Sylvester and the Cockettes; I had a connection to both, though inadvertent.
Back in 1967, when several movie houses that showed classic films had closed, I, who had been a fan of such films since I ran the projector for the Old Doc film series a decade earlier at the U. of Chicago, started a midnight classic film series.
I knew how to organize a classic film series, because I had started the same thing at S.F. State College in 1960, which was the origin of the film department there.
I rented the nearly defunct Chinese theater in North Beach, the Palace, for after midnight on weekends. I almost never went to see my own films. The business was prosperous and self-sufficient.
One night in 1971, late, driving by the Palace theater I noticed that the marquis with the Betty Boop listing had been up for months so I stopped to see what was going on. Low and behold, the place was wild with dancing, drugs and a stage show. The stage show was the Cockettes. Raunchy beyond any imagination. It was hippies, gays and everyone in drag.
I went a few times and fell in love with Sylvester the singing drag queen; truly the reigning queen of his era. I was reminded of him by the great recent movie Kinky Boots. I invited Sylvester to sing with the Glide Methodist Choir a few times. He had a great voice and was much loved by everyone.
The most important part of this whole blog is to note the connection between the hippies and the gay-multi-sex community of San Francisco. While these communities were neither separate nor together, the hippy free love ethos made life much easier for the rise of the gay community.