Oral History – Michael Oglesby
Interviewer: Jason Ezell
Transcriber: Hailey Mandel
July 2, 2019
MICHAEL OGLESBY: [agrees]
EZELL: [00:26] … finished falling which is really nice. So, thank you for taking the time to talk with…
OGLESBY: You’re …
EZELL: … us today, Michael.
OGLESBY: … You’re welcome, Jason. Thank you for being interested.
EZELL: Oh, definitely am. So, if you … [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: I’ve got a ton of questions here as I said, but we’ll do just as many as you … that seem relevant …
OGLESBY: Okay.
EZELL: … or is interesting to you. But, we’ll start off, like I said, kind of further back. Can you tell us a little bit about where and how you grew up? Maybe some family background.
OGLESBY: [00:50] Sure. I was born in Monroe, Louisiana. I was the youngest child of six children. Working-class family. [pauses] Usual story of a working-class family. A father … Father worked as a carpenter. Mother was a … worked at … worked in the home. I got along well with my four sisters. And my brother. Eventually, my parents divorced. And my brother was much older and had moved away. So I always say I grew up in a matriarchal family because I had a mom for a … a single mom and four sisters. So that really kind of impacted my outlook on many things.
EZELL: [agrees] Would you … would … who would you say had the most influence on … Like, in your early childhood, who was the most influential to the … to young, young Michael?
OGLESBY: In my family?
EZELL: Yeah. Or … Or outside, if that’s the case.
OGLESBY: [02:00] Well, I think … I think my mother. I’d just say my mother was most influential. She … She had great aspirations for me. And she gave me reading material that some might not think is appropriate for a fourteen or a thirteen-year-old. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs] Yeah.
OGLESBY: Things like City of Night by John Rechy. I have no idea where this woman got this book.
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: She … [laughs] she was … she grew up in the … in the country herself and she had a high school education, but somehow or another, she picked up on that I was probably gay.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And she was trying to give me reading material that would broaden my horizons, let’s suppose, so… City of Night broadened my horizons. [laughs]
EZELL: I would say. [laughs]
OGLESBY: Occupational inspirations maybe. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: Black Like Me which is probably totally …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … not politically [laughs] correct anymore, but various books that, like I said, I have no idea where she got them. She … I think she want more than what she had and she wanted to be in a more … create a more liberal environment than what North Louisiana was offering at the time. So, I think she was the most influential.
EZELL: [03:20] [agrees] And this was in the … was this … it was in the ’60s then, right?
OGLESBY: Well, I was born in 1954 …
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: … so it would be the early middle ’60s, I guess.
EZELL: Yeah, so … Yeah, she was giving it to you around early teens, these …
OGLESBY: Yeah. Yeah.
EZELL: … things to read.
OGLESBY: I think fourteen-years-young.
EZELL: Well, so … was there any other kind of … well, so she gave you … you were mostly a reader. Was music or television or film a big influence on you as a teenager?
OGLESBY: Well, music, of course. I mean I was fortunate enough to come up in the ’60s music revolutionary times. I loved all the music back then. But reading … I’ve always read. I’ve read since I was a small child. That … I would have to say that reading books was the greatest influence.
EZELL: [04:04] So, tell me a little bit about … because you had mentioned she wanted you to have maybe a little more liberal upbringing than maybe what typically is afforded by North Louisiana kind of upbringing. Tell me a little bit about what Monroe … I’ve never been so, as I mentioned earlier … what Monroe was like during this period.
OGLESBY: Well, Monroe was a fairly typical [clears throat] southern, mid-size city. It … All-white city council, white mayors. The white power structure was in place, definitely, in Monroe. Very conservative, very “Hard Shell Baptist” as they say. There was a very sizable African-American community. [pauses] Schools were just beginning to be integrated at that … when I was probably in junior high, I suppose. The Klan was active in that area. I remember seeing a cross being burned. Pretty, pretty repressive. I mean, it was a … Geographically, it was a beautiful place. I was born near the bayou. All the lovely southern flora and fauna. but it was definitely a repressed, repressed area for a lot of people.
EZELL: [05:24] Yeah. So given that and that you had read City of Night at this time, did you … do you … looking back do you say … Can you remember that you had, like, a coming out experience? And when was that, if you did?
OGLESBY: Well, that’s a little confusing for me because I’ve always felt like I was gay. I was attracted to the boy next door. And we certainly had a torrid affair for … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … many, many years. I … I was fortunate enough to feel supported in my behaviors. I don’t have any memories of my mother telling me that I shouldn’t act a certain way or have certain interests or anything. So I think It kind of … it was just a natural, flowing occurrence for me.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: There … There was a brief time when I had girlfriends, but it was never really serious girlfriends. It was … It was just … I liked girls, but … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: But … [laughs] And there was very few roles that you could have other than being boyfriend and girlfriend.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: But, I always knew I was attracted to men … to males. I … It sounds arrogant to say, “Well, I didn’t have to come out.” But, in fact, I didn’t have a big coming out.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: It just … It was just who I was. And, fortunately, I didn’t have a lot of problems around that in my family.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: I felt very loved and supported.
EZELL: [07:05] So, did you have a first … you had mentioned the, I think, a neighbor …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … boy? Would you consider that your first relationship? Or, what was your first relationship?
OGLESBY: It was definitely my first sexual relationship.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGELSBY: We … We were best buds. We were friends. We … [whenever?] we’re together and roamed the countryside. And … Well, I was attracted to him sexually and [pauses] I kind of convinced him it was the … a good thing to do, [laughs] I suppose.
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: He was certainly willing at some point. But as far as a [pauses] lover, we were way too young for that.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: It was … It was a sexual attraction which we … which we acted upon.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [07:47] And he’s definitely … He’s definitely straight. And he’s an evangelistic … drags a cross … a cross all over the country these days.
EZELL: Oh.
OGLESBY: I hope I didn’t create that problem for him. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah. [laughs] Can’t imagine why. [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: There were other influences it sounds like. [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs] Yeah … so, he … yeah, he was my first sexual experience. And I like it.
EZELL: [agrees] [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: [08:09] So … So, you met your current partner there in Monroe. Is that right?
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: Can you tell about that meeting?
OGLESBY: Yes, I certainly can. […?] Anyway, yeah. I… when I… In high school, I was pretty much of a rebel. You know, I… I had liberal ideas in the middle of all this conservative …[pauses] conservative environment and ran into a lot of trouble with that. And I was trying to grow my hair out. I was not allowed back in school because my hair was over my ears. One summer, when I was sixteen, I actually went to a huge rock festival in 1970, the Atlanta Pop Festival. There was like four hundred thousand people there. It was called the Woodstock of the south. And I experimented with all kinds of … Well, I experimented with acid, with LSD … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … not all kinds of drugs.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And when I came back to Monroe and tried to back to my junior year in high school, I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it. It was too much bullshit and I quit school. And I … My parents had separated. My mother was working. There wasn’t much of a reason to hang around the house. And so I ended up being on the streets of Monroe. And Monroe, which is a very southern river town, there was one block that gay people could be on. This is in nineteen … I met my partner in 1972. There was one street that had the bus station. Traditionally, the bus station in the South was always a crazy place.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And there was Catholic Church steps. And then there was a funky restaurant called The Pit Grill. [laughs] So, gay people, especially street kids like me, would wander up and down that street. It was a cruising ground.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [10:21] I would get picked up by older guys all the time. And I made a lot of friends from other street kids that were also hanging out downtown. I met a friend named Tommy Kennedy. We were hanging out at The Pit G rill one night and Charlie came in. My partner Charlie … My future partner Charlie came in. Charlie had just finished a shift working for his father in a gas station. Tommy introduced me to Charlie. It was exciting because Charlie had an apartment. I didn’t know anybody that had an apartment at all. So, he asked me to go home with them and I did. Charlie had books by Allen Ginsberg. He had some information on the Gay Liberation Front. Poetry, Ezra Pound. He had all kinds of stuff that just … I had finally felt like I had found a kindred spirit.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: I was just amazed at all the information he had. I remember leaving a note in his shoe or something when I left …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs] … when I left that morning saying let’s, you know … I’d like to see you again or whatever. As I said, Charlie had an apartment, so I started coming back to see him in his apartment, but I was also bringing all the other street kids with me. So Charlie ended up with … I mean, Charlie was older than us by six or seven years. He ended up not only getting me but the street … the gay street gang that was with me. So we kinda headquartered ourselves in his apartment there. And, eventually, became a … definitely a lover relationship.
