The Savannah College of Art and Design and the National Cartoonists Society are honoring the “usual gang of idiotswho created MAD magazine and are in part responsible for my warped sense of humor. I began reading MAD as soon as I was old enough to go to the store alone and hide it when I got home. Ah-h-h, the thought of it — Sergio Aragones, Al Jaffee and Jack Davis all in one place, holding seminars, exhibiting their distinctive art work, greeting fans.

The late Bill Gaines (separated at birth from Jerry Garcia)

MAD premiered in 1952, and under the direction of William Gaines became a comic book for adults, and precocious children who could appreciate satire and political commentary masquerading as cartoons. There’s a whole long history involved in the creation and metamorphosis of MAD and you can look it all up on Wikipedia if you like. This is a love letter, not a history lesson.

My elder daughter once told a friend that I was in a permanent state of mourning. In the course of eight months, all my personal gods had passed away – Gene Roddenberry in October, 1991, Isaac Asimov in April and William Gaines in June. Gaines’ image had frequently shown up in the pages of MAD, most often in Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side Of….” strips. I cried when Berg started putting a framed picture of Bill Gaines on the walls of the “offices” he drew.

Sergio Aragones drew the teeny, tiny, complex margin cartoons that drove me nuts and forced me to buy my first magnifying glass. Al Jaffee created the hilarious fold-in back covers that went from serious statement to gut-busting parody in two simple folds of the paper. But Jack Davis – well, Jack was in it from the beginning, from the very first issue, with the horror spoof “Hoohah!” – with its layers of statement. MAD was the last thing standing when both Congress and the industry went after Gaines for his horror comics.

I stopped reading MAD when it went from being the inspiration for The Onion and became the precursor of South Park. It wasn’t funny any more. It also started accepting advertising. Nothing kills creative freedom faster than corporate money.

Al Jaffee

There is an irony to this tribute being held this weekend….it was the mainstream comics industry that forced William Gaines to give up comic books and create a magazine, free from the censorship that was being imposed on comics in the 1950s.

Davis retired more than two years ago, but Jaffee and Aragones still draw for MAD. Davis’ decision to leave was based on the direction MAD took in the early 2000s “I felt like it kind of got a little raunchy.” Aragones credits the magazine with keeping him young. “It’s not stressful. Being a cartoonist is taking out all your frustrations on paper. You don’t have to get road rage. You just draw a cartoon.”

Sergio Aragones at WonderCon 2010

And in the process, let thousands of others divert their road rage into laughing over the same frustrations. Thank you, gentlemen….and I am incredibly jealous of anyone who can be there this weekend.

Related articles

• Magazine’s first MAD men have rare reunion (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• An Interview with Al Jaffee, Creator of the Mad Magazine Fold-In (laughingsquid.com)
• Scott Beale: The MAD Fold-In Collection, Al Jaffee Fold-In Cartoons From 1964-2010 (laughingsquid.com)

Leonard Nimoy

At a Chicago Star Trek convention, celebrating the 45^th anniversary of the premiere of the most iconic science fiction television/movie franchise in American entertainment history, 80 year old Leonard Nimoy announced that he is finally hanging up his ears and will no longer be trekking.

At the conclusion of an hour-long speech about his life and career, Mr. Nimoy thanked the fans for their support and affection over the years. Some were holding signs saying “We love you Leonard! Live long and prosper!” For almost thirty years, Mr. Nimoy has attended conventions, maintaining a very positive relationship with the fans.  In between conventions and Star Trek movies and television shows, Mr. Nimoy was a very talented actor with an extensive resume, a director, an author, a poet, a photographer, singer, songwriter, and a husband and father.

When Star Trek premiered on NBC, 45 years ago last month, when it was cancelled two years later and then revived and recancelled a year later, no one thought it had made such an enormous impression on its fans that public demand would bring it back to life in so many forms. It was a true grass roots movement – the fan magazines, the fan-created stories and books, the networks of fans who eventually created the first conventions…..and all of this before the internet, when people had to do this stuff with snail mail and landline telephones. And just for the bloody, damned record, we were Trekkies and proud of the term. That whole “call us Trekkers” thing came from the next generation of fans.

Six series, eleven movies, magazines, comics, games, hundreds of novels, the conventions and a fully functional language…all from those simple words “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.”

My children once figured out that if I cried, the new series or movie would be a hit. In the first movie, it was when the transport moved around the dry-dock and you caught your first sight of the Enterprise. In the first episode of Next Generation, it was the moment when DeForest Kelley said “treat her right and she’ll always bring you home.” When Spock died in The Wrath of Khan, I was bawling. As the years went by, I cried less, until 2009. By then, we had lost both DeForest Kelley and James Doohan. When Karl Urban nailed Def Kelley’s so-subtle Southern accent, that did it. And then the marvelous Simon Pegg….I was a lost cause.

Leonard Nimoy has been a true gentleman about Star Trek. Though he had his share of wishing people would forget Spock and let him get on with the rest of his career, he came back to Spock over and over again, providing the needed bridge to the new incarnation, the logical explanation of how and why they could restart a beloved myth.

To anyone who has managed to get through a few centuries of the reinventions of King Arthur, the 2009 re-invention of Star Trek makes perfect sense. A great myth is adaptable to the times. The origins are never really forgotten, but the manner in which the story is told can be altered to match the way people prefer their stories to be told or to reflect changes in the culture. King Arthur changed over time, forever being relevant to England and its problems. Star Trek has also proven it can change over time, reflecting our changing culture and problems. It was born at a time when the United States was in flux, generations, classes, races and ideologies warring with each other. The series took the freedom of science fiction, the ability to, as Robert Burns said we could not, “see ourselves as others see us,” and held a magnifying glass to our traumas. By the time we hit Star Trek: Voyager, our nation was in the midst of a cultural lull, a quiet before the next storm. 2009 was exactly the perfect time to re-invent the myth and explore new conflicts, explore the mechanics of the creation of a world government and the Federation.

Leonard Nimoy has been a vital part of the myth, the parenthesis on the first incarnation of Gene Roddenberry’s universe, there at the beginning – the real beginning, that first failed pilot – and there as the torch was passed. For forty-five years, he personified the ideal of Star Trek, a universe in which infinite diversity lives in infinite combination. We thank him, so very much, for those 45 years, and sincerely hope that he will “Live Long and Prosper.”

Related articles

• 45 Glorious Years Of Star Trek (webnerhouse.com)
• Leonard Nimoy Hand Draws STAR TREK Shirts and Sells them on Etsy (geektyrant.com)
• Sept. 8, 1966: Liftoff for the Starship Enterprise (wired.com)

James O'Keefe

Sometimes even a great newspaper’s reporter doesn’t do the job properly.

Last weekend, the New York Times Sunday magazine included a profile of James O’Keefe, the conservative enfant terrible whose idea of “journalism” is sting operations against liberal organizations and government agencies – along with trying to tap Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s telephones. The article was filled with O’Keefe’s boasts, brags and bloated opinion of his value in the universe. Sort of a Julian Assange with a camera instead of a computer. None of it was unexpected or newsworthy.

What was newsworthy was what was missing. In two instances, reporter Zev Chafets received confirmation that the raw footage of O’Keefe’s vids of his stings supported his overall premise – that government agencies were corrupt and ACORN was a menace to society. What Chafets failed to follow up on was what happens after O’Keefe’s little repertory company of actors exit the buildings.

In the ACORN sting, O’Keefe presented a tape of an Hispanic male ACORN worker taking copious notes and agreeing to assist a “pimp” who was bringing a shipment of underage prostitutes into the U. S. from Mexico. What MSNBC reported over a year ago, and Chafets failed to follow up on, was what happened after O’Keefe’s crew left. The ACORN worker called local law enforcement, who in turn alerted Federal law enforcement and an operation was co-ordinated to intercept the pimp and his shipment.

Let’s take that scenario outward across some of O’Keefe’s more infamous stings. In one, a Medicaid worker in Charleston, South Carolina, was approached by a man dressed in a leather jacket, Glengarry military cap, kilt and fox-head sporran who claimed to be an Irish drug importer and IRA member. He was seeking Medicaid coverage for 25 wounded IRA comrades who had entered the country illegally. The worker took all the information, made photocopies and dealt politely with the “applicant.” For O’Keefe, that’s where the story ends. He had proven that an illegal criminal could get Medicaid. Did he? No, what he proved was that a government worker would acquire all the information possible on a group of illegal immigrants, terrorists and men who were fraudulently filing for benefits. What she did after they left the office is not recorded and Chafets didn’t even try to find out.

Did O’Keefe’s phony Irishman receive Medicaid cards in the mail? Did any law enforcement officials, either state or Federal, show up at the fake address he provided? Did she put those applications in the round file, having spotted the actor for what he was? Chafets never asked those questions and he made no attempt to contact the government offices where these “stings” took place.

To receive Federal assistance of any kind, one must provide either proof of citizenship or proof of legal status as an immigrant. That’s the law. Same thing for welfare, Medicare, Social Security – any Federal program carries that requirement. Now, if you were some nice lady facing a man who claimed he was a violent IRA member, would you confront him then and there or would you play along and deal with the situation after he left? I can tell you from the experience of one welfare office in Vermont that the workers are trained not to confront possibly violent applicants, but to co-operate and then call law enforcement. The agency’s policy is to not place the workers in danger.

