Oral History with Michael Harney Part 2

Corey Childers:Okay, so once again, thank you for meeting with me. I am Corey Childers. I'm interviewing with Michael Harney. It is March 19th, 2019. Just to jump in with one of my bigger questions when I was going back through our interview, I was wondering, since you said you went to Belmont Abbey, and that's a Catholic school, I was wondering what was your experience going to Belmont Abbey as a gay man in Catholic school?

Michael Harney:That's a good question. Belmont Abbey is in Belmont, North Carolina, between Gastonia and Charlotte. I think in our interview maybe I told you how I got there was that a lady that I worked for, Mrs. Kearns, May Kearns, she had a nephew who was a brother there, Brother Gregory. Because I was unable to get into schools in Virginia, where I was from, I ended up there. It's who 00:01:00you know kind of thing. It was an opportunity. But because of that, it's led me in so many different directions in my life, so you can never always foresee why things happen, or where you're supposed to be at the right time. It was operated by the Benedictines, so that was the order that operated Belmont Abbey, or still does.

Michael Harney:I had never been to any kind of a parochial school or system growing up. I didn't go to Catholic schools. Though my family was Catholic, I really was not a practicing Catholic in that sense. At the age of 12, when my parents were having some financial difficulties, we didn't go to church regularly. Then when they got stabilized again a year or two later and expected us to want to go back, need to go back, think it was something to do-

Corey Childers:I'm so-

Michael Harney:You're all right. I just found that it wasn't necessary. It wasn't really for me. I wasn't getting anything out of it. However, Belmont Abbey, because of the, I say the church there, the abbey itself, was so ornate, and the traditions of these monks that would come each day to vespers, and they chanted these Gregorian chants in Latin. You could sit in the ... and you can too if you're down there. Find out what time vespers is, either the morning, afternoon or evening. But I just recall being in awe of this old, ancient I'd say, Latin being used. All of those traditions made it really exciting and fun.

Michael Harney:The monks themselves, there was Brother Paul, and Brother Gregory, and Father Christopher, and Father Ambrose, Father Moe, and Father 00:03:00Lawrence in particular are the ones that I ... and Father John. They were the ones that I particularly remember. There was an abbot. I think he was Abbot Walter at the time. I got to know them. Many of them were teachers there, professors. You saw them. They were a presence. I mean the abbey itself has the living quarters right there, so you saw them interacting on campus.

Michael Harney:I think there was a total of 960 students I think in the whole ... the registered student body. There was a fairly large gay presence there. I had a specific friend, Reggie Ealy. I think I name him in the interview eventually. We were boyfriends. But my friend, Patricia Adel, who was a lesbian 00:04:00on campus, she's part of the basketball team and all that kind of stuff, sports and volleyball. There were a number of gay and lesbian people in particular. I wouldn't say there were many obviously transgender people on campus that presented that way, but in terms of gays and lesbians, there were enough.

Michael Harney:The whole concept and theme though, this is my understanding in the Catholic Church, because I was not a good Catholic, okay, was that you could be gay as long as you didn't act upon it, that kind of thing. Do I know that Brother Paul was gay? I don't know that he was gay. He was a big old sissy, though. Was he gay? I don't know. Was Father Christopher enthralled by these soccer players in their shorts in the springtime? Seemed like it, but I don't know that. Was Father Ambrose fascinated by all of the statuary in Rome? Yes, he 00:05:00was. Was he gay? I don't know. He never said he was. Was Father Lawrence, when he would stand behind you and massage your shoulders a little bit kind of stuff? Who knows? You can't really say they were gay, because nobody was out about it from the abbey, from the Benedictines. You assume, perhaps, that some were.

Michael Harney:On campus, I was, as I was in high school I think I mentioned, a little bit outcast. I was on the sidelines. I wasn't the cool people, but I was involved with clubs, and I was always very active in the social things. Not in the fraternity life or sorority life. So when Reggie and I would walk down the campus or through the campus together, though we weren't holding hands 00:06:00necessarily, we got called faggot and queer. My roommates, my suite mates, there were eight. So there were four rooms on one hall, and one bathroom. There were these four rooms, and each room you had two suite mates, these two roommates.

Michael Harney:My roommates, a couple times it changed. I left to Costa Rica during '86, that whole school year. They would call me homo. This guy, Chris Ferguson, I'll tell you his name. I don't care. He would, "Homo," kind of things. It was an endearing name, nickname. I'm strong enough to know what's up. I mean I've been gay all my life, that kind of thing. But you could catch his eye. You ever catch somebody's eye, and you have a little spark or something?

Corey Childers:Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Michael Harney:That was Chris Ferguson. I could catch him in the eye. He'd be 00:07:00like, "Stop looking at me like that. Stop looking at me like that." I'd look at Frank Datrizio, or John, or my ... John Gorman was my roommate. I'd look at him and say, "I'm looking at you. What are you talking about? What am I doing? What is he seeing that you're not seeing?" Nobody else saw it, but he did. You see, because I believe Chris Ferguson was also deeply gay. He loved to cut the guys' hair in our suite. Not everybody likes to cut other guys' hair. Though he always had a little girlfriend, or he was always drunk and he was always getting his little party on and stuff, I still believe he was gay. To this day, if I met him, I bet you he would be out. He was from San Diego and that kind of thing. He was always the dog barking. He was always like, "Homo." I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but I could catch him in his eye like, "What's up?" "Don't be looking at me like that." We had fun like that.

Michael Harney:Reggie was really ... he lived in a different dorm than I did. 00:08:00People respected him because he knew everybody. He could party really hard, and I couldn't. I can't keep up with the party. He was involved with all of that, the party scene, but gay. Then when I came back from Costa Rica, the roommate situation changed up. My actual roommate, whom I still hang out with today, lives in South Carolina in Fort Mill. His name is Mark Oetker. He was much more effeminate, and people called him names, but he was also able to party with them. He could party with the best. He lived up in the same dorm that Reggie did, so they knew each other very well. They all partied, that kind of thing.

Michael Harney:But Mark was very "obviously gay," and worked at Belks kind of 00:09:00thing, and Dillard's, and those kinds of retail stores. But we ended up being roommates the last year of college, which was really cool. We got called the queer dorm, or the queer pod or whatever it was called. There were a couple of other guys that were freshmen, Bobby Murgo and David Dunn. We called David Dunn Curtis Craig for some reason. That was the name we always called him. It is now known that he is a gay man. He was not openly gay during those years. But some years later, and only some years ago, he reached out to me from San Francisco. He's a married man to another man. Just said that he couldn't, in those days, be as openly gay as he wanted to be, but he appreciated living with us because we 00:10:00were gay, and we were open about that, and strong enough.

Michael Harney:Even being called homo or fag or whatever, I was not intimidated by that because I was integrated in my school system. I was with the German club, and I was with all the clubs. I can't even think of all the stuff that I was involved in. The politics on campus, and very active in that sense, and because I did so well in school, where many of my classmates did not. I don't know what to say. We were the strange crowd. We were the queer crowd, in that sense. I don't know. I demanded respect, commanded respect. Still do. But it was that kind of an environment. It wasn't supportive from faculty, the monks, or 00:11:00anything like that, but it also wasn't stomped down, or in any way what I believe ... I wouldn't say it was oppressive like that. That's a little bit of what I would say.

Speaker 3:Can I ask a question?

Michael Harney:Yeah.

Speaker 3:How did that translate off campus? Was your experience different off campus, being out?

Michael Harney:Well, I lived on campus, because I was just saying that there were only 960 total students enrolled in the school, and so a number of them, I think there were five or six lived on campus. This was a very small campus like that. Unless you had a car, you really didn't go anywhere. Mark Oetker, my roommate, did have a car. You could potentially go to the grocery store, to the liquor store. It was a dry campus, and so was Belmont. It was a dry town. You'd 00:12:00have to go across the border into Mecklenburg County. I'm trying to think of Gastonia. Maybe Gaston County, you could also buy beer and wine at the grocery stores. So if we were going to go get alcohol, that's what we had to do. But otherwise, you were isolated on campus.

Michael Harney:You could walk off campus to go down to the Hardee's. There was a Hardee's there, and a Winn-Dixie, and if you went further into Belmont you might have a little coffee shop. There really was nothing much. Belmont was very different than it is now. I can't say that off campus it translated into anything else, because we really weren't off campus. You were there. If we ever had a night out to go to Scorpio or something like that, and we went to a dance club. I don't know if I've mentioned that.

Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to ask about that.

Michael Harney:Yeah. That was my-

Speaker 3:Where was Scorpio?

