Frank Perez

[Begin Tape 1. Begin Session 1]

ABIGAIL HOLLINGSWORTH: Let me click records and we should be good to go there. So
the first thing, I just wanted to go over some basic stuff, are you comfortable using both the
audio and the video from this interview?

FRANK PEREZ: Sure, but from what I understand it’s going to be audio only eventually, right?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes! They just wanted us to ask, just in case they want to use the video for anything in the future.

PEREZ: Yeah that’s fine

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok cool, and then other than that we can take breaks whenever you want. Just let me know. I can even pause or stop the recording, stuff like that and yeah!

HOLLINGSWORTH [00:32]: Before we even get started, as someone who, I love the city I grew up right around the city, and I’m also a member of the LGBTQ community, so I’m really excited for this interview! I feel very honored that I get to interview you and I, I just wanted that to be said at the top.

PEREZ: Ok. I’m happy to help.

HOLLINGSWORTH: So yeah, ok, so more basic stuff. My name is Abigail Hollingsworth, the date is April 13, 2022 and today I’m interviewing Frank Perez for the LGBT Archives Project of Louisiana.

HOLLINGSWORTH [01:09]: So just to get into some basic first couple of questions, when and where were you born?

PEREZ: I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1968.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Gotcha. And what were your parents’ names?

PEREZ: My parents names were Frank, or Francisco, Perez the third and my mother’s name was Louise Angelle.

Unknown Speaker: (unintelligible noise)

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok. And did you grow up in the same place you were born? How much time did you spend out there?

PEREZ: So I was born in Baton Rouge and was raised there. My mother was not originally from there, nor was my father. My father actually came from Cuba, I want to say 1961. I may be a year or so off on that, but he, he was an immigrant here. And he met my mother, who is from a little town called Golden Meadow, which is on Bayou Lafourche, which is south of New Orleans. But by the time I was born they were both working and going to school in Baton Rouge.

HOLLINGSWORTH: And when did you move out of Baton Rouge?

PEREZ [02:42]: That must have been when I was around 19 years old. I started my collegiate career at LSU in Baton Rouge, and didn’t last too terribly long there. And ended taking a little break from college, and then moving to Lafayette to finish my degree.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok

PEREZ: And I graduated with a degree in criminal justice from university of, back then it was called Southwestern Louisiana, now it’s called ULL. But I guess I graduated in 1991, maybe?

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok! And I know that, after doing some research on you, that you ended up becoming an English professor, what was the rest of your academic career like between ULL and then?

PEREZ: Well surprisingly, and I think a lot of people who don’t know me well will be shocked to discover that I actually went through a very religious phase. And I, upon graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, actually entered the ministry and I became an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God Church. And moved to North Louisiana, which is a culturally horrible and desolate place, and pioneered a campus ministry at the university there in Monroe. And that did not last long. I eventually left that life and went back to school. I think part of my, people always ask ‘why did you do that? why did you become so religious?’ I think part of it was, an effort not to be gay. Because the promise of these religious fanatics was ‘God can
change you’. And I figured, ok, but when I realized that that wasn’t going to work out, I said screw it. And I actually did participate in a gay conversion therapy program at one point. Staring it, but did not finish it, ironically it was during that period that I realized these people were just batshit insane. And I decided to say screw it. So that would have been in the early 90s. And leaving that program and leaving the church, I thought ‘what am I going to do?’, I said ‘oh I’m going to go back to graduate school’, so that’s what I did. And I got a master’s degree in English, at the same university in Lafayette, and then transferred to work on my PhD to TCU in Fort Worth, Texas.

HOLLINGSWORTH [05:39]: How much time did you spend in Texas, or was it just for your PhD?

PEREZ: I was there 10 years.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok.

PEREZ: I had moved there to work on the PhD, I had never set foot in Fort Worth before, so I really had no idea what to expect. But I, I got settled in, and ended up successfully completing my PhD coursework. And ended up successfully passing my comprehensive exams, which were very difficult, both oral and written. And I started work on my dissertation and got a little sidetracked, and ended up taking a full time, tenure track professorship at one of the junior colleges there. It was a school called Tarrant County College, and ended up working full time there and just never did finish the dissertation, which I wasn’t very thrilled about anyway. I was somewhat disengaged, and I had got into, i guess you could call it a toxic relationship at the time
as well. Which didn’t help things, so I got to stay at this community college in Fort Worth, which I really enjoyed, for 10 years I was there.

