A few weeks ago, eurOut featured the official L-Beach website as “Website of the Week”. L-Beach is a new women’s festival that will take place for the first time from April 16th to April 18th, 2010, at the holiday beach resort “Weissenhäuser Strand” in Northern Germany. Read on to learn more about the festival and the woman who makes it all happen.

“I like to try my hand at something new from time to time, so it was probably inevitable that one day, I would end up organizing a festival,” Claudia Kiesel says with a smile. It’s a busy Friday evening in her coffee bar Kyti Voo, but she still manages to find time to talk about L-Beach. Besides running a popular meeting place for the LGBT community in Hamburg’s gayest street, Lange Reihe, Claudia has been keeping herself busy with organizing parties for women, as well as “unisex” parties, and is member of the executive board of Hamburg Pride, the association that organizes Hamburg’s annual gay pride parade. And now it’s a women’s festival, and not just any festival, but “Europe’s Biggest Women’s Indoor Festival”.

Claudia Kiesel, the woman behind L-Beach

But what exactly is L-Beach? Even though the “L” in the name suggests otherwise, Claudia emphasizes the fact that it is not meant as an exclusively lesbian event, but that it is open to all women. “I did not want to exclude the straight best friend, for example,” she says. Also, unlike other lesbian events, the focus is on entertainment and having fun rather than on serious political topics. As Claudia puts it: “I just want the women to self-confidently have a wicked weekend.”

And chances are bright that they will. Among the artists whose appearances have already been confirmed are lesbian favourites Uh Huh Her and Sarah Bettens, former German “Superstar” Elli Erl, Singer/Songwriter Mckinley Black and Danish band Cherry Overdrive. Out U.S. model/actress Jenny Shimizu will also be there as a presenter. In addition to two stages for live music and three dance floors with DJanes from all over Europe, there will be a marketplace with sales and information booths as well as a presentation of international, lesbian-themed movies. Visitors to the festival will also be able to use all the facilities offered by the resort, such as the pool area, mini golf and bowling.

Uh Huh Her (left) and Sarah Bettens

And of course, there is the beach. Weissenhäuser Strand is located at the coast of the beautiful Baltic Sea, but due to the unstable weather conditions in Northern Germany, especially in April, the beach was not explicitly included in the planning of the event. “We planned the festival as an indoor event to be independent from the weather. The beach is kind of a bonus,” says Claudia.

Even though there are obvious similarities to the Dinah Shore Weekend, the famous lesbian event that takes place in sunny Palm Springs every year, Claudia explains that “Dinah Shore” was not the sole inspiration for L-Beach. As events like the gay pride parades are usually leaning towards men, the idea was to do something for women, like a huge party. She was also inspired by visiting the “Baltic Soul Festival”, an annual soul music festival that takes place at the same resort. Luckily, the management of the resort was open to the idea of a women’s festival.

The organization of a festival as big as L-Beach is of course not a one-woman-show. Besides Claudia, about 10 other women in Hamburg alone dedicate their spare time to make L-Beach happen. They are also being supported by the organizers of the “Baltic Soul Festival”. German lesbian magazine L-MAG, online dating service gay-PARSHIP, movie theatre chain CinemaxX and Edition Salzgeber, distributor for mostly queer films, could be won as partners for the event.

Women who want to be part of the fun should not wait too long before booking. Even though the new and advanced website, which now allows you to book tickets online, has only been up for a few weeks, more than 1.800 tickets have already been sold to women from all over Europe, and some categories are already sold out. And as for those who might still struggle with spending so much money for a weekend of fun, maybe this can put your mind at ease: L-Beach is a Breast Cancer Charity, which means that parts of the proceeds go to the German Breast Cancer Society.

Asked whether there is anything else that Claudia would like to tell eurOut readers about L-Beach, she simply replies: “Just that everybody should come and bring everybody they know.” And, after a brief moment, she adds: “Oh, and if anybody knows Ellen DeGeneres, they should refer her to me. I’d love to have her for L-Beach, and she can even bring Portia”.

Message hereby delivered.

Go to the official website for more information on the festival itself, tickets and accommodations, and get the latest news by following @LBeachFestival on Twitter.

