Audio Interview, R.J. Alcala, June 1, 2012

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: --swears that it's Alcala

KEVIN INDOVINO: Alcala

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: When I'm spelling it for people,

I get to the second A, and they cross out

everything they've written before because I

think I'm starting again.

It's like, can you hear three vowels, three As in that?

Anyway, that's my own little--

EVELYN BAILEY: No, they don't.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: If I had a shrink

I wouldn't worry about these things.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Because I'm Italian

I understood it completely.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right, exactly.

Right, names with vowels in them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Your last name again?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Indovino.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, that's

way too long (Indovino laughs).

What does it mean?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Actually it's the Italian translation

for fortune teller, or someone clairvoyant.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, of course, Indovinare,

(Bailey laughs) right.

Of course.

KEVIN INDOVINO: There is a clairvoyant monk

whose name was Frate Indovino.

He used to go around--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Century?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, god.

Ancient times.

He used to go around and tell people's fortunes.

So he was named to be the clairvoyant monk.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: But it's funny

that it's not Indovinatore or something.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: It's not a noun.

It sounds like the verb form.

That's interesting.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, well, depending

on where you go in Italy, someone

will tell you, oh, it means fortune teller.

But then others will tell you, no, it actually means to guess.

Like, you know, someone who's to guess.

Or someone else will say, it means into life,

someone who can see into life.

You know, it's like different translations

depending on where you go.

So I just say--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Northern Italian, Southern Italian,

Roman?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Grandfather was Sicilian.

Grandmother was Milano.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: So the answer is yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

I was only one that took after my grandmother, though.

Everyone else in my family has dark skin, dark hair.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, yeah?

You're from the butter based dinette side of the family?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, yeah.

(laughter)

EVELYN BAILEY: So RJ, why did you return to Rochester?

And where were you--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I never left--

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you born here?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I'm like Avida.

No, I'm from-- do you really want to know things

like my birth place?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Brownsville, Texas.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Wow.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Which I hate

so much that I now call it Brownsville Fucking Texas

and I don't know if the fucking is part of the city

name or the state name.

And I was just there for two weeks in May,

so, like, the shock is--

it's all on the surface right now.

EVELYN BAILEY: Whereabouts is that?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: The very southern tip,

it's on the Gulf of Mexico and at the mouth of the Rio Grande.

And it really is where South Padre Island is, despite what--

EVELYN BAILEY: Is your family still there?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I have almost no relatives

in that town.

But you know the story.

1840ish, the United States decides

that the southern border of Texas

has to be further down to the Rio Grande, not the old Nueces

River.

And so everybody--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you start this?

EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: It's part of the US

and everybody's now American.

So as I like to point out, we are not immigrants.

(laughter)

EVELYN BAILEY: And you are not illegal immigrants, either.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right, exactly, right.

EVELYN BAILEY: So how did you come?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: My piano--

because I came to Eastman.

And my piano teacher had been a graduate of Eastman.

And I ended up--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Can I ask what year?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I came in '67, and I left in '72.

EVELYN BAILEY: But you never left.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right.

And Karen and I had been like best friends

since probably 1968, you know, that next year.

So we've known each other forever.

And we were roommates so I was officially a tenant

in the first house she owned in Rochester.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: But she was a student.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: She was a student, but you know,

she took forever to do her dissertation.

So she worked in the Sibley Library, in the music library.

And she worked in the cataloging department.

Eventually she became the head of the cataloging department.

Until she got too queer and too feminist for a daytime job

(Bailey laughs), is really what happened.

And then she went to Japan and learned all the Suzuki stuff.

And that's been going on for a long time.

But through Karen especially, although Marjorie, David,

and other people--

EVELYN BAILEY: Patty Evans.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: --who stayed here, Patty Evans.

I'm really not been that much in touch

with Patty Evans over the years.

But Marjorie, because she was from New York City, so

she would.

