Gay Bashers Face Thirty Years For Hate

Juan Carlos Lopez, Luis M. Alonso Piovet, Adonis Diaz, and Pablo Reinaldo Romo-Figueroa—left to right in the photo—the four thugs accused of attacking a gay couple, Rene Chalarca and Dmitry Logunov, on South Beach will face new, stiffer charges under Florida's hate-crime enhancement law. Each one of the four could face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.

Good.

The attack occurred last month, during Miami Beach's annual gay-pride parade, when one of the two men accidentally bumped into Juan Carlos Lopez on Ocean Drive. Lopez and his little band of hate-mongering homophobes began shouting, calling the victims "maricones," an anti-gay slur in Spanish. On surveillance video, you see the four repeatedly punching the two gay men in the face, causing cuts and bruises. Helmut Muller, an onlooker, chased the attackers to try and stop them, but he was also attacked and beaten.

A day later, after Miami Beach police released that video of the attack, the four men turned themselves in to police. Under Florida law, aggravated battery is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, but if the attack is committed because of someone's sexual orientation, the crime becomes a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

And clearly, the homophobic slurs shouted by these four thugs will show it to be a Hate Crime, and hopefully all four will be off the streets for thirty years and live as someone’s bitch in a Florida prison.

We’ve come a long way in the movement, but we’re still being attacked and beaten on the streets of America just for being gay.

That must end. Hate must end.

Miami Herald

This.That.

So .... vacation. 

Tuxedo wanted to go and tried to stowaway in a suitcase but, alas, was unsuccessful.

It was lovely and peaceful and fun and we got to meet up with friends we hadn’t seen since we left, but ... while it took us about nine-and-a-half-hours to make the nine-hour-and-seventeen minute drive to Ft. Lauderdale on this road:

It took us two hours to drive the 53-minute drive from Ft Lauderdale to our hotel on this road:

But once there we found a local Cuban restaurant, La Carreta, was right nearby and I got my Caldo Gallego fix. For those who don’t know, Caldo Gallego is a white bean and broth soup with pork and it was the perfect capper after a day of driving.

We had a few appointments to take care of while down there but we also visited the Fairchild Tropical Gardens, a favorite spot of ours while we lived there. 

They had a new butterfly house and this guy seemed to want to attach himself to me and come back to South Carolina.

Alas, he could not, but ... whilst walking we happened upon this guy and I begged Carlos to let me bring him home—the cats love to play with lizards—but Carlos the Spoilsport, AKA The rational thinker, said, ‘No.’ But seriously we must have seen 6 or 8 of these beauties and many more of a smaller variety lounging about in the gardens.

We also met up with our friend Benjamin and his boyfriend, Ralph, for a trip to Shubui, our favorite Sushi place. Sadly, the weather had turned cool so Carlos and I donned light sweaters with our shorts and shoes. Benjamin and Ralph, South Floridians forever, wore long-sleeves and long pants and literally raced from the car to the restaurant because of how cold it was that night.

It.Was.Sixty.Eight.Degrees. Carlos and I laughed when we told them that that morning, in our hometown, it was 14 degrees and we’d had snow fall—we heard the news from our pet-sitter. Still, Benjamin and Ralph ran whenever we were outside and cranked the heat in the car to stave off the chill ... of 68 degrees.

It was a nice getaway—nicer because we avoided the horrific cold here for the warmth down South—but, as Seinfeld does, and as I do, I immediately calculate how many hours until we can get home, minus the time sleeping of course.

As much as I love to go away and see old friends and favorite places. I love coming home.

In high-larious news, AKA News of the Stupid, a neo-Nazi group has postponed its planned march in downtown Whitefish, Montana because they couldn’t come up with the $125 fee.

Andrew Anglin, publisher of The Daily Stormer, had planned the march in praise of white supremacist Richard Spencer, but mailed the city of Whitefish an incomplete application seeking a special event permit.

Anglin wrote on his hate-site: “I have spoken at length with my lawyers – though the ACLU has yet to respond to my inquiry – and we’ve decided that due to the permit refusal by the city of Whitefish, we will need to postpone the planned march.”

