The More things change, the more etc!

In recent weeks, I have had good reasons to go back into my closet... and under my bed! I recently posted the need for a writer, on CRAIGSLIST to help me write stories behind some of my of my images, for a possible coffee table book. I had only one responce and his name is Liam. I just noticed he signed on as a follower of this blog. Writing is not my forte, however I have not only a treasure trove of images in my photo collection, but also remember interesting facts and stories behind my images. I may ask Liam to help me on this blog,too. This past week, I also met with Andrew, who is a documentary maker. He spent 8 hours in 2 shoots... and together we dwelled on my stories pertaining to quite few of my photographs, and the history leading upto and after the events that I took them. Getting ready for Liam, and Andrew was not easy. I have boxes of non-organized tidbits and memorabilia from the 1960s and '70s. To give you some idea of things to come on this blog, as well as in Andrew's "doc", I posted the clipping in a San Francisco gay newspaper from 1979, about Gay Marriage. Ironically, it was not the reason I kept it, it was the backside of one of my sports columns. Gay Marriage has been in the news for the past few years... however, most people are unaware that it has been in the news for so many years. As I have discovered, many gay issues that we take for granted today, or are fighting for today... have been around for quite a long time. Besides the issues, I have clippings that show hypocrisy within the gay press,too. I like to brag that I have been a one man army, and not because I like to work alone... So in the weeks and months to come, I will be posting interesting, and provocative subjects from my past, along with clips and images. Of course, if you have any questions or comments about this blog, or its contents... please take the time to ask.

Coming Soon... 2 Openings Lee Balterman Jerry Pritikin

The latest about Lee Balterman. He'll be the other half of a 2 man show at Chicago's Daiter Gallery this summer. Lee is picking out negatives for the exhibit. Daiter recently moved to new location. Lee hits 90 in July, and enjoys his new home at the Kenwood. He will be at my Opening, at Roosevelt University's Gage Gallery on Thursday June 3rd. It runs until July 30th. Michael Ensdorf the Director, and founder of the Gallery is selecting 40 images, b&w and color of the 1970s in San Francisco, with special attention given 1976, '77 1978, including Harvey Milk, the early gay rights movement and gay sports. The official announcement for the show will not be made until May. The story behind the show came about... and behind the images in the show will be featured on this blog in the near future. I hope to have a "Harvey Milk" Tribute ready for "Harvey Milk Day" on youtube.
If you are in the Chicago area during Pride Month(until July 30)... please take the time to visit the Gage Gallery, and tell your friends who maybe interested.

Welcome to WHEN THEN WAS NOW...

Years ago, there were so few places to find gay news. Few communities had gay newspapers, and if you read anything during the 1950s and 60s, chances are, it was about a local gay bar being raided. Seldom, did the wire services carry gay news. This was a time before the www. and instant news was transcribed via United Press International, and the Associated Press. There is a new play on Broadway called "PRIDE" taking place in England in 1958, about 2 guys discovering their introduction into a love that dare not speak its name. It was reviewed in the N.Y. Times, and I could not help thinking about myself at the same period in time, except for me it was taking place in Chicago. I posted my comments that follows...

February 17th, 2010 5:34 am

Rating:

Gay, Then and Now-"PRIDE"

I lived "Pride" at the same time this play takes place... and at the time I called it Love! I was 21, and for the first time felt the slings and arrows, except, for us it took place in Chicago. I remember, thinking to myself, as we walked along Chicago's lakefront... Why can't we hold each others hand? Who are we hurting? There were so few pockets of friends... but I felt liberated, and thankfully recall my move to San Francisco in 1960, and discovering all the segments of gay life... "When then was Now!" Today, I see openly gay couples hold hands, march in Parades, and want the same rights that non-gays have, and hope that today's gay communities realize how far we have come, to be ourselves... one day at a time.

