MASON FUNK: Start off by stating and spelling your first and last name, please.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure. I'm David Bohnett, B-O-H-N-E-T-T.

MASON FUNK: Okay, and you'll just talk to me.

DAVID BOHNETT: Great. We can wait until you're really happy with the lights.

MASON FUNK: Yeah.

JANINE SIDES: Okay.

DAVID BOHNETT: I'm very patient.

JANINE SIDES: Okay.

MASON FUNK: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: Let me just -- I swear.

MASON FUNK: I fell for it.

DAVID BOHNETT: Take your time.

JANINE SIDES: Just come look at this real quick, so you can see where--

MASON FUNK: Okay.

DAVID BOHNETT: I can move.

MASON FUNK: Could you just look as if I were sitting right here?

JANINE SIDES: See that?

MASON FUNK: Yeah. I think it's fine.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah.

MASON FUNK: And you're looking here in my ... Yeah, it'll be fine.

JANINE SIDES: Okay. Great.

MASON FUNK: Okay. The audio's all good?

JANINE SIDES: Yes.

MASON FUNK: Okay. Yeah?

JANINE SIDES: Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Okay, so tell us the day you were born, where you were born, and give me a little picture of your family, your family of origin.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure. I was born on April 2nd, 1956 in Chicago, Illinois. My family was living in a western suburb, Hinsdale, Illinois.

DAVID BOHNETT: I have an older brother and older sister. My parents 00:02:00and grandparents all ... My parents grew up and my grandparents lived on the south side of Chicago, in a suburb called Beverly on the south side. I still have cousins that live in Beverly. My parents built the house in Hinsdale, and I have an older brother, older sister. My sister is six years older, and my brother is eight years older.

MASON FUNK: Okay. What would you say, like what were the values that 00:02:30were espoused in your family?

DAVID BOHNETT: The values that were espoused in my family were, first and foremost, commitment to family. We would spend almost every weekend at one grandparents' or another, or aunts and uncles, or they would come visit with us.

DAVID BOHNETT: We would spend all holidays together, and so I grew up 00:03:00in a very close extended family with grandparents and cousins. The second, and probably even equal to that, was the importance of education. I'm sure that one of the reasons my parents picked Hinsdale, in particular, was the very strong public school system. Again,

DAVID BOHNETT: with a sister who's six years older and a brother 00:03:30who's eight years older, I was following behind them through grade school, junior high, and high school, so I had role models with my older siblings that had attended the schools that I was attending, a local grade school that I would walk, ride my bike to, same with junior high, and same with high school.

DAVID BOHNETT: It was family, education, and then, I grew up ... Was 00:04:00very fortunate, the period that I grew up in a suburb that was a very close-knit community, and so there was community dances. There was community center. I always had a sense that Hinsdale was a close-knit village, suburb, village. There was a local hospital. We were members of the local United Church of Christ,

DAVID BOHNETT: so Sunday School. Although religion was not a strong 00:04:30part of our family background, religion was a component of that, but I have to say, of all that, it was the sense that getting an education and doing well in school was just what was expected. I was fortunate to benefit from a very, very good public education.

JANINE SIDES: Can you straighten your tie?

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: Speaking for myself, I'm two years ... I was born in '58, so two years younger. I was never a rebellious kid, at all. Were you ever rebellious, in any way, or were you pretty much committed to following that path and following the family values? Where did you fall on that spectrum of rebelliousness versus doing the right thing, so to speak?

DAVID BOHNETT: In terms of whether or not I was rebellious as a kid, 00:05:30I think people tend to follow, or tend to behave, on the temperaments they're born with. I was not born with a rebellious temperament. I ultimately have, and had, a very strong career in activism, but as a kid,

DAVID BOHNETT: I pretty much towed the line, in terms of what my 00:06:00parents and family expected of me without being rebellious. I guess I had enough freedom that I felt that there wasn't a need to be rebellious outside of what is always a normal amount of rebelliousness in whatever age you are growing up. Neither my brother nor my sister, I think, were either.

DAVID BOHNETT: I was given a lot of latitude growing up. I didn't 00:06:30have to be home until dinnertime. Of course, there was no phones or anything. I just was able to have a lot of my own time, although I was expected not to come home and watch television. I was expected to always be out doing things. But not rebellious in any unusual strenuous way.

MASON FUNK: Right. Tell us about coming out to USC and how that 00:07:00experience was for you.

DAVID BOHNETT: I went through public schools, and I went through a public high school, and was always interested in computers, even before the personal computer. I was fortunate because in high school, my high school had a Teletype timesharing terminal

DAVID BOHNETT: connected to a mainframe computer, and I learned the 00:07:30basic programming language, called BASIC. From that moment on, I was fascinated by computers and computer software, computer applications. I was also an amateur radio operator in school, so I had this fascination, combining both communication technology and the ability to facilitate people communicating with each other.

DAVID BOHNETT: I was interested both in the electronic and the 00:08:00mechanical side of communication technology, as well as the sociological and the human opportunities to connect people of similar interest. That, combined with my early exposure to computer programming, led me to find a school that had a computer science program. At the time,

DAVID BOHNETT: USC was one of the first schools that had a computer 00:08:30science program, University of Southern California. As an 18-year-old, I applied to Northwestern, I applied to USC, and I ended up going to USC as an 18-year-old freshman. I had never been to Los Angeles. I had never seen the school. I just got on a plane with two suitcases, and ended up landing in Los Angeles and starting my college years at USC.

MASON FUNK: How was it for you ... I want to go back to the idea 00:09:00that, from the very beginning ... Let me ask you this. There were people who were undoubtedly interested in computer science and programming who didn't have that same interest in using computers to connect people. Do you know where that ... Because it seems like it's a through line for you, the part that had to do with connecting people using computers. Can you trace that back to where that came from?

DAVID BOHNETT: Part of where I can trace back my interest in 00:09:30communication technology, as well as the computers and computer application, was many and frequent visits to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, that it would be a place where my grandparents would take me, I would go on school trips, and I really credit the museum ... It's a science museum,

DAVID BOHNETT: as really one of the catalysts of my curiosity, one of 00:10:00the catalysts of my quest for education and experience. There was a working coal mine exhibition. There was the U505 submarine. I was always fascinated by trains and model trains, and they had a very, very extensive exhibit by Illinois Bell Telephone

DAVID BOHNETT: on everything to do with the telephone, the history of 00:10:30the telephone, the science of speech, the long distance circuits, the advent of the transistor. The telephone companies always had this theme of talk to your neighbor, communicate with someone across town, communicate with someone across the country, so all of that was at the science museum,

DAVID BOHNETT: the Museum of Science and Industry. It was fortunate, 00:11:00because I was exposed to that all through growing up, and it was a way for me to feel that there was a place to learn, and also feel that there was a place that my interests had a place. I think that it's important as anybody's exploring, whether their interest is in science, or dance, or technology, or music, that there is a place

DAVID BOHNETT: where you can experience your interests, and maybe 00:11:30that's for sports, you know. So that was the place for me. I think I obviously had a natural interest in it, that again, we're born with certain natural interests, and that was one of them for me, but it was really both the education and the exposure to those technologies and those sociological aspects of it through the museums.

MASON FUNK: Wow. During your time, then, at USC, how would you say 00:12:00you changed on more sort of a personal level? How did those years affect you, personally?