The townhall of Hamburg with the rainbow flag

For the first time since he was elected in 2001, Hamburg’s First Mayor Ole von Beust lead the parade when it started off in Lange Reihe, Hamburg’s gay “main street”. This is remarkable because even though von Beust is gay himself (he was sort of outed publicly in 2003 when a member of the Hamburg senate tried to blackmail him), he never particularly stood out as an advocate for gay rights.

Hamburg’s First Mayor Ole von Beust (blue shirt)

Here are some more impressions of the parade:

“Equal Duties, Equal Rights”

“Stop the homo-bashing, we want in the constitution”

“Solidary with Gays and Lesbians in Eastern Europe”

For more info, visit the official website of Hamburg Pride.

Go to eurOut to listen to my interview: Editors Come Out – MeL

And in case you’re still guessing who I might be talking about, here’s a hint:

I woke up to the news that Barack Obama was elected as the next President of the United States, and that in California, Proposition 8 was likely to pass.

Like most Europeans, I had hoped for Obama to win, even though I think that most Europeans are too hopeful and their expectations are too high. He’s going to be first and foremost the President of the United States, and the interests of the U.S. aren’t always the same as the interests of Europe. Still, I hope that his administration will be more diplomatic and not as rude as the Bush administration was. Calling us “old Europe” because we didn’t want to fight in a war that was based on lies – let alone that our constitution doesn’t allow us to send troops anywhere unless it’s a NATO or U.N. mandate – hasn’t help much.

But having Obama in the White House isn’t likely to be of much help when it comes to gay rights. Even though both Obama and Biden were against Proposition 8, and Biden even congratulated Ellen on getting married when he was a guest on her show (something that Michelle Obama somehow “forgot” when she was on TEDS), they don’t support gay marriage, either.

Time will tell, but today, seeing that anti-gay propositions passed in various states in the U.S., my predominant feelings are sadness and anger. Add to this that Brooke Smith, who played new-lesbian Dr. Erica Hahn on Grey’s Anatomy, was fired from the show and will only be on one more episode, and it looks like it’s not a very good week for lesbians in the U.S.

Well, I wasn’t in Las Vegas, at least not this time, but last week, I met with a group of members of an international Ellen DeGeneres fan website to watch a taping of her talk show in Los Angeles, and we had an amazing time and a lot of fun together. This was the second time this group met, and we again had so much fun that we decided to extend the above mentioned rule to Los Angeles. But I’m still allowed to report about some of the highlights, so here they are:

“The Ellen DeGeneres Show”

Visiting a taping of Ellen’s show was of course THE highlight of the trip.

If you ever go to a taping of the show, be forewarn and make sure to bring a sweater or a jacket, because it is freeeeeeezing in the studio. But you won’t be cold for long, because you will be dancing – a lot! They make you dance before the show and in every commercial break, and you have to be careful not to be distracted too much to actually still pay attention to what’s going on, especially during the commercial breaks. That’s what happened to me the first time I went to a taping, until I realized that I wasn’t there to dance, but to see Ellen, and this time I was prepared and concentrated on watching her. And what a sweetheart she is! During the show, when she’s on camera, she’s of course very professional, but still seems very relaxed. During commercial breaks, she talks to her producers and writers or reads the teleprompter to prepare for the next segment, but if there’s some time left, she’ll connect to the audience, wave and smile to them, and sometimes she even starts to sing along to the song her DJ Tony is playing and to dance a little more. During one break, she came over to one of our group whose birthday it was and gave her a t-shirt. Ellen keeps saying that she enjoys doing the show, and that’s very obvious when you watch her during a taping. And she makes sure that not only she’s having a great time, but her audience as well.

(Ellen dancing through the audience at the beginning of the show)

As for the show, the guests were actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“The new adventures of old Christine), who was hilarious, actor Johnny Lee Miller (“Eli Stone”) and a couple from Dancing with the Stars. She also made audience members show their hidden talents, of course danced, made fun of her producer Andy, read emails from viewers and dunked sprinter Maurice Green in a dunk tank for a good cause.

Ellens Studio and “Ticket” (c) by MeL

“Tonight Show with Jay Leno”

On September 30th, Ellen was a guest on the tonight show with Jay Leno, and some of the group were lucky to get enough tickets so that all of us who were already in LA that day could go.

Ellen looked great and was hilarious, as always. She and Jay have been friends for a long time, and it turned out to be Ellen’s 28th time on the show. They talked about the economic crisis (Ellen joked that she had pulled her money out of the stock market and spent it all in commemorative plates), about Breast Cancer Awareness Month, about Ellen’s move to a new studio on the Warner Bros. lot (before that, her show was being taped in the NBC studios right next to Jay Leno’s studio), and of course her marriage and how different it felt to be married but what a great experience it was, and joked that she “can finally go off the pill”. Asked about kids, Ellen said that she doesn’t think that they will have kids (she said it twice, and it sounded a lot like “Stop asking already”). She then talked about Proposition 8, and asked anybody watching to vote “No” on 8.

Unfortunately, as she had to do a taping of her own show that day, she had to leave after her interview. Jay’s next guest was actor Robert Wagner, who most people from my generation probably know from the TV show “Hart to Hart”. As a kid, I loved that show, and during the whole interview I kept thinking “That’s Jonathan Hart!”. Musical guest was singer Jazmine Sullivan.

Nightlife in West Hollywood

If you’re gay and in LA, one area you might want to go to is West Hollywood, the “gay area” of LA. Of course, that’s where we went to celebrate after the taping of the show.

Last year, we had a great time at a nightclub called “Eleven”. It was women’s night, and even if there were a lot of straight, married women in our group, we had a blast. There even was a celebrity sighting – unfortunately I only realized about three weeks later that I had smiled at actress Michelle Wolff (“Mango Kiss”) for quite a while. This year, it was men’s night at “Eleven”, so we decided to move on and ended up in another club called “The Abbey”, where we danced the night away until closing time.

The Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour

If you are a tourist in LA and happen to like movies and American TV shows, a great thing to do is to go on a Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour. We went with a whole group, and drove our poor tour guide crazy because we knew so much about the studios already, even things that he said he wouldn’t have been allowed to tell us. It was of course Ellen who had shown her audience her new studio and it’s surroundings. Apart from driving past Ellen’s new production offices, we also saw the sets of “Friends” and “ER”, a lot of props from the “Matrix” and the “Harry Potter” movies, and learned a lot about the illusions that are being created during the process of filmmaking.

Set of “Friends” – (c) by MeL

Set of “ER” -(c) by MeL

Vote “No” on 8

One subject that came up a lot during this past week was Proposition 8. As Ellen explained on Jay Leno and also on her website, the aim of the proposition is to make same-sex marriages illegal again in California by amending the constitution. A lot of celebrities have come out against “Prop 8”, including Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who even talked about this on Ellen’s show. While in West Hollywood, I talked to a woman who was collecting donations for the fight against Prop 8, and she told me that – in spite of donations from a lot of celebrities – the supporters of the proposition were able to raise a lot more money than the opponents and that their whole campaign was based on creating fear. So come Nov. 4th, let’s keep our fingers crossed that the voters in California don’t give in to fear but vote “No” on Prop 8 – and let Ellen keep her new toaster oven.

For more information on Ellen and her show, you can go to her official website. You can also find a more detailed description (in German) of her appearance on the tonight show and the taping of her show on this German Ellen fan website. And while you’re there, make sure to sign the online petition that asks German TV stations to bring Ellen’s show to Germany.

(Posted on eurOut on October 8th, 2008)

If the Supreme Court’s ruling persists, California might become the place to live for gays and lesbians from all over the U.S., even the world. Just imagine all the gay people in the streets of San Francisco, or dancing in the clubs and bars in West Hollywood – wait a minute, that already IS reality. ;-)

Congratulations to everyone who will now be able to have their relationship be officially recognized as what it is – love and commitment, regardless of gender.

Abgesehen davon viel Spaß gehabt, ordentlich mitgerockt und abgehottet (als es endlich nicht mehr geregnet hat – “O tonight, you killed me with your smile”), und die Botschaft auch ver- und mitgenommen.

Ja Melissa, ich bin wach! (Ein Hybrid-Auto kann ich mir aber immer noch nicht leisten, dafür bin ich mit der Bahn zum Konzert gefahren, das zählt wohl auch.)

Wer’s verpasst hat: Live Earth

Tipp: Unbedingt Missy Higgins angucken! Noch eine tolle Frau für dieses Blog. :-)

Eva Briegel von Juli singt “Perfekte Welle”