 Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Leather History at Fireside Chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host and producer of the chats, which are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today, I'm conducting an interview with Mr. Graylin Thornton, who was Mr. Drummer 1993. How are you, Graylin? I'm blue. Well, Doug, how are you? Great. Let's start right at the very beginning. We want to learn a little bit about you. Tell us a little bit about where you're from and a little bit about your family circumstances. Well, Doug, I was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1960. And what's great about that is that my birth certificate says that I'm colored. And so I've always felt that I was growing up as a colored boy who was a product of the 60s, then the 70s and 80s. When I was six years old, my family moved to California to San Mateo. And that's where my family settled. All of my cousins, aunts, uncles all ended up in San Mateo and most of my family still lives there. Why did your family choose to move to California? My family chose to move to California because in the 1960s, Alabama was just not the place to be for black people or people of color in general. There was obviously the civil rights movement all happening there. But then there was the brutality and the lynchings and everything that was going on with black people there. So my family felt that moving to California would just give us a better start at life. You said that a number of your family members joined you in moving there. Pretty much all of them. My mother has actually 13 brothers and sisters. And so little by little, we started moving to California just to get out of the South. And California just gave our family much better opportunities than we would have had had we stayed in Alabama. Ironically, some of my family has gone back to Alabama and the Carolinas and to Georgia and the Florida. But our base is still here in California. That had to be a very big step when you're from somewhere and you pick up like that and move away. It's a huge step to move away, but it was necessary, especially for black people in the South. We wanted to have opportunities that we wouldn't have there, schooling, jobs, social lives, all of that we could have in California, but not so much in the South. You said that living in the Bay Area was very enlightening for you and that you were sort of unofficially, quote, quote, adopted by a Jewish godmother. Tell us a little bit about her. Who was she? That's a funny story because when I met her, her name was Renata Chase. And when I met her, I was eight years old and she was a friend of my mom's from work. My mom's a kindergarten teacher. And so Renata pretty much adopted me as her own son because she didn't have children. But she was and still is a hippie right from the 60s going to the protest, the long hair, all of it. And so as a child, she took me to San Francisco to the Vietnam protests. She also took me to my first nude beach when I was 12 years old. She took me to my to my first concert, which was the I Can Tina Turner review because I loved I Can Tina Turner at that time. So, you know, as I was growing up, she really influenced me culturally and also gave me the tools to become more active as I was growing up. Well, what do you remember of any of these protests? My favorite thing, you know, the protests were all happening in San Francisco at the Civic Center. And I remember very well. In fact, there are pictures someplace. I had a little fringe vest, a leather vest, and I had pants that were bell bottoms. I had the little headband on and every time we would go to San Francisco to the protest, I would wear my little protest outfit. And so growing up, I thought that this happened every week in San Francisco because every time that we went, there was a protest. So as I got older, I was really, really disappointed to find out that this wasn't an all the time occurrence, that the protests were something special to that time period. But it also gave me the feeling that I needed to be involved and make a difference in the world. And so I credit her for all of that. So you said the protests were Vietnam war related, mostly? Yes. Yeah. Are there other protests? I remember there was one, and this was when I was first exposed to the Black Panther movement. There was a protest there around the killings in Oakland of Black people. And I remember being there and the Black Panthers were there. And I was so overcome with emotion about that because I was Black and I was experiencing growth because that was the time when Black is beautiful. There was a lot of James Brown. There was a lot of Black pride starting to happen. And so that was my introduction to being a young Black male in California, especially. But growing up around the Black Panthers and all of that was really enlightening for me. And in fact, the Black Panthers opened a school in San Mateo. It was an after-school project that they were doing. And so my friends and I would get out of school. We would go to the Black Panther school. They fed us. And so that was usually the motivation to go. We would always have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I remember that very well. So we would sit there. We would eat and they would give us all of those historical facts that you just didn't get in school at the time. Such as? Well, it was the first time I had ever heard that Abraham Lincoln didn't free the slaves just out of the goodness of his heart. And I was shocked by that actually because growing up in public schools, that's what you hear. Actually, I was going to private school at the time. But that's what you hear is that Abraham Lincoln just freed the slaves. That's also when I learned that George Washington owned slaves. And so I was relearning history, especially as a Black man, and finding that we weren't just given things. We weren't just given our rights. We had to fight for them. And so that's where I learned all of those things. That's very profound. It is. It is. Because even today, when you look at school books, they're rewriting history all the time and we need groups. Then it was Black Panthers. But we need groups to always reeducate Black kids and other kids of color to know what our history really is and not through the view lens of white people. Yes, absolutely. What else do you remember of the Black Panthers? I would think that had to have had a huge impression on you. It did. You know, what I remember most about the Black Panthers were the uniforms. They wore the jackets, the more military look, the little caps. I remember all of that very well and seeing them all lined up. And I wanted to be one. And they also had, the Black Panthers had a drill team that was part of their school. And so the Black kids would go there and they would put us through drills, marching and walking and reciting songs. And that's, again, when I learned a lot of the Negro spirituals at that time, and I learned that they weren't all written by Black people. And we learned that Negro spirituals were the catalyst for runaway slaves. You know, we didn't hear that in church and we didn't hear that in school. But that's where we learned all of those things. How fascinating. Truly. It was growing up in the 60s was in one way horrifying and then another way enlightening. And it shaped me. It shaped, I think it shaped most Black kids of that era. How do you