I was at a luncheon today, celebrating the 95th anniversary of the original El Fenix restaurant, a staple of Tex-Mex here in Dallas. Also at the luncheon was Mayor Mike Rawlings, who sat at my table during lunch. One of my colleagues noted that the mayor appeared to have lost weight. A while later, the mayor and I got to chatting.
“How was the gay Pride parade yesterday?” he asked me with a smile. “I was out of town so I missed it.”
It was a lot of fun, I told him.
“When I came back, I saw there was some kind of controversy?”
“Yes, about a dress code; people didn’t react well to it.”
“Well, how were people dressed?” he asked. “Did anyone show up naked?”
“Not naked,” I said. “Though some were … well ….” I reached into my pocket, pulled out my iPhone and showed him one of the photos I took (pictured here). “That’s about as racy as it got.”
“Well, that’s nothing unusual,” Mayor Rawlings said. “And that’s just what I look like with my clothes off.”
He was joking. I think. But he has lost weight. Despite his failure to stand up for marriage equality, it’s always nice when a politician looks at pictures of men in Speedos and doesn’t recoil in horror.
Oh, and El Fenix — 95 frickin’ years. Pretty awesome.