HOLLINGSWORTH: And did you immediately move back to New Orleans after that?

PEREZ: Yes, sort of. With a little side trip. When I left Texas in 2008, I was having some, some pretty serious mental health issues and I had gone to get some help with that. And that took, I don’t know, a few months. And then again, my life as just completely open, blank page, tabula rasa, what do I do? And I thought well, I can continue teaching. That would probably mean having to move to some godforsaken place like Des Moines, Iowa or something. You know BFE. And I really wasn’t willing to do that, you know my mental health was really important to me at this point. And the place that makes, has always made me happy is New Orleans. So, I decided, you know what, I’m going to move to New Orleans and if I can get a teaching job somewhere that’ll be great. Maybe I’ll just adjust, work part time for a while until something opens up. And if I have to, I’ll just get a job doing something completely different.

PEREZ [08:19]: But at that point in my life, it was more important for me to be in a place that offered me serenity, peace, and happiness rather than just, you know, having a career and a steady paycheck in a place that might not do that for me. So that’s why I came back. I think it’s also important to point out that this was shortly after Katrina. Hurricane Katrina happened while I was working and living in Texas, but it profoundly affected me. I’ve always loved the city, even though I grew up in Baton Rouge, as I pointed out, we would often spend time here because my mother had, you know, gone to school here, had relatives here, so weekends, holidays, summers, a lot of that time was spent in New Orleans. So I fell in love with the city at a very early age and it always made me happy. So when Katrina happened, it really depressed me and that exacerbated some of the other issues I was dealing with. But that was another reason I felt like I wanted to come back. Because at that point the city’s future was somewhat uncertain, and the city needed people to move here. And I thought ‘well, this sounds right to me’. So.

HOLLINGSWORTH [09:34]: Definitely, especially people you’ve, you’ve dedicated your life now to the city. So especially to have people who are willing to do that, come in you know. You said that you had a period sort of openness and kind of freedom of like ‘well I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I know I need to be here’. And now you have so many jobs, you know. What was, what was that journey like going from, ‘well I’m open’ to now ‘I do all of this stuff’.

PEREZ: Well, it was, it was uncertain initially. I, the only job I could secure, well actually there were two. I had an offer to be a barista at a coffee shop, and I thought ‘well I’ve done that before, I can do that again.’ But then I got a job as a waiter at Commander’s Palace, which is a pretty high-end restaurant. So when I moved to New Orleans, I had the Commander’s Palace waiter job, and I did that for six months just trying to stack up a little bit of money and figure out what’s going on. It was during that initial six months that I landed a part-time teaching gig at Xavier University, in the English department. And I did that for a couple of years. I don’t know how familiar you, or anybody listening to this, god knows when from now, but part time adjunct professors don’t get paid very well. So I didn’t continue with that, but it did keep my mind alive and some semblance of my academic career alive. And eventually, I ended working in the hospitality industry and in a number of restaurants for about a year, year and a half maybe.

Excuse me (reacting to a cough).

PEREZ [11:34]: And then ended up getting a job getting a job as a concierge at a hotel downtown and a big part of that job was selling tours. So people at the hotel would come up to the desk and, you know, they’d be like ‘we want to do a swamp tour, we want to go visit a plantation or take a riverboat cruise.’ And whatnot, and so we would sell them those tours, and I would make a commission on what I sold. I didn’t work for the hotel, you what most people don’t realize is a lot of these big hotels that have concierge desks are not run by the hotel, they’reran by specific tour companies. They don’t necessarily tell you that, they’re only going to sell their tours. Anyway, that’s kind of how I got into that business. And I did that for a few years, and it paid well. And it was during that time that I got interested in local queer history and started working on my first book on that subject that was published in 2012. But it was also during that period that I thought ‘let me go into business for myself.’ And there was a really prime location became available in the French Quarter, which I jumped on and quit my concierge job. That
business is, in a couple of months it’ll be ten years. So, it’s called the Crescent City Tour Booking Agency, we have a little office in the French Quarter. People wander in off the street and we help them plan their itineraries. And that has been an incredibly great thing for me because it enabled me to do other things, right? So I’ve got three employees, the place is on automatic co-pilot, I’m hardly ever down there. And it pays the bills, so that frees me up to do other things, like writing.

