Civilization was
infused with anti-Semitism —
which remains very real today.
Western Civilization, built in
part on Jewish culture, went
on to kill millions of Jews,
whose devastated survivors
arrived from Europe on your
shores. No one ever deserved a
homeland more than they did
–— unless it was you.
Or perhaps you don’t need a
homeland. Perhaps, as others
have suggested, you don’t real-
ly exist. Maybe we Westerners
share a vast psychosomatic
condition, and you Palestinians
are all in our heads. In that
case, People of Gaza, pity us.
I’m going to go lie down now.
 12 6 – 19 MAR 2009 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

150 RALLY AGAINST

PROSTITUTION BUSTS
With speakers recalling the 1969 Stonewall riots that launched the
modern gay rights movement, roughly 150 people gathered at the site of
those riots to protest the prostitution arrests of gay and bisexual men in
Manhattan porn shops.
“We’re here today as a community to say we are tired of being pro-
filed,” said City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, who spoke at the February
21 rally held at Sheridan Square. “Let’s be clear about why we’re here, it is
because our sexuality is under attack.”
Police arrested at least 30 men on prostitution charges in six porn
shops in 2008, and those busts are widely seen as false arrests in the gay
community. The city then cited those arrests in nuisance abatement law-
suits it brought against five of those six shops, seeking to close the busi-
nesses.
Several of the men arrested have told Gay City News they were busted

after agreeing to leave the establishments to have consensual sex with
undercover cops, and the circumstances of numerous other arrests exam-
ined by the newspaper raise significant questions about their validity.
Altogether, police have busted at least 52 men in at least eight shops
dating back to 2004, and sued seven of those eight. Two of the seven
shops closed while the others stayed open under agreements with the city
that restricted their operations.
“Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, let me remind you that at
Stonewall we learned how to fight back,” said José Lugaro, who repre-
sented the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
A number of the 15 speakers who appeared at the rally recalled the
Stonewall riots, which began when police raided the gay bar. That bar, in
a new incarnation, operates at the same location in Sheridan Square and
was within sight of the rally.
The 1969 raid was conducted by a unit of the police department’s Pub-
lic Morals Squad. Many of the 2008 arrests were made by the Manhattan
South Vice Enforcement Squad, the new name for the old Public Morals unit.
“Our community, the trannies and the drag queens, rose up and said,
‘Enough,’” said Robert Pinter, who was one of the 30 men busted last year.
VADIM SHEPEL
Protesters reflected the view that the arrests are part of a broader assault on sexual freedom.
tion to Stop the Arrests, which organized the rally, activists were told that
police had paused in their efforts.
In January, the police department’s legal unit, which brought four of the
five lawsuits, withdrew a suit against Unicorn DVD, a porn shop at Eighth
Avenue and 27th Street where vice cops made five arrests in 2008.
The coalition has demanded an end to the arrests and prosecution of
the men who were busted, and an investigation into the arrests.
The rally also showcased clear dissatisfaction with Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg, who is seeking another term this November. The crowd
repeatedly chanted “No third term” and booed when his name was men-
tioned.
“If the mayor can’t or won’t put an end to these abuses, then we’ll have
to get a new mayor,” Andy Velez, a coalition member, told the crowd.
Also speaking were Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New

GAY CITY NEWS

“It’s time for our community to rise up again and say enough.” York Civil Liberties Union, Reverend Pat Bumgardner of the Metro-
The arrests have sparked an angry response from the gay community. politan Community Church of New York, representatives of community
In a February 11 meeting between Brian Conroy, the deputy chief of the groups, and elected officials or their representatives.
police department’s Vice Enforcement Division, and members of the Coali- — Duncan Osborne City Councilmember Rosie Mendez told the rally, “Our sexuality is under attack.”

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WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 13

14 DAYS A Lot of History Left Out

14 NIGHTS Stonewall plaque near Sheridan Square lacks context on ’69 raid, riots
䉴 MAR 7, from p.8 BY DUNCAN OSBORNE other myths concerning those
riots, may be corrected by a

with unmistakable aggression. Bach’s
solo cello music alternates with James
Brown. Monica Bill Barnes presents the
world premiere of “Another Parade”
at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance
Festival. Ailey Citigroup Theater,
Joan Weill Center for Dance, 405
W. 55th St. Mar. 7, 8 p.m.; Mar. 8, 2
p.m. Tickets at $20; $10 for students
& seniors 92Y.org/HarknessFestival or
212.415.5500.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Square.
FILM
A
s roughly 150 people
in the West Village on
February 21 protested
what they said are false pros-
titution arrests of gay men,
one noticed a plaque hanging
on the fence at the west end of
Christopher Park, a small plot
tucked between Christopher
and Grove Streets that is often
mistakenly called Sheridan
The plaque commemorates
the 1969 Stonewall riots, the
radio documentary being pro-
duced by the BBC that will
be broadcast on June 30, two
days after New York City marks
the 40th anniversary of those
riots with its Gay Pride March
down Fifth Avenue. “It’s the
first time the BBC has done a
documentary on the Stonewall
riots,” said Carter, who is con-
sulting on the documentary.
Carter is also consulting
with the “American Experi-
ence” history series, which is

GAY CITY NEWS

Bi the Way
In 1989, Jarle Klepp is 17, has an
amazing girlfriend, and the world’s cool-
est best friend, with whom he’s launch-
ing the toughest punk band in town.
Suddenly, Yngve appears in school
and Jarle is drawn to him, and just as
quickly he’s listening to pop music and
playing tennis. What’s up? Stian Kris-
tiansen’s 2008 “The Man Who Loved
Yngve” will be screened at Scandina-
via House, 58 Park Ave., btwn. 37th
& 38th St., 3 p.m. Ticket information at
212-879-9779
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ that, beyond the citations con-
JAZZ
Jammin’ Women
Rome Neal’s “Banana Puddin’ Jazz”
celebrates Women’s History Month
with jazz vocalist LaRe, poet Jewel
Allison, author of “Stealing the Peace”;
Miki Hayama on piano; and Mary Ann
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is followed by an open mic for jammin’
musicians only. Nuyorican Poets
Café, 236 E. Third St., btwn. Aves.
B & C, 9 p.m. Admission is $15, with
complementary banana puddin’. RSVP
at 212-465-3167.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ While “technically accurate,”
seminal event of the modern
gay rights movement, which
began after police raided the
Stonewall Inn, a gay bar that,
in a new incarnation, still sits
at 53 Christopher Street. The
reason for the raid, accord-
ing to the plaque, was “to curb
liquor law violations,” and that
text was enough to prompt one
of the protesters to march over
to a reporter and demand that
it be investigated.
“It’s technically correct in
nected to the riot itself, such as
assaulting police officers and
disorderly conduct, other cita-
tions were for either violations
of law relating to alcohol or to
the cabaret laws, and the raid
was mainly organized around
collecting evidence connected
to those kinds of violations,”
David Carter wrote in an email.
Carter is the author of
“Stonewall: The Riots That
Sparked The Gay Revolution,”
a 2004 book that is the defini-
tive account of the 1969 riots.
the author said during a Feb-
ruary 26 interview in Christo-
producing a documentary to
be broadcast on public televi-
sion by June 2010.
“It will be the first documen-
tary on the Stonewall riots
ever,” Carter said.
As he detailed in his book,
police harassed and arrested
gay, lesbian, and transgen-
dered New Yorkers for years
prior to the 1969 raid. Cops,
who were notoriously corrupt
at that time, were not above
shaking down those arrested
for cash or delivering a beating
or worse.
But on June 27, 1969 police
had a different reason for raid-
ing the Stonewall Inn. Cops
were aware of a blackmail ring
operating out of the establish-
ment, a Mafia-run bar at that
time, that targeted gay men
who worked on Wall Street.
Bartenders and hustlers who
were part of a prostitution
business run out of the loca-
tion learned the identities of
customers who were then
threatened with exposure if
they did not pay.
The raid was led by Deputy
Inspector Seymour Pine of
Historian David Carter in Christopher Park in front of the sculptures aimed at memorializing
Stonewall and the gay liberation movement.
police were aware that there
was a blackmail operation that
was snaring gay men on Wall
Street.”
The city’s plaque is not the
first discussion of Stonewall to
get facts wrong.
Some mainstream press
reports have incorrectly iden-
tified Sixth Precinct cops as
conducting the raid. Pine was
careful to not inform officers
there that he would be hitting
the bar. The Sixth Precinct was
one of the most corrupt pre-
cincts, if not the most corrupt,
in the city, and officers would
likely have tipped off the bar.
“He definitely didn’t trust the
Sixth Precinct, and with good
reason,” Carter said.
A few gay community mem-
bers and former cops have
made false or inflated claims
about participating in the
Stonewall riots in 1969. Even
the statue that the city erected
to commemorate our move-
ment and the community con-
sist of all white people is vul-
gar.”
The George Segal sculp-
ture features two couples,
two males and two females,
who are touching and may
be expressing affection. As a
memorial to the gay liberation
movement, it is ambiguous.
“You see heterosexuals
interacting more than that,”
Carter said. “If it didn’t have [a
plaque] next to it, you wouldn’t
know that it had anything to
do with homosexuality.”
Certainly, the statue cap-
tures none of emotion that
would be associated with a
riot or the radical nature of the
early gay rights activists.
“There’s no violence, there’s
no anger, there’s no sexual-
ity there,” Carter said. “Those
could be two friends talking.”
Now as the 40th anniversa-

