For Frying Out Loud Read online

  After a deliberately leisurely lunch, we boarded the shuttle yet again and headed for effing Terminal F. Although it was only 2:30 p.m., Joan opted to go through security to the gate so she could finish a book and I could get home. Naturally, some of her reading time was chewed up creeping in line for the X-ray machines, going barefoot, getting searched and generally being treated like a woman with explosives in her brassiere.

  Concurrently, I dragged myself, amid further rising temperatures, back to the parking lot. En route I spied an air-conditioned van with the words Homeland Security Working Dogs on it. I longed to crawl in among the pack for a cool nap. With airport security at Code Orange I’d be quite willing to help sniff luggage. Finally back at short-term parking, where I had been for so long that my short term memory failed and it took me twenty minutes to locate my car, I had to pay an astronomical ransom for my vehicle.

  With rush hour approaching, traffic crawled, my patience ebbed and I was still outside Smyrna, DE at dinner time. Hell, I could have been to New York, had a knish, and been back again by this time.

  As it turned out, Joan’s plane didn’t leave Philly until after 5 o’clock, making this a record seven hour wait for a one hour ride. And, she arrived in New York to discover that – ta da! – her luggage didn’t. I wish I’d had money on that. It was Tuesday before her bag finished its vacation.

  So this is air travel 2007, brought to you by a merger of Corporate America and Jihad terrorists: F.U. Airlines Inc. Together they’ve replaced Fly the Friendly Skies with Apocalypse Now. Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy time.

  September 2007

  ATTENTION MELTING POT: GAY IS A CULTURE

  Recently I had an incredible opportunity. The Advocate magazine published its 40th Anniversary edition, and on the cover was a photo collage of 40 of the most influential gay rights activists of all time. What a gift this is for our archives.

  I say that, because I’m worried about losing our gay culture.

  Do you agree that Gay is a culture? Just host a dinner party with seven gay people and a straight man or woman. It’s a good bet that dozens of the evening’s references, not in serious gay rights discussion, but casual conversation will buzz right over the outsider’s head.

  Not to say that inviting your straight friends to dinner is a faux pas. Au contraire. I wouldn’t want to live in a ghetto, would you? That’s why I love living in Rehoboth, with its diversity – and by this I mean a vibrant straight community along with us homos.

  It’s just that words or phrases like Stonewall Dems, show queen, “of course she bought a Subaru,” and the ubiquitous “Did she bring a U-Haul on her second date?” are all in our lexicon and consciousness. It’s our culture.

  Judy Garland, Daughters of Bilitis, HRC, Billie Jean King, Rubyfruit Jungle, Drag Kings, Harvey Milk, P-Town. Our history, our heroes, our catch-phrases, our culture.

  And I’m worried.

  Exactly a decade ago writer Daniel Harris wrote The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, a terrific discussion of those secret signals and shared sensibilities that allowed an underground gay society to flourish even as the larger population despised and discriminated against it.

  The very act of showing up at a Judy Garland concert and seeing other gay men around the room, all sharing the vulnerability of Judy’s music together made that denigrated community feel less alone.

  But even a decade ago, Harris worried that assimilation and acceptance of homosexuals by society at large would cause our gay culture to disappear. It’s the very same concern that different ethnicities, immigrants and religious sects have as they meet the great American, and now great global, melting pot.

  But it seems to me that gay people often don’t recognize gay as a culture. They do, of course, appreciate all the hard work that our gay pioneers did for the fight for gay rights in order to make their lives better. We’re not ingrates. But I’m not sure our community sees our heroes, safe havens and that elusive quality called “the gay sensibility” as something to learn about and celebrate. And I think that’s a shame.

  While I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while, it really hit home this summer at female impersonator Christopher Peterson’s show. While Christopher always receives cheers and ovations, I often saw blank faces on young gay people who really didn’t “get” Bette Davis, mentions of All About Eve, or the importance (and I really believe this, importance) of Judy Garland to our community.

  While Christopher does dead-on illusions of Bette Midler, Reba McEntire and others, I think our culture suffers if young gay people don’t learn about early gay icons and cultural landmarks. Okay, I know I’m an old fart lesbian and many of these things were OF my generation. But many were not.

  There’s a terrific book by Delaware author Marcia Gallo called Different Daughters which tells the story of the lesbian rights organization The Daughters of Bilitis, which began to raise lesbian visibility in the tragically closeted 1950s and ‘60s. The name of the group came from a story by the poet Sappho, and the late lesbian activist Barbara Gittings always laughed and admitted that Bilitis sounded like a disease.

  But the story told in Gallo’s book is fascinating and inspires wonderment at the willingness of our foremothers to fight for lesbian visibility and rights when it was terribly dangerous to do so.

  Every woman sipping beverages, listening to the music of the very talented Rehoboth singer Viki Dee and dancing at happy hour really should know about Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon, Barbara Gittings and Kay Lahausen, the aliases they had to use, and the crazy, determined chances they took.

  If I’m being intolerably preachy here, I don’t mean to be. But I was fascinated to learn that Bayard Rustin, an African-American gay man, was the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington with the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King. He was drummed from the activist ranks because of his sexuality. I was captivated by the tale of Harvey Milk’s rise to the title of Mayor of Castro Street, and was mesmerized learning how writer Lillian Faderman rose from indigent sex worker to revered professor of lesbian studies and continues to be an influential writer today.

  Our schools teach Americans about Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross and American social history – the rise of the railroads, the Gold Rush, the McCarthy Era. And if we don’t get it in school, I know that my Jewish parents handed down their culture and my friends of Italian heritage learned their stories from their families too.

  It’s a sure thing that heterosexual parents of gay youth are not teaching their kids homosexual culture! Lucky are our young gay people with two mommies or two daddies.

  Gay people have to learn our history and culture on our own. There are hundreds of books available at our independent bookstores (although they are quickly disappearing), at the big chains and on line. And there’s a wonderful lending library at CAMP Rehoboth if you want to know more.

  I do.

  November 2007

  TUNE IN FOR THE FRY BABIES

  Since this is the last edition of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth for 2007 (where the hell DOES the time fly to?) I feel it’s fitting to reflect on the year with some awards. Heck, everybody else does it. Whoopi and Hugh Jackman are booked so I’m presenting the awards myself. I promise to change t-shirts at least three times. The awards, in keeping with my literary theme, are the Fry Babies, for the things that got me frying in 2007.

  Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve cut the tacky opening production number (which had the cast of Hairspray singing and dancing “Come Fry with Me,”) so we can get right down to business.

  The envelopes, please.

  The Best Tap Dance Award goes to Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, for his airport bathroom production number, playing footsie with a cop and proving, once again, that the most rabid anti-gay legislators are often found cowering in the closet but having sex in public. And Larry, you got additional points for suggesting that your foot wandered into the next stall so you could retrieve a fallen piece of toilet paper. That’s just di
sgusting. Go wash your hands and wash your mouth out while you are at it. I don’t know where it’s been, but I can imagine.

  Similarly, the Do As I Say, Not as I Do Award goes to the dishonorable GOP Senator David Vitter for admitting he patronized DC area prostitutes as well as working girls in his home district down South. As another legislator who regularly rants against gay marriage, methinks he’s the one who is single-handedly (who knows, he may have used two hands) defiling the sanctity of marriage.

  The J. Edgar Hoover Red Dress Award goes to Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani who has disavowed all support for his gay friends and their equal rights. I guess he’s forgotten just how many unattractive photos of himself in drag have been printed in New York newspapers over the years. Now I’m not intimating that Rudy is, in any way, gay. Only a straight man could enrage two ex-wives with his serial divorce antics. (Oh, wait, I’m forgetting about New Jersey’s ex-Governor McGreevy…) Well, Rudy ain’t gay. But he sure loves to play dress up.

  The Three Ring Circus Award for Homeland Security to Ft. Lauderdale Airport staff for clearing a man through security and onto an airplane with a monkey smuggled under his hat. The flight attendant discovered the Marmoset sitting on the back of a seat when she came through to offer it a complimentary beverage. The security folks must have been busy looking for Republicans tap dancing in the bathrooms.

  The Things Go Better with Coke Award to Lindsay Lohan, representing all the starlets who are trashing their reputations and blowing through their careers (no pun intended) when other deserving actors who would value their reputations don’t get a shot. Just because she starred in Herbie Fully Loaded doesn’t mean she has to walk around that way. The woman actually entered rehab as a PR stunt. Didn’t she get the Anna Nicole memo?

  The Road to Hell Award to DelDOT for consciously but unconscionably starting Rehoboth’s Route One construction in August so they could be finished by June. What were they thinking??? Around here, August is worth two Junes. There are people who set out for the beach in August who are living in Smyrna now because that’s as close as they could get.

  The Unabomber Anti-Technology Luddite Award to Delaware’s Sussex County Council for not encouraging homeowners to conserve energy by installing windmills in their blustery back yards. Energy-saving companies are partnering with energy conscious homeowners and their requests to install residential windmills have been turned down. It happened to my neighbors and we’re going to be next. There’s so much hot air in my backyard you’d think I’d been pontificating on the porch.

  The It Would Be Funny if It Didn’t Hurt So Much Award goes to President Bush and the Culture of Corruptions (great name for a boy band). They block kid’s health care, help the insurance lobby provide us with crappy private coverage, then decry the evils of Socialized Medicine – all while enjoying free, government provided doctors appointments and trips to the government pharmacy for free Viagra (see first two awards). If that’s not a well-functioning system of socialized medicine I’m the uncle of that monkey who boarded the plane in Florida.

  The New Orleans Gumbo Dumbo Award to FEMA for staging a fake news conference about the California fires and asking fluff ball questions like “Is FEMA doing a heckuva job here or what!?” Their own staff asked glowing questions and gave glowing answers in a post-apocalyptic FEMA attempt at looking competent in an emergency. We want Brownie back.…

  And finally, the Give Me a Reason It’s not Treason Award (also known as the Go Take a Leak Award) goes to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. All smarmy obfuscation tactics aside, Mr. Libby, as fall-guy for Rove, Cheney, et al actually aided and abetted the enemy by outing Plame, and putting other operatives’ lives in danger. For Homeland Security? No…politics, for frying out loud! Why aren’t they all in jail?

  And now, the 2008 Humanitarian Achievement Awards are:

  First, the Windmills Of My Mind Award to our local activists for marshalling the troops, making sport of the utilities, blasting us with e-mail, and fighting the electric and coal companies to push for off-shore wind power in Sussex County. You go girls…I hope that next year, when we’re talking about offshore windmills we will give you the Passing Wind Award.

  And finally, the You Can Keep Your Head When All About Are Losing Theirs Award to CAMP Rehoboth’s Steve Elkins and Murray Archibald for being calm, mature and professional when faced with the Community Center construction delay. Although the request for the next variance had nothing to do with sex variance, Steve and Murray made sure that we remained focused and faced the issue with proper patience. In fact, this has been the hallmark of their management style as they have worked for decades, first to help build a diverse community in Rehoboth and now to help make sure our community grows and thrives. Thanks, boys and I realize the editor may want to cut this award out claiming it as too “self serving,” but I am serving these awards up, fellas, not you. Thanks for all you do…and so well, too.

  In closing, we want to thank our Letters from CAMP Rehoboth advertisers, for making these awards possible. We’re out of time, so we won’t do our finale – Marie Osmond singing Fry Me to the Moon. See you right here next year.

  December 2007

  WHERE ARE THE DYKES ON BIKES?

  For too many years, when gay men and lesbians appeared on the nightly news, their lives were illustrated by woefully archaic film clips of seedy gay bars or semi-naked parade revelers.

  Even through the late 1990s and early part of this century (gee, that sounds so, well, OLD!) it used to amaze me that journalists could yammer about pending employment legislation or “don’t ask, don’t tell” while showing film clips of drag queens in hot pink beehive hairdos and spiked heels. And of course, for variety they could always pull out film of police hovering in protective rubber gloves and riot gear.

  The press is lazy. I know. I used to be in television. Producers used old file stuff, or B Roll in the industry vernacular, and ran with it, ad nauseum. Emphasis on nauseum.

  But lo and behold, after a particularly vicious cycle of video images surrounding headlines about gays in the military, hate crimes, the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment and same-sex unions, television news has started to clean up its act.

  We are now getting glimpses of actual, identifiable gay men and lesbians saying sensible things into the camera or being filmed in the (gasp) sunlight.

  In fact, over the past few years, LGBT images have become more, dare I say, wholesome? With every passing day, TV news, interview shows and sitcoms feature the everyday lives of the not rich and not famous homosexuals.

  Finally, television news images flash of gay men burping babies, mid-life lesbians in bridal lace and re-runs of those five fabulous gentlemen from Queer Eye giving grooming tips to disheveled straight guys. For a while, every time we turned on the tube we saw a gay and smiling Episcopal Bishop. It was a religious experience.

  These days, the gay community makes it especially easy for the slothful media. Our most recent pride parades became bona fide wedding marches. Dykes on Bikes morphed into Brides on Rides. The largest, most flamboyant contingents included Gay Men with Strollers and the Metropolitan Community Church. As for the police, they traded rubber gloves and billy clubs for rainbow flags waving from police car antennae.

  Sure, there was still plenty of drag and drama, but the most astoundingly radical marchers included married same-sex couples – Ward and Ward Cleavers waving oversized marriage licenses. For once, PFLAG included fathers of the brides. It’s about time our image improved and our gay community was recognized for its own everyday diversity. Yippee!

  But wait. Does all this gay multiplicity wreck havoc with our traditional and I think, special gay culture? Our new TV image may, to borrow a well-worn phrase, “look like Gay America,” but does it now exclude the drag queen heroes and social renegades that gave rise to the Stonewall revolution? Have gay images been
blended into a media food processor and come out as a middle – American smoothie?

  There’s no question that this homogenized version of the homo community is an image whose time has come. We exist in as many assorted, remarkable, dreary, wacko, and exhilarating subcultures as the straight community…we’ve got our fringe and they’ve got theirs. The only difference is that our fringe comes with lots of, well, fringe. And spangles. And leather. And softball players. And feathers.

  While the very real images of everyday gays are critical to our ongoing legal battles for state by state equality, I hope they don’t result in a disappearing act for our entire GLBT culture. As we fight for the right to marry, adopt, inherit and achieve the equality we are due as Americans, we should make certain that our vibrant community keeps its celebrated options open.

  After all, there are plenty of gay men and lesbians who don’t want to marry, raise a family, buy a minivan or be portrayed as (yawn) average. And there are LGBT folks who do want those things but who also enjoy standing along a parade route cheering for buff disco bunnies and topless women on motorcycles. I remember a group of women from New England what called themselves The Moving Violations. Hah! Truly, there are many facets of gaydom and it’s the mix that makes us special.

  We cannot marginalize the fabulous drag queens and brave bull dykes who not only wrote our history but forged our path – cajoling, prying and booting the rest of us out of the closet.

  Along with our fight for the inalienable right to life, liberty, partner benefits and the pursuit of happiness, we have to protect our inalienable right to rebellion and our very own special culture. It’s our tradition, part of our heritage and our roots.