all the important local haps thanks to lolaj

Unlike feminism, Sex and the City transcends race, class! LOL WTG! It is a girl/universal thing!

And also Feministing has weighed in on the Times Magazine cover story on Emily Gould, who is sort of like Carrie Bradshaw only with SEXY TATS.

This nonprofit tried to get an office lease in Brooklyn but had to settle for Lower Manhattan because it was cheaper. Wat!

Also a crane toppled over (again) this morning and killed some people (again). wtf DOB, why can't u get ur act together? possibly because the present mayoral administration would rather eat radioactive glass than do anything that could potentially impede upon development. Also Bloomberg's comments on the radio early this morning included the following nuggets:

"We're not going to tolerate any rate of accidents any higher than it has to be." 

and

"It may just be a piece of steel breaks and there's nothing you could have ever done about it."

WUT

AJ is at a bit of a loss to understand the workings of these mindgrapes but his best guess is that construction workers dying probably has something to do with the free market regulating itself or is it COLLATERAL DAMAGE ("higher than it has to be"??). FURTHER INSIGHT IS WELCOMED.

In happier news, OMG David Paterson TOTALLY LOVES GAY PPL WHY. Because of Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald! omg thx, uncles!

What do the "young and old, black and Jewish, rich and poor" residents of Crowne Heights have in common? They all h8 homeless ppl! (Possibly even more than they h8 each other!)

And finally, HAPPY BDAY TO MY PLAZA. damn ur old. 100 BIRTHDAY HITZ for the countries (sic) oldest outdoor pedestrian mall (zomg!)    \o/

UPDATE ON LESBIANS and stuff

OMG this has been a BIG week for lesbians!

This article may shed some light on the question that has been burning in all of your mindgrapes, by which I mean: JODIE OMFG WHY DID U LEAVE BEAUTIFUL CYDNEY????! An lolAJ tipster has drawn my attention to the quotation from Foster at the end, which doesn't have anything to do with beautiful Cyd but begs highlighting:

[Foster] added: "Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: 'I think I'll just kick it.'"

wat! Jodie! u dont mean that.

And in case you thought your lesbian news could get no moar exciting than the dish on the Foster-Beautiful Cydney-Jacko triangle, let me paint this picture for you:

LiLo+ Samantha Ronson + lesbian wedding + DOLLYWOOD

=

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this story true??? Is it? More articles have been cropping up since it was first brought to my attention so I'd say THINGS ARE LOOKING GOOD. TAKE THAT, STUBBORNLY HETEROSEXIST PPL WHO WANT TO MAKE ALL MY LESBIAN CELEBRITIES INTO FRIENDS! WTFPWNED!



Anyway, in case you also care about other things, here is some stuff I noticed in the blogowebz recently:

OK AJ is basically completely nonplussed about Rebecca Walker's like total public uber pwnage of her mom. I guess like Walker Sr.'s feminism ruined her life? Did u do it for the lulz, Rebecca? I feel uncomfortable. The Feministe commenters on this subject are not a total waste of time to read.

Feministe has also weighed in on child pornography and the recent Supreme Court ruling, which upheld the illegality of distributing kiddie porn even if it there are no kids in it... in other words, if your CP is rendered from computer imagery, digitally altered photos of adults, or stuff like that, it is still totally illegal! AJ is PRETTY INCLINED TO AGREE with the thoughts of the feminists on this one, and also with this original poster though AJ might add something about problematizing the construction of the pedophile in these conversations. Or whatever.

Simyo Mobile wins at gay-targeted advertising.

Quick hits: Jezebel on BDSM:

S&M is like the Hot Topic in the mall of sexuality. It's trying to be different, it's trying to freak you out, it's trying to piss off parents, but in the end, it's really kind of…normal.)

LOL!

And Christian Siriano has stopped being funny:

"If you think of heterosexuals, they have white-trash women and trailer parks, and we have drag queens and trannies. I don’t know if I’m the one who can explain it. It’s, like, drag queens are just there."

:-O

Neway, in NYC.

The Times discovers white ppl discovering Kensington! via Flatbush Gardener. AJ would only like to add that Coney Island Avenue is basically one of my favorite streets in NYC and I took all these pictures of it once but then didn't post them cause I thought it would be too voyeuristic (I mean it's not even really my neighborhood) and just because I secretly have a little bit of an authenticity fetish sometiems doesn't mean I have to go around advertising it. Sigh.

