July 19, 2022 • 36 mins
Welcome back; this is BoozeNation The Podcast.
Happy July - which means we are in a post-Roe world right now. I don't know where to begin with about the decision and what it will mean for the future of women in this country. I'm saddened, disgusted and pissed!!!
Having said all that, I will now switch gears and switch this on a positive note. And talk about the highlight of my week. And the highlight of that awful week was my discussion with my next guest, Scottie Jeanette Madden. And usually, I speak with people directly connected to the bar and restaurant industry, bartenders, servers, front of the house, back of the house, all those peeps.
But this episode, I'm doing something a little different because Scottie Jeanette is a television writer, director, and producer. She's also on the board of directors of DTLA proud. She directed the documentary Proud In A Pandemic, which is about the pandemic and how it affected some of the queer bars and queer communities of downtown LA. Now, Scottie Jeanette worked in bars as a bar back, back in the day. So I felt that that gave her a lot of street cred in the bar industry world.
What I appreciated so much about Scottie Jeanette is that she is just so honest about her journey professionally and personally, which showcases her strength and intelligence throughout the interview and beyond the interview as well.
www.zuzubean.com/ted-talk.html
www.dtlaproud.org/proud-in-the-pandemic
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Right.
Where are you come?
Where are you?
Zooming from?
I'm zooming from my home in San Francisco.
Oh, nice.
Yes, where it's a very typicalsummer day, meaning it's really
cold and there's a lot of fog.
Yeah.
I have some friends who used to be on theback when candlestick was candlestick.
They were on the, diamond visioncrew for the giants games and.
(00:21):
They would, do a lot of camera work.
And so my friend, he was packing inlike a parka and gloves and a scarf.
And what are you doing?
He goes, I'm going to work.
Like, what are you doing?
He goes, have you ever beenup in like high, third base?
It's like, it's mightas well be the Arctic.
It's the Tundra.
Yeah.
Going to giants games in September,which is normally really nice for
(00:42):
San Francisco was still freezing.
Yeah, right on the bay.
It's like, Ugh.
It's still freezing.
And are you in LA?
Well, technically, ifyou mean Lake Arrowhead.
So yeah, I mean, I, was raised in up herein the mountains and after I, I sold my
house, like in July of 2020, and thenWas like, I Hollywood didn't know what
(01:03):
it wanted to be when it was growing up.
So I thought, well,I'm not gonna go there.
There's no Hollywood.
Right.
It's no LA.
So instead of, of hangingout there, I moved up here.
And so I'm, I'm aboutone more month up here.
And then I'm moving back to LA in August.
Oh, okay.
Well, good for you to get a littlebit of, you know, moving around time.
(01:24):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it,it it's how to say this?
I thought I could go home andthat wasn't gonna happen.
I'm always gonna be amountain girl at heart.
I get to walk my dog inthe forest all day long.
So that's beautiful, but the rest ofthe place has become so galvanized.
And so Trumpy that it's just not evenlike a, there's no community number one.
(01:44):
And what there is is, is notsomething you want to be around.
Yeah, I hear you.
It's really becoming harder and harderto find community and a respectful
community and just a communitythat can, I don't know, handle.
People's opinions and people'sdifferences without it becoming
(02:04):
a full blown outrage scenario.
Yeah.
be around.
Yeah.
One of the things that drew me toyour project was, learning about DT
LA or downtown LA and downtown LAproud, just because it seemed that
was a community that's growing andmaybe was thriving until the pandemic.
And then everything stopped.
Obviously not just downtown LA,everything stopped, but do you wanna
(02:27):
talk a little bit about downtown LA.
Yeah, for sure.
Actually, I'm sorry, do you wannatalk a little bit about yourself?
However you wanna roll this.
I'm really free form.
So how, how do you wanna play?
I'm just putting your hands, Traci.
Oh, awesome.
Okay.
So then let's just kind ofstart a little bit about the
questions , that I sent you.
Okay.
Introduce yourself in any way you want.
(02:48):
I'm Scotty, Jeanette Madden.
And have been a television writer,director and producer for over 40 years.
That's something to be proud of.
It is, yeah.
All right.
In this industry.
I mean, come on.
That's something.
Yeah, but I, you know, I was at an eventthe other day where we were celebrating
directors of photograph of cinematographyand there were some legends in the room
(03:12):
just, you know, American cinema, societyof cinematographer, top echelon just
badass women and a couple of the mentoo, that are very supportive of us.
And I made a joke and I said, youknow I was one of the first people.
And I don't have this confirmed, butI know from the engineer's response
that when I said I wanted to put acentury six 50 millimeter lens, which
(03:36):
is a telephoto lens, it's about thislong on the front of a beta cam.
And they looked at me like I had twoheads, both of 'em ugly that I was
probably, if not the first prettyclose to the first person to do that.
And Nancy Shriver, who's one ofthe legends I was speaking about.
She goes, you had me at beta camand I said, yeah, none of the kids
(03:57):
in this room know what that is.
Right.
So anyways, I mean, I, you know,that's, I think part of reason why
I, I make a joke about being in therefor four decades is that, you know,
the, the industry has changed so muchand it also hasn't changed at all.
But the parts where it's changed islike one of the first jobs I ever had
(04:17):
was a camera on my shoulder and a oneinch recording back on my hip that I had
to carry all myself walking across thedeck of the Miss Budweiser thunder boat.
So, yeah, so by the stories I'm telling,you can tell that I have come up from
the trenches , but I was very quick.
I, I, I always knew that the reasonwhy I got into the business in the
(04:37):
first place was to tell stories.
So learning the tools, the camera, thelighting, and the editing and, and all
that was just always a means to an end.
I was never going to be any one ofthose single things for any length of
period of time and probably also for therest of my life, because I was always
driving towards directing and writing.
So that's what I do now.
And let's see.
(04:58):
So I was married for about 20years I, I say blurted, but blurted
probably the better word is vomited.
The truth of that.
I had been hiding my entire life.
when I one morning.
Did something I never believedI would ever do in my lifetime.
(05:20):
Um, And I thought.
Pretty well and turns out I wasvery good at it, the hiding part.
But the part that I was hiding was likea truth that was so buried inside of
my head and my heart that I couldn't, Ididn't think anybody could see that deep.
I never did anything about it, Iguess, is what I'm trying to say.
But the truth is that I turnedto the woman who I loved more
(05:42):
than life and breath itself.
I didn't turn to her.
I woke up at the base of our bedholding two steaming cups of coffee,
not knowing that it was about 5:00AM and my lovely bride spouse.
Actually I say spouse, cuzthat's what she preferred.
She hated the word wife.
(06:02):
She said it sounded like knife.
So in her memory and honor spouseshe said it's awful early for coffee.
I mean, it's a lovely thought, butit's Saturday morning, we normally
get to sleep in, what are you doing?
And I said I don't know.
I mean, I looked in these twocups of coffee in my hand.
It might as well be.
