These sticks are just a sampling of the hundreds of free surprises handed out at the Gay Pride Parade this last Sunday. While we were not planning on watching, (the night before at the Box took care of our absurdity and unrestrained fun needs for the week), we just couldn’t get around this parade…it lasted over 5 hours down the street outside our apartment.

We really wanted to see “The Waitress” and that meant crossing 5th ave, there was no way around this. So we snapped some pics. Again, we were planning on only taking a couple, the noise being emitted from this affair was not helping our hangover one bit, however, once we started watching, we couldn’t help staying. With each passing float, each new spectator screaming from above, and every tranny getting better looking than the next, we ended up staying for an hour and would have even longer had it not been ending.

This was a hot dude babe…we would kill for her legs:

The best thing about this parade? It was led by RELIGIOUS GROUPS! Leave it to the gays to be the ones to unite the Christians, Jews, and Buddhists.

“We stand for a progressive religious voice,” said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City’s Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. “Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda I believe are blaspheming God’s name.” Kleinbaum, who heads the world’s largest predominantly gay synagogue, and the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, were the parade’s grand marshals Sunday, waving from his-and-hers convertibles.

We are not gay and we only have a few friends we know that are, but we are so glad they are helping make the world loosen up a bit and realize that age, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc. etc. etc. all make up one human-ality.

We heart New York.

Everyone was getting frisky at Stereo by the Shore…and gettin’ some necky at Pink Elephant/Tenjune…

So what does everyone thing about the large influx of “live” entertainment in clubs these days?  It all started when Jamie Mulholland tried to infuse an African theme into Cain a few years back, and now it seems that drummers in clubs are ubiquitous even when it doesn’t make sense for them to be there at all.  Take Pink Elephant for example, a euro-jet-set club replete with bongo drums.  What do Europeans, coke, and bongo drums have in common?  Sure everyone wants to bang on a pigskin when they are wasted and pretend they have rhythym and musical talent, but this circus sideshow doesn’t really add up. 

And then of course there are the piad dancers, who make it feel like…well a Las Vegas strip club.

Drinking cheap liquor out of brown paper bags is not something new.  Though this practice is most likely to be attributed to the “bum” or “hobo” population, we think that it is equally common among underage college students.  These pictures were taken on Friday afternoon at Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park and we must say that we were rather happy to be seeing the brown baggin’ out in full effect, (p.s. they were listening to Bob Marley on their small ipod speakers), ah….Takes us back, takes us back…..

As reported earlier, last Friday Pink Elephant in Southampton somehow convinced giant Rachel Hunter to host their party.  We, however were more impressed with the arrival of Ole Sandburg (on right):

Ole is the founder of VOSS water and is rarely seen out partying.  Besides being the man responsible for bringing in the tall blonde Norweigan women who help promote his famous water around the city and Hamptons in the summer, he’s a good guy.  He also is helping to make sure that you are staying hydrated in between the bottles of Belvedere.

The Verrazano Narrows Bridge has to be one of the most beautiful bridges in the 5 Boroughs.  Straddling the mouth of New York Harbor, linking Staten Island to Brooklyn, it was completed in 1964, and was the longest suspension bridge in the world until 1981 (still the longest in the United States).  The bridge marks the start of the New York Marathon, and its namesake is Italian navigator Giovanni Da Verrazano. 

Every ship that enters New York Harbor has to pass under this magnificent bridge, and almost every ship in the world is built to specifications in order to pass under the bridge. 

Another great fact is that it feeds into the Belt Parkway, a strip of highway where you can always feed yourself with the many Frankfurter trucks, as our Grobmutter would say.

And for those of you gay and lesbian sailors out there, you can join the Knickerbocker Sailing Association, a gay-friendly sailing group that sails under the Verrazano during New York Heritage’s Gay Pride Week (which was this past week, June 17-24th). 

The Wall Street Journal today printed a long detailed article by Christina Binkley about the comeback of the women’s Frye Boot style.  (Shown above worn by Keira Knightly in the current issue of Vogue). These well-known boots (you know them even though you may not be aware you do), according to Binkley are “back like a blast from the past, and unlike other flash-in-the pan fashions, their comeback is a telling sign of the times.”

“Frye boots’ previous heyday was the first time the brand, founded in 1863, became a fashion icon. For women, they represented a new and formerly impossible combination of strength and hipness. Wide-toed and heavy, they were a bold reaction against a period of restrictive femininity: housewives vacuuming in heels. “

“Claudia Goldin hitched herself to a pair of Fryes in the 1970s and stomped around the West Village with her tight jeans tucked into the bootlegs. Now a well-known labor and history economist at Harvard University, she welcomes their return. “Fryes are kick-ass boots,” Dr. Goldin says fondly. “They say strength.”

We are not sure if a shoe is a sign of the times in regards to the ongoing battle of the sexes and the women’s suffrage movement.  Then again, if Manolo Blahniks can help to create the millions of “Carrie Bradshaws” wannabes walking around this planet, anything is possible.  If these boots are going to help to be a catalyst for New York women get over their Manolo-wearing-sex-and-the-city-days we give these “kick ass” boots our full support.

Looks like Olivia Palermo will be hoping on a Hampton Jitney for a ride out to East Hampton on the 23rd of June to “host” a launch party for Izzy Gold’s summer line of clothes at the Blue & CreamLola.

Olivia and boyfriend Brad Leinhardt for the cover of Japanese Elle. Other guests will include among others Francesca Wilson. The Blue and CreamLola will also be hosting a few other events this weekend, including a photography showcase for Jamie Newman on Saturday from 4-7pm, and a crunk trunk showcase for Madison Harding from 12-4pm on Sunday the 24th:

[Blair Waldorf Is Real-Life Olivia Palermo]

[Olivia Palermo Vs. Palmolive]

[Photo: Getty Images]

So 50 Cent (aka “Fitty”) held a concert at Cipriani Wallstreet the other night, and it didn’t really register too much of a blip on the radar for us, until we started to think about live Rap, and its acoustic quality in live venues.  As most of you may know rap music sales have been plumeting (the majority of people who buy it, white girls, are losing interest), and there really hasn’t been a dominant album since 50’s last one (don’t know the name) with “In Da Club”.  I was certain that the urbanification (i think that’s an appropriate adjective) of America and the ever growing hip-hop rage would never see its day.  Well it is about to, and the day is fast approaching.

What are some of the root causes?  Well for starters, musical trends and genre’s tend to be in fashion for about a decade (think 80s Hair Metal, 90s Grunge).  But more importantly these genre’s change because of changing attitudes, rather than a specific genre shaping attitudes, so I’ve concluded.  I think at the end of the 80s after Van Halen and a couple of other true musical geniouses had been played out, people got tired of the sea of left-over untalented guys hiding behind walls of distortion and long hair (enter Grunge).  I think the 2000s people wanted to sell-out a bit more, get intoxicated on a Las Vegas lifestyle and detach from reality (enter Hip-Hop).  Its seems now people are ready to go in another direction, where exactly I don’t know.

But I digress.  The point of this post was to point out how much Hip-Hop and Rap suck live.  Why do people even bother paying money to see these artists put on a record, and inaudibly rap into a microphone, creating pure cacophony?  Its moronic.  If you like overproduced music fine, but realize that it’s exactly that, overproduced and could only be the product of serious sound engineering.  Buy the CD, download the file on a p2p network, or be a good soul and buy from iTunes.  But don’t go to a show, you will be thoroughly dissapointed.

 I can only imagine the mess of sound at Cipriani Wallstreet, the reverberation, the richochets off of the Hellenistic columns…but I don’t think people cared too much because they got to eat ravioli and drink mimosas with 50.

These are the new Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield ads up around town.  They are apparently supposed to make the reader feel comforted that “After 72 years, no one knows more about health in New York” than Empire.  In reality, these ads make us walk away in complete horror.  Apparently New Yorkers really have gotten “Bitten” and it hasn’t been by Sarah Jessica Parker.  No this is much worse, 250 of us were bitten by rats and 1,401 by HUMANS!? wtf?  We don’t know what their marketing department was smoking that day but this is seriously disturbing news.

Today the New York Times reported on Freegans, a growing group of people who actively scorn consumerism and live off the detritis we normal people create.  No word yet on whether they espouse the ethos of free love, but don’t be surprised if you see one of these guys scavenging around a dumpster near you.  But like most reactionaries, Freegans revolt against the very system that supports them, namely consumer waste.  We certainly applaud their move to go Green, but lets not completely go bonkers, we still need like our ipods and cell phones, etc.

Take for Example Adam Weissman, who states:

“If a person chooses to live an ethical lifestyle it’s not enough to be vegan, they need to absent themselves from capitalism,” said Adam Weissman, 29, who started freegan.info four years ago and is the movement’s de facto spokesman.

 Sorry Adam, but if we just up and did what you said, you’d have nothing to live off of.  Don’t bite the hand that feeds!

Lastly, just because you find something free in a dumpster, doesn’t mean its worth smiling about.  Wtf is this girl going to do with angel wings anyways? 

[Photo: New York Times]