Weird websearch of the day

list on country western male artist no hit songs in the 60's lists my blog as second. Of course this person was doing an MSNsearch, which is nowhere as good as Google. Google doesn't have me anywhere in the top 100, which makes much more sense, since I never write about country western music.

Plat du jour

Close up:







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Pigs 1, Goats 0

From the Associated Press:
Woman Challenges Anti-Pig Law and Wins

Town Orders Man to Find New Home for Goat

7,000 visitors!

Today this blog logged its 7,000th visitor. I guess I passed 6,000 when I was on vacation.

Thank you all for dropping in. Now if only a few more of you would leave comments I'd be even happier.

What's he been smoking?

Cheney Sees GOP Winning Midterm Elections
In his dreams.

Unless the Republicans rig the elections.

GENDA passes Assembly?

I'm hearing unconfirmed reports that the Gender Non-Discrimination Act, A7438, passed the New York State Assembly today. I hope the reports are true.

UPDATE: It looks like this is a false rumor.

From the weird websearch department

Someone doing a Yahoo search for gazelle running into tree clip found my blog. I'm first on the list--despite the fact I only mention the clip. I don't actually have it.

This one came up quite frequently for a while. It's been quiet lately. But it leads me to wonder, does this clip really exist? The search points to a news story where a Wal-Mart exec showed it at a talk he gave, back in 2004. So the answer is yes, it does exist. But there doesn't seem to be any link to it on the internet.

Public service reminder

Estimated income tax payments are due tomorrow.

Plat du jour

I guess the people at the DMV don't know French. This means "your ass," as in "up your ass."

I've been busy IV

I'm still trying to get caught up with blogging my activities since my vacation. Part 4:

5/30: I went on a guided tour of the Girodet: Romantic Rebel exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had opened a few days earlier. French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson bridged the gap between the Neo-Classic style of his teacher Jacques-Louis David and the Romantic movement that followed. This is the first retrospective in America of the relatively little-known artist. I had never heard of him.

The tour was a special after-hours one organized by a French organization my wife is active in. Our group had the exhibition to ourselves (and a few museum guards to watch us). There were actually two tours, one in French, and one in English (thank goodness--I can understand French moderately well, but I would still miss a lot on a tour like this). Unfortunately, while I could understand her, our tour guide seemed ill-prepared. She indicated she knew almost nothing of Girodet before this exhibition. Furthermore, she seemed not to have rehearsed her talk at all--she continually forgot portions, and had to rely on reading from a text she had prepared.

Girodet certainly had tremendous technical skills. Even his earliest works showed this. But he quickly started painting wild historical and mythological scenes--though he had no trouble going to a conventional style to do portraits. There aren't a huge number of paintings in the exhibition--at least two of his most famous ones are too large to fit on a plane. There are more drawings than oils. Because this was a guided tour, I didn't get a chance to linger and examine some of the pictures as I would have liked to. If I get a chance I'll go back.

5/31: Started with the regular Wednesday Open House of Crossdressers International (CDI). Afterwards three of us went down to the Village to the Monster Bar for Jesse Volt's Follies. This week she had a good old fashioned drag show, with "the antics of" (as Jesse always introduces her) ShaBoomBoom, and Trai LaTrash. No "Ass is Tight" audience participation bit--which I always find boring. She even brought me up to the stage to show off what I was wearing--which was just a pair of black and white floral print capri pants and a U-neck t-shirt. She skipped telling the audience about my CDI connection, which she used to do. I think the new owner doesn't like her to mention that. After the show I had a nice chat with Trai.

6/1: The Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC 20th Anniversary Celebration: This years marks the 20th anniversary of both this club and that of the passage of the NYC Gay Rights Law. The two were celebrated at a fundrasiser/celebration at the lovely Via Restaurant on West 21st St. I went down there with Clover Honey, who is also in the Stonwall Dems--though a bit more active than I.

The big attraction of the evening was the presence of several of the city council members who voted for the Gay Rights Law, and Mayor Ed Koch, who supported it and signed it into law. The restaurant was pretty crowded, but I managed to get a good vantage point for the presentations of the certificates marking the occasion. Some were a bit long-winded, both on the presenters' end and the recipients'--but a few contained quite interesting recollections. One of the former council members was someone I worked for briefly in the mid-70s, before he was elected. I got a chance to come out as a trans-person to him. I'm not sure he really remembered me, but he seemed quite comfortable with my presentation as a woman.

After the presentations the crowd thinned out a bit. The yummy mini-pizzas and chicken and beef skewers came out rapidly, and made a nice meal. I got a chance to have a nice converstion with Tom Hickey, the former chair of my New York County Lawyers Assn LGBT Issues Committee, and still the director of the Name Change Project of the West Village TransLegal Clinic, where I'm a volunteer lawyer.

Afterwards I went down to the Lips Restaurant for a nightcap. Jesse Volt was doing her last show of the evening. I got a chance to thank her for bringing me up on stage at the Monster the previous night.

6/2: We were supposed to go to a cocktail party, but it was being held on an outdoor terrace so they cancelled it because of the rain. I was not very disappointed--it had been a long week.

Homeland non-security

Someone went to a meeting at the Homeland Security headquarters using a fake I.D. The date of birth on it didn't even match the one he had previously given them. He got in anyway. This really makes me feel safe.

Then they went out and lost 3-0

Bush Calls U.S. World Cup Team

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) - The U.S. World Cup soccer team got good luck wishes from the world's most powerful sports fan Monday when President Bush dialed them up before their opening match against the Czech Republic.

Bush called the team from Camp David, Md., where he was getting ready to begin a two-day summit on Iraq with his top national security and military advisers.

The affairs of state may have gotten in the way of Bush watching the midday game live, but he was able to reach the team at their hotel before they left for their pre-game warm-up. Coach Bruce Arena and most of the players listened on speaker phone, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

"He told them that they had prepared well and urged them to play hard, to keep their heads up and that he can't wait to see them win," Perino said.

Photo Op: Bush goes to Baghdad

So President Bush (or, as Garrison Keillor calls him, the Current Occupant), made a surprise trip to Baghdad, so he could be on the other side of a video-conference between the U.S. and Iraqi officials. Big deal. Who is he trying to fool--the Iraqi government "leaders" he's trying to prop up, or the America people, a majority of whom believe a stable government in Iraq is impossible?

Plat du jour

A politician from the Bronx?

Kevin Aviance beaten in gay bashing

Singer Kevin Aviance was attacked and beaten by a gang of thugs last night. They called him a faggot while they pummelled him, breaking his jaw. (I find it interesting that the Daily News finds the word "faggot" an unprintable epithet. I think I like that.)

I've seen him perform two or three times. I'd call him more of a gender-bender than a real drag queen. He doesn't present as a woman, at least when I've seen him.

But this kind of thing scares me. While I don't remember ever finding myself in the East Village alone at 1:30am like Aviance, occasionally I am out alone that late in other areas. And I am frequently out alone earlier. I try to be safe, but sometimes it's scary if I can't find a cab quickly.

Here we go again

Alberto Becomes 1st Named Storm of Season











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