the trocadaro transfer « elmtelligence

Home

the trocadaro transfer

Eartha kitt Dies 1/17/1927-12/25/2008

by cedric on Dec.25, 2008, under Eartha Kitt, the trocadaro transfer

I am deeply saddened to report that Earth Kitt has passed away. I met Earth Kitt in 1983 or maybe 1984 when she was promoting her record Where is my man. She performed at Trocadaro Transfer in San Francisco. It was a great night.
There was a funny incident, I was dancing right in front of the stage. I had the record and I knew it backwards and forwards. She was looking at me when the music track started and when she started to sing I shook my head and said no when she almost started to sing too soon. She laughed and then I gave her the cue to sing. She grabbed me and and I grabbed my friend Tyrone and drug him on stage with her. It was too much fun but I was so totally embarrassed about being drug on stage. She was very nice and we chatted after she performed. She even hung out and danced with us later. She thanked me for saving her when I walked her out to her awaiting white limo. It was a great night.
You can read more about her career at IMDB . She was the best Catwoman, sorry Julie Newmar but it is the truth. She had that role down like she was meant to be Catwoman.

This is Elmysterio and I’m out

No tags Comments Off more...

Memories of the Castro part one

by cedric on Oct.31, 2008, under Dianne Fienstine, George Moscone, Harvy Milk, endup, the castro, the trocadaro transfer

30 years ago next month on the 27th will be the thirtieth anniversary of one of the darkest days in the history of San Francisco’s gay community. It was a tragic time when a strange darkness hung over the city. To me being a young man of 19 years who was coming to terms with who he was it was a true stunner.

This was my first Halloween in San Francisco as an adult. I had not been there for Halloween since I was a small child. So when my friend Lori suggested we go I said sure. The only problem was she was having car problems and I had a new car and I could not yet drive a stick shift all that well and I was not going to even attempt to drive it to the city with all of those hills.

So Lori said she could drive a stick so she drove my car and I got to go for a ride. A ride that changed my life.

It was really quite amazing we went too all of the neighborhoods, Polk Street the Haight Ashbury the Tenderloin and the last stop on our Halloween tour was the Castro. Now what is funny is I kept getting this feeling that I had been there before. I did not realize that the Safeway on Market Street was the one we used to shop at when I was a small child. We used to live in the upper Haight Ashbury off of 17Th Street. We moved when I was 5 years old to the east bay just three short years before The Summer of Love .

The city was so full of life and laughter that night only to be stripped away a few short weeks later by the senseless act of bigoted man. I remember the news reports and the announcement that Diane Fienstien made to the city and the world. I remember that she was grief stricken and unsteady on her feet.

I met Senator Dianne Fienstien the summer I was 15. That summer held allot of memories most good and some bad. What I do recall about her was that she was very nice. She spoke at a event that one of my mothers groups was holding. Who would have thought that 4 years later she would be the Mayer of San Francisco after the Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk were assassinated.

I remember the candlelight marches and the rallies and the trial of Dan white. I remember the riots after the verdict was read. I remember the disbelief that draped across the city. The burning police cars, the anger and the shock and the just plain sadness by so many. Harvey Milk was a legend in his own time and he is anchored in the history of San Francisco.

So much so that there have been several documentaries about him and now a feature film starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. This movie has a all star cast and it had its premier at the Castro Theater just the other night. There is even a bar named after Harvey Milk in the Castro.

Harvey’s was formally the Elephant Walk and it was raided by the police after the white night riots. I never met Harvey Milk but I met allot of people who knew him. They were the leaders of the neighborhood when I started to hang out there. The Castro had a true sense of family and you felt safe there. You could truly be yourself.

San Francisco was really different back then when I was 5, the Castro was not the Castro district it was the Eureka Valley and Noe Valley but that all seemed to change in the sixties and the early seventies. The neighborhood changed when all of the original families started to move out and there were all of these old Victorian homes left to be subdivided into flats and rented out. Then came the “gays” to make a once almost derelict neighborhood something fabulous. The rents were cheep and the places were big and you could have several roommates to split the cost.

I was going to dance clubs Like the Trocadero Transfer and Studio West and the Endup and the I-beam because I loved to dance. These clubs just happened to be predominantly gay but it did not matter to me or my friends. And anyway all of the best places to dance were in the city back then. I was not out of the closet just yet . But I made friends at the clubs and we all would do things together. One of them was the Castro Street Fair in 1979 it was the year after Harvey Milk was assassinated and the White Night Riots and it was a surreal event. We went to a friends place who was having a party. He lived in the middle of the block above a store on Castro Street. I was a great vantage point to watch all of the goings on 3 floors below on the street.

It was amazing to see all of the out and proud gay people celebrating the day. There were speeches and music and hot men. This was the height of the “Castro Clone look” and they were out in force. It looked like a lumber jack convention. There were hot guys in short shorts which were in back then and drag queens and it was just to much to take in. We ventured out into the fray and went bar hopping and had a great time. I was still to young to drink legally but we got into the bars anyway. I would be old enough in a month.

This was the beginning of a love affair with a neighborhood and its people.

to be continued.

This is Elmysterio and I’m out

No tags Comments Off more...

Fag Fridays is moving!

by cedric on Oct.12, 2007, under Ron pearson, clubs, coming out, endup, the trocadaro transfer

Well it looks like another San Francisco Institution is moving to a new location. Fag Fridays is moving from the legendary Endup at 401 6th street @ Harrison in San Francisco to a new location @2935 16th Street(Between Mission and South Van Ness),San Francisco, Ca.

This Friday October 12th that is the last day there and they will be moving to new digs.

I can tell you this that I remember the Endup fondly from the many years that I went there. I can remember the first time that I went there. It was one of the first bars that I went to when I finally admitted that I was gay. I will tell you this I was terrified and I hid in the back and watched what was going on. I was 21 and really had no clue as to what to expect. But the music helped me overcome my fears and I hit the dance floor. Just like the Trocadaro Transfer I met some lifelong friends who share so many of the same memories. There are so many interesting stories that I could tell you all about the Endup.

This is the same club where Ron Pearson was discovered after a jockstrap dance contest where I was a judge. And if you wanted to know Ron won the contest that night. I being a judge was given free drinks for the night and needless to say I took full advantage of them.

This is a flyer for they’re

Grand opening at their

new location

That was also the same night when I almost started my own porn career. Needless I was stopped by a good friend from going that route. I was so drunk that night that a friend drug me out of the club and we chilled in his car till we sobered up enough to go back in the club. take a wild guess where we went after the endup closed, if you said the Trocadaro you would be correct. and wer were back at the Endup sunday moring for “Sunrise Church Services” yes I was a wild child in my youth and I still can be a bit wild to this day. Just a little more responsible thats all.

Here is a flyer for they’re next event

afer the opening of theyr’re new location.

Maybe in another post I will go into more Endup stories. So if you are in San Francisco tonight you might want to pop by for a cocktail and a twirl. It should be a good time and I know the music will be hot.

This is Elmysterio and I’m out

No tags Comments Off more...

30th Anniversary party for the Trocadaro Transfer.

by cedric on Oct.09, 2007, under Gay Pride, Ron pearson, San Francisco, remember the party, sprint, the trocadaro transfer

The year was 1977 and being gay at that time was just not that cool and I was not even out of the closet yet. But things were changing fast and San Francisco had their first openly gay supervisor. It was also the year that Dan White shot and killed the Mayor, George Moscone and the first gay supervisor, Harvey Milk.

So picture this a scared 18 year-old young man goes to a gay dance club for the first time with 4 of his straight friends. We had just watched “Saturday Night Fever” and disco was the big thing. We heard about this club from a friend from High school. He said it was really fun and the crowd there was outrageous. It was a new club and it was so exclusive you had to be a member or you had to know someone to get in. Our friend told us all about it and said he could get us in if we wanted to go. So we decided to go. This club was in the South of Market area of San Francisco in the warehouse district and there was not much near it but a bunch of Leather bars. The thought of them scared me at the time they are not my thing but I ain’t scured of them anymore.

