Historically High - The Stonewall Rebellion - Blood, Sweat, and Pride

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

1969 New York City, The Summer of Love. But not love for all. The Stonewall Inn, a bar run by the mafia and catering to those in the early LGBTQ community, when it was very dangerous to belong to that group. The local police would raid it now and then, but find out when enough is finally enough and they finally refuse to leave. The beginning of a rebellion that help spawn a revolution. Support the show Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I can't have that in there. Oh, well. Can't have names. Okay, so tell me about this part of a horse that you bought. Well, the first one, I told you about the first one, like a year ago that I bought. Yeah, that one got something called The Wobbles, and immediately, like, three months after I had gotten him, had not, he just got put out to pasture because they can't. Like, no, no, no. They send pictures every now and again of him, like, out.

I'm sure it's him. Yeah. I'm sure it's. Tim. But, so first one got the wobbles, and luckily they hadn't used a lot of the money from the shares for different things, and there was an insurance payout on it. So I got everything back from that and was like, well, fuck it, I'll invest again. And ended up getting into another one that races on the Southern California circuit.

Okay, like the, what is, Santa Clarita and all that. Santa Anita. Whatever they raced in for the first part of Sea Biscuit. Yeah, that's where he raced was the, and whatever Jim Rome talks about his fucking horse. But since it's down in Southern California, like if you buy the shares and you fly down and go to the races, like they let you back into the paddock and you get to meet the horse and everybody. They take you back to their horse? Are they like, this is your part of the horse? Like they just point to a section.

They tend to. Yeah. They just take like a white marker and they just drawn the horse to be like, this is your section. This is the part of the horse you own. I was thinking if I bought enough of it and they did let us do that. Like maybe I could take like historically high stentil and like see if I could paint it on his back. Why don't they do that? I wonder. I imagine Peter probably wouldn't be too pumped up about painting horses.

No, they don't even do it on like, for the most part, they don't even do it on the saddle. Do they? There's none of room. Do they do it on the robes they wear out pre-race? Because I always envision those being just like a different color, like a solid color, very simple design. design. Is it something about like the class of the sport doesn't allow them to to put something on the actual like horse itself? I think it's just because it's a just a strictly a rich person sport. Okay. Like they probably have enough money. Yeah. Yeah. Because the guys that own horses are so like proud of themselves that each one of them has their own set of silks. Yeah.

So like what the jockey wears, the, uh, saddle and everything. It's all that exact same design. Should we invest in like a historically high horse? I think it would be great. I would love to own a horse. It seems like so much fun. The guy that just won the Belmont, that he grew up in one of the boroughs in New York, not the one we're talking about today. Did you just segue? No, not yet. Okay. I'm dipping my toe in. But he grew up in one of the Burroughs and ended up going to the Belmont racetrack with like his grandma and everything and that's where he grew up

and then he invented vitamin water and became a multi multi multi multi millionaire describing 50 cent He worked with him I think they might have come out of the same part of New York But he ended up buying these into this stable

and his horses finished one and two at the Belmont right in front of him This year? Yeah last week so pretty sweet deal to be on your home track where you grew up poor and then ended up getting to see your horses finish one two in the Belmont that's just when you have fuck you money yeah when you're just like I have so much money like what if you got rich what would a horse on the priority list fall under to me that seems like something that comes like after you've traveled and seen every country

you've bought all the toys and everything like that and after you've bought enough cars and boats and whatever you're like, what can I buy that's alive? You get so rich that you're just dipping your toe into slavery. You're like, I don't think of, I don't think I want to experience actual, be an actual slave owner, but you're like, what can I own that's alive,

but that works for me? I have dumb rich person goals, though. That's the thing is I don't think it would be very low on the list. Like, I think it would be right in there. If I had enough money, one of my thought processes that I've gone through a lot is I want to travel the world and go to, like, Hawaii and, like, cut a pineapple right out of the field. Or, like, go down to Florida and, like, pull an orange off the tree. Like, go to Texas and, like, watch them shoot the cow and then, like, cut a section out of the cow for a steak. Do you have this weird, rich person goal of just going around the world doing what would be considered,

labor. Not so much mania labor. You want to do all the cool traditional things that you think of when... But I want like the freshest of the fresh. Gotcha. Like something, because you always hear like seafood and shit. I want to go catch my own tuna and then eat a steak right there on the boat.

Yeah, I want to see anything that you can have that's like the best, the freshest. Like I don't think wine really works because aged wine's usually better, but I bet it's probably pretty sweet coming out or out of the vat. Yeah. Like olive oil that was. just freshly pressed, whatever

France does, besides quit. They do wine. Okay. I do cheese. I think they're pretty good. Baguettes. Like, how great would that be?

They're a good fancy snack country. Well, and like a baguette that's straight out of like a famous French bakery or like cheese that just comes out of the aging room or something like that. That seems like it would be a lot of fun if you were just stupid rich.

would you use any of that money to essentially front a secret underground gay bar I know that's very specific yeah it does seem like an oddly specific question um I'm not really that it sounds like something that the mob would have done but it does sound like something like back in like what like the 60s yeah 70s it sounds like something a mob would have. Well, guess what, Adam? The mob did do that. What? Yes. I fell forward again. It was called the Stonewall Inn.

And, uh, the worst part of that is you set that up. And I immediately started thinking about it before I realized what we were talking about. I thought it was a serious question for a second. Like, I mean, I'd like to open a bar. Would I make it gay, gay exclusive? Or whatever would just be allowed in my bar? That sounds like the funnest time ever. I know it does. I don't. There were, yeah.

Well. We're talking about the Stonewall Rebellion. We'll get into a little bit of that. But just on the surface, the fact that there were like underground gay bars, bars must have been so much worse back then. Well, like, the fun level just doesn't seem like it would have been there as much. Yeah. And so kind of looking into this and that documentary we watched about it that went back and it was more like I liked that one because it didn't just. just focus on Stonewall.

It gave you a lot of like context. Yeah. About all the discrimination, just the shit that like, can, can, do we say gay or do I need to say homosexual? Because they use homosexual in a very negative way in that document. I'm just going to say gay. Well, I feel like is gay and trans and I always get without disrespect. I always forget one of the letters out of it's LGBTQT.

LGBQIA plus, which it's a ham. It's a mouthful. And as two straight guys, I feel like we're both comfortable enough in our sexuality and our kind of our love of just thinking about life in different ways. I mean, I love doing this research. I feel like it was so cool to be able to see just not necessarily cool to see the struggle, but cool to see what gay people have overcome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my whole...

Including poor branding. I don't... And I'm not saying this in a... Like, in a derogatory way, like, I don't care about people, but, like, I don't care what you do. Yeah. Don't be an asshole. Just be a good person. Be nice.

And guess what? I don't give a shit who you're holding the hands with or who you go home to at night or anything like that. Just don't be a dick. Like, that's it. There's gay people that are assholes. There's straight people that are assholes. There's black people that are assholes. White people that are...

Like, just be a nice person. And I'll fuck with you. Yeah. So, especially. if you had a little spice to my life. Yeah, no kidding. Help me, help me with a dress. Help me with my outfit.

Yeah, that documentary just providing all the context about the struggle and what, fuck, people that, regardless if they were gay or not or anything like that, that were put through and, like, committed to mental institutions and had fucking experiments done on them, it's fucking crazy. And this is a weird tie-in,

but talking about, like, you know, Our democracy modeled after democracy that was found at Rome. Yeah. We want to go ahead and put so much like, we're democratic, we're a democracy, and that's like part of the government's like, that's bread and butter, cornerstone. That's like their claim to fame. We're a functional, we're the best democracy that's ever existed.

All the people that, and I'm not saying all 100%, but a large portion, there's a good percentage, that the people who were able to craft democracy, they lived in a time where everyone, not everyone, but it was very, it seemed like it was very well accepted, acknowledged that sexual fluidity was definitely a thing. Oh, absolutely. You had, you know, orgies with men, with men and women, just probably not even just women.

