Nick:
It was nice yesterday they brought out that first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.
So, we…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:00:16
Oh, wow.
Nick
Nick
00:00:17
Just because they knew we were there studying bears, and they had it, so they just took it out, which was nice to see.
Phil James
Phil James
00:00:25
It looked like it was a good group. So, they had their own… Cornell had their own
Archivist, and then… Andy brought a videographer.
Nick
Nick
00:00:38
Yeah, she's based here in Ithaca, and he hired her just for this gig. She does a lot of stuff, like, one of my exes was a videographer, and he didn't do half the stuff that she did. She's, like, a one-man band kind of thing, so she really did a ton of stuff.
Phil James
Phil James
00:00:54
Great.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:00:55
Very cool.
Phil James
Phil James
00:00:58
Okay, where are people?
I bet people are trying to use the regular link, but I did a new meeting link for this.
Since it's… Let me send that to people.
Let's see, Peter, man… .
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:01:18
Walt Whitman, the original bear.
Nick
Nick
00:01:21
Yeah, yeah, there's a… I didn't realize that in the first edition of it, he didn't put his name onto it, he just put his image on, and there's this kind of very, kind of, like.
cocky image of him as looking very Barry, as… as basically the… the author's, author's attribution.
I was looking it up afterwards, I didn't realize what a big… what a scandalous text it was when it was first released.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:01:55
There was Hans Ulrich, right, out of Germany?
the earnings… We ran across his plaza when we were visiting.
Nick
Nick
00:02:03
Whoa!
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:02:04
I just… we just randomly ran into this little, tiny plaza which had his name, and I went, oh my god! And Leslie said, what? Hanzo Rick!
Boo?
the most important! So, yeah.
But I have a photo of me with his name, the street name above me.
Nick
Nick
00:02:25
it was nice meeting Andy in person as well, like, I again got the impression that, of course, he's very professional, but he's… he…
he himself has become a bit of an expert in bear history, and he seems like somebody who is really invested in this, so… yeah, came away kind of just feeling very confident that he's the right kind of person to be doing this.
Phil James
Phil James
00:02:49
With Andy?
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:02:50
Yeah.
Nick
Nick
00:02:51
Yeah, absolutely.
Phil James
Phil James
00:02:52
Yeah, we spent a couple hours with him between, you know, he did the presentation.
at the Lone Star, and he absolutely understands our place, our organization's place in the history, Les's place in the history.
Nick
Nick
00:03:06
poster.
Phil James
Phil James
00:03:07
first place in the history. Very, yeah, very professional, you know, called us by name from the crowd, because it was, you know, crowded.
Crowded bar, and and then we had a follow-up meeting, I guess the next day, we had lunch.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:03:23
Yeah, Cove. Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:03:25
Yeah, he's the right guy.
We're gonna give.
Nick
Nick
00:03:30
Yeah, absolutely.
Phil James
Phil James
00:03:31
Access to our unreleased,
interview archives. I just have to move stuff from my Dropbox to the BHPI Dropbox, but we're gonna give them access to that.
And then, how… do you know, how the…
The videos that are being transcribed, or… is it transcribed? Is that the right word? The ones that.
Nick
Nick
00:03:53
They're digitized, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:03:55
digitized. So, are those gonna come back to us, or…
Nick
Nick
00:04:01
They will be made available online, so that anybody can look at them.
Phil James
Phil James
00:04:06
Oh, okay, so we don't have to really share… we have to… we could let people know, but they'll be just available once they're done. Okay.
Nick
Nick
00:04:11
Yeah, so as I understand it, you should just be able to go into the library catalogue and look at them there.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:04:17
Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:04:18
This would be stuff that was on VHS tape and such.
Nick
Nick
00:04:21
Yeah, yeah, so actually, when Les and I were there the other day, there had been some stuff removed from the boxes we were working on, and they said, oh, this is some of the stuff that's being digitized, so it's happening right now.
Phil James
Phil James
00:04:33
Good, okay, and was it… was it 20 of them total?
Nick
Nick
00:04:37
I think so, yeah.
Having said that, they did… I think they've lost one of the items, and the most important one to me, which is the one of Alan Ginsberg, this video interview with him at the Vermont Bear Film Festival.
They cannot find where that is, and so I'm kind of worried about what's happened to it.
Phil James
Phil James
00:05:01
Yeah.
Well…
I, you know, 1 out of 20, or 1 out of 75 boxes of things, so it's really good that we, you know, thanks again to the Centaurs, we have the funds to get some of this digitized and not be lost to history that way.
So…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:05:19
I wonder, I mean, Ginsburg is so well covered, I wonder if that's showed up in any other archives covering just him.
On the beach.
Nick
Nick
00:05:27
Yeah, I don't know, we did find some, not photos, but we found some, like, slides of him at the event. I think it will be about somewhere, they've just… they've removed things, and I don't think they've always recorded properly where it's
what has been removed, and then I noticed this… it was really just after Les and I got back in January, they had added a new section onto the finding guides with digital materials. So, it is, like, it's… there's still kind of processing happening with it.
Hi there, Liz. Hi, Liz.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:06:03
Hi!
Phil James
Phil James
00:06:04
A and Alejandro. So, everyone's here, but I gotta watch my little number, because sometimes Hunter will stealth in and not come on video, but I'm only showing 5 of us so far. I've texted him
this link. Sorry to show… to throw people that.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:06:22
sent me… But…
Phil James
Phil James
00:06:25
you know, I did a different link.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:06:27
Different at Cornell.
Phil James
Phil James
00:06:29
I did a different video than,
our regular meetings, because I didn't want to shoo people away. Not that anyone really ever shows up. Anyway, so I assume Hunter will appear.
So, hey, everybody else.
Welcome to our annual meeting. We just have a couple, kind of, annual things, and then, since we're almost all here, it's a good chance to, look at some
other stuff?
So, this plus Hunter is the current board.
Board terms are technically for 2 years, starting in May. Here's Hunter. Hey, Hunter!
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:07:10
Sorry, Maggie, I had trouble getting into my dorm.
Phil James
Phil James
00:07:14
Oh, okay. I was afraid that, people didn't realize I did a different link for this meeting, so anyway, hey there. So, the first main agenda item is, this is the current board. Board terms are technically for 2 years. There's no…
penalty for leaving the board, there's no you can't rejoin, or there's no… there's no shame if people cannot be a board member for the coming year, but does anybody want to speak up and not be part of the board for this… for 2026?
Alejandro's okay.
Hunter, I'm really looking at you, because I think of you as the busiest one. I mean, I know Nick is a professor, but I also think of you as really busy.
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:08:02
Yeah, it might be a good idea, especially since, 2026 to 2027 is the year before my defense. I… I don't know how…
busy I'm going to be with trying to finish the dissertation.
