As I Lay Frying

Winds of Change

2008-09-25T17:24:00.001-04:00

Gusts of wind have certainly been howling at the beach and on TV.
With the line of hurricanes blowing by and the string of partisans blowing smoke on the tube it’s been quite a few weeks.
Of course, my favorite storm was Hurricane Fay, spelled correctly at that. Bonnie and I had a glorious time listening to all the reports (Fay is intensifying; Fay is boomeranging; Fay is heading for Guantanemo!) but as the saying goes, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt. I was gearing up to have great fun at Hurricane Fay’s expense, not to mention columnist Fay’s expense when I heard that the storm had killed a lot of people. Ditto for Gustav, Hannah and Ike. Suddenly it’s not such fun anymore.
Which is just as well since there are sooo many other things to focus on from the past few weeks.
Speaking of forces of nature, I have to mention the passing of Del Martin, one of the true pioneers of lesbian rights. She and her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyons, started the very first lesbian rights organization in this country, the Daughters of Bilitis – named for a fictional friend of Sappho. As a couple, Del and Phyllis reminded me so much of my friends Anyda and Muriel, also together over half a century before they both died in 2006. I have to laugh, because Muriel always said that the term Bilitis sounded like a terrible disease and she wanted no part of it.
Together, Del and Phyllis wrote the book Lesbian/Woman published in 1972. I remember lurking in the dark, outside the Lambda Rising Bookstore in Washington, D.C .in 1978, screwing up my courage to go inside and buy the book. While the picture of 1972 lesbian life wasn’t pretty – women’s softball, seedy bars in bad neighborhoods and butch/femme partnerships, Del and Phyllis were the first to tell me that long-term lesbian relationships did actually exist and that a satisfying life might be possible – even without playing softball, god forbid.
The sadness of Del’s passing was assuaged a little knowing that she and Phyllis were invited to be the first legal gay union in California. A photo of the 80-somethings cutting their wedding cake looked gorgeous on the front pages of newspapers across the country. In a statement after Del died, Phyllis Lyons said, “I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed.” Amen.
The political conventions were forces of nature on their own. I almost lost my mind listening to pundits babbling about the speeches, even stooping to babble during the speeches. I was forced to turn to CSPAN just to get some peace and quiet.
Leaving the subjects of the economy, universal health care, the economy, the Iraq mess and the economy aside, let me just focus on the potential for gay and lesbian equality, relative to the two parties.
Um, Barack and Joe are our friends. They want to get rid of that stupid “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, favor making it illegal to discriminate against us in housing and jobs, and actually believe we should be treated equally – including making certain we have the same rights as married couples whatever the convoluted language turns out to be.
With the dismissive back of the hand, McCain and especially Palin are against civil unions and equality rights, and think discrimination against gays in jobs and housing is just fine. Not to wish Cindy or Mr. Hockey Mom any harm, but I wonder if John or Sarah will ever have to sit, crying in the emergency room and considered to be scum, kept from visiting their critically ill loved one? Just asking.
And how about Hillary? What part of the line “Were you voting for me or what I stand for?” don’t the gay women threatening to vote for Sarah Palin understand?
In the annals of “cutting off your nose to spite your face,” this is a doozy. Let’s elect a woman who doesn’t want women to have a choice regarding reproduction even if it’s rape or incest; a woman who voted to take back partner benefits from Alaskans; a women who wanted to ban books from the library; a women who supports “Don’t Ask”; a woman who wants to teach creationism in public schools and a woman who, despite compelling evidence to the contrary, thinks Abstinence Education works. Good God, it’s Phyllis Schlafly in mukluks.
One bright spot can now be found weeknights at 9pm on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow, an incredibly bright, insanely clever, terribly attractive young lesbian now has her own left-leaning TV news and commentary show. I know she will be preaching to the choir, but watching her made me smile, cheer and realize I am not alone in my views. In fact, I finally understand why a brigade of dittoheads loves to listen to Limbaugh. Well, at least this is one for my side.
Meanwhile, at three in the morning when the White House phone rings with a crisis, do you want someone to answer whose top credential is field dressing a moose? Did I say that with my outside voice????
I’m done now. Maybe the meteorologists were right when they described Hurricane Fay as a wide swath of gusting wind. Sorry if I’ve offended. But this election, not only is it the economy, stupid, it’s all the rest of the issues. And I hope people vote based on them, whatever their choice.

Too Darn Hot

2008-08-16T12:08:00.001-04:00

I just got back from Phoenix, Arizona where it was 114 degrees at high noon. Everybody told us we’d be okay, it was dry heat. Please. You could fry a frittata on the bench in front of the hotel. I got third degree burns of the fritatta.

This was some fancy schmancy resort, with rooms going for $500 dollars a night in the season. That would be winter. In August, they say “Let the lesbians have it for a literary conference.” It’s practically free for a great room, great service and when you go outside, it feels like walking into a blow dryer.

The conference – Golden Crown Literary Society – celebrated lesbian writers and books published in 2007. And it was wonderful. I was invited to speak on the topic of humor, which historically, lesbians as a species are thought to lack. I started class with the old joke “How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “That’s not funny.” Fortunately, the crowd tittered.

Afterwards, at the gorgeous pool, staff took our food and drink order and we dunked in the cool water. We got out to eat, but two bites into the meal we got dizzy from the heat and settled for sucking frozen Margaritas through a straw while applying the frosty glass to our wrists. Two minutes later we had to violate the sacrosanct parents’ rule by not waiting the requisite half hour after eating before swimming. For the record, we did not get the oft-threatened cramps, but I nearly needed a tour of the local burn unit after touching the metal pool ladder. Three minutes after that we were back inside the hotel.

At 6pm (109 degrees) some sadist suggested a visit to the Wild West Tourist town on hotel property. We survived the four minute walk across the steaming desert parking lot, entered ‘town,” and immediately, got “caught” in a faux gun fight. Three suspected out of work actors, poor bastards, “killed” each other, winding up flayed out in the dirt.

Hoping I wasn’t next from heat stroke, we set off for the saloon, ducking into the air-conditioned “jail” on the way. The “sheriff” offered shot-gun wedding re-enactments for a fee. We decided not to ask for a same-sex shotgun wedding, unclear whether they had access to live ammunition.
Finally, we guzzled a beer and got the hell out of Dodge, both thrilled to be heading for A/C and being able to use the phrase “got the hell out of Dodge” literally. At the hotel, where it was now a balmy 106 degrees, I studied the architecture and wondered if the three-sided adobe/concrete entrance was supposed to replicate a PeePosh Indian pueblo oven. See the Mesquite grilled columnist stagger into the lobby.

At the Saturday night award ceremony and reception, we met and talked to readers and writers from all over the country. Bonnie was most amused by a reader of my books who looked at her and said “Gee, I’d pictured you as much more butch.” Neither of us knew what to do with that comment, so Bonnie just smiled. Then grunted.

Conference organizers had arranged for two Native American men to entertain us before the awards. One resembled a short, fat borscht belt comic in headdress and war paint while the other was a tall, thin man with a pony tail who did a beautiful Native American hoop dance. Following applause for the intricate dance, the performer told us he was an attorney, working on Native American human rights issues and likened their fight against discrimination to that of the gay women in the room. In the early 1900s the Gila River had been diverted by non-natives, causing entire communities to disappear from lack of water. Recently, a series of dams helped reverse that action, so the Maricopa tribe has its water back, along with mammoth casinos, draining dollars from the white man, which is eminently fair.

On Sunday, we left the hotel for a drive in our air-conditioned rental car up Superstition Mountain - a collection of hills, mesas, buttes and cacti I had previously only seen in TV westerns. I expected black and white. But no, it was all in living brown. The scenery was impressive, if a little scary. A sign at a scenic pull-off warned us not to put our hands anywhere where we couldn’t see them. As if I ever would.
The rutted dirt road wound up the mountainside, with nary a guard rail in sight and two way traffic comin’ round the mountain hauling boats, campers and head-ons waiting to happen. Neither of us has a fear of heights, but it was a hair-raising ride, worth it for the awesome canyon, gully and mountain views. We were warned to beware of wildlife, and although we kept a wary lookout, the wildest life we saw were several Geico spokesnewts running across the road. We did see the rare and gorgeous blooming cactus flowers – rare because only a handful of morons are stupid enough to visit the desert in August to see them.

Next, we visited a friend of Bonnie’s who lives in a terrific resort and retirement community for lesbians called The Pueblo in Apache Junction, AZ. Hundreds of women live there, only the place was nearly deserted because it was August and these lesbians have the good sense to go North for the summer. Bonnie’s buddy Marge was back to visit with us and show us around. Like Care Free resort in Florida, Rainbow Vision in Santa Fe and potentially the Open Door community here in Sussex County, more and more of these retirement options are springing up. Who’d a thunk it back before Stonewall.

Our final weekend adventure was getting home. Let’s face it, folks, air travel sucks these days. Between the complimentary CAT scan, an over-sold plane in Phoenix, and thunder storms closing the runway in Atlanta, it actually took us a half hour longer to get from Phoenix to Philly than it did to get home from a trip to Beijing.

In hindsight, for scenic views and lesbian literature it was a wonderful trip. And I learned a few things. 1. Calories saved when it’s too hot to eat are more than made up by life-saving frozen cocktails.
2. I have a new respect for the term “You’re toast.”
3. And when people say “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” tell them they are full of crap.
Back in Rehoboth, the thermometer said 92 degrees. Felt like a cold snap.

