TD: No, I came to Chicago because my undergraduate lover and I both applied for jobs in different cities and he got a great offer in Chicago, with First National Bank.  I had a choice of either Baltimore with Social Security or Chicago with the IRS.  I thought Chicago sounded like more fun.

JR: When did you come here?

TD: In May of 1974, but we had been traveling out since ‘72, on Sunday afternoons at the Gold Coast [laughs].

JR: Okay, cause you were in school in South Bend then?

TD: Yeah.

JR: When did you begin to self-identify as a gay man?

TD: In 1970.

JR: How did that happen?

TD: How did that happen?  Well, I worked my way through my Christian recovery, getting all of that out of my system.  I was actually awakened to my own homosexuality by one of my roommates, not that he was gay, but he was so gorgeous.  I should have brought his picture, found it yesterday.  He actually looks like Paul Newman and is aging well.  He had those blue eyes, that smooth skin, was a Texas football player who is dumb as shit, and I used to give him body rubs and give him [?] for his girlfriend.  When I was done doing that, I had to go in the john and jack-off because I was so overwhelmed by the experience.  I started to reconcile myself that I’d never been turned on by a girl all through high school.  We did all of this group dating kind of stuff.  There were twelve of us, six boys, six girls.  And three of the gays were gay. [tape stops and resumes] I was coming out as I recall.  Really awakening to my orientation my freshman year in college.  I said all through high school, we had done this group dating kind of thing.  I had the same girlfriend the last two years in high school.  She eventually became the first woman forest ranger, imagine that.  She was also very active in girls’ sports.  I don’t think we ever even kissed.  So it was like, I was never physically aroused by a woman.  I was aware of my attraction to men.  The one time that I stole something in my life was an issue of Muscle Boy or Demi-God.  You know, as opposed to other people stealing Playboy off the rack, I was stealing men’s muscle magazines.  I renounced the church more or less my freshman year of college and slowly came out.  By my senior year, we had started a gay right groups at Notre Dame, that died out after we left. 

JR: How did you happen to start coming to the Gold Coast in ‘72?

TD: Well, we just started coming up to Chicago because it was an interesting place to come to. I had answered an ad in The Los Angeles Free Press, which one of my roommates had had, actually met somebody who brought me out to Chicago.  It was an older, black queen.

JR: Do you remember his name?

TD: His name was Larry ______, known as the Fabulous La B.  I went to the Fabulous La B’s finishing school.  And after spending almost a year with him, coming up almost every weekend from Notre Dame, he said, “I have taught you all you know.  You have to fly off by your own.”

JR: Is he still around?

TD: I’m told he’s around.  He’s not in the phone book, he never was.  So I’m told that he’s still around.  He used to call me “Rah Rah,” for the Notre Dame thing, so...I can remember coming up to the Gold Coast and saying, “Well, this is very interesting.”  And then after graduation from Notre Dame...I had moved back to South Bend after spending a dreadful year in Albany and we started coming every Sunday for the movie.  It was only 100 miles door-to-door and we could make it in just over 60 minutes [laughs] so we came up, the year that we lived in South Bend together, Patrick, my college sweetheart, if you will, and I started coming up.  Always went to the Gold Coast.  That’s where I met the circle of friends back in the early ‘70's.  Most of them are gone now.  But that was a great time.

JR: Then what happened?

TD: Then what happened?  Then I got the job with the IRS and started working with the IRS.

JR: So you moved to Chicago?

TD: Moved to Chicago.

JR: Where’d you move to?

TD: Lived at 815 W. Dickens for two years and then have lived on Seminary since 1976.  Not the same address, but six doors down.  Right in that neighborhood.  So, I have been content ever since and have become an established part of our system of life here in the city.

JR: When did you become, for lack of a better term, a gay activist?

TD: Well, I had an interesting niche in the community with working with the IRS, in that the area that I worked in covered what is now River North and Lincoln Park and New Town.  So I used to get all the accounts on the gay bars.  And every one of them owed money.  So that’s how I got to know most of the business people.  I can remember meeting Felicia for the first time and he was just terrified.  He had purchased the Baton from Chuck at one point.  But one of the gay bars I closed, it was called Alfie’s...no...yeah, it was called Alfie’s.  The Pub was its sister bar.  The day that I had to do the auction for the sale of its assets and what not to pay for the back payroll taxes, I had to excuse myself from the sale because I knew so many people at the sale and it would make a conflict of interest.  One way or another, I met them all.  And because I knew them from the business backgrounds, I started to get involved in various causes with them, down the line.  The big one was Toys For Tots, which preceded the AIDS stuff, in 1978, 1979.  Felicia and Renslow used to collaborate that one time a year, when they weren’t at each other’s throats, at the holiday time, doing the Toys For Tots, the slave auction, and the drag show, once a year.  That’s how I started my evolution into the leather and more of a community activist.  I started becoming a volunteer at Howard Brown in 1979.  I felt I had to give something back to the community because I had used Howard Brown’s services and it was like, they always needed somebody to help out. 

