"NO ONE ARRIVES IN THE DESERT WITHOUT A STORY—A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT LIFE AFTER AIDS—WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY DANIEL F. CARDONE. PRODUCED BY MARC SMOLOWITZ."
So reads the blurb on the website for the documentary Desert Migration. I saw the film at the Camelot Theatre in Palm Springs back on Nov. 5 over the Palm Springs Pride weekend. The film documents the lives of 13 HIV-positive gay men who moved to the city over the last 30 years to die but, because of advances in medicine, survived in this desert paradise.
However, the migration to the desert continues today.
I've just read a Chicago Tribune article by Melissa Harris dated Dec. 17, 2014, with the headline "The Mass Exodus of 2014: Is Chicago losing its 30-somethings to the cold?" Since that date, there have been numerous other articles on the same subject and it's not just an exodus of millenials, but all age groups; Generations A to Z are heading south to the sun. A large number of those leaving Chicago are LGBTs and a lot of them are moving to Palm Springs, California, or Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
If you stand outside Palm Springs airport any time of the day, you can feel the gentle breeze of fairy wings as bears, cowboys and leathermen, struggling with their suitcases and hatboxes, and middle-aged women with cropped hair wearing sensible shoes, dragging their golf clubs behind them. Some stay for a few days, others for six months—or they move here and settle down.
I moved to Palm Springs in July 2014 and, since I've been here, I've witnessed a steady stream of Chicagoans arriving. My husband created a Facebook page called Chicagoans in Exile. Why wouldn't you move here? It's February and it's 90 degrees outside. An added incentive is that more than half the residents of Palm Springs are gay and, in Cathedral City, next door, where I live, it's 45 percent.
It's a vacation resort and people come here for the sun, the golf, the hiking, the gay life, and the Hollywood and celebrity history, which is everywhere: Our gardener was President Gerald Ford's gardener; the house we live in was inspired by the movie Casablanca; our house was previously owned by Glenn Buckner and his husband. Buckner was a dancer on Broadway and in films with Judy Garland and Betty Grable. I have two friends who live in Blue Skies trailer park, built by Bing Crosby for his friends visiting from Hollywood; Liberace lived and died here; two Chicago friends buying a house, recently looked at a property once owned by LaVerne of the Andrew Sisters.
Two other friends—Broadway dancer Simeon Den and his partner, artist and photographer, Peter Palladino—own the house where lesbian artist Agnes Pelton lived; and a friend and neighbor of mine is Grace Robbins, wife of the late author of The Carpetbaggers, Harold Robbins. Carol Channing, Kay Ballard and Barry Manilow, among others, all live here.
Those are some of the reasons LGBTs move to Palm Springs. However, Chicagoans are mostly fleeing the icy cold winters. Well, that's what I used to hear, but just lately new arrivals are citing other reasons to leave Chicago, like the rising murder rate, and the shenanigans of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
I love Chicago. It was my home for 20 years. It's definitely my kind of town. I only moved because the weather was not good for my health. It's very upsetting to hear about what's happening in Chicago.
I hope you get rid of these idiot politicians soon.