You know, snakes.
I, I didn't know how they got there.
(06:23):
I didn't know how I was standing.
I didn't know how I wasat the foot of the bed.
And as I was trying to get my bearings,it just came rushing outta my mouth.
I'm a woman and Marcy didn'tknow what to do with all that.
She thought I was having anervous breakdown and I'm.
Tamping down and, and telling in lessdramatic fashion that I do in a Ted talk,
which is where I put all this energy.
(06:45):
So I could record it someplace whereI could say it the best, and then
that way people would understand.
But anyway, the bottom line I cameout and I didn't know I was going out.
I thought I was gonna, I really did thinkI was just gonna take this to my grave.
I never believed transitioning.
I didn't even understand whatthat would mean or be, or how that
would look, cuz I had a life I had.
Fabulous, amazing marriage.
(07:06):
We loved and supported each other,you know, with every breath and fiber.
So we took about five years tofigure out what that meant and.
How that was going to fit in our life.
And at first it was, we didn'teven know what that meant.
I didn't know what that meant.
I didn't know.
I was asking to transition.
I didn't expect those words to come out,so I didn't expect to deal with them.
once they did it was really justpicking up broken glass, you know?
(07:29):
But Marcy tried to have me cured.
And truly speaking, the oneinstinctual thing I knew to do
at that time was to care for her.
Because I knew from the age offour that I should never tell
anybody that I was a girl.
That's the part I knew peoplealways say like, when did you know?
I'm like, I, I only knew that I shouldn'tdo anything feminine or tell everybody
(07:51):
I was a girl because I would get hurt
Yeah, exactly.
I knew.
Right.
So I just didn't do it after a while.
I was like, okay, don't do that.
Do this over here.
If you do this, you get props.
You do that.
You get hit.
Well, that's not hard
So you learn that very quickly,
you know?
Yeah.
Right.
Kids aren't stupid.
They, yeah, they learn that very quickly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're not dumb.
So I tried to give her the spaceto understand, because I think
(08:15):
in deeply at first it was justinstinctual is what I'm saying.
But what I come came to knowas we went on is that she was
going to love me no matter what.
That I knew, I, I knew our love wasso deep and she would say to me, like,
how do you know I'm such a good person?
I'm like, I guys, I've beenmarried to you for over, at
this point now, 23 years, what?
(08:36):
It doesn't matter, you know?
I know you better than I know myself.
You're not gonna, you know, dothis, but I also knew not to
just like run rough shot over it.
You know, I needed, she cuz Ididn't know what I was asking for.
Like all, all I did the first part, which.
I'm a woman.
I didn't know.
I didn't have a plan to that.
So in that five year, period of time,while we were both trying to kind of
figure it out both separately and togetherI realized that because she loved me that
(09:01):
if I could come back with a cohesive,ask a real, this is what I need, but
of course she would give it to me.
So I needed to think about what that was.
And I realized after a time.
I did need to just stop living the wayI had been stop living, presenting as
a male, because it was just ridiculous.
(09:22):
It was theater.
I was good at it.
Big fucking deal.
Sorry.
You can say whatever you want, you cansay whatever bad curse words you want.
I do it all the time.
I mean, I, you know, it didn'tmatter that I was good at it.
Big deal, you know I hadalways created this facade.
So because that's what people love to see.
(09:43):
And I wanted them to have what theywanted, you know since I wasn't gonna ever
be able to get what I wanted, who careslet's give them what they want and then
I'll earn my womanhood next lifetime.
And it'll all be good.
But then when I got clear, I knew that Ijust didn't wanna live that way anymore.
And also for anybody who's in thissimilar situation, this is a part
(10:04):
that I want people to hear is thatwhen I said I'm a woman, what Marcy
heard was, I want to leave you.
That took me the longestpart to wrap my head around.
And I, I didn't hear that.
I didn't see that of all thethings I'm telling you about that.
I do know about her.
That was something I missed until,you know, until just before I
(10:25):
officially came out to the world.
And that makes me feel dumb.
You know, it is like, You know, ofcourse, once I see it, in retrospect, of
course, you know, she's a woman and in herworld, she would be in love with a man.
So if I'm a woman andshe's like, okay, I get it.
I, she had no problem accepting that part.
(10:46):
It was accepting whatit meant to our life.
So I was like, well, that meansthat you want to go and be with men.
And I'm like, what?
I mean, when, when she finally saidit in that kind, those kind of words,
I was like, No, I'm I'm into you.
I've never not been in love with you.
This is not about you.
This is only about me.
So once we got to there, then westarted transitioning together.
(11:08):
So.
Fast forward the normal coming outprocedure and we all develop our own,
but you know, some people have startedto leave a trail of bread crumbs and
they're useful and to some people, andreally, you know, the only thing I would
tell anybody in that situation is like,you have to stay true to your heart.
You have to stay there.
(11:29):
You know, you have to understand that.
What I always say is there's a guitarstring that ties my heart to your heart.
And it gets swang by thisrevelation because people feel
like they think they know you.
And then when you tell them for real,then they're like, well, then I don't
know anything about you, which is alittle dramatic, but it's up to me to
(11:51):
tune in my side of the guitar string.
And it's up to you to do your side.
And that takes some patience and love,but it has to be done by both sides.
So that's also puts iton the other person.
Like if someone in your family comesout, it's on you to accept them.
You, you don't get to not accept them.
(12:11):
Try explaining that, dear God,there's no God in the world.
I don't care what the churchesare telling you right now.
That will be okay that you cut somebodyout of your life because you thought
your minister misread the text andsaid that it was an abomination.
Just complete horse shit.
It's complete.
Like, I don't know how, who, ifyou want to believe that, then
(12:33):
you are an atrocious person.
You you've just now steppedoutside of the humanity.
Yeah, you don't get it both ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for, for sharing that.
That was a lot to, to do.
That was really, that was lovely.
And
oh,
And I did listen to your Ted talk
okay.
About that.
So and actually, you know what ifyou don't mind, I'll link it to
(12:56):
this episode if people want to, youknow, hear, the lengthy version.
Please do, because that, I,I tell it way better there
,So, what I wanna knowis about the downtown LA.
And then did you ever live there?
Cause I know we just talked a littlebit about where you were living, but the
downtown LA, because I don't know LA wellat all, it's just one big freeway to me.
(13:19):
such a San Franciscan
FCAN
exactly.
I am.
I am 100%.
Everything is one big freewayand everybody from LA talks about
their freeways and I find it reallyamazing because I just don't I
dunno, but everybody knows allthe freeways and I just feel like
everyone's living off of freeway.
Well, yeah, we all, eventually you will.
(13:41):
I mean, you have to there's so manyof, well, no, so I have not lived
actually in downtown LA proper.
However I am on the board of directorsfor DTLA Proud, which is the organization
that puts on the pride festival fordowntown LA in traditionally August.
(14:02):
And so this year we will bemoving from where we had been
for the previous five years.
