This week I thought I’d take a look back at some of my favorite responses to my crazy questions over the years. I’ve had so many good conversations during the course of these interviews that I could fill this whole issue with clips, but I’ve picked a few that came to mind that made me learn, laugh or get a lump in my throat. They’ve been excerpted and edited for clarity.
One of my favorite experiences was talking with screen icon Pam Grier. It usually takes me about 30 to 40 minutes to do an interview, but her people told me I had 20 minutes MAX to talk to her. I’d done my research and instead of asking her any Hollywood based questions, I asked her about her family, black history and her concern for the environment. Two hours later, I was reluctantly trying to get her off the phone (I had a deadline), but not before she schooled me on multiple subjects.
Pam Grier: My dad, Clarence Grier, was in the military, an Air Force mechanic, which is how we got to Denver. My mom is from Wyoming and was a nurse. In the movie “Coffy,” I played a nurse who takes care of the family, and that was my mom. Because of the Jim Crow issues in the ’50s and ’60s, it was hard to get an ambulance to come to our community, so my mom was always stitching up someone or patching a leg. She had a compassion that I saw and brought to my roles in film.
My maternal grandfather, Raymundo Parrilla, whom we called Daddy Ray, was the first feminist in my life; he taught all the girls to hunt, fish, shoot and be self-sufficient. His mother was the owner of a hotel for Black and Chinese people who worked on the railroad. She was quite independent, so he learned early on that a woman could do anything. He always told me not to be the kind of woman who acted helpless, that a man would respect a woman who could do things for herself. He encouraged me to be a businesswoman or run a farm, whatever I wanted, and it gave me great confidence to navigate my life and career independently. I always wanted to empower women with that self-assurance and self-esteem which I was given in my blood and genes.
People tend to think “urban” when they think of Black folks in this country.
Pam Grier: Yes! We know so little of our history, people forget there were black farmers and teachers and inventors, black townships and a black underground railroad, black doctors. Justina Ford was the first licensed African-American female doctor in Colorado and practiced gynecology, obstetrics and pediatrics for half a century. Caucasian women came to her because of her professionalism and care. We had Barney Ford, an escaped slave who became one of the wealthiest men in Colorado and a civil-rights pioneer. He had a hotel and barbershop that presidents would visit. The KKK would burn him out every few weeks and he’d just rebuild again. All you see in the media is people in urban communities, but we’re farmers, people raising livestock… One of the first black stagecoach drivers delivering mail was Mary Fields in 1863. Gary Cooper wrote about her in Ebony magazine and we’ve been trying to get a project off the ground, a Western about the great women of that era, Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. There’s a huge rural population of African-American people but you won’t find it in the history books or see it in the media. There’s a balance and equilibrium in every community and we have that too.
I also had a memorable interview with Cecilia Garnier, who talked to me about her time growing up in Wynnefield.
Cecilia Garnier: When I was 13 we moved to Delaware. I’d just started dating my first girlfriend and I guess I was homesick. I called Philadelphia so much that my mom put a code on the phone so I couldn’t call long distance. It took me three tries to break the code. My mom’s a nurse so by 7 o’clock she was sound asleep and it was full game for me … until my mom got the bill and it was over $2,000! I saw horns come out my mom’s head when she came into my room. She was like, “I’m going to freaking kill you!” I was like, “Oh, no! I’m in trouble.” [Laughs] So I called 911! It was crazy, she was paying that bill up until a few years ago.
Oh my!
Cecilia Garnier: I went to four different high schools in three different states but the worst trouble I got into was when I was in my sophomore year. I always had good grades and my mom would sneak attack and check my homework — she was always on top of it — and would reward me by letting me play hooky with her to do fun things. In our family a C was like an F, so a D was unacceptable and one year I got bad grades and my mom did the worst punishment of all. She didn’t ground me, she didn’t beat me, she knew how to make me suffer the most: She took my basketball away.
Perfect. Were you involved in many sports?
Cecilia Garnier: Yes. It goes like this: Basketball was my first love, then tennis, then track, softball, volleyball and boxing. I did some boxing and then I took a break to drive a tractor trailer, which is what I do now for a living. Totally unexpected; I was working in mental health for nine years.
South African singer Sharon Katz spoke to me about fighting apartheid as a white ally. I asked whether she experienced as much abuse and harassment as people in the United States.
Sharon Katz: Oh yeah, definitely. Though in the early years I kept it secret because I didn’t want my parents to find out and stop me. But in later years, oh yes, from all sides. I was told I was working for Satan. The white communities were very threatened by the change that was coming and they saw me as a catalyst for that change. So I’ve always had to be very strong, and let’s not forget about homophobia; that comes from all sides.
What was the most precarious situation you have experienced as an activist?
Sharon Katz: Wow. You’re spanning a lot of years now. In the early days, I’d invite John Kani and Winston Ntshona to my house when my parents weren’t home and served them tea. It may not sound very revolutionary now, but we would have all been arrested. It was illegal what we were doing but it was important to me. One of the stipulations of apartheid was that you couldn’t serve a beverage to a black person in your home. It was the law of the land and I wanted to break every law I could. They were brave for doing it with me, but it was a start to the movement. Getting together was also a way for them to educate us and to teach us to be a voice for them in the movement. How absurd it all was, I don’t know why I’m even talking about it.
I had a great conversion with Nima Etemadi, a baker and trans activist, including what it was like to come out.
Nima Etemadi: I definitely came out to my parents in stages. There were all different levels of rebellion at first. Like, “I’m never going to get married” [laughs], then it was like, “OK, I’m never getting married to a guy …” then it was, “I AM a guy.” I was really lucky that they were very liberal and open-minded, especially being from a Middle- Eastern background. They were very much of the mindset that their children’s health and happiness was of primary importance. So as much as I’m sure certain parts were confusing for them, they’ve done their best to adapt to it. They’ve been really great. There were some family members who they were nervous about telling, like my grandmother, and she turned out to be the easiest. She was like, “OK, great! I have another grandson!”
People can surprise you if you give them a chance.
Nima Etemadi: Yeah, I transitioned while I was working for Aperture and they were really wonderful about it too. To acclimate them, I sent around an email to everybody saying, “Look, I’m going to be the same person you know … just hairier.” I think being open to questions helped too. People are going to have natural curiosity and have things they don’t understand and if you don’t supply the answers, they’re going to go online or watch “Jerry Springer” for answers.
When I spoke with stylist extraordinaire Marcos Matos, I was curious to know about some of the craziest requests he’s had from clients.
Marcos Matos: I had a woman who wanted me to dye her vagina purple.
I’m assuming you mean pubic hairs?
Marcos Matos: Yes, yes. She started to pick up her skirt to show me what she wanted me to do and I yelled, “Stop!” That was not in my repertoire.
You do a lot of hair for wedding parties. Any Bridezillas?
Marcos Matos: I had one client who wanted me to put her hair up in this hideous hairstyle on the center of her head and top it off with a crown and it didn’t look good on her. I said, “I want you to have what you want, but I won’t be able to do it.” She was shocked but I’ve worked very hard to put my name where it is and at the end of the day, when someone looks at her pictures and says, “Who did your hair?” I don’t want them mentioning me. Because it won’t be followed with, “But that’s what the bride wanted.” They’ll just associate my name with that terrible hairdo.
I’ve also spoken with some fantastic young people, including Braeden Lange, who came out to his lacrosse teammates when he was twelve years old. In 2015 when I interviewed them, I asked Braeden and his parents about the coming out process.
Braeden Lange: I think I started to realize that I was gay the summer before last. As people were getting older, they were making more homosexual jokes and for some reason, I didn’t know why, but it really got to me. Every single day. And I’m pretty sure that’s when I found out.
Braeden’s mom: You had a girlfriend, tell her about that.
Braeden Lange: Yeah, I had a girlfriend to like, cover it up. I was so terrified of the idea of people knowing that I’m gay, so I had a girlfriend for four or five months and then I broke up with her about a month before I came out.
Braeden’s dad: When Braeden did come out, of course we started thinking, wondering if there were signs we should have seen. So we went back and read some of his old text messages and there was one from the girlfriend. They had apparently kissed and she sent him a text asking, “When can we kiss again?” Now this was in early December and his response was, “How about March … ” [Laughs] Hindsight. When February came along, I think in the back of his mind he was thinking, Man, if I don’t come out now, I’m going to have to kiss this girl in March!
When I interviewed nutritionist Matthew Whipple, who grew up in Louisiana, I asked him what he did after high school and what he wanted to be.
Matthew Whipple: Most of the people I grew up with went to LSU so I went to Tulane University; I didn’t want to repeat high school! It was a beautiful campus right in New Orleans. Originally, I wanted to be pre-med and study to be an OB/GYN, but because I was too sensitive it wasn’t really right for me. I switched to business school.
What makes a gay man want to be an OB/GYN?
Matthew Whipple: It’s perfect! We can look at it clinically plus I just love the thought of helping bring a baby into the world. But I couldn’t handle it if things went wrong. [Laughs] You don’t really want your doctor weeping as he gives you bad news. I started business school then took some time to work in the restaurant industry, which got me on my food path — combining my struggles with losing weight and the food issues with the desire to help people. I guess women can have the babies with someone else and then bring them to me to make them healthy!
I asked Kevin Armstrong about his work as a school counselor, including one of the most memorable experiences he had.
Kevin Armostrong: The funniest one well, in hindsight it was funny happened the first year. I was a fifth-grade counselor and a student had come to me hysterically crying … I mean hysterically. He couldn’t breathe and it actually took him a minute to calm down enough to be able to talk to me, and what I finally got from him between sobs was that somebody in his class had told him that Santa wasn’t real.
Awww!
Kevin Armstrong: I know. That was the last thing I expected to hear. I guess I expected that by fifth grade everybody knew about Santa already! I was trying my best not to laugh because he was just devastated. And the kids deal with so much these days. Social media is very tough for them. They put everything out there and they’re not prepared and don’t have the skills to deal with the backlash. It’s something that I see a lot of them struggle with; they just can’t figure out how to navigate the waters of social media. It’s totally different from when I went to school. Every one of them has a cell phone so they never escape it. If something goes down at school, it goes home with them. They get texts and Facebook posts and Instagram shots. There’s no getting away from it.
To close out this column, I recalled asking bartender extraordinaire Ricky McIntire about what he was like as a kid:
Ricky McIntire: I was a weird kid. I was always picked on, so I tried to be funny and divert the attention that way. I was tall and skinny. I was 6 feet at about 11 years old and I don’t think I weighed more than 100 pounds until after I graduated high school. I was teased a lot. I wouldn’t go back to that age for a million dollars. In fact, I’d trade you 10 years off my life if I could have skipped that period. It was awful, but I made it through. If you can make it through public school as a skinny, gay, awkward kid, you can make it through anything. Now nothing phases me: “Oh what, there’s an earthquake coming? OK, no sweat… I’ve been through puberty.”
What helped you get through?
Ricky McIntire: Theater. I loved theater and the attention I got. I still do! It’s why I like being behind the bar — every night is like a show.