CR: In 1959...I’ll give you some sequence of events here...in 1959, before I knew him, I went to...I had live in New York at one point, around ‘52 and ‘53, so I was kind of familiar with New York and I hadn’t been back.  I’d gone back.  I’d live there and then I’d gone back to college.  Then moved to Chicago in ‘57 because I was from right outside of Chicago.  And in 1959, I was talking to someone in a bar and they were giving me this schpeal that there were these leather bars in New York and these strange people and so I perked up.  I wasn’t aware of it when lived there before.  I’m not sure if they were really there then.  They were on 3rd Avenue.  What I basically said was, “Oh gee, tell me where they are, so I won’t make the mistake of actually walking in to one of them!” [laughs].  I got a couple of locations and immediately planned my vacation and went to New York [laughs] and met a few people and in the meantime, back in Chicago, I met Chuck and Dom through the fact that they had Kris Studio and I was doing some artwork and I was trying to peddle it to them.  Somebody introduced me to them, a mutual friend. 

JR: Okay. 

CR: A guy name Teddy _______.  ____________, I think.  Polish spelling.  So I came back from my vacation and some of the people I met in New York were coming to town.

JR: What year was the vacation?

CR: Fifty-nine.

JR: You already knew Chuck by then?

CR: Either knew him then or met him shortly thereafter.  After I got back I think.

JR: Okay...

CR: I think I met him after I got back.

JR: Alright. 

CR: And here’s where the point of this is.  Some people that were socially prominent in the gay/leather community in New York that I had met were coming to town.  They wanted to met Phil Sparrow.  By this time, I knew...let me just pin this down a second.  It’s slipping away there, who knew who.  I didn’t know Phil Sparrow.  I had had a tattoo from Phil Sparrow, but I didn’t know him socially.  They wanted to meet him and I think that I knew that Chuck and Dom knew him, or something like that.  So I called up Chuck and Dom and said, “Hey, there’s some people...somebody I want you to meet.”  They had no idea who I was talking about because they didn’t know me really very well.  Okay?  So we met at Sam’s Bar, by pre-arrangement, and that’s how we got to know that we were all as weird as we were cause here I was introducing them to these really weird people that they had heard of, or something like that, you know.  That’s how I got more involved with them.  So that would be 1959 or ‘60.  But the Gold Coast wasn’t yet.  Chuck’s memory must be playing tricks on him.  Cause then what happened was within a short period of time, I said to Chuck and Dom that it’s a shame we don’t have a group here; it’s all casual, whether somebody accidentally runs into somebody else at Sam’s Bar on Clark Street.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Sam’s.

JR: Yeah, I did.

CR: Just off of Chicago Avenue, Division, someplace off of there.  All torn down area.  And I said what we ought to do...I remember this conversation as if it happened yesterday...we should all sit down and call all the people that each of us know and suggest that we all start meeting on a given night, like Saturday night; we all would be at a particular bar on a particular night as a nucleus.  And we did.  And the bar, I think, was Sam’s at first.  Well, we were just a pimple on Sam’s nose at that point.  We started getting a larger and larger group and very quickly decided that Sam’s wasn’t the right place.  Now there was bar down in the Loop and it was in the basement; it was a big basement.  It served food during the day time and it was patronized mostly by businessmen.  And at night it became was called then “Black and Tan.” It was a mixed race type of thing.  A “Downtown Queen’s” type of thing.  Remember now, we’re talking about 1960 or so.  We started going there.  We would occupy a table and pretty soon it grew and we occupied two tables.  And then there would be people sitting at other tables who had heard about us, they would start looking and looking and looking; pretty soon they would join our tables.  This went on for a while.  And then we heard of a bar off Washington Square, I guess...what is the street that runs north and south on the west side of Washington Square?

JR: Clark?

CR: Is it Clark?

JR: I think it’s Clark, I’m not sure.

CR: Okay, wasn’t sure.  There was a bar there...I think it was a straight bar that had had some trouble and didn’t have any clients and we made it...we got an understanding with the owner that we would be welcome...

JR: Was that the Gold Coast bar?

CR: Nope.  Still wasn’t the Gold Coast.

JR: So you’re not there yet?

CR: No.  We’re still not there yet.  That’s what I’m saying...

JR: I’ve heard this story, but you’re telling a little bit more detail than Chuck has thrown in. 

CR: So we started going to this bar; it was owned by some sort of Mafioso looking Italian guy.  Remember, it was a straight bar.  And it really started to grow there.  I can’t remember the name, but he might remember the name, if you remind him.

JR: I actually wrote a column about this and...keep talking, I’ll find the column, maybe that’ll give me some information, too.

CR: Okay.  We were doing rather well at that place.  We were basically took it over, kind of, at least weekends, I guess.  But he got closed down; it wasn’t anything to do with us; it was something to do with a girl, a hooker, or something like that.  He actually lost his license and were suddenly without a place to go.  Well, up on Broadway, what later became known as U-town[?], there was a bar called Mary’s, a woman owned it.  And the group started going there and the group was getting bigger and bigger all the time.  And then, I don’t remember why, some personality clash with Mary or something like that. 

Now the Gold Coast.  There was this bar at Clark and Elm.  It was the Gold Coast.  And we started going there and at one point...and it was working quite well...at some point, the owner offered us a percentage.  Chuck said no cause then that undercuts the whole social aspect, which was all it was.  It wasn’t a money making venture; this was to provide ourselves with a social group.  Then they offered it for sale and I remember, again very clearly, Chuck said, “Gee, I think we ought to buy this bar.”  I said, “No, you don’t want to go into the bar business.” If you go into the bar business, then it isn’t social anymore and so forth and so on.  I sort of got out-voted and we bought the bar.  There were three partners.  One was Renslow and Company, which included me, Dom, you know, and there was Herbie Schmidt, the guy who has the [?], you know.  Who is a good friend of ours at that time.  I suppose he would be, if anybody ever saw anybody.

JR: I interviewed him. 

CR: Okay, good. 

JR: He wouldn’t let me use a tape recorder, though.

CR: And Artie Marotta was the third, this guy from New Jersey.  You have that name?

JR: I do. 

CR: And so that was the Gold Coast.  So there was too much time there between my vacation in New York, which gave me the idea that we ought to try to put a group together...this probably the first time you heard that, but that’s the gossip...

JR: About putting the group together?

CR: Yeah.

JR: No, you could’ve read that whole story in Gay Chicago magazine about a year ago.

CR: With names?

JR: Yeah. 

CR: Was I in there?

JR: Yeah. 

CR: Did it say that it was my idea?

JR: No.  It didn’t say it was your idea.

CR: See what I mean?

JR: It took a while to find you so don’t feel too bad.  Chuck had you living in a place called Nine Palms.

CR: Well, Chuck’s problem was that he didn’t simply call the tattoo shop on Belmont Avenue, and they could’ve given him the phone number [laughs].  That would have been the easiest route.

JR: Let’s see...

CR: Too simple.

JR: Yeah, I’m looking to see...I’m on my word processor, I’m trying to see what I have here.  Let me read to you and see if it can...you know, what I need to change or add to.  I’ve just finished talking about The Wild Ones and Marlon Brando and ‘53 the movie, and I said it was a short step to finding a store that sold motorcycles and getting your own leather jacket.  “It may not be easy to say which came first, the movie or the mystique, but by 1955, the jacket made of leather was a sign of those looking for rough sex.  By 1957, Chuck, Dom, James ______, Robert ________, Blain ______, Dieter _______, and Jim ________ had established a contingent of local leather men, though they didn’t yet call themselves by that name.  It was a Chicago contingent that networked both coasts and included such early leather men such as Lou Thomas and Ron Keith in New York.   There are about eleven guys in the Chicago group and they were looking for a home, a place to go.  They would go to a gay bar and take up one corner in full leather so people would see them; it was there way of attracting men to rough sex.  The first place they tried, Omar’s, was...” quote...

CR: That’s the one downtown.

JR: “...was a butch place and a rough bar, located downtown on Clark and Madison.”

CR: Okay, it wasn’t a butch place. 

JR: What was it?

CR: Well, it was practically full of drag queens at night.  It was a real mixture.

JR: It was a cafeteria during the day time?

CR: Yes, that the one I was talking about.  That’s the first place we went after Sam’s.

JR: “In the basement, it was a cafeteria in the daytime and a gay bar by night.”

CR: Yes.  But it wasn’t a butch place.

JR: Alright.  “They hung out there for about a month or two when the managers said, ‘Get the hell outta here.’”

CR: Well, that well may be, but I don’t ...

JR: So they left and went to a bar in the Lane Hotel that had, it was a straight bar, and had no business. 

CR: Yeah.

JR: “Now the Lane Hotel...”

CR: The one on Clark.  Near Bughouse Square.

JR: That’s right.  “Now the Lane Hotel was across the street from Bughouse Square on Clark Street.  That didn’t last at all because that bar closed about three weeks after they started meeting in there.”

CR: It may have been three weeks.

JR: “Then somebody told them about a bar on Broadway and Diversy called the High Hoe.” 

CR: Okay, I thought it was called Mary’s, but maybe....

JR: “The owner was a straight woman and she didn’t have much business either.”  Was her name Kitty?

CR: I thought it was Mary or something; I may be confused.

JR: That’s alright.  It was forty years ago.  You were just a young kid, how could you remember?

CR: You got it. 

JR: “She welcomed them and the business...”

CR: [overlaps with above, unable to make out]

JR: How old are you?

CR: Then, I mean.  Now I’m sixty-two.

JR: Really?

CR: Yeah.

JR: “She welcomed them and the business they brought with them.  Their numbers grew larger.  On Friday and Saturday nights, they’d get twenty to thirty people in the bar.  She sold the bar and the new owners weren’t interested in serving a rough leather clientele.  So they left and went to a place on Elm and Clark, right on the corner.  Again, it was a straight bar, named the Gold Coast Show Lounge, owned by an Italian named Joe, a very nice man who had no business at all.  So they brought the whole group there.  The crowd and leather continued to grow.  It wasn’t long after that Joe died, the son came to the group and said, ‘Do you want to buy the business?’”

CR: That sounds right. 

JR: Okay.  “They said sure.  That’s when the Gold Coast, Chicago’s first leather bar was born.  They just took the name and the same corporation.  By the time all was said and done, just three people were actually interested in going into the bar business: Chuck, a guy from New York called Art Murda, Herb Schmidt.”

CR: Artie _______.  It’s ________.

JR: How do you spell it?

CR: Well, I think it was spelled _________.

JR: _________

CR: I think that’s the spelling...it was definitely a three syllable name. 

JR: Now did you, Dom, and Chuck form a little partnership to go in together?  How did that work?

CR: Totally unofficial, totally casual, but de facto.  We owned property together, as time went on, you know...

JR: Okay.  Let’s finish the story here.  “Dom painted murals of handsome bikers, cowboys, and athletes on the walls.  The first Gold Coast, home of Chicago’s early leather crowd, opened on March 15, 1960.”

CR: Well, that may well be.  I would never have suggested 1960, but I could be wrong.  It seems like I don’t see how all that collapsed into one year, but it may have.  It was definitely like 1959 after summer vacation.  And August, September when I suggested that we ought to get together everybody we knew in any one place...

JR: Well, let me throw a couple of other dates in here and see if we can gel some more stuff together.  In 1959, the Pan-American Games were held in Chicago.

CR: They were?

JR: Yeah. 

CR: I have no idea.

JR: Okay.  In May of ‘58, Chuck purchased Johnson’s gym on Monroe Street.

CR: Probably, yeah.

JR: Did you know him before or after he bought the gym?

CR: I was involved with him already when they had the gym.

JR: And that was ‘58.

CR: My goodness.  It was still ‘59 when I went to New York and got the idea, though [laughs].

JR: Alright. 

CR: I didn’t know them well then.  That was a place that I went to try and peddle some drawings, originally.

JR: In 1958...

CR: But that would be right, yeah, because that would be prior to the ‘59 vacation to New York...

JR: In ‘58, Kris Studios was raided by two policemen and Chuck was arrested.

CR: Yeah, to me, that’s like ancient history.  I don’t think I was very involved in it yet.

JR: Did you know him?

CR: I may have known him at that point, but not socially, you follow me?

JR: Sure.

CR: In other words, I knew him...he had a studio and this was before I had gone to New York, before I came back and said, “Let’s start a group.” 

JR: And so, when you came back from New York, that’s when you kind of looked up Chuck socially?

CR: Well, because I realized that we had mutual friends.  You follow me?

JR: Sure.

CR: When some of my new friends from New York would come to town and say, “Hey, we’re supposed to meet Chuck,” and I recall and I said, “Whoa!  That’s interesting, I’ll introduce you.”  You see what I’m saying?

JR: Yeah. 

CR: That’s exactly what happened. 

JR: Who were some of these guys from New York?

CR: Frank Olson and somebody else was with them. 

JR: Sure.

CR: I’m sure you’ve heard that name.

JR: I actually interviewed Frank a year ago.  I’ve been doing my homework, I’m just a little slow at it.  So now the five of you have this bar.  What was it like, the first year or two of Gold Coast?

CR: Well, it was just fine; it was what it was supposed to be.  Are you talking about after we purchased it?

JR: Yeah.

CR: Well there was no real change except we then had the responsibility of running it.  But the group itself was already established and continued then as a growing clientele.

JR: Who managed it?

CR: We all did [laughs].  Honestly.  We all did in a way.  Who was physically present?

JR: Yeah.

CR: We took turns.  We all had our own nights. 

JR: What night was yours?

CR: I don’t remember now what night was mine, if it wasn’t two nights a week, which it may well have been.  I remember all the nights I would go there and face the mob and fortify myself with apricot brandy in the closet there first and the bartender knew what each of us wanted to get ready for the evening [laughs] to, you know, be social.

JR: How were you supporting yourself?

CR: At that point, let’s see...by then I think I was tattooing already.

JR: And how did you begin tattooing?

CR: Well, that’s the Phil Sparrow connection.  And Phil...did you ever interview him?

JR: No, but actually Gregory Sprague interviewed him and so there are two tapes of Phil Sparrow in the Chicago Historical Society, that I’m about to transcribe.  So he’s not totally out of the picture. 

CR: Shall I talk about him?

JR: Yeah.

CR: Phil was a teacher, you know that.

JR: Sure.

CR: He was a Ph.D. in English, he was a specialist on Middle English and/or Anglo-Saxon, I’m not sure.  Was an expatriate during the expatriate period during the wars.  Phil knew Alice and Gertrude.  Did you know he slept with Thortan ________ between the writing of the second and third acts of Our Town?

JR: No.

CR: And that Thortan Wilder, as Phil put it, was into frottage? [laughs] Little things like that.  He was also an alcoholic...

JR: Who Wilder or Phil?

CR: No, Phil.  Back in Chicago, he was teaching at DePaul and I guess his drinking became a real problem and at some point, he decided he wanted to be a tattooer.  He paid some infinitesimally small amount of money to some old, drunken tattooer down on South State Street, which I assume you know, used to have all the tattoo shops back in...rocks and caves.  And got equipment and some lessons.  And then he went up and took some real lessons from a real tattooer up in Milwaukee, named Ahmand ________ [??].  And he set up shop on South State. Had a gay old time.  I had wandered into his shop one day to get a tattoo, the first tattoo I ever got and didn’t know him from Adam[?] and got a couple of others.  I had fantasies...I had figured out that he was gay by then, he had sort of made it obvious...I had fantasies that I would do some dirty pictures for him and he would give me tattoos in exchange.  I was just a poor little working stiff, you know.  I hadn’t done anything about it and at that point I met and became more acquainted with Chuck and Dom, learned that he was friend of theirs through this whole New York connection.  This then suddenly made life very interesting cause I saw the possibility.  Well, what happened was that Chuck got lessons from Phil.  Chuck got tattoo lessons from Phil in exchange for something else.  What he got in exchange for was the very simple thing of standing downtown at the North Shore Station when the sailors would come in from the Great Lakes for the weekend and handing them Phil’s card.  It was a real nice little business deal and Phil gave Chuck some lessons and Chuck gave lessons to Dom and to me.  That’s how I got started tattooing.  After a little bit, Phil found out that I was getting lessons and he was mad at Chuck; I don’t think he ever stopped quite being mad at Chuck!  I think that was the first time he got mad at him.  It didn’t cause any great split but it did get him a little bit miffed because I was actually using the lessons and going down...and I opened and ran a weekend shop in Rantool[?], Illinois.  And Chuck sorta stopped going and I kept going. 

JR: Why in Rantool[?]?

CR: [?] Air Base.  There was a little arcade, hamburger place.  Arcade machine place that had an opening for a tattooer.  I heard about it through a tattoo supply company in Rockford that said, “Hey, you guys have been buying supplies, are you looking for a place?  There’s an opening, their tattooer left them, where you pay very little rent.  You tattoo in the corner of the joint.”   We started doing it and as I said, Chuck, because he so many other things going on, stopped going as often.  Almost stopped going.  I started going more on the weekends.  Phil heard about it and he was a little...miffed, but he got over it.  Later, he and I had a partnership in a shop in Milwaukee. 

JR: Okay.

CR: Okay?  Let’s see...what else can I tell you?

JR: What...when did you and Chuck become lovers? 

CR: Well...that sort of just came and went [laughs].  Just over time, shortly thereafter, and then that sort of faded off; it became more business, you know. 

JR: Was it before or after the Gold Coast opened?  Before you opened the bar?

CR: Oh no, before.

JR: So you were...How did you and Dom and Chuck operate as a trio?

CR: Dom was an old friend of Chuck’s, as it were, sort of family by that time. 

JR: So you didn’t see him as Chuck’s lover at the time.

CR: Depends on how you define it?

JR: I know.  I’m not defining it.  I’m giving you the opportunity to explain what’s going on, so I can somehow figure it all out. 

CR: Actually, that all gets very personal [laughs].  Doesn’t really need to be in history, you know.

JR: Okay. 

CR: It wasn’t a problem. 

JR: [laughs] I’m sorry I’m laughing, but I probably...the best explanation to give you is that after I interviewed Chuck...

CR: You were confused.

JR: No.  It was at his home on Macon Street.  It was three or four months ago now, because I’ve interviewed twice more since then, I think.  As I was walking out the door, I said to him, “Chuck, it’s not going to be too much longer before I know more about you than you know about you!”

CR: [laughs] I’m sure Roosevelt’s biographer could have said the same thing. 

JR: Well, that’s what’s happening, so if you tell me it’s personal, I already know about it anyway.  So it’s no big deal.  I’m just trying...

CR: [overlaps, unintelligible]

JR: Yeah, so I’ll just get the story from somebody else, don’t worry about it.  Where were you living in ‘60?

CR: Well, let’s see...in ‘57 when I moved to Chicago, I was living on Rush Street.  And then, like maybe late ’57, I moved way to the southwest side and didn’t stay there very long, didn’t like it.  Moved up to Claridon Avenue, up around Wilson; it was nice then, it was big, old apartments that...those buildings facing the lake, you know.  They had been divided...no, not divided in the sense...it wasn’t old, rich families living in them anymore.  There were bunches of guys who rented a big apartment.  But the neighborhood was nice.  That would have been about ‘60 or so.  And then, I was back in Rush Street at a different address, in the nine hundred address, across from the Maryland Hotel.  And that’s when I got to know these guys.  Then from there I moved in with them.  We all moved over to Wells Street, this is the very earliest time anybody had ever heard of Old Town, when Wells Street had antiques shops and things on it.  We got an apartment on Wells Street.

JR: When about would that be?

CR: That would have been around ‘61 something like that.

JR: After the Gold Coast had opened?

CR: No, I don’t think so.  I don’t think so.  I’m not sure.  I can’t tell you exactly. 

JR: That’s fine.

CR: I know according to your records it would have had to have been.  I accept that, but it still boggles my mind that everything could have happened so fast.

JR: It boggles my mind because Chuck said he met Herb _______ in 1959 at Old Sam’s...

CR: That’s quite possible.

JR: And that they were business partners by ‘60, which is a quick kind of jump here.

CR: Well, you know, at that age...

JR: Things happen quickly.

CR: Things happen quickly.  I mean, sometimes from the perspective of my age now, I can’t imagine how many things I did in one year.  Whereas now, it takes ten years to have made that many changes.

JR: Yeah. 

CR: And so it’s possible; I’m not arguing that figure of 1960.  If, you know, he has the corporation papers in front of him, that’s what it was.  It just surprises me.  I wouldn’t have put it...I would have said ‘62, ‘63, you know.  But anyhow, we all lived together on Wells Street, but I don’t know if that was before or after the bar opened.  I honestly can’t tell you.  It still seems to me like it was before.  But we didn’t stay there real long, for whatever reason, I can’t remember.  Do you know why?

JR: No.  I don’t.

CR: It was like the fourteen hundred block of Wells.  From there we bought a building together on Armitage, 1953 N.  Armitage.  I know this isn’t really part of the...you know, the framework...

JR: It is.  It is.  You know, we’re talking here about a book that’s probably three hundred pages long, and you don’t get a book three hundred pages long without some real detail.  Some real facts and adjectives, verbs that have action to them and meaning and color to them...so, the stuff you’re saying is important. 

CR: We had this good place and a nice big building...

JR: And you bought it?

CR: Yeah, it was a two flat above a store and it had a full basement and it had a rear cottage.  We got urban renewalized and unfortunately they had announced that the whole area was going to be purchased under urban renewal; they announced it long before they [?], so the area deteriorated.  And by the time...cause nobody put anything into it anymore...so by the time they bought it, everybody was looking at it and saying, “Gee, good thing the city bought that,” you know.  Actually, it was really coming up nicely.  It was like early hippie, spaghetti houses, you know, boutiques-type things.  And then Belmont, from there.

JR: The...

CR: And by that time, I was tattooing with Phil, in Milwaukee, on weekends and then tattooing on Wells Street, Old Town Tattoo Salon, in the front space of the commercial floor, on the street.  And we Chris Studio behind it. 

JR: In the winter of ‘61, you...

CR: Oh, it was a hell of a winter!  Go on.

JR: Herb _______, I believe, that’s the story I have, introduced you to a kid named Patrick _______.

CR: Well...no, but...he may have...I was the one who brought him home as a trick. 

JR: And you’re the one who introduced him to Chuck?

CR: Yeah.

JR: How did that happen?

CR: Uh...

JR: Where did you meet Patrick?

CR: In the bar.

JR: At the bar.

CR: Yeah.  Which we owned at that point; Herb, you know, we were partners.  It was natural that somebody would introduce somebody to somebody else.

JR: And you were living with Chuck by that time?

CR: Yeah. 

JR: So you just brought Patrick home; what happened next?

CR: I don’t remember the details.  But apparently they liked each other, too [laughs]

JR: Patrick said that you said that...

CR: Where is Patrick these days?

JR: Boston.

CR: Okay.  Another Irishman.

JR: I have his number, if you want it.  He said he...

CR: What’s he doing?

JR: Working at a boat yard.

CR: You’re kidding.

JR: As an...

CR: I’ll let you speak.

JR: As an accountant of some sort, at the boat yard.  The quote he gave me was you said that he was more Chuck’s type than your type and that the two of you ought to meet. 

CR: That’s very possible, but I don’t recall. 

JR: Do you remember the first time you brought Patrick home?

CR: No, not really.

JR: Can you tell me what he was like then?

CR: Nice kid [laughs].  Pleasant kid.

JR: Do you remember him asking you if he could take a shower?

CR: No.

JR: You brought him home afterwards, to his own place?

CR: Maybe, I have no idea.

JR: Yeah, he says you dropped him off at the Lane Hotel, I think it was the Lane Hotel.

CR: He would tend to remember that since it was his first introduction to a whole group of people that played a role in his life.  I would be less cause it was only an introduction of one individual to a whole group of people. 

JR: Do you remember...so he left, you dropped him off at some hotel where he said he was staying.  And then...

CR: Where’s the Lane Hotel?

JR: You know, I’ve only been in Chicago four years...I don’t even have...

CR: There’s a Lane Hotel cause I know that Chuck went to Lane Tech High School. 

JR: No, I’m not sure that the name of the hotel he was at. 

CR: Okay, anyhow, what did he say?  We dropped him off...

JR: And then he kept hanging around you guys; he kept calling the bar until finally he got invited home again and again...

CR: Could be.  Sounds like us.

JR: Before he knew it, one night...

CR: He was part of the family.

JR: Yeah, one night you guys agreed to have him move in. 

CR: Sure.  That’s about the way we operated.  It was very casual.  If somebody hung around long enough and we liked him, we made him family.

JR: Did this kind of naturally happen or did you talk about it?

CR: No, there wasn’t ever an initiation ceremony with black handles or something.  You didn’t have to sign anything.  It was like, “Hey, you want to help?”, you know. 

JR: In 1961, sex between two consenting adults of the same sex was legalized in Illinois.

