juna 16.2000 :
COMEDY
«OP his is no urban legend: In the late ’80s,
the roaring mouth that is Lea DeLaria
lived in Portland, Ore.
So how does a rising young lesbian
comic with a big-city attitude find herself in
the land of “healing-sister-mountain-woman-
rain feminists” for a few years on her way up?
The usual answer: “1 met a girl and moved to
Portland.”
Over the years she’s blown into town many
times, and when she was here in ’98 touring in
the musical Chicago, she collected yet another
Portland girlfriend. DeLaria immortalizes this
now-ex in her first reference work, Lea’s Book
of Rules for the World.
In a long, detailed list of her sex-toy
handmaidens, this is one of
the entries: “Two tiny
unnamed penises that 1
bought for the stupid hitch in
Portland, Oregon, who dumped
me right after 1 spent $ 150 on two
tiny penises.”
DeLaria
refers to
that pas
sage as “an
evil moment in
the Uxik,” hut
it’s clear she’s
hitter about the experience. She
also says the hitch in question still lives in the
Rose City.
As someone who breaks societal rules just
walking down the street, DeLaria writes pas
sionately on the subject: “ W ho wrote these
uptight rules? W hat Puritan came over on
the fucking Mayflower and said, ‘Here are the
rules!' FUCK T H E R U L E S .”
DeLaria is an acquired taste. In fact, some
people never develop an appreciation for her
brash style, hut she is a queer pioneer who
has plenty to say.
There’s an abundance o f other self-revela
tory passages in the book, including this
admission, item number one on her “ intimacy
fact sheet”: “ In my entire life 1 have never
had a serious relationship with someone
residing in the same city as me.” She goes on
to write, “ In fact, I find a continent between
us provides me with enough ‘space.’ ”
Then there’s this tidbit: “ I have five
pierces in my left ear. I have one pierce in my
right nostril. 1 find this nose pierce particular
ly helpful in providing an extra breathing
hole for cunnilingus.”
Despite such passages, the thirty-some
thing DeLaria is now more guarded about her
current relationship of a year’s duration.
However, she does claim to love the Rose
City and divulges that her new love’s brother
ly gay comic to appear on national television.
On March 30, 1993, DeLaria strode confidently
out to center stage on the Arsenio Hall Show and
quickly took control of the audience, which was
treated to an authentic fire-breathing butch
dyke in fine form. From then on, new opportu
nities flowed her way.
It has helped that she’s always appealed to
both lesbians and gay men. DeLaria explains it
this way: “ I talk about lesbian things but with a
faggy sensibility.” She adds that now her audi
ences are wildly eclectic, which is just how she
likes them.
Veteran performer Lea DeLarla ohats with Just Out
about her new book and her old girlfriends
by
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lives in Portland, so they bop out to Oregon a
lot.
So what’s she like about the place? “H ie
slacker attitude...everyone says they’re moving
to New York in a year, but they never do. 1
love that people sit around in coffeehouses and
read Proust,” she says, still sounding amazed.
“It’s Kith the best thing and the worst thing
about Portland.”
or someone who seems like she sprang fully
formed from the head of Bea Arthur,
DeLaria has roots that are surprisingly
Midwestern. She grew up in Belleville, 111., the
daughter of an Irish mother and an Italian
father. (As she writes of such unions, “Their
children will only know how to fight and
screw. )
She was able to endure
12 years of parochial
school with the “Little
Sister of the Pit Bull” and
the obligatory plaid skirts
because, she explains, “the girls
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in my school wore ties.” And so a hutch was
bom.
DeLaria began her comedy career in 1982
in San Francisco, where she soon earned posi
tive attention for her in-your-face style. “I was
a rocket punk dyke— on the edge of the edge,”
she recalls proudly.
Not that she’s mellowed much! In her book,
she likes to make lists, such as “examples of
things that go up my butt, no lube: 1. Why is
there Prozac for dogs? How can you have
the ability to lick yourself and still
be depressed ?”
Her early success was with
queer audiences, she says. “I made
it in a marginalized way first. I
never needed the mainstream, I
never sought it. I was making a
gtxxl living playing to 1,000-seat
audiences before I was ever on
TV," she explains, then laughs. “I
had greatness thrust upon me.”
One of her many claims to
fame is that she was the first open
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he most remarkable aspect of her ever
growing success is that DeLaria has always
been out. Way, way out. Never-for-a-
moment-passing out.
So does she resent other celebrities still
clinging to the closet? Surprisingly, no.
“People can only he who they arc,” she says.
“People need to stop worrying about who’s out
and who’s not. Look what happened to
Ellen...and that’s going to make it harder for
other celebrities to come out. Homophobia is
real— it’s no different for us.”
In her rule book DeLaria reveals: “Every day
of my life someone refers to me as sir.” She
confirms the truth of that claim with a recent
example: “Just yesterday I was actually buying
lipstick and the clerk said,
‘Thank you, sir!’ ’’
Luckily, it doesn’t upset
her. “As a butch it’s almost a
compliment— it just makes me
laugh,” she says.
She’s also made peace with her size, but in
her bxxik she relates some remarks she made at
the Texas Lesbian Conference that got her into
trouble.
She said, “ I’m a proud fat woman and all,
but I think there’s a slight problem when I’m
the most svelte person in a room.” Bw ing
ensued.
That she is indeed comfortable in her own
skin was underscored recently when she
appeared at a benefit with an array of gorgeous
Broadway stars. “We shared one big dressing
room, and I’m running around with my shirt
off, scratching my ass, and they’re all like wor
ried about their Nxlies and changing in the
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