Panel: Celebrate, Devour Me Again - Free Theater, Glitter and the Angels of Light

Good evening everyone. Welcome to San Francisco Public Library. My name is Christina Mitra. I'm the program manager for the James C. Hormemell LGBTQI Center. If you've never been there, we're on the third floor. We've been around for 30 years and we were the very first center of our kind anywhere in the US in a government building that was dedicated to preserving our history. And I'm just so honored to be in this role and to welcome you all tonight. Clearly, this is a room full of friends, lovers, uh just family in all kinds of ways. So, welcome. I'm very, very, very happy. Yes, we're in for a very special program tonight celebrating the Angels of Light and Bambi Lakes's legacy. Uh please give it up for Fabulosa Books, which is in the back. Please support your local independent bookstore. and buy some books. Thank you. Uh, I would like to also acknowledge that we occupy the unseated ancestral homeland of the Ramatosh Aloney peoples, the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. Yes. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramachush community. Okay, we are complete now. I'll just say a few quick things, which is that um in a month, I hope that you'll come back to this very same room. Um August 27th at 5:00, we will be showing a screening of Screaming Queens, the Emmy Award documentary about the Compton Cafeteria riots. It's the 60th anniversary of the riots. It's also transis It's also trans history month. We would love to see you back here. Susan Striker will be here on the panel with special guests and the moderator of the panel will be a Cobb who is one of the curators for the current exhibit at the Hormill Center called the unbuilding archive liberated futures for the site of Compton's Cafeteria riots. I want to thank our media services team up here in the booth and behind the camera making sure that all of our V is on point. I want to thank San Francisco Public Library for who, excuse me, the friends of San Francisco Public Library who make sure that all of our programming is free. And again, big thanks to Fabulous Books for being here. Um, and before I pass the mic, I just want to thank August. August Bern Bernardu is the executive director of the LGBTQ history project which is dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ plus activists from the first wave of gay liberation. Thank you so much August for coming to the library bringing this program to us. Take it away. >> Well, thank you everyone for coming today. We'll be talking about the angels of light. We're here for a few reasons. One, we're on the cutting edge. Two, the world's falling apart and we need to know history. And three, there's a new book out by Bambi Lake called Devour Me Again, Collected Poems and Song Lyrics. Bambi Lake was a member of the Angels of Light in 1971 and 1972. The Angels of Light were a performance troop that was active in the 70s and early 80s. They were about free theater, communal living, and dedicating themselves to their craft. Um, we are going to talk about the angels for a little bit. Then we're going to show a Bambi video. And then we will read a Bambi poem and talk about Bambi a little bit. And then we will be selling and signing books. Everyone said they would sign books. Um, when I met Bambi, I was 18 on the street and I asked her for a photo. I was like, "Bambi, can I take a photo with you?" And she said, "Photos with me cost a quarter. They go for a lot of money on eBay." So, keep that in mind when you're getting autographs and photos. So, I'd like to kick it off by asking Tahara a question. This is Tahara, excuse me. And then we have Gregory Gregory Kruchank and Beaver Bower. So I'd like to ask Tahara. Tahara, when you were growing up, how were gay men oppressed and how did the angels of light overcome their oppression? >> Uh they were behind an iron curtain. Uh it was nothing out there. And uh I hated Texas. So I came to San Francisco in the summer of love. And uh within a month after I got here, they started gay liberation in Berkeley. A bunch of college students, old guys. And we had a wrote a play called uh I can't remember Pooky Wears My Comb or something uh about being gay. and we performed it in front of the student union building. There was a lot of Vietnam war protests and stuff happening at the time and uh I had a line in the play I thinking of raping the entire Vienna boys choir. I was 18 years old. I hadn't come out of the closet yet either. And uh and the whole, you know, they thought it was a Vietnam War protest. All these people rushed up, hundreds of them. And I tell you, within two seconds, they were dead silent. I mean, you could have heard a pen drop. Homosexual ass [ __ ] 1969 Berkeley. And they all s stalked off. Nobody said anything. Next week we had another demonstration, a kiss in in front of the student union building, all the guys kissing each other. Then we had like 25 people in the group. But that was the beginning of gay liberation in Berkeley. They had also had it in New York and in uh Los Angeles happening Stonewall. I think it'd been a month or so before before >> Oh, you have a mic. >> I got a mic. Thank you. Greg, do you want to add anything to that? >> Brought the house down. >> Um >> I got one, too. Mine's bigger >> than what? When I first came to San Francisco, I was 16 years old. And it was in 1969, maybe 70. And the background for me was pretty much activism because the war was w raging in Vietnam. And people my age were eligible for the draft and could be sent off to Vietnam and were not allowed to vote until they were 21. So there was a massive movement that was trying to emphasize that the war was unfair, that there might be other alternatives um to non for nonviolence, that um the idea that the government could take me, I'll speak for myself, and um uh create a war that most people were feeling was unpopular. The seated government was slightly run by a [ __ ] Um, and there are some