Last night there was a memorial event in the lounge for the Orlando shooting and everyone was there. It was pretty bad, because all week I had not seen ChoCho anywhere, until it turned out he had been working doing a guest performance in a club in New Orleans the week before and he was to head over to Florida meeting with friends, also drag performers, in Orlando. Luckily none of his immediate friends were injured, but they knew people who had been there and some of them died, so in a way it all affected everyone, in particular because where Vincent is a form of father figure in the hotel ChoCho is a sort of mom or at least a combination of a mother/father-figure for everyone, for once, as he seems to be able to have (or come up with) the extra cash that fixes many of people’s regularly upcoming troubles, then he is older than most of the other tenants, and he has been around and seen the complications of life, so he is willing and able to listen when necessary and give often some pretty good advice.

It was sad and quite nice at the same time, Chiaki, Billy and Starfish had come up with a rainbow flag and candles and Vincent sponsored some wine and beer he keeps for special events, although I guess he had hoped happier ones.

ChoCho was really the saddest at the event and at some point he cried a little and that made many of the others almost cry too, people where one would not have thought they have an emotional side to them, certainly not in front of an audience, like for example Larry, but the moment he saw that it was also ChoCho who said, “OK, kids, no tears now! We are here and we are alive! And we will be and there are many good things in front of us we have to do, more so now especially after this sort of thing!”

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 1” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 2 – ChoCho crying” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 3 – Laila, Chiaki and Billy” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 4 – Chiaki, Billy and Larry” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 5 – ChoCho and Starfish with rainbow flag” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 6 – ChoCho with rainbow flag” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 7 – rainbow flag” (2016)

 Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 8 – Billy, Chiaki and Laila” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 9 – Billy, ChoCho and Vincent” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 10 – Billy, ChoCho,Vincent and Laila” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 11 – Billy and Larry” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 12 – Larry tearing up” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 13 – Starfish” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 14 – Vincent” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 15 – Billy” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 16 – Laila” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 17 – Laila, Alexander, Chiaki standing and Billy” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 18 – ChoCho and Vincent” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 19 – ChoCho and rainbow flag 2” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 20 – ChoCho and rainbow flag 3” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 21” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 22 – Starfish, ChoCho and Vincent” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 23 – Chiaki looking over” (2016)

Josiane Keller “Orlando memorial evening 24” (2016)