0:01

Hello, and welcome to cool people who did cool stuff.

0:03

You were twice a week reminder that when we fight,

0:06

we win, not always like win the

0:08

fight itself, but fighting is winning

0:10

because it's refusing to be beaten down. That's

0:13

what this podcast is about. I'm your host, Margaret

0:15

Kiljoy, and with me today is Shrine

0:17

Unas. Yeah that's me, Hi

0:20

yay, and

0:23

not with us today the

0:25

producer Sophie. Sophie,

0:28

she is still very

0:30

sick, and I hope she's feeling okay, but yeah,

0:33

yeah, she will be missed. But now

0:35

we can say anything we want. I know, like

0:38

I can finally tell everyone about

0:40

the time that I and

0:45

then there were six of them and only three of us. But

0:47

then and

0:50

I don't know, I haven't been the same since.

0:53

Well, So thank you so

0:55

much for telling me that that's really vulnerable of

0:57

you. I really appreciate you opening up about the experience.

1:00

And I'm the audience knows now too, because

1:02

I feel like they're going to be so much closer to you, I

1:04

know, and I feel like it's like I've been meaning to get it off

1:06

my chest since the pocket, like it's important

1:09

context. So Ian

1:13

is our audio engineer and our theme

1:15

music was written for us by an women and

1:18

this week we are continuing the story from

1:20

last week, the story of Stonewall. Well,

1:23

in a lot of ways, we're telling the story kind of around

1:25

Stonewall, since the story of Stonewall itself

1:27

is fairly well known, although it's still worth telling

1:30

again. So I'll tell it too, but

1:32

I highly recommend you go back and not

1:34

you sharing you you were there, but

1:37

anyone who hasn't heard it should go back and listen

1:39

to parts one and two. Margaret's right because

1:42

similar to most things in history, there's like

1:44

a singular event sometimes that gets so much attention,

1:47

and knowing all the other events that led

1:49

up to that mountain sometimes is really helpful

1:52

because it's not just

1:54

like one day it changed, right, And

1:56

I think it's really helpful to know everyone

1:59

else the fall so hard before

2:02

the big event that's in your history books, I guess

2:04

you know. Yeah. Plus you get

2:06

to hear about someone with a parrot beating

2:08

up NIVB Yes, and a cheetah

2:11

right or leopard leopard

2:12

Yeah, I

2:14

like to think that leopard fucked some transphobes

2:16

up. I mean, you

2:18

have to go out with the bang, I'm sure so yeah,

2:22

I mean, like I feel safer with my forty

2:24

pound dog near me. Imagine

2:26

how much safer you feel as a trans person when

2:28

you're a fucking leopard invincible. Yeah,

2:31

that should that should be like band

2:34

guns, legalized leopards. That's

2:36

my take, leopards for queers. Yes,

2:39

exactly. So now

2:41

that we've sort of set the scene, not with

2:43

the talking about leopards, but you know, the larger thing.

2:46

We haven't set New York scene, but

2:48

we've set the scene LGBT shit in the US in the fifties

2:50

and sixties. And I know that

2:52

every city is like unique and beautiful and

2:54

cool, but like in

2:56

the broadest sense of New York City was one of the

2:59

other major cities during all this What I'm

3:01

trying to say is the New York City is extra unique

3:03

and cool. Social

3:05

oppression pushed more and more queers into

3:07

big cities during all this time, right, and

3:10

to go back to like the twenties and shit

3:12

prohibition meant that since bars were illegal

3:15

anyway, all the illegal

3:17

shit tends to hang out together. So gayness

3:19

was more present overall in the drinking culture

3:21

in New York because all the bars are

3:23

illegal. So it makes sense what's

3:25

one more illegal thing? Yeah,

3:28

and so we're going to start today with Okay,

3:32

not the like showiest person, but

3:34

like probably my favorite person.

3:36

Wow, from all of this, Eva

3:38

could more favorite than Frank Frankton.

3:42

Shit, poor guy,

3:45

he's wanting to be an astronomer. I

3:48

just feel for that when someone some

3:50

peaceful marches. Yeah

3:53

he tried, you tried, Yeah, Eva

3:55

Cotchever, or, as he's often

3:57

remembered, Eve Adams. She is

4:00

a Jewish lesbian anarchist who moved from Poland

4:02

to New York in nineteen twelve. She

4:04

spoke seven fucking languages. Well,

4:07

and I think she moved with her partner, but

4:10

I'm not one hundred percent certain on that. I read one thing

4:12

that said that she did, and soon

4:14

enough. Her job in the

4:16

US, she's a traveling like door to door

4:18

salesperson, saleswoman who sells

4:21

anarchist magazines. This is in the sixties,

4:23

no, the nineteen twenties, twenty okay, sorry

4:25

sorry, yeah, yeah, no, no, it's okay,

4:28

So in the nineteen twenties and the nineteen

4:30

tens actually, And when she first moves there, she's

4:33

like traveling around being like selling

4:35

Emma Goldman's Mother Earth and if

4:37

you want to hear more about that, listened

4:40

to our episode on birth control pioneers. And

4:42

so she's distributing these like illegal underground

4:44

newspapers and shit everywhere, probably in a bunch of

4:46

different languages I assume at least Yiddish

4:48

and English and a couple other. She

4:51

goes to Chicago for a while, she lives there for a while,

4:53

and she makes her living teaching Russian. So I guess

4:55

that's another one of her seven languages. Well, and

4:57

she runs a gay literary salon called the

5:00

Gray Room. Wow, she does a

5:02

lot of six stuff. I want to be a

5:04

polygon and have a gray Room.

5:06

Well, I know, I know. That's like

5:09

I always think about this whenever people are like,

5:11

what's yours? What if you could have a superpower

5:13

would it be? I don't want to fly. I want

5:15

to be invisible. I want to know every language

5:18

in the world, and that would be the best superpower.

5:20

Like I there are so many and

5:23

there's no way I could learn even

5:25

like a handful of them in my lifetime.

5:28

Well enough, yeah, but that is the best superpower.

5:31

So all of the polygots out there, you're

5:33

doing it right. You're doing it right. Just

5:35

I agree, And one of my biggest frustrations

5:37

is that, like I'm a jack of all trades and

5:40

I can't have a conversation in any language

5:42

but English. I can like read enough

5:44

Spanish to like not be fucked over, and

5:46

if I'm inn like, and I've like used

5:49

Spanish as my like language in other

5:51

countries that aren't like

5:53

Italy. In France, I get around with

5:55

my Spanish and stad of my English or whatever, but I

5:57

don't speak it well enough. And I'm

6:00

so good at learning shit, and I'm so bad at

6:02

learning languages. So much I

6:04

know and so like just so much respect

6:07

for everyone who puts in net work

6:09

and like So from nineteen

6:11

twenty one to nineteen twenty three, she lives in

6:13

Chicago and she runs the gay literary salam

6:15

The Gray Room, And then she moves back to

6:17

New York and she publishes a book. She's

6:19

really subtle about what she's about. The

6:22

book is called Lesbian Love Wow

6:25

Wow. Yeah, not subtle.

6:29

Anarchists are not known for being shy about

6:31

Her name is Eve too, Like it's so so ironic.

6:34

Her name is Eve. I love it, yeah totally.

6:37

So. In nineteen twenty five, she opens

6:40

what might be the first lesbian bar or

6:42

even gay bar in the United States. There's

6:45

a lot of people being like, oh, the first bar, or these

6:48

bars like one in New Orleans and I think one in the Bay

6:50

or whatever. But those are in the thirties, and I

6:52

think that what is happening here is that people

6:54

aren't counting prohibition era ones because they speakeasies,

6:57

so they're not like legal bars. I

7:00

don't fucking care what's legal. Yeah,

7:03

it's all made up, yeah, exactly.

7:05

It is completely unrelated to what's

7:07

ethical. Um. So

7:11

she opens what might be the first gay bar in

7:13

the United States, and it's called Eve's

7:15

Hangout or Eve Adams's Tea Room.

7:18

Adams two is great, what a great name. Oh

7:21

my god, Yes, I

7:23

know, I know she spells her name

7:25

at least in this context with two d's, So

7:28

Adams like the Adams family. This

7:31

is the second anarchist queer

7:34

connection to the Adams family that I've made.

7:38

We talked about in the episode up about Up against

7:40

the Wall, motherfuckers, But the woman who played Granny

7:43

Adams in the nineteen ninety one one

7:45

was a queer anarchist pacifist m

7:48

wow, like theater person from

7:50

a connection from the nineteen sixties. Who

7:52

was a good connections Yeah, who

7:54

was a big part of inspiring a lot

7:56

of the subcultural shit that the hippies did through the up

7:59

against the wall motherfuckers. Wow, yeah,

8:02

that's so cool. I know Adam's

8:04

family secretly like why I actually always thought

8:06

they were cool, but secretly

8:09

like anarchists too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And

8:11

so an Eva gets called the Queen

8:13

of the third sex because the third

8:16

sex was yet another way of describing gay

8:18

folks at the time. I see that all more

8:20

time, the third sex, the third

8:22

sex, Yeah, was a way

8:24

that people would talk about there's like men

8:26

women in gays interesting, m

8:29

Yeah, and it's one

8:32

day. I don't know. When I do more

8:34

of a nineteenth century homosexuality

8:37

episode will like dive more into and

8:39

I will know more about exactly how third

8:41

sex relates to yah, homophile

8:44

and all of these other things that are going on. Yeah.

8:46

So they didn't mean it, but it's biological

8:49

sex. Obviously they made it more like

8:51

like what did they what does what does they mean by sex?

8:53

Back then? So I don't This is the

8:55

part I don't totally get, but I'm under

8:57

the impression by third sex they meant like

9:00

kind of like, yeah, third sexuality

9:03

interesting, but also I think that they kind

9:05

of understood it as this like in

9:07

it thing, this like part thing that's part of

9:09

you, so it's also a thing that you like.

9:12

It's basically if you're if you

9:14

can be bored with the sex of a woman, you can

9:16

be born the third sex too, So that's

9:18

kind of like I think, so not too

9:20

bad. No, and

9:23

the third sex was not a pejorative.

9:26

I believe. I believe it was used by

9:28

um, by the gay movement. That's

9:31

cool. Yeah, No, it's gonna be really funny

9:33

when one hundred years from now people are like, and

9:36

this podcast host she

9:38

was a transgender woman,

9:41

which is I know it sounds kind of fucked up to

9:43

say, but you have to understand in twenty

9:45

twenty three, you know, like, because

9:48

the way that we think about sex and gender is constantly changing.

9:50

And that's totally fucking fine. That's so true.

9:53

It's so true. Um just kidding this time

9:55

we got it right and everyone else is wrong. So

9:58

um. Yeah, this club, it's definitely ten years

10:00

earlier than Mona's for forty club in San Francisco,

10:02

which is open in nineteen thirty six. And gets called

10:04

the first lesbian bar. It depends

10:07

on definitions. This

10:09

one also in a lot of ways,

10:11

it was less of a bar. It was almost

10:13

certainly a speakeasy. Most

10:15

tea rooms were coded as

10:17

we're just speakeasies, And

10:19

it's usually described as a speakeasy. But

10:22

it's more of an event space, and it's like a place

10:24

to go to poetry discussions and shit than

10:26

it is to get drunken dance. Love that. Yeah,

10:29

I know, i'd like actually do a way better at

10:31

this. I mean I would rather. I mean I always

10:34

say I'm not a big drinker or bar person,

10:36

but just put me into like a tea room or

10:39

poetry place, like that's the ship. You know,

10:41

that should be more normalized. I really think about that every

10:43

time. That's seldom times I have to

10:45

go out. I just want to go to a bookstore

10:48

and drink some tea. That should be normalized. I don't

10:50

need to go to a freaking bar and pretend

10:52

to like alcohol. I agree.

10:55

And so there's this sign

10:58

up at this bar. Maybe probably

11:00

not, but historically this is the story. It's

11:03

probably apocryphal, which is sad because sometimes

11:05

our enemies make up the coolest

11:08

things about us. You know, this was like yeah,

11:11

like like the lavender lads. Yeah,

11:13

yeah, exactly. And in this case, the news

11:15

articles that were like condemning this place claim

11:18

that there's a sign up at the bar that says men

11:20

are admitted but not welcome. Thank

11:24

you. Yeah, you know, we rule.

11:26

Do they work for us? I know?

11:29

Yeah. The same source that claims

11:31

the sign existed was a nineteen twenty six article

11:33

in Variety, and it basically the rest

11:35

of the article is like, this place is an evil

11:37

sex den where Mannish women prey on our

11:39

innocent girls. So

11:42

she runs a cool lesbian bar, an important

11:44

social center for New York's bohemian scene and

11:46

for immigrants and lesbians and working class intellectuals.

11:50

It's a popular after theater club.

11:52

A lot of the big writers

11:54

at the time, Henry Miller and Nias Ninn, all

11:56

those people are hanging out at this place. But

12:00

then an

12:02

NYPD vice squad kind of killed her in

12:04

a roundabout way, in

12:07

a roundabout way. But I blame the vice

12:09

squad for her death because she was a Jewish

12:12

lesbian anarchist, right, And that is

12:15

literally three Nazi death sentences. Yeah,

12:18

each one of those is enough to die from

12:20

the Nazi point of view, and so some piece

12:23

of shit undercover woman cop not

12:25

the only time that a woman lesbian cop is going

12:27

to come up bad in the stories. This week,

12:30

she goes into the place and she declares

12:32

it a den of sin or whatever. Like

12:35

theoretically, is a couple different ways of stories heard

12:37

like either like Eva's like, yo,

12:39

check out my book Lesbian Love, What's up? Or

12:42

the cop like goes on this like elaborate date with her

12:44

and like goes with her to hotel and shit, And I've no idea

12:47

if they bang either way. At the end

12:49

of it, because Eva like possibly might

12:51

have hit on this cop, she's arrested

12:53

for obscenity and she's deported

12:56

from the United States to Portland

12:58

and so I po poland even

13:00

worse, um well at the time in

13:02

nineteen twenty seven, she's deported to Poland.

13:05

Oh shit, and she she gets

13:07

by for a while. She she moves to Paris.

13:09

She makes her money selling naughty books to American

13:11

tourists, which rules, yeah,

13:14

it's possible. I read like one line

13:16

that claimed, but with no further information,

13:19

that she went to Spain to throw down in that whole Spanish

13:21

Civil War thing. That. You can

13:23

listen to me talking too about with Jamie

13:25

Loftus if you want to hear more about that. Yea.