SEX
SUN.MAR.8
Kink Is King
KinkForAll is an ad-hoc un-confer-
ence born out of the desire for queer,
sex-positive interested in kink to share
and learn in an open environment. It is
an intense, rapid-fire event with dis-
cussions, presentations, and interac-
tion from all participants. Come ready
to contribute in a creative environment
inspired by all aspects of the intersec-
tion of sexuality and life. Free. LGBT
Community Center, 208 W. 13th St.,
10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Free. For more infor-
mation, visit kinkforall.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ have called off its two-week
COMEDY
Waitin’ By the
Telephone
Hard-up, single comedians spin
all sexual frustrations into comedy
gold, when the perpetually single Brad
Loekle welcomes Tom Ragu, Jenny
Rubin (Comix); the always inappro-
䉴 MAR 8, continued on p.17
pher Park, the plaque, which
was put up by the city’s parks
department, elides over years
of history. “In fairness to the
city, it is a plaque and you can
only put so much on a plaque,
but it leaves out the whole con-
text,” Carter said.
That misinformation, and
䉴 BRIEFS, from p.10
Auto Dealer
Boycott
Suspended
Californians Against Hate
boycott of Ken Garff Automo-
tive Group, operating dealer-
ships in several states. The
company’s matriarch had given
$125,000 to the Yes on Prop 8
campaign. John Garff, her son
and the CEO, met with Utah
gay philanthropist Bruce Bas-
tian and the boycott group’s
Fred Karger, and said he came
away “with a greater level
the police department’s Pub-
lic Morals unit. The intention
was to close the bar and shut
in Christopher Park in 1992
that memorializes the riots is
seen as inaccurate.
ry approaches, and with Cart-
er’s help, the community may
be getting accurate stories of
down the blackmail ring. “The The late Craig Rodwell, that history. Certainly, that
police were harassing, even a longtime gay activist and is Carter’s mission. “I wasn’t
if on that particular occasion founder of the Oscar Wilde just interviewing for my book,”
they were not trying to harass,” Memorial Bookshop, told the Carter said. “I was trying to
Carter said. “The reason that New York Times in 1992, “To make a record, an historical
Seymour Pine gave me... the have a sculpture that is meant record.”
of mutual respect and under- anti-gay marriage amendments Bisexual Grand GLASS Gone
standing.” subscribe at a rate 11 percent Marshal for The board of Gay and
higher than states that do not Parade Lesbian Adolescent Services
Red States prohibit same-sex marriage. T h e S t . P a t r i c k ’s D a y (GLASS) in Los Angeles voted
Biggest Parade continues to bar LGBT unanimously to file for bank-
Consumers of Lithuania Irish groups from marching on ruptcy, a move that outraged
Porn Leader: I’m Not Fifth Avenue, but the Tartan founder and executive direc-
A review of “anonymized cred- Lesbian Day Parade on April 4 — cel- tor Terry DeCrecenzo, who
it card receipts” from online porn Daila Grybauskaite, the Euro- ebrating Scottish heritage—is with her staff has gone to
sites by Harvard Business School pean Union commissioner for being led by out bisexual actor court to overturn the deci-
found that Utahans are the biggest Financial Planning and Budgets, Alan Cumming this year. Cum- sion, Karen Ocamb reported
consumers, averaging “5.47 adult denied in an online interview ming, 44, previously married to on her blog. GLASS, founded
content subscriptions per 1,000 that she had a relationship with a woman, got a civil partner- 25 years ago, provides group
home broadband users.” another woman. “If you are ask- ship with graphic artist Grant homes and transitional liv-
Eight of the top porn con- ing whether I am a lesbian, then Shaffer in 2007 and became ing for LGBT youth and just
suming states went with no. I am not,” she wrote. She is an American citizen in Novem- became the first LGBT adop-
McCain in the 2008 election running for president of Lithu- ber. He was born in Aberfeldy, tion agency in the country,
and states that have passed ania in May. Scotland. Ocamb reported.
14/ Dance
I Love Structure
Laura Peterson at DNA; Lava at the Lyceum; Hilary Easton at Harkness
BY BRIAN MCCORMICK
L
aura Peterson’s quartet
“Forever,” a co-presen-
tation of Dixon Place
and DNA at DNA (February
18 to 22), started off like a
well-designed commercial for
a high quality printer, depict-
ing additive color mixing in the
round. Playful, crafted, and
nerdy, Peterson’s work sup-
presses technique to highlight
the beauty of oddness in a for-
malist world.
Peterson typically sculpts or
otherwise delineates the per-
formance space.
In her last work at DNA,
“Electrolux,” a thick white
square rug had demarcated
the zone of movement. For the
more sentimental “Forever,”
a white circle of floor cover-
ing surrounded three of the
space’s pillars, which were also
painted white. The audience
was seated on three sides, the
fourth side open to the mirror.
Dressed in duo tones of cyan,
magenta, yellow, blue, and
green, Peterson and fellow
dancers Kate Martel, Stepha-
nie Miracle, and Christopher
Hutchings combined to form
a rainbow of possibility in the
warmth of Mandy Ringger’s
subtractive color mixing — a
whimsical light show of satu-
rated reds, greens, blues, and
yellows.
The dancers moved in vari-
ous formations, adhering to
the general structures of the
awesome eclectic score — 24
strange and funny and allur-
ing “mono events” by Lum-
berob (Rob Erickson), with
electronic ambience by Dat
Politics at the start and finish.
With each event, it was if the
dancers were avatars, reset-
ting to the next task. Often,
the four would run around the
perimeter of the circle, in uni-
■ THEATER
Laughing and Crying
Ferrell is brilliant, harrowing as Bush; “White People” dated, unnecessary
CHRISTOPHER BYRNE
F
ans of Will Ferrell will
have no trouble find-
ing everything they
like about this antic comic
in his show “You’re Welcome
America. A Final Night With
George W. Bush.” Ferrell’s
movies have made millions
Laura Peterson’s “Forever” was a warm and welcome aural, visual, movement collage.
son, but with an odd, twisted
carriage, or hunched shoul-
ders with arms extended.
A chicken rap song inspires
them to march while waving
a finger, then to prance, plié,
and jump forward. Rhyth-
mic gulping brings the four
to center, contracting their
spines toward each other.
Each sequence builds, add-
ing details; some repeat in
reverse. Individual moments
also emerge, as when Peter-
son leaps like a dart, long
limbs contrasting a landing in
deep plié, or when Hutchings
convulses, punching with his
entire body.
It is as if, in these moments,
technique asserts itself. Peter-
son’s body celebrates it. Even
as her limbs seem to stiffen,
her energy leaps outs. Hutch-
ings resists the urge, fight-
ing the conditioning instead.
He twitches, limbs snapping
outward, joints contradicting
training, but the underlying
sketches can never be fully
erased.
with dim but affable char -
acters blundering their way
through all kinds of insane
situations. Ferrell’s specialty
is inane and clueless juvenil-
ia, and nobody does it better.
I have to admit that I was
unsure that Ferrell’s creep-
ily accurate impersonation
of “W,” which he first show-
Looped and layered, Peter-
son’s “Forever” was a warm
and welcome aural, visual,
movement collage. Reflected
like a dream in its entirety in
the mirror, it was, as prom-
ised, kaleidoscopic — with just
the right amount of human
imperfection.
S
arah East Johnson
choreographs dances
and does it well. It can
be easy to forget, watching
the awesome maneuvers the
women of Lava perform for
their audiences’ pleasure. But
“we become,” recently pre-
sented at the beautifully stud-
ded Brooklyn Lyceum in Park
Slope (February 12-March 1),
brought this fact into stark
relief.
Unfolding in a slow and
measured pace, “we become”
may be less spectacular than
Johnson’s previous work, but
it is also more mature. In the
cavernous space, decorated in
post-punk fashion by Nancy
Brooks Brody with a silver -
cased on “Saturday Night
Live,” would be enough to fill
an entire evening of theater
— even one that clocks in at
just under 90 minutes. But
in collaboration with direc-
tor Adam McKay, Ferrell has
crafted a tight show that also
manages a little theatrical
satire — skewering the per-
ELLE CHYUN
studded black wall hanging,
the performers become the
spectacle.
The current troupe, Rose
Calucchia, Molly Chanoff,
Diana Greiner, Lollo, Allison
Schnur, and Amy Verebay, are
all equally adept at the physi-
cal skill needed to execute
their intricate combined body
moves and the sense of trust
they convey without touching.
They move with deliberateness
and greater-than-self aware-
ness throughout.
Sculpture plus daredevilry
is expected, of course, but in
“we become,” a trio on trapeze
is notable as much for char-
acter development as it is for
acrobatic skill. Mats are laid
across the stage later in the
work, but the message here
is more about harmony than
velocity. A series of duets at
the center of the work were
especially compelling — pur-
poseful, heartening, intimate
despite the void.
Toshi Reagon’s songs were
fantastic accompaniment —
sonal memoir show that is
often simply insufferable.
We follow Bush through
his days at Yale, his perhaps-
homosexual r elationship
with Dave Rothschild, his
time in office, and his fam-
ily dynamics, including por-
trayals of his mother as a
powerhouse trying to control
6 - 19 MAR 2009
melodic, meaningful, and per-
fectly suited to the performers’
regard for each other.
While a late start time and
bad sightlines may have been
dissatisfying factors for some
critics, no one in the packed
house I was part of noticed.
One of the great things about
Lava is their community. You
don’t get the sense that you’re
among arbiters of taste or
other elites when you’re at a
performance hosted by Sarah
East Johnson. The show is
always good when you’re
among friends.
H
ilary Easton’s “The
Reclamation,” an
hour -long work for
four dancers and two actors,
transmitted like an adaptation
of Alan Weisman’s book “The
World Without Us,” or the
History Chanel’s “Aftermath:
The World After Humans,” at
the 92nd Street Y-Harkness
Dance Festival (Feb. 18-22).
As dancers evoke various
manifestations of nature —
good and bad from a human
perspective — Steven Ratazzi
and Jean E. Taylor play ecolo-
gists, warning of encroaching
kudzu or bacteria. Filtered
video by Anna Kiraly provid-
ed backgrounds with special
effects treatments. This literal
and binary dialog between
dance and theater proceeded
in time with music by Thomas
Cabaniss.
While the subject is worthy,
Easton seems to have found
less to inspire her with this
material. Taylor and Ratazzi
do their best to play up the
good humor in the text, but
there’s not enough of it. More-
over, the dancing is compart-
mentalized — in sections and
in lit spaces. As a result, it
never gets the chance to con-
geal.
her incompetent men and
Dick Cheney as a man who
cavorts with “goat devils” in
“a room full of pentagrams.”
In addition to W., we also see
Condoleezza Rice as an over-
sexed groupie, and a security
detail that cuts up when the
䉴 FERRELL, continued on p.15
 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
Will Ferrell brings his usual broad humor to yet another imbecile character, but also manages to tap W.’s dark side.
䉴 FERRELL, from p.14
prez is out of the room — the latter
just some silliness to mask scene
and costume changes.
The humor is predictably broad,
and no opportunity for the borderline
obscene, scatological, or obvious and
predictable joke is overlooked. This
is anything but sophisticated humor,
and if you can’t channel your inner
adolescent boy, the humor, which
has little variation throughout, may
fall pretty flat.
But there’s a dark side to this as
well. In fact, though your sides may
be aching from laughing, you leave
this show more than a little depressed
about the last eight years. Watching a
fixated pre-adolescent run the coun-
try into the ground in thrall to greedy
and amoral manipulators is a grim
reminder of what we have just sur-
vived.
T o see the clueless W. r eady-
ing himself for retirement, utterly
unaware of the chaos he has wrought,
leaves a pain in the pit of the stom-
ach. And that, of course, is why Fer-
rell is so brilliant. The more we see W.
gleefully in denial, the greater the hor-
ror of what we have inherited, what
we have to dig out from.
McKay has directed the piece at a
nice clip, and the set by Eugene Lee
and projections by Lisa Cuscuna
and Chris Cronin are good. The only
member of the company besides Fer-
rell who merits notice is Pia Glenn as
Rice, whose sex kitten performance
left me cold but certainly got whoops
and hollers from the audience.
In the end, the ultimate irony is
that W. is saying, “You’re welcome,”
without ever having been thanked.
It is at once ridiculous and horrific,
hilarious and harrowing to realize in
that simple ungracious act that this
buffoon has decimated so much of
our country. You laugh because oth-
erwise you’d cry.
I
t is the rare playwright who can
take three intersecting mono-
logues and create an effective
theater piece. J.T. Rogers is not one
of those playwrights. His new play,
“White People,” produced by Star -
ry Night Entertainment at Atlantic
Stage 2, is a creaking, shoddy piece
of work that attempts to make the
point that racism lurks in all of us
— whether overtly or unconsciously
— and shapes our lives in damaging
ways.
This theme has been covered
6 – 19 MAR 2009 15
µ4/@4/@/<2
/E/GB63
<3E;CA71/:
ROBERT J. SAFERSTEIN
=<0@=/2E/G¶
³>Ob1]ZZW\a
EE=@BD
YOU’RE WELCOME AMERICA. A FINAL NIGHT
WITH GEORGE W. BUSH
Cort Theatre
138 W. 48th St.
Tue.-Sat. at 8 p.m.;
Sat., Sun. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 7 p.m.
$56.50-$301.50; telecharge.com
Or 212-239-6200
WHITE PEOPLE
Atlantic Stage 2
330 W. 16th St.
Mon., Tue. Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.
Sat., Sun. at 3 p.m.
$45; ticketcentral.com
Or 212-279-4200
much more effectively in everything
from “Guess Who’s Coming to Din-
ner?” to “South Pacific” to “Avenue
Q.” Rogers adds nothing new to the
conversation, offers no new insights,
and instead defaults to conventional
stereotyped characters — a house-
wife from the mountains of North
Carolina, an attorney in St. Louis,
and a history professor at a New York
university — who are not particularly
interesting in themselves and whose
stories are unrelated. The structure
of the monologues is such that they
simply start and stop at different
times without any sense of building
the tension of the scenes, the charac-
ters, or the stories. The entire struc-
ture of the piece seems arbitrary.
It is also immature. Are we sup-
posed to recognize ourselves in these
stories? Are we supposed to exam-
ine our own prejudices and our
presumed guilt for harboring these
taboo feelings? Rogers is unclear.
What is clear is that the piece feels
dated and unnecessary, and under
the plodding direction of Guy Reyes,
90 minutes seems almost intermi-
nable.
The cast — Rebecca Brooksher as
the North Carolina housewife, John
Dossett as the attorney, and Michael
Shulman as the professor — do what
they can with the material, but they
each tend to overact as if the direc-
tor didn’t trust the material, which,
oN BroaDWay
come to think of it, is justified. Still,
the characters are never really devel-
oped beyond their types and, valiant-
ly as they try, the performances are
flat and tedious.
This is a play whose time had come
half a century ago. Today, it just feels TELECHARGE.COM/SHREK
1)050
#:
"/%3&8
&$$-&4
tired, self-reverential, and manipula- OR 212.239.6200
tive. Progress is, of course, slow, as
SHREKTHEMUSICAL.COM
is change, but someone might inform
BROADWAY THEATRE G^Õ[aYd;Yj\g^
Rogers that an African-American is Broadway at 53rd St. K`j]cL`]Emka[Yd
actually our president now.
16/ Theater 6 - 19 MAR 2009

Going Home Again

David Cromer’s luminous “Our Town” brilliantly revives a classic
BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE OUR TOWN
Barrow Street Theatre
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. So.