Michael Harney:In Charlotte. It was downtown. It's still there, as far as I know. I haven't been in years. But that was where I danced with Reggie for the first time. I remember I was telling you about. That was the gay club. You could 00:13:00go, but unless you had wheels, you didn't get there. You were on campus. That's where I lived, on campus. I worked in the cemetery there, and cut grass. I swam there, and all that kind of stuff at our pool. I wasn't on the swim team, but I swam. Brother Paul was in charge of the swimmers and the swim team. You see what I mean? That kind of thing. Was he gay? I can't say. He never admitted that. But he'd say, "Brother Paul," and smoke his cigarette, and just ash it right on the floor. I mean he'd smoke right in the classroom.

Speaker 3:Wow.

Michael Harney:It was a wonderful experience is what I can say about Belmont Abbey. I met Reggie, and Patricia in particular. They changed my life. I had no foresight into where they would take me in life, but have been part of my life 00:14:00all these years since.

Speaker 3:I was going to ask you a little bit here, specifically your relationship with Patricia. How did that develop, because she was the reason you came to Asheville?

Michael Harney:Yes. She was ahead of us, a year ahead or two years ahead. I can't remember. She was a year ahead. She and Reggie connected. They're both African American. They connected on campus because it was a really small population. There were a couple of basketball students from different cities, mostly Catholic core places. There was New York and New Jersey and Philadelphia. You got a lot of the student body from those particular cities, and a few others across the country, wherever they came from. Many of the basketball players might've been of an African descent somehow, whether African American or island. 00:15:00We had a number of students who came from island countries, the Bahamas in particular. There was just very few, that core.

Michael Harney:She and Reggie got together. They hooked up as friends. But I knew Reggie, and then I got to meet her. Then when Reggie had to leave school a year or so later, after the year and a half or so of school, he told me to make sure to take care of her. I was like, "Okay." She and I confused people more than ever, because we did walk around on campus holding hands. We took naps together, and we were just always together. We were best friends.

Michael Harney:I'm trying to think of if it was when she left or when she came back. It was when she was leaving campus. I thought I would never see her again. 00:16:00I cried so hard. Reggie tried to console me. It would've had to have been when she was leaving. She graduated. I was inconsolable because I was so sad that I would never see her again. I mean just like ... you know? We stayed in touch. A card here, a letter there, that kind of thing, a phone call maybe. She might've come back to campus for homecoming, something to see all the girls kind of thing. I was really surprised when she called me to ask if I would come down and help, as I said, build a garden and paint her house. That's how I got to know her.

Speaker 3:So how did she get you to Asheville?

Michael Harney:Simply by asking if I would just come down one summer. It was in 00:17:001992. She bought a house. She was an accountant. She still is an accountant. That's her line of work. She bought a house, and she asked if I would come down, and really to develop the garden. She knew I liked gardening, and to help paint the house. That was what she asked for the summer, and to see if we were compatible living together, and we were. I never left. I went back and finished one semester. I had one semester left to graduate the second time. This was when I was at VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University. I stayed the summer of '92, and then went and finished one semester, and then came back here. I've been here ever since.

Speaker 3:I'm trying to understand the different ... the Virginia Commonwealth University. That transition from Belmont Abbey. You graduated Belmont Abbey.

Michael Harney:Graduated Belmont Abbey in 1988, and went back to Virginia, and lived in my parents' home for a short while. Got a job at J.C. Penney in Hampton for the holiday, and then they thought they saw something in me and asked me I wanted to go to management school or whatever for J.C. Penney. I was given a management position, and then moved over to Norfolk to their largest store at Military Circle Mall. I was the manager of the men's suits and accessories department.

Michael Harney:During that time, whatever year it was that the Olympics were held in Barcelona, Spain, J.C. Penney was a major sponsor of the Olympics. I was like, "Wow." I have this fluency in Spanish. I'm going to see if there's 00:19:00something I might be able to do to represent the company. I asked about it, and they were like, "No, no, no. You just stay here. We got this taken care of. You just stay right there in the store." That triggered such a response in my mind that I was like, "Wow, I don't see myself using my Spanish in any way with this company." I mean I could've potentially gone to Puerto Rico. Their largest store in the J.C. Penney system is in Puerto Rico. I thought, "Okay, maybe there's some potential, but apparently there wasn't." That's when I put in place my direction to go and get a degree in Spanish at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Corey Childers:Cool.

Speaker 3:Yeah, but I had another question. What got you interested in Spanish? Costa Rica was-

Michael Harney:It goes further back than that. I'd always tell the story when I'm starting my classes each semester and give students a little bit of who I am. I always tell them about Miss Bacillus' fifth grade class that she brought 00:20:00in somebody to teach us the days of the week, and the months of the year and colors, or whatever it was. I don't know. I got that spark then. I just thought it was fascinating. There used to be a television show on called [foreign language], and I always told them ... the [foreign language], the Happy Village. I took Spanish through 7th to 12th grade. 7th through 12th grade.Speaker 3:What a radical notion, teaching young people foreign language.

Michael Harney:Exposing them to it, at least.

Speaker 3:Exactly.

Michael Harney:Probably earlier than that we could've been exposed to it. That was just the fifth grade, but loved it. That's what got me involved. I had people ask, "Are you Spanish? What's your heritage?" All that kind of stuff. I think I told you I'm ... we're told we're Irish. I don't know. But I had no other relationship to Spanish, other than I loved it, and enjoyed it, and 00:21:00studied it, and went to schools and that kind of thing. That's all.

Speaker 3:So your trip to Costa Rica, what was that like?

Michael Harney:It was a two part. In the ninth grade, I think I told you that my mother was a real estate agent. One of her clients, the husband and the wife there. The clients were cousins of folks in Costa Rica that still lived there. They lived in Norfolk. I can't remember their names right now. He was in the United States Army, and was in that Norfolk, Newport News, Fort Eustis somewhere area. My mother, that was her area, her territory of real estate, and had these clients who had cousins in Costa Rica who had a son my age, Luis Carlos. Would I 00:22:00want to go down there for a month? It seems like it was the summer of the ninth grade. "Okay, whatever." I was adventurous.

Michael Harney:I went and stayed with them for a month in Costa Rica. They showed me around the beaches and all that kind of stuff, and volcanoes. Funny, over the weekend I was looking for some other photographs for ... I wanted to show a friend of mine show photographs from when I was younger. Some of those photographs from Costa Rica, and Luis Carlos, and Flora Maria, and Victor, the father, and Victor Manuel, the brother. They were all in these pictures. I was looking through some of that. It was interesting that you ask. But that experience in ninth grade led to Luis Carlos coming to stay with us for a semester in high school, so in Hampton. He stayed with us for ... I don't 00:23:00remember if it was fall to December, or January to spring. I can't remember exactly which semester he stayed with us, but he did spend a semester.

Michael Harney:Then when I go to college and saw this opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica at the University of Costa Rica through the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, I applied for that program, and got it authorized by Belmont Abbey to accept the transfer units back. That's how I ended up going to Costa Rica, simply. How was the trip? Great. I studied two semesters there. The hardest thing was probably doing math, so statistics. I don't know why I took statistics in Costa Rica. It was one of the required classes I had to take. I said, "I'll just do it." I failed tragically. The teacher gave back tests from 00:24:00the highest score to the lowest.

Corey Childers:Oh, gosh. That's terrible.

Michael Harney:It was very stigmatizing. He looked at me with such disdain when he first gave me that. You didn't do any of your work. You didn't pay any attention. Why are you even in this class? Then I explained to him after class that I was an exchange student, and he was like, "Why didn't you tell me? I could've talked to you. I could've helped." He spoke English just fine. "I would've been glad to have tutored you or something." I didn't know. It was just very strange. But the trip itself was wonderful. I mean I did fine in school there, learned lots. The father, I say my Costa Rican father, Victor Manuel Arsay, was an industrialist. He was a rice factory owner there.

Michael Harney:So when I was in one of the economics classes that I was taking, I was a business administration degree is what I got from Belmont Abbey. I was 00:25:00studying business classes, that kind of thing. Part of one of the classes was to interview somebody in an industry in the country, in the community. The team I was on with the other students, they were like, "What should we do? What should we do?" I was like, "I don't know if we can, but I could ask Victor Manuel, who runs a rice factory." They were like, "Really?" They were all about it. Our project was about the rice factory lateral setup. They were greatly impressed to have that connection. I was just like, "Okay, whatever. Okay. Rice factory. Let's look into it."

Michael Harney:Victor Manuel Arsay, the father, I say my father there, was very kind to give us the interviews that we needed, and answer questions, and really I think open their eyes to this part of society that they weren't really a part of, the students that I was going to school with at the University of Costa Rica. I didn't think anything of it. He was my host father.

