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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 23, 2019
BURLESQUE
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BEARD
hair of the head should be,”
Whitman once said.
Heading the advice of
the famed Brooklyn wordsmith,
unshaven competitors
fl ocked to the Fort
Greene playground to compete
in eight facial hair-related
categories, judged by
professional comedians Sue
Smith, Jordan Temple, and
Murf Meyer.
The event’s marquee
honor, the Good Gray Poet
award for best in show, was
bestowed to Nayland Blake
for his Whitman-esque
whiskers.
“It was very exciting,” he
said. “I felt like I was doing
BUS AD
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EXEMPTION
some honor to Whitman’s
legacy.”
Blake, who had entered
the competition for ‘Best
Natural Beard’ before taking
home the event’s top
honor as consolation, said
he had been training for
this moment for years.
“I’ve had a beard for most
of my adult life, but the last
time I trimmed this particular
iteration was about six
years ago,” he said.
lis Burlesque with her
husband, Moe Cheezmo.
The group specializes in
giving off-beat television
shows, comics, and movies
a goofy, sensual twist.
The group fi rst tackled
“Rick and Morty” in a
show three years ago, and
its super-fans went wabadubadubdub.
“Rick and Morty pushes a
lot of our nerdy buttons,”
Cheezmo said.
The June 29 performance
will get extra squanchy,
with seven acts featuring
the show’s lead characters,
including Morty, his
mother Beth, and the scientist
formerly known as
Rick, alongside minor fi gures
from the show, such
as Ma-Sha, the sexy ruler
of the planet Gazorpazorp,
who Renard will portray
for the fi rst time. The sci-fi
show’s constantly changing
cast keeps each edition
of the “Burp-Lesque” show
fresh, said Cheezmo.
“We’ve done the show
three times, and it hasn’t
been the same once,” he
said.
For other shows, the group
has drawn on other unlikely
cult classics, including
depressed equine cartoon
“Bojack Horseman,”
the “Sandman” comic series
by Neil Gaiman, and
Hanyo Miyazaki movies.
Cheezmo refers to the
group’s tongue-in-cheek
burlesque style as “nerdlesque,”
and says that the
pop-culture trappings can
bring in audiences that
might not be comfortable
with a traditional bumpand
grind.
“A lot of people wouldn’t
get necessarily go to burlesque,
but they get hooked
on the idea of nerd-lesque,”
he said.
“The show defi nitely
brings nerds together,”
added Renard.
The show will mark Metropolis
Burlesque’s debut
at Coney Island Sideshows
by the Seashore stage,
which hosts “Burlesque at
the Beach” with different
groups each weekend during
the summer.
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partner Steve Barnes —
famous for their catchy
jingle and widely televised
tag line, “Don’t
wait, call eight!”
And in an effort to peer
around the awkwardly
placed ad, drivers were
forced to edge into a bike
lane running along Gerritsen
Avenue, endangering
oncoming cyclists,
according to Maisel.
That intersection was
home to two motor vehicle
related injuries in
2017, and a total of seven
injuries since 2011, according
to Vision Zero
data.
But the lawmaker said
he turned to the Department
of Transportation
last year in response to
some local gripes about
the ill-placed ad, and
transit officials told the
councilman they could
either add a stoplight,
remove the bus shelter,
or kill the ad — Maisel
opted for the latter.
“As long as the Cellino
and Barnes advertisement
does not return
to this bus shelter, then
traffic will not be obstructed,”
he said.
preventable diseases will
not spread in New York
again.”
Dinowitz’s bill, A2371 ,
along with its sister bill in
the Senate, S2994 , by Manhattan
lawmaker Brad
Hoylman, passed less than
a week ahead of the end of
legislative session on June
19 and will mandate that all
children in the state who
are medically able have to
get immunized against a
host of illnesses, including
measles, mumps, hepatitis
B, and others.
The new bill will protect
New Yorkers who cannot
get vaccinated for medical
reasons and send a
message that vaccines are
safe and effective in controlling
the spread of contagious
diseases, according
to Hoylman.
“Today, the state Senate
is sending a strong
message to New Yorkers
that vaccines are safe and
effective,” the pol said in a
statement. “We’re putting
science ahead of misinformation
about vaccines and
standing up for the rights
of immunocompromised
children and adults, pregnant
women and infants
who can’t be vaccinated
through no fault of their
own.”
State law previously allowed
parents to opt their
kids out of the mandatory
vaccinations using religious
exemptions, but lawmakers
sprang into action
after one of the largest
measles epidemics in the
country swept across the
Empire State beginning
last fall.
To date, 924 people
statewide have been infected
with the highly-contagious
pathogen, with 571
of those in Brooklyn, concentrated
primarily in the
borough’s Orthodox Jewish
communities in Williamsburg
and Borough
Park, according to data by
the city and state departments
of health.
Just this week , the
city shut down three Williamsburg
yeshivas — one
of them a repeat offender
— for admitting unvaccinated
students and staff,
despite an April 9 order
by Health Commissioner
Oxiris Barbot requiring all
people living, working, or
going to school in certain
northern Brooklyn postal
codes to get the measlesmumps
rubella vaccine or
face a $1,000 fi ne.
One legislator criticized
the new law, saying that it
violated the First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution
by limiting religious
freedom.
“I am in favor of, and
continue to advocate for
widespread vaccination.
However, the separation of
Church and State as guaranteed
by the First Amendment
is a cornerstone of
our Democracy,” said state
Sen. Simcha Felder, whose
district includes Borough
Park, where city health offi
cials have confi rmed 100
cases of the illness so far.
The legislator added in
an emailed statement to
this paper that the new law
marked a slippery slope,
particularly in times of
increased hate crimes
and rising anti-Semitism
across the state.
“Any detraction of religious
liberty by the state sets
a dangerous precedent. Especially
in these times, passing
a law that eliminates
free exercise of religious
rights would set us down a
slippery slope. The state has
many tools available to manage
this outbreak that stop
short of tampering with religious
freedom.”
The law previously
met with opposition by a
small group of anti-vaxxers
who protested a rally
held by Hoylman and his
colleagues in support of
the bill at City Hall on May
29, with one anti-vaxxer
claiming that the small
number of religious exemptions
did not impact
the spread of measles.
“It’s outrageous to try
and take our religious exemptions
away, when we
make up less than half of
1 percent of the unvaccinated
population,” said
Queens resident Adreana
Rodriguez told this paper .
But a similar law which
state legislators passed
in California last year —
which the New York bill
was modeled after — led
to an increase in immunization
there and Hoylman
said at the May rally that
anti-vaxxers use the religious
exemption as a loophole,
despite their objections
being rooted in junk
science — not faith.
“The religious exemption
is a loophole,” said
the Manhattan lawmaker.
“It is masking someone’s
conspiracy against vaccinations,
and it needs to be
closed.”
One of the main claims
by anti-vaxxers is that vaccines
cause autism, which
the Center of Disease Control
has proven to be untrue.
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CONTESTED: Bearded contestants pose at the Walt Whitman Beard
& Moustache Competition. Photo by Caroline Ourso