New York LGBT Pride Season 2011

June is Pride Month, in honor of the Stonewall Uprising, a truly fabulous event back in 1969. You may have heard of it.

I live in New York City, and Staten Island Pride was yesterday. It's the youngest borough Pride event, dating only to 2005. I didn't make it this year, but you can see some photos I took of SI Pride in 2009 here.



The event is surprisingly low on guidos...and high on penis cookies.

Queens Pride was today, offering ample opportunity for puns. I'll restrain myself.

Some upcoming NYC Pride events:

• Brooklyn Pride: June 11
• Trans Day of Action: June 24
• Dyke March: June 25 <3
• Harlem Pride: June 25
• Manhattan Pride: June 26
• Bronx Pride: July 9

Queer Nerd Safari + Homeless Youth Rally Vids

TOMORROW!

The dudes over at FAQNP are presenting their third zine, "A Queer Nerd Travel Guide". As always, it will be at the 13th Street Center in Manhattan, corner of 7th Avenue. The event starts at 6:30.

Woohoo! Zine party!

Also...in April, there was a homeless queer youth rally and panel in Chelsea. You see, Albany recently cut founding to youth shelters in half, effectively fucking over all the kids who flock to NYC as a "gay mecca", upon being tossed out by homophobic and transphobic parents. You can check out the goods here:

Skeletor Supports Homeless Queer Youth; Albany Does Not

My first post for the month of April allows me to introduce a new tag that I will, without a doubt, be using often: he-man!

Coming up this week is "Skeletor Saves", an auction of art based on "He-man and the Masters of the Universe"...and if that isn't awesome enough, it's for a good cause.



You see, for the first time in, let us say, forever, the lazy bastards in New York's state capital passed a budget on time. Of course, no good could come of this. I mean, it's the New York equivalent of hell freezing over. Surely the end times are upon us. All joking aside, Satan's minions in Albany all agreed that cutting half of all state funding for homeless youth was a GREAT idea.

Because you can't raise taxes for millionaires -- that would just be wrong!

The "Skeletor Saves" show's proceeds will go to the Ali Forney Center, a homeless queer youth shelter in Manhattan. Submissions include art by Helmut Lang, Phuc Van Dang, Marc Jacobs, aaaaand Buck Angel, who is more well known for his creative skills in other areas, such as your mom.

The show will be Thursday 4/7/11 from 6-10PM at Headquarters Studios at 385 Broadway, in Manhattan.

The inevitable video:



By the power of GraySkull!

Updates!

First: More info on the black sci-fi event coming up!

The event will be hosted by M. Asli Dukan, director of a documentary called Invisible Universe, about the way blacks are portrayed in speculative fiction. "Speculative fiction" is a term that covers not just science fiction, but also horror, fantasy, and the latest Philip K. Dick adaptation whose marketing pretends that it isn't sci-fi at all but just an action thriller.



Also!

Friday, March 18th is quite a busy day. Not only is the black lesbian sci-fi event Friday, but later on, at everybody's favorite feminist bookstore, there's Trans Bodies, Trans Selves. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a resource guide for transgender folks, and they're currently doing a book tour. The event will run from 7 to 9pm Friday, March 18th, with discussion and a Q&A.

The place that will be hosting Transbodies, Bluestockings Bookstore, is located in Manhattan, near the corner of Allen & Stanton Streets. That's one block down from Houston Street, and one block east of 2nd Avenue. Yes, "one block east of 2nd" should be 1st Avenue, but it's the Village: 4th Street zig-zags all over the damn place, so what were you expecting? If you happen upon a grocery store with awesome cartoon characters all over it, you're heading the right way -- the bookstore will be the next building over. That's how I figure it out, and I could get lost in a paper bag.

Black. Lesbian. Sci-fi.

Now there's a combination I'd like to see more of.

I can't even think of any films that fit that criteria off-hand. Am I just completely clueless and ignorant...or is the presumed market for sci-fi still little white boys who want to see triple-nippled space boobies?



That's from Total Recall, if you were wondering.

The LGBT Center in Manhattan will be having an event on black lesbian sci-fi this Friday, March 18th, at 6:30pm. Unfortunately, since the event is from an outside group and not organized by the Center itself, there's no info posted on the Center website (www.gaycenter.org). However, it will undoubtedly be amazing. The Center is located at the corner of 7th Avenue and 13th Street, in Manhattan.

On a semi-related note, check out Brooklyn Boihood. They're all about increasing visibility for masculine-identified lesbians of color...and their calendar is pretty rad. I have a copy in my bedroom, so I can remember to forget all sorts of upcoming events. Autostraddle recently wrote up an article on how great Brooklyn Boihood is: Where the Bois Are.

In the meantime, I'll be seeing if the Performing Arts Library has Total Recall available for borrowing.

More Queer Nerds at the Center

Hey guys!

Coming up next Tuesday (ahem), the guys over at FAQNP are having another event at the Manhattan LGBT Center. They're the same folks who brought you "Yaoi for Beginners" (like you needed help with that). This time they're trawling the Center archives for queer nerd "print material"...which probably means filthy, filthy fan zines, Tijuana bibles and slash fiction.

Speaking of queer comics...I bet you didn't know this about Popeye...



So here ya go -- Queer Nerd Print Culture, March 8 @ 6 PM!

"Hannah Henri": Lesbian Woody Allen Rom-Com

Last night, I went to Queer Memoir, which is a series of readings about queer lives (next week they're in Philly!) There was a performance that night of some scenes from Hannah Henri, an upcoming indie movie that pitches itself as "the lesbian Manhattan, the butch-femme Annie Hall".

I thought Annie Hall was butch-femme already?



This project really disappoints me: I wanted to be the lesbian Woody Allen! I guess I'll have to settle for being the lesbian Daniel Radcliffe instead...

On the other hand, it sounds really exciting! It would be great to see "a neurotic metro-sexual butch" up on the big screen...hell, it was great seeing it at Queer Memoir! You can see some pictures at their Facebook page: Queer Memoir Hello/Goodbye. We were treated to a make-out scene, and lots of talk about hand sanitizer and tacos. Sounds pretty damn promising in my book.

Hannah Henri is still in production. To help it along, you can donate at IndieGoGo.

Geeks Out!

NEXT magazine (a weekly guide to all things gay in New York City) ran a piece on GeeksOUT, an organization that's raising queer visibility in geek culture. Lord knows we need it. Who do you think invented Star Trek fanfiction in the first place?! It's all about Kirk/Spock! You can read the article here: Out Geeks.

Besides the web presence, GeeksOUT also holds meatspace (hello 1995!) parties and mixers. The next one will be February 24th, at Vig 27.

You can help GeeksOUT by donating so they can reserve a spot at Comic Con: show them love.

Yaoi for Beginners

This one is for the New York Metro area!

On February 16th, these guys are having a discussion on yaoi at the Manhattan LGBT Center.

The LGBT Center is the super-secret headquarters of the homosexual mafia that is running this country into the ground.

Oh, wait...that's Congress. And a handful of 'em are even straight!

No, the LGBT Center is just a community center on 13th Street in Manhattan, on the corner of 7th Avenue.

Anyway -- ho yay! Go queer nerds!


FAQNP sponsored yaoi event @ February 16th, reception at 6 pm & presentation at 7 pm