The handwriting is on the wall

2008-06-21T08:35:00.002-04:00

As it turns out, I’m not particularly Scrabulous. For a wordsmith, it’s amazing how much I suck at playing the online version of Scrabble.
I got into this frustrating cyber game as a consequence of my foray into the baffling and relentless world of social networking. And it seems to be taking over my life. Social networking is like an online social disease. I don’t know how I got it and it won’t go away.
It started when I got an e-mail invitation from a friend to join Facebook. You know me, I hate turning down invitations. Once I joined, I was instructed to ask all my friends to join as well. After days of adding myself as a friend to folks with Facebook pages and then inviting old and new friends to my own fledgling Facebook page, things started to spin out of control.
I began hearing from people from the great beyond – like back in college or even high school, plus I was getting invitations to become friends with people I didn’t even remember. It was the invitations to become friends with friends of friends that started making me crazy. I was so busy inviting friends to join Facebook and then My Space, I got confused and started inviting people to join My Face.
The next thing I knew, I received cyber Petunias from a site called Green Patch and was invited to send people cyber shrubbery to help raise money to save the rain forest. I tried to figure out how to forward flowers to a bunch of folks but at the end of the day I got so flustered I’m probably responsible for the loss of several hundred acres along the Amazon.
And speaking of Amazon, there’s a Facebook thing called Bookshelf, which somebody invited me to join. For the next several days I used every waking moment clicking on books I’ve read and writing mini-reviews of them so the Bookshelf geeks–whoever they are – will understand my reading preferences to recommend books for me. I checked off everything from Catcher in the Rye to Kite Runner. At one point, in the upper right hand portion of my screen appeared the words YOU ARE NOT READING ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. Of course not, you cyber poops, I’m filling up my virtual bookshelf and wasting time writing book reports when I could have been doing something productive like playing online Scrabble.
It’s bad enough when you put your hand in the Scrabble bag and pull out all vowels in a regular game, but when the computer sticks you with iiieeoa who do you bitch at? One afternoon the dogs found me screaming at my flat screen monitor and wondered if it had peed in the house.
I just got invited to spend time answering movie quizzes and writing movie reviews. This will be a great way to fill my time when I’m in the rest home, but right now there’s stuff happening in the real world and I’m sitting here writing a review of Spaceballs. Somebody help me.
I finally located the “cancel” link for the movie quiz thing and so far I have confined myself to joining just three Facebook groups – Saints & Sinners Authors (writers who participate annually in a New Orleans GLBT literary conference), One Million Strong for Marriage Equality (it can’t hurt), and Six Gay Degrees of Separation, which is a group trying to get one million gay people to sign up so it can make use of our cyber muscle to fight for our rights.
And in the middle of all this social networking somebody poked me. It didn’t hurt, but I had no idea why I’d been poked.
Apparently poking is the online equivalent of somebody sticking their index finger in your shoulder. On the other hand, cyber hugging, another Facebook activity, is less irritating but no more satisfying. Hugging should be a contact sport, dontcha think?
Then there’s the wall thing, where your online friends can leave you messages. I haven’t written on the walls since I was five years old. Okay you boomers, remember the TV show Crusader Rabbit where you got a plastic thing to put on the TV screen and you could trace the rabbit’s whereabouts? One day, with my burnt umber crayon I wrote right off the screen, onto the floor and up the wall. The parents were not amused.
But now, in my dotage, I’m being asked to write on people’s walls. If texting is the new phone call, writing on somebody’s wall is the new e-mail. Every day I get messages from friends who have written on my wall.
Naturally, I feel compelled to write back, since everybody can see your site and see who wrote on your wall and see the time when they wrote it and know if you have been prompt in answering or, instead, you are blowing people off in favor of your online Scrabulous game. The pressure to be responsive and clever is positively crushing.
Then there’s the “Fay is…” at the top of my Facebook page. You’re supposed to write what you are doing at the moment, but nobody writes “Answering this question on Facebook,” which is what they are all doing, because like me they are hooked on this idiotic social networking site. I can’t even write that I’m playing online scrabble because I had to forfeit my turn because I had all vowels again.
Frankly, I can’t be doing anything else, like reading the paper, doing the laundry or finishing my column, because these Facebook questions are requiring so much of my time. So once again I answer “Fay is…trying to keep up with Facebook…”
Oops, it’s my turn in Scrabulous. I get a whopping three points for the word “ass.” Yes indeedy.
Your move. And make it snappy. I’ve got to go write on several people’s walls, recommend some books, fill out a questionnaire about my taste in music, and see who else is friends with all my friends so I can add more friends and write on more walls and recommend more movies and…
Somebody poke me in the eye and get me off this Facebook page. My column is due by midnight tonight and I still haven’t started.
“Fay is ….panicking.” Somebody help her.

Love in the fast lane

2008-05-18T21:43:00.003-04:00

I never thought I’d fall in love like this again.

Gleefully giddy and blushing when I think of her, I’m in the full throes of a mad affair.
Don’t phone the National Enquirer, my spouse not only approves, but she introduced me to her.
I’m in love with my car - head-over-heels about my previously-owned, gently-used six-year old BMW.

I swore off woman-car love in the disco era when my silver-blue 1964 Corvette convertible was hauled off on a flat bed truck, its back wheels having fallen off. We’d been together through thick (often) and thin (not so often), but the speed bump I hit that day ended it all. I’d known her most of my life.

I was there in 1964, on Lincoln’s birthday (when we actually celebrated Feb.12) picking up my mother’s new sports car. It cost a whopping $4000 and everybody thought my father was nutty for buying it for his wife.

By 1968 I was permitted to drive the car to college, 250 miles from New York City to Washington, DC. Sadly, I’d learned to drive in Manhattan, meaning I could parallel park like a champ but had never driven over 30 mph. You can imagine what happened when I hit the Jersey Turnpike. Eventually I lost count of the number of middle finger salutes I got for creeping along in the right lane.
It took me nine hours to get to DC and I arrived on campus shaken and needing controlled substances. Fortunately, in 1968, campus was awash with them.

I re-learned to drive in that sports car, and adored her, even as she fish-tailed away from stop signs, skidded in the snow, and, in her later years, required an entire roll of Bounty Quicker-Picker-upper paper towels stuffed above the visors to keep me dry on rainy days. It was true love.

Together, we campaigned, then cried for Bobby Kennedy and sat transfixed by the car radio as men walked on the moon. My love drove me to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to march against the Vietnam War, honked for joy when Tricky Dick Nixon resigned, witnessed the dawn of disco and breathed her last just about the same time my heterosexuality did.

After that, my personal affairs turned happy, but I pined mightily for that car. What followed was a succession of unsatisfying relationships – a station wagon I called the Trashmobile; an old Dodge that was so broad in the beam I once ripped off the door handles on both sides getting into a parking space. Then I had some kind of American Motors contraption with no braking system whatever, sending me into wheelies at red lights.

Enter the cute little blue 1980 Chevette my mate drove when I met her. The very name Chevette, so near and yet so far.

By then I was out and proud, with Martina Navratilova telling me to buy a Subaru. What followed was a bout of serial monogamy, as I purchased one Subaru after another, winding up with a 1998 anniversary edition Outback. We were comfortable together. Not exciting, but a marriage of convenience.

But one day that damned Subaru turned on me, blew a head gasket and left me in the lurch. For a while I made do driving Bonnie’s Tracker, but it rode like a farm vehicle, skated across multiple lanes in the wind and was, to be honest, above me. So far, in fact, I had trouble climbing into the cockpit.

I couldn’t decide what kind of car to buy, and frankly I was not about to pay what it used to cost to buy a house for a vehicle that didn’t send shivers up my spine. “I want my old car back,” I’d whine and Bonnie knew I was talking about a 42- year-old Corvette.
One could be had, alright, but cost more than a new Lexus. Besides, the phrase “high maintenance girlfriend” clearly applied. And even if I could have paid the ransom for a mid-century Corvette, the thing would have added twenty minutes to my daily commute: ten minutes to get myself down into the buckets and another ten minutes to pry myself out. Those were the days, my friend, and they were over.

Finally, one morning we stopped at a used car lot where I spied a sweet little 2002 sea-foam BMW convertible. One look and I heard violins. I instantly wanted to load it into a U-Haul and have it move in with me. Surprisingly, its price tag was less than I’d pay for a new GM sedan and a loveless marriage.

So off we went, my Beamer and I, but soon I realized there were issues. I determined that my love and I needed prophylactics - protection from my over-stuffed tool and book-filled garage. A Beamer condom?

Bonnie and I headed downtown to find the next best thing: noodles. Not Chicken Lo Mein, but the Styrofoam noodles that keep me afloat in a swimming pool. At the store, we picked out several pink and purple perpendicular noodles and marched to the cash register. ”What kinky things are you girls up to?” We just smiled.
Back home, I stapled the noodles to the pertinent book shelve edges, blunting every possible surface where a car door could connect. I gave her wide berth.

Then I screwed my decorative Schnauzer plate to the front bumper, affixed the rainbow cling-on to the back window and off we went on our honeymoon. I may never be back......