Okay. So it might be a good idea for this semester… for this year for me to step down.
Phil James
Phil James
00:08:20
Okay, we'll find somebody else.
I.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:08:25
I'm pretty busy between my two jobs, but I can… I'd like to stay on,
And try to carve out some more time for the organization.
Phil James
Phil James
00:08:37
Great. And Nick?
Nick
Nick
00:08:41
I'm happy, yeah, I'm happy to stay involved.
Phil James
Phil James
00:08:43
You seem to be juggling things between hot lava and…
Overseas trips, and so you're good.
Nick
Nick
00:08:51
Yeah, that's just my job.
Phil James
Phil James
00:08:53
Okay, and Les, I know that one of your requirements is, as vice president, you want to make sure you're not being tasked to be, again, come president, and that is true. As vice president, you're not being asked to eventually become president, but you're okay to remain on the board.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:09:11
At this salary, how could I turn it down?
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:09:17
3 lines.
Phil James
Phil James
00:09:17
Lunch, once a year, and…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:09:18
And all the stock options.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:09:20
Same, yeah, same.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:09:22
Absolutely stay on, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:09:24
Doc Optins, great, okay. All right, so.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:09:27
How can I refuse?
Phil James
Phil James
00:09:30
So, Hunter, I assume… You know, the second set of jobs is…
officer, so I assume, really, what we're talking about is you as secretary. We want to find somebody else to be secretary.
Because the secretarial jobs are… the officer jobs are one year. Okay.
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:09:49
Right?
Phil James
Phil James
00:09:52
Okay, oh, so I've got… there's a little agenda thing here, but I've been actually putting notes
Here in this file. Let me share this. Share, share, share.
share this proposed agenda. Okay.
Okay, so… can people see my text-only thing here? Yep. Okay.
Okay, so, finances,
I went ahead, I just went and got our current checking account balance, a little over, well, almost $23,000 in checking, and that's pretty steady, because our
the things we're spending money on are either extremely recurring or relatively small. We have Descript, we have Zoom.
No, we don't have Zoom. Yeah, we do have a Zoom account. We have a, Dropbox account.
And then, a few other things. So…
that's our current balance. I just did a bunch of…
Expenses, I think it was about $1,600, those all got reimbursed.
And I shifted some things from my checking to BHPI checking, so there'll be fewer reimbursements in the future.
Oh, and I decreased… I decreased the descript number of seats from 2 to 1 for now, so…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:11:19
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:11:19
That's now half as expensive.
Okay.
I said I was going to ask Mike Hernandez, he… when I saw him last, here in San Francisco, he said there was…
he was going to help with annual filing of, I guess, tax-related stuff, and I hadn't followed up with him, I hadn't gotten anything from him, so I just sent him an email to ask him, is he still going to help with that, and what is it? So that's…
Hopefully on its way… Oh, goodness.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:11:50
If not, I can… I can help out with that, too.
Phil James
Phil James
00:11:54
Okay, do you know what we need to do for annual filing?
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:11:59
Well, it's a tax return, but, I mean, since our expenses are limited and income has been…
Donations, it should be pretty simple, so… just a tax return that should be posted on our website.
Phil James
Phil James
00:12:13
Okay.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:12:13
Yeah.
And state filings, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:12:16
Right, so we've had, I guess in 2025, we had two big donations from the Centaurs.
And then, we've had… a couple other, you know, $20, $25 donations, I think is all.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:12:36
Yeah, $25, it's just a matter as a whole.
Phil James
Phil James
00:12:38
Yeah.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:12:40
Yeah, yeah, if I figure it out, I'll get.
Phil James
Phil James
00:12:43
I don't…
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:12:44
It'll save us several hundred dollars.
Phil James
Phil James
00:12:47
Okay, you know, again, so technically our annual
I've lost all my words. Our year runs from June 1st to end of May, so in theory, we have another month to get that done. I'm sure there's…
Perfect. Big deal.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:13:08
Okay. By the way, Phil, I asked my friend
David, the one that helped us out with the,
beer busts, see if he's interested at all in the secretary portion, if you're open to that?
Phil James
Phil James
00:13:23
Oh, cool. Would he be interested?
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:13:25
He hasn't responded yet.
Phil James
Phil James
00:13:27
Okay.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:13:27
I just messaged him right now, so as soon as,
Hunter, said it was open, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:13:33
we're friends on Facebook, so I can… I can hound him there.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:13:37
Yeah, I just texted him directly, but go ahead and hound him, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:13:41
Great.
Yeah, he and I have other things to talk about, too.
Great. Now, the other thing, Alejandro, on the financial side is…
when I look at… when I look at our BHPI, from my… Chase… from my phone.
It looks like there are transactions that have been commingled between
your… what looked like transactions that you meant to do on your own, transactions that I meant to do on my own, and Bear History Project finances things.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:14:20
Okay, let's…
Phil James
Phil James
00:14:20
I haven't been in the chase yet to ask them.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:14:23
Okay, let's… let's look at that, because if that happened by accident, then…
And I owe PHPI back, so… because I… that shows up on mine, too.
Phil James
Phil James
00:14:32
Yeah.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:14:32
So, let's get yours and mine squared away, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:14:35
I think I was looking at my, my annual car registration
payment. And I thought, hey, did that go through yet? And why isn't it showing on my…
you know, why isn't it paid by my checking? And I'm sure I used my correct
Hard to do that, so…
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:14:54
Okay, let's, let's look at that, let's see.
Phil James
Phil James
00:14:56
Okay.
Okay, so Les and Nick…
On the, on your various trips to… the Great White North.
Any… you have a book report. How did those go? Anything you want to report to BHPI in terms of…
I mean, some… both of you have been posting things, so those are good to see. Nick, you're looking for an assistant for work with you at your university as well?
Nick
Nick
00:15:26
So, so we've got an assistant, so I've won a small amount of money to hire a paid student research assistant. He has now been hired,
he will… it's only a few months of work, so he's going to be working from the end of April until the middle of July, and essentially his role is just going to be to sort and organize all the stuff that Les and I have done. So it's not particularly difficult work, but
I'm glad that he's taken it off of our hands, and then I might get him to kind of come and present some of the materials at places in the UK as well.
Anyway, so that's where we are right now. I'm…
halfway through my final trip, we have now gone through most of the boxes that we identified as, this is what we want to go into the community inventory document. I will say the,
So Andy was filming us on Monday and Tuesday. It was quite disruptive. It did kind of hold us back from our work quite a lot, but I think Les and I both believe in the film enough for us to do that.
So I've got a couple more boxes to go through, probably on Monday, and then…
I've also got some extra time to go through the magazines, which had been removed from the collection, but Les and I have had a look through some of them, and we can incorporate that into the guide as well.