We, in fact, ran into each other after having lost touch

because I went to--

I was in Europe for four years and so on and so forth--

shopping in the village.

So I'm trying to think of other people.

Well, other people that had not been

at Eastman people who like, I don't know

if you know who John Grace is?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: You know John Grace

and (unintelligible)--

EVELYN BAILEY: John Grace (unintelligible)

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: --were friends from way back.

And people who've passed away like Dennis Scipioni

was a real good friend of mine.

And he was involved very early on, and so on and so forth.

And other people, but mostly Karen's

the person that I kept in touch.

And you know, I mean 1977, when Neil came here

to move to the states, we've been--

Neil's my partner.

I don't think you've met him.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Neil?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Neil Gray.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: And we used

to visit Karen, and so on and so forth.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now you knew Bob Osborne, though.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right, yeah, from the very beginning

of stuff here.

Yeah, he was a grad student and I was an undergrad.

And he was at the U of R and I was at Eastman.

And I think I was one of the first people at Eastman

to take the whole idea of an organization seriously in that,

I don't even know where I got the flyers.

But I know I put up flyers for one

of the first meetings, which must

be one of the advantages of going out

to a gay bar every night of the summer, because somehow--

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you out in Texas?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I knew I was gay.

Out was sort of relative.

I feel that I really came out here

when I realized, because Eastman was a really tiny,

and still is a tiny little microcosm of an environment

that you can't hide and you can't tell lies,

because everybody knows anyway.

And I figured, well, you know.

So that made it a lot easier to get involved in an organization

and everything.

It wasn't like I discovered I was gay when I got here

or anything.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

And so you came across the flyers, or the--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, somehow.

I don't know how I got them.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you go to Jim's?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Jim's was not around yet.

Somebody needs to-- that's another master's thesis

is, when did Jim's start?

Because I know that by the time the print stuff started in '71,

Jim's was one of the first advertisers.

Jim's and Linda Contreras's Electric Walrus.

She owned a clothing shop.

They were among the first--

they may be the only two at the time.

EVELYN BAILEY: Electric Walrus.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: No, there was a record shop--

EVELYN BAILEY: Record Archive?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: --that are.

I don't know what it is.

I think that was a record shop that advertised in the closet,

too.

But no, in the old days the predecessor to Jim's was a bar

called Martha's.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: And I know that we all used to go there.

EVELYN BAILEY: Was it Dick's?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: No, I never--

EVELYN BAILEY: It was Martha's.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: On where?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: God.

It's the Hotel Cadillac now.

It's down there on--

from where they-- by Midtown, from where the Greyhound--

KEVIN INDOVINO: The Rathskeller was up there.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: That may have been later.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Which was originally

owned by the guy that owned Jim's, right?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No.

No, that was owned by Jessie.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Jessie Valo.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I wish I could--

it's like, it's tree names.

What's over there?

Walnut and--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, the first Jim's was over on Court Street.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: No, but I'm

talking about were Martha's is.

Martha's was--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Martha's was on Chestnut.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Chestnut?

The Hotel Cadillac--

KEVIN INDOVINO: The Cadillac Hotel is on Chestnut.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: --is there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I thought Martha's was-- oh, that

was Dick's was on South.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: And--

EVELYN BAILEY: And I think Martha's became Pooch's?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I don't know.

Which one was that?

Was that still a gay place?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Never heard of it.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, it was.

When John [Irve?] was running for city council,

and his friend Duffy who is a priest came.

And he went to Pooch's a lot.

So I think it was--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Funny.

EVELYN BAILEY: --a gay hang out.

And actually they found Michael Macaluso's son's car outside

of Pooch's.

Michael Macaluso was the president

of the decent minority, or the moral majority, here

in Rochester.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, really?

EVELYN BAILEY: The guy who started Guardian Angel's

School, the conservative--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: But there's

somebody who writes for City with that same name, right?

Is that who we're talking about?

What's his name?

There's somebody gay on the staff.

EVELYN BAILEY: [Markaire ?]

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: What's his last name, though?

Somebody-- what last name did you say?

Markaluso, or Malik?

EVELYN BAILEY: Macaluso is a writer for City now, yes,

but I don't think he's related.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, OK, I thought

you were talking about those people.

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: But anyway, that Martha's thing.

You know the Hotel Cadillac is right there on a corner.

It's got a door sort of in the middle of the building.

And what actually forms the corner

of the building, that's where Martha's was downstairs.

I presume it used to be the hotel restaurant or something.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, OK.

She's (unintelligible) Martha's was originally on Front Street.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Really?

EVELYN BAILEY: That was Martha Gruttadauria

But this is a different Martha.

KEVIN INDOVINO: A different Martha's, OK.

This is what's confusing me.

OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: Martha Gruttadauria

was at Dick's, Dick's 43 on Front Street.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I know about Dick's 43,

but I don't think I know Martha.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But no, there was a Martha's on Front

street as well.

Wasn't there a Martha's and a Dick's? (Alcala laughs)

EVELYN BAILEY: I don't think so.

Martin's, Ma Martin's.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I don't know.

We'll have to (unintelligible).

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: And Martha's was not

much larger than this room.

There were bathrooms, a side entrance and a front entrance,

the booths, and a bar, and a tiny little floor

that people danced in.

And you know, just to keep people under their thumbs,

every once in a while somebody would yell, no dancing!

And everybody would stop for a few minutes

and when the raid didn't occur, people resumed dancing.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So we're all talking about the same Martha.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah, we are.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Is it the same Martha?

Because one thing that I was never sure of

was whether she was actually the owner,

or if she was just somebody's stooge or puppet or something.

EVELYN BAILEY: Was she a bartender?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: She was there,

but she was the bartender.

She's a blonde lady that wore her hair up

in a beehive or something.

And you know, vaguely (unintelligible)

KEVIN INDOVINO: So, let's get back to flyers.

I'm sorry, did you pick up a flyer?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I picked up a bunch to post.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Where did you pick them up from?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: That's what

I think it must have been the bar, because I couldn't have

gotten the poster at a meeting, because I

think the posters came before the meetings.

And they were little flyers.

They were bug slips.

You know, they were like half of an eight and a half

by eleven page or something.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you grabbed a stack from a bar

and decided to--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right, and put them up,

put them around Eastman, because the background of Eastman

is that the incoming freshman class of '67, of which there

were like 113 people, had seven out gay guys in it.

You know, seven freshmans, and like everybody else at school

was just scandalized that we were out

and that there were that many of us.

And we socialized together, but most of them--

I really am about the only one that was political.

And then we all ended up in one L-shaped hallway

of the men's dorms.

And it was very funny.

One Sunday morning, because there

were large rows of basins, and rows of showers,

and rows of commodes and everything.

And one of the kids, his nickname was Kitty walks in.

He had he was very myopic and wore contacts.

And he came up with these big glasses

on in his robe going, "have you see my eyelashes?

I think I left them on one of these mirrors last night"

(laughter).

So anyway, so there was already like people were out

and stuff like that.

But this thing of getting political-- because a music

school is just notoriously apolitical, if not plain

uninformed.

EVELYN BAILEY: So did you go to that first meeting?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, yeah.

And I don't remember a whole lot about it because--

well, here's what I do remember is

that there was a sizable crowd.

Thirty, fifty, I don't know.

Certainly more people than you'd think you would get.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: And where was it?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: It was at the U of R, on campus.

It was either in Douglas, which is where all the later meetings

were, or the first one might have been in Todd

which was the student union.

EVELYN BAILEY: It was in Todd Union.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: The very, very first one was in Todd?

EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: So it had to be

in that lounge on the ground floor

because I know that we used it sometimes for committee

meetings and things like that.

And there was a larger showing of people

from town, who were faces that we knew

from places like Martha's, than people

who were willing to identify themselves

as students from the U of R.

