Queer Voices
Queer Voices
September 18 2024 Queer Voices Legendary Activist Cleve Jones, Montrose Center CEO Avery Belyeu and Sheryl McCallum Stages Theater “The Legend of Ruth Brown”
What does a visionary leader have to say about the future of LGBTQ+ support? Avery Belyeu, CEO of the Montrose Center, joins us to discuss the upcoming Out for Good event and the center's vital role in Houston's LGBTQ+ community. Avery reflects on their seven months at the helm, the collaborative spirit they've encountered, and the remarkable contributions of this year's honorees, Greg Ju and Ian Haddock. This episode unveils the rich history and extensive services provided by the Montrose Center, showcasing its unwavering commitment to the community.
Turn elegance into empowerment at the Out for Good Gala, Houston’s most anticipated LGBTQ+ event. We'll guide you through what to expect, from captivating entertainment to meaningful networking opportunities. And don't forget to whip out your best black and white cocktail attire! Meet Kelly Nichols, the new director of development, and discover her ambitious vision for the Montrose Center. With a fundraising goal of over $400,000, this event is more than just a celebration; it’s a cornerstone for future community support. Stay tuned for insights into upcoming listening sessions and the launch of a permanent community advisory board, emphasizing a future built on engagement and inclusivity.
Travel back in time with Cleve Jones as he recounts his life-changing relationship with Harvey Milk, revealing how moments of mentorship and tragedy fueled a lifelong crusade for justice.
Explore Ruth Brown’s lasting impact on the LGBTQIA+ community through a unique musical tribute headed up by Broadway Actress Sheryl McCallum. Sheryl is at STAGES HOUSTON starring in MISS RHYTHM: THE LEGEND OF RUTH BROWN running until October 13th. Tickets are available at:
https://stageshouston.com/event/miss-rhythm-the-legend-of-ruth-brown/#open_drawer
We wrap up with a critical look at global LGBTQ+ news, from historic pride marches in Serbia to Australia’s inclusive census updates.
Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
https://www.facebook.com/QueerVoicesKPFT/ and
https://www.instagram.com/queervoices90.1kpft/
Hello everybody, this is Queer Voices, a podcast version of a broadcast radio show that's been on the air in Houston, texas, for several decades. This week, brian Levinka talks with Avery Bellew, ceo of the Montrose Center, about an event called Out for Good on Saturday, october 5th.
Speaker 2:It is at the Marriott Marquis, which is the first time for us. This is a bigger venue, which we're really excited about, so we're stepping it up a notch, which means that more folks can join us. We've always sold out the event, so we're excited to have a larger venue and welcome more guests.
Speaker 1:Cleve Jones is a well-known human rights activist, author and lecturer. He is currently celebrating his 70th birthday in October and Deborah Moncrief Bell has a conversation with him about his life and that special birthday celebration.
Speaker 3:It's a fundraiser for two organizations I co-founded the National AIDS Memorial, which is the Quilt, and the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which is the quilt and the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and, of course, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which is our primary HIV AIDS service provider, prevention education campaign Brett Cullum has a conversation with actress Cheryl McCullum, mainly about the stage's Houston show called the Legend of Ruth Brown, and we have news wrap from this Way Out Queer Voices starts now.
Speaker 4:This is Brian Levinka, and today I have the honor of interviewing Avery Ballou, the CEO of the Mantra Center. Welcome to Queer Voices, Avery.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 4:I know that you have a lot of stuff going on at the Mantra Center, but you do have an event coming up called Out for Good. Can you talk about the Montrose Center, what they do, and then a little bit about Out for Good?
Speaker 2:The Montrose Center is Houston's LGBTQ center. We've been serving Houston since 1978. And we do a lot, as you know. Our programs go from youth to seniors and everyone in between, and our mission is to empower our community to lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
Speaker 4:And so the Alpha Good is coming up in October. I think it's on October 5th, is that right?
Speaker 2:That's correct October 5th.
Speaker 4:And where is it being held?
Speaker 2:It is at the Marriott Marquis, which is the first time for us. This is a bigger venue, which we're really excited about, so we're stepping it up a notch, which means that more folks can join us. We've always sold out the event, so we're excited to have a larger venue and welcome more guests.
Speaker 4:Can you talk about who you're honoring at the Out for Good?
Speaker 2:We actually have two honorees this year, which is really exciting. We have an award that we've given since 2015, which is the LGBTQ Plus Visionary Award, and we're giving that award to Greg Ju, which is such a well-deserved honor. Greg, as folks know, is the founder and the editor-in-chief of Outsmart Magazine and has been in that role for more than 30 years, and Outsmart is such a crucial part of our community, keeping us connected, keeping us informed, helping us to advocate for our community, so we're really excited to give that award to Greg. And then this year we're actually launching a brand new award, which I'm especially excited about. This is the LGBTQ Plus Innovator Award, and this is designed to recognize someone who's made a large impact on the community, who have created positive change and growth within our movement for the LGBTQ Plus community. And so the inaugural recipient this year is Ian Haddock of the Normal Anomaly, and we're so excited to honor Ian for all of the amazing work that he is doing here in Houston and beyond.
Speaker 4:I think those are two very well deserving honorees for this award, for these awards.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 4:Can you tell me about? I guess you've been in your role for about a year. Is that about right?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. No, it's actually seven months, so it feels like a year sometimes, which is a good thing, I think, but only seven months.
Speaker 4:So can you talk about the role and what maybe you didn't expect about Houston? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:There have been many very pleasant surprises. So you know, I would just start by saying it is such an honor to lead the Montrose Center. It has such a fantastic history, which I'm still continuing to learn, and such an amazing community of people who are so deeply invested in all that it's done, all that it's doing and in its future. I think the things that have surprised me most is, first of all and I think I shared this with you perhaps the first time I was on the show just the vastness of what the center offers and what we do for our community. I think that the center has not historically done a really great job of letting folks know everything that we do, and we do so much so we're starting to get better at that. I'm really excited for us to even improve our ability to communicate to our community all that we offer so that folks can avail themselves of it.
