Video Interview, Thomas Warfield, October 20, 2012
- THOMAS WARFIELD: I have something about them really.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK so let's start out just by coming out.
- Because from what you've told me,
- you remember some of the early bars like Jim's and that kind
- of stuff.
- So talk to me about being a gay youth
- and coming out and coming into early adulthood
- and finding a gay community.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: You know, I think I had it kind of easy.
- I hate to use that word.
- But in a way, I did.
- I mean I went to East High, and all my friends practically
- were gay.
- And at that time, it wasn't like now where there's gay clubs
- and whatever there's gay straight alliances.
- There was none of that.
- But there was the theater area, and so we all gravitated there.
- I had a boyfriend when I was 14.
- He was 13, always the younger guy.
- So it was kind of general knowledge in school.
- So I don't know.
- Where I started, I went to my first bar
- I think either at 16 or 17.
- Those were the days when they didn't card.
- it was none of that.
- And I think it was Friar's, although it could have been
- Jim's.
- I think it was Friar's.
- And wow.
- I mean, what the world opened up.
- It was the middle of the disco time.
- And the music was so jubilant, such a celebration.
- So it wasn't that hard.
- Now I did, in a way, lead two different lives.
- It I mean, at home, I was still the son of a preacher.
- There was still that.
- But more and more, I think my gay identity was more and more
- being visible.
- the bars at that time--
- there were so many bars here then.
- And they all had a kind of a different character.
- You know Friar's was more yuppie.
- Jim's was really free and down and dirty.
- And there was Rosie's across the street there.
- It was more lesbian bar, but the music was great.
- So I didn't know.
- And I had a group of friends--
- mostly high school friends--
- we all went out all the time.
- And it went on for years.
- Eventually around that time or shortly after that I think,
- I started playing piano at Tara's.
- And Buddy Wagman who owned Tara's, he-- what a character--
- hired me.
- And it was a great job.
- It was like it was one of my first jobs I think.
- And I didn't drive so I had all these bags of music.
- And at 2:00 o'clock, I used to have
- to walk home or call my brother who
- had a car to come pick me up.
- So it was a great time.
- It really was a great time.
- We didn't have-- as an LGBT community-- we didn't
- have all the rights, I suppose.
- You know "rights" that we have now
- or it wasn't as openly welcoming as it is now
- in general population.
- But yet, I don't know.
- I sort of miss the it's celebration of it
- all, that life.
- And maybe that also had to do with because it was hidden.
- And so you had to celebrate the only way you could--
- who you were and the people you hung out
- with and that whole community.
- It was really, it was the only place
- you could come and celebrate.
- I mean now you've got all the online this and online that,
- and nobody ever talks to anybody.
- And it's a little more--
- we're much more into the mainstream now.
- Before, all the gay people live near Park Avenue and Monroe.
- And now, they live all over the place.
- They have their families, they have kids.
- A lot of straight people go to the gay bars.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's pull back a little bit.
- You're the perfect person to ask this because you've
- traveled all over the world.
- You mentioned back in that time, there
- was point where I could count 15 gay bars here in Rochester.
- Compared to where you've travel around the world, what does
- that say about Rochester?
- How is it that small little city like Rochester could
- have 15 gay bars at one time?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: That's a great question.
- I think-- and you know, you hardly
- ever saw that anywhere except like New York, or Chicago
- or something.
- But I think Rochester always had a kind of birthing something.
- I don't know the word I'm looking for,
- but I always felt that about here.
- There was only something invented, something birthed--
- an idea or invention or or a cause.
- And I think that's part of it.
- I think it's in the environment.
- Because I want to see it's in the blood,
- but not everybody is born here.
- But I think once you are here, there is a sense of I'm
- going to make this, I'm going to create this,
- or I'm going to do this.
- And there's like minded people around.
- And so you feed off of each other.
- So over the last 15 or so years or maybe
- since I've been back here, I don't really feel it as much.
- But I don't know if that's my aging or what.
- I don't know.
- But I know, when I was young, boy, it just
- seemed like the whole world was convening here.
- And and I think that may have something
- to do with the many bars.
- there was the idea of making my own thing
- so there were all these.
- I think it's also that there was a sense of we want
- to come together as a community, even though I can't say
- it was a very integrated, diverse community
- as far as being together.
