Original subtitles

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(Dance music)

The blazing saddle? I'm like what is this, some country bar?

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There's, you know, these abandoned buildings, and

You know, you're driving down - there's not a soul on the street. Not a soul.

So I turn and I pull up, and here's this row of

These brownstone-like looking buildings that are, you know,

More or less dumps. And right in the middle of it

Was the Blazing Saddle, you know. It stuck out. It was painted this dark purple.

But it had huge bars on the windows.

Blazing Saddle is a community bar.

It's also a community home base.

Every organization comes through there. Every organization has had

Fundraisers through there.

It's not a gay bar on a Saturday night - it's a community bar.

It's a straight bar, it's an entertainment bar, a drag bar,

But it's not just a gay bar. And that's why your documentary

About “the last gay bar” couldn't be more true.

(Music)

There were no gay people around, no one that I knew of that was gay.

Nobody in the family, nothing was ever mentioned about it. It's as if they

Didn't exist. And of course it would be awful to even mention

That they existed at that time.

I hadn't really met any gay people. I only - you know - knew society's reaction to gay people.

And I hadn't had much experience with alcohol,

So I wasn't going to like have two or three drinks,

And so it was a little nerve wracking.

To see some of these guys trying to be ultra-conservative and go,

Yeah, I seen you at the book store last week, bitch.

There's still a time period when, you know,

You didn't want to be out.

And actually at the P & S Lounge, I think, I remember when I first was introduced to somebody

I said, “Oh I'm Gary.” And he said, “Oh glad to meet you now what's your real name?”

Because everybody in the bar had a “bar name”.

You didn't use your real name and go into the bar.

There were certain things that you did not do in gay bars. You did not take a photograph in a gay bar.

Anywhere in this country.

That was just - I mean - inappropriate.

It was, I mean - you would actually get yelled at if you pulled a camera out and tried to take a picture.

In a gay bar. That's changed.

If you're a gay bar in today's society, if you don't blend with society,

Then you're not going to be around very long.

You know, we've got straight people that come in here religiously

And love the place, and we love them.

Now, yeah, some of those bridal showers are a real pain in the ass

‘Cause all young girls and come in and think they're gonna take over.

No, bitch. Settle down. You know where you're at?

I was - June 5, 1949 - delivered at home

And my grandmother was kind of the midwife.

And I popped out and said,

“Hello! It's showtime!”

We were basically a poor family. Ate a lot of ham and beans, and

Raccoon and squirrel and rabbit, and

Whatever the old man killed, we ate. But we were happy.

Well, first of all, I was born smack in the middle of World War II

There was a lot going on and

In January 1943.

You know, I had actually a pretty idyllic childhood.

Those first few years.

By the time I graduated high school in 1962,

You know, I've hit adolescence and puberty and

I've figured out that it looks

To me like I might be gay.

You know, I didn't much like that idea.

I was growing up in Dubuque, where the parochial system was larger than

The public system of education. I'd never heard the word "gay".

In Dubuque. You know, you try to educate yourself,

You go to the public library and try to find information. There was nothing there.

Literally nothing.

My sex education - like most parents, you just really don't

Talk much with your kids.

Um, they left a book called “The Encyclopedia of Sex”

They'd had just about anything you'd want to know about

The physical body and what happened.

It had one small paragraph on homosexuality.

It was still a psychiatric diagnosis back then.

So you were mentally ill. And as I remember,

It said that you were most likely could commit suicide

By the time you were in your middle 30s. So the only words you really had to explain to yourself

Or that you heard were “faggot” and “queer”.

And “homosexual”. And, you know,

When you're growing up where sex can't be talked about at all,

It leaves a lot to the imagination and

A lot for exploration.

I did come out to my family

My father died quite young, so he died before I was

Came out to him, but...

Actually, the first relative I came out to was my twin sister, Joan,

And she -

Her attitude was, “Oh thank God, it all makes so much sense."

She told me she apologized to two or three different girls

In her high school class because

Nobody could figure out why they couldn't get my attention.

