A gift (I think) for the Holiday season

My mother has been bugging me for, oh, five or six years to go through all of my childhood stuff that is still stored at their house and keep it or pitch it.  I’m having a hard time agreeing to do it, even though I know I need to, since there are, I think, 13 boxes there to go through.  It’s true that I’m just slightly a packrat.  But I grew up with my mother recounting the story oh, every month or so, about how the worst thing that ever happened to her was a week after she left home to start college, one of her younger sisters packed up all of my mother’s things from high school and left them for the garbage man.  Which he promptly took away.

I’ve always wondered what was in that trunk–besides her diploma and millions of report cards with nothing less than an A- on them.  Maybe if my mom had the tangible items, she would have told more stories about herself growing up.  My ignorance at my parents’ existence before I popped on the scene (and my parents weren’t exactly young–my mom was 30 and my dad 32 when I was born) troubles me sometimes, especially since I truly believe that our character and values are formed primarily by the things we experience (really, the faith we put in religion is dependent on whether we are able to believe or if we have witnessed too much to believe), and we in turn pass those characters and values to our children.

I can trace much of my personality to my parents, but much of the time I don’t know why they have perpetuated those traits.

I suppose I could just ask them.  But my parents are from South Dakota.  Their parents are from South Dakota.  Talking about ourselves does not come to us naturally.  Thirty seconds into a story someone would break in with an Ole and Lena joke.

Think I’m joking?  I’ve seen it happen.

My relationship with my parents is hard to categorize.  It’s had its up and downs, like any parental / child relationship.  I have begun to break the silence on some of these stories–in front of crowds of people while I’m on stage.  They didn’t get a choice.  My mom was at nearly ever performance of I Hate Kenny G (which revolved around the heart attack she had and the subsequent emotional fall out from that) when she was 45, and I was 14.  Before I took the stage for the first time with that show I saw my mom in the lobby and said “please don’t hate me”.  She cried and held me afterwards, but didn’t hate me.  After the Fringe that year I got the show booked a couple other places, one of which was a women’s networking group.  They wanted my mom to come and she did, and after I got done with the show they were passing a mic around for questions and someone asked my mom “so have you and Allegra been able to talk through these events?” and handed her a mic.  Mortified, my mother and I glanced quickly at each other and sheepishly said, “no”.

Because we don’t do that.

But I digress.

The same mom that I know hardly anything about brought a very unexpected gift to our home a couple weeks ago, along with two boxes for me to go through and keep or pitch.  In a box was an old school photo album–the kind with the photo-safe sleeve you can slip anything in to.  I’ve never remember seeing this before.  It was made by my Grandma Lingo, and was full not of pictures, but rather snippets of letters that my mom (and actually one from my dad) that they had sent to her from when I was born until I turned six.  I didn’t know this book existed.  But it’s kind of awesome.

I’m struggling with how to put pen on paper for this next show.  I got the backbone music (although no specifics yet), but no plot line.  And here, right here in my hand, is a book about me, as witnessed by my mother, then edited by my grandmother.  Words.  Maybe three pictures, and that’s it.

If I may indulge a mini-project on to my blog readers, I hope to each day past this one post the letter snippets, and then extrapolate the history or memory that I have heard or know off hand.  I don’t know where this will go as a project, but it might be cool.

Schnappi and I were at dinner tonight and talking about how there are a lot of solo performers who “just write about themselves”.  And I said, “that’s I do”.  And she said, “no, you don’t.  You write about your experiences and your perception of those events, and you interpret them as you do because, you know, you’re you.  But you don’t “just write about yourself”.

I hope I don’t.  ’cause if I did, it’d be boring.

Well, sometimes it’d be interesting, maybe narcissistic, salacious, dumb, etc.”

But this book–it’s about me first through the exeperience and letters of my mom, and the editing of a grandma I never knew well.  She died from Breast Cancer when I was 8, and the second time the cancer came back she put on her yellow bedrobe, got into bed, and I’m not quite sure she left it until she had to go to hospital at the end.

So, readers, would you indulge me in this mini project?  Please let me know.

[I’m gonna write ’em anyways–just wanted to know if any readers would be interested in coming along for the ride]

Hmm

Am I the only one who is worried Hillary Clinton seems to be slipping back into another headband phase?

New, from Huffington Post

From 1992

Okay, this is awesome

I gotta admit, this is one cool thing.

Next Rockstar Show: Tuesday, November 25th: 7pm, BLB

How about some video?

