My name is Arthur Severio, and welcome to Quiet Conversations: The Upstairs Lounge Fire.
I left home with a suitcase filled with dreams, a pack of brand-new Fruit of the Loom underwear, two pairs of 501s, and some shirts that weren’t exactly made for a fat kid like me. My mama had stuffed a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket just in case I wanted a snack and a Diet Coke from the vending machine for my ride into the Crescent City.
My brother met me at the downtown Greyhound bus terminal to take a United Cab back to his French Quarter apartment. It was 1983, and I was only 17. I was so happy because I had finally reached the place that I had dreamed about to get me through those endless days of doing little more than surviving. Soon I met Marcy Marcelle who was scheduled to perform that night at the Upstairs Lounge.
In these Quiet Conversations, I talk to people whose lives were touched either in their personal experience or using their artistic talents to describe that night.
In this special Christmas episode, Reba and I have a quiet "let's get real conversation talking about our lives and where we are today as artists, and the evolution of our friendship. Her writing is up there with the greats for me and is much an inspiration.Reba talks about the changes in her life and how she deals with it as it comes. As an artist and a woman, what do changes like divorce and being a mother mean. As a vocalist of "seventy years young" what do you do when y...
15 Dec 2023
Anita Bryant’s Pie in the Eye, how New Orleans shut her down, Stuart Butler and Regina Adams after the Upstairs Lounge Fire
In our fourteenth and final episode of Season 1:How did the city of New Orleans treat the survivors of the arson at the Upstairs Lounge? There were a lot of social and political changes happening in the @lgbti community regarding organizing and social awareness. Regina became the woman of her creation or as she said "started living in drag." Listen and find out about who Fury was and what it was like hustling in the seventies.How did the Advocate magazine did to help th...
3 Dec 2023
WALTER JENKINS, EARTHA KITT, LADYBIRD JOHNSON, and G.I. JANE
A transwoman and a writer’s unique experience of the Vietnam War. Civil rights in New Orleans. The Please U restaurant. What happened to Eartha Kitt when she stood up to Lady Bird Johnson about the war in Vietnam? How does Viet Name veteran identify and feel about hormonal replacement therapy? Lady Bird Johnson takes a stand about Walter Jenkins being arrested for tea room behavior.Historian Frank Perez explains the mission of the LGBT+ Archives of Louisiana and a welcome to Quie...
22 Nov 2023
The Legacy of 32 Victims Left Us and the Pope’s new ruling of the LGBT+ Community
What happened when Charlene Schneider didn't quite make it to the Upstairs Lounge. Troy Perry and his activisim beginnings.Charlene's dedication to her activism to change thingsFather Tony from St. Jude's on Rampart Street speaks on his congregation and the Pope's rulling on the LGBT pluse coomunity.Historian Frank Perez explains the mission of the LGBT+ Archives of Louisiana and a welcome to Quiet Conversations. with Rio RiggenSupport the show
22 Nov 2023
The Art that the Upstairs Lounge Fire has inspired
Amy Daley Williams, along with Frank Perez, Katheleen Conlon and the LGBT plus Archives produces the 50the anniversary of the fire.Kathleen Conlon, organizes multi eventsongtime admirer of the New Orleans LGBT plus community brings a creatvie panel together to share their stories for the fiftieth anniversary of the fire.Max Vernon writes a musical and brings the story around the world.Monica Ordonez inspires her dance troupe to experience the art that has been made around the Upstairs arson a...
17 Nov 2023
The Thirty-two Victims of the Upstairs Lounge Arson Attack
What happened to Regina Adams in the aftermath of the fire at the Upstairs Lounge Fire? What happened to the kids of Luther Boggs and Jean Gosnell?Then there were Mitch Mitchell's two sons that we will learn about.Troy Perry and Paul Britton come to New Orleans to offer comfort to those in need.Frank Perez talks about Ferris LeBlanc and the plight to find his body.Historian Frank Perez explains the mission of the LGBT+ Archives of Louisiana and a welcome to Quiet Conversations. with Rio...
11 Nov 2023
Bill Larson and Bubba Copeland and the World Today
People who are in a lot of mental anguish and pain don't always crumble and give up. Instead, they reach out to help their community. After being ostracized by his mother his whole life, Bill Larson left home to create himself as the head pastor of the New Orleans chapter of the MCC moving the church from the backroom of the Upstairs Lounge to its new home in the New Orleans Uptown Garden District.What happened that night at the Upstairs Lounge Fire? "It went from people cele...
