Vol. 30, No. 6, March 21 - April 3, 2008

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MARCH 7 - MARCH 20, 2008 Volume XXX, Number 5 W W W. B A L T I M O R E G A Y L I F E. C O M

IN THIS ISSUE PAGE 4

NEW LGBT SOCIAL GROUP GAINS MOMENTUM IN HARFORD COUNTY

PAGE 14

COFFEE WITH COCO: GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS RELEASES “WEBISODES”

PAGE 28

It’s Been A Life JULIE SCHURR AT PORT IN THE STORM ON MARCH 7

Kate Clinton Still Laughing After 25 Years

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WHAT’S INSIDE FEATURE

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PAGE 14

PAGE 27 - MOVIES

Coffee with Coco: Girls Will Be Girls Cast Releases “Webisodes” Interview by Joel Rosado

The Touch:D.C. Independent Film Festival Features Lesbian Short. Interview by Maddy Dwertman

PAGE 36

PAGE 28 - MUSIC

Coffee with Coco: It’s Been A Life: Kate Clinton Still Laughing After 25 Years.

Interview by Maddy Dwertman

Julie Schurr Plays Indierockbitchfolk at Port in the Storm on March 21. Interview by Maddy Dwertman

NEWS

Visit us at www.baltimoregaylife.com

241 W. Chase Street, Baltimore, MD 21201 Phone: 410.837.7748 Fax: 410.837.8889 Email: editor@baltimoregaylife.com Brian Flottemesch President of GLCCB Editor editor@baltimoregaylife.com

Michael Nguyen Art Director art@baltimoregaylife.com

Maddy Dwertman Sales sales@baltimoregaylife.com

National Advertising Rep. Rivendell Media 212-242-6863 CONTRIBUTORS Joel Rosado Maddy Dwertman Garrott Smith Mario Fernandez Gwendolyn Ann Smith Jack Fertig Matt Winer Bill Kelley Rex Wockner Rev. Irene Monroe David Placher Miss Prudence Worthington Leslie Robinson Shayna Robinson

Gay Life is a publication of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore. Gay Life is published every other Friday in Baltimore, Maryland, with distribution throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

Copyrighted 2008. All Rights Reserved. Gay Life is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the expressed written consent of the publisher. Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of Gay Life or its publisher.

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Wicked Jezabel Wins WAMA Award for Best Rock Band

PAGE 31 - PENCIL ME IN

PAGE 4 - LOCAL NEWS

Calendar. By Maddy Dwertman

New LGBT Social Group Gains Momentum in Harford County; Battle Over Transgender Anti-Discrimination Law Continues in Montgomery County; Obituary: Barry John Goodman; Obituary: Richard V. “Dick” Slone. Compiled by Maddy Dwertman

PAGE 32 - THEATER

PAGE 5 - NATIONAL NEWS BRIEFS

PAGE 32 - BOOKS

Activists Picket HRC Dinner; Late Microsoft Employee Leaves $65 Million to Gay Groups; Marriage Constitutional Amendment Dies in Indiana; State Dept. Drops Foreign Service HIV Ban; Obama Supports States’ OK of Same-Sex Marriage; Highlights Differences with Clinton on DOMA; Gays to Confront Signature-Gatherers in Calif. Marriage Battle; California Gays Stage Vigils for Murdered Teen; N.J. Civil Unions are Inadequate, Commission Finds. By Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley.

Books in Brief. By Richard Oloizia

PAGE 8 - INTERNATIONAL NEWS BRIEFS

Spiral Dance Bookstore Seeks to Empower Local Women

Moscow Pride Organizers Again Appeal to Euro Court; Five Gays Run for Legislature in Nepal; Spanish Deputy Prime Minister: I’m Not Gay; Spanish Gays Picket Opposition Party Headquarters; 90 Cops Visit Mexico City Gay Bar; Senegal Police Tear-Gas Anti-Gay Protesters; More Egyptian Men Arrested in HIV Crackdown. By Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley.

PAGE 25 - CENTER PROGRAM HIGHLIGHT

PAGE 17 - NONPROFIT NEWS

PAGE 26 - COMMUNITY CALENDAR

INCrowd International Decks Out First Annual Fundraiser.

By Joel Rosado

PAGE 29 – SERIAL

OPINONS

PAGE 40 – DEAN’S LIST

Stunning at Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company and Major Barbara at Shakespeare Theatre Company Tim Miller Invites Us to Peek into Us. By William J. Mann

HOME PAGE 38 - REAL ESTATE Seven Tips for First-time Homebuyers

COMMUNITY & COLUMNS PAGE 17 - BUSINESS PROFILE

Sufficient As I aM (SAIM): Through All Our Differences, We are All the SAIM. By B Easy-Youngin’

PAGE 25 - MAKE A DIFFERENCE SunTrust’s “My Cause” Promotion. By Joel Rosado

Cereal: The Adventures of Pico Darling. By Shayna Robinson

PAGE 18

A Collegiate Calendar of Events. By Garrott Smith

The Royal Treatment

By Leslie Robinson

PAGE 43 - DO AS I SAY

Desiring the Uninterested

By David Placher

PAGE 44 – QUOTE UNQUOTE

The Good Stuff

By Gwendolyn Ann Smith

PAGE 47 - MARKETPLACE

D-List Parties. By Miss Prudence Worthington

By Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley

Obama is On the ‘Down Low’ with the LGBTQ Community

By Rev. Irene Monroe

FOR FUN

IMHO: Part 1 – To Misha with Love

By Mario Fernandez

PAGE 35 - Q PUZZLE Out, That Is

PAGE 40 - Q SCOPES Clean Out the Kitchen, Aries! By Jack Fertig March 7 - March 20, 2008

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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LOCAL NEWS New LGBT Social Group Gains Momentum in Harford County Tired of making the trek to Baltimore City every time they wanted to socialize with the LGBT community, Calvin Wheatley and a close friend took the initiative to form a new LGBT social group in Harford County. After meeting for the first time on February 2, the Harford Rainbow Society is rapidly gaining momentum among area residents. In just four weeks, the group has received over 110 inquiries with a 20% participation rate. “We have had a huge number of people respond,” said Wheatley, “so it is apparent that the group was sorely needed.”

Harford County is home to many LGBT individuals and couples, but “we still need to tread lightly here,” Wheatley explained. The group plans to rotate its meeting locations so that the safety of participants is not compromised as word about the group spreads. The first meeting took place in Edgewood, the second in Bel Air and its upcoming breakfast event will be held in Port Deposit. Ideally, however, Wheatley would like to find a gayfriendly establishment that would allow the group to meet regularly with some degree of privacy.

Although internet postings have attracted a larger female than male response, Wheatley encourages women to attend upcoming meet and greets, dinners and happy hours because they still represent a small portion of active participants.

Building off of its immediate success, the Harford Rainbow Society has already launched a website and is planning well into the future. Participants can look forward to making friends and having fun at monthly meet and greets, parties, happy hours, movies and even a bus trip to Atlantic City.

OBITUARIES Barry Jon Goodman Barry Jon Goodman died of a heart attack Monday, February 25 at age 44. He had chronic health problems stemming from a battle with cancer when he was in his early twenties.

Services at the Sol Levinson funeral home February 27 turned out a large crowd from across the country.

Born in Baltimore and raised in Pikesville, Goodman earned degrees from Montgomery College in Rockville and from Towson State University. He joined a family business, the Goodman-Gable-Gould Co., in 1985 and represented clients resolving claims with insurance companies after fires and natural disasters. He served on the board of the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters.

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Battle Over Transgender AntiDiscrimination Law Continues in Montgomery County Equality Maryland continues to pour over the more than 32,000 signatures collected by Citizens for a Responsible Government (CRG) in an effort to overturn a transgender rights law in Montgomery County.

In November 2007, the Montgomery County City Council unanimously passed a law prohibiting “discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity.” The law was approved only after the removal of a contentious amendment that also regulated restrooms, dressing rooms and locker rooms.

Designed to guarantee equal protections for transgender individuals, the law was set to go into effect on February 20, but it remains on hold after its opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum.

According to County officials and civil rights organizations, CRG utilized misinformation and scare tactics, convincing many registered vot-

Goodman committed himself to helping others, serving on the Ryan White Consortium Board of Maryland.

He volunteered for over 15 years at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore, where he was a treasurer and an organizer of the Center’s Alcoholics Anonymous group. He worked several nights a week helping others battle substance abuse problems and achieved 22 years of sobriety himself.

Survivors include his partner of 19 years, Jeffrey Hill; his parents, William R. and Alice (Katzenstein) Goodman; a brother, Harvey Goodman; a sister, Laurie Stein; and nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, Barry expressed a desire that his family and friends support the GLCCB. Donations will support the Center's HIV prevention and substance abuse programs.

Donations may be sent to: GLCCB 241 West Chase Street Baltimore, MD 21201

March 7 - March 20, 2008

ers to sign the petition by representing the law as permitting men to use women’s bathrooms.

CRG spokeswoman Michelle Turner claims that their primary objection to the bill is that ““this legislation affects or was written for less than 1 percent of the population, with total disrespect for the safety, well-being and rights of everyone else.” Proponents claim that the group has been misrepresenting both the bill and transgender individuals as a threat to public safety and well-being, the group refuses to acknowledge that in the absence of federal and state legislation, transgender individuals have no recourse when discriminated against.

Equality Maryland has hired an attorney to argue the case that many of the signatures collected by CRG are invalid, and that the law should not be put on the ballot. “If the law goes to referendum,” said Equality Maryland executive director Dan Furmansky, “we intend to work with allied organizations to put together a strong campaign to assure we defend it at the ballot.”

Montgomery County and Baltimore City are the only two jurisdictions in the state that have passed transgender anti-discrimination measures.

The Maryland Commission on Human Relations plans to introduce a state bill again this legislative session after it failed by one vote in the Senate committee last year.

Richard V. "Dick" Slone On February 26, 2008 Richard V. “Dick” Slone passed away at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. Mr. Slone was born on April 18, 1936 and died following a protracted struggle with cancer. On March 18, 1980, he commenced his sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous and sponsored many others in recovery during his 27 years as an active member of the Fellowship. At his request, his remains were cremated.

A Celebration Memorial Service of the Liturgy will be offered on the Saturday following Easter, March 29 at 7:00 p.m., in St. Ignatius Church Chapel of Grace (740 N. Calvert St. @ Madison St., Baltimore, MD 21202). A reception will follow the service.

Arrangements by the family-owned Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, Inc. (410-377-8300).

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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NATIONAL NEWS

BY REX WOCKNER

Activists Picket HRC Dinner

Marriage Constitutional Amendment Dies in Indiana

Some 50 activists, including members of the Radical Homosexual Agenda, picketed the Human Rights Campaign's annual Midtown Manhattan dinner Feb. 23, Gay City News reported.

A move to amend the Indiana Constitution to ban same-sex marriage died in the House of Representatives Feb. 15 when Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, refused to consider the measure in the Rules Committee.

They were upset over HRC's support for a version of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that omits protections for transgender people. The bill has passed the House of Representatives and awaits action in the Senate.

The proposal had passed both houses in 2005 and had passed the Senate a second time this year.

Constitutional amendments must pass two consecutively elected legislatures, then be approved by voters in a general election.

The dinner also apparently was boycotted by every GLB elected official in New York City and many other prominent Democratic officials, GCN said.

Pelath's action means gays are safe from the amendment for at least four years.

In his address to the diners, HRC President Joe Solmonese commented: "When did we all become so impatient? When did we say to ourselves, 'OK, that civil rights thing, I'll give it a year, maybe two, then I'm done'?

Let me be very clear: No, we are not done. We are in the grueling, blinding middle of this fight and the middle of this fight is the hardest part."

Many of the protesters carried pink signs in the shape of a hand flipping off HRC while others banged on drums.

They chanted: "What do we want?

Liberation. Fuck that assimilation."

"Time and time and time again, HRC ignores the community and ignores the wishes of local community groups," Allen Roskoff, an organizer of the boycott, told GCN. In November, HRC supported a gay-only version of ENDA after gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.,

"This really is a very simple decision," Pelath said. "The reality is, we have no gay marriages in Indiana. It is against the law. Nobody has brought me evidence of a gay marriage taking place in this state.

Some 50 activists, including members of the Radical Homosexual Agenda, picketed the Human Rights Campaign's annual Midtown Manhattan dinner Feb. 23. They were upset over HRC's support for a version of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that omits protections for transgender people. Photo by Kaitlyn Tikkun said ENDA would pass the House only if "gender identity" was left out of the bill.

Hundreds of other national, state and local LGBT groups refused to support the "trans-free" ENDA, leaving HRC nearly alone in backing Frank's version.

Inside the Manhattan dinner, “Ugly Betty” star Vanessa Williams, who plays Wilhelmina Slater, accepted an HRC award and expressed strong support for same-sex marriage.

"Marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is another barrier that's

falling, and I couldn't be happier about that," Williams said. "I have several friends that have outlasted both of my marriages, that are raising wonderful children together, that have been together in gay unions for over 25 years, so they're doing a better job than I am."

"When my children look at a loving, committed relationship, some of their finest role models are the gay and lesbian couples that they have had in their lives," she said.

For GCN's full report, see tinyurl.com/2ayjmh.

Late Microsoft Employee Leaves $65 Million to Gay Groups One of Microsoft's first employees, Ric Weiland, who committed suicide in 2006 at age 53, has left $65 million to 11 gay and AIDS organizations.

Pride Foundation of Seattle received $19 million for its scholarships and grants supporting the Northwest's GLBT community.

The remaining $46 million was given to Pride Foundation for distribution to 10 specified national gay organizations over the next eight years.

They are The Foundation for AIDS

Research (amfAR); the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network; the TV show In The Life; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Lambda Legal; the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; Project Inform; and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Notably missing from the list is the nation's largest gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, which

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

has had numerous quarrels with other gay activists and organizations over the years.

"Ric gave scores of LGBT groups significant resources to achieve real change during his lifetime," said longtime gay activist Urvashi Vaid, who now heads the Arcus Foundation. "With this extraordinary gift, Ric's legacy challenges each of us to commit more fully to our own community and to realize that there is much more still to be done."

March 7 - March 20, 2008

"There's no reason to put very poorly crafted verbiage into our constitution, our state's highest document, that could potentially be a lawyer's dream with all sorts of unintended consequences."

State Dept. Drops Foreign Service HIV Ban The U.S. State Department has lifted its ban on HIV-positive Foreign Service officers, Lambda Legal reported Feb. 15.

The move came less than two weeks before a scheduled trial in the HIV discrimination case Taylor v. Rice, which sought to overturn the ban.

Lambda's client, Lorenzo Taylor, was denied employment as a Foreign Service officer after disclosing his HIV status. The case has now been settled.

"The new guidelines mean that candidates for Foreign Service posts who have HIV will now be assessed on a case-by-case basis," said Bebe J. Anderson, Lambda's HIV Project director. "The State Department is taking down its sign that read 'People with HIV need not apply.'"

Taylor commented: "Now people like me ... will not have to go through what I did. They and others with HIV will know that they do not have to surrender to stigma, ignorance, fear or the efforts of anyone, even the federal government, to impose second-class citizenship on them."

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National

NEWS Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Photo

by Rex Wockner

Obama Supports States' OK of Same-Sex Marriage; Highlights Differences with Clinton on DOMA In a Feb. 28 open letter to the LGBT community, presidential candidate Barack Obama stated his support for full same-sex marriage in states that choose to go that route.

To date, only Massachusetts has done so. Bills legalizing same-sex marriage have passed California's legislature twice, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed them.

Monday, March 24 5-8pm

"As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws," Obama said. "I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment.

But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples—whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage."

Obama also said he's better on the issue than Hillary Clinton.

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repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones," he said. "I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign—from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

"I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary."

DOMA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, says, "No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship."

The law's second part says, "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

Hillary Clinton has said she supports repeal only of the second part of DOMA. In effect, that means Clinton supports same-sex couples' having access to federal benefits but wants to continue granting states extra legal cover for rejecting other states' same-sex unions.

"Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)—a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate," he said. "I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does."

She also has suggested that the first part of DOMA helps reduce the nation's appetite for amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

But achieving full equality for gay people will not be easy, Obama said.

The vote for DOMA was 342-67 in the House of Representatives and 85-14 in the Senate.

March 7 - March 20, 2008

"If we want to repeal DOMA,

Opponents of Clinton's position say that, among other things, it hinders same-sex couples' freedom of movement by encouraging nonrecognition of their legal same-sex unions when they enter most U.S. states.

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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Gays to Confront Signature-Gatherers in Calif. Marriage Battle

and Los Angeles, and have been scheduled in San Diego and Santa Barbara.

A coalition of California gay groups has formed a "Rapid Responders" project to confront paid signaturegatherers sent out by anti-gay groups to collect the 694,354 voter signatures needed to force a ballot vote on amending the state constitution to ban same sex marriage.

"Equality for All is calling for volunteers to help educate voters and is asking all fair-minded Californians to be on the lookout for people gathering signatures at local malls, grocery stores and in their neighborhoods," the groups said.

The campaign has set up a hotline and put a "Rapid Response Team" sign-up form on its Web site: equalityforall.com.

ProtectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage have hired people to collect the necessary signatures by the April 1 deadline, Equality for All said.

"Attempts to qualify a constitutional amendment banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples failed in 2004 and 2006," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California. "With a large enough network of supporters and volunteers willing to help, we can stop them again."

California Gays Stage Vigils for Murdered Teen Gay people and their supporters staged vigils across California Feb. 19 and 20 to remember Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student who was shot during class at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard on Feb. 12 and died three days later.

King was openly gay and wore makeup, feminine jewelry and highheel boots. As a result, he had been bullied and harassed by other students, including Brandon McInerney, 14, who has been charged with premeditated murder with a hate-crime enhancement.

The Los Angeles Times said King recently had told McInerney he had a crush on him, according to one of King's friends.

Vigils took place in San Francisco, Ukiah, Willits, Sacramento, Fresno

"By remembering Larry at these vigils, we hope we will also honor him by raising awareness that young people are coming out at younger ages and [that] our schools—especially our junior highs and middle schools—need to be proactive about teaching respect for diversity based on sexual orientation and gender identity," said Carolyn Laub, executive director of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, which helped organized the actions.

N.J. Civil Unions are Inadequate, Commission Finds New Jersey's year-old civil-union law, which was supposed to give gay couples the same rights as married couples, doesn't do that, a state commission determined Feb. 19.

The commission found that the unions create a "second-class status;" are not treated as equal to marriage by government agencies, employers and others; and often are not understood by the public.

Given that the civil-union law was passed in response to a Supreme Court decision ordering the state to grant gay couples all rights of matrimony, the commission pronounced the law a failure.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine said the findings raise "significant concerns" and that he'd be willing to resolve them by signing a bill granting gay couples access to full marriage.

But he said he would not do so until after the November presidential election, so as not to inject the matter into the campaign season.

New Jersey would be only the second U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage, after Massachusetts.

California's legislature has twice passed bills granting gay couples access to marriage, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed them, saying the matter should be decided by the state Supreme Court or California voters.

Some 2,300 New Jersey couples have entered into a civil union in the past year.

www.glccb.org Services. Groups. Events.

Our calendar is now online.

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

March 7 - March 20, 2008

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

BY REX WOCKNER WITH BILL KELLEY

Moscow Pride Organizers Again Appeal to Euro Court Moscow Pride organizers have filed suit in the European Court of Human Rights over Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's ban of last year's aborted gay pride parade.

A similar suit over Luzhkov's ban on the first attempted parade in 2006 is already pending before the court.

Pride organizers say the bans violate Russia's Constitution and several provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. They seek $1.5 million in compensation.

"It is not possible to calculate all the sufferings created by the Moscow and Russian authorities when they banned Pride," said chief organizer Nikolai Alekseev. "That is the reason for such a heavy compensation which we are claiming."

A third attempt at a pride parade is planned for May 31.

Luzhkov has called gay pride parades "satanic" and said he never will allow one to take place.

Activists did not attempt to defy the ban last year. Instead, they gathered near City Hall on pride day to protest the ban. A mêlée ensued and several gays and lesbians were beaten and bloodied by Christian and ultra-nationalist protesters while hundreds of police officers stood by and watched.

Thirty-one people were detained, including members of European parliaments who had traveled to Moscow to support the pride events.

The 2006 pride activities met the same fate. After Luzhkov banned the parade, organizers instead tried to lay flowers at the Kremlin's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and hold a rally near City Hall. Participants in both small events were violently attacked by neofascists, skinheads, Christians and riot police, and the pride organizers were arrested. The charges were later dropped.

ABOVE: Chief Moscow Pride organizer Nikolai Alekseev. File photo RIGHT: After Mayor Yuri Luzhkov banned Moscow's first planned gay pride parade in 2006, organizers tried to lay flowers at the Kremlin's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and hold a rally near City Hall. Participants in both small events were violently attacked by anti-gay protesters (pictured), and the pride organizers were arrested. Photo by Konstantin Rubakhin, mnog.livejournal.com

Five Gays Run for Legislature in Nepal Five gay men are running for seats in Nepal's national legislature in the April 10 election.

leading gay group, the Blue Diamond Society, is among those seeking office.

The new 601-seat Constituent Assembly will replace an interim legislature that has been in place since Parliament was dissolved in early 2007.

In December, Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government to pass new laws and rewrite old ones to extend equal rights and anti-discrimination protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and intersex people. The ruling came in a public-interest case filed by gay organizations.

The gay men are candidates for the large Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), which is part of the ruling alliance.

Sunil Pant, founder of Nepal's leading gay group, the Blue Diamond Society. File photo

Sunil Pant, founder of Nepal's

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"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex are natural persons irre-

March 7 - March 20, 2008

spective of their masculine and feminine gender and they have the right to exercise their rights and live an independent life in society," the court said.

The court also ordered the government to form a committee to study same-sex marriage in other nations with a view to changing Nepalese law in that area, as well.

At present, "unnatural" sex is illegal in Nepal under penalty of up to two years in prison.

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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Spanish Deputy Prime Minister: I'm Not Gay Spanish Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega has denied Internet rumors that she's a lesbian and secretly got married to a well-known female sportscaster.

"Man, finally someone asks me!" she told El Mundo’s newspaper's Sunday magazine Feb. 24, four years after the rumors began circulating.

"Well, look, no," she said. "It's a rumor about me that they've invented to do damage, using something that—hear me—I absolutely respect.

I have no homophobia. But I'm not homosexual! If I were, I would have no problem in saying so. But it's just that I'm not!"

As for the TV sportscaster, "What's up with that!" she exclaimed. "I don't know her, we've never seen each other in our lives, and they have me married to her!"

Fernández de la Vega, who also is the government's spokesperson, said that although her mother always told her she had to get married, she is extremely happy "being alone on my sofa, relaxing with a little music, without hearing anybody, without telephones ringing!"

Spanish Gays Picket Opposition Party Headquarters

About 200 gay people protested outside in Plaza del Ángel during the raid, according to a NotieSe report.

In recent months, eight gay bars have been shut down in the Zona Rosa by city officials from the Cuauhtémoc borough—Boy Bar, Colors, Crazy, Lipstick, Liverpool 100, Oasis, The Pussi and VIP, NotieSe said.

Activists have blamed the closures on the local government district's "homophobia".

Senegal Police Tear-Gas Anti-Gay Protesters Police tear-gassed anti-gay protesters outside the Grande Mosque in Dakar, Senegal, Feb. 15.

The rock-throwing demonstrators were protesting the release from custody of 10 men who were jailed after the sensationalistic magazine Icône published photos of an alleged gay wedding the men supposedly had attended.

The protesters set trash piles on fire, blocked streets and chanted, "We don't want homosexuals" and "God is great."

Penal Code Article 319 punishes homosexual acts with up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $3,000.

More Egyptian Men Arrested in HIV Crackdown

Spain's opposition Popular Party is threatening to undo the nation's 2005 legalization of same-sex marriage if it wins the March 9 election.

Gay activists picketed the party headquarters Feb. 16, saying they were appalled at the party's desire to turn back the clock.

They carried signs saying, "We are for a secular state" and "No to religious dictatorship."

Same-sex marriage also is legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa and Massachusetts.

90 Cops Visit Mexico City Gay Bar Some 90 police officers descended on the Mexico City gay bar Neón in the gay Zona Rosa district Feb. 16.

A city official called the incident a "verification visit" to check for irregularities and the presence of minors.

Seven patrons were detained for alleged drug-dealing.

Other patrons said some of the officers behaved violently during the visit.

Four more men have been arrested in Cairo on suspicion of being HIVpositive, bringing the number of detainees to 12, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said Feb. 15.

Four of the first eight arrestees have been convicted of "habitual practice of debauchery" and imprisoned for one year.

The other eight remain in custody pending filing of charges. All 12 were force-tested for HIV and those reported to be positive are kept handcuffed to hospital beds for 23 hours a day.

"In their misguided attempt to apply Egypt's unjust law on homosexual conduct, authorities are carrying on a crackdown against people living with HIV/AIDS," said Rebecca Schleifer of HRW's HIV program.

"This not only violates the most basic rights of people living with HIV. It also threatens public health by making it dangerous for anyone to seek information about HIV prevention or treatme

More International News at

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IGLHRC Communications Coordinator Hossein Alizadeh. File photo

Int’l

NEWS N. Ireland Sports Minister: Gay Sports Teams are Exclusionary

officers even before formally coming out in The Jamaica Star newspaper.

The Northern Ireland government's sports minister, Edwin Poots, said Feb. 19 that he doesn't understand why gays need their own sports teams.

"I want to stay here and fight," he told the Star. "But it's not safe for me.

My life is in great, great jeopardy."

Discussing Belfast's Ulster Titans, a gay rugby team, Poots said: "I just cannot fathom why people see the necessity to develop an apartheid in sport.”

Gay men are routinely attacked and beaten by anti-gay mobs in Jamaica, which international activists consider to be among the world's more overtly homophobic nations.

"It would be unacceptable to produce an all-black rugby team or an all-white team or an all-Chinese team. To me, it's equally unacceptable to produce an all-homosexual rugby team, and I find it remarkable that people who talk so much about inclusivity and about having an equal role in society would then go down the route of exclusion."

A spokesman for the team, Declan Lavery, said the Titans do not discriminate based on sexual orientation and, in fact, have some straight players.

"Yes, it was primarily something established as a vehicle for gay people but that doesn't mean somebody who isn't gay can't join; everyone is welcome," Lavery said.

Argentine President Said to Support Gay Marriage New Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner supports legalization of same-sex marriage, according to the president of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI).

In a Feb. 24 interview with the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín, María José Lubertino was asked, "With [former President Raúl] Alfonsín the divorce law was established. Will Cristina's accomplishment be gay marriage?"

Lubertino responded, "I have no doubt. ... If they didn't want me to advance this issue, they wouldn't have put me in charge of INADI."

Gay Jamaican Cop Seeks Asylum in Canada A Jamaican police officer who recently came out publicly now feels his life is in danger and is hoping to emigrate to Canada, the Toronto Star reported Feb. 25.

Jamaican Constabulary Force officer Michael Hayden, 24, faced abuse and attacks from homophobic fellow

But now he says he's received death threats and has gone into hiding.

A spokesman for the force declined comment.

Iranian Nobel Laureate Denounces Treatment of Gays

Activists Demand Release of Men Jailed under Moroccan Gay-Sex Ban Human Rights Watch and the Moroccan Human Rights Association on Feb. 26 demanded the release of six men jailed under a law that bans gay sex.

The men were arrested in November after a video circulated online showing them at a supposed gay-wedding celebration in the town of Ksar el Kbir, Morocco.

"The prosecution produced no evidence at trial that the defendants had violated Article 489, which provides prison terms for persons who commit 'lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex,'" the human-rights groups said. "The men all denied the charges."

An appeals court later upheld the men's prison sentences, which ranged from two to 10 months.

A petition demanding repeal of Article 489 is on HRW's Web site. See tinyurl.com/335oem. "[O]ur suspicions [are] that their current practice really is to rid society of lesbians and gay men," the organization said in July.

African Lesbians Meet in Mozambique About 75 women attended the Coalition of African Lesbians conference in late February in Maputo, Mozambique.

Spokeswoman Fikile Vilakazi told reporters the group's top goal is decriminalization of homosexuality.

Gay sex is banned in 38 African nations.

"You should not be arrested and charged for how you use your own body," she told the Reuters news agency.

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Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi expressed regrets over her nation's treatment of gays in a speech at Madrid's Cultural Center in mid-February, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Iran's ongoing executions of teens and men accused of engaging in sodomy, even though in nearly all the cases that have been publicized the individuals were accused of other crimes as well, such as rape.

"This is the first time she openly addresses the issue of legal persecution of homosexuality in Iran," said IGLHRC spokesman Hossein Alizadeh. "The state-run Iranian media are now out to get her, accusing her of promoting immorality."

The organization has said it suspects that other charges often are tacked on to sodomy cases to prevent the public outrage that would accompany executions carried out solely for the crime of consensual adult gay sex. The group also believes executions solely for gay sex are taking place out of the public eye.

IGLHRC has become increasingly vocal in the past year about

Hate-Crime Conviction in Zagreb Pride Incident A man who was arrested as he prepared to throw gasoline bombs at marchers in last year's gay pride parade in Zagreb, Croatia, was convicted of attempted assault and a hate crime Feb. 25.

Josip Situm, 25, told the court his Roman Catholic faith drove him to oppose gay parades. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison with mandatory psychiatric treatment.

The case marked Croatia's first hatecrime prosecution.

Twelve other anti-gay demonstrators were arrested during the city's sixth pride parade, and several were found to be carrying Molotov cocktails or tear gas.

Around 30 of the 300 marchers were assaulted in numerous incidents after the parade ended. At least 10 sustained minor injuries and two required medical treatment.

The marchers were jeered and spat on by right-wing youths throughout the parade route. A line of police in riot gear marched along on both sides of the parade.

March 7 - March 20, 2008

Police arrest an anti-gay protester at last year's Zagreb pride parade. Zagreb Pride photo Zagreb Pride called Situm's sentence "a great turning point for the entire community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer persons and our position in society because it is the first ruling for a crime conditioned by hate based on sexual orientation."

But Pride's Marko Jurcic also expressed "deep disappointment with Zagreb's police for failing to file criminal charges for all the other attacks that happened simultaneously with Situm's."

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you thinking?

What are

editor@baltimoregaylife.com

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Coffee with Coco:

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS CAST RELEASES “WEBISODES”

T

he cast and creators of the gay cult movie Girls Will Be Girls (2003) recently reunited and released a series of hilarious and irreverent “webisodes”. The first two shorts, “The Jizz Party” and “Delivering Coco,” feature the continuing exploits of characters Evie (Jack Plotnick) and Coco (Clinton Leupp).

Comedian Scott Thompson joins the cast as Coco’s mother in “Delivering Coco.”

INTERVIEW BY JOEL ROSADO

The original Girls Will Be Girls, written and directed by Richard Day, premiered at The Sundance Film Festival and received numerous honors around the world including four 2003 OUTfest Grand Jury Awards and three US Comedy Arts Festival Awards.

The DVD has since garnered a cult-like following of fans. The film’s outrageous content, however, has made it difficult to launch a TV series in the conservative television business.

Gay Life woke Coco Peru up at 8 a.m. after both parties failed to realize that the country has different time zones. While sipping her first cup of coffee, she spoke about how Coco Peru came to be, the making of Girls Will Be Girls and what the future holds in store for her and her co-stars.

How did you originally come up with the idea for the character of Coco?

That was the hard thing for me to deal with when we first started doing Girls will be Girls.

When I created Coco Peru, I decided that I didn’t want to pretend to be a woman. I wanted to do an autobiographical story about my life. I created Coco because it was the early ‘90s and AIDS was really taking a toll where I lived in New York. I wanted to be an activist and yet I didn’t feel a part of things….

When I went to a meeting for ACT Up…they were all yelling at each other and I was nervous and very young, so I thought, “how can I be an activist?” I decided to be a storyteller. I had read a book about Native Americans and how they had two-spirits, which were men dressed as women, that were honored in their societies.

And I thought, maybe that’s what I am. I always felt different growing up, so I decided to embrace that and become a drag queen and celebrate everything that I hated about myself growing up. It was a really freeing, great experience for me. I think that’s why people came to see my show early on in the cabaret clubs of New York because they felt that connection with me…even though I was doing something outrageous, which was dressing up in girls clothes.

When we were doing Girls Will Be Girls, here I was being called Coco Peru and working with two actors who in their shows pretend to be women. It was a little strange for me because it was the first time I was really playing a character that is supposed to be a woman.

Do you do other kinds of acting not in the character of Coco?

I trained to be an actor in college so early on I did different parts. When I went out into the real world of New York City, I was having trouble getting work because I couldn’t really ever play straight characters. They always had a little bit of a flair to PA G E 1 4 •

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them. And there wasn’t a lot of work for people like me…. the part of me openly wanting to embrace being gay. When I was in college, there was a lot of shame about being gay.

I was told I had to” butch up” if I ever wanted to make it. Coco sort of gave me the power to just be who I am and celebrate it and work. And it took off. Once that took off, suddenly no one was really too interested in whether or not I could play other roles. They just wanted Coco. In a way, I created a monster. I’d like to play another role… but at the same time it’s been a huge blessing because I have gotten to meet all sorts of people and to travel the world. I love it.

Girls Will Be Girls really became a cult film. People write to me from all parts of the country, especially outside of big cities, where they discover Girls Will Be Girls and they feel the urge to spread it to all of their friends. They have Girls Will Be Girls parties and order Girls Will Be Girls DVDs and give them out as gifts.

People get very passionate about it.

It’s great, but it’s also very funny because it’s such a small movie and it was all filmed in Richard Day’s house. The fact that it actually became something is great.

What’s the chance of a sequel?

I think very, very slim. It would cost a lot of money to create a sequel.

Richard [Day] spent all of his money on the film and really destroyed his home. I don’t think he’d be willing to do that again. The “webisodes” being filmed are in his home. He had it redone after Girls Will Be Girls.

Hence, the plot line: Evie bought it from a gay man who was murdered by an internet prostitute.

It was all nice and peachy at the end of Girls Will Be Girls. Evie was actually being kind of nice, but then she reverts to being bitchy in the “webisodes” again. Is that her original character?

That was my one problem with the movie actually. Evie has this “light bulb” moment where she realizes that she’s so mean and she’s authentically sorry…. I don’t think the movie should have went there. It was actually filmed a couple of different ways, and in one version, Evie has this screaming, wacky breakdown and afterwards she hasn’t really changed. That would have been the better ending…. But at the ending of the movie, Evie does invite that moving guy back into her room to let you know that she hasn’t really changed much.

I know you’ve done a lot of different theatre shows. Coco seems to be a bitch in Trick and then she seems to be walked all over in Girls Will Be Girls. What is the core of Coco’s personality?

It’s my acting skills [Coco laughs].

In my one person shows, Coco is really just me telling my story. One thing people relate to is my rage…where I want to do the right thing, but then of course things go haywire and situations become uncomfortable. I think there’s a lot of comedy there and that’s what people can identify with…that life can be difficult. By the end of my shows though, there’s always realization that we survive, that life goes on and we do the best we can.

People leave hopefully feeling good and... like “I’m not the only one.”

I guess Richard saw me playing that kind of role where Coco got walked all over because I am one of the few drag queens that on stage can be very vulnerable and talk about emotional, painful moments from life. He thought that maybe this was something that Coco could bring to this character…. Or, maybe he just wanted to see me walked all over.

Before we ever worked together, Jack (Evie) and I had been asked to do a benefit and…come up with a skit together. I was sort of horrified sometimes working with Jack because he would say things like: “Oh, don’t say you’re line that way.

Say it like this.” I remember one day he came up in my apartment and I had a couple of stones (for show, not for touching) and he kept picking them up and juggling them. So, when we were on stage together for the first time, there was this energy of me being slightly horrified by this over-the-top person who, while I was working with him and creating it, was pushing a couple of my buttons.

In fact, I almost quit the benefit.

The energy of us being oil and water was based in reality. Since then I’ve gotten to know Jack very well and I adore him. I’ve moved past that initial, “How do I work with this guy?” It’s funny because when we first did that benefit people kept coming up and asking how long we’d been working together.

They saw something. Out of that, Girls Will Be Girls came about, so it was great that I did the benefit.

There’s one thing I think I missed in the movie. How did your last dog die?

The big, fluffy one. That’s the joke.

It’s taking a shit and then it just dies.

That’s Coco’s luck—that her dog just falls over and dies.

One of the funniest moments was when you and Evie are in the kitchen. The dog Misty eats the piece of bread that she was getting ready and Evie says, “Oh Misty, that was for Varla.”

It was going to poison Varla. continued on page 17

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Business

PROFILES Spiral Dance Bookstore Seeks to Empower Local Women executive board is currently awaiting its federal determination letter.

In March 2007, Laurie Kendall and Bobbie DeVoll purchased a boardedup building at 2205 E. Oliver St. in eastcentral Baltimore. Inspired by visions of creating a multicultural space to nurture women’s personal, political, spiritual and economic empowerment, they gathered a group of 21 women and began a total rehab of the building.

With little or no home repair experience, these women, according to DeVoll, “were able to gather the knowledge and resources they needed to do the job themselves.” Although renovations remain in progress, the collective of women completed enough of the reconstruction to open the Spiral Dance Womyn’s Center and Bookstore on November 24, 2007. The organization applied for nonprofit 501(c)3 status in June 2007, and its COCO - continued from page 15

She said it so nonchalantly as if she didn’t care at all that she just killed the dog.

The first time my partner Rafael, who is from Spain, saw Girls Will be Girls, he looked at me and said, “We’ll that was the nail in the coffin of your career.” He just didn’t really get it... Then we took it to Sundance and people walked out of the movie in droves. Then, it went in front of a gay audience and people were hysterically laughing. We took it to the HBO Comedy Arts Festival. If there were enough gay people in the audience, it gave the straight people permission to laugh. It’s like it needed a gay audience in order to work. I think gay people have a sense of humor where you can take things too far. I love it. It’s wrong. It’s outrageous. It’s silly.

When I’ve been around friends seeing the movie for the first time, their reaction is: “Why didn’t I know about this”?

It was a small budget film. When it was released it didn’t do well in the theatres. It sort of disappeared really

With a philosophy firmly grounded in generations of feminist thought and activism, the Spiral Dance Womyn’s Center and Bookstore strives to “provide educational, emotional, physical, artistic and spiritual resources to individuals who were born and raised female in a patriarchal world.” As the founders explained, “our goal is to model women’s collective work and microeconomic practices, and to help women develop the practical skills they need to work for both personal and social change.” More than a bookstore, Spiral Dance currently offers community members stained glass workshops, African drumming lessons, recovery support groups and potluck gatherings. K. Love and We Are Hip Hop Too! also host a monthly hip hop, spoken word and open mic performance which was attended by other 30 women last month.

Future renovations for the Spiral Dance Bookstore include the completion of large meeting meeting spaces quickly. When it was released on DVD, gay men just sort of discovered it. They’d walk into their video stores and see it sitting there and go “what’s this?” They’d turn it over and if they were a fan of Varla or knew about me, they’d take it home…. Then they’d want to invite all their friends over. That’s how it took off. I still get emails from people who are just discovering it.

That’s great in a way.

It is. It’s grassroots. When it went to Sundance, we believed in it and thought it would be the “gay, absolutely fabulous” film and we were disappointed when people were walking out. When it didn’t do well in the theatres, I thought that was the end of it. That it found a life of its own on DVD is really wonderful.

Other than your personal website and the Girls Will Be Girls website, do you have any other websites?

I have a myspace account.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but someone had a myspace account and was pretending to be me for about a year…. They had over 1,000 friends,

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for women's organizations on the second floor and in the basement, as well as meeting space for womenled groups inclusive of men and LGBTQ individuals. The women also hope to workshops in job skills and computer training, home and business ownership, arts and crafts, and theatre, dance and music; as well as peer counseling; exercise and sports programs; and social activities for women of all ages.

raise funds to finish the rehab and install a heating and cooling system in the building. More than a fundraiser, the festival will showcase and promote local female artists, musicians and women’s organizations. Other upcoming events include a wellness fair in April and an Arts and Crafts Fair in May.

In addition to providing its own services and activities, the womyn’s center aims to “become a nucleus where many womyn’s groups, organizations and business can meet, network and host their own programs. On March 8, the center is holding a fundraiser—the Spiral Dance Womyn’s Music Festival— to

Although the Spiral Dance Bookstore and Womyn’s Center is only open on the weekends (Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.) and for classes, it plans to extend its hours in June. Stop by and check out perhaps the only women-operated, women’s only space in the city. For additional information about the upcoming Spiral Dance Womyn’s Musical Festival and other events, visit www.thespiraldancebookstore.com.

so I had to prove that I was the real Coco and take photos of myself dressed up in order to have it taken down. It was crazy.

something like that on “Ugly Betty” and then people come up to me and say I stole it from “Ugly Betty,” it’s really upsetting.

Is that the craziest thing that a fan has ever done?

Varla just came to Baltimore. We’re all wondering when you’ll be coming to Baltimore.

Yeah. That really bothered me because I worked so hard to create this character and do what I do. That was very painful for me to see that someone couldn’t come up with their own idea. My new show is called, “Ugly Coco.” I turned on the TV one night and there was this scene from “Ugly Betty” that I’m convinced was stolen from my LOGO special. That’s the fourth time where it’s happened to me…when I’ve turned on TV and seen my material reinterpreted. There are people who see my shows or see my LOGO special and then go back to their jobs and steal something. It’s happened to Varla as well. It’s disappointing that I chose to do something that potentially could have hurt my career and in many ways does. There’s not a lot of work for guys that do drag here in Hollywood. I work very hard to write my shows, so then when I see March 7 - March 20, 2008

I’ve only visited Baltimore years ago…. I would love to come back to Baltimore to perform.

Other than your shows, do you have any TV appearances or cameos coming up?

No, just the “webisodes” and my show. I’m traveling a lot with my show…Ohio, Hawaii, a few other places.

Is there anything else you would like your fans to know?

I’d like a second cup of coffee now.

For additional information about Coco Peru (whose performances have won her a number of accolades and awards), visit www.cocoperu.com. You can watch the new “webisodes” at www.girlswillbegirls.com. The original full-length feature of Girls Will Be Girls will also be airing on IFC (Independent Film Channel) this month.

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OPINIONS General Gayety The Royal Treatment

Van Dalen said, "It is the first time a member of the royal family has attended a meeting with such significance for gays."

Princess Maxima picked a good first time. Holland cemented its reputation as one of the most tolerant countries when in 2001 it became the first nation in the world to grant same-sex marriage. The city of Amsterdam is a gay mecca.

But Amsterdam police report that in recent years violent crimes against gays have ballooned.

by Leslie Robinson

The most prominent person due to attend a Dutch gay rights conference is a future queen, and I don't mean a teenager with a tendency toward the fabulous.

A spokesman for the Dutch royal family confirmed that Princess Maxima, the wife of Holland's Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, will participate in the conference in early March.

That ought to boost coverage. And attendance. And the sartorial efforts of participants, who could find themselves in many a background shot.

We Americans know a lot about the British royals. We know about Monaco's royal family, since American actress Grace Kelly gave birth to the present crop.

But we don't know much about the rest of Europe's royalty. The continent is knee-deep with nobles, from Spain to Sweden to Serbia.

Europeans monitor the doings of their royals. I remember as a child visiting my German grandmother, who would have a stack of women's magazines with smiling royal mugs on the cover. My grandmother fretted over whichever royal was currently misbehaving.

I found the magazines interesting—but not as compelling as reading about America's royals, the denizens of the Kingdom of Hollywood. I knew who Robert Redford was; I didn't know who Prince Hubert of LombardyAlpenschnickl was, even though he stood 63rd in line to the throne of Albania.

But I royally digress.

Underscoring the importance of royalty in Holland, Frank Van Dalen of the Dutch Gay Federation expressed glee at snagging the princess for the conference. "This will be a historically significant royal presence," he said. "This is what we have been hoping for for a very long time."

My hope is that all goes well at the conference, and the princess doesn’t fall in love with a commoner. A lesbian commoner at that.

Desiring the Uninterested

a homosexual male; and heterosexual male with a homosexual female is viewed as humorous and innocent.

However, a homosexual male confessing an attraction to a heterosexual male is like playing Russian roulette. The response is more likely to range from acceptance to anger, fear, or even hate. For a homosexual male, does the possibility of a negative response create a barrier that prevents confessing an attraction to a heterosexual male?

When we find ourselves attracted to persons with a different or ambiguous sexual orientation, should that factor alone prevent us from sharing our feelings with that person? The answer probably depends on both the person’s gender and sexual orientation. Generally, openness of an attraction between a homosexual female with a heterosexual female; heterosexual female with

This past summer, I worked on a legal project with an attractive six foot, dark-haired, dark-eyed, welleducated Jewish attorney who was the project supervisor. When I first laid eyes on him, I was instantly absorbed by his charm, appearance and, shortly thereafter, personality.

Unsure of his sexual orientation, I wanted to believe he was homosexual and aspired to develop a closer

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Queen Beatrix has spoken out on behalf of gay rights in the past. Now Princess Maxima will ratchet support up a notch with this personal appearance.

The royals have taken heat for their pro-gay positions from some right-wing politicians and conservative Protestants, as well as Muslims, a growing population in Holland. A monarch's lot is not an easy one. Good thing the perks— like wealth—help cushion the blow.

A palace spokesman said, "The princess is in favor of equal rights of all groups in the Netherlands." Presumably that includes Muslims, so it will be interesting to watch how Holland and its future queen—who is actually from Argentina—navigate these tricky canals in the years ahead.

The gay rights conference at hand will be held in four major cities, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. The focus will be gays' continued exclusion from Dutch society and what to do about it. At the conclusion, Princess Maxima will sign an accord calling for the full acceptance of homosexuals in Holland.

I'm sure she won't be the only one signing it. But with her star power, who's going to notice the others?

When Leslie Robinson is in line to the throne, it means she's waiting for the bathroom. E-mail her at LesRobinsn@aol.com, and read other columns at www.GeneralGayety.com.

by David Placher

n any professional work or social environment, we often have uncontrollable and irresistible attractions to others, regardless of the other person’s sexuality. We often encourage one another to confess these attractions because they are deemed silly or innocent and labeled as juvenile “puppy love.”

Expressing one’s opinion about another can, in fact, prevent future distractions and may actually foster a better relationship.

I

Pinknews.com noted that in a survey last August half of Dutch gays said they felt less safe than the year before. The Netherlands' reputation for open-mindedness is getting sliced like Gouda. It's time to put the Dutch royal seal of approval on tolerance.

relationship with him, convincing myself that over time he would eventually find me equally attractive. It was almost as if I was on the on the Santa Maria, joining Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Bahamas, believing I would hit land, but unsure as to actually when. As each day passed, I believed the opportunity to confess my desire was getting closer.

I confessed this secret desire to three lady friends that also worked on the project. In order to shield this secret, one of the ladies created a random nickname for him: A & W Root Beer (“A&W”). Throughout the project, I carefully reviewed documents so as to create opportunities to email questions to A&W. With each email exchange, I became progressively more forward, often including a joke or a personal question. It was easy for me to imagine these e-conversations

March 7 - March 20, 2008

as flirting, but it turned out to be precisely that: imagination. A&W likely viewed these emails as simple icebreakers and friendly exchanges.

Shortly after the start of the project, I overheard A&W reference his girlfriend. At that moment, I looked down and realized I was not on the Santa Maria, but rather on the ever doomed Titanic. Every time I communicated with A&W thereafter, I camouflaged my disappointment by keeping conversations short and exchanging fewer emails. I was heartbroken. I still considered confessing my crush to him, but feared the unknown result. It would be farfetched to believe he would breakup with his girlfriend and find me equally desirable.

Towards the end of the project, a coworker tossed me a life preserver,

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TRANSMISSIONS

The Good Stuff by Gwendolyn Ann Smith hen one is faced with all the horrific deaths, gross injustices, and other issues great and small that complicate a transgender life, one can lose sight of some of the great accomplishments. Quite simply, one runs the risk of living in a state of shell shock, moving from one crisis situation to another. I think this can be true of any GLBT individual—or, for that matter, any person regardless of abbreviation or affiliation.

W

In doing so, however, you can miss out on the simple beauty, the achievements, and so much more that comes out of one’s own community. When I step back for a moment, and look at my community, I don’t forget the ugliness and pain—but I also catch sight of the good things.

Each transgender person—simply by the nature of expressing one’s gender—has to overcome some odds. We face being ostracized by our peers, our friends, and our families. We can face unemployment and homelessness. We can face violence, abuse, and quite possibly death.

Yet we do what we have to do to be ourselves. We find ways to present our own gender identity and expression, in spite of the challenges. We choose to display our true selves within a world that can be unsympathetic to us. We continue to press the issue that yes, this is who we are, and we do matter. That alone can be an action that takes great strength, and that shows a level of character not usually needed by those not facing adversity for simply being.

Of course, not many of us are content with just surviving with style. I think of those of us who have chosen to express

themselves artistically, for example.

We are a community with playwrights like Kate Bornstein, who has performed in hir own works pieces that delve deep into hirself and present some of the darker spaces that many would shy away from.

Likewise with S. Bear Bergman, performing on a seemingly endless, grueling schedule. These two and many others have made very candid, very real performance out of their own experiences as transgender people.

Likewise, we have other actors and actresses, such as Calpernia Adams, who went from the subject of a documentary —Soldier’s Girl —into her own career in Hollywood. Or Aleshia Brevard, who had a modest yet successful career in Hollywood during the 1960s and 1970s, and still found the courage to come out in the last decade. Or many others, from Holly Woodlawn to Alexis Arquette.

We even have our comics, such as Eddie Izzard.

You’ll find us in the music industry, and performing in every genre.

We have the Transcendence Gospel Choir, pop artists like Israel’s Dana International, and, of course, a certain pioneer in electronic music who I shant name, knowing her reluctance to discuss her own history— but whose story can still be found far and wide.

We’re well-heeled when it comes to writers, with a long history of transgender autobiographies to be had. We have folks such as Jan Morris, who was well known for her travel writing long before her own autobiography. We have the aforementioned Kate Bornstein, who’s

ATTENTION

Opinions expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the GLCCB or Gay Life.

We welcome your letters and opinions. Submissions should include a name, address and phone number for verification and may be edited for content and length. Send submissions by e-mail to editor@baltimoregaylife.com or fax to 410.837.8889 or by mail to Editor, 241 W. Chase Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

book Gender Outlaw is regularly used in college courses, right alongside the works of Leslie Feinberg and others. My own bookshelf strains under the weight of books by transgender people, from obscure books printed by cottage publishers, to mass market hardcovers such as Jennifer Boylan’s autobiography, She’s Not There.

We also have our artists, such as Loren Cameron, best known for his artistic self-portraits in the book Body Alchemy, but also part of a very successful traveling show of photography currently touring South America. Likewise, the web is literally teeming with transgender cartoonist. It seems we work in all mediums, and all creative outlets.

But our skills are not limited to purely artistic pursuits. We have pioneers in computers, from the early work of Lynn Conway that helped pave the way for personal computers, to the computer game work of Dani Berry and a great many others. Before them were experts in telecom, science, and any number of vocations. Today, you’ll find us at NASA, in the Fortune 500, and—quite frankly—everywhere else. We’re police officers, report typists, couriers, wait staff, pilots, teachers, military personnel, and

train engineers. there are transgender people to be found anywhere— no, everywhere.

In spite of everything we face, the violence and hatred, the setbacks and disappointments in federal legislation, the discrimination and bias—sometimes even at the hands of those we call allies—we still managed to survive—and even thrive.

I’ve long wondered, too, if we excel out of necessity—that is, because we seemingly have to do that much better, simply to be accepted as an equal—or if it’s the other way around: It might well take a bit of strength and intelligence simply to come to the realization that one is transgender—and act upon this knowledge—regardless of what so many around us would like our lives to be.

This is what I’d like people to consider when they think of transgender folks. Don’t forget the challenges we face, nor the injustices that still need to be righted—but do not lose sight of the rare and wonderful people who make up this nascent transgender community.

Gwen Smith is one of those writer types, and spends her days in a cubicle farm. You’ll find her on the web at www.gwensmith.com

BEGINNERS YOGA CLASS Hard work has its rewards…and its complications.

Balancing work with family and other obligations often leaves us feeling depleted and stressed out.

How can we prompt our bodies to respond more favorably to these challenges?

Yoga – a great alternative to marathon TV-watching, happy hour, and insomnia.

Explore a Gentle Beginner’s Yoga class at GLCCB. Join Certified Yoga Instructors Tim Hurley and Kelly D.McClain at the Center for Gentle Beginner's Yoga, and enjoy the priceless benefit of true health through stress reduction, greater flexibility, and improved core physical strength.

Classes are held every Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and every Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. (please arrive a few minutes early) in room 201 at the Center. Classes cost $9.00 each and a portion of that fee is donated back to the Center.

FOR WEDNESDAY CLASSES only an 8 class Yoga Access Pass is available for $50.00. Contact the GLCCB at 410-837-5445 ext. 10 for details or to purchase a Yoga Access Pass.

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OPINIONS Obama is On the ‘Down Low’ with the LGBTQ Community Obama challenges change?

us—can

he

"I gave a fund-raiser, at his [Obama's] request at the Waterfront restaurant. And he said to me, he would really appreciate it if he didn't get his photo taken with my mayor. He said he would really not like to have his picture taken with Gavin." former Mayor Willie Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle.

by Rev. Irene Monroe bama has “barack the vote” by getting disinterested and disenfranchised Americans involved in his campaign for the presidential bid. His promise to cease partisan politics and the old beltway boys’ bickering has not only raised the hope of the American public, but it has also brought out untold numbers of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans to cast our vote for him.

With Obama’s win of the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina last month, his inspiring victory speech, “Yes, we can,” proved that not only can he reach across this nation’s dividing lines, but we as Americans can too.

O

“This election is about the past vs. the future. It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity....

"Don't tell me we can't change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future.”

As Obama helps the nation to seize a better future, “the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today” concerning LGBTQ Americans civil rights seem to either haunt him or come out of his campaign closet.

With news outlets reporting that in 2004 Obama asked to not have his picture taken with San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom, because of the Mayor's support of same sex marriage, we must ask ourselves this question about Obama, as PA G E 2 0 •

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Four years later and a denial from the Obama campaign, Newsom told Reuters, "One of the three Democrats you mentioned as presidential candidates, as God is my witness, will not be photographed with me, will not be in the same room with me, even though I've done fund-raisers for that particular person—not once, but twice— because of this issue."

Newsom’s a staunch ally to our community. He has neither publicly veered away from photo-ops with us nor from our allies promoting marriage equality.

Many LGBTQ supporters of Obama, however, will argue that Obama, then like now, must tactically do what he has to do to stave off the vitriol of religious conservatives to win.

Okay!

Nevertheless, how is he then the candidate of change? In addition, how does Obama’s political strategy reconcile with the words he spoke in South Carolina?

“We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election.

However, we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics.

This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.”

Hmm?!

While it is true, in Obama’s case, that a picture with us would perhaps now say more than his eloquent equivocating words on behalf of us, Obama can’t risk the political fallout.

Matt Comer, owner and editor of

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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IMHO Part 1: To Misha with Love

hile I’ve always known that I loved having sex with men, it took me a long time to realize that I could fall deeply in a “beat me, whip me, make write bad checks” kind of love.

I just never thought that a Meg Ryan movie kind of love would ever happen to me. Not only did I not think it would not happen to me, I never thought I was truly capable of loving another man in that way. Oh, yes, I dated several thousand men (dating sounds so much nicer than sleep

by Mario Fernández with, n’est ce pas?), and I probably liked several hundred of them. I asked some for their name; some even stayed for breakfast. But I’ll be the first to admit that my idea of a long-term relationship was about 8 hours.

W

After serial dating and lots of disappointment and heartache, I had resigned myself to becoming a fat old queen, living in a cluttered condo, stacked with back issues of Vanity Fair, Michael Thomas Ford books, and Bel Ami DVDs. I had accepted the fact that true love had passed me by and I was OK with that.

It is true, however, what they say about finding love when you least expect it. I was in New York one weekend to visit some friends. I was in Splash, having some cocktails and just chatting with my friends and flirting outrageously with some boys at the bar. You see, I’m a serial flirt. But I don’t feel that flirting has to lead to sex. Sometimes, it’s just about reassuring yourself that you are still wanted, hot, and viable. If you score some digits along the way, well, that’s just lagniappe.

So the music is thumping, the lights are going and I’m yelling a conversation with some cute Puerto Rican stud from the Bronx. Suddenly, I make eye contact with Misha.

He’s a freakin’ god! 6 foot 1 hunk of a man, obviously a gym bunny, broad shoulders, narrow waist, dirty blonde spiky hair gelled to an inch of its life in that oh-so attractive 20-something boy toy kind of way. Ice blue piercing eyes that, shockingly, are not looking at me with complete disgust. I mean, who I

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

am kidding? I was beginning to celebrate anniversaries of my 39th birthday.

Everyone knows that turning 39 is gay for collecting Social Security.

So he parts the crowd with his cocky swagger and walks straight up to me.

All the time he’s coming toward me, I’m sure he’s going to walk past me and talk to the hot young thing next to me. But no, he talks directly to me!

“Hi, I’m Misha. I like what I see. Want to dance?” he says, grabbing my hand since the question was clearly not a question, but a command.

I spin my head around. Making sure he wasn’t talking about anyone else, I stammer, “Are you talking to me? Because there are way cuter guys in here than me.”

Then he said the words that absolutely melted my heart (at least, I think it was melting; I may, in fact, have peed in my pants a little). “There’s no one else here that I want to talk to or dance with.”

He then swept me on to the dance floor and the next two hours just flew by. The thumping bass, the confetti, the strobe lights, the swirling mass of testosterone, the collective sweat of a swarming, writhing, pulsing mass of manhood, and the sheer surprise that this gorgeous guy would see anything in me finally proved to be too much for me. The poppers and a bump of E probably didn’t help either, but I needed some fresh air. We finally got out of the club and went back to my hotel room.

What can I tell you about the next two glorious days except imagine Madeline Khan singing “Sweet Mystery of Life” in Young Frankenstein? I don’t think we left the hotel room for the two full days. But, eventually, all good things must come to an end as I had a train and Misha had a plane to catch.

So I went back to Baltimore and he went back to Russia. For Misha was a dental student and all of 23. Yes, 23! Age really is just a number. I know that I’m very immature for my age and Misha was very mature for his, so I rationalized it by thinking that we met somewhere in the middle and that the age difference really wasn’t so much. Hey, I can rationalize like no one’s business. Just call me Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.

We agreed to correspond by e-mail and the occasional phone call until he got his degree. I had no illusion that this was going to work out, but we began to correspond 2-3 times a week via e-mail. Soon the e-mails increased in frequency, length, and fervor. Say what you want to say about the Internet; you really can fall in love with someone via the Internet. There was no topic that was off-limits, no feeling left unexpressed, no emotion left unshared. Our e-mails soon became giddy high-school protestations and treacly, Victorian declarations of love. The day that Misha proposed to me via the Internet was the happiest day of my life!

Part 2 of To Misha With Love runs 3/21/08.

Mario Fernández is an ad exec by day and well, it’s been a bit of a dry spell, so let’s not talk about what Mario does by night. He’s an accomplished painter, photographer, writer, traveler, and raconteur. He has had two exhibits of his paintings and photographs at the GLCCB and has also had travel photographs published in The Baltimore Sun. He lives in Timonium with his hopelessly spoiled but absolutely adorable canine companion, Hubbell. In his spare time, Mario makes killer cosmos, religiously practices yoga in hopes of staying limber and flexible for his next (and hopefully, last) husband, obsessively frets over how gravity is no longer his friend, watches way too many Project Runway marathons and compulsively moisturizes.

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giving me a a shallow glimmer of hope. In an effort to lift my spirits, she optimistically told me, “David, at first I didn’t see it, but I could see you and A&W together in the future.”

Although I did not want to face reality, there is no future. I did not know with certainty if A&W was uninterested, but all of the indicators certainly pointed to such a conclusion.

Having completed my portion of the project, I reflect back not on A&W, but on the intrapersonal conflict and my behavior towards the situation: the restrictions that prevented me from confessing my feelings to A&W; the willingness to confess to others.

Was I being courageous by restraining my feelings or was I simply a coward? I was overly concerned about his attitude towards homosexuality and how that might change his MONROE - continued from page 20

We don't debate, or simply tolerate; we celebrate your sexuality and spirituality!

Sundays 9 AM

Traditional Celebration

10 AM Hospitality Time - Community 11 AM Praise Celebration & Family Service

Metropolitan Community Church of Baltimore - (410)NOW-MCCb Cb 401 W. Monument Street (at Eutaw) www.mccbaltimore.org

InterstateQ.com stated in his article "President Obama - Why Gays need to worry” that “If Obama wins the presidency the LGBT community is in for four (and possibly eight) years of being subjected to a dangerously employed “big tent” strategy that places an oppressed group of citizens at the same table as their oppressors.

Obama’s presidency would see James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Donnie McClurkin and other anti-gay leaders sitting down with LGBT community leaders telling them how much they are evil and going to hell while Obama sits back and says, "We should work together and hope for change.”

While many of us will rationalize and embrace Obama’s “big tent” strategy, in truth, Obama is on the “down low” with the LGBTQ community. He has repackaged a softer and gentler anti-gay platform than the Republicans, which is perhaps why so many of us uncritically and defensively come to Obama’s defensive.

“You and the white gay establishment are holding Obama to a double standard that is ridiculous and disingenuous. What about Hillary Clinton? If you’re going to judge people by the company they keep, it should be across the board and not selective condemnation,” an avid critic of mine wrote me.

The argument that Hillary isn’t and Bill wasn’t any better on LGBTQ issues is true. However, that’s not the issue here.

opinion of me. I saw myself as a coward. Even though A&W is not a homosexual…even though A&W has a girlfriend … and even though A&W demonstrated no interest, my thirst for closure would have been better satisfied by confessing my desire rather than stifling my feelings.

I cannot help but think that society is partly to blame. It is generally assumed that a person is heterosexual, unless the person reveals the opposite. As part of a minority group, there are often more risks than rewards, more day-to-day obstacles than commonalities, and more diverse attitudes among the majority towards the minority. Sometimes, however, we must take a gamble and follow the persuasion of our feelings rather than fret over how others may perceive our desire.

Obama is the new guy on the block challenging the old establishment.

He’s allegedly espousing a differently political platform, one where he says, if “we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words—yes, we can.”

Obama's “big tent strategy” to ascend to the White House and his elusive and “down low” promises to the LGBTQ community plays us like pawns on a chessboard. Consequently, if we neither hold him to his promises to us nor have him to expound on them we will then have participated in the closeting of ourselves and the disenfranchisement of our full and equal rights when he’s elected.

Therefore, the real question on the table is: Can we get Obama to change?

I am going to throw caution to the wind and say, “Yes Obama can!”

A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Irene Monroe is a graduate of Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. She served as a pastor at an AfricanAmerican church before a Ford Fellowship took her to Harvard Divinity School for a doctorate.

What are

Why?

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• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

you

thinking?

editor@baltimoregaylife.com

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Sufficient As I aM (SAIM): MAKE A DIFFERENCE Through All Our Differences, We are All the SAIM

SunTrust’s “My Cause” Promotion

by B. Easy-Youngin’

by Joel Rosado

here are not many things for LGBT youth in Baltimore City or the surrounding counties to do on a Saturday afternoon, especially if you are closeted or just entering into the “gay lifestyle.” Even then, that could be a world of trouble if you are not wise and do not know whom to trust or associate yourself with. This is where SAIM (Sufficient As I aM) enters the picture. SAIM has been in existence for nearly 20 years. It was founded in the early 1990s and has functioned as a hideaway/chill spot/ social group for LGBT youth ages 12 to 24. When we get older, many of us forget that “it is hard to be young” and that a lot of times it really does seem like the world is against you or that you have nobody to talk to. This is a common bond that has brought many youth to SAIM over the years.

T

No matter your age, social background or beliefs, SAIM is a friendly and safe environment for youth to interact in ways that they often cannot in the outside world. They can be themselves and get things that are bothering them off their chests. Discussions vary from week to week with topics including politics, entertainment, gossip, school, comedy, television, music and personal issues.

The group’s atmosphere is laid back and calm, so anyone, even if it is their first time coming to the group, will feel welcomed at SAIM. And, if you’re worried about your personal business being put out in the open for the community to discuss, don’t worry…it won’t be! SAIM practices 100% confidentiality.

Although SAIM is largely a peer-driven support group, adult facilitators provide a wealth of life experiences and are excellent resources for youth to turn to. If you are having difficulty finding housing or are going through a tough situation, they can refer you to organizations that can help you get off the streets, find something to eat or simply offer you needed support. They have helped many LGBT youth in Baltimore and Maryland over the years and have formed lasting bonds with youth participants.

In addition to weekly discussion groups, SAIM also takes entertaining educational trips to destinations that have included the Walter’s Art Museum and Artscape. Like many nonprofit community programs, however, SAIM faces funding problems. In the past, funding has allowed SAIM to take youth participants on out of state trips, purchase food, offer scholarships and throw parties. When President George W. Bush took office, he limited Center of Disease Control (CDC) funding to abstinence only programs. SAIM teaches “safer sex,” so its government funding sources are limited and it is currently seeking other sources to revive past initiatives.

I have been attending SAIM for 4 years and I have had my ups and my downs. I am personally impressed by both my peers that attend SAIM and the facilitators. I often wonder how they put up with me. Whether it’s my corny jokes or half-baked schemes to seek true happiness, they have truly been there for me. There are times when I don’t want to heed the advice they give because I am still young and stubborn, but there are many times when their advice is as good as gold. SAIM is one of Baltimore’s best kept secrets for LGBT youth to gather, flourish as individuals and make new friends. We as a community should support youth groups such as SAIM through donations or by volunteering as facilitators. Remember that once youth are gone, they are gone forever, so make an effort to support SAIM or your local youth group.

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

here is no lack of banking options these days, but how many have a history of supporting our community?

When you are choosing which bank to entrust with your hard earned money, do you consider what they are doing to serve the GLBT community? Thanks to SunTrust’s commitment to our community, they have extended their My Cause promotion through the end of March.

This promotion gives you the opportunity to reinvest in our community by supporting the Gay & Lesbian Community Center of Baltimore (GLCCB).

T

If you haven’t heard of or had a chance to participate in My Cause, you still have time. Until the end of the month, you have the option to choose for SunTrust to donate $100 in your name to the GLCCB. All you have to do is open a SunTrust Personal or Business Checking account, accept a Visa ® Check Card, make a purchase with your card, and complete the online form.

If you’re in the market for a new checking account, SunTrust should definitely be on the top of your list.

That’s not all. SunTrust takes this program a step further with the newly added promotion, SunPoints

for Charity, which assists ongoing fundraising efforts. Those who currently bank with SunTrust can donate their SunPoints (SunTrust’s reward points system) to the GLCCB! Donations can be made in $25, $50 or $100 denominations. The more purchases you make, the more points you can turn into charitable gifts throughout the year. Yet another way that you can shop and feel good knowing that it’s for a good cause!

If you plan to take advantage of the My Cause promotion and the ongoing SunPoints for Charity, make sure you do so by the end of the month. If you’ve already joined with SunTrust, spread the word about these great promotions to your friends and family. The more awareness we can raise, the greater the opportunity to easily and effortlessly increase our fundraising.

This is a great opportunity for you to make a difference in the community while enjoying the benefits of a bank with a commitment to the GLBT community. And the best part: It doesn’t cost you a thing!

For more information about My Cause and how to get involved, visit www.SunTrust.com/MyCause.

Joel Rosado is Development Director of the GLCCB..

www.glccb.org Services. Groups. Events.

Our calendar is now online.

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CALENDAR

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GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 12:30 p.m.

Baltimore, MD 21201 www.chesapeakesquares.org 8-10 p.m.

Terry Gourley

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 4-6:30 p.m. & 7:30-8:30 p.m.

Consumer Planned Activity

COMMUNITY

Live @ Read St. Books 229 W. Read St. Baltimore, MD http://www.myspace.com/ readstreetbooks 8 p.m.

Friday March 7

Brothers of Baraza Men of Color Discussion Group The Portal 2419 Greenmount Ave., Suite 1 Baltimore, MD 21218 410-235-5241 www.theportalbmore.org 7:30-9 p.m.

Volunteer Orientation GLCCB 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.glccb.org 6-8 p.m.

Saturday March 8 Arts & Crafts

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 4:30-6 p.m.

GIG (Gender Identity Group) GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.myspace.com/ genderidentity_group 8 p.m.

Movie & Game Night Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-8:30 p.m.

New Image (Narcotics Anonymous) LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6-7:30 p.m.

Sufficient As I aM (SAIM) Youth & Young Adults 24 & Under

Sunday March 9

Howard County/Columbia PFLAG Owen Brown Interfaith Center 7246 Cradlerock Way Columbia, MD 410-290-8292 (Collette Roberts) www.pflagmd.org 7:30-9 p.m.

Beginners Yoga with Tim Hurley, RYT GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 $9/person 3:30 p.m.

Food for the Soul Open Mic Night Sprial Dance Womyn’s Bookstore 2505 E. Oliver St. Baltimore, MD www.thespiraldancebookstore.com 7-10 p.m.

Narcotics Anonymous Sunday Men’s Rap GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.na.org 11:30 a.m.

Sailaway Pride Night Weather Rail Bar Loews Hotel 126 West St. Annapolis, MD 5-9 p.m.

Social Activity (Varies) Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 1-6 p.m.

Brothers of Baraza

Positive Influence LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Wednesday March 12

Beginners’ Yoga with Kelly D. McClain, CYT GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 $9/person 7:15 p.m.

Gay Bingo (to benefit GLCCB & Aids Action) Club Hippo 1 W. Eager St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-547-0069 8:30 p.m.

GG’s Restaurant & Martini Bar 41 N. Potomac St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 4:30-10:00 p.m.

Power Inside Office 325 E. 25th St., 1st floor Baltimore, MD 21218 3-4:30 p.m.

‘Tini Lounge Happy Hour

Thursday March 13

Alcoholics Anonymous

LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.

GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.aa.org 8:30 p.m.

Dual Recovery Anonymous

Homebuying Workshop

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Chesapeake Squares Club Square Dance Waxter Center 1000 Cathedral St. PA G E 2 6 •

Women of Color Group

Owen Brown Interfaith Center 7246 Cradlerock Way Columbia, MD 7:30 p.m.

GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.aa.org 8:30 p.m.

Alcoholics Anonymous

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Rainbow Youth Alliance

Monday March 10

Tuesday March 11

Support Group for Individuals with Mental Health Issues

GLCCB 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 7:30 p.m.

Power Inside Women’s Rap

Alcoholics Anonymous

The Portal 2419 Greenmount Ave., Suite 1 Baltimore, MD 21218 410-235-5241 www.theportalbmore.org 7-8:30 p.m.

Towson Library 320 York Rd. Towson, MD 7-8:30 p.m.

Free registration: jladams@cbmove.com

JUMP (Just Us Making Progress)

Friday March 14

Men of Color Discussion Group The Portal 2419 Greenmount Ave., Suite 1 Baltimore, MD 21218 410-235-5241 www.theportalbmore.org 7:30-9 p.m.

Gay Fathers Coalition GLCCB 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 7:30 p.m.

Saturday March 15 Arts & Crafts

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 4:30-6 p.m.

Kim Buchanan with Rachel Cross Live @ Read St. Books 229 W. Read St. Baltimore, MD http://www.myspace.com/ readstreetbooks 8 p.m.

Movie & Game Night Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-8:30 p.m.

New Image (Narcotics Anonymous) LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6-7:30 p.m.

Sufficient As I aM (SAIM) Youth & Young Adults 24 & Under GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 12:30 p.m.

Confidential HIV Support Group March 7 - March 20, 2008

Sunday March 16

Wednesday March 19

Sunday Men’s Rap GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.na.org 11:30 a.m.

GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 $9/person 7:15 p.m.

Narcotics Anonymous

Sailaway Pride Night Weather Rail Bar Loews Hotel 126 West St. Annapolis, MD 5-9 p.m.

Social Activity (Varies) Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 1-6 p.m.

Monday March 17 Men Like Me

Open Support Group GLCCB, Room 202 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 menlikeme@glccb.org 6 p.m.

PFLAG Columbia/Howard County Parent Forum Owen Brown Interfaith Center 7246 Cradlerock Way Columbia, MD www.pflagmd.org 7:30-9 p.m.

Tuesday March 18

Beginners’ Yoga with Kelly D. McClain, CYT

Gay Bingo (to benefit GLCCB & Aids Action) Club Hippo 1 W. Eager St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-547-0069 8:30 p.m.

‘Tini Lounge Happy Hour GG’s Restaurant & Martini Bar 41 N. Potomac St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 4:30-10:00 p.m.

Thursday March 20

Alcoholics Anonymous GLCCB, Room 201 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.aa.org 8:30 p.m.

JUMP (Just Us Making Progress) Confidential HIV Support Group The Portal 2419 Greenmount Ave., Suite 1 Baltimore, MD 21218 410-235-5241 www.theportalbmore.org 7-8:30 p.m.

Support Group for Individuals with Mental Health Issues

LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle Street Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Dual Recovery Anonymous

Women of Color Group

Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 6:30-7:30 p.m.

GLCCB 241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 7:30 p.m.

Alcoholics Anonymous

Chesapeake Squares Club Square Dance Waxter Center 1000 Cathedral St. Baltimore, MD 21201 www.chesapeakesquares.org 8-10 p.m.

Consumer Planned Activity Hearts & Ears 10 W. Biddle St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-528-0444 www.heartsandears.org 4-6:30 p.m. & 7:30-8:30 p.m.

Positive Influence LGBT Community Hall 40 W. Church St. Hagerstown, MD 21740 6:30-7:30 p.m.

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

Confidential HIV/STI Testing & Counseling GLCCB

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 5-8 p.m.

241 W. Chase St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-837-5445

HERO Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9 a.m.-1 p.m., 2-4 p.m.

Thursday 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

1734 Maryland Avenue Baltimore, MD 21201 410-685-1180

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MOVIES The Touch D.C. Independent Film Festival Features Lesbian Short

by Maddy Dwertman LA-based filmmaker Jane Clark began her career as an actress in independent films and on television shows, with a recurring role on “Chicago Hope. In 2002, she directed and produced her first short film, Dog Gone, and followed with A Host of Daffodils (2004) and Carrie’s Choice (2005). Her fourth short, The Touch will be screened at the D.C. Independent Film Festival on March 10 at 8 p.m. at the George Washington University Jack Morton Auditorium (21st and H St., NW, Washington, DC).

The Touch is based on Renee Vivien, a celebrated poet from the early 1900s, and her love affair with Kerime Turkhan Pasha, an Islamic woman married to a Turkish diplomat.

An admiring letter from Kerime to Vivien sparked a passionate three-year letter writing

romance, interspersed with in-person meetings. Challenging traditional notions of gender, sexuality, culture and religion, the film imagines Kerime and Vivien’s final meeting.

The film breaks barriers and raises questions of gender, sexuality, race and religion. What message(s) did you as the director intend for viewers to take away from the film?

Gay Life corresponded with Clark from her L.A. base about the inspiration behind and intended messages of her 8-minute short.

Whom one loves isn’t determined by gender, race, religion or culture.

Loving someone is about the soul— about the person within. It has been this way since the dawn of time and will continue this way forever. It’s time for people to stop requiring that love look a certain way.

What or who sparked your interest in Rene Vivien?

I have a feature film script, Cynara, written by Nicole Conn and set in the early 1900s that is a period lesbian romance. I wanted to find a short that could intrinsically represent that film. I discovered Renee and fell in love. Her poetry is beautiful and poignant. Some of it is painful. All of it is eloquent…just like her life was. Having died so young and so unhappy makes her all the more of a great tragic heroine.

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

kiss.”…. The idea exist that love between same-sex couples is somehow perceived as unnaturally different. You can’t necessarily change it by putting out a modern film because the audience will react as they would on the street. But, I’m gambling that you can alter perceptions by telling them a tale that is purely a love story because being in love is something we all can identify with. I think that’s one of the reasons that Brokeback Mountain was so successful.

Very few LGBT films are set as “period” pieces? What did you hope to accomplish with this interesting juxtaposition of content and genre?

The film community has been somewhat “slow to catch up.” The history of gay film has been stories made on small budgets that appeal to the niche rather than the general public. The more complex stories that represent gay characters in traditionally straight roles (thrillers, period pieces, etc.) are more expensive. Until gay film can be counted on to cross-over into the mainstream, it is difficult to make back a budget that is over $750,000. So, you get simple stories, easy to shoot (ie. contained in one or two locations), and lower production values that limit films’ ability to cross-over.

I read an article a year ago in The New York Times that talked about the difference between tolerance and acceptance, and the the idea exists that the heterosexual community might tolerate homosexuality, but that “everything changes the moment we

The mini-major studios need to follow the lead of focus features and put their weight and dollars behind more films with gay and lesbian content.

That requires a leader like James Schamus willing to take the risk…and that just doesn’t seem to exist.

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MUSIC Julie Schurr Plays Indierockbitchfolk at Port in the Storm on March 21

A

Midwest native, lesbian musician Julie Schurr is set to play at Baltimore’s Port in the Storm during her first East Coast tour. With 10 years of local performance experience in Michigan and Missouri, Schurr took to the road touring full time after graduating college in 2006. after graduating college. In addition to playing at countless LGBT venues, she has headlined for the National Coalition of Lesbian Rights, played at breast cancer and domestic violence fundraises, and been involved with several LGBT youth events. Schurr has one album to her credit—To Her: The Bittersweet (2006)—and hopes to release another in May of this year.

Gay Life tracked Schurr down on the open road to speak about her conservative upbringing, unique acoustic style and what she hopes to accomplish through her music.

How did you become interested in pursuing a music career?

I started playing the flute when I was four, so I’ve always been into music. With the guitar, it was a combination of writing and my background in music. I wanted to be able to sing the words that I had, which I couldn’t do while playing the flute. So I picked up the guitar and started learning. I had a really good friend at the time who gave me some pointers. I didn’t know that it would turn into this.

You come from a very conservative, religious upbringing. How has this impacted the development of your music?

My upbringing gave me a better understanding of how deep faith goes regardless of what you believe in, and how faith should be able to connect people instead of keeping them apart. It’s the same thing with music. When people all come to a venue to listen to music, they are all from diverse backgrounds and music is the common denominator.

I took a good thing away from my very strict upbringing. It helps me to better understand where people are coming from instead of just thinking that they are full of hate. It gives me more compassion and understanding of different points of view. It helps me relate more to people when I’m on the road. If you grow up believing something, even if it’s quote on quote wrong, it’s so deeply ingrained that you have to look past the fact that it’s

“wrong”. I do have people who come out to events who are not necessarily advocates of gay rights. They may stumble in, hear the music and talk to me afterwards. I know these people were raised to believe that being gay was wrong just like I was. … I talk to them and I try to make a difference.

Speaking of making a difference, you have been very involved with a number of fundraisers.

I want to do more with my music than just get on a stage and play and entertain people for two hours…. The combination of playing and helping causes that I love is great. If I can donate my time to bring some people out to a breast cancer or domestic violence fundraiser, I’m combining two things that I feel very deeply about. I want to help these causes because I don’t have the money to do it, but I have time and play music, so I can at least give that. I wish I were the kind of humanitarian who could throw out thousands and millions of dollars to these causes, but until I can, I’m honored just to be involved.

I try to raise money for the lesbian community and youth outreach centers. It’s so important for young people to have a support system. I didn’t have that when I grew up. We need to watch out for each other. The world is hard no matter who you are.

How do you describe your music?

Indierockbitchfolk. When I play, I’m definitely not folk. People who play rock would never claim me as rock. It’s not that earthy and it’s not that hard.

Who do you most admire in the music industry?

I admire everyone who is trying to

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do what I’m doing. I have a lot of work to do and a lot further to go. I look to other people who are working this path that I’m on. We all share strength without meeting or talking to one another.

I’m a bad lesbian artist for saying that Trent Resnor from Nine Inch Nails inspired me to begin with.

When I first heard his song “Hurt”, I realized that you can say whatever you want to say and not be apologetic about it. That really helped my writing style. Growing up the way I grew up, I thought there were things to say that were appropriate and things that weren’t. Hearing him express inappropriate things in such an eloquent way made me realize that I can say whatever I want.

I’ve always admired Sarah McLachan and Tori Amos. They are both strong women and work hard.

Tori says what she needs to say with no apologies and everything she says seems to have meaning. There are a lot of universals in her very personal stories.

Have you encountered obstacles as an “out” lesbian musician?

The support system at the venues is awesome and it keeps me going.

I’ll only play in venues that I’m comfortable in, which are primarily LGBT venues. There are exceptions to the rule, but it seems that people

March 7 - March 20, 2008

are not open to new music by new people. New music by a lesbian with a guitar is not deemed worthy in the “mainstream” venues. But at this point in my career, I’m fine with that because I’ve had so many beautiful connections come out of playing where I play. I always want to stay primarily with LGBT venues. It’s really annoying to turn on the radio and have to change every pronoun in the song to fit the image you have in your head. You can’t sing the story unless you change all the pronouns in the head. I want my music to offer the LGBT community something you can sing to your boyfriend or girlfriend without having to change the pronouns.

What’s the best part of performing?

I try to always have fun. If you come out to a show, you need to talk to me. I’m going to talk from the stage and try to make you laugh. I love the interaction. I like it to be as if I’m playing in my living room regardless of how many people are there…. Come and talk to me and heckle me because I’ll heckle you back with the best of them.

For additional information about Julie Schurr and upcoming tour dates, visit www.julieschurr.com. She will be heading to DC after her Baltimore performance to play at Phase One on March 23.

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From left to right: Gwen Frederick (drums), Mickey Dehn (bass & vocals), Ginger Starling (keys & vocals), Sandy Dumas (guitar & vocals), Davi Anson-Dross (lead vocals), Pauline Anson-Dross (guitar & vocals)

Wicked Jezabel wins WAMA Award for Best Rock Band Local lesbian rock band Wicked Jezabel is the first all-female group to win in a rock category in Washington Area Music Association’s (WAMA) 22-year history. Dynamically delivering retro-party hits in the BaltimoreDC area since 2004, Wicked Jezabel

plays everything from 60s Motown to 70s disco, the wicked 80s to the grungy techno 90s and today’s hottest hits. According to bassist Mickey Dehn, they “sounds like Blondie and Heart got drunk and had a threesome with Cher.” In addition to delivering an awesome party atmosphere, the band supports the animal rescue community, breast cancer awareness and women with heart disease. They also played at Baltimore Pride 2007. You can check out their sound at www.myspace.com/wickedjezabel.

SERIAL Cereal: The Adventures of Pico Darling had been working this terrible job at a furniture store on Fleet Street for a few months when, out of the blue, an old friend called my cell phone. Relieved that the service was still on considering the bill was three months past due, I hit the button to send the call to voicemail, as I was with a customer.

But I did stop to smile; I hadn’t seen or heard from Ce Ce in a while.

I

Ce Ce, more evasive and ghostlike than I, would disappear for months or years at a time and emerge just as randomly as she had left with a tall tale about her travels and her time spent doing who knows what. So when I checked my voicemail later that night after work, I almost choked on my first bite of Life cereal, the TV flickering in front of me on mute. Ce Ce’s low and slow voice said that she was working for, and not only working for but also living with, the biggest, brightest, most

influential and powerful person on the planet, Asha Hennessy.

know, so it makes sense to just…be available. ”

“Shut the f*ck up, I do not even believe you,” I screamed into the phone a few moments later. “What the f*ck do you mean you live with Asha? The Asha Hennessy? Like who’s on TV right now? That Asha? I don’t believe you.”

“So, what, are you in Chicago right now, cuz that’s where she lives, right? I mean, I know she’s got houses all over the place. I read she owns a small country somewhere.”

“Believe it, because it’s true,” Ce Ce moaned into the phone. “You know, I don’t really know how it happened. I met a guy at a party one night who introduced me to another guy who introduced me to a girl who got me the job. It just happened.”

“What party? Okay, wait a minute, never f*cking mind that. You live with her?”

“Yeah it’s a really good gig. I hardly have to do shit and I don’t pay for anything…and I get gifts. I just have to be…available all the time, you

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

“Well, actually, I’m where you are sort of. You’re still in Baltimore?”

“Yes. I am here,” I replied slowly.

Then quickly, “You know she got her start here?”

“I know.... So, I’m in DC. Asha’s getting an award or is going to some show or something tomorrow. I don’t really know, but do you want to go, you want to meet her?”

“Absolutely!”

“Are you working? Do they need you at work?”

“F*ck no!”

ready tomorrow at 6. I gotta go now.

See you tomorrow, lover.” Ce Ce hung up quick.

At this point my cereal was all soggy, just the way I hate it. Usually that would have made me really upset, but this time I simply pushed the bowl aside, assumed a lying position on the couch, and got myself off.

The limo was huge. Actually, I wouldn’t know if it was huge, comparatively, as I can’t recall ever having been in a limousine. Huge. Long, plush and empty. I didn’t speak to the driver at all in that 45 minute trip, only to say thank you when she opened the door to let me in.

She let me out a short distance away from a tent with logos of movie channels, sports drinks, and deodorant plastered onto it where

“Good. I’ll send a car for you. Be March 7 - March 20, 2008

by Shayna Robinson

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continued on page 30

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CEREAL - continued from page 29

folks were having their picture taken, like at prom. The Kennedy Center is huge too. I do recall coming here as a kid to see the Nutcracker or some such thing. I remember thinking of how so much cement got into one place, how it was able to stand so tall without falling or at least cracking a bit. I remembered this as I walked toward a roped entrance. There were tuxedos and velvet carpets and press passes and flashing lights and the sudden rumble of hundreds of people who stood by as each long car spewed out the next celebrity. And here I was in the middle of it all, in my $20 trousers and $10 jacket.

Someone patted me on my ass as I neared the tent. I thought it was a courtesy or a welcoming as I was not accustomed to these types of events, but then came a whack. I spun around quickly. Ce Ce stood before me with a hand on her hip. She glowed in a shimmery strapless tangerine gown that carried a neat, short train in the back. She looked better, more rested and manicured, than I had ever seen her.

“You are divine!” I yelled as she grabbed me for a tight hug. “Let me see you.”

She spun then, too; slower, though, with a bit of a side step motion.

I applauded softly.

“You look as sexy as ever,” Ce Ce spoke close, into my ear. “She’ll love you.”

I made a face, a doudy one, which she swatted away with a left hand while pulling two golden tickets out of somewhere with her right.

“We’ll need these,” she said and with that she took my hand and we pushed through. I held on tight, trailing behind, lending my second hand to Ce Ce’s firm upper arm.

She had no problems navigating the treachery. Ce Ce bobbed and weaved with ease. We mounted a grand staircase, the people below moving in slow motion, their voices ricocheting off of every marble surface, so that their mouths and the words spilling from them were always out of sync.

The theater was grand. Valances bloomed and blossomed all over the place. Draperies hung from every balcony and rail. Ce Ce led us to a box, like the kind in which Abraham Lincoln was shot, where about five other people had already gathered and taken seats. They didn’t look at us as we sat down in chairs behind them.

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Just as I was turning to comment on something to Ce Ce, I saw her.

She was making her way through a doorway in a full deep-emerald-

March 7 - March 20, 2008

green gown, the kind that is so big and so full that you can’t see the person’s legs anywhere in it and they look like they are floating instead of walking, like the kind Glenda the Good Witch had. Her smooth, browned shoulders emerged from the stiff green. She was regal. She was ethereal. She was glowing and dewy and grand and thick and forward-moving and flashing huge smiles to the gazes she encountered. And then she was looking at me. She was looking at me! She was looking me dead in my eye, without breaking the rhythm of the handshakes she was handing out to people. She made her way to the booth where I was sitting. I turned away from her to ready myself for the encounter.

The five people in front of us were up and out of their chairs to greet and welcome Asha to her booth.

They stepped/reached/climbed over me to get at her elbows, to gently grab at her wrists, to have a piece of her, to guide her, to be a part of her, to take the load off, to help her place each step as she neared. The lapels of their tuxedo jackets and the sequined sleeves of their designer dresses smashed into my face, grazed the top of my head messy-ing my hair. And then I heard her voice.

It was the same voice you hear everyday at 4 o’clock on channel 13, but this time one could feel the wet breath of the words. She stood just behind me. I could smell her, musky and sweet at the same time. I could feel her belly pressed lightly against my left shoulder.

“Excuse me,” she said.

I stood to allow her to pass by my seat. We stood face to face in a tight pose. Her face. The whites of her eyes were actually yellow and a bit bloodshot. Her lips were the deepest plum purple and she had a thousand hard-to-see freckles scattered on her cheeks and across the bridge of that wonderfully famous broad nose.

She smiled a bit and I can’t imagine what my face did in return and that was it. She moved on. I saw her kiss Ce Ce, who was now also standing, on the cheek, and head to a seat in front and to the left of us. They didn’t exchange words.

“That’s her,” I yell-whispered to Ce Ce. “Let’s go to the bathroom, we’ll talk about it,” Ce Ce responded. And then seeing a shot of disappointment on my face she continued, “Don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere.

We’ll be right back.”

Shayna Robinson wants to write stories for a living. She lives in Baltimore City.

This serial will be continued – be sure to check back next issue for the next installment.

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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PENCIL ME IN Auktyon Thursday, March 20

Russian Bohemian rockers with punk sensibilities perform with guest jazzy artists Marc Ribot and John Medeski. Featuring songs off their new album, Girls Sing, Auktyon will bring some of the best music out of Russia to the State Theatre (220 N. Washington, St., Falls Church, VA). Doors open at 7 p.m. with an 8:30 p.m. showtime. For tickets, visit http://tickets.thestatetheatre.com.

Friday March 7

Miss Gay Freestate Benefit Club Hippo (1. W. Eager St., Baltimore) hosts the best in female impersonation shows each and every Friday. Join Josie Foster, Sabrina White (Miss Gay America 2002), Sparkle Alexander and Miss Gay Freestate Jazmen Marx for a special benefit performance as we continue on our way to Miss Gay Maryland. Doors open at 10 p.m., show starts at 11 p.m. $6 admission. Visit www.clubhippo.com for additional information.

Saturday, March 8

Unite: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) Annual Gala Pull out your formal attire and support the SLDN at its 16th annual national dinner and silent auction at the National Building Museum (401 F St., NW). The event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. and will feature guest speaker Tipper Gore with special invited guest Sergeant Darren Manzella, an openly gay Army medic. RSVP and purchase tickets by calling SDLN at 202-328-3244.

Thursday March 13

GLCCB Book Discussion Group Come out at 7:30 p.m. for a stimulating discussion about Pat Barker’s novel, The Eye in the Door. The main character, Lieutenant Billy Pryor, grapples with issues of trauma and sexuality as Barker explores the upheaval of British society during WWI. New members are always welcome. For additional information about the group, call 410-837-5445.

Patty Larkin @ Ram’s Head On Stage With inventive guitar wizardry and uncompromising lyrics, musical troubadour Patty Larkin has been redefining the boundaries of folk-pop music for more than 20 years. Don’t miss her performance at Ram's Head On Stage in Annapolis (33 W. Street), celebrating the release of her 11th CD Watch The Sky. The show starts at 8:00 p.m. For tickets ($22.50) and additional information, visit http://tickets.ramsheadonstage.com.

Saturday, March 15

Mapping Mount Vernon At 12pm, the Maryland Humanities Council will transform its office (108 West Centre St., Baltimore) into a coffee house to showcase the art and storytelling of Kianga Ford as she remaps Mount Vernon through her new audio work, “Mapping Mount Vernon—the Story of This Place.” Commissioned by the Contemporary Museum, Ford’s 40-minute tour will lead visitors through the neighborhood on a journey that introduces a series of narratives and characters, crossing time and collapsing the fictive and the real. For additional information, call 410-685-0095 or visit www.mdhc.org,

Saturday March 15 – Sunday March 16

Fabergé Egg Festival Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens celebrates the arrival of spring in traditional Russian style with the annual Fabergé Egg Family Festival. The art of Fabergé-inspired eggs is showcased in the display, “Passion, Playfulness, Process: Decorated Eggs ,” by Bonnie Mapelli. After exploring these fanciful eggs, young artisans can step into “Fabergé’s Workshop” to create their own decorative eggs in the style of Fabergé. Russian Easter traditions, imperial history, and stories about the fabulous Fabergé eggs will come to life through the costumed interpreter portraying Tsar Nicholoas II and performances by storyteller Arianna Ross.

Other features of the weekend include the Samovar Russian Folk Music Ensemble, children’s games, and special audio tours of Hillwood’s collection of imperial Russian arts. Festivities go from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday and continue on Sunday from 1-5 p.m. Ticket prices range from $7-12. For additional information, call 202-6865807 or visit www.hillwoodmuseum.org.

Wednesday, March 19

2008 Men of Mauntner Awards Join The Mauntner Project at the Historic Women’s National Democratic Club (1526 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, DC) for a celebration in honor of the men who support the organization’s assistance to their sisters struggling with cancer. Hosted by Bill Gannon and David Weidner, enjoy great conversation and food from 6-8:30 p.m. For tickets and additional information, call 202-232-5536 or register online at www.mauntnerproject.org.

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THEATER On the Stage 4 By Ten March 21 - April 13 Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre, Baltimore 410-752-1255 www.spotlighters.org Bad Dates March 11 – April 20 Olney Theatre Center 301-924-3400 www.olneytheatre.org Camelot March 25 – April 6 Hippodrome Theatre 410-547-SEAT www.broadwayacrossamerica.com Fool for Love Through March 9 Spooky Action Theatre, Silver Spring 202-248-0647 www.spookyaction.org

Stunning at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Laura Heisler and Quincy Tyler Bernstine star in the world premiere of David Adjmi’s Stunning at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (641 D Street, NW, Washington, DC). Photo by Stan Barouh.

From Tel Aviv to Ramallah: A Beatbox Journey March 20 - March 29 CenterStage 410-332-0033 www.centerstage.org The Gem of the Ocean March 19 - April 27 Everyman Theatre 410-752-2208 www.everymantheatre.org The Glass Menagerie Through March 29 The Bay Theatre Company, Annapolis 410-268-1333 www.baytheatre.org Green Book Through March 22 Arena Players, Baltimore 410-728-6500 www.arenastage.org A Hatful of Rain Through March 30 Vagabond Players, Baltimore 410-563-9135 http://www.bcpl.net/~thevag/ Hedda Gabler Through March 9 Washington Shakespeare Company, D.C. 703-418-4808 www.washingtonshakespeare.org

Major Barbara at Shakespeare Theatre Company Leah Curney as Sarah Undershaft, Helen Carey as Lady Britomart, Kevin O’Donnell as Charles Lomax, Ted van Griethuysen as Andrew Undershaft and Vivienne Benesch as Barbara in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, directed

by Ethan McSweeny. Photo by Scott Suchman.

See more theater listings online at

The History Boys March 26 - May 4 Studio Theatre, D.C. 202-332-3300 www.studiotheatre.org Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Through June 8 Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia 410-995-1969 www.tobysdinnertheatre.com

Killer Joe Through March 8 Maryland Ensemble Theatre, Frederick www.marylandensemble.org Kiss of the Spiderwoman March 11 – April 20 Signature Theatre, Arlington 703-820-9771 www.signature-theatre.org A Little Night Music March 20 - March 29 CenterStage 410-332-0033 www.centerstage.org Major Barbara Through March 23 The Shakespeare Theatre Company, D.C. 877-487-8849 www.shakespearetheatre.org Paradise Park Through April 6 Signature Theatre, D.C. 800-955-5566 www.signature-theatre.org Rent March 7 – March 9 Hippodrome Theatre 410-547-SEAT www.broadwayacrossamerica.com Strega Nona Through April 19 Maryland Ensemble Theatre, Frederick 301-694-4744 www.marylandensemble.org Stunning March 10 – April 6 Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company 202-393-3939 www.woollymammoth.net Swimming in the Shallows Through March 8 Catalyst Theater Company, D.C. 1-800-494-TIXS www.catalysttheater.org Three Days of Rain March 14 – April 13 Fells Point Corner Theatre 410-276-7837 www.fpct.org Us March 15 – March 16 Theatre Project, Baltimore 410-752-8558 www.theatreproject.org/ Wizard of Oz March 15 - June 8 Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Baltimore 410-995-1969 www.tobysdinnertheatre.com

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Us to Peek into Us

Tim Miller Invites

Baltimore Theatre Project, March 15-16

BY WILLIAM J. MANN

I

magine for a moment that you lived in a country where your boyfriend, girlfriend, life partner (whatever you want to call them) could be deported at any moment, where there would be a knock at the door and your lover would be pulled from your bed and taken away. Imagine having to separate because the laws of that country won't allow you to stay together. Imagine that you and your lover would both have to quit your jobs, sell the house and leave that nation to make a life together in a more civilized country.

What country is this? Russia?

Iran? Nope, sorry. That country is the United States of America and that is the situation that all binational lesbian and gay couples face in America. Unlike most western countries (Canada, Australia, Holland, Spain, Belgium, England, France, Sweden and many others) that have begun to honor gay relationships with immigration rights, in the US (where lesbian and gay partnerships are given none of the same special privileges that all heterosexual marriages are afforded) when an American citizen falls in love with someone from another country he or she will quickly realize what a homophobic American pickle they've gotten themselves into.

Solo performer Tim Miller and writer Alistair McCartney have been living in this Kafkaesque situation for fourteen years since their relationship began in London in 1994. This bi-national gay poster couple will be in Baltimore March 15-16 for performances at the Baltimore Theatre Project. Miller dives into this charged “personal is political” material in his performance US and Alistair will do a post-show reading on March 16. In a work that is disarmingly funny, pissed off, sexy and challenging, Miller explores his relationship with his Australian partner Alistair McCartney.

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

March 7 - March 20, 2008

Fast, funny and furious, Us ricochets between Miller’s love affair with Broadway musicals since childhood and an exploration of gay marriage, exile and the injustices lesbian and gay people face in the good ol’ USA. Us is a funny, sassy and pissed-off exploration of these most American contradictions Tim takes us on a whirlwind journey that re-thinks the American Musical as inspiration for radical politics and queer identity. Miller and McCartney have been no strangers to controversy. (Miller was one of the notorious NEA 4, the four performances artists who had their grants taken away in 1990 for the content of their work). All of that, however, pales in comparison to what the couple says will be “the fight of our lives” as they try to claim equal rights as a gay American citizen with a partner from another country.

As Tim and Alistair find themselves in the midst of their struggles with the biased immigration laws of this country, potentially having to dismantle their home together in Los Angeles once Alistair's H1B work visa expires, Alistair's first novel The End of the World Book (University of Wisconsin Press) is out and making a big splash on the literary scene. The novel's main character —who just happens to be named Alistair—recounts both the story of his life and the history of the world, (clearly a topic that is on everyone's minds these days). But what's more striking and exciting about this novel is that it's also an

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creative non-fiction and fiction. So now I think of myself as a novelist, because although I always use real names and often write about real scenarios, I’d never call what I do nonfiction. It's all straight from my imagination and dream-life, but it's all straight from my imagination and dreamlife, but I'm also an encyclopedist, a very queer one, describing and categorizing the contents of my unconscious.

US from page 33

encyclopedia—A to Z—a kinky, irreverent archive of memories, dreams, homoerotic obsessions and philosophical fixations. And this is not your average encyclopedia! McCartney covers everything from Abercrombie and Fitch to Aristotle, Britney Spears to Socrates, Justin Timberlake to Terrorism, not to forget offering stories about growing up in Australia and his life with another character by the name of “Tim Miller”. Gay readers will be particularly intrigued by its twisted, provocative take not only on core aspects of pop culture but also Gay culture: AIDS, bare backing, crystal, gay music and gay pornography, just to name a few.

Tim, you are notorious for getting naked in your shows. What role does nudity play in performance?

I caught up with Miller & McCartney recently to speak of Us, queer love and the End of the World Book.

Tell us about Us! TIM: I am VERY buzzed about this new show— which got nominated in 2005 for a NY Drama Desk Award for best solo on or off Broadway! Us charts the kinky stew of my love affair with musicals and my take on troubled America...living here not knowing when my partner Alistair and I will have to leave the country. I had to confront my internalized showtune shame! I also saw the wild, transformative, progressive energy in these shows. These musicals also provided my earliest political education: Little Oliver in the musical is clearly a proto gay activist daring to ask for more!

I looked to musical theater for deeper—or at least more tuneful—pointers about how the world was organized and how systems of injustice were going to try to rain on my queer parade. Forget Marx & Engels. I had Rogers and Hammerstein!

The piece careens from memories of a ten-yearold's plan to flee to Canada to escape the war in Vietnam (Man of La Mancha), to a meditation on why a Southern California child spoke in an English accent (Oliver!), to a surreal tug-of-war at the edge of America on Alistair’s and my wedding day as the Niagara Falls rushes between my legs (Don't Rain on My Parade).

So, it's pretty interesting timing that just as you both are potentially about to be leave the U.S. and be pushed to the edge of the world, Alistair’s novel The End of the World Book has come out. How long before your visa runs out?

How have your struggles informed the writing of this book? Does the book address your immigration struggles directly like Tim's work?

ALISTAIR: Well, yes, as you say the timing is pretty interesting, to put it lightly. Basically, my current visa runs out February 2009, so I guess that gives us right now a little under a year before we have to leave the U.S. While I'm incredibly excited to have my book coming out…Tim and I are also trying to figure out how we might continue to stay in this country, so it's obviously been an incredibly stressful time, filled with a lot of uncertainty and anxiety.

