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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 2003)
november 2 1.2 0 0 3 > •*•5 3 BOOKS Funny by association Deep in the heart of Chelsea Nothing new in Ellen’s latest, hut it’s still a laugh riot Comic achieves mixed results through use of extrem es by E ls D ebbaut by llen DeGeneres has put a delightful spin on history quite a few times. In 1986 she was the first (and only) female comic on The Tmiight Show who Johnny Carson asked to sit down with him after the performance, and in 1997 her character in Ellen was the first openly gay leading d l e n role in prime time. (Perhaps you heard about that.) e n e r e s Many awards later, DeGeneres is chairing her own daytime talk show and kids and adults alike have adopted her Finding Nemo screen persona Dora’s cheery anthem “just keep swimming, just keep swimming.. Now the bona fide lesbian icon has published her second btx>k, appropriately called The Funny Thing Is... (Simon & Schuster, 2003, $23 hardcover). The title, as the author explains, is designed to hixik the everyday kx)k buyer, and this took a lot o f laborious thinking. She went from testing the concept of asking stores for a nameless book, to experimenting with simple one-word titles such as funny! (like, she notes, Madonna’s sex), to finally deciding on The Funny Thing Is... because “when you hear it, you know you’re going to hear an entertaining story. Perfect for essays written by a comic or even a bxxik on the state of Social Security." This latest Ellen-in-print is, like her performances, a collection of essays made up of keen observations on a number of mundane issues— spniced up with a whole lot of wit and imagination and served in DeGeneres’ trade mark style o f endlessly wandering associations. The kx)k is not, she warns, for readers kxiking for “never-before- revealed insights into who I am .... If so, here’s a gixxJ one for you, right off the bat: If anyone knows me at all, they know I enjoy the smell of a freshly washed monkey.” This is your first hint that you’re not going to get the latest dish on her girlfriend, her show or whether she makes crank phone calls to Anne Heche. It’s all about the next punch line. Chapters include guidelines on how to have bninch with Paula Abdul, Diane Sawyer, Gloria Steinem, Donatella Versace, Ed Begley Jr. and Eminem (all at the same time), ponderings on the ups of prison life (time to: collect pen pals, work out abs, get a Ph.D.), rescue tips for embarrassing moments like forgetting people’s names or accidentally flipping off John Travolta, recollections of her fondue and Chablis afternoon with G<xl and rantings about nruxlem technology. (“Just try and find the start of that toilet paper roll.... You think, surely I’ve gone around once or twice by now.”) The cover does mit lie: The book bursts with hilarious stories. Unfortu nately, though, a lot of them are echoing the comic’s latest live show. I was hoping for less déjà vu and more fresh. I was also struck with the uncomfortable feeling of peeking into DeGeneres’ manuscripts. The essays are clearly formatted for stage perform ance. Lines only really come into their hill effect with the addition of DeGeneres’ gestures, pauses, expressions, little dances and perfect intonation. You can try to add these yourself as you make your way though the book, but why not just rent the next HBO special instead? Still, if you like to read more than watch, buy The Funny Thing Is.... It’s all a little pre dictable but still great fun. J H E E ls D erraü T is a Portland free-lance writer. Hawthorne Hawthorne Hawthorne L isa B radshaw like an impatient television sitcom, ends are tied up pretty elcome to the first collection of Chelsea Boys quickly, often with the use of cheesy, heavy-handed dialogue. (Alyson, 2003, $13.95 softcover), a collaboration Still, the creators do a generally gtxxl job at poking fun between New York gay writers/illustrators Glen at their own