13:28

Then came back to Paris after that whole thing fell,

13:32

and then she tried to get out of Europe, right because

13:34

she's a it's a really bad time to be a three

13:36

strikes girl, right, and the

13:39

US won't let her in and she couldn't

13:41

raise enough money to get herself to Palestine,

13:43

which is like, you know, the only other place to try and get

13:45

herself as a Jew. Her and her

13:48

partner were arrested by the Nazis in nineteen

13:50

forty three and they both died Noschwitz. Well,

13:54

so I blame that fucking cop

13:57

straight up who went in and then trapped

13:59

her. God, that just really

14:01

proves to show that you can be anything. You

14:04

can be. You can be a woman, you

14:06

can be gay, you can be black. If you're a cop,

14:08

that trumps everything in my opinion, you

14:10

know what I mean, Like it doesn't matter how

14:14

like marginalized you are if you choose

14:16

to be a cop. To me, that

14:19

that trumps everything because that happens,

14:22

yeah, because you've you've chosen what position

14:24

you want to have in the systems. Of oppression

14:26

and power. Yeah, exactly. Well

14:29

that's so fucked up. Yeah,

14:32

she looks have been pretty young too, right like she

14:37

I think she was in her forties when she does,

14:39

I know, I know, but it's yeah,

14:43

god, that's so that's tragic.

14:45

Well I'm glad. Yeah,

14:48

she had a good run. Yeah,

14:51

that's cool. Do you think she's Do you think her

14:53

bar was not considered the first bar because it wasn't

14:55

legal back then and was the first bar

14:57

that you mentioned, Like, that's considered the first bar

15:00

after prohibition ended. Okay, so that's

15:02

my best guests as to why these ones

15:04

don't count, because I assume there were other ones.

15:06

Actually there's even another literally

15:08

the stone Wall in was

15:11

well we'll get to that, okay, a little

15:13

nugget so spoiling. Yeah, yeah, totally.

15:17

But after the war, New

15:19

York City stays pretty gay. Even though they had their mini

15:22

lavender scare, you know, where they've fired the

15:24

gay teachers or whatever, it stays

15:26

pretty gay, much like San Francisco.

15:28

The gay beats were a big part of this, you know, like some

15:30

of like New York's cultural icons

15:32

were like writing about how they

15:34

have gay sex and it rules, you know. William

15:37

burrows and shit like that. So

15:39

the government does it's government thing, and it starts

15:42

in trapping well, I don't know if it's started, but at this time

15:44

it's in trapping gay men and blackmailing them.

15:47

It cracks down on gay people drinking or existing

15:49

in public. The liquor board

15:51

starts pulling licenses away from any business

15:54

that might become disorderly. And I'm putting scare

15:56

quotes around that. Basically any bar that

15:58

is like known to be a gay bar and have its liquor license

16:01

pulled because that accounts as disorderly

16:03

and so. And there's all of these different

16:06

laws at different times that are like get

16:08

kind of conflated to each other. And I don't totally understand

16:10

the timeline, but there were laws like you're not allowed

16:12

to be a woman who drinks in public, you're

16:15

not allowed to be a gay person who you're not allowed to serve alcohol

16:17

to gay people. But sometimes

16:20

these things that people say like oh, this was

16:22

the law, it's actually

16:24

this was what the police enforced, not

16:27

a specific code. Of

16:30

course, that's that makes sense. That still

16:32

happens today, Like what's yeah,

16:35

well, yeah, that's so absurd.

16:39

So if there's no legal way for gay

16:41

folks to gather. Then they all just stop pink

16:43

gay and become heterosexual and happen. No, just kidding,

16:45

they drink illegally, enter

16:49

the mafia. Oh

16:52

I'm interested in this. So

16:55

the Geneva se family is the

16:58

crime family is the oldest and largest of the

17:00

quote five families of organized crime of New York

17:02

City. And they're this Italian American

17:04

mafia group. They're still around. Um oh

17:06

were they called the ken Jenova

17:09

essay? Um? I might be pronouncing that

17:12

last name for mafia, I know. And

17:14

they're like the fucking if

17:16

you think of the Italian mafia in New York, Like,

17:19

there's several other ones, but this one's the big,

17:21

biggest one. Yeah, okay, So like the Sopranos,

17:23

this is like, yeah, there are literally

17:26

two people named fat Tony in this story. Well

17:28

that's that's amazing. Yeah,

17:31

that's how you know they're the top dog mafia.

17:33

He thought just one, there's two fat Yeah

17:35

exactly. And so they do

17:37

crime stuff, heroin dealing, gambling,

17:40

rigging, boxing matches, all that shit, running

17:42

legal bars during prohibition and

17:45

after prohibition. And they are

17:47

like more complicated morally than I can easily

17:49

get into one day, we'll do an episode about how the mafia

17:51

and the US government like work together to fight fascism

17:54

or whatever. Oh yeah,

17:56

you gotta teach me about that suit. Yeah,

17:58

I'm I'm I'm excited to learn

18:00

more about it. There's this Jewish gangster

18:03

named Meyer Lanski who like organized

18:07

mafia Jews to go beat up

18:09

Nazis in the US with

18:11

like crowbars and shit. Why do we learn

18:14

about that stuff? That's what I fucking that's

18:16

right. Interested in fucking history with

18:18

gold Rush or whatever? The ship? Yeah,

18:21

yeah, totally. And if you get tell the story of the gold

18:23

Rush, you need to tell the story of all the like

18:26

gay lesbian prostitutes who like fucking

18:28

make all their money and like run their own bars

18:31

and like don't have pimps because you know,

18:33

like yeah, another So

18:35

we'll get to I need to look that up as soon as we're done.

18:38

But that sounds incredible, and you're right, you're

18:40

right. Yeah. Overall, I'm

18:42

not a big fan of the mafia or whatever, but we all got to accept

18:44

everything's complicated in the in

18:47

the fifties and the sixties at least, and I think actually

18:49

earlier than that, the mafia is running the gay

18:51

bars in New York. Mostly they

18:53

do it for money. They can charge a

18:56

ton for water down, bootleg, homemade,

18:58

stolen, et cetera, liquor the radically

19:00

at the Stonewall there was like literally not a drink

19:02

that wasn't watered down. I read one

19:04

thing that was like, if you knew the right people,

19:07

they'd go out back and get the like they'd have like the

19:09

bottles of liquor, and they'd be like labeled, but it would

19:11

all be lies, you know, and they

19:13

like really liked you, they go out back and get the real I

19:15

don't know enough about liquor to give you an example

19:17

of a compliment fancy liquor. And

19:20

also by running gay bars, they can extort

19:23

anyone who fucks with them because the customers

19:25

are gay, and gay people are easy to extort

19:27

in a time of shame and you know, cry

19:31

or it's illegal to be gay, they're easy targets for sure.

19:33

Yeah. The mafia

19:35

gets away with this by paying off the cops. What

19:37

gets called gayola instead of payola.

19:40

Wait really yeah,

19:42

at least at the time I think it was called gayola. Yeah

19:45

that's pretty funny. Yeah,

19:47

yeah, no, totally. And they pay the cops

19:49

a fucking ton of money. Stonewall

19:52

was paying the cops two thousand dollars a week,

19:54

which is more than sixteen thousand dollars

19:56

in today's money. WHOA, that's

20:00

a that's a fat sum. That is

20:02

a fat sum of money. And

20:05

how was that was possible through the mafia?