EVELYN BAILEY: And who presided over the group?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Well, Bob, but it was so not presiding

over a meeting.

It was just sort of like chatting,

rapping, before it became what it's disintegrated into today.

And it was just sort of like, this is what's going on.

This is what we should be thinking about.

This is what we can do.

People at Columbia are doing things.

People in New York City are doing things.

People at Cornell are doing things.

Maybe some of them from the Cornell group

will come and talk to us about what they're doing.

You know, we could do this.

We could do that.

Bob was really good at not making decisions but making

things happen, because he would just

say, mention things as possibilities and suggestions

or whatever.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: Then it would--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: People would volunteer.

He did things in such a way that people

like me felt like volunteering.

Term

EVELYN BAILEY: So after that first meeting,

we were part of the forming committee, or the--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: You know, I

don't know how quickly that happened.

At the very beginning it was more

like Bob, usually Bob rather than somebody,

would come up with a project or an idea.

We're going to do this, we're going to do that,

but we need some help.

Would somebody like to volunteer to be in charge of it?

Would somebody like to do some of this?

Or jumping ahead a little bit to when newsletters started

happening, was we should form a newsletter

and so-and-so has a duplicating machine that we could use.

But we need help cutting the stencil,

getting together to do it, organizing that stuff.

And so you know, slowly and more by suggestion and volunteerism

than by assignment or anything, things would happen.

It wasn't like one of us who was already

going to the meeting decided, we're going to do a newsletter

and I'm in charge-- rather, I've decided we're going to do it

and this is what we're going to do.

It was sort of like, maybe you could do this.

EVELYN BAILEY: And so talk to us about how the name came about.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, well that one's easy.

You mean for the publication.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: All right, because--

OK.

It's hard again, because I think there were meetings

before there was a newsletter and there

was an official campus organization,

because we'd come in as an official campus organization.

There were certain entitlements, like a certain amount

from the student activities budget,

and you were entitled to have an office,

and you were entitled to, I think,

free listings in campus calendars, in the campus

papers, and things like that.

EVELYN BAILEY: And you had an advisor.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right.

And see, because I wasn't at the U of R I was never

that involved with that.

And I think, didn't we have to have

a president and a treasurer, r a president

and a secretary or something?

And those were people from the U of R like Larry Fine

and Marjorie, or Roseanne and somebody else, you know.

I don't really remember from year to year

because I was only there for three semesters

of that formalized thing.

But I know that this was a meeting in Todd,

because we had the office upstairs.

And it was like a real innovation.

The office had an answering machine.

And whenever people-- it was not manned continuously,

but we tried to.

And whenever people were there, just

sitting in the office taking calls, there was always a call.

There was always somebody who just needed to get something

off their chest, or somebody who was just

feeling really isolated and needed to talk,

and plenty of hang ups, you know, and obscene messages.

But it's like, if there had been somebody

there 24/7 it was like everybody would have had something

to deal with.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: But because this was just

a little informal thing, I think we just went and sat downstairs

in Todd.

And maybe six of us?

And we threw names around and stuff.

And like, Karen says that I had already

thought of The Empty Closet because she

said that I had mentioned it around at the dinner table.

But I didn't bring-- maybe I did have it in the back of my mind.

I didn't bring it up until other people had mentioned

their things and I sort of thought,

because I thought it was a little bit stupid because it

wasn't, you know, really trendy and avant garde and everything.

And I just sort of said well, you know, what

about The Empty Closet?

And eventually that's what was used.

EVELYN BAILEY: What were some of the other possibilities?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: I know that Larry Fine suggested

The Fag Rag, which instantly got shot down

but which did become the name of a publication in Boston

when he moved to Boston later on.

But I couldn't tell you what year that was.

And that's the only other one I remember,

because I remember that I thought

it was sort of insensitive of him

to bring it up for a group that was trying to be representative

of men and women.

But on the other hand, it was catchy.

