 So it's not only about you but it's for you because, you know, I really wanted to reflect it back, you know, I wanted to be a believing mirror for you and to just let the book breathe life into your generosity of spirit and the long history that we have shared and may it inspire generations to come, that is my hope. Okay, so I want to talk about the book a little bit because that's why one of the reasons we're here tonight. This is my living room in Oregon and it's sort of the the late think tank stage of the book and what I did after Tony came and visited a couple times and pulled shots that he thought might be good for a book. I just kind of, you know, we printed them out together and then I had copies and I just started laying them down on the floor of the living room and just sort of letting things rise to the surface and tell me what the book wanted to be and this is kind of how my living room was for several weeks, just kind of like this very organic process and, you know, this was just one step on the way and then, you know, then a lot of it happens electronically and it was the first for me. It's pretty fascinating and then the train is moving and yeah many many late nights but it was it was it was my dream come true really to do this book so and like I said I couldn't have ended up with a better publisher and a more gorgeous book so I'm very very happy about that. This is the cabin which is my studio in Oregon which is where I live I thought maybe you'd like to see it. Well that's like there's a guest room and you know we Mike and I fancy well I fancy ourselves as the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera so you know we like we like Bohemians and we like Marxists and you know come on down come on up. Some of you have already stayed there. This is Tony and me and in one of the studio rooms and we're going through the 40 years worth of material it's like 40 years I don't know six different formats and then digital starting in 2008 it's a mess. Tony's amazing because he doesn't you know it doesn't it doesn't faze him you know he's he's a real master at creating really elegant books and that part of it was not not difficult at all for him. This is my buddy Marcus Eward and I'm starting with the image of Marcus because Marcus and I we workshopped this book while I was living in San Francisco and we we were both early adapters of Julia Cameron's work called The Artist's Way and we took that work to heart and we decided to have every couple weeks we would do like an artist day together and we we would ask each other to have in my case ten pages of photographs and hit his case a couple pages of his manuscript which is a biographical piece and we would we wouldn't meet and work critically we would just meet and be each other sort of believing mirrors and cheerleaders and we would have a really nice brunch we did that for for quite a few months and on and off and so he really was on the ground floor of the vision part of this book and I'm just so grateful for that friendship and and also our collaboration as artists you know this this is a recreation of Diane Arbus photo and it's also significant to start with it because Arbus as as intense as she is she was she was a transformative experience for me I have a high school mentor that she created a club of kind of after hours club at after school hours where all the freaks in the school could go and hang out and was called the Freedom Express and and that teacher her name is Joan Salerno she's still very close friend and she took a group of kids down to New York City to see the Broadway play 1776 about the writing of our Constitution and a musical and and then coincidentally she took us to the Museum of Modern Art where I gazed upon the the first posthumous exhibit of Diane Arbus' work and out from the wall gazing back were transvestites and and butch women and and basically for a 17-year-old to have this this sort of barometer of the fact that other people like me existed was hugely influential and and of course I want and then I wanted to be the Diane Arbus of the gay community when by the time I hit San Francisco so I really wanted this picture to be a success and we worked very hard at making this one happen Scott Pimentel styled it Dina Demport did the wig for Jillian Clark who's the mother figure in the background Meredith sister and Meredith and Jillian are also great allies they they styled so many things out of my studio and you know just helped me in whatever way was needed and and so many of you have done that with me it's it's it's just so great to be back in San Francisco because of that so we're gonna flash back a little bit God I lost my notes on the years I think this is actually like 57 and I put this in because I thought that maybe if any of you had any doubts about homosexuality being caused by nature versus nurture this would put it put your confusion to rest this is an Easter Sunday pick and that's my sister Mickey and then my cousin Ronnie and and you know I think it's in terms of nurture though you got to love the auntie or the the the elder that just wedged that person my elbow and just was totally okay with that we think maybe it's actually a camera camera which even has more of a meta thing my mom was a great snapshot enthusiast and so that really is my first influence in