Whilst walking to an appointment through this eve I had the pleasure of catching up with Bex, a dear old friend from the days of New York past now living in Seattle.

Our conversation turned to our time in the City and the various reasons we left. I told her about the drag show on 20th Street in the Flatiron district I attended a few times in ’09 and how boring it was, not the Warhol style performers we adored back in the day but performers who looked like they used to be the same friendly women who were really friendly men dressed like friendly women and prowled the Meat Packing District back when we were young bohemians – only this time the Irish barman was their tout and pimp. I took this as proof positive my New York was gone.

As I stopped at a street light, the guy next to me tapped my arm. “The guy is talking to you,” he said pointing to a gender indeterminate individual sitting at a card table covered with detritus.

The gender indeterminate individual was covered with a coarse gray blanket, a white Arab style headdress and a red cloth covering his/her mouth. He/she was also spraying something in my general direction from a distance of about 70-80 feet.

“Yeah,” I asked. “Whadda you want?”

“You called me a faggot,” he/she said, spraying his unnamed fluid in my direction.

“Ah, ” I said turning my back to he/she who obviously hadn’t received the memo that the new denizens of in the rapidly gentrifying, Hipster/Millennial scarred ‘hood known as East Hollywood now refer to said noun as ‘the F word.’

“What are you spraying at him,” the guy who tapped me on the arm asked.

“Pepper spray,” he/she replied.

“How come I can’t smell the CS gas,” I yelled over my shoulder.

“I made this myself from pepper and hairspray,” he/she said.

The DIY Movement lives!