Bugs' Rainbow Pilgrimmage to Stonewall

No, I didn’t trip and slide face-first into the gutter like I did on Bourbon St. in New Orleans this past Halloween, but I knew I was in deep trouble when my bartender told me she couldn’t serve me triple vodka-sodas ’cause her glasses weren’t big enough.

“How much for the bottle?” I cracked.

I kept snapping pictures of men’s asses while some woman grabbed Jamie’s ass (I think it was a woman – she looked like Stevie Nicks!) as they danced at the bar.

But the real entertainment was on the stage. This was my first Night of a Thousand Stevies (NOTS) – and yes, folks, I will be going back for more – so I thought we were going to get a whole lot of lip-syncing.

Instead what we got were real live performers, notably underground crooner Adam Dugas (glammed up like Adam Lambert in American Idol) with harpist Mia Theodoratus doing an incredible version of Landslide; and Heather Litteer (a.k.a. Jessica Rabbit Domination) and her two backup singers rocking the house to Stand Back. Then Goon Squad – featuring Blondie’s Debbie Harry on lead vocals – destroyed the place with their balls-to-the-wall punk version of Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain.

In two words: Holy fuck!

“The live [set] wasn’t as crazy as other years because we had to co-ordinate everything with the computers at the back of the room, which took some getting used to,” says ab-fab NOTS co-hostess Hattie Hattaway (a.k.a. Brian Butterick), who produces NOTS with her fellow Jackie Factory NYC co-founders Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi Valenti. “But I think it was the best audience we’ve ever had – there were over 1,000 people. They brought so much energy, that’s why we kept turning on the house lights. They’re part of the show.”

I have been to every major drag event in London, Sydney, Paris, New Orleans, Vegas and Montreal, and I’m telling you, NOTS is hands-down the most fun drag event I’ve ever been to. Revellers get dolled up à la Stevie, including past attendees Courtney Love, Cyndi Lauper and Boy George. Even Jamie and I wore blond wigs.
“I hope next year maybe Stevie will come,” Hattie told me afterwards.

There were also a few friends I didn’t get to see in NYC on this trip, notably Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto who was rubbing elbows at the star-studded Tribeca Film Festival (but asked me to go see a Broadway play); and California-based literary legend Felice Picano who was visiting old friends in Brooklyn Heights.

I also called up Rachel Robinson, the widow of the late Jackie Robinson, the man who broke pro baseball’s colour barrier with the 1946 Montreal Royals before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers the following year. Some years ago Mrs. Robinson invited me to visit her, but it’ll just have to wait until my next trip, since she was busy at a conference when I was in town.

By the bye, Jamie and I had planned to attend a Yankees game at their new stadium on Sunday, but it was just as well the match was rained out because most of the tickets at the new Yankee Stadium are over $275. Yes, you read right. And that’s Jackie Robinson you hear rolling over in his grave.

But three fine actors I did get to see were Rupert Everett (who’s looking quite dapper these days) and Broadway legends Angela Lansbury and Christine Ebersole all starring in a delightful revival of the 1941 comedy Blithe Spirit, written by the late Noel Coward in a brief six days. (I once visited Noel Coward’s home, Firefly, in Jamaica where I actually sat in his study. But that story’s for another column.)

Between Blithe Spirit and NOTS, Jamie and I maintained a steady party-hopping pace, particularly in the Lower East Side, stopping only to sleep at my favourite NYC hotel, the über-cool boutique hotel Stay (157 West 47th St., just north of Times Square), where you can find anything – and I mean everything – you could ever possibly want in their so-hip-it-hurts rock’n’roll lobby bar and lounge, the Aspen Social Club, which was always packed with gorgeous locals. (Surf to www.stayhotelny.com. Rates start at $249.)

But the place I had to check out for the first time – a pilgrimage of sorts, really – was the Stonewall Inn on Christopher St., originally built in 1843 as stables, and which never was a hotel. The Stonewall was gutted by fire in the 1960s, then reopened on March 18, 1967, as the Stonewall, site of the famed Stonewall riots of 1969 that ignited the modern-day gay-civil-rights movement.

Except we’ve been mixing up myth and facts behind Stonewall for 40 years. Critically-acclaimed author David Carter in his must-read book STONEWALL: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution claims that prior to the raid on the Stonewall Interpol uncovered the theft of negotiated bonds which were turning up on the streets of Europe. The bonds were being stolen by gay Wall St. employees who were victims of a blackmail operation run by Stonewall Inn manager Ed Murphy.

Murphy, in spite of having been previously arrested for running an extensive national blackmail ring based on homosexual prostitution, had never been to jail because he had incriminating photographs of one of the prostitution ring’s most prominent customers, then-FBI head honcho J. Edgar Hoover.

But once the NYPD learnt that the theft of bonds was tied to blackmail at the Stonewall Inn, the order went out to shut down the club.

Then came the infamous riots.

In fact, the first-ever Gay Pride Parade was held in NYC in June 1970 to commemorate the riots, with a then-unknown Bette Midler taking centre stage to entertain the marchers.

Today, there are hundreds of Gay Pride parades held worldwide, most of them in June in honour of Stonewall. So Jamie and I enjoyed a couple double vodka-sodas at the Stonewall.

I believe a visit to the Stonewall is something every person – gay or straight – should do once in their life, and it’s fitting on this 40th anniversary that NYC is commemorating the Stonewall Riots all summer long. To find out all you need to know about NYC’s Rainbow Pilgrimage/Stonewall anniversary, surf to www.nycgo.com.
Happy Pride!

Richard Burnett is Editor-at-Large of
Montreal’s Hour magazine where he writes his national
queer-issues column Three Dollar Bill, which you can also read online at www.hour.ca.