PEREZ: So you mentioned some of the other things I do. A lot of what I do with the LGBT Archives Project, and the writing, all of that stems from the first book that I wrote "In Exile”, which, when I look at now, I wish I could’ve written it over again. I guess every writer has that regret. But what that book did for me was it opened up some opportunities. And specifically, it opened up an opportunity to write for Ambush Magazine. And for those who may not know Ambush Magazine is one of the oldest surviving LGBT publications in the country. It’s digital now since Covid, but it was still in print until then. And it was started in 1982 by a wonderful couple, named Rip and Marsha Naquin-Delain. And they lived here in the French Quarter and it was published here in the French Quarter. And I met them when I interviewed them for the first book “In Exile”, and we became friends. And when the book came out they said ‘Would you like to write a history column for Ambush?’, and I said ‘Well absolutely.’ And that was ten years ago and I’m still writing for Ambush, even though they both died a few years back in 2017. So, but my, my involvement with Ambush, Rip’s friendship and support and promotion really opened a lot of doors for me.

PEREZ [14:59]: And that’s kind of how all that unfolded. It wasn’t a master plan, you know, people say ‘have your five-year goals’ and I had none of that. It was just on a prayer and a whim and a gut feeling and it all just kind of worked out so. My success today just kind of confirms that I’m where I need to be and doing what I need to do. I just feel like I’m in the right place.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Definitely.

PEREZ: Yeah

HOLLINGSWORTH: And you, you previously touched on the LGBT Archive Project, which obviously we’re doing this interview for, but what was the process of starting a nonprofit like an LGBT nonprofit what was that, like?

PEREZ: It was interesting. When the, after the first book came out, “In Exile”, and I’m on like book number five or six now, it’ll be out in a few months. A gentleman by the name of Stewart Butler, who is a long-time activist in New Orleans, call me and several other people he knew were interested in local queer history. I had met him when I interviewed him for my first book, “In Exile”, and a group of us got together, and he had tried to start something prior to that. Let me, let me make sure I have my facts right. So there were two other gentlemen, one by the name of Otis Fennell. Otis is still around, he’s really advanced in age. He used to own the gay bookstore on Frenchmen Street. And then there was Mark Gonzalez who’s still around, he’s an attorney. Longtime activist, really active in the 90s. Anyway, Stewart who died a few years ago, and Otis and Mark had tried to do what they wanted to call the Legacy Project. Which was going to be oral histories. And they did one interview with Stewart and they realized that they didn’t have any idea what they were doing. They didn’t have the proper equipment, they weren’t trained, it was just kind of overwhelming for them. So the Legacy Project kind of fell by the wayside, but from the ashes of that the Archive Project came about. Because Stewart called this meeting with a bunch of people, it was probably 30 people at that initial meeting. And he’s our ‘we need to preserve this history, what can we do?’, and we had a follow up meeting at his home with fewer people. And it ended up being about 8 to 12 people, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but there were about a core group of a dozen of us. Let’s call it a dozen, and we met every month, once a month, at Stewart’s house on Esplanade Avenue to just kind of brainstorm and figure out what we could do. And we decided, early on, that instead of reinventing the wheel, we were not going to create our own archive or our own museum, we didn’t have the money or expertise to do that. And we were pleasantly surprised to learn that, of all the institutions in New Orleans, and there are a lot, right? There’s several universities that have archival institutions and special collections in their libraries, also private institutions like the Historic New Orleans Collection, we have the state museum here, and so forth. So we spent a year going to all of these institutions surveying what they had as far as LGBT material, and then asking them ‘do you want more?’ and if they don’t have any, ‘would you like some?’ And to our great surprise and delight, they were all very much ‘yes! we want this kind of material.’

PEREZ [19:04]: So we decided that we were going to form a nonprofit to serve as an intermediary between the community and these institutions. Whether they were archival repositories, or libraries, or museums, or whatever institution it may be. So we would reach out to the community and say ‘hey, if you’ve got a box of whatever that chronicles queer history, let’s get that to one of these institutions where is can be properly cared for after you’re gone.’ Right? Because think about what happens when, and it may, may be changing now, but historically the people who are old now grew up in a time where to was not ok to be gay. So whatever they have, whether it’s posters of drag shows, or minutes from board meetings, or agendas, who knows what they have. When they die, their families, at best, are not going to know that it’s important and throw it out, and at worse they’re going to think it’s evil and burn it and have a prayer. So, we thought let’s get this material, let’s raise awareness about the importance of this material. And so that’s one of the things we do.

