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Is there anything gayer than standing in front of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York’s Greenwhich Village? I was there on Thursday, and never felt more gay. It felt good.

Following Rehoboth’s July 4th Fireworks, where I listened to patriotic songs, and desperately tried to separate them from the mess over at the U.S. Executive Branch, where Dick Cheney may or may not work (what does he do, have a desk on the Pennsylvania Avenue median? ) and where W. just poked his finger in the eye of our entire Judicial Branch, I made my escape.

Rehoboth may be Gayberry RFD, but by July 5th I needed a great big dose of Urban Gayboys and that Isle of Lesbos off the East River.

Get thee to Manhattan and a 14th Street B&B where we checked into a room adorned with a six foot head shot of Audrey Hepburn. Pretty darn gay.

If that wasn’t enough, I read through the B&B welcome letter and noted that the special security code to get you in the door if you forget your key is "Frances Gumm." Get it? Judy Garland’s real name. Frances Gumm. That’s so gay, in the very best sense of the popular phrase.

In fact, it reminded me of a conversation I had last week, explaining to some friends how the Stonewall riots really happened. It wasn’t particularly political or born of a well-oiled plan. It erupted because after Judy Garland’s funeral that morning a contingent of gay fans and drag queens went to the Stonewall Inn to drown their sorrows. When cops raided the place for the umpteenth time that month, those queens rose up and said, "not tonight, Josephine" or words to that effect and the bottle throwing began. On that hot, humid day, June 28, 1969, a lot of sad, soulful mourners turned into pissed off queens and kicked some serious police butt. Some say the uprising really launched the entire gay rights revolution. It’s a daunting history for an unpretentious looking watering hole.

From that historic monument we strolled up Christopher Street to the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, the City’s only exclusively GLBT bookstore. I was delighted when the proprietor instantly greeted me by name even though I looked tubbier and more disheveled than I do on my Photoshopped book cover. Oscar Wilde is a great bookstore and, like other independent bookstores, is having a tough go of it. If you go to New York stop by and tell them I sent you.

Suppertime found us uptown dining with an old friend of mine and his husband. I love writing: "his husband or her wife." Those word combos are starting to sound natural. I remember being blown away reading an obit which referred to the deceased being survived by "his husband." Way to go, Newsweek, but after all, the couple lived in Boston, where same-sex marriage is legal.

My dinner companions ordered tres gay cocktails (Manhattans, Cosmos and Kir Royals) along with a fine meal and non-stop dish. And by "dish," I mean several yummy courses and the nonstop gossipy gay chatter.

Then there was Broadway. The Great Gay Way. My reputation as a show queen is often at odds with my lesbian credentials. I adore those Broadway divas along with the boys, and I admit (just a bit embarrassed) that I would rather be in the third row cheering for Audra McDonald or Chita Rivera than Melissa Etheridge.

As for 4-time Tony Award winner Audra, we saw her give a stunning performance in 110 in the Shade, a dusty, creaky old musical made splendid by her electric performance. Theatre queens from the balcony to the orchestra stood and shouted "Brava!"

Friday night found us seeing Grey Gardens, which just as easily could have been called Gay Gardens. It’s gayer than La Cage Aux Folles. Not in the literal sense, but this musical, fashioned from the cult documentary film about lesser Kennedy relatives (Jackie’s Bouvier cousins) living in squalor in East Hampton, fairly screams "gay!"

Mary Louise Wilson stars as nutty Edith Bouvier Beale and Christine Ebersole as Little Edie, a walking fashion police violation with delusions of sanity. Singer wannabe Edith’s bachelor piano accompanist would have made Noel Coward look butch. You should have seen the boys lining up to give homage at the stage door.

It was great seeing Wilson again. I last saw her on stage playing the Stripper Tessie Tura to Angela Lansbury’s Mama Rose in a 1974 production of Gypsy. Why do I know these things but cannot remember my pass codes? Oh, right. I’m a gay man trapped in a lesbian’s body.

And speaking of Lansbury, we saw her on Saturday night in Deuce, a slender (slight, thin, anemic) play about two aging tennis stars, where she played opposite Marian Seldes. Here’s another gay connection—Marian played the long-time partner of Vanessa Redgrave in a brilliant but heartbreaking one act play televised as part of the movie If These Walls Could Talk several years ago.

But Angela Lansbury is royalty. To most folks she’s that busy-body from Murder, She Wrote, but theatre queens worship at her feet for her bitchy turns in the films Gaslight and The Manchurian Candidate and her Broadway musical comedy triumph in Mame.

And if all that isn’t gay enough, she’s been in a Stephen Sondheim show, so that gives her homosexual bona fides. Enough said.

Deuce was nothing more than a vehicle for two legendary actors (there are no actresses anymore; my adoptive gay son informs me that we’re supposed to call them all actors, but frankly, I’m more used to saying "his husband" than calling Angela Lansbury an "actor") and it shows these two tennis stars pondering their careers, regrets, and relationships (not lesboSapphic, but that didn’t stop them from talking about the lesbians on the courts and in the locker rooms). To say the play was a gay old time would not be a stretch.

Also during our long weekend we visited the Museum of Modern Art—inextricably gay. Dozens of male couples held hands as they browsed among Picasso (not gay), Van Gogh (did he have a thing for Gaugan?) and Andy Warhol (see title of article).

We dined at the new museum restaurant called Modern (not an innovative title, but an exquisite establishment) and three quarters of the incredibly attentive staff was surely gay.

Wrapping up the weekend, we visited New York’s GLBT Community Center on 13th Street, which was in the thralls of celebrating a $9 Million grant from the City of New York to kick off their capital expansion program. The funding came from the Mayor and City Council. Oh my. Would that something like that could happen here at home.

By Sunday we piled our gay selves back in our gay car (Diesel for diesel dykes) and headed South toward Delaware’s Oz.

If you are in the mood, New York can surely be all gay, all the time. In today’s political climate it’s good to have a total immersion gay experience every once in a while. It reminds us to be out, loud and proud.

And you don’t really have to go to the Big Apple to experience it. You can stay right here RB.

In fact, when we pulled back into town, there was disco emanating from Aqua, a throng of men adorning the porch at the Moon, a gaggle of gals outside of Frogg Pond, and a line at the cash register at Lambda Rising.

As little Frances Gumm once said, there’s no place like….