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Danny Williams is probably the funniest and most insightful comedian since Jonathan Winters climbed the Balclutha and tried restraints for the first time many years ago here in Baghdad by the Bay. Somewhere between Professor Irwin Corey, Bill Cosby and a sedated Robin Williams is the hallowed ground tilled by Danny Williams.

In the early sixties, unsuspecting visitors seeking relief from Phoenix's sweltering heat would find Jim's Steak House a friendly family restaurant by day. But when the sun went down outside, partitions went up inside transforming it into 'a gathering place of known sex offenders.' Most nocturnal patrons avoided the parking lot, knowing the police regularly collected license plate numbers on their nightly rounds. But they could always find the car Danny Williams drove.
'Sure I parked there,' confides Danny. 'The car was registered in my Dad's name!'
In an animated voice that changes octaves without warning, premiere comedian Danny Williams recounts stories from his past to the delight of audiences nationwide. He will be guest emcee forThe Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner at the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn on Saturday, December 1, where he will share his brand of gay humor that is both intensely personal and simultaneously universal.
The New Orleans native spent most of his boyhood in Phoenix in a fundamentaiist Pentecostal community. Sundays were devoted entirely to the church, where the minister preached fire-andbrimstone sermons about hell from his pulpit while his son 'jerked off' with Danny in the nearby light and sound booth. 'It was the only time in my life I ever wanted to get up early and go to church,' he muses.
But life in Phoenix was otherwise isolating for gay youths. The only other exposure Williams ever received to gay life was his mother's warnings against

Cover Story

"Danny Williams, San Francisco based gay comedian, will be the emcee for the Michigan Dinner for the Human Rights Campaign Fund at the Hyatt-Regency in Dearborn on Saturday, December 1. men in parks who would have sex with little boys 'then cut their penises off,' and a CBS report in the early '60s titled 'Homosexuality: Crime or Illness?'
So it is not surprising that when he confronted a counselor with his sexuality as a freshman at Arizona State University, he was persuaded to commit himself to a mental institution. The 'cure' consisted soley of aversion therapy and drugs. 'For the two months I lived there, ' recounts Williams, 'I sat around and took drugs and watched TV. It was just like being in college!'
After several bouts with mental institutions, which included episodes of drugging, physical abuse, and shock therapy, Williams escaped first to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco 'with nothing but a VW Beetle that had no brakes.'
Reluctant to divulge details about this dark period of his life as a street hustler, alcoholic, and drug addict, Williams simply says he 'went as low as a human can go.'
Eventually, however, he contacted Baker Place, a half-way house thatfound him a gay therapist and got him a steady job as a file clerk at The University of California medical center. His career in comedy began when he was featured on the record 'Castro Boy, ' a gay version of 'Valley Girl.' He then ventured to performing live on open mike night at local clubs, and soon found himself a professional comedian.
He still keep several of the jokes from his debut days, incuding one about straight-baiting: 'Straight kids come down to Castro screaming 'Fag!'. If gay kids went to the avenues, they would straight-bait much better: 'Oh no, Miss Thing, yes, you with the beer belly. Pulleeze! You cannot wear a tank top!''
His now highly ad-lib performances of candid humor have won him an impressive list of awards, including the 1990 San Francisco Gay Community Award for Male Entertainer of the Year; and the 1988 and 1989 Bay area Gold Award for Outstanding Male Comic-Solo.
Williams'piercingwit leaves no aspect of the gay lifestyle unexamined, from reflections on the Gayolympics ('Wasn't it thrilling to see hundreds of gay bartenders from all over the country march to participate in the 'Attitude' competition? They lost, of course, to the staff from Macy's...'); to his confusion atS&M phone sex ('What's that? When they force you to accept collect calls?'); the trials of living with his lover of ten years ('That's ten consecutive years!' he reminds audiences in commentary on gay relationships); and in as mall middleclass town with fundamentalist neighbors ('When they first came over,' he recants, 'ittookthem a minute to realize that something was amiss - that I was A Miss!'). But beneath the humor is a staunch political conscience. While he does straight performances, he always insists on being introduced as a gay comedian.
'The bottom line,' he declares emphatically, 'is if I do that - if I become straight for a comedy club then the hospitals won.'
Asked if the unconventional 8-inch lock of hair he garners in the back of an otherwise standard haircut is also a political statement, he replies in smiles.
'Of course - it's a fairy tail!'
- Mubarak S. Dahir"