She has the tenacity of Hillary Clinton, but she dresses like Barack Obama

I didn't come up with that title myself...it is one of the blurbs on the Rachel Maddow Show (radio version) that they play at the beginning of the hour.

Here is what Rachel said about being out on AfterEllen.com.

“I think the responsibility that we have as gay Americans,” she says, “is to the extent that we can - and we ought to be really ambitious about the extent to which we can - we have to be out.”

“That’s the thing that we owe the people who came before us who are the pioneers, and that’s the thing we owe the next generation of gay people in terms of clearing the way and making life easier for them. I think that there is a moral imperative to be out, and I think that if you’re not out, you have to come to an ethical understanding with yourself why you are not. And it shouldn’t be something that is excused lightly. I don’t think that people should be forced out of the closet, but I think that every gay person, sort of, ought to push themselves in that regard. Because it’s not just you. It’s for the community and it’s for the country.”

Thank you, Rachel. I think you summed it up perfectly!

That explains the hat...

(Her hat says "Hillary for President", thanks Katie for the picture that I clearly stole)

Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls contributed $1,382 to Hillary Clinton.


Is that a weird amount, or is it just me? I wonder how much she donated to the Pretenders, because she sure gets a lot of mileage out of that shirt.


Chrissie Hynde would have made a nice VP choice...oh well.

Then days so still the beauty gives you pain

It's time for another "Emily Saliers is a Genius Moment" here at The Name of Your Band...

From what I understand, this song was written by Emily about her late sister. She has an incredible way of expressing loss - what it is like to live without someone, even while the world keeps turning.

She's Saving Me (Indigo Girls)

We were sitting round a dying fire, somebody lit incense
somebody lit a cigarette and passed the bottle around
It was just strawberry season, backbreaking pickers in the patches
everything's burning down to ashes and down to the ground
She's saving me I don't even think she knows it
It's a strange way to show it as distant as last night's dream unravels
She's saving me I'm a very lost soul I was born with a hole in my heart
The size of my land locked travels
I try to put it aside but it's too much bigger than me there's a big brown hawk in the tree
Lighting and leaving
There's tea leaves tossing, heads up pennies in my pocket,
dead star like a rocket, the arc of my grieving
She's saving me I don't even think she knows it
It's a strange way to show it as distant as last night's dream unravels
She's saving me I'm a very lost soul I was born with a hole in my heart
The size of my land locked travels
The sky pours out biblical rain
Then days so still the beauty gives you pain
The heatwave kills the green and she remains unseen
But colors up my dream with all things blooming
This is not all there is it's not a kingdom it's not an angry god
It feels like her
It feels like no fear, it feels like no doubt, it feels like inside out
The ashes stir
She's saving me I don't really think she knows it
It's a strange way to show it as distant as last night's dream unravels
She's saving me I'm a very lost soul
I was born with a hole in my heart as wide as my land locked travels

Maddow Giddiness...

At this moment my heart is swelling with pride. Rachel Maddow is a rock star.

I just (again) watched Rachel spank Pat Buchanan on national television. I love it when she does that.

Let's talk about how amazing this person is as compared to me. I am almost 32 years old; Rachel is 35. I have $67 in the bank and am unemployed; Rachel is the host of a successful radio show, regularly appears as a political pundit on MSNBC, and was just given her on show on the same network. I'm sitting in a house I don't own playing with cats that aren't mine watching the Democratic Convention on TV; Rachel is part of the political roundtable in Denver AT THE CONVENTION and she was just complimented on her intelligence by Kathleen Sebelius and Tom Brokaw in the span of 30 seconds. I suck.

Seriously though: I'm proud. Proud that a person - a woman - a gay woman, at that, is receiving so much publicity and respect because she is SMART. Not because of her looks or her funniness (although I do think she is both hot and funny), but because she is a Rhodes Scholar and an outstanding politcal commentator. I'm proud because she is an out "mannish woman" lesbian (her words!) and that a representation of me and the people that I care about is finally a part of mainstream television news. Maddow doesn't flaunt her sexuality - it is just a fact, like the air she breathes or the color of her hair.

Thank you, Rachel.

