Barbary Lane Dispatches Podcast

Here’s a transcript of the video: This is the third Ask Me Anything feature we’ve done.So I’ve got some questions here from people who are asking me anything.This is from John Hemm.Oh—hi, John. I know this person from many years ago.“What is yours and Chris’s favorite holiday, and how do you spend it?”Well, we don’t really have favorite holidays. I’ve found that living in England—if you ignore Christmas—it kind of comes to you. Years ago, I asked my cousin John if they did Christmas in England, and he laughed at me. Boy, do they do it here. It’s amazing—and it’s nice. Just driving down the street brings it to you.We also like Thanksgiving, mainly because there’s some good eating involved and we don’t have to do anything except be grateful for what we have. So yeah—those are the two.Dave Taylor-Bocanegra asks: “I hope I’m not too late. Wondering if you believe Mona of the Manor will ever be brought to film. I absolutely adored it.”Well, thank you, Dave. I’m proud of that book, and I’m glad you liked it. I have no idea whether it’s ever going to be a film. I never know. Things happen in my life kind of serendipitously. People call up and say, “What about maybe The Moon?” after years of ignoring it.And that may happen with Mona of the Manor. I would like to think it will. I think it’s a fun story.Neil Sechan says:“I started reading your daily posts in the Chron in 1976 and was active in the campaign against the Briggs Initiative in 1978, where I met my husband of 47-plus years…Oh, that’s sweet.… I would be interested in finding out your thoughts about the politics of that era and how it compares and contrasts with the current difficult political situation.”Well, I think it’s worse now—mainly because of Trump and the sort of fascist regime he’s brought into power. There were ugly things going on back then, like the Briggs Initiative, but I don’t quite know what to tell you except that it’s worse—and better in some ways. A lot of us are speaking out and making our voices heard, and I’m not afraid to do that.It’s surprising how many people were afraid to speak out in those days, even though we had leadership—people like Cleve Jones—who really got people riled up in a good way.Yeah, we’re still going to have to fight the battle. They’re still trying to get trans people, in one way or another, and I’m not going to desert the fight until we’ve dealt with that.Okay, next.Joseph Tay Wee Teck writes:“I was 23 in 1996 in Galway, Ireland, and just out when I encountered the Tales of the City stories and somehow every word, line and chapter felt as real and tangible to me as if I had lived through it all. When you wrote these amazing stories Armistead, could you have known of the timelessness and relevance of your words across the years and generations?”No, I didn’t dream that such a thing would happen. It’s the great joy of my life that it did—and that people still find things to love in the books.You don’t set out to write something that’s going to survive across the ages. When I started writing Tales, I really didn’t know what I was doing. They didn’t know what I was doing at the Chronicle either. It just sort of emerged from me, and suddenly there was a gay character.I knew that I had to allow my own politics to come to the fore, so Michael Tolliver became as vocal as I was in many ways. I couldn’t have dreamed it would last this long, and I’m very happy that it did.You never really know when you start creating something. You just try to live in the moment—which is what I did. And because I did, it had resonance, I think, and still does.Thanks for the question, Joseph Tewi Tek. That must be Irish stuff if you were living in Galway.Beatrice writes:“How big was Rock Hudson’s dick, and was he circumcised? Do not use my name. I have enough problems already.”Oh dear. I just did. You have a good sense of humor, Beatrice. I’ve dealt with this in other places, so you know it was big and kind of gnarly. I honestly don’t remember if he was circumcised—it may have been partial.It’s ridiculous to even be talking about this, but I promised I would answer questions.All right, here’s one from Mike:“I remember every week dropping a quarter into the yellow SF Chronicle newspaper vending machines to see the latest Tales. When the books came out, I bought them all. Read each one. Curious: do the books exactly mirror the Chron installments of Tales? I seem to recall some differences, but I’m not sure of it.”Well, I did have a chance to rewrite and tidy things up. It’s better in the form you’ve read in the books. I don’t think you’re going to find some lost gem by tracking down the old Chronicle copies.I was flying by the seat of my pants back then. I just had to get it on the page while I could.You might like to know that when it came time to compile the episodes into a book, I went down to Palm Springs—where all good things happen. My friend Kirk Frederick became my typist. We had the newspaper clippings spread out on the floor, and he very kindly acted as my stenographer.A doctor friend of my parents actually prescribed me some sort of speed to help me write. I wrote like crazy—but by the end of it, I was suicidal. I was very upset, accusing friends who’d gone off to party of deserting me. I was a mess.This was at Rock Hudson’s house, by the way. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before. He kindly lent me his Palm Springs house to write the damn thing.So—yeah. What more do you need to know?Jonathan L writes:When you returned to the Tales universe starting with “Michael Tolliver Lives,” do you feel you were influenced in writing the characters by the actors who portrayed the characters onscreen, specifically Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis?Funny you should say that—Laura became Mary Ann for me almost immediately. She understood every nuance of that character, and I began to hear her voice in my head as I wrote. To a lesser degree, Olympia influenced the writing as well.When the producers were casting Tales, they sent me a videotape of Laura reading for another role and asked if she might work as Mary Ann. I took one look and said, “Work for her? She is Mary Ann.”That led to a great professional collaboration and a wonderful friendship. Laura later named her son Bennett Armistead Shower, which still moves me deeply. She’s someone I treasure. She understands me, always has, and we laugh at the same things. Her kindness is one of her greatest qualities—though she also has a wicked little cackle that lets you know you’re really laughing.I’m not being very eloquent here because I’ve never tried to define exactly what I love about Laura. But I do love her with all my heart.Olympia, of course, was a great, great actress. She knew exactly what to do with Anna Madrigal. Today people might say she shouldn’t have played the role because she wasn’t trans—but she owned it, completely. In some scenes she would say, “I’m going to let the man out now,” referring to Anna’s past. She was sensitive, intuitive, and brought real joy to the role.I’ll always be grateful to her for establishing Anna in everyone’s mind—and she did it as a straight woman. Go figure.Olympia was also a close friend. She would call me on my s**t sometimes, which you can imagine. I miss her terribly. She was something primal in my life, not just as Anna but as a person, and I wish I could still spend time with her.So thank you, Jonathan, for letting me celebrate some very special people.And thank you to everyone who tuned in today. I really appreciate it—and I’ll see you next time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s a transcript of the video:Today I’d like to tell you about my friendship—relationship, whatever you want to call it—with Rock Hudson.It began, as many gay stories begin, with a friend of a friend introducing us. I had met Jack Coates in the desert in Palm Springs when I went down for what I thought was a gallery opening in which Rock would be in attendance. A friend of mine and I thought that would be a good thing to go to. And he wasn’t there.We ended up in the desert with everybody but Rock Hudson—all these people who knew him and many who loved him. And I fell in the sack with a guy named Jack Coates, who had been Rock’s partner for years—lover, I think we called him back then. He’d been his lover for four or five years, and I could see why. Jack was an amazingly charismatic guy: very charming, balding—maybe even bald at that point—and he had chest hair that was architectural in its swirliness.We became friends. I thought I was in love, and he was very tactfully making it clear that we weren’t. He was actually dating a diver from the Berkeley swim team, whom I met subsequently through him. Anyway, you don’t need to know all this—stream of consciousness here.Jack took me to San Bernardino to see a production of John Brown’s Body that Rock was starring in. Even then I thought it was pretty awful. Rock was supposed to die, and when he hit the stage it was like a timber falling. He was just this big, loud whomp. It was not the best play, and I think he was told it was an artistic thing and he should do it, so he did it.Afterwards there was a line to meet him. Jack led me back into this interior hallway leading up to Rock’s dressing room. At the moment I got to Rock and shook his hand, the lights went out. The only thing I could think to say was, “Well, this is certainly the opportunity of a lifetime.” He laughed in the dark. And that’s where our friendship began. That was the moment for me. I don’t know whether he felt anything at