mean horrifying? Horrifying because it opened our eyes. It opened my eyes. I knew what was happening in the South. I didn't know our history. And around that time, Martin Luther King was assassinated. And that was my first big emotional sense of loss, a big sense of loss, a huge sense of loss. Because I knew who he was and to young Black kids, he was our hero. He was our savior. And to have him assassinated, I just remember the sadness and the grief of me and everyone around me thinking, how could this possibly happen? Of course, I can see how it was enlightening for you. But what other emotions did that provide for you at that time? Fear. I think that time there was a lot of fear, which is, which is ironic because during the time where we were having such a resurgence, a renaissance of Black pride and Black people and feeling beautiful, Black is beautiful, was happening all at that time. To have our leader, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X taken away, it instills so much fear in us because they were the people who were teaching and leading us. And if they could be assassinated, if they could be killed, if their lives could be taken away, our lives could be taken away too. And I think, and that's where the fear came from. And also the police department, you know, that was, that was a time when there were a lot of killings, especially in Oakland and East Palo Alto. And so we grew fearful of the police. We felt there was no place for Black people to go. We had no sanctuary, no savior. So while we were experiencing Black pride and a renaissance, there was also this fear that was growing in us. You specifically mentioned Reverend Dr. King, but what were your feelings about Malcolm X? My feelings about Malcolm X, you know, I, I believe I identified a bit more with Malcolm X than with Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King was, he was part of my parents' generation in terms of everything that he said and, and marching and peaceful demonstrations. But I was young and I had been to the Vietnam protests and all of that. So I wanted action and I wanted to march and I wanted to take arms and I wanted to be part of that part. I didn't, I didn't necessarily believe in the peaceful approach anymore. I want, I wanted action. Now, I can't help but ask you about the Icon Tina Turner review. That had to be incredible seeing live. Yes, seeing the Icon Turner, Icon Tina Turner review. Yes. It was at the Fillmore East, I believe, which was a seedy little nightclub in San Francisco. And, you know, I was 12 years old. It was smoky in there. I was the only child and they were so close because it wasn't the big arena. It was a very small club. And so I wanted to be an agate, of course. I love it. But little gay, going to be gay child wouldn't want to be an agate. You know, I wanted the little skirt the whole bit and I practice. I had the album on Icon Tina Turner live and I would play it daily and daily and just practice being an agate. And so by the time I got to the show, I felt I knew all the songs. I thought I knew the moves. I wanted to be part of it. And again, it was such a sense of pride to see black people on a stage making music and just influencing by voice and art and culture. Well, by no means were they the only artists doing this. Did other artists have a similar impression for you? Jackson 5. Because, you know, again, I was a young man when the Jackson 5 hit. And they were young and they were kids. And again, and they were what we thought were wholesome. So you had this family there making music and bright colors and Motown was happening and Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin. And there was just such, I used the word renaissance earlier. There was just such a renaissance of black culture and music and art happening. And to be young in that time period when it was happening was just unbelievable. So, you know, on one side you had this happening, the music and art. Then on the other side, you had the protests and police killings and everything that was happening in the South. So there was always this battle going on. Who are we as people? I can't help but wonder. What your godmother must have thought of going to the Icon Tina Turner review concert? My godmother, by taking me to that concert, she wanted that to be a bonding experience for the two of us. And it was, you know, it was my first concert and she knew how much I loved Icon Tina Turner. You know, just like the first concert she took me to my first nude beach. I mentioned that and it was perfect for me because I didn't have a concept of the body being anything dirty. It all seemed very natural to me. And I remember getting to the beach and thinking, this is it? This is what people are all up in arms about. Yeah, there's nude people here, but no one was doing anything. And then a little disappointing, but you know, it opened my eyes to the world. And I believe started to shape my own sexuality because you know, suddenly I was there and I was seeing the body as a beautiful thing. And you know, with her being there and her being a hippie and part of that whole movement just made it even more special and accepting for me. I can't imagine if my parents had taken me or if I had just wandered there on my own, but having someone there who's a positive influence in my life just made all the difference. That's a beautiful statement to her. Yeah. And you know, I think I said we talk at least every other week still on the phone. And she still influences me when I'm having difficult times. That's who I call. Oh, that's beautiful. Well, you mentioned a moment ago that going to the nude beach was your first sort of inkling about sexuality. Let's look at that a little bit. Tell us about your early sexual exploration and discovery. Well, my early sexuality and discovery happened in San Mateo where I was growing up. And during that time period, San Mateo was literally divided by a railroad track. So on one side of the track were black people and Tongans. San Mateo had a huge Tongan population. On the other side of the track were white people and mostly Japanese and Chinese. We didn't have very many Latinx people in San Mateo at that time. And so because we were in a predominantly black neighborhood and everyone stayed there, sex was happening all around us. And I remember being... I could easily say nine years old and being sexually active at that time. I didn't really understand what was going on, but it was common for young boys to have sex with older boys at that time. And it just seemed like a natural normal thing. I didn't think anything about consent. There was no harm done to me. It was all part of growing up. And I know today it'd be very, very different. But at that time period, it was growing up and that was kind of what was expected. Young boys hung out with older boys and had sex. And that's pretty much how I started exploring sex. That's astounding. I can't imagine something like that today. But when you say have sex, I mean, do you mean the full penetrative sex? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely full penetrative sex. Younger boys would be penetrated by older boys. And it was such a natural and normal thing for us. Today it would be horrifying. And even thinking back is a bit horrifying. But it was how we learned about sex. Incredible. What did adults have to say of this or were they not even aware? I think adults were aware. And I remember being, I had a cousin who was caught having sex. And we were exactly the same age. And he got into a lot of trouble for it. But again, it was something that parents knew was happening. It wasn't considered a really, really bad thing. We were told not to do it, but that was about it. Because it was happening all around us. And I also want to add, growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood and being there our whole lives, you knew all of those people. I went to kindergarten with the same people I went to eighth grade with. We were all together at that time. So you knew the people and you trusted them. And there was a great sense of safety at that point in my life too. Because we didn't have people coming into our neighborhood that we didn't know. So we felt safe. We could stay out late at night. We could wander the streets. We could do pretty much whatever we wanted as long as we stayed on our side of town. We did not venture across the railroad tracks. But you began exploring the gay scene in San Francisco when you were in your teens. How did you even know about that? Well, you know, San Mateo is about 20 minutes from San Francisco. And I remember one time being on a field trip. There was a summer program happening in San Mateo where they would take the inner city kids as we were considered. They would put us on one of those school buses, drive us to San Francisco to Golden Gate Park, open the door, let us out. There was no chaperones or anything. And so, you know, we wander around the park and then, you know, we go, we have lunch together. Then we go back in the park, they put us back in the bus and they take us back to San Mateo. And this happened every weekend. Sometimes we went to the zoo, sometimes it was Golden Gate Park, but they always put us on the bus and took us places. And being in Golden Gate Park, again, this is the late 60s, early 70s, there's a lot happening. There's a lot of music going on. Tower of Power was always there. There were, the Grateful Dead was always there. So all of these bands that you hear about were always playing in Golden Gate Park, which means we were exposed to a lot of different music and a lot of different types of people. So at that point, I started to see people that I later would find out would be gay people, but they were always fascinating to me. You know, there were trans people, there were drag queens that everyone was hanging out in Golden Gate Park during the music scene. And so, I remember for my 16th birthday, I got my driver's license. And the first thing I wanted to do was go to San Francisco. So that's what I did. I got in my dad's car, I drove to San Francisco and I hung out on Polk Street because I heard that that's where the gays hung out. And even though I didn't really know I was gay or what that meant, I wanted to be where the gays were because they were fascinating, they were colorful, they were interesting, they were on the street. And that just gave me a sense of belonging. So I actually started out on the street mixing with gays in the Polk area. Tell me more about that. What sorts of things did you experience? Anything that really stands out? Okay, so going to the Polk area at that time, there were adult bookstores. And the adult bookstores all had arcades in the back where you could drop a quarter. And it didn't take me very long to realize that I could go into the back of the arcade and have oral sex for a few quarters. And I would even plan it out. So I would think, well, if I have $2.25, I could get a blowjob in the arcade. And so I would just plan for these things and I'd drive to San Francisco, on Polk Street going to the arcade. I can't imagine how I was getting in because I was only 16 years old, but it was a thing. And so I would go there. I would have some guys suck my dick and leave the arcade and go back home and I'd plan for the next weekend. So it was a thing for me. It was a regular thing for me to go to the arcades to have sex. I should think none of that exists anymore. None of the arcades or anything. There are a few arcades still here in San Francisco. Oh, OK. Yeah, there are. They've closed a lot of them, but they're still there. People are still going to them. And not just the arcades, they were the parks. I learned about the parks later on. So I was really, really exploring sex fully by the time I was between 16 and 18 years old. I felt I had it all down. You were a dancer, though, when you were young and you traveled around doing that. It was a very, very from what you told me when we prepared for this. It was a very fascinating new element of life for you. Where did you go? What did you experience? Tell us about it. Well, when I was I was 17, I started to work at Marriott, Great America. I don't know. Can I say that in the interview? Can I? I started to work at Marriott, Great America. And my first job there was as a street character and I was Buns Bunny. And so I would wander the street in the Great America streets in this big bunny costume and I would have escorts there. We couldn't talk. And that's when I started to understand life as a performer. And I remember one of my close friends, a girl named Karen Stannette, said to me, you know, my mother is a dance teacher and you should take dance. And I thought, yeah, right, you know, there's going to be some little dance studio and someone's basement. And but I went and it was a major dance studio and they took me on as a scholarship student. And after the first year, I auditioned for Great America as a dancer and I was cast in the Bugs Bunny show there. Again, as Bugs Bunny, but in the show. And from that point on, I started taking more dance. I started taking voice. I got very interested in performing. And I can also say that that's when I started getting my first taste of racism as a young adult because especially working in a theme park, there were unwritten rules. Like there were four of us in the show for our black men and we couldn't all be on stage at the same time without being in costume because that would be too many black guys on stage at once. And they felt that that would be offensive to the people going to the show. And remember, this is California, this is the Bay Area and we were being told that, you know, we were just not all on stage at the same time. And then to take that even further, we went tour as part of the shows and we wouldn't all tour together either. They would split up the black guys. So I remember I went to Flint, Michigan. Another really close friend of mine went to Japan. One went to Hawaii. One went to Guam and I ended up in Flint, Michigan which I thought was just the worst place to possibly be. But that's when I started discovering, you know, the racism and the fear that people still had about black people and especially going to Flint, Michigan because Flint and I'm assuming is still the same way. Flint was really separated racially. Again, there was the good white side of Flint and then there was the black side of Flint and the black side of Flint was impoverished. And being from California from the Bay Area, I hadn't seen that type of poverty before and I hadn't seen that big of a discrepancy between black and white classes. So again, that taught me something that the rest of the world is not like the Bay Area and that's when I started to see that. No, we would always say that being in California, we live in a bubble. Being in the Bay Area, we live in