If we don’t hear about the aftermath of O’Keefe’s stings, is it possibly because there is none? His actors don’t receive benefits, they don’t get abortions, they don’t collect illegal checks….and they don’t get arrested because when they are investigated, their addresses are fake and so are their identities. All O’Keefe’s people film is the interview. There is no follow-up on his part to actually prove his allegations that illegal immigrants and terrorists can get Federal benefits or couples are told how to work around the system or the welfare department tells a young couple not to get married because they would disqualify themselves for benefits.

O’Keefe’s people start with a false premise. The sting he was setting up in the article involved sending a young couple in to apply for welfare to prove the conservative claim that the welfare system encourages couples not to marry. Welfare systems vary widely from state to state, so I can only testify to Vermont’s system. First of all, a pregnant woman who shows up for welfare will be made to identify the father and he will be tracked down for child support. Even crossing state lines won’t save him. The state may not be able to collect child support from him, but they try. It’s been decades since any girl in Vermont was able to get away with saying she didn’t know who the father was. Second, a married couple can collect welfare payments for their children, but only if the more able-bodied of the parents works for the benefits. In one recent case, the husband was going through the incredibly long-drawn-out process of filing for disability, which he did deserve. The wife was required to work for their benefits until a real job could be found for her. In another, the wife had just given birth, the husband was recently unemployed and he was put to work in a sewage processing plant until he found full-time employment. No one suggested that either of these couples separate to qualify the wife for benefits. The system doesn’t work that way, at least in Vermont.

O’Keefe likes to stipulate that he didn’t defund ACORN, the Congress and the president did. Well, that’s not quite truthful. A congressional report found that ACORN was not guilty of any violations of election laws or any misuse of Federal funds, but O’Keefe was guilty of breaking multiple laws in his sting operation. ACORN was an umbrella organization for local groups, and those local groups are still operational. Yes, O’Keefe’s work hurt the parent group, which was forced to shut down, but it did not stop the work of the locals.

In many ways, O’Keefe is the conservative mirror of Julian Assange. They even use a lot of the same language, talking about their enemies in ways to border on paranoia. O’Keefe says that he “speaks truth to power” and asserts that “You’d think liberal baby boomers would support me. Isn’t that what the ‘60′s were all about? Do we really want political prisoners in America?” No, and we don’t want students shot down on their campuses either. Take it from a post-war baby boomer, we learned our lessons well. That’s why we supported ACORN and other groups that seek to register voters and work within the system. That’s why we oppose the conservative program in America – the one that wants to deny voters’ rights and destroy the social support systems. We learned that the lack of basic social supports is the greatest threat to capitalism in the world. We know the system needs reform, but destroying it is not reform, it’s dangerous. O’Keefe doesn’t understand what we fought for, so he can’t see why we would think he’s a jerk. And quoting Alexandre Solzhenitsyn is just plain arrogant. When he was living in Vermont, Solzhenitsyn stalked into a town meeting and blasted the residents for American apathy about the political system. Vermont town meetings are not campaign gatherings or chances to meet ones’ representatives. A Vermont Town Meeting, held on the first Tuesday of March, is the purest form of democracy in America. The adults in a town gather and vote on the town’s business – in person, for real – and if you are dumb enough not to show up you might be elected dog catcher. The fact that national employers won’t give their workers the day off is killing the system, and that is just one of the reason for dissatisfaction with national and regional chains. They, not us, are forcing towns to choose to go to balloting instead of meetings.

O’Keefe also doesn’t understand just who he is working for. That’s the second difference. He doesn’t see how, in accepting support from men like Andrew Breitbart, he is working for people with their own agendas and they have nothing to do with protecting Americans or their rights. He might just as well be collecting paychecks from Fox News. What he’s speaking isn’t “truth to power,” it’s propaganda for the powerful. He was indoctrinated and programmed by the Leadership Institute of Arlington, Virginia, and is living up to their dreams of a conservative one-party nation, of, for and by the oligarchs.

Is that “sixties radical” enough for you, James?

O’Keefe never shows the full story, and unfortunately, neither did Chafets. O’Keefe does it to “prove” his point. Chafets was just lazy. When real journalists fail to properly do their jobs, they just open the door for people like O’Keefe to continue hurting innocent people by reinforcing the lies and distortions or targeting the wrong perpetrators.

Related articles

• Cause Celeb: Glowing NY Times Profile Shows James O’Keefe Ready For His Close-up (mediaite.com)
• O’Keefe’s latest sting target: Medicaid bureaucrats (hotair.com)
• O’Keefe Medicaid Sting: Part II (nicedeb.wordpress.com)
• O’Keefe takes on Medicaid in his latest liar’s ‘sting’ (dailykos.com)
• Magazine Preview: Stinger: James O’Keefe’s Greatest Hits (nytimes.com)
• James O’Keefe is back with more video, this time on Medicaid (shortformblog.tumblr.com)
• Government Accountability Office Finds No Evidence to Support Breitbart and O’Keefe’s Attack on ACORN (littlegreenfootballs.com)

Janet Mock, a popular editor and blogger at People.com, recently sat down with writer Kierna Mayo to discuss a recent article that was published about her in Marie Claire.

Janet Mock via GLAAD

In the article, Mayo discusses her new memoir – in which, she shares her journey about accepting herself and coming out as transsexual.

Excerpt via GLAAD:

After high school graduation, many of my classmates were throwing big graduation parties and buying new cars. Those kids went looking for good times and great memories, but I was desperately searching for one thing only: a chance to be in the right body for the first time in my entire life.

(…)

Two weeks after the surgery, I was in class at the University of Hawaii, finally focusing on something other than my gender. Four years later, I left Hawaii, a beautiful, confident woman armed with a journalism degree and bound for graduate school and a career in New York City.

The article also goes into Mock’s trip to Thailand, where she had one of her final surgeries, as well as, telling her mother about her impending decision.

Janet can be reached at her website here.

Chameleon like actress, Evan Rachel Woods has officially come out as bisexual during her interview with Esquire Magazine. The 23 year-old, ex-fiancee of Marilyn Manson discussed her life, 8 out of the 9 tattoos that she currently has and discussed the type of person that she is attracted to.

“…I was always into very androgynous things. Guys, girls … I’m into androgyny in general.”

As the interview progressed, Wood opens up about her new role in George Clooney’s “The Ides of March”, her impending move to New York, and her blossoming dating life.

“I’m up for anything. Meet a nice guy, meet a nice girl…

However, when it comes to dating women, Wood definitely prefers the upper hand. “Yeah, I’m more kind of like the guy when it comes to girls. I’m the dominant one. I’m opening the doors, I’m buying dinner. Yeah, I’m romantic.”

Woods is the second actress on the popular HBO sitcom to come out as bisexual, Anna Paquin (Sookie) came out Spring of last year.

Related articles

• Evan Rachel Wood Says She’s Bisexual (towleroad.com)
• True Blood’s Evan Rachel Wood: I’m Bisexual (eonline.com)
• ‘True Blood’s’ Evan Rachel Wood says she’s bisexual, ‘into androgyny in general’ (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• Evan Rachel Wood Is Bi-Sexual (socialitelife.com)

LezGetReal is about to roll into the next countdown to yet another mIllion page views-  a Newish News Magazine that is two years plus a bit -  for the first full year we hit under a million and in  the second full year we hit under 2 million – we are about to explode into 3,000,000.   For a fledgling, unfunded, non monetized endeavor we are indeed proud.

The site serves as a News-Mag-blog from “a gay gals view of the world” -  and as a popular and influential platform for LGBT activism, both globally and domestically; we have readers all over the world!  We are a small bunch of gals working and working and working for what we believe in and to share our perspective. The reward? You !Having you visit and appreciate and criticize and debate and pass on…. that is the reward – opening eyes and hearts — well that too!

We know our articles are read by Presidents and Senators and Members of Parliament- and ….. people …. and ..straight and LGBTQI  of course our  co-bloggers, and readers who fuel our fire with sourcing and comments and just the odd pat on the back that makes us feel it is all worth it.

So join us in celebrating and we do not make a habit of this – but if you feel so inclined I think we do have a paypal button for donations somewhere on this site – not that I have ever noticed it!!

Posted by Mel.

Lets Make it A  LezGetReal SuperBowl Sunday at 5.30 PM PST we need 613 Page Views to hot the 3 Million Mark

We Are Everywhere- Washington D.C. California, New York, Vermont…. and our Guests around the World…….

Here are All time top hits for LezGetReal-

Most  Viewed:

Number One:-    Woman-attacks-her-wife-with-turkey-baster-full-of-sperm

Number Two:-  Lesbian-corrective-rape-victim-has-her-day-in-court

Most Discussed

Hate-crimes-open-lesbian-gang-raped-in-california/#comments

Current Writers to Explore:

Dr. Paula Brooks 1273 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/author/paula-brooks/

Bridgette LaVictoire  2,853  – http://lezgetreal.com/author/sei/

Melanie Nathan 1186 Posts http://lezgetreal.com/author/melnathan/

Natasia Langfelder – 695 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/author/natasia-rose/

Rachel Wahba 12 Posts – http://lezgetreal.com/?s=Rachel+Wahba

L. S. Carbonell – 115 Posts http://lezgetreal.com/author/bridgettepl/

Crusades: (Ahem…) – ur Amen…:
Catholic Church and Pedophiles
Anti- Hate and Right Wing Rhetoric
Religious Fundamentalism
So Called Corerctive Rape
Violence Against WOmen
Africa and Genocide of Gays and Lesbians and Transgender People
Equality and LGBTQI Civil Rights
Human Rights
US Progressive Politics
Exposing Hypocrisy
And…. Mainstream Mix…

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• Breaking: Swedish Lesbian Couple Receive Good News (lezgetreal.com)
• UPDATE: Ugandan Lesbian Brenda Namigadde’s Deportation is set for 9.20PM from London (lezgetreal.com)
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MELANIE NATHAN – Jan 24-2011- Weighing in from San Francisco; – The Daily Mail journalist Melanie Phillips has claimed that gay equality is a ruthless agenda which aims to destroy so-called normal sexual behavior.

