No 144 Winter 2010 $9.95 Divas and GurusS pring R enewal It’s the time of year to dust off your spring clothes and head back outside for some new adventures. What have you been waiting all winter to do? A number of us at RFD are itching for the start of the gathering season, so we can flaunt ourselves across a multitude of continents, making appearances at faerie soirees from Amber Fox to Terschelling to Thailand. But for the rest of us, just eager to get out into our gardens in the back yard, it’s time to be thinking of seeds and soil, tillage and top-dressing. What are your spring plans? Let us know what sojourns or projects are in your stars. Or, if you’re feeling reminiscent, send us stories, poems, artwork or images from a spring fling past. Whatever springs to mind, dust it off, polish it up, and see it flower in the next issue of RFD. We depend on our readers’ submissions for our content, and your contributions are deeply appreciated. Please send all material to submissions@rfdmag.org, with “Spring 2011” in the subject line. Artwork and photos should be scanned at a resolution of 300 dpi or greater, and should be at least 1 megabyte in size. If the image is in color, scan it in color. The deadline for this issue is February 1, 2011. Issue #145 Spring 2011 Call for SubmissionsRFD 144 • Winter 2010 Renata Fiona Dietrich Between the Lines The Divas and Gurus Issue Vol 37 No 2 #144 Winter 2010 While we’re all reeling from the tantrum of the American voters clamoring for the divas from the Tea Party, we thought it would be sen- sible to reflect on some true divas and heroes. While many of us identify with some torch singer or look to some screen diva to beguile us, some identify with the personal heroes in our daily lives or the people within the queer community who help shape our culture and identity. Like ice cream everyone has their own flavor when it comes to divas and gurus. A major theme coming out of the pieces for this issue is how the diva is a political force, a champion for the underdog, albeit one often bathed in fierceness and sequins. Often the details of our connections to divas are bathed in our letting go of shame and transforming hurt into comedy or pathos. Yet, it’s also clear from many of the articles that faced with meta- morphosis of difference that divas bring to the world–we all drink from the same well of ideas, dreams and desire to be “special”. So we hope you enjoy the issue and that you are able to transform some of ‘ugly’ out there into something beautiful, something glimmer- ing, alive and most of all uniquely you. As we enter the solstice we hope everyone enjoys the holidays and that everyone gets those “black cha cha heels”. And since we’re making our holiday wish lists, we at RFD hope you are able to make room on your shopping list to make a donation, renew your subscrip- tion and even better give RFD as a gift to some- one else, as we’re up for “seeing new people”. Like any diva we love swag! –The elves at RFD who love our divas and think some gurus are hot. RFD 144 • Winter 2010 CONTENTS On the Covers Front & Back: “Josephine Baker Dreams, 1998” by Luna Luis Ortiz Inside front cover: Photo by Matt Bucy Inside back cover: TBD Production Bambi Gauthier, Editor in Chief Matt Bucy, Design & Production Myrlin, Prison Pages Editor Jason Schneider, Editor Eric Linton, Editor Michel DuBois, Treasurer Image Credits D.W. Griffith ..............................2 Wayne Bund .......................3, 16 - 18 Justin Stone-Diaz ..........................5 Pixie Vision Productions ....................8 Amos Mac ...............................12 Carol Rosegg .............................13 Richard Mitchell ..........................14 Luna Luiz Ortiz ......................21 - 24 Philip Gambone ..........................25 David Wright (Street Candy) ...............28 Dolly pics ................................32 C. Huilo C. ..............................37 David King ..........................38 - 40 Vinny Collazo (Joy Boy) ...................42 Hummingbird ............................43 Artist Links RFD appreciates the following artists whose work appears in this issue: Pixie Vision Productions www.pixievisionproductions.com Amos Mac / www.amosmac.com Richard Mitchell / www.richardmitchell.com Luna Luiz Ortiz www.facebook.com/PhotographyByLuna David King / www.davidkingcollage.com Hummingbird www.flickr.com/photos/hummingbird-dreams RFD is a reader written journal for gay people which fo- cuses on country living and encourages alternative life- styles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, radical faerie consciousness, nature-cen- tered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by dif- ferent groups in various places. We print in New England. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302 Non-profit tax exempt #62- 1723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at RFD Press, 231 Ten Penny Road, Woodbury TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $7.75. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year. Copyright © 2010 RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: 85 N Main Street, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001. • Mail for our Brothers Behind Bars project should continue to be sent to P.O. Box 68, Lib- erty TN 37095. Between The Lines ................................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Announcements / Letters ........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 My Hero, My Husband ............................Marc Matheson ...........4 Book Review: My Diva 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them ..................Sasha Vodnik .............6 Ms. Kiki Durane: Her Sound and Fury ..............Christopher Schmidt ......7 Margaret Cho: How to Break Every Oriental Stereotype in the Book ....................Kenji Oshima .............8 Dearest Bernadette ...............................Christopher Hamblin .....10 With a “Z” .......................................Anthony Marando .......11 Justin Bond ......................................Contessa ................12 Joan of Arc: My Diva ..............................Andrew Ramer ..........15 Feyonce .........................................Wayne Bund (Pan) .......16 Dory Previn: A Diva to Inspire Overcoming ..........Jay “Jaybird” Warren .....19 B’Elanna Torres, My Latina Diva ..................Aldo Alvarez ............20 Las Divas Photographs ...........................Luna Luis Ortiz ..........21 Franklin Abbott ..................................Philip Gambone .........25 Aretha Franklin ............................David Wright (Street Candy) ....28 Judy Grahn ......................................Philip Gambone .........29 Miss Hamblin Channels Her Holiness the Dolly Lama Christopher Hamblin .....32 Interview with Michael Thomas Ford ...............Endora. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Jaguar Magician - An Appreciation ................Mountaine ..............37 Collages .........................................David King ..............38 On the Ferry .....................................Jonathan Leiter ..........41 Remembrances ...................................Joy Boy (Vinny Collazo) ...42 Prison Pages .....................................Myrlin ..................44 Lillian Gish being pushed out into the White River for the filming of D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East. This magazine was produced within view of this location.RFD 144 • Winter 2010 ANNOUNCEMENTS, LETTERS, EVENTS AND CONTACT INFO AnnOunceMents Stewart Scofield, an RFD founder’s writing sought for compilation In 1974, Stewart Scofield helped to found RFD. He did so with the intention of helping gay men in rural areas connect, grow and feel a sense of community. From his work with RFD, Stewart went on the work with the Billy Club in Mendocino County, Food for Thought - the Sonoma County HIV/AIDS Foodbank, and countless Gay Liberation and HIV/AIDS advocacy groups. In 2006, Stew- art passed away leaving behind a life’s worth of writing both personal and public which he asked me to compile, edit and publish for him. I am asking any members of the RFD community who remember Stewart and his contribution to the early days of this publi- cation or any other memories they have of him to please share those with me as I work to fulfill his final request of me - to create a memorial to a man whose life, in so many ways, tells a story yet untold - of those gay men who chose to stay in their hometowns, or in small towns across America living lives that are honest, open, loving and brave. My thanks to everyone. Everett Charters: everettwcharters@ gmail.com. Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture Edited By Jonathan D. Katz and David C. Ward Smithsonian Books ISBN: 978-1-58834-299-7 Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture is an entrancing narra- tive focused on the impact of gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities in the world of American art. As part of a major exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery which is showing from October 30, 2010 through February 13, 2011. This book is be- ing released as the companion to the first museum exhibition in American history to focus on art and culture by esteemed mem- bers of the gay community. Hide/Seek features over 150 colored il- lustrations, drawings and portraits created by notable artists, musicians, architects and writers including Georgia O’Keeffe, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Throughout the book, Hide/Seek shows and tells the challenges that the gay commu- nity has faced in the art realm since the days of Eakins and the worst years of the AIDS crisis. Through quotes, descriptions and his- torical facts, readers get a sense of what it means to be an under-appreciated gay artist struggling to make it in a critical American society. The book also reveals how modern American culture and art has paved the way for these artists to express themselves by us- ing conceptualization of American art as their catalyst. The book begins with attention-getting quotes from Eakins’s Salutat and Walt Whit- man and concludes with works from Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, and Cass Bird. In between, readers can set their sights on mesmerizing works of art created by some of the most important American artists of the twentieth-century. This fully, enriched narrative serves as in- spiration for members of the art industry and a history lesson for art enthusiasts world- wide. LETTERS Summer Issue Feedback Thanks to all who worked on the summer RFD. Coming of age in a radical queer collec- tive in the middle 70’s as I did was a terrible beauty to paraphrase Yeats. The Ozark radi- cals were in the vanguard of the radical faerie movement but were detoured somewhat by the “Cultural Revolution”. There are so many more stories that should be told from that time that could be useful in getting back to the ROOT. And I like a good firm root every once in a while. I was credited with most of the pics in the article about Dennis Melba- son and that was correct except for the one in which Dennis is knitting the faerie shawl. That one was taken by Doof of New Mexico. Thanks again to all who keep RFD going. –Micheal Oglesby Fall Issue Feedback The fall issue is amazingly beautiful... keep up the good work production team. – Sr. Clara I love the Fall 2010 issue... it’s gor- geous... you guys are doing a great job. – Kd Calfee GATHERING GUIDE This guide was written on the fly by visiting the various community websites but with spe- cial thanks to www.radfae.org. These commu- nities may have other gatherings and events not listed here. So please visit their individual websites or contact them directly. If you would like your community event listed here please send it in at least two to three months before the event. JAnuARY Asian Faerie Gathering Thailand, Jan 20-30, 2011 You are invited to join us at the 8th an- nual Asian Faerie Gathering, January 20-30, 2011 on the magical island of Koh Yao Yai near Phuket, Thailand. The gathering site is the remote and undeveloped island of Koh Yao Yai, at the beach front resort hosted by Khun Marisa. We look forward to another fabulous adventure of fun and self discov- ery. Look up the island on Google Earth or visit our photo galleries from past gather- ings at http://www.asianfaeries.com/gallery. This is a non-profit event organized by a di- verse group of guys living in Thailand, Estonia and the US. The idea is for gay people from all over the world to meet in a quiet and beauti- ful natural setting and get to know each other and ourselves better. We will have morning heart circles, nature walks, swimming, snor- keling and hopefully a cross-cultural romance or two. We improvise our activities as we go along through the week, but please plan on a talent show, fund-raising auction, and making new friends. We have sliding scale fees that will allow each person to pay what they can afford. We may be able to offer some travel scholarships for those wanting to attend from developing countries in South and Southeast Asia. If you don’t have money but really want to attend, please write to us and we will try to help you come to the gathering. E-mail us at: queen@asianfaeries.com. Continued on page 45 Breitenbush / Wayne Bund (Pan) RFD 144 • Winter 2010 Hero (noun) 1. A man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. 2. Classical Mythology. A being of god- like prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity. I t was a cold morning in December, a week before Christmas. It had been so unusually cold that - as if we needed any excuse - my husband, Christopher and I had snuggled in our sleep. After dressing for work, I kissed him good-bye – because his workday started later than mine and he works from home, he went back to sleep. I went downstairs and across the street to my car. As I reached for my car door, a speed- ing sports utility vehicle appeared from nowhere, headed straight towards me. Although I don’t have any conscious memory of what happened next, but the eyewitness said that I was thrown into the air, landed on my skull and bounced, and landed again on my right side. When I first opened my eyes I could not see. My first sense perception was hearing a woman screaming, crying, “I didn’t see him! I didn’t see him!” It was the driver of the SUV. She was late getting her daughter to school and hadn’t cleared the ice from her wind- shield. According to the police report, the driver had been talking on her mo- bile phone, too. Our neighbor, John, arrived. He was the first to call 911. John tried knocking on our front door, and then went down the side of our house and called up to our bedroom, which awoke Christopher. A few minutes later Christopher was standing by my side, stunned. Both of my knees and a shoulder were fractured. Every joint on my right side, as well as a crescent-shaped area around my left ear, was bruised dark purple and black like battered meat. That’s the day my husband became my hero, from the moment he found me lying there on the cold pavement in front of our home, seemingly lifeless and bleeding profusely from my head, sur- rounded by strangers. Even though it was, he would tell me much later, the most frightening moment of his life, for the next several months, and years Christopher has been uncon- ditionally kind, generous and tender. After I came home from the hospital with instructions to stay off my feet for six to eight weeks, Christopher became my nurse, constant companion, guard- ian and hero. He’s not fond of cooking, but made my morning tea and toast just the way I like them. He taught himself how to make omelets and several of my favorite dishes. Not fond of doing laundry either, he did it all: housecleaning, shopping, er- rands, scheduled medical appointments and ambulance trips. He gave me luxu- rious sponge baths and even wiped my bottom until I could manage the porta- ble toilet myself. Yes, the portable toilet that my darling husband emptied and cleaned. Never once did Christopher complain or say an unkind word. He said that the experience of caring for me taught him the meaning of Love. Never in my life, not since being a babe in my loving mother’s arms, had anyone attended to me as did Christo- pher. “Love” isn’t sufficient to express how I felt towards him. We had met online, six years before the accident and corresponded by email and online chat for several months. Our first date took place on a Friday noon in his studio apartment, the first twenty minutes of which we spent making out just inside the front door. It was only when we finally went out for lunch, six hours hour later, that we discovered it was already evening. O urs was love, and starry-eyed lust, at first sight. On Wednesdays I would pick him up at his workplace for extended lunchtime picnics in the Marin Headlands or some other scenic spot. On weekends we escaped to a friend’s Big Sur cottage and on the way home made love in the car, pulled over to the side of the road. We held hands in movie the- atres, went for hikes, and made love in the middle of the night. And then moved in together. During our first year of living togeth- er my early childhood memories of being molested by my father began to surface. Dad was dying and I was having my Chi- ron return, an astrological rite of passage signifying the death of childhood. In a word, it was deep. Christopher and I might be talking in the middle of a conversation, or sex, and suddenly I would drift off, as if I’d got- ten up and walked out of the room. He would come home from work, looking forward to being with me, only to find me glassy-eyed with fear. Lying in bed together on weekends and talking about together, I might be- gin weeping without rhyme or reason. In sex, if he played with my prick I became uncomfortable and distant. How ironic that as my father was dy- ing I’d finally met, at age 50, the man of my dreams and finally felt safe enough look at my childhood abuse, I was push- ing Christopher away. We worked successfully with a thera- pist, locating avenues of healthy com- munication. I learned to befriend the inner wounded father. Christopher and I accepted our dissimilar social, economic and cultural backgrounds, and our six- teen-year age difference. We cultivated our shared love of Nature, hiking, travel, music, and creative modes of living. As communication improved, sex and living together became fluid and mature. In our second year we took a two-week European holiday, an enchanted trip that started with a post-rainstorm dawn stroll My Hero, My Husband by Marc Matheson Never once did Christopher complain or say an unkind word. He said that the experience of caring for me taught him the meaning of Love.RFD 144 • Winter 2010 through old Amsterdam. We saw as an omen the pair of swans nesting outside our canal-side apartment. In Paris we made love in our studio near the Seine. More and more we felt that we’d found the ideal mate. During San Francisco’s brief Spring 2004 same-sex marriage celebration, we had an appointment at City Hall to be married. Two weeks before our date the Supreme Court of California blocked the marriages. U ndeterred, we created our own magical ceremony, writing our vows and reciting them, surrounded by family and friends, in a grove atop Mount Ta- malpais. Musicians from the Ali Akbar School of Music played love songs from Persia and India. Wisps of fog and clouds of soap bubbles glided over fields bright with May Day wildflowers. Deer grazed at forest’s edge. Guests sipped Arabian coffee and fresh mint tea, nibbled on Middle Eastern pastries. We toasted with flutes of Champagne among the trees and afterwards, in our backyard garden, danced to a French café band. But the honeymoon in Paris and Am- sterdam was blemished by difficulties, the worst being an argument on a canal bridge in which we vowed that once back home we would cease to be a couple. Yet stay together we did, continuing to work on our relationship. Six months later came my accident, by which time Christopher had realized that as much as he loved me he couldn’t stay with me. Finding me there in the street was frightening for him, but equally terrify- ing was the idea of having to care for me as I aged. He could see me through my recovery but couldn’t commit to doing it again. We were driving out to West Marin, where I now live, a lovely rural and agri- cultural area northwest of San Francisco. As we drove past the Nicasio Reservoir, Christopher began telling me that he’d hit a wall, that his will to stay with me had simply given out, that in order to re- connect with Life, his life, he had to leave me. While he felt intuitively that while his own future was dark and uncertain, he saw my future as bright, vital and happy. It was a deeply painful, wrenching deci- sion that required him separating heart from mind. It was, for me, devastating, also requiring that I, too, do the same. N ow, a year after our separation, we continue to improve our rela- tionship, navigating a new landscape. It hasn’t been easy for either of us. We’ve both had our stages of having no sense of the future, of feeling less, not more, con- nected to life. More than once I’ve wished that I could hate Christopher, or that he’d fall- en in love with someone else – anything to cauterize the wound and grief of be- ing separated from the one person I love more than all else. But through it all, Christopher and I have been here for each other, going for country drives, meeting for dinner or a movie, talking by phone, emailing one another. He even slept over with me on Christmas Eve. We remind one another that it gets better. It has, for us both, and we remain not just connected but love one another. There are heroes in this world, people who meet us wherever we are, who tell the truth, who recognize and provide what we need before we recognize those needs ourselves. There is such a hero in my life, a man who married me on every level of his being, and yet realized that he had to leave me, for his happiness as well as mine. My hero has shown me, by his good example, how to be my own hero, my own best friend. That man is Christo- pher, my “wasband” and best friend. “Click Here for Inspiration” by Justin Stone-Diaz RFD 144 • Winter 2010 F or anyone who has ever known an inspirational, one-sided relationship with a diva, editor Michael Montlack of- fers us a rich indulgence in this book of essays: a chance to learn about the femi- nine figures that other queer men hold dear, and compare notes. If you have ever spent time pondering the reason that di- vas hold such a prominent place in the hearts and lives of queer men, his collec- tion is an amazing stepping off point for further musings, liberally sprinkled as it is with thoughtful insights. I had heard of probably two-thirds of the divas in this volume; for the others, this was an introduction unlike any other. The 65 divas span centuries and genre, from the poet Sappho, who lived 2500 years ago, to Princess Leia, who entered our shared imaginations only a few de- cades past. The pieces share remarkable similarities that I had not expected when I picked up the book. In the book I found glimpses of writers coming of age, who were delving below the roiling surfaces of teenage sexualities to explore what they were recognizing and learning about dif- ference, solitude, strength, and survival. The essays are almost uniformly well written. Even so, a few standouts shine. Patrick Letellier’s piece on Queen Eliz- abeth I packs quite a punch into three pages, sketching an account both mov- ing and humorous of how lessons from his diva helped him in mourning the death of a close friend. Forrest Hamer delves into the role Mahalia Jackson and her music played in helping him under- stand who he was as a teenager, and who he might be becoming: “Mahalia’s pow- erful voice necessitated that I find some way of aspiring toward her emotional power while accepting I would never be someone who would sing the way she did.” Wayne Koestenbaum offers 21 short paragraphs about the singer Anna Moffo. He cheekily confides how he “signed the ‘Relatives and Friends’ book [at her wake], but did not write down my address. I feared that her stepchild or cousin would send me a chiding letter: ‘You had no business attending Anna Moffo’s wake. Wakes are for intimates.’” I n my day job, I have had to learn and relearn the lesson that facts, figures, and mission statements can rarely match the power of stories when it comes to measuring impact. My Diva provides an intimate look at how these women’s power, vulnerability, tragedy, and humor has affected, and sometimes shaped, the lives, ordinary and otherwise, of gay men who love them. • The following excerpts on Margaret Cho and Kiki Durane are from this book, My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them. Thanks to University of Wisconsin Press. Book Review: My Diva 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them Edited by Michael Montlack–Terrace Books, an imprint of The University of Wisconsin Press by Sasha VodnikRFD 144 • Winter 2010 Kiki and Herb Ms. Kiki Durane: Her Sound and Fury by Christopher Schmidt, excerpted from My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them K iki Durane is the more outgoing half of Kiki and Herb, the drag per- formance act that has been an under- ground, and increasingly aboveground, New York institution for the better part of a decade. I mean “better” in the pri- mary sense of the word: Kiki and Herb have brightened my nights and given voice to a whole spectrum of desires and disappointments that I didn’t know were in me until given life onstage. Meet Kiki, a washed-up cabaret singer with an epic backstory who stays afloat with a tumbler of liquor and a talent for the withering comeback. Played by Justin Bond—a dashing, androgynous, let’s say late-thirty-something performer—with an inimitable blend of ingenuousness and cynicism, one of Kiki’s least heralded vir- tues is her expansive taste in music. Kiki and Herb bring their lounge-act stylings (Kiki’s gravelly baritone is backed by Herb’s thundering piano arrangements) to the indie pop canon, covering every- thing from Joni Mitchell to Kate Bush to Radiohead. Then, just when you think they can’t push their sublime ironies any further, they’ll unearth the piquancy in some pop trifle like Britney Spears’s “ . . . Baby One More Time” or Gnarls Bark- ley’s “Crazy”—pure genius. But the definitive moment in a Kiki and Herb show is when, amid one of many autobiographical vignettes, Kiki sparks to fury, attacking some chimeri- cal or real foe (George W. Bush, for in- stance). Her anger is cathartic and oddly communal—the only time I’ve felt the queer fellowship I always anticipated I’d find in New York City. A Kiki and Herb show is more glamorous than a meet- ing at the LGBT center, less competi- tive (and generally disappointing) than a night at the bars. Kiki possesses a rare, magical ability to electrify the audience’s raw need—that universal need to be res- cued from loneliness and obscurity—and transforms that energy into a circuit of queer community and political activism, if only for one dazzling night. A fter the show, Kiki’s fans will act as if they own her, convinced Kiki speaks only to them. There are bragging rights. As for me, I’ll admit that I did not know Justin when he was—as legend has it—a precocious drama student at UC Santa Cruz. Nor did I see Justin/Kiki when s/he began her illustrious career in San Fran- cisco, circa 1993, emerging phoenix-like Courtesy of Justin BondNext >