Happy V-Day!
Had a blast in New Paltz the other Friday night, as part of the celebration of the opening of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center. After an obscenely short period of organizing and fundraising time, the building was bought, refurbished and the doors opened with 850 members!! Board chair, Ginny Appuzo, used her organizing experience, inspiring wit and a talented board to push the process forward. Actually they weren’t allowed to process. Their meetings were an hour long.
I stayed at the lovely LeFevre House B and B for the afternoon, did the show to a raucous audience and then attended a reception after, catered by the Culinary Institute of America. Thank god there were a lot of familiar faces – Alix Dobkin! Retts! Judith Turkel! – at the reception or I would have eaten all the dark chocolate caramels with sea salt topping. The Hudson Valley LGBTQ Center has awakened Rip Van Winkle but good. He doesn’t want to miss a thing.
The next day I was off to Dallas for a show produced by the multi-talented Susan Gore. She picked me up at the airport in a hot Chevy truck with decaled flames shooting back from the hood. The gorgeous landmark First Unitarian Church was the site of the night’s fun and was followed by a reception for NCLR. Again I saw lots of familiar and new faces and thus missed out on an amazing cake. I do believe my mother would come from the great beyond and crack me upside the head if I talked with my mouth full. She watches my points.
Texas seemed diminished by the loss of the great Texans, Ann Richards and Molly Ivins. And Anna Nicole Smith too. The Newsweek cover “Girls Gone Wild” does not begin to capture the true wildness of the girls who are gone. And as war rages in Iraq and George decides to turn toward Iran, it’s really the boys who are gone wild.
February 15 is the birthday of that great upstate suffragist, Susan B. “Failure is Impossible” Anthony. We’ll be celebrating the day in our house. My gal pal wears Elizabeth Cady Stanton drag. I’ll be the tall one in the wire rimmed specs. It’s a great scene.
February 16, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
Saw your show in Dallas. Can’t believe they allowed you IN Highland Park. Funny and intelligent what a great combination. I commend your shout outs to black history month. Maybe somewhere down the line your humor will be able to erase the color line in “our” community.
Coffey