Today is Wednesday, June 11, 2025. I was absent here yesterday because I took advantage of museums on Fifth Avenue being free Tuesday night, from 6 through 9, as Elliot’s cousin “Joan” let me know through a text sent me on Sunday. So I decided to travel to the Museum of the City of New York, located on 103rd Street and 5th Avenue. Elliot had no desire to accompany me since he was undergoing an endoscopy today, quite early, like at 8 a.m.

When I got to the building, I was surprised to encounter a line of people waiting outside to get in by 6, so I took my place on line and waited. It took about 15 minutes to get into the building. Since I had no dinner, I hied to the cafe on the second floor where I ordered coffee and a peanut butter cookie.

After I finished my snack, I ambled to the first exhibit that I could find which was entitled “Songs of New York” that is described as “an immersive interactive experience that introduces visitors to a full range of music from and about New York City, from the 1920s to the 2020s, showcasing everything from be-pop to K-pop, across genres, boroughs, and musical movements.” This exhibit allowed visitors to stand on the five boroughs and hear a song that either was written about that borough or emanated from the borough. For example, if you stand on Queens, you might hear a song from the Ramones who made Queens their home at the beginning of their career. I believe they actually hailed from Forest Hills. I enjoyed this exhibit, but couldn’t linger too much since the time was a-wasting.

I then walked into another exhibit that I recognized from previous visits there, an exhibit called “Activist New York” that delved into the drama of social activism in New York City, past and present, with issues as diverse as immigration, civil rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. Too bad the exhibit did not cover the ongoing spectrum of protests organized against this fascistic regime, but that will have to wait awhile until there is some better perspective. However, the Black Lives Matter Movement was indeed covered.

The exhibit I really liked was the one on the life and career of the first Black Congresswoman in history, Shirley Chisolm, which commemorated the centennial of the birth of the first Black candidate for president who was born in 1924 and died in 2005. In the notes, it’s noted that this is “the first major museum exhibition on the life and legacy of the pathbreaking politician and New Yorker.”

Through many photographs, short videos, and even articles of clothing that she wore which were donated to the exhibit, the exhibit explores her life, from her early years in Brooklyn and Barbados to her lasting impact on U.S. politics. The far-ranging exhibit follows her political career from her 1964 election to the New York State legislature, her 1968 election to Congress, and her 1972 run for president. Through this exhibit, we learn what issues were dear to her heart like education and child care, rights for migrants and workers, abortion access, and racial and gender equality. She was an early advocate for LGBTQ+ civil rights when it was not the custom quite yet. I learned through this wonderful exhibit that Chisolm was a fiery advocate for the vulnerable and the silent majority, in sharp contrast to the terrible, morally repugnant representatives and senators that inhabit the corridors of Washington these days. The slogan that captured her essential philosophy was “unbought and unbossed.” She was not beholden to any special interests and she reveled in that stance.

This was the last exhibit I was able to view since I spent more time at this installation than any other exhibit in the museum. It was already close to 9 when a guard walked into the exhibit on the third floor and announced it was closing time. The last exhibit I hardly looked at: It was called “Urban Stomp” and showcased the various dances that have shaped – and been shaped by – the city’s ever-changing cultural landscape.

I got home rather late for a Tuesday night and I just continued watching The Last Showgirl from 2024 that stars Pamela Anderson as a showgirl in a Las Vegas throwback show called “Le Razzle Dazzle” who is thrown for a loop when her manager, Eddie (played poignantly by Dave Bautista), informs the cast that the show will be closing to pave the way for a “dirty circus” that features such acts as a topless woman spinning plates on a pole situated in her vulva. Yes, that’s the new show that will be replacing this once-glittery, rhinestone-packed revue. Anderson as Shelly Gardner lives in a modest home and is embraced by her close friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) who is a casino cocktail waitress with a permanent tan and eye shadow up to here. The thin plot of the film involves Shelly reuniting with her estranged daughter, Hannah (played by Billie Lourde). Anderson is the best thing here: her performance is nuanced and very touching as she realizes she could be at the end of her showbiz career.

In the meantime, I missed Governor Gavin Newsom’s speech to the mentally defective president who deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles to quell supposed rioting by protesters. This tin-pot wanna-be dictator must think that sending in the troops is a good political move; he is sorely mistaken. In an online AlterNet article entitled “Backfire: Trump hit with bad news as polling reveals recent actions are unpopular with voters” by Adam Lynch, the true reality of this desperate move by a clueless president is provided.

The podcast “Daily Blast” is cited in which host Greg Sargent described this recent action by Chump as “befitting a third-world tinpot dictator.” Sargent then asked his guest, analyst G. Elliott Morris, about the public possibly perceiving this as presidential overreach.

Morris answered thusly: “[Trump’s] motivation is probably that the politics of sending in the guards and marines is good politics, but that doesn’t seem to immediately be the case.” Morris cites a recent Yougov poll that puts Chump’s decision to sic the national guard after protesters at “seven points underwater,” or 38-to-45 percent approval. (I’m surprised it’s not at 80 percent or higher.) Dump sending in the marines came in at “13 points underwater.”

Sargent criticized major news media outlets that appeared to assume the Orange Cheeto’s invasion of California as “good for Trump.” Thus we have these major news outlets just giving Dump a pat on the back and not really engaging in any true scrutiny of the situation.

It’s wrong to think of this issue as an immigration issue, warns Morris. “This is a protest, civil rights, and law enforcement issue now.”

Sargent agreed the media could be making a mistake granting “Trump potency on this issue” by assuming voters automatically look at the spectacle in California as being about immigration. “Why would voters see it that way when what they’re seeing is American troops being sent to an American city in response to a largely peaceful protest?” he asked.

Morris even sees Dump’s public support on immigration to be crumbling when people see that hard-working, innocent immigrants are being targeted by ICE rather than “criminals.” Morris said, “The only thing that was popular was deporting convicted, violent criminals, with 87 percent support. But everyone else, Americans basically say ‘Don’t deport them.'”

So here we have a very unpopular president using dictatorial tactics that are mostly rejected by a large percentage of the electorate. So why is he still resorting to these stupid and disastrous measures? Can anyone tell me? Is he that unaware?

Oh, by the way, Elliot’s endoscopy went well today. I received a call from the doctor’s office around 9 to pick him up and when I rushed to the gastroenterologist’s office, Elliot was standing outside the office at the top of the block. So everything was all right; we then walked to a local eatery to have a little breakfast.

Tomorrow I will be absent from this venue, as I’m seeing a play with a member of my gay men’s reading club. I’ll call this new acquaintance “Daniel” and he asked if I wanted to see My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?) at City Center, and I said yes. So we’re meeting at a restaurant at 6:15 before walking to the theater at 8.

Have a good Thursday then.

And so it went!

Here’s the pathbreaking U.S. representative Shirley Chisolm and her campaign slogan, “Unbought and unbossed.”

Here is Chisolm’s slogan on a sweater.

Chisolm’s visage is featured in two Black magazines, Ebony and Black Woman’s World.

This is the start of the wonderful exhibit on Shirley Chisolm entitled “Changing the Face of Democracy: Shirley Chisolm at 100.”

I appended this playbill of Hair to remind my readers that I eschewed seeing this groundbreaking play in 1968 when my father received two free tickets to the play on a school night. That’s why I said I couldn’t go! Wasn’t I stupid?

Here is a timeline for LGBTQ+ activism.