LesBi WannaB

2010-02-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

Awaits there new film, And Then Came Lola the celebian couple speaks all about love for the heart month Curve Mag issue..grab a copy now..Actually i need to wait for the process of mine.err.. im referring to my mag issue..You know how oriental place dealing with those nice and stuff..

Queen Latifah brings back the rap and the butch

2009-08-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Lady gaga's being identify..

2009-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

I heard that Lady Gaga is a lesbian. Is that true?
—Midnite Fantasy, via Twitter

The lyrics of "Poker Face" sure do hint at bisexuality, and New York magazine out-and-out called her bisexual, but for the record, she won't say.

"I'm hesitant to discuss it," she told the Herald Sun of Australia. "I don't like the way those conversations become more paramount than the music, so I like to stay away from it. I love that people are interested. I have a big gay fan base, so it's hard for me not to talk about it. But I am who I am...I'll just let everybody find out for themselves. I just chose not to acknowledge my sexual orientation."

In an interview in the homosexual "HX Magazine," Lady GaGa vaguely described herself as bisexual.

as follows...

HX: Did you always know that the gays were going to go gaga over your music?

Lady Gaga: I have a lot of gay friends, so it was more like, I wonder if my friends will like it. I’m a dancer and grew up in a theater community in New York, so I feel like my music is a product of that environment. I find something really beautiful about the spirit of the gay community. I feel a part of it. I was the girl in high school who never really had a lot of popular friends, so I found my place with my gay friends in acting school and dance class. It’s a really inspiring community, and I feel very privileged to be around it.

Who’s your best gay friend?
I couldn’t say—I have too many! I would upset a lot of people. You surely earned even more gay fans with the recent announcement that you wrote a track for Britney’s upcoming album. Was that a dream come true? Yeah. I was working with Rodney Jerkins on Pussycat Dolls, and we wrote this song—I almost slipped and told you the name. Thank God I caught myself; I respect her a lot, so I was to give her control over that. When we were done with the song, I was like, “Oh, I want to sing it,” but my album was already closed. It never even crossed my mind that she was doing a new record. Then Rodney played it for [Britney’s manager] Larry Rudolph, who was in the studio. Rodney called me later and was like, “Britney’s people are freaking out about this song.” Ultimately, she makes the decisions, so when I found out that she loved it and was going to record it, it was amazing. I actually heard it yesterday with her on it for the first time, and I really had chills.

Shouldn’t you start being more selfish with hits that you write?
My record is really great, and it has a lot of hits on there that I can run with for a while. I’m not an egomaniac; I don’t need to sing every great song that I write. If anything, it’s more of an achievement for me as a writer to get to write for a superstar.
You did a mini-promo tour of the NYC gay club scene a couple of months ago. What was that experience like?
It was awesome, and it made me want to work harder. When I was at Splash, I was mad that I was performing, because I wanted to be on E, sweating my pants off in the crowd. When I play at gay clubs, it’s like playing for my friends: They get it and understand what I’m trying to say, and they have a very open mind about art, pop and commercial music. When I did Miss Universe, all of the gays on my site were like, “Man, you looked so cool. We loved your outfit.” But every now and then you’ll see a comment that’s like, “I love her, but she’s a little weird.” I’m always thinking to myself, Oh, they just don’t know fashion. [Laughs] Performing for years in downtown clubs, your life could’ve taken a darker turn. How’d you avoid temptation? Well, I really didn’t for a little while. I was for sure not focused, but I was making great work. I don’t want to encourage people to do drugs for music or anything, but I did it because I wanted to understand what inspired the artistic life of the ’70s and how Andy Warhol functioned. It was sort of a creative journey for myself, and at some point it just got out of hand. I was having trouble sleeping, and I would have a panic attack after one glass of wine just because my body was so afraid of substance. I was too afraid to lose everything.

Was there a night in particular that inspired “Just Dance”?

Yeah, for sure. If you’ve ever been so high that it’s, like, scary, the only way you can deal with it is not deal with it, so you just kind of dance through the intoxication. I wrote the song the day after I had just flew in from New York to L.A., so I was taken very quickly out of my party lifestyle. I wrote it instantly—like it flew out of my body. I’d been working on this album for two-and-a-half years, and I was at a crossroads with my songwriting. I was trying to be so cool with my own music, but I would get better responses when I would write for other artists because I was not trying to be cool. So when I did “Just Dance,” that was my way of being like, “just fuckin’ write a good song. Stop worrying about what’s going to fly in the underground. Worry about writing a great record.” Actually, that record ended up being more powerful than any of the songs that I racked my brain writing, and after that, it was an influx of record after record. It was almost like a switch went off in my brain, and I figured out how to write a good pop song.
Are you really as boy-crazy as your lyrics suggest?
Yeah. Well, I’m girl-crazy too. I really depends on where I am. I love men, I love women and I love sex, but I’m actually pretty introverted right now because I’m so enveloped in my work, and it’s hard to let anybody near that. People fuck with your energy, and it’s very hard to find people that are supportive of your art and don’t want to take time away from it. A lot of times, boyfriends and girlfriends get jealous and want all your attention, and I really don’t have time for that.

Do you consider yourself bisexual?
Sure. I mean, I don’t really consider sexual orientation in general. It’s like, people are born the way they are.

kudos and heads up for Pinay!!! (ako mismo!!)

2009-06-16T09:28:00.001-07:00

Phillippines’ Rubilen Amit won the 10-Ball World Billiards Championship last Saturday in the SM North EDSA in Quezon City.

She defeated Taiwanese Shin Min Liu, with the score of 10-4. She took home a whopping prize of $10,000 or PhP1 million in our currency. Congratulations! Our other players include Zarah Delrosario and Gillian Go

This event is sponsored by ESPNStar, ABS-CBN, SM Mall North Edsa, Magic 89.9, Philippines Star, Crowne Plaza Galleria Manila, Predator Cues, and JBETPOKER. This is produced by Dragon Promotions.

The Philippines' Rubilen Dacua Amit aka Bingkay is first runner-up in the 2007 Amway Women's World 9-Ball Championship, a prestigious tournament featuring the best women players from around the world Rubilen Amit, who is now $10,000 richer, cemented her reputation as one of the fast rising stars in international women's pool when she eliminated Allison Fisher in the even, held at the Taipei Gymnasium in Taiwan.

Xiao-Ting Pan defeated Bingkay in the finals at a score of 11-5. Nonetheless, players, fans, and sports analysts alike congratulated Amit for her very strong and creative play, which resembled her male counterparts from the Philippines. Pan dominated all week in the competition. She came out of the group stages with a 4-1 record and then went on to score wins over Makiko Tagaki, Monica Webb, Kelly Fisher and Pei-Chen Tsai to reach the finals against Rubilen Amit.

Rubilen had a very impressive win over Allison Fisher, who is considered to be the world's best female player. She also trounced former champion Ga Young Kim and Yukiko Hamanishi on her way to the finals. The field is the toughest ever consisting of Taiwan's top cue artists and Europe's Kelly Fisher and Jasmin Ouschan.

"Race to 5 is a joke," was all that Fisher could say after being eliminated by Amit. The loss put Fisher out of the competition and out of the top half of the board for the first time since The Duchess of Doom started playing in the World Championships in 1995. It also ended Fisher's run for a sixth world title.

Rubilen Amit is a double gold medalist in the recent Southeast Asian Games held in Manila. Two other Filipinas, Iris Rañola and Mary-Ann Basas, also competed in the event's qualifying round. Bingkay is coached by my good friend, Boyet Asonto, and is one of the MSBA's sponsors in 2006.

"L Word" Co-Creators Michele Abbott and Kathy Greenberg Break Their Silence

2009-04-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Kim Ficera

Contributing Writer
April 5, 2009

There are women who want to be noticed, and women who prefer do the noticing. That’s something I couldn’t help but observe while interviewing Michele Abbott and Kathy Greenberg in the bar at the Chateau Marmont recently.

Abbott and Greenberg, who along with Ilene Chaiken created The L Word, are in many ways atypical of the image that setting likely evokes in your mind. They live, work and play in Hollywood, but unlike some of their peers, being noticed isn’t high on their list of priorities.

But you already know that if you’ve been aware of their silence over the six-season run of their show.

I met Abbott, a hilarious and talented producer, and Greenberg, a cautious yet equally funny and extremely successful screenwriter (who played a large role in bringing us Ratatouille), two years ago.

It took me that long to convince them to talk to me on the record about their significant contributions to the hit show; how they came to collaborate with Chaiken, who developed the stories around the characters they gave birth to in ways that were sometimes favorable and other times undesirable; the insider, lesbian-only party that helped to seal the deal with Showtime; and the retrospective and finale.

Michelle Abbott, left, and Kathy Greenberg

Friends for twenty years, Abbott and Greenberg spoke with genuine appreciation for one another and what they helped to create, and were surprisingly candid about the show they’ve been so reluctant to discuss until now.

AfterEllen.com: Let’s begin with the most obvious question: After you created The L Word and helped to produce the pilot and the second episode, your involvement with the show ended. Why?

Kathy Greenberg: I was then a film executive, the VP of the American Office at Working Title Films. Michele was a producer of TV commercials. She had worked on Superbowl and Nike spots with directors such as Ridley Scott [G.I. Jane, Thelma & Louise] and Bryan Singer [X-MEN, Valkyrie]. But, at the time, it was thought that we didn’t have the specific TV experience necessary to continue.

Michelle Abbott: Ilene [Chaiken] had the experience; she had written Dirty Pictures for Showtime.

AE: But there are stories of waitresses selling scripts and going on to be involved in their shows. You both know more about TV than the average waitress …

KG: Ultimately, the decision wasn’t ours.

MA: It was made by Showtime and the show runner, who was Ilene. So, we can’t really answer that.

AE: Media attention isn’t a priority for you but, given the value of "buzz" in L.A., why didn’t we have this conversation sooner?

MA: Our names are on the show. To go any further would have been some sort of self-promotion, and that wasn’t our agenda.

KG: It wasn’t about us. It was about a movement and raising consciousness. We felt like we were just bringing something that was in the collective consciousness to light. It was enough to see our show — the first of its kind — become a reality.

AE: Before I dig deeper into the collective consciousness, tell me how and when you first came up with your ideas for the show.

MA: It was in 2000. We weren’t in as classy a joint as this! (Laughter) In the old days Kathy and I used to have to go to Trader Vic’s for happy hours.

KG: We were rehashing, talking about how insane our lives and our friends’ lives were, and the incest of it all …

MA: Our subculture was really specific in the ways we interacted and carried on, and we thought, ‘No one would believe this.’

KG: We eventually started bemoaning the fact that there isn’t a show about us to watch … but every lesbian has had this thought.

MA: Right. No one can claim ownership for the idea of a lesbian ensemble show. It’s not brain surgery. Any lesbian that’s ever watched TV felt the void. It was the most obvious accident waiting to happen; it was just a matter of who and when. And after a couple of big, flaming, tropical, hoo-ha drinks out of buckets we decided we were just the ones to tell that story!

(Laughter)

KG: So we started jotting things down on napkins, and the characters were born, based on our friends or composites of our friends.

AE: What characters were born that night?

KG: There was Jenny. She was to provide access into the lesbian subculture, an innocent point of view-narrative way into the story.

MA: She was a relatable character. We all know the feeling of walking into a gay bar for the first time, leaving one world for another and the entire cultural shift it implies.

AE: Sure. Who was she based on?

KG: Me, because I had the experience of coming to L.A. from Wisconsin … and it was overwhelming. The first time I went to Girl Bar and saw 300 beautiful women, I couldn’t believe it.

MA: Jenny was described in the pitch as “Fresh Meat Farm Girl.” (Laughter) How she ended up being a Nazi stripper and a cutter is anyone’s guess.

(Laughter)

AE: Who else?

KG: Shane. She didn’t have a name, but she was called “The Cad.”

AE: Classic. There’s a Shane in every group.

MA: Bette and Tina. They were the power struggle couple.

KG: Through them we wanted to explore the heterosexual paradigm in a lesbian couple. … Originally, they were both named Bettina, because we noticed that a lot of women who get together have the same names. So we were making fun of that because, you know, what couple would include two Bettinas?

AE: That’s so random.

MA: You could tell we were at the bottom of the tiki punch bowl at that point!

(Laughter)

KG: So we thought, how would they distinguish themselves? And we said, well, one would be called Bette and the other would be called Tina.

AE: I didn’t know that.

MA: It never came out.

AE: Was Alice on a napkin?

KG. Yes, but I don’t think her name was Alice.

MA: And she wasn’t as kooky and funny as Leisha [Hailey] brought to the character.

KG: But she was always going to be a magazine writer or editor … the one to call people on their bullshit.

AE: Dana?

MA: For sure, Dana was there.

KF (to MA): And she’s based on you.

MA: She was the least composited character. …We wanted a person who grew up in a conservative environment and has to deal with a lot of social pressures that keep her in the closet. So we thought, let’s make her an athlete, a public figure. … I wasn’t a public figure … but I played some pro [tennis] tours. I was also really closeted and in a sorority. And you can’t be a lesbian in a sorority.

AE: Oh, yeah, you can!

MA (making fun of herself): Unless you’re me!

(Laughter)

MA: The goofiness of her, you know, being the transparent person [to whom everyone says], “Oh, honey, you’re so gay! Why do you keep toting around this beard?” was right out of my experience. … I had some ridiculous beards! … And when I started meeting gay women they called me out.

AE: Like Alice and Tina did to Dana.

MA: Right. And then I came out like a bat out of hell and started running lesbian parties in San Francisco. So there was that element [on the napkins], too — the club scene, the DJ …

AE: Carmen?

MA: Yes, but she wasn’t called Carmen. [The clubs were] the first portals, the places to go to find girls…

AE: What about Kit?

KG: We started with a character we called “The Old Sea Captain,” who was like a historian, a woman [who’d] been through decades of change.

MA: She was an activist, a touchstone for the historical aspects of the movement. And there was a person in town like that.

AE: So that explains Kit in a sailor cap and with braids in the retrospective.

KG: Oh, God!

MA: Jesus!

AE: She was a cross between Pop-Eye, Pippi Longstocking and Angela Davis. What the hell were you thinking?

MA: Aye! Come to me, I’ll tell you tales of the old days!

(Laughter)

AE: Clearly that character lost something in translation, as did The Chart on Kit’s back. Was The Chart on the napkin?

MA: The Chart was on the napkin, absolutely. It seemed crazy to do an ensemble piece without referring to it. But The Chart was in the zeitgeist. No one person can claim that’s an original idea. … But it was certainly never intended to be on Kits’ body!

KG: We originally thought it might be an art installation, a good avenue for feminist expression.

AE: Can I assume that the original Chart had your names and the names of your friends on it?

[Silence]

AE: Okay. Who are Lauren and Tamara?

[Momentary silence]

KG: I don’t know who Tamara is.

[More silence]

AE: That’s all you’re giving me?

KG: That’s it.

AE: Do you want another drink?

KG: That’s not going to work.

[Laughter]

AE: Back to the collective consciousness, the lesbian zeitgeist. As you pointed out, what group of lesbians hasn't said, ‘We should write a book/TV show about our lives’? But few actually do, because they lack the necessary connections. It's unlikely that the show would’ve made it past the notes-on-a-napkin stage if it weren't for the people you knew...

MA: That’s true. … We sat on the idea for a while, until one day Ilene called Kathy and said that she was approached by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey [World of Wonder founders and directors of Party Monster and The Eyes of Tammy Faye] about doing a lesbian TV show. But theirs was a campy Charlie’s Angels-ish version, as I recall. … Ilene had pitched to Kathy in the past at Working Title, and Kathy is the Godmother to Ilene’s children, so they had a relationship. … Anyway, Ilene had envisioned a lesbian show of her own, so she called to ask Kathy to collaborate with her.

KG: I told her that I was working on a show myself with Michele, who Ilene also knew for many years, and I said we should all join forces. So we did. We pitched our version of the show to Randy and Fenton, and then it was pitched to Showtime …

MA: One of the key selling points was a scrapbook of ‘The Last Lesbian Blow-Out of the Millennium.’

KG: Oh, no!

(Laughter)

MA: Kathy had these legendary lesbian-only parties at her house up in ‘the bird streets’ [that was] formerly George Harrison’s house. … The parties were peppered with celebrities … Ellen and Melissa, studio execs … and the Hollywood lesbian scene. … These were the pool parties of Bette and Tina.

AE: But nobody ever died in your pool?

(Laughter)

KG: Nobody died, right.

MA: But there were lots of fun times in that pool…. In the pilot, they sort of … Shane …

KG: That didn’t happen at my house!

(Laughter)

MA (Imitating KG): I’m just a farm girl! (Laughter) … All right, moving on. The scrapbook showed the studio execs a world they had never seen or imagined as traditional lesbian culture.

KG: And, to be fair, it was a subculture of the subculture.

AE: Prominent L.A. lesbians, you mean?

MA: Exactly. At the time, we both were in the thick of it. I was dating an agent …

KG: Madonna’s agent.

MA: And Kathy was running around with k.d. [lang].

KG: That was the Leisha connection, through k.d.

MA: It was the time of Madonna’s Sex book and we were ensconced in that world. … And the scrapbook was a window into that world. … [Showtime executives] said, ‘Oh, we get it. Now we see what you’re talking about.’

AE: How did you envision the show then? As a Drama? Comedy? Horrifyingly tedious nonsense?

[Laughter]

AE: A soap?

MA: It’s a fine line… When we were rehashing all of our stories, they did seem pretty unrealistic.

AE: But unrealistic is different from preposterous, right? The word ‘campy’ has been thrown around, but camp is over the top and makes a statement …

KG: It wasn’t satirical enough.

MA: But the characters stayed true to what our vision was, and we were always floored by the actresses and what they were able to do with what they got. They’re all great.

KG: That’s absolutely true, but the storylines weren’t always what we envisioned.

MA: In the beginning, we were thinking it would be more self-deprecating … like if Tina Fey were a lesbian. But it didn’t go that way.

AE: I suppose it’s hard to find that tone when dealing with serious issues.

KG: I think finding a tone … was always going to be difficult in terms of appealing to a broader audience. Comedy works when people are aware of the references. Making this too comedic would have gone over many people's heads, because it assumes an inside knowledge, and that, perhaps, would have ghettoized the show.

MA: The execs didn’t want it too niche. …There was an intentional awareness at Showtime to make it super-glamorous, appealing to straight people.

AE: I get it. So, Kathy, as a screenwriter, do you think The L Word writers had a greater responsibility to accuracy — to do a good job portraying our distinct differences — or to make good TV?

KG: See, she waits till we’re drunk. …

MA: She’s, like, ‘Oh, I’m getting them!’

AE: I want to be Katie Couric when I grow up.

KG: I have to be honest, that’s a very difficult question. I don’t know. …The show’s defense has always been, ‘We’re trying to make good TV, as well as be accurate.’ … But that’s not really an issue anymore, is it?

AE: Well, the more visible we become on TV, the less critical we’ll be, I suppose. But criticism of the show began early, primarily because it was all we had and we wanted it to be as close to perfect as possible. Even though everyone was well aware that it was only a TV show …

MA: Why criticize then? Sex and the City was not a show that captured the diversity of all women. It was about niche group. And so was our show.

AE: Okay, but what do you say to the people who complain that they weren’t represented well? To bisexuals, for example, who felt let down because they found representation in Alice in one season, and then lost it in another?

MA: The intention was there. … You say, “There’s a Shane in every group,” and that’s true, but that girl might not be dialed in the same way as Shane. …

AE: She might not be an arsonist?

KG: Or a skateboarder!

(Laughter)

MA: Exactly! But there’s a ‘cad’ everywhere. Ours was just dressed-up for TV. …Every character was. Marina, for example, was ‘The Predatory Lesbian’ dialed up.

AE: So the writers did a better job of making good TV than they did at making it accurate?

KG: Yes. But trying to straddle those two things might have been the failing of the show in the eyes of some people. The right answer is to strive for good storytelling. It’s not about TV or accuracy, it’s about more filled out and rounded storytelling, and pulling storylines all the way through.

AE: Speaking of storytelling, let’s talk about Dana’s death. Michele, you’re healthy now, but you were diagnosed with breast cancer during development. How did you feel about Dana's death?

MA: I thought it was total bullsh-t that she died. I liked her story until that point. …We were all aware of my issue and talking about it in development. It was on the table — not in the script, but on the table personally — and it was pretty distracting for me as far as what was important in my life. … Once you get in that world, it’s very scary, because there’s no doctor who can tell you, “Okay, here’s exactly what you have to do.” You have a million different choices and you have to go to different oncologists. … It’s insane, the complexity of treatment.

KG: It would have been a great thing to explore in the show. It was a missed opportunity.

MA: Anyone who’s experienced it knows the truth of it — you always want to see someone survive. … I think the threat of death would have been enough of an element of drama. … Viewers could have been taken on an inspirational journey where Dana battles cancer and wins. It was a rotten portrayal and it didn’t play out.

AE: You’d get no argument from fans … or from Erin [Daniels]. But she nailed her part.

KG: Yeah, she was great.

AE: All the original cast members were. Can you share a memory you had with them during production?

MA: There was this amazing moment after a day of shooting, when we ended up in a karaoke bar in Vancouver. …

KG: Kate [Moennig], Leisha and Erin got up and started singing “What A Feeling” from Flashdance to Jennifer [Beals]. Jennifer was mortified at first, but then, like the good sport that she is, she grabbed a bottle of Perrier off a table, took the stage, dumped the water over herself and started dancing.

(Laughter)

AE: The dance?

MA: No, but she swung her hair around and spun a bit … She rallied!

AE: I like her even more now!

MA: I’ll have the utmost respect for her forever for that.

AE: Why do you think there’s nothing on TV comparable to The L Word? Do the execs think we can only ‘process’ one lesbian show at a time?

KG: The answer has less to do with the fact that it’s a lesbian show and more to do with how executives program. … Creatively, execs would rather be seen breaking new ground and not copying existing formats. But I think the real answer is that the audience is already somewhat niche and loyal, and there would be a risk that [another show] would only get, at best, a portion of that audience.

AE: How did you feel about the retrospective prior to the finale, especially given that you weren’t acknowledged at all?

MA: It was moving, but we watched with a lot of ambivalence. We were sad to see it end — the show accomplished more than we ever thought it would — but we were also relieved to see it end …

KG: It was what it was. Regardless, watching it made me feel lucky to have had a hand in something that engaged the community in so many ways and gave us unprecedented visibility.

AE: What did you think of the ending?

MA: I thought it was consistent with everything we had come to expect from The L Word. I think it would've been great if Sounder the dog had come back and pushed Jenny into the pool himself. (Laughter) Who knows, maybe Sounder will be investigated and confess. Stranger things have happened on the show.

KG: To me, it felt incongruous They tried to accomplish a lot in a little amount of time and it ended up a little muddled. But, it’s an auspicious task to try to wrap up a series. I also think that a show that ends in a non-answer, like The Sopranos did, is basically trying to tell the audience, ‘This wasn’t the issue; this isn’t germane to the show.’

AE: But The Sopranos didn’t end in a way that made some of us feel baited, as The L Word did. It didn’t end with, ‘And stay tuned for a special announcement!’ — which was a plug for The Interrogation Tapes.

KG: I know what you’re saying … but I’m also saying that you can do that when you’re taking a loftier view on the whole show, and you have a point. But The L Word never was that.

AE: No, it wasn’t. So we were forced to focus on the whodunit and, in the end, many viewers felt gypped.

KG: This wasn’t one of those genius reveals where we’re able to look back on that information and say, ‘Oh my God, that totally makes sense.’ … The show early on stopped being a show and started being a commerce feed, a brand.

MA: Right. … I’m trying to think of another show, in any other genre, that did that as much. The ourchart site … the Interrogation Tapes … What other shows do that?

AE: The self-promotion was obvious and weird.

KG: Yeah, so from that point [viewers] already felt manipulated.

AE: Do you have anything to say to The L Word fans that were disappointed in the finale?

MA: Don’t blame me!

KG: It’s not my fault!

(Laughter)

AE: Finally, what are you both doing now?

KG: I’m working on another draft of a movie for Working Title, and just finished a couple of comedy scripts for Paramount Vantage and Walden Media.

MA: I’m producing commercials, running my production company, and I just wrapped a TV pilot.

KG: And together we're working on something that might help to fill some of the space left by The L Word.

AE: Really? … Will you tell us more about that when you can?

MA: Absolutely!

Yep, she's gay! Clementine Ford comes out – for real this time

2009-04-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

Humored friend Kate Moening

Clementine as Molly Kroll in Lword

Co-star from the drama season Lword Rosw aka Tashia in Lword

Molly and Phyllis (daughter and mom for real)

Trish Bendix

There's been some confusion about Clementine Ford lately, with a semi-retraction of her "coming out" in DIVA Magazine. Ford recently told TV Guide that she hadn't "come out" at all, and did not like to "label herself."

Today, she told The Advocate: "I am gay. "I just wanted there not to be this big emphasis on it."

It’s funny," Ford said of her interview with DIVA. "I was having kind of rough day. My best friend sent me a text saying, 'You have to see this.' So, I went online to see this link and I read the comments and I go, 'They hate me!' When I did the TV Guide interview I was angry because there is the whole perception now that I came out and I went back in. And what upset me was I felt that because I did not 'come out' in that interview, I felt it was unfair to fans that bought the magazine expecting to get a tearful story that says, 'I’m gay.' I thought it was misleading, and now because I was upset by that cover, I am apparently back in the closet and people hate me."So it's official: Ms. Ford is a lesbian, but did not feel she had officially "come out" or made a statement like that to DIVA. She opened up to The Advocate, which gives me the impression she really felt she wanted to be fair to her fans and fans of The L Word, who were confused and upset by the possibility she had been ashamed of her sexuality or had closeted herself in anyway.

"There are people who get it, and get what my original meaning was," Ford told the magazine. "Just as I was talking about storylines being a nonissue on The L Word; it should just be these people are gay and it’s part of life. I think with that article, and what came across as ambiguity, was actually my attempt at making it a nonissue. Look, I am gay, and I just wanted there not to be this big emphasis on it."

