5.18.17 Editor’s Desk

It’s time for a glorious distraction. It’s time to look up and out of our socioeconomic boxes and tear-rusted cages to remind ourselves that we still know how to have fun, whether in red shirts or in swimming trunks that bear a startling resemblance to underwear. It’s time to remind ourselves of what has happened and what is yet to come for the LGBTQ community. In short, it’s time to party.

Though everything feels like it’s being viewed through a dilated pupil right now via our political refractions and their requisite reactions, there is still a lot to be happy about, and much of this issue of Watermark – our annual issue that pays tribute those days for the gays in early June – will throw confetti at your face and kiss you on your cheek, slipping you a number on a cocktail napkin and leaving with a sideways glance.

Seriously, for 27 years now, the GayDayS® brand, One Magical Weekend, Parliament House and any other LGBTQ venues around Central Florida have been throwing ice into the foam-party heat and making magic happen out of thin air and, by now, thin hair. This year, we need that blast of happiness more than ever for obvious reasons. Nothing recharges the mind and the self quite like dropping the cynicism for a minute and frolicking among friends in a pool or a theme park or a bar. Go home, rinse, repeat.

If you’re not from Orlando or its surrounding regions, then you may not know that we effectively have two Prides: one in June, one in October. June is when we go crazy from the heat, giggle a lot and generally test our boundaries of conviviality while running through the theme-park regimen; October is when we celebrate National Coming Out Day, which also includes a certain eclecticism, only it’s anchored by the seriousness of moving forward in the LGBTQ community writ large. Also, it’s not generally as hot.

Still, for that we’re lucky. We do have a gradient of acceptance embedded in our urban centers that allows us to celebrate ourselves and stand on the shoulders of the giants – and the shoulder pads of the stars – that brought us here to this precipice of near-equality.

But we also have our demons to keep at bay.

There are several disturbances in the force, if you will, that are peppered throughout this issue, because sometimes we stand off on the sidelines and just think about it all. Hearing the words of legend Harvey Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk at the 2017 Orlando Diversity Awards on May 12 brought tears to our eyes. This is all recent history. Our wounds have yet to completely heal.

And, as an aside, Orlando is struggling with its attachment to the Confederacy and the Civil War, though Orlando wasn’t really Orlando at the time of the fight. On May 15, dozens of people chose to stand in solidarity outside of City Hall with Confederate flags that, symbolically and historically, only represent hate. The issue was a statue – that of “Johnny Reb,” a seemingly fictitious John Doe erected to emblemize one of the darkest periods in American history. The statue will likely be moved from its current home in the middle of downtown to a cemetery, unfortunately above ground.

America, meanwhile, is dealing with the coded subtext of a presidency that is trading secrets with Russia, bringing back memories of another war – the Cold War – and leading even his own Republican Party to speak out against the President. Ann Coulter is on line one, Mr. President. She’s not happy.

That doesn’t mean that, at least for an extremely long weekend, we can’t be happy and we can’t exhale. The fights will wait for the elections. The fun is for now. That’s why we’ve invited Macy Gray – who will be playing the Parliament House in the big gay weekend – to the table, and phoned up Idina Menzel to talk about being Wicked and wonderful at the same time. Some serious news bits – historically conservative Rick Baker is making moves to become the mayor of St. Pete again, and the progressives don’t like it; OneBlood of Orlando is explaining its positions on the blood-donation ban for gay men as it uses Pulse survivors in its collateral – are here, too, because information is the new cocktail.

In our next issue, we’ll speak of the obvious: the anniversary of the Pulse massacre and how things have changed. For this issue, we’ll celebrate our otherness, don our red shirts and stare at the sun until we have to go back to work. We’ve got this. Now you go have some fun.