Category Archives: Elders

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Books, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Health, History, Literature, Malcolm Boyd, Men, Politics, Radical Faerie, White Crane Books

Gay Historian Stuart Timmons Recovering, Will Help with Harry Hay Tribute

Leave a comment
You may remember Stuart Timmons as the co-author with Lillian
Faderman of the book Gay LA. As members of this listserv, you may also recall that about two and a half years ago, Stuart suffered a
massive stroke that left him at death's door for what seemed like a very long
time. White Crane was involved in raising the funds necessary for the additional therapy Stuart was going to need. We knew then it was going to be a long hard road to recovery.

So it is with no small amount of pride and joy we report that with the attention and loving care of his family, especially his
sister, Gay, and friends like as Mark Thompson – he's really made a remarkable
recovery! So much so that it looks like he's going to help with the
celebration of what would have been Harry Hay's 100th birthday. Nice to get
some good news!

Thompson, a member of the White Crane Advisory Board, and former editor at The
Advocate, sent this wonderful news about historian Stuart Timmons:

Stuart Timmons

Longtime
friends of author and community activist Stuart Timmons gathered last week
to celebrate his remarkable recovery from a major stroke two-and-a-half
years ago. Timmons, 53, is still wheelchair bound, but is now fully
mentally alert and with the ability to speak and move about with assistance.
He is expecting a return to his research and writing about GLBT
history and is especially delighted with the invitation
to participate in Centennial celebrations honoring the life and
work of gay movement founder Harry Hay.

A
two-day conference at City University New York and a major exhibition at the
San Francisco Public Library are in the planning stages, with other
cities soon to be included. Stuart wrote the award-winning biography on the
legendary gay rights leader, The
Trouble With Harry Hay, in 1990.  Harry Hay was born on Easter
Sunday, April 7, 1912, in Worthing, England, although he lived many decades
of his life in Los Angeles.

HRH
Lee Mentley added:

Stuart
is doing amazing well…, had a great lunch at “The Coffee Table” and he was
alert with full memory correcting us on our history and although speaking
slowly was participating in the conversation. Well on his way to full
recovery! He spoke with Joey Cain on the phone and will be on the planning
committee for the 100 Year Celebration for Harry Hay in San Francisco and
New York City. It was a joy to be with him!

Many
of you gave support for Stuart's recovery, so we wanted to let you know
that it was money well spent. Stuart Timmons is a walking library of
GLBT history and of Harry Hay and John Burnside in particular. We need
him and we need his genius.

Pictured
in the photo are: (left to right) Mark Thompson, Stuart Timmons, Robert
Croonquist and HRH Lee Mentley.

Ancestors, Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Family, Gay History, Homophobia, Marriage Equality, Politics, Religion, Right Wingers

Damned Straight

Leave a comment


10th amendment

The
Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, which
is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. The Tenth
Amendment restates the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that
powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by
the Constitution of the United States are reserved to the states or the people.

In
an enormous victory for marriage equality, a federal judge in Boston, Thursday,
July 8th, ruled, in two separate cases, that a critical part of the
federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional.

In
one challenge brought by the state of Massachusetts, Judge Joseph Tauro ruled
that Congress violated the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when it
passed DOMA and took from the states decisions concerning which couples can be
considered married. In the other, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, he
ruled DOMA violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Due Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Arts, Bo Young, Books, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Health, History, Literature, Poetry, Politics

SUPPORT YOUR COMMUNITY BOOKSTORE

Leave a comment
 
(Click On Banner Above to Go
Directly to Our Homepage)
A
Different Light Bookstore and ADLBooks.Com
 
A
Different Light Bookstore opened it's doors in November 1979.  As
with all of the independent gay bookstores during that time, our stores
became meeting places to promote GLBT writers, as well as gathering
places for GLBT activists.  And our independent gay bookstores served us
well in working towards the equality we have achieved today and are
working for in the future.
 
As you
are aware, from surfing the net to reading the few newspapers
and magazines that are still in print, our gay community bookstores,
publishers and many other gay community small businesses are closing
their doors.  It is a fact that businesses are only as good as their
customer and vendor bases.  And as history as shown us, change is
inevitable.
 
It is
my belief that the GLBT community is the best read and highest achieving
groups of people anywhere in the world.  I also believe that in the
future when the digital revolution has settled down that community based
businesses will again serve as a place of social interaction that the
human condition needs so badly.
 
In
saying this, A Different Light Bookstore and ADLBooks.com "need your help and support" to
continue to be a presence in San Francisco and online for our
communities that we ship to all over the world.
 
If
every customer in our store and online who receive our new product
updates would commit to investing $10, $20 or more each month in
purchasing our products, that would be an enormous step in continuing to
preserve  this very important part of our community.
 
The
effect of this action is more then just keeping our
business operational, but it also trickles down to our vendors.  Equally
important, your support will help keep and create local jobs that are
so important to our community.
 
There
are two actions that I would like you to consider.  The most immediate
action is of course stopping by our store or signing onto our website
and buying a great book, gift, movie, magazine or DVD's.
 
A
more serious request, and one that I think would set a stage for
preserving GLBT literature for the future is that you might consider
buying 1-10 copies of each Queer Classic and "donating" it to a school, university, GLBT
Center Library, local libraries or any of your favorite organizations. 
In addition to our GLBT archives around the world, this would put our
literature in the hands of readers who might otherwise not have access
or are being censored.
 
We
are asking for your support.  We sincerely appreciate and are thankful
for our customers who visit and buy from us on a regular basis.
 
Thank
you for your consideration and taking the time to read this note.
 
Bill
Barker
A
Different Light Bookstore and ADLBooks.Com
 

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Call for Submissions, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Gay History, History, Literature, Men, Music

What Would the Theater Be Without Gay Folk?

