Rebutting John Karr and The New (gay) Stalinists

In a 'non-review' of my memoir, Flights of Angels- a book hailed in his introduction to it by Mark Thompson, former editor of the Advocate for its 'fearless truth-telling'; lauded by Jonathan Katz, Harvey Milk Institute founder and former Head of Gay Studies at Yale, as 'an utterly magical evocation of the era'; and recommended to students with praise by Michael Bronski at Harvard, SF porno critic John Karr lambasts my work as character assassination and slime. One hardly knows how to thank him.
In praising a friend of his whom I take to task in my book, a friend who, notably, had a shrine to Hitler in her SF flat, and who often told people "Hitler failed. He didn't get enough Jews," Mr Karr fails to note that I praise eighty-five percent of the people I write about. And far from assaulting the era, Flights celebrates luminous, transcendent aspects of the 1970s as it includes reflections on darker, self-destructive, psychotic or obsessive-compulsive behavior before AIDS when so many- myself included- were naive, wild stoners.

Without doubt, we built an amazing culture. Equally true: an ugly poll tax was paid in drug and alcohol abuse and terrific psychic turmoil in creative radicals raised during McCarthyism as we struggled to attain positive self-images without solid role models. It was a fierce, urgent time. Few prisoners were taken. That was its glory: incandescent light and savage darkness were present to astonishing degrees. It was the fusion and raw friction between diametrically opposed, conflicting forces that made that unforgettable era transformative.

That helix is what I celebrate. But at no point did I lay claim to ultimate truth. In fact, my book starts off by saying the era was too diverse for any one person to encapsulate as I urge everyone to share their tales so that a vibrant, vital part of gay history and culture isn't lost.
My memoir simply relates my experience. Yet Mr Karr implies motives in me which are patently absurd (e.g., that I copyrighted the hit show,'Holy Cow!' for personal advantage.) Here, then, is what that man spins into a sinister ploy:
As was noted in the theater program at the time, I wrote the show i.e., created the plot and scripted "Holy Cow!" in 1979. As such, the story and dialogue were my property, though I never saw them as such. All the Angels worked for free and for community. But in 1980, when we revised and remounted "Holy Cow!" to go legit, we faced the danger of having our hit show stolen.

The reason is easily explained: The Angels didn't exist as a legal entity. Even our name- 'Angels of Light'- belonged to someone else so we had no way to protect ourselves from being ripped off. It had happened before. Often. For this reason, I copyrighted my work while making a public pledge that, as soon as the group got non-profit status (which meant having a Board of Directors able to receive and take possession of the script), I'd gladly transfer those now safeguarded rights. Yet to Mr Karr that constitutes theft.

The fact that it isn't possible for an artist to steal his own creation from himself, and that I acted only to keep the original material safe in order to give it away as soon as legally feasible appear irrelevant to Mr. Karr.  Perhaps in his eagerness to attack, he saw me taking solo credit for our triumph? But as clearly stated: I never wrote a great play for the Angels; I only assisted in creating fabulous events. Also, I had no role in 1972-1974 as the Angels staged six one-night-only productions. Some were fantastic, some duds. Hardly surprising in shows lacking scripts or a director and featuring outrageous queens. And as I emphasized in the book: all the elements of theater magic were fully present when I joined the group in 1974. Still, during my debut a few months later, half the cast quit and walked out. Seeing the chaos, I felt that what became funky/serviceable show scripts (part of my contribution) might usher in improved group dynamics and smoother functioning.

They did too. Between 1974 and 1984, the group staged fourteen shows. Until 1980, when I resigned, I was in eight; starring in and scripting seven. All seven- from epics that ran for months to cabarets- were successful, easy-going delights. As evidence of this, when I was in the group, geniuses like Tony Angel and Chuck Drees also took part. Because 'the Angels' was never a monolithic entity but was comprised of overlapping spheres, a functional balance was thus attained. As a consequence, every single show where we contributed (after 1974) was a communal joy. All the rest were riven by feuding, acrimony and wholesale defections.

In States of Desire, Edmund White reports on the Angels during my absence in 1976. He describes a group of zombies and hollow-eyed ghouls. Playwright Dan Curzon's Dropping Names, describes his nightmare of going bankrupt while trying to work with people who exploited him savagely in 1984. As such testimonies aren't mutable- and dismal reviews are a matter of record- I challenge Mr Karr to address simple truth and explain why the group succeeded brilliantly when Tony Angel and I participated? Or why, in our absence, every show after 1974 flopped? Put simply: a tally of lost cast members parallels exactly Janice Sukaitis' three bombs. Shorn of drag queens, political satire or uplifting theme, her epic wipeouts played to deserted theaters as her vicious power abuses led to irretrievable loss as some of the sweetest, kindest Angels bailed out and quit the group.

Such nationally respected figures as Nancy Goldstein and Michael Bronski have gone on record to decry a tendency to sanitize and commercialize gay history. And more will follow. But this revisionism isn't new. Long ago, many strangers boasted they starred in our shows! More recently, people who never were part of gay lib have suddenly become revolutionary lights. Legends in their own mind declaim pc centrality from the cozy remove of decades. Meanwhile, a few Guardians of Public Morality revile an accounting that includes the turmoil, conflict, fear or cruelties of an era that was astonishing, precious, extraordinarily gallant and world-changing as Society's most marginalized leapt into self-actualization and claimed equality, justice and a right to live free from the stigma of being classified as diseased.

As one who did take part in that revolution, as one who worked for free from the 1960's on- and who still does- I see a vast difference between true radicals and wanna-bes who never were angling to assert a status they never earned legitimately. And so I'll say it loud and clear: shape-shifters and 'Never Weres' are not our true guides, historic allies or representatives; culture vultures taking credit as Insiders do a profound disservice to a community and an ongoing tide of evolution that they claim to champion.

Instead of valuing tough, complex truths, Mr Karr parrots pc Stalinists out to suppress the vitality that made the 60s and 70s uncompromising and makes LGBT people unique. In doing so, he would rob future generations of striving outsiders of all stripes the ability to better fathom a terrain already traveled on the way to full inclusion. Far better to honor past tribulations, mourn our dead, acknowledge error and so own our actual history so that those who come after may know who we were, the price paid for hard-won progress, and hopefully, appreciate and possibly even profit from the ways we went too far off-track even as we danced in the splendid radiance of thrilling freedom.

.http://whitecrane.typepad.com/gaywisdom/2008/07/a-hatchet-job.html