First Ever Show: Facts of Art & Life of Lesbians "Out of The Box"

4 WOMEN HUDDLED TOGETHER IN A SMALL ROOM WITH ALL OF HISTORY BEFORE THEM...I AM STILL IN AWE OF WHAT THEY HAVE DONE WITH A TREASURE TROVE OF ARTIFACTS: PHOTOS, BUTTONS, POSTERS, ONE-OF-A-KIND MEMORABILIA...VESTIGES OF MILLIONS OF LIVES AND YEARS THAT RENT'S JONATHAN LARSON WONDERED HOW?

HOW DO YOU TELL THE STORY OF JUST ONE? JUST ONE LIFE IN A YEAR IS SO DAUNTING....THESE 4 GOT DOWN TO BUSINESS JUST TO DO IT...AND BY GEORGE, RINGO, PAUL & YOKO, 4 TO THE FLOOR, THEY GOT DOWN TO IT AND DID IT WITHOUT ANYONE ELSE...ALL FOR ONE, ALL FOR YOU...

Seasons of Love by Jonathan Larson

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles
In laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love
Seasons of love

We hear "Fake News" way too much, but, "faked" history? Hardly ever mentioned and not nearly enough at that, but it's always never, when archives and records no longer are sustained, when funds for subsistence run dry or never had been reserved to maintain records for proof, when preservation is selective, the survival of our species becomes especially challenging and speckled. It's a pickle of Jekylled Hide, like an oil spill, Heckel or Jeckel, when short-changing history and playing fast and loose with facts. History is like quick sand...you're gone before anyone considers how you lived, suffered and endured.

In terms of today- as a literal moment in time...I will attempt to shed a fraction of my light on life, that distinguishes gay from lesbian...and make best efforts not to mention- show nor Poe, as I will render Show Tunes and Home Depot...with equality of harmless and benched for this one time solo del mio. No one will be invited to suggest my treatise is a re-heated menu of a hack, despite the fact that Patti Lupone, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Bernadette Peters did a stellar job hacking their way through the thorny bracket of rose bushes that had preceded them by a series of prima donnas and divas...including Ethel Merman, Stephen Sondheim and Gypsy Rose Lee but only one lesbian known to me, Gertrude Stein.

This is an original solo spot that inevitably is light that bounces across the entire spectrum of LGBTQ history, but with singularity of attention, as one "L" link of an alphabet, as a Judy or an Allen Ginsberg or the whole 26 yards of letters, names and rounds of being singularly adored and/or despised, each a double metaphor, whether butterfly and knock-out punch of a Muhammed Ali, all links in a chain gang of equals, as American culture marches on with the same inequality and disparity without master plan...all equally unequal in progressive moments in time...some doubly powerful, some disguised with a double identity, the inverse of an outburst, as inward rage does more than neutralize, as there is no taming a beast to be less than all he is....and may never know how many gears ‘til over drive runs him wild, ragged or at full capacity.

I am as up to date, as is Kansas City, according to what I heard in "Oklahoma," and chronology pays too big a part, when I use a follow spot, on a mutt, dog enough, when using Klieg, all pedigreed, L.E.D. Don't knock on my door as if you're the Avon Ladle, trawling for catch and reasons to abhor what gets caught up and tangled in your net or web...if you must, try profiling your bait with the right hook before you go fish.

"The Boys In The Band" is a 1968 play of gay stereotypes, cliches that had been sustained as fundamental lesser truths of being a homosexual, with a cast of characters like worn-out hosts of a weary plague, who had sustained never ending misery of being diseased as ghosts of hosts, they were carriers and victims both.... so ingeniously designed, they were self-inflicting and infectious, no amount of cocktails was like medicine.

Two years prior, Mary McCarthy's novel, "The Group," was published, about a group of Vassar graduates, in their post collegiate years... the gender counterparts of "Boys" made of disparaged parts, women living in their own House of Cards of the same, many splendors...big spenders and tightwads alike. They played house like playing the woman's card from a deck of de-sensitived gender, a woman was "female," the "tiger" or the "lady," even a counter-intuitive punch from Sinatra, "a tramp," with a special series of joker cards called "dykes" someone named Dick, created as separate but equal gender counterparts.

It was a simple if not also, a somewhat dull era for proper names, such as John, Jane, Joe, Steve, Mary, Spot and Rover, the usual menu of the generationally distressed, an occasional Ira, or a splendid, Sylvia, but I don't buy Jake as the counterpart of John, Mr. Deli Shortcuts just broadcast on NPR... don't sell me olive loaf packaged as bologna, Mister or Ms. When ennui sets in, it's a dreary and weary time for dullards in disguise as odd ducks...when suddenly is revealed a Secret Garden of names that make the sound of silent disparagement seem exotic. When girls were girls, except when they were bitches and sluts, and a man was a he-man, all brawny from the Wild West of Marlborough County, snakeskin boots, of ostrich, in green, yellow ochre or basic black but NO LOAFERS allowed. No men were those unable to wrestle a dilemma, without wresting a win like knock-out punch, except when it's black AND Muslim, no lily livered lavender of weak and puny, with unresolved wrist issues. Quiche was a red herring for counting the humps of a Muslim pony, the manliest hoarse that literally could kill you, one hump or two, and did kill so many- go figure, I've tried and every part of my arm is sore, wrist and shoulders, et al.

