queerserial.com Mattachine is a podcast dedicated to exploring the overlooked, forgotten, or often-untold stories in gay history, told in serialized episodes.
Producer/host: Devlyn Camp
Editorial advisor: Paul Di Ciccio
Advisor: Albert Williams
Mattachine follows the true story of the secret organization created by Harry Hay that catalyzed the American gay rights movement in 1950. From its spark of inspiration in 1920s Chicago, through secret speakeasy-style meetings that brought together anonymous homosexuals, we journey into the McCarthy-era paranoia
that pulled the activists apart and scattered the seeds of the homosexual rights movement long before it was immortalized by Stonewall. Created by Devlyn Camp.
The calls for monuments of Marsha began 32 years ago, almost immediately following her death. Mayor de Blasio announced Marsha & Sylvia statues in 2019 that never materialized, but several creative qu**rs have taken matters into their own hands. This stunning Marsha effigy appeared recently at the Drag March. I wrote a piece on my Patreon about these 5 monuments to Marsha pictured here. Do you recall any other statues or effigies made in Marsha’s image since 1992? 💐
Wicker crew does Q***r Liberation March 🌈
Among the news clippings saved by Marsha, and then later saved by Randy, I found this short article about the final wishes of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries co-founder Bambi L’Amour.
It’s unclear what publications this is from, or even what year it was printed. There’s very little information about Bambi online, and searching for her yields pretty much only my scan of this document picked up by trans history resources.
Bambi was apparently present at the Stonewall riots, and even helped bouncer Ed Murphy escape the raid—a story I had never heard until reading this piece.
As told on Q***r Serial, Murphy was once caught working with the mafia to blackmail homosexuals in the mid-1960s, went on to bounce at the Stonewall, and then while running the Christopher Street Festival Committee he was known for his generosity to street queens and AIDS patients. That rings true here in Bambi’s obit, as Murphy apparently claimed her body and arranged for her cremation.
Marsha is pictured here spreading Bambi’s ashes with “Gay Liberation Allows Drag” president Eve Adams (so we know this piece is from sometime around or after 1980) down Christopher Street and outside St. Veronica’s Church, just a few blocks from the Stonewall and Randy’s lamp shop.
If you have any additional information about Bambi or this document, please comment below!
From the Randy Wicker archive. Drag March, June 2020.
Ru’s All Stars begins tonight, so here’s a little piece of history from the Randy Wicker archive!
Finally.
See “Lewd Louie” fully uncensored on my Patreon 😛 Along with brand new podcast interviews, I’m back with some of my favorite q***r ephemera in my own collection and other outrageous historical bits discovered over the years in q***r archives. Now posting 2x weekly. Subscribe on patreon!! 🩷🩷🩷
New update today! Sign up for the Mattachine mailing list at the link in my bio 💌
Congrats to on preserving one of the best landmarks in q***r history! Today was a lovely celebration! 🍾🍻💚
Wishing a happy 85th birthday to my wonderful friend, Randy Wicker. I can’t express my gratitude for everything he has done for the q***r movement, and for me specifically. It’s an honor to be a part of his family. 🎂
My hometown has a q***r history book coming out! And I’m so happy to have contributed a small piece of Evansville gay history. When I first researched the Mattachine at USC Libraries, I found boxes for every major city’s Mattachine chapter—and then one little folder with 3 papers on Evansville’s group! Years later I was finally able to share this with Kelley Coures, who has compiled this fabulous new book full of LGBTQ+ stories from Indiana. I’m so thrilled. Wish I had this book 15 years ago. PRE-ORDER NOW!!!!
Link in my bio 📚
Having THE time of my life archiving Randy Wicker’s massive collection of papers (and basically all types of media) for the NYC LGBT National History Archives 🥵 and for our documentary!!
“A GREAT PLACE TO SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH ALL YOUR FRIENDS” 😈👼
Ad for the Club Baths in GAY newspaper, December 25, 1972.
Patreon subscribers just got a little piece of gay history in the mail from me! 👼
This is an original 1994 postcard featuring a photo taken in Randy Wicker's antique lamp shop Uplift Lighting. The angel, displayed by Uplift employees, advises, "Be an angel, wear a condom."
Randy employed countless people at the shop over 30 years. Many of them were gay, le***an, and/or trans. Some were transient, some were addicts, some were HIV+, and some were even cisgender heterosexual HIV- people! They all were just trying to get through the epidemic. I’m looking forward to telling you all the story of the Uplift family in our documentary currently in production. For now I’m excited to share a piece of this history from the Wicker archive with you! 💌
The annual Q***r Serial xmas card could be in your mailbox! 💌 Miss Santa put her heels on for the holidays!
Hope you all have a lovely holiday season ❤️
(Also, my Patreon subscribers received a special piece of q***r history: an original 1994 gay postcard from the Wicker archive!)
“Never in history was $30,000 per year so misspent as in protecting us(‘society?) from CoCo… We live in an ugly, racist, unfair, unjust society… Merry Christmas America. Make sure you have that patriotic pig hanging on your sacred, holy, loving Christmas tree.
and to all, a good night!” 🐽🎄
Randy Wicker’s annual Xmas letter, 1996. See CoCo pictured (center) outside Uplift Lighting on her birthday, June 29, 1995, which was also Gay Pride Day.
She moved in with Randy after incarceration. She now lives with her husband in New York City.
“Never in history was $30,000 per year so misspent as in protecting us(‘society?) from CoCo… We live in an ugly, racist, unfair, unjust society… Merry Christmas America. Make sure you have that patriotic pig hanging on your sacred, holy, loving Christmas tree.
and to all, a good night!” 🐽🎄
Randy Wicker’s annual Xmas letter, 1996. See CoCo pictured outside Uplift Lighting on her birthday, June 29, 1995, which was also Gay Pride Day. She moved in with Randy after incarceration. She now lives with her husband in New York City.
all I want for xmas is AN ANGEL IN S***M 😇😈
Use code Q***R30 for 30% off this fabulous new book!!
I have the honor of promoting this new biography of the very first activist I covered on Q***r Serial, Henry Ge**er!! Legendary rebel postal worker. He started the first gay rights group in the US, ran an anonymous gay pen pal service, & so much more.
The book is by the fabulous Jim Elledge, who wrote ✨The Boys of Fairy Town ✨ which was one of my favorite reads while working on the podcast. I’m so happy he’s telling Ge**er’s full story!
ok girlies if you wanna read this f@ggy book for 30% OFF use code Q***R30 and you’ve got til xmas to do it. GET TO IT!! YOU LOVE Q***R HISTORY!!! link in my bio to buy one for all your girls ♥️
Randy mentioned World AIDS Day this morning, then said he didn’t want to attend any events. He says thinking about AIDS is like keeping a wound open. But he still often thinks about his late partner David Combs, who died of AIDS on February 17, 1990 in the apartment where Randy still lives today. They met through David’s friend (the iconic) Liz Eden while Randy was reporting on Eden’s very open gender confirmation process. David & Randy opened Uplift Lighting together in the Village in 1974. David expanded the shop over the years and built quite a palace, which employed (and housed) countless gay, trans, & even heterosexual people. Randy ran the shop until 2003. He describes their relationship as a “stormy marriage”—they were off and on all the time. David was probably carrying the virus before they ever knew it existed. They were stranded in the ER hallway for nearly a week while the hospital refused to give rooms to AIDS patients because they didnt have private rooms open. The epidemic brought Randy back to activism, even after David’s death. As his health declined, David & Randy grew closer than ever, tending a backyard “Garden of Hope.” Many of the antique lamps he hung are still glowing in their Hoboken apartment. 💡
Randy on “The Richard Bey Show,” December 3, 1993.
More bts of the Wicker documentary coming to my Patreon this week 💕
AN ANGEL IN S***M 😇😈
30% off!! What a fu***ng TITLE. I have the honor of promoting this new biography of the very first activist I covered on Q***r Serial, Henry Ge**er!! Legendary rebel postal worker. He started the first gay rights group in the US, ran an anonymous gay pen pal service, & so much more.
The book is by the fabulous Jim Elledge, who wrote ✨The Boys of Fairy Town ✨ which was one of my favorite reads while working on the podcast. I’m so happy he’s telling Ge**er’s full story!
ok girlies if you wanna read this f@ggy book for 30% OFF use code Q***R30 and you’ve got til xmas to do it. GET TO IT!! YOU LOVE Q***R HISTORY!!! link in my bio and buy one for all your girls ♥️
Last year I had the honor of interviewing legendary genderf**k performance artist & original Cockette Rumi Missabu. (You can listen to our 2-episode chat on the patreon bonus podcast.) Rumi heard about my work with Randy Wicker, archiving his papers at the NYC LGBT Center, and he asked me to help him label some photos and gather his collection for donation to the same archives. I flew out to the Bay Area, hung out with Rumi for a few days and went through photos. He shipped his organized archive across the country to me for preservation at the LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
TONIGHT, with the help of several volunteers in New York, Rumi and I are presenting his archive at the NYC LGBT Center Bookstore BGSQD from 5-7PM.
& Rumi live Q&A on Zoom @ 6
Suggested donation $10 to benefit the Bureau’s work. All are welcome to attend, with or without donation.
THANK YOU to everyone supporting my work on Patreon so that I’m able to take projects like this! 😘
MORE INFO: https://bgsqd.com/event/market-of-vain-desire/
LGBT Community Center at the Bureau of General Services—Q***r Division Bookshop, 208 W 13th St. NYC
Curated by me with assistance from Rumi—and lots of helping hands! Thanks to Hucklefaery, Agosto Machado, Robert Croonquist, Jean Stevens, Daniel Ryan Johnston, & especially Fussy Lo Mein ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
🎥 Gore Vidal appearing on CBS Reports: “The Homosexuals,” 1967. (Stay tuned...)
***rhistory
Richard Inman of Mattachine Miami stumbles through his big break.
🎧 S3 E5
Out of the living rooms and into the bars. Out of the bars and into the streets. ☀️
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🎥 Gore Vidal appearing on CBS Reports: “The Homosexuals,” 1967. (Stay tuned...) #queerhistory #historypodcast #gorevidal
Richard Inman of Mattachine Miami stumbles through his big break. 🎧 S3 E5 #gayhistory #mattachine #historypodcast
Out of the living rooms and into the bars. Out of the bars and into the streets. ☀️
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A serialized story in gay history. Devlyn Camp opens an FBI case file on a secret society of homosexuals that met in Cold War America. A 10-episode, serialized case called Mattachine.
Producer/host: Devlyn Camp Editorial advisor: Paul Di Ciccio Advisor: Albert Williams We’re following the true story of the secret organization created by Harry Hay that catalyzed the American gay rights movement in 1950. From its spark of inspiration in 1920s Chicago, through secret speakeasy-style meetings that brought together anonymous homosexuals, we’re journeying into the McCarthy-era paranoia that pulled the activists apart and scattered the seeds of the homosexual rights movement long before it was immortalized by Stonewall. Mattachine is a podcast dedicated to exploring the overlooked, forgotten, or often-untold stories in gay history, told in serialized episodes.
