Bittersweet Infamy - #52 - The Divine Fire

Episode Date: September 4, 2022

Taylor tells Josie about the deadly fire at the LGBTQ+ nightclub Divine in Valparaíso, Chile, and a community’s tireless hunt for truth and justice amongst the ashes. Plus: Uruguay's Noche de la Nostalgia, the night for looking back and partying down.

Welcome to Bittersweet Infamy. I'm Josie Mitchell. I'm Taylor Basso. On this podcast, we tell the stories that live on in infamy, the shocking, the unbelievable, and the unforgettable. The truth may be bitter, but the stories are always sweet. Today we are taping on an extremely special day because today's taping marks some momentous occasions in world history. Fuck you, Pluto. Actually, yeah, today is the day that they decided Pluto would not be a planet. Correctly so.

There's a few birthdays on this day. Marsha P. Johnson, Flower Crowned Royalty of the LGBTQ Liberation, and Prominent Figure of the Stonewall Uprising. We should say what day we're recording, by the way. Oh yeah, August 24th. I didn't know she was born today. Yeah, our girl climbing lampposts and dropping bags of bricks on police car windshields. Sometimes there's a bag of bricks there and you're like, you know, I can think of something to do with this. These laws. Bricks. Bricks on the laws.

Also born this day, August 24th, Vince McMahon, retired professional wrestler, heel extraordinaire, foiled Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah, WWE CEO, though as of just a few months ago, he has quote unquote retired. Yes, it's been quite an infamous affair. Uh-huh, as it's also referred to fired for gross sexual misconduct. I think that's the other way. As it's also referred to quote Mr. McMahon, you're fired. I mean, let's call it what it is. Listen, not only did I grow up watching him, but we were born on the same day.

Exactly. Also born on this day, Wong Jin, Chinese Olympic gold medalist race walker, who holds the senior Asian record for the 20 kilometer with his time of one hour, 17 minutes and 36 seconds. And race walking, if you need just a quick reminder, is also known as competitive walking or pedestrianism. It's fast walking where you have to go as fast as you can, but at least one of your feet has to stay on the ground at all times. Pedestrianism or pedestrianism. It is your birthday. You would know. I don't know. Pedestrianism. It is pedestrianism.

Really? That sounds made up. Right? Okay. Yeah, totally. Cool, cool, cool. Pedestrianism, yes. Yeah, Olympic commentator Bob Costa compared race walking to a contest to see who can whisper the loudest. And this last one will be no surprise to you, Taylor. Also born on this day, writer, visual artist, wrestling fanatic, pride of Canada, bestest friendo, Taylor Basso. That's the one. I didn't know who you were talking about there. Know what? My hand to God.

I was like, I should know this person. He sounds like right down my alley. Yeah, he sounds like he might be a cool hang. Hey, thank you. Basso is known for baffling red Robin servers with how bottomless those bottomless fries can really be. Hypothetically, they just keep going forever. Right. I've never found the bottom. On the seventh basket, that's, you know, I would surprise me too.

Now, Josie, that's that's when I was 19 years old. Those are my, I hesitate to call them my salad days because I was not eating salad, evidently. But those are my leg was a bit more hollow. Those are your fries, fries days. Yeah. Can you consider a basket of potato wedges a salad? That's more of a conceptual question. They are vegetables. Technically.

Have you met any like Midwestern salads, like a potato salad is not, you know. I just trust American cuisine and I don't mean that in a bad way. Totally fair. I have to say though that you wouldn't be able to have a cozy birthday recording if, if we were in Uruguay, Taylor. Good saying. Yeah. That's, that's, I've thought about that often. But do you know why tonight, August 24th, we couldn't have a cozy night in an Uruguay? Why?

Because if we were in Uruguay right now, as we speak, we would most likely be finishing up our pregame, donning some wicked ass wigs and preparing for a party bigger than any party we have ever experienced. You don't know what parties I've experienced. Okay, that's fair. I don't know why I'm getting defensive. I see you're probably right. I'm not a big party guy. And this is because Taylor, el viente cuatro de Augusto on the eve of Uruguay Independence Day, the entire country celebrates la noche de nostalgia, the night of nostalgia. Okay.

And every bar, discotheca and city park is filled with disco balls, dad dancing, and the top hits of yesteryear. What? Yes. Good. Right? Ever right? Delightful. It sounds like a good thing.

It sounds like maybe the, the biggest party that you've never been to. You know what? It has that vibe. It has that. Never been to the park where, where we're just busing out, I don't know, divo and getting down. I don't know. That sounds nice. Exactly.

The night of nostalgia got its start in 1978 when a popular radio host and owner of a radio station, his name is Pablo Lequider. He has a radio station in the country's capital. Montevideo. There we go. So this guy, radio host, Lequider, he has a radio show and it's a hit throughout the country. And it's appropriately titled Old Hits. And he thinks it's going to be a good idea to, to take this energy to the streets. So he proposes, he's 21 at the time, and he proposes that the eve of the national holiday be celebrated by playing the old hits of yesteryear, the nostalgic songs of our summers and songs of our youth.

A fab suggestion. I think so. Who could object? And apparently the entire of Uruguay felt the same way. So when it got started, all of the nostalgic hits were, were, it was like Queen and because it started in 78. So Queen, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Super Tramp, Elvis Presley, Barry Manilow, the Bee Gees, some very like dancey stuff. It also included the standards of what's called the Uruguayan invasion. Okay.

Which was a series of bands very closely resembling the Beatles and or the Stones of the British invasion. Yeah. So they were very, very popular, these bands in Argentina. But they were from Uruguay? They were from Uruguay and they had names like Los Shakers, Los Mockers, Cano y Los Bulldogs, Los Gatos, some good stuff. They mainly sang in English, except that last one Los Gatos, they kind of, they, they meowed, revolutionized it and started making it in Spanish. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Exactly.

Is that Los Gatos? Which is Spanish for meow. Yeah. Los Gatos dice meow. No. So the parties for the Night of Nostalgia were an instant success because apparently most Uruguayans identify with a deep love of nostalgia, which I did not know, but Who doesn't? Feel the same way Uruguay.

The Uruguayans have their thumb on the pulse as usual. We're all looking backwards and yearning for a better time. It's so true. The popularity of the holiday could be attributed to the fact too that they just really loved having a huge ass party before a national holiday. Certainly. Before national day off. So everyone can just collectively nurse their hangovers. The next day.

Nobody's going to be phoning anybody except to reclaim various lost garments, I would imagine. No, yes, exactly. Or, you know, to ask like, what did we, what did, where's my credit card? I don't, uh oh. All I remember is a lot of Wayne Newton playing. Um, I think, I think it was Neil Diamond at one point. And then Los Gatos started. Different wig.

I've, I've never seen this wig in my life, but it's on my head. I should get a bob. Right. Apparently it is pretty intense partying because it's the night of nostalgia, not just the nostalgia. So you party like you did in your 20s. So you just like party your phone. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. When you're any older than 30, that same partying does not feel as painless the next day.

Oh, no, no, we will be vomiting and crying. Nah, nah, nah. Listen, let me tell you something. Yeah. Let me tell you something from the ripe old age of 33. It's been a day, but I already know this. I don't want to be, you know what? That's the kind of nostalgia in which I don't particularly care to indulge.

I look back at some of the things, you know, watermelon vodka cubes. Fun on the label, but look out. Jello shots, the silent assassin. Like these are the things we need to look out for. These are the things we learn and have to relearn when it's nostalgia night. Every single year. So as the years go on, the music, of course, has to start changing because nostalgia is always changing. Of course, Single Ladies by Beyonce is nostalgia now.