– jerry pritikin, chicago

This is my blog... and admit, that I do not keep up with it as often as most blogers. At 73... I have a habit of thinking a lot about the my choices that I made, and I have no regrets. This blog, in a way is similar to a short story I read in the late 1950's by Gore Vidal. It was called "Pages of a Abandon Journal". About someone who also made choices, that were unpredictable at the time they were made. I never thought much about the future more than 5 minutes in advance. I was lucky, even when I was unlucky... to be at the right time and place at the same time. I am not a story teller... however I have been blessed with great recall. I guess I was aided with the help of my camera as a companion. I managed to shoot at interesting times, that record where I been, and the changes taking place before my eyes and camera.

This coming June (For Pride Month) and July, I will be having my first gallery showing ever at Roosevelt University's Gage Gallery in Chicago. There will be over 40 photographs of the streets of San Francisco in the 1970's. Many have never been published, or seen since they first appeared in the window of Georgeanna's Bakery at 420 Castro Street... just a few yards away from today's Harvey Milk Plaza. As I get ready for my exhibit... I will start to reuse this blog as a journal... and share it with you. I would appreciate your comments.

VOTE!!! (A funny thing happened to me on the way to D.C.)

I'm a National Equality Idol Finalist for the March happening in Washington D.C. - October 9-11, 2009.

Check out my video now on YouTube... and vote there (click for link) or on Facebook (click for link).
Here's how you "vote": on YouTube, be logged in to your YouTube account, and when you go to the link with my video, hit "favorite" - which is right under the video... and make my video one of your favorites... on Facebook, be logged into your account, go to the above link, go to the videos section of the National Equality March profile, watch my video, and hit "like" to give me a thumbs up! Thanks!!

More details about this opportunity can be found here, at The Beachwood Reporter... (click here for link).

As we say in Chicago, "Vote Early & Vote Often!"

Orange Tuesday...6/7/77

Since Focus Films released the movie "Milk" last November, that is now up for 8 Academy Awards... millions and millions of people of all ages, gay and straight have been introduced to Harvey Milk, and that era in San Francisco's gay rights history, here in America and around the world.

In this age of blogs, the WWW, CNN, BBC, and Satellites... news actually travels at the speed of light... but in the 70's, the fastest way news made its way into the print and broadcast media outlets in the U.S.A. was via Associated Press and United Press International, and a few other lessor known wire services. Chances of reading or hearing anything about gay news in any media other than the gay press at that time was almost nil. Yet in the span of less than a month I was able to crash that barrier several times. Outing myself nationally in early May,1977 when I created a gay theme T-shirt, and again on June 7,1977 with my photo of Harvey Milk making the A.P. wires... and becoming one of the most important dates in gay history. It helped establish Harvey Milk as a gay-rights spokesman nationally, 5 months before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and a footnote to gay history, again.

Harvey Milk-Orange Tuesday 6/7/77 San Francisco
(c) Jerry Pritikin-Chicago

Former "Miss America" runner-up, and spokesperson for the Florida Orange Juice Association, Anita Bryant made it possible both times. Thanks to her, she provided the gay rights movement... movement! At Dade County Florida, Bryant led voters to rescind a gay rights housing ordinance that had been in effect for several months. The national press gave her, and a group of "Christian Right" Preachers, a pulpit for their "SAVE OUR CHILDREN" anti-gay campaign. What happened on June 7,1977 in Florida was a turning point. Unlike the N.Y. Stonewall riots... the ripple was felt all the way across the country in the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco. It was not a planned march; it was an impromptu response to the anti-gay results of that election.

