Lesson 3- Teaching You to Teach YOU Guitar

Here is the 3rd video in the series. Go here to view the other parts: http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamSmileandNod

Go here to listen to some Team Smile and Nod tunes: http://www.teamsmileandnod.com/

QUEERICS' Gay GIVEAWAY!

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!
To celebrate, QUEERICS, Team Smile and Nod, and Elizabeth Gearhart have joined forces to bring you a super-fun give-way!


Want to win a Team Smile and Nod CD??? A glow-in-the-dark tee? Buttons? Stickers? A custom small watercolor painting by
Elizabeth Gearhart!?! You have until 11:59 pm PST on June 28 to enter! Follow the link to learn how to enter:
http://chesh.lmfao.org.uk/queerics/giveaway.shtml

While you're there, check out the QUEERICS website. It is a wonderful resource for those of us looking for LGBT musicians, bands, and songs. FURTHER, the creator of the site, Chesh, is flippin' fun and hilarious. Check out the QUEERICS blog so you can see what I mean:
http://community.livejournal.com/queerics

11 people will win! Why not you??? Enter! Tell you friends to enter! It will be fun for everyone to read how everyone answers the questions!

Lesson 2: Accessories (Teaching You to Teach YOU Guitar)


Here I go into some of the accessories that you will need for playing guitar. Here's the list:

PART 1
1. Guitar Case
2. Capo
3. Tuner OR Pitch Pipe
4. Picks
5. Strap
6. Spare Strings
(7. String Winder... I forgot this in the video... they are cheap and very very helpful)

PART 2 (this will be covered next time)
8. Chord Book
9. Humidifier

*Check out www.teamsmileandnod.com to get a feel for our tunes...

Columbus PRIDE 2009

If you are near Columbus, Ohio, please consider checking out Columbus PRIDE Festival this year... It is a 2 day festival at Goodale Park on June 19th and 20th. Columbus has one of the largest PRIDE festivals in the midwest. There will be tons of performers... including my band, Team Smile and Nod. We will be rocking some very lesbian songs... oh yes. If you have any questions, you can drop me a line here: kara@thinkrootrecords.com I'll try to help. Oh... and check out my band here: http://www.teamsmileandnod.com/

The flyer was created by Jesse Smith... he also did the artwork on our CD. Thank you to Jesse!

Out Lesbian Chatter - some tidbits, rants, info and well hey I am Outside...

Lessons from a Lesbian Musician: Teaching You to Teach YOU Guitar

Wanna learn to teach yourself guitar? I'm putting together a little video series to help get you strumming. Check it out here:

http://www.lesbianguitar.com/

Wanna know about who's giving the lessons? Check out my band, Team Smile and Nod, here: www.teamsmileandnod.com We are a lesbian-fronted electro anti-folk duo.

Out Lesbian

Lesbians in the Military

Rachel Maddow ~ Happy New Year Gals

Rachel Maddow ~ Happy New Year !!!

Rosie and Barbara


Barbara Walters "wanted everyone to believe and think and act as if [the women on 'The View'] get along and are really good friends and happy and hang out together, and, you know, that's just not the reality. "I'm not saying they loathe each other, but the fact of the matter is, there was not a lot of camaraderie off camera." Rosie ...


"There are some people who have done this show and then for years feel like they have to dump on it, maybe for their own publicity. And that not only hurts me, but I resent it, so if the shoe fits, lady, get on, ladies, get on with your lives. We are not perfect, we are not always happy, but we're pretty good." - Barbara Walters on "The View"

Steph - Parady

Callie Confides in Bailey - Grey's Anatomy

Out Lesbian
Callie and Erica
Callica

Why McCain - Palin

Religious Beliefs - Civil Rights
If you cannot see the video Click Below
http://www.gaywired.com/video/index.cfm?showID=1073479

Fringe's Out Lesbian Jasika Nicole

"For fans growing tired of the gang from Lost’s Oceanic Flight 815, the show’s creator J.J. Abrams offered something equally compelling when he plane-crashed into prime time this fall with Fringe. In typical Abrams fashion, the show quickly introduced a dozen unrelated events and characters in as many minutes. Left to figure out the common thread?