Some other tidbits from the interview with The Advocate:

On The L Word being groundbreaking:

I was ex
cited to be working. In terms of it being groundbreaking, I think in a way it’s a shame. I don’t think it should be groundbreaking; it should not be made into a thing. There should be gay couples on television and lesbian and transgender people on television. It should be something that is normal. It’s exciting that it was groundbreaking, but now where do we go?

On fans of The L Word:

I had people come up to me and say that it made a difference. Even people who are older than me would come up to me and tell me that to be a character, and come in to the story as someone who has a "stick up her ass" about so many things and the lesbian issue, and then to see that change, was good for them. I do think it’s difficult for a lot of women who have come from certain backgrounds who are expected to have a different life. It’s not easy, and you don’t know where to necessarily put things, and you are not sure and a little timid. I had a lot of people coming up to me telling me that it was nice for them to see someone going through that struggle and figuring their way.

On talking to her The L Word co-stars about her new gig on The Young and the

Restless:

I talk to Kate Moennig all the time, and she was the first person I told. She told me congratulations.
Prop. 8:

We have all heard it, where people have coined the phrase “straight marriage,” and that is a big thing for me. It’s like, “Why is it different? Get over it.” If you don’t want to have a gay marriage, don’t have one. Don’t marry someone of the same sex, but let me do it if I want to!" Ellen and Portia became poster children for gay marriage because we don’t have a lot of people that are representing this. There are still those walls, and there are those people who say, “Hide who you are. Be careful. Don’t be too gay.” I think a lot of that, and the media feeding into that, is part of the reason that Prop. 8 passed.

Clementine Ford is not only out, but she seems to be proud, too. Ladies, we officially have a new celesbian. Welcome to the club, Clem.

Editor's note: this news was announced early on March 31, and is NOT an April Fool's joke - the timing is just coincidental.

L word Recap finale

2009-03-17T22:19:00.001-07:00

THIS WEEK'S L WORD VOCABULARY:
Processing: Half of the episode. So gay!
Morbidity: The other half of the episode. So creepy!

Reunion: Not very satisfying when it's virtual.
Resolution: Not always synonymous with "end."

THIS WEEK'S GUESTBIANS: Alexandra Hedison wields a weapon; Roger Cross just wants to use the facilities; Kate French hides in the bushes; Mei Melançon orders breakfast. THREAT COUNT: As of last week, six characters had threatened Jenny's life: Niki, Tina, Max, Alice, Helena, and Bette. But the threat count seems pointless now, because in this episode, everybody wants Jenny to just go away already. Finale preliminaries — By now, you've already done a fair amount of thinking about this episode. You've marveled at the Pre-L, you've skimmed the live blog, you've tried to keep up with the Twitter buzz, you've chortled at the Facebook recap, and you've analyzed the episode in more than one conversation, chat session and forum thread. So this recap can be little more than an exercise in nostalgia. But maybe that's not so bad — isn't it all we have left? One other note: this recap features something I'm calling the Chorus of Erstwhiles. I'll explain further when we get to the first one. Oh, sorry, two final notes: yes, I'm gleefully ignoring the interrogation tapes on sho.com; and yes, this recap is looooong. Luckily, you never have to wade through all this twaddle ever again! Previously on The L Word — Wow, have you ever seen a "previously" montage that reaches so far back? Back to when Tasha left the army, back to Season 3 when Dylan sued Helena for sexual harassment, and back to all the loose threads of this episode, such as the stolen negative, Max's pregnancy and the letter jacket in the attic. Oh, so we've been reminded of that stuff because we're actually going to resolve it? All of it? Now? In an hour? Mm-hmm. An interrogation room — Cast your minds back, if you will, to the first episode of this season. Remember Lucy Lawless's delicious smirk and the imminence of the investigation into Jenny's death? We're back there now: in a sterile interrogation room, taking turns with all the frightened friends who were gathered in Bette and Tina's living room. The first witness/suspect/bystander is Shane. She admits that she's thought about "it" but would never do something like that. Like what — like talk without moving your lips? 'Cause that's what you're doing, in this strange collection of overlapping close-ups and dialogue that weaves in and out. It's so artsy. Or something.

Shane characterizes herself as someone who likes her freedom. She also notes (while we're on the topic of likes and dislikes) that she hates it when couples use the word "we," especially to describe their feelings. Shane: Feeling is a solitary emotion. See, you may feel like you're falling in love. And I, me, might feel like I'm being caged. Purely hypothetical, of course. Just to illustrate. She goes on to describe something that took place just after the "For Sale" sign went up in front of Bette and Tina's house.
(By the way, a similar sign has also been put up in front of the property known as Television Space Occupied by Lesbian Characters. But in both cases, nobody's buyin'.) Just after that sign of doom showed up, Jenny and Shane sat down to record a contribution to the "tribute video" that Jenny has been working on for Bette and Tina. But Shane didn't really get to speak — the "we" thing strikes again. Jenny: [on the video] You guys were this supreme, wonderful, beautific [sic] couple, and now we're gonna take your place because we're the only ones left. So this is really, really exciting. So I give you my word [looking at Shane] that we're gonna make it.
You give us your word? Which one, though? A nonword, such as "beautific" (I think she meant "beatific"), or an actual word — such as "flapdoodle"? That's the perfect word for this vision of Shenny as the supreme couple. Hogwash, horsefeathers, claptrap, poppycock, hooey and flapdoodle! Bliss — Hear that? No? That's right: you don't hear it. That awful, odious, risible, insulting, formless cacophony called the theme song is not assaulting your ears. What bliss! The Planet — Alice, Tasha and Jamie are sitting at a triangular table. No, I mean I think it's actually triangular in appearance, as well as in atmosphere.
They're having a very intimate conversation in a very public place. Alice quietly states her love for Tasha. She doubts that either Jamie or Tasha realizes the depths of that love. Alice: I guess I'm just asking you guys to be honest about what's going on. Jamie swears that nothing has happened between her and Tasha, but that doesn't matter much to Alice. Alice: I'm sure you guys haven't even admitted it to yourselves. [looking at Tasha] 'Cause I know you think thinking is cheating. [looking at Jamie] I'm sure you think the same thing. She says that last bit stridently and viciously. I hate to hear pain in Alice's voice. There's pain in her eyes, too, and in the set of her jaw and the line of her neck and the bend of her brow, as Jamie and Tasha's identical orders arrive at the table. (Alice, understandably, couldn't possibly eat at a time like this.) Alice tells them they need to be truthful about the feelings that are out of their control. Tasha: I'm not gonna accept that.
Alice: Well, you have to accept it. You can't ... all the military training in the world doesn't, you know, help you control feelings. You can't ... [impatiently] I'm giving you a chance here to just be honest with me, just tell me. So Jamie does. Jamie: I'm only speaking for myself, but, yeah, I think I have fallen in love with Tasha.
Alice's reply is the only possible one. Alice: Thank you. And f--- you. Jamie tries to tell Alice that she didn't want this to happen and has the utmost respect for Alice and her relationship with Tasha, but Alice tells them they're free to go. Jamie: No, no, no. God, no. Please do not break up over me.
Tasha: We're not. [to Alice] Don't do this.
Alice: When we have sex, I don't close my eyes and imagine someone else naked in the shower.
Tasha: F--- you. Eeek. Is this the most uncomfortable scene ever, even for a show that is fond of uncomfortable scenes? Why are they having this conversation at the Planet, anyway? I guess it's neutral territory, but it's also so very public. It gets even more tense as Jamie tries to tell them to stay together. Alice: Will you shut the f--- up, please? Just shut the f--- up. Yow! I don't think I'd want to meet Alice in a dark alley. I mean, I actually totally would like to meet her in a dark alley, but not if she's using her mean voice. And then Alice tells them to "give it a try." Tasha: Try what? What the f--- does that mean?
Alice: Just f---ing try it. Just ... if you don't call me by the same time tomorrow, I'll know you made up your mind about ... what it is you want.
Tasha: This is not ... this has never happened to me before. Alice, you know that I live a life of honor and duty.
Alice: Well, I don't want you to stay with me out of a sense of duty. Don't stay with me because it's the right thing to do. On that note, Alice takes her leave. Jamie tries to say one last thing, but Alice barks, "Save it. Shut up." Yes, please save it: save this relationship and save Alice, because I can't bear to see her so sad and angry.

"Last Word" of "The L Word": Lame, Lacking, Legacy-Tarnishing

2009-03-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

Sarah Warn

Editor in Chief
March 9, 2009

Television has had a long, illustrious tradition of controversial series finales — from a baby suffocating on M.A.S.H., to the Seinfeld characters ending up in jail, to The Sopranos's infamous mid-whack fade to black.

Television has also had a long, illustrious tradition of frustrating and disappointing queer viewers.

These two traditions collided last night on The L Word, which ended its six-season run with a finale ("Last Word") that left most viewers somewhere between disappointed and outraged, as we captured during our liveblog of the episode.

One of our readers, Kate, predicted early into the hour, "This entire episode will be everyone yelling about Jenny being a monster, no resolutions, then BAM Jenny is dead, the time runs out on the episode."

Which pretty much sums up what happened: there were no real surprises, the show just ended. Not gracefully or thoughtfully (like, say, Six Feet Under did) but abruptly and carelessly.

As AfterEllen.com reader The Dude pronounced as the finale came to a close, "It ends not with a bang but structural collapse. Typical."

This structural collapse was glaringly evident almost from the beginning of the episode. Extreme closeups and odd camera angles were employed. Characters disappeared (Kelly was saved by a bell somewhere) or randomly appeared (Jodie thanked Bette and Tina for letting her be a part of their lives). Others delivered rambling monologues that were so poorly written you couldn't even follow them (Alice talking about Tasha and Jamie on the phone, Molly thanking Shane).

Nonsensical plot contrivances were introduced (iPhones can't record video, yet somehow Jenny was able to user her iPhone to capture Bette's supposed tryst with Kelly, and then edit it to music), and timelines were ignored (the second story on Bette and Tina's house was suddenly complete).

False drama was created (Dylan and Helena suddenly breaking up over trust issues), and almost all major loose ends were left untied. (Tasha and Alice staying together? Who knows. Max keeping his baby? Anyone's guess.)

The biggest question of all — "Who killed Jenny?" — wasn't even answered, despite Showtime's relentless promotion of the murder mystery as the central question of the season. But even that's not surprising, since Chaiken publicly stated midway through the season that she had no plans to answer it.

In an AfterEllen.com reader poll conducted last week, 74% of respondents predicted Jenny killed herself or died by accident — which is what appears to have happened. At the end of the episode, Alice simply went out to the pool area while everyone else was inside watching the tribute video Jenny had made for Bette and Tina, and found Jenny floating dead in the pool.

Several readers have presented humorous alternative theories to who killed Jenny, ranging from Max's moustache, to Jodie Foster, to — as reader Grace suggests — "Dawn Denbo by the pool with the candlestick holder."

Perhaps the only viewers that came away from the episode pleased were fans of Bette and Tina, the show's central on-and-off couple that is finally, permanently back on, and quite happily so.

They're also quite happily moving to New York — both because of Tina's job offer, and because, as Bette said in the finale, "I am so ready to get out of here."

Many viewers had the same reaction to The L Word after the finale.

"The series went from hope and fun, to despair, much like the life of Jenny Schecter," said AfterEllen.com reader Kai, adding "This whole thing depresses me."

Reader Tia commented, "It's amazing how one episode can ruin a whole series."

Most reacted to the finale with a combination of shock, disappointment, cynicism, and outrage, as these comments from readers illustrate:

The finale was horrible and a slap in the face to the fans. Nothing of substance actually happened, and what ACTUALLY happened was left unresolved/didn't make sense. (carolinagrrrl)

IC and Bernie Maddoff belong together — she took time we will never get back, he just took money. (TruMischief)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! (Leigh)

Well, this has been an hour of my life that I can't get back. (Lenna)

glad it was a "celebration" of our lives (sayitloudnow)

worst episode EVER EVER EVER (emmicia)

I feel like Rachel Maddow after Bobby Jindal's response.....speechless! (vpierce)

I think I'll just go watch last month's episodes of All My Children b/c I just don't have that kicked in the groin feeling yet... (NoTORIous)

This is the first show of its kind amongst all the portrayals of lesbians as psycho, man-hating women and it ends with betrayal, murder, and more betrayal. (Kate)

I waited all week for THIS? That was one of the worst endings I've seen since the Sopranos! No loose ends tied up and too many questions left unanswered. (stubbles)

About being too harsh on Ilene: The series was GREAT. The best ever, but the ending was not only disappointing, but it was not even original. I can't believed she copied the Sopranos ending that everyone hated. I want a new ending --- REALLY, make another ending Ilene!! (Olga)

I feel like I got my perfect prom date and didn't get laid at the end of the night! (Tchelletx)

But a small number of AfterEllen.com readers defended the finale, or were at least more forgiving of the imperfect ending, in light of the contribution of the series as a whole:

I find it interesting that a lot of people wanted a happily ever after ending with every detail explained. That's not life, and from the beginning (start of the two hour event) we were told, "this is hollywood." (Tala)

I feel so little closure, but I think the episode wasn't totally worthless. (beautifulchild)

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at my reaction to the whole final show... I actually thought it was fairly well done and although it didn't necessarily wrap up the story lines in the manner I would have liked (when did it ever?), it did end well enough to satisfy this 6 season long viewer! (imthey)

I like that they left it open to our imaginations and they did a good job of capturing all the characters over the years. Bravo Ilene. (Me)

Regardless of what we think/thought of the series/finale we should be thankful Ilene Chaiken got a show on TV that was all about lesbians. Thank You Ilene. Thank you AE for all you all do!! (Karen)

Few would argue that The L Word hasn't contributed greatly to increasing lesbian visibility on television over the last six years, and most fans would agree that The L Word has had moments and even whole seasons that entertained and made us laugh — after struggling with its third and fourth seasons, for example, the show really seemed to be hitting its stride again in the fifth.

But its collapse was inevitable as soon as the decision was made to use the final season primarily as a launching pad for Chaiken's next project, The Farm, an L Word spinoff about women in prison that may or may not get picked up by Showtime.

The last season of The L Word, in other words, was designed to meet a completely different objective than to deliver a coherent, well-written show that would satisfy fans.

Suddenly an ensemble drama about the relationships between a group of friends was turned into a murder mystery in which every character had to have a reason to want to kill Jenny, which in turn led to character assassinations, poor pacing, and storylines that didn't make any sense. The actors did a good job with what they had, and the writers managed to deliver a few entertaining scenes and episodes, but overall, The L Word's final season was a mess.

With the season built on such an unstable foundation, it was destined to topple in the finale. And as much as Ilene Chaiken and the series have done for the visibility of queer women in America, the legacy of both has been damaged in the fall.

Look for StuntDouble's Facebook recap of the finale Monday, Scribegrrrl's full recap on Wednesday, and more commentary, recaps, videos and dicussion in our L Word section.

Soul Samurai's Fearless Lesbian Hero

2009-03-09T04:05:00.000-07:00

by Laurel Fantauzzo
AE Contributing Writer March 6, 2009

In the near future, Brooklyn stands at the edge of apocalypse, wrecked by crime and decay, ruled by savage beings known as Long Tooths. Not even a subway train can penetrate the lawless landscape.

Few action hero or comic book tropes go untouched here; there are, of course, vampires (the Long Tooths), along with shogun crime bosses, noble senseis, inept lackeys, and wisecracking sidekicks. Title cards naming each scene are projected against the walls Kill-Bill style, and all fight scenes (choreographed by Nguyen) are colored by bass-heavy riffs or hip hop jams.

There are only five performers for the play's nineteen characters, but director Robert Ross Parker keeps the action moving as fast as a comic-book sequence, making the small cast feel like an entire city, while costume design ably camouflages everyone with wigs, mutton chops, bell bottoms, afros, or hoodies.

Nguyen also throws in some touches of absurdity that seem just for the heck of it, too, like a puppet show with some foul-mouthed fraggles, and an odd stop-motion cartoon interlude acted out by pieces of fruit and a hammer.

Through the artfully directed chaos, Dewdrop and her girlfriend, Sally (Bonnie Sherman), are the play's anchors.

Played with lithe, athletic grace by Maureen Sebastian, Dewdrop is shown in flashbacks to be a nerdy librarian at her college before her girlfriend's death propels her to train as a samurai (with the obligatory training montage).

Bonnie Sherman embodies Sally — a blonde afro'd, wisecracking white gal — with handsome swagger, and her chemistry with Dewdrop has a genuine flavor.

With the couple, Nguyen doesn't shy from solemn moments; Dewdrop and Sally treat each other with a barbed gentleness that feels real to anyone who's ever had a crush, and their slow-dance scenes have a touching intimacy.

There's some queer-tinged comedy, too, like the guffaw-worthy pickup lines Dewdrop's sidekick, the neon-sneaker clad Cert (a hilarious Paco Tolson) tries out on her when he finds out she's a lesbian. "Well, Cinderella was a bum before she got transformed by her Fairy Godmother ... I do got a magic stick! HEY-O!"

Another moment may strike viewers with a grim familiarity — Dewdrop is punched in the face and called a dyke by a beefy thug.

Instead of crying, she laughs and mocks him, and when he approaches for more, she hits him in the nuts. It's a cheap retaliation, perhaps, but a satisfying one nonetheless, and when a crime boss asks, "What color you fly?" Dewdrop has earned her cool response: "My own."

Nguyen's fast-paced, stylized play is, for the queer viewer, at once an escape and a wholly familiar sensation. What modern-day lesbian hasn't felt, at some point, the pressures of a hostile society while on a personal quest for love?

That Soul Samurai doesn't shy away from the complexity of this predicament, while wrapping it in the recognizable fun of comic action, makes it required viewing for every queer woman within driving distance of the theater. Go see it. Make it your mission.

Soul Samurai. HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013. Wednesdays through Sundays at 8:30pm until March 15; 4pm Saturday matinees March 7 and March 14. Tickets $25; Students and seniors $20

Only Dewdrop (played by Maureen Sebastian), a Filipina American, katana-wielding young lesbian, and her best friend, Cert (Paco Tolson), can kick, stab, and punch their way through the borough.

Dewdrop's mission: to avenge the murder of her lover by killing the Long Tooths' fearsome leader, Boss 2K.

A lone warrior, a broken world, shadowy villains, and heart-stopping fight scenes: this is the classic backdrop against which playwright Qui Nguyen creates the most unique lesbian heroine the New York indie theater scene has ever had a chance to cheer for.

His freewheeling, snap-crackle-pop play, Soul Samurai, is a modern pastiche of blaxploitation films, hip-hop swagger, and old-fashioned superhero(ine) vengeance.

Nguyen is the co-founder of the aptly named Vampire Cowboys theater Company; its mission is to bring a comic book aesthetic to the live stage. The company's past productions have tackled sci-fi and caped crusaders, and Soul Samurai teems with the color, diversity, and biting humor those shows shared.

Samurai's particular formula has a personal bent for Nguyen, who notes in the program that he grew up as a lone Vietnamese American kid in Arkansas:

..it woulda been easy for me to feel bad about what I looked like or where I lived. But seeing characters like Bruce Lee and Richard Roundtree on the screen made raising my head up high easy and convinced me that it wasn't a silly idea to believe that I too could be the baddest mamma jamma in my 'hood. It was about heroes.

With Dewdrop, Nguyen is, in a way, giving back with his beloved genre; he's offering up a lesbian warrior to inspire queer folks.

Few action hero or comic book tropes go untouched here; there are, of course, vampires (the Long Tooths), along with shogun crime bosses, noble senseis, inept lackeys, and wisecracking sidekicks. Title cards naming each scene are projected against the walls Kill-Bill style, and all fight scenes (choreographed by Nguyen) are colored by bass-heavy riffs or hip hop jams.

There are only five performers for the play's nineteen characters, but director Robert Ross Parker keeps the action moving as fast as a comic-book sequence, making the small cast feel like an entire city, while costume design ably camouflages everyone with wigs, mutton chops, bell bottoms, afros, or hoodies.

Nguyen also throws in some touches of absurdity that seem just for the heck of it, too, like a puppet show with some foul-mouthed fraggles, and an odd stop-motion cartoon interlude acted out by pieces of fruit and a hammer.

Through the artfully directed chaos, Dewdrop and her girlfriend, Sally (Bonnie Sherman), are the play's anchors.

Played with lithe, athletic grace by Maureen Sebastian, Dewdrop is shown in flashbacks to be a nerdy librarian at her college before her girlfriend's death propels her to train as a samurai (with the obligatory training montage).

Bonnie Sherman embodies Sally — a blonde afro'd, wisecracking white gal — with handsome swagger, and her chemistry with Dewdrop has a genuine flavor.

With the couple, Nguyen doesn't shy from solemn moments; Dewdrop and Sally treat each other with a barbed gentleness that feels real to anyone who's ever had a crush, and their slow-dance scenes have a touching intimacy.

There's some queer-tinged comedy, too, like the guffaw-worthy pickup lines Dewdrop's sidekick, the neon-sneaker clad Cert (a hilarious Paco Tolson) tries out on her when he finds out she's a lesbian. "Well, Cinderella was a bum before she got transformed by her Fairy Godmother ... I do got a magic stick! HEY-O!"

Another moment may strike viewers with a grim familiarity — Dewdrop is punched in the face and called a dyke by a beefy thug.

Instead of crying, she laughs and mocks him, and when he approaches for more, she hits him in the nuts. It's a cheap retaliation, perhaps, but a satisfying one nonetheless, and when a crime boss asks, "What color you fly?" Dewdrop has earned her cool response: "My own."

Nguyen's fast-paced, stylized play is, for the queer viewer, at once an escape and a wholly familiar sensation. What modern-day lesbian hasn't felt, at some point, the pressures of a hostile society while on a personal quest for love?

That Soul Samurai doesn't shy away from the complexity of this predicament, while wrapping it in the recognizable fun of comic action, makes it required viewing for every queer woman within driving distance of the theater. Go see it. Make it your mission.

Soul Samurai. HERE Arts Center, 145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013. Wednesdays through Sundays at 8:30pm until March 15; 4pm Saturday matinees March 7 and March 14. Tickets $25; Students and seniors $20

And it's great, geeky fun.

Lindsay Lohan & Samantha Ronson: NOT Fini!

2009-03-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

Lindsay Lohan has taken to her MySpace blog again, this time to furiously deny swirling rumors that she and Samantha Ronson have split up. Addressing the media, she posts:

"Little piece of TRUE information: We did NOT break up!"

"Get your stories straight please. It's really annoying to have all of your friends emailing you saying, i saw, i read, etc... NOT TRUE."

Um, sorry Linds, but you were the one brawling with your girlfriend in your hotel hallway over the New Year. I love these two as a couple and all, but if they're going to try and stay together they really need some therapy!

The Lesbian in "Milk": Alison Pill as Anne Kronenberg

2009-03-04T07:22:00.000-08:00

Anne in Harvey's campaign headquarters (his camera store) in 1978

Anne Kronenberg on Castro St. in 1978,
from the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk

Anne Kronenberg and Alison Pill during the filming of Milk

Alison Pill as Anne Kronenberg; Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones

Christie Keith

Canadian actress Alison Pill didn't know much about Harvey Milk when she auditioned to play his lesbian campaign manager in Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk. Twenty-two years old, she considered herself fairly informed about the history of the gay rights movement, and yet all she knew about Harvey was something vague about the "Twinkie defense."

Today, Pill is one of Harvey's biggest fans. And she belongs to another fan club, too, one a lot of queer women are going to be joining when they get to know Anne Kronenberg, the curly-haired dyke-on-a-bike who ran Harvey's first successful campaign, played by Pill in the film.

At first glance, it's hard to see much similarity between the two women, although Kronenberg was also 22 years old when tapped by Milk to run his third supervisorial campaign.

Strong, confrontational, and passionate, Anne rode a motorcycle and wore leather jackets. She took on the cautious gay male establishment of the times and helped Harvey kick down some of the social and political walls between lesbians and gay men.

Unlike Anne, Alison Pill is small and slight, with huge eyes and long, straight hair. But any impression of fragility is a false one; she comes out swinging both on screen and in person, and more than does justice to the character she portrays.

Pill hadn't met Anne Kronenberg when she auditioned for the role, and didn't meet her until several months after she was cast, although they'd spoken on the phone. It wasn't until the two women got together in person that she got a feeling for who Anne is, and threw earlier ideas of how to play her out the window.

"I met her my first day in San Francisco," Pill said in an exclusive interview with AfterEllen.com. "It was so amazing, and completely changed my view of what I had been planning to do with this character."

Kronenberg is featured in the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, but watching it hadn't prepared Pill for the real thing. "In the documentary, you don’t really get a sense of her, but more of Harvey," she said. "Anne can control an entire room very calmly. She’s a pretty incredible woman. You just want to listen to her, do whatever she says, and you’re not sure how that happened…. She's one of the strongest women I've ever met, but in a really subtle, womanly way. And it was an important energy to try to capture."

Pill completely immersed herself in both the story and the character. "I just started soaking up stories of the Castro, and stories about Dick (Pavich), and Jim (Rivaldo), and meeting with Harvey in the morning before everybody else got there during the campaign. I knew so much of the interpersonal relationships of the campaign office by the end of it, and all the funny stories. I soaked it up to the point of where I knew how to be in the room as Anne, even when she had nothing to do.

The real Anne Kronenberg has nothing but praise for the justice done to her story, and for director Gus Van Sant.

"He wanted to get it right and I believe he did," Kronenberg said.

"Gus welcomed us on the set, and when we were there was always asking, 'Is this the way it happened? ' And he would change things when we said something wasn't right. For instance, when I said, 'Wait, women were marching behind him in the Gay Freedom Day Parade,' Gus put out a call, 'All of Anne’s posse, come on down,' so that there’d be women there. It was amazing, and I was consulted a lot."

Van Sant chatted with AfterEllen.com for a few minutes the day after Milk premiered in San Francisco.

He said that in the middle of shooting, activist and former Milk political protégé Cleve Jones (played in the film by Emile Hirsch) told him about one incident involving Anne and her "posse" that he thought should be in the film.

There were three gay men running for the seat Milk ended up winning, and one of them, Rick Stokes, was known as being pretty uptight, Jones told Van Sant. Right after being hired as Milk's campaign manager, Anne brought her dyke posse to a Stokes campaign event, where she and the other women started handing out "Milk" signs to the women filing into the room.

In the Milk shooting script, Stokes responds to Anne's presence with outrage. "Young lady," he fusses at her, "You must be confused. This is my night, not Mr. Milk's."

