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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE November, 1991

Sports Pride

by Lee Sharmat

and Rich Flowers

AIDS has devastated the gay and lesbian sports community. We are continually losing our fellow athletes to AIDS. Safer-sex guidelines are part of our bedroom lives, but what about on the playing field? In September the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a report concerning this issue that came after three years of research and made the following recommendations: HIV-positive athletes should consider participating only in non-contact sports. All athletes should be made aware that other athletes with HIV may be on the team, but the HIV-positive athlete has a right to confidentiality. Blood and other bodily fluids should be immediately cleaned off equipment and skin.

According to New York Knights Wrestling Club founder Bob Hoffman, all members fill out an application form that includes a question about physical disabilities. "While two wrestlers acknowledged that they are HIV-positive on the form," Hoffman said, "I don't rely on the information because I know another wrestler who is HIV-positive but didn't disclose his status on the form."

Hoffman points out to coaches those members who are HIV-positive because coaches and trainers are the first ones on the scene when an athlete is injured, but he doesn't tell other wrestlers. "If any bleeding occurs during a match, we stop the action and clean up with Clorox," noted Hoffman.

Emotional support is also important. Frontrunners New York has a bi-weekly support group for its HIV-positive members. There have been no reported cases of HIV being transmitted through contact in sports although it is theoretically possible. While the article suggests that coaches, trainers, and other athletes should be protected, the HIV-positive athletes' health should be a priority as well.

What's the difference between IGBO, IGLA and IGLOO? IGBO is the International Gay Bowling Organization, IGLA is the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics, and IGLOO is an Eskimo house built of blocks of snow and shaped like a dome? Almost . . . IGLOO is the International Gay and Lesbian

Gay Games IV

Outdoors Organization, a group that sponsors outdoor recreational sports activities like hiking, camping, horseback riding, canoeing, ice-skating, caving and schmoozing. The Sundance Outdoor Adventure Society is the New York chapter and almost all major cities have a chapter. To connect with a gay-lesbian outdoor club, call Shep Wahnon at 212-254-7508.

IGBO sponsors two major tournaments a

Ginsberg Uncensored

by W.A. Brooks

Allen Ginsberg is something of a gay literary icon. A friend of Kerouac, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, the "Beat generation" of writers, he has long been "out" as a homosexual, as well as a champion and advocate of freedom of artistic expression and spirituality, and he is an extremely frank individualist.

Through November 14, The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art has on exhibit twenty photographs by Ginsberg, called American Dharma, "cosmic order, right conduct", from a recently-published book of photos of his friends, teachers, lovers, and associates from the 1960's to the present. In connection with this exhibition, the CCCA presented Ginsberg in a poetry reading on Friday, October 11, held in the Center's gallery space, which, at the time of writing, was still hung with a beautiful and important show, Cruciformed: Images of the Cross Since 1980). Here follow some verbal "snapshots" taken from my experience at the reading, the reception afterward, a conversation with Ginsberg the next morning, and an interview which appeared in The Advocate in May of this year.

Some random points of light and controversy:

Ginsberg was expelled from Havana and Prague in 1965, in part for his outspokenness about his sexuality.

In 1976, Ginsberg collaborates on a recording with Bob Dylan;Columbia Records

refuses to release the album. Some of Ginsberg's improvised lyrics:

18 year-old Jimmy, I love him day and night....

Drop your pants and I'll give you some good head.

Ginsberg's explicit sexuality causes some discomfort.

Love: Ginsberg had a great, idealistic, though non-monogamous, 30-year marriage to Peter Orlovsky. Ginsberg is famous for consciousness-raising, LSD experimentation, promotion of meditation, and communal living.

Arriving late, no supper; butterflies, the Social crowd is here, Ginsberg is now accepted, almost part of the Establishment, one of Us; suspicious ...

He doesn't see himself as a gay activist, at least not a typical one: he's just "trying to be accurate, not avoiding the issue.'

