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AE:
(laughing) That’s great. Well, what do you think of this
election, of John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards?
KC:
Well of course as you can imagine I’m disappointed as anything
that I was not selected to be the presidential running mate; I
was so ready. And I find it continually appalling that it would
be a radical thing to have a woman on the ticket—isn’t
that amazing?
AE:
Yeah, definitely.
KC:
It’s just phenomenal to me! They didn’t even like
Margaret Thatcher but at least there was Margaret Thatcher. There
have been women, you know, Sonia Gandhi for heaven’s sakes
in India. The fact that it’s just not even a thought, they’re
not even on a short list, a long list, is just appalling. But
I do think that, well, their wives are very present. Laura Bush
is—where is she? I want to call her Aura Bush; she’s
just sort of around. But I think they’re just going to go
after poor Teresa Heinz Kerry. Too European. She’s very
thoughtful, she’s too breathy.
AE:
Well, I want to ask you about your career as a comedian. How do
you think that you have changed in your material or as a performer
since you first started out?
KC:
I think when I look at my history I think I’ve changed as
the gay movement has changed. I mean, I came out…sort of
at the end of the flowering of the women’s music scene,
you know, the end of lesbian-separatism. And really I feel very
blessed that’s where I was able to work on material and
get my confidence, you know, working in Unitarian basements and
coffeehouses. And I think that [it was]…probably about 1985,
really, during Reagan when we were at the height of the AIDS crisis
that gay men and women really started working together. And I
did; I started to do more mixed gay audiences and my material
became not just about…the wealth of material that there
was in the lesbian separatist [movement]…I did 90 minutes
and people would go “what did you talk about?” There
was just tons to talk about; it was just such an exciting cultural
hot sexy moment.
The
way they portray it now it’s like they were all drudges
in flannel, but it was really excellent. Probably in ’85
that changed and I think we became more…two-gendered, the
movement, and then I really think when my brother-in-law, Bill
Clinton, was elected and he had gay friends, he was able to say
“gay and lesbian” without spitting up, the doors really
opened. My material really became more generally mainstream politically,
as did the gay movement. That was a coming out…. But…the
other effect of that was the doors opened and…what I’ve
learned is you have no control in a movement, in a revolution,
and that…when you kick open those doors all manner of people
will walk through, and we really got a lot of very conservative
gay people. You could look at the figures from the last election
and realize that a third of the gay movement voted Republican.
That was just amazing. It is our movement; it’s all of those
people who are out.
AE:
I still have yet to meet a gay Republican, but I’m sure
I will someday.
KC:
They’re there, they’re there….It’s sort
of like a Sally Field moment reversed, it’s like “you
hate me, you hate me.” But I think Patrick Guerrero, the
head of the log cabin club, he’s amazing. He gets it and
he really—I mean I believe him when he said he’s really
trying to be in the Republican Party and make it change.
AE:
You do continue to perform at the women’s music festivals
and also at the Michigan festival at a time when many of the performers
are really being asked to justify their acceptance of the woman-born-woman
policy. Do you have a position on that?
KC:
Again, I think that my position, which was probably [a] very lesbian-separatism
biological-determinism kind of thing, you know, has really been
challenged by my personal experience with women who were friends
of mine who really are much more comfortable in transgender. I
could talk about it all I want but with my own eyes I’ve
seen a friend of mine…who is now Bob, I mean, clearly more
comfortable. It just makes you think that anytime you have a firm
political belief it’s always challenged by the inconvenience
of people’s lives.
AE:
You did not start off as a comedian; you have a master’s
degree in English and you taught for a while. How has that influenced
the way you approach your humor?
KC:
Well, I’m totally overprepared. Everything is on a page
and…really I’m still doing lesson plans. But you know
for me that’s what I’m comfortable with. I kind of
know, have a kind of map of where I’m going and from that
I can kind of improvise. But I think that is definitely something
from my teacher years. I don’t like to waste people’s
time. I don’t like that kind of “Where are you from?”
“Pittsburgh.” “Oh, great!” That’s
not my idea of entertaining. I think I definitely want people
to laugh because I don’t think there’s a better feeling—well,
there’s another one but—I think it’s just so
fabulous to laugh. I don’t mind if people think, either.
I think the brain is a very sexy organ.
AE:
How do you prepare? Do you tailor your material for particular
audiences?
KC:
I might rearrange material. In Provincetown I can start a show
just with things that…are very gay and we all know, but
in a more mixed audience I might have to give more information.…
Maybe ten years ago my goal was really to make people just totally
comfortable and know that I was exactly like them and then just
say the most outrageous things. A friend of mine said, no matter
what I do I always look like an English teacher. She actually
said, you still look like a Campbell’s Soup kid, so there’s
a way that I think I’m really butchin’ it up and…everybody’s
all, please. And by that you can really say quite very transgressive
things, I think.
AE:
Do you identify as a lesbian comedian or do you not like that
label?
KC:
You know I don’t mind it at all. It certainly is what I
talk about—part of what I talk about. I mean, I’m
happy to say that I’m a lesbian in the world, and this is
how I look at things. I know there are people who don’t
want to be called women comedians, if it’s funny it’s
funny, all of that, but I think it gives a path to the fact that
we live in extremely patriarchal times and that what’s funny
is what’s funny to men…. I agree that slapstick can
often be just hysterical but I…used to identify as a feminist
humorist, which I tell you in the early 80s got me on a lot of
radio talkshows…. I remember one guy said to me, “feminist
humorist, isn’t that an oxymoron?” And I was like,
well you’re half right.
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