this is fyf

This weekend: Geminis must be twins or how else could there be so many!?

Birthdays, birthdays, BIRTHdays are what's happening, people! That's all this weekend seems to be scheduled with! I sound like I'm grousing, but - truth be told - happy birthday all you geminis! Especially my sister Tai Chi and other FYF loves: Solomon Greene, Eldin Johnston, Brian Toynes, Jason Anthony, Bill Pfeiffer and every other Gemini having their birthday party THE SAME FUCKING DAY (Saturday, in case you were wondering.)! Big love, duos! Being with you always feels like a threesome! And yes, each of those links are to an event page for their respective parties.

Tai's party will be in Central Park's Sheep Meadow like last year and promises to be a relaxing, fun-filled time (primarily because I'm in charge. See?). Meanwhile down at the docks, sorry...piers, Jason Anthony is - true to his twinned sign - pulling double-duty by hosting a good-hearted flash mob/love-in prior to his birthday lounge-on-the-grass that afternoon. Bring a song, a white t-shirt and a heart filled with love, 'k?

Tonight, as another Gemini enters his 30s (Happy Birthday Greg Lockard!), Viva Ruiz and Gavin Russom perform together as The Crystal Ark at Sugarhill Disco in Brooklyn for what promises to be a MAJOR night of music and performance. Also, Alberto Cortes makes music with his body.

There's also Clubber Down Disco (It's Honey's birthday, too!), a SPANK boatride and Mister Saturday Night tomorrow night and Folsom Street East Sunday, (just naming a few) so there's plenty to do regardless of how many Gemini's you know. Check the FYF Calendar for all your options and enjoy what'll hopefully be a sunny, warm weekend.

Again, Happy Birthday all you gems!

OMG!! SOOOO FLUFFY!!!!

"Rise and Shine, Little Raccoon"

Just say "Ho Ho Ho", a drug-friendly guide to your New York holidays.

Note:  This post is part of NYC BLOGGERS DO THE HOLIDAYS, a compendium of holiday stuff for the city dweller:

• A Child Grows  Where to See Santa in New York City and Brooklyn
• Eater's Digest  10 "Warm-You-To-the Bone" Holiday Eats in NYC
• Give and Get NYC  Give and Get for the Holidays
• 'the improvised life'  Design (or Hack) Your Own Holiday E-Cards
• Manhattan User's Guide  The Gift Guide: 21 Over $21
• Markets of New York  Festive Food at New York's Holiday Markets
• Mommy Poppins  11 Experience Gifts for NYC Kids
• NY Barfly  Holiday Cocktails, And We Ain’t Talkin' Egg Nog
• offManhattan  The Anti-Holiday Travel Guide: 5 Quick Getaways from NYC
• the skint  11 free and cheap non-holiday things to do this holiday season
• Patell and Waterman's History of New York  Christmas with Andy Warhol
• Walking Off the Big Apple  A Mortal's Guide to the Angels of New York City
• We Heart Astoria  The Best Places To Shop Local - WHA Holiday Gift Guide

So, like, this past weekend on Thanksgiving night, it was just shy of four o'clock in the morning, and this compulsion to head home hit me.  On went the coat and hat and goodbyes given to the guys and ladies assembled in the lovely Chelsea home which served as the post-dinner meeting spot.  Stepping outside though, there was the invigoration of fresh air (and whatever), so a walk was taken.  Somehow my location shifted to Fifth Avenue, walking north in the Flatiron, and suddenly there they were, shoppers getting "special discounts" at Baby Gap at, like, four in the freaking morning.   A long pause later and my eyes perused the shoppers who, well, were just in a different state of mind than me.  A moment of consideration happened, but the store was not entered, because, yeah, these people and me didn't need to see each other.

Something about the holidays, brings drugs to the fore.  Maybe it's the festivity or the twinkling lights or the long nights or the bonus checks, but yeah, drugs are everywhere.  You can't just pair them randomly though.  Otherwise you'll be outside a Baby Gap feeling perky, yet horny, and that's creepy.  With that in mind, please consider the following pairings, all of which totally work!