terms of photography because our household was full of snapshot moments and the collection is just just breathtaking I'm only gonna share a couple more but they're pretty cool this one's this is about three or four years later maybe I wish I had the dates but what's the interesting thing about this is I wrote oh yeah so one of the sides so my parents my mom was a showgirl and my dad was a union guy and he was a union leader and so I feel like this photo is sort of the first inkling of the hybridization in my my formation of my identity of you know fusing theater with with politics and so there I am in drag in a little to do you can barely see it but you know we're lobbying my parents to let me go to the public school my mom was was desperate for me to have a Catholic education and I wanted to go have an education with my friends one of the sign says I demand equal rights free me from St. Peters without flunking that's my brother and sister too in the picture and a couple actually all my siblings are there and the best sign is it says he wants mod you know the hollow blue which mark uses his dad was an editor was he was really seminal for me I mean I saw those go-go girls on that show and I thought I wanted to be a go-go girl this is my parents wisely bought me a Super 8 camera after you know me begging them and I this is me getting one for Christmas and it's about three or four years later I think or maybe around 13 14 I don't know I I started making films in high school and I made a film called funky flags which was kind of influenced by the anti-war semantics of the time country Joe and the fish was what I was listening to and I did this whole thing with cut out flags and and I want to codec teenage movie award and it was just two free rolls of film and a little certificate but you could not stop me after that this this is before I was born in 52 it's the it's the review that my mom was a showgirl for and they were called the Jack Normans Broadway to Hollywood review and it's it's this is a page from that great book called showgirls and it and talks about the Normans and they were this really beloved outfit that was very you know they treated their personnel really great and and and they traveled with the straight shows so my mom actually worked kind of in relationship to the carnival and I always feel very much like carnival people and and that world is part of my world and and then when she met my dad and and got married she sort of stopped and and I feel she handed the torch to me you know and that's my mom in my mom's on the right on your right and she's the first step up but a very beautiful woman and she of course she continued to do theater through us she would you know push us kids into talent shows all the time and I was was a tyrannical director and would put on shows in my my basement of our house this is my mom in Atlantic City and that's her sister Mary in the middle and I just threw this one in because you gotta love the zebra formals that's my mom on your right I believe my mom's on your left her show name was Jeanette her real name was Helen it's interesting because her father died when she was 17 of pneumonia and the way she told it was if he had been living there was no way she would have been allowed to be in this show and but because it was you know my single mom running this household of like six kids she was allowed to go on the road and I really sort of well she met my dad on the road so so here's the torch handed over this is me in Castro well in San Francisco it's on it's actually at the Hade Street Fair and so I'm you know I'm trying to feel my way through drag and and this is my boyfriend at the time Michael many probably knew him and he was part of the group called the WizKids which was the Seattle version of the cockats and they did stuff together and Michael was great and I think Mark Custis you may have actually taken this photo I'm not sure on that but I know we were kind of hanging out with you guys right at this moment I loved clowns and I kind of was due I actually was modeling myself after the cockat pristine condition and prissy was you know was a cockat and the cockats had already disbanded but prissy was around doing shows and I would follow prissy around like a little puppy dog trying to get the definitive shot of prissy and she was very tolerant and patient of me and this is one of prissy's first shows that I photographed called the Passion Barbara Martinez which Dolores Deluxe was also in Dolores is here tonight but you know fortunately I kind of gave up drag because I wasn't a very good drag queen and I think I decided that by doing photography you could kind of be in that world without having to stick your neck out it also around the same time I had a romance with Stephen Brown and who lived in a commune on Castor Street of Note and Stephen asked me if I would come photograph a show that he was in and I was definitely interested in theater but kind of clueless still and I just went because my boyfriend asked me if I would photograph the show and the show was the my first Angels of Light show was called in for no reason to horror was in it yeah we have we have to have the lights so that the ASL person can actually see be seen so yeah I don't know if you can maybe wiggle no this is what we got yeah anyway so this is my first Angels of Light show and I was blown away and I immediately wanted to work with with the Angels and then also at the same time was an amazing place called the Hula Palace which is one of the first places I exhibited as an artist and it was a group of people that had a household on Castro at 19th Lee Mantley who was one of the main proprietors and residences here tonight first person to ever show me in San Francisco and it was so much fun they would astrologically forecast when was an appropriate time to do a salon in the in the you know in the tradition of Gertrude Stein they would have a three-day party and basically art on the walls and performances and here we have Michael Shane again and Candice Valdala also known as Candida Roya and they were in a little fashion show theater or theatrical with the costuming those by Lord and Kimbrough you know and by this time we're getting to know each other and there you know the people from the theater community love to be photographed and so I and and you know and and I very much wanted to be part of that world I'm this is Dolores deluxe and Amber waves and their show called broken dishes which played at the Mabuhay Gardens and Dolores is here tonight for Malay your daughter Amber oh tell her I gave her some props tonight this show was amazing and I did projections for them I did slides and movies and and Kent Denning who's here was my my cohort on that and it was it was at the Mabuhay right when the punk thing was jumping off but we had the earlier you want to switch okay we had the the punk thing what we would be leaving the theater they would be coming in and they were kind of crude and we I'd be carrying two big projectors and it was insane what we were trying to do but it was fun I I want to this is hibiscus which was also a New York City these were the New York angels of light with the horse of a different color but hibiscus is as we now know through historical revelation was one of the seminal people for both the cockets and the angels but when he came back from New York all of the local angels were a little bit of God that he was doing this very Vegas review and you know was was promoting himself as the person who who started the angels and so but we all you know we kept on going back to the show which was pretty fabulous and they were and he was very sweet to me and let me come photograph and and and we have well Louise Harris let's see I gotta get the direction Louise on your left is Louise Harris his sister who continued to perform with hibiscus all throughout his life ginger who we lost to AIDS my friend Chichi Wilson who we I don't know where she is Angel Jack who is hibiscus' lover and then Java jet and who is our beloved Bambi Lake so here's just another one of hibiscus from the same show with Ebony Saint Gerard who was also sandy in the cockets and and I'm trying to get up to the picture oh and here's our beloved Bill Bowers who's with us tonight Billy was also one of those people that I followed around like a little puppy dog trying to get the definitive shots of and and when I gave Billy this print for his birthday one year he's like oh what a nice image and he did not even realize that it was himself and but then it all came came rushing back this is the hooker's ball by the way which was at the at the the Hilton I think they never hosted it a second time and here's December Wright who was who I think is also here D are you here yeah December and I were both born on December 23rd and we've stayed close ever since and I didn't know December when I took this picture D was a regular backup singer and and stage person for Sylvester and we got to be close friends throughout the years and and this picture I just love it you know castra street pair second second annual and here's Sylvester in Golden Gate Park with his boyfriend we think his name is Willie and you know there's not real clear documentation on this person or his name so if anybody can help us out on that we're all ears and and here of course is Reggie who was both with the cockats and with the angels and this is the parade in 75 and I know who Reggie is but I don't really know him yet and we became very close over the years and the reason I knew who Reggie was was because of the amazing book called idols I don't know if you know it but you used to be able to find them in the thrift stores and and it was this really high color printing of a lot of New York avant-garde people and the cockets when they went to New York were photographed by this this artist named Gilles Lorraine and it was kind of this this book that was really important for me and and and I sort of sought those people out like I would would try to get you know shots of Reggie and and develop to friendship in the in the beginning of that book there's a quote that I want to read because it kind of was it was the the essence of the day for a lot of us the book was published in 1973 and then it was reissued in 2011 with a forward by Ryan McGinley who's an openly queer photographer who I admire and there's also that was powerhouse books that did it and there there's a few newer photos by Lorraine in it the book of theatrical portraits was inhabited by the cockets from their ill-fated New York City tour early portraits of Harvey Firestein and many of the people in the centrifuge that was the