Justin Elzie may be a happy man right now. As “don’t ask, don’t tell” comes to an end, his work wasn’t in vain. Named Marine of the Year in ‘93, he was discharged for coming out on national TV. He sued, won and has been advocating for LGBT rights in the military. He comes to Dallas to discuss his work in fighting for DADT’s repeal.
DEETS: Resource Center Dallas, 2701 Reagan 2 p.m. RCDallas.org.
Growing up gay and Latino can be a tough hand to play. In a culture that revels in religion and machismo — hell, the word “machismo” is Latino — coming out poses pitfalls.
But Dan Guerrero lucked out. With some artsy upbringing by a musician dad and a not-so-practicing Catholic background, Guerrero’s closet was easy to open. In fact, it was harder for him just to be Hispanic.
“Los Angeles never made me feel like I was good enough,” he says. “I fell in love with musicals in junior high. I wanted to hear Julie Andrews in Camelot! Who gives a rat’s ass about mariachi?”
His dad might have given one. He was famed musician Lala Guerrero, the father of Chicano music who popularized the Pachuco sound in the 1940s (the beats most associated with Zoot suits and swing dancing).
“The main reason I did the show is, I wanted to know more about my dad and my best friend. I was already fabulous,” he laughs. “So I don’t think of this as my story. I wanted to embrace his legacy and celebrate him and our lives, but also tell of being a born-again Hispanic.”
rich lopez | Staff Writer
lopez@dallasvoice.com
Growing up gay and Latino can be a tough hand to play. In a culture that revels in religion and machismo — hell, the word “machismo” is Latino — coming out poses pitfalls.
But Dan Guerrero lucked out. With some artsy upbringing by a musician dad and a not-so-practicing Catholic background, Guerrero’s closet was easy to open. In fact, it was harder for him just to be Hispanic.
“Los Angeles never made me feel like I was good enough,” he says. “I fell in love with musicals in junior high. I wanted to hear Julie Andrews in Camelot! Who gives a rat’s ass about mariachi?”
His dad might have given one. He was famed musician Lala Guerrero, the father of Chicano music who popularized the Pachuco sound in the 1940s (the beats most associated with Zoot suits and swing dancing). While Guerrero appreciated his father’s legacy, he established his own identity by moving to New York to become an actor. That didn’t work out so much, but becoming an agent did.
“It was kind of by accident, but I ended up being an agent for 15 years,” he says. “I got into producing and I loved it.”
Although he stepped away from performing, Guerrero finds himself back onstage Friday and Saturday at the Latino Cultural Center with ¡Gaytino! The autobiographical one-man show is part comedy, part cabaret, with Guerrero recounting in lyrics and punch lines his experiences growing up gay and Latino, life with father … and having to rediscover his roots after moving back to L.A.
“The main reason I did the show is, I wanted to know more about my dad and my best friend. I was already fabulous,” he laughs. “So I don’t think of this as my story. I wanted to embrace his legacy and celebrate him and our lives, but also tell of being a born-again Hispanic.”
In L.A., Guerrero rediscovered his heritage. While still working in entertainment, he noticed a lack of Latinos behind the scenes. He started a column in Dramalogue to change that, interviewing actors like Jimmy Smits and Salma Hayek and producing shows that spoke to Latin audiences.
And then came ¡Gaytino!
“Well, the word itself hit me first so I trademarked it. Then it was madness as I set about writing it,” he says.
When the show debuted in 2005, Guerrero hadn’t performed in 35 years. He was a different man, no longer a young buck with nothing to lose and untarnished optimism. He was a behind-the-scenes producer and casting agent. He was — gasp! — older.
“I remember thinking, ‘What am I gonna do? What if I forget my lines?’ I’m an old codger,” he says. “But I got onstage and it was like I had did it the day before. Performing is just part of who I am.”
With his successful day job (he once repped a young Sarah Jessica Parker), a healthy relationship (32 years this November) and irons in many other fires, why bother with the daunting task of writing a show and carrying it alone?
“It still feels like I’m breaking into show business. At least when you’ve been around as long as I have, you can get the main cheese by phone,” he answers. “But really, I had something I wanted to say and I love doing it. I’ve been lucky to stay in the game this long but it’s not by accident; it’s all been by design.”
What he loves isn’t just doing his show, but how it pushes positive gay Latino images. He’s dedicated this chapter in his life to that. Guerrero now feels parental toward the younger generation — maybe because he has no children of his own.
“I do feel a responsibility and not just to younger people, but to all,” he says. “For ¡Gaytino!, I first want them entertained, but I hope audiences will leave more educated about some Chicano culture and history and Gaytino history.”
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Beginners is such a dreadfully forgettable and generic title for what is the year’s most engaging and heartfelt comedy, you feel like boycotting a review until the distributor gives it a title it deserves.
Certainly the movie itself — a quirky, humane and fantastical reverie about the nature of love and family, with Ewan McGregor as a doleful graphic artist who, six months after his mother dies, learns his 75-year-old dad (Christopher Plummer) is gay and wants to date — charts its own course (defiantly, respectfully, beautifully), navigating the minefield of relationships from lovers to parent/child with simple emotions. It’s not a movie that would presume to answer the Big Questions (when do you know you’ve met the right one? And if they aren’t, how much does that matter anyway?); it’s comfortable observing that we’re all in the same boat, and doing our best is good enough.
McGregor’s placid befuddlement over how he should react to things around him — both his father’s coming out and a flighty but delightful French actress (Melanie Laurent) who tries to pull him out of his shell — is one of the most understated and soulful performances of his career. (His relationship with Arthur, his father’s quasi-psychic Jack Russell, is winsome and winning without veering into Turner & Hooch idiocy.) But Plummer owns the film.
