All language subtitles for The.Last.American.Gay.Bar.S01E02.1080p_Legendas01.ENG

(Dance music)

I hadn't really met any gay
people,

I only knew - you know -
society's reaction to gay
people.

And I hadn't had much

Experience with alcohol, and so
I wasn't, like, going to go out
and have two or three drinks,

And so it was a little
nerve-wracking.

And especially you walk in
there,

If you're new meat in town, you
know,

Everyone's looking. It's like
they haven't figured out how
weird you are yet,

And so you're very popular.

The new meat thing refers to,
they haven't figured out your
flaws yet.

You haven't had a conversation
where you've embarrassed
yourself yet.

And so you're new meat, you're
not - to use the word virgin -
but

You're kind of untouched.
Because we were in the closet
back then,

We behaved more poorly.

I mean, because nobody knew what
we were doing - we were in the
closet.

So, some of the things we did in
the closet were

Probably not things that we
would do today.

Having sex in public - like,
outdoors in public,

Or having sex in your cars, or
having sex in the bars.

Those things were more prevalent
in our community

I don't know, sometimes

I'd probably be embarrassed to
say some of the things we did.

We were still - you know -
having to deal with all the
stress of

Not being able to tell your
mother that you're gay.

And not being able to tell your
boss that you're gay.

And deal with your teachers. I
was in a class

In my first year of college- it
was called Sex Roles in Modern
Society.

And, you know, someone said, “I
think gay is horrid, and blah
blah blah."

And the teacher said, “There
might be a gay person in this
class."

“Hopefully they have the courage
to speak up.” I didn't.

I didn't have the courage to
speak up, because I'd already
heard

What his opinion was on gays,
and I really didn't want to go
there,

So it was - even though it was
the mid-70s,

We were still very much in the
closet.

In '74, I moved down to teach

In a small town near Des Moines,
and

My fraternity brother, who had
become my partner at that time,
joined me also.

We would come into the bars
regularly,

And the biggest problem we had
was - other than

Gary and some other people that
we met - they were really
inclusive,

They wouldn't allow people from
outside town into their groups.

And so it wasn't until

Some college graduates from Iowa
State -

They had a Halloween party, and
it just blew

Everyone's minds. Everyone had
fantastic costumes.

And everybody mixed for the
first time

And it was never the same after
that.

Well, I always had certain guys
that were kind of

Interesting to me, but there was
no approaching them,

And there wouldn't bet be any
way to make any contact.

Instead, I actually dated girls.
I was in a fraternity.

My date became the fraternity
White Rose Queen,

And it was all kind of crazy.

When I actually - I started
going to a counselor because I
knew I had a problem.

And I didn't know how to get out
of it.

So when I asked her to meet me,
and go for this walk.

I think she thought I was gonna
pop the question.

And instead I told her I was
gay.

And I was devastated, she was
devastated.

It was a pretty emotional
experience overall.

But it set me on a new path.

And that path was explore the
world, find out who I was.

And it's amazing how it all came
together in a gay life that must
me here in this chair right now.

When I was 16, I had a mustache
.

And I was able to get into
places

Even at 15 I had a mustache.

And so I could get into the
bookstores, even though you were
supposed to be 16.

I looked 16.

At 17, I had people coming to me
to buy their liquor for them
because I

Looked old enough and nobody
ever questioned it.

Des Moines had more dirty
bookstores

Than Chicago had.

Bible thumpers really need a
place to release.

These were adult bookstores.

It would be dirty, it would be
sleazy.

There would be someone sitting
behind a desk,

Usually elevated, and of course
they were checking

IDs, and making sure that
everybody was 16 and over.

There were at any given time,
were usually about

Four different bookstores open.
And so you could go

From one store to another to
another, and check out

Who was out and about.

Gay people didn't have the
social outlet, so

We only had the bookstore back
then.

Now we have other social
outlets, so we don't need to go
to the Lion's Den.

It was one of the first times
that we could go in and

Buy gay pornography. Wow.

And a lot of us had some pretty
good collections back in the
day.

Until they came out with movies,
and then we started getting our
movies.

There would be a curtain.

To the back area, and the back
area would then be lined with
booths.

With doors on them. And of
course it was

One person per booth, which -
you know - always

Got fudged a little bit.

The rooms were 4x4 rooms. The
screen was on the back of the
door, and

It used quarters. You would take
quarters in.

But if you failed to keep the
projector running, they could
come around

And bang on the door so you
would drop another quarter in.

Sometimes the screen would be
covered with phone numbers.

I did meet somebody one time
with a phone number off the back
of the door.

The glory hole varied in size.
One particular

Glory hole was 3 feet by 3 feet,

Meaning that you could crawl
from one booth to the other.

You could pretty much come onto
anybody in the bookstores back
then.