Anne introduces herself as Harvey's campaign manager, and Stokes replies, "Then you should know this race is for District 5, the Castro, not for all of your lesbian… compadres."

A tough-looking woman grabs Anne and kisses her, and Anne tells him, "I'm sorry. Are we distracting you, Mr. Stokes? I'd hate to screw you up on your big night."

Stokes orders the women to leave, saying they're not from the district, and another Milk supporter corrects him. "Not true. Guess where we found them all, Rick? A slew of them, way up on Valencia St. Living right there in our district. And you see, as it turns out, Annie here is very, very popular with the ladies."

Pill said she loved the scene, saying that Stokes was always trying to "keep it comfortable with straight folks. Like you can be gay, but not too gay. And Harvey would always preach the exact opposite."

She also praised Cleve Jones for always being the one ready to say, “We need more ladies.”

"He always did," Van Sant agreed. "I just wish in this case he'd have said it a little sooner. I'd have liked to make that scene work in the film, but it was already..." He paused as if searching for a word.

"Epic?" I offered.

He just smiled. "There's a lot of story."

Still, it's clear he regrets not finding a way to use the scene. "It's part of the story that his alliance with the lesbian community gained him votes," he said. "It was partly through Anne and partly through other advances into the community and connections…. There are a lot of things in the film that are absent, and that story is one of them."

He added that even though the scene isn't in the final cut of the film, he expected it to be included as an extra on the DVD when it's released.

Pill was disappointed the scene didn't make it into the final cut, and about something else, too. "I thought there was going to be a full on make out scene," she told me. "There was just a little kiss."

Even without that bit of guerilla campaigning, however, Pill makes an impact in a film loaded with powerful performances. Because it's in the trailer and is bright, funny, and important, the scene where Harvey introduces her to his friends and supporters is probably the one that most people will be talking about.

But it's another scene where Pill has her star turn.

The night after Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot and killed by Dan White, she and Harvey's lover Scott Smith (James Franco) go down to City Hall, where there is supposed to be some kind of memorial service for the two men. It's poorly attended, and they head back towards the Castro, despondent.

And flowing down Market Street, headed by Cleve Jones, is a river of mourners, stretching for miles, candles flickering in their hands. Anne says very little, but her face is a testament to the power of that moment, both for those who were there at the time, and those who came together to re-enact it for the cameras thirty years later.

"That whole night – I will never forget shooting it," Pill said, her voice shaking a little. "I will never forget the number of volunteers who came out, and in everybody’s faces, like the older couples who had obviously been there, and younger couples who knew who Harvey was, and gay or straight, old or young, whatever; everybody was there to celebrate his life. And it was incredible that people were willing to do that for no other reason than we asked them if they would be willing to come out to Market Street in the middle of the night and walk for hours.

“I will never forget just walking out into Market St. and seeing literally thousands of people there for that reason. It was an amazing thing to be a part of, and it was so representative of what Harvey was about."

Although Pill said she was a strong supporter of LGBT rights before signing onto Milk, the battle for marriage equality and against Prop 8 has made a powerful impression on her after having played the role of Anne.

"I'm just so utterly furious about Prop 8," she said. "I thought it could have gone 52-48 the other way this time. I wish that Prop 8 didn’t happen. I wish that (the ban on adoption by unmarried people in) Arkansas had never happened. I wish what happened in Florida didn't happen. I hope we never see anything like that again."

One of Pill's hopes for the film is that it will further the cause for which Milk gave his life, and thinks it has a powerful lesson for communities struggling with divisiveness. "What Anne and Harvey did was bridge a gap that is too often there between people with similar views, but who are still sort of disconnected, which is how it was in the gay and lesbian communities at the time," she said. "And I hope that sort of offers some sort of lesson for the next time, and the fight against Prop 8, that we have to get people together who are close but not quite there, to try and close that final gap."

It's a sign of how connected Pill is with the woman behind her character that Kronenberg said almost the exact same thing, adding that much of Milk's effectiveness was in his skill as a coalition builder.

"Harvey was all about reaching out to disenfranchised people," Kronenberg said. "Not just lesbians and gay men, but African Americans and women. He really, really got the connection with feminism, with human rights. Long before I came on the campaign, Harvey was a crusader for women’s rights. I didn’t change him in any way."

Said Pill, "I think what Harvey did was absolutely incredible, forming a coalition of people who had never worked together before…. the lesbian community was so separate from the gay community. And to put these two really powerful activist cultures together did an amazing thing, and Anne was so much a part of that, and gaining access to a whole other political machine through that. I think it's incredible that he was able to do it."

It wasn't always easy doing it Harvey's way.

"There was a lot of suspicion when I came in," Kronenberg said. "Those walls were up, but we learned to play together well and we had lots and lots of fun. And by my being involved in the campaign, that naturally brought more women into the campaign. So I think the whole dynamic changed. And what would have happened if Harvey had still lived? I think that this would have continued."

Although Kronenberg gave Milk's campaign a legitimacy and energy it had previously lacked – along with his first win – she says she got more from him than he did from her. "I learned to be a stronger woman than I was," she said. "We all were really young when we met Harvey. And I learned that I could do anything I set my mind to because Harvey gave us the framework, and then he let us just go and excel."

That may be why everyone involved with the film expressed at some point the fear that Harvey's legacy might be lost. I asked Pill about something screenwriter Dustin Lance Black said, that one of the reasons he wrote the story was that he was worried that Milk was slipping out of history.

"Yes, I think there was a real danger of that," Pill said. "When we were shooting in San Francisco, people in the Bay Area - people my age, gay, lesbian - they had no idea, didn’t even know the name. And, in terms of the city’s history, and human rights and civil rights history, it’s absurd that none of us really know about it. I’m so grateful that I got to do this research on a chapter of history that I really didn’t know anything about."

Learning that history gave Pill a new perspective on playing a lesbian.

"I grew up in an era, a time and place, where (being gay) just doesn't seem like that big a deal," she said. "And I forget how big a deal it is, and how much things have changed, and then again, how little they’ve changed…. Thankfully, there are more gay characters being written that are fuller, and not stereotypical, and I can only hope to see more of that. I’d be honored to play somebody else like Anne again."

Alison has big expectations for Milk, and they go far beyond her own career. "I just hope that when everybody sees this movie it will offer, first of all, some hope that things have improved," she said. "And things will improve more, but only with a great deal of activism and forethought, and coming out, and making people deal with it."

Allison Pill has one more hope for the film, and her role in it: "That Anne Kronenberg won't be forgotten. That she becomes an inspiration.

"The L Word" Recaps: Episode 6.07 "Last Couple Standing"

2009-03-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

scribegrrrl

Senior Writer
March 3, 2009

THIS WEEK'S L WORD VOCABULARY:

Style: What this episode favors over substance.
Lessons: Jenny's new favorite L word, apparently.
Happy: What Alice wants Tasha to be. No matter how much it hurts.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTBIANS: Marlee Matlin shakes a tail feather; Alexandra Hedison apologizes; Roger Cross takes a stand; Kate French regresses Shane; Mei Melançon faces the music.

THREAT COUNT: Thus far in Season 6, six characters have threatened Jenny's life: Niki, after Jenny made the "showmance" comment; Tina, when she thought Jenny had stolen the Lez Girls negative; Max, for Jenny's unrelenting disrespect; Alice, because Jenny stole her idea for a film; Helena, because Jenny told Dylan about the surveillance; and Bette (this episode — read on).

Previously, on an imaginary episode — Did you catch that scene at the end of the "previously"? The one in which Tasha mentioned the dance marathon, and Bette offered to help, and Jamie encouraged everyone to "show up and dance"? Yeah, I'm pretty sure we never actually saw that. But without that setup, this episode would seem to come out of left field. Oh, wait — it seems like that anyway.

One more note before we begin: this recap may seem to have too many images, ratio-to-text-wise. But, well, this episode was very visual. It offered lots to look at and didn't have much to say. So I'm helplessly following suit.

The dance marathon fund-raiser — At the Hit club, it's time to boogie down to raise money for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center. This dance marathon is brought to you by the defunct OurChart.com. Accordingly, this fund-raiser isn't really raising anything but questions: Why don't we actually get to donate? Why isn't the phone number for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center crawling across the bottom of the screen? Where's the requisite PSA at the end of the episode, complete with black-clad Mama C. in a director's chair? What is the bass-drum-thumping point of all this?

But let's play pretend. The theme for the night is "Dance Through the Decades," which apparently means that everyone should feel free to wear any costume whatsoever. Alice has organized this shindig, just like she promised Jamie she would, and she has brought her "A" game — or at least her "A" for attitude.

Alice: Tasha, Jamie and I are gonna wipe the floor with you. Our routine kills. Kills!
Bette: [dismissive] Oh.
Alice: Do you want to know what it is?
Bette: Not really.
Alice: Oh, I see. You're trying to psych me out, acting like you don't care. I know you care. Listen: you tell me yours, I'll tell you mine.
Bette: Mmm ... no.
Alice: [reaching for Bette's bag] These your outfits?
Bette: Don't touch that. [looking at Alice's outfit] What, is that ... is that all you got?
Alice: Oh, yeah — first of many. So many more to come.
Bette: Oh, good. 'Cause I was worried.
Alice: [still wanting to see Bette's outfits] What do they look like?
Bette: Oh, wouldn't you like to know?
Alice: Why are you so competitive?
Bette: Me? What about you?

How adorable is Alice in her goofy getup? Her look is sort of Amy Winehouse meets Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

I'd call that a Crayola shirt or a shrinky-dink shirt. I'd also call it hilarious when Alice asks Bette why she's so competitive. Why is Bette so competitive? Really? Her?

That's like asking why the sky is blue, or why Shane is so libidinous, or why sugar is sweet, or why snow is cold, or why music is melodious, or why staircases have steps, or why water is wet, or why math involves numbers, or why sunshine is bright, or why theater is live, or why the Hallmark Channel is sappy, or why photography is visual, or why doors allow egress, or why lesbians like women, or why Obama is hope, or why jalapeños are spicy, or why Angelina Jolie is a mother, or why words are linguistic, or why wheels are round, or why the recession is depressing, or why work is laborious, or why Meryl Streep is sublime, or why Manhattan real estate is expensive, or why locks have keys, or why lemons are sour, or why Chaiken is egomaniacal. In short, Q.E.D. or D.U.H.

Alice pulls Bette aside (like, two feet aside, which is obviously more private) to tell her that she is planning to win all three competitions: best dance, most money raised, last couple standing.

Bette: Last couple standing?
Alice: You know, for charity.

Not to be confused with "for eternity," which is what Bette and Tina plan to be.

The 'Untimely' Death Test

2009-02-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

Your result for The 'Untimely' Death Test...

The Super One

59% Heroic!

You scored 59% Heroic. Lets face it, you are the next superman, batman, or other super-hero in making. Go out and save the world!

Take The 'Untimely' Death Test at HelloQuizzy

written by AnArtisticSoul

Batman to Be Replaced by Lesbian Counterpart

2009-02-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

Feb 12th 2009

By Tom Radler

Crime-fighters come in many shapes and sizes, but until now they didn't come in the woman-seeking-woman variety.

DC Comics, however, is spotlighting a red-headed lesbian to take over for erstwhile Batman Bruce Wayne -- who suffered apparently fatal injuries in a recent issue of the Batman series.

Batwoman, whose daytime persona is Katherine "Kate" Kane, is described as "lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later in the night," and she's due to star in the series for at least twelve issues, beginning in June. The Batwoman character was first introduced in 1956 as a possible love interest for Batman. She didn't come out as a lesbian until 2006, after it was revealed that she was the ex-lover of a female police detective.

Given the predominantly male readership of comic books, we wonder what factors played into DC's decision to put Batwoman in the lead.

Questions Raised: Is the sexual orientation of comic book heroes relevant? Will this effort for diversification lead to different stories that straight-male Batman couldn't provide?

While we've never been huge fans of Batwoman, can you blame us for wondering what a story line like this would be like in the Wonder Woman series?

Lutheran High School Can Expel Lesbians - And Does

2009-02-27T06:25:00.000-08:00

by Miriam Axel-Lute

A California appeals court has upheld the right of a private Lutheran high school to expel students based on sexual orientation. Creepy as that sounds, I don't think the court is actually wrong. As long as they don't take one single of penny of my taxpayer money, religious organizations have the freedom to be petty, mean, and discriminatory in their own special ways all day long.

(For clarification: This is a school run by the "Wisconsin Synod" Lutherans, not Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is more tolerant.)

The school itself, on the other hand, which ended up in court because it did in fact expel two female students for having a relationship with each other, is wrong in so many ways.

I really can't say the main point much better than Shaun Martin over at California Appellate Report, who writes: "I know that if I taught at a private high school . . . I'd definitely spend my valuable time looking up the myspace pages of all the female students in my class to see if any of them said that they were bisexual or in love with another female student. Yes, and if I were the principal of said high school, and a teacher discovered that two female students had in fact so identified themselves, I'd definitely call them into my office and interrogate them about whether they had a consensual lesbian relationship. . ."

Not to mention the crazy power this gives mean, rumor-mongering teens.

And would the snooping stop with teenagers? If religious schools think they have license to control not only what happens in school, but the private lives of their communities, are parents of young kids in religious elementary schools going to find their kids expelled when it becomes clear that they aren't using birth control (not enough kids! need more tuition!) or don't attend church enough? I know in some dioceses unmarried Catholic school teachers have actually had problems with priestly peeping Toms trying to see whether they are having overnight guests.

According to the AP, the school's lawyer says the school's goal is to "educate based on Christian principles." I realize the world is full of examples to the contrary, but it's always been my understanding that the core Christian principles are supposed to be forgiveness and redemption. Oh well.

I guess the girls who were expelled will have a good chance to practice forgiveness, but I'm guessing there are more and more parents out there who are going to just opt out of schools like this in the first place.

And Now - The Gay Brain

2009-02-27T06:16:00.000-08:00

First it was the gay gene (and it wasn't Bugle Boy! Apologies to Bill Maher whom I stole that joke from.) Now the powers that be have decided that there is a gay brain. Scientists studied the sizes of the left and right brains of 90 people, and found that, "Gay men and heterosexual women had halves of a similar size, while the right side was bigger in lesbian women and heterosexual men." So gay men have brain halves like straight women, and gay women have brain halves like straight men. Got that? This will be on the test.

This isn't the first attempt to "prove" that gayness is born, not made. There was the gay gene (see above), and then the theory that what happens in the womb could affect male sexuality. According to the BBC, "this is the first time…that scientists have used brain scanners" to attempt to determine the cognitive differences between gay people and us breeders.

In theory, this is a good discovery, since it helps put to rest the idea espoused by certain lunatics that homosexuality can be "cured." But it could help the loonies' cause too, couldn't it? Imagine if someone proposes a test be given to children at birth, or in utero. Then what? I know that sounds extreme but some people are, well, extreme (like this lady – don't click this link unless you want to get angry.) There's a part of me that wonders if sexual orientation is something we need to find a reason for.

Notes & Queeries: Change Comes to "The L Word"

2009-02-27T06:04:00.000-08:00

by Malinda Lo, Senior Writer
February 23, 2009

Notes & Queeries is a monthly column that focuses on the personal side of pop culture for lesbians and bisexual women.

Over the course of six seasons, the women of The L Word have certainly gone through their share of drama: baby kidnapping, mushroom tripping, salon burning, bride-at-the-altar leaving, nefarious-sex-video blackmailing.

I could go on.

But while I was watching the first half of this final season of Showtime’s lesbian drama, I kept returning to the fact that despite all these crises, the main characters are remarkably unchanged.

Bette, ever the alpha dyke, still struggles to stay faithful to Tina. Tina still battles to have her voice heard, whether it be by Bette or her boss.

Shane still entangles herself with women who become obsessed with her, and she still fears commitment.

Kit still can’t find her true love.

Alice is still quirky.

And Jenny is still crazy.

That’s not to say that they are exactly the same as they were in Season 1. When we first met them, they were only skeletons. Now, their neuroses have been fully fleshed out. Their personalities have solidified.

Take Bette, for instance. In Season 1, she had an affair with Candace, a sexy carpenter, while her seven-year relationship with Tina was on the rocks. When this story line first aired, it was the first time we saw Bette in this kind of situation, but as the seasons progressed, it became clear that Bette has always found it difficult to stay faithful to her partners.

In the first season, she cheated on Tina with Candace. In Season 5, when Bette was with Jodi, she cheated on Jodi with Tina. When Bette’s previous relationships are mentioned by other characters, it is Bette’s wandering eye that gets remembered — she even cheated on Alice, apparently, during their short-lived relationship.

During the first half of this sixth season, Bette’s flirtation temptation has been front-and-center as she reconnects with a beautiful former roommate; nearly every episode so far has involved Bette and Tina rehashing Bette’s tendency to stray.

Bette has almost become an archetype: She is the magnetic, powerful woman who struggles with temptation, her signature weakness.

A critical viewer of The L Word might well question whether Bette’s repeated trips down the same path constitute quality writing, but Jennifer Beals, as an actor, manages to bring newness to these similar experiences.

She somehow makes each iteration feel like yet another layer being added to the character of Bette.

I think that Bette’s cyclical story lines are partly a reflection of the genre that The L Word fits into: soap opera. You may have noticed that even if you haven’t watched Days of Our Lives for years, you can turn it on and almost instantly know what’s going on. The soap serial relies on lengthy continuing story arcs focused on character development, often over the course of years. Any given character might make the same mistake multiple times before she learns from it — if she learns from it.

I also believe that Bette’s repeated struggles are perfectly understandable. We’ve all heard that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but it’s also very human.

Even if you are aware of the error of your ways — and Bette is clearly aware — change is hard. It’s hard enough when it happens to you. Forcing yourself to change a behavior that has become a habit can feel like attempting to move a mountain with only the power of your own small shoulder.

Usually, it’s just easier to take a path you’ve been down before.

Tina, in Season 6, seems to know this. “I don’t want to deprive you of something that’s so fundamental to who you are,” she tells Bette in Episode 6.02.

She believes that Bette is defined by certain unmutable characteristics, just as most of us believe that our personalities are defined by traits that have solidified by the time we reach adulthood.

That’s why we tell each other, “People don’t change,” or “Don’t try to change her — she won’t change.”

But as much as we might want to believe it’s true, we don’t remain solid and unchanging all our lives. We’ve known this since we were children, but as adults, many of us try to forget it.

Because if you can’t depend on yourself to act in certain ways, who can you depend on?

It’s only years later, when you’re getting ready for bed at 9 p.m. because you have to go to work at 6 a.m., that you realize you’re no longer that overeager teenager sneaking out at midnight. You’ve changed, and it’s crept up on you, unnoticed.

Do you remember your senior year in high school? At the end of the year, when the yearbooks were distributed, we passed them around in a ritual of remembrance; they would anchor us back in those locker-lined hallways every time we opened them. In my yearbook, several people wrote “Don’t change!” or “Stay the same!”

Those words were defensive barriers against all the change that was about to come flooding through our lives.

I think we all knew somewhere inside ourselves that we could not help but be changed by what was to come. But those words allowed us to cling to the idea that we could weather the storm intact, that we would remain the same people we always were.

It’s a romantic idea: the solid, unchanging rock in the storm, secure and stable. But wind and water will still wear away that stone grain by grain, and a new landscape will eventually emerge.

When I graduated from high school, I could hardly wait for the change to come. I hated high school and thought that anything would be better — especially college in far-off Massachusetts, where nobody would have any preconceptions about me.

But when I first arrived, alone with my two suitcases, the change was so extreme that I found myself longing unexpectedly for the sameness of high school. It didn’t help that my two suitcases got lost on the way from the airport to the college, and for the first two weeks, I had none of my clothes with me. By the time my suitcases turned up (misdelivered to the dorm next door), I had spent two weeks fumbling my way into a new life with only what I’d brought in my carry-on.

For someone who was already insecure about who she was, having so few physical reminders of home was very hard.

I remember calling my parents while sitting in my dorm’s living room, looking out the long, tall windows at the rainy night — yes, it was actually raining — and crying. I had never been away from home for so long, and because I had wanted so desperately to leave, I had a hard time recognizing what I was feeling as ordinary homesickness.

But college was expensive, and of course I stayed, and of course things got better — and my life kept changing. I came out, for one thing, and though that experience was not exactly fun, ultimately it made all the difference.

The truth is, so much good can come of change. In reality, the exhortation to “stay the same” is a ridiculous one.

Why would we wish for someone to never develop, never move on from a time in their life that was meant to launch them into something new?

I’ve been thinking, too, that the end of this season of The L Word — its last — marks quite a big change. However you feel about the show, it will always have its place in the lesbian community, and this change on its own might seem daunting to many fans of the show.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel that it’s a little bit comforting to see Bette and Tina and Shane and Alice doing the same things they’ve always done. Whatever has happened in our lives over the past six years, these characters are still there. They have become, for many, a constant to rely on.

The good thing is, even after The L Word ends, it will still be there for us. It’s like that yearbook.

Every time you watch an episode, it brings you back to where you were the first time you saw it — in your living room, maybe, or surrounded by friends.

Simultaneously, The L Word has created a major change for us.

We’ll never be able to go back to a time when lesbian characters have never been the leads on a prime-time show. Even though it is still a struggle to get lesbian characters and story lines on TV, I can only see The L Word as positive progress for our visibility.

And when there are no more new L Word episodes, there will be even more room for other visions of who we are and what we look like.

It is a wide-open landscape out there, full of possibility.

As we watch Bette continue her struggle over the last few episodes, I am hoping that she pulls through this time. I hope that, like many humans who have fought for years against their own bad habits, she finally turns down the path less taken and embraces the change in herself.

Gay and lesbian couples marry across California

2009-02-27T05:33:00.000-08:00

On Monday, California became the second state in the U.S. to grant full marriage quality to gay and lesbian couples.

After waiting for more than half a century for legal recognition of their relationship, lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon became one of the first same-sex couple in California to legally marry.

On Tuesday, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples will follow in their footsteps to celebrate the latest victory in the fight for LGBT marriage equality.

"Liberty and justice for all is finally a reality in California. For the first time in the history of our state, lesbian and gay couples may get legally married,” L. A. Gay & Lesbian Center Chief Executive Officer Lorri L. Jean said in a statement released on Tuesday.

“No longer will the government interfere in our private lives. No longer will we be singled out and treated differently just because of whom we love.

"Instead we are finally being treated just like everyone else—no betterr, no worse. Today is a proud day not only for LGBT people and our families and friends, but for all fair-minded Californians."

In San Francisco, hundreds of supporters gathered at City Hall on Monday evening to celebrate one of the first legal marriages of a same-sex couple in California.

The cheers and applause of the crowd was deafening as gay rights icons Phyllis Lyon, 84, and Del Martin, 87, emerged from the building after their ceremony to cut their wedding cake in front of a gaggle of media cameras.

“When we first got together, we were not really thinking about getting married, we were thinking about getting together” Lyon said, standing beside her new wife. “I think it is a wonderful day. We are very happy.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who presided over Martin and Lyon’s marriage ceremony, said: “I think today marriage as an institution has been strengthened. I think today marriage has been affirmed. Today is the first day in the state of California that we are providing marriage equally and fairly to everyone. Denying no one their right and opportunity to live their lives out loud."

Newsom also presided over Martin and Lyon’s marriage ceremony in 2004, after the San Francisco Mayor ordered city officials to begin issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples in protest of the state ban on gay and lesbian marriage.

Those licences were later voided by the California Supreme Court when they determined Newom had acted illegally in issuing them.

Martin and Lyon then joined several other gay and lesbian couples in a lawsuit to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage in California.

Last month, the California Supreme Court judged for the plaintiffs in the case, ruling that a ban on same-sex marriage violated the state’s constitution.

”These are indeed historic times,” said Lorri L. Jean.

"I am overjoyed that these beloved and admired lesbian icons were finally able to realise full equality under the law. In 1955, they put their lives on the line so that lesbians could have a voice.

"They were leaders in our movement for decades. Now they have once again helped to make history. Congratulations to them and to all of the couples who will get legally married today and in the weeks and months to come.”

In Beverly Hills, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, another couple who participated as plaintiffs in the lawsuit that eventually resulted in an overturn of the gay and lesbian marriage ban, were the first same-sex couple to legally marry in L. A. County.

A crowd of onlookers cheered as Tyler and Olson pressed their foreheads together, their cheeks wet with tears, as they were married in a Jewish ceremony in front of the Beverly Hills courthouse yesterday evening.

Even as thousands of other gay and lesbian couples plan to follow Martin, Lyon, Tyler and Olsen to the altar in the days and weeks ahead, all are aware that this massive celebration of marriage equality in California could abruptly end.

Gay marriage opponents have already secured a place on the November ballot for a voter’s initiative to amend the state constitution to restrict marriage to “between a man and a woman” only, which would effectively halt the rush of same-sex marriages in the state if passed.

“There are a lot of mixed emotions about this,” Newsom told Time in an interview. “It’s exhilarating on the one hand. But it’s by no means certain that California won’t take back what it has given.”

Lorri L. Jean, who has been deeply involved in the fight for marriage equality in California, also spoke of the coming fight to keep same-sex marriage safe in the state.

“Celebrate today; but prepare for battle tomorrow,” Jean said in a statement. “Right-wing extremists have qualified a measure for the November ballot that would amend the Constitution and ban the freedom to marry. To protect marriage for all Californians, we must defeat the measure and the bigotry it stands for.”

For extensive coverage of the celebration of marriage equality in California, visit Advocate.com.

For more information on how to get involved in the fight to protect marriage equality in California, visit www.EqualityForAll.com.

R.I.P., Jenny Schecter, and other things on her tombstone

2009-02-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

by StuntDouble

You know that feeling you get when you have a cluster of judgments in your mind that are so similar they could practically be having Opinion Church, but are just different enough that they're stumbling all over each other to try to be the first one out of your mouth? That's what happened to me yesterday when I read the press release from Showtime asking us to participate in the Jenny Schecter Memorial Sweepstakes.

Basically, the contest, which is currently in its sixth week, is an opportunity for you to celebrate the demise of your once-beloved show, and win the clothes Jenny Schecter dies in. Yes, you read that correctly: you could be the proud owner of the actual outfit Cynthia Ann Summers designed before someone stuffed Mia Kirshner in a body bag and called it storytelling. (I do hope they had the foresight to put the stuff in the dryer.)