So right now, for… for BHPI, there's nothing that needs to be done. What we're going to be doing over the next few months is
waiting for Dorian to do the organizing, and then Les and I will be starting to have meetings where we talk about, well, what do we want to do with this? What are we going to write about?
I think we both have some ideas already about what's kind of jumping out, but we'll develop that a bit through meetings over the coming months.
So certainly for the rest of you guys, there's nothing else that urgently needs to be done right now.
Phil James
Phil James
00:17:35
Okay, I'll just mention,
when we talk about Andy, Andy is Andy Langdon, who's working on the Bears documentary. Several of us, Mel and I and Les, have all seen the one-hour version.
He's still working on it. He's moving either towards a 4-hour miniseries, or a 2-hour
release, or he's talking to, let's just say, various outlets that might carry it. I asked him about,
you know, film festival, and he immediately shut me up. He's like, don't, no, don't even speak! Don't speak! Don't speak about that right now. But he's doing an amazing job. Several of us have been very impressed.
with him. So if people don't know, we talked about Andy, that's Andy Langdon. If you look at… I think it was… Les took photos, at Cornell of Andy putting microphone on.
Nick
Nick
00:18:28
Yes.
Phil James
Phil James
00:18:29
So that's Andy.
He's… I'll call him… let's call him an honorary bear. Apparently, his fiancee is a bear, but he fits right in, and he's really learned a lot about the bear community. He's an absolute worthwhile academic nerd.
You know, studying us, so that's great.
Nick
Nick
00:18:48
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:18:48
So, Nick, and your money is holding out, just in terms of…
you don't… it's not like, oh, if you had an extra $1,000 that's outside of your grant that would very much benefit BHPI,
Nothing…
Nick
Nick
00:19:02
I don't think so. I mean, the only pain in the arse for me is getting payments back to Les, because my university's a fucking nightmare with paying externals. But I have all of Les' receipts, and it will just take a bit of time for me to get it through the university systems.
Phil James
Phil James
00:19:17
Okay, so we could also… we could do a three-way.
So…
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:19:22
Alright.
Phil James
Phil James
00:19:22
If it's…
Nick
Nick
00:19:23
Go on.
Phil James
Phil James
00:19:24
If it's extensive, and your university would repay BHPI, then we, BHPI, could pay less, and then your university could reimburse BHPI.
Nick
Nick
00:19:37
I think that would be… I mean, that would be adding too much complication for the university. Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:19:41
Okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:19:42
Alright, and… You've sorted out any kind of overseas…
storage of materials that you were concerned about before. Okay.
Nick
Nick
00:19:53
Yeah, yeah, so I've figured out there's an online platform I can use which I'm very happy with. I don't know if the university would be happy with it, but I'm very happy with it, so it seems to be all fine from my perspective.
Phil James
Phil James
00:20:04
Okay.
Les, anything from you from the trips?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:20:08
From Cornell.
Phil James
Phil James
00:20:11
those trips.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:20:12
Yeah, well, only a couple things. One, I think we will…
Either write up or, kind of reprint one of the reports.
That we're gonna be working on to the BHPI, and… Maybe post it,
And the other thing, Nick is going to talk to, Brenda Marston again, and we seem to have found out why they stopped
Collecting our materials, and that's because corporate management
Doesn't want to build a new building or spend any money, so they're actually planning to throw stuff out.
Phil James
Phil James
00:20:58
Okay.
Nick
Nick
00:20:58
Yes, so what I heard was that they are…
They're… not only are they not wanting to accept stuff, they're being heavily pressured to get rid of stuff as well.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:21:09
Yep.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:21:12
Could that allow everything… could that allow all of the Bear Archive material to be moved out of Cornell to someplace else?
Nick
Nick
00:21:19
I think it's… I think it's… it's fine there. I don't think there's any indication that this archive is under threat at all. God knows what other stuff they have.
But I think it's just… it just… it sounds like it's not a personal thing, like, they're not… it's not like they don't want to take Liz's materials, it's just that they're being pressured to not accept new stuff.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:21:44
Yeah, oh yeah, and a few other things. Jack Fritcher has just placed his materials at Cornell, so I think his and biomaterials at the same place would be very helpful for people.
And… after we find out what's going on with Cornell, I could approach one institute again.
Because that seems like the one place that would… be open to.
continuing our submissions. Okay. And I need to go back and talk with the people in Chicago.
Because of this difference in philosophy of…
How the leather community views bears, and how the bear.
Nick
Nick
00:22:31
Yeah.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:22:32
use bears.
Yup.
Phil James
Phil James
00:22:34
Okay.
Good.
That's mostly good news, then.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:22:38
So to clarify, the one archive is in Los Angeles, and it covers a lot of queer history and materials of various sorts. They're through UCLA, as I recall?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:22:48
I think USC has taken over.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:22:51
USC, USC. That is a major, it's a major archive. Just, just to add that as since…
For anybody that's listening to or reading the transcript.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:23:00
Yep, okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:23:02
Okay, I'm sorry I couldn't join you guys, I've got a lot going on here, so it would have been great to…
be part of the Andy trip, especially. It'd be great to meet you, Nick, someday. So,
Sorry I couldn't make it, but it was absolutely the right decision for me right now, so…
Okay, Hunter, next thing on the agenda, I just want to double check, did you… have you written a thank you to the Centaurs for their big…
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:23:31
I'll do that as soon as I log off, I apologize.
Phil James
Phil James
00:23:34
Great, okay. So you have name… you have names and…
I think I emailed you some possible names.
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:23:40
I was gonna say, didn't you send it over, in Facebook Messenger?
Phil James
Phil James
00:23:45
One of those, yeah. So, I would start with… so, Ali Lopez is one of the key people, and then Chris Brush is probably why we're getting money.
Because he and I appeared in the Washington Blade together in a scandalous photo. So… but I don't know if he is an official position… he's just, like, president emeritus or whatever, so I don't know who the official people are to address something to, but…
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:24:13
Yeah. If we can get them set.
Phil James
Phil James
00:24:14
I give them a big thank you on Facebook, but…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:24:17
And I could… I could add something, too, in the sense that my partner, Alan Fox, was a centaur. I was with for 2 years in DC in the late 80s, early 90s.
So, you know, could be another link to, you know, our thanks.
Appreciation of the centaurs.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:24:35
I would ask Ali Lopez Directly, who… also who he thinks, should be named.
Phil James
Phil James
00:24:44
Yeah.
Okay, and Hunter, I sent you his Facebook…
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:24:50
Who, Ali Lopez?
Phil James
Phil James
00:24:51
Yeah, you have.
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:24:52
Oh, we're friends on Facebook.
Phil James
Phil James
00:24:53
Okay, alright. Okay, so before I ask people about anything else, I'm just thinking about,
And, Nick, you… the fact that you have an assistant for some of your work for the university, does this person have any video skills?
