The New Orleans-based ensemble Last Call brought Alleged Lesbian Activities to Boston thanks to our incomparable The Theatre Offensive. This production asks: What happened to all the lesbian bars? And examines what our lives were like back when the underground bars – sleazy, criminal, and too often raided – were the only venues where we could gather.
Alleged Lesbian Activities drew sell-out crowds for five performances at Jacques Cabaret, a dive bar in what used to be known as Boston’s Combat Zone when it was surrounded by other queer bars, topless joints, and the sex trade in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I remember it well because I ‘grew up’ as a baby dyke in Jacques from the late ‘60s. At age 22, I met one of the great loves of my life in that bar, after secretly slipping her a copy of Lavender Vision, one of the first gay liberation publications of the new movement, put out by my collective. I haven’t been back there since the 1970s.
For the show, the place is renamed as Franki’s. We are introduced to a cast of seven lesbians – from the bartender for whom the bar is named (played brilliantly by co-director/creator indee mitchell) to the brash cabaret MC Privacy (played by Hannah Pepper-Cunningham who dramatically greeted audience members as we found our seats) to the predatory teacher Karen who brings her young students to the bar (played lustfully by Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth) to the suave keyboard musician Slim (played by the talented Kei Slaughter.) Together they all try to navigate the reality of being squeezed into this one oasis. As there are no other options in town, they must sort out their issues around race, class, butch and femme. The economic realities of running a lesbian bar (while paying off the cops) is underpinned by the cluelessness of some of the white women, the threat of a raid at any moment, and the complicated inter-personals.
With talent galore, the members of Last Call sing, act, and invite in the recorded voices of old New Orleans dykes who talk about life in those bars. “The bars saved me. The clubs let you be who you were, not like the outside,” says one. “The bar was my safe haven,” says another. Says one black lesbian about the bar she frequented, “I never went there by myself: it just wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t want to be the only one.” Says another, “It not just about keeping the bar open: it’s about keeping it black.”
Last Call clearly listened to the women they interviewed, as they seamlessly touch on confusions about butch/femme identity in the days when it was illegal not to wear three pieces of “appropriate” gendered clothing; as they talk about exclusions from churches and the need to find a substitute community in the bars; and as Franki tries to impress on her patrons the proper codes of conduct when cruising in the bar.
I was amazed to read on the inside cover of the program the story of the first Gay Pride March in Boston in June of 1971 (lesbian liberation marched in Boston the year before), including the list of demands to Jacques that my friends and I constructed back then. These included a women-only space upstairs, unlocked fire escapes, and cleaner bathrooms (for after all, we made the acquaintance of many of our girlfriends in the line to the toilets).
Kudos to The Theatre Offensive for bringing us Last Call’s Alleged Lesbian Activities – for me it was an unexpected stroll down memory lane and for the friend I went with who is in her 20s, it was a peek into the life of generations past.
Well god-damn: Melissa McCarthy’s acting chops are something to behold in Can You Ever Forgive Me? For writers and readers, this film will charm the pants off of you. Based on the memoir of Lee Israel, a biographer of celebrities, we meet the exasperated agent (played by Jane Curtin, once of SNL fame), the publishing world that thrives on showy white men, and Lee’s one human friend, Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant at his best), an aging gay man who joins her in her desperation. Add two facts: one, she is a lesbian whose ex (played by Anna Deavere Smith of West Wing, The Practice, and Nurse Jackie fame) is sick and tired of her bullshit, and two, her best friend is the obligatory ill cat. Lee turns to crime and booze when her literary career is as moribund as the job she is fired from when she tells her boss to fuck off. Follow her life of forgery and fall in love.
This review is a total collaboration between Stephanie Schroeder and Sue Katz.
Pretty blond Cameron Post (Chloë Grace Moretz) is caught on prom night with her panties down in the back seat of a car with her girlfriend. Her parents are dead and her guardians are convinced that the best thing they can do for her is to ship her to a super-Christian center (“God’s Promise”) that purports to “convert” young people (“disciples”) afflicted with the sin of SSA (that is, same-sex attraction, in the lingo of the converters).
