March 30 2001 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
With Bush in the White House, Clinton's back on tour
'Now it's like we're living in an ex-gay ad,' says comedian Kate Clinton
by Andy Scahill
Columbus-Twenty years ago, a little-known comedian named Kate Clinton came onto the comedy circuit. A former English teacher, a feminist and unabashed liberal, she did politically-conscious comedy before it was chic. In doing so, she helped countless gays and lesbians laugh liberally in the face of staunch conservative times.
On March 30, Kate Clinton will be visiting Columbus' Southern Theatre.
In her new comedy album Read These Lips, Clinton takes on such varied topics as the Vagina Monologues (“My vagina prefers dialogue"), Catholicism (“Mea culpa, your-a culpa"), the Internet (“A dot-org gal in a dot-com world"), and of course, the new president ("In your tush, you know it's Bush").
Andy Scahill: I understand that you're celebrating your 20th anniversary on the comedy circuit.
Kate Clinton: Yeah, for those of you pay attention-to
this sort of thing, the proper gift would be china. I'm registered at Wal-Mart and have a particular fondness for the Gold Harvest pattern.
tour.
Do you still love being on the road and touring? Still love it. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a USŎ
Looking back, how have the past 20 years doing comedy been to you?
Does the word survivor mean anything to you? Gay politics have really been a changing landscape over the past twenty years. When I first started out, I was in the lesbian separatist crowd. Then around '85 when AIDS hit, I noticed the circuit becoming more co-gendered, and more gay men started coming to my shows. And with the '90s, there were gay people on TV, gay celebrities coming out, and finally a president who could say “gay and lesbian" without throwing up.
And now?
Now it's like we're living in an ex-gay ad. I feel like my role is as a reminder.
Hence your brainchild, the Permanent Committee to Impeach George W. Bush.
Exactly. Except now we've now extended it to include all the Bushes: Dubya, Jeb, the whole lot. What's funny is that I actually started the campaign three months before he got elected.
Are you influenced by your partner, Urvashi Vaid, former director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute? Do you two ever feel like a gay power couple?
To be honest, we wish that we had more power. But we're honored to do what we do.
For your book Don't Get Me Started, you had to translate your stage act into
written comedy. Was that difficult for you?
Yeah, the first problem was that I couldn't type. You have to be more
delicate with things like the transitions. You can't overwrite. But I started performing the
drafts with live audiences, and that helped. And I'd annoy my friends by inviting them over
for dinner and making them listen to what I had so far.
"No dessert until you hear this chapter."
Exactly.
You were an English teacher for eight years. Does that ever come back in your comedy act?
Oh God, in the strangest ways. Sometimes I'll turn to someone who's talking during my act—that whole toe-tapping thing. And to be honest, my outfits. Sometimes I look like a cross between an English teacher and the Campbell's Soup kid.
Any thoughts on the Bush presidency so far?
I was invited to The Spin Room recently, which is a CNN show with Bill Press and Tucker Carlson. I got in trouble for talking about the Bush camp-how Bush, Dick and Colin sounded like a lower GI series. But I could have said something a lot more offensive, like "President George W. Bush."
Dubya must be a comedic gold mine.
I find myself taking my old Reagan stuff and replacing him with Bush. It works. Are you following the Oscar nominations?
Yeah, I was crushed that Charlie's Angels wasn't nominated. (Laughs) I have a rule during the summer movie season that I only go to films with subtitles and accents.
Do you get out to the theater much in New York?
I do, but have to say that my favorite theatre-going experience here was attending a Singa-Long Sound of Music in downtown Chelsea. I was happy for about a month after that. There were kids, there were adults, gay and straight. In front of us were a bunch of kids dressed up like "A Few of My Favorite Things." I could have cried I was sitting right behind "paper packages tied up with string"!
Clinton's March 30 show will also feature Columbus comedian Fran Pietrantano. Tickets are as low as $25, available through Ticketmaster.
Andy Scahill is editor of OutinColumbus.com, where this first appeared.
I got in trouble for talking
about the Bush camp— how Bush, Dick and Colin sounded like a lower GI series. But I could have
said something a lot more
·
offensive, like "President George W. Bush."