FBI agent Astrid Farnsworth, is played by the adorable Jasika Nicole, whom you may recognize from her role in Take the Lead with Antonio Banderas. Nicole, a theater, voice, and dance major, relished the jump into the supernatural. “I think that we as actors are as excited to get the scripts as people are to watch the show to see what happens. Usually when you start a project you have a pretty good idea of who your character is and how they fit into the story, but each episode I get a little more information about who I am. It’s an ongoing practice in character development,” she says.

For Nicole, who lives in Brooklyn with her partner of more than three years, being in the closet was never an option: “I came out about 3½ years ago. When I went on my first date with a woman, it was so exciting that I wanted to share it more than anything because it was such a big deal to me,” she recalls. So isn’t prime time ready for an out lesbian detective already? “You’re absolutely right. Who knows? We’ll need to see how that all plays out. I definitely want Astrid’s personal life to show up a little more, she told Out.com."

Obama - Rick Warren

Well Folks, it was the VP Debates where my heart first sunk, I even changed the Channel, when Biden said what he did about Gay and Lesbians. So we knew then that Obama was not pro gay. We can hope that there is not an all out war out on us. I am saddened on the Hate Crimes in California involving Lesbians and hoping for Justice though I know this will not take away the pain of the Horrific Crime that have happened Recently.

Obama Picking a Lesbian and Gay Hater to Speak is Of Course Sad and Will most like bring out more "justified" hate our way.

The LA Gay and Lesbian Center Responds to Rick Warren's Selection
By:



Jim KeyChief
Public Affairs Officer
323-993-7623

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Calls on Obama to Disinvite Homophobic Rick Warren From Delivering Inaugural InvocationPresident-Elect's Big Tent of Hope Stretches to Include BigotryLOS ANGELES, December 18, 2008-In response to President-Elect Barack Obama's selection of homophobic mega-church minister Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration, L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Chief of Staff Darrel Cummings has issued the following statement:"

If President-elect Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation is intended to send a message to America that he will be an inclusive leader, then he has clearly made a decision that the exclusion of the LGBT community is acceptable.Inclusion is generally a term referencing the involvement of those who have been historically underrepresented, the subject of historic discrimination, or unrecognized altogether. The inclusion of people with disabilities in public policy decision-making related to housing and building codes, for example, is vital and a relatively new trend. T

his kind of action not only sends an important symbolic message to people with disabilities and to the larger community, it contributes to better policy.Mega-church multi- media stars and religious "leaders" like Rick Warren have been overrepresented in government decision making for many years and have brought their narrow, exclusionary brand of theology into the oval office, Congress and the Supreme Court. They amass great wealth, own powerful financial empires, and preach division on the public airways. Yes, they and their followers are part of America-a relatively large part-but they are redundant as messengers of inclusion since they have always had influence over government, especially since 1980.

The unfortunate consequence of this "big tent" approach is that Obama is not really sending a message of inclusion, at least not the kind that invites into the tent those who have been historically and intentionally locked out for so long. Instead, on the first day of his presidency, he plans to send a very clear message that LGBT people are only welcome if we are agreeable to our own oppression, as represented by his choice of spiritual leader on inauguration day. Obama's response to press inquiries on the subject rings hollow.

He talks about others like Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Joseph Lowery who will share the spotlight and bring alternative views to the stage, as though it's important to have "balanced" representation regarding the issue of our civil rights. Joseph Lowery does not represent an alternative viewpoint to Warren.

He represents an ethical and just choice on behalf of people historically oppressed and left off the presidential stage. Is it important to "balance" the work of a person who has spent his life fighting racial bigotry and discrimination with someone who opposes those ideals? Are these the politics of hope we have heard so much about?Continuing his defense, Obama spoke eloquently about his campaign's support for full equality for lesbians and gay men as an indication of how he will govern. Unfortunately, he did not and does not now stand for our full equality since he has made it clear that he opposes marriage equality. In this regard, he walks in lock step with Warren, even though Obama opposed the passage of Prop 8.Warren played an important role in helping to re-write the California constitution to eliminate our rights. So now it is clear.