Cocaine
All coked up and up late at night?  Head out to Astoria or Bay Ridge and take in all the twinkling lights of the lawn displays that fill the lawns of these neighborhoods.  They really go all out.  And you can go on Grindr or Scruff or Radar or whatever and make a new friend!

Anti-anxietals
Popping a Xannie and sitting on those red steps in Times Square is a great place to go to write out Christmas cards.  You get the energy from the tourists milling about, but you don't get annoyed with them!  Since cards tend to go out to your out of town people, they'll enjoy that you are in Times Square.  PROS ONLY:  Step up to a manly pill and pop an aprolazam and go to Queens Mall or Paramus orWoodbury Commons and just sort of mill around, picking up holiday merchandise and considering it briefly before dropping it to the floor.  Bonus round?  Say hello to the elderly!

Marijuana
Spark up a holiday bud and head uptown a little to the Origami Christmas Tree at AMNH and then visit the planetarium or wander the exhibits.  Go even further uptown and go full on boho, making candles of your own design at the Dyckman Farmhouse!  From there a holiday visit to the ever-cruisy Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park.

Liquor
The holidays can't be fully self-indulgent, so dig into your closet or buy new a coat for the city's GLBT homeless youth.  (Seriously, the city just slashed their funding.)  Anyway, bring that coat to Excelsior in Brooklyn this Saturday for the annual LGBTQI Homeless Youth Coat and Clothing Drive.  Get nice and toasty drunk and then gather your funnest buds and sing out carols in Park Slope.  (The event ends early and those Slopers will be charmed.)

Ecstacy
Party like it's 1999 and take a hit of ecstacy.  When you're starting to roll head out and give a visit to Santa Claus.  No, not the commercial version at Macy's or Bloomingdales or ABC Carpet and Home.  Go to the REAL Santa in Central Park's Belvedere Castle.  Just don't ask him to suck your finger.  You can head down to the Ramble for an afterparty.

Psychedelics I
Mushrooms, hooray!  Don't go overboard and you can enjoy a hilarious trip to F.A.O. Schwartz.  Follow it up with a trip to view Simon Doonan's latest window creations at Barneys.  (This year's theme is food?!) Then giggle your way up Madison stopping by Hermes, Ralph Lauren and oddly-named shops that only trophy wives know, arriving at the Met where you can buy all your friendsBaldessari-themed gifts, like the "Wrong!" eraser!

Psychedelics II
Again, moderation is key here, so like, just one hit of acid, and then go to the best windows in the city at Bergdorf Goodman.  Then decide you are on a secret mission and go stealthily down to the Lord & Taylor (which are possibly better than Bergdorf's while tripping).  Finally, PULL IT TOGETHER and go full force to Bryant Park for ice skating (yes, really) at "CitiPond" (being sure to wonder aloud why Citibank is doing this and not protecting your money).  Then put on your own Skating with the Stars performance of Swan Lake.

 

NYC Walkabout - The Ramble

The Ramble is an interesting place. It’s the closest we have to walk in the woods here in the city. It’s an urban forest of history and contradictions.  Walking through the Ramble in Central Park is something I love.  Going through there and taking photographs of the rocks and trees and the birds, sitting by the lake and reading.  Turtles swim, robins (and a few hundred other species of birds) go bobbin’ along, birdwatchers stare at the birds, dogs run, yuppies jog, and tourists get lost.  And?  The Gays have sex. The day before it would’ve been ‘had’ sex, but this walk was a reminder that some things never change.

Now, gays are reading this assuming that if you're in the Ramble, you're cruising.  Let anyone reading this think what they want. Sure, if Zack Galifianakis were standing there rubbing his crotch, cruise mode would be activated faster than a heartbeat.  He wasn't there though, and cruising wasn't the purpose of my visit. Some guys do go to the park because, well, it's a park. That being said, if it makes it more interesting to think I was on the prowl, go for it.

A guy at a cocktail party a while back, a Columbia grad student, was doing his dissertation on the history of the Ramble. Turns out the Ramble, since its creation has been a haven for bird watchers, a playground for gay men, and a battleground for social reformers.  The gays that use this part of the park for their forays owe a great deal of gratitude to the birdwatchers.