Their methods are strict, ridiculous, and dubious, led by two experts. The slimebaggy, Disney-villianesque, Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) moves easily between manipulation and vicious cruelty. Rev. Rick (John Gallagher Jr.) claims to be a successfully converted ex-gay and, employing his dimpled smile, he pushes the whole narrative of Christian sin.
Their center is no place for youngsters. But when Cameron spies two other residents sneaking a joint, she makes friends with them. Adam Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck) is a captivating character who identifies as Two-Spirit. Jane (Sasha Lane) is a witty and irreverent rebel whose role in the film could have been much more developed. The three of them form a dissident posse, and face daunting developments together.
With the constant drum beat of a nebulous religiosity pounding, the disciples are led through such earnest activities as Christian karaoke, jazzer-size for God, and drawings to diagram past trauma leading to SSA (too much competitive athleticism for girls, over-identification with female family members for boys, smothering parental love or, conversely, not enough parental affection for everyone).
With these young people in uniforms (girls in skirts; boys in pants) as pawns, the adults at “God’s Promise” play out every fascist’s and closet homo’s fantasy. By creating a dictatorship in a real-life setting (a religious compound far from civilization, cut off from reality and communication with the outside world, and without any oversight) these adult despots are free to enact whatever sick program they want with impunity. Even when an outside authority gets involved, he caveats his investigation with "despite the mission of this place," meaning there is no hope, there is no help to stop the abuse of these teens.
The film, which won Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize, is based on a novel set in 1993 by Emily M. Danforth. The director Desiree Akhavan (“Appropriate Behavior”) does a pointed job of nailing the hypocrisy and dangers of these “conversion” therapies, which were debunked decades ago. The film has an unusual number of behind-the-camera women, from cinematography to music supervision.
The film is receiving only limited release in the U.S. despite the top prize at Sundance, and as has been written about elsewhere, may soon be overshadowed by another "conversion therapy" film by a male director, focused on a male protagonist, and with enormous star power. This is another example of the way films by and about women (especially queer women) are often diminished by the film establishment. See "The Miseducation of Cameron Post." See other movies by and about women. And, read more about the dismissal state of queer female sexuality in film in this interview with Akhavan.
Last year I was in my exquisite local Robbins Library where a staff member had put up historical information about Pride. I found that person, whose name is Rob, and introduced myself. I told him that I lived in Arlington and that I had been in on the ground floor of the women’s and gay liberation movements. Perhaps our library should consult its own members about the history they made and participated in. Moreover, perhaps the library should stock my books.
Rob agreed. So this year I wrapped up Robbins Library’s Pride month events with a presentation on June 28 called From Pioneer to Elder. The problem was located in the subtitle: “One Arlington Woman's Journey from the Birth of Boston's Gay Liberation to LGBTQ Elder Activism Today.” How could I possibly fit in the birth of the movement, the present concerns of us aging pioneers, and my writing all in about 75 minutes?
Accompanying the public speaking of most writers is a desire to read from their work and to sell books. Combined with the demands of a double-sided topic, I found myself raveling and unraveling the complex threads for two weeks in an attempt to construct a presentation that met the plethora of promises in that subtitle. I did it by cutting out almost entirely the history of the establishment of Boston’s women’s liberation movement – which had prepared us for all things gender and sexuality related – and which was by far the most earthshaking revelation of my life.
Since it was a Pride event, I stuck to the founding of gay liberation – actually mostly lesbian liberation about which I can speak with authority – and jumped to the particular needs and issues of LGBTQ elders. I read relevant paragraphs from both Lillian’s Last Affair and Lillian in Love and sold a lot of books. I even snuck in a couple of my funnier 100-word stories.
But to begin, I had to thank the rainbow assortment of attendees. Rob had told me that these events usually drew between 6 and 15 people. That seemed miniscule to me so I did my own publicity and the folks I know really responded – 49 of them arrived! Here are the broad categories of what was a very mixed crowd – from ages 21 to 82, from life-long activists to people for whom this was their first political talk:
Good friends, a few of whom have heard me speak and talk repeatedly, turned up nonetheless, one driving from across the State.
A half-dozen dancers from my West Coast Swing community – which is mostly young and straight and white – came as well. The WCS scene is doggedly apolitical. There are no consequences, for example, for the dickhead who turns up in tRump t-shirts – people seem to dance with him quite contentedly. And I’m sure he’s not alone in his right-wing stance – although he is the most demonstrative. The dancers who came to my event, though, are the sweetest and most generous on the scene.
Several members of the queer country and ballroom dance community arrived, some of whom I’ve known since the early 90s.
People from my chiropractor’s office, Chirocare, were there, which was a treat. They are the folks who keep me dancing.
Lots of other lesbian and gay elder activists cheered me on, even though a number of them have heard me speak and read before. They get my jokes and react with good-natured empathy to my take on aging.
Several other pioneers represented, including Mark Heumann, from the group of Radical Faeries that joined with my Stick-it-in-the-Wall Collective in 1970 to put out one of the very first gay publications – Lavender Vision; and Marsha Gerstein, a self-defense student of mine back in the 60s. Both of them are active today in the LGBTQ elder community, running the Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute.
And there were a number strangers who came because they support events at Robbins Library. Funny enough, I randomly sat next to one of them on the subway two days later on the way back from the downtown demonstration against tRump’s immigration policy.
Because it was such a talk-heavy event, I decided to do a PowerPoint showing my changing hairstyles (not changed very much) and fashion (not changed very much) over the decades. I’ve included some of those images here. And I learned something after about 25 years away from PowerPoint: PowerPoint today is a gazillion times easier than it was when it first came out.
It was exhilarating to have a break from the news, from the growing fascism, from the cesspool that our country has become. It was only part of one evening, but I felt surrounded by “fellow travelers” and that was a balm. I had warned the audience at the very beginning that I do “a shitload of swearing,” and now that Pride Month is over and soon our democracy will be as well, I can only mourn and organize.
The last couple of years I have hung out the windows of the Pride trolley provided for LGBTQ elders, waving at all those lining the streets of the Pride route. But this year my heroic friend, Bren, schlepped two luxurious beach chairs and we set ourselves up in front of the Arlington Street Church with a gang of friends, a bag of bagels and cream cheese, and two plums, and watched the March go by. Yes, yes, I know it is now called a Parade, but indulge me and my memories of hard-fought, dangerous streets.
In the early years – and I was marching from the start – these were protest marches, in-your-face declarations of “out”ness that had never been seen. The contingents were political, mostly based on identity politics or group projects, but all the marchers were brave queers, with perhaps an ally here and there.
Now the bulk of groups seem to be contingents of employees of big and little corporations and of houses of worship. I know this has been going on for long time, but at least in past years we got a bit of branded swag out of their presence – whether it was chapstick or packets of sunscreen or post-its or funny hats or socks or something, for gawd’s sake. Now the swag has dried up. Should there not be a requirement that if you’re advertising at my March, I get something sweet in exchange?
Watching this capitalist cavalcade tossing out, at the most, cheap Mardi Gras beads, (but the majority only passed out steaming heaps of nothing), moved me to exercise my vocal chords from the comfort of my beach chair.
When Staples went by, I screamed: Throw me a ream of paper!
When Comcast rolled by, I screamed: Send me lower bills!
When some Jewish group carrying Israeli flags went by, I yelled: Give me some justice for Palestinians!
When a church group went by, I cried: Toss me a piece of heaven!
When Citizen’s Bank came by, I hollered: Donate $1,000!
When Delta went by, I screamed: Give me more leg room!
But when TJX passed me, I yelled: Thanks for the lovely shopping bag!
On Sunday I moderated a cross-generational panel of five speakers representing lesbians in their 80s, 70s, 40s, 30s, and 20s. This was one of the monthly events put on by our Boston OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). The audience too covered this age range, as we had advertised it in Meet-Up groups of all sorts. This is a departure from our usual events, for and about old lesbians.
I was surprised by how similar our experiences were. Some of us faced nasty resistance when we came out and some managed to escape brutal reactions – regardless of age. Both of the youngest women felt most comfortable with themselves after meeting and bonding with older – or old – women. All of us were hot to trot over increased contact among the generations.
Evolving language was interesting. We ascribed varied meanings to the word “queer,” and each of us used different self-descriptors. Dyke, butch, lesbian, queer. Whereas in the early days we used to identify as “working class socialist feminist dyke” or “anti-patriarchy radical feminist lesbian.” Today there’s a different range which involves identifying one’s preferred pronouns and sexuality: pansexual, demisexual, celibate, gender non-conforming queer woman. Our conversation about dating habits (serial monogamy/non-monogamy) was fascinating.
And then there’s the issue of sex toys. Some of us reminisced about the bad ole days of hard hollow plastic dildos in “harnesses” like wonky elastic sanitary pad belts bought in sleazy porn shops. The younger women didn’t know a time before Good Vibrations and Eve’s Garden that featured women-produced equipment.
We talked about being lesbian in the vile age of tRump and expressed various levels of optimism that we’d build a strong, wide movement. Several of us talked about how important it was to overcome age barriers and to stick together. Young and old agreed. I have personal knowledge of how essential that can be. If it weren’t for my young friend Bren, it might have been another five years before I found someone to flip my mattress.
I am so sorry to report that I was disappointed in the film Battle of the Sexes, which I ran to see after so many FB friends raved about it. The Battle of the Sexes covers the historic 1973 match between a 55-year-old loud-mouthed hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) and the tennis champ Billie Jean King (Emma Stone). I was living in a feminist commune when this all came down and I remember 8 or 10 of us crowding on to the bed of the sister who had the TV in her room. Each volley, each point, each up and down elicited screams and cheers and curses from us. Life in those early days of women’s liberation was an intense and emotional time. Each “click” of consciousness about women as an oppressed group forced us to revise our individual histories (oh, so it wasn’t my fault I that the teacher groped me) and our view of the world. Sure the Battle was hyped. Sure it was a media event. But we longed for a victory, any victory, in those early days.
I am not one who subscribes to the Great (Wo)Man Theory. One woman did not change history. The social context was missing. The five-year-old women’s liberation movement and three-year-old lesbian liberation movement constituted the ground on which the women of tennis, led by Billie Jean King, could build their independent circuit and their struggle for equal purses. We’re in the ether of the film, but not quite in the film.
The young friend I saw the film with could hardly believe that Bobby Riggs really took such a carnival approach to life, but that was just as I remembered. Riggs was desperate for both money (he was a gambler) and attention, so he was always happy to get up in any bizarre costume for any sponsor that would pay him to do it. He was a walking circus and every event he touched – including this profound historic moment – was doused in his silliness.
Hindsight is all well and good, but the soft-focus delivery of King’s love affair with her hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) gave insufficient sense of how freaked out King was by her own sexuality, an agony for her over many years. Of course there’s no hint of how devastating the end of their relationship would be. In 1981 Marilyn sued in what was called a “palimony” case (pal as in chum as in friend as in there was no formal social recognition for same sex hookups), which outed Billie Jean King, causing her huge anxiety. We all desperately wanted her to come out much earlier, but tennis had to wait for Martina Navratilova to be out and proud in 1981.
King’s husband Larry King was played by Austin Stowell as a handsome, long-suffering, utterly supportive sweetie, despite being replaced in Billie Jean’s bed by her girlfriend. I don’t recall anything about their relationship, but wow he seemed too chill to be believed. Bobby Riggs’ posh wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue) dumped him over his gambling and foolery, but took him back, according to the film, once he was publicly humiliated by his loss to a woman. That seemed a bit odd as well.
Several bit roles are played by some fab actors. The entertaining Alan Cumming gets to camp it up in a decorative but small part, and Sarah Silverman does quite an interesting, believable job as a grown-up manager of the women’s tennis tour. I’m not generally a fan, but I loved her hair’s grey streaks and the solidity of her acting. With a straight face, Fred Armisen plays a crank healer shoveling herbs into Riggs. And Natalie Morales brings us Rosie Casals, who I remember with great affection as one of the earliest openly feminist sportswomen.
Friends posted that they cheered and wept, that it was just the film they hoped to see. I was generally unmoved – and this despite the intensity with which my collective and I experienced the match itself back in the day. What a high it was. What a victory. What a symbol. After all that belittling of women as athletes, it was orgasmic to watch Billie Jean thrash the professional chauvinist. Personally, I’m going to wait for some woman to make a documentary because this film was not strong enough to carry or deliver the impact of that momentous Battle.
Background: I’ve watched with disdain as the Pride demonstration (I was at the first one and have now marched in Prides in many countries) has been overtaken by corporations, churches, banks, and insurance companies - and diluted into a “parade.” On top of that, this year we are all in a state of depressed disorientation as we watch the USA being turned into a foul mean-spirited country (well, even more than usual) by a fetid band of fucktards who are threatening most of today’s marchers, whether as people of color, women, LGBTQs, students, elders, immigrants – I don’t need to go on.
Today: Two days ago I got another shot of cortisone in my disintegrated knee. So I am lucky that Boston’s LGBT Senior Pride Coalition provides our older members the chance to ride in a Trolley (one of two) instead of walking. My friend Anne joined me and we were surrounded by people with signs like “Came Out 50 Years Ago.”
Here are some overall observations about Pride:
There were more boys than girls, more women than men.
Young lesbians are stylin’ today a lot like we did in the late 60s, early 70s. They felt so familiar to me, even as I am invisible to them.
From my perch in the Trolley up above the rollicking crowd of folks along all the streets, I had a unique view. They blew piercing whistles, genuflected and, and mainly screamed like crazy as we seniors passed. I was in the unusual position of being able to see the inside of thousands of open mouths. I was taken aback by all missing teeth. People simply cannot afford dental care.
The free swag ain’t very impressive. If you wanna be in our parade – I’m lookin’ at you banks and insurance companies, etc. – give us some stuff. We saw the Staples “float” – just an ugly delivery truck or some such – and could see they were throwing things out. What are they giving out, I wondered with glee – for being in the Trolley means we aren’t along the roads getting freebies thrown our way – and moved closer. Little friggin’ bottles of water. I was expecting at least some staples.
The day was perfect, sunny and hot but not humid. I now know more folks in Boston because of my involvement in the senior queer community, and it makes a lot of difference to be able to wish Happy Pride and hug so many cool peers. I also ran into valued friends I don’t see enough, like Lucky and Hara and Daisy. All of the dressing up was pure eye candy. I’ve never been into costuming, but I admire it in other. I especially enjoy people who Pride-up with rainbow tutus et all and imagination. Look at my friend Sarah! Although I didn’t get to see many floats, riding along, I did have the bittersweet chance to see the beautiful high-energy float with Orlando Pulse Survivors.
Finally, here are three good things that happened in just the last few days:
The shot seems to have cut down my knee pain, at least temporarily.
Corbyn and the young (and old) people of Britain have voted bigly for socialism.
Pride made me celebrate for hours and hours today, something I haven’t done since the wretched November election.
The writing of author and activist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) blew my mind when I was young and continues to strongly affect my world view in the periodic re-readings I do of his work. Most recently I revisited Another Country, an incredibly passionate novel based on his time in France that explores gay, bi, and straight sexuality with a candor that is hard to believe for 1962. But he had already published Giovanni’s Room (1956), to me one of the most elegantly written, beautiful, and courageous gay novels we have.
As a lifelong fan, I am so thrilled that filmmaker Raoul Peck was able to take the 30 pages of the unfinished book Baldwin was working on and turn it into the film I Am Not Your Negro. In the just-started book Remember This House, Baldwin wanted to give his personal perspective on the lives and the murders of three crucial black leaders, all of them dear friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.
What is astonishing about I Am Not Your Negro, is that every word of the script is written or spoken by James Baldwin. Either Peck uses clips from numerous interviews and speeches, or the single cast member, Samuel L. Jackson, reads the writer’s own words with restrained power, off-camera.
We follow Baldwin’s own expanding understanding and come to understand how, at age 24, the combination of racism and homophobia drove him to live in France and how the images of a lone teenager attempting to attend a white high school drew him back to the fight in the States in 1957. We see scenes of vile racism, clips of the Civil Rights Movement, and footage of the vicious reaction of the officials and police.