a bubble. You get outside of that bubble and you see the real world and the real world is not as pretty as we thought. You also said it taught you responsibility. Oh, absolutely. Being a young black man and feeling as if I had responsibility to, sorry, getting a little emotional. One of the things that I learned from my godmother, Renata was to be responsible for everyone around me, that you have to be part of the community, part of the solution and being a black man and seeing other black people impoverished and having their rights violated. And I felt that I needed to do something. I needed to make a difference. I needed to grow up. I needed to teach other people that life doesn't have to be that way, especially in Flint, Michigan, because I had a lot of friends there that were from there and they were the people who worked in the theater. And I would sit there and I would tell them about California, about San Francisco and it helped me grow as a person and learn to take responsibility for other people, especially black people. Do you think you were able to make a difference for anyone? Was I able to make a difference for anyone? I would say absolutely yes and I still do. That's, it's my calling. And I don't think it's just my calling. I firmly believe that as black people, we have a responsibility to other black people to help, to pull us along because no one else is going to do it for us. We have to do this for ourselves. And that's something that I've heard over and over growing up from black people who are older than me would always say, you know, whatever you do reflects on all of us. And that's, that's something that I carry today. Whatever I do reflects on all black people. You were in San Francisco at a very historically significant time. Particularly, you were there for the assassination of the mayor of Mayor Mascone and Harvey Milk. Tell us what you experienced with that. When Mayor Mascone and Harvey Milk were assassinated, I was a senior in high school and I remember this sense of loss and grief, much like I felt when Martin Luther King was assassinated and when Malcolm X was assassinated because at that young age, all I knew was being black. But by the time I was a senior in high school, I knew I was gay and I knew that I wanted to live in that world of being a black gay man and to have especially Harvey Milk assassinated. It was devastating once again because our leader is being killed. Someone is being taken away from us. And at that same time period, Jonestown happened and again, the grief of black people in the Bay Area because that church was in San Francisco and a lot of the parishioners from that church who went to Jonestown were from San Francisco and they were black and they were killed. So once again, being gay, our leader is being taken away. Being black, our people are being killed and that was a lesson that was being taught again and again and again. It was the sense of loss that I felt with Jonestown because before that happened, we all thought it was a good thing. We knew about Jim Jones. We knew about the church. We knew about the black people going to Jonestown. There was this sense of pride that was happening of, you know, we're going to make a settlement sort of like the early 1920s when black people were going to settle in Liberia. You know, we had that same sense of we're going to create a place where we belong and to have a massacre and all those people killed. Again, it was it was a sense of loss that was community-wide. We all felt it. Did you ever attend a service in the People's Temple? No, because my parents, my parents went to the Church of Christ and you know, that's a Southern church and that's that's the church that I grew up in. And ironically, being a Southern church, that church took a very different approach to life, especially in San Mateo. I remember when the AIDS crisis first hit, the pastor of that church who was a dear friend of mine and my family called me in and asked me how to help. And so we started to do a dinner on Thanksgiving every year for everyone who didn't have a family and didn't have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with and the church would cook it and then I would take it to the bars and open the doors and let people come in and eat. So that's the kind of church of Christ it was. It was quite unique and even when I tested positive for HIV AIDS, they brought me in and took care of me. I never felt ostracized. I never felt shamed, any of that and that was unique for a church, a Southern church at that time. How long have you been positive? I tested positive in 1987. Wow, long time. This is a long time. And I remember, I remember testing positive being in the doctor's office here in San Francisco because that's where I went for my test. And I remember she called me in and she gave me the diagnosis and told me that I was positive for a virus. They didn't quite have it down yet what was going on, but she said there's something there. You're positive and she said, I'm going to take care of you and and she did and I never had a fear that I was going to die or get sick. I I walked out of that office feeling like I'm going to be okay and I was. I also have this sense of guilt because you know, I had friends who were dying very close friends. I was put on a trial AIDS vaccine trial being done at Stanford and this was the very early 90s. Later late 80s early 90s when they were doing trials and I never ever develop any type of symptoms. I was never sick from HIV or AIDS to this day. I've never been sick. I think that that time period I felt such a sense of injustice because here I was getting a shot every Thursday at Stanford. No one could tell me what it was they were giving me, but I would get a shot every Thursday and yet I had friends dying and so I would always say, well, why can't they have the shot? You know why they're dying? If you give them the shot, it may save their life, but that's not how it works and it was explained to me. That's not how it works. We have to do these trials. We have to do this. We have to do that and they let people die. They let my friends die. Do you feel that the program at Stanford is what saved your life? I absolutely believe the program at Stanford saved my life. No, not only did they give me a shot once a week, but they took my vitals. They watched my health once a week. They take, you know, all these vials of blood and so it was in their best interest to keep me healthy. They kept me healthy. You know, anytime I had a cold or a sniffle, I was there and they were taking care of it. So I was being looked after. So you had a very different experience with the AIDS crisis than other people may have had. Yes, my experience with the AIDS crisis, you know, again was I knew I would be okay. But I also knew that I needed to help those who weren't okay. And so that led me into Leather and BDSM and Kink and looking after Leather people because, you know, when AIDS first hit, the Leather people were the ones who were blamed for it. Yes. No, by other days, especially because, you know, everyone needed to point fingers. So at first it was the bathhouse fall. Then it was the poppers. Then it was the lifestyle of Leather people. So there was always something, but I knew that I had friends that I need to take care of and I learned from those people how to do that. Take us to that. How were you exposed to the Kink Leather community? When it came to Kink