- But if I think about diversity in terms of male,
- female young, old--
- I think we really did come together in many ways.
- And I think we saw the strength in that.
- And it helped to really build or set
- a foundation here for things--
- a fertile ground for things to really blossom.
- I mean, I remember those first years of AIDS Rochester.
- Wow, people just came out, it was really amazing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We're going to get to that.
- But I want to hold on to that before AIDS really.
- But a lot of it was during AIDS.
- It was a great time.
- We had all of these bars are going to, we were having fun.
- But it wasn't always a big party for you.
- You're a man of color, talk me about that
- about being a man of color in the gay community.
- Was there any racism.
- I mean let's put it out there.
- Did you find it at all difficult?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: I think it's I've had a very unique journey.
- Though yes, I have faced racism but probably not to the extent
- that I saw it on other people.
- I can remember one time I was with a friend of mine we were--
- I forget the name of that--
- there was an ice cream store in Monroe that was pretty popular,
- Gelato's?
- Oh I can't remember the name of it.
- Anyway we were getting ice cream and then walking back
- to his apartment, which was on Park Avenue.
- And the police stopped us.
- He was white and turned to me, didn't say a thing to him,
- and wanted to know if I was a prostitute.
- I think I laughed actually at the time,
- but it was a little scary.
- That wasn't the only time that something like that happened.
- In the gay community, I think partly
- because I had a pretty outgoing personality,
- I really like people.
- I pushed myself into all kinds of different communities.
- I wasn't as-- and this is a weird word
- to be saying probably-- but I wasn't
- as threatening to people.
- I didn't talk black, I didn't act black,
- I didn't whatever the you know stereotypes are.
- And so people felt comfortable.
- I mean I even had friends at that time say
- I don't think of you as black.
- Actually, I've heard people say that to me recently.
- But so I think I slid under the racism door a little bit.
- It did happen at times like--
- it's sort of a reverse maybe kind of thing
- where oh, let's get Thomas to be on that
- or do this as the token black person who's
- not going to really ruffle up the status quo.
- So there's been that.
- And even though that doesn't seem like racism
- on the surface, actually it really is.
- And I was aware, I wasn't totally naive about it.
- And so I did and actually, as a black person,
- you do this anyway.
- You sort of adjust to your environment a lot.
- You're constantly figuring out, OK, what people are these
- and how do they need to accept me.
- And so there was a lot--
- I learned a lot of that actually during that time.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That's Interesting
- because I would say the same thing about a lot of gay people
- do the same thing.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Yes that's true.
- I had a double whammy.
- Yeah the whole hiding thing, I mean
- I think a lot of that is not prevalent as much
- as it was then.
- But I remember as a teenager, I never
- even heard the word gay until--
- I don't know I can't even remember.
- I don't think as a teenager I ever heard the word gay.
- And I think I saw the word homosexual for the first time
- one time when I was reading the Village
- Voice when I was like 16 or 17.
- And I just I mean, you just never heard it or saw it.
- So I can remember that day very vividly,
- how it both sort of gave me this sense of pride in one way,
- but the fear of being exposed even
- though I had nothing to do with me the article or whatever.
- But it was like, oh my god, someone is going to find out.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well let me ask you this,
- because you do a very religious family.
- How did you deal with it not only from a family
- point of view but internally?
- Because I know a lot of gay people
- who came out of religious families,
- they thought they were sinning.
- Around is obviously is not something that they should be.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: And I never thought I was sinning.
- I don't know why, I just never did.
- But I think part of it, I had a very strong sense of--
- well, I had a strong sense of myself.
- That was one.
- And I think I also had this--
- and now I look back and I think of it as a false idea--
- but for the time being, it was a good thing I think.
- I had this feeling that gay or straight
- or whatever, you'll fall in love with somebody,
- you'll have sex with them once you get married or married,
- "married"
- And so I really didn't sleep around the lot at that time.
- And I think that, in my mind, helped
- me to deal with whatever thoughts of this
- being immoral or sinful or well, no because I'm following the--
- this is how are you supposed to do.
- And so I think it really, psychologically, I
- think it really cradled any ideas of this is bad.
- I think it really kind put that to rest.
- My mother-- who was a minister and quite kind of fire
- and brimstone background--
- never talked about it that much really.
