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As a musician in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Marc knew he had to be very conscious of the tone of his voice and how he acted, lest anyone in the audience suspect that he might be gay. Never was this truer than at a straight wedding where one of the wedding guests straight-up called him a “faggot.” Stunned and uncomfortable, Marc continued to perform at the wedding and at straight venues in general until two years later, a friend asked him to fill in at a gay bar. Playing “bad wedding music” for a queer audience proved to be a hit and led to Marc being a regular fixture in the gay bar scene for over two decades.
Once the gay bar scene began to quiet down in the early 2000s, Marc reinvented himself once again – this time as a gay community organizer. Instead of music, he was bringing older queer people back together after years of in quiet solitude.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
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[Music]
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foreign
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my name is Mark Barrett and I’m from
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Belchertown Massachusetts in the late
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70s
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when I was basically on the road with a
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band as a musician and Entertainer I had
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to watch
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what I did
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what I said
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how I acted so that other people would
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not try and out the true me so while I
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was playing as a musician in the
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straight clubs most of the bands were
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what they called show bands
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so I would be a keyboardist usually in
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the back of the band when I left those
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type of groups and the 80s came around
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and I started doing my own thing
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I sort of moved from the back row to the
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front row in the past and the show bands
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we would all dress alike usually in
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tuxedos or something like that so it was
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pretty standard fare for that day when I
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started playing with my group we sort of
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loosened up the the dress code so to
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speak I was hired to play at a wedding
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and during the wedding reception
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um we were playing the music I was with
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some of the musicians
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and it was a relatively easy crowd they
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seemed to be enjoying themselves
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so it was later in the afternoon I think
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if I remember correctly this woman came
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up and obviously she was drunk
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and decided I mean right in my face
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to call me [ __ ] I was stunned I didn’t
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know what to do because at that point no
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one had ever addressed me like that I
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kind of had to stop and think
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but I actually stopped the music which
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was kind of strange because I think it
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drew the attention of the crowd
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to turn towards me to see what was going
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on
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and I decided to do nothing she’ll be
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taken care of by herself just by the
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crowd alone the response of the crowd
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they will take care of it
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so we could we just continue to play
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music
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for the rest of the afternoon and I
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could see her over in the corner
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mouthing things and making motions or
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whatever else
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it was just a very uncomfortable day for
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the rest of the day a year or two after
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the situation
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I was still playing in straight clubs
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but I got a call from a gay bar
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and two of my friends who were
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entertainers there
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had to cancel their gig and asked if I
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would fill in it’s a local bar in
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Springfield
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and it was known for having a
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I would say older crowd I thought to
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myself this is it’s a very strange
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different vibe than I’ve ever had at a
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gig
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so I played that night and that’s when
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all hell broke loose
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it was a different audience that I’d
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ever seen
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I was a different type of Entertainer
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than they’d ever seen
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and I just went into basically a bad
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wedding format I played I played all
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sorts of Music they were dancing the
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twists they were dancing the Hokey Pokey
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they moved all the tables out of the way
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they just basically changed the entire
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venue to suit me which was great because
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I then I just sort of metamorphosed into
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a gay Entertainer I started feeling more
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comfortable with myself
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and I started feeling more confident
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about myself I also was going to gay
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bars I was listening to the Disco of the
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day I was listening to the jukeboxes
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that played different types of music and
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I picked up on the different styles Not
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only was I changing the music was
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changing the venue was changing that
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people were changing that times were
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changing I played in gay bars for about
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25 years
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that includes the bars in Springfield I
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also did the some of the clubs in
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Provincetown the boat slip and that
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season they made the most money in the
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Disco at night they’d ever made so I was
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kind of proud of myself
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and then I went back a couple years
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later 90 early 90s and I played a club
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called the townhouse I did the same same
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thing they were dancing in the house
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they were dancing in the streets outside
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because they had never heard somebody
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entertain with fun music upbeat music
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this was
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after the AIDS epidemic had started
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so we had lost a lot of people and we
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were trying to do our best to survive I
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kept going playing up until about
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2004. at 2004 of course the gay bars
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were dwindling because of the internet
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and then I decided it was time for a
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change I started getting involved in
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some of the other groups in the area
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because the lgbtq community was starting
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to form different groups outside of the
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bars
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online what I did is I thought to myself
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self
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you need to do something in Belchertown
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so I put together a
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lgbtqia plus senior coffee hour and what
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it did is it brought out all the members
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that had sort of basically just gone
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into the woods into the closet again
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it just drew them out the first meeting
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we had was phenomenal people were saying
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we don’t understand where everybody’s
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been
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so basically I’ve been a catalyst to try
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to bring things together we all in
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Quotes come out
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develop change whatever word you want to
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use however you want to label it we all
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have that happen to us in our life story
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don’t be afraid
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be open be who you are
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whatever wherever that is
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don’t let other people dictate to you
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what you are and who you are
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because you don’t live your life for
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them you live your life for you
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foreign
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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