Exactly. So the hits of the 80s, then the 90s, and then, you know, now we're looking at hits of the 2000s or the 2010s. So according to Le Quider, the founder of Nostalgia Night, Nostalgia begins 10 years after a song is published. We have a measure. Yeah, which is a lovely, like a neat little definition. I enjoy that. Far be it for me to disagree with the Uruguayan Nostalgia scientists who have empirically documented nostalgia. Yes.

But I think that nostalgia is relative. Like an eight-year-old can have nostalgia for the time before they had a younger sister, right? And that's... Yeah. I don't know. I like a society that allows for a robust debate of what constitutes nostalgia. So I'm not being prescriptive about my viewpoint. Carry on.

Well, you bring up a good point, though, because one of the hallmarks of La Noche de Nostalgia is that it's celebrated across generations. The young and old are all encouraged to dance and party together. I love that. Though there are young ins who will have like anti-nostalgia parties where they will actively reject the nostalgic music and just listen to the new music, which is really just their way of cultivating experiences to later be nostalgic. I love that. No, but we need that too. I will not have these young people mocked for doing exactly what young people are supposed to do. I'm sorry.

That's grand. And I think that, like, the only thing that endears me more than this kitschy, stupid disco ball nostalgia party is whatever fucking goth teenagers are in their room protesting it by listening to, I don't know, Billie Eilish. Yeah. No, exactly. It's beautiful. So La Noche de Nostalgia, it became and still is a commercial success. It has allowed bars, restaurants, clubs, the transportation services, event centers, caterers, any part of the hospitality industry, and including purveyors of lingerie. Apparently sales of lingerie go up a few weeks before August 24th.

First of all, is it like, how nostalgic are we getting with this lingerie? Is it like 1800s, like boat, like, you know what I mean? Like, like a gusset and a corset? In my research, it's current lingerie meant to just like celebrate the crazy partying rather than nostalgic lingerie in of itself. It's like, I'm going to bust out my old underwear from 10 years ago. It's not like that. Not like 10 year old Gaunch, but like, you know, like Joan from Mad Men had that like, gussety, you know, she, this poor woman has to cram her beautiful body into this horrific hourglass contraption anytime she wants to film. And then my second question is, what kind of outfits are we dressing up in?

From what I can tell, it's kind of similar to the way that we might celebrate New Year's. Okay. Where there's no particular colors or styles besides kind of like fancy night wear, you know, like, like out on the town club, like, you know. I feel like I would go costuming nostalgia. I would go like 80s workout gear. I would do like Kurt Cobain, you know, this is what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. I think there probably are a lot of those costumes that that certainly happened.

Wigs seem to be a very big deal. Yes, you did stress the wigs. A lot of people wearing wigs. I did stress the wigs. Always got a stress. Nostalgic for a time when we were all wearing wigs. I guess we should add the, including the lingerie stores, also the wig stores. What is it?

Old wiggy shopping. Ye old wig girl shop. Listen, you know, all my friends said to me, they said, you're crazy to just start dropshipping. Out of Uruguay. You're never going to make your money back. Nobody's buying wigs in Uruguay. I said, you haven't done the research that I've done. I have been on the streets.

I have been talking to the people and you know what they like. Number one, they like nostalgia. Number two, they like wigs. Give me a little opportunity to redevue my wig shop character for my birthday. Thank you. You know, I, that came on the fly. That was good. Listen, it's, she inhabits me 24 seven and she's always selling wigs.

Okay. It is what it is. So all of this, all of this activity is actually fantastic for business. It's the middle of winter or it's kind of the tail end of winter in Uruguay. So things are a little bit quieter and, you know, not as many people out. So this is just a great way to kind of like jumpstart people and the mood and the excitement. And it is celebrated across the country. Of course, the biggest celebrations happen in Montevideo, but they go, you know, all over.

And because the holiday is tied to the day of independence, it has also become strongly connected to Uruguay and national identity. So much so that in 2011, the departmental board of Montevideo, the city's parliament declared it a cultural heritage event in the capital. Interesting. And Congress, even earlier than that in 2003, Congress passed a law that designated nostalgia night as a national tourist interest. Interesting. I can see absolutely why they went. According to a 48-year-old Uruguayan woman named Lillian, she didn't give her last name, but Lillian. She says la noche de nostalgia is a period of lots of music, of clothes hanging out with my friends.

And it is in this spirit that all the people come together on this date and why we really consider it as magical. Oh, how nice. What would be the first song on your noche de nostalgia playlist? So I assume I'm bound by House rules that it has to be from more than 10 years ago. Yes, it does. According to Uruguayan rules, do you want to hear mine to give you ideas or do you want to wait and refresh? I would love to hear yours. I would love to hear yours.

Mine is the lead single from Cher's 19th studio album, Heart of Stone, released in 1989. The song, If I Could Turn Back Time. Yeah, that is a fair one. If I could find a way. Yeah, a powerful performance. I am gonna go, the thing is, I, you know, people said that my, when I was in high school and I was emo, people said it would be a phase in the jokes on them because I'm fucking sadder than ever. So that's just how my tastes trend, like angsty songs.

I'm gonna go with my, my number one karaoke jam in a timeless classic, Torn by Natalie and Bruglia. Mmm. Cause I'm always torn about something. It's a cover, you know that? I know, I was torn about that when I heard that. I was like, I'm... What a horrible feedback loop that song is! Josie, I have bad news, you're a little late, I'm already torn.

We're staying on the subject of dance parties in South America. Oh, no we're not. Yeah, you know how it goes real narrow sometimes, this is one of those times. The suggestion for today's story that I'm about to tell, as well as help with research and translation, so thanks right off the top, comes from a friend of mine, fellow Lita. Fellows, a very talented artist and a recent permanent resident in Canada. Congratulations, originally from Chile. And he listens to the podcast, he's listened to every episode.

He really went out of his way to insist on listening to it from the beginning, which you know I hate, but he's stuck with it and he did hear us get good, so I'm a little relieved. Oh, fellow, that's so sweet, thanks, thanks for being here. And of course, because like I say, he's a friend and he's somebody that I esteem, I've picked his brain for ideas, and he asks me, I remember we were walking near where the barge is currently being dismantled, actually. I heard that on the news, I'm so sorry. Fellow asked me if I'd heard the story of the divine nightclub fire. Oh, shit.

I hadn't, and it's easy to see why. Rigorous Googling brings up only one English-language journalistic article from September 5th, 1993, the day after the fire. I will read it now in its entirety. Valparaiso Chile. At least 16 people died in a fire at a bar catering to a homosexual clientele in the port city of Valparaiso. 75 miles or 120 kilometers west of Santiago, police said Sunday. The fire at the divine bar was caused by overheating of an electrical panel installed next to the entrance's stairway, police said. About 90 people were inside the third floor bar room when the fire broke out.

Only two men had been identified among the 16 victims, police said. That's it. 81 words. Whoa. Yeah. No names. No details about the victims. And even in 2022, that seems to be the extent of the English-language journalism on the subject.

Holy s'more. But that's not the story that Fellow told me. The story that Fellow told me was about a homophobic attack that burned down the nightclub. About an unconcerned police force and judiciary that refused to believe the traumatized members of an oppressed community. And about that community reclaiming the day to the fire September 4th as a day of commemoration and recognition and protest against homophobia. Whoa. This is the version that is perhaps the best known and most enduring in the Chilean context. This is the version put to the court by Divine's owner, Nelson Arellano, Arellano and manager, Arturo Massafiero-Lira, in their statements to the court.