community while simultaneously paying Hanson and Allan Neuwirth, who’ve been pen homage to it, which is a difficult task at best. And they ning the strip since 1998. nail multicultural and multisexual issues and conflicts dead Set in the Chelsea district of New York (and titled on without batting an eye. with a ncxl to Andy Warhol’s famous film The Chelsea The collection includes some stand-alone, color, fanta Girls), the narrative stories center around 40-something sy cartoons of Soiree in The Adventures o f Super I)iva and a Nathan, a short, Jewish, Barbra-obsessed gay man, and his Soiree cutout paper doll, both of which are hilarious. (The two roommates, the young, studly art student Sky (whose other color strips are rather tasteless and pointless.) muscles are bom of yoga, not bench presses) and Soiree, Hanson and Neuwirth reportedly are working on an one of the area’s prima queens. animated Chelsea Boys television show, which would be Although it takes a little rime to enjoy the company of the first all-queer animated series. Should be pretty inter these three and their array of extremely kxly-conscious, esting considering all the graphic sex. J H rather self-serving friends, slowly do Hanson and Neuwirth draw you past the facades and into their real L isa B raiwiaw is the Arts & Culture Editor o f Just Out. worlds of crappy jobs, casual sex and love found and lost. The draw MAN, A/M A T S W ITH MDU X T U S T S P E N T A U . M O R N IN 6 Gar or umos ings are fun to CRUMBS'! - w you o n -rut table C L E A N i N B T H I S A P A R T M E N T -- l a t e l y ? y o u 'v e B e e n look at— exag AND I DON'T N E C P YOU P t R T V - S E N P i N S O U T N O T M iN E B ut negative gmemv iN B T H E P LA C E U P A B A I N .V gerated kxJies y e a h . . . I ' m c a t ín FO R «M EEK « N O W . . . v — A R i c e 9 Y of sliver-thin WAS « sonna clean J CA KE , r~ SlSH' IT G. H ANSON ir UP.' 1 EM? waists, gigantic H A S N O T H IN G TO DO W ITH A.NEUWiRTH chests and the & OtW. strip’s trade mark swollen man-nipples fot* 1 poking through every knit shirt. ■ • o ■ o • It’s a carttxm of T E W S D O N T S K i . W 6 MATE S T E V E ANO I HAP A F i B M T 3 © C tB H r S C ffm S S i SKÜN6.'.' S N O W . W E R U N T U R 0 u a .L t O V ER HOW W E SHOULD S P E N D NEW extremes: Y E A R 'S EV E. I G O T U S TIC K ET'S TO A n o TUATTSS M X mat Y o u ' r e SN O W FRO M C O SSA C K S AN O Everything— F i S H T i M ' ABOUT ? HEY, I 'L L B A R BA A S I R S «SA N D 'S M IL L E N N IU M n a x is — w E do n ' t fro u c . CO N C ER T- - AND ME H A T E S B A R B R A . • Ki « T . D i p r A E V E R s e e B E v o l u n t e e r in g , AT A sex, muscles, WANTS TO Ú D S K i I N S IN A & P C N ... âO L P A M E lR ON S K I S ? / H O M ELESS s h e l t e r ON N S W T S A R 'S e v e . sweatshops, corporate snobs and even the & next-d(x>r les bians— is mag »1 ■G nified 100 times in the cartixm’s quest THAT W A S M Y S I S T E R ON HE SAID M E D E S P I S E S fM R S R A . . . MOW S O I R E E - YOU D O N 'T B E T I T — I T 'S NOT to examine T H ' P H O N E -.S H E JU S 'T O L D CAN X CO N SID ER S P E N O lN « M Y L ÍF =6 J U S T A BO U T N E W Y E A R 'S . . . WMAT is M E THAT M V FA T H E R - - WITH SOMEONE WHO F S Œ THAT W AV? T 'M S T A R T iN B TO T H IN K STEV E» queer identity. IT , MAN ? WHO X HAVEN'T HAD ANY ANO T M A Y B E FUNDAMENTALLY CONTACT W ITH IN C O M P A T IB L E Which is DO YOU IN * 4 - Y E A R S - ■ U N D E R ST A N D part of Chelsea i S D Y Í kk S . . . MOW S E R IO U S A N ' ME T H IS iS j / f Boys' success— W AN TS TO EE ME and part of its downfall. Plots going one way then jet so far the other, the reader winds up a little lost. And, W + Ml ËM V w Hawthorne Hawthorne Hawthorne WH4 Li(e (jifts and furnishing: Qreat Selection o f ‘Treasures from Tost a n d Present including ‘TraditionalSlandBloum glass ornam ents , from ‘B avaria Poland, a n d the TLS- OPEN EVERY DAY • 3962 B SE Hawthorne Blvd • Portland • 503-236-3862 PARKING IN BACK! Hawthorne Hawthorne
