Ms. Xanna Don't

I met Miss Xanna Don't after I'd been in Austin about a month or so. My friend Tim and I were first in line to see John Waters "live" when he made an apprance in Austin for the Gay and Lesbian film festival. Xanna and her girlfriend walked up after we had been the only ones in line for a while and Xanna said, "C'mon, let's go meet the two people more fanatical than us." She had a buffont the size of the Empire State Building. At first, I thought she was just another crazy, cool fan. Only after talking to her for a while did I realize she was a star in her own right! Xanna has been a bit quiet lately, but she's about to explode on the scene again. With a new movie "in the can" and several gigs on her upcoming itenerary, Xanna seems poised to take the town by storm... again...

My infamous hair-do evolved purely by accident, in much the same way my career has. I've always had very long hair (I sit on it), but in the 80's I was really into new wave and punk rock-and long straight hair was uncool. I couldn't cut my hair because my family and friends would be upset. So I started finding haphazard ways to lop it on top of my head and give the illusion that it wasn't long. Over the years it got bigger and eventually evolved into the Texas-sized bouffant I do now. Now people have come to expect it and that's why I keep it up. I've decided that if I ever get nominated for a Grammy I'll shave my head and then I'll get press even if I lose!

It's also by accident that I became a country singer-I used to do avant-garde Nina Hagen/Lene Lovich type stuff over electronica-style music. But a nightclub in Boston (where I'm from) was doing a night of celebrities doing music different from their regular genres. A garage-rocker named Kenne Highland (an original member of the Gizmos from Indiana) suggested that he and I do some Patsy Cline covers-wouldn't that be funny. Afterwards the booking agent (now head of SubPop Records' northeast division) told me she didn't like my regular band, but if I wanted do to the country thing again she'd book me. So I did, and she did, and that's when my career started getting notice.

I've also unintentionally stumbled across the film work I do now. I was going through the classifieds looking for another secretarial job about a year ago when the movie "Office Space" ran an ad for extras that looked business-like. I answered it and got in the film, but when some of the other extras hair was coifed bigger and bigger as the days went by, I complained that if anyone's hair was to grow, it should be mine! The head hairdresser said "no" so I walked! But the extras casting people didn't hold it against me-a couple of weeks later they cast me and my hair as a featured extra in "A Slipping Down Life" interacting a scene with Lili Taylor. Since then I've done another film, a video, and a 30-minute PSA.

Another accident. I came up with the Xanna part early on-it's short for Suzanna. One night I was hanging out at a club called Chat's Last Call on Causeway Street in Boston and this drunk guy was bothering me. He kept asking me my name, and I tried my best to ignore him, but eventually gave in and told him "Xanna." He replied oh, like Xanadu? I said "No, like Xanna Don't," and told him to get lost. After he walked away I decided to keep it.

I got really good grades and was involved in drama and every chorus the school had (four of them). In my senior year I had so many chorus and drama classes that I didn't have a lunch break. So I asked the vice principal if I could drop typing class to have lunch, and when he found out I was attending Boston Conservatory the next year, he said OK. Of course, I had no idea then that I would eventually spend several years as a word processing secretary. Go figure!

I'm part of what's called the alternative-country movement in country music, also called y'alternative, urban country, progressive country, etc. I've been at it for 10 years off and on, and have had lots of bands, including Miss Xanna Don't & The Maybe's, Miss Xanna Don't & The Willin', and Miss Xanna Don't & The Wanted. I've gotten a bit tired of the "and the" part and I'm just using my name these days and working with different musicians, as well as a couple of core members. I've just started writing songs again but most of my material has been given to me by published songwriters. I wrote one song and co-wrote another song for the movie I'm currently in, Rowdy Round-Up: Night of The Killer Piñatas (RRNKP). I've got a pretty campy stage show, including a lesbian-versed cover of Sonny & Cher's, "A Cowboy's Work Is Never Done." I love singing that one! I sent my recording of it to Chastity Bono, but I don't know if she ever received it.

I've always considered myself a member of the gay community, even when I've had boyfriends. And my boyfriends knew I was gay. I really think being gay is about orientation, not practice. Even a virgin is gay or straight. Or there have been cases of gay people in heterosexual marriages, never engaging in gay sex-that doesn't make them straight; they were still gay all that time. I've been with my current girlfriend/ wife/significant other for almost six years now. We met shortly after I moved here to Austin. I'd always been "out" in the music scene, but I didn't do the big sit down and tell the family thing until after she and I were together.

I know it's hard to be a gay person in any profession. I got fired from a great day job with flexible hours and my own office for being gay, and I'd been there two and half years. A right wing, power hungry christian-type made it his mission, and he eventually succeeded. In the state of Texas, there's nothing you can do about it. He replaced me with a woman who quoted the bible on the hour. One of the nicer engineers at the company even tried to persuade me to come to his church. Go to church to save my job? I developed a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from this experience and have undergone EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprogramming) therapy for it through The Sims Foundation, a local entity that finds low cost mental health referrals for musicians.

Even my girlfriend, who works in television, has had prejudicial experiences. An on-air talent she had to do cameras for would not look into the camera for it to be focused if a gay person was behind it. And he wouldn't say "hello" or "good morning" to any gay staff members. Still, he got promoted. My Mrs. moved on to another (and better) job.