W
hen I was in middle school,
our class was bused up to
the Bucks County Playhouse
to see an aging movie star, unknown to
us and old to my parents’ generation,
play the Stage Manager in “Our Town.”
That production remains most memo-
rable for the fact that the star was obvi-
ously in his cups at the matinee.
Many more productions over the
years convinced me that this was a
play of romantic expediency, in which a
name star and a reasonably competent
cast can bathe an audience in nostal-
gia and easy sentiment, and bamboo-
zle them into thinking they’ve had an
evening in the theater.
Given Thornton Wilder’s other work,
the pre-absurdist satire “The Skin of
Our Teeth,” and the acerbic “Match-
maker,” whose edges were belt-sand-
ed away to create “Hello Dolly,” “Our
Town” became for me a symbol of all
that can be false and manipulative in
the theater, a hoary chestnut best for
summer stock and high schools –– or
avoided altogether.
It took the brilliance of director
Tue.-Sun. at 7:30 p.m.;
Sat., Sun. at 2:30 p.m.
$40-$69; barrowstreettheatre.com
Or 212-868-4444
my mind about this play and dem-
onstrate the inherent conflicts at its
center with a clarity and precision bor-
dering on genius. Without changing a
word of the script, Cromer’s clear-eyed
direction demonstrates that in reality,
“Our Town” is an anti-sentimental play
whose message is that nostalgia is a
wasteful and unprofitable emotion.
Yes, there is lyricism in the play.
Lines like “The morning star always
gets wonderful bright the minute
before it has to go, doesn’t it?” have
always seemed facile to me. Yet com-
ing at the outset of the play, Cromer’s
reading (he also plays the Stage Man-
ager) sets up what is the driving conceit
of the play –– that life is full of dichoto-
mies that are irresolvable. Our poetry
is our attempt to square the inexorable
yearnings of our souls with the harsh

CAROL ROSEGG
David Cromer to completely change realities of life.

David Cromer as the Stage Manager in a production of “Our Town” that he directs.

It is easy to think that such lines
as “My advice to you is not to inquire
why or whither but just enjoy your ice
cream while it’s on your plate — that’s
my philosophy,” are nothing but Hall-
mark bromides. Yet in his direction, in
the fierce resolution of Mrs. Gibbs and
Mrs. Webb particularly, we see that life
in Grover’s Corners in 1901 was not
a Christmas Card existence. It was a
hard go, and pleasures did not come
easily. In our world, where ice cream
is found at any corner store, we have
lost sight of what it took to milk the
cow, separate the cream, procure the
expensive sugar, and more. Ice cream
is not a mindless treat in Grover’s
Corners; it is the product of the love
and effort of many people.
Wilder cautions us not to look back
through gauze but instead, as Yeats
would have it, to “cast a cold eye on
life, on death,” while still embracing
the miracles of the world. The appro-
priate response is not gooey senti-
mentality, but a kind of mourning for
the human condition. Yet Wilder and
Cromer keep it light — and thus more
powerful. In the third act when the
Stage Manager says, “Whenever you
come near the human race, there’s
layers and layers of nonsense,” I
swear I’d never heard that line before,
but there it is, of course, in the script.
Yet now it has a relevance that reso-
nates movingly over the past century.
Cromer’s third act, which takes
place in the graveyard, has to be one
of the most beautiful things I’ve ever
seen. The dead are seated in chairs,
and they’re joined by Emily who, hav-
ing married George, has died in child-
birth. The act is not about death,
however, but a cold and cautionary
wake-up call. We’d better appreciate
life because there will come a time
when we won’t have it, and whatever
is beyond will render today irrelevant.
It is not just the acting that con-
veys this. Cromer uses a stage effect I
have never before seen in “Our Town”
before; one profound in its simplicity,
but with power that is nearly over -
whelming. Emily is caught between
the living and the dead, something I’ve
never seen in any other production of
the play. Her line, “Oh, earth, you’re
too wonderful for anyone to realize
you,” has always raised a lump in my
throat, but before now it was deri-
sive. In the amazing Jennifer Grace’s
simple, anti-romantic line reading, it
becomes almost an existential keen-
ing.
There is brilliance through every
aspect of this production. Cromer‘s
cast, including Lori Myers as Mrs
Gibbs, Kati Brazda as Mrs. Webb,
James McMenamin as George Gibbs,
and Jonathan Mastro as Simon Stim-
son, gives this play an edge and real-
ity that is spectacular.
“Our Town” is a gentle play for a
rough world, as it turns out. Stripped
of everything but truth, as it was orig-
inally and provocatively conceived, we
want nothing more. It is a rare piece
of theater that I will never forget.
6 - 19 MAR 2009 Theater/17
14 DAYS False Arrest in Sicilia
14 NIGHTS Simon Russell Beale wows anew in “Winter’s Tale”
䉴 MAR 8, from p.13 BY ANDY HUMM THE WINTER’S TALE combination of Beckett tramp,
BAM’s Harvey Theatre Runyonesque rogue, and hip-
651 Fulton St. at Ashland Pl.

priate Jessimae, and headliner and
titty-shaker Michelle Buteau (Comedy
Central, BET) to another edition of “The
Electro Shock Therapy Comedy Hour.”
Therapy Bar, 348 W. 52nd St., 10
p.m. No cover charge and $6 cosmos
all night long.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ert Pinter eloquently telling
MUSIC
Sounds of Youth
In her homeland of Korea, cellist Amy
Kim is renowned as a bright new talent.
Pianist Seymour Lipkin won the presti-
gious Rachmaninoff Competition at age
I
came to the Bridge Proj-
ect’s touching produc-
tion of “The Winter’s Tale”
at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music straight from listening
to a no less moving proclama-
tion of a false arrest — Rob-
a crowd of demonstrators in
Sheridan Square about his
outrageous one at the hands
of the NYPD for prostitution,
an arrest that shames us all
who have once more allowed
state power to become corrupt
pie troubadour. Also a treat is
Mar. 4-6 & 8 at 7:30 p.m.; Richard Easton’s rustic Time,
Mar. 7 at 2 p.m. who finds baby Perdita and the
$30 - $90; BAM.org
cash box left with her, becom-
Or 718-636-4100
ing “a made old man.”
The unreasonable exer -
crown as Greatest Actor in cise of power infects Bohemia
the English-Speaking World), when Polixenes angrily for -
as he veers from loving friend, bids his son’s (Michael Braun)
dad, and spouse to insane- marriage to what seems like a
ly jealous in mere minutes, beautiful commoner (Morven
ready to spurn his queen, Christie), only coming around
Hermione (Rebecca Hall, pow- when Perdita’s noble birth
erfully piteous yet dignified in — unknown even to her — is
the face of his onslaught), and revealed. This king expresses

19. The two appear together performing and fascist, especially in sex-
Beethoven and Mozart at Madison Ave- ual settings. You would think
nue Presbyterian Church, 921 Madi- we were back in the 1950s.
son Ave. at 73rd St., 3 p.m. Admission But this recent police scan-
is $15; $10 for students & senior; free for dal in our time and our city
those under 12 at the door. made this tricky tragedy/
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ comedy/mystery from Shake-
speare — his swan song in
1601 — all the more relevant
kill her unborn child.
Director Sam Mendes (Mr.
Kate Winslet these days,
after her Oscar win) makes
all this plausible and compel-
ling, showing us how Leontes
could conclude Hermione was
having it on with his Bohe-
mian buddy, Polixenes (Josh
JOAN MARCUS
no remorse for having tried
to keep his subjects in their
place.
Simon Russell Beale’s performance in the The most audacious healing
Bridge Project’s production of “The Winter’s scene in Shakespeare is the
Tale” confirms his sterling reputation. curtain closer here, as a stat-
ue of Hermione comes to life
life of shame. If only today’s before Leontes incredulous
power abusers had half of his eyes. Beale and Hall play this

BOOKS
MON.MAR.9
Thomas Glave’s
Latest
Thomas Glave, an O. Henry Prize
winner and American Library Asso-
ciation award nominee for “Best Gay/
Lesbian Book of the Year” for his story
collection “Whose Song?,” reads from
his highly anticipated new novel “The
Torturer’s Wife.” Barnes and Noble
Bookstore, 2289 Broadway at 82nd
St., 7 p.m. All B&N events are free. For
more information, call 212-751-5282.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
POETRY
Words of Youth
Urban Word NYC’s 11th Annual
Teen Poetry Slam brings out the top
and accessible, at least to this
critic. LGBT folks know all
about false accusations. Most
of us came out into a world
that branded our desires
immoral and criminal and
still withholds sanctions for
our unions.
The corrupt power here is
wielded by the king of Sicilia,
Leontes (Simon Russell Beale
once again retaining his
✯ Story Cut Short
An intimate ode to friendship dies swiftly on the Great White Way
BY DAVID KENNERLEY
Hamilton). The oracle scene,
in which Leontes ignores
supernatural testimony,
could have been silly, but in
these able hands deepens our
horror at the injustice trans-
piring before us.
Before the intermission,
the queen is dead, her new
babe banished, and Leontes
finally realizes his error and is
plunged into a well-deserved
For demanding theatergoers
immune to its muted charms,
regret.
In this Brit-Yank collabo-
ration, the Americans play
deftly and with enough ambi-
guity to let us see the heart-
break beneath this magical
the people of Bohemia and conclusion.
provide what amounts to a This “Winter’s Tale” is only
variety show respite from the here through March 8, but
mounting pain in Sicilia. It’s it will be reprised at Kevin
so much bawdy fun, it’s a Spacey’s Old Vic, one of the
wonder the sex police don’t collaborators, from May 19
close it down. through August 15 in London,
Here, Ethan Hawke has a in repertory with “The Cherry
ball as Autolycus, a delightful Orchard.”

teen poets from across the city. Poets
will compete for a chance to perform
at the Grand Slam Finals at the Apollo
Theater on April 4, and represent New
at the National Teen Poetry Slam in
Chicago. This event is free for teen
performers, and features special guest
poets and DJs. Teen poets, emcees,
and spoken word artists should sign up
now at signup@urbanwordnyc.org. The
Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church,
131 E. 10th St. at Second Ave., 6 p.m.
Admission for those not performing
is $8; $7 for students & seniors; $5 for
teens & Poetry Project members.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
T
he creators of “The
Story of My Life,” an
intimate, kind-hearted
wisp of a show, gambled that
their no-frills, Capra-esque
production would lure theater-
goers longing to get back to
basics in these trying financial
times. In many quarters, as
everybody knows by now, glitz
and excess are out. Modesty
and intimacy are in.
But not necessarily under
the harsh lights of Broadway.
After just 18 previews and five
✯ regular performances, the pro-
ducers pulled the plug on the
endeavor, which couldn’t even
however, it proved to be one of
the dullest musicals ever, as
well. Even most theater critics
were bored.
For starters, the show was
a two-hander — starring the
exceedingly appealing Malcolm
Gets and Will Chase — that
offered many of the contem-
plative qualities often reserved
for one-man shows (Billy Crys-
tal’s “200 Sundays” comes to
mind).
The entire plot could fit
snugly on the head of a pin.
Bestselling author Thomas
Weaver (Chase), standing at a
podium, is struggling to find

BENEFIT
TUE.MAR.10 fill half of the Booth Theatre.
This production, directed
by veteran Richard Maltby Jr.
the words to characterize his
bond with his boyhood pal,
Alvin Kelby (Gets). Alvin comes
AARON EPSTEIN

