Dyke Central or Support Your Local Starving Artist

I know I don't blog here nearly often enough, but those of you who know me outside of The Superhero Lunchbox know that I'm always juggling five different projects, obsessively posting and cross-posting on Facebook, updating one of my other blogs, or working at the job that pays my bills. Also? I'm actually an incredibly lazy person, at heart. My capacity for just chilling out, drinking coffee, and playing Ruzzle is HUGE.

Whatever. I'm here, now, because I stumbled upon something really cool that definitely needs to be passed around, supported and nurtured. Again, if you know me, you know I'm forever interested in new media and independent film projects, specifically projects spearheaded by women. There's no shortage of web-based programming. In fact, I feel as if every time I turn around, there's a new web series being pimped on Facebook and Twitter. Let's cut to the chase: just like television and the big screen, the internet is flooded with crap. Low production values. Bad writing. Lousy acting. A lack of diversity. Enter Dyke Central.

I'm not going to write a tome about this (I told you: I'm lazy.) You can click on the link and find out what it's about, how it came to be, who the women behind it are, and why it's not like anything you've seen, before. You can even watch the first episode, which isn't a 5-minute snippet, but a full-length, 20-minute episode.  What I am going to say is this: most lesbian-themed programming I've watched is bloody awful. Hardly any of it looks or feels remotely familiar to me. Most of it tends to be very Anglo and completely ignores women of color. The fact is, America's biggest concentrations of queer women are ethnically diverse communities: NYC, Boston, San Francisco/Oakland. Why most lesbian-themed films and programming are predominantly white is a mystery to me. More than a mystery: an annoyance. I'm a mixed race Hispanic woman, myself. We exist. (And please do not send me emails pointing out that The L Word had a whole subset of Latinas. Seriously. The L Word was such crap. Do. Not. Get. Me. Started.) I watched the first episode of Dyke Central and was blown away by something that shouldn't blow me away: women of different ethnicities on the screen. On a show about queer women. On a show produced by women. On a show without cringe-worthy gags, and which isn't set in some weird, netherworld that looks nothing like earth as we know it. It's Oakland. And it's pretty damned good. Watch it. I think you'll agree it has real promise.

The other thing you can do is support it. Again, if you know me, you know I'm all about supporting worthy projects like this when I can. I'm all about projects such as The Throwaways and I Hate Tommy Finch, from Tello Films -  quality projects that only came to fruition because of crowd sourcing. This is what crowd sourcing is supposed to be about: supporting the creative efforts of people who have good and interesting ideas, but not the financial means to make them happen. Let me be clear: tv and movie stars who make a million dollars an episode, hugely successful authors of graphic novels and screenplays for major motion picture studios, and internationally-known musicians with recording contracts and touring schedules DO NOT need your ten or twenty buck donation to make their projects happen. THEY DON'T. And they should be ashamed to ask for it. Instead of throwing your hard-earned money at a successful, wealthy person or studio, so that they don't have to risk any of THEIR OWN cash (boo fucking hoo), support projects by artists and creative people who aren't connected up the wazoo, and don't have any other way to get things done. It's pretty clear the major motion picture studios have no intention of producing content for, by, and about queer women of color. Hell, the studios can barely stand to HIRE women of color in any capacity. If this sort of content is ever going to be produced and widely available, it's up to the viewing public to make it happen. If you want to see something well-produced, which looks a lot more like real life than you're used to seeing, and which is produced by smart women with new ideas, kick in what you can to support Dyke Central.  And, even if you can't throw any money at this project, pass it along. Blog about it. Tweet the link. Copy and paste it on your Facebook wall. Crowd sourcing demands a crowd.

Dropping The Gauntlet

It's a personal rule of mine to be respectful of other people's religious beliefs or systems of faith. I may not agree with what a lot of people think is the whole point of this thing called life, but that shouldn't stop me from being respectful of the things people believe in or the way in which they choose to worship. 

At this moment, though, all bets are off. 

The specific details aren't important or of a reportable nature but the bare bones facts you do need to know are thus: a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints with whom I have professional contact has expressed a reluctance to have business dealings with a male homosexual colleague because he doesn't want to be recruited by a homosexual to do things which are in opposition with his religion. 

Like I said, all bets are off.

