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January 31, 2007
Tour Notes: On the Road Again
As the great Kathy and Mo once sang, “On the road again. Dit dit dit dit dit. On the road again.” I don’t know the song either. But I was on the road again, for the first stop on my Climate Change Tour in Detroit, Michigan, the home of Aretha Franklin and Patti Smith. My heroes.
They weren’t at the show, dang, but it was fun anyway. The Royal Oak Theater is a gem of an old theater, being lovingly restored and cared for by Justin Miller and all his fine support staff. I had written a lot of new material – oh, heck, the political stuff seems to just surge out of me – and I even remembered a lot of it. The State of the Union address [aka “If I Did it”] Dick Cheney almost shooting Wolf Blitzer. It was a pleasure to be in Michigan again, especially since all their hard mid-term election effort returned their legislature to the Dems and re-elected their Governer, Jenifer Granholme. Change is in the air.
The next night in Minneapolis at the gorgeous Pantages Theater, it was a see and be seen event! Eileen Scallen, on the advisory Board of NCLR, stepped up and produced the show and it was a flawless night. Karyn and Sharyn of the Care and Share Show, opened with a hilarious send-up of lesbian feminism and me. After the show, at the NCLR reception, I met years of my history in the Twin Cities. From the days of the Women’s Coffeehouse, to the time I got put on the “do not ask back” list at the St. Kate’s, to the time I did my best Garrison Keillor imitation at the World Theater – it was a night of great conversation and reminders of what my hair used to look like.
The next morning at a brunch benefit for NCLR, I met lots of interesting ladies – especially the women from Smitten Kitten (smittenkittenonline.com) a feminist owned, transgender friendly sex toy store. Not only do they do free shipping, the toys they make are absolutely made out of non-carcinogenic materials. Check it out.
My galpal met me in Minneapolis, there’s a sequitor for you, and it was great to hear her laugh in the audience. Like she’s never heard the stuff before! We spent a great Sunday with Ann Vitala and Laura Ayres – visiting art museums, going to see the movie, “Stomp the Yard” [not enough gals, but amazing dancing], eating and admiring the beautiful twin cities and the amazing Mississippi.
January 30, 2007
I Wish I Could Quit Ewe
Reading the New York Times in the morning at our house is a contact sport. The day after the State of the Union speech always promises lots of body and paper slamming. George’s SOU speech invariably has a Ground Hog Day, déjà vu quality about it. He appears in late January and there’s 20 more months of nuclear winter.
Before we could even get to the re-cap, rehash of his “If I Did it Speech” a headline caught my eye: “Gay Sheep: Science and the Perils of Bad Publicity”. It didn’t take much and I was off and running. “How dare they call us sheep? We’ve done more courageous things in one year of our lives, than they could ever dream to do in their whole lives! You just try to come to your parents! You go to your church and hear yourself described as sinner, abomination! You try being out at work. You’re the sheep. When you’re not being chickens. You’re so sheepish, you should all be drinking Woolite Cosmos down at your special cafes! Last year it was Brokeback jokes, now this.” Coffee was flying. I punctuated each question by slamming the paper on the comforter.
My girlfriend let me run on a bit and then pointed out, her Jane Curtain to my Roseanne Roseannadana, that the article was about a study of actual gay sheep. Oh. Well. Never mind.
The article was about a researcher from the University of Oregon who was looking for physiological factors to explain the 8% of sheep who are gay. I would just look for that Abercrombie and Fitch orange tag on a gene. The researcher postulated, as scientists are wont to do, that the mechanism in gay sheep might have human implications. That set the PETA people to worrying, blogging and gang-emailing that the science would lead to breeding out homosexuality.
If that were true, the Bush “Administration” would already have made a Manhattan project out of it. Go ahead. Research away. Need more money? Better equipment? Are you sure that microscope is big enough? How about an institute? Here use this stem cell money we’ve got lying around.
When I have a big reaction to something, it’s usually a sign that there is some truth somewhere in it. Sometimes I do think we are more sheepish than gay. That we have made very safe little pens for ourselves and we bathe in the sheep dip of conformity. I’ll stop this metaphor before it gets really baaaad. No wait, that’s lamb. Okay, I’m off to practice my sheep bleat with an ironic gay accent.
January 22, 2007
We’ll Always Have Paris Hilton
At first I was really excited about Our Chart, the social networking venture touted on the L-Word season premiere. But after a week when George announced that he’s decided it’s okay to open people’s private mail, I’m nervous. What’s to keep him and his pencil necked little pal at the “Justice” Department from hacking in and getting a copy of where the girls are and handing it off to some Ex-Gay Ministry. “Here’s your project for the next couple years. Get back to me.” I’m trying to remain optimistic here.
I’m not just a Stonehenge Lesbian, I’m an Old Testament lesbian. These guys really don’t like women. You can watch it roll out in their demeaning coverage of Nancy Pelosi. No one ever said Dennis Hastert looked like a fat slab of a junior high football coach, but he did. Their coverage of Hillary Clinton. How dare she? Well, I for one hope she dares to, hope she gets the nomination and becomes president. I’ve already had fights with my friends, men and women. She’s a centrist, a hawk, a carpetbagger. Puleez. Now is the time.
As we approach another contested national election, it’s like people are playing fantasy football with their dream match-ups. Mine is Hillary and Obama, which actually equals Condoleeza in Republican circles. The old white guys and the guys from my boomer generation are done, time to get out of the way, go be a literacy volunteer, make a Habitat house for Angelina and Brad in New Orleans, but make way for some new ideas. If this is the best you can do, and it’s the worst, have the decency to get out of the way.
For days, the New York Times covered the story of the young man shot leaving a stag party. Fifty bullets were fired by the police. The Times should have covered the story. Mayor Bloomberg was on it immediately. I remembered Giuliani, who would not have showed up, sniping about certain communities. At the same time however, the story rolled out of four young prostitutes found murdered in Atlantic City. The story lasted two news cycles.
You know this but there is actually a movie called Perfume about a young brilliant perfumiere who makes a fragrance out of eleven parts dead virgin and one part something prostitute. I was railing about it at a party, and the man I was talking to wanted to talk about how the book was better! I might just start taking my bra off in such situations and firing it up with a bic lighter and wave it around the room.
For days the media has been fixated on a video of some young teenage girls beating up another girl. Would that they put the same energy into analyzing the war.
You want a surge? I’ll give you a surge. We’re way past surge protectors.
January 16, 2007
Don't Get Me Started
The average American consumes ten hours of media a day - through print, TV, radio or internet. "The internets," as W likes to call them. His phrasing could catch on. I'm not really sure how to say "nuclear' any more. People watch 65 days of television a year. My girlfriend - and we're so pissed about MA and gay marriage, we've decided to introduce each other as "my ball and chain" - asks me where I get my data. I say NPR. And though it wasn't from Sylvia Polgoli, it must be true. For some blessed reason in this new year, so far I have been off the grid, off my media feed. It hasn't been intentional, but it is lovely. So I've missed some news, but I was just wondering, since we are at war and about to surge into an even war-ier, and since more than 3,000 American troops, AKA people, have been killed, and 36,000 Iraqis were killed and 34,000 injured in 2006, let me ask you, did they cancel the Golden Globes?
January 09, 2007
L-M-N-tary
Get out your old fuck charts! The L-Word gals have hooked up with some divine webmistresses and they’re putting together an uber—user chart, called OurChart. They’ve explained how it works to me, but since my new year’s motto is, “I couldn’t care less. No wait, watch me. I’m caring less!” I don’t need to know how it works. Let the kids have their fun. I’m just glad they’re doing it.
It’s as if they are mapping the human genome series. They’re sequencing lots of little Ls,and Ds, Bs and Fs, Ts and Bs. Near as I can tell, everybody is supposed to dust off their old charts and the lovely social anthropologist types on the new site are going to do their version of taping the whole thing together. Excellent!! For one thing, we’re finally going to be able to trace some of those so-called ex-gays. For years I asked audiences if anyone there had dated Ann Paulk, the ex-gay poster child. No one ever had. I figured if we didn’t know her, she wasn’t a lesbian. Now we can fire up all twelve cylinders on our search engine, mine our data and get some answers. Think of it as Lesbian Connection without the staples and the tetanus shots. Actually LC is the mother board of Our Chart.
Our fuck chart of Provincetown, 1978-present, is tucked in our kitchen cookbooks between Madher Jaffrey and the gals from The New Basic Cookbook . We started to work on our chart after dinner one night about eighteen years ago and have inputted information ever since. Patterns developed. Certain “hub-women” emerged. These are women who were the anchor in many overlapping clusters. For one impressive lesbian, we had to tape on an entire new page, her own wing. She’s a booth operator at a parking lot now and I admire her from afar.
Can’t wait to get back to Ptown to dig out the chart and send it in and do my part for this great lesbo-science project. You’ll see. Eventually we are all connected.
January 06, 2007
Happy New Queer
According to the liturgical calendar, January 6 is the Epiphany. You’re wondering, “Did Kate make some New Year’s resolution regarding the Catholic Church we should know about?” Not to worry, I didn’t. If I did make one for the dear church, it would be that they get independent auditors. Actually I don’t think it’s good form to disclose resolutions, except to say that mine has something to do with George Clooney. Enough said.
The Epiphany has always had a warm place in my heart. In my youth, January 6 in Buffalo, New York was generally a day of sub-zero temperatures, walking to school in the dark, layered in pre-Polartech lumpiness, grumpy that vacation was over. They said I was moody child. As in: I had moods. In my non-youth in the Northeast, the cherry blossoms are in bloom in DC, trees are budding in NYC and some crocuses are up in Provincetown.
The Epiphany is the day when the three wise men, using a very early version of the Magellan GPI, finally made it to see Jesus. Holiday traffic. Oy. He was almost two weeks old, still lying in the manger. Insurance allowed longer stays back then. They brought gifts which they had wisely purchased in the after-Christmas sales. Jesus, always the precocious host, showed himself to the Wise Men as the son of god. It was Jesus’ Coming Out Party! No wonder I liked it.
I’ll be celebrating Epiphany here in NYC, back after ten glorious holi-days in Provincetown. In Ptown, the internet server wasn’t speaking to our computers. My new Palm Treo had the wrong operating system. Basic cable was basic. It was glorious. Lots of Scrabble. I lost the Holiday Tournament, condolences gratefully accepted. Dune walks. Lots of cooking. After two hideous winters, most of the year round Ptowners who could, have decamped to the dangle of Florida. It was quiet. We missed the endless loop of details on the bizarre year end festival of death – James Brown, Gerry Ford [who like another Republican, was never elected president and had a fondness for all things Cheney and Rummy], Saddam Hussein.
It’s Epiphany and it’s time to come out again after a warm hibernation. As the Godfather sang, “I’m gonna get up and do my thing”. He also sang, “This is a Man’s World” and “Sex Machine” but they weren’t brought up so much at the observances. An ice shelf the size of Manhattan broke off the Arctic shelf. George is fixing to surge the troops forward. He’s the decider. The MA legislature will put gay marriage to a ballot vote, thank you very much, Mitt Mitt full of shit. PS: did I tell you he is running for Prez? Devaul Patrick’s inauguration was blissful. Madame Pelosi has been installed with great joy and promise. Hillary is gearing up. Obama is ubiquitous. Say it loud. But say it. Happy New Queer.
January 05, 2007
Don't Get Me Started
Happy New Pelosi!!
Just try to picture that bearlike slab of a Dennis “We didn’t want the appearance of gay-bashing in the Mark Foolery case” Hastert, former Mister Speaker, inviting all the kids in the chamber up to the podium for his swearing-in. Well he couldn’t and you can’t. It was pandemonium! Madame to be Speaker Pelosi trying to raise her hand in the oath portion of the ceremonies and knocking her grandson in the head; disembodied hands reaching into the frame trying to wrestle the boss’s script from the granddaughters; grandsons trying to grab the gavel from Grandma Pelosi to try it out. Hey kids! It’s time to play the House version of Wack a Mole. It really is. If the next 99 of the first 100 Hours of the Democrats back in control of the House are like the first wild glorious hour, I’m hoping that old Newt Grinch’s “Contract on America” will finally be cancelled.
In the coming days watch as the media midgets stumble over themselves trying, for the first time, to cover a woman in power. Watch for men whining. They better get used to it.
January 04, 2007
New: Free E-Cards!
Now available in CommuniKate, Kate Clinton fan central: free e-cards! With just a couple of clicks you can design and send a custom card to friends or family. Got an idea for a new card design? Telll us your ideas.
Mom's Apple Pie, The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers' Custody Movement
While the beginnings of the LGBT Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum, the 1970s witnessed horrific custody battles for lesbian mothers. Mom's Apple Pie, The Heart of the Lesbian Mothers' Custody Movement revisits the early tumultuous years of the lesbian custody movement through the stories of five lesbian mothers and their four children.
Narrated by Kate Clinton, the documentary interviews the sons and daughters who were separated from their mothers, the mothers themselves, and one woman who made the difficult decision to flee with her children.
Click here to find out more about the film. Note, the film is currently in educational distribution only, which means that it is sold to educational institutions such as colleges and universities, K-12 schools, public libraries, community groups, etc., with public performance rights included (unlike home video releases, which are lower-priced and do not include those rights). Frameline (the leading nonprofit educational distributor of LGBT films in North America) is handling the educational distribution.
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