- And when she did, I remember one time
- I used to have friends stay over.
- And a couple of times, they were maybe
- like five, six, or seven of us in my bedroom sleeping over.
- And one morning, my mother came in.
- And people are sleeping on the floor all over the place.
- And she gave us this big lecture about religion and sexuality.
- I mean, she's pretty blunt.
- But most of my friends knew so it wasn't a big shock.
- They were just, yes, yes Ms. Warfield.
- But then my father, after she finished, came and said to us,
- this is your house.
- You can do whatever you want here.
- Your friends are welcome here any time,
- and we love you just the way you are-- something like that.
- He was always kind of balancing out any of that.
- There wasn't a lot of that negativity really around it.
- There was at church.
- and people are going to hell.
- And I have to say that actually maybe the first time
- I heard homosexuality was a church.
- But it wasn't a very good light, but I never took it personally.
- I really didn't.
- And I think I just had that way.
- It wasn't just about that.
- It was just a lot a lot of things in the Bible,
- I just didn't take them literally.
- So for me it wasn't a huge process
- between separating my sort of religious upbringing
- with my being gay, although I never really you
- sid it to my parents until I was like 20.
- And I was I was living in New York already.
- So that's funny.
- even though I did feel somewhat comfortable,
- I didn't feel that comfortable to bring it up.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you talk a little bit about being gay--
- not you personally being gay in the black community--
- but the essence of homosexuality within the black community
- because that is still an issue today--
- the black community, the Latino community
- because they are so religiously bound.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: That's right and that morality
- is so connected to the religious teaching.
- There's still a lot of it.
- And I should say that's where I got most of the bigotry
- from was out of the church, even though in the church where
- my mother was a minister I played the piano for the choir.
- I sang in the choir.
- And sometimes, I directed the choir.
- I was on this group or that group.
- But there wasn't so much the older people,
- but the younger people my age or younger
- who didn't bully me face to face but kind
- of in a covert way, where they would do things without me
- or talk about me, whisper about me just in the view here
- that I wasn't really aware.
- But they did it enough to make sure I did know.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Can I pul you back at the beginning of that?
- I should've warned you at a time because people aren't
- hearing my questions to you.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Oh sorry.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: No it's my fault,
- I should have told you that I need
- you set up the scene for me and then answer.
- So could you set up about homosexuality
- in the black community and where a lot of the bigotry
- was found in the church?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: So homosexuality
- in the black community and in a lot of minority communities
- that are bound to religious teachings very strongly
- and the morality is very tied to that
- have a very harsh, not only look or observation of LGBT,
- but a behavior that is--
- well I can't really call it anything but bigotry.
- I don't know what else to say.
- But in their own minds, it's valid behavior
- for them, the whole judgment.
- And I think it's also just the fear
- also because I think it's with the males what
- I remember from growing up is they were the harshest.
- The women always seemed to be a little
- soft about their discriminatory behavior.
- But the males are always really harsh
- and would just say it right out or call you a fag or whatever.
- I don't think I ever remember that
- from a female in that community.
- But then I realized getting older--
- a teenager, 20-- a lot of those guys were sort of /
- and so then it just made me think, well, they're afraid.
- So to dispel or deflect away from them,
- it's easier to put it on you, which probably has a lot
- to do with bullying anyway.
- So the church was not always an easy place.
- The music, fortunately, was a place where I could hide
- and I did.
- And that benefited me.
- That's my talent was nurtured and cultivated because of it.
- Really I think in some ways.
- And even in high school, I think that's true.
- Even though I really was very good at basketball, track,
- I even played touch football.
- But I was really ostracized.
- I was the last kid picked, nobody wanted the other team,
- kids call me fat.
- so I eventually left taking gym, my sort of dance thing
- took my credit for that.
- So I kind of became submerged into my world of art.
- And looking back, of course it was actually not a bad thing.
- But I don't know if I hadn't had that, I'm not really sure what
- would have happened.
- I mean because you can only take on so much of that
- and then you explode in some way.
- But I had an outlet for that energy.
- I had a place.
- It wasn't really counseling, but it really took the place of it.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So segue into the arts.
- You've been a strong proponent about using art
- to advocate for change, a strong proponent about using art
- to help fund-raise for AIDS care and AIDS awareness.
