The Dooryard

Toys for Tots 2007

The 22nd (believe it or not) annual Toys For Tots party in Manhattan will have some familiarity and some changes. The biggest changes are a $35 ticket price and a need to buy a ticket in advance of the party. The beauty of the party in the past is that it's cost the price of a toy to get in. That has opened it up for anyone who can pull together $10 in change to buy a toy. Unfortunately, this year it's going to cost $45 (the ticket and a toy, which will be at least $10), and some people who get priced out of every other fun gay party will be priced out of this one, too.

I know it doesn't seem like a lot to most of the affluent gay Manhattanites who go to these things, but $45 is just out of the price range of many people, gay or straight. It's my constant complaint about gay culture: That it is elitist because the "lower class" is kept out of the who's-who parties. This party was always the exception to that rule. Oh well. I'm sure the organizers have good reason for wanting to raise $70,000 in ticket prices, so this isn't a criticism of them. It just sucks that this one great annual party is evolving into every other higher-priced gay gala.

One thing kind of does bug me a bit. Maybe this is how it's always been, but I never realized it. Three of the organizations this event is benefitting are religious institutions: Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, Brick Presbyterian Church, and St. Ann's Episcopal Church. Given I have no desire to support any religious institution, chances are I'll (sadly) be skipping this year, unless Dan tells me I have to go. There are no good NFL games that afternoon, so maybe.

Party specs:
Toys For Tots 2007
Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W. 18th Street)
Sunday, Dec. 2, 5pm-9pm
You must by a ticket in advance

A mouse in manhattan

I had a melancholy moment yesterday as I was walking back from lunch along 29th Street. As I approached some scaffolding hanging over a grate, I noticed a tiny little mouse walking around the sidewalk. It seemed the rest of the passersby were oblivious to him. Luckily, the scaffolding funneled the pedestrians away from where he was.

I stood there for a couple of minutes watching him and wondering about his life and his death. I literally have trouble killing plants. I pulled up some weeds in my pots on the lanai the other day and felt terrible about it. I have long felt the need to help the innocent, and helpless, and that translates for me past humanity. The plans and animals that surround us, that make our life more rich, are more in need of my help and protection than most humans.

I watched that little mouse and thought what would happen if the wrong person saw him. All it would take was one thoughtless beast to lift up his Timberlands and end that innocent little mouse's life needlessly and purposelessly.

We watched, as far as I know, all of Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series. It included a lot of death. I had never really thought about it before, but the only way to sustain life through food is death. To eat, you either kill a plant or an animal. Some things, like milk and honey, are ways around that. But eating anything else - salad, eggs, grains, meat - is destroying life or the potential for life. I can certainly rationalize that in my head: It is purposeful death - either it dies or I die. And I, like every other living thing in this world, will choose myself.

But that doesn't account for the future of that little mouse and the hundreds, thousands, millions of living things we as humans will needlessly kill in the next 24 hours. I guess I can just do my part in trying to bring more life into this world rather than end it, and encourage others to do the same.

HK's new club

I went to what is being called a hot new spot last night. HK is a restaurant at 39th & Ninth, and they've opened up a two-level club next door. It's pretty fancy inside, I must say. It looks beautiful. Last night was one of those 20-something-hotties parties (a friend invited me - 20-something hasn't described me in a while) where everyone stands around and models and watches everyone else. Believe it or not, one of them engaged me in a discussion of whether U.S. government (my position) or English Parliament (his position) was a better form of government. It felt like he was trying to impress and confuse me, talking as fast as he could as he rattled off a bunch of stuff. But, I appreciated his effort.

What soured (quite literally) the evening were the bartenders. Neither of them spoke anything better than incredibly broken English, and neither of them knew what they were doing. I ordered a "lemondrop martini" from the first one. I watched him add lime juice and vermouth to it, which seemed odd. But, I figured, he must know what he's doing. No such luck. It was terrible. I asked the other bartender (who, I was told, is better) to remake them. He used lime juice - and triple sec. I guess a lime and an orange make a lemon in Brazil.

I don't know as I'll be headed back anytime soon. Too bad, really, because the place does seem nice. And BTW, this is how to make a lemondrop:

2 oz vodka
2 oz limoncello 
1 oz fresh lemon juice
.5 oz simple syrup

Combine over ice. Shake. Pour into sugar-rimmed glass. Enjoy.

Spitzer introduces NY marriage bill

The sky must be falling, because I'm going to post my second straight positive post about a Democrat in one day! Deservedly so.

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer promised to put forward a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. And today, he is doing so. He has a lot of integrity, he is really a man of the people, and I think he is VERY fair. I could see this guy as president some day. This Republican is a BIG fan of this Democrat!!!

Unfortunately, it's the leaders of the two houses in New York that are the problem. Sheldon Silver (a Democrat) is the head of the Assembly, and gay Democrat politicos have told me that, while he hasn't said so publicly, he strongly opposes gay marriage (he is an Orthodox Jew). Both he and State Senator Joseph Bruno (a Republican) will likely block votes on this; and if those two guys don't want to vote on something, they have the power to stop it, which is a crappy rule.

But again, kudos to Spitzer!! Finally, a politician who stands up for marriage rights and does what he says he'll do!

Yay sun

I haven't posted this much in one day in a long, long time. It's the weather, methinks. Right now it's 68 degrees and sunny in New York. Thank the Lord Jesus Christ Almighty in the heavens above.