It was just a place to hook and
meet someone

And have some casual sex, and
then

Go on with your life.

When my name and number - unless
I thought they were very
attractive -

And they were really good at
sex.

So one night, I'd given that to
two people.

So months later, after I came
out to my parents,

Which didn't really go all that
well, but they didn't kick me
out of the house.

They didn't stop talking to me.
They just went into a
depression.

And I really didn't know how to
help them.

One of these guys calls me, and

I said we were gonna meet and go
to Lake Okoboji for the weekend.

And I said, “Don't come early.

Because I'll be working until
5.”

Well, he must've heard me say
come early, because he arrived
early.

So I get home and my mother
says, “There was this guy

That came for you.” I said,
“Yeah, we're going up to Lake
Okoboji

For the weekend.” And then she
says, totally unprompted,

“Boy, he was really handsome."

And I thought, well, what do you
think?

The problem with me was, I'd
given my name to two people that
night

And I didn't know which one this
guy was.

All I knew was he was good
looking, he was good in the
sack.

So that worked out pretty well.
But not even that -

I showered, I cleaned up, and as
I'm walking through he kitchen
to go through the front door,

She whispers, “He's really good
looking.”

And so I think that was her way
of saying, “I'm OK."

“I'm OK with you being gay."

And it kind of gets to me now
because that was her way of
saying,

“I'm accepting you.”

It was casual - you were just
having casual sex. You knew that
thirty minutes form now

You were going to be going about
your business.

about us.

It's because we didn't have to

worry about how we looked in

front of straight people,

because they didn't want to know

We were in the closet, which was
where they wanted us.

It sounds very degrading, but

It would be not uncommon for me
to have a

Couple of casual encounters and
then go to work bartending,

And then have somebody waiting
for me at 2 o'clock in the
morning when I got off.

That would actually be a normal
Saturday night.

That's kind of when you were in
the closet,

That's what you were able to do.
You didn't have to have

Long-term relationships. You
could - we also

Didn't have quite the jealousies

We were pretty casual about it.

People that graduated high
school in the mid-sixties

They turned around and got
married because they thought
they were

Going to screw their life up if
they lived a gay lifestyle

What they didn't quite realize
is that straight people screw
their lives up just as easily

And they usually drag some kids
along with it.

My second boyfriend, he was
married when I met him.

He got a divorce and she wanted
to sue me

For alienation of affection,
which obviously didn't work,

But yeah, there were a lot of
people that

Didn't get married, but there
was a much higher percentage of

Gay men that got married. It was
a time period where I think

Gay people had a lot of self
hatred.

Gays tended to be more
conservative.

We wanted to belong.

We wanted to be like people -
like everybody else.

And as time went on, we learned
we were just fine

Being who we were. We didn't
need to be like everybody else

The big thing that happened in
Iowa, of course, was in '78 when
Anita Bryant came here.

When Anita Bryant came to sing a
concert at Vets Auditorium,

She always had a press
conference before

She starts out like she always
does, with her crusade

Called “Save the Children”

Because this bitch was trying to
smear us and turn us into

A bunch of wild creatures.

Anita - she sold the whole
nation on the idea

That gay people are out to
recruit your children

Into the gay lifestyle.

Feeding on the old idea that, of
course, gay people don't
reproduce,

And so they have to recruit
children into the gay lifestyle

Or we'll run out of gay people.
That's actually the argument
that they used.

She used it in Miami-Dade

When they got gay rights passed
there - civil rights there.

And she actually got the Date
County people to rescind it.

She got all of the evangelicals
all upset that your children are
going to be taught by gay people

And all kinds of things, and
they rescinded it.

Well then she went on to Topeka,
Kansas - where, believe it or
not they had it and they
rescinded it.

They went to Eugene, Oregon -
they rescinded it there.

They went to St. Paul, Minnesota
- they rescinded it there. She
was on a real roll here.

Well, believe it or not, Des
Moines didn't even have such a
thing, but she still was gonna
mention it.

So the says she loves the
homosexual - of course she
didn't use the G Word -

Because that would be too kind
to gay people.

The homosexuals. But she just
wishes they would just stop
talking.

And if that sounds a little
familiar, it's because

It's exactly the same thing
they're saying now.

Here we are, nearly over 50
years later,

And they're saying the same
thing again. On a crusade across
the nation

And try to do away with the
homosexuals, then we certainly
would have done it on June the
8th, after one of the most

Overwhelming victories A guy
from St. Paul, from an anarchist
group,

Actually came down with two
friends of his

And he had entered the building,
and proceeded to the front of
the room and threw a pie in her
face

Can't imagine -

I guess the room of people that
were there just went silent.