This will be the sixth year runningeven taking 2020 off And what
else do I wanna say about that?
Yeah, so we're moving to an area calledGrand Park, which is where city hall is.
And for literally the, you know, downtownLA epicenter of, commerce and life.
(14:25):
I think when the city fathers builtthe city, they must have believed
that that was going to be the hub.
You know, Los Angeles, proper stretches.
You know, half of SouthernCalifornia seems of times.
So that can be a bit dauntingif you're not an Angelino.
So, you know, technically I will bemoving, I've been living up in the
mountains of above San Bernardino,up in lake Arrowhead for the past.
(14:49):
Two years, year and a half, and I'mmoving back there August just in time
to start the festival for this year.
So my life revolves a lot arounddowntown LA, obviously being
on the board of directors.
You know, everybody's been onzoom , but it is where our spiritual
bases and our community base.
And you know what separates separates.
(15:10):
That's the word word?
Our mission has always been wasthat the original founding members
of the board started to recognizecuz they were bar owners, that
there was a growing gayborhood.
And what we didn't know atthe time was that there were.
A large portion of the LGBTQ communityplus community who didn't have the
(15:31):
resources to get to WeHo, you know,West Hollywood which is where the Los
Angeles LBGT center is, and which isthe largest in the world, by the way.
Which is also, you know, the thingsthat people don't really understand
about the LGBT centers around the world,but certainly in, in America is that.
As much as they are meeting placesand, or, you know spaces for
(15:54):
people to be quote unquote safe.
There're also where people get,you know, life saving services.
You know, through the diligentwork of everybody, that's connected
to all of these organizations.
That's where we get prep.
That's where we get forthe trans community.
A lot of times where people gettheir hormones from you know,
we have an incredibly largeamount of our population that.
(16:17):
Has been disowned by theirfamilies discriminated against
in employment, in housing.
And so just to get you, you know, thehealthcare, good luck with that, right.
But we have lots of peoplewho've organized this and we
also have great volunteers.
And again, I'm talkingabout every LGBT center.
This is what the, really, thebedrock of their mission is, is to
provide these services for people.
(16:39):
So that's what, you know, DTLA found out.
Once we started to have the ProudFestival was how dense the population
of downtown LA queer community wasand where we could go with that.
So we're not just a pride festival.
What we have been doing whilewe're holding these parties,
(16:59):
once a year is been building.
The ability to hold a brick and mortarcenter ourselves in downtown LA.
So that's, that's kind of the, you know,our, our goal as we're going forward.
And we've had some great communitypartnerships and sponsors that have
really gotten behind both what we do inthe festival, because the festivals, our
(17:22):
festival is a little bit different than.
Kind of Los Angeles pride and WestHollywood pride, which just this past
year divided into two pieces becausethose are big events and some people
call them derisively gay Coachellabecause it's wristbands and, and
(17:43):
sponsored booths and big name concerts,and we have driven it's driven.
STR had STR how many, how many con
We can use either, either one.
one
Come on Trace help me many conjugate here?
To keep it as community based as possible.
So, you know, in this year, Ithink we're going probably coming
(18:03):
up with the best model yet.
And that's that we're gonna havefour large sections that make up
the park that stretches from theDorothy Chandler pavilion all the
way down to city hall four tiers.
And only one of them will be ticketed.
And cost money.
The other three are open to thepublic without any tickets whatsoever.
(18:24):
And with a family orientation.
Now that's queer family.
Right?
So that's how you define it.
And we allow that we've gotevents, we've got things that are
gonna be there for small childrenqueer story hours and a water.
Feature that's, you know, kindof, they can get in a splash zone
and play around and entertainment.
And it's going to be something that youwouldn't mind having your children at.
(18:48):
And then we also have the 21 and overarea at the bottom that is ticketed.
And that's gonna be all thethings that you would expect that,
especially at DTLA proud festival.
So we'll have Summer Tramp thereagain, which is a giant water park.
That sounds perfect.
That sounds fun.
Oh, my God.
It's outta control.
Crazy fun.
Yeah.
That sounds a lot of fun.
Great.
Oh my gosh.
(19:08):
You know, San Francisco justhad their pride festival.
It's the end of June.
, you know, talking about the changesin this city and talking about
the changes in the community.
It's, it's now just become verycorporate is here in San Francisco.
It's almost like Google corporate.
Gay pride parade or Facebookcorporate gay pride parade.
(19:29):
It's it's really just, I don't know.
It's well, I mean the key word iscorporate here in San Francisco,
and I feel loses a lot of, I don'tknow, just a lot of fun, key word.
I know that sounds kind of silly to say,but you just have these corporations.
Now just parading their logos
sure.
Well, you know, the, for mepersonally, the part that
(19:51):
always is like, it's a protest.
Remember, we marched in thestreets to go, we are here, we
are queer, get over it, you know?
It was originally, oh, and this isthe thing that I love the most about
Stonewall, you know other than you know,they weren't first , let's just get.
So
It was Coopers Donuts, thenit was Constance Cafeteria.
(20:12):
Then it was the Black Cat.
Then it was Stonewall,you know, but whatever.
But the thing about the protest wasthat it got the attention of the Cis
het community to join in the fightand to say, you know what, this
is wrong to be treated this way.
And it was against the police.
(20:35):
You know, it, Stonewallwas owned by the mob.
Right.
And it had, and it was protecteduntil it wasn't protected.
And those guys gave up the, the peoplein the Stonewall probably once a month
or maybe once every two months, justso that they could keep the cops.
Okay.
Let them go in bang sometranys heads as they would say.
And then, and then it would be all cool.
(20:56):
Then they'd let them continueto fleece the gay community,
cuz it was the only place wherethey were comfortable drinking.
So, you know, and, and we will take that.
I mean, the thing about safe spacesis that they're the, they, they
become our churches and that'ssomething that we tried to, you
know, handle in my documentarywas that people call them bars.
(21:18):
But there, there are churches,there are places where it's the
only place you're going to be seenand be comfortable being seen.
And you're also goingto be safe, being seen.
It's I feel like we're sliding backto the 1950s and sixties where it's
gonna take a, you know, a secretpassword to get into a door because
(21:39):
you don't know who's gonna turn on you.
And that's very real, know,
Yeah.
Now I hear what I hear exactly whatyou're saying about sliding back and
feeling safe and not feeling safe.
Yeah.
In these spaces.
So let's talk about that just is greatsegue right into your documentary.
(21:59):
Okay, thank you.
We call it Proud In A Pandemic andit's not proud in the pandemic.
It's proud in a pandemic because if you'requeer and you're alive today, you've
been personally through four pandemics.
You've been through racism.
You've been through homophobia.
You've been through HIV AIDS andyou've been through COVID and.
(22:20):
Crazy thing is the parallels.
And the one thing is that, you know, thequeer community, we have scars for sure.
We've suffered greatlythrough these pandemics.
However, we've also developed musclesand we know how to get through it.
