Queer Joints, Wiseguys and G-Men

WARNING: This review is heavily tainted with the impact this book had on me personally and has many spoilers and political commentary which everyone may not agree with.

Queer Joints, Wiseguys and G-Men is a collection of stories from Phillip Crawford Jr.'s now-deleted blog “Friends of Ours”.

The above sentence is a tame introduction to this book as I was enthralled just reading the Introduction to this book. I love history and this is yet another facet into gay history that I did not know about and I found just as fascinating as if it was happening today instead of years ago. It does not change my opinion of Nancy Pelosi to know the history of her father that apparently everyone else does, but I do want to know who her campaign manager is as I do not know how she got elected between her father and brother. I can imagine the horror, even if it was thirty years later, that Crawford was printing addresses of mobsters homes in his blogs which I think as a reporter is just awesome. As I was reading it made me want to go to these houses and apartments and see if they are on a tour.

It is amazing to me that over and over again for over twenty years information was given to various Presidents and to Hoover and the Mafia was not “officially” recognized until the 1950s. The reports range from ice cream shops, to cheese shops, to laundry and oddly enough a huge gay scene in Texas in the 1950s. I say oddly because I have lived in Texas and in the 1990s I still had to go to a bar outside of the base with a red light outside of it to show that it was a gay bar. So I was amazed by this section of the book and the knowledge of the gay scene and how it was utilized for crime and all of the young men exploited and how they must feel today. People always talk about women in being used in prostitution, but there is not much talk about gay men or the young men who are questioning whose choices due to circumstances they feel are taken away from them. I just wanted to hug all the boys as I was reading this section thinking of all of the damage done.

This is a short book to read for the amount of history it imparts and I recommend it - even if you just keep it in the bathroom or read it on the bus on the way to work. Read it a chapter at a time. It has something for everyone even if you are not part of the rainbow community. It shows how government works and how we keep making the same mistakes and that the issues we are having today are not new - we really are just repeating the past.

Attorney Crawford if you ever want to sit down and chat, the coffee is on me because I have questions. I loved this book. I have sat for many hours at a microfiche machine reading newspapers to find out just what the weather was for a particular day so that my story rings true or to get information for a client so I can imagine the work that went into your blog and I salute you. I received this book in a giveaway and it is truly a gift. Thank you.

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