From Terry DeCarlo at Broward House:
Gallery | 26th and final White Party at Vizcaya
About 2,000 celebrants packed the 26th and final White Party at Vizcaya fundraiser for Care Resource, South Florida's largest AIDS/HIV service agency.
Here are a few photos from the event. Click any of the pictures to view a larger gallery.
All photos by STEVE ROTHAUS / Miami Herald Staff.
'Wishing You a Very Gilda Christmas' starring David Leddick, Kley Tarcitano runs Dec. 9-11 at The Manor
News release from Vincent Colonna Jr.:
“WISHING YOU A VERY GILDA CHRISTMAS”
Starring David Leddick as Gilda and Kley Tarcitano as the Naked Elf
THE MANOR
2345 WILTON DRIVE
WILTON MANORS, FLORIDA 33305Manor Hotline 954-626-0082
Thursday December 9th, Friday December 10th and Saturday December 11th 2010
7:30 PM
General Admission Tickets $20 or VIP Tickets $35
Online Tickets @ brownpapertickets.com/event/136281
Call for tickets 1-800-838-3006
Show your ticket and receive a 10% discount on food only at The Manor restaurant day of show.
Gilda just couldn't stay away any longer. She's back for Christmas at the Manor with new holiday songs, and some new dresses (Thank God!). She'll tell you all about her years in Hollywood, on Broadway, on television. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you won't believe a word of it!
David Leddick has also written four musicals with Andrew Sargent as composer: “The Secrets of the Chorus”, “Quentin and I”, “Presenting Gilda Lilly” and “ESCORTS.” He starred in the musical “It’s A Fabulous Life”, which played to sold-out crowds at the Broward Center of the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale and the Colony Theater in Miami Beach. He has appeared in the world premiere of the “11 O’clock Number”, as well as Terrance McNally’s “Some Men”, both at the Rising Action Theater in Fort Lauderdale. And most recently in the double-bill “Mr. Charles currently of Palm Beach” by Paul Rudnick and “Mexico City” which he wrote.
David Leddick is known world-wide for his novels and homoerotic art books. The author of the Lambda Award-winning books: “Naked Men” and “The Male Nude”, David Leddick has published no less than 20 works. His books are available for purchase at Amazon.com.
THE MANOR is a new addition to Wilton Manors ever growing community. THE MANOR features a sophisticated yet comfortable ambiance, classic tavern cuisine, an ultra lounge, a night club, a martini bar and a theater space. A combination of vintage style and cosmopolitan sophistication engulfs the theater. The two level theater is adorned with an abundance of huge chandeliers, a covered outside arcade with a Polynesian flavor, a large performance stage & the best of the best in sound & lighting.
David Kingery, Miami’s in-demand director, is directing the show. This is his third collaboration with Mr. Leddick having directed "Quentin and I" and "ESCORTS." He is currently Artistic Director for Arts at St. Johns on Miami Beach and has been performing and directing in musical theater professionally in New York, Los Angeles and Miami for the past 15 years. He also was the founding Artistic Director for the South Beach Gay Men's Chorus.
Kley Tarcitano is a well know entertainer in his home city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He has performed on television and at the HSBC Brazil, Sao Paulo’s largest arena. Kley is making his 2nd appearance with in a David Leddick show having previously performed in “Escorts.”
Composer Andrew Sargent has also written the music for “The Secrets of the Chorus,” a backstage-backstabbing musical romp, and “It’s a Fabulous Life.” His scores are featured in the mini-musical about Quentin Crisp titled “Quentin and I” and the starry-eyed Hollywood fable “Presenting Gilda Lilly.” And of course he wrote the score to the South Florida all performances sold out “ESCORTS.” Sargent studied music at the University of Montevallo, Alabama.
V. J. Colonna is the manager for Mr. Leddick and Mr. Sargent. His production company, V. J. Colonna Productions, Inc., produced “Presenting Gilda Lilly” “Quentin and I”, “The Secrets of the Chorus”, “ESCORTS”, and Mr. Leddick’s cabarets: “David Leddick at the Deauville,” “The Littlest Review,” and “Let’s Fall In Love.”. He also produced Steven Sondheim’s “Company” starring Polly Bergen at the Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach. He is a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT.org) Photo Credit: David Vance
Troops buck historical trend by saying gays OK
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- When a majority of troops told the Pentagon this summer they didn't care if gays were allowed to serve openly in the military, it was in sharp contrast to the time when America's fighting forces voiced bitter opposition to accepting racial minorities and women in the services.
