In the Life: Interview with Jewel Thais-Williams and friends of the Catch One [unedited footage]

okay so um i love the stories about how you  started catch one so how did you start it what were your reasons and inspirations and i'm  thinking about when you were working across the street in this place wouldn't let Blacks in tell the  story about how did you start this place okay the dream first came to me when i was working  across the street at a supermarket as a checker back in the late 60s and it was known to all  the african-americans that they weren't welcome you know at the what was  then called the diana club so i just kind of said to myself one of these days  i'll own that club and everybody will be welcome several years passed and i ended up getting my own  business but the first business was the boutique i um did that for a couple of years  and the recession came and i wanted a recession-proof business and people party  and and have a good time and drink when they can't afford to do much of anything else so i set  out to look for for a place to um to purchase and i would every day get the l.a times go in the  business opportunity section look for a place to go out and check out and um this particular  night there was a place down the street from from the diana club and i went to see  it i didn't like it i drove by i said just on an outside chance there's a  for sale sign or something and it wasn't but when i got back to my business i purchased  the next morning's la times and in the business opportunities section there was this new listing  a bar on pico i wasn't real certain of the address didn't really think it was the diana club because  there's another bar a couple of blocks down the street so i jumped in my car and came right back  over and lo and behold this was the address so the next morning i met with and made an offer  to the then present owner of the diana club so that's how it started so um so what was it like  in the first days like how did you manage can you say um when you started the club and what it was  like in the first days sure it was um in 1972 i started the club in yes i started the club  in 1972 and at that time inherited the customer client base of older mostly retired white people  and it was just uh amazing turnaround from from what it was back in the 60s and then i  was welcomed with with open arms there was no women bartenders in california there was a  law against it so therefore i didn't have any bartending experience but um these  guys that that were here and women too had had been drinking at this diana club  for at least 30 or 40 years some of them and so they offered to help me and i kept the  previous bartender for about two or three years too to take care of the daytime crowd and  these older retired white people would come in seven o'clock in the morning or so and we'd  drink i didn't drink it first but then it was like you get into it after a while so  we would drink until about six or seven or to the sun go down they would leave  then blue collar straight primarily men african-american men would come in and shoot  pool and that and they would leave around 10 or 11 o'clock and then the gays would come out  so it was a lot of hats and a lot of faces that changes that we had to go through in order to keep  all of these people balanced but eventually it all kind of blend together and and we'd have um you  know birthday parties for one of the old guys and the gays that would come in during their lunch  hours or whatever that knew my daytime crowd they would come down forward and we all just had a good  time it was great that's a great story um can you tell me how you got this whole building like is  that is that something that we should cover like sure yeah well initially i had but one thousand  dollars when i walked in here didn't know where the rest would come from and just by begging and  getting a couple of loans from a banker that i knew that he eventually got into a lot of trouble  because he wasn't supposed to make the loans based upon my getting a sba loan and and he  did he made one too to both me and my partner and then when this building became available when  um the catch one as it stands now became available in 1975 and um this upstairs part was being  used as a um well diamond dance but inflation it was like so many dollars per hour kind of  situation where there would be hostesses here and then men would pay so much to dance with  them the fellow that owned the business was uh was um was very old he owned a couple of these big  old ballrooms from the 1920s and he ran those kind of operations and then he became ill and his um  attorney took over you know we're going to need a shorter okay all right so maybe just like um  you started off saying i only had a thousand bucks right and how did you finally come to like  where did you get the money from the support from or um to actually get the whole thing to get the  whole thing by that time i'd been in business for three or four years and um the old guy that  that owned the building didn't have any errors and he died and the attorney didn't pay so it  went into foreclosure and the old owners uh sold it to me make a long story short i know right it's  hard yeah um so what um can describe catch one to me now like in all of its facets both as disco  and community center how would you describe it it means a lot of things can you start  with a one oh sure catchment one means a lot of things to a lot of people for me  it's like my being able to contribute to the community i think it's been very instrumental  as far as being a place where people could gather to get information about what was going  on we were able to introduce them these are the clientele here to things like the  christopher street west parade that that we didn't know about because the communities black  and white you know were pretty separate for a long long time and we were the first black  entry into the christopher street west parade um politically we've been very active as far  as supporting various and century politicians that have had fundraisers here representative  maxine waters and reverend jesse jackson when he was campaigning for president among a couple of  them that have had fundraisers here um a lot of groups activists have sprung up here today we  have recovery meetings both cocaine anonymous and alcoholics anonymous and in the past  we've also had adult children of of alcoholics meetings here too in addition to that we have  the gay and lesbian community services centers has have they have a dance here on our dance  instruction i guess on on thursday nights now and we've done a lot of fundraisers for aids  organizations um i just have two two more short things what um what role like what is your vision  what role do you see catch when playing in the community what would you be your your ideal vision  for you just talked about all its involvement but do you have