Check out some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Gella takes on privilege.
• Student Driver tells us what annoys her about a recent date.
• Mater Aiden really loves bondage.
• Levi is going through some trauma and is working it out.

In Culture:

• Rohan banged out jams this week.

In Giveaways:

• DC – Girls are hitting the 9:30 Club
• DC – Cute husband and wife duo Mates of State are @ 9:30 Club
• DC – Peter Hook (ex-Joy Division and New Order Bassist) banks off his name and ruins any intentions of goodwill with his Closer tour @ 9:30 (all that being said you might as well see this because it is the closest thing you’ll get to a Joy Division concert ever.)
• Want TNG to help wrangle cool, free stuff for your city? Hit us up at advertising@thenewgay.net and we’ll see what we can do.

Alright TNGers have a good weekend and be sure to check our local section for events happening in your area.

In Ideas:

• Walter’s biological clock is ticking – but will he give anyone the time?
• Alex Testere takes his cruising underground
• Gella doesn’t get tongue-tied over language
• Jean reality checks reality television

In Culture:

• Rohan gets cozy with two different Sleeping Bags
• Topher likes his FX programming doggy style

In Giveaways:

• DC: Sweater Set Sideshow tickets
• NYC: Erasure tickets
• Want TNG to help wrangle cool, free stuff for your city? Hit us up at advertising@thenewgay.net and we’ll see what we can do.

You know what makes it hard to write sex jokes on a Friday afternoon? Paralyzing, recurrent earthquake-induced anxiety attacks, and the acute Kantian terror of seeing a giant uncaring death spiral lurch toward the cities and people you love. TNG promises puns next week so long as D.C. isn’t reduced to a fetid slurry of salt water, pulverized marble, and broken flesh. God damn.

Check out some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Rioa sticks a foot out of the twelve-step closet
• Gella takes on puppet pluralism
• Student Driver deals with the ghosts of hookups past

In Culture:

• Of all the things Jeremy wants shoved down his throat on a first date, a guy’s playlist isn’t one
• Topher marks two decades of butch queen femme vogue realness
• Kaysey sits down with one of the cutest, most talented plaid-clad otters to have had his face one our homepage, which is saying a lot

In Giveaways:

• DC – Sweater Set sideshow tickets
• NYC – Erasure tickets
• Want TNG to help wrangle cool, free stuff for your city? Hit us up at advertising@thenewgay.net and we’ll see what we can do.

DCers will recall that TNG’s own queer Rock ‘n’ Roll lounge night, Beat City, is tonight at Chief Ike’s. The upside of imminent apocalypse is that you don’t have to worry about hangovers.

Foreign Students in Work Visa Program Stage Walkout at Plant

PALMYRA, Pa. — Hundreds of foreign students, waving their fists and shouting defiantly in many languages, walked off their jobs on Wednesday at a plant here that packs Hershey’s chocolates, saying a summer program that was supposed to be a cultural exchange had instead turned them into underpaid labor.

… When [one student] was offered a contract for a job at a plant with Hershey’s chocolates, she said, she was excited. “We have all seen Charlie’s chocolate factory,” she said. “We thought, ‘This is good.’ ”

We knew American capitalism was in a tough spot, but this shit is outright Dickensian.  Now TNG is going to have to buy our Valentine’s Day candy at Whole Foods instead of CVS, lest we risk the political ire of whatever lefty we’re blowing regularly come February, even if it means forfeiting the right to say things like “I like my chocolate packed by 19-year-old Turkish guest workers” which after a semester abroad in Berlin we really meant.  Probably the most shocking part of the story is that undergraduates were actually engaged, however briefly, in some socially productive activity. If TNG had majored in candybar wrapping instead of the humanities, maybe we wouldn’t be in our pajamas right now, covered in cookie crumbs, wondering why we’re poor and single.

Check out some of the hottest irons in the blazing editorial furnace that was this week’s content!