White ppl also like Coney Island and want to save it. Other ppl like Coney Island too! Basically everyone does. Here is a curbed post on wut the haps are there in case you didn't already know. Joseph Sitt, who heads Thor Equities (and wants to buy up the whole area and make it into like Vegas or something with new shiny rides and fancy hotels) has basically decided to run an amusement park in competition with Astroland which is teh suck. Confirming suck status is Thor's choice to call it "summer of hope." wtf does that even mean? Also I can't believe I forgot to mention this story before, in which a Ruby's Bar and Grill person plummets through the floor of their bathroom, landing in the bar's basement covered in poo. Eek! 

Excellent news for the trans?

I just stumbled across this news item completely randomly, and am wondering if some transgender type person who's more politically connected than me might be able to illuminate the situation further. This is the first I've heard of it and my curiosity is piqued.

In short, it seems New York state has reached an agreement with Homeland Security to issue "enhanced drivers licenses" to U.S. citizens who live in New York. The licenses will, as far as I can understand, satisfy the identity document requirement for traveling to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, thus eliminating the need for a passport when visiting these countries. Interesting! It will cost more than a regular drivers license ($30 more, to be precise) but less than a passport and should be implemented as early as this August.

TRANS 101 SECTION (optional reading!):

For those of you who are not in the know, I will explain for you: if you are a trangendered person, the requirement for changing the gender signifier on your passport is bottom surgery--aka sex reassignment surgery, aka genital surgery (do I rly need to do trans 101 here? IDK!). For many (if not most) trans people, especially FTMs, this is prohibitively expensive and also often undesirable. So you are shit out of luck if you want a passport with the right gender on it. If you are reading this and are not an expert at trans politics, you should basically just know that the various laws dictating the medical requirements for changing gender on identity documents are INCREDIBLY STUPID AND ARBITRARY. They are also pretty classist and dependent on conventional models of medical transition that lots of folks don't want to follow for plenty of good reasons. In the case of passports is that it's nigh impossible for a whole bunch of (most of?) trans folks to leave the country without using an identity document that inaccurately reflects their gender. If you're someone who has a full beard and a booming baritone voice but your passport says "F"... you may just cruise on through customs (last time I left the country everyone who looked at my passport called me "mister"--whiteness FTW!)... OR you might find yourself in any number of extremely unpleasant situations with the customs folks. As a former anthro professor said to me, "At least you're not changing your name to Mohammed."

ANYWAY. Unlike passports, gender signifiers on New York State drivers licenses are super easy to change! There is no surgery or hormone therapy requirement at all, just a doctor's letter affirming your transness (which is a piece of cake to get from Callen-Lorde). If NYS drivers licenses now suffice for international travel in the western hemisphere, that is a HUGE change in the accessibility of documents that would help trans people safely travel outside the U.S. For someone like me who is pretty bougie and likes to go on vacation sometimes, that's big!

I am curious if there are any transgender experts who can confirm what the deal is with this legislation, because there are a few shady bits of the article, in particular, this other article states, "Applicants will have to bring identification and go  for a 10-minute verification interview or go through a two-step process that involves seeing two DMV agents." That sounds creepy. Also the requirement of birth certificates to prove citizenship for these licenses could also conceivably throw a wrench in the whole thing since they are also more difficult to get changed.

ANYWAY WHAT IS THE DEAL. AJ WANTS TO KNOW.

lol-aj.livejournal.com presents: MY FAMILY

a normal family ^^^

Would you like to know moar about the family ties that probably play some part in what makes AJ tick? Of course you would! This weekend I visited the familia in my fine home state of Rhode Island and here are some highlights:

• My mom got into an altercation with a protester outside of Providence's Planned Parenthood. She and my younger sister were actually going to the bakery next door, but seeing a mother-daughter pair approaching, the protesters apparently made some assumptions and starting shoving dead baby pamphlets in their faces. As the exchange escalated my mom apparently lost her temper and shouted into the guy's face, "I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING--I'M A CHRISTIAN, AND YOU KNOW WHAT?? IF JESUS WERE HERE HE WOULD NOT BE DOING THIS!!"

• Thanks to my little brother, I have a whole new musical genre to enjoy, one which I had not previously given much consideration: VIKING METAL. Of particular interest is Turisas, the most epic band EVAR, who "combine elements of folk and power metal"and are named after the Finnish god of war. If you like the idea of a metal show where everyone is dressed like a viking and "thee" and "thou" are the preferred second person pronouns, THIS IS THE BAND FOR YOU. 

