FEM"MEN"NISTS

I'd be flat out lying if I said that I didn't appreciate the amount of men who are being raised as fem"men"ists nowadays. I meet so many of these polite, sweet, well-mannered fellows, who, by the way, are not gay -- they are straight and sweet, and were raised by strong women who didn't tolerate being trashed by a husband / boyfriend / mate / fiance / etc, but instead chose a caring and responsible person to call their man. Whether their child was planned or accidental, these sons saw their mothers being treated with respect and love by their male role models. If the father was absent, no matter -- these aware mothers stood strong to the challenge, raising men who behaved and went on to treat the women they'd date right, too.

It's enough to make my head literally spin with joy! I love the idea that my younger sisters and the young girls alive today are going to have much less of a chance of being murdered by the men they love or loved at one time. Crazy but true -- some ridiculous statistic states that an insane amount of women who are murdered in the world are killed by their current or ex-lovers. There were two cases like this in my neighborhood in the past month.

However, I have to point out that as much as I love a strong man who knows how to treat a woman right, I am kind of sickened by the lack of strength in men who look to people like Lady Gaga as their role models. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Lady Gaga and her work. But I am not sure that Lady Gaga should be serving as a role model to young men. Our youth looks up to musicians and TV stars to find inspiration and strength, but when most of their role models are fake or real gangsters, trashy crazy people and cheating politicians and movie stars, where are they to turn? Enter Lady Gaga. If that's the best we can do, we aren't doing enough.

Just watch this video and you'll see what I mean.



So in short, if you are a strong, independent, warm, kind, hard working man, consider joining Big Brothers Big Sisters and / or becoming a movie star or musician today. Though I love a sensitive man more than anyone, there's a line.

You just might be saving the world from a race of young men who are just a little too sack-less, not to mention, saving them from the humiliation of having a video of themselves like the one above floating around 10 years from now.

TRIVIA, UPCOMING

I never imagined myself hosting a trivia night, but tonight, that something I never imagined myself doing -- happened. I hosted the LES Trivia at Fontana's, sponsored by TheLoDownNY.com and The Tenement Museum and it was really fun, though some of the questions were really hard. Some friends, colleagues, acquaintances and heroes made answers - people such as Moby, Reverend Jen, Lady Gaga and Ann Magnuson (can you match the correct person to the correct title?) and many others, including David Peel and Fiorello La Guardia, who is one of my favorite mayors.

There were baby cupcakes by Sugar Sweet Sunshine which is my favorite cupcake shop in the LES - they are always really nice, really professional and their cupcakes taste good. They hit all three of their describing words in their title.

Prizes were pretty sweet too - pickles from the pickle guy, Russ and Daughters gift certificates, free tickets to the Sunshine Cinema and other goodies, as well. I even sang two songs in front of the very mixed audience. Let's see what kind of emails Traven gets tonight.

When I tell you a show is going to be fun, I'm not just saying it for craps and chuckles. Tomorrow night I'm performing in the Comedy Tech Ball as emcee which I've already told you about. On July 2nd (which is this weekend) I'm doing this:

HyperGender Burlesque

HyperGender Burlesque Presents:

Red, White and Bruised
WOW Cafe Theater
59-61 E. 4th Street, 4th floor
(btw Bowery & 2nd ave)
New York, NY 10003
F to 2nd Avenue, 6 to Astor place

July 2nd, 2011
10:00pm
$15

Host JZ Bich, the international provocateurette and hypergender
diva extraordinaire will introduce a series of sexy guests:

Jessica Delfino
Miss Em
Anja Keister
Olive Demetrius
Crimson Boudoir
Arianne Benford
&
Anti Social - the mad genius and HyperGender's resident videographer

And on Fri, July 8th at 7:30 PM, I'm doing the Funny Women On Film Festival and premiering a BRAND NEW VIDEO. Stay tuned and save the date. In the meantime, grab your tickets here: http://tinyurl.com/fgfilm

And attend here:

Soho Gallery for Digital Art

138 Sullivan St.

New York, NY

I Can Perform Gay Marriages In New York State

How cool! NY just passed gay marriage! My gay friends can now get married. It makes me so happy to be getting married next year and know that now my gay friends can get married, too.

I am officially a "high priestess" so lemme know if you want me to marry you, straight or gay, but especially if you're gay. Nothing would give me greater joy, but there may be some things out there that would give me at least equal joy.

