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Make no Miss-take: book details gay and lesbian manners
Better half or half-wit? Who pays the check and how do you get out of it? These are NOT some of the questions you’ll find answered in Steve Petrow’s ‘Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners’ (updated for 2011), but if you’re wondering what to call a same-sex significant other, or how to deal with booking hotels rooms in Mississippi, this may be for you.
From ‘about the book’: Confused about coming out, dating, sex, and love? Find all the answers here – makes a great reference guide for you, and a great gift for the straight people in your life who need a little guidance.]]> -
Rickie Lee Jones at City Winery – as brilliant as ever
By Mark McNease
I’ve been a fan of Rickie Lee Jones since her first album in 1979. That album included what was a blessing and a curse for Jones, the song ‘Chuck E’s in Love (listen).’ If you ask most people who she is, if they know her at all, they’ll say, ‘Didn’t she have that song about Chucky?’ Rickie Lee Jones is much deeper and bigger than that. Not to fault that song, but her debut album also included ‘Last Chance Texaco,’ ‘Coolsville,’ and one of the best songs of loss and longing I’ve ever heard, ‘Company (listen)’: I’ll remember you too clearly
but I’ll survive another day
conversations to share
when there’s no one there
I’ll imagine what you’d say Her follow up album, Pirates, took three years and showed her orchestral side. It was brilliant, and nearly everything she’s done since then has been. I’m biased. This is not a review of her latest music. This is an unabashed love letter to a singer/songwriter who belongs among the greats. Her contemporary and one-time love interest Tom Waits wasn’t inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame until last year. Jones may never be, but that’s like bemoaning a great actor who never got an Oscar, and there are more than a few of those. Jones writes music, not tunes. Her melodies and arrangements are intricate, often haunting. She’s been unafraid to make the music she wants to make, and if it means she’s playing venues like City Winery, so be it. She belongs in this kind of intimate setting, not Madison Square Garden. Last night she played all old songs, almost entirely from her first two albums. She came on 40 minutes late, which a couple of my group found annoying but I said hey, she’s 56 and she’s been doing this for a very long time, let her be a little late. Once she and the band took the stage all else was forgotten.
I didn’t know what to expect. She’s been known to play her new CD’s and no old songs, but last night was a love fest on memory lane. The audience knew every song, and of course I recognized them all, quite a few from 1981’s Pirates. Jones got emotional when she sang a song about her daughter, now 21, and she said she’s spent most of her life alone – not because she’s hard to get along with but because everyone else is. She’s widened over the years, as have most of us, but she still commands a stage, sounds amazing, and is clearly in a league of her own. I won’t review City Winery itself, which is a great place to see a show, except to say go for the first floor seats. I’d never been there, and when I booked the tickets online a couple months ago I went by the seating chart. I got “VIP” seats in the elevated back area but 1) our seats had no backs, 2) it was warmer up there on an already hot night, 3) it feels cut off from what is actually a large crowd, and 4) you get a better view on the floor! I’d go back for sure, but now I know where to actually sit, and for a lower price.]]> -
Interview: Kathi Hill, attorney for the defense
I met Kathi Hill through Frank, and over the last nearly five years I’ve had the pleasure of long conversations with Kathi at the kitchen table. We manage to visit her a couple times a year, and she makes it to the house in New Jersey annually. Kathi was a prosecutor once upon a time, but has been a defense attorney now for some time. Kathi’s among the most engaging, interesting, intelligent and passionate people I know. The sort of person I can talk to for an hour and not notice how long it’s been. She was kind enough to offer an informal chat at her mother’s house in Bethany Beach, DE, this past 4th of July weekend. Most of the interviews here are written, but once in a while I have the opportunity and the pleasure of sitting down in front of a Flip Cam and just chatting. This was one of them.]]>
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Title X crucial to women’s health
A study has found that Title X, the legislation that provides support to family planning centers (and thus to many poor and low-income women) is crucial to these women’s health.
From Ms. Magazine:
According the Guttmacher Spring 2011 Policy Review, family planning services are indispensable for many women, particularly marginalized populations like poor and low-income women.