Speaker 2:But that's been the first really big surprise surprise, you know. The second I would offer is and this is a really pleasant surprise just how deeply collaborative the Houston LGBTQ plus community is at large. I have been so pleased by how excited folks are to come together around ideas, to try new ways of doing things to connect and collaborate and say, hey, let's work on something together. There's a real innovative spirit in our queer community here and that has. I don't think it's unique to Houston, perhaps it lives other places too, but I would say in my experience I see it in a unique way in Houston and that has been a really pleasant surprise.
Speaker 4:I saw on Facebook that you posted that you're liking Houston. Talk about that.
Speaker 2:I am, you know, for a lot of the reasons that I just told you. You know, first of all, it just is a really great city for all the reasons that many of us love to live here. Right, it's got walkable neighborhoods, which is not always very common for Texas. Right, we've got great food, great entertainment, the arts are fantastic here. But really it is about the people and that is our community at large. And then I also have to say, of course, to brag a little bit on my staff, my staff are really extraordinary. They are folks who are kind of the top of their game, really experts in their field, and our city is so lucky to have all of these dedicated professionals that are such experts in our community very specifically. So really it's the people that make this place so special, and it brings a big smile to my face because of getting to live here.
Speaker 4:I absolutely agree. I love Houston and I love the people and, like I said before, it's Houston is a virus. Houston is a fungus.
Speaker 2:It grows on you in the best way possible in a good way.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah. So let's get back to the gala. What can people expect at the gala who haven't been before?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, I will say this is my first time too, so we're going to get to experience it for the first time together, but I do have the inside track, so I know a little bit about what's coming up. We describe this as our most elegant evening. This is Houston's premier LGBTQ event, and has been so for the last 11 years, so what you can expect is seeing folks that you love and respect from our community up on the stage, seeing beautiful entertainment highlighting the diversity of our community, and we'll be making announcements across the next several weeks about the entertainment that you'll see on the stage A room full of folks that you know and love to enjoy being together and celebrating together, and an after party too. That will be lots of fun with the DJ and some entertainment. So lots of different ways that we'll get to network with each other, celebrate the mission of the Montrose Center, connect with each other and really come together around our shared vision for the future of the Center and the future of LGBTQ Houston.
Speaker 4:And speaking of the future of the Center, I saw that you just hired Kelly Nichols as the director of development. Is that right?
Speaker 2:We did, we did. I am so lucky, we are so lucky that Kelly said yes to coming to the center. You know, of course, she has very big shoes to fill. Kennedy was such an important part of our mission Before Kennedy's retirement we knew that Kelly was likely going to be the person who we hired, and Kennedy gave his blessing. Kennedy and Kelly have gotten to connect, which is wonderful. So she has his support and she's such a fantastic member of the community. She already is known to so many folks within our community because of her work at Allies in Hope and at the Houston Grand Opera, and so we're so excited for her vision. She has a lot of enthusiasm, a deep love for our mission, and I'm really excited to see the way that we grow with her leadership.
Speaker 4:I totally agree that you have. She has very big shoes to fill, but I think she's the right person for the right job, just like I think that you're the right person for the right job right now at the Moonshift Center.
Speaker 2:Thanks, brian, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4:Can you talk about, maybe, your future vision for the center? What are your plans?
Speaker 2:You know, the commitment I made when I joined the center seven months ago now, was to listen. For the first 12 months I'm still in my listening phase. My first six months really focused intensely on listening to my staff and getting to know all of them. There's almost 100 staff. That's a lot of folks to get to know, and then you add in folks who are interns and fellows and volunteers. So it's a big community of folks who are making change through the center.
Speaker 2:This next many months, up to a year, will be focused on intentional listening in the community and with the community, and I've already started that in some ways one-on-one, but we are going to launch a series of community listening sessions about 13 of them with various focused community groups.
Speaker 2:So I'm really excited for that and how that will inform my understanding of where we need to go together. The other thing at our open house in June that we announced was the launch of a community advisory board. So that's going to be a permanent body which is actually launching in October. We have a great group of folks who have applied to be on that community advisory board and that's a way for us to keep the conversation going in a permanent fashion, for us to be constantly in conversation with the community, directly about who we are now but also who we want to continue to be together and where we want to go. My vision right now is that I'm going to continue to do that deep listening and then, after I've done that, I'm going to come back and do kind of a State of the Union address to the community and say here's everything I've heard and here's what I think that means about where we can go next together.
Speaker 4:Let's go back to the Out for Good. It's happening October 5th from 7 to 10 pm at the Marriott Marquis. Where can people get tickets for this event?
Speaker 2:You go to our website, it's prominently featured there. If you type in Out for Good 2024 in your browser, it'll pop up there, and if you go to Instagram or Facebook, there are links and posts about the event on a regular basis. So lots of different ways to find tickets, sponsorship opportunities. This is such an important way to demonstrate support for the Mantra Center and our ongoing commitment to empowering our community. So we really hope that we shoot past our fundraising goal of $400,000. We're well on our way from the support we've received already and we hope that the community comes together, rallies together and helps us to not just meet that goal but hopefully surpass it.
Speaker 4:You're setting the bar high for Kelly.
Speaker 2:We certainly are. She already jumped in, got to work right away and, of course, we already have an amazing team of folks who are very skilled at doing events. I think we do them very well. Malia and her team are very skilled at doing these events, so Kelly's very lucky she came in with a very strong team.
Speaker 4:Is there anything else you want our listeners to know about the Montrose Center or the Out for Good Gala coming up?
