2009: 6-10
Ivan E. Coyote is a masterful storyteller. I’m not sure exactly how Coyote identifies; the backs of Coyote’s books use female pronouns in the biography, but I’ve heard friends use male pronouns too. I remember Coyote saying something like, “People come up to me and say, thank you for describing so well the trans experience, and I say, you’re welcome; someone else says, thank you for describing the butch experience, and I say, you’re welcome; yet someone else says, thank you for describing the lesbian experience, and I say you’re welcome.” I went away from that thinking that all of those identities are parts of Coyote’s experience, that one isn’t necessarily valued above the others.
Coyote’s fifth book The Slow Fix (Arsenalia Press) came out this year and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction. Read The driver had gay hands as a great example of Coyote’s storytelling abilities, as published in Coyote’s xtra.ca column. I also highly (highly) recommend the CD One Trick Rodeo / You’re a Nation with some of my favorite stories of Coyote’s, which talk about things like growing up tomboy in northern Canada (“It Doesn’t Hurt”) or taking a young queer kid out to the movies (“I Like to Wear Dresses”).
IvanECoyote.com | Myspace.com/ivancoyote
Obviously, most queers are familiar with Amy Ray as being half of the folk-duo The Indigo Girls (whose most recent album, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, was released in March 2009), but Ray now has three solo records under her belt. Her solo stuff is much more punkrock than her work with the Indigo Girls, though it’s still got her sexy voice, gorgeous guitar, and fantastic lyrics.
Ray’s most recent album, Didn’t It Feel Kinder, came out in August 2008 and she’s been touring with the all-butch band Julie Wolf (#28) on keyboards, Kaia Wilson (#43) on guitar, and Melissa York (#94) on drums, which was an incredible sight. They are doing another tour in August 2009 and you really should not miss them.
DaemonRecords.com | Amy-Ray.com
Janel McCarville plays basketball for the WNBA’s New York Liberty. I’ll be honest, I don’t follow basketball closely, though I do enjoy when I make the time to go to a game, so I don’t really have any ability to tell you what statistics on her are impressive. I will tell you that she was born in 1982, is 6’2″, and has been playing basketball since middle school. She was #1 in the 2005 WNBA Draft and was chosen by the Charlotte Sting; when the Sting folded in 2007, she moved on over to the Liberty, and was named most improved player of the 2007 season. She was named WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week on two occasions during the 2008 season.
There’s this particular photo of her waving … and her hand! her arm! I can imagine queers everywhere swooning – and perhaps being a little scared – of the sheer size of those fingers.
WNBA Playerfile | @JanelMcCarville | Jmac Fansite
You can’t get very far when talking about hot butch and andro dykes without somebody mentioning Jenny Shimizu, though that was often followed with, “what’s she doing these days? Is she around anymore?” But yes, she is, very much so; she joined the cast of Bravo’s reality TV show “Make Me A Supermodel” in January 2009, and had a bit part in the film Itty Bitty Titty Committee which came out last year. In addition to being a model, she is also an incredible mechanic and can be found restoring Bentleys, Rolls Royce, and Cadillacs from the 1940′s, 50′s, and 60′s. Her tattoo of the woman riding a wrench on her bicep says “strap-on” instead of the tool’s brand, snap-on.
IMDB Profile | Myspace.com/jennyshimizuibtc
I first saw Syd Blakovich in The Crash Pad, the first DVD from Pink & White Productions. Since then, Blakovich has been in Crash Pad Series volumes 1, 2, and 3, Lesbian Life: Real Sex San Francisco, and more, and has been involved in the recent rise of elevating porn to a serious artform.
In addition to being one of the finest fucks in queer porn today, Blakovich is also a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitive fighter. The full-length indy porn film Champion, which came out in 2008, is about an MMA fighter and her tangles with an ex, a rivalry, one-night stands, and a manager, interspersing training scenes with sex scenes. Blakovich says: “It’s an MMA porno about a queer athlete that is super emo and filled with fighting and fucking, kinda like my real life, but I am not as big of an asshole in real life as I am in this movie. Okay, maybe that’s half true.” The sheer physicality of the Blakovich is amazing, and as far as I know Shine Louise Houston (#4) wrote this film with Blakovich in mind, since clearly I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part.
Make sure to check out Blakovich’s scenes over at the Crash Pad Series.
SydBlakovich.com | Champion | @SydBlakovich | TheCrashPadSeries.com
1-5 | 6-10 | 11-25 | 26-50 | 51-100
Honorable Mention