MY FIRST GAY WEDDING - 1973

The Supremes' decision on gay marriage ( now called "marriage") prompted a lot of jubilation, conversations on how far we've come, rainbow half-tones on photos, a few reminders of the unreal amount of work yet to be done both here and abroad, and, of course, a few exploding heads in the Shiite wing of the Republican Party. 

Eventually my own thoughts arrived at the first gay wedding I attended. A double gay wedding on the steps of the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park......in the Spring of 1973.

Alas, I have no photos of the event, but I do have some vivid and some not so vivid memories of the day, but more importantly, of the time.

To back up just a bit, in the last days of winter that year I was cat-sitting in Albuquerque and got taken for dinner by a friend to the Union 76 Truck Stop, where we were approached by a traveler just as the sun was going down. "Are you fellas traveling west?" 

After some conversation Edward came to spend the night, which lead to an almost instant spiritual-socio-sexual connection ( details on request - many NSFW ).  The day after the cats' primary servant got back I left with Edward, who was hitchhiking to San Francisco to collect his stuff there and return by thumb to Vermont. 

That Spring in the city Herb Caen called "Baghdad by the Bay" I realized for the first time one of the many profound benefits associated with being gay in 1972. As we were still outsiders and social misfits to most of the world, we both had to and got to make up our own rules for how life should be lived. If you've stepped off the path to find your own way at any time, you know how exhilarating this is. A bit scary too, but real freedom is always a bit scary isn't it?

I'll get to the wedding in a bit, but what I want to do here is create a scent or a whisper of what I encountered/experienced during the 10 weeks or so that we stayed in the top floor apartment at Page & Shrader, a block from where The Panhandle feeds into Golden Gate Park.  Now there is a Whole Foods store a block away and the National Aids Memorial Grove is just inside the park.  But then...

Our last ride dropped us off a bus ride away from our destination. When Edward told the long-haired bus driver we didn't have enough money for the fare ( which may very well have been true ), he just waved us on. At the apartment, there was an organized collection paper bus transfers which made the public transportation system free.

Living in the apartment, and in apartments like it in and around The Haight, were gay men and sometimes a woman or two, living collectively and mostly members of The Angels of Light. This quote, from the jacket cover for Andrean Brooks's memoir, Flights of Angels, says it all in one sentence...

 "The Angels of Light were more than a queer performance troupe in the 1970s; growing out of the equally legendary Cockettes in San Francisco, the Angels were a way of life, putting on trashy, fantastical drag fairy tales in a city and an era that was in the blissful throes of early gay liberation."

Or, there's this one from Paul's Second letter to the Corinthians. 

"No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."  

People had names like:

• Jalala, whose room was in Cabinet of Dr. Caligari black and white with his black and white super 8 movies playing on a suspended screen.
• Grasshopper, whose Mercurial cynical naivete made him charming to everyone.
• Hibiscus, founding member of the Cockettes and Founder of The Angels.  Here he is in a more sedate moment.
  
   
• Scrumbly, who created the music and has supported himself with music ever since.
• Mercedes Lalu, who fancied herself Janis Joplin, but really only got the bracelets and the drunk part right.
• Macho Menos, the name Brian gave himself when he was in his leather drag. He collected fruit crate labels.
• Sylvester was an early Cockette and not one of the Angels, but everyone in the house was part of his tribal family. Here's a link to his biggest hit.  You Make Me Feel
• Martin Wong designed sets and costumes for both groups, moved to New York where he had a very successful career as an artist ( museum collections, etc.) and amassed an amazing collection of graffiti art, now at the Museum of the City of New York. He showed me some interesting corners of NYC art in the 1980's.  Here's a snap from the web of a costume at one of the free shows in some park.

Since everyone was on welfare of some sort or another, including the trust fund children who paid for a lot, and since all the performances were free, The Angels proclaimed themselves.. 

The First Peoples' Theater. 

We had barely arrived when we were dispatched to the Food Stamps office with rent receipts from the pad which lived in the kitchen. Many of the houses were part of the Free Food Conspiracy, a collective of collective houses. Food arrived at the house, "How many are you feeding this week?" "Usually about 12." Boxes of food were dropped off in exchange for food stamps ( both quantities arbitrary and both sufficient ). Periodically each house would be in charge of sorting and delivering the week's provisions.

People were coached and presented themselves at welfare offices with a variety of reasons which necessitated seeking assistance from the government, everything from unable to find work to presenting as obviously unemployable. The aristocrats in this circle were receiving what was called Aid to the Totally Disabled, usually after acting out at the office. "Stand there and piss your pants and they will send you checks forever just to keep you out of the office." Preston coached Mercedes so well on how to play crazy that they took her to a psychiatric hospital. She was saved when Preston arrived barefoot and in a caftan, claimed to be her psychiatrist and got her released. Ronald Reagan was a few years late and referencing the wrong gender when he popularized the phrase "Welfare Queens".

The person who worked as a dresser "borrowed" costumes from San Francisco Opera Company, which were used for panhandling in the Park.

One couple borrowed $400 from a friend, bought travelers checks, exchanged them, cashed them, reported them stolen, returned the money to the friend and....

When the phone bill was long overdue Ma Bell called looking for the account holder the reply, (from the account holder) was " No, we haven't seen that bastard. And if you get a hold of him, tell him he owes us a lot money too."

These people were homosexual criminals! Not rising to the level of Genet, but they were scofflaws at every opportunity. They were also very welcoming to strangers with made up names and fragile mental states and no money.   And they were having fun!  They were changing ( some would say corrupting) lives! All of it focused on Free Theater, usually put on in a public space.  Eighteen months earlier I had been in my second year at a Methodist Seminary and while I was certainly not an innocent, this brush with the world of The Angels obliterated whatever was left of any thought I might have had about leading a "normal" life.  What a gift! Their choices weren't necessarily my choices, but I saw that the choices were all mine to make.

The wedding was on Easter Sunday and was, like almost all weddings, a theater piece for friends and family.  We were a party of 40 or so, dressed in a wide spectrum of styles and tastes. We chanted Hari Krishna as we walked in procession from the house through the park to the Conservatory, the two couples shaded by a large canopy carried on long poles by four people, yours truly being one of them. Once assembled, one of the tribe, dressed in a white suit, gave a righteous hilarious southern harangue. There was a mock priest, a mock yogi and maybe even more. Of the newlyweds what I remember most is Preston and Angie finishing the day by announcing this was actually the end of their relationship. The southern preacher returned the next day his white suit muddy and maybe even bloodied, but still full of bluster.

I had thought of ending with a couple of amusing examples of the level of promiscuity at the time, but I think I'll leave that to your imagination....you won't even come close.