Tampa, Did Ya Miss Me?

And in defense of the scale...

I’m having a lot of fun with these AI images

Hello friends! It's been two whole weeks since I wrote you last, and I hope you didn't miss me too much, but I sure missed you. I took the vacation a bit too seriously and wasn't able to write last week getting into Tampa. So this edition will be a little Tampa-focused (even though I'm in New York this week) and a little classic Gay Buffet. Keep reading for:

• Tampa's Nonprofit

• The Johns Committee 

• Cowboy Carter

• In Defense of the Scale 

Finding a nonprofit in Tampa was honestly the most challenging one yet. It's not that there aren't many, just that they definitely weren't as plentiful as some of the cities so far. But I found a great one in Metro Inclusive Health, which has a fascinating history since it started in a church and grew to be a leader in the Tampa Bay health scene. For more, I'm gonna let Robert Pope (a founding Board Member) paint the picture. 

"When I first joined King of Peace Metropolitan Community Church in 1984, it was a small, growing community of faith. To get people involved and more active with King of Peace, we held a series of fundraisers every six months or so, in which church members would open their homes to host formal cocktail parties for $25 per person. This way we were not promoting cocktail parties for a church fund (King of Peace). During the early days of the AIDS discovery, King of Peace was the first local faith-based organization that opened its heart and doors to those infected and affected by the disease. 

Early on, volunteers helped set up and orchestrate counseling sessions, a food bank, and SDIA: Pinellas County's first AIDS support group. Much of the funding for these volunteer programs resulted from the Metropolitan Charities fundraising parties. Eventually, it was clear that more space was greatly needed in order for the organization to grow. Over the years, it became apparent to the Board of Directors of King of Peace M.C.C. that Metro Charities needed to expand its base and bring in others from the community to serve on its board. This was not because of any disagreement with the church – only a recognition that the baby Metro Charities needed to sprout its wings and leave the mothership. 

Soon, Metropolitan Charities left the church building and moved across the street, where it had much more room for client services, with the added benefit of better confidentiality and more space for a true community center: a desire of the LGBT community in Tampa Bay for many years. In particular, I am proud of the continued success of Metro Inclusive Health through the leadership of Lorraine Langlois, the current CEO.

Today, METRO is a comprehensive social service agency that meets the needs of the HIV-affected, LGBT and other at–risk communities of Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando Counties. METRO serves nearly 3,000 people at any one time through substance abuse treatment and prevention, counseling, case management, prevention services, a thrift store, and social and recreational programs."

You can see some of their incredible 2022 numbers in their annual report here, and of course, I'll include the donate link below! 

Okay so in a first for Gay Buffet, I'm reccomending you go to this website: uniteandbeproud.com because it is so well designed and informative, but for those of you who don't want to click through, the below is copied from that website about Florida's tumultuous history with gay folks dating back to the 1950s. P.S. A wild fact I found out was that Tampa county effectively banned Pride from 2005 to 2013....Florida....

"The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (also referred to as the Johns Committee) was established with a mission to preserve segregation after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Charley Johns, a Florida senator who called for the creation of the Johns Committee, believed that civil rights movements were backed by communists and that the way to stop integration in Florida was to take down the largest American civil rights organization, the NAACP. However, with their failure to prove communist ties, the need to keep their funding, and sweeping investigative powers, the Johns Committee found its new focus and began to investigate teachers and students.

Their belief was that LGBTQ students and professors would be subjected to blackmail to work for communists. The Johns Committee's main target was the University of Florida. The committee used uniformed policemen to pull students out of their classrooms and conducted hundreds of interrogations of students and professors without legal representation. They also hired student informants and undercover investigators to target gay and lesbian students and get them to admit their sexuality. Reports show they would place undercover investigators in bathrooms and have them ask students if they wanted to engage in sexual activities. Admission of being gay or lesbian was grounds for firing or expulsion from the college. 

By 1963:

• 39 professors and deans were fired from the University of Florida.

• 71 public school teachers had their teaching certificates revoked. 

• 300+ pending investigations were taking place in Florida universities and grade schools.

The Johns Committee published Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, informally called "the Purple Pamphlet." The book, funded by Florida State tax dollars, contained graphic and explicit photographs of boys and men meant to connect homosexuality with pedophilia. Due to the outrage of "state-sponsored pornography," the Johns committee disbanded on July 1, 1965. The committee amassed 30,000 pages of secret documents to be kept sealed for 72 years. With pressure from Florida historians and the state's public record law, the Florida Legislature released the Johns Committee documents in 1993. These records are now available for public review at the archives in Tallahassee."