And our, our tagline is, youknow, the way to get through a
(22:40):
crisis is never a straight line.
you know we know toband together, we know.
Protect each other.
We know how to, you know,watch each other's backs.
We know how to actuallycare for each other.
So we looked at the, thepandemic through the lens of
the downtown LA queer community.
And we have, Over 22 interviewswith community leaders, as well as
(23:04):
you know, just, you know, peoplewho live their, their activism
is their personal life, you know?
You know, the, the personal ispolitical as they used to say.
And so through that lens, we'vebeen able to tell the story
of how the pandemic went down.
What happened was.
We knew that we weren't, you know,we thought at first, because we
were in our festival was in Augustwith everybody closing down first.
(23:24):
It was, you know, LA then it wasLong Beach, then it was San Diego.
And then, you know, just like oneafter another was canceling Coachella
canceled South By Southwest canceled,we were like, well, we're okay.
We're in August.
This is gonna be overin a couple of months.
Right.
Wishful thinking.
Yes.
I remember those thoughts too, whenit was just gonna be six weeks.
Yeah.
(23:45):
So once that happened, wewere, what are we gonna do?
What are we gonna do then?
And we'd been through a couple ofnow at this point, virtual prides.
And we're like, yeah,it's not really our style.
That was great that we had those.
So what are we gonna do?
And the, the word came up that , wewere gonna do a documentary.
And I came to that meeting late and beingthe only professional television producer
(24:09):
director on the board of directors.
It was like I said, well,what idiot would direct this?
Like, come on, you know, I'm thinkinglike we wanna be done by August,
but which is when our normal thing.
And we're having this conversation inmay and they're like, well, you will.
I'm like, why.
No, I usually do things sane.
You know, I don't wanna hurt people.
I'm pretty smart at this.
I've got four decades under my belt.
(24:30):
I know how to do this for real.
But one of our board members,Andres Rigal said, you know what?
We have to leave.
We owe it to our legacy, tothose generations that come after
us to show how we got through.
Crisis ourselves.
We owe it to show them cuz wegot through our crisis or getting
(24:50):
through our crisis because ofwhat we watched our ancestors do.
So we have to do that.
So that's what we did.
So we made it as a time capsule of, offollowing, like how did we do it and how
did it affect us and what was going on?
And you know, we couldn't tell thestory without telling what happened,
you know, with all the social unrestafter George Floyd, Fucking murdered.
(25:11):
Right.
And, and Tony McDade two dayslater and, you know, like the
dominoes start falling that wayand it's just crumbling around us.
So we're trying to like care foreach other care for ourselves and
also protest the destruction ofAmerica right before our very eyes.
So I think we did a good job with that.
(25:31):
And I think it's ultimatelyit's inspirational.
And and it really does get into thewhole idea of, you know, what happens
when your safe spaces are taken away.
you know, what do you do?
Yeah, so that was that's I think,I think we've got something that
we can help the straight world.
See, plus, you know, we make thecase that had it not been for Larry
(25:52):
Kramer and the Act Up boys, mostlyboys, few girls but mostly boys.
We wouldn't have jabs in our armsbecause the same vehicle that was used
to fast track the vaccine was becauseof expanded access, which came about.
Thank you very much AnthonyFauci, who was there at the time.
And he's very candid.
(26:13):
You know, we've got a couple interviews.
They, we didn't do them.
There were some ones that were outthere of him admitting that, you
know, I got it wrong, but Larryshowed me that I got it wrong.
And so we figured out howto do expanded access.
That's the that's so great.
That's yeah, I haven't seen any of those.
Uh, Let's talk about some of the barsyou mentioned Red Light and Precinct
(26:36):
franca.
Coles Franca, Franca.
Mm-hmm what, what were thoselike to you for you and what,
what drew you to those bars?
On a personal level.
And then in the, in the documentary,
I love bars.
I mean, I'm still a bartender.
I love bars.
So I love learning about 'em.
Yeah.
My favorite thing altogether.
Well, Coles of all the ones that youmentioned Coles is the only one that
(26:59):
is in a queer bar, but it's rightacross the street from Red Line.
So we make it a queerbar as much as we can.
And it is one of the old speakeasiesand also they have the distinction of.
They're they're in a fight with Felipe'sfor who created the French Dip sandwhich
But you know, Felipe's as much asit was my family's favorite growing
up is the saw dust on the floor.
(27:21):
70 year old waitress behindthe, the, you know, the counter
Yeah.
Beer and wine.
Great place.
No, no shade.
I'll take that sandwich any day.
Right.
But Coles is a speakis an actual speakeasy.
And the bartenders there are, if youwanna know about alcohol, if you wanna
hear about, you know, what is a Sazerac,you know, that's the place to go.
(27:45):
So that's one of my personal favs.
When I'm down there.
But I was drawn to Redline truly becauseI met, I was speaking at Queer X festival
and the president of Queer X introducedme to Oliver Alpuche, who is the president
of DT LA proud and the owner of Redline.
So I didn't really know thatmuch, anything about the downtown
(28:06):
scene per se, until that moment.
And he saw my Ted talk and theninvited me on the advisory board.
And that's how I.
Going to Redline.
I didn't really officially getinto Redline until after the, you
know, until this year, because allof my unofficial parts going in
there was with meeting with him.
And it's where we used, wherewe shot most of our interviews.
(28:27):
So I had never gotteninto it pre pandemic.
It was only during thepandemic afterwards.
It's the vibe there asit's truly a queer bar.
There's no, there's noDelineations whatsoever.
There's that's wherethe drag brunches are.
That's where he getstogether to watch Rup Hall.
Sounds perfect.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah.
Bar Franca does skew a little bit morelesbian, which is my more, my tastes.
(28:51):
You know, the bartenders,there are very good.
The bartenders at, at Redline are good andthey're good at keeping a massive crowd.
Right.
The, the bar tenderers at Bar Francaare the ones that, you know, you can sit
down and ask a question of, and even on alike jamming and Friday night, and you'll
get the drink that you were hoping for.
(29:14):
We'll still get
that at
I know.
No, I know exactly what you mean.
Yeah.
And Precinct Precinct is the one I'vespent the least amount of time in but
the owner of it, Brian McIntyre is one ofthe, you know, one of the leading voices
in my documentary because he was reallyarticulated, helping understand how the
(29:34):
pandemic really went after business.
and small businesses.
I mean, it was like a bulldozer.
And so he was really good at doing that.
So that's the place where you'regonna find the Gogo dancers,
mostly male, always male.
I don't think I've seenfemale Gogo dancers in there.
So that's, it's really, that'swhat I would call a gay bar.
(29:54):
And it's known for that, you know,it's, it's it's called Precinct and
Brian tells a great story that therewas he had lost his partner Thor.
Thor and, and Brian had, had startedPrecinct together and it's right down
the street from the actual LAPD precinct.
And Brian was like, I don'tthink that's a good idea.
And Thor's like, oh, Ithink it's the best idea.
(30:16):
Exactly.
So yeah, it's one of, it's a, that'sa place that is a complete scene.
It's a whole, you know, thewhole second floor of a building.
That's occupies a whole corner block.
It's giant, it's labyrinthianthere's room upon room upon room.
There's several bars inside there.
(30:37):
So that's the place where it'sgoing to be just, you know, And,
and during any pride festival,it's gonna be a complete mad house.
Oh my God.
I love it.
I love it.
Well I'm gonna say thank you so, somuch for taking the time to talk to me.
This has been so informativeand it's been just lovely to
meet you and thank you so much.
Right.
Where are you come?
Where are you?
Zooming from?
I'm zooming from my home in San Francisco.
Oh, nice.
Yes, where it's a very typicalsummer day, meaning it's really
cold and there's a lot of fog.
Yeah.
I have some friends who used to be on theback when candlestick was candlestick.
They were on the, diamond visioncrew for the giants games and.
(00:21):
They would, do a lot of camera work.
And so my friend, he was packing inlike a parka and gloves and a scarf.
And what are you doing?
He goes, I'm going to work.
Like, what are you doing?
He goes, have you ever beenup in like high, third base?
It's like, it's mightas well be the Arctic.
It's the Tundra.
Yeah.
Going to giants games in September,which is normally really nice for
(00:42):
San Francisco was still freezing.
Yeah, right on the bay.
It's like, Ugh.
It's still freezing.
And are you in LA?
Well, technically, ifyou mean Lake Arrowhead.
So yeah, I mean, I, was raised in up herein the mountains and after I, I sold my
house, like in July of 2020, and thenWas like, I Hollywood didn't know what
(01:03):
it wanted to be when it was growing up.
So I thought, well,I'm not gonna go there.
There's no Hollywood.
Right.
It's no LA.
So instead of, of hangingout there, I moved up here.
And so I'm, I'm aboutone more month up here.
And then I'm moving back to LA in August.
Oh, okay.
Well, good for you to get a littlebit of, you know, moving around time.
(01:24):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it,it it's how to say this?
I thought I could go home andthat wasn't gonna happen.
I'm always gonna be amountain girl at heart.
I get to walk my dog inthe forest all day long.
So that's beautiful, but the rest ofthe place has become so galvanized.
And so Trumpy that it's just not evenlike a, there's no community number one.
(01:44):
And what there is is, is notsomething you want to be around.
Yeah, I hear you.
It's really becoming harder and harderto find community and a respectful
community and just a communitythat can, I don't know, handle.
People's opinions and people'sdifferences without it becoming
(02:04):
a full blown outrage scenario.
Yeah.
be around.
Yeah.
One of the things that drew me toyour project was, learning about DT
LA or downtown LA and downtown LAproud, just because it seemed that
was a community that's growing andmaybe was thriving until the pandemic.
And then everything stopped.
Obviously not just downtown LA,everything stopped, but do you wanna
(02:27):
talk a little bit about downtown LA.
Yeah, for sure.
Actually, I'm sorry, do you wannatalk a little bit about yourself?
However you wanna roll this.
I'm really free form.
So how, how do you wanna play?
I'm just putting your hands, Traci.
Oh, awesome.
Okay.
So then let's just kind ofstart a little bit about the
questions , that I sent you.
Okay.
Introduce yourself in any way you want.
(02:48):
I'm Scotty, Jeanette Madden.
And have been a television writer,director and producer for over 40 years.
That's something to be proud of.
It is, yeah.
All right.
In this industry.
I mean, come on.
That's something.
Yeah, but I, you know, I was at an eventthe other day where we were celebrating
directors of photograph of cinematographyand there were some legends in the room
(03:12):
just, you know, American cinema, societyof cinematographer, top echelon just
badass women and a couple of the mentoo, that are very supportive of us.
And I made a joke and I said, youknow I was one of the first people.
And I don't have this confirmed, butI know from the engineer's response
that when I said I wanted to put acentury six 50 millimeter lens, which
(03:36):
is a telephoto lens, it's about thislong on the front of a beta cam.
And they looked at me like I had twoheads, both of 'em ugly that I was
probably, if not the first prettyclose to the first person to do that.
And Nancy Shriver, who's one ofthe legends I was speaking about.
She goes, you had me at beta camand I said, yeah, none of the kids
(03:57):
in this room know what that is.
Right.
So anyways, I mean, I, you know,that's, I think part of reason why
I, I make a joke about being in therefor four decades is that, you know,
the, the industry has changed so muchand it also hasn't changed at all.
But the parts where it's changed islike one of the first jobs I ever had
(04:17):
was a camera on my shoulder and a oneinch recording back on my hip that I had
to carry all myself walking across thedeck of the Miss Budweiser thunder boat.
So, yeah, so by the stories I'm telling,you can tell that I have come up from
the trenches , but I was very quick.
I, I, I always knew that the reasonwhy I got into the business in the
(04:37):
first place was to tell stories.
So learning the tools, the camera, thelighting, and the editing and, and all
that was just always a means to an end.
I was never going to be any one ofthose single things for any length of
period of time and probably also for therest of my life, because I was always
driving towards directing and writing.
So that's what I do now.
And let's see.
(04:58):
So I was married for about 20years I, I say blurted, but blurted
probably the better word is vomited.
The truth of that.
I had been hiding my entire life.
when I one morning.
Did something I never believedI would ever do in my lifetime.
(05:20):
Um, And I thought.
Pretty well and turns out I wasvery good at it, the hiding part.
But the part that I was hiding was likea truth that was so buried inside of
my head and my heart that I couldn't, Ididn't think anybody could see that deep.
I never did anything about it, Iguess, is what I'm trying to say.
But the truth is that I turnedto the woman who I loved more
(05:42):
than life and breath itself.
I didn't turn to her.
I woke up at the base of our bedholding two steaming cups of coffee,
not knowing that it was about 5:00AM and my lovely bride spouse.
Actually I say spouse, cuzthat's what she preferred.
She hated the word wife.
(06:02):
She said it sounded like knife.
So in her memory and honor spouseshe said it's awful early for coffee.
I mean, it's a lovely thought, butit's Saturday morning, we normally
get to sleep in, what are you doing?
And I said I don't know.
I mean, I looked in these twocups of coffee in my hand.
It might as well be.
You know, snakes.
I, I didn't know how they got there.
(06:23):
I didn't know how I was standing.
I didn't know how I wasat the foot of the bed.
And as I was trying to get my bearings,it just came rushing outta my mouth.
I'm a woman and Marcy didn'tknow what to do with all that.
She thought I was having anervous breakdown and I'm.
Tamping down and, and telling in lessdramatic fashion that I do in a Ted talk,
which is where I put all this energy.
(06:45):
So I could record it someplace whereI could say it the best, and then
that way people would understand.
But anyway, the bottom line I cameout and I didn't know I was going out.
I thought I was gonna, I really did thinkI was just gonna take this to my grave.
