Video Interview, Bruce Jewell, October 1, 2013
- BRUCE JEWELL: Because, well, in part
- there was a division that arose between the men and the women.
- I actually supported that.
- I remember talking to Karen Hagberg about it and saying,
- you know, it's not a bad idea for the women
- to go off and determine what's important to them
- and how they want to pursue it.
- Because that's what the men did, actually.
- So, it was cool.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So first things first.
- Give us the correct spelling of your first and last name.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Bruce, B-R-U-C-E. Jewell, J-E-W-E-L-L.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And two L's?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Two L's.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- If we would insert title on you, Bruce,
- would we put something like Founder
- of Green Thursdays Radio Show or what would you prefer?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Founder and producer.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Producer?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Of Green Thursday?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yes.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- Well, let's, before we get to Green Thursday,
- let's just talk a little bit about your involvement
- with the GLF.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Now let me ask you a question before we start.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What do you think, given there were about ten
- of us or so that started the GLF and worked
- on it, what do you think our motivation was?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Visibility.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Visibility?
- You think we were motivated because we
- wanted to be visible?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's kind of the sense
- that I got from a lot of people, sure.
- I can't answer that.
- Only you guys can answer that.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I think we'll talk about that.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think of community.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You just got--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think those guys were
- looking for a sense community.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You just got seventied
- by the way, that's what we used to do, what I did to you.
- Because what we were involved in was essentially
- a kind of guerrilla warfare.
- We showed up unexpectedly and saying unexpected things.
- That was one of the techniques.
- But go ahead.
- Let me-- let's go on--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, well, let's-- let's start there.
- Talk to me about that.
- What was your mission for the GLF?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, it wasn't just the GLF.
- The GLF was an expression of--
- and I've talked to other people about this--
- of the moral outrage that most of us felt. We lived in a time
- when you could be arrested in bars, bars that were often
- run by the mafia, raided by the police,
- and we were just the victims.
- When people were terrified of being found out.
- Even today you'll note that the suicide
- rate among gay youngsters is disproportionately high.
- So there's still a great deal of fear around being gay.
- And the loss of jobs, the fear, the fact
- that on a personal basis, you could be sleeping with a person
- one evening and the next day pretend
- you didn't know one another.
- So there was this element of lying
- which causes a disassociation between what you want
- and who you are.
- The person that you most care about
- can be a real threat to you, not a support, but a threat.
- So there was a sense, growing sense of moral indignation
- around that.
- You know, which finally broke out in Stonewall.
- And one of the things that I and others brought to this city
- was our last names.
- People were not-- were afraid, desperately afraid
- of being known.
- And we started using our last names,
- whether it was Bob Osborn or Robert Crystal
- or Bruce Jewell or Karen Hagberg,
- there it was out in public.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's not get to far with that.
- I want to know then what was driving you guys and gals that
- brought the courage to step forward and say, here we are.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Moral outrage, anger.
- It was not anger that were going to beat somebody up
- or something, but an anger that provided the energy
- to step out and take the chances you had to take.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I want to explore this a little bit more
- though because there was a lot of people
- out there that were probably very angry.
- But it was just a small group of you
- on that campus that had the courage to do so.
- Why do you think--
- what was it about you guys that said,
- you know, OK, we can do this?
- BRUCE JEWELL: I think because--
- that's a difficult-- that's a good question.
- It's a little difficult to answer.
- We were all pretty well-educated in one way or another.
- I'd done, you know, I'd done graduate work
- in psychology and anthropology.
- And most everybody there--
- Bob Osborn was a genius.
- And he was able to do things that others would
- have had difficulty doing.
- He was actually the first person to bring up the question
- of equal employment at Xerox.
- And one day he stepped down to the personnel office
- and asked the person there, "What
- are your policies around gay people?"
- And he was told, "Well, we don't have
- any policies around gay people and we're not going
- to have them until we have to."
- And then this individual said to him, "And by the way,
- what's your name and where do you work?"
- And Bob said, "Well, my name is Bob Osborn
- and I work in such and such a department.
- But don't bother to call.
- I'm the only person in the United States
- that can do the work for Xerox that I'm doing."
- He had that kind of genius, actually.
- That's exactly what he was.
- So I think it was just anger at the situation which
- was deeply felt. When I first came out in San Francisco,
- I mean, I literally sometimes wanted to hop up on a bar
- and scream at people, you don't have to live like this,
- you shouldn't be living like this.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So talk to me--
- you get involved with the Gay Liberation Front--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --just talk to me
- briefly about the kind of conversations you folks were
- having, the kind of vision that you guys were
- trying to develop.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK, let me explain something theoretical here
- which will give you a hint of that.
- What the movement was about at that time
- can be analyzed as providing space for gay people
- and lesbian women.
- You create a radio show.
- You're creating space, air space in that particular instance.
- When you go out as a Speakers Bureau,
- you're creating psychological and intellectual space
- for the discussion of being gay.
- When you're creating a newspaper,
- you're creating yet another kind of space.
- When you have a regular meeting at the university,
- or at Bull's Head, or at the firehouse, that's
- the literal space you've taken over.
- So, fundamentally, the movement at that time
- was about creating space in various areas of our society.
- So that's what we talked about.
- How do you put a newspaper together
- and what do you put in it?
- How do you do a radio program?
- What are we going to be doing in a speakers bureau
- and how do we go about doing that?
- So that's what we talked about.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's talk about getting to this idea
- of doing a radio show.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me, just kind of walk me through that.
- Where did the idea come from and how did you
- bring it to fruition?
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK.
- At that time, there was a doctrine
- which was eventually killed by Reagan
- that required Public Broadcasting to provide
- some equal time to opposition or new viewpoints.
- The radio station WCMF, which broadcast Green Thursdays
- was aware of this.
- And we found out that they were kind
- of looking for something new.
- And we knew it.
- And so I wrote a proposal for them.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I'm going back you up a little bit.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Because one thing that I don't think
- is quite correct in here, you called it public broadcasting,
- WCMF was not a public broadcasting station.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I was trying to get into that,
- but there were laws.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Remember, the airwaves
- are publicly owned even though the company may be private.
- And at that time, there were laws
- which required some public service be
- done by these stations.
- Ronald Reagan changed that.
- And so I presented a proposal to WCMF.
- And they accepted the proposal.
- They were hoping that, in part, as I later found out,
- that they would be controversial and draw
- an audience to controversy.
- And I wasn't controversial on the program.
- I meant and was, I hope, supportive
- of the gay community.
- I mean, you didn't need controversy raining down
- on your head when you were afraid to be seen in public,
- you know?
- You didn't need to gild the lily in that way, particularly.
- And so they accepted the proposal.
- Later they brought up that-- well, they'd
- like it to be a bit more controversial.
- And I said, "Let's go over the proposal,
- there's nothing about controversy here."
- And they read it over, and "No, there isn't, is there?
- You're doing what you said you'd do."
- But they were very supportive of us in every way.
- And just very grateful that their fifty thousand
- watts, vertical and horizontal, was devoted once a week to--
- late at night-- to Green Thursday.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me pull you back a little bit then,
- because I don't want to rush through this.
- Why do you think-- why do we need a gay radio show?
- What were you hoping to achieve?
- BRUCE JEWELL: As I said I was creating space.
- By doing this, you were creating a gay space, strictly
- gay space on the air that gay people
- could listen to and feel representative by and supported
- by.
- I did several things.
- One, there was always a news segment.
- I gathered-- we had a newspaper called The Advocate
- at that time, which was a key to the gay movement, by the way.
- There was an analysis done by a law school,
- I forget which one, which predicted
- that the gay movement, of all the movements at that time,
- had the best chance of success.
- And one of the reasons for that success
- was The Advocate newspaper.
- It supplied us with nationwide news.
- So I drew on that newspaper.
- I drew on other newspapers, more local newspapers
- that were available.
- So there was a news segment.
- So gay men and lesbian women could
- be aware of what was happening nationwide or even
- internationally.
- The second segment was interviews
- and I interviewed, say, Leonard Matlovich,
- who was a pioneer in coming out as a military man.
- I interviewed Franklin Kameny who, of course,
- was a great gay leader.
- I interviewed local people like Larry Fine
- who were important to the local movement.
- So through those interviews, which also-- oh,
- they included a lot of things I hope you'll
- be able to get a hold of.
- I did interviews at the gay parades
- in New York City going around recording speeches,
- interviewing people in the street, recording the sounds,
- and so on.
- So that provided-- those interviews and recordings
- provided a kind of framework.
- It was bigger than simply Rochester.
- And that became apparent.
- Then, in terms of the music, I invented a forum.
- There weren't any-- there weren't gay musicians
- at that time.
- There aren't very many now, but there weren't any then.
- So I invented a forum to create gay music pairing
- two male singers on different songs
- but it's with using the vocals as if they're
- talking to one another.
