District Dive – & Afterward

This photo, because of the lighting and that word DIVE above Bob Farley’s head, is like a doorway into an alternate reality.

While  I was visiting Megan for a couple of days, we wee supposed to meet her  gay friend Bob for dinner one evening, but he had to work late, so we met for a drink after Megan and I had a bite to eat. He’s one of my favorite people, a Pisces with a big heart and a clear sense of who he is.

He suggested we head to District Dive, a gay bar a short distance from where we’d met up. So we did. Given all the attacks in Florida recently against gays and transgenders by our Fascist hungry governor Ron DeSantis, I was curious to find out what impact it may have had on this population.

The music was loud – a constant throbbing before you even step inside. The two men at the front door asked for IDs nd when I handed mine over, I said, “C’mon, really?”

They both sort of laughed ad held up my license the way a cop might. One of the men brought two fingers to his eyes like DeNiro in the movie Meet the Parents. We all laughed.  Except for a couple of men on the other side of the bar, I was probably the oldest person in there.

I loved it. People were who they are. It’ s like they were all letting our silly governor know that his stupid “Don’t say gay” rule for schools is just political grandstanding, that there is a huge gay community in Florida that VOTES. Hello, Ronnie boy. Guess hwere you’re going in the 2022 election?

The following weekend, Hurricane Ian slammed into the west coast of Florida.  And DeSantis, who voted against  federal aid for NY and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, begged Biden for federal help for the state he governed. Hypocrite. But Biden came through.

The problem is that Ian is Florida’s future. Climate change is here. DeSantis just can’t admit that yet.