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Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever. (May 21, 2010)

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

The Gay Games, racing unicorns, the iPad Thai and saying “Ah” – all of these topics and more were Tweeted about by queer women in entertainment this week.

If you come across tweets that you think we should feature in “Tweets of the Week” or if you find (verified) Twitter accounts for out lesbian/bi women in entertainment who you think we should follow, please send us that info at [email protected].

 

THIS JUST IN: MUSICIAN MARY RALPH RECOVERS FROM A SERIOUS ACCIDENT AND MOVES ON TO GOSSIP GIRL

Last September, on the way to a gig on their tour in support of their new album, Chicago-based indie band Scotland Yard Gospel Choir was in a serious auto accident, causing the band’s members, including out lesbian Mary Ralph, to be hospitalized and undergo physical therapy, canceling their tour dates and spending the rest of 2009 and most of 2010 on the mend.

Having just released And the Horse You Rode in On, their most critically hailed album thus far and on the well-respected alt-country rock label Bloodshot Records, the band was in limbo. We checked in with Mary to see how she was recuperating from her injuries and when we can expect to hear her singing live again in the near future.

AfterEllen: How did you get involved with the band?

Mary Ralph: I met SYGC leader Elia at a Bratmobile/Gravy Train/Happy Supply show at the Fireside in 2002. I’d met Matt Kerstein (who later left SYGC to form Brighton MA) at a solo show I was playing, and he introduced me to Elia. Over the next few years, our social circles just seemed to merge, so when our dear friend Stephanie Morris decided to leave SYGC to concentrate on her own music, Elia asked if I’d like to join. I was ecstatic; I’d probably seen the band dozens of times at that point and I have always admired and respected his honesty and urgency as a songwriter.

AE: What’s your history with music, as an artist and a fan?

MR: Like most white, middle-class kids, I took piano lessons as a child. My parents have tapes of me singing and playing piano when I was four. I played trumpet after that, and joined the local high school pep band when i was eleven. My father is very musical and had guitars, recorders, dulcimers, ukuleles, just crazy instruments around the house I would pick up and figure out. I went to Catholic schools, so I was always singing in choirs. I got my first guitar for Christmas when I was 14.

My family really shaped me as a music fan. I think I heard the Muppet Movie soundtrack as often as I heard Tom Waits’ Small Change as a kid. I was lucky enough to be a teenager in the mid-90s when MTV still played music videos – amazing videos, at that. I grew up in a town of 18,000 people, pre-internet, and I got into Sonic Youth when i was 14. That’s still remarkable to me.

AE: You were in a horrific van crash with your band last year. What’s the band’s current prognosis? How do you think this will affect the band? Will you still be touring?

MR: “Horrific” seems to be the preferred adjective. Well, I just had surgery to remove a bone from my foot. I’d had some foot pain and found out I’ve been walking on a broken foot for seven months that no doctor noticed after the accident. That’s frustrating, because after seven months of physical and occupational therapy, I was really just starting to feel like I’d gotten my mobility back. I went from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane to nothing, but now I’m on crutches.

However, I am very aware that I am so remarkably lucky. I flew out the window of a moving vehicle and I survived. I had six broken bones and head trauma, but I’m going to make pretty much a full recovery. I mean, half of the band broke our backs and we’re walking! I always tell people it was a terrible, terrible thing to go through, but I can make a list off the top of my head of 200 ways in which we got lucky. That’s easy for me to say, of course, compared to our bass player/sound engineer, Mark, who was severely injured. We have been close friends for years, but I now know there is not a stronger or more determined person on the face of the planet. He’s my hero and continues to be such an inspiration.

I think this has brought the band closer, made us more determined, but also reminded us to keep our priorities straight. I absolutely love playing in the band, but it’s not the most important thing in the world. Our health and our friends, families, loves are the things that really matter, and we’ve been shown it can all be gone in a minute.

We’re planning to tour in the fall and we’ve got a few shows in Chicago this summer to get us back in fighting form.

AE: Does being a lesbian relate to your role in the band or as a musician?