20:07

The mafia was. Yeah, it was the money

20:09

that the mafia is making both

20:11

off of the overpriced drinks,

20:14

but also they were like running other crimes

20:16

out of the establishment, mostly drug

20:19

dealing. There's arguments about the level

20:21

of sex work that was happening at the at Stone Wall,

20:24

but yeah, basically, by selling overpriced

20:26

drinks to gay people, they

20:29

have to turn around and pay sixty

20:32

five thousand dollars a month in modern money. Oh

20:34

well, which adds so much money,

20:37

I know, it's almost it's three quarters of a million dollars

20:39

a year. Well, and

20:42

after paying the cops so much

20:44

fucking money, the cops still raid the

20:46

mafia bars because they have to keep

20:48

up appearances or whatever. And also the mafia

20:50

people don't care if they fuck with some of the gay people, but

20:53

they do it on week nights, they do it early in the

20:55

night and usually they and they give a tip

20:57

ahead of time to the bartenders

21:00

so they'll like get most liquor out or

21:02

like kind of give heads up to the customers. They actually

21:04

like like, hey, at seven pm

21:06

today, you don't want to be here, you know, and

21:09

cops would raid and they would like there's

21:12

a lot of different accounts of these types

21:14

of raids, but usually basically it's like they show up

21:16

and like make sure you're wearing gender

21:18

appropriate clothing is like a huge one.

21:21

And who decides that just

21:24

like skirts and pants that's no

21:26

whatever. Well, well no, and actually this is important

21:29

because the thing that people talk

21:31

about is they say that there was a law at the time

21:33

that said you have to have three articles

21:35

of clothing that matched ther

21:37

your ID marker, Like you're on your idea. It

21:40

probably wasn't a law.

21:43

It was probably the rule that the cops used.

21:46

And we'll get into some of the things that people

21:48

did to work around that. But yeah,

21:50

so you mean like three arcis of cloth if if

21:52

it said, like, oh, I'm a woman, I have

21:54

to have three articles of clothing that proved I was a woman,

21:57

like quote unquote proved Yeah,

21:59

Like like who

22:02

just that's so interesting to know, like what's

22:04

on each list, I wonder, Yeah,

22:06

no, and they will literally like m fondle

22:10

your genitals and like you know, expose

22:13

you to everyone, and like they will like you

22:16

know, and they'll take people

22:18

to jail over it, and like you know, it's obviously

22:20

never nice to be in jail, and it's like extra

22:23

not nice to be a gay man in jail, and

22:25

like you know, just about one violation

22:27

after the other after the other. Yeah.

22:30

And we'll talk about this a little bit more too

22:32

later. But and the cops did

22:34

it because no one stopped

22:36

them, like they kind of like

22:39

literally cops from this period.

22:41

We'll talk about how gay folks were

22:43

like easy marks, you know, because they

22:45

were like ashamed and beaten down. So

22:48

Stonewall in it was originally called

22:50

Bonnie's Stonewall with A

22:53

and stonewall was two words, and it

22:55

was opened in nineteen thirty and

22:57

it claimed to be a tea room, but it was a speakeasy.

23:01

And I've read accounts to say it was heterosexual.

23:03

And I've also read accounts that it was named

23:05

after a lesbian's autobiography called the

23:07

Stone Wall from like the nineteenth

23:10

century, And so I'm guessing

23:12

it started off as a lesbian bar, and it

23:15

wasn't too straight, and people just like to ignore lesbian's

23:18

that's my best guess, right, Yeah, that sounds

23:20

about right. And it might have eventually just stopped

23:22

being a gay bar before for a while, I don't

23:24

know. In nineteen thirty four it moved to Christopher

23:26

Street, where it more famously is. In

23:29

nineteen sixty four it

23:31

was the interior was destroyed by flames

23:33

and it closed down. But do

23:36

you know what will make you flame

23:39

proof? Responsored

23:41

by fiberglass walls.

23:46

That's a that's a great How did you How did you land that one?

23:48

That's that's pretty good. That's pretty yeah. Thanks.

23:51

I'm a professional podcaster.

23:54

They teach you at podcasting

23:56

Academy how to do awkward ad

23:58

transitions and try

24:00

to make them funny. Thank

24:02

you, thank you. Well, actually

24:05

a stone wall would make you more

24:07

fire resistant. You're

24:10

not wrong. So if

24:12

the next year's ad is for a masonry company,

24:15

then it's the right one. And if it's

24:17

not, you should complain to Sophie.

24:20

That would make me believe in God, I think, and

24:29

we're back. I hope you enjoyed the ad

24:31

for all of the bricks and brick related services,

24:35

only, of course, for making things

24:38

more fire resistant, not proving

24:40

that cops can't fuck with you easily. It's

24:43

not like all of our rights that anyone

24:46

has ever had started with someone throwing

24:48

bricks at cops. No, of

24:51

course not. But also for

24:54

the folks that did the right thing.

24:56

And listen to the first two episodes, the

24:59

progress from donuts to brick is

25:02

incredible to me. Yeah, yeah, totally,

25:05

like that's just again chef's

25:07

kiss for all

25:09

that. Yeah. So the

25:13

place burns, the interior

25:15

is gutted in flames, and it's

25:17

destroyed, and it closes. Two

25:20

years later, in nineteen sixty six, the mafia

25:22

bought it. Three mafia guys bought

25:24

it and turned it into a gay bar. And

25:26

they did. They phoned this in. They

25:29

spent like a couple thousand dollars repairing

25:31

the place and covering up the damage. Mostly

25:34

they just painted it black and kept it

25:36

dimly lit, so just

25:38

like like just concealed

25:40

with darkness the damage. Yeah, yeah,

25:43

exactly. They didn't

25:45

bother plumbing it. There was no running

25:47

water behind the bar. There was running water

25:49

in the bathrooms. Okay, let's

25:52

good at least, so they kept the

25:54

glasses in a big tub of water

25:56

and gave each one a little rinsey rinse in

25:58

the same gross tub. God

26:01

um before serving it to someone else. Damn.

26:05

Yeah, just think of it

26:07

in COVID times. Let's just I

26:11

wonder how many people got sick? Well, no,

26:13

I don't want to think about it. Well, yeah,

26:16

I'm gonna tell you anyway. I'm sorry. This

26:18

was blamed in a gay newsletter at the time for a nineteen

26:21

sixty nine outbreak of hepatitis among gay

26:23

men in New York City. Oh my god.

26:26

It was three mafia guys who bought the place.

26:28

And it wasn't uncontentious that they

26:30

decided to do this. I mean, game

26:33

mafia people did own gay bars,

26:35

but it was still like a little Well, let's

26:37

talk about fat Tony. Fat

26:40

Tony number primary, Okay,

26:42

okay, number primary. That's a number. The

26:45

controlling interest was held by this guy named Tony

26:47

Lareya or Fat Tony.

26:49

He was a very large man. He weighed like, you

26:52

know, four hundred some pounds. Wouldn't it

26:54

be funny? I just realized how funny

26:56

it would be if Fat Tony was not fat I

26:58

know, right, yeah, another level

27:01

of yeah yeah,

27:03

or maybe they felt pressure being named Tony to

27:06

be fat yet it might have been

27:08

you know, I don't know. It can go either way.

27:11

Yeah, more power to you, whatever size

27:13

you want to be with any name you want. But

27:16

his dad was not so excited about him.

27:18

His dad, who was a mafia guy, was not excited

27:20

about him hanging out with the gays. Fat

27:23

Tony's roommate was an openly gay Italian

27:25

guy who bartended at Stonewall and

27:27

he was the guy who was trusted to move the money

27:29

around. I

27:32

haven't heard him referred to as mafia, but

27:34

he lived with Fat Tony

27:36

was Italian, bartended the mafia bar

27:38

and was the one who was trusted to move the money around

27:41

at the very least. He's like a middleman. Yeah

27:43

whatever, like and because like one of the things

27:46

is that people want to people want to

27:48

downplay the mafia connection with Stonewall because they want

27:50

to kind of whitewash our history. But

27:54

so, because of fear of raids and such, the money

27:57

was carried home from the bar several nights a week, several

28:00

several times a night. Sorry, like you

28:03

know, because the cops are going to comment and still all fucking money

28:05

because they're just I mean, these

28:07

are basically just two crime organizations, the NYPD

28:09

in the mafia, just trying to figure out delicate balance

28:12

together. But Fat Tony he got

28:14

very into the culture. He started shooting

28:17

I know, okay, he started doing two things.

28:19

He started shooting meth and he started fucking dudes.

28:22

But not as roommate. That was a very important

28:24

point in the book. I was reading, Um, they

28:27

stayed platonic, him and

28:29

him and his roommate. Interesting that

28:31

that was. Yeah, it was a

28:33

important thing to note. I mean, it's nice to know that

28:36

friendships French ship withstood, you

28:38

know, yeah, totally, and like,

28:41

I don't know, actually a weird way. It is like important, and I'll

28:43

be like, whoa gay people to just be friends with each

28:45

other, you know exactly. Yeah,

28:48

yeah, there's like a level of like, oh,

28:50

like I respect you, and

28:52

yeah, even though I'm doing gay things now, I

28:54

still respect you. Yeah, totally totally.

28:58

Fat Tony's story is kind of tragic. A little

29:00

while, I got really confused because there is

29:02

another fat Tony who rises really high

29:04

and prominence in the family and lives a long and healthy

29:06

life, and so I was like, yeay, our Tony's

29:09

doing good, not

29:12

our Tony. His family stopped talking

29:14

to him as a result of him being

29:17

gay, or him doing drugs, or some combination of

29:19

the both, and the rumor is eventually that his

29:21

family killed him. No,

29:24

Tony, Yeah, and

29:26

I don't know. Once again, it's

29:28

like when you're a dead gay mobster, it's

29:31

hard to know whether you get killed for being gay or

29:33

for being a mobster or what. You know, Damn,

29:38

this happens. His death happens after all the

29:40

events of today. Okay, but

29:43

I think his story matters because people talk

29:45

about the mafia is this opportunistic thing that was ripping

29:47

off gay folks. But the thing that people need

29:49

to remember about any story about anything that has to do

29:51

with sexual sexuality. We're

29:55

everywhere, like

29:58

pick a profession and there's

30:01

gays doing it. Yeah, you know, um

30:04

for good and bad. He wasn't

30:06

the only game mobster in the New York scene.

30:09

Big Bobby who worked the door next

30:12

Big Bobby, These are

30:14

great names. Big

30:16

Bobby worked the door at a place called Tony Pastors.

30:21

He was in love with a Chinese drag queen named

30:24

Tony Lee. Everyone

30:26

is fucking named Tony. You want

30:28

to say Tony, every bar, every

30:31

person all Tony's all the way down.

30:33

It's so funny. Isn't Tony

30:35

correct wrong? Isn't it like short for Anthony?

30:38

Or is that not? I think so? Or

30:41

yeah maybe I

30:44

think yeah,

30:47

yeah, that's interesting. Tony is a wow.

30:50

What a name? What a name? I

30:52

know. So everyone's

30:54

named Tony except for a freelance circulating

30:56

bouncer named Pete. And

30:59

Pete was the most

31:01

exaggerated cliche archetypical

31:04

Italian mobster who wore black

31:07

shirts and ties. He exaggerated

31:09

his like Italian accent, which I saw referred

31:11

to as a street Italian accent, which made

31:14

me realize that the Italian accents of New York

31:16

City are not necessarily I'm from

31:18

Italy Italian. It's like Italian American

31:20

accent that is a New York accent. You know. Pete

31:23

was what, at least in the nineties, we called

31:26

a two beer queer because he was a

31:28

straight man who would then

31:30

get drunk, and he

31:33

slept with both gay men and queens, which were

31:35

sort of seen as two different sort of genders of people

31:37

to sleep with in a lot of ways, much like you

31:40

would now when we say queens, we're talking about

31:42

drag queens, but we were talking about a culture in which

31:45

drag queen, trans vestite and trans women

31:47

are very um. There

31:49

is a spectrum there, and it is a spectrum that people

31:51

are often moving around inside of. Yeah,

31:55

and like a lot of the queens would later

31:57

come out as trans women once. The sort of way

32:00

we talked about these things changed, but

32:02

not all of them right And for a

32:04

long time Pete was sweet. He

32:06

would get his partners better jobs and shit

32:08

with all his connections. Later

32:11

he runs off out of the city with a queen

32:13

and they lived as a heck couple until

32:15

he freaked out and killed her. No,

32:19

yeah, it pet which

32:22

is why trans women have trust issues to

32:25

say yeah, to say the least, wow

32:27

that pet Yeah.

32:30

It's also just weird that this guy saying Pete, I

32:32

can feel like, seriously,

32:36

you know what, you'd have to take him seriously. That's

32:39

kind of crime guy. Yeah.

32:43

And I also think it's telling that some of the power

32:46

players in early gay history were either revolutionists

32:49

like the lesbian anarchists who opened the first bar or

32:51

the gay communist who set up the first organization,

32:54

or they were professional criminals like Tommy the

32:56

lesbian of Fedora and a Bar in San Francisco

32:59

or Poor Fatony in New York. So

33:01

Stonewall, let's talk about Stonewall it self. Okay,

33:05

it's big standout feature versus

33:07

all of the other gay bars, including the crime bars.

33:09

While all the gay bars were crime bars, it

33:12

allowed dancing. It allowed same sex dancing.

33:14

All the other gay bars no same sex dancing,

33:17

um, because that was for fear

33:20

of like like a police action,

33:22

yeah, getting shut down, getting alled at and all this

33:24

shit. Um. Within

33:27

Stonewall, there were two dance rooms. One

33:29

was called the White Room and one was called the Black Room

33:31

in a bad way. Um, so like segregated,

33:34

segregated way, so yes,

33:38

but with like a little asterisk or something to

33:41

make it really obvious as a race thing. The black room

33:43

is also called the Puerto Rican Room.

33:45

Okay, both both rooms

33:47

are painted black because they're hiring fire

33:49

damage. But it wasn't formally

33:51

segregated. It was kind of culturally segregated,

33:54

and it was culturally segregated along race lines.

33:57

But even more than that, at least as

33:59

it's been presented it as I see it, as I've

34:01

seen it, it's segregated between like

34:03

different like vibes, where like the

34:05

white room was like couples dancing mostly,

34:08

and the black room was like everyone trying out

34:10

the new big group dances and all

34:12

the devil Yeah,

34:15

like I'm being monogamous

34:17

and normal versus like I'm going

34:20

to be a devil

34:22

today. Yeah exactly, And

34:25

so yeah, whatever

34:27

the latest dance craze was happening in

34:29

the black room and then the white room

34:32

I'm standing or whatever, and it and the white

34:34

room skewed older, it's skewed

34:36

more cusgendered, it scwed whiter.

34:40

And I don't know that these were official names or these

34:42

were like what people just called them. There's

34:44

a lot of different reports about the clientele

34:46

because everyone wants to own Stonewall because

34:49

it fucking what happens here rules,

34:51

right, And everyone like argues

34:54

about Stonewall because yeah,

34:57

because they want to own it. Um. Yeah, it

35:00

seems likely that the clientele shifted over

35:02

time and was constantly in flux. It

35:04

was almost exclusively gay

35:07

men and or people assigned mail at birth, but

35:09

gay women started showing up too. The way I've

35:11

heard it said is that it started

35:14

off all men, and then they

35:16

started letting in women, and then they started letting

35:18

in drag queens. Okay, and

35:20

there were exceptions all along to the drag queen

35:22

thing, but like, for the most part, if you showed up and

35:24

you were like in address, they'd

35:27

turn you away because in order to get in, you have

35:29

to show up and there's like this big, thick, fucking

35:31

crazy door and there's a gangster

35:33

on the other side who's like looking through the people and like

35:35

trying to figure out whether to let

35:38

you in or not. You know, password, Yeah,

35:40

it's like if he recognizes you from having

35:43

been there before, he'll let you in. So you kind of kind of go your

35:45

first time. You have to go with your friends who've

35:48

been there before. But so

35:51

eventually they start letting in people

35:53

in full drag, but for the longest time they don't.

35:55

And when women showed

35:58

up and lesbian showed up, they were

36:00

kind of perceived, as I got told or as I read,

36:03

they're perceived as like honored guests, so

36:05

it wasn't their space, but everyone

36:07

was like, what the fuck was that lesbian

36:11

doing in here? Instead everyone's like, oh my god, you

36:13

know that rules, thanks

36:15

for coming, you know. It was still kind of

36:17

like also segregrade in that way probably

36:19

too, just like totally yeah,

36:22

yeah, I mean It's like, and if the point

36:24

of the bar is getting laid, then it sort of makes

36:26

sense, right that lesbians go to the lesbian

36:28

bar and the game I go to the gay bar. Yeah, that's true.

36:30

It's true. It's true. That's true. But I

36:34

mean I like, well, I mean, you

36:36

know, it's complicated for me to fit in and anywhere,

36:38

but like, you know, I would like us all

36:40

just hanging out. But yeah, same.

36:43

That's why I like the word queer because

36:46

and I yeah, I mean too, I love the word queer totally.

36:49

But also, I mean when

36:51

it's co mingled, if separately, it feels

36:53

safe, but commingled also feels safe too.

36:55

Does that make sense? Like it's still not like

36:58

like, uh, there's

37:01

you're you're amongst Yes,

37:03

exactly exactly. So I feel like, yeah,

37:07

yeah, I mean it makes sense back then that maybe they were

37:09

like m for us only. Yeah.

37:12

And so one of the main clientele at

37:14

this place um at Stonewall

37:17

was street queens, and street

37:19

queens was a specific youth subculture

37:21

of homeless queer youth, most of

37:23

whom many of whom all of them I don't know, did

37:26

sex work. A bunch of them lived

37:28

in the park across the street and were protected

37:30

by some of the older queers, one of whom will actually

37:32

talk about. And this is where a

37:35

lot of the more famous characters

37:38

around Stonewall come from this culture.

37:41

But you know what culture

37:44

you can belong to buy consuming

37:48

stuff capitalism,

37:51

the culture capital yeay,

37:56

everything's the same capital see

37:58

for culture and capitalism. I

38:00

know they come from the same root word.

38:02

See that. Yeah

38:04

it's actually really true. I never thought of it that way. Yeah,

38:07

yeah, I learned so much on this podcast. Yeah,

38:10

true things, much like the

38:12

True Deals. Here you go, ads

38:19

and we are back. I'm talking about the street queens,

38:21

who I want to give their own episode one day probably,

38:23

But I will say the podcast

38:26

Queer as Fact did an episode about

38:28

Stonewall that's really worth listening to, and it talks

38:30

more about the bar itself and the culture there,

38:32

and it draws from a bunch of firsthand accounts. So if you want

38:34

to hear people talking about like what

38:37

their time was like at Stonewall, Queer

38:39

as Fact is a fucking awesome podcast. And

38:43

since amab folks assigned mail at birth, folks

38:46

weren't allowed to come in dresses, they'd come in quote

38:48

scare drag, which is a sick

38:50

name. Yeah, that's amazing.

38:53

Yeah, so since like if

38:55

it was rated, you're supposed to know as illegal,

38:57

do not of at least three articles of clothing that matched

38:59

the idea you sex or id or whatever

39:03

it was. Again, probably a guideline, not a

39:05

specific law. But so scare drag is dragon

39:08

pants. You get some tight

39:10

fitting pants and a wig and makeup,

39:12

and you tie a men's shirt around your waist, so

39:15

if you need to transform, you just rip

39:17

off the wig and button up your shirtbook.

39:21

I know. It's also a fucking sick look. It's

39:23

like a superhero like just like it's time

39:25

to go not Poka anymore, Ye

39:28

Superman. That's so cool, I know.

39:30

But I think a great loophole. Yeah,

39:33

totally. And so they have this whole culture

39:35

that they built around scare drag and or aesthetic

39:38

that they built around it. And I like it because

39:40

this black block. But for nineteen sixty street queens,

39:42

you know. Yeah, and

39:46

while some of the well the street queens were hustlers,

39:48

right, they generally weren't at

39:50

Stonewall for work but to hang out. Um,

39:52

I'm sure some of them did do work there. Like

39:54

everything is like Oh, sex work wasn't a big thing

39:56

there, and I think it wasn't the people.

39:58

I think the people saying that aren't trying to downplay

40:00

sex work. They're literally being like, this is where people

40:02

go to like let loose rather than get work. But

40:06

there is a guy who connects them to sex work

40:08

very directly, and he is

40:12

one of the most interesting characters in this whole

40:14

story. Oh, the

40:16

bouncer at Stonewall is

40:19

an Irish Italian Catholic man named

40:21

Ed the Skull Murphy.

40:25

Wow. Wow,

40:29

what name. Wow. I

40:31

wonder how he got that name. First of all, ill, okay,

40:35

great, Yeah, we're gonna talking about We're talking about

40:37

Skull Murphy. Yeah, there

40:39

are so many great names. I know gay

40:41

history. I know when

40:43

the Skull was like eleven or so, he probably

40:46

wasn't named the Skull yet. He bashed

40:48

a cop in the head with a milk bottle for trashing

40:50

his shoeshine. Stand. Wow,

40:54

out of all the skulls to bash, that

40:56

is the one I would want to to bash. To be named

40:59

the skull, Yeah, that's amazing. Okay.