Leave a comment

ArthurLaurentstomhatcher Tony-winning playwright-director Arthur Laurents' (left in picture) and late partner Tom
Hatcher’s (right in picture) foundation has established an annual $150,000 prize. The
Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award will be given for an unproduced, full-length
play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright.

The prize includes a $50,000 cash award for the selected playwright and a
$100,000 grant for production costs of the play's premiere at a nonprofit
theater.

The foundation said Thursday it's the first major award for playwrighting to
be named in honor of a gay couple. The 92-year-old Laurents wrote the books for
"Gypsy" and "West Side Story." Hatcher was Laurents'
partner of 52 years. He was an actor and real estate developer and died in
2006. Submissions from invited applicants will be accepted June 15 to September
15th 2010. The first award recipient will be notified March 15, 2011.

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Family, Film, Friends, Gay History, History

Theater History

Leave a comment
AN EVENING WITH MARIO MONTEZ, DRAG SUPERSTAR
Lola Mario Linda 
 (left to right: Lola Pashalinski, Mario Montez, Linda Chapman)
…the great drag Superstar who reigned over the New York Underground film and
theater scene from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s.

Presented by the NYU Tisch Department of Performance Studies

Mario Montez and Marc Siegel (he is a Berlin based archivist and found Mario in
Orlando Fl and invited him to the Berlin Film Festival when the Jack Smith documentary
was being shown in 2009…)

in conversation with Ela Troyano and Lola Pashalinski

Tuesday April 6th
7 to 8:30PM

Free.

34 Stuyvesant Street
The Barney Building
Einstein Auditorium
New York City

Seating is limited and is on a first come basis. Please arrive early.

This is a historical event .. two
authentic legends talking about the creation of underground theater ,,,off off
Broadway .. and the queerness of the Ridiculous Theater company etc.. Mario is
75 and Lola ageless so who knows when next they will be in the same place
chatting about history, He worked with Jack Smith and Warhol as well  in Vain Victory, She was an original
Ridiculous Theater member and most recently played Gertrude Stein

Ancestors, Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Entertainment, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Gay Wisdom, Homophobia, Literature, Men, Nature, Politics, Religion

A Skeptic Comes Out

Leave a comment

RandiPeople may or may not be aware of the magician and professional skeptic, The Amazing Randi, but he has recently decided to come out and we think it's a fascinating conversation…listen here. He comes out as a gay man and has a rather nice conversation about it with the interviewer. He has always been a personal favorite of mine, a debunker of scams shams and magical thinking, including the $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge...which has yet to be awarded.

I can't help but wonder if the caricature portrait of Arthur C. Clarke (another gay man and long-time White Crane subscriber) in the background on the right might be an old boyfriend?

The conversation in the interview takes some interesting turns when they posit that rationalism (i.e. non-deism) might be as powerful a tool in the gay rights struggle as assimilationist gay religiosity and gay "spirituality"; Both have an interest in debunking pseudo-science (i.e. Right Wing creationism). Here's the quote:

"I think there is something that skepticism can do with homosexuality. A
lot of cultural conservatives use a kind of pseudo
science to argue against gay wrights. And people who rail against pseudo science
should want to argue against it even if it has to do with culture war
questions like gay rights. Cultural conservatives use junk science to
argue that gay parenting leads to mentally ill children.

They use fake
science to argue that being gay is not natural; that homosexuality
is an aberration when in fact you find it widely among many different
species. So, in a real way I think gay issues are skeptic's issues."
D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, the
international educational non-profit founded by celebrated social critic
and activist James Randi.

Arts, Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Elders, Gay Wisdom, History, The Magazine

The Monette-Horwitz Trust Award

Leave a comment

Monette

We're pleased to announce…heck, we're tickled pink…that White Crane has been honored by The Monette-Horwitz Trust with their 2010 award. Along with co-honoree, RFD, White Crane is acknowledged by the Trust as reader-written-and-produced
quarterlies celebrating queer diversity. White Crane is celebrating 20 years of publishing; RFD is celebrating 35 years.

Other honorees this year include activist and author, Leslie Feinberg, the oral history film project Impact Stories, the civil rights group Iraq LGBTQ, the Reverend Eric P. Lee, President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Indian NGO AIDS care organization The NAZ Foundation.

The Trust has been presenting these awards for the past twelve years.

We're pleased and honored to be in such company.

Writer, Paul Monette and his lover, attorney Roger Horwitz, moved from Boston to Los Angeles in 1977. Both men were strongly associated with the LGBT activities of that city until their deaths. Horwitz succumbed to HIV-AIDS in 1896, which inspired Monette to write his groundbreaking memoir, Borrowed Time (1988). Monette went on to win the National Book Award for Becoming A Man: Half A Life Story (1992) and dedicated himself to the writing and activism for which he will remain known, capturing in poetry, prose and public speaking the hopes dreams and rage of a generation of gay men.

Before his death from HIV-AIDS in 1995, Monette established the Monette-Horwitz Trust to ensure the continued fruits of their activism as well as the memory of their loving partnership. The Monette-Horwitz Trust provides annual awards to people of diverse cultural backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations who hare, through their work, making significant contributions to eradicating homophobia.

Bo Young, Civil Rights, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Elders, Family, Friends, Gay Health, Gay History, Health, History, Homophobia, Marriage Equality, Politics

Rock For Equality

Leave a comment

Rock for Equality is a national event to demand equal Social Security benefits for LGBT Americans. This year there will be a rally on April 11th in Los Angeles to demand equal benefits for LGBT seniors.

Please join us in raising awareness about one of the most under recognized and harshly consequential issues in the LGBT movement! Join us at www.rockforequality.org