[00:00:00]
Brandon Cook: [so how did you get involved in] ACT-UP?
Tom Paulhus: ACT-UP was uhh, after I graduated Brown I went to San Fransisco. I was a deadhead, and I was gay. So it seemed perfect. And it was, it was the greatest sumer ever. So I spent the summer in San Fransisco, summer of '84. I had some Brown friends who had graduated a year ahead of me who were going to school out there, umm I went with a current Brown friend, so there were all sorts of people – friends out there, and they could put me up. And uhh, so that was a great summer, I did my deadhead thing but then I also made a boyfriend, found a boyfriend. And I got really, the democratic national convention was there that summer, umm... I didn't go to any protests around that but there was, I did march in the gay pride parades, my first gray pride parade. And it was intense. It was totally intense, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority were there, and it was – the Dead Kenedys were playing. Umm, so it was amazing. So that was '84. Then I came back, and I tinkered around Providence for a while waiting tables and doing some video work at a public access place, and not really doing much of anything. Then in '88 I went to Idaho. And uhh, I stayed there for 8 months. And then when I came back from there I uhh, I met a guy, a URI grad. Wayne, my ex. And that was uhh, that was summer of '89 and Bush one was in office and ACT-UP was really heating up like nationally, so it just...
[00:02:07]
TP: looking back I'm not really sure when and how it happened, but I know it happened mostly around this little club which was right below the AS220. This, I dunno if you know, but AS220 was originally Waybosset street. That was the first place it was, and it was in the building that the Providence Performing Arts Center is in. And if you look to the right on the door leading upstairs in that building, it's 220 Waybosset. So they called it Alternative Space 220, AS220. And they were there about 6 months, and this is uhh, this is now around the summer of eighty – I'm sorry I'm jumping around a little bit but – this is around '85. And I actually never, I lived in a loft right a block a way but I never actually went into that AS220 and that's what I mean about being oblivious sometimes, which frustrates me. Umm, it was really underground. And then finally they had this crazy night up there with all these RISD students... John Spencer from the Blues Explosion was performing and Tod Ashley from Cop Shoot Cop, all these RISD guys one of whom I had a huge crush on. And uhh, they, so it was really packed and the PPAC management – do you think you can still hear me?
BC: Yeah.
TP: The PPAC management was kind of uptight about it, you know they said “We like what you're doing at AS220 but you can't do it here.” So they moved around the corner on Richmond St. And they moved down into this building, right around the same time and I dunno who came first, either Rocket, this club Rocket or AS220. But like right about the same time in the mid to late '80s they dug into this building where Club Hell and Jerky's are now. And uhh, there was nothing on that block. AS220 was completely illegal, they ya know, we were living in there and everything – well I didn't move in there till 1990, but...
[00:04:08]
TP: umm, so around '89 Club Rocket, which was pretty new, used to have tues – it was gay owned, but it was a mixed crowd – and they used to have Tuesday night gay night? And uhh, so I would go down there and uhh, that's kind of that's where I got asked out by my boyfriend, I had met him once before at a Brown administrator's party uhh actually cause his lover was... well I'm sorry. But anyway, it's a small town. So the ACT-UP meetings used to be at Rocket, they used to have them at Rocket. So once I met this guy and we were hangin at Rocket all the time I just kind of fell into it. I dunno that I would've sought it out or figured it out on my own. I've always, ya know despite my oblivion I've always had a good knack of being in the right place at the right time, like ya know, always knew where to be ya know? So I just started going out with this guy and started doing ACT-UP and we would meet at Rocket. I have about a half dozen memorable things about ACT-UP, but that was the beginning that was how I got involved. And that would be I'd say uhh '89, '89 '90. It was all during Mapplethorpe. Uhh, do you know all about Robert Mapplethorpe?
BC: No.
TP: Really intense, you know all the shit going on with the flag burning now? I mean it's, this discussion's been going on for 10, 15 years. In 19 – 15 years – it was either '90 or '91 this artist, Robert Mapplethorpe who had gotten a national endowment for the arts grant did some, what a lot of people considered really offensive artwork where he, it had something to do with the flag. I think he either urinated on a flag or umm there was something else, associated some terrible image with the flag. Cause a huge uproar.