Speaker 2:I would just say that if folks are listening to this and they're wondering about how they can be involved, how they can have a voice with where we're headed, I would say, be on the lookout for the announcement of those community listening sessions. Some of them will be with small focus groups, others will be open to larger groups, but we're really hungry to get everyone's opinion. I'm really hungry to do that deep listening, so please do. If you have something to say, I want to hear it. Good, bad, whatever it may be. I'm interested in what everyone has to say. So please do find a way to communicate that through one of those listening sessions or directly to me. And Out for Good. Saturday, october 5th named Out for Good because it's the moment when we celebrate being out. National Coming Out Day is later that week. Out for Good is our opportunity to celebrate being out, to be our fabulous LGBTQ selves, and we certainly hope that the community will join us.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Avery, for coming on. It's always a wonderful time talking to you.
Speaker 2:My pleasure time talking to you. My pleasure. This is Avery Bellew my pronouns are she and her and I am the CEO of the Montrose Center, Houston's LGBTQ plus center, and you are listening to Queer Voices, an integral part of Houston's LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 5:In November 2022, the National AIDS Memorial honored Cleve Jones with its Lifetime of Commitment Award. For anyone who doesn't know, cleve is a legendary activist and mostly noted for his association with Harvey Milk and as a founder of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the force behind the names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. He's now about to turn 70, on October 11th, and there's a massive gala planned in celebration Cleve. There's so much more than just that. As if that was not enough, let's just talk a minute about the 70th birthday that's coming up on October 11th, which just happens to be National Coming Out Day.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much for having me and for your listeners. I'm speaking to you all from my little house out in the woods. I live up north of San Francisco now in Sonoma County. It's a spectacularly beautiful area where the redwood forests meet the vineyards and there's a little town called Guerneville that's had a pretty significant gay community for quite a while now and I'm living here but I'm not retired yet and I'm looking forward to this party on October 11th. It's a fundraiser for two organizations. I co-founded the National AIDS Memorial, which is the quilt, and the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and, of course, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which is our primary HIV AIDS service provider prevention education campaign. And it's going to be a big party and I've promised everybody that there'll be no speeches.
Speaker 5:And I understand people are coming from all over the country.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really fun. Every day I check the ticket sales and it's been quite touching to see how many people are willing to fly across a continent or an ocean to come, and I do appreciate it very much. It's been a difficult few years for, I think, many of us, with COVID and everything, and for my cohort, if you will, of older gay men you know. So few of my generation survived, so I think part of this is a celebration for all of us who are still here and still queer.
Speaker 5:I will be 75 in January.
Speaker 3:Oh Lord, you're old my.
Speaker 5:God, how do you get?
Speaker 3:up in the morning.
Speaker 5:But well, that's just it. I am one of the lucky ones I get to get up in the morning, or sometimes at noon. But you know, that's what we're seeing at this age, this generation many of whom did not expect to live, to be the age that you're turning. And, of course, AIDS is still here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that, because one of the things that was so distressing for me during COVID aside from the fact that I was very frightened as a vulnerable senior who's had lung issues past very frightened as a vulnerable senior who's had lung issues past it was so frustrating to see so many of the same mistakes repeated, and I think it bears a little bit of attention that both pandemics started with a president in office who failed to perceive the gravity of the situation and who actually chose to mock and deride the people who were affected or concerned about it. Once again, we saw angry, uninformed parents storming school board meetings, demanding that their children be denied information that could save their lives. Once again, we saw huge debates about personal responsibilities during AIDS, refusing to use condoms or, during COVID, refusing to protect their neighbors by wearing masks. We also saw, of course, the terrible racial disparity play out. Once again, black and brown people were more likely to get infected, more likely sick and likely die. There were other parallels the spread of quackery and conspiracy theories.
Speaker 3:It was a difficult time for me and many others who had to go through a second pandemic within their lifetime. And, of course, aids is not over. And when people ask me about my party, it's to benefit two organizations. One, the Memorial, which is the quilt in the Grove, is there to remind people remember people we lost in the Grove, is there to remind people remember people we lost and to remind people of mistakes that we made. And the AIDS Foundation today is also doing really good work every single day to try to keep those mistakes from being repeated, to make sure that our kids, especially the most vulnerable among them, are protected, get the education they need, get the medications they need, prep so they don't get HIV, and to advocate for them. So that's where I'm at right now is remembering the past and doing my best to help people, not repeat it.
Speaker 5:Let's talk about this past a little bit. Cleve, First of all, you were young I think you were still in your teens when you arrived in San Francisco and the first night you're there still in your teens, when you arrived in San Francisco and the first night you're there, who do you meet?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had, I think, maybe $12. And I was hungry and I went to an all-night diner. It's long gone. It was called the Haven, it was at Polk in California and bars had just gotten out. It was late at night and I was so hungry and there was only one place to sit and it was across the table from this really wild-looking human being who turned out to be named Sylvester. Sylvester would go on to become the queen of disco. We were friends until he passed away. So part of the entertainment for my party is this performance from this incredibly talented guy in New York. His name is Anthony Wayne and he has a show called Mighty Real. It's a tribute to Sylvester and his music. So the music of the man I met the first night I was in San Francisco will be played at my 70s. I'm quite excited about it.
Speaker 5:And then the legendary meeting with Harvey Milk. Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:People always want to know. How did I meet Harvey? Well, I don't remember, but it was probably on Castro Street and he was probably registering voters or passing out political literature. I didn't quite take him seriously. He still had a ponytail when I met him and I thought he was a little old to be a hippie.
Speaker 3:He was funny, he was very funny. He always was making fun of himself and he liked to dress up as a clown. He had a real charm, especially with the elderly and with kids. It was interesting. He really had a deep empathy and ability to connect with all sorts of people, but he had a special place in his heart for the older and the younger, and that manifested in his politics.
