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N.Y. Scene August 2011: Original Sin: Atlantic City Women’s Weekend, Star Wars vs. Star Trek Burlesque, and the World Exploded

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.

For most of August, Mercury was in retrograde, and an earthquake and a hurricane said hello to New York City. Communication breakdowns! Thunder! Lightning! Drama! Chaos! Pandemonium! Just another month in the life of a New York lesbian.

August 5-7, 2011 – Original Sin: Atlantic City Women’s Weekend

On August 2, Mercury went into retrograde. According to prevailing wisdom and the more paranoid segment of your circle of friends – but mostly the latter, traveling while Mercury is in retrograde is ill advised. I refused to believe in such silliness, so I boarded a bus to Atlantic City on August 5th for Original Sin: Atlantic City Women’s Weekend.

Departing Manhattan went smoothly, and traffic was brisk. A nice Korean grandmother by the name of Ms. Kim sat down next to me. When it became apparent that I couldn’t speak Korean, she motioned to me that she was going to Atlantic City to play the slot machines. I motioned to her that I was going to Atlantic City to take photographs. The only sign I could think of to tell her that I was going to take photos of a lesbian event was sticking my tongue between a V made from my index and middle fingers, but I felt that doing so would be inappropriate, so I decided to omit that detail. I tried to think of an alternate photographic subject matter that would be plausible in Atlantic City, but I couldn’t think of a sign for the ocean, seagulls, strippers or homeless people either, so I just pointed to my camera again and pumped my fist.

About an hour after leaving Manhattan, the wheels on the bus stopped going round and round. The bus broke down somewhere between Newark and nowhere, and some of the classier passengers who must have been sipping gin and juice out of flasks, because they smelled like the floor of a frat house on a Sunday morning, started to get rowdy. It was special.

In addition to being stuck on a renegade Rikers Island bus, I was starving. At this precise moment, Ms. Kim pulled a tupperware container filled with papaya and kiwi slices out of her Louis Vuitton bag. She put it in my lap and said, “Eat!” I had no idea why she gave me her food, because I never said anything about being hungry, but I was thankful, and I started eating. Plus, when an old Asian lady tells you to eat, you don’t ask any questions. You just eat. No one has ever found out what happens when you disobey an Asian grandmother’s order to eat, and I wasn’t about to go down in history as the cautionary tale. She also went into a convenience store and bought me a Snickers bar, even though I protested and demanded to pay, but she was louder and won. Asian grandmothers are awesome.

An hour later, another bus rolled up, and all of us filed out like disheveled lemmings and boarded the new bus, which somehow avoided Mercury’s shenanigans and made it to Atlantic City. Before Ms. Kim and I parted ways, I asked some friends via text message how to say “thank you” in Korean. So if you are ever in close quarters with drunken hooligans, and an old Korean lady saves you from starvation, this is what you say: kamsahamnida. You’re welcome.

I saved the Snickers bar. Maybe I was just paranoid, but I kept it for good luck and for the next emergency. Perhaps there would be a time in the future where I would be required to stockpile food. Asian grandmothers don’t just fly out of locust swarms or failed power grids you know. 

In any event, I was two hours late to Envy, the opening dance party at Showboat, and it was already in full swing.

It’s Romi from The Real L Word!

And here’s Romi grabbing Claire’s boob. That’s sugar free Red Bull, which won’t erode your enamel, but it still gives you wings. Fly, Romi, fly! And your teeth are so pretty! 

Why are these ladies so shocked and awed?

Maybe it is this. Go get ’em tiger!

Shhh. These ladies are having a moment. On AfterEllen!

The next day there was a pool party. DJ Saratonin flew in from Los Angeles, and she played a set with fabulous windblown hair.

Selling hats? Yes, I’d like to buy the tan one – in bulk, because there might be a time where I may not only need a Snickers bar, I may need a stockpile of fedoras. 