[00:06:20]
TP: And so the republicans started bashin the national endowment for the arts, they started cutting their funding. And they, Bush one I think he brought up legislation to try to prevent the flag from being defaced and all this censorship bullshit. And that was all right around the same time as ACT-UP, well you know ACT-UP existed for more years than just 1990 and '91, but that was a really intense period where the arts and the ACT-UP community were, in my mind, really inextricably linked. It was cool, you know. And we'll get to it, but what ultimately happened with me is for personal reasons I couldn't really continue with ACT-UP. I would get so angry. Like, I had, I literally... one time Jesse – Pat Buchanan came to town and ACT-UP actually didn't make that much of a presence at all. But Bill Jesdale and I went down, and I made a sign, “Pat Buchanan is White Trash.” And I made sure to get like right up next to his limousine. So you know, and I'll never forget him sitting up in his backseat, looking up at the sign, looking at me, and then just sitting back. [laughter] And uhh, so then I went into this little press, ya know they had this little room set up where he was gonna have a press release, press conference? And I walked right down the center isle and held my sign up and all the cameras were running ya know? And I got on the news that night. And this kid, I'll never forget this little fuckin republican offspring, like tried to trip me, ya know? As I'm walkin down the aisle ya know? Stupid little idiot.
[00:08:10]
TP: So after, ya know this is after all my other ACT-UP involvements, two protests at George Bush visitations to Rhode Island, he came twice. And a couple other things. And I just at the end of it, I was so pissed off and so angry. I basically had an anxiety attack, had to stop at a bar on the way home. And uhh I decided, I kind of decided then that I needed to vent in a different way. So that's where like my uhh... I was already, I had already moved into AS220, the one on Empire Street – I mean the one on uhh, the second incarnation – you know where it is now?
BC: Yeah.
TP: So it's the third building. I moved into what we call the old building really, on Richmond Street, in 1990. And I had just started going out with Wayne and just started doing ACT-UP. And sometime soon thereafter was the Pat Buchanan thing. And I decided after that, like, I had too much anger over things. Cause some of the shit that would go on, like at Bush visitations? Like the way cops would handle you? Just infuriated me. Umm, so I started, I moved, I decided to do a community event every year around National Coming Out Day called the Stravaganza Shows? And that was a huge huge thing around the time. ACT-UP Would perform, and those were all at AS220 where I was living.
BC: When you say perform...?
[00:09:49]
TP: They would do like some sort of topical dramatic presentatoin. Ya know, so Stravaganza was a great thing. It was, basically what happened was I just couldn't handle being angry all the time so I decided I had to like put on multimedia dramatic shows – a lot of comedy too, not a lot of comedy, but stuff. And I would write skits, and I would ask people in the community to do skits, and we'd get ACT-UP to perform, the Rhode Island Gay Men's Chorus, PFLAG, Youth Pride, ya know we'd have the beneficiary every year, they were one of our first beneficiaries. One year the beneficiary was, we got money together to take buses down to the March on Washington in ninety... right after Clinton got elected, the march on Washington is was in April of '93. And it was a really happening period, it was right after Bush one. And then Clinton, and then Clinton got elected, it was right after uhh... Bush only had that one term, so last half of his term is when I – that would've been, Clinton got elected in '92, so he was '88 to '92, Bush was '88-'92 – and that's right, you know, right in the middle of that '89 '90 is when I met Wayne and got involved in ACT-UP. And it was intense. Cause Bush one was right after Reagan, and there was a lot of, there was no fuckin support for the AIDS epedimic and the gay community had just galvanized. And you know more about it than I do, cause you've been doing the research, but ACT-UP just became really active.
[00:11:50]
TP: I remember like one thing we did was, we made little stickers that said in small print, it said “The Providence Journal Policy on gay and lesbian issues is – OUT OF ORDER” big print. And we would put it on their newspaper boxes all over town so people would think they were out of print. That was a cool action. One time, there was a band called Skid Row, this metal band that came to the civic center in Providence? They were playin with Aerosmith, they were opening for Aerosmith? And the lead singer of Skid Row was this guy named Sebastien Bach, and he used to wear this shirt around, he was photographed in magazines with it. And it had the logo for RAID's bugspray. And it said “AIDS: Kills Fagots Dead”. So we went down to the uhh, we got a whole bunch of signs and people together, we got two out of three local tv media to show up and we protested at the concert and informed people like, you know, this guy can't fuckin be wearing a shirt like that. And we were really well received, we weren't really hassled or anything like that.
