Friday, May 23, 2008

Harvey Milk Unveiled in City Hall



May 22nd is the birthday of composer Richard Wagner, official gay martyr Harvey Milk, and yours truly, so the city of San Francisco decided to honor us all with a bust in the rotunda of City Hall on Thursday evening.



In truth, I'm joking. The bust at the top of the grand stairway was in honor of Harvey Milk, and before its unveiling later in the evening, the thing looked like a mummy wrapped in a condom.



The public was invited to an unveiling party which unfortunately was marred by a succession of gasbag politicians...



...including Mayor Gavin Newsom.



The real movers behind the fundraising and commissioning of the $85,000 sculpture were Joey Cain and Dan Nicoletta (above)...



...who were having their pictures taken by Rink and Michael Petrelis.



The party itself was a blast, helped along by the Svedka vodka people, who were pouring free drinks of a potency that ensured everyone was seriously hammered in record time.



It seemed that I knew every other person in the crowd, which was fun...



...and even the people I can't stand such as Pat Murphy (above)...



...couldn't put a damper on a very jolly occasion.

8 comments:

  1. Happy belated birthday, Mike!

    It just isn't a birthday without a mummy wrapped in a condom somewhere. :)

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  2. Michael Dear! Happy birthday! Happy to hear it was a, er, bust, I guess. Billy

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  3. Dear mike: Some of us were kind of hoping for the unveiled part. What's the statue look like unwrapped?

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  4. Dear Matty: I was too hammered to wait in line and climb the stairs for the procession that was going by the statue for the unveiling. So, I'll have a special "hot bust photo session" later in the week.

    And thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. It turned out to be a fun day.

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  5. Is that you hugging the condom, erm, statue? He's really cute, in any case.

    So, who is Pat Murphy and why the animus?

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  6. Dear Henry: The cute guy is a friend visiting from Long Island, and Pat Murphy is a faux internet journalist with a site called The San Francisco Sentinel which is a weird mixture of plagiarism from wire service reports and court stenography for Mayor Newsom's office. The animus stems from his deeply unethical behavior to a couple of my friends.

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  7. You know how the Gong Show guy, Chuck Barris, wrote an autobio claiming he had a secret career as a CIA hitman...

    Maybe there is something else in Pat Murphy's life besides ridiculousness.

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  8. I just watched "The Life and Times of Harvey Milk" seems timely with the unveiling. I must have known all the facts in the documentary when Milk and Moscone were assassinated but it was eye opening and educational and sad to see this part of our San Francisco history. I reccomend it, Netflix of course.

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