Wigstock

Photo: Young James and Me at Wigstock, taken by Blogdaddy.

So.
I took the Orient Express up to NYC this weekend. Guess I'd better enjoy the service while I can. A friend tells me that this morning's METRO describes the obviously unsafe conditions (uninsured, bald tires, unlicensed drivers , no windshield wipers, dozens of young Asian women whose constant cell phone chattering in Mandarin and Cantonese is interrupted only by the hello kitty ring tones of incoming calls) which keep the lines' ticket costs so low-low-low. Life is cheap on the Chinese bus. I for one am willing to put my life on the line for the $20 round trip. Seems though that Senator Charles Shumer doesn't share my cost/value, benefit/risk assessments, and is intent on shutting them down or regulating them out of existence. On the other hand, Chinatown is the chief vector of infectious disease for the island of Manhattan, so maybe I'll save myself the trouble of drug resistant tuberculosis (here now) or the westward moving Avian Flu ( due around late October, I reckon).

Met up with some blog buddies for a late (for them. Ed Time lunch is around 3 or 4 PM) lunch at The Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A. My cell rang, and I turned away from the group to answer and saw Young James standing ten feet away outside the open window, calling to see where I was so we could meet up. Fortified with several Brooklyn Lagers, the boys and I wandered over to Tompkins square Park to see the Wigstock portion of the Howl Festival, organized to celebrate the arts which flourished in the East Village neighborhood back when artists could actually afford to live there. Saw BJ , Brooklyn (formerly Philly) photographer cub Brendan and pals Michael and Luis (who is, together with their friend "Mr. NYC Eagle 2005" Robert, pictured in this month's "Details" magazine as the embodiments of the sort of fearsome fellas who are lightning rod targets of "The New Homophobia"). James and I followed the painted and sequined masses to the sweltering low ceilinged Slide, where we were delighted to hear shouted replies to our disco calls of "Whoot! Whoot!" (Whoot ! Whoot!) from the other dancers, packed in between the DJ booth and go-go boys, even as we contorted to avoid the whipping hair extentions of one Party Gurl who ALMOST got the nostalgia hawking former MTVee-Jay Nina Blackwood look down. Visits to The Phoenix, Boys Room and Siberia followed. I think.