"I felt that other people were aggressing on me. So, there was no need to be aggressive just stay with the truth... If I'd gotten hooked in or fought like a monster, then it would've worn me out."

Ginsberg read with a rich, resonant voice, the voice of a prophet or patriarch. I was looking for signs of irritation, laughter, or embarassment in the crowd, but they sat quietly, as if in church.

Can't believe he worked for a while in a marketing firm!

Famous by charm, by genius, by ideal, by

year. One is around Memorial Day and the other, this year, is called IGBO Mid-Year at the Oasis and will take place November 7-11 in Tampa, Florida. Events will include a Casbah Cruise on the Gulf, Moonlight Mirage, Fire Hopping, Urban Turban, Syltan's Feast, Sand Blast and IGBABE -an entertainment contest. An assistant will be assigned to each of the 536 bowlers to help them get around.

The 1st International Gay Games IV Planning Conference was held at the Vista Hotel in New York, October 4-6. Sports representatives from around the world, many of whom were in New York for the first time, convened for a tour of athletic and cultural facilities, a day of presentations from New York in '94 and a constructive Q & A session. Hosted housing and personalized social outings and tours, including the Clit Club, helped to alleviate fears about the Big Apple. Tanya Jo Ingram, a Hawaiian delegate to the Federation of Gay Games, said, "I had never been to New York and was scared before I came here. I feel safe now after being here for a week." Many of the representatives felt safe as well and stated so.

The Federation's annual meeting took place at the Vista Hotel over the same weekend. Rick Peterson from Seattle was re-elected as Co-President, and a new Co-President, Susan Kennedy from San Francisco, was elected.

New York in '94 elected two new Co-Presidents, Ann Northrop and Jay Hill, September 18. Northrop is a member of ACT-UP, a former employee of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, CBS-TV News, ABC-TV Sports and is currently a staff writer with NYQ Magazine. Hill has covered the Olympics for ABC Sports, is a member of Frontrunners, a tri-athlete, a free-lance sports journalist and is currently employed by Newsweek.

New York in '94 proudly announces its first Executive DirectorPaula Pressley. Pressley was the Deputy Director for Planning and Development for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (NYC), Director of Artists in Residence (NYC), board member of GLAAD and the ASTREA National Lesbian Action Foundation.

And last but not least... an exciting new look for New York in '94! The winner of New York in '94's International Logo Design Competition is Vicki Jones, from Sidney, Australia. Jones was so elated over her victory that she "came out" at work and if you call her home "down under," her answering machine says, "You have reached Vicki Jones, winner of the Gay Games IV logo competition!""

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work, by chance, by mission, by honesty? a subtle, technologically-induced cultural fascism"

"That's very good; and you think it's television that is responsible?”

Ginsberg is a spiritual descendant of Whitman, of the vigorous, loose and robust verbal style, a proponent of "the manly love of comrades."

"Tell me about love, Mr Ginsberg." "I don't know what I can say about that right now...

Mr. Ginsberg teaches at Naropa Institute, a Buddhist college in Denver. "Very important to dissolve anger; you start by being aware of it, and then you'll see it begin to disappear, largely on its own."

I told him about the unsettling experience of being attracted to a Chinese boy, and then learning that he was only 17; "isn't it more a question of being very careful not to

LEVELAND: RUSH

manipulate, not to be involved in a dishonest situation in which the power is unbalanced? "I think that's right... This boy, was he gay? Was he responsive?” Ginsberg is a member of NAMBLA. Time magazine: a group involved in the systematic exploitation of the weak and immature by the powerful and disturbed."

Ginsberg: "The description struck me as a precise characterization of Time's own assault on the mind and body politic... I am a member of NAMBLA because I love boys. Everybody does who has a little humanity." Hooray!... (Gulp!) I am afraid of this issue; mustn't one be careful in one's. statements about such things?

I do like him. He seems very courageous, very generous. Continued on next page