From: Papa Tony xxltony@crash.cts.com

I will be glad to be the first to admit in public that I'm terribly disappointed that Dean didn't win. Rats! Double Rats! We wanted BOTH of our leaders to win their new titles that they wanted so badly - Tiffany earned her title the hard way, and so did Dean, but even having a huge support-team (and having all of your ducks in a row) doesn't always mean that you get what we want.

And yet...

Many (many) years ago, I was laid off by a local bar that I working for, and I felt horrible about it, and so did they. I even cried with the shame and disappointment. About a year later, the same manager saw me on the street, and came right up and apologized for having had to let me go. I thanked him very gladly for having done so, and he was surprised. I said that he had done me a great favor, because that simple deed had been the final catalyst that catapulted me into the next phase. I was now working for myself at last, free and well-paid, and if I had been drudging at the bar the whole time, I never would have known what I was capable of.

Honestly, I can't say what this really has to do with Dean in an obvious way, because I'm quite sure he would have been a turbo-dynamo of an Emperor, and I was a truly crappy bartender. However, I'm sure that the Dean Martin Story is far from over. You don't have to look far to see the blessings that provide a silver lining to last night's events:

First of all, Tiffany's going to rule the roost! Yahoo! I'm going to spend some time getting to know Carlos and find out how we can all work together. I don't have to do this with Tiff, because we are all great buddies. If Tiffany had asked us to be in a production-number, rather than Dean, I'm thoroughly convinced that we would have jumped for the chance - Our team is that strongly bonded.

Last year, thanks to Dean and Tom Chavez, we had the first all-Leather table at the Imperial Court's Coronation Ball in many years, including Sir Alex before I knew her. That experience kicked THIS year's Coronation to an entirely different level, having over ten times as many leather-identified San Diegans in attendance. Remember how many folks stood up and screamed and applauded when Nichole acknowledged our participation? That was a MUCH bigger contingent than any of us ever expected, and it didn't happen by random chance...

I have just posted the pictures from the Coronation, and I want everybody to look closely at the "Production-Team" pictures. The pictures were almost never actually posed - they were shot "documentary-style", because I felt it was important to keep a historical memento of what actually happened.

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Castro/3758/Imperial-Coronation

Notice how few folks are smiling. Why? Because we were HYPER-FOCUSED. We were all there after spending money out of our own pockets for the privilege, and we had attended rehearsals for weeks, and one of us had even been fag-bashed and had arrived to work anyway. We all would have done the same thing, because the last thing any of us wanted was to LET THE TEAM DOWN.

Those somber looks on our faces hid our inner goals of paying attention to our cues, listening to Andrew, gathering around Dean, keeping nearby for anything that would have been needed. When Andrew needed something, or needed to communicate something, people snapped to attention. When it was time to gather around Dean and hold onto each other, all of the silly things that we tend to hold against each other were nowhere in the parking-structure around us, because we were a solid team - We believed 100% in what we were about to do, and nobody grumbled about the delays, except that we were really ready to go out there on-stage and kick some ass.

During the actual production-number, if anybody stumbled, had to adapt their routine or missed out on some detail, it was because things during the final show are always different than they were during the rehearsals - The same thing happened last year. In my case, there was a huge golden gown right there by my foot, waiting for my size-14 boot to come stomping and crushing it, so I had to adjust my aim. Some of the spirits got trapped between some really big outfits and tables, I heard that one sleeve refused to tear off, and so on. The point I'm making is that we all gave it 100%, and that needs to be said again and again. Nobody said "screw this - I'll do what I want to do". We played full-out.

People tend to vote with their feet - If something isn't deep-down true for them, they head over the nearest hill as soon as they can get away with it. What was true for me, was that I was there at that event with all of my heart. My husband Dennis grumbled the whole time, because he wanted me to spend more time with him, he was bored, and he wanted to be anywhere but there. He told me the next morning that I owed him a whole bunch of "boyfriend points" for having dragged him there. I had the opposite experience, because there was a dream in that building that bound me to my tribe.

I feel a little bit sorry for the folks who didn't have the same good times that we had, because it was a perfect example of what Mazlow describes as the peak of human experience - We all felt like we belonged, that our pals were counting on us, and that we all trusted each other to get the job done. We had the full estimation of our peers, and it doesn't get any better than that - No amount of money buys that sort of satisfaction.

