He knew all the words….

I’ve uploaded a gallery of less-wedding-related pictures from my recent trip home… Check it out here…

When Nick proposed to Adrienne a year-and-a-half ago, she said yes. When the priest asked them if they “do,” the answer was a resounding YES! You see, during the rehearsal the night before the wedding I came to understand one of the reasons — among so many others — that these two are right for each other: They both have almost no ability to use their “inside voices.” This means that the usual wedding vows — a jumble of mumbles that those gathered in the church can barely hear — are replaced in this young couple with strong, powerful affirmations of love. YES!



Click all images for larger. Many more images of the wedding can be found here.

Adrienne and Nick asked me to give one of the readings in the Mass, which of course I was very happy to do. The rehearsal on Friday night was quick and painless–except for the priest telling me that my voice got quieter as I spoke and that I had to speak up. I’m sure! Like I’m gonna strain my vocal cords for a mere rehearsal! My audience the next day, I am told, loved my reading. But I digress — the rehearsal dinner was at a sweet little Italian place called Johnny’s. The food and wine were great. I had filet mignon which was delicious. It was a nice chance to visit with my parents and cousins and my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Jerry, the parents of the bride.

The wedding on Saturday was elegant, joyful, and tons of fun. When we entered Our Lady of Mt. Carmel church, Nick greeted us with a grin, pointed to his white rose boutonniere, and said “Look at this!” Yes Nick, it’s true, you’re about to be married!

The wedding party was a big one, and what an ensemble of beauties. The men looked terrific in their simple tuxes with traditional neckties, and the women looked stunning in strapless black gowns. Adrienne looked so happy and joyous and fresh and gorgeous as she came down the aisle. I always cry at weddings and this one was certainly no exception. From the bride’s arrival, through my own reading, and with my parents bring up the offertory and my cousin Diane singing Immacolata up in the balcony, there were plenty of opportunities for choking up. After the Mass, the bride and groom descended the church stairs while we all rang bells and the big church bells rang too. It was lovely.

The reception was big, loud, filled with food, topped with booze, and gave us all a reason to dance. It was terrific to see so many old family friends and cousins of cousins and the like. I made an absolute pig of myself at the cookie table, and carried out bags of sweets from the candy table at the end. I drank whiskey all night. And I danced so hard I sweated through my tie. Eek.

Afterward, we poured ourselves into the big limo-bus our hosts had arranged for out-of-towners, and we continued the party at a bar near the hotels. Lots more carrying on and lots more drinking led me to the eventual realization that I had no way to get home to my cousin Diane’s house! I could have called there — but it was 2am and that seemed cruel. Eventually I found salvation at the hands of the bride herself. No one needed the big bus-limo anymore! So (after declining the groom’s gracious offer to just crash in their hotel suite… uh, no….) I dropped the newlyweds off at their hotel and rode in over-sized luxury the mile back to Diane’s house. The only regret I have is not taking a picture of that big ol’ bus pulling away up Basil Avenue….

We capped the festivities with a Sunday barbecue at the Zazas’, and then a bunch of us went to Cedar Point on Monday to scream our lungs out and laugh ourselves sick on lots of rollercoasters. We screamed so much, in fact, that Lindsay turned into an eohippus!

As usual, these events are a blast but don’t allow you to catch up quite enough with the family you’ve traveled back to see. But then, that’s just the nature of living far from home and family, and it’s always better to leave wanting more than to stay long enough you remember why you left in the first place! So congratulations, Adrienne and Nick. Here’s to all the happy, prosperous years to come….

Many more images of the wedding can be found here.

CNN is reporting that the Pentagon is looking for a way to “selectively” enforce DADT. I’m reporting that I’m more than fed up with this nonsense. The gist of this asinine idea is that if you’re outed through no fault of your own then they won’t kick you out. But if you flaunt it, you’re busted. Defense Secretary Gates says:

Let me give you an example. Do we need to be driven when the information, to take action on somebody, if we get that information from somebody who may have vengeance in mind or blackmail or somebody who has been jilted?

They actually think that picking and choosing which gays and lesbians get to stay makes this policy “more humane.” More insane, maybe, but definitely not more humane. So if a soldier from, say, Connecticut, invites his army buddies to his same-sex wedding, he’ll still be discharged. But if he keeps it to himself, then his husband divorces him and writes nasty letters to his superiors, then he can remain in service. I’m sorry–is this making sense to anyone?

