Hi pups! As an Angeleno, I am very proud of my city’s history in LGBTQ rights. Le Barcito is nominated for historical landmark status

to pride!

thanks lisa

Happy anniversary, and in honor of the occasion, don’t forget to send your regards to lovable old scamp John Eichelberger!

Whoops, left off my link for the John Eichelberger love-in.

how cool – i had heard of stonewall but not the black cat.

It didnt get a lot of press. LA has an intense gay/queer history

and la has always been seen as different than the rest of the nation. the glamorous hollywood lifestyle was not what auntie em knew back on the farm.

By the end of evening 13 people had been arrested after the Tactical Police Force (TPF) of the New York City Police Department arrived to free the police trapped inside the Stonewall. More debris were thrown at them by the demonstrators.

On my way to bed, but had to comment on this. As a born and raised New Yorker of a certain age (I was 23 when Stonewall happened) I can testify to the fact that the TPF were the elite riot control unit of the NYC PD. Standing up to the TPF was not something to be done lightly, nor was it anything that cowards would do. These folks were brave. Hats off to them. (The grammar police would request that the above quote be corrected to say “More debris WAS thrown…”) Now I’m off to bed.

Thanks for the history lesson. I’ve been interested in this, but haven’t had the time for research. Hugs.

I love American gay history–very compelling and civil rights movement that cuts acros all races and religions

and demonstrations seem to be in the news…

civil rights lessons all over the place – if only those in power would open their eyes lisa

Here’s a poem by Frank O’Hara, ”At The Old Place.” Written in 1955 but not published until 1969, it describes a Greenwich Village dance spekaeasy that used to be behind the Cjerry Lane Theater. You had to knock on asecret wall in order to get to it. It was illegal for men to dance together, and O’Hara and his friends were risking arrest.

”Joe is restless and so am I, so restless.
Button’s buddy lips frame ”L B T TH O P?”
across the bar. ”Yes!” I cry, for dancing’s
my soul delight. (Feet! Feet!) ”Come on!”

Through the streets we skip like swallows.
Howard malingers. (Come on, Howard.) Ashes
malingers. (Come on, J.A.) Dick malingers.
(Come on, Dick.) Alvin darts ahead. (Wait up,
Alvin.) Jack, Earl, and Someone don’t come.

Down the dark stairs drifts the steaming cha-
cha-cha. Through the urine and smoke we charge
to the floor. Wrapped in Ashes’ arms I glide.

(It’s heaven!) Button lindys with me. (It’s
heaven!) Joe’s two-steps, too, are incredible,
and then a fast rhumba with Alvin, like skipping
on toothpicks. And the interminable intermissions,

we have them. Jack, Earl and Someone drift
guiltily in. ”I knew they were gay
the minute I laid eyes on them!” screams John.
How ashamed they are of us! we hope.”

Thnak you for sharing that!

lisa – do ya think it is possible that gov stanford was off at a private stonewall anniversary celebration?

After I was old enough to enter the workforce and began to meet lots of gay folks I was amazed at how gay society is almost like a parallel universe. It is huge and pretty much in the open (at least in medium to big cities) but a very large percentage of the straight population seem completely oblivious to it.

i was lucky enough to enter the workforce in the mid to late 70’s in san francisco. until then, i was totally unaware that there were gays.

there was such hope back then. hard to believe the same battles are being fought now – 30 plus years later.

Just in passing, “debris” is plural, so “were” is the appropriate tense.

/grammar police

For me, it just seems so natural that peopl love who they love, and that religious nuts should stay out of it

Unfortunately, the battle goes on. In yesterday’s paper.

exactly! government has no business regulating love or sexuality involving consenting adults.

The 1980s were a very dark period and slowed progress while everyone focused on survival. Equality can never arrive soon enough but with young people more accepting than previous generations there is at least (again) cause for hope.

Reality with it’s well known liberal bias.

ronald ray-gun (spitting)

excellent LTE dr dick

I really could not resist. I read the original letter in the paper and thought I needed to respond since I teach this stuff and am the faculty adviser for the Lambda Alliance. The next day I saw that article and the rest is history.

Off topic but did you see what the newly released Nixon tapes reveal about his reaction to Roe v. Wade? “Abortion necessary when you have a black and a white.”

What a stellar guy.

I hung out in the West Village in that period but never went to Stonewall> not at all fashionable it was — like all gay bars — run by the Mafai and the NYPD.