PEREZ: On the flip side, we also serve as an invaluable resource for researchers. And by researchers, I mean graduate students, I mean filmmakers, authors, you name it. We get contacted all the time, I’m working on ABC. ‘What do you have, what’s available?’ Were able to say ‘well this is what’s available here, this is who you need to talk to, where it’s located’ so forth and so on. So that’s kind of how the Archives Project got started, we also do public programing like public workshops and lectures. And just trying to raise awareness and promote local queer history. And we became an official organization in 2014, although those meetings at Stewart’s house started in 2013. But in the last eight, nine, years we can look back at a solid record of accomplishment and I would invite people to visit our website and to see what we’re done. But I mean in a nutshell we have facilitated, enabled the donation of major collections to a variety of institutions. Not just in New Orleans, all over the state so. It’s not real sexy work, but it’s very important work. It’s not high profile, but researchers for hundreds of years time I’m sure will appreciate what we’re doing even if people in our own time may not.

HOLLINGSWORTH [21:52]: Definitely and kind of going back to what you're saying you know queer history hasn't really been studied or put as a priority like you're saying how did you get involved in studying queer history, especially in New Orleans a place that has a very large queer history, a very vibrant queer history, but a lot of people may not know that unless they're in the scene themselves or in history or stuff like that?

PEREZ: Yeah it's a great question, I will start by saying I've always been in love with history, even when I was a kid. So I've always been a history nerd. And then, when I finally you know came out of the closet and eventually found myself living in New Orleans, I was naturally curious. I wanted to learn our history, and so I started looking and there was nothing. I mean nothing! There were just arrest records, there were newspaper articles of raids on gay and lesbian bars. You know, there was really nothing. And that was part of the motivation behind writing “In Exile”, you know there's an old saying he who gets the vision gets the task. And so, part of that first book just grew out of a frustration. There was nothing out there, and what my co-author and I, Jeffrey Palmquist, did was we interviewed. I don't remember well over 100 people, mostly gay men, but you know, ‘what are your memories, what's going on?’ And when we wrote “In Exile”, we had a really, I, by the time we wrote that I had a very fundamental elementary, understanding of the general timeline of queer history in New Orleans. Think of it as a skeleton without all the meat, and that's what “In Exile” is. It’s not an exhaustive book at all, we and we say that in the introduction that we're just getting started. We’re just trying to put something out there to spur on more work in this area and thankfully that's happened.

PEREZ: But in exile, is not a definitive treatment by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a general timeline. And so when I started writing for Ambush, one of the great joys of writing that history column was being able to dive a little bit deeper into, into the specifics. And I've been doing that for 10 years now, and I'm actually in the process of compiling all those essays into one volume so that'll be an anthology of all those articles. But. I think I forgot the question.

HOLLINGSWORTH [24:30]: It’s ok! I was just saying, I guess going back, like how did you specifically, well I guess you said when you came out of the closet and stuff like that, but specifically like a lot of people either, I, I mean I grew up right outside of New Orleans and I, until I was an adult, had no idea about this beautiful vibrant queer history that New Orleans has, you know?

PEREZ: Yeah, yeah and it was it was like mind boggling and frustrating all at once, right? Because New Orleans is a city that is definitely in love with itself, there are obscure, and its history. There are obscure books on every topic under the sun coming out on a regular basis, about New Orleans history, and there was nothing on queer history, it was really frustrating. And then you know, as I started learning, not just about the history, but you know, much of that history and revolves around the annual calendar of gay life and culture, at least in the French Quarter, right? There's Mardi Gras season, the gay krewes, there's Southern Decadence, there's the Gay Easter Parade. They're all these events and institutions, and it was like a big learning curve, but it was amazing and, yeah, to me it just reinforced the need to capture this history.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Definitely, how would you describe the gay scene, whether it's the past of the gay scene, or the present of the gay scene within New Orleans?

PEREZ: Oh i'm not sure what, that what that means, because there are a lot of different scenes.

HOLLINGSWORTH: mm hmm.

PEREZ: I would start by saying that, historically, as well as today, the gay community or LGBT community or, the word gay can be not good in some cases, is very divided, right? And it's funny because if you were to ask, I do the summer tours sometimes, if you're asked cisgender white gay men, ‘are their divisions within our community? say racial division?’ they’ll go ‘no, everything’s fine’, but if you were to ask a gay black man, they would be like ‘oh yeah!’ they'll talk your ear off. So cisgender white, gay men are often clueless, right? You know there's not a lot of interface for regarding the lesbian community, and the gay male community now, there was a little bit more of that I think historically during the AIDS crisis, but yeah. There are a lot of divisions, don't get me started on the trans issue. You know the T, trans people, have always been the redheaded stepchildren in the acronym, no matter how many letters are in there. And they’re finally, you know, asserting themselves and advocating for a place at the table. Not always successfully, but I think it's important that they do that. But that is not historically been the case, and you know that kind of, those divisions that I just referenced are, you know, currently at why pride is so screwed up in New Orleans. You know, we're recording this in 2022 so somebody listening to this 50 years from now, may not realize that in 2020 the Pride Organization blew up because of this type of privilege, issues of privilege, and visibility and whatnot with trans people and people color. So, it's nothing new, it's nothing new. So I would say that our Community is very divisive, and not unified and I think that's a shame.

PEREZ [28:13]: If you're talking about the gay community in the French quarter, which is basically bar life, and that’s a whole separate thing. I think it's important to remember there's a whole world of gayness, LGBTQ-ness whatever you want to call it, outside the French Quarter that, that really don't participate in the bar life down here. They have their own sports leagues, and reading clubs, and bowling whatever, but in the quarter the gay demi monde life is centered around bars, and these annual festivals like Mardi Gras, and Southern Decadence, and Easter and whatnot. So that is the community that I'm pretty much immersed in. But, but my writing has forced me to venture out and learn about some of these other branches of the community. It's frustrating for me because I kind of, I’m an easy-going guy, I’ll get along with anybody. And because I’ve written so much, I kind of know who the people are, who the players are, what the issues are, and I have a general survey of the landscape, so to speak. I probably have a better perspective and a lot of people who are in their own little communities and worlds. And it's frustrating for me because I, you know, if I could wave a magic wand and make everybody get along I would but that's impossible. So.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Definitely, definitely. And I think something that I read on your website was how you explain New Orleans and specifically the Quarter as sort of this gumbo pot of different people and experiences, and do you think that's something that, you know, is specific you know, like does, obviously that comes up within the gay community and like within the LGBT community because, like you're saying there so many different parts of it and stuff like that. But historically, is there any specific, I guess, reasons or event why you think that New Orleans was kind of, I don't know if allowed is the right word, but was able to create a gay community in an area of the country that, I guess, some people would traditionally consider a little bit closed minded quote unquote or anything like that?

PEREZ [30:44]: Oh absolutely. First of all, I would point out that it's important to remember that although New Orleans is geographically situated in the south, we're not really southern in our own minds. We're not we are technically a part of the state of Louisiana, but in our minds we are not. And a lot of that stems back to the colonial period, you know. Unlike the rest of the United States, especially the eastern seaboard which is founded by white Anglo Saxon Protestants, the Gulf coast New Orleans especially, was not founded by white Anglo Saxon Protestants. We were founded by Mediterranean, Latin Catholics, and so the differences in culture, language, sensibility, whatever you want to call it, between those two groups I think informs a lot of how and why we're different in New Orleans. So, the fact that we’re a port city is also pretty significant. And you know, if you if you grow up gay in the south, a small town, and all you want to do is escape want to get someplace where there is a community. And that's the nearest big city, so if you grew up in the Midwest, you’re probably going to escape to Chicago. If you grow up on the east coast, you have a couple of choices you've got New York, Philadelphia so forth, Washington. You're in California you go to San Francisco or LA, but if you're in the south, where do you go, you know? New Orleans. And so that has helped I think as well.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Definitely. And kind of going into that, I also noticed on your website that you specifically offer a tour that's directed at the LGBT history of New Orleans. How did you start offering that, and you know what has been some of like some of the good experiences that you’ve had giving that tour because it's been about ten years, right?

