Tinderbox

  59.“Duane George Mitchell,” Birmingham News, July 2, 1973, 43; Tom Frazer, “Sons of Fire Victim Sent Home—Unaware of Father’s Death,” New Orleans States-Item, June 26, 1973, A3; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 39.

  60.“Ex-Resident Killed in New Orleans Fire,” Chicago Daily Herald, July 3, 1973, 36; “Guy Andersen,” death notice, The Des Plaines [Illinois] Herald, July 3, 1973, 8; interview with Dexter Brecht, July 29, 2016; “Fire Victims: More than Just Names,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 17.

  61.Interview with Marc Schmitz, July 1, 2016.

  62.“General Case Report,” New Orleans Department of Police, August 30, 1973, 50, Upstairs Lounge Records, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library. In keeping with the times, friends at the bar would refer to Soleto as a drag queen. They used the term “cross-dresser” or “transsexual” only rarely. The word “trans-gender,” as it was spelled then, and the concept of gender dysphoria as a medical phenomenon were not well understood—even by gay friends.

  63.Damron, Bob Damron’s Address Book, 9th ed., 101.

  64.Interview with Robert Camina, July 2016; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 50; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 191.

  65.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 38.

  66.Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Patsy Sims, The Klan (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 152–53.

  67.Everett interview, August 25, 2015.

  68.“Tonight’s Movie Showcase,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 24, 1973, 52; Harold Fairbanks, “Jan-Michael Denies ‘Fag’ Slur,” The Advocate, November 8, 1972, 27.

  69.Interview with Duane Mitchell, August 13, 2015; Frazer, “Sons of Fire Victim Sent Home,” A3.

  70.Mitchell interview, August 13, 2015.

  3: Gay Liberation

  1.Johnny Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn: The Up Stairs Lounge Fire (self-published through BookLocker.com, 2011), 170–71; Anonymous, The Cajun Queen: A Complete Guide to New Orleans Gaydom (New Orleans: Minotaur, Inc., 1974), 17; interview with David Williams, January 21, 2016; interview with Richard Everett, July 27, 2015.

  2.Everett interviews, August 25, 2015, July 27, 2015, September 30, 2016, and August 10, 2015; interview with Ronald Rosenthal, June 14, 2016; Henry Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account” (unpublished manuscript, November 14, 2013), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire), Berkeley, Calif.

  3.Everett interview, July 27, 2015.

  4.Frank Perez and Jeffrey Palmquist, In Exile: The History and Lore Surrounding New Orleans Gay Culture and Its Oldest Gay Bar (Hurlford, Scotland: LL-Publications, 2012), 17; Frank Perez, email to author, December 6, 2016; “A Nineteenth Century Photo,” Clarion Herald, June 28, 1973, 1; Don Gross, “ ‘My Name Is Nobody’—And Some People Agree,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 24.

  5.Everett interview, July 27, 2015.

  6.Eugene Davis, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, October 1, 1973, 2, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection.

  7.Ibid.; “Eugene C. Davis Services Monday,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 3, 1984, 22; Clayton Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 119; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 213.

  8.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 120; “Vice Charges Okayed by DA: Obscenity, Eight Other Morals Cases Accepted,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 8, 1958, 22; Dean A. Andrews, Orleans Parish Grand Jury testimony, June 28, 1967, http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/andrewsshaw3.htm.

  9.“N.O. Bar Owner Sues NBC on Probe Report,” New Orleans States-Item, August 13, 1968; “Two Persons Die in $50,000 Hotel Fire at Silver Dollar Hotel,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 14, 1970, 8.

  10.Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 2; Mark Allen Guidry, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 2, 1973, 4, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection.

  11.Rodger Dale Nunez, New Orleans Police Department Arrest Register, April 4, 1973, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries, Los Angeles; Cynthia Ann Savant, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, August 1, 1974, 10, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge (copy courtesy of Clayton Delery).

  12.Rodger Dale Nunez, U.S. Army records, National Military Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Mo.; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 118; Will Peneguy, “Now Hear This,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 20, 1973, 39; Maud O’Bryan, “Up and Down the Street,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 24, 1968, 61; Clayton Delery, email to author, December 15, 2016.