The mafia owned it and paid off the cops. if the payments weren’t enough, the places were raided. That day Judy Garland was buried, sp raiding the place got on those queens’ last nerve. Soe call this legend but I knew it as fact from a friend of mine who was a Stonwall barfly — a kind named Tommy. He’s in the lower righthand corner of the famous photo that appeared on the front page of the Village Voice.

A straigth friend of mine, Lucian K. Truscott IV, actually covered the initial riot (it wentn for a week) for the Voice.

Lucian is Thom as Jefferson’s great grandson and was responsible for the family finally recognozing Sally Hemmings.

Always high on my “worst of” list. Of course that also has something to do with the fact that the bastard drafted me.

I know..dreadful awful eugenics

and there’s no off topic at Late Night!

Nixon was like a rotten onion. The more layers you peel away the worse it stinks.

The ever-estimable Jeff Weinstein and I have a difference of opinion about Judy’s role in Stonewall.

Well you know what I always says — WE’LL SING ‘EM ALL AND STAY ALL NIGHT!

wow – thank you for sharing that.

Philly according to this account had the first gay sit in.

Forty years ago, three teen-agers in Philadelphia took an extraordinary step by refusing to take a step. Their sit-in began on Sunday, April 25, 1965, at Dewey’s restaurant near Rittenhouse Square in Center City. According to an account provided several months later by Clark Polak, a gay-rights leader in Philadelphia, “the action was a result of Dewey’s refusal to serve a large number of homosexuals and persons wearing non-conformist clothing.”

I didn’t know about that but I did know about these

Philadelphia was the site of some of the nation’s first gay rights protests – before the landmark Stonewall Riots that took place in New York City. During the “Annual Reminders” held each July 4th from 1965 to 1969, protesters picketed in front of Independence Hall.

If I was as mean as Nixon I could make a similar statement regarding offspring resulting from Republican unions. However, I hold onto the belief that kids can sometimes grow up to be smarter than their parents.

They still are, surprisingly enough. So much has changed over the years. Mostly forthe better. But I miss the exclusivity of the Old Days. Discoevring that I was gay was the best thing that ever happened to me. Instead of dull routine life I had one full of exiting adventure, meet people from all classes and walks of life , AND I got to have sex with them!

I have to head out. One more day to corrupt all those young minds and then on Thursday I torture them with the final. Take care all.

I was fortunate enough to be considered undesirable by people of all persuasions.:-)

Time for this one to turn in. Pleasant dreams to all.

g’nite dr dick and ratfood

It certainly does. There’s a paly that premiered in New York a week or so ago called The Temperamentals. It’s all about how a former communist named Harry Hay and his lover Rudi Gernreich (who went on to create the topless bathing suit) founded the first gay rights group, The Mattachine Society, in L.A.

I found When Ocean Meets Sky to be an interesting documentry about the history of Fire Island Pines. What a trip it is to spend some time there.

Harry hay was problematic figure…there’sa great book about him “The Trouble wiht Harry Hay”

Side note, tomorrow people are being asked to email Sen Diane Back of Tennessee over the racist email one you her staff sent out (staff’s excuse–sorry it went to wrong list)

Her info is
Senator Diane Black:
sen.diane.black@capitol.tn.gov

Please me nice and polite. here’sa sample letter

Dear Senator Black:

I am deeply concerned about your response to an email that was sent by one of your staffers depicting our President, Barack Obama, in a racist manner. Though I completely understand that you don’t want to lose a valued employee, I was wondering if you realize that you have alienated the 1.2 million African Americans who live in Tennessee? At issue is not that your staffer emailed someone a racist email. For me, the bigger issue is your response. Just the thought that there could be a “right email list” on your computer for distribution of this type of email – as implied in the staffer’s response to the outcry over this offense, is frightening. If your morals allow you to have such disregard for another race, then how can we possibly trust your decision making on key issues that affect that race, or on any issue, for that matter?

I have a deep concern about the rising use of racist epithets by the Republican fringe and the fact that a seated State Senator is reinforcing this is unconscionable.

T

Yes. That book was by Stuart Timmons — a great and scandalously overlooked gay historian. His book on Gay Los Angeles, written with Lillian Faderman, is required reading for anyone who wants to know about anything.

That’s because Teh Ghey is central to American life — though the HeterosexualDictatorship does everythign in its power to shunt it to the margins.

Stonewall…. what a beautiful sentiment/image for the gay rights movement. Unmovable, indestructible, powerful.

I never knew about this. Happy Anniversary, Gay Rights Movement!