JR: The first Toys for Tots was held in November of 1971. 

TD: Was it that far back?

JR: That was before...

TD: Before my time, yeah. 

JR: Then let’s move up to Gay Pride in ‘72.

TD: Well, I wasn’t here yet. 

JR: You missed the first Mr. Gold Coast in ‘72?

TD: Yeah.  I was in the Mr. Gold Coast Contest in 1980.

JR: Alright.  We’ll get there.

TD: I can remember...in moving up, there was nothing really so far as [?]’s involvement in the community, early on.  I still have my Man’s Country card from the week it opened in 1973.  I think it was ‘73.

JR: September 19th. 

TD: I was there the first week.  I have a low number, 1756.

JR: What was it like?

TD: It was incredible.  It really was incredible.  The place was absolutely packed.  Every room was full, every locker was taken.  You could barely move in the alleyways.  There was a lot of group sex, there was a lot of sex for practice, for lack of a better term.

JR: Sex for practice?

TD: Yeah, it’s like you can practice your blow-jobs or practice fucking or practice getting fucked.    There was no emotion attachment.  It was really quite mechanical.  You’d save...after you practiced a bit, you’d have the one you really wanted, so...I took a lot of edge off rejection and things like that.  People didn’t feel that sort of thing.  So you honed a craft, if you will.

JR: Was that your first experience with a bath house.

TD: I was at the Club Baths.  There were three of us, we used to run up from South Bend, when we used to come up, and invariably two of us would end up over at the Club Baths and one of us would get laid out of the Gold Coast and go home with somebody.  We’d arrange to meet again back at the Gold Coast.  Cause after the five o’clock movie was over...I don’t know if anyone’s told you told you that the five o’clock movie back then was...people didn’t pay much attention to the screen.  It was packed in, there was nothing but cock-sucking and fucking going on during the movie.  I have vivid memories of one seven-way that I had that lasted between the movies.  They actually had to ask us to leave [laughs].  They didn’t mind...once the movie started, you couldn’t really get into the door, it was that crowded.  But after the movie was over, it petered out, so to speak.  But we continued to carry on and then it would [?] around again for the ten o’clock show.  And that went on from about ‘73 to about ‘78.  It was quite an amazing thing.  They always had bad movies, like b-class movies.  I remember seeing...gosh, what was it called?  Cobra Woman was one of my favorites.  The only movie that Renslow actually ever owned was...All About Eve.  And we joked that it reached the point that if they didn’t get the rental one that they had, they’d play All About Eve.  And anybody in the place could actually lip synch All About Eve.  One day they actually did turn the sound down and people piped in and did that sort of thing. 

JR: Did you see Rocky Horror Picture Show there?

TD: That one I don’t remember seeing there.  I told you, they didn’t have good movies there. 

JR: Well, Mr. Gold Coast was held in ‘73.  Were you at that one?

TD: Nope.  I don’t remember the Gold Coast Contest actually being held until later.  When John _______ was a judge for IML it was like ‘72.  It’s like, “Gosh, I don’t remember any of this.”  I really remember it being built around ‘79 and then ‘80. 

JR: In February of ‘74, Sally Rand appeared at Man’s Country.

TD: Yeah.  I saw Sally Rand at Man’s Country, and her bubble.  It was quite...it’s like, “Is this woman still alive?” type of thing.  I mean, she was old then, really old.  She died somewhat after that.  That was when Gary...I think Gary was doing the scheduling. 

JR: What was it like?

TD: All the entertainment there, I thought was interesting.  I mean, you went there for a show and a play.  It was a total weekend experience almost.  There were some people who’d come in from the burbs and rent a weekend...from Indiana and rent a room for the entire weekend. 

JR: So did you actually watch the show in a towel?

TD: Yeah.

JR: And everyone else did?

TD: Yeah, everyone else did, yeah.

JR: Was there sex going on in the music hall?

TD: Not during the show, but it did go on in the music hall.  It went on in every available space that you could do it in.  If you were comfortable with the group scene and putting on a show.  Sometimes you’re in that frame of mind, sometimes you’re not.  And there were a lot of drugs, so that made a big difference.