The article goes to great lengths to reiterate the half-truth that DADT is a law that Obama cannot do anything about without Congress. Yes, it is a law — but Obama can use stop-loss orders (also law) to prevent the implementation of the law. The article doesn’t approach this widely-reported idea.

In the article, CNN reports that “[f]ive months into his presidency, Obama has been criticized for not moving fast enough to propose a repeal of the rule to Congress. Gates did not indicate the Pentagon was yet supporting a full repeal.” (Emphasis mine). Is Gates going to take the fall for Obama on this one? The president has said he’s still facing resistance from some top military commanders. So will he simply blame the policy’s continuance on Gates and the other top brass while still telling us how he’s our “fierce advocate?” I call bullshit, Sir.

But the real question here is “why?” Why go to half-measures like this? Obama clearly knows that he’s in hot water with the GLBT community. He’s been making noises about smaller policy changes to try to appease us. But does he think that saying some GLBT members of the military can serve while others can’t is somehow going to help the ever-increasing frustration of our community? I’m personally fed up with this bullshit. He’s smarter than this. 75% of the country, the President has already himself admitted, supports repeal. So what’s with the stupidity of this obviously unfair idea?! Go over the heads of your commanders — they report to you, remember?

Repeal the law. Introduce it into Congress and twist some arms to pass it.
Just. get. it. done.

I just heard the sad news that German choreographer Pina Bausch has passed away. She was 68 years old. I love her theater pieces and her choreography and never missed her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, when they came to New York. I hope the company will continue to perform her works — and tour with them.

I saw her wonderful production of Gluck’s Orfee et Eurydice at Paris Opera in 2005, which was the best combination of dance and opera in a single production that I’ve ever seen. This past December I brought my parents and Patsy to BAM to see her company’s Bamboo Blues — and made three new Bausch fans out of them. Here is BAM’s trailer for that production, followed by a clip from a much earlier production….

If you’ve bookmarked “blog.davidzaza.com” you’ll want to update that bookmark to simply “davidzaza.com.” It’s been a long while coming, but this site needed to be refreshed. I’ve abandoned the bright pink background to make for easier reading. If you miss it, go to the link in the right-column navigation called “Archive of Pre-2009 site.” All the old stuff is there.

In redesigning the site I’ve also changed platforms. I’ve switched from Movable Type to Wordpress, and I have to say I’m very impressed with Wordpress. It’s easy to use, very flexible, and a heck of a lot faster. And it allows me add a few nice features I couldn’t before.

First of all, everything is all on one page. No more separate sections. The right-column navigation features links to me and others elsewhere on the web, a search feature if you’re looking for a particular thing I wrote in an entry, an archive of past entries archived by month, and a tag cloud. Yes, finally, the entries will be tagged. If you want to see only entries about family (or politics, or photos), click the appropriate tag. The tag cloud shows which tags are most used by making them larger.

Images, too, will no longer have their own section. As I’ve been doing for the last year or so, I’ll be posting a few images within individual entries, and then linking to complete galleries of images at my MobileMe account. Apple has simply made it too easy for me to upload those galleries from my computer for me to try to do the heavy-handed photo-editing and individual uploading of images I used to do. Furthermore, images in the blog entries are now in “Lightbox,” which is a format that allows for small thumbnails that open up onto same-page full-size images. Take a look at the 40th-Birthday entry below, and you’ll see that when you click on an image a large black background opens and the image scales up. You can click on the right side of an image to go to the next image, click the left side of the image to go to the previous image, or click the close box at the bottom to return to the blog.

The best new feature for those of you who have both boring meetings and mobile devices: this blog is now mobile optimized. If you have an iPhone or a Blackberry or some other web-browsing phone, the site will look something like this:

Another feature is that comments will now have to be approved by me before they appear on the public site. This will prevent the spam comments that I’ve often received and which then I have to go back and delete. I promise I’ll be quick to approve comments, because I know sometimes you all address comments to each other….

In terms of content, nothing on my end is changing, with the exception that I’m going to try to have a few guest bloggers at various times. I know so many interesting and smart and funny and talented people, it seems a shame to keep them all to myself. More on that as it develops.

I hope you like it. The new layout is more straightforward and much more mainstream blog-like. But I’m 40 now, not some naive upstart who’s looking for anything fancy. So there it is. There may be additional design tweaks over the next couple of months as I get a feel for the new layout… Thanks for reading!

This past Thursday I saw Camera Obscura at Webster Hall. They were terrific. It took a few songs for them to warm up, but a few songs in they were really on fire. They played my favorite song–James–and then even better, for their encore they played one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs–Tougher Than The Rest. Awesome!

Me, at 40….. [Click all images for larger; Lots more pictures of the party can be found here...]

Well, I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago. And I don’t feel any different, so I guess I’m okay.

My parents came for five days, and we had a great time. Besides my party we had nothing planned, so we were free to float around the city and enjoy some relaxing time together. We went to the movies, we went to the Met, we ate and drank with friends, we cooked at home. Fun!

I received so many wonderful cards, emails, Facebook notes, calls, texts, presents, drinks, and general well-wishes that there can be no doubt that I am more loved than any person deserves. And lord knows I love being the center of attention so it was an especially gratifying week!

I booked the evening of June 3 at B-Flat, which is an authentic bar, right down in Tribeca near my office. The B-flat guys–all of them but especially Shin and Takaachi–are terrific in the extreme and they really helped make the party a success. The food was delicious, but more important, the drinks were absolutely perfect. These guys are like chemists behind that bar–they know exactly how to make a cocktail so that while you’re drinking it it’s the best cocktail ever made and as soon as it’s gone you’re wanting another!

I think about 40 people showed up–friends, colleagues, and family. My folks, of course, were up from North Carolina, and Stephanie and Joe flew in from Atlanta for a just-over-12-hour jaunt through the city. But the surprise was that Adrienne popped up from Orlando, and in her inimitable style arrived as the first guest at the party and made my day right there and then.

Patsy made me a cake–two actually: one round layer cake to look pretty and then a larger rectangular sheet to feed the masses. It was a yellow butter cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting. Are you seeing a pattern there? She used eight pounds of butter in the production of it. Oh my. Last time Patsy baked me a birthday cake was for my 21st birthday. In the days after this year’s party we were talking about all the different details of the event and Patsy mentioned making the cake for my 50th birthday. Shut up! Jeez!

We started the day at Balthazar for breakfast with Mark Fox. Lovely as always. Mark had to miss the party because of work, so he and Elizabeth joined us for a post-party family supper at Landmarc. It was awesome up until the point I spilled bone marrow all over my (extremely expensive) jacket that I bought in Paris. I almost cried, but pulled myself together, removed the jacket, dabbed my shirt with some water and went back to celebrating. We got home pretty late, and I opened presents and cards.

My parents bought me a fantastic ring from David Yurman. It’s beautiful, and just to my taste. It’s big and bold and I’ve received tons of compliments on it these past few weeks. Other booty collected includes two–yes two!–big-ass iPods, a tie, lots of champagne, gorgeous flowers, sunglasses, chocolate, dinner invitations, opera invitations, and a pair of fabulous cufflinks. It was quite a haul.

So yeah, I’m 40. Kind of freaks me out to be honest. But, as they say, it’s better than the alternative!

Lots more pictures of the party can be found here…

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Special bonus feature: While I was in Ohio last week I was shown a picture of myself when I was, uh, slightly younger. I once was skinny, and it seems I used to tan:

Maria Catullo and David Zaza dancing at Jerry Zaza’s bar “The Belmont,” “The Shadows Lounge” sometime in the 70s

I have been rather silent on Obama’s complete and utter abandonment of LGTB issues. All the promises and declarations of support have turned out, so far, to be wholly empty. Until last week, that is, when his administration argued in court in support of the constitutionality of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” and therein compared gay relationships to incestuous ones. I know he wants to be “bi-partisan” and all, but using failed Republican anti-gay talking points is really crossing the line, don’t you think?

So I was delighted to read this blog entry at Americablog. It ends with this righteous demand: “No more empty statements of ’support.’ No more explanations as to how powerless you are to get anything done. We want action. You’re the leader of the free world. Start acting like it.” A-fucking-men.

PS. Also check out another important and informative entry at Americablog.

UPDATED 6/16/09 12 noon to add:

Once again, Howard Dean gets it right:

I spent a glorious week indulging in family fun and selfish birthday extravaganzas (more on all that soon!). But history and politics rolled on without even tipping their hats! I just watched the president’s speech that he gave yesterday in Cairo. I am very moved by it, and I remain convinced that we elected the right person at the right time. The speech is well-constructed–as always with Obama–and it builds to an ending that allows for the whole to be more than the sum of its parts. If you haven’t watched it, please do:

I do not want to see this president turn too far outward at this point–we have far too many domestic issues to address. But so far he has proven his ability to handle more than one task at a time. This speech gives me hope–for the first time in a long long time–that something can actually move forward on the Israel/Palestine issue. (I’m still pessimistic, but for once I actually have hope). More importantly, I think a speech like this truly indicates Obama’s commitment to changing the awful course of violence and stupidity that our previous president set us on. Finally, I should note that this speech, which was completely addressed to religious peoples, gave me, a firm non-believer, some confidence that tolerance actually stands a chance of survival in our world. Please god I hope that’s true.