- one of the things that we do need
- to work into this documentary is gays and art and gays, lesbians
- and the arts and cultural scene.
- So talk about that.
- Talk to me about using the tools that you have at hand--
- your artistic talents about creating change.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Well you know this idea
- of using art to inspire change, I
- mean it was something I did even as a child really.
- My parents were-- my father was a musician, singer, conductor.
- My mother was a minister, but very involved
- with social issues.
- And so we were really fed both of those ideas all the time.
- I started piano when I was four.
- We always had people living in our house who
- didn't have a place to live or feeding people.
- so I saw that, I mean I lived it.
- And somehow in my mind, I think--
- the music, the dance, theater, I think it all that kind of I
- saw it as a vehicle for change for helping maybe.
- I don't know if I saw it for change as a kid,
- but I did see it as a way to help people.
- Either people are touched by your performance
- or you do something with somebody and it creates a bond.
- But there was some kind of hoping or thing going on there.
- It wasn't until I moved to New York that
- and then the AIDS epidemic started up,
- that I started to sort of piece in my head,
- I think, I can do something.
- I have a skill that I think I can help with.
- When AIDS first came on the scene,
- I guess it like 1983, around there.
- And I remember one of the first groups in New York to be formed
- was the AIDS Resource Center.
- And what they would do, well they
- were a resource for people living with HIV and AIDS.
- And I remember I volunteered there.
- And I would go to people's houses and read to them
- or wash their dishes or whenever they needed to do.
- But I could see in that interaction
- with them was very similar to how I would interact
- with the other dancers.
- There was a kind of give and take.
- There was a learning about the other person
- and how what they contributed.
- Even just from singing in a choir,
- you get that you know because all the voices have to blend.
- And I really processed that I think during that time, where
- eventually I created Peace Art to use
- the ideas of creativity and the arts to help inspire change.
- And mostly, it's been about change
- within individuals themselves.
- So through the process of creating with other people,
- you find out something about yourself that you alter
- or that you enhance.
- but it comes from that interaction and creativity.
- And so that's where the idea is kind of germinated from.
- And it kind of took on a life of its own.
- When I went off to graduate school
- is really when that kind of solidified itself.
- And then coming back to Rochester
- eventually, the World AIDS Day concerts really
- became the vehicle, in a way, for not only raising
- money-- it was about raising money,
- and it was about raising awareness too.
- But it was actually for me it was
- it had an underlying purpose that it brought people together
- that may not ordinarily come together
- and provided a space that was where people could
- feel sort of vulnerable and allow
- whatever happening to kind of inspire them in their own lives
- I think that was really the purpose for me in doing it,
- although it did raise money.
- And it did raise awareness.
- And I think that that's great.
- I remember when I first started doing those--
- when I originally started doing them when
- I was in grad school in Utah.
- But then when I brought it the concert to Rochester too
- when I came here.
- And people would say to me--
- from our community-- would say, well, I
- don't understand why you're raising money for children
- in some other country.
- I mean we have a lot of needs right here in our own city.
- And they want to go on and list all the things.
- And I would just listen and say, well, you
- know those children are no less our children or needing
- than people here.
- But the thing is people here do have somebody working for them
- and these children don't.
- And also I felt on that day specifically
- called World AIDS Day it was a time for us
- to connect with other parts of the world who were also
- similarly invested and involved, afflicted
- and affected by this crisis.
- And so I really felt it was a time for us
- to really turn our awareness into a broader
- scope of our awareness.
- So I hope it did do that.
- Occasionally I did get those comments anyway.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We'll just stay with this
- just for a brief moment here I want
- to go back to the beginning of the first time
- you heard of AIDS and what it was
- doing to the gay community, what do
- you remember from that moment?
- What was your feelings, your fears, your thoughts?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: When I first heard about AIDS.
- I think I read in The New York Times, I was 21.
- When I first heard about AIDS, I had read it
- in The New York Times.
- And actually, I think it was called gay cancer at that time.
- And I was about 21, I think.
- And I was in New York.
- And it just I didn't really think
- it affected me or had anything to do
- with me, as far as I didn't feel like I was going to get it.
- I just felt like, wow, how can we help this?