EZELL: [12:03] Were the other street kids as … Were they as interested say the literature and…
OGLESBY: No. [laughs]
EZELL: … the reading? That was definitely … That was one of the factors …
OGLESBY: No.
EZELL: … that you guys shared because …
OGLESBY: Right.
EZELL: … you had been a big reader, I guess, as a …
OGLESBY: Yes.
EZELL: … kid. Right?
OGLESBY: Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely. They were more interested in drugs and sex and rock and roll.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: And, you know, things like that. It was … they thought it … I’m sure they thought it was a good thing, but they were not … They didn’t have any really strong interest in it.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: So, it was a bond that I shared with Charlie.
EZELL: [12:34] So … when did you … I know that you moved. When did you decide to leave and why did you decide to leave Monroe?
OGLESBY: Well, we had almost a year together, not quite a year together in Monroe. We were both working and we had different apartments. And we really longed for some type of gay liberation activity or connecting with other gay people that had an interest. Just connecting with some of the exciting things that were happening in the gay world at that time. And we felt like we had to move to New Orleans to do that. We decided New Orleans would be the place. It was, you know, nearby. We both had spent time there and liked the city. And I had family there. But just before we moved, like maybe a month before we moved to New Orleans, the UpStairs Bar was burned. I remember hearing about it and reading it about it in the paper. It was horrifying. People making comments like ‘burying the queers’ and ‘freak [?].’ But it … It didn’t discourage me from moving to New Orleans. We’re gonna … We’re gonna do this. But it did give me pause …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … shall we say. That things …. Bad things could happen to gay people. But we … But we moved.
EZELL: Do you remember how you found out about the UpStairs Lounge?
OGLESBY: It was in the … In Monroe, it was in the paper. In the newspaper. I don’t remember if it was in the TV news or not, but I definitely remember reading about it in the paper. We were … We were informed about it.
EZELL: I ask because a lot of … I mean, it’s not uncommon for locals in New Orleans to have … to know about it now, but think, I didn’t know it happened at the time. So, I think coverage was … it depended if … but it sounds like you guys were …
OGLESBY: Well we were so …
EZELL: … in-tuned in.
OGLESBY: Yeah. We were focused on New Orleans and getting ready to move there. And anything in the paper about a gay bar. At first, they were not exactly saying ‘gay’, but it came out pretty quickly that it was a gay bar. I think that … Best I can remember, we read about it in the newspaper.
EZELL: [14:57] So, that was 1973 when that happened …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … that fire, so …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: You moved to New Orleans. Can you talk about life in … because you moved from Monroe to this … this regional gay city, I assume.
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: But what … What was life in New Orleans like then …
OGLESBY: Well.
EZELL: … in ’73?
OGLESBY: [pauses] We had an extended hippie family too. Charlie … When I met Charlie, he was very close to actually biological sisters, three sister and a brother, the [Tindle?] family. And they were all hippies and they’d all lived in Austin for a while with Charlie. And they were always on the fringe of our … of our relationship. And they wanted to move to New Orleans too, so we kinda all moved as a hippie unit … [laughs]
EZELL: Huh.
OGLESBY: … down there. We got an apartment on Elysian Fields for a while, but then, quickly, Charlie and I moved out because we wanted our own space. So, originally, when we moved there, it wasn’t with gay people. It was with our hippie … straight hippie family, women mainly. But we moved to the corner of Dumaine … Royal and Dumaine. And we got a small apartment. Got jobs. And [pauses] I’m trying remember … Yeah, I was … I was … Yeah, I was old enough to get in bars. I was over eighteen by then. But, bar culture wasn’t something that really attracted me. I was curious because I had been to any gay bars before. I wanted to go, but it wasn’t … It wasn’t the main attraction. We were looking for something else, you know. We were looking for a different type of culture and more organizational events, hoping that there might be some gay organizations or … that we could get involved with. And gay liberation was our big deal. We wanted … We wanted to experience and talk about and process gay liberation. But I don’t remember much of that happening in 1973. I remember meeting people and sharing ideas and talking and … But, soon we got so caught up in working full-time jobs and just surviving but really loving being in New Orleans. And Charlie and I have always just roamed every … Every city that we’ve ever lived in we’ve just roamed around and walked and experienced all the different areas of the city and the parks and the cultural stuff. Unfortunately, for us, I don’t remember really connecting a whole lot with … with any type of organized gay events. Just .. it seemed like all it was was the bars. And it’s not knocking that. It’s just, you know, that’s all there was. And I never had been a drinker. Seems like that was the main reason people went to bars, is to drink, and that just …
EZELL: [laughs] Yeah.
OGLESBY: [laughs] that didn’t … that didn’t work for me.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: [18:06] But … So, that’s about all I can remember about that. We … I can talk about finding the book that kind of …
EZELL: Yeah, that …
OGLESBY: Yeah, okay.
EZELL: … that would be great …
OGLESBY: Alright.
EZELL: … if you could.
OGLESBY: Yeah, well … after a few … After not quite a year of living there, we decided that we wanted to be country boys. We’d had enough of the city. A couple of our straight, hippie friends had moved to the Ozarks and had already established a place up here. We’d decided we would move to the Ozarks. And a few days before we actually left New Orleans, Charlie was walking down Canal Street and in a book store window, he saw the book Out of the Closets and Into the Streets by Karla Jay and …
EZELL: Allen Young.
OGLESBY: Allen Young.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: That’s right. And he came and got me because money was really tight and we had to make decisions together about spending money on anything. And the book was brand new. It was paperback though, but it was still expensive.
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: And I remember it had a little … On the cover, it had a closet door with a keyhole cut out. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah
OGLESBY: [19:20] It was really cool. You could look through the keyhole in the closet. So, we bought the book. Man, it was just what we were looking for because it was all kinds of … it was an anthology and it was all kinds of liberation philosophies, or liberation stories including gay people going to Cuba to cut sugar cane. And we were pretty much leaning in that direction, being pretty socialist, communist radicals. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: Definitely anti-capitalist. So, reading about gay people going to Cuba even though they were not specifically supported, they did go. The Venceremos, I believe, Brigade.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: It was just full of stuff. It was just full of all the things that we were looking for. Different gay and lesbian people’s stories about coming out and organizing events. So, we just consumed that book all the up to … up to Fayetteville. And by the time we got to Fayetteville, we were, Fayetteville, Arkansas, we were determined that we were going to organize a gay liberation group of some kind.
EZELL: [20:28] Did you read the book aloud, like, as you were going? Or did you just … Would the passenger would take a turn and read some? Or …
OGLESBY: Oh, some of it was read aloud …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … you know, and Charlie would read some of it by … to himself and share it with me. I just remember it was really the focus of our trip up here.
EZELL: [That’s awesome?]
