I was scanning the news this morning and ran across an article on an old time cowboy named Frank Bogart. He was being erased and part of that erasure is to remove a statue in his honor from it’s place of honor in front of the city hall.
I wondered what great shame Frank brought on himself and the city of Palm Springs. There was not much darkness in Frank’s life. Could some small slip somewhere in his past tripped him up? Nope, what brought about Dead Frank’s downfall is/was his manliness.
Here are extracts from the biographical sketches that the mayor and city council(men) have posted to the Palm Springs City website:
City Councilman Dennis Woods: A former resident of Santa Monica, Woods moved to Palm Springs’ Little Tuscany neighborhood seven years ago with his husband of 21 years, Robert Rotman. He has spent the last 30 years volunteering for a host of LGBTQ non-profit and community organizations.
Christy Holstege was re-elected to the Palm Springs City Council in November 2020, representing District 4. In December 2020, she was appointed to serve as Mayor for a one-year term by the City Council. She is the first woman to serve as mayor in the history of Palm Springs – and is also the first openly bisexual mayor in the country.
Mayor Lisa Middleton was first elected to the Palm Springs City Council in November 2017. . Her current term on City Council ends in December 2024. On December 9, 2021 she became the Mayor of Palm Springs. Palm Springs Council Members rotate annually the Mayor’s responsibility. She is the third transgender person in U.S. history to serve as Mayor of an American city, the first transgender person to serve as Mayor in the state of California.
City Councilman Geoff Kors served for nine years as Executive Director of Equality California where he led the effort to transform California from a state with almost no legal protections for the LGBT community to the state with the broadest protections in the nation. Geoff lives in Palm Springs with his husband, James Williamson
OBTW, an interesting aside on Ms Christy, her bio states that she lives with her husband Adam Gilbert and their newborn son. How fucking embarrassing that must be for Adam to have his wife openly advertise that she entertains affairs outside of the marriage (else wise how could she be bisexual?).
All of this brings us back to poor Dead Frank. His crime was being a straight white male cowboy with his statue on the doorstep of the House of Queer.
Sorry Frank, the age of masculinity has ended in Palm Springs.