Why is the mayor sending this to me, if he’s not running for anything? Is it really just because his poll numbers are sagging, or does he have a fourth term in mind?

I interviewed Simon Young of The Slants yesterday (my first professional music writing ever) for the Voice’s Sound of the City blog. Young and I chatted about why Asian Americans can’t trademark a band called The Slants, yet black people can trademark N.W.A. and white people can trademark Cracker, Aunt Jemima, and the Redskins.

In January, I was walking through the Atlantic/Pacific subway station, when I heard a hoarse voice shrieking, “Being  a dyke is nasty! Cunnilingus between women is nasty!”

Appalled, I turned and saw the screaming was coming from a Black Hebrew Israelite, a so-called member of the 12 Tribes of Israel. Reaching back into my memory, I knew that I knew of these guys, but I had no idea who they really were, or why they yelled what they yelled. And, as silly as they looked, something about watching him scream down one of my lesbian sisters made me feel enraged.

Instead of just growing afraid, I set out to find out who these cats were. The Village Voice published my findings today. The highlight of the experience was having photographer Michael Premo, my former StoryCorps consort, shot the story. We saw some strange shit when we were on the Griot Tour in Memphis together. This may have taken the cake.

I love having people over to my house and cooking for my loved ones. Last night – celebrating Andre’s 45th birthday, the fool/supermoon, and Purim – was a delight. People often ask me for my recipes after coming over. I kind of make them up as a go along, but decided for once to do a post-mortem on a meal. Here are the results. Continue reading →

I hadn’t been dreaming about the tsunami-turned-earthquake-turned nuclear trauma Japan has been receiving. Then, Andre sent me the below clip (be forewarned, if you choose to click “play”) of the Sendai Mediatheque, which has been haunting my dreams ever since. It’s not the most horrific video footage out there of the heartbreaking events, but as Andre pointed out, it has a Jacques Tati Play Time quality to it, which is deeply disconcerting juxtaposed with the unemotional reactions of the people. Also unsettling is how long the whole wretched business goes on.

It is partially this aspect that transported me back to the earthquakes of my childhood in Southern California. I vividly remember how awful it was to feel a whole building sway – especially our house in Oxnard during the 1987 Whittier quake, when I was 11 – and how it seemed like it would never end. In truth, that one only lasted about a minute, and by the time my mom and I got into a doorway and held on, it was almost over. But the recent quake in Japan goes on for over three minutes in this clip, and that’s with the camera rolling in mid-action. You can tell from how the building designed by Toyo Ito (which Andre traveled to Sendai to review for werk, bauen + wohnen in their May 2001 issue) holds up that the Japanese death toll owes much to their impeccable building standards. Before the tsunami, radiation and nuclear fallout had their say, buildings like this kept the Japanese people relatively safe through the 8.9 earthquake, as the floors and ceilings seem to sway as independent plates.

It’s still sickening to watch and hear, and I imagine absolutely nauseating to actually experience.

And how to sleep again, now that these sights and sounds are in my head, transporting me back at night to when I was begging my parents to sleep on the floor next to their bed so that I’d feel safe? Continue reading →

Sometime Saturday night, between 11:00 PM and midnight or so, I’ll engage in a weekly ritual for the last time. I’ll log onto nytimes.com before heading to bed (or while taking a break from the dishes that have amassed during a Saturday night dinner with friends over) and I’ll read Frank Rich, one last time.

I will miss this tradition incredibly. I can’t believe this time has come already.

Frank will be fine, of course, as he heads off to New York magazine. And for his loyal readers, they’ll be getting a nice dolop of him monthly, weekly pieces online and (most exciting, for readers and writers) the chance to see him working as an editor as he crafts a whole section of the magazine around the theme of his essay.

But Frank has long been a hero of mine, and he is one of those people who, when I had the chance to meet him and have him review my portfolio, was even more wonderful in real life than I’d ever dreamed my role model could be.

Continue reading →

I miss Granville. He’s one of those friends that, when he died, I didn’t fully appreciate what a hole he was going to leave in my life.

Granville was one of those people who grabbed onto you and refused to let go. Sometimes it felt like smothering, especially since he became an education source for me when I started writing for the Voice. While working on the whites in the front door, blacks in the back door story, he was both invaluable and a nuisance. He wouldn’t leave me alone, which is both a blessing and a curse for a writer.

But more importantly, he was my friend, an old dear soul I met at Middle Church in the days before Jacqui Lewis had driven all of my friends away. I was the recipient of his advice, sought after and not, and of his great bear hugs.

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I asked Drag Queen Honey LaBronx and blind activist Kevin Beauchamp why they were willing to get arrested for marriage equality. Here’s what they had to say.

Just posted a story at the Voice about how the group Queer Rising shut down the intersection at Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street at the height of rush hour this morning.

It was a quite crew they rounded up for this action. Here’s founding member Jake Goodman, leading Kevin Beauchamp, who is blind:

Continue reading →