Um, dickwad? May I call you Dickwad? You didn’t send all the money in and you didn’t fill out the application correctly. M’kay?

Sheesh, white supremacists are cheap ... and stupid ... and they lie.

Ben Carson, _____’s nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,--qualified because he has once lived in a house in an urban area—was asked for his thoughts—funny that, thoughts? Plural?—on LGBTQ housing rights and he quickly vomited up his old Gays Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Marry bull shiz:

“Of course, I would enforce all the laws of the land. And I believe that all Americans regardless of the things that you mentioned should be protected by the law. What I have mentioned in the past is the fact that no one gets ‘extra rights’. ‘Extra rights’ means that you get to redefine everything for everybody else. That to me doesn’t seem to be very democratic.”

Um, Ben, as a Black man, you do remember that marriage was “redefined” back in the 1960s to make interracial marriage legal, right? Are you against that? And I know you’re a brainless brain surgeon, but you do know that marriage has evolved and changed dramatically since the beginning of time, right?

Oh, you don’t? Then sit the fuck down you clinking clanking clacking collection of caliginous junk.

So, #Pissgate. #UrineTroubleDonald. #GoldenShowers. #PEEotus. How is that we didn’t see this coming? I mean, c’mon, that picture is not new!

Wingnuts, and _____, went wild over Meryl Streep’s brilliant speech at the Golden Globes when she called out _____ for mocking a disabled man—and let’s be perfectly clear, he mocked a disabled man.

Meghan McCain, the self-entitled, self-indulgent, self-involved daughter of the long passed his retirement day senator John McCain, Tweeted out this load of crap about Streep and the liberals:

I love that the daughter of a millionaire thinks she speaks for the Middle and Lower classes; she probably Tweeted that whilst having the servants butter her bread over breakfast at the manse. But then internet troll, and gasbag, Tomi Lahren, as true an illiterate as I have ever seen, also weighed in:

Yes, the woman who makes a very good living being an internet asshat thinks she’s a Middle Class American.

I was already to take these too ignorant rightwingnuts on until I found this, by veteran Charles Clymer:

Price.Less.

And lastly, as the inauguration of _____ approaches—and remember, turn your TVs off that day to make it one of the least-watched events ever because low ratings will annoy_____—I was turned onto this site by Warrior Queen, Anne Marie, of From My Brian To My Mouth fame. It’s the Indivisible Guide, whose aim is to unseat, rattle and resist President ____.

“Donald Trump is the biggest popular vote loser in history to ever call himself President- Elect. In spite of the fact that he has no mandate, he will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image. If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist — and we have the power to win.

We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism— and they won.

We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda — but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.

To this end, the following chapters offer a step-by-step guide for individuals, groups, and organizations looking to replicate the Tea Party’s success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents. The guide is intended to be equally useful for stiffening Democratic spines and weakening pro-Trump Republican resolve.

We believe that the next four years depend on Americans across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda. We believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize us and our neighbors. We hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief useful tools to make Congress listen."

Check it out, HERE, and #Resist.

As I said, I won’t watch the inauguration, but I will be glued to the set during the impeachment hearing because I am sickened by the fact that we are going from this to that ...

Eight! I'm Eight!!

And I scarcely feel a day over seven!

But it's true, this little blog thing started eight years ago today! And it's still here, and I still like, and people still read it and so, yeah, I'm eight!

I started small and ... well, here's that first post:

Newbie

I'm new to this blog thing, but I do love to talk and I do have an opinion—hell, I have thousands of opinions—so I guess that's as good a place to start. 

Let's talk about.........Me!

I am a happily-partnered gay male, and I have been with the love of my life for the last eight years. We met online in an AOL chatroom—no, not THAT kind of chatroom—and became IM friends, and then email friends, and then phone friends and then friends across the country and then I went from California to Miami to meet him, and that was that.

A few months later I'd left California and settled in Miami—talk about culture shock! We stayed in Miami for about six years until Carlos—the aforementioned partner—accepted a job in Smallville, South Carolina, and we loaded up the truck and moved to....well, not Beverly Hills, but Smallville. A small town. A cute town. A town full of nice people who didn't seem at all peeved that the newest arrivals were a couple of mo's from Miami.

That's a start, I think. More to come.....I hope.

My how things have changed since then ... so let's take a moment and look at some facts about ISBL:

This is post 7,540 ... sheesh I talk a lot; that's almost two-and-one-half posts a day though i wonder what I said on half a post???

There are three hundred followers, though thankfully not all of them comment because that would be insane to keep up with.

From May 2010 ... cuz that's when I started counting ... until this morning, I have been visited by 2,858,754 people.

The most popular post on this blog is, strangely, Steve Kornacki Comes Out which has been viewed almost 11,000 times; seriously. It has 3,000 more hits than the second most popular post, Happy Birthday Joan Van Ark.

Seriously; that's my Top Two!

My audience ... now that’s funny ... is mostly from the US, followed by Germany, Russia—does Putin know a lot of Russians are reading a gay man’s blog?—Canada, the UK, and the Ukraine, Australia, Poland and The Netherlands. Quite the mixed bag, I think.

But I thank all of them, all of you, for coming by to check on what I have to say whether it's political, social, architectural, fashionable, or just some stories about me and Carlos and our furry family.

Thanks.

Architecture Wednesday: Floating Eaves House

This house looks like a tropical resort home miles away from anywhere ... and then you head out back to find you're a lot closer than you think.

HomeDSGN

Architecture Wednesday: Miami River House

The design for this house relies on a back-to-the-basics approach and a study of architectural models like the Dog Trot, which for well over a century, has been a dominant image representing what is called Florida Cracker architecture.

The small, simple, and practical building is both modest and rich; it attempts to maximize efficiency, space, and energy; relies on vernacular building materials, and celebrates the balmy breezes.

The homes is elevated five feet off the ground, and includes 100 feet of uninterrupted glass — 50 feet spanning the full length of both the front and back of the house, with four sets of sliding glass doors that allow the house to be entirely open when desired. The house also includes 800 square feet of outdoor living space, with both front and back porches; there are full shutters along the front façade for added privacy and protection against the elements.

These details, and the position of the house, set at the center of a 330-foot long lot, allow the house to meld seamlessly with the site’s dense and lush native landscaping.

It’s small, but it’s wide open, and set in amongst these trees and vines, it’s almost the perfect place to escape.

Home DSGN

Minute Rant: Ageism

Impulse Group South Florida is a community outreach group dedicated to spreading HIV awareness and education throughout Miami-Dade County and South Florida. And as most groups do, they hold fundraisers throughout the year to raise money to promote their cause.

Sadly, this group’s recent fundraiser  wasn’t so welcoming.

The group hosted a massive pool party in Miami meant to spread word about the recently renovated Vagabond Hotel, a local landmark. The party was free to the public … if you were under forty years of age.

Yes, up to thirty-nine-and-364-days old and you could just saunter right in, but once you cracked the big four-oh-my-god you had to pay a $50 cover fee.

Wrong on so many levels, but when you consider the party was being promoted, and hashtagged, on Instagram and Twitter with #JudgmentIsDirty, many felt as if judgment, and ageism, were in full effect.

Since the pool party, many angry members of Miami’s LGBT community have taken to Impulse’s Facebook page expressing their concerns that the organization is more interested in throwing parties that cater to the young rather than addressing the health needs of the community as a whole.

Impulse responded in a press release:

“The primary strategy is to organically establish a following of socially active, young gay men through engagement at large, organized events, such as Evolution, which occurred in Miami on April 18. The purpose of events like Evolution is to create a lively, fun atmosphere where these men can interact while simultaneously being exposed to information about HIV in a non-judgmental environment.”

Now, Impulse also suggests that tiered pricing for community — free for the youngsters, fifty bucks for the oldsters — is done because the younger, less economically established gays would benefit from discounted tickets.

Oh that all sounds so PC, but I have a suggestion. Rather than charge the Over-Forties fifty bucks to enter, and the Under-Forties nothing, maybe lower the price to twenty bucks for everyone? Then everyone feels equal, less judged — based on age — and more apt to want to attend.

Not the right move, Impulse. Good cause, bad execution.

The Trip ...

… in brief ... kinda.