Nick
Nick
00:25:15
I don't know…
Phil James
Phil James
00:25:19
Okay. Are they part of the bear community, or they're just paid help?
Nick
Nick
00:25:23
Not… not really. I mean, he does know about the bear community, and that's one of the reasons that I hired him. I have to say, like, the quality of the applications was dogshit. I was really horrified.
Yeah. By how bad they were, but… so he's a trans guy, and he's not a bear himself, but he does know quite a lot about bear communities.
Phil James
Phil James
00:25:45
Okay.
Nick
Nick
00:25:46
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:25:47
Because the next thing I have on the agenda is, I've just been thinking, we have such a backlog of
videos to release, I wonder if…
We should try to hire someone to go ahead and
and do that, to… to do our editing and release them.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:26:09
I think it would probably be worth
Doing that, if we could get somebody to do it for a reasonable
wage per hour, and there's certainly a lot here in the Bay Area.
Okay. Maybe, maybe we should start a…
broader discussion on the Messenger system board on.
Phil James
Phil James
00:26:27
Sure.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:26:28
Something like that, and look at that. I know a number of people who are videographers, if I could find one that was a good.
Phil James
Phil James
00:26:36
Good, okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:26:37
young queer videographer would be a really good choice here in the Bay Area. Yeah, somebody who…
Phil James
Phil James
00:26:42
I look to Nick, because I'm thinking there's some student who
This would be an excellent piece of their…
thesis or master's or something as a side to, we just need some work done. So, alright, yeah, let's talk about that, Mel. Maybe to the, our slightly larger Facebook Messenger group. We'll talk there, see if we can find somebody. Speaking of
wayward videographers who I will never work with again.
This is technically not Bear History Project work, but we hired Jessica to videotape the book signing, book presentation, in January that Les and a couple other people were, you know, panel discussion, blah blah blah. So we have paid her, but don't have…
audio-visual from her yet. Do you know?
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:27:30
And so, I, I, I've…
texted her once or twice, I haven't gotten through to her, I will call her.
Phil James
Phil James
00:27:37
Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:27:37
I take full responsibility for that. I have worked with YESE
At the San Francisco Public Press.
when she was with us, I literally traveled with you… to her… with her to Yosemite and did work on the Miwok tribes with her.
We got some amazing work out of that. I've had her do great work on Alcatraz with me, as far as videography. She is really talented and really good, so I don't know what happened.
Phil James
Phil James
00:28:06
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:28:06
Yes, he has become a housing advocate and lives in an RV.
Phil James
Phil James
00:28:10
Oh, great.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:28:12
Wondering if…
he lost her stuff or something weird, because this is not the way, yes, he has ever, ever acted.
So, but I, but I agree, we shouldn't… We had to…
required her to make a choice between being a journalist and being an advocate, and she chose to be an advocate.
Phil James
Phil James
00:28:31
Right.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:28:31
So, I thought it would be a positive thing to have her do that. I have another source for a videographer who's, as far as I know, a straight guy, but who's very good, named Tio Valdez.
who we've used for events, so if we ever need to videotape something again, I would use Tio. He's very reliable.
Phil James
Phil James
00:28:49
Okay.
we need… we need a… we need a, an entrance screen. So, I know the guy who used to run the, Billy DeFrank Community Center in San Jose, and they were really close to what we call the Shark Tank, where, you know, the…
And so, they would rent out the Shark Tank.
their rental, they're parking for Shark Tank parking
But they'd ask the person if they're gay, because they give them a 10% discount if they were gay. I said, well, how did you enforce that? He said, well, we had a male and we had a female attendant, and we'd asked to kiss them, and if they agreed, then we give them the 10% discount.
Okay, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Okay, yeah, let's try to track that down. I'm hoping it's not lost.
audio-visual. We had what I think was a misunderstanding. She said, well, I was waiting to get paid, and I said, well, here's the message where you said you were sending the video, so I was waiting for the video to pay you, so I've now paid.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:29:48
That's… that's really odd that she didn't interface with me about it if she had a concern.
Phil James
Phil James
00:29:52
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:29:53
Because, again, Yessi, I consider Yessi a personal friend. Yeah. Just a professional friend, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:29:58
Okay, hopefully it'll all go well. We, you know, we took some snapshots. Otherwise, people were very happy, it was well attended, it went well, so…
hopefully that'll all magically work out. Okay, I have two more things. One is for,
And then, is anyone everything else? But… so, Nick, I sent you pins and business cards. Did that all magically…
Did you ever get them, or return them.
Nick
Nick
00:30:23
I asked for it to be returned.
Phil James
Phil James
00:30:27
Okay.
I've not gotten them back.
Nick
Nick
00:30:32
Yeah, I don't know what was going on with them, because I'm sure as hell not going to pay whatever, like, $200 in, like, customs fees they wanted or something.
But yeah, so I've told them twice to send that back.
Phil James
Phil James
00:30:48
Okay, whoever it was, FedEx or UPS, I'll go back and see if they can trace
the package. Yeah, because we paid a buttload of money to get them there in the first place, so…
I think that should have covered the return, and they should have a good tracking on it.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:31:06
Nope.
When I was working with my friend Ken Radcliffe, he sent several paintings to me for an exhibit I did here, and they ended up sitting…
I don't know, in some customs warehouse for 3 months.
Yeah. Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:31:25
Yeah, alright, I'll go back to the, I still have the receipt of sending it, so we'll start with that. Okay, and then, Les, you have some upcoming
stuff. Are you in Eastonia now?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:31:40
I'm flying on Tuesday?
Phil James
Phil James
00:31:42
Okay.
So… you've got this upcoming Bears screening at Manliest Cinema in June.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:31:52
Yep.
Phil James
Phil James
00:31:53
Any other upcoming events that… We should know about?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:32:02
Well, I'll be in Chicago for a week in May, so I can go to the, Leather Archives
And museum folks in person if there's a need.
So, so to, to, to kind of back up a bit, in Estonia,
Hunter has agreed to do interviews
And you're certainly welcome to join us, Phil, but the time zone is quite a stretch.
And I will, reach out to the organizer, Alvar.
over this weekend to let him know that I… that we're gonna do this, and how could he help?
You know, to have them put me in touch with people specifically.
Phil James
Phil James
00:32:50
Okay, and Hunter, you've got time for that?
Okay. Yes.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:32:56
And… Yeah, and, and… Oh, more on that topic?
Okay. Another thing that I wanted to suggest is seeing if we could get
the P-Town Bears to,
do fundraising, or work with us to do fundraising at P-Town Bear Week next summer.
Because, you know, along with San Francisco, P-Town seems to be, like, a big audience place for… Forbear enthusiasm.