That was probably even less than the men feeling around. But being bisexual, like, that was just so commonplace. And those are the people that probably had a hand in crafting or contributing to this democracy that then results in ours. So how can we say like, oh, this thing was so good, but then somehow ignore the fact that the people that created it also had this moral flexibility and not take that along with it? Well, I think it comes down to one thing is religion. religion is what changed everything, which to me also seems odd, because all it has done is just like spurt hate. And it's something where in America, the laws that they had back in the 50s and before that

and the 60s, they want to say that America really shirked England and got away from the colonies and all that kind of stuff and became their own place. But a lot of the laws that were on the books in New York were just laws that they had against homosexuality in colonies that they brought over from England. So it's like that was the one thing out of all the freedom that they wanted, all the religious freedom was like, eh, let's keep the gay stuff in there. We want the religious freedom to still make things that we don't like in our religion. We want the religious freedom to still bash weird people.

Yeah, exactly. So kind of the specific circumstances of the Stonewall Rebellion was in New York in, I don't know how far back it went that the Stonewall Inn was both open and when it was open operating as a secret essentially gathering place for gay people. It was a tea room back in the earlier 60s and it had like a, from what I've read and seen about it, it used to be like, like a wedding hall too. Like the second dance floor that we'll talk about in the back. The fun one had like a fountain in it. And it was

a place where you could have events like weddings and different things like that. So I think the mob bought it. Was it a hotel too? I don't think it was. It was one of those weird things. It's called the Stonewall Inn and it's on a hotel. It became the Stonewall in from,

I think it was Molly's Stonewall before that. And then it became the Stonewall in when it became the bar. So I don't know. what the end part was, but it sounded like they got a lot done there. It's a fancy New York naming thing, probably. Well, yeah, it's in Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, so you've got to jazz it up a little bit.

So this place was in the, what precinct? It was in the sixth precinct for, I don't know what would you say. So it was in the jurisdiction of the sixth precinct of the New York Police Department. Yeah. And it was actually the Stonewall Inn, so it was a secret gathering. place, basically known throughout the gay community as safe as could be at the time, a safe place to drink and gather and dance and have a fucking good time. Yeah, just be yourself.

Yeah, no shit. Get to let out. Because at that point in time, there was no holding hands out in public with another man or another woman. There was no, everything had to be in the shadows. They were meeting in literally like the backs of meat trucks and meatpacking areas, which sort of funny. We're going to come back into the back of a meat truck and banged.

That's... That they were in meatpacking in trucks that they were doing it. It's fucking sad, man. Like, I was thinking about this. And I've had, like, very painful things happen in my life. But they were those painful things where they happen. They're one-off. They're one-offs.

And they're one of those things that as time goes on, it gets easier with time. So the analogy is trying some situations. It's like getting shot, kind of. Yeah. get shot, there's the initial issue, and then you heal. The persecution and inability for people to express themselves, gay people to express themselves at this time, man, like, I don't know what that would be like to have to hold in that part of yourself. Like, think of how big a part of yourself like your romantic or even just casual relationships that led to physical, or, you know, romantic things have been in your life.

And to always feel like, yeah, what would your life be if that wasn't there? To have that spark that first kiss that felt right or like the first girl that made you feel the butterflies and all that kind of stuff. Those are things that you would talk about with other people. I know. And what if you, you know, even worse, what if you, instead of never experiencing that, what if you got to experience that but then could never act on it? It not only could never act on it, had to feel shame for it. Yeah. Had to feel like there was something wrong.

Had to watch old fucking black and white PSAs about how being gay was a mental illness. And which I can't remember the name of that professor, but he was like the at the like Einstein School of Science or something like that when he was given that. Which I don't know was Einstein. Like I don't know how Einstein would have felt about that. Einstein married his first cousin. So he had to feel certain. pretty open then. I was saying he had to be open to...

Or very closed. Or so close. So closed. But yeah, just to be just inundated with all these things that should feel natural and should be good feelings that all these things are wrong

and that you should be shunned in society and that it's a disease. But just to like go through life with just this like whole in you, I don't. Fuck man like that to me is the saddest thing to take away from this is just having to live with just this Guilt it's it's yeah because they they shouldn't be ashamed so I don't want to say shame it's like for shame forced upon you Yeah but then having to question at the same time like is there something wrong with me? Am I? You know

It do I have these feelings? There's just is there something wrong with that? But then at the same time feeling me like yeah these these feelings can't be wrong And having that confusion too. And not only having that confusion just within yourself, but also going to a medical professional because back in that day, the DSM was, it still is, but it's kind of like the blueprint for psychology. It was considered a mental illness. So you weren't going into the doctor's office or the shrink and telling them and having them be like, hey, this is a natural thing.

It's okay to feel this way. They're telling you that it is a mental illness. Oh, shit, man. And then they had people that it was showing. a guy talking, the guy was probably known as 40s, 50s, talking in front of a room of like maybe high schoolers, young high schoolers, middle schoolers about like telling them if you've ever had feelings about one of your friends of the same sex more than three times. And this guy was going down the list of a like there's a time, like you can do it too and

you're cool. That's what it was. Yeah, maybe you're gay. Exactly. But, and then hearing about how when they, when these guys would talk about or these women would talk about the stonewall and be like this was the first place a lot of them saying you know we came to new york because we heard it was more accepting and open-minded and then they get to this place where they can hang out and get validation that there's been all these other

people that have felt their entire lives the same way they felt and did like finally have this community i fuck man that it's like finding your grace land yeah you're with all your people and excuse me, back in those times and in New York, the amount of homeless kids that would be out on the street because they were kicked out of their houses or they were persecuted, anything like that by their families, to the point to where they knew that there was a place where they could go and that would be accepting is just,

it's great to know that this place existed. The fact that it came into existence through the mob is not good in the way that the mob ran it was not. good, but it is a little bit good that they gave them a place of refuge. Can you believe that the mob was just like, no, it's cool. It's a gay bar and the police were against it. It's like, who are the good guys in that situation? I'm not saying the mob wasn't getting rich because we'll get into some of their policies there,

but do you remember seeing that PSA ad where it showed the kids and they were getting their coats off the coat wreck in the classroom? And these kids are literally like third, fourth grade. And one of the kids is still over by the coat. wreck and he's fixing his tie and these other two kids are like holding a basketball and playing back and forth and they're like these are normal American boys. They're like, do you

notice Billy over by the coat rack? Doesn't he seem a little bit too concerned with his dress fixing his collar and his hair? And I'm just like, are you? Fixing your collar in your hair? And they're like, there might be something wrong with Billy. Yeah. Billy might be a homosexual.

Either that or Billy figured out girls faster. Huh? Belly might have figured out girls faster and knows that they like somebody that takes care of. themselves. You didn't even bring up my favorite PSA from that. There were too many, like my head hurt after watching some of them. My favorite one, favorite favorite just because of how ironic that it was that it happened,

was the son and the two parents in the house, and they had just finished up dinner, and they were walking over to the couch. Oh, and then he pops a cigarette in his mouth, and then packs the pack and hands one to the mom. Yeah, and their child is sitting right in between them. And he whips out the lighter to light for you. Like, this is a normal American family. Okay. Don't you want these family values?

I thought that was going to come back around. And I thought that was going to be a PSA that was like it was going to show it in parts. And then I thought the dad was going to end up being like out at a gay bar and be like, it could be anyone. So the Stonewall Inn is basically what you would consider to be any fun bar. It's got a dance floor. It's got drinks. So it was run... Got a jukebox?

Yes. It was the mob. Remember, wasn't it like the mob provided jukebox or something? Yeah. Well, and everything was. Because they wanted all the money. So the quarters you'd be pumping would go to the mob. The alcohol that they had there, they, I don't know if they were making their own or they were mixing it or what.

But like the booze that they were serving would be served in like buckets. Oh, it was like watered down beer and liquor. Most of the time it was shit that had fallen off of a truck that they had just stolen. I'm quoting falling off a truck. The mob found it off falling off a truck. So yeah, it wasn't like they were doing it out of the goodness of their heart, but basically they were ripping off these guys for, this is how bad it was. Okay.

They're going to a place where they're paying like double or triple for half the drinks. There was like problems with the plumbing and everything. This was not like a nice, nice place. It was just someplace that was theirs. Yeah. no matter how bad it looked, it was still a place where they could gather. So they had bribed the 6th precinct, the NYPD 6th precinct, to basically look the other way and to allow this to happen.

