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omics Come Out

With a Laugh

 

BY ToM BIVINS

the GLBT community, coming out is
the single common emotional thread
that holds our community together.
Everyone has a story to tell, whether sad,
happy, mundane, or funny. Regardless of
the telling or the outcome, the stories all
are tinged with fear, stress and anxiety.
So what a relief to watch the
film “Coming Out Party,” produced by
Howard Bragman and Greg Miller for
Creative Light Entertainment and'Un-
Cabaret Multi/Media, scheduled for
release on National Coming Out Day. In
the film, seven American comic actors
tell their coming out stories and joke
about being gay. The comics represent a
broad spectrum of “gayites,” a term
coined by comic Rene Hicks to describe
the “chosen people of God.” Hicks
explains that as the chosen ones, “gay
people are part of every segment of soci-

€13’-

In such a diverse group of people as

The other comics include

Daniel Renzi, best known for being him-
self on The Real World: Miami, Bob
Smith, comic and author of Openly Bob,
drag ‘empressario’ and actor Jackie Beat,
out loud lesbian Sabrina Matthews, TV
writer and comic John Riggi, and finally,
TV writer, producer and SNL alum, Terry
Sweeney. All show ofl‘ their individual
talents, generational perspectives and
backgrounds with real sensitivity to the
underlyinggoal of the film, which is, of
course, coming out loud and proud.

Most of their stories are
funny, but like most coming out stories,
there is always that underlying note of
sadness, anger, or parental disappoint-
ment. As John Riggi says in his story of
telling his first-generation immigrant
Italian mother about his “roommate”
(seventies parlance for lover), “after-
wards, we went shopping at Target 
maintaining that frail reality we call a
family.”

One of the interesting com-
ments made by Bob Smith is that we are
always “coming out to everyone, it’s end-
less.” As an out man for the past 27 years
(that long, WOW!), I can attest to the
truth of that statement. I just assume that
everyone knows, but I still have to handle
questions about wives, kids, and mar-
riage, and with good humor come out yet
again to new friends, workers or just
curious acquaintances. I still feign indif-
ference to the “frail reality” of my fami-
ly’s acceptance. Ultimately, coming out is
about persuasive perseverance.

Easily the strongest perform-

ance of the film is by Terry Sweeney, the I

very first out performer on network tele-
vision as a “Saturday Night Live” com-
pany actor. He performs a great comic
riff on caring for his lover’s mother who
was living with Alzheimer’s. Every night
at dinner for two years, he and his lover
came out to her all over again. Talk about
excruciating! ,

Sweeney talks about gay pride
in New York in the early seventies and its
seeming demise with AIDS in the eight-
ies. I liked his performance best as he

._ “you come to the big city, spread your

reminded me of every nellie country boy
who ends up in the big city, makes it by
anyone’s standard and manages never to
lose his sense of humor, compromise his
integrity or lose his sense of self- worth.
He’s funny and tells the truth, ugly as it
may seem. My one criticism of his com-
ments is that he ends his segment — and
the film — with the comment that if
you’re being teased, tormented and disre-
spected in your small, country town,

wings and you fly.”

I’ve come from the big city
(at least, bigger than all of Vermont) and
it’s here in Vermont that l’ve spread my '
wings and flown. While in Vermont I’ve
met people who make a difference in
their small towns everyday just by being
themselves, openly and honestly. “God’s ;
chosen people” really are in every seg- 
ment of society, and not just where our
city cousins live.

It’s great to see gay comics
jokeabout being gay, and I wouldhighly;
recommend Coming Out Party for 80 ’
minutes of laughs and gay humor. Its ‘
underlying message is the same whether .5
you are in LA. or Vermont: coming out '
is okay, it’s the single most powerful gr,
important thing you can do for visibility j
and owning your gay self, and you are 
going to be okay once you do it. So you ~
just spread your wings and you_fly! V, 

Torn Bivens is an instructor at the New
England Culinary Institute and lives in
Bethel with his partner

Lambda Lit Lights Up P-town

BY PEG COLE

harpen your pencils, students and

would-be queer novelists and

scribblers. Buy new pens, and
charge up your laptop batteries. The
famed Lambda Literary Festival is light-
ing up Provincetown, the gay capital of
the Northeast the second weekend of
October. ‘

And, of course, all the literary
high- and low-lights will be there, includ-
ing Edmund White (Art of Biography),
Andrew Holleran (who just got a second
place award from the National Lesbian
and Gay Journalists’ Association),_Nancy
Bereano (Fate of Gay &. Lesbian Book
Stores), Maureen Brady (Short Story to
Novel), Samuel Delany and Cecelia Tan
(GLBT Genre Fiction), Leslea Newman
(Getting Your First Book Published),

Minnie Bruce Pratt (Poetry), and Karla
Jay (GLBT Memoirs), among many others.
Most of these authors are

signed up for more than one workshop,
but there’s the flavor of the thing. Plus,
scriptwriting for television, lots of master
classes (including how to promote your
writing), Southern gay writing, writing
for change, readings, poetry slams, musi-
cal events, fashion shows, the bars, the
beach, the fall colors  what more could
the literati want? ..

‘ The Lambda Literary
Foundation sponsors the festival and, of
course, the Lam_mies, its own awards for
literary excellence from the lgbtq com-
munity. Its mission is, according to its
web page, to “support and further the cre-
ation and dissemination of writings by,
for, and about the" lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender community.” It notes,
“Literature has long nurtured hope and

inspiration for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and 3
transgender people and has provided an" 573
avenue of understanding.”

Ann Bannon, the pseudony-
mous (at this late date!) author of a han
ful oflesbian pulp novels in the 1950s
and early 60s, writes on Lambda’s web

  
 
 
   
  

page: “It is our writers — our poets, schol: ' A

ars, historians, humorists, and storytelle g
of all stripes — who give voice to our 
remarkable community. They create us
all our wonderful colors as they recoun
us both to ourselves and to the wide
world.”

 
  
 
 
    

So watch some writers bloo ._
(or turn into blooming  nevermind) lf,.31,
you’re inclined to head for Provincetown
More info: www.lambda|it.org. V

Peg Cole reads a lot in her cabin in the I ,
woods, but thinks writers usually are bel- q
(er on the page than in person. I5

 
  

l