A-Camp Recap Day #3: We’ve Got Talent
V. America’s Best Talent
in the wings at the talent show (photo by taylor)
Riese: I couldn’t believe that the last night was the last night, but then it was the last night and it was the last night. To the best of my recollection, I had been drinking continually since 4pm and, per ushe, I’d only been able to consume 2-3 bites of dinner before being hauled off for somebody’s pressing needs/desires.
Julie & Brandy hosted The Talent Show and we’d had people sign up to perform. It was mostly campers — and I don’t even know where to begin reviewing that amazingness and talent — but also Bren did stand-up, Gabby read a poem, and Alex, Katrina, Stef & Laura did a musical performance. There were poems, songs, raps, hula-hooping, and “skits.”
Carly: In all honesty, I was a little concerned about the talent show being boring or too long, but once it got underway I was BLOWN AWAY by the level of talent and enthusiasm I was seeing.
Stef: We didn’t really piece together what exactly we’d be doing until the day of, but for the amount of time we spent putting our talent show act together, I was pretty proud… Everybody in the talent show was just amazing.
Riese: So , backstory of Stef/Katrina/Alex/Laura’s “Make Love in this Club”/”Bad Romance” mashup — in November 2009, Laura visited Katrina at school and they did an acoustic cover of “Make Love In This Club” and put it on Facebook. I remember watching it and thinking “I love my children so much!” Also in late November 2009, Alex decided to learn the “Bad Romance” dance, and went and filmed it at Stef’s house. I remember when she came home (well, to my apartment) afterwards with the video, I was there with Julia (Miss February) and Alex showed us the video and was like, “do you think it’s good? Should we put it on autostraddle?” and Julia and I were like HOLD THE PHONE THIS IS THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO YOUTUBE. We posted it immediately. So, in addition to being awesome in its own right, their Talent Show Mashup brought it all full circle — how we’ve all grown and changed! — together.
Katrina: Covering Usher/Lady Gaga songs on ukuleles: something you would have predicted happening at camp that totally happened at camp. I discovered something that I never knew about myself before, which is that it had been my dream to rap in front of hundreds of women. Who knew. Feel free to view the inspirations for this performance through this video of 19- and 20-year-old drunk me and Laura covering Usher for the first time and of course, this Stef and Alex Autostraddle classic.
Stef: I do not remember anything about our actual performance, only that I was afraid to look at Alex lest I burst out laughing or forget the words.
Lizz: When Alex, Stef, Laura and Katrina performed “Love in this Club” I really felt like, for the first time in my life, everything was going to be okay.
Laura: I think the main takeaway from the talent show was a) autostraddlers are really REALLY talented and b) you have not lived until you’ve seen Alex Vega dance.
Alex: This talent show was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. To think we were actually worried about it – that not many people would want to jump on stage in front of 160 other lesbians. Not only did many sign up, but all rocked it and turned a regular talent show into a series of perfect little moments that I’ll seriously remember forever and I don’t care how cheesy that sounds. My heart exploded in my chest that night and I may or may not have teared up a little (in a good/overwhelmed way) when the hula-hooping happened.
Brittani: This was the best talent show I’ve ever been to. In addition to people being on stage with feelings, everyone was extremely entertaining and cute. I gave several standing ovations. Plus, Beth rapped.
Marni: I was sitting to the side of the stage and out of the corner of my eye I saw Beth, the site director, standing just outside the entrance to the room with a piece of paper in her hand, peering in. I went over to her and she said, “I wrote something, do you think there might be time for me to perform it in your talent show?” And I smiled and said, “You’re on next.”
Carmen: Beth rapped for us about hoping we had a lot of sex and I offered to sign her to Lil Carmen’s label, Pretty Money Records. We’re very exclusive.
Marni: She’d written the most adorable rap about our group and how great the weekend had been. She’d been amazingly sweet and accommodating to us the whole time we were there, but I didn’t really appreciate how lucky we were to have found her and such an open-minded, safe place for A-Camp until that moment.
Emily: The only thing gayer than a bunch of lesbians in the woods playing guitar around a campfire is a bunch of lesbians in the woods singing “Call It Off” by Tegan and Sara. I mean really, it was almost more gay than gay sex.
Carmen: I thought about texts I should not send multiple times during this process, namely during “First Day of My Life” and “Call It Off,” also known as “The Moment At Camp In Which Katrina And I Remembered Instinctively How To Harmonize Tegan and Sara Together.”
Little Rascals sing Tegan & Sara (photo by ashley p)
Riese: You know when you find someone and make them join your team because they are really awesome and then you get to witness everybody else finding out how awesome that person is? That’s what happened at camp with Gabby over and over. She’s a kickass poet, and what she read at camp was so so so amazing that afterwards I literally got up from side-stage, ran to the back, gave her a hug, told her I loved her, and then ran back to my seat.
happiest moments (photo by taylor)
Robin: Words really can’t express how unifying the talent show felt. It was nice to sit down beside Marni, Riese and Carly and really listen and watch everything that was happening in front of me. I was blown away by the sentiment and love from that stage.
Crystal: When some of the Troubletones got up on stage and performed this Autostraddled version of “Don’t Stop Believing”, my heart burst. It was that one A-Camp moment that I’m sure I’ll remember decades from now.
Laneia: The talent show was seriously amazing. I kept wanting to cry/fall apart at the support from the audience! If a person forgot the words to a song or dropped something they weren’t supposed to drop, the audience was just so sweet and full of love. It was like everyone just wanted everyone else to feel good about what they were doing.
Jess S.: Everyone did such a fantastic job, but my favorite part (besides Brandy Howard announcing that she likes my ass and vagina during the staff introductions) was when my cabin (Forever 21, YAY!) did a hilarious skit where they did impressions of the staff. They seriously nailed it. I felt like a proud mom.
Riese: Oh my G-d, the impressions of the staff skit — firstly, they totally made it impossible for me to talk when I went on stage later because they nailed my stage presence so acutely (involves, apparently, me covering my face and bowing a lot) that I totally had to come up with a new way to stand. P.J made a great Julie Goldman.
Emily: After the talent show Brandy Howard introduced me as the love of her life which I will never forget, and then Riese made everyone come and it was super great.
Riese: I just loved everybody so much the whole night long. I also kept drinking out of Marni’s flask. The only thing that could’ve made this night more perfect would’ve been Tess and Tinkerbell being there!
Carmen: I was wearing my YOLO shirt and everyone kept accidentally looking at my boobs. Sometime between this and the dance, I found out Brandy Howard knew my name.
Laneia: Forget it, I was too overwhelmed to even process the end of the talent show. I just loved everyone in the room so much that I almost died, basically. And Brandy Howard said my girlfriend was hot!
Brittani: Being on stage with Team Autostraddle pretty much made my life and I can’t wait until I can stand on stage in a room full of shiny-faced queerios with a bunch I’m proud to call my co-workers again.
Riese: Although I didn’t realize this at the time, I was WASTED by the time I got on stage — you guys, altitude is a thing! — and I’ve got no clue what I said besides that I told everybody that they had to COME next time, and I couldn’t really get over how funny that was. Like the double meaning of COME. Uh-huh. HILARIOUS!
I kept thinking of that Stephen Dunn line: “I love the number of people / you can love at the same time.”
“The Talent Show was the funnest time I had at camp. In fact, it was one of the funnest nights I’ve ever had in my whole life. I feel sorry for people who will never know the feeling of being in that room.”
– Brandy Howard
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VI. Dance Dance Revolution
Bren: During dance decoration time I finally learned how to properly tie a balloon. The secret: two fingers. That’s also the secret to lots of things at A-Camp.
dance prep (photo by taylor)
Carly: Spoiler alert: I haven’t DJed in like, years, and had entirely forgotten how to do so. So the dance was a BIT delayed and the first 6 or so songs were plagued with some technical difficulties (at one point I thought I had entirely blown out Alpine Meadows’ speakers but it turned out I just had a crappy cable), but hopefully not too many people noticed.
Carmen: I rapped multiple songs throughout this dance on stage, including but not limited to “Headlines” and “6’7′.” DJ Carlytron was deeply and extremely sympathetic to my need to hear more Drake. Brittani and I rapped together for a one-time-only-until-next-time moment in future lesbian rap history. Joanna showed me pictures of her girlfriend and I showed her pictures of my dog about five minutes before she terrorized Wolf Lodge and forced the people within it to “have fun and dance.” Jamie and I got drunk and talked about getting hired because we are very cool people. When we were done there was a strange sleepiness in the cabin.
Brittani: I pre-gamed a dance with ice cream. I rapped Drake with Carmen. I danced with pretty girls. I believe this goes in the books under “perfect night.”
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“The dance was a great release and we all had fun getting dressed up and dancing the night away.”
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Laneia: The dance was so cute! I wore my party dress and watched girls dance and be happy. It was a safe space, for sure. A sexy safe space.
Carly: Realizing that I was DJing a dance for a lodge full of lesbians in the mountains, laptop perched on a lectern while I drank Jameson from a flask (I never learn) and ate ice cream – all while wearing a captain’s hat – made me really happy. What a world!
Lizz: I go dancing all the time, but something about being at “A Dance” caused me to revert back to being in middle school. All of a sudden I was running all over the place to see who was dancing together and hear the latest gossip about who was hooking up. I was suddenly totally shy, averting eye contact with cute girls and I think I actually turned and ran away from someone who said something suggestive to me. I’ll tell you what though, if I could actually go back to middle school, I’d totally want Carlytron to DJ my Bat Mitzvah
Brandy: The confusing feeling of loving Robin & Carly’s relationship SO MUCH and wishing that they would never ever break up, while honestly wanting to have sex with both of them.
Carly: I’d been planning to end my set on “We Are Young” by Fun. all week, because I knew Riese loved that song, but nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of a roomful of drunk lesbians crowded around my DJ lectern screaming the lyrics in unison. So, so cool.
Sarah: The last night in the cabin with “Forever 21” AKA “21 Hump Street” (which they formally changed their name to) was the definition of perfection. Along with my co-counsellor Jess S and videographer Lauren Aadland, we were able to hang out and ask them questions about their weekend. The air was thick with respect, love, feelings, ando course, processing. We took turns speaking about what Autostraddle means to each of us and how it’s affected our lives, respectively. I think this was the most incredible moment for me because I heard these almost strangers talk about how Autostraddle is their family, how they are now family and how Autostraddle has become their community — because their original family has cut them out, because their family simple ignores this aspect of who they are or because there’s no LGBT community where they live.
Most importantly, I continuously heard about how they feel loved by Autostraddle and by the people who are a part of making Autostraddle a real thing. This. We’ve broken through the screen and gotten into the lives/hearts of our readers. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’m so proud to be a small part of something so incredible.
(photo by vanessa)