/
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