Last weekend as the housemates and I tossed out chipped martini glasses, Speedos missing drawstrings, designer sunglasses so scratched that the world was a blur and beach towels with mysterious stains we reflected and mused on the summer of 2009.

June was certainly off to a wet start as the swimming pool overflowed from the torrential rains and we bravely sat through “Chicago” for the umpteenth time, wrapped in blankets and drinking frozen margaritas. The upside of all that rain though was extended cabin fever that always ensured tea dance at the Blue Whale was packed and everyone was happy to talk with anyone other than a house mate. We heard Rhiana sing “Under my Umbrella” so many times at tea while queens proudly danced under their open umbrellas that is seemed likely this would be the new gay anthem of the summer.

The Invasion of the Pines and Pansy ushered in the hot, humid and finally dry weather that sent all of Fire Island racing for their board shorts and Speedos. And with the new weather came the sun deprived crowds. Every weekend the ferries were packed with day trippers lugging coolers and backpacks, last minute weekend guests with their designer dogs, matching luggage and bottle of Grey Goose, and homeowner couples bickering over dinner plans while wrestling large plants from Bayport nursery. Low, Middle and High Tea as well as AlternaTea with DJ Lina at Sip N Twirl were always packed and if your game was on you were able to jump up and down and wave your hands in the air to Beyonce’s “Halo”, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, and The Black Eyed Peas “I’ve Got a Feeling” by DJ’s Vito Fun, Xavier and Corey Craig at least three times!  If you grew weary of Planters Punches and navigating the gridlock of low tea July also brought on the “event circuit” where you could sip donated vodka in random flavors (Absolut Pear?) and also jump up and down and wave your hands in the air to Beyonce’s “Halo”, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, and The Black Eyed Peas “I’ve Got a Feeling” for a good cause such as the Gay & Lesbian Center, SAGE, Stonewall Foundation, or Dancers Responding to AIDS.

Then it was August and when you are staring down the end of summer all holds are gone and the island goes into full acceleration. There are so many PreTea House party invitations that it requires a strategic navigational plan and an excel spreadsheet to make sure you don’t wear the same Diesel T-shirt twice. Extended weekends become so much the norm that Sunday night Tea Dances don’t look any different than Saturday -plus you are guaranteed to hear ”Halo” “Don’t Stop Believing”, and ”I’ve Got a Feeling” one more time. And, all of your Face book and Twitter friends begin not so subtly dropping hints by updating their status saying they have not been out of the city all summer. Coming right in the middle of the August heat is the hot, Ascension Party on the beach where this year DJ Tony Moran saved us from the hot hits of summer but left us with the undisputed gay anthem of the summer when Kelly Rowland brought down the crowd with “When Love Takes Over”!

So now as I sit in a Starbucks in Chelsea wearing a Fire Island hoodie I know there is a place only a few hours away where we can be proud, free and celebrate our gay heritage!  And, in my case as I sit here next to my new boyfriend who I met in that Gay Summer Camp called the Pines I realize he is the highlight of summer 2009!

See you next summer!

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So it was that I found myself with a much coveted invitation for a weekend in East Hampton. Of course a weekend invitation also comes with a complete weekend agenda which in this case meant no fewer than three house parties, a benefit fund raiser and an invitation to stop by for drinks. This does create great wardrobe challenges- “Are big Polo pony shirts still in style?”; transportation logistics- “What do you mean the bar car is full?” and hostess gifts -”They are sea shell shaped soaps hand made in a small village in northern Brazil”.

Our party benefit invitation was for ”Dancing on the Beach” a benefit for the LGBT Center in New York City. This year’s event was held at a private home on Two Mile Hollow Beach in East Hampton and featured DJ Susan Morabito. My hosts and other houseguests dressed in tight Scoop T-shirts, shorts, and sneakers - a welcome relief from the usual crisp Linen, Madras and Ralph Lauren Polos that normally define the Hampton’s- snaked through the “Meat rack” type path through the dunes and to the party, where we quickly planted ourselves at the bar for “complimentary” Vodka Tonics. After some thawing out it was time to mingle. Feeling ever so slightly out of my element – which is usually board shorts, flip flops and “well” drinks I put on my charming smile and proceeded to make small talk - and after a discussion of gardening, the commute to the Hamptons and home decorating- I ended up chatting with a prominent Hamptons realtor,  a cute, young theater producer and a charming 40 something man of dubious means but killer smile.

And, as the sun went down and Susan played the great Fire Island Classic “If you could read my mind” by Viola Wills while I danced close with the 20 something young producer I thought about how our Gay Heritage and shared experiences really do bind us all together no matter what gay destination we may find ourselves!

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On high weekends such as this we open our house to all of the housemates -although no dogs or children allowed- and we easily top 10 to 12 people. Normally you might think that would be a problem, but the majority of our house is made up of single girls who often prefer to sleep elsewhere. Saturday afternoon finds our house in a flurry of activity as we burn, rip, hem, drape, duct tape and staple to reach the desired effect. Remember it’s always a challenge to put together an outfit that will stand up through the night, grab the attention of some dark stranger and at the same time not look as though you came off the set of “Camelot”.

So, after a light dinner of chicken breast and salad- definitely no carbs- and three or more Vodka Red Bulls (hey, it takes liquid courage to wear a loincloth) we make our way to the party around midnight. As you approach the Beach you can hear the pounding of the music in your chest and as you cross the boardwalk and it is a sprawling, light dazzled small village on the beach that greets your eyes.

The housemates and I generally stick together for a few rotations but then we quickly adopt the ”Divide and Conquer” mentality throughout the rest of the night as we wind our way through the VIP booths with men of a certain age, flirt with the cute volunteer bartenders, dance with hot muscle guys on the dance floor, pose with Porsche and the other drag queens, and make out with slender Latinos sprawled on the benches and sofas scattered throughout the party.

And, as the first light of dawn begins to brighten the beach you will find yourself in the arms of someone warm and sexy as the DJ spins “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

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As we prepare for this year’s Invasion of The Pines, it seemed like a great time for me to put down on paper (or bytes) some thoughts I’ve been having recently about that most indigenous of Cherry Grove species: The Drag Queen.

It would be nearly impossible to not consider drag, if only briefly, after spending any time at all in Cherry Grove.  Drag is the common thread – a gaudy one at that – stringing together all the different crowds and age-groups in Cherry Grove.  One sees more drag in Cherry Grove than one will see in an entire year of typical gay night life.  You can love it or you can hate it, but you will learn quickly to live with it.

And, being of a “certain age,” I have seen enough drag extravaganzas to believe that we are now in a transitional node on the drag queen continuum, moving from the Golden and Silver Ages to some new drag era — perhaps a Bronzer age.  If drag has periodic system upgrades, this is Drag Queen 3.0.

The Golden Era of modern drag queenery preceded my arrival on the scene, but one could still feel and see its residual values for most of my coming out years, which were, for the record, the early 80s.  These first drag queens who got their start as budding young queenettes in the 50’s and 60’s, and reached full drag flower in the high rollin’ 70’s, bring a certain Nashville-meets-Vegas glamour to their personas.  It is easy to imagine these girls planning their weekly TV schedule around appearances by Anne Margaret, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton or any other slightly salty dish with a big head of frosting-like hair and a whore-with-a-heart-of-gold charm.  The songs that the Golden Era drag queens chose to perform typically featured powerhouse “show” vocals and a liberal dose of the risqué.  Our drag queen was a party-time gal out for honest kicks who gave as good as she got.  Camp humor was front and center, and bawdiness and self-deprecation sang harmony, but what was totally missing in any meaningful way was true irony.  I guess in those days, being a man in a dress tended to fulfill any obligations one had to the ironic.

Somewhere around 1990 (or at least that’s when I started to notice), the drag ethic took a conceptual leap – or perhaps a more lady-like skip.  Though the “look” of drag stayed the same, the “sound” began to noticeably change.  In many ways, it was in their choice of music that the drag queens of the 90’s began to carve out an aesthetic of their own.  While raunchy sex songs never go out of drag style, more and more, drag queens were choosing numbers that conveyed not the challenge of a man pretending to be a woman, but of a woman pretending to hold herself together, or any human being who’s pretending to fit into a splintering and unsympathetic culture.  Connie Francis and Cher were replaced by Grace Jones and P!nk.  Arch rock songs and “Miss JACKson if you’re Nasty!” made perfect sonic soundplates for performances that growled out some hard-earned drag rage.  Outfits began to slide over and off the style curve, as if Nolan Miller had struck a particularly ill-advised retail deal with Joan Jett.  Physical humor became more unexpected and risk-taking, with drag entrances now often consisting of face-down skids across the stage.  Though still similar in many ways, the Silver Age Drag Queen stood apart from her Golden Age aunt by virtue of her generation’s confidence in being gay, and a chip-on-her-shoulder attitude that made drag empowering as well as funny.

Which brings us to the last year or two, where another generational change appears to be taking place.  Tellingly, it has happened in parallel with the Doll Wars:  just as Barbie has yielded her once-unchallangeable commercial reign to the decidedly uptown Bratz, so has the drag aesthetic finally loosened its grip on the white, bouffant feminine ideal to grasp instead for a Beyonce/Tyra/Xtina multi-ethnic edge.  Street-smarts, while always hinted at and played with in drag humor, have now become the key driver of drag humor in all its finger-waving, chin-out ghetto bravura.  Dispensed with too is the often-cramped stage dimension in which drag so snugly fit for decades.  Today’s drag queen views any space, surface or atmosphere she can physically inhabit as part of her performance theater.  The “fourth wall” has been demolished and you’re just as likely to find a drag queen dangling from the lightning rod on the roof of the bar or submerged in the swimming pool or the bay as you are to see her up on stage where we once comfortably assumed she was supposed to stay.

There has never been a cannier and more voracious connoisseuse of pop culture than a good drag queen, and now new technologies that are easily affordable have placed vast libraries of music and sound clips, along with digital manipulation techniques with which to re-combine them, into the hands of the Bratz Generation and one begins to see performances that no longer consist of one song in one space, but rather of head-jerking juxtapositions of lyrics and beats and bits from old TV shows, all set on Frappe! in the Great Drag Blender.  In short, drag has begun to move from being a character study to being a culture study, where fashion, history, class, camp, empowerment and movement collide in ways that are at times unsettling, at times hilarious, but always fascinating.

So, enough pontificating.  One might not ever have occasion to consider this level of drag theory if he or she weren’t surrounded at all times in Cherry Grove by a true Who’s Who of drag legends –- good ol’ home-grown gay drag queens – who continue to make it fun and compelling to watch.  Golden Era matriarchs like China, Charity and Bella, Pansy and Philomena; Silver Era cougars Arielle Sinclair, Porsche, and Gusty and Sweetie; and the new breed, heralded by Logan Hardcore and Bastard Amber and many others sure to follow.  All continue to bring their “A” game and uniquely gay sensibilities to the one art form that is left exclusively to us.

So I salute you all, and wish you a wonderful Invasion, and I hope you give us your best performances for years to come.  ‘Cuz somewhere out in that crowd is next year’s new thing and she’s looking you up and down, thinking: “Nice. Nice. But what if I put a hologram of Amy Winehouse running all fucked up in London right next to her and mixed in some Lada Gaga singing ‘Paparazzi’ – yeah, THAT would be FIERCE!”

Watch your broad backs, ladies.  As All About Eve so brilliantly cautioned: there is always a v4.0.

Clarque Kent
The Only Man Not Getting Laid In Fire Island

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Charles- citygymboys.com

Sunday was the perfect beach day on Fire Island and usually nothing short of a hurricane forces the housemates and I to abandon the Pines. Well unless it is New York City Pride!  So it was that we donned our muscle tank tops, appropriate Pride jewelry, liberal sunscreen, not forgetting the designer sunglasses and caught an early ferry to get us back to the city. Back in the city we made a brief stop by East of Eighth in Chelsea to fortify ourselves with  two Bloody Mary’s before working our way to the West Village to join the festivities.

Ladies of the Imperial Court

When you stand in the parade throngs at NY Pride you’ll find yourself shoulder to shoulder with cute lesbians in vintage clothing, German tourists in sensible sandals with socks, shirtless muscle boys in cool Ray Bans, lesbians of a certain age wearing “Act Up” T-shirts and kids perched on their parents shoulders waving Pride Flags! And from every surrounding building gaggles of people lucky enough to have well connected friends waving flags and sloshing drinks from apartment windows, fire escapes and roof tops. In the grid locked traffic full of clueless motorists sits a Big Apple Tour Bus jammed with picture taking and waving tourists cheering on the mayhem!

Brendan

We had only been standing in the hot sun briefly when I found myself overheating and it wasn’t from watching the drag queens make up melting as the Imperial Court float passed by at that moment. No, it was the hot, shirtless, tattooed, African American guys who make up the calendar of citygymboys.com as they walked through the crowd selling calendars. After buying a few calendars and ogling over the tattoos of the owner Charles, we turned our attention back to the Parade and watched as The Ritz bar float passed by with our favorite bartender Giovanni in tow! An hour later after cheering the GLBT Center gaggle of guys and girls we were decidedly thirsty and turned our attention to the crowds at our Mexican favorite Maracas, primarily for the best frozen Margaritas and secondly where I had arranged to meet “518″ who was the owner of the mysterious phone number that had landed in my phone after three Tanquery martinis at 1:45AM on Friday night. 

Since Friday I had played a coy game of texting with the mystery man who refused to admit his name, although it’s not likely I would have remembered it after the first martini anyway.  But I did have the brilliant idea of Googling “518″ and finding it listed as an Albany area code. That’s when it came back to me that he was the cute, blonde, 20 something guy with the blue eyes that  I had met at Therapy. And to everyone’s delight and envy, not only was it his first Pride celebration but his first trip to New York City.

After two strawberry Margaritas, “518″ offered up his name and he happily accompanied our little band as we made our way to the Heritage of Pride Pier Dance at Pier 54. In my years of attending this dance I have developed a survival plan to maximize the fun of this great celebration. Primarily that involves getting there early, staking out a claim to dance floor space somewhere in the back far reaches of the Pier, preferably near a bar where you can establish a rapport with a cute volunteer bartender and then dance the night away with 5000 of your closest friends.

Much later as I held the no longer mysterious but totally awed “518″ from behind with his head resting against my chest watching the Fireworks I felt his excitement and was overcome with a sense of simple joy and pride for the Gay & Lesbian Heritage that brings us all together this moment!

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To the Invasion of the Pines, that is, taking place on Saturday, July 4th, 2009. And neither my friends nor I can wait to step into our gowns and spread that makeup all over our faces.

And oh, the possibilities!! Deciding on a persona is a huge task: do I go as the Asian goddess Miss Wun Hung Lo, the patriotic diva Bertha Venation, or my girl from the South Bronx, Ida Killdabitch? Perhaps a musical theatre-obsessed Indian lady, Ahwant Singh? Or do I stick with something simple, like Ginger Vitis or Liss Terine?

Ugh…the choices…

Well, no matter WHAT name I (or my friends) choose, for the greatest possible gay and lesbian Independence Day in the world, we know that Fire Island is the place to be. Nothing says “I love this country!” (or “F*ck you, establishment!”, depending on how you look at it) more than a 6’3 bear putting on pumps and a china silk ball gown.

