Unheard Stories From Uncle Johnny

Uncle Johnny joins the 15 Minute Morning Show today and reveals what happened when he came out as gay to his father. He also shares that he used to escort Judy Garland around New York City clubs.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go. The fifteen minute morning show podcast is here.
It's now, it's yes, okay. So we've got Scotty b
here today, we've got Gandhi and it smells like sewage
where she's sitting. It's making me insane. And there's You're
Too Late, and there's Scary and Froggy's up there in
Jacksonville High Frog special guest Uncle Johnny, there's Garrett, Here's Danielle,

(00:23):
here's Straight and Nate. Can we make this with the
Uncle Johnny edition? Remember we did ask Uncle Johnny anything? Okay?
So during one of the breaks, Uncle Johnny was telling
me something interesting. He technically worked for the Mob. Is
that not correct? Yes? Or your dad right? Right? My
my dad was. That was before I came to New York,

(00:44):
when I worked stone Wall all just trying to see
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. Mob didn't exist.
Well back then, it was a eco to be gay.
I was when I was working at the stone Wall

(01:04):
At all the clubs back then, you had to knock
on the door and say is there a secret? Knock
and you just knock and say who you were, what
you wanted, and now this and that. Did you have
to admit your raid? The joints did come in, or
if we were standing on a corner through you and
I were on a corner talking, and when they could
come and arrest us and put us in jail overnight,

(01:25):
because you know, no congregating of homosexuals, no homosexuals congregate.
And you go to a bar and you have to
sit and walk straight and look straight ahead. You could
not look at talk daddy. But everybody. 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?
They'd probably bring you in aside you only that's what

(01:45):
it takes two tango exactly. Johnny also tells the christ One.
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 all weekends
they would take the train 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

(02:07):
lesbians were invited to dance with the gay men because
the guys have dance together. We would have to have
uh with one man would have to be one woman
with every two men dancing, you'd be illegal. Oh wow,
you have to pay the women to be there. Uh no,

(02:27):
they were out there. They were the lesbians. But but
there was just a few of them at the time.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, it's stand on the The owner
of the club would say. Jimmy Murray would stand on
a milk cotton with a flashlight and go, I need
a girl over here. We need a girl. So can

(02:47):
you imagine dancing on the dance floor, and then Jimmy
Murray's on the milk carton saying, dog too, man, we
need we need a lesbian man to be a fly
on the wall there. I would There was no DJs
back then. There was. There was a joke box. You go,
we didn't you play the things on the juke box
and that's why you danced and everything? What was the

(03:08):
most popular song? Oh? Oh god, I can't remember back that.
I can't remember. I go, I walk out of here.
I can't remember what I'm doing here. But there's if
they were mentioned to me, I could probably remember them.
But Johnny when the police came up, came up to you.
Would you say, like, I'm sure, Like, did you pretend

(03:30):
that you were straight? Or did they didn't know you're gay?
You're coming with me, You're going well. And they called
it the Pattiwagon. It was a massive truck and they
drag queens in there. There's gay guys and gay and
they would all be at how many nights a week
where you raided and taking a jail? Oh, I've been
debby jail in Manhattan because I worked in different often

(03:52):
did it happen, Johnny? Oh, once two or three times
a week? So they got so you made friends in
the bad of these patty wagons and in jails. Yeah,
and they pick up costume and they put me in
a jail cell in the middle of the room. But
how would you get out of the jail like that
someone of the post mail? No, you go, you go

(04:13):
to court the next morning and then they dismiss you.
How much was the fine? There was no fine, there
was you you were just you're arrested. It was it
was everything. It was It was illegal, you know what
I mean? It was it was it was harassment. Where
we were Now we've come so far and I'm so
proud of where we are now, that we're all equal.