Warhol factory and other luminaries of the off-off Broadway scene from the day like Larry Ray and he was the earliest iteration of the ballet Chocodero and the quote in the front of the book which struck a chord really I think for a whole generation is is as follows we dress for our own pleasure and get off on each other it's our own small world within it we understand and we are understood and we do what we want when we put on our clothes we feel free if other people want to share in our joy and freedom they're welcome to their strength and self-confidence in the way I dress suddenly I don't feel ugly anymore it doesn't say who wrote it I would assume Jill's Lorraine wrote it I mean that would make sense to me since it's not attributed but I think it's kind of the part of the mystery of the book so jumping forward a little bit this group of Queens came to town I think it's around 75 ish 76 I first met Doris Fish in the line waiting to go in to see that middler at Bimbo's and I was like who's that and and you know I think at first you know she raised eyebrows with the angels and and eventually they ended up doing shows together and and a lot lot more but they were called the sluts of go-go and they performed with the two says Michael Zagaris would know you know and Michael Zagaris did a book with Tony Norman last year called Total Excess and it's just stunning you know I just love your book Michael totally great a lot of the music scene that I the music that I don't love and Michael was also a camera store customer I can get Castro camera so I used to wait on him back in the day anyway here's Doris and tippy and Frida lay and miss X miss X is the only survivor now and she's carrying on the torch pretty well do an amazing theater and raising a family three beautiful girls and then also Marcus this was with the angels of light initially we did theater together we did the next angel show called parasites under the bourgeoisie together and then we did and then the filmmaking stuff started and Mark started doing film with the angels and we would show them to small groups of friends in our apartments and you know it's so it's so great to show your slides and stuff to the angels because they were just so appreciative and very vocal about it and so it's always kind of exciting and then Mark and I got the idea to show the work to you know the community like have a public showing and that in a sense is considered the first moment of what's now the LGBT film festival so it's kind of a cool thing that it started out with just you know like this this passage for us by us you know kind of thing and it kind of still is that in a way but this is Mark's film unity which was very you know see to the pants production shot shot in 16 was it mark super 8 and then and then boosted to 16 and this is you didn't you know you weren't worse for the wear and you you did not you didn't get it from me girl but I did think you were hot back then boy I'll never forget the first moment I saw Mark rehearsing for parasites and it was the the big hall at the angels place on Oak Street and they had just wall to wall mirror and all the people were in there dancing and doing you know body moves and it was really this sort of like crystalline moment and you know we've worked together solidly really since then so it's an amazing friendship and and same with Lulu who's who's pictured here Lulu as we all know is is really sort of you know such a great mover and a shaker in our community and we're just so thrilled to have him you know as a performer and as a friend and Lulu is actually in the book like eight times so that tells something right there you're the one that's gonna have to reckon with the people that aren't in the book that should be I don't know what I just did I just touched the cursor key hey thank you there's an amazing picture of me from this day explained by Lulu and so far in full drag and I'm kind of working the 30s look but I didn't put it in because I didn't want you to end up thinking that I was a black hole of narcissism but here is a picture of me and this is this is my photo group and this is the photographers that I was hanging to still photographers that I'm hanging out with and we would meet every couple of weeks just to share resources and knowledge I think maybe we're called the gay freedom photo archives but there's rink our dear colleague with the two bananas and our friend Sandy Graham cookie myself and Efron Ramirez and I are still very close this is in my apartment on Ashbury and it's a what do you call it the tripod you put the camera on the tripod self self-portrait this is a this is a flyer of our show and we would go around to different community centers and we would show the history of the gay parade in San Francisco and that was kind of what we did but it you know it's look at it it's type typewriter you know with press-on letters and all of that this is the great Alan Barabe who was kind of you know radical fairy identified before the words had ever been uttered and and then Alan also became a great LGBT historian because he got he found these letters of guys coming out of World War two well men and women and who were discharged dishonorably discharged and they they kept journals and they wrote about their lives and he found these letters amongst each other and he