And you could hear the pages flapping in the wind blown book of my days

A few weeks ago my GF and I spent a drunken weekend at the beach in Rehoboth, DE. During a particularly snockered moment, I decided to sing karaoke. There were two Indigo Girls songs in the book to choose from - Fill It Up Again (which I "sang") and (SHOCKING!!!) Closer to Fine. Why FIUA? I don't know...seemed random, but whatev. So, in my inebriated state, as I publicly slaughtered the song that Emily Saliers probably spent months, if not years, crafting, I recall having this thought:

"I had NO idea that these were the words to this song!"

SO! - In honor of Emily and her genius, and because of the fact that I have not given her lyrics the attention that they deserve, I am posting them here. Enjoy.

Won't have you see me as your sad sack Lost my something and I can't get it back
Or a kill on your trophy rack I checked my schedule now my train is rolling down a track
Past the sadness of the salt flats To the prospect of the land fat
Or just a lazy orange house cat On the sofa where I'll be put up
You've been the hole in my sky, my shrinking water supply
Before my well runs dry I'm going round round round the bend
Fill it up again
I'd like to say that it was clear to me Love triangle geometry
But in the end it's still a mystery The placement of affection and the disarray
I gathered up the courage that it took Made that bed and took one last look
And you could hear the pages flapping in the wind blown Book of my days, my days (refrain) One tank gone second thoughts are on my mind
What's this trip gonna cost me this time
The devil I know is starting to look awfully kind
But the new road is an old friend
Fill it up again (refrain montage)

Jennifer is a military wife and a mom...

I suppose that there are a lot of women out there that consider themselves, first and foremost, a wife and a mother.

On this week's How to Look Good Naked, Carson Kressley will be "making over" a woman named Jennifer that "lived a vivacious and out-going life until post-baby body woes rained on her parade." I will not watch the episode, nor have a ever watched the program (I saw the ad for it while watching reruns of Will and Grace..yeah, I still love that show), but something about this catchy tagline bothers me. TV is notorious for compacting information to 15 second sound bites... but what about Jennifer? This blurb that is supposed to wrap up Jennifer's life in one quick sentence only describes her in relation to others. Why can't the description of Jennifer describe... oh, I dunno...JENNIFER.

"Jennifer is an amateur body builder that has seen the Grateful Dead in concert
25 times and has a regrettable Tweety Bird tattoo on her left ankle."

"Jennifer is an avid model train collector and spends her weekends volunteering
at a homeless shelter."

So why does this bother me. Is it because the media does not do this to men?

On the website for NBC Nightly News, there is a 15 paragraph biography of Brian Williams - here's the last sentence of that bio:

"He and his wife, Jane Stoddard Williams, have two children."

And just to bring it a little closer to home, here's Lifetime TV's description of Carson Kressley:

"Accomplished stylist, breakout television star, equestrian, author and now fashion designer, Carson Kressley is out to make over the world."

Or maybe I'm upset because Lifetime, THE NETWORK FOR WOMEN, easily tosses aside the individuality of a woman in the hopes that portraying her as supportive and submissive somehow makes her more appealing to the masses? Gee, let's take a look at some of Lifetime's programming:

Army Wives
All The Good Ones Are Married
A Mother's Fight for Justice
For My Daughter's Honor
Secrets of an Undercover Wife

Okay, you get the picture.

So how about this:

"Jennifer works hard to raise a happy, well-adjusted child with her military husband."

Bad Blogger

Okay, I admit it. I've been remiss. I haven't blogged and I'm ashamed. It isn't because I don't have things to say... I'm just lazy. But here I am, unemployed, waiting to start school again... and I'm going to do better. I SWEAR.


Now the problem is, I can't POSSIBLY blog about everything that has had an effect on my life in the last 6 months... and there really has been oh so much. So here is a list of things that I would talk about if I had been blogging all this time.


#1 - Amy Ray's new CD - Didn't It Feel Kinder is a work of art. The more I listen, the more I want to sit down with her and just talk things over. My favorite is "Bus Bus". And the publicity that she is getting is amazing. I get at least 5 google alerts on her a day. If I could say one thing to Amy Ray, it would be this: "Please - in the name of all that is holy - play Washington DC or Baltimore on your promotional tour... I'm dying to see your solo show." So yeah, there you go.

By the way - she looks like my girlfriend in this picture AND I'm not just saying that because I want it to be true - I've heard it said by way too many other people for it not to be true.