We load up Carlos’ car—we always use his on trips or long drives because it gets better gas mileage than mine—and as I back it out of the garage and start up the driveway I notice a light on the instrument panel. What’s that? We look it up in the owner’s manual and it’s the dreaded ‘Check Engine’ light. 

Now, I know it could mean anything but I don’t wanna drive all the way to Florida with a ‘Check Engine’ light on, and then Carlos, ever the drama queen, raises his hands to the Heavens and mutters, ‘The universe does not want us to go to Florida! What are we gonna do?’ I turn to him and say, ‘If only we had access to a garage nearby that had another car in it that we could use at the last minute … like my car!’

Car unloaded; other car loaded. Off we go. My car, which averages about 100 miles per week in travel — Hey, I live about 4 miles from my job — packs on nearly 1500 miles in one week, and she did a stunning job of it. When we lived in Miami I had a very compact car, perfect for whipping in and out of the horrid SoFla traffic, but I loved how easy it was to tool around town in my SUV. Daddy was a proud car owner.

Traffic. It was about eleven-and-a-half hours down to Miami, but the last two hours were spent driving about forty miles because of cars and cars and car accidents.

Luckily, we made it, checked into our room at the Dorchester and then headed to Lincoln Road mall and the Van Dyke Café. It’s where Carlos and I had our first breakfast after our first night together and we’d visited many times while living in Miami. 

The café is on the bottom floor of a Spanish style office building, so easy to spot and there it was! Except the bottom floor was no longer the Van Dyke Café but a retail store; a mother-effing retail store! The lease had been lost because Lincoln Road is becoming Rodeo Drive and cafes are out, and high-end retail is in.

My devastation was short-lived because we found another café and it served an authentic Cuban Sandwich. And I love a Cuban Sandwich … along with a glass of Albariño—a perfect light and dry Spanish white wine. I could almost forgive the closing of the Van Dyke … almost.

After a good night’s sleep and breakfast at the hotel we wandered along Collins and Washington Avenue. Lots of people, and a sprinkling of rain, but it was nice to be back down there. I love the architecture, both old and new.

My first job after moving was at the Lowe’s Miami Beach Hotel, and it is still an impressive building — one of the first new buildings on the beach in some fifty years — though it appears almost monolithic compared to the much older, original Art Deco Hotels that line the beach. 

But I also loved the Art Deco hotels, the smaller hotels … and then we came upon the soon-to-open, though it doesn’t look like it, Hyatt South Beach; a bunch of glass boxes stacked atop one another. Very cool.

Speaking of architecture, I was shocked at how much the downtown skyline has changed. When I first moved there, the Freedom Tower in downtown was clearly visible; not the tallest structure but always easy to spot. Now? Not so much. Condos, condos, condos. My how Miami has grown.

And with it the traffic! Oy! The traffic. We talked with a  friend at her job, and she said that while she lives just nineteen miles from her office, each night, every night, it takes her two hours to get home … nine-and-a-half miles an hour. She freaked when Carlos and I each said our nighttime commute was about ten minutes … with traffic!

We met up with old friends — some we hadn’t seen even long before we moved — and had dinner with a friend from New York City who was visiting Miami for a few months; good food, good times.

That’s one long ass drive down there and one even longer ass drive back home … well, it felt longer coming home because …

Never … NEVER … allow Carlos to navigate. There is a beltway around Jacksonville and on the way down it was getting to be rush hour in Jacksonville so I took the beltway; still a lot of traffic, but no dead stops along the way. On the way home, we got to Jacksonville around noon and say … to myself  … ‘Should I take the beltway again?’ Carlos says we should drive through the city because it’s noon and how bad could the traffic be at noon. We’re in two miles and dead stop; stuck in traffic for fifteen minutes until I found an exit, got off the freeway, got back on going in the other direction, and then went back to the beltway and took it again. Lesson learned: Take.The.Beltway.

I do like Miami, to visit. I don’t know if I could ever get used to that traffic again; but the weather — except for hurricanes — and the food — except for the cafes that are now closed — and the architecture are really cool.

Maybe we’ll visit again when we head down to Key West … fingers crossed. Now there’s a town in Florida I wouldn’t mind calling home!