President Obama has made his Supreme Court pick and now it’s up to us to complain. Heh heh. Here’s my view….

PROS
-Finally another woman, thank god. This was a no-brainer. After Bush’s Miers fiasco, and with Ginsburg’s cancer diagnosis, this pick simply had to be a woman. And I’d argue that the next one–whether to replace Ginsburg or someone else–should also be a woman.
-Finally an Hispanic. Not only does choosing a Puerto Rican bring needed diversity to the Court, it’s good politics. Hispanic politics are a wedge for Republicans. For certain issues, the Republicans are a natural fit for Hispanics. And for so many other reasons, they’re a terrible match. So now if the Repubs viciously tear down the first Latina SC nominee, they risk further alienating the entire Hispanic community. The GOP is wrong on immigration, wrong on border issues, wrong on civil rights, and wrong on economic issues that working people care about. Let’s let them go to town on Sotomayor and dig themselves deeper into the hole they’ve already started. I predict Obama’s 2012 numbers will reflect a larger Hispanic vote percentage than he got in 2008.
-She’s obviously qualified. Unlike Miers, who was picked for being a Bush crony and being a woman, and Thomas, who was a dim undistinguished judge who was picked because he was a Republican mouth-piece and an African-American, Sotomayor’s got stellar credentials.
-She seems to rely heavily on precedent. That’s a pro when the precedents have been set by the likes of Brennan and Marshall.

CONS
-She’s too old. Sorry, but Bush stacked the court with young-un’s. Obama needed to pick someone in their mid-40s, not their mid-50s.
-She’s not staunchly liberal enough. I know I know, beggars can’t be choosers, but again, Bush did a great job of pushing the conservative wing of the court ever-more rightward. I want Obama to push the court progressively. I know that Obama’s a middle-of-the-road politician who doesn’t want an ideologically divided court anymore than he wants an ideologically divided country. Sotomayor’s a great fit for Obama, but she’s not a great fit for progressives. I want judges cut from the same cloth as Brennan and Marshall, please. (I do realize that their outspokenness would probably prevent them from being confirmed by today’s screwed-up Senate).
-She seems to rely heavily on precedent. That’s a con when the precedents have been set by the likes of Scalia and Rehnquist.

UNKNOWNS
-I sincerely hope she has paid her fucking taxes.

FURTHER READING
-Here’s a great resource for reading about the judicial opinion’s she’s written: concise and helpful summaries courtesy of SCOTUS Blog.

California court sides with the bigots. Minority rights being voted on by the majority is not democracy; and it is not right. It was wrong to vote on it in November, and it’s wrong that the California State Supreme Court upholds it today.

Recent victories for marriage equality (California, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, New York) have been tempered by recent losses (California, New Hampshire, New York, and California again). We will win this battle, even nationally, but it will take time.

Now is the time for swift action in New York. We’re literally 4 or 5 votes from joining the ranks of the civilized and fair states and countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry. Here are some things you can do to help:

1. Donate to the Empire State Pride Agenda. They are leading the fight–directly lobbying the Senators who hang in the balance. Alternative donation location: New York Civil Liberties Union, who are fighting right alongside ESPA.

2. Show up tonight at a protest rally. The California decision is prompting reaction all over the country. In New York there will be rallies and/or marches in Albany, Ithaca, NYC, and Rochester. In Ohio there’s a rally in Kent. In Georgia there’s one in Atlanta. In Florida, we’ve got rallies in Fort Meyers, Lake Worth, Sarasota, and Tampa Bay. Alas, North Carolina readers, there are no rallies for you…. Info on all the rallies here.

3. If you live in NY–call your state senator and make sure they’re supporting marriage equality. Talking points: 1. Every single state-wide elected official–Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, and both US Senators are on record as supporting marriage equality. 2. Polling shows that the majority of New Yorkers wants the Senate to pass it. 3. Passing gay marriage does not mean that any religion will have to perform or acknowledge same-sex marriages–religious freedom is protected. Find your Senator here.

Further reading:
1. Terrific rant at DailyKos.
2. A smart, concise way forward: The Dallas Principles.

My Ohio peeps might get a kick out of this….

My brother-in-law is so special that when we wears a kilt stars fall from inside it! Amazing!

Happy Birthday, Brother!