I never believed transitioning.
I didn't even understand whatthat would mean or be, or how that
would look, cuz I had a life I had.
Fabulous, amazing marriage.
(07:06):
We loved and supported each other,you know, with every breath and fiber.
So we took about five years tofigure out what that meant and.
How that was going to fit in our life.
And at first it was, we didn'teven know what that meant.
I didn't know what that meant.
I didn't know.
I was asking to transition.
I didn't expect those words to come out,so I didn't expect to deal with them.
once they did it was really justpicking up broken glass, you know?
(07:29):
But Marcy tried to have me cured.
And truly speaking, the oneinstinctual thing I knew to do
at that time was to care for her.
Because I knew from the age offour that I should never tell
anybody that I was a girl.
That's the part I knew peoplealways say like, when did you know?
I'm like, I, I only knew that I shouldn'tdo anything feminine or tell everybody
(07:51):
I was a girl because I would get hurt
Yeah, exactly.
I knew.
Right.
So I just didn't do it after a while.
I was like, okay, don't do that.
Do this over here.
If you do this, you get props.
You do that.
You get hit.
Well, that's not hard
So you learn that very quickly,
you know?
Yeah.
Right.
Kids aren't stupid.
They, yeah, they learn that very quickly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're not dumb.
So I tried to give her the spaceto understand, because I think
(08:15):
in deeply at first it was justinstinctual is what I'm saying.
But what I come came to knowas we went on is that she was
going to love me no matter what.
That I knew, I, I knew our love wasso deep and she would say to me, like,
how do you know I'm such a good person?
I'm like, I guys, I've beenmarried to you for over, at
this point now, 23 years, what?
(08:36):
It doesn't matter, you know?
I know you better than I know myself.
You're not gonna, you know, dothis, but I also knew not to
just like run rough shot over it.
You know, I needed, she cuz Ididn't know what I was asking for.
Like all, all I did the first part, which.
I'm a woman.
I didn't know.
I didn't have a plan to that.
So in that five year, period of time,while we were both trying to kind of
figure it out both separately and togetherI realized that because she loved me that
(09:01):
if I could come back with a cohesive,ask a real, this is what I need, but
of course she would give it to me.
So I needed to think about what that was.
And I realized after a time.
I did need to just stop living the wayI had been stop living, presenting as
a male, because it was just ridiculous.
(09:22):
It was theater.
I was good at it.
Big fucking deal.
Sorry.
You can say whatever you want, you cansay whatever bad curse words you want.
I do it all the time.
I mean, I, you know, it didn'tmatter that I was good at it.
Big deal, you know I hadalways created this facade.
So because that's what people love to see.
(09:43):
And I wanted them to have what theywanted, you know since I wasn't gonna ever
be able to get what I wanted, who careslet's give them what they want and then
I'll earn my womanhood next lifetime.
And it'll all be good.
But then when I got clear, I knew that Ijust didn't wanna live that way anymore.
And also for anybody who's in thissimilar situation, this is a part
(10:04):
that I want people to hear is thatwhen I said I'm a woman, what Marcy
heard was, I want to leave you.
That took me the longestpart to wrap my head around.
And I, I didn't hear that.
I didn't see that of all thethings I'm telling you about that.
I do know about her.
That was something I missed until,you know, until just before I
(10:25):
officially came out to the world.
And that makes me feel dumb.
You know, it is like, You know, ofcourse, once I see it, in retrospect, of
course, you know, she's a woman and in herworld, she would be in love with a man.
So if I'm a woman andshe's like, okay, I get it.
I, she had no problem accepting that part.
(10:46):
It was accepting whatit meant to our life.
So I was like, well, that meansthat you want to go and be with men.
And I'm like, what?
I mean, when, when she finally saidit in that kind, those kind of words,
I was like, No, I'm I'm into you.
I've never not been in love with you.
This is not about you.
This is only about me.
So once we got to there, then westarted transitioning together.
(11:08):
So.
Fast forward the normal coming outprocedure and we all develop our own,
but you know, some people have startedto leave a trail of bread crumbs and
they're useful and to some people, andreally, you know, the only thing I would
tell anybody in that situation is like,you have to stay true to your heart.
You have to stay there.
(11:29):
You know, you have to understand that.
What I always say is there's a guitarstring that ties my heart to your heart.
And it gets swang by thisrevelation because people feel
like they think they know you.
And then when you tell them for real,then they're like, well, then I don't
know anything about you, which is alittle dramatic, but it's up to me to
(11:51):
tune in my side of the guitar string.
And it's up to you to do your side.
And that takes some patience and love,but it has to be done by both sides.
So that's also puts iton the other person.
Like if someone in your family comesout, it's on you to accept them.
You, you don't get to not accept them.
(12:11):
Try explaining that, dear God,there's no God in the world.
I don't care what the churchesare telling you right now.
That will be okay that you cut somebodyout of your life because you thought
your minister misread the text andsaid that it was an abomination.
Just complete horse shit.
It's complete.
Like, I don't know how, who, ifyou want to believe that, then
(12:33):
you are an atrocious person.
You you've just now steppedoutside of the humanity.
Yeah, you don't get it both ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for, for sharing that.
That was a lot to, to do.
That was really, that was lovely.
And
oh,
And I did listen to your Ted talk
okay.
About that.
So and actually, you know what ifyou don't mind, I'll link it to
(12:56):
this episode if people want to, youknow, hear, the lengthy version.
Please do, because that, I,I tell it way better there
,So, what I wanna knowis about the downtown LA.
And then did you ever live there?
Cause I know we just talked a littlebit about where you were living, but the
downtown LA, because I don't know LA wellat all, it's just one big freeway to me.
(13:19):
such a San Franciscan
FCAN
exactly.
I am.
I am 100%.
Everything is one big freewayand everybody from LA talks about
their freeways and I find it reallyamazing because I just don't I
dunno, but everybody knows allthe freeways and I just feel like
everyone's living off of freeway.
Well, yeah, we all, eventually you will.
(13:41):
I mean, you have to there's so manyof, well, no, so I have not lived
actually in downtown LA proper.
However I am on the board of directorsfor DTLA Proud, which is the organization
that puts on the pride festival fordowntown LA in traditionally August.
(14:02):
And so this year we will bemoving from where we had been
for the previous five years.
This will be the sixth year runningeven taking 2020 off And what
else do I wanna say about that?
Yeah, so we're moving to an area calledGrand Park, which is where city hall is.
And for literally the, you know, downtownLA epicenter of, commerce and life.
(14:25):
I think when the city fathers builtthe city, they must have believed
that that was going to be the hub.
You know, Los Angeles, proper stretches.
You know, half of SouthernCalifornia seems of times.
So that can be a bit dauntingif you're not an Angelino.
So, you know, technically I will bemoving, I've been living up in the
mountains of above San Bernardino,up in lake Arrowhead for the past.
