“Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start.” — Jason Collins
It’s Pride month! Time to bust out your shorts and rainbow attire and strut your stuff!
Pride in Philadelphia seems to get bigger and better each year, and there is already a record-breaking number of participants scheduled for the June 14 parade and festival — not to mention this year’s headliner, Fran Drescher, aka The Nanny. Drescher has been a strong presence in the entertainment world, in our community and as a human-rights activist. Also onstage will be “Glee” star Alex Newell, who played the quick-tongued “Unique” on the show. I have to admit to being a bit of a Gleek myself and can’t wait to hear Newell belt out a song live and in person! Philadelphia icon (and former Portrait) Henri David will emcee the lineup of talented performers that will grace the stage throughout the day.
Pride begins in the heart of the Gayborhood with the annual parade, stepping off at 11:30 a.m. from 13th and Locust streets and proceeding through Center City and Philadelphia’s historic district. The judging stand is at Independence Mall, Sixth and Market streets. The parade ends at the festival location at the Great Plaza of Penn’s Landing. The parade is free but there’s a $15 cover charge for the festival. Don’t grouse: Where else can you see six hours of back-to-back entertainment, dance your toes off with several top DJs, get tested, find a church, have a drink, get dunked, join a team or organization and hang out with thousands of your closest friends?
It takes a team of people to pull it all off, and this week we spoke to one of the organizers. Jim O’Toole does his part before the festival begins, as he is responsible for organizing the judging process at the reviewing stand.
PGN: Tell me a little about yourself.
JO: I was born in New York City. My mother had outstanding typing skills on those big, clunky machines and she was very bright, so she started out as an administrative assistant and when we moved to Washington, D.C., she got hired by the Pentagon and worked on a little thing called “The Manhattan Project.” After World War II ended and, after getting many, many, many proposals — she was drop-dead gorgeous — she finally chose my father, who was the editor of the Georgetown Law Review. He’d served in the Navy in an educational capacity and then, at the Pentagon, served under the admiral who oversaw the signing of the treaty with Japan. He took the job not so much to make money but to serve the public, something that runs in the family. He later was hired to be the chief prosecutor for the IRS in New York.
PGN: What were you like as a kid?
JO: Uh, I think I’m shy, but people keep telling me I’m lying when I say that. I guess I can turn the switch on and off.
PGN: What’s a favorite family memory?
JO: Every summer we would do two weeks on Cape Cod up until the time that my Grandmother O’Toole passed away. She died right in the middle of our vacation and we never went again!
PGN: Oh my! So, where did you go to school and what did you study?
JO: I went to Columbia University. I started out as a theoretical math major in the hopes of doing pre-med work, then I developed epilepsy and said, OK, I guess I’d better change paths, and followed what I was doing during my free time in high school, which was working on political campaigns. Trying to make the world a better place.
PGN: What was the first campaign you worked on?
JO: You don’t want to know.
PGN: But I do!
JO: John F. Kennedy. As a youngster, I would be dressed up in a suit with buttons and run in and out of polling booths and the women would say, “Oh, he’s so cute!” Nine years later with the Vietnam War results coming in, I became more active and ran the George McGovern campaign for the southern part of our town. We had 36,000 people and we pulled 90 percent of the vote for him. Unfortunately, he didn’t fare as well in other places. I later went into economics and urban studies and received a fellowship to come down to University of Pennsylvania. I studied there until I realized that I didn’t want to eat out of cans anymore and searched for a position that I would find interesting but that would give me time to finish my graduate studies. In retrospect, I learned a lot of things about Philadelphia that surprised people.
PGN: Such as?
JO: Well, things like how great a mayor Frank Rizzo really was. He established little fiefdoms and let different factions run them. For instance, the Treasurer’s Office was run by a certain part of the community and the Streets Department by another, and it went the same all over. Everyone had their little piece and it worked. I ended up getting a job with the Office of Housing and Community Development. I worked there until 1983 and then went to work for the Commerce Department as the administrator of economic-development programs. I handled the Rendell stimulus programs and, later, with the Street administration, I helped set up community programs. John is a very interesting guy in that his image is of a big bad wolf but he’s really not. One of the programs we worked on was for community grants and one of the important provisions I added said that a community was not just a geographical area. That allowed us for the first time to funnel money to the LGBT community for festivals, film events, a theater festival, Pride and all sorts of things.
PGN: What is your role currently with Pride?
JO: One year, [Philly Pride Presents executive director] Franny Price asked me if I would serve as a judge and it didn’t go the way I thought it should. There were a couple of older judges who seemed to nod off, and a few others who didn’t seem interested in following the guidelines. So Franny said, [imitating her raspy voice] “Jim, why don’t you come back and organize the program?” So I created a spreadsheet and made categories and created written guidelines so that people wouldn’t do things like judge the grand marshals! That had actually been done in the past. I’ve been organizing it ever since; that was probably back around 2003. Since then, we’ve added a lot of variety on the platform, both culturally and bringing in prominent people from government and business. We’ve had Brian Sims, there was a judge and one Council person who liked to just hang out … I finally asked, “Councilman Kenny, would you like to participate?” And he said, “Oh, no. I just enjoy being here.” We also had another fellow who came and shook hands and said a few words from the reviewing stand. He felt it was important, which was quite a special thing for us. That was Tom Wolf.
PGN: What was the biggest difficulty you’ve faced?
JO: Weather. One year we had a rain that didn’t last long but when it hit, it came down in buckets. We actually had to run into the Visitor Center. The judging sheets were ruined so we had to go back and re-judge each group. We’ve also had some scorching-hot days that make it difficult. And of course the biggest difficulty was losing one of my favorite judges, Gloria Casarez, last year.
PGN: We all miss Gloria. What is Jim Squared?
JO: Ha. That’s me and Jim King. We’ve been together for 25 years-plus, which is a bit of a phenomenon. When we got together, there weren’t many long-term couples. He’s a certified public accountant.
PGN: What’s a fun adventure you’ve had?
JO: We did our honeymoon in Europe, May of 1990. We started out in England. I showed him London and then when we were in Amsterdam I said, “Let’s go down and have some mussels with red sauce.” I took him to the train station and we went to Brussels, where I took him to my favorite restaurant right off of the square. Then I told him a little secret: that I’d done the same thing on my first trip there and then had secretly taken a night train to Berlin when Berlin was completely shut down. So we did it again. Berlin was mostly open by then, as the wall had come down, and as we were flying back to the states, they announced the unification of Germany. It was pretty cool.
PGN: There weren’t a lot of gay people getting married in 1990. Was there any pushback?
JO: No, the kids in the family always just treated him like Uncle Jim. His sister is a public defender up in Massachusetts and she’s gay too. As far as my mother and her sisters were concerned, I never told them — I didn’t think it was important — but one day when they were in their 80s, one of them turned to us and said, “Why can’t you two just get married like everyone else?” They knew all along! Sadly, we’ve lost most of that generation now.
PGN: What do you like to do for enjoyment when you’re not working?
JO: We’re both into games. When we were taking care of some of the older family members up in Boston, I had to do something to keep from going crazy so I started playing games on the computer. I’m not talking aggressive games — I play things like Monopoly and card games. Jim is more into doing crossword puzzles. We both enjoy doing garden work and working on the house. We’ve been doing a lot of renovation on the place. We started at the top and have worked our way down. The next step is to put in sandy beach-floor tiles.
PGN: I once interviewed drag performer Sandy Beach. Do you know how he got the name?
JO: Ha! I was just imagining Sandy Beach on our floor. I think I knew once, but I forget.
PGN: He was working with the dolphins at the Steel Pier at the shore and people thought he looked like Sandy on the TV show “Flipper.” But I digress. I understand that Jim also bowls in a competitive league.
JO: Yes, they just won the city championship. There are three LGBT leagues in the city and they first won their league and then there was a match with the league champions playing each other for the city title. His team won!
PGN: Three things you have in common with the other Jim?
JO: I don’t know, at this point we’re kind of bonded.
PGN: What movie could you watch over and over?
JO: For Jim, it would be “The Sound of Music.” For me, I used to be a big “Cabaret” fan, but now I think it would be more like the “Harry Potter” series — the worlds of fanciful imagination. We just watched “Hotel Budapest.” I wanted something quirky and funny with a little drama on top and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was everything I wanted. We had the great-niece and nephew here recently and we watched “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.” It was a thoroughly enjoyable film, based on a true story. You should check it out.
PGN: I will. Favorite Motown song?
JO: Anything from The Supremes. They were a pleasure to watch, and my other favorite group but not from Motown was The Beatles. To this very day, they influence music; they brought rock from being an Elvis Presley-kind of thing to what it is now. I also sang in college.
PGN: With a group or choir?
JO: I was with the Columbia University Glee Club. We got to tour the states, Puerto Rico and Mexico and even put out an album.
PGN: Nice. Do you still have it?
JO: Oh boy, it’s somewhere! After I graduated, they tried to get me to come back to sing on the European tour.
PGN: Were you out then?
JO: It’s odd, a friend of mine from high school, who I just reconnected with, used to always tease me. We never knew about him but we kind of thought he was. I’d occasionally say hi on Facebook and in the ’70s we both were starting to come out. I basically came out when I came to Philly in 1977. I look at these kids now and am astounded at how early they’re coming out. I think it’s easier for kids these days, though I’m not happy when I’m driving and see antigay signs like I did in Smyrna, Del., recently. Get over it. If you don’t agree with it, just keep it to yourself. [Laughing] Of course, that’s what they used to say to us: We don’t care if you’re gay, just keep it to yourself.
PGN: True. What’s in store for this year’s Pride?
JO: There’s a lot happening. We will be giving out 20 awards in categories like Best Marching Group (with and without sound), Best Performance, and we even have a new category this year, for Best Animal Group. We also have some amazing officials participating. Dr. Rachel Levine is one of the grand marshals — she’s the acting physician general of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the first transgender woman in the United States ever nominated to a post of that kind. Nellie Fitzpatrick is our other grand marshal; she is Mayor Nutter’s new director of LGBT Affairs. We’re also honoring Charlene Arcila, a community activist who filed a complaint with the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations when she was told that the gender sticker on her transit pass did not match her presentation. As a result of her efforts, SEPTA transit passes no longer have gender stickers. She unfortunately passed away earlier this year. Deputy Commissioner Kevin Bethel is our Friend of Pride. He authored Police Directive 152, which advises the Philadelphia Police Department on the proper way to treat trans victims and offenders and he serves on the Police LGBT Liaison Committee. A really impressive group.
PGN: So what’s something you’re looking forward to when it’s all said and done?
JO: Air-conditioning.
The Pride Parade kicks off at 11:30 a.m. June 14 at 13th and Locust streets. The parade will arrive at Penn’s Landing for the festival, which costs $15, around 1 p.m. For more information, visit www.phillygaypride.org.