Speaker 3:He was very kind to me. He made me get serious about my life and in between meeting him and really getting to work, I took a couple of years off and just went hitchhiking, which was kind of the thing then for hippie kids like myself and I went hitchhiking around Canada and Europe and the Middle East and stayed in touch with Harvey and when I came back he said you've got to go to school and got to help, we've got a big fight coming, and so he persuaded me to enroll at San Francisco State in the political science department and got me an internship after he was elected. So I went with him to City Hall and went there for college credit.
Speaker 5:I think maybe some of his example were off on you, Cleve.
Speaker 3:That's a very kind thing to say. Everything I am, everything I've done, really goes back to Harvey and the fact that we only had 11 months in office and I was there that day in City Hall November 27th 1978, when our Mayor, george Moscone, were murdered by Dan White. So I actually saw it. I didn't see the murder. I walked in about 10 minutes after it had happened. There was people to find his body, and that was the moment that just set my course forever and I'm going to do with my life from that point.
Speaker 5:Your memoir is called when we Rise my Life in the Movement, and you have called it the movement that saved my life. Why do you say that?
Speaker 3:Well, because it's true and it's not rhetoric, it's not hyperbole. Where I'm sitting right now is a beautiful spot and it's been friendly to LGBTQ people for decades now. But I guarantee that within a few miles of where I'm sitting and where a few miles of where you're sitting and where all of your listeners may be sitting, there is some kid who is getting ready to take their own life, don't see a place for themselves in this world, they see no hope of love or happiness or anything, and it's because they fear that they're going to be rejected by their family, churches, their communities, and those kids kill themselves. And we've made a huge amount of progress. I'm grateful to have played a tiny role in it. We've done a lot In my lifetime.
Speaker 3:I have seen a lot, but there are still queer and trans kids out there that are getting ready right now, as we're talking, to end their lives, who think their lives are over before they even began.
Speaker 3:And I was one of those kids and I was stealing pills from my parents' medicine chest and getting ready to suicide. And then I read about gay liberation in Life magazine and discovered, you know, in one fell swoop that I wasn't alone, that there were other people that there was a community of people like me and that there was a movement that was part of the larger movement that my family already was part of, which was the movement for peace and social justice, the move against racism and war and poverty. That was life-saving. It was life-changing. I threw away the pills and I hitchhiked to San Francisco and then, years and years later, you know, I got sick and I was getting close to death and didn't think I was going to make it at all. But ACT UP stormed the NIH and took on the pharmaceutical industry and fast-tracked the medications that saved my life and many, many thousands of others. So it's not rhetoric the movement saved my life twice.
Speaker 5:Our survival stories are what we give to the world. Because of you telling your story, because we do this radio show in part because we know those kids are out there and this may be the only way they find community. You say there is a message in that that if we are up to working together and to putting the work in the movement that saved your life can save America's too, and that seems very poignant for the time we're in right now.
Speaker 3:Well, certainly we're in a very challenging time. The country is very divided, there's a lot of anger, a lot of fear. It's not just our country, it's a phenomenon that's creasing across the planet, and I think it's important to remember that ordinary people can change the world. Ordinary people can make decisions that will make it a healthier place for us all to live, and I believe in the power of people to do that work, and I am not romanticizing it. I live in the real world. I live and work in the real world.
Speaker 3:For the last 20 years, I've worked mostly with a labor called Unite here, which presents approximately 300,000 hospitality workers around United States and Canada. These are mostly women, mostly immigrant women, women of color. Think of the staff in the big hotels that you stay in when you're traveling. That's who I work for, and we take on some of the biggest corporations in the world the Hyatt and Marriott and Hilton is in large food service companies and big casinos in Las Vegas and we win through collective bargaining, we win contracts and the workers go home with more money, better health care, work in safer conditions, treated with respect on the job. We lift families out of poverty, transform their lives. That's not a romanticized version of what happens, and it's hard work. It takes, sometimes years, but we do that work knowing that if we fight hard, we will win eventually and we will improve the lives of our members and our communities.
Speaker 3:So I stay very grounded in the reality of hard work and strategic coalition building, and a lot of this, for me, goes back to Harvey, because Harvey won his office during a time when radical politics were very much in vogue. He wasn't preoccupied, though, with all of the buzzwords and the catch phrases. He was always looking for common ground, and this is something that's a little different these days is it seems to me that many people are very much focused on all of the things that make us different from each other, all the boundaries and divisions that we create between each other, all these different subsets, but Harvey focused on what we had in common, and it's the same thing with my union. When we go into a big hotel property, we want to organize the workers we see at the lunch break. Here's the Latino workers over here, here's the African-American workers over here, here are the white employees, here are the people from El Salvador, here are the people from Brazil and here's the people from the Philippines, and they have their own separate tables and they speak in their own language. But that's not the way we win, and the bosses use those divisions to weaken the workers. So in any organizing drive, one of the first things we have to do is get all these workers of different colors and ethnicities and faiths and political backgrounds to understand what they have in common, and that's how we build the movement. I think that is something that is desperately needed in this country right now to understand how much we have in common, how much we need each other.
Speaker 3:Where I live, we every year are under threat of wildfires and really horrendous flooding. So, my neighbors, you know we don't spend a lot of time arguing about politics when the hills are on fire or the river is rising. We've got to take care of people, We've got to protect a more humane and I would also say practical politics. I think I know for sure there's also a lot of people in Houston who have no clue how many people died in Houston. Houston was devastated. There are many, many, many hundreds of quilts that came out of Houston. There was also leadership. Someone who was our president of our board of directors for many years and raised enormous amounts of money was Jackson Hicks, whose home was often the gathering place for fundraisers and meetings and put on a big, enormous gala in Washington One of my days in association with the display and I got to sit next to Ann Richards at that dinner, which was quite a treat. She was such a remarkable person. But yeah, Houston was hit very, very hard.
Speaker 3:Now I meet young LGBT folk from Texas and they don't really know that history. It's unfortunate, and it's unfortunate not again. I live in the real world. I'm not into romanticism or nostalgia per se, but the lessons of history are important. We do not know them. As I've said so many times, going to repeat those mistakes Another thing I've been really concerned about.
Speaker 3:We did change the world and we did so hoping that a day would come when young people people now called LGBTQ+ that they could grow up and take it for granted that they could marry the person they love, could take it for granted they could have the career path that they want.
Speaker 3:Take it for granted that they could walk down the street and not be beaten to death. To take it for granted that they had the right to death. To take it for granted that they had the right to vote, to take it for granted that they could participate as full citizens in this country, and sadly we're not there yet. So I feel constantly the need to bang the drum and raise the alarm and say to people if you take it for granted, they will take it away. Look at what happened with reproductive rights. We had generations of women growing up in this country knowing that they had the right to make that ultimate decision about their own bodies, and that has now been taken away. That's just the beginning, and so this election season is so crucial, but the challenge goes way beyond the choices on election day. Country is deeply divided. To be strong, we need to seek common ground whenever possible, but be willing to stand up for our principles.
Speaker 5:Again. We're talking with Cleve Jones, legendary activist, movement leader, founder of the AIDS Memorial, quilt and so much more. He's celebrating his 70th birthday on October 11th and having a big celebration in San Francisco. So just tell us again about that message of hope, courage and love.
Speaker 3:Well, I think what you're referring to is that when AIDS began, I was also attacked, badly beaten and stabbed and left to die and I have to be honest, my heart at that point was really filled with despair and fear and hate. I didn't think I would survive. I felt that my body was going to be destroyed and I was very frightened of what would happen to my body, how much it would hurt, and I hated the people that did this to us. I hated the bigotry and cruelty that had contributed so much to the suffering with HIV. And it's really thanks to the quilt and the movement that it represents that all of that despair and fear and hate was removed from my heart and placed with hope, courage and love was removed from my heart and placed with hope, courage and love. So I owe great debt to all of the people who picked up needle and thread and made my dream come true. Doing so helped change the world, Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 5:And thank you, Cleve Jones, for changing the world, because indeed you have.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Cleve Jones and you are forming and participating in the LGBTQ plus community as you listen to this program. This is Queer Voices.
Speaker 7:This is Brett Cullum, and today I am joined by actress Cheryl McCallum. Cheryl has been on Broadway in the Lion King and has an impressive list of credits behind her, but we're talking to her today because she teamed up with a co-creator named David Nels to produce and star in Miss Rhythm, the Legend of Ruth Brown. Now this is a brand new show. It did play a little bit before, so it's not a premiere, but we are very lucky at Stages Houston to have her through October 13th. So, cheryl McCallum, welcome to Queer Voices.
Speaker 8:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and a privilege and a pleasure. I'm so glad I'm here.
Speaker 7:Now first tell me really quickly who Ruth Brown is, because I think a lot of people don't recognize that name right off the bat.
Speaker 8:Oh gosh, ruth Brown. She's this woman who came up in the well, started recording in 1949. Her story she was born back in, you know, 1928 and through you know, in Portsmouth, virginia. Her family was very religious but she wanted to sing and so she got introduced to the blues when she was visiting her grandmother in North Carolina. But just came through that whole system and she's really well.
Speaker 8:She's known for several things through the early 60s, dropped off the planet for various, for many reasons, and then had this resurgence when she went to go see Red Fox and Red Fox knew about her from years ago. So she made all these wonderful connections and then she started a resurgence and was in the original movie Hairspray, which a lot of people didn't know. There was an original movie of Hairspray besides Queen Latifah or no disparaging for that, but they just didn't know. A woman of resilience, very strong personalities, fought for everything that she got. So with Hairspray then she was in Black and Blue, got a Tony Award for Black and Blue, rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's this woman that just came through a lot but loved her music, loved her family and just resilient beyond belief and was able to live to see her flowers given to her. So she's a whole lot of woman. This story is just a small part of who she is.
Speaker 7:Well, what made you and David want to write a show around her life? I know there was a book originally called.
Speaker 5:This Rhythm.
Speaker 8:So, you two kind of get together and adapt that or Well, david, first of all, we both used to live in New York and David saw her perform a couple of times. One was at Blue Note and then at LaJazz-A-Bar. So David wrote this script about her performing at LaJazz-A-Bar, kind of like going back through time. So she's at LaJazz but then goes back and relives the story of her life and then ends up at LeJazz Avar. It's a wonderful script. I still think he should do it at some point. But when he presented this to me first he asked me we were doing a show in Denver and he asked Cheryl, do you know Ruth Brown? I'm like, oh yes, of course I know Ruth Brown. And then he presented the script. He said I have something I think you would be great to do it. But he presented this script and this was actually a woman portraying her. I just, it's just a me kind of thing.
Speaker 8:You know I'm like I don't look like her, I don't sound like her, I don't sing like her. But I said, david, if allowed, let's work on it in a different way, where I can kind of jump in and out of her. And we went back and forth on that, but as far as what the script would look like. But I said, let's put it in my words and I'll tell her story and jump in and out of who she is, and that way we still get to tell her story, we get a semblance of who she is. I call it let me just bring a little essence of Ruth. So we worked on that story, and that was of many people who've worked with her, and just whenever I did see her whether it's on TV, hear interviews what a woman, my gosh, just powerhouse. So that's how it started and through years we developed it.