like a overarching kind of vision for  it yeah from its very inception um i wanted for it to i want to catch one to be a  place where everyone would become or could feel could come and feel welcome here  regardless of whether they were black or white or hispanic whether they were straight gay  or whatever i wanted a kind of universal uh feeling of of acceptance of everybody here  and that if i had one wish that was for that to happen and we've had degrees of that over the  years you know but eventually there's something will come up that will make a schism down  in the middle of whatever is happening now you know whether it was aids or riots or you know  whatever but i still have to have that dream for um and um yeah i mean it's really hard to do  and also like how do you it's interesting that you're a bar but you make a place for people in  recovery can you tell me like your approach to that or your ideas about that yeah important  to you or yes i had to wrestle with the um issue of recovery and having a bar personally i'm  now a little over nine years in recovery and um before i got sober i had to be  willing to do anything if it meant you know leaving the bar business i had to have  to commit to to my sobriety but fortunately i didn't have to do that i didn't want to take  away from from the community that needed to catch one needed a place together needed a place  that they could call their own this ownership of especially african-american lesbian and gays  that we have here i would not want to lose that and fortunately i didn't have to and there's  people that can drink there's only a small percentage of us that can't so we just use it  to to have fun and and folks that can drink do and hopefully have a good time that's great  um and also can you talk about a couple of the organizations that got their start here the unit  fellowship and the aids project and then can you say and in 19 if if you don't mind say in 1989 my  partner rue and i started rue's house because then that'll lead us into rue's house sure so what  are the organizations that got their start here there's been several organizations that  got their start here at the quechuan the unity fellowship movement  which is a african-american religious movement got its start here the minority aids project which came out of that  movement got its start here the catchers also um hold it any time okay okay and now sure okay can we just use it yeah can you locate  the phone and just take it off the hook really okay and we were also instrumental in starting  uh imani unidos which is a food pantry for for people with aids and then in 1989 my partner  rue and i started roo's house and the catch has all but supported it really for the first three  or four years totally supported it and now we're still uh one of their biggest contributors of  course okay so we need to end but i just want to um say is there just one thing you want to  say about catch one to the world you're invited to the party um maybe just say that just say i  just want to say yeah right right did you say that okay um i would like to invite all of you to come  to see catch one visit have a party when you come to l.a great sorry we were so rushed okay but  how important felt like when it opened up and and how far it's come since then well um  i do remember the night the jewel opened the upstairs portion which was the  disco portion and it was very stark but from the very beginning the catch one always  had the sounds they had the music uh and so the community began to rally at first you know we're  a little shy we came out and checked it out and you know then you have to go back and talk about  it and so forth but eventually it just became the hub of activity and and the place to go everybody  came here and as i said they always had the sound uh but aside from that um at that time you know  in the middle of the disco era i didn't realize i didn't know jewel personally then and it was  hard to to even think of someone having a vision for our community and what her vision was we came  here to partying to hang out but she had a vision of what this this building what this facade was  going to mean to our community and over the years any kind of political organizing so much of  it has happened here this has been not only a place to come and party but it's been a place  to come for alcoholic anonymous cocaine anonymous those type of groups unity fellowship and and  map initially starting out this yes go ahead okay so tell me about when you first discovered  this is opened and how far it's come since then well actually i was here the night that jewel  opened that was in the middle of the disco era and we were partying at our regular haunts but we  had to come over to check it out and see what this new disco was going to be like at that time  it was very stark but from the very beginning catch one always had the sounds and it was  thumping i mean you could just feel it you know all you know through the building uh and so  eventually the community did really rally behind it and this became the place to go and party and  eventually pulled people from other communities into this community to party because they had the  sound they had what was going on but there was another side to catch one that i think is unique  and has been valuable to the community and that was that this was always a place for us to come  and to to organize usually in the african-american community the church is the cornerstone and  the catch one was kind of like the church to our gay and lesbian community because there was  a space here uh there was a freedom for us to come and meet and organize a lot of the political  organizing that came out of part of our community happened here i know unity fellowship got  its start here map got its start you know in this facility there was always space for the  different anonymous or 12-step groups to to meet and do their thing so we partied here but we  did good work here as well and it was you know back in the 70s when she started the disco thing  um and i was doing my disco thing i didn't know jill personally then so i i i had no idea of  the vision that she had for our community and over the years as i've grown with the community  and moved from being a person that was out in the middle of a dance floor taking my twirls to  an activist and being really actively involved i become more intimately involved with jewell and  and i have to say that she is appropriately named because she's a treasure to our community and  she's always been here for us she's a role model she's unassuming but powerful when you talk  about the mother of the community i have seen her pay attention to the talents and energies and  positive things that each of us individually had to give never pushing but always there through  it i always there for us through everything i mean they've tried to burn this place down  they've done different boycotts