One time, when I was in 8th grade, I had a shop teacher.  His name was Mr. Stawovy and he was missing three fingers.  

I used to be a part of my school’s TV news program called Cougar News.  Mr. Stawovy, when he wasn’t helping us use the lathe to make candlestick holders or showing us how to make C02 cars, was in charge of Cougar News.

One morning before our broadcast, Mr. Stawovy was in rare form.  He is a very short, but hairy man, except for he is stark bald on top of his head, and in retrospect I believe that he was probably suffering through a divorce or midlife crisis when he said this to us (maybe he was even drunk, who knows?), but one morning he looked at our young, naïve faces and said: “Love and hate are only inches apart.”

With his troll-like demeanor, sawdust-covered jeans and plaid shirt, Mr. Stawovy didn’t seem very worldly to us pimple-faced, over made-up, pubescent teenagers, but deep down I knew the man was saying something important, and that stuck with me for the rest of my life.

In the here and now, as a soon-to-be graduate from a communication program (it turns out Cougar News changed my life and completely began my love for my career today as an independent filmmaker; The Cougar Review, the school news letter in high school, got me started on journalism later), I reflect on those words.  Love and hate are only inches apart.    

I think what Mr. Stawovy was trying to say was that the things in life that you love are the very things that you also hate.  Think about the deepest love that you’ve felt, and you’ve probably felt the deepest hate at some point in time for that same person or thing.  

When I first moved to Philly for school, it was a shock to the system for sure, but I felt that most of my major life changes happened when I was in 8^th grade.  In that year, I dumped my last-ever boyfriend, got my first-ever girlfriend, found out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, came out to my friends and family, AND puberty dealt me the biggest boobs in the school (I was later surpassed in high school).  

As my college years now come to a close and I get ready to graduate this month, I think about that time and I kind of feel myself swinging back to some of the rapid changes I was facing during the Cougar News era of my life.  Oddly enough, even my last-ever boyfriend and my first-ever girlfriend from that time even contacted me simultaneously, when I hadn’t heard from either of them in two and seven years.  

One thing I can say that I’ve discovered is that we really are growing.  Sometimes people that were a part of your past don’t fit with who you are now, but they will always be there because they are a part of you.  There are people in your past that you have loved deeply, and now you either hate the situation that you’re friendship is in now; you hate the person they’ve become, that you’ve become; or, likewise, someone you hated in your past you have found that you love now.  I think that you’ll find that as life goes on, the things that you like disappear, but things that you love turn to hate – which means they are always only inches away.  

That being said, I present to you, The Love/Hate Issue.

P.S. Speaking of hate, I hate that LYKE mag is late.  Sorry!  The good news is we got lots of great submissions this month.  I definitely recommend checking out all our essays (in the personal essays category) about what you LYKE DYKES love and hate, as well as Izzy’s film column, LYKEable Celluloid (check all the submissions out in the different categories listed on the home page).  The bad news is, though, our editing WOman-power is limited.  Your dear editor is battling senior thesis and also had a nasty run-in with the flu, while Izzy is battling his master’s courses in journalism.

I know, excuses, excuses.  All I’m saying is, unless you want to get in here and edit some stuff yourself (which would be really, really helpful if you have the skill set – see submissions page), then Lyke is going to have to be like a covert, secret lover that you have brief, steamy encounters with in inconspicuous, spontaneous places, and which are fleeting but fill you with enough passion to keep pursuing daily life – until our next rendezvous.

P.S. Also check out our partner, Philly Gay Calendar as well as Fuse and the Dyke March.  Fuse has a party coming, Emerge, that you should DEFINITELY check out.  You can find the info on Phillygaycalendar.com or Myspace.com/phillyfuse

February was the month that month that Lyke Mag was supposed to come out (whoops).  February is also Black History Month.  This article is going to be about history – some of it black, some of it Philly, and some of it lesbian.

“Sometimes we’ve got to create our own history.”  That is a quote from the movie The Watermelon Woman (1996), by Cheryl Dunye.  Let me tell you a little about Cheryl.

She is a lesbian, and she is black, and she knows Philly.  She is originally from Liberia and later spent a good deal of time in the Philadelphia area while getting her BA from Temple, her MFA from Rutgers and at some point back to Temple to teach.  Currently, according to her MySpace page, she is living in Pasadena, Ca.  Ok, some other important things.  She is successful.  The film in question, The Watermelon Woman, won the Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival when it came out in ’96.  She also made a film that was distributed by Miramax, has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, garnered a Lifetime Achievement Award from Girlfriend’s Magazine, and lots more (her full resume and list of achievements is on her website, CherylDunye.com).

