Dining Out For Life joins some of the world’s best restaurants with some of its most deserving nonprofits. For one night each year, civic-minded restaurateurs donate 25% of their sales to a local charity that provides crucial services for people living with HIV and AIDS, as well as education and prevention programs for the broader community.

Dining Out For Life takes place at different times of the year in different cities around the globe. Tomorrow, July 15, is New Orleans’ turn. If you’re in the area, check the details below and the (very diverse) restaurant list, then make plans to let someone else do the cooking tomorrow night.

This isn’t the first time I’ve extolled the virtues of eating out, and it probably won’t be the last.

NO/AIDS Task Force is asking locals to make a date to make a difference and dine out for its 15th annual Dining Out For Life fundraiser. NO/AIDS has teamed with over 60 area restaurants to raise funds for men, women and families affected by HIV and AIDS in Southeast Louisiana.

It’s simple. Dine at one of the more than 60 restaurants participating, order your favorite culinary delights, sit back, relax and enjoy! At the end of the day, those participating restaurants will donate 25% of the daily proceeds to NO/AIDS Task Force.

Additionally, as the oil spill continues to affect our tourism and restaurant industries, Dining Out For Life is not only an opportunity to help NO/AIDS Task Force, but also to give our area restaurants a boost in the typically slow summer months.

The full list of restaurants is available below, or at DiningOutForLife.com. There are a wide variety of eateries catering to any taste or budget.

Support of Dining Out For Life and NO/AIDS Task Force is now more important than ever. Just last week, the Centers For Disease Control released new stats about the state of the AIDS epidemic in the US. Currently, New Orleans ranks 3rd in the nation among major cities for AIDS case rates and the state of Louisiana ranks 4th .

Additionally the state of Louisiana has capped all new enrollments in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program due to a $7 – $11 million deficit. This means that anyone newly diagnosed, will have to go through other channels to access medications such as patient assistance programs, through individual drug companies.

2010 Participating Restaurants:

13
7 on Fulton
Acme Oyster House (French Quarter)
Acme Oyster House (Metairie)
Adolfo’s
Barcelona Tapas
The Barley Oak
Between The Bread
Bombay Club
Bywater Bar-B-Que
Cafe at the Square
Cafe Degas
Cafe Luna
Cafe Rani
Chad’s Bistro
Chateau du Lac
City Diner
The Country Club Restaurant
Eat New Orleans
Feelings Café
Flaming Torch Restaurant
Fresco Café
The Green Goddess
Iris
Italian Barrel
Jaegerhaus
Jamila’s
Joey K’s
Julie’s Little India Kitchen at Schiro’s
Juniper Restaurant
K-Joes Restaurant
The Kupcake Factory (French Quarter)
The Kupcake Factory (Kenner)
The Kupcake Factory (Old Metairie)
The Kupcake Factory (Uptown)
La Crepe Nanou
La Divina Cafe e Gelateria
La Divina Gelateria (Garden District)
La Peniche
Louisiana Pizza Kitchen – French Market
Louisiana Pizza Kitchen – Uptown
Marigny Brasserie
Mark Twain’s Pizza Landing
Martinique Bistro
Mat & Naddie’s
Maximo’s Italian Grill
Maya’s Restaurant & Bar
Meauxbar Bistro
Mike’s on the Avenue
Mona Lisa Restaurant
Nirvana Indian Cuisine
Nonna Mia Cafe & Pizzeria
Oceana
Patois
Ralph’s on the Park
Restaurant des Familles
Rooba’s Crescent Spoon
Royal Street Deli
Sake Café
Slim Goodies
The Steak Knife Restaurant
Tomatillo’s
Upperline Restaurant
Vega Tapas Café
Vianne’s Tea Salon
Zoe Bistro at the W Hotel

If you practice Vodou, or if you’re just a curious onlooker, you might want to swing by the annual Hurricane Ceremony taking place this Saturday night in the Bywater. It’ll be similar to the one held a couple of weeks ago in honor of St. John, but with a few key differences — namely, it honors both Catholic and Vodou deities. Sounds efficient, killing two spirit birds with one stone, no?

HURRICANE CEREMONY XIII

What: Public prayer ceremony dedicated to Our Lady of Prompt Succor (who has intervened  historically on New Orleans’ behalf when a hurricane has
threatened) and Ezili Danto (also associated with Mater Salvatoris and Mount Carmel) to ask for protection from hurricanes

When: Saturday, July 17th. 7:00 p.m.

Where: Achade Meadows Peristyle, 3319 Rosalie Alley (off of Rampart, between Piety and Desire)

What to bring in offering:

For Our Lady: flowers, statues, candles, religious pictures, jewelry

For Danto: Barbancourt Rum, Clarin, Florida Water or a water softener system, candles, daggers, dolls dressed in red and blue with gold trim or calico prints, spicy black beans, peasant cakes, unfiltered cigarettes, pan fried cornbread with peppers, fried pork, white crème de menthe

What to wear: Please dress in white (the color of purity), with red head scarves, or all red (the color of Petwo rites).

