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queerVOICE
A Prayer for a Nation and a President
James Duggan
copyright 2009 |
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This past Sunday as I prepared to watch the historic event of the first openly queer clergy to give an invocation at a presidential inauguration event I found myself filled with both excitement and anticipation. I programmed my DVR, poured a cup of coffee, and turn on HBO, who had the exclusive rights to the live national broadcast of the "We Are One" event held at the Lincoln Memorial, to watch Bishop V. Gene Robinson lead the country in prayer at the kick-off of the week's inauguration festivities. To my disappointment it was never shown!
Apparently HBO's scheduled broadcast began at 2:30 and the Presidential Inaugural Committee schedule Bishop Robinson for 2:20 . . . while both parties claim in was unintentional it was no less disappointing not to be able to both witness and pray with Bishop Robinson at this historic moment in our fight for equality.
In light of this I have decided to forgo my weekly column in order to share with you Bishop Robinson's complete invocational prayer.
The following is the complete text of Bishop V. Gene Robinson's invocation:
Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will . . .
Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
NEXT WEEK: The Queer Agenda Goes Mainstream
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12th Street Gym |
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SPECIAL NOTICE - Just Two Seat left |
 QUEERtimes has just two tickets left at our table at ASIAC's (AIDS Services In Asian Communities) 2nd LUNAR NEW YEAR Celebration: A Banquet Fundraiser this Saturday, January 24, 2009 / 6PM-10PM. Tickets are just $50 for a 10 Course Asian Banquet with Silent Auction and Raffle
This event will be held at Wokano Restaurant located at 1100 Washington Avenue, Philadelphia
Proceeds from this fundraiser benefit ASIAC programs. For more Information or to RSVP please call 215.629.2300; or visit asiac.org
If you would like to join QUEERtimes at this wonderful event please contact James Duggan @ james@queertimes.net
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Prayers for Bobby on Lifetime |
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What It Looks Like From Here
Thom Cardwell
copyright 2009 |
 Isabella Blow was far from a household name. Unless, of course, you're talking about fashion houses. The British eccentric aristocratic woman with an innate sense of fashion on-the-edge wasn't just someone who loved parties and wore her extraordinary signature hats. She was much more than that--a genuine force to be reckoned with. "Most people in fashion get excited about being connected to people who have already made it. Issie got excited about discovering people," explained Ronnie Newhouse.
Of this uncanny ability of hers, Edward Helmore ("Final Blow," Vanity Fair, September 2007) wrote: "Blow could spot talent at a distance, and would push and encourage and promote until they were household names."
Blow is attributed with discovering cutting-edge talent, in the raw, like the iconic queer bad boy of British fashion, Alexander McQueen, milliner Philip Treacy, designer Hussein Chalayan, and even models Sophie Dahl, Honor Fraser and Stella Tennant.
 "Where many fashionistas dress head to toe in the latest labels out of vanity, Blow could hardly care less. She wrote clothes for dramatic expression," Helmore remarked. Her appreciation of the "surreal" was legendary, compared often to Diana Vreeland, as creative and genuine. Nicky Haslam observed, "Her humor was eccentric but her brain really wasn't."
"Fashion is about emotion. It's about love. Women love clothes because they mean something to them--the day you met the man you love, the day you got married, what you did before you made love to somebody. It's psychological and tied to the spirit of a woman," Blow proclaimed.
Maybe that statement is the key to the woman, beyond fashion. That Blow, born Isabella Delves Broughton, an English country girl, of the blue blood class, would take her own life, seemed not to be so surprising to her friends and intimates.
 Her aristocratic heritage and her own family lineage were in conflict throughout her life, Helmore found out in researching Blow for his article. Disallowing them to be thought of only as a joke, Blow repackaged them, raising them to a status that they never heretofore been thought of as "sexy," explained designer Antony Price. "Nobody had seen them as that before," he said.
She had touches with fame, too, serving as a part time Factory Girl for Andy Warhol, befriending artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, working as a staffer at American Vogue, with the legendary fashion editor Anna Wintour, or brokering deals with Tom Ford at Gucci for one of her greatest discoveries, Alexander McQueen. Blow became friends, at least for a time, with all of them.