- And if some of those recordings come out, you'll hear that.
- Interestingly, I found out that the radio students at RIT
- were asked to listen to the program.
- And later on in other places in the country
- I heard some of the devices that'd I'd
- invented for this program being used for other purposes,
- but being used.
- So that was the real reason to provide support,
- to say here we are, to tell people
- that this is something big going on,
- it's national and international, and that it's OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to cover--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Can I get a drink of water?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Sure.
- You just said a lot there, but you've got to kind of condense
- it a little bit--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --so I can actually use it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Sure.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So if you could just kind of,
- let's focus more on the impact in the community
- that you were hoping to achieve with this radio show.
- Just tell me about, you know, I mean,
- going out of the gate what you were hoping
- for initially to achieve.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, you don't know what you're
- going to achieve initially.
- But I think the program was designed
- to really reduce isolation.
- I mean, rather than being the only gay boy in high school,
- they could turn on the radio and hear some other gay voices
- and hear about gays everywhere.
- So you're not isolated anymore.
- You're not the only one.
- And the voice of the gay world isn't necessarily the same
- as the voice your hear from your local psychologist or preacher
- or parent.
- So it was essentially my idea.
- And when I said supportive I meant reduce isolation and make
- people feel better about themselves,
- which is why I did not involve--
- engage in so much controversial stuff,
- which is a different genre and not what I was interested in.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So what kind of reaction
- were you getting from the community
- then, either the gay community or, I mean,
- the community as a whole?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, from the--
- one of the reactions that most pleased
- me is that a teacher at the Eastman School of Music
- called up the station and told them
- that our program had the best psychology of music
- that he'd ever heard, that what I was talking about,
- that's using music in a particular way.
- And aside from that, I think it's hard to tell.
- Because a lot of--
- I talk to people later, years later in fact, here
- who said they listened to it and that, you know, they were kids
- and they'd be hiding away someplace
- listening to this program.
- So I think it did have the impact for many
- of reducing the isolation they might otherwise
- have experienced.
- And I think it also provided-- it did provide good news.
- The news programming was fairly well done.
- And a couple of times, straight people actually called up
- and said, "You know, I like to listen to your program
- because you really provide continuity in your news
- so I can follow a story that you're telling."
- So it was good quality in that sense.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So at that time, I
- can't imagine you were sitting there in the radio station
- recording the show together thinking,
- we're making history here.
- BRUCE JEWELL: No, certainly not.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But looking back now in retrospect,
- talk to me about the significance of having
- a gay radio show in the 1970s here in a small town
- called Rochester.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, so far as I know,
- this was the first gay radio program
- on a commercial station in the United States, maybe anywhere.
- It may have been among--
- I'm sure it was among the first regularly
- programmed radio programs anyplace in the country.
- So that didn't particularly concern me.
- I was more concerned with the production, which
- we had to go on every week.
- And it took quite a bit of time to put together an hour's worth
- of radio each week.
- But, you know, I was aware that we were doing something
- that was really unique.
- And I enjoyed it in so far as it also--
- I was able to travel.
- I traveled a good deal to New York City,
- to various conferences we had, ultimately
- all the way to Edinburgh, Scotland
- to provide material for this program.
- So it was a lifestyle almost in terms
- of the time it took to produce and the places it took me.
- Bob Crystal, of course, had an important part
- to play in this as well.
- He was my partner on the station.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You know, now that history is reflecting back
- on what you guys had done then, if there
- was one just concise message that you
- want future generations to know about who you guys were
- and what you were trying to do, what do you
- want them to know about, about what you guys were trying
- to do?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, how about how we did it.
- We took risks.
- Most people are risk adverse.
- When we came out-- and they have--
- I think it's important to understand the basis--
- our jobs were at risk to come out in the way that we did.
- I mean, if there's one thing we added to Rochester,
- it was last names.
- I mean, Rochester had an old gay community, as many cities did,
- but nobody used last names.
- You didn't use them.
- You didn't even-- somebody you'd be
- going to bed with, frankly, didn't always
- use your last name.
- So we publicly used them.
- Though I have to tell you a funny story around that.
- People called in the station, WCMF, and told the station
- manager, "Well, if these guys are so out,
- why are they using pseudonyms, Crystal and Jewell?"
- So people didn't even believe that we were
- using our real names, but yeah.
- If you're going to do something, you have to take risks.
- I was very concerned about the attitude
- of psychologists who were our primary adversaries
- in a certain way.