back and forth but when i go into the movie theater and i see beaches  and see that they filmed a portion of it you know down in jules room i say hey or when i go and see  tap or or different films and know that not only has she been here doing this for us but also for  you know we can see beyond the pico address and and it's good it feels good and she's a tremendous  individual she really is really is thanks um sandy my experience with the catch one  and jules roman jewell herself spans the last 13 or 14 years i have been here  dancing and you know just having a really good time and didn't really in the beginning i didn't  really know jewel but as i have come to to know her and respect her i can sort of describe her as  being the the the rock for the african-american uh gay and lesbian community in south la the same  as martin luther king was the the point person for the civil rights movement in the early 60s and  nelson mandela has done so much for the people in south africa i can equate jewel in in that regard  that's what she means to me she's a dynamic person uh very quiet but she's very effective and  does the things that really needs to get done without asking for a whole lot without demanding  anything just being a sweet person um i couldn't love her anymore she was one of my own sisters and  and i've told her before and i'll say it again i aspire to get to the place where she is respected  and uh just the person that is so dynamic and and has so much energy and so much power for us this  is a catch one is a place that we can call home uh in the uh again lesbian community of  african-american descent it's really important to us to not have to drive so far number one to  go and have a good time and have a place where we can be ourselves that's extremely important  since we do have the uh the stigmas that go along with uh being gay and lesbian within our  own communities so jewel is just just a class act and there's no one that i can think of that  can follow thank you um i can only echo what's already been said um the catch one and jill  williams are part of my history part of my life i came to los angeles when i was 18 years old i'm  now just a few months shy of 50 and i've been here from the beginning and at first it was a place  to socialize to dance to check out but as i grew in my own community and in my own involvement and  certainly in my own political life it became very much more important to me i've attended so many  affairs so many functions here so many organizing events uh much beyond the dance and and way after  the music died down and ver and much before as was mentioned in the early days of unity fellowship  we had services here we had our church services here i stood on the stage with jesse jackson when  he was running for president he brought his mother and his wife and his daughter and one of his sons  and he he demanded that we have people with aids in the front row and he brought them on stage and  we had a prayer service here for them um i've been here for aaa meetings for ca meetings i have taken  meals to the homeless from the kitchen downstairs i have been in this building and wondered how  jewel kept the doors open and the lights on i know there have been some lean times i can remember  very well being in here with the bartender and the dj and me and thinking gee how is she  doing it i mean i remember standing at the bar one day and jill never doesn't know this there's  a few lines i remember saying um after being going home after one long lonely night here  thinking well i didn't catch one tonight and something came out of it um called at the  bar i looked in the mirror and i saw my face vacant and empty like the place full of faces  like my own afraid again to spend the night alone but this won't be the same i said when  i walked in i recognize a few and there's one or two i still call friend but the empty time  it came and went the clock would not be stall so with my elbow and my ego bent i attacked  my passion on the wall and i like a lot of people have lot left a lot of passion in this  building because it was passion and love and good blood sweat and tears and hard work that created  it and that keeps it here our community would be so lost without it and a lot less forward jewel  has always been there and one thing that's always amazed me about her is that she's always put the  community first and what we needed first when the place was smoldering was stealing ashes after this  anonymous fire people came and offered her a good a good dollar for this building but she stayed  and she stayed i guess because she needed it and anita does but i think also more importantly  because she knew how much we needed her this is not just a club it's not a bar it's  much more than that it's it's a community center and it's been our community center long before  we had any other organized places to attend to one story when our current city councilman  was running for the first time to be elected in this district we just started a group called  the black gay men's coalition for human rights and we got on the phone and we called his campaign  office and spoke to his campaign manager and we said you don't know anything about us we are black  gay men and you're running to be city councilman in our district the largest black gay identified  club in the country is in your district and you don't know us we think you need to talk to us and  we got a phone we call the sentinel the largest black newspaper out here and they actually put a  little article in the paper black gay men invite the candidates and we were really surprised we  could only do that and get that kind of attention and that kind of recognition from the community  from the straight community or from mainstream community because this building this institution  had already established us as being important people on the map very often people politicians  in particular will write us off because they think that we're not a viable voting bloc but i  represent a lot of people and these ladies too we've lived in our homes a long time i've lived  in this district for 30 years and lived in my home for 20 years the politicians are beginning to  understand that because what what jewel has done in the early days when we're just trying  to put together a minority aids product project had no money for it at that time  maxine waters congressman maxine waters was in i'm sorry i hate to interrupt you  but we have to do this outside thing and we can't include all and that was a great  story that you just told and i'd like to use that parking lot and sat with us when  she was in the california assembly so we could sell used items to create the  minority aids project she sat down there before long before she went to congress because  of what jewel had already established here i'm sorry i'm trying to interrupt but we're so  nervous about the time and everything thank you so much you