Nomy Lamm
Compiled by Rudy Kikel
Out & About: New England's Largest Gay and Lesbian Newspaper
September 6 - September 21, 2001
Vol. 19, No. 38, Section 3

Where does your name come from? "My birth name is Naomi; and my parents just always called me Nomy."

Where am I talking to you by phone from? "I'm in Olympia, Washington."

Birthday: September 1, 1975

How did you celebrate your birthday? "Most of the day I stayed home and did work, and then went out to dinner at a cafe [at] my friend's house. I thought I was going home - but suddenly I wound up at a suprise party for me."

Sign: Virgo, with Cancer Moon and Leo rising.

What does that say about you? "All kinds of things. If you got to know me you would see all of those things pretty clearly. The Virgo thing is most evident - I'm really, really analytical and when I'm working on projects I'm able to keep track of all the details."

E-mail address: nomylamm@hotmail.com

Ethnic roots: "Half Jewish, and half Scottish, Irish, English, German, French, Dutch, Welsh."

Religion: "Jewish."

Occupation: "Free lance writer and performer."

And you've found a way to live on that? "Yeah."

Points of origin: "I was born on a commune in Tennessee. My parents were hippies, and then they came out here to Washington state, to help my grandfather build a house, and ended up driving through Olympia. My dad thought it was pretty and decided to stay. "The rest of the story all takes place in Olympia. "I've lived here since I was 2. "I was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency. That means that the femur in my left leg is very, very small, and the growth rate of my little leg (left) is half that of my other leg. I had my little foot amputated when I was 3 so I can wear a prosthesis. "I spent a lot of time when I was a kid in hospitals, by the time I was four, I had a prosthesis and went to school like everybody else did."

How was school for you? "It sucked. I mean it sucked and it was fine too."

People didn't pick on you, did they? "Oh sure. Who doesn't get picked on? "I was always the kind of student who was really smart, who got it all and didn't do any of the work. "I got involved with theater in middle school, which was the thing that saved my life at that point. "I did all the 'Sound of Music,' 'Carousel,' 'Peter Pan' - that
kind of musical theater - where you're not bringing anything personal to the world. I would have this La La Land that I would go to after school. "That alleviated a lot of social pressure for me, doing that. "Then there was Capital High School, which I went to for two years, and slept through most of my classes. At that point, I was like...what would I call myself?" An outsider? "I wore all black and smoked cigarettes. I was -

Boston is a big Goth city! - I was Goth."By my junior year I couldn't deal with my high school environment anymore, so I transferred to a night, alternative school, called New Century. It's funny. Now when I look through the yearbook - most of us are queer. At the time, we didn't know. "And we were all very Goth. But at that school, it was such a small school that you could do whatever you wanted. It was an academic program, it wasn't an at-risk program; but it was at risk in a way: we were people who couldn't deal with the social situations of other schools, but still wanted to be in school. "We were all Goth and gay."

Did you know you were gay at that time? "No...I was...nothing. It was while I was at that school, that some friend and I started an all-girl band called Plain Jane. Very original name! "We were 16, we got to play shows. There was this little punk collective called the Uncola. "Olympia is known for having a really amusing music scene.
There were shows every single day, so we got to play a lot."

Didn't other bands play there too? "Oh sure. We were always the opening band."I was in this band with all these girls: at the same time Riot Grrl was starting in Olympia and other places too. Olympia was really a focal point for those energies. "People said we should go to Riot Grrl meetings. We were scared because the people we knew who were putting on RiotGrl shows seemed intimidating, and we were high school punks. "I went to my first Riot Grrl meeting, on Halloween, in 1992. "My life changed dramatically around that time. I got politicized by RiotGrrl into thinking of my own life in connection with the rest of the world."Riot Grrl talked about sexism, class, race and abuse, body hatred and fat oppression. "It was through that I started writing 'zines ('I'm so fucking beautiful' was one) when I was 17. It was all about being fat."When I started it I had read this book called 'Shadow on a Tightrope,' which introduced me to the notion of fat oppression.

At the time you thought of yourself as fat? "Oh yeah, I was fat, I am fat."The zine became this huge deal in my life because people started reading it. I was one of the first young punk girls talking about fat in a really political way. People really wanted to hear that. It got reviewed. I started getting asked to write for newspapers and magazines, feminist anthologies, and being asked to give workshops, and speak at colleges. Meanwhile I was in college, Evergreen State College, then graduating from college. Two summers ago, I toured with SisterSpit - the only time I've ever been to Boston. That was really amazing for me. I had been writing and performing for a long time, but not necessarily feeling I was in a community of writers.

"SisterSpit is a traveling, all grrl spoken word road show. I did that, went to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. That was a really dramatic experience because of this policy of not allowing trans-women on the land. So there was a lot of very tense stuff going on there about gender. "Before I performed I said from the podium that I wanted to encourage them to be inclusive of trans women. People stood up and cheered, which I was suprised about. Then all this stuff happened.

"As soon as I got home from tour that summer, I started writing a rock opera with The Need. We put on this two-hour-long, 26-character rock opera called 'The Transfused.' A lot of the people in the show we're bringing to Boston were in 'The Transfused.' It was a huge undertaking."Tara Jepsen called me and said she wanted to put together a kind of performance art/cabaret. I was at that point burned out, but it was an opportunity to wrok on some of my own performance pieces in the context of a larger show.

"'Dr. Frockrocket's Vivifying (Re-Animatronic) Menagerie and Medicine Show' is a performance art/cabaret threaded together with the story of Dr. Frockrocket, who is this salesman/inventor kind of guy who supposedly has this elixir that turns ordinary animals into mythological creatures. Each of us is a mythological creature - the six of us.

What are you? "Princess Pooftah Una Cornea. I open the play with this a capella prologue called 'The Eve of the End' and I have a piece in the show called 'The Princess Dance of Mystery,' a belly dance, and then I end up taking off my leg. Then I have a piece at the end, where I sing with the band."

I dream, in 10 years, of "having health insurance."

Do you have it now? "No. I'm really in limbo."

I assume you didn't vote for George Bush. "I cried a lot on November 7."

Do you have a partner? "No."

Will you be looking when you come to Boston? "Sure. A four-day partner? Sure."