This year marks the 34th annual Invasion, which was started in 1976 by the now infamous drag queen Panzi (Thom Hansen), who, as legend has it, organized a group of 9 drag queens to “invade” the Pines by water taxi, determined to raise hell as a reaction to one drag queen’s not being served at the conservative Botel. You can read more about the history of the Invasion at www.fireislandinvasion.com.

The event gears up two weeks in advance, when the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove puts on its annual “drag tag” sale, for those still searching for ideas about what to wear for the main event. A bargain basement of women’s clothes and accessories (all in mens sizes, naturally), it took place today (June 21, 2009), and great deals were to be had: wigs for $1 each; silver size 14W heels for $10; a stunning taffeta gown with intricate, elegant beading, designed and built by the incomparable (and wonderfully sweet) costume designer Jeffrey Wallach for $100 (and worth every penny for the lucky person that bought it!) And the best part of it is all of the money raised goes to Cherry Grove charity.

On July 4th, people rise and shine early! You can sense the excitement in the air, and most people are dressed and ready to go by eleven thirty in the morning, when they make their way to the town center of Cherry Grove and convene at the Ice Palace. Last year, a team of “Drag Repair” volunteers were on hand with tissues, Q-tips, lip and eye liner, and of course, mirrors, to help the drag queens out with fixes and finishing touches for their makeup and wigs. After an hour or so, all of the drag queens (usually around 250) board the ferry (last year, the ferry fare benefited the Cherry Grove Property Owner’s Association) and ride over to the Pines. The boat arrives around 2pm, and the harbor, packed shoulder to shoulder with people, cheers! Panzi announces each drag queen by name as they disembark the ferry and parade towards the Sip and Twirl, where they drink for free for the rest of the afternoon.

I’m sure this year is going to be a great one, so if you haven’t yet, start planning your outfit (be sure to wear sensible shoes) and I’ll see you on board the ferry!

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Jose & Jane

Tousif, Chad & Doug

Doug & Chris

Fans of the E Train

It’s Sunday afternoon in Jackson Heights and it is Queens Pride! It’s a beautiful beach day on Fire Island but who can resist the hot Latino guys and girls that attend this festival! So, feeling adventurous three friends and I donned our tank tops, designer shades and ever so cool hats and made the trip out from the city on the 7 train. No sooner than we exited the elevated train did we find ourselves completely in the thick of the Pride Street Festival. I was completely smitten by a group of shirtless, tattooed Latino muscle guys rubbing each other with sun block while one friend found himself completely transfixed by the Virgin Mary wrist watches. Pulling ourselves together we realized we were in serious need of alcohol so we headed off to the bar Atlantis where other friends were already two deep in frozen Margaritas and watching drag queens salsa on the dance floor. After some cold refreshment it was time to move the party to a happening rooftop. Imagine our delight upon landing here and finding a few hundred of the most diverse gays and lesbians ever to come together drinking cold Corona’s and eating Hot Dogs off the grill. This was not the fussy green Astroturf roofs of Manhattan. No, this roof top was black tar paper with grill smoke billowing, the sun shining hot above and even hotter shirtless guys standing below. After gathering our senses and focusing through the Margarita haze it appeared that every nationality, race, age and gender was represented. The Asian guys were smoking and holding steadily in the shade of the building next door, the African American guys standing in full sun seemed to be either shirtless or in muscle tank tops and gazing coolly through Ray Bans, the bears with full beards and bellies were keeping the beer iced and flowing, the twenty something twinks in Prada sunglasses and tight short shorts were hovering near the fierce Asian DJ while the cute young Latino lesbians decked out in Pride Tie Dye shirts danced Meringue. As I watched this celebration far from the many over produced circuit parties and bar theme nights I’ve attended in the past 10 years I was overcome with a sense of simple joy and pride for the Gay & Lesbian Heritage that brings us all together this month!

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