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Laughing with Lily

Tomlin on getting married, Ernestine and Edith, Lucy, Carol and more

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Lily Tomlin, gay news, Washington Blade
Lily Tomlin, gay news, Washington Blade

Lily Tomlin’s live show updates her classic characters with modern situations. (Photo by Greg Gorman)

Lily Tomlin

Music Center at Strathmore

5301 Tuckerman Lane

Mar. 28 at 8 p.m.

Strathmore.org

Lilytomlin.com

Comedic legend Lily Tomlin plays the Strathmore Friday night. Last week she spent a delightful hour with us by phone from her Los Angeles home in — as is typical for the actress — a leisurely, rambling-in the-best-way conversation that few stars of her caliber make time for. Her comments have been slightly edited for length.

 

WASHINGTON BLADE: How has comedy changed since you began? This show revives some classic characters and bits, but do you find some elements might have been a scream in the ‘60s but fall flat today?

LILY TOMLIN: I imagine you wouldn’t find a whole lot that would still be relevant. I couldn’t say that in a totally general way but overall, I would say the humor then would have been relative to something that was going on then. We didn’t deal so much with universal truths in the sense of the human condition. We did a lot of snappy stuff that was going on at the time. When we were doing “Laugh-In,” Ronald Reagan was the governor and later he was the president so a lot of stuff we said was just Reagan and you’d be watching “Laugh-In” on some cable show or something and they wouldn’t say governor or president, they just said Ronald Reagan or Reagan, so much of what we said still applied when he was president. But in general, the values and taboos of society have changed a lot in 40 years.

 

BLADE: Is it hard, then, to take your classic characters and make them work now on stage in a way that doesn’t feel frozen in time?

TOMLIN: Well, it’s just what you choose to put in their mouths. The last job Ernestine had was working for Health Care Insurance Corporation denying health care to everyone and prior to that she had a reality webcast chat show all during the Bush administration so she could call the president and presumably she had a webcam so she could see what he was doing. She could call Cheney or anybody and talk about something that was going on at the time.

 

BLADE: You don’t think Ernestine would still be funny at the switchboard?

TOMLIN: No because we hardly even have switchboards anymore and people barely know what an operator is. But that overbearing bureaucratic dominance still serves in other places. She left the phone company because they were no longer, you know, powerful or omnipotent. She would have had to compete for business.

 

BLADE: What would Ernestine think of the revelations last year that Big Brother is listening in on everything?

TOMLIN: I’ve been trying to come up with a really great NSA sketch. The secret of it would be (slipping into Ernestine’s voice): “A gracious hello — this is the NSA, the only government agency that actually listens (snorts).”

 

BLADE: I’ve seen you use her in unscripted formats, too. I remember Ernestine being interviewed once by Joan Rivers. I have no idea if she gave you the questions ahead of time or not, but that would seem quite nerve-wracking to me — the pressure to be funny outside of the sketch format. Was it?

TOMLIN: Well, I know her attitude. It’s not like Ernestine doesn’t live somewhere in my body, she does. Certain characters are especially good for that if they’re really opinionated and fairly short sighted or self interested and don’t care about other people’s feelings. Then they probably improvise fairly well.

 

BLADE: There was an op-ed shortly after you got married in which a lesbian wrote “we came of age in a time when her one-woman shows changed how we understood ourselves as lesbians and feminists.” To what degree in the ‘70s were you aware or were you aware that your work was not just being enjoyed by lesbians but sort of exalted and claimed in a sense?

TOMLIN: Maybe claimed a little. My mother and dad are from Kentucky and even though I was born in Detroit, because I’m well known and presumably semi-liked in Kentucky, I don’t know for sure, but Kentucky sort of claims me in a way. Very often I read that I was “Kentucky’s own” or “born in Kentucky.” In fact, I put my hands in cement there in some Kentucky hall of fame or something. I told them, “But I’m not really from Kentucky,” and they said, “No one will care. They’ll be glad and they’ll hope you are from Kentucky.” So I’m sure lesbians and other feminists, if I was good and doing good stuff and strong and intelligent, I’d think they’d want to claim me in a sense that, well, you know, “She’s one of us” or whatever people might say in that kind of reference. I’m sure even Mrs. Duggar, if she had one kid that became president of the United States, she might single him out. In any other case, she might not. “These are my kids. Oh, this is Robert, my son, the president.” I don’t know how that stuff goes but even if it did, I’m grateful for it in a sense because, you know, I want to communicate with people. Very often I really want to validate people, validate humanity to some extent. We’re so invalidated in so many other ways and disregarded. Dismissed or thought of as just some lump mass of humanity that’s disposable and exploitable. Rotten to the core.