DAVID BOHNETT: As I arrived in Los Angeles as an 18-year-old freshman, started my studies at USC, I joined a fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, ATO,

DAVID BOHNETT: made a number of friends that I'm still friends with 00:12:30all these many years later, and somewhat still active in fraternity, mentoring other students in the ATO fraternity. Started my classes in computer science, and I was most interested in the application side, the business applications of computer science, so the programming, the payroll,

DAVID BOHNETT: management reporting systems, et cetera. It turned 00:13:00out, to get a real degree in computer science, you had to also get a math degree, because at that point, computer science was still very focused on the theory of computer design. The theory of circuitry and computer design was a lot based upon math theory, and I wasn't that interested in that. I was much more interested in the business and application side, so I ended up taking business courses in finance and accounting,

DAVID BOHNETT: and getting a business degree with an emphasis in 00:13:30computer science, and I took a number of programming classes. I have a very, I think, fortunate and classic college experience where, again, I was exposed to the kinds of subject matter and classes that I felt I had an opportunity to pursue. I knew what I wanted to do, and I think that's fortunate for someone that can come

DAVID BOHNETT: into a university environment, and a college 00:14:00environment, and be able to take the classes that they know are interesting from an education and career perspective. I always worked part-time jobs, whether it was waiting tables or working at department stores, to help support myself through school, and I learned how to be very independent, that I had moved to California.

DAVID BOHNETT: My parents were very helpful with tuition, but I had 00:14:30to pay for my own room and board and living situation, so I learned as a young adult to be very independent on my own, and a long way from home. I think that was another very fortunate and valuable lesson, but I had seen that happen already, because my brother went to Princeton University in New Jersey, and my sister went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas,

DAVID BOHNETT: so I had seen ... I was 10 years old when my brother 00:15:00went to Princeton, and 12 when my sister went away, so it was just, again, following their lead and being encouraged to go away to school. I give our parents a lot of credit for supporting that.

MASON FUNK: I read somewhere, and it might've been Wikipedia, so it might not be true, that you had an important relationship with a guy at USC that ended badly, that he apparently committed suicide, but I don't know if that's true or not.

DAVID BOHNETT: Every summer, even before I went to USC, when I 00:15:30graduated from high school, again, I had to work, so I took a job at a summer resort in northern Wisconsin waiting tables and teaching water skiing, and it was one of these classic summer America Plan resorts where the families would come and stay for a week, and college kids from all over the country would work there all summer, literally from Memorial Day to Labor Day in the dining room,

DAVID BOHNETT: cleaning cabins, and I worked in the dining room and 00:16:00taught water skiing. I did that for five summers all through college, and even a summer through graduate school. The second summer I was there, met a fellow student my age from Notre Dame. We were both waiting tables, and I went to USC, and he went to Notre Dame. We had just a wonderful friendship,

DAVID BOHNETT: and we became very close, and we were both exploring 00:16:30our sexuality and coming to terms with being gay. We spent a number of summers together. He was at Notre Dame and I was at USC, and it was fairly fraught. I mean, I could tell that he was not ... Who is completely comfortable at that age?

DAVID BOHNETT: He came from a Catholic family, a big Catholic family 00:17:00in Indiana. One summer, I didn't go back. I was a tour guide at Universal Studios. Then, in our senior year, he committed suicide, and could not reconcile the inner conflicts between growing up in a very small-town Catholic family environment with very strong Catholic family values with being gay.

DAVID BOHNETT: Of course, it was other factors that contributed, but 00:17:30that affected me very deeply, that someone, a bright, young senior at Notre Dame, first one in his family to go to school, he wanted to be a lawyer, felt that there was no other option for him to live a life other than to end his own life. He hanged himself,

DAVID BOHNETT: and it was a tragedy for the family, of course, and I 00:18:00felt it was very personally moving and personally devastating.

JANINE SIDES: Just going to adjust ... Do you mind if I ...

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure, go ahead.

JANINE SIDES: Just move that over a bit. I think it's just wanting to lean.

DAVID BOHNETT: That's fine. Okay.

MASON FUNK: Then, while we're paused, I wonder if we should, Janine Sides, maybe slide this light that way.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah. Yeah.

DAVID BOHNETT: Is it going to be a problem that there's different 00:18:30lighting and ... No.

JANINE SIDES: Part of me wants ...

MASON FUNK: The only people who will know will be me and her, probably.

JANINE SIDES: Just use that as the ...

MASON FUNK: That seems better.

JANINE SIDES: It's still doing it, but I have another idea or trick, but it would take me ...

MASON FUNK: Yeah. I think this is better already. You're more ...

DAVID BOHNETT: I am more comfortable with my glasses on.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah. Yeah.

MASON FUNK: So just trying to minimize the reflection there.

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah.

JANINE SIDES: Can I have one minute ...

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah, of course.

JANINE SIDES: ... to try a thing? Always chasing reflections.

DAVID BOHNETT: I think that's going to be even better. I was going to suggest that.

JANINE SIDES: --Yeah. That's going to be better. Give me one second 00:19:30here. I just have to adjust ...

MASON FUNK: Sure.

JANINE SIDES: ... this. Yeah. Thank you very much.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure, of course.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah. Okay.

DAVID BOHNETT: Okay?

MASON FUNK: Okay. We're speeding still?

JANINE SIDES: Still speeding. We need --

MASON FUNK: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: Okay. Speeding.

MASON FUNK: Would you say that that experience changed you?

DAVID BOHNETT: The experience I had with such a close friend who took his own life because it was hard to reconcile his own homosexuality was an

DAVID BOHNETT: important experience in my growth as a college 00:20:30student, a senior in college at that point. I had come out. I had come out during college, at least in my own mind, and here in Los Angeles, I would go to gay bars in West Hollywood and begin to really integrate

DAVID BOHNETT: my own homosexuality into my personality as a whole 00:21:00person, and was fortunate that I had the ability to meet other gay people, and go to gay bars, and see that there was a community of gay people in West Hollywood and elsewhere, including at my school. Although it was still a time when everyone was very closeted, I had a growing sense of acceptance and awareness,

DAVID BOHNETT: and growing sense of comfort with my own being gay. He 00:21:30didn't really have that same opportunity in South Bend, Indiana, Catholic school, a very small-town upbringing. I was in a different environment that I think afforded me, again, the opportunity to feel

DAVID BOHNETT: that I wasn't alone and I wasn't isolated. So when 00:22:00that happened, I thought, again, "Whatever I can do in my life to help ensure that other people don't face that same pain and isolation, and ultimate act, I'll do what I can."

MASON FUNK: Great. Tell us about your years at University of Michigan.

MASON FUNK: Of course, you went there to take your business degree, 00:22:30or your MBA, but one of the stories that I found interesting is that you got involved in going out to schools. I guess the catchphrase at the beginning of the thing you would say is, "I'm gay. Ask me anything." Can you tell us that story, about your ... I mean, I know we're sort of jumping forward in time here, but ...