Michael Harney:Some of the, in terms of gay things, maybe you're interested in. The students that went to Costa Rica were from a variety of universities across this country through the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas to this program. In that group of students, there were several gay guys that I knew about. I don't know about any of the lesbian women. But I hooked up with one of the guys on our first couple of weeks that we were there going to the beach. Because we took a couple of weeks of intensive, making sure everybody was in order online, we knew about Costa Rica and principles of and whatever. We had to do a health screening, and a stool sample and all that kind of stuff that we weren't bringing organisms into the country. All that kind of stuff was part of their health system.

Michael Harney:On the weekends after being in these intensive classes, we took 00:27:00trips. They would take us to Playa Manuel Antonio, or to I don't know, all these different places we went to, Nicoya and stuff. Drinking beer and all that kind of stuff. Everybody got sneaked off, and did their own things, and so did I. But I had two other experiences with men in Costa Rica. I'd be pressed, unless I looked at a journal or something, to remember their names. But I had two other experiences during the year that I was there, short-term experiences, knowing somebody for a month or two or something like that. Nothing serious, and nothing heavy. It wasn't, "Oh my god, I'm going to get married. I'm going to stay here in Costa Rica. Can we get married? I can be a US citizen or something." It was nothing like that. Those were my experiences there.

Michael Harney:I went to a couple of gay bars. Two of the guys I was hanging out with, they were friends. They took me to one of the gay bars there. When we were 00:28:00at a stoplight, some girl jumped in the car. She was a public sex worker on the street. Pulled open the car, jumped in the car, and she was like, "Can I whatever with you guys?" We were like, "No, honey. We're not going to do that. We're going a different direction." They said ... there's a term. [Foreign language]. "Are you of the environment?" That's like saying "Are you family?"

Michael Harney:She would not get out of the car, so they drove to the next police officer they saw in the street and rolled down the window. They were like, "This lady will not get out of our car." She was like, "I had to do them, and they owe me money," and all this kind of stuff. We were like, "Uh-uh (negative), we're [foreign language], honey. We don't have anything to do with what you're out here selling. We're just on our way to a bar." The police officer got her out of the car, and we didn't end up paying anything. But that was just an odd experience, and it's where I learned the term [foreign language] I saw some of their pictures too. There were a couple of guys. I remember seeing 00:29:00pictures. They were fun. There was a gay community there. Some of it was tourism, so there were Americans, Germans, Canadians in particular were probably the, I say, the majority of the tourist populations that you might have run into.

Speaker 3:Was this in the '80s?

Michael Harney:Yes. I'd say it was '86. My school started in February, so it would've been second semester of sophomore, first semester of junior year I think, as it went.

Corey Childers:What a good time.

Michael Harney:Yeah.

Speaker 3:Could you talk comparatively about the gay bar scene in Costa Rica 00:30:00that you experienced, versus whatever experiences were in college or here in the States?

Michael Harney:There were gay bars, but they were much smaller. Maybe twice the size of this interview room was about the size of it. It wasn't wide open like Scorpio, where there's a big dance floor and lots of rainbow flags. There was a big gay scene there, but it wasn't open in the streets with parades or anything like that. It was mostly beer and liquor. They had something called guaro. It's tequila. You drank that. This is all me being drunk and sick, and not even realizing how allergic I was to alcohol. You would go, and everybody's looking at each other, and eyeing each other and that kind of thing. You might've picked up or hooked up. It wasn't a major discotheque as I experienced it. It was just 00:31:00little community bars more than anything. They weren't gay bars. That's how they were different.

Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I'm not trying to take over here.

Corey Childers:No, please, go ahead.

Speaker 3:But what kind of conversations were happening around HIV and AIDS at that point? It's such a formative time.

Michael Harney:That would've been five or six years into the epidemic. It was not widely known. There were condoms available at the bars. You had to ask for the bartender to give you a condom. They had them behind the bar. I don't recall seeing many posters up or anything like that. When I went back to Costa Rica years later, I've been back at least once, maybe twice, one other time, I saw 00:32:00many more signs, posters or billboards or things that had been painted on stones and rocks along the highway, those kinds of things. It was a little bit more visible. But you're talking 20 years later, 25 years later.

Michael Harney:Back then, I don't think it was really well-understood. It really hadn't reached the international community so far. You heard about Americans. Be careful of those Americans. They may be bringing you something from their country where all the AIDS is, that kind of thing. But it was called SIDA, [foreign language], the syndrome of immunodeficiency acquired. S-I-D-A. But no, nobody was really thinking about it back then.

Speaker 3:What about here, and in North Carolina, or wherever you were in the States? You were in Virginia then?

Michael Harney:Going to Costa Rica for university would've been at Belmont Abbey, so that would've still been that period of time. I graduated there in 1988, so that was during that. I spent a year in Costa Rica during my four year stint at Belmont Abbey. It was one of the years I was there. Here in North Carolina, it was a little more prevalent. My roommate, Mark Oetker, and I went to do our first HIV test in Mecklenburg County. That would've been after I'd gotten back from Costa Rica, when he and I were roommates. I knew him, and we knew each other was gay, but we didn't really hang out a whole lot until we were roommates. Now great, great friends, and have been all these years.

Michael Harney:But we went to get our first HIV test at Mecklenburg County 00:34:00Health Department, and you got a special code number. It wasn't identifiable by name. It was all anonymous back then. It is no longer anonymous. It's confidential, names-based. But they gave us a number. We went back whatever, two, two and a half weeks later. They separated us. When we talked about it afterwards on the way back, we each thought we had been separated into the positive room. He thought he was being taken to the positive room. I myself, I was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to this other room. Why did they separate us? I must have it." Neither of us did or does, but it was a real heavy experience remembering that.

Michael Harney:It did not, though, still did not, even in those days, really 00:35:00click that we were at risk. I don't mean to be too graphic with you, but I did have a sexual experience even after that. It was an unprotected, condom-less sexual experience, to the extent that I thought, "Oh my god, what have I done to myself? I am bleeding. Oh my god. I probably have it." Had to go back and get tested again after a little time had gone by. I really stopped my life after that experience, thinking, "What am I doing?" Really was a very changing time period in my life.

Michael Harney:I had started to meet people who had HIV, or who were dying of AIDS in Atlanta. Reggie was from Atlanta, so when I would visit him in Atlanta, and he'd tell me who died of our friends, our circle, had died of AIDS, I was 00:36:00like, "Oh my god, it's really around us now. It really is starting to hit. I need to do something different in my life." I say I held back my nature. I still fight my nature. I can't remember if I told you that my partner, Paul, that I've been with for 17 years is partner number 25 of the sexual and the male partners I've ever had in my life. When instead I ask other men how many sexual partners that they had, and it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, or thousands because of the years of their life experience in cities like New York, and Miami, or San Francisco, or LA, or Chicago or whatever around the world. They're in the hundreds to thousands. It makes me look like a simpleton.

Speaker 3:A Catholic school boy, right?

Michael Harney:A Catholic school boy, right, who ... and HIV actually was in the Catholic Church. There were newsletters that went out to some of the ... I don't know if it was just to the Benedictines, or to the other orders of Catholics talking about father so and so, brother so and so who had died of AIDS, and how did he acquire it. It was always the scandal. There were a number of priests who were well-known to be out in the bar scene a lot of times. Not just at Belmont Abbey, but I'm talking about in a general larger city scene. He's a priest. Did you know he's getting with him, and them and whatever? There was that scene. I would go to Atlanta and visit Reggie, and people were dying. It stopped me to the extent that it did. Truly slowed me down.

Corey Childers:I was going to ask, were there any other memories you had of any other movements from the '60s or '70s as a kid that you might remember, like gay liberation movement, civil rights movement?

Michael Harney:We've been told that we were the first post-civil rights generation in the sense of the integrated school systems. In looking at those pictures that I was looking for the other day, I found my first grade picture with the whole class of us. When you look, if it's not 50/50 black and white, it's 60/40, white 60/40 black blend. That's who I went to school with. I told you I think Miss Alston was my kindergarten teacher. She was an African American 00:39:00woman, and Miss Cook, with her big ... in the '70s, the big Afro like this. She was my teacher. Very influential. Miss Fraser was our vice-principal, and Miss Greenly and Miss Ray. They were African American woman in my life, very important women in my life, and teachers.

Michael Harney:But in terms of gay liberation, I don't really recall that so much as a scene. I remember Anita Bryant in the news criticizing the gays, and all the orange juice ads and that kind of stuff related to Miami and Florida. But it didn't click in my mind so much so that it was the gay liberation movement. The free love and all that kind of stuff was all part of that late '60s, early '70s. The styles, the music, all the drugs and things that were 00:40:00going on. I witnessed that, so it influenced my life. I know that it did, but I don't recall so many I say social action. The social action center at church was about as much the movement as I knew about. When I went later on, and it had to do with liberation theology in those days, but I just remember being part of the community. There was so much to do, and work to do, and volunteerism and stuff like that.

Michael Harney:I was too young at Stonewall. I knew, growing up in junior high and high school, there were gay bars around Newport News. There were a couple in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. I had friends in high school. Alan Darty, I think I mentioned somewhere in the previous interview that we had. He was that one kid 00:41:00in school that everybody teased. He was the most effeminate and flaming or whatever, but probably the strongest, because he put up with so much shit. He knew about the gay scene, and was at a very young age involved. You could get into some of the bars underage because you were gay, and you were pretty, and you were young. He was part of that scene. But he would tell me about things, so I knew about it. I was never part of it.

Speaker 3:The bar scene seems so integral, central in a lot of the stories I'm hearing, especially among men, actually.

Michael Harney:It was the one place you could hide away and get away. If it wasn't a place just to socialize, it certainly was a place to meet other men. Many of the bars, it depends on how much you want to do. There were obviously 00:42:00sex clubs, and backrooms, and fetishes and all that kind of stuff. The movie Tom of Finland. I was telling you about that. Did I tell you that? There's a movie entitled Tom of Finland. It's worth seeing. The actual guy, Tom of Finland, you see the actual guy at the end of the movie. You know how they always show those historic photographs and that kind of thing?

Corey Childers:Oh, yeah.

Michael Harney:It's his life story, the artist. In that film, you will see a number of those fetishes, and those backrooms, and the parks, and the secret public sex environments as was downtown Asheville, the bathrooms. You could be critical about it. It sounds pathological, and there's mental health issues, but 00:43:00these are the ways that gay men found each other, and were not able to be visible in the streets, and be socially accepted and all that stuff. Last night we were at Bouchon. My colleague, Devon, and I went and had supper with George and Mark. George was our former receptionist at WNCAP, and Mark had been the president of the board. They've been married for, I don't know, 10 years now, or 8 years or whatever it is. Time flies. But very openly gay. You just know.

Michael Harney:When they came in, I kissed them right on the lips in the middle of Bouchon. We all sat down and we laughed. We were in our own little bubble right there. Whether people were watching us, or looking at us, or talking about us, who cares? We were into each other. "What have you been doing? I haven't talked to you in a while. How's things? What's going on? How's the garden? Where's your children, the dogs?" That kind of stuff.

Michael Harney:It's just different, but it wasn't back then, and still there's 00:44:00so much of that internal homophobia anyway that ... I don't know that it's internal homophobia. Maybe it is if you dug deep enough, but my partner Paul and I, we don't walk around holding hands. Mark and George don't walk around holding hands downtown. Should they? Could they? Would they? I don't know. If Paul wants to hold hands, I'll walk with him, but he doesn't seem into it. It does feel different when you do. It does feel empowering. I like to be in a gay parade or something like that, a pride parade. It's very empowering, even if there are people on the sides of the streets protesting, or screaming or yelling. There's something really neat about it. It's really just fulfilling.

Speaker 3:I have to go, and I'm so sad that I have to go. I have students to meet. Tell me about what you know about the Radical Faeries.

Michael Harney:I love them.

Speaker 3:You were talking about the parade, and thinking about that.

Michael Harney:Yeah. I wonder-

Speaker 3:Do you know what I'm talking about?

Corey Childers:Mm-mm (negative).

Speaker 3:This is so awesome.

Michael Harney:Yeah. The Radical Faeries. I wonder if I couldn't get you 00:45:00connected. I wish Holly Boswell were still here. She would've been part of that time. Peter. What's Peter's last name, that used to teach math here?

Speaker 3:I don't know.

Michael Harney:Oh, gosh. He only retired just a couple years ago from the math department. Peter. I can't say his last name right now. I could find him. He was part of that time period, and what a great interview he might be, actually.

Speaker 3:Yeah, sounds like it.

Michael Harney:They have some of the Radical Faeries still today, but that-

Speaker 3:It's the commune experience often, right?

Michael Harney:Yes, right.

Speaker 3:There's one in Tennessee.

Michael Harney:Why can't I say her name? The big drag queen that was in the movies.

Corey Childers:RuPaul?

Michael Harney:No, no, no, earlier.

Speaker 3:Divine?

Michael Harney:I'm looking way earlier. Part of the Radical Faeries. Oh, gosh. I lose my gay card by doing this so much, because I can never remember. I hate that. Divine.

Corey Childers:Oh, okay.

Michael Harney:You've seen Divine movies, haven't you? Hairspray was one of them, but even before that. Go back and look at some of the early history of Divine. There's either a documentary about Divine, or one of the very early movies is about that Radical Faeries. I think it might've even been before The Celluloid Closet. There's a film out there about Divine's involvement with the Radical Faeries and all that. I'd have to dig that movie out to see what the title is. I'm just terrible about remembering things like that.

Michael Harney:But you can see all the shows they did in San Francisco, and in LA, and then they tried to take it to New York. It was a very different gay 00:47:00community there, and they weren't quite as accepting. But those were the psychedelic bus, and all the wild clothes, and the Faeries, and the glitter, and the feathers, and the singing, and the dancing and the musicals. Those were part of that Radical Faerie movement. There still are a number of them who are now older and still survive. Many are dead and gone. But Peter, why can't I say his last name?

Speaker 3:I'll look it up. One of the things that Radical Faeries did was bring about the absurdity of the situation in terms of their activism.

Michael Harney:Yes.

Speaker 3:I heard a story about someone wearing a bathing suit to be the ... I don't know what to call it. The grand marshal of their parade or something for the KKK rally in Asheville.

Michael Harney:That's funny.

Speaker 3:He walked around with a sash that said something. I can't remember 00:48:00now. He blew white powder at people.

Michael Harney:Yeah, things like that.

Speaker 3:White powder, right, because of white power.

Michael Harney:Power, yeah. They are so creative. Well, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence came from all of that. We have the Beer City Sisters here. They are of that same principle of radicalism, of making a point, of being so creative and beautiful, and so it's all that. The fun names, like Wilma Holburn, for example. Selma Cooter. They always had the greatest of names. The Radical Faeries had many of those same names, and there's plenty of history there. You find history about them as well with The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Their names are listed there, and many of the sisters who are gone now too. 00:49:00Yeah, that's a good one, the Radical Faeries. They have a place here. Is it called Short Mountain? Over the Tennessee-

Speaker 3:That's in Tennessee.

Michael Harney:That's considered the Radical Faerie commune, or playground or campground.

Speaker 3:They still do regular meetings, apparently. Twice a year reunion.

Michael Harney:Right. I'm just not thematic enough. But I've been invited, I just haven't gone. A lot of times related to the solar eclipse, and the solstice, and that kind of stuff. It's oftentimes related to astrological celebrations, and-

Speaker 3:Very earth-grounded.

Michael Harney:Yes, Wiccan kind of stuff. Yeah, really cool. Lots of beardy, manly faerie stuff. I don't know. Lots of neat history. I hate to see you have 00:50:00to leave. What else?

Speaker 3:I do have one more question. You said something about this shift from anonymous to confidential with the HIV testing. What do you think about that? Why did it happen, and what do you think about it?

Michael Harney:It happened because you couldn't report back or get back to people and tell them, "Hey, you have HIV, and we can help you-"

Speaker 3:Unless they came?

Michael Harney:Right, if you were just number 637521OA. If I never came back, there was no identifier in order to reach you. Now in terms of confidential testing now, they ask your name, and address, and ask for your social security number. You don't have to give it, but they're looking for ways of identifying you. I could go in and say my name is Mickey Mouse, and I live at 123 Disneyland Lane, but they're not going to ask for my identification here to make sure I am that person. Now I got to remember that I called myself Mickey Mouse, and where I said I was going to live in order to get my results back.

Michael Harney:But should there be what we call a positive test, and they want to reach me, they're looking for ways of reaching me to tell me that, "Yes, you have a positive test. Here's how you can treat it. This is how you can live a nice, long life. We can help to identify your partners, or to notify them to get them tested so that they have a fair chance of living a long life and getting the medication, that kind of thing." You can still do anonymous testing in the sense that you can go buy your own kit in a pharmacy, but it's only an antibody test. It's a screening tool. It's not the antigen confirmation test. What do I think about it? It's fine. There's still so much stigma around HIV, and discrimination.

Speaker 3:Absolutely.

Michael Harney:It's too bad. But anonymous testing, which is hard to follow up 00:52:00on. More and more people then would get infected, and more and more people wouldn't have care, and more and more people were isolated if they knew if they ever had it, or thought they did. Ultimately, you get sick enough that you end up in the hospital anyway. Then you're diagnosed with it, and your family's there because they're wondering why you're so sick, and it just all pours out.

