Corky Blankenship: ‘Smiles keep you going’
In 2018, I thought about starting a podcast about gay elders. There was no one I wanted to interview more than our friend Corky Blankenship — an unexpected fixture in Denver’s LGBT community and night life. Corky agreed to share his story.
The podcast series never went anywhere. But I saved the tape.
Corky died Feb. 12 from COVID-19. He was 76.
Hundreds — if not thousands of LGBT Coloradans and allies, past and present — are missing Corky a lot today. Barely five feet tall, Corky left an immeasurable impression on people’s hearts.
In this unedited interview you’ll hear me and Corky discuss his life, in which he witnessed key moments in LGBT history: the tragic assassination of Harvey Milk to the successful fight for marriage equality. We discussed everything from love and sex to dancing — his favorite past time— and his former life as a street artist making wind chimes.
The third voice you’ll hear is Noel Black, a long time radio producer who helped me with production.
At one point, we talk about the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Corky worked at a bathhouse in the early 70s. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, that pandemic was incubating in sex clubs like the Rich Street Baths where Corky worked. Listening to him talk about that part of his life makes his death to COVID, another pandemic that could have been curbed several months ago, that more troubling.
But Corky would never want us to dwell on sorrow.
Corky’s guide to life was simple. So simple, in fact that if you don’t listen closely to this interview you’ll miss this it tucked away into a story about him moving back to Denver to help his family’s business after several years in San Francisco: “Smiles keep you going.”
Corky maybe gone. But his smile will keep everyone who knew him going for years to come.