And Saturday night there was Truck Stop, which needs no introduction. From LA, to NY, to Toronto and now Atlantic City, the debaucherous girl party made an appearance, bouyed by the beats of DJ KAsh, resident deejay at Sisters in Philadelphia, and of course the crazy moves of the Truck Stop Girlz. 

The weekend is over, but the images and experiences will forever be burned into your memory, like a tattoo you got after one too many vodka tonics. Wait. Where did that tribal armband come from? That wasn’t there before! Where did you go after Truck Stop, dear? Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know, but I’m glad you’re alive.

OMG EARTHQUAKE!!! – August 23, 2011

As 2pm approached on August 23, I received a series of IMs indicating that something was amiss.

1:55 PM

Friend: Yo, my house is shaking.

Me: Are you high?

Friend: Yeah

Me: Chill, it was probably the N train goin underneath yo crib

Then #Earthquake started trending on Twitter, so while I didn’t feel a thing, I knew that there had been some shady activity going on with the tectonic plates.

2:03 PM 

Friend 2: dude did you feel that

Me: According to Twitter it was an Earthquake 

Friend 2: HOLY SH*T

I missed the whole thing, because I had checked out while streaming Pandora into my headphones, so here are special disaster correspondents AfterEllen’s Courtney Gillette and Stonewall Inn co-owner Stacy Lentz to tell you about the day the ground shook in the Big Apple.

Courtney:  

I was on the Upper West Side visiting a friend who had just had chest surgery. When the couch began to shake, and the plate of cookies on the coffee table wiggled, he figured it was his medication and I figured it was the neighbors, well, getting it on. Right? I mean, I’m a New Yorker. You say earthquake, I say someone in 4B is goin’ at it. 

Stacy: 

I did feel the earthquake hit as I was on the 11th floor of a skyrise in mid-town Manhattan.  My buidling swayed and my desk shook a little, and I felt like my balance was off.  Granted, it was nothng like they feel in LA – and yes they made a lot of fun of us for it – but we just don’t ever expect them here. I knew I wasn’t still drunk at work and hadn’t started drinking yet, so like all New Yorkers my initial thought was it was a terrorist attack.

Well, Stacy, myinitial thought was that my friend’s bud was a little too kind, and that she was trippin’, but it turns out that although she was trippin’, the East Coast did shake the earth just like the West Coast, so take that, LA.

Star Wars v. Star Trek Burlesque @ the NY Fringe Festival – August 24, 2011

Hello, geeks! Sit down, hold onto your horn-rimmed specs, and keep a bedpan near, because you might actually pee yourself. There was a Star Wars / Star Trek burlesque show at the New York International Fringe Festival this year. Commander Data took it off, and Darth Maul danced with two suitors to “Copacabana.” Also, Princess Leia pranced around a Darth Vader leather daddy wearing pretty much nothing, taking you back to the day when you were a wee little child and you first saw Star Wars, and you wondered why Han Solo didn’t do it for you but that girl with cinnamon bun hair made you feel a little funny. Yes, this happened. It actually happened. Take a look.

I’ll pause here for a moment so you can rub your eyes, laugh, cry, or take an Ativan.

August 27-28th, 2011 – OMG HURRICANE!!

When told that a hurricane is approaching, residents of most coastal states buy necessities, such as water, non-perishable food, batteries, and an evacuation kit. As Hurricane Irene approached, when Mayor Bloomberg ordered residents of certain parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan to evacuate and informed all residents of NYC that public transportation would be shut down starting noon, August 27, New York City residents panicked.

They ran into liquor stores and bought as many bottles of Stoli they could carry. They sent out last minute Facebook invites to hurricane parties, and coordinated with friends to bring enough guitar sets to play Guitar Hero. They stuffed DVDs into messenger bags. What about food? What doesn’t spoil? Chips and Skittles I guess. They took their precious netbooks and Androids and chargers to their friends’ apartments outside of Evacuation Zone A. A mobile hotspot was key – if the wireless router were to go out, maybe the cell phone towers would still be operational. Live tweeting the hurricane was essential. Even if they didn’t need to evacuate, they went over to a friend’s house anyway, because there was going to be a lot of booze.  

