The Kiss on The Cover.

"Are you guys comfortable kissing in front of the camera?"

"Sure, I mean, we are married." That's what I said out loud to the photographer who posed this question to me Monday morning on the 23rd floor of the Time Life Building. But my internal conversation went something like this. "They will never choose us anyway. They'll go with a guy couple. Or with Portia and Ellen. Not with me and Sarah. On the cover of Time Magazine. That would just be... INSANE!"

So we kissed. I mean. We are married. Even if it's only recognized in New York State and 8 others. This week The Supreme Court hear's opening arguments to repeal Prop 8 and DOMA. They're talking about MY CIVIL RIGHTS. And I'm showing up.

We're fighting for ourselves. But we're also fighting for our family. And for every single family that has a gay person in it. Most families have at least one these days. Even Honey Boo Boo has a gay uncle.

Joking aside, there are kids who get bullied every single day because of who they are. Some of these kids take their own lives because they think they're all alone and there's nobody else out there just like them. They think they will never have a family. I want them to see my life and my family, and I want them to know that they can have that too.

So while the cover of Time Magazine may give some people a little jolt this morning, I'm kissing my wife on the cover because the mother of a gay kid might see it and finally come around to letting her son or daughter back in the house. I'm kissing my wife on the cover because it's time for every American to have their civil rights.

And, let's be honest, I'm kissing my wife on the cover because Portia and Ellen probably weren't available...

#HanginwithHendo

It Takes One to Know One - Marriage Equality in New York State (a re-post from June, 2011)

I've come to blog here the past several days attempting to say something that hasn't already been said. I've spent quite a bit of time calling Senators, asking all my friends to call Senators, reading other blogs, posting comments, participating in certain threads where my time could have been better spent smashing my head into a brick wall, etc. You get the point.

The long and short of it is this.

There's nothing I can say here that hasn't already been said on various Senators personal Facebook pages (Senator Dean Skelos, Senator Greg Ball), or on The Huffington Post comment section of Sarah's Op-Ed, "My Children Have Everything...Except Married Parents.

I've read many inspiring posts from people all over New York who are in favor of Equality. And, unfortunately, I've read some posts from people against Equality. Thankfully, the posts against Equality are outnumbered, at least on the places I'm surfing the web (which are all the places I've listed above).

Usually the anti-equality posts are religiously fueled, and more often than not contain grammatical and spelling errors...I'm just saying. And I've yet to read a single post from that side of the argument that is strong enough to deny any human being their civil rights.

What those posts against Equality have done for me, however, is they've reminded me of what it was like growing up gay.

I've said it before, and I meant it, I didn't realize I was gay until I was nineteen. My brain couldn't even internalize the thought of being gay, that's how abhorent a concept it was for me. I buried it so deep down that I never once had a conscious inkling of it until I was in college.

I learned to fear being gay from the world I lived in. Nobody ever told me directly, "Kristen, don't be gay. It's a very bad thing." Yet, the noxious homophobic gas pumped into our society's air that I was breathing in on a daily basis made me know for sure that it was a really really bad thing to be.

I knew it.

You knew it.

And some people still think it.

So I'd like to share this story from my childhood with all the people who are posting against Equality. Even though I know none of you read my blog. This is my attempt to say something that hasn't already been said - or - This is me bashing my head against a brick wall again. Here goes:

Dear People Unwilling to Give Me My Equal Rights,

When I was growing up I was a tom boy.

Every kid has "their" reason for why they feel different. The kid with the acne, the kid with the hair that's too curly, the too fat kid, the too skinny kid, the kid with the thick glasses, the poor kid, and on and on.

Anyway. I was the kid who felt awkward every time my girlfriends wanted to do girly things. I didn't want to wear makeup or carry a Le Sports Sac. I wasn't comfortable with designer jeans, or leg warmers, or capezios. Every day I wore my Lee Jeans and Pro-Keds. That was my uniform, day in and day out. While it doesn't sound that bad, every day I got dressed I thought about how different I felt.

I know. Whoopeeding. I wasn't picked on. I would have picked on you first. And I wasn't bullied. I would have bullied you first. Think about that for a second, anti-equality person posting on the internet.

I was an athlete. I loved sports. I played every season. I lived for it.

One season, my high school coach was a lesbian. We didn't know this because she was "out." We knew this because she looked like a dyke - I'm just going to use the word. She was very stereotypically lesbian looking in every way.

She threatened me to my core.

But I was 15 years old and I had coping mechanisms in place to be sure I was not affected by her existence at all.

What I did was write a "funny jingle" for everyone on the team to sing. It was a song about how gross and abhorent our scary lesbian coach was. And I would sing it.

