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From Papa Tony: I was approached by a documentarian who was seeking older GLBTQ folks who could share their memories of the old gay bars that don't exist any more. They specifically wanted to hear from older gay leathermen for our segment.

As I have shared elsewhere, I didn't know a lot of older men who survived the AIDS epidemic with me, but I was able to recommend Mark, who I have known for probably forty years. Unfortunately, Mark is nearly completely deaf, so he couldn't understand the questions that the crew was shouting at him. He did fine, though.

They interviewed me on-camera for around 3.5 hours, but Mark and I show up in the video for only about 6 minutes total. I specifically requested that all un-used video segments be donated to the local gay archives, because we were being asked these questions for the first time, and most likely would never get asked again.

After the video was broadcast every year for Pride Month, my computer-consulting clients, and random people in stores and cafe's would tell me how much they enjoyed the documentary, and that I had been"the emotional center" of the one-hour video. I can live with that!

Watch the Video:

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