The Problem With Attempting Wokeness in 2016Both artists struggled to speak sensitively and articulately about the privileges of whiteness, maleness, and straightness when put on the spot.
Cupcakes Fly Their PrideMagnolia’s “Gay Pride Cupcake” probably would have been cooler if it came attached to a charitable cause, but it is pretty cute.
Proud Gays on Parade!
Perhaps you prefer bare male chests to bare female ones? Good news! New York contributor Tim Murphy was in Chelsea yesterday for the 38th annual gay-pride parade. Watch Tim ride a motorcycle. Watch Tim discuss the leather scene. Watch Tim plan a wedding with Christine Quinn. And, perhaps most important, watch Tim chat up some near-naked boys. The video is, well, fabulous.
Street Level: Pride March [NYM]
photo op
Ed Koch Is Doing Poorly
Flickrer Boss Tweed sent in this perfectly captioned photo from yesterday: “Former Mayor Ed Koch not happy at the gay pride parade 2007.” Indeed. And why’s Ol’ Ed not happy? Because someone threw something on his shirt, staining it. Otherwise, of course, Koch was just full of gay pride. As always.
[Snap a Photo Op–worthy shot? Send it to us at intel@nymag.com.]
Gay Pride Parade 2007 NYC [Boss Tweed’s Flickr]
the morning line
No Congestion Pricing, But…
• So Mayor Mike struck out on his congestion-pricing deal as Albany ended the legislative session. But while that plan got all the attention, Bloomberg got a slew of other projects passed: a child-care tax credit, a corporate tax slash, and more state funds for public housing. Huh. [NYP]
• Dozens of pissed-off New Yorkers are being bussed to D.C. for a congressional hearing about the Feds’ performance monitoring air quality at ground zero. Jerry Nadler will be the congressman first to grill ex–EPA head Christine Todd Whitman. [amNY]
• What Sunday’s pride parade may have lacked in middle-aged, middle-class gays, it more than made up for in a newly prominent demographic: religious groups. Jews, Roman Catholics, Buddhists, and others came dangerously close, in the words of a reveler, to “hijacking the parade.” [WCBS]
• The weekend brought a mass gang arrest in Bushwick — 32 kids, the youngest 13 years old, collared on their way to attend a murdered friend’s wake. The gang is supposedly an offshoot of the Bloods, colorfully dubbed the Pretty Boy Family. [NYT]
• And now that Fred Thompson seems to be a viable presidential candidate, let’s get all our political advice from Law & Order cast members. Sam Waterston — a.k.a. A.D.A. Jack McCoy — is also the face of the libertarian-flavored online movement Unity08, and he’s ready to vote Bloomberg. [NYDN]
cultural capital
Junior Vasquez Loves Cher, Will Pass on Cyndi Lauper
It’s New York’s 38th Gay Pride celebration this weekend, and even though the official dance is the one held on Pier 54 Sunday night, we thought we’d highlight a certain twelve-hour thump-a-thon occurring the night before. Why? Not only will it be one of the last big nights at that venerable gay mecca, the Roxy, before the structure is torn down next month, it’ll also be presided over by perhaps the biggest D.J. in Gotham history, Junior Vasquez, 57, who just happens to be a big old queen. Tim Murphy talked with Vasquez about the merits of Cher over Cyndi Lauper, today’s gay whippersnappers, and how you stay up all night when you’re no longer on crystal meth.
