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 Swooning ladies and cats in trees beware, there are some new heroes in town, if only for a night. Hometown boys DKPDX host their 2nd annual uniform show: Drag stars to the rescue.
While the waterfront may have their brawny sailors decked out for Rose Festival, Holocene will see its own little slice of naval heaven saving maidens and breaking hearts.
The thamatic antics of this Portland troupe are not to be missed. It’ll be better than the Village People.
This Sunday June 5th @ Holocene (1001 SE Morrison) 9p, $5 (no one turned away). ASL interrepted and wheelchair accessible as usual.
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Ok, so a new bill, 3476, intended to take the place of SB 1000, offers a smidgen of rights to all kinds of 2 person living arrangements, not just same-sex life partners. Basic Rights Oregon and gay rights activists (rightly so) oppose the bill because it really does little for you until you’re knockin’ on heaven’s door. Some say 3476 is fairer than 1000, like sisters Maria and Lillian Gonzalez, who say they have been “a couple”, supporting each other for 25 years. What 3476 does not include are custodial rights or healthcare benefits, among other things.
So, I said I wouldn’t get into this before, but now seems the time. While in the tenuous present I do (loosely) support SB 1000 as well as gay marriage in this country as a whole, I’m going to admit something potentially unpopular: I don’t really believe in marriage for gays and lesbians…because I don’t really believe in a state sanctioned marriage for anyone.
Ah, commitment, marriage, love…all beautiful, perhaps religious, life affirming ceremonies and milestones. Sacred even. And I have no desire to meddle in anyone’s religious ideals of marriage. But marriage is also tied to a host of rights in this country that have nothing to do with love or religion.
It shouldn’t be.
Let marriage live in the realm of the personal, and let the government not intertwine it with intrinsically different issues. Abolish marriage as a legal solution, as a means to an end, and institute policies based on what’s pertinent.
Besides, I would rather spend my time fighting for universal healthcare or the right for any responsible individual or pair of individuals to adopt/take care of children, than to continue to grasp, pitifully, at the archaic institution of marriage. To be sure, I want the same rights as my straighter counterparts, but in the big picture, we’ve got bigger problems to fix, and gay marriage is but a band-aid on a wound that clearly needs antibiotics…
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Ah, unfortunately it can happen anywhere, believe me anywhere. Even the lesbian haven of Smith College has experienced quite recent homophobic incidents. But it’s always disappointing to hear about it close to home. Let’s check out what’s going on at Southern Oregon University this week and what’s being done about it.
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Whoa! The Hellcat Hussies burlesque troupe bring you 20 of Chicago’s finest acts together in one huge 14 act tour. The Mobtown Moxie review invades Portland this Thursday transforming the face of vaudville variety I’m sure…I don’t know how much raunch you can take but if you can handle it this is a list of what should be included in the package: flesh piercings, live music, burlesque, genderqueers, canned meat, cheerleading, comedy, reparations, sexworkers, knives and plenty of t&a.
All proceeds benefit a sex positive documentary. Don’t you just love being philathropic and nymphomaniacal all at once?
Special guests the perky T-reXXXa will kick-off the event and DJ Johnny Mozzarella will keep it rolling (along with the documentary cameras!)
Thursday 6/02 @ Holocene (1001 SE Morrison). 9p, 6 bucks.
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In Other Words (3734 SE Hawthorne) Portland’s non-profit feminist bookstore hosts a recurring open mic and zine reading called the Last Word, this Tuesday May 31st at 7pm.
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I found it quite interesting that this week’s inPortland had a short business article about attracting gay tourists while having a lead story on gentrification of some of Portland’s new hip (and queer) neighborhoods. I continually question the ongoing shifting of Portland’s neighborhoods, and while I remain far from any conclusions I certainly have some thoughts.
In 1996 several friends of mine started the trek north, away from Southeast’s rising rents, and found a house on 30th and Alberta, calling it the Church House, for the pew that sat on the porch. Since then the broke artists, musicians, queers and others have watched as their very appearance has started to build a new neighborhood that pushes themselves, as well as the former residents, out. If many of us left Southeast because it was becoming too expensive, so have we contributed to making North and Northeast as inaccessible for older and newer residents alike.
This got me to thinking about economics and community.
The articles in this week’s inPortland suggest a close knit African American community in N/NE that is often based largely on family and church, both of which are quite attached to physical place. So if those communities happen to be low-income it is likely that the neighborhood they live in is as well. Queer communities, on the other hand, are largely self-made, as biological families are not always particularly accepting. In fact, whole towns have reputations as being better or worse places for gays and lesbians to exist. If San Francisco, New York, Portland are positive cities, a large amount of the rest of the country may seem unfriendly at best. So queers have to create not only new families but a place for these communities exist. While a stereotype of gay men might usually imply money, the reality is that queer people are more likely to be low income than heteros. And if the low-income neighborhoods in gay-friendly cities happen to also be minority neighborhoods there is likely to be mixing, and possibly clashing as well.
Does the influx of poorer queers and artists necessarily portend the coming of more expensive boutique shopping and more well-to-do (white) families? It seems in many ways it does. Does it have to be this way? I don’t know. While the late 90s might have seen the beginnings of gentrification I also saw neghborhood kids occasionally dropping in on basement punk rock shows, minority owned bar-b-que carts and taquerias that started to serve a few vegetarian options, and people of all colors and sizes biking down Killingsworth together.
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 Still no plans over Memorial Day weekend? Seattle will be invaded by femmes and femme-lovers for its first Queering Femininity conference. Build up gender, tear it down, but most important is learn, exchange, and play. The weekend will be filled with all three. And by filled I mean 6 to 8 workshops to choose between from dawn til dusk and parties from dusk til dawn again.
There will be vendors and an art exhibit all weekend. Saturday nights event is Femmetastic Cabaret, while Sunday youll have to choose between 2. On one hand you have the Dirty Dancing themed all ages dance featuring all the songs from that bizarre blending of the 60s and 80s, or for the more adventurous among us Seattles community center The Wet Spot hosts a play party (18+ of course).
But the daytime should be well worth the trip in and of themselves. Heres a rundown of some of the most enticing workshop titles: Confessions of a Pillow Queen: Femme Desire and Sexual Agency, Post Porn Love, Sex Workers and the Perversion of Proscribed Gender Roles, What’s That Under Your Dress?, Visualizing Mixed Race Femme Identities, Stalking the Wild Butchand oh so much more, some of which I dare not print here. Its the school you always wanted to attend.
And if youre too overstimulated and overwhelmed with information. Theres always that big sale at Ikea up there
All weekend in Seattle. Get all the information you need at the Queering Femininity website.
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 Monthly Party Line queer party at Holocene tonight. I’ve heard it’s a favorite and mmm, aren’t Holocene (1001 SE Morrison) drinks yummy? 9p $5.
Better yet, Friday go see JenRO, out queer latina rapper, with DJ Puppet and Olympia’s odd but interesting Nicky Click. 9p at the Bossanova (722 E Burnside), $5.
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 While I cannot comment on whether Sleater-Kinney still identifies with, in, or about the queer community, they’ve certainly played a significant role in the northwest’s queer adolescence. But with today’s birth of their 7th album, The Woods, the girls show they are most definitely grown.
 Carrie Brownstein’s lead guitar skills have become unmistakable, and The Woods doesnt seem to be afraid to throw on the reverb and let her rip. The album even includes an 11 minute anthem, Lets call it love, that keeps the jam spirit alive, combining it with a punk rock style that produces and strange but interesting child. I wander and get lost in The Woods in a way that I never have in SKs usual urgency. If each album carries a distinct message, this release seems to say, Let go And yet, then Night Light kicks in with Corins haunting voice lilting over the guitar and you lose some of not all who wander are lost peace to the calm of unnerve. And, while the sadness of Jumpers is readily apparent, it is also oddly comforting as the two voices blend over staccato electronic sounds. The albums intro, The Fox is equally weird, if more apparently so as the guitar strings bend into off-key musings.
 All in all The Woods is a surprisingly psychedelic trip through the thickly forested Northwest music scene. Im inclined to let my curiosity lure me into the shade but, while enticing, entering these mind-altering woods are is also a bit risky. Not everyone will have a good trip.
Special in-store signing tonight celebrating the new release at Music Millenium (801 N.W. 23rd at Johnson). 6 pm. They’ll be giving away tix to Portland shows as well…(correction: originally this said performance. oops!)
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I have so many, occasionally mixed, feelings about gay marriage and civil unions and the whole bit, for a variety of complicated reasons and ponderings, which I won’t get into now. But as long as we’ve got this SB 1000 measure I will do all I can to support it. Because I know I don’t have the same rights as straight folks and I feel that I am entitled to these rights that priviledged individuals enjoy and feel entitled to without even any thought. So when I took a gander at some of the letters collected by Basic Rights Oregon protesting the measure I took great offense. Let me just share a couple of my personal favorites:
SB 1000 is bad public policy, because is creates special rights for one group of citizens at the expense of others. The charge of discrimination has become a weapon used by special groups to bludgeon those with whom they disagree. SB 1000 codifies this advantage in law. Gays are no more the target of discrimination than obese people, people with abrasive personalities, or ugly people. – Sherry Hill
So true, why should ugly and abrasive people be allowed to marry? Wouldn’t they only make ugly and abrasive babies anyway? The world probably would have been better if Billy Bob and Angelie Jolie were never allowed their tryst, don’t you think?
I am opposed to this bill because the only thing that it really does is provide tax incentives for same sex couples. We do not need any more tax loop holes. -Leonard Peoples
We don’t need anymore tax loopholes, especially for corporations…but struggling little queer couples? We actually pay more than our share. A queer tax. You heard me. I pay a special queer tax. I’m lucky enough to get healthcare through my partner’s place of employment, however, we pay all the taxes on it, not just the portion we pay. Married couples do not. Now you tell me who have special rights eh?
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