It's the version used by LGBTQ rights organizations who in the decade that followed galvanized the community and promised justice and etched into history the horror of this homophobic attack, but also the beauty and resilience of its survivors. This is the version that we hear in this excerpt from 2010's The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America by Javier Corrales and Mario Peceni. Quote. On September 4th, 1993, 16 homosexuals burned to death in the nightclub divine in Valparaiso. Ten years have passed since this voracious fire believed to be motivated by homophobia and the arsonists are yet to be found, leaving behind a shadow of a doubt. Accusations surrounding this homophobic incident continue to circulate. A decade later, this tragedy has become the focal point of the desire for the vindication of the rights of sexual minorities in Chile,

as well as a historic reference point for the activities of the Pride movement. This is going to come out on September 4th, isn't it? Yeah. Fuck. Whoa, dude. But Josie, all that that I just said? That's not the whole truth, either. What?

See, when I brought in my source to Spanish language resources, I came across a web page from an LGBTQ rights organization called El Movimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual, or for short, Movil. M-O-V-I-L-H. And not only has Movil assembled a very thorough web archive of all of the press coverage and documentation around this event, it has been a huge part of the legal effort to reopen and reevaluate the events of September 4th, 1993. And as part of that effort from 2002 to 2010, Movil released three bombshell reports, which I read in their entirety with great interest. And when I tell you I have never been this gripped reading a report in Spanish, like my goodness.

And so I contacted my friend Felo and I said, hey, you know, since this conversation, I have looked into Movil and I've ascertained some of the things that they're saying here to be true and accurate. And so I trust them a great deal. But at the time I went to him and I said, tell me about this organization, Movil. You know, what do you think of them? Yeah. He gave me the long and short and he said, oh, you know, basically they're trustworthy. And I said, okay, well, here look at this because they're telling me a really different story than you just told me.

Josie, this episode of Bitter Sweet Infamy dropped September 4th, 2022, as you already observed the 29th anniversary of the deadly fire and misinformation continues to swirl. So here Josie, for I believe the first time in English language podcast history is the real story of the divine fire. Holy shmol dude, what the whoa. Gosh, the noxiousness out of here is kind of weird now. I think it's a wonderful intro because fundamentally why do we, this is a heavy story for a lot of reasons. A lot of discrimination against folks based on their sexuality or their gender or all kinds of things. But it's also a story that showcases the joy and resilience of a community.

And I will assure you that as intense and hopeless as it will seem in various points in the telling, that the arc of this story bends toward, if it's too imperfect to be called justice, then at least the mystery gets solved and the truth in its entirety sees the light of day. That's rare. That's cool. I like that. I can handle that. And it's through the efforts of some very motivated and incredible people.

Don't. You seemed reticent about, oh, you know, it's weird to have the dia of nostalgia as the infamous for this because this is that kind of thing gone horribly wrong. But it speaks to the sorrow of the situation. And I think it speaks to the sorrow of a lot of the attacks that happen at, I don't know, spaces that queer people congregate, which so often happen to be night clubs, night spaces, is that everyone's just there to have fun. And isn't that just the saddest thing to go out to have fun, meet people and dance?

Yeah. And this certainly, like, it's, you know, I haven't heard the full story, of course, but I'm automatically thinking of Pulse Nightclub. Of course. And the shooting there and like, yeah, how that's probably the closest exposure I've had and the intense juxtaposition of, like, you want to go out and have fun and meet people and be in the world and be happy in the world and to be met with that with, like, such hatred and such violence is just, ugh.

In a space where you're so convinced that you're finally, you're hoping that you're finally safe to be who you are, it's a sad story, right? Yeah, it's not just any club. It's a club where you feel like you belong and that's important. That's huge. My primary sources in this are, I read three reports put out by Moviel and I also, I will get into specific individual sources more in the end credits as I do, but I have to say that Moviel has a, oh, they have everything.

They've laid the whole thing out. They are sick of this whole stupid thing being swept up in the dark and they seem to have done a really good job dragging it out into the light and they have that shit chronologically archived, dated every single thing about this and it was very helpful to me. Yeah, that's not easy to do. That's a lot of love. That's a lot of time.

That's a lot of work. It's a real labor of love and we'll go more into it. I also watched a 2002 documentary called Destigo and it's very American in its approach. It's very, like, do you know how TV, like a, like a 2020 dateline thing might have been in the 90s? It was very that. A note on terminology. This is a story that begins in 1993,

at which point most of the people are simply referred to as gay. This is a gay nightclub. This is a homosexual nightclub. We are talking about gay rights. And then, of course, when you get into the modern context, like on their website, Moviel used the term LGBTI. I might use the term LGBTQ or queer. Just take it to mean rainbow people in this context,

all of whom might have had any reason to be in the club kind of deal. Yeah. And also to stress that not only was not everybody in that club necessarily rainbow people, if you like to put it that way, many of them were employees who were straight, who were just working the night. So it's not. Right, yeah. There will be all kinds of stigma brought up around the sexual identities of the victims.

And so it's important to emphasize that this wasn't just any kind of, any one kind of person who suffered from this fire. Yeah. Yeah. Lastly, I want to give a big thank you to fellow for an enormous amount of help in just translation, especially when it came to the watching of Testigo. It was, it was, hablando muy deprisa, like I couldn't quite keep up.

And I was like, I need a professional Chilean here. Yeah. Helping with some colloquialisms as well as some legal terms that I didn't understand. So thank you very much to fellow. That is so sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

For sure. And I checked in with him first because I, you know, I always want to ground any telling of any story that I do in humility and compassion. And I don't want to be, you know, a culture vulture and fucking whatever. So I was like, I wanted to work with somebody who is like, you know, he, this, this is, he knows this shit, right? Yeah. This is his actual lived experience.

And I also really wanted to emphasize that because I believe that this is the first time with, with all humility. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I, I believe that this may be the first time that this has been covered this extensively in the English language. I do want to come correct with my details and I want to come with a lot of respect for the nuance and complicated humanity throughout this story. Totally. And if you think someone in your life would be interested in this one, pass this episode

along, a lot of love went into it and it feels important that this truth is known. So that's it. That's me. That's me done. Let's get right back in. September 4th, 1993, a cold night in Valparaiso, Chile. Chile. I apologize, by the way, for, you know, we've discussed this in previous episodes.

I've got gross colonizer Spanish mixed up with North American Spanglish. I apologize for the pronunciation of everybody's everything moving forward. Um, I will obviously and most assuredly mess up some pronunciation as well. Valparaiso, by the way, is a diverse and colorful port city of hundreds of thousands with residents comprising artists, students, laborers, white collar workers, fishers, families, a real mix. If I had to compare it to a city with a slightly higher profile in, you know, what we call a North American context reminds me of San Francisco a bit.

Where are we in Chile in 1993 with LGBTQ rights? Would you believe? Yes. Not great. U.S. backed right wing dictator and Valparaiso's own Augusto Pinochet just left office in 1990. So. Thanks Pinochet. Thanks U.S. government.

It's going to be a while till we've unlearned all that. Same sex marriage and adoption just became legal in Chile in the ripe old year of 2022. Felicitaciones. And the country is still very much grappling with homophobia and transphobia, violence against queer folks, women, etc. So subtract about 30 years of progress off that and you've kind of got where we are. Okay. Yeah.

And where are we in Valparaiso? We're at Devine, a gay dance club on Calle Chacabuco. Oh Christ. Dos, seis, ocho, siete. I'm so sorry. My Achilles heel is big numbers in Spanish. Anything over a thousand. Oh.