But for all her privilege, brilliance and creative talents, Blow couldn't find her purpose. That truly bothered her and then continued as she grew older to eat away at her. What did she want? What was she searching for?
"She was like someone constantly in search of an idea," recalled Punk Rock's architect, Malcolm McLaren, "But the idea was her, and nobody ever managed to put the mirror up in front of her and say, 'Issie, it's all about you. You are the artist. . ."
Oscar Wilde once quipped: "You should either make a work of art or be a work of art." It seems that Blow accomplished both without ever, sadly, getting the compensation or the recognition.
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Seven Reasons to Advertise on the Qt |
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Thoms' Table
Thom Cardwell
Copyright 2009 |
Let the libations flow!
 Continental Midtown, 1801 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, has launched a new menu during the Martini Hour at Stephen Starr's Rittenhouse Square property. From 5-7 pm, the Martini Hour menu will feature a handful of global tapas and of course, many of the restaurant's acclaimed signature martinis and cocktails at all bar tables including the first floor bar, second floor bar and lounge, and the popular third floor, rooftop bar and lounge.
Guests can enjoy a variety of sides and small plates, priced between $4 to $6, including hummus and pita, steamed edamame, Szechuan shoestring fries, tofu chive dumplings, orange Chile glazed calamari and BBQ chicken quesadilla. And guests can enjoy stylish signature cocktails, beer and wines by the glass, priced between $3 to $6, during the Martini Hour, including: Buzz Aldrin, Pomegranate Daquiri, Squirt, Grape Crush, Champagne-O-Rama and Smirnoff Martini; choice of wines: Redwood Creek Cabernet, Pio Pinto Grigio; and choice of beers: Miller Lite and Kenzinger.
For more information, call 215.567.1800; visit continentalmidtown.com
Chocolate at Fork
 Chocolaholics will be indulged at Fork, 306 Market Street, Philadelphia, has teamed up with chocolatier Chris Curtin's new decant treat Hot Éclat to create the winter's most tempting hot cocktail. Simply named Hot Éclat, this delectable beverage combines Barbancourt rum and Bailey's Irish Cream, steamed with milk to hot, frothy perfection, and is served with a Hot Éclat drinking chocolate wand for drinkers to stir in.
"The first time I tasted Hot Éclat, I knew it would make a spectacular cocktail," says Fork owner Ellen Yin. "This grown-up version of hot chocolate is a perfect treat whether you want a decadent dessert or a warm, comforting treat on a cold winter's night."
Fork's Spiked Hot Chocolate is available throughout the restaurant and at the bar for $11, during the winter months. Hot Éclat drinking chocolates - wooden rods tipped with a meltable morsel of Éclat's award-winning chocolate, designed to stir into hot milk - are available for purchase, next door, at Yin's Fork: etc.
For information, call 215.625.9425; or visit forkrestaurtant.com or eclatchocolate.com
Iron Hill hosts Belgian Beer Brewmasters
 Lovers of Belgian beers unite! Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, 3 West Gay Street, West Chester, PA, will once again host for the annual event celebrating Belgian beer brew masters, 1 p.m., January 24. Guests will meet the brewers and discover new Belgian styles.
Chris LaPierre, Iron Hill's own head brewer, will host the gathering of more than 15 of the finest craft brewers from the East Coast in the tasting of Belgian beers, including the introduction of some new Belgian styles of brewing. LaPierre himself will be pouring for the assembled guests, his Heywood, a 10 month old firken of Quadrupel and the last of the Great American Beer Festival gold medal winning Saison.
This year's lineup of representatives from the guest breweries will include: Dock Street Brewery, Earth + Bread Brewery, Flying Fish Brewing Company, General Lafayette Inn & Brewery, Harpoon Brewery, Manayunk Brewery, Nodding Head Brewery and Restaurant, Rock Bottom Brewery and Restaurant, Sly Fox Brewery, Stewart's Brewing Company, Troeg's Brewing Company, and Victory Brewing Company, and more.