And so she was relieved.

I came out to my mother right about that same time, and she only had one question about it.

She said, “Have you ever been in love?” And I said yes.

And she didn't care about anything else.

Well, my real dad, he took off

Right after I was born and I never really knew him.

He was very arrogant and never had a credit card in his life.

And he wouldn't go to a doctor,

And he ended up dying of a ruptured aneurism through the belly.

But it was no loss to me because I didn't know him.

Well, then I had all the other step dads.

The last one, Bill, he was an old southern hillbilly.

But the nicest man I had ever met.

And when he - on my 40th birthday he came back to see us

And he said, “Bob, I knew you was queer. Doesn't matter.”

“You're my boy. Anybody wants to screw with you, they've gotta go through me."

The only way that gay people

I felt back then knew how to meet other gay people was

Through a hole in the wall.

You know, that's how you met people. And that's what I did when I first came to Des Moines.

I went to Merle Hay Mall - it was close to where the family

Was bought a home - and went up

There and went to the restroom in the bowling alley, and here was a hole in the wall.

And I met somebody through it,

Who in talking with him afterwards, he said, “Have you been down to the gay bar?”

And in my ignorance,

Said, “What's a gay bar?” And he says, “Oh, that's where people

Like you and I go to.”

I know I would have been drafted, so I enlisted in the Navy post college.

My ship, the aircraft carrier, was

In dry dock in San Francisco for

Nine or ten months, so essentially I was living shipboard, but

In the city. And I got to know San Francisco pretty well.

I was hired at American Can before I got drafted, and I worked for them for a couple three months,

And I went into personnel and I said,

“I've gotta take a two year leave of absence here."

So I went home,

Called my folks,

Had mom go out and buy me a bottle of Jack Daniels,

And I sat out in my 1968 International Scout

With an 8 track player and listened to everything

Johnny Cash ever did, and killed off the bottle.

Well, the next morning the old man says, “Well, we've got to take you down the draft center."

“Pop, they ain't gone take me, I'm too drunk.” “I don't think they care.”

They didn't.

In my senior year of college, we had the lottery.

They need more troops.

Those with low numbers,

You were most likely to be drafted right away as soon as you finished college.

I drew number thirteen.

So I knew that I was going to

Be drafted pretty much as soon as

I finished college. I wasn't going to volunteer.

I had been on the debate team in college, and

I did not support the war.

I thought we were on the wrong side to start out with.

I had two of my shipmates who

Evidently saw right through my closet door - my glass closet door

Cause the invited me

To go with them on a weekend in the city.

They took me on a tour of gay bars in San Francisco

One of them had a wonderful performance stage across the front

For drag shows, and I of course had never seen a drag show in my life.

And I remember specifically this one act -

Where this drag queen came out

In the wonderful white, frilly dress

Hair in ringlets and

Flowers in her hair, and this big garden swing

Dropped down from up over stage,

And the ropes were garlands with flowers

And this singer got on that swing and started swinging,

And the song of course was “If you are going to San Francisco,

You'd better wear some flowers in your hair”

Every time I think about that song, I go right back there to that bar.

And watching that singer go back and forth

On the stage, singing that song,

And thinking to myself, “You know? This isn't bad at all

These are real people, and they're all having such a good time, that there's no reason at all

Why this can't be a part of me too.” I remember having that revelation

Which is part of coming out.

“I can do this. Yes.”

The day before I was to leave,

There was a horrible snowstorm. Well, I decided I was going out. It didn't make any difference.

What it was, this was my last night in Des Moines.

And I was going to Vietnam, and maybe I was never coming home.

So I went out. I went out to a bar called the Mail Box Lounge.

It was a new gay bar in town.

It had just been open a couple of months. Very few people there.

I did meet somebody, though.

And I went home, and in the morning I was on the first flight out of Des Moines.

And what I didn't know until many months later when I was out of the Navy and back to

Home here was that I had that experience

On the weekend of

June 28, 1969.