The club was painted all black and the windows were blacked out it had a black awning in front of it and a line down the block. We were scared to go in but we were also scared that they would not let us in as well. The doorman would look you up and down and he would determine if you were worthy and could get in or not. We watched several people get turned away before we finally got to the door. The doorman, His name was Les, asked for my membership card and I told him I was a guest of a member and he said the member had to be there with us so we could get in. We had been in line for over a hour and we it was getting cold and we were totally freaked out about the whole situation and we were about to turn and bolt from the scene when my friend came out to look for us.

When we finally got in I was amazed the club was huge. There were men in all states of dress and undress woman dancing topless, people in formal attire, fan dancers, Leather Daddies and anything else that you could imagine. The light show was out of this world and in the center of the room was a cluster of mirror balls unlike anything I had ever seen before.

The music was loud but not to loud and the sound was clear as a bell. It was just amazing. It was like stepping through a portal and being jettisoned to another planet where you could be who and whatever you wanted to be.

We were still scared shitless and my friends I and hung together for dear life. Now what was funny was that all of my friends and I were on the swim team in high school and you might have guessed it, they were all blondes and me being a tall black guy, we garnered a lot of attention that evening. I guess we were all considered twinks at the time but we did not even know what that was at the time. We all got allot of men who wanted to dance with us but we were to scared so we danced with each other. After a few drags from a joint that my friend offered us we chilled out and began to really have fun. We danced all night long and we did not get home until 5am the next morning. Little did we know that we had just gone to the premiere West Cost dance club at the time.

The Trocadaro Transfer was San Francisco’s version of Studio 54. It was a place to dance to the best music of the time with the best dancers on the West Coast. This club was huge, on an average night there would be thousands of dancers there and it would go all night long. Sometimes it would not close until noon on Sunday and when it did we would all run over to the Endup for Sunday church. The Trocadaro Transfer or The Troc as those who were regulars called it was a real fun club to go to if you loved to dance and I loved to dance.

So as you may have guessed I became a regular there. I was there from the early days and I was there on the night they closed their doors for the last time 12 years later. Funny thing is the Troc would not die it was the club that other clubs would strive to be like but never quite achieved. It was a place where you could see and meet the latest musical acts performing their latest chart topping hits and dance with the rich and famous. It was a place where it did not matter if you were rich or poor as long as you had fun. In a word the club was magic.

During my tenure there I meet and became great friends with quite a few people and we are still in touch to this day. Some did not make it through the aids crisis but amazingly allot of us did. I guess twirling to the “thumpa thumpa” kept us out of allot of trouble. Well about 5 years ago they decided to have a reunion party for the “Trocodetts”, that’s what we were called. And I got an email out of the blue about the upcoming party. I made a few calls to see if it was legit and low and behold it was. So I emailed a friend about it and we decided to go and then we emailed a few others. But what was really amazing is that it started a ground swell of interest and the emails were flying. Soon a friend informed me that they were expecting over a thousand former “Trocodetts” to be at the party

So on the day of the party as we are all arriving at the club it was just a huge hugfest. Oh and yes the party was held in the original building and it was just unreal. It was like a high school reunion but it was fun. I saw people who I had not seen in 10 to 15 years and we all just hugged and laughed about how much fun we had and cried about who was missing. Well that first reunion party was the first of many more and this past Sunday was the latest one. It was the 30th anniversary party of the opening day of The Trocadaro Transfer. What was amazing is that the place was packed and there were a lot of younger gay men there as well as the old stalwarts. The music was classic disco and allot of the songs were re-mixed and refreshed and I as usual was on the dance floor most of the night.

The lights were hot the music was hot and the men were hot. The cute thing was that most everyone was wearing Pearls, the symbol of 30 years. It is really hard to convey what it was like to go to the Troc. The closest thing that I have seen to explain what it was like was the club “Babylon” on Queer as Folk. I must say that I will definitely be at the next party too. I had so much fun at our little alley picnic after the club closed it was hilarious. The best thing is we can all still party all night just like we did 20 years ago. Watching my friends dance to the music and seeing the joy on their faces made me feel so happy I could not even begin to express it to you. To all of the “Trocetts” out there I love you all and you made my night a blast. I will be looking for you at the next party. Happy 30th to all my peeps.