(14:49):
Two years, year and a half, and I'mmoving back there August just in time
to start the festival for this year.
So my life revolves a lot arounddowntown LA, obviously being
on the board of directors.
You know, everybody's been onzoom , but it is where our spiritual
bases and our community base.
And you know what separates separates.
(15:10):
That's the word word?
Our mission has always been wasthat the original founding members
of the board started to recognizecuz they were bar owners, that
there was a growing gayborhood.
And what we didn't know atthe time was that there were.
A large portion of the LGBTQ communityplus community who didn't have the
(15:31):
resources to get to WeHo, you know,West Hollywood which is where the Los
Angeles LBGT center is, and which isthe largest in the world, by the way.
Which is also, you know, the thingsthat people don't really understand
about the LGBT centers around the world,but certainly in, in America is that.
As much as they are meeting placesand, or, you know spaces for
(15:54):
people to be quote unquote safe.
There're also where people get,you know, life saving services.
You know, through the diligentwork of everybody, that's connected
to all of these organizations.
That's where we get prep.
That's where we get forthe trans community.
A lot of times where people gettheir hormones from you know,
we have an incredibly largeamount of our population that.
(16:17):
Has been disowned by theirfamilies discriminated against
in employment, in housing.
And so just to get you, you know, thehealthcare, good luck with that, right.
But we have lots of peoplewho've organized this and we
also have great volunteers.
And again, I'm talkingabout every LGBT center.
This is what the, really, thebedrock of their mission is, is to
provide these services for people.
(16:39):
So that's what, you know, DTLA found out.
Once we started to have the ProudFestival was how dense the population
of downtown LA queer community wasand where we could go with that.
So we're not just a pride festival.
What we have been doing whilewe're holding these parties,
(16:59):
once a year is been building.
The ability to hold a brick and mortarcenter ourselves in downtown LA.
So that's, that's kind of the, you know,our, our goal as we're going forward.
And we've had some great communitypartnerships and sponsors that have
really gotten behind both what we do inthe festival, because the festivals, our
(17:22):
festival is a little bit different than.
Kind of Los Angeles pride and WestHollywood pride, which just this past
year divided into two pieces becausethose are big events and some people
call them derisively gay Coachellabecause it's wristbands and, and
(17:43):
sponsored booths and big name concerts,and we have driven it's driven.
STR had STR how many, how many con
We can use either, either one.
one
Come on Trace help me many conjugate here?
To keep it as community based as possible.
So, you know, in this year, Ithink we're going probably coming
(18:03):
up with the best model yet.
And that's that we're gonna havefour large sections that make up
the park that stretches from theDorothy Chandler pavilion all the
way down to city hall four tiers.
And only one of them will be ticketed.
And cost money.
The other three are open to thepublic without any tickets whatsoever.
(18:24):
And with a family orientation.
Now that's queer family.
Right?
So that's how you define it.
And we allow that we've gotevents, we've got things that are
gonna be there for small childrenqueer story hours and a water.
Feature that's, you know, kindof, they can get in a splash zone
and play around and entertainment.
And it's going to be something that youwouldn't mind having your children at.
(18:48):
And then we also have the 21 and overarea at the bottom that is ticketed.
And that's gonna be all thethings that you would expect that,
especially at DTLA proud festival.
So we'll have Summer Tramp thereagain, which is a giant water park.
That sounds perfect.
That sounds fun.
Oh, my God.
It's outta control.
Crazy fun.
Yeah.
That sounds a lot of fun.
Great.
Oh my gosh.
(19:08):
You know, San Francisco justhad their pride festival.
It's the end of June.
, you know, talking about the changesin this city and talking about
the changes in the community.
It's, it's now just become verycorporate is here in San Francisco.
It's almost like Google corporate.
Gay pride parade or Facebookcorporate gay pride parade.
(19:29):
It's it's really just, I don't know.
It's well, I mean the key word iscorporate here in San Francisco,
and I feel loses a lot of, I don'tknow, just a lot of fun, key word.
I know that sounds kind of silly to say,but you just have these corporations.
Now just parading their logos
sure.
Well, you know, the, for mepersonally, the part that
(19:51):
always is like, it's a protest.
Remember, we marched in thestreets to go, we are here, we
are queer, get over it, you know?
It was originally, oh, and this isthe thing that I love the most about
Stonewall, you know other than you know,they weren't first , let's just get.
So
It was Coopers Donuts, thenit was Constance Cafeteria.
(20:12):
Then it was the Black Cat.
Then it was Stonewall,you know, but whatever.
But the thing about the protest wasthat it got the attention of the Cis
het community to join in the fightand to say, you know what, this
is wrong to be treated this way.
And it was against the police.
(20:35):
You know, it, Stonewallwas owned by the mob.
Right.
And it had, and it was protecteduntil it wasn't protected.
And those guys gave up the, the peoplein the Stonewall probably once a month
or maybe once every two months, justso that they could keep the cops.
Okay.
Let them go in bang sometranys heads as they would say.
And then, and then it would be all cool.
(20:56):
Then they'd let them continueto fleece the gay community,
cuz it was the only place wherethey were comfortable drinking.
So, you know, and, and we will take that.
I mean, the thing about safe spacesis that they're the, they, they
become our churches and that'ssomething that we tried to, you
know, handle in my documentarywas that people call them bars.
(21:18):
But there, there are churches,there are places where it's the
only place you're going to be seenand be comfortable being seen.
And you're also goingto be safe, being seen.
It's I feel like we're sliding backto the 1950s and sixties where it's
gonna take a, you know, a secretpassword to get into a door because
(21:39):
you don't know who's gonna turn on you.
And that's very real, know,
Yeah.
Now I hear what I hear exactly whatyou're saying about sliding back and
feeling safe and not feeling safe.
Yeah.
In these spaces.
So let's talk about that just is greatsegue right into your documentary.
(21:59):
Okay, thank you.
We call it Proud In A Pandemic andit's not proud in the pandemic.
It's proud in a pandemic because if you'requeer and you're alive today, you've
been personally through four pandemics.
You've been through racism.
You've been through homophobia.
You've been through HIV AIDS andyou've been through COVID and.
(22:20):
Crazy thing is the parallels.
And the one thing is that, you know, thequeer community, we have scars for sure.
We've suffered greatlythrough these pandemics.
However, we've also developed musclesand we know how to get through it.
And our, our tagline is, youknow, the way to get through a
(22:40):
crisis is never a straight line.
you know we know toband together, we know.
Protect each other.
We know how to, you know,watch each other's backs.
We know how to actuallycare for each other.
So we looked at the, thepandemic through the lens of
the downtown LA queer community.
And we have, Over 22 interviewswith community leaders, as well as
(23:04):
you know, just, you know, peoplewho live their, their activism
is their personal life, you know?
You know, the, the personal ispolitical as they used to say.
And so through that lens, we'vebeen able to tell the story
of how the pandemic went down.
What happened was.