Give it to me in Roman numerals before you give it to me in Spanish. I'm so sorry. It's owned and operated by Nelson Arayano Arayano, who I will occasionally refer to as just Nelson Arayano or Arayano. He is described by folks in the documentary Te Estigo as someone who helped them establish themselves in the gay world and showed them the ropes. And the divine itself was something of a home for many to live this fabulous second life. Devine, so named after the iconic drag queen from many a John Waters film.

Oh, not really? Yeah. Amazing. And I think the logic was, I think Arayano was just like flipping through some magazine in Europe and saw Devine and the name stuck in his head and he's like, oh, you know, people, you know, people like English words, sure. And so that's where that went. It's a good, that's a good name for a bar, I think.

I agree, especially like a queer bar in 1993. I think that's very cute. Totally, yeah. I may occasionally refer to it as a bar, a nightclub. It is more accurately what you would call, it's a disco, a disco. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure like at, you know, 6pm, 7pm, it's open and you can go in and get a drink and it feels, you know, much more like a bar, but then like come 11pm, it's like, no, no,

no, you're not sitting on a stool in this place. The divine occupies the second and third story of a repurposed townhouse with the first floor serving as HQ for an unrelated poultry and agricultural business with a separate entrance. Okay, yeah, it's, it's urban. It's shared space, shared, you know, I get it. Right. If you're at street level, there are two sets of doors, both of which have staircases, narrow staircases, which lead up to the second floor of this building, which is where the divine

begins. One of these staircases is the entrance that everyone comes through and the other is the emergency exit. Oh, okay. Okay. So does that make sense in your head? And then it's, this is all over top of an unrelated business that doesn't really figure into the story.

I imagine that the emergency exit, like if, even if I were like a regular patron there, I wouldn't necessarily know it was there. It's like just used in the case of emergency kind of thing. It's, you would know that there was another door there, but you wouldn't go in or out it that much. It might not necessarily clock to your radar. It's basically identical to the entrance and it's not, it's already not a great emergency exit because it's down a very narrow fucking staircase, right?

So like right off, that's not good. Yeah. Yeah. And they're right beside each other too. Yeah. So if there's some type of collapse in the building or that blocks entrance to both, exactly. So once you get to the second floor, there's like a coat check that you can, it's like take your money, coat check, whatever that you can walk through.

And then there's the big stage. There's a, there's a big ass stage where they have big ass drag shows and I will come back to that. Okay. And then there's a narrow staircase up to what I would describe as like a third floor loft space where you could look down on the shows if you want, have a drink up there with your friends, whatever. Okay.

You're giving me the full tour. Thank you. No prob. Well, it becomes important because it's important to how people navigate this horrible fire that's about to happen, right? Exactly. Yeah. And so we've got this narrow kind of rickety, it's not the best staircase and we're going

up to the top floor. We've also got a lot of things like curtains, fabric, netting, hanging from the ceiling, lots of unfortunately decorative flammables. Looks pretty, but I understand in the situation, deadly. Yes. And one of the big attractions that sets Divine apart from its competition, which I've already alluded to, is it has these big, elaborate production numbers with all the chic drag queens of the day.

They start off small, but they grow and grow and the reputation of Divine for obtaining the creme de la creme of performers grows and grows, with people flying in from Santiago to see the spectacle. Until eventually to celebrate the club's anniversary, on August 14, 1993, Nelson Arayano installs some electrical upgrades to zhizh the place up, including some new high consumption sound and lighting to enhance the live entertainment for which Divine is best known. Okay. Okay.

He later claims that the installations were safe and approved by the SEC, the relevant safety body in Chile. So people are loving the new upgraded Divine and they come in their droves September 4th. It's a largely working class crowd, some closetive folks, typical of the club's audience, it's 1993, you know? Okay. Yeah. Chile has just notched a win over Poland in the FIFA Under 17 World Championship and

life is good. We're celebrating, we're meeting up with our cousins, we're taking in the drag show. Spring is about to sprung, yeah. Yeah. We're dancing out a heartbreak. We're looking for new love and keeping with the spring, you know? We're almost peeing ourselves, waiting while someone does coke in the bathroom stall, all the nightclub things.

Yeah. At about 3.30 in the morning, after a long night of partying and revelry, the fire starts. We will go over what caused it in more depth, but all we know in this horrible moment is that a fire has started on the second floor near the main entrance. Okay, right. 70 people run toward the emergency exit to street level, located at the bottom of a narrow staircase. Right, but that emergency exit is right next to the...

Yeah, so we're trying to avoid the source of the fire as we run right next to it to the other emergency exit. These people trip and fall to the ground, blocking the escape. People pile up on top of them, crushing them, they're thinking that if they die there, their families will know that they're gay. They're scared for their friends who they can't find. People are pounding at the doors which won't open. The heat mounts and becomes overwhelming, the smoke chokes the air.

The third floor collapses, and then the second floor collapses. At some point, the doors break open and those fortunate enough not to be injured or inhale lethal amounts of smoke or get trampled, spill out onto the street traumatized. Oh my gosh. One of these people is Kika. She is a performer in that night's show. She's been kind of organizing the whole thing, and so her friend Carlos wanted to leave and she made him stay back, like no, no, no, no, no, stay back and he doesn't end up making

it out of the club. Oh my gosh. She is in the kind of green room. She's in the little kind of makeup area, you know, chismando. Behind the stage, yeah. And someone comes in, bangs the door, and is like, everyone we need to get out now, the club is burning down, and they thought it was a joke, like they didn't buy it. And then finally, she's able to kind of get it together.

She grabs what few things she can, her books and her bags, and she runs up to the, she manages to get to the escape, the street level escape. And she gets crushed in and amongst the crowd. She says that all she remembers is just whoo, whoo, whoo, she can't hear anything but just whoo, whoo. When the doors finally break open, Kika is able to get out to the street. She is in her burnt costume with her burnt university books and her burnt bag, and all she thinks is I can't go back to my university like this, nobody knows that I'm gay, can't

go back to my family like this. And she says that at one point she should walk along with her burnt book and her burnt bags and someone sees her and must have understood what's happened to her because by this point it's news, right? And someone yells at her, you should have burned, you fag. So not a, not a very nice situation at all, really awful time to say the very least. Yeah, yeah, awful thing to say in and of itself, but then just when someone is, yeah, oh god, ugh.

Yeah, just a real deficit of humanity there. Just really empty. By the time the blaze is put out, the building has been completely reduced to charred black and rubble. The morgue has difficulty with identifying the influx of bodies and dealing with the many confused and grieving families. There will be much enigma and mystery around who has died and how, but in 2022 we know that 16 people were killed and 29 were injured, around half of whom traveled in secrecy to

nearby Vinay del Mar about 45 minutes by road at four in the morning and their burnt remnants in order to avoid being recognized. The investigations and media reports are a total mess. We can't agree about what color the smoke and flames were, whether the lights and music were on and off, the number of victims or suspects, all of whose identities are shrouded in mystery. There's a lot of doubt and conflicting stories, some of which seem to be consistent with an electrical fire, others know the queer community involved, but ISO asks for a visiting minister

to investigate and they are rejected. There is a wave of telephone threats to queer folks and people falsely taking credit for the attack, which don't seem to have been taken seriously or investigated. The local gay radio station, Radio Tierra, gets a bomb threat called in that December, so we're talking months of this. On September 10th, 1993, Nilsen Arellano, along with his lawyer, claims before the court that the fire was caused by an incendiary device thrown into the disco as the result of a personal grudge against the owners or a homophobic attack.

He said there was no possibility of a short circuit and that he'd received a phone call earlier in the week from someone threatening to burn down the disco. Arturo Masafiro Lyra supports Arellano's version, saying he also saw a brass implement measuring around 15 by 30 centimeters, which may have been the device in question. They, and notably Arellano, will propagate this story across many platforms in the ensuing years, eventually settling on one prime suspect, a Vietnamese cab driver known only as El Vietnamita or The Vietnamese. So in true Agatha Christie style, we have a mysterious foreigner that we're only referring

to who, by his ethnicity, right? The identity of this person is not confirmed during the initial investigation, nor is the lead pursued with any particular rigor. By the police department, you mean, or by any type of formal investigation. Yeah, and we'll put investigation in scare quotes there because it largely seems to consist of police abuse known and allowed by Judge Jorge Gandara, who is overseeing the case. Witnesses are insulted, slapped, and beaten so hard by the carabineros, the Chilean national police, that they need medical treatment.

A lot of the investigation by both the carabineros and Gandara seems to center around figuring out who was and wasn't gay. And nothing to do with safety and justice. Relatives of the victims have to testify to the sexualities of their dead loved ones before Judge Gandara in order to accelerate burial proceedings. What? And it's, yeah, you can actually see testimonies of the folks, and this is, I believe, the first Mobile Report, and it's heartbreaking.

It's people being like, I'm such and such, my brother wasn't gay, he was working the lights on the disco. I'm such and such, I don't know if my uncle was gay. And of course, people have to choose between keeping the potential dignity of a secret of their dead loved one and contributing to an investigation in their death. And dealing with their own feelings about a secret that they may not have even known. Yeah. On March 23, 1994, after only six months of investigation, Judge Gandara closes the case

of the fire at the Divine Night Club, attributing the incident to an electrical fire, but with many unanswered questions and open wounds and without naming any particular person culpable. Of course, the community is deeply uneasy with this conclusion, not only has there been no particular justice for the victims, but now we have this spectrum of possible homophobic attack that many feel was insufficiently investigated. And it also seems like violence is on the rise, or it's being publicized more, so more people are feeling galvanized by that, or you just have to live with it, you know, all the time.

Ugh, ugh. And so for many years, that's how she goes. Every September 4th, to mark the anniversary of the deadly fire at Divine, queer folks gather in protest, and two organizations, Movimiento por la Diversidad Sexual, or Moms, which is how I'll refer to them going forward, and another action gay, demand and advocate for the reopening of the investigation. This piece of writing from queer Chilean writer Pablo Lemebel, which fellow translated for us, articulates, yeah, thanks sweetheart, articulates the community's anguish at the

mysteries and injustices around divine in a pretty raw way. One step, only one step in the glass runways in the show of the fags and flames flying through the Valparaiso dock will be remembered as a gleam in the fateful, hoarish, low-cut neckline of the port, because even when the police assured us that everything was due to an electric shortcut, the music and the lights never went off. That's horrifying to think of this fire going and like, music playing, you know, like, oof. There's going to be a lot of confusion about whether the lights are on or off at the time, and it's not something that I think ever gets resolved.

Well, even how you recounted Kika's account, she was saying that it was just kind of like this deafening roar, right? For sure. So, there could have been music behind that, or there could have been music under it, or no music at all, you know, it seems like- Yeah, it's hard to pin down, it's for sure. And the thing is like, you're relying on people to accurately report what's happening in the most like, traumatic, horrific moment of their life where everything is on fire,

they're being pressed into a fucking small corner and they don't know what's going on by any stretch, and you're asking them to like, recal- of course there will be inconsistencies in the way that people describe it. Yeah, and then even after that, they're facing ridicule and injustice. And torture. Even in a moment that is not that huge fire, you know? It's just like, that's not- uh-uh, no. You're never gonna get- you're never gonna get the truth, yeah.

Fast forward to 2002 when it becomes known to Moville, the group whose reports have been quoting, that, allegedly, despite their public claims, neither mums nor action gay has taken any steps into actually challenging the investigation. Ra-ra. Okay. So, not great. So, uh, Moville, and I should add that I'm- you know what? I'm using Moville as a source here, I'm sure mums or action gay might have something to

say about that themselves, but in the source that I read, they were lying, so. Moville starts its own investigation, and you know what, and I want to say, I'm sure mums and action gay are fine organizations in the present tense, but it seems like about 20 years ago they were up to some shenanigans. Potentially, yeah. Yes, potentially. Or, you know, there's always- there's always the- the root two of like, they were understaffed, they had no money.

What they could do was- was kind of this activism work and not the legal work, and so they just chose- Which is- which as we'll find out is very hard work. Right. Okay. Yeah, I mean, yes. But I imagine in this scenario is even harder. Yes.

And so, Moville starts its own investigation and releases its first report consisting of examinations of news coverage, interviews with journalists, witnesses, and other relevant figures, and a pile of documents provided by journalist Daniel Avendano. This report outlines the lack of concrete investigation, the irregularities, and human rights violations that occurred in what poor investigation there was, the lack of a document fully identifying the fatalities, and the lack of punishment for those potentially culpable. So it sounds like Moville was willing to do all that archival work of the police investigation, scare quotes, but also the coverage from the community as well.

Okay. Wow. They have everything. Yeah. That's amazing. This first report, and as I say, there will be three reports that will kind of winnow gradually to one conclusion. The report draws no specific conclusions but urges further investigation, despite this

report, there is no agreement to reopen the case. And that's in 2002. Yeah. But Judge Ganderas is still the one who would make that decision. Ugh. He's still around? Oh, he'll be around. It's a shame.

Oh, God. So Moville is like, okay, we're going to go on a hunger strike then, besitos, and they put out a press release, this effect, and then a kind-hearted lawyer, Maria Elena Quintana, and three kind-hearted attorneys, Pamela Morales, Maria Angelica Castro, and Jovanina Vasquez meet with Moville and are like, we got this one pro bono, baby, let's flip some tables. What? Love pro bono. Oh, the best.

The best kind of bono. Sunny, you know, there's a few. And on September 25th, 2003, more than nine years after the fire, Judge Ganderas reopens the investigation into the causes of the divine fire, and on November 11th, Moville requests and is allowed to become an official part of the investigation and judicial process around the case. Wow. Okay.

Cool. And not only that, but the families of the victims get in touch and offer their evidence and the stories of their loved ones and join Moville in its activism. And for the first time, we are able to definitively ascertain the number and the names of the victims of the fire. Wow. 16 names are Andres Angelo Agüero Bravo, Carlos Roberto Araya Gonzalez, Hugo Alejandro Beltran Angel, Julian Pablo Dominguez Elordi, Mauricio Fabian Eranzuazo, Oscar Alfredo Holtz Romo,

Francisco Segundo Yantentores, Gabriel Enrique Martínez Muñoz, Tomás Francisco Osorio Manquian, Luis Rodrigo Quiroz Bustemante, Sergio Requena Chandia, Hans Fritz, San Martín Pizarro, Victor Hugo Santander Ibañas, Juan Luis Tapia Moscoso, Jorge Eduardo Valverdes Sifuentes, and Patricio del Carmen Vasquez Ponce. Additionally, there were up to 30 injured, including as we said, folks who had to travel to get their injuries treated to keep their sexualities hidden. Right. Yeah.

Wow. So they were able to pull all of those names from family. Was it from investigation, or was it more, more family? A combination. So from the second that Movil, the president of Movil, through, I believe this entire thing, he's a guy named Rolando Jimenez, who has to have been instrumental in animating all of this, right? Because he was the president of Movil.

But who doesn't show up much as a named character in the reports because he's writing them. And so, you know, here's his recognition. Here's your flowers, Rondo. I'm sure you've got many. And the second they realized that no one had done a formal investigation or appealed the judiciary to restart its investigation, they don't seem to have let up until they got to the truth.