Plummer, best known for his blustery, villainous characters (even the heroic ones, like Capt. Von Trapp and Mike Wallace), exudes an aura of wonder and discovery as the septuagenarian with the hot younger boyfriend (Goran Visnjic, both exasperating as cuddly). As he learns about house music at a time when his contemporaries crave Lawrence Welk, you’re wowed by how the performance seethes with the lifeforce of someone coming out and into his own. His energy is almost shaming.
Writer/director Mike Mills’ semi-autobiographical film suffers only being underlit and over too quickly. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to spend more time with these folks.
—Arnold Wayne Jones
Rating: Four and half stars
Now playing at Landmark’s Magnolia Theatre.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 10, 2011.
Lovers has five albums under its belt, and through rotating members, the touchstone has always been Berk. But this current incarnation of the band seems to find Lovers at its best self. Berk, Kerby Ferris and Emily Kingan have produced a confident album with Dark Light, and after a decade of doing this, Berk feels this is the band at its strongest.
“When we came together, it felt very egalitarian and feminist and comfortable,” she says. “I hadn’t experienced that level of confidence and there are a lot of benefits to having our kind of connection. I felt like this was a really great place to be creatively.”
This confidence has taken Berk to new levels, as an artist and a person. All three members identify as queer, and for Berk, that offers a comfort in writing her music. Although she starts the song on her acoustic guitar, the others chime in for a group dynamic.
At 32, her personal growth over these 10 years has manifested differently in Dark Light than it has on any of the previous releases. She’s out of the closet, but this album shows Berk coming out of her shell.
“I feel like I sort of went from being an artist who was working mostly to exorcise personal demons to someone who, with time, is able to looking more outward,” she says. “This is the most extroverted album Lovers has ever had.”
Read the entire article here.
DEETS: With Sextape and One Red Martian. Andy’s Bar, 122 N. Locust Road, Denton. May 13. 9 p.m. $6–$8. LoversAreLovers.com.
After Chely Wright announced she was a lesbian, I was annoyed when I heard some of the circumstances. On Joy Behar’s show on Wednesday, she talked about deciding to come out after having a loaded gun in her mouth.
To me, that’s not a role model. That’s someone who needs psychiatric care or should sue her parents and ministers for malpractice for putting her in that position.
I was also annoyed that her announcement coincided with the release of her first CD in five years.
But then I decided that maybe the message she delivers on Behar’s show is actually more helpful to many people than mine. Or maybe it’s at least a good counterbalance to mine. Certainly, more people who struggle because of family and religious issues will relate to her than they will to me. And hey, at least they were talking about the issue of religion driving the LGBT community to suicide on CNN.
That buzz in your ear is probably that of country singer Chely Wright’s coming out. Although you weren’t supposed to hear that until Friday from the newsstands. People Magazine was trying to create buzz about this week’s issue in order to create a big reveal. The only thing is, TMZ got a hold of it and now, it’s out. Or rather, Wright is.
The Advocate, Salon plus every celeb site and blog are already all over it. The thing is, we got the impression that People had wraps on someone who’s a little more, um, superstar-ish. We have no doubt that Chely Wright is a big deal — in country music — but admittedly, there were a couple of us in today’s editorial meeting asking, “Who?” Speculation on the web was figuring the likes of Queen Latifah, Kevin Spacey or Anderson Cooper, all who have been under the scrutinizing eye of gaydar. People’s handling of this seemed a little over the top. Had they said nothing at all, they probably would have gotten the result they wanted.
It’s been speculated for years that Grammy-winner Ricky Martin is gay but he puts all that to rest. Today on his Web page, he made the following statement:
I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.
You can read his entire post here.
Interesting how every media source except one (that I found) treated Meredith Baxter’s coming out in a very matter-of-fact manner.
First, I think all the signs were there. Look at the list of films she starred in for Lifetime:
• Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter (1992) (TV) …. Betty Broderick
• A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (1992) (TV) …. Betty Broderick
• A Mother’s Justice (1991) (TV) …. Lila
• My Breast (1994) (TV) …. Joyce Wadler
• After Jimmy (1996) (TV) …. Maggie Stapp
Second: all those failed, heterosexual marriages. Being straight? She just wasn’t any good at it.
While most news outlets covered it, the headlines were mostly pretty neutral. Here’s a sample from a variety of sources around the country:
Boston Globe: “Meredith Baxter comes out”
Los Angeles Times: “‘Family Ties’ Meredith Baxter is a lesbian”
Dallas Morning News: “Meredith Baxter’s revelation”
NPR: “Meredith Baxter: Coming out is both personal and political”
NY Daily News: “Meredith Baxter, mom on TV’s ‘Family Ties’, comes out on ‘Today’ show: ‘I am a lesbian’”
Always out for a sensationalist headline, Fox broadcast the news like Baxter’s coming out was news that would change the world.
Fox: Family Ties Shocker: Meredith Baxter says “I’m a lesbian mom”
The biggest shocker? After 20 years, the cast is still friendly. Everyone knew for years. A group of people who worked together like each other. Accept each other. Are happy when their friends are in healthy relationships. Well, I guess Fox didn’t see the signs. That headline writer probably doesn’t watch Lifetime: Television for gay men.
Meredith Baxter, the actress who shot to fame on the sincere 1970s drama Family and then became the ultimate liberal mom in the 1980s on Family Ties, has come out as lesbian. Baxter got tongues wagging last month when she showed up on a lesbian cruise, and she confirms it now with the Advocate.com. You can read the interview here.