JR: What was the drug usage like?

TD: The drug usage, I would say, was largely acid and mda and grass.  The mda and the acid, for whatever reason, have fallen by the wayside.  Mda was one of the best drugs to fuck on.  Except people felt like shit the next morning, or after the weekend was over. 

JR: In April of ‘74, the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its official diagnostic manual of mental disorders.  Do you remember anything like that?

TD: That I don’t remember.  I remember the Bruce ______ stuff.

JR: Do you?  How do you remember the Bruce ______ stuff?

TD: Because when I was working with the IRS, I was informed by one of my teachers, who turned out later to be my gay mother in an adoption thing, he told me that my name was on a list, along with his and number of other people.

JR: Because you were gay and working for the IRS?

TD: Yeah.  They knew that and they were moving forward on it.

JR: On...

TD: To get rid of us.

JR: To get rid of us.  And what happened?

TD: Because of Bruce ______’s litigation, I believe that came down in ‘74-’75, that the...it was pending for years and years and years.  So when it came down, it was like, “Well, we’re okay.”

JR: Really, it hit you that way, huh?

TD: Yeah.  A couple of years ago, when Bruce was inducted into the Hall of Fame and I was reading his...you know, the little bio that was in the booklet for his introduction and what not, I just broke down and cried and said, “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you.”  It’s true.

JR: The Gay VD Clinic opened by Horizons in May of ‘74.  Were you a part of any of that kind of stuff?

TD: Only as a client.

JR: Only as a client.

TD: Only as a client and that was a regular thing.  It was crazy there, too.  Everybody would show up on Wednesday or Thursday because by that time the drip had set in from the weekend and it was no big deal, you get your shot and move on. 

JR: Did you go to the first White Party in ‘74?

TD: No, I didn’t get to a White Party until several years later.  My late lover remembers those and was involved with Chuck back in the ‘60's because he...my late lover, was involved in the formation of MAFIA and the Chicago...er, the Second City Motorcycle Club.

JR: And who was he?

TD: His name was Jack Shawn. 

JR: Jack Shawn?

TD: Yeah, he died back in ‘86 now.  And he wore...one of the reasons that I was always attracted to Dom [?] was because Jack or Dom could have passed for twins.  It’s quite interesting.  Same size, same stature, same mild manner. 

JR: In July 4 of 1975, the Federal Service Commission banned the arbitrary practice of dismissal or refusal to hire known homosexuals.

TD: That’s the Bruce thing.

JR: Alright.  The first Prairie Fire Run was sponsored by Second [?] Club, Chicago Knights, and the Pride of Chicago in ‘75.  Did you go to those runs at all?

TD: I went to Wild Onion.  I think it was...there was Prairie Fire and then there was Wild Onion.  I think it was after that.  Prairie Fire was the first one.  I think there were two more after that.  They were just dreadful camp. 

JR: What do you mean, dreadful camp?

TD: Well, it rained, it was muddy.  The facilities were not great, as far as cleanliness.  People didn’t care back then as we do now.  It was kind of grungy and sleeping outside in the mud was not the best of things.  I can remember being in someone’s tent and that person waking up and thinking he had unzipped the tent to piss outside and he was actually pissing on my feet.  I’m like, “I don’t think so.” [laughs]

JR: That surprises me.  I heard you were into water sports.

TD: Oh, I am now.  Was then, too, but it was like...

JR: This is taped, Tom, be careful...

TD: I don’t care.   I’ve done just about everything over the years.  It’s like, you got to try it just once.  Or as Mae West said, you got to try it twice, I think, in case you did it wrong the first time. 

JR: You weren’t active in any organizations or movements in the early ‘70's?

TD: No.  I was just a gay boy coming out and experiencing things.  As I approach my thirtieth birthday, I felt more of a sense of responsibility towards life and things like that. 

JR: When did you begin working for Howard Brown?

TD: Started my volunteer work in the late ‘70's, at Howard Brown, spinning blood in the lab. 

JR: Really?

TD: Yeah.  Cause I was a meticulous person and they wanted someone who was anal retentive and could keep good records and could work by himself.  So they used to bring back the blood samples and I’d spin them down and separate them out into two parts and send them off for processing. 

JR: Was this a part-time job...

TD: Volunteer.

JR: Like one night a week or something?

TD: Every Thursday for five years.

JR: Were you there at Howard Brown when they were on the verge of closing in ‘76 because of financial difficulties?  Or was this afterwards?

TD: That was afterwards.

JR: Alright.  Did you ever hear of a guy named Paul ______?  He owned the Bijou Theater.

