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[0:00] Jess Rothschild: There was a time where doing drag, even on an island that was specifically known for being gay and gay culture, being a drag queen got you turned away. And especially now, what's happening right now in our country where drag is being banned in places, this invasion better be popping this year. I want to see everyone in drag. I'm your host, Jess, and this is Finding Fire Island, Episode 5, THE INVASION.

[0:30] Jess Rothschild: In this episode, we're rewinding to July 1976, where stalwart Cherry Grove legends, Pansy and Bob Levine created a moment of liberation that would be repeated and celebrated on July 4th every year since. Pansy himself is going to take center stage this episode, walking us through exactly what happened and why. But let's begin with the head of the House of Assassins, Buddy Flowers, better known as Boudoir LaFleur, and screenwriter Paul Rudnick for a quick backstory of drag on the island. I want to see everybody going all out, because especially when we're in our own space that is safe, we have to celebrate that together, and then we have to spread that message everywhere else. Because at one point in the Pines, a drag queen was turned away for being in drag.

[1:45] Boudoir LaFleur: They looked fantastic. A lot of effort goes into that back on the mainland. These guys come prepared. Because there are a lot of people in theater and in costume design, you get a very high degree of skill. But it was fascinating, both because it was taken so seriously and celebrated. It was part of why you went to Fire Island. It was both to enjoy drag performers and to try sample drag yourself, where you would see, I remember, even a T on the boardwalk. You know, just a guy in a T's blue wig. There might not be any other elements of cross-dressing involved, but he wanted, you know, a blue Louise Brooks bob, and he got one.

[2:28] Boudoir LaFleur: We reflected on Pansy and Rose Levine's drag origin stories back in episode two, Cherry Grove. But how exactly did Buddy Flowers turn into Boudoir LaFleur? A longtime actor, singer, and dancer, Buddy shared how he began as a cocktail waiter at Cherry's, the Grove waterfront venue complete with a glittering cherry tree as its bar centerpiece.

[2:49] Buddy Flowers: Yeah, I went out for a summer just to cocktail wait at Cherry's on the Bay, and one of the drag queens then, Ginger Snap, she accidentally saved my phone number as someone else. And so she thought she was texting a drag queen, and she was texting me and said, hey, queen, do you want to do My Dining with the Divas in August? And I was like, sure, why not? What do I need to do? And I had done the musical La Cage before, so I, you know, I wasn't necessarily a drag queen, but I knew how to, I knew the rigmarole, I knew how to talk, I knew how to paint my face, wear a wig, X, Y, Z.

[3:20] Buddy Flowers: Yes, I studied dance in college and was a seasoned performer in Broadway touring companies with Evita and La Cage a Fall, but the transformation from musical theater actor Buddy Flowers to full-time drag artist Boudoir LaFleur is no small undertaking. I said, sure, what do I need to bring? And Ginger said, two numbers, two looks, see you then. Cut to a month later, I show up to the gig, and she's looking at me like, what on earth are you doing here, Buddy? That's how she knew me as a cocktail waiter was Buddy. And I was like, Ginger, you've been texting me for like two months about what I was supposed to do and prepare, and I have two numbers, and come to find out a few weeks later, she saved my number wrong, and so she thought she was texting a whole different person, and my boss was in the audience, and I apparently did well because I then was offered pretty much a show the next summer, a weekly show, right from that moment.

[4:13] Buddy Flowers: I went on to form the House of Assassins, which now performs nightly in Manhattan and all summer long in Cherry Grove. So it just really, an accidental text message got sent to me, and then I became a drag queen. I definitely recognize that it is a privilege for me to be performing during these times where you can actually have a career, you can be successful, and back in the day, it wasn't about making money. It was about truly expressing yourself. So we have to always go back to that period of time where, why were we doing that?

[4:45] Boudoir LaFleur: We met Pixie Aventura last episode. We were doing it because there was just no other escape, and we needed to just let our creativity out, let our feminine attributes, like just being playful and living, and we forget that now because it's become a business, which a lot of the time, even for myself, I have to, I feel like I'm going to work like a nine-to-fiver, it's just at night, and I have to realize, okay, there might be someone in the audience that just needs that escape that I'm willing and able to give to them.