This is a subject I've got a lot of strong feelings about, because I think we ALL need to be out. It's hard to be out and suffer these kinds of things, but if we all don't come out, it will never change. I wish Rosie O'Donnell would come out. She's so beloved and such a children's advocate. I think it would truly help our community. As a public person myself, I think there's never been a better time than now to do it. I have the greatest admiration for Ellen Degeneres. I think she did it right. I couldn't stand her show when she was supposed to be straight. We would try to watch it, then when a male love interest would be introduced, it was so unbelievable. I think the episodes after she came out were her best work.

At the time I went on the show, it seemed like a good idea, but I attribute this crazy decision to the remnants of my post-traumatic stress disorder! At least I had some of my wits about me as they did ask me to perform on the show, but I declined. The topic for the show seemed benign enough - "most outrageous hair," but the show surprised us with some nasty, sleazy judges who sat behind us and degraded us. One of the panelists, a lovely young woman who owned a hair salon in Indianapolis, had to suffer the lewd advances of the male judge, a show regular called Tornado, who practically sniffed her butt in his efforts to get a closer gander of her sitting down. All the panelists were nice, decent people. His efforts were silly. I don't think they got the better of any of us.

The producers, two of them for this show, did the old good cop/bad cop routine. The good cop was a young gay guy who was very nice to me; the bad cop was a vicious blonde right off a plane from L.A. who encouraged us to be freaky and boisterous. Right before I went on, the "bad cop" producer took my CD and hair business card from me and said they would be on my chair for me to talk about. When I got out there, they were nowhere to be found. This threw me a bit, but I held my composure. Then half way through the show, in another attempt to throw me off balance, she whispered in my ear during a break that in the next segment I would walk off set for the pre-taped segment we did the night before, and that they probably would NOT have me come back. Guess I wasn't freaky and unbalanced enough for her, but my gay good cop must have prevailed because I did return to finish the show. In the limo ride to the airport, the other panelists in the car said the show tried in some way to put them off balance as well.

As for Jenny herself, my gaydar went off when I met her. Or maybe it was just because she was wearing leather pants. Ha, ha! I think what a lot of people don't know about her is that she really is just "the talent" on the show. She struck me as pretty "hands-off."

The very day we taped the show, the jury went out in the court case against Jenny's producers for the resulting murder of a gay panelist. Some of her lawyers were from Austin and were on the same plane with me returning that day. They must have had a pretty good indication that the jury would rule against them because they were still trying to order drinks from the stewardess ten minutes before the plane landed. She shut 'em off. The verdict came in the following day for $25 million. After my experience the day before, I agreed with it. If they could go to such lengths in an attempt to make a simple hair show seedy and freaky, it was easy to imagine how hard they pushed a homophobe's buttons, and easy to see how someone ended up dead.

I don't think I'd ever do the "group extra" thing again. But a featured-extra stint is fun, especially if there's a unique reason they want you. The scene I did with Lili Taylor in "A Slipping Down Life" was especially exciting because she yelled at me in between takes. I had to drop my teasing comb in the same place each time and Lili picked it up and handed it back to me. I wasn't doing it fast enough for her, so she said to me, and these were her exact words, "Could you drop the comb a beat faster? Can you manage that? Is that do-able?" I just muttered "yes" and when we went for the next take I concentrated really hard and dropped it exactly a beat faster. Then we all heard: "Cut! She dropped the comb too soon!" So the assistant director comes over to talk to me and I told him Miss Taylor had asked me to, and he said, well, the camera can't see it, and I said, "Well, you'll tell her, right?" And even though it was scary getting yelled at, geez, it was Lili Taylor yelling at me. After all, she was wearing a big fuzzy bunny costume in 104 degree Texas weather! It was a great moment for me. I admired her even more for her bitchiness.

It's a feature-length comedy shot digitally to be dropped to film. You can expect to see it on the festival circuit for starters. It's definitely campy. And I get to sing in it, too. The plot centers on a lesbian vegan ranch that uses prisoners purchased from the local good old boy sheriff in their annual rodeo instead of cattle. These ladies are very serious about not hurting animals.

There is another real-life lesbian in the cast, local stage legend C.K. McFarland, but I don't have scenes with her. I think I scared my other "ranch girls" our first day on the set together when I asked if anyone else was a lesbian. One of them said, oh we're all playing lesbians, and I said, no, in real life? After the initial shock, everyone was cool. I felt a bit out of the loop at first because they were all so svelte and gorgeous, but the screenwriter assured me that I was a babe, too, so I got over it. Ha, ha. We even did a swimming scene together last week, and I was totally comfortable at this point. Everyone I've met in this cast has been great to work and genuinely nice people. It's a good group.

I play "Eden" the ranch owner's assistant. She's a woman who was hurt by the straight rodeo circuit and lost her girlfriend to it. But being a part of the lesbian vegan ranch and rodeo has helped her to heal, and she recruits some of her old rodeo pals for the big event.

My character in the movie is so extreme that she would never have men in her band. So I put together an all-female, mostly lesbian band for the movie called The Satellite Ponies. This band exists only in the movie. We wrote the first song together with the film's screenwriter, Anna-Mari Lilja.

Yes! The future looks bright for Miss Xanna. Being the first "real" Austin celebrity I met after I moved here, I can tell you she isn't phony. She's one of the nicest, most friendly people I have ever been lucky enough to know. And I'm proud to call her a friend.

Keep looking to www.filethirteen.com for more on Xanna. Check out our calendar for her most up to date gig info. And check out our links page for a link to her website.