Phil James
Phil James
00:33:30
Is there, like, Labor Day? So we're talking Labor Day 2026?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:33:36
I think it's the week after that, but I'll double check.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:33:43
Is Andy doing a showing there?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:33:47
I think no. Really? I haven't said anything about that, but he's funding himself, so it's extremely unlikely, because P-Town Bear Week is exorbitantly expensive.
Phil James
Phil James
00:34:01
Yeah, unless he knows somebody right there.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:34:04
Yeah.
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:34:07
Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:34:08
might help with the fundraising effort if you mention that Centaur's has given us a significant contribution. It makes us more… the fact that another organization of some note has given us a pretty large donation
Makes other organizations more likely to donate to us.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:34:25
Yeah, and I'll reach out to, Frank
Mahoney, he's the president of P-Town Bears.
Phil James
Phil James
00:34:33
Great. Anything else, Les?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:34:36
Oh, yeah, the… I think the last thing on my list here… oh, yeah,
I'm… I'm putting the final… the finishing touches on my, slideshow presentation for,
Estonia, and that's a possibility of one of the things to do around, bear history during Barrison.
So I just wanted to add that as something to consider including.
Phil James
Phil James
00:35:11
Okay.
Secret, secretary… This is shit.
Position…
Alejandro is contacting him. Okay.
I know this will all be transcribed, but I'm just kind of getting notes on, too. Okay.
Barrison, alright.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:35:41
Oh, yeah, and one other thing.
Phil James
Phil James
00:35:47
Yep.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:35:48
And I think I… I think I texted you on, or messaged you on Facebook this morning. Anyways, it would be great if you could
get me a no larger than 2 foot by 3 foot banner for… Right.
Yeah, because the one you sent me, it's huge, and it, you know, I hang it on a huge wall.
But it's too big even for the… for the tables.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:14
Yeah.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:36:15
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:16
3x… 2x3.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:36:17
Yup.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:20
Okay.
Yeah, I got that message, I saw it, so… and that's for the June event, right?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:36:26
Right, and then, and then going forward, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:29
Yeah, it only takes,
And this is to… this is to, like, tape to the front of things, or whatever. You don't need a stand and…
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:36:38
No, it'll get hung on the wall.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:41
Okay. And then, Alejandro, I have a bunch of stuff to leave… well, either Alejandro or Mel, you local folks, I have a bunch of stuff to leave you when…
I leave the Bay Area, so… an unopened big bottle of vodka.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:36:57
that stuff up on you.
Phil James
Phil James
00:36:59
No rush.
We're probably leaving August 1st, is our current expectation, so…
I'll be here for a while.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:37:08
Okay, well then, I mean, if we have any more beer busts come up.
last minute, as we were told, and I guess we'll keep it for now, but let's just make it a point we… I get that stuff from you before you leave, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:37:19
Great. At the moment, it's pouring rain here.
Luckily, the house painting all got done last week.
Okay, Mel, anything else from you?
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:37:29
Do we have any further planning on the Barrison-related stuff and, GLBT Museum?
Phil James
Phil James
00:37:37
I haven't done anything… more…
Yeah, we kind of left it hanging with the,
the History Museum of what we're going to do. I haven't prodded them or gotten anything
from them. We really should kind of get that…
finished, right? I don't remember what else we're gonna do.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:37:57
We are on the calendar, though, right?
Okay, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:38:02
Yep.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:38:03
It may be worth doing something with less and a slideshow and,
And he's already doing the movie. You know, there's some potential here to do something a little bigger. I… I… one thing that struck me today was the videos, the pictures that you got that have been shared on our site about the Philippine bears.
Yeah. And, bought… That's just an example of how widespread this movement has become, this community has become.
And that maybe we need to… Do a larger presentation.
They're embarrassing that talks about how… universal this.
No. This program, how universal this community has become.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:38:50
Do we know any of the Aloha bears?
In Hawaii?
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:38:55
No, that would be good.
And then there's, you know, in Estonia, there's, you know, there's the fact that less is going there, we've got…
bears in China, we've got, you know, I mean, it's this…
It might be worth trying to do a bigger…
presentation or event that, Les could do a slideshow of or something.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:39:16
Maybe, have someone that's… In charge of international reach-out.
And in charge of the international aspect of it.
Phil James
Phil James
00:39:27
And maybe, maybe we host a meeting, at least? A Zoom meeting about, you know, specifically saying, we'd like to talk about the bear movement around the world, and we'd like, you know.
we have…
I'm thinking of what Nick did with the, the academic, you know, the really nerdy side, the really academic meeting about bears,
him and Les, and the third person.
You know, so not that academic, but host a meeting where we just kind of talk about it, as an option.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:40:04
Sounds good.
Phil James
Phil James
00:40:05
We have the Zoom technology.
Okay.
Good. Thanks, Mel.
Les, anything else from you?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:40:13
Nope.
Phil James
Phil James
00:40:15
Okay, Alejandro, you and I need to chase down Chase. Yep. And then you and I, or you, Mel, and or I,
I've got some physical transfers to do.
Les, I'll get you a… I'll do a new banner. You want it, horizontal, right, Les?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:40:32
Yeah, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:40:33
Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:40:33
Is it worth us getting a storage space if there's a fair amount of stuff? I have no room to store anything in my…
They're just staring.
I live with an artist, there's no room.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:40:44
If it's just the, I mean, the stuff that we use at the beer bus, I don't think…
Phil James
Phil James
00:40:49
Yeah, I have, like, I have one box of… Cups, jello…
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:40:54
I have a garage, so I can put it in there.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:40:56
Okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:40:57
the two banners. In fact, the banners
and the dolls are in the garage, the vodka and jello and…
shot cups are in a box… one box, so yeah, it's not a… not a big deal. Okay.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:41:09
Yep, I can put that in my rod, so…
Phil James
Phil James
00:41:11
And then, Alejandro, I'm gonna try to drop by Chase and see what they have to say. Well, Andor lets you and I talk.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:41:19
You want to do that, and then talk, or do you want to talk before that?
Phil James
Phil James
00:41:22
I'm gonna try to drop by, just to get their thoughts.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:41:27
Okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:41:28
Hunter, thank you for your… Service…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:41:34
Yeah.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:41:35
Yeah, thank you, Andrew.
Phil James
Phil James
00:41:36
sachet away. Anything else you have to share for this meeting, Hunter?
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:41:41
I do not. The only thing that I have is, Les, I've got, your questionnaire.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:41:47
Sure.
Hunter Olson
Hunter Olson
00:41:48
the interview that we're gonna do for your anthology on long-term AIDS survivors. I'll send it over to you this weekend, and maybe we can find a date to record the interview.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:42:00
Great. Great.
Phil James
Phil James
00:42:02
So.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:42:04
I have one more thing to mention. When I'm in Estonia at the thing, I will be promoting the BHPI, letting everyone know that they're welcome to join, and also that we're hoping for
you know, board members from the Baltic countries, Great.
