Ex-con found GUILTY in Gay bashing, NYC March 27, 2006

An ex-con became a crybaby yesterday after being convicted of a hate crime - a merciless beating that left a gay man paralyzed and still afraid of being bashed by bigots. Former tough guy Steve Pomie's eyes filled with tears as a Brooklyn jury returned the guilty verdict that could send the reputed gang member to prison for up to 25 years.

His victim, Dwan Prince, 28, who was nearly stomped to death in the June 5 attack in Brownsville, said he was relieved by the quick conviction.

"I'm happy," Prince said. "But I still feel scared. I don't know if there are still guys out there."

Prince, a former demolition worker and fitness buff, testified at trial how Pomie, 22, and his pals beat him and left him for dead - just for being gay.

He described a legacy of surgeries, physical therapy and pain that forced him to move into his mother's house and give up construction work and weekend walkathons.

With his left side paralyzed and his skull etched with scars, Prince cannot control trembling in his limbs from nerve damage.

Under state law, Pomie has to serve at least 12-1/2 years of a maximum 25-year sentence, instead of an eight-year minimum, because the jury found the assault violated hate crime statutes.

Nancie L. Katz
NY Daily News

JUSTICE AT LAST!!! I'm praying for your continued recovery Dwan!
Peace & Light,
Ocean

The victim, Dwan Prince in an undated photo.

"Harmonica on Hiatus", A Letter from beloved NYC drag entertainer Harmonica Sunbeam, March 2006

TODAY IS THE DAY I REALIZED I COULD NO LONGER BE THE TEA DANCE HOSTESS. AS MUCH AS I WANT TO COME OUT, GET BEAUTIFUL AND ENTERTAIN YOU, I HAD TO FACE REALITY. EACH WEEK I FOUGHT A PERSONAL BATTLE TRYING TO MAKE IT IN TO WORK AND SEE YOUR SMILING FACES BUT I WAS JUST TOO WEAK AND TIRED TO DO SO. THE ONLY WAY I COULD RELIEVE YOU, MY BOSS AND SUGGA PIE IS BY OFFICIALLY LEAVING SO IT WOULDNT BE A QUESTION EVERY WEEK AS TO ME SHOWING UP. THIS HAS BEEN A VERY DIFFICULT DECISION FOR ME TO MAKE.

THERE ARE MANY RUMORS OUT THERE AS WE SPEAK BUT TODAY I WILL TELL YOU THE DEAL. FOR THE LAST 8 MONTHS I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING A VICIOUS BATTLE WITH HIV/AIDS. AT THE CURRENT TIME THINGS ARE SOMEWHAT BLEAK BUT I'M SURE GOD WILL SEE ME THROUGH THIS AND BRING ME BACK TO THE STAGE AND THE LOVING ARMS OF MY SUPPORTERS IF THIS IS HIS WILL.

BEFORE THIS GETS TOO MUCH EMOTIONAL FOR ME I WILL CLOSE THIS MESSAGE AND ASK THAT ANYONE WHO READS THIS TO SAY A PRAYER FOR ME. I LOVE YOU AND WILL SEE U. REAL SOON.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CORRESPOND WITH ME VIA EMAIL FEEL FREE TO DO SO AT TRAKK13@AOL.COM. I ONLY ASK THAT YOUR MAIL BE SHORT AND SWEET AND ON AN INSPIRATIONAL LEVEL (NO DIRTY PICS OR THINGS OF THAT NATURE).

PEACE AND BLESSINGS
HARMONICA SUNBEAM

her website: http://harmonicasunbeam.com

******Harmonica, Stay strong and keep the faith! I'll pray for you! Peace, Ocean********

Harmonica Sunbeam strikes a pose for me at Pride in the City, 2005

Harmonica all done up in an undated photo

Big city boy shoots a dairy farm! THE SIMPLE LIFE part III

This past October I was accepted and attended the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop for Photojournalism (www.eddieadamsworkshop.com). EAW is an intensive 4-day weekend workshop that is made up of the top photojournalists (Gordon Parks taught one year) paired with the top photojournalism students across the U.S. and abraod. Since I was taking a documentary photography class at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in NYC, I submitted my portfolio and was accepted! A real achievement, 'cause they only accept 100 photojournalists out of thousands of applicants! Each "student" is given an assignment to shoot over the weekend. Mine was to document the Weiss Dairy Farm!! I had never been on a farm in my life! I live in New York City for goodness sakes! This was a true case of THE SIMPLE LIFE. Having documented life on a dairy farm I now have mad respect for farmers everywhere! By the end of the weekend, I had ruined two pairs or leather boots and two pairs of jeans. There was shit and muck everywhere and the smell was in my nostrils for a week after I'd gotten back to NYC!