MR: Being a lesbian in the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir means hearing more than my share of fisting jokes. Seriously. It’s like having four big brothers! They tease me, yet they want to beat up any woman who breaks my heart. I heard that when the EMTs were getting Mark out of the van and preparing to airlift him, he just kept saying “How’s Mary? How’s Mary?” He was so horribly injured, but was concerned about me. I cry every time i think about that.

In terms of music, I sometimes feel like I get props for things that a male musician wouldn’t. People will say I’m a really good guitarist and i think “No, I’m not! I am a reliable rhythm guitarist, but that’s it.” If an adult-sized man were playing these parts, you wouldn’t think twice. But again, I understand how important it is to see yourself reflected onstage. That’s a concept we talked about when I was studying education in college – how important it is for an African-American child, for example, to read a book with black characters.

I started playing guitar because my sister played Hole for me. That was when i realized that I could do this. I know how important Sleater-Kinney was to me, so I guess I also see the power of simply being an out lesbian in a band.

AE: Do you come across a lot of other queer women or are the bands you play with primarily straight and male? How does this dictate your audience?

MR: Not really. I’m trying to think if we’ve played with a band containing a lesbian. I can’t think of any, but I do have a fair amount of memory loss from the head injury. We play with other bands with girls fairly often, so that’s always fun. The one time we played with The Detroit Cobras, their guitarist, Mary, and I talked about our Gibson guitars for at least a half hour. That was really cool and exciting and I realized afterward it was because I’d never talked to another woman about gear.

AE: How has your album And The Horse… been received? Has not being able to tour on it affected the band greatly?

MR: This album has gotten the best reviews of our career. It was really heartwarming to see it on a lot of critics year end lists, too. I had two months of just sitting at home when I couldn’t play guitar and I couldn’t work. It meant so much to me to see all the great reviews and all the well wishes and benefit shows people were putting on.

Not being able to tour was like adding insult to injury. I love touring so much and was so looking forward to this tour. I’m so very proud of this album and can’t wait to play it for the world. CMJ was the week I got out of the hospital, I think, and it was just killing me. I felt like everyone I knew was at a party I couldn’t go to. The resounding message from our label and our management, though, has been that it will be there for us when we’re physically and emotionally ready for it. Our fans will be there for a record release show when we can get to their towns to play them and there is no reason to push ourselves. It’s nice to know that.

That being said, I’m hoping my broken foot heals up pretty quickly, because I don’t think anything can keep me from jumping off my amp at our comeback show June 19.

AE: You recently had a song on Gossip Girl. Did you see any direct impact from it being played on the show? Is licensing your songs a big focus of your band/label?

MR: We had two, actually! The first, “One Night Stand” and “Topsy Turvy.” That was in early April, if my admittedly faulty memory serves. Those were wonderful developments, absolutely perfect for us at that time period: Excitement, attention, and money that didn’t require any physical action from us.

Licensing is such a large part of being a band these days. I wouldn’t go so far as to say entire careers have been built on placements, but I think bands like Chairlift and even Grizzly Bear might be playing different venues if licensing hadn’t happened for them. I remember the Windows/”Start Me Up” placement when I was younger, and I remember sitting around with friends, talking about which bands had “sold out” by licensing songs for use in commercials. At a certain point, I realized it’s a lot easier to yell sellout when you haven’t slept on the floor of a hotel room shared by your five to seven bandmates.

AE: What are your plans for the future – the band or yourself personally? What would you want people to know about you?

MR: I think it’s pretty modest plans for the band right now; it’s just first things first, one day at a time. We are going to tour this record and see what happens next. For me, personally, I’d like to go back to school and finally get my bachelors. Someday, I’d like to teach American History in high school or the college level.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be the first female player in Major League Baseball, but now my dream is to be a historian, specifically a presidential historian like Doris Kearns Goodwin. Ken Burns’ documentaries got me through this recuperation process – I watched every episode of National Parks twice when I was on morphine. I’m a huge fan of Abraham Lincoln, as well, so I enjoyed The Civil War next.

What I really love about history is not the fanfare or blind adulation of figures who magically were born with morals far superior to our own and changed the world. It’s not the simplified stories we learned in school – it’s knowing that these simple, ordinary humans found themselves in situations they didn’t understand, which tested them and shaped them into men and women different from those they had been at the outset. It wasn’t always pretty and it wasn’t always nice, but quite often these people changed the world we live in. These are the things I think about when it gets hard.

– by Trish Bendix

WORKING THE POLL: PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ

This week, Dorothy Snarker blogged about the “signature, tuxedoed style” of Janelle Monáe. The singer has said that the look is a tribute to “my mother, who was a janitor, and my father, who drove trash trucks. It pays homage to how they put on a uniform every day and turned something into nothing.”

Her thoughtful statement (and the hot picture that accompanied it in Snarker’s blog post) reminded us of the iconic beauty of a woman in a tuxedo and inspired our poll this week.

Who best rocks a tuxedo?survey software

In our poll last week, we asked you who should play Lisbeth Salander in the U.S. version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. In a shocking turn of events, you voted for Kristen Stewart.

Which actress will look best as the leather jacket-sporting Lisbethonline survey

LESBIAN VIDEO CLIP OF THE WEEK

Meet Rose, from The Real L Word. She says that she’s never been faithful to anyone before, but now she’s found true love with her girlfriend, Natalie. This should be fun!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

Mia Kirshner has penned an impassioned plea for the release of two gay Malawian prisoners. Sign the petition to show your support.

Remember when we told you Ellen Page was going to star in the drama adaptation of Freeheld? It’s finally getting started! Page will play lesbian car mechanic Stacie Andree whose fights for her partner’s pension benefits after she becomes diagnosed with a terminal illness. The film now has financing and is being written by Ron Nyswaner, who penned Philadelphia.

Before you buy your matinee tickets, check out Trish’s gay girl’s guide to summer movies.

All My Children is bringing back Bianca but not Eden Riegel. The soap has recast Christina Bennett Lind in the role of Erica’s lesbian daughter.

Want to watch Rachel Maddow giving a commencement speech to a bunch of lesbians Smith College grads? She’s so good at pep talks.

The writers at The Good Wife really enjoy keeping us waiting. New York recently talked with show writer Robert King, who gave us small pieces of hope.

You’ll appreciate the humor of Tello FilmsWebseries the Webseries. It’s about a straight out-of-work actress who finds that she has a huge lesbian following based on the time she played gay in an episode of a cop show.

Marisa Tomei played gay in a reading based on the real life Prop 8 Trials. She portrays lead plaintiff Kristin Perry, who testified about her life with partner/co-plaintiff, Sandra Stier. Courage Campaign Chairman Rick Jacobs recently talked with AOL news about his involvement and Tomei’s performance. Check out the clip at equalityontrial.org.

Vice has published a list of lesbian power couples that, mercifully, doesn’t feature all of the usual suspects.

Jane Lynch is the first out lesbian performer to publicly respond to the Newsweek article that proclaimed gays couldn’t pass as straight convincingly on TV, film or stage. This month, Lynch is also featured in O magazine. talking about her a-ha moment.

Chely Wright hung out with Oprah this week and, in a very moving episode, told her and the rest of the world, “I won’t allow the word ‘lesbian’ to be used as an insult toward me anymore.”

Our APIA History Month Spotlight series by drummerdeeds continues this week with a focus on Margaret Cho, Preeti Mistry and Anita Lo.

German handball player Nina Wörz is getting press in Europe for leaving her boyfriend for a female teammate. (Hat tip to Selma!)

Maxine Peak, star of the lesbian film The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, recently talked to LezGetReal.com about her role and her personal view on gay rights. The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister will premiere on Monday, May 31 on BBC 2. Our own Sarah and Lee will soon be chatting up Lister writer Jane English for their Great LezBritain column.