In Ideas:

• When Walter is on his knees these days, he uses the word “Daddy” instead of “Father”
• Santorum is never more disgusting than when it’s spread too thin, writes Brandon
• Cristobal tells the Dems to take a left
• We really thought we were over the whole caveman porn kick, but then we had to find fair use images of Neanderthals for Jean’s latest piece

In Culture:

• Topher calls out some less than model behavior on the part of New York Magazine
• Rob reaches as deep into an electrogoth soul as a person can without getting shocked

DCers with any interest in Erasure can throw their hats in the ring for tickets. 30 Minutes or Less paraphernalia plus Holcombe Waller and  David Guetta music for everyone else. Email advertising@thenewgay.net if you want us to wrangle free stuff for your city.

If you knew how early and hungover we had to get up this morning to compile a list of this week’s top articles, you’d read them all out of guilt:

In Ideas:

• In an age of political extremes, Joseph is feeling a little decentered
• Of all the things to beat in a good BDSM session, the clock is not one, writes Master Aiden
• Chris R. is a street fightin’ man
• Brandon makes us google the word “kyriarchy.” It was worth it.

In Culture:

• Greg Pokarney persuades us to give him our flashdrive
• It turns out Gay Nerd Comics evolve to Hedonists at level 5. To think I wasted my Moon Stone on a Jigglypuff.

SF/LA TNGers so inclined will take advantage of the Holcombe Waller tickets in the giveaway bin. For DC, we’ve got Thievery Corporation and Erasure tickets. Holcombe Waller CDs, David Guetta albums, and 30 Minutes or Less prize packs for everyone else. Want TNG to help give away free, cool stuff in your neck of the woods? Send a flattering torso shot to advertising@thenewgay.net and maybe we’ll get back to you, once we sober up.

Dealing with stock market crashes when you’re young, poor, and politically left is like dealing with a girlfriend’s menstrual cramps when you’re young, gay, and sexually frustrated: you don’t have to you know what, actually? TNG refuses to limit ourselves to a punchline on this one, so fecund is the comparison. Plus we’ve not really ended happy hour since yesterday afternoon when we found out that the Dow Jones lost 500 points and our yuppie friends started filling our facebook feed with sad emoticons and references to something called a “401(k).” We’re just glad we put everything we had into beer and used Sartre hardbacks before the market tanked.

As you wander the burnt-out ruins of financial capitalism for, like, the seventeenth time this century, review some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Jeffrey just can’t get over the rainbow
• Gella recounts a summer of nerd camp, sexuality, and Mark Zuckerberg, and it wasn’t as profitable as she might have hoped
• Walter parries resentment queen Victoria Jackson
• Devon writes that all’s love and war when it comes to FAIR

In Culture:

• Ben cinespazzes out over West Side Story
• The Gay Nerd Comic enjoys long walks on the pixels

Giveaways include Thievery Corporation tickets for the DC crowd, and a “30 Minutes or Less” prize pack for everyone. Email advertising@thenewgay.net if you want us to wrangle free stuff for your city.

Some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• When it comes to Marcus Bachmann’s mincing, James doesn’t mince words
• Zack bares his heart, and his ass, for a final time
• There’s never been more room under the huppah canopy, and Gella is celebrating
• Master Aiden reminds us that it’s hard to say “cheese” when there’s a ball gag in your mouth

In Culture:

• Logan reviews the hottest trans name in southern rock ‘n’ roll
• Some queers in Berlin need money to photograph German otters or something

If you’re interested in wrecking your resume by publishing vaguely menacing, whiskey-fueled anticapitalist tirades, note kindly that TNG is looking for new political contributors. If you want to make money ghostwriting agreeable milquetoast commentary on why white men should have access to their partner’s townhouse if one of them is killed in a yachting accident, we hear HRC’s media department is hiring.

Jason Mraz tickets for DCers in the giveaway dock. That’s all. Email advertising@thenewgay.net if you want us to wrangle free stuff for your city.

If you’re reading these words with unmelted corneas, it’s from somewhere less hot than eastern North America – the Sahara perhaps, or the inside of a post-meltdown Fukushimi Daiichi reactor, or the space between Marcus Bachmann’s superego and groin at a college wrestling tournament. If so, congratulations on being in a place where wearing more than briefs is as comfortable as it is socially mandated: TNG has been naked in its unairconditioned bedroom all day eating Otter Pops and debating whether or not a 110 degree heat index is nature’s way of telling us we should shave our chest hair, and is terribly envious of you. Seriously – it smells like water buffalo have been fighting in here.