EVELYN BAILEY: So The Empty Closet newspaper,

or The Empty Closet name was coined.

And the very first publication was what?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: The first issue was--

do you have the thumb drive?

EVELYN BAILEY: I don't know if it's on here.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Because that's, the first one was--

I'm sure I've seen it on there.

But it was a legal sized one, wasn't it?

And it wasn't folded.

It was legal sized portrait format,

and it was just on two sides.

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to us about the process

of creating that first one, the excitement about it,

the ideas that went behind it.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: You know, it was sort of a relief that--

well, as you know from looking at it,

first of all, a lot of the stuff that's on it

was stuff that Bob Osborne put in,

which was good in that it was the repetitive stuff,

and it was the stuff that really gave it, I think,

sort of respectability and made it look like it really

reflected an organized organ.

There were things like upcoming meetings.

There were write of previous meetings.

Notes about things we need in the office, things like that.

There was a mission statement, we'd call it now.

But just that anybody would write anything at all

for it was kind of a relief.

And I didn't have a lot to do with the very, very

earliest issues of that.

I know that Larry Fine--

I mean, these are the people that were really, really

enthusiastic about it and that could figure out more ways

to contribute than I could.

Larry Fine wrote something, actually,

for the U of R campus papers that was sort of reprinted

in The Closet.

And enthusiasm would be sort of overstating.

I think we were all really excited about it.

And I sort of didn't expect any sort

of real overwhelming reception and stuff.

But what it did was that people, especially,

I couldn't tell from the U of R, but from the city, you know,

who weren't really active or open would go.

I mean, one of the things we said early on

was that it should be an alternative to the bars.

And it really was sort of like, you

don't have to be out to go to a bar.

You don't have to be totally out to go to a meeting,

or to get involved in the organization.

So to a lot of people, like I say,

it's really difficult to judge.

You were asking about how we felt about it,

but I think that to judge the reception and the effect,

because it meant a lot to people just to know it was there,

even though those of us who were sort of in a position

to contribute and stuff, I felt like I didn't do that much.

But from some of the things that we

were doing, like I know that one of the first speaking

engagements we had, Karen and Larry maybe?

Larry Fine-- I don't remember if there

were four people on that panel or just three of us.

But I know that Karen and I set up for a couple of nights,

you know, writing statements because of course it

was the age of the manifesto.

Anybody with a political idea, you wrote a manifesto.

So it was sort of like that although we

didn't call it that.

And did I send you a type script of Karen's statement of that?

Of course Karen, miss organized grad student,

actually wrote it out and I kept the handwritten form

on like, three different kinds of paper

because the thing kept getting longer and longer.

I have no idea what I said.

I don't think I kept notes of that.

But

EVELYN BAILEY: We were sneaking around--

(Interposing voices)

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, I haven't got to that point,

have I?

One of the professors, whose name

I-- this is a sociology professor on campus

whose name I don't remember, had a session of one of his classes

at his house because he thought just maybe

the topic was too hot to have an on campus discussion about it.

And that was really amazing because we actually

made our statements all the way through.

And the discussion was really interesting and not hostile

at all.

And it also wasn't-- these are in the days, you know,

when we were still sick.

And this was a psychology class, so it really

didn't get into psychiatry and all that stuff at all.

It was really very much sociology.

Maybe it was a sociology class but I think

it was a psychology class.

I can't remember the man's name.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I think Karen had mentioned it

in her interview.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, and she--

KEVIN INDOVINO: She mentioned a psychologist.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: And she's got the man's name.

Did psychology sound right to you?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I think so, yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah.

And--

EVELYN BAILEY: Was that an important event?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah.

Well, on the surface, yeah.

It may have been the first.

It was one of the earlier speaking engagements.

It was to a very respectable audience

because it was a science class.

And it was really mind blowing for those of us who were there,

not only because this is what a speaker's union can

do but just sort of like the interaction with people.

And this was one of several things

that were like that, that just sort of built,

I think, people's confidence about being out, and being

political, and being in an organization,

and being active in the organization.

