With some reluctance, I should say that my next big project will be a documentary movie about the life of Hank Wilson.

I usually don’t speak of my projects until they are done, but most of my projects have required no money. This has been fundamental for me: make art that costs no money. The large majority of my music CDs were produced with a budget of zero dollars. If you can make your art for nothing, you are free of the obligation to sell it.

But movies cost money, and even if we make this movie using every possible community resource, and cutting every possible corner, it will still require more money than the production cost of all of my two dozen CDs added together. So I have to raise money. So I have to talk about it.

Hank Wilson was a kind of a gay saint. I know that sounds ridiculous but there is truth to it. He founded many of the queer organizations that populate today’s LGBT landscape in San Francisco. He organized the first gay film festival and the first gay cabaret, the first gay liberation organization and the first AIDS activist groups. But even though his contributions to queer culture and politics were second to none, he spent most of his life serving the homeless. For 20 years he ran a 150-room SRO hotel for the indigent, with an all-queer staff and no budget, making it pay for itself yet providing services beyond those provided by funded organizations. When AIDS arrived he turned an entire floor of the hotel into an AIDS hospice for the indigent. He was also my dear friend, my mentor, and briefly my lover.

He was also beyond modest: a big talent and a small ego. Very few people know of his work. In this era when most queer activism has mostly focused getting stuff for “us” (the right for us to marry, for us to serve in the imperial army, for us to get access to medical care we think we need), I profoundly miss his commitment to a much broader vision of justice, but always from a gay perspective. This is what I would like to share through this movie.

I have never made a movie, but I am going to make this one. I have partnered with Joan Grossman, a wonderful film maker I am looking forward to working with. And we are bringing in Leo Herrera, a young gay film of enormous talent.

And yes, we need money, and are accepting donations, no matter how big or small. We have a a Facebook group for those who want to follow the progress of the film  here,  and web site for the film where you can give us money here. If you are an American citizen, your donation will be tax-deductible through the fiscal sponsorship of the GLBT Historical Society.

To learn more about Hank, here is the Hank Wilson obituary I wrote on The Huffington Post. 

Thank you.