Continuing Cherry Grove’s celebration of the Pride season, on June 23, at the Community House, the Arts Project of Cherry Grove (APCG) celebrated Chicago Review Press’ publication of “Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color,” by the late Gilbert Baker (June 2, 1951-March 30, 2017), creator of the iconic LGBTQ Rainbow Flag. Charley Beal—Manager of Creative Projects for the Gilbert Baker Estate, and also responsible for art direction for Dustin Lance Black’s film “Milk,” for which Gilbert Baker recreated his banners from the 1970s—and husband Vincent Guzzone assisted.
With singer Porsche as host, a quartet of readers—Gay Nathan, APCG President Thom “Panzi” Hansen, Tommy “Tush” Di Mastri, and Vincent Guzzone—read passages from “Rainbow Warrior” and shared reminiscences. Audience members offered anecdotes as well.
Vincent read us the story of the first unfurling of the Rainbow Flag, in 1978, at United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, where two 30 by 60-foot flags were raised on flag poles, and of Gilbert’s inspiration for the flag, six months earlier, when he attended an extremely diverse dance in SF with Cleve Jones, and envisioned it as a symbol of hope and liberation for the community.
Pointing out that Gilbert didn’t care whether the red or the purple stripe was on top, Gay read to us about Harvey Milk commissioning the flag from Gilbert for SF’s 1978 Pride March, the first officially supported by the city, and of Gilbert’s effort to get $1,000 from the organizers to make the original eight-color flag. Organizer Celeste made Gilbert explain what the colors symbolized and, finally agreeing to take the funds from the decorating committee budget, significantly dubbing Gilbert ‘Betsy Ross’—Busty Ross was to become his drag name later.
Tommy’s narrative concerned Gilbert joining SF’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group about which then SF Mayor Dianne Feinstein “saw red,” and of the Sisters’ defiant planning of a controversial May 1 “Red Party,” at the Russian Center, complete with hammers and sickles, red flags, and a rocket, which won a Cable Car Award for outstanding Special Event of the Year.
Panzi’s passages told of Gilbert’s creation of a mile-long Rainbow Flag for New York City’s Stonewall 25 Pride March past the UN, in 1994. Its unfurling was heralded by the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band, playing “New York, New York,” and Gilbert, who wore a silver sequined gown for the occasion, wrote that “the applause was deafening,” for the flag.
Vincent recounted an anecdote about Gilbert meeting David Rockefeller. Charley read a letter from one of the SF Sisters about getting jailed for demonstrating against Pope John Paul II, when he visited San Francisco. One of the Sisters wore a hoopskirt, which the prison matron insisted that she remove. The matron started undoing the safety pins that held the skirt together, without noticing that, on the other side of the skirt, Gilbert was re-pinning them as fast as the matron was undoing them.
Lorraine Michels talked about the Rainbow Flag that Gilbert contributed to hang from the ferry during the 1994 Invasion of the Pines, led by Queen Scarlett Oh!, which had to be taken down before the Invaders arrived in the Pines, because it was blocking the ferry captain’s view. Anita Auricchio diclosed that she almost got arrested for selling rainbow flags and things at the 1994 Pride March. Troy Files mentioned Gilbert’s eight-color flag, which Roland Michely and Joe Anania had donated, and which hangs in the Community House. I recalled the last photos that I ever took of Gilbert, at Floyd’s, on August 11, 2016, under the Rainbow Flags that he had given to Floyd’s’ Bret Roper, as well as the memorial that we held for Gilbert on the Grove dock on Flag Day, June 14, 2017, the same day as the one held in New York City.
Charlie Catanese noted that a Rainbow Flag recently appeared on a Theatre District marquee, with the words, “Thank you, Gilbert.” Having met Gilbert on Fire Island, as many of us did, Ken Woodhouse declared Gilbert “the most generous person I knew—his talent was boundless and his generosity matched that.” Charley Beal announced that Nike would be creating a Gilbert Baker signature series of tennis shoes and clothing and would be donating some of the profits to NYC’s LGBTQ Community Center; the Hetrick-Martin Institute for LGBT youth services; an AIDS services organization; museums holding Gilbert Baker memorabilia; and a San Francisco organization assisting homeless LGBTQ youth.
Porsche told of meeting Gilbert on Fire Island and telling him that her first encounter with the Rainbow Flag was as a high school student in Austin, Texas. She bought a Rainbow Flag sticker and put it on her car. When her grandmother took the car to be washed, the car washers objected and took the sticker off, but her knowing grandmother put it back on. Concluding the event, Porsche had us all raise our voices in singing “Over the Rainbow.”
Copies of “Rainbow Warrior” were available thanks to Fire Island Goods (FIG), which is also stocking the book.