La Isla Boniva

I went downtown to hang out with my friend T (not that friend T), but he wasn't ready yet, so I walked around Soho for a bit, waiting for him to text me. I happened upon this sign advertising Madonna tickets, and was jolted to learn that tickets had already gone on sale, two days before. I didn't even know! Usually, I get an email from American Express about a pre-sale, but I didn't get one this time around, I guess because Madonna is working with a different credit card company now :(

I have seen every single Madonna tour since 1990's Blond Ambition tour (my very first concert), mostly because the gays can be very dismissive of you if you are not on top of every gay trend. I didn't want to be the only gay in the gay rest home twenty years from now who didn't see this particular tour. By now, though, having not gotten Lady Gaga and not caring about "Glee," I am pretty much officially persona non grata with the gays. And, after seeing Madonna almost fall down during her performance of "Music" at the Superbowl half-time show, I had all but decided that I didn't want to see her tour again. All she ever does now is project images onto a screen and hump a chair! So why does this news that I've missed the chance to get tickets for her show bother me so much? Maybe because I wanted to be able to symbolically reject her; I didn't want to just not know about it! Sigh.

Back in the day, I loved Madonna, and I would gleefully clip out pictures of her from magazines and wallpaper my room with them. My mother would just as gleefully rip them off my wall when I angered her about something, and I would be heartbroken, and the cycle would repeat. But right around the time that "Erotica" came out, I finally realized that Madonna's music mostly sucks. I still kept buying those albums and attending those shows, though ... you can't be the only gay who doesn't. And as we both aged, I guess I felt some jealousy towards her ... after all, she has exercised obsessively over the years just as I have, but I have lingering joint pain because of it, and she doesn't seem to. And she fell off a horse.

In this poster, Madonna is wearing a simple white jacket, showing her cleavage. I say "Madonna" is wearing it, because that's what the poster is telling you; although it is pretty obvious that the real Madonna no longer looks this way, and perhaps never did. Whatever outfits the real Madonna chooses to wear during this upcoming tour, I think it's safe to say that they will be age-inappropriate. And tonight, I will be wearing a Steven Alan shirt at a Bookforum party at the New Museum, featuring Adam Wilson, Ben Marcus, and Dale Peck. See you there, gays?

Gay Pride

I decided to meet Annie and her friend at the Gay Pride Parade (okay, obviously I'm a little late in posting this one). I decided to wear my "Have you seen my weiner?" t-shirt, which I have worn correctly only once before. I've worn it inside-out many times, but I'm afraid of offending the ladies and gentlemen in my neighborhood with it. But, I figured, who am I going to offend at the Gay Pride Parade? Everyone will ignore me, gawking instead at the shirtless ladies and men in pink spandex.

When I arrived at the parade, however, I noticed that everyone seemed to have toned it down a notch since the parades I used to attend in the 1990s. A lot of people seemed to have kids, too. I felt a little ashamed, actually, at my t-shirt, but that was okay. I enjoy feeling shame. (The shirt itself is my way to shame myself about my promiscuous period - again in the 90s - where I would "take it out" in a variety of settings). My friend Tim and I used to joke about our "Gay Shame Parade," which consisted of just the two of us, plus whichever loners and outcasts were currently in our circle. Then Tim moved away to Berlin. Sigh. Now it's just me, a parade of one.

Everyone is so ra-ra about everything these days. People cheered for the Bank of America float, for God's sake. They even cheered for the NYPD's brass band. I dutifully booed and hissed any float that featured a bank's logo, and I definitely booed the NYPD, but I was the only one booing. I don't get Lady Gaga, either.

Alice Walker wrote once that "resistance is the secret of joy." And Sheryl Crow lamented that "it's hard to make a stand." Parade volunteers pranced by, handing out stickers for the crowd to wear, but I politely declined all of them, except for the one I'm wearing in this pic. The sticker for SAGE, the elderly gays. I could rock this town, friends, but first I have to take a Boniva.