” Many different groups are involved in promoting this crazy, upside-down world of the equality agenda. But the seemingly all-­powerful gay rights lobby carries all before it. If it isn’t careful, it risks turning gay people from being the victims of prejudice into Britain’s new McCarthyites.”

In her latest column for the national newspaper, entitled ‘Yes, gays have often been the victims of prejudice. But they now risk becoming the new McCarthyites’, she also implies that homosexuality will become “mandatory.” The article is a direct response to government plans to introduce non-sexual gay references into the curriculum. According to Pink Papers in the UK. “Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the ­camouflage of ­education. It is an abuse of childhood,” she wrote.

“And it’s all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very ­concept of normal sexual behaviour.”What was once an attempt to end ­unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse.” She then goes on to reference the recent Cornwall B&B case, where a gay couple won compensation for being refused a hotel room which we reported here on LezGetReal.

“Expressing what used to be the moral norm of Western civilisation is now not just socially impermissible, but even turns upstanding people into lawbreakers.”The bed and breakfast hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull — who were recently sued for turning away two homosexuals who wished to share a bedroom — were but the latest religious believers to fall foul of the gay inquisition merely for upholding ­Christian values.”

The article ends with Phillips claiming that, if not careful, the gay lobby will become Britain’s new McCarthyites – a term used to describe people who make unfair accusations in order to suppress the opposition and their views. (Pink News)

The debate may seem specific to European and UK discourse, yet has mild applicability here in the USA.  In so far as two things are concerned:

1. In the USA – We don’t have a clue who the hell Melanie Phillips is anyway; yet

2  The UK LGBT community ought to be up in arms and may well be.  In the USA- such comments from a so called liberal smacks of  TEABAGGER hate and serves little good in an environment where teen suicide has become endemic -and where the only real GAY AGENDA is the civil right to one hundred percent equality under the Law.

The pink news article ended – “One man called her journalism “disgusting and pointless” while another wrote: “My school years were ones of torment due to my perceived sexuality, and I have no doubt that just the odd mention of gay relationships or a window into gay politics would not only have given me hope that I wasn’t some awful sub human, and may have stayed the hands of those that bullied me.”

Posted by – I AM MELANIE NATHAN
LGBT EQUALITY AND GA RIGHTS ACTIVIST
note: I have maintained UK spelling in quotations

By Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com
Facebook Melanie
twitter @oblogdeeoblogda

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12/17/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

A great way to get straight men to think you are more attractive is to talk about the possibility of lesbian sex. That is exactly what Chloë Sevigny is doing in the January issue of Playboy. This is what she said in the interview, as reported by The Advocate:

“By the time of Boys Don’t Cry I had already spoken in interviews about my sexual experimenting as a young person,” she says. “It sure seems that I have a pretty strong lesbian fan base because when I’m out, everybody responds to those films.”

The Big Love star went on to discuss letters she receives. “Last year I got a weird note on my car: ‘If you’re bored, me too. Let’s meet. Your new neighbor,’ signed with the person’s initials,” she says. “It’s kind of creepy. Does this person see me in my rented backyard, smoking and lonely?”

I’m a fan of Chloë Sevigny and because of “Boys Don’t Cry” and “If These Walls Could Talk 2″ I will defend her hotness to the death. But, lets face facts. She’s not attractive in a mainstream actress type of way, she dresses mad fug (don’t take my word for it, check out GoFugYousrself.com and you can read archives about how bad she dresses). Honestly, she should be glad that at least the lesbians think she is attractive, because no one else does. Soooo yeah, this interview smacks of “DO YOU THINK I’M ATTRACTIVE NOW? GUYS DO YOU THINK SO??? THINK ABOUT ME HAVING SEX WITH A CHICK DOES THAT MAKE LIKE ME?!”

Aw, thanks for playing “I love my lesbian fans” Chloë! Better luck next time.

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11/20/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Have you ever wanted to go on a date with a reality TV star who has consistently treated her girlfriends like crap? Well, ladies, now you can do just that! Curve magazine is holding a contest to find dates for Rose and Whitney at Dinah Shore weekend, 2011. All you have to do is send them a video saying why you deserve to go on a date with either of the two women and readers of Curve will vote on who they think should ‘win.’

Here are some reasons you might deserve to go on a date with Whitney or Rose:

1) You are an asshole who loves hot women, no matter how they treat other women.

2) You love assholes, because women like women who are bitches.

3) You have really low self esteem and want a date who will check out other girls in front of you! Yay!

Basically, if you are a lesbian than all of the above applies to you. Good luck ladies, enter the contest at http://www.curvemag.com/Curve-Magazine/Web-Articles-2010/Win-a-Date-with-quotThe-Real-L-Word-039s-quot-Whitney-and-Rose/

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On blending in at school:
“Brown has a real sense of community, and people are very protective of me. They really look out for me; they want me to feel like I’m part of it. I threw my 20th birthday party at Brown, and I didn’t even have to say to anyone not to put pictures on Facebook. Not a single picture went up. That was when I knew I’d found a solid group of friends, and I felt like I belonged.”

On her pixie cut:
“I’ve wanted to do it since I was about 16, and when Harry Potter ended in June, I just needed a change. It was quite symbolic for me. It’s very short; it was buzzed at the back and on the sides. And it’s really liberating that I can walk out without thinking about it.”

On growing up in front of the camera:
“To be honest, I’ve always had far too much freedom. I had a job when I was 10. I started living on my own when I was 17 or 18. I’ve earned my own money; I’ve traveled the world. What would I rebel against? I’ve had so much freedom, sometimes it was hard. My parents wanted to protect me, but they had no idea how to. I had to learn as I went and make my own mistakes. I went from being totally unknown and never acting professionally to being in a major movie and being very famous. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have any time to work things out. It’s been pretty scary at times.”

Source

11/02/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Gay icon and singer Cher admits that she is still getting used to her child’s gender change. Chaz Bono was born Chastity Bono, back in the day, for those of you too young to remember. Cher also says that she can see how hard it would be to feel as if you were born the wrong gender. She tells Vanity Fair in an upcoming interview:

“Well, she’s a very smart girl — boy! This is where I get into trouble. My pronouns are [bleeped]. I still don’t remember to call her ‘him,’ If I woke up tomorrow in a guy’s body, I would just kick and scream and cry and [bleeping] rob a bank, because I cannot see myself as anything but who I am — a girl. I would not take it as well as Chaz has.” [Source]

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10/29/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Yay! America’s Sweetheart Betty White has come out in support of marriage equality. In an interview with Parade magazine, White says:

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10/29/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Today, in depressing news, Shape editor Valerie Latona apologized for putting LeAnn Rimes on the cover of the fitness mag after readers became enraged. For those of you who haven’t been following the former teen country sensation, let me recap. The poor thing was getting screwed by her manager parents, messily broke off her professional relationship with them and married at the waaaaaay too young age of 19. When she was a grown-up, she fell in love with a married co-star while filming a Lifetime movie. Was is the right move? No. Does it mean she should be banned from all magazine covers for the rest of her life? No. We all make mistakes, hers was a bad one. But in the end LeAnn Rimes is not going to your house to steal your husband…probably.

I’m not a huge fan of LeAnn Rimes, but she has owned up to what she did and who she is. She doesn’t run around denouncing others for their actions. She gave Shape an interview to go with the cover and said: “My relationship with Dean [her ex-husband] was great, but ultimately it wasn’t a fulfilling marriage for either of us…I understand why people are disappointed in me, especially since I grew up as America’s sweetheart.”

Latona said in her apology:

“You are all in good company…as you all agree Shapehas made a terrible mistake in putting LeAnn Rimes on the cover. Please know that our putting her on the cover was not meant to put a husband-stealer on a pedestal-but to show (through her story) how we all are human. And this woman in particular found strength in exercise in what she said was her most difficult personal moment…it did not come across that way…And for that I’m terribly sorry. I hope that we can do better the next time for those of you that will give us another chance.”

Ouch. Considering that LeAnn Rimes probably helped sell thousands of copies of Shape with her interview, that’s a hell of thank you.

What do you think? Do you think Shape and their readers are being too hard on LeAnn? Or do you think she’s a “Husband Stealer”?

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That polarization is not ignored by Thrasher’s profile of Choi. The balance in reporting is greatly appreciated, in fact. While Choi is seen as a hero to some, he is a nuisance to others. He has also been dogged by controversies including about his speaking fees. All of these are covered in a stark light without flinching by Thrasher, who looks at the whole person instead of just what a given audience might want to see. Rather than a portrait of a hero or villain, Thrasher paints a portrait of a human being.

Here are a few choice passages from the profile, and it is worth a full read.

There’s no doubt that when Choi came out last March on MSNBC as a gay soldier, he helped take the movement to a whole new level.

“When he appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show, he was very buttoned-down, very conservative, very professional—and clear as a bell,” says Rick Jacobs, leader of a group fighting California’s anti-gay Proposition 8, The Courage Campaign.

But Choi isn’t buttoned-down anymore. There are many across the political spectrum who wish the lieutenant would be quiet once in a while. He angered the right by appearing as the grand marshal at last year’s San Francisco and New York Gay Pride parades, where, as he puts it, he was gleefully “breaking ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ all up and down the street!” (In uniform.)

Lieutenant Dan Choi personifies the growing rift between gay-rights activists who want to cooperate with lobbyists and elected officials, and those who demand direct action. It’s pretty obvious that the establishment activists—having allies controlling the White House and the Congress for two years with little to show for it—are having a hard time keeping people like Choi in line.

“I’ve lost all respect for you as a gay- and human-rights activist,” Nonnie Ouch, president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Texas Tech University, wrote in an open letter to Choi in August. Ouch, bemoaning “the exorbitant amount of $10,000 to get you out here,” wrote that “after nine months of dealing with your agent, I received an e-mail directly from you. In short, you basically said that the only way I could get you to speak is if I raised enough money to bring you to Tech. No deals, no compromises, end of story.”

Ouch had first seen Choi at the National Equality March in October 2009, where she was inspired by his “Love Is Worth It!” speech. It broke her heart, she wrote, to tell him, “You, sir, have lost sight in one of those many $10,000 checks written to you, of why you came out and became an activist in the first place.”

Asked about it, Choi calls it “a strange situation” but is dismissive of Ouch’s description of Texas Tech students who wanted to hear him as “poor college kids in an extremely conservative city.” The poorest kids, Choi argues, “are not going to college.” He says he’s proud of the fact that he’s been taking care of himself “since I left high school,” by getting appointed to West Point and serving in the military. And he says that he donates a great deal of his fees to homeless LGBT youth of color, “who are really the poorest and the most marginalized.”

Besides, students can get funds, he maintains, through their student activity boards and other sources to pay his appearance fees. He says he thinks the dispute “wasn’t about money.” He has a rider in his speaking contract that stipulates he won’t come to a school unless all campus groups are invited—gay, military, Christian—and that “they must invite the most homophobic group, four times, in writing.”

Source

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-10-27/news/bad-lieutenant-dan-choi/3/

10/19/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will be featured in the November issue of Vogue. The progressive Gillibrand is one of the most liberal, progressive democrats in the government today. Vogue gets to the heart of Gillibrand’s surprising inspiration for her hard work, Hillary Clinton. In fact, they name the entire piece, “In Hillary’s Footsteps.” The article runs down the list of how the women are alike, physical features, educational background and liberal views. Gillibrand describes how Clinton inspired her in a more direct way. Gillibrand first heard Clinton speak at the Women’s Leadership Forum.

“She was trying to encourage us to become more active in politics,” says Gillibrand, “and she said, ‘If you leave all the decision-making to others, you might not like what they do, and you will have no one but yourself to blame.’ It was such a challenge to the women in the room. And it really hit me: She’s talking to me.” Around that time Clinton gave her famous speech in Beijing. “Remember when she said, ‘Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights’? That speech affected me very deeply. I was just a young lawyer thinking, What am I doing with my life? What am I doing with my career? As I watched her on that stage I thought, Why aren’t I there? It was so poignant for me. And that’s what made me figure out how to get involved in politics.” [Source]

The piece starts out detailing Gillibrand’s next moves for NY state farmworkers, but eventually brings the conversation back around to what she is becoming best known for in New York City, her LGBT rights stance.  Gillibrand tells Vogue that while growing up, her mother was very supportive of the LGBT community as well.

“My mother had a lot of gay friends,” she says, in a girly voice that reminds me of Renée Zellweger’s, “and they were very much part of our close circle. And I cared a lot about them. One of my mother’s friends’ partners died of AIDS early on, and that affected me. This man was so interesting, so engaging, was always superkind to me. One of the most handsome men I’d ever met. And it was just such a loss for a young girl to see someone die so young.” [Source]

 That’s really the meat of the article, but because this is Vogue, we need to talk about weight. Gillibrand gained weight with her pregnancies and was up to a size 14/16. She was able to bring herself down to a 4/6 through breastfeeding and diet. She also shares that she didn’t save her old, small sized clothes in the hopes she would fit back into them someday, instead, once she lost the weight she treated herself to new clothes.

Sometimes when a politician “opens up” to a magazine, they do so in a superficial sense. Like a pro-athlete talking about supporting the team, you can predict their answers before you read the question. However, Gillibrand’s Vogue interview avoids falling into this trap. Her answers are fresh and come across as both unscripted and authentic; even when the questions veer into the sillier side of life.

The November issue of Vogue will be on newsstands Oct. 26. Pick it up for more Kirsten!

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10/14/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Fans of Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stephani know that Gavin Rossdale has been in relationships with men before. The New York Daily News reports:

A source close to the Bush front man tells us he’s “seriously regretting” going on the record with the publication about his 1980s affair with gender-bending pop singer Marilyn (nee Peter Robinson) – in part, because he then had to come clean with his wife.

In the article, which posted on Details’ website on Monday (and will be available on newsstands Oct. 19), Rossdale admits to the long-rumored affair after writer Jonah Weiner asks him if the relationship, which took place when Rossdale was 17 years old, was a case of “one-time experimentation.”

The rocker responded, “Yeah. That was it.” But our source tells us (and another confirms) that after the interview, Rossdale approached the publication’s editors and “pleaded with them” not to print the admission. Details chose to run with its scoop.

I would be shocked if the NYDN was right about Rossdale “seriously regretting” telling Gwen Stephani about his bisexual past. He’s a rockstar, he’s had a relationship with a man, it’s really not a big deal. If Rossdale was ashamed of it, why would he talk to Details, a widely read publication, about it? Hopefully Rossdale’s interview in Details won’t dismiss bisexuality as a phase. Let’s wait and see.

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This raises some big questions like- who the heck is James Franco? I’m deadly serious. I’m the kind of person who asks ‘who the heck is Dan Savage’. At least I know who Christina Hendricks is, but then again, with that body, who wouldn’t? Sigh. . .why did she have to turn out to be straight? I know who Emilie Autumn is, and Amy Lee, but as to Franco, who is he, a relative of Francisco Franco, the late dictator of Spain?

Apparently James Franco is some kind of actor. What he has acted in, I wouldn’t know.

Source

Members on panel at NLJGA By Melanie Nathan

San Francisco: The throng of hotel security stood by as my colleague and I pulled into the Hyatt Regency in downtown San Francisco, early Thursday morning. I was invited by the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) to speak on a panel at their annual Summit.

Pulling up in my car, handing keys over to the valet,  and then bam sudden surprise when I realized we had landed in the middle of labor dispute.

Flanked by two sides of picketers – members of the San Francisco chapter of Pride at Work, an LGBT labor group affiliated with the AFL-CIO, to the right with LGBT signage and who had joined the city’s hotel workers union, UniteHere  Local 2, in calling on NLGJA to honor the union-initiated boycott of the Hyatt in an effort to win a union contract for hotel employees.

There were mixed feelings amongst the gay community as attendees who supported the all important event. While some knew that NLGJA had declined a request to withdraw its annual convention, a would be act of solidarity, from San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency Hotel in connection with a labor union boycott of the hotel, others were surprised by the fuss outside.

The NLGJA had posted a statement on its website, saying a cancellation of its contract with the hotel, which was signed three years ago, would result in a $150,000 penalty that could bankrupt the group.  A boycott of this Hotel had been called only a few months ago.

Here is a small excerpt of a note that appeared on the Journalist group’s website: “As you may have seen, one of the four unions at this year’s NLGJA convention host hotel has recently been engaged in a labor action.  We wanted to brief you on what the union has asked of NLGJA, and how NLGJA is responding.

First, and most important: While workers have called for a boycott of the host hotel and other Hyatt properties, and while the possibility of informational pickets exists, please be aware that the union currently remains in negotiations with the hotel, and has not gone on strike except for a brief walkout in June. It is our understanding and expectation that NLGJA members, sponsors and invited speakers will not need to cross a picket line of striking workers to attend the 20th anniversary conference.

As to the boycott: Although NLGJA understands the importance of collective bargaining and recognizes that worker actions are not to be blithely ignored, it is simply impossible at this late date for us to move this year’s convention to another hotel. Our contract with the Hyatt was signed three years ago. NLGJA was contacted by organizers from UniteHere Local 2 in June, and we have had conversations with them for more than a month.”

Israel Alvaran, community outreach organizer for Unite Here! Local 2 and a member of Pride at Work agreed that NLGJA would likely be “faced with some added expenses for moving its convention to another hotel.”  But he said the “union would have intervened” to help NLGJA challenge a penalty fee from the Hyatt on grounds that the hotel most likely did not inform NLGJA of labor disputes and the possibility of a hotel boycott at the time the gay journalists group signed its contract with the hotel;”

This irresponsible, meaningless and uninformed statement would surely not  be one upon which the NLGJA could ever rely. While the Union now suggests it would have helped the NLGJA in moving the conference   - supposedly to fight a breach of contract action, I say unless the Union put such in writing to include a full indemnification of all legal fees as well as a deposit for such in an escrow account, the NLGJA leadership did the right thing in holding the summit and avoiding the risks.  They owed that to their own membership – far above any perceived statement of solidarity to the Labor Union.

Noting criticism of the lesbian and Gay Journalists, and as the VP of a prominent non-profit Bay Area Board of Directors,  I would be remiss to not share this extremely significant observation yet to be noted in any reports I have read to date.

Any organizational Board which is tasked with, inter alia, the fiscal duty to maintain the heartbeat of an Organization has critical decisions to make and must as a matter of  fiduciary duty and honor place the interests of their organization at the fore. These directors have a responsibility first and foremost to its own membership and the life of the organization.

The responsible decision has to be to act in the best interests of the group one serves. In the case of the NLGJA, it involved more than risking the $150,000 loss for a breach of a three year old contract, it involves letting down the membership, failing to accomplish organizational goals, progress for the group, and always a great risk would be extensive legal fees.

This in no way derogates from the fact of solidarity and the leadership of NLGJA suggested that the LGBT journalists in attendance bring cameras to report the boycott.  However criticizing the attending members and journalists who could have written the labor union story has proved to be counter- productive.

And while impassioned Union members and labor activists may feel their organizational interests and livelihoods are more important than others, evidenced by such reports as the following, I sympathize with the cause but disapprove the connection and lashing out at the journalists see – http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20100903051531345-

“Gay and Lesbian Journalists to Bust Strike by Hotel Workers – by Suzan -9/02/2010

My grandparents on my father’s side came here from Poland. At Ellis Island they got a different name. From Ellis Island they were taken to the iron mines of a company town called Mineville with company housing and a company store. They were paid in company money called script good only for that company house and the company stores. They were illiterate and the doctor who delivered my father spelled his name differently from the rest of his brothers and sisters. My grandfather died of miner’s lung.

My other grandmother worked as a seamstress in the clothing and textile factories.

After my father came home from WW II he got a union job as a welder. He was a member of the United Steel Workers Union. Good pay, good benefits and a pension for hard body breaking work.

I grew up in a union house and learned early on that only the lowest forms of life cross workers picket lines. Rats, louses and scabs…

I am working class and proud. I believe every worker should belong to a union and that unions should be able to break a corporation as easily as the corporations now break unions.”

The writer expressed what she termed “imagine my utter shock and disgust” when she read the   The Washington Blade:   article, “Gay journalists to face Union Picket Line” by Lou Chibbaro Jr. | Sep 01, 2010; where he mentioned that  The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association has declined a request to withdraw its annual convention from San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency Hotel this weekend in connection with a labor union boycott of the hotel.

“Today when I listen to so many people who transition in middle age I am struck how many have class privilege. They have professions and degrees, economic security that so many of us who were runaways or throwaways, people of color who grew up poor will never have.

I listen to those who carry on about ENDA, which for them means keeping that professional job. But ENDA doesn’t mean so much when the jobs available to members of your class are part of the new servant economy. When you are a barista with a degree.

For some of us the Employee’s Free Choice Act, benefits that include part time and contract/temp worker as well as issues like a “Living Wage” mean as much or more than things like ENDA. Big fucking deal if you get a job where you aren’t discriminated against if you can’t afford to keep a roof over your head, eat, dress well enough to meet the dress code. And I might add have enough left to enjoy living if only a little.

When the Textile workers in Lowell, Mass. went out on strike in the early 20th Century they demanded not just bread but roses too.

The LGBT/TQ movements owe much to the idea of Unions. Harry Hay was a union organizer and many of us who have fought long and hard for LGBT/TQ rights are the children of union parents.

So I say to those of you who are journalists attending this conference. Shame upon you if you do not honor the worker’s picket lines.” http://womenborntranssexual.com/2010/09/02/gay-and-lesbian-journalists-to-bust-strike-by-hotel-workers-in-order-to-hold-their-conference-as-planned/”

And that is where I fail to make the shame -connect.

Journalists attending 2010 NLGJA Conference, Pic by melanie Nathan

Instead of garnishing the LGBT journalists support such critics and Union members have lashed out at them for fulfilling their own fiduciary duties and acting in the best interests of their own Group.  Why would another group in essence “die” for the cause of the Union?

Through this criticism the Journalists are not likely to write about the labor dispute and so what could have been a great opportunity serving as PR on the merits itself, has been lost. I did not see a single interview or photograph taken by a Journalist.

So the Unions criticized, the Picketers yelled and nobody in attendance has written anything in solidarity for the labor cause. Why would individual Journalists be outing themselves for having attended if they are being accused of breaching a picket line?

To say that the Union would probably have helped and to ignore the fact of legal fees and expenses for NLGJA which would have been inevitable, amounts in my opinion to a selfish expectation on the part of Unions involved.

While I have told of the passion and evidenced the attack, and also provided the ultimate defense for NLGJA having the conference – I have yet to note what the dispute is about and what it is the Labor Union wants and is not getting. That is the real shame!!!

Melanie Nathan

By Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com
@oblogdeeoblogda
www.privatecourts.com

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Posted by Melanie Nathan; 08-31-10-

- A Personal Memory

Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, 93, has reportedly been rushed to a hospital after being found unresponsive by her husband.

Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, called 911 Tuesday morning, and the actress was taken from her Bel Air home to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The television and film star had just finished one of several hospital stays in recent weeks after falling at her home and breaking her hip. She said she wanted to spend her final days at home after she returned from the hospital August 17, having received her last rites from a priest.

Gabor was born in Budapest in 1917 and followed her sister Eva to Los Angeles. After her debut in the 1952 film Lovely to Look At, she appeared in We’re Not Married! with Ginger Rogers, Moulin Rouge, and Death of a Scoundrel.

She was as well known for her off-screen persona as her film and television appearances. Gabor’s husband is her ninth, and she has been married to such notables as hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Also of note was her three days spent behind bars when she slapped a Beverly Hills police officer in 1989 and was found to be driving with an expired license. Gabor was fined $13,000 in court costs.

I personally recall an encounter with GABOR when I was seconding my Cousin as a stylist back in the 80’s in Los Angeles.  Zsa Zsa Gabor may be best remembered by most for her refusal to admit her age.  That received a lot of press – as I recall her driver’s license may not have been correct.

Well she did the same when it came to the size of her clothing – we were trying to style her for a Vogue Magazine cover. However when she could not fit into the dress that my Cousin had provided, based on the information Zsa Zsa provided herself, – she threw her bra at my cousin and fired us from the job; yelling ,  “AND my name is not ZSA ZSA – it is MS. GABOR to yooooo DAHLING!”

I wish her well and a speedy recovery.

Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com

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Curve Magazine has recently announced by way of Facebook that without financial assistance from the public, they may not make it to its 21st anniversary issue. As unfortunate as that is, my check won’t be in the mail.

Curve Magazine has prompted an eye roll from me for many years. Every time I come across that magazine, I open it up to see if my ongoing criticism of there not being any women of color in it are still true. Each time I checked, I put the magazine down with another eye roll because true to form, there weren’t. My queer women of color music festival, Serafemme, got a passing mention in 2008 because 7 time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Natalie Stewart performed; however, celebrity has often been Curve’s criteria for women of color getting so much as a passing mention and any qwoc affilitations she had got print by riding her coattail so to speak.

I understand that people by nature gravitate towards anything that shares the same characteristics they do so I don’t have a problem with the fact that Curve is a predominately white magazine. I don’t need for my media to be 100% of color to support it but even in reviewing their website – www.curvemag.com – there are very few of-color mentions on a site with over 50 pages – one article on why African-American women find it difficult to come out, a picture before the forums section of a woman who looks a bit Asian and a picture of the Slits which includes one African American member. I don’t count the two Black Pride event listings because those are user-submitted events that the magazine had nothing to do with promoting.

As someone who is committed to highlighting and protecting bisexual and lesbian-safe spaces, I should be “fighting the good fight” for Curve,I suppose. I should be blogging about their plight and encouraging others to contribute. I guess that would be the thing to do if all that mattered to me was that they were lesbian-oriented but I’m not that superficial. I support anything that is lesbian-oriented and inclusive. Curve is not. In fact, Curve supports my criticism that not enough media that outreaches to the queer of color community and I count Curve as one of the reasons why I felt compelled to start my own magazine last year.

It’s important to note, I’m not happy about Curve’s financial woes. In the grand scheme of things, a lesbian magazine is necessary and needed in order to inform, educate and empower women who have such little media directed to them as it is, I only wish Curve would have realized that that was true for me as a Black woman as well. I will not be making a contribution because Curve didn’t make enough contribution to me or the of-color community as a whole. I wish them well but any help they get will not come from me. Should they pull through and continue with the magazine, I hope they do it with a new mindset – one that highlights every racial spectrum of our gay rainbow. In doing that, they will find an explosion of provocative content, people and events to highlight and they’d find me as one of their biggest supports.

Reprinted on Lez Get Real with permission from Marquita Thomas © 2010.

http://marquitathomas.com/2010/07/curve-magazine-needs-help-but-im-not-lifting-a-finger/

Posted as Guest of:
Lez Get Real
by Melanie Nathan.

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07/22/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Curve Magazine, the nation’s most popular lesbian publication, has fallen on hard times. So much so, that they might have to close their doors after serving the lesbian/bi/queer community for 20 years! The popular mag posted the following on their Facebook page:

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Diabetes Mobile- iPod iTouch iPhone Applications

Nadia Al- Samarrie - Publisher of Diabetes Health

Jay Hewitt has traveled miles and miles and more miles in a nineteen year period, racing Ironman triathlons in Australia, Europe, the Carribean and all over North America, climbing and camping at the top of 14,000 foot Mt. Whitney, and of course dozens of family vacations and business trips.

Packing equipment and supplies for an Ironman triathlon and 3 weeks in Australia requires a bit of planning and preparation, but when you have diabetes you feel like you do that for just a weekend out of town.  Meters, strips, insulin, syringes, infusion sets, pump supplies, snacks . . . a simple weekend trip becomes a lunar expedition.

Who could be more qualified than Jay to provide traveling tips such as these and if you want to read more then I highly recommend DIABETES HEALTH Magazine where this article was first published and reprinted here with permission of King’s Publishing Inc.

“Here are JAY’s  top five tips for traveling with diabetes.

1. Bring Extra of Everything. Adopt the NASA triple redundancy system.  If one thing breaks or is lost, you have a back up, and another back up.  If I will be out of town two nights and will need to change my insulin pump infusion set once, I bring one set plus 3 extras.  I bring syringes for a day just in case the pump malfunctions or is damaged.
2. Keep Your Diabetes Critical Pouch Packed. My diabetes travel kit stays packed in my home with insulin pump infusion sets, syringes, alcohol swabs and other miscellaneous supplies.  I call this my diabetes “critical pouch.”  I periodically use and replace each item.  Life is too busy to remember to pack each thing every time you leave the house for a night.  I just grab that little pack and check the inventory and go.  I keep it in a quart size clear plastic freezer bag perfect for airport security and for me to see the contents, and keep it in my carry on bag.  I also bring several glucose meters as well.
3. Prescriptions at a National Pharmacy. Keep prescriptions for insulin, strips, syringes and any other supplies updated and on file with national pharmacies such as Walgreen’s, CVS, or other chain, even if you get your every day supplies from a local pharmacy or mail order.  When you live in Maryland and lose your insulin in Florida, those national chains can refill you there.
4. Pack Supplies in Separate Luggage. My diabetes critical pouch stays with me in my carry on bag on a plane and in the car.  This pouch contains my insulin so that it is not exposed to heat when my suitcase is left outside or in a car.  Packed in my suitcase with my clothes I keep extra supplies such as an extra meter and strips, pump supplies or syringes.  Now you are prepared if you get there, but your luggage does not.
5. Pack Travel Snacks. My briefcase or backpack always has at least 2 sport bars or other snack to munch on the plane or in the car when my blood sugar gets low.  I have extra sport bars packed in my suitcase, and even my glove box.  I like sport bars such as Clif Bar because they are packaged and sealed and travel easily in my bags.  I also keep a non perishable high carbohydrate drink in a plastic bottle in my car to sip when needed.

When flying across the country or internationally be sure to adjust the time on your insulin pump for your basal rate or injection of long acting insulin to correspond to that new time zone.  I make sure I have a bottle of juice or other carb drink in my hotel room.  Nothing is worse than waking in the middle of the night with low blood sugar and having to dress and roam the hotel halls for a vending machine.   When I travel alone I prefer to err a bit on the high side of normal blood sugar when sleeping because no one is in my hotel room to help if I have a severe low.

Traveling usually means eating different foods, and often at different times, so I tend to test more frequently on the road.  A little exercise on the road is always a great way to stabilize blood sugar and refresh your body and mind, especially on a business trip.  You knew I would recommend exercise, didn’t you!  I always pack my running shoes and clothes on a business trip with a packed schedule just so I can feel better, and enjoy a nice dinner.  I love to have dinner within walking distance of my hotel in major cities like Washington or New York so I can walk back and enjoy the conversation and post meal exercise.

A little planning will make for a good trip.  Have fun!  ( © Diabeteshealth.com 2010)”

Traveling with the  recently launch by Diabetes Health Apple Applications, by the California based King’s Publishing Inc. :- This could be a travel savior for those with Diabetes – Imagine being able to take  a compendium of Diabetes Related issues and TV broadcasts on your travels.  read more  at ……..   http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2010/06/29/6740/diabetes-health-is-the-first-diabetes-magazine-to-launch-iphone-and-ipod-touch-applications-dh-mobil/?isComment=1

Please let us know if you are interested in more health related articles here on LGR that specifically relate to lesbian interest ….In 1999, lesbians were identified as an underserved minority by the Institute of Medicine. Some health issues for lesbians are different from those of heterosexual women, and clinicians need to be aware of these differences in order to provide culturally-appropriate care, since at least 5% of their female patients are lesbian.

Articles of interest:
Abstract   Objective: This New Zealand study set out to measure the self-assessed health status of a snowball sample of lesbians in New Zealand, focusing on how lesbians use health services and perceived barriers to accessing health care.  In New Zealand-laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation have been in place since 1993, yet 5 years later this study suggests lesbians may have poorer health, and their delaying consultation requires further study. Conclusion: This study supports overseas research showing that lesbians delay seeking health care and find barriers to health care that are different from a random sample of women.  http://www.springerlink.com/content/g8501u5750t752lu/ Percentages were calculated on the general questions and a standardized set of questions and calculated scoring was used to measure the self-assessed health of respondents.

******

http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2009/07/21/6285/gay-men-and-women-with-diabetes-find-a-voice-through-the-diabetes-and-gay-dang-foundation/

Posted by Melanie Nathan
nathan@privatecourts.com

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06/23/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

For those of you who don’t remember, in early May, Newsweek published an article by Ramin Setoodah that stated that gay actors struggle with playing straight characters. Setoodah, who is openly-gay, specifically singled out Promises Promises costars, Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. Hayes’ plays Chenoweth’s love interest in the play. Setoodah calls Hayes’ casting a problem–”the big pink elephant in the room.” Kristen Chenoweth then wrote an open letter refuting the biased article and other celebrities, such as Cynthia Nixon and Glee creator Ryan Murphy, to weigh in.

Now, Setoodah is a rat that is fleeing from the sinking ship that is Newsweek. Setoodah is going onto greener pastures over at People magazine. A spokesperson for People said that he will serve as a senior writer focusing on news and human-interest stories. He starts his job the second week of July.  The spokesperson didn’t say why they would hire someone who had insulted the entire LGBT entertainment community.
 

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06/23/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

The ‘men’ of MTV’s wildly popular and exceedingly trashtastic The Jersey Shore shot some photos for the cover of the Village Voice. The cover will feature Vinny Gaudagnino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, with DJ Pauly DelVecchio being the only male castmember absent.  

NY Postis reporting that the guys didn’t know the cover was for the Queer issue, which will hold the guys up as the ideal hot guidos and insinuates that they would be uncomfortable with that.

There are several reasons I think this story is BS. I will enumerate them below for your reading pleasure.

1. The Village Voice is a respectable publication and wouldn’t mislead anyone appearing on a cover of their magazine.

2. These guys don’t care what cover of what magazine they are on, they just want to be on one. They would pose for Barely 18 Big Jugs Weekly or Hot Gay Porn Sluts if they could be on the cover.

3. The Jersey Shore cast is surprisingly not homophobic at all. Hopefully I don’t eat my words when the second season airs, but in the first season, at least they didn’t throw the word ‘gay’ around. As in, the pejorative “That’s so gay!” They also don’t call each other any gay slurs, such as the f word. Which is refreshing considering how often people casually throw that word around. For once, I think these guys are getting less credit than they deserve. Pose on Juiceheads! (I know what you are all thinking, yes I did watch The Jersey Shore and yes, I will continue to watch it.)

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04/30/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

There has been buzz all week about the big celebrity who is going to come out on May 5th in People magazine. The only concrete lead on this story is that the star is represented by Howard Bragman. Here is a list of his known clients:

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04/06/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

Actress Zoe Saldana, who shot into the spotlight because of her role in Avatar, is revealing to Siempre Mujer magazine that growing up, people used to think she was a lesbian. Saldana tells the mag:

“People have sometimes told my grandmother, ‘Your granddaughter has a bit of lesbianism in her. It’s that my sisters and I spent all our time among men. We were very popular with them. Our way of thinking is very masculine.”

For those of you who think that sounds strange, in latin culture it’s pretty common to say that someone has “a bit of lesbian in her.” I know that’s what my family said about me! Saldana goes on to say that she is still a bit of a tomboy and that she doesn’t enjoy getting dolled up for the red carpet.

“If you want to punish me, send me to get a manicure or dress me in a skirt or shorts, and I would die,” Saldana said. ”But if you dress me in jeans and a button-down blouse, I feel very sexy, feminine and powerful.”

Saldana is not coming out, so don’t get your hopes up ladies. If you want to read the rest of the interview, you can grab the latest issue of Siempre Mujer.
  

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  O K K I E S (ah-keez’) n.: plural of Okkie, familiar form of Oscar   – When I first arrived in New York City from South Africa, albeit an attorney , my foreign-ness made finding work near impossible.  I moved to Los Angeles and soon found myself running around the City with one of Los Angeles’ most well known celebrity stylists.  As it happens Lauren Landau Hines is my first cousin and I could not be more proud of her achievements.  She scooped me in her protective arms and I was able to help her with Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation, working specifically with the late great Cyd Charrise who had a cameo in one of the music videos as well as a few other exciting projects.  Lauren has since honed her skills to fill a gap (no pun intended) -  she found that there was no loose comfortable  stylish clothes for boys.

Although accomplished, Lauren is probably the single most modest person one could meet, never touting her  ‘own horn’ and it’s a big one that should be blasted loudly. There is barely an issue of People, US, OK and other tabloids that does not show a celebrity child wearing one of Lauren’s simple and recognizable  OKKIE designs.  Now Lauren tells her career story in her own words:-

The thread that repeatedly weaves its way through my life and career is, well, literally thread. Actually, it’s the cut, color and fabrication of clothing that are among my most important memories and, later, my influences.

Born in South Africa, I attended a conservative elementary school that required me to wear uniform dress – a blazer, button-down shirt, skirt, hat and tie. Freedom came at the end of the day and on weekends when I donned my favorite outfit: bright yellow cropped palazzo pants paired with a tank top. I can picture the pants clearly; I remember how they felt against my body.  

At 14, my family and I immigrated to Los Angeles, where in High School, freed from a dress code, clothing was a means of self-expression. I used my mom’s idle sewing machine to make my own clothes that broadcast my membership in the artsy crowd. I was really into upholstery fabric in high school, I made an upholstery fabric pajama outfit with gold buttons that I lived in.

After high school, I moved to New York City to attend design school. Soon my school internship turned into a full-time job: I worked as a freelance editorial stylist for Interview, Details and Face, the fashion-forward magazines of the day. My work was heavily influenced by the aesthetic of my favorite designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, whose clothing lines continue to inspire. These Japanese designers effortlessly reduce fashion to simple sophistication; it is amazing how they delineate colors using a monochromatic color palette. And their designs artfully balance practicality with playfulness, seriousness with humor. Yet their clothes don’t overwhelm, instead they enable the wearer to express his or her own personality. 

In 1987 I returned to LA to broaden my freelance stylist and costume designer career. I created costumes for music videos, concert tours and album covers, adding Janet Jackson, the Rolling Stones and Sting, to my client list. I also collaborated with television and print-ad directors styling and designing costumes for A-List commercial accounts such as Coke, Nike and Visa/MasterCard.

In 2001 I added motherhood to my resume with the birth of Hugo and, later, Oscar – nicknamed Okkie by his big brother. Watching my two young, constantly moving boys was easier than finding boy-appropriate clothing. At that time, girls had many fashion choices, boys much fewer. I struggled to find comfortable, easy-care, hip boys’ wear. Choices seemed locked into a few silhouettes merchandised in standard denims, fleeces and twills, in boy-accepted primary colors.

It was in the limited boys’ wear market that I saw opportunity. In 2005, as a natural next-step in my 20 years experience in the fashion industry, I designed and introduced OKKIES, a line of boys’ pants. With four pant silhouettes merchandised in a variety of fashion-forward colorations and menswear patterns, OKKIES debuted in five stores its first season. By fall 2006, I was designated best new designer by the online children’s clothing expert jamesgirone.com. In October 2008, Earnshaw’s national retail survey named OKKIES one of the top three best-designed collections in the boys’ wear industry. 

I am very excited to introduce my newest lifestyle-designed collection: OKKIES ‘girl’, a full line of feminine, but not frilly, interpretations of OKKIES’ best-selling silhouettes, for fall, 2009.

OKKIES girls’ wear Fall 2009 line features 16 styles in a full line silhouettes – from pants to shirts, dresses to leggings, sweaters, jackets and beanies – for size 3 months to 12 years. OKKIES boys’ wear Fall 2009 line features 19 styles – from pants to shirts, sweaters and hoodies, to beanies also for sizes 3 months to 12 years.

I have created OKKIES as a lifestyle approach to clothing – a lifestyle of ease of wear, clothing that allows them to move, stretch, run, climb and relax without restriction. For parents, that lifestyle is about comfort and more. It’s about clothes that are high-quality; that are wash-and-wear; that are appropriate for a full day of activity, going from a play date to dinner with grandma; that reflect an awareness and appreciation of fashion trends without being fussy or over done; that don’t express ‘generic kid’ but allows an individual’s personality to shine.

Up until now OKKIES have been available in over 500 specialty stores throughout the country, but moving forward, we will be offering our lifestyle approach to clothing directly to our customers on our website.

 Enjoy! go to http://okkies.com/information.php/about-i-1     You can take advantage of the online 48 hour sale – great Holiday Gifts

Posted by Melanie Nathan

 Follow my Twittering  @oblogdeeoblogda

During the shoot the two celebrity actresses shared a lesbian kiss with each other, producing some steamy shots. When asked about the upcoming movie in an interview with Marie Claire writer Jessica Henderson, the ladies had this to say:

DB: She was in her frickin’ bra with an open jacket and hot-pink shorts, skating around the rink with red lips and …

EP: I was having a really good time.

DB: … and she was sexy as a mother … a feral creature. It was great. And it’s so screwed up for girls to think, Oh, because I don’t have that cookie-cutter model body, it must mean I don’t have the right body shape. And I love model bodies, but I just want women to embrace several body shapes. That’s the thing I love about derby. It’s really welcoming.

Though the photoshoot slideshow on the Marie Claire website does not include the photo of the pair kissing, CelebrityRumors.com has posted the photo while accusing the pair of “faking that they enjoy kissing one another”. CelebrityRumors.com concluded the kiss was not a genuine lesbian kiss, stating that Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page “got into modern women’s club behavior”.

Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her online by visiting her website at www.juliephineas.com.

Bankster – A financial elitist who manipulates the government through the manipulation of money. A Bankster can be a campaign contributor, lobbyist, etc., or can even be the politician/high ranking official itself.

The coverage of Michael Jackson’s death is another great example of the media pushing the distractions, when people are really interested in the real news. One blog poll showed that a whopping 87% of people polled thought there was too much MJ coverage by the Main Stream Media (MSM). I personally can’t stand watching all these vultures circling around MJ’s coffin, trying to soak up all the echo fame they possibly can. It turns my stomach to see all these greedy flies using the opportunity, like some weird sacrifice ritual glorifying his death, for the sake of prolonging the attention.

The story I want to bring to your attention is Matt Taibbi‘s latest in Rolling Stone:

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE

“In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on “the Wall Street Bubble Mafia” — investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi’s piece is “an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories” and a spokesman adding, “We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good.” Taibbi shot back: “Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it.”Here, now, are excerpts from Matt Taibbi’s piece and video of Taibbi exploring the key issues.”

Amy Goodman interviewed Taibbi on Democracy Now back in late March, 2009 for the preceding cover story The Big Takeover:

“AMY GOODMAN: You write in your piece, “In 1997 and 1998”—so like ten years ago—“the years leading up to the passage of Phil Gramm’s fateful act that gutted Glass-Steagall, the banking, brokerage and insurance industries spent $350 million on political contributions and lobbying. Gramm alone—then the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee—collected $2.6 million in [only] five years. The law passed”—not close—“90-8,” you say, “in the Senate, with the support of 38 Democrats, including some names that might surprise you:”—you write—“Joe Biden, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Dick Durbin, even John Edwards.”

MATT TAIBBI: Right, right. I think one of the things that people don’t understand about this crisis is they—we always have this instinct in America to blame one side or the other for any political problem. You know, people on the left want to say, “Oh, George Bush did it,” and on the right they always want to say, “It was Clinton.” Well, this is as purely a bipartisan problem as we’ve ever had in this country. This was absolute unity on the part of both parties. They both were absolutely complicit in passing these deregulatory moves.

You know, in the instance of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, that was sponsored by Phil Gramm and by the Republicans, but it was very, very enthusiastically supported by Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, and it was signed into law by Bill Clinton and passed with the support of all those very powerful Democratic senators. And this continued to be the case throughout late ’90s and throughout this whole decade, and that’s why we’re in the situation that we are right now, because nobody is really, you know, representing the other side.”

You can watch that interview at the end of the first playlist above.

I’d like to point out here what the definition of fascism is, and why it is so important that we take care of this problem, and not let it get swept under the rug and forgotten like most truly important stories. The videos included in this blog helped me finally gain a real grasp on the economic meltdown, and how to fix it. And it doesn’t involve another $13 trillion going to the banks.

“Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology.”

In laymen’s terms, fascism is the highjacking of Corporations by Government. I think this scenario would be better called Corpratism, since it’s the reverse. Wall Street has hijacked Washington.

In the Big Takeover, Taibbi says: “People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.”

The connection between Wall Street and Washington must be severed. Both political parties are infected with this disease, but We the People are the ones who suffer the symptoms. Now that we’ve heard how Giethner was the one who made sure WS got its bonuses, on top of all his other failures, he should be let go. I’m not going to fall into the left right trap of “Well we automatically have to defend him because the Republicans are attacking him!”, or vice versa. He’s snarky, if you ask me, and he needs that smirk wiped off his face. “I used Turbo Tax”, really? Even I can do my own taxes dude.

Author Nomi Prins is also covering this story on Mother Jones.com.

The writer of the book It Takes a Pillage does a great job breaking down the complex issues in an understandable way. Especially when it comes to the new policies being proposed by Timothy Giethner and the Obama Administration.

“In the meantime, average Americans, who don’t have a $13 trillion federal insurance policy to fall back upon, have fared poorly. Over the past three months, unemployment has hopped a full point, to 9.4 percent—nearly double what it was one year earlier. For the third straight month, home foreclosures have broken the 300,000 mark, with the defaults reaching well into the prime loan turf, and home prices are still falling.

Considering the true size of the bailout, the continued loan deterioration, and the weakness in the overall economy and job market, the economic signs simply aren’t that positive. For Geithner to pretend that a few banks paying back federal money with other federal money is an encouraging sign is to miss all of them.”

And here she breaks it down well in another DN interview:

“While the treasury secretary conveyed to the senators some understanding of the plight of the rest of us, this show was all about Treasury and the banking sector. Geithner praised the government for pulling off stress tests of the 19 largest financial institutions last month. “The clarity and transparency provided by the tests,” he said, “has helped improve market confidence in the banks, making it possible for them to collectively raise nearly $90 billion through private equity offerings, bond issuances without government guarantees and sales of business units.”

But Tim’s not playing it straight,” Prins continues. “The fact that most of these banks passed their stress tests would only have mattered if the tests had any value. As I discussed when the tests were first unveiled, these tests were designed in tandem with the banks, the evaluations were provided by the banks, and some of the assumptions they were based upon—such as where unemployment would be—had been exceeded before the test results were released.”

Secretary Geithner is quickly proving to be the “Heck of a job Brownie” of the Obama Administration.

He’s a Corporatist Bankster in my book, and at the very least he’s an idiot who got laughed off the stage on his trip to China. By a bunch of economic STUDENTS, no less. This is NOT the best guy in America for the job.

Why is Obama clinging to these Wall Street Banksters, and giving them such high ranking positions? Why is he relying on Goldman Sachs? Where is the accountability for this crisis, which more and more seems to be entirely manufactured by the Banksters? How bad does it have to get before Americans wake up and smell the coffee?

Obama better take a broom to these crooks before the American people do, or he’ll get swept right out the door with them. This is why we need to support Ron Paul’s bill HR 1207 to Audit the Federal Reserve! Let’s open the books on these crooks, and clean up our government so we can really get the change we need, and that we deserve dammit.

I’m not going to hold my breath though, this 2008 article in the New York Times reports that Goldman Sachs was one of Obama’s biggest donors:

“When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.

When he is swept up in rhetorical fervor, Obama occasionally says that his campaign is 90 percent funded by small donors. He has indeed had great success with small donors, but only about 45 percent of his money comes from donations of $200 or less.”

This is finally catching fire in the blogosphere, but how long will it take for the MSM to get mad and start sticking up for the little guy? I guess that’s means its up to us to fend for ourselves till more brave journalists like Taibbi start to stand up too.

I’ll try to end on a more upbeat note. Getting through all this information can certainly feel like a chore, but I don’t know of any way to fix our economy, and government without understanding more. Go ahead and tell the people about Tiny Tim, Lady Sings the News!

Here is a video from the red carpet of the gala event where Michelle Obama opened the 2009 celebration:

Others who made the list include Edward Kennedy, John Legend, Ted Turner, Brad Pitt, Stella MacCartney, and The View. For the entire list visit the Time 100 here.

]]> http://lezgetreal.com/2009/05/rick-warren-bernie-madoff-sara-palin-just-a-few-of-times-100-most-influential-people/feed/ 2 http://lezgetreal.com/2009/04/wendy-lisa-come-out/ http://lezgetreal.com/2009/04/wendy-lisa-come-out/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:45:20 +0000 ~Julie Phineas~ http://lezgetreal.com/?p=9494 In an interview with Out Magazine, Wendy & Lisa, the duo most known as part of Prince and The Revolution, came out as a lesbian couple.

Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman sat down with Out Magazine writer Barry Walters and after just a few questions revealed that they have been married since before the duo rose to fame with Prince and The Revolution.

Here are just a few of the questions and answers from that interview:

Why did the two of you decide to keep working together after you left the Revolution?
Wendy: We were married and I was her biggest fan. Everything that she played broke my heart and still does and I wanna own it and covet it and make it mine.
Lisa: [Laughs at that] Yeah, we’re chained together. We’re shackled. No, I love Wendy. We’ve known each other our entire lives practically. Once she was finally hired into Prince’s band, it was like a dream for me. I had fallen in love with Wendy, my childhood friend, and suddenly we were looking at each other differently, but I had to leave on the road all the time. It was always just torture. Finally Prince met Wendy and there was some trouble with the other guitar player [Dez Dickerson], and providence moved in such a way that Wendy ended up on the road with us.

Was the image you projected in Purple Rain a function of who the two of you were together? Or did it come from Prince, or the director?
Wendy: I don’t think the director had anything to do with it. I think Prince saw us as the couple that we were and used that relationship to add more mystery to him. And I think Lisa and I were willing to go there because at that time we felt mysterious. We were young and it was the thing, so we went with it, not knowing what the result of that would mean or imply later in life. We didn’t think about it in those terms. We just thought, Wow, this is cool!

Before we continue, I have to ask: Have you come out before? Is this it?
Wendy: We’ve never done a “Let’s come out” interview. We’ve never been in the closet, but we never said, “Let’s get an interview with The Advocate. Let’s get an interview with Out.” I didn’t want to be a lesbian musician. I felt really uncomfortable with that role. I was already fighting, being a guitar player in a man’s world and to have that on top of it — Lisa and I were so very married at the time, it just didn’t seem like something I could handle.
Lisa: With Prince and the Revolution, I think that it was just taken for granted that we were supposed to be the gay reps in the band. [Laughs] The blacks, the whites, the gays. And people would say, “Gee, do you think this lesbian thing is going to work for them?” [Everyone laughs] So, after the band kind of split up, the record labels would be like, “You need to be wearing fur coats and sitting on motorcycles and long fingernails . . .”
Wendy: It was just horseshit.
Lisa: “And why don’t you wear that lingerie like you used to?”
Wendy: Which I never did.
Lisa: I did.
Wendy: But you wore it in a very different way.
Lisa: Yeah, it was more punk, like a fuck-you thing, not, “I’m a sexy girl.”

Were the record companies aware that you were lesbians and in a relationship together?
Wendy: They’d never talk to us about it. I think everybody knew, but nobody said to us, “But you’re a lesbian couple. We could work the Lilith Fair angle. We could work the Olivia Records angle.” No one used that kind of language with us.
Lisa: We were so hung up on the fact that these people wanted us to be Prince. It didn’t matter what our sexuality was. After we would leave the record company offices, I remember one of our managers mentioning that the art department people would comment on the way Wendy and I would talk to each other. LIke I would say, “Yes, dear,” and they would be all like whisper-whisper after we would leave the room. “They’re gay, aren’t they? They’re like an old married couple.” At that point, we had already been a couple for 10 years. It was very normal for us and very precious.
Wendy: I saw a lot of other women coming out at the time and I didn’t want that on my plate. I wanted my life with Lisa to be so much more private and so much more conventional than that.
Lisa: You know, Wendy, I don’t know if you’ll mind me saying this, but we did slightly differ on our consciousness about it. We would do interviews together and people would ask us questions like, “What is it like living in LA?” And I’d start talking about living in a house together and literally get a kick from Wendy under the table like, “You’re going too far.”
Wendy: Lisa, at the time we were talking to bullshit magazines. I just didn’t want the judgment from people who didn’t know about us or the struggle it takes for gays to fucking live a normal life.
Lisa: I know, but I felt that you had to teach by example instead of making some statement.
Wendy: I disagreed at the time. You can hear it still. Lisa and I are so much on the same page as older women, but at the time it was like, “Fuck that!” I’m not gonna go there. I want more control of this. I just simply do. I lead the way for Lisa and I to be closeted.

You were dealing with this during the Reagan years when the AIDS crisis was exploding and the progressive attitude regarding gays started reversing. It must’ve been hard to contend with that while the music industry pushed you to be the next Mary Jane Girls.
Wendy and Lisa, nearly in unison: That’s exactly what they wanted.
Wendy: We couldn’t have been more opposite of that. We were just geeky musicians. We still are. We did a record 10, 11 years ago with Trevor Horn that was never released. We were hoping that we would have the next fucking Grace Jones “Slave to the Rhythm” extravaganza. We thought, “This is going to be genius! We’re going to be musician freaks and experiment.” And he, honest to god, wanted us to be the Spice Girls. My heart was broken.
Lisa: Not only that, but he was so homophobic. I hate to say it, but he wouldn’t even let us eat off of his silverware on Friday because he was Jewish. It turned into this nightmare. He and his wife, oh God, I don’t want to talk disparagingly about anybody, but it made us very uncomfortable.
Wendy: Our homosexuality became quite an issue for them.

You can read the entire interview with Wendy & Lisa in Out Magazine here.

I bet this is a day the self-described butch never saw coming! This is really awesome, especially since there are so many stereotypes against the “butchies”. In fact, I think we’ll all agree that when people hate on lesbians, they think butch. So, not only is this a victory for Rachel, but for all the tomboi’s, butches, and just plain tops in our community. Word is that she’ll be wearing… pretty much what she wears on her show! Surprising? Not to me. What’s surprising to me is how you can lump any group of our LGBT community and call them Femme, or Butch. Yes, there are members of our community who love and live it up, and I support that, I’m just saying I personally HATE the labeling.

And I agonize over that, seriously. Is it just that I was called Butch, and Dyke enough times when I was a kid that I don’t ever want to hear it again? Am I butch, even though I choose not to be described that way? I do want to be in charge, and I like being able to pay for everything. But how much of that is my sexuality, and how much is it my socio-economic status? I come from a big, and thus broke, family, so of course being able to pay for stuff makes me feel good. And yes I abhor dresses, but I grew up in Catholic school where they would make us kneel down every day and make sure they were long enough. Who wouldn’t?

I know plenty of young tomboys when I was a kid who are straight, but what I never got to see was one of them in a magazine, all grown up. This is definitely going to effect someone out there, so kudos to you Rachel for all your hard work. Enjoy the attention, though it may be uncomfortable, because it means so much to me, and to kids who were just like us.

Jenime is an artist living in the SF bay area. You can watch her musings and ravings any time by visiting her channel on YouTube.

In this month’s issue you can find a picture of me and my wife from our wedding day on page 33. Curve boasts nearly 15 years of publishing, and was named Best Gay and Lesbian Publication by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which makes me extremely proud that our photo was included. The spread includes photos of couples from all over California who were married and submitted a photo. Our photo is right next to the photo of legendary lesbian couple Robin Tyler and Diane Olson.

Here is a tearsheet of page 33, and you can see our photo on the right (middle).

Curve Magazine can be found at Barnes & Noble and Borders Book Stores, or you can subscribe online to have the magazine delivered to your door.

Curve also has a page on MySpace where you can keep up to date on the latest with the magazine, which is how I found out about the photo submission. It’s very exciting to have our picture included in the October issue, and the kids are proud of us too. Be sure to check out this month’s issue of Curve, and thanks for reading this post here on Lez Get Real.

Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her online by visiting her website at www.juliephineas.com.