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<\/p>\nLast week, a friend was in an accident using my Los Angeles car \u2013 the favorite in my fleet of cars. He was OK, but the car was less fortunate. Eh, that\u2019s what insurance is for. But due to its age and the amount of damage, the insurance company wanted to total it. \u201cIt\u2019s old,\u201d said the adjuster. \u201cIt\u2019s not old,\u201d said my mechanic, \u201cit\u2019s a classic.\u201d Both words roughly mean the same thing, but have different connotations. Am I old? Sure \u2013 but like my mangled car, I\u2019m also a classic. I told the insurance guy I wasn\u2019t totaling it \u2013 she still has a whole lotta years left in her. If I have to pay for repairs out of pocket, so be it. They re-evaluated and decided to fix it. \u2018Cause it\u2019s a classic!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I returned to the glittering gay scene in South Beach for the Task Force<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s annual gala at the Miami Beach<\/em> Convention Center<\/em>. As you know, the National LGBTQ Task Force (TaskForce.org<\/a>) <\/em>fights discrimination, anti-gay legislation, and most importantly, helps people get out and vote. The gala honors people who support their mission, and this year the honorees were my pals Jim Tyrrell <\/strong>and Roger Thomson<\/strong>, along with Karamo <\/strong>from Queer Eye<\/em><\/strong>. Jai Rodriguez<\/strong>, a QE<\/em> OG, hosted alongside the irrepressible Ginger Minj<\/strong>. Athena Dion <\/strong>set the tone with her pre-show set. Powerhouse vocalist Frenchie Davis <\/strong>sang, and then joined Jai and company for a rendition of \u201cSeasons of Love\u201d from Rent<\/em><\/strong> (Frenchie and Jai did the show together on Broadway<\/em>). You can see that video on our website. SoBe royalty Edison Farrow <\/strong>and David Sexton <\/strong>made sure I met everyone. David even flew in his pal Kimberley Locke <\/strong>(more on her later). <\/p>\n I was seated next to the Real Housewives of Miami<\/em><\/strong>. Full disclosure \u2013 I\u2019ve never seen the show and didn\u2019t know who any of them were. But they were all lovely \u2013 in that vaguely Telemundo <\/em>sort of way. I was particularly drawn to the diminutive Adriana de Moura<\/strong>. She\u2019s one of the most gorgeous people I\u2019ve ever met, and has the most captivating eyes. During our chat, I was delighted to learn that we have something in common \u2013 a background as classical pianists. We may collaborate on something special in the near future. <\/p>\n The next day, many of the performers from the Task Force Gala <\/em>came out for the SAVE.LGBT Freedom Rally<\/em> <\/strong>at the Miami Beach Bandshell<\/em>. While I was unable to attend, I did get a video of Frenchie and Kimberley Locke joining forces on \u201cBand of Gold\u201d, which they first did during Hollywood Week <\/em>on American Idol<\/em><\/strong> way back in 2003. After over 20 years, they sound (and look) as good as ever. Well, they\u2019re classics \u2013 as you can see from the video on BillyMasters.com<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, a friend was in an accident using my Los Angeles car \u2013 the favorite in my fleet of cars. He was OK, but the car was less fortunate. Eh, that\u2019s what insurance is for. But due to its age and the amount of damage, the insurance company wanted to total it. \u201cIt\u2019s old,\u201d<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93159","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\/93159","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=93159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93176,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93159\/revisions\/93176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}