PEREZ: Right, right. Right, so when I opened my little tour booking agency I went ahead and got a tour guide license myself. And I occasionally do private tours, and I thought, ‘let me do a gay history walking tour’, and I've since changed the name, I call it the Rainbow Fleur De Lis walking tour. And I just thought you know, since I'm doing all this history work, interviewing all these people, writing these columns, let me put that to work in a different way that knowledge. So. I should point out that I was not the first person to offer a queer walking tour of New Orleans. The first man to do that was a guy named Robert Batson, who is still around today, great guy, pretty advanced in age at this point. I don't think he's really been doing his tour. He had stopped doing this for 10 years ago when I started mine. And that’s kind of why and how I got started. I don't promote it as often or as aggressively as I could, because I'm pretty busy with other things. But I will do it whenever it's requested, I do it offered by appointment, and I don't you know, even though it's not really financially worth my time do it for one or two people, excuse me (reacting to a cough), I’ll still do it. Because, and then, what, it’s not something that goes out all the time.

PEREZ [34:28]: And whenever it is booked, it's usually somebody with a particular interest, so I, I customize the tour to whoever's taking it so you know. A pack, not pack, what's the word I'm looking for, a group of lesbians in their 20s are going to be interested in things that you know, maybe 70 year old gay men are not, white gay men, are not interested in, right? Trans people are going to be interested in something else, so there's enough out there and I can customize the content of the tour to meet, whatever the interest of the people are. And since I started giving that tour 10 years ago there been a few other people who have attempted to do queer themed tours which I think is wonderful. When they first started popping up my friends are like, ‘oh my God, what are you gonna do, are you going to copyright, are you going to get mad, are you going to sue them?’ No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, these are important stories that need to be told, and the more storytellers we have the better. So I'm not proprietary. I've actually met with the people who want to develop queer tours and said look, ‘this is what I know you're welcome to steal whatever you need’ because I believe the more the better, that’s to say nobody's going to get rich doing these. So.

HOLLINGSWORTH: What, what would you say is your favorite spot, or is there one spot that you have to show every tour? Do you think?

PEREZ: Oh that’s a good question. I like the story of Lafitte’s bar, Cafe Lafitte in Exile. I usually end the tour there, also because it’s a good spot to grab a cocktail. But that story is pretty good. I don't include it on every single tour, but I would say that one. So you want the story now?

HOLLINGSWORTH [36:38]: Oh sure! I know you know a lot about it!

PEREZ: I'll give you the short version. So in 1933 Volstead Act was repealed, that’s prohibition. There's a lesbian woman named Mary Collins who leases a building with two straight businessman, and they call, it was an old home, and they called it Cafe Lafitte and it eventually became known as Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, which is very famous bar in the French Quarter. They love to tell people they're the oldest bar in the country, they're not. They're, not even the oldest bar in the city. But anyway, so Cafe Lafitte opens at that location in 1933, and it's pretty queer, I mean it's basically a gay bar for 20 years. And then in 1953 when the owner of the building dies, the new owner takes over and says, ‘you can keep your bar, but I don't want a funny people here, no fairies, no dykes.’ So they were like ‘screw you we're going to go down the street’ and they leased a building that had been a Sicilian Deli, and they open Cafe Lafitte, but they add the words “In Exile”, which is still around today. And that bar is the oldest continually operating gay bar in the United States, at least as of this recording.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah. That's definitely, I didn't know that, before I was doing research for this and, like as someone who's in the community and loves the city, I was like ‘how did I not, how did I not know that the oldest gay bar is in New Orleans’.

PEREZ: Yeah.

HOLLINGSWORTH: But other than that, obviously, you know we touched on the Rainbow History Tour, there’s a lot of other stuff that you do, besides the tours and things like that, like you started your own krewe and host your own Mardi Gras party, would you mind talking about that a little bit?

PEREZ [38:39]: Oh sure. In 2013, as the end of the year was drawing nigh, I was getting ready for carnival season. You know I love Christmas, when I was a kid I loved Christmas, like every kid does, but for me it just meant Mardi Gras right around the corner. So towards the end of, during the Christmas season, of 2013 I thought 'you know what, let me do a 12th night party on January six to kick off the carnival season’, and I invited, you know, some friends over to my apartment. Which is where I am now. And this apartment is on the corner of Royal and St. Ann, in the French Quarter. One block from Jackson Square, one Block from Oz and the Bourbon Pub. It's right in the middle of everything. And there's a beautiful wraparound balcony, and it's a spacious apartment and I thought this would be great. We'll celebrate the arrival of carnival season, with the 12th night party, and it was a good party. And so after the party I decided, I was going to do it again the following year and I was at Lafitte’s talking to my friend, Jeffrey’s a bartender there, and we thought you know let's do something a little different let's kick it up a notch. And so for the 2014 party, or no the 2015 party, we decided to name a Grand Revealer, which is like royalty for the night, and so we started doing that. And then the following year we said, ‘well if we’re going to do that let's have a meeting of the courts’. And Rip and Marsha, who I referenced earlier, had years before started the Krewe of Queenateenas and they named the chair a King Cake Queen.

