Sleep in Seattle then O Canada.
After my sojourn in San Fransisters, and my R&R in Marin, where I won one and lost one game of Scrabble, those Scrabble dictionaries really cramp my style, I flew to another gorgeous city, Seattle. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to visit them. Michele and one of her posse, Francisca, took a 24 hour train ride up to Seatte. She would not recommend it. My pal Paul Bauer, who has produced me several times there, picked me up at SeaTac. It was March, so he was in shorts. Note to foodies reading this: all meals were taken at The Flying Fish.
Except for the NCLR benefit that night at the Hotel Andra and their hors were fab. The Seattle gals showed up! I had great chats with real estate brokers, a pilates trainer, a minister, a fabulous scientist and a private investigator. Cris Williamson, whose 30th Anniversary Changer and the Changed Tour – has it only been 30 years? – is also NCLR sponsored and who lives in town, came to the event. Always a pleasure. Because of a 5K match, we shut the doors and wouldn’t let anyone leave until we raised the match. Catholic guilt and fundraising, it’s a natural.
The Seattle show at the Bena Roya Hall, Benihana to me, was dreamy – packed and they were all charged up by yet another anti-gay measure. People need to get real jobs. Why can’t we, as a gay movement, just start suing these anti-gay ballot pushers for harrassment and loss of income?
Next morning, we boarded the Victoria Clipper to Victoria. You haven’t lived until you ride the ferries in the northwest. I’m clapping. I believe in ferries. Jannit, who met us at the terminal gave us a quick tour of some of the island. Spring was springing, the sun was out, things were blooming. Then I was sneezing, but that’s for my medical blog. The show in the Alix Goolden Hall was great fun. No one appreciates some good Bush Bashing like Canadians. They are all quite restrained – they could have gone around gloating, "We told you so," but they now have a new P.M. Steven Harper, who wants to be like George, so they seem a bit embarrassed.
From Victoria, we hopped the ferry from Swartz Bay, and threaded the needle through misty green islands and arrived in Vancouver. More clapping. The show at the Arts Club Theatre on Granville Island was a raucous, blast for a Sunday night and the reception after for their Youth Center was a chance to see old familiar faces and some new ones. Friends from back in the day of camping on Saturna with Ferron after the Vancouver Folk Festival where I had insulted some in the crowd by observing that I loved Mother Teresa in ET. Friends from that long ago.
Next morning I bid a sad farewell to Michele Karlsberg, my publicist who had been road managing me since San Fransisters. She headed back to Staten Island, by plane not train and her friend from SF, Francisca, headed home. Unmanaged, I managed to make my way through Customs back into the states to LA. When the agents ask if you are carrying any dangerous weapons, I always want to point to my tongue. But the signs all say, "No Joking" which I take very personally.