 

BLADE: How does comedy validate?

TOMLIN: Just showing what you love and human situations and human attitudes and you show the bad parts, but you show them in a way that we all possess them. We’re all really in the same spaceship together. Politicians, to me, are a separate entity because they’re in a place where they’re actually affecting our lives in profound ways and attempting to do so and not always with the absolute soul of integrity.

 

BLADE: I found (partner) Jane’s (Wagner) blog a few years ago quite funny when she wrote the blow-by-blow of trying to find the right hot dogs and sunscreen on the Fourth of July. If that was any indication of the interplay between the two of you on something as trivial as finding hot dogs, how on earth did you discuss and settle on when, how or if to get married? (Tomlin and Wagner were married on New Year’s Eve after 42 years together.)

TOMLIN: We didn’t talk about it for a long time because we lived together so long where that wasn’t even a glimmer of a hope or a possibility. … She and I would have liked to have been married and last fall, maybe October or November or something, I said, “You know, maybe we should.” We were both of the same mind … so we just decided to get married. I don’t know if you’ve been on our Facebook, but we made a little thing about it and showed where we went to the license bureau and we just wanted a nice, simple, sweet, quiet little ceremony so we went to Van Nuys, we went out of the way because we didn’t want to be usurped, our control of the situation, you know, “Oh, Jane and Lily were at the license bureau.” But there was so much there, that we made this little vignette of it and it shows us in front of the building. It’s just this old, one-story kind of flat motor vehicle kind-of place. There’s nothing grand or majestic about it, like some old courthouse from another era or anything. And then you stand in line with a bunch of other people and there were young people in tuxedos and bridal dresses. Then you go in another room and this woman who looks like Ruth Bader she has on a black cloak, and she takes them in there and marries them right on the spot. Families were there and they’re so dear. These couples getting married, and you think, “Oh God, help us, all these young kids getting married and you don’t even —,” you know, I worry about them like a mother. Do they have a place to live, any kind of a decent job, are they gonna have kids, and they don’t have any idea what it takes to raise those kids, the money it costs. So we get up to the window and we get our license and then we go outside and there was a hot dog stand with a little cart and a multi-colored umbrella, so we used that as our backdrop. It’s just like four little photos. Now you’re gonna go and expect like a feature film or something, but it was just our little way to acknowledge it. We didn’t post it till after we got married, which we did on New Year’s Eve.

 

BLADE: Does it feel any different? Was there any psychological shift or anything you weren’t expecting?

TOMLIN: I haven’t perceived it. Maybe there is, kind of. The nice part about it is that it’s out in the public. Not that that many people would have known we were together anyway, but when it’s reported that you’re married, it’s so kind of official. The best part is that Jane is from Tennessee and my parents are from Kentucky so we have southern families and my family more than hers were more fundamentalist …

 

BLADE: You were raised Southern Baptist, right?

TOMLIN: Well, my dad wasn’t really. He was a drinker and a gambler and I went to the bookie joints with him and every Sunday when I was a kid, because of all the fire and brimstone that goes on in the fundamentalist church, I would sit up in the kitchen with my dad. We had an old Formica table and I was maybe 5 or 6 or 7 and I was worried about my father not going to heaven. My dad would be having a beer and some sardines and crackers like on a Sunday morning and my mother is getting ready for church and I’d be up there in the middle of the table trying to get daddy to go to church with us. Argh. Anyway, my mother and dad are both totally individual and funny … so I would go to the bookie joints with my dad on Saturdays and to church with my mom on Sundays. Let’s see, where was I going with this — the best part of the marriage thing, aside from us being together, was that we heard from a lot of relatives, not my mother’s generation really, ‘cause they’re mostly gone, they would have been a little taken aback, but the next generation, we got lots of cards and messages from relatives that you never would have gotten even 10 years ago, congratulating us. Very loving, very sweet. So I thought that was the most miraculous part of it.

 

BLADE: You were on the “Merv Griffin Show” several times early in your career. Did you have any awareness at the time that he was gay?