Which meant on the same weekend the Stonewall Riots were happening in Greenwich Village.

I think of myself as a child of Stonewall, because my coming out

Coincided with that weekend.

Well, I went to Fort Polk, Louisiana.

And if you're going to go to Nam, that's the place to go. Cause there's weeds and stink and

Hotter than holy hell, so you're ready for it.

Well then I got into a program with training

To be a sergeant, the NCO academy in Fort Benning, Georgia.

So I went out there and took that.

And then I took recondo training and a few other

If it was a school I went to it.

I don't know if I could do it now, but I could take a 45

Blindfolded, field strip it, I'll put it back together, go through the manual of arms, and there you are.

There's a lot of people in the military who are also gay.

And I think that's like any other situation where you have a totally male environment.

There are times you

Even those who aren't gay

May want to have a sexual experience.

One thing that I always taught all of my guys -

Just remember, when we go out tonight, you're gonna die.

So if you're prepared for it, you don't worry about it. Because you've got no influence over it at all.

My goal wasn't really to kill commies.

Just go on out, follow me, do what I tell you to do,

And I'll bring you back home.

Well, one night I'm out training arm mens how to patrol

And I get a call over the radio

My other team had been hit.

And I sat down and listened, and this one had died,

That one had died, this one got his eyes blown out...

The medic, his eyes have popped out and he's crawling around trying to find body parts.

And I just sat there in the middle of the field and cried.

Because the night before, I had told them

That road was land mined, don't go down it.

Well, they never passed it on to the other team.

Came back feeling like

I didn't stand up to my principles were.

And nor in the country were we treated that way.

It's different today when you see us going to various parts of the world, in Afghanistan

And Iran and Iraq - they went over

As a company, so you had that sense of camaraderie.

A Vietnam veteran, you didn't have that.

You went over as an individual and you came home as one.

I hated it when I land in California - “Baby killer!”

And blah blah - that was the last thing I ever did.

I would never shoot civilians, babies,

The villagers loved me like on of theirs.

We had our first

Cavalry reunion in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

And my best “fuck buddy” put it together

And I get there, and he says, “Don't out me! Don't out me!"

I won't do that! So I had enough brandy in me, I went up to the

First sergeant

“Did you know back in the day?”

And he says, “Sergeant Eikleberry, I know you're as queer as a three dollar bill,

But you're the best darn sergeant that I have ever had.” 40 years of worrying about something

Just (shoo).

And there was a lot of us, but we had to keep it quiet.

Just keep you trap shut and your zipper up -

Until it's time to take it down.

I had very special parents.

And before I left, I had

Made a peace sign out of Christmas lights and was going to put it up at the house.

My father wouldn't let me.

And when I came home,

I noticed the lit peace sign was on the peak of the house.

And I said, “When did that go up?” And my mother said, “The day you left."

“Your father's had it on every night."

So that was enough for me.

I heard about The Loop. So I'm up driving The Loop, and

Trying to get a little, and I see this guy pulling

A parking lot and I looked at him and watched him, and he had that “swoosh”.

John.

So I walk in and I'm still in my BDU's and beret.

And I walked up to the bartender,

And I said, “Is this one of them queer bars?” And everybody shut up.

I was built like a brick shithouse back then.

And he said, “Yeah, it's a gay bar.”

And I said, “Thank God, Mary, I'm home.”

First time I went downtown to check out the P & S Lounge,

Which was the iconic gay bar in Des Moines,

At the time - You had to park in this surface parking lot,

And cross busy 2nd Avenue without anybody seeing you

And slipping into the bar.

Gary summed it up real good one time -

People treat us like we're second class citizens

And this is how we're supposed to act.

So hell, act that way.

Well, the point of spending any time in a gay bar is

To do some cruising.

I was going out mushroom hunting and this guy kept cruising me, and I thought, “Well, looky here..."

And all of a sudden I found out I could have a lot of good sex out there.

It was all about sucking dick, you know.