- But I think through that first year
- as I saw people dying who I knew, I thought, oh my god.
- Yeah, this is about me.
- And I think that motivated me even more.
- I got involved with ACT UP when it first started.
- And I became pretty militant as I recall.
- But I think that that initial reading of it--
- and I think I also thought to myself oh god, something else
- for us?
- I mean, come on, really?
- Don't we go through enough?
- And I think I also thought of it as, oh, this
- is ammunition for the other side,
- like oh boy, they're going to throw this in our face now--
- which of course, they did.
- It was a really it was a really surreal time
- because I remember people--
- you didn't know how you got it really
- or how it was transmitted.
- people thought from touching, from kissing,
- from breathing on another person.
- people would walk around--
- I can remember guys having rubber gloves
- on to touch anybody.
- People wore masks when having sex.
- I mean it was really a--
- surreal is the only word I can think--
- it was very weird.
- People were terrified.
- If you had a blemish or anything,
- people were like, oh my god, that person's sick.
- I can't go near them.
- And that was just within our community,
- I mean it was even worse.
- I can remember adults saying things to me like--
- or wanting to share a glass or giving me a paper cup
- or not coming near their children.
- But you know that that hatred and that fear,
- I think motivated.
- I mean I think if it hadn't been for the gay community,
- we wouldn't have had the strives that we've had,
- which have really helped the entire community--
- the whole world really.
- So sometimes if you can find the courage in those times,
- you can really accomplish an enormous amount.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So I want to get your thoughts
- on this in hindsight--
- not that AIDS is behind this--
- but as tragic as it was it still is,
- it did kind of push us out of the closet.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: AIDS definitely pushed us out of the closet.
- Yeah, that's very true.
- We became civil rights activists in a way
- that had not happened before.
- It also brought the community together in many ways
- that it had not been before.
- I can remember when I volunteered at Gay Men's Health
- Crisis well before it had that name actually,
- but it was amazing to see all the different ethnicities
- of people, all the different economic ranges of people
- in this one place, helping in some way.
- I mean it was really it was a transformative thing for me.
- One of the first times maybe that I ever
- saw this diverse group of people coming together.
- It was really amazing.
- I mean I think AIDS really--
- it still continues to be horrific,
- but I think it really molded our humanity.
- It really brought it out and made us feel something
- beyond ourselves.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to give back to the arts
- a little bit here, not so specifically
- with what you do and what you particularly with Peace Art.
- I just want to get your thoughts how the gay movement has been
- political, it has been social, it has been
- economic it has been religious.
- It's also been arts and cultural instead
- gay people learn how to use the arts as a way
- to, again, advocate for change or to express who we are.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Yeah I think the--
- it that popped into my head to say gay liberation movement.
- But in a way it has been very artistic
- and cultural and creative.
- And even though we sometimes take all of that for granted,
- in a way that has ushered us into a new time.
- The parades, even here in Rochester, I
- mean if you think about Art Walk,
- I mean Dudd created Art Walk.
- Here is a gay man who had this idea about community, not just
- his community, but this larger community and used art
- as a way of bringing the communities together.
- And it's just become this enormous pride
- for this whole region.
- The arts, I think also the arts have allowed LGBT people
- to fit into the mainstream.
- So
- That's an avenue that's accepted.
- And so we can come in on that on a level playing
- field with everybody else through the arts.
- People need music.
- It's so it's like, oh yeah, we really need that.
- And so they welcome it know, in a sense.
- And it I think opens the door then to bring up other--
- I mean for example with me I don't
- think I would have had the ear of the mayor or the senators
- or if it hadn't been for the avenue of art, that's
- where we kind of converged.
- And I could bring up other issues
- because of that relationship.
- So yeah I think art has--
- it plays such an important role in our lives
- that we're not fully aware of it really because we
- take so much of it for granted.
- People listen to the radio all the time, there's music.
- Somebody is making it.
- We go out dancing, we don't even think of that
- as-- it's just something.
- But it really feeds our lives so much.
- And I think on some level, we understand that.
- And when a person is an artist, I
- think they do come in to the general population
- with a kind of oh OK, well are a little strange,
- but that's an artist.
- And it's somewhat accepted, where, if you just said oh
- this is a gay person ah well.
- I think that still happens really.