There was that march in Albany in support of proposed changes

to the state constitution.

EVELYN BAILEY: Sodomy laws.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, the sodomy laws.

And in connection with that, later that same winter I

think it was, there was a hearing in New York City

because one of the New York State

Congressman, Stephen Solarz--

excuse me-- held a hearing that all sorts of organizations

were at.

I'm pretty sure Daughters of Bilitis

were there, radical lesbians, New York City Gay Liberation

Front.

I don't think it was yet not Act Up.

What was it?

The Gay Activists Alliance, I don't think it was that yet.

And there was another women's group.

Oh, I think maybe Daughters of Bilitis were there.

But we sort of made a splash because, again, thanks to Bob,

and I think it was entirely his doing, had sat in a law library

and gone through the penal code.

And so we could name, it was like chapter and verse,

of not so much what we objected to but things that

were discriminatory, that were like the laws

about cross-dressing and things like that, that

were not uniformly applied.

I mean those two things, that march and that hearing,

were things that--

that march was the first time that somebody

said that many gay people had been out in the open,

in broad daylight.

People sort of got a little taste

of being out and being yourself and not being stoned to death.

And there were stuff that got written up in The Closet,

so more people found out about it even

if it was after the fact.

And again, I think everything meant different things

to different people.

But it was out there and so it was just important.

I think it did a lot of things almost in spite of itself.

I mean, (unintelligible) is practically like subconscious.

It's just that, you know, we've done this.

Let's write it up.

And like I say, a lot of the support, I think, was silent,

tinged with relief, I think, on the part

of people that were not as out as the rest of us who

were-- you know, we were younger, we were in college,

and so on.

EVELYN BAILEY: What was it like, though,

RJ, because it was before the American Psychiatric

Association decided that homosexuality was not

an illness.

I mean, what was it like to know that you were this identified?

You were identified as sick.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Right.

Part of it was exactly like knowing

that religion got it wrong.

And the spectrum of the medical establishment was-- you know,

you had people like Kinsey reporting much more accurately

what things really were.

And people on the other spectrum who

were like these really right wing, hetero sexist pseudo

shrinks who were writing things.

I mean, what was that stupid book called?

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex

But Were Afraid To Ask, that said homosexual acts take

five minutes (laughs).

It's like, does that mean we have a liturgy?

How can you do it so quickly?

So in a way there was so much irrationality

behind that, that was bolstered by the official medical

position.

That it was like, to me it was exactly like,

you know I grew up in a really very observant and very almost

Calvinist Presbyterian family and decided from really early

on, though I was playing the organ in church

every Sunday, that it was all mostly bullshit because with me

personally it was like, the conclusion of, OK

so they lied about that and it's not just

Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy

that they lied to us about.

And also that forces like that, you

have to strike a fine balance between stating your position

and maintaining it, and being confrontational because you're

not going to change it.

And you know.

EVELYN BAILEY: What happened when Stonewall came along?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: OK, that had already happened

by the time that we did.

And you know it is a sort of an awakening

that I think sort of hinges on realizing

that-- because gay people, we always

think we're the only one.

And it was for the people involved, obviously,

the power in numbers.

But for everybody else it's like, I

think everybody feels in their own life

that they've got like a struggle or obstacles or whatever,

and you know that maybe a lot of people's solution

is to try to live with it or live through it

rather than confront it and try to make change.

And I think that's what that was about

because I wonder whether that would have been possible

without there already being gay movements,

the nucleus, the nuclei of gay movements forming.

I couldn't give you a chronology of how organizations

happened in New York and stuff.

But I mean that was '69.

And that was also a period-- the fact that gay people fought

back isn't really unusual in that period,

because women were doing it, black people were doing it.

There was a lot of self-identification

rather than letting the identity be

foisted on you by the American Psychiatric Association

or whatever.

But I just think it was really important for everybody

to know there are other people elsewhere who are allies.