Recalling a Gender
Pioneer
Bradford Louryk’s performance
tonight of “Christine Jorgensen
䉴 MAR 10, continued on p.18
(“Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Fosse”),
may go on record as the one of
the most stripped down Broad-
way musicals ever, even more
spare than “[title of show]”
from last season.
forth to help him, and the bulk
of the play is devoted to flash-
backs, in the form of short sto-
ries written by Thomas, illu- The tender affection played out between Malcolm Gets and Will Chase in Brian Hill and Neil
Bartram’s “The Story of My Life” was not equal to Broadway’s demands for something bigger
䉴 CUT SHORT, continued on p.24 and bolder.
18/ Film
If Goth Were Profound
Philippe Garrel betrays adolescent style in beautifully rendered film
BY STEVE ERICKSON
H
ad Philippe Garrel
made his first film
in 1959, rather than
1966, I doubt he’d have had
to wait until 2007 for his first
major American release. Gar-
rel is one of the French film-
makers, like Luc Moullet,
Jean Eustache, and Maurice
Pialat, who had the misfor -
tune to debut in the mid to
late ‘60s, after the French New
Wave had rewritten the rules
of cinema. By that point, the
movement’s novelty had worn
off, and directors like Jean-
Luc Godard, François Truf-
faut, and Claude Chabrol had
become dependable, prolific
institutions. It was easy to mis-
take their work for the entirety
of worthwhile French cinema.
Apart from the rath-
er solitary and apolitical
Pialat, younger filmmak-
ers like Moullet, Garrel, and
Eustache drew on and com-
mented on ‘60s rebellion and
its ‘70s aftermath more direct-
ly than any of their elder broth-
ers in the French New Wave
except Godard. Eustache’s
“The Mother and the Whore”
is the definitive postmortem on
Paris’ May ‘68 revolts.
As it turns out, Garrel’s
American breakthrough would
be “Regular Lovers,” a three-
hour depiction of May ‘68 and
its aftermath. Beginning as an
avant-garde director — one
highlight of this period is “The
Inner Scar,” which luxuriates
in circular tracking shots of
landscapes around the world
and a beautiful soundtrack
by Nico — he turned to narra-
tive filmmaking shortly after
Eustache’s suicide in the early
‘80s. His baby-boomer eth-
nographies, obsessed with
drugs, early death, and dop-
pelgangers of Nico (his partner
for much of the ‘70s), suggest
the films Eustache might have
Living For the City
Three directors offer divergent takes on Tokyo
BY GARY M. KRAMER
T
he striking, offbeat trip-
tych “Tokyo” brings
together three non-
Japanese filmmakers to tell
stories about the Asian capital
city. Each unrelated segment
deals with outsiders in the city
Louis Garrel plays François, a photographer who can’t leave behind his obsessive relation-
ship with an actress who committed suicide.
“FRONTIER OF DAWN”
Directed by Philippe Garrel
In French with English subtitles
IFC Films
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. at Ashland Pl.
Mar. 6, 8, 10, 12 at 4:30 p.m.
Mar. 9, 11 at 6:50 p.m.
Mar. 10, 12 at 9:15 p.m.
Q&A with Louis Garrel on Mar. 8
$12; $8 for BAM members;
bam.org
made had he gone on living,
although they strive for poetic
effect far more than Eustache’s
more plainspoken work.
François (Louis Garrel), a
photographer, meets actress
Carole (Laura Smet) when
he gets an assignment to
take pictures of her. She has
recently married a fellow actor.
When “Frontier of Dawn”
begins, her husband’s work-
ing in Hollywood. While he’s
away, François and Carole
fall in love. They talk of a bond
stronger than insanity, but
Carole’s behavior makes one
wonder what he sees in her.
She drinks heavily, has fits of
paranoia, and hears voices.
One day, she sets a fire in
her apartment and gets com-
mitted to a mental hospital.
— people who are experiencing
despair, fear, or love.
The three directors approach
the concept of Tokyo different-
ly. The collection of their short
films is not meant to form a
socio-cultural or historical
treatise on the city. Rather, it
is a snapshot of three discrete
tals, and lovers communicate
only by letters, not email, text
messages, or talking on cell
phones. One is never certain
just how François makes a liv-
ing as a photographer or when
Carole actually does any act-
ing.
Although Garrel is now
60, the sensibility of “Frontier
of Dawn” feels adolescent.
I don’t mean that entirely
as a criticism. On the one
hand, its romanticism stems
from a desire to hang onto
youthful idealism; on the
IFC FILMS
other, it winds up glamoriz-
ing mental illness. The film
suggests that “conventional
happiness,” to use a charac-
ter’s phrase, is a fate worse
When released, she kills her- than death. These attitudes
self. A year later, François aren’t new to Garrel’s work,
becomes involved with Eve but they’ve never before
(Clémentine Poidatz), who’s been expressed so crudely.
far more together. However, he The director’s an old-school
begins to see Carole’s ghost in bohemian with little sense
mirrors. of irony about love. Car -
Cinematographer William ole can’t accept a life with
Lubtchansky shot “Frontier of compromises; in the end,
Dawn” in black and white, but that means she can’t accept
he puts the full range of his life at all.
restricted palette to use. The Garrel himself obviously
film abounds with bleached-
out pools of white and inky
areas of black.
hasn’t carried his characters’
depressive tendencies to their
end, but “Frontier of Dawn”
Garrel also uses sound can be seen as an elaborate
design to great effect. When metaphor for the marks left
Carole eats a salad, the sound on him by Nico and her early
of her chomping on lettuce is death. He’s already told their
unnaturally loud. On the rare story several times — most
occasions when more than directly in the 1991 “J’entends
two people share the screen, plus la guitarre,” released in
the soundtrack turns into a the US last year — and one
disorienting hubbub of over- suspects he’ll tell it again.
lapping dialogue — all the Is it possible to find a film
more so if one doesn’t speak borderline ridiculous and still
French. be moved by it? Certainly,
There’s something very old- the audacity of Garrel’s low-
fashioned about”Frontier of tech special effects, which
Dawn.” As critic Michael Josh- pay homage to Jean Cocteau,
ua Rowin has pointed out, is admirable; his tendency to
it takes place in a 2008 that romanticize suicide less so.
feels more like the ‘60s. This In the end, “Frontier of Dawn”
is a film in which electroshock plays like a beautifully ren-
is more common than anti- dered edition of a high school
depressants at mental hospi- student’s Goth poetry.
stories set there, much in the friend Akemi (Ayumi Ito). We
way “New York Stories” was 20 see the lovers stuck in traffic,
years ago. and later marveling at the size
The best segment is the of Akemi’s small apartment.
first, Michel Gondry’s “Inte- “The bigger the company,
rior Design.” A young couple, the smaller the flat,” she tells
Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) and them, drolly, noting that her
Akira (Ryo Kase), come to the
big city to stay with her school 䉴 TOKYO, continued on p.19
6 - 19 MAR 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAR 10, from p.17
Reveals” — in which the actor lip-
synchs a recreation of th only recorded
interview with the pioneer of sex reas-
signment surgery and a model for other
in understanding gender identity as a
social construct — benefits the Trans-
gender Legal Defense & Education
Fund and PFLAG New York City. The
play won a 2006 Drama Desk Award.
Lion Theater, 410 W. 42nd St., 7 p.m.
Tickets are $40 at transgenderlegal.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
PERFORMANCE
A Renaissance
Monologue
Author and playwright Mike Albo
— the novels Hornito” and “The Under-
miner,” and the plays “Sexotheque” and
“Three Women in Indecision” — writes
the “Critical Shopper” column for the
New York Times and is also a criti-
cally acclaimed monologist. Tonight he
makes a very special, very gay presenta-
tion at the Second Tuesdays program at
the LGBT Community Center, 208 W.
13th St., 7-8:30 p.m. Admission is $10;
advance tickets at gaycenter.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
POETRY
WED.MAR.11
Cultural Politics
Rob Halpern, author of “Rumored
Place,”” Imaginary Politics,” “Snow
Sensitive Skin,” and “Disaster Suites,”
will soon publish “Music for Porn.”
Peter Lamborn Wilson is a political
writer, essayist, and poet, whose latest
books are “Green Hermeticism: Alche-
my and Ecology” and “Black Fez Mani-
festo.” The two appear tonight at the
Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church,
131 E. Tenth St. at Second Ave., 8
p.m. Admission is $8, $7 for students &
seniors; $5 for Poetry Project members.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
FAMILY
Legal Protections
The Brooklyn Pride Community Center
and the LGBT Law Association (LeGaL)
Foundation host an estate and family
planning forum for Brooklyn’s LGBT com-
munity. Attorneys Natalie Chin, Norman
Jennings, and Joanne Seminara discuss
living trusts, testamentary trusts, domes-
tic partnerships agreements, and other
issues related to LGBT families, including
social service and long-term care matters
of concern for seniors. Camp Friend-
ship, 339 Eighth St., btwn. Fifth &
Sixth Aves., Park Slope, 7-9 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
You Scratch My
Back...
Are you thinking of having a baby,
䉴 MAR 11, continued on p.22
 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
䉴 TOKYO, from p.18
company isn’t that large.
Gondry’s piece is filled with such
humor, but the crux of this episode
comes in a dazzling sequence in which
Hirokoa and Akira walk through the
city streets arguing about her lack of
ambition, and Gondry’s camera tracks
them as they start and stop. It’s a
showy, almost distracting sequence —
the camera pauses when the charac-
ters do, moving ahead as they continue
walking — but it works beautifully, and
reveals much about the characters.
Gondry uses visuals deftly to tell his
wonderful short story. An overhead of
Hiroko and Akira with Akemi in her flat
is juxtaposed with a colony of insects
Hiroko finds in an apartment she’s
hoping to rent. He also uses cinema
as an element, providing snippets of
Akira’s campy film “Gardens of Degra-
dation,” which unspools in a gay porn
theater while Akira has his audience
coughing from the smoke machine he
has pumping into the auditorium.
These gimmicks — and like the track-
ing shot, they are gimmicks — suggest
the playful mood Gondry wants to cre-
ate. Things take a strange, surreal,
sci-fi-ish turn, however, when Hiroko
starts undergoing an odd transforma-
tion. It would ruin the terrific punchline
of “Interior Design” to explain what
happens or how things turn out, but
suffice it to say that Gondry employs
his trademark magical realism to lend
poignancy to both the story and an oth-
erwise quotidian household object that
plays a central role.
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TOKYO!
Directed by Michel Gondry,
Léos Carax & Boon Joon-ho
In Japanese, with English subtitles
Liberation Entertainment
Opening Mar. 6
Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 E. Houston St.,
btwn. First & Second Aves.
It is all too easy a shot to say that
Léos Carax’s “Merde” certainly lives up
to its title. This entry, an uninspired
drama about a creature (Denis Levant)
emerging from the sewers and wreck-
ing havoc on the city, is the weakest of
the three films.
Barefoot, dirty, and dressed in
green, the unnamed creature swipes a
crutch from a disabled man and eats Ayako Fujitani and Ryo Kase in Michael Gondry’s “Interior Design,” one of the shorts int he triptych “Tokyo!”
everything from flowers to the money
he steals from people on the street. beautifully filmed, but it is emotionally that boasts a nice twist. As with the
There’s an obvious parallel to “Godzilla” inert as well. Gondry short, it would spoil the magic
— especially when the creature starts It is welcome, then, that “Shaking of “Shaking Tokyo” to explain more, but
lobbing grenades, terrorizing Tokyo Tokyo,” directed by Bong Joon-ho, ends it involves the hikikomori finally leaving
denizens. “Tokyo!” on a high note. A man (Ter- his house and pressing the “buttons”
“Merde” introduces a French mag- uyuki Kagawa) explains in voice-over tattooed on the girl’s body.
istrate, Maître Voland (Jean-François that he is a “hikikomori,” a shut-in. Bong Joon-ho’s film is particularly
Balmer), to defend the creature, and He lines the walls of his ordered world moving when the man wanders the
the story becomes a courtroom drama, with pizza boxes and toilet paper rolls, abandoned city streets –– crowded
which Carax films using a split screen, and describes eating while standing in the film’s two other episodes–– in
perhaps for no other reason than to up, sleeping on the toilet, and not mak- search of his true love. The themes of
keep this dull story visually interesting. ing eye contact with any of the delivery isolation and intimacy developed in
Carax clearly seems interested in folks who come to his door. He hates about 30 minutes are quite touching.
issues of celebrity, racism, and ritual, people and regards sunlight warily. The characters’ search for emotion-
but explores them in a remarkably flat All this changes when a pretty young al connections are what bind “Tokyo!”
and uninspired way. The parallel he woman (Yu Aoi) delivers a pizza. They together into a fitting portrait of the
draws between the creature and Voland make eye contact, and suddenly the souls who inhabit this massive city.
only succeeds in muddling the state- earth moves. Literally. An earthquake Their journeys in this quirky film
ment he aims to make about xenopho- causes her to faint, and him to fall in should resonate with audiences in
bia and justice. To its credit, “Merde” is love. Thus begins an offbeat romance New York.
20 6 – 19 MAR 2009 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM

■ IN THE NOH

Ryan and Daryl

A bright new star and a veteran one rap their lives
BY DAVID NOH but about figuring how to make the that anymore. They were trying to avoid
piece work best. You never know how any need for audience suspension of