OGLESBY: It was really amazing.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: [20:46] I wish I could find the book. I don’t … hope we [?] still have it. I don’t know.
EZELL: [laughs] The same copy?
OGLESBY: Yeah. We should.
EZELL: Oh, that’s great!
OGLESBY: I hope we have’t lost it. You know, there’s …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … so much stuff, you know, here. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [20:59] So, we moved to Fayetteville in late March of 1974.
EZELL: Oh.
OGLESBY: In New Orleans, we already wearing shorts and it was hot and then we … The second day we were here it snowed.
EZELL: Oh. [laughs]
OGLESBY: And I said, “Where the hell have I moved to?” [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: I’d never been out of the South in my entire life. Never been out of Louisiana. Never saw a hill or a mountain before. And I was driving a stick shift Ford pickup truck up through the mountains and that was a big challenge. And then it snowed and I thought, “This is very interesting.” [laughs]
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: Very different from anything I’d ever experienced before. In Fayetteville, as usual, we had to get jobs as quick as we could. We settled into that routine and as I said before there was one bar on Dickson Street called George’s. And in that day, it was divided into the front was straight, the middle was bi, and the back of the bar was gay. And that is the truth. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [22:03] And you knew where to go, you know, depending on what your orientation was. And the bar owner was tolerant, up to a point. You couldn’t … You didn’t dance there or anything. But one issue for me was I moved up here before I was twenty-one. In Arkansas, you had to be twenty-one to get into a bar whereas in Louisiana you’re eighteen. And so, I think I was twenty here and I had to lie to get in to … I had a … I felt like a retro … I was being a kid again. So, once again, I didn’t make a practice of going to the only bar because number one, I had to lie to get in, number two, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. But eventually, we did meet … We went to some house parties. Or, at least, I went to some house parties. Charlie and I have a long history of not doing everything together. We never really consider ourselves a typical couple. Or … For the longest time, we were non-monogynous couple which led to different situations for both of us. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: And we also, you know, we felt real strongly that we were each complete human beings, with or without each other. And had our own interest. So, we often did activities that were … that are separate. So, I went to a party, a gay house party, and I met some good people. And I met a man named Dennis Williamson at that time and discussed with him what we were … what I was interested in and he was interested in the same thing.
EZELL: [23:44] What were you interested in? How … Can you say kind of what you were looking for?
OGLESBY: Well, I was interested in creating community. At that time, my focus was to gay men. I was interested in [pauses] having some type of community with gay men outside the bar. I was really looking for … to copy what I experienced in a kind of straight, hippie commune. I wanted to live in a household or live on land with other gay men that we shared. I didn’t really have any clear ideas of what would come out of that, but I just knew I wanted it.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And that it would be fun to have that … to be in an all gay environment.
EZELL: What was … what was Dennis … What was your first impression of Dennis?
OGLESBY: Dennis had a gray beard. He was … He was older than I. And his … For some reason, I really just focused on his gray beard. He had long earring … at least one earring in. I can’t remember. And he had long hair. And he had on, like a, some type of Indian, from India, beautiful shirt. I forget what they’re called, but they have a specific name for those type of shirts. Not like a [cafcan?], but … Anyway, he was dressed very exotically and looked … looked very interesting. And he seemed to really focus on me and really … really … I felt like he was really listening and really felt like he was a kindred spirit also. He felt genuine. He had a genuine interest in creating a gay community. So, from that night … That was our initial meeting. Introduced him to Charlie. And we decided that having gay consciousness groups would be a good thing. We read that in the Out of the Closets about gay consciousness raising.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: Once … Once again, not knowing exactly what that would entail, but I figured we’d figure it out, you know.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: [ 26:06] So, we put the word out, somehow or another, that we’re going to have gay consciousness raising groups. And we were … We were focusing on gay men at that time.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And at our house, we had about … I’d say about a dozen gay men were interested. And we talked about the first initial meeting and about a dozen guys showed up. [pauses] We all talked about our lives and what we were struggling with and what we though about being gay and we just kind of … We didn’t have a playbook to go by or anything. We just kind of had more of a discussion group. And over a short amount of time we grew closer and figured out some areas that we all had in common that would be good to … to examine.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: A few people flaked out and said we were crazy and …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … that this was scary and needed to stick to straight life or whatever, you know. [laughs] They wanna stick to the bars or whatever, but we … But we managed to continue for a while with … with this gay consciousness raising group.
EZELL: So this would have been, I guess … It’s early. So ’74 …
OGLESBY: Seventy … Late ’74.
EZELL: Late ’74.
OGLESBY: Yeah. Yeah.
EZELL: [27:21] Can you … in your … As you remember it, how you remember it, talk about what lead up to the formation of Mulberry House? The core group.
OGLESBY: Yeah. Well, you know, so many things are foggy. [clears throat] But, from that gay consciousness group, it seems like Dennis and Charlie and I made a good connection. And Dennis, best I can remember, invited us to move into his house and we could start a commune that way. So we … we … we packed up our rental, the house that we were renting. We packed it up or got rid of a lot of stuff because Dennis lived in a very small … very small place. We just moved in. [laughs] We just moved in. We quit our jobs too which was radical for us and decided just to see what the hell this is going to be … be like and …
EZELL: That’s …to quit your … yeah that’s … to …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … quit your jobs to really invest in this. It must have been a big jump, right?
OGLESBY: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we… You know, we only paid $50 a month for that rent and it was a huge … the beginnings of a huge garden. We were more interested in finding out what it’s going to be like to live in a gay commune than trying to have a career or work or anything. We wanted to create something alternative and we really truly believed that it would lead to a secure, gay, alternative life.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: But once again, we didn’t really have any script or …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … anything. We were just … It was magical, you know. We were all just … We loved each other. And it was fascinating and … Just, the magic that happens when gay men with good intent get together. It was … It was wonderful.
EZELL: [29:19] And who … and who was the … Just for the record, who are the … Who is the core group as …
OGLESBY: Well.
EZELL: … you would say?
OGLESBY: The core …
EZELL: As would say it?
OGLESBY: The core group became, I have no … You know, a lot of people came and went, but it seemed like the core group eventually became Dennis, Charlie, myself, Dimid, and, eventually, Jack who was also known as [Carlotta?]. That’s … That’s the five that remained committed to this project.
EZELL: Do you recall Jack’s last name?
OGLESBY: [Kendrick?]
EZELL: [Kendrick?]. Okay.
OGLESBY: I do.
EZELL: [29:53] So that was the five of you became the … the kind of core.
OGLESBY: We were the core. There were other people that were there and came and went for various reasons and didn’t want to continue with … with it. But that was the four … the five that stuck together. That’s the five that really travelled together. Because we made some cross-country … a cross-country trip. We … Dimid was a real motivator in establishing a business called The Lavender Thumb which was a greenhouse. He’s going to sell potted plants. [clears throat] Not pot plants but potted plants. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: To … There was a local, gay florist, surprise … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … who was pretty closeted, but he … he would be willing to buy whatever we could produce in the greenhouse. Plus, we could start our own … own vegetables and stuff for our garden. Dimid was a real leader in the horticultural part. Really, he helped feed us, you know, from our … from our garden.
EZELL: [30:58] What was … In those early days, the first days when you first moved in, can you give a sense of what daily life was like? What did you guys do … I mean, so obviously, you worked on the … That was one piece, is the garden …
OGLESBY: Yeah
EZELL: … and gardening.
OGLESBY: Well. It was crowded. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: It was a very small house. There was like maybe two bedrooms. So we slept wherever we could, actually. Nobody … nobody … even … Even from the beginning, nobody claimed a certain space or, you know, except for Dennis which was [laughs] […?].