- If you think of like--
- I don't know-- like oh, this person's a gay lawyer or maybe
- or I don't know.
- And that's a very different impact
- on people than oh this person's a dancer and then might go,
- oh yeah, well that's how dancers are well a gay lawyer?
- I better look for a lawyer I know or whatever.
- So yeah the arts really are important.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm just going throw some quick thoughts
- at you here because I want to get your thoughts about Image
- Out.
- Talk to me about Image Out and your passion for that festival.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Oh I love Image Out.
- I think I've been to almost every year since the beginning.
- I remember in the beginning, it wasn't really a festival.
- It was showing films.
- it's just grown to be it's just an amazing organization.
- I mean I have some uneasiness about it too.
- But I think overall, it's really--
- one, it's just given us such a great cinema.
- And it's brought the community together in many ways.
- And I mean just the branches that has spread from it--
- Image Art to and then the poetry--
- just the building of community that it's done.
- I mean I think the structure of how
- that organization-- and I'm not in the organization I
- don't know.
- But from the outside, the structure of how it functions
- is just amazing.
- It just accomplishes so much with so little and so little
- time.
- It's just unbelievable, the passion and the dedication
- of those volunteers.
- I do think it suffers from--
- which our community does here in general--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Hold that thought.
- Huge sign there saying quiet please.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: I know I saw but you know.
- Oh what was I saying?
- Oh Image Out.
- So I mean I think Image Out suffers a little bit from what
- our LGBT community suffers from and in general here.
- There is a kind of separation between--
- I would say-- mostly the black community
- and the white community, although I would actually
- put Latino community over there with the black community too.
- We do at times have films with people of color.
- But what there isn't is an integration before that.
- So what I mean is there's like almost two communities really
- in the gay community here.
- There's the gay community for people of color,
- and then there's what I would say the white community mostly.
- And the white community pretty much
- has all this stuff, pretty much.
- The GAGV is run and Image Out and Out and Equal,
- they're pretty much run by what I would say--
- I'm trying to think a better word to use--
- the majority class.
- And The non-majority glass creates their own sort
- of subgroup of activities, of networking.
- There's, at times, some reach across.
- But it's not an integrated it's not integrated.
- And so I think we all suffer from that actually
- a little bit.
- Because we're not getting as many perspectives as we could.
- We're not getting as many voices as we should.
- But anyway, I think that that's a problem just
- in our community.
- Actually it's a problem in the Rochester community actually.
- But in these subgroups, it's also a problem.
- But the Image Out has been just--
- I mean I clear off my whole schedule really trying
- to get to almost every night of Image Out.
- i think it's gone beyond the idea of the films really.
- I think it's the seeing people you haven't seen forever, just
- being together.
- This togetherness in The Little Theater
- is just such a feeling of accomplishment, pride,
- community.
- And there's also a sense of--
- it's funny, I do the sign language
- before I could get the word out--
- support.
- I feel when you look up at the screen
- before the movies start and there's
- all these different organizations have their stuff
- and you really see, that makes it so visible--
- the support of the community.
- And it's one of the few places where we actually
- visibly acknowledge all the support that's
- going on in this community.
- And it's just that's almost more important to me
- than the films themselves because we all
- get to see that, we all get to share in that.
- And you really feel good about where we've come.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let to get your perspective on our pride
- parades and our pride fest.
- Ther was one year that you were the Grand Marshal,
- talk to me about that.
- Talk to me about, again, that sense of pride
- in this community.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: We have a wonderful movement--
- I guess-- in our gay pride time in July.
- There's the raising of the flag at city hall.
- There's the parade and the picnic, of course.
- The years before the parade, the picnic
- was kind of the meeting ground.
- I mean it was the place we all came together.
- I kind of wish there was a way we could figure out
- how to put those two things together,
- I think it would be really helpful.
- But it's marvelous to be able to--
- the time when I was the Grand Marshal,
- I think the parade was a little longer
- because I went all the way over to Manhattan Square Park.
- And so I just remember looking out
- at all of these people who not only feel pride
- I think in the fact that we've got this parade here
- and it's running right down the middle of Rochester for all
- to see for all to partake for, but I
- think there's a little pride also in the self--
- like?
- I'm here, I'm one of the supporters, this is my group,
- these are the people I support.
