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N.Y. Scene May 2011: Popped – A Hetrick Martin Benefit, Out Professionals: Prime Launch and Fire Island

N.Y. Scene is a monthly column that chronicles events of interest for lesbian and bi women in New York. Grace Chu has come out of lesbian scene retirement to navigate the vast and ever-evolving New York City scene, so you don’t have to.

Popped: A Charity Art Party for the Hetrick-Martin Institute – 5.19.11 @ District 36

I’ll go to anything that benefits the Hetrick-Martin Institute. It is the oldest and largest organization serving LGBT youth; HMI is, as Bill and Ted would say, most excellent. On May 19th, Popped, a charity art party was held at District 36 nightclub in Manhattan, which included a silent auction of artwork donated from local artists and the kids at Hetrick-Martin. Local dance troupe Deca Dance entertained the crowd, and a mural by local superstar street artist R. Nicholas Kuszyk was also unveiled. 100% of all proceeds went to benefit HMI.

Jen Perlmutter, an artist representative for Greenhouse Reps, came up with the idea of Popped a year and a half ago. She teamed up with events promoter Bridget Hauserman, the two approached HMI and the rest was history. About why she decided to produce the event, Perlmutter said, “All this bullying was going on and I wanted to do something to support the community. I came up with the idea to do an interactive art event with the underlying thought that art is a valuable means of expression and that these kids in the LGBTQ community have the right to express themselves in an authentic way.” 

Photos from the event are below.

A good time was had by all, and with a bottle of vodka doubling as a microphone in the mix, the times can only get better. See. It gets better, people.

Out Professionals: Prime Launch Party – 5.25.11 @ Elmo

Out Professionals, a nationwide LGBT network, has been kickin’ it since 1983 and is in its 26th year in the New York City metro region. With its members representing around 600 companies, Out Professionals throws monthly events, provides business listings and holds professional development workshops. 

After noticing an age gap at their events, Out Professionals recruited New York locals Kristen Singer, Erin Dempsey and Michael Gates to spearhead a group targeting LGBT professionals in their 20s and 30s. The trio held Prime’s launch party on May 25th at Elmo, a restaurant/lounge in Chelsea.

From its mission statement, the inspirations behind the name Prime include “the time of early manhood or womanhood: ‘the prime of youth,'” “the period or state of greatest perfection or vigor of human life: ‘a man in his prime,'” and “prime cut of meat. J” (Yes, complete with the smiley face. Aye, the co-chairs have a sense of humor to boot. Note to all: clearly it is acceptable to scope out your next meal at their events, if you know what I’m sayin’.)

The launch was well attended and well received by a good number of young professionals, including a large contingent of women. Said co-chair Singer, “We were very pleased with the launch with almost 100 young professionals in attendance. It was great to see people really connecting with each other, exchanging business cards, and linking up with the organization all while having fun of course.  The venue was perfect and the Prime cocktails were even better.”

[I have to interrupt this article to make a comment. Please bear with me. Um, what’s going on here? Kells, what’s up with that outfit? Heads up – you’re standing two feet away from a professional fashion stylist. Happy to help! OK, just kidding. You look hot. Werq!]

The next Prime event is Wednesday, July 13th, which will kick off its bi-monthly happy hour series. Career-oriented events are currently being developed and will commence in the Fall. To keep up with OP.Prime’s latest news and events, sign up on their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter.

And now I am going to take a break from actual event reporting and talk about my unintentional vacation. 

Memorial Day Weekend, Cherry Grove, Fire Island – Cherry’s and Ice Palace

Sometimes you accidentally end up on Fire Island. 

It started with good intentions. I had planned on locking myself in my apartment and catching up on work over Memorial Day weekend. I had been invited to a couple of beach destinations, but no – I was going to be a good girl. Everyone was going out of town. No one was going to bother me. I was going to be productive. I was, among other things, going to write half this article that weekend. I was going to be diligent and post photos of my friends on AfterEllen and call it journalism. I was going to suffer for art.

Then I logged into Facebook. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is designed to be as irritating as possible. I am sure there were others stuck working that weekend – or stuck with their dysfunctional families, but all I could see were overly excited announcements about travel plans to vacation destinations. “Provincetown with the girls!!!!!” “I’m goin’ to da HAAAAAAMPTONS!!!!!! DA HAAAAAAMPTONS!!!!” “I’m going to the Jersey Shore, bitch!!!” “Spa spa spa!!!!” It was like watching a bunch of exclamation points have group sex, repeatedly. It was obscene. Photos of ladies lounging poolside in bathing suits and drinking beer on the beach were already soiling my feed like dead bugs on a windshield. Lesbians holding cocktails throwing up fake gang signs in the sun were staring back at me, daring me to flash a fake gang sign back and launch myself at them, Angry Birds-style, destroying them all. My news feed was mocking me. D–n you, Facebook. D–n you.