The survey, due out Tuesday, is expected to find pockets of resistance among combat troops to ending the ban on gays. But some 70 percent of respondents were expected to say that lifting the ban would have a positive or mixed effect, or none at all, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The study is expected to set the stage for a showdown in the Senate between advocates of repealing the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" law and a small but powerful group of foes in the final days of the lame-duck Congress.
Repeal would mean that, for the first time in U.S. history, gays would be openly accepted by the military and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.
U.S. troops haven't always been so accepting. Troop surveys conducted throughout the 1940s on blacks and Jews, and in the 1970s and 1980s on women, exposed deep rifts within a military that was dominated by white males but becoming increasingly reliant on minorities to help do its job.
In a study from July 1947, four of five enlisted men told the Army that they would oppose blacks serving in their units even if whites and blacks didn't share housing or food facilities.
The same study also revealed a deep resentment toward Jews. Most enlisted men said Jews had profited greatly from the war and many doubted that Jews had suffered under Adolf Hitler.
"Negro outfits should be maintained separately," an Army master sergeant from North Carolina told the Pentagon in 1947. "To do otherwise is to invite trouble and many complications. The equal rights plan should not be forced on the Army as an example to civilians."
Troops also offered dire predictions for what would happen if whites and black units were forced to serve together.
"For sure, all the GIs will quit the Army or buck like hell to get out," a 20-year-old Army private first class told the surveyors. The service members were quoted anonymously in the 1947 study.
Added another 19-year-old soldier: "If the Negro and the whites were mixed, there would be a civil war among the troops. There would be a lot of useless bloodshed if this happens."
But President Harry S. Truman issued a 1948 order on equal treatment of blacks in the services anyway - paving the way for integration during the Korean War. None of these doomsday scenarios came true.
It wasn't until Vietnam, when racial tensions in the civilian world bubbled over into the military, did race riots erupt in all four military branches.
By the 1980s, the military faced the issue of whether to allow women to serve on Navy ships and elsewhere on the battlefield. Troops were generally much more open to serving with women than they had been to serving with African-Americans 40 years prior. Still, many expressed serious concerns that allowing females as crew members would cause problems.
In one 1981 study, lower-ranking enlisted sailors blamed female crew members for a decline in "discipline, leadership and supervision."
As was the case in racial integration, letting women serve aboard ships and, eventually, on combat aircraft, didn't always go smoothly.
In 1990s, the Navy became embroiled in the "Tailhook" scandal in which naval pilots were accused of sexually abusing female officers at a Las Vegas convention. Also, about two dozen female service members were reportedly sexually assaulted during Desert Storm, when U.S. troops helped drive Iraq's Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.
Women are still barred from many combat roles, including the infantry. But allowing women to join most military units never produced the kind of backlash or decline in military effectiveness that opponents predicted.
By the time President Bill Clinton proposed allowing gays to serve in the military in 1993, gays had been explicitly barred from military service since World War I.
Foes of lifting the ban argued that the military shouldn't be used to expand the rights of gays and that allowing them to serve openly would hurt troop morale and a unit's ability to fight - the same arguments used against women and blacks.
In the end, Congress agreed to let gays serve only if their sexual orientation remained secret.
Today, advocates say they believe history has shown that U.S. troops could handle any disruptions caused by lifting the ban. Opponents of repealing "don't ask, don't tell" say letting gays serve openly in the military is different from earlier struggles over the equality of race and gender. Open gay service, they say, raises unique moral questions, such as whether gay and straight troops should be forced to share living quarters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was expected to try to force a vote in early December, following testimony by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and service leaders before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday and Friday. The House has passed the legislation.
Much of the debate is likely to hinge on the results of the Pentagon study, with many senators saying they wanted to see whether troops would support such a change before voting for repeal. Still, it's far from clear whether the bill would even advance to a floor debate with Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on procedural grounds.
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Online:
Gates transcript when review panel announced: http://tinyurl.com/28e2cb5
Gay-rights advocate U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to head House Foreign Affairs Committee
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer
In an expert stroke of political spin, she immediately sent out a press release explaining the apparent snub as a mix-up.
Meet Florida U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American to serve in Congress and the next in line to head the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The phone incident occurred in late 2008 as the president-elect reached out to potentially friendly Republicans and shortly after a radio host fooled Sarah Palin by impersonating the president of France on the phone. But it was vintage "Ily," as she is known in Washington: frank, almost irreverent, yet imbued with an underlying seriousness and political savvy.
It also was a reminder that Ros-Lehtinen, 58, presents an increasingly rare image these days - a politician occasionally willing to work across the aisle. The legislator, who was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote, is a hawk on foreign affairs but breaks with her party on immigration, gay rights and other issues important to the people she represents - Cuban-Americans, gays, a strong Jewish community.
California Democrat Howard Berman, who will surrender the Foreign Affairs Committee chairmanship in January, cautioned those who mistake Ros-Lehtinen's enthusiasm and pleasantness for weakness.
"People greatly underestimate her skill and tenaciousness," he said.
Under her watch, the committee is expected to push for stepped-up sanctions against North Korea and Iran, more oversight of the U.N. and a block on any dialogue with Cuba. As a strong abortion foe, Ros-Lehtinen also may try to chip away at the president's executive order allowing foreign aid for international groups that provide information about abortion services.
"I think she is going to be very active on Latin America and oversight, making sure the administration is enforcing sanctions," Berman said.
Ros-Lehtinen fled Cuba with her family at age 7. She taught elementary school, then started running her own school. She was in the Florida Legislature for six years before winning election to the U.S. House in 1989, her bid brokered by legendary Cuban-American political king-maker Jorge Mas Canosa. She completed her doctorate in education while serving in Congress.
The mother of two children and two stepchildren with her husband, former U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen, is still best known for her staunch support of the U.S embargo against the communist island.
"I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro," she told an interviewer in a 2006 British documentary.
Ros-Lehtinen is outraged by Cuba's membership on the United Nation's Human Rights Council along with China and Saudi Arabia and would like U.S. contributions to the U.N. to be voluntary until the U.S. creates an office to audit U.N. activities for transparency and eliminate waste.
"The U.N. functions very well for Iran and Venezuela, and every two-bit dictator who's envious and hates the United States," she told The Associated Press. "But for countries that contribute a lot to the U.N., I don't think people really feel like it's really living up to the standards which we set for it at it's founding."
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and 2012 presidential hopeful, lauds Ros-Lehtinen for bringing a strong anti-communist and anti-dictator position to her analyses. "She will bring clarity," he predicts.
Critics counter that she has too much of an "us versus them" mentality that doesn't allow for gray areas when it comes to those who don't always agree with the U.S.
"She looks more to converting," said Peter Hakim, president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
"But the notion that first you convert someone and then you deal with them in the real world doesn't seem to work," he said. "There are lots of countries we have sharp differences with, but we accommodate those differences."
Ros-Lehtinen is tired of groups that complain the U.S. is not doing enough abroad and is among those who have criticized Obama for publicly acknowledging the nation's past support of friendly but undemocratic regimes.
"We have to do more with less and work in a smarter way to advance America's interests - and that's not advancing the world's interest," she said.
But she has also spoken out about human rights violations in East Timor, Tibet and Darfur and called attention to women's rights in Afghanistan.
One place she doesn't see the need for cuts is aid to Israel. Her support is crucial in a district that is home to one of the nation's largest communities of Holocaust survivors. It is also personal. Ros-Lehtinen, now an Episcopalian, was raised Catholic, but her mother's family were Jews who immigrated to Cuba from Turkey.
Although Ros-Lehtinen mostly toes the Republican line, she has bucked the party on occasion.
She's one of only a few Republicans who voted to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring gays from serving openly.
Ros-Lehtinen receives strong ratings from environmental groups, and she opposes the new Arizona immigration law while supporting a federal proposal to allow qualified teen illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military to become U.S. citizens.
