March 23, 2001

CHRONICLE I

on the airoff the press

Film pulls no punches on Navy's USS Iowa coverup

by John Graves

FX, Fox's cable network, debuted A Glimpse of Hell on Sunday, March 18. Starring James Caan (The Godfather) and Robert Sean Leonard (Dead Poets Society), the film tells the story of the 1989 explosion aboard the USS Iowa that killed 47 sailors. Much of it focuses on the Navy's attempt to scapegoat Gunner's Mate Clayton Hartwig by inventing a story that he was a jealous gay man who sabotaged one of the battleship's 16-inch guns to commit suicide.

Caan plays Capt. Fred Moosally, the Iowa's commander at the time of the explosion. Leonard is Lt. Dan Meyer, in charge of one of the ship's three main gun turrets. He is one of the people who brought to light information that indicated old gunpowder, rammed too far into the gun, probably caused the blast.

Meyer spends much of the film trying to convince Moosally not to follow the official scapegoating. The Naval Investigative Service, known at the time for its anti-gay witchhunts, is unflatteringly shown forcing sailors to participate in its fabricated story.

A Glimpse of Hell will most likely air several more times in March and April. FX has also put into rotation an original documentary, USS Iowa: Uncovered, which talks to the actual people involved in the coverup and investigation, as well as historians and military experts.

Renzi says it isn't all real

Dan Renzi, the openly gay housemate from the 1996 Miami season of MTV's Real World, talked to TV Guide recently about his real life experiences on his most recent stint as cast member on Real World/Road Rules Extreme Challenge. The interview is part of a March 23 story on the coaching behind the reality shows.

"In one Challenge episode, we're enlisted into the Navy," Renzi told TV Guide. “During a bunk inspection, an officer who finds trash in our wastebasket berates us for the cameras. Later, he returns alone, 'I'm really sorry about that. guys,' he says, 'They told us to be really mean to you so it would look good for the show.' During our weekly interviews, the directors often lead us into juicy statements. Instead of asking, 'What do you think of so-and-so,' they will spend 10 minutes mentioning every single thing that person had ever done to annoy you, and then ask, 'Don't you think he or she is a jerk?' Only that response is used.

Renzi's Real World/Road Rules Extreme Challenge can be seen on MTV Tuesdays at

10 pm.

Men's mags are really women's mags

Cleveland Life correspondent Jimi Izrael spoke with Eugene Robinson, editor-inchief of Code, a magazine directed at African-American men, about the decision of Larry Flynt Publications to put it and several sister publications up for sale.

Izrael asked Robinson if the perception that Code was "really a gay magazine in butch drag" was the reason behind the move.

"Most men's magazines in America are really women's magazines in disguise," Robinson replied. "In America most printed material with the possible exception of newspapers is consumed by women. That's why Oprah's magazine had the largest debut of any magazine in history. Men are writing themselves out of the publishing equation by not reading. Code was trying to be male publication that unapologetically male and complex."

a

was

"In regards to gayness," Robinson continued, "I shouldn't even grace that question with a response because if the level of discourse in the black community has now been reduced to the sexual orientation of a magazine, then God help us all. I think that the guys that are having problems with Code's supposed gayness are struggling mightily with their own sexual preference issues."

Mother and son reconciled

African-American activist Bishop Prince Moultry dedicates his life to work with young black men in prison and on the street, in an effort to get them to take a more positive outlook on life. He wrote a moving account of his efforts to reconcile a "Christian mother" with the son she had rejected when she learned he was living with AIDS, in a two-part installment of his weekly Cleveland Life column, “Bishop Speaks.”

The young man called Moultry in the wee hours when his mother forced him to live in the basement after he told her he was HIV-positive. She told him to move out of the house when his next check arrived. Moultry said he and his staff AIDS counselor met with the man and his mother, and after a prayer, asked the man why he had called for his help.

As the man started to explain, his mother interrupted him saying, “You brought this disease in here, and you lived that life to get it."

Moultry said he asked if the mother, who was very involved in her church, taught Sunday school. When she answered yes, he asked her what she had taught her pupils that past Sunday, not knowing what it would be. The Sunday school passage was Luke 17:11, where "Jesus heals the ten men with a skin disease, and these ten men were healed according to their faith."

Moultry asked the mother, "What was the message that you left with each of your students in your Sunday school class?"

The woman began to respond, "I left them with the point, anything but fail," when, Moultry wrote, “All of a sudden she stopped with her mouth wide open. Now covering it with her hands, she began to cry. The spirit of God came in that room like I've never felt. The son cried, the counselor cried and I cried. She got up and embraced her son, saying with tears, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was not thinking. I am so scared, son, and I just don't know what to do. You know I just love you, baby, Lord forgive me'."

The woman asked the counselor "a thousand questions," signed up to join an AIDS support group and education program and told her son, “Go downstairs and get that stuff [his belongings] and put it in your room. Momma is taking you shopping and buying you brand new clothes on your first day off."

Two new AIDS benefit CDs

The Red Hot Organization has two more AIDS benefit albums in the works for 2001. The first is Red Hot + Indigo, a tribute to Duke Ellington featuring songs by Mary J. Blige, the Roots with D'Angelo, Tortoise, Medeski, Martin and Wood, and others. Red

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The second album, Red Hot + Riot, features the music of Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kurti, who died of AIDS in 1997. Due out this fall, Red Hot + Riot features performances by Fela's drummer Tony Allen with Les Nubians, Common with Dead Prez, Brazilian guitarist Jorge Ben, Baaba Maal and jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp. The CD will also have a version of Fela's "Water No Get Enemy" performed by his son Femi Kuti with Roots drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, D'Angelo, Nile Rodgers, and Macy Gray.

When Daily Variety columnist Army Archerd asked Ted Koppel about what's in store for viewers on ABC's Nightline this year, Koppel replied, "Down the road, the first 100 days of the Bush administration. And a series on gays in America."

Koppel went on to say, “I don't think television has taken a good look at the nature of being gay in America---for whose who live it. And for those who lived it 20-3040 years ago."

Whether Koppel will host the series on gays in America remains to be seen. He has never, in the past 20 years, hosted one of the

Bardem saw 'Philadelphia' 13 times Nightline shows that dealt with LGBT is-

Actor Javier Bardem watched Tom Hanks' portrayal of a lawyer living with AIDS in the film Philadelphia 13 times in order to prepare for his Oscar-nominated performance as gay Cuban author Rinaldo Arenas in the film Before Night Falls. Bardem told USA Today that he knew little of Arenas, but "once I started reading his books, I fell in love. I felt like I got the beauty of being his voice."

Bardem, along with Ellen DeGeneres, Johnny Depp and Chloe Sevigny have been nominated for the first Outfest Screen Idol Awards. The awards, given by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; seek to honor outstanding male and female performances in a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender role. Winners will be selected through a nationwide online poll running through April 15 at www.outfest.org. According to USA Today, "Winners will be outed April 20."

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sues. Watch to see if the series is loaded with anti-gay "balance" guests. And call to protest if they do appear our issues are not dependent on the presence or approval of homophobes.

I remember getting very angry one night when Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect took on the topic of gay civil rights where the entire panel consisted of straight people discussing whether or not we should have those rights. I should have called to protest then. I didn't and, for that, I am truly sorry. Perhaps Maher or Koppel should invite an all-LGBT panel to discuss whether or not straights and homophobes should have any right to determine these matters.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.

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