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Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (April 6, 2007)

AND BY “RETREAT” WE MEAN SITTING IN A HOT TUB DRINKING MOJITOS AND DECONSTRUCTING WORK OUT

We’re finally back from our trip to Palm Springs for Dinah Shore/our staff retreat, and it was a trip! There were lesbian and bisexual women hanging from the rafters and swinging from the chandeliers. OK, there weren’t actually any rafters or chandeliers. Just lots of poles and platforms. But you get the idea. For more on the event, check out our blog posts about the L Word fashion show, the Michelle and Jackie show and taping She Said What?

We’ve also put together a little slide show for you of photos from the AfterEllen.com cocktail party. Here’s one of my favorites, of me with Xena star Renee O’Connor, who was all kinds of fun to chat with:

She’s saying, “Forget that Lucy chick; Sarah should have played Xena!” Look for a video interview with Renee and a few other guests at the AfterEllen.com party on the site next week.

A FRACTURED FAIRY TALE

A reader (thanks, Julie!) tipped me off that this week’s episode of NBC’s Crossing Jordan (Episode 610, “Fall From Grace”) featured Jordan (Jill Hennessy) investigating the murder of a woman whose baby was removed from the womb. Naturally, suspicion falls on her partner, but after they put her through the wringer, they discover the real killer and baby-stealer is the dead woman’s sister, and the child is returned to the partner. A happy ending all around! Well, except for the dead lesbian, and her now grieving partner who has to raise the child alone, and the straight sister who went to jail.

WHAT, NO ANDREW SHUE?

At Dinah I met the creator and cast of Don’t Go, an indie series in the making about the lives and loves of a group of queer women living in the same apartment building in Los Angeles. The hook is that the cast is comprised almost entirely of women of color, including hip-hop artist Melange Lavonne, Skyler Cooper (Butch Mystique), Janora McDuffie (The Message) and Nisha Ganatra (Chutney Popcorn). Guinevere Turner (The L Word) and Yaniv Moyal round out the cast. The series is still in production and doesn’t have a home yet, but I’ll keep you updated on its progress.

Here’s the official cast photo:

And here’s me with Skyler, Janora and Melange at Dinah:

Writer-director Amber Sharp describes the show as “Melrose Place meets The L Word meets 227.” I hope that means they got Regina King to sit on the front steps of the building and make snarky comments. That would be excellent.

WHEN WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT

Attention all you LGBT budding filmmakers, writers and actors: There’s a cool conference coming up in Los Angeles next weekend called Q-Me Con (short for Queer Media and Entertainment Conference) and described as “the only multi-day conference designed specifically for industry professionals working in, or looking to break into, LGBTQ content creation for the burgeoning queer TV, music, film and new digital media arenas.” In other words: networking, networking, networking! And some learnin’. If I wasn’t still roadkill from Dinah, I’d so be there!

The panels – which feature successful directors, producers, network execs and other content creators – cover topics such as “Celluloid Sisters: Why Queer Women Need to Make More Movies” (amen, sister!); “Queer Women, Sex and the Media”; and “From Comic Books to Pitching Scripts: Insider Tips on Creating and Selling Queer Written Work.”

Panels that did not make the cut reportedly include “Writing Lesbians for Network TV: A Guide to Crime Scenes and Pregnancy Kits” and “Slutty Bisexual Characters 101.”

HOW DO YOU SAY “HOLD ME CLOSER, TINY DANCER” IN CHINESE?

China’s first gay internet series, Tongxing Xianglian, or Connecting Homosexuals, launched yesterday on phoenixtv.com. No, it’s not a real-life game of Connect Four with gay people (“Pretty sneaky, sis!”), but a weekly hour-long series featuring an openly gay host, Didier Zheng, that will “explore homosexuality from legal, parental and sociological perspectives and will deal with issues like gay marriage,” according to producer Gang Gang.

Qiaoqiao, the owner of the lesbian bar Feng in Beijing – and the first Chinese lesbian singer to come out – will be the show’s first guest. Be sure to check out the video for her song “Ai Bu Fen” (“Love Doesn’t Discriminate”).