So there was money exchanging hands. But was it the World's Fair that started coming up? Yeah. So they were in about, I want to say, the numbers that I saw were about 1,200 bucks a week that they were paying the precinct. And it wasn't even like to not come. come in and harass us. You know what that would equate to today?

Ah, shit. It was 69, so probably a hell of a lot of money. Yeah, that'd be, 1,200? 1,200 a week. So if you're paying them 4,800 a month. That's got to be probably close to, like, what, like 100 grand? I'm going to say 100 grand. It sounds good.

It sounds good to me. But it wasn't that they were paying them to protect them. They were still coming in and conducting raids. They were just doing them, more opportune times, like on a weekday, really before night hit. I heard they would do a raid earlier in the day, raid the guys that were there, and then they would have enough time to get the cops out, restock up on all the booze and shit that was taken, and then open up for business later that night.

Yeah, so they knew that they had to still put on a little bit of a front. And the saddest part about the way that they would do these raids, and even though they still had them in their pocket, there was still the amount of embarrassment that guys who were there, there was the front bar, which they called in the documentary, the A-gays, like the fellows that show up in business

suits and don't dance, but are still gay and want to meet people. And then there was a back dance floor, which they said the drag queens ran, which sounds awesome. Hell yeah. And the few videos that I saw, nice-looking drag queens. I did see that, and the drag queens back,

I'm not saying anything about drag queens these days, because I'm sure they're amper. it up. Yeah. I got to be more entertaining, but not going to lie. I saw some of the drag queens and I was like, for 69 with the wigs and everything like that, I was like, these ladies look pretty hot. Hot take on drag queens, I feel like back then they had to rely more on natural beauty,

whereas now it's more of a makeup deal. That's true. So it was, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'd be bummed to be fooled by one of these drag queens. No, respect to those 60s drag queens. Um, that the embarrassing thing that would come with these raids is like the, the A gay group, the ones that were in front, they would check every single ID of the people as they were letting them go and releasing them. So they were seeing all these different names and higher profile people, lower profile people. But if you had an office job and they found out that you were gay and you were arrested for something, you would lose your job immediately.

and if you were like a teacher or if you were licensed or anything like that? I might be wrong on this. So was there notification provided to your employer that you had been arrested and for what reason? I want to say there was some rule in New York. At this time there was a law that if you were found guilty of what they consider, I'm trying to remember what the terminology they used. It was like lewd. Lude something or deviant behavior or something like that.

I want to say that there may have been a law, don't quote me on this, that they could or would notify your employer. And that's why there was such a worry when these guys that were, there were some people at this time they were openly gay and a lot of people at this time were closeted gay. So a lot of these guys that were in the A gay bar would be the closeted ones that were on their lunch breaks from work and, you know, business, you know, stock, whatever. Some had families at home. They had to have that normal life to keep that. whatever you got to wear that suit for. But then, you know, their big concern was not about the arrest. It was about the notification of them, other people finding out.

Yeah. Well, that. And if you do try to live a quiet life, if you try to live the life that everybody wants you to, and then all of a sudden that comes out and words start spreading, your life is just going to be smashed apart. If you, they would literally, if you were licensed in anything and you were convicted to any of this stuff, they could revoke your licenses. So if you were like a plumber, an electrician or something like that,

they would take your livelihood away from you. So, and also, let's mention it was illegal to serve someone who was that you could discern was gay in New York. I don't know who was the judge of that. If bartenders have to take a spot the gay course. It was probably pictures. It was probably like, is this guy smiling too much? Probably gay. Well, there was the, what was the rule they had about the dress?

What was that called? the three pieces. Yeah, but there was a term they had for it and I told myself to remember it and that I would remember it, but I can't remember now. It was, um, uh, there was a term for it about people not being able to dress in certain things, like a tire or, yeah, it was for the crossdressers. And basically the rule was that if you were found to be wearing three or more articles of clothing from a gender that they didn't believe you were, they could arrest you for it. which is a wild thought process to have because if you're going to be like, yeah, you said you were a man.

You had to be wearing, did you say, so you had to wear, yeah, you couldn't, you had to be wearing at least three pieces of your own specific. Oh, I thought it was the opposite way. No, so what, and the reason that they did it that way was because, let's say most people would wear pants, shirt, underwear, and then something else. Your socks didn't count. So you at least had to have three pieces and they figured it, that would at least cover your underwear, your pants and your shirt.

Then you could wear a ladies jacket. Like, that's what they were trying to get at. Well, and you saw how they would check this, right? They would literally pull them into what they considered a private area. Masquerade. It was the masquerade. That's what it was. Yeah, they would pull them into an area, sometimes male cops, sometimes female cop, just whatever was around.

And they would literally check their genitalia to see. see what they would feel for. Yeah, that's what they said. That's a, just the most intrusive. So I'm going to, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to stop at certain points during this podcast and just be like, what the fuck? That's, at pretty much every other point here. Yeah.

It was also a routine for police departments to use sting operations to arrest gay people. And what would they, what would they do? It would be, I'm trying to remember the exactly. Like a handhold, even. something like that to be like, hey, do you want to go outside? Do you want to go out back? Kind of like they do now. There was one about a bathroom. It was something about entrapment that they would lure, you know, the cop would be posing, which I envision a cop, an undercover cop in those days.

You know, when you see that clip of Steve Bussemi, when he's supposed to be sneaking in with the kids and he's supposed to be the kid. He's like, what's up, fellow teenagers? He's got like the fucking skateboard. What's up? Drag queens. But like, I'm imagining what a cop in the 60s, a detective would think a gay man would act like to be able to go ahead and entice another one. Well, and you're not going to like go home and ask your wife like, hey, I need to dress gay for this sting operation. What do we got?

Exactly. And I remember one thing about the entrapment thing was that it was really only successful. They actually figured out that it was only really successful on people that had just started to try to like come out and. experience the gay scene. So like the, I guess you could say the rookie gay is not the veteran. The veterans were too wily. They were seasoned. They could smell. They could smell a cop posing as gay a mile away. When you read up the bathroom thing, I immediately thought, yeah, they had to have whizzen that sting up. But then I remembered, what was it, less than 20 years ago when that Senator Larry Craig got caught in the bathroom in Minneapolis, and he was tapping his feet

underneath the stalls, and he said that he had a wide stance, but he got arrested for solicitation. So literally today, their sting operations still involved going into the bathroom to try to quarre somebody to have sex. So I actually went into that airport. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and went into the bathroom just to kind of get a feel for it. And I can confirm that you got to have a wide, wide. wide stance to make that even probable.

Hey, some people go to Deley Plaza. You better be doing splits on the toilet for you to get that far underneath the next stall. There was ample, ample room. I like that. Some people go where JFK was shot and you go to Larry Craig bathroom. So a lot of these laws that we're going to be talking about, these are state laws. So again, state and federal laws can be different. Sodomy laws existed up until 1963 in all 50 states and they were,

punishable by up to like 60 years in prison. Yeah, which sounds like a real bad time for something that can be interpreted, really. How many straight people were breaking that law the entire time? Yeah, but sex can still, sodomy can still happen between a male and a female. I will tell you right now with complete assurity, there is more man to woman but sex going on in the world than there is gay butt sex going on in the world. I will say that because there's so many more strong. straight people, I will say 100%. That'd be a fun pie chart to see.

I'm just telling you, the law of numbers, even if one out of every, what, 50 people are doing straight people, the percentage of gay people is not one out of, like, it's a small percentage. So. Yeah, nobody's going to come knocking on the door if they know that a man or woman are in the same house. Gay people need to overtake us in that number. They need to step their game up. you got, hey, it is unfair though, because I think that there are a lot of straight deviants out there.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Both male and female that are into the butt stuff. Well, and then we get to even tag team back in because there's also pegging, so we're not just worried about it going one way. I'm not even allowed to you when you said there's one more factor. I was like, I forgot about strappons. I forgot. I didn't even factor the fact in that it can now be women performing sodomy.