Nobody went “Ah!” Or anything
like that. And then to a place
with Norfolk

Virginia, and were met with
protests and all kinds of
problems, and

It just went silent. But the
cameras kept right on

Rolling, so it was all on film.

And she's wiping the pie away
from her

Face, and she says, “Well at
least it's a fruit pie.”

It turns out it was banana
cream, my favorite pie.

I cheered when I read that she
got a pie

In her face, because I just
hated her vehemently .

It made national news, that

Anita Bryant met her match in
little Des Moines, Iowa

And something we are - to this
day - very proud of.

That we started the decline of

Anita Bryant's movement against
us.

So after this went national,

The gay community in San
Francisco were having banana
cream pie parties.

I mean Now Anita, let's pray.
That's all right.

Father, we want to thank you for
the

Opportunity of coming to Des
Moines, and Father we want to
ask that you forgive him.

And that we love him, and that
we're praying for him.

To be delivered from his deviant
lifestyle, Father.

We're just as plain as everybody
else.

We just happen to have sex with
our same gender.

We had our own signals, you
know.

Like if you're sitting in a
bathroom stall, tapping your
foot

And then kind of bring your foot
a little closer to the other
side,

And if you got stomped on, you
knew you fucked up.

Margo Frankel was a county park

On the northern edge of Des
Moines

On Second Avenue.

It had trails that went off
through it,

And it kind of became a spot
where gay people

Would travel the trails and hook
up.

Gay people had few places to
meet people, so that's one of
the places that they did,

Well, it became a problem with
the general public

If they were using a trail and
all of a sudden

Run across, you know, two guys
going at it - it became a
problem.

This is back

Remember when I said the only
place we could meet people was
through a hole in the wall?

This was kind of a carry on of

that.

How do you meet other gay people
when we're not out and about?

You know?

And this was part of that time
period.

What happened was the Damron
Guide came out, it lists places

That have cruising areas, gay
bars, gay restaurants, gay
hotels, any place

Where you would be safe being
gay.

So that, you know, you wouldn't
be arrested or something like
that.

And Margo Frankel Park was
listed as a place that was
cruising.

There were two sides to it.
There was the big side,

It had playground equipment, it
had bathrooms - the bathrooms
were cruise-y -

But it was also big and open,
and that's generally where

If there were straight people in
the park, they were over there.

Then there was the back side,
which just had a little shelter
house and the bathroom,

And they connected. You walked
down into the woods and the two

sides were connected.

That way. But you go to one side

And try to pick someone up, and
then you'd

Drive around to the other side.
It was - you know -

It was one of those things where
you didn't have to say any
words.

You'd get eye contact if they
were acceptable,

Then you went off to the corner,
you went into the bathroom,

Into the woods, or something
like that.

Well one of my famous lines,
because I like to cut through
the crap,

Is buy somebody a drink, hey -
want to fuck? Let's go.

It worked. It worked.

Now if you do it, someone would
slap you in the face.

Very romantic, you know.

I knew all about Margo Frankel
Park. I never participated in
any of that

Myself, but I had friends who
did.

I had to bail somebody out once,
as a matter of fact, over that.

We had a deputy

I think from the Polk County
Sherriff's office who had

Taken on this mission of
cleaning

Up Margo Frankel Woods.

Somehow, someway, somewhere,
Channel 13 news announced that

And so I think that kind of
alerted the police

Department that that was going
on.

I can't put any of that - I have
no evidence of that, but I think
that's what was happening.

So there was a raid,

And what it was is it was
entrapment.

They were trapping people into -
you know, they were bringing out

Beautiful young men and trying
to get them

To have sex with somebody,

So they would have cameras
around and they would take
pictures of it, then they would
arrest you, take you

Down to the police station where
they would keep you

There until they let you go,
once you posted bond.

And if you got a good lawyer,
you generally

Got it expunged from the record
after so long.

But there was a big article on
the front page.

It was listed, “Beware of Bears
in the Woods.”

And that was to tell people that
the police were watching,

And it was an article about
Margo Frankel Park.

But later on, there was a place
at Cherry Creek also, near
Saylorville,

And there was some - it became a
meeting place, I guess.

And there were a bunch of people
arrested there, and those names
were put in the paper.

And some of those people lost
their jobs.

People took advantage of gay
people back then.

My first apartment I had when I
came back from Vietnam,

I was robbed in. I'd met
somebody, brought him home,

And they went to the kitchen and
pulled out a knife and robbed
me.

I called the police

Right away, and they came and
they kind of looked at me funny

And I just looked at them, and I
says, “Yes, I'm gay, and I want
their ass in jail."

And two days later, they were in
jail.

But a lot of times people would
do that with gay people and

They weren't reported.

It's because people didn't want
to be outed.

A teacher actually

Was driving through, saw two
young men,

Brought them back to his home,
and that night they murdered
him.