TD: Only from the IRS stand point.  I would follow that sort of thing in the paper. 

JR: When did you met Chuck?

TD: I knew about Chuck because of Jack ______.  The first time that I can recall actually meeting Chuck had to do with the slave auction in 1979.  Because the person that I wanted was the manager of the Gold Coast. 

JR: What was his name?

TD: Phil Spence.  Phil was probably 4' 11" in boots and he was hung at least eleven inches.  It was a great time.  On my first leather vest, he gave me a gold star.  We dated for about four months before he let me down very gently because he found somebody else.  Then I worked my way through the rest of the Gold Coast staff.  But, you know, Chuck invariably participated in any of the auctions for any of his staff that was there, to make sure that he had the high bid if there was somebody in the audience that they didn’t want or whatnot.  And Chuck had no idea who the fuck I was.  I was on the other side of the stage, “I want Phillip!” and I said that this is a good way to get things started.  Phillip and I had cruised and talked some time before that.  The bidding started and whatnot and we got up to $375.  And Chuck’s like, “Who the fuck is this?”  And Phillip like saying, “Let him take it, let him take it.”  And we started to talk after that.  We never really talked in-depth, in-depth, but we talked when we were seeing each other at the bars and social events like that.  So that was the first real time that he was aware of who I was after it was explained to him that I was the one who worked for the IRS that everybody knew and that Phillip was interested in him.  Then I became like a regular after hours.  Like I said, I worked my way through almost all the bartenders who were there.  So, it was a great time.  I was the one person who was like the odd man out, who had a day job.  Back then in ‘79 and ‘80, there was the rivalry between Jim Flint and Renslow, you could cut it with a steak knife.  So...

JR: What caused that rivalry?

TD: It was good for business, for one, the fact that they were like Macy’s and Gimble’s on Miracle on 34th Street, right across the street from each other, there on Illinois.  People would go from one bar to the other, and make the entrance and whatnot.  So there may have been some financial implications involved in it at some point.  And when Felicia started out to do whatever he wanted to do, he wanted to be the best at it.  And he wasn’t a good businessman either. [laughs] I saw his records and Chuck’s.  So...but they battled.  It was really the interplay of the staff.  People like Gary _____ and Jim _____ and Phil ______ and Chuck ______[?] and...gosh, what was Russell’s first name?   Jay _______, who was one of Flint’s staff and the staff intermingled and the staff started to play with each other and whatnot and that sort of broke down the wall that existed on Illinois Street.

JR: You don’t know of any big argument or falling apart they had?

TD: I’m not aware of it.  But there’s probably something hidden because there really was an animosity for years.  And they finally broke it down over the Toys for Tots thing and when AIDS hit, the wall came down all together.  And then they decided that they be better off to collaborate.   By that time, though, Steve R[?] was down in the neighborhood [laughs], running the O-Zone[?], so they were both against him.  It was a great time for being out and being a leather person, with three bars that catered to the leather community right there within of walking distance.  You could just go from one to another.  Probably the most intense discussions that I had with Chuck, shortly thereafter, had to deal with the...his acquisition of Gay Life, which I negotiated. 

JR: We’ll get to that in a few more years.

TD: Yeah.  That was actually 1980. 

JR: But in May of ‘79, we have the first IML.  Were you a part of that?

TD: I was not a part of that one.

JR: Did you go to it?

TD: I didn’t go to it.  It’s one of two that I’ve missed.  So I missed that one.  I missed the one in ‘85 because I was on a rested break from somebody who was about to die.  I needed to get away.

JR: In ‘79, there’s a raid on Carol’s Speakeasy and New Flight.  Were you a part of any of that protest or raids or anything like that?

TD: No. 

JR: In October of ‘79, _____, Donovan ____ and Roger ______ founded MAFIA.  Did you know of those men?

TD: I knew Sudsy.  I played with Roger ______.  And I knew who Donovan _____ was.

JR: You don’t know whatever happened to Donovan or Roger, do you?

TD: Roger is dead...

JR: What about Ashe?

TD: ...He died in Wisconsin.  I don’t know about Ashe.  Sudsy was one of the first ones to die from AIDS. 

JR: In ‘79, also, there’s the First National March on Washington.  Did you go to Washington?

TD: No.  I was not terribly political back then.  The coming out at work, with the IRS and whatnot was like...we had the laws against being politically involved with certain candidates and things like that and it just sort of carried over into other political protests and things like that.  And while I had a visibility at the bars, it was like a visibility at a protest thing would have been a little bit more than the IRS might have appreciated. 

