MEANDERINGS – by Peter Rocchio

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By now all the red shirts have been laundered and put up for another year. (Does anyone wear a red shirt other than at Gay Days?) When we arrived at the Sheraton World for a performance of ’The Naked Guy’ it had just rained (so what else is new?) and therefore the lobby and Expo and other public places were crammed with red shirted guys and gals either waiting for the ‘Naked guy’ doors to open or were just milling around. Fortunately, there were enough ad hoc bars to meet the demand, which seemed insatiable. It was time to party! The atmosphere was totally festive.

The sense of being in 'our world' is infectious and empowering.  No one can spend time in such an environment and return home unchanged.  Many of us have to learn the normality of who we are and unlearn all the negative stereotypes laid upon us from our earliest years.  Being a majority on 'their' turf helps accomplish that.  Gay Days is more than a coming together of homosexual men and women to have a good time and engage in public displays of affection (a lot of hand-holding).  It is a time for a cultural statement and a psychological healing for a minority for whom a sense of self-worth is not in abundance. One more step on the road to inclusion.

I would like to offer this one man’s apology to the Gay Chorus for what I perceived to be rude behavior on the part of many of the guests attending the opening event of Gay Days at the Winter Park Civic Center. They gave of their time and talent to entertain those gathered and should have been given respect for that.  Instead, they were treated like elevator music.  They and their performance deserved better.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Dr. Ron Stanish has been quite ill for the past six weeks or so having had a severe respiratory infection and then a stroke.  He is currently in rehab where they are working on restoring movement to his left side.  He is so eager to return to work that he told me that he recently awakened and said to himself, “Oh my, it’s late – I’ll be late for work”, and proceeded to attempt to get out of bed.  He quickly discovered that he couldn’t do that. I’m sure Maggie at the office, will forward to him any cards or letters you may wish to send him.

Have you been watching that horrible, rude, insulting, megalomaniac of a chef on the TV show, Hell’s Kitchen?  I confess to having watched all episodes so far and have hated every one.  There is so much implausibility about the show that is never explained and on top of that there is this son-of-a-bitch superstar chef. I hate him and the show – I can’t wait until next Monday at 9.

Talking about food, well, sort of.  I recently was at a French bistro (aren’t they all French?) and they featured on the luncheon menu a suggested aperitif – Lillet (blanc and rouge). Lillet has always been one of my favorite aperitifs and I too often forget that and order a glass of wine.  What is it you may ask? It’s a light, medium-dry, vermouth-type aperitif with a slight orange flavor. The most common/popular is the white but there is also a sweeter red variety.  It is always served with a slice of orange on the glass.  I highly recommend it as an alternative to the usual – glass of red, glass of white.

My latest discovery is Jason Ritter.  “Where you have been?” you might ask.  Apparently not watching Joan of Arcadia.  I discovered this ‘hottie’ last week on the country music channel.  He was hosting some sort of count down show and I thought, “ Wow, who is he?” I immediately ran to my computer and went to www.imdb.com to check him out (so to speak) only to discover that he’s the late John Ritter’s son and the grandson of the great western film and country music star, Tex Ritter.  This young man is hunky and hot and will have a career.

Back to the serious for a moment, if I may.  Much is being written and talked about these days about the rights of sexual predators – post incarceration.  There are serious issues on both sides. Certainly, if the convicted predator has served his time and paid his judicially imposed debt to society he should be able to live his life.  On the other hand, we have been told by the psychiatrists, et al that sexual predators have an incurable predisposition to this heinous act and therefore no one with children wants to live within many miles of one.  That creates a proverbial rock and a hard place.  I offer the following suggestion based on the incurable and extreme seriousness of the condition – the sentence upon conviction be life in prison without parole.  We cannot tell society that “this man’s condition is incurable” and at the same time release him back to society,” having paid his debt”. The greater good is the protection of society.

This coming weekend, June 18th and 19th the Orlando Gay Chorus will perform their, ' They're Playing Our Song' concert at the Annie Russell Theatre, Rollins College.  I hope you all will be there – we will.

Ciao for now.

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