Mike Balaban didn't set out to be a historian. He was a closeted Wall Street banker who drove across America in 1978 with a dog-eared copy of the Bob Dameron guide, a yellow legal pad, and a camera — stopping at every gay bar between New York and San Diego, writing reviews in the margins of his own life. He took photos he thought no one else would ever want. He kept diary entries that could have cost him everything. He put it all in a box.
Decades later, he opened that box. And what he found was all of us.
In this episode, Mike talks about what it cost to survive in a world that was actively trying to erase you, the summer in San Diego that taught him how to be gay, a bartender named Beau who became his home and then his grief, and why the real LGBTQ history isn't just Stonewall and Harvey Milk — it's the man at the edge of the parade, shaking, camera raised, hoping nobody from the office walks by.
We also talk about his upcoming book The Accidental Gay Historian, his community archive at BAMMER.co, and why he believes that if you don't write your own history, you get written out of it.
He told me he was just keeping things for himself. I don't believe him.
Find Mike at BAMMER.co and @bamer47 on Instagram and YouTube. His podcast is Bama and Me.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups
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