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June 18, 2021 - Booked Solid

Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color
by Gilbert Baker


c.2019, Chicago Review Press
$26.99/$35.99 Canada, 256 pages

At its most basic, it’s just a piece of cloth. 


A nice poly-blend, perhaps, or a hank of nylon in a fade-resistant color. There are holes in one end to fasten to a pole or rope, but it’s otherwise just a piece of cloth. Yet, people have died for it and, as in the new book Rainbow Warrior by Gilbert Baker, that flag could be the fabric of revolution.


Even as a small child, Gilbert Baker knew that he was gay.


He grew up in Kansas, a child who loved to draw, create, wear fancy dresses, and dream of being an artist. Alas, art wasn’t a career in his parents’ eyes so Baker, as a young man, lied about his gayness and enlisted in the army, where he quickly realized that he was in for years of abuse (at best) or Vietnam (at worst). He “lived in terror” before filing as a conscientious objector; the Army instead listed him as a medic and sent him to San Francisco.


It was the perfect accidental gift.


“When I got to San Francisco,” he said, “I knew I wasn’t ever going back to Kansas.”


Five days a week, Baker worked in an Army laboratory; the rest of the time was his to fall in love, explore his new city, and work on his sewing skills. Stitching became an obsession and by 1977, he was making costumes and banners for demonstrations. When he was asked to make something special for the city’s Gay Freedom Day Parade of 1978, he thought about the rainbow as a flag, and dived right in.


While that first flag was a big hit, Baker writes that the symbol didn’t take off quite as much as he’d hoped. Still, it was present in every “street activists” event he was part of, at every parade and protest. “One pair of scissors” and a mile of fabric could “change the whole dynamic,” he wrote later. It was “a pure act of rebellion.…”


Rainbow Warrior was compiled from several manuscripts that the late author, Gilbert Baker, left after his death in 2017, a fact that would have been helpful to have, early-on. You’ll be more forgiving of the overly-florid prose, knowing that. 


Aside from that annoyance—one appearing throughout the book—readers may also notice a bit of pretentiousness, a lot of snarky fighting, endless drugs, and getting naked in Baker’s narrative, which is likewise forgivable because much of it takes place post-Stonewall, post-Summer-of-Love, pre-AIDS.


And thus is the appeal here.


Baker was one of the more ferociously involved protesters, by his own account, and his anecdotes are priceless. He gives readers a good first-person look at early efforts for gay rights, and eye-opening, sometimes jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes peeks at life as a young gay man during an uprising. It’s a lively, outrageous look at outrage, in an account that seems not to have held one thing back. That makes Rainbow Warrior readable and entertaining and, despite its overly ornate verbosity, a good look at revolution cut from a different cloth. ▼


Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. Always Overbooked, she lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 15,000 books.
 

‹ June 18, 2021 - COVID Health by Tyler Berl and Jordan Hines up June 18, 2021 - CAMPShots ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • December 17, 2021 - Issue Index
  • November 19, 2021 - Issue Index
  • October 22, 2021 - Issue Index
  • September 24, 2021 - Issue Index
  • August 20, 2021 - Issue Index
  • July 16, 2021 - Issue Index
  • June 18, 2021 - Issue Index
    • June 18, 2021 - Cover to Cover with Issuu
    • June 18, 2021 - The Way I See It by Beth Shockley
    • June 18, 2021 - In Brief
    • June 18, 2021 - Out in Delaware by David Mariner
    • June 18, 2021 - Intentionally Inclusive by Wesley Combs
    • June 18, 2021 - CAMPNews
    • June 18, 2021 - Aging Gracelessly by Fay Jacobs
    • June 18, 2021 - Out and Proud by Stefani Deoul
    • June 18, 2021 - Visiting View by Tyler Mendelsohn
    • June 18, 2021 - Community News
    • June 18, 2021 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • June 18, 2021 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • June 18, 2021 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • June 18, 2021 - Hope for Future Change by Matty Brown
    • June 18, 2021 - Dining Out by Fay Jacobs
    • June 18, 2021 - Health and Wellness by Marj Shannon
    • June 18, 2021 - Health and Wellness Classes & Events
    • June 18, 2021 - LGBTQ+ YA Column by Julian Harbaugh
    • June 18, 2021 - Membership Matters
    • June 18, 2021 - Who's That?.... That's CAMP! by Anita Broccolino
    • June 18, 2021 - Feature by Robert Dominic
    • June 18, 2021 - Pride History by Michael Gilles
    • June 18, 2021 - Volunteer Spotlight by Karen Laitman
    • June 18, 2021 - Words Matter by Clarence Fluker
    • June 18, 2021 - Before the Beach by Michael Gilles
    • June 18, 2021 - CAMP Houses by Rich Barnett
    • June 18, 2021 - New Comedy by D’Anne Witkowski
    • June 18, 2021 - Regal in Rehoboth by Fay Jacobs
    • June 18, 2021 - COVID Health by Tyler Berl and Jordan Hines
    • June 18, 2021 - Booked Solid
    • June 18, 2021 - CAMPShots
    • June 18, 2021 - Celebrity Interview by Michael Cook
    • June 18, 2021 - Deep Inside Hollywood by Romeo San Vicente
    • June 18, 2021 - Featured Interview by Lawrence Ferber
    • June 18, 2021 - Historical Headliners by Ann Aptaker
    • June 18, 2021 - Homes for Transgender Women by D’Anne Witkowski
    • June 18, 2021 - Spotlight on the Arts by Doug Yetter
    • June 18, 2021 - The Real Dirt by Eric W. Wahl
    • June 18, 2021 - View Point by Richard J. Rosendall
    • June 18, 2021 - Visiting View by Ed Castelli
    • June 18, 2021 - We Remember
  • May 14, 2021 - Issue Index
  • April 16, 2021 - Issue Index
  • March 19, 2021 - Issue Index
  • February 19th, 2021 - Issue Index

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