May 10, 2024 • 16 mins
We remember Uncle Johnny in this very special episode of The 15 Minute Morning Show.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What would you talk about on your on your podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Firm Elvis.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Fifteen The fifteen.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Minute Morning Show, and seven am last Friday, our uncle
Johnny passed away. We got the phone called soon after
from the incredible, incredible people at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and
of course, here we go. We knew it was coming soon.
He's been sick for a while, but it was he
was it was time for him to go. He's just
(00:35):
he was ready to go. And of course it's never
easy to let people go, even if they want to
leave right. So ever since then, we've been talking about
Uncle Johnny, reliving moments that made us laugh and made
us cringe, and just all sorts of incredible emotions, the
rainbow emotions when we think of Uncle Johnny as not
only a member of our show, but of family member
(00:55):
and very dear friend of ours and me personally and
of course my husband Ali. So as a matter of fact,
Alex posted something really great on Instagram today.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Did you guys see it?
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Yeah? Yeah, it's a good picture.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It was, Yeah, it was. It was written beautifully. See Alex.
Maybe do search blah blah blah, didn't prepare Okay, here
we go. It was a picture of Alex and Uncle
Johnny with the city skyline behind, and Alex says, it's
been one week since you left us, and not a
day goes by. I don't think of you. I still
find myself reaching for the phone to give you a call,
only to remember that you're no longer there to answer.
(01:29):
I miss our conversations and hearing your voice, but I
find comfort in knowing that you'll always be in my heart.
I love you, Uncle Johnny. Hashtag love you Forever. So,
you know, getting to know Uncle Johnny was an interesting,
interesting thing for all of us. It was easy when
he was on the air and the regular show, but
also we had him on a fifteen minute morning show
podcast one day, and so we decided, since maybe you've
(01:52):
never heard one of our fifteen minute morning show podcasts,
we're going to give you the whole podcast. I don't
know if is it fifteen minutes. We never ever really
come up to exactly fifteen minutes fourteen? Oh wow, that's
actually closer than usual.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's really good.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I mean, we've had four minute podcasts where Nate will
say pull the card. We'd just because it's called that
doesn't mean it is that. But anyway, so we thought
it'd be interesting for you to hear this podcast where
at the beginning of the podcast, we're sitting there scratching
our heads thinking, but what are we going to talk about?
And then Nate decided, well, since we've got Uncle Johnny,
let's turn this podcast into a getting to know you
(02:29):
Uncle Johnny podcast, And so I want you to listen
to this.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Here the fifteen minute morning show podcast is here, it's now,
it's yes, okay, So we've got Scottie b here today,
we've got Gandhi and it smells like sewage where she's sittings,
and there's You're too late, and there's Scary and Froggy's
up there in Jacksonville High from our.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Special guest, Uncle Johnny's an.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There you go, there's Garrett, here's Danielle, here's straight Nate.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Can we make this with the Uncle Johnny edition? Remember
were we didn't ask Uncle Johnny anything?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
So during one of the breaks, Uncle Johnny was telling
me something interesting. He technically worked for the mob. Is
that not correct?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes? Well your dad right right? No, my dad was
That was before I came to New York, when I
worked Stonewall All.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's right to see.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
The mob used to own a lot of the gay
bars here in New York, right, Yes, that's how they
kept them open because they ran the city.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Another mom didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, back then it was illegal to be gay. I
was when I was working at the Stonewall all the
clubs back then, you had to knock on the.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Door and say was there a secret knock?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
He's just knock and say who you were? Well, what
you wanted to now the s.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Did you have to admit you were?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Danny Grade, the joints did come in or if we
were standing on a corner, the three you and I
were on a corner talking and when they could come
and arrest us and put us in jail overnight because
you know, no longergated of the homosexuals.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
No homosexuals may congregate.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And you go to a bar and you have to
sit and walk straight and look straight ahead. You could
not look or talk to anybody.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Let's say you and I were on a street corner
and I'm not gay, but you are? Would I go
into jail with you?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
They'd probably bring you in. Also, yeah, you're early. That's
why it takes to the tango exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah. Johnny also tells a great story to go to
the next one.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
There's a great story Johnny has about Fire Island, which
is all the weekends, men especially men and some women
in the city would act straight and then on the
weekends they would take the trade out to Fire Island
and they could live these great gay lives, right, but
they would raid those clubs sometimes too, And so that's
why lesbians were invited to dance with the gay men,
because the way the guys can dance together.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Would have to have with one man would have to
be one woman with every two men dancing, you'd be illegal.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my, wow, you have to pay the women to
be there.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
No, they were out there, they were the Weslings. But
but there was just a few with them at the time.