As far as I'm concerned, we GOT the job done. We had a shared dream that was clearly expressed - We wanted both of our beloved compadres to win the titles of Empress and Emperor, and we received delivery of that dream directly from them. We gathered as a team of individuals, each of us having well-known personality quirks, which we suppressed in order to make the dream come true.

The mallet-swingers were each as thoroughly and definitively a mallet-swinger as the world ever contained, and they each did their job with pride and satisfaction. This was true for the wall-flies, the choir, the spirits, the sentries, and so on - It was fucking awesome to see the crowd's responses to what went on - We slayed 'em from wall-to-wall.

First of all, we had to deal with delay after delay, but I came to find out that the final delay (where we stood in the ballroom huddled around Dean for a long time) was a blessing, and intentional. Normally, stage-productions are given maybe three minutes to get their sets onstage and assembled before the routine begins. Nichole had watched our rehearsal, and she said that we could have as much time as we needed, and we surely needed it, if what I heard was true - Supposedly, the last few pieces of our props got put together, just seconds before the curtain opened!

Here's what I saw, from under the sheltering brim of my Master's Cap - I was never blinded by the spotlights, even though David and I were facing away from the stage and toward the audience:

When the spotlight hit Mark O'Keefe, and he SNAPPED that whip so loudly, every head in the room swiveled around toward him, and the crowd gasped and grew VERY quiet. They stayed quiet during the whole routine, except that they kept interrupting with cheers and applause when the music would hit quieter sections. There were about thirty people who dashed around to snap pictures from the central aisle, and the flashes were going off constantly.

As I saw during last year's production, the bantering and walking to-and-fro at the back of the room stopped absolutely dead - this was the only time during the five-hour event that I saw this happen. Every head turned around toward the stage, and nobody was blinking or talking - They just absorbed the whole entertainment from beginning to end. I'm glad the production only lasted five minutes, because the audience would have needed eye-drops from staring so intently for so long! Folks were looking around at our huge crowd of performers and trying to get the whole experience, and it appeared to be boggling their brains, judging from the gasps and applause. The last minute and a half was all applause and loud cheering, and it didn't stop.

After the production was over, we flew upstairs, yelling in sheer excitement over having done what we came for, and probably all berating ourselves in our hearts for having missed some minor detail. Nonetheless, we all did our jobs with impeccability and honor.

I'd like to place this event in historical perspective:

As I mentioned before about last year's Coronation Ball, it was not as well-populated with leatherfolk as this year's event. However, it was the first public, official appearance of what started out being jokingly called the "Non-Toxic Clique" (comprised of Tom Chavez, Mike Hargiss, Mike Pralle, Dean Martin and me), and ended up as what we are now - the zany, random, loosely-affiliated bunch of maverick, kinky perverts that I love to think of as the SDLLC Team of Excellence.

At each event, the group gets bigger. THAT's why I'm photographing each gathering, so that we don't lose sight of how things are changing. It's too easy to believe the little voice in our heads that says "Aw, shucks - It's the same thing as always - Nobody cares, we're not really making any difference, and everybody hates each others' guts. Why do I bother?"

Pictures don't lie - what they say is that we're starting to gather so many people around us that our group is beginning to develop its own gravitational field. Look at the pictures in the San Diego Contingent sections of the website's photo galleries, and notice how many new faces are present as the months go by. People see us bonding tightly (even though we sometimes want to choke each other tightly), and they want IN.

I hear it all of the time - new folks want to know what they can do to make a difference in the community. They are hearing the good news, and it fills their hearts with newfound hope. They're counting on us to forgive each other, move on after disagreements, and stay on-target. They want to be leaders too, and they need us to be their mentors.

I say this with complete sincerity:

The SDLLC system works. The metaphor I am using these days is that SDLLC is like "The Bank of Karmic Commerce", where folks can get something if they've invested something in the first place. The payback may not happen immediately, but when help is needed, those folks who have given selflessly to help out, are the first ones who get what they need. The payback may be in the form of extra hands to make the job easier, expert advice or personal coaching, clout in the form of publicity or arm-twisting, or honest, deeply-sincere thanks for a job well done.

Dean and Tiffany have earned every drop of sweat we put into this weekend on their behalf, and by helping them, we each earned our status as true leaders in the community. We all earned the recognition that we got that night, and if I have my way, it's going to be Awards Night more and more around here.