This week is so exciting, there's so much going on. Today I spoke at the DIY Business Association Conference in Dumbo, brainchild of the very cool Amy Schroeder, and it was really terrific; so many cool and productive people out there. It was great to meet such an interesting cross section of clever creative types using their brains to pay the bills.

I've got two great shows coming up this week. This Tuesday at Fontana's in the LES, I'm emceeing a free trivia event with free food, sponsored by The LoDown and Tenement Talks:

And this Wednesday, I'm emceeing the NY Tech Comedy Ball sponsored by LaughFiend.com, which should be equally awesome. You can watch the video below to see more info.

Tweet

**

I had the pleasure and the honor and the good old fashioned general happy fun chance to be invited to give a ukulele crash course at Google last week. That's right, the Google, that thing that we all know and love, the new word in the dictionary, the place behind website where you go to learn everything from how packing peanuts are made to how long it would take you to drive to Minnesota from Poughkeepsie.

The headquarters.

I've been to Google before because I have a friend who works there, but it never gets old. The place is like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory for adult nerds. What with scooters and 5 cafeterias of just about every help yourself snack, beverage and fixin' you can imagine, it really is as close to an amusement park as a job can get without being a bona fide carnie.

Add ukuleles, and well, you've got yourself one serious party.

I taught about 35-ish or so nice brainiacs how to strum major, minor and a few 7th chords and play such seminal hits as, "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain When She Comes" and "Octopuses Garden". Let's see if a ukulele jam band comes out of this -- actually, the lovely woman in charge of putting it all together suggested that she was planning to start a uke schtick so delicious and loveable, I can't print it here, as the idea will promptly get stolen.

The Google Gang pauses to pose with their new ukuleles

Here's a thinker: What kind of band would you have if you could play ukulele? Would you cover Chaka Khan hits dressed in drag? Would you juggle flaming ukuleles while singing Nirvana songs backwards? Cause those both seem like a lot of fun.

If you are a corporate boss person and would like to hire me to host a ukulele event at your corporation or smaller work place or even a party, email me at jess delfino at gmail dot com. Why a corporate boss person would be reading my blog -- I don't know. But stranger things have definitely happened.

** The Google logo above was created by me, using the official Google logo, but is just being borrowed for this blog. I won't be using it as any other part of my life, just in case the Google police are curious. Isn't it pretty, though?**

Today is my Birthday

My birthday is never really a big deal. Since my family doesn't live near me and everyone was born in the summer (and maybe because my friends don't like me as much as I think they do?) if I want a party I have to throw one for myself.

The best party I had was a few years ago. The guy I was palling around with was in jail. Good times! I was sad then, but looking back I realize now, that was God's little birthday gift.

This year, I had a very small, very informal sushi dinner at my local nearby fave sushi joint. We capped off the evening by going to my pal Ben Lerman's favorite ice cream parlor, since he was the birthday boy. It wasn't his birthday, but it's kind of impossible to go anywhere with Ben without him being the birthday boy.

I think I accidentally turned off my birthday on Facebook so I doubt I'll be getting bombarded by strangers saying Happy Birthday. It's weirdly comforting, and it's shitty I screwed myself out of it. Update: I was wrong -- I'm being bombarded! Yay!

I'm on my way to get a mani / pedi that my bf bought for me for my birthday, and then I have a doctor's appointment. That's how I know I'm alive. The card he got from the spa said "Bady" treatment. I do totally need some intense treatment for my "bady".

Later tonight, I'm gonna get into a car and drive for 14 hours to go see basically my whole family, and then stay with my sister, niece and bro in law in NC for a few days.

Today is a special day indeed. Do I seem sad? Has that trademark pessimism crawled out of it's cave for a moment?

Was it able to transcend keyboard and cyber space to find it's way atop this blog post?

Pay it no mind, it will do what it does and crawl back down into it's hole before the first coat of paint is dry on my toe nails.

The icing on my non-existent birthday cake, however, I must say is this awesome video I found today, and the great news that Mr. Gordon Lightfoot is playing in NYC on Sept. 12, 2011. I will be there if I have to wrestle tickets out of someone's granny's hands. If you don't know what to get me for my birthday, well, now you do.

And so for my birthday, a gift for you -- enjoy!