DAVID BOHNETT: I graduated with a four year degree from USC in business and had the desire, and the strong interest,

DAVID BOHNETT: to go right through and get my MBA. I had been working 00:23:00part-time at a bank here in Los Angeles during my four years at USC. I had some substantive work experience, I don't think enough that I wouldn't have gotten more benefit from a graduate degree with a few years in between, but I was impatient, and I wanted to go forward and get my MBA,

DAVID BOHNETT: so I went to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, 00:23:30very good business school, for a two year full-time MBA program, although again, I worked part-time during those two years. Part of my financial aid package for graduate school was a work study grant, which is pretty common, which you could work in a different department in the university, whether it was in the cafeteria, or athletic department, or whatever.

DAVID BOHNETT: One of the jobs in the work study program was at the 00:24:00Gay Student Union. It was called the Gay Student Union at the University of Michigan, which was the very first university-supported Gay Student Union in the country. It was founded by Jim Toy, who was running, founded and running the Gay Student Union there when I arrived, so I went in for an interview, because

DAVID BOHNETT: my job there as a hotline counselor, and member of 00:24:30kind of a quasi-Speakers' Bureau, would qualify for my work study pay. I was hired and went through training as a frontline phone counselor, because at that time, there was ... You could look up in the phone book and there was a gay crisis line.

DAVID BOHNETT: It was crisis that you were coming out. You needed 00:25:00someplace to go, someone to talk to, and so I, again, just got first line support. If someone needed much more extensive and serious help with suicide prevention or whatever, they could be referred onto a true suicide prevention line. But if they were looking for support for coming out groups, or coming into the Gay Student Union, I could answer those questions.

DAVID BOHNETT: Then, the other thing we would do with, again, it was 00:25:30quasi-Speaker's Bureau, when we would go to Psychology 101 classes at the University of Michigan, and I would go with another student, a lesbian, and we would walk in with these freshman, generally freshman kids, at the University of Michigan, and we would say, "This is Psychology 101. We're gay. Ask us anything," you know? For most of those kids, it was the first time they'd heard someone just say,

DAVID BOHNETT: "I'm gay," you know? You would get all the questions 00:26:00people still get today. When did you know? Does your family know? Are you out? Pretty much out, yeah. Were you born that way? That was very empowering, to do that. I was in the MBA program, in the graduate business program,

DAVID BOHNETT: and I had a significant other, a boyfriend, who was 00:26:30also in this, really, mostly my second year. We lived together. He was also gay and in the MBA program, but everybody was closeted. I don't know if I was closeted in school, but there was nobody else that was out. But again, Ann Arbor had a couple of pretty active ... Ann Arbor had a pretty active gay life,

DAVID BOHNETT: and there were gay bars, but in terms of the business 00:27:00school, the only place that I would be out or open was doing this Speakers' Bureau work or the Students' Union work. Then, he, Michael was his name, he went onto a job in Cincinnati. Then, I moved back to Los Angeles after my two years in graduate school, and got a job,

DAVID BOHNETT: which I was very excited about, with Arthur Andersen 00:27:30Consulting. It was a management information systems consulting business, which ended up becoming Accenture, which is still now a very successful and worldwide consulting firm. But at the time that I started with it, it was part of Andersen Consulting, and I started here as my first professional job in LA after graduate school.

MASON FUNK: Let's take a minute to talk about Jim Toy, because he was one of our first interviewees.

DAVID BOHNETT: Great.

MASON FUNK: I always like to hear other people write somebody into 00:28:00the historical record, like Jim Toy. Who was he, just a little bit, and what did he mean in terms of being pioneer there, in Ann Arbor not only, but in a sense, nation-wide?

DAVID BOHNETT: Jim Toy, who started and founded the Gay Student Union at the University of Michigan, had a very important and prominent career as a very early gay activist,

DAVID BOHNETT: and was instrumental in both the local, Ann Arbor, the 00:28:30state, at Michigan, a national movement, in terms of raising awareness. He had, I think, a number of prominent civil disobedience episodes in his career as an activist, and someone who was very passionate about music

DAVID BOHNETT: and very passionate lover of classical music. I'm not 00:29:00sure if he played an instrument. I think he might have. But also kind of a real polymath kind of guy. I mean, you had a sense that he had very, very broad and very deep interests across a wide variety of areas, and was, in many ways, a very spiritual person in his own way, as well, and had a way of welcoming everybody into the fold.

You had a sense that he had arms that would wrap around everyone, and 00:29:30bring them in, and bring them along on their journey of coming out, on their journey of discovering themselves, and very, very unique, very unique man.

JANINE SIDES: I'm just going to fix the --

DAVID BOHNETT: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: It just won't stay. Yeah.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: Don't worry about the tie.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah, I know.

MASON FUNK: The tie is just --

JANINE SIDES: I've tried. It's not going to behave.

MASON FUNK: --

DAVID BOHNETT: What if I hold it like that?

MASON FUNK: Now, two people that I know were extremely important to you in your first say decade or more here in Los Angeles were Rand Schrader and Sheldon Adelson. I'd like to talk, again, because neither one of them is here to be interviewed, I'd like to have you talk about each one of them, in terms of what gifts and strengths they brought, tremendous gifts,

MASON FUNK: obviously, to the emergence and the creation, really, of 00:30:30an LGBT community here in Los Angeles. I know it's a big topic, but let's start with Rand, or Randy, I guess, as you call him.

DAVID BOHNETT: Do you want me to talk any more about the career at Andersen Consulting, or are you going to come back to that, or not?

MASON FUNK: No. We could do that maybe first.

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Yeah, okay.

DAVID BOHNETT: I was very happy to start my career and work very hard as a systems information consultant at Andersen Consulting.

DAVID BOHNETT: I went through a lot of training, Arthur Andersen 00:31:00training in St. Charles, Illinois. I became very proficient in both business systems design, management information systems design, business reporting, had a number of different assignments creating management information systems, general ledger reporting systems, financial reporting systems. I loved it.

DAVID BOHNETT: It was doing the kind of work that I really enjoyed. I 00:31:30was coming out as a gay man in the work environment, as well. I had a good friend, one of many who ended up passing away, but a good friend, Bud, who worked for Andersen at the same time, as well. He was gay. He had a boyfriend. I was dating. One year, we wanted to take ...

DAVID BOHNETT: I wanted to take a same-sex partner to the company 00:32:00Christmas party and was told no, that that's not something that, I think, work ... It was really in a way that was ... It was the firm saying, "Well, you know, we're okay with it, but that's not something the clients would really be comfortable with." I also had a couple of assignments where you could tell that it wasn't a welcoming environment for gay people,

DAVID BOHNETT: so I left. I had found that there was not going to be 00:32:30a career path for me there as an openly gay man to continue to rise up the ranks and become a partner, or a senior member of that firm, and so, like many gay people of the time and before, those opportunities were closed off, unless you decided to remain closeted,

DAVID BOHNETT: which many did. It was a choice that was their ... Of 00:33:00course, it's their own choice, and I respect that, but I felt like I couldn't really be a whole ... Enjoy myself as a whole person, so I left. Right about that same time, I met my first significant long-term partner, Rand Schrader.

