Right after my wonderful, rocking, kick-ass show at the lovely
Birchmere in Arlington, VA, I hopped a train back to NYC, then a plane
to Ptown for the Thanksgiving break. When I got to Ptown the furnace
wouldn’t turn on, the internet wasn’t working and the Jeep wouldn’t
start. I can see why everyone needs a house butch.
All that to say that the Birchmere, the last stop on the 2007 Climate
Change Tour was unremarked upon in these blogpages. And it should not
be so dustbinned because there were laughs, Corona Lites and fried food
aplenty. I promised that the next time I return there on November, 14,
2008, it will be to celebrate a new regime.
Despite a bad case of Bush Fatigue, the audience had a great time. We
don’t want anyone to feel left out, so we recorded the festivities for
an 8th comedy collection, perfectly called Kate Clinton: Climate
Change! And it will be available to you in March just in time for your
Women’s History Month Gift Giving. We think of everything.

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Do yourself a favor and just sell your house or break your lease and move to Lexington, Kentucky. Sure, their football team might have lost their last two games, but you don’t really care about that any way. It is totally happening in Kentucky. Or KY as it is fondly, double entendrely, known.
It was, after all, in Lexington, KY in the late 1980s where I received that best compliment ever. After my show, I went out for a bite to eat with the producers. A young woman came up behind me, clapped me on the back and announced loudly, “Kate Clinton, you made me want to fuck again.” Luckily, at the time I had no adult beverages or food products in my mouth.
You’d be green with envy at what’s happening in this red state. Often when people are really up against it, they are made to unite and organize as if their lives depended on it. Lexington, seems to be a bluish dot in an otherwise carmine state, but they are fixing to export their LGBT pride throughout the state.
My performance at the Singletary Center on the KY campus was a kickoff fundraising event for a one-year old group, JustFundKY. That’s not just funky. No. Their goal, under the dynamic leadership of Debra Hensley and Rep. Ernesto Sansone, is to raise money to fund the wonderful work that is already being done statewide. The very generous Scott Todd pledged to match any money raised, dollar for dollar, up to $500,000.
A thousand folks came out for the show, necessitating two big TV screens so the folks in the back could see my nosehairs. It was eerie to see myself out of the corner of my eye. I wish they’d played the World Series Game instead. PS Red Sox: when you sober up from the celebrations, do not go near A-Rod. It’s all about him. And if he was that good, he would have been playing in the World Series, not interrupting with news of his free trade status.
Okay I feel better.
Lexington is gorgeous country that had just begun to show hints of fall color. I was well cared for by Rachel King and Gloria Hansen, horse farm owners and “retired” transplants from San Fransisters. They moved to KY nine years ago and have never looked back. Lexington has the second highest per capita gay population of any city in the country. They both said that they really feel like they can make a difference there.
It could be a new NORC [naturally occurring retirement centers] of the South. Check it out.

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The Provincetown Women’s Innkeepers put on their 23rd Annual Women’s
Week and it was a rip-snorting good time!Thank you to them and all their hard work. And many homegrown thanks to Lynn Mogell and all the innkeepers who honored me with their first
Woman of the Year Award.
The schedule of events was jam-packed, the performers in town almost
out-numbered attendees, the guest houses were full, the weather could
have been more cooperative but everybody seemed to snuggle up and have
a good time. I know I did. Despite the annoying cold I caught from
some Typhoid Lezzie early in the proceedings.
Thursday’s Annual Touch Football Game at high noon at the Bas Relief in
the center of town was well-played by rotating teams of seven players.
Everyone looked very festive in red or white team jerseys supplied by
NCLR. Suzanne Westenhoffer’s galpal, Jen looked excellent in her black
and white ref shirt and officiated a great game. Vickie Shaw did play
by play, like a crazed southern Howard Cosell on the megaphone. We
even had four orange cones this year to indicate what actually might be
a touchdown. It started to rain after the game. No one got hurt,
maybe a little dinged and sore the next day but the crowd loved it.
The town was awash in performers in venues all over town. Thanks to
all who came to my shows and hooted and hollered and stayed to chat
after. It was great to see so many of you.
It was also great to see so many of my sweet sister performers day
after day in this one lovely place. Comics, singers, actors all put on
quite the show of lesbian culture and entertainment. Masquerade balls,
a basketball night with Cheryl Swoopes, Girl-Power dances, a
Romping/Stomping Lesbian Revival meeting, dinners, parties, and the
sheer enjoyment of outdoor acitivites on the tiny spit of sand known as
Ptown made for a total blast.
Hope everyone got one of my “Hilarity Clinton, 2008” buttons and is
wearing it back in your hometown. It’s a wonderful conversation piece!
The town is quiet this Sunday night. Fantasia Faire, a special week for
Transvestites known fondly in town as “The Tall Women” is up next and
early arrivals are promenading down Commercial Street in their London
Fog raincoats and size fifteen heels.
I’m so proud of my town. The women innkeepers of Ptown make all feel
welcomed.