• I am reminded that gender ambiguity is something of a family legacy when my father discusses the merits of Grand Junction's cowboy bars with my aunt's newish husband. He concedes that said bars have a real appeal but points out that as a longhair in the 1970s, his most frequent exchange with the cowboys of rural Colorado centered on the question (here he affects his best drawl) "Are yew a boy or are yew a girl?"

Rat on cat on dog

Greg Pike, animal owner: "I DID IT TO PROVE IT COULD BE DONE." MOAR AWSUM WERDS WUR NEVAR SAYD! Big ups to Feministe for bringing this story to my attention--because stacking animals is a feminist issue too! AJ would like to respectfully point out that rat on cat on dog is also a queer issue. JUST FOR THE RECORD.

What else is a feminist or a queer issue? In the interest of RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS and promoting real sustained INTERSECTIONAL analyses AJ wants to take reader submissions! Here are examples to get you started:

AND

~ AJ, mappin' the margins

lolesbians!

Bad news for my queer-savvy bff Nell cuz it looks like CYNTHIA NIXON might be taking up the lolAJ post as resident lesbian expert spokesperson. Deborah Solomon thinks she works for the Post in this recent Times Magazine piece and Miranda doesn't even miss a beat!

Obviously, there’s a disjunction between your own life and the characters in this film. Very much so.

A few years ago, you moved in with a woman, after leaving the father of your children. Do you find it easier living with a woman than a man because you have more in common? I think you do have more in common.

You can use the same bathroom in movie theaters, for instance. That’s absolutely true!

Can you share clothes? No. Christine doesn’t wear women’s clothes; she only wears men’s clothes. She won’t even wear any kind of women’s shoes. I bought her a pair of cowboy boots that were from the women’s department, and she was like, “Don’t do this again.”

Does she watch sports on TV? She does. We don’t have a TV. But when there was a World Cup, we went to the local Ruby Foo’s and watched it. And we actually did watch the Super Bowl as well. She tried to explain it to me.

Do you think of her as the male figure in the relationship? No, I don’t at all. Look at what’s happening now. She’s at home with the kids, and I’m the one out pounding the pavement. . . . She’s for Hillary, and I’m for Obama.

LOL! As you can see, Nixon is not only extremely knowledgeable about lesbian stuff, but she is also an expert at delivering concise, straightforward explanations that everyday people can understand. Also it seems like she knows like tons about gender too, which I guess makes sense since I am told that gender and lesbian issues are closely related! Just off the top of my head, AJ can think of LOADS of questions I'd like to ask her, for instance, "if that's what you're into, why don't you just date a man?" and "how long have you been a vegetarian?" So all in all AJ is very happy to welcome Cynthia Nixon to the lolAJ writing staff. Also thanks 4 the tip feministing!

Other noteworthy lesbians making recent headlines include Jodie Foster, who has apparently broken up with her Beautiful Cydney! omg that is so sad. Fortunately we can all count on Perez
to set the record straight:
ROFL! also michael jackson called. he wants his dna back.

*ahem* NEWAY, back to lesbians....

ELLEN HAS CREATED SOME SRSLY AWKWARD MOMENTS WITH JOHN MCCAIN. wtf ellen u make me so uncomfortabel sometimes

And finally, if you are a longtime fan of lesbians you may have also heard of "queer men" which are basically like the poor man's lesbians! Like Maureen Dowd, they sometimes have things to say about gender and even feminism so there's like this new anthology out and maybe you want to read it (or instead just look at everyone's pictures like i did).




AJ leaves you with this closing photo, courtesy of Jezebel...




THE END!

ps damn there sure were a lot of white ppl on lolaj today wtf is up w that aj

Y HALO THAR!*

o here is wut r teh haps in my city:

Parks Dept: NO HUGZ 4 U!

New York Times: Park Slope is Now A Meme. Like many Brooklyn transplants, AJ luvs to h8 on Park Slope, and this article has some real gems, eg:

“This whole thing sounds like white people being annoyed by and jealous of other white people, which I find kind of funny,” said James Bernard, a union organizer and a member of the local Community Board 6. “I live in the Slope. I love it. I talk about it as much as anyone else does. But I founded a charter school near Brownsville and I don’t hear anyone talking about Park Slope over there.”

wtfLOLOLOLOLOL1!!

and in other news:

OMG HERE IS A CATBUS!

