Fifty Years Ago: Bay Gays, 1976

A compilation of news reports on the burgeoning "homosexual community" in San Francisco, in the freewheeling carnival days before Harvey Milk, before the riots, before AIDS and all that.  I was still in the closet, and though I knew I was gay I didn't feel any kinship with the screaming queens out there.  The two quiet, polite, monogamous guys interviewed in the first clip here were more my speed, and still are.  But San Francisco was in the vanguard of the gay rights movement, which has benefited us all from coast to coast.  

BTW, David Goodstein, who appears in the first clip, was owner and publisher of The Advocate, which I later subscribed to for several years.

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To Tell the Truth - Undercover Cop, 1973

For several years now at dinnertime, M.P. and I have enjoyed watching episodes of To Tell the Truth from the early 1960s.  I remember it well from my childhood, and I think it is the most entertaining of all the old game shows - perhaps because, unlike with other game shows, neither the panelists nor the audience knows who the real featured character is, so it's fun to try guessing who it is.

This particular episode is perhaps the most entertaining of all, for reasons you will discover if you watch it.  Big laughs.

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