Joe.My.God. LGBT News

A male firefighter was awarded $1.7M by a Los Angeles jury for anti-gay discrimination he claims he suffered for coming to the defense of a lesbian firefighter. The firefighter had claimed he was forced out of the fire department after he supported his coworker in her homophobic bias suit against the department. I presume the male firefighter is straight, making …

Holy crap! We got 7.81 inches of rain in Central Park yesterday, the wettest day in NYC in 119 years, and almost breaking the 1888 record. That’s Florida-style rain right there. But there’s no flooding around Manhattan, at least none that I’ve noticed. I guess we’ve got great drainage ’round these parts.

Looking spooky in this rain, the West Village’s Jefferson Market Library was built in 1874 and was used as a courthouse until 1945. The adjoining buildings on the property were used as the New York Women’s House Of Detention. When weather permits, the library has a lovely flower garden open to the public.

I’m proud to report that I have taken my food preparation laziness to new dizzying heights, with the advent of the pre-washed, individually packaged Express Bake PotatOH!, which is ready for immediate microwaving. I don’t know if this is a new gimmick or if I just noticed them, but it pleases me greatly.

Ooo-wah, Ooo-wah. How I hated it. That frenzied, bizarre, dance floor chant that arose during peak moments in gay clubs of the 70’s. Ooo-wah, Ooo-wah. Never once in 30-some odd years have I ooo’d or wah’d. Always it would seem to arise during the exact moment of a song I was particularly enjoying, shattering the moment as I gritted my …

Here’s the alternative video for Erasure’s new single, I Could Fall In Love With You. I’ve been an Erasure fan for 20 years and this new song is already one of my favorites. To paraphrase a friend, if somebody asks you what your favorite Erasure song is, it should be a really difficult decision.

“America is watching Don Imus’s self-immolation in a state of shock and awe. And I’m watching America with wry amusement. Since I’m a second-class citizen — a gay man — my seats for the ballgame of American discourse are way back in the bleachers. I don’t have to wait long for a shock jock or stand-up comedian to slip up …

Last night I attended the first organizational meeting of the Queer Justice League, where about 100 activists gathered to discuss the purpose, structure, rules and procedures of the group. During an interesting opening exercise, attendees were asked to give their first names, preferred gender pronoun, and a one-word description of their mood about the meeting. Curious, optimistic, hopeful, ready, excited, …

The Second Avenue subway, the long-awaited, often-started but never finished subway line down Manhattan’s East Side had its fourth groundbreaking this week. (My “morning view” pics are usually my own, but I grabbed this one from the NY Times.) The tunnel shown was sealed up in the 70’s during NYC’s big financial crisis and has sat empty since. I can’t …

Author Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84. Like most high school and college students in the ’70s, I worshipped Vonnegut, whose Slaughterhouse-Five added fire to the anti-Vietnam War movement. I also rather liked his funky sentence structure and punctuation, something I thought I saw reflected somewhat in the writing of John Rechy, author of my favorite novel …