A Letter from Lynn #GOLDsFirstAnniversary

On the occasion of the GOLD club’s anniversary, a very personal note from GOLD’s founder.

My mom had good taste in many things, including husbands, brisket, and funny women. Evenings at our house meant Carol Burnett, Ruth Buzzi and Goldie Hawn (Laugh-In), and The Muppet Show (Miss Piggy). Afternoons, I Love Lucy. In our house, women were funny. This was no revelation, nor revolution. It never occurred to me otherwise. 

The same is true of my general disdain for patriarchy. I remember emceeing an event for the Boston chapter of NOW, 100 years ago, with my mom there, and thanking her for the fact that for me, in our house, feminism was never a rebellion. 

My mom taught me to make sure that people listened to me (hence, the mic!). She taught me to apologize only when absolutely necessary. (Her expression: “Don’t wipe the floor with yourself.”) She taught me not to care what boys think, though I confess I was not a quick study until college. I do think she wished I had a “real” career, like an attorney, or the wife of Harry Belafonte—at least, something she could understand. But I also know that when it came to me and comedy, she understood where it—where I—came from. And she definitely got the funny + feminism equation. She super duper deeply wholly got why it’s important for women to take the stage, control the mic, wield the punch.

When my mom died in March 2020, the height of the early pandemic, which is one case where tragedy + time = tragedy, I knew what I wanted to create with GOLD—always, long before the pandemic, an online women/non-binary-folks-first community of comedy makers—but I wasn’t sure exactly where.

Lots of research and development and teamwork with smart people had brought GOLD to a place where it was a very cool ship without the home it needed, like Battlestar Galactica. About a month after mom died came my surge of I GOTTA DO SOMETHING, though I was still foggy in my thoughts and shaky on my feet. A GOLD adviser (Hi, George!) steadied me with a mention of Mighty Networks, and it was ON. 

With a ton of help (Carly! Ami! Carolyn! Hollie! Milly! All the O.G. GOLD Clubbers!), we opened our doors officially the following January. And here we are now, a thriving community of future Burnetts and Buzzis and Goldies (!), creating and collaborating and NOT APOLOGIZING FOR ANYTHING, every day. 

You all would make my mom so proud. More to the point, you’d make her laugh. 

 

Tip your servers,

Lynn