all.Some months later I got the call that Rock was coming to San Francisco, and he put together a group of men to hang out with him. I was among them, and he really surprised me by standing up and saying, “I have a little reading I want to do.”He had been down to the newsstand at the Fairmont Hotel and obtained a copy of the Bulldog edition of the San Francisco Chronicle—the one that came out the night before. He stood up and read the first chapter of Tales of the City. He knew I had written something, and he went through the trouble of figuring out what it was. He was a little drunk at the time, but it was charming. And I think he kind of figured it would get me into bed—and it did.The next night, as a matter of fact, he and his partner, Tom Clark, invited me to join them at La Bourgogne, this very fancy restaurant in the Tenderloin. We talked about—he knew I was an activist, a gay activist—and the subject came up of when and how he was going to come out. I offered to write the story for him. I said, “I could do it. I’m the guy to do it, really, because I’m out and I know you.”His partner got a terrible look on his face and said, “Not until my mother dies.” That was a peculiar thing to say, I thought. Anybody who was f*****g Rock Hudson would be very proud for his mother to know it.At the end of that evening we headed up the hill to the hotel. Tom kind of flaked out and said he was too tired and was going to bed. So Rock and I caught a cable car together. It was fascinating to watch how the crowd reacted when they saw who he was. They were like, “It’s Commissioner McMillan,” which was the role he was playing at the time on McMillan & Wife.We got back, found Tom already passed out in the bedroom, and Rock and I sat at opposite ends of the living room making conversation. Finally he said, “Well, I should be over there or you should be over here,” which was the only signal I required.We were having a grand old time making out, but I wasn’t up to the task in any way. It was just too intimidating. There was too much clouding it all for me. Finally he came over and sat next to me and said, “You know, I’m just a guy like you.” And I said, “No, you’re not, and I’m Doris Day.”We had a bit of a laugh. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that, but it was the first time I’d gotten a chance to say it.We had better success on subsequent visits—to his home in L.A., which was called The Castle, and at the house in San Francisco. Chris was surprised to hear this. He thought my only part of the story was that I couldn’t get it up and that was that. But we had several other shots at it, and we did pretty well.He did have a legendarily large penis. It wasn’t the prettiest one I’d ever seen, but it was the biggest.Most of all, what you need to know about Rock was that he was a very sweet man. He seduced the world by being so kind and attentive. He thought everybody should have a lover. He had Tom Clark, who I thought was the world’s worst lover because he was such a b***h—so grumpy and bossy with Rock.Rock made it his mission to see that I found a lover. Back in those days, a lover was a husband. That’s what he wanted for me. When he heard that I’d met somebody and gone on a Princess cruise—on The Love Boat, no less—he insisted on meeting me at the dock. He drove down to San Pedro and met us there.I’ll never forget the look on this woman’s face when she asked who was meeting me. I pointed and said, “That tall guy down there.” And she said, “Oh my God, that’s Rock Hudson.” I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy that. I did.He felt like confirmation of what I’d always believed gay life could bring you. It had brought me Rock Hudson, at least as a friend. I had been a fan of his for many years—from Giant to Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back. Those Doris Day movies all made me love him.To find myself in a frisky friendship with him was astounding. I wrote about it in my diary—what it felt like to be at the Castle and to be his confidant. He had famous pool parties with gorgeous men—never too young; he liked men over 30, thank God. I was 32, and Jack Coates was 32.At one party a PR man named Warren Seabury showed up with Michelle Phillips, thinking he could crash it. Rock said, “He’s brought a woman with him.” I had to go deal with it. When I realized it was Michelle Phillips, I was dumbstruck. I told her the truth—that Rock had asked to have the thirty most gorgeous men in town meet him. She was a great sport and said she’d given those instructions herself.Despite all this, I was troubled by the Hollywood closet and what it required of him. I was often asked to leave when Liz Taylor or Nancy Walker came by. His closest friends—his logical family—were George Nader and Tom Clark. They went out in odd numbers with briefcases so it looked like a business meeting.My world was San Francisco, where people were out and unashamed. Rock and his circle were terrified of exposure, especially with Confidential magazine always circling. His agent even sold out other stars to protect him. It was an evil place to be.Eventually it strained our friendship. I stopped calling and let it go. I was becoming more famous myself and didn’t want a secret friendship.When he was diagnosed with AIDS, Randy Shilts asked me to comment. I did, saying he was a good man and that everyone in Hollywood knew he was gay. I didn’t realize how much backlash I’d get. People accused me of breaking a code. The word “outing” didn’t even exist yet.But Chris has told me that hearing the news as a teenager made a huge difference in his life. It gave him strength. That’s what I hoped would happen.Later I learned that when Rock hired a biographer, he told her I was the first person she should visit. That meant everything to me. I never saw him again. But he received tens of thousands of fan letters saying they loved him just as he was.He became a pioneer. He owned his truth in the end. I’m grateful I knew him, and I still get a shiver watching his movies—now with an understanding that makes all those jokes make sense.I treasure that memory, and I’d like to think I made a difference in his life, even if it wasn’t the way he planned.Thanks for coming along today, and I look forward to the next time we meet. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s a transcript of the video:“Well, it looks like there’s some possibly good news on the horizon.Most of you know that Marjorie Taylor Greene has left MAGA, which is really indicative of a rift that’s occurring within Trump’s administration—within MAGA itself.I saw a piece by Rachel Maddow the other day where she couldn’t stop grinning because she was reading Trump’s numbers at the polls, where he’s down to 30% everywhere, including with immigration, which is something he courted—something he based his life on, really—trashing immigrants.So the question is: how close are we to the end of this man?Numerous news sources are reporting this fracture within MAGA. There’s no question that this is a good thing, because we’ve been living under a fascist government. And no, I don’t mind saying that term. It is fascist. Everything about Trump’s regime has indicated that.Under MAGA, there’s been an unprecedented rise in anti-queer legislation all across the country, and that should tell us where we’re supposedly heading under MAGA.There’s an opportunity now for Democratic lawmakers to really step up and have a backbone—which they haven’t had for as long as Trump has been in power. They’ve cowered under him. This is the chance for them to make a move.The fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene has left is very indicative—well, she’s a crazy woman—but it’s indicative of how things are going in general within MAGA.So I’m hoping we’re going to get some powerful people stepping forward. I like Gavin Newsom. I know Gavin Newsom slightly, and I think he’d be great to lead the fight. I don’t know whether he’s unimpeachable—my friend said this morning he might not have a record that holds up—but I think he’s saying all the right things right now and showing some balls. And that’s all we need Democrats to have: show some viable solutions to our problems.Because we all agree the world is fucked up right now—especially in America. And we need some leadership. That’s what we need. And I think we’re going to see people coming forward.I saw this morning that Bernie Sanders is proposing a tax on CEOs who are getting away with monstrously large sums of money. They’re just robber barons. And that sort of thing could be supported by the man in the street—by people who know they’re being fucked over by the CEOs.So speak up. Ask your lawmakers to be accountable, because this is a time when we really need to fight.We have the opportunity right now, with Trump’s numbers being so low and him basically going crazy in front of us. We have the opportunity for other leaders to step forward. But they have to step forward. And I’m presuming they’ll come from the Democratic Party, but they might not. We just need them. We need somebody to step forward and have the balls to speak out.I’m cautiously optimistic when we see this horrible man’s coalition falling apart. It’s hard not to be, really. I think we’ve earned that cautious optimism.So hopefully we’ve got some brighter days ahead. I really want to believe that, and I think if we do believe it, it will spur us to do the right thing in terms of everything.Thank you so much for listening to me babble on here, but it’s what I feel—optimistic and cautious. And I think we’ve got better days ahead of