Well kittens here she is--the Diva on the WWW.
First up this month, a young lady named Jenny M. asked if anybody had ever heard of a television show called The Ugliest girl In Town. She worried that she had hallucinated it back in the 1960s cause no one else seemed to have heard of it. In her uncertainity she turned to the Diva, she who knows all sees all and knows who to ask.( It sounded kind of familiar but you know how hard it can be to remember those years in the late Sixties.) Beth Marshal of Renaissance, keeper of minutiae and care taker of trivia was the woman with the right poop.
So Jenny, you're not nuts. There really was a show with this plot and it really did happen in the Sixties. I'm sorry I missed it. I guess I could have seen it but I may have just blocked it out. I mean, if Timmie was that ugly she no doubt offended my refined sense of esthetics. In any event Beth should get an award for digging this info out of the time capsule.
The Rennis are an honored tradition every year at the Renaissance GPC and they are given to women who have been role models for feminine TG people and made a major impact in their field. Kind of like female meteors. So, without any further ado, the winners are--in the Newsmaker category, that royal tattle tale--Princess Diana. ($23 million-and a Renni!) From the realm of Film, a young woman who drove her way into our hearts and onto our hard drives--Sandra Bullock, and from Television, the supernatural never looked better, X Files star--Gillian Anderson.
Of course Gillian's co-star could have given her some competition for the
Renni. Before he landed the Fox Malduar part David Duchovny played the
transvestite FBI agent on Twin Peaks. And till next year, that's the
Rennis. Maybe next year Dina will have David Letterman host the ceremony.
PBS ran a series on rock and roll a while back. I missed most of it the first time it ran on our local PBS station, but it reran on another public station that comes in from the hinterlands and I happened to realize it was on and tuned in. In what I believe was the first or second show they featured a very young Little Richard performing Tutti Fruitti. I had always felt there was an element of campiness (once I knew what that was) about Richard and his segment gave us a hint of where it may have come from. One of Little Richard's first gigs (I love that showbiz talk!) was at the Dew Drop Inn in that hotbed of female impersonation, New Orleans. It's amazing to realize that Little Richard, who is still rockin', performed there in the Fifties and he was only one of the acts to appear every night on the Dew Drop stage. He did his sets in between exotic dancers and--female impersonators. What a show--very beautiful women dancing (in very hot outfits), then Little Richard burning the paint off the walls, followed by elegant female impersonators. Man o man, I should have been born a bit sooner and a little farther south.
Talk got around to Lithgow's role in The World According To Garp. I trust you recall he played a former football player who had undergone gender reassignment surgery. Snyder asked, "How hard was it to do drag?" Lithgow replied it was "an exotic experience, like being a spy behind the lines...a gender spy. It was a very sexy experience." This seemed to take Tom slightly aback and he raised one of his fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows and said in an inquiring tone, "Sexy?" Lithgow smiled and said, "Don't knock it till you've tried it." Tom went to a commercial.
I won't bother to outline the Internet porn plot line but here's the CD story. The female police officer named Max met a guy in an online chat room. Since she hadn't had a date in months and the cyber chum seemed interesting they set up a meeting for coffee. He showed up and turned out to be tall and handsome, not the computer geek her co-workers said she could expect.
They hit it off and made plans for a date. Now it's important to note that so far nobody mentioned anything about crossdressing. The big night arrived and Max got dolled up in a hot red dress. While she was primping there came a knock at the door and she opened it to find the new guy in her life in classic Angora and pearls. He said, "Hi, ready to rock and roll?" She spent the next five minutes trying to get her jaw shut.
Here's where I had to ask myself how they could have met in a chat room and she could be left that much in the dark. The crossdresser said he thought she knew since they met in the "Mix & Match" room. Well, that's pretty vague, but if she had spent any time at all there she would have figured it out. I also don't know of any crossdresser who could meet a woman in a wild online chat room, spend several days in email correspondence and not at least mention his love of dresses. But hey, that's Hollywood.
They didn't go out that night but she gets some amazingly accurate information ton transvestism from the Coroner the next day He dated a transsexual a season or two back. He's a trifle defensive about it which is a little objectionable.
Max decides to give it another shot after the CD comes to her house in male attire, gives her flowers and makes an impassioned speech about how he will live his life alone if he must, but he must express his femininity. They agree to get together but not go out. She cooks dinner and the CD comes over. He gets a little romantic, she pulls away from a kiss (it was the lipstick), and he makes another impassioned speech about how women always say they want a sensitive guy who's in touch with his feminine side but when they get one they get upset. He leaves (I keep saying "he" cause he really is a guy in a dress and blonde wig. He made very little attempt to be feminine) and that's the end of the episode. Seems like the storyline may continue cause they both leave with room to grow and compromise. Wouldn't it be nice to see the CD and the cop get together and attempt to understand each other's point of view? Maybe go for a little counseling? If you think so too and would like to add your input to the show, write a letter to the producers, Jeff Melvoin and Michael Pressman with David E. Kelley Productions. Send your letter, in an envelope marked "Attention Dept. P.F." to our Editorial Office (address on page 2).We'll collect them and send a big sack of them on to Los Angeles. Maybe they'll give me a guest spot as the famous CD writer.
How could I mention TVs on TV without using the name...are ya ready? Here it comes....RuPaul. Miss Charles appeared in the open of Ellen for one episode. Ellen makes it a running gag that the show doesn't have a fixed opening sequence. On this show we saw RuPaul strutting around the set looking fierce. Then Ellen, who never, ever wears dresses or skirts, tottered on camera in a red sequined gown and heels holding the cardboard sign with the show's name. She made it about halfway to the camera when the heels won and she went down. RuPaul made a campy comment but I didn't catch it. My keyboard was making too much noise as I typed. I tell ya, with all the drag on TV it must be sweeps month.
All the information on transsexuality and transvestism is pretty much correct. The TV info is a little out of date, being based on Virginia Prince's survey of Tri-Ess members back in the Sixties. However, the biggest mistake the author makes is to classify gender phenomena under the "sexual" headline. His conclusion is pretty intelligent considering the paper was written for the Central Intelligence Agency, a place you wouldn't expect too much open mindedness about sex and gender. To quote, "Findings in this report suggest a need to rethink criteria for evaluating a number of forms of atypical sexual behavior, some of which may be unrelated to security risk The report reinforces the importance of case-by-case judgments rather than automatic disqualification of some categories; this emphasizes the need for qualified medical expertise in making many of these judgments."
It's pretty interesting and if you'd like to look it over check it out at the T.O.P.s site: . Download it, read it and after you have memorized the document we recommend you destroy it. Eating it is an option if your document shredder is out of commission.
In London, England the girls are having a fete that seems a bit similar to the USA's Night of A Thousand Gowns. Of course in England it's a Night of a Thousand Frocks. If you happen to be in Merry Olde on March 14th, you can toddle along to Stringfellows in Upper St Martin's Lane, London. For all the details grab the telephone and make that trans-Atlantic call: (01553) 840879 or 0171-240-5534.
Also in England you'll find Ron Storme's Travestie Extraordinaire at a new venue; The Mildmay, 130 Balls Pond Road (what a spot for a TV party), Islington, London, N1 Telephone: 0171 354 0611 For dates and information ring up Ron at 0181 788 4154. Ron holds his balls every month. Ok, that was a bit tasteless. Let's just move on while the momentum is going.
On March 24th the IFGE Convention "Minnesota Pride '96" hikes up it's skirts and hunkers down in Minneapolis to stay through the 31st. Call IFGE at 617-899-2212 for the facts.
In April it's time for California Dreamin' in San Francisco from the 25th to the 28th. Call 714-779-9013.
Coming in May, Paradise in the Poconos from the 16th through the 19th. Call my pal JoAnn at CDS, 610-640-9449. Hey, maybe I'll go this year. And speaking of going...that's all she wrote. See ya..