CR: I know and Phil Sparrow took a great deal of credit because he had had long conversations with Kinsey the years before.  We also had given...we took a lot of credit, too in the sense that it was Kinsey, Palmer, and Martin that wrote the first thing, but one of them got replace by...what’s his name with the W?   Wrote a big article about it in Playboy, Wardell[?] replace one of them.  Wardell...we knew Wardell in Chicago cause Phil knew him and I sort of went all back into that, too, although I didn’t really know these guys.  I though...when I was in college at IU, Mrs.Kinsey called me once because I had vacancy in a double room I was renting and she was looking for a place for her son! [laughs] And then, like I say, we knew Wardell pretty well in Chicago.  I once went...this has nothing to do with your story...

JR: Yes, it does.

CR: No, not really.  A steak barbeque for my art class was being held by our teacher but it was being held on Dr. Martin’s front lawn cause he had a nice front lawn for barbeques [laughs].  In Bloomington, Indiana.  So that was sort of a hoop.  But anyhow, yes that law passed and we all sort of threw our hats up in the air and felt that in some small way we had contributed to the kind of liberalization through information that led to it.  Because the Kinsey Institute were major witnesses, I guess, for having that law changed. 

JR: Were you ever interviewed by the Institute?

CR: No.

JR: In July of ‘61, Chuck published one issue of a magazine called Triumph. 

CR: Only one?

JR: Only one. 

CR: Okay...I would’ve thought that there were three or four by then. 

JR: Well, soon after that...that was in...

CR: It seems like I remember doing pay stubs for more than one issue.

JR: Of Triumph?

CR: Yeah.

JR: Of Triumph or of Mars?

CR: No even of Triumph, but I could be wrong. 

JR: That’s alright, no problem.  Do you remember...so he still owned the gym, Triumph, in ‘61...

CR: Yeah, on Van Buren.  Behind Goldblatt’s.

JR: Pardon?

CR: Behind Goldblatt’s.  Or across the street from Sear’s or whatever.

JR: And then in ‘62, he opened a place called Steve’s Health Club?

CR: Yeah.  Well, what happened there was that the old Mafioso bath houses had gotten closed.  There were old...delightful, old Mafioso bath houses.  Originally, the best one was the Congressman, which was torn out because the Eisenhower Expressway widened and they tore it out and put a sidewalk arcade there.  And so it had been in the basement of the Congress Hotel, right up next to Congress Street.  Do you know what I’m talking about?

JR: Yes.

CR: And so that was gone.  That left the Lincoln Baths, in the Lincoln Hotel, in the basement, on Clark Street.  When that got busted, raided, busted, the city was left without any, period.  Except for some of the old, you might say, straight bath houses.  Old Turkish style type of thing.  Ethnic neighborhood type of thing.  And so we decided we’d open one and call it a health club for a little bit of protective coloration.  Yes.

JR: On that was on Division, near LaSalle?

CR: Yes.

JR: What was it like?

CR: Nureyov[?] enjoyed it.

JR: What?

CR: Nureyov njoyed it.

JR: Who?

CR: Rudolp Nureyov.

JR: Okay. 

CR: He had a really good time [laughs].  What was it like?  It was just a bath house.  With some weights.

JR: It didn’t last very long though.

CR: No and I guess we got raided there and got put out of business, as I recall. 

JR: You don’t remember why?

CR: Well, I assumed...I can’t remember exactly...but they must have just sent in an undercover person to look at what’s going on or something, you know.  Can’t have that.  But I do remember that there was a very liberal talk show host, named Jerry or something, in Chicago; it was on the WBBM, the CBS station and it was a real popular, everyday kind of a show, in the evening or whatever.  And he got a little group on there one day to discuss the bath house question.  And the group was _______, representing the bath house owners, a psychiatrist, which in those days was what you automatically...it’s sort of like today, you can’t have a gay rights spokesman on without putting on Robert Reed or whatever his name is from the Family whatever, you know, to refute everything you say.  Well in those days, what you did with the gay stuff was you didn’t get a Christian fundamentalist spokesman, you got a psychiatrist and a policeman [laughs].  And so they had a...I think a psychiatrist, they might have had a policeman on there.  I remember the great line where they actually said to _______, or the psychiatrist said to him, not the talk show host, who was a liberal or what passed for a liberal in those days, “Do you mean to tell me that you actually have this business there to prey upon homosexuals.”  That was such a priceless line that I’ve not ever forgotten it.  Even the voluble Mr. _______ at that point, I don’t think knew what the hell to say to that.  But he’d had his fun with the police, too.  He had the shit beat out of him in an elevator, one of those occasions.  I think it might have been that one, when they raided the place.  It was either that or a bar raid.  They really roughed him up in an elevator, you know, once the door closed.  I don’t know if he ever told you that but...

JR: No.

CR: Well, they did. 

JR: In 1962, maybe, we’re not sure about the date really, the Gold Coast moved up to 1110 N.  Clark Street.

CR: Yes, and I honestly don’t remember why.  I could tell you who our landlord was.

JR: And you landlord was who?

CR: Tokyo Rose’s father.

JR: Tokyo Rose’s father?

CR: Honest to God.  Mr. ______[?] of _________ _________.  And Diamond Mercantile, I think, also.  Tokyo Rose was there cause I think their store was in the same building or next door or something like that.  Yeah, he was our landlord.  And so I’ve always known Tokyo Rose as a result.  And later, strangely enough, when we bought the building on Belmont Avenue, shortly thereafter, Taguri Mercantile left Clark Street, they moved across the street from us [laughs].  So I think to this day I could walk in and say “hi” to either Taguri __________ [?], or whatever the Portuguese name was, and she’d remember me.  In fact, I did in 1986.

JR: Do you remember them ruining the murals at the original Gold Coast, because they couldn’t moving them?

CR: No.  Did you mean that we destroyed them because we were unable to move them? 

JR: Yeah.

CR: It sound vaguely familiar.  Yeah.  I didn’t recall that, but it rings a little bit of a bell.

JR: In ‘62, the Supreme Court struck down a post office ban on three homosexual magazines.  Do you remember hearing anything about that at all?  The effect on you guys?

CR: Just vaguely.  Chuck had gotten into all of that business with publication and post office and everything and photos in the mail, even before I knew them, and sort of stayed on top of all that.  I remember from, I don’t know if he ever fed you this line, it’s a line that I heard when I first got to know them, this really funny thing where a particular photograph that Khris Studio had distributed was deemed obscene by postal authorities because it made...it showed an undo focus on the male nipple [laughs].  Isn’t that marvelous?