If President-elect Obama does not disinvite Rick Warren, then he is defining what inclusion in America will mean under his administration. It will mean that the practice of bigotry is acceptable, and that as president-in the name of "inclusion"-he will provide a place and platform for that bigotry to be expressed and grow. Apparently we are welcome into the big tent of hope, but if we choose to enter, we should do so knowing we are in hostile, yet "balanced" territory."

Jerry Brown - Debates Continue

As the Saying Goes, the Majority Should NEVER vote on Rights for the Minority.


Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown's reversal on Proposition 8 -- he now is asking the California Supreme Court to reject it -- is the talk of the blog world today. Of course, the pro-gay-marriage forces are happy. But there is a lot of debate about whether Brown's rejection of the voters' will on gay marriage can fly. Jonathan Turley writes:

Brown's position between the earlier and current litigation seems hopelessly conflicted. It would have been more consistent if he refused to defend either the earlier law or current law. Yet, there is the problem of lawyers defending a law that they consider to be unconstitutional. Brown can argue that, once the Court recognize the constitutional right of same-sex couples in the Constitution, it became a problem to have it set aside by popular vote. The earlier law was the result of legislative consensus while this is the product of popular vote.

Yet, there status as "law" is the same for the purposes of the Attorney General's office.

Red County California sees a political motive in Brown's stance:

Jerry Brown, as the California State Attorney General, said that he would defend Proposition 8 if it passed. He is now asking those same black-robed dictators to declare Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Heck of a democratic state we live in, when an attorney general with an eye on the next gubernatorial race will pander to an activist voting bloc to thwart the democratic process dutifully followed by a majority of citizens to express their will multiple times and in multiple ways.

-- Shelby Grad

Sarah Waters - Lesbian Novelist

Sarah Waters is a British Novelist

Sarah Waters is best known for her novels such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.


Sarah Waters was born in 1966 in Pembrokeshire, Wales. She studied English Literature at the universities of Kent and Lancaster, after which she worked in bookshops and libraries, before returning to postgraduate study.

She then gained a Ph.D in English Literature, her field of study being lesbian and gay historical fiction, and also had articles on gender, sexuality and history published in a number of journals.

While working on her Ph.D thesis, she became increasingly interested in London life of the nineteenth century, and began writing fiction. She has since written three novels set in Victorian England, for which she has received high praise from both mainstream reviewers and the gay and lesbian press.

In 1998, her first novel Tipping the Velvet was published - a picaresque adventure based around Victorian music hall, with a lesbian love story at its centre.

This book was adapted into a drama serial by Andrew Davies, and received much press attention when it was shown on BBC TV in 2002. Her second novel, Affinity (1999), is a darker novel set in a London women's prison, and explores the Victorian world of spiritualism.

This book won a Somerset Maugham Award for Lesbian and Gay Fiction and a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2000. Fingersmith was published in 2002, a thriller and love story set among petty thieves and criminals in 1860s London.


Its central character, Susan, is a pickpocket. This book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Orange Prize for Fiction. Sarah Waters was for a time an associate lecturer for the Open University and has also tutored on Creative Writing programmes, but is now a full-time fiction writer living in London. In 2003 she was nominated by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. Her novel, The Night Watch (2006), is set in London during and after the Second World War.

Before writing novels, Waters worked as an academic, earning a doctorate and teaching. Waters went directly from her doctoral thesis to her first novel. It was during the process of writing her thesis that she thought she would write a novel; she began as soon as the thesis was complete. Her work is very research-intensive, which is an aspect she enjoys. All of her books contain lesbian themes, and she does not mind being labeled a lesbian writer. She said, “I’m writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It’s right there at the heart of the books.”
She calls it “incidental,” because of her own sexual orientation. “That’s how it is in my life, and that’s how it is, really, for most lesbian and gay people, isn’t it? It’s sort of just there in your life.”

Alison Bechdel



Two years ago Alison Bechdel seemed to come out of nowhere with a graphic memoir, “Fun Home,” that knocked a lot of people, myself included, right over. You didn’t have to go quite as far as Time magazine, which called “Fun Home” the single best book of 2006, to recognize Ms. Bechdel’s achievement. Her memoir, about coming of age as a lesbian in her secret-filled family’s rural Pennsylvania funeral home, was moody, astringent, microscopically observed. “Fun Home” belongs on that same small, high shelf of comic books where “Maus” dwells.

