The birthing of a gay newspaper for the Twin Cities
Funny money, new technologies and a lot of sacrifice went into this breached birth
By Tim Campbell
Copyright September 28, 2004
This fall, the Twin Cities celebrates twenty-five years having a gay newspaper.
Actually, at times over that period Minneapolis and St. Paul have boasted two or three or four gay and lesbian publications. Lavender Magazine thought this would be an apropos moment to publish some of my memories of the early years of the gay press and the GLC Voice newspaper which I published from November, 1979 through April of 1992. So sit back for a trip down memory lane-as I recall it.
The GLC Voice, a publication for gays, lesbians and civilized others grew directly out of two aborted efforts to start a gay newspaper here in the summer of 1979.
First there was the Northland Companion. It was published by Leonard Richards and edited by Bruce Brockway. Brockway, then in his late twenties and hot as a pistol, was the real driving force behind the Northland Companion.
Richards supplied the funds, perhaps from some counterfeit bills he and Brockway printed for an anarchist protest of all government activities. They were arrested dumping $100 bills off the balcony in the then spanking new Crystal Court at Nicollet and 7th Street. It was never perfectly clear to me that Richards was himself gay, just a civil libertarian. Still, I suspected he had a crush on Brockway. Some years later, Richards was convicted of hiring someone to murder first his sister then his lawyer.
Richards and Brockway only put out two issues of the Northland Companion before calling it quits. Maybe May and June 1979.
Brockway then started his own publication called Positively Gay. This was pre-AIDS and "positively gay" was meant to be a counterpoint to the negative image of gays allegedly projected by drag queens, murder victims, and angry gay activists like myself. "Gay" and "angry" were considered oxymorons until AIDS came along.
Positively Gay was loaded with stories from other sources like the San Francisco Examiner and the Advocate. I particularly remember the picture of burning squad cars in San Francisco after the "White Night Riots." I also remember stories about this new "gay cancer" that seemed to be hitting New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
After putting out a couple of issues, Brockway ran out of source materials and developed a colossal case of writer’s block. He came running to yours truly and offered me $500 a month to edit Positively Gay for him. I accepted. Together, we put out issues in July, August, September and October. Brockway quickly ran out of credit with his typesetter and printer. He was never able to pay me a dime.
The night before the November issue was due to go to the printer, Brockway told me how broke he was and offered to give me the newspaper in exchange for what he owed me. He had one condition--he wanted to keep the name "Positively Gay." Again, I agreed.
At that point, I was broke too. So I went to the Gay ’90s and asked "Big Al" Cohen, then owner of the restaurant and bar, to buy a full page add and pay me in advance. Cohen hesitated at first saying: "Advertise for gay customers? That’s loony. I don’t have a gay bar on purpose. I’d make more money with a straight bar. You guys just came and took over my business."
I countered that I intended to put copies of the newspaper on the University of Minnesota campus and that one new student who learned where the gay bar was located a year earlier than he might otherwise, would pay for the ad-a mere $300-before the year was out. Big Al bought my argument and the ad. Once the Gay ‘90s was in, the other gay bars followed quickly.
The first big story for the GLVoice newspaper was the 1979 March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. It may have occurred October 11 and I think our coverage followed in the November issue. That issue carried two logos: Positively Gay and the GLC Voice.
During the first months the GLC Voice came out, Brockway typed most of our copy, wrote a few articles and editorials, and sold a few ads. This was, however, not something he relished. Instead, Brockway would nag Leonard Richards until he dropped by the office with a few crisp $100 bills to tide the GLC Voice through one financial crisis or another. To my surprise, none of them ever bounced.
Brockway died of AIDS in the spring of 1984. But for his association with Richards, the AIDS unit at the University of Minnesota Hospital would be named in his honor.
The GLC Voice was saved by other benefactors also, at various moments. Phil Willkie, Rebecca Rand, and a veterinarian out in Mendota Heights were often there to help.
But it was technology that really saved the life of the GLC Voice. In 1981 and 1982, home computers and the Hewlett Packard Laser Jet III with scalable type fonts hit the market for about $1500.00 each. The Voice was able to buy both. From that point on, we were able to keyboard and print out all the text and headlines for the newspaper in house. This cut production costs way down. I actually got a salary a few times.
Once way back about the time Equal Time came into being, a lesbian I was interviewing for some staff position asked me, "Doesn’t the GLC Voice have some kind of mission statement?"
"Sure!" I responded. "To come out-and on deadline." That we did for fourteen years.
The GLC Voice outlived Equal time. By then, the Twin Cities boasted four starving gay and lesbian publications. I closed it down in the interest of continued eating and with a sense of "mission accomplished."
You see, I also calculated the GLC Voice had generated roughly $1,000,000 in total revenues, all of which I poured back into giving the Twin Cities gay and lesbian news. Of that, I am very proud.
[Tim Campbell can be emailed at timcampbellxyx@yahoo.com]
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