Manhattan Offender

Hey, biotch, how's the weather

Well, we're in Puerto Vallarta. The info below will tell you if we are basking in sunshine or basking in booze because of the weather.

Mr. Popularity

Apparently, Manhattan Offender has broken the Technorati top 30,000 blogs ... somehow.  It must be some sort of mistake.

But it does provoke thanks, before going on a potential hiatus while on vacation (Mama Offender always advised not to type while addled).  So hugs and a tongue in the ear to my little friends:

• For the picking up my stuff and posting it on sites that people actually go to:  curbed, gawker, queerty, malcontent, rodonline2.0
• For the linkage:  queerclick, christopherblair, madeinbrazil, pen15club, knifefight in bk, badluckgirl, fromthecellar
• And a special thank you to the search engines that send me traffic for such terms as:  "puerto rican male models", "gay men", "fire island gay sex", and, chillingly, "fabian basabe".  Such a perverted bunch of people, and you are loved for it!

When this little project began back in June, there was no plan other than to give a personal point of reference on life in Manhattan from this gay-skewed point of view.  Average readership is now just under 300 per day, which is, like, really gratifying.  The only thing that could be better is more ideas and comments.  The attempt is to be prolific but, as a wage slave, the office walls confine the experiences about which could be written.  It would be great to create a big offensive community!

So please stay tuned and spread the word.  (And thank you again!)

Which is why I write and edit my own stuff ...

It seems that someone on the Ferrer campaign wrote that Fernando Ferrer attended public schools.  Because it is untrue, it has caused a bit of a hub-bub.  Which is just ridiculous.  I attended public schools for 17 years and it doesn't make me an expert on them.  The only advice I can give is to stay away from them around 3 in the afternoon as the children are scary en masse.

What caused more hub-bub is that the writer of this information didn't just put it as general information or as a press release; it was as a blog entry by Ferrer himself.  Pointing out that if you are going to have some hack writing for you on a daily basis to discuss policy points, don't have it ghost-written and certainly don't call it your 'blog'.  Eventually your hack writer will make a mistake; whatever 'talking point' you were trying to make that day will be overrun by the attention given the boo-boo.

Which is why I write all of my own material, except for the stuff I steal from dinner conversations.

72 hours and counting

	Playa de Los Muertos, Puerto Vallarta Jalisco, Mexico
	This screen has been open at my desk the entire day.  It is directly outside the villa where we'll be staying, with the beach in front of us and jungle behind.  (As in jungle behind the villa, not jungle booty.)

It's the Casey Spooner, Charlie Brown!

It's never to early to start planning for Halloween. You can look back in your album of All Hallows Eve's past and easily recall which were the ones planned in advance and which were the ones where you decided to 'wing' it. Winging it typically means party jumping with random encounters with, well, let's call it as it is: amateurs. The ones hooting and howling at you as you go down the street in, say, a fur coat and absolutely nothing else (man did that get toasty when inside) or dressed as a 'modern-interpretive valkyrie' (biggest boobs ever).

Well, stop the madness. This year Fischerspooner has got your back. Just received the below:

FISCHERSPOONER NEWS.... LIVE! FROM IRVING PLAZA IN NYC... It's a very Fischerspooner Halloween Show! That's right ghouls & ghoulettes, FS is back from disco island and ready to get down with their hometown freaks! You know the show is going to be so mind blowingly fun that the bloggers fingers are going to bleed from excitement! Yet, you never really just want to read about this kind of stuff. You want to be there first hand! Costumes are mandatory for everyone on & off stage! This very well may be the Fischerspooner performance of 2005.

Tickets go on sale today ... go here for details.

Oprah Freys soccer mom brains

Apparently Oprah Winfrey is out to blow the minds of her soccer mom audience.  The first selection for her (newest) book club is A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.  Two birthdays or maybe christmases ago I received this book along with Augusten Burroughs' Dry from my friend Hobbsy, sort of as a joke since both of the books were about addiction, drugs and life on the dark side.  While Dry addicted me to the sylings of Augusten Burroughs, A Million Little Pieces riveted me like no book in years.

While all the press will tell you that it is a book about the evils of drug addiction, this is just the pretty little package that vapid p.r. hacks put it into for mass consumption.  The book is an exploration of inner darkness and delves into how the developmental years plant seeds into the adult persona.  It is at once horrifying and beautiful. 

So a big "you go girl" to Oprah.  I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the suburban bedroom with (my perception of) a typical Oprah viewer reading just the first chapter of this harrowing book.

God: Okay with the gays, kind of pissed about oil

After Katrina devastated New Orleans on the eve of Southern Decadence, conservative Christians announced that god was punishing the city for tolerance of the gays. Seeing that the message wasn't clear with the first go round, God has sent Rita barreling toward Galveston and Houston, which, like New Orleans, have major ties to the oil industry. Exxon has already shut down two huge refineries and the oil-rich town of Houston is being evacuated. Clearly this God character is after the excesses of the oil economy and a nation that starts wars in an effort to control more oil.

[Just to be clear: This joke in no way intends to make light of the people who are scrambling for shelter or who are still suffering from the effects of Katrina. And do I believe that there is a god that is going after the oil industry? Hells no. What is being made light of here is wack-job religiots.]

I don't know which I enjoy more, doing my blow or finishing it.

Perhaps the best ad ever written for the Sunday New York Times.
[found via Gawker]

Methadone Alley

The preponderance of obviously high-as-hell homeless people in the area between Madison Square Park and Union Square has been a source of mystery for a while.  It is here where you find young, semi-attractive people asking for money with that heroin-y x-ray vision.  The area does sport  features that might make it attractive:  two McDonalds, two Subways, a Wendy's, and (Manhattan's Jewel) 7-11.

But a quick check on superpages reveals the biggest draw:  the closest concentration of methadone clinics in the city.  Heroin-chic is here to stay in the former Silicon Alley!

New Gay Rule Said to Bar Preists as New Homosexuals

Take a national news story and do a quick [CTRL+H] in Word and here's what you get:

New Gay Rule Said to Bar Preists as New Homosexuals

ROME, Sept. 21 – Roman Catholic priests, even those who are celibate, will be barred from becoming homosexuals, a major homosexual said Wednesday, under stricter rules soon to be released on one of the most sensitive issues facing gay bars.

The official, said the question was not "if it will be published, but when," referring to the new ruling about Catholics in gay bars, a topic that has stirred much recent rumor and worry in the gay community. The official, who has authoritative knowledge of the new rules, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the gay policy of not commenting on unpublished reports.

He said that while Lady Bunny had not yet signed the document, it would probably be released in the next six weeks.

In addition to the new document, which will apply to the gays worldwide, homosexual investigators have been instructed to visit each of the 229 gay bars in the United States.