Keep in mind, there's a 3 hour difference between coasts, and when the polls closed in Florida... it was still mid afternoon in San Francisco. The evening news came on at 11 P.M. and there were prior updates showing that the Anita Bryant led forces had won the election. I remember, I decided to go to the Castro about 10:00 P.M... and as I was leaving my apartment... I grabbed my camera gear. To this day, I do not know why... I wasn't expecting anything special to happen. When I arrived a few minutes later... there was a small crowd of people coagulating at Castro and Market Street, known today as "Harvey Milk Plaza". I noticed Tom Clancy, of KTVU channel 2 news, setting up (years later he became the afternoon anchor for CNN) and I asked him if he had a lead-in for his live feed back to the Oakland based station... he nodded "No". I recommended he call it "Orange Tuesday", and he said he liked it. That's how he opened his segment of the 11 O'clock news. There were no other broadcast media on hand. The crowd began to form at the Catholic Church, on Eureka Street... a block away. Harvey Milk arrived with a bullhorn, and boxes of candles that he passed out. He started an impromptu march (not in front of the Castro Theater, as depicted in the "Milk" movie). He started shouting "Out of the Bars, and into the Streets!" and within minutes there were nearly 500 hundred marchers heading down Market Street. Harvey leading the way... The bullhorn in one hand and a candle in the other and continuing the "Out of the Bars" theme, over and over like the Pied Piper of Castro Street... hundreds and hundreds more joined in from the gay and straight bars on Market... and with each passing block the impromptu march got bigger and bigger along the way. When he turned on Polk Street... most thought that Harvey was heading towards City Hall. However, he didn't stop there (as depicted in the movie) but went all the way downtown... across from the St. Francis Hotel on Powell Street, and into Union Square. By that time there were nearly 5,000 marchers that filled up the Square. Because it was an impromptu event... there were just a few signs... but the biggest cheer of the night came when a young black girl climbed a flag poll and unfurled a "GAY POWER" flag. Harvey was one of a few that spoke to the crowd... saying "if it can happen in Florida... it could happen elsewhere and San Francisco, too!" I snapped less than a roll of film, and after the crowd dispersed, with many going back to the Castro, I thought that the impromptu San Francisco event, about an election thousands of miles away, was newsworthy on a national scope. I decided to take the film over to the Associated Press at Fox Plaza... and I was right. They ran it on their wires "Datelined" from San Francisco... the next morning I had a call from the S.F. bureau of Newsweek magazine, asking if I had any other images they might use, and I said the only other one was too much like the A.P. photo. The afternoon Examiner put it on their front page, and it made the front page of the Sunday Chronicle's "World" Magazine. The impromptu march became the blue print for subsequent political marches over the next 9 months as gay right ordinances were rescinded at St.Paul Minnesota, Eugene Oregon, and Wichita Kansas.


It was not until 4 years after Harvey's assassination... that Randy Shilts asked me if he could use it in his book "THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET". I asked him to "tag" the caption "Orange Tuesday" under my image, and recommended that he call the chapter "Orange Tuesday". We exchanged a few tidbits about Harvey, and discussed several chapters in his new book about the emerging AIDS crisis "AND THE BAND PLAYED ON". When the "THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET" was finished, he gave me a signed copy.


It was then that I found out that he named a chapter "Orange Tuesday". Before the movie... that image became one of the best known image of Harvey Milk, and has been seen in several other books, including Josh Gottheimer's (President Clinton's speech writer) "Ripples of Hope", Chrisopher Pullen's "Documenting Gay Men" and the latest, The "Harvey Milk Pictorial" by Newmarket Press, in conjunction with Focus Films"MILK" movie. It has also been seen in several well known documentaries, various international magazines, many gay web-sites and exhibits.

Ironically, the following "NOW!" frame has never been published.

HARVEY MILK "NOW" Orange Tuesday 6/7/77
(c) Jerry Pritikin-Chicago

I had planned to make it a poster for the 10th anniversary of Harvey's assassination. Then I put if off for 20th, and last year the 30th anniversary... and still I produced no poster. Finally I was going to use it for the official poster for the "When Then Was... NOW!" exhibit at Gerber Hart Library that was suppose to open earlier this month... but because of their many delays, and controlling how I wanted to display my images, memorabilia, pins and posters... I cancelled the exhibit. It will be featured and published for the first time in a column by my friend... Felicia Dechter, in an article in this week's Chicago Skyline Press, and THIS posting of my blog.

Coming Soon... the history behind my Anita Bryant T-shirt... and outing myself nationally in May of 1977, via United Press International's wire service.