I was not in any of those places. I was in my living room. There was no sand or sun in my apartment. There were no babes in bikinis in my apartment. I decided that this was unacceptable. F–k art! I’m comin’ out! I want the world to know! I got to let it show! But it was already noon on Saturday. Provincetown is a six hour drive, and the ride to P-Town left the day before. Jones Beach is a septic tank. I texted a few friends to see what they were up to. “Come to Fire Island!” Aha! A day trip to the expensive little sand bar off the coast of Long Island full of deer and gays. Perfect!

A couple of hours later I was at the Fire Island Ferry on the way to Cherry Grove.

Soon afterwards, I was on the ferry watching lesbians hold cocktails and throw up fake gang signs in the sun in person. How exciting! Take that, Facebook!

Because I am a lesbian and am genetically programmed to check into places on Foursquare, a friend of mine saw my check in at the ferry and directed me to her barbecue. It was going to be a good day. I would drink a beer, eat a hamburger, play with puppies and stay out of trouble. I would sit in the sun until sunset and go home. Earlier, I had chatted with Ellie Conant, promoter of Choice C—s, and she warned me that Memorial Day Weekend in Cherry Grove is widely known to be “a total sh-tshow,” but look at these puppies! What could go wrong?

And then this happened.

Ten minutes later I found myself walking to Cherry’s, a beach club overlooking the bay, with a gaggle of tipsy lesbians. Adam Smith’s invisible hand was leading me towards Cherry’s, where I would participate in the local economy. This is a good thing. Right?

And then I ran into the ladies of the Stonewall Inn. Their arrival is generally a precursor to one thing.

Total anarchy.

Cherry’s was turning into pure chaos, so I decided to check out Ice Palace. Turns out the situation was pretty much the same over there as well. 

Reports from Fire Island Pines started trickling in. Same there. Ellie was right. The situation had indeed turned into “a total sh-tshow.” The only thing that could have made the energy more frenetic is if her majesty Lady Gaga had flown in on a broomstick and tossed glitter over the Grove. As with all sh-tshows, it was impossible to turn away. People had stopped existing as individual units. They had all become intertwined and had melded into one giant pulsating, sweaty organism. Just as I was contemplating crashing on my friend’s floor and doing it all again the following day, another friend grabbed me and announced that the ferry had arrived. She dragged me out of harm’s way, and five minutes later we were both on the ferry, getting further and further from the massive volcanic eruption we had just witnessed.

Was the day over? Not yet. A nice gay man who had pounded back a few too many, been tossed out of a limo and left to fend for himself sat down next to me, and he wanted to listen to my iPod. Both of us sang very loud and very much out of tune renditions of Britney Spears’ entire discography all the way back to Penn Station. If you were on the inbound Babylon branch of the LIRR around 1am Sunday, May 29th, I am so, so sorry. But look on the bright side. Now you know all the lyrics to “(You Drive Me) Crazy.” You never know when that knowledge will come in handy. Knowledge is power after all.

Sometimes you accidentally end up on Fire Island. It happens. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

But wait! There’s more!

  • Two months ago I did a quick profile of the NYC slam poetry scene, and I interviewed a couple of local out poets. I am pleased to report that one of them, Joanna Hoffman, made it to nationals. She will be competing with her team, NYC Urbana, against 71 other teams in the National Poetry Slam in Boston this August. It’s sort of like the Glee Season 2 finale without all the drama and singing.
  • Now how about them NYC gay sports leagues? It’s softball season, which means pretty much every gay chick in the region is playing ball in the Big Apple Softball League. Team Truck Stop, which is sponsored by the adorably degenerate lesbian party Truck Stop NY, was number one in their league at the time this photo was taken. They saw me coming with my camera, and they were so terrified they scaled a fence to escape.

     

  • Holy crap, it’s June! Happy pride, y’all. New York City is a huge town, and Brooklyn thinks it is its own planet, so it is having its own pride this Saturday. After the parade, head on over to Southpaw, ladies. And then it’s time to gear up for the biggest, baddest Gay Pride festivities in the Milky Way Galaxy – NYC Pride. I will be taking photos at all of Maggie C Events’ and Bridget Hauserman’s parties, namely Creme de la Femme, TittylationStiletto and Truck Stop NY. Come get your pretty face immortalized on the internet. Stiletto is going to be jaw droppingly ridiculous this year. Two words: dual waterslides. Check it out. But first, head on over to GO Magazine‘s Pride kickoff party, featuring the cast of The Real L Word, the show that satisfies our need to see Whitney bobbing for apples in Sara’s hoo hoo. GO‘s nightlife awards nominees will also be revealed that night.

That’s it for this month. Stay tuned for the June edition of N.Y. Scene. Get ready, because since it is Pride month, it will be the Longest. Article. Ever. You might want to start doing stretching exercises in preparation.

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