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Catie Curtis is a fabulous
singer/songwriter who happens to be an out lesbian. She was one of the
featured entertainers on The L Word Cruise
in October/November 2004. Catie also will appear as an extra in the
episode that was filmed on the cruise. We tried to meet up for an interview
while on the ship, but first filming, then shore excursions, and finally
sea sickness (mine) delayed this interview until just before Christmas.
If you don't know Catie's music, we recommend a few samples to get
you hooked:
Kiss
that Counted
Magnolia
Street
St.
Lucy
I caught up with Catie first at one of the casting (aka "cattle")
calls in the Crow's Nest Lounge on the 12th floor of the ship. This
was gorgeous room with panoramic views of the sea. Hundreds of women
gathered each morning in the lounge, hoping to be called to be an extra
for filming of the L word.
I couldn't help but notice that you were not only in some of
the extras scenes, but you were in some choice ones with very few extras.
What scenes were you in, and how did you get selected?
There were these cattle calls at 9:30 in the morning. We’d be
spotted by Olivia staff and volunteers involved with these cattle calls.
So my partner and I were friends of both these people, so they’d
pick us out and let us do the fun stuff. It was one of the perks of
being an artist on the boat—we got special treatment in the extras
arena. That was really fun for us. We did the commitment ceremony scene
and the cello concert. We did one scene when the women were boarding
the ship. I don’t know if we’ll end up in anything, but
it was fun to be part of it. We’re fans of the show, and we had
a good time with it.
Did you plan on spending your vacation filming, or did you
end up getting sucked into it?
We totally got sucked into it! We were not at all planning it. I had
a distant hope that they’d film my concert. When I found out they
weren’t filming my concert or the Indigo Girls concert, which
I was singing a little on...I had assumed they’d film one of us
since we were the lesbian artists on the ship
I felt like I was probably not going to have anything to do with the
filming but when we got up there I guess it was because of the fact
that the Olivia our friends that work for and volunteer with Olivia
were involved with the casting We thought how fun just to be part of
it. We ended up meeting some really nice people as we waited for our
scenes. That was the time when I got to know other passengers on the
ship. And luckily for me it was before my concert so, there were a lot
of people that I met on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the process
of shooting who didn’t know my music, and we just got to know
each other and then they came to my show on Wednesday night. After that,
they saw me as someone different.
It was kind of nice to get to know them as another passenger involved
in the extras shooting. Then on Wednesday night, to actually get to
play a show for everybody.
That’s so funny because, from my perspective, I’ve
been following you for about eight years. It’s quite the opposite
– I’ve seen about a dozen shows over the years. It’s
hard to imagine someone not knowing you, but I guess there were some
who did not know you prior to the cruise.
You gotta understand, I sometimes make the assumption that if someone’s
a lesbian, they know my music. And probably, half the people on the
ship know me, which is a pretty good percent. But that means half of
them don’t. Because they just don’t listen to that much
folk music or they listen to stuff that’s a little more over the
radar. (What’s the opposite of under the radar?) Anyway, I thought
the whole experience of watching the filming, of being part of the filming,
and just generally having L word staff and actresses on board was such
a pleasure and added so much to my experience of being on the Olivia
cruise that week.
I would venture that 99% of the people on the boat felt that way.
I heard there were complainers who were like – quote – I
can’t walk down that hall. It was worth it the tradeoff of being
around and I think more so for those of us who watch the show. I was
one of those people who missed the first half of the season and only
caught onto it because friends were raving. I guess if I hadn’t
watched any of it, I might have been a little put out by the small inconveniences.
Did you get a chance to speak to any of the cast, either during
your shooting as an extra or by running into anybody in the halls?
Yeah. I said hi to Leisha. I played a couple of shows with
her when she was in The Murmurs. Then we had dinner
one night with Mia and she was great. She's very engaging, and kind
of bookish. She's working on a book for Amnesty International about
displaced people. She’s very down-to-earth, warm, and interesting.
I know she plays a character on the show who is not the most likeable
and yet in person she’s incredibly likeable. We also had dinner
one night with Sarah and likewise she was really sweet and seemed really
comfortable with the whole lesbian scene, even though she's straight.
Her current boyfriend is an actor on the tv show Reba.