PEREZ [40:39]: So we thought let's have a current King Cake Queen come and do a meeting of the courts. Kind of make fun of what Rex and Comus do, and so that started that. And eventually the party just took on a life of its own, and each year we try to add some little element to kick it up a notch, so to speak. But now in recent years, the party's grown so large that I can't do it in my apartment anymore, it's like hundreds of people. So we normally do it at Carl Mack’s Mardi Gras Museum of Costumes and Culture, which is a great location here in the French Quarter. So at some point in the early evolution of the party. We decided ‘well we're going to be a krewe, we need to have a name and we registered with the secretary state and the city’. And that's how the Krewe de la Rue Royale Revelers got started. And so we are an official krewe, we don't put on a big tableau ball, like most of the krewes do. We just throw a really, really cool 12th night party and we don't take ourselves too seriously. You know when you go to a gay carnival ball, like some of the more traditional ones, you have to wear a tux, it's very formal you know, one of the krewes actually, they start off with the pledge of allegiance, and a prayer. Okay, so okay, that's fine if people want to do that. That is not what we want to do. We want to have fun, and so we we don't take ourselves too seriously we're very informal. And I always thought, no matter what kind of party I'm hosting, that the secret to a successful party is to get different groups of people who would might not ordinarily mingle in regular life in the same room. So at my parties, the early 12th night parties here in this apartment, we had you know professionals like doctors and lawyers and politicians and judges, but we also had just street urchins like winos and bums that hanging out in the gutter in front Rouses, and everything in between. Artists, musicians, the stoned, the sober, you name it. So just put them all in a room give them a stiff drink and see what happens. And to me that, that's what makes a good party. And that's been a feature of the 12th night party and I think it's why it's so popular, that we keep it pretty cheap.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah definitely.

PEREZ: So.

HOLLINGSWORTH [43:15]: And for those who don’t know, who may not be as educated on the Mardi Gras lore, is there a specific reason why you do it on January sixth every year?

PEREZ: Yes, because that is 12th night, and 12th night is the 12th night after Christmas. And so it's, also known as the Feast of the Epiphany or Kings Day, right? And so historically traditionally in New Orleans carnival starts on January sixth. So you're not supposed to eat King Cake before January sixth, you're not supposed to put up Mardi Gras decorations before January sixth, it all starts on January sixth. And I have always been such a carnival enthusiast and I can't wait so. It's here, let's celebrate you know. It's it's the first part of the season, and that’ why we do it on the sixth.

HOLLINGSWORTH [44:11]: Definitely good way to kick everything off for sure!

PEREZ: Oh yeah.

HOLLINGSWORTH: And so you kinda I think you, I just wanted to clarify, would you consider your party and your krewe a queer party event group of people, or is it more of just a you know general thing?

PEREZ: I would call it a gay krewe. The organizers are gay, most of the participants are gay, the royalty has all been gay so. But that's not to say that it's not straight friendly, I mean just as many straight people come as, as queer people. But I would call it a gay krewe.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Okay. Because I know that there are a few gay krewes in New Orleans, obviously not as many as the more traditional krewes, but are there any other krewe that you've been a part of, a even if it's just not a gay krewe or anything like that?

PEREZ: I used to ride, for a year or two, in King Arthur the krewe of King Arthur. But I haven't done that in years. And I'm a little, I've been invited to join just about all the gay krewes, but I felt like that was not a good idea for me because, as a writer, I wanted to remain objective. And I have friends in all of them, so I figured if I joined one, I have to join all of them. Otherwise risk alienating people. So you know, and I guess I could say this, to me the krewes are a lot of drama, there's a lot of drama, I don't do turmoil. The nice thing about our krewe is there's very little drama is not a lot of politics, so.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah that definitely, I'm sure that feels a little more comfortable. Especially, like you're saying, as a writer, I'm sure like you mentioned, it's important to remain objective, especially since you're continually writing about queer New Orleans and stuff like that.

PEREZ: Yeah.

HOLLINGSWORTH [46:11]: Definitely. Okay, so we are winding down a little bit, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I’m just going to see if there’s any other, I guess just a basic question, obviously like we've kind of mentioned throughout this interview, you wear many hats, you have a lot of jobs. Is there one particular job that you identify the most with, or would say is like your your first one on the list sort of thing?

PEREZ: Sure, absolutely, writer. That's what I'm passionate about, that's what I do every morning. Of all the things that I do, you know, I teach part time, and the Krewe of the Captain, I’m an executive director of a nonprofit organization, I'm a small business owner, I'm a tour guide, I read tarot cards, I provide editing services, but of all the things that I do, I'm just a writer. That's all, that, that's what I would prioritize.

HOLLINGSWORTH: And for those who are listening to this interview and may not know, it’s April 2022, how many books have you written up to this point?

PEREZ: Oh. Maybe, let me count them, there’s “That Chameleon Time”, that would be one. “In Exile” would be two, “Treasures of  he Vieux Carre” would be three, I edited an anthology called “My Gay New Orleans” so that’s four, and then “Southern Decadence” would be five, “History of Southern Decadence” came out in 2018, so that’s five. And then I just finished number six, which which is a biography of Stewart Butler and the queer rights movement Louisiana. That'll be out a few months, so that would be number six. And then the compilation of all the articles that I’ve written would be seven so.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Awesome!

PEREZ: Now that's just the books, don't forget the articles. So, in addition to writing for Ambush which comes out, or used to come out, twice a month for 10 years. Those are all the history columns, I also wrote other things for Ambush. I would do political commentary, reporting on various other issues of interest, what, whatever they had me, needed me to write about I would. But then I've also, in more recent years, been a columnist for French Quarter Journal, which is not necessarily gay specific, but I do cover, I guess you could call it the gay scene, for that magazine, as well as civics, government issues as well. So, but I'm a writer, I'm currently working on, I've got a couple more books in the pipeline. I’m working on a play, which I've never done before, so that's been an intellectual challenge. I’m working on a memoir, and I got some ideas for some other books. And that's my priority. I mean I wake up pretty early every day, and I have to spend a few hours before the phone starts ringing, and the emails start coming, just writing. And that's just a habit I’ve been at for a long time.

HOLLINGSWORTH [49:17]: Definitely. And then like I said, we're sort of winding down here. So the last question that I wanted to ask you specifically was, if you were to meet someone who had never been to the city, or experienced the French Quarter, or anything like that, what would kind of be, I guess, your quote unquote elevator pitch of New Orleans to try to get more people to experience it?

PEREZ: It’s real simple, eat and drink more than you should and you’ll fit right in. The people down here wonderful, it's the most interesting, fascinating, unique, distinctive, neighborhood in the world. I mean I have traveled all over, never met a place like this. Yeah, the art and the architecture is amazing, the history is fascinating, but what really makes the French Quarter, the
French Quarter are the people. The regulars, the locals. And they're not that many of us left, there's only about 3000 of us. So, and the way that you meet the locals, is you hang out in restaurants and bars, not on Bourbon street necessarily, but authentic neighborhood joints. And you will meet some of the most interesting people in your life. And as a writer, I, I draw inspiration from that. I don't know how anyone can live in New Orleans, especially in the French Quarter, and not be creative. Whether you're a painter, or chef, or musician, or writer, or whatever may be, in a place of just inspiration. I wake up every day feeling like I'm getting away with something.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Definitely, definitely. You’re making me miss the city a little bit there.

PEREZ: Come on down.

HOLLINGSWORTH [50:56]: I know, I need to, I need to come back home sometime soon. But, you know, we’ve, we've gotten pretty much at an hour, I don't want to take up too much for your time. Is there anything else specific that you wanted to cover or talk about?

PEREZ: No, not necessarily.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Ok.

PEREZ: I mean there's enough material we get a whole nother session, if you need to or want to later. But I think we covered a lot today.

HOLLINGSWORTH: Yeah for sure for sure! Well, thank you so much for your time, and for talking to me. I really, really appreciate, you know, everything that you've had to say. Like I said, you know as someone who considers New Orleans part of my home, and is of the LGBTQ community and everything, this was really, really great to just talk to somebody and you know kind of work out all this stuff so I really, really appreciate your time.

PEREZ: You’re very, very welcome.

HOLLINGSWORTH [51:47]: Yeah! Well I will stop this recording here.

[51:53]
[End Tape 1. End Session 1.]