LaPierre said that beer lovers will be pay as you go until the beer runs out at this year's event.
For more information, call 610.738.9600; or visit ironhillbrewery.com
Featured Culinary Event
 Here's the best price buster of the cold hard winter and our economic discontent! Center City Restaurant District Week returns starting today through January 30, with more restaurants than ever participating, allowing area diners to sample some of the city's best cuisine at just $35 for three sumptuous courses (not including tax, gratuity or alcohol).
What's the meal deal? Produced by the creators, the Center City District (CCD) and Rittenhouse Row, the annual event "also offers patrons a great value, requiring each establishment's three-course menu to have a check value of $55 or more. Some participants have even added a fourth course, all for $35," said R. J. White, publicist for the CCD.
What about parking? The Philadelphia Parking Association and Philadelphia Parking Authority work together each year for the event to offer parking at a deep discount of $9.00 or less at dozens of lots and garages all over Center City. All you have to do is present a voucher from a participating restaurant from 5:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. Participating parking facilities will be identified with a Center City District Restaurant Week poster at their entrance.
What about reservations? The complete list of participating restaurants with their complete menus and dinner offers are available online of the CCD's web site. Diners can also make their reservations online through OpenTable.com.
What about prizes? Incredible as it may seem, a highlight of the event each year is Center City District Restaurant Week Grand Prize Contest. All diners at the end of their meal will receive an entry form to try to win the incredible grand prize of "dinner for a year--fifty-two $50 gift certificates at the event's participating restaurants. The public can also enter to win online, at CenterCityPhila.org, or by picking up an entry form at 660 Chestnut Street, 9 a.m. to 5 p. m., Monday thru Friday.
For more information, visit www.centercityphila.org/restaurantweek
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Chiropractic and Sports Rehabilitation |
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What They Said: |
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 In "Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons From Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women" (Simon & Schuster, 2003) by Simon Doonan, whose most famous for being the window dresser par excellence of Barney's New York, the now-husband of queer designer/potter Jonathan Adler, writer and tastemaker, writes a profile of one of the most notorious and eclectic "factory girl" of the Warhol era: "Brigid Berlin is fondly remembered by many as the plump, Fifth Avenue-bred Warhol superstar who lolled around shooting whipped cream into her mouth and amphetamines into her ass through her jeans in the 1966 movie, Chelsea Girls. In the 1960s Warhol milieu, she found the perfect platform for her grandiose exhibitionism and monumentally obsessive-compulsive personality . . . she was a fully functional creative freak who actually made a significant contribution to twentieth-century art. Brigid's mania for recording conversations, polarizing anything that moved, making paintings with her breasts and general hell-raising informed and shaped large chunks of the Warhol canon." ("The Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story" was a documentary about her fascinating and wacky life in 2000.)
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 Queer film writer Boze Hadleigh ("Hollywood Lesbians," "Bette Davis Speaks") writes of "Hollywood Gays" (Barricade Books, 1996) profiling such legendary queers from the history of the Silver Screen as William Haines, Tony Perkins, Liberace, Brad Davis and--the most popular and iconic leading man of the movies, Cary Grant (who was the lover of matinee "cowboy" idol, Randolph Scott, also profiled by Hadleigh in his tell-all book). Hadleigh, who was close to being a Hollywood insider or close to those who were close to, well, you know, the closeted queers of the industry, recounts his meeting with George Cukor, legendary Hollywood director who was another closeted queer of the same era and directed Grant in "Sylvia Scarlett (1935), Holiday (1938) and The Philadelphia Story (1940): "George Cukor told me, 'Grant was very, very selective about his roles, from the late 1930s on. He needed to play irresistible types, but men who weren't physical. He could never have played an athlete, for example . . . Playing Cole Porter, who was gay, was a natural for him--you had one urbane closeted gay man playing another one, with beautiful music in the background and lots of penthouse suites and artifice."