JR: Speaking about the IRS, I’m not certain of the month.  I have conflicting reports.  It was February or May that Chuck bailed out Gay Life.

TD: I’m not sure when either.  I know...I can picture the night that the deal was struck because the deal happened in the Barracks Hotel, which was above the Machine Shop and Ira Jones and I hammered the deal out until two o’clock in the morning.

JR: What was that deal?

TD: That Chuck would accept the debt of Gay Life, which was payroll tax, in whatever exchange that Grant Ford wanted to make monetarily versus the stock on the Gold Coast and whatnot.

JR: I have it that that payroll tax was $60,000.

TD: Probably.  I don’t remember.

JR: That sounds like a huge sum for a...

TD: No, because it racked up for quite some time.  It was amazing the number of people who did not...they alleged that they withheld payroll tax from their employees, but they never turned it over to the IRS.  The IRS was slow in coming around and once I got on the bead, it was like, “Okay...”  The old insurance salesman type of thing where I would visit the newspaper office once a week to pick up a check, as they would try to whittle their back taxes down.  But Grant Ford wasn’t a businessman either.  And when Chuck took it over, he really didn’t have all that much cash flow.  They were on a payroll plan and it took them quite awhile to pay it off.

JR: Did they pay it off?

TD: When the newspaper finally folded, there was a transfer of the remaining outstanding payroll taxes, the trustee portion of it, to certain members of the corporation.  I know they tried to get Jim ____[?], whose name was on some checks or he was involved in the office.  But Jimmy knew that, you know, that Gil or J[?] would write up the checks, for Chuck to sign or whatnot, and they would sit there in a drawer because they didn’t have the money to send them out.  That’s the story I heard on [??].  There was an insurance policy in place, but they never paid the premiums cause they didn’t have the money.  Almost every business that Chuck ran ended up with payroll tax problems.  So...except for Man’s Country, I think.  Everybody thought that his connection...the alleged connection with the Mob...if he had all these connections, he wouldn’t be in this kind of situation or have this kind of problem.  So I never believed the allegation that were made about that.  When we first saw this, when Walter and I both saw this [?] and I saw this and the connection with the Bijou thing, it’s like, “Well, why is that all in there?  What’s that all about? And do we want to know?  No.  Okay.” [laughs].  So financially, I know that he had the house on...nowadays he’s got the house on Beacon, which has a hefty mortgage on it and the property up in Wisconsin.  So...I don’t know what else the Man’s Country building could be used for.  So, it’s like...He was really upset when he had to give up the corner property that the restaurant was in because he worked hard to get that building in the first place.  I remember seeing his tax returns and Agie’s[?] tax returns, and most of the staff’s tax returns.  I wisely put that behind me now.  But it was that type of situation.  The fact that I had access to that type of information on so many people that put me in an awkward position, in being social with them.  So I really had to make a kind of barrier. 

JR: What part did Ira Jones play in the negotiations?

TD: Ira actually handled it.  Chuck wasn’t there.

JR: What was Ira doing at the time for Chuck?

TD: Ira was, I believe, manager or owner of the Machine Shop and, I thought he had something to do with the barracks.  At that time, I was dating one of the gentlemen who was working at the Machine Shop, a gorgeous black man who looked like Billy Dee Williams. 

JR: What was his name?

TD: Harold Van Trishe.  He ended up moving to Toronto.  I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. 

JR: In June of ‘81, the CDC announced that five men in Los Angeles had been diagnosed with [??]-pneumonia.  What was your first indication of the AIDS tragedy?   What do you remember the first thing you knew?

TD: That really didn’t take hold here in Chicago until two years later.  It really was slow coming here.  It was something that happened on the Coasts.  People really didn’t know anybody here.  It hit those people who were the fastest drug users and the ones who used to travel the most, either to the East or West Coast.  So I think we were in a real delayed response here in Chicago.  It really didn’t start hitting until ‘83, when people started to know each other.  Sudsy was among that first group.  It’s like, “Gosh, Sudsy looks great.  He’s on a diet or something.”  He had that three month period where he looked great and then he went down hill.  And then it was like, something’s wrong with this.  Something that the people aren’t telling us about this whole thing.  It took until, I think, mid ‘84, late ‘84 before people started to really talk about it.  People were aware of it at Howard Brown, that something strange was going on.  But I think there was still more of a concern about Hepatitis, cause that’s where Howard Brown’s money was coming from, the Hepatitis-B study.  So, it was like, you’d follow this stuff, but you wouldn’t get that much, as far as what was in the press and whatnot.  In retrospect, in going back, it’s like, we can recall, you know, several people who were sick with strange symptoms, who would have probably, if you went back and did autopsies and whatnot, in the late ‘70's, who would probably qualify...again, these were people who were heavy drug users and a lot of them into fisting. 