We go the other way too. Okay, I take it back. Gay people don't try it. They're so catching up. So, yeah, like we kind of talked about before, some states, they would send anyone caught doing their loot activities to mental institutions where this is fucking unbelievable. They were subject to shock therapy. And when I say shock therapy, I mean like strapped with electrodes. and there's in this documentary,

there's actually footage and testimony of this. They would be shown images, if it was a guy, be shown images of another naked man, and then shocked repeatedly until they thought that he would no longer be aroused by that, the sight of a naked man. Well, and I want to know how thorough they were. Like, did they have a meat gazer there

that his sole job was just to sit in front of him and if you saw a little twitch in this dude's groin, he's like, shock him, because that sounds gayer than the guy. That was the guy that had the button, actually. Oh. And he would just be right down close. And if he even thought it moved, just zapped the shit out of him.

And that guy went home and probably invented pegging. Yes. There was, excuse the name on this one, this is just what they called it, but there was a place in California at Osharo that they literally called the dash out for queers. Like, that's, That's how bad this place was.

That's how many Loponomies were going on. Yeah. Which this kind of blows me away because this happened. There was one other kind of like an open strike that had happened in California before this, but it hadn't made really any news. To me, probably what I would consider the known gay cultural hubs for me are probably, and I might be wrong on this, I might be out of date on my gay geography. New York.

California, a lot of places in California, and Seattle. Miami. Miami now? It's a party place. That's where all the retired gays now. We're now at the point now where we have a bunch of generations of old retired gays, and they're going to want to retire in style just like everybody else does. That makes me happy.

In fact, they're going to want to retire in more style because obviously. Yeah, just to think about a big old place down in Florida where it's like a gay. Jewish retirement village. That 100% Oh, that would be awesome. There is, with, without a doubt, a gay, Jewish retirement. Your ads on your phone are going to be so fucked after this.

I cannot wait. No, I'm going to find, that's just going to be nothing, but what are they, what's that box that comes with all the like, it's for guys, it's got all the really fashionable stuff. And I'm trying to think what it's, it's like a stitch fix for guys oh yeah like dude box or bespoke or bespoke that's i always forget that fucking word it's bespoke box and it's all fuck yeah like i'll just get bespoke stuff sent to my phone

i'm gonna end up spending a lot of money so gay jewish retirement florida because i figured if it's gonna be it's either going to be in florida or sedona yeah okay so um jewish community services sell florida retirement communities turn their sights on once invisible a luxury LGBTQ seniors community is slated for Palm Springs. Perfect. See, you know what? And these are like from 2019. So yes.

I don't know if it's Jewish specific, which I hope it's not, because everyone needs to be able to have fun. Yeah, but the Jewish ones would be the most fun, I feel like. And just in case you wanted to know, the gays. Oh, and it's coined the gay capital city of Florida. Fort Lauderdale. Maybe not Miami.

Okay, yeah. A little further south. Back on topic. Before we get on that, I got duped the other day too. And I fell into a gay trap and I didn't even realize it. Okay. So I've been hearing a lot about like bathhouses. Like there's Turkish bathhouses.

Oh, they're like coming back? Well, in bigger cities they're coming back. There's like a lot of them in New York, shocking. Chicago, there's some of them in California. But they just sound like the awesomest time. Like you show up there. You're just hanging out with a bunch of dudes. You go into the steam room.

You catch a steam. There's cold tubs that you can go lay in. Yeah. A schvitz and a soap. Exactly. Some of the places they'll beat you with the fronds. Just sounds like a real refreshing time. Some of them...

Yeah, they even feed you in some of them. It sounds like a great place. Yeah. So in my brain, I think these places sound awesome. We live in an old enough place. There's got to be a chance that one of them is survived by now. Okay, so you're thinking that's going to come back. Like, now you see places that are like the float tanks and like fully dedicated actual barber shops.

Like barbershops. Yeah. I could see bathhouses making a resurgence. Well, and it just sounds like a good time. If you really think about it, though, too, a lot of, if you go to an actual spa, that's a bathhouse. It's just a co-ed bathhouse. You can't do it with the boys. You can, yeah.

Oh, no, because what you do, yeah. You and me going to a spa sounds much more questionable than you and me going to a bathhouse. Say that again and see. Actually, say that one more time. You and me going to a spa sounds way more question. questionable than you and me going to a bathhouse. Really? No.

You don't think that? No. Oh, buddy. If you, and this is just personally, if you're going to think which, which phrase has the connotation to it, spa and bathhouse, bathhouse has the connotation to it. Really? Yes. I feel like a spa with the nail treatments and the facials and stuff. We'll put out a survey for this.

Yeah. We're going to do, can you do, yeah, we need Twitter and Instagram surveys. Yeah. Okay. So look for that here in another couple weeks. We'll put that out. So I am online looking and I Google that. I just Google bathhouses here.

And the first five things it brings up is the gay scene here. Did it direct you to a bathhouse? We don't have any. But it was like five best gay this, five best gay that. Is there like an Airbnb bathhouse or it's just some of a private bathhouse? Some dude maybe is installed in his basement. Just 200 bucks You can come over and use my sauna

If this is your long roundabout way of asking me If I want to get in on the ground floor Okay You're not really a bottom decker If you want me to get in on the ground floor Of the first Is this a men's only or are we going to have like Men's side women's side

Men's side women's side Okay We don't want to cut down our clientele Yeah So if you're asking me To get in on that Yeah Obviously yes

I don't hate the idea that wasn't where I was going. I was just shocked that I couldn't Google Bathhouse without it being like top 10 gay spots in your city. That's what I'm telling you. That's where the connotation is. Yeah. If you type in spa, you're not going to get that. What if you type in two dudes going to a spa?

You're still not going to get that. You get a lot of dudes just going to a spa. I'll go to a spa with you right now. You're telling me right now, we can go to a spa and get a massage. You can get massages at the bathhouse. And not like me and you massages, like actual trained people. Okay, again, if this is your roundabout way of asking me, if I would go to the spa with you, yes, I will. Okay.

You don't have to, you can just ask me. We'll get that figured out after. Okay. The other part I wanted to say on the whole mental institution thing, they would fucking lobotomize. Yeah. I don't know how, you know, of course, even if happened once, it needs to be said. But it didn't just happen once. I don't know the numbers.

I hope to God it was not a high percentage. I hope to God it was not even double digits percentage. But the fact that they thought that somehow fucking lobotomizing you would fix being gay is... Archaic. This was the fucking United States of America. Post-World War II. In the 1900s, not the 1600s. No, this wasn't fucking, she, you know, we got too much rain, so Mrs.

birth maybe a witch let's fucking burner. No, this is like, again, this is a what the fuck. You're turning people into vegetables because you're concerned about their sexuality that they've never once tried to force upon you. No shit. Like what? The thought that they would. No one is forcing you to watch or any of that shit. Like there were certain sections in New York and I'm not saying people were like fucking on the streets.

Fine. There might have been one or two instances of fucking on the street, but find me a place in the world where you don't have to watch a man and woman fucking on the street at some point or another. That's the double standard that I got from this. That's all it is. There are, okay, so anyway. The amount of PDAs that happened between males and females out in public too much. Yes. I feel like it's too much between them.

But I feel like if it evened out a little bit and there were more PDAs between same-sex couples, it would probably push the opposite-sex couples to be like, hey, maybe we shouldn't do this. Like, all PDAs in public are just kind of weird. Yeah. But to each their own. And if one set can do it, why can another set do it? If I'm a little stoned with, you know, the missus in public, I get a little handsy. But she just like, just like, knock it off.

I'm like, okay. I just forget I'm doing it. So we talked about the masquerade law wearing, you had to be wearing, the requirement was, you had to be wearing three articles of clothing, socks do not count, of the clothing of your specific gender, which they would consider your birth gender, or it was illegal in New York. All of this stuff just finally, I guess, came to a head,

which it should have come to a head. I'm surprised it didn't come to a head sooner. And frankly, it shouldn't have happened even in the first place. So the fact that it had to come to a head is crazy. It's a major moment in history where people finally stood up and just said, we're not going to fucking take this anymore. There's only so many times that you can be assaulted by a bystander

and then had the police be like, yeah, well, you shouldn't be gay. That's not going to happen. And the fact that I think the raids got more severe and more consistent, more often, was because, I think I mentioned before, so the World's Fair was getting ready to come to New York. So anyone that's not familiar with the World's Fair, they don't do them anymore. I can't remember when the last one was. Yeah, it's unfortunate they don't.

