Welcome to Pulp City Magazine. Worldwide + Local AF.
Fresh stories, bold voices, and creative energy. Here’s your sneak peek before we launch the full site.
Contigo Fund’s “Wicked for Good” Gala Brought Drag, Art, and Advocacy to Orlando
The Orlando Ballet School played host to the South’s only Latinx LGBT charity, the Contigo Fund, where drag performances by Mr. Ms. Adrian and food from 4Rivers Smokehouse bookmarked earmarked spending for the Immigrant Advocacy and Defense Fund while honoring local and international heroes standing up for the rights of an intersection of queer and Central American communities — an evening that suggested far more rhythm than the dance floor ultimately exhibited.
As rain fell on Orlando, bedazzled gowns of hes, shes, and theys (as well as some faes and xes, judging from the empty spots at the pronoun-pin pickup post) sparkled in emerald and baby pink in celebration of the Hollywood blockbuster (second-half story / stage adaptation / musical written during the writers’ strike because the songwriters’ guild didn’t join the writers’ guild) Wicked: For Good!
The gamut of glitterati ran from a cheap Halloween costume of the Wizard (still bearing the unironed creases from being folded in Amazon packaging) to the belle of the ball: Mr. Ms. Adrian in a form-fitting pink leotard that would have been stunning on its own, but went fully over the top with a Freddie Mercury mustache.
Drinks were similarly themed. A pink lemonade Tito’s vodka adorned with rosemary and raspberries skewered on souvenir toothpicks bearing Glinda, Elphaba, or a flying monkey fell flat — but the cucumber-mint mocktail spread like gossip as the superior choice. Knowing bartenders showed incredible skill at reading people at a glance, intuiting whether patrons wanted more cock in their mocktail.
No, wait — alcohol.
They offered alcohol added to mocktails for those they suspected were secretly seeking spirits.
A contortionist atop a disco ball represented AntiGravity Orlando with a style and grace that went underappreciated, while a guitarist performed in the corner, filling the room with incredible sounds that somehow bridged expectations across wildly different demographics. He, too, seemed underappreciated.
This would prove to be foreshadowing for the night: incredible performances from Contigo Fund — and a crowd more interested in itself.
While the line for the delicious 4Rivers buffet stretched past the free cocktails and out the door, that same contortionist was performing feats of incredible athleticism, suspended sixty feet in the air without a safety harness — her life held only by silk and skill. Meanwhile, the mooch brigade craned their necks over one another’s shoulders to see what the food was.
Central Florida’s best barbecue chain delivered as always. Vegan burnt ends were a highlight, and the fabled bayou bar dessert caused wide-eyed surprise at my table as I forced everyone to try the buttery masterpiece — the recipe for which I once hounded owner John Rivers for until he relented and emailed it to me.
Co-host Chevalier Lovett delivered multiple impassioned speeches to the haute couture personalities, attempting to boil their blood with stories of the White House social media using “Defying Gravity” to promote deportations. “This administration cannot and will not co-opt stories about liberation,” Lovett said with a power and fierceness that could sway voters in red states.
Contigo founder Marco Antonio Quiroga was just as powerful, but appealed to the wounded side of the room: “We breathe to remember that no matter what society — or the delusion of social media — tries to tell us, we are not meant to navigate this world alone.”
There were calls to action as Quiroga reminded donors that the result of the Pulse massacre was “emergency aid without long-term investment,” invoking his mother’s words: “Dignity is not something that is given; it is claimed.”
Contigo proved its rock-solid foundation and potential for growth, announcing the millions of dollars it has moved since the Pulse shooting. The organization explained how the Southern U.S. grew from fewer than ten LGBT charitable organizations to sixty, and how Contigo raised over $200,000 in five months for the Immigrant Advocacy and Defense Fund — while covering its own administrative costs so the money could directly save lives.
Young international activist Eli Garcia then took the stage and delivered the most heartfelt and modest speech of the night.
My tablemates saw me rise from my seat. “Look! I told you!” one whispered to another as I began covertly circling the back of the room, videotaping every person loudly carrying on their own conversation — loud enough to be heard from the stage. Loud enough that the honoree could feel the disrespect.
No king, queen, or non-binary royalty was safe from the gaze of journalism. The chatter died down. I returned to my seat wordlessly and listened as Eli finished speaking.
The Youth Action Fund received the Angie and Hector Xtravaganza Community Builder Award, while Quincy Wilson received the Emerging Leader Award. These young leaders spoke with the rough polish of earnest appreciation — still untouched by cynicism, still believing change is possible if they can somehow garner the support of the elders who once stood where they stand now.
Sadly, as Dylan Frost wrote, the majority of their audience were “wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieve it on its way.” Even when Lovett called Quincy Wilson “the next Nelson Mandela,” they could not summon the verve to “not go gentle into that good night.”
But go they did.
Roughly five percent of the crowd slipped into the antechamber moments before the agenda’s listed Call to Action — charity speak for “time to donate.” I was the only person at my table who scanned the QR code and donated. When donors were asked to stand, fewer than one percent of attendees rose.
It took my breath away.
My donation barely covered the cost of entertaining me, and I wasn’t proud. Watching people avert their eyes and pretend not to hear made me question why they had attended at all.
1939 Berlin gets a bad rap.
As Hollywood distills history into tropes, we lose perspective. Without chains and whips, we fail to recognize slavery. Without uniforms and jackboots, we fail to recognize authoritarianism. Berlin held yard sales. They went to movies. They gathered with friends and said how horrible fascism was — philosophically, morally — but not in any way that created action.
When people hid Jews, they didn’t go searching for them. They acted only when the hunted knocked on their door — and many turned them away first.
Hypocrisy and fear of standing our ground are not new.
People with spare rooms claim to support housing the homeless. People spending money on glamour claim to support advocacy. As long as safety is guaranteed, they will declare anything at all.
Evil is not the result of evil men doing evil — it is the result of good men doing nothing.
Passivity is not good.
Inactivity is not good.
Action will always be wicked from the other side’s point of view.
Logically, the only way to fight evil is to be wicked — for good.