JR: In September of ‘83, there was a raid on the Gold Coast and Doug [?] was the bartender.  He and several others were arrested.  Were you familiar with that at all?

TD: I knew that that had happened.  And I knew that Doug was most upset because his age was given in the paper.  And he was kind of left holding the bag.  It was not surprising that the Gold Coast was raided because the sex did take place there and it was encouraged to take place there.  No one ever deterred anyone from having sex at the Gold Coast. 

JR: Really?

TD: Yeah.

JR: I get other stories.

TD: So, I mean, I didn’t play that much, other than the Sunday movies downstairs.  But I certainly was invited back behind the door where the liquor was.  I was invited upstairs to the office by two of the managers.  So, it was like, the sex did go on and no one discouraged it.  Doug was a great bartender.  He was really the first prominent black bartender on the entire circuit, anyplace.

JR: Did that cause a commotion of any sorts, that a black bartender was in Chicago?

TD: It was a rare occasion.  It really was a rare occasion because of the segregatation in the city.  And for years, Doug had been the only one.   There was a doorman that Sidetrack had years later.  And now there’s three or four of them, including my own...my own significant other works at Little Jim’s now.  But they were very rare.  I don’t know why.  In some cases, I’ve been told that people didn’t want a black bartender because that would bring a black clientele and the black clientele didn’t buy cocktails, just stood around and didn’t drink.  It’s all about making money. 

JR: Did you know Frank Kellas in these days...these years at all?

TD: I don’t know.  Over the years, I knew who Frank Kellas was.  I know that he...the whole MAFIA thing and the clubs and whatnot and that he was a popular person in the bars.  And how he ended up buying the Gold Coast, I’ll never know.  I think part of it was because Chuck owned that building or was trying to get that building.  Even before the bar moved up there...Phil Spence’s apartment was above the Gold Coast and so that was back in 1979, when I was dating Phillip.  So Chuck had an interest in stuff up there.  When the bar finally moved up there...course, that didn’t happen until ‘85...no, ‘87, I think...I’m trying to think. [?] was IML and whatnot.  I remember Tom K[?] walking in the bar in ‘87 because Frank insisted that we bring him over there.  He was staying with me.  I was his chauffeur.  It was like there was nobody in the place.  It was like, “Okay”...

JR: I got you.  I’ve got to stop you for a second [tape stop and resumes]

TD: ...the move, even though the Baths was right there, people said that it was too far North.  No parking, and the parking situation is still a problem in that neighborhood.  It was too much of a change.  I think part of it is the whole visibility thing in Chicago, as far as leather goes.  I mean, Touche’ did so well when it was on Lincoln, cause it was away from everybody else.  As Lincoln’s business started to change, business started to go down there as well.  People were comfortable wearing their leather someplace where everybody they worked with wasn’t going to see them.  So I think there has always been a visibility problem in Chicago.  There is so many people who are closeted, who are into leather.  And you may see them dressed in leather at IML or in some other city, but it really is a big closet.  The last closet in Chicago. 

JR: How did you become involved in IML?

TD: Well, I’ve been in the contest, in 1980.  The Gold Coast Contest, going to that contest for the first time and returning every year.  I dated one of the bartenders from the Read Out and he had become president of the Chicago Knights and I became first lady of the Chicago Knights.

JR: What was his name?