41:02

But so he fought in World War Two and then he come

41:04

back and he becomes this professional wrestler where he got

41:06

the name the Skull right, and

41:09

he's a big fucking guy. He's like taking

41:11

steroids and his signature fight

41:14

move is that he head butts people um

41:19

ed. Oh yeah, I love

41:21

that, and it's between

41:24

bouncing gigs for gay bars is the other thing

41:26

he starts doing for the mafia when he comes back

41:28

from the war. He also has another job.

41:30

Oh he shows on the ad transition here because

41:32

of the next part's about gold. But

41:34

if you want some gold and you don't want to buy

41:37

it, the joke here for anyone

41:39

who's listening is that sometimes we get ads for gold

41:41

buying gold, and then usually make fun of that because

41:43

he's usually a bad investment. Yeah.

41:46

Also people I don't know

41:48

people listen to I can happen here. No, I'm allergic

41:50

to gold, so that's another that's right, I

41:52

have gold teeth. Yeah yeah, allergy

41:54

can't. Yeah, stay away.

41:58

So he

42:00

liked to rob dentists. That was

42:03

his other hobby. This

42:05

guy is so cool, so not from

42:09

dentists. He does some sketchy

42:12

stuff, like some bad stuff, but yeah,

42:14

but he is. He is one of the

42:16

most complete characters of like

42:19

Good and Bad. All Yeah, I'm

42:22

just really excited to hear what you would take make of him. So,

42:24

okay him and is one of

42:26

his gay friends. I don't know if they are lovers or not. Um.

42:29

So the gold thing was because he would steal stuff from

42:31

dentists and sell them, like the steal gold teeth from dentists

42:33

and sell them. Yeah. Yeah, that was was making

42:36

that trance. Like literally he would go and he's

42:38

he's steal their stash of gold teeth or like the gold

42:40

that they used to make crowns. Honestly

42:43

genius move, no, I know, And it worked

42:46

for a very long time. Um.

42:48

One time they go rob this dentist and

42:50

the dentist is like, please don't

42:52

take my diamond ring. It was a gift.

42:55

It was given to me by my father for his buff

42:57

for my bar mitzvah. And so

43:00

they let the guy keep his diamond ring because they're classy,

43:02

right, And so they just steal the gold teeth and then they leave.

43:04

But the next day there was a news

43:06

headline that reads, quote dentist

43:09

CON's robbers out of ring. So

43:12

they go back. Yeah

43:16

wow, so he like mis represented

43:18

of the story. Yeah yeah, So it's like he

43:21

convinced them to let me keep this. Yeah, because

43:23

a bunch of suckers. So they

43:25

go back and they beat him up and they take the diamond

43:27

ring. That's hilarious. On

43:31

their seventy third dentist

43:33

robbery. He gets caught

43:37

a lot of robberies before you. I

43:40

know, I would say the lesson here

43:42

is that make sure you only rob like seventy

43:44

dentists or fifty if you want to play. It's

43:47

safe. It is completely safe

43:49

to rob. The more you rob,

43:51

the higher the probability goes that you're

43:53

doing a caught. So just keep my mind

43:56

when your numbers go up. Yeah, totally.

43:59

So he gets caught and he does ten years.

44:01

He gets out, he starts bouncing

44:04

for the mafia gay bars again, and he's

44:06

perfect for it. He's a crook, he's part Italian,

44:08

he's scary as fucking hell. He's the huge.

44:11

Yeah, he earns a new

44:13

nickname. Okay, his new nickname.

44:16

It was pretty good, so I know this one's

44:18

somehow even better. The two go really well together,

44:21

not like in the same word, but mother

44:24

mother, because he looks after

44:27

and makes work connections for all

44:29

the street hustling youth. Mother

44:32

is such an interesting name for that kind of

44:34

person. I know, I know, that is

44:36

so cool. And

44:39

now here's where he gets messy.

44:41

Oh no, he starts in a new

44:43

crime ring. And this new crime

44:46

ring they extort gay

44:48

rich men. The

44:50

scam is called the Chicken and the

44:52

Bull, and it's a reasonably simple scam.

44:55

You get a rich gay man to take home a young sex

44:57

worker who's called the chicken to a

44:59

hotel room. Then and either

45:01

the worker the chicken, just grabs

45:04

the guy's wallet and runs and then you're just like done, you

45:06

know. Or the bull, who's either

45:08

a corrupt cop or someone

45:11

like our man ed pretending to be a cop, comes

45:14

into the room and it's like, I'm going to arrest

45:16

you unless you give me a bunch of money, and

45:19

if the target is important enough, like they come

45:22

in and they're like, oh sha, that's a fucking senator, because

45:24

this absolutely gets some senators and shit, they're

45:27

like, actually, you know what, we're actually

45:29

going to blackmail you now and basically

45:32

hold this over your head that we know that you're game. We have pictures

45:34

and shit, you know, yeah yeah yeah, And so this

45:36

isn't like blackmail, yeah, and

45:38

so this isn't just Ed doing it as this whole

45:40

extortion ring and it's mostly run by cops,

45:43

including a Chicago cop who was taking

45:45

ten percent of every extortion and was

45:47

providing the fake police credentials and

45:49

all that shit. Well, okay, and

45:52

this scam was fucking huge.

45:55

It's actually the same scam run by veteran

45:57

of the Pods, Sophie Lions, who

45:59

is Ueen of the Underworld. If you want to hear my episode

46:01

about her from last fall.

46:04

Hers was straight and she did it alone,

46:06

and she didn't somehow manage to entrap some of the

46:09

most powerful people in the country because they

46:11

did this to a bunch of prominent people, including

46:13

Liberaci, whoa

46:16

an admiral and a

46:18

congressman. Oh shit,

46:20

the Admiral William Church killed

46:22

himself when the whole thing was uncovered and

46:24

he was revealed. And it's interesting. It's

46:29

when the crime is uncovered, when

46:31

the criminal ring goes down, it drags

46:33

all the blackmailed people into the limelight and

46:35

it outs them. It's the thing that they'd been paying

46:38

to have not happened. The government then

46:40

does to them, right. That

46:42

sucks. Yeah, And it

46:44

actually parallels some one of the things that we talked about

46:47

you and I when we talked about the gay resistance to Nazis.

46:50

How early German gay rights activists in the nineteen

46:52

tens and twenties used to out prominent

46:55

closeted people, which led to a bunch of suicides.

46:57

It was there like activism. It's like fucked up.

46:59

But yeah,

47:01

and so I don't think this is good, but this is what happens. The

47:04

Mattachine Society that we talked about them last

47:06

time, the sort of more reformist organization. They

47:09

actually help with the government's investigation

47:11

of this because they want to stop this extortion ring,

47:13

this targeting gay men, and they

47:15

serve as the go betweens between the

47:17

victims and the cops because the cops don't want to talk

47:19

directly to the Sorry, the victims don't want

47:22

to talk directly to the police. So

47:24

ed the skull Murphy. When the ring gets busted,

47:27

he starts snitching. No

47:30

mother, I know. He

47:32

still gets five years, but he didn't serve at all. Rumor

47:35

has it, which does not mean this

47:37

is true. Rumor has it he

47:39

has blackmail photos of FBI director

47:41

j Edgar Hoover, and he held for

47:43

the rest of his life. He held that Hoover was gay.

