WEBVTT - Ep. 4 - Shattering The System: "He Had Demons In Him" 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.360 In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:07.480 about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide. 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.800 If you or someone you know is suicidal in the 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.640 US Down nine eighty eight, check out this podcast notes 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.440 page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:19.239 your community. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.840 In a previous episode of Shattering the System, we learned 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.240 how Jammel Moore, a young black man, was found dead 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.160 in the apartment of Ed Buck, a white man who 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.880 knew how to navigate the ins and outs of West Hollywood. 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.879 At first, Jammel's death was ruled an accidental overdose, and 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.159 just five days later the case was closed. Then eighteen 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.640 months later, another gay black man was found dead in 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:48.080 the same apartment, Timothy Dean, also died of an overdose. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.960 Timothy was fifty five years old, and his friends say 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.480 he had a lot of interests and was still very 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.320 much full of life. He loved the game of basketball, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.840 for instance. He was a genuine athlete and basketball was 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:14.559 something he loved and was good at. Something I find 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.600 interesting about the world of West Hollywood is when you 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.000 have a city full of gay folks, you start noticing 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.680 them everywhere because in a place like this. Well, they're 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.319 just all kinds of people. I remember a friend of 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.520 mine came to visit and we went to a basketball court, 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.160 you know, for a casual game of twenty one. Now, 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:35.880 when we got to the court, which is kind of 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.000 in the center of the most important part of West Hollywood, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.560 this court is just across the street from the LA 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.000 Sheriff station than we have, and it's also a few 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.560 yards from almost all of we Hoo's nightlife. I'll give 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:49.680 you a more detailed tour of West Hollywood in a 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.000 later episode, But when we got back to my apartment, 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.800 he was so winded and tired, and he was even 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.280 surprised that a basketball court in West Hollywood would be 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.200 every single bit as competitive as one in South Central 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.560 or the South Bronx or the South side of Chicago 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.120 and Olid and Jonaman a lot of by Angela Blake Kerty. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.160 Basketball was really important to Timothy Day. He was a 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:19.239 part of the National Gay Basketball Association the NNGBA, as 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.400 well as the Land of the Basketball League. 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:23.640 The Dude was inducted. 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:25.320 Into the Gay Basketball Hall of Fame in two thousand 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.000 and one, and he won a silver medal at the 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.000 Paris Gay Games in twenty eighteen. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.519 Gay basketball has been around since the early nineties and 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.399 a lot of these stories are just lost if they're 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:38.200 not captured. 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.760 That's Michael Thomas. He's a documentary filmmaker from Belgium. Sports 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.239 and basketball in particular are a part of his life 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:46.760 and work. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.160 So I live in Los Angeles myself since two thousand 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.680 and eight, and also when I moved here, I also 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.240 kind of came out as gay, and yeah, I've been 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.840 involved in the LGBT community ever since, and I also 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.799 play basketball in the Gay Basketball League. 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.120 He's come close enough to Lebron James to get splashed 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.720 with champagne after one of Lebron's championship wins. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.160 It's over, It's over. Pleave women if a city of. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:15.440 Champions once again. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.519 Among his documentaries is the film Game Face, about queer 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.600 athletes and their quest for acceptance. It was through basketball 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.600 that he learned about the life and death of Timothy Dean. 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.960 Tim passed like first Jamel passed in twenty seventeen. Then 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:38.200 people kept going over there, drugs kept happening in that apartment. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.560 Nothing was ever done. In twenty nineteen, Timothy Dean dies. 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.160 Still nothing is being done. People keep going in and out. 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.040 Michael had long wanted to do a documentary about basketball, 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.960 He just never thought it would come about the way 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:54.320 it did. 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.440 He was already gathering interviews. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.640 Among his friends about the world of gay sports and 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.680 basketball when Timothy Dean was found dead in the home 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.600 of that Buck. Two different men entered bucks apartment and 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:14.600 left in body bags. Michael could feel how much pain 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:16.240 their mutual friends were at. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:21.719 There was a basketball tournament in Los Angeles with teams 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:22.760 from all over the country. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.840 That came after the tournament, remember this is in twenty nineteen, 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.080 there was an after party at a bar on Santa 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.640 Monica Boulevard. Ironically, that bar was called Rage. Unlike other 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.599 bars along Santa Monica Boulevard, this bar was decidedly non 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.640 white and young. Rage, which has been closed and renamed, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.560 is literally keaty corner to the LA Shriff's office. 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.799 Lots of friends of tim were there at that party, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.159 and the after party was at Rage, so not just 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.200 people from basketball, but everyone was able to come in there. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.960 We were just surprised to suddenly see that ed Buck 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.320 was in front of the entrance and was just coming in. 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.279 Michael could not believe it. There at a bar was 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:11.840 ed Buck. 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.920 Two men died of overdoses in Buck's apartment in an 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.599 eighteen month period, but he hadn't been charged in the 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.000 deaths Ja Melmore was dead, Timothy Dean was dead, and 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.680 walking into a bar full of Timothy Dean's friends is 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:26.240 ed Buck. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.880 He had no shame to just stroll the streets of 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:34.680 West Hollywood and look for his next victims in his eyes, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.640 like he didn't do anything wrong, But it was just 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.919 incredible to see him there on the street. It's just 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.240 so furiating, and there's nothing we could do. 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:50.600 To everyone's surprise, ed Buck's coming in to chill at 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:50.960 the bar. 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.279 Did I say the bar's name was Rage. 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.960 We had to hold people back as well because we 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.400 didn't want them to get into it with ed Buck, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:00.839 because you know, we don't want. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.280 Our friends to end up in jail. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.280 And at Buck being being out, you know. 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.919 Michael realized there was something he could do. He could do. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.560 A documentary film, Jammel and tim was released in twenty 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.680 twenty one. It looks into the lives of ed Buck's victims. 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:24.640 Ed Buck is a predator that masqueraded around just to 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.320 hunt down the bodies of black men, someone that was 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.040 hiding in plain sight. 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.960 I know that one of the biggest frustrations from friends 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.720 and family is the difference of how the victims were 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.480 portrayed and how ed Buck was portrayed. At Buck, his 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.599 whole resume was being acknowledged in the press, everything that 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.600 he has achieved, But with Jammel and tim all the 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.160 worst things that they have done in life that was highlighted. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.440 And then it's very easy too, you know, for people 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.320 to say like, oh, well, you know, prostitute this or 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.680 like they deserved it, or drugs or you know, then 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:10.040 it's very easy to blame or to like protect at bar. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.920 Yeah, so it's like political donor sex worker. Yeah right, well, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.720 you know, not that that's a very. 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.360 Correct it's it's yeah, the portrayal was day and night 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.120 because that human aspect was left out and a lot 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.120 of the portrayal. And I think if we create a 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.480 human aspect that creates compassion and a reason why we 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:33.680 should care about these. 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.520 Stories, that human aspect that gets left out is what 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.360 this podcast is here to do. Highlight what's been left out, 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.800 the personal and professional of a man called Timothy Dean 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.800 through the eyes of those who knew him and loved him. 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.400 Like his friend Richard Martin. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.280 He was not a drug addict, he was not homeless. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.080 He never hurt a single person, and I think that 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.840 that's sometimes is forgotten. I'll say this specially with white men. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.400 As soon as something scandal happens, white men have a 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.800 tendency going. I don't know him, I don't know him. 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.280 I don't know him. Who was Timothy Dean? 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:16.440 Fashionista, baller, benefactor, red carpet afficionado. And why does the 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.240 media only want to see him as a victim, a 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.320 drug addict or a sex worker. In the rush to 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.600 make news, often we don't pause to see the complex 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.640 people behind the headlines. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:29.720 Well, that's why we're here. 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:34.400 I'm your host Sinari Glinton, and this is Shattering the System, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:39.000 the true crime podcast that's about more than crime. Just 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.640 because someone's life ends in tragedy doesn't mean their life 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.880 is tragic. Today on the program, the life and Legacy 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:52.079 of Timothy Dean, Shattering the System gets started after this message, 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.480 this is Shattering the System, your host, Sinari and Glinton. 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.320 Tim Dean was just larger than life. He had this 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:10.439 personality that you knew when he entered a room. You 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.839 knew that you knew how he loved you by the 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:15.080 way that he treated you. 