What you've missed if you haven't been participating in the Jenny Schecter Memorial Sweepstakes is the chance to write a poem for Jenny, inscribe words on her tombstone, title her biography and ask her questions she might answer from beyond the grave. If you decide to participate in this week's contest — and if you do, hurry! It ends on March 1 — you will create the ultimate Jenny Schecter fan art. Next week you can write her OBitchuary. (Get it, o-BITCH-uary? Because Jenny is so totally evil that even her closest friends threatened to kill her.) The final week is Things Left Unsaid, in which you get to say one last thing to Jenny Schecter.

I will be participating in the final contest now.

Hi Jenny,

You and I have had a tumultuous relationship over the years, haven't we? My heart broke for you in Season One, because we've all been there, right? I mean, we haven't all been there, but if we're honest we get it — that choosing between the person who fills your soul with song and the person who gave your soul a home, and rest, in the first place. I could've done without the manatees, but you were just out of college, I think, and were there even Moleskines back then anyway?

In Season Two, we found out you'd been seriously effed up as a little kid, and how could we expect you to act normally after that? Unfortunately, no one ever explored that particularly huge part of your life beyond setting it up as a reason for you to start cutting on yourself, so now your abandonment issues and misguided moral compass and complete social ineptitude play like you're just a jerk.

Now we're in our final chapter of your story, and rather than responding authentically to the character you have become, the writers decided to work backward from a contrived conflict, and cram you in a coffin. Then they broke a bunch of other characters and taped them back together so they'd fit inside the "mystery." They call it "the stories we're going to tell this season." I call it the kind of puppet show where you can see the strings and the puppet master, and even my 2-year-old nephew feels manipulated.

The one last thing I want to say to you is, I'm sorry. You didn't deserve to die; you deserved some therapy. Sadly, there is only one therapist in your city, and his name is Dan Foxworthy, and honestly, he kind of sucks both as a person and a counselor.

The insult to your injury — well, death, actually — is that now they're auctioning off your clothes in exchange for a guess at the title of your autobiography. (Mine is "Magical Me," but that's neither here nor there.)

If it helps, you aren't dead to me. The first time I read Little Women, I rewrote the ending, such was my dissatisfaction with the way things played out. I'll do the same for you. You'll go on living in my imagination, and while I can't promise rainbows and kittens and unicorns and such, I promise not to lie and call it a script. You can hang out with Dana, who also lives, and Alice, who will not be going to jail. You could hang out with Bette and Tina, but they're being naughty, and that's an entirely different story altogether.

Affectionately,

StuntDouble

If you want to take a turn at winning Jenny's death suit, check out the Jenny Schecter Memorial Sweepstakes at Sho.com.

So Jealous (Tegan and Sara) Free Mp3 Download

2009-02-22T03:13:00.000-08:00

So Jealous is an album released by Tegan and Sara on September 14, 2004. One track on the album, "Walking With a Ghost", was later covered by The White Stripes and became the title song of their EP Walking with a Ghost. The album art was created by designer EE Storey.

"You Wouldn't Like Me" (Tegan Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Take Me Anywhere" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"I Bet It Stung" (Sara Quin) DOWNLOAD

"I Know I Know I Know" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Where Does the Good Go" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Downtown" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"I Won't Be Left" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Walking with a Ghost" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"So Jealous" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Speak Slow" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"We Didn't Do It" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"I Can't Take It" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"The L Word" Recaps: Episode 6.05 "Litmus Test"

2009-02-21T07:19:00.000-08:00

by
scribegrrrl,

Senior WriterFebruary 18, 2009

THIS WEEK'S L WORD VOCABULARY:
Defending: What Tina doesn't need.Loyalty: In Hollywood, it's in short supply. Sex: What this show has been missing. THIS WEEK'S L WORD VOCABULARY:
Defending: What Tina doesn't need.Loyalty: In Hollywood, it's in short supply. Sex: What this show has been missing.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTBIANS: Elizabeth Berkley stakes her claim; Mei Melançon dances; Wallace Shawn protests his innocence; Kate French can't move on; Alexandra Hedison is scared too.
THREAT COUNT: Thus far, four characters have threatened Jenny's life: Niki, after Jenny made the "showmance" comment; Tina, when she thought Jenny had stolen the negative; Max, for Jenny's unrelenting disrespect; and Alice (this episode — read on).
Pick a little, talk a little — Tina and Bette are working at the Planet. No, they're not plating quiche or perfecting Shane's recipe for remorse-flavored waffles; rather, they have brought their laptops and their professional demeanors to their usual table in order to do some work. They've also brought a tape dispenser, a calculator, a stapler, several highlighters and two mile-a-minute cell-phone conversations that annoy nearby friends.

On the off chance that some viewers might see calculators, staplers, highlighters and tape dispensers as accoutrements of the boudoir rather than the workplace, Alice spells it out:
Alice: Wow, you two just really moved your offices right on in here, huh?

Little does she know that that's the least of her problems. Bette and Tina have ended their frenetic phone calls. Bette's conversation was about the construction on the house, and Tina ... well, Tina has some news.
Tina: Guess what?Alice: What? Tina: Jenny sold her script.
Bette and Alice express their surprise, and claim they didn't know Jenny was working on a screenplay at all. Huh? Weren't you both sitting right here — well, on your respective sides of the martyr-cheater divide — when Jenny was working on her treatment? It's a good thing the WHY-I-I rule can also mean What Happened Yesterday Is Irrelevant.
Tina seems almost proud of Jenny:
Tina: Just goes to show you: she was depressed, and someone stole her movie right out from under her, and she just sat right back down and she just banged out another script.Alice: She just cranked it out.Tina: Mm-hmm.Bette: [without an ounce of sincerity] Good for her. Tina: Yeah. There was a bidding war. Guess how much it sold for?Bette: [without an iota of interest] How much.Tina: Half a million dollars.
Alice can't believe it. Who can? It's the best evidence to date that this entire season is a figment of Jenny's imagination, because who the crap would buy her drivel for that much dough? Hogwash!
Helena voices everyone's Lez Girls–induced, unspoken fear:
Helena: Wonder what it's about this time, huh?
Helena, you look sublime in your specs. Please wear them every day.
Tina reassures them all: Jenny's new movie won't be anything like Lez Girls. But, gosh, doesn't it sound awfully familiar?
Tina: It's an action comedy about a talk show host and a cop. And the talk show host gets embroiled in this, like, murder mystery, but the movie really revolves around the romance between the talk show host and the cop. It's kinda like a Foul Play meets, um ...Alice: [horrified] Mr. and Mrs. Smith?
During Tina's summary, the camera has been zooming in on Alice's face. But it really should back the hell up, because she's about to fly into a million pieces.
Alice: You guys. That's my story.Bette and Tina: What? Alice: That's my story! [getting up and leaving] God. Schecter is so f---ing dead.

At last, a real motive! I mean, if plagiarism isn't a reason to send someone to a watery death, I don't know what is. Except, uh, the idea of Alice as a murderess is a completely ludicrous notion. Still, this threat is way more believable than the others — possibly because Leisha's line was way more believable. Funny how that works.

A river in Egypt — Alice goes right over to Jenny's house. Jenny is calm and happy; she blithely invites Alice to go to dinner with her and Shane to celebrate the sale of the screenplay.
Alice: Jenny! You stole my idea!Jenny: What are you talking about? Alice: The treatment that I gave you. The screenplay that I was gonna write.
Jenny is nonplussed.

Jenny: That jumble of ideas that you gave me?
Hey, don't underestimate a jumble of ideas — that's all that's left of this show (well, more like the shards of a single idea), and here we all are. But Jenny dismisses Alice, insisting that her "mish-mash" of ideas wouldn't be sellable in any universe. Are you sure? Not even the topsy-turvy inverted navel of a universe that you live in? I'm pretty sure anything is possible there.
Jenny: If [my screenplay] happens to bear some resemblance to something that you jotted down, then it's pure coincidence.
The look on Alice's face makes it clear that she'd like to jot something right through Jenny's foggy frontal lobe and out the other side. But Jenny insists that this sort of thing happens all the time in Hollywood.
Alice: Where people steal their friends ideas and they sell them off as their own. Is that what you're trying to say?Jenny: No. It's something called the idea well, OK?Alice: Oh, my God. Jenny: There is a well. All of the writers drink from the same fountain.
I think this is one instance in which I'd prefer to be separate but equal, if it means drinking from a different fountain than that whence Jenny sips.
Jenny: But it takes genius, talent, craftsmanship to take a kernel of an idea and turn it into — ta-da! — a sellable screenplay. OK?Alice: Jenny, you are so f---ing full of s---.
Yeah! Take your genius, talent and craftsmanship and stick them up your kernel of an idea!
Shane hears the ruckus and asks what's going on. Alice has pretty much lost it by now and doesn't even bother to give Shane the details. She simply says that Jenny has crossed the line this time.
Alice: If you continue to shack up with this f---ing lying, stealing snake in the f---ing grass, I swear to God I cannot consider you to be my friend anymore.
Alice is almost crying as she says this. She marches out, furious and shaking.
Shane: What ... Jen, what's that?Jenny: I don't ... I guess she has some misguided idea that I stole the idea for her screenplay. I dunno. Shane: She's p---ed off! Jenny: I guess she'll just have to get over it.
Wow. It's one thing for Jenny to be infuriating, but this is beyond even the Jenny shade of pale. Despite her sometimes appalling behavior, I've never really thought she was diabolical. But as she shrugs off Alice's rage, she seems empty and cruel. When did she turn the corner from mess into menace?

Constant communication — Alice makes her way back to the Planet, talking to Tina on the phone all the while. She's still on the phone as she takes her seat at the table.

Tina: Hi.Alice: Hi.Bette: Hi.
With the phone-to-face-transition greeting out of the way, Tina finishes what she started to say on the phone. She feels partly responsible for Jenny's bad behavior, but Alice doesn't see how anyone could have known that Jenny would do this.
Bette: Well, can you sue her? I mean, does Joyce do copyright infringement?Tina: No, it doesn't work that way.
Everybody clap — The L Word actually got a legal point right for once! Copyright laws protect expressions, but not ideas. Which really means that Leisha should copyright her face: she's once again bringing a bounty of facial expressions to the table.
Alice decides to stop talking about the purloined treatment, for fear her head will explode. She asks Bette and Tina why they're still at the Planet.
Bette: I'm working from home, and yet I have no home.Tina: And ever since I've been accused of stealing the negative, it's just too uncomfortable to go to the office.
I can totally relate. Except I haven't been accused of anything. I just find offices — with their staplers and highlighters and whatnot — generally uncomfortable. Plus I can't take my dog to the office, which seriously cramps my creativity. Speaking of my dog, he now barks when The L Word starts, and my dog is not a barker. The only other thing that consistently moves him to speak is my drunken neighbor. (You can see the connection: my drunken neighbor sounds a lot like the L Word theme song.)
Alice doesn't really care about the trials of Bette and Tina. She's just received a text message from Jamie, and it's turning her frown upside down.
Alice: She's awesome. She's so cool, you guys.
She says "awesome" in a singsong way, sorta like Rachel Maddow sometimes says things. Hey, can we please get Maddow to be a guestbian? Somehow I think she'd politely decline.
Alice is just plain gushing about Jamie. Bette and Tina have eyes and ears, so they notice.
Bette: [teasing, as if on a playground] You're having a third-wheel crush. You and Tasha.Tina: Yeah. Definitely.
Alice strenuously denies this: the only thing they're all feeling is "friend love." But Bette and Tina recognize "all the telltale signs."
Bette: Well, let's see... it starts when, you know, you've been dating your partner for quite a while, and you're starting to grow bored with one another, and then you start fighting all the time.Alice: We're not fighting.
Bette and Tina say "Huh?" in a way that makes me wish that Beals and Holloman were allowed to be funny more often.

I also wish Bette and Tina could be the den mothers more often — that's what they used to be, back when everything made a little more sense. Or, you know, even one thing made slight sense.

for my ever viewer

2009-02-14T07:36:00.001-08:00

Myspace Comments

This Just Out with Liz Feldman: Tegan and Sara

2009-02-14T07:15:00.000-08:00

by
Trish Bendix

It's an extra super duper episode of "This Just Out" because Liz goes backstage with Tegan and Sara.

Photo by Lindsey Byrnes Photography

Also, Liz and Raimy geek out and share their suggestions for some "hard times Valentines." Then Liz makes a call and asks someone special to be her Valentine.
This Just Out with Liz Feldman: Tegan and Sara

Lesbian video from AfterEllen.com

The Con (Tegan and Sara) Free Mp3 Download

2009-02-09T22:28:00.000-08:00

The Con is Tegan and Sara's fifth full-length studio album, released on July 24, 2007 (February 18, 2008 in the United Kingdom). Guest performers on the album include Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie, Matt Sharp of The Rentals and formerly of Weezer (on Sara's songs), Hunter Burgan of AFI (on Tegan's songs) and Kaki King.

"Relief Next to Me" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"The Con" (Tegan Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Are You Ten Years Ago" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Back in Your Head" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Hop a Plane" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Soil, Soil" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Burn Your Life Down" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Nineteen" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Like O, Like H" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Dark Come Soon" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

Life: Sarah Shahi Is Pregnant

2009-02-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

Kristin Dos Santos Mon Feb 2, 7:34 pm

ET
Los Angeles (E! Online) – Life and L Word star Sarah Shahi is having a baby!

Life show runner Rand Ravich tells me, "Sarah Shahi is pregnant. She's about four months pregnant." (Shahi's reps have not replied to a request for confirmation.)

Now, this means only good things for Sarah (congratulations, girl!), but what does this mean for Dani Reese and her partner Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) on one of the best shows on television, NBC's cult hit Life?

Rand spills that Sarah's pregnancy means big changes for the show, including a separation for the partners and a new job for Reese...

In the coming eps, Dani Reese joins an FBI-LAPD joint task force on crime and is attached to that unit for the time being, in part to help moderate the show's demands on Sarah while she's pregnant.

Rand says, "[Sarah's pregnancy] is a challenge and a…challenge. Episodic television is a grueling schedule, and Sarah and Damian were practically in every scene together, and we certainly can't expect Sarah to work 15-hour days...So we were able to carve Sarah out of the main story a little bit—keeping her always related to Crews and always involved with Crews—and just give her some relief as well."

Apparently the pregnancy coincided nicely with a schism that they were already planning between Crews and Reese. Says Rand, "We wanted to diverge their stories somewhat, to separate them geographically to make them start doubting each other, tear them apart somewhat. And then hopefully, if they can work it out, [we can] bring them back together in a stronger fashion."

But who will be Crews' partner while Reese is gone? I've got the dish on that and much more, so check back Wednesday morning for more Life. As for this current development, are you OK with some Reese-Crews alone time? Are you excited for Sarah? Post in the comments!

Life returns to NBC this Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 9 p.m. (Sarah is also set to appear in the series finale of her old show, The L Word, later this year.) If you haven't yet seen Life, please, check it out. It really is good television.

—Reporting by Jennifer Godwin

Not Your Usual Lesbian Valentine's Day

2009-02-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

by girl2grl

Friday, January 25, 2008

Not Your Usual Lesbian Valentine's Day
is one of the few holidays that is celebrated throughout the world. And although many retailers would like you to believe that this holiday is all about the gift giving, there are many other ways you can make your sweetie feel special on Valentine's Day.

Here are a few ideas to give you a head start on your February 14th plans:
1. Try cooking a meal. Now don't freak out about this one, you don't have to be a gourmet chef to make a nice dinner for your partner. In fact, you can find recipes for chicken, steak or fish on the Internet that are surprisingly easy to follow. And if you’re a little too scared to attempt it alone, then perhaps you and your partner can cook a romantic meal together.

2. How about an evening at home? Rent some of her favorite movies, make some popcorn and cuddle on the couch while watching movies. You could even order in for dinner and have a romantic meal by the fire. Another possibility, if your lucky enough to have a bath tub, light some candles and take a romantic bath together.

3. Why not pamper yourselves? What better way to celebrate this day of love then by taking yourself and your partner to a spa. Spoil yourselves with massages, maybe a soak in the hot tub and then perhaps lounging in your robes while drinking tea.

4. Get a little creative. Why not make a scrapbook documenting some of the special moment in you relationship. Or try writing a poem about how the two of you met. If you’re really artistic, perhaps you could make a collage with photos, quotes, etc. Handmade gifts are always appreciated and if you need more ideas, there are some great Valentine’s day DIY ideas at ecobites.com

5. How about Love Coupons? Coupons can be easily created on your computer or by hand, and you can make them as specific as you like. In fact, you could even make some coupons that are romantic and others that might just relieve some stress in her life, such as doing all the house cleaning one weekend.

Here are a few more coupon ideas…

-Good for an evening of romance
-Good for one kiss
-Good for a weekend getaway
-Good for one sensual act
-Good for a massage
-Good for one romantic dinner out
-Good for a foot massage
-Good for cleaning the dishes
-Good for a home-cooked meal

6. Fulfill a fantasy. Yes, I am referring to a sexual fantasy. Perhaps start with a little role-playing or a maybe new sexual position? You know what they say, experimentation breeds’ excitement in the bedroom, and what better way to spend your Valentine's Day. But, if that is a bit too risqué for your taste, then perhaps you can try taking turns reading an erotic book to each other...that can be just as much fun and may lead to other activities, if you know what I mean…wink wink nudge nudge.

7. Make it a Surprise. Perhaps the most romantic gift of all, which may or may not be fulfilled by any of the above ideas, is to make whatever you do be a surprise. The best gestures are often those that are unexpected.

And If you do decide to buy your partner a gift, please try to be a bit more original then your basic long-stem roses and a plain box of chocolates. And while your at it, why not support the lesbian community as well? Here are a few gift ideas from companies that either cater to the lesbian community and/or are lesbian owned:

1. Jewelry-Love & Pride and Talk about it has some unique Jewelery items made specifically for the GLBT community.

2. Accessories and Art- 2Grrlz has some unique lesbian-centric accessories and artwork that would make a nice Valentine's Day gift.

3. Sex Toys - Lesbian Toy Shop and Two girls and their toys both offer quite the variety of sex toys, from glass dildos to nipple clamps, they seem to have it all.

4. Gourmet Chocolates - Poco Dolce is not your basic box of chocolates. Imagine tiles of silky dark chocolate with double roasted almond, crystallized Ginger, Burnt Caramel Toffee or Aztec Chile finished with smattering of sea-salt flakes...these are just a few of the options you will find with Poco Dolce.

5. Clothing - Dyke Tees has a variety of unique and stylish T-shirts and Family Evolutions has clothing and gifts for lesbians and their children.

Whatever it is you end up doing for Valentine's Day, don't stress about it! It isn't about the gifts, or the restaurant, it is about taking the time to appreciate each other and remember why the two of you decided to be together.

If It Was You (Tegan and Sara) Free Mp3 Download

2009-02-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

If It Was You is a studio album by Tegan and Sara, released on August 20, 2002. Officially, it is their second release through Vapor Records, though they independently released Under Feet Like Ours in 1999. If It Was You was recorded on Galiano Island and the Factory Studio, with the exception of the track "And Darling (This Thing That Breaks My Heart)", which was recorded at Tegan's house.

An enhanced version of If It Was You was released on June 3, 2003. This version includes one bonus track ("Come On Kids"), two music videos ("Monday Monday Monday" and "I Hear Noises"), and two tour videos ("Born in the Eighties Tour" and "The Never-Ending Tour").

"Monday Monday Monday" (Sara Quin) DOWNLOAD

"City Girl" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Not Tonight" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Living Room" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Terrible Storm" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"And Darling (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Want to Be Bad" (S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Don't Confess" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

Video: Learn your gay ABCs with new tongue-in-cheek animation

2009-02-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • February 5, 2009 - 14:45

A is for Ass, B is for Brokeback Mountain, C is for Closet.
A new cartoon that lampoons both gay life and homophobic Christians has been viewed by nearly 70,000 people on website YouTube.
The Sesame Street-inspired video was posted by a collective of UK-based creatives under the name The Gay Alphabet.
"Right wing groups and the church argue that the very existence of gay publications and groups effectively advertise, glamorise and recruit people into the gay lifestyle," the group said.
"They see it as 'recruitment propaganda'.
"Which is of course rubbish.
"This is an art project that explores what a recruitment campaign might look like."
The group said Gay Alphabet poster charts will be coming soon.

Green Eyes lovers track

2009-02-06T02:23:00.000-08:00

Heart Break

2009-02-06T02:15:00.000-08:00

Lesbian Valentine's Day Ideas
10 things to do for Valentine's Day this year.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1384649/lesbian_valentines_day_ideas.html

"The L Word" Recaps: Episode 6.03 "LMFAO"

2009-02-05T04:18:00.000-08:00

scribegrrrl
Senior Writer
February 4, 2009

THIS WEEK'S GUESTBIANS: Cybill Shepherd pulls rank; Roger Cross twirls Kit; Mei Melançon gives Alice a purpose.

Shaolin Studios — Tina has just arrived at work. Hear those drums in the background? It's the corporate jungle! She gets a text message: Her boss, Aaron, wants to see her right away. Actually, what he really wants is to scream at her for aiming to destroy Lez Girls — er, The Girls. Tina doesn't know what he's squalling about.

(Sorry; couldn't get a clear shot of Helena because she was running!)

I have to explain that last text-message scene (Kit). it goes like this:

Kit: Why is my phone buzzing? [to a nearby employee] Why is my phone buzzing?
Helpful Planet Employee: You got a text message.
Kit: A what? A text message?

Jenny: I don't have expectations for our relationship.

And then Jenny avers that she wants to "set boundaries."

Helena: [on the phone] Boundaries?! Jenny doesn't even know the meaning of the word. She's never had any boundaries. Ever!

And then it happens: Shane and Jenny kiss. Full-on. On the mouth. Passionately. Gone-With-the-Wind-y, as the South (aka my optic nerve) burns in the background.

Tina: I would never do anything to sabotage this film, OK? I put my life into this film.
Aaron: I don't actually think that you were the one who stole the negative, Tina, because you are not a complete and total raving lunatic. Like, for example, Jennifer Schecter.

The guy is a first-class schmuck, but apparently he's also a keen judge of character.

Tina: And you think Jenny did it?
Aaron: I cannot, in my wildest dreams, imagine anyone else on the planet being that devious or insane. But Jenny Schecter? Piece of cake. And since she's your friend, Tina, I am holding you personally responsible.

He storms out. He always storms out, so I think it's losing its dramatic impact.
Tina doesn't seem half as upset as Aaron, but she's sufficiently moved to utter a threat:

Tina: F---ing Jenny. I'm gonna f---ing kill you.

Morning (or mourning, depending on your proclivities) — Jenny and Shane are curled up in bed. Shane wakes up to find yippy little Sounder II right next to her on the bed. Sounder! Where ya been? Whatcha been up to?
Shane unceremoniously pushes the pup off the bed. Aww. I don't know, Shane; that may be the surest sign yet (well, that and Jenny's eventual expiration) that this dalliance is doomed. Love Jenny, love her dog. Um, unless the dog is pawn in a twisted game of revenge, like the first Sounder was. Maybe it's better that you don't get too attached.

Shane gets her bearings, as much as she can in this wackadoo, topsy-turvy world. Somebody should have warned her that when you step through the looking glass into Jennyland, you get sort of twisted up on the way through — fun-house mirrors have a different coefficient of lucidity. I think it's something like -7734 or -666 or -8675309 . Jenny, Jenny, who can I turn to?

Shane: S---. [looking around, chuckling] I don't know what to say.

You were right on the mark with that first word you uttered, actually.

Jenny: I'm happy we f---ed.
Shane: Are you sure?

The bell ringer is Alice. She's there to get notes on her film treatment. Yes, even Alice has lost the ability to protect herself. She's like the blithely clueless girl in the horror movie — the one who cheerfully knocks on the serial killer's door, somehow oblivious to the chainsawed bodies strewn all over the front lawn.

As Alice continues to mash the doorbell the way Max mashes his Xbox controller buttons (um, that sounds wrong somehow), Shane scrambles for her shirt. Jenny, so recently sure about last night, asks Shane whether they've made a mistake.

Shane: No.
Jenny: Really?
Shane: [shrugging] You know as much as I do.

What? Is that supposed to be reassuring? You're telling us that for comfort and clarity, we must turn to the Möbius strip that is Jenny's gray matter? We'll never get out alive!

Shane finally answers the door.

Alice: I know that look. Woo!
Shane: What look?
Alice: The "I had sex all night" look. Anyone I know?
Shane: No. No, I didn't do anything. You know I look like this every morning.
Alice: Oh, my God, who are you kidding? You wear your sex nights on your sleeve.
Alice: So when did Jenny let you back in the house?
Shane: Uh... last night.
Jenny: [from the bedroom] Hey, little monkey? Have you seen my earrings?
Alice: "Monkey"? Wow, you guys, like, super made up.

Right on cue, Jenny bounces out. She and Shane talk like lovers do. (Here come Jenny and Shane again, raining in my head like a tragedy.)

Jenny: Are you gonna do Patrick Dempsey's hair for some kind of commercial this morning?
Shane: [shyly] No.
Jenny: [teasing, flirting] No? What are you doing, then?
Shane: I mean, um, I'm not ... who am I doing? I'm doing, um, Eric, uh, Eric Mabius.

Jenny and Shane go back to the bedroom so that Jenny can "help Shane get dressed." I would try to describe how this makes me feel, but Alice has already done it for me. She has been present for the entire exchange, the sparks and the body language and the batted lashes. The horror has dawned on her slowly, violently and hilariously. I can't do justice to her expressions — as Dorothy Snarker notes, her face captures disbelief, shock, nausea and every nuance in between. Her nostrils even flare, and she twitches and squints and reels. It's simply DeLeishous.

She steps stealthily after the giggly couple and sees them disappear into the bedroom, and then tries to collect herself.

Alice: S---, s---, s---!! Oh, my God!

She shakes her hands in the air as if she's trying to get something icky off them; she rocks back and forth as if to keep herself from retching; she stamps her feet in an attempt to make it stop. It's almost like she's leading the viewers in a game of Simon Says — and I for one am repeating every move. Simon says freak the f--- out!

Shane finds Alice and dances around the subject at hand.

Shane: Hi.
Alice: Tell me you didn't.
Shane: You know that I have to be at work. So we're gonna talk later.

This isn't even remotely OK with Alice, but Jenny is back, so she pretends all is well. Jenny offers Alice and Shane a cappuccino. A what? I thought she refused to drink that toxic stuff now. Didn't she say that just last season? Or maybe that was about carbs. Sorry; I have this pointless, atavistic urge to seek out continuity. I should get that checked.

As Jenny and Shane start to make eyes at each other again, Alice excuses herself and retreats to the bathroom. Once there, she tries to talk herself down, but it works about as well as it works for Rachel Maddow.

Alice: Oh, my God. OK. Don't think.

So instead of thinking, Alice does the next best thing: she texts the news to all her friends. One by one, we see the text messages arrive at their destinations, in a zippy, happy montage set to "Shut Up and Let Me Go" by the Ting Tings. (I'm not complaining, but what kind of deal did they make to get featured on this show so much?)

Here are the various reactions:

Who Where What How

Helena At the gym Shrieks&falls off the treadmill Hilariously

Tina In a pitch meeting "What the f---?" Alarmedly

Tasha @the police academy Shakes herhead &chuckles,saying, "Alice" Adorably

Bette stuffy board meeting Unbridled guffaws Uproariously

Kit At the Planet Has no idea why her cell phone is buzzing Cluelessly

(Sorry; couldn't get a clear shot of Helena because she was running!)

I have to explain that last text-message scene (Kit). it goes like this:

Kit: Why is my phone buzzing? [to a nearby employee] Why is my phone buzzing?
Helpful Planet Employee: You got a text message.
Kit: A what? A text message?

Alice's reaction is visceral and, again, genius:

Alice: Eww! Eww!

Helena: Alice. You're being childish. They're both grownups; if they want to get involved with one other, then that's totally their prerogative.
Alice: Shane just said Jenny was a good kisser!
Helena: [jumping up and down] Eww, ooh, ooh, my God, that's disgusting!

The funny thing about their disgust is that a couple of decades ago (or, depending on where you are and who you're with, right now), an on-screen kiss between two men or two women elicited the same revulsion-as-amusement. Does this count as progress, or is it just more proof that we've gone through the fun-house mirror?

Shane leaves and Jenny returns, so Alice pretends to be on a work-related call. But Jenny's not as easy to hornswoggle as you might think.

Jenny: Right. Alice, I'd appreciate it if you don't mention that stuff. [motioning toward the door] You know.
Alice: [nodding] Um ... it's none of my business.
Jenny: Nope.
Alice: [in a way that says no and yes at the same time] Mm-mmm.

Jenny suggests that they start "work" (i.e., discussing Alice's treatment), but I'm pretty sure Alice thinks today has been plenty taxing already.

California University — Bette is strolling into her office, talking with Tina on the phone as she walks. Her first order of business is to declare Shenny a "complete and total train wreck," and the second is to reassure Tina that the missing negative is probably just some misunderstanding. Yeah; I mean, it was definitely a misunderstanding to shoot the thing on film instead of DV, but I guess that's why I'm not a studio exec.

She sits down at her desk. Jodi and Tom are already there, waiting for her. Bette says "I love you" into the phone, looking at Jodi while she says it. Um. That's so not classy, San Diego.

Bette: What is Tom doing here?
Tom: Hello, Bette. It's good to see you too.

Don't be so smug, Tom: your pregnant boyfriend might end up giving Bette and Tina his baby. Cute little Mini Max Portard!

Anyway, Tom signs Bette's question ("What is Tom doing here?") to Jodi.

Jodi: Well, the ADA says I have the right to an interpreter in the workplace. [after Bette looks at her blankly] The Americans With Disabilities Act?
Bette: But you know perfectly well that I can sign.
Jodi: Mmm, actually ... your signing has never really been that great. So it's probably better if you just speak.

What?! That is just spiteful. It's mean. I cannot stand this version of Jodi.

The dastardly ploy allows Jodi to look at Tom (rather than Bette) while Bette is speaking. Bette tries to keep her voice level as she says that "working together has become very uncomfortable."

Bette: And since I am the head of this department and I have to have it run smoothly, I think it would be best for you to resign.
Jodi: [after a pause] No.
Bette: Excuse me?
Jodi: I love my job. Why would I resign?
Bette: A few weeks ago, you volunteered to resign from CU.
Jodi: Right. I offered to resign to protect your ass. Which is something I would do for someone that I'm in love with. Obviously I'm no longer in love with you.
Bette: If you don't resign, then I'm going to have to fire you.
Jodi: [chuckling] Go right ahead.

Jodi walks out. I wish she'd take my memory of this scene with her. No good can come of it.

Back at the epicenter — While Alice and Jenny are discussing the craft of writing a treatment, Alice's phone keeps ringing (quacking, actually, which is very Alice).

Alice: Getting a lot of phone calls. I don't know why.

Jenny takes Alice's stack of paper and points to it accusingly. You! You're the killer!

Jenny: How long did it take you to write this?
Alice: Oh, I just wrote that in a night; I just kind of stream-of-consciousness spit it out.
Jenny: One night. This took you one night. You people think that you can just come into Hollywood and suddenly you're gonna make it. And you're gonna, like, write everything, and it's gonna be great in one night.

Gosh, who does that remind me of ... what was the name of that character from the middle of nowhere who moved to Hollywood and had the writing studio and the swim-coach boyfriend? I think it rhymed with Fenny Fecter.

But really, who can blame Alice for thinking she could write a screenplay in a night? That's how writing is always depicted in the movies. I always thought I'd have my own personal cinematic all-nighter, emerging victorious the next morning with scraps of paper in my hair and ink stains on my smock and my glasses all askew, a fully formed novel in my hands. It's alive!

Jenny: My work, to write a screenplay, is a craft, OK? And if you're gonna sit here across from me, you have to start taking it seriously.

Oh. What if I move over here, a little to the side? Is mocking from an angle OK?

Jenny suggests that Alice practice pitching the movie to her.

Alice: It's about a, um, talk show host who's really fantastic, and, um, is dating a cop who's dark and broody ... and they get caught up in this murder mystery.

Hey, Jenny, will you look at that? Clearly Alice did learn your craft: she's typing up everything that happens around her.

Alice says her movie has car chases and action and romance and "everything."

Jenny: Except a good idea. Just saying. I mean, I don't think that's gonna sell. [shrugging] Pretty boring. But you know, the heart of this is that it's just not realistic. These two people would never be in a relationship together.

Alice shakes her head and starts to disagree, but there's no stopping the crazy train.

Jenny: Well, Alice, you know what I think? The future is now. Right now. And this [tapping Alice's notes] is not the way forward. Because when I'm with you in a group of people, I close my eyes and I'm like, "whoa ... eww, yeesh" that girl ... ooh, the voice. [pointing to Alice] She should be doing cartoon voiceovers.
Alice: I've never really thought of cartoons as a career move.

Bwah! I don't know what sort of executive Jenny was just then, exactly. I just know that Leisha and Mia are feeding off each other again, and it's delectable. It's like Angela Robinson wound them up and said, "Go!"

Someone's knocking at the door — Speaking of studio executives, Tina is ringing the doorbell. Not just ringing: impatiently ringing and knocking and yelling. Alice is relieved to have an excuse to wrap up this "meeting."

Alice: [to Jenny, fakely] Thank you, so much, for the inspiration.

Snicker. I wish I could do that faux thank-you thing. I'd probably end up saying, "Suck it, Schecter."

Alice trades places with Tina, giving her a word of warning in the doorway:

Alice: [breathlessly] Don't tell anybody I told you 'cause I promised I wouldn't say anything.

Tina agrees to that, but she has to ask whether Alice is sure about Jenny and Shane.

Alice: I saw them make out. With tongue.
Tina: Eww. Gross!

Tina gleans that Alice didn't have a good encounter with Jenny, but Tina is too busy being mad at Jenny herself, so they'll have to talk later.

Alice: Why, what'd she do to you?

Oh, here we go with the murder mystery again. Everybody has a motive! But at least it's nice to see that our favorite ladies may all band together again, united by this ridiculous notion of wanting to kill Jenny. Murderous instincts: the bond that lasts a lifetime.

Tina marches into the kitchen.

Jenny: [blissfully unaware] I got a new cappuccino maker. Do you want one?

What's with the cappuccino in this episode? Is it infused with some sort of mind-control serum that makes other people see reality through Jenny's eyes? Maybe this is the seed of Angela Robinson's long-awaited sequel to D.E.B.S.: Jenny is involved in a secret government project to put Formula JDS in the nation's coffee supply. Or ... oh, my God, maybe Jenny is the Jenbot!

Tina says she doesn't want a cappuccino and needs to talk to Jenny.

Jenny: I can make it with soy.

Temptress! Siren! You would have to offer the soy! Tina finally agrees.

Tina then tries to talk over the sound of the coffee grinder; she tells Jenny the negative was stolen from the lab. Jenny proceeds to say, "What? I can't hear you" but doesn't actually stop grinding the beans. This is the quirky, exasperating Jenny who made Season 5 so much fun.

Jenny: [finally done grinding beans] Why do you keep on saying the word "negative"?

Comprehending at last, Jenny says it doesn't matter because the editor "has it on her computer." Tina says this won't work because that version of the film can't be projected — the movie was shot on film, so without the negative, it can't be printed, and that means no screenings anywhere. Is that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Or, I mean, wouldn't it be, if you weren't watching the most ridiculous show you've ever seen?

Tina: No one's gonna see our movie.
Jenny: [blankly] Are you saying that nobody's gonna see the movie?

Tina can only roll her eyes. I think she would echo Liz Lemon's "uh, doi" if she could.

Remember, Tina: things aren't real for Jenny unless they come out of her own brain/mouth/pen. It's cognition via proclamation.

The gravity of the situation finally sinks in for Jenny. Tina turns on the studio-exec smoothness and tries to have a "one-on-one" talk with Jenny. She approaches Jenny the way you might approach a twitchy Chihuahua who's snarling and sitting on your wallet.

Tina: [sweetly, carefully] Is it here?
Jenny: Is it here? You ... if I stole it? You want to know if I stole the movie.

Tina promises that nothing bad will happen if Jenny just returns the negative. Yeah, right: Thelma and Louise taught us not to trust that kind of promise, especially when offered by cops and executives. Maybe that's how Jenny ended up in the pool — she thought it was the Grand Canyon and she was plummeting to her poetic release from patriarchy.

Jenny is shocked by Tina's accusation and suggests that "that twerp" Adele took the negative. Tina doesn't know why Adele would do that; it would ruin her career. But Jenny points out that she has even fewer prospects than Adele.

Jenny: If this film doesn't come out, then I'm totally f---ed. So I need this film to come out.

It's kind of cute when Mia Kirshner's Canadian accent shows up, like it did just then with the word "out."

Jenny reiterates that she didn't steal the negative. Tina believes her and apologizes. Tina! You believe her? Did you drink the cappuccino?! Maybe when Jenny told you to "smell the beans," she was offering you an airborne hallucinogen — you've just been hoodwinked by the mind-warp machine disguised as a cappuccino maker!

The Planet — Alice is finally getting the scoop from Shane. She wants to know whether Shane and Jenny are a couple. Shane laughs this off and insists that one night of sex isn't a big deal.

Alice: Shane. It's Jenny! I mean, I just want to make sure you know who we're talking about here.
Shane: I'm truly aware of who it is, thank you. But listen: we get each other. We do. And I have to believe she's not gonna get weird.

You also have to believe in unicorns; leprechauns; Santa Claus; E.T.; gremlins; pixies; Peter Pan; hoodia; ginseng; paintings by cats; the fundamental soundness of the economy; the Bermuda Triangle; Bigfoot; the Loch Ness monster; Jan Brady's boyfriend, George Glass; the ShamWow; the Secret; the heterosexuality of Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Jodie Foster, Anderson Cooper and Chet on The Real World; and everything you've ever seen on The X-Files and on Fox News. And you have to believe that the WMDs are still out there somewhere; a Nigerian prince needs your money in order to save his country; Bronx Mowgli is a perfectly acceptable baby name; Sarah Palin would have made a good vice president; Pat Summitt makes as much money as Geno Auriemma; Penny isn't Desmond's constant; Forrest Gump, Jerry Maguire and Claire of the Moon are brilliant films; you were always on Willie Nelson's mind; the Cashmere Mafia writers handled the Caitlin story line expertly; Kissing Jessica Stein ended just the way it should have; Tina Fey isn't very smart; Cheeta the chimp was in Bedtime for Bonzo; Bernie Madoff is a stand-up guy; Daniel Day-Lewis won't drink your milkshake; the Grey's Anatomy producers appreciated Brooke Smith's unique beauty; and separate is equal.

I mean, if you're really gonna own this make-believe fairyland thing. Just saying.

Alice: I'm just ... you're expecting Jenny to set boundaries. It's like ... what?!

She points out that even the most level-headed person would be freaking out after sleeping with his or her roommate.

Shane: Just because it happened, doesn't mean we're going to add water and become instant relationship all of a sudden.

As Shane says this, she gets a text message. It's Jenny, asking her to get beer on her way home. Oh, so you won't add water — you'll add beer. Now you're just quibbling over beverage choice, Shane.

Alice knows this is a sure sign of danger — it's so obvious, it renders her speechless.

But the assault on Alice's core values has only just begun. Shane makes a confession:

Shane: Listen, between you and me, if it was to happen again ...
Alice: What. What is that face?!
Shane: I wouldn't ... I wouldn't mind.
Alice: Oh, God.
Shane: It was good.
Alice: How good was it?
Shane: Better-than-I-expected good.

Well, OK. But is that sort of like saying that the 44th president is going to be better than the 43rd president? The bar is very low. But I'm probably projecting my own expectations, which would be, like, swimming-with-the-manatees low. Depths-of-the-Daniela-Sea-acting-skills low. Level-of-Chaiken-self-awareness low.

Alice predicts that Shane will sleep with Jenny again tonight. Shane insists she's not planning on it.

Shane: At the end of the day, I really am happy that she's back in my life.

Well, we certainly are at the end of the day. The end of the day and the beginning of Armageddon.

Alice looks like she wants to stage an intervention, sort of like she did Season 1 when Bette and Tina had become "boring." Grab your clipboard, Al, and make your list of pros and cons. Make that "pro," singular: comic relief!

Anyway, it may be too late. Look how koo-koo-eyed Shane is already! She's totally been swilling that psychedelic Jenbot cappuccino.

Phyllis's office — Bette is trying to have that conversation about "implacable Jodi" — you know, the one she started with Phyllis last week, when Joyce's junk got in the way. But Jodi has beat her to the punch, and is about to punch her in the gut.

Phyllis: Jodi has given me her side of the story. So if there's anything you think I should know, now is the time.
Bette: Well, Jodi agreed to resign several weeks ago, and I simply asked her to submit that resignation.

Phyllis patiently points out that the reason for that resignation (the Justin Donovan gun-to-the-head incident) no longer exists. But Bette's point is that the underlying problem continues to nettle her: namely, Jodi's failure to recognize any authority but her own. Isn't that the hallmark of a good artist? Not that Jodi is practicing any art but revenge these days.

Bette: As my subordinate, she has repeatedly demonstrated that she is determined to make it as uncomfortable as possible for me to do my job.
Phyllis: So, you threaten to fire your ex-girlfriend because having her around makes you uncomfortable?
Bette: No, I ... that' s not what I said. It's a question of authority, Phyllis.

I'm sure Joyce would say that it's really a question of which lawyer you hire.

Phyllis: I'm really shocked, Bette. I would never have imagined that you of all people would allow this ... this dyke drama to interfere with you doing your job.

Ugh, that's the second episode in a row that has featured the phrase "dyke drama." It does serve as a helpful reminder of exactly what we're watching, though. Sorta like that giant logo that hovered at the bottom of the screen throughout the premiere of Prayers for Bobby.

Bette insists that "dyke drama" isn't a fair characterization of this situation, so Phyllis offers another, very precise assessment:

Phyllis: When you entered into a sexual relationship with a subordinate, as you referred to her, you relinquished your right to fire her. Because that's what's called sexual harassment.
Bette: [to Jodi] Are you threatening to sue me for sexual harassment?!
Jodi: [innocently] That thought never occurred to me. I'm not really interested in lawsuits.

Phyllis doesn't care whether it has occurred to Jodi or not (I think we all know it probably has); she's just trying to protect her kingdom.

Phyllis: I cannot allow you to expose this university to this kind of threat. Have I made myself clear?

Her Chancellorship dismisses her subjects. As they sit next to each other for a few seconds, Bette and Jodi look like the masks of comedy and tragedy. Or maybe the masks of smugedy and shockedy.

Jenny's house of boundaries and cappuccino — Shane is napping (you know, because of the "sex night"). Jenny wakes her up to tell her that she's finished her "whole treatment." If only this were a reference to some sort of therapy, instead of more prattle about her film treatment.

Oh, my mistake. It's more like shock treatment:

Jenny: I was thinking about you.
Shane: You were?
Jenny: I was. Everything that we did last night.
Shane: And what were you thinking?
Jenny: I was thinking that I liked it.

So they do it again. At least the scene is really dark; I think this was Angela Robinson's way of helping us cover our eyes.

On the set of The Look — Oh, right: Alice is still a talk show host. I forget that these people have jobs.

It's time for Alice's salacious segment on secrets, but today she's not interested in outing any celebrities. She has received a letter from someone whose brother recently died.

Alice: [reading from the letter] My brother's dead because he wrote a love letter to a guy named Marcus. And Marcus shot him in the face. I'm writing to ask you to please tell your viewers that it's not OK to hurt gay people.

Alice's co-hosts and producers are freaking out about the heavy turn this normally lightweight show has taken, but Alice is determined to use the daytime medium for a different message.

Alice: I know I've justified outing in the past, saying it's a political act. I certainly do believe that the world would be better if people felt free and safe enough to be who they really are, but what I forgot was some people choose to stay in the closet for other reasons. One of those reasons is homophobia is alive and well, and oftentimes in this country, it can be deadly.

Tina asks an assistant what's going on.

Assistant: Aaron wants to see you right away.
Tina: [weakly] Again?

Aaron has just printed a copy of a recently faxed document. He reads it aloud:

Aaron: Dear Deluxe Motion Picture Lab, please release the Lez Girls negative to the East Side Messenger Service, who will arrive at 8 p.m. tonight. Sincerely [passes the letter to Tina] — you wanna read that signature for me?
Tina: Oh, my God. You don't actually believe that I did this.
Aaron: Is that or is that not your signature, Tina?
Tina: Yes. But I didn't write this letter!
Aaron: Then you'd better find out who did. [storming out again]
Tina: Ffffaaahhhkkk.

I wonder who sent that fax? Maybe Patricia Velasquez did it because she didn't get enough screen time last season. Really, who could blame her? But there I go, mixing up all the meta again. It can be so confounding.

It's more likely that Aaron has concocted this whole thing to get rid of Tina. He obviously hates her now, to the point of having an aneurysm every time she's in the room. It's like Stanley's biofeedback machine on The Office, going haywire whenever Michael gets within two feet of him

A bar made of awkwardness — Phyllis and Bette are out for a drink. But it's not a very relaxing one.

Bette: So you want me to resign?
Phyllis: Yes.
Bette: Look, I know I'm not the only administrator at CU who's ever had a relationship with another faculty member.
Phyllis: No, but you're the only lesbian administrator who's had a nasty public breakup with a faculty member.
Bette: So this is because I'm a lesbian. Or is it because you're a lesbian, Phyllis?

Bette starts to remind Phyllis that this isn't a great time for her to be out of a job, what with the baby on the way.

Phyllis: Bette, don't grovel. It's beneath you.

Speaking of things people shouldn't say, Phyllis begins to slowly reveal that she's had a crush on Bette for a while now. Bette almost misses the news entirely — she's so busy drowning her sorrows in peanuts, she can't hear anything but the crackle of the shells.

Weirdly, Phyllis makes a Jimmy Carter reference to go with the peanuts.

Phyllis: As Jimmy Carter once said, "I've strayed in my mind's eye many times."

And here it comes:

Phyllis: Bette, I've always found you wildly, exquisitely attractive.

Bette emits another deep chortle.

Bette's hearty laughs in this episode are so scrumptious, they almost rival Tasha's. But they're almost desperate, too, as if she finally sees that yes, she is the victim of a very elaborate cosmic joke. Several of them.

Bette tries to get Phyllis to stop confessing her love. She reminds her that she's engaged to Joyce.

Phyllis: Joyce is wonderful. Oh, yes, she's TCB, she's good in bed, makes a good living, tight with Mayor Newsom ... but if you gave me the smallest amount of encouragement, I would lose her in a second.
Bette: [in disbelief] You just fired me.
Phyllis: I know. But it may be the best thing that ever happened to both of us. Bette, you are and will always be the woman of my dreams.

Phyllis puckers up and leans over, forcing Bette to spin her way out of the kiss and off the bar stool. Ack! Phyllis! What are you thinking? It's like you've been spending too much time watching Bad Girls, especially that scene where Helen says, "I'm not your jailer anymore, which means I can do this" — and then plants one on Nikki. But unfortunately, this is just nothing like that.

The Planet — Some flowers have arrived for Helena. Kit is impressed, but Helena isn't.

Helena: Next time Dylan Moreland sends me flowers, Kit, just please, don't accept them.
Kit: OK, I'll throw 'em out.
Helena: No, that'd be a waste. Let's put them in a bathroom, or ... [seeing a pretty young thing at the bar] maybe we recycle them. [taking a flower and going over to the PYT]

I've seen this pointed out elsewhere, but that bartender does sorta look like Elizabeth Keener, doesn't she? If only Dawn Denbo were actually stirring up drinks (and people) at the Planet.

The talk show host, the cop, and the wardrobe — Alice is trying to find something to wear.

Alice: I guess hate crimes aren't "fun gay"; they're depressing gay. And now I'm going to this f---ing 7:00 meeting where I'm gonna get fired.

She plans to apologize and beg to keep her job, but she's having trouble finding the perfect outfit. As Alice presents several possibilities, Tasha reclines on the bed, wearing an absolutely perfect outfit herself.
Jamie leads them right out to the roof to rescue Marie, the desperate teen. As Dorothy Snarker said, this suddenly feels like a classic ABC Afterschool Special. Alice, if Helen Hunt shows up, do not accept anything she offers you! Same goes for Jessie Spano, and she might actually be hanging around somewhere.

Jamie: Marie doesn't believe me. She was already out there when you read her letter today, and she thinks I'm just making it up to get her to come in.

Alice interrupts Jamie and says she doesn't know how to do this whole saving-a-life thing.

Tasha doesn't know why Alice wants to apologize, considering she's not actually sorry.

Alice: I will be sorry if I lose this job. I do not like being broke.
Tasha: But Alice, you don't always get rewarded for doing the right thing. I mean, some people get punished. I got punished.
Alice: Are you really gonna make this about you right now? Are you really gonna do that, make it about the f---in' Army right now?

The phone rings, saving us from another round of that classic lesbian game, Whose Needs Are Biggest Right Now. Tasha picks up the phone.

Tasha: It's some woman from the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center.
Alice: Tell her I donated last year.

When Tasha tries to give the woman the brush-off, it turns out not to be quite so easy. The woman doesn't want a donation. She wants Alice to help her "talk down" a young woman who is about to jump off a ledge.

The Gay and Lesbian Center — Jamie, the woman who made the phone call, is thrilled to see Alice. Incidentally, Jamie is played by Mei Melançon, who can also be seen canoodling with Lauren Lee Smith (the actress formerly known as one Miss Lara Perkins) in the movie Pathology.

Jamie leads them right out to the roof to rescue Marie, the desperate teen. As Dorothy Snarker said, this suddenly feels like a classic ABC Afterschool Special. Alice, if Helen Hunt shows up, do not accept anything she offers you! Same goes for Jessie Spano, and she might actually be hanging around somewhere.

Jamie: Marie doesn't believe me. She was already out there when you read her letter today, and she thinks I'm just making it up to get her to come in.

Alice interrupts Jamie and says she doesn't know how to do this whole saving-a-life thing.

Tasha: Alice isn't qualified for this. She's not a psychologist.
Alice: I'm not.

Tasha and Jamie continue to discuss Alice's qualifications or lack thereof, and before you know it, Alice is on her way to the ledge to sit next to Marie.

Alice tells Marie she just got fired for reading that letter on the air. But she's not sorry.

Alice: Millions of people heard the truth today. They heard what you had to say. They did; I mean, you changed the world a little bit when you wrote me that letter. You really did. And if you stick around, you could help change it a lot more.
Marie: Is that what you're trying to do? Trying to change the world?
Alice: I don't know. Maybe I am in my own little way.

OK, but you might have to do that from jail. Hey, maybe you could start a version of OurChart in jail — call it OurCage. Instead of the Hookup, it will have the Lockup. On second thought, never mind. That whole thing is just tired now. OurYawn.

The Hit Club — Gosh, this joint is really jumping. There's even a velvet rope and a line. Maybe Dusty (Helena's former cellmate) should have a cameo as a bouncer.

DJ Sunset and Kit have taken their sideshow outside. They're surveying the crowd and taking a break. DJ Sunset guesses that all the boys used to love Kit.

Kit: I had my share, back in the day. But men ... they just mess me up.
Sunset: What about women?
Kit: Oh, women? Oh, puh-leeze, they can mess each other up too. I can't begin to tell you how much drama I see.

You see it, and sometimes you "Girl!" it, but you so rarely get to participate in it.

Sunset: Oh, but you're happy now. Happy with Helena?

Oops. Kit doesn't try to correct Sunset's misinterpretation of her "partnership" with Helena. Sunset isn't really that interested anyway; she soon excuses herself to fix her face.

By the way, Sunset is played by Roger Cross, and he's not ordinarily in drag. He did get to romance Queen Latifah in Mad Money, though, and that qualifies as fabulous.

Inside, it's time for one of those great group scenes. Yay! It starts with Tasha toasting Alice.

Tasha: To Alice! I wanna say that she really surprised me today, and I'm very proud of her. And I'm very happy and proud to be her girlfriend.

Awww. So cute. Who needs therapy, anyway?

She hightails it back to the Filipino prison camp — er, I mean she goes back inside the club.

