Keynote at ALMS Conference 2011, "Baby, You Are My Religion", Dr. Marie Cartier, June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, 2011/11//03
[caption: Marie Cartier @ Mazer Lesbian Archives. Her new book, Baby You Are My Religion. An introduction to the women “informants” who shaped the book.]
[caption: Theresa]
Cartier: Theresa is a fabulous dancer if you’ve ever seen here at any of the 40-plus dances. One of her first girlfriends was a native woman. And you guys ran away to do migrant farm working, correct? And your husband came and found you and busted down the door.
Blackwell: We went to Beaumont to pick cherries, and we made like 50 cents an hour. And yes, my ex-husband tracked me down, had a gun. She ran out of the trailer. I hit him. He hit me in the face with a gun, and I still have a scar. But that didn’t stop me.
[clapping]
[caption: Barbara]
Cartier: So, she is one of the women who actually made the divide from 1960s bar culture to a 1970s lesbian feminism. In Los Angeles, [she] was also a bartender at the Star Room.
[clapping]
And I believe you were the first woman to legally pour, right? Other than the owner of the bar?
Kalaish: Other than the owner, Joan.
Cartier: Because women could not legally pour alcohol. So Barbara is the first woman to actually legally be able to pour your drinks in service to the community in the Star Room. So that’s a distinction, which I think is fabulous because before that you couldn’t do it. The only one, because she was married to the owner, right?
Kalaish: Her husband Morty, he was the owner of the Star Room.
Cartier: So that’s why she could pour.
Kalaish: [at audience] How many of you have ever been to the Star Room? [points to audience] Right on!
Audience: Where was it located?
Cartier: Santa Monica, Boulevard, correct?
Kalaish: No, uh, it wasn’t really part of the County of Los Angeles. What do they call it when it’s, when it’s not–
Audience: [unclear]
Kalaish: Yeah, and it was sort of in a funny place. And it was sort of–it was a nice bar. It was a nice, good looking bar. We had a lot of people. A lot of teachers. A lot of airline hostesses.
[laughter]
Kalaish: Yes, most of it, yes.
Cartier: Barbara had a really good time in the bar!
Kalaish: Very religious!
[laughter]
[caption: Jeanne]
Cardova: Marie’s book reminds me of–I sort of walked out of the convent door in 1967, and more or less walked into the door of a lesbian bar in 1968. And so, they weren’t that different, except [laughter] except for the lighting. [laughter]
Cartier: One was stained glass and one was a little grittier.
Cardova: And the first time I ever went to bed with a woman was in the convent. The morning after, we woke up, and she said to me something like–I don’t remember the exact words because it was ’68–she said, the morning after we’d done it, she said: “wasn’t that a remarkable religious experience we had?” [laughter]
Cartier: Okay, you didn’t tell me that! That would’ve been great! You didn’t tell me that! She saved that!
Cardova: She said it!
Cartier: Thank you.I believe you!
Cardova: I’m sorry! I was so stunned. I didn’t know what to say.
Cartier: I have 500 pages that says I would have believed you!
Cardova: And I was so stunned. Right there I knew the difference between being a lesbian and being a nun, and that I couldn’t stay.
[caption: Lisa]
Cartier: Gay bars actually meant for her still a way for her to come into her identity as a butch women, and I remember you telling me, “I finally wore a tie.” And, the other thing, Lisa met me for years and years and years to help me get my project on track. And as an MBA, she helped me to organize my interviews into very doable sections. Do you want to say anything?
Samson: It took a while! For the book and for all of our meetings and to get your book finished, but, I do remember a bar story, for us. We were at the Palms one night and–what was the name of that comedian? Lea DeLaria came in and she was hitting on Marie. And [laughs] she said something like: “Do you know who I am.” And, you know, I was of course really good friends with Marie. And I said: “Well, do you know who she [Marie] is?” So, it was a fun night. One of many, many fun nights!
[caption: Carolyn]
Weathers: Hi!
Audience: Howdy!
Weathers: Howdy! This picture on the cover here, the one in the pink shirt–that’s me! I was 21 then. I’m 73 now. And the red convertible belonged to the bartender, the Acme Bar. And she thought that red convertible made her even more wonderful than she thought she had been before. [laughter] The Acme Bar was a dingy rathole. It was like a shoebox painted black, with sagging wood floors and a forest of signs like “credit, forget it.” And I loved it. It was in this desolate part of town in San Antonio. Though that’s when I came out, in San Antonio. When I talk in public my accent starts to–something happens to my mouth. [laughter]
The Acme Bar was–it was just a junk hole but I loved it. We all loved it. There was another place. The pictures of it aren’t up here. [In] Fact I don’t think I have him, it was by Maybelle and B. who were two crusty old buckets, who’d been together I think since the 1940s. And they ran this bar for gay men and gay women out in the country. That’s what we called it, because it was outside the city limits, because we could dance there. Because it took the vice and the police and the military police and the sheriff longer to get there. [laughter] And Maybelle had this warning sign for when the police were there. Usually she had this red bandanna around her neck. And she’d walk in from–there was a little bar in the front room and a little dance floor, large dance floor in the back. And we’ll be all dancing–men with men, women with women. And then Maybelle would come in, and she would stand in that doorway. And her little bandanna would be in her front pocket, not around her neck. And that was the sign the police were there.
So immediately–about the time it took to say “bassanova cha-cha twist”–we had switched into heterosexual–happy heterosexual–couples. [laughter] And so when the police came in we’re just male and female couples. And it pissed them off. They knew we were gay. We knew they knew it. They knew we knew they knew it. [audience laughs] And they would look scouring through, trying to find a woman accidently–you know, kind of touching a woman’s hand under the table, or a man pressing another man’s shoulder too close. But, and if they found it, that person was arrested. And if they ever caught us dancing gaily, they could have a whole paddy wagon full of us. But when they didn’t catch us, again they got really pissed off. And they’d leave, like “we’ll be back.” And when they left, we would raise our glasses to one another and then would start dancing gaily again.
Carter: And what was your toast?
Weathers: My toast, and it’s the name of a story of mine that you can read on the Mazer, was: “Cheers everybody!”
[caption: Support the June Mazer Lesbian Archives and make a donation today! @ www.mazerlesbianarchives.org]
[END OF VIDEO]
June Mazer Lesbian Archives, West Hollywood, California November 3, 2013
Book: Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall http://mariecartier.com/
Professor and Author Marie Cartier introduces a few of her "Informants", from her groundbreaking book on butch femme identity and women in gay bars as a sacred, religious place in pre-Stonewall era. Meet these courageous women who dared to live their life.
Interviewee: Theresa Blackwell
Interviewee: Barbara Kalaish
Interviewee: Jeanne Cordova
Interviewee: Lisa Samson
Interviewee: Carolyn Weathers
Interviewer: Marie Cartier
Transcriber: Andrew S.
Transcriber: Rachel W.
Formatter: Serena R.
Recording Date: November 3, 2013
Release Date: November 9, 2013
Location: June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood, California
Interview Length: 00:09:22