But yeah, you always yeah, it's it'd stand on the
owner of the club would say at Jimmy Murray would
stand on the milk cot and with a flashlight and go,
I need a girl over here, We need a girl.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Can you imagine dancing on the next floor and then
Jimmy Murray's on the milk cart and saying, ah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
No too, man, we needed we need a lesbian man
to be a fly on the wall there, I.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Would There was no DJs back then, there was. There
was a jukebox. You go wait and you'd play the
things on the jukebox, and that's why you danced and everything.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Who was the most popular song?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh god, I can't remember back, I can't remember. I go,
I can walk out of here. I can't remember what
I'm doing here. But there they were mentioned to me.
I could probably remember them.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
But Johnny, when the police came up, came up to you,
would you say like, uh, I'm straight?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Like did you pretend that you were straight?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Or did they just nope, you're gay, You're coming with me,
You're going.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And they called it the paddy wagon.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It was a massive truck and they throw and there's.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Drag queens in there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
There's gay guys and gay and they would all be
how many nights.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
A week were you rated and taking to jail?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Oh, I've been to every jail in Manhattan because I
worked in different.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Often did it happen, Johnny, Oh, once.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Two or three times a week?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So they got so you made friends in the backs
of these paddy wagons and in jails.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And they picked up costume and they put me a
jail celle in the middle of the room.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
How would you get out of the jail, like did
someone of the post bail?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh no, you go to court the next morning and
then they dismissed it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
How much was the fine?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
There was no fine, there was you you were just
your arrested. There was It was everything that was It
was illegal, you know what I mean? It was harassment,
was it was grass where we now, we've come so
far and I'm so proud of where we are now
that we're all equal. Everybody's equal. It could be who
they are, you know, and that's.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, we're still working on that.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You can you see gay people on television now, there's
more gay people on television Hellen apparently every yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Lying about it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
There's so many of the not even on the game
shows and everything, they have gay couples and this is
my husband, this is my wife's true and it's people
were just saying, you know, that's it. When I first
met him, the heat and him and Alex and I
met him, nobody said he was. He met us and
(07:43):
he said I'd better come out.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, you dragged me out.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
But also there's a reason why we should thank the
pioneers like uncle Johnny and his friends who have been around.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
For three tree.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Tree worked, he said, he worked at Still and Wall.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We don't know, but all all I know is you
guys pay the way for the lives we're living now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I think that that should be recognized. We're dead, we.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Fought for them and that because we wanted our rights.
We were it was we're not being treated right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But there are to be fair.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
There are still members of our society there are still
not treated correctly. And oh yes, with compassion and with equality.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Well this time and and we're all equal. We should
all love one another, everybody, every color, every race, every
every person, every no, Jenna, it's we're here.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This is what it's all about. We'll tell you something.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Johnny Gandhi brings up an interesting point, and it's it's
very relatable to us as gay men of being the
different one in the room.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I mean, you are you have.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Talked about this before, you know, we don't understan A
lot of people don't understand what it's like being the
different one in the room. R They just they just assume,
well Jesus or whatever, and no, right, you don't.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
I think a lot of people don't understand what it
actually means to be the different one in the room
unless you are the different one in the room, which
means a whole lot to a whole bunch of people.