Lacey Stone, celebrity trainer and our very own Lesbian Love host, was chosen to be the next coach for MADE, the Emmy Award-winning MTV series. Stone will be filming the show in June and July. She’s been dubbed a “Drill-Sister,” which is part Drill Sergeant and part sister-friend. Her tag line for the series is “Tight abs with a side of love.” The air date is TBA but we’ll keep you posted as we get more info.

Elizabeth Perkins will leave Weeds after five seasons, but the original Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton is coming on as a gay and eco-conscious marijuana grower.

NBC has launched a Friday Night Lights Emmy campaign.

According to AfterEllen.com reader Lykie, “Sea FM on the Gold Coast Australia have been running a campaign to get Ellen [DeGeneres] to come to Oz.” This week, they asked, “all Gold Coasters to head to Surfers Paradise beach to do a choreographed dance wearing Ellen’s favorite color, blue.” Check out the campaign Facebook page for more info on how to help them get Ellen to pay them a visit.

Megan Fox and her short shorts are officially out of Transformers 3.

Remember when Courtney Love said she’d bedded a supermodel, but wouldn’t reveal which one? Well, now she has. It was Kate Moss.

Nikki Reed is no longer involved with K-11, the transsexual prison love story she was set to star in with Kristen Stewart. Now who will play Kristen’s love interest, Mousey (described as “a Mexican male prostitute” who has become a woman)?

Check out the AfterEllen.com One Night Stand Up comedy special, starring Gloria Bigelow, Liz Feldman, Cat Davis, Bridget McManus and Jennie McNulty (though the consensus around our virtual office is that the NSFW unedited version is even more fun).

Salon chatted with Amie Klempnauer Miller, lesbian mom and author of the new memoir She Looks Just Like You. It’s a great read, even if you aren’t into producing children of your own.

The lesbian/bi television visibility bloodbath continued this week as Heroes (featuring the Claire/Gretchen relationship) and The New Adventures of Old Christine (co-starring Wanda Sykes) now join the list of shows getting the axe. For an overview of the other cancellations, check out our AfterEllen.com TV census.

We published some fun interviews on the site this week, including chats with Jackie Warner (who dished about her new book and her relationship with Jillian Michaels), True Blood‘s Kristin Bauer (who talked about her character’s lesbian relationship in the new season and Anna Paquin‘s decision to come out) and Melissa Etheridge (who discussed being single and her new album, Fearless Love).

Queer folk-country singer Mary Gauthier released a new album, The Foundling, this week.

Out chef Susan Feniger had a double win on Top Chef Masters this week, making up for her disastrous Egyptian semolina cake on the last episode of the cooking competition series.

Out comic Erin Foley is shooting a DVD/CD of her show, Lower the Bar, next Wednesday, May 26th at 8pm at the Acme Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles, Tickets are $5 online (www.acmecomedy.com), $10 at the door. Call Acme Comedy Theatre at (323) 525-0202 for more information.>

Actress/filmmaker Kiana Firouz, who participated in a new docudrama, Cul de Sac, is in danger of being deported from the UK back to her home in Tehran, Iran. (She left Iran after her documentary about the treatment of LGBT people was discovered). Her application for asylum has been turned down by the home office, and her appeal against the home office’s decision was dismissed. You can sign a petition to urge the UK government to let her stay where she is safe since, according to the petition website, the “punishment for lesbianism involving persons who are mature, of sound mind, and consenting, is 100 lashes. If the act is repeated three times and punishment is enforced each time, the death sentence will apply on the fourth occasion.”

If you’re into scary films and and live in Texas, check out “Fears for Queers,” an LGBT horror film fest happening June 19. The line-up includes Stacie Ponder‘s Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear.

We published the results of our 2010 Hot 100 poll this week. How did your favorites fare? Check out Heather Hogan‘s Lesbian Scientistics: 2010 Hot 100 Edition for some in-depth analysis.

That’s it for this week! Got the inside scoop on a hot new lesbian/bi actor/musician/TV show/film? Tell us at [email protected]. Check back next Friday for another edition of Best. Lesbian. Week. Ever.

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