As we sweatily regret not being able to work cultural references to “Disco Inferno” and “Paris is Burning” into this week’s Week in Review, check out some highlights from the past seven days’ content:

In Ideas:

• Jeremy takes aim at the Williamsbourgeoisie
• Unlike Gella, the last time I found a misogynist inside of me was at a truck stop in Arkansas
• Jay Borchert hits hard on class, race, and crime in Chicago
• When it comes to civil equality, Jean thinks: the more the marrier

In Culture:

• Kaysey gets her mittens on that adorable Brooklyn lesbian duo again
• Topher takes to task what’s left of the mainstream Left
• Zack finds himself in the middle of a Norwegian sandwich for something like the fifth time this summer

Wanda Jackson & Imelda May and Jason Mraz tickets are up for grabs for the DC set, and there’s a Friends with Benefits Prize Pack giveaway everyone is eligible for. Want TNG to help give away free and cool stuff in your part of the world? Email advertising@thenewgay.net and we’ll talk.

If you’re in DC tonight, there are a number of things you must do on pain of swift and terrible social death: come to TNG artworld friends Boys Be Good’s opening show, tank up on free gallery wine, and hike up the hill to Chief Ike’s for Beat City: Zack’s Long, Hard Goodbye, where you’ll sweat and/or weep it all out. Those neon bon vivants over at BrightestYoungGays have something promisingly brumal planned at Black Cat tonight for Xmas in July, and all for a good charitable cause. TNG operatives will be all over the place – if you see any especially hirsuite or conspiciously belt-buckled puddles melted onto the pavement of U Street, say hello.

c. Wikimedia Commons

The Week in Review is usually marks the time in the publishing schedule when we escape, however briefly, the deadening gravity of queer self-analysis to comment on broader, more lighthearted subjects: war, political violence, hate speech, the apocalypse. This week we can afford no such levity:  Zack Rosen, TheNewGay’s Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, announced this Wednesday that he’ll be stepping down from his post after more than four years of dedicated service. From all of us who have struggled and sweated underneath you for hours on end, often into the small hours of morning, fueled by nothing but cheap stimulants and the magnetism of your personality: Thank you Zack. You will be greatly fucking missed. Incidentally it was honor to work for you at the blog.

While you struggle, with us, to keep your eyes dry and your jaw (if nothing else) stiff, check out highlights of this week’s content:

In Ideas

• Michael O. reminds us that the rainbow still has a color line
• Jolly brings us a New Gay view from the world’s newest country
• Master Aiden pokes holes in some common BDSM myths, among other things
• Randall Jenson reads Boystown
• Christina C. reports on her first stealth-queer Pride

In Culture

• “Bread” and “olive” are not Topher’s preferred kinds of sticks and oil
• Topher goes public about his favorite private dick

Tickets for Black Eyed Peas and Wanda Jackson & Imelda May in the DC giveaway slots. Some package involving Justin Timberlake and casual sex is fair game for everyone. Want TNG to help give away cool, free stuff in your city? Drop us a line at advertising@thenewgay.net, and we’ll see what we can do.

• K. Kriesel likes her sex likes she likes  her queer politics: loud and proud
• Jeremy interviews the Baron of Brut himself
• Drunken twentysomethings confirm to Jean that there is indeed life after high school geekery
• Anthony takes the HRC vandalism business more seriously than we ever did

In Culture:

• Ben K. is office spaced out
• Topher weighs in on the hottest bisexual to come out of a time warp since the Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Jeremy works the phrase “three way between Brian Eno, David Bowie, and Madonna” fluidly into a music article
• Topher talks with one of the brightest Design Stars in the HGTV constellation
• Ben K. writes: like sand through the hour glass, so are the days of soap operas

Pat Benatar and Black Eyed Peas tickets in the giveaway bin for DC folks, with more swell music freebies in the works. Want TNG to help give away free cool stuff in your town? Hit up marketing[at]thenewgay.net, and we’ll be in touch.

