Victoria Soyer (Dixie) anwers Robin Cloud's questions

Mellyss'ah Mavour (Daria) on the hotseat

Dasha Snyder (creator) tells it all

Back out our beloved Drunken Pussycat, Henrietta Hudson's alter ego in "The D Word," some cast and I sat down to chat about our little film that could to Robin Cloud of "Under The Pink Carpet," a cable access show like the gay "Entertainment Tonight." It's been nearly 2 years since we shot in HH, but it still feels like home. Check out the UPC website for air dates and clips.

Current Mood: relaxed

At least Go NYC Magazine LOVES me... I'm right below Portia De Rossi and just above Stacy Codicow in the listings/rankings/accounting of lovable lesbians with a heightened profile in 2006. As my friend Jen put it "Under Portia? That's HOT." Does that make me a bottom to Ellen's sweetheart or a top to Power-Up's founder? (Or sideways to Transexual Menace's Riki Anne Wilchins?) Only my sweetie knows... In a nod to "The D Word" alumni, Julie Goldman (Drea), Marga Gomez (Dot) and Erin Greenwell (editor) also ranked up there.

Current Mood: amused

Well, apparently they don't totally hate us up North, after all. Tonight's screening of The D Word is SOLD OUT in Toronto! I so wish I could be there... We were rejected by Toronto last year, AND Vancouver AND Montreal (until their programmers saw it with an audience in L.A. and asked to screen it, finally) and then I ran into one of the Inside Out programmers on the LGBT film festival circuit. She was touring around with her own short film, and at several filmmaker parties around the USA, she drunkenly apologized for not selecting The D Word for her festival and encouraged me to reapply, which I did. So, now Toronto's finally getting a taste of our New York snark and cheese.

Current Mood: amused

So, The D Word has landed me on 2 panels in the near future. The first and biggest (and the one I actually have info for) is the queerliscious 2006 Queer Media and Entertainment Conference. Think of it as my beloved NewFest Filmmakers Forum (which I'm coordinating) on steroids, or the East Coast edition of Persistent Vision (which I'm dying to attend). I'll be speaking on the first panel on April 15 - The DIY Generation: Creating and Distributing Your Indie Digital Content.

Come watch me talk way too much about grass-roots independent filmmaking with some very interesting folks. And it's all gay, all the time, to boot!

Did I mention that The D Word will be playing in rotation at their Mix Tape PLAYroom?

Q-Me Con 2006
The DIY Generation: Creating and Distributing Your Indie Digital Content
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Theater 2: 11am-12pm
Tribeca Cinemas

Current Mood: chipper

BEFORE

Post-poo flinging season finale money shot

AFTER

Lobo, the current occupant

Last night I ate a yummy Mexican meal at Lobo after winning a t-shirt in the Velvetpark Magazine issue 10 launch party raffle at Cattyshack. Aside from all the warm-fuzzy lezzie memories of the space formerly occupied by The Rising Cafe, it felt odd to chow down in the stand-in for The D Word's venerable Women's Anarchist Collective Theater (WACT). This was the place on which we blew half the budget in a nearly 24-hour overnight shoot of the season finale's money shot: flinging fake dog sh*t at actors and building in one hopeful take. Once you throw poo, there's no second chances with costumes and location. And we got it, thank G*d! When we took the space over for a fateful day, it was gutted and forlorn on a corner in Park Slope, and today it's a shining example of the continual gentrification of Brooklyn. A delicious but slightly wistful pang of a neighborhood in transition.

Current Mood: calm

My life in parody continues apace. You are now reading the blog of the newest member of The Lesbian Overtones!

From their myspce page:
"We are an a cappella group hailing from Northampton, MA. We believe in bringing lesbian standards back to the masses in four-part harmony!"

That would be a fictional lesbian a cappella group. OK, they're not fictional lesbians, and neither am I, but the act sure is a fictional hoot. Check out the medley of tunes they do here.

The competition was fierce last night at KaraOkay at Cattyshack, but I persevered by singing a little Peter Gabriel, ala Lloyd Dobbler, to my sweetie.