and BDSM, remember I told you that at 16, I was going to San Francisco and there was a small movie theater there in the mission and they played X-rated movies and I could get in. I can't imagine how I got into these places, but I could get in and one of the movies that they were showing was the story of O and I fell in love with the movie and not even from a sexual aspect, but from wanting to understand what was happening in that movie. And so I saw the story of O and I read the book. I still have the book. I still have my copy of that book that I got. I read the story of O. I saw the sequels and so in my mind to be loved meant giving yourself to someone as the greatest gift. That was the essence of the story. She loved him so much that she could give herself and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted someone to love me so much that I could give myself to them as a gift. And so I set out finding that person. Ironically around that same time Mandingo, the movie came out and I put the two together. So I had on one hand the story of O where she willingly gave herself and then on the other hand, I had Mandingo, but I saw him as a big proud strong African black man and I wanted to be that I want to be big. I want to be strong. I want to be handsome. I wanted all of those things that he was and I wanted to give myself to someone as a gift and that's how I started searching for that person and I found him. I met this guy. I was living in San Diego at the time. I was in ballet school in San Diego as a matter of fact and I was considered the bad boy of the school. I can't imagine why but I would I love motorcycles and there was a guy in town who had a motorcycle and I would get on the back of his motorcycle. He right me around and one day he said to me, if I could get my handcuffs on you, I will do anything I want to you and I agreed to this. He took me to the hotel and he said to me again, if I get these handcuffs on you, I'm going to do whatever I want and I agreed and in seconds those handcuffs were on and I was so shocked that they were on. I couldn't even fight back but he got them on me and he pounded me in the chest. He spit on me. He kicked me. He pissed on me. That was my first piss experience. He did all those things that deep down I wanted him to do. I wanted him to earn me. I guess it's what I'm saying. You know, if you want me, you have to fight me and that was my thought and he fought me and he made me submit to him and at that point I was his and I willingly gave myself and that was that was my first real BDSM experience. Wow, that's very intense for a first experience. I loved it and it wasn't intense for a first experience, but it was exactly what I wanted and it was what I was looking for all that time. I knew that I wanted someone to make me submit and once it happened, then I felt like I've arrived. Now I understand all of this. Obviously, I didn't understand all of it because you know, in my young mind, I thought, well, now that we are together and you've done this, this is a forever thing. But then you learn the other parts of sex and growing up gay. It's not a forever thing for everyone. Some people, yes, some people not, but I learned a lot and I love that experience. You also have mentioned mentorship and when we prepared for this interview, you mentioned some very big names that you can identify as personal mentors to you. You brought up Tony de Blas, for example, Mr. Marcus Verne Stewart, Alan Selby. Who were these? Alan Selby was the owner and founder of Mr. S Leather and that's where the S comes from. It's Selby and when I was 26, I was living in San Jose because I had gone to San Jose State and graduated from San Jose State and I was hanging out in the Leather bar there and some guys came up to me and said, you know, we've been watching you, which is the way it happened back in the day. You didn't just walk up to Leather people and say, hey, I'm a Leather person too. Let's hang out. You stood back and you watched what was going on and I knew that because I had been reading Drummer magazine. And so I felt I knew everything to do. So I hung out in the Leather bar. Eventually these guys came over to me and they said, we're starting a Leather club here and we want you to be part of this and the club was called South Bay Leather and Uniform Group, also known as Slug. Um, and I think now they're the Santa Clara Leather Association, but there's still an existence and the club was forming and I was one of the founding members of that club and my first job was to go to San Francisco and be mentored by Alan Selby for the summer and they gave me that job because I had been a dancer and they wanted the club to put on a contest, a Leather contest. And so to them it's like, well, you're a dancer. You have stage experience. You should learn how to put on a contest because it'll make sense to you. So I and I drove to San Francisco. I went into Mr. S, which was a little house at the time and I walked in and I said, I'm looking for Alan Selby and I heard this big British voice say, well, that's me dear. And he said, let's go and we got in my car. We drove to the Eagle for the Sunday beer bus and for the whole summer I was with Alan Selby every Sunday at the beer bus and because I was with Alan, I met everyone else. So I met Vernon Stewart and Mr. Marcus and Tony de Blas and all of the Leather daddies and I was looked after again for a complete summer and I grew to know and love these men and they were definitely the men who took care of me. And it just so happens that I was dropped in their laps and I always say that because I arrived not knowing who any of them were and they just happened to be audience. I'm sorry for the benefit of the audience. Why don't you give us a couple of words about each of these men so that people can understand why they were so significant. Alan Selby, I mentioned that he was the founder of Mr. S. Leather and all of these men were very, very deeply involved in the Leather community in BDSM and the Leather clubs and Alan Selby is considered the mayor of Folsom Street and he took such great pride in being south of the market and his house was actually on Folsom and his back door faced Ringgold Alley and at that time in history, young men would go to Ringgold Alley and hang out in the alley and cars would drive around and eventually you'd get into a car, you'd go off with that person, you'd have sex or play, they'd bring you back and then you either wait for the next car or go off with your friends and it was one of those times when everyone knew everyone and you didn't get into a car with anyone that no one knew and because Alan's back door faced Ringgold Alley, he would be on his back porch watching and there was a rule that if we were ever in trouble, we would go to Alan's house and so at any point, you know, it could be two or three in the morning, you could go and you knock on Alan's door, Alan would always answer, he'd always let you in, you could go up to his apartment and you could sleep, you could rest, you could eat. There were times when there'd be three or four people on the floor, someone on the couch, people sitting in the bathtub, there were just always people there and everyone knew you go to Alan's place when it gets too late and if you've been drinking or whatever or if you feel like you're in trouble, you go to Alan's cell B. Philip Turner was another one, he was the disciplinarian of all