- Their attitudes towards gay people
- were downright ugly and biased without them realizing it.
- And I was working at the Genesee Hospital
- as a cardiovascular technologist.
- And one day they had a conference of psychologists
- at the Genesee.
- And they had a very prominent psychologist
- from the University of Rochester speaking on gay therapy.
- Well, when he was done, I stood up amongst all these doctors
- who were very-- you know, we're doctors,
- they're very authoritarian, frankly--
- and I stood up and I went up one side and down the other,
- pointing out that, in essence, he
- didn't consider the social context of what
- his therapy was, this half cured man he was going to go and have
- sex relationships in bathrooms and then go back to his wife.
- What is he going to tell his wife
- when she got a venereal disease, you know, or he got arrested?
- What do you think is going to happen, Doctor?
- They were like, you know, were like ichthyologists
- who didn't know that fish lived in the sea.
- That's the way the treated gay people.
- So but what I'm pointing out there--
- and this is not in a self-praise way--
- you have to be willing, if you're actually
- going to make changes of the type we made,
- you have to be willing to take chances with yourself.
- I once smiled-- somebody a few years ago said, "Well,
- you could lose your job that way."
- And I just-- I laughed.
- I said, "Well I've lived all my life with the possibility
- of losing my life-- my job."
- Even my life.
- I was thinking about I was threatened, given
- death threats occasionally.
- It's de rigueur for activism in this country, unfortunately.
- But, yeah, you have to be willing to take a risk.
- There's not a safe way of breaking
- through a legal system, a religious belief
- system, a psychology, and a custom of hiring and firing.
- There's no safe way to do that, personally.
- You've got to put yourself out, have to be willing,
- and I think everybody in the seventies group did that.
- They came out publicly, put themselves out, took the risks,
- and sometimes they paid for them.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I just want to explore the radio show
- just a little bit more.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Sure.
- Can I take?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm just going to start coming
- at it at different angles here.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you just talk to me
- a little bit about all the other things that were going on.
- There was the Speakers Bureau, there
- was the Empty Closet newspaper, all these things
- that are there bringing the gay community out into the open.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Kind of put in context for me
- how the gay radio show supported all of that.
- It was part-- it was part of so many other things
- that were going on.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I don't think--
- I think everything supported everything else.
- It was of a kind.
- It was a movement forward.
- Each in its own way provided that space.
- I have to go back to that analysis of space.
- We were creating space and that's
- what it was about, if you want to put it on an abstract level.
- And each creation supported the other creation.
- It wasn't-- none of it ever in isolation.
- Remember, I mentioned to you that a study done by a law
- school said, well, this movement's going
- to succeed because of The Advocate newspaper,
- they have the best communication.
- So we were heavy into communication, obviously.
- But it was all one thing supporting the other, one
- thing making the other thing possible.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm going to just wrap this up.
- I want to just once again reiterate
- how the idea came about to start up a gay radio show.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It came about because it
- became a possibility.
- And as I was talking to Bob Crystal, and he said,
- "You were always one to let's do it."
- So we all were let's do it.
- I was particularly dynamic, perhaps,
- more dynamic than some others.
- Though, Bob Osborn was very active, very.
- Bob did a lot of the political actions.
- We did specialize more in shock actions.
- I can remember a group of men and women
- going to the top of the Midtown Towers.
- There was a restaurant up there.
- We all got up in our nice clothes and so on
- and went up there.
- And then, at a signal, we all got up
- and the men started dancing with men and women
- started dancing with the women.
- Interestingly, the people up there got a big kick of it, out
- of it and started to join in.
- So it was very well-received.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Here's what I'm not getting a clear indication
- though is--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --when the light bulb went off,
- like where the initial idea for the radio show came from.
- BRUCE JEWELL: My mind, learning it was possible.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, but you need to kind of put that--
- you need to kind of spell that out for me about, you know,
- whether, you know, some day you were just sitting, listening
- to the radio and the idea came?
- Was it like oh, we should have a gay radio station or--
- BRUCE JEWELL: No, we were busy publicizing.
- Well, I tried to explain that to you.
- Any device that we could use, whether it
- was dancing at the top of the Midtown Tower up there
- or radio or--
- I also appeared on TV, you know?
- Anything that was open to us, we explored it and exploited it
- to the best way we could.
- And I don't remember precisely.
- I knew that this possibility existed in radio.
- And I said, I'll do it.
- One of the things that may have helped me go in that direction
- was the fact that I had done an enormous amount
- of public speaking in college and high school.
