If You Love Baltimore, It Will Love You Back. Ron Cassie
we pass gambling and not this, I’m moving to D.C., a woman jokes, or maybe half-jokes, inside Marylanders for Marriage Equality election night party at the Baltimore Soundstage.
At 10:25 p.m., news on the large-projection T.V. reports that with almost 70 percent of the precincts still out, the margin supporting gay marriage has slipped to 51-49 percent. Nearby, Dawn Trotter claps to boost her own spirits as much as anything else. Others search Facebook and Twitter for updates. At 10:40 p.m., 50-50 on Question 6 scrolls across the screen. Trotter, elbows on the table, hands covering her mouth, leans into her friend Colleen Pleasant Kline: “50-50,” she whispers.
Wearing her lucky, purple Ravens T-shirt—partly in homage to linebacker Brendan Ayanbadejo, who publicly supports gay marriage rights—Trotter sips a Coors Light. Her partner, Diana Bennett, two seats away, takes the news more stoically. In between, Kline, the couple’s Hunting Ridge neighbor, seems most nervous of all. “They said if it passes, I can officiate,” she says, smiling to break the mounting tension.
At 11:17 p.m., the crowd leaps to its feet as Barack Obama, who came out in favor same-sex marriage this summer is reelected as the 44th President of the United States. “What ever happens,” says Bennett quietly, referring to Question 6 and hugging Trotter, “it’s validation.”
And, then, a few minutes later, it’s 51 percent in favor again, now with nearly three-fourths of the state majority reporting in favor. But still, no official word.
Finally, at 12:16 p.m., although WBAL still hasn’t “called” Question 6, Del. Maggie McIntosh, Del. Mary Washington, Del. Luke Clippinger, state Sen. Rich Mandelino, and Del. Heather Mizeur—five openly gay legislators—as well as Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Gov. Martin O’Malley take the stage to announce the passage of Question 6 beneath yellow and black balloons that have been waiting all night to be released. Along with Maine, Washington, and Minnesota, Marylanders are among the first-ever to support gay marriage at the polls.
Dawn embraces Diana, and at the same time, tries to video record the celebration on stage with little success. The iPhone in her hand is shaking. Tears are running down her cheeks.
Harbor East
President Street
Nov. 15, 2012
17. President Street
Another body cannot possibly squeeze into the packed house at James Joyce’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, an early anchor in Harbor East when it served its first Guinness pint and plate of corned beef and cabbage a decade ago. Leading the pub’s 10th anniversary party on stage this November night, in his familiar-to-Baltimoreans, tight black T-shirt, Gov. Martin O’Malley strums his guitar and leans into the microphone, taking his band, O’Malley’s March, through an energetic set of Celtic ballads and Irish-tinged rock songs, including a cover of The Pogues’ “Dirty Little Town.”
“Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town”
The song, cast in a struggling industrial city, couldn’t be more appropriate for O’Malley, who performed here at the pub’s opening as then-Mayor of Baltimore—when Harbor East was still mostly empty warehouses and desolate docks. At the time, the city’s crime and homicide rates were becoming the stuff of legend in the HBO series The Wire—an image O’Malley fought like crazy and a show that gets his ire up to this day. Now, however, the holiday lights decorating the hotel, restaurant, and gleaming office buildings behind him in the pub’s front glass window seem almost symbolic, an affirmation of the burgeoning upscale district, the city’s potential for wider rebirth, and even O’Malley’s political career, which is experiencing something of a revival tonight.
He’d suffered through a disappointing General Assembly earlier last year when legislators ignored or punted much of his agenda, barely managing to pass a “doomsday” budget just before midnight on the session’s final day. But a week earlier, on election night, O’Malley rebounded remarkably. The Governor had thrown his full weight behind several risky hot-button referendum issues—Maryland’s same-sex marriage law; the Dream Act (to assist undocumented immigrants with in-state tuition); an expansion of gambling; and a new, partisan congressional map—and won on all four measures.
On top of those victories, as then-head of the Democratic Governor’s Association, O’Malley had advocated tirelessly for President Barack Obama in his reelection bid, frequently appearing on the Sunday talk shows to square off with the Republican opposition. In the aftermath of Obama’s victory, O’Malley’s effective stumping added to the perception of his growing political momentum. Almost immediately after the votes were counted, political pundits, on the basis of O’Malley’s referendum victories and increased national stature, put him on the short list of 2016 Democratic contenders with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“I saw him play at McGinn’s on Charles Street, which became Mick O’Shea’s, when he was playing there regularly,” says Ellen Muth. “He’s debonair, handsome the way JFK was in the 1960s.”
Her daughter, Lane, standing next to her between sets, also saw O’Malley play many times when he was mayor. “I told my mom then, ‘He’s going to be president in 10 years.’” Not necessarily because of any legislative achievements, Lane admits, but instead because of one of O’Malley’s most commented-upon attributes as a politician, “because he was charming and appealing.”
Standing at the corner of Harford Road and the Alameda announcing that he was running for mayor in June of ١٩٩٩, O’Malley’s political future was hardly guaranteed—as is often posited given his sturdy good looks and marriage to former Maryland Attorney General Joe Curran›s daughter—let alone destined for a White House bid. He entered the race late, not jumping in until after former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume announced he was staying out.
Perhaps it’s worth noting, for those who believe in such signs, that the James Joyce’s Pub is located, of course, on President Street.
Update: O’Malley suspended his 2016 presidential campaign following a poor showing in the first presidential primary in Iowa.
Pikesville
Greenspring Avenue
December 8, 2012
18. More Menorah
“That’s my rebbe,” smiles Yitz and Sora Fleischman’s youngest daughter, gesturing toward a 4-foot, gray-bearded, plastic rabbi in the Russian fur hat on display at her porch.
About an hour after Sabbath ends, families begin gathering at the Fleischman’s home, which is literally bringing the light of Chanukah to its Pikesville neighborhood. Yellow, blue, red, and green bulbs outline the fence while bright white lights spell out “THE CHANUKAH HOUSE” in block letters atop the first-floor awning, and an 11-foot menora fills a corner of the front yard. There’s a train garden, Jewish snowmen, and blown-up toy dradles amid a wide mix of kitschy decorations, including a near life-size fiddler on the roof, a flying, yarmulke-wearing “Hershel” Potter as well as an Adam Sandler-figure belting out it’s “so much funnukah to celebrate Hanukah . . .”
There’s also a glass-enclosed, 3-foot Barbie on the lawn lighting a menora. Why? As the display notes, Barbie was the creation of Ruth Handler, a Jewish businesswoman, who named the doll after her pre-teen daughter Barbara. Nearby, Sora Fleischman’s mother passes out homemade Star of David, dreidel, and menora-shaped sugar cookies.
Soon, members of the Ohr Chadash Academy arrive for the First Night ceremony. Principal Akevy Greenblatt helps two of his third and fourth-grade students oil-lit two large menoras and then, he and Yitz lead everyone in the reciting of the Hanerot Halalu.
Afterwards, the kids head over to pester the aforementioned, diminutive “Chanukah Rabbi,” known for his sense of humor, with questions—per custom.
“Do you have an iPhone?” asks a boy.
“Yes,