JR: Yeah. 

CR: I mean, you know...that was the fifties [laughs].

JR: In ‘63, Evelyn Hooker published a pro-gay...

CR: Who?

JR: Evelyn Hooker.

CR: Don’t know her.

JR: Evelyn Hooker published a pro-gay research paper.  And then in May of ‘63, we have the first issue of Mars magazine.  What was your involvement with Mars magazine?

CR: I put it together.

JR: So you were...I guess, art director?

CR: Well, without an actual title, I guess so.  I mean, if art director includes a pay stub man, and you know, anything else.

JR: Were you making much of a living off of the magazines Chuck was selling?

CR: No, no. 

JR: You were doing it for free?

CR: No.  I guess for room and board, I don’t know [laughs].  A piece of the action.  I mean, don’t ask, I have no idea.  But I know, you know, we were all making a living.  But individually we weren’t...it was a communal thing.  It was primitive communism. 

JR: Alright.

CR: So, you know, I mean, and when there was any money it went into buying stuff you needed. 

JR: Okay, that sounds familiar.

CR: Whether it was a roof over your head or wheels or clothes or whatever.  But it was actually primitive communism. 

JR: Let’s see, that brings us up to September ‘63 with the founding of the Second City Motorcycle Club.

CR: Yeah.

JR: Yeah, tell me about it.

CR: Well, we thought we ought to have one.  And so we started one; it’s that simple [laughs].  What do you want to know?

JR: Did you have a motorcycle?

CR: Oh yeah. 

JR: And who else had motorcycles?

CR: You mean in our little group?

JR: Yeah.

CR: Well, I think we had one motorcycle between us.  Don’t ask me whose name it was in because that never mattered, you see.  I had had a motorcycle before that, a little one.  About that time we got a...and it may well have been in my name, I have no idea at this point...we got a BMW medium size, you know, a medium size.  I can’t even remember the model name.

JR: So Motorcycle began meeting at the Gold Coast?

CR: Sure. 

JR: You began runs?

CR: We had some, yes.

JR: Where?

CR: We did one up in Milwaukee, I remember.  Then there was one I didn’t go on, went over toward Michigan.  Yeah, trying to get a thing going.

JR: In 1964, there was a raid on Gauge’s Bar.

CR: Never heard of it.

JR: In 1965, the Mattichine Midwest founded.

CR: Yeah, I don’t know.  I know Mattichine.  I don’t know Mattichine Midwest.

JR: Were you a part of any activist movements by ‘64?

CR: I think we were the activist movement, you know.  I don’t know.  You mean me, personally?

JR: Well, you personally and you corporately.

CR: I never heard of Mattichine Midwest, though...where’d you get that?

JR: Well, some people told me about it.  Chuck was not involved in it.  They were incorporated in December of ‘65.  They were seen by some as a more conservative gay group, working closely with the American Civil Liberties Union and stuff like that. 

CR: It doesn’t surface in my consciousness.

JR: There doesn’t seem to be very many of them that went to the Gold Coast. 

CR: We were doing street theater, you see [laughs].  No, I’m just kidding.  You’re not to take that literally. 

JR: Okay, I won’t.  But what...figuratively did that mean?

CR: We were doing stuff; we were actually opening bath houses and starting groups, starting motorcycle clubs and being visible in that sense and you know.  In other words, we were actually doers. 

JR: Yeah.

CR: I think.  I know.

JR: And who would you say were “we”?

CR: “We” in this case, being really basically me, Chuck, and Dom, and anybody else at different points were in and out of it, like Artie, Herbie, and...

JR: And Patrick?

CR: And Patrick, I’m sorry.  Certainly.

JR: Patrick seemed to stay around for awhile.

CR: He did.

JR: He did come and go...

CR: Exactly, he was footloose.  Wanderlust. 

JR: In ‘65, Dom was hurt in a motorcycle accident.

CR: Yeah, I know.  My motorcycle [laughs].  He bent it.

JR: Was that the BMW?

CR: Now you’re telling me what I wouldn’t have remembered otherwise, which is what year did I quit riding a motorcycle and get a car, that’s what it was [laughs].

JR: Was that the BMW?

CR: Yeah.  He bent it.  He bent my motorcycle. 

JR: How long was he in the hospital?

CR: Oh, no!  That accident!  Okay, that was the serious accident.  I was teaching him how to ride.  He was going around the block, Laraby, Armitage, one block east, one block south, and back up Laraby, you know, that type of thing.  Only the opposite direction, counter clockwise, coming up...he was going west on Armitage, approaching Laraby and he started to make his turn south on Laraby and he just lost control and he sailed at an angle into a plate glass window, across the street from us. 

JR: Oh.  And that was in July of ‘65?

CR: I don’t know. 

JR: That was the accident?

CR: He laid there with the pieces of broken glass falling down onto his arm.  I was sitting there tattooing in the front and somebody comes in and says, “I think that was your friend over there on the motorcycle that had an accident.”  So I went running out.  Everybody else went running out.  So yeah, he got dragged off to the hospital and it was his right arm, they weren’t sure he was going to regain use of it.  I was trying to encourage him that he probably could learn to draw with his left arm if he needed to.  But he persevered and regained all the use and control of his right hand, his drawing hand.  

JR: Now, was he in two motorcycle accidents then?

CR: Well, then he was in a minor one on the run to Michigan that I didn’t go to.  He was on the motorcycle and I guess he turned it over and bent it.  He didn’t get hurt.

JR: He didn’t get hurt?

CR: The motorcycle got hurt.

JR: That was your motorcycle that got bent that time you mean?

CR: Yeah. 

JR: Whose motorcycle was he on when he went through the plate glass window?

CR: Well, I think it was the same one.

JR: Okay.  It seemed to survive whatever happened.

CR: It seemed to have survived better than he did, yeah.

JR: Okay.  In January of ‘66, Chuck, Patrick, Gilbert, and a guy named Carol ______[?]...

CR: Don’t know the name.

JR: Well, he was a model who...

CR: Okay, there were lots of those.

JR: Who was ...they were arrested in a raid on Khris Studios, on 1915 Laraby.

CR: Okay, yeah, sure.  I was in the back building at the time, working on the magazine; they didn’t even go in the back building.  I got out the back door, in the alley, and went down to the phone box and phoned the lawyer.