Michael Harney:There's stories like that where, "I didn't want to know. I wasn't going to get tested. I'd seen too many people around me. I knew I probably had it. I got so sick, ended up in the hospital. My whole family was there wondering what, and doctors just blurted out, 'Well, you know his AIDS is what's killing him.' 'What? I didn't even know my son was gay,'" that kind of stuff. It's not only you're gay, HIV, and you're getting ready to die. Those kinds of stories are out there too. I think probably confidential testing is a good idea, HIPAA protections and all that kind of stuff you hope are implemented in our 00:53:00healthcare. Sometimes stuff gets out.

Speaker 3:It just seems like there is a lot of fear around positive people who are in healthcare, to be transparent about that.

Michael Harney:That people who are positive working in healthcare? Yeah.

Speaker 3:Do you feel like it's more ... that's more of a threat, healthcare versus education?

Michael Harney:Well, not unless you're doing invasive procedures where there might be a risk. I don't know.

Speaker 3:I mean is there more of a threat of discrimination?

Michael Harney:Oh, probably, but anytime. We're so uneducated in a general way across the country. A new generation is coming. You still don't get enough education. So if you don't think your food is being served by somebody with HIV in at least one, or two, or three or four restaurants in town, you're crazy. Being cooked by somebody in the back, making your bed at the hotel or whatever. I mean people with HIV, they're in all fields.

Speaker 3:You think there's still pretty strong stigma?

Michael Harney:Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:Like oh, if they're cooking my food, I might-

Michael Harney:If I knew, right. I'm not eating here anymore. Sure. I mean this guy I've known for a number of years was telling me how sad this was the other day. He's had HIV for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. He was having a great night with this guy who's his same age, 35 years of age, who knows about HIV, heard about it, all that kind of thing. They're having a great night. Then the guy I'm talking about, he disclosed. He said, "I should probably tell you I have HIV." The other guy was like, "What? You do? You don't look like you do. I didn't know that. Oh, really? Oh my god. What time is it? It's been a lot of fun. I got to go. See you." Left him just like that.

Michael Harney:My question, while I'm trying to console this guy A, to B I'm like, "What were you willing to do had person A not said that he had HIV? Though 00:55:00he's taking his medication, though he's suppressed the virus, though you equals you, though you could be taking prep or whatever, at 35 years of age you haven't come to terms with the fact that some people have HIV? But he's taking his medications. What do you know about that? It effectively reduces your risk. You're just going to give up on our friendship. So what? But what else would you have done with him had he not disclosed?" That's what bothers me. Don't tell me so we can just do it, and further risk, instead of having the open conversation. That's what I always ask. "What were you going to do had he not disclosed, or she?" It's really the he stuff. That's where the big numbers are still.

Speaker 3:Right. Thank you so much, Michael. I can't wait to hear all of this, see how it goes.

Michael Harney:That's great.

Corey Childers:Thank you.

Speaker 3:All right, send me a message if you need anything, Corey.

Corey Childers:Okay, thank you.

Speaker 3:Otherwise, I'll see you in the morning.

Corey Childers:All righty.

Speaker 3:Bye.

Michael Harney:Bye.

Corey Childers:Bye. Okay, well-

Michael Harney:Is this what you wanted? Are you getting something out of this?

Corey Childers:I am. I'm getting a lot out of this. I'm happy.

Michael Harney:Okay. You wait until you talk to Rosie sometime. You'll really get something out of her.

Corey Childers:Oh, yeah. I did want to talk about obviously, you said your family, you don't talk to your biological family anymore. Obviously, that's hard to lose a family, but I'm wondering how you were maybe able to cultivate a chosen family.

Michael Harney:Yeah. I've always been so independent anyway. I don't want to call it a criticism, but my father in particular, and my mom, they noticed that I was always much more independent, that I always had my own world anyway. They 00:57:00were not adventurous enough to want to go to Costa Rica, although my mother, at one point, did go. She came down for I think a week's vacation, but my father wouldn't. He was afraid of what food he would have to eat, for example. He was not adventurous like that.

Corey Childers:Great food, probably.

Michael Harney:Yeah. They recognized early that I was on my own path. One time when they visited me here in Asheville in the '90s, it was my birthday party. My neighbor, Rebecca Craig, and I have ... we share the same birthday. She lived across the street from me. We share the same birthday, but she's 10 years older than I am. We decided to have this birthday party and celebrate. We invited all these people that we knew and whatever, and we gave them a ticket, a free drink ticket, and all this food. It was at the Ebony Bar & Grill. My friend, Deena 00:58:00Banks, I think I mentioned her somewhere in the ... but she's my dear friend here. She was the first bar on Eagle Market Street to have a bowl of condoms, for example.

Michael Harney:We had our birthday party celebration there. I remember my father just saying, "It looks like this is your home. These are your people," and it wasn't all gay people. It was everybody that we knew from work, and from school, and from around the neighborhood. The people at the bar that were there were like, "Yeah, you have a drink too. Yeah, have some food. It's great." He recognized this is my family, this is my home, these are my people.

Michael Harney:How did I choose them? Every day, I choose another family member, or a part of my family expands if I get to meet somebody new. Dave Ayers, I've talked about this year, getting to know him much more. I consider him part of my family circle, and friends. I don't know. People come and go sometimes, but I'm 00:59:00so lucky to be able to hang out with that group, and a couple of those people, and over here I'm comfortable. If I go to that house for a while, it's nice, whatever. I love the world. I love everything that's around me. I don't know. I don't have just a small core family of six or seven that are my core here either. Trisha, she's the main core, right?

Corey Childers:Right.

Michael Harney:But even she and I don't see each other as much as I may see Dave, or I don't know who else kind of thing. David Dalton and I have dinner more frequently than Trisha and I do, and yet if Trisha called me right this minute, I'd stop doing what I was doing and go take care of what I needed to with her. I don't know what to say. It's just a different family. It's a 01:00:00different group of people.

Corey Childers:But there is people you feel like you could maybe count on to have your back kind of thing?

Michael Harney:Oh yeah, I do. I do have them, more than I've ever thought my family had my back. That sounds so critical. I never asked my family to have my back [because I was so independent. I was like, "I'll do it on my own. I don't need you, so sorry. No, thank you." I would rather mop floors and clean toilets than have to ask for whatever else for them kind of thing, which is just a weird ... it's that psychological ... I don't know. But I never depended on my family quite the way that I see sometimes people do, even Trisha's family. They depend 01:01:00on one another much more than I depend on or depended upon my family. I see their interaction is very different.

Michael Harney:I think people are almost offended by my lack of need to have that biological family so much so in my life, or that I depend on them somehow, or go to Sunday dinners, or go to family reunions. I mean I have friends who flip out if they can't be at Thanksgiving dinner with their biological family, or Christmas holiday kind of thing, if that's what you call it. I think, "Really? What?" I say, "I'm ready to go on Christmas or whatever that break, that holiday, winter break. Take me. Let's go somewhere else. Where can we go? You want to go to Philadelphia? Great. You want to go to Costa Rica? Great. You want to go to Miami? Fine. Let's go to California. Let's go to Europe. I don't care. Something." I'm not even thinking about we're together for this holiday. We're all going to have a meal together at Thanksgiving or something. I'm like, 01:02:00"Who's inviting me, or where do I want to go? Or if I don't get invited, go do something else." That stuff doesn't bother me. I don't know.

Corey Childers:Do you think that has anything to do with your growing up with a big family, and maybe constantly being around them, having to constantly take care of them? Maybe now you're like ... not to try to evaluate what's going on, but I'm just interested.

Michael Harney:No. Yeah, sure. I'm not sure how much they depend on me. Did I show by example what independence looks like? Did I show by example what hard work is? I mean my parents were hard workers. They seemed to need their family a lot more than I. As much as I was that... who did the cooking and the cleaning, 01:03:00and all that kind of stuff that we talked about, I'm not sure that they need me, or needed me. But being around them, yeah, I always looked for another way out.

Michael Harney:Part of it was if I was going to go down the street and secretly getting up with Jeff Merritt or something. I wasn't coming home and sharing that kind of stuff with my brothers and sisters. Hey, guess what I just did? We just played hide and seek, and we really hid. It wasn't like we were open like that early. Later, once I came out and all that, we talked about anything. It was fine. I suspect that if today I were around my siblings, and they had a question, I would answer their question. But when it was done, it was done kind of thing. I don't know. There's probably a lot of psychology there too somewhere.

Corey Childers:Maybe so. Let's see. Wow, my voice. Okay, so I did want to ask a 01:04:00little more about your relationship with Paul, and how you met him. You said you've been together 17 years. That's-

Michael Harney:Yeah, although I've known him since the early '90s, because Marty and he were partners. You remember I talked about Marty Prairie, who was my boss, and my mentor and friend. The first time I met Paul, I don't know if it was '93 or '94. Maybe it was '94. It probably was '94. It could've been '93. Marty took me on a trip to visit him in Tallahassee. I stayed in the room that he sleeps in generally when I'm not there, and then the big bed, king size bed, is where he and Marty slept. I went down there. I drove with Marty and met Paul. 01:05:00As I think I talked about, we went to conferences together. We traveled well together.

Michael Harney:I just got to know him over the years. He was Marty's partner, but he would come to Asheville, and we'd all have dinner, a couple of dinners, whatever it was for however long Paul was here. Not every time that Marty went down to Tallahassee, but several times a year I would get to go down and hang out with them there, or if we were going to a conference. We did a lot of conferences, the National Skills Building Conference and the US Conference on AIDS, and then whatever the HIV conferences were, or Native American-related conferences we went to, and oftentimes went together. If I had a scholarship and went, we would usually share a hotel room. They had a bed and I had a bed. When they wanted privacy, Marty would say, "Go downstairs to the coffee shop, or go to the pool, or go find something else to do for an hour," kind of thing.

Michael Harney:That's how I met Paul, and how I got to know him as a person, knowing his field of work. He was very supportive around the work that Marty and I were doing. He was helpful in helping to research things, and clarify things, and compare what was going on in Florida with North Carolina. He was licensed, medically licensed, in both states. I just knew him all those years.

Michael Harney:When Marty got really sick in the Grand Canyon area there, Paul really was very worried, and very ... he reached out a lot to me. How could he support Marty from afar, because he couldn't really stay necessarily? He had to get back to his job. How could he support me supporting Marty? He was very grateful, and thanked me. I was like, "I'm just here. It's okay. I'll do what I can. If it can help Marty recuperate, great, and if something else happens, 01:07:00whatever. Just let me know." He had my phone number, and was able to call a couple of times and just ask, "Seriously, how's Marty doing? Seriously, can you tell me, because he won't tell me?" Those kinds of things. I built a rapport with him.

Michael Harney:Then in the death and dying process, we got closer. I mean we'd already been very close anyway, just because we'd been friends for 10 years, roughly, close to. You just mourn together when you're with somebody, and you're during that process. That's something you don't lose. It's an experience, a shared experience. His sadness and my sadness, and his grief and my grief blended. That's how I met him, how we began to be friends. The romantic part was 01:08:00after that.

Corey Childers:Cool.

Michael Harney:I'll answer any questions you have. I hope I'm giving you the answers you're looking for, or helping to-

Corey Childers:Yeah. I'm just trying to learn more about you, mostly.

Michael Harney:That's funny.

Corey Childers:Let's see.

Michael Harney:I feel guilty not learning more about you, and that's fine.

Corey Childers:There's not much there.

Michael Harney:Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Corey Childers:Let's see. I was going to ask ... Sorry. Like I said, I'm all over the place right now.

Michael Harney:That's fine.

Corey Childers:All kinds of questions. Oh, I was going to ask I know you work at WNCAP. You said you have three jobs right now, right? Is that WNCAP and the needle exchange?

Michael Harney:That's WNCAP, A-B Tech, where I teach, and Blue Ridge Community College is where I teach. I found out that this May will make 26 years that I've 01:09:00taught at A-B Tech. I think I saw a document on my CV that I started at Blue Ridge Community College around 2005. I thought it was a little bit earlier than that, but that's what I saw on my CV when I was looking at it the other day, my resume. That's where I work, and then WNCAP all these other years.

Corey Childers:Nice. I was going to ask you had the rubberman ... what was the article called?

Michael Harney:What the Rubberman Wrote.

Corey Childers:Yes. How did that get started? Can you talk a little more about that?

Michael Harney:Well, I think I talked a little bit about that I liked to write, and I wrote letters to the editor, and always made my comments known. I think I had an interview with Lisa Morphew when I came back to WNCAP after Marty died. 01:10:00She was the publisher and editor of the Community Connections newspaper, which was the gay rag here. By then, I was already the rubberman. I don't know. I'd have to look at old files and stuff, but I don't know that I wrote anything by that title until I was back in the Community Connections. I think I entitled it What the Rubberman Wrote at that point.

Michael Harney:I can't even remember what I wrote. I mean I could look in archives and perhaps find that, but my picture was on the front page. The whole front page was just a picture of me. The Rubberman's Back or something like that, or Welcome Back, Rubberman. It said something like that. I wrote a column in there. "Yeah, I'm back. This is what I'm going to be doing. I hope to look for you in the community. This is how you can interact with me, and find me 01:11:00here, and let me know if you need a bag of condoms," and that kind of thing.

Michael Harney:Then Lisa said, "Well, do you want to write a monthly? Because it's a monthly magazine, a newspaper. Do you want to write a monthly column?" That's, as I recall, how I got started just writing something thematic. Didn't have to be very long, but something that she could put in the newspaper that was HIV and AIDS-related, or gay-related, that kind of thing. That's just how it started. Paul was a great editor, so he would read over it and make some suggestions, or correct if I made a mistake, something scientific or whatever. He could look at that and say, "If you word it this way, that's more clear." I'd say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see that." He's a great editor, and able to polish things up.

Michael Harney:But yeah, that's how I started writing What the Rubberman Wrote. Now I still, if I submit something to gayashevillenc.com, or to The Urban News 01:12:00or something, if it specifically is a column and not just a letter to the editor, I often entitle it What the Rubberman Wrote by Michael Harney. I have to have bylines in order to get scholarships oftentimes for the conferences. You have to have at least two bylines from a current publication, so by Michael Harney. If it's published then those count, even if it is in The Urban News or online, or non-express, that kind of thing. I need to write more, a column.

Corey Childers:Yeah. That would be interesting to read. Let's see. I'm about wrapped up. I know we talked a little bit about change. You talked specifically 01:13:00about change in Asheville, and how gay scene has changed and things like that. But how do you think your personal experience over time within the LGBT community has changed, whether that's stigma or inclusion, things like that?

Michael Harney:How my LGBT experience has changed, is that what you asked?

Corey Childers:Yes.

Michael Harney:Well, that first letter to the editor that I wrote when I got here I say after I came back in '93, I think I wrote my first letter. It'd be interesting to find the archived letter to the editor from that time period. But I just talked about being an openly gay man living in Asheville now. I don't know. I can speculate. If I had stayed in Hampton, Newport News, that area of Norfolk, would I have been as activated or actively involved in the community? I 01:14:00don't know. Would I just be a nine to fiver? I don't know. Life has taken me here, so I can't second-guess what I would have or may have done.

Michael Harney:But I think here, there has been a sense of liberation over the years. It has always been a very gay, I say LGBTQ-friendly open environment here, or a power structure. But some of that's gone too with the fewer bars, people online. They're not socializing like they are. Everybody talks about getting old, gray and fat kind of things. A lot of the people that were the hip crowd, they don't come out to the bars. You don't see them. So what has changed is that I'm missing all of those people, and yet I go out to the bars still, a couple here and there. Some people recognize me, and some people know me. A lot 01:15:00of people look at me like an old fart that's just there. Who is that guy? Why is he even here? What's he doing? What are those condoms for? It's a whole different generation.

Michael Harney:It's part of what I keep seeking, in a weird way. Who is the next "rubberman"? Who is that person that stands out in the community that people access as a resource, that is involved, that is not all high and drunk, and slurring his words, and what I think misrepresenting the agency, the cause, the community? It's very hard. I think I mentioned Dave in there. He's that one friend that doesn't smoke pot. He's been a great influence in my life this last year or so. He likes to drink a little bit. I'll go out, sit there while he's drinking. First of all, it's not his "calling," his interest. He's supportive. 01:16:00He's great laughs, and knows condoms and what they're supposed to be used for and all that kind of stuff. But who is that next person?

Michael Harney:That change is quite dramatic to me. The modernity of technology with social media, the lacking of maybe the need of the bar scene so much. We don't have to have a backroom, secret hidden place. There are still those places, and still sex parties, and still fetishes, and still all the stuff that you could've found back even in the '70s and the '80s. But it's not required. Devon's not gay, but the three of us last night, and Devon. Laughing it up, and silly, and all of that. It felt very respected, very comfortable. I'm not sure 01:17:00everybody is.

Michael Harney:What do they need me for? They're on social media, or they've got their own enclaves, and their own cliques and their own friends. I don't feel like the change is that I'm isolated. It just is am I really needed in that sense? Is there a real reason to be at the bar to do outreach? Is that technique of outreach different now? I mean I always have a little something to say. If I'm sitting at the bar with a bag of condoms and people are like, "Oh, you look you're going to have a big party. Is this all yours or something?" Stupid stuff like that. I'm like, "Look, I share. If you want, take what you want. But if you get a chance to use them, I need a full report in the morning." They're like, "What?"