N
o performer has given me as
much pleasure recently as
Ryan Silverman, who, with his
great looks, ardent stage presence, and
splendid voice, really shone in Encores!’
“Music in the Air,” February 5-8, and
“The Broadway Musicals of 1924” at
Town Hall on February 23. At the latter,
he beautifully sang an obscure Jerome
Kern ballad, “Weeping Willow Tree,”
“Rose Marie” in a way to make you for-
get Nelson Eddy forever, and a heartfelt
duet from “”The Student Prince.”
This native of Sherwood Park, Alber-
ta, shocked me when he confessed that
he’d only recently begun serious vocal
training: “I didn’t get into singing until
I finished high school, where I’d mostly
played sports, and then fell into musi-
cal theater. I moved to Vancouver,
mostly did TV work, and it wasn’t until
I moved to New York and discovered
that I live right above a vocal teacher,
Jim Fredericks, who I heard playing
the piano and introduced myself to in
the hall, that I began serious lessons
with him four years ago.”
Silverman thankfully doesn’t share
the New York Times’ Ben Brantley’s
snarky disdain for operetta: “I rarely
get to do it, and now have done two in
Ryan Silverman was a standout both in Encores! “Music in the
Air” and in “The Broadway Musicals of 1924” at Town Hall.
the last couple of weeks. Even if it is old-
fashioned, I think there’s something so
beautiful about going back to that time
and getting to do it, because it doesn’t
really exist anymore. If someone would
actually write in that style again, there
would be an audience for it, like ‘Light in
the Piazza,’ which was a new show with
that type of score and people loved it.”
Kristin Chenoweth proved herself the
highest of divas in “Music in the Air.”
“It was so nice to come into the
room and she was as you would hope
her to be — completely generous,
warm, bubbly, and kind,” Silverman
said. “Rehearsal wasn’t all about her,
it’s going to be, rehearsing with a big
name, always a little nerve-wracking,
but within seconds it was very com-
fortable. She was an absolutely blast,
as was Douglas Sills, so generous and
hilarious— no ego whatsoever on both
of them.”
Silverman recently triumphed in
London’s West End production of “West
Side Story,” and he’s going there to per-
form at the Olivier Awards, as the show
has been nominated. He found Tony to
be a challenging role: “You’re supposed
to be a gang leader, but you’re given
this swooning romanticism to play, so
you have to find a way to make it look
like you might have beaten someone
up before and then fall head over heels
in love — almost thankless at times,
but it can be done. It’s about going
completely into it, not holding back. It’s
all in the words you’re singing. If you
don’t question it, it happens. Maria has
a much more enjoyable ride, perfor-
mance-wise.”
Auditions for the upcoming Broad-
way production were impossible to get
into, Silverman said, “but I understood
they were trying to cast people who
looked like they could have been 17
years old, and I certainly don’t pass for
disbelief, and people I know who are in
it say it makes sense.”
Silverman’s dream role is John Wil-
kes Booth in another Sondheim show,
“Assassins,” and he recently sang for
the composer “at an audition for this
revue they’re mounting, ‘I, Sondheim.’
It was my fourth audition and he was
sitting there. I sang two incredibly dif-
ficult songs I’d never heard before — ‘I
Remember That’ and one from ‘Pas-
sion,’ which George sang. I was like,
‘Lord…!’ going in, but once I was in
there, it was like ‘Well, we’re here.’ He
said, ‘That was very nice. Thank you
very much,’ and I guess I’ll find out.”
Silverman is married to Kim Craven,
whom he met when they were both in
the company of “Mamma Mia!”: “She’s
one of those dancers who’s been lucky
to go from one show to the next for the
last eight years. She’s beautiful. I call
myself a ‘move-weller,’ understudied
Fiero in ‘Wicked’ and that forced me to
dance, but being married to a dancer, I
can’t really call myself one.”
On his plate now is a workshop
musical version of “My Man Godfrey,”
in which he plays a British character,
䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.21

