Morning Brew – Mon. July 2: Rachel Maddow shoots for “Rolling Stone,” Lita Ford on the gayness of The Runaways
You guys, last night I went to see kd lang and it was kind of amazing. Don’t be jealous but she lives in Portland now and it was her first show in her new hometown, so people were pretty psyched. It was also Canada day so I think kd was having the best day ever. Therefore, the audience did, too. I highly recommend seeing her if she comes to a town near you.
Lita Ford told Vice she momentarily quit The Runaways when she found out “all the members were gay.”
I never knew anything about being gay or being straight. I never knew that girls go with girls and guys go with guys. I never knew that until I joined The Runaways, and The Runaways were gay. And after the first couple of days, I realized that the girls were with other girls, and it shocked me. I didn’t know that girls did that. It really took me some figuring out. I actually, I quit the band when I found out The Runaways were gay. I quit, because it freaked me out. I didn’t know how to handle it. I wasn’t prepared for it. So I went home, and I was home for a couple of days, and I started thinking about it, and I started thinking so what. So what. What’s the big deal….I started thinking please call me back, call me back and-cuz I quit-I started thinking oh god, I quit. They’re gonna go out and they’re gonna be rockstars, and they’re gonna tour the world and play big arenas.
And they called her back and the rest is history. I’d like to say Lita is a touch less homophobic now, but as Vice says earlier on in the piece, she did make some homophobic-esque comments in 2009 about how her fans are straight and Joan Jett’s are all gay, like it’s a bad thing. Sorry, Lita, but I’d rather hear about Joan’s bad reputation than kiss you deadly.
Rolling Stone‘s current issue has a feature on Rachel Maddow’s Quiet War. It’s a fantastic look at what happens behind-the-scenes at her show. An excerpt:
At the next staff meeting, Maddow is wearing jeans and a Boston Celtics T-shirt; the effect is a more stripped-down version of herself. Off-air, Maddow thinks, her humor is “darker and grosser,” and in staff meetings she permits herself some speculative license she can’t on-air. She mentions a video from a North Carolina town hall meeting she saw on YouTube, in which a “great tough lesbian” confronts a state legislator who voted to outlaw gay marriage. The woman goes at the legislator, Maddow says, “until she’s as big as a house and he’s as big as a mouse.” The climax comes when the lesbian fumes, “I never even told anyone in this town I was a lesbian until now!” Maddow cracks up. “You’re like, ‘Really? You? No one knew? Not a single person?'”
There’s also a look at Maddow’s personal life, and her partner Susan Mikula is interviewed as well.
After Maddow’s show one evening, I go to dinner with Maddow and Mikula at a restaurant in Manhattan not far from Maddow’s studio. They are, at the moment, more or less marooned in New York by ongoing renovations on their home in western Massachusetts, which they return to every weekend. Maddow seems less wound-up around Mikula, a 54-year-old artist with a hippie aspect and a big, willing laugh. Mikula accompanied Maddow on the book tour for Drift, her bestselling book on the national-security state, and what she noticed was that the people Maddow brought out of the closet were not gay kids but nerds. “You realize there are a lot more kids in the Model UN than you think,” Mikula says. Adds Maddow, “There were all these moms who would come up to me and say, ‘Do more “Moment of Geek” — my kid loves it!'”
It’s a great read. Thanks so much for the tip Monique! And since Rachel and Susan had their first date at an NRA event, they shot some photos of Maddow, well, shooting.
This Sunday begins the madness that is The Real L Word. Here’s a a taste of what’s to come.
It’s like Kacy and Cori are on a completely different show — or should I say, they are on The Real L Word and everyone else is on a show called Lesbians Have Sex a Lot.
Heather Morris plays the part of Bella in a Twilight parody for the Playhouse West Film Festival.
Jodie Foster will be at Comic-Con on July 13 to discuss Elysium, the District 9 sequel she’s part of. If you are going, I am jealous.
Today in Lesbianish TV: *The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (HBO 12 p.m.), *Grey’s Anatomy marathon (Lifetime 1 p.m.), The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS 1:30 p.m.), *The Talk (CBS 2 p.m.), Secrets of a Restaurant Chef (Food Network 2 p.m.), In the Life (PBS), Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo 8 p.m.), Black Swan (TMAX 8:15 p.m.), The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC 9 p.m.), Lost Girl (Syfy 10 pm.), Push Girls (Sundance 10 p.m), RuPaul’s Drag U (Logo 10 p.m.), *South of Nowhere marathon (TeenNick 10 p.m.), *The Real L Word (Showcase 10 p.m.) and Mulholland Dr. (5 MAX 12:45 p.m.) (Thanks Roni!)
*Denotes rerun