  13.Alex Heigl, “Courir de Mardi Gras: The Strangest Tradition You’ve Never Heard Of,” People, March 4, 2014 (http://people.com/celebrity/courir-de-mardi-gras-referenced-on-true-detective/); Delery to author, December 15, 2016.

  14.“TU Doctors Seek Cut in La. Infant Mortality,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 30, 1979, 31; Delery to author, December 15, 2016.

  15.Joseph Nunez and Rose Choate family tree, Our Family History, www.hpeterjr.us/familygroup.php?familyID=F29003&tree=1; Roger Dale Nunez, U.S. Navy enlistment application, June 1, 1964, National Military Personnel Records Center; “Official Report,” Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 22, 1975, Louisiana State Archives.

  16. Nunez, U.S. Navy enlistment application; Nunez, U.S. Army records.

  17. Nunez, U.S. Army records.

  18. Ibid; Rodger Dale Nunez, letter to the editor, Abbeville Meridional, February 18, 1965, 2.

  19. Roger Dale Nunez, Record 814225, Louisiana Department of Public Safety, 1973, Louisiana State Archives; Rodger D. Nunez, District Court for the Parish of New Orleans fine record, December 4, 1972, Johnny Townsend Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives; Nunez, NOPD Arrest Register, April 4, 1973; John BonneCarrere to Judge Frank Shea, Orleans Parish Criminal Court, August 7, 1973, Johnny Townsend Collection.

  20.Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 2; Guidry, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 4; Nunez, NOPD Arrest Register, April 4, 1973.

  21.Forensic Laboratory Report, Coroner’s Office Parish of Orleans, December 5, 1974, Louisiana State Archive (copy courtesy of Trevor Santos); Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 211.

  22.Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 2, 3; Guidry, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 4.

  23.Davis, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 3.

  24.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; Henry Kubicki, email to author, July 2, 2016.

  25.Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account”; “Grand Opening of Hotel Is Set,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 17, 1972, 14; “Dollars and Sense of the Marriott,” New Orleans Times-Picayune Dixie Roto Magazine, June 4, 1972, 26.

  26.Interview with Henry Kubicki, September 4, 2015; “New Businesses in New Orleans,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, December 6, 1970, sect. 5, p. 27; interview with Gene Adams, April 18, 2016.

  27.Interview with Henry Kubicki, April 5, 2016.

  28.“Gay Rights Protections in the U.S. and Canada,” National Gay Task Force, 1976, Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files, James T. Sears Papers, Duke University Libraries, Durham, N.C.; David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); “Douglas Dissents as Tribunal Upholds Ouster of Homosexual,” Chicago Tribune, May 23, 1967, 4.

  29.Kubicki interview, April 5, 2016; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  30.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 124; Dale Carpenter, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 7.

  31.Photograph, June 12, 1971, Henry Kubicki personal archive; Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account.”

  32.Interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014; H. L. Mencken, “The Rev. Clergy,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 4, 1927, 7; Perez and Palmquist, In Exile, 110.

  33.Allan Katz, “Some Krewes Lowering the Color Barrier,” New Orleans States-Item, M
ay 4, 1973; Richard Campanella, Bourbon Street: A History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014), 187; Roberts Batson, “Ye Shall Know the Magic and the Magic Shall Set Ye Free!,” Impact, February 16, 1996, 35 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones Research Files, Sears Papers); Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 73.

  34.Howard Smith, email to author, October 7, 2016; “A History of the Gay Krewes,” Impact, February 1978, 3 (read at Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones Research Files).

  35.Interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014; interview with Steven Duplantis, March 11, 2016.

  36.Ibid.

  37.Duplantis interview.

  38.Allen Bérubé, Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis (New York: Grove Press, 2007); John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014).

  39.W. F. Charles to Café Lafitte in Exile, April 26, 1966. I read this letter at the bar, where it remains on display.

  40.Randy Wicker, “Gays Pour Through New York,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 3; John Darnton, “Homosexuals March Down Seventh Avenue,” The New York Times, June 25, 1973, 21.

  41.Gerald Hansen, “Color, Joy in San Francisco,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 3; Don Dunfee, “3000 Brave Heat for Chicago Pride Parade,” The Advocate, July 18, 1973, 6; Mary Ann Cherry, “Gay Pride 1973” (unpublished manuscript, October 2012, available at http://morriskight.blogspot.com/2012/10/gay-pride-1973); Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 77.

  42.Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 39; “Ninety-Six Are Booked After Jeff Raid: Authorities Break Up ‘Stag Party,’ ” New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 26, 1962, 9.

  43.Perez and Palmquist, In Exile, 49.

  44.“Jury Acquits Three Students Tried in Slaying of Guide,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, January 24, 1959; “Injuries Fatal for Tour Chief,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 29, 1958, 1; Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, State of Louisiana v. Alberto Calvo, David Drennan, and John Farrell (docket 161-757), Louisiana State Archives; Clayton Delery, Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice (Jefferson, N.C.: Exposit/McFarland, 2017), 88.

  45.Perez and Palmquist, In Exile, 50; Roy Reed, “The Quarter, an Enchantress Who Always Keeps Her Secrets,” The New York Times, July 11, 1972, 37; Duplantis interview.

  46.Duplantis interview.

  47.Ibid.; Butler interview, July 20, 2014.

  48.Duplantis interview; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 80; photograph of Stewart Butler and Alfred Doolittle embracing, February 1972, courtesy of Stewart Butler.

  49.Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Duplantis interview.

  50.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 80; Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Duplantis interview.

  51.Stewart Butler, “Carville Memories 1942–1949,” The Star 64, no. 17 (January 2014): 6. (I am grateful to Stewart Butler for supplying me with a copy of this monthly newsletter from the National Hansen’s Disease Program.)

  52.Ibid.; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 74.

  53.Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Duplantis interview.

  54.Ibid.

  4: United We Stand

  1.Interview with Richard Everett, August 25, 2015; Susan Fosberg, “It’s a Faggot Bar—Did I Tell You?,” Vieux Carré Courier, June 29, 1973, 7; Johnny Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn: The Up Stairs Lounge Fire (self-published through BookLocker .com, 2011), 276, 278.

  2.“General Case Report,” New Orleans Department of Police, August 30, 1973, 29, Upstairs Lounge Records, City Archives, New Orleans Public Library; interview with Steven Duplantis, March 11, 2016.

  3.Duplantis interview; interview with Stewart Butler, July 20, 2014; A. Elwood Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” NFPA Journal 68, no. 1 (1974): 17; interview with Ronald Rosenthal, June 14, 2016.

  4.Interview with Robert Vanlangendonck, August 11, 2015; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 29, 23; interview with Duane Mitchell, August 13, 2015; interview with Richard Everett, July 27, 2015.

  5.Rosenthal interview; Everett interviews, August 25, 2015, and September 30, 2016.

  6.“Survivor Discovers Her True Friends,” The Advocate, July 31, 1974, 8; Everett interview, August 25, 2015; Jim Downs, “The Horror Upstairs,” Time, July 1, 2013 (http://time.com/4365509/the-horror-upstairs/); Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 143.

  7.Interview with Stewart Butler, August 4, 2015; Henry Kubicki, “Henry Kubicki Account” (unpublished manuscript, November 14, 2013), LGBT Religious Archives Network (http://exhibits.lgbtran.org/exhibits/show/upstairs-lounge-fire), Berkeley, Calif.; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 10–11; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 131.

  8.“Fire Victims: More than Just Names,” The Advocate, August 1, 1973, 17; interview with John Golding Jr., November 6, 2017.

  9.Interview with Golding; “Two Arrests Made on Moral Charges,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 22, 1963, sect. 3, p. 4; “Grant Number Three: Mrs. John Golding,” National New Orleans Memorial Fund, c. January 17, 1974, National New Orleans Memorial Fund Collection, ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries, Los Angeles; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 135.

  10.“Orleans Parish Records of the Day,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, December 6, 1968, 74; “Orleans, Jefferson Records of the Day,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 22, 1972, 102.

  11.Clayton Delery, email to author, December 14, 2016; George Painter, “Louisiana,” Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest, 2002, www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/sensibilities/louisiana.htm; “Orleans Parish Records,” 74; interview with John Meyers, February 3, 2016.

  12.Eric Newhouse, “Smokie,” Associated Press, June 1973; “Fire Victims,” 17; Rosenthal interview; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17.

  13.Bill Williams, “Country Music Nashville Scene,” Billboard, July 14, 1973, 33; interview with Tina Matyi, October 29, 2016; Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 233, 234; “Week’s Radio,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 8, 1970, 28; “Groups to Hold Arthritis Talks,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 19, 1974, 35; “Blues Give Way to C&W in St. Louis,” Billboard, June 30, 1973, 45.

  14.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 236; Matyi interview; George Stephen Matyi, California Divorce Index, 1966–1984, Ancestry.com.

  15.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 237; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 39.

  16.Dan Gross, “ ‘My Name Is Nobody’—And Some People Agree,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 25, 1973, 24; Patrick Healy, “Showmen Blazing a Trail,” The New York Times, March 28, 2013 (www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/theater/showmen-who-inspired-the-nance.html); Jim Farber, “Growing Up Gay to a Glam Rock Soundtrack,” The New York Times, November 3, 2016 (www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/fashion/mens-style/growing-up-gay-glam-rock-queen-bowie-freddie-mercury .html?_r=0); Josh Greenfield, “A Skeleton in Every Closet,” The New York Times, April 30, 1967 (www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/vidal-washington.html).

  17.Mark Allen Guidry, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 2, 1973, 1, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection; Rodger Dale Nunez, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, September 18, 1973, 9, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection; Duplantis interview; Eugene Davis, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, October 1, 1973, 2, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection; Everett interview, August 25, 2015.

  18.Duplantis interview; Guidry, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 60.

  19.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 60, 23, 29; Duplantis interview; Clayton Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson: Thirty-Two Deaths in a New Orleans Gay Bar, June 24, 1973 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 44.

  20.Townsend, Let the Faggots Burn, 283.; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 17; Vanlangendonck interview; Duplantis interview.

  21.Dup
lantis interview.

  22.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 60–61; interview with Mary David Mihalyfi, May 4, 2016.

  23.Michael Scarborough, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 16, 1973, 1, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection, Historic New Orleans Collection; Mihalyfi interview; interview with Naoma McCrae, May 12, 2016.

  24.Scarborough, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1–2; Duplantis interview; “General Case Report,” NOPD, 22; Douglas Rasmussen, Statement to Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 18, 1973, 1, Skylar Fein Upstairs Lounge Fire Collection.

  25.Duplantis interview; Butler interview, July 20, 2014.

  26.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 30

  27.Ibid., 37.

  28.Rasmussen, Statement to State Fire Marshal, 1; interview with Henry Kubicki, September 6, 2017; Troy Perry and Thomas Swicegood, Don’t Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 80.

  29.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 47–48.

  30.Ibid.

  31.Butler interview, July 20, 2014; Angus Lind, Lanny Thomas, and Walt Philbin, “Possible Arson Probed,” New Orleans States-Item, June 25, 1973, 2; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 45.

  32.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 29; Delery-Edwards, The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, 43, 35.

  33.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 17, 52–53; Vieux Carré Commission Evaluation, April 1876, 141 Chartres Street (604 Iberville), https://stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2014_08_01_archive.html; “Report of the Crime Laboratory,” June 27, 1973, in supplemental materials to “Official Report,” Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, July 22, 1975, Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge.

  34.“General Case Report,” NOPD, 31–33, 57; Royd Anderson. The UpStairs Lounge Fire (documentary film), Lake Oaks Studio, June 24, 2013; “Twenty-Nine Die in New Orleans as Flames Gut Lounge,” Wilmington [Del.] Evening Journal, June 25, 1973, 2; Willey, “The Upstairs Lounge Fire,” 19.