47:46

And liked a cross dress and is later

47:49

It's later been claimed that the reason Hoover didn't

47:51

go after the mafia was because of

47:53

these photos. Oh we shit,

47:56

right, I mean I thought

47:58

the other as you mentioned, we're

48:00

big fish. But that's the biggest

48:03

fish. Yeah, I know. Wow, that

48:05

is I mean I kind of

48:07

believe him. Why would he lie about that? Yeah,

48:09

I see no particular reason. Like my

48:12

gut instinct is that this is true, but I haven't

48:14

really looked into it, and I'm not trying to like specifically

48:16

say I know that this is true, right, Yeah, but

48:19

just like all all science point to

48:21

Yes, that's so interesting. Yeah.

48:23

Well so he gets out of prison. Yeah,

48:26

yeah, no, and he goes back to bouncing

48:28

gay bars. Um, he's the main doorman

48:31

at Stonewall and he's there the night of the riots.

48:33

He sells drugs, he's pimping, or

48:36

rather he's making

48:38

introductions for which he took tips. And

48:41

he also protects young sex workers. Like

48:44

there's like a story about like, um, the street

48:46

queens love him, right, and so I think that's

48:48

telling about his relationship in the work

48:50

environment for them. When when customers

48:53

try to assault the young

48:55

sex workers, there's mother showing

48:58

up and he's fucking scary, right is he

49:00

sorry if you mentioned this? Is he gay? Yes,

49:03

but he's not out? Oh

49:05

shit, yeah yet? Okay,

49:08

yeah he's gay the whole time. Yeah,

49:10

okay, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. Yeah.

49:13

He also at the bar, he's running

49:16

a ring of street queens stealing wallets.

49:18

I don't know if this is directly related to the chicken extortion

49:20

or not, but or if he's just still like, yeah,

49:22

what's up, Like if you ever want to steal a wallet, I'll like move

49:25

it for you, you know, I don't. I don't know exactly.

49:27

He's also snitching

49:30

to the mafia about which patrons are

49:32

so rich that they can be extorted. He's

49:35

also maybe informing the cops about

49:37

what's happening at Stonewall. And this

49:41

is the one thing that I feel is like contentious

49:43

and we don't know, I've

49:45

read both things. He also very

49:47

adamantly is like I ain't no snitch or

49:49

kind of like one and done. You know that

49:52

he and he had also snitched on cops,

49:54

so it's like a little bit right MESSI

49:57

he also was and he's this white

49:59

guy and he's specifically known for defending

50:01

people of color, and after

50:04

Stonewall, later bars sometimes wouldn't

50:06

hire him because they were convinced he'd quote

50:08

turned the club black because

50:12

he, like you know, was friends

50:14

with all people. Yeah, it was an

50:16

ally, yeah, yeah,

50:18

I mean he was also gay, but as

50:21

far as race, yeah,

50:24

damn. I mean it is messy though,

50:26

You're right, because he sounds like he was a really

50:29

good person that people respected in the community,

50:31

right, even though he's doing these things that are actually unconsciousable.

50:34

Yeah, and we're going to talk about

50:36

his like I

50:39

think probably next episode. This isn't me

50:41

skipping to next episode. There still a bit more in this episode,

50:43

but he's going to come back into the story

50:45

after Stonewall, and he has a really interesting

50:48

arc from there too. Okay, cool

50:51

the acid dealer at stone Wall, it's talking about someone

50:53

else. There is one of the bartenders,

50:56

and she's a queen named Maggie Jigs.

50:59

These names I know. So

51:01

here's to the Maggie's of the world. I will say

51:04

YEA. Her partner, Tommy Um

51:06

I think both romantic and um and

51:08

business kept a toy duck

51:11

on the bar and would quack it anytime someone

51:13

left a tip. I

51:16

love I know, I love that it's like this sketchy

51:18

crime bar, but everyone's like kind of having fun and

51:21

quack in the duck and it's simple community

51:23

where people feel safe and yeah, so if like,

51:26

yeah, you're gonna get a wallet's stolen, but no one's gonna

51:28

fucking treat you like ship for being gay. Everyone

51:30

loved Maggie even though shecasonally stole

51:32

shit from you. Her attitude towards money

51:34

was two for the bar, one for myself. I

51:37

respect that she was really good at setting

51:39

up three ways. Okay,

51:42

fucking hero Maggie Jigs And

51:44

I almost am certain this is an independent

51:46

investigation. This is a kai googled

51:48

Maggie jigs Um. She

51:50

gets her name from a comic strip at

51:52

the time called Bringing Up Father, which

51:54

is this Irish American couple Maggie

51:57

and Jigs and they're like dealing with class

51:59

stuff where like they they suddenly

52:01

become rich rich, but Jigs,

52:03

the husband wants to like still like stay down

52:06

and dirty and hang out with all his poor friends,

52:08

whereas like Maggie is like a nag

52:10

and wants to be like rich or whatever. Also

52:13

at the bar, a nearly naked go go dancer

52:15

dance in a gilded cage on the bar m

52:20

Risque. Yeah, it's a really

52:22

interesting place. Some people loved it, some people hated

52:24

it. It had a reputation, like

52:26

there's a lot of his there's a lot of the people who

52:28

are involved, even in the Stonewall riots. A lot of them were

52:30

like, I don't go to fucking Stonewall. Fuck that place, right

52:34

because it was just like too risky.

52:37

So no, because it well,

52:39

like one, it was like too

52:41

crimy I think for a lot, right, yeah,

52:44

yeah, yeah, And it also had a place sense.

52:46

It's kind of intense, I know. And it had a

52:48

reputation as a place where chicken hawks,

52:50

older men cruising for younger boys hung

52:52

out. And so I think some people are a little

52:54

bit like, nah, that's sketchy, right

52:57

no, right, yeah,

52:59

so that's the bar. And let's

53:01

hear about the riots. So on

53:03

Wednesday, whoa we did

53:05

it? Wow? Yeah, that's so interesting,

53:08

so many good names. I know. I

53:10

can't wait to hear about the end of the

53:13

skulls arc. It's

53:15

so good. I'm so excited. Yeah.

53:17

No, there's like, well,

53:21

y'all just gonna have to wait for part four. Cliffhanger,

53:23

I know, So what

53:25

else people don't have to wait for is

53:28

to connect with you with your You

53:32

can follow me on the internet if

53:34

you want to. You don't have to. I get

53:36

it, but I'm Shiro

53:38

Hero on Instagram a Shiro Hero six six six

53:40

on Twitter. They will follow

53:43

you wherever

53:45

you make up. I actually don't know the

53:47

legality of me singing songs on here um

53:50

from a like copyright point of view. I know I saw you

53:52

were singing, but it reminded me of the Gilmore Girls song.

53:55

Yeah great, whatever,

53:57

some old I don't fucking

54:00

shit about what I'm singing at any given time.

54:03

If you want to follow me on the internet, I'm

54:05

at Magpie Killjoy unless you have something

54:07

that you disagree with about what I said, in which case I'm

54:10

on Twitter at I write Okay, and

54:15

I'm on Instagram at Margart Killjoy

54:18

and we'll see you all Wednesday.

54:22

Cool People Who Did Cool Stop is a production

54:25

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54:27

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54:29

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