DAVID BOHNETT: Rand Schrader and Steve Lachs were appointed by 00:33:30Governor Jerry Brown in the '80s as the first two openly gay municipal court judges in California. It was big news. They were pioneers. They were groundbreaking pioneers in the lesbian and gay civil rights movement here in Southern California, nationally. Randy and Steve were good friends, and one of their mentors,

DAVID BOHNETT: and political mentors, was Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon 00:34:00had a very successful career as an attorney, and also then had a very successful career in real estate and in business, founding the Bank of Los Angeles. He and his family had extensive real estate holdings in Los Angeles and founded the Bank of Los Angeles, founded a very popular restaurant, but had very strong political ties,

DAVID BOHNETT: both statewide and nationally, and it was Sheldon's 00:34:30support ... Sheldon was on the Board of Regents of the University of California, and he was doing all this as an openly gay man and a real significant pioneer in his own right, because he was an activist. He was a successful lawyer, a successful businessperson, had significant political contacts, and was able to help facilitate,

DAVID BOHNETT: through Governor Brown's terrific sense of what was 00:35:00right, to help facilitate Rand being appointed to being a judge. I was 27 when we met. He was 11 years older. He was 38. We enjoyed a very, very successful, committed 10 year relationship with each other. I was fortunate to get to know Sheldon well.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sheldon also had a share of controversial challenges 00:35:30within the gay community, because he opened and owned a very successful bathhouse called 8709. It was at 8709 West Third Street in Los Angeles, and this was a time where there were many, many bathhouses in Los Angeles and around the country, and this was a time when gay men, in particular,

DAVID BOHNETT: were feeling the freedom to express their sexuality in 00:36:00ways that were so restricted and repressed for so long. The bathhouses were a social gathering places. There were televisions, and snack bars, and bars, and they would show movies, and it was a place where you felt that you really were among your friends,

DAVID BOHNETT: your community, and then, there was a lot of sex. It 00:36:30was all part of it. It wasn't that everybody always went for sex, but there was people that just went to hang out, and there were people that went, that would ... It was a bathhouse. They were open and legitimate. Then, they stayed open

DAVID BOHNETT: well into the first phases of the AIDS epidemic. There 00:37:00was a great sense of controversy and a difficult time, because we had fought so hard for our gains to that point, which was way before civil unions, and marriage equality, and anti-discrimination legislation, but we had fought hard to get to that point

DAVID BOHNETT: where we were beginning to become integrated, 00:37:30accepted, and welcomed members in society. There was a great deal of protectiveness among the gay community around the bathhouses, because we felt like we had come so far, not just in places to hang out and have sex. Sheldon was very successful, and then this was when AIDS was starting to become a very real threat.

DAVID BOHNETT: I remember, I would wake up in the morning, and Randy 00:38:00would be on the phone with Sheldon many, many mornings, like early, and I would say, "What are you talking about every day in the morning with Sheldon?" He said, "Well, that's when he's counting the proceeds from the bathhouse from the night before." These were very successful businesses. Again, his main line of work was he was a lawyer, real estate, and banking, but he had a successful bathhouse. He ended up closing it,

DAVID BOHNETT: of course, like they all closed, which they needed to, 00:38:30and which they should. They served a purpose at the time that they were there, and it was an important element, and then, they were, like any number of other institutions and practices at the time, they were shut down.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sheldon succumbed to AIDS. Randy and I were together 00:39:00for 10 years. Sheldon probably died six or seven years into our relationship, from AIDS. Then, Randy died just after our 10th anniversary. He had had numerous hospitalizations. He died in June, and he worked up until March of 1993, very, very, very debilitating neuropathy,

DAVID BOHNETT: very debilitating pneumocystis, really ended up dying 00:39:30from complications from pneumocystis, had very good care, very good care from his physicians, very good care at Century City Hospital, but it was catastrophic. He died 10 years later.

MASON FUNK: I want to circle back to, you talked about the importance 00:40:00of the bathhouses to gay culture, to the emerging gay culture, but you also said that, at a certain point, they had to, they needed to, and they should've been shut down. Can you go a little deeper into why? Why did they have to basically shut down as a result of the AIDS epidemic? You said yourself, a lot of you were very protective of them. You wanted to keep them open.

DAVID BOHNETT: With regard to the bathhouses, and ultimately, the 00:40:30closure of the bathhouses, there was very difficult reckoning within the gay community, as I had said before, between wanting to protect the gains and the level of acceptance that we had, and these were gains and level of acceptance within our ourselves. It was as important as it was outwardly in society, it was even more important inwardly,

DAVID BOHNETT: that we became accepting of ourselves, in terms of who 00:41:00we are in our own sexuality. Perhaps there was a sense that we would lose that if we lost the bathhouses. For a lot of people, they were just a fun place to go, and so people didn't want to give that up, either, because it would've meant a return to the furtive sex in parks

DAVID BOHNETT: and in restrooms, and not that everybody and every 00:41:30member of the community participated in any of this. There was a very large segment of the community that didn't go to bathhouses and that didn't have sex in public parks and in bathrooms, but there was a pretty significant segment that did. Of course, not everybody, but some, and many. There was this sense of,

DAVID BOHNETT: "Well, where will we go if these aren't there?" Then, 00:42:00again, there was also this ... We could spend the next couple hours talking about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the similar sense of losing the gains we'd had so far because of what was happening in the community, the response and the lack of response on the level of the medical community,

DAVID BOHNETT: the lack of response on the level of the political 00:42:30leadership. It was a maelstrom of activity going on, but for me, and I can only speak for myself, it was clear that the bathhouses were a place that was a clear ... It was contributing to the spread of HIV, and we didn't know nearly what we know now, but then, it was unknown precisely how close.

DAVID BOHNETT: and at what level it was spread, and what you did or 00:43:00didn't do to contract the disease. There were so many unknowns that, from my perspective, strictly from a public health standpoint, they had to In my opinion, I think that there's others who had strong opinions that were just the opposite, but they did, and I do think it slowed the spread of HIV.

DAVID BOHNETT: There was also great resistance to the ... I mean, we 00:43:30can go into a lot, in terms of Larry Kramer and the ACT UP movement, and members of the community that felt like that was going way too far, members that felt that wasn't going nearly far enough, so there was a lot happening during that time, because people were dying in very large numbers.

MASON FUNK: Yeah. Hey, Janine Sides, we're not seeing the ...

JANINE SIDES: Yeah, we are.

MASON FUNK: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah, --

MASON FUNK: Sure.

DAVID BOHNETT: I got it. Yeah.

MASON FUNK: How did Randy's death change you, personally and professionally?

DAVID BOHNETT: Rand Schrader and I were a couple for 10 years. After my career at Andersen Consulting,

DAVID BOHNETT: which became Accenture, I ended up working for a 00:44:30series of software companies, which I enjoyed, was a field that I very much enjoyed being a part of, and I was fortunate to have a number of jobs in different facets of the software business. I had a CFO job with a small software company. I was in charge of programming, and ultimately, I had a marketing and product manager job.

DAVID BOHNETT: I was working my way up in my career while Randy was 00:45:00being a judge, and very well-respected judge. We had a terrific life. I was out to my family. He was clearly out with his family. Our families knew each other, and my family would come and visit, and stay with us, my brother and sister and their kids. Randy ended up meeting my young nieces and nephews,

DAVID BOHNETT: so we had a very nice, hard-working life. Then, he was 00:45:30diagnosed, and we were ... He was positive, and I was negative. It was very traumatic time for people, as it still is, to find out their HIV status is positive. I was perplexed,

DAVID BOHNETT: but I was grateful that I was going to be able to take 00:46:00care of him, and at least I wouldn't get sick while he was sick. There was nothing that could be done. I mean, that was just the sense of hopelessness, and so there was a new drug that came along, AZT, that Randy was taking. There were some other experimental therapies at the time,

DAVID BOHNETT: but there wasn't anything that was really suppressing 00:46:30or eradicating the virus, and so it would continue to ravage the body in, as I say, very catastrophic ways. There was a complete lack of government funding that would've helped progress the development of the much-needed drugs.

DAVID BOHNETT: He died in June of 1993. I was working through the 00:47:00whole ... I had to work. I mean, we had a house in Las Vegas, and we had bills and a mortgage, and needed to work, and also, all the extra expenses from his medical treatments and medical condition, and bills, and hospitalizations. He worked as long as he could, as well.

DAVID BOHNETT: I had lost many, many, many friends, as everybody in 00:47:30our community did, but his loss, for me, was tragic. I think about him a lot. I miss him every day, and having a partner die, a 10 year partner die when you're 37 is an experience that I didn't expect to have. I knew there'd be challenges in coming out.

DAVID BOHNETT: I knew there'd be challenges in being openly gay. I 00:48:00knew that I would have career challenges, but I didn't expect that when I was in a significant relationship, that my partner would pass away.

MASON FUNK: Did it alter the course of your life?

DAVID BOHNETT: I think everything alters the course of your path. Your life is your life based upon the events that happen,

DAVID BOHNETT: so this was a very, very significant one for me, as it 00:48:30was ... I mean, I knew many, many couples where both got sick, and both passed away. We lost a whole generation, a whole big swath of activists, a big swath of experience. Again,

DAVID BOHNETT: Randy was 11 years older, so he was 48. I was 37. He 00:49:00was 48 when he died. This is the prime time when people reached the peak of their career, and Sheldon was a little older than Randy, and so we gained and we lost momentum at the same time. The AIDS movement was a real catalyst for the lesbian/gay community to come together

DAVID BOHNETT: and in some ways accelerate our progress as a 00:49:30community, but in some ways, a huge setback, because we lost so much talent, and we lost so much experience. I felt like I had to, at whatever level I could, to continue to do, pick up the mantle. One of the things that Randy did was he was a very early co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Center here in Los Angeles. My activism career after Michigan

DAVID BOHNETT: continued on with the Gay and Lesbian Center, and then 00:50:00I was an early founder of the GLAAD chapter in Los Angeles. Before there was GLAAD LA, there was a newsletter from GLAAD New York, and I would write letters to directors, and producers, and studio heads based upon the newsletter that came from GLAAD New York, and then there was the formation of GLAAD Los Angeles, so that was the continuation of my activism after Michigan.

DAVID BOHNETT: Randy continued to be very prominent at the Gay and 00:50:30Lesbian Center and was chair of the county AIDS Commission, the gay lawyers' group, Lawyers for Human Rights, so we had a very active life together and independently in activism, as well. Randy was part of an HIV/AIDS research group that ended up becoming part of amfAR,

DAVID BOHNETT: so we were very active in that time, both with our own 00:51:00careers and with our own activism. Then, when he died in 1993, I felt I had to continue the work I was already doing with GLAAD, and the work, the important work that the center did, and other groups, so I vowed to continue on with that and continue with my own professional career.

MASON FUNK: How did the turn happen whereby you ... I read somewhere that there was a connection for you,

MASON FUNK: personally, between losing him and the founding of 00:51:30GeoCities, but I don't know if that's true, and what that through line might be, or what that connection might be.

DAVID BOHNETT: When Randy died in 1997, I was still working in the-

MASON FUNK: 1993, I believe.

DAVID BOHNETT: I mean 1993, still working in the software business.

MASON FUNK: Do me a favor, start over again.

DAVID BOHNETT: I will.

JANINE SIDES: We could probably just get rid of the lav. I'm hearing a lot of static, anyway.

MASON FUNK: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: Can we just do that? Let's get rid of it, so we don't see it.

MASON FUNK: Sure.

JANINE SIDES: Okay, because the ...

MASON FUNK: This is our main mic here.

JANINE SIDES: Yeah. That's our main mic here.

MASON FUNK: I'm going just take this. You want to just give me ...

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: You don't have to take the mic off. You can just take the battery pack out, and we'll just unplug it, and ...

JANINE SIDES: Well, I think to just get rid of the cable, though.

MASON FUNK: Oh, get rid of the cable altogether. That makes sense, yeah.

JANINE SIDES: --

DAVID BOHNETT: All right. No problem.

MASON FUNK: These lavs are ...

DAVID BOHNETT: Always a problem.

MASON FUNK: ... always a problem.

DAVID BOHNETT: ... 1993.

JANINE SIDES: I'm sorry. I was not rolling. Yeah.

DAVID BOHNETT: Okay. When Randy died in 1993, I was still working in the software business for a software company, and worked for a while, was told, with very good advice, don't make any major changes right away. But ultimately, I had to make some major changes, because I had to sell our house. At that time,

DAVID BOHNETT: and for a long time thereafter, there were no ... We 00:53:00couldn't get married, for one thing. There were no civil unions. There was no domestic partnership. There was nothing. We had our own wills, we had our own trusts, but we had nothing that showed we were recognized by the state or by the federal government, again, no domestic partnerships, civil unions, or marriage.

DAVID BOHNETT: So I had a very heavy tax burden that forced me to 00:53:30sell the house. I had to pay taxes on Randy's half of the house. Even though we had a mortgage and everything else, there was a lot of depreciation, which was fortunate. Randy had a judicial pension that I did not get the benefit of. People now do, which I'm happy about. Randy had Social Security

DAVID BOHNETT: that I did not get the benefit of. I did not have 00:54:00Social Security survivor benefits, which people now do, so there would've been a pension opportunity for me. There would've been a Social Security survivor benefit. This was something that everybody at the time, who had been married, got, and so it was always just the sense of we're looking for fairness. We're not looking for anything that's special, but we just want the same rights, and privileges,

DAVID BOHNETT: and benefits that everyone else has, who's able to get 00:54:30married. I didn't get that. He had a 401k that was taxed at my income rate and then the estate tax rate, so I got virtually nothing from that. But what I did get, and was very fortunate, was life insurance proceeds. Randy had life insurance that he had taken out before he got sick, and I was the beneficiary of that. I was not bitter

DAVID BOHNETT: or upset about these other things. I was angry that 00:55:00these benefits that he paid into, that he worked hard for, that we were a committed couple for 10 years, would've been available to a wife but not to a husband. Of course, you're going to be angry about that. I decided then, I sold the house, and I left my job, and I started to travel for a while,

DAVID BOHNETT: and then read about the internet, the World Wide Web, 00:55:30for the first time, in 1993/94. Having had a career in software and technology, and having also been, throughout my whole life, interested in communication technology, and I was a member of Prodigy. There were online services that were their own thing. There was AOL. There was Prodigy. There was CompuServe.