[5:16] Boudoir LaFleur: Pixie is a perfect example of a New York City queen who has proven that you can really make it in the drag industry without the platform of RuPaul's Drag Race. On Raw Talent alone, Pixie was handpicked by Madonna to open for her Pride 2022, and is a huge draw in both Manhattan and on Fire Island. So the position on Monday night in the Ice Palace had opened up, and they brought in Sherri Vine and Peppermint to do a collab show. And I was basically the understudy because Sherri Vine was going to go on some cruises in that summer, later that summer, and Peppermint, nobody knew, but she had auditioned for RuPaul's Drag Race. So I was just kind of the understudy. In the beginning of that summer, it was just once or twice, and then all of a sudden, Peppermint left, don't know why, so it literally fell down to me.

[6:09] Boudoir LaFleur: Management trusted Pixie to deliver and fill the Ice Palace every Monday night, and she did for years. She's now Monday nights at the Pavilion over in the Pines. Meanwhile, Boudoir LaFleur understands that it's no small feat to get hundreds of Pines boys to migrate over to the Grove for the Big Houses of Assassins show on Sunday nights. The Pines boys come over for us on Sunday nights, and the energy is always massively wild, it's electric. It's honestly my favorite show. I think I'll never have a show I love more than our Sunday night show at Cherries in the Bay. I don't think it'll be possible. If I end up getting famous someday or retire from drag or anything, just something about that Sunday night show is electric.

And Jackie always goes, it's all men. You did it, you brought all these men from the Pines. They take the water taxi from the Pines, they come over to see the big show with the House of Assassins, and then they go back to the Pines for Showtoons, which I don't know if you know what Showtoons is in the Pines, but it's a musical theater disaster. And by disaster, it's a beautiful disaster. It's very fun.

[7:31] Boudoir LaFleur: A big part of the House of Assassins appeal is that rather than the glam of dresses, sequins, and big hair of many drag artists, the Assassins aesthetic is very downtown East Village rocker chic. Think fishnets, boots, leather, and chains. Perhaps this explains why I, along with a lot of my female friends, were immediately enchanted. Oh, and don't forget about the lesbians. Most importantly, the lesbians. The lesbians are the reason why I have a drag career, to be honest. I'm a child of the 80s. I grew up on rock and roll in a house that was always playing vinyl records and had the smell of marijuana in the air. So I started and my boss said, just don't be like everyone else. Please do not do what everyone else does.

Boudoir will lead numbers centered on Stevie Nicks, Pink, Miley Cyrus, and has even sung live rock numbers from Rent or Rocky Horror like Sweet Transvestite. Everyone has just said, do something that is different. So I did rock and roll. And it just so happens that some of the lesbians like that type of music. So that sort of is where my platform came from. And they were all very supportive out there. I mean, without the lesbians, I would not be a drag queen. Seriously, I'm a queen for the lesbians.

[8:22] Boudoir LaFleur: Both Boudoir and Pixie Aventura get that they are standing on the shoulders of Pansy, Rose Levine and the others who are out in the Grove in the 1950s, back when cross-dressing was illegal and the boys were hiding their drag under a secret hatch in Grove homes. I guess the story is, you know, Pansy and Rose Levine and others, of course, got together and people don't realize that they invaded the Pines as in they all got into drag. And there were so many of them. The point was, well, you can't turn us all away. We're here to make a statement. It's just some hair and some makeup that shouldn't keep anyone from doing anything. That's when I really found out about the invasion and I realized how important it was, especially once I started really honing in into my drag career.

I call myself a research queen because if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do with all the honor that it takes and realizing that I'm standing on a lot of people's shoulders. So, yes, the invasion is part celebration, 4th of July, but at the end of the day, it's pretty much telling everybody, don't fuck with us. Can we curse? Don't fuck with us because we're always going to fight back. And how ironic is that we're still doing that right now?

[9:37] Jess Rothschild: The time has come. Please welcome to the stage Pansy to share his firsthand account of the invasion of 1976. We'll also hear from Bob Rose Levine, who personally named it the invasion the following year. At the center of this story is a Cherry Grove icon named Terry Warren.

[9:57] Pansy: There was a drag queen named Terry Warren. She had a best friend named Susie and they were stars in Cherry Grove. They were absolutely beloved. They were, you know, on a pedestal. Everybody adored them. In today's language, Susie was definitely trans. You know, she lived as a woman after she left the Grove. I think she met a sailor and they lived as a straight couple. Terry, nobody has the right to define anybody. But to me, Terry was always in drag, always looked like a woman, always had painted nails. You know, so to me, Terry was just this, you know, beautiful creature of drag. You know, he was always a star in my eyes. Of course, I idolized him. But he didn't live as a woman like. No, but, you know, like I said, even when Terry walked around in shorts and a T-shirt, he looked like a woman.

She looked like divine. She had big hair and long nails and she was very glamorous. She had big breasts and tight dresses and she made a look. She had a certain look about her. It's just a phenomena in everybody's mind. Terry was Terry and like a woman or a drag queen. That's just who she was, how you define it. I can't. You know, at one point I used to say, you know, I think Terry might be defined as trans back then, but I have no right to say that.

[11:18] Pansy: Even back then, drag wasn't all that accepted. It's true. During this period in the 1960s and 70s, there were two different versions of gay theater. On one hand, you had reviews at the community house where drag was more of a clever signifier of gayness. Think guys in mustaches and beards cross-dressing while performing whatever was on Broadway at the time. I found this quote from Terry Warren himself. Terry said, When I first arrived in Cherry Grove, drag was not drag per se. Drag was a hairy chest, hairy arms and mustache, which is commonly known now as gender fucking. And I wasn't into that form of drag. So I stood in the background.

[12:03] Pansy: Folks like Terry practiced a different, more confrontational approach, glamour drag, a performance to create the illusion of a glamorous woman where the performer would lip sync vocals as we see today. So Terry always went out in drag. It was always in a dress. I don't even want to call it drag. He was just always dressed as Terry. And she went to the Pines with someone for dinner. And the maitre d' came over to her, supposedly sent by the owner, John White, and said, I'm sorry, we cannot serve you. This is a family restaurant. It's exactly what happened. Very simple. And they left.

[12:38] Jess Rothschild: This was at the Blue Whale?

[12:39] Pansy: At the Blue Whale. And I can only imagine the humiliation they must have felt. You know, she never talked about it to me. She may have with friends. I honestly don't know what went on in her mind. But I can only imagine it's got to be horrible, horrible. And of course, they came back to the Grove and word went out really quick, you know, and there was always a rivalry between the Grove and the Pines back then. It was like, the Pines, the Grove. And this really set it off. It was like, boom, how dare they?

[13:13] Jess Rothschild: What year was this?

[13:14] Pansy: This was 1976. And I'll never forget it because it's the bicentennial.

[13:21] Jess Rothschild: And do you remember the day?

[13:22] Pansy: No, I do not remember the day that it happened. It was certainly somewhere between May 15th and July 4th, somewhere in there. And of course, everybody became infuriated. And we lived in a house named Tara. There were five of us. And on July 4th, we had a bicentennial party, because the big things, they were like 1,000 ships, if you look in your history books. In 1976, on July 4th, there were 1,000 ships from all over the world in New York. There were sailors everywhere. It was really a humongous, it was really a big, big celebration in the country, but in New York in particular.

[14:01] Pansy: So we had a party and we had a TV on and we were watching the flotilla. We were watching the excitement while we were getting stoned and drinking and just having a good time. So they were the five of us from the house of Tara. There were two women, Amelia Migliaccio and Lynn Hutton, and they were partners. And then there was my friend, Nick Sinisi, who lived around the corner. He was a very close friend and a trick. No one remembers the trick's name. So there were nine of us. And we were drinking, smoking pot. We were talking and talking. And then, of course, Terry came up and all of that alcohol.

[14:42] “Panzi”: You know, you know how you get into life differently than when you're stone cold sober. And we all said, we should go over there and tell the Pines, fuck them. How dare you know, it just went on, we got angry, you know, really. I mean, everybody was angry, but we were really getting into it. And somebody said, I'd like to think it was me, but I can't. Somebody said, we should go over there and tell them what for how dare they treat one of ours this way? How dare they? And someone else said, we should get a flotilla of our own, who's right on the TV, and go over there and make them serve us. And the conversation went, we said, all right, meet back here, Tara, in one hour, and everybody has to be in drag, and don't tell anybody.

And I called a water taxi, Randy and Sally's, I ordered them for an hour and 15 minutes to meet us at the dock, told them what we were doing, Randy, and everybody came over and I was the homecoming queen. So I dressed in a big cape with a tiara and blonde hair, and I was blessing everybody. Most everybody else looked pretty frumpy. If you look at the old pictures, that was pretty, you know, 50 year old men with big pot bellies wearing church dresses and silly things. Nick had a full beard. It was just, it was just fun. Except me, I was beautiful. The women wore leather, full leather, you know, and they sort of guarded us. And we got in the boat and decided to go to Pines. Now high tea back in those days was sunset. So it was late at night. You know, it was like after five, maybe six or seven when high tea was going and that's how it started.

[16:17] “Panzi”: Okay, so you get off, you get off the water taxi. Oh, not yet. Oh, okay. We stopped the water taxi in the bay and we all got second thoughts. We absolutely freaked out. We could see in the harbor at the Blue Whale, there were like 1000 people there. I mean, it was packed. So we all kind of like, sat back and said, you know, what, what do we do? And someone said, What if they like hit us? What if they beat us up? Max said, whatever happens around the Queen. And Amelia said, fuck the Queen. I'm gonna run like hell. It's just one of those things I can't forget. It was so funny. We all screamed. And then Randy on his own, put his hand on the horn and made as much noise as he could and took off. And so here we were pulling into the harbor making as much noise as we can.

And, you know, everybody were on different tiers, and they all turned around and they're looking to see what it was. And when they could see, you know, I was in my pink cape. They went wild. It was so exciting. It was like, Oh my god, look at this. We were embraced by everybody. John White, I'm sure was not happy. In fact, I know he wasn't for years. But that was the reception we got. It was like, Oh my god, this is like fantastic. We went in had a drink. I blessed everybody. And everyone said, Should we stay? And I said, No, no, no, no, no, let's go home. And we left. And it was just fabulous. And that's really the first invasion. And then we went home, had dinner, you know.

[17:50] “Panzi”: So cut to it's 1977. Did you do it again the next year? Or did you take a break for no 1977 came around and we were all hanging out on the third. And I said, Well, let's invade again. Let's do it again. And they said, Oh, no, I'll never forget the conversation. They said, Oh, no. They said it was happening. You know, we kind of did it spontaneously. You can't repeat things that happen. They said, You can't repeat it. So I said, So what's the worst that's gonna happen? We're all gonna have dresses on. We're gonna go have a few cocktails and dress and dance and come home. That's the worst. So they said, Okay. And that was the year Rose joined us. Because there were 17 people, you know. So it grew from the initial nine to 17.

Well, we spread the word to other people and other people knew what we did the year before. And you know, there was a lot of the Cherry Grove luminaries, there were like 17 of us and we did it again. And we pulled into the harbor and the reception was exactly the same. It was absolutely exciting. Nixon EC carried a sign that said the Pines is plastic. I don't know why he did that. But if you see that sign, that's the second invasion. That's the key. Because we didn't think that far the first year. But anyway, you'll see there are photos, they use photos from the second invasion often to describe the first because there were no pictures because nobody knew we were doing it, including us.

[19:18] Bob Levine: Bob Levine remembers joining the second invasion in 1977. After the second invasion, he ran back home to document it in his column in the Fire Island News. The publication is Fire Island's longest running news source since 1957. We came back to the Grove and I wrote my column. And I wrote, the Grove had an invasion in the Pines. And it stuck. So I named it the invasion. Personally, that's it's in the history books now. Hell, next year came the third year came. Oh, let's do it again. And then there were 37 people. And that's how we just kept doing it.

[19:57] “Panzi”: And so how do you make sense of how the invasion has evolved? You know, I think John White made it evolve, because he tried to stop us from doing it up until the early 90s. Part of me believes that that controversy helped to fuel it. Fire Island Property Owners Association was against it. They were trying to, you know, subdue it too. So I don't know. And then every year, the crowds got bigger in the Pines. Now there are 1000s. John White, who hated the invasion, started selling tables for people to sit while he hated the invasion while he threatened me, you know, every year, don't you do it or blah, blah, blah. So it just kind of got bigger. And it was so celebratory, because, you know, it was a little different back then.

So this was a chance for some of the guys mostly at that time, to go and drag, they had special permission, because it's the invasion. So of course, it's very different. Now everybody throws on a dress. But back then it was like, okay, I can do it today. It's the invasion. It's Mardi Gras party time. Now on the afternoon of July 4, each year, hundreds of drag queens from Cherry Grove and the Pines gather at the Ice Palace. After parading through the streets of Cherry Grove, they board a chartered ferry and sail to the Pines harbor, where they are greeted by 1000s of cheering residents and visitors. It has a life of its own, quite frankly, it just took off by itself. I'm just a piece of the puzzle.

For instance, I used to hand out flyers in the Grove two weeks before, come to the invasion, meet us on July 4. Then I would go to the Pines and post notices saying, come for the visitation of your queen. I called it a visitation over there. So I would promote that every year I would go up and down. In the early 90s, I came down with pneumonia. Yes, I came down with pneumonia and almost couldn't do the invasion but did no publicity. And I thought, you know, it's gonna bomb but I'm gonna do it anyway. It didn't bomb. It had a life of its own. I said, you know, big ego me thinking that I could drive it. No, the invasion was set. So even though we had no advertising, it was bigger and bigger. The first few years we did it on a water taxi.

And then we got to a point where the water taxi couldn't handle the crowd. So we took a main ferry. And then only about four years ago, we had three ferries. And the Pines still wasn't used to it. But about 10 years ago, they made peace with the Grove. And they have a pre-show now. They have a red carpet soundstage. Billy Porter was a host. Ranji Rainbow was a host. Bianca del Rio. And I am a guest. I don't go on the regular boat. I go there before and I greet them is like and I sing. It's like singing at Yankee Stadium. You go out on the deck and people are hanging over the rafters and I sing and it's fantastic.

[23:16] “Panzi”: In a lot of ways. This is your legacy. Yeah, it is. Oddly enough, who would have thunk say this year or in modern years, what is your role in the invasion? Well, the role in the invasion has changed over the years tremendously. This is another phenomenon of the invasion. Whatever I say goes, it's like hello. You know, it's really strange to me. But if I tell the businesses to do this, if I tell, you know, everyone listens to me the day of the invasion. It's bizarre.

[23:49] “Panzi”: Well, wait, what would have been some of your demands? Well, I don't make unreasonable demands, but like, let's block off this walk. So we have them go over here. No, don't let them go there. No, we're not loading the boat. No wait for the police to come. Whatever it is, there's a million things. So much goes into the invasion now. And so it's a lot of coordination. For me, it never stopped. I don't know. I just kept going. I'm still going. I write my column every other week. I do my shows. And for me, I have my I'm in my own world, I guess. I do what I love to do. And some people say she's still doing it. She certainly is still doing it. And at 90 years old, all of Rose Levine's shows are also fundraisers. All of the money that comes in goes to the Arts Project of Cherry Grove or the Community Association. In summer 2020, when there were hardly any live shows happening, Bob brought up the idea of a Rose Levine show outside the pizza shop. She did two sold out shows.