NLGJA last night

Last night I attended an annual fundraiser for NLGJA and had a lot of fun. I'm usually not very much into those kinds of events, but I knew so many people, and met so many other interesting people, it was very cool.

The thing I came away from the evening with was how gay people are all, at the end of the day, in the same boat. We may criticize each other and bite at each other sometimes, but at the end of the day most of us are just trying, in our own way, to make the world a better place for ourselves, our friends, and the young gay kids who have yet to feel homophobia. It's something I will have to keep reminding myself.

Some of the people there last night: Sebastian White, who invited me and who has been all over the media today; John Amaechi, who really is an incredible guy, so special; Andy Towle, whose blog every gay person should know about, and who is launching a new site soon that sounds quite fun; LZ Granderson, who writes for ESPN and who is moving to Michigan next month to be near his son; NY Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott, who had written about Amaechi just two days before but had never met him; Court, Jason and Itay from CBS News on Logo; my old boss Steve Weinstein, who just wrote a book about Fire Island; Kenneth in the 212, whom I had never met; and many other great folks. Martina Navratilova was there, or so I hear, but she left before I got to say hello (I still have never met her, darn it!!).

Dan was just excited to see Meredith Vieira, whom we had watched on Martha just a couple days prior (and who seemed like she had never seen the inside of a kitchen).

The Roxy bids adios

After dinner on Saturday night Dan and I headed to the Roxy to see if there was any chance a line had not yet formed (we live a whopping five-minute walk from there). We got there at 10:05; no such luck. It was the gay dance club's last night, and the gays had come out in droves. the line ran the length of 18th Street, sometimes five people deep, rounded the corner, and headed up West Side Highway. We stayed for 15 minutes and left our friends in the drizzle, having advanced a whopping one foot per minute.

I'm glad we didn't go, after reading this article in the New York Times. I've been to the Roxy before, and I figured it would just be more of the same. It sounds like it was. It's fun to be sure, and we would have stayed if the wait wasn't going to be 90 minutes to pay $40 to get in. It just wasn't worth that investment to me.

This isn't remotely why we didn't go, but I was particularly disheartened (though not surprised) to read promoter John Blair's comments on how they invite people to the Roxy, and what they charge people:

Mr. Blair, who had owned gay health clubs, explained the coding system that he and his business partners devised for the Roxy’s loyalty cards and mailing lists. “We rated everybody on a scale from 1 to 4 based on how they looked,” he said. They kept the rankings in a database, so that for certain events they could direct their invitations to a specific mix of loyal customers and trophy guests.

“We gave out very few 1s — that’s the worst-looking, or for straight people,” he said. “Then, most people got 2s; if they’re pretty, they got a 3. Four is for people we have to let in free — either they’re really hot or they’re a friend of mine or somehow important in the club community.”

If that's the attitude that ran the club, I'm glad it's gone.

Hot Chocolate

I love hot chocolate. Heck, I love chocolate; But hot chocolate brings with it so many wonderful feelings and memories of sledding on a snow day and getting out from the cold at my parents' cabin in Maine. As a kid, we always had pretty crappy hot chocolate made from a powdery sugary mix from Swiss Miss. In the last year, however, I have discovered hot chocolate made in a way that has renewed my love affair with it.

It came last winter when I was watching Martha Stewart make hot chocolate with real chocolate (recipe). I tried it out on our trip to Aspen last January and it was divine. I haven't made it yet this year, but I rediscovered The City Bakery's hot chocolate (above) that, at $5 (with an extra marshmallow), is the best I've ever had from a store. And I just discovered that in February of last year, The City Bakery had a hot chocolate festival, with a different flavor every day (pray it returns this year!).

A side note: Avoid Starbucks' hot chocolate. While their coffee is strong in flavor, their hot chocolate is little more than a chocolate syrup warmed up with hot milk.

New York magazine did a review of the city's best hot chocolate, which you can find here.

Boo! I missed Toys For Tots

For the first time while living in New York, I missed the wonderful Toys For Tots party. But it was with good reason. My team in the New York Gay Football League made it to the quarterfinals. In our conference, we are the 2-seed, and we played the 3-seed, whom we had beaten by two touchdowns just two weeks ago. This game was very different, but we managed to pull out a 2-point win, 32-30.

I threw four TD passes and ran for one more. But I also threw the worst interception I've thrown all season. I throw with receivers gloves (sounds crazy, but I make it work, and I'm glad I do in this cold weather). Every once in a while the ball gets "stuck" in the glove. Well, the ball came out about 1/10th of a second after it was supposed to - and went right into the waiting hands of the cornerback.

I heard the party was a great success. It always is. My bf said it started a little slow (doesn't every party), but it picked up.

If you have pictures of the party that I can post, please do send them my way at mabutimoose@yahoo.com.

Gay leaders: DC Dems get a pass on marriage

Last night was a better-than-I-expected discussion on the 2006 election at the New School. It was, predictably, incredibly slanted, but there were some very smart people on that stage, and I enjoyed the discussion and the conversations that spilled out into the post-talk reception.

One of the discouraging things to me about events like this is the constant referral to Democrats as "we." When I saw that the title of the program was "Victory 2006," despite the fact that seven states passed Constitutional Amendments banning same-sex marriage, I knew I was going to get another ear load of it. There is this callous misunderstanding among so many gay Democrats that every gay person bleeds as blue as they do. Of course, these are the same people who insist that we refer to our "community" as "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex," making sure that everyone feels represented. But I don't feel represented by all of these gay political leaders who insist on pretending that gay Republicans are rare people who have simply lost their way.