"Get Your History Straight & Your Nightlife Gay"

2008-04-30T10:35:00.002-04:00

I’ve discovered Philadelphia. It's not all about cream cheese.
I’ve returned from an immersion tour that included the best food experience of my life (and that’s going some), watching rainbow flags go up literally and figuratively, and being asked the quintessential “Provolone or Cheese Whiz?” It doesn’t get much better than that.
On the pretense that lofty topics like history and culture were tour highlights, we’ll start with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the artist Frida Kahlo’s birth, there is a massive exhibit of her most important self-portraits and still lifes. Known for painting herself with that alarming unibrow and mustachioed upper lip, Kahlo was actually more attractive than her self-portraits – as noted in the fabulous photos from her personal albums along with the exhibit.
If you can’t get there, rent the film Frida, starring Salma Hayek – not only is there an unforgettable scene where Frida tangos with Ashley Judd, but you get a great look at Frida’s canvasses, too.
Bonnie and I did not jog up the museum steps humming the theme from Rocky, but you knew that.
For history, I checked out Independence Hall. The room is tiny, with tinier windows. And July 4th, 1776 was reportedly a scorcher. Let’s face it, our forefathers didn’t wear cargo shorts and crocs. John Hancock and the others may have scribbled their john hancocks on the parchment just to flee the sauna.
Over at the Constitution Center I walked among the life-size bronzes of the document signers and a cerebral film exhibit charting our nation’s quest for equality for all. I started to nurture a bad attitude, figuring that the equality quest would exclude GLBT Americans. To the curator’s credit, the march toward gay equality is noted and given weight, even if there is no resolution yet. I hope I get back in my lifetime for the last reel.
For more history, I visited the old Wanamaker’s Department Store which is now Macy’s (isn’t everything?) with its two story pipe organ and 18th century architecture. Coincidentally there was a sale and I turned history into shopping before you could say Give Me Liberty or Give me 30% off. I was, at least, using currency with Ben Franklin on it.
Later, we sampled Philly’s gay culture. We did the nightlife. We got to boogey.
For the Food Tour: We started in South Philly at Jim’s Steaks - a landmark since 1939. Sure, I’ve had Cheese Steaks, but I’d never been asked if I wanted Cheese Whiz on mine. I couldn’t go there. But the gooey provolone over steak and onions folded into a perfect roll is deservedly legend .
Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, Bonnie and I celebrated our 26th anniversary with brunch at the Rittenhouse Hotel. Truly, I have never had a more exquisite food experience in my entire calorie-clogged, thigh-bulging, restaurant-reviewing lifetime. Our young and handsome Philly boyfriends invited us to the Rittenhouse for the tour-de-kitchen marathon. The buffet had over 40 appetizers alone, including oysters, caviar, vichyssoise with lobster, foie gras ganache, escargot fricassee, shrimp spatzle and the unlikely winner, pineapple and Thai basil soda.
The main course took diners into the actual kitchen for a hot buffet of every kind of meat imaginable (and some slightly unimaginable) along with seafood, paella, venison sausages, Belgian waffles, Tuscan bread pudding, Brussels sprouts and, and. and….
For dessert there was a Liquid Nitrogen station, which, I initially thought was on loan from a dermatologist. No, the smoking stuff was for submerging coconut curry foam and dark chocolate to form divine confections.
We lingered over brunch for a record four hours, laughing at the stares and speculation as our fellow diners tried to guess if the boys were taking their mothers out for brunch, or Bonnie and I had rented them by the hour. We just smiled and sipped champagne. For a chaser we napped.
As I was leaving the hotel to come home, dozens of city workers in bucket trucks busily installed hundreds of rainbow banners on city lampposts. The annual Equality Forum is on the horizon and the whole community will be celebrating.
The City of Philadelphia makes a great commitment to their GLBT entrepreneurs and citizens, realizing just which side their tourism toast is buttered on. In fact the City recently launched the nation’s largest gay tourism marketing campaign, going after its share of the $54.1 billion gay and lesbian travel market.
Their slogan says it all: “Philadelphia:Get your history straight and your nightlife gay.”
The City of Brotherly (and Sisterly) love, indeed.

Anchors Aweigh, it’s Gay

2008-03-13T21:33:00.003-04:00

I do not work for Olivia Cruises (the all-women travel company) and this article is not being written at the behest of Olivia Cruises. In fact, it’s an article I would have bet my Schnazuers I’d never write. And that’s because I was stupid.

All these years I wrongly thought that an all-gay cruise was great for red state closeted gals and others without the freedom to live like we do here in Gayberry RFD. Fun, yes, but Olivia cruises cost more than “regular” cruises to the same ports, since Olivia is the middle-womyn. I mega-stupidly dismissed it as a luxury I didn’t need.

Wrong, The Earth is flat wrong. You can’t put a man on the moon wrong. George Bush wrong. That wrong.

So why did I go? Fifty-two Rehoboth-area women were already signed up and we got a last-minute half-price deal, plus a discount for an obstructed view stateroom. “Do you mind a life boat blocking your view?” asked the sales rep. “ Um, let’s see, the ocean this way, and 1800 women are the other way. I can see the ocean at home.”

So from the minute I walked up the gangplank onto the gigunda ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale, I started learning just how criminally insane I had been. With Men’s Room signs covered with temporary letters marked Ladies, and the loudspeaker booming “Attention Women of Olivia,” the party commenced: mandatory life boat drill, Mai Tai cocktails, unpacking. Half the ship dined early and saw k.d.lang in the theatre, while the other half of us saw Margaret Cho first and dined afterward. Margaret Cho was hilarious but over-the-edge filthy. I don’t know whether she would have been better before or after dinner. Both headliners dazzled and outshone the one entertainment I remember from a “regular” cruise - a man playing Oklahoma on a saw. No kidding.

On that first night, we celebrated Olivia’s 35th Anniversary with a deck party. My eyes just drank it in – young hotties, older hotties, black, white, brown, abled, disabled, thin, not thin, singles, couples, drinkers, non-drinkers and a whole lotta Rehobos. I loved the music, laughing and sights - two women dancing in wheelchairs, lovers looking out to sea, partners rocking the dance-floor, singles meeting and greeting, waaay gay waiters delivering Pina Coladas, inked and pierced dyklets holding hands and middle-aged mamas stealing Anne Murray kisses in the moonlight.

I don’t know what hit me, but it was like walking into a 70s gay bar for the first time or seeing a hundred thousand revelers at my first pride march. Steeped in community, feeling freer than ever, I finally experienced what it must feel like to be straight in a straight world. On the Holland American Zuiderdam, radar was gaydar and the whole damn world was the L word.

The next morning, a day at sea, sealed the deal. Comics Kate Clinton and Karen Williams hosted a film about the 35 years of Olivia – not coincidentally, the history of the entire women’s movement. We laughed, cheered, met the staff, heard from entertainers Chris Williamson and Holly Near, and applauded for Capt. Margarethe Cammermeyer who took on the military after they asked and she told.

Bonnie, also a long-time skeptic, hopefully clutched her door prize ticket for the two-for-one cruises they would be giving away.

There were art auctions, spa treatments, hot tubs, casino madness, singles parties, couples massage, the requisite newly-wed, oldy-wed games, rainbow trivia in the lounge, barbecues on the deck and food, food, food, drink, drink, drink.

We spent some quality time with Rehoboth gals we often just clinked glasses with at Cloud 9. Sometimes we dined with our posse, sometimes with folks who started out as strangers. Every elevator ride, cluster of women in a shop or folks in rows in front or behind us at the theatre provided “Where you from? What do you do?” opportunities. Everybody smiled. Everybody had restless mouth syndrome.

While most of the fun took place on board, there were Caribbean ports. Grand Turk is a small island with a lot of jewelry stores for tourists. But Bonnie convinced me to ride a dune buggy. I've been out of the closet over thirty years but that day I actually earned my dyke card. Bonnie (driving) and I (in my helmet and visor) took off speeding in the open frame buggy. Did I mention rain? We rode through puddles and ruts, getting splattered and speckled with clots of mud the size of chicken fingers. After two hours I looked like a Jackson Pollack canvas.

In Tortola we took a ferry to another island, Virgin Gorda, where we went swimming amid glorious boulders, caves and rock formations. The surf was so rough (how rough was it?) that on my first foray into the ocean I got sucked up and surfed back onto the beach at 50mph, flat on my ass. Of course, being a lesbian group, girls came shouting. “I’m a nurse! I’m a nurse, I’m a nurse!”

None needed. Even the injured pride was fun. And the water was a blue I thought could only come from paint.

We sampled legendary Pain Killer shots at Pusser’s saloon with a couple of young gals we met, for an evening of splendid cross-generational story-swapping. Luckily, the ships’ crew lined the way back to the boat, so we didn’t stagger off the pier.

What would a gay cruise be without a theme night? Prior to launch our Rehoboth contingent learned of the Mad Hatter Party. Okay, we’d all need matching hats with a Rehoboth-like theme and which packed easily. Our crew found perfectly silly, flat-packable fish hats. Also, t-shirts announcing Women of Rehoboth on the front and “what happens on the cruise, stays on the cruise” on the back. While I am telling tales here, my lips are sealed with the really juicy stuff.

Suffice it to say, that the 1746 other women on the boat took notice of the women of Rehoboth and they all now know of the fantastic gay resort on the Delaware coast. We posed for a group photo out on deck one evening and did a 54-woman strong fish-hatted conga line in the disco on Mad Hatter Night.

I hated to dock back in Florida. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. We would have gotten our money’s worth at more than twice the price. Olivia is in the hospitality business and they do it well. So there. I was so very wrong.

And if you call Olivia and book a cruise, be sure to bring Visine. There’s only so much eye-candy you can take without back-up.

Oh Come All Ye Fruitcakes

2008-02-12T09:24:00.000-05:00

As you read this I am on my way back to Rehoboth from my very first Olivia cruise – a week in the Caribbean.