Yes it’s in Chinese, but don’t let that deter you. If there’s anything you can count on, it’s the universal language of lesbian love. And cute girls in pink tutus.

SHE SAID WHAT?

We just posted the first of the four She Said What? episodes we filmed at Dinah, this one with guest Amanda Bearse, a prolific TV director whom many of you may know from her role as Marcy D’Arcy on Married With Children in the ’90s. (She came out in 1993 while still on the show, and for many years was the only out actress on TV.) Bearse is currently directing Logo’s upcoming series The Big Gay Sketch Show, which launches April 24th. We’ll post a full review of the series before it launches, but I’ve seen the first two episodes, and here’s my take: While some of the sketches are really unfunny (especially the first few), there are several sketches that are frickin’ hilarious, including a Project Runway sendup, a sketch called “Lesbian Speed Dating” and a Facts of Life parody.

Here’s sneak preview of short clips from the first episode, making fun of the “The More You Know” commercials (the lesbians come in halfway through):

I knew I was gay when I was more interested in watching Christina Applegate in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead on a date in high school than making out with my boyfriend. That’s when I knew.

But back to She Said What? Here’s a photo with Amanda on the set after the first episode:

You’ll notice some differences on the show: Chagmion Antoine has left SSW? to devote more time to her role on CBS News on Logo and to develop other projects with Logo. Staceyann Chin had scheduling conflicts during Dinah, so she couldn’t make it for these four episodes, but she’ll definitely be back!

Stepping in for them at Dinah were comedian Julie Goldman, who’s co-starring in The Big Gay Sketch Show; AfterEllen.com’s Dara Nai (aka “bad machine,” pictured in the middle); and, in the fourth episode, Amanda Bearse. We also taped a special AfterEllen.com-themed episode of SSW? co-hosted by our staff (Malinda, Karman, Dara and me) so we could talk about AfterEllen.com-specific stuff (memorable interviews, how we actually spend our time at work, etc.). Look for that episode, which includes South of Nowhere‘s Maeve Quinlan and Nancylee Myatt as guests, to air in two weeks. Next week, we have comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer.

Also new and different in these episodes? Me sounding like Kathleen Turner – I lost my voice from a bad cold before I even got to Dinah, and it went downhill from there. By the fourth episode, I was pretty much just croaking like a frog. Fortunately, Jane Lynch was the guest that episode, so there was really nothing to do but sit back and laugh, anyway.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Last month, Michael Jensen, editor of our brother site, AfterElton.com, wrote a story about Disney discriminating against same-sex couples who want to have commitment ceremonies at their resorts. Fast-forward several weeks, and Disney has just announced that they’re changing their policy to stop the discrimination.

In case you missed my blog post about it, Jodie Foster was outed – if you didn’t already consider her out – by Out magazine in their upcoming issue. So far, there actually hasn’t been much coverage of this by the mainstream press beyond simply reporting the event, but I’ll keep you posted. On a related note, check out Mombian’s list of Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America.

Jennifer Aniston is being given a GLAAD award later this month for her “contributions to increased visibility and understanding of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.” Um, OK. I mean, I loved watching her play a lesbian on Dirt, but I’m not sure it was worth an award. But hey, the more straight people who want gay awards the better, I guess!

Piper Perabo talks about her habit of playing lesbians in this new interview.

Smokin’ Aces is being released on DVD on April 17th. I don’t know how I can stand the wait.

Forty-seven comments (and counting) on Malinda’s lesbian-ish men blog post? Clearly you all have some unresolved issues!

We’ve launched a new weekly AfterEllen.com “Staff Picks” video page, with a few videos from around the web that are just too good not to share; you can find a permanent link to this page listed in the “More” section on the navigation on the left-hand side of your screen. Included in this week’s videos are a Spanish lesbian music video, the Jessie-Katie kiss from Once and Again and a tragic (and hilarious) tale of citrus love gone wrong called Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

That’s it for this week! Check back next Friday for another edition of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.

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