heroes at large

We met these two extraordinary men for the first time this afternoon. Until then our knowledge and experience of the nobility and the courage of John Schenk and Robert Loyd had been limited to the incredible reports which regularly came to us from Barry's wonderful mother Earline, their good friend and neighbor.

John and Robert are visiting New York this week from Conway, Arkansas, because their story and that of their now thoroughly-notorious pink Victorian house is being told in a documentary which is part of the New York Independent Film and Video Festival.

Barry has already written more about the couple and the film, "Pink Houses." We will be seeing it tomorrow night, Tuesday, at 6 o'clock. He's included an article from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a statewide paper.

While the film is presented from the viewpoint of these two men, it also includes comment from a representative of the Family Council — a Little Rock-based organization that promotes traditional family values — and television footage of Greenbrier farmer Wesley Bono talking about his decision to spread a dump-truck load of manure along streets around the Pink House on the day of last summer’s gay-pride parade.

"It didn’t stop us," Schenck says in the film, while standing outdoors with Loyd. "It smelled horrible for a couple of days, but we’re used to dealing with manure."

. . .

In their 19 years in the Pink House, the two say, people have driven by and shouted derogatory names, shot at their house, broken their car windows and destroyed holiday decorations.

"One year we had a 9-foot Energizer bunny," Loyd says. "It was decapitated Easter morning. I thought that was a little extreme."

And some of us once assumed that the big city queer owned the breed's style and courage.

Details: The 51-minute film will be screened at 6 o'clock on Tuesday, May 3rd, on screen 6 of the Village East Cinema, 181 2nd Avenue at 12th Street.

[image original source not available at this time]