Her beautiful photo and essay book, The Cockettes: Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy, inspired a San Francisco Public Library exhibit of the same name on display through Aug. 11. On this week’s Out in the Bay, we hear a clip of her performing (as Fayetta, her stage name), she shows us around the exhibit, reads from the book, and shares saucy Cockettes tales.
“When you took acid, the first thing you did was take off your clothes,” Hauser told us. “Free love was on the menu, my dear!”
Hauser says because San Francisco had affordable housing in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – individuals sharing a Victorian flat could pay as little as $100 per month for rent – young people could follow their creative dreams.
The Cockettes: Acid Drag and Sexual Anarchy’s 356 pages are full of photos and other graphics from the era, with recent essays by the troupe’s members and other cultural icons. The SF Public Library exhibit, in the James Hormel LGBTQIA Center, displays a sampling of the book’s photos and essays, one of Hauser’s full costumes and other memorabilia. Hauser will be there in person at the exhibit’s closing party Thursday, August 11. Find info at SFPL.org/exhibits.
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