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 Queer icon Rue McClanahan ("Mama's Place," "Golden Girls" and "Sordid Lives") talked about her love of the live theater, comedy, the gay community's love of Blanche Devereaux (the "slutty" man-eating character that she played on the now-legendary "Golden Girls") and something about her husbands--loved, betrayed and lost in Instinct (June 2008): "You also want to tackle hard subjects with comedy. I had to do that with my memoir, My First Five Husbands . . . And The Ones Who Got Away," I came up with the title first, then I had to write a book around it! It wasn't that painful, except in the chapter about my second husband who is the 'I' betrayed. When I was writing about all the putzes I married who betrayed 'me', that's easy and easy to be funny about. But when you're telling a story about someone 'you' have hurt, it can be very 'painful.' But it was a catharsis for me all the way through the writing."
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Lift The Ban |
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Events on the Qt! |
> Saturday (January 24)
ASIAC (AIDS Services In Asian Communities) 2nd LUNAR NEW YEAR Celebration: A Banquet Fundraiser
Saturday, January 24, 2009 / 6PM-10PM
At Host Restaurant:
Wokano Restaurant
1100 Washington Avenue
Philadelphia PA
Featuring: 10 Course Asian Banquet, Silent Auction, Raffle
Proceeds from this fundraiser benefit ASIAC programs. For more Information or to RSVP please call 215.629.2300; or visit asiac.org
> Saturday (January 31)
 Check out Qwik Dates events for gay men at The Center: 208 W. 13th St. (7th & 8th Ave.) in Manhattan. All events begin at 8:00 PM sharp and end at 10:00 PM. Admission is $20 - there are no advance reservations, so pay at the door. These are dates of our upcoming events:
Saturday Jan. 31: HIV+ men night
Saturday Feb. 14: Ages 20s/30s night
Saturday Feb. 28: Ages 40+ night
At Qwik Dates, you go on a series of assigned one-on-one 3-minute qwik dates, then get a free mingling period to meet anyone else in the room. Give us a list of the guys you want a longer date with, and minutes later our computer tells you your mutual matches!
> Saturday (January 31)
2009 Philadelphia Auto Show Saturday, January 31 through Sunday, February 8, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch Street, Philadelphia.
SHOW HOURS
Saturdays, 9:00 am - 10:00 pm
Sunday, February 1, 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday, February 8, 9:00 am - 8:00 pm
Weekdays, (Mon - Fri), Noon - 10:00 pm
Please Note:
There will be no admittance 45 minutes prior to the close of the show!
Ticket Prices
Adults (13 and over): $10 (weekdays) $12 (weekends)
Children (7-12): $6
Children (6 and under): FREE
Senior Citizens (62 + - weekdays only): $6
One dollar of every ticket sold will be donated to the Auto Dealers CARing For Kids Foundation benefiting The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
On Friday evening, January 30, 2009 from 7-11:30 pm, the Auto Dealers CARing for Kids Foundation will host the Black Tie Tailgate Preview Gala. Guests can preview the show before it opens to the public and enjoy food, drink and entertainment. All proceeds benefit the Auto Dealers CARing For Kids Foundation and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Visit theBlack Tie Tailgate site for more information on this event or to purchase tickets online!
Information Source: phillyautoshow.com/showinfo.asp
> Sunday (February 15)
 Mama Mia Sing a Long
ONE NIGHT ONLY-- Hiway Theater Benefit Event
Sunday, February 15th at 7:00 p.m.
The hit movie musical Mamma Mia! will be back at the Hiway Theatre for just one night in a special sign-a-long format with Philadelphia's own Chumley and Carlota Ttendant leading the evenings festivities.
Fun for the family this movie event is like no other and includes a dessert reception, a dance contest, and party favors.
We will also be picking the winning raffle ticket for our Tuscany Villa Vacation raffle that night!
Proceeds from this event benefit The Hiway Theatre, a non-profit community theatre. To learn more about sponsoring the event, or donating food or goodies contact Fred at 215.886.9802.
For tickets and other information visit hiwaytheatre.org | |