We knew that we weren't, you know,we thought at first, because we
were in our festival was in Augustwith everybody closing down first.
(23:24):
It was, you know, LA then it wasLong Beach, then it was San Diego.
And then, you know, just like oneafter another was canceling Coachella
canceled South By Southwest canceled,we were like, well, we're okay.
We're in August.
This is gonna be overin a couple of months.
Right.
Wishful thinking.
Yes.
I remember those thoughts too, whenit was just gonna be six weeks.
Yeah.
(23:45):
So once that happened, wewere, what are we gonna do?
What are we gonna do then?
And we'd been through a couple ofnow at this point, virtual prides.
And we're like, yeah,it's not really our style.
That was great that we had those.
So what are we gonna do?
And the, the word came up that , wewere gonna do a documentary.
And I came to that meeting late and beingthe only professional television producer
(24:09):
director on the board of directors.
It was like I said, well,what idiot would direct this?
Like, come on, you know, I'm thinkinglike we wanna be done by August,
but which is when our normal thing.
And we're having this conversation inmay and they're like, well, you will.
I'm like, why.
No, I usually do things sane.
You know, I don't wanna hurt people.
I'm pretty smart at this.
I've got four decades under my belt.
(24:30):
I know how to do this for real.
But one of our board members,Andres Rigal said, you know what?
We have to leave.
We owe it to our legacy, tothose generations that come after
us to show how we got through.
Crisis ourselves.
We owe it to show them cuz wegot through our crisis or getting
(24:50):
through our crisis because ofwhat we watched our ancestors do.
So we have to do that.
So that's what we did.
So we made it as a time capsule of, offollowing, like how did we do it and how
did it affect us and what was going on?
And you know, we couldn't tell thestory without telling what happened,
you know, with all the social unrestafter George Floyd, Fucking murdered.
(25:11):
Right.
And, and Tony McDade two dayslater and, you know, like the
dominoes start falling that wayand it's just crumbling around us.
So we're trying to like care foreach other care for ourselves and
also protest the destruction ofAmerica right before our very eyes.
So I think we did a good job with that.
(25:31):
And I think it's ultimatelyit's inspirational.
And and it really does get into thewhole idea of, you know, what happens
when your safe spaces are taken away.
you know, what do you do?
Yeah, so that was that's I think,I think we've got something that
we can help the straight world.
See, plus, you know, we make thecase that had it not been for Larry
(25:52):
Kramer and the Act Up boys, mostlyboys, few girls but mostly boys.
We wouldn't have jabs in our armsbecause the same vehicle that was used
to fast track the vaccine was becauseof expanded access, which came about.
Thank you very much AnthonyFauci, who was there at the time.
And he's very candid.
(26:13):
You know, we've got a couple interviews.
They, we didn't do them.
There were some ones that were outthere of him admitting that, you
know, I got it wrong, but Larryshowed me that I got it wrong.
And so we figured out howto do expanded access.
That's the that's so great.
That's yeah, I haven't seen any of those.
Uh, Let's talk about some of the barsyou mentioned Red Light and Precinct
(26:36):
franca.
Coles Franca, Franca.
Mm-hmm what, what were thoselike to you for you and what,
what drew you to those bars?
On a personal level.
And then in the, in the documentary,
I love bars.
I mean, I'm still a bartender.
I love bars.
So I love learning about 'em.
Yeah.
My favorite thing altogether.
Well, Coles of all the ones that youmentioned Coles is the only one that
(26:59):
is in a queer bar, but it's rightacross the street from Red Line.
So we make it a queerbar as much as we can.
And it is one of the old speakeasiesand also they have the distinction of.
They're they're in a fight with Felipe'sfor who created the French Dip sandwhich
But you know, Felipe's as much asit was my family's favorite growing
up is the saw dust on the floor.
(27:21):
70 year old waitress behindthe, the, you know, the counter
Yeah.
Beer and wine.
Great place.
No, no shade.
I'll take that sandwich any day.
Right.
But Coles is a speakis an actual speakeasy.
And the bartenders there are, if youwanna know about alcohol, if you wanna
hear about, you know, what is a Sazerac,you know, that's the place to go.
(27:45):
So that's one of my personal favs.
When I'm down there.
But I was drawn to Redline truly becauseI met, I was speaking at Queer X festival
and the president of Queer X introducedme to Oliver Alpuche, who is the president
of DT LA proud and the owner of Redline.
So I didn't really know thatmuch, anything about the downtown
(28:06):
scene per se, until that moment.
And he saw my Ted talk and theninvited me on the advisory board.
And that's how I.
Going to Redline.
I didn't really officially getinto Redline until after the, you
know, until this year, because allof my unofficial parts going in
there was with meeting with him.
And it's where we used, wherewe shot most of our interviews.
(28:27):
So I had never gotteninto it pre pandemic.
It was only during thepandemic afterwards.
It's the vibe there asit's truly a queer bar.
There's no, there's noDelineations whatsoever.
There's that's wherethe drag brunches are.
That's where he getstogether to watch Rup Hall.
Sounds perfect.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah.
Bar Franca does skew a little bit morelesbian, which is my more, my tastes.
(28:51):
You know, the bartenders,there are very good.
The bartenders at, at Redline are good andthey're good at keeping a massive crowd.
Right.
The, the bar tenderers at Bar Francaare the ones that, you know, you can sit
down and ask a question of, and even on alike jamming and Friday night, and you'll
get the drink that you were hoping for.
(29:14):
We'll still get
that at
I know.
No, I know exactly what you mean.
Yeah.
And Precinct Precinct is the one I'vespent the least amount of time in but
the owner of it, Brian McIntyre is one ofthe, you know, one of the leading voices
in my documentary because he was reallyarticulated, helping understand how the
(29:34):
pandemic really went after business.
and small businesses.
I mean, it was like a bulldozer.
And so he was really good at doing that.
So that's the place where you'regonna find the Gogo dancers,
mostly male, always male.
I don't think I've seenfemale Gogo dancers in there.
So that's, it's really, that'swhat I would call a gay bar.
(29:54):
And it's known for that, you know,it's, it's it's called Precinct and
Brian tells a great story that therewas he had lost his partner Thor.
Thor and, and Brian had, had startedPrecinct together and it's right down
the street from the actual LAPD precinct.
And Brian was like, I don'tthink that's a good idea.
And Thor's like, oh, Ithink it's the best idea.
(30:16):
Exactly.
So yeah, it's one of, it's a, that'sa place that is a complete scene.
It's a whole, you know, thewhole second floor of a building.
That's occupies a whole corner block.
It's giant, it's labyrinthianthere's room upon room upon room.
There's several bars inside there.
(30:37):
So that's the place where it'sgoing to be just, you know, And,
and during any pride festival,it's gonna be a complete mad house.
Oh my God.
I love it.
I love it.
Well I'm gonna say thank you so, somuch for taking the time to talk to me.
This has been so informativeand it's been just lovely to
meet you and thank you so much.
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