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For those of you breathlessly waiting to update my where and how-abouts, with your pushpins suspended over your darling homemade Kate Clinton tour maps, I apologize for my tardy check-in. Your arms must be sore. You know who you are. Mildred W. in Sioux Falls.
The reason for my silence is quite simple. The collapse of the Mets. I mean, I knew that the bee colony collapse which I have been following and chronicling for you, a bit obsessively some would say, signaled the beginning of other collapses – bridges, mines, the dollar, Oral Roberts University – but the Mets were way ahead of their division with just two weeks to go and they didn’t even make the wild card draw. Never has any team in baseball suffered such a precipitous end of the season collapse.
I have no idea what I am talking about. I am merely parroting the ESPN chatter that is the only thing I can safely watch on television without mild panic attacks. Rachel Ray gives me agita. Did you know that those big-necked sportscasters say basically the same thing hour after hour with maybe a few new scores here and there? They are very convincing in their endless enthusiasm. Does anyone ever randomly test them for performance enhancement drugs? I bet Balco delivers.
Speaking of which, I love Marion Jones. Now more than ever. She made an apology that was clearer than her clear and should be a template for all other apologies that we will never hear from Bonds, McGwire, etc. I knew she was roiding back at the Olympics and my feeling was give her more and let’s really see how fast that gal can go. Whining George Vecsey, eat my dust.
About that pushpin. I had the complete pleasure of appearing in DC with Norman Leer’s advocacy group, People for the American Way for their Liberty Awards. Richly deserved awards were given at the Kennedy Center to entrepreneurial philanthropist, Tim Gill; documentarians of “Jesus Camp”, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady; Rutgers Women’s Basketball coach, C. Vivien Stringer and Madame Speaker of the House, California’s gift to double knits, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
While I was onstage I got the international symbol for “keep talking” from the show’s producer, Joel Silberman, because the speaker was still on the hill trying to get the Children’s Health Insurance Bill passed. It passed. George vetoed it saying we didn’t have the money for it. That was the same day the Senate approved 459 Billion for war spending. I want my ESPN.
A few days later, I had the pleasure of attending the huge Out and Equal Workplace Summit also in DC. I attended panels and plenaries, got to hang with the amazing band Betty! and to be inspired by Toshi and Bernice Johnson Reagon. The 2300 attendees were fired up to continue to bring LGBT visibility and equality to their workplaces. I emceed their raucous awards dinner, a celebration of their good work. Justice is good business. Someone tell George.
Today I am gathering up the pinnies and the orange field cones for my annual Touch Football Game at Women’s Week. For those of you with your pushpins, Mildred, I’ll be in Ptown all next week for what we used to call “The Running of the Mullets”, but we are way too styling for that kind of talk now.