Speaker 8:It started as a cabaret show for this theater in Golden Colorado called Miner's Alley during the pandemic, and so we were working on it before that. But this gave us time to really kind of fine tune it a little bit, and so Miner's Alley was trying to keep their audience engaged during the pandemic, so they had something called Quarantine Cabaret or Cabaret Quarantine, so they had something called quarantine cabaret or cabaret quarantine. So David and I presented it hour long. I have a music stand and a book that I call the book of Ruth, and he's way across the room in a very sanitized piano, and so that's how we started and it just kind of grew from that and some theaters saw it and said, if we can, can we develop this a little more? And so that's how, just with some a lot of work and everything, and that's how we got to bring it here to Stages.
Speaker 7:Well, it's funny because Stages is really known for musicals, about artists, and they really kind of made their mark with Always, patsy Cline and they did Lady Day. I mean all of those different things. And when I saw your headshot I thought this woman does not look like Ruth Brown. I actually got kind of nervous going in thinking, oh my gosh, are you're gonna portray her and imitate her? Because I was thinking of the. She has a very distinctive, especially in mama. He treats your daughter mean. She has a very trademark. Squeal is just crazy. And I'm like I can't see anybody trying to do this because it's so rough on your voice and I was so impressed when you came out and you were the cheryl. You know you weren't pretending to be Ruth and it was so smart because I don't know if even Ruth could do Ruth at a certain point in her life. Yeah, so much from the 50s to the present, things like that. And I think it's a very smart approach because it feels like it's a really good friend telling you about someone that she admires.
Speaker 8:Absolutely.
Speaker 7:And it just felt so personal and it's so different than watching somebody do an impersonation, because sometimes when they do that you just kind of go eh, that throws up this wall.
Speaker 8:That's exactly why I think this works, because no one is trying to be her. We want to keep that feel. We want to give her essence. It's not me trying to be Bruce Brown, just like you. It kind of throws a lot of people. It's like she don't look like Bruce, she doesn't sound like her. That's good, because we're not trying to do that. We want to give kind of keep it in the style of her music. But let you know what that music is and I'm singing it as Cheryl. I do try to get those little squills in every now and then because that was her signature and so. But I appreciate you saying that, because that's what we were going for and a lot of people don't really understand it until they're in it. It's like oh okay, I got you.
Speaker 7:One thing that's funny is that I knew Ruth mainly because of John Waters original Motor Mouth Maybel. John always led me to 50s music because he always used those in his soundtrack. So I found Ruth through that and I was very into all of the 50s stuff and I so appreciate that you do so much of her 50s catalog. It's so much fun. But I think a lot of the LGBTQIA plus community knows her because, let's face it, drag queens love Ruth. I cannot tell you. I think weekly somebody does. If I can't sell it I'm going to keep sitting on it. So it's funny. She's kind of an icon in our world.
Speaker 8:Absolutely. Who knew? Yeah, funny, it's a she's kind of an icon in our world, absolutely, and that, yeah, and that's how people started rediscovering who she was, because the drag community and the you know, the lgbtq plus would follow john waters. Of course, divine and that's not to say anything in the story, but that's when ruth got this whole new resurgence and a a lot of it is in part to the gay community and how they started researching Records and start getting her royalties and to continue that lawsuit because of Hairspray, because people would know. And the funny thing about Hairspray is which I'm sure you know, she didn't sing. John Waters wanted her because of her personality and her. You know, just her appearance and her, yeah, her personality Didn't sing, a note From that, I'm telling you it. Just it gave her a whole new, whole new audience.
Speaker 7:I read somewhere that in Denver you couldn't get the rights to the song. If I Can't Sell it, I'll Keep Sitting On it, but in this Houston run it's in, there it is. Yeah, Is it hard to get the rights to a lot of these songs? Was that a tool?
Speaker 8:Yes, because they're owned through the years by different people. And then some agencies sell their rights to other people not other people, but to another agency and it moves down the line. So we hired I guess he won't mind me saying his name, jamie Rocco to do that research and get us our rights but with I Can't Sell it. It was difficult to get it in Denver because two people claimed 100% and it's like no, and so we just we didn't get them. But somehow with this production and for, I guess, for those types of houses and I'm saying families or houses, I think one is owned by a family, one is owned by a corporation that the first time they're like no, and then, once it goes, once they see it happening again, they're thinking maybe we need to rethink this, but I'm glad we got it.
Speaker 7:It's definitely a moment in the show that I was just smiling so big. Do you have a favorite in the show? Do you have one that you like? Oh, my gosh, oh gosh.
Speaker 8:There's so many. I love Be Anything and it's just not me. On that we have a gorgeous sax solo by Brett Neighbors, and so that one is a favorite of mine. I've come to love so long and we do it very differently than she does just in the context of the show Gosh teardrops. She does just in the context of the show gosh teardrops and I love.
Speaker 7:Oh, what a dream. I. I just like them all. I like them all, but you can tell when you, when you perform them.
Speaker 8:You can, yeah, and mama is a lot of fun cabbage head.
Speaker 7:I was like, why is this not? Why isn't everybody singing this song?
Speaker 8:you know what and when we first did it? We didn didn't, david and I. We didn't do Cabbage Head, abe, just for time constraints. And then a friend of mine. He said, cheryl, why didn't you put Cabbage Head in? And that's one that I didn't know. So I went back and I listened to it. I'm like David, why isn't Cabbage Head in here? He says I was hoping that you'd say that because I love Cabbage Head. I don't know why we didn't put it in the cabaret version, but it's in now and it's not going away.
Speaker 7:Now, how did this show end up in stages? I mean, it's kind of amazing that it's here.
Speaker 8:Yes, ken McLaughlin, who was the old artistic director. He and David go way back and I met Ken when he did a show in Denver actually in Nevada that he wrote, I think he and David wrote, called I'll Be Home for Christmas, and so I auditioned for that. I got in for that. I met Ken and David already had a wonderful relationship with him. So when he found out we were doing this show he came down to see it and thought that it would really be good in this space and that was also not tricky.