- I mean I think there's also little self
- identification in I'm worthy and valuable and I have value.
- I think the pride time does engender that, it really
- does support that.
- And so I think it's maybe that's also
- why I try to march in the parade too because I love
- to look out and see all these different people
- and ages and colors.
- And it's really extraordinary.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So what do you think
- it says about Rochester, that our small little city could
- have events like these on such scale than it is?
- We're not New York, we're not Toronto,
- we're not San Fransisco.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Yeah we do have pretty big events actually
- with Image Out, with Pride.
- Even our-- is it Out and Equal?
- Yeah, Out and Equal is enormous.
- The strides that were made with Kodak and Bausch Lomb
- and Xerox and LGBT community is just
- it's astounding how we persevere on such a great sentence scale.
- But again, I think like I say Rochester is a fertile ground
- for developing something.
- people get an idea, and all of a sudden,
- there's other people on it.
- And that just happens here.
- I don't know what it is.
- You know, it may have also something
- to do with the geography.
- We're far enough from New York that there's--
- except for Toronto in another country--
- there's no other big city to kind of overshadow us.
- There are a lot of little places around us
- where we can kind of take the lead in a way.
- So the geography might have something to do with that.
- Rochester, you can kind of think of it almost
- as a gateway to something.
- I think one of the reasons Rochester doesn't always--
- we don't always get to like when start a big thing
- but then it doesn't go over.
- But I think there's something to that
- because I think it's more that it launches
- or it it's a gateway.
- If you think about the Underground Railroad,
- it wasn't a real stopping place actually.
- But it was a very important pass through place.
- And I think in some ways that's the spirit here in many ways.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So if other communities around the world
- can take one message from Rochester, particularly with--
- I don't want to say gay rights activism--
- but maybe just activism in general,
- what would the message be?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Well, what a thought.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What lesson could they take from us?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: That what would be the lesson that other places
- could take from Rochester.
- Well I think one of the lessons is
- taking a risk is always worth it, whether it pans out or not.
- The actual action of taking the risk
- always builds on something.
- So I think that's one thing, we are a place that will--
- like I say, some people have an idea.
- They'll go off and running with it,
- and people will follow them.
- Whether it becomes a major something
- or doesn't, it always build something to the next thing.
- And I think that's a great lesson to learn.
- And we have really polished that process.
- We have become experts, really, at taking an idea
- and growing it.
- It may grow into something else or whatever,
- but that growth becomes just so many people
- benefit from that growth time.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What do you think,
- from your experience and your vision forward,
- do you think the challenges that lie ahead particularly
- for our younger people?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Our younger people.
- I think one of the challenges is going
- to be continuing to see themselves
- as valuable in this community.
- The rift between groups is getting really enormous.
- And without interaction with different kinds of people,
- it's very difficult to grow.
- There's no challenging of your own ideas or beliefs
- or pushing you beyond them.
- And I do see that kind of a lot, that we really
- have got to figure out how to build
- these alliances towards others.
- We try, we're doing, We're trying.
- But I think it has to be more than--
- it has to be kind of a priority.
- That seems to me to be one of the largest challenges for us
- as an LGBT community, as a sub-community
- of this great Rochester community,
- and of the region in general.
- There's either a sort of that's not my world
- and I'm not involved with it or there's
- a sort of bullying of that other world in a sense, which
- doesn't fuel any kind of benefit really.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Future generations
- looking back on this documentary,
- looking back on our lives, what you
- want them to know most about who you are
- and what you've done to help make Rochester
- a better place to live?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: What do I want the future to look back
- on and know about me or think about me?
- Wow.
- I think really what I want people
- to know about me after I'm gone is I try to make what I--
- how do I say that?
- I really try to bring into reality
- what my imagination was about.
- The things I dreamed, the things I imagined, things I
- envisioned, I really tried to make them real.
- And I try to do it lovingly and welcoming others.
- Yeah I think that's what I would really
- like people to know and to remember I think.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Anything we missed?
- THOMAS WARFIELD: I don't think so, oh my goodness.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We talked about the arts,
- we talked about coming out.
- THOMAS WARFIELD: It was a lot.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we got it.
- OK
- THOMAS WARFIELD: Good.
- Well hopefully something in there is useful.