A black, powerful, eminent lesbian who is connected to the 215; yep, that’s LYKEable.  Did I mention that she is really hott, too? 

Back to The Watermelon Woman, though.  The “Dunyementary” as Cheryl refers to it, is essentially a Spike Lee-ish mockumentary.  Cheryl, played by herself, Cheryl, is working in a video store.  Cheryl is a wedding videographer with her friend, Tamara (Valerie Walker).  Cheryl is not really a videographer, though; she is a powerful, driven underground filmmaker, desperate to make the voice of African American women heard.  So, she turns to a place where African American women have been somewhat publicly humiliated: playing “mammies” in old southern plantation films.  She finds a movie with a beautiful starlet mammy, who’s name in the credits is only listed as The Watermelon Woman.  Cheryl spends the entire rest of the movie trying to uncover the secret of this mysterious Watermelon Woman.  

Now, this isn’t just some movie that had people laughing and crying for an hour and half then faded somewhere into an obscure video rental rack.  Shauna Swarts says it very eloquently in an article published on the website AfterEllen.com: “It’s also notable that a film that addresses racism and homophobia was denounced by one Senator Jesse Helms—preoccupied with the film’s single, graphic but tasteful and brief sex scene—as “flotsam floating down a sewer.” If that isn’t the mark of quality queer cinema, what is?”

The film really feels like Cheryl took racism, lesbians, Philadelphia, and the 90’s and shook them all up in an un-politically correct margarita.  The film got a write-up in the New York Times, where Times writer Stephen Holden trivially says, “The Watermelon Woman is a loose-jointed movie that goes on playful little tangents whenever it feels like it.”  That is a gross understatement.  

As Cheryl researches the Water Melon Woman, she learns that her name is Faye Richards, a local Philadelphia jazz singer and actress.  Cheryl learns that Faye was sleeping with a white woman director, Martha Page (who was either transgendered as a male or wore drag, it is unclear), to advance her career. 

As the movie progresses, Cheryl finds herself similarly in an evolving relationship with a white woman (played by Guinevere Turner).  She receives constant criticism from Tamara, who insinuates that she is a traitor to her own race.  Eventually, Cheryl does break up with Diana.  She doesn’t do it because she doesn’t want to date a white woman; she does it because she learns that Diana has already dated a large number of other black women (and men).  What is so significant about this movie is that Cheryl is questioning who she is.  She fears that Diana views her as a fetish object* and feels threatened by that, and I think that is a pretty important, rational fear among many African Americans that Cheryl Dunye has fearlessly brought to the screen, a glowing source of mass communication.

Needless to say, the film is controversial.  Some could argue that Cheryl should have continued to be with Diana if she loved her, and that the film could potentially be a model of reverse-racism.  Cheryl slyly hints that she doesn’t break up with Diana because she is racist by using another semi-significant white character, a pasty, gothic college student who works at the video store.  Tamara not only denounces Diana but also constantly harasses the goth chick at work, who Cheryl tries to defend and save from Tamara’s wrath.  Cheryl and Tamara’s relationship even becomes strained, and Tamara is portrayed as sort of mean and self-loathing, again, a hint that this movie isn’t just about hating white people, rather what it means to be a black lesbian woman.  

But, all that being said, anyone who watches The Watermelon Woman is going to have his or her own opinion on it.  LYKE it or not, Cheryl Dunye serves you that aforementioned margarita on a silver platter when you are done watching this one.  All I have to say is check it out yourself and see how you relate. – Raeann Drew 

P.S. Keep your eyes out for Philly visuals, one of the steamiest lesbian sex scenes ever filmed, and an AWESOME cameo by local writer Camille Paglia, in which she parodies herself.  

Question for reader:

What is your opinion on interracial relationships?  Have you ever been in one?  I personally think that being in an interracial relationship would be really hard, but it would be worth the struggle and only make you stronger if you deeply loved the person.  

Links:

CherylDunye.com

SistersinCinema.com

Shauna Swarts on the subject: http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/Movies/2006/3/watermelon2.html

NY Times Article:

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/reviewres=9C04E2DD1430F936A35750C0A961958260

Again 

…without you lying on the grass

next to me,

I can still hear your breathing

Next to me, the rustle of the leaves

matched against the sound

of children’s play,

she is in a dream world

a place I am not allowed to go,

the way his hand lays across his stomach

lets me remember a place

I will never go again.

The laughter of that child

is nothing without you.

“No expectations”

you once told me,

or perhaps that was someone else.

The whispers I hear

when the snow is falling.

I captured once, the image

of a blind man

tying knots into the world.

Sleeping now for six days

a spirit only wanders in his dream.

The steam, or fog, or smoke

wraps around daylight

attempting only to grasp a reflection.

I can see the world

falling between us;

the words dropping just short of…

sinking fever from meaning

tumbling gasps into my throat.

Commitment of our energy;

we are becoming…

Something tells me I should wake up

the ringing and ringing and ringing

clinging to my ears.

Can someone retrain this memory?

erase the roads I don’t need memorized anymore.

Erase how I used to trace into your skin,

erase this sight of you,

erase the once was,

once were, once because, once since.

I think about this once since.

Something’s wrong once since,

once words cease flow,

once my hand is not my hand.

Not the same moment.

Not the same since.

There is a distance between reflection

and true skin.

Depth perception makes things quite different,

Unrecognizable.

This is once truth.

- Pisarczyk

Trying 

I’m trying not to get upset.

   Unreasonable emotion disturbs me, makes me feel like a fifteen year old girl with no options or solutions.

   I’m trying not to get upset because I work on different time zones then everyone else and I believe in candor and communication and frankly you can tell me you only want to be my friend cause 

   I don’t have that much invested yet and 

   unlike most people’s perceptions of me, I don’t baulk at someone telling me the truth or treating me with honesty cause integrity is better than mockery which is for your benefit and not mine.

   And I hate that I’m wining because it’s distracting me from my schedule and routine and this is a perfect reason why I choose ONLY to be friends cause

    everything else turns into a mess full of pain and I’ve plenty of that already. So please speak to me rationally like an adult capable of grown up conversation cause I hate games – 

    but I know how to play them 

    and yet I’m still trying not to get upset and saying stuff that I’ll regret, 

like “this is all cool ‘cause I don’t really like you and I don’t really care” but that’s all filler and it’s not getting to the root of the problem which generally speaking 

involves not making me wonder

    and wait 

    and analyze and examine every moment we’ve shared, every touch of your hand cause I’m trying not to get upset.

but you’re the one getting me there and  

     I’d appreciate you terminating me from this class cause I did not sign up for the lecture. 

Cause bullshit 101 turns into heartache 304 and what I really need is handholding 105, relationship 206 and 

hot sex 409.

       So if you’re not willing to provide me with at least part of that curriculum then sweetie I don’t want to pay for the tuition.  

- Sasha

Pretzel

The satisfying crunch of the pretzels in my mouth sooths me,

Yes, its after 1 in the morning,

Yes, I had laboriously brushed and flossed my teeth earlier,

Taken pains to chew eclipse, believing them when they promised me immediate breath control to offset the smell and taste of the onions I ate on my veggie burger earlier this evening because I felt certain that the attention I had already given my mouth had not been zealous enough and a piece of gum was that extra bit of clean.

Yet I continued munching away. Letting every piece of salt and pretzel stick on my gums, lay between my teeth and negate the pains I had taken with them just some short hours before.

It was pointless now, I reasoned, and I had no cause to have minty, fresh, clean mouth because she didn’t come. She did not call. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t care at all cause I had better things to do like…check my email…every…two.. minutes…and complete a row of knitting… then get bored and put it back down…flip the channels over and over and .. over again cause I did not notice that I was alone. But frankly I wanted her here and it disappoints me she didn’t come or call and I don’t know at all what’s going on cause I’m in the dark and feeling not very smart cause I don’t like that my room is as clean as my mouth was just a few minutes ago cause she was going to call and come and sit on my floor which I had vacuumed, for the 2nd time in 5 months, so that we could play Scrabble and laugh and blast my mp3s but that’s not what happened…to me 

And I’m still chewing cause food is a comfort as much as we all hate to admit but I want to close the bag I just opened cause it was meant to be a snack for us both when she came over cause I knew I had no food in my room and pretzels then just had to do. They were meant to be a casual treat that would leave our hands clean to make letters into words that we would put on the board that you claimed was your favorite game of all. 

Perhaps flirting with As and Bs but I’ve opened the bag by myself and I’m not very hungry yet I keep munching away anyway cause I am alone and I thought tonight would map itself out differently and I’m not angry or hurt just disappointed and curious. She was the first in a while who I had yet to find fault with and it was a jolt cause I notice things quickly and she just seemed cool but I’ve only known her a second and though that second was brief, I managed to learn a thing or two about her. Enough that I could push through my nerves and insecurities to say “how about I kiss you” in that parked car where anyone could see and smiled when she surreptitiously replied “how about I kiss you back.” 