The memory is so overwhelming for me that it stops me dead in my tracks. Fifteen year old me felt I had to sing a song about the grossness of my lesbian coach so that my teammates, and I for that matter, wouldn't catch on that I was a lesbian too.

Fear. Breeds. Intolerance. Fear. Breeds. Hatred. Fear. Breeds. Bullies.

Much worse things have come from fear than a really bad jingle sung in a high school locker room.

We have an opportunity to alleviate some of the fear that maybe your fifteen year old son or daughter or niece or nephew or neighbor might feel one day. That alone should be enough reason to vote for Equality.

#Hendo

Bobby McGee in the Key of C

People keep asking me if we are going out on tour anytime soon. And the answer is.....soon. maybe. ish. no. not really. sporadic dates here and there. Got it?

Before we embark on any official tour, you know, the type with a string of dates all in a row, we plan to release a new EP. EP is code for a CD with 5 or 6 songs on it. EP stands for Extended Play. I personally do not understand how fewer songs than a full length CD means Extended Play. But. It. Does.

We recently wrote a song with Lori McKenna called "That Was The Whiskey," and we plan to release it as the first single from our EP. People seem to be having very enthusiastic and positive reactions to the song. And that's a very very nice thing, when people have positive reactions to your songs.

When we were signed to a major label, they often would say things like "it's not a single." Which always made me wonder, "why the heck did you sign us, you dingbats?" But, you know what, I'm running toward the light these days, so let's not relive that silliness. We need to live in the present. And in the present we have a new song called "That Was The Whiskey" that even record people from the label we are no longer affiliated with say is a "hit single." And they have nothing to gain from saying that because we are no longer signed to their label. In fact, the label no longer exists, which says a lot about labels and what they know about hit singles.

So let's not say "That Was The Whiskey" is a hit single. Let's just say it's a catchy fun song that makes my kids want to sing along. In fact, during my special day at my twins Pre-K, Kate told the teacher that her mom was going to sing a song for the class called "The Whiskey." And it was awkward. Very. Very. Awkward.

To summarize what is happening in Antigone land:  We are going to be playing sporadic live dates through the spring and summer. We are recording our new EP at Campy Town Studios on Long Island to be released later this Spring (2013). And we are going to launch some type of extremely creative fund raising campaign in the coming days/weeks/maybe month to raise money so we can properly promote and market our new EP with an extremely strong focus on our song "That Was The Whiskey."

We are discussing the possibility of filming a video for the song. So if you are a fledgling amazingly brilliant video maker or if you happen to know of one, please send them our way immediately. We are interested in seeing what you or your video making friends are capable of doing.

Once all of these balls are rolling in the right direction, we will plan a tour - one with strings of dates all in a row that will include all towns, not just those within 2 hours of our homes in New York & New Jersey!

And I will blog more about our latest project very soon.

LISTEN TO THE UPCOMING SINGLE, "THAT WAS THE WHISKEY" RIGHT HERE:


#Hendo'sBackAtTheBlogLet'sHang.



ps-anyone with opinions about kickstarter vs. pledge music vs. DIY fundraising, please sound off here. we want to know what you think!

Some of our sporadic dates - more to be announced:

Friday - April 12, 2013 - The Mercury Lounge, NYC
Buy Tickets Now

Saturday - May 4, 2013 - Northampton Pride Festival
3 County Fairgrounds - Northampton, MA
More info.

July 6 Hartford, CT Riverfest

July 13 Athens, NY Athens Street Festival

Free Tune Tuesday On a Wednesday.

I always had this fantasy of being in a band (check), going on tour (check), and becoming BFFs with whatever band or artist we were on tour with (check-ish).

I'm going to be honest here in my partial tell-all blog post. Sometimes the BFF part does not happen. Like the one time we shared a few bills with an unnamed act who complained of us drinking the diet coke on their rider. Because unnamed artist must have thought they were the only artist on the bill who put diet coke on a rider.

Imagine what that artist must have felt like on the inside as they reported our band to a rock club venue manager regarding our diet coke violation. And then imagine how foolish they felt as the very uninterested rock club manager informed them they're not the only diet coke drinkers on the bill. And then imagine returning to that venue once a year every year since the incident and laughing with the rock club manager about that artist who complained about us drinking their diet coke. And imagine the case of diet coke the club provides us with every time we play the room.

Wow. The memory of that tour came back as if it were only yesterday. And it reminds me of why we love certain artists we share bills with so so so much more than ones who complained about soda sharing.

With that, I don't mind declaring that our band does have a very favorite band to tour with, and if our band could have married this band we would have. Unfortunately, band marriage is just not legal in New York. Or even Massachusetts.

That band is The Pushstars, the loves of Antigone Rising's lives since 2001.

But that's not what this blog is about.

This blog is about Malone. Michelle Malone. She's the person that's in our band without (the hassle of) actually being in our band. For example. When we lose a lead singer but don't want to cancel dates, Malone sits in. Here's another example. She writes a song. We hear it and think we should have written that song ourselves, so we start playing it in our show every night. She saves us time from having to write songs that have already been written. And sometimes we actually even sit down in the same room with her and write songs together.

That's what this free download is all about today. A song we wrote with Michelle Malone. And it's not about diet coke.

Learn more about Michelle Malone.
Learn more about The Pushstars and Chris Trapper.

Download Weed and Wine, written by Antigone Rising and Michelle Malone. (Recorded live at The Bitter End in New York City on July 17, 2012 during the Antigone Rising/Michelle Malone Mash-Up show)

#Hendo.

Holy Tour Day 2 (Part 4)- Falafel First. Jerusalem Later.

Antigone Rising &Polina from US Embassy, Tel Aviv eat falafel!

Immediately following my mortifying Mohammed moment, we went out to lunch. There really is no better way to alleviate the mortification of a terribly stupid moment than stuffing your belly. So that's precisely what I did.

Polina, one of our gracious US Embassy Tel Aviv hosts, was charged with the responsibility of feeding us. She went to great lengths to give us as authentic an Israeli lunch as possible. She asked around and found out there was an amazing outdoor falafel stand just around the corner from the school we just performed at in Beer Sheva. So we took off in search of it.

During our walk to the falafel stand, Polina told us the bomb sirens had gone off in Beer Sheva just a few days earlier. Apparently, missiles from the Gaza strip can only travel as far as Beer Sheva, so they're constantly under siege.

Gulp.

Let's eat.

#Hendo

Antigone Rising lunches in Beersheba or Beer Sheva on Feb. 20, 2012

Holy Tour Day 2 (Part 3) - My Mortifying Mohammed Moment - The Hangin' With Hendo Blogumentary

"Hangin with Hendo, The #HolyTour Blogumentary", is my attempt to document as much of our trip through Israel and the West Bank as humanly possible. I did blog a bit while we were there, but it was incredibly difficult to keep up with posting entries while tweeting, facebooking, playing shows and learning to speak Hebrew and Arabic fluently. So follow along while I recount our trip. I'll incorporate some of our Facebook and Tweet action wherever it makes sense, and plan to include a video with each post incorporating photos & videos from mine and Julie's iPhones, Sib's mini-cam, my camcorder and any other media I can yank from various sources to paint as complete a picture as possible. I will leave no stone unturned, except the one under the Dome of the Rock. And we did have a few #Holytour moments I reserve the right to keep on the #Holytour. --#Hendo


YOU MAY WANT TO READ THE BLOG FIRST BEFORE ROLLING VIDEO...I LEAVE THAT UP TO YOU.


A lot of nervous energy led to the moment I am about to blogfess to. I'm sure it could be attributed in large part to the jet lag and Israeli shots the night prior, and a warning from the US Embassy workers that "the kids may have culture shock" upon seeing us. Needless to say, I believe it is what led to the "in-my-headness" I was experiencing as we took the stage in Beer Sheva, the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel.

Let me rewind the cassette tape to the beginning of the day. After spending our first night in Tel Aviv, we woke on Tuesday morning, 02.21.12, and headed to a town called Beer Sheva. I was confused, misinformed, actually maybe only half paying attention, and was under the impression we were headed to Jerusalem that morning to conduct an "outreach program" for an eclectic mix of Israeli and Arab students. So during our hour plus drive, that did include camel sightings, I was tweeting misinformation about poor Beer Sheva, as evidenced here:

Though it does seem our tour manager's first morning tweet could be what led me astray as we embarked on our journey to Beer Sheva:

I realize now, his tweet meant we'd be in Jerusalem later that night for a theater performance, but no good did it do me as we pulled into Beer Sheva and I continued tweeting ignorance:

Finally, as we pulled up to the school we'd be "outreaching" at, someone loudly proclaimed we were in Beer Sheva. I pried my face away from the iPhone and, in my snottiest tone, asked a van full of bandmates, managers, and US Embassy workers, "have none of you been reading my ignor-tweets (that's a sniglet for ignorant tweeting)?"

Insert crickets chirping.

Well, regardless of whether any of my bandmates, managers, or US Embassy peeps were reading my twitter feed, I had close to 2,000 followers back in the United States likely glued to my every tweet. After all, it was anywhere from 1am to 4am in America, depending on which state you were in. I could only imagine the confusion I was causing knowing our tour dates page clearly stated we'd be in Beer Sheva at the time of my "we're in Jerusalem" tweets.

So I quickly recanted to the best of my ability as follows:

If only this were the worst of my missteps on this, the first full day of our #holytour. There were so many more misfires ahead of me on this day, and I cringe knowing every single one of them was either captured via Sib's video camera or various social media vehicles. #FourSquare. #Twitter.

So roll the video and enjoy the third installation in my v-blog series, "My Mortifying Mohammed Moment."

I couldn't possibly be the only person to have one of these moments...could I be?

#Hendo

Holy Tour - Day 1 (part 2) - From Landing to Sleeping - The Hangin' With Hendo Blogumentary

"Hangin with Hendo, The #HolyTour Blogumentary", is my attempt to document as much of our trip through Israel and the West Bank as humanly possible. I did blog a bit while we were there, but it was incredibly difficult to keep up with posting entries while tweeting, facebooking, playing shows and learning to speak Hebrew and Arabic fluently. So follow along while I recount our trip. I'll incorporate some of our Facebook and Tweet action wherever it makes sense, and plan to include a video with each post incorporating photos & videos from mine and Julie's iPhones, Sib's mini-cam, my camcorder and any other media I can yank from various sources to paint as complete a picture as possible. I will leave no stone unturned, except the one under the Dome of the Rock. And we did have a few #Holytour moments I reserve the right to keep on the #Holytour. --#Hendo


(watch it on YouTube to get the full hi-def effect...)

Nini, Bird & Sib get dropped at JFK
carrying our purple guitar flight cases, the "barneys"

It will surprise none of you that Jude drove the band to the airport to catch our sweet Delta flight to Tel Aviv. One of the things that excited us most about flying Delta was that Dena heard they served free beer and wine on all international flights.

The Tweets of @denatauriello, compliments of The Twitter

One of the other things that excited us about the trip was that our itinerary had fantastic catch phrases and buzz words in it like: "Embassy driver and expeditor will meet you at Ben Gurion International Airport and drive you to Savoy Hotel, 5 Geula St., Tel Aviv." One of our later itineraries used the phrase, "you will travel by motor pool," but I don't want to jump ahead of myself.

So, if you rolled the part 1 video in my prior blog post, you heard Julie mention that we were in "passport control with Tal, who's picking us up and rushing us through customs." And that is PRECISELY what he did. It was so f'in rockstar hot. We rolled off the plane like a bag of pretzels, our entire double decker flight racing to customs, the line was already about four days long without our Delta free boozin' flight mates, and Tal literally walks us right up to the counter and tells us to bust out our passports for the customs agent. Voila, just like that, we're standing at the baggage claim waiting for our oversized Barney cases, bagzillas, and whatever else we checked in back at JFK (total cost for checked bags, $750 - #holytour, #holybaggagecrisis).

Us blowing through Israeli customs. That's Tal behind my left shoulder. Or is that  my right shoulder? He sorta looks like an Israeli Joe Pesci, but I didn't tell him that.

We hop into our Tal driven white van, heads feeling like it's 6am, the sunlight in the sky sitting somewhere around 3:30PM, and start our drive to Tel Aviv. The roads look just like the ones we'd be driving on back in New York. I do know this makes me sound like an idiot, but I wasn't really expecting it to feel exactly like home. I mean, I didn't think we'd be driving via camelback on dirt roads, but maybe...on some deep, dark, inundated by CNN/Fox News propagandized media level, I was! The only reason I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore was because the street signs were in Hebrew and every single building, and I do mean every single one of them, was built using Jerusalem Sandstone. Benjamin Moore really needs to come up with a tan paint color called Jerusalem Sandstone, by the by.

Across the street from our hotel
Mediterranean Sea, Tel Aviv

Anyhooch, we pull up to our hotel in Tel Aviv to be greeted by THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA. They don't have that in the United States, I'll tell you what. And we also finally get to meet Michele and Polina, our United States Embassy (Tel Aviv) point peeps who put together the most amazing schedule of events for us in Israel.

Us with Michele from US Embassy, Tel Aviv
on our way out to dinner standing in front of
the Mediterranean Sea, of all things.

Tony, our tour manager, checks us all in. We're staying at The Savoy, a boutique hotel with plenty of charm and a free cappuccino machine in the lobby. We all have single rooms, meaning no roomie nonsense, not that we don't love each other, but we're psyched about it. He hands us our room keys and our electric plug converters so we can plug our various social media driven smart devices in for a charge and we make a plan to meet in the lobby 25 minutes later for dinner, even though it's breakfast time in our bodies. and minds. and souls.

Roll video to see if I run into Julie in the elevator on our way out to eat...
#Hendo

http://youtu.be/VkUg-nyes84?hd=1