TOMLIN: No, I don’t think so. Well, by the time I was in my 20s, I suppose I did. There were these rumors that young men were always kind of in his sphere somewhere so yes, I heard all that kind of gossip, especially being gay, other gay people fostered that kind of gossip. They were glad to hear about something like that. So yes, it was probably fairly well considered and I’m sure I was privy to that conversation at some point.

 

BLADE: I know the story about the Time magazine offer (in 1975, they offered her the cover if she’d come out) but then years later, like maybe in the late ‘80s or ‘90s you were doing stuff like “Celluloid Closet,” “The Band Played On” and “Will & Grace.” Was there a point where you decided to start saying yes to those kinds of projects that you might not have done, say, a decade before?

TOMLIN: I never would have said no to them but I might not have called a press conference to declare my sexuality. At that time, first of all, it gets to be a little bit grandstandy for someone like me. … I called Vito Russo and told him about the Time offer and said, “I just don’t know if I can handle it, I’m a little bit insulted, I’m a little bit everything,” because it was more like they just needed a gay person. It was like with the actor Cliff Gorman who was in “Boys in the Band,” he was straight but he was very worried about his career so whenever he gave an interview, he’s always make sure you knew he wasn’t gay. So we just flipped it around, you know, and when I did end up giving an interview to Time, we made sure they understood I wasn’t straight and we put a little bit about that on the album we were working on at the time, “Modern Scream.” And of course nothing was ever said about it, written about it, anything. The album wasn’t a big hit. It wasn’t like I was some big recording artist who sold a lot, but my early albums had been fairly successful because of “Laugh-In,” Ernestine and Edith. … I didn’t want to decline it, but I didn’t want to accept it, so I decided, “I’m not going down without throwing a punch.”

 

BLADE: Now at times, some up-and-comers use it in reverse — being out as part of their marketing campaign. For people who are genuinely talented, do you think that’s harmful?

TOMLIN: It depends on what kind of work they’ve done or they’re doing. Look at Neil Patrick Harris. He’s hugely popular and sought after, but of course, we knew him as a kid. But he’s a very good singer, actor, dancer and he’s got a lot of charm. Things have turned around so profoundly but the thing that terrifies you is if some right wing evangelist kind of person gets in, or we lose the Senate or we get a Republican president, you don’t know how far they will go to repeal something. There’s such a sense of celebration now and it’s kind of taken for granted but if some crazy person gets in there and there’s that limitation and philosophy where they spiritualize everything, they just nail down on these issues and they want to repeal any kind of progressive advance. It’s pretty scary when you see what’s going on in other parts of the world.

 

Lily Tomlin, gay news, Washington Blade

Lily Tomlin won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in 2003. She’s in the region this weekend for a show at the Strathmore. (Photo by B. Patterson)

BLADE: Yeah, like what we saw in Russia during the Olympics.

TOMLIN: Right. We did a little thing — actually I wish we could have been in D.C. when we did it, but I say I was thrown in jail but thank God, I knew Ernestine and she got us out. So we make fun of it. We made a graphic where we show Putin bare-chested on a horse and Ernestine is riding bareback behind him.

 

BLADE: So your show isn’t just Lily’s greatest hits then.

TOMLIN: No.

 

BLADE: Do you enjoy working on the material?

TOMLIN: I do. We have some pieces that we still do that work well because I love them so much and I think they’re terribly funny. So it’s kind of a mix. We’re trying to do something worthwhile but that is also fun and hopefully thoughtful, hopefully even moving in some way at some point. How old are you?

 

BLADE: 39, but you know gay men often know pop culture before their time way more than straight men.

TOMLIN: Oh my God, yes. Paul, this photographer and musician who works with me, he kills me because there’s nothing that happens on a daily basis at our house, office or anything, that he can’t relate it to a Lucy episode.

 

BLADE: That’s a great quality to have.

TOMLIN: Oh, it’s so dear. I just scream laughing.

 

BLADE: What’s your favorite?

TOMLIN: Well, when I was a kid, “slowly I turn,” because it looked like the kind of performance piece I could do. The ballet class, too.

 

BLADE: You guested on “The Carol Burnett Show” right?

TOMLIN: Oh yeah.

 

BLADE: Lots of people are on sitcoms but you and Carol and a few others are known for certain characters. Did you feel comedic camaraderie with her?

TOMLIN: Well, I’d known her a long time. One very hot moment for me, one very happy moment, I was at CBS maybe I was doing my first special or maybe I was just guesting on some show like Glen Campbell or something. When I got “Laugh-In,” Glen Campbell was the first show I guested on and Carol, of course, shot at CBS. I was in the ladies’ room and she came in and threw her arms around me and called my name. That just made me very happy that she knew who I was and was so demonstrative with me. She’s an extremely dear person anyway.