Speaker 8:But this was his last season at Stages so he got to set the last season. He came down and saw it and liked it, presented it to stages. Then Ebony Darcy came down and she agreed and so they pushed it and that's how it wound up here at stages. And we're glad the new artistic director, derek, has a connection with Ruth too. He was working in New York and he said listen, I took a night off and I went to go see Black and Blue. He has a connection with her. So we're just glad it's working. But that's how it wound up at stages. So I'm just, I'm glad, yay.
Speaker 7:I am too. No, definitely. So what is next for Miss Rhythm? I mean, what do you hope kind of happens from here?
Speaker 8:Well, we just want to keep getting her word out and getting the word, not so much about the show yes, the show but for her, because she's such a such a dynamic woman and her story needs to be told. A lot of these stories about women of that day and age are missing. I mean, we know about the Etta James and Billie Holiday, but stories like her, where they did get to survive to see it, to see their, as I say, to get their flowers, are stories that need to be heard. The director, kenny Moten, talks about it in a hidden figure sort of way, where you don't know that, you didn't know until you knew, and then you go back and discover all these wonderful things.
Speaker 8:So what we hope is that people number one tell their friends to come out and see it here, and we'll keep getting the word out. We have some other theaters interested and then her family, her son Ronnie McFatter and her nephew Damon Williams, are also so much behind it, and that meant a lot to us to be able to have them on board, because we were not. We just couldn't go through with it without them. It just makes the whole process so much better. So that's our hope, is that A people come out to see it. We'll be running through October 13th and invite your friends, invite your family.
Speaker 7:You know she really fought hard for artist rights, Ruth. Brown. And I love that in the show, when I look up and you have her initials up on the video screens, it's literally R&B. That's right, literally R&B, R&B, rhythm and blues. And you just think there's a kind of destiny there. That's right, it's so neat and it's the legacy. Do you see anything in today's music that reminds you of Ruth?
Speaker 8:So many artists, I mean from Mary J. One writer said you know there wouldn't be a Beyonce without a Ruth Brown, but I think her influence is just I mean Tina just that hard driving rhythm that was her. And then also in the 50s she sang these lovely ballads that were just heart-wrenching and then she sang everything from blues. She even did a spirituals album back in the day. But there's so many influences of her. So I think you know, I just see just that heart driving pounding, the essence of that old school rhythm and blues. But you know, I see Mary J definitely.
Speaker 7:Well, miss Rhythm. The Legend of Ruth Brown runs at stages through October 13th. They have a great website where you can buy tickets. They have a great website where you can buy tickets, and a secret tip for me is that if you go during the week, it's a little bit discounted, but it's a perfect show for the weekend. It's awesome and it's great for groups. Or you can do it like me and just go solo, just hang out there. It's such a warm, inviting, wonderful experience and it's definitely something that I'm going to see again. Make all my friends learn about ruth brown, because that's right, that's right.
Speaker 7:There's something in that show for everybody, and just how they, how stages has taken such wonderful care in curating this show yeah, well, it's a very unique experience and thank you so much for bringing it to us here in houston and at stages we it's a great chance to see and learn a little bit about somebody who's legendary and you are as well. I mean your voice just amazing and so much fun to see you take on this gosh, this library of music from this woman.
Speaker 7:I can't even count how many are in the show. It's like it just goes on.
Speaker 8:A whole lot and the band is just spectacular and there's. You know it's just a joy to do every night and you come off the stage dripping and sweating, but it's okay.
Speaker 7:Well, thank you so much for taking this time with me. I could talk Ruth Brown all day.
Speaker 8:Me too.
Speaker 7:I'll let you go and get your thing and I'll let everybody else go and get their tickets.
Speaker 8:Fabulous. Thank you for having me again, Brett. It's so wonderful to be with you.
Speaker 1:That was Brett Cullum in conversation with actress Sherry McCullum about the Stages Houston show called the Legend of Ruth Brown.
Speaker 12:I'm Michael Taylor Gray and I'm Melanie Keller With NewsRap, a summary of some of the news in or affecting LGBTQ communities around the world for the week ending September 14th 2024. The largest LGBTQ pride march in Serbia's history had several thousand people marching through the capital of Belgrade on September 7th of Belgrade. On September 7th. They were not deterred by threats of violence from right-wing extremists or the recent attack on a young gay man for carrying a rainbow flag. Banners urged marchers to love and be brave. The procession was protected by a heavy police presence.
Speaker 12:Government protection from such verbal and physical violence has been a key pride demand for years. Blatant discrimination routinely plagues sexual and gender minorities in the socially conservative Balkan nation. Despite record Pride March turnouts both last year and this, demands for the legal recognition of same-gender couples and laws protecting the rights of transgender people have gone ignored. It's a major reason why Serbia's bid to join the European Union has stalled. Several ambassadors from Western countries led contingents in the march. Of course, there was plenty of dance, music blasting from large trucks and lots of chanting and waving rainbow flags. Politicians from opposition political parties and a few of the Serbian government's more progressive members joined in. More banners proclaimed no one is free until everyone is free. Love wins and homophobia is so boring. A small, boring group in the center of the city protested the pride march behind a banner reading parade Humiliation. They also carried Serbian Orthodox church symbols and Serbian flags. Dozens of Russians fleeing the oppressive regime of Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine found a home in Belgrade's Pride March. A concert, an after-party, followed the march.
