B-2 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE JULY 22, 1994

Enjoying the new Girlfriends

by Deb Shepherd My Midwest gauche must have been showing when I picked up the magazine off the bar and tucked it into the pile of clothes, money, hats and varied other stuff I was holding for my friends dancing half naked and with wild abandon on the floor of the ClitClub in New York. I picked it up because I thought it was freeit turns out it was not and I saw "Queen Califia Holds Court" blurbed on the front. Could it be? Not Pat Califia, here on a glossy mag with a cover pic of two girls in gingham dresses and makeup? It was worth dragging it back to the room to find out! There, I found out not only that it was Pat

Califia, but the magazine, Girlfriends, was pledging "an editorial character that is highly personal, sex-positive, and unafraid of controversy..."Uh-huh. I'm sorry, but this mag looks too much like Deneuve to be tainting her reputation with those sordid matters. But, being the way-too-trusting girl I am, I kept reading.

Okay, Pat Califia is doing an advice column. That means right-on info with no bullshit, and tongue-in-cheek humor characteristically her own. Diane DiMassa's Hothead Paisan is there, okay; fashion (welding wear!), a youth column, spirit (non-euro) and health (differed abilities), horoscope, sports, travel, re-

FROM THE HART

Marrying? Tell the world!

Advice on love, relationships and other issues relevant to sexual minorities.

Dear Taylor,

by Taylor Hart

Is it okay to send out wedding announcements for a gay wedding?

Dear B.B.,

Blushing Bride

It is perfectly okay to send out wedding announcements as long as there will be some type of wedding ceremony, whether it be religious, spiritual, formal or informal. I see no reason why a gay or lesbian couple should suppress the urge to share the joyful news of their wedding. As long as you feel confortable doing so, send an announcement to anyone you wish. [Send an announcement to the Chronicle! We would be pleased to print it.]

If, however, you and your lover have decided to live together without some type of wedding ceremony, it would then be improper to send out a wedding announcement. But don't for a minute think I am suggesting that you should not share the joyful news of your new living situation. The best way to share this news would be in a handwritten letter to your family and friends, informing them of any recent news, including your new living arrangement. Dear Taylor,

Do you find gay camp offensive? Sherman N. Peabody

Dear Mr. Peabody,

Not as long as I've got a good pair of

Confused by your accounting?

Upset at the thought

if taxes?

Providing tax and accounting services to individuals and small business.

hiking boots, the counselors are drop dead gorgeous (and very strict) and the hors d'oeuvres are imported.

at

Taylor now has an e-mail address! Send your questions to him chronohio@aol.com, or by U.S. mail to the address on the editorial page.

views (covers good stuff), girls on the edge, cool. A centerfold? A hot centerfold. But wait a minute, shot by a transgendered gal? They did say "he/she". . . Damn... Maybe they really mean what they say here... Wow, Sapphire writes a piece on girls behind bars that deftly plays the heart strings. The poetry is 'bout chicks with dicks and it's hot! But here's the final lick that puts me over the edge a regular column on parenting that is on target! I'm smiling and searching for my checkbook. These "girlfriends" have my support and anything else I can give them. Just keep on.

dykes really have won the war. Not that we wanted to battle, but when you're physically, emotionally, and systematically abused at the hands of your sisters, you gotta call it something. And you sure as hell aren't gonna take it. So, do they really believe it now when we tell them dykes should be free to experience loving, consensual, sexual encounters in any flavor they choose? Or are there just too many

GiRL

WELD

You know, besides thoroughly entertaining and enlightening me, Girlfriends does something else, too. It tells me things have changed for good and are not turning back. Or, I don't know, maybe its because I'm just home from New York and one of the largest dykeattended leather conferences I've had the pleasure to experience. The energy of strong loving women still fills my heart and inspires me. Maybe its because I just saw Go Fish, which barely suggested that radical sex-positive dykes (a chick who lives in her leather jacket and a girrl with pierced nips?) can carry on healthy, mature relationships. Maybe it's the increasing love and acceptance I've felt from more and more dykes in my town.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think sex-radical

girls insisting on it for them to do anything about it?

Either way, am I acting rashly to say some of us can sit down for awhile and do what we've been wanting

to do all along: enjoy our lives? The girls from Girlfriends inspire the trust that says maybe we can.

P.S.: If you're coming over from the other side, or just climbing off the fence, please remember something we strive to treat our sisters with respect and honesty. So, when you kick off your Doc Martens, please don't leave dirt on the floor. We keep a clean house.

P.P.S.: Someone send word to Michigan!

Girlfriends can be had at P.O. Box 713, Half Moon Bay, Calif. 94019-9760; six issues for $24 and a signed statement that you are at least 18 years old.

HOUSE OF ST. JAMES

A look at the latest in underground dance music from a host of One Brother in the Basement, featuring tribal, house, trance, and breakbeat, Wednesdays on Cleveland's WRUW-FM, 91.1. Check him out Thursday nights at Avalon, 1946 St. Clair Ave. “Bring a second pair of shoes.

""

by Steven St. James

House F.O.D., "All It Takes," Planet Earth

From the second you play this cut, the floor will fill. Great vocals, but the lyrics lack any real substance or build. Formulated but fine.

Liliane

Dykes To Run From...

...

how

about a

little

The Apache Project, "Keep Me Up"/ "Sax Appeal,” DCH Records

Produced, mixed and arranged by Ron Alleen. Is there anything this guy won't do to put out a 12 inch? Listen to him set higher standards in house music by which we will become spoiled.

Trance

Cosmic Baby, "Loops of Infinity," Logic Records

I don't know where to begin. Berlin's top trance group "Cosmic Baby" composed the most astounding cut this year. A two-record set with remixes by Jam & Spoon and Arpeggiators. It's so finely composed, it's almost classical. Look forward to their up

penetration

?!!!

1993 Kanne franson

...ya know, i'm into the individualist thing in relationships.

... Sure, i finished my therapy! Why

do

you ask? Everyone has low self-esteem don't they?! Do You think i look

like i need therapy?

I don't

...no, i don't do

I like my space, you know. do you have

safer sex. But i'm

DONALD RESSEGUIE, CPA

216.228.1572

a nice

apartment

?

clean: j've only slept with

Women.

and coming album Thinking About Myself. You can play this at 33 or 45 RPM, decide for yourself. The closest thing to a musical orgasm, so you know that's good.

Seafeel, “Plain Song," Astralworks

I expected more from a label like Astralworks, so I can't fathom why they bothered to sign this sorry-ass group. Try as I might, listening to this cut was painful.

New record store:

Congrats to Tots, Surreal and Sleep for keeping the scene alive, by opening Cleveland's first strictly underground record store. Check it out for yourself. Deep Records, 2986 Noble Road, Cleveland Hts., Ohio 382-3101.

are you

straight-acting? I only want a girlfriend who's straightacting.

...you'll never make

Me come... ....but You're

welcome to be the next one to

try!!!