Norman Gentle Goes Home: Interview Posted On americanidol.com!

The almighty americanidol.com posted an interview with Norman Gentle on its home page, along with a link to the video for his "Brit Slap!" Click here to read the full posting!

Divas In Da House

Our two divine divas were in the house today—and no one bitch slapped anyone, to my disappointment. From left, meese, Ayhan, Tinatin, Karine and Dennis. Um, the divas would be the two ladies (for the most part).Happy (late) birthday Karine. Hard to believe that her year age is 52, while her career age is still 25. (Har, har, a little inside joke there.)

Brighton Beach Memories

Nine years I've lived in Brooklyn—15 in New York—and while I have ventured to Coney Island several times, I never realized that just up the boardwalk are the wonderfully authentic, richly ethnic neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay—so close and yet a world away from the tourists, the weekend beachcombers and so many kids running around unleashed like rabid wildebeests.

My gal pal Val's late mother grew up in the area, so we ventured down the Q subway line on a beautiful Sunday to explore the wealth of diversity, enjoy the sun—and see if we could find the childhood home of her mom. Let's take a walk together, shall we?Old money...New money...Val's mom's childhood home... then...And now...So long for now...

The Smoking Nun's New Design

It was looking hairy for a bit, but as Blogspot has evolved into Blogger and all but insists you change templates or any upgrades will leave you in the dark ages, last night, I adopted The Smoking Nun's third template since I started this madness more than two years ago. But because I only kinda sorta know what the hell I'm doing, the next thing I knew, I suddenly had a pink blog and had lost all of that fun shit that cascades down the right column.

Thankfully, it was saved elsewhere and once I restored a new template, all was again right with the world. It took hours to customize the background back to black and choose colors for every element that you see... and finally, tonight, I figured out how to stretch The Smoking Nun banner across the entire page.

I hope this makes it easier to read—with a new text font, colors that are easy on the eye and wider margins that allow videos to display in full. As always, I'd like to think it's not graphic fanfare, but words that keep you coming back. Thanks for reading. 20,000+ views to date!

Subway Rush Hour: A Typical Monday 2010

Today coming home on the 4/5 subway line, I shot a few pics during rush hour. They certainly seem innocuous enough... but one day will they be as representative of this era as the one below, taken in the 1970s? THEN...AND NOW...

NYC Pride Parade 2010

Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the New York Gay Pride parade, which launched a year after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Then it was called Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day...The 2010 parade drew a million onlookers to the march's 35 floats and 5,000 participants, according to organizers.Good god... The only thing I can say to this is that gay pioneer Frank Kameny knows what he's talking about above when he says, "Gay is good."(Color photos 1/2/4 by news organizations)