Speaker 10:A gay male couple in Zimbabwe is sorry about getting the police involved during their messy breakup, now each faces up to a year in prison for sodomy. Prosecutors say that Tavim Banashe Shawatama and Leonard Nayakadaya moved in together last year but had a falling out in August over issues of infidelity. As Nayakadaya was moving out, shawatama accused him of stealing money. They went to the Harare police station over the alleged theft, but their cell phones revealed recordings of them having sex. That's a violation of Section 73I of the country's penal code, a remnant of British colonial era rule. It outlaws what it calls any act involving physical contact that would be regarded by a reasonable person to be an indecent act. It outlaws what it calls LGBTQ advocacy groups note that the police ignored the issue of the missing money that had prompted Chawatama and Naya Kadaya to seek their help in the first place. They've each been released on the equivalent of 50 US dollars bail.
Speaker 12:The Australian Bureau of Statistics will include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in its 2026 census. The ruling Labor Party had made a campaign promise to conduct an inclusive census. Labor Party had made a campaign promise to conduct an inclusive census. However, officials had apparently ended up omitting any LGBTQ questions and a misplaced desire to avoid a culture war controversy. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded to the widespread criticism from queer rights groups and his own Labor Party last week, saying that questions about sexual orientation had been added. The absence of questions about gender identity prompted renewed criticism. That issue was addressed and Treasurer Jim Chalmers updated Australian Bureau of Statistics policy again late this week during an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Speaker 6:The message that we want to ensure that Australians hear from us today is that we understand the feedback that we got. We listened to that, we took it very seriously, we listened very genuinely. We said that we would find the best way to do this, and I believe that we have and we will, and the ABS will continue to refine the actual wording of the questions now that this additional topic has been added.
Speaker 12:There's still another painful omission, one that Intersex Human Rights Australia CEO, dr Morgan Carpenter, finds devastating In his words. It means we won't get much needed information on the health and well-being of people with innate variations of sex characteristics.
Speaker 10:Australia is making more gender identity news this week with an independent study commissioned by the State of New South Wales. The report concluded that the benefits of puberty blockers and other reversible treatments for transgender young people far outweigh any potential drawbacks. Transgender young people far outweigh any potential drawbacks. That flies in the face of the UK's controversial CASP report, which reached the opposite conclusion. Under Britain's Tory government, the CASP report was used to temporarily ban pediatric gender-affirming treatment in England, scotland and Wales. The incoming Labour Party government has signalled that it will make those restrictions permanent.
Speaker 10:The SACS Institute is an independent non-profit that advocates for evidence-based healthcare solutions. It studied 82 papers on gender-affirming healthcare, including 17 focusing on puberty blockers that found them to be safe, effective and reversible. The report found that earlier studies in Australia had been poorly conducted for several different reasons. It concluded that the papers in their study reported positive results across the domains of body image, gender dysphoria, depression, anxiety, suicide risk, quality of life and cognitive function. Suicide risk, quality of life and cognitive function. According to the Sachs Institute, neutral and some negative findings were also reported in these domains, and that two studies reported no changes in mental health care use following gender-affirming pharmaceutical care. The Institute said that further research is still an absolute must.
Speaker 12:Finally chalk up a couple more points for conspiracy-pushing social media troll Robbie Starbuck and his right-wing minions. Two more US-based corporations are bowing to their pressure to abandon policies encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion in their respective workplaces. This time it's Molson Coors Brewing Company and toolmaking, stanley Black and Decker. Starbucks' campaigns to expose what he calls companies' unsavory woke policies has thus far brought down the DEI programs of Tractor Supply, john Deere, jack Daniels, harley-davidson, lowe's Home Improvement and the Ford Motor Company.
Speaker 12:In the long run, companies may find that running away from diversity means running away from customers. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2024 LGBTQ Plus Climate Survey revealed that 80% of LGBTQ plus US adults would boycott a company that rolled back its inclusive workplace policies. More than half said that they would use social media to encourage others to join a boycott. Are workplace DEI policies really vanishing? Not, according to the Human Rights Campaign's upcoming Corporate Equality Index to be published in early 2025. The Queer Advocacy Group annually measures how a company's policies and practices benefit LGBTQ workers. Hrc President Kelly Robinson announced record participation in their index survey this week. She told CNBC Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin that she sees no reason to panic about the highly publicized retreats away from DEI policy.
Speaker 9:You know, I think, that we're not telling the whole story here. Sure, there are a handful of companies that are making these poor, short-sighted decisions. So, while you may see Ford backing away, you have every other major auto manufacturer in this country that's participating in the CEI. This is, bottom line, the best thing to do for businesses, and that's why I think that we're seeing so much energy from employees, from consumers and from shareholders starting to push back on these decisions that these companies have made.
Speaker 10:That's News Wrap, global queer news with attitude for the week ending September 14th 2024. Follow the news in your area and around the world. An informed community is a strong community. News.
Speaker 12:Wrap is written by Greg Gordon and Lucia Chappell, with thanks this week to Barry McKay, produced by Brian DeShazer and brought to you by you.
Speaker 10:Thank, you Help keep us in ears around the world at thiswayoutorg, where you can also read the text of this newscast and much more.
Speaker 1:for this way out, I'm stay healthy and I'm michael taylor gray, stay safe this has been queer voices, heard on kpft houston and as a podcast available from several podcasting sources. Check our webpage QueerVoicesorg for more information. Queer Voices executive producer is Brian Levinka. Debra Moncrief-Bell is co-producer, Brett Cullum and David Mendoza-Druzman are contributors, and Brett is also our webmaster. The News Wrap segment is part of another podcast called this Way Out, which is produced in Los Angeles.
Speaker 11:Some of the material in this program has been edited to improve clarity and runtime. This program does not endorse any political views or animal species. Views, opinions and endorsements are those of the participants and the organizations they represent. In case of death, please discontinue use and discard remaining products.
Speaker 1:For Queer Voices. I'm Glenn Holt, Thank you.