My apartment is next to the Hudson River, so I packed essentials – basically, a bunch of electronics – and do you remember Ms. Kim from the Atlantic City bus? I packed the Snickers bar she gave me. I knew I would need it some day. That day had come. If the big bad hurricane were to blow New York City down, I would not starve. Then I headed to the Upper East Side, where a hurricane party was already in progress.

By the time midnight rolled around, an epidemic had swept the city. New Yorkers were experiencing bloating from eating all the sodium-laden junk food, inebriation from all the liquor, and the desire to escape from the ten people crowded into an apartment the size of a shoebox.  

The streets were quiet all over the city, although according to Ilegal Mezcal liquor rep Kaylan Rexer, some intrepid lushes decided to weather the storm at Ward III bar in Evacuation Zone A in Tribeca.

And now some hurricane reports from disaster correspondents Courtney Gillette and Stacy Lentz.

Courtney:

My favorite thing about the hurricane is that there was a LINE on a FRIDAY NIGHT at the bookstore to buy BOOKS and BOARD GAMES and PUZZLES. It was like going to the shore, without throwing down for some place on Fire Island. 

Otherwise, I was completely bummed to have to miss the gay wedding of the century. My friends Mona and Maria got married outdoors in New Paltz despite the hurricane! Half their guests were stranded in the city without public transit, weather reports warned everyone to stay inside, but it did not stop these awesome ladies and the wedding goers who made the trek. I offer the following photograph as evidence of their unstoppable joy. Take that, Irene! Gays gonna get hitched anyway!

Stacy:

As far as the hurricane I actually lost a house and a bar outside of New Orleans during Katrina, so I did take it a little more seriously than most New Yorkers, which means in addtion to a 24 case of beer or their favorite booze of choice, cigarettes and junk food which normally none of us would ever buy or eat, I did get a flashlight, jugs of water and other medical supplies just in case. I also, like ever single lesbian in Manhattan, was wondering why no one had come up with the female version of Grindr so I could have found a hot companion near me to ride out the storm with. [Editor’s note: There is one – Qrushr. But I doubt most of the people on there are actually women.] Instead I went searching on my own, and since I am closer to Cubby Hole than my own bar, Stonewall, I went and drank with friends – which means the hot companions weren’t to be found in the eye of the strom – until the wind started to get strong enough, and we all knew it was better to be safe than sorry and headed home.  We were lucky though in the city, as other areas had a lot more damage than was intially thought or reported.

With earthquakes and hurricanes hitting us here in New York many say it is the wrath of God for us passing Gay Marriage.  I actully think it is the wrath of the LA lesbians, who are jealouse that not only did we pass gay marriage, but that we actually aren’t void of culture, have a better scene with amazing parties and bars to chose from, and aren’t viewed now as they are by rest of the country as only being made up of women with full sleeves tattoos and knitted caps.  Just my own little consprancy theory.

The next day I woke up to mild wind and even milder rain. The hurricane had lost strength before landfall, and New York City was spared the brunt of the storm. Later that afternoon I wandered into Central Park to survey the damage.

Aww. Look at that Dunkin’ Donuts cup. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

Ahoy! A fallen tree branch. Something happened. Irene happened. It was real.

While this planet and other planets threatened to shake, blow, and confuse New York City into submission, we are still here, just as strong and irritated as ever.

Epilogue: I never got around to eating Ms. Kim’s Snickers bar. The amount of food at the Upper East Side hurricane party was obscene, and so I am saving it for another rainy day. Ms. Kim, I hope you won big. You deserve it.

Kamsahamnida and good night.

All photos by Grace Chu.

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