And we played with the black toy cat hanging from her rearview mirror unsure who should lean in first cause she still had her seat belt on and maybe it was I who made that first move, no…on second thought I recall it was mutual. [And] two things were certain afterwards she…did have a tongue ring and I would have to take pains to brush thoroughly the next night cause she were coming over. And I held up my end of the bargain…but she failed to arrive and fresh breath was for naught and as I sit here writing this, my carpet free of debris, I take another pretzel from the bag and crunch down on it, hard. 

- Sasha 

mlr 

Recognition, 

of my own volition, 

that I have privileges that are uniquely my own 

and I own 

that they’re not always earned 

and I’ve learned 

that others aren’t that lucky. 

Cause 

it’s all about luck and I have aplenty. 

I am privileged; 

society’s god-child. 

With a future as wide as the sunset. 

Coffee with a lot of cream; 

my color is a cup of Java half full of half ‘n half and I profit 

from the randomness of my birth and though 

I am not apologetic and will not 

be made to feel guilty

I have 

been made aware and 

I swear that I will not forget…

I will not forget and 

I will not stand blind, 

I have a mind to expand my comfort zone and 

let uncomfortable notions of white-privilege in, and 

though I’m not always a person of privilege being a 

‘not-so-straight,’ Jewish immigrant grrl. 

I am white and with that come advantages and I 

know that I can afford to be color blind cause I 

don’t have to stop and force myself to recognize that …

color is still an issue.

-  Sasha

Photo by Moriah Lancaster

W4W – Word 4 Word

Note: This month’s W4W was written on an actual stopped trolley.  The writers had to evacuate the train and walk four blocks through the underground subway tunnel to exit because there was a fire in a trolley car up ahead.   

“I can’t believe I’m stuck on this subway train – with her!”  Jane thought.

“I wonder what would happen if we started having sex.  I mean, the train is stopped, what’s the worst that could happen?”  Jess thought and glanced at Jane.

As she hopelessly stared out the darkened window, Jane felt a warm hand settle on her thigh.

“I’m at least going to cop a feel!” Jess declared in her head and snaked her hand over to Jane’s thigh, just below where her skirt ended.  

“Woah, now,” Jane yelled as she jumped, alerting the other passengers to the shenanigans of her seat companion.  A bum, sitting in a pair of piss-soaked pants that were possibly on backwards, grumbled at them.  

“Take it easy,” Jess said, comfortingly.  “I’ve been told I’ve got the golden touch.”  Jane looked bewildered at Jess and glanced around, desperately seeking another seat.  “You need to relax.  Chill out.  Really, it’s amazing how anxious you are about everything.”  

Jane looked at Jess a moment.  “Do I know you?”

“No, but I’m sure you want to under all that pretentious bitchiness,” Jess quickly spouted with a seductive smile.  Jane stared hard at Jess.  Jane, an upper-class woman in her mid-40’s, knew she should have never sat next to the lesbian.  Now she was stuck in this stinking, disgusting train with a tomboy perv.

Jess ran her fingers up and down Jane’s stockinged leg.  “Oh?  You’re not?”  

“No, I’m not,” Jane said, however deep down she wasn’t feeling quite as sure as she sounded.

Word 4 Word is: one person starts with a sentence, the next person adds on, so on and so forth.  W4W is a monthly short story collaboration in this style by RD and JD.  Want to keep the dream alive?  Send us your own additions to the story or W4W’s that you and others have come up with!

STL 2 PHL, vol. 2

Kate opened the door and stepped onto the stoop of her apartment building.  The air was brisk and smelled damp, like the snowflakes were invisible and waiting for the perfect moment to appear. A sharp gust of wind struck Kate and forced her to take her first step of the night’s journey. 

As she stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, she realized she didn’t know a single thing about the nightlife in her new city. A small group of girls her age passed her going in one direction; a young couple passed her going in the other. Kate silently went through her customary “Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo” ritual as quickly as she could. 

“Left, it is”, she said to herself, with a certainty that pleased her.

As she began roaming from block to block, she noticed that nearly everything about the city was foreign to her. She didn’t recognize any of the streets, buildings, local papers or businesses. She didn’t know where she could find a cheap glass of wine, a good book, an old movie or decent live music. The people she saw were just as unfamiliar, passing hurriedly, without so much as a glance toward her. Just as Kate was beginning to feel the tears starting to work their way back up to her tired eyes, her mother’s calming voice popped into her head, “You’ll be comfortable there in no time, Katie”. The encouraging words produced a slight grin. She shook the tears back down, un-furrowed her eyebrows and continued on her way.

At the corner up ahead, two women were getting out of a cab. As one of them reached back in the passenger window to pay the driver, the other adjusted her sport jacket and tie. Her jeans were fairly tight at the waist and grew looser at her knees. Kate was totally consumed and fascinated by the handsome woman. She drastically slowed her pace in order to maximize the time she had to fully take-in the rare beauty. The mystery woman had short black, spiky hair and a light olive-colored skin. She had sharp, masculine features and Kate couldn’t keep her eyes off of her. As Kate walked at an abnormally sluggish speed, stumbling here and there, it happened. Without warning, the woman glanced in Kate’s direction and for a fraction of a second, their eyes met. Kate felt her heart leap into her mouth. She shyly closed her eyes and looked down at the ground. After a painful moment of inner-conflict, she looked back up to the corner where the woman had been standing. Kate saw the cab speeding off down the dark street, but no mystery woman. Kate hurried to the corner, and peered to the right, down the cross street. There she was, about a half of a block away, walking side-by-side with her companion.  

“Right, it is”, she said to herself, with an uncertainty that pleased her.

 – Jenny Dugger

STL 2 PHL is a monthly column that is an ongoing short story about Kate, an adventurous lesbian new to Philly.  Make sure you read previous versions of STL 2 PHL before you read the new one!

Photo by Jamielee Kircher of Dackel Photography

www.dackelphotography.com

Photo by Dan Berlin

Gay Speed Dating is FUNdamental

I, with gentle prodding from friends, am putting myself “out there,” whatever that means. If you’re like me, you have a group of established friends, and unless the women in that group bring in new prospects (work friends, college friends, ex-girlfriends, one night stands that mistake your bedroom for the bathroom…), then finding a date seems impossible (and no, coworkers do not count). So what’s a lesbian to do? Do I stand on a street corner holding a sign saying, “will promise not to bring drama into our relationship?” Do I answer every bad Craigslist w4w post? Do I buy a drink for every woman at Sisters and end up going into credit card debt? Personally, I like it a little better when there is a little less drinking and a little more conversation. So, with the aforementioned prodding friends, I figure what better way then to meet a lot of new people, in a relatively supportive environment, than Gay Speed Dating?

Yes, you read correctly. Gay Speed Dating. [When one thinks about speed dating, one conjures up an images of women drinking martini’s in low cut outfits making inane conversation with whatever man sits down across from her.] William Way marketed this semi annual gay and lesbian event as “a night of fun and romance.” I decided on a whim that this might be fun, and if it wasn’t, it certainly would be good for a laugh…remember when we went speed dating…

Of course, no lezzie outing is complete without the company of other lezzie friends. So with the support of two of my friends, I walked into the William Way – and saw that we were the only women there. We distracted ourselves with the art on the walls, with the subconscious purpose of looking worldly and sophisticated. (Look at us, we like art!) Another few minutes passed and more women shuffled in; they furtively darted their eyes at the others in the room. Did we pass inspection? Still too early to begin, we took a seat. Looking around I was amused/frustrated to see that “J” was there. “J” and I went out one time. Armed with superior small talking skills, I felt comfortable that if we did “speed date” each other, I could be nonchalant.

The organizers finally opened the gay speed dating flood gates and let us in. We were all given a number. I was excited to learn there were snacks! If the evening went sour, I always had snow peas to look back on – they make me happy. The numbers we were given turned out to be important. All the even numbered people sat down at a table, and all the odd numbered people were to rotate around them. We had 1-2 minutes to make a deep and meaningful connection before moving on the next potential soul mate. If you liked the person you saw across from you, you wrote their name on a card. If they wrote your name down as a potential something something, then the organizers would make the “match” by sending you each others info after the event ended.

The first “date” I had was with one of the friends I brought, which instantly broke the ice. Some highlights from the conversations include: what do you do? | Yes, this is a tight election. | Really, you’re from Baltimore, why are you here? | I’m sure we could find a great sperm donor for our first born from the group of gay men over there. | Tansania? Really, wow, that’s awesome. | When did you come out?

After almost an hour and a half of speed dating fun, the organizers called it a night. They were overwhelmed by the turn out and apologized for not allowing time for all the odds and evens to meet, and encouraged us to mingle afterwards. Seeking out snowpeas, I stuck around. I decided that I wasn’t ready for the fun to end and so I invited some new people to join me and my lezzie support system for a quick bite at Cosi. It turned to be a wonderful time.

While I doubt I made any significant love matches that evening, I did have the promised romance and fun that William Way had advertised. Even if one of those dates were with someone I had dated already. And if nothing else, I had more of an opportunity to make new friends … and as we all know, new friends lead to potential new relationships. – Sasha 

Question for the reader:

What are some tactics you’ve tried to put yourself “out there” and meet other women? Were they successful?

Links:

William Way Center: WayGay.org

PhillyGayCalendar.org