was very moved by them and and that was what started the work which later became the book coming out under fire and then a documentary film and and Alan got a MacArthur to do that work and so it was really a very important moment for queer scholarship because it was sort of one of the first times that a major grant put forth you know support for queer queer scholarship and and Alan's no longer with us but I you know I thought this negative wasn't going to pan out and then Tony kind of saved it and such a really great shot of Alan I'm just so thrilled we were able to to have it in the book his lover came to my New York thing and it was just such a great a sweet meeting of the minds and of course I have to talk about Harvey I worked at Castro camera for three years this is one of my favorite shots of Harvey my god I have eight minutes to finish like 60 more slides the thing about Harvey I just want to say is that you know everybody talks about coalition building and Harvey was this great coalition builder but I think from my perspective which was kind of unique perspective I was able to see that one of the things that motivated this man was his love of male companionship and that his he had this very deep sense of indignation that that could not exist in the world in a safe in a safe context and so he devoted his life to to transforming that and I think you know if you read his love letters and you see that that's sort of his first impulse that it becomes clear why he did a lot of the things that he did and and I love this picture with his dear friend Denton and my dear friend Denton Smith because it's just sort of that that they're they're sharing the daily comics which was sort of a ritual at Castro camera here's Harvey with Jose Saria and oh god I I could go on and on about Jose and also the the Imperial Court so so important you know Harvey's the one that basically brought me down to the surf center and said you have to vote for Emperor and Empress it's really important you know and what he was doing was building a contests constituency for getting elected and and you know they weren't necessarily buying in initially although he did have the column in BAR and he he did have Jose's support really out the gate but I think that there was sort of this tentativeness and then when he got elected it was just so palpable they were so appreciative of him and like this this is one of their annual drag balls and here's Harvey and Jose and Mavis and they're they're presenting a check for the donation for the uniforms for the first ever gay and lesbian March and Day Band which if you can imagine that and and what I remember about this moment is that the audience that the applause in the audience was so thunderous that you it felt like the building was shaking because they were just so appreciative that one of theirs had gotten elected Mavis also an amazing character who was sort of peripheral to the cockets and was a bartender at the end and touch amazing costume designer this is inside the ballroom this is Laquiche Hayworth that this is I love this one this is sort of the Diane Arvis coming out in me this is also the Imperial Court system Michelle who who like Ruth opening tonight Michelle opened for me in New York and wowed the crowd with some real sort of scandalous gossip somebody asked Michelle why were you not ever an Empress and she told us that night I think it was the first time she revealed that she actually ran for Empress the second year was was a shoe in as far as she was concerned but then a new queen just kind of whisked into town and really captured people's imaginations because she was as Michelle said in her own words she was really fabulous and but and one and so Michelle was like okay well I guess that's it I'm not I'll be in the world but I won't ever be an Empress and they and they were cleaning this is what Michelle told us this night they were cleaning up after the ball and they found in the dressing room a bunch of crumbled up ballots and you know it's so interesting to me that she she just concealed that all those years you know Michelle ran the hair salon a couple doors down from Harvey shop and Michelle was one of the earliest people of the earliest queer people to move into the neighborhood this is Luwanda Rose and Shadwann on Hate Street Luwanda is sort of also pre radical fairy radical fairy very dear friend that's we're still in touch and there was a group of people that were kind of thinking in terms of rural living had gone to the land in Wolf Creek and and went to attended a very important historical event called the the Vagans in class struggle conference and and so that was sort of a really beginning for a lot of things that came later under the nomenclature of the radical fairies and and a lot of the people that were kind in that world were were at that conference I stupidly was not but I'm playing catch up this is this is a lot of those folks this is that Dougie called Wells House it's a puss print pajama party Lulu Lulu's here in the book again and and a lot of these guys are gone Teddy Matthews the great Teddy Matthews so Vanna Nova I'm not going to name them all because I'm kind of just a little slippery on time but I think what's interesting is that this was 78 I did want to add that the the party favors for the night were quailudes I