I guess you can assume that most of these actresses are straight. One
was confirmed. I just had a great time with everyone I met and also
with Jane (Lynch) who makes an appearance (on the L word in Season 2).
It’s funny – we had a few meals with Jane and Anne. We just
enjoyed them very much. We have some friends in common back in Boston.
And never once did she mention that she’s on the L word this coming
season. She never tossed it out there and I had no idea until I looked
at your Web site.
She’s got a really good role. She’s going to be
in several episodes. Have you done any other acting?
Any interest in it now that you got to do this little bit?
I did acting in high school and college and I was asked once
to audition for the role of singer/songwriter in the movie High Fidelity.
I auditioned but I didn’t get it. I’ve been in some Faith
Soloway plays. Have you heard of Miss
Folk America and Jesus
has Two Mommies?
No.
I need to send these to you. You would love these plays. What’s
funny is Faith Solloway who wrote these plays – they’re
musical comedies and they’re just outrageous. Faith who wrote
them used to work at Second City in Chicago with Jane. I’m friends
with Faith and Harley, her partner, here in Boston and their daughter
who’s the same age as our daughter. And she and Jane have this
long history of having written things together. So, now there are plays
that Faith’s written that I’ve been in, so it’s all
come full circle.
This was my first Olivia cruise. Was it yours?
I did one seven years ago in Hawaii. I booked another one
for next year because I liked it so much. It was an intense place to
be and a wonderful place to be for both Halloween and the election results.
I had a really tough day and I think most people did on Wednesday, November
3. It was really great to be with other people who were of like mind.
I saw you in Provincetown at Women’s
Week in October a few weeks before the election. You were talking
about the World Series and my feeling was that if the Red Sox win, it’s
got to be a good sign for John Kerry.
It would be too good to win both the World Series and to have
John Kerry win. So, we won the World Series and we lost the presidency.
I would have taken the presidency.
Let me ask you more about Ptown. I know you’ve been
playing Vixen a lot
in the last few years. Have you had any issues or problems about your
playing out, lesbian venues such as Vixen and the Olivia cruises.
No. I’m in the process of international adoption so I
worry a little bit because of adopting as a single person and essentially
a straight single female. If they Google Catie Curtis, they’re
going to find out a lot more than I want them to know. But I assume
they’re not going to and that they’re going to just process
me along with everyone else. That’s my only concern. Even though
we live in Massachusetts, we’re not legally married yet because
of the second adoption. So, as soon as that goes through, we’re
going to be able to get married and co-adopt. And that will feel really
good because right now we haven’t even co-adopted our first kid.
So, my only concern would be if some right-wing activist decided to
report me or something. I’m not overly concerned about that. In
general, playing these sort of out venues or events has just given more
meaning to my job as a singer and a writer. (POST SCRIPT: Catie and
her partner just brought 7 month old Celia home from a Latin American
country!)
I played an example of a really touching event in Salt Lake City in
the fall that was a PFLAG national conference that was about a week
before the election. Utah was facing one of these anti-gay marriage
amendments and I was just so moved by the speaker, the people who were
there, the parents of gays and lesbians. You can see the world changing
slowly even though there are these subtext we are so much further than
we were twenty years ago. And when I’m out there in Salt Lake
City and there are thousands of people out there supporting gay rights,
you know things are getting better. Even though they are there to support
the opposition to this terrible measure, it’s creating public
debate. A lot of people are rethinking their views. I think it’s
going to get ugly before it gets good, I think it’s still forward
motion in terms of more visibility of gays, more acceptance and respect
of gay families.
The cool thing about touring is that you get a sense of what’s
going on all around the country.
I had a tour right after I got off the boat. I had a 12 day
of tour of what I was calling the Red States Tour. I never had such
a pleasant experience on the road because everybody I played to was
so nice, it was like these arts presenters who many times are these
progressive straight people who run arts centers, they were so pleased
to have someone who was willing to say I’m left of center and
I’m here to play for you. I didn’t have much to lose coming
from Boston, MA and playing my lefty folk music. They really appreciate
it in these places because it’s getting to be harder for people
to say what they think. It wasn’t just the gay issue. It was everything
- the election and the war, all kinds of values issues going on. Most
of my music is not about that but I seem to represent something anyway.
And I appreciate the opportunity to bring a little humor and support
to these people who are suffering through living in Red States. According
to the election, it wasn’t a landslide in any of these states,
so it’s not so different in these states than it is on the coasts.
Note: Around the time of the Olivia cruise, Cheryl Jacques
left her position as Executive Director of the HRC
which led us to discuss gay marriage.
My idea is that all civil marriages should
be civil unions and that religious marriage should be something that
each church decides. So that the legal issues between any two adults
who are getting married are always called a civil union. Because marriage
shouldn’t be a legal institution or a government institution.
It should be a religious institution. That’s what the religious
people are saying – it should be a religious institution. So it’s
okay then to take it away from government control. All the government
can control is civil unions. And let’s just start all over and
define what a civil union is. Get rid of 100 years of baggage where
somebody is the property of somebody else and all these arcane laws
in heterosexual marriage.
I think we need someone running for office, a Democrat who is willing
to tell it like it is. It’s hard because you can second guess
all day, you don’t know if Kerry had been more clear and told
it like it was if he would have turned off more people because he’s
liberal. It’s hard for me to accept that the country’s not
liberal because that’s what the country was founded on –
individual rights and freedom, and that’s supposed to be a very
American thing.
Speaking of American things, in addition to being a Catie
fan, I’m a Springsteen fan. I know you’ve got some Springsteen
connections. Roy Bittan produced one of your albums and Pamela Springsteen
did the photography on Dreaming
in Romance Languages.
Yes, and Trina Shoemaker who recorded my last two records worked
on the Patty Scialfa record. I would be sending her demo’s from
my record and she would say, send it to me here at Springsteen’s
house. And I was like – this is his address! [Catie was all excited]
I did get a chance to meet Bruce when Roy invited me to a show right
after we worked together. And I got to go back stage and hang out with
them and that was pretty great. I can say honestly I LOVE Bruce Springsteen.
I think he’s such a gem. He’s such an amazing artist, performer,
visionary. I see him as one of those really rare people… You know
what’s really cool – he’s actually had the commercial
success a person needs to have to have the impact. It’s funny
you asked this because I just answered a question for She
Magazine – if you could do a duet with anyone, who
would it be and I said Bruce Springsteen.
How about Jimmy Ryan? Where has he been?
I’m actually seeing him tomorrow. He’s playing
his own stuff. He’s made a couple of Jimmy Ryan records since
he stopped working with me. We play a couple of gigs a year together
just for fun. He plays a lot of local clubs, almost every night here
in Boston. Instead of going on the road a lot, he gets more time at
home with his wife. He plays his own stuff and he really enjoys that.
We toured together for six or seven years. I think we just both got
to a point where we wanted to give it a rest and move onto other things.
We still occasionally hang out together and write songs.
A friend of mine, a music critic and reviewer, has been telling
me I’ve got to start listening to Mary
Gauthier.
She’s from Louisiana. She’s a strong, Southern
woman with Steve Earle sensibility. Kind of something between Lucinda
Williams, John Prine, and Steve Earle. We wrote a song together. (Catie's
version of "Sugar Cane", Mary's
version of "Sugar Cane")
My friend’s take is that her album Mercy
Now is going to bust her out into the mainstream.
I haven’t heard it and I hope it launches her out there. She’s
a really talented writer. She has a very rich history like she ran away
from home when she was a young kid and lived with drug addicts and prostitutes
in the streets and was in jail on her 18th birthday. Really gritty stuff.
And now she’s clean and sober and really hard working at this
music stuff. She's done really well in Europe but hasn't quite take
off here. I think part of the issue is that the northeast and the east
coast--the blue states--would embrace a lesbian singer songwriter, but
they're not as crazy about country music. And country music is not so
welcoming to an out lesbian. It'll be interesting to see what happens
with her because she has an interesting profile. She's a compelling
character as well as a compelling writer, and I think there is a good
chance that, depending on how the record sounds, that she could break
out.
Well, you've got your CD out now, Dreaming
in Romance Languages, and I know you're touring
to support it. What else does '05 hold in store for you?
The new baby! And I'm working on material for a new record
and doing that Olivia cruise later in the year. I would love to get
some music on the L word, too.
Best of luck to you in '05, and we'll see you at more shows
soon!
More on Catie:
CatieCurtis.com
Catie's
upcoming shows
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