[00:13:20]
TP: That was a really intense action I remember doing. And like I said, George Bush came twice. Once to support the governor here who thereafter got completely, Governor Duprete got completely busted for umm, he was giving state contracts to his son for construction or something like that and getting kickbacks. And he ended up doing time. It just goes to show, those republicans ya know they're such scum. [laughs] Not that some Democrats haven't been busted for doin shit like that, but... So he came twice, once to the Biltmore with Quail and we went down there and we made a big presence. And the cops would try to marginalize you. They would put you away from the motorcade. They would like actually – and particularly the second time... gaw, did Bush come three times, cause I remember protesting at Duprete's... maybe we moved during the protest and actually went to two locations, but I remember also going to a golf course. And we were at this golf course, Quidnessett Country Club in Warwick, and the motorcade was comin down the road and they actually pushed us beyond where he was gonna turn into the country club so he wouldn't see us. Ya know, the cops? But they let all these little women and their baby carriages and everything like that be right up front, right by where he was. And that's when I started going nuts and losing my shit and screaming, “Put them back behind the tape!”
[00:15:00]
TP: And anger became an issue for me, and I decided to do this National Coming Out Day show because June every year, around the country you have these pride events and those were all given and we were looking for something to do in Providence. And what happened was, lets see, I was totally invovled with AS220. I moved in there in January of '90, and I was still goin out with wayne, I'd just started going out with wayne. He and I were doing the ACT-UP stuff. But then Umberto Crenca, the artistic director at AS220, because of the Mapplethorpe thing and the censorship issue he was getting really fired up from the artistic side of things. And so he kind of like nudged me and said, you know, you really should do something with the gay community, we've gotta figure out what we can do. And so what happened was, there was this photographer whose name I forget he was this, he was an Arab kid. Amir Raci I think? He had done a lot of photographs at New York Gay Pride ya know? And a lot of his sensibility was the really sexually explicit stuff, like guys in blue jeans with the butt blown out and stuff? Just the kind of stuff that would drive the republican right nuts. And not the kind of stuff, they would never let the NEA fund. So Burt was like “Maybe we can have a gallery exhibit with this kid”, ya know? And I was like yeah cool, but what else can we do. Let's make it into an entire show, like something dramatic. So we came up with the first annual Stravaganza show, which was a multimedia show and it was community derived but it was better than a talent show. We would really charge everybody to do something that was provocative, poignant, humorous... we tried to steer people away from doing singer songwriter and poetry cause there was a lot of that already happening everywhere. And we got a lot of really great results, we got a lot of really creative stuff.
[00:17:52]
TP: And that went on for four consecutive years, ninety one two three and four. And the community took to it like, you know, just like mad and rose to the occasion beautifully. And you know, so it was community derived, there were people performing and they came out in droves. And by the fourth year we were doing three nighs over Columbus day weekend; by the third year we were doing two or three nights. And it had really gained a lot of momentum. One year, one guy who's now dead from AIDS... Bill could give you his name, I... Baker... what was his first name, that's really embarrassing. He threw a birthday party to himself because the actual night of Stravaganza landed on his birthday, and it was like his 30th birthday and he never thought he was going to make it to his 30th birthday? So he threw a birthday, I'm almost gonna cry talking about it it was so beautiful. He - it was in the old space it was Stravanza two I think cause one and two were in the old space and three and four were in the new space – and he had like a slideshow of him when he was little and getting bigger and growing up and previous birthdays and stuff like that. And then he was doing this slideshow and he had music playing, and then he talked about contracting AIDS and his current situation and then he talked about meeting his boyfriend and by the end he had brought the music up and he threw these balloons which were painted as globes out into the room and then he took the stage with his boyfriend and it was just so beautifully done. It was the perfect example of what we were looking for, like do something that has to do with AIDS or homosexuality and ya know, just try to have it be really different than just like a song or a poem about it, ya know? And it was amazing, we got a lot of stuff like that. And I have tons of photographs, and I might even have some videotape of that action at the Providence civic center, I think I have, I think I taped the newscast that night. And I remember they talked to my boyfriend, he's very articulate.
