MARCH 19, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

17

ON THE AIR OFF THE PRESS

Gay Nineties premieres; Leno drops anti-gay guest

by John DuAne

Don't forget the March 26 premiere of Gay Nineties, Buck Harris' live lesbian, gay and bisexual talk show on WHK 1420 AM every Friday evening between 9 and 11 pm. Best wishes to Buck and his news correspondent Karen Harrison on their new show.

The April edition of In the Life will air on WVIZ Channel 25 on Sunday, April 11 at 11:30 pm. Co-hosted by Sara Cryton and In the Life creator John Scagliotti, the April show will examine the exploding potential of lesbian and gay television by showcasing the best performances of the first season of the show. In the Life will also feature a new segment on the rising financial influence of lesbian and gay entertainers on the benefit circuit and a parody commercial called "That's Adult Entertainment."

Thanks to those volunteers from our community who offered to answer phones in the studio during WVIZ's March fundraising membership drive. WVIZ was impressed with the excellent response from our community to their call for volunteers and has thanked us for our efforts. Thanks, also, to those of you who called in during the show to sign up for a WVIZ membership. All of these efforts make the station aware that our community is also some of the "public" that PBS is supposed to serve and helps assure that more programming of special interest to lesbians, gays and bisexuals will be broadcast in the future.

Recently I asked WVIZ if they could schedule some gay programming around the time of the March on Washington at the end of April or the Pride week, Stonewall revolution festivities in June. If you would like to see the station schedule gay programming around our special events let them know now. Contact WVIZ, Channel 25 at 398-2800, or write to: Mr. Robert Olive, Program Director, WVIZ, 4300 Brookpark Rd, Cleveland, OH 44134.

A performance by lesbian comic Susanne Westenhoffer has been one of the acts featured on Stand Up, Stand Up on cable's Comedy Channel. Westenhoffer will be

performing at the Metronome club on March 21. Stand Up, Stand Up, which features a variety of stand-up comedy performances focussing on a central theme, can be seen at various times every day on the Comedy Channel. The show's producers ask viewers to suggest themes for future shows; maybe some of our listeners could write in and suggest an entire show of performances by lesbian and gay comics.

Look for sketches with lesbian and gay characters in ABC's new sitcom, The Jackie Thomas Show which airs on Channel 5 on

Tuesday nights from 9:30 to 10 pm. In an interview in the March 9 edition of the Advocate, the show's star, Tom Arnold, said that "it's obviously a pro-gay show.. .." He also stated, "I'm not going to say, `here's the gay character this week.' You'll see gay characters on the show; we'll have some fun with it." Later in the interview Arnold went on to say, "gays need to be on TV and in the movies all the time. It doesn't have to be a very special thing or whatever, like someone is dying of AIDS." Tom Arnold and his wife Roseanne are publicly active in support of gay political issues and got involved in the fight against anti-gay ballot initiatives in Oregon and Colorado. Roseanne Arnold recently had one of the recurring characters on her own ABC show, Roseanne, come out on the show. The character, Nancy, is played by openly bisexual comic Sandra Bernhard. Nancy's lover is played by Morgan Fairchild.

Check out the March edition of the Atlantic Monthly which is running a 12-page article reviewing the latest research into the biological nature of sexual orientation. The article is written by Chandler Burr, a gay man who is one of the researchers investigating the biology of sexual orientation. Burr concludes that, while the research shows promising results supporting the immutable, biological foundation of our orientation, the bigotry that we face did not arise in the laboratory, and we cannot expect conclusive evidence in the laboratory to solve all of the problems we face. We must continue to strive for our rights in the

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The Plain Dealer ran an Associated Press story recently that Alan Berube, author of the book Coming Out Under Fire: the History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two, and well known filmmaker Arthur Dong have joined forces to produce a TV documentary based on Berube's book. Work on the project, partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, began on January 19, the 50th anniversary of the military's first anti-gay policy.

Glad to see that the usually anti-gay rights editors of Cleveland's AfricanAmerican paper, the Call and Post, ran an editorial on February 18 in support of the president's vow to lift the ban on lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the military. The editorial concluded with a call to the African-American community to oppose the military's discriminatory policy towards gays just as they would oppose racial discrimination. The February 18 edition also ran a nice review of drag diva Ru Paul's performance at U4ia on February 12.

Congratulations to our two openly lesbian pop stars Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang, who were winners at this year's Grammy awards. lang won best female pop vocal for her song "Constant Craving" on her Ingenue album. Etheridge won best female rock vocal for her song "Ain't It Heavy" on her Never Enough album.

USA Today reports that NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno dropped Grammy award-winning reggae singer Shabba Ranks from a scheduled appearance on his show because of homophobic remarks the singer made on a British TV show for teenagers. Ranks had said that "Boom Bye Bye," a song by Buju Banton that advocated gay bashing, was "most definitely right." Leno

denied an earlier report that he was bowing

to pressure from GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Leno said that GLAAD had informed him of Ranks' TV remarks but said that he had made the decision on his own, stating, "Sometimes you just say, 'gee, here's something morally wrong. It's wrong for someone who has expressed this particular viewpoint to be on the Tonight Show'."'

Ranks had issued a statement in late February stating, "I now realize that the comments were a mistake, because they advocated violence towards homosexuals. I do not approve of any act of violence against homosexuals or any other human beings. No one should be physically attacked because of their beliefs or sexual preferences. Gay bashing is not an activity which I condone." Thanks, Shabba, for realizing the harm your words can do and especially thanks to you, Jay, for taking a stand against homophobia on your own. A later report in USA Today indicated that the Pasadena Fund Fest officials canceled Ranks' appearance at an April 3 Rose Bowl benefit concert for his homophobic remarks.

To find out more about how to do something about our portrayal in the media, contact GLAAD at their new address: 150 West 26th St., Suite 503, New York, NY 10001, or try calling them at 212-8071700.

As always, we at GayWaves would like to get your opinion or news of upcoming media events. Call us here at WRUW at 368-2208 Wednesday nights between 9 and 11 pm, or call the station anytime and leave a message. The new deadline for information to be included in one week's show is Wednesday of the week before the show airs.

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