{"id":6561,"date":"2020-03-15T20:53:01","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T03:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=6561"},"modified":"2020-03-15T20:53:01","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T03:53:01","slug":"gays-last-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2020\/03\/15\/gays-last-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Gays Last Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before embarking on a surgery that may (or may not) have taken my life, I had a last request \u2013 to attend the <strong><em>Winter Party <\/em><\/strong>in Miami.&nbsp; After all, I do have my priorities.&nbsp; Despite a worldwide pandemic, the gays showed up in record numbers for the <em>National LGBTQ Task Force<\/em>\u2019s annual event \u2013 which was subtitled \u201cLive Free.&nbsp; Play Hard.&nbsp; Give Back.\u201d&nbsp; What makes the <em>Winter Party <\/em>special is how inclusive it is.&nbsp; People were there of every age, sex, shape, and size (yes, I was checking sizes).&nbsp; Not only was there something for everyone, but the proceeds go back into the community \u2013 primarily on the local grassroots level.&nbsp; And it was probably the last major gay celebration for a while.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Days before my potential demise, <strong><em>gCircuit <\/em><\/strong>(Asia\u2019s largest gay circuit party) was cancelled.&nbsp; All eyes then turned to <strong>Jeffrey Sanker<\/strong>.&nbsp; What would happen to the iconic <strong><em>White Party <\/em><\/strong>in Palm Springs?&nbsp; Even as I was wheeled into pre-op (not the surgery I was anticipating), Sanker stated that he was monitoring the situation carefully.&nbsp; Shortly thereafter, the circuit impresario announced that the <em>White Party <\/em>would be postponed \u2013 to October 30<sup>th<\/sup> through November 2<sup>nd<\/sup>.&nbsp; Sure, give the gays a reason to come to Palm Springs over Halloween.&nbsp; A win\/win.<\/p>\n<p>The very first <strong><em>Pride of the Americas <\/em><\/strong>was scheduled to take place April 21-26, just a hop, skip and a jump away from the <strong><em>Filth2Go Beach House <\/em><\/strong>in Fort Lauderdale \u2013 which, after my demise, will surely become a shrine and destination for pilgrims wanting to venerate what few relics I left behind.&nbsp; Needless to say, it too was cancelled \u2013 or, rather, postponed.&nbsp; Another of my beloved organizations, <strong><em>Los Angeles Pride<\/em><\/strong>, has scuttled plans for their 50<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary due to the City of West Hollywood banning all public events with a capacity of over 100 through June 30<sup>th<\/sup>.&nbsp; New dates for these events will, hopefully, be forthcoming.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RuPaul<\/strong>\u2019s <strong><em>DragCon<\/em><\/strong>, which was scheduled to take place May 1-3 at the <em>Los Angeles<\/em> <em>Convention Center<\/em>, has been cancelled.&nbsp; As of now, the NYC installment is still a go in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before embarking on a surgery that may (or may not) have taken my life, I had a last request \u2013 to attend the Winter Party in Miami.&nbsp; After all, I do have my priorities.&nbsp; Despite a worldwide pandemic, the gays showed up in record numbers for the National LGBTQ Task Force\u2019s annual event \u2013 which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6562,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions\/6562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}