There are few voices more iconic and prescient than that of James Baldwin, as the multi-award-winning I Am Not Your Negro shows us so clearly. It is a film that I most highly recommend and plan to see again. But there is a gaping hole, an elephant in the room, a strange silence about Baldwin’s own love of men. His homosexuality was so fundamental to his perceptions and his literature that it is puzzling that the film only made references once or twice that were so oblique that few would pick up on them. It is a brilliant film about a beloved historical figure, but the film remains closeted – as Baldwin refused to do.
I am lucky to be at the Creating Change Conference with 4,000 other LGBTQ activists. We are so inundated by workshops and speakers that there is no time to go on Facebook or turn on the news. Yesterday was the last day of the Obama era and today is the start of the abyss, but I am deep in this Conference of commitment, surrounded by other activists, and happily in the bubble of hope. Here’s how my first day went, starting at the end.
The National LGBTQ Task Force appears to hire staff from such a range of ethnicities and sexualities that they get most things right. They connect with multiple queer communities because they ARE multiple identities. They are not a rich white male leadership with a symbolic weak “outreach” – their staff seems to encompass the richness of this country and therefore to draw us all in. As they welcomed us to the conference at the 8:00pm plenary, they immersed us immediately in the kind of true diversity they represent. For example, we were treated to an amusing and enlightening explanation of how to be at a conference that is being simultaneously translated into Spanish and Sign.
A memorial presentation for both the victims of Orlando and others murdered by homophobia and transphobia looked at the unspeakable wounds of that violence, especially to the Latinx community, and at the ways in which people pulled together to look after each other. I wept; everyone around me wept.
The Keynote speaker Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II is a commanding figure – broad, clad in purple, with a countenance both handsome and strong. He schooled us in the real meaning of the concept of intersectionality. He spoke at length and with an unflagging passion about his Southern strategy, using the amazing successes of his alliances in North Carolina as examples. He talked about how people of color, poor people, and the LGBTQ communities share the same enemies and how we are used against each other. He has always walked the walk – convincing NAACP and many Black churches to support marriage equality during that struggle. His talk was interrupted countless times as we jumped up to clap and scream, recognizing the privilege of his insights. Just one quote: “Nothing worse than being loud and wrong. Every one of our statements must have a footnote.” I was a fan before I heard him in person and now I’m a fan forever.
Most of the day had been spent at the Aging Institute – looking at the activism of older people in the LGBTQ movement. I wrote on my evaluation form: “This is clearly one of the main attractions for the older people in the LGBTQ community who come to Creating Change. It is a day that is run with impeccable skill by the charming if masterful Serena Worthington, of SAGE. The variety of voices - mainly from among Philly's elder activists - enlivens a very long day and impresses with the range of ways in which elders are organizing to change the country. Serena manages just the right mix of small groups, interactive plenaries, riveting panels, and mixed media. Elders created and hold the history of our movement and should be more widely showcased at a time when history is being turned around and our achievements are being threatened.”
I should mention that at the Elder Institute I did my first reading of my new book Lillian in Love. I’m having a “soft launch” here and will really launch it in a couple of weeks from back home. The reading was prodigious fun and people bought over half the books I brought with me to Philadelphia. This evening I have a whole workshop to myself and to Lillian in Love, where I’ll read additional excerpts.
I’m a huge admirer of the splendid organization of this gigantic conference, but I do have one beef. Here is what I wrote on the evaluation form to the organizers. “The organizers of Creating Change do an astonishingly fine job of putting together a massive conference with many dozens of conflicting demands. However, they seem to have little understanding of the needs of the movement's elders. The Institute was held in the very furthermost, the very last room down a very long hall as distant from the elevator as possible. The nearest bathrooms seemed to be nearly a mile away, quite literally, back up that long hall, and along two more very long hallways. Many of the attendees have mobility issues and the Institute had to build in longer breaks just so people could get to the bathroom with the canes, walkers, and scooters. While aging is clearly not a priority topic, one is puzzled at the ignorance of the needs of our older activists. To add to what begins to feel like an insult, the Elder Hospitality Lounge is also the very furthermost down a hall of many Hospitality Lounges that winds around the entirety of this huge hotel. What could possibly be the thinking behind these barriers to our comfort and participation? Please place us close to the elevators in coming years.”
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