As you pass coughing that Ford Mustang, check out some highlights of this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Topher gets his panties in a twist about tying the knot
• This is the most conventional thing Master Aiden has ever done with a mailbag
• Cranberry-fed pigeons shit on the front of the HRC store or something, and Andrew F manages to make it a national news item
• Brennan navigates the ins and outs of trans sex

In Culture:

• The last time Andrew F did something this interesting with three boys in a park, police were called
• Topher reports: when off-key D-list divas collide!
• Levi raises thumbs to some trans-smart cinema gems

There are free Diamond Rings CDs to be had by everyone, and tickets to I Love You (We’re F#cked) for the DC crowd. Want TNG to help with giveaways in your neck of the woods? Hit up marketing [at] thenewgay.net, and we’ll get cracking.

Potty Mouth Pilot Caught on Tape

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – Ever wonder what goes on in the cockpit during your flight? Or what the pilots talk about? Well, one Southwest pilot’s tirade about his co-workers was caught on tape and broadcast across U.S. airspace. It was an expletive-filled rant about other employees who are gay, overweight, and older… With his cockpit mic open, the pilot rants about his co-workers, “After that, it was just a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes…”

It’s refreshing, every once in a while, for the thin veil of tolerance to be drawn back and people’s resentments to be aired honestly. And it’s downright inspiring when a hateful rant is this cattily alliterative: “Gays, Grannies, and Grandes” sounds less like hate speech and more like an excitingly inclusive indiequeer party. As TNG starts scouting for go-go dancing talent at nursing homes and KFCs, check out some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Gustavo manages to pick something up from Pride week more enduring than a skin rash: dignity
• When Andrew F writes about burying men, he usually doesn’t mean it this way
• Jeremy prefers guys with few piercings and fewer adjectives

In Culture:

• Like ruffled shirts and chlamydia, Sondheim is something that gives Ben K. nostalgic thrills
• Kira pops her Dim Sum cherry. Presumably it was full of salty dough and fish parts.
• Kaysey interviews indielez powercouple Kay Bertholf and Megan Ouchida in two parts

Queer cinema blue-rays and Diamond Rings CDs in the all-city giveaway dock. DCers should check out passes to the upcoming I Love You (We’re F#cked) show.

Beer, queer, and rock ‘n’ roll aficionados in DC tonight will benefit from generous servings  of Beam and Bowie at this month’s Beat City.

your “kind” is a filthy, nasty, sickening, immoral, hellbound bunch of diseased lower life forms that are a waste of air.   your “kind” makes me want to puke! God has judged your type to HELL.

Turns out our (eminently Googleable and technologically naive) friend Mr. Worley is, by trade, a vendor of Amish horse harnesses. Come to think of it, I think I recall his quality wares from a smart little basement bar just off the Paul-Robesonstrasse in Berlin, where I learned the fun way that, pound-for-pound, the average Czech teenager canters smoother and longer than a thoroughbred ever could. And all without the benefit of one of Mike’s lovingly handmade cruppers! Drop him a line in the testimonials section of his site to let him know how much you appreciate his merchandise, his evangelism, and his concern.

Some highlights from this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• Patrick once lived in darkness, but he has seen the rainbow light
• Erica reminds us that identity is a lot harder to bind than breasts
• I always thought that “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” was an especially expensive leather subculture. Levi corrects me.

In Culture:

• Scott’s probably never gone down under for a girl before, but then again Australian pop star Lenka is a special kind of lady
• Craig weighs in on homophobia in black America and the dark side of  Tracy Morgan’s rant
• When it comes to federal nutrition initiatives, Kira has a lot on her plate

There’s so much giveaway material in the TNG office, we might finally have to start clearing out old whiskey bottles soon to make free space. Everyone take a look at Friendly Fires and Ford & Lopantin CDs, as well as queer cinema blue-ray packs. ‘The Declaration’ tickets are still up for grabs in New York, and passes to the Le Tigre documentary and Michael Jackson tribute show are in the DC bullpen.

Want TNG to help give away cool free stuff in your city? Contact marketing [at] thenewgay.net, and we’ll get cracking.