similarities. I think the idea of activism though was spurred by the fact that the government was being incredibly oppressive and also not listening to the desire of the people. Um, before I came to San Francisco, I was active in the anti-war movement and I was a member of the SDS and um, I think Beaver was in a group called the SNIK, which was the Students for Nonviolence. Um, and after that, when we got to San Francisco, we twinned at some point in a building with the Black Panthers. At that point in time, there were people who were very active and very had a very high profile. People like um Angela Davis and Eldrich Cleaver and Stokeley Carmichael um Mario Savio in Berkeley. The free speech movement was part of the entire idea of protesting. Protesting was a very big thing and it united I think a lot of people. Um, real quickly, I think that what the angels represented to me for most of the men in the group was an alternative to the idea that we were going to be part of the establishment and also be fodder um by um the time we were 21 and 22, there was a whole new batch of young men that they were trying to uh draft for the war. The idea that we had created some sort of community around that wasn't significantly that but there was the nuance of um men trying to create a alternative and the angels sort of romanticized I think that whole idea and gave us a sanctuary. >> Thanks be angels and what drew you to them? Do I push this? >> Um, I was lost. I was a lost kid and I didn't know who or what I was or what I wanted to be and I dropped out of college. I I mean, I was still coming out of thinking I was a horse. Um, I thought I was a horse as a kid and I didn't see how I fit into any part of the world or or the situation that was around me. So, I went to the Lower East Side and then I met Rodney. um a stalwart member of the Angels of Light and a profound creative mentor of mine and he was heading to San Francisco and it was the San Francisco dream. So I decided to hitchhike with two girlfriends. my dog Saskia um the most wonderful dog wonder dog in the world and um I don't think I think we panhandled like $5 and we didn't have a map and I didn't have a pair of shoes and I stuck out my thumb and we didn't even know which tunnel to go to because going to California, you know, and um >> uh and somehow we made it out here like in 10 days um because we went backwards by mistake a couple times and um and you picked up by the police for being a runaway always. And then I thought, well, you know, here it is. I'm San Francisco. I'm going to go find Rodney. He's out here. And then day after I got here, I went, I'll go to the Fillmore West. Ner was standing in line. And um and so I started crashing around and squatting in multiple uh redevelopment houses, they were called then, over in the Western Addition. And I moved, it seemed like every two or three days. I was always moving and we were dragging and pushing a couch down the street to some apartment and hoisting it up the stairs and trying to hook up the electricity for free. And then we met Hibiscus and um Hibiscus came down the street and it was like someone I've never seen before. I felt like I felt like the um air around me changed like there was like crystals in the air or I mean it was just you know when you see something as marvelous and as different from Ohio as you could possibly get it was absolutely thrilling to me and he said to me and my two friends you can be the Flory Dory girls and um I don't know if anybody remembers the Flory Dory girls but they were the little rascals in drag and a show that they did in a barn. Let's do a show, you know. And so, uh, I was ready. I signed up. I wanted it all. I was ready to be an angel of light. I wanted to perform. And I had a a, you know, a a completely pulsating creative energy and drive within me because I had always drawn as a kid and I loved to draw and um, and I didn't know where it would go. I thought am I going to draw pictures of people's horses or you know I was really naive but I found my creative family in the angels of light and I think it was an arena and an opportunity to find your creativity and explore it in a way with an incredibly wonderful supportive and of course sometimes fighting group of people but to find a way to express your creativity and say well one day I'm going to be this or tomorrow I think I'll dress up as that. And it was a really incredibly amazing way to start discovering yourself and unleashing other parts of yourself through drag and costume and and putting on different clothes and exploring different parts of your personality. And then you really realize that it was really a lot about transformation and the ability to transform yourself, learn from that transformation and share it with other people and hopefully encourage them also to feel free to express themselves and transform themselves. And um I mean I still work in the arts today, but the angels were definitely the singular most complete expressive voice I ever had of um I was just such a part of it and they were such a part of me. It was complete and the the area the between live performance street was seamless. It was there was no edges to it. they all kind of folded into one and I thought that was extremely wonderful and that was really really exciting to me. >> Thanks. I'm just going to ask this question for anyone. What issues did you care about in the angels and what issues did the angels of light care about? >> Can I just say something really quick? If we had children here, this would be drag queen story hour. Anyway, go ahead, August. >> Oh, here's a dog. That'll >> go ahead, >> Greg. Do you want to maybe take a stab at it? >> Um, well, the first uh I think the issue for the Angels that is basic is that there was a desire to make free theater and not charge at the door. um that one one of the things that would create an alternative to the establishment was the fact that there could be something for nothing. And I think one of the big deals about the Angels of Light was the fact that we tried to make it so that when you saw the show, you were amazed that it was for free. And you can do a lot with the back of a refrigerator carton and um some glitter. And I think that our energy and our vision was really otherworldly for the average audience member. And underneath that was a desire to also connect to the community and invite people if they hadn't already done that to become part of a community that was alternative and that was s sort of seeking a way to uh divorce themselves from the mainstream. I >> I thought it was really profound to be able to share with a lot of people and we did teach free classes in our studio. We got a studio at one point and we kind of would put anybody in a show if they would show up for rehearsal. You had to show up and rehearse and we rehearsed for ages and um and didn't do weren't stoned at rehearsal. You could afterwards before it's your own business but we didn't want people showing up loaded at rehearsal even though you know we performed a few things loaded I would say. Um yeah, but I think there you know it was really a profound experience teaching each other tap dance and African dance and mime and whatever anybody might be learning. Baratanayam from India, Shaolin and the martial arts that were uh we took in um the park over in the panhandle park at that time with really profound teachers and um and learning all those forms and you know increasing your cultural knowledge and then sharing it with other people and um and doing it for free. And I think there was we had this concept. It was called selfless service. And um and it was about serving people without necessarily putting a claim and a name and attention on it. And it was really profound way of of behaving in a way and not taking claim for things. It there was something kind of really releasing about that. >> They called it selfless service. >> Yes, that's what we called it. And um yes, open slurps and I think it was you know there was something great about it and we had programs we never put the year on it and we didn't say who did this who did that till maybe around holy cow but I think it was really really uh freeing and um and and you know we weren't there to seek individual fame um which was really nice t >> uh Tahara finish off. >> I know how to put it on >> beautiful. >> Thank you, Uncle Henry. >> Tahara, what were the angels of light's influence? And can you talk about cauliflower? What cauliflower was and the relationship between cauliflower and the angels? Just want to ask how were any of you I see a lot of older people here like myself. Were any of you around in those? I know you were. >> That's Anthony. He was the piano player for the Angels of Light. There's over here is another Angel of Light, Austin. >> Yes. >> Uh he ran down Mission Street naked in 1971. Some of the children of the angels of light are here too. >> Ananda here, she was born, she lived in the angels the house from the time she was five years old until maybe young teens or something. 10. >> Two and a half. >> She was two and a half when she moved in. Living with 25 gay men in drag. I was not a child, >> but I was around the angels of lighthouse a lot. My name is Christopher. >> Hi, Christopher. And what did you do with the angels of light? >> Little as possible. >> Oh, Adrien. >> Exactly. Adrien Brooks was there was quite a few notorious angels of light including >> oh >> flower. Well anyway sorry I was just I have to take a breath. Does anybody still smoke pot or anything anymore? >> You do. I did uh cauliflower. Okay. 1969 I came to San Francisco. Used to be a guy as Beaver explained would dance around in the street and he uh went by the name Hibiscus. A gay guy probably about 19 years old. Gorgeous blonde hair, be long beard, mustache, hippie. It was always on LSD, but he had been a Broadway theater person in Broadway. His parents were in Broadway. He did all the child star acts and everything. And so he was used to makeup and costume and he put on these outrageous costumes, Tibetan uh dance, dervish dancers, all kinds of things. And be on LSD dancing in the street all the time. As Beaver said, he was a huge inspiration. and he lived in a commune which I later found out was called Cauliflower which was back in the hippie day. You wonder what happened to the summer of love. Well, it went underground and after within a year after the summer of love I think died in ' 68 or so it was dead 69 when I came here was nobody on Haid Street but burned out drug addicts, no street lights either and uh uh so it was dead. So they went underground and they started living in communes because a lot of the hippies were for somewhere else and they sort of crash pad. Can I stay here? And they did. And then those turned into more stable living situations with more hippies. And there was this one called Cauliflower Commune. I think it was one of the first ones that actually said we are a commune. There were 18 people living there. mostly mixed, gay, straight, lot of women. And it was all run by this guru whose name was Irving. And he had been a beatnick in New York in the 50s with Alan Ginsburg. He's very good friends with Alen Ginsburg. Ginsburg used to come and visit the house and everything, stay there. And uh so he had a commune and he brought hibiscus, Peter Orlovski, Ginsburgg's boyfriend and uh this guy named Muty. This was Irving Rosenthal. He had written a book, a beat book called Sheeper. And uh he had been a high school teacher in New York. That's how he got paid. And he brought them out during the summer of love to San Francisco. and you know, of course, LSD and magic. And they rented a house and he had a printing press he brought a little later. He'd been publishing poetry, beat poetry in New York. He had his own printing press. So, he sent for that. And within a short time, he had seven or eight people living in his commune. and uh he was very controlling and wanted every you know everybody's freaking out on LSD and you