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: But, basically, you know, there was a library that was a collection of incredible books that Dennis had collected. And artifacts from India that he had brought back from India. Beautiful carpets. A lot of Tibet … a lot of artifacts of Tibetan origin … I don’t really …don’t know what you’d call them. He also had a podium in the middle of the library with a huge Oxford Dictionary that was alway open. And I loved to go to the dictionary and look up the origins of words.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: I’d never had access to anything like that before.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: It was just fascinating to see where words came from and it was just kind of cool to have that pedestal or podium there with a big, big dictionary there. You know, we … We, basically, just did a lot of hanging out. We cooked together. Prepared meals together. Worked in the garden together. We read and studied gay liberation. Went to movies … we always traveled together. Always. It was really kind of funny because, you know. A friend [Mushroom Mark?], “My god, if you all had a car wreck or something, you’re going to wipe out the entire gay liberation movement in Fayetteville, Arkansas.” [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [33:05] Just … Just really getting to know each other and really starting to bask in the freedom of an all gay household that … Where we were honestly trying to be alternative and just trying to figure out how to be together, you know.
EZELL: [33:21] Did the magazine … What kind of a role did the magazine RFD play in shaping who you were?
OGLESBY: Well, a lot, actually. I remember the very first issue we got. We had subscribed to it because I remember receiving RFD in the house where we had the gay consciousness raising group. Nineteen seventy-four, I believe is the first issue. It came with a package of … of seeds … Pansy seeds.
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: It was a little brown package which someone had drawn on … drawn a little sketch figure of a pansy on the cover of the seed packet. In it was all these letters for gay men who was trying to connect an alternative way outside bar culture. And trying to find other gay men who wanted to live in the country and who wanted to do communal life living experiments. It was fascinating. We thought, my gosh, this is … there’s other people doing what we’re … what we’re doing a lot. Not a tremendous amount, but enough to make us feel something was going on …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … across the country. We loved the magazine. It was really, really … lifted our … It was spiritually enriching. It was funny. It was affirming that we were not the only ones doing what we were doing. We actually made contact with the folks that were putting the magazine out at that time. And that was Kindore Collective. I think they used the word ‘collective’ then. Kindore outside Iowa City.
EZELL: Oh.
OGLESBY: Yeah. Donald Engstrom and Rick Graff and others. We just were really excited about that. And, eventually, Kindore came down.
EZELL: [35:22] Did you … I’ll just to … For clarification, did you say you … Did you go to Iowa to meet them? Or did … or he … Or you met them when he came down?
OGLESBY: No …
EZELL: Or when they came down?
OGLESBY: … we … Back up now. We … Through RFD , I guess, we knew there … or somehow, I think it was RFD. We knew there was going to be a gay conference in Iowa City. Was it … I can’t remember if it was ’74 or ’75. I think it was ’75 …
EZELL: So it’s founded in ’74. That magazine came out.
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: So it may have been … I … Maybe ’75.
OGLESBY: I think it was ’75 because we had … We had pretty gelled together. We were … We were definitely living … having a… creating a space [?] together. Getting pretty comfortable with each other. Somehow, we found out about this conference. And I’m pretty sure it was through RFD because Donald and that whole Kindore Collective, K-I-N-D-O-R-E, were involved in it. So, we … we didn’t have any … we didn’t have a … we … a car that would make it to Iowa.
EZELL: Ah. Yeah. [laughs]
OGLESBY: So … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: The … There was a lesbian named Diana Rivers who had some resources and she had a … one of the first SUVs that came out. It was a Red [Chero?] or something like that. And so she offered to loan us the car. So we all piled in like we were going to do. And drove to Iowa City and met up with … We met Donald and Kindore and they invited us to stay with them. And, I guess, they had a house in town or something. Because they also had a farm that …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: [36:59] … I remember. Yeah. But we were … we actually stayed in Iowa City with them there and went to the conference. And Rita Mae Brown was there. She’d wrote the address. That was really amazing because that felt like we really had come out of the woods and met other people who were so similar to us. And it was mixed. It was lesbian … It was a lesbian and gay conference for sure. I remember they showed films, Boys in the Band , of course.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And It’s… It’s a Beautiful Thing or something like that.
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: More early ‘70s gay films.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [37:43] The conference was dazzling. It was really wonderful. It was like going on a … Ken Bunch was there. And my understanding is that Ken Bunch went on to found The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. He was very supportive of us. It was just a really eye-opening, wonderful experience, you know. I remember during Rita Mae Brown’s, I’ll just dish on Dennis a little bit, was talking and she said something and people were cheering and Dennis stood up and said, “Cock-suckers of the world unite!” And this lesbian behind him, she said, “I don’t suck cock.” [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: So it was like, a learning experience, really quick. Oh ok. This is … [laughs] Open your mind, you know. It’s not all just men here. But he was very chagrined …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … by that. It’s funny how things like that just stick out in your memory.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: But it … to me it expanded my consciousness, I thought.
EZELL: [38:38] Would you say, at that time you’re going to this conference in 1975 … I’m … Were you identifying as sissies at this point? As gay men?
OGLESBY: Well. I think at that point, we were still identifying as gay men.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: Yeah, as gay men. The sissy thing came a little later, okay.
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: Yes, I think … Pretty sure that we were considering ourselves gay men.
EZELL: [39:05] [agrees] Back in Arkansas, what was your interaction with the women’s community like at … in the early days, if any?
OGLESBY: Well. There was maybe one or two events that were mixed, but I didn’t remember making any really strong bonds at that time. I certainly was very supportive of lesbians, but there was no … I didn’t have any deep friendships or bonding experiences in the early… the early time there. Seems like there … we had organized a … some type of a … a gay dance, yeah. We had organized a gay dance out of that consciousness raising group. All it … It was all male energy that we organized a gay … a gay dance. And women came to it. And we … We’re very friendly terms. Very friendly. I think we all felt like we had a common enemy, so to speak, or faced a lot of common oppression, but no deep bonding experiences there. However, later, at Mulberry House, there was two really radical lesbians, radical dykes as they were known at the time. Had ended up sleeping in the driveway in their VW van because they couldn’t find any place else to stay in Fayetteville. They were too radical for the local lesbians. And some of the women had said we might want to go try that … that commune… the gay … the gay men’s commune. They seem to have a lot of people coming in and out. They’re a little bit more like you. Or whatever. And who knows. And for whatever reasons, Trella and Patricia, who had arrived from Oakland, California to purchase land for dykes … ‘dykes’ was the term that was used. And that was a very, very affirmative … It was … It was the term of choice. The word of choice. They were looking to buy land for women only, dykes only. They met Dennis somewhere, I don’t know how, or something. And we agreed that it was fine to park your … your double-decker VW bus in the driveway and sleep there. It’s a safe place to be, you know. It was kind of weird because I could tell they were a little bit not hundred percent trusting of being in this male environment.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [41:40] But they were interested in what we were doing. They liked what we were doing. And over time, they eventually were just absorbed into daily life of Mulberry House. But, they also had decided to make a commitment to educate us, to raise our political consciousness about feminism and really in making a connection between our own gay oppression and the oppression of people all over the world. You know, they were very sophisticated, Oakland dykes that were very revolutionary and they were going to overturn patriarchy and part of that was by living with women only and … We liked that. We liked the energy. It was dazzling and exciting and scary and challenging. They were saying things that I had never heard in … people say … never heard women say in my life. Not taking any shit from anybody. And also, just daily … daily activities would be educational, like, make your bed. You know, don’t … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: Your mother doesn’t live here. You can’t just walk off. And clean your dishes. And the division of labor, like who’s going to … who’s going to do what. I mean, just a lot of really consciousness raising from living with strong, [finessed?] lesbians.
EZELL: [43:13] Around what … Can you say what year that was when they became linked to you guys by moving with their van, with their bus?
OGLESBY: It seems like it was after the conference, if I can remember right. So it still would … it would have been late ’75 …
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: It was in ’75.
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: Yeah. Best as I can remember.
EZELL: And what kind of radical would you … How would you characterize their politics? So it was definitely … it was feminist. And it was separatist?
OGLESBY: They were … They were definitely strong feminists. They … Their energy, their money, their time was dedicated toward women.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: It’s what made the whole thing so crazy because here they were living with all these males. But they … they were dedicated to creating a land-based sanctuary for other lesbian women. But they also were interested in other struggles. They wanted to support working-class people. They were extremely supportive of Charlie and I as working-class, gay men. And they … They were anti-racist, anti-imperialist. They were environmentalist. They took on the battle … helped take on the battle of the spraying of the 2,4,5-T herbicide poison from helicopters onto the hardwoods in the Ozarks so that … what it would do, it would speed up the hardwood until they just burst. It speed up the growth until they just burst. And they would clearcut it and plant pine because pine could be harvested pretty quickly. But it was getting into wells. Women were having miscarriages. So, they were really … They loved the Earth. They loved Mother Earth and they were going to help protect it. They would say … One of their posters was, “The Earth is your sister and she’s in enemy hands.” [laughs] I remember that. But they seemed to have some … type of really strong curiosity and interest in us. We were not typical, I guess, of what they were used to. By that time, we were experimenting with wearing skirts and lots of typically what might be considered feminine or female attire. And just because we were just trying push they boundaries. They thought it was all great. So …
EZELL: [45:44] Was that at home? Or out in …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … public? Or …
OGLESBY: At home. [laughs]
EZELL: Okay. [laughs]
OGLESBY: There was a few occasions …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … during … there was a … a co-op meeting that we all went … went to in … wearing skirts at the local food co-op. But [laughs]
EZELL: Wow.
OGLESBY: [46:00] But, yeah. So. The women were really influential on my politics, on my … raising my consciousness. I think things really took a change … took a turn in a different direction once Patricia and Trella moved in and brought their really fierce politics with them. Our more … we were … our … Kind of our hippie, laid-back, dope smoking, not too hard-working lifestyle changed a lot. It became much more strident and self-conscious. But, speaking for myself, I had welcomed it. At the time, I was getting an amazing education. Never thought about things the way they thought about them before. And they certainly put me in touch with my class oppression.
EZELL: Is this when you would call … start calling yourself a sissy collective?
OGLESBY: Yes, right … and they … they talked some … they never were great goddess worshippers, but they did some. They were kind of too political to be too ‘goddessy,’ but … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: They thought there was a … they believed that there was a … a matriarchal society that was overthrown by the patriarchy and they fully believed that. And brought books into our circle to read about that. The Ascent … The Ascent of Woman was one. The A s cent of Woman was the name of that [bully?]. And there was another book by a Polish archaeologist … I can’t think of her name.
EZELL: Gimbutas …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … or something like that. I don’t know how to pronounce
OGLESBY: Yeah .
EZELL: … it. Yeah.
OGLESBY: [47:49] So we started thinking a lot of our oppression was connected to women’s oppression because something about being queer males, faggots, whatever, reminded straight men that we were soft or fit to … too woman like and they hated it. We felt like we connected that there was a lot of women … woman hatred in the world and some of that was directed at us because we were … could be perceived to be similar to women because of how we were. We were not real men in the dominant society’s eyes. So, we wanted to express our solidarity with not being real men. [laughs] And also, during that time, all across the country, there was a lot of gay men that were liberating words that had been hurtful like ‘faggot,’ ‘sissy,’ ‘queer.’ We decided that we would turn those around and use them as words of endearment, empower them, and be proud of that. And each of us had memories of being called a ‘sissy’ in school or whatever. So, yeah. We were going to … We were the sissies. [laughs] The fighting sissies. [laughs]
EZELL: You got … so that … that happened so you … you kind of had that synergy, it sounds like, with the … with Trella and Patricia …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: [49:20] … and kind of radicalized … or your focus shifted to this. So, you went to an Oregon conference not long after this period. Is that correct?
OGLESBY: Right. They … yeah. Patricia and Trella were definitely living at Mulberry House and they were recruiting women to … They had secured Amazon Land or Dyke Land, whatever you want to call it. It was called Yellowhammer was the name of it. But it was for women only. They had secured the land and they were recruiting and inviting other dykes to come to be a part of this. The first stop was Mulberry House and these women would drive up and go what the fuck. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: Who are these men.
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: And Patricia and Trella would tell … They’re not men. They’re not … [laughs] It’s ok. But we were like the … a way station on the … on the railroad out to the Yellowhammer Farm. I forgot what the question was.
EZELL: Oh …
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: … yeah, no problem. And so that was going on, like, around this time and …
OGLESBY: [50:22] Oh, Oregon. Yeah.
EZELL: … when you guys went to a …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … another conference …
OGLESBY: Yeah, we …
EZELL: In ’76?
OGLESBY: Seventy-six.
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: Yeah. Labor Day ’76. Yeah. By then, things were going pretty lickety-split. The women had their land. Lots of women were coming through. We had bought forty acres of land and were going to try to turn it into a [pauses] sissy sanctuary … gay male sanctuary. Still didn’t really use the word ‘Radical Faerie’ yet. By then, we had subscribed to Gay Sunshine . We subscribed to RFD . A lot of different magazines that were coming out … things were really heating up all over the country with … in the gay male community that was evolving into a different identity. We had gotten a subscription to Magnus Magazine out of San Fransisco. It was a socialist-leaning, pretty radical magazine. And Tom Kennedy was one of the editors. And I had written him and told him how much I appreciated his magazine. And he wrote back and said that we might be interested in this conference that’s going on and here’s two contacts. So … But it was in Wolf Creek, Oregon which was a world away from Arkansas. [laughs] But we … we sent off our … we asked for registrations and we registered for that conference. It was called The Faggots and Class Struggle Conference . We thought that’s right up our alley. This is … This is what we’re doing now. We, once again, did not have any transportation that would make it to … so the lesbians step in and give us this … let us borrow this mail … a truck that was used for mail delivery with the steering wheel on the opposite side of what American’s are used to. We loaded it up with tents. And Dimid, Dennis, Jack, Charlie, and I all got in this little mail truck and took off for Wolf Creek, Oregon. [laughs] The mail truck had … Every time you turned the ignition off, you had to climb under it and start it with a screw driver. It was one of those things you did …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [52:56] … you know. That’s what you had. That’s the transportation you had. And it was a fabulous trip. We would stop at parks and camp out. It was wonderful traveling with a group of … of sissy gay men. It was just really great. Dennis would crochet a lot. And if we stopped at a restaurant, and if we looked … We looked so freaky that often they wouldn’t come and take our orders, but Dennis would pull out his crochet and it would just freak everybody out. The owners … the … the … could not handle a man crocheting, so the would, boom, they would give us the service or whatever we needed just to get us out of there. Because … We found out that … that crocheting … a man crocheting can be an act of revolution … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … a revolutionary act because it will get you service and get you out of that billing. So we made it. We drove all the way to Wolf Creek. And at that time, my understanding was that there was a man named George Jalbert, his chosen name was Chenille, and I could be wrong about this, but he was … he had the land that was called Wolf Creek. I’m sure there were other people in-and-out and there may have been somebody else living there, but my memory was that it was his property and he was going to host the conference. And he had … he was a subscriber to RFD too and was part of that RFD [rural?] community. First thing I did was I was … I was driving and I pulled in and I parked on top of their wheat that they had just harvested. I couldn’t … I didn’t know it was wheat that was laying there that they had cut down all this wheat and we was not supposed to park there, so … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [54:23] … we parked … I parked, anyway, that. And then there was some issue with registration. I don’t quite remember what was going on with that. We couldn’t just go right in. We had to be vetted for some reason even though I … I know for sure that we had registered, but I don’t know if we all didn’t … Somebody may not have registered [?] or we got there later than we said. It was high security for this conference because it was a very radical topic and there’s a lot of … a lot of FBI pressure on different groups back then. That was … You just had to be careful. You had to be conscious of security at all times because people got busted for all kinds of shit. We … this … The steering committee had to go into the barn [laughs] and discuss something about our arrival and I can not remember what it was. But anyway, they asked for snacks and we had brought a tub of marijuana brownies across country with us. I can’t believe we did that. Unconsciously, we offered the marijuana brownies and the steering committee didn’t come out the barn for hours. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [laughs] Hours and hours. And then they were angry that they had eaten marijuana brownies which I really but truly believe it was just an oversight. But, they didn’t … It did not endear us to the steering committee, at all. But finally, we got in. There was incredible gay men from all over, mostly the West Coast. There was an incredible group of gay men from Moscow, Idaho. I wish I would have stayed in touch with them. They were just wonderful. And they were living … trying to create a communal living situation in Moscow, Idaho. And everybody would alway laugh, yeah we’re the communists from Moscow. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [56:25] Oh, can we stop a minute?
EZELL: Sure. [break in tape]
EZELL: [56:33] Okay, we’re back. We had a squirrel try and attack some of the tomatoes, so we needed to take a break to try and protect those. But, we’re back. And …
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: … you were … you were talking about the … [laughs] the kind of strange situation where you had a gay collective from Moscow, Idaho who could say that we’re like a … a what you said, a revolutionary socialist …
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: … group.
OGLESBY: From Moscow, Idaho.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: I’ll never forget them.
EZELL: [56:55] So you … you … so … clearly, you got into the conference, so you were ultimately …
OGLESBY: Yeah …
EZELL: … admitted after some kind of screening.
OGLESBY: Right. I still not … I’m still can’t remember what that was about. There was some kind of problem with our registration. Anyway, there was a barn and a barn yard. It was amazing to me to hear Marxist theory being quoted in the middle of a chicken… with chickens all around and roosters crowing and … [laughs] It was a very rural environment. There was people from all, like I said, mostly West Coast except for the Idaho folks and us. Nobody could believe that we came from Arkansas. It was like we might as well had been from Mars, you know.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [57:39] Arkansas. You’ve got to be kidding me. There was people that went on to become well known like the poet Aaron Shurin. [Blackberry?], the musician, was there. I’m sure there’s other people that went on to have careers in gay arts and … or whatever. [pauses] It was an amazing time because not only was we talking about a subject that was close to my heart and, far as I know, nobody else in the gay men’s community was even attempting to talk about class struggle. It was not only that but it was a coming together of, I have to say fairy-type … fairy-type consciousness. I mean, there was at some point during the gathering, some of the gay men felt like it was too sexually charged and that the sexual energy needed to be evened out. Or it was too much like a bar on Castro … or in San Francisco, Polk Street, whatever, and that they needed to do something to elevate this energy to a higher level or something. And so they wanted to do a full Moon ritual. So, there was a big tent set up on a hill. And there was a beautiful full Moon. A lot of the attendees gathered and made a circle and people talked about sexuality and being objectified or not being desirable and speaking from the heart. To me, it was the very first heart circle I’d ever experienced. Some people even used the term ‘fairy.’ We had not been using that term at Mulberry House. But we were hearing it about ‘fairy consciousness’ and I’m not really sure where that was coming from. Maybe from the San Francisco groups or something, but … And there was a flute and [Blackberry?] sang a beautiful song and then it became an orgy-type situation or … To just discharge this heavy sexual energy. And a lot of … Some of the attendees were blaming the STIFS, the straight-identified faggots as they called them, who were charging this conference with their objectification of … with … the objectified sexuality that you would find in a bar at that time or something. And they didn’t want to have it. But they … It was so wonderful that they used a magical, to me, a very magical ritual way of discharging this energy. So, to me, that was … I feel like that was the first fairy gathering. The Marxists would turn over in their graves … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … if they thought that because they really had their intent. But, I really feel like it evolved into a fairy gathering because their was a real heart-centric connection between the attendees. We were doing ritual. We were talking about loving and protecting the Earth. And a lot of the things that are pretty standard in fairy fare right now.
EZELL: [01:01:08] What were the key components of the ritual? What did the ritual look like? Was it …
OGLESBY: Well, best I can remember is that we were inside a tent or some type of a structure like a … maybe a teepee-type structure. Maybe it was a teepee. And we were sitting in a circle. There was a talisman that was passed around. And each person spoke from the heart about how they felt about the sexual energy at the conference. And … There like I said. And [Blackberry?] was … sang a beautiful song and there was some flute playing. Just, speaking from the heart and the beautiful music and then this … the very gentle sexuality between the people who wanted to participate in it. It’s best I can remember. Anyway, I felt like it was what I would consider a very fairy event …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … you know. Yeah.
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: So.
EZELL: [01:02:12] So … So that sounds like a really kind of a moment of union. Were there … Were there difficulties or challenges with the conference itself?
OGLESBY: Yeah. [laughs]
EZELL: Can you tell us a couple of …?
OGLESBY: Well …
EZELL: … those? Or …
OGLESBY: Yeah I think …
EZELL: … the main ones?
OGLESBY: … that the working … Not everybody there was working-class, of course. It was a conference to do with class struggle, but the majority of the people there were of middle class or upper class … In fact, there was a guy there that owned a factory. But he was there, trying to deal with, you know …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: And I think … The first thing to happen to me was they made an … the steering committee made an announcement that we need artists who can make signs for … directional signs and other signs for the conference here and we need somebody to dig a shitter. So, if you’re not an artist, you go dig a shitter. And I said now wait a minute. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: [disagrees] Our fist lesson right here. I’m not digging a shitter just because I can’t … I’m not an artist. And they said, oh, wow, you’re right. That does seem kind of unfair. So, I got the job of making signs and I made horrible, ugly signs. It … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [01:03:19] It should have been an artist that made the signs, but … [laughs] And I’m sure some artist dug the shitter, but … [laughs] It seemed fair at the time. [laughs] And another criticism was everybody is gonna … there was different types of caucuses. And so the working class was allotted a certain amount of time to caucus, but on top of that caucus we were also delegated childcare, there was a few children there, and gate duty. And we did it without thinking and then during the middle of our caucus we realized, oh, wait a minute. We don’t need to have these extra duties. This whole conference is supposed to be about class struggle. We need this space and time to meet each other and talk to each other and experience being working-class people … working-class gay men together. And not take care of these children and also watch … be sentries at the gate, you know.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [01:04:15] So that was poor planning. [laughs] But, in general, I think … I mean, those things were worked out. It was a learning experience, you could say. That next time we have our caucus space, we’re not going to do those things.
EZELL: Right, right.
OGLESBY: We need … We need our time together. It seemed to be … Once again, I hate to keep using the word ‘STIF,’ but it seems like the STIFS were not doing their share of dishwashing, childcare, any of the daily needs that need … had to be done. It seem like it all fell on the more feminized gay men. The sissies. It became expected that they would do the cooking, the cleaning. It became like a mimicking … I … the worst of the heterosexual roles …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … of back then. Gender roles or whatever. And the sissies caucused together and said no, we’re not doing this anymore. [laughs] They caucused and I remember, I didn’t go to that caucus, but they came out of the woods singing about being sissies and that we’re strong from Mother Earth and we’re not going to take this shit anymore from the STIFS. It was pretty powerful when they came marching back in and said this is what we feel. Every … You guys are going to have to start taking your share of the work. Don’t expect the more feminized gay men here to do everything for you. So that was like a little learning experience. But, in general, it was amazing. I mean, amazing to be talking about that subject, amazing to be meeting all these people, amazing to experience that ritual. Just a real coming together. It was very heart-opening and …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … wonderful.
EZELL: [01:06:10] And I think … and you … and you wrote an article for RFD or a kind of a response for …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … the whole conference, right?
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: Were … You mentioned a number of those things. How did that come about? The opportunity to do that.
OGLESBY: Well, actually, Chenille was heavily involved in putting out RFD at that time. It had moved to Oregon I believe.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: I may have my time mixed up. But it had moved to Wolf Creek and Chenille had called me and asked me would I write an article from a working-class perspective on the conference. And, you know, if I had to write it today, I think I wouldn’t … I would have a probably different perspective, but a lot of what I said was true. But I don’t know. Some of it was … [pauses] I don’t know. Some of it wasn’t … Maybe it was just real personal, somehow.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: I think my perspective wasn’t … could’ve been grander. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [01:07:04] But … but. Yeah. I mean, because one of the issues was a lot of the Marxist theory was so heavy, you know. And it was hard for me to … I mean, I’m not a stupid person, but at that point in time, I had no … I had … I didn’t have a high school education. And I was not getting what they were saying. And it seemed like they should have made it more accessible instead of all this hardcore theory. So you just kind of sit there and go …
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … okay. [laughs] Nod your head, you know. But it wasn’t getting across to me. I could have been more … The group could have been more involved or something. It was just kind of like coming from [pauses] up [?] down, you know.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: Our position … our power position to the … Whatever. I just … I didn’t really get much out of that, so …
EZELL: [01:07:59] So when you guys … when … when Mulberry House, the five of you, returned back, did that … did that experience of that conference change your vibe in any way or your way of living or your philosophies or politics from what it had been before you went? Or, did they remain mostly the same?
OGLESBY: I think it ratcheted up a little bit in the class struggle. I think that [pauses] it felt even more important that we … that we deal with what was perceived as class oppression inside the collective. Oh, but we had changed … By then, we had changed from ‘commune’ to ‘collective.’ We started using the term ‘collective’ because it was more of a political concept than a commune. Yeah, it seemed like there was less tolerance for any isms. Things just got a little harsher it seems like to me, best I can remember.
EZELL: If you don’t mind, because I think that it’s … that’s … do you mind to share some of like difficulties or the … the challenges around that?
OGLESBY: [pauses] Well. Yeah, it most … Most of the guy I was living with had grown up with personal space. They either had their own bedroom, you know. And I … Our access to security like your next meal is guaranteed and … I had grown up sharing a bed … a room with four siblings. And there was no private space hardly at all. And just that assumption that you could take all this space, I’m not being very clear here I know, but …
EZELL: [disagree]
OGLESBY: … taking a lot of space when you got … When your living with so many people and you just assume you can have this entire room to yourself. It seemed really unfair. And believe me, it didn’t take much to trigger my class anger by then. I was hot to trot. [laughs]
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And some of the things were just real and some thing were just because I was ready to go at it. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [01:10:16] I was emboldened with my new class consciousness and I was … every … there was no gaging … everything was on the … a ten … on the level of … it was … So, I think taking up a lot of space like Dennis had an entire room to himself, so he could do his craft work. That became a big issue because rest of us were crammed into sharing a … sleeping where we could in really small areas and no personal space whatsoever. And he had this entire room. And we had deal with that and it was not always done with love.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: It was … The anger was always there. It was the righteous anger. [laughs]
EZELL: [agrees] Yeah.
OGLESBY: Righteous anger. It was there. I’m trying to talk to you about this with … being in a retrospective, what I would have done differently, so it’s … It’s hard just to tell you what exactly happened when I was there because …
EZELL: Right.
OGLESBY: … a lot of it I regret.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [01:11:21] The … the harshness. But yes, it would … it would … Space was a big issue. Just, a lot of assumption that people have who’ve grown up with privilege, with middle-class privilege. Not knowing about what it’s like to have to work shit jobs and make a shit wage and have no experience of that whatsoever. Mom and dad would bail them out if they got in trouble. For Charlie and I … Well, I’ll speak for myself, it was the first time I didn’t have to work at a job. It was amazing. I always had to work since I was fourteen-years-old. And living at Mulberry House was the first time that I [pauses] felt like I didn’t really have to go out and get a job because there was enough of us there to be okay. We certainly didn’t have any extra spending money, but we were fine. And we had Dennis’ income from doing the indexes which … I guess, I did work, but it was not … I didn’t go out for and have a boss over me or something. It was a collective effort to do the textbook indexes. And we brought in income and all the income was shared. But. For some people, that was all very cute or kind of a … a new, kind of cool experience. And for me, it was like … I was used to things being [pauses] tight and that’s the way it always had been. This was not just a fad for me or something. It’s not something I could just walk out of at any point and have a completely different life. This was it for me. I had no back-up, no exit. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: So. Just, I … It’s kind of hard to put in words, but just a lot of … a way of walking through the world and a lot of assumptions that were different. But looking back, I think there was more … I wish I’d realized that we had more in common than we had in difference. Because the differences became so exploited and so large that they overcame all the things that we had in common.
EZELL: [01:13:39] Was this around the time … were … in my … were … You also were working with the … the … the food … the Ozark Food Co-op, is that correct …
OGLESBY: [laughs]
EZELL: … at this time?
OGLESBY: Yeah, you can’t really call that a job, but yeah. Yeah. [laughs]
EZELL: Okay. [laughs] And that thing … And what were things like at the … at the food co-op? And this is [thus?] going on at the same time right?
OGLESBY: Yeah. It’s true. You know, we wanted to eat good food. We wanted to have good natural food if we could get it. And there was a hippie food co-op in town. All the board, all the … all the sales people, or the … or the clerks, whatever, everybody was white, everybody was straight. And it was … there was no … there was no … It’s hard to be different and be there. If … Whether you’re of color or queer or whatever, it was really hard to be in that environment because it was all geared … Everything is geared for straight, white male, basically. Or couples, heterosexual couples. And we wanted to bring our politics into a co-op and said we should open this store up to people of color. There’s no people of color that shop there at all, period. The … It seemed like the prices were higher. It was easier to go down to the Piggly Wiggly or something, you know, and to shop. And from a class perspective, I saw that. But Jesus. I mean, this jar of peanut butter is three times what Piggly Wiggly has it for. [laughs]
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: [01:15:14] We just felt irritated that it was exclusive. And … And some of the hippie folks were saying yeah, we’re a specialty store. We’re not … we’re not … We’re not for everybody. And we said well, you need to be because you’re trying to … You can provide good healthy food and more than people like you should have access to this and probably would like to have access to it. So, we got on the board and we also got jobs as clerks there or whatever. But, like there’d be one position for a clerk, and I’m sure there’s a better word for it than clerk, but anyway. So we all … All five of us … five of us would try to fill in for that one person. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: So they … the board … [laughs] The board never knew who was gonna show up for that job. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: We thought that was perfectly fine. [laughs]
EZELL: Yeah. [laughs]
OGLESBY: It’s Dimid day today or it’s Dennis’ day. And well, no we hired Mike why are … We just tried to bring in some really, some pretty radical politics around food. We put out a newspaper, it’s called Co-optation News , showing where a lot of the food was coming from and what was wrong with where we sourcing it from and oh, they just got furious, furious at us. There was the Co-op Wars, is what we call them. There was … On the bulletin board, there was death threats pinned to it. People … Everybody was saying you’re … You’re doing the wrong and you’re Nazis. [laughs] And, honestly, I think our intent was just to break open the store for other people to have access to it instead of the clique, the clique, of basically straight, white, hippie folks. We met with a big push back from that. Big push back. And it … got really, really tense. And this was happening in other co-ops around the country too. Milwaukee was having a huge battle about who’s going to have access to the store. We tried to get a … A lot of it seems liberal or something now, but we tried to get people of color hired. And we tried to sell some Vienna sausage in there and that was like horror. We … But they sold out. [laughs] We sold out of the sausage. [laughs] We’re trying to make it a place that people could use not just these little, small, [?] good people, but … Anyway, I think we just got beat down. Eventually, we just backed out of it … just quit. We all just left it because it was too … too intense, too hurtful, and not productive anymore at all. Just gave it up. I didn’t shop … I didn’t shop at the co-op for a decade …
EZELL: Yeah.