Her stances aren't surprising in a district that includes parts of Miami's Little Havana and the tourist-dependent and gay friendly Miami Beach and Florida Keys. Ros-Lehtinen's eldest child is a gay rights activist.
It was that independence which helped prompt Obama's call.
But Ros-Lehtinen is mindful that she represents the Foreign Affairs Committee and the broader Republican Party. She says she won't use her position to advance personal causes.
On her office wall is a photo of Ros-Lehtinen eagerly clasping Obama's hand.
But those who seek too much meaning in the shot should take notice. She took a similar photo with President Bill Clinton shortly after voting for his impeachment.
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Online:
House Foreign Affairs Committee's GOP site: http://republicans.foreignaffairs.house.gov
Saxophonist Dave Koz brings holiday show -- and message of hope for gay youths -- to Broward
BY STEVE ROTHAUS, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com
"The song couldn't come off the way it does if you have somebody with a huge confident voice,'' says Koz, 47, who's gay, single and still seeking a nice man to sing it to. "Perhaps some day in the future.''
Koz, who performs Monday night at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, describes the Burt Bacharach-Hal David song as "a message of love.''
During the recording session, Koz says he ad-libbed the final line, which you must listen carefully to hear: "I sang, 'I'm in love with this guy.'''
He says the song, on his Hello Tomorrow album, is particularly relevant today. "We have so many messages coming at us right now -- intolerance and hate. The song is about being OK and being vulnerable to telling a person how we feel.''
Koz came out publicly in a 2004 Advocate magazine interview.
"I made the worst out of it, I was afraid my career would end,'' the Grammy-nominated performer says. "All the changes I thought would happen, none of them happened. The only thing that changed was me. I just became a much happier person.''
Koz -- global ambassador for Starlight Children's Foundation, a group that helps entertain sick youngsters and their families -- says he can relate to the recent news stories about young gay people who've killed themselves.
"If it wasn't for the saxophone, it could have been me,'' he says. "The saxophone saved my life. It helped me get the emotions out that I couldn't find the words for.''
Things should be better today for young gay people, Koz says, but perhaps they're not.
"Even with those positive images and portrayals, we're seeing kids being bullied and taking their own lives,'' he says. "There's still a disconnect, work that can be done. You can have the most wonderful portrayals, but it is still an individual's journey that has to be done on their own terms.''
Koz's Broward show, his annual A Smooth Jazz Christmas, also features singer-guitarist Jonathan Butler, instrumentalist Brian Culbertson and Dutch saxophonist Candy Dulfer.
The performance will be about 60 percent Christmas music, Koz says, "which is odd for a nice Jewish boy like me, go figure.''
IF YOU GO
Dave Koz & Friends appear 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29, at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Tickets $35-$65.
www.browardcenter.org or 954-462-0222.
Pearl's Rainbow, Key West's landmark lesbian guesthouse, goes 'all-welcome' -- allows men
BY CAMMY CLARK, cclark@MiamiHerald.com
KEY WEST -- Guests lounge around the pool at Pearl's Rainbow, soaking up the sunshine and tropical vibes typical of a Southernmost guesthouse. Not a man is in sight -- and that's the way these vacationers like it.
But over this Thanksgiving weekend, Key West's only lesbian-exclusive resort is going ``all welcome.''
The decision was made public about the same time Pearl's Rainbow was honored in October by Curve, the best-selling lesbian magazine, as the guesthouse that had the greatest impact on lesbian culture over the past 20 years.
Pearl's Rainbow's lesbian owner, Heather Carruthers, said it was a business decision based on tough economic realities, the request of some lesbian guests who would like to bring male family members or friends -- and on some good news. Lesbians are being more accepted and feel more comfortable in the mainstream these days.
``They can hold hands wherever they want to,'' Carruthers said. ``It's really the world we want to have. We don't necessarily want to be segregated.''
But that does not seem to be the case for gay men, even in super-gay-friendly Key West, a city of about 25,000 with a gay police chief, gay president of the Rotary Club, more than 400 members of its gay chamber of commerce and several elected gay officials -- including Carruthers, a Monroe County commissioner.