In “The Numbers Tell the Story: The Reach and Impact of Title X,” Susan Cohen states as a result of the federal Title X family planning program, which subsidizes contraceptive services and provides support to create and sustain the large network of health centers, there are fewer teenage pregnancies and abortions, which saves both the federal government and the states billions of dollars in medical costs that would have been paid for by Medicaid. Cohan contends that “it’s completely irresponsible and illogical that the House of Representatives voted to defund Title X…Title X is precisely the kind of government program that should be strengthened, not gutted.”
According to “The Role of Family Planning Centers as Gateways to Health Coverage and Care,” written by Rachel Benson Gold, family planning centers provide services to more than 7 million women per year, boosting maternal and newborn health, lowering the rate of unplanned births and abortions, and providing sexual health care, as well as contraceptive services. Moreover, one in four women who obtain contraceptive services do so at one of the 8,000 publically funded centers.
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University of Florida to offer rooming option to transgender students
This may not be something most people are aware of or consider: the need for transgender students to choose their roommate based on gender and what will be most comfortable and safe for them.
From The Ledger:
TAMPA | A transgender student made University of South Florida officials stop and think. Frustrated by a hostile housing experience, Taylor McCue wanted USF to join the growing number of colleges across the country — like Rutgers and Harvard — now offering students the option to live with anyone of any gender. Couldn’t USF do the same? Yes, it turns out, and it is. Today the university goes beyond what other universities in Florida typically do with transgender students, by actively offering them the chance to live alone or with a friend of any gender. They can also live with a random roommate without being outed. At other schools, the burden to ask for special treatment is often on the student. This is just USF’s first step. In the spring, the school will launch a pilot program offering several gender-neutral dorm rooms, where anybody of any gender can live with anybody else.]]> -
Mark's Cafe Moi: About those all-you-can-eat vacations
Back in the office, strapped in a cubicle. Not really strapped, but it often feels that way. And now, after a 5-day vacation of non-stop eating, that strap feels a little tighter.
Given that Frank and I intend to actually get married in the near future, I want to look my best. I’ve been saying this for the last two years: I wanted to look my best for the cruise, I wanted to look my best for the trip to Delaware a year ago, I wanted to look my best every other day. Not that we ever don’t look our bests, but damnit, I wanted to fit into something I could wear three years ago.
I’m not going to blame being in a relationship, that’s too easy. But I do think it’s harder every year to get weight off that I’d put on without much thought since we met. Weight that creeps up has a way of creeping away even more slowly, and I want to be as healthy as I can. Given the slowing of our metabolism with age, we should take in 10 percent fewer daily calories every decade after 40. Why am I now in the obese category, according to government statistics? Maybe eating as if I were 20 has something to do with it.
The excuses have to end, including the very handy one, “I’m on vacation.” I hear this as often as I’ve told it to myself. Some of it is stress: travelling can be stressful despite the pleasure of it. I can control what I eat much more easily at home, and when I’m on vacation eating just seems like the thing to do. Especially when we’re visiting people. Going out to eat is part of the picture, and watching what I eat in restaurants is never something I’ve been very controlled at. So here went another all-you-can-eat vacation, because, well, we were on vacation. Another 5 days on holiday, another 5 pounds. Okay, maybe 2, but the effort to get that off will be considerable, especially spending my days strapped in an ever-tightening cubicle.]]> -
Column: Transmogrification
By Stephanie Mott
Editor’s note: I first came across Stephanie when I read about her recent educational tour through Kansas. I thought her unique voice would be a great addition to lgbtSr, emailed her, and now she’s with us! Enjoy this first of her monthly columns, and look for an upcoming interview. Stephanie’s columns also appear at Liberty Press.
Calvin and Hobbes has always been one of my favorite comic strips. Calvin has a view on life that states without doubt that life is to be lived, and rules are for people who are satisfied by experiencing only those things which are possible if you follow the rules.
I am not in the habit of identifying with the male of the species, but Calvin’s ability to see everything through a different lens speaks volumes to me. One of my favorite strips has Calvin hammering nails into the living room coffee table. When his mom screams, “What are you doing?”, he pauses, looks at her and asks, “Is this a trick question?”
This said, my most favorite of the C&H comics have to do with the “Transmogrifier.” Wikipedia defines a transmogrifier as “a device that transforms its user into any desired shape.” Calvin transforms himself into a tiger and a whole new world of adventure magically opens up before him. This new world is full of sarcasm and naiveté, discovery and contemplation, and the kind of basic simple truth that we somehow seem to forget to experience when we are no longer a child.
In as much as that I have not yet had gender reassignment surgery, you probably don’t have to guess what I would do with a transmogrifier if I had one. After I had achieved my desired “shape,” I would likely proceed directly to the nearest pond in search of an appropriate frog. This also said, I wonder if the transmogrification that takes place during transition isn’t more on the inside, than on the outside. I remember the quiet little “boy” who sat at the back of the class and didn’t raise a hand even though there was no doubt about the answer. The child who did not wish to draw attention. I remember the weight of putting on my “Steven suit” day after day, year after year. I remember searching for anyone or anything that would change my reality. I remember believing that the possibilities of life were few, and even those that were possible were still just too hard. I walked out of the Shawnee County courthouse today and couldn’t help but notice the way my skirt flowed in the wind. I am still amazed many times each day as I realize once again that I am allowed to live in the world as who I am. I didn’t need to get anyone’s permission. I only needed to allow myself to be free. The possibilities of life are now boundless, and I don’t believe for a minute that this is an experience limited to transgender people. I believe that this is something that is waiting for anyone who can shed whatever expectations cause them to buy into the lie. What happens in a world where we preconceive our experiences of the day based wholly on the experiences of yesterday? What happens in a world where we don’t? What happens when we spread out our souls like the wings of butterflies and do nothing more than let the wind take us where it will? Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” As I ponder the meaning of these statements, I remember what Joni Mitchell wrote, and what Judy Collins sang, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now. From win and lose. And still somehow. It’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life. At all.” Something happened along the journey. It is no longer important for me to know life in the sense that I understand it. The illusions are not so much what I saw, as what I didn’t see. And I am suddenly thrust into a brand new world. It is full of sarcasm and naiveté, discovery and contemplation, and the kind of basic simple truth that I had forgotten quite some time before. A speaker in a motivational seminar once asked the audience if we saw the glass as half full, or as half empty. Everyone, including myself, dutifully chose A or B. Asked the same question today, I will tell you the answer is C: My cup runneth over. I pause for a moment as I write these words and tears begin to fill my eyes. Not because I am sad. Not because I am happy. Because I have been transmogrified. Stephanie Mott is a member of the Board of Directors at Metropolitan Community Church of Topeka and executive director of the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project. She can be reached at stephaniem@mcctopeka.org or stephanie.mott@k-step.org.]]> -
A look into George Tooker (DC Moore Gallery, NYC)
By Steve Barnes Part of an artistic circle that included Paul Cadmus, George Platt Lynes and Lincoln Kirstein, George Tooker, who died in March at 90, would endure as a figure of interest for sociological reasons alone. But as “Reality Returns as a Dream,” a show of his work that is up through August 5 at the DC Moore Gallery (535 West 25th Street) proves, the reasons why we should still pay attention to Tooker and his work go far beyond who his mentors, friends and lovers were. Tooker was born in Brooklyn in 1920, studying in the early 1940s at the Art Students League in New York. It was there that he first met Paul Cadmus, an artist who brought a sure draftsman’s hand and colorist’s eye to works that often exhibited a bawdy and forthright homoeroticism. The power that Cadmus’s sexuality had to ruffle the feathers of American society was perhaps most famously exhibited in The Fleet’s In, a painting showing sailors on shore leave. Pulled from a 1934 exhibition of WPA art at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art, the work was not seen in public again until 1982. While Tooker can in many ways be seen as one of Cadmus’s followers, a look at two paintings both called Coney Island, one painted by Cadmus in 1934, the other painted by Tooker in 1948, shows how Tooker followed in Cadmus’s footsteps while marking out his own distinctive path. Both of the pictures showcase a Rubenseqsue physicality—voluptuous bodies (both male and female) aggressively on display in public. But while Cadmus throws those bodies into a dynamic, every-man-for-himself free-for-all, Tooker shows a much greater sense of decorum. Despite all the bare flesh on display, Tooker’s beachgoers seem almost prim, obediently posing for the artist. In the background, a group of young men appear to be playing football on the beach, but there’s very little sense of motion. In the foreground, a woman tends to an unconscious man, the positions of their bodies strongly bringing a pieta to mind. We are presented with a world that holds its people in, even when they’re at their most exposed.
That sense of people being trapped by their environments, almost as if they were insects under glass, is a thread that runs through the 26 paintings and sketches that are up DC Moore. In the show’s first image, Tree (1965), a woman gazes at us from behind a tree, not acknowledging the man staring at her. Landscape with Figures (1965–66) is something of an office worker’s nightmare, a sea of anxious faces peering up from a forbidding series of cubicles with no exit. And in Tooker’s most well-known image, 1950’s Subway, an apprehensive woman walks down an antiseptic subway corridor in which a series of vaguely threatening characters lurk. Tooker’s pristine compositions take on an even greater sense of formality due to his use of egg tempera, a medium that gives off a glowing, soft tone. At first glance, some of these works, with their classical compositions and muted colors, could be mistaken for ones from hundreds of years ago. But a far more modern sensibility is at work as well. In 1959’s Laundress, a series of clotheslines turn the sky into a patchwork of abstracted shapes while the women’s faces are split into two fractured halves. For me, however, the most striking feature that shows up constantly in this show are the tortured eyes of the people that Tooker depicts. The same anguished eyes of the woman in Subway can be seen in a nearby self-portrait (in which a skeleton lurks behind the artist’s image) painted in 1996. That anguish shows up in the affectless shoppers who wander through a store of faceless items in 1972’s Supermarket, as well as in Corporate Decision (1983), with its poor family in the foreground cowering before a series of suited men in black-and-white passing judgement in the far background. It’s a testament to the helplessness that many of us feel at the hands of a world that does not quite understand us, and it’s the central achievement of Tooker’s art. Also up in a side gallery at DC Moore is “An Intimate Circle,” with paintings and photographs by Tooker, Cadmus, Lynes, and Jared and Margaret French. A kind of scrapbook of the world in which Tooker lived, it provides a nice background to the main show.]]> -
lgbTravel: Bethany Beach & Rehoboth, DE
By Mark McNease
We just got back from what has become an annual 4th of July visit to friends in Delaware. The shoreline there is beautiful, and that part of the state is dotted with towns that host a swarm of vacationers every summer. Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, Rehoboth, and of course Ocean City, just across the way in Maryland. Getting there from Manhattan takes some time, all told about eight hours of traveling. The last two years we broke it up with a stop for a night in Atlantic City. This year we saved AC for the ride back and drove straight through. The road trip is nicely balanced with a ride on the Cape May-Lewes ferry, that gets you from New Jersey to Delaware. It’s a favorite part of the trip for me, just driving onto the ferry and settling in for 90 minutes across the water. A lot of people find benches on the deck, but I’m not a sun guy so I end up inside, reading and eating ferry food (pretzels, coffee, microwaved sandwiches). Once you’re in Lewes, it’s just about 45 minutes to Bethany Beach. The boardwalk on Bethany Beach is modest, not like the more heavily trafficked, family-frenzied Ocean City. We’ve watched the fireworks on Bethany Beach the last two years, but this time they got rained out (we stayed at friend Kathi’s house and had the obligatory crabs, something no trip to Delaware or Maryland is complete without). Our first night included dinner at DiFebo’s Bistro at Bear Trap Dunes, a local golf club. The restaurant is a major dining attraction, for good reason. The menu’s not particularly unique, but the food is excellent, the environment’s inviting, and the staff are very friendly. They also have a bar area with live entertainment. That night there was a man singing and playing saxophones (he had three: alto, tenor and soprano). He was outstanding, and he spent some time at the table talking to us and taking requests.
In the morning we had breakfast at The Cafe on 26 in Ocean View. They specialize in gluten free food, although I can’t tell you what the difference was. I just know it’s a warm and friendly place and the food was excellent. I wanted to find some jewelry, the not-too expensive kind, so we went to Rehoboth for several hours. Rehoboth is larger and hipper than Bethany Beach. From the looks of things as I was taking pictures (and paying more attention) it’s also a gay magnet. There’s even a Rehoboth LGBT Center, which, along with the rainbow flags, helped explain all the gay men and lesbians I saw walking around. I finally found a bracelet at Out Sports, appropriately enough. Finally we ended the trip at Kathi’s house with crabs, crab cakes, hot corn in the husks, potato salad, and key lime pie. We can’t go to Delaware or Maryland and not have crabs. Not just because it’s something everybody there eats (even if like me they get crab cakes instead of the shelled ones you have to beat with a mallet), but also because Frank is a crab nut. He will eat a half dozen easy, sitting at a table for an hour pounding crabs and finding every last piece of crab meat. Yesterday we hugged, said our goodbyes, and headed to the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City. Every family has their traditions, even if it’s a family of two, with four cats waiting at home. Another good trip to the shore, good friends, good food, and back to the hot and steamy City.]]> -
Joyce DeWitt steps into Eve Plumb role on New York stage
I saw a headline about Joyce DeWitt, of ‘Thee’s Company’ fame, making her theater debut and I was going to start out with a line about having seen Eve Plumb in a play a few months ago. It turns out it’s the same role. Best wishes and virtual flowers to Joyce.
From the Detroit News:
New York— It has taken a long time, but Joyce DeWitt is finally doing what she always wanted to do: Make her stage debut in New York.
“I know, isn’t it a hoot?” the former “Three’s Company” star asks with glee a few hours before hitting the boards one recent afternoon. “This is where I was headed, and then I got sidetracked in Holly-weird and one thing happened after another.”
Her theater is modest: It’s off-Broadway, underneath a restaurant, beside a bar, and the audience sits on folded seats. But it’s near Times Square and she’s the star. Plus, DeWitt is still making people laugh.
“I’m just a late bloomer,” says the 62-year-old actress, though she retains an impish adorableness and is prone to say “gee-willikers” or “wow-ski” rather than swear. “It took me a long time to have confidence in my work.”
DeWitt has stepped into the title role of “Miss Abigail’s Guide to Dating, Mating & Marriage!” — a 90-minute comedy being staged at Sofia’s Downstairs Theater. ]]> -
Pakistan moves into first place in homophobia sweepstakes
How quickly fortunes change. It seems just yesterday Jamaica led the world in virulent homophobia. Maybe the prison term for Grammy-winning drug trafficker Buju Banton has thrown them off their game.
Just in the last few days we’ve seen lgbt people referred to by respectable Pakistani authorities and religious figures as ‘social garbage’ and ‘cultural terrorists.’ I know where I won’t be spending my next vacation!
From the International Business Times:
Conservative religious activists in Pakistan have condemned and protested a gay rights event last week sponsored by the US embassy in Islamabad.
At the “gay=pride” event at the embassy, the US deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Hoagland, said Washington was committed to gay rights in the country.
“I want to be clear: the US embassy is here to support you and stand by your side every step of the way,” the embassy said in a statement. “This gathering demonstrated continued US Embassy support for human rights, including LGBT rights, in Pakistan at a time when those rights are increasingly under attack from extremist elements throughout Pakistani society.” Members of Pakistan’s largest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) described the event as a form of “cultural terrorism.” “Such people [homosexuals] are the curse of society and social garbage,” JI said.
“They don’t deserve to be Muslim or Pakistani, and the support and protection announced by the US administration for them is the worst social and cultural terrorism against Pakistan.”]]> -
Parton, Welch and Faithfull: new music this summer from three veteran divas
Editor’s note: we’re happy to welcome Steve Barnes to the mix here at lgbtSr. Steve is a freelance writer based in New York City. His work has appeared in such publications as ARTnews and the Wall Street Journal.
Steve Barnes Summer may normally be the time for music that makes a good backdrop for a strong, cold drink or a night of outdoor, beachside dancing. But while the shadows cast by recent releases from Lady Gaga and Adele are still to be felt in mid-July, three other divas have brought out new CDs that should appeal to listeners looking for stories and sounds that go a little beyond shaking your booty on the dance floor. The last week of June saw strong new releases from the longtime queen of country music (Dolly Parton), one of alt-country’s most respected figures (Gillian Welch) and the equal parts Mick Jagger and Lotte Lenya cocktail that is Marianne Faithfull. The wait for all of them to bring out new work has been a long one (more than two years for Faithfull, three for Parton and eight for Welch), but in all cases the wait has been more than justified by the end result.
“Drop this doomsday attitude and let the spirit flow,” Dolly sings in “In the Meantime,” the opener on “Better Day” (Dolly Records). Dolly doesn’t break new ground here, but she puts enough energy and humor into her well-established formula to please any but the most persnickety listener. In terms of its sound, “Better Day” serves up the countrypolitan Dolly who made her comeback on 2008’s “Backwoods Barbie,” with a crack Nashville session band and backup singers who include Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. Her bid for airplay on country-music radio stations is strongest on “Together You and I,” the first single from the CD (check it out ). But while the stripped-down bluegrass roots that emerged in full force on such releases as 1999’s “The Grass is Blue” and 2001’s “Little Sparrow” are obscured a bit by the high-gloss treatment Dolly’s songs get here, she is—as you’d expect—at pains to emphasize how down-home she still is. “Country Is as Country Does,” which she wrote with Mac Davis, tells us that she’s “country-fied and country fed” and will be that way until she’s “country dead.” But with Dolly, nothing, not even the religious faith that permeates a lot of these songs, is as simple as it seems. “I’m country,” she tells us with a wink that’s all but visible, “but now that don’t mean I can’t go to town.”
Gillian Welch came to Nashville after attending Boston’s Berklee School of Music, and her music is just about completely free of the gleeful show-biz that is such a big part of Dolly’s work. From her first album, 1996’s “Revival,” Welch, in tandem with fellow singer and guitarist Dave Rawlings, has recorded plain-spoken songs that feel as if they’ve been unearthed from some secret cache deep in an Appalachian valley. “The Harrow and the Harvest” (Acony Records) keeps that trend going. Welch attributes the eight-year gap between this CD and 2003’s “Soul Journey” to dissatisfaction with the songs she’d written during that time. While I’m no position to speak on the material that she discarded, I can say that the songs that she and Rawlings perform here are among her best. (One highlight, “A Dark Turn of Mind,” can be heard here. Unlike Dolly’s songs, the few spots of humor to be found here are dryly mordant. “That’s the way the cornbread crumbles,” she wistfully sings in the CD’s closer, “That’s the Way the Whole Thing Ends,” and the listener isn’t sure about whether to laugh or cry. Just about all of the songs tell tales of loss and desolation, but they are delivered with such beautiful singing and guitar work (Welch’s and Rawlings’s voices and guitars are the only instruments on the CD) that none of it feels depressing. Anyone who has an interest in traditional American music should give “The Harrow and the Harvest” a listen.
Marianne Faithfull is neither American nor traditional, but “Horses and High Heels” (naïve records) is, like Welch’s CD, a high-water mark in her career. Her third collaboration with producer Hal Willner, it mixes ten well-chosen covers of songs from such composers as Carole King and Allen Toussaint (plus an incredible version of the a Shangri-Las tune, “Past Present Future”) with four of Faithfull’s own compositions. Faithfull’s voice is, as it has always been, a matter of personal taste. To some, her weathered near-tenor is not a musical instrument. But to others (myself included) she is a great interpretive singer on the level of an Edith Piaf or Marlene Dietrich. Listen to her sing Lesley Duncan’s “Love Song,” which you might remember from Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection” album, and see what you think. So while Dolly’s CD is likely the only one of these that is almost sure to make the margaritas go down easier as you sit on whatever warm-weather back porch you happen to be frequenting, all three of them are rewarding listens and will make you feel far more sophisticated than the adolescent partiers putting Lady Gaga’s “Judas” through its paces yet one more time.]]>