DAVID BOHNETT: They didn't talk to each other. There was no internet 00:56:00or email, but you could join one of these online services and be kind of in their own world. They were very popular. I saw that, gee, this thing called the World Wide Web was just about to happen. The internet was just about to be commercialized. It had been closed to commercial activity up until just before then,

DAVID BOHNETT: so in 1994, I started an internet company that was a 00:56:30web hosting company. We would host websites for various companies that were just at the beginning of getting on the web, so banks and certain retail companies, way before there was really any eCommerce, but it was just a web presence. Then, I had this idea that I wanted to do something besides web hosting,

DAVID BOHNETT: and again, through this interest and passion for 00:57:00communicating, giving people the opportunity to communicate with others, which had been part of my whole career, I decided that I would start a company around giving away free web pages, free websites to everybody. The key to the whole thing was not only the technology for the free websites, but organizing them into thematic communities of interest, because that was the secret for me, which was letting people share their interests with each other, share their knowledge,

DAVID BOHNETT: contribute and participate in the medium, and meet 00:57:30other people that had the shared interest. Part of that, of course, came from my own experience of coming out, that I saw how powerful it was to meet others of similar interests, as a gay man, that I thought, "Of course, that applies across all, whether it's sports, or finance, or everything, interior design." That was my idea.

DAVID BOHNETT: It ended up becoming a very, very, very popular site 00:58:00on the internet, because we made it very easy for people to become part of the internet community, that it was a very easy gateway for people, initially, to feel like they were a part of the internet, that they could create a page about golfing, about sports, about cooking, you know. We made it very easy to give people a chance to get on the internet and share their own interests and passions.

MASON FUNK: Do you remember any key moments, like ah-ha moments, or 00:58:30light bulb moments, or strategic decisions that you made in those early days of GeoCities, that you look back and you realize that was a real fulcrum, that that was one of the key decisions you made that allowed GeoCities to do so well and become so popular, in terms of how it related to your users, your customers, or anything?

DAVID BOHNETT: We were not the first to offer free web pages, and 00:59:00there were other companies before us that had a community-based model, so we were not the first with a community model, either. We were part of a continuum that was an evolving model on the internet for community, for free web pages, but what we did was put components together that had never been put together in the same way before,

DAVID BOHNETT: to give people a sense that they were part of a 00:59:30neighborhood, kind of a global community of people that were sharing common interests. We developed a unique set of tools that let people communicate and share with each other. We developed a neighborhood metaphor, that you had a sense that, again, you were part of a ... You were not alone. You were part of a community.

DAVID BOHNETT: We developed a whole community leader model, where you 01:00:00volunteer and help facilitate and help others get involved. It was kind of a holistic approach to this whole notion of creating a sense of belonging on the web, and creating the sets of tools that made it easy for people to use. We were, again, part of a continuum of ... We really celebrated user-generated content,

DAVID BOHNETT: that that was a new thing, that the content for 01:00:30GeoCities would be created by the users. Heretofore, everything was top-down. It was radio. It was television. It was movies. It was content that was created for consumption by media companies. We were creating a media company where it was the users that would create the content. I celebrated that. We showcased, and we featured, and we helped people create

DAVID BOHNETT: the best page about dogs, the best page about cats, I 01:01:00mean, you were interested in African wildlife. We really unleashed this creativity in people that the internet helped foster and amplify.

MASON FUNK: Great. That's great. I'm going to sort of jump a little bit forward to,

MASON FUNK: in a sense, the timeframe over the last 20 years, since 01:01:30you sold GeoCities. It's been a big time of personal activity for you on many, many different fronts. As a general starting point, I want to just ask, what do you take the most personal satisfaction from in looking back over the past 20 years, your many activities, or your children, who are your ...

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: I know you're not supposed to have favorite children, but who are your favorite kids?

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure. I started GeoCities in 1994. We went public in 01:02:001998 during a very frothy period of time. Then, after we went public, we were sold in 1999, as a public company, to Yahoo! This was the height of the internet bubble, in 1999/2000. We were always in the top 10, if not the top five, popular sites on the internet, so at the time we sold,

DAVID BOHNETT: we might've been one of the top three to five, 01:02:30depending on how you measured it, so very, very big sale price, and I remain extremely grateful and fortunate for my success, personal success, financial success of GeoCities. At that time, I did a couple of things. I started my own venture capital fund to invest in other startups along the way as a professional career,

DAVID BOHNETT: and I started the David Bohnett Foundation to focus on 01:03:00improving society through social activism around a number of key program areas, that with an early set of advisors, we continue to fund at this date. The David Bohnett Foundation was founded in 1999. Since then, we have given over a hundred million dollars in grants across key program areas, which include lesbian and gay social services. We started an initiative setting up computer labs

DAVID BOHNETT: in lesbian and gay centers around the country, called 01:03:30the David Bohnett Cyber Centers, and these would be rooms ... They are rooms where there's computers and printers, and anybody can come in and use them, within these gay and lesbian centers. There's some on university campuses, as well, so there's 60-some cyber centers, computer labs, around the country. We've done a lot to continue to support groups like GLAAD, and amfAR,

DAVID BOHNETT: and we've set up different leadership development 01:04:00programs for gay and lesbian elected officials. These programs now have been going on for almost 20 years. Then, we've had other very strong programs and effort in voter engagement, voter registration activities. We've had strong effort in anti-gun violence for all these years. We've worked on social responsibility in mass transportation,

DAVID BOHNETT: and been a very effective convener in mass transit 01:04:30issues, because I think mass transit is basically a social justice issue. After a fashion, it's certainly not right away, but after a fashion, I understood that if I ... I had the opportunity in the performing arts, too, and cultural arts, so I became involved with the Los Angeles Art Museum here, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic,

DAVID BOHNETT: to help those organizations expand their social 01:05:00justice mission to underserved communities. That's been the bridge for me in the cultural arts. I think we've done that with some level of success, so a significant amount of funding to those organizations, as well. The greatest level of satisfaction is seeing how everything

DAVID BOHNETT: we've done in these areas has helped further the 01:05:30social justice mission in one way or the other, whether it's helping lesbian and gay elected officials in their careers, whether it's ... We have fellowship programs at graduate schools of public policy, where these graduate students in public policy schools work in the local mayors' offices on social justice issues. My greatest sense of satisfaction is knowing that

DAVID BOHNETT: I've continued to carry on the work of Randy, and 01:06:00Sheldon, and so many others that weren't able to, and do it my own way, and in ways that I think have really helped lift up large numbers of people and communities.

MASON FUNK: What I really appreciate is that social justice thread, because it hasn't always been present. Very, very, very

MASON FUNK: important people in the world of LGBTQ philanthropy have 01:06:30not necessarily zeroed in to the extent you have on that particular theme. I wondered if, again, if you're able to trace when, where, and why social justice as a theme, whether it's Gustavo Dudamel's programs, dating back to Venezuela, to bring music to people who would have less access,

MASON FUNK: or public transit, seeing that as a social justice 01:07:00initiative, where that orientation came from?

DAVID BOHNETT: My awareness of the broad and critical fight for social justice, and how broad that initiative is, I, very fortunate, starts ... I remember, this was in the '80s, and I was working with our core group

DAVID BOHNETT: that was founding GLAAD Los Angeles. It was a very 01:07:30mixed group. It was lesbians. It was gay men. We were working very closely together on helping further the mission of GLAAD and the positive portrayal of lesbian and gays in the media. I really remember thinking that

DAVID BOHNETT: there is a much broader sense of ... I had come at 01:08:00this as my experience as a gay man and my lens through which I saw characters on television. I think a lot of it was my experience with GLAAD that shows that oppression for one is oppression for all. The African-American struggle, homelessness, poverty, feminist issues,

DAVID BOHNETT: women's health issues, were identical in so many ways 01:08:30to my own, that again, if someone is poor and doesn't have the same access to higher education and to healthcare, that resonated with me as much as my not having the same privileges

DAVID BOHNETT: and protections as a gay man. I remember just 01:09:00viscerally having a shift that says, "This is about so much more than lesbian and gay civil rights," which I've worked my whole life for, but I was fortunate to have a broader lens that said, "This is about the broadest pursuit of social justice across society."

