Jan. 8th was aptly chosen as the day to dump your desk-;I'll bet a lot of paper shredding and tidying up took place in Washington, D.C. as political appointees began their game of musical chairs. On the other hand, it's my chance to put all the little miscellaneous swatches that have piled up over the last year into a column of unrelated tidbits—"gallimaufry—a hodgepodge, a jumble, a hash."
Whatever happened to ... ???
After waiting for over a year to find out what happened to the missing million dollars from that GLBT March on Washington, Karen Hawkins' year-end report that the " ... missing funds from the Millennium Festival were never found" was disheartening. Surely by now there must be some results from the various investigations that could be made public. Thefts of organization funds have been hushed up in our community since the 1970s—Attorney Renee Hanover succeeded in retrieving money taken from a lesbian group back then. In the 1980s a criminal case against a fellow who had served himself while serving as treasurer on a number of gay organizational boards and businesses went quietly into the good night.
Barbara Gittings
Another piece of information I've been shifting around since last October was the announcement in the Philadelphia Gay News that the Free Library of Philadelphia will house a gay and lesbian collection in its new Independence Branch opening next Spring. The collection will be named in honor of pioneer activist Barbara Gittings who as a lay person steered the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association until professionals finally stepped out of the closet and up to the helm. Gittings, one of my personal heroes, first attracted public notice in Philadelphia as part of the annual Fourth of July picket around Independence Hall in the mid-1960s. The much-published photograph of her, by partner Kay ( Tobin ) Lahusen, marching with her picket sign around the home of the Liberty Bell has become a queer icon. But Barbara's activism dates back to the 1950s when she founded the East Coast chapter of the nascent lesbian organization, The Daughters of Bilitis. Fundraising is underway for collection development and contributions can be sent to the Gittings Collection, c/o the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, 1901 Vine St., Philadelphia, PA 19103. Maybe if enough money is raised, Barbara will do a victory lap around the Library for old times sake.
Booze & Books
Some bright young thing in the advertising department decided that the stately Beefeater Royal Guard on my favorite gin bottle wasn't attractive enough for the youth market. So now he's going to get a facelift—well actually they will eliminate his Van Dyke for a more modern beard and introduce the old codger to a bottle of Greacian Formula #9. To really update him they should have given him a cell phone instead of a mace, a diamond stud in his left ear, a more fashionable skirt than his tunic, and a Ricky Martin cut instead of that plush-pan hat. Don't judge the gin by its label, puhleeze.
I miss Charles Shultz, but two small prints-;Snoopy lying on his back on his dog house, and Charlie Brown sitting on the curb in a downpour with the banner: "It always rains on the unloved," will be here on my desk forever. I like Ziggy too. Years ago I had a table of gay and lesbian small press books at the annual American Library Association convention where cartoonist Tom Wilson was autographing lithographs of Ziggy and his dog staring up at a shooting star blazing a rainbow across the night sky. I got #473 out of 1000. This was years before the rainbow flag filtered down to myriad uses as our symbol on everything from pins to pylons. Gay artist and early ACT UP member Danny Sotomayor used a similar shooting star image for his memorial cartoon of Gay Chicago Magazine writer /publisher Dan DiLeo.
No biographies of Chicago Mayors I have known, not even Jane Byrne or Harold Washington, breathe the slightest mention of any queer ever crossing the threshold of City Hall, let alone having an influence on issues or votes. So I am not in a hurry to read American Pharaoh, about old Mayor Richard J. Daley, by two non-Chicagoans now on the bottom of a pile of books on my desk.
PBS and the Small Screen
I admit to taping The View some days back. All My Children and the saga of Erica Kane's ( Susan Lucci ) lesbian daughter Bianca Montgomery ( Eden Reigel ) were the topic of the day. The two guest stars discussed how excited they both were with the story line. Lucci noted that all of Pine Valley except Erica seemed to be politically correct on the issue-;Bianca had been pressed into coming out publicly at a party ( that included the principal characters of all 17 story lines ) by a pushy press person. Lucci defended Erica's maternal suggestion of "professional help" for Bianca because she is only 16 "and doesn't even have a driver's license yet," had been in therapy, had spent a lot of time with this woman on the inter-net, etc. Eden proudly displayed a T-shirt given her by fellow cast member Walt Willey that read: "I love boys." Yup, reality TV in the wings.
I really enjoyed the PBS specials on Studs Terkel, Chicago Neighborhoods, and the first parts of Ken Burns' documentary on Jazz in America. I look forward to the development of Chicago's contribution to that genre. These productions make me hunger for a presentation on the contributions to Chicago's culture by us queers. Whatever happened to those documentary interviews Ron Pajak was videotaping a few years back? ( I know his address is buried here somewhere. ) Greta Schiller had made scads of Chicago audiotape interviews in preparation for her documentary, Before Stonewall; only a fraction of that material was used in her film. Who has it now? C'mon you videographers, we need our story told!
Copyright 2001 by Marie J. Kuda. e-mail: kudoschgo@aol.com