 

BLADE: Did you know Lucille Ball?

TOMLIN: I read an article with her once and they were asking her about new young comedians, mostly girls, and when they got to me, she said, “I don’t get her.” My heart broke but later I met her and she told a very funny story, and acted it out for about 20 minutes, about how she had had to get a root canal the day of the Tonys. … To hear her tell it in person was just sublime.

 

BLADE: She seemed like she could be a bit of a tough customer. Crusty, maybe.

TOMLIN: Everybody says that, yeah.

 

BLADE: Maybe she felt more liberated as she got older. More candid. Do you ever feel that way?

TOMLIN: Not really. I have a hard time realizing I’m as old as I am. I don’t feel that old. I still feel innocent in some ways.

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Meet the ‘CEO of Everything Gay’ who just bought the Abbey

Tristan Schukraft, who owns Mistr, takes over iconic LA nightclub

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Tristan Schukraft with equine friend at the Varian Stable in Newmarket, United Kingdom in 2019. (Photo courtesy Schukraft)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Tristan Schukraft laughs when I suggest he’s building a gay empire, but he doesn’t deny it. 

When it was announced last month that the owner of the iconic Abbey and Chapel nightclubs in Los Angeles had entered into an agreement to sell the business to Schukraft, it seemed like a strange move for the jet-setting tech CEO. 

But the portfolio he’s building – founder and owner of the telemedicine app for gay men Mistr, owner of the queer nightclub Circo and Tryst Hotel in Puerto Rico – appears to be bent toward Hoovering up more pink dollars by getting involved in an ever wider section of queer life.

The Los Angeles Blade spoke to Schukraft at The Abbey during its annual tree-lighting fundraiser for the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation about what he plans to do with the storied nightclub, and how he became one of America’s most visible gay moguls.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BLADE: Why the Abbey? 

SCHUKRAFT: Well, I wanted to make sure it stayed in the hands of the gay community. You know, it’s an institution. It’s a cornerstone of West Hollywood gay life, but more importantly, it’s I think it’s a cornerstone of the gay community far beyond West Hollywood, right? 

BLADE: Looking at your background in tech companies, your recent shift into the nightclub and hospitality industry seems like a bit of a left turn.

SCHUKRAFT: You know, I’ve been drinking here for a long time. So now, after all that investment, I’m actually gonna start getting money back. I basically bought it so I can get free drinks. 

You know, at the end of the day, I’m an operations guy. I’m a technology guy. I own hotels. With hotels, you have bars and restaurants, so it’s not too far off the track. It’s a little off track. Why not? Right? 

You know, after watching “The Birdcage,” I always wanted my own hotel [like Robin Williams’s character in the 1996 film] and somebody shattered my dreams the other day by telling me it was a nightclub. I’m like, what? It was a nightclub? And then I watched it, and it’s true, it was a nightclub. So, now I have a nightclub. Yeah, so it all started with “The Birdcage.” 

BLADE: You’re known for being a disrupter of the things that you invest in. Is there a disruption plan for the Abbey, or for Weho? Are you planning to change things here? 

SCHUKRAFT: Not a major disruption here at The Abbey. I’m gonna put my touches on it. But yeah, it’s a pretty well-oiled machine. We’re definitely going to focus on our values of being LGBTQ. I got some ideas for new nights and I definitely want to make it an epicenter of the gay community. And I think there’s opportunities to take it beyond West Hollywood.

BLADE: Can you give any kind of sneak peek at what you’re thinking? 

SCHUKRAFT: East Coast. That’s your sneak peek right now. East Coast. 

I think you’ll see in a couple months what I’m gonna do with the Abbey. But you know as far as taking it outside of West Hollywood, I see there’s opportunities on the East Coast right now. 

I think that’s where David [Cooley, the founder and current owner of The Abbey] and I really we both appreciate the value of The Abbey brand. I think it’s world famous, right? It’s the biggest gay bar. It’s one of the longest lasting. Obviously you have the Stonewalls of the world. But this is like a bar where people go on a regular night versus a tourist attraction. Maybe for some it’s a tourist attraction, but I mean, it really is an institution. It’s a community gathering point. It’s a name that people recognize that we can bring into other communities. 

BLADE: Do you have any plans to put a hotel somewhere here? 