Phil James
Phil James
00:42:30
Let them, like, either shoot me an email, a Facebook, whatever, that… so that we know… when they're trying to join, I'll have no idea who they are, and a lot of people don't see that there are questions, so…
I'll follow up, but have them, you know, say, Les sent me. Remind them there are rules, and the rules can be, Les told me to join, and that's fine, that's enough.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:42:52
Okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:42:53
You let them in, whatever.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:42:55
Yup.
Phil James
Phil James
00:42:56
Okay, so if, if…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:43:00
Question.
Quick question about Les's,
European trip, and also the long-term survivors thing? What are you doing? Are you doing a new book, or is this interview with you about the book, or what's going on there?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:43:16
Yeah, I'm starting to work on a second book,
it's gotten very enthusi… the first one's gotten a very enthusiastic response, and everyone would like to see, stories from everyone who is not, a Bay Area gay, white, cisgender man.
And… oh, and I… got,
Shanghai'd into being one of
three bears living with HI… with HIV on a panel they're doing at, in Estonia as well, so I'll be putting that out there.
So that could be a whole chapter, too, Bears with HIV, anyways.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:44:06
Chuck, message me on Facebook, and I will give you a contact for a woman I interviewed who's been organizing,
southern, AIDS activism in the southeast?
that I interviewed for a piece on the AIDS quilt.
About a year ago. She was amazing.
She's a long-term survivor. There's people like, you know, amazing story about how you turned that into helping her community out and things, so there are some really great stories out there. And I would recommend The Names Project as the other place to just check with them, because that's a big part of their mission, too, is to expand the awareness.
of the communities that have survived. So, the NAGES Projects people may also be a good source for you for looking for
people to interview on that topic.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:44:57
Excellent, thanks.
Phil James
Phil James
00:44:58
Okay, and Les and Hunter, unless I'm also involved in these upcoming interviews, just make sure the names get on our master list.
So that we kind of are trying to track what's going on.
Thanks.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:45:15
Oh, and Les, where else are you going anyplace besides Estonia? Are you going to be going to Germany at all, or how.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:45:21
Yeah, I'm visiting old friends in Bonn in Germany, and they're a straight couple, and I have been trying… something I'm hoping that will happen in Estonia is that I have been trying for the last 3 years to get any bear in Germany to respond to me, and not a single one has.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:45:41
That's weird.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:45:42
I need to find somebody… You know…
that I could connect with, who then could, you know, tell people that, you know, I'm legitimate.
Phil James
Phil James
00:45:52
Legit, yeah.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:45:53
No.
Phil James
Phil James
00:45:54
Is that a government thing? Like, people are worried about the government, or…
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:45:57
No, I… I think they… they have no idea who I am.
Phil James
Phil James
00:46:03
Yeah.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:46:04
Like, so, you know, what's…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:46:06
Probably more of a German attitude thing.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:46:08
Yeah, that's the other… Yeah.
And they have a reputation in Europe that they do their own thing.
Phil James
Phil James
00:46:15
Yeah.
Well, maybe the Estonia will be an inn.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:46:18
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:46:19
Good.
Okay, Nick, anything else? Oh, let me just say, Nick, thank you again for your spearheading the…
you know, work that you're doing for the original archives, the Bear History Project.
archives, and I still remember when you were saying, I'm going after this grant, you know, I'm like, oh, please, what university is gonna… of course, that was a different political climate, like, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, but…
I remember just thinking, oh, you're so naive, you're just like, oh, you academics, it'll never happen. I just cannot imagine it having happened, so…
when I saw Andy pinning, you know, pinning a microphone on you, I mean, I just, I just cried. I thought, oh, it's really all happened. It sounds like it was a great series of trips. It really helped rescue the archives from as much obscurity.
Obviously we can point people there. Oh, between the three of us, so Nick, Les, and I, we've always said we were going to write up a little guide for if people are visiting the archives, they need to plan in advance, they can only take so much… we've already… we've always said we're going to do that, and we haven't done that, so… something else.
Nick
Nick
00:47:29
Yeah, we're definitely… so what Les and I are going to produce is a kind of curated finding guide with what we think are… these are the key items that you should see when you're there, which is still a lot of stuff.
and we have photographs of all, like, a taster of what's in all the key folders, even if we couldn't photograph the whole thing. What will come as part of that is that guide, that is
Even from, like, how do you park here? How do you find… which building are we going into? Yeah. And then, yeah, the details of how to book it out, because it is not user-friendly.
Phil James
Phil James
00:48:07
Yeah. If you're visiting the Parliament House, make sure…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:48:11
What do you think that.
Phil James
Phil James
00:48:11
young to know what that would be.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:48:13
No.
Phil James
Phil James
00:48:14
knows.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:48:17
Two former DCites, yep.
Phil James
Phil James
00:48:19
Yes.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:48:21
Personal note, personal question, I don't know if it ended up in the archive or not, I've been trying to hunt it down. I wrote a piece for Frontiers Magazine San Francisco.
when it,
had a… it's a bit… Frontiers LA was a big magazine down there for a long time, but they tried to do it in San Francisco for about a year and a half, and I wrote a large piece about the early bear… about the bear community.
And I haven't been able to…
Nick
Nick
00:48:46
It's possible it might be there. There are some pieces about bears, and they're from Frontiers. Was it by your name.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:48:55
Built by me.
Nick
Nick
00:48:56
Yeah.
Okay, I'll take a look, because I think… I'm pretty confident that I've photographed everything in Frontier, so I didn't pay… always pay attention.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:49:06
So there were definitely two different ones. There was Frontiers LA, and there was
San Francisco, and Frontier San Francisco was just their kind of effort to come move into this market, and it didn't work.
Nick
Nick
00:49:16
Yeah, but we do have…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:49:17
for everybody.
Nick
Nick
00:49:18
You have, material from both of them.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:49:21
Okay, cool.
Nick
Nick
00:49:22
So it's possible that it's there.
Phil James
Phil James
00:49:24
So, we have a, I guess on our Essentials linked page, we have a link to
the, yeah, the Cornell Gay Archive, so copy…
So, we have this, where's our chat for this?
Okay.
So, we have a link to,
you know, a highlight version of what's in the archives. Have you looked there, Mel?
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:49:52
No.
Phil James
Phil James
00:49:53
Okay.
Nick
Nick
00:49:55
It wouldn't tell you because it's not an itemized list, this is only the folder list, and some of the folders contain hundreds and hundreds of items in them.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:50:07
Yeah.
And it's in that weird, sort of, not pre-digitized, but sort of sometimes digitized era. Yeah, it's…
It was in the mid-90s.