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Daryl Hickman, at 13, in the famous drowning scene in the 1945 noir, “Leave Her to Heaven.”
䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.20
Trevor, love interest to the leading lady,
who wasn’t in the classic 1936 film.
There’s also Frank Wildhorn’s Alice in
Wonderland piece, “Wonderland”: “It’s
sort of like a ‘Wicked.’ I did the Cheshire
Cat at the first reading, and it went so
well that they’ve bumped me up to play
the male lead, The White Knight.”
Also upcoming is a part in a Nancy
Myers film in which he shares a scene
with two little actors named Meryl
Streep and Alec Baldwin.
“It’s been quite a ride,” Silverman
said. “In Canada, I went from one show
to the next, but, coming to New York,
there’s a lot more of me here. I’ve had
a lot of rejections, going from leads to
ensemble work, which has certainly
been a valuable thing — lots of wake-
up calls along the way — and I’m cer-
tainly not saying I won’t be there again,
but I’ve also been very fortunate.”
Somehow, I think he can perma-
nently hang up his ensemble shoes if
there’s any justice — and taste — at all
in this business of show.
S
omeone who has definitely
been there and back again is
Daryl Hickman, whose classic
1945 Technicolor film noir, “Leave Her
to Heaven,” is being screened at Film
Forum March 6-12. In it, Hickman,
aged 13, heartbreakingly plays the role
of a crippled boy who is mercilessly
left to drown by an evil, evil Gene Tier-
ney in a scene which has given Martin
Scorsese multiple orgasms.
The scene was just as harrowing to
film as it is to watch, according to Hick-
man: “My director, John Stahl, was
a pain in the ass. Last year, my friend
Robert Osborne organized a screening
at the Academy here and took issue
with me about the way I talked about
Miss Tierney. But I never had a director
treat me worse and belittle me in front
of Miss Tierney the way he did. We shot
the scene where she puts suntan oil on
me for three days and he kept apologiz-
ing to her, ‘Sorry, we have this boy…’
and by that time I’d made two dozen
movies.
“At lunchtime I called my mother in
tears, saying, ‘Pack the bags. I can’t
please this man. I’m going home.’ But
I didn’t go, and one night Stahl came
into the Yosemite Lodge and nicely
gave me all these quarters to play the
machines. My mother and I asked the
assistant director what happened, and
he said [studio head] Darry Zanuck
had sent him a telegram saying the
drowning sequence was the finest piece
of film he’d seen in all his years at Fox.
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Suddenly, I was a hero and then Stahl
started calling [co-star] Cornel Wilde,
‘Boy.’
“Robert Osborne thought that Tier- At the entrance of walk path
ney was out of her depth in a role she
wasn’t qualified to play, so she had
to the Brooklyn Bridge. Breakfast
to be that kind of scornful woman all
Lunch &
the time, even between takes. He may
be right, I don’t know. But at the time By Subway: Dinner
she couldn’t have treated me worse,
so between Stahl and Tierney — and A,C,F to Jay St, Boro. Hall
then the water was so cold my double
wouldn’t swim in it, so I did it all and
got pneumonia. [Cameraman] Leon
Shamroy was so difficult because we
had to wait — me freezing my butt off
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Hickman’s favorite director was
George Cukor on “Keeper of the
Flame”: “I’m very proud of that per-
formance. He talked me through my
scene as Spencer Tracy sat on an Metropolitan Community Church
apple box, not saying anything. He
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but that’s what he was giving me in
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as opposed to the Method, which
requires you to pull up past emo-
tions from your life. Cukor couldn’t
have been nicer, and every time I saw
him in the studio, he would always
talk to me, as opposed to other stars A church of lesbian,
Home
and directors who would walk right gay, bisexual
by. and transgender
“I had one big scene with Hepburn. people. Open to all.
Tracy never said a word but she talk-
ed constantly with Cukor, who also
liked to talk, about the scene for half
an hour, until Tracy would say, ‘Let’s
get on with it!’ She never talked to
me, an odd person and not terribly
friendly. Tracy wasn’t very friendly,
either, but you felt he was really with
Advocating Marriage
you in a scene. I’m not sure she was
Equality and
ever really with me.”
Transgender Rights
After Hickman’s MGM contract
ended, movies ceased to be exciting:
“There were other things I wanted to
do, had started writing young. I did
live TV, which I loved, went to New
York, and took over for Robert Morse
in ‘How to Succeed.’ I’d always want- The Reverend Pat Bumgardner, Pastor
ed to work in theater and explore Sunday Worship Services: 9am (Traditional),
the real art of acting. By the time I 11am (Celebration), 7pm (Praise & Worship)
was in my 20s I was bored in mov- 11 am features ASL interpreter (1st, 2nd and 3rd Sunday of each month)
446 West 36th St. NY, NY 10018 212.629.7440 www.mccny.org info@mccny.org
䉴 IN THE NOH, continued on p.22
 22/ Opera
Sunbelt Stages
Highs and lows in Florida, Texas
BY DAVID SHENGOLD
A
first-time visitor to Palm
Beach Opera (January
26) enjoyed the high
professional standard that
music director Bruno Aprea’s
forces exhibited in no less a
challenge than “Norma.” In
Linda Brovsky’s staging, Norma
and Pollione’s children proved
problematic in their sentimen-
tal ubiquitousness. They are
present to hear Norma disclose
her plans for suicide as she
packs them off to Rome with
Adalgisa, yet they don’t flinch
or react. Pollione appears far
too often as well. Still, Brovsky
and cast delivered a “Norma”
more effective than the Met’s
2007 travesty.
A “traditional” operatic figure
has surely limited fine spinto
Jennifer Check’s progress in
today’s market.Check regis-
tered Norma’s pride and hurt in
the voice; her phrasing showed
understanding, with increasing
verbal bite. No trills, but rea-
sonable agility, dead-on high
notes, sterling breath control,
and not one ugly sound. Fine
work; one awaits her further
development in the great role.
Wendy Bryn Harmer’s fresh,
billowing soprano seeming
more destined for Sieglinde
than Adalgisa; staccati eluded
her, as did idiomatic Italian.
Met stalwart Allan Glassman
brought baritonal heft and pur-
poseful acting to Pollione, actu-
ally trembling in anticipation
of Norma’s “Tremi tu? E per
chi?” Bellini’s inexorable finale
packed its wonted punch.
M
iami’s Florida Grand
Opera boasts a beau-
tiful theater plus one
of the most diverse opera audi-
ences I’ve seen; racial inclusive-
ness also extends to the orches-
tral players, a welcome, rare
sight. Alas, Joel Revzen’s fine,
lively traversal of the Overture
proved the only fully enjoyable
part of January 27’s “Ceneren-
tola”.
䉴 IN THE NOH, from p.21
ies — where you gonna go
from Cukor, Tracy, and John
Ford?”
As for Hickman’s younger
brother Dwayne, who went on
to fame as TV’s “Dobie Gillis”:
“We haven’t spoken in a long
time. I hear he’s doing fine. He
wrote me a note a while back
and seemed to be in good shape.
with visible work.
The Magnifico was ghastly.
As Dandini, handsome, stage-
wise Marian Pop hammed and
upstaged outrageously, provid-
ing rough sound with machine-
gun aspirated coloratura.
Despite unfunny directorial
business, the stepsisters sang
“straight” and well, Nili Riem-
er’s bright, accurate soubrette
suiting Clorinda perfectly.
FELIX SANCHEZ
H
ouston Grand Opera
has embarked on a
Jennifer Check (Norma) and Alan Glassman Britten project. “A
(Pollione) in Palm Beach Opera’s production Midsummer Night’s Dream”
of “Norma.” arrived in Neil Armfield’s solid
if not very magical production.
Despite pleasing borrowed On January 30, enchantment
sets, A. Scott Perry’s production lacked where it counts most
furnished two-and-a-half hours in “Dream” — in the conduct-
of the usual inorganic American ing (Patrick Summers; again,
Rossini shtick — “funny” dance “solid”) and the Tytania (Laura
steps on the beat, hideously Claycomb, an accurate vocal-
dressed pratfalling stepsisters, ist accomplished in high, min-
a camp Dandini, choristers iature effects whose expressive
bobbing up and down. Against message I never seem to get).
expectation, I await a staging Dale Ferguson’s verdant,
treating the stepsisters as ele- aptly weird sets outdid his
gant potential throne contend- costumes. The mechanicals,
ers who happen to be monsters, dressed as ‘80s nerds, clashed
so the Prince and Dandini take with the lovers’ quartet of ‘50s
time to see their full awfulness. coeds, and, except for Ste-
The ensembles, tricked out ven Cole’s agile Flute, mugged
with partially worked-out spot- unamusingly until a fine “Pyra-
light games, taxed the patience. mus and Thisbe.” Cole boasted
The only authentically felt the cast’s best diction. Accom-
moments came from Angelina plished Matthew Rose (Bottom)
(Jennifer Rivera) and Ramiro has all the elements gestating,
(Frederic Antoun), a cute cou- save for the experience to switch
ple both quite good — if neither on the star wattage; he was
approaching today’s dizzying pretty droll hamming Pyramus,
Rossinian standards nor ideally
cast for their own gifts. Rivera,
a fine Cherubino, has a lovely
though.
Iestyn Davies’ acting and
singing lack “face” compared to
middle voice but pushed both Daniels’ or Mehta’s; but while
range extremes, perilously so skimpy below, his counterten-
at bottom. She has great stage or sounded healthy and clear.
eyes, performing creditably Good verbal pointing from him
without vocally communicat- and the strongly cast, credibly
ing either the genuine pathos heroic Ryan McKinny (Theseus)
for the initial song or the explo- and Leann Sandel-Pantaleo
sive joy of the final Rondo; her (Hippolyta). Of the lovers, only
sound vanished in ensemble. Katie van Kooten’s Helena was
Antoun, a sensitive musician outstanding — a striking sopra-
with agility and finesse, has a no with live-wire phrasing. Liam
bright future in Mozart, Han- Bonner (Demetrius) sounded
del, and French rep; he made utterly ordinary.
Ramiro’s “nosebleed” notes, but Next season HGO tackles
Our lives have gone in differ- You can’t choose your fam-
ent directions. My brother and I ily, but you can choose your
tried, but he grew up being Dar- life, and Hickman is busier than
ryl’s little brother, and I became ever these days, with a musical
Dobie Gillis’ big brother. We based on restaurateur Vincent
both tried very hard to have a Sardi that was workshopped
relationship, but we’re so differ- at York Theater last year, and
ent and had a childhood that a new book, a follow-up to his
wasn’t conducive to us being a absorbing “The Unconscious
close family, anyway. That was Actor,” “based on the princi-
not meant to be, so we both sort ples of creativity which I talked
of called it off a few years ago.” about. I have a lot of information
Britten’s vastly different “Turn of
the Screw”; plus, book now for
Christine Goerke’s first Ortruds,
opposite Adrianne Pieczonka
and Simon O’Neill, and the
Vladimir Galouzine/Judith
Forst “Queen of Spades.”
A
ny opera-loving local
visitor should also con-
sult the schedule of the
Moores Opera Center at the
University of Houston, a mod-
ern, superbly furnished 600-
seat house with fine sound.
Former Met assistant conduc-
tor Lucy Arner took the reins
this season as music director.
Daniel Catan’s “Florencia en el
Amazonas” (February 2) proved
impressive with Arner inspiring
her team in the pit and onstage,
plus a crackerjack production
by Buck Ross utilizing Thom
Guthrie’s wonderful 28-foot
rotating boat, plus excellent
projections by Ross as well.
Catan’s magical realist opera
is very much “American ver-
ismo” in sound — one hears
transparently the influences
of Puccini, Strauss, Debussy,
Mahler, Barber, and others
— but if the melodic idiom is
derivative, it is singable and
effective, and the orchestral
coloration offers some genuine
novelty. A pleasing evening of
musical theater, it seems a nat-
ural choice for City Opera.
The singers, mainly grad stu-
dents, were all well-prepared.
With soaring B-flats, Desiree
Alejandro coped imposingly
with the titular diva’s testing
high tessitura, making a sym-
pathetic focus. As the narrating
Riodobo, Lee Gregory showed
projection reflecting profession-
al experience. The most enjoy-
able singing came from fresh-
voiced, accurate lyric-coloratu-
ra Amanda Kingston (Rosalba)
and undergrad Sean Arnold,
whose Arcadio fielded a highly
promising and focused tenor.
David Shengold (shengold@
yahoo.com) writes about opera
for many venues.
that I can disseminate to people
about creating, not necessar-
ily a performance, but a better
life, and we’re at a point in our
history where we need to think
about how we’re going to create
a better world, as well.”
Contact David Noh at Inthe-
noh@aol.com and check out his
new blog at http://nohway.
wordpress.com/.
6 - 19 MAR 2009
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAR 11, from p.18
but terrified at the thought of raising
a child alone? Are you a happy lesbian
couple, eager for your children to have
an active father in their lives, rather
than an “unknown donor”? Are you a
gay man dreaming of a bio child, but
freaking out at the cost of surrogacy,
and happy to share parenting respon-
sibilities with a lesbian mom? Center
Families and Center Kids presents a
“Sperm and Egg Mixer” to talk about
how creative, innovative, and brave
LGBT people are in exploring new kinds
of family structures. LGBT Commu-
nity Center, 208 W. 13th St., 6:30-8
p.m. This event takes the place of the
month Parenting Partnerships meeting.
For more information, contact Terry at
212-620-7310, ext. 228, or centerkids@
gaycenter.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
POLITICS
Denied Basic
Shelter
Queers for Economic Justice hosts
a discussion of the ever-increasing
problem of young adults being denied
access to city shelters. QEJ’s Jay Toole
moderates a panel including Jane
Bock, of the Legal Aid Society, Nancy
Downing of Covenant House, Joey
Lopez of the Ali Forney Center, Anya
Mukarji-Connolly of the Peter Cicchino
Youth Project, and Diana Olaizola of
the Coalition for the Homeless. LGBT
Community Center, 208 W. 13th St.,
room 301, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
THU.MAR.12
Germany’s Loss
Thomas Mann was one of Ger-
many’s greatest expatriate writers;
he also wrote heart-rending stories of
barely suppressed homoerotic longing.
Tonight the Gay and Lesbian Reading
Group discusses “The Magic Moun-
tain,” one of his masterpieces. LGBT
Community Center, 208 W. 13th St.,
8-10 p.m. For more information, visit
jclarkmedia.com/gaybooks.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BENEFIT
FRI.MAR.13
Change The Story
Of Women!
Dr. Moss-Bouldin, co-founder of
Soulploitation Creative Works and Act-
ing Up! Productions, presents a benefit
production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina
Monologues” to support the V-Day
NYC 2009 Community Campaign. The
V-Day effort was founded by Ensler
䉴 MAR 13, continued on p.23
6 - 19 MAR 2009
14 DAYS Pushed to the Edge
14 NIGHTS Alistair McCartney hangs on to his world, contemplates the end of it all
䉴 MAR 13, from p.22
to raise funds and awareness to end
violence against women and girls
worldwide. This year’s beneficiaries
include the Democratic Republic of
Congo, the Women of Color Network,
W.A.D.T: Women are Dreamers Too,
and W.O.R.T.H.: the Women’s Orga-
nization of Rebirth Through Healing.
New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St.
Mar. 13, 7 p.m., Mar. 14, 2 & 8 p.m.
Tickets are $25 at telecharge.com.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ will never look at apocalypse
COMEDY
Christian
Countdown
Christian Finnegan is a New York
stand-up comedian, writer, and actor
who is a long-time panelist on VH1’s
hit series “Best Week Ever” and regular
contributor to MSNBC’s “Countdown
with Keith Olbermann.” This weekend
he appears at Comix, 353 W. 14th St.
Mar. 13-14, 8 & 10:30 p.m. Tickets are
$22 at comixny.com or 212-524-2500
or $27 at the door. There is a two-drink
minimum. Dinner packages are $77.50,
tip included.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ & Fitch to Aristotle, Britney
FILM
Papa Can You Hear
Me?
1983. Barbra Streisand was a
cross-dressing yeshiva boy and Mandy
Patinkin was still sizzlin’. Cap off a
week of Purim with a “Yentl Sing-
Along” hosted by performer Raven
Snook. 92Ytribeca, 200 Hudson St. at
Canal St., 10 p.m. Admission is $10.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ — AIDS, barebacking, crystal,
MUSIC
Wonder Woman
Sings
Actress and singer Lynda Carter
sings from her upcoming album of
jazz, blues, and country covers. Jazz at
Lincoln Center, Allen Room, Broad-
way at 60th St. Mar. 13-14, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $45-$95 at jalc.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Magnetic Fields’ music merging
SAT.MAR.14
COMMUNITY
Your Luck is
Dublin
Bring your LGBT and your Irish
pride to a traditional corned beef and
cabbage dinner to a Staten Island St.
Patty’s celebration at Karl’s Klipper,
40 Bay St., btwn. Stuyvesant Pl.
& Slosson Ter., St. George, 6 p.m.
Tickets are $22; $11 for children under
12 by contacting siprideevents@gmail.
com or sending checks to SI Pride
Events, 391 Van Duzer St., SI 10304.
$30 at the door.
䉴 MAR 14, continued on p.24
BY WILLIAM J. MANN
T
he prospect of the end
of the world is on every-
one’s minds; it’s on
everyone’s lips and in every-
one’s dreams. We see images
of it wherever we turn. Alistair
McCartney’s first novel, “The
End of the World Book” has
made a big splash on the liter-
ary scene. It is darkly comic
and deeply erotic, and readers
or global warming in quite the
same way again.
It’s a novel whose main char-
acter — who just happens to
be named Alistair — recounts
both the story of his life and the
history of the world, and even
more specifically, the world’s
end. But what’s even more
striking and exciting is that it’s
also an encyclopedia — A to Z
— a kinky, irreverent archive of
memories, dreams, homoerotic
obsessions, and philosophical
fixations. McCartney covers
everything from Abercrombie
Spears to Socrates, Justin Tim-
berlake to Terrorism, and offers
stories about Alistair growing
up in Australia and creating a
life with a character named Tim
Miller.
Playful and accessible, the
book will intrigue gay readers
with its twisted, provocative
take not only on core aspects of
pop culture but also queer life
gay music, and gay pornogra-
phy, just to name a few.
“TEOTWB” heralds the
arrival of a daring new voice
in queer literature, the literary
equivalent of Todd Haynes’ col-
laged post modern films, Slava
Mogutin’s edgy urban photo-
graphs, Hernan Bas’ paintings
of decadent dandies, and the
irony and classic poignant pop.
Dennis Cooper, author of
“The Sluts” and “God Jr.,” wrote
of the book, “If I’ve read a more
deeply impressive, beautiful,
sweeping, mindful, and inno-
vative first novel than Alistair
McCartney’s ‘The End of the
World Book,’ I have no memory
of it. McCartney is a writer of
peerless, brilliant originality
and pure, giant talent.”
Many readers will recognize
the author’s name; he’s the
partner of one of America’s lead-
ing queer performance artists,
the exuberant and anarchic
Tim Miller. Although partnered
since 1995, as a binational cou-
ple, McCartney and Miller lead
THE END OF THE WORLD BOOK
By Alistair McCartney
University of Wisconsin Press
320 pages; $26.95
a precarious existence in their
Los Angeles home, with McCa-
rtney relying on a series of visas
— as a student, and now with
an H1B work visa teaching cre-
ative writing and literature at
Antioch University — to remain
in the US.
Miller has paid homage
to his and Alistair’s love and
brought the injustice of Ameri-
ca’s biased immigration laws to
light in shows like “Glory Box”
and “US.” But US immigration
laws remain as they’ve been,
and McCartney’s visa is once
again at risk. The couple find
themselves in the thick of their
struggle to stay together in LA,
potentially having to dismantle
their home there and be pushed
to the edge of the world.
I visited McCartney in the
bohemian home he shares with
Miller in Venice Beach, where
we talked about his book and
his life right now.
William J. Mann: So, tell
us how you came up with the
idea for “The End of the World
Book.” As I read it, it struck me
as your own personal encyclo-
pedia, your own very queer 21st
century version of the “World
Book Encyclopedia.” It’s a bril-
liant idea — we all grew up with
the “World Book Encyclopedia,”
right?
Alistair McCartney: Well, it
really begins with a deep life-
long passion I’ve had for the
“World Book.” The process was
pretty organic, and like most
things in my writing, I stum-
bled upon it by accident or by
surprise. I was born and grew
up in Perth, Western Australia,
which in that other “World Book
Encyclopedia “is always listed
as the most isolated industrial-
ized city in the world. Growing
up there you feel really separate
and apart from the world, in
your own world as it were. I was
also the youngest of seven kids
— my nearest sibling was six
years older than me, so I kind
of had the experience of being
an only child in an odd way.
Both those factors saw
me spending a lot of time by
myself, daydreaming. Like
most families, we had our edi-
tion of the “World Book Ency-
clopedia,” and given the isola-
tion of where I grew up, and
being the youngest, the “World
Books/23
Author Alistair McCartney.
Book” was my constant com-
panion throughout childhood.
I must have spent thousands
of hours obsessively going
through every volume.
WJM: What entries in the
World Book did you gravitate
towards?
AM: One thing I’d do was
play a game where I’d choose
a city, look it up, and fantasize
that I was growing up there.
I actually write about this in
the book. So instead of living
in Perth, I’d imagine that I was
growing up elsewhere, usually
big cities here in the states,
Chicago, LA, New York, but
even smaller cities like Balti-
more or Cleveland. I kind of
went through the whole list of
the 50 biggest cities.
So the “World Book” was
crucial for me when I was a
kid, the source not only of my
fantasy life and my desire to
go abroad, but maybe even
the origin of my becoming a
writer. Of course, for me as a
little queer kid, it was particu-
TIM MILLER
larly important. I mean, the
first boy I fell in love with was
in the “World Book,” this East
German gymnast, practicing
on the high bar!
WJM: So when did you
actually start writing your own
encyclopedia, as a kid?
AM: Oh, no. Once I grew up,
left Australia in ‘94, and moved
to London, then met Tim and
moved to LA, I sort of forgot
about this passion or obses-
sion of mine. I was living it. But
then I went back to school in
1997 to do my MFA in creative
writing, and I was really strug-
gling with form. I was working
on creative non-fiction essays,
but felt constrained by that
notion that one had to always
tell the truth. I tried writing
traditional fiction and that
didn’t fit either; somehow mak-
ing up plots and characters felt
constricting.
Well, one day I was just writ-
ing, I think it was about lust,
and I put a big letter L in big
font at the top of the page, then
the word Lust, just like you
would see in an encyclopedia.
I started playing around with
more letters; W came next, for
an entry on the World. It just
unfolded from there. The form
I needed to be working in sud-
denly seemed so obvious, but
of course it took me years and
years to get there. The A to Z
structure gave a system and
an order to my anarchic imagi-
nation, which of course then
freed me from the constraints
of both creative non-fiction
and fiction.
䉴 THE END, continued on p.24
 24
䉴 CUT SHORT, from p.23
WJM: So you’re an encyclo-
pedist?
AM: Absolutely, but one
who describes and categorizes
directly from his unconscious.
And I’m equally a novelist:
although I always use real
names and often write about
real scenarios. I’d never call
what I do non-fiction — it’s all
filtered through my imagina-
tion and dream-life.
WJM: So, it’s pretty inter-
esting timing that just as both
you and Tim are potentially
about to be pushed to the edge
of the world, your novel “The
End of the World Book” has
come out. How long before
your visa runs out? How have
your struggles informed the
writing of this book? Does the
book address your immigra-
tion struggles directly like
Tim’s work?
AM: Well, yes, as you say,
the timing is pretty interest-
ing, to put it lightly. Basically
my current visa runs out 09.
While I’m incredibly excited to
have my book coming out, at
the same time, while I begin
promoting the book and a
national tour, Tim and I are
also trying to figure out how
we might continue to stay in
this country, so it’s obviously
been an incredibly stressful
time, filled with a lot of uncer-
tainty and anxiety.
WJM: Do you feel more like
an American or an Australian?
AM: I’ve been in the States
since 1997, almost a third
of my adult life, and I feel far
more American than I do Aus-
tralian. I mean, I’m married to
an American, in every sense
of the word, except legally of
䉴 CUT SHORT, from p.17
minating how their friendship
inspired his career to scale
greater heights.
The occasion, it should be
noted, is the memorial service
of Alvin, who has met a tragic
end, and Thomas is deliver-
ing the eulogy. Alvin is a kind
of nagging ghost, or an angel.
The not-so-burning ques-
tion, posed by Thomas about
their fractured friendship, is,
“When was the instant it splin-
tered and cracked?” A second-
ary unspoken one is, “What
caused Alvin’s demise?”
“The Story of My Life” was
conceived by relative newcom-
ers Brian Hill (book) and Neil
Bartram (music and lyrics),
who must have been thrilled to
see their tiny endeavor in the
big leagues.
Robert Brill crafted a suit-
ably austere cream-on-cream
set, dominated by a massive,
overstuffed bookshelf that
course, so I actually consider
myself an American, though
of course without any formal
recognition as such, or any
papers.
Although I don’t directly
address these issues in “The
End of the World Book,” I do
write a lot about T im and
myself and the domestic plea-
sures of being together. And
about LA — its graffiti, its
mini-malls. That’s really where
I feel the immigration issue the
most — the violence it does
to not allowing gay binational
couples just to have that sim-
ple security we all crave and
most people take for granted:
sharing a house together, a
dog, getting to come home to
each other at night, having a
stable place to write from.
I wrote this book entirely
in the States — the first ver-
sion of it was my thesis for the
MFA Creative Writing program
I did at Antioch University
LA, which I graduated from in
2001. Tim and I’ve been in this
situation a number of times
before, where my visa is run-
ning out, so the uncertainty
of my status really informs
my aesthetic vision and that
theme that’s throughout the
book about the uncertainty of
being alive.
WJM: Who are your mod-
els as a writer? Who informed
the kaleidoscopic vision of this
book?
AM: Kaleidoscopic is a great
way to describe my book actu-
ally. I loved kaleidoscopes as a
kid, such magical spaces, and
that’s what I hope this book
is for the reader, a magical
space, putting a spell on the
reader. My literary models and
tastes are deeply, deeply eclec-
tic, which I think is reflected
looked like it was made of pol-
ished plaster. There was also a
lectern and rolling stepladder,
a desk, and some loose pages
of paper, many of them crum-
pled. And that’s about it.
The orchestra, consisting
of a mere nine musicians, did
not even rate residing in the
pit. They were off in the wings
somewhere.
As for the performances,
the chemistry between the
supremely gifted Gets and
Chase was genuine and ten-
der. As the nebbishy Alvin,
Gets, who garnered accolades
for his turns in “Amour,” “A
New Brain,” and “Merrily We
Roll Along,” was as engaging
as ever. You may remember
him as the snippy Richard in
“Caroline in the City,” the pop-
ular 1990’s TV comedy.
The handsome, stylish-
ly scruffy Chase (“The Full
Monty”) captured the layered
complexities of Thomas’ angst
with just the right touch of
6 – 19 MAR 2009
in the book itself and which I
really think is my strength as
a writer — a radically eclectic
aesthetic. I think part of that
comes from being born into
the era I was born in, 1971,
which I read somewhere once
was the year post-modernity
began. I’m a child of post-
modernity, and as such, can’t
help but take from innumer-
able sources, be inspired by
diverse muses.
So, lets see. Some of the
most important models for
me are relatively obscure per-
haps in a mainstream sense.
A novel called “Epitaph of a
Small Winner” by Machado De
Assis is crucial, as is Fernando
Pessoa’s “The Book Of Disqui-
et.” Nietzsche’s “Gay Science”
is also important to me, and
Kafka of course, especially his
“Zurau Aphorisms” — I’m real-
ly a product of the aphoristic
imagination and have a deep
passion for fragments. Sebald
of course was so influential,
and Anne Carson. I also have a
profound love of Joe Brainard,
who taught me and who still
teaches me how to shift into
the conversational voice.
In a way, I think my work
is a weird alchemical com-
bination of writers who were
important to me as a teenager
— Genet, Mishima, even Bur-
roughs. That pre-Stonewall
queer voice is utterly impera-
tive to my development, along
with the whole transgressive
school of writing — Wojnarow-
icz, and still very much to this
day Dennis Cooper. That com-
bined with Tolstoy and Proust
and George Eliot. I seem to
spend most of my time reading
19th century novels.
I’m really interested in com-
bining the so-called experi-
mental, which I don’t think
rancor.
For some theatergoers, the
sweet, Sondheim-tinged bal-
lads about snow angels and
butterfly wings were heart-
melting. For others, they were
gag-inducing.
If your gaydar is flashing
right now, it should. For “The
Story of My Life” is, at its core,
a love story between two reflec-
tive souls who happen to be
men. Although never blatantly
stated, Alvin surely is gay, and,
well, Thomas is a profoundly
more complicated case.
Throughout the play, men-
tions of the beloved movie
“It’s a Wonderful Life” crop
up here and there; the tone of
this musical echoes the film
in many ways. And the narra-
tive parallels — such as Alvin
being saddled with the fam-
ily business while his friend
breaks free to roam the world
— feel organic to the story.
“You’ve gone all George Bailey
on me,” Thomas gripes.
is that useful a category to
describe writing these days,
and the so-called traditional.
Music continues to have a
deep effect on my writing, in
a sense, Morrissey and the
Smiths are my biggest mod-
els. And you mentioned Todd
Haynes — that queer cinema
explosion in the early 90’s.
Seeing work like “Poison” real-
ly set me dreaming. He’s an
inspiration up until this day —
the Dylan biopic was sublime.
WJM: Are you working on a
new book?
AM: Yeah, tentatively work-
ing on two new books. Both
will be novels slash encyclo-
pedias, though I’m leaving the
alphabetical structure behind,
at least for now. I want to take
the encyclopedic structure
to the next plateau. Both will
feature a character who just
happens to be called Alistair
McCartney. The next book will
take off from where the first
book did, and so on; I’m work-
ing on a sequence of interlock-
ing novel-encyclopedias, like
Proust.
William J. Mann is a best-
selling author of several novels
and, most recently, the biogra-
phy “Kate: The Woman Who
Was Hepburn” (Henry Holt
and Company). Alistair McCa-
rtney will appear with Paul
Lisicky, author of “Lawnboy”
and “Famous Builder,” and
comedian Mike Albo, whose
second novel, written with Vir-
ginia Heffernan, is “The Under-
miner: The Best Friend Who
Casually Destroys Your Life,”
at Teachers & Writers Collab-
orative, 520 Eighth Ave., btwn.
36th and 37th Sts., 20th fl., on
March 20 at 7 p.m. The event is
free and open to the public.
Although that Capra clas-
sic jumps headlong into the
chasm of the shamelessly sen-
timental, the quietly affecting
“The Story of My Life” miracu-
lously danced around the edge
without ever plunging in.
Despite such inter mit-
tent pleasures, it’s no sur -
prise audiences steered clear.
Seems to me that the typical
Broadway theatergoer who
has paid good money for a
ticket want to be wowed or
uplifted. They don’t want to
see blocked writers or sui-
cidal bookworms. They don’t
want to see two guys crooning
about their affection for one
another for 90 intermission-
less minutes.
They want some razzle
and some dazzle. Maybe a
few belly laughs and a zippy
score. And dramatic tension.
Or at least something that
doesn’t feel like it was pro-
duced by Frank Capra many,
many decades ago.
WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM
14 DAYS
14 NIGHTS
䉴 MAR 14, from p.23
FILM
Up The Empire
The Millennium Film Workshop
presents the world premiere of “Gior-
nalisti En Maschera,” a film chronicling
pre-9/11 questions posed at the 2001
Venice Biennial by queer filmmakers
Jack Waters and Peter Cramer: Did
painting die, or meiotically produce video
art? Has nationalism outlived its cultural
relevance? Also screening is “L’ Homo
Venezia,” four inspirational vignettes
made by Peter Cramer and Marc Arthur,
and “Spettacolo Provolone: A Surreal-
ity Based Theatrical Intervention” by
Waters and Cramer with DanceTube. 66
E. Fourth St., btwn. Bowery & Sec-
ond Ave., 8 p.m. Admission is $8.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
BOOKS
SUN.MAR.15
Celebrating Small
Presses
John Reed is the author of the novels
“A Still Small Voice,” “The Whole,” the
2004 bestseller “Snowball’s Chance,”
and most recently “All the World’s A
Grave: A New Play by William Shake-
speare.” Amy Koppelman is the author
of the novels “A Mouthful of Air” and,
most recently, “I Smile Back. “She lives
in New York City with her husband and
two children. Elizabeth Skurnick’s poetry
has appeared in the Iowa Review, Bar-
row Street, The New Haven Review,
The Pinch, the Delta Review, and the
anthology “Shade.” The three will read
at KGB Bar, 85 E. Fourth St., btwn.
Bowery & Second Ave., 9 p.m.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
COMMUNITY
When Bush Was A
Nice Word
Park Slope’s archive for lesbians’
achievements presents “fierce pussy at
the Lesbian Herstory Archives,” a lesbian
public art collective that has produced
an overview of their work from the early
1990s, along with “Mining the Archives,”
a new installation utilizing vintage but-
tons, T-shirts, and pulp novels. Les-
bian Herstory Archives, 484 14th St.,
btwn. Eighth Ave.& Prospect Park
W., 7 p.m. Free. For more information,
visit lesbianherstoryarchives.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯
MUSIC
Wine, Women &
Song
Isle of Klezbos, a women’s ensem-
ble that presents a modern and at times
subversive spin on traditional music
presents a brunch performance at City
Winery, 155 Varick St. at Vandam
St. There are two sets btwn. 11
a.m. and 2 p.m., and bagels, lox, and
other tasty kosher treats will be served.
Tickets are $10; free for kids under 13.
Online tickets at citywinery.com.
䉴 14 DAYS, continued on p.27
 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 25

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Exercise is the question, We are the answer! ■ LEGAL

Conflicting Views
PROFESSIONAL
FITNESS INSTRUCTOR
on Kids’ Interests
In custody rulings, Michigan recognizes
* Celebrity Trainer
primacy, while Kentucky ignores them
* Fitness Model
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD
* Boxing Coach
* Competitive Athlete
D
espite the lack of a state law
permitting joint adoption by
same-sex couples and a con-
stitutional amendment barring gay
marriage as well as narrower forms
of legal recognition, Michigan’s Court
of Appeals has found that Diane Lor-
raine Giancaspro deserves a hearing
on whether she can gain custody and
visitation rights with the children she
and her former partner, Lisa Ann Con-
gleton, adopted in Illinois.
The unpublished February 19 rul-
ing reversed a Berrien County Circuit
Julian Phillips Court trial judge, and emphasized that
the children’s best interests should be
277 Canal St. 3rd FL the guiding principle in the case.
New York, NY 10013 Meanwhile, a unanimous February
27 decision from the Kentucky Court of
www.boxurightfitness.com Appeals ruled that a lesbian co-parent
rasooltrainer@yahoo.com lacks standing to seek joint custody of
Phone (917) 547-4361 the children she and her former part-
ner were raising, making clear that the
two young children’s welfare will not be
a factor in resolving that case. In that
case, the ex-partner seeking custody
was neither a biological nor adoptive
parent.
The Michigan couple traveled to
China to adopt children, but since that
nation follows the same practice as
Michigan, Congleton was the children’s
sole adoptive parent when they arrived
in the US. Once back in Illinois, Gian-
caspro also became an adoptive par-
ent.
The family moved to Michigan by the
time their relationship deteriorated,
and Giancaspro sued in Berrion Coun-
ty Circuit Court for custody, support,
and parenting time. The trial judge
reached a less than satisfactory reso-
lution of the question before the court,
finding that the Full Faith and Credit
Clause of the US Constitution required
recognizing the validity of the Illinois
adoptions, but also that Michigan’s
Child Custody Act was not applicable
in the case because it is intended to
sort out the rights and responsibilities
of parents at the time of a divorce.
“They are co-parents with equal right
as it stands currently,” the trial judge
acknowledged, but added, “There are
no other existing orders.” The court
dismissed Giancaspro’s suit.
On appeal, the three-judge panel
ruled that the case should go back to
the trial court for further proceedings.
The majority found that the Full Faith
and Credit Clause requires recognizing
the Illinois adoption; given that conclu-
sion, both women should be treated as
parents under the Michigan Child Cus-
tody Act.
The trial court was stymied by the
lack of a legal relationship between the
women. But, said the Court of Appeals,
this case isn’t about the relationship
between the women but rather about
the relationship between each woman
and the children. Where two legal par-
ents are contesting issues of custody,
support, and visitation, the court’s role
is to determine what will be in the chil-
dren’s best interest. There is no pre-
sumption in favor of either of two legal
parents.
“The question is really whether
Michigan’s legal framework for protect-
ing and promoting the best interests
and welfare of children within its juris-
diction excludes children with a parent
or parents who could not have adopted
them under Michigan law,” the court
wrote. “We conclude that it does not.”
Lambda Legal and the American
Civil Liberties Union of Michigan repre-
sent Giancaspro on this appeal.
In the Kentucky case, Ernestine
Tilley and Michelle Kilgore, who began
living together in the mid-1990s, were
raising two children, now ten and six
years old, until their break up in early
2007. A trial court dismissed Tilley’s
suit to preserve her parental rights,
finding she was not a legal parent,
despite a document Kilgore signed in
2000 authorizing her partner to act as
“custodian” of one of the children, with
disciplinary and medical decision-mak-
ing authority.
The Court of Appeals found that
Tilley could only seek custody if she
were the de facto parent, Kilgore were
unfit, or Kilgore had expressly waived
her “superior right to custody.” Proving
she was a de facto parent would require
showing she was the primary caregiver,
but since the women shared responsi-
bility for the children, the court held that
neither was the primary caregiver.
䉴 CHILDREN, continued on p.27

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WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM 6 – 19 MAR 2009 27

14 DAYS ■ COMMUNITY

14 NIGHTS Supporting
䉴
Social Activism
Young professionals fund Queers for Economic Justice
JUMP, from p.24

BY PAUL SCHINDLER ics as a whole, but the crowd

MON.MAR.16 was largely young, white, and

FILM
Everybody’s
Talking at Me
Monday Nights With Oscar pres-
ents the 40th anniversary screening of
“Midnight Cowboy,” directed by John
Schlesinger, in which Jon Voight and
Dustin Hoffman played two outcasts
who forge an unlikely friendship on the
lonely and unforgiving streets of New
York. It was the only X-rated film to be
E
van Thompson and male — a group that often gets
his boyfriend Addison a rap for being disengaged from
Smith were enjoying social justice concerns beyond
cocktails at Therapy in Hell’s the confines of traditional gay
Kitchen early in the evening Feb- rights objectives: jobs protec-
ruary 24, celebrating Thomp- tions, hate crimes penalties,
son’s 30th birthday. A drop-in and equal access to marriage.
at Therapy certainly sounds like Yet, after months of due dili-
a nice way to open up a festive gence, QEJ was the commu-
night on the town. nity-organizing vehicle that
The couple was surrounded Quarter Share chose to invest
by a crowd of friends and asso- in, and when Farrow spoke up

named Best Picture. A discussion with ciates who jammed the bar’s
cast and crew follows the screening. second floor lounge. That’s
Director’s Guild of America, 110 W. pretty special, even for a 30th
57th St., 6:30 p.m. Box office opens at birthday.
5:30. Tickets are $5; $3 for Academy But Smith did something
members & students at oscars.org. rarely seen at any birthday cel-
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ebration, even in a city that in
good times can be littered with
DANCE lavish bashes. About an hour
Master Class into the event, he mounted a
Tony Award-winning choreographer stage at the far end of the room,
and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipi- grabbed a microphone, and gave
ent Bill. T. Jones is the featured speaker away $7,500.
at St. Joseph’s College’s second Annual To be clear, the money was
Presidential Arts Colloquium. Jones, not his or Thompson’s. Instead,
who got his start in tandem with his it had been raised by Stonewall
late lover Arne Zane, will discuss his Quarter Share, an organization
career, his approach to making work, of young LGBTQ profession-
and his current project. Tuohy Hall als affiliated with the Stonewall
Auditorium, 245 Clinton Ave., btwn. Community Foundation, an
Willoughby & DeKalb Aves., 7 p.m. organization that since 1990
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ has made grants totaling about
$11 million to more than 450
organizations in New York’s
Stonewall Quarter Share co-chairs Lindsay Drucker Mann and Evan Thompson, QEJ’s Kenyon
Farrow, Stonewall Community Foundation executive director Bill Mattle, and Quarter Share
co-chair Addison Smith at Therapy.
a grantee chosen by Quarter
Share members.
This year, in choosing its
grantee, Quarter Share focused
on groups committed to com-
munity organizing, and selected
Queers for Economic Justice.
QEJ is a non-profit that tackles
issues of poverty and economic
injustice as part of the battle for
“sexual and gender liberation,”
as the group’s website frames
it. It is explicitly and unapolo-
getically progressive, tracing its
origins to concerns during the
late 1990s about the impact
of welfare reform legislation
enacted under President Bill
THAI PHAM
gendered New Yorkers whose
IDs often don’t match their gen-
der presentation.
Farrow also mentioned the
group’s Beyond Marriage proj-
ect, which aims to push both
LGBT community leaders and
policymakers in the wider soci-
ety to embrace a broader menu
in according legal recognition to
today’s diverse range of family
structures; as a “practical mat-
ter,” he explained, households
headed by couples involved in
a romantic relationship should
not be the only public priority.
Farrow pointed to increasing
numbers of “Golden Girls”
about his group’s mission at
Therapy, he had an attentive
audience.
Thompson explained that
Quarter Share’s affiliation with
the Stonewall Community Foun-
dation offers unmatched oppor-
tunities for identifying worthy
grant recipients. Speaking of the
foundation, he said, “They have
a library of grant applications.
We wanted to find a group that
does community organizing.
What are the groups that do
this in New York? And they’re
the only ones who know.”
The foundation’s executive
director, Bill Mattle, in turn
pointed out that Quarter Share
offers his group the chance at
“handing off and incorporating
the younger generation” in its
work.
Opening up the evening’s

FILM
TUE.MAR.17
Strike A Pose
“How Do I Look?,” a follow-up to the
1990 documentary “ Paris is Burning,”
chronicles the New York African-Amer-
ican, Latino, and transgender ball com-
munity as they vogued their way into our
hearts. The film focuses on members of
“Houses” who take their talents outside
the ball scene to work with superstars
like Queen Latifah, Madonna, India.
Arie, and fashion designer Thierry
Mugler. The Jewish Community Cen-
ter and Out Professionals present this
2006 film by Wolfgang Busch. JCC, 334
Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St., 6-9 p.m.
Admission is $10. For more information,
visit jccmanhattan.org.
✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ ✯ Institute, the parent founda-
queer community.
Smith and Thompson were
among five young people who
founded Quarter Share two
years ago, as a way, in Thomp-
son’s words, “to contribute
something tangible to the com-
munity and to be able to see
exactly how our money is hav-
ing an impact.”
The group now has 115
members, each of whom pays
dues of $300 a year to partici-
pate in social gatherings every
other month, learn about New
York’s gay philanthropic world,
and decide on the recipient of
an annual Quarter Share grant.
Three-quarters of the money
raised goes to the Stonewall
tion’s training program that
offers educational and capaci-
Clinton. QEJ puts a focus on
racial and class issues absent
from the work of many LGBT
organizations.
Kenyon Farrow, a longtime
African-American writer, jour-
nalist, and activist who is now
QEJ’s national public educa-
tion director, was on hand to
accept the grant, and addressed
some of the group’s key current
initiatives. Its Welfare Warriors
project presses for inclusive
policies in city, state, and feder-
al public assistance programs,
and is about to launch a survey
of LGBT New Yorkers living in
poverty.
Farrow talked about difficul-
ties that African-American and
Latina lesbian couples, who
are often raising children, face
under welfare reform, and how
relationships, in which seniors
live together for mutual sup-
port, and gay people who build
a network of friends for sup-
port “because we do not have
our biological family to fall
back on.”
Farrow also pointed to the
group’s success several years
ago in prevailing on the city’s
Department of Homeless
Services to apply New York’s
domestic partnership protec-
tions and policies to its stew-
ardship of homeless shelters.
“Now LGBT families do not
have to be split up in the shelter
system,” he told the crowd, to
perhaps the most enthusiastic
applause of the evening.
The interest the event’s
attendees showed in the issues
Farrow talked about was strik-
program, Mattle asked the
crowd to estimate what percent-
age of LGBT Americans con-
tribute money to organizations
serving the community. Very
few hands were raised when he
called out five percent, which he
said was the right answer.
“There’s no way that our
community is going to be able
to do what it needs to be able to
do, to move forward to gain the
equal rights that we’re all fight-
ing for, and to carry us through
this recession with five percent,”
Mattle said, in urging newcom-
ers on hand to sign up for Quar-
ter Share.
For information on the Stone-
wall Community Foundation
and its Quarter Share program,
visit stonewallfoundation.org.

BOOKS
THU.MAR.19
Musings on Muses
Kathleen Warnock hosts another
installment of “Drunken! Careening! Writ-
ers!,” tonight featuring Jami Attenberg,
author of “Instant Love” and “The Kept
Man,” The Bitter Poet (Kevin Draine), a
performance artist, and Staci Swedeen, a
playwright whose “The Goldman Project”
premiered Off-Broadway in 2007 and is the
literary manager of the Penguin Rep The-
atre. KGB Bar, 85 E. Fourth St., btwn.
Bowery & Second Ave., 7 p.m. Free.
ty-building assistance to small
LGBTQ organizations in the
city. The other quarter goes to
䉴 CHILDREN, from p.26
T illey never argued that
Kilgore was an unfit mother,
and the court found that the
2000 custodial agreement
was merely a medical power
of attorney, not a waiver of
Kilgore’s “superior right to
custody.” Given that the
the increased documentation
required by public assistance
authorities can trip up trans-
women shared custody of
the children, the court also
held that Kilgore made no
implicit waiver of her rights.
Tilley had argued that she
was standing in the place
of the biological father, who
donated his sperm, but the
Court of Appeals found that
he had relinquished his rights
ing. Those on hand may or may
not have precisely reflected
Quarter Share’s demograph-
For information on Queers for
Economic Justice, visit www.
q4ej.org.
when he contributed his ing to co-parents who fail to
sperm, so he had no standing complete a second-parent
to waive in Tilley’s favor. adoption. The Kentucky rul-
The court’s opinion, by ing holds out the possibil-
Judge Denise Clayton, reads ity that an express waiver
like the unfortunate 1991 of superior custody rights
New York Court of Appeals by a biological mother can
ruling in Alison D. v. Vir - give her partner standing to
ginia M., which established seek custody in the event of
precedent denying stand- a break-up.
28 6 – 19 MAR 2009 WWW.GAYCITYNEWS.COM