Disc Jocular

Turning thirty is a big deal when you're gay. I should know. I've done it enough times.

Tonight was the eve of Stephen Bauer's birthday and he celebrated it by working. Times are tough for Millennials. And the city is lousy with them, like third class passengers swarming the deck of the Titanic now that all the boats are away. You can't stand still for a minute or twice as many will take your seat for half the money.

Lately he has been DJing on Friday nights at Vlada, a familiar vodka repository in Hell's Kitchen. On my most recent visits, the bar has felt less like a gay hot spot and more like a well-kept secret. Uh, me too! Let me tell you: nothing feels better than having the hollow echo of an empty bar mirror your own existence. But in Stephen’s defense, this is my first time there on a night he was working and the crowd was squeezed as tightly around him as the sleeves of his joyously clingy t-shirt.

The Two Night Show

Well if you were wondering if it is summer in New York yet. It’s fucking summer. After struggling last weekend to resist the urge to turn the heat back on after the nighttime temperature plunged back down into the 40s, this week has been a parallel struggle to not install the air conditioners. It has been 90 degrees every day for the last three days and now we are supposed to be grateful that this horrible storm from the Midwest (that dropped enough twisters to get Dorothy a dozen round trips between Kansas and OZ) will be the thing that breaks the hot and humid spell that has fallen over the city.

But I can’t complain about the heat (even though that is exactly what this sounds like) because our winter was so arduously long this year that anything, even 90 degree highs, are an improvement. I was commiserating tonight with another New Yorker at a party about the temperature swing but more importantly, the long winter that made everyone I know question our decision to live in this urine soaked wonderland.