TD: Chuck Probert.  He lives down in Florida now and is probably on his last year now.  Together, in 1980, we were in the slave auction together.  That was the year my mother died and I said, “Well, we’ll do the slave auction for her, as a memorial type thing for Toys for Tots.”  And so we managed to collect $1,500 from people back in Rochester, New York, who had no idea what the money was going for.  So that was kind of fun.  But then with going with the clubs...the Chicago Knight Motorcycle Club used to have their anniversary weekend the same weekend as IML.  So Jim Flint, at one time, was the president of the Chicago Knights and they had this whole group of, you know, three hundred people used to come in just for the club thing.  And the IML show was just kind of like an added thing on top of that.  So, in 1984, the clubs had started to fold because, like everything in Chicago, you can’t have more than three or four people who’ll agree about anything before you have to start your own group.  So that had started to happen.  I’d made friends, in 1980, with the contestant, one of the contestants from Denver, who represented the Triangle.  So I visited Colorado over the next couple of years and had a base of friends there.  In spring of 1984, they told me that they had selected Mr. Leather Colorado.  They knew my tastes and they were sending him to me.  I was like, “Alright.”  I got a Polaroid photo of Ron ______ and I was like, “Eh, nice.”  Nice black kid.  Went to the airport and was like, “Jesus fucking Christ.  This kid is built like a brick shithouse.”  Shy as they could come, just as sweet as they could be.  His sponsors were there.  It was like, “Hi, how are you?” and “He’s yours.”  So I took him home, away from the hotel and whatnot and Jack Shawn and I drilled him in a speech, said, “This is garbage what you’re saying.  What do you really want to say here?”  So we redid the speech for him and put him through a workout, took him along the lakefront to run and things like that.  We packed him a bunch of goodies to take to the prejudging and whatnot, with a bunch of encouraging notes to open at certain times, and things like that.  Got him to bed at the proper time, with proper attention, as well.  He edged out a contestant from Florida, who had been the [?] titleholder, this gorgeous blond type.  It was like, “Alright.”  Ron was the first real man of color to compete, who had an edge and Dom loved him.  Dom was just as crazy about him.  Going from that, he was staying at the house.  He sister was a lesbian police officer from Omaha and so she and her girlfriend came around the house as well.  Instead of the big celebration that they have now after the winner, the five of us had champaign and then I took Ron on a bar tour and I brought him back in and we stayed up and talked all night.  He had to go right back.  He was working for Mountain Bell at the time.  So I negotiated all of his prizes and things like that with Renslow.  “You will ship the motorcycle” and that sort of thing.  So that’s how I got involved behind the scenes and whatnot.  I got to see the contestant registration and back then it was pretty much the beauty contest type of thing.  Ron was the first one to start [??] it because that was when AIDS was starting to take hold. [???] and Mountain Denver and whatnot.  Just by being behind the scenes, I got to see what this was all about.  Eighty-five was the year I took off because of...my first lover, who I was no longer lovers with, but who I was still best friends with, was dying.  So I said, “I got to get out of here” and took off on Memorial Day Weekend to New York.  And then coming back in ‘86, Chicago House was already up and running.  I approached Chuck to do the charity thing and he said, “Fine.  You do my speech, you can do your speech.”  That’s how the whole speech thing got started.

JR: What does that mean?

TD: The fact that for every year since 1986, I have written his welcome speech, which he gives at the show, the letter that’s in the souvenir program, the letter that’s in the show program.  We talk about five minutes and I put down whatever I want to say.  It works fairly well. 

JR: So in ‘86, you gave a speech to raise money for Chicago House.

TD: Chicago House, yeah. 

JR: I’m going to go back to Chicago House, once you finish the whole story.  What happened then in ‘87?

TD: Eighty-seven, they needed a place a place for a contestant from Germany to stay.  I was like, “Sure.  Fine.”  And So Tom Korash[?] was given to me for a week.  And we coached him as well.  And became good friends after he left as well.  A very nice gentleman, never got a chance to play with him.  We joked about it an awful lot.  He was more interested in black men, as was I was.  So it was like...one of my other close friends that he actually hitched up with.  We joked about it because Charles was the last queen behind other doors, but he could put on a manly image and chase Tom around and whatnot.  But there was a fascination, I think, between German men and black men.  So that was great fun.  Eighty-seven...eighty-six and eighty-seven were the only years that I was able to give a speech by myself at IML.  The next three years, Judith and I did it together, with Howard Brown and Chicago House.  That was fun because we played off of each other.  I still have the speeches on diskette someplace.  We did some comedy routines and some things like that, jabbing each other.  Jumping forward from that.  I moved from the...the year that Dom was dying...it just shook me when I saw Dom...Jack Shawn, my second lover, the one who had brought me out in leather and the one who had known Chuck, was 23 years older than I was; he died in 1986, of emphysema and fibrosis of the lungs.  And when I saw Dom in 1990, it was like seeing Jack’s ghost.  Dom’s going to be dead shortly.  He was quite weak.  It was the first year that they asked me to do more than the charity thing.  They wanted me to coordinate the press because they wanted more press on it.  They wanted me to serve as the judges coordinator and Chuck threw tally-master on top of that as well.   It was like, “Okay.”  Just standing behind Dom and watching him...that year we had, I don’t know, forty or forty-four contestants, something like that and they did all the preliminaries in one day, and the contest in one day.  And it was like, Dom was really tired, by the time it was over.  They didn’t thing he’d make it to the theater.  I guess it was Dom’s choice to Chuck because he was impressed with what I did and he knew what I had done with the charity and stuff like that and my interest in the whole thing.  I saw how people could use the title to make money for charity.  He was the one who conferred with Chuck and suggested that I take it over when he no longer could.   Surprised the hell out of me.  I said, “If I was going to do one more volunteer thing for it, I’d be the chief judge.”  I’ve been asked back again for next year.  So, I’ve been chief judge for four years, tried to steer it along nicely.  And I think we have.  I was ready to retire after this year.  I have the finest group of judges this year.  Man, I thought we did great last year, but this year was perfect.  Any dissention at all...we were all pretty much the same age and mentality and whatnot and had all suffered so much lost that it was an interesting experience.  The magic this year for me was the judges rather than the contestants.  “The top of the list,” I said, “I’ve only got one more name under U that I haven’t brought up and suggested to be a judge.  But then Doug Newark[?] died and...that’s a pillar there.  If I back out as well...this thing is on such shaky ground anyway.  It’s all smoke and mirrors, as you’ve seen [laughs].  So, I’ve submitted my list of recommendations for next year and next year will have the first woman as well, which is Chuck’s choice.  He asked Amy Marie over the weekend and that will be very interesting.  I don’t know if it will take it into a different direction or not.  So that’s how I got involved in IML.  I think I’m probably the only person to have every coached two of them to victory.  Best memory is the Ron Moore weekend, knowing that I was the only one in Chicago who had him!  Twice!  That was great.

