AGOSTO MACHADO
- 7 hours ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 hours ago
THEATER OF THE RIDICULOUS, GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE, PERFORMER
Agosto Machado is one of the most fascinating figures in New York City’s underground history. He is an actor, performer, figurehead, and avid collector. I met him through Rumi Missabu and instantly fell in love with him. He is kind, smart, honest, and talented. He genuinely cares about himself and others. He welcomed me into his life ten years ago when I first moved to New York City. Now he is at a care facility in Brooklyn, New York, fighting for his life. For years, I have been telling his story, long before it was cool. Why? Because I, in conjunction with The LGBTQ History Project, have his back.
There is no exact documentation of Agosto Machado. He is very mysterious. What is his real name, and how old is he? Recently, Tony Zanetta told me Agosto is over 80. Agosto always told me he was 21. I never did a formal interview with Agosto, but he did let me record conversations. That excited him. Below is from circa 2016. Part of Agosto’s archive is now preserved and displayed at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney, both in New York City, Agosto’s hometown. He even has the ashes of LGBTQ+ pioneer Martha P. Johnson.
This recorded conversation excerpt is a fascinating snapshot into Agosto. Through these small fragments of conversations and observations, Agosto allows us intimate access to the lives of various people and events, examples of which exist simultaneously in both the immediacy of today and the long-term records of human history.
— August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
MAX'S KANSAS CITY
“We were just expressing ourselves. Even if you had a beard or something, you would still put glitter and lipstick on and dress the way you wanted. The East Village could be pretty tough, because so many people would try to beat you up. Have you heard of the club Max’s Kansas City? When Mickey Ruskin, the owner, moved the club near Union Square, people did not walk in Union Square Park, except the junkies. It was so dangerous that you had to walk around. For us to go up to Max's Kansas City, which was right there—17th Street and Park Avenue South, we would collectively gather, maybe at Astor Place, which was busy because of the subway, and we'd walk on the east side of the street and go up, and subsequently leave. Some people could afford taking a cab, but we would wander back Downtown. The world has changed, and it's all about m-o-n-e-y; and when I hear that on Avenue D a renovated walk-up tenement can sell for half a million to $700,000, my heart stops.”
RUBY LYNN REYNER
“Ruby Lynn Reyner truly is an inspiration—if you knew her in the old days with her husband, most people would have fallen apart dealing with a husband who had an aneurysm or what have you, and he had AIDS. The insurance company would only pay for an aide 12 hours a day. She taught at a Jewish home for drama and all those other jobs, still performing. She had to sleep next to his bed for the other 12 hours until the relief in the morning so that she could go to work. So it's really quite horrible. My friend Michael Arian, who was part of John Vaccaro’s Play-House of the Ridiculous theater troupe with Ruby, also admires her. We visited her at Beth Israel Hospital. Ruby is Ruby. She's a fabulous character. She had an amputated toe and part of one finger, too, and she was just chatting away, so comfortable. ‘Come, look, come. Look at my toe.’ This fierce energy to live and to share. ‘I'm still the subject. I'm still here. Life has taken its toll, but it hasn't taken my spirit.’ I have such admiration for Ruby, although some find her hard to take on for a long time.”
STONEWALL REBELLION
“Stonewall was not the first police raid. Police had regularly busted up clubs, but this was a specific time and place, and it made the news media across the country and gave impetus to organize. We saw the Black power movement. We saw anti-war. We saw some women's rights, senior rights, housing rights, and more. People said, there's going to be this meeting, we're going to fight for rights.”
GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE
“In the early 1970s, I was an active member of the Gay Activists Alliance. I know people who were there originally and who were sort of left out, but Marty Robinson, Tom Dyer, Jim Owles, I think Vito Russo came a little later. But Arthur Bell, who wrote for The Village Voice, was part of our news committee in GAA. We met like four or five times a week because there were different demonstrations and different committees, way before the digital age, back when we had phone trees. Phone tree is you phone 10 people or 12 people, and those 10 people would each phone 10 more. So if there was going to be a rally or some sit-in or something, you do the phone tree, and it just ripples out. It was amazing how many people would show up. Now, you push one button, and you get a flash mob, yeah, and so it was done so differently back then.
I’ve never been arrested—in the old days, you could use any names. You didn't have IDs then, and so you were asked—you weren't officially arrested because they didn't want to do the paperwork.
I think every way to advance civil rights is valid in its own way. The Gay Liberation Front was more confrontational, and by being more confrontational—you also got more press if you had interaction with the police. In contrast, others thought we were timid because GAA was working through the system.
Mainly, every night of the week, they had something, as we did. It's hard because there's so many different agendas, and for the various causes, that it'd be hard to jump from whichever cause you're working for consistently, like, if you're putting all your energy in demonstrating at City Hall or the courthouse, that takes up a part of the afternoon and then an evening meeting of some committee doing something or working towards something. It was difficult to keep up with all the various meetings at GAA, because we would meet with different people. All of us did odd jobs. Vito was a waiter at various restaurants and so forth, but to organize and set up a phone tree—we're meeting at Arthur Bell's place. We were trying to capture the full breadth and selection of the broader causes. Many of our committees were working toward specific things concurrently, like it's a many-headed dragon.”
GAY ACTIVISTS ALLIANCE
“Different groups dressed differently Downtown. People were expressing themselves like leather queens or lesbians. There was a mixture, and it was once the hippie era with tie-dye and long hair and all that. It was really quite fascinating in the East Village, where you couldn't really tell a person's gender. Well, I guess if you had a beard or mustache, they would suspect you are a man, but it was that wonderful free-form expression of the East Village that kept being the avant-garde, when the ’80s came with the Pyramid Club and the drag queens and trans and what have you.”
VAIN VICTORY BY JACKIE CURTIS
“The first play I was in was Vain Victory by Jackie Curtis in 1971. Harvey Fierstein was in it when he was 16, doing a monologue. He told his mom he was doing homework at someone's house: he took the subway, did the monologue—about 10 minutes—and took the subway home. He was a very forthright, strong personality, and thanks to Ronald and Harvey Tavel, he was nourished, influenced, and encouraged. Harvey Tavel was a school teacher at that high school, and that encouraged Harvey Fierstein. That's how he sort of interacted. They drove Harvey across Canada, too. Harvey acknowledges that the Tavels were really quite wonderful people.
As all circles do, I say—and not to be quoted—ours contained people who, when somebody makes it and leaves the circle and moves on, felt entitled to share that spotlight and want help. I use the director Tom O’Horgan as an example. Because of Tom’s direction—it opened to the public, and it was rewritten and redirected, and new vitality and the nudity and what have you. Well, some people felt they were part of that team, and not everyone's life is successful—there are ups and downs and so forth. And some people felt, 'Well, we helped make Tom a millionaire. He should be paying our rent or giving us this and that.' The same with Harvey Tavel. There was a group he worked with, and I couldn’t believe how the collective said, 'Harvey’s a traitor.' And I said, 'What do you mean?' He worked with that—he worked in one play with this group of people—and they felt, because he made it through and was already known, that he was obligated to share his career and success. All I could do was listen and say, 'Well, that’s the way—we all had opportunities to move on. We helped make him famous.'”
THE PYRAMID CLUB
“The last bloom of Manhattan was the East Village. The landlords killed the art of the golden age because there were dozens of empty storefronts, and they would come in and charge thousands of dollars in rent. So many of the art galleries from around Thompson Square Park moved to Soho—they made Broadway the border. You can look at the ’80s and the East Village. The Pyramid Club was one of the clearing houses. Lady Bunny, who's one of the most phenomenal, talented people, and RuPaul, I met them. They came up from Atlanta. Ethel Eichelberger and I were performing at the Pyramid. It was very seedy. You could buy heroin; you can do anything. You just mind your own business. They came up and, a few days later, said, ‘Oh, we're going back to Atlanta. And I said, ‘Oh, you mean it's New York is too much?’ They said, ‘Are you crazy? We're going home to pack. We're going to come back next week.’ This is what's happening. And they each became stars in their own right.”
DAVID WOJNAROWICZ
“The artist David Wojnarowicz was very important and an inspiration to many artists, because he was HIV positive, and that was a part of his art, his anger and frustration about why no one was doing anything. It parallels AIDS activist Larry Kramer, but the anger is about—well, no one was going to do anything because they thought it was a gay disease, and a disease is a disease. And now, looking back in reflections, all these people who thought that we deserve this and we're sharing it, is that when their children got into addiction and hepatitis C and HIV, it's a different story. And the same with drugs. Drug treatment under Rockefeller was three strikes, and you're gone for life. Of course, the petty people with the smallest amount got arrested three times, and you're in. One of the people in the Play-House of the Ridiculous was an undercover cop who played gay on the scene Downtown in the West Village, and asked my friend, ‘Gee, I'd like to score some coke.’ And as a favor, he went for the smallest amount of coke. He said, ‘Oh, okay, this is for you at a discount.’ And he got arrested.
THE FINAL CHAPTER OF LIFE
“What I know now—my youth is all gone. These are the last few chapters of my life, and I want to sort of refine them. I believe in guardian angels, and I am polyfaith. I believe that all experiences are positive. We're all part of life. Lesson: you're born, you live, you die. And this is why life is a gift. This is your opportunity to experience and pursue the possibilities and potential of what is out there, no matter what. I had a very rich and full fantasy life. No matter what, I rose above any given situation.”
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About The LGBTQ History Project
The LGBTQ History Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ+ activists from the first wave of gay liberation through oral histories, archives, and the QueerCore Podcast.
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