Thanks, Aleson,
for a job well done
To the Editor:
I'm writing this letter primarily as a thank
you from myself and from an entire community.
Aleson MacFarlane. manager of Club 927
since early 1985, resigned her position in mid-
December. During her tenure, the changes she
instituted at the Club altered its entire character.
For the First time in memory. Club 927 really
became part of its community.
As lesbians with widely diverse lifestyles and
beliefs, we have few places to gather and be
comfortable. The change was gradual, but the
Club went from a cruise bar where dykes went
to get sloshed and get in fights to a nightclub and
accepted community center.
When she began as manager, Aleson was
tough, but she got the drug deals out of the
restrooms, and identification really got checked.
She changed the decor, the music and a whole
lot more. I know. I was producing burlesque
shows when she took over and she flat-out
cancelled us. She stressed the importance of the
C lub’s image and results show she knows her
stuff.
Aleson worked well with her entire spectrum
o f colleagues. Her staff was as committed to
excellence as she was. Their enthusiasm, com
bined with her management and public-relations
aptitude, attracted top performers and the
customers who follow them. I've performed
many times during the past three years, and
management at Club 927 was a joy to work
with.
The Club joined the Lesbian Community
Project as an associate member. Effective, con
tinuous advertising, efficient operation and
word o f mouth brought more and more different
women in. The benefit events Aleson
helped arrange attracted organization
business and substantially improved com
munity attitude about the bar By last fall, even
Tuesday- and Wednesday-night business was
standing-room-only. I even started scheduling
my business meetings there during daytime hours.
Nearly all the fights stopped. I loved watching
Aleson break them up. She never used physical
force. She’s not overbearing physically, her
voice was enough. Those fights stopped
because, even sloshed, the customers respected
her.
We do respect all she’s done for us and for the
Club. I’d like to wish new management the best
and urge that the 927 maintain its cooperative
and open relationship with all parts of the les
bian community.
I join with many others in the community in
sincerely hoping that Aleson will lend her tre
mendous energy and skill to involvement in
other community organizations and projects.
W e’ll miss her at Club 927 — but we bet the
Club will miss her more.
high and bowls to 13 inches in diameter. Other
unusual items taken were living ivy wreaths —
not fenceable and certainly not useable in
quantity.
W'e at Dragonfly Gardens believe in serv ice,
quality products and trust. It hurts when some
one we feel is a customer breaks into our store.
The person who did the burglary knew our store
and was precise, deliberate and tidy. The ex
pense of cleaning up the glass, broken doors and
destroyed locks will be absorbed over time, but
the violation o f trust will stay with us much
longer.
A reward is offered for information on this
burglary — our third since opening.
Sarah Lizio
Dragonfly Gardens
Drag and sexism
cited
up to and lives out the theory that there are two
sharply distinct sexes and never the twain shall
overlap or be confused . . . these hominids con
stantly and w ith remarkable lack o f embarrass
ment marking a distinction between two sexes as
though their lives depended on it It is wonderful
that homosexuals and lesbians are mt>cked and
judged for ‘playing butch-femme roles’ and for
dressing in ‘butch-femme drag, ‘for nobody goes
about in full public view as thoroughly decked out
in butch and femme drag as respectable hetero
sexuals w hen they are dressed up to go out in the
evening, or to go to church, or to go to the office.
Heterosexual critics o f queers' ‘role-playing’
ought to look at themselves in the mirror on their
way out for a night on the town to see who’s in
drag The answer is. everybody is Perhaps the
main difference between heterosexuals and
queers is that when queers go forth in drag, they
know they are engaged in theater— they are
playing and they know they are playing. Hetero
sexuals usually are taking it all perfectly
seriously, thinking they are in the real world,
thinking they are the real world.”
Kerry Hart
Portland
To the Editor:
Just a note in regard to Lee Lynch’s “ Cravat
C aveat” — a quote, actually, from philosopher
Marilyn Frye’s essay “ Sexism ” :
Rosanne King
Portland
Tidy burglar
has good taste
“ It is quite a spectacle, really, once one sees it.
these humans so devoted to dressing up and act
ing out and ‘fixing’ one another so everyone lives
To the E ditor
Someone with obviously good taste and tidy
habits broke into Dragonfly Gardens on
Christmas.
The thief preferred vases of quality, both in
price and design. What the thief took was quite
unusual — things that will stick out in people's
minds. Missing are black vases and bowls with
crane and flower designs; vases up to 14 inches
A TASTY MIDDAY
D p t? a
X 3 JEvJES
i wW\y
Food Front
A sampling tare of lunch
Sat., Feb. 27th
treats
Professional Insurance for
Portland since 1937
C O M M E R C IA L
PERSO N AL
LIFE & HEALTH
CO O P IE P A T I VIE G P OC 1ER Y
9am to 9pm Daily
N W Thurman at 23rd Place 222-5658
Tri-Met Bus Routes 15 and 17
■ ■ ■
Downey Insurance Agency
610 SW Broadway
Portland, Oregon 97205
(503) 228-8327
The City's Natural Grocery
Community Owned — Open to All
Lesbian Community Project presents
a personal theater performance for women
PIECES of TRUTH
performed by Cindy Lucrecia, Kaseja O,
La Rosa, Mara, NiAodagain
directed by
Bethroot Gwynne
assisted by
Hawk Madrone
February 20
8 pm
W estm inster Presbyterian Church
1624 NE Hancock
$6 ($5 fo r LCP Members)
"W ha t would happen
if one woman told the
truth about her life?
The world would crack
open." - Muriel Rukeyser
Tickets at A Wom an's Pace Bookstore
ASL
C H ILD C A R E
AVAILABLE
For more info 233-9079
S.W.9thAYamhffl
2#95lO
Just Out • 3 • February 1988