Tell me about Us. How do you get at this very hot material about bi-national couples’ situation, which is probably news for lots of people?

Plus, how do you make it entertaining?

Americans are so soppy and sentimental—it's one of the things that might save us! This very human, funny and moving story about the deep capacity of lesbian and gay people to love one another without ANY help or encouragement from our society strikes a chord with folks. I am glad it both hits the funny bone and pulls those heartstrings!

Alistair, your book struck me as your own personal encyclopedia, your very own Queer 21st century version of the World Book Encyclopedia?

ALISTAIR: Well, it really begins with a deep, lifelong passion I've had for the World Book. The process was pretty organic, and, like most things in my writing, I stumbled upon it by accident or by surprise. I was born and grew up in Perth, Western Australia, which in that other World Book encyclopedia is always listed as the most isolated,industrialized city in the world. Growing up there you feel really separate and apart from the world, in your own world as it were. I was also the youngest of seven kids; my nearest sibling was six years older than me, so I kind of had the experience of being an only child in an odd way. Both of those factors saw me spending a lot of time by myself, daydreaming. Like most families, we had our edition of the World Book Encyclopedia, and given the isolation of where I grew up, and being the youngest, the World Book was like my constant companion throughout childhood. I must have spent thousands of hours obsessively going through every volume.

How did your writing evolve into an encyclopedia?

TIM: I'm told it's my most enjoyable show I've done! Us is both the most emotionally intense and the funniest piece I have ever made. There is something about the urgency of the material that brings all this out. The humor comes up in the show just as it does in life as a way of dealing with the stress of the situation. Ultimately Us is a hyper-romantic love story and audiences, straight and gay, relate to the show in that way. We PA G E 3 4 •

Alistair McCartney’s The End of the World Book

ALISTAIR: Well, One day I was just writing, I think it was about “Lust”, and I put a big letter L in big font at the top of the page, then the word Lust, just like you would see in an encyclopedia. I started playing around with more letters. W came next, for an entry on the World. It just unfolded from there. The form I needed to be working in suddenly seemed so obvious, but, of course, it took me years to get there. It gave a system and an order to my anarchic imagination, which of course then freed me from the constraints of both

March 7 - March 20, 2008

TIM: Yes, I'm still naked! In my work I am always more interested in exploring the most vulnerable and f*cked up parts of myself in a naked performance section. In Us I have a wild melt down Bush-nightmare political striptease set to a crazy collage of showtunes. I am Gypsy Rose Lee at last! From ancient Athens to Naked Boys Singing, I think the theater and performance has always been a place where the body gets figured out. I'm sure those theater-queen audiences in the 5th Century B.C. were looking forward to seeing the fresh crop of cute chorus boys in Euripides’ new play. In our f**ked-up culture right now, the theater is virtually the only place (other than the occasional nude beach!) where the naked body is allowed a public presence. However, a naked weenie or butt onstage is not that interesting in itself, but rather becomes important for us to look at as it reveals the feelings, complexity, desires, details and revelations of our lives.

What will you guys do to stay together?

ALISTAIR: : I've been in the States since 1997, almost a third of my adult life, and I feel far more American than I do Australian these days. I mean, I’m married to an American, in every sense of the word, except legally of course. So I actually consider myself an American…without any formal recognition as such, or any papers.

TIM: Right now, couples like Alistair and I are offered three scenarios: your partner is deported; you break up; or you both leave the country and make a life in a more civilized nation than America. Not very pleasant options. Fortunately, Alistair has passports from two countries (Australia and the UK) that give gay people and their partners immigration rights. I have this completely romantic thought that art can change the world and that something is going to change.

Clearly I took all those political musicals like Les Mis seriously! The unfairness of this situation is so outrageous. Meanwhile, I’m going to work my little performance art booty off to raise awareness, money and trouble as I travel and perform, conjuring my hopes and dreams of gay people’s extraordinary potential for love.

Theatre Project presents Tim Miller in Us March 15 @ 8pm and March 16 @ 7pm Tickets: $20 general admission/ $15 seniors and artists/$10 students Alistair McCartney reads from his new novel End of the World Book after the March 16 performance of Us. Box Office: 410-752-8558 or www.missiontix.com William J Mann is the award-winning author of The Men from The Boys and Kate. Tim Miller can be reached at http://hometown.aol.com/millertale/, and Alistair at http://hometown.aol.com/meaningme/.

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QPUZZLE "Out, That Is"

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

Across

Down

1 Nuts 5 Queen's "subjects" 9 Tone of many Stein photos 14 Internally pink 15 Screwdriver, e.g.

16 Cash drawers 17 Asian inland sea 18 Gay cable network 19 Lover of Henry and June 20 Grace period on debts?

23 Long, to a Samurai?

24 Out reply to "Are you gay?"

25 Bundle of grain 27 Apartment ___ 30 Depp's cross-dressing role 33 Have a ball 37 Pod in Craig Claiborne's gumbo 39 Judy Garland concert persona 40 Booty 41 Went undercover 42 Inflamed end?

43 Like some beds 44 Glinda portrayer in _The Wiz_ 45 King's defeat of Riggs, e.g.

46 Wine from the land of Lorca 48 AIDS org.

50 Poppers containers 52 State of polar bears 57 Sophie B. Hawkins' "___ Lay Me Down" 59 Stevie Wonder song about Chastity's mom?

62 Burton with Roots 64 Mark Bingham of United Flight 93 65 Letters over Mary's son 66 Williams' significant other 67 Place for a Rivera mural 68 West ___ Story 69 Go lickety-split 70 Did a bad imitation of Bette Davis 71 Femme character in Mango Kiss

1 Sheik's land, in song 2 Lesbian Dr. Equi 3 Exams on sexual technique?

4 Rosie's partner 5 Vidal essay collection 6 Coward of Blithe Spirit 7 _Trick_'s Spelling 8 Gay ski weekends rides 9 Didn't leave the next morning 10 One to Rohm 11 Iambs in "Hamlet," ungrammatically?

12 Eurythmics' "Would ___ to You?" 13 The A of ILGA 21 Unlike on a clear day 22 Out in front 26 What S&M people are as smart as?

28 Hitchcock thriller based on Leopold and Loeb 29 Rubber-stamping 31 Award for Cherry Jones 32 "___ Thou Remember Me?" (Dickinson) 33 Desire Under the ___ 34 He took on a pair of bears 35 Nancy McKeon character full of life?

36 SNL's Cheri 38 Make a hole bigger 41 In a foxy way 45 NCAA home of the Bruins 47 Stick it to McKuen 49 "The Wizard of Oz" scorer Arlen 51 E with a queer orientation 53 Cockeyed 54 Rutstein of Disappear Fear 55 Some Iranians 56 Horny one in the zodiac?

57 Cathedral of Hope collection 58 Penetrate slowly 60 Load 61 Island of Lost Souls director Kenton 63 Heady stuff

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O

ne of the first “out” lesbian stand-up comedians, political humorist Kate Clinton has been making audiences laugh for over 25 years. Featured at comedy clubs and festivals nationwide, she has eight comedy albums, including her recently released Kate Clinton: 25th Anniversary DVD. She has appeared on numerous television shows, including Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, The L Word, and countless news and talk shows on Comedy Central, MSNBC, CNN, LOGO, Lifetime and CSpan. She also hosted In the Life and The World According to Us. In addition to her stand-up, Clinton has authored two books, Don’t Get Me Started and What the L? An emcee for numerous fundraising events, Clinton was awarded the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, listed in New York Magazine’s 2001 Gay Power 101, and received the Pioneer Award at the GLAAD Media Awards in 2007 Kate Clinton graciously agreed to speak with Gay Life about humor, politics and the evolution of her career…which allowed her to buy an incredible new corduroy shirt.

You were a high school English teacher before taking to the stage. How did you get from teaching to stand-up comedy?

I had always been the funny one in my family and the crack-up in grammar school, but when I graduated from college women were allowed to either teach or do nursing. I don't do blood, so I became a high school English teacher…which is actually great preparation for doing stand-up.

In the early '80s, it was really the beginning of the comedy boom. I just wanted to try it. My best friend got sick of me talking about doing it and booked me in a club in Syracuse. I grew up in Syracuse, so we put a sign up in the women's bar. The audience was filled with all of my close friends, so it was a very supportive environment. The next show was two weeks later in Boston where I didn't know anyone. It was less hysterical, but from my teaching experience, I learned to stick with things. I had a friend who had been in a women's band and she booked me for five years. My dear partner at the time became my manager and things just quickly fell into place.

Have you always been "out" as a comic?

I was out from the start. I really had the benefit of coming up through a well-developed system of lesbian coffee houses, and there was a really booming lesbian music scene at the time.

That's where I was able to get my chops and work on material. I feel bad for gay comedians who come up now because they don't have those spaces that can give you confidence in terms of talking about being lesbian or gay.

This was a great place for me to start. I went from the lesbian circuit to the lesbian and gay circuit. Then, as we started doing more political and cultural work, we grew and started to attract more and more straight people. It was a PA G E 3 6 •

It’s Been A

Life Kate Clinton Still Laughing After 25 Years

INTERVIEW BY MADDY DWERTMAN

very interesting, organic build. It's been a life and that's why I've been able to laugh this long.

Speaking of NGLTF, you just hosted the 2008 Creating Change plenaries.

Were you a political humorist from the start as well?

The plenaries were amazing. I hadn't been to Creating Change in a while because it conflicts with my birthday. But this year they moved it to February. It was so exciting to be there because there is a whole generation of young people working in the gay movement in centers, schools, anti-violence projects. They're being paid [as] professional gay people. And the conference had some incredible recipients: Julian Bond; Matt Foreman who gave the gay state of the union address; Bishop Gene Robinson from New Hampshire who is very radical.

To say that you were an open lesbian comedian in 1981 was a political act. Then I became more of a part of the changing gay and lesbian movement. The major change came in '85 when gays and lesbians started working more to fight AIDS. We were in the middle of the Reagan administration and he never said the word AIDS during his 8 years in office. Getting involved with my current partner of 20 years, Urvashi Vaid, who is very involved with AIDS, also influenced me. The former NGLTF [National Gay and Lesbian Task Force] head, she has been in the movement for a very wonderful long time and is a brilliant strategist.

Through her, I became more political in my shows. I am very grateful for that. We're a marriage of comedy and tragedy, but I won't say which I am on any given day.

March 7 - March 20, 2008

You’ve been making audiences laugh now for over twenty-five years. How has the industry changed since you started?

As there became more lesbian comedians, there were ways you could specialize. Karen Williams does amazing African American lesbian, single mom stuff. Vicki Shaw has unique

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material because she comes from an extreme fundamentalist background and has kids. (I've thought of renting kids because there's a lot of material there.) The presence of other lesbian comedians allowed me not to have to cover every aspect of lesbian life and talk about things from a more political perspective.

How have you changed as a performer since you first started out?

If something gay happened in the media twenty years ago, I could talk about it for 5 years. Wow! Lily Tomlin wore purple. That was big news. Now it is so amazing with all of the things that are happening at state, national and international levels. I feel I'm just barely ahead of the curve…. I feel like a war correspondent a lot.

Technology has also changed. I like to include content local to the places where I'm performing Before I would have to pump the person driving me from the airport to the show. Now I have the internet.

In terms of performing, you just get better at your job. I feel I have more confidence. I know when something's going to work and what to do when it doesn't work. The early years were like projectile vomiting all of the time. I still get nervous before the show, but I like to think of it as excitement.

In addition to your stand-up and your television appearances, you have also published two books [Don’t Get Me Started and What the L?]. How has writing impacted your stand-up?

One feeds the other. As much as I bitch about my publicist who always wants me to write more for the blog, it has actually made me write a lot of new material that feeds performance. And, then when I'm performing, I find material that would be a great column.

Years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Lilly Tomlin and she told me to do as much as you can in different formats and bring it forward.

Books, CDs, being a presence in the media...all of that makes a career.

You’ve been cracking on presidents for quite some time and you're in the middle of your "Hilarity Clinton ‘08" tour now.

Lord knows there's enough to talk about. You can feel the overriding changes in the air. (I wish we had trademarked "change" because we could have made a lot of money.)

People are so over Bush. I made fun of him for years and now I don't care. I feel like I'm in the last year of my job as designated "Bush-watcher". You can feel things happening and also feel how people are really torn between Obama and Clinton.

As much as it’s wracking for people, my job is to point out that it's so cool that we have choices between an African-American man and a white woman. People have continuously said to me that it's so easy to be a comedian during the Bush years.

That also meant that I had to watch what was going on, and it wasn't easy. Getting rid of every privacy right and attacking gay people through gay marriage.... It was just excruciating. I'm absolutely sure that we're still going to need to laugh in the next few years.

Both candidates have slipped up during their campaigns when it comes to LGBT issues. Who do think is more sincere about LGBT rights?

It was pretty instructive when Obama did not distance himself from Donnie McClurkin, the bible guy. He did talk about homophobia in the black community. They both say they oppose "Don't ask, Don't tell" and support civil unions. It remains to be seen if they have the backbone to actually back up what they've said.

The difference with this election is that gay people are much more savvy in their political giving, and there is power. We are giving money and expecting things from it. This is a sign of maturity for the movement.

We can look at the national level, but

at the state level amazing things are happening. For the last 7 or 8 years, when people felt powerless to influence the trifecta of idiots, they put a lot of money into statewide organizing and local gay and lesbian centers. That is really exciting.

It doesn't seem that you plan to stop any time soon. What’s in store for the future?

I will continue the Hilarity tour and will have a new CD out in March of my tour from last year, "Climate Change", which will be available through KateClinton.com.

We have a DVD of the 25th anniversary tour out and about. I've been doing some video blogging on LOGO, which has been fun. I am also trying to get a third book together.

What about a talk show?

I would love to do a talk show. I just love getting people's stories. My girlfriend says I'm nosy. But, I talk about my life all the time, so let me ask a few questions. The first obstacle to having a talk show, however, was homophobia. How crazy. Then I got old, so now it's ageism. And then there's sexism. But I love what I do.

Kate Clinton plans to be in the D.C. area this June. You can check her tour dates at www.kateclinton.com.

Find luxury, comfort, convenience and style in both of our beautifully appointed all-suite hotels. We're just footsteps off historic Charles Street in downtown Baltimore.

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410.727.2222 www.TREMONTS.com www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

March 7 - March 20, 2008

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REAL ESTATE Seven Tips for First-time Homebuyers If you've ever thought about owning a home, now may be the time to take action. Lower interest rates combined with a large inventory of homes in most markets across the U.S. may translate into a good opportunity for buyers in negotiating the terms of a sale with a seller.

The home buying process may seem daunting to someone who has never purchased a home before. But, through home buying educational seminars offered in your community, and with the assistance of an experienced loan officer, a first-time home buyer can obtain a better understanding of their financing options, leading to a more positive home buying experience.

"Whether you've been dreaming of owning a home for years or you've just decided it would be a smart financial move to make, your first home buying experience will be a memorable one," says Jim Ferriter, executive vice presi-

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dent for GMAC Mortgage. "It's important to learn about your financing options in order to find the mortgage that's right for you."

Ferriter offers the following tips for first-time home buyers: 1. Educate Yourself About the Mortgage Process - By taking the initiative and learning about the mortgage process, you can be more confident in the financial decisions you are making. It's important to learn about different types of mortgages, how much you can afford, how your credit impacts your interest rate, and the benefits of home ownership. A mortgage tutorial is available at http://smartedgebygmac.com, which breaks down the home buying process into easy-to-understand steps.

2. Save Just a Little Bit More - It's not only important to save money for the down payment and closing costs, but it's important to factor in some of the other costs of home ownership such as decorating, repairs and maintenance.

Many mortgage lenders recommend that first-time home buyers have at least three to six months of additional savings in their possession in anticipation of these additional expenses.

3. Check Your Credit - An individual's credit score will have a significant impact on his or her mortgage loan approval and interest rate. A good first step in financing a home purchase is to check your credit history. You can request a free credit report from any of the three credit reporting bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion or Experian. Carefully review your report and contact the credit reporting bureaus to correct any inaccuracies.

4. Shop Around for a Mortgage Lender - As you start thinking and preparing for the home buying process, start shopping for the mortgage lender from whom you would like to obtain a mortgage for your new home. Because this process is new, it's easy to go with the first lender or loan officer you meet.

Instead, take your time and shop around. Start by asking friends, co-workers and family members for recommendations. When you've identified two or three loan officers, ask for references. In addition to pricing (interest rate and closing costs), focus on customer service as well as other services and tools that a mortgage lender may be able to offer you.

5. Get Pre-approved - Before you start working with a real estate agent, consider contacting a mortgage lender to obtain a pre-approval credit decision. A loan officer will review your financial status, including your income, cash flow and credit score, to help you determine the maximum monthly housing payment for which you may be able to qualify, and, if qualified, "pre-approve" your mortgage before you've found a home. Armed with a credit preapproval, you can start searching for homes with a much better idea of your price range, and in turn save time as you will know the right homes to focus on. Obtaining a pre-approval may offer more confidence and certainty to home sellers in your ability to purchase the home.

6. Don't Be Afraid to Ask Questions - Once you've found your new home, the mortgage lender will help you through the details of the loan process.

From application to closing, your loan officer will work through the financing process with you, just as your real estate professional should do in the home buying process. Throughout the process, read all loan documents carefully, and involve an attorney, if necessary.

7. Inspect - Before you commit to purchasing a home, don't forget to hire a licensed home inspector to conduct a thorough assessment of the property. An inspector can alert you to any major problems with the home, and/or help you understand potential short-term and long-term home maintenance issues.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

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www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

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QSCOPES Clean Out the Kitchen, Aries!

by Jack Fertig

VIRGO (August 23 - September 22) Elevating anyone at your own expense is never good, and it's an especially poor way to handle a relationship. Idealizing your lover rather than simply seeing the two of you as flawed, equal individuals together - is always a big mistake. Blowing off steam with friends will help restore balance.

LIBRA (September 23 - October 22) Your eagerness to work is commendable, but the balance between multitasking and focusing on priorities can make a hash of it.

Don't be scared to ask the boss or an authoritative expert for help!

SCORPIO (October 23 - November 21) Don't let fear of criticism inhibit your cre-

Venus is in Pisces, enriching ideals of romance and inspiration. Saturn in Virgo, however, demands critical realism. Mars in Cancer suggests that you can unite the two constructively by fighting for what you really care about.

ARIES (March 20 - April 19) Clean out your kitchen and get rid of at least a few

ative urges. Still, exercising some critical foresight can help you focus your magic into making something truly wonderful. Ancient and distant struggles can help inspire you.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 - December 20) Home may be too tempting a retreat

things that aren't good for you. Some comfort foods are necessary, but whole grains can fit in that category as well as the sweet stuff!

from hard work and responsibility. Traditional or old family ideals may be the goad you need to get cracking! A sense of accomplishment to make the folks at home proud can also help motivate you.

TAURUS (April 20 - May 20) Too many dreamy ideals can leave you paralyzed.

CAPRICORN (December 21 - January 19) Your very definite critical ideas are hav-

Creative action in the real world can help you pick the most advantageous path out of the many. Talking it over with a sister - genetic or otherwise - will help you to energize and focus.

ing some trouble getting through a gentle, eager-to-please mode of expression. The solution can be found in your desire to want what's really best for someone else which may not be what sounds nicest.

GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) Money is coming and going a bit too easily. Wanting to

AQUARIUS (January 20 - February 18) Erotic frustrations shouldn't provoke you to

look good can aggravate the spending. Staying close to the discipline of earlier times - even earlier generations - will help you to save money and use it wisely.

try to prove anything. Divert your attention to work and home for now, and sex will fall into its right place at the right time. Financial offers that look too good to be true probably are.

CANCER (June 21 - July 22) Trying to bring diverse viewpoints together in harmony is likely to backfire. Agreeing to disagree—finding a critical, if minuscule, common ground without requiring too much unity—is ultimately more helpful. A new exercise program will improve your spirits as much as your bod.

LEO (July 23 - August 22) Erotic ideals and critical values are likely to clash.

Meditation and exercise will help you restore harmony. If you're not much for exercise, dancing - alone, with a partner, or in a group - will help you find reconciliation.

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PISCES (February 19 - March 19) Just when you're feeling utterly fabulous, your partner seems intent on bringing you down. The opposing view may be more realistic, but so what if it is? Rough, passionate play or some dark fantasy may help reconciliation.

Jack Fertig, a professional astrologer since 1977, is a founding member of the Association for Astrological Networking. He can be reached for consultations at 415-864-8302, through his website at http://www.starjack.com, and by e-mail at QScopes@qsyndicate.com.

March 7 - March 20, 2008

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DO AS I SAY D-list Parties

by Miss Prudence Worthington

Hello my Doves, It’s just petite moi with another helpful missive on gracious living. It may come as no surprise that a woman in my position receives a dizzying amount of invitations to smart social functions. Occasionally my presence is requested at not-so-smart parties, which I usually decline or send Traxie in my stead. More recently, and probably a result of some bad ice in my Gin Rickey, I accepted an invitation to a gathering of the most heinous nature: the D-list party. Due to my obvious philanthropic nature, I take pen to paper to prevent such an event from occurring again. I therefore submit these humble instructions to guide the socially challenged toward entertaining in a stylish manner.

Guest list: Sloppy drunks and wallflowers to the rear.

No matter the size of your event, a harmonious mix of invitees is essential! Persons most likely to vomit, pass out, assault or offend other guests should be extracted from your social set. Those who enjoy sexual activities in powder rooms should be stricken from the roll call as well. One should populate their fete with engaging, even-tempered and civilized people of good breeding. A mix of backgrounds, including age, race and profession allows you to broaden your own sphere of devotees. Combining new and old friends also promotes the growth of your coterie*. The correct combination will become evident when no one notices your domestic passed out in the butler’s pantry and the roar of conversation drowns out your thoughtful selection of music.

Music: “Miracle Ears” make lousy party favors.

Music is the artistic background of any engaging event. The absence of this key element kills a party faster than anthrax. One’s selections should reflect general (if not better) tastes of the group. For example, although you adore Tammy Wynette, she is not the best choice for a group of hipster urbanites. Keep things lively and gay! If in doubt, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra always please a crowd.

Furthermore, you may be accustomed to snorting cocaine with Halston at Studio 54 or celebrating the release of your lasted gangsta rap album, but music should be played at a sensible volume. When music and cocktail chatter must compete, your guests will leave too hoarse to sing your praises as a hostess. Under these circumstances damage to the ear is compounded by the necessity to shout all conversation. So do remember, the decibel level of your phonograph* can contribute greatly to your guests’ enjoyment and comfort.

Liquor: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.

My dear friend and constant companion, Traxie Muldoon, swears that alcohol is the elixir of life and not a day should go by without imbibing.

As she is very keen on freshness, she goes out of her way to test every bottle of liquor that crosses my threshold to make sure it has not “gone off”. She is so thoughtful that way, but back to my point. Unless you are entertaining the rat pack, you need not inventory a full bar (like myself).

I am merely pointing out that your choice of libation must never run out during your bash. To do so will secure your place in social obscurity for years. Remember, liquor has been helping ugly people get laid for centuries so for your guests’ welfare, do stock an abundant supply. This may be their only form of anesthesia for the night.

Cuisine: Would you put that in your mouth?

No matter what your budget or culinary skills, quality food should be ever present at any chic gathering. Food, while not foolproof, does go a long way toward preventing guests from getting “too gay” and wading in your reflecting pond. It matters not if your cook created the menu or www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

you sent your domestic out for “prepared” selections: Presentation is the crucial element. Let me elaborate: Plastic “table cloth” is an oxymoron. Glasses, plates, trays and bowls should be in the form of glass ceramic or metal (preferably silver). And last but not least, cloth napkins will tell your guests what a divine hostess you are. Darlings, if you find your butler’s pantry lacking in serve ware, borrow some from one of your more stylish girlfriends.

Do not neglect to free all prepackaged items from their paper or plastic prisons. Chips, dips and spreads must always be presented without their original containers. I’m told of a hostess who left her store-bought pate in its original plastic shell. Her guests mistook it for dog food and the party barely lasted one hour. She, of course, was oblivious to her gaff and hopefully is reading this column right now! The only exception to this rule would be caviar which should remain in the original container and be “disturbed” as little as possible.

Bathrooms: Valley of the dolls.

After your domestic has scoured this private sanctuary to gleaming perfection you must step in with one final task. You see my Loves, your guests, no matter how pedigreed, will avail themselves of all the joys (and secrets) your medicine cabinet has to offer. Some take this opportunity to “borrow” a lipstick, costly fragrance or a coveted pharmaceutical. Even I have fallen prey to the bathroom browser when my bottle of orange migraine tablets was secreted away in the confines of a Judith Lieber* clutch carried by a certain young actress currently in rehab.

Some judicious thinning of the medicine cabinet will save you a hefty dose of heartache and goes a long way to preserve the discretion of your preference in contraception or current medical conditions.

Temperature: Would you like your hot flash up or on the rocks?

The most often overlooked aspect of any successful party is climate control. No matter the season, when 50 or 100 of your closest friends gather in your graciously appointed home, the room temperature will rise significantly. Hosting a patriotic Independence Day soiree? Please turn your air conditioning apparatus to the ice cube setting hours before your do. Autumn and winter can be tricky as well. When the external temperature is above 32 degrees, lighting your elegant fireplace may create an unwanted sauna effect, prematurely ending your soiree. Bear in mind this simple fact: Should the face of any society maven melt at your home, you may consider yourself social road kill.

While I could ramble ad nauseum on this engaging topic, I do believe I have supplied you with some basic guidelines. By following these simple steps even you people may achieve some level of societal prowess! As always, it is my distinct pleasure to assist you through the murky waters of tasteful living. Be good my dears and remember to do as I say.

Happy Entertaining!

Prudence *If you don’t know the meaning of a word, you should avail yourself of a dictionary and look it up, Dear. I understand you can even do this on the interweb now. How marvelous for you!

P.S. You may forward enquires regarding today's ever-changing etiquette to prudence@baltimoregaylife.com.

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QUOTE UNQUOTE "Part of me is titillated by the fact that I'm gay. I remember when being gay was all very cryptic. You'd sneak into the back door and down the stairs and back around and then you're suddenly in some magical world called gay culture. It was very exciting and very underworld. I actually kind of miss those days."

— Singer k.d. lang to the Toronto gay newspaper Xtra!, Feb. 1

"I think the gay community has grown up and evolved. There's a new driver and vehicle to explore and a wider spectrum of existence not focused only on coming out -- it's a more expansive culture that is accepting of transgendered people, bisexuals and others.

Remember when we used to hate bisexuals?

I think society is more open about sexual orientation in general. Look at Larry Craig or the whole Catholic Church scandal. It's not all black and white anymore; even in the gay and lesbian community there is a spectrum.

And that's very heartening."

--Singer k.d. lang to the lesbian glossy Curve, March issue.

"[In] the late '70s and '80s, I had gay boyfriends. I had sexual relationships with guys who had never been with a woman, and have never been with a woman since.

See, in those times you didn't have to define yourself. People weren't demanding constantly that you say what your label was, so it didn't seem like such a big deal, and it wasn't so shocking."

--Actress Susan Sarandon to PlanetOut.com, Feb. 13.

--Leading British gay activist Peter Tatchell writing for The Guardian, Feb. 14.

"I don't know this for a fact but I would bet my life that this is what happened: They went to [U.S. Rep.] Barney Frank and said, 'What do we need to pass ENDA?' Rep. Frank, who has always been pretty squeamish on the trans issue -- and I guess I can say these things because I am leaving my job -you know, said, 'Look, the best way to pass ENDA, and the easiest way is to: Let's take out gender identity.' And I don't think the [House] speaker's people thought this through -- didn't think it through -- and then they said, 'OK, let's do it.'"

--Outgoing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman discussing last year's GLBT-community war over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, on The Michelangelo Signorile Show on Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ channel, Feb. 12.

"The reason I have always supported the entire gay community is because they have kept her name iconic. They have been supportive, but what was really interesting, if you went to see my mother's concerts when she was performing, the audience wasn't a gay audience. It was really after she passed away and what happened at Stonewall, that's when the gay community took her as their own."

--Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's daughter, to London's Pink Paper, Jan. 24.

"It's so important for gay people to come out.

It's the young people I've always been so concerned about. When a young person has to hide, then you start having a very strange life. Then you start sneaking around, going to weird places and then you're not safe and you're embarrassed and not feeling good about yourself and you can't have a healthy, safe relationship. It becomes sort of underground and perverse, and it's just no good!

It's so important to me to have people be themselves, and it's so important to have more talk about it and have it out in the open."

--Actress Bernadette Peters to the Palm Springs gay magazine the BottomLine, Feb. 1.

"[H]uman sexuality is much more complex, diverse and blurred than the traditional simplistic binary image of hetero and homo, so loved by straight moralists and -- more significantly -- by many lesbians and gay men. ... In a future non-homophobic society, more people are likely to have gay sex but less people will identify as gay. This is because the absence of homophobia makes the need to assert and affirm gayness redundant."

BY REX WOCKNER WITH BILL KELLEY

"['Mandy' was] the beginning of a part of my life that I never expected. I did not go after a hit single; I never even listened to the pop radio. It wasn't challenging to me, a bunch of bubble gum stuff. [Record mogul] Clive Davis said, 'All you need is a hit single and your career could take off.' Clive Davis [sends] me this demo called 'Brandy.' [He] said, 'Listen to it, and if you can do an arrangement and production, the right one, it could be a No. 1 record for you.' I listened to it, I didn't care about it. I was the songwriter, I didn't want to do anybody else's song. But I love arranging and rearranging songs, and I did a pop-rock demo. Clive didn't like it. I took him to the studio and said, 'Let me just play it for you slower.' I slowed it down ... and he said, 'That's it, do that.' I sang it and played it once, and that's the record."

"After months of lurid clamor, Senator Larry Craig has been formally rebuked by the Senate ethics committee for his run-in with the vice squad last summer in an airport men's room. The committee concluded that the Idaho Republican brought discredit on the Senate. After all the controversy, the committee acted without holding a public inquiry and it did not levy any punishment.

Nothing much results from the rebuke, except for the committee's grave statement of wounded decorum. Senator Craig continues to serve Idaho. The ethics committee disappears once more behind its Oz-like curtain."

--The New York Times editorial board writing on its blog, Feb. 20.

"Trapped in an archaic black-and-white newsreel, the G.O.P. looks more like a nostalgic relic than a national political party in contemporary America. A cultural sea change has passed it by. The 2008 primary campaign has been so fast and furious that we haven't paused to register just how spectacular that change is. All the fretful debate about whether voters would turn out for a candidate who is a black or a woman seems a century ago. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama vanquished the Democratic field, including a presidential-looking Southern white man with an enthusiastic following, John Edwards. What was only months ago an exotic political experiment is now almost ho-hum."

--Columnist Frank Rich, The New York Times, Feb 17.

"Not since Janet Jackson's fake tit popped out of her whore outfit and destroyed a whole generation has there been such a televised outrage! In case you haven't heard, Jane Fonda ignored all civilized codes of decency on the Today show this morning and proved herself to be the syphilitic heathen I've always known her to be! In discussing The Vagina Monologues with a suitably mortified Meredith Vieira, Jane slipped out the vilest, most barbaric emission since she announced that she was Hanoi Jane. She said a word that is so coarsely repellent I can't even bring myself to repeat it for fear it will corrupt my own millions of impressionable fans and turn them into unpaid sex workers! You see, the J-word said the c-word and this little fword was absolutely...thrilled, actually! Bless you, Jane! I love the fact that you said cunt on national TV. Let's hope this becomes cuntagious and all the other Oscar winners start spouting it too. Come on, Helen Mirren, say it! Say 'cunt'! Say 'cunt'!!!!!!"

--Gay Village Voice columnist Michael Musto on his blog, Feb. 14.

"Yes, yeah, I would consider Oprah a friend -Oprah and Gayle, both are just terrific women."

--Michelle Obama, wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama, on CNN's Larry King Live, Feb. 11.

"Well, it wasn't that I wasn't a big fan. I hadn't seen the play. I live in Georgia, OK? I was asked to do a monologue called 'Cunt.' And I said, 'I don't think so, I got enough problems.'"

--Jane Fonda discussing her starring role in the play "The Vagina Monologues," on NBC's Today show, Feb. 14.

"I'm really lucky to be able to come over here [to the UK], have a career and be accepted.

And I love the history over here. We have no history in L.A. The oldest thing we've got is Zsa Zsa Gabor."

--Lorna Luft, Judy Garland's daughter, to London's Pink Paper, Jan. 24.

--Barry Manilow to the Washington Post, Feb. 11. The song was renamed "Mandy" to avoid confusion with the Looking Glass hit "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)."

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B-SCENE GAY LIFE HAPPY HOUR @ NIGHT OF THE COOKERS

Photos by Jay W. Photos

www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

March 7 - March 20, 2008

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March 7 - March 20, 2008

• G A Y L I F E • www.baltimoregaylife.com

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www.baltimoregaylife.com • G A Y L I F E •

JEWELERS Craig Coyne Jewelers 8113 Main St. Ellicott City, MD 21043 410-243-5544

LEGAL SERVICES Law offices of Constandin Alivizatos 111 S. Calvert St. Baltimore, MD 21202 410-385-5397 Lynda Dee, Attorney at Law 201 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-332-1170 A. Allan Gertner, Attorney at Law 814 N. Calvert St. Baltimore, MD 21202 410-539-1870 National Adoption and Surrogacy Center Hilary Neiman, Esq. 30 Courthouse Square, Suite 106 Rockville, MD 20850 301-340-7228 Mark Scurti Hodes, Pessin & Katz, PA 410-938-8718 www.hpklegal.com Zavos Law Group Washington, DC Baltimore, MD 443-570-6205

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March 7 - March 20, 2008

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Real Estate Nancy Corporon RE/MAX Advantage Realty 8815 Centre Park Dr. Columbia, MD 21045 410-740-1200 Stephen Johnson Long & Foster Real Estate 10805 Hickory Ridge Rd. Columbia, MD 21044 410-715-7891 • PA G E 4 7

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