All photojournalism assignments are not "fun" or "easy". It takes great skill to produce an image that is not "typical" of what you know about a subject (but what's not typical of a dairy farm!). While I did shoot cows and the like, I was focused on more of the "details" of a farm, and looked for images that could speak to the subject, in this case a afrm, but was not as obvious.

The EAW was a GREAT experience that has forever shaped my life as a photojournalist. Below are some photos from my day on the Weiss Dairy Farm in Jeffersonville, NY on a cool, wet, misty, overcast day. Enjoy!

Thanks to the WEISS family for your hospitality!

Tire tracks in the muck

Clothes line

Feeding time

Feeding time II

Owner of Weiss Dairy Farm in truck

Portrait of a farmer

Front Porch of farm house

Desolate barn

Farmer

John Weiss, Owner of Weiss Dairy Farm

Misty spider web

Untitled farm

Cow portrait

Bales of Hay

Cow "holding pen"

Deep in shit and muck

Ford truck

Untitled hay and house

B'ball players huddle, West 4th Street, NYC

Gays not welcome at Rhode Island Cemetary

Rick Paolino's gay civil partner Justin died suddenly at home last
month and was buried at St Ann's Cemetery. When he went back a month
later to order the inscription on the gravestone, he was shocked
when cemetery officials turned down his requests for the words "late
husband", "spouse" and even "beloved".

Bereaved Mr Paolino feels that he would like their relationship to
be acknowledged. "In two or three hundred years when that name is
there, I want someone to know that this person loved this person."

"It really hurts because I really feel that they've tossed me aside
and tossed my feelings aside and my love for a person aside and that
person's love for me aside," he told the station.

The cemetery comes under the Catholic diocese of Providence who have
the final say on headstone inscriptions with a view to "to uphold
the dignity of the cemetery"

Mr Paolino said that he wasn't asking the Catholic church to
recognize gay marriages, but his love for his late partner and if
the diocese failed to reconsider his inscription request, he would
consider transferring Justin's remains to a cemetery in
Massachusetts near where the couple married.

(AP)

(UPDATE!) GAY BEAU SOUGHT IN BODY-CHOP SLAY

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/61282.htm

By LARRY CELONA

March 20, 2006 -- The gruesome slaying of a gay Brooklyn teen whose dismembered body was found in a subway tunnel - once sparking fears of a transit-worker killer - had an older lover whom cops now want to grill.

Investigators recently discovered that tragic aspiring Web-site designer Rashawn Brazell, 19, had a boyfriend who rented a room around the corner from Brazell's Gates Avenue home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

The older man - described by cops only as in his 30s and living on welfare - hasn't been seen since the death of Brazell, who vanished on Valentine's Day 2004, the sources said. The man is believed to have moved somewhere down South.

"We want to try and find this guy, identify him and talk to him," a police source said.

Three days after Brazell vanished, a subway worker found his legs, an arm and part of his torso in a blue plastic bag on the A-train line a few hundred feet north of the Nostrand Avenue station, which is close to Brazell's home.

Six days later, workers came across a bag containing Brazell's waist and pelvis at a Greenpoint recycling plant that serves a company that collects garbage along the A line.

His head has never been found.
On the last day Brazell was seen alive, he told people he was meeting a tax preparer, but cops have said that may have been a ruse.

Police ask anyone with information about the case to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.

larry.celona@nypost.com

RASHAWN BRAZELL MEMORIAL MARCH--APRIL 15th!

When the NYPD investigated the murders of Immette St. Guillen and Nicole DuFresne, they left no stone unturned. Each case was afforded an appropriate amount of resources from the department. Rashawn's mother, Desire Brazell has a simple question: Why should the investigation of her son's murder be treated any differently? On April 15, the day the would have marked Rashawn Brazell's twenty-first birthday, Desire will demand answers from the NYPD's 79th precinct.
The march will begin at the A train Nostrand Avenue station stop (at Fulton and Nostrand) at 12pm. The procession to the 79th precinct station house will begin at 1pm. There, Mrs. Brazell, along with invited guests, will demand that the police devote the maximum amount of resources to the year-old investigation her son's murder.

