I came to the conclusion years ago that being in the New York City Gay Pride march was far more interesting than watching it. It’s the difference between being an active participant versus a passive observer. Besides I love to hear people cheer whenever I go by.
But in the weeks leading up to this year’s pride, I was in a bit of a quandary: who would I march with, or rather, whose float would I ride? See, just as I discovered the fun of being in the march, I also discovered that riding on the back of a flatbed truck from Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street down to Christopher Street in Greenwich Village was a helluva lot easier on my feet, ankles, knees and lower back than walking.
My former employer always had a float, but, well, they are my former employer. My current employer organized a contingent, but there was no plan for a float. I thought about some community-based organizations I used to be associated with, but again, those are past relationships and I didn’t know how welcoming they’d be just because I literally wanted a free ride. So like it or not, if I was gonna do it, it looked like I’d have to hoof it.
My friends in political circles had asked me awhile ago to be more involved with the gay community outreach efforts of the Obama campaign but for time and burnout reasons, I’ve been somewhat reluctant. But the email invite came more than a week ago, looking for Obama Pride marchers and well, I couldn’t resist. Smart move on my part. It was a blast.
More than 300 organizations and a half million people take part in the march. In terms of permit applications it is officially a march, not a parade; a march is a political event that comes with guaranteed first amendment rights that cannot be denied on the whim of some bureaucrat. Moving that many people into parade formation still takes coordination and patience however.
It officially started at noon, but our group and others lined up on W. 54th Street didn’t move until about two and a half hours later, just around the time the clouds burst, the first of three downpours on the day. Actress and former Golden Girls star, Rue McClanahan, rode ahead of us in a convertible as our celebrity Obama backer. Our band of about 60 sign-carrying, Obama t-shirt wearing, rain-soaked marchers kept up a steady, noisy series of chants and cheers that revved up a largely supportive crowd the entire distance. There were a few diehard Hillary supporters with rats hibernating in their butts, but they were outnumbered and even admonished at one point by one of the public address announcers to get behind the candidate, lest we see four more years of Republican mismanagement and indifference to LGBT causes.
Walking the route, you always bump into friends along the way, and today was no exception. Joining me in the Obama camp was even a fellow blogger. who I’m sure will have pictures of the event. Not with us, but present at the front of the line, was Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson, who defied doctor’s orders and marched one day after undergoing cataract surgery. His appearance marked the first time a New York governor has marched during Gay Pride. He continues to score favorable points with the community.
I can only assume the Pride Fest down in the Village went on despite the rain. By the end my feet were swollen and in pain and it was all I could do to hobble up to 14th Street to get the train home. Wet and tired as I was, it was a fun day.
After filming its first two seasons in Hollywood, the hit ABC television comedy Ugly Betty is picking up stakes and heading east to where its fictional story is set, New York City. LA’s loss is the Big Apple’s gain but it took some savvy legislation in Albany to make it all happen.
Ugly Betty stars Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner America Ferrera as Betty Suarez, the intelligent, hardworking, yet decidedly unglamorous publishing assistant at the cute-throat fashion industry bible, Mode magazine. She and her family reside in Queens while each day she navigates the corporate jungle in Manhattan. Except in reality, it was all done on the sound stage and backlot of a studio in Hollywood.
Series creator Silvio Horta and Ferrera secretly longed to have the show shot in New York and now, thanks to film and television production tax credits recently signed into law by New York Governor David A. Paterson, they’ll get their wish. The NYS Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development now offers credits covering up to 30% of the cost of production and an additional 5% is also available from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting.
That’s the kind of incentive designed to give a shot in the arm to the local film industry and keep producers from traveling to places like Toronto, Canada to try to inexpensively recreate New York locations. As everyone knows, you can’t really fake New York even if you can make the movie more cheaply.
Regular viewers of shows like Sex and the City and the Law & Order franchise, know how this city is as much a character in those series as the actors themselves. Shooting Ugly Betty here will enable them to take advantage of real fashion industry locations unavailable anywhere else, upping the glamour quotient considerably. The show will reportedly use either Silvercup Studios in Long Island City (in the real borough of Queens) or Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, as its home base starting June 30.
Update: There are two sides to every story. My cousin who works in television production in Hollywood, sent me the text of an ad appearing in the trades, from the west coast-based crew of Ugly Betty who will be losing their jobs as a result of the move.
To Whom it Should Concern
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Members of the State Senate and State Assembly, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors:
We are writing to you because we just lost our jobs. We are the 300 plus members of the crew of the television show Ugly Betty. We were informed this Tuesday that the production of our show is moving to New York primarily because of the 35% tax incentives being offered by the state of New York. Instead of making good wages and paying our fair share of California state income tax, we will all be collecting Unemployment Benefits. In addition, we will certainly be cutting our spending back to the bone, which will not only cut back our sales tax contributions substantially, but it could end up costing the jobs of the people who provide services and products to us. Not only are these crew positions being lost; all of our local vendors are losing our business.
Our production buys: lumber, paint, wallpaper, cabinets, other building materials, office products, fabric, art supplies, computer equipment, food, beverages, flowers, film, makeup & hair products, wigs, insurance, jewelry, clothing, etc.
Our production rents: lighting equipment, sound equipment, video playback equipment, heavy machinery, office equipment, backdrops, costumes, furniture, scenery, props, soundstages, offices, parking facilities, cars, trucks, storage facilities, computers, camera equipment, grip equipment, editing equipment, drafting equipment, cell phones, computers, toilets, dumpsters, live plants, production trailers, tools, hardware, artwork, walkie talkies, etc.
Our production also uses the services of: dry cleaners, printers, location companies, Special Effects companies, utilities, caterers, payroll services, restaurants, security, Post Production Services, Clearance Houses, etc.