I'm so overtonal...

Current Mood: bouncy

view from my kitchen window

OK, so no one will show up at my L Word watching party tonight because of late notice and a tiny little BLIZZARD. I'm such a Jewish mother - I made so much food! At least I'll be well-fed as I watch with my friendly felines. You know the comments will get positively catty.

Betty Friedan
February 4, 1921 - February 4, 2006

In 11th grade Mrs. Underwood assigned everyone a chapter to read from Betty Friedan's revolutionary book "The Feminine Mystique." I was assigned the chapter on Penis Envy. I kid you not. We then had to present our chapter to the class at large and much puzzled discussion ensued. I believe I shocked the class by opening with "I never wanted a penis or envied those who had them." Little did I know back then that I could purchase a lovely facsimile at Toys in Babeland or that my friends would someday inject testosterone and grow their own facsimiles. I didn't know such things existed then, but reading Betty Friedan unhooked my notions of femininity from their societal moorings, opening my mind to new possibilities of perceiving myself in the world. Thank you, Betty. I hope you rock the next world, now, as you did in 1963. And Happy Birthday.

Current Mood: thankful

...at least I hope it is. Yep, The L Word's back same time next year with those libidinous ladies in L.A. Since we're too broke to make another D Word season, I'll have to settle for cracking wise at the screen while watching with friends. Hey, pass the peanuts, please...

photo from www.l-word.com

Current Mood: optimistic

photo by Jill Kre

This is a deadly year for my favorite writers. Now, the woman who inspired me to be a "woman playwright," Wendy Wasserstein, is dead at the far too early age of 55.

My freshman year in college, we staged her early play "Uncommon Women and Others," and later that year she won the Tony Award for "The Heidi Chronicles." As I watched her acceptance speech, ecsatic and proud, she held her Tony on high and exclaimed "This is for women playwrights everywhere!" Finally, a role model. I wrote my first play within months.

Well, it was nice to have a witty, smart, female, Jewish, New Yorker, successful playwright to look up to for nearly 18 years, in my consciousness. I'm wishing her "break a leg" and know she'll get a standing "O" up in heaven.

Current Mood: sad

I spent most of my day begging a seemingly intractable bureaucrat to see beyond the letter of her regulations to the real world application of their words, and arguing with FedEx - both related headaches.

My latest script To Do: was sent to the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition (the script is set in my hometown of Baltimore) hours before their stated deadline of 5pm on Tuesday. FedEx got it there at 8:21am 1/17/06. The problem? FedEx didn't deliver it to the right office in the building, and the miscreant who signed for a package that didn't belong to him/her, sent it back to me via FedEx unopened on my dime, arriving back in NYC this morning - PAST the deadline. Despite having proof of delivery to the correct address, the bureaucrat refused to consider my application. I wasn't asking for her to dub me the winner of the contest, just to give me the fair shot that I deserved. I followed the rules, but was being penalized for someone else's expensive mistake. While I gave FedEx Hell and called everyone I knew connected to film in Baltimore, through some set of divine circumstances, the bureaucrat relented, and I re-sent my script to my beloved hometown. All I needed was my foot in the door.

Today, when I read about Marga Gomez's show "Los Big Names" coming to Off-Broadway this Spring, I remembered when we found her headshot among the thousand or so submitted. Maggie Burkle & I started jumping up and down, oooing and ahhhing that we had a lesbian "star" in the mix. Marga was our foot in the door to LGBT festivals. If we could just get our film in front of the right eyes, we knew we had a shot to win them over.

I have no idea what the Baltimore Screenwriters Competition will think of my script. I just know that it's the best thing I've written in a decade, and all I was asking for is the same foot in the door every other applicant got, to get it read. The rest should speak for itself.

Tonight I packed into Crobar with 100's of other L Word-enamored lesbians to watch the HRC-sponsored screening of the Season 3 premiere. It felt like a festival screening; Only with a lot more alcohol and women making out next to me - loudly. The show seems to have regained its humor and lost some of its cohesion. We'll see how it plays out over 13 episodes...

The best part? Running into friends (some D-Worder's, in fact) after wading through the sea of dykes. We lamented that the hot women around us only seemed to turn out once a year for these premiere parties, and not on a regular basis for some conubial fun. And we lamented the show and our family origins and our (lack of) jobs and our artistic endeavors and our cooking and the state of the world and the length of time in between seeing each other. I wouldn't mind seeing some of that jumble of our lives onscreen, and hope those warm-fuzzies and angst make it in there. Guess I've got more to write myself...

Current Mood: quixotic

Marga Gomez, Dasha Snyder & Mellyss'ah Mavour

"The D Word" turns out to be a collectible item - at least a poster signed by the cast and a few copyright-disputed t-shirts are... People actually bid on these items to raise money at the annual NewFest Winter Benefit. It felt like old home week. First the benefit, then the collaboration with D Word bit-player (and I mean that in the best sense...) Jenn Katz on a new feature script, then director Maggie Burkle came over for some vegetarian chilli, and I went from lunch with Julie Goldman this afternoon to a fabulous production of "On The Verge" produced and designed by D Word production designers Mandy Embry and Dave Castellano tonight.

It's so good to see everyone working and well. Makes me want to write Season 2...

Current Mood: nostalgic

Someday I'll write something good enough for Cherry Jones to act in.

Current Mood: impressed

While The D Word didn't address HIV and AIDS, it's still close to my heart and my art. As the movie adaptation of the musical Rent plays round the world, let's not forget that people are still losing their battle with the disease. While Sarah Schulman's claim on the storyline to the musical is strong, I have to say that as a lesbian living in New York City at approximately the same time, my experiences were remarkably similar to those in her book People In Trouble, and similar to a lot of queer folks of the same time and place. I choose to celebrate her book, Rent and my own interpretation of that turbulent time of death, hope and art in my screenplay Transit Karma. 20+ years on in this epidemic and I'm still waiting for an accurate representation of living with the virus in mass media, the cleaned-up version on QAF, aside. Maybe it's the next project to tackle after our parody of The L Word, maybe give a little humor to the proceedings as well...

* ADDENDUM *

I just came from a fantastically funny performance of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the musical. 'Tis the season for the annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS pitch from the stage of every Broadway show's curtain call. John Lithgow, the star of the show, came down to the footlights, turned up the house lights and auctioned off a hand-drawn caricature he'd made of the entire cast for opening night. He got the folks in the orchestra seats bidding higher and higher and sold it for $550. Believe me, if you can afford the orchestra seats, you can afford to help stop AIDS. What was so refreshing was that we had just watched him play the ultimate con man, and here he was conning us for good and entertaining us to boot! Perhaps there really is hope to conquer this disease with science and wit after all.

Current Mood: contemplative

Geo Creed Wyeth aka "Tha Novice" is America's 1st Queer Idol

Last Night at American TranStand, a benefit for the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the youngest D Word-er did us all proud, now that he's a legal 21 and blossoming into the incredible performer we knew he could be. Geo Creed Wyeth ("tha novice") won the first ever Queer Idol contest from a crowded field of wannabes. And who judged him so? Why, none other than the creator of "the L Word" herself, Ilene Chaiken, as one of 3 celebrity judges, including the always suave Murray Hill and the always eloquent Emanuel Xavier.


Daniela Sea, Ilene Chaiken & Imani Henry

Of course, Ilene Chaiken was in attendence to boost her baby, The L Word, by showcasing next season's Trans storyline with the actress in the FTM role, Daniela Sea. Let's see... Our FTM character Dex was played by Geo Wyeth. Hmmmm... There's a nice symetry to Ilene crowning him last night... Don't ya' think? I certainly felt like a proud Mom. I didn't get to thank her, though, as I was kept away from Ilene and the other VIP's by virtue of my peasant-colored wrist band. The VIP's got blue bands and us commoners got orange. I wore that proudly, too. Don't worry - I'd never cause a rukus. After all, without Ilene and The L Word, where would The D Word & I be?

* Read my take on it all at theLwordonline, too... *

Current Mood: chipper

Does The D Word know how to call 'em, or what?


Sheryl Swoopes by Max Cardelli/for ESPN | Bill Baptist/Getty Images

Having our professional athlete character Daynisha Dykman, the fictional power forward for the New York Straphangers, come out in big fashion during our season finale, seems to have been prescient. Today Sheryl Swoopes came out of the closet and walked right on to the Olivia cruise boat. You can't get any more women's basketball-icious than that!


I don't think we'll be getting promo shots like this from the Swoopes camp, but one can always dream.

Even though the Houston/NY rivalry has been simmering since the innagural WNBA season, I will hop right over to the WNBA store and buy myself a sweet Swoopes jersey (and maybe a pair of Nike Air Swoopes) and add it to my Michelle Van Gorp and Sue Wicks collection. You know it's a trend when there's 3 - 3 out WNBA players, several dozen more to go...

3 Olympic Gold Medals .............................. $3,000 (melted down)
3 MVP titles ............................................... $30,000 (contract bonus)
4 Championships ...................................... $300,000 (team revenue)
1 long-term lesbian relationship ............... undisclosed sum in divorce settlement
Personal dignity and happiness................... priceless

Current Mood: ecstatic

Lincoln Theatre in the rain
For the second time in a week, I made my way South to Reel Affirmations - Washington D.C.'s LGBT film fest. Last weekend was for a rockin' sneak peek at Erin Greenwell's "Mom," a buddy road movie with a dyke heart of gold - currently a work in progress. Part of what made Reel Affirmations all warm fuzzies (aside from the fact that every filmmaker I know who's attended can't stop talking about how much they loved it) is that they support filmmakers in a very basic way: they give them money to make more films. Erin got their Plant A Seed grant a few years ago and came up with "Mom." I've been to a lot of film festivals in the past year, and my favorites have been the festivals that give back in very concrete ways, like Out In Africa's filmmaking workshops and video suitcase outreach project. This year Reel Affirmations awarded their grant to one of their own, Sarah Kellogg, who used to work at the festival and is now making her own films. There's a certain satisfying roundness to that filmmaking cycle.


family & friends chow down afterwards
Tonight was closing night, and The D Word was the closing women's film. It was a great crowd (who waited in a long line in the puring rain to get into the show) in a grand old home - the Lincoln Theatre. Washington D.C. is basically my hometown crowd, being a Baltimoron with a bunch of D.C. relatives and friends in the house. It's hard to get more proud than having your family dig your work. At the closing night party I was approached by a bunch of women who really appreciated our film, but more importantly, appreciated the huge effort that goes into making films, especially lesbian films. To have all our hard work enjoyed, appreciated and recognized was just icing on the evening's tasty cake. No wonder all my filmaker friends love Reel Affirmations so much...

Current Mood: satisfied

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day. Today is the 7th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. It's the trifecta of reflection.

So, yesterday was a day to be newly proud, today is a day to remeber the horrendous consequences of hatred, and tomorrow is the day of atonement. I remeber very clearly the moment I heard about the beating of Matthew Shepard; I was working at Sesame Street, and it was the first time I cried in the workplace. I was with the most caring, sensitive, make-the-world-a-better-place-through-education people in the world, and I don't think I could have handled it if they weren't there. For the past 2 years this tragic anniversary hits even deeper due to the horrific murder of Sakia Gunn, a black NJ butch lesbian teen: stabbed for declaring her sexuality to a man hitting on her as she waited for the bus. Hardly anyone has heard of Sakia, unless you're in the Newark-NY metro area, but she's as much in my heart as Matthew and all hate crime victims. The Jewish High Holy Days are 10 days of reflection, asking of forgiveness, atoning for your sins against your fellows, yourself and G-d. Yom kippur is the day of atonement, the last chance to make it right for the year, and the holiest of days.

I came out 11 years ago. Matthew would have been 29 this December and Sakia would have been 18 this May. I am trying to reconcile all my deeds and words, pray for a chance at another year to get it right, and thank G-d that I'm alive to do so. That's my trifecta of reflection.

L'Shava tova.