But you know, a lot of people will say things
like I don't see color, And I totally see where
they're coming from on that. But when you say you
don't see color, you're missing my culture. You're not understanding
that maybe I go home to a family that speaks
a different language and I have different food and it
(09:16):
smells different, we celebrate different holidays and everything is different.
It's okay to see my color, and I want you
to see my color. I just want you to also
understand that things are different from this perspective than from
a lot of other perspectives. And I know that Diamond
feels the same way about things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
And I look at Johnny, is I see the gay? Yeah?
I see color. Have you ever beaten anybody up for money?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes? I have had a different name when I was
when I was younger, much younger, early fifties. At my
name back then icter weal leather and was Ace Ace.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Was his name?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wow, he was a street thug, and that was the
street the guys I for you actually beat people up
and stole her money. I would rob houses.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And uh and and we'd would get people and would
beat up gay people on the streets.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yes, because no he didn't. No, no, no, Ace Marino,
did you're a gang banger? You really were a gay banger? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But then then and then I realized I had girlfriend
and I and she was cheated on me, and I
went and kicked the guy out of her house. And
that's when they was that Dale. No, this was Jolly
another another girl. We actually met one of his girlfriends
once she came. We came up for there. We're still friends, well,
(10:44):
I said for almost seventy seventy sixty seventy years now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But they're the ones who told me.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They said, you're not you're you're you're gay.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know how they know you were gay?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Because when I went down there, I didn't find.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
Anything until Johnny is the gift that keeps on giving.
I mean, I've known you all these years. It's like
there's another story that you teach me something.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
How much money did you get paid for beating somebody
up back then? Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We would shake them down, take whatever they had. Did
you take their jewelry too or just money?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I was, I was not nice, you know. And then
then my that that's when they told my father that
they put me. He's gather he's gonna go to jail
in uh the army. So I went in to the army.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Why and then he went from being ace Marino.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
To my mother Reno because I cooked for the big
deuce at the.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Fort dick for dicks. This is a joke, d I X.
By the way, I export DI.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Were you out when you were in the army, did
you know well, did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well? I found out yes.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And then did you become nice then? Because you said you.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Weren't back then? But then I turned really nice and
I started realizing that because I was you back then,
it was to be gay, you know. But I told
my father I was. I didn't want to tell my
father I was gay when I first came out, you know,
when I was eighteen and I looked at him, and
I know I wasn't eighteen. I was sixteen seventeen, and
(12:30):
I looked at him. I said, Dad, I think I'm bisexual.
Because this is in the fifties, and I didn't want
to say gay or anything like that. He looked at
me and he went he looked away.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
He looked back.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But that's our right, kid. I know a doctor. We
could fix it. I said, no, I don't think so, dad.
And that's when I moved to New York. That was
the day of the first street you lived in nineteen
sixty Gay Street.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Gay Street in the village. He lived on Gay Street,
Charity the Drag, Waverley and Gay. Why the Wizards of
Waverley Place? You live right over there?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, Waverley and Gay, right on the corner corner.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
From four Dicks to Gay Street.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yes, Now did you purposely move there because you'd be like,
this is the street for me? Or you have to
land there?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I got there, but but I said, this is a
good street for me, and I moved in it with
my friend Charlie, who was Charity the Drag Queen.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And yes, that's what That's how I did it. That's
what I was. There was nineteen sixty What, Yeah, that's
that was nineteen sixty one, sixty way.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You moved to New York.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Ride around a little before the nine I was born,
And when did you live in Fort Lauderdale nineteen.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I moved on there in nineteen seventy at seventy three
opened I did the bar at the mountad Beach Hotel
called Johnny post Blood de Bar at the Pool Bar,
and then I went from there. I went and did
another bar and men in uh Fort Lauderdale, and then
(14:06):
I went to Key West that opened a Pigeonhouse patio
and that was there for nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty three.
Then I moved back to Manhattan and opened up the
Waverley Waverley and then opened my own club because they
paid me to do that. Then opened my own club
(14:27):
called o' Johnny's on Fourteenth Street.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
WHOA damn.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I had all the Broadway stars coming in and everybody
came in there. Wow, and uh.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Eliza Mellie did a cocaine off the bar. That was.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That was when I was working as a door man.
When when I was Judy Gowan's uh what do you
call it?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Bounce her bodyguard? No, I'd pick her up.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
No, I would pick her up and bring it to
gay bars and make sure she got I was the escort. Yeah,
and uh I.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did Judy for you did Judy.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No I brought her around to all the gay bars
we used to go to, and she was living on
the Upper West Side then with her daughter Eliza. And
then I worked also as a bouncer at the uh
uh what it called uh.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It goes on and on and on, by the way,
But Judy Garland was no place like home.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Richard Burton's Sybil Richard Burton's wife, Sybil.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Johnny, you got to understand something. Most people in this
room don't know who you're talking about, because that's.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So Anyways, that was the bouncer there, and that's when Elizabeth,
when Eliza Minelli and Patty Duke, was sitting at the
bar doing coke, okay, and they told me to come over.
They said, to you, kid, this is when the big
Coca was back then, and this is when they said,
you can't have somebody sitting at the bar doing coke.
(15:49):
You got to tell her. Lu I said, you know
who that is. They says, I don't care what it is.
If they can't do it over here, you've got to
ask them to leave. So I had to ask her
them to leave, and then she had to go home,
and I had to go pick up her mother.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
At the house please, Uncle Johnny.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Oh my gosh, ma'n.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
We have boring lives.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Got Uncle Johnny was driving his car, I think somewhere
around here, and there.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Was a woman on the side of the road hitchhocking.
It was Barbara Streis Rising what I picked her up?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, I brought her to a Revere beach where she
was playing. And I went to the movies with Elizabeth
Taylor and she I had Tarryo ring on. She said, here,
try this.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This guy's like Forrest g I was.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Thinking was living in La Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The stories go.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
On and on and on, but unfortunately we're at a time,
Uncle Johnny, Uncle Johnny.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
The fifteen Minute Morning Show
What would you talk about on your on your podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Firm Elvis.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Fifteen The fifteen.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Minute Morning Show, and seven am last Friday, our uncle
Johnny passed away. We got the phone called soon after
from the incredible, incredible people at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and
of course, here we go. We knew it was coming soon.
He's been sick for a while, but it was he
was it was time for him to go. He's just
(00:35):
he was ready to go. And of course it's never
easy to let people go, even if they want to
leave right. So ever since then, we've been talking about
Uncle Johnny, reliving moments that made us laugh and made
us cringe, and just all sorts of incredible emotions, the
rainbow emotions when we think of Uncle Johnny as not
only a member of our show, but of family member
(00:55):
and very dear friend of ours and me personally and
of course my husband Ali. So as a matter of fact,
Alex posted something really great on Instagram today.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Did you guys see it?
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Yeah? Yeah, it's a good picture.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
It was, Yeah, it was. It was written beautifully. See Alex.
Maybe do search blah blah blah, didn't prepare Okay, here
we go. It was a picture of Alex and Uncle
Johnny with the city skyline behind, and Alex says, it's
been one week since you left us, and not a
day goes by. I don't think of you. I still
find myself reaching for the phone to give you a call,
only to remember that you're no longer there to answer.
(01:29):
I miss our conversations and hearing your voice, but I
find comfort in knowing that you'll always be in my heart.
I love you, Uncle Johnny. Hashtag love you Forever. So,
you know, getting to know Uncle Johnny was an interesting,
interesting thing for all of us. It was easy when
he was on the air and the regular show, but
also we had him on a fifteen minute morning show
podcast one day, and so we decided, since maybe you've
(01:52):
never heard one of our fifteen minute morning show podcasts,
we're going to give you the whole podcast. I don't
know if is it fifteen minutes. We never ever really
come up to exactly fifteen minutes fourteen? Oh wow, that's
actually closer than usual.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's really good.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I mean, we've had four minute podcasts where Nate will
say pull the card. We'd just because it's called that
doesn't mean it is that. But anyway, so we thought
it'd be interesting for you to hear this podcast where
at the beginning of the podcast, we're sitting there scratching
our heads thinking, but what are we going to talk about?