ALSO MARRIAGE IS A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM! this article seyz gay marriage is about love not like gender or race or stuff like that. LOL! some ppl (whiny progressives who are basically always unhappy) soemtimes disagree. other ppls are just wishing folks would stop comparing us to like crazy mormons and whatnot (needless to say aj is tickled that concerned womyn for america notice the conexion). also not to be nitpicky about taht other article, but i'm pretty sure cali still has incest laws, so it's not actually true that the supreme court decision means that "any two adults who are in love" can get married. IM SRY I JUST THINK ITS AN IMPORTANT POINT OK.

also wtf is wrong with u ppl IT'S SPELLED BOUGIE. srsly! u poll voters need to LURK MOAR but every1 else VOTE MOAR i know ur out there why dont u vote in my polls?

k thats all 4now

*no buttsecks thx aj is not even going to ask that is srsly lewd.

Christian Siriano: some of my best friends are hot tranny messes!

So wtf XTIAN SIRIANO wruh??? Apparently he is designing PROM AVATAR OUTFITS for some interwebs thing? The Times interviewed Siriano, enabling the coinage a new tranny-relevant catchphrase ("Omigod, I would have been so superhero tranny" (!!!)), but admittedly AJ was only halfway interested until this question:

Let’s back up to “hot tranny messes.” I have been wondering, has there been backlash from the tranny community since you made that the biggest put-down of all time?
No! the trannies LLLLLOVE me, are you kidding?? I kinda use it in a negative way sometimes but I’m meaning it with love. I mean, I love Candice Cayne — she’s fabulous and we are so close — so I would never hate on trannies.

QFT! LOL AJ hereby revokes all prior indictments of the use of "hot tranny mess" b/c I had no idea that all along it was meant WITH LOVE. CHRISTIAN UR LOVE MEANS EVERYTHING 2 ME!!!1 xoxoxoxo also he is like tots BFF with Candice Cayne omg so that obvs changes everything! im sry 4 being such a h8er christian

Real-life proms that probably ONLY had cisgendered messes in attendance include the Colorado Springs Father-Daughter Purity Ball, which sounds like it was probably about as much fun as like, going to the prom with yr dad or something.

BLOGGING RULEZ

...but werking SUX ugh. 

lolAJ will BRB.

im sry guiys.

IN THE MEANTIME:

HERE IS A LINK

HERE IS A LINK

HERE IS A LINK FOR GREAT JUSTICE

LINK WTF!

LINK OMGWTF! OMG. WTF. BBQ. OMG.

LINK

LINK

LINK

LINK

also i heard something is happened w/ the gay ppl wut is teh deal with that

OK 2 THINGS

ok two three things:

1. Why is AM-NY like always trying to pimp my nabe! Wtf! at least they got the neighborhood boundaries right this time. also re, 773 lounge, why would you call something a hipster-free
watering hole, AMNY? srsly why would u do that? that is like ASKING THEM ALL TO COME. also i've never been there but i dont really believe that its hipster free b/c that's the ONLY WAY i've ever heard the place described and yet it is always in publications that hipsters would read. 

2. Another reason why kids excuse me, YOUNG PEOPLE rock moar than grownups. Ie: as many as 60 friends and allies of a transgendered student in Brewster, NY are cross dressing at school to show their support and to protest anti-trans sentiment from other students/teachers. Also LOL @ the brief NY Daily News coverage which concludes with, "the school says Loscalzo is free to dress as a girl as long as he (sic) follows the dress code. FAIR ENOUGH, though AJ advocates reparations for trans ppls that includes lifetime exemption from all dress codes.

2. Also via Hugo Schwyzer, I found this article on men in women's studies programs at University of Chicago which I found to be pretty much like




JK!! AJ's totally going to use words anyway! except my analysis is pending the completion of some of the werk i actually get paid to do so that will be l8er [UPDATED TO ADD: much l8er]. for now i urge attention to this particular passage, which in truth merits no earthly response beyond the facepalm:

“Stuart [Michaels] said this thing I thought was amazing. ‘I’m a Hutu, you’re a Tutsi. I’m going to kill you for it. I’m going to marginalize, dehumanize, kill you for being in a category I’ve placed you into.’ He was comparing this political situation to incidents of hate crimes you hear about because someone is gay. ‘I’m straight, you’re gay. I’m going to kill you for it,’” Klein recalled.

ackackackackackgag

oh also AJ would like to amend this quotation from the same male major, from:

A man getting a gender studies major is most likely to be gay.

to:

A man getting a gender studies major is most likely to be gay OR LIKE A MASSIVE TRANSSEXUAL OR SOMETHING.

tho in truth AJ has noticed that the preferred MO of translike gender studies majors tends to be more along the lines of genderqueer or something wonky like that. LOLgenderqueers!*

POST SCRIPT: Should AJ go to the Brooklyn Blogfest tonight???? OMG I am so totally torn wut 2 do.

