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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2003)
/ DIVERSIONS LCP steps up to the plate Patriot act o it seems a whole lot of people who may never have ventured into a triangle productions! show have been doing just that, in response to glorious reviews of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, not to mention three Drammy Awards. In a recent performance Hedwig goes into his onstage flag-waving routine, and a man in the audience shouts out a warning to “be careful with that.” Hedwig continues whirling the flag about, and the man becomes a little more adamant. “Don’t let it touch the floor!” he hollers. Is this troubling Wade McCollum, who’s played Hedwig in mote how s than he is years old? Just slightly. “But, I mean, all the more reason to do something,” McCollum wisecracks. “I’m a punk rock star, that’s my obligation, right?" Right. So he tosses the flag to the floor (all part of the act, actually), and the man jumps up, bounds on stage, grabs the flag and prompt ly exits, stage left. You know the trouble with appealing to a wider audience? Appealing to a wider audience. After a brief pause, McCollum puts his fist in the air and says, “Right on.” Further investigation revealed the guy was visiting from D.C. and attended the show at the insistence of his friends, having no idea what Hedwig was all about. “When he left with the flag,” McCollum says, “I felt really proud of him .... That was really brave to come up and take a flag from the stage from a drag queen. It was a big deal.” And this kind of display can’t ruin a show like Hedwig, whose star has made a habit of ad- libbing and writing in his own lines anyway. “I appreciated...his passion for this country, and I share the same passion, just in a different way. T hat’s what I loved about it. Here we are, two very different generations, sharing a similar passion for our country.” Although they’ve never had quite as “provocative” a reaction as this one, M cCol lum says “the door is wide open” at a Hedwig show for the occasional interaction. “I live for that kind of thing,” the gay boy declares. “1 mean, obviously he had some pretty righteous feelings, which he has every right to feel. You know, if I was 65.. .and I was straight, and I had grown up in a patriarchy as a patri arch, and I had fought in a war, and I was proud of my country, I’d probably do the same thing. I understand pride.” McCollum’s latest pride and joy is his new stage show, One, which he wrote, directed and is starring in. (See www.iotc.us for details.) Loosely based on Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, it’s about “a man trying to find peace in the Western world,” says McCollum. “And it’s a rock ’n’ roll adventure." One’s Buddha-like main character “has lesbian moms,” he notes, “of course.” JD ummer means softball, and for 18 consecu tive years, that has also meant an opportu nity to hang out with more than 400 les bian players (not to mention all their fans!) at the Lesbian Community Project’s Women’s Softball Tournament. From Aug. 8 to 10, dykes from around the Pacific Northwest will gather among the six diamonds of Prairie Fields in Brush Prairie, Wash., to compete in one of the region’s premier softball tournaments. On the roster are 32 teams, including the Chesty Chee tahs from Seattle and 13 Nice Girls from Olympia. Then there’s Cor vallis’ Flaming Cleats, Eugene’s Northwest of Nor mal and, of course, Just Out’s own homegrown Gar den Variety. “It’s about hav ing a good time and supporting each other," says LCP’s Jamie Bolyard. “We also connect local businesses and the lesbian community.... We raise money for LCP so that [we] can continue to be a resource for lesbians in the Portland area.” Just a half-hour from Portland, Prairie Fields has camping facilities for tents and RVs. (Note: No dogs are allowed on the fields or in the camping area.) Games run from 6 to 9 p.m. Fri day, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Partying, socializing and all-around fun, however, continue throughout the three-day event, including a Saturday barbecue prepared by Portland’s dyke-owned Tennessee Reds. “After game hours, the campsite takes on a life of its own,” says Bolyard, hinting at some of the after-hours traditions. “Do I need say more than ‘Giant, Naked Slip ’n’ Slide?’ ’’ The softball tournament is free for specta tors, but onsite concessions, various vendors and an information booth with souvenirs help make the event LCP’s longest-running and largest fund-raiser. “Whether or not you’re even into softball,” says Bolyard, “hundreds of lesbians are taking over a park for a weekend— having fun, playing sports, enjoying the sunshine.” Sounds like a home run. For details, including directions, call 503-227-0605. For information regarding camping, call 360-254-4263. When your hole needs lovin’ F orget Saturday Night Live and Mad TV. Stay up late with Portland’s own fabulous sketch comedy group, the Exotic Actor’s Guild. Their latest late-night show, Chicken Soup for the Hole, is a compendium of jokes, music, singing and (especially) dancing through Aug. 23 at Stark Raving Theatre. The multitalented cast of five is led by the rubber-faced Stephanie Sertich and includes gay funnyman Todd Pozycki, who brings an oddball Baby Huey quality to his interpretations. Each A M C ’s new documentary Qay Hollywood includes former Oregonians Benjamin Morgan (second from left) and Robert Laughlin (second from right) cast member is cute and funny, displays multiple personalities and has a flair for comedy. The gay-friendly humor gently pokes tun at everyone from a showtune-singing librarian (played with nutty abandon by Julie Jcske) to a Jewish rapper named Matzoh Ball (the adorably eccentric Micah Sunshower Klatt) and the king of funk (loose-limbed hottie Chris Murray). The spoof on Disneylands It’s a Small World ride alone is worth the price of admission, which is $12 from 503-232-7072. Shows start at 10:30 p.m. Stark Raving is located at 2257 N.W. Raleigh St. Singers from a lost generation T here will be some beau tiful music flowing from the Backgate Stage at Artichoke Music Aug. 7 and 8. The venue wel comes indigenous musicians Kerrianne Cox and Lorrae Coffin, both from Broome, Australia. Both Cox and Coffin are lesbians, and Cox was the first lesbian to come exit in the Beagle Bay aboriginal community of Broome. “It was hard,” the singer says. “People talked and judged me, but I don’t care.... Just as long as they were exposed to the growing realities of homosexuality in our Australi.in community and stop aboriginal sinners the many youth sui Kerrianne Cox cides from happening.” (left) and Lorrae C ox’s grandmother Coffin perform was part of Australia’s together Aug. 7 systematic removal of and 8 at indigenous children Artichoke Music from their homes to integrate them as servants in white soci ety, a phenomenon exposed in the recent film Rabbit'Proof Fence. “I am what you call the lost generation,” explains Cox. “My grandmother was taken.. .at age 4 and was sent to Beagle Bay mission. She was told lies about her mother and never found healing or forgiveness.... We were left with the burden, pain and the cruel realities of our fami ly history.... My family is slowly healing each day, and some days are dark and haunting.” Cox, whose partner is from Portland, has two CDs with blues-hased music rooted in her V people’s history and experience. “My music is driven by the injustice put on my people over 200 years of colonization,” she says. Artichoke Music is at 3130 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. The concerts begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $ 15 from Tickets West. People in Hollywood are gay?! B eing out in Hollywood has never been easier with openly gay actors, directors, writers and producers. Yet there are still no openly gay major film or television stars. So, what’s it really like to be a young queer in Tinseltown? Producer Fenton Bailey and director Randy 3 Barbato (the gays who brought | us The Eyes of Tammy Faye ) are 5 exploring that subject in a new documentary, Qay Hollywood, which airs at 10 p.m. Aug. 11 on AM C. Gay Hollywood follows five men as they set their sights on success in the City of Broken Dreams, where discrimination and stereotypes still matter. They include two guys from Oregon: Robert Laughlin (who grew up in Yamhill, God bless him), a swimwear model trying to make it as an actor, and Benjamin Morgan, a struggling scriptwriter. j In other TV-land 9 news, N B C made the 3 bold move of airing a | 30-minute Straight Quy July 24 after Will & Grace. Contrary to popular assumption, the net work did not cut out all the sexual innuen do in its editing of half the show. Props to N B C for being the first major network to air something with “queer” in the title and to recognizing that its Bravo chan nel’s record Queer Eye ratings prove the show’s mass appeal. J H Compiled by L isa B radshaw , T imothy K rause and F loyd S klaver