9 Nov 2023
The Fire at a Gay Bar in the French Quarter
Gay boys celebrate every Sunday in the French Quarter with what's called, "Tea Dance." Regina and Reggie, a young interracial couple went out to celebrate Gay Pride at a bar called the Upstairs Lounge on June 24, 1973.Stuart and his lover Alfred were also there with their new playmate in their lover's triad.Regina left the bar to take Adam Fontenot to dinner. Find out what happened to change the lives of these four people and so many o their friends forever.Historian Frank Perez e...
5 Nov 2023
Amazing Grace
In this episode, we meet my new best friend, Lila who once worked as an emcee on Bourbon Stree at the Gunga Den. She tells us about how she needs adventure in her life and as the universe says, "Ask and it shall be given.."Trucker Patti tells us about working at the Midship and dealing with some of the rowdy trans-women when they drank too much.And finally, we call my friend Mary, Marcy Marcelle's sister continuing the legacy we started with their sister, Sylvia.Historian Frank Perez ex...
29 Oct 2023
Apartheid, Homophobia, and Racism
In this episode, we meet Penny, who, grew up in the Mississippi Delta in a time where there were lines that couldn’t be crossed. At a young age, she was aware of not crossing lines drawn by society including her parents. After growing up and becoming awakened, she’s made a difference, She tells us of meeting and photographing Ernest Cole who came to Mississippi to photograph the differences between people of color and caucasians.Then we later hear how the shifts in civ...
22 Oct 2023
Kalantan, Lenny and Marcy Marcell
In this episode, we hear from someone who grew up in a showbiz life around the exotic Kalantan. Kalantan, famous for her burlesques show danced on the world famous Borubon Street in the 1950’s. In a couple with a non gender identifying lesbian named Lenny, she travelled all of the nightclub circuit.In the second half we meet my friend Marcy. who was the inspiration for this podcast. Born in the 50’s Marcy grew up in a town called Chalmette and came out in the French Quarter....
17 Oct 2023
Becoming the Women They Were Destined to Be
"If people want to see it, then they are going to have to pay." Christene Jorgensen said returning to America after having sexual reassignment surgery. We will also hear Charlotte Mcleod story as the second woman who had sexual reasiugnmenr surgery and both ladies working on Bourbon Street.My friend Lisa tells their story and we have a conversation about hormone replacement therapy.We also get a visit from Regina about growing up and coming out.=.Historian Frank ...
8 Oct 2023
The Changing Chiaroscuro of the French Quarter
In this episode, we discover the culture of the French Quarter in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. We first hear from historians and authors Johnny Townsend, ” “Let the Faggots Burn,” Frank Perez, a"Ambush Magazine "and "French Quarter Journal’. and Robert Fiesler “Tinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.” We also meet Regina Adams, French Quarter legend Regina Adams who grew up in a mormon, upper suburban m...
1 Oct 2023
Stonewall and the Use of Electricity to Cure Homosexuality
In this epospde, I speak with Tree Sequoia about the night that the Stonewall riots started. Was Marsha P. Johnson the heroine? Whe initiated the crowd in a riot?Is homosexuality cureable? A doctor from New Orleans sure thought he had the magicc cure to turn one man into a heterosexual normal man.Bethany Bultman intorduces me to this part of history that Tilda Swinton has just done a documentary about. My final guest for this episode is Jim Meadows who knew someone who had be...
30 Sept 2023
The Quiet Conversations trailer
I was only seventeen when I moved to the French Quarter. My brother lived betwen the Bourbon Pub and Lafitte’s. It was 1984 and AIDS hadn’t quite made it’s mark on the gay community.I’ve met so many great people along my journey and wanted to share their stories as I’ve understood them and how they touched my life.Welcome to Quiet Conversations.Quiet Conversations is written, read, and hosted by me, Arthur Severio. It’s producer is Johnny Maybank, and theme song “Shine,” by ...
30 Sept 2023
The Early Years in the French Quarter
On our first episode,you’ll get to meet me your host Arthur Severio and hear from author, Professor Alecia P. Long as we discuss what it was like to be a part of a community that was not only different but harassed for being themselves. She and I will discuss her book “Cruising For Conspirators: How a New Orleans D.A. Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination as a Hate Crime.” and meet Tamara Chang of the documentary,“Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafe...
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