To those who worked to destroy the Michigan Women’s Music Festival and are now reveling in their victory:

I want to tell you about Dorothy.  She had a small tent right next to the path I had to go down to get anywhere.  She had a table outside her tent, a good chair.  Lots of food and cold drinks.  A nice set-up.  Clearly she was a veteran of Michigan.  She knew what she needed to be comfortable, and brought it.  

I think she was probably over 70.  Longish straight white hair.  Tanned face.  Sturdy.  Every time I went down the path, she was there, drinking a beer or sipping a cup of coffee, often reading a book.  We would make eye contact, give a little smile.  I didn’t feel drawn to her or motivated to make more contact than that.  I never saw anyone else talk to her either.

Then at some point I realized that every time I walked that path, she was ALWAYS there, in her chair, sipping and reading or just looking.  She wasn’t going to any of the concerts or the workshops or visiting friends in other tents.  She was just SITTING OUTSIDE HER TENT ON THE SIDE OF THE PATH BY HERSELF!  What was THAT about??!?

So I stopped to talk to her.  She was very pleasant and open to chatting.  Dorothy was from Chicago.  She was a dyke.  For whatever reasons, her life had led her to isolation from her fellow humans.  She was a hermit.  She lived in her apartment in Chicago without contact with other people.

She said what saved her sanity was her week at Michigan sitting in front of her tent next to the path.  Surrounded by thousands of women, feeling their energy.  She didn’t need concerts or conversation.  The only place she felt safe around others of her species was in those scrubby woods, alternately dusty and muddy, with the endless sounds of music playing, and women laughing and singing far into the night.

“It recharges my batteries,” she said about her one week a year at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival.  She said that one week made it possible to survive the 51 weeks of solitude that followed.  And then, by golly, she’d be there next to the path again, with her sweet little set-up.

Dorothy was an extreme example, but there are thousands of lesbians at Michigan who go back to lives where they can never be themselves in public, where they feel they must stay in the closet.  For these women, Michigan has been a very special place, a lifesaver, a battery recharger, a sanctuary, a week of pure, joyous freedom. 

And now, after 40 years, it’s ending.  Yes, all cultural institutions wither and die eventually.  But this is not a natural death.  Sophisticated people organized to kill Michigan before its time, because it outraged them that women had created a safe space for themselves. 

Dear self-righteous people:  What do you suggest Dorothy do next year?

SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY.

Saw the documentary “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” last night.  It’s focused on the enormous explosion of what I would call The Women’s Movement – I think that’s how the women I knew named it at the time – in the late 1960s, early 70s.  The Women’s Movement. 

It was a very exciting time, and the documentary is pretty damn thrilling to watch.  Consciousness-raising groups.  “Take Back the Night” marches.  Actually getting laws changed.  The Lavender Menace taking over a feminist conference to demand that the women’s movement embrace lesbians.  A group of women called “The Janes” in Chicago who actually learned to PERFORM illegal abortions.  Now, that definitely deserves its OWN documentary. 

My favorite picket sign from the demonstrations shown in the film was “Stop Human Slavery – Don’t Get Married!”  I happened to see “She’s Beautiful…” with a friend who has recently come to the realization that she is just OVER caring for and feeding her sweet husband.  So the sign seemed very apropos. 

I was there, in New York, in the middle of it, in 1969. I went to a meeting of the New York Radical Feminists.  Only one meeting, but it changed my life.  They handed out a mimeographed sheet – just one piece of paper.  It might have been titled “The Light Bulb Moment” or something like that.  Just one page of statements to help me understand how sexist our world was/still is, and how this strangles every woman’s life.  The Light Bulb concept was that at a certain point, if you saw the sexism that was all around you -- you would have an instantaneous revelation that would illuminate your life.  It would be like turning on a light in a dark room.  That sheet of paper turned the light bulb on for me. 

My whole life (I was 23 and still straight) I had felt vaguely uncomfortable, that there was something wrong with me, something …off.  I understood in a flash, while reading that page, that my discomfort was caused by the fact that I JUST DID NOT FIT INTO WHAT A WOMAN WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!  I was too loud, I talked too much, I had too many opinions, I was too funny, I didn’t act deferential enough to others.  I was not what society was looking for – and it WASN'T because there was SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME!  No!  SOCIETY WAS WRONG to have such a strangling definition of me! 

Wow.  That was it.  I wasn’t wrong anymore.  What a great big gigantic fucking relief.  Vague discomfort gone.  I was supposed to be WHO I WAS!  There was no turning back from that liberation.  Light bulb still on. 

I was in graduate school studying directing for the theater.  Once I became a feminist, I could no longer find any plays I was interested in directing.  I realized I had to write them myself. 

So my deep deep gratitude to all the amazing and courageous women activists who went before me.  I would not be who I am today if it wasn’t for you.

Go see “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.”

Below:  A photo of Lilith Women’s Theater on our 1979 European tour and a poster from the tour.

REHEARSING AT ACT! Well, their rehearsal room anyway...

We rehearsed at an ACT rehearsal room yesterday and will again today.  What a gorgeous space!  Walls of windows on two sides, on the eighth floor, so we have a spectacular view of the city!  

And a balcony outside the room with a fabulous view.  

Christine taped the floor so we had the exact measurements of of the stage at the Berkeley City Club.  Oy vey, is it narrow.  Very exciting for all of us to be using the actual layout instead of my living room.  

Carolyn was very pleased at how I was adjusting to playing to the audience on all sides of me -- at this point represented by empty chairs.  I was never worried about this, because I've toured in my solo plays all over the world and had to adapt to SO MANY different spaces -- back rooms of bars, an abandoned police station (freezing!), and a huge flourescent-lit conference room with me in the middle on a little platform.  Actually, the conference room was by far the worst.  Oh yeah, and the former operating room at a hospital with very steeply banked seats so medical students could watch -- like performing in a pit.  And tiny tiny storefronts.  And a former stable, where the stage was the width of two horse stalls.  You get the idea.

MY LAST THANKSGIVING WITH PAT BOND

PAT BOND

Thanksgiving was always the big holiday in my family.  I think it was partly because as Jews, it was the one major holiday we could share with the rest of the country.  Sure, there’s Fourth of July.  But folks don’t fly home to be with their families for that. 

No, Thanksgiving was IT.  And it was always at our house.  My mother owned Thanksgiving.  She only missed hosting (until she became really old and wheelchair-bound) the year I was born on Nov. 27.   Thanksgiving is the one holiday that marks time for me:  "Oh yeah, that was the year I had it with Dory in Pennsylvania..."  or "That year was in Modesto with my Auntie Hannah and cousin Miriam..." 

Although I loved my mother's celebrations, my most memorable Thanksgivings have been away from home.   In 1990, Pat Bond, whose writing is featured in HICK: A LOVE STORY, was slowly dying of lung cancer.  Of course I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with her in the hospital.  She was always good company – especially after the doctor put her on anti-depressants.  Very helpful when you’ve got lung cancer.

She shared a room with Ida, an African-American woman who was in a coma.  I can’t say I was really looking FORWARD to this Thanksgiving, mainly because of Ida.  I’m not even comfortable around quiet SHY people – let alone comatose.  I WASN’T worried about the food.  My hospital Thanksgivings have never been deficient in the food department.  But the company this time – iffy.

ANHYHOW, Pat and I were quietly talking, waiting for the food to arrive, when a whole CLAN burst into the room!  Adults and children, about 15 of them, laden with food!   This was Ida’s family, who we’d never met before.  She was the ruling matriarch, and there was no question where they would spend this holiday.  It had to be with her in the hospital, even if she didn't even know they were there.  

The whole family drew Pat and me to its collective bosom.  We were in need of family, and they were happy to supply it – along with Thanksgiving dinner.  Pat and I spent that day laughing and eating the delicious food Ida’s kids and grandkids had cooked. We heard stories about this fearsome Granny Ida who ruled with an iron hand when she was well.  Maybe her family was particularly jolly because Ida was no longer cracking the whip.

So:  Just because someone’s in a coma doesn’t mean she can’t throw a great party.  It remains one of my favorite Thanksgivings.

                                                        Pat as Hick

Me as Hick

HICK Goes to the THEATRE BAY AREA AWARDS

Here's Carolyn (director/producer), me Terry (playwright/actress/producer), and Bob (light board operator), looking rather fabu last night.  Sadly, the souls of both my companions have been taken over by zombies, as you can see from their silver eyeballs.  I'm holding down the fort for the human race!  The TBA Awards were

  

quite something - a packed theater at ACT, wonderful entertainment, lots of snazzy dressed up folks (although I dare say no one besides me sported yellow-and-black checked pants by Versace - you gotta know which thrift store to hit, dahling).  The award giving and receiving moved swiftly.  Wow, there were a lot of nominations.  For those who aren't yet avid theater- goers:  There is a lot of really great theater in the Bay Area.  I say this as someone who's familiar with the New York theater scene and likes the SF scene better. 

HICK was nominated for "Best Solo Production."  The other nominees were: 

BABA, by Denmo Ibrahim, where she plays both a newly immigrated Egyptian father and the Americanized daughter

NOW AND AT THE HOUR by Christian Cagigal, a magic show that simultaneously told the story of his father, who was a Vietnam vet

PAN-O-RAMA by Jef Valentine, about his relationship to the story of Peter Pan

AND...   

MAESTRO by Hershey Felder, about the legendary composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein, which had been on Broadway...... and which won.

Funny thing about competition:  No matter how much I tell myself that I'm honored to be nominated (which WAS true) and it's fine PERFECTLY FINE if I don't win --- It is NOT perfectly fine.  I felt rather bummed out.  The after-party would have been a LOT more fun if HICK had won. 

Oh well.  On with life.    

REST IN PEACE, GWEN AVERY

REST IN PEACE, GWEN AVERY
Great Soul, Great Singer

The first time I saw Gwen Avery was in 1974, at the Amazon Music Festival in the mountains above Santa Cruz.  What a scene.   Two hundred naked women under the redwoods, listening to incredible music by incredible women on the outdoor stage.    

But Gwen wasn’t a scheduled performer, oh no.  At some point, to escape the sun, my friends and I drifted into the clubhouse.  Perhaps we needed a wee break from the intensity.  We were all tripping on LSD.  At the piano in the clubhouse, sat a naked bearded African-American Amazon, playing and singing her heart out with joy and abandon.  

She had no audience until we walked in.  She was making music for herself.  We listened, spellbound.  We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. 

Over the years, Gwen became my friend, my hairdresser, my housemate, and the subject of my still-to-be-finished documentary.  She performed at a benefit for my political campaign.  I produced her several times.  In all the times I saw her perform, only once did she fail to move me out of my chair, at one of the Russian River festivals in Guerneville.  I thought, “Well, she can’t hit it every time.”  Years later, when she was talking for my camera about her deep and abiding joy in performing, she said, “There was one show when I just couldn’t find it… One of those times at the Russian River Festival.”  I was stunned.  

Gwen just loved music, loved to party.  She WAS the party.  She was never happier than when she was creating a party wherever she happened to land.  One Martin Luther King Day, I went to a concert at Glide Church, where Gwen was part of the choir.  After the concert, she suggested we go to Osento, the women’s bath house in the Mission.  We were in the small sauna, where we were joined by two German women who were visiting San Francisco for the first time.  Of course, Gwen started talking to them, and then she started singing.  Show tunes.  That’s the only time I ever heard her sing show tunes.  I didn’t even know she knew that many of them.  Now, that was a tiny sauna.  The four of us sat on the two benches, facing each other, our knees almost touching.  And Gwen was singing FULL OUT, flinging out her arms, practically squashing those poor German girls. It was alarming.  Were these unwary visitors to the Gwen Party upset?  Offended?  Overwhelmed?  I studied their faces — sheer bliss. They thought they’d died and gone to heaven.  This would be their most cherished memory of San Francisco.

Because I was filming Gwen, I got to see many of the performances that took place in larger venues the the Osento sauna.  I also had the great privilege of going with her to visit her mother in Cleveland and her family in Verona, Pennsylvania, where she grew up.  I was very moved by her family’s love for her and their warmth and acceptance of me.  

A few years ago, I produced Gwen for Support Women Artists Now Day — or SWAN Day, the last Saturday in March.  The performance took place at Bird & Beckett in Glen Park.  Gwen dropped by an hour before the show, to check out the place, a bookstore that hosts lots of jazz and poetry readings.  She left to go change from her grubby jeans and shirt into her performing duds.  The audience started arriving… and arriving and arriving.  The place was packed!  I felt a certain pride at having done a good PR job.

When it was time for the show to begin, Gwen appeared… in the same old clothes!  She ALWAYS dressed for a show!  She leaped onto the little stage… and I realized she was drunk.  I had never seen her high for a performance.  I tried to somehow introduce her.  She lifted me up and gently threw me off the stage.  She was a mighty strong woman, and she was in charge.  There was nothing for me to do but go in the back of the bookstore and hide from the disaster that was bound to ensue. Oh, WHY had I done such good publicity?  I stood as far away as I could get, my back to the stage, bemoaning the fate of the audience.  Then I realized that my body was moving to the music.  My body could not NOT move to the music.  I turned around and approached the stage.  Gwen clearly had no plan.  The possibility of the show falling apart existed at every moment.  We all leaned forward, totally focused.  This was not being cradled in the arms of a consummate performer.  This was watching a great artist walk the tightrope between form and chaos.  Gwen pulled it off.  The audience rose to its feet for a delirious standing ovation.  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.  

And now Gwen has died and gone to heaven.  I don’t know if there really is a heaven, but I do hope that Gwen’s soul has found peace.  She rarely found peace outside of music when she was in this world.   Oh, Gwennie, there is still so much I wanted to do with you…. I’ll finish the full-length documentary now.  I promise.  

Link below is to "Jukebox Baby," my 14 minute documentary on Gwen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNo1d1ZDJfU

View from the Hammock

Feeling a bit bloggish, but not very.

We are perhaps the only travelers in the history of South Africa to go from The Happy Hippo Hostel in a seedy part of Durban directly to Amakhosi Safari Lodge, an over-the-top luxe boutique hotel -- 9 opulent cottages on the River Mkhuso (or something like that, I can't be bothered to find out the real name) -- in the middle of the Bush Veldt.

Think gourmet high tea and taking a bit of a break during afternoon safari for a glass of wine while the giraffes stand around and ogle, as giraffes tend to do, you know.

The verdict of my Commie companion, who I forced to do this:  "Good choice, comrade!"

This is the first time on this trip that I've really relaxed.  Nothing to do between morning safari (starts at 5 am) and afternoon tea (4:30).

I'm loving doing this blog, but/and it's actual work.  I'm going to take a few days off.  But first, I'll leave you with a sight for the ages.

THE AFRICAN QUEEN