But I hardly needed the outsized (bad choice of words) eating/drinking fest that cruises encourage. This holiday season took the cake (that which wasn’t in my mouth) for the most calorie-laden, liquor guzzling, reflux-inducing stretch of bad gustatory behavior I have ever been a party to. Or to a party. Dozens of them.

I’m not complaining. Rehoboth is such a geographically small spot and there are so many community events it’s possible to enjoy several in a day. Don we now our big apparel.
In our house, the December bloat period started with Hanukkah Matzoh Balls and potato latkes. Fast away the old gas passes, fa la la la la, la la la la. On Thanksgiving weekend we bought a recumbent exercise bike, vowing to start our regimen immediately to keep pace with Christmas cookies.

The first thing Bonnie did after plugging the thing into the wall was trip over it, breaking two toes. Exercise out, comfort food in. As for me, I view exercise like drinking – not something to be done alone. Bring on the figgy pudding.

So there were cocktail parties, wine tastings and Christmas dinners. See the grazing fool before us Fa la la etc. And of all the wretched holiday excess I subjected myself to this season, a pair of events, like my thighs, loom large.

One Sunday we brunched at a friends’ home with Mimosas at noon, Mimosas and entrees at 3:30, and more Mimosas well into the evening. I’m amazed to report no hangover at all from the 8-hour champagne binge. I did however have a raging case of Acid Reflux from the f-ing orange juice. It’s a sad commentary about aging.

A second memorable holiday event was the Apple Pie Thrown Down baking contest. At a party of about 25 people, four contestants took the challenge. I was a judge. The authorities knew a carbohydrate professional when they saw one.

Three out of four bakers had great credentials, but the fourth bragged she hadn’t baked a pie in two decades (would that be humble pie?). Of course, it was a blind taste test. Wine withstanding, some judges were blinder than others.

To universal shock and awe, the winner was the person who had not had her paws in pie dough since 1988 and whose culinary repertoire consists of assembling field greens. Twenty five people with mouths full of pie suggested a vast right wing conspiracy.

After pie throwing came New Years’ Eve (O’er the fields we go, eating all the way) and more gluttony. Should old intentions be forgot and never brought to mind? Just how many Tums can a person take without calcifying? 10? 9? 8? 7?

Happy New Year! Let’s drink a cup of Maalox please and sing of Auld Lang Syne.

Bonnie and I resolved just about the same thing everyone else in town resolved: back to
sensible food and drink consumption. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. We hope.
Our vow was strengthened last week as we left an appointment and waited for the elevator. Soon, the wide doors opened to reveal several people already aboard. We stepped in.
As the doors closed, a booming recorded voice warned: “The elevator is now full.”
Now THAT was humiliating.

So its back to the stationery bike and lean cuisine. Of course, here comes Valentine’s Day, followed by our local Chinese New Year buffet, then the Rehoboth Chocolate Festival and let’s face it, I should really have my jaw wired shut. The only Throw Down I should enter is if it’s my fork.

The season of excess is over. Thumpety Thump Thump o’er the bills we go.

Film, FINALLY, at 11

2008-01-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

On one recent Sunday, I didn’t get out of my pajamas until 5 p.m., spending the entire day on the sofa with Bonnie, the dogs, the TV remote and a staggering assortment of junk food.

Sadly, immediately following Face the Nation, the television offerings turned into a wasteland. Between Pet Stars ("Let’s welcome Hoagie the ping-pong playing pooch!") and Shear Genius (Hairdressers, rev your blow dryers!) Sunday viewing is not fit for (wo)man nor beast.

Sometimes it’s not fit for man and beast—like the game show where contestants drop a ferret down their pants to clock how long they can keep the thing from crawling out their cuffs. You should see the screaming and clutching of clothing. By the ferret. Hey, big boy, is that a ferret in your pocket or are you glad to…. I could not possibly have made this show up.

In the midst of this ferret commotion my TV crashed. My 17-year old TV.
The screen erupted into squiggles and an ear-splitting static attack. I put down the cheese doodles, unfolded myself from the sofa, the dogs and my mate, marched over to the set and gave it a whack. Everything returned to normal, or as normal as it can be when you are watching a man with a ferret squirming in his trousers.

The TV melted down again three times later in the day and by then I needed Head-On, apply directly to the forehead.

The inevitable conversation ensued. Do we see about fixing the TV or do we buy a big honkin’ flat screen TV?

For a few minutes, Bonnie and I pretended there were two sides to the argument.

Alrighty, then. The next day we went to buy a television set. We needed a diploma in quantum electronics. Question One: LCD or Plasma? After a 50 minute lecture I still couldn’t tell them apart, except that plasma would bleed my wallet dry. We chose LCD.

Next we had a choice of a set with 1029 interlaced pixels or 720 progressive pixels (I always lean toward the progressive), different aspect ratios, viewing angle specs and something called a bit rate. I bit my lip and stared at the clerk like he had sprouted antennae.

"I want one with a black border," I said, hoping Bonnie could figure out the rest.

In the darkened display theatre we watched seven screens showing copulating moths while Bonnie listened to the salesperson drone on about color temperatures and video dithering. Or, in the vernacular, has something to do with us dithering around at Sony trying to keep our heads from exploding.

(Head-On, apply directly to the forehead).

I awoke from my tech coma to ask, "Do we just take one of these home and plug it in like a regular TV?"

"Just like a regular TV," said the adolescent clerk.

For the finale we had to deal with the size question. Did we size queens want a 32-inch or 40-inch flat screen LCD? Standing in the 8,000 square foot store, we were pretty certain the puny 32-inch was way too small.

Our first clue should have been the trouble the Sony kids had getting the box into the car. Second, was the compulsory gymnastics routine we executed getting the appliance in the front door. But we dragged it in, perched it where old reliable Mr. 27-inch (don’t go there) once stood and screamed.

TV, where you taking that living room? Let’s just say it looked like the Multiplex big screen landed in the confines, and I mean confines, of my little teeny house. Aesthetically speaking, it was the TV that ate the room.

Recognizing my decorating dilemma Bonnie sensibly said, "Well, let’s sit down and watch something and then decide."

Righteeo. The thing had a gazillion inputs and outputs and peepholes and plug-ins. I wanted to stick the little Sony clerk into one of them. I’d never seen so many cables. An hour later Bonnie had enabled picture and sound simultaneously and we sat down to watch Anderson Cooper because by this time it was very late.

God, you could see each strand of his gorgeous silver hair and determine what color Max Factor foundation he’d used on his baby face. I should have been listening to news about the Iowa Caucus and all I could think about was whether Anderson should have had that lower front tooth capped. His mother could afford it.

Omigod, political reporter Candy Crowley had an enormous high definition zit on her chin. Next, on Law and Order they were checking the blood spatter patterns in my entire living room.
I LOVED the big screen picture. But how could I have a TV bigger than my cocktail table?

Did we go back for the measly 32-inch screen? No. For once in my life I chose function over form. Seeing a Dodge Durango commercial with wide-screen mountains, streams and sky, there was no contest. So what if my living room looks like an I-Max.

Now I can’t wait for Sunday to see those giant ferrets in humongous trousers. Head-On, apply directly to the MasterCard.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T17:12:00.000-05:00

Just dropping by today to wish you all well for 2008.

I'm taking a break from the CNN candidate marathon from Iowa. Not a single talking head all day and I got to hear from all of the candidates themselves. THIS is what television should be bringing us rather than the pundits with their restless mouth syndrome.

My mate and I were home to watch the ball drop, having been to 5 parties in four days. We were supposed to go to a huge dance here in Rehoboth with 300 women. It's always fabulous fun but last night, for the first time in 25 New Years' Eves we decided just to stay home by ourselves, Schnauzers in laps, to ring in 2008.

We'd attended a brunch on Sunday, where Mimosas were served at noon and the hosts didn't bring out the food until 3:15 pm. Amid the constant flow of champagne and orange juice, we spent the day pretty looped - enough to get me to agree to go see Johnny Depp in Sweeny Todd after the brunch/dinner.

As an Angela Lansbury worshipper and a Sondheim fan ( here comes the lesbian show queen in me), the film was a whole 'nuther animal - not at all the haunting but hilarious tale of the murderous barber of Fleet Street that we saw on stage. But the film was great in its own way. I missed Angela's humor and Helena couldn't sing, but she and Depp were brilliant. The entire film took your breath away, and sometimes your lunch. The blood and gore set a new record - and thankfully it was pretty obvious when to close your eyes.

When it's time for the Oscars, the sound editors should be hailed because the gurgles and splurts of blood and guts made eyesight immaterial.

Amazingly, I did not have a hangover from the bottle and a half of Moet et Chandon I consumed prior to the movie. Sadly though, I had a world class case of gastric reflux from the orange juice. It's a bitch getting old.

So we were home celebrating by ourselves last night and I am glad we are finally in the year that we will see the Bush team vacate the White House. We've got a lot of work to do....I'm up for it. Are you?

Happy New Year from fabulous Rehoboth Beach.

Holiday Cheer

2007-12-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

Friends –
Happy Holidays from the Jacobs-Quesenberry household. This year, the transmission died on the station wagon, Bonnie’s knee buckled on the golf course and she rolled into a sand trap, Moxie ate a dead bird and threw up all over the carpet, Paddy pooped on the boardwalk embarrassing us all and Fay got four rejection letters from major publishing companies, one of which told her not to quit her day job. Best wishes for 2008.