It's like the investigation's just continuing, continue. Yeah, good. The other entities whose names I'm already forgetting, but the ones who claimed to have asked for a reinvestigation and never did. Mums in action gay. Mums in action gay. Even if they didn't actually make those appeals because of staffing or, you know, legal money that wasn't there, whatever it was, like, how bad it was that they still did that because

people would think that an appeal had been made and not make their own, you know, people would think like, oh gosh, the government really doesn't give a shit. There would be this growing understanding that even when we try to appeal, nothing happens, but there was no appeal made. I just, I don't know, my earlier, my earlier kindness I revoke. I just, I think even if, even if it's done out of like a clerical error, like, fuck, it's so detrimental, that's the word I was looking for, detrimental. I definitely get that.

I will say that you will hear later that MOVIEL, in addition to its conclusions becoming more pointed, its rhetoric also becomes far more pointed, and they fairly excoriate these other organizations. And I'll read you a clip coming up down the line, kind of on the same terms that you were just now. Excoriation. A thorough excoriation. Yeah, it's a really interesting component of this story that nobody particularly covers

themselves in glory in this one, and we will come back to it. The second MOVIEL report uses as a source and extensively quotes an article with a news outlet called the Opus Gay, which I also read, because MOVIEL had it, I had to hunt for this one, mind. And this one I couldn't use any Google translate on, because it was a scan, so I just had to read it in Spanish. Oh, okay. Which, you know, I have to say, thank goodness for not only Google translate, but also the

fact that I was able, somebody had used YouTube to archive this documentary that I could watch, and so there's, I was really grateful for technology in this one. This Opus Gay article, Divine Owner Nelson Arayano Arayano, really comes in half cocked and shoots off at the mouth, and let's, his lawyers cannot have been happy. Rain it in, baby. Rain it in, buddy. He lets loose with a whole bunch of new accusations. Oh, no.

For one, he alleges that evidence was destroyed, specifically that a door went missing by the entrance. Okay. There's a two-door setup that only had one door when it was investigated, and Arayano claims that the missing door was deliberately hidden or destroyed as part of a cover-up. Okay. And this comes out nine years after the fact. Yes.

And also right around the time that this documentary testigo, in which Nelson Arayano is an interviewed participant, is released. So he's also speaking on the record there, so he started to speak a little bit more on the record about this thing that's happened at his club. He also elaborates on his hypothesis about the Vietnamese cabbie, saying that he heard that after the event, the cabbie fled to Buenos Aires in Argentina and drunkenly bragged about burning the faggots, after which he was stabbed to death. I learned a piece of Chilean slang from this particular translation to you, because the

phrase that Arayano used was en una tomatera, which I googled it and it means in a tomato plant. So fuck is this guy talking about, but apparently it's slang for just like being in a drunken stupor. Ooh, I like that. Chilean, when you're getting drunk in Chile, there's your vocab word. You can annoy the locals with that one. I totally see that, because like tomato plants can, they're very weedy.

They like just grow fast and everywhere. And we get all red. It's all happening. Love it. Arayano also implicates the property's owner and the insurance company's impossible culpability or at least homophobia, which they of course publicly deny. But Arayano isn't the only person quoted in this article. An anonymous patron who was at the disco on September 4th, 1993, says they do not believe

the fire was caused by a homophobic attack, but by the owner's negligence, including no emergency lighting, narrow escape quarters, poor ventilation and other indications of abysmal fire safety. The witness also says that they respect and fear Nelson, who has a reputation of violence and who once threatened the owners of a nightclub he ran in Viña del Mar with death. Okay, Nelson, whatcha doing bud? What's going on? Just some electrical work, don't worry about it.

And indeed, nearly every official body that investigates the fire in June, 2003 confirms that it was an electrical fire, although it may not have been the result of human error. And I think the criminology lab comes back kind of ambiguous, but everyone else is like electrical fire. No incendiary device has been found. Those who supported Arayano's version of the evening have recanted their testimony or are discovered to have never given said testimony in the first place, a lot of, oh I heard from so and so that, but then when you track that person down, they're like, I didn't say that.

And as for our Vietnamese friend who is stabbed to death in Argentina, Movil, being trailed by the cameras of Destil, finds him alive and well involved by Iso after searching for less than two hours. He was just like walking down the street, like he was like in a cab and he was the driver. It's like, oh shit. I think it was like Rolando Jimenez was specifically making the point that like look, I know this guy wasn't investigated because I'm doing the investigation right now and like, I still have time to get a dessert, but you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. We had three hour long chat and I still got home in time for dinner, so what the fuck? He seems to have been in the area that night and got into a disagreement with one of the divine's bouncers, but there's no other evidence that specifically implicates him. And I also want to say I didn't have a place to put this in, but I also just want to check in there that Ariano seems to have blamed some group of lesbians that he didn't like at first and then when that was not possible, it shifted to this Vietnamese dude who'd had

a disagreement with the bouncer. So he's just like picking up his Rolodex being like, who pissed me off the other day? He's spraying bullets. Yeah. Oh my goodness. You're seeing what a rotten, sad story this is where everyone is bad now, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So everybody is allowed to be bad because the police and like this investigation was so fucked up and shoddy and homophobic. Not to allow any credence to Nelson anymore than we already have, but you know what I mean? It's like when there's a shit show, it's all a shit show. So with all this under our belt, Moviel calls upon the court to investigate Ariano as well as the responsible authorities for overseeing fire safety and just for good measure, they put mums and action gay on blasts for being clout chasers and deceiving their community

because why not? Yeah. Let them have it. So what was the result of this second report? The case is closed with no further investigation into Ariano and no particular new conclusions one way or the other. Oh shit. Well, okay, I mean, I suppose something is determined in that it's not what Ariano is

talking about and it's like there's somebody who's involved in the investigation who is part of the community is looking out and that's true for LGBTQ, you know. We have the families of the victims involved now. We have some small measure of justice in that the deceased have been named. Compared to this, you would find news articles that said 16, 18, 22, and it was always like in that first excerpt I read that said 16 homosexuals died. We don't know that like some of these people weren't gay. They were working.

Exactly. Yeah. Those are the two sexualities, gay or working, by the way. I'm not gay. I'm just working right now. So Moville and their attorneys, of course, attempt to have the case reopened but they meet with brick wall, brick wall, brick wall. So they do what they do best.

They march, they agitate, they contact parliament, they file lawsuits, they go to Paris to make an announcement there, they go to Amnesty International for support, they serve as a megaphone for the victims' families until 2006 when, pardon my Spanish, that motherfucker Judge Gandara retires. And a new, more sympathetic judge, Maria Elena Gonzales, takes his place. So the investigation is reopened until it gets passed to an interim judge, Sandra Ivana's Chesta, who again tries to dismiss it. You gave me some little hope there and then you shot it down.

Because I'm about to give it right back to you. Moville is able to stall via appeal until the case is turned over to its final overseer, Judge Patricia Montenegro Vasquez, who is willing to work once and for all toward clarity in this case. We've got and are permanently on a good judge now. Yeah, a willing judge, good. In 2010, we hear the results of this final investigation in a third report, which is officially titled La Justicia que merecen las víctimas, the justice the victims deserve,

which I have mentally subtitled Sacaboya Lobeo or no more fucking around. And that's a thank you fellow for the translation there. I like that, yeah. In its final report in 2010, Moville, with the support of Judge Patricia Montenegro Vasquez, who has taken over the file, declares that the cause of the fire at the Divine Nightclub was a quasi-murder, a Chilean legal turn, analogous to manslaughter, with those responsible being Nelson Arayano Arayano and Arturo Masafiero Lira, the owner and manager of the nightclub, respectively.