Those of you who make a habit of reading DC insider blogs/ following national politics/ watching television at all/ drawing breath are already painfully aware of the latest blow to America’s confidence in electoral democracy: Rep. Anthony Weiner’s unflattering dick pic scandal has compelled the nation to sober up from it’s carefree socioeconomic boom-time and ask itself tough questions: How many more cock shots does Andrew Breitbart have on his Iphone? Does circumcision make all bulges look that small, or just liberals’?  And, most importantly: Do you have any idea what this country could do if it were run by shamelessly sex-positive queers who didn’t get hung up on this shit? As visions of heroically uninhibited totalitarian orgies dance in your head, check out some highlights of this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• When Marcelo goes wild in a techno club in Warsaw, does he Pole-dance?
• Jude always thought Kurt Cobain smelled like queer spirit
• Jolly corrects the way we talk about “corrective rape”
• Adam learns that “alternative” isn’t just for lifestyles anymore

In Culture:

• Topher likes his men like he likes his chicken: Cajun-spiced
• Not since Ben Cohen’s last presser have the words “straight ally” made my heart sink farther. Sorry if that’s weird or whatever, Kaysey
• Topher be talkin’ ’bout Jomama

F*** Ruben Diaz is happening Saturday, in New York, at the Metropolitan Bar on Lorimer street, at 8pm. At least two of us DC kids are making the Bolt Bus pilgrimage to Brooklyn, which means you can’t be too generous in buying us drinks.

It’s DC Pride weekend, and Intern Adam has been slaving over a hot laptop an undisclosed number of hours a day to make sure the events calendar is full. If you click around enough to meet his traffic quota, we’ll let him out of his crate.

DCers note: those neon nightlife luminaries at Brightest Young Gays are staging this year’s Pride Party tonight at the Newseum. Tickets available online for the brightest, youngest, thingliest evening you’re likely to have this month.

Giveaways multiply like anatomically inconvenient mosquito bites at an early summer skinnydipping party: everyone check out Friendly Fires and Ford & Lopatin CDs; DCers take a look at tickets for Marina & The Diamonds, Junior Boys, and swell Michael Jackson tribute outfit Who’s Bad; New Yorkers content yourselves with tickets to ‘The Declaration” at the Robert Moss Theatre; and San Francisco – open your golden gate to Hard French Pride! Want TNG to help give away free cool stuff in your neck of the woods? Hit up marketing [at] thenewgay.net, and we’ll see what we can do.

In Ideas:

• Gella pens an open letter to some refreshingly open-minded parents
• The dungeon door is wider than ever before, if Master Aiden’s experiences in Chicago are any indication

In Culture:

• Jeremy works “Josie” and “Pussycat” into an interview that has nothing to do with 70s cartoons
• K. reminds us that nothing’s as hot as consent
• Topher delivers a hearty STFU to FHM

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the Ruben Diaz Gay Erotica Contest – only 24 hours until we go from furtively spilling ink to furtively spilling something a little more viscous (depending on diet and hydration.) Check out our facebook feed for the latest press, and the New York local page to get your finger on the pulse of what else those crazy-hip City cats are up to these days.

There are tickets to Queering Sound, The Dodos, and Marina & the Diamonds in the offing for the DC crowd, and a TNG T-shirt giveaway for everyone. Want TNG to give away such neat stuff in your neck of the woods? Why, simply write marketing@thenewgay.net, and you too could be borne away by a floodtide of merchandise, concert passes, and queer glamour!

In Ideas:

• David Meir Grossman reminds us that even if we were Born This Way, we still have to fight for ourselves
• Topher catches us up on the gayest public service announcements since those Captain Planet recycling spots
• Criticizing coffee when you write for TNG is like criticizing coke when you write for Forbes. Watch out, Kira.
• Jeremy’s heartstrings are best plucked from the outside, thank you very much

In Culture:

• The last time I saw Rohan gag this violently, I wasn’t being paid to proofread
• Marcelo V. has known many Lovers
• Ben K. says goodbye to the strongest black woman on television since Grace Jones’ Peewee Herman cameo

Some swell capital area giveaways this week: take a look at Queering Sound and Dodos tickets. Want TNG to give away free stuff in your hometown? Hit up advertising@thenewgay.net, and we’ll see what we can do.

DCers take heed! Our DC Peace Center Fundraiser featuring live queer acts Southern Problems and Lovers, is tonight from 8:00pm-11:00ish at Chief Ike’s. $10 cover at the door, all to a great cause. Join us afterwards upstairs for the gritty, sweaty, loungey, rock ‘n’ roll-ey Beat City you know and love.

And check out our swell new graphic tees! Finally, a painless, bloodless TNG-apparel alternative to threading hundreds of our promotional buttons through your bare skin!

May 21st is hours away, and if a small but vocal band of American evangelicals have done their eschatological math correctly, this is the last Week in Review I’ll ever have to put together. Plagues, social collapse, and city streets swollen with tangled, shrieking bodies are certainly ahead of us: if the world doesn’t end this weekend, Pride month is just around the corner.

A few of this week’s highlights:

In Ideas:

• Gella weighs in one of the few f-words capable of making some gay men cringe
• Aaron Schock helps out with Topher’s private sector growth
• Domina gets heavy-handed

In Culture:

• OMG Rohan’s back and in IHHO OFWGKTA isn’t that bad
• Michael sings the praises of the foxxxiest lady he knows
• Topher is outright bored by the outer boroughs
• We kicked off the Ruben Diaz fan fiction contest this week – let the libel line-toeing begin!

In TNG TV:

• The one thing that makes global warming seem sexier than Al Gore’s old beard is YACHT’s new single

If you’re in DC and want Friendly Fires tickets, you’ve got another two hours to throw your hat in the ring. Check out the Queering Sound giveaway as well.

Not in DC and want TNG to give away free stuff in your hometown? Hit up advertising@thenewgay.net, and we’ll see what we can do.

In Ideas:

• Michael pleas on behalf of the most abused word in the gay male lexicon
• K. Kriesel reminds us that sometimes that hardest thing to queer is sex
• Domina finds out that religion can be hard for a Goddess
• Gella charts the right way to approach going both ways

In Culture:

• Topher reviews the internet’s best femme filmmaking
• Andrew F goes farther west than Brokeback Mountain
• Katie L notices that something is rotten in the borough of Brooklyn
• Andrew S gives us his angle on America and Tony Kushner’s latest play

In TNG TV:

• A skinsuit-clad Zack sneaks off into an alley with Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes. It ends more or less how you think it would
• Go! Team’s Ninja shows Zack her moves

We’ve Stevie Nicks CDs and tickets for DC shows of Sound Bites, Friendly Fires, and Queering Sound in the giveaway dock. Check it out. If you want TNG giveaways in your neck of the woods, drop us a line at advertising@thenewgay.net and let us know.

DCers will note that She.Rex is tonight at Chief Ike’s. Fragile mirrors and fragile-er hearts will abound. Watch out.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, TNGers, the day we celebrate the first and last pair of vaginal lips many of us ever parted. While you recover from the sudden psycosexual trauma of that realization, check out another week of stellar content:

In Ideas:

• Tom Goss publishes a picture of his teenage self in a singlet. Something about growing up in Wisconsin, also
• Michael addresses the Dark Dame of the Dancefloor herself
• Domina will make you never look at a banana split the same away again
• Andrew F is inclined to think that skinny unbathed bearded dudes are a terrible thing to waste

In Culture:

• Guest contributor J. Ricky Price pens an open letter to the doyen of gay curmudgeons
• Zack’s troubling childhood sexual fixation on the Quaker Oatmeal Man could only end in this
• Topher reviews ABC’s newest 20-something comedy and his sexual frustration at spas

In TNG TV:

• Zack suits up in an iridescent bodysuit  for some kind of bizarre celebration with Of Montreal
• The last time Zack was filmed on a couch with a French person this hot, he got paid much better for it. Check out the interview with Yelle

By now we’ve hoarded enough giveaway material to merit our own late-night TLC programming. Check out tickets for Rev Horton Heat, Twilight Singers, and Sound Bites, and free K.D. lang and Stevie Nicks CDs.

No TNG events to speak of this weekend. Check out the local pages for plan ideas. And, when you call her, tell you momma I axe how she durrn.

From our mixed feelings toward Sir Elton John to our vocal criticisms of Lady Gaga, TNG has always prided itself on a principled queer anti-royalism. Which is why, if you’r reading these words, it’s probably not with eyes fogged from late-night Royal Wedding watch party-induced exhaustion. Good for you – you’re a freedom-loving American, and you know, like us, that the only kind of Queen worth drooling over has body hair and an impressive falsetto range.

Special thanks to the staff for some really top-notch content this week:

In Ideas:

• Guest contributor Julian argues that gay male misogyny is less innocent than late-life cootiephobia
• Michael asks if our hate crime activism is active enough
• Andrew F went down to the demonstration to get his fair share of abuse- but you can’t always get what you want
• Michael plots the gay male life cycle

In Culture:

• Topher gets fired up about the man who says “You’re fired!”
• Jean takes up censorship in the queer blogosphere
• Chris R conducts his first interview with all the Musto he can relish
• Topher laments dragging drag

You’ve got until 6pm Eastern today to throw your hat in the ring for a pair of tickets to next week’s Uh Huh Her DC show – look here for instructions.

If you’re in DC, swing by Beat City tonight for a chance to win Art Brut tickets (check the link  for more) and your last shot at an April shower (consult TNG staff in the upstairs bathroom after a fifth PBR for more.)

It’s Holy Week TNGers, the time for queers of all creeds to reflect on the legacy of history’s first indie gay, Jesus of Nazareth. From rugged facial hair and fashionably leftist political commitments to his aloofly hip demeanor and body piercings, it should be clear that we have this Jewish hipster to thank for pioneering a meaningful subcultural alternative to those intolerable A-Gay Pharisees. If you see any evangelical types filing out of a church on Sunday morning, make sure to remind them of this.

As you prepare for the second coming (or third or fourth, if you take zinc supplements,) catch up with our final week of Lenten content:

In Ideas:

• Tom Goss kicks off his new weekly column by clarifying that Oil City is not, as rumor had it, a raunchy bear party
• When it comes to the division of labor, Andrew F. is tired of bottoming
• Just in time for the first anniversary of the BP Disaster, Zack recalls his own sort of of pelican-rinsing
• Domina queers her meds
• Michael is the hostess with the most stress

In Culture:

• Scott talks to the cutest ex-seminarian singer-songwriter we know
• Topher likes his HBO shows Gaga-less and his critical fan mail published for all to see, thank you very much
• James weighs in on top priorities and bottom lines in hip hop

In TNG TV:

• Zack is ambushed by the lesbianism and pregnancy of Young Galaxy members, and manages to fend them off
• The Raveonettes unplug in front of a camera, just for us

DCers hankering for marshmallow chicks, gummi bears, and creme eggs are invited to come hunt at tonight’s Homo/Sonic. And after that, they can eat Easter candy.

As the vegetable fuzz of buds and new leaves thickens on the boughs of trees, the sour scent of organic change begins to waft from pavement stains and poorly-kept lawns, and small mammals start to copulate with enviable abandon in public places, we’re can’t help but be struck by the same realization that catches up with us every spring: nature has hit puberty, and things can only get more awkward before they get better. While you ride out the seasonal tempest of rain, pollen, and hormones, keep sane with this week’s content:

In Ideas:

• T navigates the promises and perils of the rebound
• Scott hashes out hashtags with Ryan O’Connell
• Zack publicly forfeits his Gay Gold Star
• Carrie reflects on the hazards of lesbian ambassadorship

In Culture:

• ‘Stine runs amok for Ella Riot
• Zack writes that that the IT Crowd just doesn’t get it when it comes to trans issues
• Topher uncloaks The Dagger
• Zack pronounces a post-hipster elegy at the grave of LCD Soundsystem

In TNG TV:

• Zack talks rimjobs and revolution with Cut Copy
• After locking Black Lips with Jared Swilley last year, Zack sits down to talk with him about his dad. Kinky.

With no TNG events to speak of, It’s a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of weekend, friends. Good luck to you.

As the prospect of a federal government shutdown looms, queer Americans can’t help but be plagued with uncertainties: How will I spend my weekend with my favorite national park closed? With Congress gridlocked and idle, will I have to fight Lindsey Graham for locker space at the Crew Club? Once the collapse of the social and legal order reduces us all to rampant, widespread cannibalism, how safe will oral sex be? While you wait out the implosion of the American empire, distract yourself with some of this week’s highlights. They might be the last:

In Ideas:

• Josh would prefer we part with the language of preference
• Asad’s gaydar is so sensitive, he regularly has fainting spells on Capitol Hill
• Domina is Loving the Alien. May your wet dreams hover somewhere between David Bowie and facehuggers
• Andrew F takes a look at this fucking post-hipster

In Culture:

• Kaysey talks to a couple of lesbians about their kittens. In the words of Buddy Cole: “If you think I’m about to make a pussy joke you’re sadly mistaken.”
• Zack  writes about the few twin-teenage-brother-themed DVDs he can publicly disclose ownership of
• Former Smashing Pumpkin Melissa Auf der Maur tells Zack she’d like to have sex with her cat, among other things. Fine: Pussypussypussypussypussypussy.

If you find yourself in the lawless postcivilizational wasteland of the nation’s capital this evening, drop by Chief Ike’s for She Rex. DJ starts at 9:30. Oil and slave raids after midnight.

©The Yorck Project, Wikimedia Commons

April Fools’ Day, easily one of the queerest 24 hours on the Gregorian Calendar, is back! And we all know that means: if you go home with someone tonight, wait until after midnight to ask them about their STD status. Some pranks can’t be cured with a laugh and a shot.

Life, that train that goes from February on, day by day, can be overwhelming in a given workweek. Check out what you might have missed in the last seven days:

In Ideas:

• Contributor Katie Liederman is a lesbian with a boyfriend with a vagina
• Staff writer Sylvia Renee reminds us that justice is good for more than just infectiously good MGMT mixes
• Contributor Asam Rashid sends a letter to his closeted self
• Domina suspects that a conference full of academics will prove less darkly masochistic than a kink one. Happily, she will be proven wrong

In TNG TV:

• Jill Sobule of “I Kissed a Girl” fame  helps Zack sing about kissing a boy
• Nicole Reynolds performs another It Gets Better track just for us

In Culture:

• Apparently someone a lot of gay men like died last week. Ben K. obituarializes accordingly
• Zack is probably just using Josie Cotton to get to Johnny
• Topher chats with television’s best-loved fagrarians (incredibly, Google says no one has come up with that one before)
• With characteristic eloquence, Zack argues that ANUS ANUS ANUS
• Tom of Finland and Dov Charney had a baby and they named it this K-Holes music video (NSFW)

Hungry for more hunky hipster-leather hybridism? If you’re in the greater DC metro area, stop by the Green Lantern for Raw and the chance to buy a drink for your favorite TNG personalities! But just until the fish start to smell, and you’re struck down by a hammer.

©Brooklyn Museum, Wikimedia Commons

The height of Spring is upon us, TNGers – the time of year when you throw on a tank top and an old Air album, mix some Kool Aid sangria in a thermos, head to the nearest public park, and succumb quickly to drunken hypothermia. Seriously, the internet says weather’s been crazy for all y’all this week, cold fronts popping in and out with an irregularity that makes the GOP’s position on foreign military intervention seem halfway coherent. While you wait for Mother Nature to sort out her Lexapro dosage, check out this week’s content.

In Ideas:

• Interfaith Youth Core’s Nico Lang weighs in on family, faith, and tongues of fire (not the kind you can manage with Valtrex)
• Contributor Elizabeth Perlman is a raving camwhore, and wishes there were an app for that
• Cyrus ponders what happens when minority statuses collide
• Andrew F goes full-out interview intifada with Queer McGill’s Kevin Paul

In TNG TV:

• Franz Nicolay Holds Steady just for us

In Culture:

• Contributor Josh Becker bravely defends “Friday” in a Monday time slot
• Topher’s irony is lost on ELLE magazine’s Joe Zee
• Zack brings us up to speed on the most complicated espionage-related sex action to catch the publice eye since Julian Assange left Sweden
• The Indie Rock Fag tips us all off to one of his favorite bands, this duo out of Liverpool that… never mind, they’re really obscure, you’ve probably never heard of them

In not-unrelated news, Washington City Paper officially named TNG’s flagship party, Homo/Sonic, “The Best Place To Meet a Gay Hipster” in the District of Columbia! Special thanks to Michael, Zack, and DJ Natty Boom, whose hard work and spinning prowess put us on the map.

TNGDCers in need of a quick rock fix are invited to a special Raveonettes-listening-party-and-ticket-giveaway-inclusive edition of Beat City tonight at Chief Ike’s. Drink specials will be as cheap, mood-enhancing, and likely to make you sneak away to a quiet bathroom as the pretty indie kids.