February 7, 2003

Slings and eros

A blow-by-blow interview with Tim Miller

by William J. Mann

Tim Miller, one of queer America's sexiest and sauciest performers, returns to Ohio for shows February 24 at Cincinnati Playhouse and Feb. 25 at Kenyon College of his newest show Body Blows.

Based on Miller's book of the same name, Body Blows explores the tangible blows, both given and received, of the performers' life and times as explored through his perfor-

mances.

"Blow means many things," Miller says, "including that queer basher's blow, as well as the sweet blowing breath of a lover tickling over the eyes. The blows on your body from a cop in Houston or San Francisco, in addition to the exquisite, gentle blow of two men's bodies coming together in love."

Miller's performances contain the feisty put-up-your dukes and stand-your-ground attitude from these everyday blows that comprises being queer in America. In Body Blows, Miller again raises his voice "to honor the Slings and Eros of outrageous queer fortune."

Much of Miller's performance work and activism the last three years have been committed to fighting for the immigration rights of lesbian and gay bi-national couples. His work Glory Box charts his eight-year relationship with his Australian partner Alistair McCartney and shares their struggles to make a life together in the United States, which has no immigration rights for committed gay relationships.

Miller's performances have been at the center of the culture wars, the fights against AIDS and the struggle for lesbian and gay equality. Body Blows is a moving and eloquent tribute to a gay man's life lived out and loud.

William Mann: Tell me about Body Blows, the new book and the performance. Tim Miller: I am so excited about the book and this new kick-ass show based on the book. It was such a great experience getting to gather together my six full-evening performances from the last fifteen years into this book.

There are dozens of photos by renowned New York photographer Dona Ann McAdams spicing up the proceedings and giving the reader a real whiff of what the performances are like. I got to write essays for each of the performances about the reallife sexual and political pressure cooker the pieces got created in. The big fun came when I pulled several of the juiciest performance sections from these shows, added in a bunch of brand new things to create Body Blows, the performance.

What's the difference between seeing one of your performances and reading it on the page?

When I perform I sometimes spit a little on people in the front row. Seriously, though you lose the wet immediacy of me performing when you read the shows in the book, you gain all that nuance of language and being able to spend more time with something that strikes your fancy.

The performances included in this book are the shows I have been presenting all over the world for the last 15 years. They mark a queerboy's progress through a Whittier childhood, falling in love, learning German from a Mexican lesbian in High School, confronting HIV-AIDS, surviving earthquakes, learning about relationships, challenging the state apparatus, growing fruit, falling naked into a volcano, and facing being forced to leave his country to stay with the man he loves. All this and jokes too!

What connects all the shows in Body Blows? Is there a thread that you see linking all these moving and sexy stories you have told in your performances?

As I put the book together, I was struck by how much I wrote and performed about moments that are in some way-a "blow." The sexy pun is intended. These were both positive and negative blows. I tell the story of cutting off the end of my finger while working as a carpenter in Brooklyn, but it's woven together with a sweet almost-dreamscape of

lows

the slow motion, on-the-moon gravity as two gay men's bodies slowly orbit toward each other and touch skin-to-skin.

I think a lot of gay life can feel like thatwe are always aware of the crap that homophobia throws in our way, but also constantly reminded of the incredible sweetness and joy that gay life and love offers.

That joy really comes through in your celebration of gay love that really fills Body Blows.

Both the performance and the book are really a road map of how I feel like my life has been blessed by the men I have been lucky enough to love. The men I have been close to are the great gifts that have chal-

lenged, changed and supported me through all these adventures of love and the trouble I always seem to get myself into.

Speaking of love and trouble, you and your Australian partner Alistair McCartney have been one of the most visible gay bi-national couples in America among the tens of thousands threatened with being forced to leave the U.S. Where are you guys at right now?

Here's the update. Alistair just graduated from his MFA in creative writing in December 2001, so now things will get really difficult for us as his student visa expires.

Like every other gay American citizen with a foreign partner, we are screwed in the U.S.! We'll be forced to leave the U.S. by the end of this year. Fortunately Alistair has passports from two countries where our gay people's human rights are respected and he can sponsor me for immigration in either place. [Australia and the U.K., along with virtually every other western country other than the U.S.]

Obviously I will go with him and emigrate to England where we will have rights and our relationship will be respected. I won't let the injustice in the U.S. destroy our family as it has done to so many other queer bi-national couples.

You have been performing all over the U.S. for many years. What has Body Blows taught you about the state of queer America?

When I look at these fifteen years of making these performances and doing the pieces all over the U.S.-from Chattanooga to Cleveland, San Diego to Boston-I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to be telling these tales of sex and love and loss and hope. While I hope my shows have emboldened and entertained my audience, the truth is the thousands and thousands of people that have seen my shows have also totally inspired me with their courage.

One of the things I think theater can do quite well is to gather community into overheated rooms in order to shine a light on systems of prejudice that are just so damn unfair. The sweaty reality of live performing has been a great place for me to cast my personal creative high-beams on the tasty pleasures and nasty injustices that queer folk face. I feel lucky that I get to gather with people in cities all over the country at my shows to raise awareness, encourage activism, stir the dating pool and test-drive strategies for lesbian and gay equality.

The right-this-instant heat of live performing is an especially handy cattle-prod to encourage people to get behind that steering wheel and hit the road. I believe the empathy and openness that comes through the seductive strategies of performance compelling storytelling, the performer's charisma (if it's a good hair day), the group dynamic that comes with a live audience etc. are the ideal laboratory for channeling of the audience's psychic and political. I think theater is primarily a big mirror that can be held up to community. In that reflection we can see a human-scaled set of potential and roadmaps to new sites where liberation stories yet-to-be-told can flourish.

I hope the performance-and the bookcan really invite people into the gorgeous journey we have all been on through life and love as we claim space for our queer selves.

Body Blows will be performed at Cincinnati Playhouse February 24 at 7 pm. Tickets are $10 each, with a special $6 price for students at the Playhouse box office, 513421-3888 or toll-free 800-582-3208. Parking is free.

Miller will also perform at Kenyon College on February 25 at 8 pm. in the Bolton Theater. Tickets are free, and are available by calling 740-427-5546.

Tim Miller can be reached through his web site, http://hometown.aol.com/ millertale/timmiller.html. William J Mann lives in Provincetown, Mass. and is the author of The Men From the Boys and Wisecracker.

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE