The Awakening of Melissa Etheridge: ‘The experience of having breast cancer was an incredible gift’

On paper, Melissa Etheridge’s life seems like the stuff of storytelling legend. 

A Midwest girl chases her dreams of stardom to Hollywood ... only to discover the empty promises of fame.

A lesbian takes a brave leap out of the closet a decade before Ellen DeGeneres ... only to find that her popularity thrives as a result.

A health scare nearly derails everything ... until a spiritual reawakening puts her on a clear path toward a career high of Oscar gold, familial bliss and rubbing elbows with political leaders.

With all of this dynamic material, it would stand to reason that Etheridge can spin one helluva yarn. She puts these skills to use on The Awakening, a stunningly candid “concept album” that takes listeners on a journey through her life, from her 1982 arrival in Southern California to her 2004 battle with breast cancer.

Now on tour to promote a live CD/DVD version of The Awakening — and hard at work on A New Thought for Christmas, coming out this fall — the 47-year-old spoke with Just Out about a wide range of subjects: medicinal marijuana, ménage à trois, Britney Spears’ meltdown, Hillary Clinton’s gaffe and much, much more.

Jim Radosta: You obviously have a huge following here in Portland. What do you think of the city?

Melissa Etheridge: I love to walk around Portland every time I’m there. It grows and grows. What I love about Oregon is it’s such a paradox: You’ve got the most liberal liberals — you guys are way ahead on all the environmental scales of everything — and then you also have the most conservative people [laughs], the ones that are sort of pulling and dragging and putting their feet in. So I’ve always appreciated the people of Portland, Oregon, especially because they seem to be trying to lift everybody up.

JR: How goes preparation for The Revival Tour? Should fans expect anything different this time around?

ME: It’s not different in that you’re still gonna hear your favorite songs — I’m gonna do what I do — but I have organized the show a little differently than I usually do. With The Awakening, it’s sort of a chronicling of my journey, so what I’ve done is arrange the show in that I’m telling a story of this journey. The show moves more chronologically than before. It’s a little bit more expository.



JR: I would like to ask you some questions about The Awakening. To start with, do you think this fearless album — and the profound messages contained within it — could have happened had you not experienced breast cancer?

ME: Well, I would like to think that I would’ve gotten where I am, but I do know that the experience of having breast cancer and going through the chemotherapy and that whole thing — I look at that as a huge gift, just an incredible gift of forcing me to be completely still, to examine my whole life in this wonderful stillness, to experience my spirit apart from my body and my mind, to really have a physical and spiritual awakening. I do credit my experience with cancer as bringing that about.

And so now, I feel I want to help bring that about in other people without them having to go through cancer. [Pauses] But don’t wait — you can do it before then.

JR: Your lyrics share a really beautiful perspective on spirituality, which is often a difficult subject with gay folks. So I’m curious: What were your views like before the cancer?

ME: People would say, “Are you religious?” I thought, “Oh, goodness, no, I’m spiritual, though.” The gay community in general — we fight these things that are telling us we can’t love, and yet we believe in love and our right to love who we love, even though it’s hard and different. So I think we are ahead of everyone else sometimes on this journey because we have had this sort of resistance to love. And you just realize as you grow up: “Am I gonna keep myself in a shell because of their fear of sexuality? Am I gonna make myself small because of their fear?”

So I kind of had that going for me anyway and really was believing in that and was having my own spiritual path, but I didn’t ever say “God” much. “God” and that whole spiritual thing I sort of left to those that wear it. [Laughs] And that’s what really changed with cancer: “Why do they own God? I have God! I am God, and you are God, and God is in all of us, and I’m going to start saying God.” 

Because you know what? You can’t say you’re a Christian and then you own God. You don’t. [Laughs] God is everywhere, and that’s the message that has to get out.

JR: The album presents two very different perspectives on Los Angeles, from the hopeful “California” to the jaded “Map of the Stars.” How have your views on fame changed since you moved west?

ME: Yeah, that’s one of the things that I wanted to really get through on this album. That journey of mine was that I grew up in the Midwest, I completely believed every song and movie and television show I saw that Hollywood was this great place where everyone was there, and I wanted to be there and I could be different, I could be unusual and crazy and I could be in that, and I just really thought that it was Emerald City and we’re just all gonna be tra-la-la and happy there.

Hollywood is like a machine with this big maze, and you just keep thinking, “OK, if I just get to that thing or that award or that show or that party or if I just know that person, then it’ll all make sense and I’ll be in that place, I’ll be there.” And I kept going, “There is no ‘there’ here — it doesn’t exist.” And I found out that what I created every day  — my own life with my family, my friends — is the life I have!

There’s this illusion called Hollywood — and it’s only an illusion — it’s just a big machine that people keep going and churning out on television and film, but it doesn’t exist. That was a huge freedom; that was a big thing when I finally stopped sort of running on that hamster wheel. I stepped off of it.

And now I see these people that are still on it — ugh — and they’re getting skinnier and skinnier, you know, and they shave their heads and they go crazy. It’s crazy-making because it doesn’t exist, it’s an illusion, and people treat you like it does exist. You go insane.

JR: Your liner notes ask fans to stop everything they’re doing for an hour and listen to the album from beginning to end — which is so hard for some people to do in this ADD, iPod-shuffle culture. What albums inspired you to try this approach?

ME: I wanted to have an album to take people out of that — to give themselves the time to sit down: “Look, you can do this, you can take an hour. If you can’t sit, then drive somewhere. Just be with yourself and your breath for an hour!” 

I remember listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run and Rickie Lee Jones’ Pirates. You remember when we were much younger and we’d just sit — all you’d have to do is turn the record over. It was a journey, and it took you somewhere. All the Beatles records. The Eagles. It’s an art form, and I didn’t want to lose that art form. I wanted to say: “Look, this is an art piece. Please try to enjoy it once, the whole thing.”

JR: You also ask listeners to “help yourself to a glass of wine or a smoke.” Can I assume you're talking about weed and not tobacco?

ME: Yes, I would be on the record as a weed girl. I’m definitely not a tobacco girl.

JR: Because medicinal marijuana is already a hot election-year topic, can I ask if pot helped you through chemo?

ME: Oh Lord, yes. I have come out and talked about it to Stone Phillips! I don’t know how anyone gets through chemotherapy without marijuana, because the chemotherapy makes you so nauseous, and you don’t want to eat anything, and it puts you in such discomfort and pain. Yeah, you can take pain relievers and something for the diarrhea, but then you have to take something for the constipation, and you’re taking five or six different things with all the different side effects.

And you know what? I can smoke something straight from the earth, and I get no side effects; it takes care of every single one of those things. So I’m a big medicinal marijuana girl.

JR: I really appreciate the frank sexuality of “Threesome.” [“I don’t want to have a threesome ever again … l’d rather keep you all to myself.”] Since you’re in a very truth-telling mode, was that based on an actual incident?

ME: Well, yeah! Absolutely. I made a promise to myself with this album that if I feared anything, I would see it through, I wouldn’t back off of it. So I went ahead and did it.

I wanted to make my monogamy and my marriage and my true love for my wife — l wanted that to be as sexy as it could be. And dangerous — because I know it’s dangerous for some people to think that gay people actually get married and live normal lives. So I wanted to write a song that people could relate to, straight or gay, and realize, “Oh my gosh, I know how that feels!”

JR: You and Tammy Lynn have helped put a high-profile face on gay parenting. Obviously we’ve got a long way to go before everyone embraces nontraditional families. How have you seen things change since you came forward about the unusual nature of your family?

ME: Oh my gosh, so much. Sometimes I think we as a community need to stand up, give ourselves a minute, pat ourselves on the back and go, “Wow, we’re in the trenches right now, but look how far we’ve come!” When I was a young adult, the word marriage — no way! Gay marriage was weird! Uh-uh. We wanted to be way outside the norm. We were different, we were estranged.

And yet we have grown up, and my generation has said: “You know what? We’re gay, we’re American, we work, we want families, we want the same thing as everybody else.” And I think we’ve come a long way doing that and walking through and just staying the course and saying, “Look, we’re people, and it’s all about love.”

JR: To go back even further, I’d like to talk about how you felt right before coming out. The other day I heard your song “I Run for Life” on the supermarket Muzak, and now Ellen DeGeneres tops Oprah Winfrey as the most respected figure on television. Basically I’m wondering: Did you ever see this day coming?

ME: This is the someday that we always talked about. And I know we’re gonna get marriage when we all realize the equality of all of us. It’s gonna be a no-brainer.

Yeah, I felt like I was in Hollywood at a very special time when all of us gay people kind of found each other, and we were like: “You go. No, you go out. No, you come out!” And we all kind of just jumped in, one after the other. Basically, we just keep ascending, we keep moving up.



JR: You also must’ve opened many minds when a billion viewers saw you thank your wife on the Oscars. What was that experience like, and did you ever think that a song from an eco-documentary could beat the Dreamgirls juggernaut?

ME: I know! I sort of felt sorry for the gay community at that moment. Sorry, guys!

That was really something special, because I grew up, just like any good gay person, watching the Oscars every year and just loving the whole entertainment — that moment when you can say thank you and have that 45 seconds to talk to the whole world. And I had that dream, absolutely. That was sort of the epitome of Hollywood to
me.

So getting involved with Al Gore and [An Inconvenient Truth], I had no idea. First of all, he said, “Will you write a song for my slide show?” I thought, “This is going to be something in high schools.” So it truly was the furthest thing from my mind where it ended up, yet the journey was so sweet and beautiful — seeing that film change the world! Now I’m hooked on changing the world, man. That’s the biggest high I’ve ever been on.

And it culminating in an Oscar presented by Queen Latifah and John Travolta — the funny thing was I was like, “OK, I’m gonna thank my wife and my kids.” I say “wife” so often now, I don’t even think about it when I say it. So when I said it in the speech, the audience applauded, and I thought, “Yeah, she’s a great gal!” Then I realized, “Oh, no, they’re not used to hearing ‘wife’ from women, and that’s what that’s for.” I just kind of forgot for a moment there.



JR: What was it like serving on the panel for Logo’s gay-focused presidential debate?

ME: That was so crazy! First of all, I was so honored. If nothing else, our movement has informed, political, powerful people in it, yet I also knew l am a famous person, and I know that that brings people to watch things. I said: “You know what? I’m grateful for my celebrity. I realize that if it’s gotten me a place on this panel, I hope to represent my community fully and maybe ask some of the personal questions that might not get asked.” It was a really eye-opening experience.

JR: Did it sway your views?

ME: Yes, it did. I sort of went in, “Give me Hillary, give me Obama, give me Clinton-Obama, whatever.” I was very impressed with Obama. He was the only one who came backstage to my dressing room, shook my hand, gave me a book, signed it, said: “Pleasure to meet you. I appreciate everything you do.” Things like that, I think, go a long way.

Then confronting Hillary and saying: “Look, I was there in ’92. We were gonna be free, and we were the first ones you guys sold down the river!” Then I was surprised that her answer was: “Well, Melissa, you know, having gone through cancer, things just can’t happen quick enough for you.” So that kind of turned me off to Hillary.

And then hearing Dennis Kucinich just get out there and say: “Hello? It’s not equality. Period.” Why can’t my Democratic leader, who I know feels this way, why can’t they step out and just do what’s right?

I know that our movement is not about that one thing, marriage, yet it symbolizes so much, you know? You’re either really for equality or you’re not.

JR: I just saw Martin Scorsese’s documentary about The Rolling Stones in which Mick Jagger said in a mid-’60s interview that they might be around for a few years at most. I’d like to ask you the same question: How long do you see yourself performing?

ME: Well, see, I watch The Rolling Stones, and I think, “As long as they can do it, I can do it!” I watch them, I watch Bruce, and as long as I can do it and remain with my dignity intact — I mean, I’m not gonna get up there and shake my booty and try to compete with the youngsters, but as long as people enjoy the music, then I’m gonna be there doing it.

Originally published in Just Out, August 15, 2008

Cutting Edge: Scissor Sisters strive to rescue radio with fun pop

 

When Clear Channel started polluting the airwaves with its corporate sewage, old-school pop music landed on top of radio’s endangered species list. If it’s not a financially lucrative sound — teeny-bop, hip-hop or what’s now considered “alternative” — you’ll have a hard time finding it on the FM dial.

Thank goodness, then, that Scissor Sisters have come to the rescue. The flamboyant New York City quintet is fighting the format formula with a simple mission statement: Let’s make great, accessible, non-alienating music that can be proudly proclaimed as “pop.”

“We’ve never been afraid of using that word,” says Babydaddy, the band’s 28-year-old multi-instrumentalist. “Sometimes ‘pop’ can sound dirty, especially in the age of Britney Spears.”
As their dyke-inspired name suggests, Scissor Sisters have a strong queer sensibility. The band was born five years ago when Babydaddy, who was setting up a home studio and dabbling in music as a hobby, connected with another gay guy, singer Jake Shears.

“We all had day jobs,” Babydaddy says of the early days. “I was working in TV production to make ends meet.”

The pair later were joined by performance artist Ana Matronic (who describes herself as “a drag queen stuck in a woman’s body”), guitarist Del Marquis and drummer Paddy Boom, and the music started flowing naturally. Babydaddy still marvels at their collaborative camaraderie.

“I’ve been writing music all my life, and I was never in a situation where something clicked as well as this does,” he says. “It’s almost surprising at times how, in two days, I come out of the studio and come out of a zone, really, and all of a sudden there’s this song. It’s never happened for me that way before, and I know there is a certain magic in what happens.”

The band’s voodoo is evident throughout its self-titled debut album, which achieves pure pop perfection on virtually every track from the giddy hooker homage “Filthy/Gorgeous” (featuring raunchy rhymes like “you trip on a hit of acid ... your biggest moneymaker’s flaccid”) to the earnest ballad “Mary” to the bombastic epic “Return to Oz,” in which Shears shares his memories of the Seattle drug scene: “What once was Emerald City’s now a crystal town.” Scissor Sisters also put the “pink” in Pink Floyd with a flaming cover of “Comfortably Numb” sung in a Bee Gees-worthy falsetto.

Babydaddy credits several sources for this amalgamation of sounds. “I’m more a product of the ‘90s than anything ... listening to grunge and Smashing Pumpkins and that whole scene when I was in high school. That is what spoke to me.” 

He also was influenced by the music his parents played on the radio during family road trips, as well as a Billy Joel songbook he followed at the piano when he was 12. “Not that I think Billy Joel is the coolest guy in the world, but what he brought to what he did was a pop sensibility that I find common in everything that I love.”

Scissor Sisters’ first U.S. single, “Take Your Mama,” has caught MTV’s eye and garnered buzz for its similarities to classic tunes from queer cohort Elton John.

“I think it’s been a blessing and a curse,”Babydaddy says of the constant comparisons. “If you listen to a lot of the other songs on the album, that’s a pretty honky-tonk, piano, American-sounding rock ‘n’ roll song. Yes, Elton John did that, but Jake wrote those lyrics and that melody without really being too familiar with Elton John at all.”

Meanwhile, one comparison particularly confuses him.

“People call us the new Village People, and I’ve seen it in some very big publications,” Babydaddy says. “I don’t know — besides the fact that a few of us are gay, and we dress up ... I don’t think it’s valid; and I think it’s lazy.”

As with many artists whose sound is hard to classify, Scissors Sisters are huge in Europe but have yet to make it big in the States. (Call it the Robbie Williams Curse.) Time will tell whether Americans are going to catch on.

“At the moment, things are going better than I had expected in the U.S.,” Babydaddy says. “I’m trying to have very few expectations about things. We’re just gonna keep doing the work, and I do have faith that if you have a good thing and you do the work involved, then people will come out.”

Originally published in Just Out, September 17, 2004

Crystal Ball: Freshly rehabbed from a meth addiction, Rufus Wainwright peers 500 years into the future

Rufus Wainwright's skin is just a little bit thicker.

His daringly baroque latest album, Want — à la Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill — is being released in two editions, with a more "lavish and obtuse" follow-up slated for next spring. In a telephone interview, he sings the praises of Portland, assesses his toxic past and gazes far into the future.

Jimmy Radosta: You make a reference to Portland in the song "11:11." Was that inspired by any particular experiences?

Rufus Wainwright: Portland is one of my favorite cities on the West Coast because, at least at the time of when I wrote that song, it seemed to be one of the least sort of gentrified places left — at least [compared with] Seattle and San Francisco. Yeah, I've certainly had a couple of crazy nights in that town with all of your wacky inhabitants. It was a lot of fun.

JR: When I saw you in concert a few years back, you mentioned a critic who complained that you were "too gay." Have things changed since then, or do you still encounter this kind of ignorant homophobia?

RW: It doesn't really register on my radar. I haven't really dealt with it all that much. It does happen occasionally, but I just sort of dismiss it.

JR: Now that you've put out three well-received albums in a row, do you see a time coming when you'll just stop paying attention to critics?

RW: I'm trying to get there. I'm trying not to read my criticism at all, only because you can read 10 great critiques and you'll read one bad one, and it's like you've been condemned to a life sentence…. But every once in a while I peek — kind of like peeking at a horror movie.

JR: You remade "The Origin of Love" for the Hedwig and the Angry Inch tribute album Wig in a Box, which was produced by a Portlander. How did you get involved in that project?

RW: I know [Hedwig writer/director/actor] John Cameron Mitchell, and he asked me to do it, and it's also for a really good cause. And I also don't get the chance often to really, like, rock out too much … so I liked to do that as well.

JR: In light of the state of the world today, do you find yourself increasingly drawn to causes that will make the world a better place?

RW: Definitely, in terms of saving the world or whatever, now is the time to do it. I think we've sort of lost the sense of bliss, or ignorance, or blissful ignorance I'd say, especially after 9/11. All those predictions I had growing up about, you know, by the year 2000 this and this and this will happen — well, it's 2003, and I think it's probably more time to act now.

JR: In interviews you've been candid about your past use of crystal meth. I'm curious what convinced you to go into rehab.

RW: I just couldn't take it emotionally, and certainly the drug itself is — in my opinion, anyway — above and beyond most other experiences I've had with narcotics…. So that was the main reason. But … I felt like in terms of arguing about what was going on in the world, I really had to get my own house in order, in order to really be effective.

JR: This might be a rather naive question, but what exactly made somebody as beautiful and talented as you feel like you needed a drug to make yourself feel sexy and secure?

RW: I don't know. I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the attention that I get, which is on one hand very compassionate and honest and real — but also from 20 feet away. It was that classic Janis Joplin line, "For 40 minutes you've got all the love in the world and everybody's around you, and then for the rest of the time you're completely alone." There was a backlash to that kind of attention…. And also it was that I have been so dedicated to my music, my art, that sometimes I forget that I'm actually a human being.

JR: I love the tracks you recorded for the soundtracks to Moulin Rouge and Big Daddy. Are there any other projects or collaborations that you're dying to work on — a James Bond theme, a duet with Liza?

RW: I do want to write an opera at some point. And I'm just saying that a lot because it'll force me to do it. [Laughs] I'd love to write a really crazy opera that is performed for another 500 years.

JR: Both of your shows in Oregon are going to be all-ages, and you've got a really strong connection with your young fans. Do you think they're drawn to you because you've been out since you were a teenager?

RW: That may be an element. I think the main thing is that there has to be a fallout from the present music era. There's not a lot of alternatives out there for kids, and so I'm sort of banking on the fact that there are ones out there that are interested in depth. [Laughs] And I'm not saying that I'm the only [deep] musician at all, but there's not a lot that are given the amount of attention that I'm given.

JR: What other "deep" musicians are on your radar right now?

RW: I'm thinking a lot about, of course, Elliott Smith, because he died. I like Beth Orton as a songwriter, and I'm one of those Radioheads as well.

Originally published in Just Out, Dec. 5, 2003

Higher Learning: Confessions of an angry alumnus

“Be true to your school,” The Beach Boys sang in 1963.

But what if your school isn’t true to you?

I’m referring to my alma mater, Pepperdine University, which made headlines recently for its perceived support of Proposition 8, a hateful effort to overturn the California Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. The well-funded Yes on 8 campaign debuted its first television spot Sept. 29, including a fear-mongering claim that acceptance of same-sex marriage is “mandatory.”

“That changes a lot of things,” Pepperdine law professor Richard Peterson warns in the ad, “people sued over personal beliefs, churches could lose their tax exemptions, gay marriage taught in public schools.”

Progressive Portlanders might be horrified to see an institute of “higher learning” stepping into such a divisive minefield, but Pepperdine isn’t your typical university. For starters, the Malibu, Calif.-based school is affiliated with the Church of Christ, which frowns on dancing and putting women in positions of power.

When I arrived on campus in 1990 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in journalism, Pepperdine had just recently lifted its ban on campus dances. A couple of years later, the female dean of students was allowed to lead the prayer at a school assembly—one small step for womankind.

Like so many conservatives, Pepperdine also confuses faith with politics. As a student it was hard to tell whether I was at college or at a GOP think tank: Invited speakers included the likes of former Attorney General Ed Meese and Solicitor General Ken Starr, who went on to achieve infamy as the independent counsel who spent $40 million of taxpayer money on a witch hunt to destroy President Bill Clinton. Oh, and guess who’s now on staff shaping the minds of future lawyers? You got it: Law School Dean Kenneth Starr.

So, given that track record, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Pepperdine remains in lockstep with the right-wing agenda by opposing equal rights for all couples. Or does it? After a vocal outcry from alumni who were furious about the Yes on 8 ad, the administration tried to distance itself from the campaign.

“We’d like to stress that the professor does not represent a Pepperdine University-endorsed position, as the university does not advocate for/against political candidates or ballot propositions,” public relations executive director Jerry Derloshon said Oct. 2. “The professor in the ad was not advocating a Pepperdine position, but his own personal position. We have received confirmation that our request to have the reference to Pepperdine University deleted from the ad will be honored…perhaps by today.”

Since that statement was issued, Pepperdine’s name has yet to be removed from the ad. In fact, Peterson shows up again in an even more inflammatory spot that uses the ultimate scare tactic: A little girl comes home from school and excitedly tells Mommy about how she’s going to grow up to marry a “princess.”

“Think it can’t happen? It’s already happened!” Peterson bellows. “When Massachusetts legalized gay marriage, schools began teaching second-graders that boys can marry boys. The courts ruled parents had no right to object.”

The deception tactics already seem to be succeeding. While early polls indicated Prop 8 was behind by as much as 38 percent to 55 percent, the ads are being credited with flipping numbers around: Led by a major shift among young Californians, a CBS survey says that likely voters now favor the measure by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent.

For a school that boasts “the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values,” Pepperdine doesn’t seem to place much importance on either. California law already bans bias based on religion and prohibits public schools from teaching students anything about family issues against the will of their parents, so Peterson’s bogus declarations put the entire university’s reputation on the line.

Furthermore, the school isn’t exactly being Christlike by spreading the lie that it knew nothing about the professor’s involvement. According to its student newspaper, The Graphic: “Peterson said he informed School of Law Vice Dean Tim Perrin in advance that he was appearing in the commercial and that he would be associated with Pepperdine. Perrin did not voice any concerns, according to Peterson.”

This isn’t the first time that Pepperdine has underestimated the backlash that comes from homophobia. Way back in 1992, when I was editor of The Graphic, a group of underground gay students approached me to make their presence known. In the middle of the night, they had painted a pink triangle on “The Rock”—the only free-speech zone on campus—but it was immediately covered up by a Bible-banging adversary.

When I called that student for a comment, his blunt reply was shocking: “No way is homosexuality tolerated or should be tolerated. If they want to paint it during the day, I’ll watch over them with my baseball bat.”

The bigot was surely expecting backslaps and high-fives, but my article ended up turning him into a campus pariah, and he eventually transferred to an even more conservative university. It was a tense time—especially for a closeted student like me—but at least it got people talking.

In a follow-up story, I interviewed one sensitive administrator who said a mouthful: “I would hope on a campus like this that we’re able to talk about issues like this in less emotional, less confrontive kind of ways. I suspect that we’ll be talking about those things on campus for a long time.”

Originally published in Just Out, Oct. 17, 2008

Pat Benatar Hits Salem with Her Best Shot

In the early ’80s, Pat Benatar had the Best Rock Vocal Grammy nailed shut.

But in 1992, the National Academy Recording Arts & Sciences couldn’t even find enough female rockers to justify the category, so it was dropped that year. What gives? Are the pickings that slim, or are the voters not looking hard enough?

“There’s a plethora of people out there,” she says. “I don’t know what the hell they were thinking, unless they were looking at commercial success only.”

Benatar, who performs with Steve Miller tonight at the Oregon State Fair, recalls 1978. That’s the year flash-in-the-pan A Taste of Honey's No. 1 disco ditty “Boogie Oogie Oogie” brought Best New Artist accolades over leading eclectic rock singer Elvis Costello.

“They’re historically based on what was popular at the time,” says Benatar, who took home statues for the 1980 album Crimes of Passion, the 1981 single “Fire and Ice,” 1982’s “Shadows of the Night” and 1983’s “Love Is a Battlefield.”

The latter was part of a string of hits including “Invincible (Theme from Legend of Billie Jean)” and “Sex as a Weapon” that became sort of feminist anthems during a rather conservative decade.

“It was very indicative of what was going on those days,” she says. “I always write lyrics from the heart. It was certainly more aggressive then. It’s just not necessary now.”

Becoming a mom hasn’t changed Benatar’s tune any, but it did take her off the road from 1993 to 1995 when she had her second child, Hana, who is now 2.

Benatar, 43, took advantage of a swing through Oklahoma City last week to show older sister Haley, 11, the site of 1995’s federal building bombing, which killed 19 kids.

“It was just horrific,” says Benatar, who cowrote “Hell Is for Children” and “Suffer the Little Children.” “When you have children of your own, it just really hits you so much harder when you realize that your baby is just as old.

“I thought it would be really a good thing to see what violence really brings you. We planted a tree at her school when it happened.”

Heroin abuse in the music industry also seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongues lately, but Benatar isn’t sure why.

“It’s very difficult to tell,” she says. “It’s always been there. It’s always been a problem…. It’s the problem du jour. People get bored. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Benatar and husband/producer/longtime collaborator Neil Giraldo try to improve the industry’s negative image by participating in charitable events like 1985’s Artists United Against Apartheid and staying “pretty outspoken and active.”

“It’s pretty much on a daily basis,” she says. “We choose to do it privately.”

But one opinion Benatar is quite public about is her impression of Chrysalis Records. Even though it was the only label she ever had worked for, parting was sweet relief in 1993.

This summer’s tour gives her a chance to hone material for the coming Innamorata album — slated for an early winter release — while negotiating with a new company.

“Anything will be better. Selling them on the corner would be better,” she says bluntly. “It was a nightmare. The company was sold two or three times while I was there. It was a revolving door. No relationships were ever set up.”

Now that Chrysalis controls Benatar’s old material, Heartbreaker: 16 Classic Performances was released this year without her endorsement.

“They just put ’em out because they can. I had nothing to do with it whatsoever. It makes you wonder how many greatest hits albums one person can have,” says Benatar, whose other collections are 1989’s Best Shots and 1994’s All Fired Up: The Very Best of Pat Benatar.

After recording an acclaimed blues record in 1991, she describes the new tunes as “rootsy,” with plenty of 12-strings, acoustic guitars and fiddles.

“This is a contemporary record,” she says. “We really had such a good time doing it. It’s pretty lyric-heavy. It’s hard to pigeonhole.”

Benatar, who compares performing to “riding a bike,” enjoys summer tours like this one. She probably is one of the only artists on the road who is coordinating the last tour date with her daughter’s first day of school.

“Haley’s been coming with us since she was a baby,” she says. “Two is a handful. They’re veterans now.”

Originally published in Statesman Journal, Aug. 29, 1996

Not Narrow: She's straight, she's irate, get used to it

Ever since I first saw her in 1994’s Reality Bites, I’ve felt a strong kinship with Janeane Garofalo. Her character, a recent college graduate, was working at The Gap and demonstrating how to use a plastic board to fold a sweater: “People don’t know,” she said dryly. “They don’t know what it takes.”

I’d just graduated from college when that film came out, and that summer I found myself working at Target in Boise, Idaho — using the same damn folding board.

Clearly, Janeane is my soul sister. The 42-year-old former co-host of Air America Radio’s The Majority Report vented with me about the state of the union before hitting the road for a comedy tour.

Jimmy Radosta: Do some people come to your shows unprepared for you to be so outspoken?

Janeane Garofalo: During the buildup to the illegal invasion and occupation, there would be pockets who were of course the people that believed the nonsense that the administration was shoveling, and so they would be offended. There would be walkouts and heckling.

That personality type is as confusing to me as people who abuse animals. You kind of wonder what makes them tick, like when you watch Animal Cops on Animal Planet and you see that someone has thrown a puppy in a trunk and left it there. I feel the same way about a right-winger: I don’t get it, I don’t understand what makes them tick, I don’t know what happened to them as children that caused them to turn out that way.

Some Democratic politician [state Sen. Bob Hagan of Ohio] half-jokingly said that it shouldn’t be gay people who should be banned from adopting but conservatives and Republicans…because you don’t want to put them in that environment. I concur with that sentiment.

JR: Speaking of gay family matters, do you feel like same-sex marriage scared enough voters to swing the 2004 election in Bush’s favor?

JG: First of all, it is my belief that not only was the 2000 election stolen when Antonin Scalia installed George Bush as president, I believe John Kerry won the 2004 election. If you read the Conyers report and other studies done to investigate the voter fraud, the electronic touch-screen voting problems, if you look at the documentary Hacking Democracy, there’s no evidence to support George Bush won that election, either.

I would say that the gay issues that the so-called conservatives put out there — it’s just embarrassing. It doesn’t scare anyone off who is reasonable. It’s a flash-point topic used to corral the dumb and the mean into voting.

JR: Are we at least making some progress with the recent scandals involving Ted Haggard and Ann Coulter?

JG: Don’t forget Jeff Gannon/Duckert and Cpl. [Matt] Sanchez at the [Conservative Political Action Conference] recently — the gay porn star who Sean Hannity says is “a great American.” CPAC is about as close to a white supremacist rally as you’re gonna get.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Anybody who is a vehement anti-gay activist is usually a closet queen. They have that Roy Cohn quality of the self-hating gay or the attack queer or whatever you want to call it.

Reasonable people can always see through televangelists, right-wing bullies, people like Ann Coulter. Ann Coulter is just a performing clown.

Then there’s some people who Malcolm Gladwell would call “late adopters” who see through it eventually.

And then there’s people who will never see through it, because that’s who they are. There will always be a segment of the population, because of their personality shortcomings, who will embrace gay-bashing and internment camps and gulags.

JR: Are you going to continue acting?

JG: Yes, I like to do both. I just did a pilot for a TV series for next season…about lawyers. It’s a one-hour dramedy from the people who are involved with Numb3rs and Law & Order starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar [Saved by the Bell, NYPD Blue].