[00:20:30]
TP: So there was the Bush things, the Pat Buchanan, the Skid Row, the funnelator – did you hear about the funnelator already?
BC: Umm briefly, but do go on. I'd love to hear it again.
TP: Yeah the funnelator was great. It was uhh... Yeah, Jesse Helms, do you know about Jesse Helms?
BC: Go ahead.
TP: I'm sorry, I should... Jesse Helms was this senator from North Carolina, complete homophobe, unbelievable rabid right wing lunatic. You know was just a thorn in the side of the movement. And so ACT-UP organized a boycott against... let me see what kind of cigarettes they were... Marlboro cigarettes because they funded their campaign, because they grew their tobacco in North Carolina. Miller Lite Beer, cause they were owned by the same company that owned Marlboro cigarettes. And I think it was General Mills? A few other products. So we were trying to organize a boycott – this is in like 1990, '91. And so we would go out and take this funnelator, which was a large latex rubber band ya know on two sticks? And we would make paintballs, fill uhh... I forget what they were, if they were plastic bags? We would fill something with paint. And we would go out and we would point the funnelator at Marlboro billboards around town and we would fire the paintballs at the Marlboro billboards around town and try to vandalize them. With moderate success, a lot of times... [laughter] we'd be more successful at painting people's cars that were parked on the other side of th billboard.
[00:22:44]
TP: So we would go driving around town in a van and deface marlboro billboards and miller lite billboards and shit. It was crazy times, I loved it. And it's funny, within a few years because of those kinds of actions and stuff like that, Marlboro and Miller Lite – I dunno if they cut back on their funding of Jesse Helms, but they totally made an about face somehow. I wish I could be more sure for you. But they started to support the lesbian and gay community. But by Stonewall 25, in '94 – which was a year after the march in Washington in '93 – I went down there with my lover, I can't believe that was 12 years ago now. And I played in the Gay Games. They had the Gay Games there. The World Cup was going on in New Jersey in the meadow lands. And it was Stonewall 25 and it was amazing, it was like... so I was there for 10 days and I would take my hockey bag and get on like the D train and take it all the way up to Coney Island to this ice rink out there. And then go do gay things at night. And it was just the best. And stayed in this little tiny Chelsea apartment with my boyfriend's friend, who's now dead of AIDS. It was smaller, his apartment was as big as this room, his whole apartment. And I'd have to air out my stinky hockey equiptment and everything. But he put up with it, it was so sweet.
[00:24:35]
TP: And then it was Stonewall 25 so there was a lot of shit goin on with, around the anniversary. You know it was more than just a regular one day gay pride parade, cause it was the Gay Games the whole week was full with activities. Opening ceremonies were at the stadium for Columbia University, and they were beautiful. Like unbelievable, just like ornate and really well done. And then the closing ceremonies for the gay games were at Yankee stadium. And me and my boyfriend got to walk on the field of Yankee stadium cause I was in the Gay Games – we won a silver medal, Montreal beat us. And we got to walk down on the field, and Harvey Fierstein and umm... there used to be on Saturday Night Live a character called Pat, do you remember Pat? You couldn't tell if he was a guy or a girl? Pat and Harvey Fierstein were the hosts and they stood on home plate and just commented and made all these terrible rude and hilarious observations while all the athletes paraded in. And meantime the stadium was filling up. And by the end there were like 55,000 gay people in Yankee stadium! And Patti LaBelle and Cindy Lauper performed. And I'll never forget, there was a laser light show and it was all sponsored by Miller Light. And it was only like a couple years previous that we were completely boycotting Miller Light, ya know. So somewhere in there the company that owned Miller Light they either stopped funding Jesse Helms or they started funding other gay positive things. But they were welcomed at the closing ceremonies. And I'll never forget, I was just like only in America. Only in America.