Plenty of readers, however, needed no introduction to Ms. Bechdel. For more than 20 years she has been the creator of “Dykes to Watch Out For,” a weekly comic strip, printed mostly in college-town alternative newspapers, about the fractious lives and loves of an articulate group of lesbians in a city that resembles Minneapolis. The strip is sexy, sometimes in an R-rated way — imagine “Doonesbury” with regular references to sex toys — and it’s political, in a feisty, lefty, Greenpeace meets PETA meets MoveOn.org kind of way. Ms. Bechdel’s lesbians wanted to impeach the first George Bush.


Taken together, these comic strips don’t have the tightly coiled impact of “Fun Home,” but in some ways they offer greater consolations — they’re looser, more funny, and they offer the chance to watch a group of very appealing women grow and change (and struggle to have better sex) over the course of more than two decades. Ms. Bechdel calls her strips “half op-ed column and half endlessly serialized Victorian novel,” and that’s not far off. I suspect that, over the years, “Dykes to Watch Out For” has been as important to new generations of lesbians as landmark novels like Rita Mae Brown’s “Rubyfruit Jungle” (1973) and Lisa Alther’s “Kinflicks” (1976) were to an earlier one.

As Ms. Bechdel observes in her introduction to this new anthology, “The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For,” it was not especially easy to be openly lesbian back in 1983, when she published her first cartoon. “We had no ‘L Word,’ ” she writes. “We had no lesbian daytime TV hosts. We had no openly lesbian daughters of the creepy vice president. We had ‘Personal Best,’ and we liked it.”


Toni McNaron -



Toni McNaron, Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, is a multiple award winning teacher and scholar who worked joyfully with graduate and undergraduate students for over 35 years at the University of Minnesota.
Her passion as a writer led her to explore topics ranging from diversity in the academy, gender and genre, the works of Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson, to the contours of her own life as a white Southern lesbian.

In recognition of her accomplishments, the Steven J. Schochet Center for GLBT Studies was pleased to inaugurate its Distinguished Lecture Series in April 2000, by introducing the Toni McNaron Lecture in Arts and Culture.

Inquiry Set

Mormons... Loving that Sanctity of Marriage...


"California officials will investigate accusations that the Mormon Church neglected to report a battery of nonmonetary contributions — including phone banks, a Web site and commercials — on behalf of a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage.

Roman Porter, the executive director of the Fair Political Practices Commission, which oversees California campaign finance laws, signed off on the investigation after reviewing a sworn complaint filed on Nov. 13.

The complaint, filed by Fred Karger, founder of the group Californians Against Hate, asserted that the church’s reported contributions — about $5,000, according to state election filings — vastly underestimated its actual efforts in passing Proposition 8, which amended the state’s Constitution to recognize only male-female marriage.

Broadly speaking, California state law requires disclosure of any money spent or services provided to influence the outcome of an election.

Mr. Porter said the announcement of the investigation was not “a determination on the validity of the claims or the culpability of the individuals,” but that the claims had been reviewed by a lawyer for the commission and its chief of enforcement and deemed worth pursuing. "

Full Article Click Below
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/us/politics/26marriage.html?ref=us

Lesbian Internet Marketing



We Specialize in Keeping the Pink Dollar Pink. We are a Lesbian Owned and Operated Internet Marketing Company that Gets Your Lesbian Business, Music, Product Found on the Internet Where your Potential Buyers - Customer and Clients are Looking for You. We are WELL established online and have websites that have been online for over 8 years

It is Important that You market your Lesbian Business, Art, Writing, Film, Photography or Music on Targeted Websites, Web Sites to target your specific buyer.

Your Buyers are Online looking for What You Have to Offer, they are looking on the Internet, are they finding what you have to offer.

It is Important to Marketing on Websites that have a Historic Creation Date, Newer Websites are Not as Strong in the Search Engines and are Not the Best Place for you to Market. Find Your Niche - Get Found -Support other Lesbian Businesses Online and KEEP the Pink Dollar Pink.

Al Gore on Gay Marriage

Marriage Miracle Cure

What do you Folks think of this Video.
Married When Home from Your Mission.
Pray Away the Gay...