us. I really do.”Info on the Sanders, Tlaib bill to “End Outrageous CEO Pay”: https://www.help.senate.gov/dem/newsroom/press/news-sanders-tlaib-introduce-bill-to-end-outrageous-ceo-pay-and-combat-corporate-greed This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s a transcript of the video: Welcome back to our second Ask Me Anything feature.The questions we didn’t get to the first time around, I’m going to try to answer now.This one comes from Steve Zack:“I’d enjoy hearing Armistead recount a bit his experiences/memories/thoughts on being young and living in San Francisco in the heyday of gay pride and dating and sex and fun and friendship.”Well, you kind of summed it up right there. But we’re going to do a longer feature where I talk about all these things. It really was a golden age — that little window before AIDS came, and when I was out of the closet. So we’ll do a separate video on that.This is from Richard Jones:“Will there be any more adventures from Mona and Wilfred?”No. Easy answer. I’m done with them. I’m done with the whole thing, actually.I built Mona of the Manor so it could fit into the middle of the whole series and answer those questions that people had about Mona, and I feel like we know what they are now.Frankly, I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can’t write anymore. It’s not that anything’s happening to me mentally, but I’m just burned out on it, and I don’t want to do it anymore.That’s why I’m here right now, talking to you over this machine. I have trouble typing, and I have trouble seeing. I have cataracts that have got to be worked on sometime very soon. And so that leaves me in close-up with Netflix.I wish I could help, but that’s the way it is.This one’s from Bill Moore from Columbia, PA:“Until Mona of the Manor it really seemed like you’d dropped Mona cold from Tales. Was she based on someone from your life? Was there a reason that Mona faded the way she did? What made you decide to give her a new chapter after all? Chloe Webb really nailed it for me. Did she personify Mona for you? Was there a reason she didn’t return as Mona in the second two series?Sorry for the Monapalooza!”Oh my God — my motives on Mona. I had no motives whatsoever. I didn’t mean to leave her out in the cold and was happy to bring her back in.Chloe Webb did a wonderful job. She created Mona in a way — the Mona that everybody remembers. She could be a pain in the ass, I must say that. I can’t give you specific reasons why she sometimes was, but we thought it was worth it to put up with her because she did such amazing stuff.I wish she’d come back. I really wanted Chloe back for the second series, but we just couldn’t work it out. For starters, she wanted more money than any of the other actors were paid. She felt she deserved that because of her position, having made a couple of movies. But we couldn’t accommodate that. We didn’t want to accommodate that.I begged her to work with us, but it just wasn’t going to happen. She was having a hard time in her life at that point, and it just didn’t happen. I missed having her there a lot — but that’s the deal with television. Actors come to you with all sorts of demands.Mona has always been one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite, because she embodies… well, she does so many things that I do. You can figure out what those are. I was really happy to have Mona come back for Mona of the Manor because there are so many things about her that remind me of me. I get to be cranky sometimes, as she does. That was fun.She’s always been one of my favorite characters, so thank you for asking about her.Here’s a more serious question from Pablo Simon in Manchester, UK:“Just wondering how you feel about the rise of the far-right in the UK?”Well, I think you can guess what my feelings are about Nigel Farage and company. It’s really disturbing — especially since it echoes things that are happening in the States, and I suppose worldwide. We may be in for a hard one.I hope Britain comes to its senses and doesn’t follow in the steps of the U.S. right now, but who knows? We have to keep fighting the good fight no matter what. So that’s my answer.And now from Philippe Metge:“Hello from a French fan!Just knowing what’s happening in your country, do you think the LGBTQ should fight harder, leave if they can or grit their teeth, arch their backs, hoping that it goes away fast! How do you keep humour and wits in such an atmosphere? Here in Europe we fear for all our gay friends in US to be honest!”Well, that’s lovely to hear from a French person. I do too. I fear for friends back home that are still there.You don’t get to escape it by moving to another country — it’s pretty much everywhere. We’re seeing it on the Tube. We keep up with things, in other words, and you can