[via Copyranter and other junque]

Liquid Television was groundbreaking: a funny, offbeat, edgy home for experiments in animation. Even better for the featured artists: it was hosted on the hottest cable channel of its day, MTV.

I loved Stick Figure Theatre, Miss Lydia’s Makeover to the Stars, Cintra Wilson’s Winter Steele, and the initial Aeon Flux spots, but what I really looked forward to each week was The Art School Girls of Doom, featuring Miss Cody Ravioli and some other queen who was lovely, I’m sure. To this day, I still quote the episode where they go to the beach.

And so, the episode where they go to the beach:

Over the weekend, I got an email from my friend Sean. He’d posted an engrossing story about his own (accidental) search for his birth parents not  long ago, so given everything that’s gone on in my life the past nine years, I kind of assumed it was about that.

It wasn’t.

Sean proceeded to tell me about his former brother-in-law, Brian — a 32-year-old gay man from Limerick, Ireland. He’s cute and talented and smart, and on July 19, 2009, he was beaten in an unprovoked attack in Nottingham, England. When he fell, he hit his head on the sidewalk and passed out. A couple of minutes later, he awoke, shook it off, and went home, but the next day, he was unconscious again. His coma lasted for three months.

Brian has gradually regained his speech capabilities, but he’s confined to a wheelchair, he’s lost use of the left side of his body, and he’s now blind. He’s made a great deal of progress, and there’s hope that he’ll make even more, but Brian’s best chance now seems to lie with experimental stem cell therapies — therapies that are available at only a few facilities in the world. The nearest one is in India. It will not be cheap.

Sean has set up a fundraising website to help raise money for Brian’s treatment. It’s a generous act — particularly for someone who’s  not even married to the family anymore. But Sean’s an EMT, so I guess it comes naturally.

If you’re the giving sort, please consider making a contribution — and of course, feel free to share the site with like-minded others.

I know there are thousands of stories just like this being told in homes around the globe. In fact, just yesterday I visited a friend here in New Orleans who, like Brian, was the victim of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our bodies are frail, sacks of meat and bones guarded by scraps of wit and instinct. It’s remarkable that everything we do isn’t fatal.

But just because Brian’s story isn’t unique doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be told and re-told.

I do this kind of thing all the time when no one’s watching — singing pop songs in someone else’s style. Personally, I prefer using the voice of non-singers like Indira Gandhi, but I understand Ms. Pedi’s choice of Liza and Carol Channing; otherwise, the P’town Gays she’s marketing to might not have gotten the jokes.

Also: is it just me, or does that Liza veer dangerously close to Shari Lewis territory? Come to think of it, THAT would be fucking hysterical. Somebody please crank out a Shari/Lambchop version of this video ASAP.

Remember that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” questionnaire that was distributed to some 400,0000 armed services members on Wednesday? It’s been leaked [PDF]. It assumes the average age of military personnel is about 12:

Yes: it’s a cooties questionnaire. Pafuckingthetic.

[via Towleroad]

1. There’s a lot of chatter about a verdict in the Prop 8 trial — namely, that it’s coming very soon. As in, maybe today. That could be speculation, but don’t be surprised. Assuming things go as I think they’ll go, and as many others think they’ll go, that would be a nice way to start the weekend.

2. Those Ke$ha dancing soldiers? (The Israeli ones?) They’ve been ordered to make an anti-dancing video. Frankly, I’d prefer they make an anti-Ke$ha video or at least put the Mossad on her skank ass, but then, I haven’t had quite enough coffee this morning.

3. Like most of my gay brethren, I enjoy porn now and then (translation: daily). But Bel Ami films have never been my thing, mostly because younger guys don’t do much (translation: anything) for me. But Matthew Rettenmund’s interview with George Duroy, the company’s founder is…interesting. I like stories about people who operate on the edges, and he’s done a good bit of that. However, Duroy seems completely clueless about condom use, and his comments in support of bareback films are irresponsible and outrageous. And he still wonders why the mainstream gay media won’t give him editorial coverage?

4. It’s funny, the way the world keeps shrinking. For months, I’ve seen the pic below making the rounds on Tumblr. Recently I learned that it was created (in part) by a friend from a former life (by which I mean 15 years ago), Adrain Chesser, who now lives in Seattle and makes photographic loveliness with the equally talented, equally lovely Steven Miller. Small, small, small.

Now, in exciting infographic form:

I would like to hang a very large version of this above my bed for the next 50 years:

Lindsay Lohan: What? What did that bitch say?

Lawyerlady: That “bitch” is your judge, and she just sent you to jail for 90 days and to rehab for 90 days beyond that. All because you violated your probation for two — yes, two — DUIs. That’s what that the “bitch” said.

LiLo: But, okay, you know, like, what does that mean?

Lawyerlady: That means you’re going to jail.

LiLo: Ha! I can’t go to jail, dummy. It’s summer! They don’t have jail in summer! Who hired you?

Lawyerlady: They do have jail in summer.

LiLo: Since when?

Lawyerlady: Since always. It’s jail.

LiLo: Look, I don’t know where you graduated from, Lawyerlady, but I was in Mean Girls and the very popular remake of Freaky Friday, so I know a lot, okay…. [continued here]

[pic via SocialiteLife]