Same Sex Marriage Debate - Dr. Phil

Interesting and Well a Bit Stressing Discussion over Same Sex Marriage on Dr. Phil.
Shame On YOU !!!!

Mariah Hanson - Lesbian Icon - Event Promoter

Mariah Hanson is a lesbian icon / event promoter extraordinaire .

Mariah Hanson is the founder of The Club Skirts. Mariah Hanson presents The Dinah, the largest and the original event of the modern Dinah Shore weekend festivities.

The Dinah, drawing over 10,000 participants, has become more than Just a GetAway weekend. The Dinah is a cultural and an international phenomenon.
The Dinah is the Creme De La Creme of all things in Lesbian Entertainment.

Women Come from all over the world (Australia, France, England, Germany, Scandinavia, Asia, Canada, South America) flock to Palm Springs for a chance to be part of this once a year monumental event. Mariah Hanson is a Big Part Of What Makes that Happen.
To date - and still five months away from the event - hotel room reservations are already at 40% of their capacity. Why? Because to some degree, Mariah Hanson understands how recessions, leisure, and mindset converge .
Most forms of leisure are not purchased for practical purposes, but for emotional ones and for The Dinah audience the economic turbulence does not mean that any type of leisure indulgence is out of the question .
Quite the contrary: leisure diversion becomes a necessity for many (who will seek relief of some sort) especially when it delivers the caliber of entertainment The Dinah has continuously been providing for many years combined with the top of the line selection of social entertainment venues (The Riviera Resort and The Palm Springs Convention Center) and the financial incentive of all-inclusive package deals.
Again, this is where Mariah Hanson comes in - going after key sectors of the travel industry serving a unique product catered to a specific market niche.
Known as the 'go to' person, Mariah Hanson has assisted many big corporations and business companies in helping develop a productive marketing approach to the GLBT market and, as part of a comprehensive integrated marketing strategy, assisted in branding their products to specifically respond to the Lesbian audience of this ever growing market.

To that end, The Dinah 09 has already secured the corporate support of market leaders such as Miller, MTV/LOGO Networks, HereTV! and Bacardi. In addition, Hanson is welcoming new sponsorships including The Advocate and SheWired.com, and forming exclusive partnerships with entertainment moguls such as MTV/LOGO Network (Viacom International, Inc.) which has made The Dinah 09 one of its signature events of the year, and the non-profit organization GLAAD - the official charity recipient - which will be hosting its first ever cocktail reception in an effort to increase its visibility and presence among women.


Hanson's road to success is truly one of extraordinary inspiration.It was back in 1991 that Mariah Hanson produced her first solo Dinah Shore Weekend. The simple but daring concept catapulted the Dinah to international fame. Today, The Dinah is considered the largest lesbian event in the world.
The 2009 Dinah will continue Club Skirts groundbreaking trend of a high profile, entertainment packed and star filled tradition spearheaded a few years back by the monumental performance of the Pussy Cat Dolls and followed the preceding years with an equally big line-up of celebrities/performers including the cast of the L-Word, India Arie, Pat Benatar, Colbie Caillat, En Vogue, Crystal Waters and Ilene Chaiken, to name a few.Always pushing the envelope and being cutting edge, Hanson pulled another coup de forte for the 2009 Dinah. As you may know, The Riviera Resort and Spa recently underwent an estimated $90 million rejuvenation becoming the epic and contemporary deluxe Mecca for high-end world-class travelers - certifiably the most ultra chic, ultimate top of the line destination resort in Palm Springs. As the esteemed legendary venue is christening its official reopening this Fall, it will also welcome another legend: The Dinah.The natural symbiosis between these two iconic entities was logically inevitable: The Riviera Resort has a long standing tradition as the first EVER hotel host of The Dinah series. Maintaining a discreet policy about its business, The Riviera Resort welcomes back the original: Club Skirts Presents The Dinah - taking this grand annual pilgrimage extravaganza to a whole new higher level!

With The Dinah, Hanson has not only successfully built an business empire but as well accomplished a cultural and social phenomenon that crosses over any genders, races and religious denominations. She has certainly become a voice to be reckoned with not only as a savvy business entrepreneur and avant-garde event coordinator/promoter but as well as a gay woman doing it all by herself!
Mariah Hanson has Been Called the mastermind behind Dinah Shore.