What? Wait, what? It also establishes that in this case, the statute of limitations has run out. There will be no prosecutions in the case of the Divine Fire, but at least we can hear the full truth. So you seem shocked. Are you OK? I I'm staring straight into the mic. I can't like what? So you understand manslaughter.

You understand the concept of manslaughter. Yes. You caused bodily harm unintentionally that resulted in death. Yes. You, you know, ran somebody over and because of their injuries, they died. Yes. This third report makes mincemeat of Arayano's many contrasting versions of the story and highlights the testimony of Encarnación González Riquelme, who worked coach at Divine and said that hours after the fire, the staff met with Arayano, where they were coached to play along with the homophobic attack version of the story.

What? I know, it's awful. There was a group of people who knew about this. Yes. Yes. A group of I don't know. I try to come from a place of non-judgment, a group of frightened, traumatized people who were coached in the aftermath of the most horrific thing and that ever happened to them to do what they were told. And then perhaps by the time that it was too late, it was too late. I second that completely.

And I think my astonishment was not so much that like these people didn't go and immediately tell like, yeah, I agree. I don't want to lay blame at their feet at all. It would be one thing if this owner or manager plotted it was just in their little weird world, but like in a properly done investigation would have created a safe space for these people to share this. Yes. Crucial information. Yes. Like what? Like that information was not

hidden with people who wanted to keep it away. You know, it was hidden or not hidden is not the word, but it was with people who were traumatized and scared and didn't want to talk to police. So was it was an insurance money? Why did they set fire to the club? The foundations for the real story lay in the poor and according to experts, extremely dangerous installations of TVs, lights and audio upgrades with all kinds of irregular voltages, as well as flammable glue and floor coverings.

They also found that the monthly electricity use fluctuated wildly and that there was an illegal electricity source installed behind a swinging door, which mysteriously vanished into thin air, which nobody would have noticed if Arayano didn't give his own ass away in that opus gay interview where he was just telling everyone what for. Oh, shit. We have the testimony of a professional electrician, Oscar Oporto Alvarez, who claims that Arayano asked him for a quote

on a high consumption lighting system and then never followed up afterwards. Oh, my God. And we have the testimony of the divine workers who admit that they watched Arayano carry out the upgrades himself in the company of his brother. Oh, probably having a few drinks as they did it. Wait, so the missing door, where did it go? Did it just like incinerate? I assume Arayano destroyed it because it told the story of the illegal outlet.

Whatever illegal electricity system he had installed was behind that door and was the source of the fire. And if that door, you would you would see presumably some sort of something on that door that would conclusively indicate the true source of the fire. Now, as it turns out, he did get found out because they called it an electrical fire early on, but because he propagated this version of the homophobic attack, he was able to whip up all this confusion around it to the point where everyone just wanted the thing to go away.

And so he was able to escape. Alleges, Movil. We also hear, I know. I know I've been losing my mind researching this story, dude. This is wild. It's completely crazy. We also hear that the escape door was padlocked shut. It also opened inward, obviously a massive hazard for a fire exit.

Witness Jose Alfredo Peña Flores originally testified that he was at the door with Nelson Arayano and saw him open the lock. But the actual truth corroborated by everyone else, including the firefighters, is that the firefighters had to break down the door. So it seems likely that the padlock was never actually opened. Or that if it was, it wasn't in time to be of material. You don't padlock your emergency exit shut. No, no, you don't put in.

You don't store anything in front of it or behind it. Yeah. The final report, in addition to clarifying the causes of the fire once and for all, establishes a chronology of events and again lists the names of the victims of the fire. It announces the production of a film based on the story, although there is no trace of it in twenty twenty two other than a trailer. Oh, there's a trailer. There is a trailer.

It's just called Divine, but it doesn't seem to have come to anything. Or maybe it didn't find distribution. Maybe I don't know. I would love to see a movie based on this. It's a fascinating and upsetting and sad story. I've taken some condensed quotes from the epilogue of the final report written by Movil President Rolando Jiménez, and he says, with apologies for any deficiencies in my translation, condensation, etc.

This is a this is a Taylor Basso ex-Google translate collab. Enjoy kids. The inhumanity of the owners of the divine is capitalized. They invented an attack and witnesses to an event that never happened, taking advantage of the vulnerability of sexual minorities in the early 1990s, which was more acute than it is today and which made the idea of a homophobic attack, especially credible. The cruel paradox is that the divine case turned from the suspicion of a homophobic

attack to the truth of a fire caused by the irresponsibility of a gay person who knew the reality of discrimination and still deceived the whole country. Some organizations that claim to defend the human rights of sexual minorities did no better by accepting and disseminating by all possible means. And without evidence or witnesses, the false attack that clearly distorted and hindered the investigations, a human rights organization cannot give room to proselytizing fantasy to have a voice to demonstrate the existence of discrimination or to justify public activities and media in memory of those who have suffered harm.

This is unacceptable, reprehensible and immoral. Yes, this is our meeting. We ain't we ain't done. We ain't done. Oh, oh, girl. OK, I'm here. Let's go. Judge Jorge Gandara. Oh, yeah, that asshole. Let's let's rip him.

Let's light up the flames here is, for his part, another face of injustice, irresponsibility and unprofessionalism. This judge is one of the darkest faces in the history of the fight against homophobia and transphobia, and so it will remain recorded forever, staining the judiciary as a whole. Stained. Stained judiciary. Preach, but the experience surrounding the divine is not only negative.

In our fight to find the truth, we found ourselves with testimonies and people who, from almost absolute anonymity and with no interest other than justice, gave their time and their hearts so that the victims of the tragedy can now rest with the peace of mind of knowing what happened and translated condensation. Yeah. Wow. Truth, was that you free? Despite the activism of Moville and others, misconceptions linger to this day about the cause of the fire

and the homophobic attack that, based on the evidence collected, never actually happened. The city of Valparaiso's official Twitter account propagated the attack story in a memorial in 2021, which Moville obviously clocked them pretty hard for. Oh, oh, yeah, day. Oh, damn. You're ready for this one. Good gut check time. OK. Oh, God. OK, I'm ready.

As for Nelson Arayano, Arayano and Arturo Masafiero Lira. In September 2019, residents of Concepción Chile, along with Moville Valparaiso, demanded an investigation of whether they were currently running nightclubs in the area. Oh, shit. Yes, get on that. September 4th, the day that this podcast is released, is now known in Chile as El Día de las Minorías Sexuales, or the Day of Sexual Minorities, the place in Valparaiso,

where the divine stood is now populated by various small stores and businesses. It's been rebuilt. OK. There is also a plaque with the names of the victims of the fire and a quote from the poet Pablo Simonetti. El fuego encendió nuestro espíritu. Se ha dispersado el humo. Tal vez ahora podamos ver. Or in English, the fire kindled our spirit.

The smoke is cleared. Perhaps now we can see. And that is the too long untold story of the fire at the disco deca divine and a community's hunt amongst the ashes for the truth. Dude, the twistiest, the twistiest of turns, that's insane. This is an insane story. This is wild. And the fact part of why it's wild, too, is that there's absolutely no. Report or seems like the reporting on the new investigation has been so shoddy, too. This is wild.