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Maybe it was the back to school blues, the killer Hypocrisy Fatigue I’ve been suffering, and the anticipated, conflated manipulated Petraeus Report/ 9.11 Remembrances that combined to form a Category Ouch perfect storm of despair. My mother always said I was so dramatic.
So it was with the sluggishness of Lead Barbie by Mattel, that I boarded the first plane I’d been on after two months of riding my bike to work in Provincetown and headed out on the road again. On the road again. On the road again. Sing out Kathy Najimy.
Well, if you are blue, go to Bloomington, Indiana. Ironically, It’s a dot of blue in a red state. I did and I feel so recharged. Side effects may vary, but I have to say that at no time did I feel compelled to go to a bathroom stall in the LaGuardia Airport for some toe tapping. So much for the Restless Craig Syndrome.
When I landed in Indianapolis, home of the world series cup bowl winning Colts, I was met by Nancy and Kim and we headed out on the hour drive to Bloomington. They had not had rain in those parts for two months so it was beige like Baghdad. Nancy and I had met years ago at the Michigan and National Women’s music festivals and she’d brought photos of the young us. I was the one with clothes on.
I was there to help celebrate the 10th anniversary of the GLBT Alumni Association at Indiana University. They are an organization of 950 and their new president has said he wants to double the membership. Their group raises money for GLBT scholarships and also has emergency scholarships for students who, when they came out to their families, had been cast out of the bosom of the so-called family values.
After a lovely dinner with 200 of them, I performed at the refurbished I.U. Auditorium, site of many a women’s festival. A couple of the backstage tech guys remembered me from years ago! It was that yellow linen jacket. Very dramatic.
After a raucous show and post-show meet and greet, I rode back to Indianapolis with long time producer, Dino Sierpe, of Branching Out Productions. Yacking all the way. She’s fixing to celebrate her 25 years of production, and I am on board for wherever and whenever that happens.
And it poured! So just to let you know, I am available for appearances in drought-stricken regions. Must have been that toe-tapping in my rain dance.

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As promised, as soon as July 4th weekend is over, it’s a pretty quick slide downhill to the end of summer. Soon it will be Christmas. Already as I leave my show at 8p and go out to meet and greet my dear audience, the sun has set. April might be the cruelest month, but August has a nasty side to it.
Because I left the island for India for a week of celebrations for my partner’s Dad’s 80th birthday, I missed most of PTown’s Family Week. From what I did see and heard, they had a blast. The weather was hot and glorious and the beach at Herring Cove was a festival of multi-colored inflatable. COLLAGE, the group for children of gay parents was a huge presence this summer. I’m glad of that. In previous summers, there were just little kids from one to five and then nothing. I was worried that the gay parents were trading in the older kiddos. One way or the other, we are changing the structure of family. ‘Bout time.
This week is the lull week before Carnival. The first half of the week, everyone re-tools from Family Week and the second half everyone tries to remember what Carnival Theme is this year. Where is that formula for papier mache? The World Famous, second annual Drag Kickball Game is a riotous mid-week fundraiser.
Back to school ads have appeared. Or I just noticed them. A red leaf appears like a shock in thickets of green. It’s no longer light at 530 a.m. Soon George is off to vacation in Texas. The chickenshit Democrats, who couldn’t forestall the bill for more wiretapping, are off on recess. Even Iraqi lawmakers are taking the month off. I can’t make myself watch another candidate debate. Almost every third car visiting Ptown sports a variant of those Countdown to Bush’s last day bumper sticker.
This just in: this year’s carnival theme [thank god for ptown.org] is the very cheeky and redundant Fairy Tales. Thank goodness!! At this point fairies are about the only thing I believe in! Am off to get batteries for my wand.

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It’s Gay Pride Month in New York City and I don’t know if it’s a result of that premature spring ahead clock change thing that George did to save energy, but it seems awfully early this year. That is why it has been suggested that we just call it Gay Pride Era, claim the century and be done with it.
One of the traditional kick-offs of the week’s festivities here in New York is the Mayor declaring that he is no longer a Republican. Or at least that’s a new and cherished tradition. We hope every Republican mayor follows Mike Bloomberg’s lead. And the New York legislature got the gay marriage bill out of committee. It only took thirty years to pass a gay rights bill in New York, but we remain optimistic. What’s our option?
The other tradition of NY Pride is the LGBT Center’s Annual Garden Party. This year was number 24 and was held again on one of the Chelsea Piers. I had the honor of emceeing for the 18th time. My Staten Island posse, under the direction of my promo domo, Michele Karlsberg, was out in full force, getting names for the mailing list, handing out fliers of upcoming shows, finding all the free stuff and just being their usual fun schmooze operator selves.
I love our New York Center. It truly is the gay heart of Manhattan. Everyone loves it, so it’s jammed to the rafters. It’s time to expand. The $50 million capital campaign got a boost from Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer’s $1 million pledge and the $8 million pledge from Council Speaker and our favorite Irish lesbian, Christine Quinn. The grants were announced at the Garden Party and were a lovely testament to Richard Burns, the Center’s executive director, and his twenty years at his job.
It was a gorgeous night. We watched the sunset over New Jersey. We heard great entertainment – two-time Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, recording stars Chris Garneau and Kirsten Price, perennial favorite Lavender Light Gospel Choir and a hilarious, impromptu set from Michele Balan, last seen on The Last Comic Standing. And because the GP24 is sub-titled “A Taste of Pride”, the food was a smorgasboard of New York’s best, a dim sum of the divine. The people were proud and well-fed.
June 23, the night before the big Sunday gay pride march is The Dyke March. I can’t wait. It kicks off at 5p from Bryant Park and we don’t even get no stinkin permit. That’s what I’m talking about. We just march, dammit. Well not really march. It’s more of a mingle. It’s a sea of ex-lovers. And lesbian moms. And lesbian cheerleaders. And my favorite moment is when the young girls start peeling off their tank tops and climbing the streetlight poles. I don’t know who gives the signal, but this year I’m fixing to find out. And then I’m just going to give the signal in every city I visit. Happy LGBT Pride Era!