of them. Philip would call me into his office at least once a week and he would say to me, I know what you did, don't make daddy sad, don't make daddy angry, I want you to make daddy proud. What are you going to do, boy? Make daddy proud, make daddy proud and I'll get out of here and that was a weakling thing with me because I was always getting in the trouble. You know, I was young. I was adventurous. I was spirited. Vern Stewart is the one that really taught me the responsibility of being a black leather man. In fact, when I was running for my title, which was International Mr. Drummer, Vern said to me, none of this is about you. This is about all of us and he meant it and I knew it. And again, my title being Mr. Drummer was about, you know, black men, black leather men. And you know, I was the only, I was the first black Mr. Drummer and the only black Mr. Drummer. So it did, it had a lot of responsibility to be the first and only black Mr. Drummer. Yeah, Tony de Blas was the editor of Drummer Magazine at the time, publisher of Drummer Magazine. So I was with all of these men all of the time. I could easily say Thursday through Sunday, we were, we were doing something. There was a fundraiser. There was a dinner. There was a benefit. There was a something all the time because AIDS was ravishing our community and money had to be raised. And I want to say about this about Alan. Alan firmly believed that everyone deserved to be touched and people needed to be touched. Every Sunday, Alan would go to a ward. I think it was called Ward 5B and he would give a massage to all the men in the ward who were suffering from HIV AIDS. And that was a thing that he did religiously. He never missed that. And it taught me to not be afraid to not be afraid to touch that, you know, as men as people, we need love. We need, we need that. And Alan really embodied that. One of the other men I would love to mention and he's still alive. Dirk Daener from Toma Finland Foundation. I met Dirk walking down the street in LA. I was to emcee an event and I was lost and I was in full leather and I saw a man in full leather. So I thought, well, he must know where I'm supposed to be. So I went over and I and I said, excuse me, I'm lost. I'm supposed to be at a leather event. Do you know where I'm supposed to be? And Dirk said yes. And so he took me to the event and said, when you're done here, come find the Toma Finland booth because this was LA pride. And so when I was done there, you know, I do what I'm told. I went to the Toma Finland booth and I asked for Dirk and everyone at the booth behaved like, you know, I was asking for the pope. So, you know, eventually they got Dirk and Dirk came out and he taught me everything that I need to know about art and and the preservation of art and the beauty of iconology and, you know, how we view ourselves as leather people that this all comes from someplace and the images and all of that I learned from Dirk and and how to how to not take things so seriously. I would I would have, you know, my little young man problems and I go to Dirk, you know, crying and he would say to me, is it really that fucking big of a deal? And, you know, I think about me like, oh, no, I guess I guess it really isn't that big of a deal. Is it? And so, you know, he would always say those things to me. He did always say, also, remember who you are. That was another one of Dirk's lines because, you know, I get in the trouble and he would say, remember who you are. And again, those were lessons that I was learning from these people without really understanding who they were in history, but they were there and they were teaching me. Let's take a step back to that because when we prepared for this interview, you said that these fine gentlemen groomed you for success and that that you really didn't have an option not to succeed because they had set that up. Now, I'd like you to talk a little bit about that particularly as it relates to being Mr. Drummer. All of the men that were around me at that time were were community minded men and also at that time the title holder system was really taking off and title holders were being given duties. Fund raising was big in the title holder community giving speeches, representation. All of that was was happening because the title holder system didn't start off that way. It basically started off as poster people, poster boys, but then responsibility happened. And so early on, I went to Alan Selby to learn to produce contests and that was my job to learn to do that. And as time went on, I realized that they were preparing me to do that very thing to hold a title. And so I was constantly being given jobs. I was being taught responsibility. I was being taught how to present myself in public. Again, that's why Philip Turner was always calling me to his office and saying, don't embarrass daddy because he wanted me to present myself in public. And so by the time I ran for Mr. Drummer, I had been groomed by all of these men really unbeknownst to me. It just seemed like the thing to do. They knew when I was ready to run for a title. And I was expected to win and not in a way that was pressurizing. It was I was expected to win because I had been taught by the best. And when I lose, it didn't really matter. The only thing that mattered was I present myself well and I knew if I present myself well, I will do well in this contest. I'll tell you another little funny story. So in my judges panel for the Mr. Drummer International, Mr. Drummer were race Bannon, who's a really, really, really close friend still today. We talk pretty much every day. There was Michael Bales, who was head of Michael Bales studios. There was another name for back. I can't remember right now. And there were a lot of heavy hitters in that in that judging panel. Tony de Blas, again, all these names. And in my interview, I wore cut off shorts and boots with my socks, two fingers above the top of the boot because that's what Philip Turner liked. The boots were for Alan Selby. He only liked boots. I wore no shirt and I had on a vest and the vest had been given to me at an auction that I was working because I had no leather at that time. And I was wearing this vest. So people could auction it off and the auction buyer gave me the vest. He bid on it for me and walked up and said, it looks good on you. You keep this. And so that's what I had on in my interview and everyone else was dressed up. So when they asked me in my interview why I was wearing what I was wearing, I said, because this is what I wear. You know, I'm a leather boy. I'm a leather man and this is my uniform. And so I was asked if I were ready to be a Mr. Drummer and I said yes. And the next question was, well, you know, Mr. Drummer appears in Drummer Magazine and he will be on the cover of Drummer Magazine. So I took off my clothes because I figured, well, if I'm going to have to do a layout in a magazine, then I'll show them that I'm okay with that. So I took off all my clothes in the interview and I stood there and Michael Bell said to me, do you think you're slick? And I said, yes. And so from that point on, he always called me slick. Anytime he would call, he'd send me letters and he'd always address them to slick. So again, right there in the midst of all these men who were making a difference and there was me being taught that I need to make a difference also. But let's come back to the actual title there. You