But seriously, it’s been an interesting year for the four of us. Five, if you count our adoptee Eric.

We’re delighted to report that in August Bonnie finished her conversion studies, got quizzed by the three rabbis and she is now a full-fledged Jew. Her matzoh balls are better than ever. People have been overheard saying “Isn’t that nice that she did this for Fay.” Fay had absolutely nothing to do with it. Bonnie discovered she related to the Jewish religion and now Fay is learning about her own religion thanks to her spouse. Go figure.

Fay’s second book Fried & True – Tales from Rehoboth Beach was published by A&M Books and is selling better than we dared imagine. We don’t know who those people are who buy the books on Amazon.com but to them we say “thank you.” We get lovely letters and e-mails from all around the country.

Eric graduated from Fay’s Alma Mater American University this year with his Masters in Organizational Development. He got a big promotion at his corporate job, where he deals with diversity training – and we’re glad he’s out there in the world working for equality for all.

The Schnauzers are just fine in their middle age, sleeping more and running around less – but then who isn’t.

Our golf obsession continues. Bonnie is improving greatly. Fay hasn’t clobbered anyone yet with her wicked slice but her career is young. Happily, Foot Joy makes a whole line of women’s golf gear so that everything Fay wears, from socks to hats to golf jackets is embroidered with her initials at no extra cost.

Right now we’re busily navigating the holiday season here at the beach, planning for book signings in New Orleans and P-Town this coming spring and enjoying our wonderful community of friends. We wish you a happy, exceedingly healthy and joyous New Year 2008 - and a Democrat in the White House in January 2009...
Cheers,
Fay & Bonnie

Progress or titilation?

2007-12-04T11:31:00.002-05:00

On AOL this morning I see a quiz about the best marriages in Hollywood. While the question seems somewhat oxymoronic, it gives some example of several purportedly fine marriages (but who knows what really goes on while cooking, packing, car travel or sharing the TV remote, when trouble can easily erupt) .
Along with Will & Jada or Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, AOL selected Ellen & Portia. Wow. I don't know how healthy their marriage is, and I really don't care, but it was great to see them listed, without an asterisk or other clarification under the heading of marriage.
This kind of thing is happening more and more lately. Often, the home improvement shows re-do kitchens, unclutter closets (no pun intended) or give same-sex homeowners and their abodes curb appeal. It goes without saying that the gals usually need waaay more help on the decorating side than the guys, and the DIY crews have fun teaching the guys to use power tools.
But it's a the complete absence of any notation that this is an alternative household that gives me hope.
It happened on The Amazing Race this season, with two middle-aged lesbian ministers. They were very nice, didn't cause hate and discontent, did not possess irrational competitiveness and subsequently were eliminated pretty fast - but it was nice having them included, again, without any special spotlight.
The politicians on the right may still be blathering, but if they aren't careful they may be the only ones left that don't consider same-sex marriage anything but ho-hum...
Please let that happen.....

Tune in for the Fry Babies

2007-11-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

Since it's nearing the end of 2007 (where the hell DOES the time fly to?) I feel it’s fitting to reflect on the year with some awards. Heck, everybody else does it. Whoopi and Hugh Jackman are booked so I’m presenting my awards myself. I promise to change t-shirts at least three times. The awards, in keeping with my literary theme, are the Fry Babies, for the things that got me frying in 2007.

Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve cut the tacky opening production number (which had the cast of Hairspray singing and dancing “Come Fry with Me,”) so we can get right down to business.

The envelopes, please:

The Best Tap Dance Award goes to Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, for his airport bathroom production number, playing footsie with a cop and proving, once again, that the most rabid anti-gay legislators are often found cowering in the closet but having sex in public. And Larry, you got additional points for suggesting that your foot wandered into the next stall so you could retrieve a fallen piece of toilet paper. That’s just disgusting. Go wash your hands and wash your mouth out while you are at it. I don’t know where it’s been, but I can imagine.

Similarly, the Do As I Say, Not as I Do Award goes to the dishonorable GOP Senator David Vitter for admitting he patronized DC area prostitutes as well as working girls in his home district down South. As another legislator who regularly rants against gay marriage, methinks he’s the one who is single-handedly (who knows, he may have used two hands) defiling the sanctity of marriage.

The J. Edgar Hoover Red Dress Award goes to Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani who has disavowed all support for his gay friends and their equal rights. I guess he’s forgotten just how many unattractive photos of himself in drag have been printed in New York newspapers over the years. Now I’m not intimating that Rudy is, in any way, gay. Only a straight man could enrage two ex-wives with his serial divorce antics. (Oh, wait, I’m forgetting about New Jersey’s ex-Governor McGreevy…) Well, Rudy ain’t gay. But he sure loves to play dress up.

The Three Ring Circus Award for Homeland Security to Ft. Lauderdale Airport staff for cleariing a man through security and onto an airplane with a monkey smuggled under his hat. The flight attendant discovered the Marmaset sitting on the back of a seat when she came through to offer it a complementary beverage.The security folks must have been busy looking for Republicans tap dancing in the bathrooms.The Things Go Better with Coke Award to Lindsay Lohan, representing all the starlets who are trashing their reputations and blowing through their careers (no pun intended) when other deserving actors who would value their reputations don’t get a shot. Just because she starred in Herbie Fully Loaded doesn’t mean she has to walk around that way. The woman actually entered rehab as a PR stunt. Didn’t she get the Anna Nicole memo?

The It Would Be Funny if It Didn’t Hurt So Much Award goes to President Bush and the Culture of Corruptions (great name for a boy band). They block kids health care, help the insurance lobby provide us with crappy private coverage, then decry the evils of Socialized Medicine- all while enjoying free, government-provided doctors appointments and trips to the government pharmacy for free Viagra. (see first two awards). If that’s not a well-functioning system of socialized medicine I’m the uncle of that monkey who boarded the plane in Florida.

The New Orleans Gumbo Dumbo Award to FEMA for staging a fake news conference about the California fires and asking fluffball questions like “Is FEMA doing a heckuva job here or what!?” Their own staff asked glowing questions and gave glowing answers in a post-apocalyptic FEMA attempt at looking competent in an emergency. We want Brownie back…..

And finally, the Give Me a Reason it’s not Treason Award (also known as the Go Take a Leak Award) goes to Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. All smarmy obfuscation tactics aside, Mr. Libby, as fall-guy for Rove, Cheney etal actually aided and abeted the enemy by outing Plame, and puttiing other operatives lives in danger. For Homeland Security? No…Politics, for frying outloud! Why aren't they all in jail?

We’re out of time folks, so we won’t do our finale – Marie Osmond singing Fry Me to the Moon. See you right here next year.

Ring them Bells, we're in Dubrovnik!

2007-10-16T08:59:00.000-04:00

By Faz Jacobs (really)
We’re back from two weeks in Eastern Europe, visiting five countries, most of which used to be Yugoslavia. We started in Zagreb, Croatia, meeting thirty other tour members. Day One, a tall gray-haired fella saw Bonnie’s Provincetown sweatshirt, pointed at the writing and said, “That’s where all the queers go.”

Toto, we’re not in Rehoboth anymore. I quickly turned away.

Bonnie handled it beautifully. “I know,” she said, smiling, “I’m one and that’s why I go there.” She proceeded to tell him and his stunned wife our life story as we played tourist.

My first note home, from a back street internet café in Zagreb tells it well:
Here in Zagreb (and that was hard to write as the Z is where the Y should be on this computer keyboard). Fabulous old city (had to erase a z there) with Austrian-Hungarian architecture, bronze statues, squares, parks, open markets with meat, cheese and vegetable vendors, lots of outdoor dining, great beer, friendlz (damn) people. We are in a glorious old hotel, where the Orient Express used to stop. Streetcars everywhere, zoung (ugh) people in great clothes, and perfect weather. Mostlz (shit) the buildings are 19th centurz (you know what I mean).Off to cocktails on a terrace overlooking the main square and a Schnitzel dinner.Pivo! (thats the onlz word I know in Croatian and it means beer.)Faz...er…Fay

Next stop Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina (one country, two names). I knew it as a glorious Olympic City, ruined by the 1991-1995 war. The Eastern Orthodox Serbs fought the Roman Catholic CroATs (just some pronunciation help there), and then everybody turned on the Muslims. We drove past horribly pock-marked buildings, abandoned homes without roofs and miles of rubble. The conflict ended a dozen years ago and much is still a mess. There are great signs of revival, but not enough to keep you from shaking your head and despairing over f-ing religious wars.

Bonnie’s grey-haired crony Dave, kept trying to be friends, introducing us to other folks on the tour, trying to make up for his opening gaffe. We began to feel like his pet lesbians.

Next up, the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, which means, for all you show queens, a quick chorus of Liza’s “Ring Them Bells”…like Liza, we found the Balkans a ball. Dubrovnik is a medieval walled city, high above the Adriatic, with breathtaking scenery, white buildings and red tile roofs, pounding surf, people still living within the walled area and another contemporary city bustling just over the drawbridge outside. Within old Dubrovnik we saw elegant churches, statues, historic public buildings, coffee houses, restaurants and, well, of course, Polo, Benetton, etc.
Dubrovnik was shelled mercilessly in the 1990s but much has been repaired, re-sculpted and renovated...simply beautiful.

Next up, a day trip to the Republic of Montenegro, the world’s newest country (unless one cropped up last night in Africa), having seceded from Bosnia only recently. There, we toured the Bay of Kotor, a fiord with a deep bay surrounded by almost vertical granite mountain walls – a stunning sight. So too, was the walled city of Kotor. Historic buildings, skinny streets, outdoor dining, great pizza.

