it sort of sounds like a bad band, you know, that-- or we were later referred to as karen finley and the three homosexuals, which sounds like a really bad band. i've seen them play. [laughs] and yet this has been a battle. your status as a member of the n.e.a. four has been a decade long, really. yes, it all started in 1990, when the four of us were recommended for funding by peer panels in the n.e.a. and then, under political pressure, john frohnmayer, who was then chairman, took away our grants. and it was during a whole sort of public debate about controversial funding for the arts, and we decided to sue the government. we felt that this was clearly an abridgment of free speech. and it wasn't something that we felt hopeful about changing in congress, since they had given us this horrible law, so that's when our battle started. what was it about your work that was deemed dangerous? well, there was a one-sentence description of my work before the national council voted to take away my funding. now, they never saw the work; they never read it. what they talked about is my identity as