MSNBC On Chelsea's Gay Santas

MSNBC follows-up on the NYT's Christmas Eve story.

Miracle On 22nd Street

What happens when a gay couple in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood mysteriously get hundreds of letters to Santa addressed to their apartment? Watch the clip and then read Father Tony's excellent follow-up interview.

UPDATE: Watch the video on the New York Times site.

Dance Of The Sugar Plum Lesbians

This story makes its seventh annual appearance on JMG....

Grand Central Terminal functions as the mechanical heart of midtown New York City, pumping out several thousand workers and tourists on one beat, then sucking in several thousand more on the next.

The rhythms of the terminal are fascinating.

Beat. Four thousand, inbound from New Haven.

Beat. Three thousand, outbound to Westchester.

Worlds collide on the main floor.

The tourists gawk up at the gloriously ornate ceiling and uselessly flash their digital cameras at objects hundreds of feet away.

The commuters rush up to the track displays to determine their track number, then dart across the terminal floor, dodging the milling tourists, heads down, like running backs heading for the end zone.

It's mesmerizing. It's majestic.

And sometimes, like tonight, it's magical.

I'm walking through the massive main room just as the holiday laser show begins on the ceiling. To the tune of Take The "A" Train, the laser depicts two trains arriving from different directions. The trains stop opposite each other and a reindeer leaps out of each one and crosses over to the opposite train.

The laser traces the outline of one of the zodiac constellations painted on the ceiling. The Cancer crab leaps to life and becomes the Crab Conductor, waddling down the center aisle of the car, punching the reindeers' ticket stubs with his claws.

I move over to the edge of the room, near the entrance for Track 25, so I can watch the reaction to the show. As usual, I'm more entertained by watching the audience than by watching the actual show.

At the ticket windows, standing in front of signs that say "Harlem Line" or "Hudson Line", commuters tilt their heads painfully back to view the show directly overhead. The tourists cluster in delighted circles, holding each others' elbows for balance as they nearly bend over backwards.

Some people move to the edges of the great hall, as I have, to remove themselves from the traffic flow while they watch. Among those that come to join me on the perimeter of the room is a lesbian couple. They stand quite close to me, the taller woman behind the shorter one, with her arms wrapped around her, supporting her a bit as they both lean back on the marble wall.

The shorter woman is stout with a large firm chest. Her hair is short and brushed back into what might have once been called a ducktail. She has an ornate tattoo on her left forearm and she has a leather wallet protruding from the rear pocket of her jeans, attached to her leather belt by a short silver chain. She has more than a passing resemblence to Tony Danza, her big boobs notwithstanding, so naturally (in my head) I name her Toni.

Toni's girlfriend is blond and her short ponytail dangles just above her collar. She is wearing long Christmas tree earrings which nearly brush her shoulders. Her lanky, sinewy limbs are bound in a tight running outfit, over which she is wearing a school athletic jacket. I imagine that she might be a coach at Yale or Harvard, perhaps a girls lacrosse coach, or maybe track and field.

Coach is squeezing Toni tightly and they bounce together to the music a bit. Coach looks over at me and catches me smiling. She nudges Toni, who looks over at me too, and we all grin goofily at each other for a moment.

Overhead, a new show begins. The familiar opening notes of Tchaikovsky's Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairies ring out as the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings sprout arms, bow to each other, and begin waltzing across the ceiling.

I look around the room and it's as if time was frozen for just a second, every person stopped in mid-stride, eyes cast upward, mouths open in silent joy.

Toni pushes away from Coach, turns around and delivers her a bow as deep and as elegant as the one just depicted overheard.

"Madame, may I please have this dance?" she asks Coach.

Coach looks around a bit awkwardly. "You are TOO much!" And she giggles.

"Madame, I must insist!" says Toni, as she takes Coach's hands into hers.

Coach relents and she and Toni begin a beautful, slow waltz, moving in half-time to the music. As you might have guessed already, Toni leads.