Rashawn Brazell in his HS graduation photo.

Gay bash victim testifies in court

written by Patrick Gallahue
New York Post Thursday, March 23, 2006

The wheelchair-bound victim of a savage bias attack bravely took the
stand in Brooklyn yesterday and faced his accused assailant.
"I lost everything that night," testified Dwan Prince, 28, who
prosecutors say was brutally beaten and left paralyzed by Steven
Pmoie, 25, last June because he is gay.

The slight Prince -- who was in a coma for a month and now slurs his
words -- has no memories of the attack and said he didn't recognize
Pomie. He also said he was terrified of facing the reputed Crips gang
member. "I didn't know if he would try to get up and kill me," Prince said
afterwards. But he then smiled slightly and added, "I watch too many
movies."

Prince was taking the trash out of the building in Brownsville, when
he cast a glance at Pomie, who was wearing his girlfriend's pink
tank top, authorities said. Cops said Pomie flew into a rage, shouted an anti-gay epithet and
stomped Prince's head.

(June, 2005 Brooklyn, NY) Valerie Prince, Dwan's mom and Basil Lucas from New York's Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project at a press conference ouside of Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn where Dwan lay in a coma for a month.

Dwan Prince in an undated photo.

Gallery Mix 2006

A random sample of images I've taken in the last few weeks. Most people know me for my photojournalism or fine art male nude work, but truth be told, I photograph anything that captures my senses and reflects my mood. Still, I'm always trying to say something through my photography. Just what that is, I'm not totally sure sometimes. LOL! Anyway, enjoy the photos!

"Flower detail", 2006

"Stoop detail", Chelsea, NYC 2006

"Brooklyn fire escape", 2006

"Red laser installation and street reflection", Chelsea, NYC 2006

"Can collector making an honest living", Greenewhich Village 2006

"Dusk", 2006

"Long Island Railroad roaring down the EL", Brooklyn 2006

"Puerto Rican flag waving in the night", Brooklyn 2006

"Wet, rusty chain", Jeffersonville, NY 2005

"Brooklyn Bridge on the verge of a nervous breakdown", 2006

Gordon Parks Funeral, Riverside Church NYC March 15, 2006

Gordon Parks was a great Renaissance man and my personal hero. As a photojournalist he documented the heartache and joy of African-American life. His camera was his weapon against racism and poverty in America. His images did indeed speak a thousand words and made a diference in everyone's life he touched. I was fortunate to meet and speak to Mr. Parks on a few occasions and attend several of his exhibitions. Yesterday, I was one of hundreds of mourners to bid him farewell at his funeral service held at Riverside Church in Harlem, NYC. Below are a few photos from the funeral sevices, which turned out to be a Who's-Who of the black photography and art world. Gordon Parks will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on forever. I can only hope and strive to be as great of an artist and human being as he was.

Inside the beautiful Riverside Church in NYC during the funeral services for the legendary American photographer Gordon Parks.

The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Senior Minister at Riverside Church, NYC led the funeral service for Gordon Parks.

Church detail

Longtime Parks friend (and CNN Anderson Cooper's mom) Gloria Vanderbilt spoke about how she held Gordon Parks' hand in his final days and sang Frank Sinatra's 'Dancing in the Dark' to him.

Former NYC Mayor David Dinkins fought back tears as he eulogized the man he called "larger than life".

Actor Avery Brooks spoke fondly of Gordon Parks in his signature barritone voice

Yours truly in a self-portrait waiting on the Press line to gain access to the church.

Richard Roundtree, who played the tough yet cool detective John Shaft in the iconic 1971 film "Shaft", directed by Gordon Parks said of the funeral, "It was a classy sendoff. I was happy to witness it."

Two Pallbearers embrace after the funeral

Up close and personal with rocker Lenny Kravitz, one of the many celebrities at the funeral

Toni Parks, Gordon's daughter

Exterior view of Riverside Church on the picture perfect day of Gordon Parks' funeral, NYC

Two photographers pose for photos after the service on a very windy day. When you think about it, what good is a veil if you don't have the wind to sweep it up high into the air!

After the service, more than 100 black photographers gathered on the steps of Grants Tomb for a group photo in tribute to Gordon Parks. I was in some of the shots, but qute frankly was more interested in getting photos of everything else happening around us. Ever try to gather a hundred photographers for a group photo? Ugh! What a challenge!

Farewell to the great Renaissance man Gordon Parks.