Today is Tuesday, December 30, 2025. I was absent yesterday from this venue because I was invited to participate in a trivia game night at a gay bar in Chelsea by my Astoria friend, “Seth.” The festivities started at 6 and were over by 7:30 p.m. I made a reservation for the two of us to eat at ZiZi, on 8th Avenue and 18th Street, which is a Mediterranean restaurant. There we met a couple from New Zealand visiting the city for 10 days before going off to Washington.

For the game, we called ourselves “The Pedagogues,” and we were supplied with a small white board and a marker, along with an eraser. The game was called “The Gay Gaston’s Guessing Game” and was hosted by a brawny, bearded, bespectacled thirtyish, young man. There were various categories and we did more terribly with each and every category. We did worse with “Disney snakes,” where we couldn’t answer any questions regarding animated snakes that were in Disney films.

The first category was things related to Christmas and we answered not too many questions here as well. One of the questions, for example, was to fill in what eleven represented in the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The answer is, “Eleven pipers piping,” which we originally thought was “eleven ladies dancing,” which actually was associated with the number nine, not eleven. You see, how difficult this quiz was! Another category was “New Year’s,” and one of the questions we failed to answer was to indicate the first time the ball descended in Times Square. We had to answer within five years. I’m positive you wouldn’t be able to answer this question as well since we didn’t either. We thought the ball started descending in the 30s, but the true answer is 1907! Who would have guessed this date correctly? Probably no one. Another question from this category was to write what “Auld Lang Syne” means in English. Does anyone know? We all sing it on New Year’s, but I’m sure no one knows what the Scottish words translate into English. The Scottish song was famously adapted by poet Robert Burns and the words mean “old long since,” interpreted as “for old times’ sake.” I incorrectly thought the words meant, “until we meet again.”

The only category we scored some points was in the last one which was “TV tunes.” The only question I knew the answer to without hesitation was identifying the theme song to “Green Acres.” I also knew which Gabor sister appeared in the silly series from the 60s: Eva Gabor.

Even though we lost miserably, we had a lot of fun playing. The game is held every Monday evening, so I hope we can attend another game night in early 2026.

As I type this, the fallout from the demented president stamping his name on the hallowed Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is deepening into more cancellations and artists withdrawing from performing there. Performers are backing out of scheduled performances at the venue, including a Christmas Eve concert and a production of the musical Hamilton. Now the latest cancellation to hit the venue is a New Year’s Eve show scheduled for tomorrow night. Maybe the despised president might get the message that what he did was outrageous and a desecration of a memorial to a fallen leader, not a vanity project to enshrine his name in stone. I won’t say where I think his name should be inscribed in stone.

An update to the Mad King’s coopting of the Kennedy Center appears in an online PCMag article today entitled “Trump Put His Name on the Kennedy Center, But a Former South Park Writer Owns the Domain,” by Emily Forlini. As a fuck-you to the president who put his name on the Center, former South Park writer Toby Morton has turned the Trump-KennedyCenter.org domain into one for the purpose of disseminating scathing satire. You see, Morton has bought the domain site to turn into a site for satirizing the president and his ghoulish regime.

At first glance, the site looks similar to the actual Kennedy Center website, with a clean design, logo, and a login button. However, when you scroll down, you will see a prominent tagline over a red background which is the first clue something is amiss. It reads, “A Natural Institution Devoted To Power And Loyalty.”

When you scroll some more, you will see the site urging visitors to “Ring in the New Year with a performance by: The Epstein Dancers!” The site’s logo alludes to the Epstein Files as well, with redacted text revealing only “A . . .J. Trump . . . 13-Year-Old Girl.” A redesigned logo also turns the Kennedy Center’s exterior columns into jail cells.

Morton, who also wrote for MadTV, purchased the domain name months ago, The Washington Post reports, following Dump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center. Buying domains is a hobby of this prolific writer. Other domain names he owns include ResignChuck.com which pretends to be written by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who claims he’s “spent years perfecting the art of bowing, not to the people who elected me, but to the ones who bought the room.” There’s also MTG2026.org, parodying Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, billing her as a “racist seditionist fascist,” who is “building a whiter tomorrow.”

One of the Kennedy Center’s former board members, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), is suing, arguing that a name change requires an act of Congress. She did not go with the unanimous decision by MAGA board members to permit the name change, so she was transitioned out.

Another artist who has cancelled a performance there is Chuck Redd, the longtime host of the center’s annual Christmas Eve jazz concert. However, Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell is threatening to sue Redd over the cancellation, the AP reports.

As for what he believes the Kennedy Center represents, Morton says, “The Kennedy Center has always been a cultural institution meant to outlast any one administration or personality. It’s meant to honor culture, not ego. Once it was treated like personal branding, satire became unavoidable.”

Thus the humorous domain name can be viewed as a quiet resistance for those disturbed by the renaming.

At the bottom of the site, a disclaimer in all-caps notes that it’s a parody. Morton plans to continue updating and evolving the site to “reflect the absurdity of the moment.” He tells viewers to the site to expect “lots of surprises,” although “some things are truly hard to parody.”

Well, that’s it for me until next year. Wishing everyone a healthy and happy New Year and will see you all next year. Tomorrow I don’t intend to do much for New Year’s Eve; Elliot intends to cook a special dinner for the two of us and then I will watch my Twilight Zone marathon on Sy-fi. Enjoy whatever you do!

And so it went!