[00:26:34]
TP: And I thought then, ya know that was the beginning of Clinton. The last half of things. If you look at my involvement from being, from 1990 till 1994 really, the first two years were Bush one and the last two were Clinton. And I thought things were getting better, but now with the way things are I don't think they're getting any better. Ya know and then Clinton signed DOMA – the Defense of Marriage Act. And when we marched on Washington, I'll never forget. We went down, I guess as members of ACT-UP during the march on Washington in '93. And gays in the military was a really big issue, like it still is. Cause you know the election was in November, the presidential election, so it was in November of '92 and Clinton won, so he was gonna take office in '93. So the first big holiday that came up while he was a president elect was Veterans' day. November... when is the election, it's in November isn't it? So I remember he got elected and then veterans day came up and he said something about wanting to straighten out this gays in the military issue, like make it possible for gays to be in the military. And he totally didn't anticipate the right wing fuckin rabid assholes in this country – the made life miserable for him, Jesse Helms being the biggest one.
[00:28:27]
TP: So by the time 6 short months later in April of '93, the beginning of his term, we came down to march on Washington. That's not why we were there, we were there for many reasons, but he conveniently made sure he was at Camp David, ya know, he wasn't in DC. But we were marching in protest of the anniversary of a decision that the Supreme Court had made called the Hardwick decision? Which, you'll have to do more research on that, but I think it was made in '87. The Supreme Court basically said it was ok for the police to kick in gay people's door and arrest them for having sex in some state. And that decision has since been ya know... so me marched in '93, protested that decision, and that decision was repealed since then in the last 10 years I think. So that's good. But then ya know, there's so much bad news now on gay marriage. There's so much backlash – America should have been the first country to legalize gay marriage ya know, liberty and justice for all? And we're draggin our feet on it. It makes me ashamed. I want to expatriate, I can't stand this country ya know? They say “Oh, you're so much better, you go to some other country and speak the way you do and you'll get your head chopped off.” But I'm sick of it, I mean, it just... ya know I feel like I need to protest just as much as I ever did, but it feels like it just falls on deaf ears, you never get anywhere ya know? I mean maybe incrementally it's starting to change, Massachusettes they've legalized gay marriage. But you know, it's ridiculous. There were just four bad court decisions in the last three weeks. Tennessee, Nebraska, New York... I've got the article in the other room, one of the New York courts said the New York constitution does not violate homosexual rights by preventing them from marriage... that when they got to their constitution they did it with the intention of marriage being between a man and a woman. Can you believe that? In fucking America? Ya know, it's mind boggling.
[00:30:54]
TP: So to me that's the current issue is uhh... ya know... although I dunno what, after Clinton ACT-UP just quieted right down. That'd be, I'd be curious to hear what you're research has to say about that, like why that happened. Cause frankly I dunno that funding or anything got any better. I mean, Clinton dropped the ball a couple of times, at least politically. I remember all these representatives from the AIDS community going to the White House once. And everybody at the White House had on latex gloves. Yeah, can you believe that? They were so AIDS paranoid the all had on latex gloves, it was a huge social faux pas. And then he signed the defense of marriage act, so you can't count on the Democrats at all.
BC: Are you still politically active? Still politically engaged in any of that stuff?
TP: No, not really. I just rant and rave. And I'm gonna get a couple bumper stickers. I've been researching that, so I can put them on magnets so I can take them off my car when I'm not in my car so noone will smash it. And I'm gonna get “Bush : Nazi” and I'm gonna do “Spread democracy so you can persecute homosexuals all over the world” and “ashamed to be American”. That's my little way now, not unlike what happened with Stravaganza, the only way I feel I can really affect any change or do my part in the world is, well I got so angry, it's like Martin Scorcese says the reason he creates is he's so angry you know? And I should be so lucky to ever have a movie produced, but I'm workin on a screenplay. And it's got all of it in it. And if I ever get that produced, or even if I just finish it, I'd feel a lot better.
[00:32:59]
But if things... ya know I'd really like to see another march on Washington, with all that's going on right now. Like totally, I would completely go down there. I think we should like... you don't want to hear me... I'd almost say we should put the Washington monument into the reflecting pool, just carry a bag of plastique in there and knock it over – except that I have too much respect for George Washington to do that. Or I think gays should not pay their taxes. You know something, something huge has to happen, it's just so sinful what's going on now. Sinful's a bad word, cause that connotes some sort of religious affiliation, but it's so unamerican, what's goin on right now? I mean, I think gays are the most American and patriotic people, the most patriotic Americans there are. Cause they don't even get their full rights, and they still pay their taxes and still believe in something postitive about the country, ya know? Of course any homophobe would have you think the opposite, but.. so yeah, in my little way, bumper stickers and ya know online correspondence to my senators and stuff like that. But I don't, and I'm like...