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.800 That clip we just heard is from the documentary Beyond 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.800 Ed Buck and in this episode we want to talk 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.840 about the life and legacy of Timothy Dean. Recently, my 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.680 producer Jonathan and I took a drive over the Hollywood 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:36.200 Hills into the San Fernando Valley to meet with a 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.120 good friend of Timothy Dean, Richard Martin. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:43.120 Richard. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:45.480 Yes, hey, how are you? 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:47.200 I'm good? How about yourself? 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:47.480 So? 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:48.120 Okay? 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:50.440 Sorry? 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.720 We met Richard Barden at his home in Ta Luca Lake. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.040 He's a Hollywood talent manager, mainly of soap opera actors. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.199 You can see heads of actors all around his office, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.280 all faces that looks sort of familiar. 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.000 Stelle Harris from Seinfeld and Missus potato Head. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:10.400 She was my first client. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:13.840 And there is a tour that is I mean that 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.280 must be where something. There's a Missus potato Head from 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:16.760 toy Starter. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:18.839 She signed the top of it and signed. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.280 Richard is one of Timothy Dean's closest friends. And as 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.720 he shows me around, you can see there are a lot 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:25.319 of photos. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:30.280 It's right in the right in here so yes, I 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.080 got to fund all these. You know, my husband takes 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.000 things away sometimes because I could be a little emotional 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:38.120 at times with things. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.800 But he's tim and is this you Yeah, that was me. 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.880 That's probably the time when I met Tim. 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.200 In this picture, he looks like he's about in his thirties. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.280 Richard and Timothy met in the nineties at the Golden 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.520 Gym in Hollywood. Timothy Dean was tall, had broad shoulders 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.640 and an even broader smile. He was handsome, and when 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.520 he wasn't on the basketball court, you just might see 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.440 him sporting a well tailored suit with a variety of 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.760 bow ties. And after they first met at the gym, 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.240 Timothy and Richard remained friends and they sort of grew 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.880 up together trying to figure out the workings of West 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:15.200 Hollywood in the early aughts. 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:16.240 And it's clear from. 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.800 Our conversation that Timothy ding he really celebrated life. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.160 One of the things that I always knew every year 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.360 is that his birthday wasn't his birthday, It wasn't a 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.360 birth week, it was a birth month. He loved to 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.959 celebrate his birthday. My husband and I threw his surprise 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.480 fiftieth birthday party. 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:36.679 And we pulled it off. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:41.520 How I don't know what we did. If you never 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.120 met Jim, he was, you knew he was in the room. 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.720 The thing is he could fill a room physically. He 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:50.440 was athletic. 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:50.640 You know. 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:51.679 They met at a gym. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.520 Timothy enjoyed all parts of Hollywood, though there was an 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.720 air of mystery about him. For instance, Richard threw Timothy's 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.880 fortieth and fiftieth birthday parties. After going through the math, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.920 Richard realized that the two parties were actually only seven 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:09.560 years apart. 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.000 But it wasn't really his fortieth. He it was his 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.520 forty third. But when I found out, when I added 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.840 things up to his fifty, I'm like, wait a minute, 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.120 this can't be fifty since forty three was only seven 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.240 years ago, and they lived with other girl. I like 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:25.840 a party. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.600 Timothy Dean loved the party, and he loved being a 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.079 part of Hollywood life. He had a daily access to glamour. 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.960 He worked as a fashion consultant at Satsmith Avenue. Before that, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.920 it was Bloomingdale's and Beverly Hills. Those kinds of jobs 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.400 put Timothy Dean at the very heart of what we 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.960 might call the Hollywood industrial complex. Designers, stylist, celebrities would 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.679 have all been among the people that he interacted with. 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.400 We'd like to talk about reality television. We would talk 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.880 about every Real Housewives. He had an opinion about everyone 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.360 from Orange County to you know, the Real Housewives of 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:05.840 New York. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.760 We were all shiny hood ornaments. We were all train wrecks. 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.640 I know, we were all I've run with a fabulous 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.840 circle of people, the New York Magazine and the Real 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.560 Social I thought they were like, what the fuck? I 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.160 was broken a studio park. We were all flawed. 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.760 Tim always felt like he knew them, and he would 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.200 be like, oh, did you He would miss VICKI did, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.640 and all the old girl she'd he would always want 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.920 to talk to me about. And I fed into it. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:34.320 I love I did love it. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:43.960 What sense did you have with his family? Well, I 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:45.000 had a different sense. 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.520 Prior to I had met his sister and they weren't 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:56.080 really fully understanding of of him being gay. And I 0:13:56.120 --> 0:14:06.920 felt that explained that they just didn't couldn't understand why this. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:06.800 Beautiful, you know. 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:13.199 Man was gay and I don't. I honestly, to this day, 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.920 I don't really think they fully understand that. I just 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:17.920 don't think that they fully accepted him being gay. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:19.720 How did you see him deal with that? 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.480 He came out to LA to become a totally different person, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.560 and did he succeed in parts of it? 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:30.640 Yes and parts Now. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.960 I think he had demons in him that came back 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.040 from honestly, and I don't really care because I've expressed 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:42.720 this to his family. I just don't think that he 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.120 ever felt fully embraced by his family. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.280 Tailor is oldest time. Timothy Dean would do what gay 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.240 men do. He made his own family. He would help 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.440 his friends start his management company, doing everything from working 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.240 the phones to helping him find clients. And like so 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:08.240 many imposing tall black men, Timothy Dean cared about his 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.520 appearances and especially his clothes. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.200 I mean, he talked to those who knew him. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.440 He seemed to be on a constant self improvement streak. 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:19.120 Toward the end of his life, He'd be baptized at 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.800 the Megachurch one LA, and he would decide to get 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.920 his college degree while in his forties, all signs of 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.040 a man who was looking very much towards the future. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.520 I think one of the proudest moments of Timothy Dean's 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.200 life is when he graduated from Senemon College two years 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.400 He wore that cap and gown all night long, and 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:42.680 he was so proud of himself that he finally accomplished that. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.880 Because he got no help from anybody. He did that 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.600 on his own. He had no family to help him. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.120 He just decided that that's what he wanted to do. 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.520 He wanted to actually better himself. 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.960 He would get his college degree surrounded by his friends. 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.320 He'd write about his accomplishment on Facebook that quote, this 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.520 degree will not change the world, but it will be 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:13.080 the first degree earned by anyone in my family. I'm 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.240 Scenario Glinton. This is shattering the system. The True crime 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:23.240 podcast that's about more men crowd, This is shattering the system. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:24.400 I'm Sinnari Glinton. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:33.760 That's Timothy Dane. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.360 You here happily clapping and talking a bit in a 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.560 video clip shared by his friend Richard Martin, a video 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.200 that was not shared with us by anyone. Is a 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:47.080 part of Tim's life that the media widely reported on. 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.880 It was his work as an adult film actor known 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.640 by the name Whole Hunter, and many of the stories 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.080 about Timothy Dane, there is a prudish way that his 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.560 life is written about focusing on his work in porn 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.800 and his sex work to the exclusion of everything else. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.399 And I think that this is a part of the 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.320 story of Timothy Dean, the pearl clutching that's happened in 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.439 relation to his sex work. I can't pretend to clutch 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.440 my non existent pearls. As a gay man who's lived 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.360 in multiple cities, I've known queer sex workers in Hollywood 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.040 or West Hollywood. It's kind of hard not to know them. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.320 I have several friends who have done or do sex work, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.480 and ed Buck isn't alone having paid for sex. I have, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.200 and so have many other gay men. Now, I didn't 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:33.560 want to talk about Timothy Dean's sex work in a vacuum. 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.520 Hi. So my name is Alex Garner. I'm the director 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.280 of Community Engagement and Impact. Global Impact is a global 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.200 nonprofit working not to advance gay men's health and human rights. 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.399 The reason we wanted to talk to someone like Alex 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.720 Garner about sex work is that it's a reality of 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.359 the story and how ed Buck was able to lure 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.359 men to his home. It's one of the systems ed 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.240 Buck used to target a marginalized group. As I talked 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.960 to Alex Garner over a Zoom call. We touched on 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.199 everything from the economics of sex work to the changing 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.240 nature of gay dating. He could relate to the choices 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:09.440 that Timothy being made. 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.399 I mean, I think so much of it has to 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:17.320 do with your relationship to sex, and your relationship to 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.520 your body, and your relationship to the idea that someone's 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.440 going to pay you money to have sex with them. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.440 And I would have friends that would ask me, oh, 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.000 do you think I should do it? And I would say, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:34.600 if you feel psychologically that you can handle any of 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.160 the issues that can come with it, and I mean 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.960 issues largely around feeling internally shame and guilt around something 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.439 that you're doing that's going to destroy you. Right, if 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.320 you're doing a job, any job, and doing that job 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.320 makes you feel makes you hate yourself, then that's not 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.640 the job for you. And we have everything in our 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.360 society and culture that reinforces this idea that if you're 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.760 doing sex work, all these list of bad things about you, 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.080 immoral and wrong and dirty and perverted. So if you're 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.440 able to overcome those things and see it as simply 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.400 another job, a job that you can enjoy, a job 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.600 that you can be good at, then you can you 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:25.200 can be successful. But if if unfortunately you're you aren't 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:27.399 able to do that, you don't have the skills or 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.840 the support to overcome or navigate that, then it can 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:32.720 do harm. 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.399 We don't know whether not Timothy Dane found fulfillment and 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.160 doing sex scenes. We do know that money was tight. 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.240 That's true of a lot of Angelino's. The average home 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.000 in Los Angeles goes for a nine hundred and fifty 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.680 thousand dollars or an eight hundred square foot apartment goes 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.399 for an average twenty seven hundred dollars a month. And 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:55.879 we all play those games. How much money would it 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.760 take for you to cross some boundary? The key to 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.679 what Timothy Dean and Jamel Moore could be manipulated, Gardner says, 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.440 is they weren't economically vulnerable. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.520 If this person wasn't feeling economically vulnerable, they'd be less 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.440 likely to say yes to that if they didn't really 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.720 want to do it. Right, So we say yes to 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.159 things all the time if we think it's going to 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.520 make us more money. And we do that because we 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.960 often are feeling economically vulnerable, right, whether it's in terms 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.960 of housing or food or whatnot. So I think that's 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.960 the other larger structural issue, is that if people didn't 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.120 have to worry about those sorts of things, they would 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.840 make very different choices. They would have very different boundaries 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.080 when it comes to things like sex work, because those 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.760 boundaries can move depending on how hungry you are. 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.199 And that's perfectly reasonable. 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.560 When you're worried about eviction or getting food and you 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.840 see forty two thousand homeless people that's according to the 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.159 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which are disproportionately black. Man, 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.440 it's no surprise. Two men struggling to make ends meet, 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:05.040 but do what they had to do. 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:07.840 But at some point, you know, an interesting story is 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:13.679 that he was contemplating having a child with the lesbian lady. 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:15.800 That's Otavio today. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.359 He was Timothy Dean's last roommate, and the time that 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.600 he knew Timothy, he saw him contemplating major life changes. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.000 Timothy had gotten a college degree in his forties, and 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.359 Octavio says, when Timothy was in his fifties, he was 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:30.879 thinking about having a child. 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:37.160 And that was an interesting thing because I once came 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:42.119 home at the time that maybe was not expected, and 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.600 I sort of opened the door in the middle of 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.240 a private moment. 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:50.160 Of your gay roommate with a woman. 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:55.680 Yes, yes, yes, And you know clearly might have needed 0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:01.760 a little bit of additional stimulation because on TV there 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:06.000 was a gay porn going on. I'm telling the story 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.000 because what's interesting to me is that the man was 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.920 really trying to find purpose in his life. 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.840 The two men could not have been more different. There 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.199 was a twenty year age gap and a difference in 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.000 their sexualities, but Octavio says Timothy was someone that he 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.680 genuinely came to care for. Octavio says Timothy's generosity helped 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.880 him stay in La. Probably the most important gift that 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.400 Timothy gave him was that he allowed him to live 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:33.320 in his apartment off the books. 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.240 He lived in this apartment with the rent control, and 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:38.639 I was never on the lease. I should have been 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:42.119 on the lease, you know, because by doing that they 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.440