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The Month Formerly Known as June
On the last night of May, under a stunning Manhattan full moon, I made my way down to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Not for a butch outfit tune-up – “Is this tie too fat?” – but to attend the 19th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. The Lammies, darlings. The bad news is that the ceremony started in May and ended in June.
The good news is that there is just that much LGBT writing out there, despite LGBT bookstore closings, imprints ceasing and desisting, and a supposed decline in LGBT reading scores. I come from a family of readers, so it was a pleasure to help kick off the ceremony. Charles Flowers, the executive Director of the Lambda Literary Foundation and his hard-working board have resurrected and expanded the organization. From the silence of the Lambdas, the literary lions are aroar. Stop me before I ménage again. (www.lambdaliterary.org)
Early the next morning, I flew to Long Beach, California to do a show with the South Coast Chorale at the beautiful Karen & Richard Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the gorgeous campus of Cal State Long Beach, incidentally the alma mater of my booking agent, Tam Martin. She loves her old school. The evening was the chorale’s last with their innovative and creative musical director, Kevin Robison, who is moving to Atlanta to take over their music directorship. The South Beach Chorale gave it their joyous all and was joined by Men Alive from Orange County in the second half of the program. I joined the chorale on stage for one number, but I only lip-synced, I swear. Those chorales have a ton of fun.
Next day I flew up to San Fran Sisters, a city still recovering from NCLR’s 30th anniversary bash at Fort Marsha Mason. I did two shows at the Brava Theatre, now in its 21st year under the indefatigable direction of Ellen Gavin. She has made Brava! the entertainment hub of the Mission with a long commitment to the work of lesbians and Latinas. P.S. SF could use a little global warming. It was freezing and reminded me of the great line from Will Rodgers, “The coldest winter of my life was the summer I once spent in San Francisco.” I saw lots of my San Fransisters and had a great Moroccan dinner with Deb Shapiro and Mosk. We thought the belly dancer was a little underwrought.
Since it’s Serena Ova on that French clay s’il vous plait, this weekend I’m finally off to see friends in Hudson, New York, the home of many of my artist friends from Ptown who have been driven out by the ridic high cost of living. From there I will GPS my way to Northampton, MA to take part in the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Perugia Press which keeps in print the words of women poets. It will be a lovely bookend to a week that started with the Lambda Awards. I think they are officially over by now.
But first, this evening, my excellent girlfriend and I head to Brooklyn to the 7th Annual Miss LEZ pageant hootenanny, founded by drag king host, Murray Hill. Last year’s winner, Glenn Marla, whose platform was “to make backfat the new cleavage” will crown the winner. We will hook up with the very tasteful lezbo comique and LOGO a go go starlet, ulie Goldman and will scream our support for all contestants. I loves the lesbians, did I mention that? Happy Dyke Day!

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Last weekend I was sitting in my old Jeep in a parking lot at a seafood stand in Ptown, waiting for a friend to get the world’s most expensive, smallest lobster roll. The place was packed. The lobster roll was not. I was listening to “A Prairie Home Companion” and their special Memorial Day Show from Wolf Trap outside Washingtoons, DC. Ever since Garrison Keillor tried to blog funny about gay men adopting children, I’ve been a little reluctant to listen. And sometimes his breathy voice is a little too pervy for me.
But the music was the heartbreakingly, tender ballads of leaving loved ones behind to fight the great, big, last war to end all wars. The finality of those separations is contrasted with the global connectedness of this war through emails, podcasts, and skype phones. Yet the pain of physical separation – “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places.” “What’ll I do when you are far away?” – is just as real now for young soldiers and their families.
As I listened, absent-mindedly watching all the sunburned people returned from the beach, I got all choked up, went home and called my oldest brother He had been drafted, learned Vietnamese at Ft. Bliss [!]. Texas and served a year in Vietnam. His job was interpreter with the pacification troops who went into towns and villages to help with rebuilding. He didn’t talk about it when he got home except for one story about almost falling out of a helicopter making a quick exit out a village that wasn’t quite ready to be rebuilt. We caught up a bit on their Memorial Day picnic plans and then I thanked him for serving in Vietnam. He was quiet, then said, “That is so weird. You’re the second person to thank me. Back then, no one thanked us.”
Sometimes it’s surreal to be in a vacation town as the world goes to hell around us. Like during this dirge of a surge. Just a few streets away on Commercial, the town was filling with fabulous young lesbians from colleges all over the Northeast on one last huge fling. It’s an unofficial party stop on the unofficial lesbian party circuit. I interviewed some of them, that’s what I’m calling it anyway, and they said it’s all word of mouth. And a lovely mouth it is.
Speaking of mouths, I will miss Rosie’s mouth on The View. There are certainly different ways of fighting the war and she chose to be outspoken and unwilling to swallow the extraordinary renditions from the Bush “administration” about what is happening. For that she was treated as a big hysterical lesbian. Interesting how the other side does an operation distraction and focuses on the girlfight and not the war. I hope she has a good summer rest and comes back on her own late night show.
Midst the constant coverage of Lindsay Lohan’s last fling, I saw the story that Cindy Sheehan, mother of a son killed early on in the war, announced that she is depleted from fighting the administration and her so-called allies. She’s going home. She should rest and come back as Rosie’s sidekick. Let’s all rest up this summer, because come September, they can kiss my benchmark.

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It’s Dinner Season!! Instead of proms, we gay people have dinners and I for one can’t get enough uh, I guess that’s chicken. Yes! It IS chicken! Often the dinners are in the same hotels as the proms the younger [than-ever] people from local high schools are having and that is always a lovely, amusing mix in the lobby. Even the tuxedos seem confused.
In Boston, I had the great good pleasure of emceeing the 16th Annual Fenway Women’s Dinner. More sweet sixteenness. The Westin Copley was awash with lovely ladies in black cocktail dresses and gorgeous tuxedo variations making a lot of noise in the silent auction area. Mayor Menino was there in a feisty mood about the Legislature and the Gay Marriage Initiative. The new governor, Duvaul Patrick was there saying the right things with neither note nor hesitation. He mentioned that his wife was complaining that they had to leave and would miss the dancing after. He promised next year they’d stay to dance and celebrate.
In Atlanta, I emceed the 20th Annual HRC dinner. Winston Johnson, a wonderful Atlanta activist, reminded me that I had been at the first Atlanta dinner. He also teased me that back then I had made a dildo joke even though Coretta Scott King was in attendance. I got carried away. But when I apologized to her after, she looked me right in the eye and said, “Don’t’ be silly. I’ve seen it all.” Twenty years ago I met the humble, ferocious Representative, John Lewis. He’s that and more now and he was at the dinner. At desert, we all bit and turns out the trademark blue and yellow HRC equal signs were edible! We all feasted on equality.
A girl needs a rest between dinners and I took my R&R with the Oliviettes at a huge sprawling Club Med in the Dominican Republic. From a formal black crepe suit one night to a sarong and SP45 the next day! It’s a wonder, I don’t just split down the middle. I hung out with my comedy galpals – Michele “Next to the Last Comic Standing” Balan, Karen Williams and Rene Hicks who ably handled the “nappy headed ho” thing and Miss Victrola Shaw who once again allowed me to apprentice with her on the Oldywed/Newlywed Game.
Next stop on the dinner circuit is the NCLR bash in SanFransisters celebrating their 30 years of work for our lesbian rights. They’re expecting 3,000. I hope the cocktail dresses are edible.

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