created a bit of controversy with all of this. Tell us about that. What happened? Being the first black Mr. Drummer came with a lot of responsibility, but it also came with a lot of racism. And again, growing up in our little Bay Area bubble, it wasn't something that I was expecting, but a big deal was made out of me being the first black Mr. Drummer. And there was a lot of pride, a lot of pride with black leather people and a lot of pride with the people here, but there was also fear of, oh no, there's going to be black title holders now because there had never been a black Mr. Drummer. And if I'm recalling correctly, there had only been two black International Mr. Leathers and only one black International Miss Leathers. So this was new to people who were not black. They weren't used to seeing black international title holders. And so I was the first black man on the cover of Drummer magazine and to this day, it's, it's, I do believe it's the biggest selling Drummer magazine that was ever done. However, there were other magazines that did not want me on the cover of their magazines because they felt that the black man wouldn't sell their magazines and there was a famous one. I don't know if I could say that here or not. But it's your call. I will say it because there's a, there's a portion of it that I want people to know. So at that time, the, the Leather Journal would always put the new Mr. Drummer on the cover of the Leather Journal. And I wasn't on the cover. And so when Drummer magazine inquired why I wasn't on the cover of the Leather Journal, they were told that they didn't want to put a black man on the cover because no one would buy the magazine with a black man on the cover. And it caused a bit of stir with Drummer magazine, of course, but then I didn't tell a lot of people because I just didn't feel that it was important enough. I wanted to do my job as Mr. Drummer and my job wasn't to be on the cover of the Leather Journal. So I went about doing my job. People inquired and I let it go. But a few years ago, I was in a chat room with members of Onyx. Onyx is a BDSM kink club for men of color. Yes. And I was in the chat room and we were talking about representation. And I just happened to mention that, you know, well, as Mr. Drummer, I was never on the cover of the Leather Journal. And as you can imagine, there was disbelief, outrage, but then you have to remember also this was 1993 and the world was a very different place then. But luckily for me, Dave Rhodes, who is the publisher of the Leather Journal, was in that chat and I have to give him credit because he spoke up and I didn't know he was in the chat. He spoke up and said, that's true. I did not put him on the cover because he's black and it was a mistake and I'm sorry for that. And I have to give Dave credit for speaking up because most people I think would have just gone away or not said a thing. And he also, when I saw him in person, he apologized then and he's made good on that. He last September, I was on the cover of the Leather Journal and I wanted people to know that story and not just think that, oh, here he's just being on the cover of the Leather Journal. I was on the cover of the Leather Journal because it was making up for something that had happened in 1993. But I definitely want to give them Dave credit for speaking up and taking ownership of that. Wow. That's profound. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when we prepared for this interview and you've alluded to this a little earlier, you mentioned that the work you do in the community is not for personal fame, but for historical importance. Talk with us more about that. What does that mean? We talked a little bit about the men who groomed me and all of them worked until they couldn't work any longer. I was with Philip Turner during his last days. Alan Selby during his last days. Mr. Marcus, I was with him during his last days. And so what they taught me was you don't stop. You just keep going and you do the things that you're supposed to do that you've been trained to do that you've been taught to do and they did it and they worked until they couldn't work anymore, which means I work until I can't work anymore because that's what they expect from me. And I talked to Queen Cougar a little bit about this when we were doing things in the early days. It wasn't because we thought we would be important someday. It was because it's what you do. You know, when you're given responsibility, when you're part of a community, you do what you're supposed to do. You're part of a bigger picture. You're just a cog in the in the wheel and we're doing what we're supposed to do because we're part of something. It had nothing to do with wanting to stand out or be famous or do a fireside chat 40 years later. It was only this is what we're doing today and we're going to keep doing these things today. And that was 40 years ago. What do you think has been or is the legacy of you being the first Black Mr. Drummer? I think the legacy of me being the first Black Mr. Drummer showed other Black men and women that we don't have limits. I think that Black people especially we put limits on ourselves thinking that we can't do something because it's a white thing. No, as I was growing up, leather was a white thing and Black people outside of the leather community viewed us as wanting to be white. When my viewpoint was always I want to do everything that everyone else is doing. If people are having BDSM and kink and doing those and playing, I want to play. I want to experience those things. It doesn't matter if I'm Black. If white people can do it, I can do it and I could do it better. That's basically the way I looked at it, you know, but outside of the Black community, outside the leather community, the Black community was not in favor of Black people being in the BDSM and leather. In fact, still isn't in favor of that. There's a lot of backlash that Black people face because of BDSM and leather, especially when it comes to terminology, words like master and slave and boy and all of that. So I hope that my legacy is showing Black people that we don't have to put restrictions on ourselves based on someone else's interpretation of who we should be as Black people. We can make those decisions. We can be in the BDSM. We could do whatever we want because other people are going to enjoy it. We can enjoy it. Very profound statement. Very profound. An interesting bit here that you brought up when we prepared for this was that you saw the very first Imzel, Judy Tallwing McCarthy, you saw her win. That's a historical moment. Tell us a bit about that. Being at the first International Miss Leather contest, just like meeting Alan Selby, was a drop in the bucket for me. It was being in the right place at the right time. I had no idea that the first Imzel would be historically important. I had no idea that Judy would set the stage for women to come because she is Native American. And so for the first International Miss Leather to be Native American was huge. Again, like being the first Black Mr. Drummer, being the first Imzel to be Native American showed other women of color. I can do this too. It's not a white thing and Judy is still here. You know, like I said, you know, Alan Selby and all those men work until they couldn't work anymore. Judy is still working. She's I call her mother because that's who she is. She is the mother of Leather. And I remember being at her contest and seeing her on stage as she had on Native American garb and she made a point to let people know that she is Native American, that she belongs here. She is indigenous. She and her people were here first and that that moved me. That that made me and helped me realize that we all have a place here and there's going to be first forever. You know, there's a first Imzel. There's a first Black Mr. Drummer. There's going to be first forever in history and to be part of that and the witness part of that, you know, I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back, it was significant and I just happened to be in these places with these people. It's just my pocket, but I still to this day call Judy my mother and there are other women to I call by Johnson, my big sister. So I call Queen Cougar my sister. So I want to say that especially early on the the people of color and Leather bonded. No, we we may have had differences, but we always kept those differences to ourselves. We presented to the rest of the world and United Front, and that's what the world needed to see. And that's what we showed the world that, you know, as people of color, we're not going to have the drama that you're expecting us to have. We are going to show you our strengths and not our weaknesses and, you know, knowing Judy, knowing by knowing King Cougar, knowing Jill, knowing all those very strong women, you know, that gave me a sense of belonging. Are you a community elder? It's it's it's being a community elder. I don't really know what that means. I think that other people see me as a community elder. Some people like me. Some people don't. That's all part of it, but I feel like I'm 30 years old, and so when I meet people who are younger and they say things like I look up to you, I think why? Because, you know, I'm just a kid. I still have things to do. The other day on one of the apps on one of the hookup apps, I got a message from this really good looking guy and black guy and he went on to say that he had seen one of my podcasts and how much he enjoyed seeing me there and representing and all of that. And all I could think of is don't you want to have sex with me? You told me that, you know, you admire what I've done, but you know, I'm thinking, but what about the sex? But, you know, people see us differently. I don't see myself as an elder. However, I do know who I am. This Dirk would always say to me, remember who you are. I know what I've done. I know where I stand. I know the influence that I have. I know the ability that I have to work with other people. I understand all of that, but that's just what I was taught to do. That's what I was trained to do. So to me, I'm just doing what was expected. You're working on an interesting program right now called On Guard with a couple of other very big named people. Tell us a little bit about that. What are you guys doing with that? On Guard is a podcast of, we describe it as four old guys sitting around talking and it came about because the guys on there, I mentioned Race Bannon was a judge at my International Mr. Drama Contest and that was in 93. That's almost 30 years ago. Mr. Christopher worked with me back in the mid 90s. I was working at Brush Creek Media as a video producer and Mr. Christopher was the director. So when we all get together, we talk and we laugh and most of our talks are always about the good old days and the kids these days and what the kids are doing and we see each other once a week at least because we're either out at the bar. We're at each other's places smoking cigars. And so at one point we thought, well, Mr. Christopher thought, we should put this on the air because that's what we do. We're old guys who like to sit around talking about the good old days. And then we started comparing our good old days to what's happening today. So the podcast is about taking a topic and looking at it through our eyes of being old men and we don't say we're old guard because that has that has this connotation of being, you know, old white men sitting in the back of some crowded room making rules and that's not what it was at all, but we are old guys who'd like to talk about, you know, our experiences and so that's what we do now. Chris calls us classic guard because that sounds a little bit better than old guard. So we're classic and what's really funny is of the four of us, I'm the most conservative. You didn't you did forget one person though. You meant you mentioned Mr. Christopher and Reese Band and the pig. Yes, because we don't want to forget. We can't forget the pig. He's Chris's pig and he's newer to the group. Although, you know, I've met him several times over the years, but, you know, getting to know him has just been so much fun because he's a new voice. And so, you know, we do we get to sit around talking about the good old days. Yeah. And being classic guard. I like that very much. What's the biggest misconception about you? The biggest misconception about me. People don't know that I'm shy. I'm extremely shy and not only am I shy, but I'm very much an introvert and no people who've traveled with me, especially race, race will tell you this usually when I'm on the road going into a leather convention or a contest or something. If I have a duty there, I do that duty. You know, I check into my hotel. I go to my room. I order room service. I study. I go over my notes. I do all those things. I stay away from the general public because I have a job to do. And because I'm very shy, I get really nervous and crowded rooms when I have to be myself. It's much easier to be Mr. Drummer or an elder or one of those people. But when it comes to being Grayland, Thornton, I panic and I've always been that way. Part of me being a dancer was had to do a lot with that because on stage, I could be anyone I want and I've been on a lot of plays dream girls and once on this island and on stage, I love being on stage. But when it comes to going to the cocktail party, that's where there's a problem because my shyness comes right out. So people don't don't believe that, but I am really, really shy. Grayland Thornton, I would like to thank you for an amazing interview for Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. Doug, thank you for including me. It's such an honor and I wish you so much luck with this project. It's important. Can I just say that I really miss a lot of men that we talked about earlier, Mr. Marcus and Alan Selby and Philip and all those men, Vern. And I know you've done some chats with Vern, but I really wish that this sort of thing had happened with some of those other men because they're gone now. And one of the things that I try to do with the younger people, especially the Onyx members, is pass down the words that these men said to me, you know, when I'm talking to the Onyx kids, they think that I'm, you know, I'm being profounder on I'm making up things or these are my words, but they're not. These are just things that have been said to me years ago and we're passed down to you passed down. And and I think this my job to keep those men alive, to keep Alan's words alive, keep Vern's words alive because, you know, recordings weren't made of them. So I'm hoping that, you know, years to come, young people will repeat things that I've said to them and remember that it wasn't me that said it originally. This came from Vern Stewart. So that that's what I'm hoping comes with this.