Edit: I have been able to restore all my archives to their proper location since reading this post. The links below have been changed to link to the new and proper location and old or out-of-date links have been removed.

Note to new readers:
From my stats page, I can see how many hits I'm getting, what pages people are reading, and how long readers are staying on my site. And I'm very flattered that so many of you are choosing to read deeply into the archives.

Unfortunately, a big chunk of posts from 2006 is missing (for boring technical reasons you don't want to know about) and I haven't managed to import them into this current version of my blog, with its boring, icky design that I absolutely cannot stand.

There isn't a quick way to change my design or import my old posts, but you can access these "missing" posts, which I still have up under my old design. A caution: you only navigate in a limited number of ways on these pages, and the search function does not work.

The way to reach my missing archives, should you wish to, is to go to the first one, from February 2006, and click the orange link above the post to the right of the word "Home" until you get to the last one in October 2006.

To make reading a bit less laborious, I've grouped some of these missing links into a few categories, a "best of," if you will.

Xenaverse-related:

• Something New in the Xenaverse


• She's Got Mona Lisa's Smile

• Superheroes Return


• Saint Nintendo


• Hair Horror


• Sontag's Revealing Journals


• O Mighty Isisisisisisisis

If you do choose to read all the way through, you'll notice I was on several podcasts last year. Unfortunately, I regret to inform that those episodes of the late, great Beppepodcast are no longer readily available, as my friend Joe took them all down because he's a big drama queen like that.

If you're looking for a good lesbian podcast, I recommend listening to Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters or fat bloated Jewish lesbian Madge Weinstein at Yeast Radio. Not coincidentally, I've been an audio commenter on both shows, inquiring about the Canadian beaver population on Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters and ranting about the pope on Yeast Radio/Sirius.

Note to long-time readers:
I know. It's a bit much, isn't it? Just think of it as Xenaweek here at In Sequence. But I know some of you long-time readers are comics fans, and probably watch Battlestar Galactica, and some of you are gay men, and kinda identify with Gabrielle, and some of you are horror fans, and you dig Bruce Campbell. It's all just one big fandom in a way.

By the way, any of you out there a big MySQL wiz and can help me restore my old posts to my database? I'm sure I've got *something* I could give you in exchange for your time.

And also my Wiisword and Wiistaff. Shortly before the 2007 Xena convention, there was a discussion on one of the forums about Xena and gaming. Someone suggested that it would be a great idea to set up a LAN at the convention for attendees to play a Xena video game. That would be great, if only there was a multiplayer game for one of the current generation of networked consoles or the computer.

I mean, damn, can you imagine how cool it would be to hear your fellow members of Clan Alti hail you over an Xbox 360 Live headset? "It's on, bitches!" Plus, if the game was open enough, we could kill Joxer over and over and over again.

I bought the Xena: Warrior Princess game for the original PlayStation. I can also remember watching a demo for a Xena game--I think for the Nintendo 64--at one of the cons several years ago. At the time, my fellow female convention goers didn't seem that into it, but times have changed.

Women, including lesbians, are embracing video games more. On the L Word, we've seen scenes of Shane and Alice playing video games together. In the illustration shown here from the Outsiders current issue (#44), a lesbian superhero couple can be seen enjoying some quality time with their PS2.

Now it's time for video games to catch up. The games industry has a craptacular history when it comes to addressing the female market. One of the biggest signs of indifference, in my view, is the unwillingness to make a female player character option standard for most games. How hard would it be, for example, for EA to make all-women versions of their sports titles?

Raising my sights a little higher, I'd like to see a Billie Jean King tennis game. And cross-platform, multiplayer Xena games in time for next year's con.

Although I've been writing the past few days about Lucy Lawless, I don't want to give my many new Xenite visitors the impression that I am not into Renee O'Connor. I am very into the ROC, and I loved it when she took the stage to dance at Lucy's concert, as shown in this photo from the evening.
To prove it, if I can follow-up on my previous post and continue another Internet meme, here is a list of some of the top things my girlfriend and I have argued bitterly about:

• Who is more responsible for carrying the subtext on Xena: Warrior Princess, Lucy or Renee?


• Who is the greater genius of the Beatles, John Lennon or Paul McCartney?


• Who represents the highest authority in the known universe, Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand?

1280x1064(138kb)
Right click to download. Click here for the meme.

The post-Lucy Lawless concert comedown is an ugly thing. After you've digested all you can on AUSXIP and the other usual hangouts, what else is there?

I've tried distracting myself to no avail. I have no idea what the first episode of season two Rome was about. People in robes passed back and forth, words were spoken...even watching episode two of the L Word was of limited use...perhaps Lucy should appear on the L Word...yeah, when's that gonna happen?

Last night, I tried digesting an episode of Bad Girls, thinking that could jolt me. Nada. It's still all about Lucy. I need me a Lucy patch right about now. Christie, pull yourself together, girl, and get that interview with Lucy and Renee up there.

I like to think of myself as a tough dyke, I admit it. A bit intimidating. A bit of a bruiser. All the more reason to be stunned at the effect Lucy Lawless had on me and a crowd of women like me when she took the stage at the Roxy. I felt like a wound-up toddler--overstimulated, whimpering, incapable of rational speech, at times almost on the verge of tears.

The Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend and I got in line for the show roughly an hour before the doors opened. L.A. is experiencing some uncharacteristically cold weather, so we shivered in line in the low-30s air until we started to go numb. During my punk teen years, when busting into music clubs was weekly sport, I had once broken into the back of the Roxy when I couldn't get in by the front door. With the weather so cold, it was tempting to try it again.

While in line, I recognized a fellow blogger from her live-blogging of the Xena Con earlier in the day. I introduced myself and we chatted: she was covering the event for AfterEllen.com, so check out her report there when it goes up, as well as the great concert coverage on her site, Dogged Blog.

MC Kat Crimins and comic Tig Nataro did a great job warming up the audience and set a conversational tone for the evening. Portions of the concert were like a traditional rock or pop concert, but there were often chatty interludes and long intros that reflected the tight relationship Lucy has with her fans.

Dogged Blog reports that there were some problems with the sound initially. Since I was in the mosh pit about two rows back from the stage, it wasn't something I noticed, since there's a "wall of sound" effect when you're standing that close. However, I did feel that throughout the night I heard aspects of Lucy's voice that I'd never heard before, both in the higher and lower registers. If this is the beginning of a music career, it's exciting to imagine what's to come.

Speaking of coming, as soon as Lucy hit that stage in her leather chaps, I felt a tight grip on my arm that just seemed to get tighter and squeeze harder with each refrain. It was my girlfriend, twisting my arm with excitement. As I watched Lucy grip the microphone and belt out one of her original songs, "Down on My Knees," I could feel the girlfriend start to sway next to me as she moaned in my ear "the hands, the hands" (she's obsessed with Lucy's well-endowed mitts, which she lovingly calls "her Frankenhands").

I'd heard one of Lucy's originals songs at another event, but this time around both of her original pieces really impressed me with how catchy they sounded. Even with an audience that's positively disposed towards a performer, it can be hard to get them to connect with a song they're not that familiar with. So I was surprised at how much I dug Lucy's rendition of the New Zealand pop song, "Maxine," a fact I can only attribute to her abilities as a singer.

In contrast, on well-known tunes that are easy to get wrong, like "Don't Let Me Down" and "Piece of My Heart," Lucy's performance was so strong that the audience went completely apeshit. It was full-on insanity. Lucy also had a great rapport with her band and her back-up singers (the two women were also very sexy). During a costume change, one of the back-ups, Sharlotte Gibson, came forward to do a very rockin' performance of an original song.

The back-up singers also appeared to be having fun with the audience. I really liked it when Lucy stripped off her top shirt, revealing a tank underneath and threw it at one of her back-up singers. In the spirit of Lucy worship that permeated the evening, the female singer held the sweaty garment to her face and inhaled deeply and joyously before throwing it backstage. (I yelled at her to throw it to me, but alas, no.)

There was good news from the concert, as well as some bad. Lucy is going to be appearing on Curb Your Enthusiasm (yay!). On the downside, Lucy's appearance at the Dinah Shore Weekend, which was originally supposed to be on Saturday, has been moved to Friday and she's only been asked to do three songs, not a full set. (Private to organizers: Are you crazy? Fix it, fix it now.)

Don't forget, you can still get tickets for tonight.

Concert photos appearing on this page are all Copyright 2007 Gregg DeGuire / lucylawless.info. Thanks to Mary D. for letting me use them here. For tons more photos and other reports, check out Mary's site. For more coverage of Lucy on In Sequence, do a search for "Lucy" or "Xena." She's all over the place.

The Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend and I have tickets to see Lucy Lawless in concert at the Roxy this weekend. After her appearance on Celebrity Duets, Lucy decided to launch a singing career. Although the Saturday show is sold out, if you're in the L.A. area you can still get tickets for the Sunday night show.

Of course, the CLRHG and I have seen Lucy sing before, at previous Xena conventions (number twelve is being held this weekend), and at gay pride. We also went to see Lucy when she appeared at Girl Bar at The Factory in West Hollywood. For various reasons, I never wrote up the event for this blog, but I thought I'd make up for it now.

A friend of ours came in from out of town for the Factory show. Well, actually she came in from out of the country. The show was set to start at midnight, and on the day of the concert I came down with the most evil virus thingy. So I put my digital camera in their hands, hoping they would bring back some good pictures, and settled in for the night with my fever.

The pictures they brought back told a strange story of their evening. It seemed to go something like this: blurry lesbian go-go dancer, blurry lesbian go-go dancer, back of some chick's head, empty space, blurry photos of Lucy cropped in interesting ways. The best of the bunch are shown here. I've named them "Torso Close-up" and "Lucy on the Stage with Acid." Perhaps you can see why I'm eager to expereince the concert in person this time, rather than by proxy.

The Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend is a bit intimidated at the prospect of being that close to a singing, possibly gyrating Lucy for a long period of time. She told me she was afraid she'd get so excited she would just start screaming nonstop like the girls in A Hard Day's Night. I had to concur with her that this would be an embarrassing state to be in. I hope she can hold it together.

In terms of my own reaction, I've been thinking I might emulate Tom Jones's fans and toss my panties with a housekey attached onto the stage. Over Christmas, I made note of the many useful tutorials available on how to wrap presents in cloth, thinking that could help me present my gift of a housekey in the most tidy fashion. Better than clipping it with a safety pin, I think. (I should not have linked to Tom Jones's site. Now I cannot get the song "She's A Lady" out of my head.)

If you want a preview of the show, there's a number of reheasal videos available at the Official Lucy Lawless Fan Site. I particularly recommend part 5, which has Lucy covering Melissa Etheridge's "Like the Way I Do." There's also a Roxy Countdown page over at MySpace, and ongoing coverage at Mary D.'s concert subsite.

Supposedly the playlist hasn't been finalized, but there's been mention of a possible Pretenders cover. I can tell you right now that if Lucy sings "Brass in Pocket" I think that will be grounds for my losing it. As most people know, there is a fine line between pleasure and pain and that song may be sliding over the side of exquisite pleasure into the unbearable agony of unrequitable lesbian lust. In other words, look for me screaming my head off a la A Hard Day's Night.

If you're at Lucy's show on Saturday, look for me and the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend, don't forget to look for us and say "hey." We should be easy to spot in the crowd--we'll be the two dykes up in front.

I've written before on In Sequence about my love for the character Bette Porter on The L Word. Now, as The L Word cranks up for a new season, I thought I would mention the parallels I've noticed between Bette Porter and Renee Montoya, one of the lesbian characters in the DC comics series 52.

Bette and Renee are both lesbians, racial minorities and professionals. Circumstantially, they're both going through what could generously be called "a career transition." Bette Porter recently took time out to care for her father during his last days (Incidentally, I thought Jennifer Beals deserved an Emmy for that). Renee Montoya, in issue #33, was doing caretaking for The Question in what appear to be his final days.

Next, there's the lawbreaking connection. When last we saw Bette, she was making a beeline for the border with her baby in tow, having kidnapped the little tyke from her ex, Tina. Renee, on the other hand, recently killed a suicide bomber while following a vigilante-like course.

Rene and Bette also share similar coping techniques. In the screenshot above, Bette is seen skulking in a bar before pouncing on an attractive young woman, whom she takes back to her hotel room. There follows a very hot scene--in which Jennifer Beals's outstanding upper arms are shown to great avantage--featuring Bette peeling the bra off her newfound friend from behind. The next morning we find Bette sulking in a chair, staring at the unclothed woman in her bed as she contemplates her actions of the previous night.

Compare this with Renee's stress management routine in 52 issue #18. Ridden with guilt after taking out a female suicide bomber, Renee is said to be "coping in her usual way." We see Renee, naked against dusky purple sheets, a dark-haired nymphette at her side. On the following page (she has to get dressed in a hurry when Black Adam, Isis and The Question burst suddenly into the room, just when she's "getting some"), Renee grips the neck of what looks like a beer bottle. Later, The Question refers to Renee's "week-long benders with the prettiest lass" in the city.

Clearly, Bette and Renee could enjoy a night out on the town together. I like the way the "old school" lesbian and "new school" lesbian ways are blended together in these two characters. You have the old school drinking-and-womanizing to block out the pain; then there's the new school nonmonogamy-as-personal-empowerment and underwear-by-Victoria's-Secret bits mixed in as well.

A shiver of anticipation rushes through me knowing that The L Word Season Four is about to start. Sure, there were some problems with Season Three, but time has passed and now all is forgiven. Well, maybe not all. Tina.

Many L Word fans were upset about the death of Dana at the end of last year. Although I will miss the character, I didn't have a problem with her death from a story perspective. Dana's demise from breast cancer freaked me out enough to get me in to the doctor for a mammogram after going for four years without one. That's what the story was supposed to do, so I'm not going to quarrel with it. Lesbians are known to be negligent about their health needs, and if it takes a beloved character's death to get the point across, it seems like a small price to pay.

While some fans grieved at Dana's passing, others were exasperated that the character Max lived on. In the show, Max, a transgendered character, is transitioning from a female body to a male one. I thought last season's plotline was ambitious but a bit too complex. It reminded me of when gay storylines were first appearing on television and they would include long, explanatory speeches to get viewers up to speed on the subject of homosexuality so that a drama could take place.

The image above is one of the new downloads available from the Showtime site. I'm looking forward to checking out the new cast members this Sunday.

The Cute Little Red-Haired Girlfriend and I settled in this past Friday to watch Lucy Lawless perform in the final segment of Celebrity Duets. The show was built around a competition and Lucy came close to winning but wound up in second place. If you missed it, you can download clips from all of Lucy's performances or just view pics at Mary D.'s subsite devoted to the show. There's even more available at Lucy's official fan website, where Lucy is periodically posting, podcasting, and videocasting.

Earlier that day there had been another close call involving Lucy. I'd picked up a copy of the October 10 Advocate because there was a feature on Lucy focusing on her appearance on Celebrity Duets but also touching on other shows, including Battlestar Galactica. One of the questions asked in the interview was whether Lucy would be making an appearance on The L Word, a question that has crossed my mind, say, a zillion times.

As soon as I read Lucy's answer, I knew I had to call the Cute-Little-Red-Haired Girlfriend immediately and tell her about it. This was a mistake. Because Lucy's answer was that she had been considered for a role on The L Word, but hadn't gotten it--the role ultimately went to Karina Lombard. This tantalizing message, once delivered to the Girlfriend, almost resulted in the world's first death by completely unassisted orgasmic implosion. Just the thought of Lucy Lawless in The L Word was almost enough to do her in. It was a close call, but I am happy to report she made it through.

Incidentally, I thought I would report that I am not reading the new Xena comic books from Dynamite, though I have given them the once over. From what I've seen in the comic store and read online, they seem to be focused on or around the season two timeline, in a very Joxer-centric sort of world. I've been through too much blood, sweat and tears on the road to a fully acknowledged subtext to go back to stories where Joxer's courting Gabrielle.

Plus, if you've seen the covers of the Xena comics, you'll see they've drawn Xena's breasts all wrong. There's been a lot of focus on how to draw proper breasts in the comics blogosphere of late ("comics--the breastiest fandom of them all!"). However, this is not about "proper" it's about Xena. We have spent a long time observing Xena's breasts chez In Sequence and I can say with some authority that those are not the breasts you're looking for. (Ooops, that's another fandom entirely!)

It's true, it's official, it's confirmed. I, Teresa Ortega, will buy any comic book title that features two women kissing on the cover. I am powerless against it. So feel free to continue this trend, publishers, especially those of you pursuing the long tail--rest assured that this maneuver will gain you a sale with me, now and always.

While we're discussing lesbians, I noticed Yahoo! News seems to be getting into gay humor, or at least I supposed that was the purpose of their recent headline story, Finger length linked to female sporting potential. As always, the gay community appreciates your outreach.

After my long, hand-wringing post about Susan Sontag's homosexuality and my feelings about outing, Jon Stewart had a hilarious joke last night on the Daily Show that cut to the heart of the matter, referencing Sontag's lesbianism and slamming the mainstream press for being less than honest in writing about it.

The focus of his joke, however, was really something entirely different. Stewart was commenting on Newsweek's recent decision to run a hard news cover story on three out of their four localized national editions, but run a soft piece on celebrity photographer Annie Liebovitz as their cover story for the U.S. edition. Stewart ridicules the magazine for not only shielding the U.S. from real news, but for also trying to obfuscate the nature of the Liebovitz's long term relationship by describing Sontag as "the person she was closest to" for a decade and a half.

Jon continued, "They just have a lot of common interests....photography, literature...each others' vaginas." You can watch the whole clip after watching a short ad.

My jaw dropped down to the floor when I read Sunday's New York Times and realized that Susan Sontag's private journals are going to be published. The Times was running an excerpt from the first journal she kept, and they promised there would be more to come--many more.

According to the Times, Sontag kept a journal intermittently for most of her life. I quickly scanned down the article to see what Sontag's journals might look like. Would they be like ordinary journals, revealing the interior life of the public figure, or would they be more studied, almost like notes for her written works?

When I finally sat down to read the excerpt in full, I was even more amazed by what was revealed. For example, in this excerpt, from 1958:

Dec. 24

My desire to write is connected with my homosexuality. I need the identity as a weapon, to match the weapon that society has against me.

It doesn't justify my homosexuality. But it would give me--I feel--a license.

I am just becoming aware of how guilty I feel being queer. With H., I thought it didn't bother me, but I was lying to myself. I let other people (e.g. Annette [Michelson, film scholar]) believe that it was H. who was my vice, and that apart from her I wouldn't be queer or at least not mainly so.

I had already heard Sontag was a lesbian before reading this excerpt from her journals. I knew it the way gay people know these things, through the gay grapevine. I also knew she was known to be reticent about discussing it, even though her sexuality was considered an open secret among her peers.

When Sontag passed away, I wrote several posts about how much I admired her, but chose not to mention her lesbianism. I guess I felt protective of Sontag's desire for privacy. It seems increasingly like gays and lesbians get called on the carpet for gossiping about celebrities or for saying someone's gay. For instance, take the recent rumors about Oprah. But what many people do not appreciate is how often we stay silent, because we know what the costs of exposure are.

I don't think I necessarily made a good decision in choosing not to mention Sontag's sexuality. In hindsight I think my protectiveness was misplaced. But then, I can point to my betters and say they did the same thing. For example, I noted that the obituary in the New York Times failed to mention Susan Sontag's longtime companion, even though it is ludicrous to suggest that the paper of record was unaware of the relationship. When asked about the omission by the gay press, the Times replied that they could not get confirmation regarding her lover's identity before press time.

I'd like here to make a distinction that often gets forgotten in discussions about outing. (If you are interested in the subject, I suggest reading the book Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing by Larry Gross.) The intent of outing is usually not to out people, it is to out the press. Outing points out the bad faith exhibited by the press in reporting "news" about celebrities and other personalities which they know to be factually incorrect.

In this way, outing shows that the press is not always committed to objective reporting of the facts. It also shows that the press is complicit with practices that oppress gays and lesbians. I don't necessarily agree with the practice of outing, but I think people need to understand what it is and what it is not. It has political and social implications outside the somewhat frivolous context of celebrity gossip in which it is often discussed.

Back to Sontag. I'm excited that Sontag's journals are going to be published, and that I will get to read about her own understanding of her sexual identity, perhaps as it evolved over decades. I hope I will also learn more about the decision to publish posthumously. I did some investigation before writing this and discovered that Sontag's son, a writer and book editor, is the executor of her estate. So I imagine it was a conscious decision on her part to publish the journals, which in turn prompted me to publish this reflection on my own writing decisions.

I was browsing GameSetWatch last week and came across a post about an academic study being conducted on gay and lesbian gamers. There was a link to GaymerSurvey.org where gay and lesbian video gamers can participate in the study by answering a survey.

Although it is a long survey, I found it extremely interesting to take, mostly because it revealed to me how very low my expectations are when it come to seeing gay and lesbian characters in games. Then again, since a lot of my activity within video games involves crashing into things at high speeds, spraying goop on enormous carnivorous plants, and collecting wood resources, maybe it's just not that relevant.

On second thought, I take that back. Collecting wood resources is probably relevant. In fact, if was given an in-game choice to assign a group of townspeople, a clan of orcs, or a bunch of dykes the task of collecting wood, I'd go with the gay girls every time. My people excel at axe-related tasks.

I feel like DC Comics just planted a wet one on me.

Yesterday I read the BBC news piece stating that Batwoman was going to be returning to comics as a lesbian. Some further investigation brought me to a New York Times article,

"Straight (and Not) Out of the Comics," which states: "In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in '52.'"

That is SO EFFING HOT!!!!!! I ran out and bought the first issues of 52 today. I'm so frickin' excited! Although, I have to say, my friendly comic book seller was not so excited about the prospect of 52's weekly format. I could see what he meant. There are only a few issues out and he already looked like he was swimming in paper.

Is it just me, or does the red and black combination bring the image of a vampire to anyone else's imagination? I wonder if she'll get to meet Catwoman????

(OMG, that last idea was so thrilling I think I just wet my pants.)