- I had won numerous state prizes in college for debate,
- in oratory, for all kinds of public speaking.
- So I was fairly accomplished.
- Though oddly enough, I was not good on radio.
- I was used to having an audience and I felt very awkward
- not having an audience.
- When I was on TV people said, "Well,
- he's really professional."
- Well, I just made the camera my audience and I was home.
- But that may have been part of it, that I was, in that sense,
- an experienced public speaker.
- So it was pretty--
- given the availability of a medium like radio,
- I probably thought, well, I'll go for that.
- I worked, you know, as we all did,
- I worked a bit on the Empty Closet,
- did the Speakers Bureau, and so on.
- But I think it probably did the radio because I was a speaker.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk to me
- a little bit about the excitement that I assume
- you guys felt when the first time you hit the air,
- you know, the energy that may have been in the studio?
- BRUCE JEWELL: I wouldn't call it excitement.
- I would call it nervous energy.
- I mean--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me about-- tell me about when--
- the realization of like oh my god,
- we're actually going to do.
- BRUCE JEWELL: We're actually going to do it.
- Well, WCMF wanted scripted programs.
- They demanded a script.
- Every program was scripted.
- So that acted as a support because we
- were able to hand the engineer a script.
- And so we had things pretty well planned out
- so as to minimize our own insecurities.
- But, yeah, it was an exciting moment.
- It was a long time ago.
- I can't say specifically what.
- But you can imagine that it was an exciting time
- to go on the air for the first time.
- We didn't know what was going to happen
- it was new and unknown, another venturing into unknown again.
- And, so, yeah, it was fun.
- We had a good time.
- One of the things I think that's true.
- I've worked for straight organizations
- and gay organizations, obviously.
- Straight people don't know how to have fun.
- Gay people do.
- And they think we're not serious because of the way
- we go about it.
- But I told one--
- head of one organization, straight organization, I said,
- "You people aren't serious.
- You just sit around looking grim as ever.
- You can't really do things well that way."
- So that's a very different take.
- We had a good time.
- We had a good time.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So all in all, when
- it comes to the Gay Liberation Front or the gay radio
- show, Green Thursdays, or whatever other activities
- you were involved with and thought of--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: --just very briefly
- from your own personal point of view,
- what are you most proud of?
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm proud of the fact--
- and I'm proud of the people that I worked with--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'll let you put your water bottle down first
- then answer that question.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I'm proud of the fact
- that I and all the people we worked for had the--
- I'll use a nice term here--
- strength of conviction to do what we did.
- I think that it was risky.
- People-- you sometimes lost friends, even family,
- for a while at least because of what you were doing.
- So I'm very proud of the group of us,
- including myself, for our strength of conviction
- and that we not only talked the talk, so to speak,
- we walked the walk and did the work
- that allowed others to expand upon that at a later date.
- One of the things I wanted to say in this
- was that I think it's important that the work in the seventies
- be seen as providing--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Wait for this person to walk by.
- OK.
- Let's pick it up from--
- BRUCE JEWELL: I've talked about creating space
- because I think it's important to differentiate shoulders
- to stand on, the first shoulders,
- what you are standing on.
- And you're standing on the people who created the space
- and through, frankly, a high degree of daring
- and often self-sacrifice.
- And later groups of people did not
- have to take quite that kind of leap.
- We were leaping off into space.
- You understand, there was nothing
- there for us to build on, but to figure out.
- We had meetings figuring stuff out.
- The last meeting that I attended here in Rochester I got up
- and I gave a little talk.
- And I said, "You know, we can change the laws.
- We can get the psychologists to see things differently.
- But, ultimately, we're going to be battling the church."
- And that's exactly what we thought
- about what we were doing.
- And we had to go with it in order
- to provide a foundation for what we now have,
- which is pretty impressive even though it's taken forty years
- or so.
- So that's what I think I am proudest of.
- We were a group of people who were just
- willing to take the leap and make it work.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Hold that thought again.
- I just want to get that without her high heels.
- Just pick it up where you said that's what
- I'm most proud about, we were a group of people--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Oh, what I'm most proud
- about is that we were a group of people who were willing to leap
- into the unknown in order to create what we now call
- the gay movement and take the chances that were required
- in order to do that.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Good.
- We'll leave it at that.
- BRUCE JEWELL: OK, very good.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Thank you.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I hope I didn't disappoint you.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: No, no, no.
- I got what I want.
- I don't let people go until I--