Or maybe just the article from the Camel website [after the jump]

On the Bus

Maybe it’s just me: but repeating over and over at a louder volume each time “that bitch ain’t gonna shit on me until she sucks my dick” is not really the thing to be saying on a bus.

Oh, Mac

Update umpteenth million on the less than stellar practices of Mac Hammond.

[just to tide you over until I’m home from work and can write about Milk.

Fringe Festival Countdown: 2009

A few days ago, the 2009 Minnesota Fringe app went live.  I’ve got until January 30th at 5pm to put in an application, which probably means I’ll frantically have Amy drop it off at lunch time on January 30th.  Last year’s show, Tipping the Bucket, went really dang well.  I was proud of my work, Anthony pushed me into a new layer of stage work (I guess you could call it that), and audiences dug it.

About this time last year, combined with audience reactions from the 2007 show I Hate Kenny G, I asked readers what I should write about for the next show.

Well, readers, I’m appealing to you again.

But this time, you’ve got two questions to answer.

I’ve started working with a new way of writing–it started last month for the music-based Rockstar show.  And I came up with the idea to take a piece of classical music and write a new melody–a story–to it.  I let the music dictate the content, and admittedly started with an easy one: a political piece about Sarah Palin, set to Ravel’s Bolero and Greig’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. And the audience dug it.  They grooved on it hard.

I’m going to start writing before I know if I’m in the Fringe.  This type of piece is really a choreography, and requires much more work.  So, blog readers…

1.  Are there any pieces of classical, strictly instrumental music (my definition is loose–medieval up until the jazz age) that you think would work to choreograph words on top?  My thought (and it could be a wrong thought) is that pieces with simple melodies yet variances in time and emotions would work best.

2.  Do you have a strong opinion on using the work of one composer (for instance, if I hypothetically wanted to focus on Aaron Copland, the combination of Fanfare for the Common Man, the Rodeo suite, Down a Country, and the Appalachian Spring Suite works out to be 58:25), or using multiple?

3.  Same question as last year: what would you like to see me write about?

Please comment away, or let me know outside the blogosphere.  I’d love to have decided upon some music and a topic before I turn in an app.

Thanks,

the little monkey

A Bar of One’s Own

The Pi Bar closed this weekend.  I’ve been getting mass emails from a few gay women that I know, attempting to rally the community and purchase the building in order to save the space and use it as a community center.  They were able to raise, so I’ve heard, roughly $100,000, which paled in comparison to the over $600,000 that they needed.

Personally, I’m not bothered by it closing.  Schnappi and I differ greatly on this topic.  Her take on the topic is that gay women need a safe space of their own to meet other people, hang out, and drink.  To me, this prevalent attitude plays a main role in the passing of Proposition 8 (but more on that in a minute).

What doesn’t surprise me about the closing of a women’s bar is the simple fact of economics.  As Jonathan Wilber noted in his HuffPo blog entry today (I’ve known Jonathan since he was ten years old.  Feeling like a proud parent right now to see his name on HuffPo, I admit, so you should go read him), the median gay income is between $80,000 and $83,000.  But I would hazzard a guess that that is the median income for gay men, not gay women.  The discrepancy in pay equality is readily apparent in the gay community.  Take a look at the difference between the Castro district (traditionally gay men section) and the Mission district (gay women) in San Francisco.

These images are from a google search, but from my recollection are fairly accurate representations of the area.  Look at the upkeep on the buildings, the pride that exists, the cars.  And though there are exceptions to rules regarding the economic status of gay men and gay women, I think it is a fair generalization.

If you are marketing strictly to a clientele that is represented by the second picture…well…there are not that many lesbian bars around.

The question is now: where do the women go?  How do they find each other?  I know that some people are already doing this, but here’s a thought.  Hit up the Ladies’ nights at local clubs and sports bars.  While this is not where you’d find me (the thought of sharing an oversized bowl of chicken wings with a group of people not using forks is horrific to me.  I’m not a germophobe–I just don’t like having my hands sticky), the practice would ensure cheap drinks for all, and stick it to the owners and rest of the patrons who are indulging in the traditional assumptions about what Ladies’ nights at bars are for.

Or, here’s another idea: go to any bar that looks like fun.  Like, the neighborhood pizza joint.  Or bowling alley / bar / theatre (then you can see me on stage).  Or the bar right around the corner in stumbling distance of where you live.

It’s no secret I read a lot of news articles on the web.  And by “read” I mean scan and then spend hours reading and dissecting the annonymous comments.  The ones that interest me are the ones that are up in arms about comparing the gay civil rights movement to the Black civil rights movement.  (and of course I am currently unable to find an example)  While there are many similarities, there is one difference which merits attention:

Being a member of the gay minority is not a visible difference.  Instead of being defined and discriminated against due to the color of our skin, we are discriminated against owing to a facet of ourselves that, if we so choose, can hide from an intolerant majority.  And this is both good and bad.  Good in the sense that there is not immediate prejudice, but bad in that it is often much easier to hide and blend in, rather than stand up for the equal treatment you deserve as a human being.  In my mind, it’s one of the reasons why homophobia is still an accepted practice in secular society (being religious myself, I separate the spiritual discussion from this): if you can hide something that will enable you to lead a “more acceptable” life, then why would you share it?

We’ve come to a point now where we no longer have the option, in my mind, to hide.  I am thankful to be at a place in my own life where I feel no reason to hide who I am, and in a relationship where we have never shyed away in public from the fact that we are a couple.  There is a moment where we must stand up and make our presence known, to educate the dissenters that we are here, we want equality, and knowing us so far (be it friends, coworkers, family, whatever) has not tainted their own life in anyway.

We cannot stop the baseline fear of the gay community unless we demonstrate that, well, we’re not scary.

So what does this have to do with the closing of a bar?  As a gay community, if we continue to market ourselves only to our own community, and are reluctant to patronize businesses that are not gay-owned, gay-operated, and specifically for our community, we miss out on a chance to be a visible presence.

I am sad that there are not more people who feel this way.  I respect it, but I don’t understand it.

But that’s not why I hang out at the Tower.  Their pizza’s just really good.  And they have trivia.

And, oh yes, I choose not to define myself or my social circles by my sexuality.

Random Conversations

Schnappi: I’m not wearing a big ol’ wedding dress.  I was in bridal management for three years. [pause] Do you want me to wear a big ol’ wedding dress?

Me: Dude, I want to get married in a sweater you make, jeans, and high tops.  You don’t have to wear a big dress.

Best reason to allow gay marriage

Thoughts on Nuns (#1)

I’m currently working my way through Mother Theresa: Come be My Light, a collection of her private letters and interpretation by some priest who totally isn’t important when talking about Mother Theresa.  She is a woman who always fascinated me–her entire selfless serving to her faith and to the poor in India.

I was just starting my conversion to Catholicism when I met a real live nun in Dublin.  I didn’t know she was a nun at first.  I was dating a woman at the time who attended a Catholic college, and she had invited me to go to Easter Sunrise Service on Howth Hill and the pancake breakfast at the Pub thereafter.  We were talking to a woman in a plaid skirt and sweater, wearing a gold claddagh on her hand.  We were chatting away, and then someone referred to her as “Sister [Mary, maybe?  Good guess]”.  I have a knack of saying things before I think, and blurted out, “you’re a nun?  But you don’t have a habit!  And you have a wedding ring!”  She laughed at me and said, “well, not all sisters wear habits.   But I am married.  To our Lord.”

So if all the nuns in the world are married to Jesus, and refer to themselves as “sister”-wives…how does this differ from polygamy?  I’m just curious.

Anyways.  Nun-fascination.  I’ve got one.  I’m not too far into the book yet–I always find reading about religion unsettling as I fall asleep.  And the contents of this book were hers, and she made her wishes quite clear that she did not want them shared with the public, let alone publish.  But to realize how dark it can be for someone we thinks radiates such good is something that needs to be out there in the world more often.  I just came across this passage:

Why must we give ourselves fully to God?  Because God has given Himself to us.  If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves?  To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself.  I for God and God for me.  I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me.  Therefore to possess God we must allow Him to possess our soul.

I’m only on chapter three, not far past this passage, but I begin to feel a mix between pity for and in awe of the courage of Mother Theresa, to understand so fully what it meant for her to be a nun and dedicate her lift to God and Christ and the Church, without ever receiving feedback that what she was doing was the right thing.

That’s why I could never be a nun.  I’m not guided nor have been called by God to follow a path of missionary work.  But I wonder if I would have been strong enough, would be strong enough if that call ever came.

The cynic can easily look at the above passage and say, “huh, vow your undying love and loyalty to someone who you never really talk to, don’t have sex with, and work under the knowledge that all of these others in habits (and apparently, the chameleon ones that walk amongst us plain-clothed)–that’s just stupid.  It’s stupid to put your faith in someone when what you so willingly give is not so willingly returned.

Hey Catholic Church?  I’m gonna do some more thinking on the whole polgamy with the nun thing you’ve got going on.  But in the meantime, I’m gonna be stupid, and continue to pursue my faith in love.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen.