AUGUST 1, 1997 GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE 21

BOOKS

They're coming out laughing at the local comedy club

A Funny Time to be Gay by Ed Karvoski, Jr. Simon & Schuster, $12 paperback

by Andrea L.T. Peterson

It's hard to find more than one or two reasonably amusing people in one place at one time. In his book, A Funny Time to be Gay, stand-up comic Ed Karvoski, Jr., beats the odds and gathers more than 30 very funny gay and lesbian comics in one short volume. Only recently has it been both safe and fash-

Ed Karvoski, Jr.

ionable for gay and lesbian comics to be out on the job-and dozens of new names and faces are appearing.

It is considerably less well known that a handful of daring men and women have been out on stage, in mainstream comedy clubs,

JAY CHUN

for years. Karvoski covers them all, from Kate Clinton, non-heir apparent to the Clinton administration, to Steve Moore who is certainly the first, if not the only HIV-positive man to joke positively about his HIV status. The book also includes trailblazers like Robin Tyler, who laughed out and loud as early as the '70s and helped pioneer the comic invasion into women's music festivals, ex-Catholic punk and leather lesbian Jeanne Wiley, and a dozen other new young upstarts, who are coming of age and coming out in the '90s. A Funny Time to be Gay is a short history of gay and lesbian comedy, social commentary on more than two decades of issues, public debate, and private lives. In this collection that chronicles an often invisible aspect of the entertainment industry, Karvoski provides a brief bio of each comic, revealing how each sees his or her part in comedy— and detailing the roads each took to get out and on stage. He includes routines from each comic, revealing the flavor of his or her humor and how he or she perceives the responses of both mainstream and gay-lesbian audiences. For profiles of these men and women, there's no resource like Karvoski's A Funny Time to be Gay

A Funny Time to be Gay is really an important book, being among the very few that look this closely into the journeys, the humor, and the styles of nearly 30 years of gay and lesbian humorists. Karvoski, a stand up comic, comedy writer and journalist, found that a book such as this would enable him to "combine all of his [professional] interests in one."

This is definitely 'Intro to Gay and Lesbian Humor,' with a look at a broad range of subjects, including gays in the military: "The whole idea of the military strikes me as absurd," says E.L. Gregory. "I do not understand the desire to pick up a gun and go off and shoot strangers when there are so many loved ones I'd like to take a shot at."

Or a jab at Billy Graham's notion that heaven is one long family reunion that never ends. What then is hell, queries Barry Steiger:

Schindler story is now a movie

Continued from page 19

with the Navy, who is obligated to notify Hajdys each year about the hearings, Kirk Childress of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) now represents the family at these hearings.

Helvey will be up for parole on October 25, 2002, after serving ten years of his life sentence. Along with the SLDN, Hajdys has vowed to make sure that Helvey serves his entire life sentence, saying that the nightmare will never fully be over.

"How can it really be over when every year you have to fight to keep the guy in jail?" she asks. She hopes that exposure from the movie will help her gather her goal of 1 million signatures before Helvey's parole hearing. To date, Hajdys has turned in 12,832 signatures, but added, "there are petitions all over the United States that haven't come back from people.”

"I don't even know why I said a million, but I felt that if there were that many people behind me, they have to listen to me" Sixtyseven million households that have cable have Lifetime, which has an average viewing of over 4 million per night. Any Mother's Son will be shown five times during the month of August.

Hajdys chose the name for the movie, and said that she was pleased with the finished product.

"I hope that people realize from the name

of the movie that any of them can have a son who is gay, any of them can have a son who is killed, and any of them if they don't love their sons can end up having a monster for a son like Terry Helvey."

Although Charles Vins may have gotten away with murder, Hajdys said that as long as she is alive, Terry Helvey definitely will not.

"I made a promise on Allen's grave that I would do everything in my power to keep Terry Helvey in jail."

And Dorothy Hajdys is not the kind of mom who breaks a promise to her kids.

Any Mother's Son will be shown on Lifetime:

Monday, August 11, 9:00 pm Thursday, August 14, 9:00 pm Sunday, August 17, 8:00 pm Saturday, August 23, 8:00 pm Sunday, August 31, 12:00 noon

To sign the petition denying parole for Terry Helvey, send e-mail to sidn@sldn.org or visit the SLDN web site at http:// www.sldn.org/

SLDN will also host a series of house parties throughout the country on the dates that the film is aired. To obtain a house party action kit, or to contribute to the Allen Schindler Memorial Fund, contact SLDN at 202-328-3244.

"Home videos of the same reunion?”

Karvoski, who found it necessary to cut his original list of comics nearly in half, has provided a good mix in age, gender, religious background, geographical origins and general style. There is someone in here for everyone, and a complete list of comics and others is included at the back of the book so readers might find out when their favorite comics are coming to town.

Check it out, and support these brave souls who put themselves in the line of fire

DJ EVERY WEDNESDAY!

weekly or nightly as their schedules necessitate. They are breaking ground, bringing gays and lesbians—and an incredibly good mix of the different aspects of our communities-into the straight clubs as well as gay and lesbian clubs, and straight living rooms and bedrooms via cable and video. All of that, and they're just good, clean—well, mostly-fun. ♡

Andrea Peterson is a freelance writer living in Alexandria, Virginia.

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