I have NEVER heard of gay people knocking on random doors in an effort to recruit people into fagdom. NEVER. I HAVE, on the other hand, had Mormon idiots knock on MY door, looking like Latter Day Stepford Children in their white shirts, and backpacks and pocket protectors, and try to recruit ME into THEIR freakish, fucked up, simple-minded, homophobic, misogynistic, lemming-laced, pedophilic cult. Gays don't have an army of recruiters, like so many Port Authority pimps, who are sent out to find more suckers. You, gullible-vestment-wearing-fool-who-believes-Jesus-spent-his-wild-20s-bumming-around-Utah...sure as hell do. They're called MISSIONARIES.

The Perfect Kiwi Moment

Today, the small, South Pacific island nation of New Zealand's Parliament voted to redefine marriage to be inclusive of same-sex couples. After the final vote count was done, the gallery broke out in song. If you don't know the song, and don't know its origins, you probably found the moment sweet, but otherwise unremarkable.

I moved to New Zealand in 1999. It was my love for a Kiwi woman that was the impetus behind this move to the other side of the globe. The other side of the equator. Far, far away from friends and family. Into a culture I knew almost nothing about. I learned the story behind the traditional Maori song, Pokarekare Ana, almost immediately. Anyone who spends any significant time in NZ needs to know it, because it's a song every New Zealander sings. Stay late enough at any Kiwi party, and have enough to drink, and someone will invariably pick up a guitar and start playing it. And everyone will sing along. Some of them will weep. Because the song that every New Zealander knows, the song that New Zealand Parliament broke out into, isn't just any old song. It's a song of forbidden love. It's a song about struggle and hardship endured by two people who just want to be together. It's a song about lovers who risk life and limb to be together despite society's objections. 

In 2004, when NZ Parliament was getting ready to vote on the Civil Unions Bill - the first step towards legalized same-sex marriage - the general public was invited to make formal submissions for or against the bill. I put together a submission. Actually, I wrote a story. I wrote the story of my grandparents who, like Hinemoa and Tutanekai, were forbidden by society's dictates to be together. I wrote about how my grandparents, who'd known each other since childhood, had secretly, privately loved one another from afar for years, before they finally found a way to be together. I wrote about how they adored one another, and built a life together and had nine children together. I wrote about how they did all of this without the benefit of being legally married. I wrote about how I dared anyone to tell me their relationship was any less real or true or legitimate than any legal marriage. And I wrote about how their relationship was so much like the relationship I was in, which wasn't recognized, legally, either. One of the MPs read my submission and invited me to appear before New Zealand's Parliament to testify in favor of the Civil Union Bill. I considered this invitation an honor and a privilege - as a naturalized New Zealander, as a writer, and as a lesbian. In many ways, the 15 minutes I spent in front of New Zealand's Parliament, reading my submission, and answering questions put before me by various MPs, add up to my proudest moments.

This morning, when I watched the footage of that final vote count, and heard those loud, strong, sweet voices break out into song, I had to stop myself from crying tears of joy. Because I did, indeed,  know the significance of that particular song...a song about lovers who remind me of my grandparents, and of every other pair of unlikely lovers, ever. It was The Perfect Kiwi Moment.

Get Fucked

I've never been a fan of Michelle Shocked's music. It's just not my thing. I never really had an opinion of her, either, before now. Music I don't care for is easy enough to avoid, and I can acknowledge when someone has legitimate talent, even though their art doesn't appeal to me. I'm sure she's talented, but her talents don't produce anything I've ever cared to listen to.

So, yeah. She's a musician who's experienced a certain level of success - most of it around two decades ago. She's also, it turns out, a self-loathing homophobe. I say "self-loathing" because Michelle Shocked is at least bisexual, at most homosexual. I'm not saying this just because her music sounds like dyke music or she's always worn what could pass for a lesbian uniform. I say it because it's a long-established fact that Michelle Shocked has had intimate relationships with women. I'm not just referring to the suddenly-legendary "coming out" interview, where direct reference is made to her identifying as a lesbian and having female lovers (or so everyone who reads it seems to think, except for Shocked, herself.) I'm basing this statement on the fact that several people I know, and have every reason to believe, witnessed Shocked being intimate with women in very public settings. Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons, who isn't just some anonymous blogger with an axe to grind, but a personal friend of mine who has nothing to gain by making up such a story, even mentions seeing Shocked making out with a woman in San Francisco's Castro Theater. And let me make one thing clear: despite what they taught you in 8th grade health ed class, or what you read in Dear Abby 30 years ago, heterosexual women do not make out with or have sex with other women. Whoever invented THAT myth to make scared, nervous, self-loathing gay or bisexual people feel as if they were "normal" really should be shot. If you're a dude and you're jerking off other men or sucking another dude's cock? You're at least bisexual. If you're a woman, and you've engaging in make-out sessions with other women, bedding down with them, dating them, calling them your girlfriends or lovers? You're at least bisexual. And, honestly? You're probably gay. Yeah, that'll annoy some people...mostly people who have some faggish skeletons in their closets that they'd like to forget. Ask me if I care. I spend most of my day annoyed. Join the fucking club.

But that's not my point. I wanted to write, today, because I've seen several people online mentioning that, while Michelle Shocked said some awful things about homosexuality, she's clearly having problems of a psychological nature. "She needs to have her meds adjusted." I'm hearing that one a lot. Also, "Shes lost the plot." Most disturbing, though, I'm also hearing, "She's full of self-loathing, and obviously has some emotional problems, so I feel sort of sorry for her."

Um. WHY? Why would anyone feel sorry for a bigot? Because she's gay or bisexual, herself, despite her own best efforts to bury the past and deny her identity? That doesn't give her a free pass. In my book, it makes her worse than a xenophobe. And I'm not saying she owes the world even an inkling of information about her sexuality. I don't believe any of us has a right to out a closeted homosexual, unless that closeted homosexual makes an effort to not only hide their identity, but to make the rest of us suffer for ours. In that case, all bets are off. And this is exactly what Michelle Shocked has done. That anyone has pity for her is beyond me. She's not some poor victim who is without blame. She's a person who had an audience and used it as an opportunity to spew hate speech about me and people like me. She's not just someone closeted and full of self-loathing. She's like a light-skinned black person who not only passes for white, but fights for the Confederate Army to defend the right to own slaves. She's like a Jew who doesn't just hide her religion from the SS, but sells other Jews down the river.  She's like a woman who isn't satisfied to simply not identity as a feminist, but makes it her job to deny other women the right to equity in the workplace, reproductive freedom, and the right to vote. She's a fucking Log Cabin Republican turned up to 11. When the hell did LGBT people start making excuses for and rationalizing hate speech?

Does Michelle Shocked have some sort of psych disability? I'm not a doctor. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe she's just an asshole. Maybe she really truly does have psych problems. I suspect Anita Bryant, George Wallace, Ted Nugent, Mussolini, Fidel Castro, and Richard Nixon all had or have some psych problems, too. And you know what? They can still all get fucked. And so can Michelle Shocked. I don't care how many vaginas she's been up close and personal with - she's a bigot, and an enemy of the equal rights movement. I don't feel sorry for her. I hate her stupid guts.

Short and Sweet

I'm not an atheist, but I reckon organized religion has bugger all to do with God or Gaia or any Prime Mover or higher power.  The fact is, organized religion is to God, what fan fiction is to Star Trek. It's not canon and, when you get down to it, it's just something people make up for themselves to fill in the emptiness when the Real Thing is on hiatus.

Ron Jeremy Rides the F Train

It was some time in the late 80s. I was in my early 20s.  My mother and I were riding the F train into Manhattan. I looked across the train, and who should I see sitting on the other side, but Ron Jeremy. THAT Ron Jeremy. Ron Jeremy of porn fame and legendary proportions. I thought, "Fuck, why am I with my MOTHER, and not my friend Amy? Of all people to be with when I spot Ron Jeremy...my MOTHER. This takes all the fun out of seeing Ron Jeremy. Life is so fucking unfair. I see celebrities in NYC all the fucking time, but this is Ron Fucking Jeremy...I need someone to witness this with me, someone who ISN'T my mother."

Of course I wasn't about to tell my mother to look at the chubby guy on the other end of the car, and tell her that I, her little girl, had seen him in porn movies. Who the hell tells their mother they've seen porn films, let alone know the actors names? What would my mother think of me, her baby, talking about some porn star? No. Life was unfair, and I'd just have to face the fact that my Ron Jeremy spotting had been a huge letdown because I hadn't been able to share it with anyone.

The train got to East Broadway, and Ron Jeremy stood up and got off the train.

My mother leaned over and asked, very quietly, "That big guy who just got off the train - did you happen to notice him? He's walking on the platform, now - look at him."

As the doors closed and the train slowly pulled out of the station, I spotted Ron Jeremy walking towards the steps.

"Yeah, I see him." I answered.

"His name is Ron Jeremy," my mother said, "He's a porn actor. He has the biggest penis you have ever seen in your life."

One more example of my mother's awesomeness.
Get well, Mr. F. Train.

Good, great, perfect

In just a couple of months, I'll turn 46. I've done a hell of a lot in my life. I'm a little bit past the halfway point and, so far, I've:

Fallen in love
Been published
Walked across a swing bridge (after many fearful tries)
Camped out at the foot of a glacier
Spoken before NZ Parliament
Learned to shoot a .22
Soaked in a geothermal hot pool, in the middle of an alpine beech forest, under the stars
Been caught in a hurricane while camping out on the beach
Been up close and personal with a rare, red sea turtle, rumored to be 500 yrs old (he almost certainly wasn't that old...but he was amazing)
Experienced earthquakes in three different cities
Seen Halley's Comet
Sung backup on a rap album
Carved my initials in a tree
Crossed the Cook Strait when there were 5 meter swells
Thrown some killer dinner parties
Seen both the Southern and the Northern Lights
Baptized a baby
Visited the Corn Palace
Delivered my mother's eulogy

And that's just a sampling. Life is so full of things. Or, at least, it is if you're lucky. I'm very lucky. If you're really, truly, damned lucky, you get some wisdom along the way.  I'll be 46 in a couple of months but, in my roughly 46 years on earth, I've never written or said anything quite so wise and true as this bit of wisdom doled out by my 7 yr old nephew. This wasn't homework, or a note he was writing to anyone but himself.  Just something he jotted down. By the spelling and handwriting, it's pretty clear he wrote it a while back. So, it was written by a 5 or 6 yr old. My sister found it while packing up the house, as she gets ready to move for the umpteenth time. I'm so glad she not only kept it, but sent me a snapshot of it. It makes me remember that, no matter how many fun and interesting things I fill my life with, simplicity is all.

Our Own Worst Enemies

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. We live in a world where homosexuals deify men such as Oscar Wilde who - do your homework, homos - was clever and talented and witty, but who went to prison not to DEFEND his gayness, but during an effort to DENY IT. In fact, his legal matters stemmed from the fact that, upon being called a "sodomite," by the The Marquees of Queensbury, Wilde sued Queensbury for libel. Take that in.  He considered it so libelous to be called a fag, that he not only denied it, but sued the man who made the allegation. And he's a gay hero. An icon.  Harvey Milk (who was NOT the first openly gay elected official in the USA, in case you're wondering) conveniently waited until he was 40, and for all of his relatives to be dead and buried before coming out. That was his prerogative. The mythology that's built up around him, though, is of a man who led a life of bravely being out and proud. Not really the case. And I don't really care. I don't. But many of the same people who deify these two homosexual men, both of whom went to great lengths to hide their homosexuality (Milk talked about how he came close to marrying a lesbian friend, so that they could each serve as beard for the other) have, over the last couple of days, shit all over actress Jodie Foster's Golden Globe speech. A speech which, if you were paying attention, wasn't about being gay, but about being someone who was thrust in front of a camera at 4, and who has enjoyed almost no privacy, since.

For decades, the queer press has hounded Foster to make a public announcement about her sexuality. She finally did, and she did on her terms. It was pretty much an "I came out to everyone who really matters ages ago. I'm gay. Are you happy? Will you leave me the fuck alone, now?" speech. I thought it was awesome and brave. Not brave because she's now "out" (I never thought she was IN)  but brave because it was a sort of polite "fuck you" to the fame machine.

And before you say that she can't have her cake and eat it, too: she's a performer, not a politician. All she ever owes me is the two hours of entertainment when I pay to see one of her movies. That's it.

So what do queers all over America, and especially in the press, have to say in response to Foster's speech? That she rambled. That she should have just shut her mouth. That she has nerve complaining about a lack of privacy. That she DESERVES to have her privacy intruded upon. One gay person I know actually posted "The key to privacy is silence" over a photo of Foster at the Golden Globes. Um, seriously? Is that some sort of retarded twist on "Silence=Death" for truly stupid gay people?

Other people are saying that her speech wasn't enough. What the fuck more do they want, the precious bastards? Do they need footage of her performing oral sex on another woman, with narration by Ellen Degeneres and a soundtrack by Ani DiFranco?

 Being gay in America sucks, in part, because queers are so fucking bitchy with the in-fighting, misogyny, and double standards.

THIS

THANK YOU

The Gayest Thing on Television

And by "gayest," I mean the absolute best, most consistently surprising, wonderful, and original thing we've seen on the small screen in years. This 2 minute and 16 second clip is my new favorite thing, for so many reasons.  Sister Judy gets her groove on. Kit and Pepper boogie down. Lana smiles. All is well with the world. I wish I could MARRY this clip.