From yesterday’s Ask Metafilter: “Why are gay people so flamboyant? Maybe I’m just ignorant, but it’s definitely a trend that rises beyond my scope of comprehension. I just spent the weekend as a volunteer medic for the SF Pride events, and it’s a phenomenon that only really struck me when seen in its mass sprawl. It’s something distinctively relegated to …

Conjoined is a stainless steel sculpture by native New Yorker Roxy Paine, just added to his other two sculptures in Madison Square Park: Defunct and Erratic. The sculptures will be in the park until the end of the year.

This week’s Swag Tuesday prize is Cyclizen, the new novel from Jim Provenzano, author of PINS and Monkey Suits. Many of you know Provenzano from his decade of reporting gay sports news and from his articles in San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter, where he is an arts editor. The Cyclizen synopsis: Kent R. Hyles, a 24-year-old jaded activist-emeritus, rides through …

Some of you may be aware of the occasional doomed campaign to institute an English-language gender-neutral pronoun. Previously failed contenders have included “shem”, “herm” and (my personal favorite) “thon”. The newest suggestion comes with the support of some transgendered folks, many of whom have long bristled over the pronouns that support the “binary gender paradigm.” The latest such pronoun comes …

“I want a license that all of you have; some of you have had it two or three times.” New York State Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell (D-Upper West Side), whose humorous and passionate speech to the Assembly last week is being credited with swaying enough legislators to make New York the second state (after California) to have a legislative body approve …

The four largest Pride events in North America (Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Toronto) took place yesterday under sunny skies, drawing over 3 million queer folks from all nations and representing all 31 genders . The NYC crowd was estimated at around 1 million and more than a few times we heard somebody say, “Is everybody in the WORLD …

Sunday, 3pm, Christopher StreetTwo twinks are waving at a boy on a passing Pride parade float and shouting to hear each other over the float’s music.Twink 1: He does not! He’s very cute. Twink 2: What are you talking about? Twink 1: That was mean. Twink 2: What was mean? Twink 1: He does NOT have the face of a …

Today the Farmboyz and I schlepped out to Coney Island for the gayest not-really-gay event in NYC, the 25th Annual Mermaid Parade, the first time any of us had attended. The day started a little bit chilly with the giant clock (see below) facing Central Park reading 57 degrees. In June. But by the time we reached the beach, the …

Well, that didn’t take long. Gay porn house Dark Alley has announced plans to produce a porn take on the Pentagon’s recent “gay bomb” research. Gay Bomb will take us into the future and the year 2012. George the Second has refused to step down as leader of the “free world,” and the nations of Europe have banded together to …

This Sunday I’ll be shepherding my festive flock of fabulous – oh wait, I can’t finish that alliteration – fabulous, um, strong gay men to the corner of Christopher and Gay Street to watch NYC’s 38th annual Pride March. History has taught us that corner is nicely shaded, although Sunday’s weather is predicted to be relatively mild, as has been …

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton has been dropped by his hosting company, due to their fear of being added to the multiple copyright infringement lawsuits he is currently fighting. The site was dark for a few days, but is back up now on a new service, although with limited functionality and without archives. Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff takes some cheap …

In a joint venture with the gay support group Community United Against Violence, San Francisco has unveiled a new campaign encouraging gay men to come forward and report rapes. With a hotline and a website, the groups hope to reduce the stigma and increase the reporting of the attacks, the majority of which take place in the Castro. In 2007, …

Head over to Blender.com for their list, The Gayest Moments In Music. I’m not crazy about their picking Village People’s YMCA as their number one, but there’s some great stuff on there. RuPaul’s talk show, Madonna’s kiss with Britney, and some seriously classic moments like Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) all make the list. I’d have to think …

Yesterday the activist group Radical Homosexual Agenda staged a protest at City Hall during the speech of openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, claiming that Quinn was the “civilian agent” of a new NYPD policy that subjects to arrest the members of any group of 49 persons or more that gathers without an approved NYPD permit. Activists claim this …

Shelley Winters has discovered climbing and there is no height in my apartment that she has not scaled. I came home yesterday to find her crying on top of the cabinets over my kitchen sink, which I presume she got to by a counter to microwave to cabinet route. Her favorite perches are the back of my desk chair (but …

Jerusalem’s Pride parade was this morning, where marchers encountered hundreds of Haredi, Israel’s bizarre Ultra Othodox sect, who arrived with eggs and bags of human excrement to hurl. Just before the parade kicked off, police arrested a 32-year old man carrying a bomb which he said he’d planned to detonate near the parade to “scare people away.” Two hundred Haredi …

There’s a fascinating article in today’s NY Times about “freeganism” – folks who try to reject capitalism wherever possible by using thrown-away products such as damaged food or items found in dumpsters. The article talks at length about the perfectly good furniture and personal items tossed out by New Yorkers. If you go into just about any of my friends’ …

The Empire State Building, viewed from 14th Street at Union Square.

A couple of posts down you’ll find my rant regarding those in our own community who heap scorn and insults on gay men that don’t meet their twisted personal standards of masculinity. Longtime readers of this here website thingy know that I regard that sort of divisive self-loathing as perhaps the greatest internal challenge that gay men face, both as …