[25:03] “Panzi”: I also asked Bob what he makes of drag becoming so mainstream, such a long way from his first summer in 1955, asking friends how he could get into a show like the RuPaul TV show with all of them are all over the top. I don't fit in with that group. I never did. But I admire them. See, my drag was always elegant and simple. And I look like like their aunt or their cousin or somebody, just a normal neighbor or an aunt from the family. But I never wore never wore big drag like that or over the top wigs.

[25:36] Julia Sanderson: Julia is a Cherry Grove homeowner. Julia is able to make her entire mortgage payment by renting out her house during high season so she can enjoy it through the fall, spring and winter. I rent my house out. I was telling you earlier for all of July and August. However, I don't rent it out for July 4, because my sister loves coming out for that weekend and loves going to the invasion. That is to me is a very Oh God, it almost has like a fun, sort of over the top and sentimental quality to it. Like it's a little bit of an emotional thing, like just seeing everybody and all the effort that they've made in their gorgeous looks and just the whole thing. Watching that parade and singing the National Anthem, which is sort of weirdly like the only time I find that kind of moving because it has there's just sort of a fuck you defiant, excellent thing about it. I feel so especially this year with everything that's going on in the world, that's going to be interesting.

[26:36] Boudoir LeFleur: I also asked Boudoir Lafleur to reflect on the early drag of the 1950s and 60s. And also the business of drag. The drag of the 50s and 60s. First of all, I love it because it has more about the spirit and the essence of it. Not that there aren't drag performers that keep that alive. I try to keep that alive as much as possible. Now your face has to be impeccable. Your wig has to be snatched, you have to have the perfect body shape, you know, everyone is corseted for the gods and wearing 16 stilettos. But at the same time, the spirit of the 50s and 60s, all of those old queens were gorgeous and glamorous, but it really had more of the essence and the feeling behind it was more the focus than every last little detail and every, you know, I glued 5000 rhinestones on my ankle and, you know, brand new fishnets and whatnot. It could, you know, just be a slip of a dress. But the personality and the attitude, that's what makes drag.

[27:35] Boudoir LeFleur: Have you had the opportunity to meet Rose Levine or Pansy? Oh, yes, yes, yes. During the pandemic and 2020 summer, we couldn't do the invasion. So we did like an invasion celebration style show. And we gave Pansy we invented an award because we just wanted to honor her and we wanted to bring out the spirit of being one of the oldest members of the community. And also still so supportive, you know, both Rose and Pansy are just still so involved in benefits and shows and whenever they can, and they have the time and energy and even sometimes I know, they don't and they do it anyways. And that's what a lot of the younger queens I think are missing is the energy of it isn't just to make money. You can make money.

Of course, it is absolutely a business now. There's so much money to be had in drag, especially because of RuPaul's Drag Race. Now, you know, it's like everyone's hiring a drag queen to do everything now drag queens are marrying people. I mean, we hire a drag queen for like, you know, the opening of a roll of toilet paper practically at this point.

[28:35] Boudoir LeFleur: You know, do you know Lady Bunny DJs bar mitzvahs? Yes, see exactly. But because they're DJing a bar mitzvah something I would never want to do. But I listen, if I had a bar mitzvah, I would want Lady Bunny to DJ it.

[28:47] Lady Bunny: Speaking of Lady Bunny, I spoke to the legendary performer about how sometimes the real talent pool is outside of what you're seeing on Drag Race, like Boudoir, Pixie Aventura, and many other local New York and Fire Island queens. Even a lot of the drag queens will say that from Drag Race, they'll say support local drag, because if you only support what's going on on Drag Race, and you don't know who Flotilla DuBarge and Coco Peru are, then you're a fan of a TV show, not drag. To me, it is proof that club culture.

[29:23] Lady Bunny: In 1983, Bunny moved to New York City with best friend and roommate RuPaul. Together, they were true club kids, creating the culture and helping to define the musical landscape at the Pyramid Club in the East Village. I floated the idea that perhaps the music and culture were superior when we didn't have the rights. We worshipped Martha Walsh, Sylvester's backup singer, and sometimes her records wouldn't even have her on the cover. There was no artist development, but our superior ear would hear someone like Martha Walsh or Sylvester, and we didn't need the image development because we heard and we knew what was good. And straight people came to our clubs to hear what records were breaking among the gays because then they would take a chance on it.

So yes, we were the tastemakers. And I'm going to tell you something else. Back when we had no rights, gays had this. We could determine as tastemakers that, oh girl, that's tired. So if it was tired, that meant it wasn't fabulous. And you were tired for liking it. Nowadays, gays are the only people who know Paris Hilton's god-awful music. So something definitely changed. And I think it has to do with younger generations tending to buy what they're sold as opposed to hunt for other things they might like more. About 10 years after the first invasion of the Pines, Lady Bunny would cement her own legacy as the founder of Wigstock in 1984. Wigstock is the iconic drag festival which liberated drag from gritty nightclubs, bringing it out into the broad daylight.

The outdoor drag fest began in Tompkins Square Park and later on the west side at Pier 17. It was a grungy drag festival that I started in '84. I was the show director and I was the connect with all the queens. And I got the pyramid to get a permit to do shows at the band show. And it was basically a drag festival, but it also showcased rock bands that were popular at the pyramid because the pyramid was a drag rock venue. I wanted to showcase the very unusual type of drag. There would be celebrity impersonations, but rather than Tina Turner, it would be Janis Joplin. It was a little off the beaten path and our drag was not serious. It was not polished. It was basically a hipper version of Gay Pride with performances in the East Village, whereas the larger Gay Pride was in the West Village.

And, you know, we didn't belong. It ran for over 20 years and was later the subject of the HBO documentary Wig. The first Wigstock was very ragtag, but as word spread, you know, it was free. And over the years, we got performers like Debbie Harry, Boy George, Lee Bowery, dance acts like Crystal Waters, C.C. Pennison, Barbara Tucker, Alternateg. You know, a lot of the people that had the hit song, you know, Ru would perform, Cindy Wilson from the B-52s. Wigstock would eventually grow to more than 30,000 people at its height. So it just kind of became this thing that people wore wigs to. And then we moved it to the pier on the West Side Highway and it ended right before the last Wigstock. There are pictures of us on the pier with the Twin Towers in the background.

[34:09] Ben Rimalower: Finally, we turn to theater director Ben Rimalower. Ben reflects on his front row seat to the evolution of drag from his college days in San Francisco to eventually moving to New York City. I'm trying to think, like, was I even aware of specific drag queens when I was a kid? I mean, Divine. In college, I remember seeing Coco Peru in the movie Trick. And I remember seeing Varla Jean Merman. So I was a huge fan of Varla's and Coco's. And then they were together in the movie with Jack Plotnick, Girls Will Be Girls by Richard Day. Anyone that hasn't must watch Girls Will Be Girls. Also, I was at a gay bar in San Francisco that I used to go to all the time in college. And there was this tall, blonde monstrosity that people were sort of buzzing about who then stepped on my toe really painfully.

And I was like, excuse me. And they just sort of like rudely pushed past me and people told me that that was Lady Bunny. And it would be years before I would move to New York and become a huge fan of Lady Bunny's. But then when I did move to New York, I started becoming aware of some other drag queens like Chiquita. I would see a lot in those days. And she's so great. Well, then friends were sort of talking about Dina Martina. So then I saw Dina Martina for the first time and became completely obsessed. And Dina sort of blew my mind because I wouldn't even consider Dina a drag queen along the lines of other drag queens because Dina is almost like a clown performance artist, bizarre theatrical comedian.

Dina Martina shows are so absurd. I think one of the first facts I knew about Dina Martina was that she is John Waters' favorite drag queen. And that kind of explains everything about Dina Martina. And Dina is one of the queens of Provincetown, along with Barla Jean Merman and the fabulous Miss Richfield. And I probably became aware of Miss Richfield around the same time, maybe through like the Old Navy commercial campaign or something. But they were all sort of getting big around the time like Logo TV was getting big and like Will & Grace was really like a mainstream thing. And it just seemed so clear that culturally we were on the rise. I guess I had always been aware of RuPaul, but because I was never into like supermodels and fashion, like I couldn't tell the difference between Naomi Campbell and Kate Bush, you know.