As they dance, their eyes remain locked on each other. Toni is giving Coach an intense look, her lips tightly curled into a satisfied smile. Coach is grinning from ear to ear and again, she giggles.

All around Coach and Toni, the tourists, the businessmen, the students, the conductors, even the guy with a broom...they're all watching. Some are expressionless, but more are smiling, and some of them...some of them are frantically fussing with their cameras, eager to capture this magical New York Moment.

Serendipity prevails, the tune ends, and Toni dips Coach backwards with a dramatic upsweep of her free arm as a firestorm of camera flashes erupt around them. Toni pulls Coach up and close to her and they hug. There's another camera flash and the crowd begins to move along.

Then.

"Hey, look!"

The laser show is being concluded with giant sprigs of mistletoe appearing over our heads. This time it's Coach who bends down and plants a long tender kiss on Toni's non-lipsticked mouth. There's another flash of cameras from the delighted audience.

Toni takes Coach's hand and they begin to move off towards the exit.

"Oh, don't stop!" says a disappointed woman, still rummaging for her camera.

Toni looks back over her shoulder and says, "I never will."

Grand Central Terminal, the mechanical heart of New York City, beats again. But this time I hear a different rhythm. This time I hear a double beat.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYBODY!

Tap Tap Tap

Is anybody working today? Where are you off to?

A Sarah Palin Christmas

The CHRIST-Mas Tree Is Back

And for a mere $399.99, this year you can get yours in patriotic red, white & Jeebus.

(Source)

Happy Holidays From Glee

Christmas With Doctor Who

Beyond silly.

The 12 Gays Of Christmas

Third year posting this and still totally worth a rerun. The sound has been improved a bit to drown out the screaming audience.

BOSTON: Santa Speedo Run 2010

(Tipped by JMG reader Chev)

Guest Post - Carl Siciliano

It has been a rough holiday season for the Ali Forney Center.

The day after Thanksgiving I received an e-mail from the City of New York, informing me that due to budget problems, they were slashing their support for homeless youth programs, greatly defunding street outreach efforts and drop-in centers. Our drop-in support is being cut in half.

I prefer to talk about our housing programs, and the remarkable resilience that so many of our residents show in rebuilding lives that have been shattered by homophobia and family rejection. The realities we deal with in our two drop-in centers are harder and more brutal.

In New York City, there are 3,800 youths who sleep on the streets every night. Over 1,000 of these youths admit to being LGBT. There are only about 250 shelter beds for homeless youth in NYC, so the great majority are left stranded on the streets. LGBT kids from all over the country flock to our drop-in centers for the food, showers, medical care, mental health treatment and other forms of support we provide.

Our case managers work valiantly to help find shelter for these kids, but the reality is there are so few safe options for LGBT youth that we are often forced to advise them on how to survive while sleeping in places like subway trains, parks, abandoned buildings and construction sites as they wait for one of our beds to open up. Yesterday one of our case managers described spending the afternoon trying to find shelter for a girl who had just come to us. When his efforts were exhausted and he had to tell her that she would be out on the street for the night, she sat in his office and cried.

I hate what I see our kids going through. So many thousands of vulnerable kids being cast out of their homes for being gay, deprived of all family support, and forced to fend for themselves without the resources to survive. I hate the way the suffer violence and degradation on the streets, the way they get gay bashed in mainstream shelters, the way so many have to survive through prostitution. I hate seeing youth be so deeply traumatized.

This phenomenon of thousands of LGBT youth being thrown out to the streets by parents who will not accept them is the most terrible face of homophobia in our time. Is there is a greater wrong being perpetrated against our community? I do not understand why protecting our terribly violated and abandoned youth is not the top priority of the LGBT movement. I do not understand why our advocacy organizations are not fighting to make certain that our tax dollars are allocated to supporting these abandoned kids. It is a nightmare that there are so few resources to protect these kids.

With these budget cuts, our ability to provide our drop-in centers is jeopardized, but I am not willing to reduce what little support these poor kids have. The drop-in centers are the safety net for the kids out on the street and I cannot imagine closing our doors. We desperately need an outpouring of support from the community to keep our drop-in centers open. Please be as generous as you can in this time of trial and, please, see if you can persuade friends to help.

Online donations can be made by clicking here.

Checks can be sent to:

Ali Forney Center
224 West 35th Street, Suite 1102
New York, NY 10001

Thank You!

Carl Siciliano
Executive Director
Ali Forney Center

Salvation Army Trashes Harry Potter Toys

Saying that the toys violate the organization's Christian beliefs, the Salvation Army is throwing all donated Harry Potter items in the garbage. Anything related to the Twilight movies goes in the trash too.

"I asked if these toys went to another charitable organizations but was told no, that by passing these toys on to another agency for distribution would be supporting these toys," said the man, who wouldn't give his name due to his occupation. The man called himself an admirer of the Salvation Army and was impressed by the massive quantity of toys collected in city malls, schools and police stations through the Toy Mountain campaign. But he questioned why the charity would be sifting out Harry Potter and Twilight toys, which involve sorcery and vampire themes, respectively. "I was told to withhold a six-inch Harry Potter figure, but when I picked up a plastic M-16, I was told, 'That's for the 10-year-olds,'" he said. "I was shocked...war-themed toys and toys from TV shows and movies with far more violence than Harry Potter and these were considered appropriate toys?"

Open Thread Thursday

What are your plans for the holidays? Bio-family or gay family? Or both? What are your traditions?

Glee Spoiler: A Very Glee Xmas

Stay out of the comments if you haven't seen last night's episode. Otherwise dive in and dish.

Fire Island Pines Boys Lip-Dub Mariah

They've just launched a Tumblr blog with all their videos.

Unconventionals - Long Distance Xmas

The Unconventionals, one-time British X-Factor contestants, very properly label this fantastically poppy holiday clip on YouTube with the tags "Phil Spector, Ronettes, Chiffons, Crystals, and Mariah Carey." I generally detest Xmas music, but freekin' HELL I love this. Featuring cameos by Matt Lucas and Boy George. (Unconventionals lead vocalist Drew Jaymson played Steve Strange in Boy George's musical Taboo.) PLAY LOUD! Download here for an extra gay Xmas.

(Tipped by JMG reader Fritz)

Deck The Falls

It seemed like a funny idea until: "A 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize that it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."

(Tipped by JMG reader Adrian)

Pomplamoose - Deck The Halls

Get the Pomplamoose holiday album for free when you donate a book to the Richmond Book Drive.

Photo Of The Day - Gay Xmas Trees

Treetopia is running a billboard in Los Angeles advertising their dreadful rainbow Xmas tree. From the product description on their site, which is "written" by the tree itself:

My first home was in a Vacation Bible School classroom where the students were learning all about Noah's Ark and God's promise to never again destroy the earth. Life was full of love; children sat close to me to be around the happiness that comes from rainbows and Christmas. I got to play the rainbow in all the church pageants. I was happy. But one day the new minister's wife ran in screaming, "That tree is a bad influence on my little boy!!!" She pointed a shaking finger at me, and two burly members of the congregation picked me up and put me in a closet-like box. I didn't understand what the uproar was about. After all, I'm Just a Rainbow Tree. A few months and a cross country trek later, those closet doors were thrown open and I alighted onto the floor of a thrift store in San Francisco. A crowd gathered around; their "oohs" and "aahs" and "Fabulous!" escalated until they hoisted me onto their shoulders. I was paraded up and down Castro Street, and soon a line formed behind me as we sang "Somewhere over the Rainbow". I was so overwhelmed by the immediate acceptance and love that I just burst into tears.

Proud sobbing rainbow trees are available for $229.

(Tipped by JMG reader Dr. Jeff)

XMAS PREVIEW - Glee's Chris Colfer And Darren Criss: Baby, It's Cold Outside

Here's a leaked single from the upcoming Glee holiday album. This may not last long on YouTube, thanks to Sony's Sales Prevention Team.