Inside, Bette has apparently just told the tale of her super-crappy day: getting fired ("Technically, I resigned") and getting hit on by Phyllis ("And she didn't make out with me; there was no way that I was gonna make out with her").

Uh, I wonder how Tina feels about all of this? Why didn't we get to see her reaction? "Hi, honey, I'm home. Oh, and I got fired today because ... well, you know. But I promise I share your values now!"

Kit interrupts, all a-flutter with the abomination she has just witnessed.

Kit: I just saw Jenny and Shane in the car. Shane's hand was all up Jenny's skirt and Jenny's tongue is all going down Shane's throat —
Alice: Kit. Kit! You don't know how to check your text messages, do you?
Kit: Is that what my phone was doing all the buzzing about?

Everybody shushes her as Shane arrives. They offer Shane some overeager hellos — except for Bette, who is too tipsy and too amused to do anything but chuckle into her martini.

Shane: Why are you laughing?
Bette: Nothing. Just, we were talking about this ... nah, I had something in my throat, and I ...

This causes Helena to burst into chortles too. And her laugh is delicious too! Why have we been deprived of these aural feasts? Thank you, Angela Robinson, for bringing the fun. It's so much better than the funereal.

They all toast Kit and Helena and their newly redecorated club. Jenny arrives, prompting Alice to mutter, "You showed up all by yourself."

Bette says, "Hi, Jenny" as innocently as she can, and Jenny says, "Hi, Bette" in a perfectly weird, exaggerated way that sends Bette into another fit of cachinnations.

Shane continues to wonder what's going on as they all continue to laugh, but Shane and Jenny are also too busy staring at each other to really care. Bette's paroxysms continue — did we know she was such a happy drunk? The only other time I can remember her being drunk is when she was on the prowl in NYC. That wasn't quite so giggly and bubbly.

Helena and Kit talk about their new club, including the V.I.P. room on the second floor. Jenny decides to go check it out. Cue Shane:

Shane: Hey, Kit ... how big is this place? You said there's two levels?

And of course Shane has to go check out that second level.

Alice: [mocking, in a doofus voice] Oh, there's a second floor?

I love love love love it when they all sit and talk and generally behave like friends and human beings.

DJ Sunset, now at her mike and tables, asks for the fabulous Kit Porter. Kit sashays onto the dance floor and twirls and whirls and laughs with Sunset. At first I did not approve of this little rendezvous at all, but I'm coming around. If Sunset is going to treat Kit like a lady, that'll go a long way with those of us who are tired of Kit being treated like an extra.

Up on the second level, Jenny and Shane can be seen watching the crowd and chatting.

Jenny: Are you OK lying to all our friends?
Shane: I don't care. I really don't ... it's between you and me.

And now what's between them is a thin slice of air, as they embrace and kiss. And as all their friends laugh and laugh and laugh — especially Bette and Tina. It's almost maniacal, actually, and it feels like four laughs at once: Bette and Tina laughing at the slings and arrows of life, and Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman laughing at the lunacy of The L Word.

Let's all raise a glass and laugh with them, shall we? It's the best way to turn folly into jolly.

Next time on The L Word: Jenny explores her boundaries; Bette gets a job offer; Helena goes on a date.

Sarah Shahi to show her face again on "The L Word"

2009-01-28T03:35:00.001-08:00

by Grace Chu

After yesterday’s revelation that Jenny’s killer on The L Word will remain unidentified, many of us were about to go Gloria Gaynor on Ilene Chaiken and kick her to the curb. After all, there is only so much a girl can take.

So what will it take to get us to rip up those divorce papers and take Ilene back? What if she gave Kit some meaningful lines, for example? Or if she got Max to shave? Or if she brought back lesbian Turkish oil wrestling and put Helena and Dylan in the ring? No?

OK, what about this?

Or, dare I include — this?

Would you forgive Ilene Chaiken if she brought Carmen back to The L Word? If so, you better lower your weapons and hold your fire, because it has been confirmed that Carmen will make an appearance in the final episode:
Sarah Shahi has a new TV show on NBC, as many of her fans already know. She does make an appearance, but we’re not doing a big Carmen story. I don’t want to mislead anybody, but I am delighted to say that Sarah does appear in our final episode.

Carmen may only be waltzing in for a brief cameo, but judging from the comments in the forum, it seems that even an itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-itsy-bitsy slice of Carmen is just peachy. And who knows — since it is clear that Shane cannot end up happily ever after with a corpse, perhaps there is at least a fighting chance that the following fairy tale can come true:

Anyone care to guess why Carmen might be showing up just in time to see Jenny meet her death?

"The L Word" Recaps: Episode 6.02 "Least Likely"

2009-01-28T02:25:00.001-08:00

by scribegrrrl, Senior Writer
January 27, 2009

THIS WEEK'S L WORD VOCABULARY:

Suit: The secret ingredient that turns Sexy Tasha into Super Mega Sexy Tasha.
WTF: Alice's refrain on behalf of the audience.
Revelation: How Jenny brings about the apocalypse.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTBIANS:

Elizabeth Berkley takes Bette for a stroll down memory lane; Jane Lynch shows us what she's got; Alexandra Hedison finds that time doesn't heal all wounds; Cybill Shepherd is still in charge.

Previously on The L Word — Whoa, did you see Dylan in the "previously" scenes? That whole thing (starting back in Season 3, Episode 4) seems like such a long time ago. It's more like prehistorically on The L Word.

Lifestyles of the rich and clueless — Niki is hanging out in her crib with her entourage. You know how these things go — and if you don't, just turn on MTV right now and you'll probably see something similar. There are lots of cell phones and bikinis; the music and decor are unbelievably cool; everyone's dealing with some sort of seriously big OMG drama. For Niki, of course, the drama is all about what Schecter spake.

Niki rants her way from one room to the next, wagging her finger and shaking her head and yet somehow utterly failing to really convey much emotion at all.

Niki: [to nobody and everybody] Can you believe that? She f---s me all night long, and then she has the nerve to say that it's a showmance. I mean, I don't even know what the f--- that is.
Entourage friend: I'm Googling. It's uh ... a phony romance that happens during a movie or a TV show, usually between two stars, but ...

Niki cuts her off, which is a relief. Who doesn't know what that means? Showmance, fauxmance, bromance, homance — where will this clever little trend end? It's a romance between seamstresses: a sewmance! A dalliance spurred on by the recession: a pomance! And how about a fling between two Simpsons characters? A d'ohmance! Gah, enough already.

One of the other entourage ingenues (entouragenues?) starts to babble about who really broke Jenny's heart.

Niki: You know what? You are out of my Five.

Really? People do that? It's not just a commercial?

Niki throws everyone out, then goes to the balcony, fixes her gaze on something offstage and makes a little speech:

Niki: Jenny Schecter is a liar and a user. And trust me, you are not going to get away with this. You are dead meat, Schecter. Dead.

Ooh, we have our first suspect! It was Niki on the balcony with the T-Mobile. Wait; that would be the murder of this scene, not of Jenny.

Spectacular — At the Hit club, Helena and Kit are having a meeting with their new DJ. Hold up a sec. Is this Glasses Night on The L Word?! Aww, yeah!

And if it really is Glasses Night, does that mean Tina Fey is going to show up as a surprise guestbian? Hey, I dream big.

Anyway, the DJ's name is Sunset Boulevard. As Joe Biden might say, let me say that again: The DJ's name is freaking Sunset Boulevard. Isn't that subtle? The next thing you know, one of the characters will change her name to Ima D. Killer.

They all talk about the new decor for Hit: the colors are Moroccan, in a nod to Casablanca. Classic film references are to The L Word as clowns are to a clown car.

I should mention that the DJ is a drag queen. Kit is temporarily twitterpated by the physique she finds under the fabulousness.

Kit: So ... what do we have to do to get the fabulous Sunset Boulevard to come and spin at Hit?
Sunset: Just keep being the fabulous Kit Porter. You know you're my ultimate R&B goddess.
Kit: Oh, I don't know about the "ultimate." [squeezing a deltoid] Ooh, somebody's been working out!
Sunset: Mmm hmm.
Kit: [hastily removing her hand] Not that we're the type ... you know, we're, uh ... [looking at Helena] We've both sworn off men.
Helena: Ages ago.
Sunset: Good for you. You two got a good thing goin' here. You don't need some man in here messin' it up.

Kit and DJ Sunset continue to flirt anyway. Hmm, something just occurred to me: remember when Bette and Tina were trying to figure out what their kid's last name would be, and they briefly suggested Portard? If Kit Porter marries Ms. Boulevard, they'll be another pair of Portards!

Busy lezzie bees — At the Planet, Jenny, Alice and Tasha are engaged in their various pursuits. Jenny and Alice are both typing madly on their shiny Macs, while Tasha pores over an old-fashioned three-ring binder.

Their breakfast arrives, including some very pretty waffles for Jenny. She informs the server that she didn't order those. But the server explains that they're from Shane, who is forlornly gulping coffee nearby.

Kit (who is also at the table with Shane) explains to Jenny that Shane made the waffles especially for her. Wait: she actually made them? Has Shane been hanging out with the soup chef, taking cooking lessons instead of those photography lessons she was considering in last season's finale?

It's sweet, though, especially because Shane appears to have a smudge of flour on her face. Aww, now I'm thinking about that food fight/flirtation scene in Fried Green Tomatoes. But there's no flirtation here:

Jenny: Excuse me, Alice? Do you mind just mentioning to Shane that I don't want her waffles.

Alice hesitates, then accepts the mission.

Alice: [brightly, to Shane] Hey. Um ... she doesn't want your waffles.

I cannot fully capture Leisha's brilliant delivery of this line. Think of it as the Venn intersection of talk-show host, irritated pseudo-friend and Marge Gunderson.

As Jenny stomps over to the trash can to throw away the penitent waffles, Bette and Tina arrive, full of morning cheer and praise for all of the improvements Helena has made to the Planet. Their sunny moods are quickly dampened by the tension between Jenny and Shane. In order to choose sides/tables (the battle of the Cheats and the Narcs continues), they play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Bette loses twice.
Bette: Why do I always lose?
Tina: 'Cause you're always rock.
Bette: Is that what it is?

How do you not know this about yourself, Bette?
Bette: Have fun with the martyrs.
Tina: Have fun with the cheaters.

Even if it were the farters and the bleeders, it couldn't be more of a lose-lose situation.

I'm not sure the table division makes a lot of sense (Alice is at the martyrs' table, while Kit is with the cheaters), but it doesn't really matter. It already feels like it's just a big game. Maybe tomorrow, after starting out with Rock, Paper, Scissors again, they can have a halftime game of Red Rover to spice up the allegiances.

Tina wants to know what the industrious people at her table are working on. Tasha shows her the spine of her police training manual. Jenny explains that she's writing a new treatment for a film. But hmm, what is Alice writing?

Alice: A treatment.
Jenny: A treatment for a film?
Alice: I just ... I had this kinda killer idea, so I thought, I'll just write a great screenplay and then sell it for millions and buy a house in Malibu.
Tasha: I don't like Malibu.
Alice: You've never been to Malibu.
Tasha: I have been there.

Hmm. "Killer" idea? Again with the subtlety. That aside, what are you thinking, Alice? I mean, why wouldn't Tasha have been to Malibu? It's not like you have to be rich or white to pass through it, even if those are probably requirements for actual residency. Anyway, I'm kinda with Tasha on this one: Malibu is fun to drive through in a convertible, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Tina is surprised by Alice's screenwriterly ambitions, but Alice admits that she's not really in pursuit of a dream. It's more of a lark.

Alice: I thought, how hard can it be? Right, Jenny? It's, like, you get paid big time.
Jenny: Mm hmm. Um, well, actually, Alice, if you were to amortize the payment of the 17 drafts that I did of Lez Girls, you'd see that you actually don't get paid very much.

Yeah. Writing doesn't always pay off. Considering how many drafts I usually write of these recaps, I'm pretty sure I'm single-handedly responsible for the giant sucking sound that is the economy.

Deprived of the banter, Bette texts Tina to ask what's going on at her table.

Bette: [to Kit and Shane, reading Tina's reply] Alice is writing a treatment for a script. Hope we're not in it.
Kit: Amen to that.

Jennifer Beals delivered that line like she was looking for a rim shot — and undoubtedly she knew Pam Grier could be counted on to give her one. Can we please have a few Bette/Kit scenes in this final season? They used to be so good together.

Tina tells Alice that Jenny has actually become a very good screenwriter, and encourages Alice to ask Jenny to read her treatment. Jenny and Alice both look like they'd rather dig those waffles out of the trash and eat them.

Alice: [chirpily] Sure. Sure, sure, sure ...
Jenny: [tightly] I would love to give you notes.

Alice turns her attention to Tasha, who is loading up on carbs for training — a bit too quickly for Alice's taste. But Alice definitely approves of what Tasha's wearing today. It's Tasha' first day at the police academy, and she's looking very dashing indeed.

As Helen Stewart might say, "Nice suit!"

Alice brags that she "dressed" Tasha and tells her Eliza Doolittle to do a little spin, but you can imagine how well that goes over. They snipe at each other about Tasha's usual lack of sartorial effort.

Bette has texted Tina again for an update, but Tina doesn't tell her much. The camera's continued focus on computers and cell phones and texts is reminding me of The Departed. That entire film obviously grew out of Scorsese's belated fascination with cell phones. Gee whiz, what cool gadgets! I guess it's better than last week's ode to the digital thermometer.

Tina offhandedly asks when Tasha and Alice are going to therapy.

Tasha: [furiously getting up and walking away] There's a thing called privacy, Alice.

Bette gets wind of this via another text.

Bette: [to Shane and Kit] Uh-oh. Privacy.

Bette is many things — enigmatic, obstinate, exasperating, breathtaking — but I don't think I've ever called her "cute" before now. But that was definitely cute.

Helena strolls by the door just as Tasha's leaving, and tries to tell Tasha she "look[s] a million dollars." But Tasha's not really trying to hear that.

Alice: [to no one in particular] Fffahhkk, you know? Bad vibes. [to Jenny] You and Shane should work your s--- out, because this place is becoming like the black hole of Calcutta.

Helena sarcastically proclaims that it's good to see "we're still asunder; nothing like a little dyke drama to clear the place out." Asunder! I heart your vocabulary, Helena. Jenny must like it too: she invites Helena to sit at the martyrs' table, but Helena refuses to take sides.

Kit: Go, Switzerland.

Snicker. I strongly suspect that Pam Grier is just making up her lines at this point, figuring nobody's really listening anyway.

Family values to the rescue — Bette and Tina try to free everyone from the black hole of Calcutta by sharing their good news. It seems they've registered with three different adoption agencies, and have a good chance of expanding their family in the next six months. And to make room for the new little one, they're starting construction on a second story. Hey, Jenny: That's your cue to talk about yourself! You know, like every other sentence ever uttered.

Jenny: When were you going to tell me about construction?
Tina: We're telling you now. We have to; we need room for the baby.
Jenny: How am I supposed to write with all that noise?
Tina: I'm sorry, Jenny. We'll do our best not to disturb you, but you might want to get some earplugs.

Sigh. It's annoying that Jenny has let all the air out of the briefly elevated mood, but in her defense, there's nothing worse than being surrounded by noise when you're trying to write. It can make a person downright homicidal. Oh, wait; maybe I killed Jenny!

Jenny shuffles out, muttering that it's going to be impossible for her to find a new roommate with all the racket next door. Shane tries to tell Jenny that she doesn't need a new roommate, but Jenny still doesn't see why she should even bother to talk to Shane.

Jenny: You create this trail of destruction and you don't take any responsibility for it. Why should you be the only one that doesn't pay?
Shane: I am paying.
Jenny: You are so full of s---.

Jenny exits silently. Alice calls it like she sees it: "The black hole."

Paying — At Jenny's house, Shane is putting in some flower boxes that Jenny has always wanted. Tom and Max stop briefly to chat. Whoa. Max, what is on your face?!

Jenny interrupts to ask Max to help her with her computer; there's "something wrong" with it. But Max declines this opportunity to show off his computer search (and/or missile defense) skills. He's on his way to his final consult before his surgery. Good luck, Max! And can I have the number of your surgeon? I want to make sure he or she shaves you everywhere while prepping you to go under the knife. I mean, just to be on the safe side.

Shaolin Studios — Tina and her co-workers are in a meeting, at which the poster for Lez Girls has just been revealed. It looks more like the cover of a Harlequin novel.

Guess how thrilled Tina is?

Tina: What's The Girls? The movie is called Lez Girls. Lez!

The poster is bad enough, but there's also a new boy-meets-girl ending, which has already tested through the roof. Tina tries to protest the het-washing, but Aaron says flatly, "Get on board, Tina. Train's not going to Lezzie Town." Yeah; it's obviously going to Crapstone or Penistone.

Another treacherous conference room — At California University, some art department bigwigs (including Phyllis) are reveling in Jodi's public humiliation of Bette — oops, I mean they're raving about her multimedia piece, "Core." Apparently it's the talk of the art world. Jodi is basking in the praise. What happened to sweet, warm, generous Jodi? I no longer recognize her.

Bette arrives. She apologizes for her tardiness and explains that she had to talk to a contractor about the baby-makes-four construction. How long will it take you to reconstruct your own dignity, Bette, now that Jodi has splattered your indiscretions all over Art Journal?

The not-so-final consult — Max is discussing his goals with his doctor. He's been working out a lot and wants to be able to take his shirt off at the beach next year.

Max: Feel my pecs.

The doctor takes him up on that and is duly impressed. Max babbles excitedly, noting that he's doing well with the contour but will need more chest hair to cover up the scars. (Don't worry, Max; the brothers Gibb have plenty of that to go around.) But scars are the least of his problems.

Doctor: You're pregnant.
Max: No, I can't be pregnant. No — I've been taking testosterone.
Doctor: Have you had intercourse? Have you and Tom had unprotected sex?
Max: Yeah, but we've both been tested for HIV. We've been monogamous.
Doctor: Max, if you and Tom have had vaginal sex — I know you might not call it that, but unfortunately, that doesn't stop it from working the same way. Taking testosterone doesn't shut down the reproductive system.

Max. That's awful! I truly feel terrible for you. What could be worse for you at this phase of your transition? Pretty much nothing.

But hang on a minute. This is not what I would call writing. It's more like scrapbooking. See something interesting in the newspaper? Clip and save — better yet, paste it right into the script!

Trouble at the table — Back in the CU conference room, Tom gets a text from Max: "Call me as soon as you can." The meeting is ending, so Tom steps away while a guy at the table asks Jodi how Dean Porter "responded" to her piece. Jodi doesn't understand what he's saying, so Bette steps in and signs the question.

I've been trying to ignore Bette's shirt, but it simply won't be ignored. In fact, it's probably going to make Jodi walk the plank.

Jodi pretends not to know how Bette responded to the public humiliation. She asks Bette how she liked the show. Bette tries to wrest control by ordering Jodi to meet her in her office, but Jodi shrugs and says Bette will have to make an appointment. Ouch! Again, who is this person? Clearly it's pod!Jodi.

Everyone shuffles out, including Tom, who has briefly reentered the room to get his bag. I guess he looks a little stricken, but not nearly as freaked out as the average gay man would be upon hearing that his boyfriend is pregnant.

A lot to offer — Hoping to discuss the intractable Jodi, Bette follows Phyllis to her office. They are greeted by one very excited Joyce Wischnia in her birthday suit.

Joyce: [holding out her arms, putting on a show] Baby, when it comes down to it, this is all I have to offer you. And if you can love this —
Phyllis: Joyce, cover your junk!
Joyce: Sorry, Bette.

Phyllis shoos Bette away and scolds Joyce for "popping out from behind a plant buck nekkid." So Joyce pops the question instead!

Joyce: While the law in the state of California continues to acknowledge our love, I would like to ask you to take my hand in holy matrimony.

Sigh. Damn that law in the state of California. Joyce shows Phyllis a giant ring and begs her to say yes. Trouble is, Phyllis had sworn never to marry again. At this point, my girlfriend yells, "I'll marry you, Joyce!" And Phyllis soon echoes that, partly because Joyce has arranged for them to be married by Gavin Newsom himself. It's too much to resist. And it's all very sweet, until they end up jumping and giggling like little girls at a slumber party. Why? Where's the engagement sex?

Traumatic therapy — Tasha and Alice are at Dan Foxworthy's office. Remember him? The therapist to the stars who helped Bette and Tina? I guess everybody gets a five-minute cameo this season. Except for Dana. 'Cause she's dead. Nope, I'm still not over it.

Alice is monopolizing the session, speaking for an increasingly irritated Tasha. Dan Mockworthy mispronounces Tasha's name a couple of times — the first syllable rhymes with "mosh," not "hash," you dummy — in the process of trying to shut Alice up and get Tasha to talk. And when Tasha does talk, she tells it like it is.

Foxworthy: Why do you think Alice told you [about the near-cheating]?
Tasha: I think that she told me because she wanted to break up with me. And bringing this woman between us was the easiest way to do that. She knew how I felt; she knew that I would break up with her. And when I did, she got scared. And that's why we're here.

Alice shakes her head and rolls her eyes, in a way that says Tasha's exactly right. Maybe you should have gone to the psychiatry academy instead of the police academy, Tasha.

A parallel universe version of Juno — Max is at the abortion clinic. The woman behind the desk doesn't understand why he's there.

Insensitive health-care professional: If this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny.
Max: I'm not joking, all right? I'm pregnant.
IHCP: Sir, if you don't leave now, I am going to have to call security.
Max: [losing it] Look, I'm a FTM transsexual, all right?

The woman behind the desk is stunned speechless, so Max turns to the tittering women in the lobby. He blinds them with his science.

Max: Yeah, that's right. Take a good look. I'm a man, and I'm pregnant! It happens; don't you read the f---ing tabloids?

Careful, Max — just a couple of weeks ago, Mama Chaiken said that the show doesn't rip from the headlines. Take it back before she kills you off!

Jenny's house of foment — Jenny is penning yet another screenplay based on her life. This time, she's not even changing the names.

There's a lot of noise outside, so she goes to the window. Shane is washing Jenny's car, soaping up the chrome and rocking out to Run Run's "Those Dancing Days." Wow, I wish Shane had betrayed me: I have a stovetop that needs scrubbing and dozens of videotapes to convert to DVD. Who knew remorse could manifest as handy around the house?

Jenny: [calling out the window] Hey, Shane, I'm trying to write.

Shane turns off the music and goes back to washing away her sins.

Bad vibes at therapy — On the therapist's couch, Tasha and Alice are facing each other and holding hands. They're saying things like "I promise to make room in the apartment for your things" (Alice) and "I promise to try to see things from your point of view, and to not talk to you with so much judgment" (Tasha). They giggle and smile at each other and feel very proud of themselves. So proud, they ask Dan Foxworthy for some homework.

Foxworthy: I'm not gonna give you homework. I don't think you two should be in therapy.
Tasha: That's what I said. See?
Alice: We rock.
Foxworthy: You two have so little in common, I really don't think you belong together.

In the parking garage, Alice says what we're all thinking:

Alice: What the f---?

Make sure you read that in a hilarious, exaggerated way, 'cause that's how she says it.

Alice wonders how Dan Foxworthy can really know anything about them after a mere 55 minutes. She and Tasha start to part ways: Alice gets into her Mini, while Tasha grabs her helmet and gets ready to get on her bike. But first she leans in to gives Alice a goodbye kiss. Goodbye? Make that hello! Suddenly they're making out in the Mini, and it's majorly hot.

Trouble is, it's over too quickly. See how important capitalization is? A Mini sex scene = hot. A mini sex scene = carrus interruptus.

Life goes on — At the abortion clinic, Tom has just arrived, and Max is just leaving. They talk as they walk. It turns out Max is already four months along, so abortion isn't an option. Wouldn't his doctor have told him that before he made the appointment at the clinic? Once again, scrapbooking proves inferior as a means of storytelling.

Anyway, Tom can't understand how this happened.

Tom: Why wouldn't your doctor tell you [this was possible]?
Max: I don't know. Maybe she didn't think I was stupid enough to let some faggot f--- me.

It quickly becomes a fight, and next thing you know, Max is slamming Tom against the wall and kicking him (via his crotch) to the floor. Then they just stop and look at each other, not sure what to do with their misery.

Tom: I can't do this, Max. I'm not ready.

Yeah, who is ready for this, really? Except for Barbara Walters, when the next Most Fascinating People special rolls around.

Making a list and checking it twice — Alice and Tasha are making a list of pros and cons, because that's what Alice's mother has done every time she's found herself pondering divorce. Aw, Alice's mother! Anne Archer, can you please make one more guestbian appearance?

Alice tells Tasha to clear the desk. If only Tasha would clear the desk and then push Alice onto it, instead of sitting down to help Alice roll out some paper. Sigh. Another L Word episode, another wasted opportunity for lady lovin'.

Alice puts "Pro" and "Con" columns on a couple of sheets of paper. Look at Alice's enviable office supplies — vast sheets of paper, squeaky markers. My girlfriend has a penchant for such things too, and it's definitely adorkable.

But Tasha isn't so happy with those markers:

Tasha: Why "Con" gotta be black, though?
Alice: It's not a race thing. It's just, um ... red is happy. Red is, like, "pro."
Tasha: No, red represents the devil.
Alice: [after a moment] Fine. I'm writing down "color weirdness."

See how they make pros out of the cons? Sweet. Also sweet is the music in this scene, "Great DJ" by the Ting Tings.

Another set of provocations — Tina and Bette are at an art show. Bette finds it uneven, while Tina declares one piece "weird." Then the talk turns to the business side. Bette notes that she would have "killed" to have had such a nice space when she had her own gallery. (Damn you, Season 6, for making me hypersensitive to works like "killed"!)

And then Bette asks a colleague about the gallerist. Her name is Kelly Wentworth; she's a rich divorcée; and she's right there to overhear the conversation about her. She introduces herself to Bette, and Bette begins to make the usual small talk.

Kelly: You really don't remember me?
Bette: [recognition dawning] Juicy f---in Freemont?! Jeezus!

They embrace and delight in each other. It seems Kelly "Juicy" Freemont was Bette's college roommate. I don't care how long it's been — don't you think you'll always recognize past roommates? Even if you wish you could block them from your memory?

So let's see ... I wonder why Kelly's nickname is "Juicy"? If Max the Lost Bee Gee were in this scene, he might sing a line from "You Should Be Dancin'" — "She's juicy and she's trouble."

Tina seems to be thinking that very thing as Bette and Kelly reminisce and flirt. Beleaguered Mama T is standing by with a "Surely she'll introduce me soon" look on her face — several variations on that theme, actually. Laurel is genius in this scene.

Bette finally remembers she's not a youth on the prowl:

Bette: Oh, God, I'm sorry; this is Tina Kennard, my partner.
Tina: [brightly] Hello.
Kelly: [shaking Tina's hand but focused on Bette] Still gay, eh, Porter?
Bette: Yeah, well, I lack imagination in some areas.
Kelly: [pointedly] Not many.

But at least Kelly doesn't disregard Tina altogether:

Kelly: Did you tell Tina about you and me?
Bette: Uh ... well, I told her that you let me kiss you once, and you were so seized by a deep and abiding homosexual panic that you moved out of the house immediately.
Kelly: She got over me in two minutes.
Bette: Ten.

Sigh. OK, they have a lot of chemistry, no doubt because Beals and Berkley are friends in real life. But why must we do this whole Bette-is-tempted thing again? An affair simply can't happen, partly because it seems like she and Tina are finally getting their groove back, and partly because Bette and Kelly's couple name would be "Belly." Good band name; terrible story line.

Tina comments on a nearby piece, mostly to encourage Kelly to look at something other than Bette. But Kelly and Bette can't tear themselves away; they indulge in a little more self-conscious banter and a pinkie shake — what? They're close enough to have a secret handshake, and yet Bette didn't recognize her?! Finally, Bette and Tina stroll on, leaving Kelly to let her eyes linger on Bette as she goes.

List-o-rama — Alice and Tasha are still working on their list, which has now spilled onto the floor. It includes cute things like "A ♥s T's bun(s)" and serious things like "We don't say 'I love you' anymore." Eeek. You don't? That makes me sad.

They realize that there are "way more cons than pros," so they decide to institute a point system. Tasha explains that "Doesn't cook with pepper EVER" shouldn't be weighted as heavily as "Makes me want to be a better person." (Both of those were directed from Tasha to Alice, if you couldn't tell.)

Tasha: And then, "is spontaneous" — I'll just pick that one 'cause I really appreciate that about you —
Alice: [spanks Tasha playfully] Likes to get spanked. [pointing to the list]

There's that Tasha-licious laugh again! Alice adds a 9-point pro — "T is smart" — and declares that "The pros are totally winning now." That's the beauty of listmaking, right? It helps you figure out what you really want the list to indicate. Just like flipping a coin or shaking a magic 8-ball.

But back to Tasha and Alice. The way they're smiling at each other, I think that list might soon witness a make-out session. Hey, how is it possible that this scene was not accompanied by "Kiss on My List"? Oh, right: I know how that's possible. Rhymes with "wheezy hurl."

The gallery of confrontation — Bette and Tina are getting ready to leave. They say farewell to Kelly, which of course leads to more grins and thinly veiled flirting. Kelly has just given some artist dude her card, which prompts Bette to give her some advice:

Kelly: We have to make a plan. Lunch, dinner, whatever ... I really want to pick that brain of yours.
Bette: Yeah, well, the first thing I would tell you is not to sign artists that you want to f---.
Kelly: [looking past Bette to another part of the gallery] That comes from firsthand experience?

Bette and Tina turn around to see what Kelly is looking at. Yep, it's Jodi, surrounded by fans and accompanied by her new girlfriend.

Bette: [to Tina] Do you mind?
Tina: No, I think you should.

So Bette marches over to Jodi and asks for — make that demands — a moment of her time. Jodi makes a big show of kissing her new girlfriend in front of Bette. Again, this is not the character I used to like. I get that she may be incredibly angry at Bette — who, admittedly, is settling back into her life with Tina at a pace that must be giving Jodi whiplash — but still, I didn't think Jodi had a vengeful bone in her body. Let alone a grandstanding, merciless one.

Anyway, Bette has found it impossible to make an appointment with Jodi. She pulls rank on her.

Bette: Do you realize that you report to me? And that if I ask to see you, then you make it happen.
Jodi: I don't report to you, Bette. I don't report to anyone.
Bette: You have until tomorrow.
Jodi: Or what?

Bette isn't one to dole out empty threats, but I'm not sure I want to know she has in mind. How do you get revenge for a public exposé-via-art, exactly? Reclaim that "17 Reasons Why" sign and add "I hate you" to it, plus a mustachioed picture of Jodi? Actually, that sounds fun, when you think about how delightful the last sign-stealing caper was. Let's do it!

Bette and Jodi have been having this conversation near a glass wall. Is there a "glass houses" hint here? Never mind; on the other side of the panes, Tina and Kelly are having a conversation that's less direct but not much less dangerous.

Kelly is describing Bette's playful college career. Apparently the ladies were drawn to Bette like "moths to a flame." Before Tina can get the details, Bette interrupts and asks Tina if she's ready to leave. Well, I know I am!

Kit: Well, that's what you gotta do, to keep your sanity, and ... not to mention your shirt on, in this business.

Keep your shirt on? Did you maybe mean just, "keep your sanity, not to mention your shirt"? Oh, Kit. Thank you for filling the malaprop void, now that Dubya has left the White House.

Helena insists that she's not a complete monk; she even has sex sometimes. Cue the appearance of one of the people with whom she used to have the aforementioned sex. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you: that's really Dylan (Alexandra Hedison) on the dance floor. And once again, Alice speaks for us all:

Alice: What the f---?

Tasha can't believe that "that girl" — who is currently "the filling in a lesbo sandwich," as Alice puts it — ever used to be straight. Yeah, we didn't believe it either, during Season 3. But we also didn't believe Dana would actually die, so there you go.

Kit asks Helen whether she's OK. Helena pretends to be unfazed.

Alice: But that's the woman who extorted you for sexually harassing her!
Kit: Alice! What is wrong with you?
Alice: I'm just sayin'. Of all the gin joints in all the world.

I guess that's what you get for having a Casablanca theme at your club.

Exile in guyville — Max is all alone in his studio, playing some sort of first-person shooter and hating the world. (Helpful AfterEllen.com peeps Hopeless_Savage and jennifer from pittsburgh tell me that it looks like he's playing "Gears of War 2," which is proof that whatever you need to know, you can get the answer right here on this site.)

Tom quietly slips in. Uh, sorry; I swear I didn't originally intend any innuendo there! Anyway, he's been calling Max.

Max: I know. My phone broke.

Tom finds the phone on the floor, in pieces. He apologizes for the way he reacted earlier, then kneels down next to Max and gets serious:

Tom: What do you think about having the baby?
Max: F--- off.
Tom: Don't you wanna be a couple of West Hollywood fag dads?
Max: [halting, vulnerable] I don't know. I don't know if I can handle this.
Tom: We can handle it. We can. We both make a decent living. We love each other; we've said we wanna spend our lives together.

You did? Why didn't we get to see or hear any of these declarations of everlasting love? Never mind that: when did you two turn into Legolas and Gimli?

We never got to hear their declarations of love either, but that doesn't mean they weren't soulmates.

The scene ends with apologies and a hug:

Max: Sorry I kicked you in the balls.
Tom: Sorry I knocked you up.

Awww. Gimli + Legolas 4-evah!

Keeping the home fires burning — Tina and Bette are getting ready for bed and mocking Kelly. Correction: Tina is mocking Kelly, and Bette is playing along. But she has her limits:

Tina: While you were talking to Jodi, [Kelly] asked me if you were still a player.
Bette: I was never a player.
Tina: That's not what Kelly said.

Kelly also said she's sorry she didn't take Bette up on that offer all those years ago. Tina is good-natured about it all, and didn't even tell Kelly that Bette is off the market. She knows Bette needs to flirt:

Tina: It feeds you. You feed off people wanting you. And they do want you. For you, it's ... it's like blood to a vampire.
Bette: [grabbing Tina playfully] So now I'm a vampire?
Tina: I love you. I don't want to deprive you of something that's so fundamental to who you are.
Bette: You need to trust that I know who I am, and I know what to do with it.
Tina: I don't know what that means.

Fair point. That was kinda funny, but Tina is about to stop caring what it means.

Bette: [reaching under Tina's dress] It means that everyone else can f--- off, because I only want you.

Tina! Why were you hiding all that muscle definition under that diaphanous gown?

I don't really want to draw any shipping lines in the sand, but I do still think that TiBette scenes are the hottest. By a mile or a light year or so.

A beating at the Hit club — Alice can't stop staring at Dylan. Well, staring isn't quite right; I think you could call it "looking daggers." Suddenly Alice stands up from her table and takes a few steps toward the dance floor. Those hanging beads might as well be saloon doors — you can practically hear the spurs jangling on Alice's boots.

Alice: [to Tasha] Are you with me?
Tasha: What? What are we doing?
Alice: Get my back.

Woo! As they strut over to the "lesbo sandwich," Tasha asks what Dylan did to Helena.

Alice: I'll tell you in a minute. Right now, I wanna tell her where she gets off messin' with my friend. [to herself] I'm gonna tell her. This is me telling her.

Alice hits Dylan with one of those chest-bump-slash-shove things. Dylan is surprised, to say the least.

Dylan: Alice!
Alice: [throwing her hands up in a "bring it on" way] Hi, Dylan. [getting in Dylan's face] Really. Really?
Dylan: Excuse me?
Alice: I mean, come on, the hair. The hair ... and the documentaries!
Dylan: Um, I ...
Alice: It's ... like ... my ... not! Gay??!!

If that sounds incoherent and strangled, that's because it is. In the most hilarious way imaginable. Leisha! I always say funny is sexy — well, this is so good, it's funnilingus.

Helena approaches and says hello.

Alice: Ha! That's a good one. Good one. I got this.

Tasha drags Alice away so that Helena and Dylan can have a more comprehensible conversation. On their way back to the table, Alice summarizes the Helena-Dylan story line for Tasha.

Alice: OK, so basically, that skankball Dylan Moreland almost ruined Helena's life. First, she pretended to be in love with her, OK, so she and her boyfriend could sue her for sexual harassment and extort millions of dollars from her.

Cut back to the bar, where Dylan is insisting that she didn't even know this was Helena's club.

Dylan: I heard that this was the best girl club in L.A.
Helena: And you were looking for a girl club. A lesbian girl club.

Dylan credits Helena with "helping" her with that whole thing. She tries to tell Helena how sorry she is, but Helena pretends not to care about any of it. She sips her Pellegrino and looks around as if she's waiting in line at Starbucks. She gives Dylan a perfectly hospitable hostess line — "Stay, enjoy! Be with your friends" — and waltzes away. Dylan looks miserable, which is really only fair.

Over at the table, Alice is still recapping for Tasha, even though Tasha was definitely around for some of these plot points.

Alice: So her mother gets so mad, she cuts Helena off so that she has to come live with me and become a cook.
Helena: [who has returned to her seat] I was a caterer.
Alice: Which was a disaster. And let's face it: Helena is used to a certain standard of living. So she meets this shady high-roller lady. They hook up, but she uses Helena and takes all her money. And when Helena takes it back — and we still don't know where she buried it — she gets arrested and has to share a cell with some killer.
Helena: She was in for tax fraud.
Alice: Fine. So her mother can't take it anymore. She bails Helena out, but she doesn't want to live under her mother's thumb anymore. So she springs Dusty from jail, they go to Tahaa, which she doesn't ever want to talk about, so it couldn't have been that great, right?
Helena: Right.
Alice: And her mother gets stung by a jellyfish. All because of this woman.

I can't believe I typed all that up. I think I was just refreshing my own memory; plus, it's pretty unbelievable when you see it all written out like that — both the lines and the story lines they summarize.

Tasha sums it all up, as usual:

Tasha: You want me to kick her ass?
Helena: No. Thank you.
Tasha: You're a better person than me. I'd have to beat a bitch down, she tried to do that s--- to me.

Helena leaves the table then, and misses the best line of the episode:

Alice: And don't get me started on the kids, 'cause where did they go?

Yeah! Where did ... uh, what were their names again? Right: Jun Ying and Wilson. Actually, where do any of the kids on this show ever disappear to? We haven't heard anything about Angelica's terrible cold, and I'm pretty sure Shay will never be seen again. There's a special place in heaven for L Word kids.

The Hit club parking lot — While we were all reliving the past, Helena has followed Dylan out to the parking lot, presumably to try to put the past to rest. She slams Dylan against a car — wow, she really did learn a lot in prison! — and screams at Dylan for manipulating her and using her and destroying her life. Yeah! It ends with a very satisfying "F--- you." But Dylan calls after Helena, forcing her to turn around for one more manipulation:

Dylan: Thank you. Now I know you care.

That makes one of us.

The inevitable — Shane tries once again to enter her own home, but Jenny has put the chain on. It doesn't matter: Shane's tired of doing penance.

Shane: I need my stuff. Open the door.

And Jenny does. Shane ignores her and packs her things. And you know what happens next, right? Ignoring Jenny is the surest way to get her to pay attention to you.

Jenny: So that's it? You're done trying?
Shane: I'm out. I don't see the point with you anymore.

Anymore? What, now? Not in, like, Season 2? What have you been doing, Shane, that so thoroughly distracted you from Jenny's giant jumble of traumas and dramas? I guess I should ask "who" you've been doing, and I guess we already know all about that. Still. Whatever your merits and flaws, you clearly have the patience of a saint.

Jenny shows her cards:

Jenny: Shane, you know that it was you, right? When I said that "you broke my heart," I was talking about you.

I don't think Shane knew that, no. In this next picture, it might look like she's getting ready to brush her teeth, but she's really just trying to reassemble her blown mind. It can be hard to tell the difference: dental hygiene or mental obliteration?

Jenny: You know, when I said it, I felt like my heart was breaking.

Oh, so that's why you said she broke your heart! I totally didn't catch your meaning.

Shane carefully emerges from the bathroom, clearly not sure which minor demon lies in wait.

Shane: I tried to tell you all week how sorry I am. [simply] I'm not ever gonna hurt you like that again.
Jenny: I also realized that I'm in love with you. [shrugging] Now I'm like all those stupid girls.

There it is. We all knew it was coming, but I was holding out hope that they would remain BFFs instead, because I really, really liked them that way. They brought out the best in each other. Now I fear they're just going to bring out the beast in each other.

Shane stops for a minute to absorb the news, then takes Jenny in her arms and kisses her. My eyes! My brain! The very core of my being!

If only Alice were here to say it: "What the f---?" I'm sorry — I know there are a lot of Shenny fans out there. But I can't help it: Shenny squicks me.

One more thing — Let's pause for a moment to ponder the title of this episode: "Least Likely." Least likely to ... what? Succeed, as in Tasha and Alice? Stay faithful, as in Bette? Get pregnant, as in Max? Get married again, as in Phyllis? Have a serious dramatic career, as in Elizabeth Berkley? Or — and here I'm just reaching — least likely to make any kind of sense at all, as in Shenny?

I don't know. After the whirlwind that was this episode, I think I'm probably the least likely to figure any of it out. What was the question, again?

Next time on The L Word: Lez Girls hits another road bump; Alice takes on homophobia; Jodi and Bette face off; the Shenny cat is out of the bag.

Lesbian/Bi Celebrity Girlfriends, Part 1

2009-01-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

by
Karman Kregloe

Senior Writer and Director of Special Projects
January 7, 2009

While the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California was devastating to LGBT people and our supporters everywhere, the issue reinvigorated an international debate about gay marriage.

It also drew attention to a number of famous couples, like Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, who wed in the small window of time that gay marriage was legal in California.

Even celebrity lesbian couples who didn’t get married, such as Melissa Etheridge and partner Tammy Lynn Michaels Etheridge were queried in the press for their views on Prop. 8 and what it means to the future of LGBT rights. Whether appearing on news programs or talk shows, the couples interviewed were typically presented as every bit as committed and family-centric as any heterosexual married couple.

Most of us are on a first name basis with the partners of out celebrities like Ellen, Melissa, and Rosie O’Donnell (her partner is Kelli Carpenter-O'Donnell), but those are just a handful of the women who love and support their famous girlfriends, partners and wives.

With this article, we take our first look at the (often) behind-the-scenes women who love and support the higher-profile women in their life.

Nina Garduno (partner of Leisha Hailey)

You may not know designer Nina Garduno, by name, but if you’re a regular viewer of her partner Leisha Hailey’s show, The L Word, you may have seen the logo for her store, Free City, splashed across t-shirts worn by some of its characters.

Garduno opened the Malibu store in 2005, and its hip, quirky selection of clothing and random goods (custom-made teepees are for sale) garnered both critical and public attention.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2007, she said of the store, “It’s about the experience. I’m interested in having someone walk out of Free City and having had an experience. That’s what matters. They could buy a cheaper bicycle or T-shirt anywhere.”

A Los Angeles native, Garduno got her start in fashion when she was just 17 at the Ron Herman/Fred Segal in Los Angeles, and is still the vice president for men’s fashion there.

Not coincidentally, the store was named as the “unofficial headquarters” of the “L.A. tomboy” look popularized on The L Word.

Garduno, 44, and Hailey, 37, have been together since 2001 and have plans to bring Free City to the small artist’s community in Marfa, Texas, where they’ve already bought an old auto repair shop — which may just be the lesbian version of a double-wide.

Hanan Kattan (wife of Shamim Sarif)

Producer Hanan Kattan (pictured above left) and novelist/filmmaker Shamim Sarif make a formidable pair. Together for twelve years (they married when civil partnership was legalized in the U.K and have two sons), the two have joined forces and formed the London-based Enlightenment Productions.The pair was so committed to the making of the films that they even relocated their family to South Africa for production on World Unseen. But that move and all the other sacrifices they’ve made in order to produce the two films seem to have been worthwhile, both personally and otherwise.

Susan Mikula (partner of Rachel Maddow)

What’s it like to be the love interest of America’s political television equivalent to a lesbian superhero? Ask artist Susan Mikula, 50, the long-time partner of 35-year old political commentator Rachel Maddow, the first out lesbian to host a prime-time news or political commentary show on American television. (The Rachel Maddow Show).

They had their first date at a firing range, shooting an array of guns and throwing tomahawks. Mikula says Maddow displayed such skill with an AR-15 that she drew a crowd of onlookers. (So perhaps we should call it a lesbian fairytale meeting.)

Alisa Scott (partner of Sheryl Swoopes)

In 2005, Sheryl Swoopes played for the Houston Comets and came out as a lesbian. In doing so, she also talked openly about her relationship with partner Alisa Scott (pictured above left) who had, until just months earlier, also been the assistant coach for the team.

The intersection of their professional and personal affiliation ruffled feathers even before Swoopes was officially out, and Scott resigned from her position with the Comets.

But before she was known as the partner of one of the best players in the WNBA (and the first women's basketball player to have a Nike shoe named after her, the "Air Swoopes"), Scott enjoyed an impressive basketball career of her own. The Vicksburg, MS, native played college basketball at the University of Mississippi and participating in four NCAA tournaments, then playing professional basketball in Italy for three years.

Before coming to the WNBA, she worked as the assistant coach at Old Dominion University for six seasons. Scott joined the Comets in 1998, and remained there until her resignation.

Lacey Stone (fiancé of Jessica Clark)

Lest you think the idea of a lesbian power couple be limited to women over 40 and clad in power suits, consider the dynamic duo of personal trainer Lacey Stone (pictured above, left) and model Jessica Clark.

Stone is a college basketball champion, motivational speaker, and one of the top personal trainers in New York. At just 23, Clark, is already a life coach and accomplished model, perhaps best known for her role in (renowned lesbo-phobe) Usher’s video, “Let It Burn.”

While Clark may (for now) be better known, Wisconsin-native Stone is well on her way to building a fitness empire. She graduated with honors from the University of Maine, briefly worked at CBS Sports, then joined New York’s premiere health club, Equinox Fitness, as a trainer and group fitness instructor.

Urvashi Vaid (partner of Kate Clinton)

Comedian Kate Clinton has been making lesbians (and everyone else) laugh about politics for over 25 years, so it should come as no surprise that her partner, Indian-American attorney and activist Urvashi Vaid, would share her passion for the subject.Vaid showed an interest in social justice from an early age. She attended her first protest at the age of 11, organized feminist and LGBT groups in college, and began working with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) in 1983.

From there she went on to work with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, first as a director of public information and then as the executive director of their Policy Institute. From 2001 to 2005, she was the deputy director of the Governance and Civil Society Unit of the Peace and Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation.

A longtime advocate of LGBT people working within mainstream culture in order to attain justice, she published a book on the subject in 1996, Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation.

In a 1996 interview with The Progressive, she stated, “I have never been a single-issue person…I feel that I have always been a progressive person who happened to be working in the gay and lesbian movement."

Professor Miriam Meckel (partner of Anne Will)

Before the U.S. had lesbian political television commentator Rachel Maddow, Germany claimed Anne Will (pictured above right) as its very own lesbian political talk-show host.

Will, the former host of Germany's most popular evening news show Tagesthemen and the current host of the top-rated political talk show Anne Will, came out in 2007 at a Jewish Museum event in Berlin when she publicly acknowledged her relationship with long-time partner, Professor Miriam Meckel.

"Yes we are a couple," Will told reporters, "but we would like to keep our private life private."

Nonetheless, their announcement make big headlines in Germany and throughout Europe, both because of Will's fame, and Meckle's considerable accomplishments.

Currently a Professor for Corporate Communication and Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, Meckle was a journalist before becoming the youngest university professor in Germany in 1999.

She is also a member of network Deutsche Welle’s broadcasting board, and was formerly the State Secretary for Europe, International Affairs and Media of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

To say she's smart is an understatement. She can also rock a pair of jeans.

Samantha Ronson (girlfriend of Lindsay Lohan)

If you’ve turned on a computer or television lately, you know DJ Samantha Ronson’s name.

When her girlfriend, actress and singer Lindsay Lohan, isn’t blogging on Myspace to discredit rumors of their breakup (this week’s Lindsay Report: nope, still not broken up), the tabloids are writing about Ronson’s health problems, her alleged smackdowns with Lohan, and what Lohan might be drinking when she’s hanging out with Ronson behind the turntables.

Ronson has had high-profile DJ gigs for years — she spun live for MTV's New Year's Eve 2001 show from the network's studios in Times Square — but her fame skyrocketed a few years ago because of her relationship with Lohan, which was not publicly acknowledged by either of them until recently.

The English-born Ronson, 31 (who has a twin sister — fashion designer Charlotte Ronson) was surrounded by music at an early age (her stepfather is Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones), and originally pursued a career as a singer-songwriter. She was the first rock act signed to Roc-A-Fella Records, and music from her first album, Red, was featured in the Lohan film Mean Girls.

She has since changed her focus to full-time work as a DJ, and her high-profile romance with Lohan (who frequently attends her gigs) has made her services even more in demand.

THE LATEST NEWS:

2009-01-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

Showtime's Lesbian Series "The L Word"

by
Sarah Warn

The L Word debuted its sixth and final season on January 18, 2009.

This Business of Art (Tegan and Sara) Free Mp3 Download

2009-01-20T03:14:00.000-08:00

This Business of Art is a Tegan and Sara album, released in 2000. It is their first official release through Vapor Records, though they independently released Under Feet Like Ours the previous year. This album was recorded at Hawksleytown Studios and mixed and mastered at Umbrella Sound in Toronto. "My Number" was featured on the Sweet November Soundtrack.

"Frozen" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Hype"(S. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"My Number" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

"Superstar" (T. Quin) DOWNLOAD

Twilight...test..

2009-01-09T04:58:00.001-08:00

Your result for Are you a vampire, werewolf or necromancer? quiz...

Necromancer

knock knock knock, wakey wakey

You raise the dead for a living, or for fun. Or because someone has a gun to your head. Its not an easy job, but someone has to do it.

Take Are you a vampire, werewolf or necromancer? quiz at HelloQuizzy

47 Things to Do on AfterEllen Until 2009

2008-12-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

by
Sarah Warn
Editor in Chief
December 24, 2008

It's almost the end of 2008, and the AfterEllen.com staff, bloggers, vloggers, recappers and writers are taking a much-needed break today through Jan. 5, 2009.

But for those of you who want a break now and then from all the shopping, eating, and hugging of relatives you haven't seen in a year, I've created this list of things you can do on the site while we're gone. I hope you'll discover at least a few things you haven't read or watched or done before.

If nothing else, just reading this list ought to burn up an hour or so!

So here they are, in no particular order:

Read The 2008 AfterEllen.com Visibility Awards, compare the results to previous years, and see how much (or how little) has changed.

Browse through all the single AfterEllen.com members (Apologies in advance for the messy display! We'll be fixing that soon.)

Keep up on all the latest Lindsay Lohan/Samantha Ronson news through our previous blog posts and articles, and in the related forum thread.

Learn more about those Norwegian handball players everyone keeps talking about (Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg).

Watch all the music videos on AfterEllen.com.

Add a video to your profile by clicking on "My Account" then "edit" then "video" (all links located near the top of the page). Then paste the embed code in the field provided.

Watch Mary-Louise Parker help Cat Davis pick up women (literally and figuratively).

Prepare for the sixth and final season of The L Word by reading Scribegrrrl's fifth-season recaps, StuntDouble's fifth-season Facebook feeds (part 1 and part 2), Dara Nai's take on the best and the worst of Season 5, Dorothy Snarker's analysis of the Season 6 fashion, photos, and spoilery promo. Then discuss everything related to the show in our L Word section of the forum.

Relive the glory of the triumph of the lesbians at the 2008 Olympics.

Watch the entire first season of the dark, gritty web series Feed.

Cath up on the lesbian storyline on All My Children with our blog posts and articles, interview with Eden Riegel, and in our AMC forum thread.

Leave a message on someone's Feedback wall on their profile. Just login and leave a message on another member's profile page — about their avatar, their stated interests, their current status, or a comment they made on the site. If you want to ease into it, you can try it on my profile and just say hi :)

Watch Lena Headey play the roommate from hell in the season finale of Ghostella's Haunted Tomb.

Learn about interesting TV shows in development, like Fables (based on the comic book); Bitches (female werewolves); the untitled Amy Poehler comedy (also stars Rashida Jones); Legally Mad (Kristin Chenoweth in a legal drama), Glee (Jane Lynch); untitled Lauren Graham sitcom; Cougar Town (Courteney Cox); Time Heals (Jada Pinkett Smith); and Lost and Found (Katee Sackhoff).

Find out which of the shows and women we like are nominated for Golden Globes this year.

Read about all the women who came out this year: Dunja Hayali (Germany); Wanda Sykes (U.S.); Lindsay Lohan (U.S.); Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez (U.S.); Sia (Australian).

Say goodbye to South of Nowhere by reading recaps of the last two seasons, and interviews with Mandy Musgrave and Gabrielle Christian; watching Mandy and Gaby pillow-fight with Bridget McManus on Brunch With Bridget; and watching Jenn and Dee video blog the last season on Come With Me if You Want to Live.

Watch teenagers talk to their parents about being gay/bi on MTV's Sex...With Mom and Dad.

Read profiles of celesbian marriages in Celebrating Lesbian Marriage, and learn the history of lesbians weddings in film and TV.

Catch up on news about women in sports over the last several months with our Keeping Score blog posts.

Get up to speed about films in development with interesting women in them, like Tron 2.0 (Olivia Wilde); Portland (Erin Daniels); the Laurel Hester movie (Ellen Page), The Wrestler (Evan Rachel Wood); The Broken (Lena Headey); the Joan Jett biopic (Kristen Stewart); Jennifer's Body (Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfriend); the Arrested Development movie (Portia de Rossi); K-11 (Kristen Stewart and Nikki Reed); Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Emma Watson); Fame; The Danish Girl (Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron); Sunshine Cleaners (Emily Blunt and Amy Adams); Lesbian Vampire Killers; and Bitch Slap.

Watch Liz Feldman interview/hit on Kate Moennig, Erin Daniels, Clementine Ford, Uh Huh Her, Tegan Quin, Emily Deschanel and others on previous episodes of This Just Out with Liz Feldman.

Read up on the mid-season comedies Cupid (Sarah Paulson), Better Off Ted (Portia de Rossi), and Dollhouse (Eliza Dushku).

Check out the music of other AE members (and promote your own).

Read the Jane's World comic strip.

Revisit Jon Stewart's greatest lesbian moments (pre-2008).

Watch Bridget judge me for a sordid incident in my past on Brunch With Bridget: Episode 10 (the one where we're wearing bathrobes and I make Karman pillow-fight for me. Good times.)

Watch the first season and part of the second of the web series B.J. Fletcher, Private Eye, and speculate about whether Fletch and George will ever realize their true feelings for each other.

See how math and science are put to good use with Lesbian Scientistics.

Learn all about Los Hombres de Paco (Paco's Men) — the Spanish drama with a lesbian couple that was just voted Best International Scripted TV Series with Lesbian/Bi Characters by AfterEllen.com readers — in our forum thread devoted to the show (lots of English recaps and explanations provided).

Read the AfterEllen.com Guide to Lesbloitation Movies, and see what happens when bad movies happen to good actresses.

Change the headline/status on your profile. (Go to My Account, and click next to your name to type in your status headline. Change whenever the mood strikes you).

Overdose on Gossip Girl mini-caps, news, and photos.

Watch Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones solve the world's problems with puppies and kittens.

Prep for the Grammy's in February by reading about which women were nominated.

Relive all the funny Tina Fey/Amy Poehler Saturday Night Live skits from election season.

Discover new books in two years' worth of Across the Page.

Watch all 25 episodes of the first season of Cherry Bomb — again or for the first time.

Meet other fans in the Tegan and Sara forum thread.

Watch the Top 8 LGBT Political videos of 2008.

Weigh in on movies you are supposed to love but hate, which movies made you realize you were gay, and whether you're more of a Sheryl Swoopes or Portia type of woman.

Watch all six episodes of the frenemy comedy Joni & Susanna.

Get fashion tips from our "Styled Out" blog posts and Alexi's Closet video blog.

Catch on all the latest video game news, in written or video blog form.

Ask other AfterEllen.com members for advice about dating, coming out and other topics.

Read more lists! We've got 12 romantic pairings we'd like to see, 11 unintentionally scary lesbian moments, the Top 11 cinematic lesbian "reveals", Karman and Malinda's top 11 lesbian fashion accessories, Dara and Karman's 10 hottest femmes, the top 9 rules of seduction in lesbian cinema, the top 8 embarrassing celesbrity moments, seven lesbian lessons from back-to-school movies and TV shows, and lesbian sex scenes that made movie history. Plus, every episode of Dara & Karman's Hit List is a list (bad lesbian stereotypes, best couples, worst couples, etc.)

Finally, you can see who's online right now, and add one of them as a buddy. Then you can see whenever they're online at the same time you are. If you want, you can start with me — just don't tell Lori if you see me logged on between now and Jan. 5. I'm supposed to be doing offline activities during the holiday break, like "reading" and "relaxing." Whatever those are.

See you next year!

2008 Year in Review: Music

2008-12-15T06:19:00.000-08:00

by
Trish Bendix
, Blog Editor
December 15, 2008

2008 saw even more lesbian and bisexual women making a splash in the music world then ever before – and more straight women trying to capitalize on the media’s obsession with bisexuality.

Several bisexual and lesbian musicians released new music this year, and increasingly utilized digital resources to promote their work. Whether it’s recording their own video blogs, or blogging on their MySpace pages, artists are clearly getting the hang of the internet marketing revolution, bringing them closer to their fans, and helping them reach new ones.

Here’s an overview of some of the year’s most notable releases, trends, music and moments related to lesbian/bi musicians.

The Katy Perry Syndrome

Despite the positive technological advances in artist promotion, other trends were all too familiar, such as the borrowed use of lesbianism for songs like Katy Perry's hit single, "I Kissed A Girl."

Hotly debated since it premiered, Perry's debut as a pop-rock singer utilized the kitsch of being a straight woman "gone bad" by singing, "I kissed a girl and I liked it / Hope my boyfriend don't mind it" and "Don't mean I'm in love tonight."

By trivializing the kiss of another woman in the hugely commercially successful song (which was nominated for a Grammy in early December), Perry became the poster woman for bisexuality. Unfortunately, the song, as catchy as it may be with its electro-synth beats and major chord chorus, portrays bisexuality as a drunken moment of naughty behavior.

This concept was furthered by Perry's statements to the press that largely consisted of jokes about who she might kiss had she have the chance, ranging from 16-year-old Miley Cyrus to "I like to kiss boys, but there is no doubt in my mind if Angelina Jolie or Gisele Bündchen came a callin', who wouldn't pucker up?"

In the same vein, the performer often speculated to be bisexual, Pink, raised eyebrows when she divorced her husband and engaged in a lesbian lip-lock with herself a section of her music video, "Sober."

Symbolism aside, it was an odd choice for someone who has in the past touted her relationships with women, but more recently went on the record to declare her straightness. In October, she told the press, "I'm not gay so I guess I would not try a relationship with a woman. I didn't say I haven't experimented but I love men too much to make it a permanent thing."

It would appear, then, that Pink has utilized her butch aesthetic to drum up interest and shock from the mainstream public, which also happened to bring her a lesbian fan base.

Hit songwriter Lady GaGa debuted her first album, The Fame, in 2008 with the club track "Just Dance" garnering a lot of applause from the gay community.

In an interview with HX Magazine, GaGa said she was boy and "girl-crazy," saying "It really depends on where I am. I love men, I love women and I love sex, but I’m actually pretty introverted right now because I’m so enveloped in my work, and it’s hard to let anybody near that."

She has yet to discuss her sexuality further, despite being interviewed several times in both the gay and mainstream press.

Much like Lady GaGa, Jess Origliasso of the Australian sister duo, The Veronicas, has spoken very little about her bisexuality, but has been photographed with out MTV VJ Ruby Rose, which was rumored to be a romantic involvement. Her interest in women was further discussed when The Veronicas released the video for "Take Me On The Floor," which featured women dancing close and kissing at a nightclub.

When asked about her sexuality and the video by Australia's The Herald Sun, Jess replied, "If a celebrity doesn't come out and make a statement about their sexuality they're a ‘fake lesbian...'

I'm not going to be tricked into feeling like I have to make a statement about something because everyone wants confirmation. I'll just live my life how I want. If they want to call me a fake lesbian and degrade my sexuality and my choices, go ahead, I'll just ignore it."

Similarly, both Katie Melua and Shelby Lynne addressed their sexualities this year, with Melua telling the press not to ask about it ("People can think whatever they like ... I like to keep some mystique around my public image."), while Lynne told The Advocate it shouldn't matter who she sleeps with.

"People are going to come up with whatever they want to come up with on their own," Lynne said. "I don't have to make announcements. Come on!"

Mainstream success

While some artists were not interested in discussing their private lives, others were more open to addressing their sexuality, including Australian singer, Sia, who came out rather inconspicuously to U.K.'s Attitudes Magazine when she divulged she was involved in a serious relationship with a woman, later to be identified as J.D. Samson of Le Tigre.

Sia's bisexuality was treated as a non-issue of sorts for the singer, who told AfterEllen.com that she'd only dated men up until meeting J.D.

"The thing is I feel kind of straight because she's kind of like a boy," she said. "[My love interest] thinks I'm straight. She's like, 'You're straight; it's just that your girlfriend is gay.' So I'm straight, it's just that my boyfriend's a girl? She's like, 'I don't care, whatever you'd like.'"

Labels aside, Sia's 2008 album Some People Have Real Problems was a hit, reaching number 26 on the Billboard 200 and spawning singles "The Girl You Lost," "Day Too Soon" and "Soon We'll Be Found." She also had a song on the Sex and the City film soundtrack, and performed on several late night talk shows.

Another Aussie transplant, Missy Higgins, achieved success in 2008 with her album, On a Clear Night.

Despite being well-known and award-winning in her home country, Missy was a relative newcomer to the U.S. this year, and her singles like "Where I Stood" and "Steer" were picked up to play on shows like Grey's Anatomy. The album has remained consistently high on Billboard charts, reaching number three on the Top Heatseakers chart.

After coming out as bisexual in late 2007, Missy told AfterEllen.com that several of her songs are written about relationships with women, including "Secret" from On A Clear Night.

"When we first started our relationship," Missy said, "[my girlfriend] was not comfortable with bringing it out into the open, and I was so head over heels in love with her I kind of wanted to shout it out to the world, so it was just a song about keeping something under the covers and not being comfortable sharing something with the world, keeping it away locked in a little room."

Since coming out and releasing her hit album, Missy has toured with the Indigo Girls, Ben Folds and also headlined her own sold-out international tours. For 2009, she's working on a film version of the musical Bran Nu Dae alongside Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush.

“The L Word” Season 6 stills give us fashion crime and punishment

2008-12-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

by
Dorothy Snarker

Death. Accusations. Investigations. Prison. Yes, yes, that's all fine and good for the final season of The L Word. But we really want to know is how the women who long love lust actually look in the sixth season. Showtime released the first stills for the new season this week. After seeing them I've decided I don't care who they kill off as long as Jennifer Beals' arms get to live. While I'll never fully understand some of the frilly, flouncy fashions the characters wears on the show, I always appreciate how the actresses pull them off. Let's take a sneak peek at what the new season has in store. We'll go alphabetically, so as not to play favorites.

Alice (Leisha Hailey): I had a momentary panic when I thought this was her new season 6 haircut. But it is just pulled back. False alarm, people, back to your stations.

'Pregnant Man' Gives Birth to Girl

2008-12-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN and KATIE THOMSON
July 3, 2008

Thomas Beatie, the transgender man who made headlines as the so-called "pregnant man," gave birth Sunday to a healthy baby girl, ABC News has learned. The birth, at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon, was natural, according to a source, who added that reports that Beatie had had a Caesarean section are false.

"She's really cute, really pretty,'' the source told ABC News Thursday afternoon.

The source said Beattie was resting and the family was focusing its attention on the new baby.

Born a woman, Beatie, 34, who had had his breasts surgically removed and legally changed his gender from female to male, leaped to prominence around the world in April when the wispy bearded man revealed he was pregnant.

Despite years of taking hormones and living outwardly as a man, Beatie maintained that he retained his female sex organs because he intended one day to get pregnant. "I actually opted not to do anything to my reproductive organs because I wanted to have a child one day. I see pregnancy as a process, and it doesn't define who I am," Beatie told Oprah Winfrey in April.

"I feel it's not a male or female desire to have a child. It's a human need. I'm a person and I have the right to have a biological child," he said. Beatie was caught on tape leaving the hospital. He was not carrying the infant.

A woman who appears to be a nurse carried a combination car seat-baby carrier with a white blanket over it. Beatie walked a few yards behind her. The new dad walked easily, although he appeared tired, and despite the warm weather he wore a white hooded sweatshirt along with sunglasses and black shorts. Someone opened the car door for him.

Beatie was impregnated with sperm from a donor. His wife, Nancy, inseminated him at home with a device she said was like a syringe without the needle. They bought it from a veterinarian and it is typically used to feed birds.

Ellen DeGeneres on Her Variety Special, Prop 8 and Closeted Celebrities

2008-11-16T05:39:00.001-08:00

Photo courtesy: TBS

As if she weren’t busy enough with her daily talk show, new marriage, philanthropic endeavors, American Express ads and her new Cover Girl campaign, Ellen DeGeneres is adding at least one more project to her full plate. Ellen’s Even Bigger Really Big Show, returns for another edition and airs on TBS on Nov. 29 as part of the network’s Comedy Festival at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Ellen took time out from rehearsals to talk to the press about the variety special, her feelings about Proposition 8 and how she’d like to literally pick a kid from a Gap ad.

This being the second consecutive year that Ellen has headlined the TBS special, she was asked what’s different about the latest edition. With her usual quick wit she offered, “Well, the title says it’s even bigger so I think that says it all. Last year’s was really, really big and this year is even bigger.”

“I think it’s going to be the same kind of excitement, the same kind of acts that you have never seen before. We’ve brought people in from all over the world that are fascinating to watch. I think mostly you’re going to just sit there and wonder how did [the performers] even think up this idea [and] that it would be a possibility as a talent.”

Since she’ll soon be spending time in Las Vegas for the show, Ellen said she’s hoping it’s not all work and no play.

“There are a lot of new comedians that I haven’t seen,” she said, “and I hope I get time to go see some of them. I think I’m going to be rehearsing and working and busy the whole time but I hope I get to see some of them because I really haven’t seen any of the newer comedians because I’m always busy.”

Ellen also touched on the fact that while she loves the largeness of a big stage in a new arena, she does not have a desire to return to touring with her stand-up act.

“I don’t miss traveling and sleeping in a hotel every night. That touring got really old and I did it for 15 years. I had no idea I was going to be a talk show host but I used to tell the audience at the end of the show when I’d do question and answer [that] I’m going to make you come to me and I’m not going to come to you anymore and now they do come to me. I do standup every single day. I still get that live energy exchange between the audience and myself. I still get to say the things I want to say and comment on and so [but] I guess I’m going to get that at Caesars. It’s 4,000 people. It’s a big stage. It’s a brand new energy. I’ll probably be … not so much nervous but excited just because it’s a different place.”

With massive ebbs and flows in last week’s political developments, Ellen also spoke about how she felt when Barack Obama won the Presidency and then things took a downward turn the next day when Proposition 8 failed to be defeated in the state of California.

“The next day was what a lot of people felt, which was energized that Obama got in and excited for that and then…the next day seeing that there was a big loud voice saying you are not equal to us and that feels bad. That feels really, really bad ... you are different and you’re not equal. It feels very bad. It took a little bit of air out of me from the excitement from the night before.”

But that the feeling of defeat didn’t last very long. “I do feel hopeful. I feel excited and I’m not tired or anything. But certainly that was an emotional day for me the next day and trying to do a show when I felt that sad inside but I kind of bounced back. I feel good now.”

One recent commentary on Proposition 8 that she couldn’t help but mention came from a certain MSNBC personality whose video has been widely seen on the Internet this week. “I thought Keith Olbermann was so brilliant and eloquent,” she said. "[The video] is on our website and I‘m sure you can find it just about anywhere but I just thought what he said is all that needs to be said. It really is just about following your heart and people really paying attention to what the right thing is."

“I think this Saturday there’s a nationwide March…and hopefully it will be done peacefully and in the right way.”

Olbermann’s commentary mentioned that the way gays are being treated is not very far removed from another group that was long held down and kept civil rights at bay.

“It just isn’t fair and if you look back as you watch Keith Olbermann what he talks about is this happened to Black people," Ellen added. "They weren’t allowed to marry. They’re still holding on to some form of this. I have faith that people will realize that this is wrong.”
On statistics revealing that a large percentage of black voters who came out to vote for Obama in California also voted YES on Proposition 8, Ellen said, “I think that unfortunately it all comes down to certain cultures are just more accepting or less accepting and, unfortunately, there are a lot of very well known black people who are gay but are, unfortunately, closeted and that doesn’t help things that people are not able to live their lives honestly.”

In talking about the coming out process and the risk for famous people come up against, she asked, “I mean, which comes first? Do you come out and just force people to deal with it or do you wait for it to be accepted and then people get to live their lives honestly and openly?”

“It’s a big risk for people to have a big career and come out and that’s because of what’s going on but it would change things if people would live their lives in a way ... it’s just healthier for them, really. It’s not really helping anybody to live a life that isn’t true to themselves.”

Regardless of the number of fans and supporters Ellen may have, she is fully aware that not everyone is a fan of her work, her opinions and her sexual orientation.

“I think I’m probably protected from a lot of stuff that would be negative,” she said. “I don’t really like to focus on whether it’s positive or negative ... I’m shocked by someone commenting on my shoes or my clothes. Everybody has an opinion especially now more and more and everyone’s blogging about everything. I can’t possibly pay attention to that.”

“I’m sure there are station managers that carry the show in certain markets who aren’t really thrilled with it because they probably are people who’d vote yes on 8. They don’t agree with it and they don’t understand it and probably were a little fearful in the first place of an openly gay person.”

“I’m sure people have opinions about it and I’m sure they don’t really love me any which way I go. So I can’t really pay attention or I have to just speak from my heart.” Recognized by the State of California or not, her marriage to actress Portia de Rossi, like any marriage, has prompted a commonly asked question – when are they going to have kids?

She joked, “You know, when I see those print ads that have the babies in them for Gap? That’s cute ... you have little Gap knit sweaters on their heads, little Gap outfits ... they advertise kids very well those Gap ads. I don’t even look at the clothes. I just go ‘that’s a cute baby. I want that one.’ So, I don’t’ know ... we have a lot of friends who have babies and they’re amazing and change your life and there was a time we were thinking about it...”

“I think that is one of the things about not being able to accidentally get pregnant and have a child. You really, really have to want one whether it’s trying to figure out how you get pregnant or if you adopt…”

“I think that’s even more of a reason that people that aren’t able to have kids should be allowed to adopt because you have to really want a kid and that’s a big responsibility so we’re not taking it lightly. We would really think about it before we did it.”

Ellen’s Even Bigger Really Big Show airs Nov. 29 at 9/8c on TBS

Lindsay Lohan says something she most likely now regrets

2008-11-13T08:08:00.000-08:00

by
StuntDouble

Like most of you, I have applauded Lindsay Lohan's deft ability to avoid labels. Interviewers keep trying to pin her down with the straight/gay/bisexual question. Lohan's semantical caution has been an interesting dance to watch; she's handled herself well — which is why it sort of boggled my brain yesterday when she said of Barack Obama: "It’s an amazing feeling. It’s our first colored president."

Lohan publicly supported the Obama campaign, so entertainment blogs are having a field day with her comment. How can someone dodge a label like "bisexual" but slap on a label like "colored"?

I think it's bizarre that Lohan used the word "colored," but not because I think she's racist or because of the label irony. I think it's odd because "colored" is kind of an old woman word. I mean, it's like segregation antiquated. I haven't heard anyone say it since my great-grandmother died, and I live in the deep, deep south.

It's unnerving to hear someone from the pop culture junkie generation speak like my Granny. Imagine receiving a text from your grandpa that says, "ROFLOL!! C U Thnxgiving!" It's the kind of cross-generational thing that could rip the space-time continuum in half.

More than likely, Lohan was trying to say "people of color," but the lights and the cameras and the rapid-fire questions tripped her up. It's not always easy to give an interview, especially when people are always looking for that "lesbian" sound byte.

Also in the interview, Lohan talks about Prop. 8. It's kind of awkward, because she's on Access Hollywood, why all the political questions? But she goes on to say that she, like every other right-thinking person on the planet, is not in favor of it. And they talk about her new line of leggings, a fashion trend that I will never understand.

If Lohan would just watch Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf would teach her that tights are not pants! Alas, she's probably too busy trying to deal with the fallout of calling people "colored" to enjoy the Greatest Show of Our Time. It's too bad: If there's one thing Blair Waldorf and Serena Van der Woodsen know how to do, it's to bend the media to do their will. It's a trick Lindsay Lohan could really use.

Here is the clip from Access Hollywood:

Who falls under the umbrella of "gay"?

2008-11-12T03:50:00.000-08:00

I’m asking this because I’ve read more than once on AE how bisexuals are not considered gay. For example, these comment – “Why do people so often mistake being bisexual for being gay?”

I would rather not put myself into that proverbial box and so, simply identify more comfortably as “gay” or if you prefer, “queer”. What I don’t identify with is being bisexual or necessarily a lesbian. However, I digress. Without having to throw labels around and with primary consideration of what the person would like to be referred to as, I do lump the lgbt community together as, “gay”. To me, gay is someone that is attracted to the same sex in some manner or another. This is not to say that at some point in their life, (past, current, future) that they won’t be attracted additionally to the opposite sex but still, I consider them under the umbrella as, “gay”. For example, with prop 8 - lets say a bisexual woman in the past was involved with men (well, she is bi after all) but currently is involved with a woman, and she also wants to marry that woman; well, wouldn’t gay rights apply to her since she can’t (currently) marry her girlfriend? Would it be okay to consider her gay if she were in a same-sex relationship? Would it be a mistake to consider a bisexual as gay like the above poster I quoted?

I’m curious to get your opinion on this. Why do you or don’t you consider bisexuals or others outside of the exclusive same-sex orientation as gay?

the L \ast\ Word....

2008-11-12T03:29:00.000-08:00

Represent the Epitome of Success and Privilege

2008-09-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

Condition patterns of sexual deeds and the meanings given to them are yield of the social, cultural and chronological context out of which they develop than we can expect them to vary cross culturally .The several instincts was generally identified as a pro creative desire of men and women. But that reproductive ideal was beginning to be challenged quietly but insistently in perform and theory by a new different –sex satisfaction ethic.

The issue of how and when and under what circumstances someone would or could acquire an identity as a homosexual was posed as a usually sociological question, and the research into this question benefited greatly from the interactions prospective in sociology during the 1960s and 1970s.Proponents of this perspective assert that the development of one’s own identity (how an individual answers perfectly the question of Who am I?) is an ongoing life process and takes lace in a social conflict. The individual develops a sense of self in relation to major aspects of life such as work and sex. We develop a several identity out of all the experiences we attach to these experiences. Several identities summarize our sense of self as sexual beings. Several orientation are social preferences is one component of sexual identity that express our attraction to members of the same or opposite sex.

From this perspective sexual identity is a social construction out of these events and our feelings about them; we try to make senses out of what our life has been and who we are. The process may seem complicated but is remarkably ordinary.

Topic Lesbian Life

2008-08-27T22:59:00.001-07:00

Expert: Jen Simpson
Date: 5/8/2007
Subject: sign of attraction / girl flirting

Question
Hi Jen,
I have a couple questions ...Do you feel the signs for attraction are the same for lesbians as they are for straight women who are flirting with men? What are signs that a girl is attracted to another girl, typically?... I am curious about my sociology teacher who is a few years younger than myself. I have heard her mention in the past that she dated a man. Some things I have experienced with her are her lightly touching my arm when explaining something, saw me on campus and sat with me with her hands behind her neck appearing very relaxed and talked about some general concerns she had in our class and then asked me what I was doing later on, encouraging me several times to take her class next Fall semester and she seemed bummmed when I mentioned that I may not due to changes in my schedule, and one day upon my entering the class late, as she was writing on the blackboard with her back towards me, while I walked in she said aloud before the whole class "I knew that wouild be you coming in" like she was anticipating my arrival. She sits about 6 feet away from me and twirls her often in class. Today was our last day of class and as I was heading towards her desk, she leaned forward with her arms stretched and hands clasped backwards revealing her palms and said quietly with a smile "so, you going to take my fall class?" I smiled and said i was consiering it and she had a big smile. I have had her for two classes and honestly, I was sort of attracted to her from the beginning, but my gaydar was thinking she was straight. She also has encouraged me on numerous times on gay/lesbian topics when she issues an open topic paper to write. Additionally, I have been in her office and she has numerous gay/liberal postings on her office bulletin board...Is this beacuse she is attracted to the same sex or because she has a gay brother that she mentioned? If she is attracted, what next?Thanks for any insight...

Get the answer below Answer
Hi girlznjeeps,

Well, here's the hard thing with girls flirting: yes, the signs usually are the same as they are with men, but females are also a lot closer with bonding, and it could also just mean she wants to be friends with you.

I think the only option (besides asking her flat out), would be going out to do something outside of school. See what she is doing later, and ask her if she wants to hang out, go for coffee, or something. You can always tell her you want to talk about her class, and see if things will work out with changes to your schedule. Once you do that, she how she acts on a one-on-one out of school basis.

Does she sound like she's flirting? Seems so to me. I'm assuming she knows that you are not straight as she was encouraging you to write those papers, right?

Throwing in the fact that she has a gay brother does make it complicated though. If I were straight and my brother was gay, I would fully support him and all gay causes.

So, do you have any way of getting in contact with her now? I would definitely go for the out of school meeting. Otherwise you might not see her again until the fall.

If you want to chat about it more, feel free to contact me again!
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Lesbian-Life-2011/sign-attraction-girl-flirting.htm

to my pals,aquinted and soon to be in a circle

2008-08-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

helo u out there!!

this page is an open invites.let say a sort of graffiti corner much prefer for the Les and confuse..lol..let the world knows u exist..it would be a great opportunity to have u in my site..it needs a little bit of polish and most likely i might post some interesting topics for us to talk derby.so...better hang on for it!!!im on a rush run some errand forgive me if i'll cut this short for the moment of time..let me hear your story too..i'll think of mine and post it soon.lol.anything..