Repeated efforts since the early days of the Ramble to fence off the area, creating ‘a preserve,’ always had nothing to do preservation.  It was all about prevention.  The political clout of the birdwatchers has squelched such efforts every time. The Birders’ desire for access to the Ramble and its birds results in the access also existing for those with more prurient desires.

Walking through the Ramble one can’t help but notice with a look to the left; the eccentric-looking, grey haired, bespectacled old guys and gals weighted down with their enormous, expensive binoculars and cameras, enrapt upward at something chirping in the branches, and then to the left; two men sliding behind a bush hoping to get into each others’ britches.  The two in the bush never stop to say thanks to the Birders, but they should.

Hair-steria grips the City: Bearing/Baring Bears

  
Gus says, "BEwARe! Groans ahead..."

In case you've been under a rock, or would sooner jump in the (polar) bear enclosure at the Central Park Zoo then keep up with the ongoing Bear hair-steria (which - if that IS YOUR case - you likely won't want read further), this weekend is Urban Bear Weekend here in New York City.  For complete event details, visit the official website here.

Not only is it Bear Weekend here, but the Bears are modeling in San Francisco (Walter Van Beirendonck shows in San Fran, original post courtesy of BUTT. More clips of the show here.),  opening their comfy and plaid home and base for their successful fashion line (Costello Tagliapietra) in Carroll Gardens (that's my 'hood, yo!) and just generally throwing their weight around (I know! I know!? I'm sorry...I couldn't resist.) seemingly everywhere you look!

It's PANDA-moan-ium! (See what I did there? Do you see?)

While we're on the subject...though neither Rod nor I self-identify as Bears, we're often lumped in the Bear category, or a Bear sub-category (Otter, Cub, Wolf, Ferret, etc.) by default (I assume it's the beards), which can be a bit sticky (Oh god! I can't stop!) - at least for me - at times.  Sticky primarily in a cognitively dissonant kind of way as I'm trapped between appreciating the flattery implicit in, say...a "woof"; or between welcoming the friendship and affection of a self-identifying Bear, while - at the same time - holding generally negative beliefs about cliques, conformity and a mob mentality that (largely) inform my view of Bears (or any gay clique) as a group.

Even as I say that, I fully recognize we have to use some method, or criteria, for choosing our friends, so why begrudge those who choose based on shared anatomical characteristics??  Besides, interpreting the fact that a mass of guys have chosen friends and lovers based on similar girth and hirsuteness as a personal affront is a bit self-aggrandizing, isn't it?  It really has nothing to do with me/you (e.g. - They weren't thinking, "Let's create a social circle that expressly excludes Duane.".). 

In the end (no pun...THIS time.), individuals who either self-identify as Bears, or who fall into the Bear category anatomically make up some of my best friends, while others in that same group inspire within me the greatest lust/attraction I've ever known.

Dissecting Bill Cunningham: The Annual Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon, hosted by the Women's Committee of the Central Park Conservancy

Bill Cunningham's "On the Street" column is a New York landmark. The long running column entered the video age a while back, allowing Cunningham's readers to now be his listeners. This week Bill went to the annual luncheon of the Central Park Women's Committee. You really have to see and hear it to fully understand the full Cunninghammity, but here's a quick break down:

• How the Women's Committee of Central Park is described: Spectacular.
• Number of men counted at Women's Committee luncheon photos: Eleven.
• Number of distinctions between hats and millinery: One.
• Number of hats he describes as "tip top" and a "car wash": One.
• Ratio of well-decorated heads to well-decorated "inside of heads": High.
• Number of times he refers to himself in 3rd person: One.
• Trends he loves this week: Lace dresses.
• Trends he hates this week: T-shirts and jeans.

David Ozanich's second favorite New Yorker is Bill Cunningham. The GLAAD-award winning co-author of the "Likely Story" series of teen-girl books has also written for Lonely Planet and other venues.

Look at this coyote in Central Park.

Do not make a road-runner joke, although the Time Warner Center is, you know, and you could totally ... No.  And no jokes about being to late in the season to make a coat, please.     Via