When we shoot on locations around Los Angeles we pay for permits; we pay homeowners & businesses for the use of their property, we hire police and fire department personnel, we pay for facility engineers, etc.
So, while the loss of our individual positions may be insignificant, the loss of this production is staggering. Now multiply this by all the other productions going to New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina and other states with incentives, not to mention Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, etc. and the cost to the California state economy is monumental. We implore you to do everything in your power to level the playing field and bring our jobs back to California by enacting meaningful incentives to keep film and television production in our state.
Shortly after it was announced, I was talking about the Sean Bell murder trial verdict Friday with a co-worker. She’s a young lawyer, whose family fled political unrest in Afghanistan when she was a child. Every day she works on cases related to the detention of Iraqi nationals at Guantanamo, so she knows a little bit about injustice. She was shocked by the acquittal of the three New York City Police officers. I wasn’t.
I’m 48 years old and I’ve been a black man living in America my whole life. I’ve seen this all too many times before. As I told her, the judicial system always gives police a free pass in wrongful death lawsuits. Always. It always gives them a free pass when the victim is black. Always.
Judges, district attorneys and police are all part of the same criminal justice system that is aligned to put so-called criminals behind bars, but rarely each other. After all, when the case is over, they still have to work together.
Remembering that in 2000 a jury in upstate Albany acquitted four police officers of the murder of an unarmed Amadou Diallo—after shooting him 41 times—I had mixed feelings when this case was to be tried in front of a judge and not a jury. Part of me said a judge might actually view the evidence objectively, understand the law and do the right thing.
Playing Saturday morning quarterback, the three defendants, Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper probably should have been tried separately. They had varying degrees of culpability. Of the 50 shots fired by all three, Oliver shot 31 times, including a reload.
Despite whatever threats they thought they faced, the facts are clear. There was no gun in the Bell car and no shots fired by anyone in that car. Any threatening action with the movement of that car was predicated on the fact that Bell and his companions had no idea who the three men were who approached their car. Finally, through all the gunfire, at no time did the officers attempt to determine what the real dangers were. I reiterate, Detective Oliver even stopped to reload.
This morning my feelings are best described as a controlled rage. White people wonder why we have no faith in the criminal justice system. It is because it so seldom protects our interests. We are victimized by crime then victimized again by the system.
I wonder if the sitting junior Senator from New York will have the intestinal fortitude to comment on the outcome of this case?
It has been awhile since I have written anything of any substance. I can’t promise you this one will be any great shakes either, but at least it won’t be a meme or some cut and paste photo or video. Not that you care but it really is hard coming up with regular blog content when you’re brain dead at the end of a work day and the weather is starting to get nice outside again. Maybe that’s grist for a future blog.
In any event, living in New York has certain advantages not the least of which is the abundance of cultural offerings constantly available. I know I need to get out more and see something interesting, so I thought I’d pass along some of the arts events that have caught my eye.
Regrettably, I missed this one and if you are just hearing about it now, you will have as well. But the distinguished South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona recreated roles they first performed more than 30 years ago in a revival of Athol Fugard’s Sizwi Banzi is Dead which was in limited engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A tale of South Africa’s apartheid system and the hardships Black residents faced, Kani and Ntshona were once jailed for performing the play in their homeland but later won Tony Awards when it was first presented in New York. With their closing performance on April 19, it will be the last time they do the play together.
Television actor Boris Kodjoe (Soul Food) stepped into the role of Brick this past week in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, taking over for Terrence Howard through May 4. Howard left to fulfill a contractual obligation on a movie role. He’ll return May 6 and finish the show’s expected run through June 22. The play is receiving quite favorable notices and Kodjoe is delighted to have the opportunity.
On April 30, Laurence Fishburne stars in a one-man-show about the life of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in a limited engagement at the Booth Theatre. Fishburne, who has a Tony for his work in August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” sees the part as a great challenge, in this interview he did with Theatermania.com.
The Broadway musical Passing Strange (which I have yet to see) recorded its cast album last week. Normally that’s an all day affair in a recording studio, but a show that tells “the coming-of-age story of a middle-class youth seeking to find ‘the real’ by embarking on a journey of escape and exploration,” couldn’t do things in the conventional manner. Instead they performed the songs from the show live in front of an audience at the Belasco Theatre. Playbill.com has pictures.
Warmer weather means festivals and there are several on the horizon.
The Tribeca Film Festival gets underway next Wednesday, April 23 and runs until May 4. Fifty-three world premieres will be screened at seven different venues. It’s usually a tough ticket to snag but they are on sale online.
The Joyce Theater—a wonderful place to watch a dance performance—holds its 123 Festival April 29-May 11. It will showcase some of the finest new dancers and most exciting dance companies in the country. Among the companies is Ailey II, the “junior” unit of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Finally, here’s an early heads up for two June festivals. The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts (for those of us who like leaving NYC in the summer) opens June 18 for a ten week run. One of my favorite companies, Garth Fagan Dance, performs during the opening week. The JVC Jazz Festival takes over New York during the last two weeks of June, with performances by some of jazz’s biggest names in the city’s concert halls, nightclubs and outdoor performance spaces.
Around 3:00 a.m. on February 17, 2005, New York City transit workers found two suspicious bags alongside the track at the Nostrand Avenue station in Brooklyn. They contained body parts of 19 year old Rashawn Brazell.
The first 72 hours of a murder investigation are the most important, police will tell you, because evidence is fresh, memories still vivid and odds are favorable that clues will result in someone’s arrest. Beyond that, the chances diminish precipitously.
It is now three years later and one of the most gruesome crimes New York City history remains unsolved. The trail is growing cold.
Someone, somewhere, knows something. Keep Rashawn’s memory alive and the hope for closure a possibility.