Wait, Kate Bush? No, Kate Moss. Kate Bush, I know. Oh God, please cut that. And then I remember loving RuPaul in, was it the Brady Bunch or the Brady Sequel? Loved RuPaul as kind of an entity, but I wasn't, I didn't really feel connected to RuPaul. So it took me a couple of years when Drag Race started to start caring about it. And I guess at that point, I'd started being aware of some of the bigger drag queens in the New York scene. Like I'd mentioned Chiquita, but at that point, like I was very familiar with seeing like Paige Turner in Gay Bars and seeing Bianca Del Rio. I'd actually gone to one of the last of the old wig stocks. It was already on the West Side Highway on the piers, but it was before it ended.

It was just clear that drag was getting a bigger and bigger profile and that the days of wig stock were ending, but there was this new thing starting with RuPaul's Drag Race. And then I was a little late to the party, but it didn't take long to see how drag had become this kind of mainstream entertainment. And Drag Race really supplanted Will & Grace by far as just quickly taking up all the real estate of queer identity within mainstream pop culture in such a big way. And then just that there almost became this factory of drag queens from all around the country. And it's like, whether they were local sort of cabaret queens who were, you know, maybe a cabaret star and doing theater in the town they were from, like Jinx Monsoon, who suddenly were these big national level superstars, like Alicia Keys, who were sort of, you know, who suddenly were these big national level superstars, like Alissa Edwards or Raja even, and started to sort of exist in this new industry of drag that included people that would have been the sort of like New York cabaret Cocoa Perus of another generation, even somebody great.

I mean, Pixie Aventura, who's defied the odds of becoming this sort of major drag talent. I mean, the same Madonna tour that Bob the Drag Queen, who triumphed on Drag Race, and then was on this tour of Madonna. So is Pixie Aventura, who has reached that level of national stardom without having ever been on Drag Race, but that's the exception to the rule. And because there are so many incarnations of Drag Race, both nationally and internationally, there's just this factory that these queens can go through to get to a higher level of acclaim. And so then they are out on this sort of national circuit of playing these gigs all over the world, all over the country. And Fire Island becomes a place that they can do that.

And I've seen so many of those queens on a gig in Fire Island, whether it was Tina Burner, or Shangela, I've seen Aquaria, they're playing the same gigs on Fire Island that I've seen Lady Bunny play, you know. And if there's anybody that can make it in Fire Island, it's the drag queens. The invasion is fun, and it's glam. But the history of the invasion is so important to the history of my life, to the history of gay people, to the history of who we are.

[40:11] Diane Romano: Here's Diane Romano, former president of The Grove. She's been here since the late 70s. You know, when Patricia and I got married 10 years ago, we never thought about getting married. It never even occurred to us that we were going to be allowed to be married. So there were things that we just couldn't have, that we just couldn't do. And unfortunately, you could accept some of them, because you had to. But the invasion was a protest, and a winning protest. It was like Stonewall, when the gay guys fought back at Stonewall, and that gave a new awareness and certain new freedoms to being gay. Well, that's what the invasion was. Because when Terry Warren came back and told his friends that, I know Rose Levine was one, and Pansy certainly was one.

And there were a couple of women. Lynn Hutton was a woman who was there. Lynn, who was our fire chief for 20 years. Lynn dressed, you know, in dress. So that's why it was all about cross-dressing. And they got in a water taxi, and they went over there. Those folks, I think there were 12 of them. And they marched into that bar, and he served them. I mean, that was a big deal. And they changed the attitude of certain people. And that's what you have to do in life. You have to change the attitude of certain people to be prejudiced against you. Why are you prejudiced against me? You don't even know me. When did you get to know me? What is it that you're afraid of? Right? So this celebration that we have every year, this parade, this fabulous invasion of the Pines. And I don't know if you've ever been on the Pine side and seen it. I mean, how they welcome us. I mean, it's a celebration of acceptance is what it is.