OGLESBY: … after that.
EZELL: [01:18:07] Yeah. So around … So it … You know, these … After you come back, that’s ’76 you’re coming back from the Faggots and Class … Struggle Conference
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … Struggle Conference and you’re also dealing with these kind of struggles of kind of the class divisions in the house and you also have this Ozark Food Co-op situation’s going on. And, I guess, there are all these strains. Can you describe kind of how all of this kind of fed into the decision to disband or the … the disbanding of Mulberry House?
OGLESBY: Well, there certainly was a lot of strain. I mean, you know, I don’t remember exactly when Patty Hearst was on the run, but the rumors that she was hiding out in gay and lesbian communities and, you know … We just felt like we were being watched by the FBI and that added a strong level of tension to the house, fighting with each other. But I think, if I can remember correctly, that at one point Charlie and I just decided we wanted out. We didn’t want to deal with this anymore and went to San Fransisco and lived for a while in San Fransisco, but … a few months. But Dennis kept writing us letters saying you need to come back, we can fix this or we can work it out, you need to come back. So we did. We came … We wanted to come back. We loved San Fransisco, but it was … We wanted to be back in the Ozarks. We came back and tried again and [pauses] I can’t remember exactly how it all started crumbling, but it … It just got more and more intense. I think I had said, earlier, I would compare it to the Cultural Revolution in China. That it was strident. It was intolerant. Change now or you’re forever banished or you’re the enemy or whatever. It got to be an unloving, uncharitable place. And I think we … I’ll speak for myself, I forgot what our intent was. I forgot that these were my friends. These were men that I really was trying to make a life with and the politics of it became more important. And then I think Dennis, at some point, felt so bullied or felt so picked on about having all the space and not willing to … or unable to cook. [laughs] And, you know, just different issues that he just lost it. Dennis had left us a suicide note. We got up … He had made his bed up. By then … By then, he had given up his room, the big room, and was having to sleep in one of the bunk beds like the rest of us. […?] [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: [01:21:09] But he had made a … With pillows, he’d made a shape of a body. So, for a long time, we thought he was there, sleeping until finally somebody checked. And it was just pillows and we found the note that he was going to take rat poison. And, oh my god, we were sobbing and crying and looking under every rock and bush trying to find him. And it was a horrible … horrible that he felt that he needed to do that and horrible for us to try to think at any minute we were going to find his body somewhere and that things had gotten to that point. That was kind of the beginning, definitely the beginning of the end. When someone in our collective had to … felt like they had to do that to get out. Of course, he didn’t kill himself. He hitchhiked to New Orleans because he wanted to see the King Tut exhibit. [laughs] Bless his heart. [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: But we didn’t know for over a week or two that he was okay. Because he didn’t … He didn’t let us know that he was okay for quite a while. But that was shocking. So I think … [pauses] I’m getting confused because at some point [pauses] people moved out and had a whole different house on Watson Street and I’m trying to remember how that happened or when … at what time period that happened. Was that before he left a suicide note? Must have been because he was living at Mulberry House. Somehow or another, Dimid and some others … the middle class … The middle class gay men had to move out and get their own place. That was the first separation, the real separation. Charlie and I stayed at Mulberry House for a while. And then we decided we would move out and the land dykes took over the house. They needed a place, so we just let them have it. But. Yeah. We ended up going back to San Fransisco again after that.
EZELL: After … After Dennis went to New Orleans …
OGLESBY: Yes.
EZELL: … or … Okay.
OGLESBY: [01:23:15] Yeah. Yeah, I think it just … It just got so strident and so unpleasant …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … and so confrontational and it was not productive. It was just endless fighting about stuff. And really, if it … if it had been a political struggle and there was a result that was worthwhile, yeah I would feel good about it, but I don’t feel good about it. I feel like if I could have a redo … [laughs]
EZELL: [laughs]
OGLESBY: … I certainly would have redone a lot of things because there was … That’s not real and I understand that. I think when oppressed people get in touch with their oppression and get angry, it’s just kind of a … It’s what happens.
EZELL: So … So …
OGLESBY: A lot of it was unprincipled.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: Unprincipled struggle. Or not even struggle, argument, was unprincipled. That’s an important word to me.
EZELL: Unprincipled?
OGLESBY: Yeah. To be principled in what you’re doing is very important.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: But a lot of that was unprincipled. It was just the kitchen sink, you know.
EZELL: [01:24:20] Right, right. So when you guys came … When did you come back from San Fransisco? Around about.
OGLESBY: Um … [pauses]
EZELL: It’s hard to say. I mean …
OGLESBY: Let’s see. Maybe we came back around ’78.
EZELL: Okay, so …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … you guys were down there for going on a year?
OGLESBY: A year. Yeah.
EZELL: Okay …
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: … a year.
OGLESBY: Yeah.
EZELL: [01:24:42] And then when you came back … [pauses] I guess, at that time, there was a … there was a new collective at that time in … already in New Orleans? Or …
OGLESBY: Yeah, they … I believe they had left and had formed LaSIS.
EZELL: Okay.
OGLESBY: Louisiana Sissies in Struggle. Yeah.
EZELL: Did you … Was there a kind of relationship between the two houses and collectives at that point?
OGLESBY: Not really. I think there was a lot of hard feelings.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: We would get literature from LaSIS. So they would … did keep us informed to some of the things they were doing which I thought were truly wonderful. They were supporting striking teachers and they … I think they had taken a lot of the political message from Mulberry House to New Orleans.
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: And still dealing with their own sexism and class issues and race. As far as I know, it was Dennis and Dimid and Aurora and Bob, Stacey Brotherlover, Bob … Robert Reich, were down there. Charlie and I ended up becoming more and more of a couple which we were not happy about. I mean, we’re happy to be together, but we didn’t want to be …
EZELL: [agrees]
OGLESBY: … this couple. We wanted to be in a … in a more collective living situation, but it just happened that we ended up being together. But we did … We did go down to see them. Trella and myself and Charlie went down to see LaSis. At the time, Dennis was creating that fairy [shawl?], I remember him working on it. But it was [pauses] cool. The relations were cool. I think, I’m not speaking for Dimid, but I think he felt like we kicked him out of the revolution. [laughs] But, we didn’t maintain many ties after that and was shocked when we heard that Dennis had died. Really, really shocked. [pauses] I saw Bob/Stacey once or twice.
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[1:26:48]
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