JR: Are you going to return to radio?

JG: I actually only do the radio show intermittently. Sam Seder still has the show…and it’s moved to the morning. I could not move to a morning slot. No way, José. After Sam had his baby, he and his wife agreed that he needs to move to the morning show so that he could be home at night. I was like: “You know what, Sam? Good luck to you.” I can’t be in an office at 5:30 a.m. five days a week. I’m not cut out for it.

Originally published in Just Out, March 16, 2007

’Tis the Sleazon: John Waters decks the halls with boughs of trash

John Waters has a busy month ahead — holiday headaches notwithstanding.

American Movie Classics is spotlighting the filmmaker's 1972 cult hit Pink Flamingos on Dec. 30 on Movies That Shook the World.

California's Orange County Museum of Art is displaying Change of Life, an exhibit of his photographs, sculptures and "little movies," which reduce a whole film to a single still.

The Treatment Action Group is honoring him on Dec. 11 in New York City for his AIDS activism.

And he'll be in town on Dec. 16 to celebrate A John Waters Christmas, a compilation of campy holiday tunes like Roger Christian's "Little Mary Christmas," a politically incorrect tale of a crippled orphan who doesn't get adopted on Christmas morning, and "Happy Birthday Jesus," which Waters suspects was recorded at a tiny studio in the South with a stage mother hovering over a young girl wearing a torn party dress. You have to hear it to believe it.

Jimmy Radosta: What do you think of Portland?

John Waters: Oh, it's great. It reminds me of Baltimore in a lot of ways, only you have better book shops — and more famous directors living there.

JR: What's the plan for this show?

JW: I'm going to be talking about my obsession with Christmas — and about Christmas crime and Christmas fashion and Christmas presents and Christmas cards and what you should do with your family and how you deal with depression at Christmas or how you handle all the insanity at this time of year.

JR: I love the Christmas compilation. I've got you sandwiched right between Crystal and Muddy Waters, which somehow seems appropriate.

JW: Oh, good! Well, I think Brenda Lee has the best all-time Christmas record. I could never top her, so I wanted to come in second…. None of these [songs] were made to be ironic. They were done fairly seriously.

JR: Do you find that it's a lot harder today to find musicians who are unaware of their cheese factor? Now we've just got people like Clay Aiken.

JW: Yeah, but even they're aware of it. Basically because of cable and the Internet, everybody's aware of everything. There are no pockets of the country left that aren't plugged in, really.

At the end of Pecker, the last line was "To the end of irony!" I remember when 9/11 happened, all the editorials said, "The end of irony" or something. I thought: "Wait a minute! I said that like two years ago. It didn't take 9/11 to figure that out."

JR: You're about to be honored for your AIDS activism alongside a state senator and a Cornell professor. Did you ever think there would come a day?

JW: I guess if you stick around long enough and they can't get rid of you, then they've gotta honor you. I'm certainly flattered that they're doing it.

Sometimes it's weird. When I was at the Kennedy Center when Hairspray opened [on Broadway] with the Bush Washington crowd and I stood up and I got a standing ovation, [a friend] whispered to me, "If these people knew you, they would hate you!"

JR: Speaking of politics, what are your thoughts on same-sex marriage?

JW: I'm for it. I personally have no desire to get married. That's for straight gay people. I'm not one of ’em. I wanna invest in gay divorce and tattoo removal, the growth industries of the next decade.

JR: An upcoming documentary on AMC credits Pink Flamingos for inspiring the punk movement, Jackass and Fear Factor. How do you feel about that?

JW: Certainly…Pink Flamingos was a punk movie. We just didn't know there was a term. I mean, the audience looked like hippies, but they were angry hippies.

Jackass — I'm a huge fan of that. Johnny Knoxville was the star of my last movie [A Dirty Shame].

Fear Factor — I've never seen it, but I get the comparison. I mean, eating shit is basically the kind of thing they do on that show, right? Except without the good outfits!

JR: What are your future projects?

JW: I'm working on a big show that I'm having at [New York City's] Marianne Boesky Gallery in late April called Unwatchable. I have a new TV show that comes out Feb. 3 on the Here network called John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You. And I am a regular on a Court TV pilot that we hope will be ordered up called ’Til Death Do Us Part that is based on true crimes, but acted out with actors, about a bride or a groom that kills one another. Each episode begins with their wedding, and I'm the "Groom Reaper," the time traveler that knows they're gonna kill each other and tells the audience.

Originally published in Just Out, Dec. 2, 2005