#2 - I stumbled onto Rachel Maddow by accident one night. I was skipping through the channels one night, and there she was - sitting in for Keith Olberman. The gay-dar went off of course - even in make-up this girl is obviously a lesbian. So of course, I was mezmerized and made it my goal to learn everything about her that I could. Not two days later (and quite coincidentally) my good friend Katie (a much more superior blogger than myself) posted about Rachel. And now the news has come out (no pun intended) that Rachel is getting her own show on MSNBC. Let me tell you - Rush Limbaugh is thrilled. I would give you the link to his quote, but I don't want to promote his website in ANY WAY...so to save you that agony, I'll just throw it in here

"There's our buddy Dan Abrams, by the way, the last voice you heard there. Again,
he's been replaced by Rachel Maddow, or will be, in early September. He's losing
his show to somebody with more testosterone than he has. It's just a shame."

Ick... I need a shower.

And finally ....

#3 - It is everyone's civic duty to go out and get - AND THEN READ - this book:

Yes, that is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It will change the way that you look at your food forever (but not in that gross way like Skinny Bitch). Think you are being socially responsible by eating tofurky at Thanksgiving? Think again!

More later.

Up on the Watershed

Okay, I'm going to say it. I think it is slightly sneaky and unoriginal, and well...shitty, that k.d. lang has named her new album Watershed. It's not like Emily Saliers and the Indigo Girls have a copyright on the word, but it just seems wrong that the more commercially successful lang is...yeah, I'll say it... stealing Watershed from Saliers. What's her deal? She can't think of her own cool, at the crossroads of life motto? Seriously, k.d.? Where's your loyalty? And when the songs from this album end up on crappy-ass adult contemporary radio, will it somehow eclipse the original? Well, not in my eyes..but it still seems wrong somehow. It irks me. I'm irked.

I'm worried about Emily Saliers. She's sick, and the Indigo Girls have been canceling concerts left and right. I'm disappointed that I won't be seeing them tonight in Richmond, but mostly I'm just worried about Emily. I think it would be hard to be on the road, never sleeping in your own bed, and miserably sick. [I also have a secret fear that an experience like that will cause her to throw up her hands, say "enough" and walk away from touring...but banish the thought!]. But here's hoping she finally has the time to recover and that the rescheduled Richmond show is on a night when I can go.

I've got your back, Emily.

Indigo Lyrics of the Week (or month, or whatever, I just like this song)

"And it's alright if you hate that way, hate me cause I'm different, hate me cause I'm gay
Truth of the matter come around one day so it's alright
I look at this lifeline stretched way all across my hand
I look at the burned out empty like a plague across the land
And for everything I learn there are two I don't understand
That's why I'm still on a search through the weather strewn church I'm doing the best
I can and it's alright...

And it's alright though I feel afraid my plans in pieces my plans mislaid
It's the will of the way the will of the way the will of the only way
that could have brought me here today and it's alright."

It's Alright - Emily Saliers

New Years Resolutions...

Okay, so I've decided to post my resolutions. My strategy for doing this is two-fold: a) If I put them on paper (digitally speaking) then I will own those resolutions for myself - I can't say that I didn't know what I wanted; b) I will have others keeping tabs on me... which just out of pride and stubbornness will hopefully spur me forward towards fulfilling said resolutions. SO - here they are!

Liz's Resolutions for 2008!!

Financial (hey, I didn't say they would all be exciting) -
1) Pay down credit card bills
2) Get my interest rates lowered on my credit cards
3) Look for other ways to build and strenghten my credit
4) Create a savings account and actually put money into it

Health-
1) Stick to a vegetarian diet, including eating VERY little dairy and VERY little sugar
2) Do the Couch-to-5K Running Plan
3) Do strength training 3 times a week
4) By the Fall of 2008 I want to be physically fit enough to join/participate in this group (in particular, I want to learn how to rock climb and I want to do a bike trip and a canoe trip (yeah, I know... that's not that "particular")

Personal-
1) Take more time for reading
2) Learn how to make patterns and sew my own clothes
3) Create a career website for Women in the for-profit and non-profit sectors
4) Blog more (hehe.... *gulp*)
5) Take the time from school and work to attend at least 2(!) Pride Festivals and at least 3 (but hopefully more) Indigo Girls concerts
6) Find some honest-to-goodness friends to be my urban family
7) Find a way to bring the LGBT community in Frederick and surrounding areas together

Professional -
1) Take the job that I have now and try to put some creative spins on it to make it more interesting
2) Figure out what it is that I REALLY want to do for a living and create myself a path to get there

Alright, I've laid it all out there. Any comments or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.