Phil James
Phil James
00:50:17
The only mention of the word baker is somebody named
Jim Baker. It looks like a German…
Nick
Nick
00:50:24
That's a book of experience.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:50:25
The publisher who did the,
the bear cult in Germany.
which was… Basically, kind of, a, a, a condensed boilerplate of Bear Book 1.
Phil James
Phil James
00:50:41
Yup.
So, that's the only word… that's the only mention of the word baker I see at this list. Okay. At this level. Okay.
Alright, go.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:50:51
I do have 3 more things, quickly.
Phil James
Phil James
00:50:54
Okay.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:50:55
One is, if I can read my handwriting… oh, I'm compiling a list of all the archives I can find that have
Bear collections in them.
For us to post.
Oh.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:10
You send me one of these every five days without warning, yes.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:14
Yes.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:14
So helpful.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:15
It's like, because, yeah, I'm running around doing a million things, and like, each time it's like, before I forget it or lose the link, I… anyway, sorry about that.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:25
Let me think… let me teach you a thing called notes.
What kind of phone do you have? An iPhone?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:30
Yeah,
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:31
Okay.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:32
I do.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:32
I'm gonna get you some iPhone training.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:34
Okay, I know how to dial numbers.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:37
That's… that's good.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:39
Okay.
Phil James
Phil James
00:51:40
What else?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:51:41
So, the second thing is Brenda really saw what a big deal our collection is, and that was very encouraging.
And the third thing…
that's, you know, not going to be published is, Nick came across my file of very vile correspondence.
Nick
Nick
00:52:00
Yes! Yes, yes.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:52:01
No, true.
Nick
Nick
00:52:02
The drama!
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:52:03
Oh my god, yes.
Phil James
Phil James
00:52:05
What kind of correspondence?
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:52:08
Well, well, two things happened.
Phil James
Phil James
00:52:11
You are being recorded.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:52:12
Okay. Luke Maurerman had submitted… I published his chapter in one of the Bear books, and in his words, you know, he…
He called Richard a psychopath, and he also complained about, not promoting writing articles about AIDS in Bear Magazine.
And, it was… all about, he was going to sue Hayworth Press.
And he was demanding that I retract that information, and he was attacking me as if I had said it personally. And the other thing was when he tried to copyright
The word bear…
And Sam Ganzeric has given us all of the legal documents about that, and Bulger, in his letters to me, denied that he ever did that. His claim was he had to
to, copyright the name of the magazine for… Something, I don't remember.
But we do have proof that he actually did try to copyright the word.
So, and he was very unpleasant to deal with.
Phil James
Phil James
00:53:34
Yo.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:53:35
So, Richard Bolger, just FYI, I met him late in his life.
I played with him late in his life, one time.
And he was… he had taken up learning to be a therapist, and he was… he was actually studying to be a therapist.
Before he passed away.
So he seemed to have kind of… tried to,
rework his ideas. Although, when he moved up to Brush Creek, it was… it was a major drug-fueled
He talked about that with me. He was on a real…
and the partner he had at the time, I mean, it was drug crazy land up…
So… and that was after he sold Bear Magazine.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:54:21
Well, and that was also very clear to me, that I was dealing with an active addict.
And there's even…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:54:29
Yeah, he was a meth addict, yeah.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:54:31
Yeah. And I even commented that in… about that in one of my annual newsletters that I send out to friends about this old drama and his drug addiction.
Anyways, funny how drugs usually play a role in this craziness.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:54:47
Yeah, but apparently, near the end of the latter part of his life, he'd come through kind of a resolutionary phase around that, and was conscious of the things he had done wrong.
You know, I mean, we talked a bit. We didn't talk a lot.
Late.
I'm reading about… I interacted within, like, 2 hours.
Phil James
Phil James
00:55:05
I'm like, gay biker culture? What does that have to do with me? Like, oh, oh, that's right.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:55:12
Oh, and I also remember, Richard, when I was living in Boston, he came to, or he tried to come to a monthly New England Bear Night at the leather bar, and they wouldn't let him in.
Because he had been pretty nasty to them, and he went ballistic, and he was screaming at me that… to use my pull to let him in, and I just, you know…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:55:38
Oh.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:55:39
fucked away. No.
Anyways, yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:55:44
Okay, do any of us know Dave S. Brown? I just… I looked for Richard Bulger and came across this book.
Bear Magazine review, and about the beginning of the Bear movement.
Never heard this guy before.
Dave S. Brown516, the U.S. gay historian.
Okay, let me put this in the chat, just so it's part of the discussion.
Bum… Okay.
Okay, so…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:56:22
Cool.
Phil James
Phil James
00:56:23
Imagine that drama. Okay, so…
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:56:27
Never. Thanks, Senator.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:56:30
buddy.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:56:31
Oh, I called the…
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:56:32
Never.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:56:32
The drama of Penny Power.
The less… the less important work you're doing.
the more drama there is. In other words, you can have a minor post in a small nonprofit, or a minor
interaction in a small advocacy group or whatever, and oh my god, that person's,
The sense of self-importance and,
Righteous indignation and all of that is on full display.
Phil James
Phil James
00:57:01
The most famous quote about that was Henry Kissinger. He said, in academics, and I'll look at Nick, in academics.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:57:08
Let's see.
Phil James
Phil James
00:57:09
fights are so petty because the spoils are so small, you know, the things that people are fighting over. And that was the case. I worked at Visa International for 11 years, and, like, there was nothing to do. We were basically a non-profit just making money for the banks, right?
The holy wars about things were amazing, what people would fight about, publicly.
But because, you know, the… the… what you were fighting out was so small, Okay.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:57:37
Freud's neuroses of small differences is the challenge on the left.
Phil James
Phil James
00:57:42
Yes. Okay.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:57:44
Oh, oh, two le- two letters.
Phil James
Phil James
00:57:45
Okay, quickly.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:57:46
Quickly. We're gossiping right now. One is, in that correspondence, Richard stated that he did invent bears.
Phil James
Phil James
00:57:59
As a concept.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:58:00
Yes. And I see two other things about that. One was that,
he raged at me for daring to rewrite history, bear history, and I was an asshole and all that stuff about that, and it was obvious that I had bought my PhD and not earned it. For good measure.
So…
Phil James
Phil James
00:58:24
Yes, the drama.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:58:26
Did you?
Phil James
Phil James
00:58:29
So healthy.
Les Wright
Les Wright
00:58:30
Still paying for it, yeah. And I think…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:58:33
Can I say this? And I did enjoy my playtime with Richard Bulger, but let's just say that there weren't.
Phil James
Phil James
00:58:39
No, you can't… whatever you're thinking of, you gotta think this long, you know, you cannot say it. Okay, let me take back control of this meeting.
Thanks, everybody. Great meeting.
In May, we'll return to our regular
broadcast schedule. Mel, let you and I talk about finding a…
video transcription type person. Hunter, I'm specifically not looking at you, because you don't have time to work on it, although you helped us find a less expensive way of doing them, so I'll continue to explore that.
Alejandro, let me know what you hear from Dave. You know, we worked with him a couple times. I think he'd be a great addition to
The board and the secretarial role.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:59:24
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
00:59:24
Not really a ton to do for the Secretary, because so much of it now is
AI and automated, but we need somebody in that role.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:59:32
We need the formality of the… I texted him, so he's battling a cold right now, so you message him on Facebook, anywhere.
Phil James
Phil James
00:59:40
Yeah, we'll bombard him.
Alejandro Nuno
Alejandro Nuno
00:59:41
Yeah, yeah, so… but he… yeah, it would be a good distraction for him on the scientism.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
00:59:49
Bill, can we stay on for just a second afterwards and work out the parameters of that videographer thing?
Phil James
Phil James
00:59:54
Okay, so thanks, everybody, and again, the, you know, the natural…
You know, part of the evolution is the sustainability of the organization. People will come and go, and there'll be peripheral organizations like Andy and his bear.
filming, and, you know, that's large… that's tangential, but involved in us, which is great. Nick, that's your adventures in your university, and money that you brought in to do work that's going to be crucial to just the community in general, and our organization specifically, so that's great. So there are all these…
you know, these… these overlapping, you know, I'm from a math background, so the VIN diagram of all these organizations that have something to do with each other, including overlapping people, is great to see. We all have our part to play, so…
Thanks, everybody. Everybody but Mel is dismissed. Thanks.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:00:50
So, Phil, there's a… there is a queer job board on Facebook, is one place we could start. Do we have a…
We probably would want to pay an hourly wage.
And set a limit for how much that would be per video?
Phil James
Phil James
01:01:06
Yep.
Yeah, we also… I also want to… I want to start with, you know, our organization has 370 people now, right? I want to start there.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:01:17
Yeah, let's… let's go there then. That way, yeah, because then the other question I was having is, how do we get a sympathetic group? Video skills are so common now, we should be able to find somebody
That… that could do that. And what we might do is that the job…
the way we screen somebody for a job is… this is the way we do it in broadcasting a lot, is you give somebody a small assignment, and then you have them work on it. Yeah. And you have the exact same thing. For instance, the last job we hired at my new organization, we hired a host.
Bershow Civic, and I had two candidates at the end.
And I had them both interview the same person.
With 15 minutes warning.
So they had 15 minutes to study the guest, and then they had to… they did an interview.
they both did adequate interview… they both did good interviews, one did an exceptional interview. So the idea would be we would…
The test would be to cut down
One of the current videos that we've already published
Or not. Just one of the simpler, one of the ones we know will be simpler.
and to cut it down to X amount of time, And put it in order.
With just using the material available in the video.
Right. That will be… that will be the… that will be the,
the interview process. If you can do this.
And you have 2 hours to do it, or what… whatever.
Then that's probably somebody worthwhile to hire to do this.
Phil James
Phil James
01:02:56
Right, and then also, you know, the… what we're heading towards is almost…
I would say, you know, with big air quotes, I would say it's almost fully automatable, so if we come out with a bulleted list of, well, here's the 10 steps to what we're talking about, that's almost on its way to creating an artificial intelligent agent that could do it as well, you know, just to make.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:03:20
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
01:03:21
Make sure we don't step on… we don't destroy actual video, but.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:03:25
Well, no, what you do is, every… anytime you use original material, you never, ever, ever, ever cut the original material.
Phil James
Phil James
01:03:32
Right.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:03:33
You have a raw file, you hide, you park somewhere, you never touch it, you make a copy of that, that's what people work on. You never, ever, ever mess with the raw file.
Phil James
Phil James
01:03:42
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:03:43
So… you know, I've been watching the videos we've made using the AI kind of tools. I'm…
You know, I mean…
It's… it's okay.
Yeah. But it's not great. A human, for instance, somebody that was in the bear community that was looking at this video goes, oh, this is the part I find interesting, this is the part I find interesting. And they move it up, and move it around, and…
So…
That human touch is still going to be there, and especially if we find somebody within our own community who can do this on the side.
Phil James
Phil James
01:04:20
Okay, well, there's… but, you know, we've got 50 of them done, and at least 100 more that we want to interview people, so there's a, you know, there's a lot, so we either need… if someone's going to be skilled or interested.
you know, We don't wanna…
We don't want to drain our bank account for just this, although this is, you know, the main thing we're known for, so…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:04:42
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
01:04:44
Okay, let me…
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:04:45
Let's say it costs $50, $50, let's say it costs $50 per inter… let's… $50 to have them…
Cut down, so we're gonna do another 100 interviews, so that's $5,000.
Phil James
Phil James
01:04:57
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:04:58
Though that would be a lot, but not everything.
Phil James
Phil James
01:05:01
Right.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:05:02
Oh, okay.
Phil James
Phil James
01:05:04
Yeah, but $50, that implies, like.
Say, $20 an hour for two and a half hours or something?
per interview.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:05:16
$25, we pay them just $25 an hour.
Which is really low.
Phil James
Phil James
01:05:21
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:05:22
Okay, we're not… we're not hiring… we're not hiring an Andy-level videographer. We're hiring somebody who knows basic video skills, probably younger.
We just… we can put this… part of their val… the value of the… they're getting paid for it, they're not being asked to do it for free.
part of the value is that they can show it on their sizzle reel, or they can at least mention it in their resume that they've done video editing for the Academic Bear History Project Internationals.
Phil James
Phil James
01:05:50
They could pick and choose, or…
Yeah, we might even find somebody with
skills in some tool that we haven't thought about or used, because Hunter came up with this
Whatever he called it.
river or something, I can't remember.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:06:05
Rivet, River, Rivendale?
Phil James
Phil James
01:06:07
I don't know, I don't remember.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:06:08
I think there's one called Rivendale that's for… that's…
Okay, so let's… let's do that. So let's put a message out on our Facebook page, and then if we start… if we get 5 or 10 people, maybe what we can do is hold a Zoom meeting with them all?
invite all of them to a Zoom meeting, and if they can't be at one, then maybe we have two or three sessions of Zoom, and we lay out the parameters, and then we, you know.
You can send out the video that way.
Phil James
Phil James
01:06:35
Yeah.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:06:36
There's something I, you know, that's a level of commitment I can keep… keep up here, and…
Oh, I apologize, I'm up.
I've been able to do more of that. Anyway.
Phil James
Phil James
01:06:46
It's okay, everybody's got, you know, some commitments, and again, I really, really, really wanted to go to Ithaca. I really, really wanted.
Mel Baker
Mel Baker
01:06:53
Yeah.
Phil James
Phil James
01:06:54
Nick… oh, are we still recording? We're still recording. .