Today it's a more slippery slope, when swaddling babies, we make illegal and/or unentitled to eat, be safe, or born and safe, AND legal? C'mon-well fed, too? You're too late to play the Joker- that was some place way back when I stopped tweeting, and started revealing my inner most fee... fee...fie... fearings, no, I MEANT FEELINGS, gosh darn it! Today we no longer can determine the origin of a guest list at anyone's Party- Welcome! Did you rsvp as Invited, Interested, Coming or Going, or are you a Freeloader, by convention of sticking it to the Host or a self-appointed Invitee?

That's just for people who don't have a sense of place or being out of place- no encroachment issues, here, here comes the beauty part, it's Foodie Time! Will you be dining from a pre-fixed menu or rigged? A la carte? Or car, was yours the Lexus or the Limousine? Will you be Eating and running?...Or going hungry- family style or solo, or am I getting way too technical or personal mentioning you in context of a "family?"

There never will be a Broadway revival of "The Group" for every variation of reasons that have to do with lesbians, a specific menu of all together different reasons than Boys will always be boys, bigger than life, flamboyant or macho, they are the same band of brothers who are not doing it like sisters, divas are gender neutral and emasculate EVERYONE who gets in their way...it isn't easy going solo...divas deserve the fruit after so much labor it had required for picking.

I shall try to make a list, so you'll understand there is a gist that defines disparagement of people linked in diminishment, but different, in a rainbow range of categories... I shall not speak for Lesbians, not when there are Four Illustrious Women, who already have started my education about lesbians throughout history...my schooling started earlier than many, but I'll spare you the whole 9 yards, and start and end with my alma mater, Vassar College, the mothership of "The Group-" that motley crew of women who were sub-Ivy Leaguers, there's always a runt in every rose garden, Gertrude Stein had glossed over and refined...at least Vassar made no bed of roses, they gave fame to a Daisy Chain...don't take my word for it, as you must never take any ONE person's word for anything, if you do the work each of us must do to search and research...you won't be a fool for anyone.

I was one of the counter-intuitive "she devils" of he's, who dared to go co-ed at Vassar, talk about being outed as a rite of passage, that threshold of Vassar gates were girly, not pearly- hey, what's up with that? This was THE BEER COLLEGE OF NOTES and letters, that surpassed graffiti- it was the most famous part of the Founding Father of this Seven Sisters College, that Matthew Vassar had such a thing for beer, he turned his brewery into an institution of higher learning for women. Why'd he do that? I don't think it was an intervention to counteract mother's milk but that is hypothesis, not fact. What I learned way after my Vassar Commencement was the one fact of life I had not considered...I got stuck with the same DNA I had matriculated in with. I wasn't transformed...all higher education ever did for me was to lift me up to higher ground and you should join me and all the others up here, where the air is much cleaner (but don't be a dreamer, it still has noxious fumes) the view is spectacular from higher ground that doesn't look down on anyone...it beckons you to make the climb, only you decide to rise up....and not be diminished.

In broad and bloke strokes....no B'way marquee for a group called The Women, self-derived, but neither snide, nor for specious reasons:

There was no Rock and Roll equivalent to a Band like those boys, unless a cuckoo's nest qualifies as like band of psyched out brothers, because Freddie Mercury and Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin were David Bowie types, there is no free pass for the first wave of freaks, until they become iconoclasts...one at a time.

Still- there seems to have been more subterfuge and cachet for "The Group," as on screen and in real life, not so reel- a collective Group cast including Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Lisa Kudrow, Candace Bergen, Joan Hackett and Sidney Lumet, who I met once, and it had been such a thrill to work with his ex-wife, the daughter of Lena Horne, she was her own burst of mother nature, Gail Lumet...

I'm not a sociologist, though I know "real men" did go to Vassar and even more of them still do, while big name movies stars, rarely played or lived gay, they sure didn't do it for millions of people to watch and wonder but never wonder enough. Here's the cast of the movie, "Boys In The Band," you tell yourself how many of their names you know, then ask yourselves, "Why?"

Keith Prentice, Frederick Combs, Kenneth Nelson, Cliff Gorman, Peter White (not the same Pete as my ET FB buddy,) Leonard Frey, Ruben Greene, and here's one of two, I knew, when few knew I also was a man like them, Laurence Luckinbill...it takes a real man to play gay on screen, still always, but in 1970, it really could have been the career ending role of a life time. Luckinbill was the odd duck, even before he LOVED LUCIE ARNAZ...it does run all in the family to be right as rain, all natural. When you are born Clark Gable, you get to rule the roost, and fire George Cukor, while he is just starting as Director of the greatest movie he never made, now playing in retrograde... Gone With The Wind...once again, it has something to do with loafers and how Gable loved Lombard and loathed loafers.

Even though Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman were two of the smartest, most famous of accomplished writers of their time, in their minds and those of a multitude of others- they seem to be the two, who gave us the best literary cat fight, too, as a spectacle, and went as viral as was possible at the time, like a serial Little Foxes hunt. The Group vs The Anti-McCarthyist- you decide if names have that much sway- did the ringleader of a McCarthy Group take on the single most famous PERSON to stand up as an American in the face of anti-American hearings on THE hill, all I know is what I never will forget, from the Dick Cavett Show...why I remember Mary McCarthy saying that not one word Lillian Hellman ever said was true...No, Dick, no joke, not one, not even an itty bitty wee wee one, a set-up like a comedian or an assasin, she paid off with "the" or "a" that I took to heart, way more so, than the more prized fight of sparring macho men- Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal, what Hellman and McCarthy had done literately, these two did like they a NORMAN CONQUEST- all GORE, like the B Team of Sly and Arnold. Hellman and McCarthy were as fierce, as opponents.

This is a segue appropriate shout-out in honor of two life long friends, tandem scholars and mothers, who weaned me strong, vicariously. I found a vintage photo of Barbara Probst Solomon, a Sarah Lawrence Professor and hero of Spain, who was honored as a national hero, at a ceremony at the Spanish Embassy in NYC, which I had to rsvp, regrets, from which she emerged alive and a DECORATED HERO for her steadfast efforts, and the risk she took to combat Franco and fascists, she risked with wrists of steel, pre-word processing essays and true stories of fascist infamy that had all of Europe in its grip. I searched and stumbled over a photo of Barbara at a garden variety party, of mid-century Upper West Side of Manhattan gathering of artists and "intellectuals," in which she is pictured, seated with such rapt attention, so conspicuous is her rapt attention, listening seems so hard for everyone, trust me, it has been the bane of my life long existence, but to be a rapt audience for a blowhard like Norman Mailer, an awesome author, but at any party, it was more like, "OMG- why?"or "Don't you dare tell him to come any earlier than when it's over!" Rapt attention- real or faked... made Barbara almost as famous, as for being one of the leading authorities on Spain, and fascism, and the legend she still is at Sarah Lawrence college, listening and risk...never change, listen to those who know what you don't, the rare times I have done so, I have been made smarter and always so much better as a human being.

Just two days ago, there was this announcement from The Hill :

The New Hampshire Democratic Party (NHDP) on Tuesday announced it will rename its annual Kennedy-Clinton fundraiser to the Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner, a move that follows months of calls to remove former President Clinton's name from the title.
"We are proud to honor Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman revered around the world for her bold leadership and tireless efforts to create justice," NHDP Chairman Ray Buckley said in a statement. "She dedicated her life to helping all hard-working Americans and all those who needed a champion."

"We are proud to honor Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman revered around the world for her bold leadership and tireless efforts to create justice," NHDP Chairman Ray Buckley said in a statement. "She dedicated her life to helping all hard-working Americans and all those who needed a champion."

"Eleanor Roosevelt was an historic trailblazer whose compassion, bravery, and intelligence drove her to speak out at a time when women were too often silenced and relegated to the sidelines of history," he added.

https://thehill.com/homenews/s...

Considering how Mrs. Roosevelts' heroics had been so time honored, so stretched out in varied categories of achievement, over as many administrations as her record setting husband, with twice as much strife as Hillary Clinton, keeping sex secrets of any kind was a picnic compared to a Commander in Chief confined to a wheel chair, courtesy of polio. Hers is such a storied and true, everlasting legacy, and is told with comparable effort... to say so much, but still exercise the restraint of a Xena in a Herculean day, not even to suggest she may have been a friend of Lesbians or one herself.

I lack the ability to talk my way in or out of a tweet but I rarely have words that I need to say, in the presence of 4 amazing women, who are the curators of this once in a lifetime show that takes seriously and comprehensively the history of all lesbians from A to Z. Rendered speechless? I can't even imagine having no limitations, but then add virtually no budget nor free time with REAL deadlines, and dreaming about this brand of Lesbian moonlighting, is beyond my faux plea for mercy in any position, fetal or feeble or manly ...one learns to be fearless by the courage and strength of others.

There is no shortage of archives, trust me, there wasn't room big enough for the 1940's and my open jaw.

No easy way of explaining how they did what I have explained at such great length but I honored them with exactitude of value to Hamilton hype...both are equal and exceed promotional value, by far.

The Fantastick Four of Curators are listed below, prioritizing, in first position, the Leader of Equals, like but not exactly like Diana Ross:

ANGELA BRINSKELE

SUZETTE ZAZUETA

JULIE BONICK

BREANN KRAMER

Like every team, whether a quartet, or Miss America Pageant, in circumstances that make someone unable to fill a necessary function, as was the case at the PATCH photo-op, there is always a solid citizen of a teammate prepared to stand in her place, in this case, a warrior with the value of two...

MARCIA SCHWEMER

OUT OF THE BOX

Sunday, November 4, 2-5 PM

A FREE Event but please rsvp at:http://www.mazerlesbianarchive...