Michael Harney:I always got something to say. At the December holiday period, I always say, "Make them some stocking stuffers. They're great stocking stuffers." 01:18:00People are like, "What?" I always have something like that. What's a dental dam for? I say, "It's for oral vaginal or oral anal contact." They say, "What?" I talk about DDS with lubrication. People are like, "What's DDS?" Like it's a new disease or something. I say, "It's called dry dick syndrome. You hate it. Don't have it. Use this lube," stuff like that. I'm always playing.

Michael Harney:Who else is going to do that? I don't know. Do people have their own spiel? I mean there's a couple guys. Brandon Romstadt over at the Buncombe County Department of Health. He's working on creating more of a young LGBT outreach and messaging mechanism. Is he part of that? I don't know. He is a part of what the change has been, and is ongoing. Those are some of the things I see 01:19:00that I experience. But it is mostly that the folks who were there 15, 20 years ago are not. They're either dead and gone, they're either sick and unable, or disinterested. They've moved on from that scene. It was hard on their bodies a lot of times over the years of so much drinking and partying.

Michael Harney:I think a lot of people probably got into recovery. Sobriety and recovery, as they may put it. When I have gone to Lambda AA, there's a couple Lambda meetings, so the gay AA, I've gone on nights that have been open meetings. I don't know if you know anything about AA or NA. But an open meeting, anybody can go. If it's closed meeting, it's a little bit different. When I've gone, the couple times that I have in support with somebody else, I've just seen too many people that I know. I internally feel like I'm breaking confidentiality 01:20:00seeing them at an AA meeting. Not that I judge, not that I really care. You do what you want. I'm glad you're in here. Hope it's working for you kind of thing.

Michael Harney:That's my greatest hope is that people be healthy, happy, safe and they make their way through life as best they can. If I can be supportive, let me be. I see people there, and that bothers me because I feel sad, but I also feel glad that they found something like this to help support them. You don't see them at the bar. You're not really socializing. When you bring up those old days, they're war stories. People don't want to hear that. They don't want to talk about, "Oh, when I used to come out here and drink six beers, and three shots, and smoke two joints. Oh, I'd do three guys in the parking lot or whatever, and come back and start over." Nobody wants to hear all that. They're like, "Oh, really impressive, bro. You are 55, 65 years of age, telling some old 01:21:00stories. Who cares?"

Michael Harney:I'd rather have a story about, I don't know, what you did in life that's important, what books you're reading and that kind of stuff. What music you listen to, or did you go to a concert? I'm going to go to my first Dave Matthews concert here with Dave Ayers. I've never been to Dave Matthews Band concerts. It'll be interesting. Those are some of the changes I've seen outside of all the physical changes of Asheville. Really, maybe the gay community is a little bit more isolated in the sense, because we're on social media, and you can just find it all there. You don't really need to come out and talk to people. You don't maybe know how to, or feel like it's worthwhile, or have the dollars to be able to be out. That's the other thing.

Michael Harney:When I can go to the Gay Men's Supper Club events, that's nice to join back with some of the folks that you would see. That would be where they've gone, to these enclaves in the community, and have a big community-wide dinner. You have 15, 20, 25, 35 people in the home. They bring a potluck dish, and you get to socialize and hang out for a couple hours. That's always nice. Catch up, see where people have been, what they've been doing. "Damn, I ain't see you in a year. Where you been? Seen you in a couple years. I didn't know you were still in town. How are things?" That kind of thing. That's a little bit-

Corey Childers:Yeah. I think that's something I wish I saw more of, and maybe I'm just not as active as I need to be. But it's taking queer spaces outside of the bar scene, and having places that are sober, and don't have to be all about getting messed up that night, or even having sex. I wish that there was a lot 01:23:00less of that. Obviously, I think your work as Rubberman, I think that that's so necessary. I think that there does need to be someone doing that, and someone to talk to about that who isn't afraid to bring up that stuff that everyone wants to ignore. Like you said, a lot of the gay bars had gone away over time in Asheville. It doesn't seem like there's as many other spaces that were popping up that weren't necessarily bars.

Michael Harney:I think the whole gay pride center ... I don't think it's open anymore, right?

Corey Childers:Yeah.

Michael Harney:It was an effort, and it continues every time they try it. This as close to being successful as they've ever been. It was Blue Ridge Pride, and Youth OUTRight, and Trans Mission. They all decide they were going to keep that space, but for whatever reason it's no longer that space. In fact, I don't even 01:24:00know where any of them meet anymore. Maybe they're in somebody's boardroom or something, or somebody's house. I don't know. A church hall or something. I just don't know where they're meeting. We don't have a gay pride center. In Charlotte they've got that, right? In bigger cities, where you have a market of a million people or more, I think you probably could be successful in that. This is too small a market. People just don't care. They're not coming out for it, or may or may not want to be seen coming out of it.

Corey Childers:Yeah. I'm just thinking about I just went to Miami for spring break, and that was really fun, but there was Out of the Closet, the thrift store. They had free HIV testing there. A bunch of the proceeds go to benefit the AIDS Foundation. I just wish we had more things like that here in Asheville, because I feel like we try to be like, "Gay Asheville," but it's not really-

Michael Harney:Yeah, but it's not really.

Corey Childers:... a place, yeah.

Michael Harney:No. Those demographics have changed, I would say, and the 01:25:00confusion at what you think is a gay bar. There's all this debate about it. What is a gay bar? Is Henry's a gay bar? We were in Saturday night, and there was a big old bachelorette party going on. There's 6, or 8 or 12 girls, and a couple of their boyfriends that may or may not be gay. Everybody was out hanging out and partying. But if you go to speak to one of those guys, and they get bullshit mad at you about it, you're like, "I thought we were in a gay bar. I was just saying you look handsome, or you're interesting, or can I buy you a drink or whatever." They get all bent out of shape.

Michael Harney:Same thing at Scandals. You go over there, what used to be the gay bar. When you walked in the door, they'd say ... they'd screen you. They'd say, "This is a gay bar. You know that, don't you? We don't want any trouble out of you." You're like, "I'm gay. What are you talking about? I'm gay." "Even if you're not, we don't want no trouble. This is a gay bar. We'll throw your ass out." I mean they were real like that, militaristic, militant. It's not like 01:26:00that now. You walk in. Everybody's in. They're like, "Is he gay? I don't know. He's cute. Is he gay? Is she gay? Is she gay, lesbian, transgender?" You don't know. It's so weirdly blended.

Michael Harney:Is Banks Avenue gay? They've got rainbow flags up, some gay people that do a drag show here and there, but they're not really. Are they? I don't know. You see what I mean? It's really confusing. There's guys sitting at the bar or something. "Hey, what's up man?" "I'm not gay." "I just asked what's up. Damn, you enjoying the game that you're watching? How's your beer? Did you plow your garden today? What's up?" You can't say hello sometimes. "I'm not gay. I'm not that way." You just hear stuff like that. I'm like, "Whatever, man." I like to tease some straight guys or something. I'd be like, "What do you mean 01:27:00you're not gay? You're not gay?" "No, I'm not gay, man. I'm not gay." I'm like, "Oh, I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to insult you or something. I mean I just thought you were. Bye." I'm not giving you my power. I've said that. No, I'll tease you like that. Stupid guys.

Corey Childers:I love it. In my class, it was called queer tours where straight people, especially bachelorette parties, like to go and see the drag shows, and go be in our spaces, but then they don't want to actually help us and be real allies, or benefit ... give money to benefit and things like that.

Michael Harney:Change legislation.

Corey Childers:Right. Yeah. My last question, unless you had anything else you wanted to talk about. You had said a lot about having your power, and you don't get my power. You said that multiple times. I just wanted to ask you to maybe 01:28:00define that, what it means for you to have that power.

Michael Harney:That's a deep question. I may seem aloof. I may seem conceited when I say that. I always was told there will always be someone bigger than you, stronger than you, richer than you. I'm in touch with that. On the other hand, I will not permit you to make me feel less than a human being sharing this space and place called Earth with you or anybody else. I will respect you, but I demand that you respect me. I will not judge you because I don't want to be judged by you. I admit that I do not have to love you, nor do you have to love me.

Michael Harney:But will not allow you to make me feel less than a full human 01:29:00being, a citizen of the world, whether this country or another. I don't like it if you make other people, or try to make other people feel less than a full human being in this world that we share, and so I may challenge you to that. I won't fight you physically like that, but I may say some things because that is part of my power too, that I have a voice that sometimes people don't. I know what it feels like to be called names in malice. I have had that dagger stuck right in my face, and in my chest, and in my stomach. I know what it feels like.