Traveling to the gorgeous seaside town of Split (back in Croatia again) we came face to face with the Communist legacy. Young people, in designer clothes and glasses all seemed hip to the art of business and tourism, welcoming us and being helpful. Sadly, their commie era elders haven’t adapted. The perfectly located hotel had utilitarian, politburo ambiance and a surly staff grunting at requests, serving expensive cocktails and resenting having to hand over one ice cube and a thimble of liquor. The dinner entrée seemed made of the shoe leather Nikita Khruschev used in the 1950s to bang on the table at the U.N.

But we had a great balcony to see the sea. Turned out we were directly over the Petrol station and woke up smelling like, all together now, diesel dykes.

But steps away, inside the walled city of Split we saw amazing Roman ruins, and spent time overlooking the sea, sailboats, cruise ships and amazing mountains. My gaydar was down or else there just weren’t any discernible lesbians in Croatia.

Driving North on the coast that sound we heard was the dollar falling again against the Euro. It sunk to an historic low for the third day running but luckily we were still on Croatian kunas. In addition to computer keyboards transposing Y & Z, Croatian money transposes our decimal points and commas. 22,000 equals twenty two kunas (dollars) and 22.000 is something else entirely, leaving terrible room for souvenir purchase blunders.

I wouldn’t say the food in that part of Croatia was awful, but either you had pork Schnitzel and boiled potatoes or pork Schnitzel and boiled potatoes Excellent pivo, though.

By this time, we’d been in so many hotels, I got up in the middle of the night, feeling my way to the bathroom and couldn’t find the commode. It was like playing pin the tail on the donkey only it was put the tail on the toilet. I think I peed in the bidet.

Ah, Venice. A water taxi took our group to our hotel on the Grand Canal. Venice is much more of a living city than I imagined, with narrow pedestrian streets and boat-filled canals. I’d always pictured the romantic classical buildings and crooning gondoliers. I didn’t picture the advertising posters, motor boats carrying linens, beer and cucumbers and the sheer number of people – residents and tourists on the streets. Venice is famously sinking and I think it is from the volume of tourists.

On our last day, Bonnie stopped big Dave, saying she hoped that the Q word was banished from his vocabulary. He thanked her for not getting in his face about it and helping him not to be embarrassed. In fact, he thanked her for saving the trip for him after his big goof. They bonded.

Our water taxi came early and we were off, racing through Venice Bay to the airport.
We adored the trip. But I’m having something other than schnitzel tonight. And I’m glad to have my own my computer back. I was beginning to think of myself as Faz. But I could use a nice cold pivo.

Culture Club

2007-09-11T17:27:00.000-04:00

This week (or maybe last week by now) we have (had) an incredible opportunity. The Advocate magazine published its 40th Anniversary edition, and on the cover was a photo collage of 40 of the most influential gay rights activists of all time.

You should get a copy of the issue and see if you can put names to all the faces. I say that, because I’m worried about losing our gay culture.

Do you agree that Gay is a culture? Just host a dinner party with seven gay people and a straight man or woman. It’s a good bet that dozens of the evening’s references, not in serious gay rights discussion, but casual conversation will buzz right over his or her head.

Not to say that inviting your straight friends to dinner is a faux pas. On the contrary. I wouldn’t want to live in a ghetto, would you? That’s why I love living in Rehoboth, with its diversity -and by this I mean a vibrant straight community along with us homos.

It’s just that words or phrases like Stonewall, show queen, “of course she bought a Subaru,” and the ubiquitous “Did she bring a U-Haul on her second date?” are all in our lexicon and consciousness. It’s our culture.

Judy Garland, Daughters of Bilitis, HRC, Billie Jean King, Rubyfruit Jungle, Drag Kings, Harvey Milk, P-Town. Our history, our heroes, our catch-phrases, our culture. And I’m worried.

Exactly a decade ago writer Daniel Harris wrote The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, a terrific discussion of those secret signals and shared sensibilities that allowed an underground gay society to flourish even as the larger population despised and discriminated against it.
The very act of showing up at a Judy Garland concert and seeing other gay men around the room, all sharing the vulnerability of Judy’s music together made the denigrated community feel less alone.

But even a decade ago, Harris worried that assimilation and acceptance of homosexuals by society at large would cause our gay culture to disappear. It’s the very same concern that different ethnicities, immigrants and religious sects have as they meet the great American, and now great global melting pot.

But it seems to me that gay people often don’t recognize gay as a culture. They do, of course, appreciate all the hard work that has gone into the fight for gay rights in order to make their lives better. We’re not ingrates. But I’m not sure they see our heroes, safe havens and that elusive quality called “the gay sensibility” as something to learn about and celebrate. And I think that’s a shame.

I was fascinated to learn that Bayard Rustin, an African-American gay man was the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington with the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King. He was drummed from the activist ranks because of his sexuality. I was captivated by the tale of Harvey Milk’s rise to the title of Mayor of Castro Street, and I was mersmerized learning how Lillian Faderman rose from indigent sex worker to revered professor of lesbian studies and continues to be an influential writer today.

Our schools teach Americans about Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross and American social history – the rise of the railroads, the Gold Rush, the McCarthy Era.

Except for some gay studies courses, Gay people have to learn our history and culture on our own. Pick up a copy of the 40th Anniversary Advocate and test your GBLT- IQ. And if you can't name them all, you'll learn a lot on the inside pages. Enjoy!

Hypocrisy R Republicans

2007-08-29T08:27:00.000-04:00

I just spent all morning watching CNN, MSNBC and all the other talking heads uncover the latest Conservative Republican sex scandal and I am mad as hell and (to paraphrase the old movie Network) I’m not going to take it anymore!!! And you shouldn’t either.

It’s time the cadre of anti-gay, “family-values” Republicans were branded for what they are. Let’s get a hot poker and brand their holier-than-thou asses with a giant H for hypocrisy.

The latest is a corker. Rep. Craig from Idaho pled guilty to approaching an undercover cop for sex in an airport men’s room. Apparently there have been rumors that Craig is gay for years, but that certainly didn’t stop him from pontificating against gay marriage, voting against hate-crimes and employment protection and otherwise shouting about those darling family values his party loves to hawk.

He says “ I am not gay, I have never been gay.” Define gay. If wanting sex with a man isn’t gay (or at least bisexual) what is? Does he mean he’s not a gay man if he doesn’t have gay-rights bumper stickers on his car, a to-die-for apartment and a long-term gay relationship? Or does he mean he’s not gay because he only asked for sex but didn’t get it? How much is enough already?

Is it enough when Family Values Senator Vitter gets caught with a prostitute on speed dial?

Is it enough when Family Values Congressman Mark Foley gets caught sending vastly inappropriate Instant Messages to underage boys?

Is it enough when a pro-life politician drives his daughter to town for an abortion. Don’t get excited. We haven’t found one of those yet, but you know it happens. I want Larry Flynt and Hustler to advertise for word of that kind of hypocrisy.

Do I think Democrats are angels with wings? Of course not. But they are mostly saavy enough not to preach one thing and do another. The bad boys (and probably girls, too) on the liberal side of the aisle know better than to grandstand with one hand while, um, doing something else with the other.

The terrorists have won...

2007-08-22T16:17:00.000-04:00

They have ruined air travel. My step-mom Joan left my father home with the Yankees last week to visit Rehoboth. Since we didn’t want Joan driving alone, we suggested a flight from White Plains, NY to Philadelphia, where we’d retrieve her. I’d taken the round trip in reverse last June and apparently there was a glitch in the system because both flights were on time and without incident.

But when leaving N.Y., Joan endured a one hour flight that was more than three hours late because there was weather somewhere in the continental United States in the last 36 hours.
On Monday, after a wonderful weekend, Joan and I headed back to the airport. Leaving the car in Short Term Parking , we figured I might not make it back for “first half hour $4” but I’d certainly be there before an hour cost me 8 bucks.

We crossed from the parking lot to the departure area to discover we were at U.S. Air Terminal B and not U.S. Air Express, Terminal F. However, a woman behind the ticket counter, said “You can take a bus to your terminal, but check your suitcase here.” How nice.

I was heaving the bag onto the scale when another, quite frantic employee rushed at us whispering “NO! Don’t do it! We’re having baggage issues!” We snatched the bag back from certain doom and schlepped it with us toward the shuttle to Terminal F.

Damn that ride was long. Do they stop in White Plains? It finally delivered us to the very last door in the entire six-terminal airport, 5-K from Short Term Parking. A few more yards and we would have been on the expressway to the Liberty Bell.
In the right place at last, we stared at the Departure screen, found the flight number and saw the throbbing words CANCELLED. CANCELLED. It seemed so, well, final. Joan and I exchanged helpless glances and headed for the ticketing desk.

“Our flight’s been cancelled, what now?” I asked.
“Wait,” the agent said, dismissively
“How long?” I questioned.
“Until we can get you on another flight. Looks like 4:30,” he responded, head down as if we’d been vaporized.

This time I did check the luggage but looked to see if another employee would throw herself in front of the scale to stop me from disaster. No crisis worker intervened.
“Can I ask why the flight was cancelled?” I inquired.
“Operational Decision.”
They decided not to operate? Granted, there can’t be throngs of people anxious to suffer modern day air travel for a measly one hour flight, so they probably cancelled from lack of masochists.