couldn't even eat dinner without knowing whether or not there was LSD in the salad and and I got dosed twice. My god. Uh anyway, uh so he brought out the printing press and they began printing this newsletter for commune people in these formerly crash pad sort of hop houses or something. They published Cauliflower and Hibiscus started taking LSD and he began Irving was making a film called On a Toy about a Japanese brothel with all these hippie people living there on drugs and everything and which has never been seen as far as I know but it's somewhere. Uh, and he got them all dressed up and Irving had been a friend of Does anybody know who Jack Smith in New York is? Yes, he's the one that inspired all of this. I mean, all the angels and the cockat all his his ideas inspired all, but he wanted to make Irving wanted to make a Jack Smith type film with his commune to give him something to do other than just hang out all day. And uh he was making that film and that's where Hibiscus got his idea to start dressing in drag. Does that answer your question? We have a few people from Cauliflower here. >> I can't see them. Where are they? >> I think I see Joe and who lived in the commun. >> Yeah. >> What's that? >> Oh, okay. >> I don't have to use >> No, it's automatic. Just talking to it. >> I don't I don't like it. >> Beaver. Beaver. What inspired you when you were in the age? >> I was inspired by the ability that I could exercise all my creative juice. I could paint a set. I could choreograph a number. I could make up a dance. I could figure out the set. I could um you know, we would write pages of dialogue sometimes and create our characters. I found pages and pages of, you know, dialogue and, you know, research I had done for cyclones where with and, you know, just all these different versions of things we did. And I think it was also fun getting to learning know more about each other through, you know, working and and and making things up. And I think, God, what a lucky thing to be able to make things up for your life. I mean, what a blessing that was. And you know, I just think it was just being able to act out what I wanted to act out and also feel that perhaps you were inspiring the audience that you were bringing them something poetic and funny, but maybe, you know, and through irony and ridiculousness and and overthe-top and preposterous things as a way of delivering a message that was deeper than it appeared in the on the surface, I think. And I think the angels did that really well. And you know, our show, Holy Cow, somebody one night kept to me came afterwards and said, "Oh, I I I've got Andy here or whatever it was." And and they had brought their friend's ashes to the show. And he said it was the most happy moment they had ever had. And it was the most in, you know, wonderful thing that they had ever seen. And they brought this person's ashes to the show. And I, you know, that just really knocked me, you know, it was like put me on a cloud for a very long time thinking how how how powerful that must have been. >> Greg, what did you want people to take away from the shows? Um, I think again the the the combination of energies that the angels were was very powerful and it had its own sort of resonance. And I think anybody who experienced the show probably felt like what the hell did this come from? And um there was a lot of layers and a lot of depth. And I think also because we knew each other as family that there was also the feeling that um you were witnessing something very intimate and at those that point in time we were very open. Life was very open. There was even the possibility that you could join or get something in instead of the show, something even closer, something more intimate. So, sense of community for sure, sense of creativity and um the sense of magic. Tahar, did you think the world would catch up with you with the free theater and the communal living or did you think what did you think? >> Uh, well, we were >> we were so young and naive then. I thought everybody would be doing living in tents in six months. So, uh, yeah, we, well, God, my parents certainly weren't going to catch up now that I think about it. Uh, but we did, we thought we were the revolution basically and everybody was going to go this direction. They kind of did. I mean, look at it now compared to where it was then. Uh, now here's an example. The first male nun, for example, was Sister Ed, who was an early Angels of Light and was in him for several years. He had come to a cocktail. He was 23 or something dressed as a nun. I'd never seen a man in a nun's unfit before. He had made a perfect replica of a Benedicting nun. He looked like an old man anyway, even though he was 23. And then uh I got to talking to him and he told me he'd made over 23 nuns habits and he used to wear them and he would go out in public in a nun's habit and you couldn't tell he wasn't a nun, didn't he, Beaver? >> You know, as and as the funny >> the funny thing is with Ed that he um didn't take it and kind of twist it in a way like the sisters did. He was authentic. He goes, "I've got the right kind of blue surge that the Carmelites use and you know there's 75 pleats here and you have to iron this with this." And you know, >> everybody thought he was a nun and he smoked cigarettes as a nun also on the street. And we were with him one day on the street and he pulled out a cigarette at the bus stop and started smoking and these two women said, "Do you see that look of defiance in her eye? And there he was once in the Goodwill and uh the guy that was running it came over and said, "Don't make fun of God. He doesn't make fun of you." It just went on. But he did it. He went out with us. We were all in drag negliges and prom gowns and Sister Ed's dressed as an authentic nun. But uh yeah, Sister Ed, he started the first male nun. And now they have the Sisters of Perpetual End indulgences which do an awfully lot of good work. I have to say >> Tahara mentioned the word revolution. What did the revolution look like for y'all? >> Then or now? >> Then >> or anytime. Huh? >> When you were in the Angels. >> I I think it meant living outside the lines of life that were set down to us. that that's how you were going to grow up and you were going to behave that way. That a relationship um was not what people told us they were going to be. It didn't, you know, that it could be anything. A relationship could be anything and and that it was valid and beautiful and wonderful and we made such close friends. I thought that was really really amazing. And um and I think, you know, the other thing I really liked was how scrappy we were. And I think there was just something incredibly delicious about being scrappy and making something out of nothing. I I I thought that was just so exciting that you didn't have to have a lot of money. You didn't have to have all the resources in the world that if you had a desire to do it and the energy to do it, you could make it happen. And you could make it happen. And I think that's once again my favorite word transformation because cardboard became India or you know everything anything could become anything. It >> was all free too. >> Yeah. And I think we you know I mean we dumpster dived we crawled around the streets. We got things at thrift stores. We got it any and everybody wore each other's we had a thing called the drag room. Um, you know, because I don't think we described our house with >> every queen in town came over the night of a show to put on their drag. People came in, we didn't even know them. They got dressed in the drag room >> and then we'd find their jeans kicked as a corner, you know, and what happened to that dress and the sequin sweater and it would all go out on the street and frequently never came back. And we put all our clothes in one room and we ate maybe 30 people a night at our house. it was us and anyone coming over. We sat in a wonderful circle on the floor and took turns serving each other and it was a real uh point of pride to take care of each other and and bring people in and serve. >> There was another guy in the Angels of Light that uh was around and that was uh Corki and Joah. They were kind of on the edge of everything and just plastered constantly basically. I have to be honest. In the Angels early on, we were all alcoholics. I mean, there was We went to the bar every night. >> I resembled that. >> Well, you may have been one of the exceptions. I know Matteline didn't drink. The rest of us were just lush and uh but Corki and Joah were just so stoned all the time. I don't think either of them could have walked a straight line, but it was Some people think this is all really sad. I've heard that. Pathetic. And Bambi Lake is uh one of those really bizarre characters in the Angels of Light that just well actually in the angels she was really good. She was sweet, kind, loving. Does How many of you have heard of Bambi Lake? >> Oh, that's quite a few people. >> Let's talk about Bambi at the end. >> Oh, I thought we were at the end. >> We got seven minute seven minutes. I I just think if we have to mention Joah and Corki, we also have to mention Ralph Sour. >> Oh my god. >> And you know, Ralph Sour was one of the funniest people on stage and at home you even funnier. And he he would dance. He knew every word to every show tune in the world. And he sang it with full fervor voice and excitement. And he was incredibly creative. He he he just his he it he made masks and you know he did collie costumes and he ran around like with hundreds of arms taped to his back and then on his bare stomach his hairy bare stomach he wore a baby bottle nipple just for you know and that was just the fun part of the angels was to take everything and give it a little turn. He was the very first guy to have a beard and a mustache and wear women's clothes in ' 67, even before Hibiscus. But Ralph's humor, my god, he came up with a lot of great titles and songs. One of the he wrote a country western song for gay truck drivers called 60 males to the gallon. We were doing an Arab show with belly dance and he came up with turban renewal. He he had I I can't even It so caught me off guard talking about Ralph. I can't you remember any of his >> um >> Fifi. >> Fifi called him Fifi. >> We all called him Fifi. >> I think one of the things was um having someone around like that made it feel much more like you weren't doing the wrong thing. I I think um again a lot of us made the decision to come to San Francisco and join the counter culture. It was a big step on a certain level. There was a a family connection that you might not be able to have anymore. Uh some something that you were turning your back on and something that your family might not accept in the idea that um you had a community and you had a good time. You had an abundance of um food and we had family and we nurtured children and it existed outside of again outside of the establishment but with this amazing amount of creativity and humor and love for a while. >> Well the question is could you do it now? >> I think >> sure could you do it now? I think we missed the also, you know, there was an incredible network besides the angels and cauliflower. Oh yes. >> Um you know there was a hunga commun and they were a free food family and we would give them our food stamps and then they would deliver food to a group of communes and they delivered it according almost to what the people needed rather than how much was put in. And we pulled our money and you know we really were into you know fairly healthy and radical food way ways of eating and what we consumed in vegetarianism and um sometimes veganism and just and this uh and the cauliflower newspaper which I did believe that Tahar talked about that was passed out to hand passed out to the communes you know so different than Tik Tok or any of this but it was delivered by a by a hairy freak and Um, you know, there were recipes and ways to have sex and, you know, how to wipe your butt with water and, you know, maybe a review of an angel show and they covered everything. But it was really, really profound way of sharing >> San Francisco after the summer of love went underground. It was like >> for us as artists, it was like being in Paris in the 20s or something. It was just magical and so much creativity. It was really like an art scene. We're running up on time. Greg, can you talk about maybe how a play came together and what one of the plays was or what the play was about? Well, we did a a play we did a show called Parasites Under the Bourgeois Sea and the um Milo was sort of like revolution uh a revolution royal revolution based on the the French Revolution. We would um have meetings constantly every day. I mean, that's what we were going to do is try to flesh out how to make this statement and how to make it varied and within the context of the revolution coming. We thought that there should be a emphasis on the plague and we did um we did a show based on the idea that a plague was approaching without really >> that's sort of what I was going to say. Um >> I just thought it it in retrospect in the communal idea and the community mind there was something very very pre what's the word preian about the idea that the people had to prepare for a plague that was on its way and that um we had no idea that that actually kind of skewed toured into something that was some something that was going to impact everyone for quite a while. >> Well, it was basically anti- capitalism and plague came along and the countest was played by Adrien Brooks. Her name was Countest Flushet and she had a huge toilet on top of her head with a ostrich feather coming out of it and Gregory had on top of his head. We were all dressed as these huge French countises and Gregory had a little boy about 3 feet tall statue that pissed into Adrien's toilet. And this was at the opera house next door where the United Nations. >> That took a lot of meetings. We had to have a lot of meetings before we figured out how to do that. >> And uh that was about the French Revolution though. Rodney had I think 14 dances in that show. He was one of these people. He studied every kind of dance you can think of. He brought in a lot of new people into the Angels and he was just absolutely adored by young women that he taught to dance. We used to call them the Rodney fan club. But he was a really sweet guy. But he he he choreographed all the dances. I think our biggest dance was in Parasites. We had a penguin number. Did anybody per chance see I think you did Anthony, didn't you? He He played the piano. Austin, did you see it? Yeah. Anybody else? Anybody see any Angels of Show? Angel of Oh. Oh, wow. How interesting. How interesting. I'd love to know what you saw, but anyway. Uh, I forgot what I was talking about. >> Well, >> we have to move anyway. I mean, go. What time is it? >> 6:45 already. >> We could keep going. We're going to take a slight pivot now and talk a little bit about Bambi Lake briefly, but to start it off, we're going to show a video. I was friends with Bambi when I was in college at USF, which is a Catholic school, and someone told me there was a film festival, and they gave you a camera. So, I made a Bambi Lake music video and they didn't show it at all and we didn't win or come close. So, that's it. Now, is this officially over now or are we coming back? Oh, well, maybe I should get off the stage. Can you see it? Okay. Thank you for coming down to the Continental Bads, boys. You're safe with us. Shady lady, I'll feel your night's desire. Shady lady, look deep into my fire. Cuz I'm the hottest baby in this town. Jaded lady. Now there's a nasty rumor. I'm a faded lady without a sense of humor. But jaded lady takes it. She takes it lying down. Speak Russian and my lips drip with passion. It's just my fashion. I'm doing my best to cash in before I'm cast aside. Oh honey, drift out with a t. Now don't be nervous if you require my service. Just take affection and make a good connection. Cuz there is only flesh here. There is only flesh here in the night. Speak Russian and my lips drip with passion. It's just my fashion. I'm doing my best to cash in before I cast aside. Oh, and drift out with a tie. Now, don't get nervous if you require my service. Just take affection and make a good connection. Cuz there is only flashing. There is only flesh here in the night. That song was originally sung by Sylvester in a cockat show at the Palace Theater in 1970, >> I think. >> Yeah, that was >> Scrumly wrote it, didn't he? Scrumbly >> was a cockat song. >> Yeah. >> Um, okay, cool. Now, we're going to quickly read Bambi's lyrics to her song Golden Age of Hustlers, which is her most famous song. It's on page 57 of the book. In San Francisco, long ago, I made my living hooking on Pulk Street and the old black rose. My eyes were always looking for some old man to pay my rent and some young man to love me. And so many were heaven sentent. I thanked the stars above me. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me. The queens and the hustlers of the red light zones. They never did desert me. The scent of nuggets and prospectors dripped up from the grub stake where I shared so many cheeseburgers with my hustler husbands in the olden days. The golden age of hustlers. I saw the best bodies of my generation sold, bartered, and destroyed by drugs and prostitution. The pretty queens on the corner, the midnight cowboys in the doorway. If you want it, daddy, get it here. It's a candy store in more way than one. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me. The queens and the hustlers of the red light zones, they never did desert me. Golden boys and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust. It's hard to find someone you could trust. Amid the rhinestones and the rust in the olden days, the golden age of hustlers. The prettiest boy I ever saw was San Jose Johnny the Libra. They don't make them like that anymore. A babyfaced gentleman outlaw. Some of the boys became like kings and stayed down there forever. And some of the girls became like stars with money, clothes, and fancy cars. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me. The queens and the hustlers of the red light zones, they never did desert me. Golden boys and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust. It's hard to find someone you can trust. Amid the rhinestones and the rust in the olden days, the golden age of hustlers. Cool. So, we have a few minutes left and if our panelists wanted to say anything about Bambi Lake, stories about her or what you could learn from her life. >> Get ready. >> I'll start. I might as well start. I knew Bambi Lake in the 71 when she first came to the Angels of Light and as I said earlier, sweet, kind person. And then around she was in the Angels for like five years and good on stage, good singer and dancer. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Then she decided Hibiscus had gone back to New York. The founder of the Angels and he uh was going on a tour of Europe. I don't remember it was his first or second tour. You went on the first one, I think. But anyway, they were going on a tour in Bambi, Beaver, Rodney, Gregory, >> went to Europe with they toured Berlin, Paris, London, all the big places and came back. But Bambi Lake ran out of money in Berlin. And she was seriously thinking about living as a woman at this point. She'd been a man in the Angels of Light, wearing men's clothes, and now she was thinking about breasts and all that. and she uh became a woman in Berlin. She started living openly as a woman, but she had to work because she ran out of money. So, she got a job in a strip joint in Berlin. Hetero and they didn't know she was a man, but she started working there. And then two years later, she comes back to San Francisco and she's a woman and she got a job at a strip joint here in North Beach and was working there. But I think something I don't know what happened. Tahara, I beg to differ. >> Well, let me finish this and then you can differ all you want, [ __ ] No, I love him. We've known each other ever since we were the same age. Let's not talk about Phyllis Diller, huh? Anyway, she came back and she was working in North Beach as a stripper and uh I think somehow or another she got into methamphetamine. I guess it if you're working late at night and she was also prostituting and she just got strung out on it and her whole life fell apart and it got to the point nobody would even talk to her anymore. She was so tweaking on meth all the time and crazy. So, uh, here's a story that happened around that time. This must have been, I think, in the 90s, but, uh, MC Jagger and the Rolling Stones were in San Francisco. God, can I keep a straight face? uh were in the San Francisco that year and Bambi had for some reason or another on meth and hormones had started identifying as Charlotte Rampling the British actress and she was living in a hotel room single room only in the tenderline. She said well to herself she said why Charlotte Rampling should be at the Rolling Stones concert. So she calls up the stadium and says, "Hello, I'm Charlotte Rampling. I'm in town. I'd love to come to the show." They said, "Oh yes, Miss Rampling. Come on down." And she went down to the back door and she said, "Oh, hi. I'm Charlotte Rampling." And they brought her in, took her to Mc Jagger, and he said, "That's not Charlotte Rampling." Bambi, though, I don't know how far over the loop she was. A disaster. She went to the nearest pay phone and phoned in a bomb threat to the stadium and said there's a bomb in in the basement set to go off in 15 minutes. She told me within 3 seconds the police cars had surrounded the pay phone. They they arrested her. They took her off and she was sentenced to six months in the county jail for terrorism. That's that's a story we can talk about. I think it's a minor detail, but Bambi went to Berlin and got a job with a uh very famous female impersonator in Berlin named Rome Hog and her club was called Shea Rome Hog. And as Beaver said, we were pretty scrappy. And the only way that Bambi could sort of actually procure occupation there was to be serious about female illusion. And the first thing that that was entailing was getting hormones with breasts. >> Um that was the extent of the transition for quite a long time. Bambi had tits. Bambi wasn't Bambi then. She was Java. >> Java. And um I think that uh you know just to make the distinction there was never as far as I know a complete and total transition. >> No, she never had the whole thing. She told me she made too much money with it. I I mean I also think you know the story of Bambi is so complicated and I used to run into Bambi here in the library a lot in the 90s and she'd say Spielberg's about to make the movie and you know I thought gee if if if they really made the real movie about Bambi about all the facets of that life which were huge swings incredible incredible dichotoies and the struggles that she went through and the glories that she wanted to and what she aspired to. It would really be a um a tremendous movie. I mean, it could be because there was so much going on. And I I think, you know, when I met Bambi, we called her Johnny Dancer then. >> Yeah. >> And she was the most slender, ethereal, felt little like a wisp. And she would sing in this most beautiful voice and dance. and she would have, you know, men clustered around her that she trained to uh serve her the way she wanted to, but it was really in an incredibly elevated almost like Japanese Kabuki way perhaps like um in peing on acid. And then of course there was, you know, the flip side, the vulgar, but there were all those people in that in that Bambi Lake Johnny dancer. My son went on stage at three months and um Johnny just held him in his arms and sang Angel Baby uh to my little sweet Sham. And so there were Bambi loves Sham. And so that you know all there's all the wild stories and the crazy stories and the person that you do sometimes didn't want to run into on the street or come to your place of work but it's you know it's just a round hole person and I think that's why it would be great for people to know the whole round story of of of Bambi Lake. Well, you know, Beaver, I think with Bambi Lake, it's interesting because I've talked to a lot of people and heard a lot of people talk about her, and it's very interesting that the younger generation sees her as sort of an iconic rebel that had no lines, no, everything was real and happening. Whereas, I think, what do you think? Do our generation see her more as sort of a Neil O'ioa failure or something or >> I think um Bambi in Bambi's later years uh and we were very close um >> you and Bambi were close. >> Johnny Dancer and I lived together in London. >> That's what I knew that. >> And um basically my nickname for Bambi was 5150. And um essentially there was a lot of darkness and a lot of pain that um Bambi was very capable of presenting to you if she knew you. >> So um in the long run I think in essence we sometimes don't recognize the fact that some of our friends because we put up with them, we love them, we have history may have serious mental issues. And I think it's important to realize that there's um emphasis on behavioral health and mental illness that is important to um maybe suggest or um find an avenue for someone who brings you um that conflicted, that painful, that um confused persona. Not not against transgender or anything like that. Just some sort of drama painoint moment. >> No, this is just the individual person that had gone through so many changes with us as witnesses. And >> I think so. You're right, Greg. And I think that would be really helpful for a lot of people who are in also in a lot of pain or confusion. And it isn't always a walk in the park, you know. And I think Bambi hit every note that could possibly be hit. And and so I think that's the profound thing that Bambi Lake has to offer the world. >> Well, the thing is she always wanted to be famous. Famous. Famous. Famous. Household word. She was determined. She could have been something. I think I think she could have. She had a good voice. Do you think she would have been famous? >> Bambi Lake. Would she have been famous like newspaper famous or TV or MTV? >> The sweetest story about Bambi was when we lived in London. The idea that um Dietrich was covered in sequins in the von Sternberg movies was fascinating to both of us and Bambi went to the London Institute of Fashion not as a student but sat into the um the classes for a skill that's called tamber work and which is threading sequins onto material with a hooked needle and coming back and showing me how to do it. And at that point in time, we were sort of skint as they say and Bambi made a Johnny made a panel that was incredibly beautiful and sequined with this artwork and decided that maybe somebody like uh Barbara Hulani who had a department store called Bibas uh might be interested in some bespoke work. So Bambi folded up the material and got on the tube, went to Kensington where Bibbus was, got off the tube, went up to the um offices and realized that Bambi had left the panel on the tube. >> And that kind of episode colors the idea of my thinking that the fame would be a very easy road for Bambi. Awesome. Well, thank you to our panelists. I just want to say that towards the last four years of Bambi's life, she was sober and she started performing again. And that's when I became >> She was so full of selfhatred. She wouldn't leave the house at all. She She was afraid everybody hated her and she they should go out. No, I Everybody hates me. >> Yeah. And that is a good >> last call. >> Okay. Well, thank you everyone for coming. We are um >> here one little thing about family relay. You know, I know how to sew real well and one one lady many years ago, 20 years ago, me and her made a beaded dress and you know I you know when the form years ago in the tender one she didn't have like fancy dresses and I was so guilty I said well maybe I'll get my money to get her and get her a new gown. She said, "Oh, you could do that. You could sew one or buy me one." And the way she saw it was so sad. But the only thing I remember the beautiful thing that we learned how to like really sew like, you know, what do you call it? >> Costumes. >> Costumes and be at work. And she taught me a lot of that. So I feel like when people say that she's kind of weird, she's a very very talented person. >> She is. And every >> miss her as a person. And I wish that I did give her some dresses or something. I have a but she didn't want them. I I went to that theater that she was doing a show and I said I'm gonna give you some dresses from you know wherever and she said no I don't want them hurt my feelings but then I knew she was like having mental problems or whatever or just didn't like anybody giving her something. >> Yeah. >> She died when August when did she pass away? 2020, I think November 4th. Um, great. Well, thanks everyone for coming. We're at time. We are selling books available to sign them. You can get them over there. And oh, one more quick announcement. If you didn't have enough tonight, the celebration continues. Tomorrow at Taliho Books in Oakland on Pedmont Avenue, we're doing a reading. Tahara is going to be there and there'll be a live performance of Bambi songs by a band called Pretty Frankenstein. And then Thursday, which is the 30th at the Tenderloin Museum, we're doing another event for Devour Me again. Tahara will also be there telling nicer stories about Bambi this time. And and that is at the Compton's Cafeteria Riot venue 835 Lin. Um, uh, oh, sorry, that's at 6:00 p.m. Oakland is 7:00 p.m. And then at the Tenderloin Museum event at Compton's Cafeteria, right, um, Brontes Pernell will be reading. Um, Birdie Bob Watt, who was Bambi's longtime piano player. There'll be a lot going on. >> I'm curious, would people be interested in seeing more events like this or Thank you. Have a nice night. Take care. Thank you very much.