It seems like a cool idea. the thing I can describe it as for what most people that are listening to this will probably understand is if you remember in Ironman too they had the Stark Expo it was the one place where they basically had like a big section New York and it was all for like the sciences and like displays and expos and everything that was kind of like what the World's Fair was you would have all these representations of different fields of study but also different cultures around the world and you could all go see it in one place and it's something that was a big enough deal Google World's Fair New York oh it's also in men and black remember the end

of men in black where they show off that it used to be an actual alien spaceship well and the world's fair was kind of your way of showing like how technologically advanced you were at that point too you were building things that were brand new items in all these cities it's to me when i think about it it's kind of like the cultural olympics it was have you not watched any of the iron iron man movies yeah but you're sounded more like a like a like a science based thing like a nerd a little bit like a fucking nerd explanation to me it just seems like it It was kind of your newest tech, but it was kind of your cultures that were there, too. Yeah.

In front of a world audience. Like what kind of shit you got. Like the Olympics, you choose a city. They dump a ton of money. Yeah. That's what it was, intellectual Olympics. So what happened? It was an election year.

It was an election year. Okay. And people were... For New York politics. Yeah. People were concerned that they weren't going to stay in power any longer. And what's the easiest thing to do to garner a little bit of sympathy to start raining in the gays. So because they realized that New York was also going to be on a world stage for this,

they started upping raids on these known places. They also started just arresting like drag queens off the street, trying to kind of clean up the image of the street, which, you know what? Fuck it. Let them do they do their thing? Yeah, do you clean up people that are dressed poorly that are their own gender? So on June 28th, four undercover officers in the evening, what does that say? Oh, two women and two men. Yep. They enter the Stonewall. And the public morale squad for the NYPD.

Yeah, they actually had a public morals squad. That was a job title inside of the New York Police Department, a public moral squad. So not like special victims unit. Were they cops? Yeah. But it was like detectives that were in their own squadron that were in charge of public morals. So all the morality that was happening outside. So anything that they considered that lewd conduct or anything?

that this drug use, anything like that was deemed moral, so they would be the ones that would go after it. If you have, if you use drugs, do you have poor morals? That's an age-old question. And I've still always said no. No. I mean, some of the things I think about is if that was the question of morality, I would feel like I have great morals.

Other things, not so much. So at 1 a.m., four planes close. police officers. That makes sense plain clothes. They wouldn't have been dressed fabulous.

Yeah. No glittery badges or anything. Put some goddamn effort into it at least. They start the raid. Music's turned off. Lights come up.

So at this point, I think finally someone just said or a group of people just decided that this shit was enough and basically told the cops once they made themselves

known, they're like, we're not leaving. Like, fuck you. We're staying. We're not leaving. you going to do. Well, and going along with talking about the 6th precinct earlier, this had nothing to do with them. They weren't told about this. They had actually already performed a raid that week on a Tuesday at like 4 o'clock. So they had already done their deal and they weren't let in by

the Morales police that this was even going down. Well, I wouldn't be surprising if that precinct because this place had been continuing operation. They had to have known there was probably something up with that precinct and instead of trying to get to the bottom of that, they were like, Yeah, fuck it, we'll just bypass them and bust this place ourselves. True. I didn't think about that. It just, it seems like one of those things were seeing as the mob didn't get the heads up first, that they couldn't get it out to the patrons to maybe scatter to not be in here at this time. Well, shit, man, how many, the way it sounds like, it sounds like there was only like one way in and out of this place.

Well, it had actually, before it became the stonewall in and it had a fire inside of it. And then they painted all the walls black to cover up the soot of the shit on the walls, because that's what you do. Yeah, you don't replace that. No. Because there's no health hazard with that. So it was dark. There weren't a lot of ways in.

There weren't a lot of ways out. It was on the bottom of this building. And it really was kind of like you could be bottlenecked inside there and not have a way to get out. And so, of course, when you show up there on a, I think it was a Friday night, believe it was a Friday night. This place is hopping.

It's right around 1 o'clock. It's full. they send these four undercovers and four plainclothes officers into this bar full of queens, full of gay people. If you think that you're going to be able to control that situation, you've vastly underestimated yourself. Well, and the other thing, too, is I wonder when the sixth precinct, because they weren't just coming in and just like,

it wasn't just like a false raid when they would come in and just be like, hey, guys, break up, they were arresting people at this time. they were but the deal was just with the mob so but the other thing is is the gay community in this area didn't have anywhere else to go so it was like think of that just to have a sense of belonging community you are literally willing to go ahead and risk jail time on any given night that you're there so when you know this other precinct or you know wherever they were from came in they probably also had no idea how to deal with this kind of crowd no i'm sure the officers in the sixth Precinct had developed a system while it was still shitty, they at least probably could de-escalate a little bit.

Well, and they would go in there was just less people. If you show up at a bar, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, you show up to borrow one, it's just going to be different. Yeah. And the precinct did give the mob tips, like, hey, we're going to be there in three hours. So they would tell their customers, because if your customers are getting arrested or you're getting badger, there were other gay bars in the area. Yeah. Like, did any of the staff get arrested, and they had to keep replacing the staff? Because there had to be bartenders that were working for the mob or whatnot.

Yeah, and most of the time, this time, the night that we're going to talk about when the rebellion happened, they, like the first patty wagon that was supposed to show up for the arrest was strictly for the mob. So they were going to arrest all of them for it first, and then they were going to start taking. Literally go around the corner, open it up and be like, get the fuck out of here. I don't know this time, though, because I feel like this time, they were trying to... With the different precincts. I was thinking if they would have done that with the sixth person. Oh, yeah, I'm sure they did a lot.

Yeah. But these guys were looking to close down the stone wall. They had known that it was such a big hangout and a place where there was so much going on that if they could cut that head off, it would probably clear out a little bit of that area. And there were still other gay bars in the area, but nothing like the stone wall. Yeah. And again, this is in Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, right? Yep.

In the Summer of Love, 1969. So, as the police are coming in, you know, like I said, eventually, after checking people's IDs, starting checking genders. The people inside were just like, we're not going, fuck you. At this point, there's probably kind of a scene, especially with police cars outside the front. People passing on the street, onlookers, they kind of start to gather outside the stone wall

as people start getting kicked out. People get, you know, getting brought out. And an officer was trying to arrest a woman there and started to beat her as she probably struggled to either fight back, which she should have, this is not something you should be arrested for, or just, I don't know, trying to kind of struggle to break free if he's holding her in a painful position or something. There's a lot of different kind of theories as to how the riot had started.

Just different things as far as like different chance that we're going outside, but the closest that they could tell was, just lesbian lady that you were just talking about, was getting pushed back into the back. of a paddy wagon and swung her purse and drilled the cop in the side of the head and got back out and was going at him and he severely underestimated this lady and she turned around and she goes are you just going to watch are you just going to let this happen to me as they're arresting her and that was kind of when the frenzy started it was when the onlookers fuse yeah this is when you're hearing, I can hear it coming

in the air night. This is when Phil is really starting to hit the drums. It's coming. So the onlookers started throwing pennies at the police and among other things, but pennies, oddly enough because they're coppers and they're throwing them with coppers.

This is like the weird old-timey like tugging cheek shit where it's like, yeah, it's kind of funny. Hitting with pennies, burn them. This is like, it's a physical burn. Yeah. What are they throwing pennies? They're copper. so okay can you hold right after the pennies

because I got a pee yeah we can get it all right okay so they threw pennies out of what happened next uh oh buddy

I the story sounds more true than what I want it to sound actually less true than I want it to sound so you wish it wasn't true yeah okay well What I have in my mind feels like it's just so much better than what the actual story was.

So this big old drag queen starts to get real angry and she walks over to a parking meter and starts shaking it to tear it out of the ground because they're starting to go into like destruction mode. The police have realized that they don't have the upper hand in this situation. They counted the queens. They counted themselves. They realized that this is about to get real bad real quick. Do you remember the number of cops that showed up? I think it was only eight. Because at that point, it was the four plain clothes and then the four undercovers. So you have thousands of angry gay straight people that are tired of the cops everybody down on that bar block starting to push down on you and the police realized at that point that there's no way that they're getting out of this okay

so all the people that they just kicked out have still stayed they're all very angry you start to hear the chance of gay power happening and all these cops was i don't know if you know this was and this is not making light of it was the actual chant gay power oh it was Which sounds awesome. Yeah. It would be fun to hear that just pop off in public. Where is that coming from? Yeah.

Where is it? Who's doing that? This was an angry chant to the point to where the police realized that they weren't getting out of this okay. And there were actually two reporters that were cocksuckers, not literally, just figuratively. Yeah. Yeah. Got to specify this time. There's a good one and a bad one.

But they were from the village view or, some shit like that. It was some newspaper that was down there that was very right-leaning that they went in there to see the action and get the story so they could print it the next day. They get chased into the stone wall. All the cops get chased into the stone wall. There's still a few gay folks

that get trapped inside too. And then we pan back to this angry cross-dresser who is wrenching on this parking meter and a bunch of other people go down and help him or her pull it out of the ground.

and I like to think that she just grabbed it and like Bennett and half and ripped it out of the ground like just superhero strengthed it out so they start jamming it against the door and ramming the door of the stone wall trying to break in to get to these cops which I'm sure at this point have done the math and realized that they're all kinds of fucked

and end up making some good headway they break through the door enough to the point where people are throwing things inside at the police and at one point somebody goes and gets a can of lighter fluid sprays it all over the door and lights it on fire. So these cops have not a lot of ways out of the bar at this point. So they start to call for backup to the 6th Precinct

and they're never going to imagine that the 6th precinct doesn't answer the calls for the raid that was never run past the. them or anything like that. So that's surprising. It was on their turf on a place where they're getting the take. Can you imagine? Okay, well, I guess we have recently heard about cops not doing a fucking thing. Yeah. Certain areas.

But can you imagine in New York, calling into a precinct? Like a New York City police firm precinct and just no response. And I don't know if the calls went unanswered as in like no one responded to them. as far as showing up, or if they're just like, yeah, we're on our way. We should be there in, out. That weird old fella on the documentary, the guy that was in the NYPD hat, was one of the officers that was in there. And he said that it had never happened before,

where when they would press down on their radio, they wouldn't get any feedback, and it would just be silence as they were talking. So I can imagine some guy sitting in the sixth precinct, Like, as soon as they start talking, he just holds his talk button down too, so everything goes silent. He's like, ah, I'm not picking anything up. Slow night tonight. Don't know what's going on in the village. Enough to where I'm sure there was probably questions afterwards, like, hey, what happened to you guys?

Yeah. Which, unfortunately, I feel like if they had shown up, things would have gone better. But this is a serious topic because it is what would be considered a riot. I feel like it's a little bit more like a rebellion just because it was people standing up for injustice and trying to take back their own rights. Yeah, I think the term riot has that connotation when it was people not doing something for a just cause

or for the right reasons. Yeah, which unfortunately, a lot of things get labeled riots that were just causes. Or things that are just causes get turned into riots by a few, that's what sucks is when like good causes, like a couple people fucking ruin it. And then that's all the... Coutures that want to get in there and get going.

So one of the female officers actually escapes to go for help. Yeah, she bailed out the back window of I think it was one of the bathrooms. And ends up making it to, I don't, it would be great if it was the 6th precinct that she made it to, but I don't think that it was.

I didn't see where she got to. She got to a place to where she could actually call for backup. Yeah. And that's when the riots, Quad comes in. And just to get back to where I forgot, we're going to call it a riot. It was a very serious matter. But there's something about this, which I hope you can see the humor into, the fact that, like, this wasn't a normal riot. This was a bunch of flamboyant, excited, proud gay people that were going to do whatever they could to fuck with the police. It was a riot.

During this whole thing, I just want to think that it's raining men was playing in the background just that's a fucking banger song yeah it's an anthem it's great yes yeah so and I'm sorry but if you are going to say like oh I don't like that song play that song and you're going to catch yourself knowing at least

of course it's a simple chorus but tell me how many people don't know the dance to YMCA exactly yeah same thing you claim you don't but you know you do so she gets a hold of basically what was

the riot squad back then it had a different weird name so we'll just call it the riot squad at this point because it's basically what they were and shields and helmets guys yep shields and helmets guys shields helmets excuse me batons they show up and

there's just a silence that goes over the crowd they realize that things are kind of starting to change but don't really know what's going on and as the sea of people parts the uh fellows with the riot gear show up and another paddy wagon shows up.

And was this like, I didn't see the footage of this. Is this like what you would think of like old school like riot squad where they're like across the street, a couple guys deep all with shields and they're just marching forward? Yeah. And then you see the, you know, the other crowd on the other side. And it's shitty comparison. But like when you see beatings that happen out in the streets from riot squads and all that, they look exactly like that.

They're ready to bus skulls. So these are the ones that show up to try to gain the peace and order again. Because that's how you. Yeah. That's how you extend the offer of peace as you go out there with the fucking riots clubs. Billy clubs and riot shields. They're met with something that I can undoubtedly say was a resistance of which they've never met before. So a lot of these.

the cross-dressing men had stood up in front of them, and they were facing off in probably the most awkward standoff ever because it was men and dresses standing against the riot squads. And they proceeded to link arms and form a rockette-style kickline as they sang the song, We are the village girls, we wear our hair and curls, our dungarees are above our nelly knees.

Hell yeah Which The way they sang it sounded hot I can't hit those octaves It just doesn't sound right This proceeded to just basically Piss off the Wright Squad To the point to where they rushed them

They broke up the kick line unfortunately And started bashing heads But they still did not have the numbers To be able to do anything That they wanted to do at this point They got rushed And as more police were showing up Well I think at this point too

so it's not just the village girls that are there fighting back. This is also essentially, they're kind of fighting the neighborhood, aren't they? Because people are coming out, and it's not just gay people in this neighborhood. People living in this neighborhood,

not every single one of them might have been like in that lifestyle. But if you're living in this area and everything, then you're probably more open-minded. Because it does, like New York did have more, I think everyone has seen TV shows that they understand that New York, is just this collection of little cultural cities.

It's just a melting pot. Yeah. So you have people also from this neighborhood that are joining in in support of, you know, in support of essentially the gay side of this. They've seen it happen. Yeah. They've seen these people treated poorly by literally everybody. So the other thing that the Riot Squad did not plan on was the mob.

ability to understand the neighborhood, I guess you would say, because they would chase them down the street and instead of the mob dispersing, they would go up a back street, circle all the way back around and cut down another street to then be right back in front of the stone wall. So as they would chase them away and then start to try to take over the stone wall again, the mob would be coming back around the corner at them. They had no idea if it was new people showing up. They had no idea if it was the same people. I imagine they probably knew it was the same people because they kept getting madder and matter each time they circled. And there was just no ability for them to basically cut the head out of the snake. It just kept coming and coming and coming the whole entire night.

It was just a bunch of dudes coming all over a bunch of them. I almost did it. I almost got it. I was just watching you be like, where is he going to let this go? Or is he going to take this somewhere? I almost had it. but it just, it lasted the entire night. And it was the exact same pattern the entire night to the point to where in the morning when everybody woke up, there were gay folks sitting on stoops outside across from other gay folks, across from police officers that were all just so worn out from an entire night of fighting and chasing and beatings going both directions, I'm sure, to the point to where,

they literally could sit across from each other and they couldn't do anything. They were that tired. It's kind of the like the trench warfare thing in World War II. Like, or no, World War I. So basically they would just be sitting for months in their own trenches with not being able to advance, but... You want to, you're just so tired.

You can't do anything about it. The streets were just littered with broken glass and they said that it was almost a beautiful sight as the sun came up to see all the broken glass and everything out on the street because it was just littered. There were fires that were in trash cans. Did you see the one fellow in the documentary that said that they were throwing bricks? But unfortunately, in the gay community, there weren't a lot of baseball players.

So a lot of the bricks that they were throwing ended up hitting bystanders in the crowd. I did not see that. So he said that there was some collateral damage every time somebody would throw a brick. Sorry. It wouldn't land exactly where you wanted to, but just complete chaos. So this went on for five nights. Yeah. And the second night.

This was the other thing that amazed me. And I don't know if this was the mob giving the biggest fuck you to the cops ever for what they did. But the stone wall opened up the next night. It was lit on fire. Everything was smashed inside of it. All the booze was taken and gone and dumped everything. They brought a new jukebox. in, they brought all the new booze in, and the Stonewall

open the second night. That's, I don't know if that's... That's a fucking flex. Yeah, I don't know if that's gay support or just you're angry at the police, but that is awesome. Is there a gay mafia? I'm sure there are gay people in the mafia. Do you think they're able to be openly gay in the mafia? I'd hope.

I'd hope that an institution such as the mafia would be accepting now. They gotta be pretty, you know, they're open-minded with interpretation of the law. Yeah. And they do tend to have a code of honor from what I've experienced, not firsthand, but within media. Within the movie realm. Within the movie and TV. Listen, the Sopranos, Tony had a code of ethics. They were flexible.

Yeah. Well, and he said that you don't eat pussy too, which, I mean. Come on, Tony. And you've got to do that once in a while. So the next night, the crowds grow. to the point to where the riot squad is standing downtown. They know that this wasn't over.

They know it wasn't a one-and-done night. At this point, it's not only just the gay community and its supporters. The Black Panthers had shown up. Anti-war protests were still popping off left and right. So anti-war protesters, anti-government protesters had shown up. Bit of advice.

If you're going to have a riot with a oppressed minority somewhere, don't do it in New York because they have an abundance of different oppressed minorities and cultures. And yeah, they, I would imagine, would like to come out in support of, some of them would probably like to come out

in support of one another. More than a few. Or just take a crack at the cops. Yeah. A combination of that is what probably helped them out here. Well, I imagine that that grand grounds full of support from everybody else, whether it was just to get back at the cops or to, you know, help protect them was probably a pretty galvanizing feeling.

Like you, you knew that you had so much other support behind you at that point. So this goes on, yeah, like you said, another five nights where there's fires everywhere. There's beatings in the streets from the police officers. But there's really no resolution to the issue other than it just finally started a peter out, but it only petered out physically because what it sparked in the gay community and the organizing

that happened after that was something that I don't know if we've really ever seen before. There was a group that came out of this. There were two groups that were, we should have talked about them earlier, before the

Stonewall Riot happened, and one of them was the Matashine Society, which was the pro-gay movement back at the time. And the other one was the Daughters of Belitas, which was the pro-lesbian movement at the same time. And in name, they were a group of gay people trying to push for gay rights. But in the same way that you would say please and thank you,

like it was a very polite way of doing it. And in the documentary... Are these the people that... when they went to go protest or they were the ones that were protesting essentially for gay rights, but they were all wearing like nice dresses and suits. Because, and I mean, there's definitely an intelligent rationale to this is that they wanted to go ahead and be like, we're not any different. Like, look, you're wearing a suit.

I'm wearing a suit. We're don't like, we're not different people. We're the same people. Like, it doesn't make us different than you. Yeah. And so they were less of the like, in your face flamboyant and everything. And you still did have that, you know,

group of people, which they should have been able to protest however they wanted, but this specific group of people had this idea of just like, let's just show them there's no difference. That it's not, you know, it's not a deviation away from their way of life. It's certainly a way to go.

It is a strategy. You have to think, though, after going through the 50s of just the ultimate gay oppression that happened in the 40s and 50s, And to the point where, and I love this too, because it's so tied into history with McCarthyism and, like, the red scare, they called the gay movement the lavender scare, which lavender is a tremendous looking color to be named after for a scare. It's an excellent herb, too. Yeah, it's, the lavender scare sounds awesome.

If you were trying to go ahead and be, you know, degrading, fail. Yeah. All you did is make it sound better. Code Lavender? Hell yeah. So the Mattachine Society was to the point where they had a speaker on the documentary who was speaking up about gay rights and had made some claims as far as we don't want the equality of being able to marry and things like that. Just because he was trying to be so proper in trying to break it in, all he was trying to do was shut down the sodomy laws. And this was before Stonewall happened.

So he wanted the sodomy laws to go away, but he was saying that there were very few people in the movement and in the Madashin society that wanted equal rights as far as marriage and everything else, which that's only to satiate, I feel like, the American public. And it came to the point at the end of this interview in the documentary where he did say that reporter asked him straight out, he goes, are you a homosexual? And he even backpedaled on that and said that he had been for a few years. years earlier on, but he's been not gay and gave up that lifestyle. It wasn't his, not his cup of tea anymore. Yes, that's what he said. So, so it just, they wanted to politely try to do it. And we've learned through and through times everywhere, politeness doesn't get you anywhere.

No. It sounds good. It can appreciate you to people, but it doesn't get the kind of results that sometimes need to occur. No, no. Sometimes you need a little bit. Sometimes you need a rebellion. um so out of that out of stonewall the gay liberation front was made and they were going to be somebody who was a little bit more in your face they they wanted to be out there they wanted to be seen it was a group that wasn't split and divided as much as they were into um gays and lesbians they were just one united front as the gay liberation front which strength in numbers is always going to be the way that you need to go in these situations.

And they started meetings, started growing all throughout the country. They were getting all sorts of different chapters that were joining in. And a lot of the time back then, just because it was so long ago, leaflets that would be handed out on the street were kind of like today's internet to get the word out. Yeah. And in New York, they were printing thousands of leaflets a day just to hand out. out to all the different people on the street and to get their numbers up, basically to let everybody know there was a safe place, there was a place that was fighting for them. And sadly enough, even then, I think there were still like 11 states as of 2003 that had anti-sodomy laws

that the Supreme Court finally struck down. That's right. So it was literally up until 2003 that there were still sodomy laws on the books in these places. So as much as they spread out and as much as they tried, they still didn't quite have the numbers nationally that they wanted. But come a year after the riots, excuse me, after Stonewall had happened, they decided that they just weren't going to let it go. They decided they needed something to commemorate. They needed something to happen. So they got together and the Matashine Society that was still somehow in existence, a lesbian lady came into the Matashine Society at their meeting. and pitched the idea of having a gay rights protest like a march and they put it up to a vote and she said that it was just a sea of hands.

Everybody wanted it. Everybody wanted to go. Their only issue that they were concerned about was it wasn't going to be in Greenwich Village. They were going to try to make it down to Central Park and cut across 6th Avenue down that way. At the beginning of the march, it was just a few hundred people, but as people started to line the streets and see what was going on, by the time they had made it down to Central Park, there was security at Central Park.

And they ended up stopping the group. Was this security at Central Park? Just normal security. It was always at Central. Okay. They knew what was coming. Oh, so security had been placed there because of this? Yeah.

Oh, okay. So. Kind of seems. if they, were they worried about, oh, well, this is, I guess, one year after the riot, that makes sense. Yeah. So after most of the group shows up, the security steps in and says, hey, we can't let you guys in. They said, we're here for this March. I know we don't have any of the tickets or any of the permits that you would have to have to organize it. Because obviously, they weren't handing out permits to gay people back then.

And the security goes, no, we literally can't have any more people in this section of the park. By the time they got there, or by the time they started, they had had hundreds of people. By the time they got to the park, they had thousands of people that had shown up to march with them and celebrate with them. And this was basically the first pride parade that had happened in this country that launched. Yeah. Yeah, get that down. It launched Pride all across the world to the point to where in 2018 was the first year that Pride was celebrated on all seven continents. There was a group of gay scientists. Can you imagine like Brazilian gay pride?

Oh, it would be crazy. It would be like carnival. That's what I'm saying. It's gay. Like, think of how crazy carnival is. Think of gay carnival. That would be nuts. Oh, that would be cool.

It's just carnival, but with like, taller people. taller people, better costumes? Yeah, that would be sick. Yeah, like I say, 2018, finally, Antarctica got on board. We can probably give them a pass on being a little behind on the Times down in Antarctica, I guess. That would be a brutal gay pride parade. You would just have striped coats on, you would have rainbow parkas on. There was a group of scientists that were down there that decided to celebrate, too, to make it a full thing.

good for them. That's awesome, man. To know that pride happens and all seven continents of the country every year, no one is just... You mean all seven continents of the world? Yeah, all some continents.

Not all countries. All countries is a different story, but continents... Yeah. That's going to be something that you can hang your hat on. What do you think? Do you think all 50 states

in one way or another have gay pride parades? I think there are, even in some of the really close-minded conservative states. I think there are points of... So like in Texas,

Austin is the... Yeah. The blue dot in the sea red. That they definitely have a pride. Just because of the population, they're going to have a larger gate community. Probably not in Dallas or anywhere like that. No, but I'm saying just each state,

so that could count as Texas. New Orleans, of course. Alabama. I'm sure there's a place in Alabama that's a large enough city that they have one. It's probably a college town. Yeah, probably Tuscaloosa somewhere like that. Alaska.

It's cold, but they can do it. Alaska Pride Parade you definitely wear more clothes. The floats are more skis, more sleds. But I mean, out of this event, and I'm not saying it was this singular event that was the catalyst, but I don't think... Well, that's what I'm saying is I don't think you get where we are today. And, man, we still got a, you know, ways to go and everything like that. But I don't think you get where we are today, at least in the, you don't want to say advancement, but like the acceptance and understanding and just normalization of just having a different lifestyle. And fuck, like, fuck off.

If it's not something that affects you, like, don't be concerned with what somebody else is doing. Well, just because somebody wants to throw a parade because they're proud of how far they come doesn't mean that it's a direct affront to you. and a lot of the documentary when they would talk to people, they said that this wasn't a riot of the straight. This was a riot for their rights. This was an uprising. It wasn't against straight people. It was an uprising.

Against oppression. Yeah. Which had been, you know, for how long since this country was in existence? Yeah. For a place it was founded on freedom, the amount of oppression that comes with the freedom is pretty shocking. It's, hey, it's as long as the majority get to experience. freedom. It's not freedom for all.

It's freedom for, you know, all the people that think they matter. Freedom for me, not for the... Yeah, no shit. But... So, I mean, I think that kind of covers it. I was happy to do this episode. This month is kind of taking a change,

I feel like, in the last, oh, probably three, four years, you see companies that are starting to latch on that are starting to change their logos for the month and putting the pride behind. it hopefully I want to believe in something so I want to believe that they're doing it for good intentions and that they're doing it to try to help it you can be both good intentions and it can be a smart business decision I mean it's not I don't so here's the thing I think that it happens because it's both of those but I I think if it's not and this is shitty to say

I just think it's the reality I think if it's not a good business decision then company don't do it. But it should always be a good business situation because, first of all, it doesn't affect your normal client base. No. Because, you know, a company for the month wants to put a rainbow design behind their logo or something like that or donate to a cause, bring awareness. I think that stuff's fucking great. That's

just trying to better everybody. You know, what do they say, a rising tide lifts all ships? Yep. Just fucking pick everybody up. And if you are ignorant enough to drop a company that you use because they put up a rainbow logo once a month or once a year,

you're probably just a shitty enough person that you shouldn't have that. Those are the same people that are cutting the car or logos off their jackets, but still wearing the actual jackets. And buying the actual jackets. Huh? And buying the actual jackets to cut them off.

So you're still supporting Carhart by buying the jacket. It's a crazy world that we live in now. So we could use this as the cold or whatever, but it was just something funny that I saw the other day. So you see a lot of people nowadays that are kind of hyped up and really against the anti-socialist movement and they don't want socialism in this country. And they will post certain things against socialism on social media.

And then we run into a situation like we are now where the supply chain is running short. We're having some issues and things are getting more expensive for people. and to see those same people post things just as tone deaf as something like hey, I have a plan if everybody in your neighborhood were to grow a garden and they were all to grow a certain vegetable

then we could all go ahead and share those vegetables and we would have to cut or we would be able to cut down on the cost of groceries it's like wait a second you just described socialism everybody's against socialism until they need socialism yeah

everyone's against socialism until you realize that the fucking fire department, the police department, the roads. Yeah. You're literally dealing with socialist structures every, every day, every time you get in your car.

Yeah. It's a misunderstanding that people hear the word socialism, and they have no idea what it means. They think it means that, and what's crazy is the people that are against socialism, it seems like the most, are the people that would benefit from socialism the most. Yeah, absolutely.

The people that don't see, that it plays a role in your daily lives, like you say, just getting into a car, that fucking getting onto a bus, socialism. It just literally everything revolves around it. So to fight it just seems amazing. It doesn't really pertain to this other than to try to bring it back in.

Like if you're somebody that hates companies for supporting causes that you don't like, but then we'll also cheer a company on that supports a cause that you do like, you're just an asshole. You don't understand that, that thought. at all of the wishwash of going back and forth that just makes you look bad.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that these girls and gals and guys and dudes and... The early transgender that had to go through this stuff was... And what they've still had to fucking go through. And the fact that it's even still a conversation, man. Yeah, it still goes on to that. It feels like now over the never with fucking the grooming shit and the like thinking teachers are like, Yeah, guess what you do. When your society changes,

your education needs to change. Like, are we still fucking teaching kids that Pluto's a planet? No, we're not because Pluto's not a planet, which I have a fucking grievance with, but I'm not going to get into it right now. The simple fact is, like, you have to adapt as a society.

And one of those things that makes people better suited to be a citizen is, like, having an understanding that, like, the world is not black and white, that there's fluidity to it. And I'm not saying that like everyone needs to be like gender fluid or sexually, you know, fluid or anything like that. What I'm saying is that live your life that's the best life for you and stop paying attention to what other people are doing and thinking it has some type, something to do with you. Nobody's

ever been gay because of somebody. Nobody's ever felt trans because of somebody. These are all feelings that people have inside and when you start to look at a situation where they say, oh, we don't need to talk about this in schools. I bet you if there was a situation, whether you're religious or not, if they said, hey, we're going to start just not talking about anything religious in schools and if you talk about it, you can be fired. You're going to take offense to that. We're not doing, do these still do pledged allegiance in schools? That I'm sure they probably do in most places, which I... They do it here, I'm guessing. Yeah. But at the same time, like that is in a certain way

bringing in both government and religion into that that alone. And I'm not saying I have anything against the Pledge of Legion. What I'm saying is don't be a fucking hypocrite. I have your Pluto feelings about the political legions. But don't be a fucking hypocrite. It's not a buffet. You take

it all or take none of it and go fuck yourself in the mountains and do whatever. Yeah. If you hate society, don't live in it. Don't contribute to it. Yeah, if you have such a problem with it. but I hope out there I hope that uh you know what I would like to imagine that we have a few

dudes and ladies out there that are open-minded and everything that like to listen to this and this one's for you guys gals he's she's they's thems everybody this this podcast is for everybody we're going to cover a lot of everybody and it's not going to be typical histories this isn't something you're ever going to find in a textbook

This isn't something you're ever going to be taught in school, but it is a truly important movement that's happened in this country that needs to have the light shit on it. All right, man. You got anything else? All right. Well, until next time. Peace. All right, guys. Hey, thank you so much for making it through another episode and sticking with us.

If you want to kind of follow up on the next upcoming episodes, get some teasers. Adam, can they get us on the Twitter? We can get us on the Twitter. Our Twitter handle is historically high. historically H-I. Nice. And on the Instagram. Our Instagram is historically high pod.

That's historically high P-O-D. And what happens if your social media inept? If you have any issues where you can't figure out social media, our email is historically high podcast at gmail.com. We set up a landline. Just in case. You guys can go ahead and shoot us any question. or even maybe suggestions for future episodes, something you guys want to hear.

Yeah, high thoughts, questions, anything like that. We're always open. We'll always get back to you. Hell yeah, guys. See you on the next episode. Peace.