And then Nate decided, well, since we've got Uncle Johnny,
let's turn this podcast into a getting to know you
(02:29):
Uncle Johnny podcast, And so I want you to listen
to this.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's very interesting.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Here the fifteen minute morning show podcast is here, it's now,
it's yes, okay, So we've got Scottie b here today,
we've got Gandhi and it smells like sewage where she's sittings,
and there's You're too late, and there's Scary and Froggy's
up there in Jacksonville High from our.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Special guest, Uncle Johnny's an.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There you go, there's Garrett, here's Danielle, here's straight Nate.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Can we make this with the Uncle Johnny edition? Remember
were we didn't ask Uncle Johnny anything?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (03:01):
So during one of the breaks, Uncle Johnny was telling
me something interesting. He technically worked for the mob. Is
that not correct?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes? Well your dad right right? No, my dad was
That was before I came to New York, when I
worked Stonewall All.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
That's right to see.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
The mob used to own a lot of the gay
bars here in New York, right, Yes, that's how they
kept them open because they ran the city.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
Another mom didn't exist.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, back then it was illegal to be gay. I
was when I was working at the Stonewall all the
clubs back then, you had to knock on the.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Door and say was there a secret knock?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
He's just knock and say who you were? Well, what
you wanted to now the s.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Did you have to admit you were?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Danny Grade, the joints did come in or if we
were standing on a corner, the three you and I
were on a corner talking and when they could come
and arrest us and put us in jail overnight because
you know, no longergated of the homosexuals.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
No homosexuals may congregate.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
And you go to a bar and you have to
sit and walk straight and look straight ahead. You could
not look or talk to anybody.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Let's say you and I were on a street corner
and I'm not gay, but you are? Would I go
into jail with you?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
They'd probably bring you in. Also, yeah, you're early. That's
why it takes to the tango exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah. Johnny also tells a great story to go to
the next one.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
There's a great story Johnny has about Fire Island, which
is all the weekends, men especially men and some women
in the city would act straight and then on the
weekends they would take the trade out to Fire Island
and they could live these great gay lives, right, but
they would raid those clubs sometimes too, And so that's
why lesbians were invited to dance with the gay men,
because the way the guys can dance together.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Would have to have with one man would have to
be one woman with every two men dancing, you'd be illegal.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my, wow, you have to pay the women to
be there.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
No, they were out there, they were the Weslings. But
but there was just a few with them at the time.
But yeah, you always yeah, it's it'd stand on the
owner of the club would say at Jimmy Murray would
stand on the milk cot and with a flashlight and go,
I need a girl over here, We need a girl.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Can you imagine dancing on the next floor and then
Jimmy Murray's on the milk cart and saying, ah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
No too, man, we needed we need a lesbian man
to be a fly on the wall there, I.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Would There was no DJs back then, there was. There
was a jukebox. You go wait and you'd play the
things on the jukebox, and that's why you danced and everything.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Who was the most popular song?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Oh god, I can't remember back, I can't remember. I go,
I can walk out of here. I can't remember what
I'm doing here. But there they were mentioned to me.
I could probably remember them.
Speaker 6 (05:56):
But Johnny, when the police came up, came up to you,
would you say like, uh, I'm straight?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Like did you pretend that you were straight?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Or did they just nope, you're gay, You're coming with me,
You're going.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And they called it the paddy wagon.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
It was a massive truck and they throw and there's.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Drag queens in there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
There's gay guys and gay and they would all be
how many nights.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
A week were you rated and taking to jail?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Oh, I've been to every jail in Manhattan because I
worked in different.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Often did it happen, Johnny, Oh, once.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Two or three times a week?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So they got so you made friends in the backs
of these paddy wagons and in jails.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
And they picked up costume and they put me a
jail celle in the middle of the room.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
How would you get out of the jail, like did
someone of the post bail?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Oh no, you go to court the next morning and
then they dismissed it.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
How much was the fine?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
There was no fine, there was you you were just
your arrested. There was It was everything that was It
was illegal, you know what I mean? It was harassment,
was it was grass where we now, we've come so
far and I'm so proud of where we are now
that we're all equal. Everybody's equal. It could be who
they are, you know, and that's.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, we're still working on that.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
You can you see gay people on television now, there's
more gay people on television Hellen apparently every yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Lying about it.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
There's so many of the not even on the game
shows and everything, they have gay couples and this is
my husband, this is my wife's true and it's people
were just saying, you know, that's it. When I first
met him, the heat and him and Alex and I
met him, nobody said he was. He met us and
(07:43):
he said I'd better come out.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Well, you dragged me out.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
But also there's a reason why we should thank the
pioneers like uncle Johnny and his friends who have been around.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
For three tree.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Tree worked, he said, he worked at Still and Wall.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
We don't know, but all all I know is you
guys pay the way for the lives we're living now.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I think that that should be recognized. We're dead, we.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Fought for them and that because we wanted our rights.
We were it was we're not being treated right.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But there are to be fair.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
There are still members of our society there are still
not treated correctly. And oh yes, with compassion and with equality.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Well this time and and we're all equal. We should
all love one another, everybody, every color, every race, every
every person, every no, Jenna, it's we're here.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This is what it's all about. We'll tell you something.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Johnny Gandhi brings up an interesting point, and it's it's
very relatable to us as gay men of being the
different one in the room.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I mean, you are you have.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Talked about this before, you know, we don't understan A
lot of people don't understand what it's like being the
different one in the room. R They just they just assume,
well Jesus or whatever, and no, right, you don't.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
I think a lot of people don't understand what it
actually means to be the different one in the room
unless you are the different one in the room, which
means a whole lot to a whole bunch of people.
But you know, a lot of people will say things
like I don't see color, And I totally see where
they're coming from on that. But when you say you
don't see color, you're missing my culture. You're not understanding
that maybe I go home to a family that speaks
a different language and I have different food and it
(09:16):
smells different, we celebrate different holidays and everything is different.
It's okay to see my color, and I want you
to see my color. I just want you to also
understand that things are different from this perspective than from
a lot of other perspectives. And I know that Diamond
feels the same way about things like that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
And I look at Johnny, is I see the gay? Yeah?
I see color. Have you ever beaten anybody up for money?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes? I have had a different name when I was
when I was younger, much younger, early fifties. At my
name back then icter weal leather and was Ace Ace.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Was his name?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wow, he was a street thug, and that was the
street the guys I for you actually beat people up
and stole her money. I would rob houses.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And uh and and we'd would get people and would
beat up gay people on the streets.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yes, because no he didn't. No, no, no, Ace Marino,
did you're a gang banger? You really were a gay banger? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
But then then and then I realized I had girlfriend
and I and she was cheated on me, and I
went and kicked the guy out of her house. And
that's when they was that Dale. No, this was Jolly
another another girl. We actually met one of his girlfriends
once she came. We came up for there. We're still friends, well,
(10:44):
I said for almost seventy seventy sixty seventy years now.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But they're the ones who told me.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They said, you're not you're you're you're gay.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You know how they know you were gay?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Because when I went down there, I didn't find.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
Anything until Johnny is the gift that keeps on giving.
I mean, I've known you all these years. It's like
there's another story that you teach me something.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
How much money did you get paid for beating somebody
up back then? Oh? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
We would shake them down, take whatever they had. Did
you take their jewelry too or just money?
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I was, I was not nice, you know. And then
then my that that's when they told my father that
they put me. He's gather he's gonna go to jail
in uh the army. So I went in to the army.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Why and then he went from being ace Marino.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
To my mother Reno because I cooked for the big
deuce at the.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Fort dick for dicks. This is a joke, d I X.
By the way, I export DI.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Were you out when you were in the army, did
you know well, did you know that you were gay?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well? I found out yes.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And then did you become nice then? Because you said you.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Weren't back then? But then I turned really nice and
I started realizing that because I was you back then,
it was to be gay, you know. But I told
my father I was. I didn't want to tell my
father I was gay when I first came out, you know,
when I was eighteen and I looked at him, and
I know I wasn't eighteen. I was sixteen seventeen, and
(12:30):
I looked at him. I said, Dad, I think I'm bisexual.
Because this is in the fifties, and I didn't want
to say gay or anything like that. He looked at
me and he went he looked away.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
He looked back.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But that's our right, kid. I know a doctor. We
could fix it. I said, no, I don't think so, dad.
And that's when I moved to New York. That was
the day of the first street you lived in nineteen
sixty Gay Street.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Gay Street in the village. He lived on Gay Street,
Charity the Drag, Waverley and Gay. Why the Wizards of
Waverley Place? You live right over there?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, Waverley and Gay, right on the corner corner.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
From four Dicks to Gay Street.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yes, Now did you purposely move there because you'd be like,
this is the street for me? Or you have to
land there?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I got there, but but I said, this is a
good street for me, and I moved in it with
my friend Charlie, who was Charity the Drag Queen.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And yes, that's what That's how I did it. That's
what I was. There was nineteen sixty What, Yeah, that's
that was nineteen sixty one, sixty way.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You moved to New York.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Ride around a little before the nine I was born,
And when did you live in Fort Lauderdale nineteen.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I moved on there in nineteen seventy at seventy three
opened I did the bar at the mountad Beach Hotel
called Johnny post Blood de Bar at the Pool Bar,
and then I went from there. I went and did
another bar and men in uh Fort Lauderdale, and then
(14:06):
I went to Key West that opened a Pigeonhouse patio
and that was there for nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty three.
Then I moved back to Manhattan and opened up the
Waverley Waverley and then opened my own club because they
paid me to do that. Then opened my own club
(14:27):
called o' Johnny's on Fourteenth Street.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
WHOA damn.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I had all the Broadway stars coming in and everybody
came in there. Wow, and uh.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Eliza Mellie did a cocaine off the bar. That was.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That was when I was working as a door man.
When when I was Judy Gowan's uh what do you
call it?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Bounce her bodyguard? No, I'd pick her up.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
No, I would pick her up and bring it to
gay bars and make sure she got I was the escort. Yeah,
and uh I.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did Judy for you did Judy.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No I brought her around to all the gay bars
we used to go to, and she was living on
the Upper West Side then with her daughter Eliza. And
then I worked also as a bouncer at the uh
uh what it called uh.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It goes on and on and on, by the way,
But Judy Garland was no place like home.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Richard Burton's Sybil Richard Burton's wife, Sybil.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Johnny, you got to understand something. Most people in this
room don't know who you're talking about, because that's.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So Anyways, that was the bouncer there, and that's when Elizabeth,
when Eliza Minelli and Patty Duke, was sitting at the
bar doing coke, okay, and they told me to come over.
They said, to you, kid, this is when the big
Coca was back then, and this is when they said,
you can't have somebody sitting at the bar doing coke.
(15:49):
You got to tell her. Lu I said, you know
who that is. They says, I don't care what it is.
If they can't do it over here, you've got to
ask them to leave. So I had to ask her
them to leave, and then she had to go home,
and I had to go pick up her mother.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
At the house please, Uncle Johnny.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Oh my gosh, ma'n.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
We have boring lives.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Got Uncle Johnny was driving his car, I think somewhere
around here, and there.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Was a woman on the side of the road hitchhocking.
It was Barbara Streis Rising what I picked her up?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, I brought her to a Revere beach where she
was playing. And I went to the movies with Elizabeth
Taylor and she I had Tarryo ring on. She said, here,
try this.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
This guy's like Forrest g I was.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Thinking was living in La Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
The stories go.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
On and on and on, but unfortunately we're at a time,
Uncle Johnny, Uncle Johnny.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
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