[00:34:40]
TP: where is the fuckin anger on the college campuses, ya know? Where is it? About Bush? I mean everybody was raised during Reagan. What, are they all republicans now, your comrades? I can't believe it, this nonsense about burning the flag and gay marriage, and they're more concerned with that... it's to distract the people from the real issues like Iraq and the economy and the environment – they talk about gay marriage. That's what kept Kerry out of the White House last time. Ohio should have gone democrat, but I swear to god it was gay marriage. And it very well could be again this election. That's how huge it is, that's how intense the issue is right now. It's preventing Democrats from regaining the administration and perhaps either chamber. It totally is. I mean, I feel like New England and California should secede from the union. I think there's gonna be another civil war. Just like the last one, over freedom - for slaves, or for gays. I don't think it's too far fetched to think that could happen, ya know? It's like the South doesn't want to provide rights for gay people, and the North again, being correct, ya know? Say no, you're wrong, you're gonna provide them or else... I would not be surprised if there's another war. But the military's too concentrated, and I dunno enough about history and civil war. I don't think you could ever split the military. It would just be like Kent state and there'd be a lot of those horrible things happening where our own soldiers were killing our own citizens. Do you know about Kent state?
BC: Yeah.
TP: Yeah.
[00:36:48]
BC: Umm, do you remember much interaction between ACT-UP and the press in Providence?
TP: Yeah. Well, there was a great TV anchor woman named Barbara Meagher, M-e-a-g-h-e-r at WLME 6, TV 6. And she was really good about, if we called her she would be there. And there would be a segment on the news about us. It seemed like we got a lot of good press because.. a lot of bad press, just press. But they ussually, we were often maligned by the press because we were so radical, but that's what I loved about it ya know. [laughs] It was, there was no room to be wishy washy. You were on one side or the other, and you were loud, ACT-UP was loud, silence equals death. Action equals life. I would like to see more of that, I really would, around the gay marriage issue. The AIDS issue... and I'm really ashamed because AIDS is, unless I'm mistaken, is still increasing in the black and latino communities ya know. And it's still an issue, but now there's so many more drugs and people are livin longer and politically active whites aren't losing people like they were in the AIDS, dropping like flies – and so they're not active anymore. That doesn't mean it's still not an issue. Which makes me kind of ashamed.
[00:38:52]
TP: That's why friends like Bill Jesdale are really great, cause he's so knowledgable I can just pick his brain for information. Cause like I say, I'm kinda lazy about stayin up on things. I don't even read my monthly Options magazine, ya know? That's my own problem that I gotta get over. Doesn't mean that shit's not going on. I, since '94 what happened after '94 was the gay community's fickle, they're really... I'd get kinda pissed off cause I worked my ass of producing these Stravaganza shows, they didn't make a dime, I spent my own money. And we'd get criticized sometimes? One time I got criticized for it not being like inclusive enough of minorities and stuff? And you can't imagine how hard I worked to get minorities into the show, I worked so hard. And it was like pulling teeth sometimes, and I just got so pissed off, so that after four years I was like “Fuck it.” They can beat up on somebody else, somebody else can put on these fundraisers. And my lover and I -
BC: Did the show continue after you...
TP: What happened was in '95 there wasn't a show, but my lover and I and umm one of the primary performers from Stravaganza, this person who... Pearl doesn't... I'd call her a local celebrity, but Princess Pearl of Providence. It's this guy who – Pearl's a girl though, likes to dress up. Pearl is the funniest person you'll ever meet in your entire life. Not politically active, is only concerned with like where to find something to go up her nose or a nice new thing to wear, but is just a pleasure to be around. And was our centerpiece attraction.
[00:40:48]
By the end of Stravaganza we had like, what we did was like basically wrote a show within a show. So you'd have these sketches and in between the sketches you'd have Pearl and these other supporting actors have a play unfolding. So that kind of was the cement that held the rest of the show together. And Pearl had become our MC and our primary performer. So after Stravaganza in '95 we said fuck it we're not doing it anymore, we put on our own show with Pearl, a comedy.