DAVID BOHNETT: That really happened a lot with my early days, in my 01:09:3020s, working with GLAAD.

MASON FUNK: Wow. How can the LGBTQ community do better, in your opinion, enacting more, or embodying that understanding, that our struggles are connected,

MASON FUNK: and that we're not an isolated ... We're not in a silo. 01:10:00How can we do better, from this point forward, if we haven't done always as well as we could have, in connecting our struggle to other people's struggles, and being there for other people, and creating a cross-platform of social justice?

DAVID BOHNETT: The question of how we can do better as a lesbian and gay community in connecting members of our community across the broad social justice spectrum

DAVID BOHNETT: has to do with the same question of how you encourage 01:10:30people to get involved period, in anything, contributing money and getting active. My philosophy on that is you ask them. You invite them. You give them an opportunity to say, "Gee, I'm involved with XYZ. I think it might be something that you might be interested in."

DAVID BOHNETT: Again, I think it's a one-on-one thing where you 01:11:00really do someone a favor by asking them for money, and you do somebody a favor by asking them to get involved, because they will come around and say, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know how to get involved. I didn't know how to broaden my scope outside my own community." There's many of us that are involved across the spectrum of social justice and social service organizations,

DAVID BOHNETT: and it's giving someone else ... It's inviting them. 01:11:30It's giving someone else the opportunity to say, "Would you be interested in learning about this?" Or, on the other hand, it's someone who says, "You know, I think my interests feel kind of narrow. Is there anything that you think I might be interested in?" I know that's how it happens. Sometimes, it's music. I met someone last night who

DAVID BOHNETT: just loves the Hollywood Bowl. Well, the Hollywood 01:12:00Bowl does a lot to serve underserved communities. There's still tickets for a dollar. There's public transportation to the Bowl. You know, "Gee, if you're interested in the Hollywood Bowl, why don't I find a way for you to get involved?" There's no pronouncements. "Let's get more involved." It has to do with

DAVID BOHNETT: really thinking about who you're associated with and 01:12:30asking them if they'd be interested in getting more involved.

MASON FUNK: That's great. Thank you for that. How do you see our struggle, the struggle for gay rights, the gay rights revolution,

MASON FUNK: what's your understanding of that as part of a larger 01:13:00sort of struggle, the so-called struggle for civil rights as, like I say, across communities? What's your sense of our struggle as being part of, or connected to, the black civil rights movement or the women's movement, the transgender movement and so on? I'm not sure how well that question is phrased.

DAVID BOHNETT: Well, I think I sort of answered that, yeah.

MASON FUNK: Yeah. I was thinking the same. I was thinking the same.

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Okay. I didn't realize that.

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Yeah. I want to double back real quick to the organization MECLA. Were you involved with them? Because I know Chris and Rich were. I want to fill in that. That's a piece of LA history, especially gay rights movement history, that I want to make sure is told, and I don't know if you were involved in that organization to the extent that say Richie and Chris were.

DAVID BOHNETT: During the period of time when I was quite involved 01:14:00with GLAAD, Randy was very involved with the Gay and Lesbian Center and with Lawyers for Human Rights, and the county AIDS commission, all during that time, we also supported a group called MECLA, and I believe it stood for the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles. There were a number of very strong activists and leaders, and effective leaders, in MECLA.

DAVID BOHNETT: I remember going to MECLA events and Randy and I 01:14:30supporting MECLA. Randy, as a public figure, and judges were elected, still are, he was active in that organization, as well. It was one of the groups that we supported, and it was one of the very, very extremely important political activist groups here in Los Angeles.

MASON FUNK: What was its importance, would you say? What was their 01:15:00platform, and how did they have an impact?

DAVID BOHNETT: MECLA's impact was in both helping facilitate the election of openly lesbian and gay candidates, but also ensuring that all political candidates were supportive of our rights and our civil rights. It was both of those things.

MASON FUNK: Great. Okay. Now, we're in a particular moment, needless to say ...

MASON FUNK: Hopefully it's only a moment, or a few minutes, but it's 01:15:30a time that is very fraught, needless to say. I wonder what your sense is, of how this particular moment, whether it be this year, four years, conceivably eight years, how do you see that as part of the longer-term story of where we're going as a nation?

DAVID BOHNETT: I appreciate you asking the question about what this particular moment,

DAVID BOHNETT: this particular political moment, means for our 01:16:00country, because it's ... I appreciate you asking it in the context of this interview, because it's occurred to me, and I haven't talked about this before, but it's occurred to me that just as the AIDS crisis was such a catalyst for our community to work together in some ways,

DAVID BOHNETT: many ways, come together with the different parts of 01:16:30our community, and the unintended ... The AIDS crisis was tragic, catastrophic, but what came out of that was a very, very strong, energized movement. I think that the current political environment, that is so toxic and oppressive, will have that exact same effect.

DAVID BOHNETT: I think we're seeing so many candidates coming into 01:17:00the political arena that wouldn't have otherwise, so many organizations that are mobilizing and working together that wouldn't have otherwise, that I think it's a lot the same. I mean, I think we're going to come out of this catastrophic period of time, catastrophic political period, in ways that I ... I'm an optimistic person, but I really believe that,

DAVID BOHNETT: because I just see it happening the same way I saw it 01:17:30happening during the AIDS crisis, and I hadn't made that analogy before, but particularly with the candidates that are coming ... All school boards, city councils, state legislatures, many, many, many that are women that just says, "Enough is enough." Now, this whole national reckoning on sexual harassment is part of this whole scenario where we're going to see a backlash that ends up becoming a very, very positive force, I think.

MASON FUNK: Yeah. It's really strange to think that ... Yeah, to see 01:18:00a through line, essentially, between the so-called Access Hollywood tapes and where we are a little over a year later, that this might not have happened if this particular person hadn't been thrust into office.

DAVID BOHNETT: Right. Right. No, I think that

DAVID BOHNETT: if Mrs. Clinton has won, I don't know if we would have 01:18:30the same, as I say, national reckoning among ... You can never tell, but no, we're in a period of great turmoil, which I think is bringing out ... There's someone that I know, that I've known for a long time, a little older than I am, and she said, "I can't believe I'm doing stuff that I never did before. I'm protesting.

DAVID BOHNETT: I'm signing petitions, and I never did this before. I 01:19:00can't believe it's me." Well, I think there's a million people like that out there now.

MASON FUNK: It reminds me of a sign that I saw at the Resist March this last June, where somebody held up a sign that said, "If Hillary had been elected, we'd all be at brunch right now."

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah. Well, there you go.

MASON FUNK: You know, that might be the problem right there.

DAVID BOHNETT: Right. Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Where we get complacency, that's-

DAVID BOHNETT: That says it right there. Yeah.

MASON FUNK: Yeah. Let me check the time here. We've got, officially, 10 minutes to go in this portion, and I have four questions I finish up with. They're short, but I wanted to make sure, because ... Is there something that you feel like you want to talk about, that we haven't covered? There's many long paths we could've gone down, but anything that comes to mind, that you feel like you want to talk about, a person, or anything, at all?

DAVID BOHNETT: One thing I've become, and I want to become, and I've 01:20:00become much more mindful of, is that ... I don't think I've been judgmental person, but I can see

DAVID BOHNETT: how important it is to be non-judgmental of the path 01:20:30that other people choose to take. I get the opportunity to talk about what I've done and what I'm doing, and I feel like I've done that in a way that has been true to me and my authentic self, but I've also ... I don't know if I've done that in a way that I would say ...

DAVID BOHNETT: There are all sorts of other ways to do it, and I 01:21:00think that it's important that we talk about ... That we remove this judgmental aspect, that there's certain ways to accomplish a goal. I think more and more, I'm going to help celebrate the fact that there's such a diversity of ways people approach and accomplish.

DAVID BOHNETT: No one way is any better than the other.

MASON FUNK: I think we're at a moment like that, in a way, in the progressive movement right now. We're at a critical moment when some people are arguing we should do this.

DAVID BOHNETT: Right.

MASON FUNK: Is that an example for you, and if that's an example of what you're talking about, how do very well-intentioned and passionate people who see things differently, how do they keep moving forward? I think as a community,

MASON FUNK: we've found a way to do that, because there is such a 01:22:00thing as a queer community, but how, in this moment, do we?

DAVID BOHNETT: Well, I've talked about thinking of activism as a spectrum. You find where you're comfortable ... Or a continuum. You find where you're comfortable on that continuum. Some people feel like, "I'm going to stop traffic. Civil disobedience isn't even enough

DAVID BOHNETT: to help us accomplish our goals," and other people 01:22:30say, "No, that's not me." Okay, well then find where you're comfortable, because maybe the other end is, "Well, I wish people well, and I'll be encouraging and watch them on television." You pick your spot, but I think you pick your spot, and here's maybe where I am judgmental. You pick your spot understanding that it's a continuum, that you need the whole range of people.

DAVID BOHNETT: You need the people at this end to be doing what they 01:23:00do, and there's going to be people at this end that are trying to figure out, or they say, "Well, I vote," you know? That's great. That's as important as that, but they're all on the same continuum. I think it's important to let people pick what spot they're comfortable on.

MASON FUNK: Great. Final four questions, short answers.

MASON FUNK: If someone comes to you and says, "I'm thinking about 01:23:30coming out," whatever that means to that person, what single or two pearls of just guidance or wisdom do you offer that person?

DAVID BOHNETT: If someone comes to me and they say they're thinking about coming out, I will say, "Well, that is the single most important thing you can do for yourself, and that's the single most powerful statement, activism statement, that you can make.

DAVID BOHNETT: I don't care how much money you have, I don't care 01:24:00what you would do otherwise, but declaring who you are as an authentic person." It could be coming out as ... There's a whole definition of coming out. Someone could say, "I'm going to come out as a passionate believer in social justice. I'm a straight man," or, "I'm going to come out as a feminist." I think coming out demonstrates that you are going to live your life openly based on your beliefs, and good for you.

MASON FUNK: Great. What is your hope for the future? I know we have 01:24:30sort of touched on that, but for the record, as kind of a final answer, what's your hope for the future?

DAVID BOHNETT: My hope for the future of our country, and our community, are pretty much the same thing, is that we learn to compromise,

DAVID BOHNETT: that we learn to tolerate, and respect, and 01:25:00accommodate one another's differences in a way that helps everything move forward.

MASON FUNK: Great. Why is it important to you to tell your story?

DAVID BOHNETT: I get the opportunity to tell my story as a way of helping me shape ... When you teach someone anything,

DAVID BOHNETT: you learn things about yourself, and you learn things 01:25:30that you want to either concentrate more, or less, or differently on. I get value out of telling the story because I get to reflect on areas that I might want to do differently or spend different time. I have been the beneficiary of hearing other people tell their stories in ways that have helped me, so I hope that anything I say would be helpful to other people.

MASON FUNK: Great, and last question, this project is called 01:26:00OUTWORDS, and it's really the first attempt to interview people like yourself, pioneers, trailblazers, in the broadest sense of those words, across the country, small towns, big cities, people of all backgrounds. What value do you see in a project like this, like OUTWORDS?

DAVID BOHNETT: I see OUTWORDS as a record and documentation of our 01:26:30past and present, and I think that it's a very important element of helping determine where we go in the future. Again, I think that giving people the opportunity to tell their story is not so much different than what I did with GeoCities, which is giving people the opportunity to

DAVID BOHNETT: create a webpage about their story or themselves. That 01:27:00helps a collective consciousness and a collective memory, and I think that we aren't appreciative enough that we are part of a collective consciousness and a collective memory that shapes our futures going forward, and I think that's very important.

MASON FUNK: I love that idea. Is that based, in any way, on an 01:27:30interesting Jungian thought, the idea of a collective consciousness, or is that ... Or not?

DAVID BOHNETT: My belief that there's a collective consciousness doesn't have a name. I mean, I'm sure there are philosophies, Jungian philosophy, that have to do with that, but for me, it comes from personal experience.

MASON FUNK: Can you say a bit more about that, and then I promise 01:28:00we'll be done.

DAVID BOHNETT: No, that's okay. I become aware, several times a day, of activities and observations that could only happen if there was a collective consciousness.

DAVID BOHNETT: I'll be thinking of someone and the phone will ring at 01:28:30that very moment. I will see ...

JANINE SIDES: Speeding.

MASON FUNK: Okay. Do you want me to re-ask the question?

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: Okay. You had said that you have a sense that there is a collective consciousness, not based on any particular philosophy or psychological theory, and my question was, why do you say that? What makes you feel that, or what's your concept of a collective-

DAVID BOHNETT: Yeah. My belief, and awareness, and understanding of a 01:29:00collective consciousness comes from historical observations, in terms of movements that appear, where people are operating of one mind, and people that have never met one another before.

DAVID BOHNETT: A lot of what we're talking about here has to do with 01:29:30a collective consciousness around fundamental fairness and civil rights. We can bring our individual perspectives to it, but when we fight for something that is right and just, or if you fight for something that is actually not right and just, it doesn't matter.

DAVID BOHNETT: You're contributing a vibration and awareness that 01:30:00other people can pick up on, I think. The more we're attuned to that, the more powerful your perspective is of it, and powerful your connection to it is. Then, it relates to, also, the occurrences that are all around us every day,

DAVID BOHNETT: of what may happen that you think is coincidental, or 01:30:30just random, is not, that there's ways that we're communicating with each other, and with the collective each others, that can only be explained if there is, in my own interpretation of a collective consciousness. Time for portraits.

MASON FUNK: Okay. Sorry. We have 15 seconds of what we call room tone.

DAVID BOHNETT: Sure.

MASON FUNK: It's just this room with nobody talking.

DAVID BOHNETT: Okay.

MASON FUNK: It's a technical thing, sorry. Call it out there, if you don't mind.

JANINE SIDES: Room tone.

MASON FUNK: Okay.

JANINE SIDES: I think we should start the room tone when ... I don't know if you heard the sirens.

MASON FUNK: Yeah, I did. Let's go again.

JANINE SIDES: Okay. Yeah, so starting the room tone, 30 seconds, starting now.

JANINE SIDES: Okay.