And I don't think that there was any awareness or feeling

in Rochester like, you know, we got

to get the pigs off our backs or anything like that,

because what arrests and harassments there were

were numerically low.

And very few of them really were widely

known even among the gay community,

of you know, so and so got arrested, or such

and such a place got raided, or so and so got

mugged in the parking lot, or whatever.

That stuff was going on.

And I think there might have been some reports of that

in The Closet.

I don't remember.

I think that the topic would come up in discussion

at meetings occasionally.

But like I said, it was just sort

of sometimes the interaction and the reaction wasn't so direct.

But it all sort of synergized with everything else.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you a part of the first gay picnic?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that was-- you know, again,

that was something that I either don't think things through

and am just damned lucky because I mean,

I didn't think that having a picnic was such a big deal.

You know, sure, why not?

Let's do it.

And never thought what the possibilities

of say, confrontation, or somebody getting hurt, or worse

yet, nobody showing up.

And I think, see, that first picnic

was at like either at the end of a semester

or at the end of a school year that the organization had

existed.

So we had a little bit of gumption under our belt.

And also it was like sponsored by Jim's, you

know, which I thought--

which goes against the stereotype of gay bars,

especially, being there just to exploit gay people.

Especially gay people who like to drink,

but just gay people who want to have someplace to go.

And it was just amazing.

I mean, I know that there were some sort

of organized activities.

I don't really remember.

I just remember hanging out and having a lot of fun.

EVELYN BAILEY: Where was it?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Meeting somebody.

And you know, it was a great success.

But again, that it happened at all

wasn't really a surprise to me.

EVELYN BAILEY: Where was it?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Was it Genesee Valley Park?

EVELYN BAILEY: Mm-hm.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Because we rented a pavilion.

I don't know where the hell that money came from.

Maybe that money came from Jim's.

Maybe part of that money was from U of R gay lib funds.

I don't know.

I don't remember.

EVELYN BAILEY: And the dance?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: The dance is also

something that was written up.

Or one of the dances that was written--

maybe the first one and not the dance

was written up in The Closet.

That particular dance I don't remember that well,

because I'm getting it confused with that festival,

because was a dance associated with that.

But those dances sort of like had a almost a format

of their own.

The music was always good.

There was always at least a keg or something like that.

And depending on where it was--

there was a dance after that picnic.

I remember that the dance that was held then--

EVELYN BAILEY: There was a dance.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: It was at the U of R.

EVELYN BAILEY: I think the first dance was at Todd Union--

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, it was in the U of R.

EVELYN BAILEY: --at the U of R.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Was it at Todd, or was that also at--

EVELYN BAILEY: No, Douglas.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Also in Douglas.

It was in Douglas.

You go in and it was in the room there on the right.

And partly because it was at the U of R, I mean,

I'm really reluctant to say that it's

because everybody at the U of R was so cool that there

were a lot of straight students from U of R who were there.

But it was a mixed crowd, not just

straight and gay kids from the U of R, but people from the city

and people from the university.

And it sort of set an interesting new standard

or something.

And like I said, don't think that was the first one.

Or it wasn't the only one.

So people sort of came with expectations and stuff.

And again, you know, it served a political function

by not being political, because you're

hanging out with gay people without going

to a bar, which is a first.

And an event that identified itself as a gay event.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you know Marshall Goldman?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: Yeah, sure.

EVELYN BAILEY: What was he like?

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: He was so young and so enthusiastic.

And I used to just think, you've got to grow up a little bit.

But he always had ideas.

And he was always willing to--

I mean, for example, that hearing

that I said in New York Stephen Solarz's office,

he was one of the contingent that went to that.

I believe that somewhere there is

a picture of a table, an event at the U of R.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

ROBERT (R.J.) ALCALA: There was an alternate lifestyles

festival.

And I think it was the year before that.

If that's '72, it would have been '71

and it must have been in the autumn, maybe?

Could have been the spring.