meant I I left but I imagine it got very kai-kai in there and and here's the radical fairies more recently and I think when Jack Davis and Cayenne through this party I don't think they were aware of the thing that happened in 78 where the theme was puss print although that is probably you were is that Jack hi but I remember I gave you the print for your birthday that night yeah connect the dots that's what we're here for and thank you for this picture I love this picture and of course you can't talk about the history of drag without talking about the sisters I only have this one picture of Jack Furtick sister room tonight but you know Jack was an amazing friend and I miss him is that just that simple and then this is kind of moving getting up into the late 80s you know I actually was a little bit intimidated by the punk scene but I really was thrilled that in the late 80s queers started to sort of identify and there what became the sort of act proactive queer punk movement and so I happened to be lucky to be on the ground floor of that and hanging out in some of those clubs and stuff and you know I kind of was identifying with the punk scene even before but it was devoid of queer identity except for in this very stealth way so this was kind of an explosion of visibility and it was great this is Marcus this is film which sort of captures some of the the queer identity of the punk and new wave movement it's called whatever happened to Susan Jane with the amazing Francesca Rosa who we lost this year and Lulu and thank you guys and and block our friend who lives in LA still if you want to see what San Francisco is was like in the 80s that's the movie and wait we can't talk about the history of drag with Arturo galt without our tour of Austin Arturo was also part of sluts a go-go and just very brilliant and during performance spirit and friend close close friend and Porsche people so real crowd-pleaser this photo but also to talk about the stud you can't talk about Bohemia and queer San Francisco without talking about the stud so it's in there in a couple places in the book and then we're getting into the act up era and censorship issues and AIDS and this is Nick Perea and it's a demonstration against censorship and it's a time capsule that Michael Brown made and it was buried under the ground and it it's actually a this is a slide that's an alternative of the one in the book that has my dear colleague Gerard Koscovich in slightly behind Nick in the book I'm not sure how they got switched out but they're both pretty sweet and during that time we all hung out at Club Uranus and chaos and one of the queens I met was the beloved Miss Kitty and Miss Kitty invited me to document his his challenges and struggles and as a person with AIDS and and we became very close allies and you know Kitty was the original proponent of the fact that green was the healing color of the universe and so in honor of my beloved Kitty and of course Juanita Moore Juanita is famous for enrolling upstart photographers and into documenting her and you know it was it was I was very flattered because I wasn't young anymore but she definitely was interested in working together as as was I and so I mistakenly made a lost a bet and I I said well you know if you know if this thing happens you you can have ten photo sessions and and and I lost the bet and and she's counting them down so I think I think I actually have about four or five more that I still owe her but Juanita is producing my party because we have such a great friendship and when a we a group of us were putting this the statue of Harvey and City Hall Juanita was one of our fiercest fund raisers and we grew very close through that effort which took several years and you know you can't talk about the history of drag without talking about peaches Christ I love peaches I'd like to say about peaches that peaches is the the how did I put it the other day she's she's famous for putting the pathological back in homosexuality with with with panache and this is Alvira this is oh god please help me what's her this Andrew can't say Andrew Peterson yet it was in there this is on set of peaches film all about evil which was so much fun to work on and then this is our beloved a Vera sphere this this was kind of what this was the mock-up of what I presented to Tony and you know it was definitely too busy for the book but he's he saw the gravity of who they are and what they're doing and we devoted six pages to Vera sphere in the book and I it's one of the things I'm most proud about because it all happened in the eleventh hour when maybe it couldn't happen and it just it rose like I said many of the things just kind of rose to the surface and and told us what this book needed to be and I was so happy they they're in I mean I kind of you know I photograph things over and over and then there's certain things you just it's such a joy to keep on returning to them and Vera sphere certainly are in that category as is roomy our beloved roomy and roomy couldn't be here tonight and we've talked pretty regular it's just too strenuous for him right now he's in ill health and he's recovering he's determined to go to New York in October and I'm pretty sure it's gonna happen and then he'll his film ruminations will debut within the year and so I'll get to have a great party hopefully at his side this is the thrill peddlers of course and needs probably no introduction here but they've taken on the task of remounting the cockat shows with the vengeance and they have a huge cult following with with me at the lead and then no book is complete without a little titillation this is Rex Cameron and Bradley Russo and Glenn Loichi and Daniel K's Glenn and I've been doing a lot of work together Glenn's the heavily tattooed guy on your right on your left and this is my sweetie back in the day when we first met Mike Pinatelli with our nephew Tony who's now in his 30s John Antonides and Nick Romero and their children from who had this stored Castro camera for a while they had a gift store and this is as they were leaving we decided to do this shot in front of the mural I wanted to have something in the book about forming forging you know alternative families and they were so happy to be part of the book I was so pleased that they said yes Chris Menda and Ruth Bernhardt the fantastic photographers and Ruth if you don't know was one of the founding members of the Madison society she's actually on the roster of the early minutes of the Madison society and she was also one of the first people to do female nudes in a sort of male dominated culture the California School of Photography when it really was kind of a very tentative situation but her work was was stunning and it was embraced and and carried forward this this idea that that that was it was an okay thing Ruth was close to about a hundred at that point and Chris asked me if I would do that portrait and I was like of course and this is one of the gay parades this is Dyches on bike singular and Ruth Villasinor is here tonight Ruth and Randy Burns are both here tonight and they both are consented to be in the book and Randy and I go way back what Ruth and I just met around the production of the book and I'm just so thrilled to have them in the book as representatives of First Nation people and Two-Spirit people and it's just such an essential piece of the book and thank you for your collaboration on that here's Randy Burns with Bambi Little Feather and Randy calls me up periodically and I feel it's such a blessing to hear from him you know I just I'm glad he picked me out in the crowd to check in periodically and let me know what's up and same with Ruth you know I I get these phone calls from Ruth Weiss every every once in a while like she she channels me and she says how you doing what's going on I been I feel you I think of you and this was at her garden party in Albion where she lives still this is a more recent work and I just kind of wanted to give you a little peek at what I'm you know I live in Oregon and the rural queers up there have found me they found me out this was a little project we did call the forestry camp and I was invited to come and do a calendar as a fundraiser for forestry camp and this is sounder and braveheart and this is the church in Golden where Carl Whitman had his commune and wrote some of the important manifestos of rural queer identity and Carol Queen and Robert Lawrence representing our bisexual brethren and the late Jazzy Collins this one was a tough one to include because it's so so graphic but I just felt it was important to talk about what's happening on the international stage and you know I love this moment because Jazzy had that sort of sense of acknowledgement of yeah take my picture this is you know and Richard the Simbo same thing you know he came from Uganda he was doing some fund raising for his work with Smug which is a group in Uganda they're really you know sitting ducks in many respects there and they're doing amazing work both through the legal system and on the ground you know the marriage equality is in the book I don't have a lot of demonstration stuff in the book I think in a sense we're letting the portraits tell the story of the movement but you know sometimes you want to kind of talk about the fact that we do hit the streets and we will continue to hit the streets and we should this is the trans March this is right around the time Brandi Martell was murdered and it I don't know a lot of the folks but they asked me to take a picture with their cell phone and then I asked them if I could take one with mine and I think they may have been friends of Brandi's I love this picture and this this is Lieutenant Stefan Thorn one of our police force who's involved in transgender sensitivity in the San Francisco police force and but it was really important to this is during them when we put the plaque in the sidewalk for Compton's cafeteria Stefan posed for this portrait for me and this is Scout who's kind of a mystery I mean he this is a very recent photo and on one of my junk it's to San Francisco and we were talking and I took some portraits right there at 18th and Castro and it was this beautiful golden light and and I was about to get his info and then Jim Van Busker came up and started chatting me up and then Scout just kind of like disappeared I had invited him to a thing at the photo center and hoped he would show up but I lost him but so he's kind of this mystery queer youth at the end of the book I sort of feel in a way he evokes the same energy that Steve McCurry's portrait of the Afghanistan girl evokes like it's that same sort of golden light and I really like this picture got to talk about Scott Smith just a little bit you know Scott Smith was Harvey's partner and soulmate and he became the executive of Harvey's estate and so much of what I do in the world today in terms of scholarship around Harvey's papers is really sort of indirect relationship to the torch that was handed to me by Scott and I just you know there isn't a day go by that I don't think about him and what think about how he would do what I'm doing and I miss him also and his mom was also a great ally and this is us this is the Harvey Milk archives at Scott Smith's apartment sort of organizing papers which you know a lot of these guys are gone and we we put information on the the papers when we remembered names and things so it's a good thing we did this and those papers are here at the San Francisco library now they utilized a lot and then of course you know you got to talk a little bit about milk you know this is Lucas Grebel who played me in the movie and that's the actual vest that I used to wear and that Danny Glicker the customer who became a good friend he wanted to fabricate the vest because he didn't want to use the real one and I said that's silly you know you got to use the real one so he tried cleaned it and and it's in the movie well I mean it was pretty yellowed yeah I you couldn't take that thing off of me I mean I love that vest David Lejeune the guy who sold it to me he is in touch and he he said he sold it to he sold it he was trying to raise money to go see his guru and he was doing a street sale and I came bounding down the street and he had made a commitment to himself even before he saw me that he would only sell it to the person if they were right for the vest and so but and then I came by and he sold it to me for like 30 bucks and then you couldn't take it off of me and here I am with with Jose and I am yeah hi Jose and I got to hang out a bit right before he passed on and strange to Jim I think took this picture and I just love it this is my portrait of Jose when he stayed at my house during that that time frame and he was he was fantastic I'm gonna keep it short this is Viva DeLores's daughter with prissy it's the last portrait I took a prissy before he died of AIDS but we all got to get together for a 25-year reunion of the caquettes in the Hula Palace and oh my god musical stuff and again three days of art astrologically forecast incredible and we said we said goodbye to Martin Warman that was his wake and it was just an amazing remembrance and then I think we're getting we're gonna wind it down here with mr. Carney's amazing tribute to the pink triangle taken from a helicopter I will never do that again Patrick Patrick Patrick was thrilled though that I did it I don't think anybody's done it yet or since and then we and then the end pages deserves an explanation I mean Tony and I were were we're faced with a daunting task to acknowledge all of you and your tremendous work and and we we also were charged with the narrative of the movement but to do in a way that things that were chosen for the pages had had you know gravity and had a charge and talked about universals and talked about archetypal and so sometimes simply a portrait of somebody because of their accomplishments we couldn't do it we couldn't get it all in and but this was what we devised we decided to give all these photos to Yocum our designer and this is what he came up with and I'm really really happy with it so you guys are the bookends to this incredible book and and I decided to end the book with a call to action basically this is an invitation to people who are inspired the book to to work on the community and the tribal level because that is kind of where it all came together where we decided to to sit across each other in a room and and work it all out you know without that we wouldn't have a movement this is the the the LGBT Center where I happened to take this photo quite accidentally one day okay feel ugly anymore so I think I chewed up your Q&A is there anybody with the burning desire yes mark you can't hear me okay I said 20 years ago when I interviewed Danny for BAR or something he was talking about doing this book and one reason that it may not have happened until now is that he dedicated himself to to the preserving Harvey's reputation it's he was at the center of the statue the bust getting put up he was at the center of pushing for the movie to get made he absolutely and selflessly worked on that stuff I'm sure if he hadn't done that for 15 years we would have seen this book earlier but that's what an activist does we are gonna get really rudely kicked out by security like very soon because the whole building has to close down to eight but if anyone else has yeah well well we were gonna go to eight seven twenty with Q&A so but then we're what's that seven forty we have to be out right there's ten to eight ten to eight ten to eight people really should clear the building because no no the reason is and that's why we did the after-party is so that you could just simply walk across the plaza and continue the party and I'll be happy to answer questions there and I also want to sign some books over here for the next 30 minutes so why don't we just why don't we just close on that note and we'll move it we'll move it over to the green room