The hills are alive . . .

. . . with the sound of send-up.

If that's Randy Thompson, Bobby Nesbitt and Mark Watson, it's got to be "Broadway 3-Ways" at La Te Da's Crystal Room, and the denimhosen means it's got to be "The Sound of Music."

And so it was on Saturday night, and we laughed and applauded, with Mary-something (Lou? Jane? Francis? I can never remember, so I think of her as Big Red Lips) on our right, and then went downstairs and Debra sang and Patrick played (they're finally back) and we drank too much rum, so we danced with BRL until our feet fell off.

The view from lunch

Saluté is one of our favorite spots -- a fine sea breeze and great views ringside at the volleyball pitch on Higgs Beach (if you can ignore the crazy Frisbee man), with dozens of bikers, runners and walkers streaming down the asphalt path by the front gate.

The food's been indifferent in the last year, and so was the former owner's attitude toward his lease payments (the county owns the land). So it was a great relief when Richard, who owns Blue Heaven over in the Village, got the county's blessing to take the place over a month or so ago.

They were still on the old menu the last time we dropped by, but today there was the new lineup. Gone was my beloved sausage sandwich; but the Tuscan white bean soup was still there, along with the orzo as a side dish (now warm, and better than ever). And now: burgers, shrimp salad, a roast chicken sandwich. . . .

Richard was buzzing around the place, bussing the occasional table before he dashed off to play the host in Nutcracker Key West out at the college.

When I lamented the loss of the sausage, he assured me I sould try meatballs the next time: better marinara and homemade meatballs (the previous owner served store-bought -- who knew?).

It's an offer I can't refuse.

Pearls, rubies, amethysts

The day for it

So here I am, thankful for Robert and Lou and Bam and Ken and Ben and Nita and Jim and . . . cousins and friends and laughmates and strangers with kindness, and for my Mom's health and BJ's making sure she keeps it, and for Mom's friends and . . .

We find ourselves at Alice's. Not the restaurant she's had for the last few years on Duval, but at La Te Da, just about across the street, where she made her stand on the island. She's back, and so are we, and so is Christine, the server who knows us all too well.

And I have a dirty martini, but not filthy; and Robert has a filthy martini, but not dirty (it's all in the blue cheese in the olives). And because it's Thanksgiving I have turkey with dressing instead of lacquered duck, which Robert has. I thought a nice pinot noir would do well with both, and it did.

It's our first real night out for dinner in maybe two months, money being what it is. And we're thankful that we have what we do, and raise a glass to survival.

Star-spangled, anyway

We went to the Waterfront Playhouse the other night for their gala season opener -- much along the lines of last year's great show, but instead of a full program of Sondeim greats, it was more than two dozen favorites from past seasons of every theater on the island (plus the opera, plus the symphony).

And it was, as ever, spectacular.

This is not a picture from that event. This is from a couple nights later -- Aqua Idol, patterned on the TV show I've never seen, and benefiting a local women's shelter.

It was Elvis night, and everyone had to do a number from the King.

The talent level was -- well, let's just say you'd hear better at the playhouse, even though it was dark that night.

A bit cool

Our little cold spell has made everyone bundle up.

It's been in the low 60s at night on and off for two weeks now, and sometimes the highs only get to 70. That may seem warm to most people, but when you're used to the 80s, you aren't surprised seeing jackets, sweaters, sweats and scarves around town, especially if they're adding to the wind by riding a scooter.

Unfortunately, it's also meant not seeing our outdoor shower much. It's quite liberating to bathe in the sunshine -- screened by a fence, some fishtail palms and other green barriers -- but not when the temperature doesn't cooperate.

Here's the view toward the street (click the picture to see the big, rubbery trumpets our privacy vine puts out), and though the afternoon light is lovely, I need some heat as well.

Man about town

In Tennessee, I've seen our letter carrier maybe three times in five years -- understandable, with a half-mile to the mailbox; she's driven up through the gates those few times with special deliveries, though.

Here, it's quite a different story. I saw Isabel, our carrier on Simonton, several times a week -- usually wheeling her little cart along the streets and always good for a smile. One time, after she'd dropped off a package notice, I saw her on the street and we hiked three blocks to her van in the rain so she could get me the box.

Now I chat with Ronnie, who takes care of our neighborhood, almost every day. He sees me and waves, and by the time he's at the gate I'm off the porch, and it's a hand-delivery and a review of current events, on the street and in the world.

Last week he was there before I could get up: He was testing a little electric cart for urban use. He gave it a thumbs-down: "I need the exercise."

Honk if you love fine art

Back to nature

It's been a while since I've done a flower picture, so I thought I'd share this blossom I found along Whitehead Street the other day.

It's obviously a passionflower, though I didn't know they grew here. The Wiki entry for passiflora says they're native to the Keys; I sure knew they're native to Tennessee.

Last summer I had Brenda, who works on the farm, dig up a few before we cut the hay, so we could get them trailing up the trellises, free fill-ins for the clematis that we paid for a decade ago. She says they've rooted nicely, and should be ready to plant in the spring.

Given their clinginess (note the spiral off to the right), they shouldn't have any problem making it up and over the arches.

Fiat lux

The other day I mentioned the light in the stairwell and referred to the prisms downstairs.

Well, here they are.

We're going to have to figure out how to start throwing dinner parties in midafternoon. (Think of the money we'd save on candles!)

Click on the picture to get the full effect.

¡Obamanos!

I got a note from Rachel today, and it reminded me that I had yet to post this shot of the three amigos from the Obama office here: Dan, the county field organizer; Bob, a volunteer who came down from Chicago for almost all of the campaign; and Rache herself.

Bob was my Cicero on my first day there, knocking doors and sharing stories of our common ties to the City by the Lake. I'm looking forward to the holidays, when he's coming back with his wife, Joan.

As for Dan: What a bundle of nerves, energy and talent. A degree in political science from USC and a plan to go to grad school in conflict resolution and human rights? Perfect for politics (though his taste in scotch will be a bit above his income).

And as for Rachel: At 17, she got her parents' permission to come down to Key West as a staff intern even though it's her crucial senior year in high school, months when she could have been racking up grade points and submitting college admissions instead of artfully managing an office full of volunteers. That's nerve, and faith, I can believe in.

Bob had already left by Election Day, but I asked Dan and Rache when they'd last had a home-cooked meal -- and it turned out to have been August. So we had them over late that week for a farewell dinner, complete with good scotch for one and chocolate mousse for the other. If I'd had rubies, they'd have been on the menu, too.

Seward's follies

Yes, that's a sculpture based on Van Gogh's "The Landlady," and the cavorting couple are Robert's cousin Clara and her boyfriend Philip.

That sculpture, along with a two-story version of "American Gothic" outside and a half-dozen pieces inside, make up Seward Johnson's "Icons" show at the Art and History Museum in the old Custom House. The idea is to present iconic art pieces in 3-D that you can get inside and interact with.

In many ways, Johnson, who lives near the Southernmost Point here, was scratching a kitsch, but it's a fun show. I mean, where else can you give a hooter honk to a Naked Maja, complete with beaded curtain at the installation's entrance, or dandle the pearl earring on a Vermeer (I gave her a classic rabbit-ears), or mug it up by trying to make your smile inscrutable?

Quite a full day, in the usual Key West way -- shopping for dirty T-shirts on Duval, dining with the chickens, ogling Fast-Buck Freddie's, having drinks with a Masterpiece Theater producer and being warned by Gail the Tango Dancer that we had a bad tail light.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Busy signal

Argh. Have meant to post, but Robert's cousin Clara and her boyfriend, Philip, arrived yesterday. Quite busy today -- but you should see some evidence of that soon.

Spot light

Twice a year, fall and spring, the light hits just right in midafternoon to illuminate a spot in the stairwell.

Downstairs, of course, it's the all-prisms light show that I noticed last year when the sun hits the dining-room chandelier with full force.

This one was more subtle -- or at least I hadn't noticed it until long after I put up a giclee of a picture I took at Mallory Square a year ago.

We all cheered

A few minutes into Saturday's equality rally, a couple who'd been married in San Francisco were telling what it was like to have a civil right removed by popular vote -- and then all eyes turned toward Ann Street.

A dozen or so kids from the high school's Gay- Straight Alliance were marching up, signs in hand and smiles on faces, to join the crowd. And those of us a generation (or two) ahead of them lifted a mighty cheer.

I mean, it was wonderful to have our former mayor there (Jimmy, over there on the right in the top shot), along with a few clergy, veteran activists from the ACLU and NOW, J.T. (who coined our island's "One Human Family" motto, and has distributed a million of its bumper stickers around the world), a score of other folks we knew and a few hundred we didn't -- gay, straight or uncategorized.

But that injection of young energy brought a shot of joy to the whole group. Robert had asked, as we were getting ready to walk up to the rally, "Are we gonna have to get this flag out every 31 years?" Right now, I don't think so.

When the rally ended, the Boomers mostly stayed around Old City Hall. The young-uns, and us, took our flags and pickets over to Duval, where the annual AIDS riders from Miami happened to be making their triumphal swing through Old Town. We cheered them, and they cheered us.

And, realizing that they'd cleared us a wonderful path, we followed by cyclists with an impromptu march up Duval. Bartenders rang their ships' bells, drivers honked and shouted and tourists on the sidewalks gave us grinning thumbs-ups as we chanted. Robert was all smiles: "Seeing this many young people show up. . . ." He just shook his head in amazement.

The kids kept going as we got to the 801, but we peeled away and had a cold drink. Age does have some privileges.

All together now

I'm getting ready for Saturday: At 1:30 our time, people coast to coast will be rallying to protest Prop 8 and Amendment 2. It's being organized at this site.

Locally, we're getting together at Old City Hall, and I've printed up some flyers to help get the word out.

I'm also dusting off my old Gadsden Flag -- "Don't Tread on Me" -- which I got specifically for Anita Bryant's Flag Day appearance at Medinah Temple at the height of her anti-gay crusade in 1977.

More than one activist has called this Stonewall 2.0.

Well, let's find out.

Oh, *now* I get it

Here's Sarah Palin, explaining her stance on Africa:

"My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

I love a parade

Veterans' Day is a big deal here, given the island's military history (Com- modore Porter's Anti-Pirate Squadron took charge in 1823; the Union held us tight during the Civil War; we were the Gibraltar of the Caribbean during World War II and I won't even get into the Cuban Missile Crisis) and current interests: the headquarters of Joint Interagency Task Force South, the Naval Air Station, a big Coast Guard facility.

So the parade is always a good one, and I got out my best red, white and blue shirt -- the "Key West for Obama" number, since opposing the war doesn't mean opposing the troops (check out VoteVets.org for some true snapshots in courage) -- and tootled over to Duval.

The shirt got more smiles and nods from the marching squaddies, swabbies, grunts and jarheads than I could have expected, and the high school's Marching Conchs choked me up likewise with their version of "America the Beautiful."

It was pretty big for our little island: 45 minutes of marchers from every service, floats, bands, vets, pipers, ex-POWs, scouts, auxiliaries and flags, flags, flags. I waved a tiny one that a Navy League guy was handing out, and I clapped and sang along.

It made me think of something from the Leonard Pitts column I quoted last week:

". . . We have loved America when America did not love us, defended America when it would not defend us, believed in American ideals that were larger than skies, yet never large enough to include us. We did this. For years unto centuries, we did this. Because our love for this country is deep and profound. . . ."

Playing catch-up

I figure it's time to move a few images of the last few weeks from my hard drive to here.

This is how the house looked for Fantasy Fest -- with rainbows of beads on both sides of the porch this year, and of course the campaign banner.

Some poor soul ripped it off late one night, but I had a replacement within hours. It was the talk of Citizens' Voice in the paper: Obama signs disappearing all across town.

But far more often, we'd get a wave, a honk or a thumbs-up. One great guy from New Mexico who was staying around the corner talked politics across the gate for maybe an hour one evening, and the next day we invited him and two friends over for drinks. When they left, at the end of the Fest, they brought over their leftover rum and wine.

We kept a big bag of leftover beads (aside from the trunk of our own accumulations over the years, sorted for the proper costume correlations) ready to toss from the porch. It's a great time.

'Hello, world!'

There's a scene I can't get out of my head, so I suppose the only way to exorcise it is to write about it.

It's from "The Wiz," Sidney Lumet's all-black musical version of "The Wizard of Oz." I remember going down to the State-Lake with Robert and Johnny Killebrew for the Chicago premiere in 1978. It blew me away then, as it did when I saw a 30th anniversary re-release a few months ago.

A deliciously long-stemmed Diana Ross sang and danced her heart out as Dorothy. And she had one hell of a supporting cast: Pre-weird Michael Jackson was the Scarecrow, Nipsey Russell the Tin Man, Ted Ross the Lion, Richard Pryor the Wiz. Lena Horne tore your heart up as Glinda, the Good Witch. (We'd seen Ross in the '75 stage version.)

It was a critical and commercial failure, but it did get four Oscar nominations, along with my perpetual admiration.

And the scene I can't get out of my head after Tuesday:

Evillene, the bad witch, has tortured the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion in her sweatshop, filled with grotesque slaves. When she threatens to toss Toto into a pot of fire, Dorothy hits the sprinklers. The witch dissolves. The slaves' ugly costumes split -- and out come lithe, supple folk in tones of brown and black, amazed at their real beauty. They dance joyously across their work benches, freed from their evil spell. It's a moment of exultation, to the tune of Luther Vandross' "Brand New Day (Everybody Rejoice)."

I can't post the video of that exuberant scene (Universal holds the copyright), but here's one from another fan who obviously gets it:

Lovely day for it

It was a glorious day, clear and breezy, so I napped.

Because it was the first day in about a month (which felt like a year) that I had:

-- No campaign.

-- No Fantasy Fest.

-- No houseguests.

-- No dinner guests.

-- No one coming for drinks.

-- No state funeral.

That last one was just yesterday, the all-island sendoff for Capt. Tony: fishing- boat captain, bar owner (his saloon was the site of the original Sloppy Joe's on Greene), raconteur, skirt-chaser (at least 13 children by his four wives and a few others), gun-runner, gambler, chain-smoker, onetime mayor -- literally, one two-year term, because everybody figured he could screw it up just about as well as anyone. (He said the hooker vote put him over the top.) And, until Nov. 1, living legend.

He packed an immense trove of experience into 92 years, and his saloon was one of the first gay-friendly bars in Key West, which may be why the Navy put it off-limits for a while. But his orientation was definitely elsewhere. Even into his early 90s, long after he'd sold the bar, he'd show up there to smoke, drink, tell how he discovered Jimmy Buffet and sign body parts for gleeful women.

So the Conch Republic declared a holiday, and held a street parade down Truman after his funeral at St. Mary's, which turned up Duval and into Greene into the street in front of Capt. Tony's Saloon, where there were bands and songs and a dove-release and much revelry.

Nothing like it since Captain Outrageous, a bird of a decidedly different color, was piped out early last year.

There was the police horse with empty boots in reversed stirrups. There was the full CR Navy brass in dress whites. There were the Defenders of Ft. Taylor, with the mounted cannon they fired. There was the CR Marching Band, complete with banjos. There was the Hon. Sir Peter Anderson, Secretary-General of the Conch Republic, sounding a shell and driving a pickup with a likeness of the captain in the truck bed.

We watched the parade and went to Mangoes for lunch, and I lifted a mojito to the guy.

Dedicated to the proposition . . .

That all men aren't created equal?

Here I go again, letting others do my work -- in this case a note from our friend Jim, who touches so eloquently on something I've not mentioned.

It is a subject doubly sad for me because a cousin, who visited us with his wife just last week, is a Baptist pastor from California who joyfully supported Proposition 8. We discussed it at length, along with my sadness at being considered a second-class citizen in his church and his vision of society -- and at this point I have yet to decide whether we ever have anything to speak about again.

But without further ado, here's Jim:

I read with both joy and sadness your wonderful blog entries about the election this week. I certainly share thoughts about the Obama victory in the face of the most incredible odds. Truly historic. It was hard not to feel the emotion behind those words of Change, Freedom, and Democracy. And I want to personally thank you for your efforts on foot, on the phones, and in your writing. You gave a damn and worked to make it happen. But I find my joy tempered here in California with the overturning of gay marriage via our Proposition 8.

It really has made some of those words ring a bit hollow for me.

It was an ugly campaign, filled with much misinformation and intolerance. We saw the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, and most of the Christian Churches from out of state come here with money and people to support overturning gay marriage. The commercials on TV were mean spirited and false. It was truly painful to watch, the outcome a bitter pill to swallow in the midst of the Obama victory. As they look closely at how the vote went, it was astounding to realize that of the persons of color who voted, 70% of Black and Hispanic voters supported the ban on gay marriage. Asians were more tolerant, with 30% of those who voted supporting the ban.

The gay community in California, much like you, came out in support of Obama. Some because of the man. Some because of the last eight years. Regardless, Obama's minority status played little if any into their decision for support. He was the right man. Not the wrong color. It was amazing then to see how the people of color voted against the rights of another minority. Sad.

Wednesday, after the election, I had jury duty. It was an uncomfortable moment for me to sit in the courtroom, listening to the judge speak of our rights as Californians and our duty as citizens to participate in the administration of justice. I looked around the courtroom and realized that I was asked to be equal to my fellow citizens in words only. Right now, as a domestic partner, my civil rights are considered "equal" by the supporters of the ban, but clearly separate.

So on the day Obama takes the oath of office I too will be humbled and inspired by his well-deserved victory. I too will be filled with pride and awe at what the citizens of this country were able to do. But I will also know, in my heart and soul, that I will be asked to sit just outside of those words called freedom, justice, and equality.
- - -

I could go on at great length about the dangers of government by referendum, the tyranny of the majority, the inevitability of justice. I will only report, gladly, that both Lambda Legal and the ACLU, to which we give what we can, have already filed challenges to Prop 8. I expect them to do the same here in Florida, where voters similarly supported Proposition 2, to "save" the family.

Donations to Lambda and the ACLU can be made here and here.

Civics lesson

The Obama team, whose change.gov website provides a roadmap to the presidential transition, brought me about my thousandth moment of choking up since the election.

The organization chart there, showing who reports to whom, puts the veep back in the Executive Branch, where he belongs.

But notice that magnificent listing at the top: The Constitution.

The Boss is coming back.

We the people

I am still at a loss for words, so I will share those of the extraordinary Leonard Pitts:

. . . In a sense, it is unfair -- to him, to us -- to make Tuesday's election about race. Whatever appeal Obama may have had to African Americans and white liberals eager to vote for a black candidate is, I believe, dwarfed by his appeal to Americans of all stripes who have simply had enough of the politics of addition by division as practiced by Karl Rove and his disciples, enough of the free-floating anger, the holiday from accountability, the nastiness masquerading as righteousness, the sheer intellectual dishonesty, that have characterized the era of American politics that ends here.

But in the end, after all that, there still is race.

And it would be a sin against our history, a sin against John Lewis and Viola Liuzzo, against James Reeb and Lyndon Johnson, against Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King, against all those everyday heroes who marched, bled and died 40 years ago to secure black people's right to vote, not to pause on this pinnacle and savor what it means. It would be a sin against our generations, against slaves and freedmen, against housemen and washerwomen, against porters and domestics, against charred bodies hanging in southern trees, not to be still and acknowledge that something has happened here, and it is sacred and profound.

For most of the years of the American experiment, ''we the people'' did not include African Americans. We were not included in ''we.'' We were not even included in ``people.''

What made it galling was all the flowery words to the contrary, all the perfumed lies about equality and opportunity. This was, people kept saying, a nation where any boy might grow up and become president. Which was only true, we knew, as long as it was indeed a boy and as long as the boy was white.

But as of today, we don't know that anymore. What this election tells us is that the nation has changed in ways that would have been unthinkable, unimaginable, flat-out preposterous, just 40 years ago. And that we, black, white and otherwise, better recalibrate our sense of the possible.

There was something bittersweet in watching Michelle Obama lectured on American pride this year, in seeing African Americans asked to prove their Americanness when our ancestors were in this country before this country was. There was something in it that was hard to take, knowing that we have loved America when America did not love us, defended America when it would not defend us, believed in American ideals that were larger than skies, yet never large enough to include us.

We did this. For years unto centuries, we did this. Because our love for this country is deep and profound. And complicated and contradictory. And cynical and hard.

Now it has delivered us to this singular moment. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States.

And we the people should be proud.

One word . . .

. . . to lift them all,
one word to find them;
one word to bring them all,
and in the morning bind them: