The pain, the pain... Of? The economy, the specter of Sarah Palin will raise its ugly hairdo again in our lifetime? No; it is the very real pain of the sadistic workings of Leopoldo in making me get up an second day at the crack of dawn to undergo his personal training at the new David Barton Gym here. I love the place itself; it is sort of a hybrid of a Turkish palace and the movie Metropolis.
I dragged my tortured body to City Hall late this afternoon to attend Thomas Barker's and Mayor Matti's ceremonial raising of the rainbow flag over City Hall. Although one had to applaud their effort and intent, I couldn't help but think it was so overdue that is was a bit of an anticlimax. When I first started visiting this sandbar in the late eighties, it was still a slum. Deserted in the seventies after the Mariel boat lift, it was a large, living graveyard of the old and infirm who couldn't leave spiced with the riveting mix of gay Latinos, drag queens, cheap rents, and lots of drugs. Very quickly, the gay money started renovating this Art Deco dream and--with the help of Barbara Capitman and her preservation drive--saved this city from being bulldozed into history. So, in my mind, there didn't need to be a unanimous vote by the City Commission lead by a great mayor with thought and feeling to allow the flying of the rainbow flag; it should have been a right of birth. But, OK; it was a feel-good moment.

Of course, if the City Hall flagpole had been IN FRONT of the building rather behind, it might have been all that more important. This is Miami; nothing is what it should be.

Thomas Barker tirelessly led a parade down Lincoln Rd. raising the flag at Score, then The New World Symphony, and proceeded down Washington to The Wolfsonian Museum and the final raising at Twist.

God bless him; he never rests. I wish I could, but have just been informed we will be at the gym at 8 AM tomorrow, "We must look our best for White Party!"