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— ------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- august 20.2004’
Jll«t OUt
DIVERSIONS
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she describes. After securing said man in
wooden stocks, she “pulled his pants down
to reveal red, white and blue boxer
shorts...and I paddled him while his bill
was in his mouth.”
Reed is a founding member of Portland
Leather Alliance, a board member of the
Portland Area Business Association. and
vice chairwoman for the Libertarian Party
of Multnomah County. She is running for
a state Senate seat on the Lib ticket.
Mangels has written articles on queer
life and culture for countless publications,
founded and publishes the online In Uni'
form magazine, edited the award-winning
Gay Comics anthology for eight years and
is curator of the Oregon Leather History
Project.
New CD imminent
ink Martini will release its new CD
titled Hang on Little Tomato on
Oct. 19, according to the world-
renowned Portland band’s manager,
John Brodie. The Latin- and French-
inspired band, led by queer pianist
Thomas Lauderdale, will play a concert
celebrating the release the same night.
Fans have been long awaiting the
album, which has been pushed back
more than a year from its original 2003
release date.
P
Belgium or bust
y subject this issue forces me to come out. So, here
goes: I’m leaving Just Out.
M
I know, I’m all broken up about it, too!
When 1 announced my departure to my boss, she said,
“But you love your job!” And 1 said, “But I love my partner more.”
My partner is a native of Belgium, and we have decided to
move to her country. 1 could go on about the lack of rights for
binational queer couples in the United States, making it impos
sible for me to sponsor her for a green card as I’m not a “family
member," but I won't. Let’s just suffice it to say that in Belgium,
one of the two countries in the world that has legalized gay mar
riage, 1 have a better shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness than she does here.
In planning this big trip over the pond, I’ve had to get some
papers in order, of course. Can’t just show up with a duffel bag
and say “let me in” (like we do in Iraq).
We decided to get married in Belgium since we weren’t sure
their government would recognize our recent Oregon marriage.
But, oops, in order to marry a Belgian citizen you have to have a
statement from your county authorities that there is no record of
you being married there.
Unfortunately, my county authorities couldn’t comply. Fortu
nately, a few days later Oregon was forced to record all the gay
marriages! Whew. Now I could get a certified copy of my mar
riage certificate to prove to Belgium that my wife and I are
indeed married. Then we don’t have to get married there; we’ll
just be recognized as married, and 1 can legally immigrate.
Great, said Belgium. Now we also need a statement from the
U.S. consulate in Belgium that they recognize your marriage,
and you’re good to go.
Unfortunately, the consulate couldn’t comply. Fortunately, it
doesn’t issue recognitions to married hetero couples, either. “Mar
riage is a state issue, not a federal issue,” the consulate noted to me
via e-mail. It will, however, issue a statement that says our docu
ments are in accordance with the laws of the state of Oregon.
“That’s not what we asked for,” wrote the Belgian govern
ment to my wife.
“You’re asking for something that doesn’t exist,” she politely
responded.
Finally, Belgium decided that after we send them all our offi
cial documents they’ll decide whether it’s OK if we sell off most
of what we own, quit our jobs, say goodbye to all our friends and
my family and move halfway around the world together.
Whether or not they make this decision before our plane touch
es down seems to not concern them.
I remember when my partner and I got married March 3.
After the rainy, cold ceremony on the steps of the Multnomah
Building, 1 asked, “Are we married?” Yes, said the officiant. And
all my co-workers were like, “Wow, you’re married.” Half of
them went out and got married, too.
But, still, I wondered. If we got the license and we got
hitched by an officiant but the state has not recorded them, are
we married? Is anyone who has a ceremony legally married until
their marriage is recorded?
And even now that Oregon has recorded that marriage,
when you are turned down for benefits, as friends of mine
recently were, with a note that says, “At this time, the state of
Oregon does not recognize same-sex marriages,” you’ve got to
ask yourself, am 1 married? Am 1 really married?
And if the Belgian government says they won’t recognize our
marriage because George W. Bush doesn’t, what then? Am I
married or not? Here? There? Anywhere?
I’ve been asking myself for months now if I’m really married
and, although many people and agencies are quick to answer, I
still don’t really know.
1 only know that, oftentimes, marriage is in the eye of the
beholder. jm
Author sings
selections
from first novel
No room for sissies
ortland author Jennie Shortridge
reads (and sings!) from her first
novel, Riding with the Queen,
7 p.m. Aug. 27 at In Other Words,
3734 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.
Queen’s main character, a down-and-
out musician, finds herself forced to
head back home to Denver, also Short Splendora performs for
ridge’s hometown, where she must deal
masses at Sissyboy
with her bipolar lesbian mom and an
entire host of other eccentric characters.
A former musician herself, Shortridge decided to “further
develop the snippets of songs I’d written for the characters
throughout the story and record them.” She also uses them in
her readings. “I’ve been to readings, and I don’t think they’re
necessarily always that much fun.... The songs further the story,
provide a soundtrack almost.”
The full-time writer includes several queer characters in
Queen, although she identifies as straight. “I want to write
b(K)ks...that have the same variety of people that exist in life.
Queer is just part of that."
That's Mr. & Ms. Leather to you
lackout Leather Productions has announced its new Mr. &
Ms. Oregon State Leather 2004 are Portlanders Andy
Mangels and Theresa “Darklady” Reed.
The pair were selected during the Aug. 15 contest at Embers,
one of the highlights of Oregon Leather Pride Week. The rather
grueling competition includes a prejudging interview with polit
ical, social and personal questions; a formal look and speech; a
street look and onstage pop question; and a fantasy category, in
which contestants have to do an onstage performance.
Judges also watch the interpersonal interactions of all contes
tants during the week leading up to the event.
“My pop question,” shares Mangels, who beat out one other
contestant, “was an involved query about things to ask and
avoid when doing an S/M scene.... I said to avoid ‘bottoms who
voted for George Bush.’ ”
Reed, better known as writer and sex educator Darklady, ran
unopposed but still had to gamer a minimum number of points to
win the title. Her onstage performance found Darklady Liberty
being “harassed by a man in a suit waving a political bill around,"
B
Andy Mangels and
Theresa “Darklady”
Reed are your new
Mr. & Ms. Oregon
State Leather
drag queen gorges on a box of
Twinkies, pukes them into a toilet
and kicks the ceramic throne over
onstage. Code name: Bulimia Rhapsody.
Are we ready for this?
Absolutely, says Mark Thomas, or
Zebra, as the Sissyboy host is known. His
punk
drag party has certainly revved up
the queer punk
last Monday at International Club
Mummy, 332 N.E. San Rafael St.
Sissyboy, Thomas says, caters to younger queers “who do not
identify with traditional drag.” The shows often “get a bit messy,”
he adds, “with performers pushing away from the limits of pretty,
bitchy drag queens and creating dark and often raunchy charac
ters designed to make the crowd laugh and often cringe.”
And cheer. Spectators love the show and party hardy after
ward to DJ Stormy.
Thomas moved to Portland early this year from San Francis
co and wasted no time filling what he saw to be a void. “1 found
Stark Street to be uncreative...though everyone seemed to be
ready for something new.”
The next Sissyboy starts at 9 p.m. Aug. 30. The show is usu
ally at 11 p.m. Cover is a mere $3.
I
Queer August art redux
es, it’s time for another walk around the queer Portland art
scene, as three more artists emerge to give your second half
of August as much culture as your first.
Bi filmmaker Vanessa Renwick’s Lovejoy Lost 2004 is visible
through Sept. 4 at PDX Window Project, 612 N.W. 12th Ave.
The view-from-the-sidewalk exhibit honors the Lovejoy
columns that were tom down a few years ago to make room for
the new trolley track.
Covered in murals painted by Greek immigrant and train
nightwatchman Tom Stefopoulos in the 1940s, the columns
were thankfully preserved but are “sleeping in a lonely storage
lot for four years now," notes Renwick, “waiting for the day they
might stand again and display their mythical visions.”
Across Bumside over at Scandal’s Other Side Café, 1038 S.W.
Stark St., stands equally mythical figures in sculpture, paint and
woodblock prints: beautiful naked men. Portland gay artist Gary
Smith, who used to work solely in sculpture, has expanded his
repertoire for this new show, which runs through Aug. 31.
“I still love sculpture, but in that medium it takes a very long
time from conception to realization,” he explains. “I began to
yearn for more immediate gratification in my art."
Scoot over to Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center,
5340 N. Interstate Ave., for queer artist Meg Rowe’s unique
exhibit The Shape of Qreen, inspired by the artist’s walks in the
Interstate Corridor Renewal Area.
“The walks were actions of meditation, awareness and con
nection," says Rowe, who will speak at the gallery 6 p.m.
Sept. 2. “My path linked each park to its neighborhixxl and
made a physical, if temporal, connection between the diverse
communities within the corridor."
Rowe stitches with thread on digital photo pnnts of natural
objects, creating an interesting multimedia display that parallels,
she explains, “the action, rhythm and pacing of a walk....
Repeating each step in the mark of a stitch, I remember the walk
and re-create its path in the tangible form of stitched maps." JH
Y
Compiled by L isa B radshaw and G raham T urner
.