Yeah, it's hard. Like, I if you search, you can if you search around in the Spanish language, Google hits, you can see that there has been a bit of spread of the real truth of what happened. But I think the homophobic version of the homophobic attack version was so ingrained as a part of the cultural identity of these people. Yeah, it'd be like saying Stonewall was, you know, like a construction mishap. It's like, you know,

thank you for that. I give you it. No gay people can give you shit for that comparison. That was funny. Um, you're you're you're in. I'm grandfathering you in on that one, because that made me laugh. Dude, this is the fucking gnarliest story. And the fact that you asked fellow for, you know, some infamous story and he was like, oh, yeah, no, this this is like

this is legend where I'm from. I can't believe you haven't heard of it. It's clear to me that this is like a foundational LGBTQ identity for Chileans. And like it's it's the cornerstone of maybe a lot of like modern activism, September 4th is the day. It's the day. Right. So when you showed fellow this mobile article

and he read it, like what did his face look like? Like what what was his response? Because I you know, I'm hearing this story and I'm staring blankly into the microphone speechless, but like I don't have the cultural connection to it that fellow would like what what was his response? You know, I couldn't tell you of his face because we we did the exchange of documentos over WhatsApp as you do. OK, yes. But I can tell you that last night

we had a just a quick, you know, discord call to go over some of the finer details. Specifically, I had him watch this, you go and I was like, please tell me what Kika is saying, because she's really interesting, but she talks really fast. Yeah. At the end, so I asked him all these questions, asked him all his questions and he was a very giving who's very helpful.

He was a sweet angel. So sweet. And at the very end, I asked the best question and the question that always gets the best response, which was, is there anything else I haven't asked you about that you want to tell me? And that's a good question because there's always people come into these things with something on their mind always, right? Oh, yeah. Fellow said something that really

struck me as profound and an intelligent. He said, you know, I don't quite know how to describe it, but I've been sad ever since you told me that it was an electrical fire because I don't know. He was just he was mourning, like you say, this very foundational part of the lore that had been his to come up with in this. He lived in Valparaiso for 10 years, right?

Like this is one of his cities. Yeah, he lived in Valparaiso for 10. He was a student there. So he's he's lived in various cities in Chile and obviously in Vancouver, but he will have walked the streets that are being talked about in these stories. And I had this thought of like, and this is now perhaps me. I don't mean to put words in fellow's mouth. This is my own kind of analysis of why he might be feeling this way. Because it's a and it's not a complete analysis.

This is an incredibly complicated feeling, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Fellow said, he told me that someone told him in his gay coming up in his gay coming of age that there's two types of straight people, the ones that laugh at you to your face and the ones that laugh at you behind your back. Oh, that's horrible. If that's the society that you're growing up in and that's the thing

that you need to you feel you need to protect yourself against, there's a very, I don't know, kind of like us versus them punk rock solidarity of this homophobic straw man who detonated this treasured community space. But the community rose from the ashes and agitated for justice and knocked on doors and marched on September 4th and so on. There's it's easy to find yourself in that story. Yeah. When you look at the what seems to be the real story,

which is the story of a man who through reckless cost cutting electrical measures seems to have made a horrible, catastrophic mistake, but one for which he was ultimately responsible, which accidentally killed 16 members of his community. And who then manipulated that same community using the very real homophobia of the time as exemplified by a homophobic police force, as exemplified by a homophobic

judiciary with the the kind of aid of, you know, these these gay rights organizations that don't seem to have been acting in the right way and possibly under the oversight of various fire and electrical safety boards, which were not correctly determining the fact that this guy had an illegal. Like, I see why so many people wanted this story to go away. Yeah, I see why so many people wanted this story to just be electrical fire and it's over. It's ironic that we come back to this electrical fire

that was correctly diagnosed from the jump. It was an electrical fire, but that wasn't the whole story. We needed to have a further conversation about it. Yeah, I don't know. I feel I feel a lot of compassion for fellow mourning the version of this story from the Limabelle poem. That poem is great. The covering up of it, the how how easily it was excused by the police

and the judiciary, like that becomes that kind of pivots to the tragedy or to this, I don't know, maybe also this like activating tragedy, you know, the one that kind of like brings people together in the strange way that tragedy can that in and of itself is complicated. And then you add this other layer of misinformation and how these owners took advantage of the situation. It just like it's it's so complicated. It's it's the complete antithesis of the homophobic attack version

in the sense that if you are an embattled queer person, it's very easy to see yourself in the homophobic attack version. Who could see themselves in the real truth? It's so complicated and depressing. These stories to activate people, they're they have to be simpler than real life sometimes. Yeah, it's just I get what you mean. Like I feel I feel so much for fellow. I feel so much for fellow because that's such a complicated situation to be in.

For sure. And I think that it's also a testament to the activating powers of this organization. We'll feel of these wonderful lawyers and attorneys who did this work pro bono for a community that had knocked on every door and been turned away and been turned away and been turned away, not taken seriously by the judiciary until finally some good judges came in. There was there's there's a good cop they shout out. There's a good journalist they shout out.

There's wonderful members of the families of the victims who activated and sponsored things at a parliamentary level. There's there's politicians who got behind this cause along the way. And so as much as there there's just such an awful string of hopelessness that snakes through the story. And even by the end, you know, the guy who is alleged to have done it is just still running nightclubs in another city. If nothing else, we can say that the activities of these people who were motivated by giving

dignity to the victims and who were motivated by bringing answers to a community did what they set out to do. Exactly. And that is something to totally and absolutely celebrate. You know, and what like a beautiful testament to the LGBTQ community that like it's not it's about truth. It's about finding truth and speaking truth. For those who are in the Movimiento in Chile, happy September 4th.

Happy Dia de las Minorias Sexuales. And for those of you who got to the end of this episode, if you appreciate this week's show consider donating us a couple of bucks at our coffee link. That's ko-fi.com slash bittersweetinfamy. Thank you very much and take care. Peace you. Vesos. Happy birthday Taylor.

Thank you Vesuvius. Thanks for tuning in. If you want more infamy, go to bittersweetinfamy.com or search for us wherever you find your podcasts. We usually release new episodes every other Sunday. And you can also find us on Instagram at bittersweetinfamy. And if you liked the show, consider subscribing, leaving a review or just tell a friend. Stay sweet. The sources that I used for the Memphis you heard earlier, I looked at the articles from

the Associated Press, The Night When Nostalgia Makes Uruguayans Dance, published August 30th, 2017, and Uruguayan Nostalgia Night, published August 25th, 2017. The Wikipedia articles for August 24th, Marsha P. Johnson, Vince McMahon, Wang Zhen, and Night of Nostalgia. The sources that I consulted for this week's episode are all three Informa e Mobile Divine reports from 2002, 2004, and 2010. You can find these on the mobile website, M-O-V-I-L-H dot C-L. Other documents that I consulted via the mobile website include

That was by Mobile Chile, September 5th, 2021, and I also watched Incendio Disco Tech Divine, an episode of Pestigo La Historia No Contada, from 2002, hosted on YouTube by Studio 54 XXX. I read an article from Revista Closa, from September 3rd, 2020, and I read an article in El Periodista, from September 4th, 2019. In English language, I read Firekill 16 at Bar in Chile from September 5th, 1993, I read an article from BBC News by Mega Moan from June 24th, 2019 called The Red Zone,

a place where butch lesbians live in fear, and I read this because it had some details about the Divine Fire, but it's also a very interesting article about how the women who love other women are getting killed in Valparaiso in the more recent past, so it's definitely something we're looking into. I recommend reading that article if you're interested in learning more about this place that we've spoken about in the queer community there. And lastly, I read an excerpt from the Politics of Sexuality in Latin America by Javier Corales and Mario Piccini from 2010. Our interstitial music was by Mitchell Collins, and as always, you are listening right now to T-Street by Brian Steele. Thank you for listening.