Normal to feel angry
Normal to feel guilty
Normal to feel sad
Normal to hallucinate

That's what I learned recently when my cat Velma died.

When I first met her I didn't expect to keep her. I didn't think I was really a cat person. I mean...

A news fast can be a wonderful thing. I highly recommend it. However, it has become harder and harder to truly fast these days. I was on vacation last week in Provincetown, M.A. and enjoying the lobster rolls, the art galleries, the sun and especially the cocktails by the pool...

Spring is trying to spring here in Manhattan and I'm walking the streets listening to a selection of three very cool new projects from three very different artists. I'm sure as I look back on these days this music will begin to define early spring 2009 in New York.

"I am Harvey Milk and I'm here to recruit you," screams Sean Penn into a bullhorn while playing the slain San Francisco City Supervisor. Those words still resonate today. If Harvey Milk were alive today, Proposition 8 would never have seen the light of day. Harvey Milk inspired hundreds of...

I spent a good part of last Tuesday crying. It started early in the morning right after I got back from voting. I turned on The Today Show and watched my candidate and his family vote in Chicago. Then Meredith had to mention how sad it was that his grandmother...

Amend -- transitive verb 1: to put right ; especially : to make emendations in (as a text) 2 a: to change or modify for the better : improve b: to alter especially in phraseology ; especially : to alter formally by modification, deletion, or addition

Dear Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, You are driving a wedge between my parents and me.

This battle between Obama and McCain is now playing out in emails and telephone calls between New York and North Carolina. It started out harmless enough with occasional emails with subject lines like "535...

It was a free download of "Half Boyfriend" on the gay blog/website Towleroad that peaked my interest in actor/singer-songwriter Jay Brannan. His voice is completely distinctive and new. It doesn't really fit any traditional mold and I thought I was alone in thinking he's the male version of...

It's the music in the new Pixar Disney film Wall-E that made such an impact on me. The film opens with an excerpt of "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" sung by Michael Crawford from the movie musical Hello Dolly and it becomes Wall-E's leitmotif as he spends the next...

Looking for something a little better than Hard Candy? Get a taste of Robyn's new self-titled release. This album came out in 2005 in Europe, but took two years to get a release date scheduled domestically. It is well worth the wait.

Perez Hilton was raving about her months...

There I was in the back row of the St. Jame Theater last Saturday night witnessing Patti LuPone sink her teeth into the role of Mama Rose in Gypsy and tear the place apart. It was an amazing evening as she practically took the roof off of the place....

"I'm at the mall on a diet pill!" shouts Fred Schneider on the single and title track "Funplex" and with that ladies and gentlemen please welcome back The B52s. It's been 16 years since their last studio album and they don't disappoint on this triumphant return.

Funplex takes me...

THE MOST EXCITING NEW AMERICAN PLAY BROADWAY HAS SEEN IN YEARS." - Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

"Life is very long, " the family's patriarch says and so begins the Tracy Letts' play August: Osage County, now running through April 29 at the Imperial Theatre (then to...

"And so to the year's brightest new talent: the pocket-sized Welsh girl with the voice of a '60s soul diva. Move over Amy Winehouse..." --Q Magazine

I just got my hands on an album sampler from Duffy the other day and lucky, lucky me. I had heard about her...

Indie rock darlings Vampire Weekend got my $11 and I couldn't be happier. I picked up their self-titled debut album today on my lunch break and I am really digging it. Self described "Upper West Side Soweto," the album is a mix of African beats, classical string arrangements and...

"Just a little lovin' early in the morning. Beats a cup of coffee for starting off the day. Just a little lovin' when the world is dawning makes you wake up feeling good things are coming your way."

A few weeks ago I was invited to the Hiro...

The audience claps at the very beginning of the 4 minute overture and throughout as the orchestra does selections of "TheTrolly Song," "The Man That Got Away" and of course "Over The Rainbow." Then the audience roars as Rufus Wainwright takes the stage. I was lucky enough to be there...

Creativity is thrilling to watch unravel and inspirational to experience as it happens. I walked out of Todd Haynes' new film, I'm Not There, simply in awe and hard-pressed to fully comprehend what I just saw. I knew only that I was fully entertained and energized about what I witnessed...

Word of mouth is a powerful thing. My friend first told me about Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings about a month ago after he got back from seeing her at The Apollo. He told me...

I'm writing pop songs. Done it for so long. Sometimes I dream about a chorus that's so clever and dumb. Now their telling me, the music industry, 'you can stay if you behave. be a good boy go to sleep' But I refuse to go numb. -- Ben Lee