JR: Let’s back up.  Can you tell me the story of the Chicago House?

TD: Yeah.  My first lover was Pat ______, who worked for the First National Bank of Chicago.  We were college sweethearts, that sort of thing.  Moved up to Chicago and after, we had been together for, I think, four years, and parted amicably.  He was going off into another direction and I was going to law school at night.  There really wasn’t time, so we were both growing differently.  We went to the World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1984 and the week he came back from that, he was in the hospital with pneumonia.  And that was my first...actually, my second exposure because Phil ______, who at that time was living in Houston, was the first person that I knew personally who had been diagnosed with AIDS.  That was around July of 1984.  Patrick went fairly quickly.  Some of the chemotherapy knocked him out really bad and by February of 1985, he was doing really poorly.  I managed to sell his house, got him moved into an apartment, got his estate in order and whatnot.  He died on June 9, 1985, at home.  The last couple weeks of his life were really rough because even though he had all of this great insurance coverage and whatnot, from First National Bank, it didn’t include the custodial care type of insurance most people need at the end.  They just need somebody to be there.  So we had to do the round-the-clock shifts and whatnot.  It was seeing what Patrick went through and what we had to go through, to have somebody there, that when he died, we put in his obituary...in his obituary, we said, “We need to have a community discussion about this type of thing.”  Somebody who has all of this health care insurance and other resources is having difficulty dying, what about all the people who don’t have that?  I was really struck by that because all the bartenders who were part of my circle, who not insurance whatsoever.  As a result of that obituary, which was in Gay Chicago, there was a community forum that was called.  Harley and Jim Flint and I and Big Red met at Big Red’s Patio and put the agenda for it together.  And Wakefield[?] was involved in it as well.  And it was done from the stage at the Baton, over three meetings, over the course of a month.  Out of that, there was one group...we found a group of seven people who were basically social workers and religious types who didn’t have an ounce of business sense between them, who were already working towards something.  There were several of us from the leather community who were interested in this sort of thing.  So we started to hook together and took it from there.   Chicago House was incorporated September 9 of ‘85.  By the day after Thanksgiving, we had raised $75,000 and we were on our way.

JR: How’d you raise the money?

TD: We did shows, which Jim Flint sponsored.  We did the slave auction at the Gold Coast.  We did tag days on the street.  Whatever we could do.  And as part of the IML thing over the next couple of years, I got my head shaved twice.  I had a full body shave one year.  Scary.  Mind you, the year that I had seven celebrities shave me was the year they didn’t have a camera available.

JR: Aren’t you lucky.

TD: I was livid.  It was Al Parker and the lover at the time was Justin and I can’t remember...Justin was actually was actually a barber and was able to clean things up when it was all done.  I forget who was IML...it must have been when Patrick T[?] stepped out.  Mark Alexander, who was drummer[?] and there were like two other title holders.  I could tell who knew what he was doing and who didn’t.  It was like, the only one who knew what he was doing was the barber, Justin.  So the rest of these butch types were like, nick here, nick there.  And then I was described in the...it was The Advocate or the [?] and said, “Some poor shapeless man was shaved for $2,000 for charity.” [laughs]

JR: How did you raise $2,000?  Did people pay to watch?