The Mayor of Dametown: A Conversation with Dixie Laite

New York City-based polymath and Renaissance woman Dixie Laite describes herself as “Writer, Bullshit Slayer, Mayor at Dametown.com.” Over the past four years, her blog by that name, which she initially started to celebrate dames of yore and the classic actresses of Old Hollywood, has morphed a powerful voice against Trumpism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other ills besetting our country.

By way of biography, I can’t improve on Dixie’s own self-description:

Dixie Laite was born in a log cabin she built with her own two hands. She walked twenty miles to school, through the snow, uphill, seven days a week, all year long. As a teenager she invented many new and useful things including a dazzling array of reasons why 1) she cannot come to school today, and 2) you cannot get to third base.

Dixie spent her early years in Miami, watching Thirties movies and working at a variety of jobs including making hotdogs at the Orange Bowl and running a mechanical bull in cowboy bar in Fort Lauderdale. She attended the University Pennsylvania where she studied philosophy, history, and theology, where the big money is. After moving to New York City, Dixie taught second grade and Harlem and the South Bronx, became a bodybuilder and personal trainer, and went on to become National Project Director for Thirteen/WNET‘s…