SCHUKRAFT: [Laughs] People are like, “Are you gonna paint it blue for Mistr?” Or, “You’re gonna make it a hotel?” But no, we’re not building a hotel here. That would be terrible to build. I mean build a hotel and Abbey would be out. I don’t think the Abbey’s ever closed in 33 years, besides COVID. Minus that, it’s never closed for construction. You know, when David did his expansion, it was always open. 

I was looking at those old photos and I’m like, oh my God, I remember the wall of candles. I’ve been coming here a very long time. 

So you’re more or less like keeping the same sort of operation going here, keeping the team in place?

The team, I mean, I think that’s what kind of really makes The Abbey unique. It’s like a place where everybody knows your name. 

When I bought the hotel in Puerto Rico, obviously I don’t know anyone. Buying here. I’m like, oh, yeah. I know Todd. I know everybody, right? Not everybody, but a majority of people. And I think that’s why people come here. Because it’s their staple. They go every Sunday. They know they have their favorite bartender. So, you know, everybody will be kept in place, no changes to personnel. 

BLADE: You gave an interview to Authority Magazine where you said you promised your partner that you wouldn’t be starting up any new businesses. How did you get him on board with jumping into becoming a WeHo nightlife impresario?

SCHUKRAFT: I broke that promise two or three times since I said that. I mean, no, I just buy him gifts to make him happy.

I work long hours, right? And he’s like, I don’t know why. 

BLADE: You’ve created and run several tech companies. How did you get started in that business? Where did that money come from? 

SCHUKRAFT: I started my very first company at 21 with a $10,000 loan. I was living in Hong Kong at the time. I think my father really wanted me to come back [to California]. My dad’s a corporate guy, not a big risk taker, but he’s like, ‘I’ll give you $10,000 to start your company.’ It wasn’t enough to start the company, so I imported 437 Razor scooters and I thought I was gonna sell out in two weeks. It was very popular at the time – this is like 23 years ago. It took me six and a half weeks. I was selling them out of my truck. I went to every swap meet in Southern California. Sold the last six on Christmas Eve and learned a couple lessons in business from that. But with the money I made from selling those scooters combined with the loan, I started my first company, which was like an Expedia for airline personnel.

And then I got into e-ticketing, and at that time, I didn’t know how to turn on the computer. So, I really surround myself with people that know what they’re doing, that are experts. So, do I know how to run a bar? No, but I’m an operations guy and I hire the talent to make it happen. That’s how I got started and I built that company and others along the way. 

BLADE: Other than that first $10,000 loan from your parents, you’re basically self-made then? 

SCHUKRAFT: Yeah. You know, I looked for investment. I did end up raising $18 million for my second company, but I put in a lot of money. I mean at 25, my first company was going really well, and there was this e-ticketing mandate and I said, oh there’s a real opportunity here. And I had a home and was doing good for a 25-year-old, and I kind of leveraged it all. And I thought, “Oh my God, what did I do? I just fucked up my whole life. Why did I do this?” Anyways, I got that first investor, got that first client, and it just kind of took off from there. 

BLADE: And now with Mistr, The Abbey, your Puerto Rico clubs, are you starting a gay empire? 

SCHUKRAFT: The CEO of Everything Gay, yes. I have a few more things. You know, all the businesses are very complementary, right? So, you come to The Abbey, then you go to the Tryst Hotel or Circo in Puerto Rico, and obviously all of the people that come here or the Tryst, they’re all perfect candidates for Mistr. So yeah, so it looks a little weird. But it is very complementary to our various business units

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Out & About

Film about queer icon to premiere in Virginia

‘Slayed: The Untold Story’ playing at Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse

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A scene from 'Slayed: The Untold Story.' (Screen capture via YouTube)

The film premiere of “Slayed: The Untold Story” will be on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. at Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse.

The film is a riveting documentary that charts the audacious journey of Kai ‘Stud Slayer’ Brown, a fearless queer icon who shattered taboos about Black masculine women in an unforgiving era.

Following the screening there will be a discussion panel and question and answer session. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased on Eventbrite

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Out & About

Gay Men’s Chorus is here with Christmas cheer

Holiday singalong held at Hotel Zena

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The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington will host a holiday singalong on Tuesday, Dec. 12. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington will host a holiday singalong on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 5 p.m. at Hotel Zena. 

The event will begin with drinks in the Hotel Zena bar followed by the singalong. Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.

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