BC: Also at AS220?
TP: Yeah, also at AS220. And that was Phantom of the Cabaret, where we did a parody of Phantom of the Opera. And instead of a chandelier hitting Christine on the head, we had a disco ball hit her – I made this disco ball out of foamcore. It was all shiny. [laughter] The play, it came off, Bill Gayle from the Providence Journal went for it hook line and sinker cause he hated the excesses of the regular Phantom which was playing at the same time, we put it up directly opposite. It was playing at the PPAC, they expanded the PPAC physically, ya know, there was a huge capital renovation to be able to host that production. So we put up this production. And they used to, they had this poster “There is only one Phantom” And so we said “There is more than one Phantom”, we had our, we took the graphics stole them. And we totally, instead of the monster mask we put on a princess mask. Packed. Like every night, five nights. And we had to do an encore presentation a couple months later. Like hilarious show. It came off hilariously. So I had moved into comedy and moved out of political shit. So then the following year this lesbian wanted to see Stravaganza again and so she put it together, and Wayne and I helped a little bit, gave her some advice and stuff. But it was never the same. And it wasn't at AS220 anymore, and it was only one show, it crashed and burned she did a terrible job with it.
[00:43:10]
BC: Where was it performed?
TP: Well it, it was always at AS220 and then she did it at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in '95. I mean in '96. So she tried to bring it back a year, two years later, and it just didn't really happen. And then we just kept doing, we did a few more comedies with Pearl – a valentine's show, a christmas show... and then that kind of, then we kind of faded. And I kept performing out of AS220, I was in a band and I was in a comedy troupe out of there right until 2001. When we went to Edinburgh Scotland and performed. That was sort of like the last thing I've done there, I haven't really done anything creative... So for me I moved from being really politically active to being really artistically involved, dramatically active ya know?
BC: And you umm, said there was a sense that the artistic and political communities were really linked, especially in the beginning of the '90s, were... did it seem like lots of the members of ACT-UP were also really active in the AS220 scene, was it just a similar...
[00:44:25]
TP: Well while I was there they were. And I mean, it sounds like I'm being boastful, but I don't think they enjoy that relationship anymore with much of the gay community. I definitely was like, for AS220, the conduit to the gay community I was the only gay person there and I was really politically active. I don't think they've had as much going on there since, they've had a couple things I mean I shouldn't be nearly so bold as to say that... I mean AS220's amazing, they've got Scotty the Big Blue Bunny, he's gay and he's an hilarious performer. He had a residency there and he brought in a lot of gay people to shows and stuff. So things have happened since then, but politically, not much. Not much, and like things have toned down ya know? But while I was there, and a member of ACT-UP, ya totally. And I had – and I'm sorry I don't, I could probably find it and I should've done before I came, but I have a portfolio of work of like clippings and posters and ya know, artwork from the stravaganza shows and umm... and you can see the ACT-UP stuff in it. Ya know, there's some silence equals death stuff and, because by the third and fourth year it had become a gallery exhibit, a movie night, and stage shows. Ya know so it was like multifaceted. And it was all ACT-UP and gay and lesbian issues, transgender issues, ya know? It was like four days running. But I haven't really seen anything, I haven't really been... when I drop out, I drop out ya know? I haven't done anything in a long time. Which, it's great to do this. It's easy to just shoot the breeze and reminisce, ya know? But I wish I were more active. Do you know of anything goin on?
BC: Umm, well is there anything else you want to throw on the tape before we start...
TP: Umm, that's pretty much it. I think my experience with ACT-UP is a little more limited than some of your other interviewees maybe? I uhh, I dunno, I remember those four or five major events, and some others, but I know I'm forgetting a lot of stuff. It was, you know, the artwork like stickers and posters, and a lot of guerilla campaigns and things like that that I don't remember – but there was people generating graphics. Like that thing that went on the Providence Journal newspaper boxes, ya know. Pretty regularly, and we were stickering things. I wish I could remember what... ya, that's about it.
BC: Umm, well thanks.
[00:47:35]
[end of interview]