(04:34):
Everybody's equal to could be who they are, you know,
and and that's well we're still working on that. You
can know. You see gay people on television now, there's
more gay people on television apparently every Yeah, there's so
many of them. Know, even on the game shows and everything,
they have gay couples that this is my husband and

(04:56):
this is my wife's true and and it's and people
would just and you know, that's it. When I first
met him, the heat and him and Alex and I
met him, the nobody said he was here. He met
us and he said, I'd better come out, Will you
drag me out? But also there there's a reason why
we should thank the pioneers like Uncle Johnny and his

(05:19):
friends who have been around for a three tree Tree
Tree worked at he said, he worked at stone Wall.
We don't know, but all all I know is you
guys paved the way for the lives we're living now.
And I think that that should be recognized. Dead we
fought Father meant that because we wanted our rights. We
were it was not being treated right. But there are
to be fair. There are still members of our society.

(05:41):
There are still not treated correctly. And yes, with compassion
and with equality was this time and and we were
all equal. We should all love one another, everybody, every color,
every race, every every person, every you know, Janet, it's
we're here where this is what it's all about. I
will tell you something. Johnny Gandhi brings up an interesting point,

(06:04):
and it's it's very relatable to us as gay men
of being the different one in the room. I mean,
you are you have talked about this before. You know,
we don't under a lot of people don't understand what
it's like being the different one in the room. They
just they just assume o't es or whatever. And you know, right,
you don't. I think a lot of people don't understand
what it actually means to be the different one in

(06:25):
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 smells different.
We celebrate different holidays and everything is different. It's okay

(06:46):
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. And look, Johnny, is
I see the gay color? Because he put Oh boy,

(07:09):
is this is this your final moment? He maybe laugh?
Oh no, what if you're about to die right now? No,
I'm I think I'm fine. Okay, okay, okay, just check.
Have you ever beaten anybody up for money? Yes? I have,
But but you have a different You had a different
name when I was When I was younger, much younger,
I didn't realize that that's the early fifties. Would I

(07:35):
would say that, uh, you know, gay people have beat
them up? And I would uh at my name back then,
nice to Whale Leather and was Ace Marino. Ace Marino
was his name. He was a street thug, and that
was the street. I would rob him. Before you actually
beat people up and stole our money, I would rob

(07:56):
houses and uh, and and would get people and would
beat up gay people on the streets. You'll beat up yes,
because no he didn't. No, no, no, Ace Marino. Did
you're a gang banger? You are a gay banger? Yeah.
But then then then I realized I had a girlfriend

(08:18):
and I and I took one of my father's guns
once because she was cheating on me, and I went
and kicked the guy out of our house. And uh,
that's when they was that Dale. I know this was
Dolly another another girl we actually met. One of his
girlfriends came up for the we're still friends. Well, I've

(08:40):
said for almost seventy seventy sixty seventy years now, you
didn't try to shoot her boyfriend? You know? It was
my other girlfriend, Dolly. I had a girlfriend named Dolly
that back then. But they're the ones who told me.
They said, uh, you're not you're not You're you're gay.
You know how did they know you were gay? Because

(09:04):
when I went down here, I didn't find anything. Untile.
Johnny is the gift that keeps on giving here. I mean,
I've known you all these years. It's like there's another
story that you teach me something. It's like you know,
it's like you're the Yoda of the morning, so you're
like get wisdom. How much money did you get paid

(09:25):
for beating somebody up back then? Oh? I don't know.
We would shake them down shape take whatever they had.
Did you take the jewelry too or just money? I
was I was not nice, you know. And then then
my that that's what they told my father that they
put me. He's gonna he's gonna go to jail or
we gotta uh, we're gonna have to put him in.

(09:48):
And so I went in the amy and then he
went from being Ace Marino to my mother an because
I cooked for for the big deuce at the uh
at for this is a joke. D I X. By
the way, d I X, were you out when you
were in the army, did you know well did you
know that you were gay? Well? I found out you

(10:11):
found out how because I started. But there was a
couple of guys that we ended up Were you blowing
guys at Fort Dicks? Just wanted to joke, beautiful thing
is you don't know if it's the same time or not.
And then did you become nice then? Because you said

(10:33):
you back then? But then I turned really nice, and
I started realizing that do you think 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 I know I wasn't eighteen.

(10:55):
I was sixteen, seventeen. And I looked at 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.
But he looked at me and he went he looked away,
it looked back and when that's our right kid, I
know a doctor. We could fix it. I said, no,

(11:16):
I don't think so, dad, And that's when I moved
to New York, that was and told him the name
of the first street you lived in, nine Gay Street,
Gay Street Street with Charity the Drag, Waverley and Gay,
the Wizards of Waverley Place. You lived right over there, Yeah,
Waverley and Gay right on the corners. Yes. Now, did

(11:37):
you purposely moved there because you're like, this is the
street for me? Or you have? I got there, but
I but I said, this is a good street for me,
and I moved into with my friend Allie, who was
Charity the drag queen. Wow and uh yes, and that's
what that's how I did it. That's what I was.
It was nineteen sixty, Yeah, that's that was nineteen sixty one, sixty.

(12:01):
You moved to New York ride around a little before
I was born, And when did you live in for
Lauderdale at nineteen. I moved on there in nineteen seventy.
I at seventy three opened I did the bar at
the Mowain Beach Hotel called Johnny Post uh Blood, the

(12:23):
bar at the Pool Poo Bar, and then I went
from there. I went and did another bar and men
and Fort Lauda Dale, and then I went to Key
West and opened a Pigeonhouse patio and that was there
for nineteen eighty ninety three. Then I moved back to

(12:47):
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 called Oh Johnny's on fourteen Street.
Whoa damn Johnny was the I had all the all
the Broadway stars coming in and and coming in and

(13:10):
doing that. Everybody came in there and uh, Eliza MELI
did cocaine off the bar. That was that was what
I was working as a doorman when that when I
was Judy Gowan's Uh, I was her what do you
call it? Bounder bodyguard? No, I'd pick her up and
and no I picked up no sue. No I was.

(13:33):
I would pick her up and bring it to gay
bars and make sure she got I was the rest
of it. Yeah, And uh, I did Judy for you?
Did Judy? I know? 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

(13:55):
at the uh what do you called? It goes on
and on and on by the way, But Judy Garland
was no place like home. Richard Burton Symbol Richard Burton's
wife Sybil, that I guess before Elizabeth and he was okay,
lot of people don't know. And it was it was

(14:16):
a club on the Upper east Side called Symbol, No,
not Symbol was I forget the man? All right, Well,
hold on, Johnny, you got to understand something. Most people
in this room don't know who you're talking about. Because
so anyways, I was the bouncer there and that's when
the lize when Aliza Renelli and Patty Duke was sitting
at the bar doing coke, okay, and they and they

(14:39):
told me to come over. They said, the kid, this
is when the big coke was back then. And this
is when they said, you can't have somebody sitting at
the bar doing coke. Got you got to tell their
do I said, dude, who that is? They says, I
don't care what it is. If they can't do it
over here, you gotta ask them to leave. So I
had to ask her them to leave, and then she

(15:00):
had to go home and I had to go pick
up her mother at the house. Please Uncle Johnny, Oh
my gosh, man, we have boring lives. Guy. Uncle Johnny
was driving his car, I think somewhere around here, and
there was a woman on the side of the road
hitch hockey. It was Barbara strike Rising. I picked her up. Yeah,
I brought it to a Revere beach where she was playing.

(15:22):
And I went to the movies with the Lizard Taylor
and she I had try to ring on. She said,
he try this. This guy's like forest go. I was
thinking that would say Hollywood Forest that was. Yeah, the
stories go on and on and on, but unfortunately we're
at a time. Uncle Johnny, thanks for not keeling over
in the middle of my podcast. John We gotta get

(15:44):
out of here. Have a beautiful day.