Michael Harney:From that, I have gained that strength, internal strength. Maybe it's because I'm 53 years old. Maybe it's because I've just decided that I'm not 01:30:00going to shy away from being who I am fully, respecting you as well. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable or bad because of who I am, or what I say or do. I'm willing to have the conversation, open conversation. Debate the points back and forth. It doesn't mean that I'm cowering in any way if I let you say things that maybe I disagree with. We'll talk it out for a while. If it's going nowhere, I'm done with it. I got it. I got it. It's okay. Can't we still just get along as human beings?

Michael Harney:I think that power comes from being so independent as a young person, so driven by work to always have what I needed for myself, or to be able 01:31:00to find a way to have what I need, and the luck of all that I've had, the wonderful influences of people have also generated some of that internal power that I feel, that I sense. I don't think I'm any better than anybody else. I piss and shit like everybody else does. I need some sleep here and there, and I need some nourishment. I don't think I'm any better than anybody else. That's not what I mean by being powerful. But I will not permit you to make me probably feel less than.

Michael Harney:That is my power, and I will do what I can to share my power with others who may not have enough. I have enough energy to share a little bit more 01:32:00to reenergize you, or to make sure that there's enough light on you so that you're not in darkness, if it's all possible to take you out of that darkness. Use up the power I have until I have to go regenerate. That's me. There are people that need so much, and I just don't do without first. I always take care of me. I do. That's part of the richness of it, and the what I believe is that regenerating the power. That gives back to me.

Corey Childers:I just think it's so brave and courageous that you're able to say how you feel, and take that space for yourself. I feel a lot of times I personally am overcome with fear, so I just ask how do you balance? Because you 01:33:00have to be afraid sometimes, or maybe you're not. But I just feel like if-

Michael Harney:Fear is natural.

Corey Childers:If you're facing opposition, or someone really isn't trying to view you as a human, how do you take that maybe fear, initial fear from that, and turn that into courage and power?

Michael Harney:I'll give you an example. Recently, the debatable points about who was running for president when Hillary Clinton was. So if you're in a group of people, and I would hear somebody say something about, "I'm not voting for that woman. She's tearing us down, and this and that and whatever. She's all these things." I would just completely contradict that in front of everybody. Where you might feel like oh, I better not say anything because it looks like all these people are listening to him.

Michael Harney:I'd say, "I just disagree. I really thought she was going to do a 01:34:00lot of wonderful things for women in the world, because women have it bad enough in this country. I, as a man like you, think we have a major role in those health disparities, and the difficulties and the challenges. I stand up for women's rights, and women's education, and women's independence and women's authority. I really thought she was going to do a much better job helping us understand that." "I don't know about that." I just say it. I don't care.

Michael Harney:It is not that I don't have fear. I can feel fear. I know there are dangerous people. I'm not nave to the world, and yet I probably said this before too, I'm not giving into that fear. I like to say my name, and I got a little bit of a shtick. I've got a bag of condoms, so I can talk to you. I've got name recognition, whatever, face, and people have known me for all these 01:35:00years. Over years, if you become the interviewer of Asheville, everybody knows that you do a good interview. You follow up with questions, that you're open and listening, that you're fair in the report.

Michael Harney:I don't know what your line of work is going to be, and where you're going to go in life. But if people recognize that you are consistent, that you are reliable, that you are fair, that you don't get caught in the circles of gossip, and name-calling and pain. I've tried really hard. I mean a couple times I have been kicked right in the teeth for saying something I really should not have, but that is part of the karma that comes back around and kicks me because I did something wrong. It's clear to me I should not have done that. I should not have done that. Oh, no. This is going to come back to me. It does. I have to be open to that.

Michael Harney:I just don't fear life every day. I don't fear that somebody's 01:36:00going to come in and blow up this library. I don't fear that somebody's going to shoot me in the back for walking down the street holding a man's hand, or because I sashay or something, or twitch or whatever, switch my butt or something. I don't fear being around people that don't really pass that people are staring at. I don't fear being among people who speak other languages, or who have different skin colors than mine. If the culture is such that I can look you in the eye, I will look you in the eye. If the culture is such that I'm not supposed to look you in the eye, then I'm not going to look you in the eye. I'll try my best to understand the culture.

Michael Harney:It's just the richness of the world. I have seen too much of the world, the international communities of the world that I already know that we're 01:37:00all just sharing the space and place called Earth. If you are one who has not been able to go to a place like Miami, or New York City, or San Francisco, just three cities in this country that I would highly suggest all of us visit, maybe you'll have the opportunity to go somewhere international. Go to Toronto or Vancouver. Go to Melbourne, Australia. Go to Paris, France.

Michael Harney:You don't want to go to those places? Okay, then go to either New York, Miami or San Francisco. Those are three cities I would highly recommend that all of us visit and spend a few days there, and with your eyes open and see. Just sit and see the cultural richness of those cities, and see that we really are just sharing this little old space and place called Earth. I don't 01:38:00know. That's a little bit of it. I feel very lucky. Very lucky.

Corey Childers:That is all I had for you.

Michael Harney:Well, I hope that you'll find your power, that you feel confident and less fear. I like to say, "My name is Michael Harney." When I meet somebody, I like to put my hand out, or bump or whatever. "I'm Michael Harney." I may have said this before. Most people know me as if they know me not as the rubberman, or the AIDS guys or whatever. They know me as Michael Harney. They just know that whole name. I'm just Michael. "You know Michael. That guy with the mustache. That guy, Mike. What's his name? I don't know his last name." I always tell them my name is Michael Harney. I have my business cards, and so I have a shtick.

Michael Harney:Maybe your new business card. Maybe you have a card with your name on it. It says who you are, how to reach me, or it has a quote, or it has something that's powerful to you. When you meet people, you hand them out. Yeah, 01:39:00I am who I am kind of thing. Find that power. Give nobody your power. It's yours. You only have this one life to live. So no matter what it is that you want to do, move toward that. If you don't know what you want to do, be open to the world taking you to where it's going to take you, because it will. It'll take you in great, great places. There are vast experiences to have if you're open, if you're able, if the opportunity shows itself and you can afford it, go. It's worth it, truly. That's what I think, for whatever it's worth.

Corey Childers:Yeah. I think it's worth quite a bit.

Michael Harney:Thanks.

Corey Childers:I appreciate that.

Michael Harney:I appreciate it.

Corey Childers:I need to work on that power thing. My confidence is very low in 01:40:00a lot of ways, not to talk about myself.

Michael Harney:Yeah, but it's okay to talk about yourself. It's okay to compliment yourself, and it's okay to look in the mirror each day and say, "I love me because I'm worth it, and I do look good, and I do feel good, and I am good. I'm enjoying this, and I'm learning something new every day. Wow, when I go back and reflect on the day and think, 'How exciting,'" I mean can you, at night, if you have a partner or not, can you describe just some of the wonderful things that have gone on your day? If something bad has gone on in your day, you could talk about that too. But what else?

Michael Harney:Gosh, when Paul and I talk at night, I want to hear what he has to say. I want to tell him all about my day because it's been amazing. I'll fuss that the DMV has been irritating, it's inefficient, but I'll write my letters to 01:41:00the governor too and tell him about it. Get it fixed. This big, major city that we have here in Asheville, you have to wait an hour and a half to get your stupid real ID license or something. I know that's federal, but he could hire some people. It's the Division of Motor Vehicles for North Carolina. There are 12 stations, and there are three people working. Four people max were working. Open it up so we don't have to sit here for an hour and a half and still didn't get through the line. Make your voice heard. Make your vote count. Get others to hear your voice. Shake their hand with confidence, or give them that bump with confidence. Don't give anybody your power. Don't do it.

Corey Childers:Yes, thank you.

Michael Harney:Yeah.

Corey Childers:I appreciate that. Definitely needed to hear that. It's really powerful.

Michael Harney:Cool.

Corey Childers:Yeah.

Michael Harney:Well, I hope you get a chance to talk with Rosie. She's a lot of 01:42:00fun, and has great, great history. She is the history. We've got to have her history.

Corey Childers:I definitely will. I will if she-

Michael Harney:When I get back to the office, if you'll send me just a quick, "Hey, Michael. Put me in touch with Rosie, would you?" I'll directly, and you can find a time to meet with her.

Corey Childers:Awesome. Well, is there anything else before I cut this?

Michael Harney:I don't know. I look forward to all of this, how it all comes out, and that it be in the archives someday, no matter how long I live. I really appreciate the opportunity to have been here with you at this time, and to be a part of our regional history.

Corey Childers:Yes. It's been a great experience getting to know a little piece of you.

Michael Harney:Yeah. Well, anything I can do to help, you'll say so, and anything else to do and follow up is great. I'm okay. Okay.

Corey Childers:Awesome. Thank you.

Michael Harney:Thanks, Corey. I appreciate you.

Corey Childers:Yeah.