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Westenhoefer returns to Ohio to headline Pride

by Michelle Tomko

At the end of July, Suzanne Westenhoefer will be celebrating her tenth anniversary of stepping up on the stage at Kelly's Piano Bar in New York for a comedy contest. It was there that the Columbus native won her first amateur contest. From there, she has never looked back and embarked on a successful comedy career in gay and straight clubs alike as well as her first HBO special which aired in July of 1994.

At the end of the month, Westenhoefer will headline Cleveland Pride on June 24. This local giant is not short on opinions.

Michelle Tomko: So who pressured you to into the contest?

Suzanne Westenhoefer: Amazingly enough, it was more my regular customers. I was a bartender for ten years with the

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You can handle watching a whole baseball game? Most comics are pretty jumpy.

The scary part about it is, three years ago I never watched a sporting event, except for women's tennis-hello, I'm a lesbian. I knew the basic rules of baseball. Hit the ball. Run around the bases. Score. But my girlfriend's been a Cleveland Indians fan for a hundred years and she always watched. I'm just sitting there doing my puzzle. Then I don't know what happened. I think for me, it's about the accessories.

So you went directly from bartending to stand up comedy?

My initial plan in life was to be an actor. And I went to college and got my BFA I went to the New York-New Jersey area and

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promptly became the best bartender there ever was.

So you were performing and then wiping out ashtrays?

Let me tell you a secret. I'll do a show in Seattle. In Seattle I'll get twelve or thirteen people come to see me. And I will sign autographs almost longer than I do the show. And then I come home and you are cleaning up dog poop in the back yard. It's all relative to the moment.

What's the difference between East Coast and West Coast?

West Coast is hard on me because the ocean is on the wrong side. I'm kind of an East Coast chick.

Do you find that Columbus is a great place to be gay in?

Oh yes. Twenty-five gay

bars and restaurants. How many publications? I can go

over to the newspaper stand in German Village and pick your paper right up.

Do you think you would still be a stand up comic if you weren't a lesbian?

I think had I not been, there's a very good chance I would have started earlier. How so?

Well I was so out. When I understood that I was a lesbian when I was twenty in 1981, I came out to my mom. I never was in the closet for one minute to anybody ever. I probably would have gotten a four-year leap on my career. But I was so sure that you couldn't be a comic and be openly queer. Then I knew there was no way I was going to be in the closet. I marched with ACT UP. I marched with Queer Nation. There was no way I was going to act like I had a boyfriend.

What do you think about somebody like Rosie O'Donnell, who goes on and on about Tom Cruise?

Please allow me to take the Fifth. She seems really conflicted.

I have been openly gay as a comedienne

since 1990. But it's like there is a "pink ceiling," if you've already been out. The gay community takes you totally for granted.

On the other hand, if you are straight first, and then you get to be famous and then you come out, the gay community can't do enough for you. But the straight community is wondering if you're not part of them any more.

I used to tease, before the Advocate took over Out magazine, that I could cure AIDS and Out would put UNIDENTIFIED GAY COMEDIENNE CURES AIDS. I got an HBO special and they wouldn't even put a line in that magazine. I love Curve. But if you ever read the "Lesbo File," it's never me, Kate Clinton, Lea [DeLaria], Karen Williams, it's people we wish were gay. My girlfriend says, "Those magazines should just call themselves Ellen." It's becoming rather chic to be gay after Boys Don't Cry.

Can I just say one thing about Hillary Swank? Aside from the fact that that was one

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Suzanne Westenhoefer

of the best movies I've ever seen and she was brilliant.

I saw it twice. Do you know how hard that movie is to watch twice? That is the least gay movie I've ever seen. It is a movie about a person dealing with transgender problems. While totally being part of the queer community, is not a homosexual thing. The person who was Teena Brandon did not want to be with girls because she was a girl. She wanted to be with girls because she thought she was a boy. It's totally different. I think transgenders should be screaming, "It's not a gay movie, it's our movie for God's sake!" Do you think transgender people and bisexuals get a bad rap?

A bisexual is what all of us should be hoping to be. Because what they are truly doing is choosing people or picking people or falling in love with people strictly for them, and not allowing gender to be involved. Which is an amazing thing! I can't do

it.

What about somebody like Laura Schlessinger?

I find her annoying, like a bee. Somebody swat her already.

What are the "hot topics" in your act right now?

I'd say relationships.

You have a girlfriend? How long? Yes. Eight years.

Do you have any future projects? I've been trying. I have an agent. I have a new manager, gay guy. I audition and I go to acting classes when I'm in Los Angeles twice a week for five hours a night.

Does that help your stand-up?

It has. I didn't think it would. I didn't think they had anything to do with one another. There are things in acting class that I am really putting to work.

Entertainment has moved away from artists to celebrities.

You beat your wife and get kicked off the team and you write a book and pretty soon you have your own talk show. It's unbelievable. There are serious artists busting their chops to learn a craft. Whatever sells is always going to be what wins.

Are there people who think y you are offensive because you are a lesbian?

I was at Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City and there were a whole bunch of comics. There's a big party of people in the front, about 65 years old, from out of town. Jackie "The Joke Man" Marlin was up there saying the most disgusting four-letter this, four-letter that. They were roaring. I got up and did ten minutes and they would not crack a smile. They were concerned I was disgusting because I was queer. And that is what you have to remember every day when you are out there.

So you agree that queer artists get ghettoized?

Right on. When they're going to do a big event like Equality Rocks, who was there, any queers? They had the straight people that like us, Kristen Johnson and Garth Brooks. Did they have Cris Williamson, or any of the pioneer women that have been doing this? The woman used to let Melissa Etheridge open for her. Where's the favor being returned?