So last Friday, Beyonce released her hotly anticipated follow-up to Renaissance: Cowboy Carter. Dubbed by the queen herself as act ii of three, these acts delve deep into musical genres that Black people had an outsized hand in helping create but have thus been sidelined from. Renaissance was an homage to house and ball culture. It was a brilliant celebration of queerness and nightlife and throbbing beats under creative storytelling and wordplay. That album took the world by storm and led to one of the most lucrative tours in recent history. 

Cowboy Carter takes us away from the dimly lit, sweaty clubs of urban nightlife way out into the country. Her take on country music is as sprawling and creative as the genre itself. Some have said that it is not a country album because of how many genres it spans, but in my opinion, that insults country music since it truly has so many colors and sounds within it. There are even interludes in the album that address the very meaning of genre and what it means to create country music spoken by the likes of Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. Having these country greats on the album gives it an additional legitimacy to stand up against those who are upset by a Black woman making country music, but she also uses her platform to promote young, up-and-coming Black country songs. But what I love the most about the album is that it is an epic. While most albums now are shortened to enhance and promote their plays on TikTok or Spotify, Beyonce gives us an 80-minute listening experience to enjoy, and for that, I am so grateful. 

Some top tracks, in my humble opinion, are:

• American Requiem: The album's opener sets the stage for how complex the relationship with the country can be. 

• Texas Hold'Em: Had to

• Jolene: Beyonce's rewritten lyrics add a new lens to the song that imagines what would happen if the narrator of the song had a little more agency in the situation. 

• Alligator Tears: This song gives sultry, sexy work vibes

• II Most Wanted: I love Miley Cyrus, and this song oozes late-night country vibes about being in love and always riding shotgun with your person. 

• Ya Ya into Oh Louisiana: Ya Ya is one of those songs that weaves through genres so seamlessly in its 4 and a half minutes, and the transition into Oh Louisiana is just perfection. 

• Tyrant: This might be my favorite part of the whole album. 

• Sweet Honey Buckiin': It's just so sexy, you gotta listen and find out for yourself. 

I was raised during the "don't believe what the scale tells you" health era. Health during the 2000s and 2010s felt much more based in what feels good than what the scale told you. There were countless ads, stories, etc about getting rid of your scale because fixating over numbers was an unhealthy metric that wasn't applicable across all people and body types. And that can certainly be true, don't get me wrong, but I've found a new relationship with my scale. 

Growing up as a chubby, pale kid in Hawaii made me really self-conscious about my body during its formative years. I wasn't as ripped or skinny as other kids I knew, and this was frequently on display since the beach is an integral part of Hawaii culture (duh). As I grew up, this self-consciousness stayed with me, and my entrance into gay New York culture further exacerbated this struggle. In some studies, it's been found that body dysmorphia affects about half of all gay men. This is in part due to our more aesthetic-focused culture, Instagram, and steroid use. We frequently see and interact with bodies that are perfectly tailored, naturally or otherwise, to look as close to a Greek god as possible. 

That's the backstory. 

Before I went on tour, I knew that I wanted to use the year of work to really get back to a place of health after a summer (and spring) of travel and indulgent eating. Part of this was aesthetic, yes, but part of it was to make the most of my time on the road and get back some health and discipline. It's so easy to eat unhealthily on the road, so I wanted to keep myself accountable in that realm as well. I worked with a coach for a month (I would have done longer, but he ended up ghosting me 😂) who told me to get a scale because "what gets measured gets maintained." We'd do weekly photo check-ins (which I didn't love) and scale weigh-ins. My upbringing said this was unhealthy and wrong, and it certainly didn't feel great to do. But I'd committed to it, so I continued to do my weigh-ins even after I stopped working with the coach. And my relationship with it really changed over the intervening months. 

Using the scale made objective what had only been subjective before. And when you're someone who has a bit of body dysmorphia, the subjective can become warped beyond what is real. My scale measures weight, BMI, water weight, and body fat percentage, among other things, and so I gave myself a number, hit 15% body fat in 2024. No immediate timeline or plan and no subjective 'look,' just an objective number to get to. And it has changed my whole outlook. Having an objective goal helps me stay focused, but I also feel much healthier about how I am progressing. 

The scale also has an app (we know I love an app), and being able to zoom out from week to month to year lets me see the progress I've made even when I have a more indulgent week than disciplined. This new mindset actually helped me enjoy my recent trip home to Hawaii more because I knew that while I may have had an indulgent week, it was just a week that fit into a pattern of overall discipline. So I ate how I wanted and got back to tour, and I am still much more on track than I expected. It freed me from the shame and anxiety that stems from a period without discipline. I write this not to pretend that I know much about health, but simply to say that sometimes trying something you thought was wrong, while a bit uncomfortable at first, can really change your outlook.

---

 Well, folks, that's all from me this week. Hope to settle into a bit more of a routine again once I get back on the road next week! It was a nice two weeks off, but I missed the writing and connecting with all of you! 

All my love, Aidan