sweat the dangers and try not to let them rule you.Chris and I are doing political pieces precisely because we want our voice to still be heard. This is the only voice I have left, really — doing these Substack pieces and letting my thoughts be heard as an 81-year-old queer who fears for his brothers and sisters.We need to make our voices heard, and that’s what we’re trying to do in the little way we can. Everybody else out there can do the same.In the end, we have to just let it go. The reason it’s scary is that they’re trying to scare us — they’re trying to make us back down. And we cannot do that. We cannot cave in to that fear. Just make our voices heard whenever we can. Speak out. Act up. Whatever.This is from Michel Dumont in Thunder Bay — which I assume is Canada.He writes:“In the early 90s I found in Thunder Bay an autographed copy of Maybe the Moon at my local book store. I’ve always cherished this book but I’ve always wondered how a signed copy ended up way up north ? Did you have multiple signings and then distribute them? Your novels were in our gay and lesbian center where I volunteered as a phone line counselor in ‘86. Thanks for this chance to ask a question I’ve had for decades. Big gay mukwa hugs.”I don’t know how it got there. That’s the wonderful thing about books — they’re mobile. You can stay in a motel where somebody leaves it in a bedside table and pick it up and read it.Most likely, whenever I do a book signing, the bookstores ask me to sign extra copies. It must have been one of those books that made its way to Thunder Bay. I can’t even begin to theorize about it, and I won’t.So thank you, Michelle from Thunder Bay — and thank you to everyone else who’s tuned in. That’s such an old-fashioned term, isn’t it? “Tuned in.” I can’t help it.I talked to a reporter today. She asked me what “nelly” meant, and I said, “You don’t know what nelly means? It’s an effeminate gay man.” She said she’d never heard that. I asked her how old she was. Twenty-seven. So there’s our failure to communicate.But I like to think there’s enough in Tales for people to relate to that I don’t have to do that.Thank you for tuning in, and I’ll see you next time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s a transcript for Armistead’s introduction before the reading: Today I’m going to read to you from one of my favorite books. It was when I was a boy—or a teenager, rather—and it still is. I love it very much, and I think you can see the ways in which it influenced my writing of Mona of the Manor.It’s by Dodie Smith, who was a twentieth-century—well, her life spanned the twentieth century—English playwright. I was always rather sorry in the ’80s that, when I heard she was living in England, I didn’t get out to see her, because I would have had lots of adoration for her. But I didn’t.I did have a connection with her in that she and her husband, Alec Beesley—he was a conscientious objector, and they thought they’d have a better chance of that happening in America than in England. That’s how much things have changed.So they settled in Malibu and several places in California, and at the time met my friend Christopher Isherwood. Chris remembered them running on the beach with their dogs. Their dogs were Pongo and Perdita, which—if you know 101 Dalmatians, one of Dodie Smith’s most famous novels—you know are the names of the dogs.Of course, I was friends with Christopher Isherwood, but sadly I never had the opportunity to get an introduction to Dodie Smith. I’m sure I could have gotten one. She died in 1990, and she was herself ninety-something, I think.At any rate, she was a famous English playwright, among other things. At one point she had three comedies in production in the West End at the same time. And her most famous books, because of the movies made from them, were 101 Dalmatians and—less so, because I didn’t like the adaptation—I Capture the Castle. It didn’t seem to capture the essence of the book to me, but I think that was about ten or fifteen years ago that that happened.So anyway—without further ado—I’m going to read to you a good part of the first chapter of I Capture the Castle, so you can get something of a flavor.I Capture the Castle is supposedly a series of notebooks that Cassandra Mortmain, the heroine, keeps herself. So it’s a kind of diary. This first one is called “The Sixpenny Book,” because she wrote it in a cheap notebook, I think.It has a first paragraph that is one of the more memorable in literature and one of the reasons I love this book…Here’s the opening paragraph: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.”You can hear Armistead reading more of the first chapter in the video. “I Capture the Castle” by Dodie Smith was first published in 1948. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe