The Comfort in Schadenfreude

by Ivan Vargas

I'm rarely at a loss of words for anything. So imagine my silent gape as I saw the kid puking his guts out in front of Fuse TV last night as I made my way towards the PATH train station which would whisk me home. It wasn't a little bit of puke - this was 13 year-old Linda Blair-possessed-by-the-Devil puke. I'd rate it not as thick, split pea but more of a combination of ham, minestrone, with a hint of pumpkin and chicken pot pie. Let's say I didn't get too close to make an assessment so I decided in my mind this was what he barfed out, what became his contribution to the City.

The Hurricane Hype

by Ivan Vargas

So here I am sitting in front of my laptop, looking out at my cute lil' street that is now dark and peppered with the warm glow of lights from inside every family home, a tiny sliver of the New York skyline visible for my entertainment as the Woolworth tower.

It's still windy and there is the possibility of a little more rain tonight, but nothing like last night when it came in bands and just as quickly, were gone, only to come back slamming at my walls and windows and shake the house. A house that has seen quite a bit of storms and may still stand to see even more.

You see, the media blew (pun intended) this out of the water and it's the reason I've stopped following much of it when an impending event is about to take place. Anyone who's seen The History Channel or NatGeo has at one point seen their descriptive love letters to destruction porn -- it's not if, it's when, is their catchphrase. Needless to say hurricanes have been covered, the what-ifs of a Cat 5 hurricane into New York City, the images of iconic buildings, streets, parks, subways and overall infrastructure yielding to a water invasion, leaving the city in tatters.

Ready for my Wedding: Thank you, New York!

By Ivan Vargas

I'm proud to call myself a New Yorker. The State finally did the right thing. Now I need to find me a stud... and that Vera Wang dress. I'll make an adorable bridezilla and I'll make sure everyone shakes in terror as I prepare to say my vows. I'll have that luxurious wedding at Saint Pat's, the reception at any grandiose place of my choice that is comfortably nestled in Manhattan, preferably on the High-Line, and I'll finally be able to scream stylized bon mots at my husband during those nights locked inside our Manhattan hi-rise, preferably with a Central Park view, that will make George and Martha shake their head in shame and long for Albee to raise their verbal violence just inches short of gunfire and manslaughter. Oh, the expensive dinnerware and cutlery and Japanese vases we'll fling at each other full force, the nights filled with stares of sheer anger and nary a word uttered as the tension rises and Juanita the maid wonders if this will be the night she'll become mincemeat, and then, the operatic moments of fabulous man-sex that will cement that we, in short, are a Couple. Thank you, New York!

Osama Bin Laden is Dead

by Ivan Vargas

I'm not one to celebrate the dead, but considering what happened on September 11, 2001, which not exactly a comedy in three acts with a happy ending, this will come as a form of closure to anyone who in one way or another found their lives turned upside-down by those events, and it comes near the ten-year mark of the fall of the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan. In short, the man behind those attacks who proudly became the face of global terorrism, Osama Bin Laden, is dead.

Miss Lola Rose: Mom On New York City

by Ivan Vargas

Lola Rose Abrams is the mother any gay man would kill to have. She has the elegance and the poise of a queen, the voice of a jazz singer, but at the same time she can and will go into language that would make the character of Samantha Jones blush. Just because. That, however, is what has made people gravitate to her for several years now: her unabashed frankness and how she lays it all down the line whether you like it or not. She verbalizes what we think, and by laughter she makes us react.

(video and more after the break)

Remembering Sidney Lumet

by Ivan Vargas

As the government threatened to shut down, as most of Northern Africa continued to go crazy, and as Japan got hit with another earthquake, our country experienced the loss of a different kind. On Saturday, April 9, Sidney Lumet, the first New York director, died in his Manhattan home. He was 86.

Invisible Kinky

by Ivan Vargas

On this glorious day of, uh... Spring (well, let's call it that---the layers of clothes told a different story) I decided to hit the City and enjoy its sights. Everything was on time: the PATH was handed to me in a silver platter, and I was glowing all the way to Borders Bookstore on 34th and 7th where I was about to meet a date for an afternoon coffee. And then two things happened. The first was the discovery of what I thought was a long-lost dinosaur under a red awning that announced itself under the unglamorous name "Peep Show". The second, was that my stomach grumbled, almost in a reaction of negative emotion, a gut feeling if you will. Or maybe not. Who can tell? I've never been in one and I could swear they were eradicated with Giuliani's Giant Scrub Brush to a point where they existed in memory and Midnight Cowboy. So as I stood there, perplexed and facing an oncoming predicament, I took my iPhone out and shot this picture:



More, including the Spanish version, on next page...