JR: Who’d you call?

CR: Can’t remember.  But he was the lawyer at the time.

JR: You didn’t get arrest, obviously.

CR: Nope. 

JR: Your name wasn’t in the papers.

CR: It was a separate building and they...apparently didn’t think of it.

JR: But your tattoo shop was in the front at this time?

CR: Yeah, it must have been.  I don’t remember that detail, but it must have been. 

JR: And then in ‘66, the Gold Coast moved to 501...

CR: I think that was the time Patrick got beat up.  Maybe that’s when he got beat up in the elevator.

JR: Was there an elevator in that building?

CR: No.  The police station elevator.

JR: The police station elevator?

CR: Down at [?] and State.

JR: Okay.  Good piece of information.

CR: You can check with ________.  I’m sure he remembers it, he may not have mentioned it.

JR: Yeah. 

CR: But he did.

JR: Lippman was the lawyer.

CR: Right.  That’s right.

JR: Because in May of ‘66, it was thrown out of court by Judge Ryan because the search warrant was improperly drawn. 

CR: That’s a detail I don’t remember. 

JR: In ‘67, you guys moved the Gold Coast to 501 N.  Clark?

CR: That’s the Taguri thing right?  I mean, it’s the only time...oh!   501 N.  Clark.

JR: Yeah.

CR: By that time, it was no longer “you guys.”  I was no longer in the bar business at that point. 

JR: How did you get out of the bar business?

CR: Essentially, I made a verbal trade.  Remember, we had a casual business relationship.  And the trade was, “I don’t think I want to go back in the bar business, how about you take my share of the bar business, I’ll take your share of the tattoo shop?”  That was it.  Nothing was ever on paper, nothing needed to be changed.  So that’s when I decided that really all I wanted to do was run the tattoo business, which by that time had become something.

JR: You were still there on Laraby Street?

CR: No, at this point, we were on Belmont.

JR: Okay.  Do you remember anything about the idea about the leather boutique in the Gold Coast?

CR: I had no part in it.

JR: Were you kind of pulling away from the family at this time?

CR: Yes. 

JR: Any special reason?  Anything happened?

CR: No just time.  Differing interests.

JR: Did you...

CR: See, at this point, I’ll probably not be able to contribute much, to you, by the time we get to this point because I was more of an observer. 

JR: When did you leave Chicago?

CR: I left in ‘76

JR: So you were still around.

CR: Oh, I was still around.

JR: Did you...

CR: I got courtesy free drinks at the Gold Coast when I went.  But I wasn’t involved in the business at all.

JR: Were you involved in Mars magazine?

CR: Yes.  I told you, I did Mars magazine.

JR: Cause that...

CR: You might say it was my magazine because I did the work on it.

JR: Have you ever been to a bar called the Trip?

CR: Nope. 

JR: You weren’t much into dancing, huh?

CR: Never.  Six left feet.

JR: A real leather man, huh?

CR: Well, no, just a real klutz.

JR: I don’t know if that’s really true, but okay.

CR: Oh yeah.  Oh yeah.

JR: In 1967, the Trip was raided for same-sex dancing. 

CR: Okay, I believe you. 

JR: Hopefully people who buy the book believe me.  And then in ‘67, Chuck adopted _______.

CR: I think I recall that.

JR: Do you know any of the genesis of that?  What was going on?  What people were thinking?

CR: I truly don’t.

JR: And what about in 1968, the West Side Riots in Chicago?

CR: Nothing.  It could have happened on the moon. 

JR: They didn’t affect you at all?

CR: No. 

JR: You ever heard of a guy named Bruce Scott?

CR: Don’t recall.

JR: And then in ‘68, Patrick moved to San Francisco and bought a pet shop with Chuck.

CR: Exactly.  On Polk Street?

JR: That sounds right, but I don’t have the address.

CR: I think it was Polk Street.

JR: And Chuck...by this time you were out of business with them anyway?

CR: I was an observer.  I did visit it.  And when I visited it, Chuck was there with Pat in the shop, when I visited San Francisco.  He definitely was there.  I think at that point, he fancied...can I give you this not attributable, without quotation?

JR: Yeah, sure.

CR: Basically what happened was Patrick was a bit of a gypsy and in order to try to hang on to him, I think, Chuck was placating him by saying, “Okay, we’ll open you this pet store” and was thinking to himself that was what he wanted to do; the move to San Francisco was to be with him.  I think that was what it was.  If that helps you handle the stuff you may attribute, to understand what was going on there.  I was really primarily an observer and I can’t tell you what was going on inside anybody’s head for sure.  How long anything lasted.  How long they had the pet shop.  I know it did last very long.

JR: No, it didn’t.

CR: Typical pet shop, I mean pet shops open and close like cuckoo clocks, in my lifetime, around me, you know. 

JR: In ‘69, they opened the Club Bat [?] Were you any part of that?

CR: No. 

JR: Did you know Chuck ______ or Ray ________?

CR: Oh yeah, sure.  Not Ray, but I knew Chuck real well.

JR: What was Chuck like?

CR: Chuck was a very pleasant guy.  I consider him a friend still. 

JR: Do you know where he is?

CR: Yeah, he’s in Miami, living on a boat. 

JR: You don’t have a number for him, do you?

CR: Some place [laughs] Some place.  Hang on a minute.  Don’t hang on.  It’s not even in this building. 

JR: That’s fine.  I’ll keep after you for it.

CR: Well, I do have his number because I spoke to him most recently six months ago, he called.  But no I wasn’t part of that particular one.  The Club Bat Chain is like a voluntary association of individual memberships.  The memberships, now I don’t mean the patrons, I mean the owners.

JR: Yeah.

CR: And within the chains, there were small, you might say, mini-chains.  Like...hang on. [Speak to other person in the room] What was that guy’s name in Florida?  ______?  Was it Chuck _________? [Returns to phone] Like there’s this Chuck __________ in Florida that had quite a few of them.  And then Fleck had a group.  He had Man’s Country [?] in New York, which was not part of the club chain.  But then he had a group of Club Baths, and I was an investor, but I sold out, about ten years ago.  And so yeah, I knew Chuck, still do.  Nice guy.

JR: What did you look like in the sixties?

CR: [Laughs] There’s no pictures, huh?  That’s probably just as well.  How does someone answer that?

JR: Did you have long hair or short hair?

CR: Which year? [laughs] I had a beard.  And like in ‘68, I had fairly long hair, not really long. 

JR: Were you around when the Sugar Shack opened?

CR: I don’t recognize the name. 

JR: What about a place called the Big Basket? 

CR: Never heard of it.

JR: What about the Baton?

CR: Yeah, what I remember about the Baton was that it was owned by Felicia.  Felicia being a guy.

JR: Jim _______.

CR: Wasn’t the Baton owned by Felicia?

JR: Eventually, yeah.  There were some...

CR: I didn’t hang out there.

JR: There were some...

CR: Felicia was a sweet guy that, you know, a sweet nelly guy.

JR: You didn’t know him very well.

CR: Well, sort of.  But not...how do you know someone real well like that?  Like a puppy dog, you know.  You pat him; they trot for a minute or two and then they go off sniffing.  And vice versa, you know.   Jim ______...my God, does that bring back memories.

JR: What kind of memories?

CR: Well, I remember that’s his name, that’s all I’m saying.  Funny how you trigger...no, nothing...no kind memories. 

JR: The reason I asked is because he and Chuck had some interesting dealings.

CR: If they did, I’ve forgotten them or never knew them about them.

JR: Okay. 

CR: We liked Felicia, okay.  That’s all I can tell you.  Felicia liked us and we liked Felicia. 

JR: Do you know anything about their falling apart? 

CR: No.

JR: Okay.  Because there isn’t any love loss between them any longer.

CR: You’re kidding.  I didn’t know.  Did they have business dealings, is that what you mean?

JR: Yeah, I’m not exactly sure.  From what I can gather, Chuck somehow sold the Baton to Jim and never got paid.

CR: Did even knew he owned it.

JR: And then there was another time when Chuck and Jim had a talk, which Chuck tape recorded, without Jim knowing it...

CR: Oh, gee.

JR: Where Jim threatened Chuck, with his life and soon after that, Patrick, Chuck and Jimmy ________, Johnny _________ or whatever, roughed Jim up.

CR: Oh, well I think this is after I was no longer anything but an observer, so I didn’t know about all of that.  If I did, I had forgotten. 

JR: In ‘69, ________ moved back to Chicago and brought a guy named Bruce _______ with him. 

CR: Don’t remember. 

JR: What about David Cardwell?

CR: No.  See, by this time, I wasn’t living with those guys.  I may have been living in the same building; I think I was.  You know, in another apartment.  No, doesn’t mean a thing to me.

JR: Alright.  In 19...you were in Chicago until ‘76, you say?

CR: That’s correct.  By that time, I had been living for four years not even in the same building. 

JR: Okay.  When did you move out of Belmont?

CR: About four years before ‘76, so about ‘72.  On Sheridan Road.

JR: In 1970, there was the first same sex dance held in the auditorium on State Street.

CR: I don’t know a thing about it.

JR: So you weren’t being much of an activist these days, huh?

CR: No.  I was very busy tattooing.

JR: Okay.  That’s fine.  Did you know Bill _______?

CR: Don’t recall

JR: Alright.  What about Stonewall?

CR: What about it?

JR: Did that have any effect on you when it happened in 1969?

CR: Not really. 

JR: Did you even hear of it?  Know of it?  Or think about it at all?

CR: Yeah, I was aware of it like anybody would be.

JR: Okay.

CR: But no, it didn’t really.

JR: Okay.  Alright.

CR: Isn’t it amazing how my activity...what happens here is that my...when I really got into tattooing and became, you might say, successful at it, it was very absorbing of time.  So I wasn’t aware of all the ins and outs and intrigues, all this kind of thing.  I was occasionally a patron of establishments...so I can’t contribute much to you beyond about 1965.

JR: What you’ve said so far has been important, and I’m really happy to have it. 

CR: I think it’s important in one sense.  I think what happens is I’ve actually told you what you hadn’t gotten before because nobody else remembered it the way I did, is exactly how the group started.  And it actually started with that conversation.  When I said, “Let’s all call everybody we know” and that is what became the Gold Coast.  Simply put.  I’ve always...when I’ve told the story to friends, I’ve always said that it would’ve probably happened within six months, anyhow.  But the fact is, that is how it happened and when it happened, you know.

JR: What did you see your first slink[?]? If you’ve ever seen a slink[?].

CR: I’ve seen ‘em in San Francisco.

JR: You didn’t see the first one in Chicago?  It was in San Francisco?

CR: I don’t recall. 

JR: What about...what was...how can I say this...what was leather like in the days when it was called “rough sex”?

CR: It wasn’t called that.

JR: What was it called?

CR: Well, just “leather.”  You would use the term “leather” or “S & M” or something like that.  It wasn’t...somebody might have used the term “rough sex,” but it wasn’t the term; that later got replaced or something.  In fact, I don’t think it was as much of a term. 

JR: You didn’t have “tops” and “bottoms” in those days, did you?

CR: No, those terms hadn’t been invented.  Thank God.

JR: Why do you say “Thank God”?

CR: Well, I found it a distasteful term when I first heard it. 

JR: It was more commonly “S&Ms”?

CR: Yeah. 

JR: You would say [?] and that guy’s an “M”?

CR: Yeah.  That was also before they invented all that stuff about which side people wore keys on or what color hankies they had; all that stuff was a downfall, as far as I’m concerned [laughs].  It’s like bath houses were better before they became legal, you know. 

JR: Why do you say it’s a downfall?

CR: It all turns out to be cutesy and commercial.

JR: Do you remember when Larry Townsend published his book, Leatherman’s Handbook?

CR: I don’t remember when he published it. 

JR: Did you have any reaction to it?

CR: I thought it was great.

JR: Did you?

CR: Yeah. 

JR: Now that surprises me to hear you say that.  I had thought that many leatherman had thought his book commercialized and degraded the whole leather image.

CR: Maybe, maybe I’m having a false image of what it was like. 

JR: Am I leaving anything out?

CR: I don’t think so really.  You said yourself that it had sort of changed focus perhaps, from being leather to gay history of Chicago?

JR: Yeah.

CR: And I can’t go back any further, in Chicago, than ‘57.  Yes, I can...

JR: Where were you born?

CR: I can go back to 1948.  East Chicago.  Forty-eight was my first experience, when I would forge a draft card and get into the bath houses.  But then I was off in New York for a few years.  My real experiences in Chicago begin in ‘57, when I moved to Chicago.

JR: What brought you back to Chicago?