mattachine (original) (raw)

Always happy to return to The AllWays Lounge & Cabaret, our New Orleans home, especially this week during the build-up to Mardi Gras and alongside my longtime dance party co-ho, the incredible Amber Martin. Advance tix here

Those were the days: In 1975, Norman Lear created the character of Beverly LaSalle (played by San Francisco performer Lori Shannon, née Don Seymour McLean). Appearing in a trilogy of “All In The Family” episodes, Beverly proved to be a formidable foil to lovable bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) and a dear friend to his just-plain-lovable wife Edith (Jean Stapleton). In her final appearance in 1977, Beverly’s senseless murder inspires a crisis of faith in Edith.

Mattachine returns to San Francisco, at Oasis!

Sunday afternoon, Nov. 5th. Ticket info here.

Mattachine Halloween Party: Thursday, October 26th at Julius’ Bar

This year we’re celebrating the unmasking of two Floridian bigots: Ron Desantis (Post-Trump) & Anita Bryant (Post-Nixon)

“What goes around comes around”

Stoking ignorance and bigotry in the name of Christian morality and protecting children–for the sake of bald-faced personal greed and power: this Halloween, corrupt governor Ron Desantis wears the (banana cream) pie of history on his face, continuing Florida’s legacy of anti-gay rhetoric and legislation. Just like the disgraced beauty queen, Desantis has inadvertently spurred an LGBT+ mobilization and movement, firmly cementing his own place alongside Bryant: in history.

Promoting bigotry in the name of Christian morality and protecting children: orange juice spokesperson, former beauty queen and washed-up singer turned anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant is pie’d at a live-televised news conference 46 years ago on October 14th, 1977 by a gay-rights activist, pushing her into a precipitous fall from glory. I designed this poster for our third Mattachine at Julius’ party on April 3rd, 2008, naïvely imagining that such buffoonish ignorance and blatant bigotry was merely part of our history.