* jk AJ totally hearts genderqueers xoxoxo in fact HE USED TO BE ONE

wut are teh newz o ok i will tell u

This seems pertinent: Mildred Loving died last Tuesday. Loving's marriage to a white man ended up overturning the Racial Integrity Act, the last set of miscegenation laws banning interracial marriages. It's pretty sad that she died, but it LOOKS LIKE LOVE/ING CONQUERED ALL. Also AJ finds that picture adorable. The article notes that Loving issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of her supreme court ruling in support of same-sex marriages but AJ would like to point out that that is NOT A VALID COMPARISON because homosexual marriages CANNOT PRODUCE CHILDREN.

And NYT on Jezebel.com: OMG, girls are like SO CATTY!

Speaking of which, WTF LILO WHY DID U STEAL THAT WOMAN'S COAT???

Wow, ONE MOAR REASON not to adopt internationally... I... guess?

And @ crotchcam guy, d00ds are all liek, zomg! stop peepin me plz!@ WTF DO NOT WANT 2 HAS SEXUALIZING W/OUT CONSENT. Le sigh. AJ haz an eyeroll at ur unremarkable objectificashuns, d00dz.

EGADS TEH WHITE PPLS ARE COMING! FRANKLIN PARK ZOMG!!!! admittedly aj thinks those beers sound delish.

SATC cast: NO HITS PLZ!

IT ARE BIKE MONTH!!!1 w00t! every1 go get ur bikes and ride them plz. Counterpoint: bikes are for hippies.

And save Myrtle the Turtle from cruel and unusual paintjobs plz!

Also there seems to be sum confusion as to whether Jose the Bronx beaver is D-E-D ded?

And if u want still moar sad animal news, this eagle got her beak shot off but fortunately due to SCIENCE we can make her a PROSTHESIS.

ur weekly roundup with lolAJ

OK HERE IS A POST U A$$HOLES------

Lesbians sue lesbians for defamation! LOL, rock on lesbians (wait which)

For those of you who don't already know, AJ really wishes that Paula Abdul could be his mom. She is just so sweet, eg:

...aww xoxoxoxo paula u r so cute why

Which is why I've been pretty upset about this brouhaha surrounding Paula's judging snafu from the other night. POOR PAULA. At least NY Mag does not stoop to the level of slander of some other sources by accusing Paula of being on drugs. Wtf that is like SO HURTFUL guiys. AJ thinks her explanation (derided by some as "long-winded"!!!) is TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE. Jebus, every1 LEAVE PAULA ALONE PLZ. Also David Archuleta SUCKS SO BAD i want to punch him ugh. oops how did i miss this article b4.

Secret service agent is suspended for hanging a noose in one of their training buildings. (Note the "related" headlines ftw: Obama Gets Secret Service Protection, Secret Service Agent Shoots Car. Way2go guyz)

Kai Wright asks a PERTINENT QUESTION and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care tell u what to do when stopped by the police.

And Racism Review on white ppl and Reverend Wright and here is a pretty awsum Top 10 replete with nuggets of wisdom from McCain-backing Pastor John Hagee, who is like, still awaiting public denunciation from McCain? Maybe his denunciation got lost in the mail.

A WINNAR is Disgrasian for knowing the most important commentary on the Miley Cyrus debacle is the commentary provided by TILA TEQUILA!!!1 Awsum!

Can anyone tell AJ anything about this movie?

O...M...G.

UPDATED TO ADD: Oops! I am such a loser for not including this article about all the women from the firm of he-who-must-not-be-named who are SUING FOR DISCRIMINATION. Bloomberg LP's official stance is MAGIC IS MIGHT.

ALSO: this one time I was describing my alma mater's swimming requirement (yes it was one of those schools where you had to pass a swim test to graduate) and he asked, isn't that kind of racist? And I think I said, ummmmm as opposed to the entire rest of the core curriculum??? But it turns out he was even RIGHTER THAN I THOUGHT.

AND: LET'S NOT FORGET DOLLY, K?