Joan, having stood by demurely and quietly this whole time, addressed the agent. “Aren’t you even sorry?” Way to go, Joan. The pompous, patronizing ticketing agent in this, the City of Brotherly Love, stammered some kind of answer as we turned heel on the heel and left. On our exit we spied a bank of “Courtesy Phones.” I bet not.

That the next flight was five hours away was awful enough, but thanks to any number of terrorist networks our airports are now hermetically sealed. No one without a boarding pass can enter any part of the airport where they dispense books, souvenirs, food or, as was becoming increasingly attractive, something to drink.

“Let’s take that shuttle back to the Marriott at Terminal A,” I suggested. We stood at the curb as three busses whooshed by without stopping. The shuttle only goes one way. Getting from F to A is not their problem.

So we hiked the U.S. Air Express 5-K. Did I tell you it was ninety degrees out? As it happens, every terminal had wall-mounted Automatic External Defibrillators, just in case. Airport humor.
Spending a few extra hours together with adult beverages was a lovely gift, but it galled us to realize we could be approaching New York’s skyline now if we’d just kept driving. After a deliberately leisurely lunch, we shuttled back to effing Terminal F where Joan opted to go through security to the gate so she could finish a book and I could get home. First, she had to creep barefoot through the line to be searched and treated like a woman with explosives in her shampoo.

Concurrently, I dragged myself back to Terminal A and short term parking, where I had been for the long term. The vehicle ransom was more than dinner at the Marriott. And then it was rush hour. I was still an hour out when I realized I could have been to New York, had a knish, and been back by this time.

Hey, Joan’s plane didn’t leave Philly until after 5 o’clock and she arrived in New York to discover that – ta da! - her luggage didn’t. I wish I’d had money on that.

This is air travel 2007, brought to you by a merger of Corporate America and Jihad terrorists: F.U. Inc. Together they’ve turned Fly the Friendly Skies to Apocalypse Now. Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy time.

Bye Bye, Merv

2007-08-12T17:10:00.000-04:00

Mervallous Merv. I liked him. His show was the American Idol of its day, spotlighting up and coming performers. My friend Mary Susan, a wonderful singer, who never made it big and should have, had a spot on Merv in the 60s....

As to the rumors that Merv was family, I think its interesting to note his participation as one of the pallbearers for Reagan's funeral and his best friendship with Nancy.

How could Mr. Publicly anti-gay Ronnie have such respect and affection for a homo? Or even a bi-sexual? How could such a famous gay man be a staunch Republican? Crap. It happens all the time. I don't get it. I guess Merv didn't flaunt.

Sometimes I think that hatred I can deal with by labeling the haters as ignorant. Hypocrisy on the other hand is a despicable condition, having no saving grace at all. Bye Merv. I wish you had spoken up. And even donated some of your millions and millions to the cause....

Those Dems

2007-08-11T08:29:00.000-04:00

Good morning. Did you see the Logo network HRC debate with the dems on Thursday night?
With the exception of Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich (altho I love his abject liberalism), the major candidates acquited themselves wonderfully. Richardson got his tongue caught in his teeth about gay issues several times and did himself no favors, but Obama, Edwards and Clinton gave me hope that there will be equality in my lifetime...John Edwards even bashed Ann Coulter, which is always a good time.

I'm sitting out the primary....I love them all. Saving my money and energy for the general.....although I might have to step into the fray on this blog in order to spew about the other side....I'm with Obama, calling for an end to the politics hate....but if they fire first, my mouth is loaded and ready.....

All the news that gives you fits

2007-08-09T09:16:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's "news"
Man gets on plane with monkey under his hat
Woman has pencil removed from head after 55 years.

Does anyone know what's going on in Afganistan or Washington, DC?
Just asking....

Meanwhile, it's literally 100 degrees here today and I had to cancel my tee time because I am not, after all, entirely crazy. Have your heard what kind of a golfer I am? I'll fill you in...starting with my inauspicious start, two seasons ago...

**********************
What Fore!

I’m on a quest to find my inner dyke. In contrast to my long-standing and well-deserved reputation as a non-athletic, non-mechanical, non-outdoorsy brand of lesbian, I am tackling some of my demons. If I suspected I’d live to 114, I’d call it a midlife crisis: Golf.

In the cupboard of dykedom, golf is a staple. And with our local league starting for the season, if I wanted to see my friends it would have to be on the fairway. If only I could get that far.

Day One – I met Bonnie and a golfer friend Barb at the driving range. Immediately, I broke a strict golf tenet. I parked in the nearest spot I found. “Nooo!” Bonnie hollered, noting that my car was dangerously close to the 9th hole and therefore a candidate for boinking with golf balls the size of hail. I moved the car.

Next, I purchased the storied bucket ’o balls and strode up to the driving range tee for a lesson in swinging the club ( “Practice like an elephant swinging its trunk.”). So I stood there in full view of Route One swinging my arms for a while like Babar and fighting the urge to make circus sounds. Then I moved on to aiming for the ball on the tee. Whack. Nice for bocce ball.

From what was, for me, the dribbling range, we proceeded to the Par 3 course. As explained to me, Par 3 meant that I had three chances to humiliate myself before I was technically worse than the median average.

As a wordsmith I was struck by the contradiction in the term par. Why was below par on the course a good thing and feeling below par after a night of Cosmopolitans a bad thing? Conversely, being above par has always meant better than average to me, so why, when I hit the ball 8 times before it reached the green was that not, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. You see my point?

Day Two: On my way to the driving range, I stopped at our local golf store, because much like the White House Press Corps and Congressional Democrats, I needed balls. What’s more, here was a whole shopping experience I’d never discovered. Golf shirts, golf shoes, wind pants, gadgets, fuzzy animal golf club covers – I was overwhelmed. Bonnie managed to get me out of the store with a dozen pink golf balls, a copy of Golf for Dummies, and a rubber suction cup for the end of my putter so she wouldn’t have to hear me groan and perhaps fart when I reached down to the cup to retrieve my ball.

Day Three – Dressed like Nanook of the North and trying to remain upright against a 30pmh wind in the parking lot of the Golf Course I wished I’d bought those wind pants. Barb and her partner Evie showed up with snazzy wind wear and a special clear plastic golf cart cover with zip up windows. It looked like Oklahoma’s “Surry with the Fringe on Top- “with isenglas curtains you can roll right down, in case there’s a change in the weather.”

A change in the weather I get. When it starts out this way, I question the point of going. But off we went, clad like Abominable Snow-women, blowin’ in the wind.

Despite the gale force gusts, or perhaps because of them, I marched steadily forward on the course, 20 yards or so at a time. Then, occasionally 30-40 yards. One time the wind caught my ball and accidentally tossed it onto the green, where, to my delight, I soon sank a putt.

My self-congratulatory phase ended when I realized that the next hole was three football fields away, around a corner and past the 7-11. And it was getting colder out. Say, do those little knitted golf ball covers double as hats?

Day Four: My insecurities reared their little golf club covered heads with flashbacks of my being the last one picked for sixth grade softball. But this is not like softball, basketball or volleyball where a klutz like me is never invited on the team. In our golf league, all levels of players need apply- in fact, it’s encouraged. So while that provided some comfort, I still had the pre-tee-off heebie jeebies. I may have had a dozen pink Crystals, but did I have the balls to do this?

League Day: I arrived at the course to find a gaggle of golfers ready to set out and golf carts lined up nose to bumper like a Disney World tram. Off we went. It was sunny and windy, the course looked beautiful, and I hesitantly stepped up to the tee for my first shot. Amazingly, the ball went up in the air for a short distance.

Since we were playing “best ball” I didn’t have to struggle to keep up. Everybody just used the site of the ball that traveled the farthest for the next shot. It was actually fun. And once or twice, the quartet was reduced to using my ball –while theirs had traveled way farther, they had suffered unfortunate landings in bodies of water.

One time, I whacked a shot towards the rough and when it landed, three bunnies came flying out of the woods as if I’d rudely interrupted naptime. Me, communing with nature! Our foursome laughed, talked, and scooted along the fairway, leaning out of the carts to retrieve balls like polo players leaning from their horses. I received lots of good advice.

Overall, I made a bunch of crappy shots, dug up an unfortunate amount of turf, and routinely whiffed the air instead of the ball. One, I got a Rider....a shot that went far enough for me to ride to retrieve it in the golf cart.

It goes without saying that back at the Clubhouse I was good at beer, camaraderie and post-game round-up. At that part of the sport I am above par, meaning good. Or would that be below par, meaning good? I really need an answer on this.

And, prior to next week’s League night I intend to practice a little at the driving range and try to find some fuzzy Schnauzer golf club hats. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

Happy/Sad...

2007-08-08T10:53:00.000-04:00

It's a weird day, kids.

On one hand, I just received a lovely review for Fried & True from the online GLBT literary newsletter Just About Write.

On the other hand, a dear friend of mine passed away last night (expected, but still a kick in the gut) and I'm very, very sad.

It just reinforces my WORK HARD/PLAY HARD philosophy and is one more reason why I'm happy we just up and moved to the beach!

Here's my latest babbling for LETTERS...
I should live so long….

So, how do you feel today? I felt pretty good until I got my hands on some advice to extend my life.
Let me put forth a disclaimer here: I believe in traditional Western medicine, but I am also open to, although I haven’t experienced much, of what folks call alternative therapies. From trigger point massage to acupuncture, natural remedies to yoga, I believe there are some great ideas and great practitioners around. And I mean absolutely no offense with the following.,..but….

Auuughhhhh!!!!!! I have just had the living poop scared out of me by a magazine purported to represent life extending alternative medicine therapies, regimens, drugs, machines and pills the size of bagels.

I sit down to warn you about this stuff just after I tried to swallow something that promised to extend my life. By the time I got finished choking the thing down, chasing it with water, then tomato juice, then a slice of cheesecake (it was the only edible in the fridge), I’d used up twenty minutes of my life and clotted my arteries sufficiently to take two months off my existence at the other end.

This all started when I picked up a magazine we will call Live Longer Than Most People. That’s not the name, but I don’t want litigation. Purportedly, this magazine features alternative meds and natural remedies to fix everything you can possibly die from, now or in the future.

In ten minutes I learned that I have to improve the endothelial function in my arteries, better absorb Bio CoQ10 for anti-aging, take Mitochondrial Energy Optimizer, eat pomegranate supplements, use Theanine to calm my nerves, avoid the wrong form of Vitamin E (of course, I’m taking that one) , swallow more butter extract, and keep from microwaving myself with my TV or cell phone. And I was just on page 32 of 94, not including the Buyers Club pages in the back.

The thing is, each article makes sure you know what kind of unhealthy pharmaceutical company drug is bad for you and tells you exactly which of their house brands of natural remedies MUST take its place or you are toast. The hell with Valium, Lipitor and soap & water. You have to use Reversatrol, Sesame Lignans and Olive Fruit Extract. I already get plenty of olive fruit extract from martinis.

If you take even a small portion of their advice, you’d be in the bathroom every morning swallowing pills until lunchtime. I could live twice as long but spend months at a time gulping down handfuls of anti-mutagenic pills the size of major league baseballs. If I have to live like this I want my life to be shorter than most people.

Then there was the cautionary article “Single Fast Food Meal Increases Blood Pressure.” It should have been followed by “Single reading of this magazine monumentally increases blood pressure.”

And how ‘bout those new machines you need. Blood testers, capsule filler machines, Dr. Fung’s Tongue cleaners (ick), pill grinders, and a Gauss Meter to detect radiation from my phone, photocopier and (omigod) my computer. Hell, I should be dead by now.

Did you know that premature labor is associated with gum disease? At least I don’t have to worry about that. Of course, I could get a whole bunch of other ugly maladies if I don’t use LiveLongerThanMostPeople Toothpaste.

The magazine recommends several diets as well, with the hallmark of all of them starving yourself to death. Try the Ultra Low Calorie Diet – basically, not eating. My idea of ultra low calorie is pizza without pepperoni. The UltraSimple Diet advocates getting rid of extra body fluid. I get rid of extra body fluid every time I guzzle Yingling Lagers.

By the time I got to the back of the book I discovered that readers are invited on a special Live Longer Than Most People Cruise. Along with a trip to the tropics, there will be anti-aging lectures, Live Longer Than Most People gift baskets, and “insider secrets to significantly extend your life span.” Wow, imagine the midnight buffet, with all-you-can-swallow capsules, bark roots and Pomegranate Oils. Nightly in the lounge, Miracle Cures trivia! Excursions to Island medicine men!

There’s even a Live Longer Than Most People Credit Card (bet there’s no extra long payment terms) with Merchandise Rewards. Don’t ask. But on just about every page in this magazine there’s a question.
LLTMP Magazine: Are you overdosing on Lipitor?
FJ: In their view, yes.
LLTMP Can you manage stress without drugs?
FJ: Probably not.
LLTMP: Are you swimming in radiation emissions?
FJ: Absolutely.

I can’t decide if I should go to the emergency room or suck down some olive fruit extract. Instead, I’m going to finish the rest of the cheesecake and get my butter extract.

Joining the 21st Century

2007-08-06T08:26:00.000-04:00

Friends-
I've bent to peer pressure and started a blog. As I writer, I guess its my duty. So herewith I will be posting some of my essays, wild musings and generally things that amuse or irritate me.
Feedback always welcome.

A whole lotta ugly from a whole bunch of stupid

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Recently, a controversy has been raging over the new musical film version of the fairly new Broadway musical of the old non-musical film version of Hairspray. Who says America doesn’t recycle?For the vehicle that began as an edgy John Waters movie, then made a huge splash on Broadway and is now at your local multi-plex, its been quite a ride.
But following an opening shot from the Washington Blade , which seeped into the nation’s blogosphere, there has been a dispute between a variety of gay spokespeople, official and otherwise, over the casting of John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in this latest Hairspray. The Blade editor wrote that gays should boycott the movie specifically because Travolta is a Scientologist. Responding, John Waters defended Travolta as a joy to work with, a fantastic actor, and not in any way anti-gay.
(Disclaimer: I think Travolta has done some pretty decent film work, but his connection to Scientology, with their much publicized intolerance toward gay people and prescription medications bothers me and tars and feathers Travolta in my eyes. Then there’s the maybe-he-is-or-maybe-he isn’t-a homo aura to his personal life. But neither the actor’s acting chops, nor his choice to stay in the closet if he is a homo, plays much of a role in my feeling about this particular dispute.)
The Travolta clash morphed from a discussion of whether a Scientologist should play Edna, to a secondary dispute regarding the history of the story and the gender of the actor who has, in the past, been cast as rotund Edna Turnblad. Edna is Rotund Tracy’s mother, and Tracy dances her way into the hearts of 1960s Baltimore and simultaneously manages to integrate the town.
If you are not a Hairspray groupie, in the original John Waters film Edna was played by portly drag queen Divine, who starred in Water’s early, really edgy, well, very edgy, kinda disgusting films. But 1998’s Hairspray introduced Divine (and Rikki Lake as Tracy) to all manner of mainstream households through Water’s very sweet movie. It was funny, had a message, and no one did any of the revolting things they did in the earliest Waters films. (Google Polyester or Pink Flamingoes). One of Waters’ films was called Pecker, and despite its nasty title was a charmer. I adored writing a review with the headline “I loved John Waters’ Pecker.”
Following in Divine’s considerable footsteps came iconic gay actor Harvey Fierstein to play Edna in the Broadway musical Hairspray. He was fat, raspy-voiced and absolutely charming as Edna, with his gay icon pedigree adding to the excitement.
While nothing in the Hairspray script ever says Edna is a drag queen, and nothing is intended to denote any homosexual storyline, the original film and subsequent musical always had an elusive gay sensibility. Although Harvey Fierstein readily admits he was just playing the role of a woman, much as Travolta said he was doing in a recent interview, lots of folks have their knickers in a knot because the casting of Travolta robs the new film of its undocumented and somewhat ethereal gay sensibility.
Originally, because of my admitted prejudice against Mr. Travolta and partially because I didn’t spend much time thinking about the subject, I too, was pissed that Harvey or another out-of-the-closet actor was overlooked for the new Hairspray in favor of the Grease-y Travolta.
Well, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I saw the movie last night and I am still smiling. Travolta is a very sweet, exceptionally funny Edna.
More importantly, whatever gay sensibility was lost to casting is still alive and well everywhere in the film. Yes, the story is about racial prejudice in the 1960s and yes, yes, yes, Tracy scandalizes the town by integrating not only the barely fictitious Corny Collins TV show (Baltimoreans, remember the Buddy Dean Show?) but all of a barely fictitious Baltimore as well. Tracy manages this by socializing with her “African American” friends. I use the quotation marks because in the film, Corny Collins allows those friends to dance on his TV show a once a month for Negro Day.
At the film’s first mention of Negro Day, there was a palpable sense of embarrassment in the theatre. If people didn’t actually suck air, their faces felt hot as they remembered how horribly this country treated African Americans just a short time ago. Of course, I wouldn’t call our nation’s current race relations hunky-dory (or should I say honky-dory?) but at least it’s no longer acceptable to openly discriminate - and the U.S. Government no longer officially codifies prejudice with state-sponsored discrimination against African Americans.
But wait! In exactly the same way as the citizens and government maltreated African Americans in Hairspray (and for real) gays and lesbians are now being maltreated.
Ba-da-bing! This movie has gay sensibility written all over it.
Trust me, the musical is hilariously funny, with great choreography, joyous music, and laugh out-loud comedy schtik. There are awesome performances from the entire cast, including a surprise turn from Michelle Pfeiffer. Attention lesbians: if you swooned over her as she slithered across the grand piano in The Fabulous Baker Boys, her character here is not as alluring!
But apart from the terrific entertainment, the truth is, when I saw a candlelight march on screen, led by Queen Latifah and John Travolta, it was hard not to think, for just a minute, about that San Francisco vigil after Harvey Milk was shot, and the one in Wyoming after Matthew Shepherd died. It reminded me of the marches we have made along Pennsylvania Avenue, chanting for our rights.
Hairspray is about intolerance, and since gays are the current and officially sanctioned piñata for intolerant people, I can only hope for a day when we get our Hairspray moment. I want people in a movie theatre to get queasy, flinching when they hear how inequitably the nation treated gay people back in 2007.
As the inimitable Queen Latifah explains to a white teenager and her black boyfriend, “you’ve got to get ready to face a whole lotta ugly from a whole lotta stupid.”
Well I’m afraid that gays are going to face a lump of ugly from a gang of stupid in the 2008 elections. I’m praying for an enlightened victor. And I hope our wait for equality and tolerance doesn’t take more than half a century.
But in the meantime, let that Saturday night fever overtake you and go see Hairspray. You’ll smile from start to finish, laugh a whole lot and feel good all over when the lights come up.
It’s a great to watch a whole lotta stupid get their just rewards.